The Vergecast - Six degrees of 'Lawnmower Man'

Episode Date: February 28, 2014

The Vergecast is a discussion of all things relevant and irreverent in the worlds of art, culture, science, and technology — and anything else that pops into the twisted minds of this week's hosts. Join Joshua Topolsky, Ross Miller, and T.C. Sottek for a scintillating discussion on latest tech news. On this week's episode, we talk about how cable network oligopolies and the FCC are ruining the internet, whether the new Samsung Gear line is what consumers have been waiting for, and how Google is slowly buying up an entire town. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, hey, and welcome to the Vergecast. Welcome to the Vergecast of the week of February 24th, 2014. I'm Josh Topolski. I'm Ross Miller. I'm T.C. Sodic. I think you just realized what you're wearing. I just realized how good. I just realized how good this looks on me.

He's not actually, Josh. He's lady writer Tocleski. I don't mind saying this is before the Verge cast started today, just before. I mean, literally moments ago, I said we're in the studio here at Vox Media. the Vox Media Empire in beautiful Midtown Manhattan. I said, is there anything here I can wear? I think I might have specifically requested a vest. Did I request a vest?

Can someone in the control room tell me? You absolutely did. I specifically requested a vest. Why did I request a vest? Because vests are fancy. We don't need a reason. We were talking about Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson had a cool vest. I was like, man, I wish I had a vest right now. And I said, do we have any, do we have any vests here? And like what's crazy is yes, we have a vest. And it is a woman's motorcycle vest with like ladies' motorcycle patches on it. Lady Rider. This one says Lady Rider. This one says Born to be wild here.

I like the one on the bottom that says it ain't easy to be me. It ain't easy to me. Like, I don't know what lady owned this, but I think her and I have something in common. which is it's hard to be either one of us. It's not that normal. But I do feel like I'm embodying some of her spirit right now. You know what's surprising about a leather vest? Comfortable?

Well, it actually gets pretty warm in there. It's actually pretty toasty right here. Vests are confusing to me because it's like your body is burning hot, but then your extremities are freezing. Like, well, at least we saved his torso. Like, what's the, you know? It's all about the core, though. You know, like, people strengthen the air. You got to get your core going to keep it warmed up.

It's like I wanted to wear like a leather wife beater, but that. felt uncouth, so I'm just kind of making an outside thing. You have to keep that. As a new father, T.C. Are we going to talk about this? As a new father, I learned, actually, that you want to feel the baby's core to get a sense of her. Like right in the solar plexus right? Yeah, you want to get, you just get right in there.

No, you want to feel the baby's core to get a sense of the baby's temperature. You can't really tell by the extremities. The baby has a vest-like quality, is what I'm saying. The core is important, but everything else is like a misleading. So as you can tell, Josh has a new addition. Yeah, I just bought a bunch of new edition records. And I got to tell you, and I got to tell you, well worth the money. And by the way, vinyl, that sound.

Analog, sweet, analog honey pouring into your mouth and ears. Yeah, I have a... We don't have to talk about this. First off, so, Neli is sick. He is a sick. I've been told, Nealai is very ill. And not like in the cool, funky way. He said he's sorry.

He wanted to make it. He wanted to yell, rant, rave. He has no place. He's so sad about the internet. He contracted Lupus. He did. like the ultimate... Cobcast gave him.

He did the... I'm going to take this vest off in a second because I keep... I keep seeing it in the camera and I'm like, this, like, it's pretty uncrual. This looks.

A leather vest... Whatever. Yeah, yeah, we can all wear the vest. At least once. Okay. Okay. But I have to say like a leather vest is like a pretty uncool look overall.

Oh, you're going to feel... What is it say in the back? Yeah, let's see. Oh, sir. Love to ride. Love to ride. High maintenance. Is that a 420 joke?

No. I feel like love to ride as dual means. T-C, T-C. I'm not spoiled. I'm justly rewarded. And I'm perfect. Just the way I am. I'm perfect just the way I am.

Wait, what is this one? Life is good. This is pretty positive. Yeah. High maintenance. Oh, that's a 4-20. That's a 4-20 joke. Go try it on.

See how it fails. It's a large lady, I have to say. Like, that's the wrong way. That's the wrong way. You can't do. Don't be funny. No. I want to see you in the vet.

You want to see me actually. All right. Hold on. Just get it on. But what was I talking about? You made a child. Oh, yeah, whatever. No, no, yeah, whatever.

I have a baby. Whatever, there's a baby. But what I was actually trying to say is... It's no iPhone. I don't know what this means. Billy just sent me a message. He said, we have a baby Photoshop clip from On the Verge if we want it. Oh, is that the one where I made you a baby?

Oh. From way back. That's right. Yeah, we want it. We want it. Okay, fine, whatever. Okay, I guess you can show whatever that is. Oh, look at my old me.

I like to call them. Do we do this? Yes, we did. Wow. Why did I agree to this? Here's our first baby. Yeah, yes, this is a beautiful baby. Who would want to have this?

Very uncomfortable child's birth of the back. Of course. But where could this child's name be in the future? I'm thinking probably something like, I don't know, Zibord Topolski. Yeah, that looks good. I don't understand this at all. Oh, my God.

I'm like, I can tell you, that wasn't that long ago. Remember this eyeball? I have no idea what the joke was there. What was the point of that? Oh, was a 4G-L-T-E Optimus Epic Miller or something. We were making fun of device names. That was very good. Anyhow, great trip down.

My baby does not look like that. Not yet. My baby, first of my baby is a female. So if she had a beard comes later? She had a beard, I'd be pretty. Okay. I'm sorry. I love, I can't believe you.

just this. My daughter. Not on my dad, I get real defensive about shit like that. How dare you, sir? My daughter you're talking about. Life is good, man.

LG, LG, life's good. Anyway. So, Nealai wrote this piece this week. That's called Changing Gears, by the way.

Right. Neal I wrote this piece, the ultimate, to me, it's like the ultimate Nilai. This is his ultimate rant.

Right. Like, like, he just gets right to. Are we allowed to say this? Are we allowed to say this? The internet is fucked is the name of the piece. Like this was the first headline before he wrote anything else. Like, we're just going to do a piece called the internet's fuck.

Yeah, there's definitely a conversation. We received at least 500 emails from people who can't deal with the F word. It was definitely a conference. Whatever. That's like, that's their problem. That's a you problem, not a me problem. Like they're totally fine with the government as fucking them. Yeah.

Not stop. They're like, I agree with your piece. We're in terrible shape. But I really take issue with the use of the word. Fun. They're like, this is why I petition for more censorship. Anyhow, I don't know that's... But interestingly, it's exactly why the FCC is so fucked up.

Right. Because they care more about Janet Jackson's nipple. Right. And people saying naughty things on television than... Well, we're also getting reports. Like, we had the same way so, like, if you want to unfuck the internet, call this number. And I think we had this image at some point. But if you wanted...

There it is. If you want to unfuck the internet, call this number. But people who were calling it, we heard, the FCC was saying they have no control over regulating the internet, which seems counter to what this is like when you call, this is exactly like when you call Verizon. And you're like, can I, you're like, are you guys going to get the new LG, you know, optimist, whatever? And they're like, yes, we have that in stock.

And you're like, but it's not even release yet. And they're like, we can order that for you right now. And then like, we get emails from people who have those conversations. They're like, a rep told me that they've got the new phone in stock right now or just some weird bad information that doesn't make any sense because they don't have the right stuff to tell you. That was a bad example. Okay. It's like when you're like, hey, can I upgrade my phone for free?

And they're like, definitely. And then like you do it and they send you a bill for $300. It's like when you call our government and say, I want to have my voice heard because it's democracy. And they're like, no, that's cool. They're like, this is actually is not a democracy. No. Press 0 for movie time. Please stop going.

