Tomorrow - The Ultimate Multi-Tool

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Joshua Topolsky is reporting live-ish from the Sherwood News Studios to bring Tomorrow back to you. Joined by co-host Rani Molla, today's episode covers the week's two not-so-surprising, but definitely newsworthy happenings: 2024's Apple Event and first Presidential Debate. So slip off your shoes, let your trad husband have the night off, and file tab bankruptcy for the next 63 minutes. AI Taylor Swift says you won't regret it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, and welcome to tomorrow. I'm your host, Joshua Topolsky. And I'm your other host, Ronnie Mola. And this podcast is back or brand new depending on who you are and where you're coming from. You may or may not know this podcast. I've been doing it on and off for many years, and I launched this new website, Sherwood News, Sherwood.News, if you're interested. And Ronnie and I are building that site together along with a bunch of other super talented people. And we thought, hey, what a perfect place and a perfect time to talk about the sick, weird world of technology and beyond once again. So tomorrow is back and also brand new if you've never listened to it. But yeah, on this podcast, we're going to talk about largely about technology,

but kind of how that intersects with culture and business and money and power, uh, and all of the other things that sound serious and exciting and interesting. And you know, it's, there's a very high that Ronnie and I will go on some kind of tangent unrelated to any of those subjects. Would you agree on that? I mean, those are pretty broad subjects, right? Culture, like everything. But yeah, yeah, it's possible. You don't think we can find anything else that's not in that bucket to go on a tangent about? Oh, we will. Yeah. It was like home building materials.

Oh, that's actually an interesting topic and relates deeply to many of my greatest passions. So it's a busy news week. It's a good week to start to restart a podcast about technology, considering there's been a bunch of very serious tech related stories this week. Right. Apple had its little event. Apple has released a new iPhone. The iPhone 16. 16 and 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. I have to say I experienced something that I don't know if I've ever experienced, but

I forgot the event was going on. I completely didn't pay attention to it while it was happening at all. It might be a sign that I'm, it might be a personal thing. So does that mean you're not going to upgrade to the 16? I got to tell you. Well, so hold on. So anyhow, I mean, I was going to say, like, it may be a sign about me or maybe a sign about Apple. And based on all of the feedback,

what I've seen from people both in our industry and outside of it is there's a real, I think there's a real fatigue setting in on Apple's shtick. The new iPhones, from what I can tell based on everything I've read and seen, now having caught up with the news, obviously, we covered it a bit. We talked about sort of the where Apple is in the in the with their ecosystem and in the larger ecosystem. There's not a lot.

There's like a button new button on the phone, like, like they introduced a new button on the last phone. And I've used it like four times the action button. And now they've introduced another button, which they're not explicitly referring to it as a camera button, but all of the functionality they seem to show was related to using the camera with the button. Right. You could like zoom and switch the f-stop and stuff. I was like, is anyone gonna really... I don't know. I mean, it's a tough sell. I would say though, like, okay, there are new buttons, but like the bigger thing is like what's inside, right? The whole everything runs on Apple intelligence, the AI, like it's supposed to anticipate stuff for you.

Does it though? That's not even out when they released the phone. Apple intelligence isn't even available, I don't think, on day one. And there's some stuff like you can get Chad GPT to do something for you, and you can get Google to do something for you. It's not, I don't know that it looks deeply. I was kind of excited when they announced Apple Intelligence

as this idea of unifying the operating system. Now maybe that stuff will be there on day one. And if it is, that's exciting and potentially interesting. But it's not like they couldn't do that on a previous iPhone. It's just a software update is what we're talking about. It's like it looks like if Siri, like what we've been promised with Siri, actually works. And this is like if the demos are to be believed,

it's going to be able to pull from all your information, your texts, your like the like, if the demos are to believe, be believed like, it's gonna be able to pull from all your different information, your texts, your like the context, your emails, you know, whatever to sort of like make things pop up that you like anticipate your needs and then do things for you. Like that's a big if, but like if it works, it would be pretty cool. I think it would be nice.

It could be cool. I mean, I use Siri sometimes. I'm kind of like, I don't know if you have this feeling. Sometimes when I engage Siri, particularly when I'm in my car, I'm like the combination of like Bluetooth and carplay and Siri's weird delay and like cellular versus Wi Fi. Are you yelling at Siri? I'm like, I hit the button and then I'm like, hey Siri. And then she's like, what do you need?

I'm like, hey Siri. And then she's like, uh-huh. I'm like, hold on a second. It's like we get into some weird thing. The delay is horrible. We're talking over each other. We want to talk to her. Yeah.

If they could solve one issue with Siri, I think it'd be great if they could figure out how to make it respond really well and not like feel like it's talking over me in any situation. So maybe maybe in the new version. I mean, if Siri becomes this like super intelligent, very useful, very like predictive digital assistant where where you and I are we're talking about having lunch, we're like, Oh, we should have lunch on Wednesday.

And then I'm like, hey, Siri, make a reservation at my favorite restaurant for me and Ronnie. And she just does it and calls the restaurant. I mean, whatever the demo is, that would be awesome. But like- Right. I think we were talking about this the other day. Wasn't that like the demo for like Google,

like Google assistant, like 15 years ago, they were like, call a restaurant and it was able to do that a while ago. Our biggest, and I actually have used Google Assistant to do that. Our biggest problem in life, I think we can all agree, our biggest challenge that we need to tackle as Americans and as global citizens

is making a reservation. I think that we know, like when I think about some of the big challenges we have to overcome in the world, I think the biggest one is, can you get me a table at a restaurant and I don't have to do anything. That makes me think about, you know, just like the, the Apple event. It was so like catered toward like, you could just see how affluent and how older like Apple's customers are now, or at least the ones that they're like marketing to, you know, it was just so much like, you know,

let's try that new Nepalese place. Like is all this urban exploring, like let me look up this cool. Like it was, it, I mean, it's not, it seemed geared towards people with a little bit more money and like, a little bit more, maybe a little older, a little more advanced. That was, that's what I wrote about. It was like, they mentioned sleep apnea 12 times. They mentioned like hearing loss, that the new AirPods are gonna double as hearing aids, which is actually pretty cool.

And like, it did all these things that were like so unsexy, but also like pretty kind of useful for like a large segment of a aging population and I for sure Yeah, I mean but Not super sexy. Not like you know, no sleep like sleep apnea I'd I'd importance. I mean, I'm glad they're Looking at you know people's health and you know, the Apple's been very very much on a health Kick you could say and over the like since the watch the Apple's been very, very much on a health kick, you could say,

and over the like since the watch, really, they've been very making a ton of products are health focused. I mean, really, it's funny because I say like health focus, but what they're really doing is like making lots of products that copy the features of other people's products because sure, Apple's big business is not making watches or phones or operating systems. Apple's big business is keeping you trapped inside of its ecosystem. If you use the watch and the phone,

then you're going to get the apps, and you're going to use app purchases, and you're going to probably have Apple's streaming situation. That's the great. That's the best for them. You can never leave the Apple. You wrote about this like a while ago

at the walled garden, right? The walled garden. And I think like the whole Apple intelligence thing, you know, the big, if it works, if it's able to pull in, you know, stuff from my email, if it's able to know so much about me, have all my cards on file, et cetera, and like do it well, like then we're gonna be even more locked in

because like that makes, that's like, you know, AI actually being able to do stuff for you is actually what would make it useful. And you can't do things for you if it doesn't know everything about you and Apple already knows everything about you, so like I think they're primed to make this work more than anyone. No, it's interesting because in technology,

in the world of technology now, we have these like two very intensely competing notions. One is like, the more we know about you and the more we see you do, the more we have your ID and your credit cards and your shopping history and the foods you like and the restaurants you like to go to, whatever, the more we can be a service for you, provide things for you.

