478: XLS Extreme!

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. How you doing, Bri? I'm alright. Tired. You know. Debates. Flies. Blah, blah, blah. Lots of flies. Lots of flies. I haven't been able to get out of bed for five days, so.

Well, that's worse than me. Yeah. Yeah. No. Whatever I did last week kind of boomeranged and I can't move. You saw what I was doing last week. I was riding 10 miles a day, walking 10 to 20,000 steps. And the other day it just hit me and I like could not get out of bed. Like, okay. Fuck. Old.

Do you think you just came too quick out of the gate, as it were? No, I was feeling perfect. Feeling perfect. And then the weather changed and then you can't even walk because, you know, I'm old and I got metal parts in me. It's just been a fucking week.

All right. Well, we're going to do something I think that'll make it a bit easier for you and me as well. We are switching to one show a week next week, correct? Yes, we are. I thought I'd double check because sometimes we talk about something and it changes on me. No. No. Yeah.

It's just, it's been too much. We need to pare it down because we went to two shows because we had all these advertisers lined up and they were going to give us lots of money. Well, that went away. Yeah. We're, we're, uh, we've got the COVID, uh, the COVID cuts happening. We're, we're furloughing one show a week, just like most people are these days.

Yep. Actually, a lot of shows I listened to have just up and quit. So yeah, be happy. We're still here for one. Exactly. Take it what you can get in these unprecedented times. Yeah. So one show a week moving forward. Um, I think we have to hammer out the details still, uh, about what day exactly it'll come out, but, uh, you'll see it on your feed when it appears.

And, uh, there you go. You know, we'll go back to two if it makes sense financially someday, but right now it doesn't. So one, one is all you get. All right. Uh, I watched, uh, and finished Raised by Wolves. Now, normally we would wait until Media Candy, but, uh, now that we're going to one show a week, no point in waiting anymore.

Uh, and I wanted to save everybody the trouble. Oh my God, it's horrible. It got worse. Is that possible? Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Because the big payoff that they were leading to all season long is a horrible payoff and a stupid payoff and made me just groan.

Uh, it's bad. I have no interest in ever watching this show again. I don't care how many seasons it gets reviewed, renewed for. It's horrible. Absolutely horrible. Like, oh my God. Just, they should have, HBO Max just sort of sent all their subscribers money instead of the cash that they spent on making this.

Yeah, I kind of got that feeling after the first episode. Oh, it got worse. Much, much, much worse. It's almost impossible to fathom. Yeah, it really is. I, I just kind of sat there shocked at how bad it was. Anyways, uh, last episode we talked a bit about how movie studios have learned absolutely nothing and are pushing back their movies in the desperate hopes of us going back into theaters again to infect each other.

Much like, oh, I don't know, a super spreader event at the White House and we just aren't doing it. So, uh, one, one studio has learned Disney. Well, they already kind of already knew what to do because they, they did do their, we're going to give you Mulan and you just pay up for it even though you're already a subscriber.

And if you wait three more months, then you'll get it for free as a subscriber, well, not for free as a subscriber, you'll get it. Uh, so that is a good plan and one that kind of makes sense. Uh, they are doing this again with Pixar's next movie, Soul, which is going straight to Disney Plus at Christmas.

Uh, they will not be charging anything extra for it. They're just, here's our movie. We can't put it out in the theater because you're not going to go. Here it is. Well done, Disney. Well done indeed. Although I just don't know about a movie that's just all about death right now. They pick a different topic.

Well, you know, they're putting it out at Christmas to be seasonal. Oh yeah. Right. And I also talked about the West Wing special that's coming. Uh, we have a full trailer for it, which gave me the chills. Link is in the show notes. I watched it and it's most of what I think the whole show is going to be.

There's a lot of trailer in there. Pretty much. And a little follow-up Paracast or Parcast. You never get that right. Um, we talked about how they were going to unionize inside of Spotify. Yes. And turns out, uh, it worked. All right. Yeah. Good for them. Just a little congratulations there.

And thanks for everyone who pointed out to me that it's hypochlorous acid, not hydrochloric acid. Got enough. Slight difference. Yeah. Yeah. It's funnier though, if it was hydrochloric acid. Come on. It would be. In the news. In the news. Facebook has shut down 10 networks that violated its policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior between September 22nd and today, the company has announced.

In each case, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another, hence the coordinated inauthentic behavior, and used fictitious accounts and personas as a central part of their operations to mislead people about who they are, what they are doing. And that was the basis for our actions, said Facebook head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleacher, in a blog post.

When we investigated and removed these operations, we focus on behavior rather than content, whether they're foreign or domestic, and regardless of who's behind them or what they post. Okay. Might want to throw in that content bit sometime, too. Yeah. I think content's kind of important, actually. Yeah.

You know, just throw that in there every now and again, please, for us. Yeah. The most notable takedown was of a misinformation network made of 200 Facebook accounts, 55 Facebook pages, and 76 Instagram accounts that focused on audiences in the United States and in Kenya and Botswana.

Ooh, Botswana. Yes. Rather than posting inflammatory or misleading content of their own, the actors involved used accounts with stock images as profile pictures to comment on stories shared by news organizations and public figures. So a lot of trolling comments. These included topics like trophy or sport hunting in the U.S. and Kenya.

I didn't realize that was such a big thing here, but okay. The midterm elections in 2018, the 2020 presidential elections, COVID-19, criticism of the Democratic Party and the presidential candidate Joe Biden, and praise of President Trump and the Republican Party. Who would have thought it?

They had a side. Hmm. Yeah. Who would have thought it? Of all the misinformation networks the company shut down this month, this one had spent the most on ads by far. All told, $973,000 were spent across Facebook and Instagram, though Facebook was quick to note that at least some of the money came from, in air quotes, authentic accounts.

So, are we shutting down those authentic accounts, too, for being involved in this? Well, if they're spending $973,000, I'm guessing probably not. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. All the trophy hunting ads they bought went to just one guy.

It was the guy from Papa John's. So, because there was such a large amount of money involved, they did, of course, try to track that and see where most of it was coming from, and they did. The network was linked to a U.S. marketing firm called Rally Forge, working on behalf of the Inclusive Conservation Group and the conservative non-profit Turning Point USA.

Now, Engadget, which reported this, got a statement from Turning Point USA, an advocacy group asserting that it, not Turning Point USA, oh, sorry, a statement from Turning Point Action. Yes. Yes. Not Turning Point USA was responsible for the comments in question.

So, they, I guess, decided they wanted to own it? I guess, but it's kind of a distinction without a difference because they have the same founder. Yes, and the same agendas. So, it doesn't make any bit of difference whatsoever. Relatedly, Twitter has suspended 16,000 or 1,600 accounts.

Sorry, 16,000 actually would be something effective as opposed to 1,600. Yeah, I was going to say that would actually be a good number. Accounts linked to state disinformation networks, obviously, since they rolled out their labeling that we talked about last week. I guess that made it easier for themselves to police themselves.

Oh, look, it's got the label that we created. I guess we should ban them. Yeah. So, they're connected to state information operations carried out by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Thailand, of all places. They wrote in a blog post that accounts operating in Iran artificially amped conversations on politically sensitive topics, which includes racial and social justice issues in the U.S., such as Black Lives Matter and the killing of George Floyd.

Many of the accounts were compromised, and Twitter returned most of them to their original owners. It suspended 104 other accounts linked to the campaign. They banned 33 accounts linked to the Saudi Arabian government. These accounts were created to impersonate key Qatari political figures and to advance narratives about Qatari politics, which are geostrategically...

Almost got it. Almost got it. I was, like, running for it, and then I just started thinking in my head about, oh, my God, I can't believe the fucking World Cup is going to be in Qatar. And then, whatever. Okay.

And they also shut down 526 fake accounts, it says, were operated by youth groups connected to the Cuban government, and 926 accounts allegedly run by the Royal Thai Army, which were amplifying pro-Royal Thai Army and pro-government content, as well as engaging in behavior-targeting prominent political opposition figures.

And the Russian accounts, Twitter linked those to trolls behind a fake news site. So, they're trying. Yeah. The companies are trying. They're out there. But it's whack-a-mole, man. There's more of them than there are actual customer service people or people trying to fix these things inside these companies.

Yep. It is what it is. But you know what they are spending time on? You cannot say that you want the Trumpster to die from COVID-19. They spent a lot of time on that one this week. Not enough. My account's still active. Mine is, too. But, see, I didn't wish him dead.

I hoped for a long and miserable life. But that's just me. You are caring that way. I am. I'm very caring that way. So, yeah. They were saying that, basically, they're not going to delete your account. They may put it into a read-only mode. And you may have to remove the tweets.

