37: Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

I'm looking at my handy-dandy weather channel app right now. It says it's 19 degrees, but

it feels like 7. That's pretty cold. That's how we're starting the day today. I could sit here and start to complain about the cold snap that we've been in here. It's a chilly 55 degrees. It was 55 last weekend, and we all were almost wearing shorts. It was epic and glorious. We're at the point where there's no exposed skin, if you want to keep it. Right.

Gotcha. As I would say, it's freezing. I tried to do my bait and switch there, but I don't know if that worked. Not so much. Okay. Yeah. Well, the weather is one of the reasons that I feel compelled to put up with the hipsters here in Venice, so I like my weather. Good for you. Bastard. Right. So, man, it was fun having Tim on last week. Yeah, it was really

cool. I mean, I went into it kind of, as I had mentioned to you, a little bit on the fence about him. But really nice guy. Really enjoyed talking to him. Definitely want to talk to him again. Since then, I've actually been back on that slow carb diet that he talks about in the four-hour body, which I tried ages ago, and nothing really didn't really do much for me. But, you know, I'm a weekend. I feel a little bit lighter, a little, you know, foot

food fancy free and all that jazz. And I'm also, I mean, it's just, wow, it's so hard not to eat carbs. Because, I mean, I believe, like, the sandwich is the most glorious food invention ever created. You just can't beat a good sandwich. Can't have any sandwiches. Also noticing that when I'm out with friends, we go to a lot of beer-centric places. No beer, obviously, on this diet. But you are allowed, you know, your two glasses of wine or whatever a night.

Can these places please step up the wine that they carry? Because it's all horrible. Oh, yeah. Yeah. When your choices are white, red, and rosé. Yeah. We've got a white and a red. Oh, great. That's fantastic. I wonder if there's a corkage for me bringing in my own wine to the library alehouse.

There usually is. It's 20 bucks for the most part, and it's well worth it. Yeah. It might be, yeah. Yeah. I've been back on it, too. I've also, one of the things that he kind of got me jazzed up about was more tracking, just very specific tracking. When he was talking about how he learned the tango, and how he drilled down into very specific things that he was trying to change.

So I've been, you know, dealing with that honey thing with the sleep and tracking that. But I haven't been able to get, like, really good quantifiable results. Like, it's all been, you know, just, oh, what did I do yesterday kind of thing. So now I've got on my sweet little iPad Air, I've got a numbers spreadsheet that I track, like, certain metrics every day.

Right. Yeah, that's, I totally fail at that. I mean, for me, it was a big step to even just get that Moves app and make sure that I'm, you know, doing a certain amount of walking. I'm horrible at keeping track of data on things. Well, that's why, that's why the iPad is so great, because I have it with me all the time. And I just, I, the, the metrics I'm tracking are the first time I wake up, the time I get out of bed, the time I have my breakfast, the time I take my vitamins, the time I take the honey at night, and the time I, like, the closest I can get to when I fall asleep.

Right. And I track those. So, but at least what it helps me do during the day is be regimented about when I do those things. Like, getting up in the morning, like, most of the time I'll forget to take my vitamins till it's time to go to bed, which is not the greatest time to take vitamins, obviously. Yeah. But I still do, which kind of screws up the other metric was what's affecting your sleep. And with, you know, with, with a honey experiment, I've, I've been on that and I've,

I've noticing that I'm getting better at a lot of different things, but I don't know what the trigger is and how I can screw it up or make it better, you know? So, keeping track of that and going back on slow carb is the same breakfast, every single day, the same lunch every single day. You know, it does, it's kind of monotonous, but it's also, it, it frees up so much time because I'm not sitting around going, oh, where should I go today? Should I go to Panda Express or should I go to Subway?

Well, that's the whole Einstein thing, right? He just had a closet full of the exact same suit. So he never had to really think about what he was going to wear. Uh, yeah, it does get a little boring, but I also do find it, I mean, I'm okay with that. Like I'm one of those people that is just really regimented and I don't mind doing the same thing all the time the same day. I'm, I'm pretty good about doing my workouts at the same time already. You know, I just, I just literally finished my fourth bowl of lentil soup. It's been my lunch every single day. So it's a, it doesn't bother me.

I tell you what, my, my new discovery that I just love, if you go to a Trader Joe's, they have these prepackaged, uh, basically bags of carnitas, which I mean, it's just, it's, you know, pork, but it is so delicious. You just nuke up some of that stuff. Oh man, it's so good. That's my, that's my go-to lunch. Half a thing of carnitas and some black beans with some hot sauce on it. Yeah. Yeah. What have you been doing for breakfast? Cause I find that to be one of the harder ones. Cause I'm not a huge egg fan and, and, you know,

he espouses, if you're following this diet, uh, which you can read about in the four hour body, by the way, by Tim Ferriss. Um, you know, he, he wants you to be eating basically within a half an hour of getting up and, and the concept of actually like making eggs within the first 30 minutes that I'm awake is just not possible for me.

See, it is, if you go back and find that old video he did about the three minute breakfast, do you ever see that video? No, no. We might have to pop that up in the show notes then. Yeah. Well, I'll throw that in the show notes. I mean, it's got like half a million views on it and it's funny because it was a breakfast I was already making and I saw that and I'm like, you little bastard, you stole that. Um, no, I have three eggs, uh, chopped spinach and black beans with hot sauce. Yeah. Doesn't sound bad. No. And I'm, but I make it, I microwave it. Right. I'm, you know, I have two, I did it. It's almost like I said,

it's almost identical. It was, it was hilarious when I first saw it. I'm like, Dan, that's so close. Uh, have one, uh, plastic thing to microwave the eggs, um, whip them all up. And then another thing to do the, uh, just the frozen spinach and some black beans mixed in a tub. And then when you're done, just toss it on a plate and mix it all together, throw on some hot sauce. I prefer tapatio for eggs. Um, a wise choice. And it's, uh, it takes five minutes to make.

And then I just sit down and read the morning news, chow through it, have a nice cup of, uh, aged Earl gray and, you know, done, take the vitamins. And then I, that's done. Um, it's out of my head in my, in my morning is, it just gives me a lot more time in the morning. I don't, I used to like to get up and make an omelet and do all that kind of stuff because I do like cooking.

Yeah. But it, it's not necessary when, when you've got, you know, 12 hours of work ahead of you. Yeah. And I'm just, I'm so not a morning person. I mean, maybe if I started doing all this honey and all this other, you know, metrics and tracking, maybe I can turn that around.

But right now, just the idea of cooking breakfast first thing in the morning is just too daunting for me. See, that's the, that's the other side of it. I wake up now with, I'm just, I like bounce out of bed, right? I go to bed at the same time every night. I wake up at the same time every day and I'm looking at my spreadsheet and it's ridiculous. I don't have an alarm set, nothing. And it's, and that's an old Marine trick where it's like, if you want to, don't worry about what time you go to bed, worry about what time you wake up, wake up at the same time every day. And the time you go to bed will take care of itself.

Right. And if you stick on that schedule and when I used to have to go to an office every day, that was what I did. I would wake up at five o'clock every morning. And for the first week it was, it was a nightmare. It was terrible. But after that, it was, uh, it just took care of itself. I'd wake up at four 55 and reach over to turn the alarm clock off and realize, oh, I didn't even turn it on anymore.

Right. Right. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I mean, I, I'm, yeah, I've got to get better about that. I mean, I'm really good about going to bed around the same time. I get up around the same time. It just, I find myself sluggish for the first hour that I'm up. That's what I've said that ever since I started doing the honey and just paying more attention to what I eat at night, don't, I don't eat past like seven or eight and I go to bed around like 11 or 12 and it just kind of takes care of itself. I just sleep better. I don't know.

I mean, it might be the wine that I'm sipping until I go to bed. One of the tracking things that I found to make it easy is that is having the iPad with me all the time. You've got a mini, so it wouldn't be that hard for you to just get in the habit. And like, literally the first thing that you do is what time did you wake up? That gets the ball rolling. That's like, you know, the trick to getting it in your head that that's what you have to do every day. Yeah. And then, then it's only you do it like there's three things in the morning or like put your workout time in. And then

when you go to bed, just jot down what time you're hopping into bed and you know, in the morning spit ball when you think you fell asleep. Right. And that also gives you a run into the day. And I have to say, I love this iPad air. And now that I've had it for like a week or so, it's amazing. I did get that crazy, you know, Apple $40 smart magnetic cover. I didn't get the magnetic case, but I got the cover. Yeah. Um, it almost doubles the weight of the iPad.

That's crazy. It's ridiculous. So most of the time I leave it off, but it's, it's nice to have, but yeah, man, the, the magnets and the felt or whatever it is in the thing almost doubles the weight. It's crazy. That's how light the thing is. Yeah. I went to, I swung by the Apple store and I was, I picked one up and I'm, and I'm feeling the need to get it. So I have a feeling that might be a late Christmas present for myself. It's worth it. I still haven't gotten the damn, uh, LTE set up on it yet because I haven't left the house in over a month. I've had one day

off in a month. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. As soon as I get to leave the house, I'll turn it on. No need to pay for it if you're not going to use it, you know? Right. And do you have quiz up on your iPad air? No, because it's a iPhone only. Oh, I was going to, I was going to put it on. I was going to put it on and double it, but it, I don't think it is good enough to track across, you know, with iCloud, your progress on either one. And I don't want to have two versions of the app going because I've got all my, you know, all my badges and all my status on my iPhone.