And yet, at the same time, everybody's increasingly like, hold on a second, you guys can read my emails and you know what I'm buying. And I don't want to be traffic. Right, it's increasingly like, hold on a second. Like you guys can read my emails and you can, you know what I'm buying and like, I don't want to be trashed. Right, it's a double edged sword, right, yeah. It's more than a double edged sword. It's like a fundamental disagreement

about like what we want to be doing as human beings, right? We're like, I mean, double edged sword is like- You want it to work, but you don't want it to know everything that would make it work. Well, I mean, look, personally, I'm, I don't, I kind of don't care. I mean, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Like when Instagram serves me an ad that's for something that looks like I want I'm like well done like you've done it again

You saw my search history You see what I'm stopping on you see what I'm liking and you've given now I'm your you think that I'm interested in you know, I don't know some kind of weird multi-tool and you're right I do want an expensive multi-tool. Like how did you know? Mine is so broken because all I do is look at stuff that I hate. Oh. So what do you get offered?

What do you get offered? I don't even. A lot of recently, a lot of like, I guess I was watching some TradWife stuff. OK. I don't know why I thought I would like this. TradWife equipment? What does a TradWife need? I think then I, Oh my God, what was one?

I got one that was like little Bible sayings. That was like, in case I tried to do something bad, like a Bible saying would pop up. And I was like, that's nice for someone, not me. But I'm in Kate. Wait, hold on. What do you mean in case you try to do something bad? Oh my God.

This one, I think this is gross, but the, I think the insinuation from the advertisement was the guy in question was going to masturbate, which it said, I know, I knew we were gonna get caught. I wanna hear this, the guy was gonna jerk off. There was like lotion and a tissue box and the guy's like, oh no, I shouldn't do that. And then like, he gets like a Bible quote

from this little app, or it wasn't even an app, maybe it was like, it was ridiculous. I was like, how did I get here? How did the app know that he was going to, you know, uh, or maybe he was just like, wait, I'm, maybe he had to read a card. I don't even know. Or maybe, oh my God, it was like a little player. It would play like Bible. This is insane. So, but this is not for the trad wife. This is for the trad husband. What's the trad? It's in the household. If it's a trad wife, is it trad husband

or is there a different name for them? Do they have their own special name? That's just a man. A man, okay. Just a regular cookie cutter. Good old fashioned man. Good old fashioned American man. Okay, so it's an anti-masturbation Bible quote

is what you're saying. God's like, don't do that. I'd be very disappointed. Yeah, exactly. And then I write my wrong Bible quote is what you're saying. God's like, don't do that. I'd be very disappointed. Exactly. And then I write my wrong because I've heard this beautiful visionary Bible quote. It's like a picture of Jesus crying and they're like, all right, okay, fine.

And I don't know how I ended up on this part of the internet but that's where I am. This is your ad that you're getting. The ad is delivered to you. Okay. Yeah. So mine's broken. I would like a multi-tool.

Okay. Well, all you gotta do is look at multi tools and then like look at gadgets and like like them. And then eventually it'll start to a multi tool serve you the right stuff. Do you have one right there? You've got a multi tool you're looking to upgrade. That is not tradwife of you. The tradwife is not supposed to have any tools at all,

except unless it's for cooking. That's like three multi tools. I love a multi tool. I got to tell you, every time I see one, I'm like, I don't need one. I have like four or five. I have one on my key chain that's little. I have like three in a toolbox. That's going to come in handy with that little thing on your two keys. You can talk.

You can talk all the smack you want about it, but it is more. I cannot tell you how many times somebody's been like, I need a knife or I need a bottle opener, I need a screwdriver. And I'm like, guess what? And you're like a hero coming out with every, I'm an everyday carry guy. I've got exactly what they need.

I'm delivering the goods there. No, that's good. That's super, I always have a multi-tool too. I mean, I'm like love bogs. I'm wowing people. But hold on, wait a second. Weool too. I mean, in my glove box. I'm wowing people. But hold on, wait a second. We were talking about, oh, Apple. We're talking about Apple.

Oh yeah, so Apple, iPhone. The iPhone is the ultimate multi-tool if the new Siri works. It does everything. You like how I brought that full circle? That was really, really good. But as a professional. I was thinking, you've shamed me into this.

I'm gonna actually buy a new iPhone because I have like the world's really good, but I was thinking, you've shamed me into this, I'm gonna actually buy a new iPhone because I have like the world's oldest iPhone, especially for like a tech reporter. Like you, I think you heard which model it was and like laughed at me. It's like the 12, 13 or something? Oh no, 12. 12?

I had the 11, that was an upgrade. I actually like someone gave me the 12 because they were getting rid of it. I don't, I mean, as a person who is, I am very, very sure that I will be skipping this upgrade, this iPhone upgrade. And I almost never do because I'm a sick consumer and I can't help myself.

But I have to say, having looked at everything that they announced, there was very little there. One, it's like a lot of it is software update stuff, right? Like, and I don't think they're gonna. So the titanium didn't do it for you though? I don't know what they're gonna keep. Not really. I don't know what they're gonna gatekeep from like the 15 pro.

You know, if I bought an iPhone last year, which I did, do I not get Apple intelligence? Or they just like, we can't do it. No, you do with the 15. Right. So my, my, the button, I'm already got an extra, I've already got an extra button I'm not using, you know, like I have, they added a new button last year and I'm not using it.

Why would I use the new extra button? Um, I saw, I've seen numerous entertaining take talks about this, but one, I saw one of a guy doing like a translation of the iPhone announcement and he's like, you know, it's like a clip of Tim Cook talking about the button. And then he's like, translation, we took the button away and now we brought a button back to make it seem like it's new. And I was like, yes, I don't want to be like that guy, but it is really

one of those situations where they're like, Hey, wouldn't a button be useful? It's like, yeah, you used to have buttons on this. So many buttons, phones, you speak covered in buttons, buttons, buttons, man. Thank God. Steve jobs isn't around to see this. Cause apparently he hated buttons. He would wear zip up shirts. He would, uh, he wouldn't do the top button on his pants. Wouldn't type on a keyboard, I'm told. But you not getting a new one is kind of like, that's typical. I was looking at some data from SERP, which is like a, this,

they have this long running survey on, on people who are going to buy iPhones and like the vast majority of people who are going to get a new iPhone, do it because like their old one is either like non-functional or like, you know, like really slow or the batteries, whatever, or like broken or lost. Yeah. Yeah. That's like 75%. Like no one does it for new features. Like no one's like, ooh, a button. I'm going to get a new phone. Here's $1,200. You know? Right. I mean, people do. It's, it must be a small segment. I mean, I've certainly been not real. Yeah. Not really. I'm not normal people like like signals like myself. Um, I am.

