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 iHeart Podcasts. And for the
Speaker 1: last time from me, y'all, how the tech are you? Yes,
Speaker 1: it is the Swan song. I'm bowing out, I'm done,
Speaker 1: I'm tagging out, and I've been teasing it for more
Speaker 1: than a month. Now it is time for us to
Speaker 1: meet the intrepid hosts who are going to take tech
Speaker 1: Stuff into the future and grow it to heights I
Speaker 1: can only dream of. Welcome back, my friends, Oz Volishin
Speaker 1: and Cara Price. Welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Johnthan, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: having us back on, and thank you for passing the torch.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly exciting. I'm not sure we'll scale heights that
Speaker 2: you can barely dream of, but I hope we'll, you know,
Speaker 2: do almost as good a job as you've done over
Speaker 2: an incredible sixteen years.
Speaker 1: I think that's the kindest thing you could say to me,
Speaker 1: considering how decorated the two of you are. For those
Speaker 1: who are unfamiliar with our now hosts of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: Oz and Kara you both have have storied backgrounds in
Speaker 1: producing for television. I mean there's we talk about things
Speaker 1: like documentaries. Uh, there's a little book club that Merritt's mentioned.
Speaker 1: I mean it's pretty phenomenal, like you've achieved so much,
Speaker 1: so I don't think it's false modesty for me to
Speaker 1: say I have great expectations Dickensian great expect Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I got I got an English lit background. We can
Speaker 1: throw down if you like, but uh, yeah no, it's
Speaker 1: it is Dickensian in nature. Yes, I am a little
Speaker 1: street rat here, just pleased to see that the show
Speaker 1: that I have fostered for the better part of two
Speaker 1: decades is going to a good home. So I have
Speaker 1: a lot to thank you or for that. That's I'm
Speaker 1: really excited. I can't wait. I'm going to be a
Speaker 1: big fan of the show. It's will be a nice
Speaker 1: change of pace because currently.
Speaker 3: Trust us, you don't like listening to yourself?
Speaker 1: Oh do you like listening to yourself?
Speaker 3: Kara, Absolutely, I'm I'm glad you'll enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's I mean, I think anyone who has
Speaker 1: done any podcasting like when you get to that stage,
Speaker 1: especially if you're doing your own editing or QA work.
Speaker 1: It's something you dread because you're just like, oh no,
Speaker 1: can I just read a transcript please? I don't need
Speaker 1: to hear me at least that's how I am. So
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to talk about your vision for tech
Speaker 1: stuff and where you're taking it in sort of the
Speaker 1: what you're working with, you know, what's the format of
Speaker 1: the show going to be like? And over the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, we've been talking a lot on this
Speaker 1: show about stuff in tech that's happened since we first launched,
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of funny to see how much
Speaker 1: has changed in the time that, you know, from June
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight when we started to now. So
Speaker 1: the big example I give is, did you know in
Speaker 1: June two thousand and eight when we started, iTunes had
Speaker 1: not opened an app store yet, so there were no
Speaker 1: apps other than the once preloaded up.
Speaker 3: What was I doing on iTunes? I guess I was
Speaker 3: just listening to music on iTunes.
Speaker 1: You could listen to podcasts, but there were no other apps, like,
Speaker 1: other than the stuff that Apple already preloaded. And but
Speaker 1: then even then, like it would take a couple of
Speaker 1: years for Apple to really change the world by introducing
Speaker 1: Apple maps and guiding everybody to drive into rivers and stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was listening to your Thanksgiving episode and it's crazy
Speaker 2: now with like data analytics and like immediate you know,
Speaker 2: user feedback, And am I right in remembering that when
Speaker 2: you launched tech stuff, you didn't even know if anyone
Speaker 2: at all was listening to it.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, I'm sure that the producers had access.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what the We've been through so
Speaker 1: many different publication platforms. I can't even tell you what
Speaker 1: it was back in the day. So I'm sure that
Speaker 1: they had access to analytics, but the show creators, as
Speaker 1: far as I know, were largely unaware unless it was
Speaker 1: one of those things that just would make the trades, right,
Speaker 1: so stuff, you should know. It was an incredible success
Speaker 1: nearly right out of the gate, because Chuck and Josh
Speaker 1: are fantastic. They do such a great job and have
Speaker 1: since they started, And so that we knew because like
Speaker 1: that would get up there on the top iTunes podcast
Speaker 1: charts all the time. But beyond that, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you record a show, publish it, and it was like
Speaker 1: shouting into the void and wondering if anyone could hear you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so exciting stuff.
Speaker 2: We were planned to do two episodes a week, I think.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like your height, you've done like
Speaker 2: four or five episodes a week, So we were starting
Speaker 2: with a level of humility about I mean, your output,
Speaker 2: Jonathan is insane.
Speaker 3: Particular.
Speaker 2: I know there have been times when you had a
Speaker 2: co host and like, yeah, times when you've had guests,
Speaker 2: but I just I can't believe how much stuff you've covered.
Speaker 1: It was a lot. Yeah, yeah, I talked about this
Speaker 1: on the show, so I'm not shy about talking about
Speaker 1: it now. But up until just the beginning of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, I was doing really four new episodes a
Speaker 1: week and then one rerun typically right unbelievable, And each
Speaker 1: episode usually meant that I was spending around eight hours
Speaker 1: of researching and writing before I even wrote record, So
Speaker 1: you're talking about, you know, thirty two hours of research
Speaker 1: and writing for around four hours of audio than the reruns,
Speaker 1: and then I would the rest of what little time
Speaker 1: I had would deal with other stuff. But I found
Speaker 1: the secret to dealing with that workload is to have
Speaker 1: a near stroke and be hospitalized and then suddenly you
Speaker 1: have to change. So I've joked about it, but really
Speaker 1: that is what told me that I had to make
Speaker 1: a change, and so we scaled back to three those
Speaker 1: three new episodes. I didn't do very many reruns this year,
Speaker 1: unless say or this past year. Keep saying this year,
Speaker 1: because twenty twenty five doesn't seem real to me yet.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I think two is a great play
Speaker 1: to really create a foundation, and if you ever build
Speaker 1: on that, that's fine. But I think two is actually
Speaker 1: the sweet spot personally. It was one of those things
Speaker 1: in Tech Stuff where we were performing really well, and
Speaker 1: so there was always this desire to add to inventory.
Speaker 2: Right, I like, by the way, and you well you
Speaker 2: did the kind of history of Tech Stuff episode kind
Speaker 2: of explaining the mechanics of how the ad business change
Speaker 2: and the host red ads and the insertions and stuff.
Speaker 2: But yes, I mean obviously like inventory is a key
Speaker 2: sort of driver of the viability of podcasts, right.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And I think transparency with your listeners is
Speaker 1: always a good thing, Like you can feel icky to
Speaker 1: talk about that sort of stuff, because you know, there's
Speaker 1: I think of a friend of mine who was an
Speaker 1: artistic director for a theater here in Atlanta, And I
Speaker 1: was once talking to him about his job, and I said,
Speaker 1: what's the toughest thing about your job? And he said,
Speaker 1: for me, the toughest thing is balancing art and commerce.
