WEBVTT - TechStuff’s 500th Episode! 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:14.480 Get in touch with technology with text from dot Com. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.120 Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Text Stuff. Guess what 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:22.079 it's our five hundred episode. I'm your host extraordinaire jomp 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.240 In strick Linding with me is Lauren Buffalo. That's right, 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.400 my co host extraordinary and we also have a special 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.760 guest in the in the studio today. Special guest introduce yourself. 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.199 Oh I'm sorry, let me just rip the tape off here. 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:43.000 Oh who are you? Wait? Where you brought me back here? Yeah? Okay, 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.600 so everyone, Uh, if you don't recognize that voice, that is, 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.840 in fact my former co host, our our our good 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.520 friend Chris Pillette. Who who how's your head feeling? Chris? 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.080 You know chloroform is so nineteen seventies. Yeah, you know. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.600 We just wanted to go the full route. We really 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:04.959 wanted to have you here, and you seemed a bit 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:10.479 reticent on instant Messenger, so that happened. But anyway, here 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:15.400 we all are just chair. Don't you know? The struggle 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.119 all you like? The chains are far too thick. The 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.600 interesting thing here, folks, is that this is the first 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.720 time we've had all three of the Tech Stuff hosts 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.920 in the same room at the same time with microphones 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.680 pointed at us. It's actually the first time that I've 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.480 ever met Chris Polatte period today about you know, twenty 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.039 minutes before this recording happened, right, you had been in 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:35.760 the same building as Chris a few times, but you 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.520 had never actually had the opportunity to meet him hypothetically before. 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.560 Now the two of us could have been the same person, 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.480 and I never would have known. Now we have been asked, 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:45.880 you know, what are you gonna do for your fipisode? 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:47.640 And I thought it'd be fun to open that up 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.600 to the tech stuff fans at large, also the small ones, 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.520 and they ended up responding in droves, and the two 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.040 most popular responses where talk about the history of tech 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.080 stuff and maybe explore the differences of what tech was 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.440 like when you started the podcast versus what it's like 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.480 today today being in twenty and we started the podcast 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.760 way back in two thousand and eight. So I thought, well, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.840 the best way to talk about that is to bring 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.520 on the person who was with me from the very beginning. So, Chris, 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:22.160 what do you remember from those earliest days of the podcast? Well, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.760 they were they were five minutes long. Yes, they were 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.160 told to keep them no longer than five minutes, which 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.600 was people are complaining that they're too long. Well, now 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:39.560 there are many many five minutes, right, sometimes way too many. Yeah. 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.079 The the very first well, first of all, we were 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.280 we were kind of taken aside by by the guy 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.320 who was the managing editor at the time, Connell, who 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.280 is now he's now a big wig with all of 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.480 the Discovery Digital. But he um, I think that's a 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.720 real here. Okay, that's fair enough. He brought us aside 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.360 and he said that he won to us to to 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.600 look at doing a podcast. We had already started to 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.919 record How Stuff Works, had already started to record podcasts 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.280 in a couple of different fields. They had Stuff you 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.760 Should Know which, Chris you were part of that originally. Yes, 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:14.520 so it's the original co host of Stuff you should 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.320 Know what, Josh Clark. So yeah, so we've got a 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.560 Stuff you should know all star on our team here too. 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.359 They retired my jersey. Yeah, that's that's fair. We did 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.239 the same thing to you many years later. But that 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.200 that you can't give milk anymore. So it's all right, 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.040 Jersey cal folks, that's the puns we've been missing here, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:39.320 So missing being a relative terms. Chris Uh, I heard 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.680 the quotes around missing right. Chris and I ended up 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.200 being uh pulled into a meeting and talked to about 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.360 the possibility of making a technology podcast, And so we 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.040 went into the studio and we recorded a few test episodes, 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.760 none of which actually ever aired there. I I can't 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.240 even do you even remember what any of those topics were. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.000 I don't, no, no, but but my earliest recollection of 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.240 episodes that just made me laugh was the the Blue 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:13.280 Ray Versus HD DVD podcast that we recorded, uh somewhere 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.720 within the neighborhood of I don't know, a week to 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.279 two weeks when before or after. I don't even remember 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.559 which one it was when h D DVD was killed. