Shownotes
In this episode, Donovan from SouthTech Network Solutions and Ben from Tifton Tech Works cover a variety of tech topics and share personal anecdotes. They monitor Hurricane Helene's expected landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm via Zoom.Earth, sharing humorous commentary on its impact on personal plans like golf cancellations.
The hosts discuss spending excessive time on X (formerly Twitter), highlighting the chaotic conspiracy theories present on the platform. Donovan recounts a personal story about his son, whose Twitter handle was stolen and recovered twice, criticizing Twitter's support under Elon Musk's leadership.
The conversation then shifts to emerging AI technologies, such as Google’s Notebook LLM, which generates realistic podcast-style conversations, sparking interest in enhancing their own shows. They provide detailed insights into using OpenAI's Whisper for podcast transcription, covering the technical process involving FFMpeg and ChatGPT for generating show notes.
Donovan and Ben explore the potential applications of large language models (LLMs) for automating tasks and discuss challenges, including a client's failed AI experiment. They critique the service provider Truvista for its lack of redundancy during storm outages, sharing a humorous DIY lawnmower repair story.
The episode also discusses the introduction of RCS support on iOS 18, allowing iPhone users to send rich media messages to Android users, along with personal perspectives on messaging preferences and security. Finally, they reflect on DirecTV’s new agreement with Disney for smaller, genre-specific packages, considering the evolution of cable TV and personal viewing habits in the streaming age.
Special guest Sam Lewis joins to review the Apple AirPods 4. Join them for an engaging mix of tech insights, personal stories, and the latest trends!
Hosts
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Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm.
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- End of an era: iPhone 16 won't include stickers in the box - 9to5Mac - Apple has decided to stop including stickers in the box with the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, marking the end of a long-standing tradition. Stickers will only be available upon request at Apple Stores, but not from third-party retailers or through online orders. This move aligns with Apple's environmental goals, as the company aims to be carbon neutral by 2030 and has transitioned to entirely fiber-based packaging for the iPhone 16. This change follows the trend set by other recent Apple products, such as the Vision Pro and iPad models, which also omitted stickers.
- PSA: With RCS now on iOS, be careful when renaming group chats - With iOS 18’s new RCS support, Android users in mixed group chats can now rename the group for both Android and iOS users, a shift from previous behavior where renaming on Google Messages was visible only to the Android user. Apple has long allowed iOS users to rename iMessage group chats, but this extension now applies to Android users as well. Messaging apps like WhatsApp offer more control over renaming permissions, but Android users should be cautious to avoid unintended or inappropriate names when renaming group chats with iPhone users.
- Apple AirPods Pro granted FDA approval to serve as hearing aids - Apple's AirPods Pro 2 have received FDA approval to function as over-the-counter hearing aids through a software update. This new "Hearing Aid Feature" allows users with mild to moderate hearing loss to adjust sound frequencies to amplify voices and key sounds. The update, which will be available in iOS 18, lets users access the feature through settings or by uploading hearing test results. This development follows the FDA's 2022 decision to permit the sale of hearing aids without a prescription, making hearing support more accessible for millions of Americans.
- Kaspersky deletes itself, installs UltraAV antivirus without warning - Kaspersky, the Russian cybersecurity firm, has begun deleting its antivirus software from U.S. customers' devices and replacing it with UltraAV's antivirus without prior notice. This move follows Kaspersky's decision to shut down its U.S. operations after being added to the U.S. government's Entity List over national security concerns. Kaspersky users, caught off guard by the sudden switch, reported seeing UltraAV software installed without warning, causing confusion and concerns about malware. The transition is linked to a U.S. ban on Kaspersky's sales and updates, effective September 29, 2024.
- Three Mile Island nuclear plant to reopen, sell power to Microsoft - Microsoft has announced plans to revive a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, shut down since 2019, to supply energy to its data centers, which support AI. The 20-year deal with Constellation Energy aims to reactivate the Unit 1 reactor by 2028, pending regulatory approval. This would make Three Mile Island the first decommissioned U.S. nuclear plant to reopen. The revived plant is expected to generate over 800 megawatts of electricity and create thousands of jobs, boosting Pennsylvania's economy. This move aligns with tech companies' growing need for reliable, carbon-free energy.
- Disney, DirecTV Reach Deal Ending Blackout of ESPN, ABC and More
- The EU gives Apple six months to make cross-device interoperability easier - The European Commission is taking action against Apple for not complying with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), giving the company six months to improve cross-device interoperability. As a designated gatekeeper, Apple must ensure that its devices can effectively connect with non-Apple products like smartwatches and headphones. The Commission aims to clarify how Apple can achieve this, and will evaluate its processes for handling developers' requests for interoperability. Previously, the Commission found that Apple violated DMA rules by restricting developers from informing users about alternative payment options. While Apple has made some changes to comply, including opening iOS to third-party app stores and allowing access to NFC technology, it has also withheld certain features from European users. If Apple fails to meet the new requirements, it could face fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenue. The Commission is focused on fostering fair digital markets and will continue to engage with Apple and other stakeholders during this process.
- Here's how to check if your carrier already supports RCS on iPhone - Apple has introduced Rich Communications Services (RCS) support in iOS 18, enabling iPhone users to send rich media messages and read receipts to Android users. However, RCS functionality depends on carrier support. Apple updated its Wireless Carrier Support page, listing carriers that support RCS, including major U.S. carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, as well as some carriers in Canada, Europe, and Asia. To check if RCS is enabled, users can navigate to Settings > Apps > Messages. More carriers are expected to adopt RCS in the coming months.
- DIRECTV Just Changed How People Will Watch TV Forever with Smaller Cheaper TV Packages Hopefully Coming to YouTube TV, Fubo, & More - DIRECTV has reached a groundbreaking deal with Disney that will allow it to offer smaller, cheaper TV packages, potentially reshaping how people watch TV. Under the new multiyear agreement, customers will have access to genre-specific bundles, such as sports or news-only packages, instead of large, expensive channel lineups. The deal also integrates Disney's streaming services like Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ into select packages, and DIRECTV customers will get free access to ESPN's upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service. This move brings TV closer to an à la carte model, with the possibility of other providers like YouTube TV and Fubo following suit.
- ‘LIED to me and admitted it’: Woman switches entire family from AT&T to Verizon, trades iPhones. 9 months later, she gets a $550 charge - A TikTok user, @thecliffnotesgal, called out Verizon for allegedly lying about the trade-in value of her iPhones after switching from AT&T. She was initially promised $900 per phone but was hit with a $550 charge nine months later when Verizon reassessed the value. Despite her complaints, Verizon’s customer service allegedly admitted to misleading her. The incident sparked widespread discussion, with many commenters sharing similar experiences of unexpected charges after trade-in deals. @thecliffnotesgal is now considering switching carriers if Verizon doesn't resolve the issue.
Transcripts
[Music]
Speaker:So we're recording Wednesday the 25th of September.
Speaker:We have Hurricane Helene barreling toward us.
Speaker:I wouldn't say barreling.
Speaker:Well, by the time it hits landfall, which is supposed to be sometime tomorrow, Thursday,
Speaker:it's supposed to be a Category 3.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, it's been warm these past few days.
Speaker:I'm sure there's a lot of warm water over the Gulf, and that's what they do over warm water.
Speaker:But last night, the forecast made me think that it was going to be windy right now,
Speaker:and it's 5.30 in the afternoon, but you get to today, and all day long today,
Speaker:I watched it just hang out and party in Cancun, and I guess I put it off schedule.
Speaker:Yeah, it's still there.
Speaker:I think it's supposed to make landfall.
Speaker:I've got this thing pulled up on the computer called Zoom.Earth.
Speaker:Found it from a guy's Facebook page called Mike's Weather Page on Facebook.
Speaker:Like an interesting cat.
Speaker:Yeah, he's down in Florida.
Speaker:He linked to it and looking at it, and it says about 8 p.m. tomorrow afternoon is when it's supposed to make landfall in Florida.
Speaker:And so then by roughly 8 a.m. Friday morning, it's already supposed to be past us here in Tifton
Speaker:and up around Macon and about the midpoint.
Speaker:So we'll see.
Speaker:It happened this way because my birthday is Friday, and I had a golf date with a friend.
Speaker:So all that got canceled.
Speaker:Well, I mean, your birthday didn't get canceled.
Speaker:We pushed to Saturday.
Speaker:We'll see what Saturday is like.
Speaker:Anything interesting happen in the last two weeks for you?
Speaker:Nothing really to speak of.
Speaker:I hear there's an election coming up at some point, and there's some people fighting over it.
Speaker:You've heard this, have you?
Speaker:Yeah, I think it's trending on X.
Speaker:Okay, so that was the note in here.
Speaker:You got on X and wasted way too much time.
Speaker:Yeah, I saw a screen time report.
Speaker:I get on it on Sunday mornings for some reason.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And yeah, I burned four hours one day scrolling Twitter.
Speaker:I don't get on there.
Speaker:Right, so I'm a Twitter user, but I'm new to X, if that makes any sense.
Speaker:I'm new to X.
Speaker:I refuse to call it X.
Speaker:It's Twitter.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Fuck Elon.
Speaker:You send tweets on X.
Speaker:Yeah, you don't X on X.
Speaker:You exit.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:You exit and go to threads.
Speaker:And the reason that I burned so much time, it's not that I was engaging in healthy discourse.
Speaker:Not on Twitter.
Speaker:I was cruising the crazy.
Speaker:There was very little blinking.
Speaker:I mean, it was unimaginable.
Speaker:Are you a masochist?
Speaker:Am I?
Speaker:Well, if you hung out on Twitter for four hours.
Speaker:I mean, I didn't get engaged.
Speaker:I just was reading the comments.
Speaker:I would see a post and I'm like, that's clearly bullshit.
Speaker:But it's got two, three thousand comments.
Speaker:I was like, are they?
Speaker:Let me see if they're just shitting on this person.
Speaker:No, no, they're a greasing.
Speaker:Oh, oh, turbo cancer and everything.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:And I just, I hang out with Alex Jones.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah, I just clicked on the profile.
Speaker:I was like, I'm not following, but there's a post, I swear, every five minutes.
Speaker:And at that point in time, we were going to be in a nuclear war with Russia by the weekend.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And then the following Monday, because I wanted to see how it all ended up.
Speaker:I couldn't even find the post.
Speaker:And unbeknownst to us, instead of it being a nuclear war with Russia, they apparently had something to do with Helene headed this way.
Speaker:Oh, is that right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, that's the way it's either the Russians or the Chinese.
Speaker:A big seance in.
Speaker:Some kind of weather weapon, I'm sure.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:That's why we're getting rid of Noah, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And it turns the frogs gay.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Oh, I thought that was the other way around.
Speaker:Isn't there a sign in National Park somewhere that says, don't lick the frog?
Speaker:Yeah, don't lick the frogs.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:I feel for you.
Speaker:I do not hang out on Twitter at all.
Speaker:I would quit.
Speaker:This is a waste.
Speaker:And then I could not stand it.
Speaker:I was like, what's going on now?
Speaker:This is crazy.
Speaker:But I think I finally quit.
Speaker:I don't think I've opened it yet.
