Techgrumps 3.43 - Loaded Laptops at Dawn

WEBVTT
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Welcome, one and all, to Tech Grumps 3 .43. Today
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is Sunday, the 2nd of August, and we are here
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once again to grump about tech. With us, as usual,
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is Ian. Hello, I'm Ian, and I'm Cubic Garden
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Everywhere, and I'm calling, or I'm podcasting
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in, from Manchester. Wendy? I'm Wendy Grossman.
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I'm based in London, and I can be found at pelicancrossing
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.net. David. Oh, I'm David Eastman, also from
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London. You can find me out on Eastmad, on Blue
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Sky, and also on the News Stack. I'm back on
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that. And I'm Ryan Alexander. You can find me
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as R .N. Alexander in most places. As has become
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tradition here at Tech Grumps, we like to start
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off our grumpiness with a round of hats, articles,
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and points about the upcoming, ongoing, eternal
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world of AI. For our collection of AI points
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today, we have an article from Wendy about the
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rogue AI from OpenAI going... out of the farm,
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escaping containment and attacking Hugging Face.
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We have also from Wendy an article from Elon
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Musk's interview at The Economist. Yay. And a
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note about SpaceX's stock going big since the
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IPO, but that's for reasons. We also have, oh,
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it's tanked. That's good. That's good. Never
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mind. Also, we have... An article from David
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about Chinese distilling of AI. An article from
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Ian about Claude users having their chats indexed
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just because of the web. And a note from me about
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our dear friend, friend of the podcast who I'm
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certain never listens, but we all like to pretend
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that we know him, Corey Doctrow, who is currently
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on his book tour shipping talks and is doing
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a lot of actually decent... common sense talking
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about AI. So what would we all like to chat about
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first, everyone? I've got to be hugging face.
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Hold on, before you do hug his face, let's get
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the web and indexing out, just because it's happened
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so many times, and I don't understand how...
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you know, major companies, you know, kind of
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making this mistake. I don't get it. I don't
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understand how... What is the mistake they made?
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Well, sorry, what they do is that they go, oh,
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would you like to share your chats? And someone
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goes, yeah, that would be great. And then what
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happens is that they can share the chat with
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a link to a friend or to somebody else, and they
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don't realize that that is suddenly a public
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link. And so you can just search for this stuff
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or use different ways of getting these links.
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Dear listeners, what Ian is referring to is that
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they often will put the chat into the URL itself
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encoded, making a very, very, very, very, very
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long URL, but also incredibly unprivate. Yes.
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And it happens again and again and again. I can't
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even name the amount of companies that have done
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this. I don't understand how... Because decades
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of lazy coders have now encapsulated and distilled
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into lazy AIs. And I assume they want to make
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your conversation public so they can definitely
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read it, even though they obviously read it anyway.
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So they can definitely say, we definitely indexed
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it, and there's nothing you can do about it,
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because you made it public. That's my little
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theory on that. There may be an issue about whether
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they can actually... I didn't put... a link into
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this because i'd read it but i didn't go to research
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to see if the story was you know like apocryphal
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or not but the the hunger if it was true yes
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um the the there's a there's various stories
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being passed around about the this this touches
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on the hunger of ai for new data that now because
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they're trying so hard to find original data,
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they're buying up very old books and scanning
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them, and in the process of this, often destroying
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the books just to, like, slice them off and scan
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them. This is foreseen by Werner Wenge in his
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book Rainbow's End. Oh, yeah. The background
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in that book was the library tearing up all its
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books and scanning them in and then destroying
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them. I have to say it was a bad book, but that
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image I did remember for quite some time, yeah.
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I think it was a bad... book i didn't think agree
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i interviewed him about it and it was interesting
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because he said that you know he was trying to
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um sort of show how you get to certain kinds
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of things but anyway that's a very sci -fi author
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thing to do and i think it's i and that that's
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not a criticism by the way i think that's a very
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useful thing that science fiction authors do
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They show us, you know, finally, we have recreated
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the torment nexus from the famous sci -fi novel.
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Here's how we did it. Here's how we did it. Here's
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the summary. Oh, God. Speaking of authors, Corey
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is doing the rounds right now. He's got a good
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book, a new book, The Reverse Centaur or something.
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He's showing up in a lot of podcasts and clips
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like he's he's been interviewed by Jon Stewart
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for his podcast. Now, it's kind of weird because
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I feel like Jon Stewart carries the weight and
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the podcast mostly takes it away. Oh, come on.
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He's shown up and Corey has showed up recently
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in some pretty impressive places. Yeah, he's
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he's definitely getting. Well, it's also he's
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I think a voice who's. mostly talking calm the
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f down about ai in a lot of ways which is i think
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something a lot of people are hungry for right
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now yeah also he can talk about breathing for
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10 minutes which is an amazing stuff and everyone
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likes that he can definitely sorry can i just
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i have to take uh something about the he's you
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know john stewart and then podcasts i i think
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we're on a podcast we get to say i know we get
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to use the p word we are p worders ourselves
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I know. I feel like. I feel like that's, I forget,
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I'll just say that a bit more. I just have, I
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have issues with that. I think, I think I may
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have touched a nerve about podcasting with Ian,
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which is why I'm probably going to be on another
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podcast with Ian too, just, you know. Actually,
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the other comment I wanted to make when you sort
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of read through the stories is it's hard to get
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too excited to, it's hard to rejoice very much
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about SpaceX price dropping. It was 135 at the
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IPO. It went up to 200, I think the first day,
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and then now it's at 113. And while there's a
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lot of schadenfreude available because it's Musk,
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it's worth remembering that there's lots of people
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who don't deserve to lose their money. Yeah,
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I read a really good point about this stock that
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I hadn't realized, and you probably knew this,
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Wendy, which is that the deal that was made for
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its IPO placed it immediately into the top 100.
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And because of that, huge numbers of index funds
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were financially, legally obliged. to buy the
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stock. Like the way their contract works is we
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buy shares of every top 100 stock. And they certainly
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knew that. They certainly knew that by getting
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that placement, they would have a guaranteed
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massive buying block. And so now basically anyone
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who's invested in index funds, which is generally
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considered one of the best ways to invest right
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now, like it's the one - Well, one of the safest.
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It's considered one of the safest. Yeah, it's
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one of those. Yeah. And now now they all got
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rolled into joining the grift. Yeah. And not
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in a good way. I mean, that that they bent the
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rules to make this happen. So it's it's really
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actually a bad for for a lot of people. It's
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going to be a bad thing. There's a lot of pension
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funds. And for example, yeah, I was going to
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say pension funds are more my concern. Yeah.
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Your final payment in life is a grift. That's
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really sad. But, you know, at the same time,
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if you look at the company and its balance sheet
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and stuff, it's certainly deserved. I mean, the
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lockup that applies to the top executives is
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going to be expiring over the rest of the year.
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And, you know, it's an unusually short lockup
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as well, I think. And so, you know, it's infuriating
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that this is happening. It's interesting. Go
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ahead, Ian. Yeah, I was going to say, I met so
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many people who have just kind of said, it's
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worth a punt. I'll put some money in. And, yeah,
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just, I don't know what to say. No. I literally
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said that. Everybody wishes they had bought NVIDIA
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five years ago. Exactly. They're like, oh, I
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missed it last time. I'm going to jump in on
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this one. This is going to be the one. It's like,
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no. But it was just a video game card and people
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didn't see why. Interestingly, what Corey is
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doing seems like one of the ironically effective
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ways to fight this. Because what he's doing is
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trying to... doing a pretty like he's basically
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throwing water on the fire going this is just
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a next word machine this is not true ai and people
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keep forgetting that and we've seen bubbles like
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this a hundred times like this is this isn't
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even tech industry's first bubble we've had a
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bunch and it follows these same patterns so we
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know what's going to happen and y 'all need to
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calm down and it's it's not just the appeal of
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that because certainly having just finally been
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through the job market and finally found a safe
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harbor again and the terror that is involved
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with that when you're in tech right now, which
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is very real. There's a lot of hunger for that.
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But also, the more that he decatastrophizes AI,
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the harder it's going to be for them to drive
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it as a must -have and drive the stock up. Unfortunately,
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stock prices are in many ways shaped purely by
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public opinion. To be fair, Corey, Corey would
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be the first to say this, that Ed Zitron has
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been doing the heavy lifting on the AI bubble
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for the last two years. Yeah, he's also been
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catastrophizing very heavily, I have to say.
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I mean, I didn't want to immediately mention
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him, but he is the catastrophizer at the moment.
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Yeah, but David, right? I think he... I know
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what you're saying. He does go a little bit too
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far, but I think you needed some kind of real,
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you know... talk about this because there are
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just too many people who are just going it's
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going to the moon we're going to mars we're gonna
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it's all gonna be great and it's like i think
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i think it's important like so we're talking
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about cory is catastrophizing something else
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he's not catastrophizing ai he's catastrophizing
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the very real economic principles that are being
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driven by the bubble right now and that's what
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i find kind of interesting because it we we keep
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like he's very clear on something that i wish
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a lot more of us were clear on which is that
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the ai catastrophe isn't going to happen but
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but because they are catastrophizing it or they're
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either as marketing yeah the catastrophizing
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as marketing is going to turn it into a real
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catastrophe but economically but that's actually
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what ed zitron is writing yeah he's basically
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one of the reasons i respect what he writes is
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that he goes through all of these financial you
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know reports and stuff and he pulls out these
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numbers and he's looking at and saying they don't
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add up And one of the things that he's particularly
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irate about is that financial journalists are
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not doing that. It's like the 10 billion debt
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that just gets passed from company to company
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and all gets to make them look like they're paying
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everything off when it's really just the same
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debt they're passing around. The circle jerk.
