The Vergecast - A Meter of Sweat

Episode Date: October 10, 2014

Chris Plante joins Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn on this week's Vergecast to read his unstructured, free verse poetry about the HTC Re Camera. Or maybe it's Re Poetry. Either way, let's just be thankful that there's not a macron diacritical mark above the "e" in Re, that way lies madness. We also discuss Apple before taking a hard turn into talking about what's happening in Gamergate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the Vergecast. This is a show where Chris Plant is just super confused, just the whole time. Hello and welcome to the Vergecast. This is a show about technology and culture and fun things and sad things. Actually, not so many sad things, but occasionally sad things. I am Nilai Patel. I am Dieter Bone. I'm Chris Plant.

Chris Plant is here. Welcome. Hello, buddy. Is this your first Vergecast? Yeah. Oh, wait, wait. Well, technically I was on one of those late night shows a long time ago, but I kind of got like listed for the bottom and then like I walked out and they're like, hey, okay, bye, that was the show.

Yeah, that's how we do it. So if you are a fan of The Verge and Vox Media, you might know Chris Plant, who until recently was an editor at Polygon and previously was just a man about town. Sure. But Chris has left Polygon to come to the Verge to escape video games. And then we immediately started covering video games super hard just to torture him. Yeah. That's basically what we did. That sounds about right.

Yeah, no, that's that is accurate. But no, Chris, along with Ross Miller, is the senior editor. He is the owner of our TLDR section. And all around, you know, genie old dude. Sure. Yeah, is that a good compliment? Yeah, I guess. It was definitely like not the nicest compliment I've ever received, but it wasn't me.

You're like a, you know, Galevants. You know, back, you know, our favorite insult to each other? Yeah. It's really bad. It's actually really bad. It's not, once you, like, really unpack it, you realize how horrible it is. She's like, hey, how is this food I made? I'm like, it's like a six.

And, like, that's just like, wow. Yeah, it's like a six. Nobody likes mediocre. Mediocre is like, oh, you're a mediocre. No, but the thing about five is like, like, whatever. It's like, it's like a five. Like, it's good. Five.

Five isn't good. No, I think six is like a harsher burn than five. If we were to score a Windows phone, five. Then everybody knows. knows what it is, right? Like, everybody knows. Yeah, that you're biased. Everybody knows.

Right. Then obviously Apple is paying you. Right. No, if you score something at five, you're like, man, it's like, it is right on the line of like you did something. Like, you've hit the first threshold. Yeah. Which is the thing that you exist. Right?

Like, that's it. Like, that's all you've accomplished and you've not, no, you've, there's no failure in a five. Right? Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's what I mean. Right.

You just hit the first, like, how is this cookie I made? You're like, it's a five. You're like, yeah. Because I made a cookie. And I've never made cookies before. It's a five. Six is like you tried and you burnt like flamed out. Like you didn't even get there.

So six is worse than five. Six is worse than five. What's funny though is I don't know if this applies to tech, which we're going to talk about today. We are tech cast. Super excited. Oh boy. I can't wait to talk about Hittka.

I just want to point out. My favorite mobile phone company. Chris, you can maybe you can see it in last, but for the audio listeners, Chris has walked in here with printed out he's printed out the wikipedia page for hTC i i did research i know what this company is what does htc stand for um he's kind of like shuffle his notes half training corporation they've trained halfway and they could maybe rival the sidekick if they had enough money and so i'm pretty sure htc is like kfc where it used to stand for something but no they don't they just want it to be htc uh no it's it was high tech computer right yeah

great so it was the most boring name possible that was a six congratulations our computers are high tech i'm telling you guys six is worse than five like if we give out a five is a score everyone's like oh burn but like man that product must be crap we give out a six i bet you six is the score we give out the least hmm just put that out of look so you're saying basically six is like yeah you you shouldn't try six is like you have ambition but you suck right right seven is like seven's my favorite Yeah, seven's like in video game, or I guess like any creative like thing, seven's what I want. Seven is... You don't want an eight or nine.

That's too good for me. I don't deserve that. Eight or nine is like, you go and you get it and it's like Avengers and you're like, damn it. Like, wow, you really fell into the hype cycle. Seven is like, we didn't have money for advertising, but the movie was really good. And the critic actually liked it, but doesn't know how to process. And it's like, oh, great.

Earth Defense Force is a game I like, and it's like doesn't work and it's repetitive as all hell. but you shoot buildings and they fall down no matter how tall they are you shoot them with a machine gun that's what i want in a video game that's why i signed up for video games yeah that's a seven and i will that's all i want like a nine or a ten yeah no but like nine and nine's and ten like in the grand scheme of all of these ratings nine's and tens like those are like something about them like made you happy right so you did a good job and eight is like a seven and eight is like that is you that's like you tried hard

and you succeeded. Like you mostly succeeded and there's some like, depending on the level of flaws. Six is you tried hard and you like fell on your face. Like you like stood up and tried to walk out the door and you just just like face planted. You're like, I didn't even get there. Let me ask you a question. What would you give a six plus? Come on, man.

All right. Let's talk. It's sitting right there. Literally the phone is sitting right here. That is. Phone. Do you want to, do you want to Chris, I'll let you, here, I'm going to just name some things we can talk about. Yeah. Okay. I'm let you, here's a list. Yep.

And they all have wonderful names. Uh, droid turbo, desire I, htc-se re. Wait, I think I know what the last one is. Yeah. Droid turbo is like a movie starring a snail. Yeah. That's like the robot version. Yeah.

That was a sequel. We heard you like that smirky little snail, so now he's a robot. The only reason I put all, well, tell me what you think the other ones are. Wait, droid turbo is, like, motor roll is re-ranting of the joy sure after that is

desire I desire I EY EYE EY but is there like weird in caps in there No no Two words also I don't know like

A webcam That's not a webcam Do people still use webcams? They do All the time We're using one right now Sure Oh I mean that's called a camera

Damn Just because it's a camera This is my next on security cameras, actually. Oh, okay. Webcams are back, everybody. Great. Go ahead.

Remember the I said? I know what the HTC is. The HTC is the inhaler that also doubles as a phone camera that is not actually on your phone, nor does it have a screen. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely wrote about that in my notes. Now, so the desire, I will tell you.

Can you dramatically read exactly what you wrote in your notes? Yeah. Let's just talk about this camera. I'll read about HTC. Okay. HTC, a GoPro for people living normal lives. It looks like a breathalyzer for nerds. $200?

And then I'm, oh, wait, wait, no, I have more. I have more. Are you ready for the rest of it? Yeah. I go on. I don't know what I was going to do. Normal people love wading pools. Normal

people love bikes, just not fast ones. Give me a damn power button. There you go. So you got it. That's H.T. Are you sure you don't want me doing a review? You should just do the whole thing. The meter underwater thing, I guarantee you the standard tech press was just going to let that slide. What is that?