But yeah, that turned out to be the fastest growing iPhone game in history, believe it or not. It's simple. It's, it's fun. Uh, it's, it's, it beats the crap out of trivia, uh, and which is the other trivia game that I was really into for a long time and played with a bunch of my friends. It's just got a lot more questions. Um, it does, it has a lot more, you know, all you do in trivia is collect coins. Now this has got all the badges and everything, which is the way everything in our society is going. It's, it's, we turned everything into a video game. At least this is actually a

game, so it's okay. Yeah. It fits inside of a game. You can gamify a game. Yes. You are allowed to do that. Yes. Um, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I mean, I'm already feeling myself starting to burn out on it, but I definitely got addicted for a little while. I had to get to 11 to 10 on hitchhiker's guide questions so I could see what my new status name would be and all that. Oh, what is it? I haven't gotten there yet. I'm at eight. I pulled away from it for a bit because I've just been working too much, but what's, what's the 10th level status for hitchhikers? I'm busting it up so I can see what

it is really quick. Cause I totally forgot. Like I said, I haven't played it in a couple of days now cause I burn out on these things. Uh, unlike a lot of other people. Oh, it's Babelfish. Duh. Oh, okay. There you go. There you go. I think you can, you get 42 if you get up to the next level. So cause I've seen people with that one. Uh, yeah, it's totally addictive. Um, it's great. I mean, I'm surprised, not surprised that it's the fastest growing app ever because, uh, it's really like we said, was it last week or two weeks ago when it first two weeks ago, we installed it. I was talking

about, it's funny just watching all your friends start to sign up for it. Like almost everybody I know has it now. So yeah. And it's fine. I think the, the build quality is what really makes it, uh, a winner because it's fast. It's, I've only had like three errors in the entire time I've played it. And you know, I'm level 40 on some level 20 on others. I think my, my total overall rank is like 140 or something, but it's, uh, out of all those games, you know, over a couple thousand games,

it's, it is only had like three errors on connection and just it's fast. And that makes for a great experience when you're doing just a quick time game. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it definitely is. It's, it's really fast. It's really well built. Like I said, the depth of questions really makes it for me because otherwise you're just going to get bored after a couple of plays, which is trivia basically for me. Plus I also like the fact that the games are so fast. It's what seven questions and that's it. That's a full game. Seven questions, 10 seconds each. And most people

clock in under two seconds. Yeah. Yeah. I also like that. There are a couple of them that I went through just to kind of learn the topic because you can actually learn stuff if you pay attention to the answers and, you know, learn trivia by playing, by playing it, which I thought was really fun. I mean, it does screw up your, your overall stats if that's what you care about because you know, like my correct stats versus my wrong stats type of thing is something I actually look at, believe it or not. Um, I should, I should, I should let that go and then just, just play all the

categories. But I mean, there's 200,000 questions in there at least, and they're adding more every day. Yeah. And all the sponsored ones, which is how they make money for the most part, obviously. So, um, yeah, cause you'd sent me the article about, about quiz up and it being the fastest growing game. And, and I, I agree with it and I like it. Um, then I get that normal kind of like, wow, they got $1.2 million in venture funding, but 1.2 million actually isn't that much. So no, it's not at all for a 30 person company. Yeah. You know, that's not much at all, but they,

they had some other games before this. We'll put this, uh, it's a New York magazine article. We'll put it in the show notes and it just kind of goes through some of the, uh, the secrets on what they did to, uh, focus on making it a great app. Like as soon as this one hit, they dropped everything else they were doing and have everybody focusing on this one. Yeah. And just some of the, it's common sense. Everything that they talk about in this article is common sense. Um,

and I, I, I, I give them major props for doing it. You know, they, they're smart. They focused on the game that they had. They're like, Oh, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, you know, split the baby here and, and work on multiple things. They're like, we got a winner. Let's go. Right. Yeah. And I like the fact that they actually, they're a relatively large company.

This isn't one of those companies that's like, you know, five people or that, and that's it. They have 30 people is a good size for what they're doing. So, uh, good, good on them. I'm, I'm happy about the app. I hope they have continued success. Um, it's great. I'll keep playing it on and off. Not as a, not as crazily as a lot of other people. That's the one thing that really turns me off on games just because I'm not a gamer is like, as soon as I finish a game, the other person will start another one immediately. Like, Oh no, I have to go do things now.

Well, that's the, that's the other upside is it's, it's time delayed. So if I challenge you, you can come back whenever you want. That was, that was the nice thing about trivia is that you could play against somebody head to head, but it didn't have to be at the same time. Yeah, exactly. The time offsets kind of nice. So, uh, you know, if somebody challenges me, I'll just close the app and then come back and pick it up later. Yeah. I have to get better at that.

I suffer from the peer pressure element. You're such a wuss. Our comment of the week comes from Arlo Farrell. Uh, Hey guys, I need a favor. Don't freak. I need you to do a few podcasts in a row with about 90% less depressing and negative content. I was slash am such a fan of your show, but your American dream 2.0 podcast and a few others were just so

negative and depressing. It's actually becoming a negative habit in my life to listen to your show. Well, I don't know what to say about that. Um, the show's title is grumpy old geeks. Uh, and frankly, I just don't see a lot out there in the tech industry to be all that excited and happy and, and woohoo Pollyanna in the sky about, I do see a lot of depressing things out there. I find, uh, the state of security to be depressing. I find, uh, the valuations for these companies that,

that basically have no income to be depressing. I find the fact that disruption of industries, uh, puts, you know, company companies that hire 200,000 people completely out of business, all of them get fired. And the company that has replaced it with a, you know, crappy or service, uh, only employs five people. These are all things that really bummed the shit out of me. And it's basically the world we're living in right now. But having said all that, I'll just be nice today.

Sure you will. Hey, we talked about quiz up and I was positive. No, I know. I see. I understand, kind of understand what he's talking about because after sometimes when we're done with the show, I'm just like, damn, that was kind of, kind of a bummer. And we both talked about, uh, the Adam Carolla effect. Yeah. You know, after listening to his show for a while, you just kind of get in that negative mindset where everything sucks. So I, uh, I don't know. I mean, I do try and find some positive stuff, but it is, it is definitely difficult nowadays to find

really uplifting stories about, you know, the tech side of things because Silicon Valley is such a shit show right now. These kids out there are mad with power. They've got too much money, too little brain, too few brain cells, and don't really understand how the world really works.

Yeah. Well, as soon as, as soon as this bubble pops, they're going to find out real fast, but they're going to, but here's the downside. They're going to be walking away, rich as can be, which, you know, is, is a really negative reinforcement for, for what they've been doing. And while the rest of us are out here, you know, humping it every day. So, you know, well, I was really not going to like our next segment because I've got a massive story about Silicon Valley and the fuckheads that are up there and how they must die. Um, look, I mean,

like you're saying it is, it's, it's hard to look at the news within our industry and find positive stories. I think, you know, when we do see them, uh, and we talk about them and we certainly talk a lot about things that we really, really like, uh, the news segment, I think we're in one of those transitional periods right now. We are, you know, Silicon Valley has decided that disruption is the best thing in the world. And we're actually starting to see what that hat, what happens in the real

world when, when they do those things and it's not good. So the news is kind of bleak. Um, my other industry, the music industry, there is no good news to be found there. That is all just depressing. Um, sorry, man. I mean, I look at it this way. The fact that there is a Silicon Valley and there is a tech industry and I can make my living doing that. That for me is still a positive. I, I sit here and yeah, I, I, I'm stuck in a house and I type all day with almost no human contact sometimes,

but it also lets me, it also lets me work for a month and then not work for two. And then I can go have a life and do other, do other things to do this too. It enables us to bitch. I mean, it's, it's one of those things. I mean, I'm thankful that I can still earn a living doing the thing that I still kind of like to do. I still like building, building on the web. I don't like doing it if I'm in a cubicle for sure. We bitch about that. Um, you know, having the freedom to be

literally get in my car, drive somewhere and pull out my laptop and earn a living is pretty cool. Yeah. Um, no, I was thinking about this week as well, because I actually finally got into the part of the project where I'm actually building something and I really enjoy doing that. Um, it's just our industry, it takes us so long and there's so much bullshit to get through now to get to that point.

And I, and even if you do, the money tends to not be there or there are a million different things. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's hard out there to be a pimp right now, man. It is. I mean, the, the barrier to entry into our industry has lowered so far over the years because everybody thinks that's where the money is. Everybody, you know, who thinks that they know what they're doing is in the business and thinks that they, like they said, they know what they're doing and they don't. Everybody's building an app right now. But, and it gets in the way of

us doing what we're really good at, which is building stuff. It's like, yeah, I don't want to have to go back and forth for four hours on the placement of a form when I know damn good and well where it's going to, where it should go, where it's going to convert better. Yeah. But I have to explain it to people who don't understand. You know, that's the downside. Everybody's a designer now.

