You Left Your Money in a Bank
Casey:
Yes, don't ask the question if you're not looking at the file.
Casey:
All right, so let's start with some follow-up.
Casey:
Um...
Casey:
To begin, we have some follow-up about the TiVo OTA, or OTA, if you're Marco.
Casey:
It's OTA.
Casey:
My apologies.
Casey:
The OTA.
John:
Yeah, this feedback was from Joseph.
John:
Last week, we talked about who the OTA might be good for.
John:
I said, you know, get it, try it out.
John:
If you don't like it, you know, stop paying your $15 a month.
John:
Joseph points out that TiVos require a one-year commitment of service and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee in which you can cancel and return it, but you can't keep it for a couple of months to see if you like it.
John:
I didn't actually check whether this is true, but I trust Joseph.
John:
He seems like a trustworthy guy with a...
John:
Lone first name with no last name.
John:
So there you go.
John:
He also says that over the air is not a wasteland of just four networks as in San Francisco.
John:
Insert Dan Benjamin San Francisco rant here.
John:
There is over 90 distinct channels of content available over the air.
John:
He says some of it's like religious or shopping, but there's tons of that stuff on cable, too.
John:
So apparently some places actually have lots of channels coming over the air.
Marco:
Yeah, but like what kind of channels?
Marco:
Like is there anything you'd actually want to watch?
Casey:
See, that's the thing.
Casey:
So Aaron and I have season tickets to the University of Virginia football team.
Casey:
And we've gotten pretty serious about the tailgates with a mutual friend of ours, Brian.
Casey:
And he brings a generator and we bring a TV and we bring an over-the-air HD antenna.
Casey:
And in Charlottesville, Virginia, which we've all established that you two think is basically the middle of nowhere –
Casey:
Actually, it's past the middle of nowhere into straight-up nothingness.
Casey:
And here in Richmond as well, because I've tried the antenna here, we get, I think, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC.
Casey:
I do know we get the CW, which I was a little surprised to see, but that's basically it.
Casey:
And then...
Casey:
All the standard channels like Fox and ABC and whatnot, they have like two or three sub channels like weather, which just shows the weather nonstop.
Casey:
It's like a dashboard, if you will.
Casey:
And that's pretty much all we get.
Casey:
So I'm sure there are places that get plenty of channels.
Casey:
But I tell you what, where I live is not one of those places.
John:
all right do we have any other follow-up yes don't don't don't ask the question if you're not looking at the file so uh next bit is from nate boating i hope i'm doing well he sent us a uh a link to a tumblr dedicated to frayed lightning cables it is appropriately named frayed lightning cables.tumblr.com in fact it has more than just frayed lightning cables on it but
John:
A lot of these things look like they were chewed by animals.
John:
There's no promise about what made these things fray.
John:
I think it's just a Tumblr of frayed lightning cables.
John:
But if you wanted to see a bunch of frayed lightning cables, you know, rule 34 and all, go for it.
Casey:
All right.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Next bit of follow-up is about Amazon buying Twitch and how Google looked like they were interested but then bailed out and people didn't quite know why.
John:
Here is a rumor sent to us by Hunter on Twitter saying the rumor is...
John:
that uh the breakup fee was too high relative to the risk of regulators killing it so uh if google was going to buy them normally as part of the deal they say okay well if we agree to buy you and it turns out that the u.s government doesn't let us buy you for like antitrust reasons or whatever there's some fee that uh that will still pay you as part of this deal and apparently twitch wanted a breakup fee
John:
It was too high.
John:
And according to this rumor, this is not confirmed or anything.
John:
But anyway, that explains why Twitch might have accepted an offer from Amazon that is reportedly lower than what Google was willing to offer for them, because there's more to the deal than just the number is also what you're paying in cash versus stock and also things like breakup fees.
John:
So this is a plausible rumor about why Twitch might have gone with Amazon instead of Google.
John:
All right.
John:
Look at that.
John:
We breezed your follow up.
Casey:
I know.
Casey:
It's going to be a short show.
Casey:
Forget it.
Casey:
I'm impressed.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Let's start with something cool and then we'll get into the real meat of the episode.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week once again by our friends at Harry's.
Marco:
I don't think I ever actually spelled it last time.
Marco:
And so God knows how anybody actually thought what I was saying.
Marco:
But anyway, it's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com.
Marco:
That kind of Harry's, you know, like with the apostrophe, but you can't put an apostrophe in URLs.
Marco:
I don't think, at least in host names.
Marco:
Anyway, go to Harry's.com and use promo code ATP to save $5 off your first purchase.
Marco:
So what is Harry's?
Marco:
Harry's is less than one year old, and they are already substantially disrupting the shaving industry.
Marco:
Harry's offers a better shaving experience at better value than the giants in the space like Schick and Gillette.
Marco:
So Harry's, this is very much like some of our other sponsors, like what Warby Parker does for eyeglasses.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
This is kind of what Harry's does for shaving.
Marco:
And this is not a coincidence because one of the founders of Harry's, Jeff, also was the co-founder of Warby Parker.
Marco:
So there are many similarities here.
Marco:
Both of them are disrupting huge stagnant industries by offering great design, meticulous craftsmanship, and great highly personal customer service.
Marco:
And most of all, they're offering this at an amazing value.
Marco:
The other founder, Andy, he was motivated to address shaving because he went to a drugstore one day to restock on shaving stuff.
Marco:
And he had to ask for help and wait around for more than 10 minutes for someone to come unlock the shoplifter-resistant razor case.
Marco:
And he was eventually permitted to buy a four-pack of blades and some shaving cream.
Marco:
And for all this great privilege of being treated like a criminal and having a bunch of time wasted, he had to pay over $25 for just four blades and some shaving cream.
Marco:
He knew there had to be a better way to do this.
Marco:
harry's makes amazing german engineered blades they care so much about the quality of these blades they actually bought a 93 year old german factory that makes the blades they they went to them like you make great blades we're going to just buy you out and we're going to make a new company with this
Marco:
so harry's is focused on providing men and women a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price of their competitors they they charge less than two dollars per blade cartridge and if you go look around at uh what you've been paying for razor cartridges from the big brands under two dollars each is probably about half of what you've been paying if you've been getting a good deal um so this is you know fantastic price
Marco:
And I tried these blades.
Marco:
They sent me the big starter kit and everything.
Marco:
I tried these blades, and they're really good.
Marco:
I was surprised.
Marco:
I was worried that I might try it, and maybe I wouldn't like it, and then I just wouldn't say anything.
Marco:
It'd be kind of awkward.
Marco:
But I know I tried these, and I liked them a lot, actually.
Marco:
I was very impressed by the blades and by the handle.
Marco:
The handle's nice and weighty.
Marco:
Everything about it is very high quality.
Marco:
The packaging is really nice.
Marco:
I was just very impressed by all of it.
Marco:
Harry's, you get the convenience and ease of ordering online.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
Harry's even offers a custom engraving option on the handle if you are that kind of person.
Marco:
So anyway, go to harrys.com, use promo code ATP to save $5 off your first purchase.
Marco:
Thank you very much to Harry's for sponsoring our show once again.
Casey:
So Marco, when you were big into PCs, did you read Tom's hardware very often?
Marco:
Of course.
Marco:
Yeah, I remember back when they made Intel recall the 1.1 gigahertz Pentium.
Casey:
And John, I assume you were at least tangentially aware, if not a reader yourself.
John:
No, I knew about it, but I didn't read it.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
So Tom's Hardware for Marco and myself was a really important resource and website, I don't know, 10 years ago-ish, maybe even 15 now, to talk about the real nitty-gritty about hardware for the PC world.
Casey:
And to me...
Casey:
Is it Anandtech or Anandtech?
Casey:
I'm probably pronouncing it wrong both ways.
Casey:
Do we know which one it is?
Casey:
John, you are in charge of pronunciation on the show.
John:
I got nothing on this one.
John:
I have met the man in person, still don't know how to pronounce it.
Casey:
So Anandtech seemed to me, anyway, to be very much the Tom's hardware of the Apple world in 2014.
Casey:
And if that doesn't sound like a compliment, it should, because that is a huge compliment.
Casey:
And apparently...
Casey:
Now I'm going to say Anand, so I'm totally inconsistent, but Anand has left.
Casey:
And as it turns out, he's going somewhere very interesting.
Casey:
He's off to Apple.
Casey:
So Marco, what do you think about all this?
Marco:
I think... I mean, honestly, I'm disappointed that we're not going to get to read any more of his awesome reviews.
Marco:
Because what he... I compared him to John.
Marco:
What John does for software, Anand would do for hardware.
Marco:
And his insights on things like CPU design, and where PC hardware was going, and what was becoming important, and what wasn't.
Marco:
And he was really...
Marco:
just incredibly good at at both writing about this stuff at seeing what's what's here seeing what's coming and and explaining very very complex things about you know things like chip design um you know explaining that in a way that makes it relevant to the readers of these reviews and so we don't know what he's doing at apple we also know like they they hired um is it brian klug edway is that right
Casey:
I believe that's right.
Marco:
They hired Brian Klug, who was also a writer at Anandtech.
Marco:
So they hired... Apple apparently hired him very quietly a few months back.
Marco:
And so anyway, so now they got both of them.
Marco:
It would be interesting to know what department they're even working for.
Marco:
I don't know what their qualifications are exactly.
Marco:
I would venture a guess that... I don't know much about Brian, but I would venture a guess that Anand probably knows, probably has enough background to work on the chip design department.
Marco:
But I really don't know.
John:
Yeah, that's the question.
John:
Like when he posted on the site that he was just retiring, he didn't say where he was going.
John:
He just said, like, I'm retiring from tech journalism, which is different than I'm leaving the website that bears my name.
John:
Like he didn't just say that.
John:
So it's not like some power struggle or something with the thing.
John:
He wasn't just leaving the website to go for something.
John:
I said, I am retiring from tech journalism.
John:
And my initial interpretation of that was he wanted to do something else.
John:
Right.
John:
He says retiring from tech journalism.
John:
That means he's not going to show up writing reviews of hardware on some other website.
John:
He's not going to start his own website with a different name.
John:
You know, like he was done with that and he wanted to do something else, which is fine.
John:
And then I tweeted a day like, here are the list of companies that should be trying to hire him.
John:
And when I was doing that, I was trying to think, like, what what value could he bring to a company and who what to what company is he the most valuable?
John:
And the top of my list was Intel, because aside from all his reviews and everything and in all of his contact with these various hardware vendors, he definitely has some frustration with Intel, like we all do, like trying to figure out, like, are they going to be, you know,
John:
When they sold all their ARM holdings to get rid of, you know, they stopped trying to make ARM chips to do their own thing.
John:
The whole x86 on mobile and how that's going and the various software initiatives they occasionally have.
John:
Are they just going to be a fab?
John:
Are they going to continue to sell chips?
John:
He had interesting things to say about what he thought Intel should be doing with their business and how competitive their products actually are and could potentially be in the future.
John:
And I'm sure he told Intel all these things and he told the same things to NVIDIA, which is another company I listed and a bunch of other people.
John:
You know, it's kind of like an outsider's perspective of like, look, inside the Intel bubble, you maybe think you're doing the right thing.
John:
But from my perspective, you are, you know, you should be doing X, Y and Z and you're not or you should do this sooner or that later.
John:
You should acquire this company or start doing that or stop doing that.
John:
So it seems like he had a lot of insight into their business and that would be valuable to them.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And same thing with the other companies, because that's what he would be in contact with, these hardware vendors.
John:
And he would meet with them, and they would explain what their upcoming line of things are.
John:
And then he would write about it, and presumably he would tell them to their faces, like, you know, I think you should do this, and this other company's doing that.
John:
And, you know, like, just giving his opinion, like what he wrote on his website about all these issues.
John:
Big picture things, not just like, let me tell you how many adders should be in your next CPU, but just like, you know.
John:
a grand scheme of things strategy uh so then when he uh said when it came out that he was going to apple i didn't put apple on the list because i thought that of all the things he could offer uh apple probably had existing people doing those same things and didn't seem as like sort of rudderless you know or as sort of flailing as some of these other companies like apple seems to have its stuff together right
John:
But Apple did hire him, which, again, shows they probably have their stuff together more than the other companies, because the other companies probably don't even know they need someone like him.
John:
But Apple does know that having someone like him is valuable.
John:
And I was trying to think what he could do for Apple.
John:
A lot of people guessed that he would have something to do with press relations.
John:
And he certainly does have a heck of a lot of experience at the interface between technology companies and press.
John:
But he's always been on the other side of it.
John:
So I don't quite see what he would do for Apple on the...
John:
I don't know.
John:
I mean, maybe I think he has expertise in that area that could be used.
John:
But I don't know if that would interest him.
John:
I don't know enough about his interest.
John:
Chip stuff.
John:
I don't know if he's ever designed a chip.
John:
He's got opinions on chip.
John:
He knows a lot about architecture on the broad level.
John:
But down to the nitty gritty, I don't know if he has that depth of knowledge about, you know, laying out.
John:
laying out circuits or deciding, like, you know, and maybe you don't have to.
John:
Maybe you can be a more, you know, advisory, supervisory role there.
John:
I really don't know enough about his skill set to even guess what department he could be in.
John:
He's kind of in the same situation that I always imagine myself to be in, which is why Apple will never hire me, is, like, the only job I'm qualified to do at Apple is to tell everyone what to do.
And those two...
John:
Those jobs are already filled by people who have earned the right to do that and not just by saying, well, I have an opinion.
John:
Yeah, well, that's why you don't get that job, right?
John:
But he has more than just an opinion.
John:
I think he has actual insights and has much more – he has close contact with so many vendors in the hardware industry and such in-depth knowledge of all of their products that that is valuable to them.
John:
And so it seems like he would have to be in a position of –
John:
some considerable authority like you're not going to just make him be some just another cog in a machine like he left the website that he found when he was 14 that has his name on it so i think he's in a position where he's going to be able to make big moves and be an important part of apple's organization and i find that exciting
Marco:
Yeah, I hope so.
Marco:
In the chat room, Pavan linked to this thing we'll put in the show notes, this Apple Jobs entry on their job site, where the job title is Performance Marketing Analyst.
Marco:
And it says, blah, blah, blah.
Marco:
In this role, you will develop test methodologies, test Apple devices, and competitive products, analyze test results, and help prepare performance data to support product managers in creating compelling performance stories for product launch materials.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
so anyway um what what that all basically means is he would be doing like reviews and comparisons for internal use to put in marketing materials i i cannot see him leaving his own site to do this like this this doesn't seem like it's a big enough cog in an important enough part of the machine like this he's a little overqualified yeah don't you feel like but but on the other hand apple is the kind of company that's smart enough to get someone who's overqualified to fill it because like
John:
that position doesn't necessarily have to be as kind of grunt worky as it seems because you it could influence the design of future products like it's you know from the outside and on can say like oh well here's what they did with this cpu and this gpu combination and really they would have ended up with a better platform if they'd done x y and z but he can't actually make that happen whereas if he's doing comparison tests of like prototype hardware inside the company and can say okay well for this one you should tweak this that the other thing and for the next chip
John:
I think these guys are going to do X, Y and Z that like he can actually influence the roadmap as opposed to just commenting on it from the outside.
John:
So that is potentially not this exact position, but like the head of all the people doing that is potentially a powerful position within the organization because you can influence the hardware roadmap of Apple's products.
John:
And that I mean, you know, that that's could be beneficial to Apple.
John:
And I think it might be interesting to him.
Marco:
Yeah, I definitely think if there is a chance that he's actually going to be involved in component selection, maybe.
Marco:
Like what you were saying, trying to influence... Not necessarily designing the chips, but helping Apple figure out what kind of GPU should they be looking for from PowerVR or whatever for the next iDevice or whatever.
Marco:
He could definitely be on that team.
Marco:
I would imagine he's very much qualified to do that sort of thing.
Marco:
But who knows?
Marco:
Yeah.
Casey:
this is very much a mystery and i have a feeling it might be a while before we even uh figure out you know what exactly he's doing yeah and the thing that's interesting to me about it is he was kind of the big cheese in this apple bubble or when it comes to hardware related things i mean i i think he was certainly an extremely important uh person in the community and and
Casey:
Maybe I'm just an egotistic jerk, but if I were Anand and I was thinking whether or not I should go to Apple, it would take a lot for me to say, you know what, I'm going to hang up my boots or whatever the phrase is I'm thinking of, and I'm going to go work in a place that usually doesn't really –
Casey:
smile upon being forthcoming and being very public with what you do.
Casey:
And his whole existence up until this point was being forthcoming and being public about what he did.
Casey:
And so whatever it is, it's got to have scratched an itch that Anantek and Ontek couldn't scratch before.
Casey:
So like you guys said, I'm extremely interested in seeing...
Casey:
where he ends up.
Casey:
And especially if he does end up in engineering, what is that going to mean?
Casey:
I'm not sure what his background is.
Casey:
It certainly sounds the way he writes.
Casey:
It sounds like he's either got a formal or an extensive informal education in engineering.
