Well, it is time for the programme that comes from two
different parts of the world. They've got a lot, Dave. They're
lacking a lot. Oh man is the worst intro I've ever done. No
jingles, no commercials, maybe in a phone call here or there.
But still, it's no agenda coming to you from the United Kingdom
in the curry manner. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm from the United States of America and Northern
California where it's going to be another beautiful 70 deep 70
degrees on February. And I'm John C. Dvorak.
And I can't pretend John I can't pretend that we didn't just
start the whole show over again because something went wrong
with the recording I just gotta let
you put a new rig together and apparently the things that
Junker
well it's not but it's you know, when you're on the cutting edge
of technology and that's essentially exactly where I live
Yeah, of course you get cut all the time because I'm living on
the edge of what software can do with the hardware available and
it's so close and yet so far yes so far away and getting better
but the it's you said to sound like I had a loose wire but it's
not it's the software breaking up and the CPU load is going up
something is dragging down system resource. I know what the
hell is going on, but it's upsetting to say the least.
Yeah, I gotta Well, I suppose my rig as it were is just it looks
like a nest it looks like a rat's nest.
You mean with wires and shit? Oh, there's
wires everywhere. So stuff on the floor. I can't I can't even
vacuum in here because it will suck the wires up and then
disconnect something. It's just a mess.
I found part of the problem.
I don't know what to do.
Part of the problem is Firefox. Sucking up resources that have
you tried Firefox three? Yeah, well, but I need a browser
during the show don't I? Know I don't think so. When we're
talking about stuff I want to be able to bring up Okay, careful
that Firefox doesn't lock onto one of those sites that starts
you know, where it's I've had situations where I've killed
Firefox, and this machine still grinding away. And then I go
look at the Task Manager with the Ctrl Alt Delete in Firefox
and
there's still so be running go running. Yeah, I've had that
happen
doing what I love. I know man.
They come out with with a new version version three. I love
that. Oh, that was straight from the heart, John. Oh,
it's you know, luckily, they upgraded it to beta three, which
is a little better. But this still has this weird problem,
which gives you an error message I blogged this I believe it says
divorce.org/blog It says we are going from a encrypted page or
secure whatever it is page to an unencrypted page. Yeah. It gives
you a big message
and that okay? This warning, Please be informed about this.
And you say no,
no, it doesn't give you the no option. It just asked you if you
want to affirm what they're already doing, which is
interrupting your session.
We can't get rid of it. God can't get rid of it.
No, you kidding me?
Anyway, so I don't know what they're thinking.
So we talked about Valentine's Day briefly. Yeah, we started
off here.
This was the show part of the show everyone missed it was
actually quite good. Maybe the best stuff we've ever done.
But it's gone. Sorry, it's gone forever. History
you did ask about Valentine's Day saying and you implied that
I wasn't a big stick in the mud and probably wouldn't take part
in this phoney baloney holiday because I'm a cynic. Yes, but I
I told you that I did take part which I did by sending an SMS
message to my wife because it was the biggest is a world
record breaking day for SMS messages as predicted by the
phone companies something like 2.5 billion messages were sent
on Valentine's Day.
I think that's a that's a sign of the times and probably a good
thing. Although effectively it's reduced spending because now you
know you get away with sending a text message instead of the
traditional flowers and chocolates
you know or
as I did I took my wife to the arena tour of Dancing with the
Stars
get Wha what is that
dancing with this you know Dancing with the Stars the TV
show? Yeah so they in the UK it's called Strictly Come
Dancing with the format originated and they have an
arena tour with a couple of the celebrity couples and a couple
of the the judges who are normally on the TV show and they
basically do the TV show in an arena it's it's pretty
entertaining
it's actually entertaining and and I just feel like a schmuck
sitting there watching people dance well
no but I got into the show you know I like watching people
dance it's it's fun if there wasn't such a height difference
between Patricia and I we would go dancing together I'm sure
yeah you don't dancer.
No, I am I like to dance. I'm a natural Hey,
how's your pasta? Doble? John is it
when I was a kid that differences I mean, I don't do a
lot of dancing obviously. But when I was a kid, we used to be
required in grammar school to learn to dance. It was like one
of these things that they don't teach kids anymore. They don't
teach kids, the kind of the stuff that people miss out on
this. When we were kids, we were taught how to balance
chequebooks. We were taught civics and ethic how to tie.
We're taught how to type we were taught penmanship, we were
taught how to dance. And one of the things about the dancing
was, we learned everything from square that would wonders like a
whole year of square dancing, square dancing, Tango Mambo,
everything is free form rock'n'roll dancing, which was,
you know, some sort of a horrible thing to them. So you'd
learn all this stuff in school? I don't know. They don't do that
anymore.
Now there's a lot of stuff. Oh, man, there's a lot of stuff they
don't do anymore in that regard.
We used to have a gym class every day, you'd have to run
around, they still have gym classes in school. They don't
have it every day. And a lot of these schools, they don't care.
The kids don't get enough of a workout and
music lessons. So we had music lessons. I'm sure you had music
lessons where you had to play like the recorder.
That was an option you could and there's a lot of kids who did
but nowadays is I have two music departments don't even don't
even have them anymore. Well, of course, I don't even know what
the point of it is why they even send these kids to school. Well,
no,
it's the Department of Education wants to keep us dumb, John, you
know that. That's how that's that's the main thrust here.
So one of the things that people missed out on we're talking
about, we actually will do this when it's more natural, but
we're talking about morning radio, and you brought up the
fact that you didn't realise that Dennis Miller was a right
wing talk show host so
I made the comment, I think I kind of realised that he was
definitely not left wing. But wasn't he on Air America for a
while.
I don't think he ever was on Air America. I had
that fear. I thought he did the morning show. And then he spun
that off into syndication. And
well, that's really because I know nobody listened to Air
America because it was dreadful. I mean, they didn't get it. I
mean, and some of it was like horribly weird. I mean, I
listened to it. I mean, I listened to this all these
different things. But Air America is just like, except for
there's one woman I think that's that was a standout. And I can't
remember her name. And she was somewhat entertained. But
everybody else was fawning all over each other. They were
politically correct. They were gushing over each other. It was
pathetic.
Yeah, that doesn't work.
So anyway, I wanted to talk about one thing this week. I
mean, we don't I don't try to make a list normally, but since
I was waiting, because you were uploading daily source code.
Yeah. And trying to fix this piece of shit set up that sounds
like crap and is gonna make us unhappy with the actual show.
Yes.
It doesn't sound that bad. Anyway, so I, when I was in New
York the last time and I just I was sitting here waiting, I
decided to do a little research on this. So when I was in New
York last week, or a couple of weeks ago, I went to the place I
always go when I'm in New York, which is in Manhattan,
specifically is which is the century 21. Department store
downtown. Oh, I
love that place. You can get all kinds of brand name clothing
really cheap.
So true or not true or not.
from Long Island the way you're delivering, but it's true. Yeah,
no, it's absolutely true. It's a it's an amazing place. Anyway,
so I so I'm going through there and one of the things I always
do they have a lot of collectible ties, dirt cheap
from big designers and I have a tight collection even though I
don't use them much nowadays, because ties are not in but so I
walk in by the to leave and then there's a success and I could
use some some more socks and I was looking at the they have
this bowl toe which is the you know this big brand of socks all
over the US
that's the sock Goldco gotta have it.
