Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and good golly, so
Speaker 1: much has happened this past year. Uh. This is the
Speaker 1: third episode in our retrospective look at the big text
Speaker 1: stories of twenty one, some of which obviously go beyond
Speaker 1: just technology, but tech played an important role. I promise
Speaker 1: not all of the stuff that happened one was bad.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean, obviously, news headlines tend to gravitate
Speaker 1: toward that. It all gets back to what drives clicks, right,
Speaker 1: and the good stories get a lot of share on
Speaker 1: social networks, but not so much on like news sites.
Speaker 1: But um, we do have some more bad stuff that
Speaker 1: we do have to go through in this episode. So,
Speaker 1: for example, was a banner year from malicious hackers. Back
Speaker 1: in twenty the general public first learned about the Solar
Speaker 1: Winds hack. That's the one where hackers were able to
Speaker 1: compromise a software vendor and insertain malicious code into an
Speaker 1: update on one of that vendor's products, and then the
Speaker 1: vendor pushed out the update which included the malicious code
Speaker 1: to its customers. Those customers included US governmental agencies as
Speaker 1: well some notable Fortune five companies that supply. Chain hack
Speaker 1: was a preview for bad stuff to follow in. One
Speaker 1: really big trend in one was ransomware attacks, And just
Speaker 1: in case you're not familiar with that term, the general
Speaker 1: idea is that the hackers get access to a target
Speaker 1: system in some way. Maybe they infiltrate the system technologically,
Speaker 1: maybe they use social engineering to fool someone into handing
Speaker 1: over access, maybe it's a combination. Anyway, once they gain access,
Speaker 1: they locked down the targeted system. Typically they do something
Speaker 1: like they use an encryption scheme that bricks the system
Speaker 1: so it's all encrypted. The system's owners can no longer
Speaker 1: longer access their systems or their data, not without unencrypting
Speaker 1: it or decrypting it. And if the encryption is good,
Speaker 1: it could mean that trying to find a solution outside
Speaker 1: of just the official decrypt key could take centuries unless,
Speaker 1: well unless the victim ponies up the cash to the hackers, who,
Speaker 1: upon payment, promised to decrypt the system. We usually hear
Speaker 1: about these demands being made in the form of cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: because that stuff is harder to pin down, though not impossible.
Speaker 1: There are actually a few ransomware stories from the past
Speaker 1: year that end with an agency like the FBI seizing
Speaker 1: money from the hacker is even when it was in
Speaker 1: crypto formats. And as I always say, paying the ransom
Speaker 1: is a bad idea for several reasons. One, it sends
Speaker 1: the message to the hackers that hey, this works. Then
Speaker 1: we see more groups engage in that same activity. Also,
Speaker 1: a lot of this is coming out of hacker groups
Speaker 1: that are states sponsored or state sanctioned. That means the
Speaker 1: hackers are receiving support from or at the very least
Speaker 1: are being ignored by the governments of the countries they
Speaker 1: are based in. We mostly hear about hacker groups out
Speaker 1: of Russia and China, um sometimes North Korea, and there
Speaker 1: are others as well. Of course, Also, there's no guarantee
Speaker 1: that the hackers will actually decrypt your stuff, right. You
Speaker 1: could end up paying them and then they just run
Speaker 1: off with the money. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why it's not a good idea to pay the ransoms.
Speaker 1: The ransomware attacks this year included ones on Colonial pipeline,
Speaker 1: which is responsible for the transportation of an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of fuel for the East coast of the United States,
Speaker 1: and that attack meant that for short all we saw
Speaker 1: gas prices go up, and we saw a lot of
Speaker 1: folks engage in a little good old hoarding, and that
Speaker 1: was a big story over in my area. In fact,
Speaker 1: where gas stations had no gas, they were out and
Speaker 1: people were just rushing around like maniacs filling up garbage
Speaker 1: cans full of gasoline, which I don't think I need
Speaker 1: to tell you is a bad idea at any time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that happened. Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom worth around four
Speaker 1: million dollars, but law enforcement was able to get some
Speaker 1: of that money back. Another big ransomware attack hit a
Speaker 1: company called jbs U s USA that as a meat
Speaker 1: processing company that located in Brazil. I think this was
Speaker 1: a huge hit in the meat supply chain and it
Speaker 1: caused issues all along from the farmers who raised raised livestock.
Speaker 1: Some of those farmers actually had to reclaim livestock that
Speaker 1: had been sent to the processing facilities, so they had
Speaker 1: a little stay of execution, I guess, and it went
Speaker 1: all the way to the end customers. The Russian hacker
Speaker 1: group Revel was busy this year. For one thing, they
Speaker 1: were able to take note of the Solar Winds attack
Speaker 1: and they pulled off a similar stunt with a company
Speaker 1: called Kassa, which counts thousands of companies and organizations among
Speaker 1: its customer sports Virtual System administrator product. The REvil group
Speaker 1: was able to compromise that product and push out an
Speaker 1: update that contained malware, allowing them to lock down systems
Speaker 1: with encryption, holding them for ransom. One person allegedly connected
Speaker 1: to that attack has since been arrested and is awaiting
Speaker 1: extradition to the United States. On a similar note, a
Speaker 1: Chinese hacking group called Hafnium targeted vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Exchange
Speaker 1: Server product, which affected email systems and thousands of organizations.