I'm like, okay. But he doesn't have to do anything. Interesting. No, he doesn't have to do anything. No, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. They say, content that wishes, hopes, or expresses a desire for death, serious bodily harm, or fatal disease against an individual is against our rules.

Since when? They say this rule will apparently apply to people who wish death upon Trump, who is the single most powerful person in the world. And, of course, when this thing came out, tons and tons of people are like, I get death threats all the time on here. How come you don't do anything about that?

Yeah. Interesting. Selective enforcement. Selective enforcement. For sure. Let's see. Let's move on to something less charged. Oh, God. Amazon unveils its first custom all-electric delivery van from Rivian.

We've talked about this deal that they made quite a while ago. And then they've rolled one out. It's cute. It is cute. Yeah. Good design. It's a fully electric pickup truck. It features a clean, even whimsical design. With big round headlights sitting low to the ground, it almost has the appearance of a dog that knows it did something wrong.

That's according to Engadget. Yeah. By 2022, Amazon aims to have 10,000 of these on the road as part of a larger environmental pledge to go net zero carbon by 2040. You better get cooking, man. That's a lot of trucks. They've got to move. They've placed an order for 100,000 in late 2019, so it's after they funded it, of course.

Amazon expects to get the remaining 90,000 by 2030, so that would put them on schedule, in theory, although delivery vans is just one part of the process about being net zero carbon, so good luck with that. Yeah. And I like the Rivian trucks. They have two of them in a long way up that they use to drive up.

And they're all, like, prototypes in there, in that show, because it was, like, they filmed it, like, a year and a half ago. Right. Before the world went, you know, tits up. But they're pretty cool looking. I do got to give them that. And they have a cool feature where you can tow them to charge them. So if you run out of juice and you can hitch a tow, you can get enough juice to get to, like, the next charging station.

I thought that was pretty cool. It's like a modern-day jumpstart. Yep. Yep. And Waymo is offering public rides in driverless cars in Phoenix. They're screwing up our numbers. You, too, can now have a driverless car ride, sort of.

Yeah, well, you can. I don't know if I'm going to. I'm not going to either, because I don't, well, we've discussed this at great length over seven years. No way in hell. In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless, Waymo CEO John Krafiksk said.

Good to do it tight. Yeah, thank you. They're adding barriers to its vehicles that separate the front row seats from the rear passenger cabin. Huh? What? What? I thought it was driverless. Why would we need the barriers? Oh, wait. They're starting to offer rides with trained operators again.

Hmm. This is getting curious. All right. So they're driverless cars with trained operators. Waymo currently... Isn't a trained operator also known as a driver? Waymo currently operates in a 100-square-mile area that includes Tempe and Mesa, suburbs of Phoenix.

Its driverless cars are currently limited to a 50-square-mile operating area, and they will not leave those cars to its own devices. As The Verge points out, the company has a team of remote employees that keep tabs on the vehicles. The companies say those employees aren't joysticking the cars, but they can step in if something goes awry, which should set people at ease about getting into their vehicles.

Not me. But it does add a wrinkle to Waymo's claim that its rides it's about to offer in Phoenix are fully driverless. All right. So they have a big press release saying they're offering driverless car rides. Everything's been on hold because they had to put in plexiglass to separate the driver from the passengers.

There's a 100-square-mile area they operate in. Only 50-square-miles of those actually involve anything that could even remotely be considered driverless, and there are people that are basically plugged in and joysticking those cars the entire time, too. Well, they're not joysticking them.

They're just in case. They're just in case. They're just in case. And I love this. At the very end, a recent report found that 48% of Americans said they would never get into a self-driving taxi. I would be counted among those. Yes, me too. Excel. Oh, this one's great.

You know, again, people, like, point out and are screaming about this and saying how dumb software is. It's user error here, not software error. Over the weekend, the UK saw its number of COVID-19 cases spike, in large part because of a Microsoft Excel error.

I correct that to a Microsoft Excel user error. Yes, it was a feature, not a bug. Yes, between September 25th and October 2nd, 15,841 cases went unreported in the government database. According to Public Health England, the files with positive results sent by the National Health Service's test and trace system exceeded the maximum size.

Because of the error, which was discovered on Friday, nearly 48,000 people who had had contact with those who tested positive weren't traced. Yes, this is because they stored the test results in the file format known as .xls. These XLS files were then sent to the NHS after uploading to a central system.

However, XLS is an outdated file format, and each spreadsheet can only have 65,000 rows. By contrast, the .xlx file format, XLS Extreme, which was first released in 2007, so is over 13 years old, allows for more than 1,000,000 rows.

Because of the limited number of rows, each spreadsheet could contain about 1,400 cases, leaving excess cases off the file together. So, yes, idiots. So, that's what happened. Although the issue was reportedly fixed by splitting the files into smaller batches, many are slamming Public Health England.

Why are critical databases in a national pandemic posted on Excel spreadsheets, Jonathan Ashworth, the Labor Party's Shadow Health Secretary, said? No, I want a business card with that on it. Exactly. Why aren't they using specialist database software? Because there's no need to.

Why would you develop your own database software when perfectly acceptable ones have been created and been around for years, and you just have to know how to use them? Just get a, yeah. I mean, go get a copy of, you know, MySQL. That works. Just fine. It's totally fine if you know how to use it.

Yep. Yeah. So, there you go. And the story about Pantone came around. Now, you and I are very familiar with Pantone. If you're not a graphic designer or haven't worked in the field, you may not know what it is. Most people know that Pantone has something to do with color, but that's about it.

Pantone basically began as a printing company in 1962, but the core of its business quickly became the Pantone Matching System. Before that, there was no easy, universal way for designers, clients, and printers to communicate exact shades of color. Pantone's system filled this need by assigning a code and formula for more than 1,000 colors and creating a universal system, which has been actually very useful.

They aren't the only people to do it, but they were the first, and they had the most money behind it, so they became the de facto standard. Now, since then, they've basically done everything they possibly can to promote themselves and make money, including putting out their colors of the year, which used to be kind of whimsical and fun.

But basically, they're just fucking ways to make money now. And this is a great article about it. Let's see. The author was talking about, when the press release arrived in 2016, it declared there were two colors, rose quartz and serenity, essentially baby pink and baby blue.

The announcement celebrated the union of the two colors, which Pantone said reflect connection and wellness and affirm gender equality and fluidity, as well as an open exchange of digital information. Oh, I realized, taking in the buzzwords, this is bullshit. And they are.

I was just getting ready to say Pantone is synonymous with bullshit. Yes. Their color this year is a color called Period, which is done in collaboration with a Swedish menstrual cup brand. Yep. Yep. So, there you go. That's funny.

That's why we can't have nice things. Yep. Hey, but what was it? T-Mobile just tried to, they were suing everybody over their magenta. Mm-hmm. Remember that? Yeah, that didn't work out so well for them. Yeah. It's a color. It's a color. You can't sue over a color. Yeah, well, you can try.

Yeah. You just might not win. So, they've done, like, many things like this over the years. They've done a custom color for McKellen and LG and blah, blah, blah. So, it's a funny article. Look, I still think Pantone is incredibly useful. We do need things of this nature.

And so, they, you know, they do stupid things to publicize themselves, whatever. But a fun read if you are in this world at all. And speaking of not having nice things, apparently we can occasionally have something nice. The trailer for Somebody Feed Phil Season 4 has now come out.

So, yeah. So, this is, I'm assuming, done pre-pandemic because he is traveling San Francisco, Singapore, Hawaii, etc. But drops on October 30th. Very happy about that. Only five episodes, though. I know. That's all we get. Yeah. You guys get one a week.

We only get five a fill.

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Security? Ha! We are joined again this week by our good pal Dave Bittner. Dave is the host of the Cyber Wire podcast and is also the co-host of the Social Engineering Project Podcast, Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan, as well as the co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy, as well as surveillance and privacy.

Good day to you, sir. Hello. It's the Dave Bittner Experience. Ooh, that would be a good band name. I've got a new name for it. Rebrand. And another podcast coming to you soon. Oh, boy.

Yeah, missed you guys last week. Everything going well? Anything exciting happen while I was away? Or you guys were away? Or we didn't connect? Whatever it was? I can't even remember. I know. I can't remember yesterday, much less two weeks ago. Very little meaning. I'm not sure if Trump had COVID last year or a couple days ago.

I know that there was some sort of coup in a state, but that could have been 20 years ago at this point, for all I know. Damn. How are you doing? Yeah, the same. I hesitate to say that I'm feeling in a good mood or anything at the risk of another Supreme Court justice dropping dead.

