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Overview
Even though we don’t cover all our chosen topics, we flow between talking about tech topics quite nicely. Stephen just got a new computer to put together and Alan got a new Apple Watch.
In between we discuss old computer games with new tech and we discuss using car tech in ways that hasn’t been done before.
Oh, and what about companies using tech to control their products to a degree that seems unreasonable.
And what would a discussion be without throwing in all the great new shows coming out or the ones we’ve missed and need to binge.
Recommendations
Micro Center – https://www.microcenter.com/
Apple Watch – https://www.apple.com/watch
Civ 3 – https://civilization.com/civilization-3/
GOG – https://www.gog.com/galaxy
Doctor Who – https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-features
YouTube
Transcript
[00:00:00] Stephen: Ooh, nice tie dye shirt.
[00:00:02] Alan: Exactly. You got the tie eye going. I there’s a lot of tie eye when I wear it it’s not really about concealment it’s not quite camo. Someone just commented online about, Hey girls ladies, when you wear pink camo. Exactly. What are you doing? Hiding among the flamingos or what’s the point of yeah.
[00:00:20] Stephen: Oh, Hey whatever let each their own right. Met our, a word in the universe nowadays. So I really wanna hear about this new apple watch, but I’ve got an exciting, fun update for myself. so I still got my same background. I’m still in the corner in the hallway at the moment. Okay.
You
[00:00:42] Alan: said you were working on the home office and so I was expecting to see new things. I didn’t change my doctor who yet, so I guess we’re still yeah, ,
[00:00:49] Stephen: it’s a busy summer so I do have the office I’ve been working on getting that cleared out. I got nice new air conditioner in there, so I don’t die.
I was gonna put up a scientist Skynet south I was at Microcenter last night, helping my cousin find a laptop for his grandson for biomed. He’s going in the third grade and they give these laptop requirements and I’m. Why did these third graders need a $600 laptop? Whatever, especially when there’s been several efforts to get like a hundred laptop available.
[00:01:21] Alan: know, A long time ago, a guy named Nicholas Negroponte who was known as like one of the first guys that said digital, everything, he kept exhorting, all different kinds of schools and big money people to say, this is a change of life type thing. If we can get these kinds of laptops, not only in schools, but everywhere in the world, the digital age will arrive.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Right. And then there have been a few of those. There’s a raspberry pie based one and all sorts of stuff. But I know at biomed they run a lot of software that they’ve gotten licensed for. Cause stuff that we wouldn’t normally get CAD software, a lot of video software.
[00:01:58] Stephen: Okay. So they couldn’t run it on the raspberry. They couldn’t run it. Some of it they can do on a Chromebook from my understanding is it’s horrible. Interesting.
[00:02:07] Alan: The Chromebook is probably the closest to that, where it has a lot of capability for the book and still it’s not quite perfect yet for right.
It’s the specific
[00:02:15] Stephen: things. It’s the OS more than anything, because the software is mainly written for windows and mostly Mac. So it is what it is, but I said, okay, I’m gonna wander around. First of all, they don’t have any raspberry pies. Not that I need another one I like checking all the crap out.
So I went into the computer section and I found a young man there and I said, okay I need to build a new computer. I’ve been holding off. I said, I know it’s gonna cost me about 1600 bucks, but my last one was 12 and I’m hoping to keep it low. I’m not, I’m looking for a 2018 gaming computer. Because I don’t want the newest stuff.
That’s outrageously priced, but I want something powerful. So if it was a good gaming computer in 2018, that’s about what I’m looking for. So we get your frame
[00:03:03] Alan: rate up and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Back. I
[00:03:05] Stephen: mean, I this computer here is 11 years old and it’s running zoom. It runs the video. It does the podcast, I run word and all my development software.
So I got game maker programs are there’s nothing. I haven’t been able to run on this 11 year old computer. So I’m not worried about the newest, fastest. That’s such a fallacy in today’s world, the software has not kept up with the power at all, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, he’s showing me around and he shows me like, okay we got, he was great.
You really rare to find those guys that like a car salesman or a computer guy that listens to what you say and really seems to know what he’s talking about and get you the right stuff. Instead of
[00:03:45] Alan: starting to read the script of, Hey, I have to sell this many, these this month because that’s where my commission’s gonna come from.
And he routes you into, okay. Yeah.
[00:03:53] Stephen: Okay. And I know enough that I can evaluate what he’s showing me and he’s showing me he says, okay, here’s what you may be interested. He says, this processor is about a generation. He says, but if you buy this motherboard and he says, it’s got everything you need, which, okay, let me hook up a video card, a processor, memory whatever.
He’s yeah, it’s everything you need. But if you buy the two together, you get the processor for a penny. So it was literally half price. If you bought the two together. Interesting. And I was like, okay. And he goes, Anne, we got this great sale on this memory. He says, you said 16 gigs. I said, yeah, he says, but if you get this memory and you get 32 gigs, you’re getting it for $10 more than this 16 gig.
Oh, 32 gigs of memory. That’s perfect. Wow.
[00:04:39] Alan: So it’s surprising cuz I had heard that there were supply constraints on all kinds of stuff, but I guess what you’re doing is the plug constraints are for the most current stuff. If you’re asking ’em to go into. One or two generations older they’re in the bins and they’re looking to move them to make room for the new stuff.
Yes.
[00:04:56] Stephen: Be in just a sweet spot. That’s OK. Exactly. But I looked several months ago and the shelves were almost empty. When I looked before, there was only like on the shelf, like literally eight or nine video cards that they had in the store. Wow. And now they had a ton of. So my big requirements, I said, I want dual monitors.
He says actually the motherboard will run dual monitors. I’m like, seriously, he’s
[00:05:21] Alan: Have to have a card dedicated to that or a splitter or something like
[00:05:25] Stephen: that. That’s cool. Yeah. So I was like, really? I’m like, I’ll spend the low extra and get a better video card because I might play a game.
And I know with some of the graphic stuff, it uses the GPUs and it’ll run better. I know that. Or it should. So anyway, long story short I ended up looking at all. I’m like, okay, I’m just gonna pull the plug and do it. And I got everything I need now. I don’t need monitors. I don’t need keyboard mouse.
I got camera. I got a mic. So I basically I priced it out, took the original price, which they had stickers on and the price I was rung up on, I got a $1,600 computer for a thousand bucks.
[00:06:02] Alan: Fantastic. Yeah. And that’s because he was cool because you’re knowledgeable enough to know whether you’re being BS or not.
The fact that you’re really in this interesting spot of there’s always the latest and greatest and everybody always talks about why, when did you buy your computer, buy it now because the utility you’ll get out of it instead of waiting for the next big deal, there is always another good deal coming along in six months or a year, but you don’t anyway.
It every time that I’ve pulled the trigger much as you have, I’ve been I just have to not get that fear of the future. I have to say, I need it now. It’s the best you can now. And then the clock starts ticking again, as to how long will this guy last. Equitably with what everything else can do.
Yeah.
[00:06:42] Stephen: Fantastic. And so this system I’m gonna pair it down, take software and stuff off. And a lot of the external drives are going to the new ones, so it’s gonna be, but it’s gonna become my DVR. So I’ve gotta, I’m gonna set it up and we’ll be able to stream our movies and
[00:06:57] Alan: DVR or something like that.
There’s good. Open source things for that. It’s I have done far too little of that. There was a time when each Mac mini that came in the older Mac mini became that’s my email and web and whatever server. And I did that. Not only to have it, but just to be in the practice of how do you run things at a server level?
How do you think about it when you’re not just a user, but a source to others and stuff like that? So if I’m gonna set up, I dunno, and there’s also ISPs have some restrictions on what you can do at your house. You can’t really set up an FTP server. If you’re only a, like a home account of a commercial account at you’re and then I’m worried, all I gotta do is have one thing that’s too popular.
And all of a sudden I got all this download traffic from my house, instead of anyway, it I’ve careful about that, even though I try to stay current I’m not right now running all the servers that I used to. I’ve just let ’em all off to the side. And I started using Amazon web services and for offsite storage I’m using that.
