Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? I am much better. I think I had
Speaker 1: food poisoning and boyowdy did knock me on my Patucas.
Speaker 1: But I'm back and it's time for the tech news
Speaker 1: for Thursday, August seventeenth, twenty twenty three. And kicking the
Speaker 1: news off today is an update on the material called
Speaker 1: LK ninety nine. Now, if you've listened to recent tech
Speaker 1: Stuff episodes or you've been following the story in general,
Speaker 1: you probably heard that some researchers in South Korea believed
Speaker 1: that they had created this material LK ninety nine, and
Speaker 1: that it displays the properties of a superconductor at high temperatures.
Speaker 1: So a superconductor is a material that has some really
Speaker 1: interesting properties. For one, it has zero electrical resistance, meaning
Speaker 1: it is a perfect conductor. Superconductors also reject magnetic fields,
Speaker 1: and then you get into things like the Meisner effect.
Speaker 1: But usually we have to either cool a conductor down
Speaker 1: to wicked cold temperatures like a degree or two above
Speaker 1: the temperature of deep space. In order to reach super conductivity,
Speaker 1: we have to get to the critical temperature of this material,
Speaker 1: or you have to subject the material to really high pressure,
Speaker 1: and then you can increase the temperature for the critical
Speaker 1: nature of the material. But we're talking crazy pressures or
Speaker 1: temperatures here. Frequently you'd have to do both. LK ninety
Speaker 1: nine seem to have superconductive features at room temperature and
Speaker 1: air pressure, which would have been incredibly disruptive if true,
Speaker 1: and amazing, it would have been so good, But it
Speaker 1: appears that's not the case. Over the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: various research groups have attempted to replicate the results of
Speaker 1: the South Korean team, But it looks like LK ninety
Speaker 1: nine isn't a superconductor after all. In fact, it's more
Speaker 1: of an insulator. So how did the South Korean team
Speaker 1: get this wrong? Well, according to chemist Preschant Jine of
Speaker 1: the University of Illinois, the issue was that the process
Speaker 1: to synthesize LK ninety nine tends to introduce impurities. Like
Speaker 1: that's just part of the synthesizing process, and it's not
Speaker 1: always the same each time you synthesize this stuff. But
Speaker 1: one of the impurities that can be introduced is copper sulfide,
Speaker 1: and that material has a very low electrical resistance if
Speaker 1: it happens to also be exposed to air and it's
Speaker 1: below like one hundred and four degrees celsius. And Jine
Speaker 1: said that the presence of impurities is what gave researchers
Speaker 1: the missis stake and impression that the material overall was
Speaker 1: a superconductor because there was a sudden drop in resistance,
Speaker 1: but it was because of impurities like copper sulfide. Researchers
Speaker 1: have said that LK ninety nine is really tricky because,
Speaker 1: like I said, synthesizing can lead to samples with varying
Speaker 1: amounts of impurities. So even the same lab trying to
Speaker 1: synthesize this material could end up with two different samples
Speaker 1: with two different amounts of various impurities and different distributions.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, it appears that super conductivity is not a
Speaker 1: property that LK ninety nine possesses. It might have some
Speaker 1: ferromagnetic properties, and like I said, with these impurities, there
Speaker 1: might be pockets of lower electrical resistance, but it's not
Speaker 1: super conductive at least according to these follow up experiments.
Speaker 1: So that is a bummer. It's not necessarily a surprise,
Speaker 1: but you know, you always hope that the thing really
Speaker 1: is an incredible breakthrough, and then you know, but you
Speaker 1: prepare yourself for the fact that it's probably not right.