Yes, angering the gods. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll just say we're hanging in there. Things are moving along and just taking it day by day. The wackiness that is 2020, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a year. It will always be remembered as a year or decade or century.

Yeah. So I've got a bit of news about stuff that we've been talking about quite a bit recently, which is Google and basically, well, any of the big players at this point sharing their data with law enforcement. It's been in the news and it is yet again. Google is drawing some criticism for data that it hands over to police in a particularly interesting case.

This one being R. Kelly and his racketeering case and all that sort of stuff. Also, Detroit news reporter Robert Snell has reviewed court documents showing that Google handed over IP addresses for users who searched for a specific address. And why am I getting a phone call?

Sorry. It's supposed to be on mute. There we go. For, uh, it's still ringing in my headphones. How annoying. There we go. Technology. Technology. Isn't it awesome and useful at all times?

You've muted and it keeps ringing. It's just, uh, yeah. So anyways, where was I? Ah, yes. Well, there was a search warrant and it led to the arrest of Michael Williams, an associate of R. Kelly's on both arson and witness tampering charges. Uh, they also linked the IP address to his phone number and followed up on a warrant for details of his Google account and found out that he had looked up phrases such as witness intimidation and countries that don't have extradition with the United States.

I'm sure it's a coincidence. I mean, who hasn't searched for those things? I, I often start, I have a Google alert set for that. So, uh, just, uh, you know, another, I, I feel like sometimes this, this part of our podcast is, is, uh, uh, is a masterclass for criminals.

Just keep in mind, perhaps use a VPN when doing such searches. Uh, you know, they don't, don't do it on your computer. Maybe go to the library. I don't know, but if you're going to search for how to, uh, engage in criminal activities, uh, they can get to that. Get yourself a burner Chromebook.

Get yourself a burner Chromebook. Head on over to the local library, uh, put on your disguise, uh, and all that good stuff. I, I'll say one thing that I think is good in this story is that they did actually go and get a warrant.

So they kind of, they did follow the rules and, and I, I can't be too upset at Google for this because they got the warrant. Um, they also got a warrant for Verizon to be able to get, uh, uh, a phone location information so they can see where he was at the time.

So this was all done above board, but, uh, it is a reminder that, that all this stuff is tracked. So, yeah, it's an interesting nuance that, uh, Ben Yellen and I talk a lot over on caveat about, which is the difference between kind of law enforcement, just casting a wide net and saying, Hey, Google, or Hey, Verizon, we would like to have every IP address that was hanging out this.

Yeah. Well, but let's say every, every IP address, or we're going to use location information here. Every IP address that was hanging out around this convenience store between four and six o'clock on this date, give us everybody. So that's one direction. And then the other direction to come at sort of the same information is, Hey, Google, we are, um, interested in this particular person who is under investigation.

You tell us if this person was hanging out around this convenience store between four and six on this date, right? Very different, uh, different approach of search. Yeah. Different approach and, um, different civil liberties, ramifications with both of them.

Agreed. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, I think, I think it's an important nuance, at least, uh, the way that I think about it. I'm much more okay with the one where as part of an existing investigation, they're going and asking for specific information rather than just going out with a big old net and saying, give us the information on everybody in town who's been around here.

That's kind of like, you know, going door to door and searching everyone's homes. You can't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And, and again, like Jason always says in this area, at least there was some, there was some actual police work that was done here. Some, some real police work done. And then they just used, uh, these, this data as to, to augment the case.

Really? They, they kind of knew they used it to search for some specifics and now we've got them. Yeah. Book them, Dano. And then, and, and turn off that stingray in the back of your car where you actually saw his number first before you went to go get the warrant. We won't tell anybody. Yeah.

Nah. Nah. Well, I put this next story in here. Uh, this is about, uh, uh, uh, organization called Rainbow Mix, which, um. Favorite breakfast cereal growing up. Right. With the new blue diamonds.

Um, so what struck, what caught my eye about this is that this is an app fraud organization or so, uh, the allegations are. This is a story over on the bleeping computer website. Um, and these folks had a mix of apps that were everything from Nintendo emulators, um, other games they were ripping off.

Just all the usual suspects when it comes to kind of janky ads, uh, in the Google play store. Um, but they were generating $150,000 per day in ad fraud profit. I am in the wrong business.

Yeah. I know, right? I mean, this doesn't sound terribly difficult really to do. Uh, wow. That's a lot of money. It does not. And the other thing that struck me about this is, um, having never had an Android device, the way that this ad fraud works, this, this notion that an app that is running in the

background can take control of your screen and bubble up an ad front and center in front of everything else. Um, I guess as an iOS user, this seems both foreign and insane to me.

It is. It is why we all use Apple products. Well, I was trying to think, is there, is there an equivalent to this on iOS? Is something, uh, invasive like this? I mean, I mean, occasionally I'll see things if you're browsing around to particular kinds of websites, um, something will pop up that'll say, uh, you know, Hey, your computer's infected with something, uh, go get, you know, whatever, download the latest version of flash or something like that.

I've, I've never seen that. I know not of what you speak. I've, I've, I've only had it described to me. Uh, so I, yeah, I can't, I can't tell you much more than that because I haven't really seen it myself. Uh, but, um, my understanding is that it'll take control of the browser and, but again, all you have to really do is close the browser window to get back to the content that you were searching for.

Um, I've heard tales of people that have actually had to say unplug their computer and reboot it. Sure. Sure. Okay. Wow. Wow. I mean, I've just heard these things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, guys talk, you hear things, right? Yeah. Locker room talk.

Exactly. Exactly. Locker room talk. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, anyway, I just thought this was interesting. Or the web in 1995. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just from the point of view of the number of apps that they were able to get onto the Play Store, it says they had over 240 apps.

Um, and the, to be generating this kind of money is, uh, like you said, man, are we in the wrong business? Well, I mean, to be fair, they are, it is illegal what they were doing. So they're going to get in trouble now. There's that. But, uh, overall, yes, I would say we are definitely doing the wrong thing here.

No. Uh, especially since we know, I mean, realistically, what's going to happen here, they'll, they'll get a fine. They'll, they'll be told to stop, um, slap on the wrist. Uh, I don't, you know, not much is going to happen to these people as opposed to what should actually probably happen to them.

So. Yeah. Especially if they're overseas. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I suppose, you know, if, if Google had some liability for this, if they weren't, I, I, I, I know, I know if they were, weren't, uh, hiding behind their, you know, section two 30 privileges, um, that they weren't just a platform.

So that could, that could do stuff again. I don't, I don't mean to sound so, uh, iOS centric, but it seems to me like, um, while not perfect, the Apple app store does a better job of keeping this stuff off their platform. Oh yes. Much so. I mean, I always, uh, the argument seems to always be from Android users.

It's, it's the cost, uh, the cost of iOS, the cost of Apple products is prohibitive and, and, and, uh, you know, you're much better, better off and it makes more financial sense to do an Android, but I always look at the time involved and it just seems that you would have to do, you'd have to do so much work to keep your Android phone safe and, and you have to be on the ball about things and research what you're downloading and all of that.

So that, that's a time cost to me. So it's always made more sense for me just to go with, with Apple. I guess though, for folks who are tinkerers who like, that's the fun part is having the freedom to do all that kind of stuff where you can't do that on iOS. So I could see that being a real appeal if you're, you know, the same kind of person who used to love to tinker with an old classic car in their garage, uh, to be able to do that on the Android side.

I could see there being real appeal to that. Yeah, I suppose. I mean, Jason and I have often talked about how we used to be those people and now we're old. Right. We just want stuff to work. Yeah. In a previous life. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I will tell you, I am right on the edge.

And, uh, Brian, this is going to, this, this day will come to you. Mark my words. I'm right on the edge of where I just like, if there's something not working, I, I hand it over to my son and I say, make this work for me, please. Yeah. Because it's not, it's not that I'm not capable of it.

It's not that I couldn't learn it if I wanted to, but it's just, it's just faster. It's just easier. Hand it over to the expert, uh, tell him what I need, have it handed back to me and it works and, and we're good here. I can move on. Well, see father, the problem is you were looking at some websites and, uh, clear your browsing history before you hand it.

Always clear your history. Exactly. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Or so I'm told. Or so. Yes. Well, uh, it's good to hear this lesson just in case. Uh, you never know. Dad, what's persona mean? Yeah. Ah, give that back to me, son, real quick.

Somebody else must've been using my Android phone. There you go. Yes. Um, this next story I put in here mainly, I put this next story in mainly just because of, uh, you, you guys both having a good amount of background in the music business.