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Yeah. Yeah. And he was putting that stuff out
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before anybody else was, I think. Yeah. I think
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this is a point I was going to make exactly what
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Wendy said. I think that I do respect that for
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years and years he's been doing that. where a
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lot of people were kind of like, look at the
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other side of it, where he was kind of going,
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these numbers do not add up. What is happening
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here? This cannot be true. And, you know, that
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heavy lifting is really important. Yeah. And
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that is our usual morass of AI issues all melanged
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together into a nice fish stew Anthony Bourdain
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style for your delectation. Moving on. In our
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actual news articles section, we're going to
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start with a link from Wendy about the Toot community
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server shutting down. That's actually pretty
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much the story. But I was hoping Ian would explain
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to me how significant it is. Because, you know,
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the Fediverse Mastodon, it's all built out of
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lots, you know, hundreds of servers, maybe thousands
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of servers that people run for various reasons.
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You know, there isn't a lot of money in it. It's
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thankless work, I'm sure. And you have to deal
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with user problems and so forth. So every time
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a server is taken down because the owner doesn't
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want to do it anymore, you worry about what that
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heralds for the future of the Fediverse. So I
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was hoping Ian could explain to me how important
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this server was or will have been. Yeah, okay.
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Obviously, I'm not on that server on that instance.
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I'm on... a completely different one, but it
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has got significance because I hadn't had time
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to check, but quite a few people have said, talked
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a lot about the problem that you just mentioned,
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where you've got one instance run by maybe one
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or two sysadmins. They're working really hard.
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They're also doing some of the moderation or
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they're using other systems to do the moderation,
00:14:31.059 --> 00:14:34.240
which could sometimes cost money. And there is
00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:36.100
a point where, there's a breaking point where
00:14:36.100 --> 00:14:40.279
that sysadmin goes, you know, it's not worth
00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:42.820
it. It's not worth it. It's kind of like, this
00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:47.340
is killing me, literally killing me. And one
00:14:47.340 --> 00:14:50.100
of the things that I'm going to, hopefully I'm
00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:52.240
right, I was literally going to check whether
00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:55.529
you get a chance to. So the last person who mentioned
00:14:55.529 --> 00:14:59.690
this to me was a guy called Lawrence Hoff, which
00:14:59.690 --> 00:15:03.809
I've got a link to in the show notes. Because
00:15:03.809 --> 00:15:07.389
he used to track how many instances and how many
00:15:07.389 --> 00:15:11.210
users are tied to them. And then he was also
00:15:11.210 --> 00:15:16.070
tracking what instances were new and how many...
00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:19.299
they had and stuff like that so he's doing all
00:15:19.299 --> 00:15:21.820
that kind of stuff um i can't what the site is
00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:24.340
called but i'll try and find that as well and
00:15:24.340 --> 00:15:26.919
it's clear there's a pattern of a lot of people
00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:30.039
gravitating to the big instances and the smaller
00:15:30.039 --> 00:15:34.639
instances losing people um and then you get this
00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:37.379
problem of some of the instances go from like
00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:40.159
um you know maybe they had like some kind of
00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:42.559
funding model where they donate some money or
00:15:43.370 --> 00:15:45.850
Or whatever it is, buy me a coffee or anything
00:15:45.850 --> 00:15:49.029
like that. And then they kind of, people leave
00:15:49.029 --> 00:15:52.350
and then it just becomes, you know, a real nightmare
00:15:52.350 --> 00:15:55.490
for that instance to keep on running. And that
00:15:55.490 --> 00:15:58.350
seems to be a trend in the... In my experience,
00:15:58.409 --> 00:16:00.870
those communities have an interesting challenge
00:16:00.870 --> 00:16:03.690
because they don't just have a strong upper bound.
00:16:03.809 --> 00:16:08.470
They have a lower bound as well. Like when the
00:16:08.470 --> 00:16:10.950
first wave of we got to get off Facebook occurred.
00:16:12.110 --> 00:16:15.090
like a number of my friends went, oh, we're going
00:16:15.090 --> 00:16:20.529
to make discords. And these discords still exist
00:16:20.529 --> 00:16:23.649
in these small localized communities for certain
00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:28.269
things. But I now have icons for probably 20
00:16:28.269 --> 00:16:32.070
discords. And of those, I am active on maybe
00:16:32.070 --> 00:16:34.789
one or two. And I can go back to those and you'll
00:16:34.789 --> 00:16:37.610
see they kind of... if you're lucky they'll self
00:16:37.610 --> 00:16:40.009
-regulate out into a group of regulars who will
00:16:40.009 --> 00:16:41.929
show up and it will become its own little it's
00:16:41.929 --> 00:16:43.889
not even a walled garden it's just in the middle
00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:45.450
of nowhere and nobody can be ours to get there
00:16:45.450 --> 00:16:47.610
anymore except for the people who basically live
00:16:47.610 --> 00:16:50.870
there and but like that's there's this thing
00:16:50.870 --> 00:16:55.090
about social media and i've been like that too
00:16:55.090 --> 00:16:58.730
say again there are irc channels like that too
00:16:58.730 --> 00:17:01.450
oh i i wholly agree like i think i think that's
00:17:01.450 --> 00:17:04.839
like i I mean, Discord is just IRC with a much
00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:07.740
fancier interface and some other stuff that we
00:17:07.740 --> 00:17:10.819
may not be adding. It's just like Reddit being
00:17:10.819 --> 00:17:13.539
is really Usenet with a bit of graphics thrown
00:17:13.539 --> 00:17:17.920
on top of it. Agreed. Agreed. And so like for
00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:20.319
folks like us who've been watching these communities
00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:23.500
grow, change and disappear over decades, you
00:17:23.500 --> 00:17:29.079
see this cycle. I think in this instance, it
00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:31.700
has a certain extra element to it because it's.
00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:35.000
It's certainly something that Ian, you've covered
00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:40.299
a lot. You see it as linked to the success of
00:17:40.299 --> 00:17:44.000
the Fediverse. Like Mastodon is the real of the
00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:49.359
Fediverse Feds. I don't know what to call them.
00:17:49.380 --> 00:17:52.059
Of the Fediverse node thingy devices. Fediverse
00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:54.759
applications. Thank you. Applications. That's
00:17:54.759 --> 00:17:56.400
a good generic word that will certainly catch
00:17:56.400 --> 00:17:59.200
on and drive success. Of the Fediverse applications.
00:18:01.340 --> 00:18:03.019
That's the one that really seems to have gotten
00:18:03.019 --> 00:18:07.839
some time in market share. And Ian, if I'm being
00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:09.779
honest, here's the problem that I see. And this
00:18:09.779 --> 00:18:11.480
is true of all the communities I've seen. I saw
00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:13.920
this when Blue Sky first came out and people
00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:15.660
were like, oh, it's so nice here. And a lot of
00:18:15.660 --> 00:18:17.900
the people I saw who said they liked Blue Sky
00:18:17.900 --> 00:18:21.519
were the kind of people who were. semi -famous
00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:23.940
and who liked finding a social media where they
00:18:23.940 --> 00:18:27.359
weren't swamped at first. They liked the exclusivity
00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:29.259
of it. They liked that it took people a while
00:18:29.259 --> 00:18:31.240
to find them. They liked that it wasn't like
00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:33.759
this. But other people are like, where is my
00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.200
chance of going viral with this dumb shit post
00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:42.619
that I made? And the community itself is split
00:18:42.619 --> 00:18:46.359
as to what is the correct amount of scale. And
00:18:46.359 --> 00:18:49.819
that's something that I think Where these business
00:18:49.819 --> 00:18:53.359
models are wholly disconnected from the communities
00:18:53.359 --> 00:18:55.220
to which they are involved. Because the business
00:18:55.220 --> 00:18:58.599
models say the only desirable scale is every
00:18:58.599 --> 00:19:01.740
goddamn one of you. And then learn to use it
00:19:01.740 --> 00:19:04.839
twice because we have to grow all the time. Whereas
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:06.839
from the user's perspective, it's like I want
00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:08.980
to be on a server where I can come back in a
00:19:08.980 --> 00:19:10.880
day and feel like I have a chance of reading
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:14.059
what everyone's written. Without spending an
00:19:14.059 --> 00:19:16.460
hour or two. But also you want to come back and
00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:21.460
find stuff that's new every day. Yeah. Right.
00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:24.519
Okay. So just, okay. I got, I got a couple of
00:19:24.519 --> 00:19:27.019
points. I'm going to try and route them off as
00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:31.980
fast as I can. So yes, Mastodon is still the
00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:38.160
most popular Fediverse application. The second
00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:41.480
one, which is growing massively is PeerTube.
00:19:42.339 --> 00:19:45.980
It's kind of gone from like, way down to way
00:19:45.980 --> 00:19:49.079
up um i don't think it'll ever take any time
00:19:49.079 --> 00:19:52.319
soon but it is pretty big and obviously the way
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:55.380
that that's done is quite different from from
00:19:55.380 --> 00:19:58.779
being driven by by some dissatisfaction with
00:19:58.779 --> 00:20:01.579
youtube is that what's happening uh some of it
00:20:01.579 --> 00:20:04.740
yeah yeah some of it but but it's also you know
00:20:04.740 --> 00:20:08.700
yeah i i won't go that's just a side point sorry
00:20:08.700 --> 00:20:10.819
because i know that why I was talking about the
00:20:10.819 --> 00:20:13.819
most popular Fediverse application. It's just
00:20:13.819 --> 00:20:16.539
surprising because it, FAPs, oh my goodness.
00:20:17.819 --> 00:20:20.680
That's awful. Do not, do not, anyone else listening,
00:20:20.740 --> 00:20:24.420
do not use that. That is awful. Yes, do not call
00:20:24.420 --> 00:20:27.740
them FAPs, everyone. Yeah, please don't. Please
00:20:27.740 --> 00:20:32.799
do not. So the second thing I was going to say,
00:20:32.940 --> 00:20:34.380
and I think it's the most important thing, is
00:20:34.380 --> 00:20:37.859
that, so there are a bunch of people who have
00:20:37.859 --> 00:20:41.230
gone, hey, You know, this is about community
00:20:41.230 --> 00:20:46.130
and actually running a Macedon server has got
00:20:46.130 --> 00:20:49.930
a lot of overhead, a lot, especially when you
00:20:49.930 --> 00:20:52.329
start to federate as well, because there's even,
00:20:52.450 --> 00:20:54.950
there's just a lot that goes along with that.