Everybody's a programmer. Everybody's a UI expert. Everybody knows everything and everybody has to get their two cents in now. It's, and that's, you know, it's the word precision of the web and all that sort of stuff. It's, it's a bummer. Um, and it's, it's, uh, the barriers to entry, like you said, are, are insane. And plus we're older, uh, and we're dealing with people that literally grew up on this stuff as opposed to, you know, we started in our teens and stuff like that. Yeah. We answer to people that weren't alive when we were building our

first websites, which is, you know, insane. It's, it is insane. Uh, I don't know if that's actually, I think that is kind of a depressing part. Sorry. No, no, I'm, I do try and look on the bright side sometimes. I mean, that's, it's, it's been kind of a balance at balancing act with this show, trying not to go too crazy. And it also depends on our mood that week.

Yeah. And what's going on. I mean, if we get a big story about horrible security issues, that's going to be a huge topic. And, and it's, you know, it's something that Jason and I both feel really strongly about and think the entire world is not paying attention. So we get a little, you know, crazy about that. That's what I'm really happy about. Cause when we started the show, we started talking about this stuff before this whole Edward Snowden, uh, landslide ever hit. We were, we were talking about this before that happened. And once that happened, it has

been a, a continuous trend since then. So it's kind of hard to let it go. But what I'm really happy about is that there are so many people picking up the baton and running with it and talking about it and bringing it to, you know, bringing it to the public where I'm almost to the point where I think we can kind of lay back a bit on that now. And yeah, cause it's, it's out there. It's, it's everywhere. You can, you can even load up Huffington post and it's buried under a side boob somewhere, but it's there. Um, so that's a good thing. And I think for me,

the other big thing that I've really been opening up to my eyes about and wanting to talk about is the Silicon Valley and that's the disruption of industries and all that sort of thing. And I think that's going to hit critical mass pretty soon too. I mean, it's, we're seeing that the effects of this throughout our culture now and throughout, you know, it's hitting main street, literally I'm main street here in Venice and Santa Monica, old places that have been there forever are shutting down because the rents have gotten too high because, you know, the five billionaires that started Snapchat are down the street. All that sort of

stuff is starting to change and really affect the real world and it's going to be a big deal. So we'll try to talk about it and be a little bit happier about it. Well, I, I, I, I just want to be more optimistic about it. You know, you know, if you want to think about something, if you want to think about disruption, think about how we can disrupt the disruption in Silicon Valley.

Disrupt the disruptors. Yeah. Think about that. Um, you know, put your, put your brain cells towards that problem because that is a problem. Yeah. These, these little instant millionaires are, are really screwing things up. But here's the other thing. It's kind of a tempest in a teapot because it's only happening in small certain areas. I'm, I'm in the middle of the Midwest. I don't have to really deal with dot com millionaires out here and everybody's still going about their day. Like it's like

it's normal. It's those little pockets of New York, San Francisco, LA that have, you know, this quote unquote problem of, Oh, there's, there's money in rich people out here. It's everybody's slogging to make it through. And you just kind of get up, do your job and, and, and when you're done, you have as much fun as you can. Right.

I think, I think that might be a, might kind of might be the, the turning point for me is that, that I've been out here for six months now almost. And like my perceptions of how technology, the technology industry is working have changed quite a bit because I'm not in the middle of it and I'm not having to deal with, you know, I don't have to deal with VCs or startups or any of that crap. Now I, you know what, somebody comes to me, they got a small business. They need a website set up. Sure. I'll build you a website. Makes them happy.

Makes me happy. I pay my rent. They make more money. Life is good. You know, just the common business practice, instead of trying to build this megalopolis thing that, you know, requires $200 million to get off the ground. It's like, no, you know, give me a couple of grand. I'll build you a website. You'll make more money, you know, small business. I think, I still think that there is a core of great small business opportunities in the tech industry that doesn't

get pressed because it's, you know, it's, it's not sexy. Yeah. It's not sexy for the, the people who are trying to troll for page views on their news website. You know, it's all sensationalism and it's a, it's the tech media that really kind of brings all that stuff to light. And I think we, we, we might be complicit in that too, because we do it as well.

Well, we're part of it. Yeah. So it just gives us something to bitch about every week when we're in a grumpy old mood. Exactly. All right. Well, there you go. So we'll try. So I want to give a shout out to our new, uh, well, basically what we've done is we've taken away our PayPal donation button and we've got a new system for donating to the show.

Right. And it's called tugboat yards, which is not the best name, but Hey, I don't, I like it. Um, so, uh, Andrew anchor, thank you very much of tugboat yards.com who, who is our first sponsor. Uh, I actually had lunch with Andrew a long time ago when we were, uh, when he was at six apart when he was, uh, with the, uh, was it movable type guys. Right. Uh, when we were, when we were actually doing met blogs, very cool guy. He actually bought one. So thank

you, Andrew. And thank you for sponsoring the show today. Yes. Thank you. So, and the site itself is a, is a cool little concept and it's part of that, uh, the, the, the brighter side of tech that, that I do like. It's, it's a cool little way for, for smaller people, smaller podcasts to kind of get out there and, and have their stuff seen and make it easy for people to, uh, basically pay them for what they do.

Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's almost like the flatter model, but you don't throw into a pool and then everybody gets some change at the end. It's like you, you follow and sponsor people that you like and you can get like some custom, not custom bomb, just special content. If we know if you sponsor grumpy old geeks, we'll, we'll maybe post some cool stuff up there that we don't post anywhere else. Um, that kind of thing, but it gives you a chance to start

a relationship with fans who want to support the show. Yeah. So if you're interested in supporting the show, hand, head over to tugboat yards.com slash GOG. And, uh, we've got a couple different levels of sponsorship there and, uh, check them out. And that's about it, man. It's, it's really cool. I was really happy that we, uh, we got on board, uh, an old buddy of mine, Andrew Torres, uh, worked there for a while and, uh, he's how I got turned onto it and it's pretty

neat. Yeah, it is pretty cool. I like it a lot. So, uh, Arlo, you can head on over there and, uh, maybe we'll add a sponsorship level for, uh, getting us Paxil. I do actually want to add in a sponsorship level for, uh, a 20 minute topic. You give it, you, you, you sign up and give us a 20 minute topic and we'll go. I think that'd be, I think that'd be a fun one. I like that. That's pretty, that's pretty awesome. I would totally do that. All right. So thank you, Andrew. And, uh, yeah, check out tugboat yards.com. If you are a

publisher or want to follow cool content and, uh, check out tug yard, tugboat yards.com slash GOG, uh, to, uh, throw us a few bones. If you feel, uh, the need, if you don't, don't give us money, but still check out tugboat yards. Yeah, definitely. Isn't tug yards like one of those sites that used to work back, back into your porn days. I probably still have that domain somewhere.

This isn't specifically tech, but I thought it was a really interesting story and, uh, it's about Iceland and basically how the, the police have killed the first man in history, in the history

of their entire police department. Right. Which is insane. Um, the cops don't carry guns. They, I mean, it's, I don't, I mean, I'm just kind of flabbergasted by the story. It's, it's hard to imagine being an American. Yeah. I mean that, that people actually live like this and they do. And it's a wonderful, uplifting thing. Yeah. I mean, in the, the photo that goes along with this story is just kind of touching. It's the, the female police officer with the flower at the, you know,

it was like a, uh, peaceful protest and by parliament and Reykjavik. It's, it's, it's amazing that there's still countries out there like this and it makes me want to move to Iceland. I know. Well, the quote is awesome. The nation does not want its police force to carry weapons because it's dangerous. It's threatening. That's so great. Yeah. It's such a beautiful thing and it could never, ever happen here. Uh, yeah. Uh, but a part of this great, uh, part of the great thing of living in this country is that you can either enter parliament and

the only thing they ask you to do is turn off your cell phone. So you don't disturb the parliamentarians while they're talking. We do not have armed guards following our prime minister or president. That's the whole thing. It's, that's the great part of living in a peaceful society. We do not want to change this. It's like, damn. Yeah. It's a, it's a great thing. I mean, there's a, yeah, as much as we talk about how great America is and we're number one, we're number one. A lot of people do things pretty differently and a lot of the ways that they do it are a lot better than the way

we do. Yeah. I think that comes with having a smaller population and a smaller footprint to, uh, yeah, that certainly helps. I mean, you know, I think you immediately think of Canada cause I spent quite a lot of time there and while it's, it's certainly getting worse and there's more guns, uh, there's certainly never used to be. And, uh, you know, there's, it's a big country with, with no guns right next door to us. Pretty amazing. But then you got Mexico. That's the other end of the

spectrum. Yeah. I had, maybe it has to do with the climate. Maybe if you're too damn cold, you just don't feel like, uh, running around and shooting people. I tell you right now, I don't, I definitely don't. I'm like, Hey, let's, let's all be friends and have some like group hugs for warmth. That's about all I can think of when I go outside. Yeah. That's a pretty crazy story. I saw that in the news too. It's, um, makes you think that's for sure. The internet has run out of four letter.coms. Fuck.com.

Well, that was taken a long time ago. Although sex.com was the big one that made all the money. Yeah. So when those things kind of mattered. So how many were there? There's like 400. I'm surprised this, this has just happened. I mean, if I had the money long ago, I'd have just gone through and wrote a script to buy them all so I can sell them back to everybody.