Casey:
Like I said, I don't know his particular background, but whatever it is, it's certainly an interesting move.
John:
Chat room says that Brian Klug is an optical engineer, which you might have picked up by listening to the podcast where he talks about cameras.
John:
So I also don't know where he's working, but if he is actually a trained optical engineer, it makes sense that he might have something to do with cameras and Apple's devices.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, all very important areas.
Marco:
So yeah, I think it's, you know, if these guys wanted to keep doing press or review type stuff, they would have kept doing that on an Antec.
Marco:
Like, they had a great setup there.
Marco:
They don't need to go to Apple to do that.
Marco:
Like, I think Casey, you're right.
Marco:
Like, they would need to go to Apple to do something else, to do something more engineering focused, maybe.
Marco:
Like, there's no way they're going to Apple to go make graphs for the marketing department.
Marco:
Not a chance.
John:
Yep.
John:
And since it's Apple, it's not like we're ever going to know.
John:
It's not like this is like, oh, well, we don't know now, but I'm sure Apple will tell us exactly what.
John:
No, they're never going to tell us like it's it's, you know, if we see him next year at WRC, we can talk to him about it and maybe, you know, but like how many people do we know at Apple and we know like what department they work in and like that's it.
John:
you know what what specifically do you work on i can't tell you you know it's like well so you just accept it like you're lucky if you can get you know hardware or software which hardware group which software group but that's as close as you can get usually we don't even know what phil schiller does we just know he does like everything and his title is like marketing he goes he goes to red sox games right and he mountain bikes mountain bikes sometimes he buys r8s for his team and
Marco:
All we know is that he does pretty much everything, and his title doesn't mean anything.
Casey:
And so real-time follow-up, the chat room is telling us that Anand has a computer engineering degree, which would sound similar to myself in Syracuse, from North Carolina State University, which I actually very nearly went to.
Casey:
It was between that and Virginia Tech, and I chose Virginia Tech.
Casey:
So he certainly has an engineering background.
Casey:
Now, you could argue whether or not he's practiced that in the traditional sense of the word in the last...
Casey:
I don't know, 10 years or whatever.
Casey:
But he certainly has the education to support him being in the engineering department.
Casey:
It's a question as to whether or not he actually is in the engineering department.
John:
Right.
John:
Like they wouldn't be hiring him for the stuff he learned in college.
John:
They're hiring him for all this stuff he did as well.
John:
Right.
John:
And it can't be underestimated.
John:
Who in the entire industry has had more contact with the vendors that Apple feels competitive with hardware-wise?
John:
It's basically, what kind of press goes to the Intel's IDF thing and goes to Samsung in Korea and goes to all the manufacturers in the Far East and just these incredibly detailed technical briefings on hardware and gets the sample hardware and tests it and benchmarks it?
John:
Who else has done that?
John:
Like there's, you know, maybe there's a couple of other websites that are maybe competitive, like real world tech or extreme tech.
John:
And if Tom Hardware is still around or whatever, but like what kind of person is going on that circuit and being in contact with these companies over the course of years and years, like that is the experience that you can't buy from someone who, you know, comes out of college, which is an education.
John:
That's what they're hiring him for.
Casey:
Yeah, and I should also note more real-time follow-up from a dear friend of the show, Ben Thompson.
Casey:
Anand was more than just Apple, and he was – and I didn't realize this, but apparently he and his site were more of a general hardware review site.
John:
You never read that site?
John:
You read Tom's Hardware but not Anand Tech?
John:
I did occasionally.
John:
You're reading the wrong sites.
John:
He just got into Apple stuff like, you know, sort of a latecomer like you and Marco.
John:
You and Marco, more or less, where it's like –
John:
He reviewed, you know, all the PC hardware type stuff.
John:
I was like, well, maybe Apple has some interesting stuff.
John:
And he got sucked in because Apple stuff is really cool, just like you two did.
John:
Yeah, wasn't the Retina MacBook Pro his first Mac?
John:
No, it was before that.
John:
Oh, maybe his first personal Mac.
John:
But like, I mean, the Apple stuff leaked into his site sort of slowly.
John:
And then they just all got hooked.
John:
Like that's, I mean, it happened in Ars Technica too.
John:
Yeah.
John:
I may have had something to do with that.
Casey:
It's a lot like the way I read Ars Technico.
Casey:
Like I always read your reviews and I'll read occasional things here and there.
Casey:
I read occasional things at a non-tech.
Casey:
I can't say I read every single post by any stretch of the imagination.
John:
Well, like Marco said, in recent years, it's been like if you want a review of the iPhone that is different than like, you know, not just a product review, but the guy who's going to rip open the CPU and talk about all the, you know, that's the site I would always go to.
John:
That was my go-to site for that kind of review.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And then those are the reviews that I read, but I presume that there's quite a bit more to a non-tech than just that.
Casey:
And those I did not see.
John:
Yeah.
John:
I go there for, I mean, they have storage reviews.
John:
I mean, there's lots of, lots of people writing there.
John:
I mean, the site I think is in good hands.
John:
Like he doesn't write every single thing on the site, obviously, but I go there for, you know, reviews about what's next and SSDs and, you know, graphic card stuff.
John:
And that site is like a lot of the PC originated sites, very big on benchmarks, lots of graphs, you know,
John:
If I want to know how does one video card compare to another, I do some kind of search.
John:
I think they have a big searchable benchmark database for that.
John:
They're very thorough in that same vein.
John:
They're a great site.
John:
I'll still go to it, even though he's not there anymore.
John:
And I hope he does great things for Apple.
John:
So thumbs up for this move.
Marco:
Yeah, good luck.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
So, also this week, this week has been a rough week, but this week it's been even more rough for a bunch of celebrities, and I believe all of them, or nearly all of them, are women.
Casey:
And they seem to have been targeted...
Casey:
in order to get access to pictures that really the internet should not have access to.
Casey:
And what has happened is there's a ton of celebrities I've, I heard, and I, I honestly don't know how long the list is, but I heard it was like 50 or a hundred names long, ton of celebrities that have had, um,
Casey:
private photographs stolen from them and posted around the internet.
Casey:
And when this first happened, everyone seemed to blame iCloud.
Casey:
And the going theory was that I believe it was Find My iPhone specifically
Casey:
did not have rate limiting when you attempted to log into it.
Casey:
So some enterprising, if you could call it that, individuals started firing away brute force dictionary attacks against the Find My iPhone service, trying to figure out what the iCloud password is for all these celebrities.
Casey:
And eventually, by some mechanism, be it social engineering or this find my iPhone thing or whatever, they seem to have gotten access to a bunch of celebrities' private photographs, which have been leaked.
Casey:
And so since this happened a few days ago, there's been a lot of debate whether or not this is really the fault of Apple and iCloud.
Casey:
And there's a lot of thoughts I have on this, but let me start with you, John.
Casey:
Do you think this is Apple or do you think this is something else?
Casey:
Where do you land on all this?
John:
Well, here's the thing with the story.
John:
The facts are thin on the ground.
John:
It's not clear at all about anything about this.
John:
Do the pictures come from Apple or from multiple places?
John:
Are they old pictures?
John:
Are they new pictures?
John:
Like as it was an actual security flaw?
John:
Was it a social engineering?
John:
Like we know nothing.
John:
All we know is these pictures are out there in the Internet.
John:
That's the nature of these type of things.
John:
Like someone stole a bunch of stuff.
John:
Someone leaked out onto the Internet.
John:
It's we have no idea.
John:
But it brings up all the same issues as we've talked about in the past.
John:
Apple thus far has said they have not been able to determine that there's some kind of security flaw, like the rate limiting thing has been fixed.
John:
So that's not an issue.
John:
And they investigated and basically their statement was something to the effect that there is no like inherent exploit or security flaw in like software wise, they seem to be saying in our system that caused leaking of these pictures from my guess would be that these pictures are
John:
did not all come from apple and did not all come from wherever they came from recently the theory that i've read and again this is just a theory it's not a fact uh that sounds plausible to me is that there is sort of an underground trading ring of you know uh illegally uh stolen digital data that is fetched from servers where people have backups or whatever and this was just a leak out of that sort of little circle of people trading this illegally acquired uh data so it's
John:
You know, people say, oh, these are leaked cell phones.
John:
They're not leaked from the people who took the photos.
John:
They were stolen from the people who took the photos.
John:
And then the people who stole them kept them to themselves in a little ring and then they were leaked out of that ring.
John:
That is the theory.
John:
And it seems like a plausible theory to me because that type of sort of illegal software or illegally acquired digital goods being sort of a secret inner circle and then being pierced by somebody who lets something out and then the inner circle is revealed –
John:
That sounds like a thing that I've seen before on the internet, and that sounds plausible.
John:
This is definitely something people would want to do.
John:
The question is, how did all these pictures get from the people's phones to the possession of the people who stole them?
John:
And that's where we get into talking about Apple, talking about security flaws.
John:
Apple is so big.
John:
Surely some of these things came from Apple.
John:
We've been through this before with Matt.
John:
What's his last name?
John:
Matt Honan.
John:
Yep.
John:
Yeah.
John:
That, you know, the security flaws that we've talked about and the very worst ones are not technical flaws.
John:
It's like, you know, read Kevin Mitnick's book like.
John:
It's social engineering.
John:
The fact that you can call someone on the phone, pretend to be someone else, answer their supposed security questions that you can just look up on the internet about them, like where they grew up or where they went to school or what their mother's maiden name is or whatever, and get their password.
John:
Right.
John:
And so that no matter how strong your password is, no matter how bug free Apple security software is, and the rate limiting thing is a software bug, too.
John:
But like, even if all of that was perfect, if you can just call someone on the phone and tell a sob story and get into their account, like what the hell's the point of the rest of that software?
John:
And that's the most difficult thing here.
John:
You'd like to tell everybody, hey, everybody, make sure you have good passwords.
John:
Don't reuse your passwords.
John:
But it doesn't matter if someone just call up Apple and get all your crap anyway.
John:
And what they're getting is usually like the backup of your phone, like the iCloud backup of your phone.
John:
And so, you know, and even that is encrypted.
John:
But then once they have it in their possession, they can decrypt it.
John:
And, you know, once they get your password, they can do everything.
John:
And it's in the interest of if there is a group like this that's stealing pictures of celebrities and stuff like that, it's in their interest not to like go into those accounts and like blackmail them or like erase all their stuff.
John:
They just want to get in, get out, steal their pictures.
John:
And, you know, this could have been going on, I'm sure has been going on for years and years.
John:
And it's not just celebrities.
John:
It's like everybody with an axe to grind against somebody would go to one of these little rings and say, hey, can you get me a backup of my ex-girlfriend's phone?
John:
I want to see all her naked pictures or whatever.
John:
It's just a criminal enterprise that's, you know, exploiting weaknesses in our systems.
John:
And they're weaknesses, unfortunately, that most customers can't do much about except, I guess, complain.
Casey:
The thing that was most ridiculous and surprising to me was that my understanding was a lot of people were blaming the celebrities for using iCloud and Dropbox and things like that as though it was somehow their fault that
Casey:
That somebody went in and, to your point, illegally stole their pictures.
Casey:
Like, oh, you shouldn't have taken naked pictures and put them on an eye clip.
Casey:
Are you kidding me?
Casey:
That's like saying, well, you left your house unlocked, so it's your own fault that everything got stolen.
John:
It's not even unlocked.
John:
It's like, well, you left your money in a bank.
John:
What do you expect?
John:
Maybe you should have left your money in a bank.
John:
Maybe you should think twice about using a credit card.
John:
You know, well, you got your car stolen?
John:
That's what you get for having a car.
John:
I mean, this is not like leaving your house unlocked.
John:
This is like having a car, having a bank account.
John:
Everybody has a smartphone.
John:
It's not an unfortunate, bad thing to have.
John:
Everybody takes pictures with their smartphone.
John:
Like, it's ridiculous.
John:
It's completely...
John:
off the wall.
John:
And, you know, that's really this is not really the issue we're getting at here with this iCloud hack.
John:
But like what it really comes down to is if you want to go like keep cranking up the meta levels, it's the weird attitude we have
John:
Maybe it's weird as a species if you look at it really broad if you go out to Mars or something, but certainly in the U.S., this weird puritanical view of nudity and sex that we have, that it's like taboo and evil and like...
John:
That the idea that like they're doing something wrong by taking naked pictures themselves, because if you were a good person, you would not do that.
John:
And it's so and that's how it's different in people's minds than keeping your money in the bank.
John:
Well, keeping your money in the bank is one thing, but taking naked pictures.
John:
No, it's exactly the same thing.
John:
Two things.
John:
They're private.
John:
They're your possession that you're allowed to do.
John:
It's your money.
John:
It's your bank account.
John:
Other people shouldn't have access.
John:
They're your photos.
John:
So there's a photo of your plants.
John:
Your house, your kids, you with clothes on or without clothes on.
John:
Suddenly when you take clothes on, it becomes this other category of craziness.
John:
Anyway, we're not going to fix the problem of the United States and their screwed up attitude towards sex.
John:
But that is why you get all this craziness coming in here where people lose their minds about it.
John:
And it's not even worth discussing that stupidity.
John:
But I think the thing that's worth discussing is...
John:
Forget about what they stole.
John:
I don't want anybody stealing backups of my phones.
John:
I don't care what's on them.
John:
That's what we have to address here.
John:
I wish Apple would work harder to... Gruber did a post about how the...
John:
how the backups you know the iCloud backups are a good thing because people are much more likely to lose all their photos of their kids because their phone fell in a lake than they are to get hacked and so it's a trade-off between well if you just never do iCloud backups you're safe from hacking but you could lose all your pictures and you're much more likely to lose all your pictures of your kids than you are to uh get hacked and um and the other trade-off is in any security thing it's convenience versus security
John:
If they didn't have the stupid, you know, tell me your mother's maiden name in the high school you went to things, people would get locked out of their accounts.
John:
And they'd be like, Apple, like, well, sorry, you lost your password.
John:
We never knew what your password is.
John:
You can't get and just have to erase your phone.
John:
And they would be like, are you kidding me?
John:
You know, like they need people forget their passwords like crazy.
John:
And so Apple is trying in the same terrible way that everyone else is doing to make it so that people aren't locked out of their phones when they inevitably forget their password.
John:
But what is it that you can replace a password with that is as secure as a password or more secure that people won't forget?
John:
Like there's no good solution for that, except for maybe like touch ID.
John:
Or I think that like if I had to advise Apple on how to address this, I would go more towards like the other systems that we have for identity, like.
John:
do a video call with somebody and record a video of them, get in touch with them, make them prove through a trusted third party that they are who they are.
John:
Some sort of really annoying process that if you were concerned about security, you could prove to them in a way, in many different factors that you were who you were.
John:
And then if someone wanted to reset their password, they would have to reproduce that extremely annoying, you know, proof that you are who you are.
John:
But most people don't want to do that.
John:
And so...
John:
Apple is kind of trying to aim for the correct balance between security and convenience that inconveniences the fewest number of people.
John:
But it is a tradeoff and it is an imperfect tradeoff.
John:
And it's an increasingly imperfect tradeoff when now it's so easy to find out the answers to people's security questions by just like trolling their Facebook and stuff.
Casey:
Yeah, and I'm glad you jumped on me a few minutes ago in saying that it's like leaving your house unlocked.
Casey:
That was an unfair analogy, and you're absolutely right.
Casey:
These people did nothing wrong, either by means of a flaw in Apple systems or perhaps some social engineering.
Casey:
They had something stolen from them, and that's just not fair.
Casey:
And the one interesting thing to me—
Casey:
is that when the internet decided that this was all apple and icloud's fault nobody seemed to think that was surprising and that's a problem like if everyone if there's this great huge security leak and everyone says oh well you know that's icloud like that's a big freaking problem and it's a branding problem you mean right
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And that's exactly right.
Casey:
And here it is, presumably with iOS 8 coming on Tuesday or being talked about on Tuesday.
Casey:
And presumably they're going to talk about a lot of this photos in the cloud stuff that they talked about at WWDC.
Casey:
This is not a good time for this to be happening.
Casey:
And so I just feel like at some point, and I know we've said this a thousand times, at some point, Apple's going to have to get really serious about their cloud services.
John:
But in this regard, it's not like the parts where they're not good at online services.
John:
This is a thing where seriousness won't save them.
John:
It's not like there is something that other companies know how to do that Apple is refusing to do or is bad at.
John:
There is no good solution to this.
John:
Like two-factor authentication, where you have to authenticate not just with the password, but also with something else that you possess.
John:
Either they text your phone or...
John:
which someone pointed out today is kind of ridiculous with the SMS gateway on the Mac thing that text will also appear on your Mac.
John:
So if someone has access to your Mac and your Apple ID, they can get that text too.
John:
But anyway, two factor authentication helps.
John:
But the reason it's like, well, why doesn't everybody do two factor?
John:
Are you kidding?
John:
People can't even remember their passwords.
John:
Two factor is still too complex.
John:
It's the balance between security and convenience.