Speaker 1: It would have been a truly extraordinary thing had it
Speaker 1: all worked out. As always, you know, using critical thinking,
Speaker 1: being skeptical it's important so that way you can really
Speaker 1: investigate claims and make sure that they have merit. In
Speaker 1: this case, it seems that sadly they did not. That's
Speaker 1: not to say that I think the researchers from South
Speaker 1: Korea were attempting to mislead anyone. I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I just think it was a case where they mistakenly
Speaker 1: identified a property that just wasn't there. The tech research
Speaker 1: firm Gartner released its hype cycle for emerging technologies in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and generative AI is perched right at
Speaker 1: the tippy top of the peak of inflated expectations. So
Speaker 1: the hype cycle is Gartner's way of describing the typical
Speaker 1: pattern we see when and exciting technology starts to gain
Speaker 1: mind share. So the hype cycle doesn't really say that
Speaker 1: much about the abilities of technology itself. It's more about
Speaker 1: how our perception of that technology and our reaction to
Speaker 1: that technology often are at a big gap from what
Speaker 1: the technology does. So it doesn't reflect poorly on the technology,
Speaker 1: it reflects poorly on us and our tendency to get
Speaker 1: over excited about things. So you start off at the
Speaker 1: innovation trigger. So this is the emergence of some new technology,
Speaker 1: and at the earliest stages, usually the only people who
Speaker 1: are paying attention are folks who are directly involved in
Speaker 1: that sector or field of study, right Like, these are
Speaker 1: people who are on the forefront of research, and they
Speaker 1: might get excited about stuff not because they think it's
Speaker 1: a huge breakthrough, but that it's progress. Then you have
Speaker 1: this really steep climb to that peak of inflated expectations.
Speaker 1: Along this route is when the rest of us start
Speaker 1: to hear about this, and usually things like the media
Speaker 1: and companies and you know, personalities out there start to
Speaker 1: hype up this technology and talk about all the different
Speaker 1: ways that we might be able to use this tech
Speaker 1: and it will transform our lives and it will, you know,
Speaker 1: make business processes a billion times more efficient and cheaper,
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff right like, that's where
Speaker 1: all that conversation starts to happen. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of blue sky thinking going on during this stage. But
Speaker 1: at some point we start to realize that our perception
Speaker 1: of the technology and what it can actually achieve are
Speaker 1: out of alignment, right, that we have put way too
Speaker 1: much hype on this underlying technology, and then we plunge
Speaker 1: into what is called the troth of disillusionment. Now at
Speaker 1: that stage, some of us might even dismiss that technology outright, say,
Speaker 1: oh man, it's worthless, it can't do anything, and this
Speaker 1: is the exact same technology that we were super hyped
Speaker 1: about earlier. But again our perception and the actual technology
Speaker 1: itself and its abilities are out of alignment. Now our
Speaker 1: perception is below what the technology can actually do. We're
Speaker 1: undervaluing it. So following the trough of disillusionment is the
Speaker 1: slope of enlightenment. That's where we start to figure out
Speaker 1: how the tech can actually be put to good use
Speaker 1: without overinflating its importance. They might be a much more
Speaker 1: modest approach than what we were originally thinking when it
Speaker 1: was going through that peak of inflated expectations. And then
Speaker 1: that finally leads to the plateau of productivity. That's kind
Speaker 1: of where the tech sits comfortably and its capabilities and
Speaker 1: our perceptions of the technology are more or less in alignment.
Speaker 1: They're more or less parallel. So if Gartner is on
Speaker 1: the money here, that means we should be in store
Speaker 1: for a pretty dramatic reversal on how companies and others
Speaker 1: are looking at generative AI. There is no shortage of
Speaker 1: pieces about the technologies, current limitations and drawbacks, so I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily disagree. In fact, I'm actually a little surprised
Speaker 1: that Gardner didn't position generative AI as if it were
Speaker 1: just past the peak and already on its way down.
Speaker 1: Other technologies that were included on this projection are things
Speaker 1: like federated machine learning, cloud sustainability, and post quantum cryptography.