00:20:55.190 --> 00:20:59.490
And so there are systems. Sorry, I was going
00:20:59.490 --> 00:21:03.210
to say fabs. Oh, my God. Federated applications.
00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:08.490
And I'm literally just about to post about this
00:21:08.490 --> 00:21:11.269
thing called Bonfire. And so what they've done
00:21:11.269 --> 00:21:14.190
is they've taken a lot of the core community
00:21:14.190 --> 00:21:17.579
features. And they've stripped out a lot of the
00:21:17.579 --> 00:21:19.940
other stuff, which is not needed. So then you
00:21:19.940 --> 00:21:23.180
could run this stuff without having all the overhead
00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:26.519
of running a Mastodon server and all the headache
00:21:26.519 --> 00:21:29.619
of the costs and stuff like that. So there's
00:21:29.619 --> 00:21:32.299
already a whole number of people who are going,
00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:36.000
this isn't working. We can bring some of that
00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:38.140
functionality. Obviously, because it's federated
00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:41.220
and because it uses ActivityPub, it talks to
00:21:41.220 --> 00:21:43.079
ActivityPub. As far as you're concerned, it's
00:21:43.079 --> 00:21:44.960
just another person on Mastodon, but it's not.
00:21:45.180 --> 00:21:48.000
And so they've... kind of narrowed it down and
00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:50.920
given the core features to be able to run this
00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:54.140
without that overhead. And that's one application
00:21:54.140 --> 00:21:57.420
of a few others that I've seen in response to
00:21:57.420 --> 00:22:02.119
what's happening with stuff like the Mastodon
00:22:02.119 --> 00:22:04.299
instances getting closed down. Sorry, shutting
00:22:04.299 --> 00:22:07.539
down. No, I don't want to stop you before now,
00:22:07.559 --> 00:22:09.440
but I felt like we haven't let you have a really
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.859
good plug -in deep dive on Fediverse for a couple
00:22:11.859 --> 00:22:14.900
of episodes. I was downright nostalgic, Ian.
00:22:15.019 --> 00:22:18.319
I was downright nostalgic. Just downright confused.
00:22:18.539 --> 00:22:20.980
But yeah, it's fine, I suppose. This is like
00:22:20.980 --> 00:22:23.740
unofficially sponsored by the Fediverse. It's
00:22:23.740 --> 00:22:26.400
not. Get out there and get your fap today. I
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:31.140
am in favor of... of anything that's open source
00:22:31.140 --> 00:22:34.900
and open protocols and stuff like that. Ian is
00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:39.160
pro -FAP. No, no, no, I'm not. That is not going
00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:40.980
to be the title. Very clear. It's going to be
00:22:40.980 --> 00:22:43.519
so good. I don't want to know what the bonfire
00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:45.200
is. Ian, you know what's going to be really funny?
00:22:45.299 --> 00:22:48.519
If this gets more spread because of the use of
00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:50.700
the term FAP than any other kind of promotion
00:22:50.700 --> 00:22:54.259
you've tried to do for the Fediverse. I do realize
00:22:54.259 --> 00:22:56.039
we're not going to allow it in the title. Just
00:22:56.039 --> 00:22:59.700
because Ian would be too angry. I'm in control
00:22:59.700 --> 00:23:03.380
of the title. Stry's Ending Fap is a great title.
00:23:04.099 --> 00:23:11.619
Happy Bird. Back to the real story. It's really
00:23:11.619 --> 00:23:15.240
powerful that they've identified this. Lots of
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:17.380
people have identified this and are doing something
00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:22.619
about it. Rather than just find revenue models
00:23:22.619 --> 00:23:25.079
or all these other things, they've gone, look,
00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:28.119
This is open source software. We can strip out
00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:30.160
and make it so much easier. So one of the things
00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:32.940
I was looking at was running my own community
00:23:32.940 --> 00:23:39.140
using Bonfire, for example, and run it from my
00:23:39.140 --> 00:23:41.140
Raspberry Pi. And it's something that I could
00:23:41.140 --> 00:23:44.160
do, and I wouldn't have all the headache of running
00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:46.299
a whole... I did look at running a master server.
00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:50.099
Ian, you're talking theoreticals. I suggest you
00:23:50.099 --> 00:23:54.440
do it and report back for our next podcast. I'm
00:23:54.440 --> 00:23:56.940
a bit busy right now, but I will let you know
00:23:56.940 --> 00:23:58.900
when someone else does it. And you have just
00:23:58.900 --> 00:24:00.859
encapsulated the entire problem with the FedEx
00:24:00.859 --> 00:24:03.279
right there. No, no, no. Hold on. There's a particular
00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:05.680
reason why I'm busy. Hey, there's a funfair on
00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:09.980
your Raspberry Pi. Help! Oh, sorry. Anyway. I'm
00:24:09.980 --> 00:24:15.519
sure Andy was here. I'm sure Andy was here. He
00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:22.220
had a lot more to say. And speaking of the damage
00:24:22.220 --> 00:24:25.079
that large communities can do, here's a story
00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:28.500
that I found about Polymarket doing and basically
00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:33.180
taking down a site called The Numbers. So I don't
00:24:33.180 --> 00:24:34.619
know if the rest of you read this article, but
00:24:34.619 --> 00:24:37.759
basically The Numbers has been for a long time
00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:41.420
kind of the source of truth and accepted kind
00:24:41.420 --> 00:24:45.380
of as an acceptable third party for how movies
00:24:45.380 --> 00:24:48.160
and other media do. like it says this is actually
00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:50.259
how much box office it made and what it does
00:24:50.259 --> 00:24:53.059
and everything was fine until people started
00:24:53.059 --> 00:24:57.039
betting on stuff like that and it's not just
00:24:57.039 --> 00:24:58.839
that people are betting like sometimes in the
00:24:58.839 --> 00:25:00.740
polymarket stories we've seen stories where it's
00:25:00.740 --> 00:25:03.359
like people basically getting death threats to
00:25:03.359 --> 00:25:07.319
not report stuff um and there's perhaps some
00:25:07.319 --> 00:25:09.779
aspect of that but what people are finding out
00:25:09.779 --> 00:25:13.380
is that This site, which is the authoritative
00:25:13.380 --> 00:25:15.359
source for deciding whether or not they've made
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:18.119
their bet wins or not, is not just something
00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:19.859
that they might want to take down just so they
00:25:19.859 --> 00:25:22.940
could get themselves some time, but also because
00:25:22.940 --> 00:25:25.900
they're all running anthropic bots and they're
00:25:25.900 --> 00:25:28.839
all using AI to hit it. And when you tell AI,
00:25:28.980 --> 00:25:32.259
when you go and ask an AI. like Claude or somebody
00:25:32.259 --> 00:25:35.339
else to go look up sites. They hit it thousands
00:25:35.339 --> 00:25:38.980
of times. The amount of traffic generated by
00:25:38.980 --> 00:25:42.339
these kind of web searches is ridiculous. And
00:25:42.339 --> 00:25:44.400
so in the case of the numbers, it wasn't just
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:46.819
that the site, there weren't people influencing
00:25:46.819 --> 00:25:50.500
that, it's just the site was getting such a ridiculous
00:25:50.500 --> 00:25:52.900
amount of traffic from this. It was getting hammered.
00:25:52.900 --> 00:25:54.640
Yeah, it was getting absolutely hammered and
00:25:54.640 --> 00:26:02.049
it's all bot driven. The thing that it reminded
00:26:02.049 --> 00:26:05.490
me of, I don't know if any of you have read Neal
00:26:05.490 --> 00:26:09.210
Stephenson's The Diamond Age or A Young Lady's
00:26:09.210 --> 00:26:12.049
Primer. Yes, that is a good book. It's a great
00:26:12.049 --> 00:26:15.710
book. Do you remember how when they were out,
00:26:15.789 --> 00:26:18.130
like there's a scene in the book where it's a
00:26:18.130 --> 00:26:19.950
book about a book. There's this technological
00:26:19.950 --> 00:26:22.690
book item that everyone's searching for. And
00:26:22.690 --> 00:26:27.289
they go outside and the guy's like... everybody's
00:26:27.289 --> 00:26:28.430
searching for this what do you mean he says let
00:26:28.430 --> 00:26:30.589
me show you and he puts just another just a random
00:26:30.589 --> 00:26:34.690
book on the table and then he says wait and then
00:26:34.690 --> 00:26:38.390
after about five minutes the book is much dustier
00:26:38.390 --> 00:26:40.130
than anything else around it like it's got a
00:26:40.130 --> 00:26:42.210
thick coat of dust that nothing else does and
00:26:42.210 --> 00:26:43.609
it's like what's going on it's like those are
00:26:43.609 --> 00:26:47.710
searching nanobots like people like we are now
00:26:47.710 --> 00:26:49.730
we are now flooded our atmosphere is flooded
00:26:49.730 --> 00:26:51.329
with people who are looking for this book and
00:26:51.329 --> 00:26:53.809
and these are tiny robots they just are trying
00:26:53.809 --> 00:26:55.390
to find anything that's book -shaped and reporting
00:26:55.390 --> 00:26:58.009
back what you're seeing are the corpses of nanobots
00:26:58.009 --> 00:27:02.289
and it's like a version of that that when something
00:27:02.289 --> 00:27:05.450
is important it starts to draw this level of
00:27:05.450 --> 00:27:07.509
attention like the numbers becomes important
00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:11.009
because it's it's being used to determine bets
00:27:11.009 --> 00:27:13.230
and even if you remove like previously when we've
00:27:13.230 --> 00:27:14.829
talked about poly markets we've talked about
00:27:14.829 --> 00:27:16.970
how that you know we talked about stories of
00:27:16.970 --> 00:27:19.970
just people being intimidated people being sold
00:27:19.970 --> 00:27:21.849
you can't report that like that's evil and that's
00:27:21.849 --> 00:27:24.190
horrible that's that's but the thing about those
00:27:24.190 --> 00:27:26.369
stories is that's a one person doing a shitty
00:27:26.369 --> 00:27:27.869
thing that we can point out and go oh look at
00:27:27.869 --> 00:27:30.710
this shitty thing this person this is a victim
00:27:30.710 --> 00:27:37.059
of a stochastic orders of magnitude more attention
00:27:37.059 --> 00:27:39.359
just being paid on the internet like these aren't
00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:41.460
they're not trying even to take it down they're
00:27:41.460 --> 00:27:44.039
just paying so much attention and so many people
00:27:44.039 --> 00:27:46.539
are looking to see if those numbers change second
00:27:46.539 --> 00:27:48.259
to second so that they can get ahead of bets
00:27:48.259 --> 00:27:51.099
so it's like suddenly reality itself becomes
00:27:51.099 --> 00:27:56.240
the equivalent of a you know a high -speed algorithmic
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:57.700
market that they're trying to keep an eye on
00:27:57.700 --> 00:28:00.849
so they can get bets in onto polymarket before
00:28:00.849 --> 00:28:02.970
Polymarket itself updates and they can get anything
00:28:02.970 --> 00:28:04.569
like that. Like suddenly everything in the world
00:28:04.569 --> 00:28:06.390
is the server you want to have nanoseconds response
00:28:06.390 --> 00:28:11.569
from. Hang on, hang on. Because the thing about
00:28:11.569 --> 00:28:13.750
the numbers, as I understand it, is it was being
00:28:13.750 --> 00:28:15.990
used by all sorts of Hollywood people and the
00:28:15.990 --> 00:28:18.430
film industry people and so forth, which means
00:28:18.430 --> 00:28:22.430
that they were using it to place bets also. I
00:28:22.430 --> 00:28:24.569
mean, it was very important in the industry.
