The Vergecast - Milwaukee With Rich People

Episode Date: October 3, 2014

The Vergecast is back with Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, new Verge science editor Liz Lopatto, and notable humanoid trollbeast TC Sottek. There was Ebola, Windows 10, really good Twitter stuff, and then Dieter foolishly took a bet that will see him use a BlackBerry Passport for the next two weeks. It got real. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello. This is The Vergecast. Is that good? Yeah. Is that how it should start? Yeah. I think it should start like that every time. I was watching a George Clooney movie last night.

You know the one of he was like in the airports all the time? What's that? Up in the air? And I literally... He does that like, hello. Yeah. Yeah. No, I did this thing where...

Because he has perfect hair. He does have perfect hair. Just like... I mean, it's like, it's a work of art. And I was like, man, he's got perfect hair. And then my wife was like... Everything is perfect. And then she's like, including his voice.

And then I spend the rest of the movie repeating everything he said exactly the way he said it. And everything, he's talked so slow. Just like listen, sometimes listen to George when you talk. He's just like. Super slow. No, I don't want to go there. And you're like captivated by his hair and his, anyway. Hi, this is a Verge cast.

I am bad man. Where the level of audio in our headphones is incredibly loud. Just a note for whoever. There you go. No way. We also don't have the monitor to let us see how we look. So I might be out of frame completely if you're watching the live video. But this is mostly a podcast, so it's okay.

It's good. Just know in your heart that Dieter looks sad. Yeah. Oh, God. What do you want for me? Hi, this is our podcast where we talk about technology news and culture news and science news, which is very exciting. I'm Neelai. I'm Dieter.

I'm Liz. Oh, my God. Did I surprise you? Liz Lepado is here. She's our new Science Center at the Verge at MS. Lepado on Twitter, which is I keep saying this. Here's a fact.

Here are two facts. One, it is extremely true that we hired Liz because she's extraordinarily qualified and a talented writer and a great editor. But it is also equally true that I read her Twitter feed once and said, we have to hire this person. Those things are definitely related.

But Liz is here. She's visiting New York. Usually she lives in Oakland, but she's visiting New York for the week. It's been delightful Lever here. And we wanted her on the Vergecast. to meet everybody. Hey guys.

Yeah. So it's been a fun week. You know, things have happened. Fun? Fun? I've had fun this week. I mean, you know, there's the usual like, oh, crap. Everything's falling apart.

But then there's the, oh, good. I've started drinking and things. Things are automatically looking out. Things have resolved themselves. And then you go home and just sit there annoying your wife by repeating everything George Clooney says for 30 minutes. I mean, he talks so slow. I mean, just watch a George Clooney movie.

He's like, I am. bad. Is this like a power thing? Is this like I could get people to pay more attention to me if I just stop talking quite so quickly? So here's the thing. I talked to our sales guys upstairs. This is true.

And so sales guys are always like thinking about like how to close deals. Of course. ABC. Always be closing. And they always be closing. I apologize for that joke. And so they like have this like litany of like moves like meeting moves. And they talk about this one.

the Jim Bankoff our CEO does where he just starts talking quiet and everyone has to lean in wow and like so that's good so Bankoff is like a CEO like he's got it down he's like he's in it right he can pull that move he can't pull that move he can't pull that move

no I would just start giggling because I'm whispering here but the sales guys I keep trying it and apparently some of them keep trying it and keep sucking at it which is the best and I'm dying I don't know I think I personally want our reporters to like go learn, like, some of the, like, meeting power moves from the sales guys.

I'll figure it out one of these days. Well, I mean, we could just watch the Kardashians. I feel like the Kim K moves are probably very similar to, like, the power moves that you do in sales. Her move is just being super beautiful and captivating. I mean, fair. I mean, that's, like, if I was going to meet, like, whatever you want. What is it that you want? I love you.

I love everything that you do. You're a true American icon. Your royalty. You all see married Connie West. Can I meet him? Will he be my friend? That would be the best. Speaking of George Clooney, apparently he gave up burner phones.

Oh, yeah. He got married to a very famous lawyer. I think a powerful lawyer. Even the rights lawyer. Huh? A human rights lawyer. And he gave way to avoid leaks. He made everybody have burner phones, which makes no sense.

So what would you use that phone for? The idea is you take the pictures, you can send them around. You can do whatever you want with those things. But they know that they're not backed up to iCloud. Huh. Yeah. That doesn't make any sense. Very short-sighted.

Well, because you would presumably want the phones to not leak to the world, right? Yeah. Sorry, I'm posing for Snapchat right now. Oh, God. It's over. Sam Schaeffer is what I would call a Snapchat hype beast. That's a phrase I would use that I think you would enjoy. And he's just all over it.

Okay, we should talk about some news that happens. We've got Liz that is here. Yeah, to talk about the most depressing things ever. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of my beat. Like, that's like where I live is, you know, terrible things happen to people when I write about it. But, I mean, obviously, the thing that people have been really concerned about lately has been Ebola. Right. Because we had our first case diagnosed in the U.S.

And I want to be super clear. Having a case diagnosed here is not quite the same as having transmission here, and especially not the same as having sustained transmission. And I know that's a little jargony. Basically, this guy came from Liberia and got into Texas visiting family and suddenly started showing symptoms. So, you know, so he got diagnosed here, but he clearly caught it somewhere else. And now all of his family is being monitored.

Everybody he's come in contact with is being monitored. All of their secondary contacts are being monitored. So that would be, if somebody else gets sick, that would be transmission. And the average number of people and Ebola person infected with Ebola effects is two. Yeah. Okay. So it's not nearly as contagious as things like measles, mumps, pertusses, all sorts of other stuff. So why does Ebola have this reputation?

Because I think of Ebola and I literally think of like zombies running down the street, like blood spurting out of every part of their body. Well, it's super horrific, like the way that people die. You know, you start sweating and you have this big fever and then you, you know, have diarrhea. And like it's just like this total hemorrhage thing. And like it's a completely horrific death. Don't get me wrong. And most people who are infected do die. But it's really hard to transmit.

I mean, like, I, um, I hear people worrying and it's like, well, this is, this is an airborne infection. Like, unless you're like, deep throating somebody who is currently like, you know, currently infectious. Like, it's not a thing. Yeah. No, I'm just. Yeah. I mean. Okay.