Brian, I was thinking of you specifically, but I know Jason, you, you were, you've, you've, uh, dipped your toes into that world as well, right? A little bit here and there. Not as much as Brian. I'm more film. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, this is a story about the Warner music group, uh, being sued over a data breach.

Yes. And, uh, a class action suit, which means no one, but the lawyers are going to get any money. Everybody, everybody gets a check that costs less than the stamp that it costs to mail. Yes. Right. I literally got a check for seven cents from a class action lawsuit from Facebook the other day.

Yeah. Nice. Oh, wow. A rush out to spend that in, in one place. Uh, I will say it. I've said it before. I'll say it again. It is your duty to do this because this is the only punishment that these companies get. And oftentimes it's baked into the deal that if the money is not claimed, it goes back to the company.

So it is a duty to always do these things. Can give it, make them feel the pain. Exactly. If nothing else, the administrative pain. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there, there's nothing particularly unusual about this. The Warner music group, people had a data breach.

Um, they got hit by a skimmer. It looks like on one of their websites. Uh, Neil Young, actually. Yes. Yeah. The Neil Young website. And, um, this woman, uh, Linda Stevens filed her proposed class action lawsuit in LA superior court. She's seeking unspecified damages.

But, so as you say, uh, maybe this will make them be a little more careful. Um, well, it's interesting. I don't know if things have changed, but at least until relatively recently, Warner music was one of the only of the big labels that actually did all their stuff in house.

Uh, all the other labels outsource to, to actual internet companies that, uh, kind of know what they're doing better while Warner kept their own division internally and, and they were never very good. Um, so of all the, of all the major labels to get hit by this, this is not surprising to me that it would be Warner that had the problem because they do keep things.

They do, at least until recently had an internal department that took care of all their sites. So yeah, which I was the head of for 30 days. Yes, you were. That was a long time ago. Is that right? I was the head of Warner Brothers records for 30 days. Really?

Or at least the technical, the technical division. Yeah. Oh, it's a long story. We've talked about it. Only jobs. You have to point me to an episode number or something. Maybe one of our listeners can point me to an episode number. All I will say, I will say something in Jason's defense here is that in all my, in all my years doing internet stuff with, with, uh, in the, within the music industry, Warner was always a problem.

Okay. So, uh, they were my least favorite label to work with. I did a lot of work with them, but I never really enjoyed it. Well, that's good because I mean, I think we can all agree. Jason is never a problem. That, that 30 days that he worked there was probably the only time period that I didn't have an issue with Warner.

Okay. Well, there you go. He was too good. He was, he was too much a breath of fresh air. His, his leadership style just didn't mesh with, uh, with the group thing that was endemic at Warner Music Group. Right? Yes. Pretty much. They couldn't handle him. Yeah.

So I'll give you the, that was, yeah, that was during American Idiot for the release of American Idiot that month. Yes. And, uh, I was, by the way, the three days guy. Yep. Yep. You were. That's what we got to do a little bit together. But, uh, yeah, I was there for 30 days. They never even bought me a computer. So that should tell you how organized they were.

All right. We could spend a lot of time on this because all, every, every, every bit of information you're giving me is just, is just leading to more questions on my part. So maybe, uh, maybe we'll have to put a, put a pin in this and come back to it sometime. I'll, I'll do my homework and, uh, you know, listen to an explanation of it from a past episode or something.

But this is, this is fascinating to me. Yeah. We could talk for hours about this. So, uh, this last one here, I put this in here because we covered this on the CyberWire this past week, uh, because we kind of felt like we had to, um, pretty sure you guys already covered this.

This is the, uh, this is the male chastity device. Yep. That. That felt the need to be connected to the internet. That came with massive security flaws. Uh, you guys spoke about this already?

Yes. Oh, yes. We covered it. Okay. I guess I don't have much, too much to add, uh, other than the whole notion of having to, uh, use bolt cutters or an angle grinder. Uh, when it came to that part of my self, I was kind of hoping there would be a personal experience story here, or at least a friend of a friend.

You know, so here's the funny thing is that in this case, because we covered this, I would actually have a good excuse to when I hand that device over to my son. No, seriously, we were, we talked about it. Let me play the episode for you where I talk about it on the air.

No, son, I was not searching for the, the, the, IOT teledildonic chastity cage for men. I was not, no, I was doing, oh, okay. I'm just saying, you know, we, we've learned a lot about you through, through this segment here.

So I was, I was kind of hoping for another angle inside of the life of Dave Bittner. Perhaps I've said too much. Yes. Yes. I will say, no, I'll just stick to the furries. This is not, uh, this is not my particular, uh, flavor of kink, I guess. All right.

Probably would say, but again, I've said too much. Well, time to run guys. I've got AT&T tearing up the internet outside my garage. So that's why I've been muted the whole time. Oh, goody. Hey. AT&T is expanding. They have cameras and chainsaws.

Yeah. AT&T is expanding from ruining just cell phone service for, you know? Yeah. Well, it's my neighbor's, uh, uh, fiber connection. I'm on spectrum. So that's why it feels the need to make more noise probably. All right. Well, good luck with that.

Good luck. Thanks guys. Have a good weekend. Next time. Yep. Take care. Ups and doodads. I was, uh, walking through the neighborhood, uh, with my kid the other day because, you know, can't go to a park. Can't go to school, can't go to a movie theater, can't go to a restaurant, can't do shit except for a walk around the goddamn neighborhood.

And, uh, we were. And all of a sudden I heard this really loud noise and something was motoring up the street. There goes the neighborhood, Jason. This is the cyan bot. We have the link in the show notes. It is a box, uh, one would assume refrigerated, uh, on big gigantic wheels.

Or heated. Or heated, I suppose. Well, I don't know what happens if you've got, uh, a hot and a cold order together. Maybe there's two boxes in there. I don't know. It's on big gigantic wheels. It was rolling down the, uh, down the street. Uh, my kid quickly discovered that it has motion sensors on it and would basically stop the thing and thought it was hilarious.

And then he would let it go and it would run down the street a little bit more and then he would run after it and jump in front of it and it would stop again. Uh, I, I don't, uh, this is really the future. This is, this is it. Yeah, it is. Welcome to the future of delivery, they say. So I looked it up and I, I've discovered I could get condoms delivered.

I could get ice cream delivered. I could get, uh, everything except for alcohol delivered, basically. Um, boom. Yep. And they charge a buck 99 one, one delivery fee to, to, to have this thing roll up to your house. I assume you have to get an app and then notifies you it's outside and you walk up and open it up and take out whatever it is you ordered.

It's loud, man. Just what you need. Just what you need. Rolling around Santa Monica. You already got the scooters. Yeah. You got more drones than you know what to do with. Now you got this idiot box. Some of the neighbors were out talking about it, complaining, cause I guess it's been, it's been rolling around for a bit, but this is the first time I saw it.

Um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's louder than a Prius. I'll tell you that. Uh, pigeon farts louder than a Prius though. So. Yeah. So great. I, I'm so thrilled that these companies are able to just, uh, put their stuff on our, on our public streets without any, any regulations whatsoever or anybody having a voter is saying it.

They're just here. That's it. Yay. I saw that actually the funniest thing I saw, uh, it was trying to navigate its way around, uh, about eight bird scooters. They had just been dumped in the middle of a, of a sidewalk. I should have taken a picture of that. You should have taken a video of that, but you should also just made a, made like a bird scooter, uh, you know, like wagon train around them.

So it couldn't get out. Just watch it back up and go back and forth. Something for me to do. I think you have something to do. Yeah. Something for your afternoon. All right. Would have been good. Get my kid out to help me drag that scooter over here. We're going to box this guy in. Well, speaking of more pointless shit, uh, Amazon has introduced the Amazon one, which is a handprint scanner.

Okay. So you can go to their stores and pay with your handprint now. And I call this useless shit for, for one big reason. You know, I can go to an Amazon store right now and I don't have to touch anything. They don't have my biometrics and I can still pay for it using a QR code from their app.

Like we've been doing now for however long it's been since they bought whole foods. You know, it's a, it's a strange thing to roll out something that requires you to place your hand on something that everybody else is putting their hands on when everybody is trying to do contactless.

Well, this is contactless. You hold your hand over it. You don't actually, you don't actually have to touch it. Okay. No, you don't have to touch it. I still don't necessarily want Amazon to have my fingerprints. Exactly. That's the whole thing. I'm like, why do you need this when a QR code works just fine and it's in your phone that you've already touched?

Oh, good. You know? And yeah, you know, like when you have face ID and biometrics on your phone, that's all securely kept on your phone. Yes. As opposed to whatever Amazon's going to do with it. One would assume put it in an unpassword protected Amazon bucket. Yep.