Speaker:The only time I ever get on there is I have my personal account.
Speaker:I have the Tifton Talks account.
Speaker:I have the radio TIFT account.
Speaker:And so whenever I do the newsletter for Tifton Talks, I post all the socials.
Speaker:You know, I post to Facebook and Twitter under the Tifton Talks account.
Speaker:And I also post on LinkedIn, oddly enough.
Speaker:But that's the only time I ever get on Twitter is to do that.
Speaker:Matter of fact, my oldest son, Devin, he has--I don't think we talked about this in the last episode
Speaker:because Tyler knows a lot more about this than I do.
Speaker:But Devin's Twitter account is @fire.
Speaker:You know, F-I-R-E.
Speaker:It's one of those very sought-after four-letter handles.
Speaker:Well, his got stolen from him.
Speaker:And at first it looked like the only way it could have happened was an inside job.
Speaker:But it was this weird thing where Devin actually bought it from another guy, I think, like 10 years ago or whatever.
Speaker:Legitimate. You could do that stuff.
Speaker:And the domain name that the email address was attached to, it had lapsed.
Speaker:So this person who managed to trick Twitter into taking the account away from Devin and giving it to them
Speaker:went through the effort of re-registering that domain, recreating that email address.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. So they had to have some of that background information.
Speaker:Exactly. So that's the reason why at first we thought it was an inside job.
Speaker:But then he managed to finally get it back.
Speaker:And then they gave it away again.
Speaker:And the last I heard, he's gotten it back and they've got a note on the account.
Speaker:Here's the thing. He had two-factor enabled everything and still someone was able to play support.
Speaker:And of course, that's not that difficult, considering that there's hardly any support when it comes to Twitter,
Speaker:because Elon fired them all. I didn't even have that in the show notes to talk about.
Speaker:But it just made me think when you were talking about Twitter, it was like, yeah, that's a cesspool.
Speaker:And I mean, and not only that, but he had like he had like multi, multi thousand followers or whatever.
Speaker:They went and wiped all that shit out.
Speaker:Oh, wow. Yeah. So.
Speaker:Well, as for me, I played around with Google's notebook, LLM.
Speaker:I don't know if you've heard of it. It's this thing where it can be used as a study aid where it can do like you give it some information.
Speaker:You can give it links. You can give it all these sources and it can it can create like a fact page.
Speaker:It can give you a bullet list and stuff like that.
Speaker:But one of the other things it can do is it will give you an audio overview.
Speaker:The audio overview is generated with two distinct voices having a conversation about the source material that you fed it to man and a woman's voice.
Speaker:And so some of the podcasters have started playing around with it.
Speaker:You can legitimately generate an entire podcast episode by feeding this information and have a discussion virtually with.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Do they have distinct points of view or approaches or is it just voices?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's eerie.
Speaker:Now, purists say and Tyler listened to it and he was like, it just seems too flat.
Speaker:I can tell that as a I said, yes, that's the worst it will ever be.
Speaker:That's the thing can only get better than that.
Speaker:Yeah. And the average person, if you were to take this and play it on the radio station or play it on TV or whatever,
Speaker:they would not be able to determine that this is not a real people having a conversation.
Speaker:Now, you can sometimes they'll say a word a little weird or maybe they'll take a breath in an odd spot or whatever.
Speaker:But it's very, very human like. Jason over a grumpy old geeks took their show notes from one of their previous episodes and fed it in.
Speaker:And it generated like a four minute. Many podcast about what they talked about.
Speaker:And it was like, holy shit. You know, we're just we're done.
Speaker:I took it. I took I say, what did I do? I took our show notes, I think, from our first episode.
Speaker:I generated two. I'll I'll link to them in the show notes here.
Speaker:But they one of them, I created a mini mini episode and called it SGN Daily Dive.
Speaker:And I went and found four articles on Google News under the technology section.
Speaker:And then I summarized with chat GPT each one of those articles.
Speaker:Then I copied those summarizations, fed it into Google's notebook, LLM, and had it generate a conversation between these two individuals about these topics and created eight eight or nine minute podcast episode out of it.
Speaker:So it's it's scary how good it is.
Speaker:I had a similar experience yesterday when I read that Chad GPT's or Open Eyes Advanced Voice available.
Speaker:I have not played with that.
Speaker:I played with it yesterday and was extremely impressed.
Speaker:I mean, the generated responses is a natural sounding voice.
Speaker:You can hear you can hear a breath being taken. There are filled pauses.
Speaker:There's it. It can even kind of.
Speaker:I haven't played with that much, but it feels like it can read my tone and respond in an appropriate manner.
Speaker:Like if I sound frustrated, it would, you know.
Speaker:Yeah, I can. I know that's frustrating.
Speaker:And then it just it's a calm voice and it sounds like there's surprise when something should be surprising.
Speaker:It was and I had a conversation about philosophy today for a few minutes.
Speaker:I was like, there's an idea that, you know, things that you had a conversation with this AI about philosophy.
Speaker:Yeah, I was what I was looking for was the term the what this line of thought is known as.
Speaker:And I described it and it's like, oh, it sounds seems like what you're thinking of is determinism.
Speaker:And that's what it was. And went on to tell me all about it.
Speaker:And it's just a natural back and forth.
Speaker:At one point it was responding, talking, and I chuckled at something else like that.
Speaker:And it paused and said, yeah, right. And then kept explaining.
Speaker:I was like, this is a candy and I'm this is my new toy.
Speaker:Oh, God. Oh, and as you were talking about generating that notebook, LM, it was turning in my head.
Speaker:I was like, I can do my own podcast convos with chat GPT and there's only post the funny ones.
Speaker:Now, I don't have this set up so we can pipe it through. So it might pick it up through the microphones.
Speaker:I know this is a shitty way of doing it, but I wasn't expecting to do it.
Speaker:But here's an exact I'm just jumping right in the middle.
Speaker:Some light anymore, really. Yeah. And that's a little concerning.
Speaker:Yeah. It really makes you think twice about what you're posting publicly,
Speaker:knowing that even someone you've blocked could be looking at your stuff.
Speaker:It's kind of a weird power dynamic shift, isn't it? Totally.
Speaker:And this whole thing is actually sparked a lot of debate about online safety versus free speech.
Speaker:I bet. Because on the one hand, yeah, that's that's even more natural than chad GPT.
Speaker:But Google's been working on a natural voice. Yeah.
Speaker:Wow. Yeah. That that is that is eerie. And again, the purist will go, well, you know, I can tell.
Speaker:And so far there's only those two voices. So anybody that uses this, you can immediately tell if you're listening to their podcast and you hear those two voices, you can go, oh, that came from Google notebook.
Speaker:Yeah. So, yeah. You know, here we go. So I did have another typewritten conversation with GPT and I was exploring, can I roll my own LLM?
Speaker:And I thought I thought I could. But yeah, yeah, you can. A lot of that's open for that kind of use.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it works. It's probably equal across the board, but it's there's something that that makes me think that.
Speaker:It probably works better on a Mac or a Linux implementation than Linux.
Speaker:Yeah. So instead of Windows, but like the large models use like tons of GPUs and like one of the what just one of the models.
Speaker:You might need about 300 gigs of RAM. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I don't have that much.
Speaker:Not in one machine. Yeah, not one machine.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, I actually use I use their whisper. It's open as whisper technology on my Mac mini over there to do transcripts.
Speaker:And there you can actually get a there's a guy that actually makes a slick looking app called Whisper for Mac OS.
Speaker:But before he he produced that, I came across this document on how to actually download all this stuff and tell it which which model you wanted to use and all this other kind of stuff.
Speaker:And that gave you some example scripts. And so what it does. It also uses FFM FFM peg to take your audio.
Speaker:It converts it into a standard format that it needs. And then there's a script. I've got two scripts. One I just called transcribe.
Speaker:I think I named it translate. But anyway, it does. It creates an SRT file, which is what you need to upload to your your podcast host.
Speaker:If you want to have transcripts of the episode, which we do, we have a transcript.
Speaker:Yeah. The other thing is I have it just create me a text file of everything that was said.
Speaker:And I have literally taken that fed that into chat GPT and said, summarize and bullet point this.
Speaker:And then that's my show note. And I was like, oh, this stuff's getting too damn slick.
Speaker:You know, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the application of that, you know, LLM's. I'm not going to call it AI.
Speaker:No, but the application of large language models and thought of a lot of stuff.
Speaker:And it's probably already being done. But I mean, as we already it's not to a point where I can afford it.
Speaker:But I still that's why I want to roll my own, but also don't trust other people, cloud companies and data processors with my clients data.
Speaker:Yeah. Like if I wanted to feed that into a large language model and just see what trends come out, what and what maybe other information that can be tied to.
Speaker:Like I could feed it all my ticket data and I can stream in firewall logs and then just figure out what and then just go points that I need to focus on.
Speaker:Or, you know, eventually just it's analyzing the stream and season anomaly.
Speaker:Maybe it can isolate a machine and send me a message and say, you know, this is what I did.
Speaker:And I can go, why did you do that? And it can give me a perfect explanation from the information put together from five or six different systems.
Speaker:And so I would solve this and I go, oh, okay. Or I can go now there's a false alarm. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:Done. So. And then your own company won't need you anymore. Right. By myself. That's the way to do it.
Speaker:And when you've got, you know, something that could reliably speak to customers when they call and make, you know, limited system changes.
Speaker:Uh, sign me up. That reminds me, I've got a client. One of the things that they've tried, these third, they've tried it in-house multiple times.
Speaker:They've tried these third parties multiple times. And then there was this one that was AI. It was called Brook.
Speaker:Okay. I tested it once, but it was supposed to be one of these where the client, the customer could call in.
Speaker:Brooke would answer. You couldn't really tell it wasn't a person. Right.
Speaker:Brooke would answer and basically say, how can I help you today? And the person would explain whatever it was.
Speaker:And Brooke would be picking out, I'm presuming, key words or phrases out of what they were doing.
Speaker:And she was supposed, she, it was supposed to be routing based on all of that. I think they ditched it after about two months, maybe two or three months and went back to real people.
Speaker:Was it just a problem with the quality or was it garbage in, garbage out?
Speaker:They didn't tell me. They didn't tell me. So.
Speaker:I can assume if you don't train them right, then they're going to get things wrong.
Speaker:But that was my first interaction with one of my clients actually using something considered AI for forward facing customer service communication.
Speaker:And I was like, okay, I'd never heard of this company, but you know.
Speaker:I would never advertise a live service desk and put one on there. You know, if you're expecting a live person, you should get a live person.
Speaker:But if the clients have something simple, even if they don't have something simple, they can explain it. And then the LLM can spit out the probable causes or this might actually be the issue.
Speaker:The model can put the ticket in for you and put all the right information in.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:And just that is.
Speaker:Kind of like the chat bots, like I've had to deal with Mediacom and other companies.
Speaker:It's like you go online and I'm trying to get to a live person, but their version of Clippy is they're trying to help me out.
Speaker:And so and most of the time what I need is it just gives up and it's like, oh, I'll connect you to a customer service rep.
Speaker:And then, you know, we're chatting and I'm fine with that. I don't like talking to people.