And that I’ve tried to learn how to use ISPs. Instead of being my own ISP, you know what I mean? I’m no longer having to run my own websites and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah. That’s really numbers is that’s a sweet spot for all. You got
[00:08:17] Stephen: fantastic. I figure that comes out the Whatever over 10 years, like $14 a month or something like that, you
[00:08:24] Alan: know, would you buy as components and you’re still gonna put it together or are they cause sometimes places will do it that you just point at point in point and then they’ll say, Hey, for $49 we rig for you or
[00:08:35] Stephen: something like that.
Yeah. I think it was like a hundred, hundred 50 bucks. They’d put it together, but it’s not small. Okay. Yeah. But I still en enjoy doing that to keep my thumb on a little bit toand but it really, it’s so simple to do nowadays. It’s a waste of money. Everything plugs into one spot and right.
[00:08:53] Alan: I dunno.
I remember we always talk about Hey, let’s go back in the, it really used to be, you had to know how to solder. You had to know how to put on the heat paste. You had to be really careful. Like things didn’t have only a single orientation. You really had to check and check again, to make sure that the pins were gonna go in the correct way.
Cause if you bent the pin you were just screwed. You know what I mean? Exactly. So I, the days of my doing that are also passed that it’s so I’m so much about my productivity now. I don’t tin her as much as I used to and I miss it. You know what I mean? It used to people to put on your little, the strap for static discharge and all that kinda stuff.
I was pretty conscious about it. I’ll still do stuff like change a battery out, add memory, the things where they’ve designed it so that if you can pop. So for instance, Colleen’s hard drive and her Mac laptop just failed after six or seven years. And it, of course it FLA Flad out slightly. So I was able to get a backup of everything before it totally failed.
But I, from other world computing, which is a great source for Mac stuff, I just bought like a terabyte SSD. For something like 200 bucks and I’ll put it in myself, cuz as you said, there’s a couple connectors and you really can pop the back off the map. I have a little tool set of no matter what screwdriver or tox or whatever else, the pry thing you all they do.
’em so nicely now with how well sealed they are that you really can’t open it without the special trying tool. Because that’s how it keeps all the dust out. That’s how it keeps a spill from destroying your computer because they’ve made it. But, and I know I’m all over the place here, but it’s, there’s a logical progression.
There was, there’s been ebb and flow in terms of. How much companies were hostile to letting you in, you know what? I, wow. There was a big if you do anything, you violate the warranty. And so after it was outta warranty anyway, after a year or two, and then you just go in and do things, but nowadays it’s if I get a new machine, but I can get memory for half the price, cuz that’s a lot of times where the hardware dealers do it is kinda like anywhere like a car, you buy a car and it’s the accessories that’ll kill you.
That’s where they make your money. So I’ve done all kinds of upgrades to various different things over time where it’s cool to have the special little tool set and know okay. There, here’s how they actually designed this very smartly to have inset crews that this then overlays and keeps the good seal.
[00:11:16] Stephen: Won’t it won’t strip out. Yeah. Yeah the cool thing is with the case. That the case just has a little latch and it flips open. So no with the screws and open, he says, yeah, it just flips open. He’s like the bays are hot swappable. And I’m like, see, how cool is that? Damn. Yeah. Yes. Very cool. So you mentioned,
[00:11:35] Alan: remember that turning your machine on and waiting to see if it registered, if it really did, was plug and play or listen for the Euro.
Exactly. Exactly.
[00:11:45] Stephen: So you mentioned cars real quick. There’s a thing BMW is doing, which has a lot of people up in arms, but it’s where things are going. For a BMW, they have multiple high end accessories that you can get that a lot of cars don’t have. For example, they have dynamic wiper blades that they will go faster or slower, depending on how hard the rain is.
They have lights in the front that as you turn on your blinker and start to turn left, they swivel. So you can see the turn ahead of you instead of just staying straight. They have heated seats. A lot of people have heated seats. But those packages, when you buy it they’re four, five, $800, whatever, when you buy the car, so you buy all those things and you’re $20,000 car, $40,000 car becomes a $55,000 car for all the things added.
Like you said what BMW is doing now is you buy the car for 40,000. If you want the heated seats you subscribe to a monthly thing to have heated seats. See, I’m
[00:12:44] Alan: just reading about this. Yeah. Like the subscription model is very powerful for things that it’s appropriate for. I really have no problems with Adobe continuing to improve their software.
And instead of having decide every five years, is it improved enough that I wanna buy it? I don’t mind the little Nick every year to make sure that I have their state of the art, most features, best virus fighting all of it. You know what I mean? So Microsoft Adobe, if there’s any number of big providers do that, but then you get into what’s the difference between hardware and software.
Like we were just talking about really my heated seat is gonna improve or change so much that I subscribe to the service of heated seats instead of buying heated seats. That, that just pushes up against this.
[00:13:27] Stephen: And when you have a car that’s 10, 12, 15 years old. Cause. BMWs. Don’t always get driven every day.
They’re more pleasure. They last longer so if you have a 20 year old BMW, you’re like I’ve just spent like $5,000 over 20 years to have heated seats. , you
[00:13:44] Alan: know? And that’s I we can approach this in so many different ways. I do my investing. One of the things that you often read about the companies that are doing that transition is how I important it is to have recurring revenue streamed then instead of lumpy income and stuff like that, based on how many sales or market forces and stuff like that, anything that you can do to have a magazine subscription.
We know for the next two years, we’re gonna have this income coming in because either we’re gonna get recurring renewals or it’s designed because we know it’s a recurring thing is that’s how they declare their income and a nice, smooth, upwards income curve is so much better than a jagged thing.
It inspires. Investor confidence, if you will. And so I’m into a hundred different companies and a lot of them make perfect sense. I really want my cloud security to always be state of the art, fighting a good flight, and I’m willing to pay for making sure that they’re staying there with recurring never.
And it’s, I’m gonna buy a set of JTS and I’m gonna have different aerodynamics maybe in the tips. And then what’s funny is they have a recurring revenue stream, but it’s that you are obligated to be the one that plugs the jar into the USB port to keep it that way. So you’re paying for something that you might not even have if you don’t yourself, do due diligence about making sure that you’re set up to have it, do it automatically, or plug it into the right board.
So there’s chicanery going on there and I’ll tell you, BMW is a rarefied enough atmosphere that are out of our thousands of listeners. Maybe three of them have BMWs. Everybody has an HP printer. HP just had big, bad news about they many places that they also do the What’s called the razor blade model.
They’ll sell you the razor for cheap and the blades is where they make their money. And it used to be that you could have an HP printer and there still were third party cartridges that would work within it. And then they started to do it that the cartridge that you might buy, it would come up with an error code because now it’s not just dust in a toner cartridge, it’s got little chips that cooperate coordinate between what’s going on.
Then it would say, Hey, not official HP product. We won’t let you use this cartridge. You’re not working. The latest thing is that it disabled their printer, that now that you’ve got printers that are either on the internet or via the via wifi, Bluetooth, etcetera, talking to the internet, when it sees a bad cartridge, it’ll say you violated the HPE user agreement that nobody ever reads.
Cuz it’s 16 pages long, but one of them says you won’t use third party cartridges and they’ll actually your whole printer down from afar. And that’s one step too far, right? That’s true. Evil. You have the ability to turn off something that I bought and I didn’t know I was obligated have this subscription haha.
Service it’s maddening. And I hope HP gets a huge black eye and pulls back from this because if it was that there really was science and. Specificity that went into their cartridge is that if you use a third party cartridge, you might wreck your printer. We know that we’re the only ones that could make the good cartridge and here’s why, and if they explained that to me, and it was really true that certain parts only fit certain things, I could get it.
That’s BS. There’s so many, there’s so few new moving parts
[00:16:49] Stephen: to it because what, what would happen? No we’ve talked about our corporate America. What would happen is they’d say, okay, now we’ve got everybody locked into our cartridges. We, they can’t use anybody else’s so what can we do to make our cartridges cheaper?
And maybe 10% of ’em will ruin printers and they won’t work, but we don’t care.