You can't do that. Movie phone's out of business. That's right. But anyhow, everybody should read, everybody should read this piece. Like, in all seriousness, like, we're having a good time here and having a laugh. And we're allowed to do that because the internet is currently like relatively open at this moment. For now. But like in the future.

in the future that is like quickly rushing up to meet us and the future and the ongoing politics and stuff that Nilai outlines here, we're in really a bad spot. And if we don't have some serious regulation from our government that makes it clear that the internet is a utility that everybody needs to have free and open access to, we are like businesses like ours probably can't exist down the road. And that may sound reactionary or, you know, paranoid. But I think that, you know, you get into a situation where when the Netflix's of the world have to cut, like, side deals to get their content across the stuff that you already pay for. Right.

It starts to suggest a lot of crazy, very bad situations that are coming down the road. YouTube would never have happened in these kind of the small. You can't be a small player and be competing with big players. The beauty of the internet is small players can compete with big players all the time. because they're on even ground. And you take away the even ground, you know, business, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, all sorts of businesses are at risk. And the consumer and the people who actually need to utilize this as a utility are going to be,

you know, we're putting up barriers to information and barriers to content and to the things that they need. And I think that it's being done in a way that is completely unregulated. completely everybody's kind of flying by the seat of their pants. Right. And the FCC doesn't seem to have, they don't seem to have legitimate, they don't, first of they don't seem to have legitimate power here. And they don't seem to have any real interest in actually saying, we have a ruling on what net neutrality is, we have an opinion on it,

we have a way to get there. Like no one there is really saying it. And it's scary. And if you read Neil's piece, you'll be, you should be scared and angry. Yeah. I mean, the SEC does definitely. does have the authority to do it. They don't have the back.

They might technically have the authority, but they don't seem to like be willing to utilize it. No, they're afraid. Yeah. And it is all like at the end of the day, just like everything in this country when it's really getting screwed up and it sucks, it is corporate interests being favored

over the interests of the people. And we got to stop it. So I suggest violent revolution right now. Take to the streets with weapons of any, of whatever type you want. And it should be. Show those guys who's boss. You know, it should be a pretty uncontroversial point, too.

It's not like people who want free Internet are saying corporations are all evil. They should never make any money, you know, anything like that. It's just that somehow we've allowed, you know, two or three companies to basically dominate the entire Internet. Yeah. And it's like, imagine if, you know, Comcast owned most of the highways in the country and didn't let you like... That's probably next. They were like, oh, you want to go to Nebraska? I was like, no.

Wait, wait. Highways are not a public utility. You can walk on the grass. They're definitely a public utility. They're an interstate highway system. That's the argument that's a great analogy. Did you bud not have been there? Why don't you let him try it on?

This vest would never have existed if not for the interstate highway system. That's true. You could, well, you certainly couldn't get out on hog. That allows rough riders to stop drop and open up shotgun anywhere anywhere. Anywhere they please. Oh, no. You didn't. Is it me now?

Wait a second. I can't. I can't wear double. Yes, you can't. No rules. rules here. For now, there's no rules. Yeah, this is... This is... Okay.

Um... This is... I don't know that the stop, drop, and open up shop. How are we start-ups gonna stop drop and start-up shop? Are those... Are those the actual lyrics? Yes. I don't think that's actually covered by the openness of the highways.

I just want you to know that. You gotta get permits and stuff to open up a shop. That's really good. In fact, and in fact, you can't just put whatever you want along the highway. You can't just open up. open up a shop. Josh DePolste says you're actually can't get, you can't on the highway. You see there's designated rest areas.

Yeah. So you can't just stop and drop either. No, you can't stop and stop and drop at the designated area. Yeah. So the internet is going to be like the New Jersey turnpike. Wow. Did we just get the rough riders? What's going on?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. By the way, I just want to say like earlier TC was like, can we just play Axel F for the opening music? And Ross, like, we don't have the rights. But we do have the rights for that. Video rights and audio rights are much anyway. Are they? Not on the open internet.

Everything is free. It looks good on you. Like I wasn't even hot in this jacket. That looks really good on us. I'm going to say it fits really well. What was that tweet? By the way, I have to say, so far I think I've successfully derailed every topic we've tried to have. What was that tweet that was on screen?

Was there a vest tweet on screen? Oh, oh, with a... I thought I saw one. I'm not in control of what goes up on that screen. I'm not either. This is the bad house. There we go. Cable town.

Yes, yes, S. We can all wear the vest. Is that supposed to run. rhyme? I don't know. I'm just going to assume it. I don't know what that means. This is the thing now,

the vest across America? Is it the plan that Rahim demands? I'm looking at this. I'm looking at this image of these three Macs here. There are some mad people just see. There are people right now writing an email or, or forum post or comment, like about the verge guys using Macs.

Oh, yes, of course. How dare you? So we'll have a gaming PC at home? And so does Josh? I build a killer gaming PC. Yeah, Josh. Which I never turn on because I never turn it on anymore because there's so many updates every time I turn it on that I'm like, I'm just going to leave this. Someone's calling me.

How do you play Daze then? So first of, I don't play games that require me to have a keyboard. Okay? That's number one. I'm not sitting in front of my large television with a keyboard on my lap in some kind of like track ball situation. Noob. Dude, he uses a trackball series. Well, you have the, you have the fucking, you have the.

headset and the trackball. Like even the nerdiest. Even the nerdiest of the nerdy PC games. You know the keyboard that's like one of these guys right here. Make fun of trackball. Track ball. Track ball. This guy right here.

Track ball is nasty. I think it's got so gunked up. I'm a mouse man myself. No, I mean when it comes to when it comes to operating. I actually used to be a mouse man. Now I'm just like I guess I'll use the track pad. But not for gaming. That's for bozos.

I use one of those old joysticks you get like, you remember for the old PCs, had it cut like two. buttons. That actually really makes me feel nostalgic because I had like 10 of those when I was younger. I was like, you know, a loser, nerd. And I had some horrible joysticks that I hooked up to my XT.

You know what? Anyhow, moving on. Yeah. So, yeah, read Nealized piece. The internet is fucked. And I'm sure. Exactly. Yes, this.

Oh, my God. I think I actually own this. I think I actually have this joystick. Wow. Or had it sometime. I missed this for the Gravis game. So, so depressing to me. That, like, I can actually like, there's a, there's like,

place my mind goes to that's like a very lonely kid and it makes me so sad it just makes me so sad oh uh do you guys want to call that FCC number live yeah yeah i just do you want to call ask what's up you want to call i have a feeling this can get really boring really fast i think so too it's going to be like they're going to put you on hold and then they're going to actually here's this going to happen you're going to they're going to say i'd like to file a complaint i'm worried about this and they're going to be like of course like you know tell us what your problem is and it's going to be super boring and straightforward. We could do, what if we, what if we recreated what it might be like when you call

them and they don't want to take your complaint? Could we get a phone ringing sound? Yeah. Somebody picking it up. Okay. Hello, FCC. How can I help you? Hello?

Yes. This is the FCC. How may I help you? My grandson told me the internet is fucked. I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're saying. How do you... Why are you in a character?

I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't say, why you aren't just... Why weren't you just TC there? Because I don't use the phone. Personally. So how are you going to... I never call it.

How are you in a big trouble once? Tomcast shuts down the internet. That's true. Okay. Moving on. This is such a great... I think this is one of our best shows ever, I feel, already. It's good to have you back.

It's good to be back. Although I am losing my voice. So this will be it for me. You want to talk about Samsung? Let's talk about it a little bit, yeah. Call me crazy. I like the looks at this gear fit. No, I think it's great.

It's great editorial. The gear fit is what wearable should look like. And I agree completely. The question, of course, is how it works. Yes. And like battery life and like, is it functional? Anything can look sexy. Of course.

But is it functional? Right. Right? It looks nice. It looks nice. I mean, it tells the time, has notifications, and you can read it. I just already feel like I can be asked to use a smartphone anyway.

Yeah. So I don't know if I want it on my wrist also. Look, I would love to be getting more information down here. But I'd like to do it in a way that isn't gross and light. So why just get me? It's gross in life. No, can I say something, though?

