The Vergecast - Stephen Elop, King of Thieves

Episode Date: November 21, 2014

It was a week of learning and growth on the Vergecast. Specific lessons included who actually owns Nokia, who has used an Apple Watch, what qualifies as a varsity sport, the merits of Pitch Perfect, and just how little of the 90s Sam remembers. Programming note: The Vergecast will be taking next week off, in observance of Thanksgiving, but we'll be back the following week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let me ask you a question. Oh, God. It's pretty good. No, I think it's important to, in your heart, answer this question for me. Tell me. If you were to order the colors from last to first, how would you order them? Easy. Are you ready?

Yeah. Okay, I'm going to start. Orange. That's last. That's last. Orange. And last place. No.

No. Okay. I'm going to go through this. And then we can debate after that. All right, right. Orange. Yep. Yellow

Blue Red Hmm Hmm Green Purple Pink So you want mine

Invert that Exactly No you're crazy And that's mine I think Oh pink Pink goes higher Any any order

At which green is near the top Is an inaccurate order Sorry Are you crazy Hello this is a Vergecast Where we are no strangers To controversy That was a good intro

I like that It was like a little anecdote. It was good. I don't know if that counts as an anecdote. I was literally just Chris randomly listing colors. I mean, they weren't random. I thought about it for about five seconds. Hello, this is our show where we talked about technology, the people, the lifestyles, the glitz, the glamour.

Oh, man. So much glitz. I am Eli Patel. I'm Chris Planned. I am Dieter Bone. Type check. I'm Sam Schaeffer. There he is right there, everybody.

So I will say, and I'm just going to over. open I'm gonna I want to open the show by acknowledging the criticisms of the show that we receive and last week the primary criticism was that we were crazy oh well that's not we are crazy but I'm gonna try I'm gonna try this is true we're gonna talk about technology news today okay we're gonna try to do it with some structure okay we will almost certainly fail sure but I want you to know the listener that we are trying. Can I acknowledge a criticism too while I'm out there? Yeah. So

I just want to thank everyone who left a comment. No, no, no, no. No, no. No, no. There's a criticism coming. A lot of people left very nice compliments of our show and said that you're ready for whatever the hell I'm going to make, which hopefully we're going to hopefully fingers crossed pilot next week.

But, but no, no, no, no. Here's the criticism. Self-promotion, there. We're not a criticism. No, no, no. This has nothing to do. I have a criticism for you. I would like to thank everybody for telling me how great the next Yo, I want to give you the criticism. There was one compliment. That said, the show is great.

I can't wait for what's tech with Chris Plant. Four out of five stars. And what can I do to get the extra star? I don't know. And I think that what we're going to find out today is whether we can hit five stars. Can we actually just name that show five stars with Chris Plant? All right. So let's start with some news.

A lot of stuff going on. say this is perhaps not the biggest news of the week, but in the grand scheme of the tech industry, perhaps the most interesting. And, you know, it will, I think, whatever. Apple release the, there's stuff to say. Apple release the watch kit SDK. Chris, do you have some notes? I mean, you want to go right to them because they're not good on this one at all. Hit me. I don't know why even wrote this. Verge? Oh, no, it was supposed to be Iverge. Iverge. More like my verge, I'm the captain now, which I followed with

Captain Toad, game in the year. Okay. What? Yeah, I don't... I actually have a real question for this. Yeah, yeah, I know. But you should probably tell everybody about it. So, okay, the

Apple Watch SDK, if you want to make an app for the Apple Watch, it has to... With minimal exceptions, in this first moment, it has to live on the phone and like send this little information to the watch. The watch can't really be independent with like, I think clocks are the exception.

Timers and clocks. Timers and clocks. What a watch does. Right. We built this a wrist computer. It can tell the time. Come on. That's fair.

Someday you will be able to do standalone apps. Yeah. That day is not today. Nope. You can do notifications. You can do glances. It can do gongs. I mean, whatever.

Gygongs. He gauze, not gags, gauze. Sorry. Yeah. There's two resolutions. It basically follows a responsive design so you don't lay out to the resolution of the watch. You have to have it be able to have stuff flow, which is interesting. It flows to me up or left-hand corner, which is weird.

Anyway, the point is when you make an app, you have to assume that it will come in all kinds of crazy screen sizes, which is smart. Because God only knows how big this watch will be here. Right. And there's two sides already. I mean, that's what's going to happen to the watch is the same thing that happened to phones, is that everybody thought 3.5 inches was the right size, and now we're all getting 5.2, 5.6, 6 inch phones. And same thing is going to happen with watches. We're like, this is too big. And then the next year, but the key here. And so I think there's like three things to think about. One is it's crazy that Apple's like releasing this more publicly before the watch comes out, which is supposed to happen. Sometimes crazy good. it's something. I mean, it's in the context of Apple, like giving people, like

what they usually do with this stuff is they sign a bunch of NDAs with partners, and then they're going to launch the watch with the 20 apps, right? But instead they're like, we don't know what to do. Here's some stuff. So are you intimating that this is a sign of fear from Apple? I am not even intimating. I explicitly saying

I think this is a sign of fear from Apple. Why isn't it just a sign of the new open Apple that is happy to talk to people about our rights? Yeah. Or recognizing that leaks happen. Like, I, expecting nothing, I mean, I know that they're good about leaks, but expecting nothing to come out seems. It's weird for Apple to talk, I mean, just like, historically, it's weird for Apple to release this much underlying data of how the thing works. Sure. As opposed to tell the public, like, how awesome it's going to be. New Apple, dog, you saw that Bloomberg. Yeah, but that's backwards.

Like, that's totally backwards. No, but this is the first gadget of the Tim Cook era. Yeah, this is the new Apple. And so it's getting run by the Tim Cook method. And also, I will grant that there could be an element of fear here. Here's what I was saying. The Tim Cook's method looks awful like the Microsoft method, which is fine because Microsoft's doing awesome things now too. It looks an awful lot like this guy.

The natural way that humane technology companies release new products. Fair. I like to use some of the word humane there. That's nice. Fair. I just think that Apple doesn't know what the killer app for this watch is.

Oh, yeah, totally. And they're releasing a bot. And if they did, we would not see this. That's what I'm saying. It's drawing penises and sending a heartbeats. That's what it is. Dong draws. Dong draws.

So anyway, so here was so. Oh, did you forget the, no, never mind. Did you, so the other thing is, Nealai put together the list of the different

interaction metaphors you need to know. Yeah, I just haven't gotten there yet. Oh, okay. Because there's obviously, like Dieter and I actually argued about this post a little bit. I think you missed one,

is what I'm saying. Anyway, so there's two sides of the watch. Native apps are coming next year. Nobody knows what they will be able to do all. Although developers on Twitter are kind of like intimating that this watch is underpowered. Yeah. I've seen that around out there.