Speaker:I mean, I don't know why a podcast, but, you know, I can do that.
Speaker:But all this other kind of stuff. I mean, it's I don't know.
Speaker:It's it's like I keep saying and I keep hearing it's the worst today that it's ever going to be.
Speaker:It's only going to get better.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's going to get more clever.
Speaker:As long as you keep that physical switch in arm's reach.
Speaker:That's all I can think to say is they might have a robot kill you and turn it back on.
Speaker:But, you know, we do our best to keep the thing in check.
Speaker:But I like it.
Speaker:I can I can imagine the worse.
Speaker:And things have already happened.
Speaker:I mean, from systems being compromised and and all that being lost, a language model or a dynamic model like LLM could devise ways to intrude on networks.
Speaker:And yeah, I was going to say, that's what worries me is.
Speaker:It'd be so much better at it.
Speaker:Malware is already a big issue.
Speaker:And when you start throwing and I know we've already got some AI or machine learning malware out there and.
Speaker:It's like we're going to have to we're going to have to pit the white hat against the black hat.
Speaker:Yeah, that's that's already being done.
Speaker:And there is there's machine learning in like Webroot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, you got your EDRs.
Speaker:Yeah, there's EDR and that that's based on machine learning.
Speaker:And yeah, all the all the data they have.
Speaker:And now they're backing that up with MDR.
Speaker:I think that is where it's basically EDR.
Speaker:But you got a team of people sitting there monitoring this stuff that's being fed back to them.
Speaker:So it's a colleague of mine used to say he probably still says because he runs a security company.
Speaker:It's automation with human validation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And and that's that's about as good as it's going to get right now.
Speaker:It's expensive.
Speaker:But if you can if you can leverage AI to filter some of that out or provide avenues to resolution before somebody actually sees it, I think or can go ahead and solve it themselves or limit the damage.
Speaker:You know, whatever can be done at computational speed.
Speaker:It doesn't rely on human detection.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because what what attacks are coming in are quite fast.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, they are.
Speaker:And I want to I want to welcome everybody to the AI show.
Speaker:So it's going to be a topic.
Speaker:Yeah, it's always going to be a topic.
Speaker:Our favorite Internet service provider, along with the boy provider, telephone provider, True Vista, had another phone outage that started.
Speaker:They just do it.
Speaker:So we have content for the show.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I mean, they, you know, because it's right on time.
Speaker:Yeah, it was.
Speaker:My contact actually texted me some like I think it was between eight and eight thirty last night.
Speaker:My phone goes on.
Speaker:Do not disturb around five, five thirty anyway.
Speaker:So I just happened to look at it and he's like, we've got an outage, same problem.
Speaker:And I'm like, OK, so this morning it it was still out.
Speaker:I don't think he came back until about 10 o'clock.
Speaker:But here's what is so funny.
Speaker:So I had to I had to bring this to read it.
Speaker:Important notice. This was in my email.
Speaker:Important notice. Service preparations for Hurricane Helene.
Speaker:Dear valued True Vista customer.
Speaker:As we prepare for the potential impact of Hurricane Helene, we want to ensure you that True Vista is taking all necessary steps to maintain service continuity during this time.
Speaker:However, due to the severity of the storm, there may be power outages in affected areas which could disrupt your Internet phone and TV services.
Speaker:Please be aware that while we are actively monitoring the situation and have our teams on standby to address any issues, services dependent on electricity may be affected if your local power provider experiences outages.
Speaker:OK, we recommend the following steps to stay connected.
Speaker:Number one, charge all your devices, including mobile phones, laptops in advance.
Speaker:Number two, keep backup power sources such as portable chargers readily available.
Speaker:Number three, this is what killed me. Follow us on social media for live updates and service restoration information.
Speaker:OK, let me finish this now.
Speaker:Your safety is our top priority and we appreciate your understanding as we navigate this storm together.
Speaker:If you have any questions or need further blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:OK, so two things out of this. Number one, necessary steps to maintain service continuity during this time.
Speaker:They can't even continue service continuity without a fucking hurricane.
Speaker:It's a little early to blame it on the storm.
Speaker:And number three, follow us on social media so that I can get updates on service restoration.
Speaker:But that'll take the cooperation from Verizon.
Speaker:That'll take, yeah, that'll take cooperation from Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile.
Speaker:They're all three here.
Speaker:Because if my service is out, I can't follow your ass on social media to find out when you're going to.
Speaker:OK, so I'm being a little I'm being a little facetious and pedantic here, but the timing was just it was like we had we had another outage.
Speaker:This is like the third phone outage. We had another outage.
Speaker:And then you get this sent out an email, you know, being prepared for Hurricane Helene and you can't even keep your service running as it is.
Speaker:OK, we got you. I'll get off that soapbox.
Speaker:You think they'll put in any redundancy after?
Speaker:No, no, no, no.
Speaker:Because that costs money.
Speaker:No, we were you know, we talked to one of their service techs.
Speaker:I can't remember if that was after the first episode or not.
Speaker:So we got one of our clients converted over to the AdTran ONT and the service tech.
Speaker:We were having a conversation with him.
Speaker:Of course, I'm not going to say who it is because I don't want to out him.
Speaker:But I was like, they don't have any redundancy.
Speaker:And he just shook his head. He goes, exactly.
Speaker:He said that has been a big, big, big topic.
Speaker:And nobody seems to want to address the fact that that circuit is the same circuit that they've had for I mean, even when plant on the place.
Speaker:It's a ZEO circuit. And apparently there's something wrong with the damn circuit.
Speaker:Like a layer one or.
Speaker:I don't know. I mean, I get there.
Speaker:There's a span of time where I would get emails almost every two or three days of of scheduled maintenance, ZEO maintenance for that circuit.
Speaker:And then it would get pushed off and then then it would happen.
Speaker:And then and I was like, I don't I don't know what's going on here.
Speaker:So and of course, in Albany, it's in such a part of town that they're like, if it's after five o'clock, we ain't going there behind noon.
Speaker:Sorry to shit on Truvista, because otherwise their Internet service is actually fairly dependable.
Speaker:It's their phone part that is not.
Speaker:I even had I even I talked to Walt today and he asked me, he was like, how's the how's the cable modem service?
Speaker:I said, let me tell you a story.
Speaker:Which where we are on that is, yeah, I meant to ask the O.N.T. fiber to the home saga for Darryl Donovan here.
Speaker:A 10 year battle. So they finally, finally looked at the fucking maps and went, shit, there's a 96 count fiber out there.
Speaker:And I'm like, no, I take inventory when they bought the place.
Speaker:Did you not know this? So they were looking at the possibility of lighting up some spare fiber so that they could like maybe peel me off onto an O.N.T.
Speaker:then start peeling other people off as they could offer the service.
Speaker:Yeah. Whereas, you know, me, I just come out here, just flip it over and it's like, hey, it is here's your O.N.T.
Speaker:No, seriously, I understand the methodology. Yeah.
Speaker:So. I was like, this is this seems positive, you know.
Speaker:Well, apparently they carried this to the knock or somebody and they looked at it went, no, we might need this.
Speaker:We might need that and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Look, yeah. Fuck your customers. They got Internet.
Speaker:So that's where we are right now. I haven't heard anything else.
Speaker:And I even I even told my guy, I was like, you know, I don't expect to get it before the end of the year.
Speaker:I just want to know that it's happening. Yeah, that's all I want.
Speaker:And so that's where we are. The Donovan's O.N.T. fiber to the home saga.
Speaker:I just want synchronous Internet. I just I just want one gig up and one gig down.
Speaker:Hey, give me five hundred by five hundred. I'll be happy. Anyway, my five hundred by 50 is actually doing pretty good.
Speaker:So it's it's it's all right. I mean, I'm not I'm not one step just like you were.
Speaker:I'm not one step away from actual true fiber to the home because we were our fog.
Speaker:You know, sad news is a very good client of mine passed away at the age of 51 Saturday.
Speaker:And that that took everybody by surprise. And so he he owned a car dealership here in Tifton.
Speaker:It's it's been hard for a lot of people. So I've had I've had to start dealing with the whole digital asset part of getting his email forwarded to a certain person and, you know, dealing with all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:Onion. Yeah, that's always fun. I'm not looking forward to the first time I do that.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, it was bad enough when I had to do it for my folks, you know, and luckily, my mom was not technically savvy at all.
Speaker:My dad attempted to be so, you know, he had email accounts and he had online stuff and all of that.
Speaker:So when he passed away in 2013, I had to jump in and start helping mom figure out where all this shit was, you know, how to log into this and that and etc.
Speaker:So I can't imagine what they're going to have to go through. Oh, last thing, and then we'll actually get to some tech news.
Speaker:My lawnmower. I have a lot of sagas. Oh, I have them, too. So I've got a lawnmower. It's a 2015. It is a Troy built TR TB 30 R.
Speaker:It's one of these. It's got the rear the engines on the rear. Yeah. You know, looks like an old snapper.
Speaker:If you remember those old snappers from the steering wheel, it's not a zero turn. No, it's not. It's not a zero turn.
Speaker:My dad's is like craftsman style. Yeah. Well, I think what they do is they they make all of these lawnmowers out of one factory and they just slap a different name on it because it's the same as a cub cadet.
Speaker:It's the same as a craftsman. It's the same as an MTD. So I've had some issues with it. I've had it to the repair shop.
Speaker:I use Chris's moral clinic here because they'll come pick it up because I have no way of getting the damn thing to them.
Speaker:And I've had some work done on about two or three times. And so Saturday, I'm out cutting the grass.
Speaker:I got started. I'm a I'm a good 30 minutes in and I started noticing that whenever I get into thicker grass, the the sound that the deck was making, it wasn't spitting out any grass.
Speaker:And I'm like, hmm, OK, so that means the belt is slipping. I've experienced this with another lawnmower, the place I used to own over in Fitzgerald.
Speaker:And I'm like, OK, well, I guess I'll just have to slow down because I did let it I did let the grass go one week further than I meant to.
Speaker:But because we were doing all this cleaning and stuff. Anyway, make a couple more passes.
Speaker:And all of a sudden the strain on the motor is gone. And as I turn around, I'm looking I'm looking down the length of the yard and I'm like, that's either a snake or that is the belt on my lawnmower.
Speaker:Oh, I thought you were going to tell me the blade was no, no, no, no.
Speaker:The blade didn't drop out. That would have been funny.
Speaker:No, the belt snapped and I was like, oh, OK. So I called Chris's Mora Clinic and I looked up the part number on Troy Belt's site.
Speaker:I got the actual part number. I gave it to the guy and he comes back about a minute or two later and he's like, I thought we surely had this thing.
Speaker:But he said, I can order it for you. Be here probably about Tuesday or Wednesday.
Speaker:And I'm looking straight at the down belt on Amazon and I'm like, no, I can order it from Amazon. It'll be here Monday.
Speaker:He goes, I don't blame you, brother. Go ahead. Yeah.
Speaker:So and I was I was I was a little hesitant. Because I've tried to replace the belt on this thing one time before, and I thoroughly fucked it up to the point that they had to come pick it up and fix it for me.