Speaker 1: Microsoft issued a fixed pretty quickly, but whether organizations actually
Speaker 1: did the work to install that fixed, that's another matter.
Speaker 1: And any way, at that point they were dealing with
Speaker 1: hackers snooping on emails. And then there was the n
Speaker 1: s O group. This company, based in Israel produces hacking
Speaker 1: tools that it markets to customers like governments, including authoritarian
Speaker 1: and autocratic governments. In fact, mostly those kinds. The hacking
Speaker 1: tools are meant to allow the person using them to
Speaker 1: compromise specific target devices and then use those devices like
Speaker 1: surveillance tools. The story that got the most attention was
Speaker 1: an exploit called Pegasus that could turn an iPhone into
Speaker 1: a spy on behalf of the hacker. So the hacker
Speaker 1: could send a message through I message and it would
Speaker 1: include the the the malware string, and because of how
Speaker 1: Apple processes I messages at the time, the target device
Speaker 1: would be compromised. All you had to do is have
Speaker 1: the person's phone number and have the Pegasus software installed,
Speaker 1: and you could send one of these malicious messages and
Speaker 1: it would infect the target phone. The hacker could then
Speaker 1: look at information on the target phone, or even use
Speaker 1: that phone's camera and microphone to spy on the device's owner.
Speaker 1: N s O Group uh They marketed this as a
Speaker 1: way to keep tabs on folks like terrorists, but experts
Speaker 1: pointed out that customers were using it on all sorts
Speaker 1: of people, including activists, politicians, journalists. I believe one leader
Speaker 1: used it on his wife allegedly. Moreover, NSO Group could
Speaker 1: only sell this product to customers that the Israeli government
Speaker 1: approved of, and it began to look like this was
Speaker 1: a really nasty case of money, politics, and authoritary and
Speaker 1: tendencies getting really cozy with one another. For its part,
Speaker 1: the ns A group has denied claims that its tool
Speaker 1: has been sold far and wide to parties that would
Speaker 1: abuse it, but organizations like Amnesty Internationals say otherwise. One
Speaker 1: other big hackings story, though this didn't involve ransomware or
Speaker 1: political surveillance, involved the live streaming service Twitch, known primarily
Speaker 1: for video game streamers. In October, Twitch publicly acknowledged that
Speaker 1: hackers had breached the service and copied a ton of data,
Speaker 1: like around a d twenty eight gigabytes of information. Of course,
Speaker 1: this came after someone had released that information, so at
Speaker 1: that point, you know, we all knew it had happened,
Speaker 1: and then Twitch said, oh, yeah, no, that happened. The
Speaker 1: data included the source code for Twitch, but it also
Speaker 1: included information about how much money streamers were making from
Speaker 1: the service. This meant that the public could find out
Speaker 1: who on Twitch was really pulling in the big bucks.
Speaker 1: But by big bucks, I don't mean the crazy estimates
Speaker 1: you occasionally see bandied about online. I mean it's a lot,
Speaker 1: but not millions of dollars a month, and only the
Speaker 1: top top earners are seeing revenue over the million dollar mark.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, uh, the information we were looking
Speaker 1: at was accumulated earnings between August two thousand nineteen and
Speaker 1: September two thousand twenty one. So that's two years worth
Speaker 1: of of earnings. Still a lot of money, it's just
Speaker 1: not you know, the ludicrous amounts you would sometimes see
Speaker 1: listed online. Okay, let's talk about Tesla, because y'all, Tesla's
Speaker 1: a company that has a great track record for tacking
Speaker 1: me off. Now, it's not that I don't like the
Speaker 1: idea of electric vehicles, because I'm all for them, and
Speaker 1: I like Tesla's aesthetics. I think the style is kind
Speaker 1: of cool apart from that weird truck thing. And they
Speaker 1: also want to see autonomous vehicles realize their potential. But
Speaker 1: Tesla takes steps in the space that I frequently find
Speaker 1: incredibly irresponsible. Now this is not a new thing. I
Speaker 1: have complained many times about how the company named its
Speaker 1: early driver assist features autopilot, because Okay, the word autopilot
Speaker 1: suggests a technology that can completely take over for a person.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the common interpretation, right, you might still
Speaker 1: have a person there in order to look over stuff,
Speaker 1: but the main tasks all fall to a machine, presumably
Speaker 1: one that is more than capable of handling those tasks.
Speaker 1: But Tesla wanted to have it both ways. They wanted
Speaker 1: to call the features autopilot, but they also had to
Speaker 1: tell drivers, Oh yeah, but you toads need to keep
Speaker 1: your hands on the wheel and be absolutely prepared to
Speaker 1: take over because this is not an autonomous mode, it's
Speaker 1: a driver assist feature. Now, I would argue that the
Speaker 1: company was selling one concept and then saying, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what we meant. You misunderstood. Well this year
Speaker 1: we saw that continue with the rollout of the full
Speaker 1: self driving feature. All right, full self driving. That sounds
Speaker 1: pretty darn cut and dried, right like. It seems like
Speaker 1: it would be hard to misinterpret the phrase full self driving,
Speaker 1: except that Tesla again says this isn't autonomous driving. Well, Tesla,
Speaker 1: stop naming things that mean other things. Anyway, The rollout
Speaker 1: of one f s D update really made headlines in July,
Speaker 1: so Tesla pushed out this update to FSD version nine
Speaker 1: beta software to a selection of Tesla owners. Now these
Speaker 1: were owners who had passed a safety score driving test.