I don't care if it's underpowered. But like basically the thing about this watch, which is crazy, is that your iPhone just sends like various kinds of notifications to it. That's really what it does. Well, it can send complex data to a companion app. I don't get the sense that it can only send notification. Like that. And that's the whole point of what glances. are right well and how extreme is that like if i could you theoretically make a game on the on your

iPhone and in stream it like you do game streaming to you your so i don't know what video but you could you could you could have the watch be a you could you could have the watch be part of the game in some way like you're playing a thing and then twist your wrists or tap your watch or twist like dial or one any of the other josejohn sebastian joust is the one and only game you're going to play with it basically that's everybody holds up a stick and then you knock people over and then that's how you get pushed out. It's great. All right.

So it's complex. That's what I'm saying. But like the thing about releasing this now. They announced this watch. And I'm just like I'm, I'm just at this point completely on the record with my extreme skepticism of this thing. Right? I am not as skeptical as you are.

Okay. But so they in here, but I'm going to read this list and you say I missed one. No, I think I, you got it. It's here. And I'm going to, and this list.

is why I'm skeptical of this watch. Guys, get prepared for incredibly deep and nerdy arguments. This is going to get super nerdy. And I want to head out, like, whatever. I'm just going to read the list. This is a list of things, names of interactions you have to know in order to fully use the watch. Okay. Short look, long look, glances, notification actions.

Then, admittedly, you don't have to know these names. They all do different things. vertical swipes, horizontal swipes, and edge swipes. Taps. Taptic engine feedback. You can use Siri. You can force touch the watch, which, again, the worst name in history. You can scroll with the digital crown.

You can press the digital crown's button. You can single-click the side button to open the Friends app, which is where you draw dongs. And you can double-click the side button and then wave the watch in an NFC at a credit card machine to pay with Apple Pay. Now, I just want you to try. Like you're wearing the Apple Watch the first time and you walk up to a friend. Now, you did this with an iPhone and at one point in your life. You did it with, I did it a lot with my first iPod. And someone said, hey, is that the iPod?

And I said, yeah. And I would hand it to them and be like, you go around in a circle like this to move up and down the list. You push this button to go back and you press that button to play. That was all anybody ever needed to know. Now, just imagine handing the watch to someone and being like, here's how you use it. What are you going to say? play with it for two minutes figure out how to use it it's a new device there's new gestures it's fine it's like when the iPhone first came out it was a black slab with one button with the when the iPhone

came out what you said was you just scroll with your finger and you push this button to go home yeah that's it and then and then when you were ready when you were ready pinch to zoom you were like check out how you zoom in on a photo do you think the iPhone also benefited from the iterative process Because, like, I mean, things that copy and paste came out later. Apps came out later. Sure. But, like, the things that we now take for granted came out over time. Right.

I mean, and this is coming in. Apple was really, really good at teaching people how to use stuff. After all of the first, however many years, the iPhone, three years of the iPhone, then they released the iPad. And the iPad was, right, a big iPhone. That was big criticism. But it's also its greatest strength. Because you got one, you already knew how to use it.

Sure. this thing is like it's not a tiny iPhone explicitly not a tiny iPhone it has all kinds of new interface paradigms and all of them say to me they don't know what it's for so the other problem that doesn't get into in this SDK but we got into when it first launched is the iwatch has i'm going to say one two god damn it yeah the Apple watch has one two three four kind of zones of apps, zones of things that it does. So there's the watch face. Yeah. There's the home screen. There's notifications

that come in. And technically you could split that into two because apparently notifications are split into short and long glances. Short and long looks. Excuse me. Oh my God. And then there's glances. Right. Which are like the information widgets. So notifications are from the top. Glances

are from the bottom. The watch is just an app and then so it's not really it actually sits alongside all of the other apps the apps sit in the middle next to the home screen so the iPhone has home screen apps done and then they added Siri for search there's also Siri on the watch too and you said when you talk to it which is great um the watch has a home screen for apps done except you know they've also got notification iPhone's got that they've got swipe up for glances on the iPhone you swipe up for utility crap but on the watch you swipe up for like other things you can look at yeah utility crap um

Yeah, that's the best. But like the whole, I use a flashlight. I use more than anything. The default home thing for the Apple Watch is the home screen of the galaxy of apps in that insane circular layout, not your watch face. That you scroll into using the digital. I mean, all I'm saying is from what little we know of this right now, Apple has not provided any particular reason to buy this except Apple made it. Right.

It's very pretty. Some of them are very pretty. Some of them are very pretty. Which they will be expensive. and the things that you can do with it are so numerous. Like, here, like this list. So, you know, the commenters are like, you can make this list for a phone.

And they made the list for the iPhone. You can swipe down from the bottom. But yeah, Neil and I got into this over notification to actions. Does that really count as a different kind of interaction? But, like, you have to hear, all I'm saying is when, it's like tapping a button. When software does something for regular people and it's not predictable and you don't know why it happened and you don't know why to do it again, it just causes panic. Yeah. Right?

And, like, I see that. with the iPhone all the time, like, random boxes pop up in apps or, like, the system's like, enter your IMAT password. And people are like, what the fuck? And they hit cancel. Right? Yeah. Like, that's a weird thing.

And, like, it's bad because it's not predictable. You don't know how to get back to that screen. The, the watch is full of things, like short look and long look, full of things where you can't just make it do that again. Yeah. Can I give you two reasons why I, like, don't have interest in buying it at this point, other than the price, which I think is just cost prohibitive, is when I hear that it's pulling from the iPhone,

and my iPhone battery is already so unreliable. Yeah. I hear that. And I'm sure that they probably have something that will make this better, or at least I'm sure that's what they're thinking. Right, right, right. Right now I worry about getting to the end of the day with my battery, especially if I'm, like, playing a game on it.

In my experience using a smart wall, a pebble with the iPhone and using both pebbles and Androidware with, Android phones, it's like... It seems more ambitious than a pebble, though. Well, it is more ambitious than a pebble, but I would guess that you're actually, if it's more than a 5% hit on your battery, I'd be surprised. Sure. That's my guess.

The other thing is... I'm more concerned about the watch battery itself. I'm more concerned about the watch getting to the end of the day than I am about... Yeah, that's clear that. And the underpowered argument, not power, battery power, but computing power, sounds to me like, oh, great, I'm going to have to buy another one of these in a year. It sounds like there's something that this feels like phase one. People are going to buy this and that'll get us to phase two.

And as somebody who bought the iPod video. I know. But people do that. People spend that money. Yeah. And they don't have to hit maximum numbers right away, right? They need to get that base audience who's going to be really excited about it. He's spent so much money that they're going to be thrilled to show it off to everyone and talk to the rich friends about it.

I mean, what's interesting to me is that the people I talk to like in the valley, are totally polarized. Some people are like, no, it's great. You're skeptical and you're wrong. And other people are like, this is a disaster. And no one is like, wait and see. But I mean, isn't that how people were with the iPad when it launched? I mean, I remember those early iPad reviews or people are like, oh, this is a joke.

Any person who is like an app developer, like whatever, like they immediately saw, they immediately saw what the iPad was for. Yeah. And they saw it where it would go. And I don't think anybody predicted that it would hit that, like, wall of growth. Yeah. Right. That surprised pretty much everybody. Like, they thought it was another rocket ship.