And they had cashmere, a three pack of cashmere gold toes for
like $4 for three for three pair and it was marked down from like
50 bucks or something. So I said, Wow, I gotta buy these. So
I bought a set. And of course now I realise why they were
marked down to $4 and irregulars are messed up. Now it's like I
fact I have them on now. This is what brought to mind. They're
really soft. And you can if you stick your hand into a pile of
socks, you can literally find the socks by feel alone. Except
that when you put them on because of the nature of
cashmere, it's it's like it doesn't have any structure. And
so the sod basically falls apart on your foot. And it's like
they're upside down within just a couple of minutes. You know,
they just don't they're not snug. They can't stay there.
It's just a it's a disaster. So, but but in the process since I
was waiting for you to finish the source code, I look up
obviously gold toasts. What is the history of this company and
is it appear Only a company that was the great American Knitting
Mills. And they started making socks, like, you know, before
the depression, and they still make these gold toe socks in
North Carolina. They're not a Chinese product. And I realised
is one of the last things we still make in this country
are socks, socks, we make we make ammo and socks, everybody
that's that's our claim to fame.
Yes, we make bombs and we make socks. And I couldn't find any
evidence of the I have outsourced the sock making. And
they've exactly expanded somewhat. And,
well, the sock business, you know, it's like, what was the
line? Plastic son? That's the future?
Well, socks apparently are too. But anyway, so the gold toe is a
really an outstanding product, I think because I mean, I realised
that most of my socks, probably 90% of them are black and gold
toe socks. And you know, sometimes there's a mix and
match problem because they do have longer ones and shorter
ones, and some that have slightly different combination
of fabrics. But do you?
Do you do your own laundry? Do you wash your own socks?
Generally speaking, yes. Except sometimes if the bunch of
laundry gets backed up. There's a couple of services that I just
take, I just pile everything into a truck and drop it off
there. And then I get it all sorted it because you know what
happens with the socks? Of course, if anybody knows,
especially if you do your own laundry, is that you end up with
I have a box of about 150 single socks that have no mate.
Exactly. This is where I was going. Because I whenever I come
back from San Francisco, I almost every single time I do
the laundry, and because that really scores big here at home.
And man, those socks, it's like you got to have like a spot
where you can lay them all out. You can look at him you can
because I'm a little colorblind. And it's hard, man. It's hard to
find the matches, and then always is like, wait a minute,
I'm fucking missing one. One. Yeah, but every laundry is like,
well, well, I won't go into the Word of the SOCO routine. But
well,
that's the thing that's cool about gold toes is that you just
keep buying them. Costco has them and just keep buying them
and buy them and then pretty soon, yeah, okay, so I'm missing
a lot of socks, but I have a lot of combinations of the same, you
know, two gold toes that happened to be black. And, you
know, eventually I made but it's still I'm still tempted,
unfortunately, to like, especially when it's century 21.
I go by, like, there'll be like the sock rack. And they'll be
like a really cool looking pair of socks that are made by you
know, some designer, Donna Karan. And so you grab the pair
because one of these are cool. And you wear them a couple of
times, and you always lose one of the two. And that's the end
of it, you know, there's one sock is just as loner. And then
the worst part is, is that one side gets into one batch of
laundry and the other side gets into another batch of laundry.
And for some reason,
the other out of sync, they're out of sync, they're out of sync
because one
of them is soaked up some colour from one of the batches and you
hold the two of them up. They don't even look the same
anymore. It's like, you know, this is a dilemma of modern
life. Yeah,
fuck I hate it.
No, really, I wish I could just have all the same socks and it
would make any difference.
Oh, you know that you can see that? Just by gold toes. So
anyway, I was thinking about that. And I did that you can go
to gold toes.com. Of course, if you want to look at the history
of this company look right. And I also found that they had sued
some they're one of the first companies that had sued in 2000
they sued gold dash toes.com and some other derivative name
through icon the internet naming guys. And one one of the first
cases of like, beating a squatter out of the name because
it wasn't theirs to have.
What's the address? It's not gold toes.com
Try gold toe.com Then
go toe.
Can't believe I'm actually doing this. Oh, there you go.
enlighten your feet. Now 25% off.
Now I'm reminded that I don't want to jump into gonna take the
conversation off in this direction because of the
underwear. But the I'm reminded the first time I went to England
was in 1973. And I met somebody on the Dunkirk fairy actually
who I was hanging out with this girl. And she turned me on to
the AI to the concept and then I checked it out from other people
that the place to get underwear specifically. briefs was Marks
and Spencer. Yeah. Which which for some reason is called marks
and sparks as a as a diminutive and I don't have any idea where
that comes from. But anyway, that's what locals call it.
Yeah,
that's what we call it here marks and sparks is it just
rhymes. That's why.
Well, whatever the case it's a huge chain and I don't think the
quality is what it was back in the 70s By the way, but anyway,
they would have you could buy this underwear briefs. and I
were you know, briefs as opposed to boxer shorts.
I information that really didn't need a made,
they're made with Egyptian cotton. And the stuff is
unbelievable. Now over over the years, they've expanded and you
can find some of these briefs that aren't made with Egyptian
cotton, although the Israeli stuff looks pretty good, but
there's stuff I've seen now from all over the place in some of
the bands break that stuff, it's the quality has gone way
downhill. But back in the 70s, when they were the peak of their
quality time, they also had a T shirts that they sold,
specifically, and they don't do this anymore. By the way, you
can't find this any more than I know, have. They had wool T
shirts. Now I bought a couple of them, I still have them, they
they're still you wouldn't even know they're this old. It's, it
was an unbelievable product. I think if the if they had kept
making wool T shirts, the t shirt business, there wouldn't
be a t shirt business because these things, I guess can go
5060 years without wearing out. It's It's an unbelievable
product.
Well, yeah, but you know, I hate to do it to you. But that's all
part of the consumption. Theory, John, we've got to make products
that break early. Hence, T shirts made of right, but
they they The point is, is that they used to make a product that
didn't break at all. And that was no good t shirt. And the
underwear for that matter, you know, some of those that
underwear from that. I mean, it was just amazing. I mean, this
stuff was just last like forever. And now of course, you
know, this stuff is made in India, it's not as good
when, when Ron and I had our previous company, think new
ideas. We were part of the a bunch of agencies that launched
the new Gillette Mach three razor. And they had this huge
briefing at Gillette headquarters, and nearly all the
agencies were there. And you know, they went through the, you
know, they showed that, you know, the pack, the product pack
and all this stuff, you know, stuff that you really don't care
about too much, because we just wanted to build a cool website
was in Flash anime animation. But at one point, someone they
talked about the blades because they had this new diamond
encrusted platinum, something or other. And someone in the, in
the basically this auditorium, one of the people of the agency
said, oh, so we can talk about these blades and how much better
they are and longer they last and was like, boom, complete
silence. And then now the Chief Marketing Officer of Gillette
says, We never, ever, ever talk about how long our blades last.
We have a nice little coloured strip on top, which could be an
indication for you as to when you might want to get a new
blade, but we never ever talk about how long the blades last.