John:
And the current balance between security and convenience is already, from most people's perspectives, pushed too far into the side of security.
John:
All these passwords they have to remember, it's a crappy system.
John:
Touch ID, I think, helps because that's a security convenience thing where they can give you additional security and also a little bit additional convenience.
John:
It's not the usual tradeoff that you can do there.
John:
But there is not some obvious thing that Apple can do.
John:
Like, boy, if only Apple was more serious.
John:
Like, the reason it's so easy to hack your accounts is because it has to be that easy for all the people who forget their passwords.
John:
And there's just probably like thousands and thousands of them every day who forget their passwords and use that system for its legitimate purses who would be pissed off if they couldn't.
John:
like you can't tell somebody well all your stuff is dead you know you forgot your password you don't remember what it is your backup is encrypted no one else can encrypted but decrypted but you then you've lost all the pictures of your kids again like well i can prove that i'm me like we don't know who you are we have nothing you know and so that's why i think like you have to it just has to be a social sort of uh a change in society to realize that if you care about your stuff online you have to protect it
John:
in a way that is inconvenient for you in terms of proving who you really are.
John:
And at the very least, start with having system.
John:
The two factor is one example that if you care about it, you can go through with two factor and go through the hassle for the increased security.
John:
They should have a step up from that that involves like authenticating who you are in every possible way, using all technology in our disposal and the legal system and everything else to really, really prove you are who you are.
Casey:
Yeah, and to also quote Ben Thompson, he wrote a piece today, which is in the chat room, we'll put in the show notes, about how, and I think the way he phrased it is really good.
Casey:
The problem is that Apple has no reservoir of goodwill when it comes to iCloud.
Casey:
And in this case, it may or may not even be that iCloud was the issue.
Casey:
It may be, to your point, John, a bunch of really, really great social engineering.
John:
But that's still iCloud.
John:
I mean, social engineering of Apple's.
Casey:
Fair.
Casey:
Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is it could be that iCloud was reasonably proficient at blocking these sorts of attacks.
Casey:
I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but it could be that it was.
Casey:
Yet, because we all know or assume that iCloud is a steaming pile of crap, as soon as somebody theorized that iCloud was the problem, the entire internet decided, oh, well, it must be iCloud.
John:
Yeah, because people can't differentiate between like, well, their services aren't responsive and their uptime is bad versus like security flaws versus social engineering.
John:
Yeah, you're right.
John:
It just goes all into the same bin.
John:
And the fact that just iPhones are popular, iPhones are popular with celebrities.
John:
Celebrities are, you know, like I said, who knows where these pictures came from?
John:
Some of them surely came from iCloud.
John:
Some of them surely came from other places.
John:
It doesn't matter.
John:
It just really matters what's the headline in the story.
John:
But I mean, Apple can...
John:
I'm sure Apple won't make reference to this.
John:
I'm assuming they won't.
John:
But like we'll talk about this in a bit on the September 9th event when they're presumably going to introduce new iPhones.
John:
Well, you know, Touch ID is a step in the right direction with this.
John:
It's granted you can fool it and it's not as secure as whatever and blah, blah, blah.
John:
But it's it's an additional factor.
John:
Right.
John:
And they have, you know, existing two factor authentication like.
John:
Apple is clearly trying to find ways to make things more secure and more convenient instead of just saying, OK, we'll give you like what I was suggesting, which is like make it more secure and less convenient for the people who need that security, like give them the option.
John:
And another thing I, you know, in response to this, as I usually do, I'm like, well, time to change my password again.
John:
Like I just...
John:
You know, why not make it even more ridiculous?
John:
Anyway, when I was doing that, when I tried to log in, log into my Apple ideas, like appleid.apple.com or something, I actually what I was originally going in was to see what my security questions were to make sure they weren't like make sure they were nonsense, basically, and not the truth or something that someone could look up because they only give you a choice of like questions that anybody could look up.
John:
And it wouldn't even let me into my account, like let me see my security questions or anything about my account.
John:
Because as soon as I logged in, it said, your password is too insecure.
John:
Please set a new one.
John:
Again, I couldn't get to any of my other resources.
John:
Couldn't see my email address.
John:
Couldn't see my mailing address, my payment info.
John:
Like you couldn't get to the interface on the Apple ID side.
John:
Everything worked fine.
John:
I could still log in and use all my stuff.
John:
But trying to manage your Apple ID, they are apparently trying to enforce better passwords by deciding whose password is or isn't secure.
John:
So, you know, I changed my password to make it more secure.
John:
I also looked at my security questions and, you know, I did a security pass.
John:
You can do that.
John:
I don't know how much that protects me.
John:
If someone is really smooth and gets a bad, you know, telephone rep, they could probably still social engineer their way in.
John:
But yeah, I mean, and two factor helps.
John:
But, you know, security is a constant battle.
Marco:
And we can all keep talking about how Apple could add all these things in to make things more secure, give us options to lock things down more tightly and everything.
Marco:
But one of the biggest problems is if these things are not the defaults or the only way to do things, then they're not really going to protect most people.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
Most of the celebrities who were targeted for this mass theft over whatever amount of time it was, a good portion of them probably would have all their phones on whatever the default settings were.
Marco:
And so unless you make the defaults crazy complicated or make that the only option, having the options is not going to really help most people.
John:
Well, celebrities might be motivated to, like, word could get around amongst celebrities.
John:
Like, when you get an iPhone and it asks you if you want to use your fingerprint as a second factor, say yes.
John:
Like, you know, this type of thing is something, for people who are, like, targeted by, likely to be targeted by these attacks, even if they're not tech savvy, because I think Apple does a pretty good job of, like, during your, like, phone setup, it's like, you should set a password, a passcode, and if you try to say no, it's like, are you sure you don't want to have a passcode?
John:
And same thing with Touch ID, like...
John:
They are trying to encourage people to be more secure.
John:
And I think socially within groups of people who feel they are targeted for potential hacks have some motivation to talk amongst themselves and say, yes, you know, oh, your phone doesn't have like like lock codes.
John:
Your phone doesn't have a lock code.
John:
You should totally have a lock code.
John:
Oh, your phone doesn't also use touch ID.
John:
You should totally use that, you know.
John:
So there's hope there, I think.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
So breaking news, as we're recording on this Thursday night, apparently Tim Cook has given a statement or interview of some sort to the Wall Street Journal because the Wall Street Journal is a bunch of idiots who thinks that they have to block all their content online.
Casey:
All I can read to you is the following.
Casey:
In his first interview on the subject, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said, now it's getting really, really hard to read, celebrities' iCloud accounts were compromised when the hackers correctly answered security.
Marco:
Questions to obtain their passwords or when they were victimized by A. Oh, thank you.
Marco:
I deleted the thing on the DOM inspector.
John:
Yeah, it's the first thing I tried in their paywall, but they actually don't put the whole text there, which is a shame.
Marco:
The Google trick still works.
Casey:
I tried that and it didn't work for me, but maybe it's user error.
Marco:
If I paste this into our Skype chat, is that copyright infringement?
John:
Go ahead, but I don't think we need to read it.
John:
But anyway, you can put a link to it and do whatever everyone has a website usually does.
John:
You just put a link to the Google results so people can...
John:
Anyway, like they said, there's no flaw in our software other than the rate limiting, which obviously they fixed.
John:
And, you know, they found it.
John:
I'm not surprised that they found this.
John:
They're like they can find.
John:
OK, pick some celebrities account with their permission.
John:
Say we'd like to investigate how you got hacked.
John:
Find out how they got hacked with someone called Apple's support line, answer their security questions, got their stuff.
John:
And that's exactly what I was talking about.
John:
Like that.
John:
the security questions are less secure than a password.
John:
And intentionally so, because when you've forgotten your password, they want you to have some way to get your stuff back.
John:
And if you've forgotten your password, we need to have something that you are less likely to forget.
John:
You're less likely to forget who your second grade teacher was, right, than you are to have your password.
John:
But it's also easier to get, like, it's...
John:
You know, it's a trade-off, and it is a very bad trade-off for people who could potentially be targeted.
John:
So I think Apple is working in the right direction with the biometric stuff, and I think they should continue to go even farther.
John:
Who knows?
John:
Little pictures, video, voice print.
John:
Like, we can prove to each other, more or less.
John:
We don't have to worry about a couple generations having difficulty proving to each other that we are who we are because we have a distinctive look.
John:
People recognize us.
John:
Eventually, there's enough technology.
John:
social proof that you are Mark Arment and people see you and say that's him you don't have a twin brother as far as we know you know plastic surgery is not good enough to match you exactly we don't have holograms that like we we are in a place where we can prove you are who you are we just need to convey more of that and we have the thing is we have the technology to convey more of that information about proving who you are we have video we have audio we have touch sensors we can make this happen
Marco:
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Marco:
They have over 2,400 courses right now.
Marco:
They're adding more every week.
Marco:
These courses are taught by industry experts.
Marco:
This is not just some amateur stuff pulled off of YouTube.
Marco:
This is real in-house stuff produced by Lynda, and it's incredibly high quality.
Marco:
I've seen a lot of these myself.
Marco:
I learned a lot about how to edit our podcast in Logic and
Marco:
And it was really very, very good.
Marco:
I can't say enough good things about the quality of their material.
Marco:
Lynda.com has courses for all experience levels, beginner to advanced and specialty overview, all huge variety here.
Marco:
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Marco:
That gives you access to the entire Lynda.com library as much as you can watch.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
With lynda.com, you can improve your skills, keep up with new technology, learn new software, learn new versions of software.
Marco:
Every time there's like a new version of Creative Suite or Creative Cloud, I guess it is now, a new version of Microsoft Office, whenever these things happen, lynda.com is there to have new videos out, often on day one.
Marco:
They will almost always work with...
Marco:
the big software vendors to get pre-release copies of the software and get training materials so that they can then make great videos for you on day one as soon as new stuff comes out courses are broken up into bite-sized pieces so whether you have 15 minutes or 15 hours you can learn at your own pace on your own terms you can also watch these courses from your computer tablet or mobile device they even have a higher tiered premium plan where you can download them for offline watching on your ipad or iphone and
Marco:
i think even android is supported here yes yes it is okay so anyway um you can also download uh project files with a premium plan you can download example files it's really great uh anyway courses are structured so you can learn from start to finish or you can just jump in to find a quick answer there's a great indexing of the content you can click on any phrase you can see a transcript on the side you can click on it jump to that point in the video
Marco:
Now, the great thing is you can try this for free.
Marco:
They have a free trial offer here for seven days.
Marco:
So go to lynda.com, that's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash A-T-P, and you will get a free seven-day trial.
Marco:
Once again, lynda.com, L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash A-T-P for a free seven-day trial.
Marco:
Check out Lynda for these great video tutorials.
Marco:
I cannot recommend them enough.
Marco:
I've used them myself, and they're fantastic.
Marco:
Thank you very much.
Casey:
So we are recording this on Thursday the 4th.
Casey:
It will hopefully be out on Friday the 5th, maybe Saturday the 6th.
Casey:
And on the 9th, Apple is releasing something new.
Casey:
So it would be wrong of us not to at least spend a few moments discussing what do we expect to see.
Casey:
So Marco, what do you expect to see?
Marco:
I mean, there's the obvious stuff.
Marco:
The stuff that, like, the rumor sites have basically, you know, there's been enough smoke and enough parts leaks to... Stuff we've seen videos of.
John:
Completely assembled purported iPhone 6s, right?
Marco:
That one even powered on and showed the firmware update screen.
Marco:
Yeah, seriously.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So I think if you can boot a new iPhone into DFU mode, I think it's probably confirmation that it exists.
Marco:
So I think it's pretty clear we're getting a 4.7 inch iPhone 6 at the bare minimum.
Casey:
Now, hold on.
Casey:
I'm not trying to be funny.
Casey:
The thing in that video that was the 4.7 inch because that thing looked huge to me.
Marco:
no we haven't seen we've seen almost nothing from a 5.5 inch i believe somebody got a back panel like a couple days ago or something that might be from it but we've seen in general we've seen effectively nothing about the 5.5 i saw this device this new purported new iphone in this person's hand and i thought it looked enormous and if that's the 4.5 4.7 whatever it is man i don't know if i can handle that well
John:
See, we're close enough to the event now that if the 5.5 wasn't a real thing, you would think that Apple would do that thing it does where it gets the message out that maybe a 5.5 is not a real thing.
Marco:
Right, like there would be a leaked report on Bloomberg or WSJ saying like, oh, well, actually... Or even not like they can make either official statements or statements through people that like...
John:
Like remember in the WRC when they weren't going to have hardware, they made it clear they weren't going to have hardware without saying they weren't going to have hardware.
John:
They don't care in the months leading up to it.
John:
But right before the event, I feel like if there wasn't going to be two sizes of iPhones, big and even bigger, they would have been saying something by now.
John:
Yeah, like or getting the word out.
John:
So I'm I'm I'm with Marco 4.7, 5.5 iPhones.
John:
I'm I'm also totally in agreement that everyone has said that the 5.5 is going to be more expensive, not just because they want to differentiate, but because it's the bigger screen costs more money, bigger batteries cost more money.
John:
And that's a lot of the cost of the phone is in the screen and the battery.
John:
So so, yeah, those are those are the easy ones.
Marco:
Yeah, there's been a couple of very recent rumors, like in the last couple of days, saying that both the iPad Air 2 would be unveiled.
Marco:
So a new iPad Air with like an anti-glare screen, which sounds interesting, and a better Touch ID sensor.
Marco:
So apparently there's going to be like a second generation Touch ID sensor that then the iPad will get, and then the phone, of course, will get it as well.
Marco:
And another recent rumor is that the wearable device will be announced, but won't ship until next year.
Marco:
So there's a whole bunch of recent craziness surrounding this event.
Marco:
They're also building that giant white structure that I think the most plausible speculation people have had is that it's actually a concert venue for U2 to perform.
Marco:
Who knows?
Marco:
What we do know is that anything we say in this show, predicting what's going to be there beyond a new iPhone...
Marco:
we're probably going to look back at next week and laugh at.
John:
Don't you think we can all be safe in saying that there's a better than 50-50 chance that they're going to announce a wearable?
John:
I think so.
John:
I feel safe in saying that.
John:
Just because if this was going to be only an iPhone event, the invitation would have been more forthcoming.
Marco:
Did you see they have that countdown page for the live stream?
Marco:
And it's saying there's so much more.
Marco:
They're hyping this up a lot.
Marco:
Apple is hyping this up more than usual.
John:
Right.
John:
And it's a giant venue.
John:
The Flint Center is way bigger than the normal venues.
John:
They invited tons of press to this thing.
John:
It's not like in the little town hall.
John:
It's not in the... It's a huge venue.
John:
They're building this big structure, which...
John:
you know, I assume is going to be either be like it's not the events not going to be there.
John:
So it's like either a hands on area or YouTube concert area or like, you know, who knows what it like.
John:
It seems like a much bigger deal and you wouldn't do this if it was just a bunch of iPhones or even if it was iPhones and iPads.
John:
And so what are we expecting from Apple?
John:
wearables or a TV thing.
John:
TV thing doesn't seem like it's in the cards.
John:
I haven't heard much smoke about that.
John:
So you got to say it's a wearable thing.
John:
And and I also agree with the rumors that say it probably won't ship because if it was shipping, we'd be seeing the leaks like they do the same.
John:
They get to do the same thing they did with the original iPhone way pre announce it because it's not like you're killing sales of an existing product.
John:
And you have to do all this government FCC stuff and other things that will cause it to leak and plus manufacturing and bazillion other things.
John:
So, you know, announce it first.
John:
Problem solved.
Marco:
well and and also i think this like so far we you know if apple makes any new product we see parts leaks like if they make anything that's about that's going to ship imminently we see parts leaks in advance because they're making things at such big scales that people that people care about things that people care about because not enough people cared about the mac pro and that's that's true
Marco:
but they also weren't making that in massive volumes and like that's yeah exactly you know but you don't see like leaks of new iMacs and or or for even for the matter of laptops they're best-selling laptops it's like man no really no really cares well but again you know the volume that they're that they're producing they're like you know they they sell so many iPhones that they can't keep an iPhone under wraps during the massive ramp up of getting the manufacturing going before launch but
Marco:
And so they definitely run the same risk with a wearable thing, that if they release a compelling wearable device, they're probably going to sell a butt ton of them very, very shortly after launch.
Marco:
And so they, especially, you know, well, it's probably going to miss the holiday season, but regardless, they're going to sell a ton of them.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
They're probably announcing it very far in advance, if that is indeed what they're doing, just so they can control the reveal of it.
Marco:
You know, like they... It crushes them when they have this cool big secret thing and then, you know, the internet ruins it with parts leaks months ahead of time or weeks ahead of time.
Marco:
I'm sure Apple wants to control every bit of the narrative of how this new device, if it exists and it sounds likely to exist, of how this device is unveiled to the world.
Marco:
And, you know, because if... Suppose we just got a parts leak.
Marco:
Suppose...
Marco:
some rumor site had some picture of some like, you know, wrist cuff with the, with the screen on the top and an apple logo on the back.