But that early slope where it just, like, shot up in popularity, most people who were, like, making apps for the iPhone, like, immediately saw it. It was, like, the wider public that was, like, A, it was called the iPad, which, in retrospect, all those jokes were totally wrong. Because nobody cares. And B, it was like, this is just a big iPhone. Yeah. And what has happened over time is the iPhone's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And the iPad is like, oh, it really is just a big iPhone. But at that moment, that was fine.

It was like a great split. With this, though, it's like everybody is totally polarized. Like, I still don't know why Apple wants you to buy this thing. And the way they talk about it and the way they're acting about it is they don't know either. Like, they haven't shown any one reason that you would, like, go through a day with this or how you would go through a day with it. This is getting into conspiracy territory. But the whole health movement, too. I know so many companies have tried to actually monitor your body data, right?

It's the whole thing. We're going to create the magic thing that is going to be able to really monitor your body data. It's going to be able to basically give you a blood reading. You know, like everything. And it's going to tell you everything to do with your entire day. And obviously that's not ready. But we know lots of people are, they want it. Like it's the holy grail.

Is this like, is this like a stopgap? Is it like, well, we thought that would be available by now. It's not. But we're still going to release this watch. I don't know. I mean, it just with how much people are obsessed with fitness. And I mean, it's all over the people who are looking for this. I mean, I remember to go with games, being in E3 when the Nintendo had that like, we're going to put a thing on your finger.

And that's going to change your life. Does anything come out of Nintendo's promise to do health? Oh, to do health? No. I mean, more we fitter and stuff. Does anything come out of Nintendo's promises? I think it's a totally fair question. Smash brothers.

Smash brothers. I check. Apple Watch. We got to wait and see. Come on. That's great. That is a hype. The definition of hype is like, not the thing itself, but the excitement around the thing itself.

And therefore it exists and you can hype check it. I'm excited. I'm going to wait. I'm excited. Cautiously be. No. Sam saying, though, I'll wait and see. No, could be the truest statement about what I'm talking about.

Like, that is. I just, I get the criticism. it's like fun to talk about this stuff because we are in tech. But like, how the hell can you really talk about something that you've never used? Like so we've used it. All right. You guys have used it. Okay, fine.

Fair. You guys have used it. You haven't, you haven't owned it. Five feet. You guys are like fucking bull. You haven't. You haven't. Yeah, we're the cool kids.

Yeah, look at our varsity jackets. Yeah, we got the letter, bro. Cool. I never had a varsity jacket. Called your boss? Wait, wait, wait. I had a varsity jacket. Oh my God.

Because I was the captain of the knowledge bowl team. Oh, my God. Okay. By the way, Dieter Bohn, definitely not a bully. Impossible to reconcile those two ideas. We were always in last place because there was an actual, there was a quiz bowl team that always won state. And then anybody that couldn't get on the quiz bowl team got on the knowledge bowl team. Oh, we just opened a deep, dark hole.

Yeah. Wow. But yeah, we got a way to see. I'm going to buy one. Quiz bowl team. Oh man, those just whatever.

The Quiz Bowl team. Can I name names? They were the bullies. Can I name names? I think you should. I don't think I. I think it's not fair. Do you have like an arch nemesis?

Just all I'm saying I'm beginning to understand, wait here. Mike, all I'm saying. I'm beginning to understand why Deeter is so invested in the movie pitch perfect. Like it's all really beginning

to come together for me. I'm objectively objectively, it's because, the movie is just better than anything else. I mean, we're going to get to it, but it's Oka, awesome. Let's just get to it. Oh.

So the bitch perfect trailer came out today. This was like the end of the thing, and it got bumped up to number two. Like, no, seriously, like, it came out today. Yeah. Here's a little window into the Verge office. Chris Plant. Published it without asking. Lightning Fast posted the pitch problem.

Perfect trailer to the website. Our copy editor was like, why didn't you let me copy it? Which, by the way, it needed to be. For a while, one of the most popular posts in the site. I would say convoluted and insane headline. Sure. Also, I mean, literally that people wanted it. That headline was, I would say, an expression into what is in Chris Plains.

Pitch Perfect 2 trailer reminds world, pitch perfect is brilliant and should be seen by everyone. Like, what is confusing about that? That's what I'm saying. In terms of sentence structure, many things are confusing about that. No. Okay, it's in the passive voice. Yep.

Can we talk about the trailer? The important thing to know about grammar is when to break the rules. So the reason this breaks the rules why it's important. It has a beautiful alliteration, which would go well in Acapella. Two, it's a pitch perfect to the sequel, and therefore the phrase, pitch perfect. gets said twice as quickly as possible next to each other. And then it ends with everyone

because everyone should watch it. We're really reverse engineering the worst headline. No, no, I have what's called a skill. I'm not saying it's a beautiful skill. I'm saying it's a skill. Anyway, I would say the office exploded and doing it. Like, we listened.

Chris was listening all day as the music from this trailer started filtering out of Blasdown. Do you know why? No one copied in it also? Because I sent it to multiple people and everybody watched the trailer before they read the damn post.

Also, can I just say, like, I'm very excited for this movie. Pitch Perfect, the original Pitch Perfect is amazing. This trailer... Kind of bust. No, no, no. The first, there's a lot of fan service up front. You have to go through a whole song

that you'd already heard from Pitch Perfect one. But after that, it gets in there. And there's hints of craziness. Somebody gets sucked up by leaves. Dude, there's a pillow fight. Somebody. Okay, Elizabeth Thanks is directing it, And she's part of that whole, like, state, David Wayne group.

And she's hilarious. I have no doubt that it's going to be, like, much weirder than a mainstream commercial makes a look. Right. Okay. And that's what's great about pitch perfect one. No, I think, I think... Pitch Perfect One was, like, a very, like, straight ahead movie. I think it was, like, somebody made a straight ahead movie, and they're like, eh, we're

going to actually be drunk at the wheel the whole time. That's cool. I like those. Does that make sense? But this one is, like, drunker. Like this one looks like an 80s movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Like it really looks like a classic. You keep on making our point for us. Yeah. Then it looks great. I'm not gonna. What I look my only. You should be happy because it has a packer in it. It does.

Clay Matthews and, like that's fine. I'm happy about it. Also my team's going to beat your team this weekend. Wow. Also, Eli asked, why did you not write that there's a packer in this and the headline?

And I said because it's not JJ Watt. That doesn't make it. No, I know. All right. Let's talk about Nokia. The trailer's good, basically. Oh, yeah, hype check.

Did you just sad hype check by yourself? We needed to conclude the point. You guys talked about the headline more than the trailer. I'm going to see the movie because there's great singing. Hype check, pitch perfect two. Maybe seeing it in theaters. Oh, I'm seeing it in the theater. Oh, for hashtag teens, seeing it in theaters is a big deal.

What are the chances that Taylor Swift is in pitch perfect two? I would say zero. That's a bummer. No. We really need to start Verge Teens. It's like a... The more I think about the opportunity for us there. And it can get a fight with Racquetteen?

Yeah. Well, Racketeen, if you didn't know, is an amazing Tumblr about teens. Great. That didn't make you sound like an outer creep. No one in the government just wrote your name down in a little blackbook. It's not about teens. It's not about hashtag teens. What hashtag teens think of the rest of the internet?