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.320 We actually talked about it. Was it after? It was 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.960 after h D DVD had died, because you and I 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.000 had gone to we were going to do it, and 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.840 then when we actually recorded it, it was like mere 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.920 milliseconds after they shelved it something like that. Yeah, Yeah, 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:39.679 that was one of the earliest ones. The very first 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.080 episode we ever recorded was, or at least the first 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:47.479 one that ever published, was an episode called how the 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.680 Google Apple Cloud Computer Will Work, which was based off 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:52.760 an article you had written, wasn't it Christmas? I have 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.440 written very few articles for the website. That is one 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.160 of them. Um, and it was based on a Postconnell 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.720 actually suggested that because he had read this, uh, this 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.920 article by Nicholas Carr, who was a famous tech pundit. Yeah, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.000 he wrote the essay that I've quoted quite a few 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.280 times is Google making us stupid? Yeah? Yeah, exactly in 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.400 Atlantic And as a matter of fact, we touched on 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:20.120 this anyway back sometime after that and the Frenemies episode, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.560 because Google and Apple had been frenemies for quite some time. 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.200 And uh, the idea was that Google could do the 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.400 back end, Apple could do the hardware, and you know, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.400 they would work together and that this cloud computer thing 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.960 would be absolutely brilliant. And it might have been if 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.640 they ever actually did that. Apple could have done the aesthetics, 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:41.960 because that's what I mean. Apple is known for making 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.880 these beautiful products. And yeah, there was the maps, the 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.400 maps look at their mat Oh yeah, I think Google 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.440 has been slightly better off in that if it would 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.960 have run on the Google Maps obviously, otherwise there'd be 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.520 bridges where no bridges should be. Uh. Yeah, that first 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.000 episode was five minutes already five seconds long or thereabouts. 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.200 I actually went into our RSS feed and looked it up. 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.800 By the way, guys, if you are iTunes subscribers, you 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.440 might be wondering, how could we have five hundred episodes 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:13.640 because you go back and there aren't five hundred on 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.839 their iTunes has a limit to how many episodes you 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.640 can have of any podcast available for download. But if 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.039 you go to the RSS feed and that's that's linked 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.640 off the tech stuff page at how Stuff Works, you 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.080 can actually go and listen to our earliest episodes. I 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.279 don't know why you would want to, but you could. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.920 I listened to a bunch of research preparation for this episode. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:42.120 Actually that was Lauren, this was this was so before 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.719 you were born. I think that we recorded those before 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.280 we figured out how to get rid of the horrible echo. 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.320 I mean, if you listen to the sound quality, Yeah, 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.159 there's some subty issues. It's not actually sactually not echo, 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.000 but it is there is some sort of tenniness to 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.400 the voices, which we eventually fixed. Uh. The another episode 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.599 I wanted to mention this one I thought was funny, 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.799 just because you know, you look at those early episodes 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.640 and you think of what was important back in two 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.560 thousand eight. Right, one of the earliest episodes was do 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.400 I really need a digital converter box for my TV? 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.600 Which is ironically another one of the very few articles 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.400 that I've written for the website. Right, And at the time, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.760 you might have yeah, these these days you might not remember, 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.080 but there was this big movement where we were going 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.559 to move from analog to digital broadcast, and it meant 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.840 that if you did not have if you had an 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.280 older television set and you did not have this converter 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.640 attached to your television set, you might not get over 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.400 the air transmissions anymore. You wouldn't be able to your 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.920 your your television wouldn't be able to interpret the signals, 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.040 and you wouldn't be able to watch television. So it 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:50.960 was a big concern and there was a lot of 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.000 confusion out in the marketplace about do I need one 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.560 of these things? I'm a cable subscriber, do I need one? 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.440 And And it was just one of those things where, uh, 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.440 the information was all out there, it was just that 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.640 people were finding it really difficult to find that that 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.520 relevant info and so they were all thinking, like, maybe 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.520 I guess I better buy one of these things even 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.240 if they didn't need one. And so Chris had written 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.720 an article kind of explaining what this was, which people 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.440 would actually need it versus which people could just ignore it, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.760 and then we did a podcast about it that was 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.280 about five minutes long. Uh, the final five minute long 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.200 episode we did because that that five minute time limit 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:33.200 lasted for a couple of months. Actually August four, two 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.839 thousand and eight, was when the final five minute long 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.520 episode aired, and then we were allowed to go up 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.559 to ten or fifteen minutes. That was what the new 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.160 limit was. But that last episode was how Twitter works, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.120 so we were able to explain how Twitter works in 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:55.439 five minutes. Apparently, well we should have explained it a 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:01.400 little hashtag there, hashtag joke. Um. The the first episode 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.560 that was the first episode that was longer, you know, 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.880 a ten minute long episode. This one cracks me up 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.280 to how the Facebook redesign works in two thousand and eight. 