Marco:
And, and that's all we knew about it.
Marco:
You know, that, that would be, you know, anticlimactic at least.
Marco:
And, and, and,
Marco:
you know possibly uh underwhelming it's like oh well they're just making something that looks like a nice smart watch and that's all we would know and like that the whole narrative would be controlled by the rumor cycle and and and the and the speculative press whereas if they have this event to show it off to us for the first time they control everything about how it's perceived they set the tone they set the talking points they tell us why it's so cool and then we get to go around telling everyone else their talking points about why it's so cool because
Marco:
That's so much better than trying to fight with the leaks and trying to stay ahead of the PR on those.
Marco:
So I think it's very clear why they would do something like this very far in advance for a brand new kind of device like this.
John:
I'm trying to think of when they did it.
John:
Again, obviously, if there's no existing product, you get to do it because you get to pre-announce because you're not killing sales of your existing product.
John:
But then if it's an existing one, like the phones, like the things leak.
John:
I think the last one I can remember...
John:
Uh, well, this is still an original type thing.
John:
I was going to say like the original iPad didn't leak.
John:
People cared about the iPad.
John:
People cared a lot about the tablet.
John:
Uh, and I think they announced that not too long before I went on sale, but we had no leak in that.
John:
Not that there was that much to leak.
John:
Like it's a, you know, it's a tablet.
John:
It's a bit, the whole issue was like, what's going to be on the screen.
John:
But, uh,
John:
Yeah, like when they've had to combat leaks, like think about the 5S, like there was going to be gold one, we already knew it was going to be gold, and we saw all the parts.
John:
They had to, in their presentation, they had to sort of work their magic to say, I know you've seen lots of pictures of this gold backplate, and you've seen it compared in different things, and you've seen the darker gold one, and you've seen the lighter gold one, and you've seen it next to the gray one, and you've seen different...
John:
We'll be right back.
John:
Your first picture, your first introduction to this thing will be through marketing materials that we have vetted.
John:
You'll see it in the best light, in the context we want you to see it, in the purposes that we think this thing is going to do.
John:
And by the way, speaking of purposes, a lot of people in the chat room have been talking about, oh, you wanted better authentication for iCloud security.
John:
Well, this wristwatch might help.
John:
Yeah, it might if it has a Touch ID sensor.
John:
I'm not sure something that's strapped onto your wrist or on any other part of your body has any better access to proving you are who you are.
John:
other than the same ways that a phone or a video or some other thing can.
John:
But anyway, that's an angle we can look for.
Casey:
It's interesting to me that Apple is so enthusiastic to have put up a countdown.
Casey:
It seems so not Apple-y to me to put up this countdown like this.
Casey:
I mean, generally speaking –
Casey:
My impression of Apple is they come out of nowhere and just drop this bomb and say, hey, this thing that you never knew you wanted, not only is it a thing, but guess what?
Casey:
You want it.
Casey:
And it's surprising to me to see this countdown basically saying this thing that we all know we're probably going to talk about.
Casey:
We're going to talk about it in four days, 14 hours, 49 minutes and four seconds.
John:
I think they've done countdowns before.
John:
Keep in mind, this is a countdown on a page where the only line is, wish we could say more.
John:
They don't even give you a bad pun or a hint.
John:
They've gone so far as to make the little twisting apple thing to show a little lion behind it with the back to the neck thing.
John:
They give you some kind of vague, even if the hint only makes sense in retrospect.
John:
In this one, they're like, you get nothing.
John:
You get a white Apple logo and you get a statement that could only be construed if it's like, I wish we could make Siri say more things or some BS stuff like that.
John:
Like people are just desperate to try to mine any nugget of information.
John:
But they're essentially saying...
John:
You know, I know that you know that I know that you know that I have a wearable device.
John:
You know, and that's and really like there's the stakes in this could not be higher.
John:
Now, first of all, putting aside like the poor CEO Fitbit, who's going to be watching this thing chew on his fingernails.
John:
Putting aside that this is kind of, you know, this is Tim Cook's like.
John:
not going to say make it or break it moment, but this is an important moment for Tim Cook's Apple because previously the big complaint was, yeah, fine, Tim, you're doing well with the company and stock prices like doubled or whatever since you took over and selling more than ever or whatever.
John:
But how come you haven't revolutionized the whatever world?
John:
And you know, where's the iWatch?
John:
Where's the, right?
John:
So, well, so here's going to be a new product category.
John:
He's talked about it for a long time.
John:
He's been talking about it probably too long.
John:
If it happens, it seems very likely to happen now or sometime this year.
John:
And so this is,
John:
So, you know, people are going to look at this and say, OK, well, finally, Apple enters a new product category under Tim Cook.
John:
Does it look like it's good?
John:
Does it look like it's going to be popular?
John:
Does it look like a stinker?
John:
And even then, like, you know, people thought the iPad was a stinker, too, and that sold pretty well.
John:
So.
John:
uh this is an important moment for apple and for for tim cook and it will be an important rest of the year especially if the thing doesn't ship until next year because we won't really know until like the first big burst of people who are desperate to have this thing get it and then the reviews come in and you know the whole nine yards so this it's an interesting time
Casey:
The other interesting thing to me, and we alluded to this earlier, was a dear friend of the show, underscore David Smith, pointed out the relative seating capacity of Apple event venues.
Casey:
The Campus Town Hall, 301.
Casey:
Yerba Buena Center, 757.
Casey:
Flint Center, where Tuesday's event is happening, 2,405.
Casey:
I mean, obviously, and like you both said earlier, Apple is of the opinion that this is going to be big.
John:
If you look at the things that were released in the Flint Center, someone tweeted that as well.
John:
I think it was like the original Mac, the iMac, and then some product that was totally forgettable.
John:
You know, it's a bigger venue.
John:
That's all you need to know.
John:
It's like it's way bigger.
John:
It's not even close.
John:
It's obvious.
John:
I mean, they built a whole temporary building like something is going down here.
John:
And if they do this just for iPhones, it would be a terrible strategic blunder.
John:
So it's not just going to be iPhones.
John:
Well, the iPhones will be great.
John:
You know, I'm sure they will.
John:
And very interesting.
John:
And by the way, we didn't even mention NFC or near field communications, you know, the wireless thing that lets you.
John:
Not touch your phone to something, but sort of bring it nearby to sort of swipe over.
John:
Apple's payment system that they're working on is more and more rumors about that of, you know, the deals they're making with Gruber just posted the deals they're making with the the banks to lower the fees to make, you know, like it's all like all the things that we've we've been talking about NFC and iPhones for years now.
John:
And now it looks like it might actually come to pass.
John:
And that could be integrated with some sort of thing that you wear as well.
John:
So there's a lot of long rumored things coming to a head in this September 9th event.
Marco:
Yeah, I think it's going to be as big as they're hyping it up to be.
Marco:
Because I think Apple is smart enough to know not to hype up something that ends up being another iPod Hi-Fi.
John:
Yeah, and by the way, I said they invite a lot of people.
John:
I got invited to the event as well.
John:
And much to the chagrin of everybody who knows me, I will not be at the event.
Casey:
Oh, come on.
Casey:
Really?
Casey:
You are the worst.
John:
Yeah, I know.
John:
You all hate it.
Casey:
I hate you so much right now.
John:
I mean, yeah, that's neat here.
John:
Trust me, there'll be plenty of people there to cover it.
John:
If I went, I wouldn't be covering it.
Casey:
It would just, you know... Are they transferable tickets?
John:
Because if so... No, there's nothing transferable.
John:
Believe me, this will be a well-covered event.
John:
It will be live-streamed.
Marco:
It's...
Marco:
If this ends up being something really major and, like, of historic value, you could have gone and you're not going.
John:
Yeah.
John:
If I could go back in time to the original Mac intro, maybe I would go.
John:
I've seen a lot of Apple keynotes.
John:
Like, maybe I'll regret it.
John:
You're right.
John:
But, like, as exciting and important as the wearable is to Apple, thus far, I am not particularly personally...
John:
excited about a wearable you don't even have an iphone you're right that's exactly another reason i don't even have an iphone i might get this iphone i could i could end up getting this iphone am i going to get a watch look casey and i will watch your kids we will go to your house and watch your kids so you can go to this it's expense and i have to take time off work and we will buy your ticket yeah honestly i am i would i would see what i already told that i'm not going i'm not going
Casey:
Ah, I would go halfsies with Marco on your ticket just to send your curmudgeonly butt out there.
Casey:
Oh, you are the worst.
John:
Anyway, I will be watching it live with the rest of the world, and I will get the experience the same way.
John:
I don't need to.
John:
I don't need to be with the people who are actually covered, because I wouldn't be covering the event.
John:
Like, when I go to WWDC, I am doing something functional there.
John:
I'm not just there for, you know, for my own edification.
John:
I'm there to do research for a review that I then do.
John:
So...
Marco:
Do you do anything for fun?
John:
I do.
John:
Are you sure?
John:
When?
John:
Anyway.
Casey:
No, don't anyway.
Casey:
No, you're not off the hook yet, sir.
Casey:
You have to at least give us one thing.
John:
You guys can both answer this question for me.
John:
I am confident.
Casey:
What, do you do anything for fun?
John:
Yeah, name some things I do for fun.
John:
The answer's no.
John:
No, name some things I do for fun.
Marco:
I guess you might play video games.
John:
Hey, that's a hard one.
John:
Do you have to think a long time on that one?
John:
Oh, what could you possibly do for fun?
John:
And what else, Casey, do I do for fun that you can think of?
John:
You watch a lot of TV.
John:
And movies that I quote that you don't know.
John:
Yeah, those two.
Casey:
Don't you get angry with me, sir.
John:
I'm just saying, what do you do for fun?
John:
I pass through the things you know me for, things that I do for fun.
John:
You're like, I can't think of anything.
Casey:
Oh, God.
Casey:
All I know is, so my dad used to have, I guess they were like season tickets to the Fillmore East, which I think was somewhere either in New York City or suburb of New York City years ago.
Casey:
And he had like tickets to freaking every concert that was going on there.
Casey:
And I think it was a New Year's Eve show or something like that, that Jimi Hendrix was playing.
Casey:
And he thought, eh, well, I'll see him another time.
Casey:
And...
Casey:
And let me tell you, my dad, I think this was like when he was roughly 20, when this was an option for him.
Casey:
He is just barely over 60 now and is still complaining about the fact that he didn't go to that Jimi Hendrix concert.
Casey:
But no, John, you do what you think.
John:
Well, Casey, I did see Steve Jobs' last keynote in person.
John:
Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy.
John:
I was sitting next to you.
John:
And Marco.
John:
So I feel like I didn't miss out on that.
John:
And if this is Tim Cook's last keynote and I missed it in person, I'll be okay with it.
John:
You are the worst.
Marco:
I had a chance to go to the Phish concert with the giant meat stick a few years ago.
Marco:
That New Year's Eve concert.
Marco:
I don't know what that is.
Marco:
No one knows what that is, Marco.
Casey:
Time for the meat stick.
Casey:
Bury the meat stick.
Casey:
Take out the meat stick time.
Casey:
This is terrible.
Casey:
And now Ben Thompson's in the chat taunting Marco and I saying, oh, I got an invite too, but I don't think it's worth flying 26.
Casey:
You people are terrible.
John:
See, another person is not going.
John:
It's like, you know, we're going to I'm going to see the announcement in real time.
John:
It's not like I'm not going to know about it.
John:
It's not a secret thing that's happening.
John:
We're all going to see it.
John:
I'll probably have a better view here than I would in that giant auditorium.
John:
It's not like I'm going to get a review unit.
John:
It's not like I'm going to write a review.
John:
I'm not even going to cover the event.
John:
There's no reason for me to be there.
Marco:
Well, you could.
Marco:
You would probably be invited to the hands-on area, at least.
John:
Yeah, so you can spend five seconds with it until Walt Mossberg slaps your hands away and sits at the table.
John:
Is that how that usually goes?
John:
I don't know.
John:
I've never been in one of those hands-on rooms.
John:
Who knows?
Casey:
See?
Casey:
I don't even know what to say.
John:
It'll be fine.
John:
Trust me.
John:
It'll be okay.
Casey:
I'm so angry at you.
Casey:
Are we done?
Casey:
I'm so angry right now.
Casey:
Oh, my God.
Casey:
This is the worst.
John:
We have a big after show to get to, so I say we're done.
John:
Unless you can think of anything else to say about the September 9th event.
John:
Last chance to get in predictions.
Casey:
I have nothing bright to say.
Casey:
I'm so angry at you right now.
Casey:
It's clouding my ability to think.
Marco:
Thanks to our three sponsors this week.
Marco:
Harry's, Squarespace, and Lynda.com.
Marco:
And we'll see you next week when John is not going to this event.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
Marco:
They didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental.
Marco:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at atp.fm.
Marco:
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Casey:
So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.
Casey:
It's accidental, they didn't mean.
Casey:
I'm so glad you didn't know this.
John:
Casey has been yelling at me all week about it, but I didn't realize you hadn't even known that this was going on.
Marco:
Oh, you didn't know this, Marco?
Marco:
It seems like you didn't.
Marco:
No, I knew.
Marco:
I was just saving my rage.
John:
Yeah, well, you did a good job saving it.
Yeah.
Casey:
All I know is, this is not a joke.
Casey:
When you told me originally, which was around a week ago, I seriously had a mental argument with myself debating whether or not to go telling your wife that you got an invite.
John:
I told her as soon as I got there.
John:
What do you think?
John:
I'm keeping secrets from her?
John:
I told her.
John:
She knows.
John:
We discussed it.
Casey:
I didn't tell your wife because I didn't think that was an appropriate course of action, and I didn't want to get involved in your marital stuff.
John:
Well, good call, but it's silly to think that I wouldn't tell her.
Marco:
Well, I told my wife, and she thinks you're crazy.
John:
Yeah, I know.
John:
I get that a lot.
Casey:
God, I'm so angry right now.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Now that I'm all fired up and angry, let's talk about what's going on with women in gaming.
Marco:
Oh, man.
Marco:
What a disaster that is, huh?
John:
i read all these things all the time like i follow a lot of people who are involved in the gaming industry i follow a lot of people who are women related to the gaming industry they post links to articles i follow those links i read them i read all the blog posts i read all like i mean i i read a lot of gaming sites i read all these stories on them in this particular i read a lot about so i feel like i'm just soaking in and i you just assume that everyone else knows all the things that are happening
John:
But they don't.
John:
So that's why I think it's worth talking about, because not everyone has read 9,000 articles in this already.
John:
Yeah.
John:
So the difficult thing to talk about this is there's no actual, like, the difficulty of you two getting up to speed is, like, there's no actual, like, news there.
John:
There's nothing...
John:
There's nothing substantive for you.
John:
It's all like a meta story.
John:
It's all it's all a story about a story.
John:
The substantive parts like that you would think it's like a controversy where there's like one side and another and they're against each other.
John:
But it's almost entirely one side.
John:
It's essentially a bunch of women in the industry who are fighting for more equality.
John:
in the most, like, tame, non-controversial way you could possibly imagine.
John:
The best example of this is Anita Sarkeesian's famous frequency videos.
John:
She had a Kickstarter for it.
John:
Go watch these videos that she puts up.
John:
It's a critique of the treatment of women in gaming.
John:
It is the most calm, like, gentle, hand-holding, like, non-controversial, like, in some ways, almost boring, like, just eminently reasonable.
John:
Example after example, she is not yelling at you.
John:
She does not have unreasonable demands.
John:
She explains things slowly and carefully in a way that people will understand with clear language.
John:
Right.
John:
This is one example of the type of thing that drives you nuts.
John:
And that's why there's not a controversy, because it's like, what is it that you are opposed to in these things?
John:
All right.
John:
So anyway, there's stuff like that out there.
John:
There's articles about her.
John:
There's articles about related issues.
John:
I mean, just the general treatment of women in video games and actual women who work in the gaming industry.
John:
On the other side of this are people who are terrible doing terrible things to other people, harassing them, posting their personal information, sending them death threats, sending them terrible pictures.
John:
This goes on all the time.
John:
This is not new.
John:
This is just a flare up of something that happens all the time to women everywhere, not just in the gaming industry, but in particular, these women who are doing this terrible thing in the gaming industry by merely talking about these issues.
John:
And in recent weeks, it's been getting worse because the terrible people are trying to organize and trying to be even more super terrible.
John:
And women are leaving the industry because they can't take the harassment.
John:
And I don't blame them for doing it.
John:
And then it's like a victory.
John:
And so it's not like you would say, well...
John:
There's a debate here.
John:
There's these people who did these bad things and these people who got angry.
John:
It's mostly just people doing bad things.
John:
There's no other side to that.
John:
And that's why I've been hesitant to discuss it because I'm like, well, there's no story.
John:
It's not like we can talk about this bad thing people did and people's overreaction to it.
John:
No, we can talk about this completely tame, totally rational, calm, normal, everyday thing that happens all the time.