So let's just tell people what the camera is. Deider, do you want to, I think you know most about this. camera that looks like an inhaler or a periscope. Inhaler, if you hold it upside down. A little toy periscope if you hold it right side up. A crack pipe if you hold it sideways. You might use pipes for other things besides your crack. It's like being a jaunty Englishman.

Wow. I'm actually moving to a place I'm going to have a balcony and I'm pretty sure I'm going to take up tobacco pipes. Oh, okay. That's healthy. Pretty exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

It doesn't have a power button. If you hold it, it's got like a capacitive thing, so it turns on automatically. It's got a big ass button on the back. It has no viewfinder. It's got a 16 megapixel super wide angle lens. And the idea is you're like, oh, I'm engaged with you while I take your picture instead of staring at my phone. And it's $200. Yeah.

And we're assuming it's not a very good camera. Just based on HEC's ability to build a camera. Right. I mean, it's a GoPro. It's like. But it's not, but it doesn't compete with GoPro. It's like a handle. It's like you're holding a son.

It's like the old military. flashlight, you know, like, the surplus flashlights you'd get that had the thing and you'd hold it this way. Yeah, yeah, they still sell them out, like, Cub Scouts have them. Yeah, yeah. Like a little bronze, like, doohy that once you put it on your belt buckle.

That was, like, my favorite thing. So this is, HTC is, they are trying to diversify. By the way, the Desire Eye is also an HGC product. It's a phone that takes really good selfies. Yeah, it has the same camera on the front as it does on the back. It's like the mullet, the anti-mullet of smartphones. But I just wanted to point out droid turbo

and desire I because I'm happy that stupid smartphone names are still a thing. At least they're shorter now. Yeah. Well, we don't need to get into that. But, okay, so HCC, the RE, that's their branding for their whole line of consumer electronics products that aren't phones. So the first one is the RE camera. This is terrible branding, by the way.

Yeah. I mean, terrible branding from the high-tech computer company. Yeah. It's not good. It isn't like re, I don't know Latin, but like isn't the implication of like your trying something again. Yeah. Like, so it's like, so it didn't work.

It's also in reference to or regarding. Yeah. So the camera didn't work. Nope. We're re-camera. Yeah. We're trying it again. Try it again.

They're going to put out of VCR like a VHS, uh, uh, uh, storage system called the rewind. And do you know what I think like, yeah. And then I put out a secondary screen called the re. I made all these puns on Twitter yesterday, bro. Is the point that you can drop it. Some revision is what you want. You can drop it in the toilet.

Is that the idea? That's cool. Like what, I'm genuinely curious what this meter of water is where people are like, a meter. I'm going to drop it in something and then use it? Like, is that the point? Right. I mean, the point is basically like you can get it sweaty, right? I don't think the interaction.

Okay, got it. A meter of sweat. A meter of sweat. But here's a thing. It's for the normal person, you know, the bum who is sitting on his couch sweating a meter of sweat. The re-camera. It's for you. You sick monster.

What? Who doesn't occasionally measure their sweat in the linear? Excuse me. I only measure my sweat in metrics. What, man? Linear. By the way, if Sam Schaeffer ever started a band, it should definitely called San Schaeffer in a linear sweat.

Just putting it out there. So the bigger picture here is that HCC is is Sam, Vlad wrote it today. HEC is basically doomed. Yeah. What was in your... My tweet was, how do you know,

how do you know if a company is drowning if it builds a periscope? Yeah. Wow. Because their phones are great, but no one's buying them. Even Samsung, which is the market leader,

is like, it's losing money, hand over fist. Well, it's making a profit. It's making a profit. It's making half the profit it made three months ago. 60% less.

60% less. 60% drop in profits with no clear strategy and how it's going to go back up. Although, So Vlad argues that Samsung will do better than HTC because Samsung is Samsung and they have like a ship business and all this other stuff. Well, and Samsung I think also like has the resources to bounce back. Samsung is a kind of company that will go, holy shit, this isn't good.

We should do something else and then do it. Yeah. I mean, the classic story about them was their whatever the Galaxy tab to whatever the reaction to the super thin iPad. Right. They refactored their entire tablet business in the space of a month and a half To make it thinner than the iPad air or iPad and so they're just gonna wait and for whatever Apple does next week and they'll do it I mean I kind of I kind of admire the re-breathalizer or whatever it is Because I mean at least they're looking for something that

You need in your life that you don't have yeah okay they're trying I'm not I'm not saying it's good at all I'm not even close yeah but convince me that I need it just sure but it's it's It's still, like, more promising than, like, from the point of view of somebody who's new to this world, the Samsung model of, well, we have 200 virgins, and they're all bigger and smaller. Your choice, do you want 3.2 millimeters or 3.5? Yeah. And this is like, oh, well, that is a good point. I do feel kind of like a creep taking my phone out constantly to take pictures. I'm still going to feel like a creep with this.

So this is, like, the ultimate creep shot can. This is even creepier because it when you carry it like a gun, right? So you're like aiming it. People are like, oh, I want to watch you. Like, that's, who's going to do that in front of someone? Worst conversion for ever. H.E.C. Re. Creep shots. Creep shots.

Oh. No. It's coming together. Yeah. I just think they're trying to make anything. This, to me, is like, you know, Apple used to change the iPod every year, right? So the iPod Nano was like big and then it's fat, then it was small. Yeah, but you know what you want?

an iPod. And you know what happened when the smartphone came along? They decided... No, I'm just saying like, this is something for HGC to put in the stores and sell at a 60% profit margin.

Right. It's literally like, here's a stocking stuffer, right? It's... Confused moms will love it. That $200 stocking stoffer. Yeah. I shouldn't even say that.

This seems like the thing that my dad would buy for me. Yeah. He would definitely be like... It's going to list to 200. You like technology. But buy the holidays, it'll sell for like 135.

Yeah. Well, it's got to hit 1-130 because that's what the cheap GoPro is now. Yeah. Not that this compete to the GoPro. No, they said it's up. I don't know. I do like the idea of a camera or a phone with a camera that's as good on the front

is on the back. I don't know. There's something about it. Great. What? Hey, man. It's good. Selfies are cool.

It's okay. You don't have to hold your nose up at selfies. I take group selfies. I'm a master of the eight-person selfie. To put yourself in the corner and then stretch and then get people line up. We'll see the recammer. I'd be good at that. You know what?

Normal cameras are fine at it. Like, we live in a modern, blissful age where all of our cell phone photos look pretty great. Like, I think I'm okay. It's kind of not fair. Yeah. Kind of not fair, though, everything's wonderful. Yeah. And that we have great phones.

Yeah. I had to struggle with the phone plug-in for the visor back in the day. Oh, yeah. I feel bad for you. I know. I've always had it great. I had that Nokia phone that broke in half that James Bond used. I had a sidekick, and now I have, well, I have an iPhone, which works fine when I don't break it, drop it on my face, and do something stupid with it.