[00:17:07] Alan: And yeah, exactly. The Pinto idea, you know how we’re gonna get a certain amount of deaths it’s okay. We right. And unfortunately that’s the problem and all these cloud services I did not like the idea of the Xbox PlayStation going to.
[00:17:23] Stephen: Digital only with the cloud because they are in control of that. And I have had me and my cousin have a game Titan fall that we love we’ve played together even now it’s 10 years old or whatever. And I got a new system, we got a new system and we were like, okay, let’s play Titan fall. Oh no, we can’t any longer because they took it off the store.
And wait a second. I paid for that. It doesn’t matter. It’s off the store as long
[00:17:49] Alan: as you owe me that obligation. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. See, that’s a little weird. I hate I think, did we talk about this last time or maybe I just talked with someone. I get a lot of things through steam and a lot of things through geog, good old game, whatever.
And the same thing. I’m happy to have a big repository for all the things that I might want to get to. And yes, if it’s on the cloud I, there’s a possibility like with apple music and stuff like that, where all of a sudden, a piece of my music disappears because they’re having a dispute over who really owns that song.
I, I bought it on a CD. I digitized it. And yet now I can’t listen to it even though it’s mine. You’ll and so I think I mentioned what I thought I mentioned last time was I play civilization. I play older versions because I find them to be a better combination of the parameters and how much work I want put into it.
And how much resource management C3 three. Exactly. Yeah. I just noticed playing C three that now on certain squares where there’s like a a Delta that a river joins the ocean, that now there’s a little effect where instead of just being kinda like the standard blue line for a river, going into the deeper blue of an outside body water, there’s.
Home there, like that’s where you’re gonna have a little bit of rapids or activity at an estuary or something like that. And I’m like, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see that before. and it’s cool because it’s an improvement, but it means that they can change things under my feet. I thought nobody was touching civilization street still.
What? You know what I mean? Whenever you see something that’s just enough different. It’s I thought this was just a commodity now and you’re gonna leave it to
[00:19:25] Stephen: change it, to make it worse. Here’s the question though is. Just because you have a newer, faster computer with better graphics, because a lot of those older games, you could set levels of graphics.
Maybe it Def when you reinstalled or whatever this latest time it detected better graphics and went to the ultra high. So you get little effects.
[00:19:43] Alan: That is a great idea. And I actually checked for that, that I already had it maxed out in terms of anti aliasing and texture mapping and whatever else it might be.
And if I were playing a first person shooter that really does change the game, you really get cool fog of war effects and stuff like that. Civilization is just primitive enough. It’s not blocky like Minecraft or something like that, but it didn’t have anything the only moving parts, if you will, were watching your units move, not watching the trees blow on the belt or whatever.
Anyway, it and when something like that changes in the back of my mind, I’m going, oh God, what else did they, I’m gonna now find out that, oh, suddenly Cavalry men are more pot
[00:20:25] Stephen: potent, right? We rebalanced all the forces. Exactly. Cause we got, yeah. Now I’m
[00:20:29] Alan: gonna have, I don’t mind relearning how to do it, but it, to me, one of the things is you gotta notify your users.
Hey, this is version 3.1 0.1. And we made a few tweaks when I played Diablo. For instance, they’re very good about coming out with all the various different things about, Hey we added some new weapons and we changed some old weapons. So that now this actually has more ethereal force or whatever else it might be.
And I just don’t, I, I guess some part of it is people are very accepting of things changing under their feet because Facebook has been doing it forever. There’s any number of social media that they’re continually updating and tweaking and it’s not even the same for all users. They kinda. Leak it out to sets of servers over the course of time.
And it isn’t even that it’s a permanent upgrade. They do AB testing so that you, they can see, are we gonna get more hits, more user engagement if we do this or this, and then the winner stays and the other one goes away. So people who liked the other one are like, oh, I, what happened? I thought they had changed that now they changed it back or they needed to do another thing.
So that’s the whole way of saying, I guess we’re all getting used to right. Having that landscape shift. And yet it’s kinda I dunno, we’re creatures of. We pay attention to our environment. And after a while you tune out two thirds of it, because you’d go mad. If you didn’t, when you’re, you can’t continually pay equal attention to everything. And so it’s while you’re driving along and all of a sudden, like a whole mall that used to there was torn down. It’s
[00:21:54] Stephen: didn’t that used to be a
[00:21:56] Alan: projo and now it’s a mens or something.
[00:21:58] Stephen: Where did my trees go? Why is there a house there
[00:22:03] Alan: sometimes it’s for the good that they really do new and improved. And there’s things there that there used to be nothing at this exit. And now they’ve sprung up that little crop of category, killer restaurants or whatever else it might be.
But other times it’s, I dunno I have no problems with those things change. I get that. And yet there’s certain situations where I don’t want to have to put more mind share into relearning, something that I thought I already knew. So people talk about that whenever they change Photoshop.
The pallets change. What’s where changes. And I always liked one of the cool things I liked about the apple interface was they had not straight jackets, but pretty good standards about it’s always file edit they had a good menu system and what went in various different menus and nowadays where at that thing of, okay, I’m gonna, I have update my software.
So where is it? Is it under file? Is it under help? Is it within dialogue boxes for preferences? The fact that I have to go searching for it instead of them having of standardized on the way you always update is to go under the help menu and say, check for updates. I like when people do seem to put it where I would, where it’s to be the most logical place.
when they don’t, it’s I, and now I don’t wanna remember. I don’t try to remember where they put it. I always just say, I don’t have to search for this. I know that it won’t be where I’m gonna look for the first place and that, that little thing of, yeah. And. I have a thing called Mac updater that actually does that for me.
And we can there’s been over the course of time, various different places have their own auto updaters. And I really like that. And nowadays they keep themselves updated. They do a quick check and they say, Hey, version 1.1 is available. And most of the time they’ll notify, you can actually often in preferences, check a box that says, go ahead and do minor level things in the background.
Tell me about major like whatever the dot release, the point release. I’m trying to think what usual terms they have for that. And I like having my things updated because most of the time it isn’t as disconcerting to have something change, as it is reassuring to say, good, you got your latest antivirus stuff in there.
You’ve got the latest level of encryption or whatever else it might be. And having said that my Mac updater, that does all different kinds of things automatically. It also will come up and say, okay, this one is nonstandard. And so we’re gonna have to send you to their update or their launcher for their updater.
And then we will just be aware that you’ve updated it. It’s interesting to see how many different ways there still are to do that. That I thought that we were finally getting to the smart way in, in the windows world is to use this particular package that does not only applying the update, but updates the data as an auto conversion of data or and like that used to be a difficult problem and then they solved it. And I guess maybe it’s good that there are multiple ways to do that because that way you have competition, always driving things forward. And so I, it’s interesting to see at least that there’s still, my Mac updater is a variation on Mac update, which is really you’re gonna do that.
But Mac update stopped being current. And that’s another thing is if I had a subscription to this and then because I changed to my M one Mac and it decided to not run on an M one, they didn’t put the resources into making a new version run on that. It’s I just paid you $35. Like, how can you leave me behind?
I hope to them saying, Hey, how about a refund and got no response? And so it’s no wonder I changed a Mac. Updater because when you do that kind of bad business, I won’t do business with you ever again. You know what I mean? You booked me and they’re still out there. They’re still out there, but they, as you might pay updates, all your max software and then down here in the little click on the about box type stuff, as it’ll say we have limitations and some of them, or we don’t fully support.
And after the M two have been out for a couple years, then it’s your excuse, you bought not being current with the M one. That’s not bullshit because you had two, three years to fix it. Yeah. You’re going
[00:25:56] Stephen: so well. You mentioned about the auto updates and all that. And then steam and Gog. The, I’ve got, obviously both steam will keep everything updated.
You can tell it not to then it’ll alert you when updates come, but it pretty much will update stuff all the time. When there is one go. Has the best of both worlds. They have now, I don’t know if you use it, but go galaxy that. Yes, you have. Yeah. You can tie
[00:26:23] Alan: that it’s own app on your desktop and then.