Yeah. I, I think also phones have like, you know, I'm sure we've talked about this at some point in the past. They've like plateaued, they've leveled out. Like it's not the leaps between generations and the leaps between brands is like really, really minuscule now. I mean, like if you don't care, let's just say you don't care about iMessage or FaceTime for a second. The differences between an iPhone and an Android phone in terms of functionality is barely existent. It barely exists if there's

any, it just has slightly different ways of doing things, but largely, you know, feature parity and if in some cases I would you know argue that Android is Better than the iPhone in a lot of ways and if I had my druthers I'd be using an Android phone all the time. It's just part-time like a like a sick person like a guy with two phones Who doesn't need them? That's insane. But like yeah, also there's a good part of that too that like phones are lasting longer You know, they they used to if you dropped an iPhone it would shatter Immediately and you know now phones last like many more years are lasting longer. You know, they used to, if you dropped an iPhone, it would shatter immediately. And you know, now phones last like many more years.

So like that's sort of sustainable. And like, I have data that says like back in, you know, 10 years ago, 6% or something of, what was it? Right, 6% of people had their iPhone for, you know, three plus years. And now it's up to like 34%, which is like people are holding onto them longer, partly because they last longer and partly because the features aren't really like that exciting model to model. I think the economics have changed too. I mean, first off, there's like,

absolutely right. There's just like they've gotten, they're more expensive, like they've risen in price. They're subsidized. And, and in, but you know, the, yes, they're subsidized, but also a lot of people are, you know, if you break a phone and you need to replace it, like you're but you know the yes, they're subsidized but it also a lot of people are you know If you break a phone and you need to replace it like you're you know, yeah Maybe you're up for it, you know, you're still paying for the contract, but maybe you can get a new device but like But also like an inflation. I mean, I don't want to be you know that guy But it's things are costlier at the moment, especially in America And and yeah, the utility of it is like, well, what does it do?

OK, the camera's a little better? Like, well, I don't know. The camera's pretty good. Like, we've all created an entire universe of photos on Instagram based on the previous cameras, and nobody's like, damn, I just wish there were more pixels. Right? Yeah.

That's not the problem now. We've reached as good as we need. Yeah. I mean, for 99% of the population, the camera is so good on the recent iPhones and on the recent Android phones. It's like 4k, it's super high res still photos, the details incredible, like, as far as cameras go, like it's you, it's incremental, what's happening now, they're like, Oh, you can do 4k 120 hertz or whatever. And it's like, okay,

great. Like, most people aren't shooting a video. Like they're not shooting like a music video. Most people don't use the word nits, you know? No, I mean, it's right. So like they have all these pro, they did the same thing with the iPad where they're like all these pro level features. And there's a really, really.

Lost on my mom, totally lost on, you know, like what's the point for most people? The only point would be to like, I wanna buy something that's gonna be future proof, which is to your point. And like Apple's the point for most people? No, they're there. The only point would be to like, I want to buy something that's going to be future proof, which is to your point. And like Apple's notorious for making laptops that actually that you could use for years and years and years and years and never need to upgrade. It used to be a thing where you get an Apple laptop

and you're like, yeah, this is like four years old and it's still fine. It's great. And I think that's like where they've trended a little bit with the phones, which is good to some extent. Yeah, I like that as someone who doesn't buy things But so now they have to find other ways to make money and other ways to excite people and they don't really have a

Lot of new ideas. I think you're not excited by fall detection or sleep apnea detection or you know I'm it's definitely like for an audience monitoring. Yeah in in 20 years, maybe I will be like, damn, thank God for this fall detection, you know? But I think they are. Yeah, I mean, they've got to find new ways to excite people. And I'm not sure that like they've got new ways to excite people. And so we've got this weird sort of, you know, period where I don't know, I think this whole, this whole world of tech launches is like screwed up. And we, I've talked about this with you, we, you know, this whole idea that there has to be these

big announcements and that all these big new features are going to be talked about. Like, I think it is one of the reasons why everybody's fighting about Sam Altman and OpenAI, right? Because he thinks he has to do what Steve Jobs does, which is like, or maybe he does. One more thing. He needs money, right? He needs to get money for his business and he needs to make money and get rich and be famous or maybe not, but he does put himself out there a lot. In order to do that, you have to go up on stage and do these things, these keynotes or whatever.

And everybody's programmed to believe, including investors, including shareholders, that this is, it's like Elon Musk at Tesla Investor Day or whatever, introducing the Cybertruck or talking about robots or whatever. Everybody's addicted to the keynote high. And we live in this world of peaks and valleys of keynote announcements. And like it was, there was a period up until, I don't know, about 10 years ago, 15, maybe

for 15 years, sorry, not 10 years ago, but maybe for 10 ish years where we had real like, whoa, like there, this, this real technological innovation, they've done something totally new that I couldn't do before. But like everybody's increasingly trying to figure out like, what's the next iPhone? Like is Tesla the next more frequent? Is it because we have to do this every year? So they have to like kind of come up with something like it's like, it's kind of needless that they're not waiting until there is something to talk about. They just have to talk about something.

That's what I'm saying. It's on a schedule and it follows, and it follows earning cycles and it follows like, you No, no, it's on a schedule. That's what I'm saying. It's on a schedule and it follows and it follows earning cycles and it follows like, you know, um, sales seasons, right? Like, you know, this, this iPhone event precedes those holiday shopping season, you know, and like it's that has always been the case or it's been the case for a really long time. And like, but the point is, I guess it just you basically get to a point where you're in a little bit of a dead end and then you've got to like hype up nothing.

You have to hype up like chat GPT in your product, which is not that exciting. Like it doesn't really have a huge use case yet. Maybe Apple thinks like you put it in there and people will find a use for it. But like for most consumers, they're not, you know, like damn chat GPT in my iPhone finally, like they've broken through. Right, and that's also kind of weird

because like, you know, Apple's investing in its own AI, but they're also like, you know, investing in open AI to put Chad GPT on the iPhone. And so it's not clear like when you get which one, like which brain you're talking to or, you know. Well, their whole thing is it's like, well, they're also plugging into Google, right, for for stuff like they're using Google's AI stuff for like summaries or something and

Or answering questions or some shit like that But it's like it's you know there I think their idea is like we have some AI stuff that we're doing Apparently, but also we're tapping in other people's AI That's cool again. I just for the broad consumer, it's like, it feels a little bit less useful, I think, than for somebody who's like, the AI codes for me, which is like, man, not everybody needs to make an app, but if you need to make an app and you can't code, that's really cool.

Just a narrow use case for people, you know? Right, and all of the use cases so far, I think we've talked about this before, is just like, yeah, it feels real narrow. Like in some, it does like really cool things for small segments of the population in some instances. Yes. So anyway, so Apple announced all this stuff. That's like, that was like, that's how the week started, right? It's like, uh, and they have other announced, I don't know, they announced a new watch and there's some headphones and it's like, I don't know. Like

who cares at this point? They started off with the watch and it was like 10 minutes of being like, it's slightly thinner and it's like elegant and black and beautiful. And I was just like, okay, what? Okay. It just feels like Dell. Like these are just no meter thinner. Yeah. I mean that's not, not to knock Dell.