So what's wrong with the, tell me, tell me. I think I made Dieter blush. Yeah, you did. A little bit. Tell me what's horrible. Okay. Whatever. I'm done.

Just. No, go ahead. No, it's fine. I'm done. Look, there's like clearly the one way to transmit it by the way. I presume there are others. You have to be in contact with an infected person's bodily fluid, and the person has to be symptomatic. Because when they're asymptomatic, they don't have enough viral load to infect anybody else.

So all of the people on that plane with him before he got sick are probably fine. Right. You know, but anybody who met him after he started to have the fever and the symptoms and may have come in contact with like, towels that he had been sweating on, that kind of thing, that is potentially a risk. Right. So you were telling me that the treatment for Ebola is basically like a lot of fluid in time. Yeah, and prayer. I mean, yeah, like, yeah, it's like any disease where you hemorrhage, you basically are

losing all of the water from your body, which is very destructive. Your body needs a lot of water, like 70% water or something. And so what you do is you want to rehydrate these patients as best you can. But that's it. Like, that's all, that's all we can do. Right. That's nuts. Yeah.

I mean, that's nuts. So why is this outbreak so much more worse than the previous ones? I saw a chart. I think it was on Box.com where it's like, it's just spiked out of control. It's actually really sad. So there aren't a lot of public health infrastructure, not a lot of hospitals, not a lot of ambulances in a lot of these countries. And then on top of that, you also have the problem of, you know, there aren't enough

protective gloves, protective grounds, that kind of thing. I think in Liberia, I think it was Liberia. There was also a nurse's strike going on when... Oh, my God. Oh, wow. This first hit, in part because nobody had been paid in a really long time. And, you know, the WHO response was really late. Yeah. Really, really late. And just to put, you know, the WHO in perspective, their budget is smaller than our CDCs.

and they only control about 25% of it. That's the member dues. What happens to the other 75% of it? They're donations that are earmarked for specific diseases by the member countries. So, like, you know, you get a couple million here, a couple million there for AIDS. You get a couple million here, a couple million there for malaria. And they can't decide how best to spend that money because that has already been decided by their donors. Okay.

So they're operating with a really small budget by comparison. And it's the whole world that they have to take care of. That's bonkers. Yeah. So I've read, there's a few things about this. I think you're interesting. I've read a bunch of stuff that's like, this is because we're more globalized, it's inevitably coming to the United States, which strikes me as crazy.

But then it happened with the one patient. Right. But, I mean, it is indebted. Well, I mean, like, business we ran a cover that was like Ebola is coming. Oh, and it was like, it was in blood, right? Oh, see. I just, I think that's needlessly panic-inducing. I think a lot of people are afraid of.

something that they don't have to be afraid of if they're living in a place with a public health system. I mean, we know how to treat infectious diseases. This isn't the first hemorrhagic fever we've had here. Marburg fever, which is really similar. We had a patient who came in and was sick in 2007 and didn't spread it. And I think there have been three other cases as well. So this is the first Ebola case, but not the first case from that family of diseases. And we've done a pretty good job containing it. I mean, we have isolation facilities. We have public health. We have people following up with all of the contacts. So that's the big difference.

I mean, like we have the infrastructure. We have the gloves. We have hand washing. We have all of these things, you know? Right. Do we have that facility? What's that Michael Crichton? Outbreak?

No, no. Outbreak is with the monkey and I've got to find the monkey. No, it's not hot zone. You can't just make up Michael Crichton book. T.C. is here. He's going to talk about Windows soon. It's the one where they go deep endromeda strain. Oh, yeah.

Do we have one of those? Do you know what I'm talking about? I have no idea. So there's, it's terrible, like, 80s. Imagine, imagine ET, but instead of tubes to keep the alien isolated, it's... No, no, it's an underground facility. It's like, meteorite hits a small town, and everyone basically starts melting. Yeah.

Right. As one does. Well, it's a virus from Andromeda. Yeah. Hence, it's the endromat strain. Except for an old man and a baby. This is true. And they take the old man and the baby, and they put them in an underground facility with, like, a carefully constructed team.

of like a computer researcher and a couple of biologists and a doctor and a psychologist who studies how team with it's Michael Cretton right and they're all in the 70s like munking with computers like going through tubes trying to figure out why the old man the baby stayed alive which I will not reveal here rent the endometer strain or actually I think you'd purchase a book are we are we a spoiler free podcast no just it's it's from 1970 it's 40 years old yeah I don't think you can spoil I don't think you can spoil this for anybody. Look, they discover that the old man drank a lot of like

DC's not happy. The old man was an alcoholic and drank a lot of sterno and the baby cried a lot and so they both somehow put their bodies out of the pH, the narrow pH range in which the virus was operating. This is the fucking reveal of the book.

It's true. That's the book. That's like at the end of the book. He's like, I got it. The old man is drinking sterno. I don't remember what happened. I'm pretty sure they prescribed that all of America drink a bunch of sturt out. But anyway, the concede of this book in movie is that there's some place in America where scientists can go in a hole in like study viruses in a safe place. So we have biocontainment facilities.

So this is like back to reality. In reality. They're not really in holes so much as they're in hospitals. And there are various different levels. It's one through four with four being the highest. And Ebola is usually ranked as four. but, you know, that's how we do things like study everything from, you know, measles to the more serious stuff, like HIV to the really more serious stuff like Ebola, any kind of smallpox, that sort of thing. And there are, you know, procedures.

And that's the difference between the levels. And it gets sort of arcane after that. But basically it has to do with how much you have to clean yourself off and how much you have to, like, wear a gown. and that kind of thing. And, you know, you go through, like, you go through... Like an evening gown. Well, it's like a hospital gal. Like, you know.

It would just be amazing. It's not a hazmat suit at the highest level? At the highest level, it's a hazmat suit. But another ones is just, like, a clean. Like, clean. Right. So the other thing with Ebola is we were talking about this yesterday a little bit. I think you and Ariel were talking about sort of the most, which is, um, there's

like a weird xenophobic, first American death from Ebola. And now it's important, right? Yeah. Is that still like, is that actually a thing? Or is that just we're perceiving, like, how to make it important for an American audience? It's hard to tell. Yeah. I mean, I was on the CDC call when they announced this first case.