There are 400, 456,976 combos of four letter.coms. Yes. And there are every single one of them is now gone by gone. Doesn't necessarily mean that there's a site on them just that somebody actually owns them. Yeah. They're registered. Yeah. So I, uh, I have one. I'm fortunate enough to still have one. Really? Yep. Um, do I ask? Are you going to share? Well,

sure. I have WTWL.com. Okay. Guess what that's for? WTWL. Not, not sure. White trash wins lotto. Oh, that's right. That's a good one. The old Andy Preboy musical. Andy Preboy musical. That's right. I bought it for him. I got that and I got AndyPreboy.com for him. Um, but he only paid for AndyPreboy.com and he didn't pay for WTWL.com. So I kept it. So it's mine. So I need to come up

with, uh, something that fits with WTWL so I can, uh, sell it and go from there. There you go. Uh, I've got a, I got a four letter.org. I have spew.org. That's right. Um, and I got a couple other ones from the other TLDs, but the thing you know is it's like there are so many new TLDs coming on the market that does.com even matter anymore? No, no. And, and some would say that your domain name doesn't matter at all anyways, because all people do is type into Google and then they find you that way. Who, when most people don't even type in URLs

anymore. So, so, so I always think of people who type in a site that they're trying to find into Google as being like 70 and the first time that they've ever used a computer. No, it's a lot of people do that. Hell, I even do it sometimes. It's just easier. The windows right there and I don't want to type in the whole domain name and it's done. Yeah, it's quick, man. So no, I don't think domain names really matter that much anymore. And, uh, for what it's worth, I mean, you certainly don't get too much money for them anymore unless there's

something, you know, really specific that somebody really wants. It's when, you know, when's the last time you sold a domain name for like a good amount of money? Oh yeah, it was ages ago. I mean, my, my favorite one, I've had a vapid.com since 1997 and in the heyday and the first, the first boom, it was, uh, I had it appraised. It came in at about $27,000.

Right. And I was stupid and I kept it and I had it appraised about two or three years ago and it comes in at about $650, $700 now. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the domain name itself doesn't actually matter. This is just a, this is a cool news story for, for those of us that grew up, uh, back in the day when it did to realize that all of those combinations are completely and utterly gone. So it's going to be a while until the five character combinations are claimed. The total number there is, uh, 11,881,

and, uh, 376. I don't think they will be with all the new TLDs coming out. I think the runs on.coms are over. Yeah, I agree. Totally. So if you're hoarding domains, which I should go look in the mirror on, uh, it's time to give up the ghost. It's one of those things that I've had some domains for 10 years and I've been paying for them for 10 years. And yeah, it's like, you just don't want to let it go because you know, some other schmuck like you is going

to go and slurp them up and then throw them in their portfolio. But, uh, but really it's, it's, it's a waste that you're kind of almost basically losing money, keeping these things going because it's not really useful anymore. You're never going to do a site with it and you're never going to make any money selling the domain name. So yeah, let them go. I used to have 250. I'm down to 70. So I guess I should let the rest go. Cut bait, man. Let it go.

I can't get rid of ass pantry.com though. It's just such a beautiful domain name. Ass pantry.com. Oh boy. Yeah. Speaking of things going away, uh, turntable.fm ever use it? Yeah. Once or twice. I didn't, didn't really hit me. It kind of looked like being in a club in South park. That's basically exactly what it looks like. It's funny, but, uh, they are

shuttering their doors and shutting the service down. I mean, I never got into it, uh, because I want to play the music that I want to play and I don't, you know, when I'm working, I don't want to be chatting all day long with, with people I don't know while I'm picking music or they're picking music or whatever. But I do know a lot of people, a lot of people that were really into it. So I'm a little surprised that they weren't able to keep things running. Well, did they charge anything?

Oh yeah, there's that. Um, did they pay the artists for the music that they were playing in the rooms? Uh, they did actually license the music and that was one of their bigger costs. So that was a big problem for them. Yeah. Okay. Well maybe they should have charged the people who were playing the music, uh, a coin to pay the artists and then maybe a little bit more for servers and employees and they could have turned a profit and kept it on. I mean, I don't know the specifics of their business plan, but it seems like if you've got a lot of people

that want to use your service, they should probably pay for it and you go from there. That's about it. Yeah. I guess a big problem with it was the, they never did a mobile app either, which they kind of couldn't do because it wasn't just playing music. The whole point was the interaction and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, I'm a little surprised that like a Spotify or a Pandora or somebody isn't coming in to kind of buy them out and integrate them as an option for their services, but, uh, it doesn't seem to be happening. So all you people that loved your turntable.fm,

sorry. Uh, it's, it's actually gone already. So it's, yeah, it went, it shut down last week. I saw a bunch of sad, sad, empty turntable photos on Facebook from friends who used it. Yeah. Uh, Neil Gaiman was a initial proponent of that. He would, he'd post on Twitter that he was in a certain room spinning. Right. I mean, uh, the idea is great. I just never personally did it.

Um, I'm sure something will come along that'll be similar. There's, there's an open gap in the marketplace now, people. Well, for a service that will fail. Yeah. For another service that will fail. And, uh, yeah, well, you know, don't bother licensing the music like a lot of other people don't do. And then, uh, half your costs are gone. That's true. Just steal it, steal it and go like everyone else does. Oh man. I don't know. I just, when I'm sitting in front of my computer, I just want to play the music that I want to play. It's not a social activity for me. It's like,

I want to have the music on that gets me focused to do my job, not just random stuff that other people that can wander in and out of a room are playing, you know? Yeah, I agree. So what else is, uh, you have often bagged on windows eight and how it's terrible for, for creators. It seems, seems you are not alone. Uh, windows eight is basically dead. People are just not getting it. Um,

their study just came out showing that the sales of windows seven is, has still outpacing windows eight by a long shot. Uh, windows eight sales are actually dipping while windows seven sales are still rising. Um, I don't even have, I installed windows eight. It lasted a week and then I took the shit off because not only is it horrible if you're actually trying to create content as opposed to just consuming

it, even consuming it, it feels way worse than, than say the iPad. Um, I I'm sure it's a great operating system for a windows tablet. It must be wonderful for that. Um, for a desktop system or a laptop, it was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Um, windows, I mean, Microsoft really, really screwed up with that. And, uh, I think, you know, I don't know what they're working on right now. I'm sure they're halfway into a new operating system that'll be coming within the next year or two, but I really

sincerely hope they went back to the drawing board on this one and you know, do two operating systems like Apple does have a, have a, you know, a mobile operating system and a desktop operating system. Well, yeah, you don't want them to go back to the drawing board because that's what they did with windows eight. They want them to go back to what worked, you know? Yeah. I've got, I've got a windows seven laptop somewhere in the, in my pile of crap and, uh, it worked fine. It worked as expected. Um, it is a great operating system. I'm still running it. I'm running it right

now. Um, it's great. And, uh, uh, my friend Mike, he's got, he's got a windows eight laptop and he curses about it all the damn time. And they just did the 8.1 upgrade, which screwed a bunch of other stuff up. It's, you know, it's a fuster cluck for sure. I like seven. I mean, I, I can pop into seven. I know where everything's at. It works, you know, it's, it's kind of like a newer version of XP. So, I mean, it's a faster, it's a faster, cleaner XP and, um, you know, it kind of brought

in some of the things that one likes about Macintosh operating systems. Um, and then they just really windows eight. I mean, I don't know a single person that actually likes it. Uh, I guess it runs great for phones. So who knows? Yeah. Who the hell has a windows phone? I know one person. It was a nice one too. He had one of the new Nokia ones or Nokia. Um, it was actually really nice and I've played with the surface. I thought the surface was okay. Um, I was, I was actually thinking about picking one up just to have one, but it's the price points a little bit

high for something that would just be for shits and giggles. So yeah, I've actually been thinking about picking up an Android phone too. I'm thinking about picking up an Android tablet because some of those you're seeing Christmas sales for like 50 or 60 bucks to get one. I'm like, really? Yeah. Just, just to have one around and maybe start playing around with the Android operating system and writing apps for that. But yeah, for testing and stuff, I was actually thinking of getting one of the, uh, the Android phones on Ting, um, that pay,

pay as you go service, the two cows runs. I was thinking about picking one up there cause you can get them. You can, I think it may be find a device that's cheap with the holiday sales and then do a, uh, BYOD thing and bring your own and just sign up for a cheap, cheap data plan to have a secondary secondary phone that's Android just so you can test, you know, just for a test, a cheap testing device. Now is definitely the time to go buy cheap testing devices. Oh, definitely. The prices are insane out there. The deals are just absolutely ridiculous.

You can get so much stuff so cheap all online. It's amazing. What do you think about the Chromebooks? Are you thinking about picking one of those up? Uh, I was thinking about it, but then I looked around and I realized I have like, there's like in my household, I already have, uh, one desktop system. We have four laptops and three tablets between us plus phones and I'm like, eh, do I really need something else kicking around? Yeah, that's what it's kind of where I got it. It's like,

it's 250 bucks, so it's not that expensive. Yeah. I just kind of, I think I should just next time I fly Virgin, I think, I think you can rent them there still. They had that whole thing for a while when if you flew Virgin America, they would just, you sign up and they give you a Chromebook for the flight that you could play with. I don't know if they, I don't know if you can rent them or if that's just done. Um, but I'd like to just try it just so I have a kind of a baseline of what they can do.