Speaker 1: Because the theater is a business, so you have to
Speaker 1: treat it as a business, but it's also in the
Speaker 1: business of fostering and delivering art to an audience. So
Speaker 1: how do you find that balance where the two can
Speaker 1: be in harmony and you can do both things well.
Speaker 1: I think podcasting is very much the same, and that
Speaker 1: you want to be able to say something that's worth hearing, right.
Speaker 1: You don't want to just be like you don't want
Speaker 1: to just be chattering nonsense into a microphone and then
Speaker 1: pushing it out. You want it to have meaning and
Speaker 1: for it to be of value. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to keep the lights on. And
Speaker 1: so there's a balance there, even for people who are
Speaker 1: passionate about podcasts and they want to follow it as
Speaker 1: a passion. If you're going to do it in a
Speaker 1: way that it's self sustainable, you have to start making
Speaker 1: these calls, and it's not always.
Speaker 3: Easy, absolutely, And I think that because you're in people's ears.
Speaker 3: I think there's an expectation for honesty, which is something
Speaker 3: that you know, having listened to some episodes of yours
Speaker 3: over the years, there's a certain level of just speaking
Speaker 3: right to the listener. Yeah, and I think that's something
Speaker 3: that we really like to adopt and that you've done
Speaker 3: very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So early on with podcasting, I was listening to
Speaker 1: podcasts before I was making them. So I was one
Speaker 1: of the few because I was because I was already
Speaker 1: a geek before I even started working for house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works way back in the day. So I was a
Speaker 1: big fan of There was a show called buzz Out
Speaker 1: Loud from ce.
Speaker 3: Neet and oh my god, it still exists.
Speaker 1: Yes, it still exists. Although the people that I listened
Speaker 1: to all moved on to do other things like tom
Speaker 1: Merritt is doing his own thing and Molly Wood she's
Speaker 1: doing her own thing. But these were people who I
Speaker 1: looked up to and I admired their work ethic and
Speaker 1: I loved the output they were creating. And so when
Speaker 1: it came time for me to be able to do
Speaker 1: a podcast, I jumped on it because I had already
Speaker 1: been a big fan of the form, and so one
Speaker 1: of those things that drove me in the early years
Speaker 1: and stuck with me through the entirety of it. And
Speaker 1: part of the reason why is there's a sense of
Speaker 1: intimacy because you're listening, you know, often with headphones on,
Speaker 1: there's a real sense of intimacy between you and whomever's delivering,
Speaker 1: whether it's a single host show or it's people, Like,
Speaker 1: if it's a conversation, it feels like you're in the
Speaker 1: room as that conversation is unfolding. And transparency and honesty
Speaker 1: to me are absolutely necessary because in that intimate moment,
Speaker 1: unless you're a really good social engineer slash liar, people
Speaker 1: will pick up on insincerity or fibbing or anything you
Speaker 1: want to call. And I've said over and over again
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake I find some podcasters making is a
Speaker 1: drastic underestimation of how smart their audience is. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: especially when you talk about ads, like, we live in
Speaker 1: a world inundated with ads. We've all experienced it, so
Speaker 1: there's no way to tiptoe around ads where people aren't
Speaker 1: going to be like, well, that.
Speaker 3: Passes the smell test right totally.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break to thank our
Speaker 1: sponsors when we come back I'll talk more with our
Speaker 1: future Tech Stuff hosts Oz and Kara, both about my
Speaker 1: experiences int and where they planned to take the show next.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Karen and I have been friends for approaching ten years. Yes,
Speaker 2: and we became I would say, much closer friends by
Speaker 2: doing a podcast together Sleepwalker Sleepwalkers. Wish we were on
Speaker 2: your show to talk about it. Yeah, this show five
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's about AI. Y'all did amazing work, Like the
Speaker 1: Sleepwalkers episodes are to this day very compelling. It's also
Speaker 1: interesting to see where the conversation is an AI now
Speaker 1: compared to when you were doing the show, because you know,
Speaker 1: those conversations y'all were having. It was in days when
Speaker 1: the mainstream public really, I mean we had all heard AI.
Speaker 1: We had all heard about it. Maybe we had even
Speaker 1: gone to see the Steven Spielberg stat slash Stanley Kubrick film,
Speaker 1: but that was about the extent of it. And you
Speaker 1: were getting into some of those conversations that now are
Speaker 1: in mainstream news and are part of like, you know,
Speaker 1: water cooler conversations because AI has become an inescapable topic
Speaker 1: just in everyday life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had the tagline for the show. You may
Speaker 2: not care about AI, but AI cares about you. Now
Speaker 2: now I think probably you care about AI as well,
Speaker 2: but A.
Speaker 3: Still cares about yea and more and more, more and more.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But one of my one of my favorite episodes of Sleepwalkers, actually, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: just because you mentioned, you know, the personal and your
Speaker 2: health problems, Cara, was actually the episode where we made
Speaker 2: a fake copy of your voice to try and scam
Speaker 2: your cousin.
Speaker 3: With Liarbird Aier.
Speaker 2: Bird AI, which now has become Runway m L which
Speaker 2: is a multi billion dollar company. But I mean, I
Speaker 2: thought that that was both fun because we used your
Speaker 2: voice to trick a family member and it kind of
Speaker 2: spoke to that thing in podcasting about voice and authenticity
Speaker 2: and all those things. But then you went on to
Speaker 2: reflect about you know, losing your father and would you
Speaker 2: want to interact with a digital version of him, which
Speaker 2: again now is something which is part of the mainstream conversation.
Speaker 2: But I was very very moved by that piece of that.
Speaker 3: You well, and similar not to talk too much about
Speaker 3: our show in the episodes, but for those who don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, we also did an episode that focused more
Speaker 3: on sort of health and AI healthcare, and I was
Speaker 3: able to speak to a woman who was an engineer
Speaker 3: who was also diagnosed with breast cancer. And this was
Speaker 3: very early on in the conversation about you know, how
Speaker 3: to train data sets on hundreds of thousands of mammograms,
Speaker 3: for example, to then be able to recognize what does
Speaker 3: breast cancer look like in a woman's breast, you know,
Speaker 3: And these were things that at the time, I think
Speaker 3: both Oz and I felt very much at the forefront
Speaker 3: of that conversation, not because we're pioneers, but because these
Speaker 3: are fairly new conversations unless you're working outside of you know,
Speaker 3: engineering sci goals and data science programs, and so we're
Speaker 3: really excited about, I think in terms of one of
Speaker 3: the things we're really excited about in terms of taking
Speaker 3: over this or having the baton passed to us digitally.
Speaker 1: Taking it overt hostile takeover. He held a bunch of
Speaker 1: zeros and ones to my throat and I no, no,
Speaker 1: obviously no.