Do you still have the big one? No. You gave it back. No, I traded it because they wouldn't let me give it back. Yeah, yeah, you're wrong. Yeah. I'm wrong. Oh, here we go.

No. There is. Great. We're all very happy about your large hands. Your phone is a wide enough. Blackberry passport is where it's out. Let's talk about this for like just a minute. Every time you pull that out, I think you're about to smoke.

So, Dieter has looked sad. It looks like one of those, like, metal cigarette elders, and you're like, oh, well, I think you're wrong, but first, I have to have a nice marlborough. Look, guys, I managed to get Instagram on the phone. So as Vergecast, listeners, no. Last week, I bet Deeter that the Packers would be the Vikings, and the loser of the bet had to use the passport

for two weeks because we couldn't. Deeter, I will say, has been cheating like a maniac. What? I've seen you with that iPhone. Well, I was last one. Yeah, you're admitting it. But he has been diligently using the passport as much as possible. he's finally

tell us about it because it looks I mean literally I'll put it to you this way today we met a new person on our sales team she came by she wanted to hear about the verge

she's new she's new she's going to sell the site and she's like hey you're from Minnesota I'm from Minneapolis and I just started laughing and told her about the bat and I was like

look at this phone he has to use and she just looked at it she's a salesperson business person Blackberry person just looks at it and goes oh that's so sad if there's immediate reaction

so the folks at the crackberry forums. Hey guys. Long time, no talk. Real mad that we were declaring this phone as a punishment. I got like a total of three angry tweets telling me they was alienating the audience. Yeah.

Was that the audience? All three? Goodbye guys. I get more emails about Batman. I have a lot of thoughts about this phone, but the most important one is it makes me sad. Yeah. Like, it

makes me genuinely sad that I can't get a weird ass crazy phone like this. I want to live in a world where, yeah, I want a phone the size of a passport with a super wide keyboard and a crazy square screen. And that's what my life is going to be. I mean, I can do that. But then there's just all the suffering that you have to go through

because, you know, they don't have the app ecosystem. And they've gotten way better thanks to bring out Amazon. But it's just like, you know, the fact that they're, Blackberry, in theory, has figured out that the purpose of a phone is to communicate. So they built this thing called Hub, where everything is in a single big list and you can filter through stuff. Great idea. I want all my messages going there.

I want all my Twitter replies. I want all my PBMs. All my text messages. Everything to go on. That's a great idea. It's really smart. But it's implemented kind of badly. And it's never going to be a perfect all-around solution because they're never going to get

buy-in from all the different messaging apps into this one. I have a million dollar solution for that device. To make that device, like, start pushing units. You license out classic video games. You create the world's best emulator of a CRTV, creating, like, CRTV, actual flicker effects, standlines and everything. You have the square screen. You put retro games on it.

And because those people who love retro games love, like, the authenticity of it, I think that's your trick. I mean, I'm just saying it didn't have to be. this way. We could have built up all of these app ecosystems in such a way that it could be cross platform and there could be somebody to make a new

smartphone operating system that could run stuff and it would be okay but instead like Gmail's kind of eh on this. Did I tell you my theory about this platform and like the higher law that it speaks to? Okay. Right like the end result of any communications platform is

basically an email client right? That's like that's where you're going right? So if you find yourself making a phone and you end up building an email client, you're done. You're screwed, right? Like, the fire phone sucks because Amazon built its own OS. In order to complete its OS, they had to build an email client. And they completely lack any knowledge of how to build a great email client. They can't do it.

Right? They just can't. They're Amazon. They don't know what is happening. Okay. I just got trolled by TC in the background. I don't want to describe it. For the listeners, there's a, there's a picture of what's his name?

James Franco. James Franco is here. But it's not signed by James Franco. It's signed by somebody else. I was trying to think of what James Franco's little brother's name. It's signed by like Dan Skylock. It's very confusing. I don't know what it's there.

It's just, thanks, T.C. You're great. Yeah. No, but here's my theory. So Blackberry forked, they forked, they forked Android in that weird, they forked Android. Well, that's running in the background, but it's not real Android. And they built this new OS. And to finish their-

That's not the order it happened in, by the way. Well, I understand, but like, that's how they got their app tonnage. Yeah. I know the order. But, like, instead of just using Android, which comes with an email client that people like that is good, they built all their own stuff, and they used Android to, like, get apps, right? Yeah. And the second you build your own email client, your platform is doomed.

That's my theory. That's insane. Nope. Come on. Absolutely true. What are you talking about? Absolutely true. If you find, if you are making a phone.

Name a platform. iOS. It has its own email client. Is it doomed? No. No, no, I'm saying. Name another platform. This is a good game.

Name another platform. At this moment in time, if you build a new platform. Like, that's what I mean. Post Apple. Windows phone. Wait. Okay. Yeah.

Like, just because it has an email claim doesn't mean. So, wait, no, no, no. What you're saying is, it's insane. There are two key platforms. The email client is not what dooms Windows phone. No, I'm saying it's, it's like the canary and the coal mine. No. Yes, it is absolutely right.

Once you start doing that, you're screwed. Just if you talk louder, does it. it's a make you writer. It's the one thing that... Damn it, that's how I was going to win this argument. It's the thing that's on all platforms. That's the logic. Like, well, all people wear...

This is what I'm saying. If you are making a phone... If you are making a phone... If you are making a phone or if you are producing a new product, right, and that product starts veering into you making an email client, which on a phone necessarily means you're making an operating system, you're screwed. Okay. You are wrong, but I will accept your incorrect argument briefly.

to bring it back to my argument about being sad. Great. We should live in a world where it's okay to build an email client and have it be okay. We should live in a world where this stuff works together better. Sure. Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, sure, a lot of things have been great. I wish it rained donuts.

But like we could have built that world we chose not to. We could have built the world where things intercommunicate with each other. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. It's called the web. There it is.

Oh boy. There it is. Yeah. There it is. If only all the colleges had built all of our, everything else that we use in our daily life, we'd be perfectly okay. Yeah. No, look, here's what I'm saying.

And I'm going to keep saying it louder and more insistently. The way we communicate with each other. Why do we have to depend on corporations to talk to each other? Capitalism, I would say it's probably the main one. Email. Email, it does not depend on corporations. Yes, it does. No, it doesn't.

You can roll your own email server tomorrow. Right. And then you can talk to anybody with it. can you do that with on the underneath it can you do that with Facebook Messenger

can you do that with iMessage no you cannot maybe no you can't shut up to you I'm just saying we chose to build the world this way we chose

to build the world here's my question if you built your own messaging system right how long would it be before you decided to monetize it

it depends on who I am like if you had you let's say you you being you then I'm obviously a communist

Wait, hold on. Hold on. So you never monetized. No, but here's the, if you rolled your own email server, you would be inundated with garbage, right? Like, the only reason email has survived is because most people have moved to, like, gigantic corporate email systems that are heavily filtered, heavily protected against spam, heavily protected against fishing, right? Like, we depend on Google's artificial intelligence to protect our email accounts. This is true. So the underlying communications framework is still there, but all the innovation is a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, That's an ancillary thing.