And I know people who have used the same blade for years, I've
never gotten a replacement. And it still kind of works.
Well you know, there's there used to be kind of in the in the
folklore of the consumer world, a belief and I think it's I
think it may be true that when they came out when they come out
with a new razor, whether it's shake or Gillette or whomever
the razor that you get when the new one comes out is so sharp,
that you could use it probably forever and it's the replacement
blades that they start to dull down like someone said they just
turned down the knob and they made they make them less and
less sharp so they don't work as long as to get people to go to
the next new new razor. So I generally only buy with you I
usually buy complete replacements so I buy the razor
with a couple of blades brand new, and I believe I could be
wrong, but I believe that those blades and that razor brand new
are going to last longer than buying replacement blades for
any of the razors even though it costs maybe three a couple of
two or three bucks more to get another razor so I end up
throwing a lot of razors out
to what kind of razor Do you what brand What do you use?
i Right now I'm using the Gillette the one with the four
things in that little trimmer deal. It's a five bladed deal
it's got Yeah, it's got you know it's got a million blades
and that's the one that vibrates or do you get the non
vibrating one just seemed kind of creepy to me.
I didn't get it works for me. I really think there's a different
vibrator. John, that's my job and who's making the jokes
around here. Ah, dammit.
This is my take well up or English version. Matthew Pugin
calling from Slovenia. I'm looking to BSE and no agenda and
the last time you had no agenda with John C. Dvorak. You made me
really love. Actually he did. He was commenting about Slovenia
and how we eat shitload of horses here. And actually it's
true to certain extent, and where we eat a lot of it and
yes, we don't talk a lot about it. Unless I'm purchase such as
yours. Know that each city has have sort of a fast food thing
that you go after clubbing like late Saturday night early Sunday
morning like the bar or something. While in Ljubljana,
the capital of Slovenia, we have a thing called Hot horse. And
it's actually the thing where all the clovers end up at 567
AM. And you guessed from the name what they're serving hot
horse. Anyway 31
I loved it hot horse. There's an actual fast food joint called
hot hot horse where they sell horse meat
in there and they said to me, Hey, John, we're gonna go club
and then afterwards we're gonna get some hot whores. Oh,
you misunderstood.
Yeah, now you're talking baby.
So I was a little surprised and dismayed. So the other the other
thing I want to mention about Slovenia since we have the one
listener, and I find that I find this to be kind of interesting
and actually Slovenia in lots of parts of Croatian, most of that,
that Adriatic area. What's notable when you're driving
around the area is the number of chickens that are just out and
about. I guess they don't quite have the same kind of predators
out there that we might have here. But it's interesting to me
that they have all these chickens that we have chickens
up in Washington, and we've actually had chickens in the bay
area you can have chickens legally, and you chicken eggs
that are made from chickens are just roaming around the yard are
astonishingly delicious, and they taste like a real egg. And
it's amazing chickens can crank out this many A's but it seems
to me that the Slovenians in particular must eat a lot of
eggs because those chickens they all they're all around but then
they obviously go home to roost at night and then they lay eggs
all over the place I would think and but it's just I thought it
was just cool to just see nothing but everybody's chickens
there's no fences around a lot of their places at all and it
just chickens everywhere you drive along the road to be
chickens everywhere it's it's pretty funny.
Well, I've never been to Slovenia but we'd love it
certainly sounds like a good place to go for chickens in
horse
the horse yeah but the actually where what they have there
that's pretty astonishing is pastries. I don't think there's
a
What were you doing in Slovenia? John? What how were you there?
Yeah, I went to I've actually been through Slovenia a few
times because I write for bug magazine and Croatia for one
thing and so that's on the other side of Slovenia so you really
can't get there on the train without going through Slovenia.
And but the first time I went there was when PC Magazine had a
licensee in Slovenia because the guys in Croatia had lost a
licence in PC Magazine sold at this publishing company in
Slovenia and I went there for the party that they were rolling
out and so I got to you know, kind of party as it were in
Slovenia with a hot host. Meanwhile, of course because of
that the bug magazine could hire me because there was no
licencing in Croatian so I ended up getting kind of another gig
there so meanwhile, I've made pretty good friends and Croatia
is another place that people want to go to a vacation just a
dream come true vacations by Wow That country is unbelievable.
I've heard that and actually we're thinking of going to
Turkey next time next time
to Turkey Turkey is getting a little rough it seems to me
really although For you it might not be so much there is a an
Istanbul there's a four seasons
as long as there's a four seasons and marks and sparks
nearby we're set not a problem.
So you could go to the Four Seasons and kind of enjoy it
from that perspective.
I don't know I don't I don't know when either
way you're gonna buy a couple rugs we'll get ready.
No, no, no, I won't buy why we went to a rack same thing. I
didn't buy any rugs. They got plenty of them for sale.
Yeah, no, they got tonnes of them for sale. I bought two rugs
when I was in Turkey. And what was interesting to buy and by
the way the rug salesmen follow you over here that's how
aggressive they are. They literally they follow you they
write I get called once a year from one of the rug companies
over the turkey that they did come into the US they got an out
they got to store house somewhere in outside of Beverly
Hills and they drive a truck around to all their customers.
And they pass you to buy more rugs some unbelievable Bobby
Reggie and need crazy. It's pretty funny. But the weird
thing is that they can fold these rugs up into them and put
them in this weird little suitcases that you can carry on
the plane because that's the way you want to ship. Do you want to
bring the rug back by hand? Carry on? Oh, man,
you know that you're just asking for trouble with today's
security measures.
You check it check luggage.
Yeah. So you okay, I have a problem. Okay, well,
maybe I will. I mean, I can't
wait by the way. Monday is my time again.
Oh, yeah, right. You're going The back. So you're gonna go
through another process, but you're coming into San Francisco
again, right?
Yeah. Which is always the easier airport, but you know, I'm gonna
get stopped, you're gonna get the W or the M or whatever the
hell it is.
Yeah, well, why don't you not go to San Francisco? Once you're
flying to LA and then come up? There? Thanks. So
we're going to a website,
I think a website describing the different airport entry
procedures. That's actually not a bad idea. Yeah, and it would
tell people what to avoid. And you know, it'd be nice if you
could serve Tisha Slee take pictures of people, but you
know, they throw you out if you do that. But I was always told
by rule, do not go to the woman customs officer, or passport
officer. Just don't do it never go to the woman.
There aren't that many in San Francisco. I think it's mainly
guys, and maybe one or two women. But I think it's all
guys.
Yeah, I think San Francisco is not at issue. But there's some
places where there's quite a few women. And then you the rule is
do not go to the women. And the reason is, because they they go
by the book more than the men do.
That sounds pretty, pretty. That's a pretty generous
statement.
I'm just telling you what I'm told. I don't necessarily agree
with it. Okay. You don't go to the women. Your reliability is
on the safe side. All right. So I got my stuff out of the way
got the chicken story, I needed to get that out of the way. That
was important.
I didn't get to do my top 40 thing again.
You mean the voice? Yeah, that's all right. I
don't want to do the voice. Because when you hear this show,
you're gonna hear how should you're going to hear how shitty
this sounds. And it's just, it's pissing me off. I can't
concentrate. I can't even concentrate on doing the show.