00:28:25.450 --> 00:28:29.150
It had become important in the industry. So they
00:28:29.150 --> 00:28:31.990
were using it that way. It's just that the polymarket
00:28:31.990 --> 00:28:34.750
has come in as a completely separate industry.
00:28:35.289 --> 00:28:38.509
I would say that Hollywood is inherently placing
00:28:38.509 --> 00:28:41.049
bets by its nature with that. And they were using
00:28:41.049 --> 00:28:42.869
it to settle arguments on bets that were made
00:28:42.869 --> 00:28:45.150
along the lines of, did this movie make enough
00:28:45.150 --> 00:28:48.269
money or not? Because if it didn't, like the
00:28:48.269 --> 00:28:50.390
studio. And those were solved by individuals.
00:28:50.630 --> 00:28:52.750
Polymarket is people doing the equivalent of
00:28:52.750 --> 00:28:56.809
going. If the new Spider -Man movie makes between
00:28:56.809 --> 00:29:03.470
$110 million and $112 million this weekend, then
00:29:03.470 --> 00:29:05.890
I will make this much money. And for those things
00:29:05.890 --> 00:29:07.430
to be answered, all of a sudden, this site needs
00:29:07.430 --> 00:29:10.710
to be hit over and over again, over and over
00:29:10.710 --> 00:29:12.769
again. And also, I was just saying, it's sort
00:29:12.769 --> 00:29:15.890
of turned into a hyper -object now, because...
00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:18.400
it hasn't it you're not looking at it you're
00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:20.640
looking at its effect as it sort of comes in
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:22.740
and it's very hard to tell because of all these
00:29:22.740 --> 00:29:25.259
things are betting on the same sort of the feedback
00:29:25.259 --> 00:29:33.799
loop gets ridiculous it really does i i you know
00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:37.920
yeah i this is something that i i knew was going
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:40.259
to happen i mean i saw it a mile off is that
00:29:40.259 --> 00:29:44.809
you know fair enough when it's the It's not fair,
00:29:44.970 --> 00:29:47.710
but it is kind of fair when you get a bunch of
00:29:47.710 --> 00:29:52.869
IMDb or IMDb News or something like that. Who's
00:29:52.869 --> 00:29:55.470
going to be the star in the latest whatever film
00:29:55.470 --> 00:29:57.809
and it appears there? Someone's going to handle
00:29:57.809 --> 00:30:02.109
it, but when it starts to become new sites, smaller
00:30:02.109 --> 00:30:05.069
new sites and all these things, because they
00:30:05.069 --> 00:30:09.309
do claim that they must have a list of like...
00:30:09.720 --> 00:30:12.359
trusted news sites right and so you suddenly
00:30:12.359 --> 00:30:16.420
get news sites that are being hit heavily and
00:30:16.420 --> 00:30:19.740
and as david said it's a hyper object hyper object
00:30:19.740 --> 00:30:21.779
it's not they don't care about the news they
00:30:21.779 --> 00:30:24.460
just want the result and it just you remember
00:30:24.460 --> 00:30:27.880
flash mobs oh i remember flash mobs i remember
00:30:27.880 --> 00:30:29.960
running a few of them okay do you remember how
00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:35.069
like like scale matters Like, flash mobs, flash
00:30:35.069 --> 00:30:36.390
mobs are fun for a while, and then people suddenly
00:30:36.390 --> 00:30:37.710
go, these are real safety problems, and they
00:30:37.710 --> 00:30:39.390
become popular enough that people, like, they
00:30:39.390 --> 00:30:40.970
just make too many people go to a space, and
00:30:40.970 --> 00:30:42.190
all of a sudden it's like, if somebody yelled
00:30:42.190 --> 00:30:44.859
fire... 10 people get trampled right now. And
00:30:44.859 --> 00:30:46.559
then we're like, yeah, see, I don't see why people
00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:48.099
don't do this online. But then they did. They
00:30:48.099 --> 00:30:49.559
just needed a different scale. But now we're
00:30:49.559 --> 00:30:51.880
getting flash mobs. Like, who knows what is going
00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:53.259
to be the next thing everyone wants to bet on?
00:30:53.319 --> 00:30:56.200
Maybe it's, you know, the sourdough bakery and
00:30:56.200 --> 00:30:58.859
Poughkeepsie's special of the week suddenly takes
00:30:58.859 --> 00:31:00.759
off as a meme. And all of a sudden, their little
00:31:00.759 --> 00:31:02.880
server sitting on a raspberry pie in the corner
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:06.940
of the room bursts out in flames because they're
00:31:06.940 --> 00:31:08.799
the coolest thing to bet on on Polymarket that
00:31:08.799 --> 00:31:13.549
week. And you can't anticipate that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:13.750 --> 00:31:17.890
I mean, you are, I know you're, it's kind of
00:31:17.890 --> 00:31:20.309
a little bit of a stretch, but it will happen.
00:31:20.410 --> 00:31:23.289
It will happen. Oh, it's already happened. That's
00:31:23.289 --> 00:31:25.470
what's happening. I mean, it's happening with
00:31:25.470 --> 00:31:27.710
the numbers and the numbers is a far more robust
00:31:27.710 --> 00:31:29.289
site. And even then they're like, we just can't,
00:31:29.289 --> 00:31:31.210
we can't do this. And now they have to re -architect,
00:31:31.329 --> 00:31:33.329
like the article goes into detail. They have
00:31:33.329 --> 00:31:35.950
to re -architect the whole site to make it viable
00:31:35.950 --> 00:31:39.829
or some value of viable. Like even if they put
00:31:39.829 --> 00:31:41.670
it back up, it'll just be taken back down again
00:31:41.670 --> 00:31:46.450
because of all the traffic. Yep. Poor sysadmin
00:31:46.450 --> 00:31:52.089
having to keep that alive. And that's a statement
00:31:52.089 --> 00:31:54.109
that could be made about the last article as
00:31:54.109 --> 00:32:01.230
well as this one. And the last article note of
00:32:01.230 --> 00:32:03.829
the day in the Tech Grumps hit parade is submitted
00:32:03.829 --> 00:32:08.140
by Ian. It's about the VPN ban. being overturned
00:32:08.140 --> 00:32:10.220
for now this is in the uk by the way we always
00:32:10.220 --> 00:32:13.019
like to make sure that we give appropriate context
00:32:13.019 --> 00:32:15.819
for our legal discussions ian vpns are saved
00:32:15.819 --> 00:32:21.079
so the the uk government was saying you know
00:32:21.079 --> 00:32:23.720
we just you know because we need to make sure
00:32:23.720 --> 00:32:26.019
that these young people are not using the internet
00:32:26.019 --> 00:32:30.769
um especially when they are um too young of an
00:32:30.769 --> 00:32:33.450
age whatever age that they set which i think
00:32:33.450 --> 00:32:36.789
is someone think of the children cries the victorian
00:32:36.789 --> 00:32:40.509
nation famous for destroying them yes and we
00:32:40.509 --> 00:32:43.470
did actually chimneys we did cover this quite
00:32:43.470 --> 00:32:46.430
a while ago and it's been ongoing and they went
00:32:46.430 --> 00:32:49.349
oh a lot of these people are a lot of these young
00:32:49.349 --> 00:32:52.829
people are using vpns what we'll do is we will
00:32:52.829 --> 00:32:58.450
ban vpns that will stop them and Pretty much
00:32:58.450 --> 00:33:03.029
the whole tech community and wider, you know,
00:33:03.029 --> 00:33:08.710
so many different parts of the communities around
00:33:08.710 --> 00:33:14.430
tech and around civil, around everything. Business.
00:33:14.630 --> 00:33:19.009
Sorry, what was that? Business. Yeah, business.
00:33:19.269 --> 00:33:23.799
It's just, we're like, are you... This is not
00:33:23.799 --> 00:33:28.299
going to work. This is a bad idea. VPNs are really
00:33:28.299 --> 00:33:31.299
useful for privacy and for security. This is
00:33:31.299 --> 00:33:33.279
like the baby out with the bathwater. This is
00:33:33.279 --> 00:33:36.940
porching the house because there's a weed in
00:33:36.940 --> 00:33:41.720
the front yard. Yes. And for the longest time.