Speaker 1: All of those are still on the climbing toward the
Speaker 1: peak of inflated expectations part of the hype cycle, according
Speaker 1: to Gardner. And again, this is just kind of a
Speaker 1: way of us kind of taking a step back and
Speaker 1: looking at how we react to these technologies. It's so
Speaker 1: interesting to me because again, it's it doesn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with what the technology actually can do. It's
Speaker 1: all in our perception and leaf of what that technology
Speaker 1: can do really fascinating, sort of a meta approach. The
Speaker 1: Associated Press or AP, has updated its policies about journalism
Speaker 1: and artificial intelligence in general, but also generative AI and
Speaker 1: specifically chat GPT in particular. So, for example, the AP
Speaker 1: states that quote any output from a generative AI tool
Speaker 1: should be treated as unvetted source material. AP staff must
Speaker 1: apply their editorial judgment and AP sourcing standards when considering
Speaker 1: any information for publication end quote. This also doesn't just
Speaker 1: include text. AP has also talked about images. The AP
Speaker 1: says that journalists should never include AI generated or AI
Speaker 1: altered images unless the story itself is about AI creating
Speaker 1: or changing images, in which case you can include examples,
Speaker 1: but you do need to clearly label them in captions
Speaker 1: so that the reader of the piece is aware of
Speaker 1: what that is. The AP also urge journalists to be
Speaker 1: extra cautious when researching material, to make reasonable efforts to
Speaker 1: ensure that the sources they're referencing are reliable, because if
Speaker 1: those sources were generated by AI, they may not be.
Speaker 1: The AP urges journalists to check multiple sources, which is
Speaker 1: always a good thing, and to use strategies like reverse
Speaker 1: image searches to validate information before including it in their
Speaker 1: own pieces, which again makes sense. Also, if journalists have
Speaker 1: any doubts about the validity of the material, they should
Speaker 1: probably just not use it at all, and that seems
Speaker 1: like a reasonable benchmark to me. The AP is publishing
Speaker 1: new updates to the AP style Book today as this
Speaker 1: episode goes out, and they will include other guidelines about AI.
Speaker 1: A big one is not about journalists making use of AI,
Speaker 1: but how they cover it, and part of that is
Speaker 1: not buying into the hype or at least not to
Speaker 1: take claims at face value, specifically from AI developers, and
Speaker 1: also that journalists should avoid using language that quote attributes
Speaker 1: human characteristics to these systems end quote, and that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's also good to call attention to it, because we
Speaker 1: humans are often guilty at projecting human characteristics on non
Speaker 1: human stuff like animals or even inanimate objects. I mean,
Speaker 1: how many of y'all have named your cars, for example.
Speaker 1: I'm sure not all of you have, but I bet
Speaker 1: some of you have. Anyway, here's hoping that these guidelines
Speaker 1: can help journalists frame AI stories in a way that
Speaker 1: leads to more accurate reporting. We're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, we will continue this
Speaker 1: episode we're back. So, city employees in New York City
Speaker 1: are now barred from installing and using TikTok on any
Speaker 1: city owned devices. So this is a very similar story
Speaker 1: that we've seen play out in lots of other places,
Speaker 1: several states here in the US. Several federal agencies here
Speaker 1: in the US have similar bands, and the concern is
Speaker 1: that TikTok could potentially pose as a security vulnerability, one
Speaker 1: that could give unauthorized persons access to, in this case,
Speaker 1: New York City's networks. The ban is effective immediately, and
Speaker 1: as I have said in previous episodes, I think this
Speaker 1: is perfectly reasonable for a city owned system or a
Speaker 1: government owned system. If you are a city worker and
Speaker 1: the city has assigned to you a smartphone, that phone
Speaker 1: isn't really yours, it's for you to use with respect
Speaker 1: to your job working for the city. City workers are
Speaker 1: still allowed to use TikTok on their personal devices. It's
Speaker 1: not like they're forbidden from using TikTok at all. And
Speaker 1: I've also said this before too, but I agree that
Speaker 1: banning TikTok from government owned devices makes sense. I don't
Speaker 1: have any issue with that. I think unless your job
Speaker 1: for the government requires you to have TikTok, like maybe
Speaker 1: you're a pr person or something, it doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to have TikTok on a government owned device. I also