Speaker:So I watched a couple of different videos on how to do this. And here's the kicker.
Speaker:Most of the videos tell you to take the more deck off of this thing. That's what I do.
Speaker:Then there was this one video from this guy down in Jacksonville, which is kind of funny because I'm pretty sure he's got an Aussie accent, but he lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker:He shows you how to replace the belt without taking the deck off. I went one step further.
Speaker:I didn't even have to do what he did. Now, on this deck, you've got to you've got the engage the engagement pulley.
Speaker:Yeah. OK, so it it it pushes the belt over to the actual main drive pulley and the belt, the blade pulley and all.
Speaker:All right. It's got a retaining bolt that keeps the belt up against the engaging pulley.
Speaker:In his situation, he had to take this whole assembly off because he his his retaining bolt disappeared.
Speaker:OK, OK. Well, mine was still there and I couldn't get the bracket off.
Speaker:It kept spinning. And it's it's a bolt all the way through.
Speaker:You got to you got to have a wrench up under the deck and then you got to be able to on top.
Speaker:You really need another person. You really should just take a deck off.
Speaker:No, I've done that. It takes literally an hour to get that deck off. And I was like, hell no.
Speaker:So what I discovered was I can unscrew that retaining bolt.
Speaker:So I unscrewed the retaining bolt, put the belt in, put the retaining bolt back in place.
Speaker:I had that belt replaced in less than 10 minutes and I didn't have to yank the deck.
Speaker:I didn't have to pull the bracket off or anything.
Speaker:And the only thing I wish I'd done is videoed it so I could put it up on YouTube and say,
Speaker:this is the way you can change the belt on this thing without having to do any of this other shit.
Speaker:So anyway, I did that. Matter of fact, I did that Monday about mid midday, was able to do it in my nice, clean shop now.
Speaker:But it was still hot. So I had to go get a fan and and then started cutting grass.
Speaker:And the grass looks like shit because I let it get too tall.
Speaker:And I normally mulch, but I had the regular the regular section. Yeah.
Speaker:And so the grass is it. But next time I do it, I'm going to have my mulching attachment back on it.
Speaker:But I was like, yep, I don't know why. I don't know why I was so.
Speaker:How I got so screwed up the first time I tried to do this, other than the fact that this was back when I was still drinking.
Speaker:So, yeah, I'm not saying I was drunk when I did it, but I've noticed could have been.
Speaker:I could have been. And not that this is the alcohol retirement podcast, but I have noticed that some of the benefits of not having any alcohol in your system for a year and a half is that there is a sense of clarity like I've never had before.
Speaker:I bet, you know, I can actually I can puzzle things out a hell of a lot better now than I could two years ago.
Speaker:And as much as there is a draw to like I want a 90 minute IPA or a 60 minute or something, it's just that taste.
Speaker:I'm like, nope. Yeah, not doing it. So I forget how many I'm like at 486 days now or something.
Speaker:It's on my calendar up there when. Well, you've been my age before.
Speaker:I just I lost the taste for beer. Why not? So much the taste. I've become lethargic.
Speaker:I've like one beer and one good beer. Yeah, I can probably drink eight Coors Lights on a Mo day, but one good beer, a fat tire.
Speaker:Yeah, 90 minute. Yeah. I'm just done. I'm ready. I'm ready to go to bed. Yeah.
Speaker:So, yeah, my days of actually being able to drink for 90 minute IPAs in one sitting, which was not smart.
Speaker:No, but mostly not for anybody in one sitting. Yeah.
Speaker:One sitting. I mean, it took me about four hours. I was a beer an hour. Yeah.
Speaker:And if you could sit back in. But after the first hour, when I put that empty beer bottle down, I was just going to know I'm going to hit the bed.
Speaker:Yes. I just I do enjoy. I just I would like to taste more of it.
Speaker:Yeah. It's bedtime. Yes. I'd gotten to where I was actually drinking more.
Speaker:Now, this is the beer and alcohol show mixed in the tech. We're going back to the bent on beer days.
Speaker:I was drinking obscutioners. Those are good. Those are really good. They're palate wreckers.
Speaker:But that's the point. Yeah, I know. It's good. It's not just it's balanced.
Speaker:You know, it's funny. The thing I've noticed about craft beer and then we'll actually get into some tech news.
Speaker:Craft beer, unlike shitty beer like Michelob Ultra, Coors Light and all of those things you see through anything you can see through is actually it's it's good cold, but it's also good warm.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. That's what I discovered. I was like, reason I was thinking about that today.
Speaker:Oh, we switched to good coffee. My coffee got cold, but it didn't taste.
Speaker:It's garbage when it gets cold. And I thought about, yeah, you know, a good beer is is good warm.
Speaker:Yeah. Just as it is cold. Yeah. I mean, you know what it is that makes the macro beers taste crappy?
Speaker:What? It's the adjuncts because to get the alcohol up there and not make it heavier.
Speaker:Yeah. They add they they add rice and corn to the mash. OK, that's what makes it taste like ass when it gets warmer.
Speaker:It does. It tastes like ass. They call it adjunct lager.
Speaker:They should call it ass tasting lager. Oh, all right. Anyway. OK, let's move on.
Speaker:So have you upgraded iOS 18 yet? A couple of days ago.
Speaker:Yeah. So the big thing here is Apple has introduced the rich communication services, RCS support in iOS 18,
Speaker:enabling iPhone users to send rich media messages and read receipts to Android users, which good luck, because I turn my read receipts off.
Speaker:You can't tell. Oh, yeah. I don't I don't allow that. My wife doesn't get them.
Speaker:Yeah. I decided I didn't. This is kind of selfish for me, but I didn't need a client to know that I just read their message and I wasn't.
Speaker:Yeah. And put the phone down because what they were.
Speaker:And I know this kind of sounds bad, but it's not the fact if it'd been an emergency, I'd been on it.
Speaker:Yeah. But they were asking me a question that I could wait another five or 10 minutes and then I could get back to them.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, or I just didn't have an answer and I needed to look it up or whatever.
Speaker:So RCS functionality, of course, depends on carrier support. Apple updated its wireless carrier support page.
Speaker:It listed carriers that support RCS, including major U.S. carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, as well as some carriers in Canada, Europe and Asia.
Speaker:So if to check if RCS is enabled, you can go to settings, apps, messages, and there's a slider for it.
Speaker:More more carriers are expected to adopt RCS in the coming months. Have you tested it? Because I tested it with Tyler.
Speaker:I don't care. Well, I honestly I don't regularly communicate with anybody who happens to have an Android phone.
Speaker:It's it's a rarity. I shouldn't say it's a rarity. I do have of my client base and the people that I communicate with.
Speaker:I have more people that have iPhones than have Android. But I do have a select few of people that have Android.
Speaker:And of course, Tyler is Android. Yeah. So he was still here whenever I updated iOS 18 and we tested it.
Speaker:And of course, he could see me typing and all. And now whenever I send if I'm sending messages, it tells me I'm sending messages.
Speaker:I message and RCS or something. Anyway, there's a thing there. What are they going to have a different bubble color?
Speaker:No, they're not. That was going to be green. Yes. OK, that's fine. It was going to be.
Speaker:No, it's not. I mess it. It was going to be a big that that was a big contention there for a while.
Speaker:It was like, oh, so finally, Android users are going to get blue bubbles.
Speaker:No, you're still going to be relegated to second class citizens because you're a green bubble.
Speaker:And I say that tongue in cheek. I don't care. They're Samsung's Android phones are great.
Speaker:Google's pixel phones are great. I just happen to like the Apple ecosystem.
Speaker:I mean, I've got a MacBook Air sitting in front. Yeah, I don't need I don't need to hack.
Speaker:I just need to use it. Yeah, I need the apps that I have on it. Exactly. That work that have passed muster.
Speaker:And I just need to use it sometimes as a telephone. Yeah, I don't want to hack it.
Speaker:I don't want to I don't want to break it. I just wanted to work. And that's why I chose that.
Speaker:You know, I think the average and this is based on some feedback that I got from my wife back whenever she was working for Joanne Fabrics.
Speaker:She would talk to a customer and she would ask him a question. I'm trying to remember exactly what it was.
Speaker:And she was like she was telling him how to get how to get to the site, I think, to get coupons that they could they could get on their phone.
Speaker:And she would ask them, is like, do you have an iPhone or or an Android?
Speaker:They would hold up a phone and go, I got a smartphone. They didn't know if it was an iPhone or an Android.
Speaker:They didn't care. All they knew was that it was a smartphone. It probably cost a shit ton of money.
Speaker:But then they probably didn't care about that either, because they're probably paying it along with their cellular bill, you know, twenty five, thirty dollars a month.
Speaker:And they probably didn't care what color the texting bubbles were either. Yeah.
Speaker:So I think that is more of an elitist attitude when it comes to the green versus blue, because I don't personally care what color it is.
Speaker:They could make they can make them all purple for all I care. Well, I I usually work under the assumption.
Speaker:And again, I can't speak to any authority because I don't know. I don't care enough to have researched fully.
Speaker:But I work under the assumption that if it's iMessage, it's encrypted. Yes.
Speaker:If it's SMS, the carrier can see it. And currently right now, RCS between iPhone and Android is not encrypted.
Speaker:There. And that's when it's green. I know that I. But it's coming.
Speaker:Supposedly, there's don't if the bubble is green, you don't send a dick pic.
Speaker:Do you send passwords? I don't send passwords either way. I do. I do.
Speaker:And now if it's I mean, I have it for like a temporary password, but not. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, to me, I feel I feel safer when I have someone it's like, hey, can you especially if I need to copy and paste a password to somebody?
Speaker:It was like, yeah, I'll send it, especially if it's another iPhone user because it is encrypted in the end and Apple can't see it.
Speaker:Yeah. Nor it turns out, nor will they give it up. That's true. That's true.
Speaker:So if it's SMS, it can be subpoenaed from the carrier. Yeah.
Speaker:So that that and right now RCS, too, because like I said, they are working on it.
Speaker:Supposedly when that will happen. I don't know. That was actually just have a messages app for Android.
Speaker:Because that's that's a question that because it's I mean, why why doesn't Apple make a message for Android?
Speaker:And I'll tell you, I'll tell you why they don't have a spare developer.
Speaker:They say that an intern could do it. I mean, I know exactly why I'm just.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, you know, Tim has said that he said the quiet parts out loud.
Speaker:Basically, why give them an incentive to buy a damn Android phone?
Speaker:Because they don't care either way. You do remember. And even if I could have I message on Android, I wouldn't have an Android phone.
Speaker:I mean, I'd still have an iPhone. That's fair. There was I don't know if you if you've ever seen this,
Speaker:but there was a guy that was talking to Tim about his grandmother and the fact that his grandmother had an Android.
Speaker:He had an iPhone and he'd really like for, you know, this whole blue green thing.
Speaker:And I'm paraphrasing and Tim's response was by an iPhone. Of course, yes, a flag for that.
Speaker:But I'm like, he's not wrong. He doesn't make Android devices. He makes iPhones.