Can I have to say two things that have occurred to me that are very vivid. Oh, no. As a father now with a baby that needs to be fed with like a bottle and stuff. You're taking videos of glass. Photo taking. Oh, man. When you do not have your hands. free, seriously a problem, and doing things with the television.

Like, I think I now understand why people are like voice control. I think I now get it. It's for people with kids. It's for people with babies. Who are like, I'm doing it with the baby. And like, I can't turn the TV on. And I'm bored. Here's the question.

Because guess what? Babies not really very interesting. They don't do very much. Here's like, here's a thing that a baby does that's impressive. Makes eye contact with you. But you don't know what it's thinking. That's a big deal. The baby made eye contact with me.

I mean, dogs do that, like, day one. You know, you're like, the baby's looking at me, mission accomplished. You know, like, the babies really, they really are, it turns out they take a, it takes a while to really be able to do anything of use. So, it's a question, though, what if your baby's first words end up being like okay glass or like Xbox on? That's scary. I keep imagining what would happen. This is an artist rendering of the Tupolski family. What this is.

They did a really good job. Babies are all kind of similar looking. I keep imagining the horrific scenario where the baby, it's like, you know, three weeks old, where she says something at three weeks. Can you imagine just a little baby suddenly speaking to you? A newborn speaking to you? But like it just starts from over like, hello, Josh. This is my first words. Maybe not that, but maybe it just is like, you know, chair or.

whatever. Where did you, how are you doing that? See, your hair. Yeah, hairy. I don't think it's possible. But anyhow, it's scary. I wake up the middle of the night. There I am right there. I wake up in the middle of the night, sheets soaked with my sweat and frightened that the baby will say a word to me. Hey, like, hey, what is that? Who is that? It's the baby talking. Look who's talking now. I haven't had a lot of sleep. The gear fit. It seems pretty cool.

I might just get across. Right into your beer, I'm just saying. Can we just track zero to baby anytime? What's the price point of the gear fit? Do we know? What's the number? Too much. Whatever it is.

What's too much to you? I'd say like $99. I have to say, this is cool. This is actually cool. Here's what I don't like about it. It seems a little high, like a little, like a little thick. It would be really cool if you could put like a name. NATO strap on that.

Like what's on my watch right now? Is it called a NATO strap? Right. But that would make it much wider, I assume, because this looks like a... Well, maybe, but it would have it. But you can do... I mean, no, no, no. I mean, I mean, this seems like high, tall.

Right, okay. You know what I mean? I think this is cool. Can you change the desktop on it? I mean, the background? Yeah, there's no price yet. What did you say? What do you mean the wrong direction?

For those who... Oh, sorry, John is speaking... me in my earpiece. He said, isn't it the wrong direction? And I don't know what he means, but you mean it should be up and down instead of a cross? Don't know what that means. He said it should be perpendicular to your wrist. Oh, they have different bands.

Right. Oh, because right now, you can change the band. Yeah. Okay. Well, no, that's, is that fit or is that the other gear? Because there's three gears that came out this way. Oh, no, that's fit. I think that's the gear fit.

Is this anybody no? Those are really ugly. I will say every one of those bands is terrible. No, this is the gear, regular gear. Awful. Those bands are disgusting. The bands they just showed were sickening. Yeah, I mean, I get that, like, I like the idea of having horizontal versus the square.

Cutting back to all those. But I think what is the only was, like, swiping like this. It's cool. It's so hot, man. Daughter, daughter of anarchy. My core is like molten slag. Lady of Anarchy. Here you go.

I'm not wearing it now. Josh, your turn? How dope it would be to be in sons? I'm good. We should all get sons of anarchy. I was going to put this right here on this table. All right. So, you know, what's interesting about the new gears, and this goes for the gear fit as well, they've taken Android off of them.

They're now using Tysen, which is their custom, like, Java. Right. What is it? It's like a Java. It's like a runtime situation. I don't know what the hell it is. I'm just saying words. Again, I haven't slept a lot.

But it's not Android. No, they switch to Tysen, although it still works fully well with Android. Yeah. So, like, for most consumers, it's not going to be a big deal. For developers, I guess, they're going to have to tweak. If you had a Gear One app, it's not going to work natively. So, I mean, I still take issue with the fact that they're making these square, and I kind of wish they would just try to make a round one.

Okay, you want round. Well, that's better because it's a, that feels like a little bit more of a shape that is not, you're not just trying to replicate a watch. Yes, right. Like, I would rather have it be replicate a watch I want to wear, like, a circular watch with a nice, like, casing. Right, right. Or do something that is not like a watch.

Watch. So what John was saying in your ear was like, if you're looking at it sideways, it's like this. So like you're reading like this and you're swiping. It just doesn't feel natural, especially if you're doing this. Right. So that's, it's a concern. Yeah, looking at it right there. Great anecdote.

I'm just, somebody just tweeted me and said that the employees of the Verge shouldn't be able to say dope. Did I say dope? Did you? I probably said dope. You lived in Baltimore for a long time. I think I was wearing the vest. Are you from Baltimore? No, I just lived there for a little while.

Yeah. I mean, that's the right where you picked that up. I picked it up from you. That's dope. Moving on. Yeah. What else? So more will Congress happen?

It's over now. Like some interesting, some interesting situations. I mean, it was more exciting than we thought it was going to be. Nokia X, Nokia's making an Android phone. A cheap. A bad Android phone. Which is like cool for Microsoft, I think. They're like, we're buying Nokia.

Nogis like, we're making Android phones. But it does go with the- worst idea that. anybody's ever had. It's like a skin of Android to make it look like Windows phones. Yeah. Except it's going to be shittier than Windows film. Yeah. And no one's going to care.

On worse phones. On worse phones. But it does have Skype. And does it have like Microsoft Office? When does it care about? When does Skype ever been in a selling point? I think it has like Office? For Android?

No, no, no. Maybe. Well, what would it be? I have no idea. It's an Android phone. It's an Android phone. I rest my kids. They're trying to put Microsoft.

Get out. Get out. And then so what else? The, oh, Galaxy S-5. Yes. which is the Galaxy S4, but waterproof. Which is just like the Galaxy S4, but with a different back. With a different number in the name.

I mean, it's not some other stuff. I don't know. It's weatherproof. It's like, you can put in the shower. That's, see, to me, I think that's great. I mean, I've been using this Sony Z1 and it's waterproof and I don't take it in the shower because I'm not a fool. But you can. But I, but what, well, like, what I can do is like I don't worry about it in the rain or the snow or whatever.

Like, that's the nice thing. Or if, like, you drop it, like, or you put it down on the table and there's some water there. You're not like, oh, my God. Right. I think it's actually a really nice looking phone. I mean, the front doesn't, looks kind of classy. It's soft touch is nice. I mean, it's whatever.

It's a Samsung Android phone. Yeah, and this is what the, uh, okay, it's Samsung. I think we know that Samsung isn't really known for their hardware design, given the fact that they have to keep, they have to keep copying it off of other people. Right. Like, they're not known for, and they're also not known for their software design. They're known for, like, being able to ship high numbers. And market the shit out of it.

And market the hell out of them. Yeah. You know, and like, fine, that so be it. That's their thing. You want a nice looking device? Get one of those new Nokia Android phones. Right. JK.

Sony's phones are, Sony's phones are much nicer. And Sony did just announce at World Congress the Experia Z2. Yeah, so that's the new version of my phone. With a nicer display. So here's the thing. It has a nicer display. People are saying that it is not any larger than my phone.

Is that correct? I've had both, Chris and Dieter have both said. Is that it right there, hold it up? Yeah. So it's a five big. It's a five. There's a two-inch screen. This is, I think, just a five.

But they're saying less bezel. Right. At any rate, this thing's huge, and that's, like, one of my major gripes. The hugeness of it. It's pretty light, though, right? No, it's very heavy. Really? Very heavy.