That's exactly it. So I just saw this and I thought like, what are they thinking between this, the house drone, the mailbox thing that they put out? I don't know if you saw that when it's like a little sensor for your mailbox so you can tell when your mailbox is open and closed.

They're really just not hitting anything out of the park, I gotta say. Yeah, I don't understand it. We all have our phones on us. Everything should be done through a phone now. If you're going to do anything regarding anything secure or payment or identification, it should all be on your phone now.

The fact that our driver's licenses aren't done through our phones now at this point is insane. You should be able to walk out of the house with nothing but your key and your phone. That's it. Hey, now you don't even need a key. Well, that's true. If you go for those things, which I'm not quite there yet.

I like a key. Mine works without a key. It uses Wi-Fi. I can call up my Explorer and Wi-Fi. I can start it early. So it either cools down or warms up. And yeah, or I can use a touch code on the door to get in.

I was thinking about house more than my car, but yeah. Yeah. I found two links that just made me laugh and made me happy, which I think we all need these days. The first is from IFL Science. People are sharing the most random facts they know, and they're amazing.

This is a great read. Link in the show notes. I'll just share three. Alligator is a deformation of the Spanish expression for the lizard, el legarto. Who knew? El legarto. And this one's for you, Jason. Dogs poop in alignment with the Earth's magnetic field. Dogs use Earth's magnetic field to align their bowel and bladder movements, and they prefer to relieve themselves along a north and south axis.

In fact, canines will actively avoid going to the bathroom in an east-west direction. Now, I got to test this one. Well, I gave you something to do this afternoon. Yeah, exactly. You could do that. I got to strap a compass to my dogs to figure out which way they're pointing.

Ah, it's in your phone, Jason. You've got a compass in your phone. I do. I do. But I'm pretty sure that's true from what I remember about which way little Dino goes. He's always, you know, shifting and moving a little bit. He can never find that north-south axis.

So maybe I need to get him a compass. And my favorite fact from this list, which just serves as a point of warning, I'm hoping none of our fans actually need this, but just in case, male dolphins can ejaculate as far as 10 feet and with such force that it can kill a human if that human was foolish enough to attempt relations with it.

Well, you get what you deserve on that one, let's just say. Yeah. And on the sex tip, the other article I saw that I just loved, 17 euphemisms for sex from the 1800s. This is over from Mental Floss. Writing St. George, Blow the Grounsels, and the personal favorite of mine, the Blanket Hornpipe.

They were pretty funny. I love that. So good. Well worth the read. And I also found out right before we went to air, Louis Black has a new comedy special that you can buy. Oh, does he? Yep. No Netflix? No, nothing. He's just selling it himself.

That's cool. Yep. Yeah. It's a stand-up special, like his last stand-up special he did in March before the lockdown. So go pick that up. Give Louis a few bucks. I shall. I'll support him. I shall. I don't know, though, man. His humor's pretty dark, and I don't know if it's going to be that funny right now.

Yeah. There is a bit of that worry, because he was dark before all this happened. I have not actually kept up with him. I follow him on Facebook, and I do see that he's always doing shows and things of that nature, you know, just recording things left, right, and center. So I haven't watched any of them.

So I'm going to give it a go, though. Why not? I'm already bleak. I'm going to lean in. Exactly. I'm leaning in, Jason. Okay. All right. And since I can barely leave the bed, I think it'll be just something nice to, you know, pass the time. Well, you're not checking which direction your dogs poop. Thanks, sir.

We're back again with Seth Miranda, who finally could make some time for us, Mr. Busybody. Well, you know, I make time for the peasants every now and then. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Welcome to the field, sir. How was your horse? Liz, I'm really sorry about that, but it has been one of the most ridiculous, what we call NPA new product announcement seasons.

I think I've seen in a long time, and it's compiled with where we are in the world right now. So I'm kind of dealing with all that. So are you actually back at work? Or are you still working out of your house? Yeah. Would you go to Canada now? It's Brian. But I got the accent, apparently.

Yeah. It's contagious. Let's talk about some boots and stuff like that. Hey, we could take some cues from Canada. So I'm cool with that. Look, I'm kind of at home. I'm also in the field. I've been putting out videos like probably two a week for Adorama.

And you see them in all these peer spaces and different venues. We are just out there doing whatever we can, where we can to keep the platform running. So yeah, I live stream from my house. I have my studio going. I'm back to work in the makeup industry, which is very weird right now.

Yeah. How's that work? Yeah. How does that work, Jason? I mean, are you all getting tested or what's the deal? Well, I've been tested repeatedly. There's always temperature checks. Depending on the production, there's been productions that actually pay for on-site.

On-site rapid testing, which is $100 per person. Yeah. There's a doctor on set. Literally, you walk up to a table before you even go anywhere, and you get the test. And in 15 minutes, they let you walk in if it's okay. Wow. Yeah. It's crazy. That's cool, though. It's really good.

No, no. It's amazing. It definitely takes some weight off your shoulders. There's no, I don't know how to put it. It's a false security, but it's a good security. You're still wearing masks. When I go to the makeup stuff, though, because the models are completely without protection, I'm double protection.

So I have to wear the COVID mask, then a face shield, which is plastic, which is a few inches in front of my face. Oh, that's got to be tough. Crushing a camera into my face with that. It's fogging up. It's smearing up. It's scratching up. It's been very challenging.

And I just say I totally took for granted how streamlined workflow was, even when I was like, man, this is a really hard job. No, I actually had it way easier than that right now. You had it pretty easy. Yeah, but I feel like I'm going to, I might as well have like a bone saw in my hand and start extracting marrow from people the way we're like all murked out.

Like, it's crazy. It's crazy. But hey, I'm very thankfully working. I'm very grateful for where I'm at. And I'm also, I just want to say thank you to anybody who's listening who supports Adorama TV and my own channels. I absolutely can't be employed without you right now. So thank you so much. No, that's cool. That's very cool that you got stuff to do.

But yeah, I saw that you were going back to makeup stuff. And I'm like, that can't be safe. But if they have doctors on set, that's cool. Well, it's crazy safe. I think they have us change our masks at a periodic time also. I'm constantly spraying down everything with this solution.

I don't even know what it is, but it's antibacterial craziness. I'm sure it's great for your camera. Well, hey, think of it this way. Thank God everything's weather sealed now, right? Like that's the big spec is, is it weather sealed? Well, yeah, like go ahead, let's do this. Yeah, true. The old days, they were not by any stretch of the imagination.

If you had a pop-up flash, no. No, exactly. Oh, man. So you said there are tons of new products coming out. What's out there now? Well, before we get into what's going on, the reason it's crazy is, one, all the factors are on halt.

So everything that they had in development is now coming out. All the stuff we're seeing now should have been out March, maybe July, you know, but now we're seeing it right now. And on top of that, none of the trade shows hit. So instead of us going to one place to see it all in a couple days and do a video where we talk to experts from the brands.

No, I'm getting sent prototype after prototype and box after box after box, do a video, do a video. So what we used to cover in maybe three days, maybe like 25, 30 products. I have to do an individual video for each one of them now. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's crazy, but honestly, it's really exciting where we're at.

And it's amazing what technology we have in our hands, how accessible it is. And I think you and me were just talking about like affordable options out there. Yeah. But there is a cost at affordability as well. So, yeah. So that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today, because I always talk about this. This bit me in the butt when I started podcasting.

I'd always buy cheap mics, you know, I'd buy just as much as I could almost afford in a little bit over. And I ended up having to always swap them out. Like, you know, I think about the Rode Podcaster, which is one of the most garbage mics in the planet. It cost me like $230 for this thing.

It's a USB mic. And if you fart on it the wrong way, it will stop working. It's like I pulled it apart to figure out why it stopped working. And half of the solders were undone. Oh, wow. I never dropped it. It was never, you know, it was always on a mic stand. And one day it just stopped working.

And just all the solders busted loose. I'm like, yeah, that's a really bad design. But now I've got, you know, I've got a very expensive mic. I've got very expensive audio gear. And if I had just bought this first, then I would have been fine. And I would have saved a lot of money. And then that gets us to photo gear.

I've got all these newer. I think we talked about this on the show before. Is it newer or newer? We're just going to call it newer. Yeah. I call it. I hate it. Exactly, exactly. I've got four LED panels and soft boxes on them. And I could never get the look that I really wanted.

And then and one day you're just like, oh, yeah, I've got this video light. This, you know, I think yours is a 300 watt video light. Mine's a 200 watt video light. And I got an Octobox for it. It's on a C stand with the pumpkins. You know, it's all it's all hanging out.