John:
that is not bad in any way and then these terrible people and so now this has just become a story about the terrible people of like it doesn't matter what anyone even if they had done something like a written a really mean blog post it doesn't matter like they haven't it doesn't justify the crazy behavior that's going on and so i don't know what more there really is to say about this other than whenever people ask me about on twitter my my position is that
John:
The people who are angry have no idea what they're angry about.
John:
They think they know what they're angry about.
John:
They think they're angry about ethics.
John:
They think they're angry about people taking away their games.
John:
They think they're angry about people lying.
John:
They have no idea what they're angry about.
John:
It is the biggest case of...
John:
self-delusion, you know, like, and they will never be convinced that they don't know what they're angry about.
John:
What they are doing is try, in their mind, they're going to be like, actually, what I really care about is journalistic integrity in video games.
John:
Or what I really care about is that someone is lying or something.
John:
Like, they make up all these crazy conspiracy theories and decide that they are really, that they have a righteous cause.
John:
They do not have a righteous cause.
John:
What they are actually angry about has nothing to do with the things they claim they are angry about, which is so easy for everyone on the outside of the bubble to see, but inside the bubble...
John:
That's what they really think.
John:
And they're like, oh, well, you know, they have a million issues.
John:
You can just look at any of the reply streams to any of these people and just see all the things they think they're angry about.
John:
These people are not angry about that.
John:
They don't know the definition of intellectual honesty.
John:
They're intellectually dishonest, both with themselves and other people.
John:
and it's it's just terrible and by the way this is this is gaming is where we're talking about this this happens everywhere women are treated badly everywhere to varying degrees like if you don't believe it talk to a woman in your life and ask them for stories and if they actually trust you enough they will tell you these stories and it will sound insane to you and my advice to everyone listening to this thinking i'm crazy person is the like how do you what do you do about this do you just like
John:
You know, what can you possibly do about it?
John:
And I think that the thing that you can do about it, if you are and the odds are high, a plain old American white male person listening to our tech nerd podcast.
John:
Just try reading these blog posts and watching these videos, just like just do sort of like immersion therapy or whatever it is when you just have like just just immerse yourself in it.
John:
not the ones you agree with the other side, the people who are saying it would be nice if women were treated better in video games.
John:
Just read those for like a year without saying anything.
John:
That's the only way I feel like you can get through to people.
John:
Like what, you know, what actually, what, what is the reality of the situation on the other side there?
John:
If you just read things that you agree with or try to find things that like reinforce your own prejudices and make you feel better about the things that you feel, because we were all brought up, we brought this up in the women's show.
John:
We're all brought up in a culture that, uh,
John:
embeds in us biases against all sorts of things.
John:
Race, religion, gender, everything.
John:
We're all brought up in that environment.
John:
We don't want to think of ourselves as bad people.
John:
There's a cognitive dissonance thing going on there.
John:
The best thing you can do is just to immerse yourself in the equality debate
John:
And that's the only way I think people can get turned around because there's no way me arguing with someone on Twitter is going to convince them they're not mad about journalistic ethics and they don't know what intellectual honesty is and they have and they have really have no legitimate complaints.
John:
There's no way I can convince them of that.
John:
Like, it's so clear that they're so far gone.
John:
There's no point in arguing with them.
John:
And the only thing I think can turn people around, including people like us who are just like sort of, you know, well, I'm not really involved in this.
John:
I'm not a terrible person.
John:
I'm not sending death threats.
John:
I think there should be more equality in games, too, but I don't want to get involved because it's a fight.
John:
To get out of that mindset, I think you have to really understand what's going on.
John:
And the way to really understand what's going on in a way that you might feel comfortable with is just to, if you care about this issue, just to immerse yourself in it and read everything everybody has to say.
John:
It doesn't mean you have to take it all at face value, but just feel like you can get a picture of it that's beyond a picture that just reinforces the things that make you feel good about yourself.
John:
Read some things that actually make you feel bad about yourself.
Casey:
So earlier today, and I'm not sure if this is why he's bringing this up, and I'm going to bring it up, and we'll see where it goes.
Casey:
Earlier today, I made a perhaps dubious choice of saying, somebody said, we should talk about this tonight.
Casey:
And I had said, you know, I'm not sure how to talk about it, and I'm not sure what to do because –
Casey:
I feel like, well, the people who are ostracizing women and threatening women unequivocally, like John said, unequivocally are wrong.
Casey:
And that's a terrible thing.
Casey:
And how these people look at themselves in the mirror, I don't understand.
Casey:
How they sleep at night, I don't understand.
Casey:
It's terrible.
Yeah.
Casey:
I don't want to just shout into the echo chamber.
Casey:
I want to try to do something to move things forward.
Casey:
And whether or not I did a good job of portraying that viewpoint on Twitter in 140 characters minus like probably 20 or 30 characters worth of mentions, I may not have done a good job.
Casey:
But one way or another –
Casey:
I said, you know, the way in which I approach this, I think, is nuanced.
Casey:
And I don't think that the discussion is nuanced.
Casey:
I think that it's unequivocally these people are jerks and that's the end of it.
Casey:
Women should be treated better.
Casey:
That's the end of it.
Casey:
But the way I approach it is a little nuanced.
Casey:
And I got what I felt was a considerable amount of hate in
Casey:
And a considerable amount of yelling directed at me on Twitter because I had said that I wanted to think for a minute before I spoke.
Casey:
And it really upset me a lot.
Casey:
And it really bothered me.
Casey:
And I felt a little bit like I think Marco felt, I think a week or two ago, with regard to the wire cutter thing.
Casey:
Because here it was, I felt like I was trying to just be intelligent about it, rather than screaming about it.
Casey:
And I was getting yelled at for that.
Casey:
And the thing that was really upsetting about all this, the thing that really bothered me and continues to bother me about all this, now that I've got a few hours to separate myself and relax...
Casey:
is i dealt with three hours of a handful of people being meaner than i think was necessary and it kind of messed me up for for a while that was three hours nobody threatened to rape me nobody threatened to murder me nobody sent me disgusting pornography
John:
Nobody came to your house.
John:
Nobody said they knew your address and knew your family's address and were going to go and kill them and showed you pictures of your family that they had taken secretly.
Casey:
Yes, and I felt like a piece of crap after this three hours, which had none of those things.
Casey:
And it occurred to me, if I feel like a piece of just utter crap after three hours of people saying, oh, you're not doing enough, you shouldn't think about that, nuanced, are you kidding me?
Casey:
Three hours of that, and I felt like I wanted to crawl in a hole and just go away for a week.
Casey:
And that was three hours.
Casey:
I cannot freaking fathom what it's like
Casey:
to be a woman in the tech, well, really at all, but in technology and especially in gaming where there's so many just absolute jerks.
Casey:
I cannot fathom what it's like.
Casey:
And as much as I didn't want to go through what I went through today, which I'm not trying to play the victim, it really in the grand scheme of things was not a big deal.
Casey:
But as much as it hurt and as much as I didn't want to go through it today, I'm kind of glad that that happened because it made...
Casey:
what women go through that littlest bit more real because i just got the tedious tiniest little taste and i hated it i cannot fathom what it's like to actually deal with this that's probably one of the only other ways that you could convince somebody not you don't have this kind of control but if you did uh if you could you know do the freaky friday body swap another movie case he hasn't seen and let people
John:
I have seen it.
John:
Let a bunch of... The original, Casey.
John:
I've seen both, you big jerk.
John:
Alright, alright.
John:
Let a bunch of men see what it's like to actually be a woman.
John:
Because, again, so many things are just in our culture.
John:
Like...
John:
we don't see them as bad because it's like, well, it's just the way things are.
John:
And there's always something like that in every era.
John:
There's stuff like that.
John:
Now a hundred years from now, people are gonna look back on us and we were things that we accept as just the way things are like one way you can see them is if you suddenly became a woman and spent like a few years as a woman and you had spent the rest of your life as a man, you would be super pissed about how terribly you were treated.
John:
You would be the most angry, obnoxious, you know,
John:
You would just like be livid that people don't respect you, treat you like a piece of meat, look down on you, talk to you condescendingly, like just are, you know, all the terrible things that happen to women all the time or even are just like, you know, overly protective of you or assume that you can or can't do certain things or whatever.
John:
it's it's difficult to understand what that's like if you have an experience that you know and you know casey you have the experience you had of like people being mean to you and stuff imagine if that happened to you all the time and then you were looking you were you would feel like an injustice like you'd be like hey everybody knows this happening to me right like what are you guys going to do about it because it's not just me it's like everybody whose name is casey is getting this kind of abuse and it's not fair that people just because my name is casey i get this kind of abuse and me and the rest of the case you're like what the hell guys and everyone else is like oh i don't get involved looks like it's a
John:
big mess or like they don't want to get comments like this person the chat room said john isn't an expert on feminism he shouldn't talk about it and uh mtw in the chat room says calling them out on it won't change anything uh i'm not an expert in feminism it's not a reason i shouldn't talk about it but uh and calling them out on it like this is like negative feedback oh because i got involved now i got to deal with negative feedback right well yeah i do
John:
Uh, calling them out.
John:
I won't change anything.
John:
That's why I say like arguing with people trying to convince them that they're wrong is not a fruitful endeavor.
John:
The people who need to be changed are the people who are good people who just feel like they need to stay out of it.
John:
Uh, because they're afraid of getting the kind of feedback we are getting in the chat room.
John:
They're afraid of getting the kind of feedback Casey got, uh,
John:
You have to decide what you think is important.
John:
And if this is actually something that's important to you, you have to be willing to do something about it.
John:
And it's people like us who all agree.
John:
Like, oh, I totally agree with all these people.
John:
It's just that I don't want to get involved.
John:
Well, then you're not really helping.
John:
So just do something to help.
John:
You shouldn't be afraid that you're going to do something that is going to
John:
turn you into a bad person, right?
John:
You may do things that cause people to give you negative attention and complain about what you're doing.
John:
You may find out that there are beliefs that you have, like this is part of my experience of being steeped in the stuff of the past several years.
John:
You may find yourself having to re-examine beliefs that you hadn't even thought were like beliefs at all, which is like, well, it's just the way things are.
John:
You will find your own biases.
John:
They will not feel good for you to find these things.
John:
You will realize that you have said things and done things in the past that do not live up to the standards that you supposedly hold for yourself.
John:
That is part of the experience.
John:
But I think that is where the fruitful effort can be put towards.
John:
Not towards trying to save these terrible people from whatever is pain in their life is causing them to lash out in this way.
John:
Not by trying to convince them that they're really not mad about journalistic ethics because they'll never be convinced because they think that, you know, it's like self delusion.
John:
But by talking to the people who are already on your side and just getting them to to better understand the issue and to be more willing to do something about it.
John:
I'm not saying everybody has to jump in.
John:
I'm not demanding that everyone take action or whatever.
John:
But, like, think of it.
John:
If everyone named Casey was constantly being harassed and the whole rest of the country was, like, sitting there with their arms folded, going, well, I just don't want to get involved in that.
John:
And all the Casey's are like, are you kidding me?
John:
Like, every day this happens, you know?
John:
And all the Casey's are getting harassed and everyone is like, this is okay?
John:
Don't you feel like it's not, you know, it's, you know, you're not bringing up the J word, but it's justice.
John:
It's like, should this be happening?
John:
Well, no, it shouldn't be happening.
John:
I totally disagree with it, but it's nothing I can do about it.
John:
There actually is.
John:
Like, we need to make it as socially unacceptable to have these attitudes towards women.
John:
It's already socially unacceptable to harass people, but it's not socially unacceptable to have all these attitudes towards women that create these terrible situations where people have...
John:
problems in their life and pain that they redirect in this direction and why does it go in this direction it's not random it's because of the media and culture that we're saturated in from the day we're born that leads in these directions and it's not just video games it's movies it's televisions everything's equally bad uh not equally bad but it's bad everywhere it may be particularly bad in games uh again if you think this is all crazy talk i encourage you to just watch the feminist frequency videos we'll link them
John:
they are not super entertaining you will not be blown away by witty jokes and everything like that right uh sometimes they're depressing sometimes they're just plain boring just watch them don't like watch them and think you have to agree or disagree don't watch them and think you have to go out and change the world or you have to send her angry email just watch them that's a start read articles about them read things that you disagree with and just try to try to understand the issue this is to all the good people terrible people just go away stop being terrible
Marco:
I think it's important too, like what you said, this has to become socially unacceptable to a much more severe level than it is right now.
Marco:
There are certain lines that are considered so offensive and so socially unacceptable that, for instance, if somebody tells, suppose you're in a small group of people hanging out at a bar and somebody tells a really racist joke, like horrible racist joke,
Marco:
In most groups of people now, that is considered so offensive that... And we have a long way to go on racism as well.
Marco:
But in most groups of people now, that is considered so offensive that somebody would say something like, hey, that's not cool.
Marco:
You'd be called out on that for doing that in a lot of groups.
Marco:
Not enough, but in a lot of groups.
John:
And I think you'd be called out in a constructive manner at this point, especially in the circles we travel in of our little privileged tech nerds, right?
John:
You would be called out in a way that you would not immediately be ostracized from the group.
John:
You would be told that that's not cool.
John:
And if you argued about it, then you would be on the outs, right?
John:
Right.
John:
But if you're like, oh, you're right, that's not cool.
John:
Like, we're trying to enforce social norms in a way that doesn't like you're not immediately ejected from the group if you tell a racist joke.
John:
But if you tell a racist joke, someone tells you it's racist and you argue with them.
John:
That shows something, right?
Marco:
Yeah, or if you argue that it doesn't matter that it's racist.
Marco:
And so we need to get to that point with sexism issues, and we're not there yet.
Marco:
And again, even racism, we haven't gotten to a good enough point yet, but I think we're further ahead on it.
Marco:
You know, we need people like me and Casey, you know, like people like us who are wondering, like, what can we do?
Marco:
I think that's a big thing that everybody can do, that, you know, everybody can start holding the people around them and themselves to a higher standard and to say and like call people out if they...
Marco:
if they say something and again you don't have to be a dick about it you can do it constructively if if you could tell they didn't really mean it badly you know like because again like as johnson like this stuff is is subtle it's it's baked into our culture it's it's very hard to even realize yeah you
John:
won't notice it unless you've read 8,000 blog posts with crazy stuff that you don't agree with.
John:
Unless you just steep yourself in it, you have to re-examine things that you just assume that are just okay, that's just the way they are.
John:
Everybody has these beliefs.
John:
Everybody.
John:
There is no person anywhere in the world who does not have
John:
what are essentially regressive non-rational beliefs because of the way they were brought up.
John:
And you will never examine them if you just like stay within the group of people that you're in, right?
John:
You have to, you have to extend yourself.
John:
You have to become uncomfortable.
Casey:
Yeah, and it's just, it's so tough because, you know, the things that bothered me that happened with me today, I think it was people that were trying to defend feminism and trying to say, you know, oh, this isn't nuanced, it's just plain wrong.
Casey:
And oh, your opinions aren't nuanced, it's either you agree that it's wrong or you don't.
Casey:
And what I left those conversations with, even though it was conversations with people who I think by and large I agree with, that this is BS and that it is wrong, I left with this feeling like, oh my God, I'm never going to talk about this again.
Casey:
And that doesn't help.
Casey:
and just a few minutes later some person on twitter started saying that oh tech you know the tech industry is a meritocracy and oh there's no sexism there and blah blah blah and for a minute i thought wait somebody said that yeah i i you should look at my uh replies oh it was absolutely that's ridiculous right that's the thing and again here it is that's worse than john not going to the apple event
Casey:
Only barely, but yeah.
Marco:
No, I'm just kidding.
Casey:
But no, that's the thing is that to me, this is so absurd and ridiculous.
Casey:
And this person was vehemently arguing that, oh, you don't know what you're talking about.
Casey:
Oh, and nursing is 92% feminine or female or what have you.
Casey:
So clearly that's sexist.
Casey:
Oh, my God.
Casey:
It was so ridiculous.
Casey:
And for a minute there, I thought, you know what?
Casey:
I'm just going to ignore this just completely backwards individual.
Casey:
And I'm just going to let this go away because I was just right off of being lectured about not wanting to shoot from the hip and how wrong that was.
Casey:
And then I thought, you know what?
Casey:
Screw that.
Casey:
This person's being an idiot and I'm going to tell them they're being an idiot.
Casey:
And this kind of gets into the conversation of should you or should you not feed the trolls?
Casey:
And if there's anything I've learned, it's that I'm not good at drawing that line and I'm not good at deciding when to feed the trolls and when not to.
Casey:
But it felt more wrong to me.
Casey:
To not do anything and not say anything than to take the easy way out and just thinking to myself, well, this person is just completely backwards and there's nothing I can do about it.
John:
There's a lot of like tropes, if you want to call them that.
John:
In this debate, and like I said in the past show when we talked about women in the tech industry and everything, I'm trying not to use all the vocabulary because –
John:
A people who don't know what this is, don't know the vocabulary and be people who do know the vocabulary fight it to be charged.