Okay. But like just like, you know, Dell introduced a new laptop. Nope. There's you don't need to do an event for it. Like you're just like, Hey, there's a new Dell. They put this could have been a press release. This could have been, I feel like, you know, to some extent, it could have been, they already talked about the Apple

intelligence stuff a ton of WWDC. And it's like, I feel like demos. Yeah, I don't know how much I think we're all the serotonin is all the dopamine is all burnout. Like, do what are we going to do now? You know, what is Apple going to do as a company? Right? Like, are they going to buy open AI? Are they going to make a car? Aren't they? You wrote a story about aren't they like doing a, Oh my God. Yeah. They're making this reported. They have like a house, smart home.

They have like robot. Right. They have a robot that, um, the funny, the funniest detail from one of his stories was that like apparently like Apple has a, uh, a, a place where it does all the testing that's like, like meant to look like a house. Like their idea of what a house is and some warehouse in Cupertino. Like they built out their own house to study the stuff.

And what they're studying is like a robot arm that moves around like an iPad essentially. And it's like real expensive, unclear why you would need that. Like, I don't know why anyone would want this, but they're like throwing spaghetti at the wall, you know, like throwing shit at the wall, trying to find the next big thing. And it's like, yeah, I don't think this is it. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted by it.

Honestly, I don't want a robot arm. I mean, you gotta really prove now. Look, I've been wrong before when I saw the Wii, I was like, no way that's, no one wants that. And I was wrong. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't like, didn't make a big case out of it I was just like Eventually, I was like why would anybody want to do this? I was like moving around while playing video games That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I Thought I thought my advantage for playing video games is I didn't have to move around Right, you know and like there are ideas like that out there for sure, but like the vision Pro, right? They did

Right. You know, and like there are ideas like that out there for sure, but like the vision pro, right? They did You know the vision pro was what the fuck I mean what the hell was the vision pro like It's good for some people who work on computers apparently like a friend of mine uses it for like he likes You know working like it's like he has a giant computer screen, you know His his whole house becomes a computer screen and things. But he's also like a tech nerd and likes this sort of stuff. And I was like, okay, I'll just work on my laptop. I have a second screen if I need it. But like, you know, for him, it's what you're describing is so unusual for a human being. Like it's such an edge edge of the edge case what you're talking about. Like, I want to put on this headset and have a whole like a giant computer in my house can't be a large segment of the population.

Right. Christopher Mims at the journal wrote a piece about that, about how like maybe it's for, you know, workers also on sex life. I mean, just what a dystopian view of the world of the future of work is that you're all jacked into this like headset do have with a big screen. So you're so you're giant spreadsheet. So your spreadsheet could be as big as possible. Well, here's the funny thing about that is that the VR was

and it was invented by this guy, Jaron Lanier, right? And his original use for it was to look at giant numbers. He was doing these like math problems. And the idea was like, he needed to be able to see these like huge numbers all at once. Yeah. And like there was no screen or whatever board big enough. And so he invented this like, you invented this screen that was on your face

that would respond to your movements. So you could look at these, you know, long, that's like literally the- Oh, I didn't know that, that's cool. Yeah, no, and so the original genesis of VR in a way was like, I need to work differently because I can't see all this stuff at once, which like, so maybe like the truest-

Which is kind of like us with all the different tabs open and screens, right? I know. I think there's also a case to be, like he was making a case that like it helped him see like he didn't have like the near sightedness because he could kind of move things back to where it felt like he was like standing

at a reasonable distance from it. I don't know, I was like. Sounds interesting. Sounds good for you. I get nauseous in 15 minutes of using any VR headset as much as I love the technology. A lot of people do, right. It's very, you get like physically ill,

it's like that's a kind of a killer for me. Yeah, a friend of mine who she plays video games all the time has like got one and was like so excited and she just cannot not be sick every time she uses it. So she's had to like sell it. I think it's tough. I think I was just thinking this completely unrelated. Well, it's not unrelated,

but I was thinking about the tab thing that you mentioned. And I was thinking about this current, this like recent meme about people raw dogging things, like about people like going on a plane. Sorry, I don't know. Massacrification and raw dogging on this. Yeah, I know. Not in a sexual way, but people going on a plane,

no book, no movie, no nothing, just staring at the flight tracker for like a six hour flight. And I was just thinking like, is there, has anybody like pioneered like a six hour flight. And I was just thinking, like, is there is there has anybody like pioneer, like a single tab existence, like I'm only like, I feel like there could be a whole almost like religious movement around the single tab. Like you do not open a window. You do not open a second tab.

You are either in the tab or you're not. And that's, oh, that's all you get. I think that could be a thing. I'd like to say that I'm a reactionary. I like it. It's like, it's like, yeah, I like declaring a tab bankruptcy and just closing it. Like, I don't care what's on there.

No, just I never do that. I have so many windows with so many tabs, but this would be the op. This would be the ever go back in there and are like, you find it. No. Yeah. All the time. All the time. I go back in there and I'm like, damn, this was be the op. This would be the ever go back in there and are like, you find it. No. Yeah. All the time.

No, all the time. I go back in there and I'm like, damn, this was a great day. Like I'll never forget when I was brow. No, I'm like, I was like, I really was browsing that day and I had so many cool tabs open is it's I'd sometimes barbell at it, to be honest with you. I look at it and I just think, you know, look at what you've done, Josh. Look at how you've browsed. Look at the legacy you've left. Look at the legacy you've left. It's a legacy you've left.

When they shit, you're a liar. I gotta tell you, I got a burn. I got it. When if they ever see my history, if I die and they see my history, it's not going to be good. I got it. Do they have a solution for that yet? Like, yes, they do. They do. Tell me about it. I need to hear about this.

I did a piece a while ago about how like these, these firms that help you write a will and that sort of thing are trying to target Gen Z. And one of the things they offer them is like, you know, like what's going to happen to your digital presence, you know, after you've like left this mortal coil. Wow. And so you have like a plan in place to like, you know, delete your history. It's so, cause you know, the thing about it is I have no doubt that if you were to like go through my like lifetime of browsing in my Google Search like archive, which is there I guess You'd find some like you'd be like wow Josh really was he was exploring, you know

But then I think you'd also find stuff where it's like the the most base boring or like weird things that our brains do where we're like I wonder what's up with that thing or whatever and then like there's like, you know, there'll be a whole person, or even worse. But there's a whole section of like WikiFeet or whatever. And it's just you don't want, in the midst of my like Plato esque, Socrates esque philosophical exploring on the internet, there might be like 14 WikiFeet tabs

in there somewhere. You can take multitudes. Who wants that? I don't want that legacy. I want they should have a thing where they clean up the legacy, where they just remove anything that's like PG-13. Anyhow, by the way, I mean, actually, the only reason

I've actually ever gone to WikiFeet, I feel like I should say this is because I read a story. I really feel like I need to point now that I've said it because I sound like a WikiFeiki guy, which I'm not. But apparently Lily Allen, the singer who is married to David Harbor from Stranger Things started. I read a story that she started a wiki feet or she started like an only fans for her feet because she was on wiki feet.