Just like steam in. Yes. Yeah. It’s cool that they do the integration where you can say, I also play games on steam and epic and whatever other yes. And they’ll all be through the Gog interface, which is very
[00:26:36] Stephen: handy. It all it is. But then you look at it and go, how many games do I own? How, what, how many there are there?
Wow. That’s true too. I need to filter this song, but yeah,
[00:26:47] Alan: I remember buying that intending to play it. Oh man.
[00:26:51] Stephen: that was a great dollar 50 there . But the, but go also. They got the galaxy, which is kinda like steam and it’ll update things automatically. It’ll ask you. And it does it in the background and installs your games and cloud.
That’s the, oh my God. Playing the old stuff from the nineties with cloud saves. That’s amazing.
[00:27:11] Alan: That’s know, they have taken out some of the pain of wow. I just put an hour and a half into this and then something crapped out and I have to go back to square one. Oh no,
[00:27:20] Stephen: or better yet I can play Warcraft, ORs and humans here and then go down on my laptop and pick up where I left off, exactly. That’s amazing. Yeah. But go, also, if you go to the website, you can literally download the executable or zip files and save them locally and it won’t get updated. It won’t get touched. You can install it and it’s yours that’s, and it’s not just all the old games. They have some new stuff on there, too.
It with the DRM free and all that. So all this stuff where they. Controlling it, which I understand I’m not belittling that, but go is showing that you don’t have to do that. Especially with the old stuff. It’s seriously, this game’s 30 years old. You gotta have that type of control on it.
[00:28:04] Alan: That’s right. In fact, until I switch to like civilization version of steam, so the on steam I still had to have my civilization CD disc in the drive. Cause it checks that damaged sector or whatever, special magic, hidden thing it did. To let you go in and wow. Of all the things I’m gonna keep in a CD drive.
It’s not. Music. It’s not investing data. It’s my civilization three discs. So I could play this game that I’m an addict to, those a little weird yeah.
[00:28:35] Stephen: Or that’s a great thing about Gog too. All those old games where you had to go to page 74, paragraph six and look up the word to put in there. They have the manuals and they have usually like just a page list.
Here’s all the ones you might be asked. Some of these stories, when you try to explain it to the next generations, they’re like, really, you put up with that. It’s we don’t have a choice different times. And people really were hing much more there were whole markets in what’s the area in Japan called the Gesu where they like had just CDs and DVDs loaded with software that had copy protection stripped off of it.
[00:29:15] Alan: And we were finding out that Sales were attentive, what they could be. So there was a certain amount of, for music, for games, et cetera, a need to fight back against that. But then the world shifted to what’s it got better and in all the right ways. So we don’t have to worry about that.
But there was a time when you really had to worry about what region your disc was, cause things that wouldn’t run in your VCR. You had to worry about the chips that had specific copy protection in them. As I, as we mentioned, probably I dunno, 10 episodes ago when I had an HDCP error thrown up by my Roku box for either Hulu or Netflix, it was multiple Amazon cetera, where it said, Hey, you’re, there’s copy protection on this.
And we don’t think that you are a legitimate conduction because there were enough devices in between them talking directly to the. And wow, I haven’t, I’m glad I haven’t seen evidence of this for a long time. I’m not doing anything illegitimate. I’m not, I didn’t find this from a crap vendor.
I’m doing it like in the cloud where there’s no way I should be able to even get to it, to see it. So to watch it, and yet what I’m trying to go into the episode after you’ve showed me the ads, for sure. You’ll show me the ad because that’s important. and then I try to start watching castle and it’s what do you mean?
I, it was really jarring the first time I got. Yeah. And I think I mentioned the way I overcame that was by getting ethernet splitter. It though the problem seemed to be that there was one too many hops in between it being able to check by putting ethernet splitter in that it doesn’t even yet, it doesn’t even think that there’s anything to check for.
And so I haven’t, we haven’t had problems.
[00:30:50] Stephen: Ah, see, I went and I got like a $25 cable instead of a $6 cable and it never happened again. Okay. Yeah. That’s and but the cable was on sale. So I actually got two of ’em for 25 bucks. So that’s good.
[00:31:04] Alan: I think for me wouldn’t been willing to do it, but I didn’t know which what cable was the problem.
And I’m like, really, I’m gonna change six cables out just to make sure get the kill the ant.
[00:31:15] Stephen: Oh, wow. I just had it hooked directly Roku and TV. So I, that was
[00:31:20] Alan: it. That’s what we’re trying to do and that wasn’t working it’s kinda, I hate talking about troubleshooting where you, and I can’t say, oh, this is why it happened.
And this is how I fixed it. Like funny, my setup up sounds just like firsts. And yet I was having the problem and you weren’t,
[00:31:34] Stephen: so what the hell? yeah. You know what I mean? Different TVs, different whatever. Yeah. Yep. Who knows
[00:31:41] Alan: a quick segue? Just we’re only in like season five with castle. I think there’s eight seasons total.
Yeah. And sometimes after they get into the number of seasons, they’re a little bit formulaic. They’re a little bit, not as crisp as they were when they were trying to find their audience. I’ll tell you what, we just watched an episode of castle that was as good as anything we’ve ever seen. And when they’re like still great in season five, that the writing teams are good and stars are still invested in their characters and that kind of stuff.
It’s really heartening to be like, am I watching this? Just to say, I watched all of them or am I still getting a lot out of it? And this last episode of castle where they have an arch nemesis, that’s a really cunning, serial killer. It’s really good. Sometimes the get good heroes is cuz they have good villains.
You know what I mean? Extra whatever. Yeah. It was X or something. Exactly. Yeah, that’s right. Exactly. Jason Tyson, James Tyson doesn’t matter, but he’s really chilling. And the fact that he was so good at, it was a big frame of castle and it was very well manipulated and the crime was especi.
Gruesome. So then to have him accused of this, it’s like everybody said that’s not castle, but what were his fingerprints doing there? Why is he all this email? You know what I mean? They really, it was very well done. And so I’m like, good. I’m not just watching this to say I watched all the doctor whos I’m not trying to.
So I just watched the last of the doctor whos I’m I know totally current up to date, complete with Dr. Who? And I gotta tell you the last season, a bit of a disappointment. Oh really? Oh boy. There was there’s so much. I think I’ve mentioned, I really like good retro common where they find a way to move things into the future and explain past, but add new things in a way that it all integrates.
And instead, they’re now making it that doctor who might not be full Gallian that actually, she was an orphan adopted by, but, and then like a huge change to the background in history and especially all the stuff they’ve done with gal and the. Rivalry with the master and that gal freight ceased to be in the universe in order to take out the dialects.
And I hope I’m, I it’s been through so many iterations that I hope I’m not one iteration behind, but it really was. I hope that matters because to make that big of a difference to no effect, except I had to screw things up, I had to flip the table and see what would happen. It’s a little disconcerting.
And from what I understand, Chik Chris Chi I think was the main show runner for these last couple seasons. And I think that he’s no longer there and I’m such an I, is it, is Chris a guy or a gal? I don’t know. I don’t know I’ve
[00:34:14] Stephen: ever been keeping up with,
[00:34:15] Alan: I think I read kind been doctor who scuttlebutt that maybe.
Somebody’s coming back to and repair oh, wows probably, maybe it’ll be Russell Davies. Maybe it’ll be there’s a couple great show runners that have really built the doctor who mythology. And I got a feeling that they took it in the wrong enough direction that they, or the BBC said, oh boy let me, let’s bring in damage control.
I don’t know that for sure. I’ll wait to see what happens. know that there’s a transition coming from the female Dr. Jody Whitaker. Thank you very much. And we’ll see what happens after the. The Christmas, the holiday special that they had there’s Hey, it was the Cybermen and the dox and now the sea devils.
And so we’ll see what’s gonna happen next, but there’s a big transition coming. We’ll see.
[00:35:02] Stephen: Ah I know I saw a infographic that had a timeline with all sorts of Dr. Who things listed. So I’m like, wow, I guess I better go back and catch some Dr. Who I’m way behind. I’ve only seen a few episodes with Whitaker and honestly, I never watch Capaldi at all.