John:
But one of the things that you've said in that thing, which caused people to flare up, I think is the sort of not feeding the trolls thing.
John:
That is a nugget of net wisdom from, you know, from ages, ages ago, which is basically like if someone is doing it, someone is engaging in bad behavior online.
John:
Don't engage with them and they'll go away because all they want is attention.
John:
And that is an anti pattern when it comes to the women in tech and harassment issue, because that's what everyone used to say.
John:
Like these people would come in, they would start harassing things and everyone else would say nothing because they weren't being the ones harassed.
John:
And they would and they would defend this action, this inaction by saying, oh, don't feed the trolls, like don't engage with them.
John:
Not engaging is fine when you're not the target of harassment.
John:
You have the luxury of not engaging and saying, oh, don't feed the trolls.
John:
Not feeding them does not stop them from doing the terrible thing they're doing to their targets.
John:
Right.
John:
And that's why don't feed the trolls is such a sort of, you know, when when people hear that they who are steeped in this debate, they're like, you know, it's you've fallen victim for one of the classic plunders.
John:
like they just know this is one of those things like oh don't you know like i mean everyone thinks like oh you should know everything about this debate already don't you know that don't feed the trolls is exactly the wrong thing to say but anyone who is new to this debate is going to come in and make all the same mistakes all the sort of beginner mistakes that everybody does and then you're going to get jumped on by people like oh my god don't you know don't feed the trolls is the worst thing ever you really have to stand up for these people because they they feed on your silence and they you know that allows them like and you know you don't know because like you're not steeped
John:
this debate and so like you are coming and that's going to happen right that's not you know even within the debate there's like there's arguments over tactics like how should we achieve our radical goals of not being beat on constantly yeah should we achieve them in this way by being angry people yelling should we achieve them in that way by engaging and trying to work with people or is that too much compromise and like and you know Marco brought up racism before like this it's not just an individual thing there's institutional levels of all this
John:
it's all down the chain of like well even if at a personal level everyone feels a certain way and espouses certain beliefs if as an institution as a group we behave in a different way then that perpetuates all the other things if the media we create is only created by people who unconsciously put their biases into it and that feeds our children and it's loop like this is a big you know look at how long we've been fighting against racism and you know making progress but it's very slow and sexism is you know it
John:
it's probably even going to be harder to knock down because, uh, you know, in some ways you might say it's better than racism in the U S anyway, but in other ways it's worse.
John:
They're, they're both really bad and they're both not going to bow easily.
John:
Some of the chat room is asking what we can do about it in an individual level.
John:
Uh,
John:
My suggestion is at an individual level is a combination of what Marco said before, which is basically if someone does something that you think that you know is bad based on your current worldview of, you know, like if you see someone doing something that's sexist, that's unkind to women or unkind to anybody for current life, don't be like, oh, don't feed the trolls.
Yeah.
John:
You know, if you know it's wrong, do something about it, even if you're not the target.
John:
Right.
John:
Even though, you know, there are going to be consequences for you.
John:
That's just like that's something you can do because because not doing anything is not an option.
John:
Not doing anything leads to the current situation because, you know, like whatever, you know, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
John:
Right.
John:
All it takes for evil to triumph is for a completely neutral, non-interested people to do nothing.
John:
Just like don't don't do nothing.
John:
Right.
John:
And the second thing you should do is
John:
Try to learn about the things that will reveal your own biases and so you can re-examine them.
John:
Like, all the good people who already agree with everything, who already agree that these people are terrible, those are the people who we need to see.
John:
Not only the... We know you're not terrible like that, but there are things that you are not seeing as well, and that...
John:
Once you see them, it's kind of like, you know, seeing the Matrix.
John:
Once you see them, you're like, how did I ever not see this before?
John:
Many things can make you see them.
John:
It could be reading blog posts.
John:
It could be, as I've discussed in the past show, having a daughter and finally seeing the world through her eyes.
John:
It could be just getting married or dating someone and asking the significant other who's a woman in your life what it was like for them if you don't know what that's like.
John:
I mean...
John:
All these things can change your worldview.
John:
And once your worldview is changed, you can't see things that you thought were like normal and okay as being okay.
John:
You will watch TV shows that you've watched and enjoyed and realize how insanely sexist they are.
John:
Just like we watch like Mad Men now.
John:
Like, oh god, the 60s were so sexist, right?
John:
Everything we see on our current television and movies and entertainment is exactly like that now.
John:
And you can you can fast forward your brain so that our current world looks like Mad Men to you.
John:
And it's not an illusion.
John:
That is the reality that's behind everything else.
John:
And once you can see that, it will change how you act, change how you raise your children, change how you run your company, change how you do everything.
John:
That's what individuals can do.
John:
The individuals who already are good people.
John:
can do things to affect change and that that's what i would suggest for individuals what you can do obviously there's much more you can do the people who are talking about are doing way more they're putting their you know their careers their lives their sanity on the line by trying to make changes that are much larger than one person person we've got uh you know uh anita sarkeesian doing that brianna woo doing that all these people who could just be quietly doing their job somewhere have chosen not to have chosen to
John:
speak out and be very loud and expose themselves to harassment and criticism and abuse because they think the change is important enough to do that.
John:
Those people are heroes.
John:
Not everyone can be a hero, but everybody can make themselves better and everyone can lend a hand, I think.
Marco:
And don't be so... Be open to the idea that you might be part of the problem, because in some subtle way, you probably are without realizing it.
Marco:
And, you know, there's no shame in realizing you've been wrong about something in the past and fixing it.
Marco:
Like, it's very hard for people to do that, but...
Marco:
That's so much better than continuing to to be a part of the problem and just, you know, plug your ears and yell or or deny that you're part of the problem or become even more part of the problem.
Marco:
And and for any if any of our listeners are being part of this problem, for God's sakes, cut that out.
John:
I'm pretty proud of my Twitter followers for the most part because a lot of people when they tweet about anything like this Get like tons of crazy people yelling at them and for the most part when I tweet about this or retweet about this Most of the people who follow me I think are either not interested at all and say nothing or Good people who say supportive things, but I know that is not true of other people Lots of other people say I accidentally retweeted something from feminist frequency and got a million crazy people yelling at me and I
John:
I just want to say thank you to all my followers for not being like those people.
Casey:
Well, that's the thing.
Casey:
Like something that struck me, especially today, having seen some of the vitriol in this individual who was trying to explain to me that the technology industry is a meritocracy –
Casey:
I travel with, both in my online circles and in meatspace, I travel with people that are of at least enough intelligence to realize that diversity is a good thing for everybody.
Casey:
It is a good freaking thing.
Casey:
And it just blows my mind that so much of both America and the world at large seems to think that the only people that can do anything intelligent are white men.
Casey:
Like, how, how does that make any freaking sense?
Casey:
It just, it stupefies me what these people genuinely believe.
Casey:
And I'm not going to get into politics, but there's a political side to this as well.
Casey:
I just, I don't understand how people can think that.
Casey:
Like, it is so eminently obvious to me that diversity is, is the way it should be.
Casey:
Being diverse is the way it should be.
Casey:
It's the, it's the best possible way.
Casey:
Like,
Casey:
If I just lived in a world where everyone agreed with me, I would be furious.
Casey:
I love my wife to death.
Casey:
And sometimes she drives me crazy because we don't see eye to eye.
Casey:
And that's part of the reason why I love her so much is because we don't see eye to eye all the time.
Casey:
Just having like...
Casey:
a yes woman or yes man around, that just sounds so mind-numbingly terrible to me.
Casey:
I'm so glad, John, that you have, and I think I do too, generally have the followers that realize that diversity is good.
Casey:
But what all of us, myself very much included,
Casey:
don't realize is there are so many people out there that are backwards, that do live in 50, 100, 200 years ago and think that women are evil and black people are stupid.
Casey:
And it's just, how can you think that?
Casey:
How is that a reasonable course of action in 2014?
John:
Yeah.
John:
For the gaming industry in particular, it's like, again, I don't think this is the approach.
John:
I don't think you should try to convince people like the terrible people that they're not terrible, but like it's easier to convince the people who are sort of neutral or like don't want to get involved or think they're just fine because they're not terrible.
John:
Uh,
John:
If you just like look at it from a business perspective, like there's enough evidence.
John:
People have done this with the movies to to show like there is a you know, we just went to a demo over the demographics a couple of shows ago that like, you know, 48 percent of gamers are women.
John:
There's more adult women who play games than than males under 18.
John:
Right.
John:
This is an unserved market.
John:
Like, just from economic business point of view.
John:
Like, replace women and men with some other demographic that is less politically charged for your perspective.
John:
This is an underserved market.
John:
These people are buying things.
John:
They're buying games that were not made with them in mind at all.
John:
They're buying games that are terrible to them, that objectify women, that don't have their interests in mind.
John:
Like...
John:
And it's not just women.
John:
It's like there are huge underserved markets in the gaming world.
John:
And how are you going to make products to serve these markets?
John:
You can't just take the existing teams of people who know how to make games for straight male gamers.
John:
You can you'll never serve those markets with these people, or at least it'll be a hell of a lot harder.
John:
hire some people with different points of view who want to make different kinds of games they will you know like it's just like you know movies in the movie in the theaters recently with female leads have been doing better than those with male leads and there's like action movies and stuff like that and and and yet still like i mean movies are more progressive than games in this regard like
John:
Just look at like the isometric podcast, a gaming podcast with a bunch of women that came out of nowhere and became very popular.
John:
Why?
John:
Because it's an underserved market.
John:
Gaming podcast mostly hosted by women.
John:
There's not enough of those.
John:
There's not enough good ones of those.
John:
There's lots of good podcasts hosted by men.
John:
Those are good.
John:
Those are fine.
John:
You want to listen to them, fine.
John:
There's an underserved market for things like there are people out there who are not having games made for them by people who understand what they might like.
John:
Ignore everything else.
John:
It's just a stupid business sense.
John:
And same thing with Hollywood, making the same stupid movies all the time.
John:
you know figure it out people like you can make more money and sell more games and more products i mean apple to its credit does a little bit better at figuring out like apple does not make things just for straight white males they try to make things that appeal to lots of people right every possible thing do you like do you like high technology do you like i mean they're going to go into the fashion world they have to make things that are interesting to people who care about you
John:
a diversity of issues do they just feature men in their commercials do they just feature old people do they just feature children do they just like no they show everybody they're trying to make products for everybody you make more money that way people so that's that's my gaming industry talk if you are making games if you are selling games if you are thinking of what games you're going to sell if you're making a gaming product
John:
half of your buyers or women don't have your product made entirely by men for men because and you say all my products are made entirely by men but they're not entirely for men it is almost impossible to have a product made entirely by men and not have that product end up being a little bit more for men than otherwise because again everyone's got all our unconscious biases and we're really familiar with what we like not so familiar with what different type of people like
John:
And replace gender with any other axes along which people can vary.
John:
Economic background, age, race, everything.
John:
Like you said, Casey, diversity.
John:
People think it's a dirty word.
John:
It's just good business sense.
John:
It just makes sense.
John:
You're leaving money on the table.
Marco:
It also just makes you a better person.
Marco:
You know, like it broadens your worldview to bring more diversity into your life, into your work.
Marco:
And it makes you a better person to not be aggravating these tensions, to not be attacking people over trivial matters.
Marco:
And, you know, some people are just miserable and they're going to do this regardless.
Marco:
And I don't know how to solve that problem.
Marco:
I don't think anybody really does know how to solve that problem.
Marco:
It's a terrible problem, but I don't know how to solve it.
Marco:
But even even if you're the kind of miserable person who likes being very argumentative, you can win more arguments if you take the high road and don't leave people these areas to attack what you're saying.
Marco:
Like if you're some kind of awful sexist person making awful sexist comments, every time you try to win an argument about anything else, you're going to lose because of that.
Marco:
Like, there's just so many reasons why it, you know, even if you can't be motivated by being a better person, which is unfortunate, there are so many other reasons why you should do this.
Marco:
But ultimately, I think the best thing we can really do is, you know, what we said earlier, just, you know, encourage the people who actively are trying or actively are intending to make things better and actively would like to help.
Marco:
to actually help you know give them give them the tools and and the like social permission to actually help it's important to realize like you know like i like i saw brianna who was talking i think earlier today or yesterday about how like she's like never she's never talked to a man who who thought he was part of the problem or something like that and like
Marco:
All of us listening, we all probably think, oh, well, we aren't part of the problem.
Marco:
It's all the other people.
Marco:
The other guys are part of the problem.
Marco:
But that's probably not true.
Marco:
We probably are part of the problem in ways you don't realize.
Marco:
And so it's just so important to keep an open mind about that and to add people to our social circles like Brianna and like anyone who will help point these things out to us when we do things or say things that are unintentionally harmful to somebody.
Marco:
I would like to know that it's like having my fly open.
Marco:
Like I would like somebody to tell me that, you know, because that's a problem that I would, I would like to fix rather than denying that it exists.
John:
The invisible fly that you can't see until someone points out.
John:
Did you know you have a fly?
John:
And by the way, it's open.
John:
Yeah, that's, I mean, and by the way, it's archived forever.
John:
And we'll see it forever.
John:
If you're on these social networks, that's another thing you've done.
John:
And it takes a conscious effort that, you know, I've been trying to do this over the past few years with mixed results, but like I keep trying, uh,
John:
Follow people who you wouldn't normally follow.
John:
Right.
John:
And so you can see what they have to say.
John:
Read their blogs, like go outside of your comfort zone or your normal thing.
John:
Make a conscious effort to expose yourself to these viewpoints.
John:
If there is some kind of standard bearer for a particular movement that you agree with in principle, but don't really know what you can do about just follow that person.
John:
And again, every movement has different people.
John:
There's always there's your Malcolm X, there's your Martin Luther King Jr.
John:
Like there's there's the whole spectrum of people.
John:
Maybe you don't like one person's approach.
John:
Maybe you like another person's approach.
John:
Maybe you'd rather see a video or a blog or read a Twitter feed.
John:
But just open yourself up to them and you don't have to do anything about it.
John:
Like in the beginning, just let yourself see what they have to say.
John:
And if you follow them, maybe you'll find it need to reply.
John:
Maybe they'll reply back to you.
John:
And maybe that one time you say something that you need to get called up on, maybe they'll be there to call you out on that.
John:
If you happen to have a lot of Twitter followers like we do, make it a point to amplify the voices of people who normally don't get heard.
John:
Or, you know, or who are, you know, if they're if you're an individual Casey in your house being harassed by the Casey haters, you would really like it if someone with large audience would amplify your message that, hey, by the way, did you know someone keeps putting a flaming sea on my lawn every morning because the anti Casey people hate all Casey's and this has been going on for years and it seems like you guys don't care.
John:
Just so you know, I'm out here.
John:
I'm getting harassed.
John:
amplify those signals to to your audience of people and if you find yourself saying yeah i would do that i agree with them in principle but i don't want to be like that guy and have all the people who are following me be like angry and be like we just want to hear you talk about technology don't talk about this it's like well decide do you care about this or do you not care about it
John:
Do you think all your followables are terrible anti Casey people or are they, you know, like, do you really want those people following you?
John:
Like, what do you actually care about?
John:
You can't say, well, I agree in principle, but I want to do anything that inconveniences me in any way.
John:
Like at some point you have to some point you have to put your aura in.
Casey:
It's so true.
Casey:
And one of the best things I've done in regard to this is following Brianna Wu, who is SpaceCatGal on Twitter, and seeing things through her eyes.
Casey:
to the best as one can through Twitter, is so fascinating and so enlightening.
Casey:
And if you follow her and you get tired of all the things that she's saying about women in tech and whatnot, because she says it a lot, then you know what?
Casey:
Imagine what it's like to deal with that.
Casey:
Like you're getting one hundredth of what she has to deal with.
Marco:
And you can turn yours off whenever you want to.
Marco:
Whereas like women have to live with this every day.
Casey:
Exactly.
Casey:
And there are times I'm like, holy crap, Rihanna, relax for a second.
Casey:
Then I'm like, what are you talking about?
Casey:
No, don't relax.
Casey:
This is terrible.
John:
But I would say like, you know, it's not like you have to follow any specific person because if Brianna's approach to this problem is off-putting to you, that's fine.
John:
You can still not agree with her approach to solving this problem.
John:
Find someone else to read.
John:
follow or whatever like there's a lot like just because you don't agree with someone's tactics does not mean you like i don't feel like you need to expose yourself to some tactics that you find are off-putting right but you should expose yourself to the viewpoint there are plenty of viewpoints out there there is a viewpoint that you will feel comfortable with that can expose you to things you haven't thought of that can they can show you the experiences of other people and you know it's going to make you a little bit uncomfortable i'm not saying like you know like
John:
Don't make your Twitter stream filled with, like, find the angriest person you can.
John:
And by the way, as I said before, I feel like if I was forced to switch genders right now, I would be the angriest feminist the world has ever seen, right?
John:
And so would most men because we would just be incensed at the injustice of being treated the way women are treated all the time because we know what it's like on the other side, you know, or changing to be black in the U.S.