Speaker 1: think that singling out TikTok exclusively when we're talking about
Speaker 1: concerns around data security and data privacy is absurd. So
Speaker 1: in other words, yes, I think it makes sense to
Speaker 1: ban it from government owned devices, but I also think
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous to single out TikTok as the one evil
Speaker 1: boogeyman in the data security space, because wild TikTok can
Speaker 1: be a threat to security and privacy. That's true for
Speaker 1: tons of apps right like x slash, Twitter has those issues, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon,
Speaker 1: pretty much any app that's collecting information about us, and
Speaker 1: especially apps that have the information later make their way
Speaker 1: to data brokerage markets. All of those pots as security
Speaker 1: and privacy threats to us. But that's a soapbox I've
Speaker 1: been on so many times. I'll just move on. The
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has secured regulatory approval to allow
Speaker 1: US based customers to deal in crypto derivatives, so globally,
Speaker 1: cryptoderivatives make up the majority of crypto trades, but here
Speaker 1: in the US they weren't allowed. If you wanted to
Speaker 1: deal with crypto here in the US, you had to
Speaker 1: actually buy or sell actual cryptocurrencies, not derivatives. So derivatives
Speaker 1: are stuff like futures and options. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: be honest, y'all, this is outside my wheelhouse. And the
Speaker 1: more I read about stuff like stocks and futures and options,
Speaker 1: the more I'm left with the sinking feeling that nothing
Speaker 1: is real. And the only reason the financial world keeps
Speaker 1: moving at all is that enough folks have agreed it's
Speaker 1: too importan and to let it fall to pieces. So
Speaker 1: we just have to shut our eyes and believe in
Speaker 1: fairies and the whole thing will just keep on going.
Speaker 1: But that's not very helpful for this particular news item, right,
Speaker 1: So a future, in case like me, you really had
Speaker 1: heard the term, but you were like, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that really means. A future is a contractual
Speaker 1: agreement to buy or to sell a certain asset at
Speaker 1: a certain price at a certain time. So it's where
Speaker 1: a buyer and a seller agree upon what is going
Speaker 1: to be bought slash sold, when that's going to happen
Speaker 1: and at what price. It's a lot like making a
Speaker 1: bet on what you think the future value of an
Speaker 1: asset might be. So let's use an example to help
Speaker 1: clear things up. So right now, as I record this,
Speaker 1: the price of a single bitcoin is around twenty eight thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred bucks. But let's say that you think that
Speaker 1: in three months bitcoin is going to surge in value.
Speaker 1: So you want to secure a futures contract. You want
Speaker 1: to purchase one bitcoin, but you want to purchase it
Speaker 1: in three months at the price of Let's say you've agreed,
Speaker 1: You've negotiated it to twenty nine thousand dollars, so it's
Speaker 1: more than what it's valued at now, but you think
Speaker 1: that in three months it's going to be worth way
Speaker 1: more than that. Now, let's say that someone else who
Speaker 1: owns bitcoin thinks that the price of bitcoin is actually
Speaker 1: going to dip in three months, so they have an
Speaker 1: incentive to make a deal, especially to sell one bitcoin
Speaker 1: at twenty nine thousand dollars, which is again higher than
Speaker 1: what the current market value is. So the two of
Speaker 1: you enter into an agreement, You create a contract, you
Speaker 1: sign on the dotted line three months go by, and
Speaker 1: now it's actually time for you to pay for that
Speaker 1: bitcoin and take possession of it. So the agreed upon
Speaker 1: price was twenty nine thousand dollars, and it turns out
Speaker 1: you were right. Let's say that the market did surge,
Speaker 1: and now the market price for bitcoin is close to
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars. That means you're able to buy a
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars bitcoin at twenty nine thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: you've already made a profit as soon as you make
Speaker 1: the purchase. Or let's say the seller was right, and
Speaker 1: now the current price a bitcoin is down to twenty thousand,
Speaker 1: but you've already agreed to pay for it at twenty
Speaker 1: nine thousand. Now you might say, Jonathan, why would you
Speaker 1: trade in futures when you could just buy or sell
Speaker 1: the actual cryptocurrency in real time. If you think the
Speaker 1: price is gonna go up, why not just buy it now?