No, but the innovation in email has happened on, like, the AI side of, like, the client. So, like, Google made a mail client that's really smart because it has, like, the cloud. Microsoft basically did the same thing, right? Yahoo, like, all the big mail providers do that thing. And then, like, on the back end, they use, like, the email protocols, right? Then they use SMTP. But, I mean, the logic, the end result of the course you're taking here is if you take it, away from email and I am

and whatever the communication thing is and just apply it to our own website. Right. Like, uh, like, like, why,

isn't it nice that we have a startup that like we were able to publish our own thing and like, no, yeah, this is like a neutrality open this argument. Yeah. I understand. But should people be able to publish on our platform?

Sure. Maybe. I don't know. We get to decide that if they want to publish on their own platform, they can. Right. I mean, we're way off in the weeds.

But what I'm saying is fundamentally, the BlackBerry makes you sad. Fundamentally the Blackberry makes me sad. because, like, I would, it would be nice to live in a world where a little company can make a crazy-ass phone and be successful, and we don't live in that world. Right, because they have to work on the mail client. No, they have to solve, like, table stakes. They have to put all of their energy into solving table stakes that are already well solved. I do, I do agree with you partly because now a phone, wow, that is.

Is that your BlackBerry? Your BlackBron is mad at you. Your passport is vibrating. Yeah, I think it's, anyway. Yeah. In layman's terms, it has to be a computer too. Right. It can't just be like it was when I was a wee boy and there were all these strange things.

And it wasn't a huge deal if I had a different phone than you did. And people made all sorts of oddities. I mean, whenever I go to Japan and I rent my phone and they literally will like show you a box full of crazy, like awesome weird phones. And I can take any of them. And it's like that works because those phones aren't smartphones. essentially. Right. Right.

I mean, there's still plenty of creation in smartphone territory. It just doesn't, maybe just doesn't feel quite like it. Yeah, they put a camera on the front. It's the same as a camera on the back. Sure, it's a little larger.

It's a little smaller. You know, I will tell you that I'm actually disappointed that the new iPhone is not waterproof. That's like a one, that's the one major innovation across the other. It should be good for like a meter of sweat. Just one meter.

Yeah. And eight inches of Cheeto cheese. Yeah. Good. You know, like that? Just the idea of it just sitting on your skin. and growing outwards. Cheeto beard.

I've been sitting here for so long. We should probably talk about this Apple event. Speaking of Apple. Yeah. Okay. So it's coming up. It's happening.

Chris, you're going to cover it for us. Great. You are going to live plug Apple. Speaking of things that are a little bit bigger and a little bit smaller. So we put out the invitation yesterday. It's happening a week from today on the 16th. It's been too long.

It's been way too long. Way too long. Oh, what does that way mean? I don't know. Oh, man. Chris Ziegler has trolled everybody on Twitter yesterday by suggesting that they meant the iPad was too long and now there'd be a square iPad

and people are like, nah man and he's like I can't really You know I would be a new square iPad I love this to the podcast for it's got a screen It's a square as it can like there's only one more I could watch two videos in letterbox Top one on top of the other I really wanted you this great phrase troll everyone

And be like I hate this blackberry Square iPad I can really get fine. I think I put a little thin physical keyboard on the bottom. Oh, yeah, that'd be really great. That's what I'd actually want. So they were going to make a black. They announced it by Blackberry.

They're just like, here it is, guys. Here's the new iPad. It's the BlackBerry passport. So everyone obviously is expecting an iPad. And it'll have a touch ID. And there's been already leaks. What I thought was really interesting is when the announcement postcast went up yesterday, we have some leaked photos, which are presumably

accurate. Even if they're not accurate, they're so close to what it's going to be that it doesn't matter. I mean, there's the only one way for it to go. But are the leaked photos were half as popular as the picture of the invitation yesterday. Yeah. Like, for whatever reason,

I don't care about leaked photos of these anymore. Really? Spoilers. I mean, to me, right, I don't know what it does. So it's like a shell of metal with some glass on it. So what do I have to see? Yeah. I mean, I think I'm probably on the side of the, like... Do you have an iPad?

Yeah, I have an iPad Mini. It's probably my favorite device. Really? It is, like, everything. I used to be, like, a collector person. And then a few years ago, I got rid of everything I, like, owned that was, like, software and boxes, because I didn't like the mess and I live in a small apartment. But the iPad Mini gives me that feeling of, like, oh, everything I own is in this.

Like, every book, every episode of Adventure Time. because I'm a child and Simpsons. And I, like, get the largest possible storage size. And I fill it up, and I have, like, all my magazines go there. And it's, like, great. When I want my entertainment, I pull that out, and it's there. And then I don't want the entertainment, I put it away. And it's, like, my one device.

And then I have, I guess, Avita when I want to play Spalunki. Right. So you are the one person with Avita? No, I'm the one who has taste. Wow. The Vita is one of the best pieces of hardware ever created. I have... I'm very confused.

It's very true. Actually, I don't disagree with you. The original Vita is a masterpiece. I don't disagree that Sony made create hardware. I actually, so I will agree with you the Vita is a piece of hardware. You know, everything about it is great except for it... But you can't even say that. It has great games.

It is chock full of great games. Plus, there's PS Plus, so you get free games each month. I'm definitely going to end this conversation by buying. you used to be. It is. You want to get one of the old ones because the original ones are OLAD screens.

Oh, what are they look sick? They're like gross. Normal AD or LCD? Sick in a good way or sick in a bad way? Sick like that's sick. That's really good. Oh man, 169?

Refurbished? Yeah, you should do it. How do you know, how do you know if it's one of the old ones? It looks big and chunky. It's not colorful. Is it a PCH 1001? That's probably it.

I don't know. Getting into Durn talk. The point is, it's great, and I recommend everybody get it, especially... Why don't you get one of the new Sony phones that you can just do it? I could do that, but I won't because I have what I need. I have a Vita, and it lets me play my games, and I have a phone. I'm essentially a spoiled, grown child who has a diversity of choices. This is just one of those things where it's going to show up my house and pull it out of the Amazon box,

and I'm going to look at it, and Becky's going to look at it, and I'm going to look at her, and she's just going to say, I want a dog. Do you have a PlayStation? That's also, that is my wife with everything. Yeah. Do you have a PlayStation? Literally, last night I looked at her, and I was like, you're very tenderly. It's like, I love you, and she just looked at me and she went a dog.

That's it. You know what our conversation is. It's time you got that dog. Yeah. Wait, wait. Does Becky, does she look? I just docks your wife? Yeah, no.