Uh, but it, cause I, when I looked at the 250 bucks, I'm like, okay, great. And then I'm thinking, then I've got another piece of hardware that's going to be bigger, heavier and less useful than my MacBook air. Yeah. So just have another thing that's sitting around on your desk, taking up space, you got to plug it in. You got to, you feel that because you have it, you feel like you need to use it every now and then or else it's stupid. So then you're just putting more time into doing something you don't really want to be doing in the first place. Um, you know, and let's be, I mean, there

used to be a pretty massive difference between how things would work by different manufacturers and different operating systems. Things really aren't that different anymore. I mean, I can ease as much as I bitch about like my transition to Mac, it's not that hard. I can swap from my PC to my Mac pretty much instantaneously and do exactly what I need to do without any problems. It's not going to be any different either. Like the only reason I would get new devices is to try something that's

really completely different. Yeah. And with the, uh, with, with all these, just thinking about the, the 250 bucks that I would spend on that, or you're thinking about your Android tablets and all that stuff. Um, 250 bucks is half of a vacation plane trip. You know, I start thinking, I start thinking in time, in terms of chunks of vacation, when I go to buy something new now, like, like that iPad air,

it took me a while because that is a week in LA that, that, that iPad air right there cost me a week's vacation to fly out in LA and hang out with you guys. And I'm like, yeah, but I can make more money having it. But if I like stupid things like getting a Chromebook that, that is not going to add to my, my baseline income. So that's where I kind of drew the line with it, but it was tempting for a while. It's tempting. It's always tempting because we're, we're gear heads and we always like walk past these things or they catch our eye and go, let's get it. Let's get it. I want to play with

it. But even the surface, even the surface almost. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I went to the store and I played around with the surface and I was like, this is actually kind of cool. I like it. I hated the commercials, but I liked the actual product. So I don't, I just didn't like how cheap it felt. That's the only problem with those. Well, that's the, that's the problem. Once you've had it, it's like having an iPhone and then trying to switch back to any kind of other phone. It's, it's, I, Apple just makes their things so damn well. Um, you can just never switch back. Like

once you've had an iPad, that's it. You're never going to use any other tablet. Yeah. That is the downside. Yeah. So now here comes the depressing part. I'm going to let you run with this one. So bring it on. I almost feel bad now bringing this up, but actually this is, um, there was an article on salon. I think it came out, uh, on Tuesday. Yeah. Tuesday. So it's only a couple of days old.

Um, David Lowery, who was a singer from camper van Beethoven and cracker, both bands. I actually quite liked, uh, didn't even know he was still around. Um, he still is, um, still re he's releasing music still. Uh, he's actually teaching business and music classes in the university of Georgia.

Uh, he's involved with a, some blog somewhere, whatever, whatever, whatever. Uh, he's really deeply involved with artists' rights, intellectual property rights, all that sort of stuff. Now, um, he got set off by the whole Goldie blocks thing and the beastie boys. Uh, and they did a, basically a long interview with him on salon.com where he basically rips Silicon Valley, a new asshole and says that they're the real problem. This is why there's no creativity anymore. This

is why nobody makes money that actually does things. Just these jerks in Silicon Valley that destroy entire industries and they take all the profits from your work. It's really good. Um, made me really angry. I have no point that he made that I actually even feel is contentious.

Um, I think it all makes exact perfect sense. Um, everybody should read this. Okay. There you go. I just, I just got it tuned out for a second while you did your rant and check. No, no, bro. But I knew, I knew you, I knew what you were going to say. It's all good. You knew what I was going to say as soon as you read the article.

Yeah, I got about halfway through. I think the one thing that really struck me is interesting about the article is that he, he hit on, um, a, uh, genre of site that I've always been fascinated with on how these people are still in business and that's the lyric site. The lyric sites are amazing. Um, I actually completely forgot about the fact that those things are out there and basically, yeah, they're, they're, they're stealing lyrics. They don't have the rights to post them, right? They just, they just don't. And all these sites out there exist

and make money off of advertising. Uh, you know, that, that, that whole industry is completely like search engine, you SEO, SEO, SEO, you need to be the first person that comes up anytime anybody types anything close to a lyric. Yep. And they've done, I mean, they, they were really kind of back in the day at the forefront of non copy and paste technology. They, they embraced like deep JavaScript to figure out how to not let you copy and paste, view source because they were, they were worried every other lyric site was going to come in and

take their lyrics and post them on their site. You know, it's, it's this den of, den of thieves who were, you know, pushing forward this, this anti-copying technology. It's like, man. Yeah. And these companies put a lot into it on the lyric sites. I mean, I, again, I work with a lot of musicians and some of them have gotten really angry about it and they're like, you know, well, we have the lyrics on our own site and we've done it in a way that, you know, makes it really easy for people to get there. And why, why,

why are they going to these other sites? They're good at it. They're damn good at making sure they come up first and searches. Um, and they are, they are basically just, you know, it's the equivalent of, well, anything else like that. I mean, taking books and putting them online, you are, you can't just post somebody's lyrics. It is, it is as much their intellectual property as the actual song itself is, but you're stealing that and posting that too.

Anyway. So what difference does it make? I mean, especially on those lyric sites, they have direct links to download illegally on a lot of them. Really? Yeah. A lot of those sites have, you know, cause they pull in this weird stuff and it's just like, you'll read the lyric and there's a little button so you can download the MP3 from some server somewhere.

See, that makes no sense. You'd think that they would, they would be smart enough to know about affiliate marketing. It's like, okay, I can go create an iTunes link that will give me a percentage of something that I linked for you to go buy on iTunes even. You know, why aren't they doing that? That makes no sense. Or Amazon.

I don't really get that either. You'd think that they would be going that way, but I don't, you know, I have a feeling like most of these lyric sites are probably run by like one or two people. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If even that, and they probably just let it sit there and don't ever touch it. It's just money coming in for them. You know, the advertising is good enough, but it's just, it's another example of how the music industry just totally dropped the ball 10, 15 years ago. Uh, by never, they never even thought to go after the lyric sites. They just kind of let it go. Um, you know,

whatever, because they don't make, they don't make money on lyric sales. That's no, no, it's, it's the publishing houses that do that and they aren't as organized and you know, it's just, it falls into this category of, uh, what are you going to do? Yeah. But, uh, but people are doing it and you know, I love this article because he really rages on, on music and music tech companies and Silicon Valley and all that sort of stuff. But you got to throw them a bone every now and then for, for realizing that they could make money this way. Um, and doing things that, that, uh,

the music industry decided just, they wouldn't do or they wouldn't do anything about, they definitely, you know, they find things, they exploit them. Yep. So, well, on a happier note, yes, real sex is coming back. Oh God. Never has there been more bad masturbation to things that people really didn't want to see, but really you had no other choice back then. Yeah. Talk about, yeah. Bottom of the well.

I mean, that's scraping the bottom of the spank barrel when you, when you were down to watching real sex. Some of those shows were so icky. Yeah. It's been, anytime you hit like the plus 40 swinger crowd, which was, there was a segment in every episode. Oh yeah. Uh, with just saggy man ass and fat mulleted guy going to town on his wife with two black guys. That was kind of it. Yeah. I mean, they were progressive. I got to give them that because there was nothing

like it on TV back then. No, you know, and they actually did try to make it kind of a documentary rather than just, here's some tits, boys go to town. I like the, and I still like the man on the street stuff. They did a pretty good job with it. There was some funny bits on the man on the street where they would ask him questions. Yeah. Uh, but it's 20 years old and they're bringing it back, but they're changing the name. They're calling it sex slash now.

Oh, of course. Why don't they keep the real name? Oh well. I'm going to watch it. There's no doubt about it. Well, no, they say, of course it won't be called real sex anymore. Owing to the wide availability of real amateur, often hairy and lumpy sex acts on the internet. Um, so I, I, I'm glad it's coming back. I was actually talking to a friend about it the other night and he's like, what's that? I've never seen it. I'm like, what? I'm like, oh,

that's right. You had girlfriends back then. So people like in our age group, basically, I mean, real sex is as pivotal a moment as, as say like the scrambled porn channels where you tried to catch a blurry moving purple nipple and they're done that. Yeah. So, you know, I'm glad it's coming back. I'm definitely going to watch it. I remember the show being quite funny. Um, if not particularly sexy a lot of the time. Yeah, there was a lot of not sexy, but it was fascinating. Yeah, definitely. It's definitely really cool. Speaking of coming

back from the dead, nice segue. Okay. Uh, um, I'm not entirely sure how this is going to happen, but, uh, there, you know, Brian from family guy spoilers here, people in case you haven't watched family guy for a long time, they killed him off a couple of weeks ago. What?

You didn't know this. It was all over the internets. Look, it took me, it took me five hours to find out Nelson Mandela died and I had no idea what, why everybody was tweeting about the sound of music yesterday. So the fact that a cartoon dog died is definitely not on my high point of, of news to watch. Circa didn't alert me. Circa alerted me about Nelson Mandela.