This isn't heavy. Comparatively to what are you comparing it to? It's heavier than that phone. Yeah, I guess it is. Yeah. It's glass and metal, baby. It does feel nice. I mean, it's a nice phone.

Fingerprints all over the place. Well, it's made of glass. Yeah. Remember the old iPhones? That's what this is like, except way bigger. And also not an iPhone. Anyhow, so the Z2, yeah. I mean, all in all was like not a really...

I mean, I think the gear fit was probably the most interesting thing. And also, like, the most surprising, because we knew they could do a galaxy smart watch coming. And we kind of figured new cell phones that are iterative, but like the fit was something different at least. Yeah. You're damn right. They definitely learned their lesson not making another $400 smart watch. Well, they did. Off the bat.

There is one. They did, but they, like, you know, it's not the only... thing that they're going to so the only smart watch you can buy for them right that's true and i imagine it's probably like 400 dollars the gear to 300 for the one without the camera then like two 250 for this fit what no the fit's gonna be way more expensive you think so yeah it's got like a crazy custom weird little screen and it's you know yeah that's gonna be more no way why wouldn't it be you don't think because their marketing is like a fitness thing you can't sell a three hundred dollar fitness but it also functions of the watch right yeah yes it does tell time it does the notifications

Why are you shaking your head of it? It's less capable. How much is a watch cost? Like that's not a... Depends. It's like, oh, it's also a watch. So it's like $500. Well, I mean, depends on the watch.

I mean, does it have all the features of the gear? I guess there's no camera, no heart rate sensor on it? There is, yes. I wish I had just read it a little bit of... I mean, again, I've been busy. This is another thing, by the way, you can't do is like, reach for your laptop when you're when you're holding it baby. Can't do it.

And I've been trying some pretty, like, funky moves, you know? It's like holding a bottle with my head. You know, holding the baby one arm, holding the bottle in place, reaching for something, like doing one of those. Father's out there. We'll know what I'm talking about. Wow. I've learned a lot. I'm much more mature now.

It's incredible. All right. You want to talk about Google? Let's talk about more Google. Google in the news. Sean Halster wrote a great piece for us. Oh, yes. That first.

Fantastic. Very thoroughly research and interesting piece about basically how Google is buying up Mountain View. Yes. And turning it into Google Town. And it's pretty like there's a this is a Google map in there if you go farther down in the spade. Yeah. And it shows the... It's insane.

Yeah. It's crazy. This is what was once a regular, uh, community. Yeah. And like, if he's now, the owls are missing legs. Look at this. Right. This is crazy.

And like, you know, Apple is also building a new headquarters over here. There's like the spaceship and no one's complaining because you've got this, basically this new neighborhood, this new city right here. Yeah. All run by Google. And so, you know, I think it's an interesting story about corporate interests in a relatively small town, you know. I think there are a lot of people. I mean, I think there's definitely some commenters and people who are like, this is great. This is actually really good.

They're doing really cool things. But it does raise questions about, you know, how much, I think you have to ask, like, how much of a town should Google be able to own? Well, so they constantly, the bringing Sean's piece, which is fabulous, they keep talking about like Google is trying to propose housing. Like they really wanted to build a residential zone, make it fully contained. Yeah. Which is a lot like, what is this like? The prisoner? The, this is like lost, actually.

When you think about it, imagine Mountain View is an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Where a magnetic force is drawing down planes. And ultimately, spoiler alert, everybody's dead. Hope I've ever been lost for you. Not Sir Gets. One of the all-time worst endings of any show ever in the history of television. It's like five years from now, Eric Schmidt and a beer just screaming, We have to go back.

That's exactly what's going on. And Schmidt is with some like, I don't know, he's with some characters, some lovely ladies and a futurist, some singularity people. Reagan is a while is just like, he's the Desmond. He loads up, they load up with, who's flying the plane? Nobody is like. Paul Allen. It's a self-driving jumping out of the plane. Paul Allen's like, I'll get you there.

Is it Paul Allen that he did with all the planes? I don't know. Sergei Bryn't know. Sergey Brin jumped out of the planes. No, he, of course, he'll do. jump out of the plane. I just feel like Paul Allen owns everything. Am I crazy? Is he a plane guy? Somebody tell me. Let me tweet me. All I know about Paul is he owns like a ton of guitars.

I don't know. Nobody gives Larry Ellison enough credit that dude owns an island. Like Google, like, Google, Larry Ellison is up there like with his voice box saying like, we need to create an island where there are no laws. Right. Right. And people can do whatever they want. Larry Ellison owns that island. So either Ellison or Elon Musk is that Charles Widmore in this middle. Yeah, but Ellison hates those guys. He's like a jobs, bro. Yeah. So you get a problem there.

How are you going to get the Google guys to Ellis, Allison? I don't know. To Ellison Island. Invasion of Ellison Island. All of these are movies I would watch. All the films. Self-driving Google landing craft. Is this Paul Allen?

Are we looking to Paul Allen? Yes. Right here. He's like, I'll take you. He's like the Jeff Fahey. What? Are you a Lapidus? Frank Lepetus.

Played by Jeff Faheyey. It is as portrayed by the actor Jeff Fahey, star of The Lawnmower Man, a great film if you haven't seen it. What? No. He plays The Lawnmower Man. Oh, I had no idea. Pierce Brosden, also a star of The Lonmore Man. Please check it out if you really want to see some awesome 90 sci-fi that will rock you to your very core.

Can we get a scene from the lawnmower man up on the view screen here? I'll give you guys a moment. I'm surprised you haven't been able to move quickly on this one. But please do some of the special effects of the lawnmower man. You get those Alfred shortcuts. The lawnmower man comes at a time like in special. effects when people just discovered 3D and there was like a lot of video toaster

3D stuff happening. I mean it's not video toaster. This is like obviously rendered on some SGIs or whatever. But like the lawnmower man graphics are really, really superb. This is this the lawnmower man? Is that Jeff Fahey? Is that Pierce-Brasden? He's had the same haircut.

If that's Broszen, look at the head of hair on him. Oh my God. Look at this guy's hair. It's this beautiful feather. Everybody in this movie looks like the villain from Diehard. Correct me if I'm wrong. Lawmore man. released in 1990. Hold on, 1990.

You can do this. Three is what I want to say. Two, that's so close. You got to get through the graphics, guys. You found the ones here aren't any graphics. I don't know how you do that. Is there a lawnmower? Yes.

Is it like a CG lawnmower? Oh, here we go. Yeah, here we go. Jeff Faye, he's literally a, he is a lawnmower operator. He's like kind of a mentally impaired lawn. Let me tell you this enough. Wait, wait. So he's like cutting grass on lawnmower. No some weird, freaky science fiction.

He's a guy who cuts, I believe he cuts Pierce Brosnan's grass, and he's like, he's like, he's like impaired in some way. Oh, here we go. Here we go. He's impaired in some way mentally like he's not very smart. Yes. So wait, this is like, it's like a horror version of flowers for Alton. This is VR. He's in VR right now.

Do you understand what's going on? The thing is like that's what VR actually is going on. The 90s, VR was actually way more advanced than right now. And anyhow, so I think Pierce Broson starts experimenting on him to see if he can. make him smarter with these like cool cyber programs that shoot it that shoot information into his virtual reality like yes oh my god actually this looks kind of amazing like it's like a sepunk video but it's oh look he's putting information into his brain right now by hand that that's that's where that's it's how it's how it's how it's how it's how it's like the matrix it is like the matrix and then

you know of course the experiment spirals while who is the guy in a suit that's ominously walking slowly towards i'm gonna say he his name is uh who is this i don't know who this guy's but he's I think what he discovers this scene is that Pierce Brasen is abusing the, he's abusing his laboratory. What? And he's like, you can't do this anymore. And then he takes him to his basement and does some more. That's what laboratories are for. It's for ramp and abuse.