00:33:42.349 --> 00:33:44.650
They just stuck with it. No, we're going to do
00:33:44.650 --> 00:33:47.069
it. We're going to do it. People were asking,
00:33:47.170 --> 00:33:48.410
how are you going to do this? How are you going
00:33:48.410 --> 00:33:52.970
to ban these VPNs when you could run a VPN without...
00:33:52.970 --> 00:33:56.390
You could run your own private VPN and stuff
00:33:56.390 --> 00:33:58.130
like that. And they said, we're going to do it.
00:33:58.369 --> 00:34:02.430
And then, just recently, they reversed and said,
00:34:02.609 --> 00:34:06.730
actually, they didn't say that we saw sense.
00:34:07.049 --> 00:34:10.670
That's what I'm saying. The arguments are quite
00:34:10.670 --> 00:34:15.679
clear. we're not gonna ban them i didn't say
00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:19.360
yet but everyone's holding their breaths in for
00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:23.000
now i think it could also be it could also be
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:26.699
them positioning pressure to get vpns to give
00:34:26.699 --> 00:34:32.019
them back doors as well yeah but yeah i think
00:34:32.019 --> 00:34:34.460
a lot of people there aren't a lot of vpns not
00:34:34.460 --> 00:34:36.739
really companies isn't it like built into linux
00:34:36.739 --> 00:34:40.510
and stuff yep But this is the thing. I think
00:34:40.510 --> 00:34:45.090
the whole idea for them was that, I mean, I'm
00:34:45.090 --> 00:34:47.969
sorry I'm being cheeky here, but most of them
00:34:47.969 --> 00:34:50.710
were like, well, you know, no one uses Linux,
00:34:50.789 --> 00:34:54.530
so who cares? Even though Android's built on
00:34:54.530 --> 00:34:56.389
Linux and a bunch of other systems are built
00:34:56.389 --> 00:34:59.869
on Linux. And so they just were like, what they
00:34:59.869 --> 00:35:03.880
saw as VPNs were stuff like... NordVPN and others.
00:35:04.059 --> 00:35:07.400
And I remember Proton got a massive boost when
00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:09.519
lots of people just started downloading it because
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:12.940
you could use it for free. And it does all the
00:35:12.940 --> 00:35:16.000
stuff that it's meant to do around privacy. So
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:19.500
I think that they kind of went, we can't actually
00:35:19.500 --> 00:35:23.860
do this, so we're going to reverse. But it feels
00:35:23.860 --> 00:35:27.980
like there's a pause. in the response like even
00:35:27.980 --> 00:35:30.139
the open rights group which i to fair i i would
00:35:30.139 --> 00:35:32.360
say honestly i am a advisor for the open rights
00:35:32.360 --> 00:35:36.159
group are saying what's the what when are they
00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:39.300
going to turn around and go actually we've now
00:35:39.300 --> 00:35:41.860
changed our minds okay it's a real catch -22
00:35:41.860 --> 00:35:44.460
because the politicians like you don't want them
00:35:44.460 --> 00:35:49.340
to do this and you and and they know or at least
00:35:49.340 --> 00:35:51.000
some of them have figured out that it's an incredibly
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:54.460
bad damaging idea to do this and so In some ways,
00:35:54.480 --> 00:35:56.820
I think when I see this pause, I'm like, are
00:35:56.820 --> 00:35:58.800
the advocates just going, look, we would really
00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:02.139
like to run them out of town on a rail for this
00:36:02.139 --> 00:36:05.559
kind of stupid bullshit. But we know that if
00:36:05.559 --> 00:36:08.659
they've stopped and then we stop poking them,
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:13.340
that's basically they're kind of like we it's
00:36:13.340 --> 00:36:15.119
kind of like it almost feels like there was like
00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:16.940
a mutual understanding going, all right, we'll
00:36:16.940 --> 00:36:18.599
back off, but don't make us look like idiots.
00:36:18.639 --> 00:36:22.750
And they're like, fine. You know, like don't
00:36:22.750 --> 00:36:25.010
don't hammer at home. The thing is, there are
00:36:25.010 --> 00:36:27.550
so many things for open. I'm also on the Advisory
00:36:27.550 --> 00:36:29.530
Council of Open Rights Group. And the thing is
00:36:29.530 --> 00:36:33.250
that there are so many things that for for Org
00:36:33.250 --> 00:36:36.849
to be involved in that fighting a battle that
00:36:36.849 --> 00:36:39.389
is not actually taking place right now is a waste
00:36:39.389 --> 00:36:43.789
of effort. Yeah. You know, and I agree. I do.
00:36:43.849 --> 00:36:47.340
I do agree. But you have to keep an eye on them.
00:36:47.400 --> 00:36:50.679
That's the thing. I think they do that anyway.
00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:55.340
Yeah. Harm reduction. They have people like us
00:36:55.340 --> 00:36:57.219
to come to advisory council meetings and say,
00:36:57.260 --> 00:37:01.679
have you seen? Look, they reversed their decision.
00:37:03.039 --> 00:37:06.420
Practical advocacy and things like harm reduction,
00:37:06.579 --> 00:37:07.800
which is one of the philosophies that I think
00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:10.659
the UK still adheres to, thank goodness. One
00:37:10.659 --> 00:37:14.079
of, in practice. That frequently feels like letting
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:15.500
people get away with shit you don't want them
00:37:15.500 --> 00:37:18.599
to get away with. I actually think that the area
00:37:18.599 --> 00:37:21.260
that we may start to see some traction is digital
00:37:21.260 --> 00:37:25.079
sovereignty because a lot of... not just in the
00:37:25.079 --> 00:37:27.300
UK, but across Europe, countries are becoming
00:37:27.300 --> 00:37:30.139
aware that relying on US infrastructure might
00:37:30.139 --> 00:37:32.699
not necessarily be the safest thing to do. There
00:37:32.699 --> 00:37:35.079
are MPs that are calling for the extraction of
00:37:35.079 --> 00:37:39.139
Palantir from the NHS. And even Kidron in this
00:37:39.139 --> 00:37:42.380
new book that she's been... You'll have to explain
00:37:42.380 --> 00:37:44.199
who that is. She's not that well known. She's
00:37:44.199 --> 00:37:47.019
a member of the House of Lords and she has been...
00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:50.940
very active in child online safety issues. Now,
00:37:50.940 --> 00:37:52.840
she's actually a lot smarter than people give
00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:56.119
her credit for. And one of her points is that,
00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:58.039
you know, the privacy rights and stuff that we
00:37:58.039 --> 00:37:59.780
want for children, we should want for everybody.
00:38:00.139 --> 00:38:02.760
And her book goes into a lot of detail about
00:38:02.760 --> 00:38:04.860
how she would like to undermine the business
00:38:04.860 --> 00:38:07.159
models and stuff. But she concludes by talking
00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:10.800
about digital sovereignty. and the importance
00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:13.420
of it. And so I kind of have the sense that maybe
00:38:13.420 --> 00:38:16.500
this is an area that will actually get some traction,
00:38:16.800 --> 00:38:21.059
as I say. I hope so. I just want to end up by
00:38:21.059 --> 00:38:22.980
saying I think we actually have over -talked
00:38:22.980 --> 00:38:27.900
this to some degree because initially what happened
00:38:27.900 --> 00:38:31.760
was after saying, yes, we'll stop teenagers using
00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:36.179
the internet after 6 p .m. and all the things
00:38:36.179 --> 00:38:38.440
that came out with, people said, yes, but they'll
00:38:38.440 --> 00:38:41.539
use VPNs. And then the response was from people
00:38:41.539 --> 00:38:43.199
who didn't know what a VPN was, was simply to
00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:45.480
say, oh, we'll ban VPNs. But they didn't know
00:38:45.480 --> 00:38:47.840
what VPNs were or what they were banning. And
00:38:47.840 --> 00:38:50.659
then they were told. So it isn't really a true
00:38:50.659 --> 00:38:53.579
fight against VPNs. They were just fighting against
00:38:53.579 --> 00:38:55.840
the thing that somebody else said was going to
00:38:55.840 --> 00:38:58.159
stop their brilliant plan. I don't think anything
00:38:58.159 --> 00:39:01.380
is more technical than that. But David, in that,
00:39:01.500 --> 00:39:04.820
that's a real problem, right? It's like, we don't
00:39:04.820 --> 00:39:07.139
know what it is. We just want to get to this.