So I need to but on the flip side, my OCD kicked in long ago and I found and have been watching all the old I started black and white and I, and re the recreated ones that the fans did that are like slides, shows and stuff I’ve watched. I’ve been watching through those cuz yeah.
900 some episodes. Yeah. I’ve seen all of them. Yes. I’ve seen all of them. I watched them all you
[00:35:48] Alan: from, I really have seen all, I don’t that I’ve seen the early HARs the early again, why am I blanking Patrick trout? Exactly that, oh yeah, because those are the ones that they were taped over because the BBC didn’t know what a gem they had. Yeah. And so the fan recreations and some of the imitation of voices and stuff.
There was a time when I was actively watching for those and watching them as they came up. But now what I wanna do is if they really do have from episode one on, I would try to go catch those first two and like revel in the fact that they had terrible special effects. They had no budget that they were a little corny kind of a show.
Yeah. More than adult show, but that’s real history. That’s the first appearance of all of these various different planets and villains and whoever else it might be.
[00:36:37] Stephen: And I. Harel the first doctor better than I like the second doctor. He’s never really warmed to me, but I’ll move on to the third soon. And I think I’m going to be hitting color soon.
[00:36:48] Alan: That was a big change. It really was
[00:36:51] Stephen: but I’ve watched most of the modern era stuff. Okay. The first three I watched didn’t watch Capaldi and I’ve only seen a few Whitaker. So Matt Smith out of everybody, he’s been my doctor. The he’s the one the kids always referenced when they’re like telling their friends about me.
So he just castle max Smith and castle, you put them together. You get a good amalgamation of me in daily life. ,
[00:37:16] Alan: that’s interesting. That’s cool. Everybody seems to have their favorite. I grew up with Tom baker. I was watching like the mid seventies in Chicago when it was on it.
Sunday night after I was done with my homework, my reward was multi Python on plus like either David Allen or the two Ronnies and then Dr. Who. That was just a great way to end your week and go to bed with, wow. That there’s nothing else like this on TV, even star Trek isn’t as crazy creative as this doesn’t sense of humor and whimsy and stuff like that.
[00:37:44] Stephen: So yes. And. The modern episodes. They’re definitely different than the way American TV is. And we’ve talked about this a lot. Me and Reese talk a lot about it with horror movies, that a lot of the foreign horror movies and Dr. Huen shows and stuff, they don’t treat you like you’re an idiot and they have to spell things out to you because you’re too stupid to think on your own.
And I know that sounds very harsh. I’m trying to make a point with it. They, they will sometimes say things and go to a scene. And if you aren’t paying attention, you’re like, wait, what’s going on? What happened? But it’s all there. Whereas with the Americans, they have to kind now I will go down and I will do this and then I will do this.
And they
[00:38:24] Alan: explain it all instead of their, yeah. Don’t tell me, show me, I’ll catch on. If you’ll let me
[00:38:29] Stephen: just go do it. That really might be a difference
[00:38:31] Alan: in style. Yeah. Oh, major difference between United States and other foreign Europe, et cetera. Okay. Very much.
[00:38:37] Stephen: So we notice a lot with horror movies.
When we watch horror movies from other countries, there’s a whole different feel to the movie and how it’s filmed and what they’re saying and the seeds with castle, anything, especially like the cop shows, you kinda know, okay, now they gotta have the courtroom scene. Now they gotta have the fight in the precinct scene.
You get the, has to be these, we watch this one movie from Ireland called grabbers, and it was about aliens that came down and they were starting to take over the earth. They were like giant octopus. It’s Irish. So how the heck do they defeat ’em well, those things can’t take alcohol.
Let’s go to the pub and get drunk. And then we were, it was so funny. Cause it’s so Irish and I’m like, you’d never see that in an American movie stuff. And speaking of all of this, did you see that the Arrowverse seems to be coming to an end? They canceled flash with a half season nine.
[00:39:34] Alan: I did not see that. Yeah. And in fact, that, that is just, as you were saying that you haven’t caught up on all the Dr. Whos, I guess watching all that hooks that’s what I was missing is I’m way behind on green arrow on flash, on super girl on legends of tomorrow. You know what I mean? A whole bunch of DC things that really they’re a good enough quality.
I should be. I’m a behind on Gotham and like, how can you behind on watching like Batman? And yet I am, there’s so many of them. And. I am. I have, hopefully they aren’t gonna be like we canceled. And then we took them away. You know what I mean? That they’ll leave them out there because that’s how a lot of things nowadays, they have a life forever in the digital world.
They don’t have to be only current on network, And so we’ll see. Super girl only lasted five or six seasons. Legends only lasted five and I love legends. And arrow’s been seven years, but it’s been the one that’s been gone the longest, cuz it started earlier. Flash was the last one, but nine seasons, eight and a half seasons.
[00:40:30] Stephen: That’s a respectable run for
[00:40:32] Alan: anybody. Yeah. It’s, that’ll be interesting to see what they do because oftentimes they have the big retreat where they plan out the season and they have the story arcs and the various different beats that are gonna happen. And then it gets cut in half and they’re like, are we gonna leave these plot lines dangling?
Are we gonna try to rush them and get them all resolved so that the right people end up together or the right people end up dead or whatever else it might be. It’ll be interesting to see how they consolidate that. It, I never got that sense with supernatural since we often talk about that, that they really seem to have an entire idea for this is the season with let’s going to hell, you know what I, this is the season
[00:41:12] Stephen: that was every other season, but yeah, every other season.
[00:41:14] Alan: Yeah. But I’m trying to think of like lava or something like that. You know what I mean? And that they really didn’t and they actually, they didn’t only harp on that. Sometimes there was a whole bunch of rep episodes in a row, but a lot of times it was XFiles ish where they’d have. The interesting Cobra of the month a thing of the week.
And they’d also have a return to the mythology of building just what’s going on with rebellion in hell or what’s going, like they pretty good. Was mixing up between those things. Yeah. OK. And like we say too, oh, good thing is when they, when we know these shows are ended, we have a finite number, even being behind, you can say, okay, now I can go watch them and just go through.
[00:41:51] Stephen: ’em not necessarily binge, not it’s only
[00:41:53] Alan: nine hours instead of another thousand. No,
[00:41:56] Stephen: come on. I just said, I’m starting with number one of Dr. Who, so I’m not worried about a couple seasons of flash.
[00:42:04] Alan: It’s kind, I think I’ve talked about this. There’s a psychology that comes like I, I did watch all the Sopranos.
I didn’t watch it when it was going on. I watched them all recently and again, it wasn’t binge watching. It was like watch one a night for a whole bunch of time. And so I finally got to the. The infamous last episode where it’s kinda like just fade the black and leaving things dangling, instead of everybody dies, everybody goes to Costa Rica or whatever else it might be
And because I had wasn’t as invested, I didn’t have that big outrage over, what are you doing, David? You can’t leave us. It, this was it. I don’t know. I thought right in line with how many times things had been seasoned cliff hangers, or even episode to episode, you don’t know what’s gonna happen next because who’s gonna get outta prison next.
Who’s gonna die. Not from getting shot, but because they got in an auto accident or they overdosed or whatever else it might be. So I really enjoyed that series. And I think it’s maybe not prime geekery in terms of the science fiction angle of the Conal angle. And but if you’re looking for what series really do have that same aspect of the continuity, the growth of characters through it, they just happen to not wear capes.
They wear mafia here, right? Whatever else it might be breaking bad was like that. You know what I mean? That, that, there’s just such great acting and real changes in the character’s growth of the character’s death of the characters. It’s riveting to watch it. And again, one thing I always say is that’s like things that surprise me.
I love things where instead of being, oh boy, I know what’s gonna happen, cuz I’ve seen this plot before. And then I love when they not only pull the rug out from under you, but you could actually see the rug beforehand. And they were very fair in giving you a little clues and stuff like that. And yet the craft with which they do that surprise that left turn.