And the first time somebody asked if it was an American citizen, I was like, okay. Yeah. Like, by the fourth time, it felt weird, you know? Like, is it really that important, like, that important that we find out whether this is a citizen or somebody who's visiting or somebody who, like, you know, is a resident alien? Like does it like doesn't matter? Yeah. Like he's here. He's sick.

Yeah. And he's presumably being contained. Yeah, he is. Right. He's in an isolation. So is there more concern here? I mean, this is like really, it's of, there are many science stories happening and you've done a bunch so far. But this is like the story of our time right now.

This is the big one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not the only public health emergency. I mean, like there's another much more slow moving one going. And that's climate change. Yeah.

which is really good for certain diseases like dengue and malaria and chicken guinea. Well, you know, Bill Gates is going to kill malaria with lasers. What lasers? That's his thing. That's him and, oh, God, who's the patent troll? Nathan Mervold. Right. That's what intellectual ventures.

Theoretically intellectual ventures is a patent troll. Yeah. So they can spend their money on developing lasers that kill mosquitoes. This is a fact. Like, if you read any piece in Intellectual Ventures, it's true, you know, you know I'm right. They all open with like, Nathan Vervold is shooting a mosquito with a laser. And it's like, yeah, but he's also like ruining all. What chicken, chicken?

Chicken guinea. Day and Dieters are just moving on. What is that? Should I be, should I panic about that? No, not yet. Okay. What should I panic about? That's what I really want to know.

What should you panic about? What can I freak out about and be mad at my evening news for not helping me freak out about? Well, I mean, there are a lot of low-level things that kill a whole bunch of people. We're getting tweeted out about car crashes right now. Right, right. Well, that would be a thing. I was thinking more along the lines of vaccines. I'm a little panicky about people who don't get their kids vaccinated.

I am very panicky about the antibiotic situation, which is not good. And those are real. So there's a big Obama antibiotic plan that was like super critical. Right? Yeah. Well, so basically the antibiotic plan was addressing doctors and hospitals, but 80% of antibiotic consumers are actually animals. And so a lot of these antibiotic resistant germs are coming from farms.

Yeah. And the plan didn't really address that. We've stopped using antibiotics in feed for growth purposes, which was a routine thing. because antibiotics do make animals grow larger. But there are also, you know, routine uses, like preventive uses when you have a bunch of chickens packed very closely together because if one of them gets sick, they all get sick. And so they do preventive antibiotic treatment, which is not great.

Because the chickens, you know, if they're not sick already, then you're basically just exposing the antibiotics to everything in the environment. And things that small are really good at swapping genes, like especially like yeah recombination what so if you have an antibiotic resistant gene in your in something bacteria in your gut it can potentially swap into something else yeah wait why things that small this is like a thing I don't know um I'm not totally sure why it works on that scale um but it's one of those things where uh you know they swap a lot of bacteria swap genes uh and And that's antibiotic resistance genes.

Just a key party in your stomach. Yeah. That's like how swine flu became swine flu. Like it was a bird flu that recombined in a pig's stomach. Right. Mm-hmm. And then it became very infectious for people. That's terrible.

That makes me sad. Yeah. You have any happy science news? Yeah. Oh, man. You know, it's really interesting about when I talk to you about science, it's like, there's a part of me that's like still eight years old. and it's like happy science news.

It's like robots are coming, right? But that's fundamentally like tech news. Like there's an incredible overlap here between what we're doing and what's happening in science and then like how we perceive what science will like bring us. And right now what you're bringing us is incredibly infectious diseases. That's right. That's right. That's part of it.

You know, I don't know if this is good news, but it's certainly interesting news. The U.S. is holding on to nukes to defend Earth against Rhodes. Asteroids. Right. I don't know if you guys saw that. Did? But is there like an actual plan to... Hold on. Let me check some Twitter credentials.

Oh, does Twitter have things to say about what's good news? Yes. A chemistry, masters of science person. Shen Yi says, bacteria can swap genes easily because despite only working swap swaps survive, they replicate so fast, it doesn't matter. There we go. See? We're followed by brilliant people.

That's really lucky. Also, one complete jerk. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Blocked. Yeah, see, that's her move. If you guys don't know this, Liz is the master of the Twitter block. So it's amazing to watch. She calls them out out loud as she works, which is the best.

But she's like got a, you have a script at this point, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things where it's like, you know, if you have something to say about my appearance, I'm blocking you. I think you look nice today. Blocked and reported a spam. Damn it. Damn it. I tried so hard too But you know

It's one of those things where it's like Hey cutie And it's like you know I didn't come to the internet To like be harassed like I am at a bar Like that's not what I want And you're not I don't have to listen to you

Goodbye Yeah I'm telling you Like one of the best Twitter feeds Of all time Thank you. That's really nice to hear You yell at your computer a lot I do yeah

Wait no to be fair Dieter today Literally looked at his computer And just said the word Like really demandingly Where It's true It was like very like

Everyone was like, what, where? Who? And he's like, no, I'm just talking my screens. Yeah. You know, it's just, I mean, this is truly a strange place to work. Yeah, no, I do. I totally talk to my computer. Yeah.

I really am not looking forward to the day that there's, like, voice recognition because I'm going to be yelling at my computer and, you know, blowing off steam. But isn't that the dream? Like, you can, like, scream at, like, the machine, the machine just has to take it. No? Don't? Don't the machine have feelings?

Don't you feel bad for the machine? I don't. I just don't. I mean, like, maybe one day I will, but like this thing, here's the thing. Once you, like, have had enough computers in your life, they stop having a character. Oh, so it's like children. Yeah. That's like having children in 1800s.

Yeah. Right? Where you just like, whatever. There's another one. Yeah. I hope you go plow the fields. Yeah. Until you be taken with some terrible illness.

That's right. Until you die of infectious disease. Yeah. Yeah. It's, ah, these children today, I wish they were hardier. No, once you've had enough computers, it's like they just stop being. Like when I was smaller, my computer was like very important to me. It was like a reflection of identity.