That was kind of funny. Didn't send me one. I got an email today about it. That's funny. Um, yeah, they basically, they killed him off and they've replaced him with the new dog and it was a touching episode, but I mean the internet basically exploded in uproar and how dare you do this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, you know, I, I think it's a bad call. He was my favorite character. I don't watch family guy religiously like I used to. Um, it's a very funny program and he was, he was the funniest character on it. Uh, so it's sad that that happened. Um, and I pretty much

basically just in my head went, well, that's it for that show. I'm not going to be watching it anymore anyways. Um, but apparently they're bringing him back because of the uproar. So I don't know if this is a case of crowdsourcing your creativity, not sticking to your guns or it is Seth MacFarlane. Maybe it's apparently only for one episode that he's listed in. So it might be a fuck you and a funny one at that. So we'll see. Who knows? Maybe he was just tired of doing so many voices. Maybe. I mean,

he's, if I were him, I just sit in a big money bath all day anyways. That's true. That's definitely true. Now the one thing we didn't add to our, our news list that was kind of ridiculous and I don't want to spend too much time on it is the Amazon drone thing. Ah, yeah, that's just silly. It's almost not, not wasting time. I just wanted to mention it because it was so silly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's sure. That's a great concept. Is it going to happen anytime soon? No, that's not

what the press release was for. The press release was basically let's make sure that Amazon is in everybody's single head right now because it's Christmas shopping time. So that was a good way to go about it. It was actually kind of brilliant viral marketing on their part. I give it. Yeah, I definitely give them props for that because that was the, that was the, the end game I think was to make sure that Amazon was in the news. Yeah. Mentioned by everyone everywhere. You could not go anywhere on the internet and not see the words Amazon. They talked about it on the Today Show.

Basically it got the name Amazon out there. So when you're sitting in your office and you're going, huh, I need to start getting some Christmas gifts, Amazon, there you go. Uh, there aren't going to be drones anytime soon, maybe 10 years. They weren't even talking about that. They were basically just looking into it. And then we, because it's the internet, we had to read 20,000 articles about how birds are going to attach, attack the drones and they might fall down and kill children. Now, what does

the, what the, my segue into this is there's a new helicopter called the Evolo 18 rotor electrical, electrical volocopter that looks like a drone. When I first, cause you look at the drones, you know, the quad copters or hex, hexacopters or whatever. Somebody has made a, an actual two person helicopter that looks like a drone. And it just did its first remote controlled flight the

other day. Wow. This is the coolest looking thing I have ever seen. And I want one. So damn bad. I'm, uh, I'm throwing it in the show notes right now so you can take a look at it. Man, is it cool? How much is it? I don't even know if they have a price. It's a prototype right now, but it's, uh, sure. It'll be on Kickstarter soon. Yeah. Oh no, no. I think this is a little above, uh, Kickstarter's pay grade here. Uh, I got to turn this off because when you, when

you first look at the videos, it, they, they're panned out so far enough where it actually looks like a toy. Right. Um, and I, I'm looking at it, I'm like, Oh, well that's kind of cute. Maybe it's just made for, um, you know, carrying more stuff. Right. But when they, when they finally cut back and they show this thing, it's like, it's got an electric motor, um, and what, 16, I think rotors on it, tiny rotors, not like a regular helicopter rotor. You know,

these are very small, small rotors. And when this thing takes off and it's going, I'm like, I'm just looking at it going, damn it. I want one now. That's all I can think of. I think this is for, for personal, uh, personal flight. I mean, it's kind of huge, uh, like the, the, the actual surface area where the rotors are is almost exactly the same as where it would be for a, a traditional,

uh, helicopter blade. But still this thing is cool. This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. I would love to have one of these when, uh, when the 405 traffic is really bad. Yeah. You can be flying around with Schwarzenegger and Branson up there. Yeah. But, but it is also electric. And I don't think the, the upside of a helicopter is when you lose power on a helicopter, you can see, you can still land, you can auto rotate it. Yeah. I don't think this thing will

auto rotate. These tiny little, these tiny little, uh, motors on it. I think, I think a parachute might be in order for this, but I'm putting this in the show notes. If you haven't seen it yet, definitely check it out because it is cool. Yeah. I just totally was staring at it. It's pretty, it's bad-ass looking. I like it. I want one too. Maybe we can split one up.

Go to tugboatyards.com slash G-O-G and help us buy a helicopter, please. Yeah. We can crowdsource it. Let's do it. So Arlo, uh, if you're still listening, you may want to, you may want to fast forward this next bit. We're doing really crappy at staying positive. Well, this one, this one just kind of tugs at me a bit because this is one of the recent Kickstarters that I funded, the

werewolf cards, uh, by Corey fields. I got my cards. They are beautiful. I am, I could not be happier with the product, but I got a Kickstarter update the other day because he's been a little behind sending out all of the, uh, the cards to the backers. Cause there's 612 decks of cards he has to send out and they're all like hand, hand done. And I, I mean, that's a tough, tough road to hoe for one dude. But unfortunately I got a Kickstarter, uh,

update the other day that they're going to be a little bit later because, uh, his dog died. It's like, okay, you can, you can, you can factor in production, supply chains, all this other crap. But when you're a one man shop and your dog dies, you know what, you know, I mean, all you had to do was just all in what he did was he posted a picture of his dog.

It's like, Hey guys, I'm sorry. I just lost my best friend. It's just like, shit. You know, I feel, I feel so bad for the guy. The dog is gorgeous. It looks like my mom's dogs. He's a golden retriever. He's very pretty dog. And I feel really bad for the guy. So this is one of those things where you can't get mad at Kickstarter because of your delays, but there are, you know, human factors that go into these things sometimes.

Yes, there are. And this is a, you know, it's, it's sad and all the, all the comments seem very, very positive. So good. I'm happy that people are understanding. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see any assholes in here, which is an upside. It's definitely not the YouTube comments. Oh Jesus. No, no. You know, it's good that people can, can kind of be human every now and again on the internet.

Yeah. It's very rare, but good. All you have to do is post a picture of a cute dog and people get all nice. So hopefully once he's recovered and finishes sending out this batch, he'll put them on, put them up for sale somewhere. And if he does, we'll link to them in the show notes sometime because I got to say that the cards are gorgeous. He did a great job with the art. The, the construction quality is, is beautiful. The cardstock is professional. The case is great. Everything

about it is fantastic. And you know, I pledged 15 bucks to get this thing. And these are like, you'd, you'd, you'd spend 25, 30 bucks in the store to get them. So this is, this is a case of Kickstarter done right. Yeah. I mean, the artwork is absolutely fantastic. I don't have the actual cards, but the, the, they're beautiful. I mean, the artwork is just gorgeous.

So now all I need are some friends so I can actually play the game. Cause right now it's just me sitting in my room by myself going, Ooh, look, the priestess. I can't help you with that one, man. Sadly, nobody can. Welcome to this week in shit. We put on our computers.

What else you got for me, Jason? That that's, that's really like, you know, I I'm, I'm feeling a little down. Do you think you got something that's going to cheer me up a bit here? I have sadly the most depressing iPhone app that you could ever buy. It's called days of life. You put in the country, the year you were born, the country you were born in. And if you're male or female, and it will basically pull up a, uh, a dumbed down actuarial table

and tell you how many days in a perfect world you have left to live. Well, that's making me feel great. Somebody posted an article about this, uh, and I went through it. I got it just to just cause I was morbidly curious. Uh, right now I have 12,295 days to live right now. I mean, this is first off this is the, these things are free all over the internet, right? I'm not

crazy. Like there, there are these counters that just do this and they're all over the internet. If you Google it, you'll find about 50 for free. Uh, he's charging 99 cents for it. Um, I, what it does it like, I want to, I, does it do anything special when you're down to your last day? I don't know about that. He better have built something into it. Here's, here's the thing. It'll send you a notification every morning of how many days you have left.

Okay. That's funny. It's like you better, if you want to write that novel, you better get cooking. I like the number one customer review needs more features. What else is this supposed to do? Needs more features. Oh my God.

Oh, I love the internet. Oh God. Yeah. I was like, okay, well, yeah, if you want to get, if you want to get nerdy, it's like, do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you eat red meat? Are you, do you snort cocaine or mainline meth? You know? Okay. That might dip your number down a bit, but it does. It's not going to tell you if you're stupid and walk out in the street and get hit by a car. You know, this, this isn't, this isn't factual. Yeah. I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's somebody

out there going, well shit, I got 12,000 years or 12,000 days left. I best go bungee jumping now. You know, nothing can happen to me. It doesn't make you Superman. Yeah. Two days left. Going to go rob a bank. Oh my God. Anyways, I will not be installing that. I have enough to depress me. Well, I have it. And so I can, I can, I can plug in your numbers and tell you how long you have to live. Oh no, no, that's okay. I'm good.

Thanks. It does have a very nice pie chart that spins around and, and, uh, gets you to where you're at on the, the, the pie chart. Um, I am sadly well over halfway, which sucks, but yeah. Oh Jesus. Yeah. Good times. Good times. Oh, I got another one called a Heyday, which is quote unquote effortless journaling, which just tracks everything you do and is your pretty

interface. Isn't this Facebook? I mean, basically it's like, it's a personal Facebook that just you aren't sharing with anyone. Yeah, that's kind of it. There, there are a bunch of these out there. I got this one because I've tried a couple other ones. Here's the deal. I don't really put in anything. I don't take pictures every day. So it's like, it sends me a reminder and here it is. Uh, the, the last three days are snapshots of a map where I

haven't moved. It's the same map over and over again. They could have just called, they could be called a groundhog day. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't really get the point of this. I mean, unless you're, I mean, maybe, I mean, you could use this to do that kind of tracking that you talked about all day, put everything in here. Uh, what time you wake up, you know, take a picture of your poop, see how that's going on a daily basis. I mean, I don't know. Uh, this is, this

is supposed to be pretty, what I got it for was I wanted to take, I have archives of every photo I've taken since 2002 and I wanted to export those with geo data, pull it into my phone and see if this is smart enough to go through those, those photos and build a lifeline from it. Right. I just, that's going to take two months for me to get those photos together.