Speaker:You know, how often I have to help somebody use an iPhone? Hardly any. Never. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:But when I get a call and you put my email on my phone and they hand me some five year old LG phone,
Speaker:you go, oh, I don't even know how to use this thing. Oh, no, I know. Is there a mail app still? Is it supported?
Speaker:Gmail. Most of them come with Gmail. Well, I mean, I need to connect them to 365. So it still works in Gmail.
Speaker:Does it? Yeah, I think when you go, it's kind of like an iPhone.
Speaker:When you go to add an email account and you get the different options, I can get Gmail and you can get Exchange.
Speaker:But usually there's a built in mail app. Yeah. And well, if it's Samsung, they have their own, I believe.
Speaker:If it's Pixel, they got Gmail and some of the other ones probably come default with Gmail because that's kind of the deal that Google made with everybody.
Speaker:So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I've run into that, too. But I know they they work.
Speaker:I can send them a QR code and say, get this app and be done. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:I actually use the I use the Outlook app on my iPhone. I've I've used it. I think it's configured. I just don't. Yeah.
Speaker:I use mail it. I use it. I use both, to be fair. When I check email, it uses Outlook.
Speaker:Whenever I've got to whenever I'm like sending a link to the family or whatever, I think it uses the built in mail app.
Speaker:So I don't know. But most of my clients, I've got them on Office 365, Microsoft 365 or whatever.
Speaker:I've got them on that. And so and there's certain things that you can do with the Outlook app, like shared mailboxes, for example.
Speaker:Yeah. You cannot do shared mailboxes in any other app other than Outlook on the devices because Microsoft removed that capability about a year, year and a half ago.
Speaker:And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, so if you need it, you have to use the Outlook app.
Speaker:It could present itself as a folder in the inbox, but whatever.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know why I was like, push them over to it, I guess. So you you did away with your cable TV service, right?
Speaker:I did. OK, so we got another article here about DirecTV just changed how people watch TV forever with smaller, cheaper TV packages, hopefully coming to YouTube TV, Fubo and more.
Speaker:DirecTV has reached a groundbreaking deal with Disney that will allow it to offer smaller, cheaper TV packages, potentially reshaping how people watch TV under the new multi-year agreement.
Speaker:Customers will have access to genre specific bundles such as sports or news only packages instead of large, expensive channel lineups.
Speaker:The deal also integrates Disney's streaming services like Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus into select packages and DirecTV customers will get free access to ESPN's upcoming direct to consumer streaming service.
Speaker:This move brings TV closer to an a la carte model with the possibility of other providers like YouTube TV and Fubo following suit.
Speaker:So you and I both have worked for a cable company before you briefly, but you were still there and never, never on the TV side, never on the TV side.
Speaker:Yeah, I always had to deal with the NCTC, which was the National Cable Television Co-op.
Speaker:And that was an organization that for smaller cable companies, you could go, you could be a member and they would go and parlay on your behalf.
Speaker:Didn't negotiate with the providers. Yeah. Yeah. Because there was strength in numbers, just kind of like a union. Right.
Speaker:Because we weren't as big as, say, a Comcast or any of those where they could literally go to ESPN and say, look, X number dollars.
Speaker:No. And there was this big push back in the mid mid alts and what have you about the whole a la carte.
Speaker:And I kept telling people this will never happen because ESPN, you wanted ESPN a la carte, you're going to pay $18 just for the damn channel.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, or you can pay $15 extra for the package of everything because they required us to put it in the highest penetrated tier.
Speaker:Yeah. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm still I'm still using True Vista's TV service.
Speaker:And I think I've mentioned before, I tried YouTube TV. It's a superior product, but they don't have any of the stuff like the History Channel and they don't have that grouping.
Speaker:Right. If they did, I wouldn't have True Vista's television service because it fucking sucks.
Speaker:It's terrible. It is. It's horrible. Yeah. I found I wasn't watching it. I didn't pay for the DVR service.
Speaker:So, yeah, me either. If I'm not on for the race, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, half the time the channels the channels will go out.
Speaker:We primarily stay on like Comet and Charge because like Comet plays like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah. SG1. Some of the cool classic movies. Yeah.
Speaker:Charge does like CSI Miami and Criminal Intent and all that kind of shit. And B-level action films. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:I remember flipping through and seeing one and I go, yeah, I'll watch Conan. But here's the thing. Most of the stuff is in 4.3.
Speaker:They don't they, you know, especially the older stuff. And when they get in the newer stuff, they finally get it expanded out to 16 by 9.
Speaker:But I the the Comet channel on YouTube, YouTube TV had everything in 16 by 9. So here they're pulling their Comet and their Charge out of the air somewhere, I think, from a local like Albany DMA or something like that.
Speaker:So anyway, it's terrible. I mean, it's just it's horrible. You can literally go to Comet's website and stream it and get better service most of the time.
Speaker:And you can't offer the Truvista app. They're going to cut my Internet off. I'm pretty damn sure if I keep bashing them like that anyway.
Speaker:So there's that. I don't know what the pricing structure is going to be. Yeah, I'm looking at the page. Something that won't work. Probably not.
Speaker:I mean, if they'll come back and they'll look at this and go, we're not making enough money. We can't do this anymore.
Speaker:Yeah, the article, which is over at Cord Cutters Cord Cutter News dot com, which is pretty good site. They there's nothing about the actual cost of the packages.
Speaker:Yeah. So my daughter's gotten upset with me several times because I'm cheap. I had the ten dollar Netflix subscription. One screen. That's all I need. I'm not watching two at once.
Speaker:So if they want to watch Netflix, they get their own subscription or wait till I'm done. That's kind of how they can sit and watch whatever I'm watching.
Speaker:Yeah. But I got an email about a month ago and Netflix like, hey, we don't offer your plan anymore. So we upgraded. Yeah. It was like 1549 a month and two screens at once.
Speaker:I'm like, I have one TV. I'm like, okay, I guess I have four. Like we have this game. There's one in my office. Yeah. Because I took the TV out of the bedroom.
Speaker:We have living room, the playroom. That's where Xbox gets played in my office. And then my daughter has one upstairs. So that's. But I don't watch those. I just watch one in the living room and one of the offices there.
Speaker:I was watching the weather today. Otherwise, I watch financial news. That's pretty much all this. I mean, that's this one in here. I've got this one. We got one in what we call the courtroom is when you walk in the back door.
Speaker:It's right there with the kitchen. Lea's got one up in her sewing room upstairs. The one that we watch the most is the 50 or 55 or whatever it is in our bedroom.
Speaker:We don't have a living room. Yeah. We did away with the living room. It's her museum now with all her old antique sewing machines and stuff. And so we literally treat our bedroom like kind of an en suite type thing.
Speaker:We got two beds in there because we don't sLeap in the same bed. As you get older, you'll figure out that. That's the strat. We're close to that.
Speaker:Yeah, that's the strat. And, you know, you want to have a little hanky panky meet in the middle. We got a couch. She's got her desk in there with with her older computer because I got her behind me.
Speaker:I've got our actual gaming machine and we just sit there and watch TV. So I do pay for the 1999 Netflix or whatever. Yeah. But I'm kind of like you. I'm the only one that ever watches it.
Speaker:Yeah. I'm like, why am I paying? And here's the reason why. Unless something's changed. I don't think the 1599, I could be wrong, does 4K.
Speaker:Pretty sure. I've never seen 4K, but my my big TV in the main room isn't a 4K projector. And that 4K projector is an expense.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Our TV in our bedroom is a 4K. Yeah. When I just took out of the bedroom, it's now in the playroom. It's 4K.
Speaker:Yeah. That was the only 4K we have. And the only reason why we have it is Tyler won it back when he worked for the other company he worked for.
Speaker:And he was like, I don't have a place for it here. I won't watch it anyway. And so he gave it to us. But yeah, the streaming stuff's gotten crazy. I mean, I look at it. I'm paying.
Speaker:Disney Plus just went up like another dollar or two. You know, Amazon Prime. They did a dick move several months back where it was like, hey, we know that you're basically paying 150 or 180 dollars a year for for Prime.
Speaker:Yeah. And along with that, you get all of this commercial free. We've added so much value. We've added so much value and our costs have gone up. Now we're going to start doing commercials.
Speaker:Yeah. So if you don't want commercials is two ninety nine a month. Yeah. And I'm paying the two ninety nine because I fucking hate commercials.
Speaker:Oh, I'll I'll use it for potty breaks. I'm not paying him more money. I mean, I pay for YouTube premium.
Speaker:And whenever someone like Philip DeFranco does his show, I don't get ads, but he does his own ads. Right. I fast forward through them. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Because I'm not paying fourteen dollars a month to have to sit here and listen to his. I know that's how he part of the way he makes money. I get that.
Speaker:But no, I'm just not doing that. And he doesn't get less money if you fast forward. No, no.
Speaker:Because the only way he gets paid, if he says it and he said it. Yeah. And he probably gets paid by the number of people that goes to the link and does whatever.
Speaker:So I can't I can't see that being a big thing, because, I mean, I've only bought one thing off of a from a YouTube advertiser and Smarter Every Day was talking about Raycon.
Speaker:I was like, you know what? I've been wanting to try those. So I went in and put in Dustin's coat, whatever code you say, he might, you know, give him 30 cents or whatever.
Speaker:And they're actually decent. Yeah. Phil, Philip actually shills for those two occasionally. Now, there's a guy I used to follow.
Speaker:His name is escaping me. He used to work for Microsoft. He's a really heavy set guy. I'm going to have to narrow that down. I know his real name is Jerry Barnacles.
Speaker:OK, so I used to follow I used to watch him whenever he'd be live on Twitch and what have you. He actually he absolutely rails against Raycon.
Speaker:He said they are the they are the sorry piece of shit earbuds that you can buy. There's crap. Like how long ago was this? About three years ago.
Speaker:So I don't know. I always thought I always thought headphones that he vote for. I don't know.
Speaker:He was going through this whole thing talking about talking about streamers and all that shield for these various products that aren't actually really good.
Speaker:And he put Raycon in that. And that's how he come up with that. I personally don't know. I wouldn't think that Phil, Philip DeFranco would shill for a product that he doesn't actually think is good.
Speaker:Yeah. So I think Barnacles may be wrong on that one. But I have experience of one pair. They sound great.
Speaker:I mean, there are things I don't like about them. You know, like if you press the button on the right, but it's one tick volume up.
Speaker:You press the button left. It's one tick volume down. But to pause it, it's a it's a double tip, double tap on either one.
Speaker:I know a double tap on the right. But to skip, you have to tap the damn thing three times and you're shuffling into your ear to push this button.
Speaker:Yeah, no, thanks. So that's I just use my phone, but they sound great. They seal. They're lighter than the air pods. Yeah, they don't have the stem coming out.
Speaker:So they're just nice. They do not have a microphone. So you don't you can't make calls on it. Yeah, that's not what they're for. Right. And they were 80 bucks.
Speaker:Yeah, they I thought about trying to pair, but and when you take the earbuds out, they it doesn't notify your phone.
Speaker:So you can lay them down and it'll still be playing whatever you had. They don't pause themselves. But they to me, they fit better and then in effect sound better than my AirPods Pro.