And I was like, man, these feet have to be if she's like doing an only fans, it's got to be really fascinating. They're just they're just regular feet. I mean, they just like the thing with the feet They're just they're just the normal person's feet anyhow, but she apparently has an only fans That is all about her feet which seems crazy because she's rich already. I personally wouldn't do it, right? You know whenever whatever floats your boat these days an incredible Maybe it's like maybe it's like good income, extra income. It's one of my finest digressions.

And I think this is a perfect opportunity to switch to talking about. Elon Musk. No. Well, yes, but also big debate in America last night, big presidential debate. I forgot that was happening. Like you forgot the Apple event.

I forgot the debate. Versus Donald Trump. Right, I read about it in the middle of the night. Did you forgot the Apple event. Kamala Harris. I forgot the debate. Versus Donald Trump. Right, I read about it in the middle of the night. Did you not watch it? I did not watch it. I totally forgot it was happening. It was interesting. It was interesting.

It was at times hard to watch. And. It's hard to read. I definitely, I think it illustrated the vast differences between the two choices we have in November here in America But but what I think is most The big takeaway from the night is that immediately following? The debate which which could decide who becomes the president of the United States of America

Taylor Swift went on Instagram and posted that she was endorsing Kamala Harris as to be president for president and she signed it Childless Cat Lady, which was a reference to JD Vance, I guess Trump's running mate making comments about Childless Cat Ladies. And I gotta say she also said it was in response. Well, I think what's interesting is she said it was in response to Trump posting an AI fake of her. Right. A deep fake as we call them, endorsing him, which is hilarious because it's like if Trump's goal was to engage her in the political debate, he really blew it.

Like, I mean, he really went the wrong direction with it, right? She might've said nothing. Like Taylor Swift has a big fan base, right? And she's endorsed before she endorsed Biden. Did she? Yeah. Okay. So she endorsed him last time.

And importantly, she endorsed him both on Instagram and Twitter last time. Okay. This one only on Instagram. Not on Twitter. Twitter is increasing. Well, this is when we'll get to that in a second. But yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting

that she felt compelled by the AI thing to basically say, here's what I really think, which may be a trend line for deep fakes in the future, where we see we've got to have people who are the real people verifying what their actual statements and opinions are about. This is my face, this is, yeah. Right, this is like a whole new thing

that we're gonna deal with, right? Like with AI and these sort of like, you know, inorganically generated versions of celebrities, we're gonna be constantly mired in like, oh, George Clooney, you know, there's a video of George Clooney like hitting a dog and it's like, George Clooney is like, I oh, George Clooney, you know, there's a video of George Clooney, like hitting a dog. And it's like, George Clooney is like, I don't have a dog. You know, like that's not me.

I'm not like George Clooney. I don't, he has to hit a dog. A good piece of everyone's time is like, you know, having to like declare that they didn't do things that they previously didn't have to declare that they didn't do. Yeah. I mean, I was, by the way, I was on threads, Meadows threads.

Have you checked it out? It's like Twitter, but slower and worse. And with fewer Nazis. From four days ago, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's like Twitter from four days ago. But I was in a thread on threads of people talking about like some deep fake or AI thing.

And there was a person, I think from Finland in the comments who's going on and on about how in Finland, and by the way, I didn't verify this, so if I'm wrong, just more misinformation spewed out into the ether. But they were saying how in Finland, media literacy is a huge part of the curriculum in school. And learning how to verify something and where it comes from and if it's true or not

and how you do that is's like a huge part of their like high school or elementary school even curriculum. Again I have not investigated this is it true maybe not but it sounded exciting to me because I think about this all the time like our biggest problem is not that people are going to fake stuff right it's not it's not like that people are going to make up Biden saying something he didn't say it's that we don't have we haven't been trained as viewers to know the difference or to be able to see to learn the difference between those things. All right. I think teaching it works to an extent, right? OK, obviously, it's good to know that, like, yeah, that's a fake Taylor Swift.

It has like it looks just like a I blah, blah, blah. But like I was talking to someone a while ago with about like Twitter bots. And this researcher was saying, you know, like a few years ago, you know, I could tell you if something replying to me was a bot and now even I can't like he was saying like I'm an expert on this and I don't know if something is a bot because you know, generative AI is so convincing and it speaks in such natural language. Like there might be a point at which like we can't tell anymore. Like so you could obviously like, you know, do your research, you know, like look things up.

Obviously, like it seems like a scam. It might be a scam, but like, you know, you can only teach so much if it gets so convincing. Yeah, it's going to get convincing. It's going to get convincing. I mean, I watched it. I saw a video of this. Like the guy from Finland was probably a bot probably made up and making stuff up that wasn't even true about Finland. Probably just inventing facts. They're like, move to Finland. It'll be so much better.

Right, it's sewing on rest in America, this guy. Yeah, or it's just like from the Finnish Tourism Council. And it's like, this is how you get people to over here. No, I mean, it's true. Like, I just saw a video demo of like, you know, it was like mid-jour journey plus some video animation thing. And it was unbelievably realistic looking. I mean, it still had a lot of the hallmarks of AI,

you know, generated, you know, generative AI, but it's like, if you're a normal person, like a regular person who's not online, like I am, like brain worms, RFK junior level brain worm situation like I've got, you wouldn't take a second glance at it. You'd be like, huh, that's a weird new show that's coming out or whatever. I can't believe Taylor Swift, who worse?

Donald Trump. Joe Biden, yeah, no, 100%. So, but it is interesting that it spurred some real political action. And then there's that you know, there's that People were also saying that Kamala Harris had an ear some kind of ear Earing that was it also audio media literacy back to literacy literacy I feel like every time a Democrat does well in the in a debate

There's some or actually it's either one. I feel like anytime a candidate does well in a debate, there's some faction of the Internet that's convinced that there was like they were being fed answers during the debate. And like, I don't know, like that even would make it better. Like if someone would make it better, like what a good zinger. Yeah, like more facts or yeah, there's like a there's like a comedy writer in the back room, like giving you like, right? Like yeah, right. Good zingers. Yeah, you have like more facts or yeah, there's like a there's like a comedy writer in the back Yeah, like giving you like right like yeah, right like zingers like like I don't understand even how that would like give you an advantage No, but like they can't imagine someone could like string together a few sentences like coherently and they're like this No, this must be a you know must be an airpiece. It's not like the debate is based on who had the most facts

I mean, you could absolutely prepare for something I feel like the debate is based on who had the most facts. I mean, that's based on what I've seen. Right, you could absolutely prepare for something. It was, I mean, it was for lots of different reasons, the debate was pretty fact light, I would say, generally speaking. The eating of cats or dogs or whatever. Okay, well, they're eating their pets,

they're eating the pets. Eating pets. People are out there eating pets. What is with pets in this whole election cycle? Too many animals, so weird. I mean, somebody pointed out that at the core of the thing, the rumor, which is apparently the race, really not true is like it's kind of a racist trope about like Haitians like

eating, you know, sacrificing animals or something like, and it's like, yeah, they're not people. Yes. Yeah. And it's just, no, but it was, I mean, that's that thing is bizarre because it's like this online rumor. It's like somebody said it was like a 4chan post came to life I think Jake Tapper somebody said that on CNN

It's like exactly what it's like the your budget cats or the pets the pets the pet thing But all of it is all of it is like very it's in some means I saw somebody else in one of my feet talking about this like like like in many ways Both campaigns do it but but the Trump campaign seems to be trying to appeal to this very, very online person. And like Twitter, we can get to talk about Elon Musk a little bit,

like the people on Twitter who are hardcore Twitter users now, I don't think represent the vast majority of the electorate. I mean, on pure numbers, Twitter does not have the vast majority of the electorate using its service, right? And then, you know, of course, then you've got Elon Musk, um, who responded to Taylor Swift's endorsement.