Speaker 1: Though there were other news stories that said that that
Speaker 1: test was pretty easy to fool in order to get
Speaker 1: a score high enough to be considered for this program,
Speaker 1: and then the update ended up causing us some pretty
Speaker 1: massive problems. So drivers found out that their cars were
Speaker 1: erroneously detecting an oncoming crash, like a front end crash,
Speaker 1: and so they would slam on the brakes. The cars
Speaker 1: would just automatically. This would happen even if the Tesla
Speaker 1: was behind, you know, the next vehicle, and the next
Speaker 1: vehicle was like, you know, like like several hundred yards ahead,
Speaker 1: or even in cases where there was no other vehicle
Speaker 1: on the road at all. Sometimes the the Tesla would
Speaker 1: just uh detect something that wasn't there and break very hard. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously a car breaking suddenly is itself a safety hazard,
Speaker 1: as anyone behind the car might not be able to
Speaker 1: react in time to avoid rear ending the vehicle that's
Speaker 1: that's doing the breaking, and if there's no reason for
Speaker 1: the car to break in the first place, that increases
Speaker 1: the odds of an accident. Well, some drivers went so
Speaker 1: far as to say that the update made their Tesla's
Speaker 1: completely undrivable, that they couldn't get down a street without
Speaker 1: their cars, you know, applying the brakes multiple times. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk would later tweet that the company had rolled back
Speaker 1: the software update, and Tesla would issue an actual recall,
Speaker 1: which was a process required due to safety regulations in
Speaker 1: the United States. A little later on. Musk also, by
Speaker 1: the way, really downplayed this whole thing. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, software, sometimes stuff happens that we
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate. That's just the way it works, and we'll
Speaker 1: just roll it back. Um. And it's that attitude, combined
Speaker 1: with rolling out features that potentially could end up harming people,
Speaker 1: that infuriates me. Another big story that happened last year
Speaker 1: was that a Tesla Megapac battery in Australia caught fire. Now,
Speaker 1: the Mega Pac isn't a battery that fits into a
Speaker 1: car or a house. This is meant to store electricity
Speaker 1: as part of a renewable energy utility plant. So let's
Speaker 1: say you've got a giant solar farm you're generating electricity,
Speaker 1: Well you've got to do something without electricity, and m
Speaker 1: if you're generating more electricity than there is demand, well
Speaker 1: a lot of the electricity is just going to go
Speaker 1: to waste unless you store it. That's what the mega
Speaker 1: PAC is for. It's it's you know about energy storage strategy. Apparently,
Speaker 1: in this case, there was a coolant leak in the system,
Speaker 1: which allowed things to overheat and even caused a megapac
Speaker 1: to catch fire. The fire was so intense that it
Speaker 1: took firefighters four days to extinguish it. Once out, regulators
Speaker 1: began to talk about possible changes to megapact facilities to
Speaker 1: allow for better monitoring and more easy access for first
Speaker 1: responders in the event of a fire. Oh and, as
Speaker 1: we've seen with several other companies recently, former Tesla employees
Speaker 1: alleged that the work environment at the company is toxic
Speaker 1: as all heck. Jessica Barazza, who worked at a Tesla factory,
Speaker 1: filed a lawsuit against the company along with several other coworkers,
Speaker 1: claiming that she was harassed and worse while working for
Speaker 1: the company and that the human resources department failed to
Speaker 1: do anything about it. And a man named O N.
Speaker 1: Diaz sued his former employer, being Tesla, saying he had
Speaker 1: been subjected to racist abuse while at work. San Francisco
Speaker 1: court found Indias his favor and ordered a one hundred
Speaker 1: thirty seven million dollar five going to be paid to DAS. Now,
Speaker 1: normally this sort of thing wouldn't have made it to
Speaker 1: the court system so quickly. But Daz did not sign
Speaker 1: one of the mandatory arbitration agreements that Tesla regularly includes
Speaker 1: in the employee contracts, and we talked about those earlier
Speaker 1: this week. It's a pretty low tactic that companies use
Speaker 1: in an effort to prevent employees from seeking legal recourse
Speaker 1: to internal issues. Okay, that was a lot. How about
Speaker 1: we take a quick break. Okay, we're back. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about space because there were a lot of space news
Speaker 1: stories this year. Of course, we need to talk about
Speaker 1: billionaires and their obsession with getting into space. The three
Speaker 1: billionaires in question are Richard Branson had a Virgin Galactic,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, the founder and former seat EEO of Amazon
Speaker 1: and the founder of the space company Blue Origin, and
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX. Of those three, two
Speaker 1: have kind of sort of been to space. First up
Speaker 1: in mid July was Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic uses
Speaker 1: a mother ship approach to getting up into space. So
Speaker 1: you've got your really big airplane and strapped to your
Speaker 1: really big airplane is a smaller rocket plane, and once
Speaker 1: the really big airplane is at the right altitude, the
Speaker 1: rocket plane can detach ignited's engines and continue up to
Speaker 1: the peak of its suborbital flight. And the word suborbital
Speaker 1: is why I said, kind of sort of been to space.