Yeah. It’s really admirable. You know what I mean? That’s or on some cases it’s the slow burn. Yep. This guy’s got a problem. He’s an addict. Addiction makes you do terrible things and here’s the final Shakespearean level come up for where they’re gonna get it. They’re gonna get their just desserts.
They’re just reward. You know what I mean? It’s
[00:44:09] Stephen: a terrible end. The show for me that it was like, that was sons of anarchy, a show I never intended to watch. Okay. But I had a friend kind. Talk about it in such great love that I’m like, okay, I’ll give it a chance because you liked it so much. And then it was like, okay, I gotta call in sick to work.
And the dog doesn’t need out right now because I really need one more episode. I really got hooked into it. And then recently somebody turned me on the Peaky blinders, which I had heard a lot about, and I’m watching it and I’m going, oh my God, this is sons of anarchy, but set in like early 19 hundreds, England.
You
[00:44:49] Alan: know exactly. maybe that’s one of the things that people like is to see a series about a situation that they’re not in, they’re not white picket fence, fifties, America these guys, they live by their wits they’re criminal. They live by their brutality or whatever else it might be.
And I think that’s. America, especially has the love of the rascal, the rogue, the criminal, we, we have so Bonnie and Clyde and baby face Nelson over else that we’re just like bank robbers and killers. There’s like a romantic tune to that in some ways it’s they did kill a lot of people.
And indiscriminately, it wasn’t just other bad guys. It wasn’t even just cops that were chasing them. They sprayed bullets and people died and oh, maybe cause it was depending on the time it set and it’s Hey, the banks are taking everything over. These guys are standing up to the banks.
Yay them. You know what I mean? It’s amazing how we
[00:45:38] Stephen: rationalize. I’ve talked to several people about this with sons of anarchy, because it’s all perspective. It’s all how you look at the characters because those guys were Outlaws. They killed people. They ran drugs. They didn’t do drugs so much, but they had prostitution and guns and stuff.
But the way it came across portrayed in the show was they controlled their town. But they left the common people alone. They actually tried to protect them
[00:46:06] Alan: that benevolent dictators instead of terrible desperate yes. Okay. We’re not going to let the outside forces come in with guns and cause fights that are gonna kill people.
[00:46:16] Stephen: We’re not gonna let the drugs in that people are gonna get addicted to and die. We’re and the prostitution is low key. It’s off center. It’s not in everybody’s face. It’s not causing parts of the city to have a downfall and be the ghettos. So in, in some ways, maybe it’s a little warped from most people’s perspective, but they really kept their town running and safe.
And the people it’s that anti-hero really is what it came across. That
[00:46:45] Alan: I hear you that honestly, that’s one of the. All lures that criminals have often presented is we’re taking our code of your business, cuz we’re offering you protection. And once in a while they really do another gang tries to move in.
And instead of getting two guys taking money from you, they’ll remove the other gang from the equation because and how often do you hear it’s not right or wrong? It’s whether it’s good or bad for business. And so what they’ll do is not get into various different things because the government is focusing on that the penalties are higher, but a little bit of corruption, a little bit of gambling, a little bit of prostitution.
That just seems to be like acceptable to Western culture. Yes. Instead of, oh no, the Jamaican posses are moving in and they’re bringing their harder drugs with them. And one of the things that makes it interesting to Americans is the levels of morality. And like how far would you go if you were in that situation?
Yes. You know what I mean? Are you old school or new school? Are you brutal or are. And people were like, let’s have a sit down. Let’s talk about this. Instead of only being bullets are
[00:47:39] Stephen: the answer. And the sons of anarchy, they never like extorted the common people. They never pushed their weight around.
They kept it away. They kept it separate, so there’s is some admirable qualities about it. Maybe the way they went about it. You don’t always agree with. But on the flip side, if you go look at a city that’s overrun with various gangs and people dying and killing, is that really better to keep that, that one motorcycle game from controlling things?
No, not necessarily.
[00:48:09] Alan: That’s why that series is out there because they’re putting forward that maybe that, but you. None of those things really withstand deep analysis. Hey, oh yeah. You’re trying to make sure that only good drugs get in well if you have any drugs coming in and you don’t really control after the first sale where they go to that they’re going to people that shouldn’t be taking drugs or school kids, they’re going to, and I embrace the opposite bad stereotype, but just that there’s willing blindness to all the blight that they bring into the community by.
It’s funny, Eileen and I talk about the corruption premium that what’s making, if you will, government so expensive business. So expensive is not a fair price for a decent good it’s all the other middlemen and handouts and corruption that has to be honored. So I had a taste of that when I was working on stuff for the when Russia was Russia right after the fall of Soviet union, we worked on the Moscow commodities exchange.
And you found out that it isn’t just a matter of you’re gonna build your software and then back up a truck with a bunch of PCs and put it in place. What’s all the block you have to pay. What’s all the small bribes you have to give to every gatekeeper of the electric grid of the open, the door to the convention center that everybody has their level at which they’re allowed to be a little bit corrupt.
And you just have to know who to who you’re gonna get charged by so that they don’t do things to screw you up more than they have to. And that is endemic in the United States now in a way that it never was before, it sure seems that there’s rent takers and middlemen and people that are in the way and to go back very much to what you were talking about, how do you have we embrace capitalism and I say this all the time, and then you see how everybody that talks up capitalism is in the background, doing everything they can towar it.
Really HP. You think that the way to do capitalism is not your competition, make a better product, get word out about it. Show in side to side that yours is a better product. And let people choose know yours is a way of creating a tying agreement, a, an addiction to a certain thing, and you won’t let anybody else use it once they’re in.
Do they know going in that you’re gonna do all that crap to them, right? No, it’s corrupt. It’s you know what I mean? There’s really that level of hands. We can start naming a hundred examples of where that’s, what people are shooting for now. So things are a nice way of saying we’re trying to get you
[00:50:33] Stephen: addicted.
So hacker groups like anonymous need to be the sons of anarchy of the digital world and control that, you
[00:50:40] Alan: know, that’s, there’s just different realms in which people are, you know what I mean? And wow. I, it’s hard to say when they’re working on a nationalist basis that whatever Russia has going on with their little east European.
Skunk farms of all the 13 year olds that are really good hackers, but then they’re attacking our infrastructure and stuff like that that, that can get weaponized into something that really is at a national level set of an individual. What like self capitalism is supposed to be about like improving the self and letting the invisible hand, the entire market figure out what’s the best product.
But then when you have you throw a government behind it, like the Japanese did in the eighties with you’re not really competing with individual automakers, you’re competing with a deeply subsidized combine of all the what it there’s ways that gets perturbed all the time. Right?
And we keep stepping up and saying capitalism is why you want to have the market is efficient. It sets prices based on information, perfect knowledge and per everybody anticipates the future in different ways. And that’s why stock prices go as they do. And then if you’re at all an investor, you quickly find out about how much information is withheld or how it leaks out in various different ways over the course of time.
So that there’s always insiders that get the inside track and can get in and out of various different, good or bad investments. And that it’s a rigged game. And all you can do is take the rigidness of the game into account when you’re doing your individual investing. So I, I have an unreasonable faith that gap generally accepted accounting principles still exist in the United States.
And I would rather invest in the United States compared to China or India or, and maybe like Australia and in Europe and Israel are places that simulate Western standards, if you will. But then there’s a scandal every week about which is the latest insider trading thing. What’s the latest that they withheld information from the government.
It’s terrifying. How much of a house of cards , this is all built on. And every time that there’s a scandal, it’s that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Everything you hear about Wells Fargo, manipulating housing markets and something as supposedly stable as the real estate market. But that was in way that they talk about blue chip investing that it’s oh, it’s utilities.
It’s things that you’re granny own. And then you find out how much utilities are being manipulated and how much the real estate been. And the LIBO rate bear with me. I should remember this evil guy’s name. In brief library is the interest rate that set that all the world uses to say, what’s the real interest rate for money?
What do we think the time value of money is and people, and it’s like the London exchange is where it’s set and then radiates outwards from there. And two guys. Three guys found our way to manipulate the timing of various different trades so that they were able to do what they wanted with the li B O rate, instead of it really being, let’s talk to the a hundred other exchanges and get the weighted average of all that.