Speaker 3: But I think one of the things we're really excited
Speaker 3: about is that a lot of what we reported on
Speaker 3: for Sleepwalkers is evergreen, and the difference now is actually
Speaker 3: just how much faster processing has become and how the
Speaker 3: rate of change is even faster than it was when
Speaker 3: we were reporting, you know however many years ago, and
Speaker 3: so in a certain sense, like the stories still remain
Speaker 3: very human. I think it's like the capability of the
Speaker 3: technology that keeps changing. And I think you, as someone
Speaker 3: who has been doing this for so long, has probably
Speaker 3: seen how the rate of change affects the rate of change, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, sure, GPT is twenty twenty two. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's like essentially post main COVID. It's so ubiquitous at
Speaker 3: this point, like to think that that was three years
Speaker 3: ago that like most people did not know what chat
Speaker 3: GPT was. What a year and a half ago? Sure,
Speaker 3: or two years ago? So, I mean these are the
Speaker 3: kinds of things that I think we find very exciting
Speaker 3: as reporters, but also as you know, like you, I
Speaker 3: think two nerds who are very interested in the ways
Speaker 3: in which you know, technology intersects both personally and also culturally.
Speaker 3: It seems to be very important because I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people lay people whose most people don't know
Speaker 3: how to dissect this information and don't want to be
Speaker 3: told what to think, but they do want to be
Speaker 3: told what to think about Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean like I have been famously rather rather
Speaker 1: critical about a lot of AI implementations, not because of
Speaker 1: the issues I have with the technology, but rather the
Speaker 1: nature of those implementations in some pretty high profile cases,
Speaker 1: like when you're using AI to do things like image
Speaker 1: analysis and recognition for things like looking at mammograms to
Speaker 1: increase the accuracy of diagnoses. I think that is brilliant.
Speaker 1: I think that's wonderful. I think that's something that we
Speaker 1: strive for. And it also is a reminder that you
Speaker 1: can't paint all AI with the same brush. That AI
Speaker 1: is an enormously broad spectrum of disciplines, and that we
Speaker 1: often will reduce that down to chad GBT is stealing artists'
Speaker 1: work and passing it off as their own. But the
Speaker 1: stuff that tends to make the news tends to fall
Speaker 1: on that second category. Like occasionally you'll get like a
Speaker 1: nice optimistic story about how AI could make a positive impact,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the stories tend to be on
Speaker 1: the more critical side. So whether it's artists who are
Speaker 1: worried about their work being used to train up the
Speaker 1: next generation of the I and then put themselves out
Speaker 1: of work in the process, or it's a boss of
Speaker 1: a major tech company saying we're not going to fill
Speaker 1: those two thousand positions, We're going to let Ai do it,
Speaker 1: and I envision a future where HR is entirely Ai. Like,
Speaker 1: those are tough stories to deliver in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't come across as somewhat dystopian in nature. So that's
Speaker 1: why I've often said that tech Stuff's guiding principles have
Speaker 1: always been critical thinking and compassion. You want to have
Speaker 1: critical thinking, to ask the questions, to make sure that
Speaker 1: you have a proper understanding of the story. You want
Speaker 1: compassion not just for the people who are being impacted
Speaker 1: by that story, but maybe the people who are making
Speaker 1: the decisions, so that you can understand where they're coming from.
Speaker 1: Because it's too easy to paint everything as this is
Speaker 1: evil fat cat capitalist and they just do evil, fat
Speaker 1: cat capitalist things because they are a two dimensional villain
Speaker 1: from a vaudevillian production, and you're like, no, people are
Speaker 1: a little more complicated that. Maybe not Elon Musk, but
Speaker 1: everyone else is more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: Well, so we actually ask Google Gemini how to how
Speaker 2: to prepare for this? Prepared for this, and one of
Speaker 2: the pieces of advice was to be clear with the
Speaker 2: audience about what to expect going forward. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot a lot of the advice was obviously, like very
Speaker 2: was very cliche, but some of it was was relevant
Speaker 2: as well. So you asked Jonathan, what kind of what
Speaker 2: people can expect from the show going forward. We're going
Speaker 2: to do two episodes a week. We're calling the Wednesday
Speaker 2: episode the Story, and the idea is that it will
Speaker 2: be a kind of evergreen interview with somebody conversation with
Speaker 2: me and Kara. Then one or the other of us
Speaker 2: will will kind of present an interview and then we'll
Speaker 2: discuss it afterwards, but with somebody who either has an
Speaker 2: incredible story about the intersection of technology and humanity and culture,
Speaker 2: or who in some sense is kind of a builder of,
Speaker 2: you know, the future. And so you mentioned just now
Speaker 2: this how it's very hard not to be kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, sound negative about in many cases. One of
Speaker 2: the interviews we have that we've already done and which
Speaker 2: we'll be publishing in the next few weeks is with
Speaker 2: Meredith Whittaker and she as i'm sure you know, led
Speaker 2: the protest movement at Google and the walkouts having to
Speaker 2: do with Project Maven and the defense contracting and she
Speaker 2: now runs Signal, the encrypted messaging app, which is obviously
Speaker 2: really cool. And one of the things she said was,
Speaker 2: you know, I often get criticized for being negative or pessimistic,
Speaker 2: but actually I'm an optimist, and if I wasn't an optimist,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't bother calling out the bad stuff because the
Speaker 2: very factor doing that means that I believe in the
Speaker 2: better future, and I believe that there is some value
Speaker 2: in continuing to surface places where tech could do better.
Speaker 2: So I really liked because I think Carrie, you're in
Speaker 2: general more upbeat than I have, and I'm slightly more cynical,
Speaker 2: But I like that explanation of how you know to
Speaker 2: your point about critical thinking and compassion. It kind of
Speaker 2: for me it captured something about how you can, you know,
Speaker 2: do critical thinking without being negative per se, and in
Speaker 2: fact it's because you want something better.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, I love that that perspective. Honestly, I've also
Speaker 1: thought of optimism in the same way, about how the
Speaker 1: pat description of optimism tends to go right along with naivete,
Speaker 1: like the idea, the idea that the only way you
Speaker 1: can be an optimist is if you're looking at the
Speaker 1: world through rose colored glasses. Kara, I can't see what
Speaker 1: color your glasses are, but I'm pretty sure they're not roses.
Speaker 3: They're sort of green. They're sort of green, which is
Speaker 3: the way I look through the world.
Speaker 1: Excellent, Excellent, We're gonna we're getting into more of an
Speaker 1: alphabet defying gravity situation, you know. By the way, y'all,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that you can't see the video version of this,
Speaker 1: because we did do the whole loathing dance number, as
Speaker 1: per required in contracts whenever entertainers meet in person. I
Speaker 1: I like that a lot, though. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: optimists have to be the kind of people who they
Speaker 1: see the future as it possibly could be and the
Speaker 1: steps that need to be taken in order to get there,
Speaker 1: and they're ready to put in the work to make
Speaker 1: it happen. Whereas you know, often you dismiss people as
Speaker 1: optimists if you mean, oh, you just expect good things
Speaker 1: to happen without having to put any work in. That's
Speaker 1: not to me when optimist is that's a lazy person.