Because I'm hearing all this crackling. And I don't know
where it's coming from. And I don't understand it. And it's,
why did you change your gear? Because I'm tired of having to
have a second, like two laptops, one to work on, which is the Mac
and then the only thing that was really reliable up until now was
CASP. blaster, and I had to have a secondary, you know, like
windows? Yeah, I know, I can run parallels or bootcamp or all
that crap. I just wanted it all in one and I wanted you know, I
wanted something where the processing is in the computer
cast blaster doesn't have that. You have to, you know, there's
no, there's no digital processing. For this very
reason, of course, because it always starts to mysteriously
Android. It could also be the hard drive. You know, Mac hard
drives can get sick if you use really big files a lot.
So you're telling me you're doing this? This is the first
time we've done no agenda on a Mac?
No, no, no, we did it last time.
But no, what's changed? I don't
know. It's that's a big, big mystery. And it's, it's it's
stupefying.
Have you had an upgrade? Because Apple had a couple of upgrades,
like notice last week? Oh, that's
a good point. John. Fuck. There was this it was this week? I
think. So So Oh, dude. Well, that's it, then. How do I roll
back? How do I roll back and update? I don't I don't think I
can. You could do it on Windows, you can roll back. Yeah. If
you're John C. Dvorak, you can
No, no, anyone can just it's designed in?
Well, I guess, I guess I could go to my Time Machine Backup and
Restore. But that seems like that's going to be out that
would be a whole week.
I wonder if that actually works to that extreme where it
actually takes and read and takes the operating system and
backs it up? I don't think so. But what's
crazy, John is I just did the daily source code. And I
everything was completely tuned and tweaked and it was all
perfect. And then we start doing the show and it's all messed up.
I don't get it.
Maybe the daily source code contaminated the machine.
Now I'm seeing if it's because I added you I'm seeing if that's
it, but now daily source code contaminate the machine. Fuck
you.
That took you a while?
Yeah. Wow. That's how distracted I am. This is really bugging
God.
Why don't we put a stopwatch on? Yeah.
All right. So I'm gonna try and do cranky geeks with you on
Wednesday. Is that the deal for this week?
I would hope so. Yeah, that'd be good. Because we're gonna have
Leo currently scheduled and you should be on and that would
kind of be a fun show. Yeah. And I
don't read the memo and don't read the news.
i Oh, what do you mean, I always come prepared. I'll read the
memo.
Well, you're the only one because I don't so it's
so Sebastian Sebastian is always on the show, right?
Yes, he's the He's the number one go to guy. Okay. Cool. This
shows a interesting structure for people who watch it. I
designed it specifically why I didn't completely design it from
scratch but I designed it to have less people because I've
always felt that uh, one of these types of talk shows that
have a host and for people to for half an hour. One person
never gets to say anything right. And you know, and then
and it's also causes a weird day. namak because it's kind of
unbalanced. And so you don't get a free flow of information when
you only have three people. You get a year the banter can be a
lot more
aggressive. And you've got a shell because Sebastian is
essentially a shill. But the great
The great thing is I really only have two people, because
Sebastian isn't really on the show. He's the shill, sidekick,
and the go to guy and what it amount which is that which is
the Tweak on the on this model, because and what makes it
interesting as a tweak is that if you have two guests that are
just duds, I've never actually had to complete duds, but I've
had two questionable guests, Sebastian can literally and
myself can carry the whole show. And he can do it and he knows
when to do it. And when you have two people that are extremely
talkative, Sebastian knows to back off and let these guys go
after each other or whatever they're doing. So they so they
have that one, you know, so essentially, it's a two man
show. A presenter which would be me, and then essentially a co
host, who's who appears to be a guest. He's not really a guest.
He's a co host, but he's presented as a guest and so you
have this unusual model
when you ruin it for me now the show's not gonna be any more fun
now that I know how it works. I don't want to be on it now screw
that Sebastian the show I'll say Hey, John. Thanks. It's great to
be on crack eats Leo. Good to see you. Hey, Sebastian. The
shill. Yeah. Hey, how you doing man?
Well, you know every show has has an underlying model that
makes it work. I mean, the show that we're doing here no agenda.
The model is there is no model. But that's unusual. And that
only works with a couple of blowhards like ourselves, who
can like yakking away from about stupid stuff? Well
speak for yourself. You're the one that's been yakking
throughout the entire show. I can't get a word in edgewise.
Yeah, well, I'm just because you're sitting there obsessing
with your crappy rig there that you ruin.
It's true. I ruined I just tried to carry a carrier here. There
was some there was some guy that called in and said you could set
this up on Windows. He did have the setup, including the virtual
video cables. Yeah, I'll send it to you. I gotta dig it. Well, he
went on. No, I
didn't. So you too can have all this aggravation. I just want
you to someone to share it with.
I'll be doing on Windows. It won't be aggravating. What
does it do it? Does Leo have a whole studio he has a whole
professional studio, right? He just plugs in Skype into his
existing setup, I guess. Have you ever seen it?
I you know, I have to go up there. Because he owes me lunch.
He's been promising to take me to this two star Michelin place
up in Healdsburg. And I've been wanting to go up there. And
because this is apparently one of the best restaurants in
California, but it's a little out of the way. And so I want to
go up there and in the process, I want to see the studio and
take some pictures of and see what it is he is doing because I
think he has a I think it's got a Yeah, he's got a professional
studio with a lot of gear.
We'll see. That's for some reason. I've always wanted to
just have it all contained in one box. That's just you know, I
could build a whole studio here but I don't I just want a little
fucking box. I just want it to work. We've got all this audio
is the last thing that people always think about and
everything these days they don't give a shit. A lot of audio is
bad. And Apple's got some good things going on inside with
their virtual devices and aggregate devices and all that
but still it's it's it's just not it's not enough horsepower
going towards it. I don't know it should be able to tweak that
I just want it all to work in one portable man under my arm
wherever I am want to have the same setup, same sound,
everything configured. So I don't have to be like Leo
stuck at home.
Roger McGuane has something like that because he's got one. I
think he's using a laptop, Toshiba or something? I'm not
sure maybe he's moved to a Mac. But he has a rig like that that
he and I think the X rocker Billy, whatever is the bill. I
don't feel like they have these rigs. I know Rogers has got like
he's got got a Roger has this laptop was it with a little
built in mixer and he takes a microphone.
But I've made a study, I've made a study of this, John, what all
of these things right? You've got these USB microphones and
USB direct in boxes and everything, all of them, you
have to monitor. So if you're recording just analogue audio,
something coming out of your mouth or an analogue instrument,
it's the monitoring of it always occurs before it goes into the
software. So you're basically hearing an unprocessed signal,
and then on the mix. And sometimes even because there's
delay, these programmes have special digital delays built in
so it'll sync up because you were basically singing or
playing your acoustic guitar along with a track and it was
recorded like three milliseconds later than what you're actually
hearing. So there's all these tricks and it works great for
producing music, but when you actually want to process what
you're saying at this very moment and Listen to the process
signal without a delay, which makes you talk funny. It almost
can't be done. I mean, I'm right on the edge of making it happen
and for some reason that worked earlier today, and now it
doesn't and it's like Milla, millimetres of CPU usage make
all the difference and I just can't figure it out. So there is
no one set up for this. It's just not set up. No one's ever
really thought about what it will really take to make all of
it work. Okay, I know you're sad. I know you're sad for me.