They ride the teen wave. You know what I like to you? I'm the captain of that team. Did you guys see this? They cut to Sam way before he said anything. You said hashtag teens and they're like Sam, Sam, Sam. No, there's like deep media story behind Racketeen, right? Like they started first look media with Glenn Greenwald and the thing.

They'd have the Intercept and they hired Matt Teibi from Rolling Stone to start Rackett. And then he left and went back to Rolling Stone. And the editor-in-chief of the Intercept went back to Gawker just now. And Racketeen is like, if you take all of that mess, And then wrap it in hashtag teens and put it on Tumblr. It's, that's what that is. We should start ratchet teen. No.

No. No. Disagree. Just, I'm sorry. Okay. I love you, Sam, but disagree. Nokia. Let's talk about Nokia. N1.

Nokia has made an Android tablet. Okay, I'm sorry. Nokia has designed an Android tablet and Foxconn is making it. It is a... Can we just be clear? This is Nokia under Microsoft. No. No.

This is Nokia. this is Nokia the separate company that we thought was just going to do like big telecom infrastructure crap but no they're also going to be designing devices because they're in a fox on for Foxxon or whoever else and then so what so let me just let me lay out the whole timeline for you Stephen Elop is born it was the year yeah right he's raised by a society of thieves to be a double agent fact James Bond Wait a minute No go on This is Let's not No no

No this is the plot to Okreed Of time Fair but it's also The Stevie Lop is a Grito He goes to work for Microsoft His original and true employer Uh huh Right

I forgot about that Where he is trained In the art of corporate deception By Steve Balmer Then he is sent by Steve Balmer To become the CEO of Nokia Where he promises To turn the company around

But really, he was just a turncoat. But he was a turncoat. And after a series of convincing metaphors involving peeing into the ocean while on fire, that's not true. There was no peeing. There was just... That's peeing on yourself to keep warm. That was Anton, whatever. Yeah.

Right. Uh-huh. Right. I'm convinced... I'm not sunk on somebody he is. Okay. Right. Nokia got stung by a jellyfish.

Nokia is at a crossroads. Okay. Right? And there's a jellyfish. There's no jellyfish. Crossroads. And at this crossroads, what happens is that various executives tell, like, Finnish folk tales, right? Yeah.

It involves, like, campfires and creepy, like, woodland creatures. Are all convincing arguments for why Nokia shouldn't use Android. Oh, right. Right? So, I can't remember. Anton Varnski. What's his name? He has a name.

His story is about the young Finnish boy who was cold, so he peed on me. himself. And that was his metaphor for Android. It will keep you warm in the short term, but then you're soaked in urine. It's true. That's, that's, that's him. And, and Elop is like, yes, this is my opportunity. And then writes a memo called the Burning Platform memo. The ultimate expression, it's like everything he ever learned about being a spy. Enci Van Yoki. Ante Van Yoki. I don't know where I came with that. He writes, we, there came a time when like this Finnish oil. rig was on fire and you had to

run into the fire or jump into the cold sea and the cold sea was Microsoft. It was Windows phone. Yeah. Right? You either stayed on the platform and died from fire. That was Simian. But the problem the metaphor is Android wasn't even included as

like there was like oh but by the way there's a lifeboat right over there. You could just climb down Google's like there with a big ass boat to helicopter. They're like, hey guys we're right And the other dude just on it, just peeing all up. Peeing up themselves.

That's Yala. Those guys. So after that, he switches them to Windows phone. Many hilarious failures ensue. Microsoft buys Nokia. I promise not to get weird. This is the reality. This is what really happened.

This shit went down. Like, finished from... Microsoft buys Nokia, and then in short order, is like, you know what I do? But they only bought devices. They bought the cell phone part. Right. They didn't buy the galoshes part. They killed the Nokia brand name.

Now it's just like, Mikeers, they bought the collars. They didn't buy the glass of part. They bought the urine-soaked galoshes. Got it. Because Nokia started out making rubber. I got it.

I'm with it. Right. The other part of Nokia, which is still Nokia, was like, we'll build the good stuff. The cell towers. Yeah, cell towers, whatever.

The cell towers, infrastructure, oil rigs that are burning, not burning, whatever. It doesn't matter. And now this leftover Nokia is saying we're going to design Android tablets for Foxcon. Somewhere and Stephen Elop is like, yes. My plan has come to, like, I don't know.

No, he's at Microsoft, though. Just imagine his day to day. Like, Stephen Adp. wakes up every day, and he's like, I did it. Right now it's really hard to imagine anyone not covered in fit. There's going to be just like a super dark Scandinavian movie about Stephen Elop living his life after having completed his turncoat mission. just like an old spy.

Yeah. Now he like runs the society of thieves. Right. That's his reward. He's the king of thieves. What do you have on your notes for that? I mean, okay. So sometimes...

I want to talk about the nerd specs to the tablet. Well, I want to hear about him because I'm going to be honest with you. Sometimes I write the notes not reading the story. Like I just like see the link. And my notes were Nokia, love me some snake. Love me some granny phones. took Twitter off my phone. Now I'm all about that.

Nokia. Where's the beef? Right here. And then I click their link. Wait, this isn't a phone. And then I actually want this times a million. Which is true. Because, like, I want that.

Oh, man. Like, an Android version of the iPad mini, that's what I want. We haven't even gone to that. You look at this thing, and it is an iPad mini. Right. Absolutely. There's no way around that. Yeah.

Like, if you do not think that this is an iPad mini, knockoff or at least the nice way to say knockoff is clone whatever you are crazy which by the way makes their their claim that like they they want to keep their design lead in like continue innovating like all of the it's like we we tried to do everything we could and this is what we could do we went to apple dot com excuse for this by the way is basically if you want to make a tablet with the size screen and high quality materials this is what it looks like it's not our fault like if you want to make a tablet like this it has to look like an iPad. I don't think that's true.

You could make a different color on the back. Is the Microsoft Nokia mad that new Nokia or old Nokia? We're not copying anyone. We are creating our own design. Is there some sort of like beef? Yeah. Are they, as Nokia allowed to make devices like that? There's only so many ways you can make this product, is the exact quote. I want to know Sam's, the answer to Sam's question. Yes, they're allowed to do whatever they want.

Is there, do they, I mean, they probably don't care about each other at this point. old Nokia and new They're still friends I think there's some Oh that's nice No I think that I mean They're all still in Finland

Many of them were laid off And Sunnyvale And Sunnyvale I mean like At this point It is actually hard to see Why Microsoft bought Nokia Yeah

Yeah well Because no one's buying Windows phones Well we haven't We need to wait and see We need to wait and see We need to wait and see If they're gonna be able to come out With compelling phones next year

Like and I know you're like Oh you gotta give two years for phone No, they need to come out with something like, whoa. Like at CES. Next year. Maybe. That would be a good time. Yeah, I strongly suspect that they will not do anything in CES.

Yeah. That's just a... Oh, wait, didn't Microsoft pull out of CES last year? That's why I strongly suspect they want to do that. Yeah. That was... Thanks, Sam. I got you.