Speaker 1: Branson's flight took him and the crew up to an
Speaker 1: altitude of about fifty three miles above the Earth. Bezos, however,
Speaker 1: said that means Branson didn't actually go into space. He
Speaker 1: said that he sided with the Federation Aeronautique Internacinal, which
Speaker 1: uses the Carmen Law line as the border for space.
Speaker 1: That's one kilometers above the Earth, which is around sixty
Speaker 1: two miles. So uh, Branson, according to Bezos, didn't go
Speaker 1: to space. He just got, you know, kind of close
Speaker 1: to it. So then Bezos gets on a spaceship shaped
Speaker 1: like a well you probably you probably know what folks
Speaker 1: say Bezos is spaceship was shaped like I won't repeat
Speaker 1: it here, but I'm thinking it pretty hard. Anyway. The ship,
Speaker 1: called the New Shepherd, blasted off just over a week
Speaker 1: after Branson's flight, and Basis went up to around the
Speaker 1: carbon line. He got up to around sixty three miles
Speaker 1: above the Earth, and that means he actually did go
Speaker 1: to space, which means he is an astronaut. Nanni Nanni
Speaker 1: boo boo to you, Branson. But then the Federal Aviation
Speaker 1: Administration or f a A. That agency says the beginning
Speaker 1: of space is really more like eighty one miles in altitude,
Speaker 1: So aquit the f a A. Bezos didn't go to
Speaker 1: space either. The f a A calls the that area
Speaker 1: of the beginning of space because that's the altitude where
Speaker 1: you can enter into an orbit around Earth and remain
Speaker 1: there at least for a short while before being pulled
Speaker 1: back down to Earth. What Bezos did was more like
Speaker 1: one of those carnival rides where you sit in a
Speaker 1: seat that's attached to a tower at the base, and
Speaker 1: then it slings you up to the top of the
Speaker 1: tower really fast, and then you come down really fast.
Speaker 1: That's what they said Bezos was doing. Essentially. By the way,
Speaker 1: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or in o a A, Noah,
Speaker 1: they get even more strict about space. They define the
Speaker 1: beginning of space at six hundred miles above the Earth,
Speaker 1: because that's where you would actually escape the Earth's atmosphere. Now,
Speaker 1: even one miles up there is a tiny bit of atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and that's far too thin to breathe or do anything
Speaker 1: like that, but there are particles of Earth's atmosphere at
Speaker 1: that altitude. However, if we accepted Noah's definition that space
Speaker 1: only begins six miles above the Earth, that would mean
Speaker 1: that the International Space Station isn't actually in space because
Speaker 1: it's at an altitude of two twenty seven miles above
Speaker 1: the Earth. So I guess it all just depends upon
Speaker 1: which definition you want to follow. Now, there's been some
Speaker 1: fallout from these launches, and for lots of different reasons.
Speaker 1: One big one is just the extravagance of it all.
Speaker 1: For years, one of the many selling points of private
Speaker 1: space industry has been the promise of space tourism. And
Speaker 1: sure enough, you could actually buy a ticket to go
Speaker 1: up on a Blue Origin ship William Shatner, you know,
Speaker 1: Captain Kirk did that, But this would set you back
Speaker 1: several million dollars. So space tourism has become another way
Speaker 1: to illustrate the vast divide between the wealthy and really
Speaker 1: the ultra wealthy and you know the rest of us,
Speaker 1: I mean some of you listening might be able to
Speaker 1: shell out millions of dollars and fly to space, but
Speaker 1: I sure as heck can't. This also played into something
Speaker 1: I touched on in an earlier episode this week, the
Speaker 1: growing animosity towards the uber wealthy and the heads of
Speaker 1: various corporations. There have been folks asking why billionaires are
Speaker 1: spending money to go on a joy ride up to
Speaker 1: the edge of space rather than to address real world
Speaker 1: problems here on Earth. Though I should point out that
Speaker 1: solving problems requires a lot more than just throwing money
Speaker 1: at the problems. It's not as simple as that, but
Speaker 1: I get their frustration. On top of that, there's the
Speaker 1: issue of the carbon footprint of these trips. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a subject that needs some context because a lot
Speaker 1: of media misrepresented this issue or maybe just misunderstood it.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this comes from people who are
Speaker 1: trying to boil down what a report called the World
Speaker 1: Inequality Report had to say about the carbon released into
Speaker 1: the environment as a result from space launches. Essentially, it
Speaker 1: says a flight to space like the one Bezos took
Speaker 1: would amount to at least seventy tons of carbon released
Speaker 1: per passenger. Now that doesn't mean the spacecraft was spewing
Speaker 1: out carbon dioxide. It was actually using hydrogen as a fuel,
Speaker 1: which doesn't produce C O two. It does produce nitrogen
Speaker 1: oxides and water vapor, and water vapor can be pretty
Speaker 1: dangerous at higher altitudes too. I mean, it's it is
Speaker 1: a greenhouse gas as well, but the production of the
Speaker 1: fuel itself, it can be a very carbon intensive process.
Speaker 1: So while burning the fuel doesn't necessarily generate a lot
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide, generating the fuel in the first place can.