Why do they exist if they don't make a green goblin? I mean, we can all have an island, sure. What's the point of having an island if it, or not an island? Of course, there would be a place like this on the island. Yeah, the laboratories on islands are the worst. What's the point of having a laboratory if you're not going to create a green goblin? I think that's just a rule for a life. Did you see the pictures of Green Goblin?

The new ones? What? No. Are they on the verge? No, it was like a week ago. I don't know. Were they on the verge a week ago, I guess? Because that's all I read.

That's the only thing I read. If it's not on the verge, it didn't happen. No, but the new one is... If it's not on the verge, it just didn't happen. That's right. No matter how much you tell us. Are you going to show it to me? I'm trying to find it.

Where the Green Goblin picks? I'm looking for it. Is it Dane Dahan. That still wouldn't be the shittiest thing. Dane Dahan is like, sorry, Dane, your face. makes you evil and everything. Like, for now on, you're like the new Willem Defoe. You're just going to play a bad guy no matter what you're in.

Here we go. Even when you're a good guy, people are going to hate you. All right, so I'm going to drop him in the dock right here. I like Dane Dahan. Don't be wrong. He's a talented actor. Yeah, yeah. He's in Chronicle, right?

Yes. Great film, I think, very underrated. You didn't like it? F off. Get out of here. If you don't think it's dope, I'm not interested. We're about to bring it up, but here's the, uh, I think of it's a lot. Can we zoom in on Dane to Han's face.

I mean, we're pretty close to it. I can't really see it. Enhanes. Enhanced. Enhance. Nope. Okay. Can we just...

No hands? Enhance quadrant 2417? I mean, if we can't enhance it on the verge. That's not... That's not going to face. That's not a gear. This is like really, really not good. This is just like the lawnmower man.

This is just like Jeff Fahey in the lawnmower, man. I love it to the right. Wow. Up, up, up. Okay. Go to the right. Nope. No, there you go.

He looks best up. Like, he got some bad ass. It's like some goblin serum or something. Yeah. Well, I mean, he has a, I think he has access to a laboratory. Yes. So. It's crocodile.

But there isn't, isn't, oh no, that was in one of the old, uh, Spider-Bet movies. Who's the, the, the-Has there ever been a Spider-Man movie that wasn't terrible? The lizard? The lizard. Yeah, yeah. I feel like they just keep making the exact same Spider-Man movie over now. Yes. I just have to say, if you tuned into this, expecting to hear about, what is this?

Come on. If you tune into this Vergecast, I think you're getting your money's worth. But educated. Of course, this is free. It's free to watch, so I think you're definitely getting your money's worth. Bang for your buck. It's a store in my neighborhood, by the way.

Bang for your buck. Your time isn't valuable. It's free. I'm losing my voice. Okay. Next topic. Do you want to go? Do you want to bail? Are you trying to get Josh?

I fight? I got it's bail? You know what this is what the people are here for. Project Tango. Project Tango. Wasn't there like a Windows, Microsoft thing named Tango, too? Why is Tango so popular? Speaking of Microsoft, Project Tango is like a smartphone that can map a room, like, connect, basically.

Yes. Which is kind of a crazy idea. It is very scary. Do we have that scene from Dark Night? Play it. Oh, it is. Why isn't you ready yet? It is the exact.

The end of the Dark Night with the Sonar. They tracked the cell phone in your pocket and it like. Spoiler alert. Please. the end of the dark night the dark night he uses a lawnmower man like device

which is like goggles it is like actually there are some similarities to what we just saw the lawnmower man here it is there we go all right

here it is everybody this real invention please allow full screen so we stop seeing this is exclusive from Google's campus Project tango what kills me so much

about this is whoever the writer was it Goyer is he the writer yeah David Goyer he was like we got a, I don't know, I don't have a solution to make this end part work. He's like, I just don't know what to do. What if I just made up a thing where he had like sonar like a bat?

But that's classic Batman. It's like, all right, we need a gadget. Just put bat on the front of it. We're fine. Bat grappling hook. Bat cape. They don't call it bat something, do they? They don't name it.

They don't name it. We know it's bat sonar, though. It's like bat global surveillance system. Hey, so it's a project. Can you go? Bat prism. BPS BPS. That

position existed. To all the listeners out there, I do apologize. What we really need is a Bat Snowden to blow the lid off. It was Dick Grayson the whole time. First name, Bat, last name, Stodd. Part of Tango is a smartphone that can map a room. And presumably, what's the range on this?

Do we know? I think someone does. See, you're looking it up. But, uh, super ugly. So why we're doing that, this is, this is being led by Johnny Chung Lee. And if you don't know that name, you do remember a few years back, he did these Wii remote head tracking things. Yeah. That's him.

This guy, if you actually, if you don't haven't seen this, it was really cool. He did this, like, kind of DIY motion tracking on the Wii where using the sensors, you could wear these glasses. And like, when you moved, the perspective would move. Right. And now, like, I guess, like, with the Connect, I don't know if there's games that do that. Not really yet. Not so much. But it was really trippy when it's just of extremely bizarre, weird, like, effect.

And at some point he did, this is what he's working on now. At some point he did go to Microsoft. I don't remember when, and I don't know when he left, but then he quietly went to Google, and now this is his thing. He's part of ATAP, which is doing both Project Tango. Apparently Project ARA is under the ATAP umbrella. Yeah. And ARA is the modular phone project.

Yes. Which was started at Motorola, and now is, like, one of the things, oh, here it is. Here's the original project. How cool is this? This is awesome. Now, like, this may not, this may seem quaint by today's standards, but a few years ago, this was like, what, five years ago? Mm-hmm.

Maybe. This was, like, mine. It was like, oh, eight or nine. And it is kind of still mind-blowing. I mean, this, like, this video basically gave this guy a career and created Project Tango. Yeah. It's true. It's weird.

Power the internet. Power of the open internet. Yeah. I think he would be able to put that video on the internet if Comcast and Time Warner Cable were controlling how much bandwidth was used for, He got too popular. He couldn't afford to it, so no one saw it. Exactly.

And now he's, and then he's a drug addict. So the evil corporations, are you happy? Is it evil corporations, man? Corporations. Are you happy? You turned him into a drug addict, Todd Warner Cable. Soon to be a podcast. In an alternate reality.

This is a really weird cyberpunk novel. It's all sounds good to me. It's kind of like something from the lawnmower man. It actually reminds me of the plot of the lawnmower man, too. Actually, I don't, I don't know what the plot of the plot of a lot of watch tonight, I guess. What is the plot of Lawmoreman, too? I'm sure the open internet can tell us.

So here's the thing. Can we do a slow zoom on the Time Warner Cable logo? It's really, just it's really creepy. I just want to point that out. Guys, that's Comcast. What are you doing? It's like the eye of horace. Slow zoom going right into the...

Where is it? It's just the spiral from True Detective. Yep. It's that big... Don't spoil. I haven't seen it. Okay, well, there's a spiral in it. God damn it.

What is this trailer for LaMar Man 2? Oh, yeah. Oh, right. Wait, it's a wheelchair? Is Matt Fruer? Yeah, Beyond Cyber's If Matt Fruer is in it. Can I just say

that the original Law & Marroman is kind of an amazing movie and I think, wow. I really think you should watch it. I've never seen The Lawmour Man too. Wow. That was definitely an Oculus Ripset.

Hey, some of these graphics are from the Law & Mar Man one. I just want you to know that. What is the... Dude, that hat? I feel like Matt Fruer must have been you know, bummed. They're like, hey, we want you to be

kind of like a Max Hedrum character. And he's like, can I please stop being typecast as a Max Hadron character. Can I just have a career that is not Max Hadrum? Like, no, you're a cyber guy now. Get out of my face. Anyhow.

Okay. So here's what's interesting about all these Google projects. Not the city, not been buying up a city, but ARA and Tango, first off, both horrible code names that need to be changed into something more interesting. Like Connect. What was the Connected code name? It was like,

Oh, projects. Newby, Project. Nabu. Natal. Project Natal. That's right. When Kudo Sonoda went on stage, it's Natal.