Oh, that was so gross. He was basically like, I'll give you a baby and, you know, guard your cat with my life. It was just like my skin crawled. Like so reply guy. First off, like it's so like rep prime so rapey it's so weird it's it's gross and rapey but it's also very sad i think we have to remember how how like pathetic of a thing it is to say to somebody it is very like in the middle of the night just being like oh she's pretty let me send her something nightly oh but just like if you've ever seen reply guys on the internet which ron, I think you have.

No, not a lot. I understand you. I understand as a woman online, you may have encountered once or twice a reply guy. But tell me what it is, just so for the people out there. Well, let me explain it to you. It's a guy who, let me explain. You may not know, OK?

It's a guy who replies usually in annoying and gross ways to like everything that you post, but like slides into your DMs or whatever. It's like kind of adjacent to a simp, as you know. It's like kind of online stalker. It's like a friend you didn't want. It's like no one asked you. No one asked you. You're like, I had a great, you know, I had fettuccine Alfredo for lunch and some guys like, oh, that's going to make you fat.

And you're like, nobody cares what you think. You've no need to respond to this at all. And your comment is like not welcome. Right, and you wouldn't respond to this if I were a dude. No, no. Maybe they'd be like, yeah, bro, I love Fettuccine Alfredo. It'd be something like normal, maybe, almost normal.

No, the frequency has to be so much higher for women of just like, why are you talking to me? What about? No, right, no, and it's constant. And usually like somewhat date No, right. No. And it's constant. And, and, uh, usually like somewhat datey sexually tinged, like they're trying to get a date or like intimate some kind of like relationship that doesn't exist.

But imagine this billionaire with 500 wives and 500 kids and you know, all the money in the world that he wants. Yeah. Yeah. When you're in the abstract, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, but I'm saying like 500 live sounds like naughty. But like that he's so like that he still needs something else that he still needs to be this gross reply fly guy that to like say this to Taylor Swift to, you know, just like to try to undercut her like political statement there with like sexualizing her so hurtful

and it's weird. It's just weird. It's just weird. It's just so it's so and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole with Elon Musk. But like I as a as a former Tesla driver, I had a Tesla before the Twitter stuff, before he was really, I mean, he was always annoying and weird, but there was a point where he was annoying and weird and like sort of fun, like sort of like, oh, maybe he's like, he's like a kind of a, or maybe he's saving the environment. I don't know. Maybe he is saving the environment. He always talked about how like, you know, this was all like, cause we're running out

of fossil fuels. Yeah, right. But yeah, you know, it's like, it's like, God, his persona is so like a Tesla. So it's my, I have a lease and it's up like in a month or two and I already got a new car. Cause I was like, I gotta get out of this car. Like I gotta stop driving the Tesla.

And, but the Tesla people are like, hey, or do you want to get a new Tesla? And, and I was like, to be honest, it's like some guy, Sean from Tesla, texted me. I was like, look, to be honest with you, Sean, I don't. Yeah, Sean, whoever you are, a bot assume he's a rock bot or whatever. I was like, I don't. He's like, OK. He's like, would you would you mind telling me a little bit about your decision? And I was like,

Sean, and you feel free to ladder this up. I was like, to be honest with you, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to drive a Tesla because of Elon Musk. And I really don't want to put any more money in his pocket given the way he is online. What did Sean say? Sean's like, okay. If Sean ladders this up, Sean is getting fired.

He's not going to tell anyone anything. I Sean ladders this up, Sean is getting fired. Heads are going to roll. Sean's not going to tell anyone anything. I'm laddering it up right now. And Sean, I'm going to protect your identity, because I don't know what it is. And probably you aren't even a real person. But Sean is just the guy who's always texting you from Tesla. It's just like one universal Sean.

One thing, did the person spit on your car because it was a Tesla or because of something you did? Were you driving like an asshole. I was in traffic. It was up around where I live, not in the city, but north of the city. Okay, so everyone has a Tesla there. There was a guy on a bike.

Now I should say there are maybe some extenuating circumstances here. He was on a bike, he was wearing, he was dressed like Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film. Oh, Crest Bunk. Pirates of the Caribbean. Crest Bunk. No, no, he was dressed like Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film. Pirates of the Caribbean. No, no. He was dressed like Jack Sparrow.

I think he was in a pirate. I thought he meant piratey. He was in a no, no, no, no, no. I mean, he was like, as he came closer to me, I'm like, is this guy wearing a Jack Sparrow costume? Like, and he's riding like one of those like banana bikes. He's riding one of those like banana bikes He's riding one of those banana bikes. I think I went to college with this person.

Keep going. And then as he just slowly rolled up, he just like hocked a huge loogie on the passenger side window of my car. So I assumed I was literally not moving in traffic at the time, which is how I think he was able to get such a great shot. But he didn't spit on anyone else's car. He just

put on your car. Maybe. And maybe it wasn't about it being a Tesla, but it felt that way. You know, like it really felt like I was being singled out. Like how they were singling out. They were singling out billionaires. Remember that guy, the billionaire who was like, we're being hunted down. Poor Tesla owners. Listen, I mean, imagine if you had a Cybertruck. Like, here's the thing. Tesla owners. Listen, hey, look. I mean, imagine if you had a cyber truck. Here's the thing.

Imagine if, okay. Yeah, no, they couldn't reach it to spit on it. That's the thing is too, the windows are too high up to spit on them. This is my thing and I've said it a billion times on probably a billion different podcasts, but I just, I'm so perplexed as to why a billionaire would tweet at all.

Like if I had billions of dollars, which I do not, but if I did the second, I went from 999 million, 999 thousand, whatever, I would, the second it went to a billion, I would shut down every social media account that I had and I would never go online again. I would never go online again. Why would you do that?

Maybe to like, you know, to go to WikiFeed or something, but other than that, nothing. Yeah, you don't need, you definitely, to go to wiki feet or something. But other than that, yeah, you don't need that. You definitely. Yeah. That's what I think I said this last time and you're like, don't feel bad for Elon Musk. But like, don't cry for him. I feel bad for him because he's like, it is just like, why he has everything. And then he does the tweets, gross reply guy stuff as a, as a, as a man in therapy, you

know, as a guy who's trying to improve himself, you know, mentally, I just feel like Elon could use, like he needs somebody to talk to who really is a friend who really can like put it in perspective. I mean, I think, I do think he's a, I do think there are facets of Elon Musk's brain that are like incredibly smart. And there are like areas

of his psyche that seem to be very productive. He's only putting out the wiki feet part of his tabs right now. It's just like, yeah, like delete, don't get off, close the wiki feet tabs and open up, you know, I don't know, like Scientific American or whatever. I don't know what the alternate tab is. Probably doing therapy, but only like ketamine therapy. Just open regular Wikipedia, you know, because there's a lot of great information or whatever. I don't know what the alternate tab. He's probably doing therapy, but only like kind of mean therapy. Just open regular Wikipedia, you know? Cause there's a lot of great information on there.