Does she listen to the show? No. No. No. No. Because I want to. She listened to speak to her directly about the dog. I think it's a good idea.

It's a great idea, too. I think it's time that's time. I think it's time that time. Nelai needs to learn to love. And the only way he can learn to love is if he has something that loves him unconditionally. And the only thing that could possibly love Nilei unconditionally is a cute little dog. I don't know. I saw that CV.

I mean, that's a right to baby. Like you just made a little bit. Baby is going to hate you. That's probably true. I'm going to be a terrible father. Let's be clear. My cat hates me. my cat abhors me

just cats I'm gonna circle back on this though Divita do you have a PlayStation 4 Why are we talking about the iPad? I don't know This is the thing Here's the thing Here's what's gonna happen

The Apple then next week They're gonna put out maybe a bigger iPad They're gonna put out the same They're gonna update the existing iPads With new processors and touch ID Maybe a little bit thinner They have a lot of software problems In iOS 8 but we don't know how they can possibly do them

They're not ready to put out the new MacBooks Right. No, I think there will be new MacBooks. No. You don't think so? No. I mean, there might be spec updates, but like the MacBook, the one true computer. The retina MacBacare. Oh my God, I want this thing so badly.

It's not ready. They're waiting for the processors. We'll see. We'll see. I think in true Apple style, they will put out the hardware ahead of the processor, and the first generation will be slow. Here's what I think is going to happen a week from today. A week from today, I think that PayPal and Square go out of business because the

NFC on the. on the iPad is going to be able to accept payments, and they're going to put out a system for merchants to just use that as our cash register. NCR and Square and PayPal are going to, like, hit their pants. Yeah. I mean, Square just got a lot of money from, like, Singapore or whatever. Do you know, this was all like, people predicted this in a very stupid, much smaller way, but with video games.

That's the only thing I know how to talk about because I'm a child, like I said earlier. But there was a thing, I believe it was called Crystal or something, but it wanted to be game center. NG MoCo was, which was like the original video game company on the iPhone, wanted to create game center. They wanted to have achievements and cross-save and all that stuff. And there was another thing called Plus Plus or something. It was like, great, we're going to make this. These are going to be these solutions for all these problems and they work spectacularly. And then Apple came around and was like, well, we've got Game Center.

It doesn't do any of those things. It's terrible. But it's pretty much mandatory. So screw off. Apple, like, forced my mother to sign up for Game Center. Really? Because she, my mom is addicted to threes. Both of my parents.

Nice. Totally addicted to threes. Not 2048. That's good. Have you told them what my high score is? No. Don't because then they'll beat it. Like, they're crazy addicted to this game.

Really? High score's like 85K, bro. We'll see. Small fries. I'm going to call my mom right now. We'll get her on the show. we'll talk about it. Wait,

is saying my score is too low? Yeah. What do you go? I'll show you afterwards. I don't want it to press you in the middle of the show. Let's hear. You'd break 100, 150? Can't talk about it.

I haven't even looked at it. I'm past the game. Go on. Past that game. I'm past that game. Anyway, so my mom, by the way, my mom had the most viscerally

unhappy reaction to the iPhone 6 of anyone I know. Six or six plus? The six. She's like, I was back home in Chicago. I was like, you know, going to a wedding. see my parents the day before and i was like hey here's my new phone do you do you want one she always

wants a new one and she was like no it is pathetic this is pathetic and she took the case off my phone my mom was like a very sweet kind-hearted like small woman she dipped it in a meter of water she's like she's like she's like look at these lines on the back this is pathetic they miss steve jobs so much and then she started getting teary like legit teary and then she pulled out her iPhone 5S And she's like, this is so beautiful. I love it. And they just, they just miss him. I miss him.

And I was like, you didn't know him. I don't know what you're talking about. Wow. But anyway, then she updated her phone to iOS 8. She was waiting for me to be there in case something of that happened. And then she opened threes and three is just, it literally the OS demanded that she signed up for Game Center. Wow. And we couldn't, like, I couldn't cancel out of it.

So my mom is somewhere like on Game Center. Now trolls can it like message my mom whenever they want. It's the worst. Just tell me your score. Come on. I want to tell you. my theory about, I think the iPhone 6 It's a little, it's a little ugly.

It's like $3 billion. Okay. I literally wrote the tutorial on how to not be so bad at 3s. Yeah, and I read it and I was already like, had a controversial tutorial. That works. A controversial tutorial. Okay.

One that works. Your tutorial was super basic, bro. Wow. Basic. I've been drinking Starbucks. I was wearing my hugs. It was beaten threes. Wait, wait.

I want to tell you my outsider, uh, the iPhone. 16 is an ug. I don't think it looks very pretty. I like that it's thin and it's nice. No, it's ugly. But I think it kind of looks a little ugly. And where I realized,

look at it is skeuomorphism is a word, right? Yeah. Schemorphism was like when... Nerd word alert. Where it's like, oh, we took paper and we made it look like there was paper in your thing. Like, that's it, right? And they're like, no, we can't have that.

And there's some, like, nerd war. And then, like, skeuomorphism lost. And then... And then... And then... Scott Forstall was thrown out of a window. Sure. That person.

Yeah. And now you have... like shiny stuff is like that that's what technology is now and it's actually gone so far in reverse that the iPhone 6 actually looks like an app logo like it has those the silly ass round edges and it shines and it looks like an app icon that I have to poke to poke another app icon yes I agree with you that's what it is it's an app icon they it's I mean you know there's an element of this where I have it in a case and I at home I have other devices and cases and they're hard to tell apart And that's like the worst thing for Apple.

Yeah. So anyway, the iPads are coming. There's gonna be new Macs. I'm assuming retina retina iMac is coming. Yeah, I got it. That'll be good. That's in 5K? Huh?

That's in 5K? Yeah, it's 5K. And that's better than 4K? Yeah. I'm getting a lot of tweets right now. A lot of dog-related tweets are coming. A lot of dog-related tweets are coming. Okay, Dan.

We have reckless right now about whether or not you get a dog. No, tell Chris to move to New York. That's the game. Damn it. Tell Chris to move back to Chicago. That's the worst. We should just move Chris around the country by Twitter rage. Am I crazy to not care at all about the new iPads?

The iPad era was like, holy crap, this is thin and light. I didn't know. And the iPad mini with high-rise is beautiful. If they can cut the weight down on that, I might be it. Oh, my gosh. How much do you lift, bro? I'm just saying. You don't love nothing.

I've got great three. I can't live in the hot then. Fistichops pretty soon. You're going to tell me a three school. Here's the game. You guys are going to pick up iPad minis with retina displays. Hold them above your head and play threes for as long as you get. Back into the corner.

Back into the corner. That's how you play threes. It's a way. Oh, do you do the circle technique? Big shot. I see, I don't subscribe to any single technique. Oh, wow. Okay, the losers technique.