Speaker 1: And to that, I say, beats me. Maybe it's that
Speaker 1: you don't have the money right now, so that three
Speaker 1: months would give you enough time to gather the money
Speaker 1: you would need to buy the asset. That's one way
Speaker 1: of doing it, although that is putting yourself on a deadline.
Speaker 1: That is scary, my friend. You get close to that
Speaker 1: three months and you're like, oh man, I need to
Speaker 1: scrounge up that twenty nine K. But I am not
Speaker 1: at all an expert in financial matters, which is more
Speaker 1: than evident, right, And I am sure there are lots
Speaker 1: of really legitimate, smart financial reasons to trade in futures.
Speaker 1: I mean I get it for like physical stuff like agriculture.
Speaker 1: I totally understand it in that context. But in things
Speaker 1: like stocks and cryptocurrencies, that blows my mind. So it's
Speaker 1: outside my wheelhouse. And you might as well just tell
Speaker 1: me it's magic, and I'll believe you because it totally
Speaker 1: escapes me. Anyway, the fact that regulators have now approved
Speaker 1: derivatives for Coinbase is a huge deal both for US
Speaker 1: investors and for the crypto exchange itself. Meanwhile, in the UK,
Speaker 1: PayPal will pump the brakes on customer crypto sales starting
Speaker 1: in October. That's because UK regulators are implementing new rules
Speaker 1: and restrictions regarding crypto trading in the UK starting October eighth,
Speaker 1: and PayPal execs say they need to pause crypto features
Speaker 1: to make certain that the company's operations satisfy these new
Speaker 1: rules will still be able to sell their crypto through PayPal,
Speaker 1: but they won't be able to buy. And that's because
Speaker 1: these new rules are going to include giving clear and
Speaker 1: understandable warnings about the risks that are surrounding the investment
Speaker 1: into cryptocurrencies. So regulators have been really concerned that customers
Speaker 1: in the UK don't fully understand those risks, and so
Speaker 1: these rules are more about raising awareness about possible consequences
Speaker 1: if you were to pour your money into the cryptocurrency world.
Speaker 1: And because they say that, a lot of people just
Speaker 1: view it as this is a guaranteed way to get
Speaker 1: rich and they don't take into consideration the very real
Speaker 1: possibility that your investment could just disappear. That you could
Speaker 1: invest all that money and then the asset could fall
Speaker 1: through and then you've lost all that money. So it's
Speaker 1: not an outright ban on the buying and selling a crypto,
Speaker 1: but more about making sure that any any company that
Speaker 1: facilitates the buying and selling of crypto has to be
Speaker 1: able to express these risks to customers. So that's why
Speaker 1: PayPal is going to put a pause on things. Well,
Speaker 1: they make sure that they comply with those rules. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got three more stories to go, but we're going
Speaker 1: to take another quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay.
Speaker 1: So this is an important one if you happen to
Speaker 1: drive a Ford vehicle that was made between like twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen and twenty twenty one, in particular, So, Texas Instruments
Speaker 1: recently discovered a vulnerability in a Wi Fi driver that
Speaker 1: the company supplies to the automaker Forward and this is
Speaker 1: for the use in the SINC three infotainment system. And
Speaker 1: this is a bad one because this flaw makes it
Speaker 1: possible for a hacker to tap in through a vehicle's
Speaker 1: WiFi and to execute remote code on that infotainment system.
Speaker 1: So essentially a hacker can take over that infotainment system.