Remember Kudos Sonata? Where were happening to that guy? He called it like Project Placentor. What ever happened to Kuda? I think he's still at Microsoft. I think he's still working on it. Another guy. By the way, we had him on On the Verge.

He was a really cool guy. Really nice. I think we had him on one of the times we had Fallon on. It was at that weird small theater. Right, right. I'm just really reminiscent. now, just letting you guys take a walk with me down memory lane straight to that joystick. Straight back to that joystick.

All right, anyhow, that's called a callback in case you're wondering. I've just referenced something that was talked about earlier. It wasn't funny, though. No. It was sad. So what's interesting about these Google projects is that they're highly experimental. You know, they're like out there. They're very much in like the Google X sort of vein.

They are and they are. So the thing about Project R is interesting is there is a release date for it now. to that time piece, like early next year, maybe $50 for the base model. Of course, you can upgrade piece by piece. Yeah. I'm super into it. Yeah, I think it sounds amazing. I don't buy that it's going to work effectively.

I see like people like they're like, like, my radio fell off my phone. Yeah. And now I can't do it. I feel like people are like really smart. No way. It's going to look that sexy. Yeah, really smart people have done a lot of work to like make phones small. Yeah.

To make like a small phone. Like, well, what if we just put everything in a big box? I was watching a Lego movie, and we're like, how we can just do it? That's the question. Like, am I considering going to be able to slide on like a really felt awesome screen to this thing? Like, oh, I want a higher resolution screen or like, I want one that's a triangle or something. Is that going to be, or is it going to be the phones this thick? Yeah.

And there's like a wire dangling off of it. They're saying like, it's going to be the size of a gaming PC. They're saying less than to me. Hello? That's me answering a gaming PC. Just imagine there's a huge box. There's a box here like so. And Ken, I'm like, hello.

I'm sorry, I'm getting a bunch of updates. I have to call you back. The fan is going to be so loud that you're not going to hear anything. This will be done updating in four or five hours. So I can't talk to you or playing you the games I wanted to play. So bye, and then I'd throw it into the garbage. So in all fairness, they are claiming within six to ten millimeters, which is not bad. It's like six and ten millimeters thick.

Like, it's pretty thin. Sure, if you say that's up. We'll see. Can I see six to ten millimeters on screen right now? It just enhance it over and over again. If you were smart, you'd show the movie poster for the film A millimeter, but you're not going to do it. It's right between 6 and 10 millimeters. Oh, God, damn it.

All right, zoom in, enhance. Like, people don't want to see how the sausage is made, John. What are you doing? Never show a Google image search result again. Yeah, seriously. Or you're fired. This is the exact size. You need a switch after you found your image, okay?

Amateur hour in there. It's JV. All right, let's talk about some other things, in culture. And culture. So actually... This is the least informative, one of the least informative shows. Oh, I don't know about that. No, no, very, we're lacking.

We're really lacking in information. I really, you know, I know there's probably a viewer out there, a listener out there. They're like, I can't wait to hear the news about tech today. Don't they know how to mean? Can they read? This week in tech. I can't wait to hear about this week in tech. And then they turn this on.

You do realize our audio is right now being run by a puppet. That's true Not even kidding Can we get a shot In the control booth Can we get a shot From inside the control? I just look like

Yeah you're making a serious point And then there's a puppet Dancing right behind you Was that made Was that puppet made at the Like the I think FAA O Schwartz Has like a puppet making shop Where you can design your own Muppet

Is that what that is? I don't think legally we can say one or the other I have a friend Build a bear No I have a friend who has several of these Muppets She's really into them Puppets Like seriously about them

Yeah like she's They don't have legs, and she made legs for one of them. She sewed legs for one of them. Good night. All right, let's talk about some college stuff. Steve Jobs film. Yes. First off, Steve Jobs' birthday was on Monday.

The original due date of my daughter. That's really crazy. Yeah, but we didn't hit it. We didn't hit it. We obviously didn't hit it. It's like saying if my parents had sex like eight months earlier, maybe. It's more than eight. What?

Five. Just continue. It's more than eight. It's more than eight. So five. Five. Three weeks is really what I'm talking about here. Okay. And please,

they'll talk about me having sex ever again. This is getting really weird. Steve Jobs' film. Where's that best? Rumored. That best on you won't have sex ever again. That's a callback. You mean this vest?

Yeah, that one right there. Okay. Wait a second. I'm sorry. Did you, were you talking about this? I would make I could time this so I could get it on. All right. Oh, boy.

Do you need help? In the control room, has informed me your wife just filed for divorce. We got a problem here. A lady writer. Are you okay? You're good. You're good.

You're good. You're good. You mean this vest? Can we edit that post? We'll just cut it faster. We added in post so it just seems like covered a little bit with like a little B roll of these guys. We'll just jump ahead in real time. Here, I'll just do it again.

I'm just going to do it again. You guys can do it again and you guys cut it together for the edit. You think you do it right this time. Okay. You mean this vest? Whoa. Yeah. It's like the lawn marmer man.

That happens in the law and marion. He gets like a bunch of information downloaded. And then he puts on like a cool ladies leather vest. What is going on? I'm loving this. It's been too long. So do you want to talk with the David Fincher room? So early on,

early on when Walter Isaacson, I believe, sold the rights to this book to Sony. Listen to me with like all kinds of information here. I'm not used to this. I believe it was, there was a like, major rumor going around that it was going to be Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay and Fincher directed. See, was it rumor just wishful thing?

Because they just, Sony Pictures had just done the social network with Fincher. I don't know. I think people were like David Fincher's going to direct every movie about technology. Here it is the Steve Jobs film. Yeah. So I like, it's like Steve Jobs lived in a world where everything had a kind of green filter on it. Everything was green. Just like the Matrix.

Speaking of... No, no. Speaking of the Patriots. It's funny, you should mention the Matrix. Oh, really? Actually, I had this great idea. Can I just tell you? Can I give away a great idea?

Please do. Yeah, like pizza Chipotle. It's David Fincher related, and it's also a spoiler. If you don't know how seven ends. Oh, God. If you don't know how seven ends, I'm giving you a fair warning. If you don't know how seven ends. Yeah, can we get a picture of what's in the box on the screen?

Just like, don't. But here's my idea is like somebody should make. a fake, okay, spoiler alert, seriously. Awesome, epilepsy warning. Somebody should make, somebody should make a, like, they should sell this. It's the kind of thing you might get at like geek.com or whatever. Or like, anyhow, it's like a model of Gweth Paltrow's. It's a model of Gwana's head.

It's a model of Gwreda Paltrow's head in like a brown paper box. Merry Christmas, son. And you can send it to people as a gift. And it's like hand letter. I had the idea the other night. I think it was like after many hours of sleep deprivation. But like isn't that an amazing gift? Wouldn't that be amazing?

If like you get a box, because we got a package from something, because we get a lot of, because we get a lot of people. Wait, when you have a lot of, when you have a baby, a lot of people send you stuff.

Like a separate head? And your daughter's going to have a very weird. No, but it's a fun gift. It's a gag. You know, it's a novelty gift. And you get a box and it's in the brown paper and you unwrap it.

And it's, you open it, it's great at Palo's head. I mean, that's, if you don't think that's an amazing idea, I have to question your, your, uh, your sense of good ideas. That's not a very good, like, questioning. That's a great Valentine's Day gift. I was like, what's going on with my arm over here?

It's in a vest. Look, what's going on on on my right shoulder here? It looks like I've got some weird shoulder deformity because of the coloring of the chair and my shirt. But if you look at this. No, no, that's okay. That's, yeah, that's fun. No, but look, that there, it doesn't look right. No.

I don't like it. It's a tumor. It looks like a weird extra muscle. What a great show. Yeah. You mean this vest? Okay. But if Fincher were to do the Jaws Biophic, and so...