Speaker 1: An optimist is someone who they have a vision of
Speaker 1: the future and a vision for getting there, And to me,
Speaker 1: it also is sort of the difference between the founding
Speaker 1: principles of open AI and arguably kind of the more
Speaker 1: recent direction of open AI. Not to say that open
Speaker 1: AI is necessarily going the wrong way, but certainly like
Speaker 1: the founding principle was all about responsible and accountable development
Speaker 1: and deployment of artificial intelligence in a transparent and open way,
Speaker 1: and that has not been what we've seen over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years in large part. And so I
Speaker 1: guess it can be really easy for folks to become
Speaker 1: cynical because even the people who are saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: need to do this don't seemed to be following through
Speaker 1: on their vision, at least from a surface level. But
Speaker 1: I've never had deep conversations with anyone in Opening I
Speaker 1: just know the board of directors tried to tried to
Speaker 1: change things by alting Sam Altman, and then paid for
Speaker 1: that dearly once he returned.
Speaker 2: So actually, one of the other guests we have on
Speaker 2: in fact, the first guest we're planning for Wednesday, the
Speaker 2: fifteenth of January, is Jeffrey Hinton, who just won the
Speaker 2: Nobel Prize in Physics for his work as the of
Speaker 2: the pioneers of AI, and Ilia Sutskeev graduate students and
Speaker 2: Hinton has just joined the amicus brief filed by a
Speaker 2: nonprofit who are arguing that open ai shouldn't be allowed
Speaker 2: to change from a nonprofit to a for profit status.
Speaker 2: So that should be a super interesting conversation as well.
Speaker 2: On Fridays, we're going to do something which is more topical.
Speaker 2: I think you had something called like tax stuff news
Speaker 2: right for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would do a tech news on Fridays typically
Speaker 1: where I would grab different headlines and give I would
Speaker 1: say brief, but you know me, brief is not something
Speaker 1: I do. But the yes, yes, whether it'sis tediousness of
Speaker 1: the limbs and not reflourishes or too Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: would be as brief as possible, but yes, I would
Speaker 1: do news on Fridays.
Speaker 2: So we're going to do the same. We're going to
Speaker 2: news on Fridays. We're gonna Karen and I'm going to
Speaker 2: talk about some headlines and then we're going to have
Speaker 2: a brief sort of news roundup segment with this company
Speaker 2: called four or for Media. It's actually a collective. It
Speaker 2: was the team basically who did Motherboard Advice, and when
Speaker 2: Vice kind of imploded, they left to start their own
Speaker 2: thing called for a form media. So I'll be a
Speaker 2: second segment, and the third segment we're going to do
Speaker 2: something called.
Speaker 3: Just to say when did this become a thing? Is
Speaker 3: basically my singular obsession, and it can really range, you know,
Speaker 3: it can run the gamut of you know, different tech innovation.
Speaker 3: I think most interestingly the things that we encounter in
Speaker 3: our everyday lives. You know, I think GPT. As I
Speaker 3: said to you, it's like, when did people start saying, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to use chat ebt to like come up
Speaker 3: with that wedding speech. Right? When did this become a thing?
Speaker 3: But also when did it become a thing that I
Speaker 3: can opt into facial recognition on Delta? You know, when
Speaker 3: did this become a thing? You know, when did it
Speaker 3: become a thing that there are you know, digital labels
Speaker 3: in my clothing because all of a sudden we're trying
Speaker 3: to invest more in a circular economy. You know, there's
Speaker 3: a number of touch points I think day to day.
Speaker 3: I don't know why I always think of airline apps,
Speaker 3: but like we just are so naturally inclined to accept
Speaker 3: that there are upgrades to things, whether it be you know,
Speaker 3: speaking of the app store. It's like there are always
Speaker 3: just natural upgrades to apps, and we don't ask the
Speaker 3: question when did this become a thing? Yeah, and so
Speaker 3: that's really the spirit of this segment. Oz and I
Speaker 3: I think both self identify as digital natives, although Oz
Speaker 3: really tries to keep broken technology around for as long as possible.
Speaker 3: But we're both digital natives, and one of the first
Speaker 3: things that we're going to explore is when did that
Speaker 3: become a thing? You know, because certainly gen x I
Speaker 3: don't think would consider themselves digital natives, even if they
Speaker 3: knew how to turn the TV on without their parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as a gen xer, I can I can verify
Speaker 1: that I turned fifty this year, y'all.
Speaker 3: So yeah, congratulations, you look good.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thanks, Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, No, I'm fifty
Speaker 1: years old this year. So yeah, I think that's brilliant because,
Speaker 1: like I remember getting online and accessing the internet before
Speaker 1: the web was a thing, you know, I remember how
Speaker 1: did you do that? So I used tellnet mostly. I
Speaker 1: would tell them into servers and go to like chatrooms.
Speaker 1: That's how I met my wife. Honestly, no fun story.
Speaker 3: That tracks I mean in the sense of you host text.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, I met my wife. I met my wife
Speaker 1: on a on chat, a digital chat room, text based
Speaker 1: chat room.
Speaker 3: No picks at that, no picks.
Speaker 1: No, there wasn't even an easy way of sharing a
Speaker 1: pic because digital cameras were really expensive. Now this is
Speaker 1: like the mid early mid nineties, so you know, a
Speaker 1: digital camera was an unthinkable expense, like I would be
Speaker 1: a luxury that I could not even dream of. Usually
Speaker 1: if I were using a camera, it was one of
Speaker 1: those cardboard disposable things that you would find it like
Speaker 1: weddings or whatever. You would actually have to have the
Speaker 1: film developed.
Speaker 2: Then love those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now those are coming back because everyone's addicted to
Speaker 3: analog again. It's another story.
Speaker 1: Well that's a whole episode in itself, right, very much.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm definitely like, if you ever.
Speaker 3: Want me on it, I'll be on it y because
Speaker 3: I will talk anytime.
Speaker 1: I would love to talk about how the changes in
Speaker 1: how we access our media have driven this desire to
Speaker 1: return to physical formats. Because I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: I thought I was done with DVDs and Blu rays.
Speaker 1: I thought I was done with Well, I don't do
Speaker 1: cassettes or CDs anymore, but I do. I do vinyl.
Speaker 1: I thought I was done with all that and now
Speaker 1: I'm like right back into it, So I would I
Speaker 1: would love to talk about that. I love the idea
Speaker 1: of when did this become a thing? Like the im
Speaker 1: media topic that sprung to my mind is when did
Speaker 1: in game purchases start to become a thing, Because you mean.
Speaker 3: When did parents go broke basically, or.
Speaker 1: Or gen xers who grew up playing games and never
Speaker 1: grew out of it. But like, like, like I think
Speaker 1: about those in game purchases that have become like you know,
Speaker 1: living games are sometimes what they're refer to, right, these
Speaker 1: games that are designed to never be sunset because it's
Speaker 1: an ongoing revenue generator.
Speaker 2: I thought that was one of the very interesting points
Speaker 2: in you in the piece you did about I know
Speaker 2: you're looking back at each year of tech stuff and
Speaker 2: in the app store obviously, like I know what the
Speaker 2: app store is, and I know that's where I get apps.