Now it's like the thing I leave at work and I go home and like don't think about it. Yeah. Except for the fact that I'm like, I'm trying to work on my phone and this is terrible. Which I brought my laptop home. And then that feeling passes in minutes. You leave your laptop at work too. I bounce. Sometimes I mean I've got another laptop at home.

Right. So I just use that one. I have an IMac at home. Here's my problem with the I Mac at home. I recently changed some of my passwords. And the iMac at home is not logged in my email because it wants the two-factor password. And I leave my phone in the other room. And I'm like, oh, don't care.

It's not going to do this. And so my IMAC is like a little bit useless because it's not logged into a bunch of stuff. Because your phone's five feet away from me. Yeah. Like, uh, I've got to leave another room. I've got to leave the room. I guess I'm not going to do this. And then you leave the room anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I get completely distracted. I'm sorry. Yeah. vodka. vodka. This is nothing.

This is a glass of water. Mm-hmm. nothing at all. When I first started podcasting, our producer Trent used to tell me that I had to stop. I had to switch to beer because you could always hear the ice in the glass. But screw you, Trent.

So Liz, what's up? We only have a few more minutes with you. What else is going on? Tell me what you're going to do with Virch Science. What's the dream? To build an empire and conquer the world? Yeah. Cheers. I mean to do that.

Ooh, that was loud. No, seriously. Like, what's beyond that? What's the plan for Verge Science? How do you want to engage with readers? What do you want to tell them? What do you want them to tell you? Well, you know, I really want to write stuff and edit stuff that's very, very voicy, you know,

and that is aimed at a general reader who is enthusiastic about science, but maybe not necessarily knowledgeable. And I want to do it in an interesting way. And I often feel like as important as study stories are, they often don't really get at the depth of what's going on. because each individual study sort of piles up into a thing that you can then write about. Right. But each individual study can be very confusing because sometimes you get contradictory results, depending on what population you're using. Right.

Like the vitamin studies are case in point, really, where like it's like one week, you know, vitamin E is great for you, and the next week it's like, oops, if you're a smoker, that increases your cancer risk. So. This is like cell phones give you cancer. Yeah. You used to run a series with the headline, cell phones will not give you cancer. And the literal headline is Will slash Will Not.

Yep. But so, you know, I want to be able to step back and give a little bit more perspective because I think that one of the reasons people get frustrated with science and science journalism is because each individual study is being reported rather than sort of this larger, broader context. And that's why replication is so important science. You know, if somebody else in a different lab does the same thing you did and gets the same result, you have a good result. So yeah, I want to go a little bit deeper and be a little bit more thorough. Yeah.

And I don't know, just bring you some kick-ass stuff. Yeah. I mean, there's so much going on. And I always say the thing about the Virgil audience at school is they're like engaged, right? Yeah. They will talk to you. And it's cool to have sort of figure out what we're going to build Verge science into is going to be fun. Yeah.

Because everything we do thus far is like already explosively popular. The Verge. That's it. Sweet. No, awesome. It was great having you here. Yeah. We'll have you back.

We'll be on the show again. And now we're going to execute a very seamless switch. Yeah. There's going to be no pause whatsoever. No, we're just going to keep talking. Yeah. So while this is happening, here's the thing I will say. Oh, here we go.

TC is fired, is what you say. You're never going to fire TC. No, I can't. He's like a barnacle. He's like, you know, old ships that barnacles and the barnacles are actually holding the ship together. What are these Look at this laptop He's got a

Did you turn your laptop into a troll TC? He's got duct tape on the back He says Surface Pro 4 He has duct tape on his laptop Surface Pro 4 Well you have to You have to read it

It says Surface Pro 4 It says running real Windows 10 What's the other one? Intel Windside Intel inside No but it does have Intel inside

It says windside Because it's a win Look here's the thing You need to know about TC We had a story meeting today in T.C. at the end of the meeting, it was, you know, T.C. was telling him about all the stories he's working on. And then he looked very seriously to the room and he said, it's time for a Windows coverage to get better.

It's time for us to start, you know, really having people like really use Windows. Yeah. And so, okay, here's your moment, man. You got to stage. Let's talk about it. Let's hear some sweet Windows stories. Tell us about Windows 10. Tell us about Windows 7.5.

do we want to back up and say what happened this week? Yes. Do it. Do the whole thing. This is your show, man. Okay. So Microsoft basically said, hey, we're not doing Windows 9. We're doing Windows 10.

Sorry, first they said they're doing Windows 1, which was a troll. A huge troll. Did anybody go up with a headline? We did. We got burned on Twitter. I think we did, didn't we? Yeah, we got burned. We got burned everywhere.

Like the industry got burned, right? Like, they were, I mean, a lot of very good Microsoft reporters, one of whom works here at the verge, were convinced it was going to be Windows 9. Yeah, that was the title of our live blog. It was in the URLs. Like, Microsoft just executed like the ultimate SEO troll on the industry. Right. Like, finally they're getting that sweet Google traffic they've always wanted because they were the only publication in the world or the only site that had Windows 10 and their URLs. Anyway, so this happened.

Anyway, yeah. So they showed off like a very small. portion of the new windows that's coming out. It's a, and they released a technical preview, which is basically for Uber nerds who... It's like a, it's like Windows 7 with a different start menu.

Exactly. Yeah. I used it for a few hours last night, and it is pretty much that. Because I've been using Windows 7 since the beta. Right. I don't know how many years I was at this point.

Just to set the stage, like T. TC is a PC guy. He's like, you built a PC. have a PC I've been using Windows since 1992. Right. 3.1. When you were four years old.

I was older than four. Not much older, but older. No, I think, yeah, you don't, we're the same because I was three, I was through one. Yeah. And I remember, like, being really familiar with MS DOS, like that early on. I remember, so I've been using Windows.

What was your high mem configuration? Oh, my God. I had a PC with a turbo button. I'm just putting that out there. It was like a fast. I did. My first computer was like a $350. HP from Best Buy.

Yeah. Yeah. That I bought to play CounterStrike at land parties. Right. Did it have a turbo button? It was terrible. No. I've never understood what the turbo button is for.

I like pushed one. It's like not. It's like Noss. That's truly the legacy of Fall Walker. Anyway, I've been using Windows forever. I'm super familiar with it. I used to be really into building PCs every time a new graphics card would come out.