So you're I'm glad you got that out of your chest.
Hey, was there anything from the from the Barcelona conference?
Conference was anything anything good?
Well, there was one piece of news that I report on tech five
dot pod show.com figure get some plugs in there. Apparently,
Motorola was such a big disappointment that the European
presses rag on them cease endlessly really. They had
nothing this is not a good situation Motorola for some
unknown reasons just seem to fallen off the you know, they
had Xander came in there and took credit for the razor. But
it looks like that was on the books before he got there and
then he couldn't do anything there your next son guy, and
then they fired him and gave him like 100 million bucks to go
away which is good work if you can get it. And they've now
there just seemed to be a rudderless ship.
Where did wasn't the history of Motorola and once they car
radios, no walkie talkie Oh
roll. I was rolling radio. They put me I think they made the
first car radio. And it may it may prove it. They may have even
done a record player or something like that. Before
that. I know there were these we're talking about in the 20s
and 30s. That's how they got started as a radio moto moto
moto. Rolla Well, Victrola, you know Victrola Motorola get it
right now, you know, I guess it's kind of anyone's gamble as
to where it's gonna go and what people want. I'm still carrying
around multiple devices. You know, they had it with the razor
it was it was a fashion statement. And it actually
brought back the clamshell handsets. Because those were
really popular for a while in like the mid 90s. And then you
know what, everyone's lid started flipping off, and you're
the speaker would break and it was all kinds of everyone's
like,
aren't they the ones they pioneer to popularise it with
the start tag, Star
tack, that's the one Yep, the little star tag with the pullout
antenna.
And everybody had everyone who had one, when they first came
out, they always show them off to everybody, it was a people
would gather around you if you had one of these things. And
then they you know, they kind of modified and shrunk and shrunk
and then they made one I remember this because I was
doing the that show, I was working for Tech TV at the time.
And one of the guy was a guest on my silicon spin show. And he
came in with the newest version of the star tack which
microtasks.
Yeah, it was like a
little, it was like the size of a, I don't even know like if it
is small, it was at the size of a small cigarette about the size
of a Zippo lighter, only not as wide. And it was just a little
bitty thing. And he opened it up. And he would you could dial
on it and the whole thing and then you button you hold it up,
you look like an idiot holding this little video to your ear.
It was smaller than the typical Bluetooth thing that you stick
in your area. Right. And that was like somehow mark the end of
an era because that was like That was so stupid.
Well, Nokia had one of their own at the time, which was also it
was imagined like the, you know, the classic Nokia, like the 5350
or whatever it is, you know, the very classic robust Nokia that
everyone had, you could you could drive a truck over and
nothing would happen. So they shrunk that down to the same
size as the Microtech. I think it came a couple of years later
actually. And weighed nothing. You could literally you could
stick it into the into that weird pocket that you have on
your on your on your pants, on your trousers, that little
pocket on the right hand side that holds quarters. Yeah, that
one, you could stick it in there literally. And any right and it
was, you know, for weight and stuff. It was great because it
you know, it was almost actually I remember I had that one, but I
gave it up for the matrix phone because that was the next one
that you had to have. Remember the one they had in the matrix
with the with the mouthpiece that slid down that popped down
at the press? Right? I remember that. Yeah. So we all had to
have that one. And anyway, so it was years later the razor came
out which is just a throwback. I don't know, man. It's designed,
you know, look at look at the iPhone. I mean, good, bad,
indifferent. You can't deny that the concept and the design and
and a lot of what it's doing is just radically different than
what everyone else has.
Yeah, but people are now moaning about it. Really? Yeah, I mean,
I just did the cranky geek show this last week. And Stan had
Larry maggot on who's a commentator for CBS. And he was
a local radio guy or something. And he all he did was complained
bitterly about the thing. And he mainly talked about, I guess,
part of the town where he lives, about to lousy the fact that you
couldn't get a signal, which we talked about before on this
show. And so I pulled out my Nokia, the one I have that Pato
loaned me, which has the exact same service he has on the
iPhone, and we booted him. And we looked and I had a bar and a
half, because we were in the studio, so you can't get a
signal in there. I had a bar and a half, he couldn't get a signal
at all.
Now, that's, well, that's just the exact same service minor
inconvenience. A lot of a lot of the stuff is really good now,
but a lot of the others, I mean, they can fix that. They'll
figure that out. We know we know that they missed out
you get I don't you know, they got that metal case, I don't
think helps.
Well, that no, we went through this John, there's a little
plastic bit in the metal casing where the antenna is supposed to
be able to transmit receive through the plastic bit, but
it's just the design thing. They'll figure that out. They
know they fix that. And once that's working once they have
the battery life up to a normal person's work work day in Yeah,
and then they get their 3g or wi max or whatever they're going to
put into it. It'll be great. Now,
yeah, but then it'll be dated. Now. Let's, which reminds me, I
dated phones. If anyone gets a chance, go to the register and
look up Andrew or Loski is coverage of this phone
conference, the world phone, whatever that gets called Andrew
or Loski. Andrew or Loski. He does a very funny, I am going to
give the story away. But it's just worth reading from the
structural perspective. He does this product review of the Nokia
phone that is the absolute best phone. You know, she says at the
conference and look at this phone that Nokia has and he
shows a sight picture of it shows and he talks about the
battery life is battery life is like a month. And it Talktime is
like you know, a week and it's got all these characteristics
and features and everything. And then he reminds us that this was
a 1995 phone that they don't make anymore. He was actually
quite it's quite a funny article.
So I was just googled him and comic strip blogger. You know,
my my superfan or buddy, yeah, he he has a page on on Andrew.
Feel like this? Yeah, sure. Andrew biography of
Andrew or Loski. He is a citizen of the UK, who now lives in San
Francisco, USA, ancestors of Andrew Loski were Polish
citizens who stayed in the UK after World War Two, because
Poland was then occupied by the Soviet Union. And some polls
didn't want to live under Soviet occupation and stayed in the
West. Now that he says he works for the register, the register
is a dirty tabloid. And it shows in many ways they are
publishing, for example, without permission emails that were
intended as private. And also they are publishing anonymous
emails that contain offensive content, even if information
from these anonymous emails is not confirmed as a lie. Okay. Go
see as be.
Yeah, it sounds like a pretty accurate description. That
sounds like Loski lives in London. But that's another
story. Well, I
this could be an old page could be
a comic strip blogger.
So what else we got on a list? Um, we talked about the chickens
and the marks and sparks.
Yeah, we talked about. Sharon, you when you hear this show,
you're gonna understand why I'm so distracted. You're just
hearing yourself fine. You have no idea what's going on. That
sucks.
There was a thing in the news that was interesting to date,
but the Danish ISP that just says screw you guys about Pirate
Bay. We're not going to do anything about it. I missed
that. What was that? Is that in the news over there at all?