Speaker 2: But like the bit about how like Apple like basically
Speaker 2: charging thirty percent for all in app purchases, I knew
Speaker 2: as well, but I didn't really put the pieces together
Speaker 2: until your piece. And obviously the very interesting thing was
Speaker 2: it doesn't apply to the physical world, which is kind
Speaker 2: of crazy but makes sense. You know, they didn't charge
Speaker 2: they wouldn't charge like thirty percent for the delivery of
Speaker 2: pizza through one of the apps right from that, right, but.
Speaker 1: If it were a digital pizza in a game, they
Speaker 1: would right.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So there was a class action against Apple
Speaker 3: from a number like there because there were single families
Speaker 3: that had found out that kids were spending thousands and
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars on Minecraft, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: these parents are looking at their Apple bills and seeing, like,
Speaker 3: you know, a six year old spending ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: on an in app purchase. So it's a very interesting story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, any service where you have a method of payment
Speaker 1: tied to that service, you should be very very careful
Speaker 1: about how that is used by either you or your
Speaker 1: family because it can quickly lead to those situations and
Speaker 1: whether it's a child or it's someone who has just
Speaker 1: sort of that addictive personality where you know, there are
Speaker 1: games I've played and everyone is familiar with these, the
Speaker 1: games where like you can you can hit a certain
Speaker 1: level of advancement and then you're you're hit with an
Speaker 1: artificial time limitter where it's like, all right, you can't
Speaker 1: do any more of this until you wait till you know,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve more hours, or you can pay a
Speaker 1: dollar and you can play right now. And I'm one
Speaker 1: of those people who I'm like, no, I got other
Speaker 1: things can distract me. I can walk away. But there
Speaker 1: are folks who are like you know that that dopamine
Speaker 1: release where they're they want to feel that they've had
Speaker 1: a sense of accomplishment, they'll just pay right into it.
Speaker 1: And kids, in particular, if they don't have a real
Speaker 1: understanding of how money works, because I certainly didn't for.
Speaker 3: A very long I don't.
Speaker 1: Arguably I don't now.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, Actually, I bounced around in my in
Speaker 2: my career doing various things as well as journalism. But
Speaker 2: for a time I was actually a a consultant and
Speaker 2: I worked on a project for Google and they were
Speaker 2: very interested in mobile games and psychology and mobile games,
Speaker 2: and so I ended up being sent on a world
Speaker 2: tour to do basically like in home research with like
Speaker 2: very heavy game players, and I got to go to
Speaker 2: Taiwan and Japan and Korea. It was just incredible. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was an incredible experience that basically hang out with
Speaker 2: like you know all kinds of different people who played
Speaker 2: mobile games, and it was it was interesting. So some
Speaker 2: people were like clearly in control and they're like, I
Speaker 2: have a budget of like X, and I spend it
Speaker 2: on games and like that's fine.
Speaker 3: Oh my good for you.
Speaker 2: And some people would like I played for three days
Speaker 2: and then I had to wait for twenty seven days
Speaker 2: until my next check comes in from work because I
Speaker 2: just I can't control it. So I mean it was
Speaker 2: it was pretty remarkable. I think in Japan they have
Speaker 2: this thing called gotcha, and it was the idea of
Speaker 2: like being obsessed with those.
Speaker 3: Yeah laws, I'm quite good at them.
Speaker 1: Next tip I go to the carnival, I'm taking care
Speaker 1: of with me.
Speaker 3: You should take me on a little keychain. You can
Speaker 3: fit me on a keychain that you could win in
Speaker 3: a gotcha machine.
Speaker 2: So none of us are at CES this week, sadly.
Speaker 3: But I remember.
Speaker 2: Sneaking a cigarette with with Cara on the floor of the.
Speaker 3: I've quit and I don't vape speaking, this is tech stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't vape.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, you won't be endulsing any company.
Speaker 3: But sorry us continue I interrupted you, No.
Speaker 2: No, I just I just I just babbling on actually,
Speaker 2: we need to.
Speaker 1: Take a quick break to think our sponsors, but we'll
Speaker 1: be right back with Kara. And as.
Speaker 3: The last part of this second you know, episode per
Speaker 3: Week that we've been talking about is something that's really
Speaker 3: near and dear to me as a sort of pop
Speaker 3: culture fanatic and as someone who's been you know, thinking
Speaker 3: about how to take over the mantle of tech stuff.
Speaker 3: Is like, you know, how do we tell technology stories
Speaker 3: through the lens of culture and every day and it
Speaker 3: excites me to no end. But like every day there
Speaker 3: are new culture stories where AI is just kind of
Speaker 3: thrown in the mix, you know, there's a sort of
Speaker 3: sprinkle of AI, and so, you know, I think one
Speaker 3: of the things that I'm really excited to do is
Speaker 3: to find those stories and then tell people who might
Speaker 3: not think of said story as a technology story that oh,
Speaker 3: actually behind this, technology is actually either really affecting this
Speaker 3: or somehow intersecting, for example, with the lives of the
Speaker 3: Kardashians in a way that we did not expect. And
Speaker 3: here's how you.
Speaker 2: Did something on the Optimist robot, right, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I talked about I talked about it briefly.
Speaker 1: When I want to say it was the because that's
Speaker 1: the Tesla one, right, Yeah, yeah, I talked about it.
Speaker 1: I know, I talked about briefly a couple times in
Speaker 1: news episodes. But when there was the big Tesla press
Speaker 1: event where they had robots dancing and bartending, I talked
Speaker 1: about it wasn't that Tesla was trying to pass them
Speaker 1: off as working entirely autonomously, so I do not wish
Speaker 1: to cast aspersions upon the company. They never said they're
Speaker 1: doing that, but it was like, oh yeah, those were
Speaker 1: often being controlled, you know, just off to the side
Speaker 1: by someone with a computer or whatever. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course they were. We're not at a point where
Speaker 1: they could where you're going to be boogying down with
Speaker 1: a robot just completely autonomously, and like it would be
Speaker 1: different if they claimed it otherwise, but they never did,
Speaker 1: so I feel okay about that one.
Speaker 2: But we were pretty fascinated. Well, Cara was you know,
Speaker 2: one of the sort of Kim Kardashian optimist robot posts
Speaker 2: as it went live. But you know, could you ever imagine,
Speaker 2: like in two thousand and eight or notthen like that,
Speaker 2: you know, robotics would become like something which the biggest,
Speaker 2: most mainstream celebrity in the US was like excite to
Speaker 2: be associated.
Speaker 1: With absolutely not. I remember, okay, so this goes pretech stuff.