So I'm not, not quite there yet. It's new. It's pretty. Um, it is pretty. It is very pretty. And you know, do the, is it built in so that you can share on social networks? Cause let's be honest. I mean, the reason most people do any of this stuff is to show off to friends, do the humble brags and all that sort of thing.

No, this is, this is, this is personal. This is all for you. They should really build it just so you have the option to share the items. So you don't have to do everything twice. You could just use this app and then, you know, for, well, these five pictures are just for me. This one I want on my Instagram account. So press this button right here. Well, that's path. If you want to do that, go get path. Okay. Um, this one is it, it's free. So I tried it. I'm not going to really do a whole hell of a lot else with it. Uh, once I, once I can get those photos together and try it out, if it does that, then it's

nice. Cause I want, I want to have some kind of something where I can just do a quick search and see what I was doing that day. And if it can pull in the, the geo data from the photos and give me like a unified interface to it. Right. I got a, I got a really good feeling. It's not, not that smart, but it's worth, worth a shot. So see, this is something that I would almost, I mean, I guess for the reason that you want to use it, you'd want a desktop application, not really a mobile one. No, I want to, I want it to work on my iPad. That's

the one thing I want. I don't, I don't care about a desktop app. Desktop app and journaling for me does not do it. Cause I can pull everything into iPhoto and it will, it will chart maps and do all that stuff. Um, but I want it to be kind of more cohesive with being able to put notes in and that kind of thing. So I don't know. We'll see. I don't, I actually don't think we're there yet as far as that kind of app, the app that I want does not exist yet and I'm not about to go build it. So don't, don't tell me I've got a market opportunity

or I'll just have a market opportunity and we can disrupt the industry. I'm going to nut punch you next time I see you. You got anything this week? Nope. I got a couple more that I'm trying out that I'll, I'll, I'll be prepped for next week, but I just haven't had enough hands on time. Yeah. Uh, there's actually a couple of business apps that I'm using now that, uh, I think are, are pretty stellar, but I want to have a little bit more hands on time. So next week I'm going to have some actual cool business apps that we can

use. Yeah. And I'm going to actually try to find an app or two. I just didn't have time this last week with, uh, Thanksgiving and the family and all that going on. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm road testing these on the air and I think they're, they're going to go into my, my full rotation. Cool. So tune in next week for actual, actual things that don't tell you when you're going to die.

I actually find actually, Oh, Arlo, I'm going to talk about Morrissey now because he's so, you know, lovable and, and not grumpy and not depressing. Um, I finally finished the Morrissey book. Uh, I, I, it was, you know, it's just one of those ones that I kept putting down and coming back to as I read things that were, um, less depressing. It is depressing. There's no,

yeah, there's absolutely no doubt about why he writes the kind of songs that he writes. Um, but actually I did find it, um, once I got past his, his, you know, kind of childhood history and all that, which is just, uh, you wanted to slit your throat. Um, and you felt so bad for the dude.

Uh, once he got into his actual life, uh, the Smith stuff, the music industry now, um, well, first off he he's, he's got a good turn of phrase. I mean, he's a very talented songwriter and that translated pretty well into his descriptions of the music industry and the foul beast that it is and the various experiences that he had. Um, if, if you're interested, if you like the Smiths and you like Morrissey, you're going to want to read the book. Um, his descriptions of the trials that he

went through from the ex-members of the Smiths lets you know that there will never, ever, ever, ever be a Smith reunion at Coachella. It's not going to happen. They fucking hate each other. Um, and it was just, it was a good read. Um, and you know, it's, if, if you're into Morrissey, you're going to like it. If you want to hear about how horrible the music industry is, you're going to like it. Um, if you just want to know the fact that he actually, yes, he has shagged both men and women. There you go. I kind of gave that away now, so you don't even have to read it anymore.

And spoiler alert, spoiler alert. And, uh, you know, we'd put a link in for you to go buy it, but, uh, you still can't buy it in the States. It's still UK only. So there you go. Uh, I enjoyed it. Um, that's all I got. Oh, while you were talking about that, I came up with our title for this week's episode, a barrel of laughs. Heaven knows I'm miserable now. Oh, that's good. That's good.

See, we can laugh about it even though we're being depressing. Oh man. So my book this week is actually a sci-fi book by Brandon Sanderson called Steelheart. I picked this up. This was, uh, one of the audible recommendations that came through and I'm, I generally don't go with audible recommendations because they tend to be really hit or miss. But now that I know about the return policy at audible, I'm totally willing to try and try new stuff. Right. Which is a great move on

their part. Makes sense. Yeah. So I gave this one a shot. It's a, it's a near future story about where a portion of the population has turned into what they call epics, which would they have superpowers and they have like all these crazy different superpowers and how basically when they, um, they enslave mankind and they have these epic battles, no, no pun intended there. Um,

and about like, you know, the resistance and trying to kill one, one specific epic named Steelheart. It's a really fun read. I really enjoyed it. I really liked, I really liked the mythology. I like how he built it and all the twists and turns. It was a really fantastic book. I totally give it five stars. And if you're on audible, check it out cause the read was really good. But if you're a paper guy, it's still going to be just as good. I loved this book that I've never, I've never read

this author before. Never heard of the book, never heard of him. It was, it was one of those, those gems. I love when that happens. I'm definitely going to read it. I've been looking for another good sci-fi author. Yeah, I couldn't put it down. I read this in three days and I could not put it down. So give that one a go for sure. Excellent. Will do. Um, so next week I'm going to, I'm going to review Rob Delaney's new book just because we need something humorous.

I think I'm going to read a bathroom joke collection or something. Ah, poop humor. Great. So yeah, I've been, I mean, he's been pimping this thing on Twitter like nobody's business. If you don't know who Rob Delaney is, he's like the, the prime comedian on Twitter who has made his career from Twitter and he is funny as hell. Um, his tweets are some of the best, but everybody that's read this thing has just been raving about it and you can get it on iBooks for cheaper than

Amazon. I think it's like eight 99 on iBooks. So I'll get it for the iPad and give it a read. Awesome. I will, uh, I need something uplifting too. So perhaps I shall read that along with you. So next week we'll bring the funny. We're bringing the funny and the cheerful.

Security. So happy, happy, joy, joy news. Uh, for you Arlo in the world of security. Um, one company has come out with something that stops all possible intrusions ever. And we never have to worry about it ever again. No, I'm just shitting you. We got some really bad news this week. Um, malware can now jump the air gap between computers. It's been confirmed, which means we are

all fucked. Now, now before we get into this, what is the air gap, Brian? The air gap, meaning that in the olden days, before we discovered all this, if we thought we wanted to have a completely secure computer, we would basically disconnected from all outside, uh, connections, uh, would not allow USB things plugged into it. Basically a computer sitting by itself with nothing but, um, a power cord,

no internet, no nothing. What about wifi wifi? No wifi, no wifi. Okay. So, uh, basically at that point, you think your computer is a hundred percent secure. So you can put all your porn pictures in there or whatever that you don't want other people to ever see, except for the fact that now it's not, there is a way to, uh, basically infect computers that are not connected to anything, usually done with high frequency audio signals. So now there's going to be a whole new group of security exclusions

and requirements to do things like completely shut off your microphone and, uh, your speakers, because basically that's the only way that you can now stay protected in theory. We're so fucked. We're so fucked. I mean, it's absolutely amazing that people have figured out a way to infect your computer using audio signals that you can't even like are above human hearing.

The computer picks it up somehow that I've, this is beyond my pay grade and understanding, but it's absolutely re first really, really fucking cool. Secondly, really, really fucking scary. Cause this came out when we talked about bad bios a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. That's, that's how he figured it out that he was still getting network traffic with the whole thing unplugged. It's like, what the hell's going on? And that's where he, that's where we first heard about the air gap, uh, jumping at least recently. He thought that it was out, it was happening

somehow. He wasn't quite sure how, and now there's been a study that's come out and they've tested it that basically using sound. Um, it's amazing. Uh, if you think it's not that big of a deal at the defense one conference last month, United States Naval Academy, cyber security professor and retired Navy captain Mark Hageret, I think I'm getting his name right. Said the discovery of air gap jumping technology would quote disrupt the world balance of power and quote, it's a big deal. It's a big

deal. Yeah. Now I see here's the, this is the crazy part about this. I am in awe of the guys who came up with this. Oh, me too. Oh my God. You know, this is, it's, it's a staggeringly genius. Unbelievable. I mean, this is up there with like one of the greatest discoveries ever, it's ridiculous now. And, and here's the other thing. It's like, how can you use this to actually

do regular day, like use this for commercial normal, uh, like treat, treat your speaker as a, a network port for like sending files to each other, you know, if you think of it like the actual, like cool uses of it instead of just the bad uses of it. So I think, I think there's some really neat stuff that could be, I mean, I don't know what the bandwidth is on the subsonic signals that come from your speaker, but either way, it could be a cool, like if you're, if your network ports are hosed and you need to get a bootable drive onto your

computer, fire up your speaker or your microphone and, and download a ROM to reboot and do disc utils or something like that. You know, there, there are, there are some cool, uh, applications for this technology, but right now nobody's ever thought of it. So it's, you know, on the, on the, the back alleys of the, the computer security world.