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:16.160 So there's been quite a few redesigned since then. I 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.559 was gonna say which one. Yeah, I couldn't even tell 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.199 you what that particular redesigned what happened with that one, 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.520 because it's been Facebook has been redesigned so frequently since 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.520 that time that I could not tell you specifically, I 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.800 didn't listen to it. I guess if I had, I 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.240 would learn. Well, it's comforting to think that things have 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.800 changed so little in in this time that people are 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.679 still freaking out every single time there's a Facebook redesigns. 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.480 You can always rely on that if Facebook changes something, 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.680 there's going to be a storm of comments that rages 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.160 across all social media, uh, saying it's the worst thing ever. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.160 It's really what they mean is it's the worst thing 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:59.080 since the last time they did this. Uh. I you know, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.280 sometimes I have that action two, but I try and 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.640 keep perspective. The very first episode that I could find 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.360 that was fifteen minutes long was actually a pretty uh, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.160 pretty heavy one. It was can the government take away 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.280 my laptop? And that was based off some news stories 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.920 about people who were doing things like crossing a border 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.120 and then uh, the question of whether or not the 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:26.640 government could search a laptops contents for illegal material, saying 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.480 that just by carrying the lab right the same way 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:31.920 that you can search a car, It's yeah, it doesn't. 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.839 It was one of those questions that was really it 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:40.400 was an important question. UM. Another funny one that we 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.840 did funny in the sense that just from a timing issue. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.040 On October eight, we published an episode about how Dean 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.320 Came In works, and the reason that's funny's Lauren and 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.520 I just got finished talking about how the Segway works. 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.839 So I'm glad to get into that episode because he's 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.200 a fascinating guy, like I should go back and listen that. 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.200 And the last one I have specifically written down to 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.440 just kind of a little walk down memory lane, and 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.720 we can chat about other ones too, but the last 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.800 one I've written down is what Happened to the Technology 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.360 of the Future, which we published on October twenty eight, 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.000 and that one was thirty minutes long. So that was 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:18.880 about the time where we were told we could go 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.160 as long as we needed to go, and that really 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.040 any episode that we recorded could be as long as 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.600 we felt was necessary in order to really cover the 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.880 topic and and address what needs to be talked about. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.440 And uh, it's also funny because that's one of those 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.440 topics that we get requests for all the time, people 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:38.680 like why don't you talk about stuff that never happened 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.400 that when you know, we were like, where's my jet 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.600 pack kind of stuff, because we did that in two 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:47.640 thousand and eight and it's still not here. Yeah. Yeah, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.560 we could just play that one if you wanted to 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.680 have a true Tech Stuff experience, play it twice back 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:54.520 to back, because that's about the length of a regular 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.040 Tech Stuff episode now these days. I was I was 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.560 gonna say that. It's kind of funny because once they 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.360 gave us enough time to talk about whatever it was 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.040 we needed to talk about in enough depth to do 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.480 that is when we started to talk about things for 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:09.160 so long, we started to have to split them into 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:10.920 two and three episodes. Yeah. We would get to a 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.200 point where we would record an episode and realize, like 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.240 Tyler would turn to us and say, okay, that was 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:17.920 an hour and seven minutes long. We're like, uh, let's 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.240 split that into two. Um. We We did get to 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.160 a point where our average episode length was probably closer 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.360 to forty five minutes long. Yeah. The first time I 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.840 remember doing that was the time we were going to 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.080 record an episode about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.600 had to make one about Bill Gates and another one 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.080 about Steve Jobs. Yeah, it turned out that the one 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.840 section had gone on so long that it didn't make 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:43.600 sense for us to keep going, we would have had 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.200 an hour and a half long episode. And uh, and 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.000 that's that's probably too long. I think most of our 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:52.960 listeners would say it's too long. Even if you are 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.000 able to pause right in the middle and pick right 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.360 back up, that's still a lot of a lot of 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.120 tech stuff in one in one dose. Uh, there was 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.679 a there was another thing that was not exactly directly 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.040 related to the podcast that happened about that time. If 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.560 I'm not mistaken. What's that text? Stuff live? Uh, tech 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.560 stuff live now, Lauren, Lauren, I've talked about this briefly 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.880 with you, but it's am. It was. It was very briefly. 