That was... Am I crazy to think that I want this? So, it is a very compelling Android tablet, except that it's running an Intel processor. Right. And it's hard to know if how Android works on Intel processors some time to time. Like, we know how it runs on standard arm stuff. Anything else?

Like, you know, you're just not sure. Like the Nexus 9 is a perfect example. That's arm, but it's a 64-bit. And, like, Android on a new processor is always a little. Yeah. The other thing is it's running that other launcher. Who cares? But it's coming with an unlocked bootloader.

So, like, it is a completely hackable tablet. You can do it where the hell you want to it, which is really cool. Do you want to talk about the specs of this thing? Uh, yeah. Didn't he just? Not really, no. I mean, it's running an Intel processor. Right.

That's really the spec that matters. I mean, it's same size screen as an iPad. It's an iPad. I mean, like, yeah, it's a 2048 by 1536 resolution. So it's got a, it's got the reversible USB connector. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Um, that will be cool.

It's a fully laminated display. Hype check your reversible USB connectors. Dope. Can I ask you like a nerdy question as somebody like who builds PCs but doesn't really know how I'm doing it? it happens at the end. So 2 giga RAM sounds really small to me. And everybody wants, like, nice, shiny games and just graphic stuff on their... Two gigaram for Android is basically bog standard these days.

Three gigas is better. Oh, no, I mean, I get that it's standard for tablets in general, like, two to three. But that still seems like... Is it just because it's so expensive to go higher than that? No, I think it's literally... Or is there no reason to do it because the processor isn't going to really... I think like the iPhone and the iPad are starved for RAM. Yeah.

Safari is the worst on these devices. But with Android, I have never really run into that issue. Interesting. Like I think Android's actually better at memory management in that way. Whereas with the iPhone, it's like, oh, this app is going to restart now. I feel like that's just the weird consumer technology thing. I'm kind of talking out of my ass right now. So I'll let everybody know because I'm sure they'll know when it comes to PCs and everything else.

But it seems like everybody wants shiny things that. are still kind of cheap. And we're seeing this with the new Assassin's Creed game came out. And basically all the takedowns of this game talk about how it's, the systems that are available right now aren't powerful enough to run it. Like there's all, we're already hitting this cap. And it's like,

congratulations, we're a year in. This is what next gen was supposed to be. And like the game's struggling. That seems depressing. And the same thing happens, I mean, when I see iPad games,

I look at them and I'm like, these games feel limited. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I guess it's just consumers aren't going to pay for things

that are nice, sir. Is that the... No, I think it comes down to, like, a use case, right? Like, how many people are actually going to use those things? Sure. And I think the games are the place

where you... Oh, I just got corrected. Android is so not better at memory management. What I meant to say, really, was Android phones and tend to have more memory, which is fair.

And I think that's... They tend to have more memory and... Yeah, I mean, they manage it differently. Yeah, they manage it differently. They manage it differently. They manage it a way that tends to maximize

like their use of the I will say that I am not forced to reload tabs on Chrome as often as I am on Safari. Yeah, I'm really actually just talking about Chrome. Yeah. It's basically just like, it's, that's where I see it the most. It's Mobile Safari and Chrome and Android.

And Chrome and Android appears to be better at that than Mobile Safari. You really ought to hook me up with an Android phone to try out from my life. Here, have the droid turbo. Yeah, we should. Oh, great segue, Deuter. This is the one that it like charges forever.

This feels funny. in my hand. It feels like somebody's in to snake. Here's what I'm going to say. It's like it. It's like it's a reaction. It feels like the phone

my dad had. Like you'd be like, well, this is cool. We work at the fire department and it's got a rough egg. It's a ballistic nylon. He's a fire chief. Oh, I see.

Wow. Oh. So here's what I know about this phone. Then I'm just going to say it out loud. This phone is a piece of garbage. It is a piece of garbage. As the editor-in-chief of The Verge, I will say that this is the fact that we gave it to 7.7 makes me sad. Very many people will be fired.

Like the whole staff, actually. Got it. Like, how could you not see this? Institutional failure. So Verizon can make a bunch of money. And so that consumers can buy a thing that has a huge battery. And that's it. Those commercials?

15 minutes to get eight hours of batteries. Well, here's what I know. Yeah, but I can do that on my MotoX. He can. Because that's actually a Qualcomm thing. It's a Qualcomm thing. It's a Qualcomm's a world. We're all just living in it. So,

wow. The thing is, it doesn't get, it doesn't quite achieve the battery life. And it's got a way faster processor, way more RAM, much higher resolution camera, and it performs worse than this beautiful piece of art that I have right here made by the same company. Right. So Deeter has a new metal action. It's a black front

and woodback, walnut back. It is beautiful. So that's what I'm going to try. You should get that. This camera is. I mean. I mean, you know, Dieter will kill you. Went from dumpster fire. Dumpster fire. That camera does suck. We all, Casey Newton was in town this week, and we all went to dinner last night.

And we, like, at one point I came back and it's like, Ross, how's dinner? How's going? He's like, it's great. Deeter's been trying to take a picture for like 15 minutes. Accurate. Like, you just couldn't do it. No, but Deeter was so happy when he got the MotoX. I am still happy.

And it's a beautiful phone, except for this camera. camera and then you hold the droid turbo and it's like this is why I mean this phone in here and I will say this to you this phone is the greatest argument for net neutrality ever made yeah right because this is what happens when you let Verizon do things and they don't know how it has a faster processor and it screws up scrolling in Chrome it has more RAM and when you move things up and down on the screen it like goes why why does that phone do that I don't know if someone if you're an engineering can tell me why the jelly scrolls it's effect exists on this phone.

Please tell me. Maybe they did it on purpose, like the back of the phone. Is it skin? Like someone made this decision. It's like doing this haptic thing all day. The little lusy thing? Yeah, love it.

You like haptic feedback? I like this. I like you. Oh God. The pipe check haptic feedback, I jailbreak for that shit. I think our podcast is over for the week, everybody. I think we've, we once again. We're in the red.

We're like, we're standing at the line. It's like, we're just at our, our feet. We're just staring at it. Better call Saul premieres in February. That's something. All right. Let's move on. We should there are two things to talk about. Okay.

Chris, Gambler's choice. We actually have to talk about Uber, but we can do that before or after we talk about cereal and podcasts. Let's get Uber out of the way. All right. All right. Yeah. Deid, you want to do the Uber news?

Uber has an asshole problem. Yeah. Okay. So, I saw that headline from Matthew Glacias. Yeah. So there was a dinner that was supposedly off the record, but nobody told Buzzard Reporter. And if someone doesn't tell you something's off the record, guess what? It's not. And at this dinner, an Uber executive, whose name I forget Michael, something Michael.

Anyway, he intimated that it would be a great idea for Uber to spend a million dollars to dig up dirt on a reporter, Sarah Lacey from Pandot Daily. and in addition, it also came out that Uber has a god mode where they can, if anybody wants to, the executives at the company, you can go and look at people's movements in Uber when they've taken an Uber. And so there's privacy issues, there's being a huge jerk to the press issues, there's all sorts of insane things. And Uber's CEO issued a non-apology apology. and it's just like this is like par for the course for this company, which has done lots of things like this. This just broke on BuzzFeed.