John:
or any other type of thing or changing to be super short or, like, any other thing that, like, is bad.
John:
Not you, Marco, you know.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Right?
John:
Like, this...
John:
You know, all of us would would be just totally enraged to have to deal with any sort of prejudice that we don't that we didn't grow up with.
John:
Right.
John:
And so what you're just trying to do is be aware of those things somehow by exposing yourself to different viewpoints.
John:
We can put a list of people in the show notes.
John:
Everyone isometric would be great to follow this.
John:
But even just like like what's her last name?
John:
I always mispronounce it.
John:
I'll put it in the show notes.
John:
Susan Arendt?
John:
Is that what I'm asking you guys?
John:
You don't know.
Marco:
Remember, you are the pronunciation agent for our show.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Female journalists in the game industry.
John:
If they have been there for a while, they have a valuable viewpoint.
John:
They probably have something interesting to say on this topic.
John:
And increasingly, like you can find the crazy, terrible people are making this big like list of people who you should hate because they support equality.
John:
and and list of websites you shouldn't visit go find that list you know from from these terrible websites and like follow those people and read what they have to say like use it for the opposite purpose uh yeah susan it's a-r-e-n-d-t but i guess it's just aren't anyway uh she's great i enjoy her uh samus clone on uh on twitter maddie myers uh from uh isometric as well as another good person to follow
John:
Point is, there are things out there for you to follow and to read.
John:
Something will suit your needs.
John:
The worst thing you can do is nothing.
Marco:
And also, I highly recommend wearing button fly pants because then your fly will never be open accidentally.
Marco:
Among other benefits.
Marco:
They really are better.
Casey:
So much work, though.
Marco:
No, see, you get past it.
Marco:
You have to convert all your pants at once.
Marco:
You can't just have one button fly pair because then you'll hate them.
Marco:
But once you've converted to button fly, you'll realize how superior they really are.
Marco:
and they loosen up after like the first couple of days that's that's the thing is unbroken in button fly pants are the worst yeah but that's like literally it's like a couple of days and then then they're fine and they're nice you know then this is the worst the most inappropriate segue of topics ever going from uh they really are better but pervasive systemic sexism to flies on pants
Marco:
You know, both genders can wear button fly pants and often do.
Marco:
This is not a gender issue.
Marco:
I mean, there is a benefit to men.
Marco:
There's an extra safety involved there.
Marco:
But most of the benefits apply to both genders.
John:
Oh, God.
John:
I think we should stop.
John:
Does that mean we're done with this topic now?
Marco:
We're never going to be done with this topic.
Marco:
This topic is not going to go away in our lifetimes.
Marco:
And I think we should keep talking about it regularly.
John:
Yeah, it will come up again on the show.
John:
I'm sure it's sad that it only comes up when like things get super bad.
John:
But, you know, that's just the nature of it's just the nature of a topical show.
John:
Yeah, it's homework for everybody who listens.
Casey:
Seriously, do something nice for a woman in your life, and you'll be better for it.
Marco:
And keep an open mind about pants as well.
Marco:
Except for the people in the chat who are saying a Velcro fly.
Marco:
What?
Marco:
You've got to be kidding.
Marco:
That's the worst of everything.
Marco:
Skip that.
Casey:
I think we're done.
Casey:
I got more fired up about that than I expected.
Casey:
Makes me so angry.
Marco:
No, I think we're not going to regret having talked about this for this long.
John:
If you guys like...
John:
bionic which i still have never listened to but it sounds like uh the type of show like uh you like bionic you should try asymmetric because you're like well i'm not interested in games it's barely a count about games you should just try it throw throw a couple episodes in your uh podcast feeds and see what you think
Marco:
Yeah, actually, I did listen to a few, but they were pretty gaming heavy.
John:
Yeah, I guess.
John:
I mean, I guess it is.
John:
I mean, it depends.
John:
If they're spending a long time talking about hand turkeys, then that's not gaming related.
John:
But I guess they do spend some time on stuff.
John:
But anyway, I find the show amusing in the same way it seems like you guys found Bionic amusing.
John:
And it's like, what is the show really about?
John:
It's a lot of nonsense.
John:
It's a lot of fun, but...
Marco:
anyway it's it's it's a viewpoint that usually don't hear like i don't i there's a couple of gaming podcasts that i've listened to but none really regularly and i find myself listening to this one because it's like it's it's viewpoints i don't get elsewhere yeah i'll give it another shot because i i want to hear that cast talk like i i follow most of them on twitter like i want to hear them talk but i just i'm so not in i'm so not a gamer
Casey:
Yeah, I feel I feel the same way.
John:
There's a lot of references and vocabulary and, you know, like they just assume everyone knows what these things are and have a whole discussion about it.
John:
And it's like, I don't have the context to even know what it is that you're talking about.
John:
But I mean, I don't know.
John:
Maybe Casey will know if he's a lapsed gamer or whatever.
Marco:
I think Casey and I are probably equally lapsed or similarly lapsed.
Casey:
Yeah, I was actually about to say that you're the bigger ex-gamer than I, I think.
Casey:
So you and I can fight over who used to be a bigger gamer and is the worst gamer now.
John:
And I think it's good actually to listen to the show because if you only follow like...
John:
like, uh, Brianna or Maddie on Twitter, and you only see them as like the person who is, you know, fighting for equality and being the victim of harassment and everything like that, you might start to forget that they're actual people.
John:
You listen to an epitome is a metric.
John:
You will realize they're actual normal people who just like, they don't spend their entire time just being angry about feminism, like, which is the crazy viewpoint people might get if they just like, well, they only ever see them when they're retweeted by somebody a million times or whatever.
John:
Like,
John:
These are people.
John:
These are actual people who have actual interests and lives and jobs and families and feelings and all this stuff.
John:
That is a side benefit of happening to listen to a podcast of these type of people who are active on these issues to realize just because you're active on this issue, it's like, oh my God, they're regular people too.
John:
Imagine.
Casey:
Yeah, the reason I haven't listened to it yet is because – not at all because of the hosts.
Casey:
In fact, everything I've heard is that the hosts have an incredible amount of chemistry.
Casey:
But because I am completely ignorant and clueless about anything video game related, I just kind of assumed that I would be completely lost.
John:
You should listen to the episode where Steve admits that he's never seen Terminator 2 and then he watches it and didn't like it.
John:
He is the Casey list of that show.
Casey:
Thanks.
Casey:
I think.
Casey:
Oh, wow.
Casey:
How do you really feel, John?
Casey:
I don't think I've seen it.
John:
Oh, you're perfect.
Casey:
I've seen it.
John:
I've seen it.
John:
I've seen it many times.
John:
Ding.
John:
Brianna's only said this on Twitter, but I can't wait for the episode where she talks about how much she likes the prequels, the Star Wars prequels.
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
That's going to be amazing.
John:
I told you this is a diversity of opinions.
John:
Some of them are terribly wrong, but they are diverse.
Casey:
You know, for what it's worth, Terminator 2 and Top Gun were the two movies that we had on Laserdisc.
Casey:
We had many movies on Laserdisc.
Casey:
You had a Laserdisc player?
Casey:
Yeah, yeah.
Casey:
But the thing of it is, these two movies in particular...
Casey:
were amazing for using the scroll wheel that was on the remote control.
Casey:
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Casey:
So it was kind of like, what do you call the thing on the iPod, the click wheel or whatever you call it?
Casey:
But there was no clicking to it.
Casey:
But you could go frame by frame because it was digital.
Marco:
Well, it kind of wasn't.
Marco:
You're right.
Marco:
It was weird.
Marco:
It represented analog video signals.
Marco:
On a digital medium.
Marco:
It was very strange.
Marco:
I'm not too familiar with the details.
John:
One of the things was digital.
John:
Was it the audio that was digital?
Marco:
Audio, I believe, was digital.
Marco:
But the video was not.
Marco:
But it was weird, yeah.
John:
It was digital-ish.
Marco:
Yeah, it was very strange.
Casey:
Yeah, so the point I'm driving at, though, is when...
Casey:
T2, the Terminator thing would come out of the wrecked 18-wheeler, spoiler alert, and go from like liquid to person.
Casey:
I remember just sitting there with the remote control spinning backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, watching the special effect go frame by frame.
Casey:
And it was amazing.
Casey:
And then Top Gun was awesome because it was a perfect example of surround sound, which back in whatever the hell year this was, was like a really new thing to have at home.
Casey:
And oh, my goodness, it was amazing.
Casey:
It is something ologist in the chat ishutologist says the controller in the remote was a jog shuttle controller.
Casey:
Some of the higher end VCRs have them, too.
Casey:
That's what I'm talking about.
Casey:
And yeah, it was it was amazing.
Casey:
Laser discs was better than laser discs were better than I think they got credit for.
John:
Oh, we just, I forgot we had this.
John:
You want to throw in Markdown?
John:
Because we're never going to get to it once the September 9th event comes in.
John:
This will all blow up.
Casey:
Whatever, let's do it.
Casey:
Yeah, let's do it.
John:
What the hell?
John:
Cut out all the stuff by laser just in the middle.
John:
Yeah, yeah.
John:
Tag the stuff on with it.
John:
I think we can dispense with this quickly because we all agree.
Marco:
I'm keeping in the pants stuff, though.
John:
All right, go for it.
Marco:
Of course.
John:
Button fly agenda.
Casey:
Let's talk about Markdown, standard Markdown, complex Markdown, conventional Markdown, whatever the current flavor is.
Casey:
Strict Markdown.
Casey:
Can one of you give me a quick summary about this?
John:
So the summary is John Gruber made Markdown a long time ago.
John:
He likes it.
John:
Other people think there are problems with it, but they want to use variants of Markdown.
John:
There are many variants of Markdown that exist.
John:
There's multi Markdown.
John:
There's GitHub flavored Markdown.
John:
There's all sorts of different kinds of Markdown.
John:
One particular person has been upset with the way John Gruber's Markdown works for a long time.
John:
That's Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror.
John:
He made a blog post two years ago that said, I really wish that Markdown could be better maintained and better defined and the spec could reduce ambiguities and bugs could be fixed because we all want to use Markdown, but everybody uses a different implementation of Markdown.
John:
It's just a giant mess.
John:
So recently he came out with something that he was calling standard Markdown, which was a
John:
uh much more uh highly specified variant of markdown where they removed or reduced vastly reduced the ambiguities in language uh to say this is how we want it to work here's a test suite here's sample and limitations here's a specification there ever if everyone complies with this we will help markdown that agrees with each other and everything will be fine that was all well and good except for the fact that he called it standard markdown which was
John:
a slap in the face to gruber because how can i mean he might as well have called it the official real markdown that might as well have been the name the one and only genuine official real markdown uh that was a bad choice of names for many many reasons because it makes it seem like that this is the one and only official markdown when that is clearly not the case there's a million different kinds of markdown it makes it seem like they are the people who sort of own and control markdown which is not the case they don't own and control markdown
John:
And so that was dumb.
John:
And it's a shame because I agree with the goals of a better markdown specification, even though I don't like markdown.
John:
But I don't agree with the idea of calling your thing the one and only super official, totally the main forget about all other ones markdown.
John:
They should have, you know, used a different name, like just and here's the thing about the name.
John:
If they had picked a different name, like football, like that was the name, just football.
John:
That would have been fine, too.
John:
Like, I don't think it would have hurt their cause at all.
John:
Anyway, they've since renamed it to Common Markdown.
John:
I don't see how that's any real... Well, no, here's the best thing about that.
John:
I don't know if you read this.
John:
I think it's slightly less terrible.
John:
Well, no, but here's the best thing about the post.
John:
Like, I read it beforehand.
John:
It starts off good.
John:
It's like, we're sorry.
John:
We made a mistake.
John:
John Gruber made demands.
John:
He wants us to take down our domain, standardmarkdown.com, not have it redirected.
John:
he wants us to rename our thing and he wants us to apologize and they did all those things but what they renamed it to was like we we gave we sent a bunch of these names and we said what about this name that name and the other name and we didn't get a reply so we're using common markdown what are you doing you can't change the name with like the whole point is yeah call it something that doesn't have markdown in the name you're fine with that call it whatever you want call it you know call it hand turkey call it whatever you want like
John:
Like, that's fine, right?
John:
Or call it something with Markdown the name that Gruber approves of.
John:
You can't say, we're going to do everything you say, we're going to rename it, and we'll send you a suggestion of a name, but we got tired of waiting, so we just picked one that we felt like.
John:
And Common is not really much better.
John:
It sounds like it's like Common Lisp.
John:
It sounds like the official one and only...
John:
They're sabotaging their own cause.
John:
Their own cause is good.
John:
I think it is good to have, what they're doing technically is good.
John:
What they're doing socially is bad.
John:
It's very bad.
John:
And they seem to just like, it's like shoot themselves in the foot, reload the gun, point at the other foot, and then shoot them.
Marco:
yeah like they're just grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory here i mean and that's that's the thing with this like you know following jeff i follow jeff atwood loosely and uh and even following him loosely i've seen ever since they started stack overflow uh how many years ago was that eight years ago it's it's been a long time uh ever since they started stack overflow uh which which included markdown um jeff atwood has been uh
Marco:
very hostile, dismissive, and condescending towards John Gruber and his ownership of Markdown.
Marco:
And the hostility has been so clear the entire time.
Marco:
It's very, very clear that Jeff does not respect John.
Marco:
And that Jeff feels that he is entitled...
Marco:
And now there's other people involved, but I think Jeff was pretty much running it for a while and probably is still very important in this process.
Marco:
This group of people very much obviously feels that they have the right to co-opt Markdown because Gruber has not done that much with it recently.
Marco:
And the fact that it has not changed in the better part of a decade...
Marco:
that like there's so many i i got into this a little bit on twitter earlier like there are so many bad counter arguments people keep making to try to support what they're doing here um one you know one of those bad counter arguments is well gruber hasn't touched it in like a decade well yeah the mp3 file format hasn't changed in a few decades neither has the jpeg file format like there's there are things that don't change that doesn't mean they're that doesn't mean they're neglected or abandoned
John:
But that doesn't matter.
John:
It doesn't matter whether it's changed.
John:
None of that really matters.
John:
That's explaining why Jeff is frustrated.
John:
That's what it explains.
John:
Why are people frustrated?
John:
Why are people doing this all?
John:
John Gruber's stewardship of Markdown explains why people have the feelings they feel.
John:
I share those feelings, frankly.
John:
I don't even use Markdown, so I don't care.
John:
But then what do you do with those feelings?
John:
That's where the rubber hits the road.
John:
I feel frustrated.
John:
then what then do you demand that something happens no because you have no right to demand would you like to fork it by all means to call it whatever you want you know make your own thing like you have so much freedom available to you to do these things and gruber is even okay with things like multi mark haven and github markdown they ask him hey we're github we're gonna make i assume that i think github markdown asks permission right
John:
We're going to make some variant of Markdown.
John:
We'd like to call it X, Y, and Z. Thumbs up or thumbs down.
John:
Why does he have the quote-unquote right to give that?
John:
Because he made Markdown.
John:
It's a name that he made up for a thing that he made.
John:
Like, it's just common courtesy.
John:
Like, it's just... Ignore all legalities entirely.
John:
It's just like...
John:
It's just common courtesy.
John:
You're going to say, well, if Markdown didn't exist, I would have made my own thing.
John:
Maybe you would have, but it wouldn't be called Markdown, would it?
John:
It would be called whatever the hell name you made up, so make up your own name.
John:
The technical issues are just all... The entitlement or whatever, that is all just an explanation of why people feel the way they feel, but none of it justifies the actions that are going on.
John:
The actions are justified in terms of just...
John:
Not even like morally or ethically or legally, but just like being a nice person-ly, whatever word that is.
John:
And even practically speaking, forget about being a nice person.
John:
Practically speaking, if you want your project to be successful, don't shoot it.
John:
Don't start off on the wrong foot.
John:
There's no reason.
John:
I totally applaud this effort.
John:
The technical effort they've gone through to try to standardize what is an ill-specified...
Marco:
just probably untenable markup system to be everything in spite of it like they've made a heroic effort and then they just destroy it all by doing something jerky like why why would you yeah it's so unnecessary like they you know no one is objecting to them making a standardized markdown syntax no one is objecting to that the only thing people are objecting to legitimately is the name and
Marco:
and or what the name represents co-opting trying to co-op something that's what it's like the name is the embodiment of that attempt to co-op but the name is is like we are trying to co-op this thing because we feel like it has not been maintained even the attitude in in jeff's post tonight that they that after the after the public outcry uh from from a lot of people about standard markdown which is an incredibly arrogant name uh to to co-opt someone else's project and call yours the standard um
Marco:
After that, this post saying that they renamed it common markdown, it's like, we... What he basically says is, so we replied to John Gruber with these list of names that all still contain the word markdown and are all compatible markdown, regular markdown, commuter... I mean, Gruber said he's okay with some variant of markdown, but he gave pedantic markdown was the only thing he thought he might approve.
Marco:
And he said strict markdown, which I think that would be descriptive.