Speaker 1: So you have to take a really big picture look
Speaker 1: at this stuff. You're not just saying, oh it was
Speaker 1: you know, how much fuel did you use to get
Speaker 1: from point A to point B. It's taking the full
Speaker 1: chain into account. So one thing we could say is
Speaker 1: that the amount of car have been generated in order
Speaker 1: to send one person to space is at least seventy
Speaker 1: five tons per person. Now, the other bit of that
Speaker 1: report they got misinterpreted says that if you look at
Speaker 1: people who are on the lowest end of the financial spectrum,
Speaker 1: so there are a billion people who are in this category, well,
Speaker 1: one person from that group will generate less than one
Speaker 1: ton of carbon per year. So one trip to space
Speaker 1: can produce more carbon than a person from this billion
Speaker 1: or so folks who fall into the lowest financial spectrum
Speaker 1: could potentially produce in their entire lifetime. Now that got
Speaker 1: twisted into the claim that bezos is flight into space
Speaker 1: generated more carbon emissions than one billion people could produce
Speaker 1: in an entire lifetime. That is a misrepresentation or a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: Uh no, it did not. Bezos Is trip produce more
Speaker 1: carbon emissions than one person from the lowest financial spectrum
Speaker 1: will produce in their lifetime. That's still not good, mind you,
Speaker 1: but it's not as dramatic as the misinterpretations made it sound.
Speaker 1: And again, the World Inequality Report, the whole purpose of
Speaker 1: that is to show the disparity between what the the
Speaker 1: wealthy or even just well off folks are doing compared
Speaker 1: to the most impoverished people's. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: carbon emissions, as no surprise, the wealthier the person is,
Speaker 1: the more carbon they typically are producing through their activities,
Speaker 1: because poor people aren't hopping onto jets to fly to
Speaker 1: Milan over a weekend or anything like that. As for Branson,
Speaker 1: the f a A launched an investigation into his flight
Speaker 1: to space because the rocket powered plane, he was in
Speaker 1: veered off course when returning to you know, come back
Speaker 1: to a landing strip. The f a A grounded Virgin
Speaker 1: glad Dick and said it would not be allowed to
Speaker 1: conduct space flights until the f a A had completed
Speaker 1: an investigation into the incident. The f a A said
Speaker 1: it had to determine that the issue could potentially impact
Speaker 1: public safety. They ruled that while the spacecraft deviated from
Speaker 1: its course, and furthermore that Virgin Galactic failed to alert
Speaker 1: the f a A of that deviation. The company had
Speaker 1: subsequently made changes to its policies to make sure nothing
Speaker 1: like that happens again, that it communicates properly with the
Speaker 1: f a A, and also made some other changes and
Speaker 1: tweaks so to improve their processes. Also, it was noted
Speaker 1: that the pilots performed exactly how they were supposed to
Speaker 1: in that kind of situation, and the f a A
Speaker 1: subsequently lifted the flight restrictions on the company by the
Speaker 1: end of September. One really neat thing that happened was
Speaker 1: that NASA flew a helicopter on Mars for the first time.
Speaker 1: The Ingenuity Aircraft, a helicopter style a ton must drone
Speaker 1: hitched a ride with the rovert Perseverance. Ingenuity's mission was
Speaker 1: kind of a bonus to the Perseverance mission. The goal
Speaker 1: was to see if the little copter that could would
Speaker 1: attain flight in Mars's atmosphere, which is much more thin
Speaker 1: than Earth's atmosphere. Ingenuity weighs less than five pounds on Earth. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we would actually have to remember that Mars's gravity is
Speaker 1: about one third of what we have here on Earth,
Speaker 1: and because of the distance between Mars and Earth, communication
Speaker 1: takes several minutes to travel from one planet to the other.
Speaker 1: That means the chopper would have to fly autonomously because
Speaker 1: there'd be no way to control it in real time
Speaker 1: using a human operator here on Earth. The lag would
Speaker 1: just be way too long. The copter could have crashed
Speaker 1: before we would even get a picture of it. NASA
Speaker 1: initially had a modest plan to get the chopper flying
Speaker 1: for about ninety seconds and attain an altitude of perhaps
Speaker 1: as much as fIF teen or sixteen feet before it
Speaker 1: would come back down and touch down again. And the
Speaker 1: hope was that Ingenuity, if it could manage it, would
Speaker 1: do this up to five times. Flash forward today, and
Speaker 1: that little Sucker has taken eighteen flights so far. The
Speaker 1: first flight was on April nineteenth, and the most recent
Speaker 1: was on December fift at least the most recent as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this episode. The Ingenuity does not
Speaker 1: carry sophisticated scientific equipment because honestly, we had to be
Speaker 1: sure we could actually get the ding dang durn thing
Speaker 1: to fly in the first place. It wouldn't have made
Speaker 1: sense to load it down with scientific instruments only to
Speaker 1: find out that we couldn't attain lift off. But now
Speaker 1: the Ingenuity has proven that flight is possible, at least
Speaker 1: on a limited scale at Mars. We should see scientists
Speaker 1: send future aircraft to the Red planet and outfit those
Speaker 1: aircraft with more robust instrumentation. It's pretty nifty. Another thing
Speaker 1: that happened was that over the summer, a Ussian spacecraft
Speaker 1: attached to the International Space Station had an oopsie that
Speaker 1: sent the entire I S S into a somersault. The
Speaker 1: module was the Naka, which docked with the I S
Speaker 1: S and then a few hours later mysteriously fired its thrusters.