No, that, you know, the news hears about the three strikes
you're out rule. You heard about that, right. You must have
there's no Tell me. Oh, there's a green paper, which is kind of
a a bill being written. So it's, I think a trial balloon
essentially, that the government would would require UK ISPs to
monitor everyone's traffic. If you it's a three strikes, you're
out. So if they're caught downloading a file, illegally is
kind of the way they're paraphrasing it the first time.
Right, right. No, actually, I've talked about this on tech five.
Okay. I didn't know it's called that though.
Well, of course, it's the you know, in a country that knows
nothing about baseball and everything about cricket. Of
course they call it the three strikes. You're out rule. Makes
sense.
So three strikes and you're out.
They don't they don't notice they don't play baseball over
here. Dude. I have to explain to people all the time, say
baseball. How does that work? Okay. If you can explain cricket
to me, I can explain baseball.
Yeah, cricket Wow.
Now forget it. You can't you can't explain it.
No, it's it does the game does I think they make the rules up as
they go along.
Seems like it's like time. That's it. We'll see. ultomiris
has a couple of
really good players and they just let him hit all day. Yeah.
And I mean, there's like it was baseball, they'd have very
bonds, just doing all the batting for three
days in a row
or a week depends on how many hotdogs they can sell.
Nothing else is going on here. I mean, it's stuff I talk about on
a daily source code. People hate it when I cross post as it were,
from one show to oh, you know, I don't do that kind of thing that
you do all the time, man. You're always talking about oh, I
mentioned that on tech five. Surely you've heard of me, the
the prognosticator of all things tech, John C. Dvorak. You can
make a career out of this man.
You let it just plugging myself
talking shit and plugging into me kind of already on the way
but I think I've validated that concept by doing the show with
you.
spare time nobody writes it. I mean, nobody reads it. There's a
whole generation of people coming up that listen to me. And
they don't even know I'm a writer. It's just an identity is
a good market and they're good people. And they want to hear
this stuff. So I figured I'm gonna have to do you know dual
purpose. I've never really uh, you know, I was I took
broadcasting in school. I mean, it's not like I haven't been
doing this for a long time so I can do it. But I'm not really
cut out for it. I'm, I'm a writer. Basically. I'm not a
good looking guy. I don't present myself I'm grumpy. It
just like not smiling all the time. Like you need to do on
television to really do the job right?
Or wait, here comes your you're not good for like a morning zoo
format.
You like you would?
Hey, good morning, John C. Dvorak. Here. We got the Palo
Alto morning zoo, everybody. Yeah, so I'm like,
I could do that. I can do a kind of a gag voice. But I can't
sustain it. You could probably go out for hours. Let's hear
your gag voice. I just I'm not going to do it. Because I'm just
not. I mean, I can't I've not just
now come on Jarrah gag radio.
Worked on it first.
Good morning, San Francisco city by the bay. Hey, it's ACC here
on the T to E tip. We've got Johnny C. Dvorak. He's standing
by he's gonna give us a little bit of his prognosticating.
John, see, where's that voice of yours? Come on? No.
No, no.
Okay. I tried.
I just you know, it's one of those things. I can click into
it. It's like my Indian voice. Oh, please. Put myself into it.
Don't in another voice. Don't do the Indian voice will get hate.
You know, the Indian voice. I get notes about it. Because?
Because people think, well, I don't even don't even for some
reason that I'm not doing a voice mood. That's okay. If I
was into doing the voice, I would do it now like this. Now,
let me tell you something. Now I have talked about this guy
before. Now he talks like this. And I get a lot of complaints
about doing this first, because it's somehow it's insulting to
someone. But I'm not absolutely sure who. And I've said this and
I'll say it again. This is the number one accent for speaking
the English. There is no other there are more people that talk
like this than talk like anybody else, including a southern guy.
And I've heard this other than guys, and I can understand a
word they say. So I can do this. I can also do a Bombay voice,
which is a little different. And I can tell I'm going to talk
like now there's a guy who talks funny if he asked me but now I
could get criticised for doing that, that that Indian voice.
But I won't get criticised for doing this. This kind of generic
bullshit southern voices really doesn't come from anywhere. So a
little bit of Texas, although without the screeching. And it's
a little bit of a little bit of Georgia, maybe maybe the Alabama
it's hard to say I've been around him most of the South. So
I can. But I won't get criticised for this voice. And I
won't get criticised from a French guy, Brit, Russian or
anybody else, but that that Indian guy gets me in trouble.
Oh, you were very close to George Bush there when you did
your southern thing that was pretty good. You should try
that. Just trying to get a George Bush together.
Well, you know, there's a Texas accent that I've always loved. I
got Chuck Schumer's cheat. And protections are structured from
executive tops. They talk to the chief and that kind of saying
that you're getting closer.
It's too bad. My wife is downloading Fashion TV off of
YouTube again.
While we're doing that I have I have actually talked to him when
I picked up on the guys talking through their teeth when I met
John Roach, who was the CEO of RadioShack for years on end.
Yeah. And I went to his office, beautiful place. He had a huge
office with a gentleman that seems once had been 50 feet
high. And he talked to history. And and I started realising that
text since exact He lives in Texas and I will be replaced by
Josh. And I'm not sure why. They suddenly seemed like mumbling if
he asked me
You're pretty good now you got some you got some. You got some
chops there with the accent that was all right. Yeah, can you do
New Yorker?
You know I can, but I'm not so good at it that I feel
comfortable doing it until I get it down. It's one of those
things I can get a certain accent you can do like the DJ.
Well, you can go in,
excuse me. It took years of practice to get that voice.
Okay. I mean, it's not it's not just like a thing you can just
lock into. I mean, that's real talent at work. Okay.
So, but anyway, I've done the Indian accent with some Indians,
and they, you know, they look at me funny.
If you did it with some Indians, you're kidding me?
Oh, yeah. No, I have done it that way. They say to me, let me
hit this action. So no.
And let me guess. And let me guess it was like crickets after
you were done. Right? They were like,
no, actually, one of the guys gave me a comment. He said, You
know, he told me where the exit was kind of from. And I should
say, and I should reference it. When he says, you know, that
sounds a little and he told me something, Eric. And I think if
I changed it, maybe it'd be less offensive. I said it was a
Pakistani accent. Oh, yeah. Oh, that'll fly. If you come over
here and do that. That will result in the breakthrough.
Right? Get get into any taxi cab please. And just and just say,
Oh, here's my Pakistani accent
that went out. So anyway, but I do make the remark that that is
probably the number one and I listened. Watch Indian TV. And I
would have to say they'll talk like that. And I think that is
the top accent if we're doing a numbers game. I think more
people speak English with that rhythm than they do with any
other. Yeah, so I don't see how it could be offensive.
Well, because we're all politically correct. And we're
all stupid that way. That's why
I think it's going to be the way we're all going to be talking.
That's my theory. I'm
just getting into it for the inevitable. We'll have to we'll
have
we're all speaking in the net with an Indian accent. Why not?
It's actually kind of got a nice ring to it and makes you sound
very safe. Okay,
but here's my gauge for it. Okay, so if you're making love
right? How could that accent just doesn't fly you know? It
just doesn't sound right. It's not it's like oh yes baby will
give it to me right Dad? or Yes, but or please put your finger on
that offers really quickly. I like it very much. I mean, you
know, it just doesn't quite fit.