Speaker:I don't have any AirPods. I don't have any wireless at all. I was incredibly impressed with the noise cancellation on the AirPods Pro. It riding in my riding in the BMW with those AirPods in makes my BMW like a Tesla.
Speaker:Because you can't hear any of it. It feels and sounds like a Tesla because I can't hear it. I can't feel it. Yeah. And it's but I'm moving. Yeah. Is that safe?
Speaker:Probably not. Probably not. But I didn't take the whole trip, but it was interesting to to fire was just this is what a test is completely silent.
Speaker:Yeah, we've we actually have a an article about AirPod AirPod Pro later on. First, though, we got an article over at Daily Diet lied to me and admitted it.
Speaker:A woman switches entire family from AT&T to Verizon trades iPhones. Nine months later, she gets a five hundred and fifty dollar charge.
Speaker:So we have a tick tock user. She called out Verizon for allegedly lying about the trade in value of her iPhones after switching from AT&T.
Speaker:She was initially promised nine hundred dollars per phone, but was hit with a five hundred and fifty dollar charge nine months later when Verizon reassessed the value.
Speaker:Despite her complaints, Verizon's customer service allegedly admitted to misleading her.
Speaker:The incident sparked widespread discussion, with many commenters sharing similar experiences of unexpected charges after trade in deals.
Speaker:She's now considering switching carriers if Verizon doesn't resolve the issue. I wonder who she's going to switch to because she went from AT&T to Verizon.
Speaker:I mean, she's going to go to where she is. I mean, she's in the metro area. T-Mobile is an option.
Speaker:Yeah, I've I've never. Let's see. I'm trying to remember. I have traded in one phone to Verizon.
Speaker:And it's when I moved from my iPhone s.e. to my 13 that I currently have. And I forget how much they gave me.
Speaker:It was on like two or three hundred bucks. Didn't have an issue there. But the only problem that I have with Verizon on this is why did they wait nine months?
Speaker:Probably a logistics thing where they got back to the depot and took that long to be assessed.
Speaker:Because I know the way it works is you basically check off like, are there any cracks in the screen?
Speaker:No. You know, does it power on and all this other kind of stuff. And you're supposed to gauge the quality like, you know, bad, good, fair, whatever. Excellent.
Speaker:I mean, if you lie, they're going to find out. Oh, yeah. So I have to wonder if that's what happened with her.
Speaker:I mean, they might have been misleading because they let it go nine months.
Speaker:Yeah. Well, when she says she got nine hundred dollars per phone, that's what they said.
Speaker:And then got a bill for five hundred and fifty total. That's what it says.
Speaker:So they gave her. I don't know how many phones she did, but. What? Yeah, I guess you didn't say how many phones.
Speaker:Yeah, it doesn't say how many. I was thinking four phones. Well, I mean, if you if you went that way. Yeah.
Speaker:You're thirty six hundred dollars and now can this one's broken. You owe us five fifty back.
Speaker:That's not a terrible thing. No. I mean, could you come up with five hundred fifty dollars? I mean, OK, that might be an issue.
Speaker:But right. Suddenly your bill went from a couple of hundred dollars to an additional five hundred and fifty.
Speaker:I think if if everything was on the up and up, Verizon probably should present that as well. Let's do a payment option.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, paid what you said. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:You know, I think they gave me an eight hundred and thirty dollar credit for my eleven. That's pretty good.
Speaker:It's because it was flawless. Yeah. Had the original screen on it out of scratch.
Speaker:That is one thing. Everything worked and I didn't tell a lie.
Speaker:That is one thing I have not been able to figure out. And of course, I'm going to walk out of here today and drop my phone and bust it all the hell.
Speaker:I have never understood how some people can have a phone for just a few months.
Speaker:And then it looks like they put it through a fucking trash compact. Yeah.
Speaker:They went through an action movie with it. Yeah. I'm like, what are you what are you doing with your phone?
Speaker:I mean, I make sure that where is my phone? Oh, it's better.
Speaker:I make sure that I have a I have a slim line case because I hate bulky cases.
Speaker:I make sure I got I do not put screen protectors on them because I'm anti screen protector.
Speaker:Really? Yeah. I have never found until till I saw a product that I forget who makes it.
Speaker:But MKBHD showed it the other day where it's this boxy looking thing.
Speaker:And you literally and they they they said for the promo, we want you to do this blindfolded.
Speaker:And so he did it. You basically put the phone in this little box type thing.
Speaker:You position it and you pull something and then you take it out of the box and it puts a screen protector on it that is flawless.
Speaker:You cannot tell that there's actually a protector until you actually pick it up and look like that.
Speaker:And I forget the company that makes it. But but, yeah, I've never been I've never been happy with any of the screen protector options.
Speaker:And so so what context I've just handed on my phone, that's a tempered glass privacy.
Speaker:Yeah. Who makes it? I don't know. I'm Chinese company on Amazon.
Speaker:How many people make them? I got a four pack. Yeah. And each each one came with a frame.
Speaker:Yeah. So you set the frame on the phone and you can't get it wrong. Yeah.
Speaker:And you push one side of it and it slowly adheres and the other no bubbles.
Speaker:I've always had trouble with the bubbles and it's a technique.
Speaker:And it also seemed to darken the screens for me, too. So I've never had one darkened, except for this one.
Speaker:But, yeah, it's because I just kind of promote prevents or, yeah, somebody looking over your shoulder.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's just it's just weird.
Speaker:And I think MKBHD is also kind of anti screen protector, too, because here's my thing.
Speaker:As long as as long as the slimline case I have comes up above the edges, if I drop my phone, even if it lands face down, the case protects it.
Speaker:So it falls on rocks. Well, then why am I dropping it? That's the question.
Speaker:Why do you drop it? Otherwise, I don't. It's a mistake. I don't drop my phone.
Speaker:The reason I don't have this case to protect my phone. I have this case. So the phone does not slip from my hand.
Speaker:That's the that's the reason I have a case. So if I have a bare iPhone, it's slippery.
Speaker:Yeah, it is. When I first got my iPhone SE and my daughter was like, every time I pull out my pocket, she go, I don't like that because there was no case on it.
Speaker:Yeah. And it was slippery. And I take it and I'd spin it in my fingers.
Speaker:And she's like, you're going to drop that damn thing. And I'm like, yeah, I better get a case.
Speaker:So I always go with these see through slimline cases that cost me about like twelve or fifteen bucks or something from probably less than 20.
Speaker:Yeah. All right. So Apple, the EU has given Apple six months to make cross device interoperability easier.
Speaker:They're taking action against Apple for not complying with the Digital Markets Act, DMA,
Speaker:given the company six months to improve cross device interoperability as a designated gatekeeper.
Speaker:Apple must ensure that its devices can effectively connect with non Apple products like smartwatches and headphones.
Speaker:The commission aims to clarify how Apple can achieve this and will evaluate its processes for handling developers request for interoperability.
Speaker:There's more to it. But basically what they're saying is. I don't know how I feel about this, because they're essentially saying, look,
Speaker:if you're going to sell Apple phones, you're going to sell iPhones and devices over here in the EU,
Speaker:then you need to make sure that Samsung smartwatch can sync with your phone or your Apple watch can sync with an Android phone.
Speaker:That's a big no. It's been over 20 years. It might have been the EU where they had to pull Internet Explorer or make Internet Explorer uninstallable from Windows.
Speaker:Had a huge problem that like that's it's just it's part of the operating system.
Speaker:Yeah. As far as I was concerned. And it's they wrote it. Yeah. But they claimed it was anti competitive.
Speaker:Well, it's horseshit. I mean, it's not like I can't install Firefox, Chrome. Yeah. Along with all the others.
Speaker:I was just thinking, what who are they to tell a company what they can do with their product?
Speaker:There's a lot of people over here in the US, though, that that really look to what the EU is doing as as the standard that we should be doing over here.
Speaker:Yeah. And on some things I can I can kind of guess what I go with it. But GDPR, I mean, fucking cookie banners, man.
Speaker:But anyway. Yeah. I mean, yeah. More, more, more privacy on our data. I get that. I'm fine with that. I'm OK with it.
Speaker:But don't tell Apple that they've got to figure out a way to basically open up their ecosystem to allow non Apple devices to connect in a way that is going to cause security vulnerabilities.
Speaker:I don't care who tells me. No, it's not. Yes, it is. There's a reason.
Speaker:Somebody will find it. Somebody will find it. Yeah. I mean, they already have to fix their own vulnerabilities.
Speaker:They introduce in their own software. The last thing they need to do is have to deal with the fact that, well, now the Apple watch is compromised because it's connected to a pixel nine and there's a vulnerability in the pixel nine.
Speaker:Supposedly, you know, I'm just saying for argument's sake, that sounds like a real story. So I'm not in agreement with this.
Speaker:I mean, if you don't want if you want an Apple watch, get a fucking iPhone. Yeah. You know, if you don't want to get an iPhone, then you can't get an Apple watch.
Speaker:Yeah. Because Google's watch in Samsung's watch works with their phones. I think a Google watch will work with a Samsung and a Samsung work with a Google.
Speaker:I think they're not going to work with an iPhone. If I've already got an iPhone, nobody in their right damn mind should be wanting to get a Google watch or a Samsung's watch.
Speaker:I don't understand it. I'm wearing my son's Garmin watch. But it doesn't connect to your phone, does it? But over what? Bluetooth? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:But it's a simple Bluetooth connection and it it shares data with its own app. Exactly. OK. It doesn't have to be integrated. It's not integrated in iOS.
Speaker:Yes. See, that makes sense. I don't see what the problem is. If they can if they can do that. Yeah. And why is the EU saying they've got to be more friendly native?
Speaker:I don't know. I don't know. Apparently, if they fail to meet the new requirements, it could face fines of up to 10 percent of its global annual revenue, which we know that's a shit ton of money.
Speaker:Sure. But all they got to do is go. All right. You don't want iPhones. Take all the lawmakers iPhone. You know, they use iPhone.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. I mean, that would be a market that I mean, that's one way to prove you've got the cojones. It's like, OK, you can tell Europe to go to hell. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:You can. Yeah. I mean, they can suffer for a year or two. They got the funds. I mean, they basically, you know, China, they haven't told China that.
Speaker:But that's basically where they are with China. I mean, iPhone is like number three or number four in China.
Speaker:I phone's only number one in the United States, I think it may still be number one in the EU.
Speaker:But most other countries, the percentage is higher for Android. That's because they most of those countries have cheap Android phones like two, three, four hundred dollar Android phones.
Speaker:So the ecosystem for most of those countries, typically Android on iPhone. So. I don't know. I'm sure they'll figure something out.
Speaker:All right. Back to a Microsoft announces plans to reopen Three Mile Island nuclear nuclear power plant to support a.
Speaker:How tell me it's the end time without tell me it's in time.
Speaker:Microsoft has announced plans to revive a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant shut down since twenty nineteen to supply energy to its data centers, which support a 20 year deal with Constellation Energy aims to reactivate the unit.
Speaker:One reactor by twenty twenty eight pending regulatory approval.
Speaker:This would make Three Mile Island the first decommissioned U.S. U.S. nuclear plant to reopen.