00:39:07.929 --> 00:39:10.269
We want to solve this problem. We'll scourge
00:39:10.269 --> 00:39:12.889
the Earth. Don't care if the Earth doesn't exist
00:39:12.889 --> 00:39:15.849
anymore. This problem will get solved. We don't
00:39:15.849 --> 00:39:18.150
want to solve this problem. We want to be seen
00:39:18.150 --> 00:39:20.869
as taking an action that people believe will
00:39:20.869 --> 00:39:23.809
solve this problem. And if it also is seen as
00:39:23.809 --> 00:39:26.630
being angsty to the group of people that we consider
00:39:26.630 --> 00:39:30.230
ourselves counter to, those technological elites
00:39:30.230 --> 00:39:33.170
who we all know are also secretly pedophiles,
00:39:33.230 --> 00:39:38.920
then all the better. The thing that makes us
00:39:38.920 --> 00:39:42.019
so galling is that the earth being scorched is
00:39:42.019 --> 00:39:44.880
an entirely uninteresting secondary effect to
00:39:44.880 --> 00:39:49.059
them. They don't care about VPNs or know what
00:39:49.059 --> 00:39:51.800
they are. The thing is, I am absolutely convinced
00:39:51.800 --> 00:39:54.159
that most VPN use in this country is to watch
00:39:54.159 --> 00:39:59.920
sports. No, it's to watch porn on something that
00:39:59.920 --> 00:40:02.099
might be a business computer. Sports is some
00:40:02.099 --> 00:40:13.900
people's porn. And one extra story for the news
00:40:13.900 --> 00:40:16.159
section, very much in the recent headlines, is
00:40:16.159 --> 00:40:21.219
the American who was arrested for having his
00:40:21.219 --> 00:40:25.219
Graphene OS phone self -wipe itself using a duress
00:40:25.219 --> 00:40:29.079
pin. So for those of you who didn't hear about
00:40:29.079 --> 00:40:31.679
this, it's currently being fought in court, but
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:34.119
basically an American coming through. For those
00:40:34.119 --> 00:40:35.360
of you who don't know what the Graphene OS is,
00:40:35.460 --> 00:40:37.980
it's an alternative safety -minded OS that can
00:40:37.980 --> 00:40:42.539
be installed on mobile phones. it's so it's like
00:40:42.539 --> 00:40:45.199
an alternative to android an alternative to ios
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:48.260
and one of the things that it is it's very security
00:40:48.260 --> 00:40:51.019
minded and one of the features that comes standard
00:40:51.019 --> 00:40:53.159
in the phone is something called a duress pin
00:40:53.159 --> 00:40:55.219
so normally when you want to unlock your phone
00:40:55.219 --> 00:40:57.500
you put in a pin and then your phone unlocks
00:40:57.500 --> 00:41:00.480
this has something called a duress pin which
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:01.739
is the pin that you enter and when you enter
00:41:01.739 --> 00:41:04.099
this pin the phone goes oh you're in trouble
00:41:04.099 --> 00:41:07.260
i'm gonna nuke myself and when you enter the
00:41:07.260 --> 00:41:11.300
duress pin the phone literally rewrites its own
00:41:11.300 --> 00:41:13.400
memory and encrypts itself and locks itself out
00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:15.780
making it it bricks the phone and makes the data
00:41:15.780 --> 00:41:19.059
unrecoverable which is the last thing so nice
00:41:19.059 --> 00:41:21.199
person coming through customs in america actually
00:41:21.199 --> 00:41:22.960
i believe this person wasn't american so it wasn't
00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:25.159
even like you know yes but this was a person
00:41:25.159 --> 00:41:28.320
who had done activism and made bad statements
00:41:28.320 --> 00:41:31.260
that the government didn't like and so they asked
00:41:31.260 --> 00:41:33.139
him to unlock his phone which is a very common
00:41:33.139 --> 00:41:34.599
thing that's happening in the u .s right now
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:38.420
um and he entered the duress pin and now the
00:41:39.050 --> 00:41:41.230
the the think the homeland security department
00:41:41.230 --> 00:41:43.610
or the in that like they're basically going oh
00:41:43.610 --> 00:41:46.550
you destroyed evidence and now we're going to
00:41:46.550 --> 00:41:48.489
get you done for that even though interestingly
00:41:48.489 --> 00:41:51.070
from the story he wasn't even the one who entered
00:41:51.070 --> 00:41:53.469
the pin he just told the security agents the
00:41:53.469 --> 00:41:56.670
pin and they entered it so technically the agents
00:41:56.670 --> 00:41:59.829
were the one who actually nuked the phone that's
00:41:59.829 --> 00:42:04.530
funny yeah i i i heard this and i i've always
00:42:04.530 --> 00:42:10.409
i love that feature um not because I'm like you
00:42:10.409 --> 00:42:13.090
know doing anything that's like super sensitive
00:42:13.090 --> 00:42:15.630
or I don't think so or you know who knows but
00:42:15.630 --> 00:42:18.869
I do think that for example I I was considering
00:42:18.869 --> 00:42:22.789
going to Taiwan and one of the flights was via
00:42:22.789 --> 00:42:25.869
China and I was like I don't want to go via China
00:42:25.869 --> 00:42:28.590
and having that feature is something that I may
00:42:28.590 --> 00:42:32.530
want especially because as a as an ex -BBC person
00:42:32.530 --> 00:42:36.869
there's still There's a lot of things about,
00:42:37.010 --> 00:42:42.730
you can't be a BBC employee in China. You basically
00:42:42.730 --> 00:42:45.969
get removed. I would like to stop this level
00:42:45.969 --> 00:42:49.530
of justification. Because I hear a lot of these
00:42:49.530 --> 00:42:50.989
stories about this, and we give all these things,
00:42:51.110 --> 00:42:53.070
and I think about this too. I want to give the,
00:42:53.070 --> 00:42:54.889
everyone's like, why would you want a cell phone?
00:42:55.090 --> 00:42:57.690
Because I have lovely people who have sent me
00:42:57.690 --> 00:43:01.539
naked pictures of themselves. OK, that's that's
00:43:01.539 --> 00:43:03.920
here is a base ground level reason. Did you ever
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:06.159
get a nice consensual picture that somebody sent
00:43:06.159 --> 00:43:07.780
you because they like you and you like them?
00:43:07.980 --> 00:43:10.039
And those things tend to stick on your phone
00:43:10.039 --> 00:43:13.820
like most chat systems like the whole item. And
00:43:13.820 --> 00:43:17.019
I don't. And as part of that, as part of having
00:43:17.019 --> 00:43:19.159
someone who liked me enough and share that with
00:43:19.159 --> 00:43:21.480
me, I think I have a responsibility to not let
00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:25.340
some fucking rando, certainly not some perv in,
00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:29.289
you know, customs and agency. go slicking go
00:43:29.289 --> 00:43:33.230
go looking through the photos that other people
00:43:33.230 --> 00:43:35.269
sent me like it's it's i consider like a duty
00:43:35.269 --> 00:43:37.349
of care to the trust that i was given so like
00:43:37.349 --> 00:43:38.969
and we can talk about government reasons we can
00:43:38.969 --> 00:43:41.130
talk about professionals from the bbc i know
00:43:41.130 --> 00:43:43.389
my nudes are my nudes and you don't get to look
00:43:43.389 --> 00:43:45.869
at them yeah i i agree i think a two -way thing
00:43:45.869 --> 00:43:47.909
i think you know no one should have to see your
00:43:47.909 --> 00:43:49.849
stuff as well and i'm very glad that you prevent
00:43:49.849 --> 00:43:53.239
it from saying so yes So, so I do think that
00:43:53.239 --> 00:43:55.260
this is a, I think this is a, I feel like it's
00:43:55.260 --> 00:43:58.400
a new, it's a new version of the duress pin that
00:43:58.400 --> 00:43:59.860
actually rewrites the phone with nothing but
00:43:59.860 --> 00:44:08.579
the worst nudes. Yeah. I do. I do think it's
00:44:08.579 --> 00:44:12.119
interesting that he told, cause I, I was reading
00:44:12.119 --> 00:44:14.760
through it and I, that's what really got me was
00:44:14.760 --> 00:44:17.659
that he told them the number they put it in.
00:44:17.900 --> 00:44:21.789
I think that. I'm not familiar with American
00:44:21.789 --> 00:44:28.110
law, but that feels like, you know, yeah, they
00:44:28.110 --> 00:44:31.329
destroyed the evidence. They could have made
00:44:31.329 --> 00:44:36.219
the decision not to. they asked him to unlock
00:44:36.219 --> 00:44:38.360
but no they asked him to unlock the phone he
00:44:38.360 --> 00:44:40.860
gave him a destruction pin there's no legal way
00:44:40.860 --> 00:44:43.340
yeah but they have yeah but hold on you didn't
00:44:43.340 --> 00:44:44.940
they actually are making they are making the
00:44:44.940 --> 00:44:47.480
case no they're making the case that he can make
00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:49.579
the case it's like it's the same case they would
00:44:49.579 --> 00:44:51.500
make if somebody booby trapped something that
00:44:51.500 --> 00:44:54.130
they didn't hand it to the police yeah yeah I'll
00:44:54.130 --> 00:44:57.889
try to defend myself. It's destruction of evidence,
00:44:58.130 --> 00:45:00.070
and that's the same thing they would do. In that
00:45:00.070 --> 00:45:02.110
case, not that. By the way, I just had the most
00:45:02.110 --> 00:45:04.449
fantastic idea. A version of Graphene OS in the
00:45:04.449 --> 00:45:06.989
duress pen, and what it does is it rewrites the
00:45:06.989 --> 00:45:09.690
entire phone with multiple copies of Two Girls,
00:45:09.769 --> 00:45:14.320
One Cup. But on every rewrite, it changes three
00:45:14.320 --> 00:45:16.139
or four bits of the file so that the checksum
00:45:16.139 --> 00:45:17.699
is different. So they have to make sure every
00:45:17.699 --> 00:45:20.280
single one isn't holding special data. So they
00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:22.400
have to watch them over and over again. I'm sorry,
00:45:22.500 --> 00:45:26.559
what is Two Girls, One Cup? Don't go there. Don't
00:45:26.559 --> 00:45:30.659
look it up. Don't look it up. Just don't. You
00:45:30.659 --> 00:45:34.719
don't need to know what that is. I hope our audience
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:38.760
don't need to know that either. I know we've...
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:41.699
Yeah, you're absolutely right. As I said before,
00:45:41.880 --> 00:45:45.039
I gave my mum Graphene OS just because it also
00:45:45.039 --> 00:45:50.659
supports phones much, much more older than what
00:45:50.659 --> 00:45:53.480
Android would support. And I think that's another
00:45:53.480 --> 00:45:56.139
reason why it's a legitimate thing. And I think
00:45:56.139 --> 00:45:58.460
that features like that are completely legitimate.
00:45:59.539 --> 00:46:01.440
I know the feature is completely legitimate.
00:46:01.739 --> 00:46:03.699
Of course it is. But that won't get them out
00:46:03.699 --> 00:46:06.949
of the legal case of, you know. Here, I'll unlock
00:46:06.949 --> 00:46:12.010
my phone. If we are very lucky, the case will
00:46:12.010 --> 00:46:13.610
get overturned and the precedent will get sent.