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:19.960 It was because it was did not last that long. 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.840 This was an experiment we had where we did probably 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.520 I don't know, maybe what six or seven weeks maybe 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.400 yeah stuff you said stuff you should know and and 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.600 and we did that, and I think somebody else didn't. 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.160 Maybe it was it was might not have might have 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.040 been car stuff. It might have been car So I 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:37.720 was gonna say stuff to blow your mind, except they 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:39.800 were called something else at that point, stuff from the 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:43.440 science lab or something. Um. But yeah, the it wasn't 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.880 nerve racking at all. Sitting in front of a live camera. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:48.600 that was that was the idea was that it was. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.720 It was me and Chris sitting down behind a desk. 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.800 We had a live camera pointed at us and we 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.079 would uh it was streaming out live too. Sometimes as 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:02.240 many as twenty seven people. Uh thanks dad. Yeah, my 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.760 family made up about five of those. Uh No, it 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.200 was I joke, but it really was a very relatively 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.679 small number of people, which is not that surprising. We 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.120 were streaming in the middle of the day. We were 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.360 trying to keep as close to the regular schedule as 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.040 possible because I mean, if you're going to do a 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.280 live event, you need it to be predictable, right, You 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.560 need to go live when you say you're gonna go live. 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.560 We had the chat room that was open where we 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.120 could interact directly with our audience, and we would cover 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.000 about five important text stories that had happened in the 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.760 week since the last time we had done a tex 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.240 Stuff live. And so we also introduced a segment called 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.360 the Tweet of the Week, where I would I would 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.640 go through my Twitter feed of all the stuff that 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.520 I followed and picked the one that I liked the most. 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.000 Usually I would end up doing that about five minutes 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:49.800 before we went on the air, because I would forget 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.960 about it. That was our first major special effect to 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.400 the tweetcause yeah, one of one of the one of 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.320 the video folks would crawl behind Jonathan with a bird 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.120 on a It was usually Matt Frederick and he would 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.120 he would have a bird on a stick. It was 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.400 Tyler did it a few times too. But they would 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.000 have a bird on a stick and they would poke 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.680 it up so that it would somehow obstruct my view, 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:12.920 and they would mess around with it while I was 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.080 trying to do the segment, and it just became a 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:16.720 bigger and bigger joke each time, and they would do 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:21.120 a different bird noise each time, live live, fully produced 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.800 by the vocal cords, where it might be like or 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.800 you know, it just became these weird like I couldn't 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:29.960 even identify what sort of birds they were supposed to 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.840 be until there was one day where I the bird 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.920 off the stick, slammed it on the desk and said there, 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.600 that's done. The next week they came back with a 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.280 bigger bird. It was an ex parrot. One of those 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.320 birds now resides at my desk. It's actually one of 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.000 the ones I smashed. In fact, it was missing a 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.800 leg until Lauren found it and did some emergency glue 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:53.960 surgery on bad for it. The leg was just kind 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:55.480 of hanging out on a different part of the desk. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.880 It was kind of pinned up there from my lamp. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.280 Like to be fair, folks, in case you're being absolutely horrified, 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.480 these are totally fake persons, never never living. No, No 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.000 real birds were harmed in the making of Tech Stuff Live. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.800 A few real video technicians were, though, so um but no. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.040 That was an interesting experience because that was the first 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.480 time we had ever tried to do a live show, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.840 knowing that there were people watching us at that time, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.400 which meant that we could not really make a mistake. Now, 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.360 Chris and Lauren, this is true for us too. For 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.960 the most part, our episodes are one take, unless unless 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.640 we do something terrifying, you know, like sneeze in the 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.200 middle of something or say something that is not quite 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.480 appropriate or etcetera. We we might cut something out once 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.440 in a while, but more often than not, what you 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.720 hear on the podcast is one uninterrupted take from beginning 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.000 to end, and that's it for the most part. There 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.560 are exceptions. There are some episodes out there where one 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.920 of us just goes off the rails and something unusual 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.040 happens and we have to stop and go back. And 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.480 usually it's me, I'll go ahead and be the one 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.280 to say that, but but more frequently than not, it's 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:06.040 it's we just we go warts and all. Um. Sometimes 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.439 that meant that we had some less than accurate things 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:11.880 in our episodes where one of us was speaking off 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.680 the cuff, again usually me, but we tried to address 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.400 those whenever that happened, which brings me to another thing 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.440 that we used to do on text stuff all the time. Yeah. Yeah, 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.040 there used to be a segment that we would do 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.360 on text stuff, a special segment that had its own 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.080 special intro. And so, ladies and gentlemen, this is where 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.960 I warn you, please turn the volume down on whichever 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.840 listening device you happen to be using at this point. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.960 I am going to do a countdown from five to one. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.640 When I hit one, I am then going to do 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.200 the amazing intro to this segment. You have been warned thoroughly. 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.920 I want no email about how loud this is going 0:17:50.000 --> 0:18:02.840 to be five four, three two one listener. Usually. That 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.719 was followed by Chris saying something like, uh, yeah, so 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:09.520 we we used to have that segment when you did 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.560 it all the time, and we're gonna start doing listener 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:13.760 mail again, folks, And of course I will not be 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.160 using that intro anymore. I got enough email, like Chris, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.480 do you I think they've probably got us the most responses, uh, 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.760 most negative response and most negative responses were like could 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.919 you please stop screaming into the microphone. But what was 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.960 funny was that the second most negative responses was when 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.320 we stopped doing it and people were begging us to 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.080 bring it back. So we had that was kind of comic. 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.560 Two camps. We had the camp and also the nature 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.119 of podcasts meant that some people were about three or 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.040 four months behind other people, so they're complaining about stuff 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.880 that we haven't been doing for months. I mean, while 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:50.720 we have another camp of people saying, why aren't you 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.159 doing that thing you used to do that was always 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.520 fun Um other big events, we did a live a 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.640 live show at a convention. We went to Dragon Con 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.880 in Atlanta, and Chris and I sat up on stage 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.440 with Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont, who are both tech 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.520 journalists as well as the hosts of a show called 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.439 Sword and Laser and we conducted that was also I 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.439 think our first interview. Yeah, I believe so. And I 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.240 found out something very important. What's that um that Jonathan 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.120 was not the only podcast hosts after who am? I say? 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.960 A lot? However, I'm not sure that there's a drinking 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.639 game for any show other than this one, right right? Well, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.160 And that was fun because when when it started, I'm 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.640 not kidding, there were people who had a drinking game 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.720 for every time I would go U huh, yeah, that 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.119 trend continues. Yeah, yeah, I'm very sure that I'm filling 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:49.000 those shoes. The sorry about the smell. That particular that 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:54.880 particular show was fun because we started off with just myself, Chris, 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.680 Tom Veronica, and uh some of a couple of members 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.719 of our crew we had. We had Matt and Tyler 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.479 there and then there was a live studio audience by 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.000 the end of it. There was when it first started, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.560 it was just it was just us plus the We 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.840 had one technician from the the podcast track at dragon 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.640 Con who was running the the the board for us. 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:18.840 But were you guys like set up in in a 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:20.800 conference room or in a conference room. It was the 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.240 conference room that the podcast track was using for their 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.080 regular events, and we were We had scheduled our our 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.280 podcast recording an hour before the room officially opened. So 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:33.840 but as we were going on, we're getting closer and 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.080 closer to the first scheduled event of the day, and 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:37.879 they had left the door open because they asked us 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.080 if we if they could do that. I said, yeah, 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.439 you know, I think that's fine. It's it's gonna be 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.080 a little weird having people come in as we're going 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.439 but I don't see why that should be a real issue. 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.440 Um and everyone else felt pretty much the same way. 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:53.960 And by the time our show ended, we had a 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.120 full studio audience, so that was a live studio audience 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.439 for the end of that episode. That sounds both thrilling 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.960 and completely terrifying. Tex stuff is recorded in one of 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.120