All right. We have, we have to. to try to talk about something serious. Okay. Can we talk about the Motorola hint? Because, wait, sorry. We don't want to talk about... It's just jokes. I don't even know.

I don't even know what it is. I mean, the Moto Hint is... What do you think the Moto Hint is? No, I looked it up. The Motorola Hint. I have notes. You have notes?

Oh, my gosh. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble for this. Go, go nuts. Do it. Moto... Motorola Hint. Motorola makes awesome ideas for Apple to steal. If I'm Motorola or Nokia, I never stop thinking about the gold swimming pool.

I should be swimming in, but I am not. $150? Seriously. That's my notes. So you think Apple's going to make a Bluetooth headset? They did already. Oh, they did that little black one. It's called the Apple Bluetooth headset.

I would not have thought that before. But now that they were like ripping everything out of Inspector Gadgett. Of course they will. You want that dumb watch? Yeah, sure. You want a big phone? You big dummy? Sure.

You want to put something in your ear? You got it. We've got beats by Drake. We'll cover your whole body in dumb shit. That doesn't surprise me in the least. I'm having a moment. Welcome to the text site. Yeah.

I'm already at that point I was at with video games five years in. Do you want to talk about video games? Do you want to have a serious video games? conversation. Not really ever. This is a sharp turn you're about to take. It's a sharp turn, but we've only got a few minutes less. Sure.

Are we going to talk about Microsoft CEO being a horrible human being? It's all part of the same thing. Wait, what? How much Microsoft CEO? The CEO just suggested to a roomful of women at a woman in tech conference that the best way for them to get a raise is to not ask for one and trust the system. No. They'll get good karma. He did apologize.

He did. We kind of apologize in Twitter. I haven't seen his apology. I'm going to read his apology right now. I don't. Yeah, it's not the right thing for him to say. By the way, that was a really sharp turn. He said, I was inarticulate how women should ask for a raise.

Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias. Right. That makes no sense, by the way. That still doesn't say. He's only got 140 characters. It's making any sense. No, but here's their response. I'm sorry, that was dumb.

You know the best way to get a raise? Demand it. That's what people have been. doing forever. Right. Like, you want to raise, you go and you demand a raise. Well, you have to keep the,

you are right. That's right. Especially in this economy. That's insane. Like, that's just what people are going to do after the recession when they literally companies said, hey, the economy is bad. So we're going to actually lower your pay. Right. And Microsoft is like firing people.

Yeah. And you should just keep waiting. But I will say this. It is not in defense of Nadella because it's a stupid thing to say. But what's interesting about it is he is of He's working at Microsoft forever. Sure.

And Microsoft is based, like, the whole performance review culture there is like stack ranking and like they literally... They're trying to get away from stack ranking. Right, but that is the culture. Do you know what stack ranking is? Explain. It's a thing. Basically, you've got...

It's grading on a curve, basically. Yeah. So everyone gets ranked and then the bottom two people go. Oh. But constantly in every group. That's almost the smart is having your own internal companies compete against each other. Yeah. That's what you did the Microsoft way.

Say what? We're going to read what he said. It should be on the site by now. This literally happened live like minutes ago as we sat down. This was by the way a hard turn for everyone who is enjoying the jokes. Yeah, sorry about that. It's about taking even harder turn. Reportedly he said it's not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith

that the system will give you the right raise. It's good karma. It will come back. Right. And what I'm saying is if you believe that Microsoft's like internal process. In context, it's possible that he meant something that didn't sound that. No, that's terrible. But if you believe that Microsoft is a meritocracy.

T.C. and Ben and I were talking about this right before we started the show. If you believe that there are like meritocracy exists and there's no systematic discrimination. Right. Then like, that's a great idea because the process will like give you a raise. Yeah. If you, but on the other hand, if you know that some people will step outside of the process and demand raises that's terrible advice and that's actually what's going to happen right um and that's i think the disconnect but this is all related like this is of a moment with all the other things that are

going on our industry right now right like yeah i mean it's happening everywhere and what what's really weirded me out is i've seen and i don't want to like just like point at movie blogging because it's such a weird thing but in a lot of film criticism that i've read in the past week or two and i think it's kind of tied to Gone Girl. When they talk about it, they're like, in Gone Girl, which comes out at an odd time when almost every piece is touched by feminist issues. And it's like, what does that mean?

Like, do you think that maybe the moment is just making up for everything? It's a weird thing to kind of be like, it's a weird time because right now we care. And it's like, I don't know what that means. And that feels like a lot of these people, I mean, like, when we see a Microsoft CEO going up and saying these things, they know better as a business person, but they like, in their heart and soul, I don't think have had that moment yet, where they've learned or that they're, I don't feel like they're engaging with people who are challenging them and forcing to, like, actually evaluate the ideas or the beliefs that they claim to hold, but they don't really know the meaning of. But, you know, the more important context of this story is that he said this in front of a conference about how to advance women and technology. Like, he's doing the right things, right?

He's taking the right explicit actions in terms of, like, speaking to women, promoting women. He said he had another comment where he was like, there are many strong women at Microsoft. I expect one of them to be sitting in this chair someday, right, implying that the next year of Microsoft. Like, all of that is great. And he doesn't believe that he is representative of any systemic issues in the industry. Okay, but the problem is that he is. Right? Like, there's no, all of us are.

Yeah. I mean, it's, and so this. Statistically, that's obviously wrong. Right. Like, he of all people who works in tech companies should be able to look at numbers and say, yeah, we still have a lot of crazy work to get done. Right. And so all the tech company, and this is happening in our industry too. So all the tech companies, the media industry, all the tech companies are releasing transparency reports.

Shocker, all of them are like predominantly white and Asian and predominantly male. The media companies, BuzzFeed just did one. It's predominantly white and male. They're doing, they did just BuzzFeed transparently, just did six months of incredible diversity hiring. Like, excellent initiative that literally our company will probably embark on in some way too. Because it's great that all of these companies

across these various industries are now competing to have a diverse set of voices. What you can connect that to directly, if you're me, is we covered GamerGate. and like the reaction to that is so insane because here's how let me just here's my structural take on GamerGate sure here's what's happening we don't need to explain GamerGate I don't need to explain okay but if you don't know what it is then there are many great pieces I am so jealous the GamerGate is stupid and here's why it's stupid we like the idea that video games is a medium and I'm sure Chris has a lot to say

goodness should be restricted to one audience or one self-professed identity is wrong. Like, it's flatly wrong. And if you believe that video games should be considered to be an art form, then that art form has to be inclusive of everyone. And that is just that that's the deal, right? If you want Roger Ebert to be wrong about video games not being art, which I do and many other people do, then you have to accept that many people can take the medium and use it as they wish.