00:46:13.909 --> 00:46:17.210
But it's still doing, even the thing that's really
00:46:17.210 --> 00:46:18.650
unfortunate is even the story itself is having
00:46:18.650 --> 00:46:20.130
what the government really wants, which is the
00:46:20.130 --> 00:46:22.889
chilling effect on people. Well, you know, it's
00:46:22.889 --> 00:46:25.449
interesting because for a long time there's been
00:46:25.449 --> 00:46:27.489
this kind of idea that you couldn't force somebody
00:46:27.489 --> 00:46:30.429
to give you their password or PIN, but you were
00:46:30.429 --> 00:46:32.920
allowed to. force them to use their biometric
00:46:32.920 --> 00:46:38.300
or maybe it was yeah it's very weird setup but
00:46:38.300 --> 00:46:42.420
you know what they do well okay so this this
00:46:42.420 --> 00:46:43.659
actually fits in that because they weren't saying
00:46:43.659 --> 00:46:44.940
you have to give us the pin they do what they
00:46:44.940 --> 00:46:46.320
always do which is if you don't tell us your
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:48.900
pin we're going to seize your phone and then
00:46:48.900 --> 00:46:50.500
once the phone is out of your possession they're
00:46:50.500 --> 00:46:53.139
going to crack it right like you like they they
00:46:53.139 --> 00:46:55.440
have devices that are designed to do that and
00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:59.179
nothing but that Or they can hire somebody who
00:46:59.179 --> 00:47:01.500
can do it, which is what they did in the big
00:47:01.500 --> 00:47:03.440
Apple case. They'll hold onto your phone for
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:05.400
five days and then you'll get it back. And almost
00:47:05.400 --> 00:47:07.199
certainly it will have been fucked with, quite
00:47:07.199 --> 00:47:09.780
possibly have. Actually, there's no guarantee
00:47:09.780 --> 00:47:12.840
you'll get it back after five days. There's no
00:47:12.840 --> 00:47:15.400
guarantee, but even if you do get it back, it
00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:17.219
will have certainly been compromised in multiple
00:47:17.219 --> 00:47:19.199
ways. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you won't know
00:47:19.199 --> 00:47:24.239
how, which is the problem. I want to ask a question.
00:47:24.320 --> 00:47:26.699
I know that none of us are legal experts, but...
00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:29.059
I was wondering, you know, what would happen
00:47:29.059 --> 00:47:33.599
if he was a citizen of another country? He would
00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:38.119
have even fewer rights. Basically, you should
00:47:38.119 --> 00:47:40.119
assume that when you were at the border, you
00:47:40.119 --> 00:47:47.780
do not have rights. Yes. For the record, when
00:47:47.780 --> 00:47:50.199
I go through, like, the last couple of trips
00:47:50.199 --> 00:47:51.960
I've made back to the States, I go through with
00:47:51.960 --> 00:47:53.780
fully wiped hardware because it's the only way.
00:47:54.510 --> 00:47:57.469
that like i just like the phone is wiped the
00:47:57.469 --> 00:47:59.650
computer is wiped factory settings and that way
00:47:59.650 --> 00:48:01.010
like you want to unlock it don't have to here
00:48:01.010 --> 00:48:02.909
you go well where's your data it's not on there
00:48:02.909 --> 00:48:04.869
they are trying to do things like tell us your
00:48:04.869 --> 00:48:07.690
tell us your social your social logins and passwords
00:48:07.690 --> 00:48:11.289
um and luckily as someone who is an american
00:48:11.289 --> 00:48:12.969
that's something that i can be resistant to and
00:48:12.969 --> 00:48:14.030
like you're going to hold me there until it's
00:48:14.030 --> 00:48:16.949
like no but like their devices they'll just take
00:48:16.949 --> 00:48:20.489
them they are this is this is an industry run
00:48:20.489 --> 00:48:26.360
by bullies who The only people who work for them
00:48:26.360 --> 00:48:27.980
are people who kind of get off on this shit in
00:48:27.980 --> 00:48:34.719
the first place. Just expect it. Basically, my
00:48:34.719 --> 00:48:36.739
theory is I go through with wipe devices. If
00:48:36.739 --> 00:48:38.619
they grab the device, well, that was nice to
00:48:38.619 --> 00:48:40.559
have that. Even if they give it back to me, I'm
00:48:40.559 --> 00:48:41.980
just going to throw it in the bin because I have
00:48:41.980 --> 00:48:43.980
no faith that they have not put some kind of...
00:48:43.980 --> 00:48:46.380
They might have even fucking soldered something
00:48:46.380 --> 00:48:49.079
to the board that I can't tell or put driver
00:48:49.079 --> 00:48:52.789
-level... compromise on there. And I'm not smart
00:48:52.789 --> 00:48:54.269
enough to tell. I just presume if they've taken
00:48:54.269 --> 00:48:56.389
the device, then yay, I get to buy a new device.
00:48:58.230 --> 00:48:59.809
It'd be easier to say, don't go to the States
00:48:59.809 --> 00:49:02.389
right now if you can avoid it. That's what I've
00:49:02.389 --> 00:49:05.010
been doing. Just want to give you just a quick...
00:49:05.010 --> 00:49:11.909
The Phantom Parrot movie from 2023, it basically
00:49:11.909 --> 00:49:16.809
is that scenario, but in the UK. And he refused
00:49:16.809 --> 00:49:22.199
to give them the PIN number. All hell broke loose.
00:49:22.340 --> 00:49:24.119
It's well worth watching if you're interested.
00:49:24.139 --> 00:49:29.440
Is that a documentary? Yes. I'll put it in the
00:49:29.440 --> 00:49:36.039
chat. Phantom Parrot documentary. All right.
00:49:36.139 --> 00:49:38.400
And that's it for the news stories. Only thing
00:49:38.400 --> 00:49:40.880
left to do is to do our Any Other Businesses
00:49:40.880 --> 00:49:44.579
and say goodbye. What do people have up for AOBs?
00:49:44.579 --> 00:49:48.539
Take it away. I think Ian's first. Yeah. So.
00:49:49.119 --> 00:49:53.519
I did my talk from EMF camp about digital legacy.
00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:59.780
And I, after DJing till two in the morning, got
00:49:59.780 --> 00:50:04.840
up and made the stage for 10 o 'clock, very blurry
00:50:04.840 --> 00:50:09.199
eyed. But now the videos are up on, they have
00:50:09.199 --> 00:50:14.760
a peer tube, David. And they just also just.
00:50:15.400 --> 00:50:18.599
Put up the YouTube video also. I'll have a link
00:50:18.599 --> 00:50:21.320
to it. It's about 17 minutes long. The interesting
00:50:21.320 --> 00:50:24.179
part is that even though it took 17 minutes,
00:50:24.420 --> 00:50:27.699
the conversation afterwards was two hours in
00:50:27.699 --> 00:50:31.400
another 10. So that was well worth going to.
00:50:31.460 --> 00:50:34.940
And I recommend anyone who's putting stuff to
00:50:34.940 --> 00:50:38.860
EMF camp to do it because you get a lot out of
00:50:38.860 --> 00:50:43.900
it. Did you camp him? Ian, did you camp or did
00:50:43.900 --> 00:50:47.619
he stay in a... I camp for... I embarrassingly
00:50:47.619 --> 00:50:52.880
only camp for one night. I can't do camping.
00:50:53.800 --> 00:50:58.519
I didn't think you did. I can't do it. I'm really
00:50:58.519 --> 00:51:01.719
not sure I can quite do it. It wasn't quite as
00:51:01.719 --> 00:51:03.480
campy, so to speak. You can get a camper van,
00:51:03.579 --> 00:51:09.619
but yeah, no. Also, another AOB we have... Sorry?
00:51:10.719 --> 00:51:14.179
No, not in Britain. Oh, we're still in camping.
00:51:15.860 --> 00:51:22.440
We're just waiting for you to get done now. All
00:51:22.440 --> 00:51:27.179
right, and next up is another link from Ian about
00:51:27.179 --> 00:51:30.900
the Framework 13 Pro. Yeah, so this is a very
00:51:30.900 --> 00:51:33.719
short... I don't really watch Marcus Brownlee.
00:51:33.880 --> 00:51:37.820
I don't follow him, but he reviews a lot of computer
00:51:37.820 --> 00:51:41.960
hardware. From what I gather, he's very into
00:51:41.960 --> 00:51:46.159
Mac. That's cool for him. But he reviewed the
00:51:46.159 --> 00:51:50.300
Framework 13 Pro. And what I thought was interesting
00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:52.480
about it... Is that a laptop or a phone? That
00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:55.860
is a laptop. That is a Framework laptop. I have
00:51:55.860 --> 00:52:00.559
the Framework 13. Framework is a platform where
00:52:00.559 --> 00:52:03.800
you can... It's a modular laptop and you can
00:52:03.800 --> 00:52:07.159
literally have... The idea is to make it repairable.
00:52:07.239 --> 00:52:10.619
Really easily repairable and upgradable. Super
00:52:10.619 --> 00:52:13.969
easy. Especially by Cory Doctorow, actually.
00:52:14.809 --> 00:52:18.130
Yeah, I would love to have a framework, but they
00:52:18.130 --> 00:52:21.050
do not, as far as I know, yet have a touchscreen.
00:52:22.130 --> 00:52:25.909
They do. So the 13 Pro has a touchscreen. Ah,
00:52:26.150 --> 00:52:29.449
but I bought a new laptop last year, so it's
00:52:29.449 --> 00:52:32.650
kind of... But the next laptop will be a frame...
00:52:32.650 --> 00:52:35.030
If they have a touchscreen, the next laptop will
00:52:35.030 --> 00:52:37.150
be a framework. So, sorry, this is a side point,
00:52:37.210 --> 00:52:43.570
but you could... Get any framework you want and
00:52:43.570 --> 00:52:46.050
just buy the touchscreen and just apply it to
00:52:46.050 --> 00:52:50.349
the old laptop. Yeah, but what I have is not
00:52:50.349 --> 00:52:52.429
a framework because I insist on the touchscreen.