Uber has in recent weeks, I just exquisite this one. Uber has in recent weeks sought to hire opposition researchers to weaponize facts to use against the taxi industry, according to a confidential recruiting document obtained by BuzzFeed News and confirmed by the company. So they are doing this opposition research thing, right? They hired David Plath, who's like the Obama campaign man. manager. Yep. And he's running an opo campaign against their political opponents, which is probably

where this idea came from, right? We can run an oppo campaign against taxi, which is fair, because that's a political lobby. But running it against a journalist seems like a huge dick move. And I think that's the Uber problem, right? They have no limits on their behavior. Right. It's also a really gross misunderstanding of what journalism is.

Like I can see how somebody who is at that company is like, well, it's game meets game. Like you write about me and I write about you, not understanding what journalism is or what a public service is or like writing for an audience that needs to hear things is. It's just, I mean, that feels like it's just slander if you're going to go after a person for literally nothing but to expose dirt on them. Right, right. It's, I mean, it's like you said, it's gross. I mean, when I wrote down is gross, but gross. Well, the problem is that Uber is, let me ask you a question. No one.

I ask you this question, Chris Platt. Okay. Is Uber a technology company? I already know your answer to this. I know. I know you do. But tell the people. I think it has aspirations to be a technology company.

Right. I do. I think it is there right now. I mean, it is in the sense that it did the app and other people didn't. Yeah. And the app is technology. But I think it has ambitions to be something much more. Yeah.

This is actually, I don't know if you want to do the lead-in right now, but it's leading into our podcast conversation. That's way too soon. We'll bump back on to it. Okay. But we'll bring that back up. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think Uber is kind of not, right? I think they built this back end, which is cool. Yeah. But they don't actually do the next thing that you would do if you know where everyone in a city is going, which is like tell drivers where to be. Right?

It's basically like drivers get an iPhone. The iPhone has an app and you push the button if the driver happens to be around, they can come pick you out. and there's some like rating stuff and then some extraordinarily opaque surge pricing stuff which is their fault right if they would just tell you

instead of like making drunk people do math which is stupid like a stupid design decision if they would just tell you this is will cost more well they yeah I mean they do it now but isn't at first but you can get an estimate you can like I'm gonna go there that's like 15 clicks away

yeah well right I mean like Uber just doesn't tell you how much it's going to cost at no point in like the basic Uber experience is like it predicting cost part of the flow. Right. And then when it's surge pricing, it's like, well, we haven't told you how much the baseline is, but this will be 3.7X. And it's like, yeah, okay. And they're like, but confirm the 3.7X.

And that's why people are confused. They're like, that sounds reasonable. I bet this isn't going to be cheap. And then it's like $700. Yeah. And like that's just their problem, right? Their problem is they don't really, they haven't done the rest of the work. They've done all the work to be huge, and now they're, like, being really aggressive, being huge.

And then when people point out that they're assholes or that the flow of their technology is, like, reflective of fact, their assholes, they respond by being bigger assholes. Right. And that's, like, if you want to be a technology company, which I think that they do, what they should actually do is, like, go to a place where their dominance is related to how good their technology is instead of how, like, how much of a jerk they are. Yeah, I mean, I'm just waiting for nice Uber or New York City to get an app out. Yeah. Like, that's what's frustrating about this. That's never going to happen. Yeah, but I mean, I mean, who knows?

Maybe I'm not realistic, but like I would rather pay the current New York City taxi rate and know like that the company is treating people okay. Well, that's the thing is Uber does not treat the drivers well. Drivers are a suit, like they get told that they're going to get a pay to a certain amount. and they don't get paid that at all. This was the story I did about veterans. They also have been pushing drivers to take these loans for cars that were basically subprime and they couldn't afford them. It was a bad idea for to take these loans. They are just bad actors all around, but they have, they got to a better app before anybody else.

And then they have aggressively, through these tactics, Operation Svog 2, gotten bigger than everybody else. And so they're trying to win just by having scale. Right. It's like the Walmartization of taxis. But it's also like, and I don't know, we've been talking about this on and off. The whole staff isn't talking on and off.

And I've stolen all of my points from the whole staff. None of these are mine. Sorry guys. No, but like they have like God view or God mode, right? Where you can like look at, they have parties where they put famous people up on the screen and be like, here's where Britney Spears is in Uber right now. Or here's her last Uber ride.

And it's like, that's crazy. Right? And like what that reflects is an idea that the rules that govern like virtual worlds and software should also be the rules that govern real life. And it's not true. Which, yeah, is I think it's something that is a bigger issue that needs to go both ways too. But that's the Uber thing. Like Uber is the ultimate expression of we can do it. So we're going to.

For sure. Well, I think Twitter and other social media also have a different version of that where it's like we're going to apply a lot of public laws. And not have to, basically so we don't have to worry about shit. Right. So it means maybe a reverse. But I think. I see Twitter especially, but also other social media companies, at least they, at a bare minimum, they have a veneer of trying to do the right thing and having nothing's policy. In a lot of cases, there's actually some, like, real.

I mean, Twitter wants to do the right thing behind that. Yeah. Right. That's Twitter's aspiration. Uber, like, wants to make you feel like a pimp. That's, like, a thing that they say. Yeah. They have like services where like hot chicks pick you up.

Like, oh yeah. And they partner with like people, they partner with different companies of like, here, a tank is going to pick you up. You just bring a tank. Right. Hype check Uber and a tank. That's bust. Hype check Uber right now. Not in a good place, man.

Ooh, rough. It's rough. All right. Make your podcast segue. Okay. So my segue for this, how is it going to do it? Well, I'll start and we'll work my way there. We want to talk about serial, but there's another podcast out there that I think everybody should listen to that is similar.

Yeah. Have you heard of startup? Yeah. Startup is great. Alex Bloomberg, who did, what is it, Planet Money, and now is documenting his process of starting up his own podcast network. Right. And it's great. It feels a lot like serial in that he is telling you the through line of the story, but then you'll enter-cut,

interviews or it'll be like, hey, here's a conversation that are recorded with my wife. Or here's an ad from Mailchip. What's their ad company in this nerd wallet is the one they have? Mail Kim. Can I just read? I actually use MailChimp. Well, you did the whole part of the ending. I love MailChimp.

That's great. Can I just interrupt this to read this story? They just run off a business inside. Good. Welcome with Virgecast. Watch us read the internet. No, no, here we go. Over the weekend, Business Insiders Office.

This was robbed. I feel bad for them. Oh, no. Fortunately, most of her equipment is safely locked up, but everything that wasn't nailed down, a computer, two digital cameras, a Google TV, a DSLR, some smartphones at high-ed-end phones,

was jacked. Well, almost everything. The flip cam was outlying in plain sight. Oh, man. It was bright orange. The thief sought, but couldn't be bothered to take it. Wow. Remember flip cam?

Wow. Sorry. All right, carry on. That is something. Or flip cams. You know, one time at CS, I got under a huge argument with Chris Grant about the size, the potential size of like the Sony bloggy camera market. I didn't remember what the argument was right.