Speaker 1: Ford at least has reassured the public that the infotainment
Speaker 1: system is firewalled off from critical driving systems like breaking
Speaker 1: and steering in that kind of thing. So the good
Speaker 1: news is that while this is a critical security vulnerability,
Speaker 1: there's not really any risk of hackers getting the ability
Speaker 1: to force board vehicles off the road by exploiting this
Speaker 1: vulnerability in the SINC three infotainment system. Nothing like that
Speaker 1: should be possible. Still, The recommendation is for people who
Speaker 1: own a Ford that was made after twenty fifteen that
Speaker 1: has this Sink three infotainment system in it, they should
Speaker 1: go into their Wi Fi settings and turn off Wi
Speaker 1: Fi while they wait for Ford to issue a security patch,
Speaker 1: which they would then have to install via USB or
Speaker 1: bring it into a Ford dealership to have it installed there.
Speaker 1: The current version of the infotainment software on Ford vehicles
Speaker 1: made since twenty twenty one is Sync four, So if
Speaker 1: you have a Sink four infotainment system, this shouldn't apply
Speaker 1: to you. At least Ford has not revealed any vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: in that generation of the infotainment system. So again, if
Speaker 1: you own a Ford it was made between twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty one, it's got Sync three infotainment system,
Speaker 1: go into those settings and turn off Wi Fi until
Speaker 1: Ford has a security patch, and you know, just keep
Speaker 1: an eye on Ford's own website about this issue, and
Speaker 1: that way you can avoid having your car get hacked
Speaker 1: into by hackers. What a world right. Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: I talked about how San Francisco recently authorized robo taxi
Speaker 1: companies Waimo and Cruise, which is owned by General Motors.
Speaker 1: Weimo is owned by Alphabet, you know, Google's parent company.
Speaker 1: But anyway, they have authorized these companies to operate within
Speaker 1: the city of San Francisco. They've got certain things that
Speaker 1: they have to follow in order to be able to
Speaker 1: charge for rides. But anyway, I also talked about how
Speaker 1: several vehicles owned by Cruise, maybe as many as a dozen,
Speaker 1: created a bit of a traffic jam in San Francisco
Speaker 1: when they stopped on a street in the San Francisco
Speaker 1: neighborhood Doe to sell service interruptions and interference. There was
Speaker 1: this big music festival that was hogging all the data,
Speaker 1: and the cars were unable to navigate properly, so they
Speaker 1: just kind of parked it on the street and caused
Speaker 1: a bit of a traffic jam. Now there's another report
Speaker 1: out of San Francisco that says a Cruise vehicle made
Speaker 1: a booboo when it drove over a construction site and
Speaker 1: then into wet concrete. Apparently the car registered the wet
Speaker 1: concrete as being just fine to drive on, and so
Speaker 1: it drove in and got stuck. Crewise employees had to
Speaker 1: come to its rescue. A little bit later on, the
Speaker 1: Cruise vehicle was not carrying passengers at the time at least,
Speaker 1: but does illustrate that these vehicles have limitations and we're
Speaker 1: likely to see similar issues while engineers work to make
Speaker 1: the vehicles better. It might lead some people to ask
Speaker 1: if perhaps these cars are in operation a bit prematurely,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a fair question to ask. Others
Speaker 1: would say that, well, the whole purpose of operation at
Speaker 1: this stage is to find out where these problems are
Speaker 1: so that we can fix them and make them better.
Speaker 1: But when you're talking about a device that is that big,
Speaker 1: can move that fast and can potentially kill somebody, I
Speaker 1: think you got to hold it to a very, very
Speaker 1: very high standard. Finally, our last story is a bunch
Speaker 1: of foe folks who owned three D printers made by
Speaker 1: the company Bamboo Bambu found that their devices spontaneously began
Speaker 1: to print in the middle of the night recently. So
Speaker 1: it is the machine uprising, only it's just the three
Speaker 1: D printers and they can't do very much else other
Speaker 1: than you know, print stuff. But they were trying to
Speaker 1: print previous print jobs, sometimes printing over an earlier print
Speaker 1: job or a print job that had been going and
Speaker 1: then just stopped and now it had been restarted, so
Speaker 1: printing on top of it and just ruining the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It also meant that the machines were sometimes because they
Speaker 1: were trying to print on top of existing print jobs,
Speaker 1: causing issues like banging into stuff and potentially damaging the
Speaker 1: machine itself. So what made the machines do this Well,
Speaker 1: apparently Bamboo's cloud services had an interruption, and this is
Speaker 1: what prompted the printers to go into print mode on
Speaker 1: their own once the interruption was corrected. This actually reminds
Speaker 1: me of how once upon a time there was an
Speaker 1: issue with some podcast servers that went offline and when
Speaker 1: they came back on, they pushed out all the episodes
Speaker 1: on the server as if they were brand new episodes.