00:52:52.710 --> 00:52:56.889
So wait till the next cycle. Yeah. I think the
00:52:56.889 --> 00:52:59.469
point is that of all the laptops you would have...
00:52:59.679 --> 00:53:01.780
wanted to buy. Framework is the only one that
00:53:01.780 --> 00:53:03.519
you possibly could have bought, knowing that
00:53:03.519 --> 00:53:05.739
it didn't have a feature that you wanted with
00:53:05.739 --> 00:53:07.559
the idea that eventually it would probably have
00:53:07.559 --> 00:53:08.860
that feature and then you could then install
00:53:08.860 --> 00:53:10.639
it. But that's still very... I was not prepared
00:53:10.639 --> 00:53:13.619
to pay for it. I concur. And it does have the
00:53:13.619 --> 00:53:15.099
feature, but you didn't know it had the feature.
00:53:15.420 --> 00:53:16.699
No, it didn't have the feature once you bought
00:53:16.699 --> 00:53:20.699
it. Ah, yes, no, true. So the reason why I mention
00:53:20.699 --> 00:53:23.340
this is because throughout the interview, he
00:53:23.340 --> 00:53:25.320
talks about the framework, compared it to the
00:53:25.320 --> 00:53:28.460
MacBook Pro, and... you know, he's kind of like,
00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:30.820
MacBook Pro's bad, blah, blah, blah, right? But,
00:53:30.860 --> 00:53:35.119
what, at the very end of the interview, at the
00:53:35.119 --> 00:53:39.059
very end of the podcast, he gets, he realises,
00:53:39.179 --> 00:53:41.639
it's almost like this kind of, I know that he's
00:53:41.639 --> 00:53:44.159
doing this, he's got it written, but it comes,
00:53:44.340 --> 00:53:48.599
it dawns on him that actually, the metrics he's
00:53:48.599 --> 00:53:51.980
using to measure them are completely out of sync,
00:53:52.059 --> 00:53:56.239
because he was literally saying, well, the macbook
00:53:56.239 --> 00:53:58.579
will last this time and i'll end up buying another
00:53:58.579 --> 00:54:02.880
one this thing i can literally have it and i
00:54:02.880 --> 00:54:04.900
can keep on upgrading upgrading upgrading upgrading
00:54:04.900 --> 00:54:08.579
there and hasn't got a a metric to decide on
00:54:08.579 --> 00:54:12.179
like what to to measure that it's it's so weird
00:54:12.179 --> 00:54:15.179
for him and it was just so it was just this dawn
00:54:15.179 --> 00:54:18.579
of realization that yeah we're i'm i'm usually
00:54:18.579 --> 00:54:20.760
reviewing this purely for what it is and what
00:54:20.760 --> 00:54:23.219
it's going to be in the next two free years And
00:54:23.219 --> 00:54:26.039
in these ones, I had to start thinking way, way
00:54:26.039 --> 00:54:28.280
past that. I thought it was a very interesting
00:54:28.280 --> 00:54:30.739
insight. That's a good point, but also the big
00:54:30.739 --> 00:54:32.840
presumption is whether or not Framework's still
00:54:32.840 --> 00:54:35.639
going to be around. Well, it's been around for
00:54:35.639 --> 00:54:38.619
a while. They've done well so far, yeah. Okay,
00:54:38.639 --> 00:54:42.719
cool. I mean, not compared to a Mac. My question
00:54:42.719 --> 00:54:46.300
would be, what's the battery life? I was going
00:54:46.300 --> 00:54:47.840
to say, what is the battery life? That was the
00:54:47.840 --> 00:54:50.000
only question I was going to say. Okay, so the
00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:53.179
battery life of the new Framework is... It's
00:54:53.179 --> 00:54:55.719
very high because they've changed the memory
00:54:55.719 --> 00:54:58.519
and all that kind of stuff. I can't give you
00:54:58.519 --> 00:55:01.300
the exact figures, but it's pretty good MacBook
00:55:01.300 --> 00:55:06.559
Pro. And then obviously the thing that, yeah,
00:55:06.579 --> 00:55:08.619
you almost fell into the same trap, right? So
00:55:08.619 --> 00:55:12.860
the price of a battery, a new battery, to be
00:55:12.860 --> 00:55:15.340
able to install it yourself is way cheaper. So
00:55:15.340 --> 00:55:19.900
a new MacBook, new battery for my laptop is 60
00:55:19.900 --> 00:55:23.079
quid. Yeah, but are you going to carry an extra
00:55:23.079 --> 00:55:25.199
battery and swap it out in the middle of a flight?
00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:30.079
I could do that, though. Sure, you could do that.
00:55:30.420 --> 00:55:35.559
But it still remains a question. Well, this is
00:55:35.559 --> 00:55:37.360
a question that you need to answer for yourself.
00:55:37.380 --> 00:55:38.860
I think that's a really good point. Honestly,
00:55:39.179 --> 00:55:44.079
at that point, when I think of hot swappable
00:55:44.079 --> 00:55:47.579
batteries, I think maybe, Wendy, what you're
00:55:47.579 --> 00:55:49.159
asking about, what I would like to see is like...
00:55:49.289 --> 00:55:51.329
If you're going to make it modular and there's
00:55:51.329 --> 00:55:53.050
going to be the power supply, you know that the
00:55:53.050 --> 00:55:54.469
big thing that everyone wants is to be able to
00:55:54.469 --> 00:55:56.909
swap out one battery for another. And it shouldn't
00:55:56.909 --> 00:55:59.570
have to be the same operation as in upgrading
00:55:59.570 --> 00:56:05.269
the CPU. That should be a either turn the computer
00:56:05.269 --> 00:56:08.449
off, plonk this out, put the new one in, or hopefully
00:56:08.449 --> 00:56:10.969
leave the computer plugged into a power source,
00:56:11.050 --> 00:56:12.829
take the one battery out and put the new battery
00:56:12.829 --> 00:56:16.889
in and let yourself go. I don't know if you could
00:56:16.889 --> 00:56:20.550
leave the power in. but it's literally you lift
00:56:20.550 --> 00:56:23.349
the keyboard up with the screwdriver that comes
00:56:23.349 --> 00:56:26.210
with it. You've already lost me. You said screwdriver
00:56:26.210 --> 00:56:30.889
and keyboard. Uh -uh. Yeah, with laptops. I'm
00:56:30.889 --> 00:56:32.670
going to let you off on this one. I'm going to
00:56:32.670 --> 00:56:35.909
let you off. You know, it's the beauty of modular.
00:56:36.329 --> 00:56:39.730
You kind of have to put some effort in. Yeah,
00:56:39.750 --> 00:56:42.889
but look, I used to carry laptops that had hot
00:56:42.889 --> 00:56:45.050
swappable batteries, and I used to carry extra
00:56:45.050 --> 00:56:47.429
batteries with them. I have been there before.
00:56:48.579 --> 00:56:52.780
My current laptop, I have no idea how long the
00:56:52.780 --> 00:56:55.219
battery life is because it lasts more than a
00:56:55.219 --> 00:56:59.300
flight to LA. It does all day at the conference
00:56:59.300 --> 00:57:05.000
and it still has 40 % left. Audio podcast listeners
00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:07.159
have just missed Ryan reaching over, grabbing
00:57:07.159 --> 00:57:10.360
his old ThinkPad, removing the battery from it
00:57:10.360 --> 00:57:12.960
and waving it at Ian in an accusatory fashion.
00:57:13.420 --> 00:57:16.059
Yeah, I had one of those at one time. Yeah, ThinkPads
00:57:16.059 --> 00:57:17.989
are pretty good. I mean, I can change a battery
00:57:17.989 --> 00:57:19.789
on my phone as well. I have come to appreciate
00:57:19.789 --> 00:57:22.230
not carrying extra batteries. They tend to be
00:57:22.230 --> 00:57:26.309
quite heavy, you know? That is true. If I had
00:57:26.309 --> 00:57:28.909
my XPS with me right now, I would do that same
00:57:28.909 --> 00:57:32.230
thing. I literally don't see. I understand. Before
00:57:32.230 --> 00:57:38.889
the podcast dissolves into battery sizing each
00:57:38.889 --> 00:57:43.500
other, I think it's time to call it a day. I'm
00:57:43.500 --> 00:57:45.739
going to find it and I'm going to wave it in
00:57:45.739 --> 00:57:48.519
your face. No, no, you'll find it. You're going
00:57:48.519 --> 00:57:50.800
to find it. You're going to post a video on it
00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:54.619
on the FAP video share site and then send us
00:57:54.619 --> 00:57:57.699
a link to it. I'll try not to get into an airplane
00:57:57.699 --> 00:57:59.619
saying, hey, I've got lots of spare batteries.
00:57:59.780 --> 00:58:01.179
Is that cool? Because no, not so much. Yeah,
00:58:01.219 --> 00:58:03.400
that's also, also, none of this is like, if you
00:58:03.400 --> 00:58:05.820
want to get extra, oh, here's a theory. You can
00:58:05.820 --> 00:58:07.860
distract them from trying to grab your device
00:58:07.860 --> 00:58:09.480
by showing them the extra batteries that are
00:58:09.480 --> 00:58:11.199
about to explode that you've kept in your bag.
00:58:11.280 --> 00:58:14.079
Yeah. This is much more interesting. Have a look
00:58:14.079 --> 00:58:17.239
at this. And that's it for another Tech Grumps.
00:58:17.440 --> 00:58:19.699
The only thing left to do is for each of us to
00:58:19.699 --> 00:58:26.940
say goodbye. Ian. Bye. Wendy. Bye. David. Bye.
00:58:27.460 --> 00:58:31.219
And bye from me, Ryan. Thanks for joining. Don't
00:58:31.219 --> 00:58:32.940
forget, if you want to join Tech Grumps, then
00:58:32.940 --> 00:58:35.579
hashtag Tech Grumps and we'll find you.