Oh, that we're talking about. We put this on the table over there. As we heard, the Sorkin film is supposed to be like three parts in quote-unquote real-time. What? What? The truth was the rumor was. Oh, I don't remember. He wrote the script as in like, it's right before unveils the Mac.

It's right before unveils the... iPod. Yeah. And it's just like in real time, the 45 minutes or 30 minutes prior. That sounds cool. It's like, it's an interesting idea. If you went with it. Did you see jobs?

Oh, you didn't you review jobs at Sunnance? Yes, they did. Yeah. Um, that was not like really that good. That was lifetime. And I think Justin Long made the definitive job. Yes. Can we get a clip?

Wait. Wait. We're getting scared. Do you think you have to license? Would you have to license Guineathlethoutros? Head? Head, likeness. I guess you would.

Yeah. I don't know, man. Just someone, can someone make this happen? Does she really own her likeness, though? It was kind of game to her, right? I guess you could like, you could make it look like Gwyneth Paltrow, and the character could be named like,

like, Lilith or something that sounds like Gwyneth, but isn't, what's the name of the character in the movie? Like how people make, like, one, put a, full put one defect in an ornate rug? Not important. How much is our viewership tanked, by the way, throughout the, throughout the, has it just plummeted?

It's like, we've lost, like, wait, is that real? Is that true? Is that a true? number? It's not a true. Guys. Okay.

I was like, well, that's not a episode. Literally it's the puppet talking about here. Is plummeted? People are like, let me check out this informative.

10 people are like, no, we want tech news. We want tech news. We want tech news. Not, not Teresa Miles or Mills.

But I think, I think that, so anyhow. I think, I think here's thinking. I will say this. Social Network was grossly inaccurate

on many levels, but it did make for a fairly entertaining film. Yeah, it was compelling. And it was well made. I mean, I think Fincher

best movie is Zodiac personally. Oh, so good. That's... Great flick. He means sarcastic? No, it's... I think it's really underrated. I think that most people

don't even know that it exists. It was like kind of a quiet... Just like, I don't know, it just didn't do... People didn't want to watch a movie about the serial killer who doesn't send a box to someone at the end.

I saw like a made-for-TV movie about the Zodiac killer. That was actually a lot better. Is that Richard Ramirez? Is that the person they think? I don't know who did it. Do they never, they never... I forget how Zodiac ends.

Do they catch him? Spoiler alert, don't tell me. He dies before he gets prosecuted. All right. Okay, that's enough of that. Yeah. Well, spoiler alert. But it did happen in reality, so it's not, you can't really be.

I realize. So it's saying, what happened to Jesus? Don't spoil it. But I think Fincher, here's the thing, I think Fincher could do a good job, but I think you have to ask yourself, what really is a movie about, like, we know and love Steve Jobs. We know his story. Like, we've studied him as a person in our world. We've talked about him a lot. What is the movie for a broad audience about Steve Jobs?

How many more films are they going to make where it's like he was a hippie in the 60s and he did acid? And then like he was hard to work with at Atari and now he made the iPhone. Like how interesting is that story when you really look at it? Because that's what I was kind of struck by watching Jobs, which is not only is it identical to Pirates of Silicon Valley. Like you just can't mess with the arc because it's exactly the same. But I was kind of like, this is cool to me to something. extent, because I know some of these stories and who these people are, and I know their background. But, like, is it a compelling tale to a broader audience, which is the audience, you know, that's what was interesting about social network.

He turned to the social network about, you know, which is really probably not nearly as salacious and interesting, into a story about this, you know, weird, um, loner who was, had some, he had some weird issues where he was trying to, like, he's trying to overcome his, his horrible image issues by created Facebook, you know. Right. It also wasn't trying to be everything. Like, it wasn't like, here's how, you know, from the time he was a zygote to win his case. Right, right. It didn't show that the whole, well, his story is obviously far less like there. But, I mean, it made it into like a character-driven piece about a kind of flawed person. Right.

And so, and I guess jobs, like, let's be honest, no shortage of flaws to look at. No, no. You know? But. But no one claims he's a great person. He's a great businessman. Like, that's the big thing. I have a personal life.

I mean, really, they should just, like, who cares about it, shit at Apple? Yeah. Like, they should just do, like, that 70s show miniseries. Where he's smoking dudes with Kelso up in the attic. That'd be great, actually, if you smokey. I guess my question ultimately is, like, what is the definitive two-hour story about Steve Jobs, you can tell? You know? Because I don't know about launching the iPhone.

It's cool, but when it happened, it didn't. People were like, oh, my God. Like people who knew about technology are like, oh my God, he's going to do a phone. But regular humans were like, what's a smartphone? It's true detective season two, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I like it. Partners. I like it.

Wow. So anyhow, I think we have to see what that. I'm very curious to know what that story really is. The thing you were describing the Sorcan concept is sort of interesting. If it's actually how he did it, like that would be great. And like, I'd be interested. It's going to be obviously dependent on who is casted as jobs. So I don't know.

Kevin Space. Justin. I didn't actually see Johns, but I feel like there's a lot of his personal life that wasn't delved into, like kind of a strange daughter and that relationship. They do go into that in pretty good detail in the Pirates of Silicon Valley, though. Okay, Harold Ramos passed away. He did. Harold Ramos died at the age of 69, star of many fantastic films. Riders, director, producer, and star.

And I think most people know him as Egon from Ghostbusters. Right. Here he is with the, what is this device called? God, I haven't seen Ghostbusters in forever. The spectral, spectrograph, spectro. Spectro-Robter? Ghost detector. Ghost, it's the ghost-sniffer.

Anyhow. Very young, Dan Aykroydonville Murray as well. Young, everybody. Man. I mean, great, super talented guy, really funny, smart. Yeah. And, you know, just a downer. Like, I don't know.

I grew up, like, watching a lot of movies this guy was in, particularly the Ghostbusters movies. I know a lot of people diss Ghostbusters, too, but I think it's pretty entertaining. I love it. It's amazing. It's great. Vigo's in that, right?

It's a Vigo, man. And there's also a Bobby Brown song. Yeah, my favorite movies is a child in order of importance. Ghostbusters, Top Gun. Ghostbusters, too. This is something, there's a Bobby Brown track that goes along with that film. And this is something that happened, I think, a lot in the 80s that you really don't see

too much anymore. He does a rap in the song, and it's about stuff that's happening in the movie. Like he name checks Vigo and like several other characters. Could we get a little bit of Bobby Brown's rap from Ghostbusters too? I think it's called we're in control. I could be wrong. I did some Egon cosplay. Did you really?

Yeah, it's a John, can you bring that up? Was it Egon specifically? At the top. Oh, yeah, Egon. What? This is crazy. I don't mind this. What is this?

Is this a troll? No, it's not a troll. 100% serious. That's you? On the left there, yeah. Wow. It's Egon. What you mean on on who's left?

On my left or the people's left? You're left. I'm the taller one. How can you tell it's EGon? So this is, yeah, that's my question. How do you know it's EGott? There's no thing. It's all in the performance.

You can't capture that. You got slimer on a badge. It's not how they. Listen, I didn't make the threads. I get it. I get it. I also went as a Ghostbuster, I think, for Halloween. I can be wrong.

But anyhow, very cute. That's you on the left there. Yeah. There's your, like, mushroom hair. Your throwback Thursday. Yeah, never again. TBT. Bull cuts should be illegal.

I think that's cool. I like you a little bit like circumcision and bowl cuts shouldn't it be There's a sadness though there T's a kind of sadness there T's you know darkness in you You got the trap and everything that was purchased though right yeah okay now can we get a little bit of that Bobby Brown song from Ghostbusters 2 can we get that up on the view screen I think they're working on On the view screen you can't find it you want to look at the song That's really sad everybody said he's a really nice guy yeah you know they're still gonna make Ghostbusters three How do you feel about that?