Yeah. So I, you know, I wish, I wish we could return to the days when it was like, he just was saying interesting, weird stuff. And there were no, you didn't feel like it was like politically loaded or weirdly sexually charged or made people uncomfortable or like caused people to like, you know, be doxed and have to, you know, get security or whatever. And I don't know. It's a, it

would have been a simple, it's a sick, could be a simpler time for all of us. If he just recognized that he was super rich and he doesn't need to be online. Cause I think that's the promise. I hope for all of us eventually becoming billionaires. Yeah. And he reiterated, right. That like, he was like, okay, I think that back to the elections that uh, Kamala won but you know, I'm still voting for Trump, you know, blah blah blah blah But yeah, I mean yeah good for him I guess I all the tech people who were like Trump Like a couple like a month ago. They were like Trump's the guy. I feel like there's been a weird kind of re grouping with some of those folks. They've gotten quieter about their excitement on Trump and like,

honestly, and, and, and, you know, yeah, there's like a good week there where everyone was like coming out of the woodwork and endorsing him. And then, and I seem to have stopped. Yeah. And I understand it. Like, like there's no question that when, if you're a business person in America, that there are certain policies that Republicans have that are going to look and feel, and maybe even be superior for your business and for your like earning potential at a certain level, a certain type of person.

You know, I understand that, I understand why, and there's other reasons, lots of other reasons. Like it's not like, you know, I'm like, why would anybody be Republican? I understand. It's just Trump is such an extreme version of a Republican. There's a million policies they have that look like, OK, let's have a debate about, right?

Let's just, let's all of us talk about this fiscal policy and what's the real best thing for the country, right? Or what's the really best? Let's talk about taxes and what really is good for thing for the country, right? Or what's the really best, you know, let's talk about taxes and what really is like good for all of the people in America, you know, like there is a debate to be had there. But man, it's like it makes you make it like, this kind of conversation makes it impossible. You're like, well, we're not talking about stuff of substance. We're talking about, we're talking about people eating cats. Yeah. People eating cats and whether or not Kamala Harris is black and things that are irrelevant.

Yeah, no, it's just a waste of brain space. Yeah. And then you've got Elon kind of touting it on Twitter, and it just feels like it's just that the well has been poisoned in so many different places for the political discourse. I used to think Twitter was like a public service. We've got to support this.

We've got to fund it. We've got to make it better. It should be part of of like a utility almost. Right, like what Jack originally wanted. Was it for it to be like, you know, not like beholden to money. I wouldn't say Jack did a great job with it, but like. No, he did a horrible job.

It was different. It was different, but. Related to the election, Matt Phillips has a post today on Sherwood.News. It's about how Goldman. Great website. Yeah, good website. One of the best. Goldman has this basket of stocks for Republican companies

that would do well with a Republican president versus companies that would do well with a Democratic president. You know, like Republican is like private prisons and then for Democrats it's solar companies, things like that. So, which So crazy. Bad day for private prisons. Yeah, those stocks are down like 2% or something like that. There's the biggest gap between the Republican and Democratic stock baskets, which is super interesting to see the mark to see the markets react to

it. And that's into the Biden debate. Yeah. Right. Oh, that's just the window between Biden and this debate. Right. Right. Post debate you're saying, right. Is it post this debate? Yeah. Yeah. Post this debate, the gap widened even more. Yes. Number what is this? This is why it's so important. I want to stress nothing I ever say is financial advice, but this is why it's so important to have a well-rounded portfolio of both private prison and solar stocks,

because you never know which way the wind's going to blow, and wind, honestly. Right, wind. Again, not investment advice. Public prisons, you get no, wait, you gotta get this. But you gotta have a little bit of, you gotta have the whole spice in there, you gotta get the whole spicy mixture

of every possible scenario for America. You know, it's either, you know, we have to put everybody in jail or we're going to have like one of those, like if, you know, one of those memes where it shows like the future city with like the, like the glass buildings and the grass and the trees. And it's like, if we had solar,

if we all had you solar power or whatever. Yeah. Anyhow. Or like what the environment was it's like, if we had solar, if we all had use solar power or whatever, anyhow. Or like what the environment was coming back to like in the beginning of COVID, like when it was like restoring itself. That's right, the planet was healing itself. I know, that was so sweet. You had like a month where people just were not out. And not driving every day.

And the planet was like doing much better. Yeah, there's all those videos of like, you know Like deer like overtaking the city center or something like that. I don't want to you know I don't want to say like judgment day. I don't see Skynet had a point but I Don't know, you know, maybe we shouldn't be so afraid of the open AI Decision-making maybe we should embrace whatever it says for us. Maybe maybe that's screwing the planet too That right isn't all the like the data centers and the energy power, I think it's like 10x what it was 10 years ago.

Up to the point where it decides humanity is a virus that must be wiped off the planet, a la Skynet in Terminator or Agent Smith in the Matrix films. And then we just use the people for batteries or whatever, and everything returns to its natural state of peace and harmony. That's actually not what happens in either one of those movies. Uh, I should say the movie series, but, um, all right, look,

that's a very dark and dire note. And I think it's a perfect place to pivot to a new, exciting segment on tomorrow called bug or feature. segment on tomorrow called Bug or Feature. Ronnie, would you like to explain how Bug or Feature works? Yeah, we're going to just throw out some recent news stories and maybe explain it a little bit. And then we decide whether the takeaway is a feature or a bug. Yes, I love it.

All right, so there's a couple of things that I jotted down here that we discussed. I mean, there's a few things that we didn't discuss. All right. So we have, there's a couple of things that I jotted down here that we discussed. I mean, there's a few things that we didn't discuss. We'll see if we get to them, but, uh, reply guys, Oh my God bugger feature. Absolutely bug. Like it just, I don't know. The lays I, my eyes are glazing over just like even thinking about it. It makes me not want to spend time on these platforms, but maybe that's the feature. But, but is it right? Are they driving use?

Are they the, yeah, right. The feature, they're like, get rid of all the interesting good people. Let's just have the worst of the worst. And just everyone replying to each other being like. No, I agree. I agree it's a bug, but the larger bug is how we have not,

we've weirdly not been able to evolve like online discourse very much. Like it's not the way people act to each other on Twitter and other areas where you can write text or post videos or whatever. Isn't that dissimilar from people on like, you know, forums back in the day, arguing about stuff and being really annoying.

So not only is it- As always with scale, it's much, much worse. Right, not only is it a bug. As always with scale, it's much, much worse. Right, not only is it a bug, but no one's even seems to be trying to crack the, no one is even fixing the code. They're not even getting in there. It's not even a Git. I don't know, whatever. I've reached my end of knowing what programmers do.