Sure. And video game journalists are going to talk about it and talk to those people who make that stuff because that's interesting. That's pushing the boundaries. Now, you cannot attack people and harass them in service of narrowing your, you, like, narrowing your audience, narrowing your worldview, narrowing your medium because you will always, always be wrong. Absolutely.

You are on the wrong side of history every time you do that. And so what's happening with Gamergate, is people are saying this is stupid. This identity needs to go because it is restrictive. It is restrictive to the art form. It is making companies that are predominantly not diverse, stay that way because they have to speak to an audience, and it's creating an art form that is outside of what we want our social norms to look like.

And on the Internet, the way we talk about it, and if we're going to be a tech and culture site, we have to talk about it because this is the reality of technology culture right now. on the internet what's happening is we've built a new society that does not need to inherit the structural dynamics of our old society and now people are in that space and they're realizing that they're all here everyone's here now on the internet and they're saying you don't know what i look like you don't know who i am we should be able to treat each other more freely and we're regressing to the old society and the old norms and we are literally just experiencing a fight between the people who want to keep it the way it was and the people who know how it should be. And that is it. That's the whole story behind GamerGade. It is tied to men's rights. It is tied to like weird old conservatism. It's tied to like people trying to ban rock music because rock music was about changing the world. It's tied to the people who hate hip-hop. It is the same moment. And it's just because it's happening about video games, it feels new. But outside of that

context, it's the same thing. I will open it up a little bit. But before I do that, sorry, that's my angry man. I do want to talk about one thing, though, because I wrote a piece that got me some of the scariest threats I've ever received my accounts across the board got locked down

because there was so much pressure on them from outside sources and what was crazy to me about that is the piece that I wrote that got that was about

it was a bad weekend video games or it was an awful weekend video games or something Oh that's the biggest And what's my mind-blowing about is the piece is actually about

the threat of life like literally people threatening the safety of other people using bomb threats using swatting threats using like literally threats of death, rape threats using that as a weapon and the piece basically concludes with

the idea of games and game culture isn't going away but you have to take control of it like there is a group of harmful people who are using things in harmful ways and we can still have diversity of all kinds but we can't have this. We can't have the violence.

We can't have people feeling like they're in danger, in perpetual danger for being here. And that's all it was. It didn't say games are gone. It was quite the opposite, actually. That was very, like, level-headed, just like, here's a list of things that happened

that were terrible. Let's try to be nice to each other. That's what's troubling about it, is seeing that be what's on this list is, one, means people aren't reading it. But two, that people are saying we are those people. Like, if you, if you, if that's, um, sets you, you're saying, okay, I'm that person. The gamers exist and I'm that person. I'm the person who sends death threats. I'm the person who sends rape threats. And you can't

tell me not to do that. And that's weird. But to open this up, though, because I do think there is a glob onto Gamergate that has come later on, uh, that is about the idea of like journalism and, you know, transparency, all these things. And I think it is a hundred percent fair. to call journalism into question. I think it's especially fair because if you look 10 years ago in video game journalism, it's a playpin. It's people going to Nevada and driving around in dune buggies while shooting paintball and then going to a strip club.

I mean, it is, it's bad. The recession hit and took all money out of publishers, and the people who did those jobs all went into PR marketing, and any journalist who remained is making no money. And the publishers aren't doing those events. You only stay around if you want to actually do it. And weirdly enough, the recession was the best thing that happened, like, the game's enthusiast press, because the people who remain are the people who want to write.

And on top of it, there was great writing movements that happened. There was new games journalism. There are things that, like, made the writing itself better, that made it more attractive, which attracted lots of young writers, like myself in some way. And I think the problem is people think games journalism is still 10 years ago, one and two they don't know what like editorial groups actually do i have students at NYU and when i when gamer gate happened i pulled them and i was like okay i work at polygon what do you think we do you know with with with with publishers and like well publishers send you everything and they send

you gifts with everything and you take lots of trips each year and you you go on these trips and you have like special dinners with all these people it's like no none of it like we we don't Polligan didn't accept any trips. Like that to a point where it was a problem where we couldn't review things. Right. We had to do it on our own budget. But there's a, the perception is what matters. And you kind of can't blame the readers on the perception.

It's your, it's your function and your role to make that clear to people. As annoying as it is, because you don't want to have to have that be a responsibility. So I understand that portion. I understand why people have an anxiety about games journalism because. Game Journalism is born of PR. They had a reason to. But the problem is that there's like this one thing that has a sliver of legitimacy to it. And they've tacked it on to.

And it got tacked on to all this other shit. And so they're co-opting people that might actually care about that one thing. But really that one thing isn't nearly as bad. And that's the irony is they're using that not my, not your shield thing. And it's like they're using that argument, which is a real argument in discussion that should be had. And using that as like, oh, that's really all we're about. But we also don't, like, a new update. I read a long rebuttal of one of our pieces yesterday.

By the way, and here's what you should know. I'm paying attention to you. I watched the Vox Populi, live stream. I read your crazy-ass document. Oh, yeah. You people are nuts. I mean, I'm just flatly, you're fucking crazy. And you're stupid and you're going to lose.

And if you think our traffic is going down, you're wrong. The Verge just had its record month ever. Polygon just had a record month. Kataku just had a record month. There's more interest in this stuff from a bigger audience. than ever before. And if I lose you, please go. Please go to your unwatched live streams. That makes me very happy because you people are terrible. And if you want to talk to us about ethics and journalism, I'm happy to do it. We run at Vox Media the most transparent, like, entities in publishing.

Like, we are in our comments. We pay attention to our metaphor. We, like, listen to our readers. I think our audience is the most valuable thing that we have. When I talk to our sales team at what they should sell. I say, well, we have a dynamic and engaged audience. They're a best asset. It's literally the thing we talk about. I'm not risking that over free trips. I'm not risking that over junkets. I'm not risking that over dinners. Like, we're fine. What I will risk, what I will gladly lose, is that people who think they can abuse our staff. And it has gotten to the point across our company, and I'm just telling these transparently where next meeting, like, or next week, I have to have meetings about providing emotional support to our employees who are being harassed.

And that's crazy. Like, you have not accomplished a goal. You have actually just pissed off people who, like, there's a phrase, who buy pixels by the barrelful. Right? Like, we're going to win because more people care about technology and culture and video games and art than ever before. And those people want it to be inclusive because necessarily it needs to be to include them. Sorry, I'm very mad about it. The sad part about it for me as a writer, and this is just a personal vent, basically.