Right. I would look at every spec. I would, you know, every month or so when I got bored at work, I would build a few computers in the new egg shopping cart that I would never buy. So I'm really familiar with Windows, at least from a, I've used it for more than two decades kind of perspective. And you are not terribly impressive Windows 10 and what you're seeing. Let's, before we

Before we pass judgment on the tent itself, we got to do the event, we got to talk about the name for a bit more. So there's a lot of, I can do some backstory in the event. I got you. You want to do it? You can do it.

No, no. We talked about the way, this insane thing where they kept the event super small. Like they wanted, they wanted to believe that they could just talk to business and enterprise customers and nobody else would notice. Yeah, I mean, I'll say this.

You know, we asked Microsoft, like, let us send more people, right? Let us do a full out. Let's blow this out. And they said no. Finally, they were like, Tom Warren will come, which is fine. That's the thing you do. But you can't launch a thing called Windows 10 and not expect everyone to pay attention to you.

And that's like they just, I don't think they assume that would happen. They didn't assume that they would have so much attention for a whole new product. And I think they thought that they are going to build Windows in a new way, which is admirable. right like here's the foundation of what we're doing we're going to let our biggest customers into the process we're going to build it in like moments I get what they're doing yeah they're putting out new releases every two weeks

or something ridiculous they're going to build it really fast they're going to show everybody everything they're doing they're going to be like do you like this like no Microsoft has been burned on big ideas so many times it sounds like they're going to just like do you this one this is like this we built this one design by committee with the biggest committee possible right

That seems pretty messy. No, somebody's just saying, somebody's asking Windows 10 needs a gate scandal for better coverage. And it's like, no, Microsoft doesn't want us to cover. Like, straight up, we asked, they held that event basically across the street from our San Francisco office. And we're like, let's send all of our reporters to the event. And they were like, no. Well, whether or not that was a good, you know, the optics of that are good.

Yeah. They were holding an event on their own terms. and not the tech media's terms, which is give us an Apple presentation for your next product because what they're doing is actually the exact opposite of what Apple does, which is saying, okay, we're not going to release Windows until late 2015, which is a really long time from now. Why are you having intermittent at all? Well, no, I get what they're doing. I get what they're doing.

They just didn't. They're a different company. They see their stakeholders differently and how they develop their product. So I think, you know, I think, at least what I, you know, having to sit through that event was really fun because I talked shit on Twitter all day. And I love, I love tech events. By the way, you guys know T.C. But he has a different Twitter handle now. He's no longer laughing stoic.

Yeah. Why did you change your Twitter handle? Felt like it. Yeah. But you get to keep your followers, right? But what was the process of changing your Twitter handle? You just changed it? Yeah, you just go in and.

Did you have, of course, I spent like 10 hours. trying to find one that hasn't been taken because Twitter's been around since 2007. So, yeah. Yeah. How did you land on Chillmage? It was available. You know, being around since 2007 doesn't matter. I couldn't get Verge on L.O.

I tried to get Verge on L.O. And I was like a day late. We're not talking to Della. No. No. No. Come on. It's a joke.

It's a joke. Let's talk about Windows 9. It's the app.comnet of Facebook. This way it. It's like app. Dot net was the app. comnet of Twitter and L.O. is the app.

app.net of Facebook and everything will fail and Casey wrote a great thing about it. Yeah, no, I read it. It's good. Like, advertising runs the world, okay? That's true. It's happening to you right now in your brain whether you're not, you want it to. So anyway, I love Windows. It's true. Obey. Because I've used it.

I love. I've used it. I've used advertising runs the World. She's like, I love Windows. And I think Windows should die. Wow. I do. I've been using it for, sorry. Wait, we haven't done the event. We've got to do it. No, the event's fine. Whatever. There was an event. It was like,

here's a command line Ha ha ha ha isn't it funny we're showing you command line No it's not that funny They were trying to here's what they were all the stuff they were doing at the event was like We have taken the time to finally improve these little parts of Windows that you've always complained about We have a plan for our tablets that we're not going to really talk about But like here's some Windows 8 stuff that we grafted on But really this is like Windows 7 plus right

And we're just really going to harp on the fact that Windows 7 users will find this familiar, big businesses that have not yet upgraded to Windows 8. Right. Also, please be a part of our development process because we need you. Yeah. That was the event. That's fine. And it was a strange, it was just a strange event.

Like, just go watch that video. Like, ask yourself, like, if it's great for Microsoft to do the iterative development. I think that's really cool. It's very different. But holding an event, calling it Windows 10, it's disconnected from the, they want this thing be small, having an event and calling it Windows 10 made it big. Right. And that's really the, that's all the problem. Why 10? I, like, I've only seen one answer.

It's a bad. And Tom does not agree with that answer. I don't either. I just think it's hilarious answer. Go ahead. So the answer, was this on CNet? The answer that I've seen that is hilarious is, it's still a rumor. There's a bunch of apps. Yeah, it's a rumor. There's a bunch of programs that back then they were called apps. They were called programs that were designed to detect. what version of Windows they were running on, and they needed to check to see if they were running Windows 95 and or Windows 98.

And so the common code was if running Windows 9x, 9 star, then blah, blah, blah, blah. So they couldn't call it Windows 9 because all those programs that were designed to detect whether or not they're running in Windows 95 or 98 would fail. Yeah, Tom really, by the way. It's a good joke.

It's a good joke, but it's not real. Yeah, it's not real. And also Tom just, Tom had like a Twitter moment yesterday. Yeah, he was stressed. He'd been working. Yeah. He's probably on a plane. He did, yeah, he covered a lot at that event.

I will say that drunk Twitter on a plane has been where I've made what I will just candidly call my biggest mistakes. Just, just my most resounding errors have all occurred. Because Twitter works on a plane when nothing else will. Do you know this? No. So like, you know, you're on the plane. You're like, go, go. You've got like bad Wi-Fi.

and like basically nothing will work, right? Like the web won't load and like your email will be crappy, but Twitter comes through. And you're like, but what if what if I just say this? And you're like, you're drinking, you're at high altitude. Yeah, it's like pressured. You can't talk to the people next to you. Basically, where the story is going is TC, if you ever get on a plane, you in particular, don't use your phone.