And that’s, what’s a realistic rate and they were making money. Of course, over. We are gonna say, here’s the, what it should be if you did the mass and we’re gonna manipulate it slightly. So just oh five off, but Hey, if you throw a hundred million at that in the amount of time between it getting announced and it being found out to be, that’s what the calculation says, they’re making money handover.
And the reason that’s Soly, especially evil and weird and important is that think of the ripple effect of that you find out that this rate that everyone uses as like it’s gravity it’s the rule of how the world worked. Nope. These guys found a way to be little dis rats knowing at the foundations of civilization, so they can make a little money and have a yacht.
And that’s the smallest, , that’s a big example of a multitude of terrible examples about how that’s manipulation is happening all the freaking time.
[00:54:42] Stephen: Absolutely
[00:54:43] Alan: agree. Yeah. I know I didn’t get mean to go into luxury mode, sorry. No. The reason that’s geeky, cuz we always try to say that’s like you really have to get did you know that there’s a LIBO rate and this is how it gets determined and that once they find out how to determined, someone’s gonna say I could get on the inside of that and change just a little for my own purposes, but the act of doing that, just it makes an incredible, that little bit of corruption has huge ripple effects.
When you find out you can’t. Hey, aspirin takes care of headaches. And then you find out that someone’s been doping the aspirin so that it doesn’t just make, take care of headaches that addict you, and of course pay everybody. It’s not true. as far as I know, it’s an example. It’s a, don’t let that start here and then it goes out to the world.
But that example is not entirely unru the things we talked about. HP can turn your printer off cuz they don’t like the
[00:55:34] Stephen: cartage you just put in. That we saw that clear back in Superman three with what this space taken the half cents off of everybody’s investments,
[00:55:43] Alan: the soft slice method.
Exactly. Yeah.
[00:55:45] Stephen: That went all the way back to Superman three that’s right. Okay. Before this was like a big topic, but before we disappear, tell me about your watch. Because what we talked about this, what interests me is I’m waiting for them to do the glucose monitoring because I think that’s great rather than pin sticks and all that jazz.
And you said that those sensors might be in there and might be there, but turned off at the moment because they haven’t gotten approval to say it does that yet.
[00:56:17] Alan: So that’s my understanding of it. And Hey everybody, who’s following this closely. I’m sorry if I butcher all of what’s going on they apple is putting a whole bunch of different health monitoring stuff in there.
So they really can detect atrial fibrillation within high enough standards that the government has said that really can be labeled as a medical device. In terms of it will alert you early, if you’re getting your the erratic heartbeat that is a sign of atrial fibrillation. And they’re checking for your blood pulse your regular pulse rate have not quite blood pressure yet, but they’re working on that.
How much by looking into the skin of your wrist know, right on the ulna, can they have a look into you that says, what is your blood glucose level? And I, and my first pulse was like, it does everything. It even makes Julian fries from what I understand. It still isn’t there yet because the ability to get accuracy to whatever the two standard deviation levels is not there, but there’s various different levels of what you can say.
Looking into your bloodstream and seeing what they can judge about it. And the fineness of the sensors, from what I understand, they might actually have the sensors in the watch that are able to do that, but they’re still doing all the testing and all the software that goes with
[00:57:29] Stephen: that hard. It’s like BMW, there goes start charging for
[00:57:32] Alan: it’s funny.
I love how sometimes we have to turn on ourselves because we were saying what an injustice and yet it’s, I’m hoping that one day with a software update or a, an even better version of the apple watch eight or nine, because they have even better sensors that they’ll be able to do active blood glucose monitoring right now, as you were saying, instead of Finger sticks.
I have been occasionally wearing the DexCon. No, not the DexCon, the freestyle Libra too. I don’t have it on now. I’m I’m I take weeks off in between. Cause it I’m trying to learn from it instead of being only addicted to it. I’m I haven’t seen really bad results from having spikes or troughs so that I’m not worried about going into a coma and I’m not worried, so far I’m not having said that. And that’s what it integrates with is a whole range of devices that now, instead of it only being to your phone or your computer, it’ll actually tell your talk to your watch and your watch will say, Hey you are having a dip in your blood glucose. You might wanna pop a sugar pill or you just spike cuz you ate too much sushi and Hey, that’s all rice that’s a simple carbohydrate stool.
And so that’s the level that it’s at. But for the other things that it does it’s always had it’s aware of the position of the lot. Size not sign the graph. What sorry. Whatever the monitor is that judges skew and balance and stuff like that. Like the
[00:58:54] Stephen: Gyro.
[00:58:55] Alan: There you go.
Thank you a ter tell if you might a fall, if you have abrupt shift position and you’re at a wrong angle compared to how you are attract data over a course of time to see what’s the anomaly. And it will actually send out an emergency health signal that says, Hey, we think he’s fallen and he can’t get up.
And it doesn’t do that automatically. You can turn that on, but I’m okay for that. You know what I mean is if I ever get unsteady, I’d love to have a guy that’s continually washing for that. And another one, the it listens so that it can actually keep track of the decibel. And if you’re like too close to an airplane too much at a rock concert where you’re right in front of the speakers.
And when I had hair, they used to move my hair back. You know what I mean? It’s it’ll tell you, it gives you little warnings about, Hey, this might not happen that often, but when it does, it’s pretty freaking important. You might want to get away from this noise source, cuz you’re gonna get tinnitus or whatever.
You’re gonna do little ear damage. So the combination of features finally was all the med tech that they’ve added was enough to finally get, cuz we’ve laughed about it. I had an apple watch too. I didn’t get the very original one, but I had it too. And this is now a seven. So five generations I’ve been able to say not enough, not quite.
Yeah. Yeah. But finally it really seemed to be time to have a wearable computer for that amount of money that does all those health features as well as all the little improvements a odd thing about the apple watch used to be that by changing the orientation is when it would go from black to showing you the screen.
Now, because battery tech continues to get better and better. It has enough charge for the entire day that all I have to do is look at my watch. It’s always on. And it just changes the brightness of it. So that if saving battery, when it doesn’t think you’re looking at it, but when you do it, brightens it up.
So it’s there it is. You know what I mean? It, it’s got a better screen, higher resolution, better lumens, all that, more memory, more battery life. So in all the ways that computers do, it’s improved all that, as well as these new capabilities. And I, so
[01:00:54] Stephen: I’ve got I’ve got the Fitbit and I like my Fitbit.
But some of what you’re telling me as a difference is the Fitbit’s very passive collective in that I look at the app and I can see all the numbers, blah, blah, blah. But it doesn’t do a lot of Hey, your heartbeats up, or you can see it. Oh, why didn’t you tell me my heartbeat was 1 57, it doesn’t give you the feedback. It does have Google assistant. But that’s so I like all the stuff where it’s tying into that. Now most of it ties into phone. So I wonder what the apple app that ties into the phone is on Android compared to the apple phone. Do they keep it as robust or is it like, that’s the it’s a couple generations behind cuz we want you to buy apple phone instead of the Android phone.
[01:01:41] Alan: I hear you the apple health app it really, it integrates all of that. Those, all of those things that you wanna be able to tell your doctor, Hey this is what we know about my regular heartbeat and stuff like that. And by because it is competing directly with Fitbit and other wearables like that, it really does have all of various different sensors.
I think you’re going for an outdoor you’ll walk. Would you like to record it? And it keeps track of how many steps and how many calories burnt. And if your extra heart weight went up enough then it considers it exercise. So it’s got three little rings. I think I mentioned before that, like it tells you, Hey, you should get up being sedentary is a bad thing.
Hey, you, should you exercise at least this month? It keeps track with three main rings and every time that I close my three rings, it’s at least I wasn’t a terrible potato. I didn’t indeed walk this much get my heart rate up this much, et cetera, et cetera. It integrates with. All different kinds of exercise equipment.