Speaker 1: The entire station rotated one and a half times a
Speaker 1: full five forty degrees, coming to a stop upside down,
Speaker 1: which I mean doesn't mean much when you're on board
Speaker 1: the space station because up and down are really subjective. Anyway,
Speaker 1: NASA had a heck of a time dealing with this
Speaker 1: because the I S S was out of range of
Speaker 1: the Russian ground control and wouldn't be back within range
Speaker 1: for another hour. And of course the Russians were the
Speaker 1: only ones who could actually send a remote command to
Speaker 1: the KNAKA to stop firing thrusters, So NASA used other
Speaker 1: modules to counteract naka's error and bring things back under control.
Speaker 1: Then there's NASA's double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART. Alright,
Speaker 1: so we know that sometimes stuff what's out in space
Speaker 1: ends up heading Earth, right like that has happened before,
Speaker 1: and it could lead to extinction level events, which has
Speaker 1: also happened before. And so scientists have dedicated time and
Speaker 1: resources to identify near Earth objects and determine the likelihood
Speaker 1: that one of them might you know, decide to come
Speaker 1: in for a little visit. And more work has gone
Speaker 1: into figuring out ways to divert any such objects so
Speaker 1: that you know, it doesn't hit the Earth. That's where
Speaker 1: DART comes in. This is an experiment to see if
Speaker 1: we can use a spacecraft to nudge an asteroid out
Speaker 1: of its normal path. NASA shows an asteroid that's actually
Speaker 1: an orbit around another asteroid, and neither of these bad
Speaker 1: babies have any plans to visit Earth soon, so this
Speaker 1: is really just to see if this would actually work.
Speaker 1: They've shot up a spacecraft into space that will journey
Speaker 1: out to those asteroids and hit the smaller one to
Speaker 1: see it can change the smaller asteroids path. The mission
Speaker 1: launched on November twenty four, but it will not get
Speaker 1: to the asteroids until late next year, so we'll find
Speaker 1: out next year whether or not this works. The James
Speaker 1: Webb Space Telescope, after numerous setbacks and delays, finally launched
Speaker 1: into space on Christmas Day one. The telescope traces its
Speaker 1: origins back to when it was originally proposed as the
Speaker 1: next generation space telescope, and twenty five years later it's
Speaker 1: finally in space. It will still take about a month
Speaker 1: for the telescope to make its way to its final destination,
Speaker 1: which is an orbital point behind the Moon, and that
Speaker 1: will allow the telescope to operate without having light from
Speaker 1: the Sun mess everything up. The telescope has an array
Speaker 1: of massive, highly polished mirrors that will collect light and
Speaker 1: direct it to the telescope's sensors. The sensitivity of the
Speaker 1: telescope should allow astronomers and unprecedented and look at celestial bodies,
Speaker 1: and it will play into scientific projects ranging from studying
Speaker 1: the origins of the stars to looking for exoplanets that
Speaker 1: could potentially support life. Now, because the telescope is going
Speaker 1: to be so far out there, there's no way, at
Speaker 1: least not currently, that we could send a team of
Speaker 1: astronauts out there should the telescope need repairs. NASA hopes
Speaker 1: to develop process to refuel the telescope by sending robotic
Speaker 1: spacecraft to do it, but that's a bit further off
Speaker 1: in the future. I should also mention that there was
Speaker 1: a move to push NASA to rename the telescope. It's
Speaker 1: named after James E. Webb, who served as the second
Speaker 1: administrator of NASA. Now, the controversy stems from the fact
Speaker 1: that Webb's career coincided with an era in the United
Speaker 1: States referred to as the Lavender Scare. This was a
Speaker 1: nasty period in American history where there was a moral
Speaker 1: panic centered around homosexuality and various agents these departments and
Speaker 1: divisions within the US government began to fire anyone who
Speaker 1: was thought to be gay or lesbian. So the protests
Speaker 1: were essentially saying that Webb presided during that time when
Speaker 1: the US government was persecuting homosexuals. NASA later said there
Speaker 1: was no evidence that Webb himself participated in the that
Speaker 1: and so the name has stuck. On November fifteenth of
Speaker 1: this year, Russia blew up a satellite and that created
Speaker 1: a big mess, both in space and here on Earth.