Okay, but why 10? Why not 9? Just tell me. Because their competition is at 10. I think the better question is why Windows? That name is such a quagmire. No, I've said for years that Windows is a bad brand name. It is for their tablets.

They always should, we're not going back to what they should have called the Metro. This is the disconnect. For their enterprise customers, Windows is a great name. They bought into Windows. They're invested in Windows. This is like that's where they've built their business is. For consumers, Windows is a disaster. And I think that is Microsoft's biggest problem.

They have been trying to serve two masters for the longest time. They have been trying to serve consumers with enterprise strategies. That's where you end up with like, you know, Microsoft Windows 95 Pro XP Edition or whatever. Right. Like they're doing these things that they assume consumers are experts, like their enterprise IT customers. And then with eight, they tried to service their IT customers, enterprise customers with consumer features. and they were like, nope. And they just, how many times have we said

they should have left Windows 7 alone, had Windows 8, and then split out Metro for tablets? Like, we have said it a thousand times, and I'm looking at Windows 10, and what I see is, that's basically what they're going to do. Depending on that a keyboard is attached. Right, but that's what they're going to do, right?

They're going to break out all of the Metro slash modern features into a tablet touch interface, and that's going to go over here and probably won't touch the desktop too hard. and they're finally going to make the desktop its own thing, including refining the command prompt. That's a great strategy. I think it's a terrible strategy. They're just

doing it three years too late. I think nobody actually really wants to do what they think people want to do, which is like what BlackBerry thinks people want to do, which is like have a phone or have a phone with a keyboard on it still. They like keyboards. All BlackBerry wants to do right now is exist.

Right. That's their ambition. Oh, can we just take a quick BlackBray pause. No, that's coming at the end. I'm just saying the desktop is fundamentally like a decent user experience. There are tons of apps that are going to be around forever that are not going to get modern UIs, that governments are going to use, that old businesses are going to use, like, that needs to be around, but it just doesn't need to exist alongside other experiences. Why do we have to? Why do we have to Because I don't think certain tools that...

We made this stuff. We made this shit for Windows. And it wasn't like when we were making this shit for Windows for all these enterprise apps that they were like, we're like, oh, man, we got to make sure we've got the stuff that runs on Vax. We're going to make sure Vax sticks around and stays the same forever because we made all this stuff for Vax or Unix or whatever the hell you want. Everybody made this shit for Windows in the 90s and early 2000s. They can make that shit again. and I know that it will cost money and whatever and I personally think they should be building something

on something like the web, it's more cross-platform so that they can not have to worry about what it runs on. But all I'm saying is we're talking about a platform that is worried about software that is approaching what? Decade, 20 years old.

Not 20, but at least 15. I think Microsoft, I don't think people give enough charity to the actual problem that Microsoft has to deal with, which is that what certain organizations need and what certain governments need is not actually map to the consumer technology cycle of planned obsolescence. Right, right. So it doesn't make sense.

Make a new product that's so compelling that people want to use it and let the shit that needs to be backwards compatible, run the old stuff, and charge them a maintenance fee after 10 years to keep it. That's actually exactly what I'm saying. I think windows should become just a. desktop operating system, very minimalist. Basically, all it needs to do is run old shit that people are going to upgrade. Right.

I think nobody really wants a laptop that can transform and do all this weird shit. Oh, I do. Do you really? I do. Everyone I've tried has been pretty bad, but I really want it. You want a laptop that you can like have accept on and then you want it to transform into a tablet that you do fun things on? I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, maybe. Maybe two people.

I think maybe two people want to do that. By the way, they got that exactly right. It was good. No, I totally want that. When you want to do something on a tab, you pull out your iPad menu or something. I have never once wanted to reach out and touch this screen on my laptop.

Really? It has never occurred to it. After using a Surface Pro 3 for a week, I was touching the screen all the time. Yeah, but because you can't use, like, this computer, like my laptop is completely functional and designed to be used

with like this gigantic, well-functioning trackpad, right? The Service Pro 3 is not functional unless you touch the screen. Right. Like, it just trains you to, like, move your hands around more. It doesn't train you to be even more productive. Well, you have to... Windows 8.

You have to do all the screen side. Like, I have one at my house, too. I use it. Yeah. But it doesn't inspire me to want to use it more. It's just like, ah, here's a computer that makes me use two input methods. It's like the watch. But, like, so the answers.

I know. Got it. The answer to do you want a fancy laptop is always yes because the idea of it is amazing. No, that's a bullshit that people in the tech

report on. Let me finish. It's a lie. Let me just say it's a lie. I know it's what I'm trying to get to. Let me finish my sandwich. It's a cool. It's a cool lie.

It's an amazing cool lie. And we want to believe that someone's going to figure it out. No one's going to ever figure it out. Fundamentally two different things. And like one day... See, you say that, but like the basic AIS transformer, is there...

If they just implemented that well, so that it had a decent trackpad, decent keyboard, you know, really nice screen, it folded up like a laptop, but if you just wanted to disconnect it... You'd have two pieces, and you'd be like, oh, I got two pieces, what's going on?

But it was actually like an iPad. It sucked because you'd have two pieces because whatever. but that would be great. And then it would need to switch software modes. It's what Windows 8, or I'm sorry, Windows 10 is doing. You plug it in, computer. You pull it out.

I'm a tablet now. That, what you just said is not simple for most people. The idea of combining the thing that you do your work on and the thing that you pull out of your backpack because you want to play Angry Birds or whatever. I'm like... I don't know that... I just want to point out to like,

iPad sales have totally stalled. Yep. And that since I've had a gigantic phone, I've barely used my iPad. Right. Right. So, like, building software for, like, and then they're going to turn it into this tablet is like, yeah. So what do you think about these 12.9 inch iPad rumors? I think that's where they have to go with the iPad.

Right. Like, they, like, it's in my iPhone 6 Plus review. But you guys have just been making the case that the iPad is for consumer stuff. No, no, no, no. What I'm, yes, I think the, the iPad, like tablets, in order to be. continue to be viable, have to turn into more and more, like, consumer-level laptop replacements, right? Which is, like, what Chromebooks are. Yeah, that's like Chromebooks are. Apparently, they've got half of the education market they claim today. Oh, that's something. But, like,

that's what Chromebooks are, right? Chromebooks are consumer-grade laptop replacements. And then people have phones, right? And, like, that's the universe of problems that those devices solve. But, like, a Windows work laptop that you, like, turn into an iPad, It's not solve that problem that same way. Right? So it makes sense to turn the iPad into more of like an enterprise focus device for like a bunch of enterprise applications. Right.