We were like drunk. We were in a casino. And like, I was like, this is why tech is so much bigger than games, man. They're going to sell so many bloggy cams. I could literally smell beer on your video. And Grant was like, I just don't, I don't think you're right about that. When you're right. And here we are now.

I don't think that's the way it's going to turn. I don't think so. I was like, you don't even know, man. People are going to buy the hell out of those bad. Bad. I like to practice my arguments on other people. I cannot wait for my first CES. You are just really getting me hyped up.

It's coming, by the way. Yes, Mites are going out. We've been doing lots of planning. All right. Please continue your podcast discussion on our podcast. Yeah. I'm, there was somehow that it connected to Uber.

promise but it doesn't matter so here's the news hook serial has been is now like the most popular podcast ever it's been downloaded five million times or streamed five million times said asses apple everyone loves it there's podcasts about a podcast which is amazing we are on this podcast talking about podcasts about a podcast

what I remember the connection okay okay so in the show and this isn't a spoiler I think it's like the first or second episode he's talking to a big investor and the investor's like The startup podcast is what you're talking. And he's like, I think it has to be a technology company. And he's like, it can't just be a podcast.

Here are all the things that you could do on top of it. And it's basically taking data or adding in a cool app or doing all those things. And where I was thinking with Uber is it hasn't had that phase. It hasn't had that like taking the data and using it for, I mean, what Google would do is like marketing. Or taking that data and using it for the extra stream of cash. It's going to cover them. Fixed podcasts, which is a weird mess of files and streaming. Yeah, well, and that's what startup is doing.

Yeah, because it's like, this is silly. You're just getting in an MP3 from an RSS feed on iTunes. Well, what I'm saying, so that's the interesting thing. And I think this actually, like, you know, Uber just did like a partnership with Spotify. Like podcasts are really popular because people listen to them in cars. Like Sarah Kainey was like, we wanted something that people would listen to in their cars. Like, we wanted to make a Netflix serialized drama for communities. So we're going to do this long running thing.

And that's like a fascinating way to think about a show. But as someone who's been doing a podcast for a long time, like what's the all of the back end of the business of this is completely up in the air. And what you're seeing right now is it's like rush of innovation because there are no fixed ways of doing it in all the ways of doing it kind of don't make money. Right? Like, it's great that Mail Kemp is probably like now the world. You said it so seriously.

World's most spots, literally, I think. You know, it's actually my favorite thing about it too. Right now is that I always listen to it at 1.5x speed. Yeah, me too. And so... Oh, that's a good life hack. Because I listened to the first episode and it was like 50 minutes long. And I was like, oh, man.

You're like, I'm going to die soon. I couldn't possibly. And I've only listened to the first episode. Yeah. Everybody, everybody that listens to the podcast listens that fast. I mean, I like it at the pace that they make that because I went back and listening to some of it. I went back and listened to it.

But it's funny because the music is. bed up to you and yeah and i got really disoriented by the music it just felt like like slow and creepy like you were going into like a bad horror movie yeah and i was like oh this is supposed to be ominous it's not supposed to be jaunty link this is a story about a murder right yeah it all makes sense now um but the back end is crazy like metrics on a podcast are impossible to get yep you know how many people put it on rsss feed and there's no way to track rssfes because google bot feed burner and then just let it die Yep.

And so they just, like, files go out and who knows. Guys, if you watch the Vergecast tweet, I watched the hashtag Vergecast. I need to watch slash listen to Serial on 1.5X. What app do you recommend? I just use the podcast tab. And you can adjust the time in the app? Yeah. Yeah.

This is like, I think, now, like a baseline feature of podcast. I didn't know that. So as long as we're talking about podcasts, I didn't know what we could tease this, but I totally can. have an entire top shelf episode about podcasts coming out the day after Thanksgiving, including an interview with the people behind the startup podcast. What? Why didn't you tell me?

Because I didn't know that I could because it was a big secret. And now you know. That's great. She'll listen to that podcast before you read this because it's great. Well, no, I just think it's funny. I think that we, you know, last time we had this big conversation about unbundling and media. And like, I think we're just in a moment where like, I think, we're just in a moment where, like, Everything on the internet is like the 90s again.

It's like Slack is like really popular, but it's like AOL chat rooms. Like it's just, we're coming back around to a bunch of old ideas of media because it turned out some of them are really good. Coming back around to all the good ideas from the 90s media except for the open web. That one, not so much. It's not coming back. Look, the 90s were great. Hive check the 90s. The best.

What? How old were you? Zero through 10. I was born on June 19th, 1990. I mean, like I would like to say like the 80s were the best, but just, Zero through 10 is not a... That's how old I was in the 80s. You're right.

You're right. I was 2 through 12 in the 80s, so I'm good. I can count... I mean, I have some fond 80... Anyway, whatever. I'm saying it's... 80s are Mustangs and Mullets. What are you talking about?

That's the 80s, Mustangs and Mullets. Hype check the 80s. I don't know. It wasn't around. How can you hype check the 90s but not be able to hype check the 80s based on effectively the same amount of cultural influence? The 80s was like top gun.

And back to the future. Are you, who are you looking at? The people. The camera. That was really upsetting. He's like, he's finally gone off the defense. Sam, Sam just confidently staring into nothing and being like, the 80s was about Top Gun. Thumbs up.

The 80s was about Top Gun. And I own Top Gun and Blu-ray. And it was great. That's all I'm saying. I was going to say something. Oh, podcast. No, I think it's crazy that, like, radio is as a form of. Coming back, the shadow knows.

And I think it's... It makes me mad. It doesn't... What? Why? Because I never stopped listening to podcasts. Like, everyone's like, oh. You're just the coolest theater.

Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. There's the audience that could potentially pay for more of these good things. Knowledge Bowl, okay? Oh, yeah, boy. I have deep-seated issues that are completely obvious to everybody. More than a minute. What's your relationship with your fault?

They're like, actually, he's really good. That's nice. He's a really nice guy. Spitt an image of Alan Alda, actually. Really? Yeah, he's really good. Alon is a beautiful man. What the listener can't see is how jauntily

Dieter picked up his beer and was like, spit an image of Alta. You ever seen Match? Suicide is painless, you see? That one's a song. Have you ever seen MASH, Sam? The movie or the TV show? Do you know what MASH is?

All I know it's that it's branded in all caps with asterisks. What does MASH stand for? Hype check. I don't... I really... Oh, acronyms are... Accronoms are cool.

Lull. What does the show go every week? Wow. Let's we just... Yeah, I think we can wrap it from that. I think acronyms wall is pretty much... A real of commentary on everything we've done today. Here's some news that just broke a little bit.

Why does news keep breaking during the Vergecast? Stop it. It didn't broke last night, but our guys are arguing about it. Okay. Sony might be killing the Steve Jobs movie. but Universal might be picking it up. Interesting. Who is the latest jobs in this one?

I don't know, but this movie has always seemed like a stupid idea. Wasn't this like the three different press conferences? You know. Do you want to go through it? I mean, from what I know of it, it's the writer of the newsroom. Yes. Also West Wing. Yeah, he did some other step, but let's focus on the newsroom.