And I still use my newer light for a fill. But if I had just bought that one light, I would have saved myself so much aggravation time and money that it's like it's worth spending extra money on. Yeah, I think people don't realize that. Look, I'm not saying go out there and buy the best because people that go out there who just started shooting and go, let me buy a $2,000 pro photo light before I even learn how to use the strobe.

You can't even appreciate why it's $2,000 until you've been through the muck a little bit. I will say we're in the age of self-publication, right? Like we can just create something and put it out there on our own accord. We don't need anybody's green light anymore to put a project together. We have the ability to put it out there.

It's up to us to market it to get more exposure. But that being said, your stuff is being seen by people with untrained eyes more than ever before. Like they don't really realize what they're looking at. They don't really understand what they're hearing. They know when something sounds good, but they might not know why it sounds good or why it looks better than something else.

And a lot of people do a lot of post-editing. And if you are someone like that, which I am not, maybe it's okay to go budget-friendly on a few things because you can grade it later or whatever. But let me explain something to you when it comes to cheap lighting. The first thing you're going to deal with is inconsistencies.

Meaning, if you bought a budget-friendly brand, which is fine, and it comes off the line, what you might have are three different production runs that because this bulb was on sale on the market this day, and this capacity was on sale that week, and whatever else, you could have inconsistency in power, color, output, flicker rates, all sorts of stuff.

I even have people in my own Discord server showing me how they all have the same light from this. I'm not going to name the manufacturer, but the interface looks different because the firmware wasn't the same on each one of those boards. Yeah. And it's funny, too. It's like every adapter for every single one of my lights is different.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you go try and buy another adapter if one dies on you because for some reason, when you get just cheesy, crappy lights, the adapters die. So you have to go out and find the adapters, and that can cost you almost as much as 25% of the light.

Well, that's ridiculous. Yeah. That's where they try to save the cost of manufacturing. Like, for a long time ago, and maybe even still today, the joint that the light rested on before it went onto a stand, the socket itself, that's where they used to skimp up with the plastic in. Well, guess what happens? Oh, yeah. All mine are broke.

Yeah. All mine are broken. So if you can't mount it, what's the point of the light? I know. It's kind of crazy. And the other thing that I think people that are untrained don't realize is color cast. And forever, LEDs were horrifying for color.

They just didn't have the full color spectrum in them. And I think I even talked about this on the show before. But if you have three of the same light from a budget brand, odds are they might not match up. And one might be a little greener. And you wonder why you can't balance it in post anymore. Well, that's because you're mixing lights. It's not just the whole thing is globally green.

Only your shadows are green or something like that. I've got that. Yeah, I totally got that. Like I said, I got four of these newer $100 panels, and they are completely different. All of them. Yep. It sucks. That being said, anybody out there is looking to get started. There's no harm in going budget-friendly until you realize what you want and how to do it.

And even if this is for you, because if you spent a few grand and you go, you know what? I don't really want to be a streamer. Well, you only spent a few hundred. And that's way better off. And I used to get a really bad rep for trashing third-party brands that knocked off the expensive brands that we use in the professional industry.

And my whole thing was, is I don't mock the brand. The brand is bringing more people into this and allowing more people to create cool things and learn. And that's great. My problem was always the people that went to the keyboards and fought me saying, it's just as good. I got news for you. A $250 flash, that's a knockoff of a $1,000 strobe.

There's corners cut. This isn't just inflated margins. There's real reasons. And when I'm on set and I got a lot of people pointing at me for their jobs, I can't tell them, hey, I know that light didn't fire four times. But hey, I saved $400. Like, they don't care.

You know what's really funny? You know what flash I still have that still works as good as the day I bought it? Nikon. An SB-16. Yep. Nikon, yeah. Yep. Works exactly the same as the day I bought it. TTL is perfect. Everything still works. It cost me like $600 when I was in high school.

Yeah. You know, I was in high school. That's just when the F4 came out. I had it for my 8008S because I'd already burned through an 8008 and the 8008S was out. I literally ran through the motor on an 8008 and so I was on the S. And I still have that with my SC-17 sync cords, which still work.

Yep. And they'll be consistent. And what people just didn't get is, well, Nikon has a $600 speed light. That's their flagship speed light. I'm like, I hope it has a premium price to it if it's a flagship. And then there's like a third-party brand that's, you know, from the other side of the world.

Vivitar. That's $100. Yeah. Well, hey, you know what's funny? I started my career on Vivitar. I did, too. I did, too. I still kind of miss those. Yeah. What tanks? I mean, I beat the snot out of those things. And I always found my garage sales and had another one. You know, it was great. Vivitar with a quantum battery. You know, back in the old days.

Those were... Oh, man. Remember those? You couldn't even dispose of those because they were lead cells. They were car batteries on your belt. Yeah. You put them in somebody else's garbage that you hated. That's so wrong. I think it's when you start realizing how much you're using the equipment, how much of your life is going into this equipment to it not be a friction point.

The tools are meant to work for you and so that you can just be the creative. And I think that's what people don't understand is like, oh, it's just as good. It's like, yeah, but you might buy that three or four times. Or maybe you need to understand why that light's failing because there's plenty of people that go, oh, no, this light panel is great.

It was $40 on Amazon. I'm like, you look like you're getting dimmer over time. You're looking more orange than the first day you started streaming. The light that I'm using... You're turning into Trump as you go. Oh, my gosh. Listen, I went cheap on my lights because I wanted a monolight configuration for my streaming setup, which means that I could have a Bowens mount to put a big softbox on.

It's not a panel. And I didn't want to spend... Where it started at was $800 per light. I needed two of them. So I found a set that no longer made it more. I'm not going to name the brand because I actually like the brand. But you could tell that it was a re-sticker. They bought it and put their sticker on it. And I was like, you know, this is cheap.

This is under $400 for two lights that were the equivalent of 1,000 watts each. Let me buy these. A year later, I'm looking at my stream. I'm like, wow, this looks yellow. It just... The diodes aren't there for you anymore.

They did their job for the price point that they were, you know, supposed to, you know? And you have to make peace with that. But if you are wondering why you're not having fun creating and you're going to have to spend more time fixing what the tool isn't doing for you. Yeah. Time to assess some things. And just as a last point, I know we're getting a little winded here.

Do not ever, under any circumstances, and Jason can attest to this, skimp on grip. Don't skimp on stands, clamps, arms. Oh, yeah. Because that, no matter what you use in your career, no matter what, will go with you. I don't care what light brand you use, what camera brand, whatever mics.

The grip will support anything you put on it. And the last thing you need is whatever you put on it to hit the ground. Oh, yeah. Dude, I'm like... I got a C-stand that I had forever that, you know, cost me like... It was like $110. But it held the weight of this new light that I got perfectly.

It's done. I don't have to think about it. My new $2,800 camera is sitting on a Manfrotto, you know, carbon fiber tripod. I don't have to worry about it. It's not going to fall over. And I've got a graveyard of really crappy tripods that I bought that were, you know, bargain basements that I can't put anything on because I don't trust them to fall over, you know?

I almost feel bad that I have to throw them out, right? I'm like, oh, man, there's so much plastic here or whatever. It just goes to show you that it's the foundation, right? Yeah. The grip is... No matter what you guys use out there, even if you don't think you're going to be sticking with this for the long run, it'll last over time and have resale value.

A quick tip, if a rental house doesn't want to... If you don't see the brand you're looking at in rental houses, odds are it wasn't meant to hold up. Oh, that's a really good tip. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And it's funny. I just, you know, I was talking about... For me personally, microphones and audio gear was one of those things.

You're talking to me on a microphone I bought you that cost me about $80, right? Sounds good, though. Sounds really good. I was shocked at this thing. I am on a $600 microphone with a $100 shock mount with a $300 arm with $100 cables going into a $900 interface, right?

Now, here's the thing about this. I never have to think about it again. I'm done. Everything that I bought, you know, I just switched over from my PreSonus Studio 192, which I had for five years. It lasted me for five years. I've got two of them, and I'm keeping them. Wait, they supported it for five years?

It's still supported. It's totally still supported. That's wild. But I moved over to a Mixpre 6 version 2 because they've got this really cool anti-clipping technology with 32-bit float, which I'm like, okay, I'll pay for that. I will pay big money for that. Right, right. But now it's like, I don't need more audio gear for 10 years, you know?

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. And I think that we get stuck on things like specs, and people want to upgrade to the best, but they don't really realize that they're just being sold something else, that the specs aren't... There's no expiration date on the specs, right? If you don't need 4K, then that 1080 camera that you're doing is just fine because guess what?