Yeah, it's all pretty crazy. I mean, imagine like you're, you're big, if you wanted, I mean, you could basically write a great sci-fi novel out of this, like encode these sounds onto a Miley Cyrus MP3 and put it up for free somewhere. And everybody starts to download it and everybody that plays it on their computer, you've just taken over their computers.

Oh, that's evil. Bieber. Kill Bieber. Pick or choose your crappy music, whatever. Um, yeah, it's, uh, I, that I, that's basically the only article I found for security this week because as soon as I read that, I was like, everything's off. It doesn't matter anymore.

Oh, okay. Now here we go. Speaking of, uh, sci-fi novels, this is a little bit off the security thing, but it kind of comes back to it because Daniel Suarez wrote two of the greatest sci-fi security novels. So he's got a new book coming out. Yay. And I, and as you said, somebody could write a great sci-fi novel about it. I'm thinking, Oh, I bet somebody could write what I bet Suarez would. So his new book comes out in January, I believe, uh, February 20th. Damn, that's a long

time. So here's, here's the beginning of the description. Uh, the cyber thriller against which all others will be measured. Imagines a world in which decades of technological advances have been suppressed in an effort to prevent disruptive change. Bring it home, Daniel. Bring it home.

Nice. Okay. Gonna have to read that one. Yep. Okay. All right. God, we'll be, we'll be reviewing that one for sure. For sure. But man, that's some crazy stuff. I, I am in awe about the, the air, air gap tech. Yeah. These guys were able to do it. Um, more than 60 feet apart at a rate of approximately, approximately 20 bits per second using acoustic methods. Yeah. 20 bits isn't a lot. So I'm not

going to be, no, it's, it's, it's not going to replace wifi as some cool means of transmitting stuff, but 20 bits is more than enough to get some malware on a little bit of code. Yeah. Oh, and we do have a, another technology that we'll be putting in the notes next week. Cause I forgot to put it. It's wifi over light that that's, uh, it's a cool, crazy, it's called wifi instead of wifi, it's, it's, uh, data transmission over light. And you put it, you basically in your, like your

kitchen table, you put in a special light bulb and that acts as your, your life I hub. We'll be putting that next week's show for sure. Because I wanted to talk about it a while ago and we ran out of time, but with the air gap stuff. So now we've got, Oh Jesus, we've got RF with wifi. We've got light and we've got sound. What the hell else are we? Fluid transmission? What other kind of malware you get? Yeah. There's so many ways that you can get crap on your computer now. Oh crap.

Fecal wear. Okay. Now you've gone too far. I know. So I have the ever popular listicle, uh, to talk about this week. Uh, I was rolling around on Huffington post, looking for some side boob and actually found an interesting post for once.

Uh, it's been around for a while. It's, uh, basically just a graphic designer that, that, uh, made a bunch of 20, he made 26 slogans that frankly make more sense than the real ones. Part two. Uh, it'll take you exactly five minutes to scroll through all of them and you'll have a couple of chuckles. Uh, very similar to the Dudley Moore movie, crazy people that we've talked about a couple of times on this podcast. Uh, very funny. Netflix spend more time searching than actually

watching. So here's, here's the deal. This comes, I'm going to slap you on the wrist. Okay. Uh, because we talked about proper attribution before. Yes. This is a, a Huffington post article. Yes. That under every photo links to honest slogans.com. Right. So the actual piece is at

honest slogans.com. And, uh, the first post was the, on December 30th, 2011, uh, where he does Pepsi is Pepsi. Okay. That's the slogan, you know? Yeah. Kmart. We still exist. So, uh, I, I highly recommend checking these out, but, uh, we are not going to link to the Huffington post article in the show notes.

We are going to link to the source material and, uh, check them all out. Even though it's, even though it's a crappy Tumblr site and I hate going to Tumblr sites, but okay. It's a Tumblr site, but you can get more of them. Yes. There are a lot more. There are a lot more and they're pretty good. Yeah. It's some really funny stuff. It's a, yeah, you're going to laugh. So, yep. Uh, that's about it. I like, that was cheerful. Uh, the, here's the, here's the problem that I have with the Ikea. It says,

Ikea, we throw in extra parts just to mess with you. They throw in extra parts that you don't need, but they take away the ones that you do. So true. I like, I like Hulu, uh, which ad experience would you prefer to ignore? Wikipedia. You're welcome. College students, Pinterest recipes, crafts and inspirational quotes. I haven't seen, I haven't seen this one. Butterball food coma.

Oh, the red lobster ones head on a spot on too. Red lobster. You're here for the cheddar biscuits. Ain't that the truth? Ticketmaster. Yeah. We're going to charge you whatever we want. Okay. So goes with the honesty. No, seriously. Are you shitting me? I am stuck on a bunch of email lists from companies that I

semi work for or used to work for that I, that they just won't take me off of. And these are like all hands mailing lists. So I get the internal dialogue, the internal dialogue of the entire companies on a day to day basis that I don't want. Right. So lots of them have to do with pet policies and whose dog pooped in the stairwell and you know, who left their car in the CEO's parking spot

with vomit on it and whatnot. So today I get one. Hi everyone. Please note that you are not allowed to smoke e-cigarettes in the building. You will need to smoke your e-cigarettes in the designated smoking area outside. Thank you. And good luck in kicking the habit.

Oh man, whatever. That's so annoying. That's the whole point of e-cigarettes. You Californians are so stupid. It is so lame. And on the one hand, I mean, the vaping thing has become huge here. There's like stores everywhere and everybody's walking around with their little, little e-cigs and their vaporizers and whatnot. Um, but there's, it's air. You can't ban air.

Well, I mean, they talk about the byproducts. They don't know what's in them, blah, blah, blah. There's actually more crap in those things than you think about, but still, the point is, it's like, oh no, I can't make, no, no, no. I'm stopping myself. I'm stopping myself. I'm going to be a bad person. I'm not going to do it. There was a joke about Nazis and Jews there that I'm not going to do.

Um, but you're taking somebody who's trying to kick a habit and has been in a bad place and you're putting them back in the same situation with the thing that they're trying to get rid of. Yeah, exactly. It's just, it's absolutely stupid. I mean, I've, I've been reading that they're trying to ban it in restaurants now and at workplaces and everything. And it just, I mean, the whole point of this was first off, it's, you could do it anywhere. Uh, because I almost went to

the Nazi thing the same, you know, because in California, we basically have a police state that likes to tell us what to do at all times. Um, you know, you can't even take a dog to the beach anymore. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can, basically you could only smoke in your own bed under the covers at night, uh, in California. So then the e-cigarettes came around and, and, you know, initially the people that had them look like douchebags sitting in the bar smoking, but now everybody's got them and everybody's starting to do it. And it doesn't smell bad. Uh,

there's, you don't come home stinking of, of, you know, cigarette smoke on your clothes, whether you smoke or not, it's not inadvertently killing the waitresses. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's not good for you. There's a bunch of stuff in that, but that's basically only to the people that are actually consuming it, not the, the air that's blown out.

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's like, you guys are just insane. You really are. You know, California used to be so wild and free and we're not anymore. Uh, if you want to ban something, get rid of this stupid thing that they're talking about, letting, uh, people have cell phone calls on planes and selling, and selling quiet rows.

That better never happen. That's just, yeah, that's just ridiculous. So yeah. So California is going to ban e-cigarettes everywhere. And in the related news, they're going to force us to eat kale every hour on the hour. I'd rather smoke than eat kale. Me too.

Cause, cause at least my, my days to live app will, will take down faster without, without kale. Now what if we smoke kale? Hmm. Hmm. I think they do that in Berkeley. So I would like to have a, to give a hearty thank you and shout out to Arlo for making this possibly the funniest episode, at least to us, since we've started doing this show.

I have not laughed this hard, uh, the entire time. Me either. As, as you know, we went through the, the comment bit talking about how miserable we were, or were, and can we please have a couple of happy episodes? Uh, I would just start to scan down through our notes and go, Oh, that's a depressing story. Oh, that's depressing. Oh, that really sucks.

I mean, we had, we had a dead dog. We had the end of all security. We talked about Morrissey. Uh, daily notifications of when you're going to die. Um, yeah, there's, it's, but you know what? If you can't laugh at it, then it ain't worth that. So that's very true. What are you going to do? So yeah, thank you, Arlo. You, you basically made the entire episode.

Seriously. Yeah. It's, you know, you, you point a mirror at yourself sometimes and you just got to laugh. So we just, uh, sometimes we do get a little too up our own asses and it gets a little too serious when honestly, this shit's just funny. Yeah, it really is. Okay. I'm going to go dream about a helicopter. I'll never be able to afford.

Speaking of go to tug bar you tugboat yards. Don't go to tug yards kids. Go to tugboat yards.com slash G O G and help us buy our helicopter. And we'll see you next week with some more funny stuff, maybe with the things that we do. Possibly. All right. Bye everybody.

Keep up with the grumpy old geeks on the web at grumpy old geeks.com on Facebook at facebook.com slash grumpy old geeks or email them at podcast and grumpy old geeks.com. Have a good week.

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