Speaker:The revived plant is expected to generate over 800 megawatts of electricity and create thousands of jobs boosting Pennsylvania's economy.
Speaker:This move aligns with tech companies growing need for reliable carbon free energy. No, this move aligns with tech companies need for more power for their A.I. implementations.
Speaker:Yeah, but they're still maintaining a lower.
Speaker:They are. I'm I'm I'm very positive on nuclear energy. Yeah, I am, too.
Speaker:You know, I think that's that's the way we should be heading.
Speaker:But I just of course, it's been on Twitter, but just so it wasn't it didn't sound like bullshit.
Speaker:Yeah, it was like groundbreaking on the next nuclear power plant in Idaho.
Speaker:I didn't go research it. I just saw it.
Speaker:Well, you know, we have one here in Georgia.
Speaker:Vogel, a plant, I've been driven by it on the way to soccer. I think they've I think they fired up reactor number three recently or number two.
Speaker:Anyway, it was way over budget, which then Georgia Power went, hey, commission, can we raise our rates?
Speaker:Yeah. So we we've got this extra power capacity, but we're so many billions of dollars over.
Speaker:So I was like, OK, I'm going to leave that toll booth in there for a little while longer. Yeah.
Speaker:You know, if they got to do it, that's probably it's not a bad thing.
Speaker:I mean, if they can safely reactivate that reactor and some some clean energy.
Speaker:Yeah. Help power grid. I'm I'm all for it. Yeah.
Speaker:And that's one reactor. Aren't there three there?
Speaker:I think one's damaged. And that's the reason why the whole plant got the whole place got shut down.
Speaker:OK, well, there's it. So it's been offline for six years.
Speaker:Yeah. And they might have it operational again in twenty, twenty other four.
Speaker:Yeah. So I think it's not like they're going to be responsible.
Speaker:But I don't want to be that project manager. Nope, I do not.
Speaker:Kaspersky, which is always a name that I love to pronounce, deletes itself and installs ultra AV antivirus without warning.
Speaker:So, of course, Kaspersky is the Russian cybersecurity firm.
Speaker:They have started deleting their antivirus software from U.S. customers devices, replacing it with ultra AVs antivirus without prior notice, which I had no idea what ultra AV was.
Speaker:Never heard of it. It's owned by a Boston based Boston based company called the Pango Group.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. Yeah. That sounds legit.
Speaker:So this move follows Kaspersky's decision to shut down its U.S. operations after being added to the U.S. government's entity list over national security concerns.
Speaker:Those users caught off guard by the sudden switch reported seeing ultra AV software installed without warning, causing confusion and concerns about malware.
Speaker:The transition is linked to a U.S. ban on Kaspersky's sales and updates effective September 29th, 2024.
Speaker:Hey, I think they did the right thing, but they probably should have notified people.
Speaker:I don't know what kind of things would erupt if they'd sent notification.
Speaker:What? Hey, we've due to prohibitions by the United States government, we are removing our software.
Speaker:And we're putting some you never heard of on.
Speaker:We're putting Pango Group's ultra AV.
Speaker:Sounds like an investment firm.
Speaker:I like it. Have you ever used Kaspersky? I haven't.
Speaker:I've come across it in the wild, but I've never I've never intentionally installed it on anybody.
Speaker:But I've heard I mean, every time I'm reading about a breach or, you know, some malware, quite often I would see Kaspersky Labs mentioned, you know, an article in their analysis of something.
Speaker:Or so I mean, I assume they're a legitimate company. It's just they're in the wrong place.
Speaker:Just go down Russian. There's nothing wrong with being Russian.
Speaker:No, it's up. If you're trying to deal in the United States at the present time, and there's some fine looking Russian women.
Speaker:Anyway, moving on. So Apple's AirPods Pro 2.
Speaker:You have the pros of the pro to just one. OK, so the pro twos have received FDA approval to function as over the counter hearing aids through a software update.
Speaker:This new hearing aid feature, in quotes, allows users with mild to moderate hearing loss to adjust sound frequencies to amplify voices and key sounds.
Speaker:The update, which will be available in iOS 18, lets users access the feature through settings or by uploading hearing test results.
Speaker:This development follows the FDA's 2022 decision to permit the sale of hearing aids without a prescription, making hearing support more accessible for millions of Americans.
Speaker:I think this is a good thing. I think it was a good thing whenever the FDA went, you know what, you don't have to have a prescription for this.
Speaker:Yeah, I know that I have limited I have reduced hearing in my left ear.
Speaker:Do I? And I've I've I say 20 2014.
Speaker:I had a legitimate hearing test done because we had to have them done, I think, once every two years at CPI because we were in a where of right factory.
Speaker:You know, noise all the time because we had to wear earplugs. And even then, mine was reduced.
Speaker:I forget how much. And I've done I've done some. There's an app that I've got on my phone that I've actually tested it.
Speaker:That's the reason why my my wife jokes about the fact that I was like, well, I didn't hear you.
Speaker:She's like, well, I was on your right side, not your left.
Speaker:And I legitimately because we she insists on having the television at night, but we come to this compromise of where I put it on five.
Speaker:But if I want dead silence, I have to sLeap on my right side so that I cover my right ear because I can't hear out of my left ear that low volume.
Speaker:So, yeah, yeah. When when Beth and I are laying in bed and I'm facing her, I've got my right here, my right ear in the pillow.
Speaker:She's facing away from me. She's talking at a reasonably normal volume.
Speaker:You can't hear it's just muffled. Yeah.
Speaker:It's like. And I have to turn my head and go, what?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. Same scenario, except we're on the way our beds are positioned now is her headboards up against the one wall.
Speaker:I'm up against the opposite wall. So if I'm turned on my right side, I don't hear shit.
Speaker:If she's saying anything. Another thing dealing with RCS, this one was comical to me.
Speaker:When I was 18, new with their RCS support, Android users in mixed group chats can now rename the group for both Android and iOS users.
Speaker:A shift from previous behavior where renaming on Google messages was visible only to the Android user.
Speaker:Apple has long allowed iOS users to rename a message group chats.
Speaker:But this extension now applies to Android users as well.
Speaker:Messaging apps like WhatsApp offer more control over renaming permissions.
Speaker:But Android users should be cautious to avoid unattended or inappropriate names when renaming group chats with iPhone users.
Speaker:Yeah, I could totally see a guy's getting in a group chat and he doesn't want to be there.
Speaker:He's been on it for years. So he renames it. And so he's his his view of it.
Speaker:He's renamed it. Those dicks. And now all of a sudden, it would bring advances in technology and partnerships.
Speaker:Yeah. True feelings come out. Yeah. Previously, his his iPhone peers wouldn't have seen that.
Speaker:Yeah. His Android peers probably would have. But then again, it is also in.
Speaker:I don't know. I don't do group chats in text often. I've got a client that will group me into one.
Speaker:But we're all iPhones, I think. Otherwise, we use Signal because, well, that's just what it is.
Speaker:I do have WhatsApp, but I use Signal. We started out with that.
Speaker:WhatsApp had the had the shit stain of Facebook on it. It still does.
Speaker:So none of my family want to use it. But, yeah, that's so wild.
Speaker:Yeah. Google Android users before it's like, yeah, those those iPhone dicks.
Speaker:And then they just rename it. It's like, hey, brother, I can see it now.
Speaker:Yeah. I know what you think now. See you at church Sunday. That's it.
Speaker:All right. The final story. And this right here, this should be the biggest.
Speaker:Absolutely the biggest thing that nobody is really talking about with the introduction of the iPhone 16.
Speaker:Apple has decided to stop including the stickers in the box.
Speaker:That's newsworthy. I mean, somebody had to write an article about it.
Speaker:It literally literally it's at nine to five, Mac.
Speaker:They have stopped including the stickers in the box with the iPhone 16 and the 16 pro marking the end of a longstanding tradition.
Speaker:Stickers will only be available upon request at Apple stores, not from third party retailers or through online orders.
Speaker:This move aligns with Apple's environmental goals as the company aims to be carbon neutral by 2030 and has transitioned to entirely fiber based packaging for the iPhone 16.
Speaker:It follows the trend set by other recent Apple products such as the Vision Pro and I put out Ipad.
Speaker:If I can see Ipod, I'm going back. Ipad models, which also omitted the stickers.
Speaker:I don't know about you, but I always threw the stickers away.
Speaker:I first couple of. Well, there's one right there. You don't see that.
Speaker:That's that's thrown away. Yeah. Essentially. I mean, I put one on my daughter's Chromebook just for shingles.
Speaker:Yeah, but I read this. We're going to be talking about this tonight. And I thought, I'm not sure the iPhone 15 came with stickers.
Speaker:And I mean, I don't. You don't have them. I used to keep box at least until the next year.
Speaker:What? Apparently I've thrown it. I've thrown the box away. And I don't remember whether there were any stickers in there.
Speaker:I still I still have my 13 and I've got my last this series nine watch box up there.
Speaker:So. But yeah, the stickers I'd forgotten they were actually back there.
Speaker:That's what that's what I mean when I throw them away. I basically just took them out and put them somewhere.
Speaker:And it's like, oh, these are here. They get buried, whatever. I mean, I wasn't Jones in for Apple stickers.
Speaker:But yeah, this is this is a non story. I put it in here mainly just to make fun of it.
Speaker:It it didn't make my Twitter feed. So I guess I mean.
Speaker:Oh, God knows what kind of conspiracy could have been spun out of that.
Speaker:I don't know that could have been that could have been good. Could have been good.
Speaker:Our good friend of the show, Sam Lewis, who has his own podcast network over at TSCN TV.
Speaker:We've podcasted a lot together over the last 12 years or whatever.
Speaker:That's actually how I met him, was started podcasting in 2011.
Speaker:And we got into this mentorship type thing with Cliff Ravenscraft, who was the podcast answer man at the time.
Speaker:And that's how Sam and I met. So anyway, he has purchased the air pods for.
Speaker:And he has sent me a review. That I'm going to tack on at the end of this episode for everybody to enjoy.
Speaker:So he's given us that he told me he was probably going to do it, and then he sent it to me yesterday and I said, yep, I'll take it on to the end of this episode.
Speaker:He's hoping because he's in college right now. Yeah, he's a 30 something year old man that's in college.
Speaker:I mean, hey, more power to him. If you're rich, you got to find stuff to do.
Speaker:He's not rich. He's in college. He must be. I'll let you have that conversation with him.
Speaker:Still paying my tuition and somehow my daughter.
Speaker:He anyway, right now his schedule, he's actually in class at five o'clock.
Speaker:So he's hoping that in the fall he might can join us for, you know, maybe an episode a month or something like that, which by then I'll have it set up where I can do that.
Speaker:But right now I don't I'm not even I'm not connected to where I can do that.
Speaker:But anyway, and there's thunder. So you got anything to add before we you know, this thing's almost.
Speaker:No, I didn't bring any more. Any more Twitter news, any more Trump clips.
Speaker:I like it. I don't think there were any more other than.
Speaker:But oh, there have to have been. But I don't watch any videos. Well, he did. He did say yesterday at some rally that he was going to be the protector of women.
Speaker:And I'll just leave that one there with you and let that that kind of I'll protect my own women.