Twitch doesn't stream in 4K. So relax, kid. Exactly. There's so many things out there that are just crazy. And the hype machine is just so dangerous. And I think that's one of the reasons one of our favorite brands, Nikon, has actually kind of taken a hit right now, is they're never this hype, spec-heavy marketing brand.

They just go, we need dependability, a really good interface. We make cameras and nothing else. And it's starting to come up to a head, though, I think. We're looking at the mirrorless revolution happening, which is the biggest changeover since we went to digital.

So we're just seeing the infancy still of full-frame mirrors. People will tell you like, no, no, it's here. Pros are using. It's like, no, it's only been usable for like the last three years or so. And you have companies like Canon and Nikon, who are century-old companies trying to flesh out these systems now.

And they're being panned at every moment. But that Nikon Z you're using is less than two years old. And that's Gen 1. And, you know, I love it. But here's the funny thing. I did a shoot for my friend's graduation. I had to go do some, or not graduation, her senior photos.

And I took the Z6 and I took my D810. Nice. And the D810 consistently was a lot better than the Z6. Really? Really? Yeah. The Z6 is contrasty as shit. I noticed a lot. There was just a lot of edge detail that was really blown out.

Wait, on RAW? Yeah, on RAW. Crazy. But so, I mean, all the pictures, I put them all together in a big bucket and said, pick the ones you want. They consistently picked all the D810 photos. Yeah. They thought the skin tones were off with the Z6.

I know it's firmware and software. We've talked about firmware, you and I on the show before. And it'll get better. It'll definitely get better. But, you know, I love the Z6. I'm just going to tell you, I love this thing. I can't wait for them to keep iterating on it and keep it growing. But, yeah, my D810 still, you know, to this day produces better photos than the Z6.

Well, you're also talking a jump in probably 30% to 40% more resolution on the D810. So, that missing information on a 24-megapixel sensor does make a difference. But, I mean, either way. Yeah, what's the Z6? 24 and the D810 is 36.

36, 37. Yeah, that's a 12-megapixel bump. So, that's not insignificant. And color depth. It's bit depth, you know. And what I think other people also have to realize is there's something – there's a difference between accurate color and pleasing color. Right. And a lot of times, we don't realize that the color that we're seeing come up that you don't like might actually be more accurate to what's in front of your face all the time.

And you're looking at it out like, okay, Canon. Canon is famous for color signs people love. Me, personally, I think they hammer the reds too hard. I hate fucking Canons, man. Yeah, they're orange. It shifts towards orange. And I also think that their highlights have no definition to them. I think they blow out highlights pretty quick.

But they're the number one camera for weddings, which is all white dresses. So, go figure. Ah, yeah. You know? Yeah, I just – I hate the color space on Canons, man. I can tell – you show me a photo. I can tell you if it's a Canon or an Icon. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I just – well, I just did that video with a Sony.

And I'm, like, not used to their color because I shoot an Icon and Fuji. And I'm, like, man, what is going on here? And I just realized it's just different color signs. And it's what the camera is interpreting. What you're looking at is just what that camera wants to tell you is the color. It doesn't mean it is the accurate color. When you talk about, like, real accuracy, there's Hasselblad and Phase 1 systems with crazy software behind them with crazy calibration to do accurate renditions of, like, museum paintings.

But when they're selling you a consumer camera, all they want you to do is go, wow, these people look beautiful. And those people think I made them look beautiful. And now I'm getting sold – now I'm sold in this camera. Right. In fact, there was a term, slang term, and I hope I don't get bit in the ass with this. But we used to call it – Don't cancel, Seth.

Yeah, I know. Don't cancel, Seth. But a few years ago, we used to call it Canon Sharp because we felt that the Canons, while they made amazing glass, would handicap a little bit on the back end on the sensor to make it a little less sharp so that skin looked smoother on people. That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah, I can see that, you know? For sure. But we are on the cusp of some new Nikons coming out. Yeah. Yeah. You sent me that link this morning, and I'm like, what? That's a huge speculation point. But this is – This is for the Z9. Yeah.

Well, we don't even know if it's called a Z9. We don't even know if this is real. It's just some guy that posts on a website some list of specs that people are going, oh, my God, I hope it's true. Yeah. Rumors are fun, but they are so damaging to the industry. They give people these hopes that it's possible to do this at this price point. And when the reality comes, they go, oh, this brand sucks.

It's like, no, you suck. You suck. What do you want, a unicorn to come out of the battery compartment? Like, stop it already. Yeah. No, we talk – that's why we don't cover Apple news for the most part on this show because it's all speculation and bullshit for the most part. When it ships, we'll talk about it.

That's about it. But this week, I am headed to Nikon. One, they did announce that they are dropping the next generation or the half mark point. I don't know. You know, what do you call it? The S version? Yeah, but I don't think they call it the S version anymore. I think they're taking a page out of Sony's marketing book and just calling it, like, the 2.

It's the Z6 II and the Z7 II. Of course, there's a Z6 II because I just spent $2,800 on a fucking Z6. Well, you spend it with the – think of it this way. That camera body only is around $18 to $600 retail, right?

Yep. So if this new one is $2,000 new, which is probably what the Z6 was when it was new, the Z6 original will go down to another price point between, I'm going to guess, $13 to $15. And if that's the case, that's an entry-level full-frame mirrorless camera that is outstanding for video.

I mean, it could flood the market for beginners. Yeah. No, I have nothing bad to say about this thing for video. It's like, you saw me set up. I used all of your tutorials to get my lighting right. And this thing, everybody that has seen me on this camera, they're like, holy shit.

That looks amazing. The kit lens is nuts. I can't believe what they put out with the glass for kit lenses. It's great. It's great. Have you seen the close focusing on that? You're like, wait, how is this happening? No, it's great. The face focus, like the follow focus is perfect. And I got to say, since I'm a dog lover, their pet eye recognition works like a motherfucker.

Oh, does it really? I haven't even tried it. Oh, my God. It's so great. I mean, it's amazing. You have three dogs. Yeah, I got three dogs. And it picks up on them when they're sitting in the backyard. I posted some pics on Instagram, Instagram.com slash JPD. You can see some of the Z6 photos with the dogs.

And it's like, it tracks them as they're moving. It's great. Meanwhile, and this is an issue I really hope that we can shed some light on. If you go on YouTube, every major YouTuber, not pro YouTuber, that's popular will tell you how Nikon's failing at autofocus, how it can't track.

Yeah, but that's the thing. So here's what happens. I'm Joe Smith, and I'm looking to get into this stuff. And I see people using all these brands, but I don't know what any of them are. And I don't even know what photography is really about. But I want to get into this. I don't know my F stop for my asshole. Yeah, and they're just like, you know what? My friends are telling me all get Sony, Sony, Sony.

And I go watch some schmuck with a dumb haircut on YouTube. And he right off the bat says, Nikon's failing. Well, right away, that person takes that brand off the table, and it hurts that brand. So now they have a million views on a video where they say that.

And a good percentage of those people are looking at those videos to kind of negotiate where they should put their money. And this is what's hurting the industry is these popular people who just want clickbait are going to damage. Look, Olympus is gone, man. Yeah, they're dead.

They're putting out cameras for the next two years. We don't know. They're not even going to say Olympus on the camera bodies anymore. Wow. Yeah, this is a reality. You know, camera companies are absorbed by the companies. Rico Pentax. Sony bought my Nolta. We don't know what's going to happen right now.

And all people are doing are going off of somebody's whack opinion of using a camera for five seconds when you're going to tell me right now, if they didn't hear that end of it, if they heard you say this, they'll be like, oh, their autofocus is awesome. Yeah, I mean, I can't believe how well it works.

You know, I'm doing product videos and it, I mean, it's tack sharp within like a second. It's crazy good. Yeah, and if you put it up against something that's out there like Sony or Canon is crushing it on autofocus right now, yeah, maybe it's not as fast.

We're talking about milliseconds. When we say that, it's super thin margins there between the two. Exactly. And when people don't realize that when they say one is faster or stickier or whatever, first of all, as a professional, I'm going to tell you right now, for what I do, I never, ever let the camera pick what it's going to focus on.

Right. I mean, I just can't. I'm shooting. I don't want it to pick an eyeball when I'm trying to focus on a necklace while keeping the face in the frame or whatever the hell I'm doing. Uh-huh. Yeah. So I don't really care about any of that. But I'll tell you right now, what you should care about is what works for you. Does it make you want to use it?

Do you pick up the camera and go, oh, I'm so psyched to go shoot? Or is it a headache of going through menus and settings and a thousand things on your screen that you don't realize what it is? Or does the color not match the way you see the world? Do the lenses give you an array of selection that you'd be into?