So when you go to the various different gyms, I think that might be uhoh post subscription or something like that. It means that you can just hop on anything that it talks to via Bluetooth, wifi, et cetera. And it will record your session on the the treadmill that you’re using or anything that does.
And a lot of them are doing that nowadays. I think for sure, Peloton, for instance, does, yeah. Everything at the gyms workout Synergistics computers or whatever else, somebody that does all those workout machines. So if you’re gonna do your Arctic your stair step and all that kind of stuff, it gives you all those staff and that’s handy to not have a clipboard and a piece of paper and be jotting down.
I don’t think it does, like how much did you lift, but I’m pretty sure that it has if you just talk to me, you can say, okay, I just did 10 reps at 150 pounds and you can make it so that it’s keeping track of all different kinds of stuff to be able to show your current state and be able to show what you’re working for is a challenge.
And that’s very
[01:03:25] Stephen: hand. I all the health items they’re adding and stuff. I still am waiting a little bit more for the who was the detective, Dick Tracy stuff. What you talking about? Yeah, the integration I’ve got Google assistant and that ties into my phone and you can get Google assistant to tie in the apps.
And I can say Hey, Google, add this to my to-do list or stuff like that, but it’s not a hundred percent it’s 20% I can integrate and get it to work with. I can send text messages, but not Facebook messenger messages. I can ask it to read my calendar. I can even add things, but it’s cumbersome, tricky, so from a business standpoint, there’s probably 30% of the things I can do between my watch and phone helping keep things running. I want that little bit more along with the great sensors and health stuff, but I like what you were saying about the alerts. Are more active. That, that’s the type of thing I think is pretty
[01:04:26] Alan: cool.
That’s very helpful. Exactly. I’ll tell you it I’m still at much like you more amused that it helps me out as opposed to expecting it, but there’s been a number of times that I’ve taken a phone call on my watch. If it’s within it’s not a full wifi client so and cellular client, it is a wifi client.
So when my phone is near enough that it can talk back and forth. If a phone call comes in, it rings on my phone and I can say Hey Colleen it’s I’m in the bathroom or I don’t have my phone in here, but I have my watch. Listen, you know that. So it and it, you can actually play little videos with good resolution.
Nice. And I like it’s of funny. It’s nice to be able to see that even if I’m not gonna watch a movie on my watch, I want the bigger picture on my big old TV, but a quick thing of For instance, it integrates all with mapping so that while you’re driving it, doesn’t distract you by saying, look, it’s a map, but it has like for a left turn, it goes, beep boo, for a right turn.
It goes, boo beep poop beep and a little hap buzz on you to alert you so that it’s integrating with your CarPlay and your phone and everything else so that it will show you if you’re walking, it will show you a little map so that when we were in downtown Toronto, it’s walk to this thing and then turn left on Queens.
It was very like, this really is the future. This is Dick Tracy kind of thing. I can talk into it. It has, Hey, it’s talking to the satellite, said no all the time, you
[01:05:52] Stephen: know, I got the Fitbit because at the time I got a good deal on it. And I was like, okay, great. But now all the stuff you’re telling me, I’m like, man, sounds like I really would like an apple watch, and again we’re not. An apple guy, a PC guy, that’s I only want PC, I only want Android. I get what works best for me in that situation. And I always joke about this the Xbox PlayStation wars I’d always listen to people and I’m like, yeah, but here’s the thing. I’m an adult with a job.
I’ll go by both. I’ll go by both. I don’t know what I
[01:06:25] Alan: wanna wear. Two watches. Whatever works with everything that kinda thing. And maybe I will maybe, and as I’m still waiting for no lot apple glasses, Google glasses, because I really think it’s gonna be cool to have augmented reality and be able to have on my glasses, a little thing that hangs down and says.
Oh, this is whatever problem I had with remembering friends’ names, not anymore. That’s Barry and his wife, Margaret, and you know what I
[01:06:47] Stephen: mean? It just right. Yeah. I those have been dragging, I don’t know how the, I think a lot of people are hesitant with it and people have gotten in trouble with em and all sorts of stuff.
So
[01:06:59] Alan: it’s not only a nontrivial technical problem. It’s a nontrivial societal problem. Yeah. Feeling like I Don. There’s all kinds of laughter nowadays about people writing on their cell phone I’m not gonna let the government monitor me constantly. It’s like you, you holding the device right now.
That is your leash. What do you think is
[01:07:16] Stephen: going on? Yeah. oh yeah. I’m way secure. Here, I just answered these five memes with these trivia questions. Now you need to do
[01:07:24] Alan: it. And now they know my birthplace and my mother’s my favorite candy bar. Exactly.
[01:07:30] Stephen: yeah. People don’t know what they don’t know, yeah. So now I’m gonna have to go look up apple, watch this. Fitbit’s only a year old, so I doubt if I’m gonna replace it yet, but at least maybe I’ll start keeping up with apple watch and get it next generation or I’m sure the price on these will drop six months, eight months from now or a year and stuff as they get right for the next.
[01:07:53] Alan: I also have that theory of if I had to tell somebody how much something cost and I was embarrassed, I shouldn’t be buying that.
[01:07:59] Stephen: That’s
[01:08:00] Alan: a good point. They’re cool. You know what I mean? So this, they nowadays, and also, I think there’s some big study that says what the price is for all of America as to when something to become popular instead of niche 300 bucks, that’s where VCRs took off that’s when DVD players took off that’s, all kinds of things. And indeed, this latest guy, and not only was 300 bucks, I got him like $50 off because I bought him during Amazon prime days. Oh, that’s what inspired me to go to Colleen and say, Hey, we were talking about getting this for my birthday.
I might have to get a little bit early, but 50 bucks off that’s a sixth of the price. So I got this beautiful guy with, and I’m like, I dunno, am I gonna get a fancier wristband? You can trade it up to get like something that’s. Leather or metal or something like that.
But right now, what do I care about is the wearable geekiness of it. And the wristband holds
[01:08:51] Stephen: on . I know people that will spend a thousand, 1200 bucks every year for a new phone. Now. Yes. Our phones can do a lot, but some of these people, all they’re doing on it is texting, making phone calls and surfing Facebook.
You can’t tell me it’s worth a thousand dollars experience. Hasn’t changed. That’s right. Yeah. So I watch that I’ll monitor my sleep and that will tell me my steps and warn me when things are loud and check my atrial fi that’s worth $300 really
[01:09:20] Alan: I’ll tell you what thank you for mentioning that.
One of the things it does. I used to take my watch off and have it charged while I was sleeping. Cuz it needed a certain amount of time. This guy charges so quickly that I wear ’em overnight. He monitors my sleep habits. He. For again, from like positioning and restlessness and stuff like that, that I did sleep my required six hours of sleep and that it wasn’t restless sleep.
I had to get up to P once. I don’t think it really doesn’t label it that, but it knows you got up at some point. So the fact that sleep becomes a more and more important thing as you get older and it might be different than how you’ve always had it. It’s nice to know that it’s keeping track of data.
And I know I it’ll tell me if, Hey, you’re really not getting restful sleep. You’re not getting the REM sleep. That’s gonna let your memory it does the wash of all the garbage out. It makes solidifies your existing memories. You really need to do more sleep hygiene type stuff to go to bed get real rest instead of kinda like fake sleep, junk sleep to, since I’m a victim of advertising Slunky so
[01:10:19] Stephen: right, okay. All right. I’ll have to look that up then. And speaking of sleep, I told you I got that new bed and it elevates and you can adjust it and all sorts of things. Yeah. My snoring has cut down on being elevated on the bed.
Good for
[01:10:34] Alan: you. Anything like that, any snoring or like any word moving towards sleep apnea, man. Don’t, from what I understand that really does kinda like wear on you, if natural autonomic systems like heartbeat and breathing, aren’t working as they should, whatever you can do to get back to nominal, you’re doing a good thing, right?
[01:10:51] Stephen: Yeah. So the bed thing, all right there, there’s our recommendations, apple watch and a nice sleep
[01:10:57] Alan: adjustable bed. Exactly. There we go. All right, man. Talk to you later. Have a great week. All right, bye. You too.