But not Excel. It makes sense to turn the iPad into like the only computer you need at your house, Grandma, because it's more powerful now and can do a little, a few more things. And the screen's even bigger. It does not make sense to be like, here's our weird 10 inch screen that can do everything.

Because that's not. Because you don't believe in. That's a more. complicated user experience than having discrete places for the things that you do. Right. But the idea is when you disconnect the keyboard, it turns into that discrete place. Right, but I... Yeah, not even to mention that like no one's solved the battery problem yet and who actually

wants to have one device to do everything. No, I mean, like, I literally... I watch Becky, like, basically every night. Like, Becky and I, we have, like, just one TV in our house, right? Yeah. We sit there, and then we fight over it, and then I win because I didn't bring my laptop home. This is true. This is pretty much why I don't bring my laptop home.

and then I win, like, I watch whatever garbage I want to watch, and she watches the good wife on her iPad while doing her email on her laptop. And she wants that experience. She just wants the second screen to have the video playing on. Right, but she actually now chooses the iPad, like, all the time. Like, she has an iPad, too. She won't even let me, like, upgrade her to, like, a new one.

What? Screw it. She's like, whatever, I just use this for Netflix. She doesn't care. And, like, that is, like, a big deal for her. Like, she has her laptop and her iPad and her phone, and they're all doing different things. She's very comfortable with the roles

all those things are playing. And I will say, like, I've had, like, the 6 plus, and I use it more than ever. And I'm, like, the only time I bring up my iPad is when I want to, like, watch a video and, like, do some other crap. And, like, the idea that anyone doesn't want that segmentation, like, that makes...

I think very few people don't want it. And those are the people who get excited about the idea of coming up with this really weird. rigged system to like play computer games on their television with their PC in another room like it's that crowd I think that's garbage I just people if they can find if they can buy one thing instead of two or three things but those things always suck they have always sucked but isn't that a reason to want to see companies like Microsoft try to fix that and make it not suck

and I'm not saying Windows 10 is the answer but I am saying give him a chance guys. Just let them try. I'm saying when you try it. No, they have the idea. They just need to kill the desktop and stop being held hostage by a small. They need to just call it Metro. I mean, like Windows Modern more than Metro, which is what they call it now.

That's terrible. No, you don't. It's not called Windows Modern anymore. It's Windows Store. Windows Store apps. God, what kind of terrible. That's not called Windows Store app. Their design language is called Microsoft Design Language.

Actually, I think that's what it's called. It's Store Apps. They always call them Store Apps. I'll bring up the Wikipedia page for you and owe you. What does that mean? That means like some like IT manager in Kansas was like, I'm going to update the Wikipedia page. Do you think Microsoft?

Metro design language. They should have called it Metro. That's deprecated. Here's what I know about Microsoft. We're not bringing up they should call it Metro anymore. We have to put a ban on that on the Vergecast. No, this is just a phrase. All we ever say every single time.

In September 2012, Microsoft design language was adopted as the official name for the design style. Here's what I know about Metro. The phrase we should all use for decisions that should have been made but weren't made and now we regret is you should have paid the grocery store. That's it. That's the legacy of Microsoft. That's the legacy of Windows 8.

They should have paid the goddamn grocery store because they didn't and now everything got confused and they wouldn't split it off. Avocados were on sale. Avocados were on sale for the first time in like months, man. They were so expensive before. They were. There was avocados for very expensive all summer. It's true.

It's a fact that I know. Gwock. Who doesn't? Oh, burn. Burn. Off like Liz just let us know that guacamole burned by Lus Lepato. Guacamole burns by Lus Lepato.

New book coming out this fall. Listen, have fun when your state breaks off from the continental United States and Kurt Russell is the only one who will save you. Oh. Yeah. No, that would be super. Super fun. I don't know what you're talking about.

Like that's not an insult. That's more like a promise of good times to be had. Like soon you'll be floating away in a glorious island and Kurt Russell will be there. Which is, in fact, a giant prison. Sounds great. I'm just going to put this out there and just got to let it sit for just a second. Just real quick. Yeah. Just let it sit after I put it out there.

I promise a lot it's it. California is better than New York. That's where I was born. So I have to agree. One full second of sitting, you were supposed to leave it. I was agreeing with you. I was born there. Here's what I know about both of these places.

Here are some facts. California is super weird. Here's some facts. California is one of the weirdest places I've ever been. It makes no sense as a state. It should be like eight states. Oh, you're with that crowd? I'm absolutely.

Los Angeles should just be like a state. You just govern yourselves. And then there's like San Francisco should be like just exploded. Wow. The source of everything that's sitting on this table and every piece of gadgetry that you use. This is from Washington State. It's designed by Apple and California. No, San Francisco is really nice.

I just, I feel competitive with San Francisco because we're in New York. Because you know they're better. San Francisco is like Milwaukee with rich people. I actually didn't say. That's what San Francisco is. San Francisco is. San Francisco is like a tiny city that thinks it's really arty.

And it is. It's very confused about like how big of a city. is. Right? Like Milwaukee is like really confused about how big of a city is. Right. But always knows Chicago. Chicago is there to be bigger and better.

San Francisco? Good baseball team. That's fine. I mean, if you like baseball. It's true. The most archaic of sports. Baseball is like an old time sport. Soccer is, yeah.

I mean, they're both like, what sports can we make up using only the tools available? And it was like rocks and sticks. And they made up soccer and baseball. I'm sorry Where were we? I was making fun of Sanvers. No, I'm just saying. California is a workplace.

New York is an even weirder place. Like, New York City should be a state and the rest of New York would be happy. Right. And then everyone should move to Chicago, which is the best city in America. It's a fact.

It's a fact I know. Sure it is. It's really nice. I was just there. I remember at a time when I lived in like a large apartment and had a car. Food was reasonably cheap.