You know, people just lose sight of what's actually important and they just get psyched on, I want to be the guy who bought the most specs because I have a small dick. You know, like, I don't know what to say. Yeah. No, exactly. It's just like, I don't care about the art that I'm trying to make. It's like, you know, real professionals care about the actual end product.

Listen to those dogs. I know. See, they're waiting for their moment. They're waiting for their moment. They're ready, Mr. DeMille. Yeah. Oh, man. It's kind of crazy. And then, you know, just to brush up on the last part of that spec, look what happened with the Canon R5. That thing was dropped down like it was a messiah.

They were like, it has 8K video. Wait, 8K? Yeah, 8K. None of us can use 8K, but I really want the 8K. Exactly. Who the fuck needs 8K? You know, 8K has its purposes. You know, you can crop in and still get 4K resolution. Yeah, if you're a movie studio. Yeah, I get it. Listen, I feel you.

I feel you. You know, I just think what happened was it got released and it started having overheating issues. And then people started speculating that overheating issues were false, that Canon put on this fake temperature gauge on it to help the camera not physically receive damage at some point.

They fixed the firmware and it gives you a longer time, but it will still overheat. Because it's fucking 8K on a full frame sensor in a weather sealed body. What do you think is going to happen? But yeah, it's called heat management, baby. Yeah. You know, and honestly, like, let's put it this way.

Sony put out 4K full frame mirrorless cameras years ago with the R2 and stuff like that. And they were praised, even though they were overheating and shutting down on people that had no battery life. They were praised for progression. Canon puts out 8K. It is usable.

It even got fixed with firmware to a degree. It still does. No pun intended. It still does overheat. But they're being panned for it. That's the definition of what's wrong with what's going on right now. If this was years ago and that Canon name said Sony, they would have been praised, praised for pushing the envelope.

It's so funny. My Z6 has been here. I use external power for it and run it into my Mac Mini with, you know, USB-C cable with the new, basically the webcam software that they just released in beta. Which is awesome, by the way. This camera has been plugged in and on for about 72 hours.

Jeez. Can't even feel any heat. Yeah. And that was a mistake. I just forgot to turn it off. I came in this morning. It was on. I'm like, oh, shit. It's crazy. I mean... But it didn't overheat. It hasn't shut down or anything. It still works. You'll never hear.

You'll never hear, unless it was a defect, that the Z6 or something from that kind of overheated. Because they're doing what they know works that's stable and reliable because that's what we need. And instead of pushing specs and not being able to deliver because it's not that usable, but it sells, right?

It's the marketing, right? I think the next thing we're going to see now is a processor war. We're going to see things where the megapixels have already been settled. Now we don't need anymore. We're good. We're good on megapixels. We're good. Hey, listen. I shot that a7R IV Sony. That's 61 megapixels.

Jesus. And I found it to be noisy for what I usually shoot. Wow. And that's what happens with more megapixels means smaller pixels on the sensor. That's why the a7S III is 12 megapixels, but can shoot in low light beautifully because the pixels are way larger on that sensor than if it was a 20, 30, 40 megapixel sensor.

And nobody needs that much resolution. You know, it's like in the old days when I worked in the ad business, we were doing, when we would do photo shoots for billboards, you know, we'd bust out the Hasselblad. You know, we did Tomb Raider and you couldn't do that in 35 mil. You had to get, you had to get a Hasselblad and you had to do it medium format or large format because you needed the resolution because that was shit was going to get blown up and put literally on the side of a bus or a billboard.

We don't need that. You know, that's just going on Instagram. It's going to be 1500 pixels wide. Nobody fucking needs that many megapixels. Yeah. I mean, there's something to be said for the fact that for the same price, you can get the resolution, right? Like, yeah, I personally, when I got the D850, it went to 47 megapixels and I never wanted to go backwards again after I saw what was coming off of this sensor.

Yeah. Well, the D850 is just gorgeous. I'm almost thinking of buying a second one new just to shelve it because when the DSLR is kind of, hey, Nikon just now called it quits on film cameras. The F6 is finally stopping production. And one day it's going to happen at DSLRs.

Oh, shit. You know it's on my nightstand, right? I got an F3 and an F4 on my nightstand. I had a good joke for what was on your nightstand, but I'll leave that one alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Leave that. Leave that. But I always wanted that F4. You know, it was like $6,000 or something when it was new.

You can get it on cheap now. I got it on eBay, mint condition. The only problem is neither one of them have eye cups on them and I can't get a replacement eye cup and I don't want to ruin my glasses. But yeah, it's like, you know, a couple hundred bucks. You know, I think I got my F3 with the motor drive for 180.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, the F100 was such a banger camera and they're there. If you want to shoot film, if you want to shoot film, a Nikon F, the original Nikon is like a trendy fashion statement here in New York. I'm looking at all these like sweatpants wearing fedora dudes walking around with it.

I'm like, you know what it is? Because if it's shot on film, somehow it's automatically a good photo. No, it's not. No, that's what it is. I got buckets and file folders of really shitty photographs on film. I can disprove that. But we're dealing with a generation of kids that never loaded a roll of film.

You know what I mean? And they never got that sensation of a materialistic photo, something they hold. Yeah. They never had their own bulk loader sitting in the dark. I have one right here. I'm looking at my bulk loader right now. No way. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there's filming.

I should go check that actually. I went to Europe and I took 250 rolls of film with me with my 8008S that I hand loaded all of them. And I hand fucking developed every single roll of film there. Took me like nine months, but I hand developed all of them. And I'm almost done scanning them.

And I am now 49 years old. And I shot those when I was 20. Oh, Jesus Christ. I mean, that's the romance of it, right? Like you actually put your hands in the dirt with that kind of stuff. And that's why I think, look, we ingest images so quickly now. We just fly past them in a few seconds, scrolling up on our phones.

But years ago, you and me grew up with, it took you a week to get to that print. It took you a couple of days, you know? And when you shared it, like that was the one image because it wasn't a thousand frames. You're shooting 20 frames a second. Now we shot 24 frames on a roll.

In a week. Every time you press that button, it was expensive. And you made it count. You know, you made it count. And I think that's why you're seeing a lot of artistic type shooters falling back to medium format where you only have, you know, 12 frames. You know, you only have 16 frames.

You know, they're looking for that. Well, let's refine all the images. Let's not hold down that shutter button and pray that we got something. Spray and pray. Yeah. I mean, my phone is filled. I just edited a set and I have 115 frames out of this set.

If this was the film days, I would have gotten maybe 15. You'd have gotten bankruptcy is what you'd have gotten. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. All right, man. Well, it's been good chatting and catching up. I'm glad to have you back. Let's try not spend so much time apart.

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. But, hey, I'm glad people are digging this segment. And listen, we're not just Nikon fanboys. It just was very Nikon centric today because we both own them and we both use them. And they got a new one. They got new ones coming out next week, which is pretty exciting. So cool deal. What happens? Thanks so much, Jason.

And you guys can all follow me at LastXWitness on everything. Join me on Twitch. Join my Discord. If you're a photo nerd, you're more than welcome to come join my little community. Closing shout outs. 2020 just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? Never was a huge Van Halen fan, but totally respect the band and what they did.

And obviously, Eddie Van Halen is the original Guitar Hero, so much so that Guitar Hero should have paid him royalties for the name. Yep. Yep. They should have. Yeah, it's a sad one. I didn't even know he was that sick. Oh, yeah. He's been sick for quite some time. So, yeah. So we also lost Johnny Nash.

Yeah. I don't know. A lot of our younger listeners probably don't know who that is, but I know that we had eight tracks of Johnny Nash around my house growing up. And super sad news this morning. Pierre Kedzie from Naked Ray Gun has passed away at 58. Oh, really? Oh, wow. Damn young. I did not see that until right now.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a bummer. Fuck cancer. Fuck cancer. Damn it. Fuck a lot of things. No doubt. Big thanks to Seth Miranda for jumping in this week for a bit. Yep. Thank you. For some fun talk. And a shout out to our friend of the show, MXV, who has tested positive with COVID and is, he's doing okay.

It sucks, but he's doing okay. So our thoughts are with you, Mike. Well, you know, thank God he had that helicopter to take him to Walter Reed and the best care known to man and all paid for by the government because socialized medicine. Oh, wait, he didn't have any of those things, did he? Nope. Oh, okay.

Not a one. Well, I'm glad he's doing all right. I'm sorry to hear it, man. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister. And I'm Jason DeFillippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. This show is a labor of love, but your support keeps us going. And if you like the show, please visit GOG.show slash donate to help us out. We'll love you forever.

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