But especially at my time at Polygon, and I was very fortunate to have Fox Media support on this, I did more investigative reporting than you normally get to do in the video games industry. It's very difficult to write about developers and publishers. Another writer famously said that it was harder to cover video games than it was to cover war, because they are so protective. And PR has controlled the scene for so long, and the NDAs are so intense that no one talks to you. all has to be anonymous. So I wrote that, I mean, I

wrote about Square Enix, I wrote about trouble on thief, I wrote about I wrote about irrational and how it closed weeks after it came out or after the actual closure. You know, there are pieces that I I mean, I really put the blood on the paper,

you know, and I lost a lot of contacts because of that. You know, I, PR is in some areas more distance from me than they had been. in when I started. So to like, to be labeled a person that is, you know, not being ethical, because I call into question just the sanctity of the actual medium, it's really depressing. Because one, it's, it's not true. But two, it's like, well, it's just not, I'm doing this to try to help the medium

and it's not getting read. Yeah. You know, like, you say that you want that stuff, it's out there. And these people who say that no one in journalism is writing it. There are plenty of other writers who are doing even better, way better work than I'm doing in putting that stuff out there and, you know, sacrificing the option to get free games when they come out for review. You know, I haven't gotten a game in my mail for like ever. Right. But I'm more proud of the stories I write. Right. Like, I don't know. That's just me. I mean, I think there's a moment here. And I think what's the thing to tie together is, and you can believe me or not, but GamerGate and like men's rights activists on the internet and like ICloud hacks and like the way those are distributed and Sottianadella

saying women should trust the system and get a raise. Like that is all of a moment where we believe that what we've created is a pure meritocracy where what we've created is a system where we believe everybody's equal because that's what we want. But the reality is they're not in that some people are afforded systematic advantages and we just have to deal with it and like dealing with it is uncomfortable because it means some people will lose their systematic advantages and that is that's why people are afraid that's why they're lashing out that's why they're attacking others and that's like i mean i had a conversation yesterday that was like heartbreaking and the question was when is this ever going to be over is it ever going to be done it can is there how do we win and the answer is we don't

Like we just keep fighting forever and that's going to be the way it goes. And that's fine because it does change, right? It's like, it will like be different eventually. We'll just, it's going to go so slow. We won't see it. But this is like rough. Like I don't like I want to just be very blunt and honest. Like it is rough on the people who make journalism right now because everyone is being

fucking attacked. Like here's what I like to do when I wake up in the morning. I like to talk to my wife about like the cases she's going to deal with as a lawyer today. And like what I'm going to do at work. I'm like, when we're going to buy a fucking dog, right? This is true. Today, what we talked about was password security. We talked about setting up two-factor and all the stuff we need to do because I'm worried my wife is going to be attacked because my publication has the audacity to cover the treatment of women who are talking about video games right now.

And that is ridiculous. And I know that this Verge cast took a hard turn from jokes, but it's actually the only thing I wanted to talk about because it is the thing that the verge is going to do. It is the mission of our site to talk about the culture of the future. And if we don't talk about it and we don't shape it and our audience doesn't help us talk about it in a better way, we will actually accomplish nothing. And my life will be a failure.

And Peter will keep using a passport. That's not true. It's not that deep. Brought us back to the joke there. I tried. I tried. I tried to bring it back to a joke. So that is, do you want to read more script?

Do you want to end up? No, that's it. But I can tell you good news. Yeah. Kin City Royals. my hometown team. You should read Chris's piece in SB Nation today. Sure.

Do you want to talk about it just for a minute to bring us back up, to bring us up? I mean, it's basically about pain and misery for the last 29 years. But the Ken, Cindy Royals, they were two games down in the World Series in 1985, and then I was born. And then they went four in one, which was a great sign. And then it was all downhill for the last 29 years. Which is what my mom, that was my mom's favorite joke. She'd always be like, you and the Royals, downhill ever since. sense. But she can't make that joke now because tomorrow, and I will be there, the Royals will

be playing the Orioles in the ALCSS game, which is the series before the World Series, which is crazy. It's mind-blowing. I understand it. It's like sports weirdness, which normally I wouldn't care about, but I don't know. You should read Chris's piece in the thing. It's a weird thing. Yeah, when Neilie says you should read, he's not reading this, you the listener. Yeah, you, the listener. He's saying about me. You should read. You should go to SPN. What's a headline every piece? I think it's like born in Royal Blue or something.

Yeah. I mean, Chris Plant, SB Nation Royals. It's the one thing. That's Google, I'm sure we'll take it. One of the coolest things about working at our company. And by the way, people think that because Vox Media exists at Polygon and the Verge are like in cahoots, which is hilarious. Like crazy town. Like cohoots.

Cahoots. Like we literally, like we physically moved Chris away from Polygon and into the verge. Like, it's funny. We talk. We're all friends. We're all like in a chat system. together, but we don't coordinate coverage at all.

But one of the cool things about it, it's true, we don't. Guys, we don't coordinate coverage. It's true. It's funny that I have to say this. Blackberry passport on everything. There's just, if you want to watch the live stream if you're listening to this,

there's a wonderful Easter egg in the background. What is that? Oh, my God. Rondo, come on. I see you, buddy. I know what you're doing. Anyway, the cool thing is that we all get to, go yeah i wrote i wrote for a rap you get to go slown on everybody else of sites which my goal is to hit all i want to do the cycle that's my that's my dream you gotta come up i mean we could do it i'm in

i'm in austin for two weeks i can definitely find something from eater there oh yeah yeah and then then all that's left is curbedinbox dot com that's big fish no i'm telling you man you know i i have some insight into box dot com you can literally explain anything just anything you want over there you should box how does ikea work Why have people made video games not fun for me anymore? When does a new IKEA furniture with the fancy new connection system come out? I don't know. That's a big deal.

Yeah. We should do a time lapse of somebody. It is. Yeah. It's a big thing. For this audience. I don't trust it. I don't think it's going to work.

I don't know, man. Here's what I want to know. Like, will this set off an arms race with CB2? CB2. CB2 is like that. It's too expensive. CB2 is expensive IKEA. Literally here's what I think.

I think the people who design IKEA furniture, they get rejected by IKEA, and they go to CB2, and CB2 is like, yes. And they mark it up 20% and make you feel better about yourself. It's the whole, it's a strategy. Nope. What does that face? I would say like West Elm is like the nice stuff. Like West Elm, room and board, those are nice. Those are nice.

CBQ is just like IKEA too. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It's marked up IKEA. It's marked up rejected IKEA. And it's a brilliant strategy. Also, everything is orange for some reason. Yeah.

Orange are like a charcoal plus. color charcoal red yeah charcoal blue yeah no they got it they understand what they're doing they're leveled up ikea that's what they've been grinding now that it's in video game terms of finally they've been grinding for a few years they ate the mushroom and now you get it you're so done here that was our show it started uh a lighthearted note it got really weird and deep and then we burned CB2 for a while and i think that you are a regular verge cast listener that is exactly what you expect. So I'm glad you were here. Chris, I don't know if you're going to be back. Thank you. You have notes next time. Maybe we'll let you read them. It was good having here. Deeter, as always.

Thanks. One more week with the passport. That's right. And that's it. You can leave a comment in the post. You can talk to us in Twitter politely. And there's, look, it's the internet. Just figure it out. We'll talk to you later. Goodbye. Get a dog.