You have terrible ideas. Yeah. what, living in a nice home with a fancy automobile? No, city's becoming states. Eventually it's going to go slippery slope. It's going to be like, oh, fuck that co-op over there are going to be my own state in this apartment building. That's right. It's time for the pendulum to swing back from nations to city states.

City states. I like that. What if, like, you know, like Venice and Rome, like at the time. Texas. Texas. Texas. Texas the city. No, because.

By the way, the worst in city map of all time is Texas the city? Pretty good national parks. Oh, but, like, imagine, imagine if Austin were an independent city state in the middle of Texas and had to, like, fight off. It is. But, like, I mean, literally. And it's doing that. And they had to build walls and, like, fight off invaders. I think they do that.

Okay. They lost that already to the brands. The brands. The brands. You know, I was saying to Lockhart-Steeler editorial director today, I cannot see or hear the word brands without envisioning a hashtag in front of it. Yeah. Like, that's just where we found. I can't see without hearing Casey's voice.

Brands. Brands. You know that, so nobody knows this story. So Nathan Ingram, who works in San Francisco with Casey Newton, recorded... In that Superior State? I mean, whatever.

Look, our office has a cellter in it. Recorded Casey saying the word brands. Over and over. Like, remixed it into a series of sounds, basically. And today, screenshoted his SoundCloud account going over data because people keep playing the brand sound.

I don't know. know what that is or what it means about America or society or the internet. I just know that Casey's saying brands like echoes through my head. Brands. It's pretty good. All right. So let's talk about the one thing that's the most important. We've got seven minutes left. Seven minutes left. Windows seven coincidence? Yes. Game or gate. I just like doing conspiracy theories. All right. Here's here's here's some facts. Dieter and I have made a bet. Yeah. It's a very important. bet. If this is Vikings Packers bullshund. It's Vikings. You can leave.

You can get out of here. Here's what I know. Tonight, the Packers play the Vikings. And they're going to be embarrassed. You have just, it's going to be fine, Deeter. I mean, I know that you have to put on this show, but it's, I know the truth. But we've made a bet. So Deeter is from Minnesota. He's Vikings fan.

I am from Wisconsin on Packers fan. And the loser, it's funny that you don't actually win anything in this bet. You can only. Yeah, what do you win? You really can only lose. The loser of the bet. No, you win. The winner gets to watch the loser.

Ruin our company by being not productive. The loser of the bet has to use a Blackberry passport for two weeks. I thought it was a month. I'm actually worried that we will destroy the verge if we're that unproductive for that length of time. Like, I'm really worried. Like, both of us have jobs to do. Right. But the...

And not just use, but use as your prime. primary phone. Yes. Yes. I mean, I'm definitely going to have a backup after three days. No. I mean, I will have a backup that I will only have to check text messages every few hours because I switched Verizon and you can't put a sim and the thing in the water.

I work with the most pompous trolls. Yeah, I'm just saying. When I was in San Francisco for GDC like a year or it was 2012 or something. Wait, wait, pot kettle. Yeah, like pompous trolls? Come on. Listen, listen. When I was in San Francisco.

I don't point this out. TC spent the last week trolling people by playing videos on our telepresence robot. That's not pop-is. That's effective. Anyway. But the telepresence robot scarily quiet. Super-duper quiet. Like just rolls up behind you and then like the girl from the ring is just like playing in your face.

I'm good at it. Good at it. I should be a drone operator. We have not done a good job using the telepresence robot for work. Here's a problem. We have a review unit from double robotics. and it relies, it's basically an iPad on a segue. Right?

I'm going to mute your computer. Do it. Basically an iPad on the segue. Thanks, Will. Thanks, buddy. It's just very quiet. It's just very quiet robot. So all it can really do is show you frightening images

until a double sends us a speaker that makes it louder. Right. I'm just saying you're a troll. You're like a professional. You were going to go with a different word there. No, it doesn't say troll. I didn't want to say pomp. because it's mean.

Anyway, the point is... You called me pompous, but I didn't call you that. The point is that Nil is so afraid that the Packers are going to lose tonight that he won't go for the full month that we originally proposed. He only had to keep it of two weeks. Straight up. Straight up. Straight up.

I mean, look, you're starting Christian Ponder. Like, you shouldn't be pushing this. I think... Christian Ponder did beat the Packers at Lambo to get rid of your guys as by and knock the bears out of the playoffs. once upon a time, as I recall. I hear what you're saying. I hear all the words you're saying.

And what I want to hear from you is, oh, crap, I have to use this Blackfair for two weeks. Which is why we have the bet. Okay, so fair. That's the bet. It's happening. This has been the, I don't even know what T.C. is doing on his computer. Actually, watching T.C.

He's pompously trolling us is what he's doing. You've never seen, like, a troll at work. We should just do a video of, like, T.C. using a laptop to see what it's like. It's like a window into the mind. A live screen that's a Photoshop session. He's a beneficiary. beneficent troll. He's not an evil troll. Canonic neutral.

Somebody's asking me on the video podcast feed. No, we're not doing that. We're doing the single camera thing. If you do want to watch us... Are people watching us right now? People are watching us right now. We're live. We're not feeding videos into the feed. But if you want to watch us on video, you can absolutely just come to these posts and the live on the live stream. Look at the live screen. It was wonderful having you, as always. Liz, you're great. You're here.

She's MS. L.O. P.O. Tell you, man. We hire people on Twitter. Twitter feeds alone. It's just a terrible way to hire people, but it worked out this time. And that was it. You can leave a comment in the post.

You can send us emails. No one really knows where Vergecast to theverge.com goes. It goes to Ross Miller. It just goes to Ross. And we can't change it. So you can just email Ross directly if you'd like. Just a lot of confusing, like, archaic systems in place. And you can also tweet at us,

which is probably the best way to get a hold of it, actually. Tc's done with Windows 10 on his MacBook. You can find him on Twitter as a Chillmage. Chillmage, Backlon. I'm reckless. So none of us have good Twitter handles. But this, except for Liz, Ms. Lepato, which I just figured out, by the way.

I was like, what's your first name? What is it? It must really start with an M. And nope. You're just... That's like my personal. Liz is like... All right.

All right, that was it. That was the show. Thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next Thursday, 4. Yeah, that's it. Bye.