Marco:
I would not be okay with strict markdown either, because that still sounds like... What they should do is don't use the word markdown at all.
Marco:
That would leave them completely in the clear...
Marco:
you know, morally, argumentatively, and let their project proceed into something productive.
Marco:
Right now, it's always going to have this, this asterisk on it.
Marco:
It's always going to be controversial.
Marco:
And, and, and the worst thing is, so if you read this post, so like, so Jeff said, so, so, you know, Gruber and them, he, Gruber apparently sent them an email.
Marco:
They reply back with this list of suggestions last night.
Marco:
And tonight, since they hadn't received a response in 24 hours, they just picked one of their suggestions and assumed Gruber's okay with it.
John:
You were reading the post while I said that before, but yes.
John:
Like, I can't... Like, why go forward?
John:
You know you haven't gotten permission.
Marco:
That is so... It's so rash and unnecessarily inflammatory.
Marco:
Like, seriously, just call it something else.
Marco:
You will avoid all of these problems.
Marco:
Just call it anything else so that your project can have...
Marco:
100% credibility without all this controversy.
Marco:
There is no reason.
Marco:
And even this post, the way they went about this and the way they just assumed they had permission after 24 hours of no objection.
John:
Like, what's the hurry?
Marco:
That's so arrogant.
Marco:
That is so just...
Marco:
That's a terrible move.
Marco:
It's such a huge dick move.
John:
It's attempting to force someone's hand by like, well, we didn't hear you for a day, so we're just going to go forward with this and it's going to force you to react.
John:
And he's not playing that game and it's just ridiculous.
Marco:
Yeah, this is awful.
Marco:
I mean, I don't think Jeff Atwood's a bad guy.
Marco:
I've met him a couple times.
Marco:
I've talked to him a couple times.
Marco:
I don't think he's a bad guy, but this is just so incredibly tone deaf.
Marco:
And it's so easily avoidable.
Marco:
This project is brand new.
Marco:
Jeff Atwood has a hell of a microphone.
Marco:
You can call it anything you want, and it will get off the ground just as well as if you called it anything Markdown.
Marco:
You can call it anything Markdown.
John:
Yeah, it'll survive on its own merits.
John:
And the merits are substantial because they're fulfilling a market need for these three big, very popular websites that want to standardize it.
John:
Go ahead, standardize it, pick a name out of a hat, you know, like have a little contest for a name like you did for the Stack Overflow logo.
John:
Like, you know, you have the tools to do this.
Marco:
Yeah, like you can you can really you can call it anything.
Marco:
And this is the time to do that when the project has just gotten off the ground.
Marco:
It's just starting.
Marco:
It's brand new.
Marco:
You know, your version of it is brand new.
Marco:
And that's the only thing that's a problem is the name.
Marco:
Just fix it.
Marco:
Not a big deal.
John:
Yeah, there was a couple people in the chat room and elsewhere on the web are like, well, the BSD license on markdown.pl, which is the Perl file that implements markdown that Gruber made, says that you can't use the name markdown and blah, blah, blah.
John:
All of that is irrelevant because that applies to the source code.
John:
And nobody's using that source code because they're all trying to do their own independent implementations anyway.
John:
This has nothing to do with legality.
John:
It has everything to do with, like, not sabotaging yourself and not being a jerk.
John:
Like, that's it.
John:
Like, you know, and I don't think we would ever pursue it legally because that would be kind of pointless.
John:
It's like, it's just all about being nice to people.
John:
And the reason they don't get replies is because they've been...
John:
You know, obnoxious to him so many times.
John:
Would you keep replying to them?
John:
It's like, what do you expect?
John:
It's like, well, if you're not going to reply, we're just going to co-opt your thing and be jerks about it.
John:
And it's like, well, if you're going to be jerks about it, I'm not going to respond to your email.
John:
Well, if you're not going to respond to my email, I'm just going to pick another name anyway.
John:
It's like this needless...
John:
Needless drama that just, you know, I mean, I knew as soon as it said standard markdown that there was start your timer.
John:
That's not going to last very long.
John:
And sure enough, it didn't.
John:
But I have to admit that I was surprised when the rename post came and the new name was with no permission and no blessing common markdown.
John:
And it was like, oh, God, like.
John:
I was so hopeful.
John:
I'm like, oh, this is speedy.
John:
They realized their mistake soon, and they're correcting it, and they're doing everything they're supposed to, and they blew it.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Well, and again, you can tell in the attitude of this post and of how they've gone about this.
Marco:
It's more of the same, that not only do they feel entitled to own Markdown themselves, but they really do not respect John Gruber at all.
Marco:
And they don't respect him as a person, even.
Marco:
And that's what's become very clear here.
Marco:
They really, really look down upon him.
John:
Well, they don't respect him as an open source project maintainer.
John:
And I think he's a terrible open source project maintainer.
John:
But this doesn't give you the right to be a jerk about it.
John:
Like, you can have whatever opinion you want about that.
John:
You can be like, oh, I don't like the way he's handled it.
John:
Fine, great.
John:
You don't like the way he's handling it.
John:
But he doesn't like the way you handle a lot of your projects, too.
John:
And that doesn't... Therefore, I get to do this?
John:
No, not therefore you get to do that.
John:
it's no it doesn't follow so it's like they're giving in to their their frustrations on on technical and sort of you know issues of stewardship and stuff it's like feel free to have those feelings but like you cannot parlay those feelings into being a jerk and say well it's justified because this guy's not good he wouldn't doesn't he isn't running this project the way i would run it yeah well get your own project run it the way you want
Casey:
So I try, because I'm an idiot, to respond to most of the email I get.
Casey:
And occasionally I'll get just extremely kind, generous, wonderful emails.
Casey:
You know how long it takes me to reply to most of those?
Casey:
Somewhere between one and three weeks because I get so much freaking email.
Casey:
And I am nowhere near the level of celebrity that John Gruber is.
John:
He did not respond because he's overwhelmed in email.
John:
He didn't respond because he didn't want to respond.
John:
And, like, honestly, even if he totally planned to respond, what's wrong with him taking a day or two to think about it?
John:
Like, what's the big rush?
Marco:
Here's the big thing about this.
Marco:
Like, somebody in the chat just said, here, let me see, tangible ghost in the chat just said, yeah, I think all the disrespect comes from the fact that Gruber doesn't want to blank or get off the pot when it comes to Markdown.
Marco:
Like,
Marco:
What people, I think, are not understanding well in this argument is that John Gruber has no obligation to do anything with Markdown.
Marco:
He has no obligation at all to respond to Jeff Atwood's emails.
Marco:
He has no obligation at all to make changes that people want or to fix perceived or actual bugs or problems with Markdown.
Marco:
It's his project.
Marco:
He owns it.
Marco:
Like...
Marco:
And again, leaving aside legalities of things like trademarks, you know, those are all arguable.
Marco:
I think just common sense looking at this, he owns this.
Marco:
And to think that you can just go up and take it as yours and say, well, he doesn't seem to be using it, so we're just going to take the project over –
Marco:
You know, there's a way to do that respectfully.
Marco:
And the way to do that respectfully is to fork it and use your own branding, period.
Marco:
And not try to commandeer his.
Marco:
Because it does not matter what he is doing or not doing with it.
Marco:
It is still his.
Marco:
And there is nothing wrong with you doing your own take on it with your name.
John:
And see, in the normal open source world, people get super pissed about forks and stuff.
John:
And Gruber is like, fine, fork it.
John:
Like he is being much nicer than most maintainers of open source projects who are like, who view any kind of fork as a hostile attempt to take over, especially if you give it a new name and it's like, you want to be the new thing.
John:
It's like, no way.
John:
We're like, they hate that.
John:
Gruber's like, go ahead, like do whatever you want.
John:
Like, Markdown is not hard to implement yourself.
John:
You don't need his source code at all.
John:
It's BSD license if you want it, but then you can't use the name... But he's even willing to give you the source code as long as you don't use the name Markdown.
John:
But, like, he's like, go ahead.
John:
Call whatever the hell you want.
John:
Make your own thing.
John:
Like, I don't care.
John:
This is my thing.
John:
Feel free to have your thing.
John:
He is...
John:
In the grand scheme of maintainers open source, he is incredibly generous of what he's willing to let you do with his idea and his source code.
John:
It's not even like GPL.
John:
It's like a BSD variant.
John:
He's willing to let people make things called insert modifier here markdown, which is way more than most other open source people would let you do.
Marco:
Yeah, try doing that with Twitter.
John:
Right.
John:
Try to make, you know, I don't know.
John:
Maybe Postgres is good, but I try to make like, you know, a standard MySQL and see how much the MySQL people like it.
John:
Like, you know, like what, you know, and it's just it's all just comes from frustration.
John:
Like he's not running the project the right way.
John:
He's not running the project the way I would want.
John:
I agree with all those things.
John:
I do not think he's running the project the right way.
John:
I don't think he's running the way I would want it.
John:
But.
John:
you can't then just, it doesn't follow.
John:
There's this huge gap between disagreeing with what someone's doing with their project and you deciding that you are now, you are now the, the standard bearer for that project that you did not start.
John:
All right.
John:
We got that pretty easily.
John:
I don't know.
John:
I think it's pretty open and close.
John:
I think common markdown will not last as a name and we will see more of this, but the September 9th event will come and erase all of this.
John:
And so maybe we'll talk about it five shows from now when it is called something that does not have marked on the name and we can finally get this all behind us.
Marco:
Do you really think he's going to change the name again?
Marco:
I don't think he will.
John:
He's got to change.
John:
He can't leave it as common.
John:
It's ridiculous.
John:
There's too much.
John:
Too many people think he's a jerk for doing it, and they're right.
Marco:
But the attitude he has in this post does not fill me with hope that he's going to admit that this was not good and change it again.
John:
He admitted it once.
John:
He admitted that he screwed up the first time and then screwed up a second time.
John:
So he admitted he screwed up a second time and get it right at the third time, right?
Marco:
I think it's interesting, like, not one of the names that he suggested to Gruber didn't contain Markdown.
John:
But Gruber had said he's okay with pedantic markdown or maybe even strict markdown.
John:
There is a precedent for modifier markdown that Gruber is okay with.
John:
All you gotta do is get permission.
John:
If he says fine, use it.
John:
But if he doesn't say fine to any of your names, then just pick a new one.
John:
It's really easy.
Marco:
Getting back to your discussion about good and bad business, which I admittedly was on a much more important topic, but still...
Marco:
This is just bad business.
Marco:
If you want your standard to actually have power, to have a chance of becoming, quote, a standard, instead of just you saying it's a standard, you know, insert XKCD comic here, instead of just you saying that, for it to actually be adopted, to be widely out there, to be powerful, to be the standard...
Marco:
It can't have stupid crap like this tying it down.
Marco:
Like stupid crap, like stupid arguments about the name.
John:
It's a sideshow.
John:
It's a distraction.
John:
And people say, well, this sideshow is good for publicity.
John:
Jeff Atwood does not need this sideshow to make publicity.
John:
Like some people may need this kind of, because otherwise no one would know it existed.
John:
Jeff Atwood does not need this.
John:
It is all downside for him.
Marco:
Exactly.
Marco:
And it's angering a lot of people in the community of people he needs to attract.
Marco:
People who like Markdown.
Marco:
Those people.
Marco:
Yeah.
Yeah.
John:
Those are the people you don't want to piss off.
John:
People like me, who cares?
John:
I don't use Markdown and I don't care and even I'm against them.
John:
The people who love Markdown really hate you for doing this.
Marco:
Markdown has spread.
Marco:
It has become so widespread because of people like Jeff Atwood.
Marco:
Markdown is on Tumblr because I put it there.
Marco:
David didn't really know what it was or care and I wanted it there so one day when Tumblr was still really small I just put it there.
Marco:
markdown is on stack overflow because jeff atwood was the co-founder of stack overflow and one day he wanted it there so he put it there it's this kind of community of people it's people who read john gruber's site who follow stuff like this who are a part of this community who are you know programmers who are who are into this sort of stuff who follow the stuff online it's people like us who are responsible for the spread of this kind of technology and the spread of these kind of standards or non-standards
Marco:
It's this community that he is polarizing by being a dick about the name, and that will really harm this.
Marco:
He has to not let people object to it on such a trivial ground as he stole the name in a kind of dickish way.
Marco:
Let people object to it over its merits, or let it win on its merits.
Marco:
Don't give people stupid ammo like this that is so easily avoided, it's so easily changed.
Marco:
Because that ultimately is harming the goal he's trying to achieve in what I think is a bigger way than he realizes.
John:
Yep, but it's only been, what, 12 and 24 hours now?
John:
So, anyway, we'll revisit after the September 9th event, see if anything came of it.
John:
In the meantime, just keep doing what you were doing.
John:
If you're using tiny American flags for some, mark down for others.
Casey:
So apparently there's... Personally, I don't understand that reference.
John:
Second... I screwed up the quote, so you're forgiven.
John:
It's also the second time you've used that reference on our show.
John:
I've used it way more than two times in my life, believe me.
Casey:
Let's do titles.
Casey:
Accidental Markdown?
Casey:
No.
Casey:
Do you do anything for fun?
Casey:
I feel like that's worth it just to shame, John, but it's probably not the best answer.
John:
Shame me for what?
John:
Shame you two for not being able to think of things I do for fun, despite the fact that we talk about them constantly.
Casey:
Because you do nothing for fun.
John:
Nothing other than those things that we constantly talk about.
Casey:
You do nothing outside the house for fun.
Marco:
That's not true.
Marco:
Ooh, stumped it.
Marco:
You got him there.
John:
Waiting for you guys to come up with the things I do for fun outside the house.
John:
I bet you can.
Marco:
I guess you can play games outside of your house on portable devices.
John:
No, no.
John:
That's true.
John:
Go to the movies?
John:
Yeah, where are the movies?
John:
They're at the movie theater sometimes.
John:
Where is the movie theater outside the house?
John:
What about restaurants?
John:
Do I ever go to restaurants?
John:
Are they in the house?
Casey:
Do you enjoy restaurants?
Casey:
I do.
Casey:
No, he does not enjoy restaurants.
John:
I enjoy them in New York more than I enjoy them here, but I do enjoy them.
Casey:
That's bullshit.
John:
I don't enjoy restaurants.
John:
I do.
John:
How's the prime rib?
John:
Who doesn't enjoy that?
John:
That's good stuff.
Marco:
That was pretty good.
Casey:
That happens once a year, for God's sake.
Marco:
In the middle of a trip that makes you miserable.
John:
I don't enjoy the traveling, but I enjoy being there.
John:
Although, the night after the house apartment, I always feel like someone should wheel me back to the hotel, but that's part of the experience.
Casey:
How tall are you, John?
John:
six two ish three ish something like so all 150 pounds and six foot two inches of you yeah you really hey i i clean my plate there's nothing left when i'm not doing a whole brent simmons thing that's yeah he gets the dessert slice that's hardcore oh forget it i can't do that two years in a row i have eaten the entire thing so good it is so good everyone likes the markdown titles
John:
The real official markdown would be a good title for the markdown part of the thing, but that's, you know.
Marco:
Two and a half hours in.
John:
Yeah, right.
John:
Someone's going to see the title and be like, when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?
John:
Another reference I've made a million times and I will keep making.
John:
You cannot stop me.
Casey:
You don't have to make me give a shit about it either.
John:
Oh, you should.
John:
You can have your own references.
John:
You can reference things that I haven't seen, like Saved by the Bell or something.
John:
I don't know what you kids are into.
Casey:
I made a Hunt for October reference on Twitter earlier, and a handful of people got it, and I was very happy with myself.
John:
We do have common ground for references.
John:
I'm just saying you can feel free to make references that I don't get if you think there are any.
John:
That sounds like a challenge.
John:
I've said there should be plenty.
John:
Fish, Saved by the Bell, Dave Matthews Band.
John:
I don't know anything about that crap.
John:
What's that thing?
John:
Something Tycoon?
John:
Train Tycoon?
John:
Railroad Tycoon?
Casey:
Transport Tycoon.
John:
It's not just railroads.
Marco:
It's all transport.
Marco:
Railroad Tycoon was worse.
Marco:
Please email Casey.
Casey:
I cannot believe you're not going to this event, John.
John:
I seriously thought about it.
John:
I had a plan.
John:
But in the end, I could not justify the time and expense.
John:
And yes, the discomfort of the travel.
John:
That is a factor.
John:
Cannot discount it.
Marco:
The spreadsheet said no.
Marco:
I cannot go.
John:
No, it's not a spreadsheet.
John:
It's just called weighing reasons for and against everybody does in their head, whether they know it or not.
John:
Unfortunately, a lot of people, when they make decisions, have invisible columns weighing down their invisible spreadsheet.
John:
They don't know there's a spreadsheet and they don't know what's in any of the columns and they just make decisions and don't understand what they're made by.
John:
Just because I understand what factors into my decision does not mean I'm making decisions in a different way than other people.
Marco:
All your columns are labeled.
John:
They're at least visible.
John:
Most of them, I think most of them are visible.