Speaker 1: But one of my first article assignments when I started
Speaker 1: writing for How Stuff Works was how Asimo works. Asimo
Speaker 1: being a robot that Honda created, and it was the
Speaker 1: first humanoid robot that could run. And by run, it
Speaker 1: means that both feet for a split second lose contact
Speaker 1: with the ground as it propels itself forward. Now, when
Speaker 1: it ran, it looked like a little short person having
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom because it was this little,
Speaker 1: weird little squad run. But it could run. And when
Speaker 1: you start thinking about how complicated that is from a
Speaker 1: robotics standpoint, and how do you engineer that so that
Speaker 1: the robot maintains balance, that's really a complex thing. And
Speaker 1: at the time I was thinking, I might be the
Speaker 1: only person who's really jazzed about this. And I could
Speaker 1: never imagine that someone who is famous mostly for being famous,
Speaker 1: would ever be associated with robots. I thought, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: geeky people like me, who's you know, my dad wrote
Speaker 1: Star Trek novels, so like, yeah, I am genetically engineered
Speaker 1: to be to be a geek who freaks out about robots.
Speaker 1: But I didn't think it was ever going to become
Speaker 1: a thing where, you know, one of the most well
Speaker 1: known celebrities, especially in the influencer world, is associated with them.
Speaker 1: That just never occurred to me. I did freak out
Speaker 1: when I got to meet Asimo at Disneyland. That was
Speaker 1: a high point.
Speaker 3: Was he nice to you?
Speaker 1: Very taciturn I'd say, but to be fair, he did
Speaker 1: just drain his battery doing a show.
Speaker 3: So I was going to say, to your point, just
Speaker 3: even about influencers, I don't think you would have you know,
Speaker 3: kind of seen Lil Mikayla coming either, that there would
Speaker 3: be actual digital influencers who which is It's funny there
Speaker 3: are things. I'm sure you've noticed this. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to get on a tangent because I want to go
Speaker 3: back to the fact that your father wrote Star Trek novelge.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there are things that come and go to
Speaker 3: that are really interesting that I think are worth mentioning,
Speaker 3: like web like you know, Web three, you know, like
Speaker 3: things that people were really excited about. I mean, VR
Speaker 3: is one of these things that is like we are
Speaker 3: constantly like climate to you know, how to what extent
Speaker 3: are people really going to adopt virtual worlds outside of
Speaker 3: gaming and bluff And you know, I think.
Speaker 1: The metaverse really going to be the future of how
Speaker 1: we interact online.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, exactly. And I think it's our job both
Speaker 3: to not even critique, but to sort of point out
Speaker 3: that there's a lot of stuff thrown at the wall,
Speaker 3: much of it does not stick, and I think it's
Speaker 3: important to remind people of what doesn't stick. You know,
Speaker 3: Google X being one of the things that we covered
Speaker 3: on What was Google?
Speaker 2: So you're talking about the Google Social plan.
Speaker 3: I like.
Speaker 2: You mentioned, like, yeah, you were like in twenty eleven
Speaker 2: Google Plus launch.
Speaker 3: But plus they were early to the Plus though. So
Speaker 3: your dad wrote Star Trek novels.
Speaker 1: My dad.
Speaker 3: My dad also wrote and published a lot of graphic
Speaker 3: novels and novelizations of comics.
Speaker 1: So yeah, my excess. My dad's a science fiction, fantasy, horror,
Speaker 1: mystery novelist. He's written probably around eighty books at this point,
Speaker 1: maybe more. I'd have to ask him. But the Star
Speaker 1: Trek ones were young adult novels that he wrote that
Speaker 1: were in the Starfleet Academy series, where he had ones
Speaker 1: about Kirk and Spock, and he had ones about Picard,
Speaker 1: so he wrote for those. But he also wrote, I
Speaker 1: don't know if either of you know this reference, but
Speaker 1: there used to be a PBS show called Wishbone in
Speaker 1: which a little Jack Rustle tw you're.
Speaker 3: Kidding me, Okay. He was my first crash my dad,
Speaker 3: and I think.
Speaker 2: He was licensed from Britain as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, well Wishbe was so English. Wishman was
Speaker 3: not an American dog. He had a feather in his cap.
Speaker 1: My dad, my dad wrote Wishbone books. If you look
Speaker 1: up What Deal Wolf, it's the adaptation of Wolf and
Speaker 1: Salty Dog, which was which was Treasure Island. Dad's favorite novel,
Speaker 1: Treasure Island. I'm really well, actually I think Dad's favorite
Speaker 1: novel might be something Wicked This Way comes by Ray Bradbury.
Speaker 1: But but it's which is a fantastic book. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, he's he wrote, He's written lots and lots.
Speaker 3: Of stuff, very connected by those things. I was the
Speaker 3: girl in school who and maybe this sort of I
Speaker 3: don't know made me destined for this conversation right now.
Speaker 3: But I was the girl in school who you know,
Speaker 3: everybody else had the sort of oily stickers with Lisa
Speaker 3: Franks and I had the I had the Star Trek.
Speaker 3: What do you call the logo? What is that?
Speaker 1: Oh the little emblem?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, that's what I was trading.
Speaker 2: So one of the one of the other upcoming episodes
Speaker 2: we have recorded for the Wednesday the story episode is
Speaker 2: with a guy called Nathaniel Rich who wrote an incredible
Speaker 2: piece of the New York Times magazine about how NASA
Speaker 2: is simulating Martian colonies on Earth and there are these
Speaker 2: people who basically a volunteering to spend you know, three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty plus days in the Johnston Space Center
Speaker 2: in these in these Martian colonies, and how it's kind
Speaker 2: of part of the research efforts to you know, understand
Speaker 2: exactly what it will take to colonize Mars. But picking
Speaker 2: up on the rape Bradbury reference that Nathaniel wanted to
Speaker 2: title his piece Mars is Heaven, but the New York
Speaker 2: Times came up with can humans with standard psychological torture
Speaker 2: of Mars?
Speaker 3: Which I clicked on more descriptive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is where we're reminded that sometimes
Speaker 1: writers get don't have the luxury of being able to
Speaker 1: pick their own headlines. But it's all because it's not
Speaker 1: because people who are really smart about what makes people
Speaker 1: click on things are the ones naming those articles as
Speaker 1: long as the article doesn't give away alex headline doesn't
Speaker 1: give away that too much, where people just scan it
Speaker 1: on Facebook and they feel like they read the thing
Speaker 1: and all they did was read the headline.
Speaker 3: In your most Johnathannian way, or actually in in your
Speaker 3: most Start Treking way. You know, what wisdom do you
Speaker 3: have to impart on us and what would you like
Speaker 3: to see in terms of not the you know, the
Speaker 3: next to steal a Star Trek reference, the next gen
Speaker 3: of tech stuff or, as my friend likes to call
Speaker 3: gen Z, the new gen of tech stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, in true next generation fashion, I recommend you skipped
Speaker 1: straight to mid season two because the first season and
Speaker 1: a half of Star Trek Next Generation is almost unwatchable.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of good episodes, but man or
Speaker 1: there's some clunkers in there. Now. More seriously, I think
Speaker 1: like there's no advice I can give you that you
Speaker 1: don't already have well at hand. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you're both adept at asking questions and I think getting
Speaker 1: back to things like the web three and the metaverse stuff,
Speaker 1: and the fact that we have this huge surge in
Speaker 1: in hype around certain technologies at certain times, asking the
Speaker 1: questions of why are the people who are pushing this,
Speaker 1: why are they doing that, why are they excited about it?