Speaker 1: This was part of a missile test, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of most frequently meant to show everyone else in
Speaker 1: the world what a big, dangerous country you are. In
Speaker 1: this case, it was about showing off the capability of
Speaker 1: taking down a satellite in orbit by launching a missile
Speaker 1: at it from Earth. The explosion created a lot of debris,
Speaker 1: which became a potential threat to the astronauts aboard the
Speaker 1: International Space Station. They were told to suit up and
Speaker 1: make their way to the ships that were docked at
Speaker 1: the station, just in case they might to perform an
Speaker 1: emergency evacuation in the event of a collision with the debris. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: no such collision happened, but the space junk created from
Speaker 1: that explosion is likely to remain a threat for years
Speaker 1: to come and adds to the already concerning issue of
Speaker 1: stuff flying around at insane speeds in low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: Several countries, including the United States, condemned Russia for the
Speaker 1: test and for putting people in space projects in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: All right, talked about space for a long time. Let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break before we wrap this up. One
Speaker 1: movement that gained momentum this past year is the right
Speaker 1: to repair crusade. I've talked about this a lot over
Speaker 1: the last year, but in case you've missed out, the
Speaker 1: whole movement is about pushing companies to allow users to
Speaker 1: repair the products that they purchase. It has become a
Speaker 1: pretty common practice in tech to use proprietary connectors, industrial
Speaker 1: strength glue, and lockdown repair ecosystems that discourages or prevents
Speaker 1: people from actually repairing their own stuff, or to take
Speaker 1: their stuff to a repair shop of their own choosing instead.
Speaker 1: You either end up with some gear that's you know,
Speaker 1: impossible to repair, so you have to throw it out
Speaker 1: and get a new one, which just adds to the
Speaker 1: problem of e waste, or you are funneled into a
Speaker 1: company owned or company licensed repair system and you have
Speaker 1: no options. The Right to Repair movement seeks out a
Speaker 1: change in that approach, with companies providing access to tools
Speaker 1: and parts that are needed to repair their products so
Speaker 1: that a technically inclined person could reasonably take on repairs themselves.
Speaker 1: It might mean companies sell tool kits with specialized tools
Speaker 1: for those connectors I was talking about, or to stop
Speaker 1: using industrial glue to hold stuff together, because sometimes just
Speaker 1: opening up a device can be pretty dark, tricky, and
Speaker 1: you might end up causing more damage in the process
Speaker 1: of process of opening it than it had already you know,
Speaker 1: suffered from whatever the initial problem was. There are several
Speaker 1: companies that have been pretty infamous for creating this kind
Speaker 1: of closed off system. Apple was one. They have recently
Speaker 1: started to make changes to this, but Apple has been
Speaker 1: known to use a few different approaches, including those connectors
Speaker 1: I was talking about, or really restrictive warranties, and all
Speaker 1: of this is to push people into paying for stuff
Speaker 1: like Apple Care and only going through groups like the
Speaker 1: Apple Genius Bar to seek out help when something goes wrong.
Speaker 1: But this is also a practice that John Dear, a
Speaker 1: company known primarily for its farming equipment, has adopted. Farmers
Speaker 1: want the ability to make repairs on their own equipment,
Speaker 1: or the very least have the option to use a
Speaker 1: mechanic of their own choosing rather than a mechanic that
Speaker 1: has you know, paid to have an official license from
Speaker 1: John Year, since that might mean that you have to
Speaker 1: go well out of your way to get anything done.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you are if you are a farmer
Speaker 1: of a large area and you are not anywhere close
Speaker 1: to a John Dear licensed repair operation, you kind of
Speaker 1: you kind of stuck. Now, the right to repair movement
Speaker 1: has won a few victories around the world, notably in
Speaker 1: Europe and then a couple of states, but here in
Speaker 1: the US that records a little more spotty. There haven't
Speaker 1: hasn't been you know, uh victories all down the line.
Speaker 1: Some state governments have voted against right to repair legislation
Speaker 1: after some pretty intense lobbying from you know, big stakeholders
Speaker 1: like John Deere got involved. So it's still an ongoing thing. Now,
Speaker 1: let's look forward for a second before we wrap up.
Speaker 1: I am personally curious to see what comes out of
Speaker 1: a pretty slimmed down c e s in early January.
Speaker 1: In case you are not familiar with c e S,
Speaker 1: it's an enormous trade show centered around tech in general
Speaker 1: and electronics in particular, though in recent years it has
Speaker 1: kind of migrated away from what it used to be.
Speaker 1: It was the Consumer Electronics Show. Now it's just called
Speaker 1: c e S because a lot of companies that come
Speaker 1: to showcase products are more software and app based and
Speaker 1: not so much electronics BACE, so the trade show has
Speaker 1: tried to adapt with the times. Normally, thousands of companies
Speaker 1: take over Convention Center Space and Las Vegas, Nevada, showing
Speaker 1: off their latest or upcoming products to tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of attendees. But as the amcron variant of COVID is
Speaker 1: spreading like wildfire, several big name companies have chosen to
Speaker 1: bow out of appearing in person. Those companies include Microsoft, Amazon, GM, Google,
Speaker 1: T Mobile, Lenovo, which typically has a pretty big, uh
Speaker 1: you know, presence at CEES, Meta Slash, Facebook, Twitter, and
Speaker 1: of course I Heart Radio. They have all reversed course
Speaker 1: on going to c S in According to the Consumer
Speaker 1: Technology Association that's the group that organizes c e S,
Speaker 1: forty two exhibitors have canceled at least as I record
Speaker 1: this episode. Now, that is just a tiny drop in
Speaker 1: the bucket. And the organizers still intend to hold the event,
Speaker 1: citing that they will require proof of vaccination and that
Speaker 1: all attendees will have to wear a mask, plus they
Speaker 1: will have rapid tests available on site. Now, y'all, I
Speaker 1: know anecdotal evidence ain't really worth anything, as folks around
Speaker 1: me would say, but I know personally at least five
Speaker 1: people who have caught breakthrough aces of COVID even after
Speaker 1: they got vaccinated, even after they got a booster in
Speaker 1: a couple of cases. So the vaccine is not a
Speaker 1: bulletproof vest. It reduces your chance of catching COVID, and
Speaker 1: it also can mean that if you do catch COVID,
Speaker 1: your symptoms might not be as bad as they would
Speaker 1: be otherwise. But vaccinations and boosters they're not a full
Speaker 1: proof solution. They are a very important part of fighting
Speaker 1: against COVID, but they don't make you immune. So for
Speaker 1: anyone heading out to c e S or any other
Speaker 1: big in person event over the next few weeks, be
Speaker 1: extra careful. Get yourself a supply of in nine masks.