I'm sorry. You think it's in poor taste? I don't think it's a poor taste. I just think whether or not he was involved, like, it's going to be a bad movie. Right. They need fresh meat. They're using all the old guys. It needs to be Ghostbusters 3.

Oh, here we go. Is this it? I'm not hearing any audio. We can't run the audio. We don't have sound. We're pretty advanced here. Yeah. But, I mean, that's what's always looked like now anyway.

I mean, look, this video is crazy. That video is crazy. That was nuts. That was nuts. All right. What else we're talking about? I mean, we can talk about just a lot. This is it got milk.

We got to wrap up soon, unfortunately. Do you want to talk about the Oscars at all? It's coming up on Sunday. No, not really. We're going to do, we'll have some Oscar coverage, but I don't really want to talk about it. That's fair. Got milk. They've gotten rid of.

Got milk. What does Heroes were born? Oh, God. They're bringing heroes back. They're bringing heroes back. Siler. No. The other guy, the guy with the hair.

They haven't announced any of the characters. Peter. Peter. Peter's brother, Milo Ventibiglia. The blonde girl. Hayden Paneteer Allie Larder God Peter was so whining

The guy who turns into a gecko Masioka Masio Giro Nakamura Yeah The The old guy Malcolm McGowell Linderman

Linderman? Is that was the name? They killed off all those people Right Siler was a cool villain Though That first season The Heroes is pretty good

When he killed Veronica Mars Yeah First Oh that's right Was that the first season That was the first season Yeah I think so Yeah.

He didn't kill the character of Veronica Mars. No, it was. It was Veronica Mars. I don't think that's right. That's right. Are you, that's cool. That's cool. Take a little off the top.

He had a great story, great backstory. Very cool. And then, of course, like every, just like lost, great first season. And then everything was garbage. Well, they had that writer's strike. Oh, yeah. It was blaming on the writer's trial. Writer strikes, you have ruined a lot of great things, though.

Mm-hmm. Like shows on TV. It should be illegal for writers to strike. We should, we got to break these writers unions up. Well, it's like, how are there not enough writers? Everybody's... Look at the internet.

Like, she's like, all right, we're just going to take fan fiction and start producing it. But actually, I think that that would be totally possible now. I would love to see a writers picket. A lot of good fan fiction out there. That's, and that's going to be 2015 is when they're doing it? Yep. Or this year? No, I think it's a...

Seriously, I'm going to wait until 2015 to see the new heroes. I'm more excited for the 24. Yeah, that's going to be great. I'm not a 24 fan. Are you a 24 fan? I mean, yeah. What do I need to know? Bring me up to speed.

I never really watch any 24. I mean, I know of the, I understand the character. I understand that every 24 hours. Every episode is an hour. There's a world ending terroristic threat. And that, and that he is a, he works for what organization? CTO, baby. Yeah, CTO.

CTO is a fake, kind of terrorism unit. It's a fake, made up thing. And then he goes off the grid for a while. And, and, and, and, but not, you mean for a while, he goes off the grid for one day. There's like a movie where he goes to Africa and, like, everybody dies and he's really sad. And then it comes back. Why are you ruining it? No, it's like, it's basically like a very violent.

You just ruined everything for me about 24. Really? How many seasons of 24 are there? It's like eight. Yeah. What's eight times 24? So what's seven times 24? Look at this.

Now, he does a lot of torturing. Yeah. This was actually, a lot of people, a lot of people think that the, that the 24 was actually kind of like a propaganda, a piece of propaganda for the U.S. torture of prisoners of war. Because it was like sometimes you have to break the rules to save lives. That's right. And always like it's 100% success. I mean, it's a Bush era.

It's a Bush era show. Right. It's from the, it's from a time when we felt that there was constant, a constant nonstop, very localized threat of terrorism at every turn. Every 24 hours. Every 24 hours. In every city in America. Every 24 hours, they have to invent a new color at the top of the scale.

I feel like when you're, like, when you live in like Pittsburgh, you know, it must be great to live in Pittsburgh or wherever when there's like a, like a terror. threat to a major city. You know, you're like, I'm good. I live in a very small town. I mean, Pittsburgh's not that small, but they're going to hit like Philadelphia, right? They're not going to go for Pittsburgh. They're going to hit New York.

I'm saying small towns are. I don't know. That's where all the robots are. That's where all the robots are posing as humans live. They live there. They're not even doing anything. Josh, stop giving the terrorists an instruction manual. Okay.

Let me give you some coordinates to put your rules. The place is to put your robot family. Is that what the terrorists are using now, robots that look like humans? Like screamers. Yeah. That's what the terrorists are using. Screamers. Another great film for the 90s.

I think we're wrapping up. Oh, one more thing. One more thing. Daft Punk, Farrell, new track, like, leaked today? It was released today. Yeah. Very excited. Ferrell and Daft Punk are here.

You described it as, you thought the lyrics were suggestive in a name negative way. I think you said rapy is how you describe the lyrics. I don't know if I would just, I don't know if that's what I said, but I think that's what I said.

Yeah. And because it says the lyrics are, um, open up your window, let me give you a hug. Yeah, something like that. I think that just sounds like when French guys,

yeah, but if you really think about it like in what situation would you ever open a window, it's because someone's sitting in a tree branch. No. Looking into your bedroom. Are you worried about hugs? I mean,

I know Robin Thick has ruined the hugs. I think you misunderstand. I love hugs. He's the gust of wind. The hug is the wind hitting your body, your nude body. Sounds like a pretty creepy.

I imagine you throw the window open. Fresh air hits your nude body. That's the hugging question. What? Caresses your nude body. Not a little bit. You go in for the hug.

No. There is no person to, it's representative of a person. So the wind is like represents the touch. of a person. Okay. No,

it's just there on your body. It's like some Dave Matthews band level. Just open up your skirt, little boy. That's the Vergecast for this week. That's the Vergecast for this week. So much great tech news. So much tech news. All your technology needs.

As always, as always you can get in touch with us. You can email us at vergecast at theverge.com. I'm sure we'll get a lot of that. You can leave the comment on the post when it goes up or you can, you know, get into our forums and start a conversation on Theverge.com. You can find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. I'm Joshua Topolski.

Ross is, oh, no, Roscoe on the end. What are you, T.C. Sodic? I'm at Barack Obama. T.C. is T.C. is T.C. Sodic. No, he's laughing stuck. Yeah. And he's great on Twitter. Yeah.

He's like the new Darth. That's what I think of Wow, you're just You're throwing it down And that's our show Somebody's asking about Tonight show Several people have asked

Am I going to go on the Tonight show I've talked to The producers We're working on doing something Maybe in April I hope I didn't just docks Anything but it'll be something special I think

But who knows It might not happen You never know But yeah maybe It's because somebody just Just tweet it at Yeah I'm answering

If Leno isn't backed by that. If Leno isn't back, I have to say I really am enjoying The Tonight Show, and I'm not just saying that because I like Jimmy and all the people over there. I actually think it's really refreshing. No, the transition has been great. It's really good. What do you think about Seth? You got a review of Seth.

So I'll say the Monday's... I don't get the set. I just don't. It's weird. Those chairs. The Monday set versus the Wednesday set, because I was watching that before we got on, it's much different. Like, when you watch it Monday, it was weak an update with an interview.

And now that he's learned to talk to the audience and go over the conversation. It's all right. I think they need... he still need to figure out what to do. But like, it should have just gone full on weeknight update. It took, it took Jimmy like six months to figure out, like, how to be quirky. It's pretty good. It, look, it's a tough job.

It's good, though. I'm sure, I'm sure he'll do a great job. It's surprisingly good. I just don't like those chairs. That's my own. That's my own thing. Yeah. And, and, uh, and, blah, blah, blah, that's it.

That's it. That's it. That's it. And, and, uh, listen, from one family man to another, or family lady to another. Lady writer. Lady writer. We could be in bad trouble very soon. I'm very worried about our families.

But Jack Power will save us.