But I'm just saying I feel like there's a GitHub situation going on for the reply guys. I mean for a while actually it seemed like Twitter was downgrading them. I realized like I'd like, or maybe I had purposely muted someone. No, no. Yeah. But you just mute them once you get them. I thought Twitter was leveling up the reply guys. Now they give him a blue check. I thought it was, yeah, I thought the reply guys could now buy into an even larger platform. They get like a free blue check They're just like they're though. You had so many replies to ladies. You get a free blue check They gave me my blue check back. I didn't they were like, huh? This isn't working

Let's just get that revenue share. I don't for free good tweet. I don't think I do I don't think I'm going viral enough to get the rev share. Although I did have a vague, slightly viral post recently. Which one was that? It was the little graphic I made about Kamala and Tim Walls, the looking California feeling Minnesota. Oh, cute, cute, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was great. Great Gen X shit.

Hardware events, annual hardware events, the Apple event. Used to be a feature. It used to be a feature. Now a bug like used to be good because there had to be some way to like show off what these things do. And they were also way fewer and further between Apple used to do like a thing a year. Now they have like three, four different moments throughout the year where they're announcing stuff.

They've got like the W they got W throughout the year where they're announcing stuff. They've got like the W they got WODC. They have the iPhone event. They have an iPad, usually like some kind of iPad event. There may be another one, but that's like everybody does a bunch now. It's a bug. We're like, we're like, it's not working. I'd say I'd say it's almost become to me like, you know, this annual event that it's like, it's

like a holiday that I don't really like, but that's kind of, you get the day off. I have to watch. Who gets the day off? All right. Well, for me, it's like, it's like free content. I'm like, okay, I'm going to watch this thing. I'm going to for us, for journalists, there's like, so it's a feature for me because it's like a way like a, I'm going to have to sit here for one hour, watch Tim Cook and you

know, white shoes, statues, like do this silly thing. So it's like, I don't really like it, but it's like, it's almost like the ritual of it now. It's like, it's become a little bit of a like, I look forward to it a little. I mean, I used to write. Sure. If you say so, I disagree, but I'm going to say, can say, I'm going to say it's a bug. But I, you know, having gone to do the coverage of these in person a lot, it is like a tremendous relief to me to not to not have to do it because it was like very, you know, like, I like race people to like do a hands on or something. It was like very not fun. It was not not fun to be in the thick of

it. It is fun to I, to some extent to watch it. I just wish like the announcements were cool and exciting instead of like deflating. That's how I feel, deflated basically. Let's talk about another event, the presidential debate after show, just sort of the whole all night, all TV, all the time, Twitter threads.

Yeah. There's so many surfaces now. I mean, like while I was watching the debate, I was looking at Twitter. I was looking at threads. I was like checking Instagram. You never know. The after show stuff is really weird.

I was watching CNN. Like JD Vance was on CNN. And also Trump was like walking around the spin room, apparently. Apparently, that's a weird thing to do. Yeah, you don't normally do that. You're just chatting with people, which like, you know, that's cool. Like, you know, he's like making himself available to the press.

I find it really annoying. Like I find it. I find the whole thing, the whole structure of like these, like they're like football. They're like the football commentators, right? You know, they're the people calling the game. And then afterwards, they're like, just talking about which person they think, like their team, very team-based.

And everybody's like, well, they scored a great goal or whatever. It doesn't feel useful to me. It feels like, they had a, CNN had a independent voters, like a group that was watching the debate and they had dials, you know? Oh, God.

And then they interviewed them. They're from Erie, PA, which is where my grandfather and my mom are from. Were they on the dial? And I spent it. No, but I spent a lot of time in Erie and it's like, you know, it's a pretty, it's a small town in Western Pennsylvania. And it was interesting, but also extremely boring to hear everybody talk about what they thought.

It was like, okay, well, here's some people's opinions about it. It doesn't, but we're supposed to look at it like, this is gonna tell everybody what to think about, what independent voters think about this debate. And I don't think any one person's individual experience can speak to another person. Right, the debate probably doesn't even matter,

like as far as who's gonna vote for whom, right? Like isn't that- It feels, well, it feels that way. It feels like, but it also feels like if you were on the fence, like I can see how- Is anyone on the fence anymore? I don't know. Really? I don't know. I find that, but look, there are people,

look, I'm constantly- I'm sure the New York Times will find them in a diner somewhere, but like, there's not that many people in the fence, I can't imagine. But there is a voter in America and they're like, I voted for Obama twice and I voted for Trump and then I voted for Biden and I voted for Trump again.

And it's like, and I'm like, what? Wild, absolutely not. What do you believe? Like, what are your politics? Like, you've got to have some consistent politics. Like these things are not one of, you know, these are not the same thing. Right.

So like if someone does that, they obviously, obviously don't have any consistent politics or like there, there's just like, what are we looking for? They're looking for vibe. They have the vibe or the vibes off. I think honestly, I think that Harris could win just because the vibe seemed a little bit better. Not even like Paul forget about policy, forget about political affiliation. Just like maybe there's people who are like, you know, I don't know. Trump's kind of the vibes are off. That's how I feel. Some people

are deciding the vibes. Presidents, the vibes, presidents, the vibes of the election. Thanks to me wrote about this, maybe the garbage day guys or something, but I feel like, uh, anyhow, we should probably wrap up. I feel like that's, um, yeah. So were we saying that's a feature bug? That's a bug. I think you're right. We should do the thing that we said we should probably wrap up. I feel like that's. Yeah, so were we saying that's a feature or a bug? That's a. Oh, a bug. I think it's a bug. Oh, you're right. We should do the thing that we said we were gonna do.

I think it's a bug, don't you agree? Yeah, absolutely a bug. I mean, but I'm also not like a TV watcher. I feel like just that they have to make content. But there are people who love it. Like Brian Stelter, who's great. I love Brian Stelter, super entertaining commentator. Believe me, he loves the after show.

He loves, I mean, I'm getting, I don't know. I don't wanna put words in his mouth. We'll have to have them on and ask him. But I feel like there is a certain type of journalist that wants to hear all of those opinions and all of those. I just want to hear a few, you know, some takes, some interesting ones, but I don't want to hear everything because it's just

noise then after a point. Right. So you're switching your answer to saying it's a feature? No, no, no, absolutely. It's still a bug. Hard bug. All right, we should wrap up. I do want to say, I think I'd love to, I'd love to hear from, from the audience who listens to this feature of bug ideas, because I think this is something I find really fun to do. And we're sort of like, just starting this new sort of era of this podcast. And really this is brand new.

And you should tweet, like tweet it at Ronnie or me. I'm at Josh, I can't say tweet. I don't wanna use it, but I don't know any better place. Exit at me. Yeah, don't ex. Threads it at me. Don't exit me. I'm Josh at Josh with Polsky everywhere.

And Ronnie, you're just. Ronnie Mola, R-A-N-I, M-O-L-L-A. It's very simple, so easy. Anyhow, you can give us,ola. R-A-N-I-M-O-L-L-A. It's very simple. So easy. Anyhow, you can give us throw some feature and bug ideas. So that is tomorrow, I think. Today. That's it. We're done.

We'll be back next week with more tomorrow. And Ronnie, any final thoughts? No. No final thoughts. This has been fun. Well, as always, I wish you and your family the very best. And we'll talk to you next week.