The social network. Also, Sports Night. You know what, Sports Night, overrated? With the laugh track, yeah, sure Both ways. Okay, we're not going to get into it right here, but it's in the movie. It's like before the Apple 2 announcement, the iPod and the iPad. Right.

Is that it? And Lisa Jobs' like other first daughter that he refused to acknowledge paternity of is apparently the heroin, according to Aaron Circon. Interesting. So I would, I mean, just the idea that... I mean, not necessarily. If he knows, like, they're, she's not like a public figure. Maybe he doesn't actually.

Maybe he knows more about her story than we do. Backstage before the iPod being announced and have Lisa, Brennan Jobs be there. She might know, he might know more about her involvement in that thing than you do. That's fair. I just don't think she was backstage at that. Or it just makes great storytelling and it's just a great device to get the story of it out. Yeah, it's the Macintosh, something, something. Somebody might hear it explained it to me.

It's the Mac, the next, and the iPod. Oh, yeah. By the way. But if you think, like, that is not, and it's just the, the final problem I have. Have you watched the iPod reveal on video? Like, it's out there on YouTube? Yeah.

It's like, it's weird. It's like the tiny, it's like about the size of where we're sitting right now. And like Steve Jobs is like standing on a stage and it's like, like, like, imagine like the distance from you to me and like the iPod is getting announced in front of you. That's what it looks like. It's crazy. And like, just like quiet, no giant production. Just like Steve Job walks out in front of a room full of people. I was like, hey, guys, this thing is cool.

Yeah. No, I mean, the thing like that is out. Yeah. But it's not like, how do you make this movie and not have the iPhone in it? Like, just in any way, shape, or form. How do you make this movie and not have the iPhone? Yeah. Right?

Like, the iPhone is the thing that, like, transform this business. I'm going to, I'm going to pull it back a little bit. Yeah. I'm going to guess it's just me. Even though not all the newsroom is great. Yeah. Aaron Sorkin is a master storyteller. Sure is.

who understands where to put act breaks and has a very specific narrative. I have a counterpoint. No, me my guess. I have a counterpoint. That has nothing to do with the object. It has everything to do with the person. Newsroom season two. There's my counterpoint.

I haven't watched the newsroom. But I think he gets how to do. I mean, who would have thought the social network would be a good movie? The dude knows how to write a story. It's a very good movie, ma'am. You know how you save this movie? You don't make it? College kids singing acapella.

Hit it, Rockefeller. Where in the world is... Now we're done with the podcast. Now we are 100% done at this podcast. Sammy, you've ever seen an episode of We're in the World of Carlin San Diego? I played the game. You played the game. Oh, wait. Are you trolling me right now?

No, I'm legitimately asking you. Dude, I need to close my laptop for this. What's going to happen? When, so... In April. In April. No, no, no. This is a good story.

In April, I was walking in the streets of the fine city of New York. I saw Carmen San Diego. I took a picture of this woman. I took a picture of this woman wearing. You took a picture of a woman who didn't know. Yes, I have no shame. You creepshotted a fictional. Yeah, and she was wearing the hat and the coat, okay?

And a few days later, I submitted it to Reddit and it was number one overall. You're welcome. Surprise. A photo of a woman who didn't know she was getting a photo taken. never no no no no the story the story gets better there's a reason the story the story wait wait wait wait i want to hear the rest of the story so so it was number one on reddit and it was awesome and my title was i found her and it got upvoted a lot and it was on the front page of reddit and it was literally number one overall and i have a screenshot okay and just yesterday i was looking through old

photos because nathan psychert we were just okay i will say no wait let me finish the story So I tweeted. I was like throwback to this awesome moment and I was just like total, this is a total brag. I was number one on Reddit. Then there is a BuzzFeed story that comes out yesterday and it was like 24 reasons these humans got out of bed or something. And the first photo in this list was my picture. Did you get credit? No.

Did you read it everyone. Oh, I found your picture. Yeah, I'm looking right at it. By the way, this is apparently a meme. of creepshodding women in hats on Reddit and saying it's carbon San Diego. I didn't know that. That was a meme. I submitted it to our funny.

So thank you, everyone. Thank you. It was just a wild coincidence that I tweeted about it. The author, I actually tweeted at him, nice dude seemingly. He didn't see that I tweeted,

and it was just super ironic. Samantha Mason, actually, someone on our legal staff tweeted at me last night. She was like, did you see this butt feed post? And I was just like... Didn't we hear this story already? I'm done. I'm just saying like isn't I it was exciting.

It was a crazy coincidence that you brought up Carmen San Diego and this whole thing happened in the last 24 hours. I enjoyed your story. I like your story too. Look guys. I got the coin beta here. Hype check coin beta. It's cool. It works.

It was really buggy when I was trying to like sink it and activate it. But after you get it, it just works like a credit card and it's cool. All right. I left my, I've left my wallet in on my desk today and got lunch. You, you should have said El Sondon. All right. It's a different joke. Okay.

Wow, even Dieter didn't understand that. Oh, well, yeah. It's a good song. But anyway. Yeah. That was our show. Great. Where in time is Carmen Sandie?

As always, it stumbled to a close. And I think that's fine. Fingernails breaking off to get to the finish line. Please. Please go back in time. and stop yourself from listening to this and then tell that person to rate us on iTunes. Yes. So there are many ways to communicate with us.

You can tweet at us. You can leave a comment in the post. The way that we wish for you to communicate with us is by opening iTunes. Do us that favor. I know it hurts. Leave us a review. Five stars. Give Chris that fifth star.

What are people going to write about on iTunes this week? I think on iTunes, they should tell us a story. of the next time Sam meets Carmen San Diego. I think that's... I think that's... I think that's... Fan fiction about Sam's meeting...

Fan fiction about Sam meeting Carmen San Diego, I think it's a really... Wait, is this a Carmen San Diego I saw in the street or like the fictional... Any. Sure. Sam, here's the thing about creativity. All right? It's some... In some moments... You don't need rules. You know, you create a box.

And then that... You fill it in. You create a corner, a pipe, and... Yeah. You work out? Are you painting the floor? Actually, you can do two things. There are two choices. God.

Because this is a question that I actually need the answer to. Two choices. One, you can tell a story about Sam meeting Carmen San Diego and whichever way you want. And keep it G rated. Please. I would prefer a PG-13. Oh, gee, please. So there's like cursing a lot.

Please, G. Or you can tell me. Actually, make it a number. Don't do it. Or you can. tell me what the name of the area that Sam sits should be called. I like that. I like that one better. Because sweatbox is what I even go to high corner. Sweat lodge. Teen area. 13 time today and Sam sweat lodge. All right. That's it for this week. It has always been a pleasure. Add us on Snapchat,

the real verge. To be in your brain in this way or in your car, in your home, irritating the ones you love. And, you know, just being a family. And that's it. That's it. the verge. Oh, we're not, we're not back next week because of Thanksgiving. Yeah, we will be taking at least a week out for Thanksgiving. Next week we'll be giving thanks. Yeah, and then we'll be back again. That's it. Now is that. Bye!