Speaker:Yeah, but no, I've not heard his voice since the debate.
Speaker:Oh, you lucky devil. I've not bothered for any more.
Speaker:Yeah, soundbites. You don't watch you don't watch the YouTube stuff that I watch, but you have no choice.
Speaker:I could stand YouTube right now because I'm not a premium subscriber.
Speaker:I have to watch all the political bash for each video.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I tell you what, that's probably one of the best decisions I ever made was going with YouTube premium.
Speaker:I thought it was going to be five, maybe ten bucks a month. That's 14.
Speaker:No, that's just because I don't use YouTube. Aren't you rich and white? I'm only white.
Speaker:All right. I see that truck. And that that was not a choice.
Speaker:I'm only white. But I didn't have a truck payment before this one.
Speaker:I paid that first that other one off. I paid in 2015.
Speaker:I'm not a truck payment since 2015. I haven't had a car payment since 20, 20, 2016 or 2017.
Speaker:Somewhere in there. Twenty seventeen, I think I haven't had a car payment.
Speaker:The BMW is cheap and it's 300 a month. I think the insurance is more.
Speaker:Yeah, please explore. We paid off is an oh three. I paid it off in five years.
Speaker:That's the first vehicle I ever paid off in my life was that one.
Speaker:And it was a it was a 30, 30, 3000 dollar. This is an oh three.
Speaker:Thirty three thousand dollar or thirty four thousand dollar zero interest.
Speaker:Yeah, that's qualified for at that point. I was like, hell yeah.
Speaker:You don't see those anymore. All right. So if you've got questions or comments about the show, tell us if we're doing a good job.
Speaker:We're doing a shitty job or whatever. You can send an email podcast at South Geek News dot com.
Speaker:If you prefer, your flavor is to call and leave a scathing voicemail or a very positive voicemail, whatever you want to do, or you want to send a text.
Speaker:So that number is for both of those is two to nine, two, three, four, 1307.
Speaker:That's two to nine, two, three, four, one, three, zero seven.
Speaker:If you call in, it will say radio tiffed. That's because this is the main voicemail line for TMW, which is Tifton Media Works.
Speaker:I'm probably going to change the greeting, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Speaker:So anyway, that is it. That is the show. We'll be back hopefully in two weeks.
Speaker:If Hurricane Helena or Helene, Helene, Helene doesn't wipe us out off the face of this South Georgia area.
Speaker:And we'll talk about more tech news then.
Speaker:Right. Roll in credits.
Speaker:That's it. Bye.
Speaker:Hey there, South Geeks. I guess that's how we're going to put this.
Speaker:Samuel Lewis over here at TSCN.TV.
Speaker:And even though I can't worm my way into the show just yet because of work stuff and everything like that, who knows?
Speaker:It'll probably happen. It's always been an inevitability in any version of this show that I show up in some form or fashion.
Speaker:I did want to show you guys a little bit of a review.
Speaker:So I got a hold of something from the new Apple announcement.
Speaker:I'm holding in my hands right now the new AirPods 4 with noise cancellation.
Speaker:So I had been waiting for these to come out, a new upgrade, because I needed a new set of AirPods.
Speaker:My old ones weren't necessarily giving out, but the case was being a bit finicky occasionally.
Speaker:And I really wanted one with wireless charging because I have a charging station that wants them.
Speaker:But I didn't have any that could wireless charge to actually do it.
Speaker:So I bit the bullet since it had been years since we got some new AirPods and got some new AirPods.
Speaker:These things are amazing. I'm just going to say that right now.
Speaker:What an amazing upgrade. And honestly, I love the noise cancellation. I'm going to say that right now.
Speaker:It really does work. And it works without doing the stupid thing that drives me insane where you get that little...
Speaker:And I know there's probably a technical term for it. I don't know what it is.
Speaker:So I'm just going to jokingly call it the little plastic nubbin bit that they shove in your ear and actually seals everything off.
Speaker:That's how most people get that noise cancellation, right?
Speaker:Is they literally seal your ear off and then you can't hear things because there's a barrier in there.
Speaker:And then they do some fancy stuff with microphones to get the rest of it down.
Speaker:This somehow does that without having that. And I mean, it's not perfection in and of itself.
Speaker:There's some things you can hear. There's things like that.
Speaker:But it's so noticeable that I've had a couple of shocking moments with them.
Speaker:Let's put it that way. And I'll tell you guys about that in a second.
Speaker:But anyway, first of all, the case. The case is pretty nice.
Speaker:They have done some upgrades with it. Now the lights in the front instead of on the inside.
Speaker:The AirPods themselves now go in it to the case a different way, which will probably make some charging issues that the previous generation had not have that problem anymore.
Speaker:I think I did have to get used to putting them into the case a different way than they used to be.
Speaker:Also, they've got a different shape now.
Speaker:They said it's with a bunch of research that they've done and stuff like that, that it's got the new shape.
Speaker:I was worried about that. I put them in my ears and it was a bit of an adjustment for like maybe a minute.
Speaker:And then I was perfectly fine after that. So, yeah, these these AirPods are perfectly fine shape wise.
Speaker:They fit in your ear. I think because I was so used to the tighter of the older ones, I was like, these can fall out of my ear.
Speaker:They haven't. I've even done the ridiculous shake your head around test and it they just haven't fallen out for me.
Speaker:So they work for me at least. As for the noise cancellation, you can set them to things like it's got different things.
Speaker:You can turn the noise cancellation completely off if you need to in situation.
Speaker:So it essentially is an adaptation depending on where you go.
Speaker:So like it's got a noise control setting. You can turn it to transparent or off, you know.
Speaker:So so either you can hear some noises or you can just turn the noise cancellation completely off if you don't need it.
Speaker:It'll let you save some battery life and things like that.
Speaker:But I have noticed little situations where I kind of like the noise cancellation.
Speaker:Like, for instance, I am in my studio right now and I had to go make a phone call today.
Speaker:I always put AirPods in whenever I make my phone calls, because honestly, I just don't like holding the phone up to my ear.
Speaker:Call me a weirdo, but there you go. I hear people better when I'm on my earbuds.
Speaker:So with that being said, I popped these things in, went to the, you know, phone call area.
Speaker:And then suddenly I realized this room seems a bit quieter.
Speaker:And then I looked off to my side and I realized I had my fan on that doesn't get picked up by this main microphone because I've got it lower to the ground.
Speaker:Like audio tricks that podcasters figure out. Right.
Speaker:So you hardly ever hear the microphone, but you hear the fan on the microphone, but it's there and it's running right now.
Speaker:And I essentially could barely hear it.
Speaker:Like it, it was to the point where it was so obvious that it had been canceled out that when I did pull the air bud out of my ear and I could hear the fan again,
Speaker:it almost felt like it was roaring in my ear.
Speaker:Like it was such a difference that it was a shock, like almost, oh my God, shock to my system.
Speaker:Whatever I pulled that air pod out of my ear.
Speaker:So that kind of proved to me that it does work.
Speaker:I needed some sort of practical application and the practical application presented itself without me even needing to.
Speaker:But yeah, I can do spatial audio.
Speaker:It's got this neat thing called conversation awareness that I tested with my mom the other day where it doesn't make itself aware when someone is talking to you.
Speaker:Because I was curious. I was like, does it notice when people talk to you?
Speaker:It doesn't seem to unless we were doing something wrong.
Speaker:What it does is it notices when you are talking.
Speaker:So if someone gets your attention, they're like, hey, and you go, oh, hey, and then you start talking to them.
Speaker:It notices that you're talking to someone and instead of you having to reach up and shut your earbuds off, it just does that automatically.
Speaker:Just it will first lower the volume down.
Speaker:And then if it realizes that the conversation is still going on, it shuts the audio completely off.
Speaker:Right. So it and then essentially you will be having that conversation.
Speaker:And the thing is smart enough to not, oh, they just stopped talking and snap everything back on.
Speaker:Instead, it gives a pretty sizable, not annoying, but sizable enough for it to be smart gap to let you know, oh, this conversation could be going back and forth like this.
Speaker:So I need to give it enough that way. I don't interrupt the conversation midway.
Speaker:So it it's got a smart enough amount of time that I kind of like that.
Speaker:Instead of the tapping the thing, you do have a little button on each of the air pods now that you kind of click like once for play and pause twice for going forward three times for going back.
Speaker:Or if you got a call, answer the call with one and then mute yourself or unmute yourself with one and then two to hang up.
Speaker:You know, so it's it's things like that.
Speaker:You can even press and hold to go between listening modes so you don't have to necessarily go to your phone.
Speaker:But whenever you do have the air pods in and you go to your phone's control settings, the slider bar for the volume, if you click that, it will also give you all of the different settings.
Speaker:Noise cancellation wise that you can set your ear air pods to.
Speaker:So if you go, I really don't need you to be paying attention for voices.
Speaker:You can turn that off, especially if you're someone like me that talks to themselves.
Speaker:I haven't had a problem with this, but I'm just going to tug and cheek, say I can see it becoming a thing.
Speaker:Like I I talk to podcast, whatever I listen to them.
Speaker:It's it's a silly thing.
Speaker:But there we are. And yeah, I could see that being a problem.
Speaker:So I usually don't use the voice cancellation unless I think I'm going to be in a situation like if I'm going to go down to my parents, then I'll go down there.
Speaker:And just in case I run into them, I'll have the voice cancellation turned on.
Speaker:But, you know, so it's situational.
Speaker:It's not a you have to have all these features turned on all the time and drain the battery.
Speaker:If you want to turn some stuff off, you can totally turn some stuff off.
Speaker:So I like that you've got choice, which is weird for an Apple product.
Speaker:So we're going to love what we got.
Speaker:But yeah, so essentially, these air pods have been a fantastic upgrade for me.
Speaker:I love the sound of them.
Speaker:I was thinking about recording something with them.
Speaker:I recorded a video with them just fine and they sounded pretty good.
Speaker:But when I tried to record with the audio apps, for some reason, I think there might be a glitch because they did not sound as good as it did when recording a video.
Speaker:So the audio sounded good, you know, recording a video, but it didn't sound good recording audio.
Speaker:So I don't know if there's just some glitch in there that needs to be ironed out in the system.
Speaker:But, you know, otherwise, what can I say?
Speaker:Good to go.
Speaker:And when it comes to recording audio with my phone, I've got some fancy new microphones that I just picked up anyway that I'm probably going to be using for that anyway.
Speaker:So no skin off my back whatsoever.
Speaker:But yeah, I think that's all of the stuff I can tell you about the air pods for with the active noise cancellation.
Speaker:I don't do numbers with ratings.
Speaker:I'm not that guy because then the cognitive dissonance of you gave this a number, but you didn't give this a number.
Speaker:I stay away from that altogether.
Speaker:Just say thumbs up.
Speaker:I enjoyed them and it's a purchase well spent.
Speaker:So hope you guys are having a good day and looking forward to hearing the episode because I enjoyed that first one.
Speaker:So let's keep the South train running this time.
Speaker:See you guys.
Speaker:This has been a production of Tifton Media Works.
Speaker:Check out all our podcasts by visiting Tifton Media Works dot com.