I don't know. Maybe they will. I mean, look at the music that
they listen to it. That screeching
dude Desi I love Desi anything. I can't get enough of it. Are
you kidding me? I love that.
No, you don't? Yeah, I
do. I do. demography the modern? Yeah, absolutely. The modern day
Desi. That's D S i It's it's I mean, it's got a great groove.
It's got they're in a really funky harmonies and you know,
stuff that just isn't even in our musical vocabulary.
Literally. No, I dig it in and the all the kids are dancing to
a John.
Please. So by the way, I should mention this when I do that
Indian accent, my daughter's around. She thinks I'm an idiot.
And she says it doesn't sound anything at all, like an Indian.
Now I should get my daughter up here. She's she's in home yet.
She's she's, she has school vacations. She's working. But
she's really good. Next time we do a show on a weekend and I'm
home. So that could be like in 2010. I'll ask her to come up
and do a couple of rocks and she does. She actually speaks Dutch
and Flemish with a complete accent she speaks American
English English English but she could do all sub accents
Australian she's really good at
like the difference between the Australian and the British
accent and Australian
and there's Australian and New Zealand which is yet again
subtle, subtle, be interested
in listening to her try to define those two because that's
that's an another fascinating difference because every once in
a while you run into some guy you know, somewhere especially
around here that San Francisco Bay Area where all these
travellers are and you hear a guy and you go oh that's that's
an Australian and you know and you say you are from Australia
right
and you can pick them off more
well if he's from New Zealand, he's not too pleased. But
exactly that's my point. And generally speaking, you don't
run into too many New Zealanders because they really, I don't
think many of them get off the islands.
You Can I fly with a with a kiwi guy who runs our Office here is
a kiwi Maitland. Now there's lots of them. They're infesting
the world.
Maybe they don't admit it when they're over here, but possible,
or they
just say Yeah, well, I'm from Australia mate. Just easier
because if you're not from what you know when someone says hey,
you Hey, hey, you are you from Australia and If the guy says
no, I'm from New Zealand is like, Oh, well I like Australia
because that's where that that that that crocodile guy was
from. And you got that other that that Dundee fella
and New Zealand as your American accent. Yeah. So I think there
may be some truth to the fact that most people in the United
States don't even know where New Zealand is. And these guys are
sort of explaining it.
But they also have no national heroes. You know, Australia.
We've got Mel Gibson. We've got your Olivia Newton John. We've
got Come on, help me out here. Nicole Kidman. We've gotten
out dandy. We got to crocodile. Oh, actually, there's a whole
bunch. There's a whole bunch of models. Dude, I mean, there's
beautiful people when I was married to Stuart for a while.
What's your name? Rachel. Rachel Hunter,
Rachel Hunter, chico. Rachel. She's still married to Rod.
There's more though. Well, Richard, what's his name?
Murdoch is from Australia. Of course. He's an American now.
Right and Carrie Parker who people know less of who's
probably more powerful.
Carrie Parker.
Carrie Parker. Yeah, he's the other here's the other Murdock.
Oh, that's right. The two sons have now started a venture
together. I think yeah,
they're right. He's notorious gambler. He comes to Vegas. And
there's lots of stories about him going into Vegas and
Isn't he dead? I thought he died I don't know maybe he did.
Let's look him up. He wouldn't it wouldn't have been covered in
American news if he did so how would I know
let's look it up Carrie Parker information about Carrie Parker
is it with an eye or with a why?
It's it's I think he's a man so it probably be with a Y who
you don't know. UK glamour model Carrie Parker. It's not with an
eye which is kind of the porn spelling.
Yeah, there's always a variation.
rusty nails and Carrie Parker now for the first time in a
world I can't find
anything John. Figures you're not looking it's just me looking
here? Yeah, because
I don't want to kill the hell what am I my your Google bitch.
Come on. You are the let's see. Okay.
I can't find you brought it up. You should find it
all right. All right. All right. All right. All right.
Here we go. Australia's 200
Here's my Google Search. This should find it. Kerry Packer.
Oh, both idiots. Kerry Packer I'm sending Parker but I typed
in Carrie Parker Australia mogul and got the top thing Carrie
Packard dead. Really? It works very. I'm my wife is actually
better at this than me, but I'm good. Anyway, Kerry Packer dead
Carrie Francis Bowlmor. Packer 68 richest man was chairman of
media company, blah, blah, blah. Let me actually click on it. And
so just reading his summary.
Hey, I just came up with a great new format. Dude. This is a
great idea. You want to hear my IG
died at 68? The world's or he was Australia's richest man.
Yep. So
dude, this is a great format.
Think about 2005
Yeah, no, there you go.
The New York Times will report it next week. So listen to this,
it could be an audio show. It would work. It could be video as
well, but it's a game show. And the game show is you get these
ridiculous questions. And you have to answer them and you can
use any resource you want on the internet. Google any other
search that no one's doing it because it's things like
cheating, right. Next show no agenda. We'll get some
participants on will or maybe have a whole nother
show for that. People like no agenda the way it is.
Yeah, but we have no agenda we can do whatever we want. Can we
oh that's a good
point. Yeah, we can test it. Well then let's get some dancing
girls heck with this other idea.
And we're back to strippers. Okay, lovely.
So yeah, so Kerry Packer, unknown to me three years later,
apparently is dead. Which is kind of young you should send
a card we here in the United States are very sorry to hear
about the passing of carry just found out
we just found out because we don't really follow anything by
by the by the way. I'm trying to get out of Nigeria and if you
could send me $100 million
so we know exactly what Britney Spears is up to but do we know
that Gary Powell is dead? No, no. It's so true. And here I am.
You know the media guy. No, and I don't know, I, you know, I
probably didn't know. And it just for some reason I just
didn't. I just wasn't thinking what your
point is. So Well, man, I'm
thinking his name is Parker for
coffee, it's even worse, that's even worse. I posted the
Wikipedia definition of bread and circuses earlier in the week
on on my weblog, because that's where that's what we're living
in man. We are so in bread and circuses, who gives a shit about
what's going on in the world, as long as we know who's who's in
the top 24 and American Idol. That's all. That's all that
matters.
Well, you know, my, one of my favourite shows in the US, and
he, and I actually don't have like, hours and hours and hours,
it's one of the few things that kind of record and save in a
episodic manner, which is Jay Leno's special that he does once
every couple of weeks, called jaywalking, and you walk in, he
goes into the street, and he's actually it was funny, or, you
know, a few years ago than it is now because now he's trying to
fancy it up. But he would go into the streets, and it would
just walk up to the first he tries to find people that are
like, you know, professors at USC, or teachers in high school,
or even some unit then he also picks up some dingbat students,
and he goes up to his personal say, so where is what country is
Mexico City in? And though no answer, like I've seen this,
I've seen it. The answer will be even more ludicrous than not
knowing where it is, though. Answer. What country is Mexico
City, Indiana? I mean, I swear to God, and it's like, this is
the end is one thing after another. It just astonished
I've seen this, can you name a country that starts with the
letter U. And people are going
How about United States? Like oh, yeah,
that's a good one. But you know, that's all edited. So you know,
you don't know how many
the edited I know, it's some it's phoney and then it's every
once in a while, you know, he's asked a question you yourself as
you watch, it can't answer it. But generally speaking, yeah,
it's edited to death. But the fact that somebody would answer
Indiana as to what country is Mexico City, and it's just I
don't care how edited it is. It's just unbelievable, right?