Speaker 1: Those are more important to use than say cloth masks
Speaker 1: make sure you wash your hands a lot, practice social
Speaker 1: distancing wherever you can, and be careful. Then you know,
Speaker 1: get tested too, because it's good to know both before
Speaker 1: and after the fact that you're clear. Uh. And some
Speaker 1: of these rules, like you know, washing your hands and
Speaker 1: social distancing, those are just playing good rules to follow
Speaker 1: at c E S even if there isn't a pandemic
Speaker 1: going on. Because you cut folks from all over the
Speaker 1: place all in the same indoor space, handling technology and stuff,
Speaker 1: you can get pretty gross to just be careful. This
Speaker 1: is why, by the way, when I go to C
Speaker 1: E S, I never test the VR or a R
Speaker 1: stuff while I'm there, because y'all, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many heads that stuff has been on, and I know
Speaker 1: that companies disinfect or clean between times, but you just
Speaker 1: need to have that one person who's been working at
Speaker 1: c S for three days and they're just totally burnt
Speaker 1: out and checked out, and they're not even paying attention,
Speaker 1: and they're just kind of dabbing slightly at the VR
Speaker 1: headset with a with a sanitary wipe of some sort,
Speaker 1: and you're like, no, you know what, I can I
Speaker 1: can skip this one anyway. C E S is supposed
Speaker 1: to be a hybrid event this year, so some elements
Speaker 1: of it will be presented virtually online rather than you know,
Speaker 1: in person on the showcase floor. So I will try
Speaker 1: to check out some of that stuff when it happens. Okay,
Speaker 1: those were some of the really big text stories of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, and we just scratched the surface. There
Speaker 1: were tons of others, but these were big ones that
Speaker 1: I think not only made headlines but also in many
Speaker 1: cases are indicators of things that are going to continue
Speaker 1: into the next year. I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: a continuation of employees organizing and unionizing and pushing back
Speaker 1: against companies. We're going to see more companies trying to
Speaker 1: create a uh AN office strategy to get people back
Speaker 1: in the office in a way that doesn't reflect poorly
Speaker 1: on the company, promotes productivity and ingenuity, and is safe.
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna see a lot more stuff about space,
Speaker 1: which is exciting, but m yeah, I think this is
Speaker 1: like an indicator of what two is gonna be. I
Speaker 1: used to do episodes where I would do a prediction
Speaker 1: about stuff that was going to happen in the next year.
Speaker 1: I have not decided if I'm gonna do that if
Speaker 1: I am, I'm I'm gonna be working on that later today.
Speaker 1: So we will see, because I kind of got away
Speaker 1: from it just because it got a little overwhelming. But
Speaker 1: I might dip my toe and say some stuff that
Speaker 1: I think might be important next year. Kind Of hard
Speaker 1: for me to to do that because I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff we've covered in these past
Speaker 1: three episodes pretty much are you know, a window into
Speaker 1: what is going to be like. I hope you are
Speaker 1: all well and safe and happy and healthy and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Be careful out there. I wish you all
Speaker 1: a happy new year. We will continue to have new
Speaker 1: episodes of Tech Stuff as often as I can make them.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you have any suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of Tech Stuff, please reach
Speaker 1: out to me and let me know. The best way
Speaker 1: to do that is through Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff h s W. Also, for those
Speaker 1: who are still listening, there's might be two of you. Uh,
Speaker 1: don't forget that. There are some other shows that have
Speaker 1: yours truly on them if you want to check them out.
Speaker 1: Occasionally I show up on the show Ridiculous History as
Speaker 1: a character called the Quister. It's just as cringe worthy
Speaker 1: as it sounds. In fact more so, I would argue.
Speaker 1: I also appeared on this past season's Thirteen Days of Halloween.
Speaker 1: If you have not checked out that show, it's a
Speaker 1: binaural uh, spooky story anthology show. Highly recommend you check
Speaker 1: that out. There's some really good episodes, and then there's mine.
Speaker 1: My episode is really good. I just I feel uncomfortable
Speaker 1: tuting my own horn. I was really impressed with how
Speaker 1: I came out though. Uh. And also my show Large
Speaker 1: Nerd Drawn Collider with my friend Ariel. Actually really it's
Speaker 1: aerial show and I'm on it. But it's a show
Speaker 1: where we talk about geek pop culture news and then
Speaker 1: we do crazy mash ups of unrelated stuff and say,
Speaker 1: what would it be like if you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: he man was mashed up with my little Pony. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff we talk about on that show.
Speaker 1: So you should check that out too. That's it, and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.