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it because they have a legitimate passion
Speaker 1: for this thing and that they really believe that this
Speaker 1: is something that's going to drive the future. Or is
Speaker 1: it that they have a vested interest in this thing
Speaker 1: and they're desperately trying to get it to gain traction
Speaker 1: so that their investment pays off. Like, I feel a
Speaker 1: lot of crypto communities fall into that second category. Like
Speaker 1: we all remember the disaster that was the NFT boom
Speaker 1: and then bust.
Speaker 3: I literally forgot about NFTs for like a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry to bring it back, but I feel
Speaker 1: like NFTs could have been a legitimate thing that had
Speaker 1: a place, but we're appropriated so quickly and then pushed
Speaker 1: by a speculative market so hard that for NFTs to
Speaker 1: recover from that and to become something beyond just being
Speaker 1: this joke right is going to take way more work
Speaker 1: than it would have if we just had been able
Speaker 1: to keep the speculator at Bay for like five more minutes.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that to me is always the
Speaker 1: thing is that it's good to be excited about tech.
Speaker 1: It's good to be passionate about it. Like I love
Speaker 1: that feeling too. I love hearing about a new gadget
Speaker 1: that's coming out that I'm just like, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to get my hands on this and see what it
Speaker 1: really does. But I think it's also good to take
Speaker 1: a step back and ask the questions of, well, why
Speaker 1: is this a thing? Why is this being done in
Speaker 1: this specific way? Why are these specific people pushing this
Speaker 1: narrative out? You know, for me, it would be like,
Speaker 1: why does Zuckerberg want the metaverse to be a thing?
Speaker 1: As opposed to having the idea that the metaverse is
Speaker 1: going to be the thing? Like putting that ahead of
Speaker 1: everything else makes no sense to me, Like you're it's
Speaker 1: the whole putting the cart before the horse thing, Like
Speaker 1: you've already presupposed that it's destined to be a thing.
Speaker 3: We saw what happened with Google glass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I literally did, because I had a pair.
Speaker 2: You got gifted them by Google.
Speaker 1: It was a company purchase from How Stuff Works, a
Speaker 1: company I no longer work.
Speaker 2: For and Jonathan you mentioned coming on you know, we
Speaker 2: would love you know whenever, whenever you want to have
Speaker 2: you come back on the show, and also to get
Speaker 2: your notes on, you know, on our early early episodes.
Speaker 2: We also started a Gmail Today tech Stuff podcast at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com because we love for listeners to write
Speaker 2: in as well and let us know you know, what
Speaker 2: we're doing well, but more importantly, what we can do better,
Speaker 2: how we can continue to honor the spirit of tech
Speaker 2: Stuff and the reason you know, you guys have been
Speaker 2: listening to this show for for many years, so you know,
Speaker 2: do do write us and let us know, because you know,
Speaker 2: we want this to be continue to be a place
Speaker 2: where you come once a week, twice a week, as
Speaker 2: much as five times a week in Jonathan Jonathan's in
Speaker 2: Jonathan's Craziest Days.
Speaker 1: Nice nice back catalog for you to dive into if
Speaker 1: you want to. Now, I love that so Os and
Speaker 1: care are doing something that I wish I could have
Speaker 1: done more of. And I've often talked about how since
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Tech Stuff's been a solo host show and
Speaker 1: I've been the only person researching, writing, recording the shows.
Speaker 1: I have a wonderful producer named Tari. Tari does phenomenal work,
Speaker 1: but everything on the pre production side is on me,
Speaker 1: and as such, that workload was to a point where
Speaker 1: I withdrew from social It was too much. It was
Speaker 1: too much for me. I couldn't be both the creator
Speaker 1: and runner of the show and also be actively marketing it.
Speaker 1: It was too heavy a lift, and as a result,
Speaker 1: I feel my biggest regret is that I didn't do
Speaker 1: more to foster a community around the show. There is
Speaker 1: a community around the show. I just was kind of
Speaker 1: apart from it, and I love that you and your
Speaker 1: team are taking a concerted effort to foster a community
Speaker 1: because they're out there. They found ways to get in
Speaker 1: touch with me, and I'm not easy to get in
Speaker 1: touch with.
Speaker 2: On to be fat, didn't one of the inventors of
Speaker 2: the world why wide Web write in and tell you
Speaker 2: that you'd explained it wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Vinton Surf. Vint and Surf did that. He was
Speaker 1: not shy about it either.
Speaker 2: Uh, you've had some listener engagement, yeah, I mean part
Speaker 2: of me both. It's both like a huge compliment in handles.
Speaker 3: Like exactly the biggest troll ever.
Speaker 1: Well, like like you you feel embarrassed at the same time,
Speaker 1: you're like freaking inventor of like one of the architects
Speaker 1: of the Internet listened to my show, which is again
Speaker 1: getting back to that idea of like, oh wow, people
Speaker 1: are actually listening. A lot of people do, and uh,
Speaker 1: I love that you're you're reaching out to them and
Speaker 1: welcoming them to talk to you, because it's clear like
Speaker 1: the people who found ways to get in touch with me,
Speaker 1: and again I'm not easy to get in touch with,
Speaker 1: they were all giving me very sweet messages, very encouraging
Speaker 1: thanking me for my time on the show, which I deeply,
Speaker 1: deeply appreciate. And it just shows to me that your
Speaker 1: era of tech stuff is going to be phenomenal because
Speaker 1: you're going to have elements in place that I simply
Speaker 1: felt unable to do, and you're going to be able
Speaker 1: to have a collaborative relationship with your audience. And while
Speaker 1: I feel like my era of tech stuff was more
Speaker 1: almost more like a lecture in the sense that I
Speaker 1: was bringing stuff that I found interesting and then synthesizing
Speaker 1: the information and communicating it to the audience, but it
Speaker 1: was very one way. It was very rare that I
Speaker 1: would get feedback because I just didn't make it easy
Speaker 1: for people to talk to me. And now that I
Speaker 1: am no longer the host, I can complete my plan
Speaker 1: and move out into the woods. I found a really
Speaker 1: nice ditch, just a little bit of a fixer upper.
Speaker 3: Can you get Wi Fi and a ditch?
Speaker 1: Now you cannot? And that's why I'm happy, No but
Speaker 1: no more. Seriously, I'm so enthusiastic about where the show
Speaker 1: is going. Your work speaks for itself, both of you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've done incredible work in the past. Like
Speaker 1: for my listeners who are unfamiliar, look it up. There
Speaker 1: is a library a phenomenal work in are now hosts
Speaker 1: of tech stuff in their background. You will not be disappointed.