So funny. Yes, we're a fine bunch, aren't we?
He one of the things he likes to do on that bit is he'll have
pictures of people who have a famous person who have like to
put the President's picture up there and it says, who's this
and they won't identify him. And then they'll put a picture of
Britney Spears or Paris Hilton in there and then laminate, do
that. Does that gag a lot. And it's always the same. Nobody can
recognise anybody except that a small number of overhyped
celebrities.
Hey, man, I'm gonna work on our game show. This is a good idea.
We could be the we could be like the Regis and what's, what's the
what's the new Nash girl?
No, no, Kelly, Kelly.
We could be Regis and Kelly. And we could do our own game show.
Well, my legs are better. So I might as well.
That's true. Not that I would know. So I think it was you
there's a date hasn't possibly now there was something done
like this on a internet tonight, which was a tech TV show. That
was probably the best show that they produced at Tech TV ever
and was killed by Paul Allen personally, because for some
reason, he didn't like somebody on the show. Really, even though
it's yeah, it's weird story. But anyway, they did something like
this, where they did a Google showdown about trying to find as
many of something as they could, but it wasn't quite what your
thing
I think it should just be whoever has the answer the
quickest, you know, so you just throw out a question something
really ridiculous. And then it
has to be done as it has to be done. If you're gonna do it that
way, then it has to be done in a you have to use the game show
format. So you would have three people standing there as though
it was, you know, Jeopardy. Yeah. And with laptops, yeah, or
whatever. And then the question would go out, and then the three
of them would grind away on it. And these would have to
obviously be questions that they just can't answer on the spot.
Oh, so
what you do is you have a set amount of time and then you have
the everyone has their answer written down, and then you
reveal your answer one by one. Is that okay?
No, I was thinking that there would be a race but then I'm
thinking about it could be boring as watching people type
into a machine. There has to be some way of eliminating the
boredom factor. For the viewer. I
think it's gonna go pretty fast. I mean, you know, it took you
What 15 seconds to find the answer to that.
It didn't take long. Well, it's looking at Oh, this is even
funnier. I'm looking at the search. I put in. I typed in
Carrie Pastore occur P A s r k e R Australia mogul and then it
came up with the do you mean Carrie Parker, Australia mogul
and then even without having to click on that it had the carry
part pack are dead at the top. So sometimes screwing up
completely can actually be beneficial. works better because
Google's always looking at for your screw ups and trying to
correct you. Interesting. Yeah, no, I think it'd be fascinating.
Especially if it was combined with a web site that explained
how people were doing the search to get the answer because
there's something about learning how to do searches properly to
get results quick. Yeah, it's kind of I think we have a big
draw in itself. And it's
a real skill. You know, it's a it's a skill that's that we
should be teaching our kids so we could it could be the
spelling bee of the of the of the naughties.
Yeah, no, I agree. I think the kids in school should be
learning how to do elaborate Google searches for obscure
information, Boolean
search, baby Boolean searches, or no one Boolean search 101.
Yeah, how many kids don't know what that means? They don't know
what that if I said it, my daughter doesn't know what that
means. She doesn't know about typing a plus into into Google,
or a minus which minus is even better than a plus often. So you
can omit certain type of keywords from the results.
That's that's the great stuff that you're filtering.
Yeah. There's a lot of little tricks. There's books
that we take for granted man that people know that. People
don't know.
No, it's always amazing to me that people don't you know, I
every once in a while I get a letter from a reader or once in
a while, and John gets a letter, and it goes like this. Dear
John.
I'll have somebody say, you know, do you know how that blog
asked me a question about something about, you know,
a letter through the US Mail? No, I'm
just send me an email, email. I get questions all the time. Like
that. So I get it. Yeah. And there's always some dumb
question. And what I always do is I do a Google search that
they should have done for the Exec. And I don't even do much
more than take what they wanted to know and put it in the Google
box. Then I cut and paste the Google URL that gave me the
answer. And I give them the Google URL. So when they click
on it to get their answer, they see it's a Google page that I
had simply taken their stuff and put it in the Google thing,
which is saying to them, you can't do this.
So here's what I do. I just don't reply.
But I answer all my emails,
or you answer all your emails every single one.
Well, I mean, there's some that gets by email. You have
an empty inbox, or you have an empty inbox guy, you empty it
out.
No, no, I if I'm too busy, sometimes it'll pass over. And
then if I it'll be some some stuff, just be there forever.
I'm always amazed when I do a search on like, I'll look at you
sometimes. Adam Curtis, you were because you'd sent me a note the
other day, so I wanted to see it. So I'll just do a search on
the box, and I find it and it'll be every message you ever sent
me. And then I'll see two or three of them in there that I
never looked at. You know, because they're bored,
or you sent you set them to unread. Do you ever do that? Or
like, I'll set this to unread? And that'll that will make me go
read it again. Which of course never happens.
Yeah, no, I don't even I've already given up on that idea.
So but I'll see a couple now click on it. Oh, that's what he
was talking about the other day.
Thanks for reading. That's nice.
It's not that often just happens if you don't send that much out.
So it doesn't happen to us so much. Well, I've
learned a long time ago, the less you send, the less you
receive.
Yeah, there's there is that all right,
I'm done. I think so.
And my wife has been surfing porn throughout the second half
of the show.
So she's bored. She's very bored.
She wants me all to herself for the weekend. Before I leave her
she knows it's gonna be it's gonna be a while.
I think you should change your flight plans and come in through
Chicago. Yeah,
I don't think so. Coming through Chicago.
It'd be cool. come in through Vancouver. Hit Vancouver, BC and
then come into Seattle from Vancouver from Europe. That
would be interesting.
Why? Just to see if you want to trouble. Yeah, that's no. Want
to do that? Don't maybe you'll get into a lot of trouble this
time.
How about going to Mexico? Yeah, there now you're talking in a
cab? In the truck to Juana in the trunk? Well, no, that is
getting carried away. But I think it'd be cool to fly from
from London to Mexico City. Or know it or someplace in Baja. I
guess you get to Tijuana somehow. Get to Tijuana take a
cab across the border to San Diego and see what the
experience is. Okay, well, if you don't want to do it, let
somebody somebody should do it. It was also being harassed.
Okay, be interesting.
I don't want to do it. I really don't. I just want to get on
with life.
Would be a good story goes to probably put a book around it.
Do you ever get this The application Pub Sub agent quit
unexpectedly. Well, Pub Sub agent, what do you think that
does?
I don't know. Probably we had to rerecord the show. No.
Quick. Let's stop it while it's still good.
All right, sign off. All right. Well,
apologies for the sound quality. I'll work on that for next week.
Coming to you from a dark Friday evening in the United Kingdom.
I'm Adam curry.
And I'm out here in sunny California. I'm John C. Dvorak.
And we'll
talk to you next time, probably with a game show on no agenda.