Speaker 1: So if you were subscribed to one of these podcasts,
Speaker 1: you would get all existing episodes sent to you as
Speaker 1: if they were brand new. And for some shows which have, say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, two thousand episodes, that's a lot. It
Speaker 1: hogs up a lot of space and it makes it
Speaker 1: very frustrating to use the podcatching app. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: a very similar situation. In this case. The servers went
Speaker 1: offline when they reconnected because the cloud service was unable
Speaker 1: to verify that the last print job actually went through
Speaker 1: it just initiated it again. But this actually comes with
Speaker 1: some pretty big risks, right, Like one thing is, as
Speaker 1: I said, it's possible for the printers to end up
Speaker 1: damaging themselves because they're printing on top of an existing
Speaker 1: print job in some cases. But also three D printers
Speaker 1: can run very hot, so if there were some issues,
Speaker 1: there's also the danger of it overheating and potentially becoming
Speaker 1: a fire hazard. You know, there's supposed to be protections
Speaker 1: in place to prevent that from happening, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to you know, verify that in fact those protections are
Speaker 1: are sufficient until disaster strikes. Right. There's also the concern
Speaker 1: that if it's something that can be remotely initiated like that,
Speaker 1: it could be a security vulnerability. So yeah, not the
Speaker 1: best little thing to happen. Although I will say that
Speaker 1: according to everything I've read, Bamboo has been very forthcoming
Speaker 1: about the issue and has accepted responsibility for the problems here,
Speaker 1: although it remains to be seen what the company will
Speaker 1: do for people who have a three D printer that
Speaker 1: was perhaps damaged as result of this unforeseen issue. Now
Speaker 1: before I go, I do have a recommendation for an
Speaker 1: article for y'all. The article is titled It's Time to
Speaker 1: Rethink Our Relationships with Streaming Services. It was written by
Speaker 1: Charles Pulliam Moore and it's on the Verge. So if
Speaker 1: you just go to the Verge and look for It's
Speaker 1: Time to Rethink Our Relationships with Streaming Services, you can
Speaker 1: read up on it. It's obviously a piece that's talking
Speaker 1: about what has been going on with streaming services over
Speaker 1: the past couple of years, the issues that we're seeing,
Speaker 1: the price hikes that have been going on, and maybe
Speaker 1: that it requires some reflection and decisions about are you
Speaker 1: really getting the value out of these services that you
Speaker 1: deserve based upon how much you're paying for them. I
Speaker 1: know if I were being honest about that for myself,
Speaker 1: I would have to come to the conclusion that I
Speaker 1: need to cancel several subscriptions because I know I've got
Speaker 1: subscriptions to about half a dozen streaming services and I
Speaker 1: use maybe two of them frequently. So really I should
Speaker 1: follow this advice and really reevaluate the relationship I have
Speaker 1: with these streaming services and whether or not it is
Speaker 1: a healthy one, Because I would suggest that perhaps it's not,
Speaker 1: and I need to I need to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the same recommendations I give everybody else. And that's it
Speaker 1: for today's episode. I hope you are all well. Thank
Speaker 1: you for those of you who sent nice messages making
Speaker 1: sure that I was okay. I am okay, or at least.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely better than I was yesterday. I'm not at
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, but I'm way better than in the
Speaker 1: last two days, so that's good. And I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.