Speaker 1: You will find things that are heartbreaking and fascinating and joyful,
Speaker 1: like the entire spectrum of human experience is represented in
Speaker 1: the work you guys have made, and for that to
Speaker 1: be the backbone of tech Stuff moving forward, I couldn't
Speaker 1: be more excited and I couldn't be more optimistic to
Speaker 1: bring it back to that perspective about the future of
Speaker 1: the show and that you'll be having this conversation, ongoing
Speaker 1: conversation with the audience is phenomenal. This is why I
Speaker 1: feel confident saying tech stuff's going to reach heights that
Speaker 1: it couldn't have because I ran up against my physical
Speaker 1: limitations as a host, Like as much as I possibly
Speaker 1: could do, I was doing and I could not do
Speaker 1: more and the show needed more. And you guys are
Speaker 1: able to do that. So I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you Johnson. It means the world coming from you.
Speaker 2: And and yeah, I mean, we're we're, we're. It's having
Speaker 2: having two of us is great. I think we really
Speaker 2: encourage each other and so we do annoy each other,
Speaker 2: but we were why Actually, one of our listeners on
Speaker 2: Sleepwalkers compared in a very flattering comparison. He said, Sleepwalkers
Speaker 2: is like a Shelock Combs mystery theater in terms of
Speaker 2: kind of looking at these technology things and taking a
Speaker 2: kind of really inquisitive approach. And I told Cara about this,
Speaker 2: and you immediately said, Sharlock Combs is not a colp.
Speaker 3: And I said, well, he was a consultant for Scotland
Speaker 3: Yard Detective. And I think that the point being is that,
Speaker 3: like we are not experts, you know, specifically not experts.
Speaker 3: And I think Oz is probably more of the Sherlock
Speaker 3: and I'm definitely more of the Watson, which is not
Speaker 3: to say that I'm going to narrate Oz's lived experience,
Speaker 3: although maybe who knows, gould be fun. I have an
Speaker 3: American accent, but no, I think for us, it's about
Speaker 3: what we have to hope that what we think is
Speaker 3: interesting will sort of act as a filter to the audience.
Speaker 3: And in that way we are I mean not to
Speaker 3: be sort of self aggrandizing it. In that way, we
Speaker 3: are sort of detectives because we have these big questions
Speaker 3: that we want answers to and assume that because we
Speaker 3: want answers to them, that other people are going to
Speaker 3: want answers to them. And in that way you can
Speaker 3: also be you know, both optimistic and suspicious.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I think I think that's right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we come to this, you know,
Speaker 2: somewhat as outsiders in the same way that you did originally, Jonathan, Right,
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of tech journalism we talked
Speaker 2: about like clickbait headlines, like there is a reward system
Speaker 2: that comes with hyping tech, and there is a reward
Speaker 2: system that comes with doomsday headlines. Right, The reward system
Speaker 2: around like which I think white podcast needs the perfect
Speaker 2: medium around like consistently asking you know, interesting questions or
Speaker 2: trying to ask interesting questions and answering them with the
Speaker 2: most relevant people in a balanced way. Like it doesn't
Speaker 2: lend itself to like social media based journalism. I think
Speaker 2: it does lend itself to audio based journalism.
Speaker 3: So you know, we say slow food, slow news, but.
Speaker 2: We but we also you know, we don't. We don't
Speaker 2: take the responsibility lightly. Also, Jonathan, we don't take your
Speaker 2: generosity and grace lightly. One of my favorite media stories, Karen, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: do you know this one about jay Leno hiding in
Speaker 2: the closet? So I think when this, I mean that
Speaker 2: may be not true, So you know, potentially, please Park
Speaker 2: spare me exactly. But I'm pretty sure that when when
Speaker 2: they were looking at bringing on Conan, jay Leno actually
Speaker 2: hid in a closet of a conference room to h
Speaker 2: to hear the deliberations and try.
Speaker 3: And to overhear the conversation.
Speaker 2: Exactly and try and make sure that the trans I
Speaker 2: can't remember exactly what it was. He was not a gracious,
Speaker 2: graciously passing the baton in the way that in the
Speaker 2: way that you are, Johnson, So thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, and I mean again, like, if it weren't for
Speaker 1: the fact that you both have proven yourself time and
Speaker 1: time again with an incredible work. I mean like, I'm
Speaker 1: talking to award winning journalists here, I'm I'm award adjacent.
Speaker 1: So so I am fine with generously passing the baton
Speaker 1: because I feel that it's in very good hands. And
Speaker 1: and karas you were saying, you know, the approach of
Speaker 1: talking about things you find interesting in the hopes that
Speaker 1: the audience find it interesting. That's always been my approach
Speaker 1: as well, and I think it works because the worst
Speaker 1: thing that can happen is you talk about something because
Speaker 1: you feel that you're compelled to talk about it because
Speaker 1: wagging the yeah again. Listeners are smart. They will know
Speaker 1: immediately if you're not actually engaged with the material or interested,
Speaker 1: or even have any inter questions to ask about it.
Speaker 1: They'll know immediately. Even if you're able to mask it,
Speaker 1: they'll suss it out. So being able to say, this
Speaker 1: is something I'm really excited about and you can tell
Speaker 1: I'm excited about it, and now I'm going to take
Speaker 1: what I've learned, like I said, synthesize it presented to
Speaker 1: you have a conversation with someone else who might have
Speaker 1: a completely different point of view than I do, and
Speaker 1: then we'll see where the conversation goes. To me, that's
Speaker 1: like the heart of what tech Stuff started. As you know,
Speaker 1: from twenty and eight to twenty fourteen, it was a
Speaker 1: two host show, and I feel like this in some
Speaker 1: ways is getting back to the roots, but with much
Speaker 1: more qualified journalists taking the part behind.
Speaker 3: I would say, just with very different stories. Although I
Speaker 3: mean you were really at the forefront of a lot
Speaker 3: of this stuff. I mean, now it's you know, falling
Speaker 3: off the trees sing.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's exactually right. I mean tech stuff when
Speaker 2: you started was like a kind of somewhat niche topic area,
Speaker 2: and now it's like the architecture, the infrastructure which we
Speaker 2: all are plugged into. And I know you've done this
Speaker 2: thing where you've kind of talked about each year in
Speaker 2: tech since you've been doing the show and kind of
Speaker 2: some of the highlights. But I guess on a more
Speaker 2: like personal level, like what's the journey been, what is
Speaker 2: some of the highlights been, and how have you seen
Speaker 2: technology go from like a product to a system kind
Speaker 2: of firsthand?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's part of a larger social conversation too, right,
Speaker 1: because from the same perspective, you could say, like the
Speaker 1: things that were once associated with being a geek or
Speaker 1: a nerd, like back in the eighties, where that would
Speaker 1: be a pejorative our mainstream, right, Like if you like
Speaker 1: superheroes when I was a kid, then you were that
Speaker 1: geek who liked superheroes. If you like superheroes, now you're
Speaker 1: someone who just goes to the cinema, right, because nine
Speaker 1: movies out of ten are superhero movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think it was a change that was gradual
Speaker 1: enough where it's hard to like put a finger on
Speaker 1: exactly when the tipping point was. But I would argue
Speaker 1: Steve jobs decline in health and then his passing was
Speaker 1: probably a real indicator because here was somebody who in
Speaker 1: the seventies would have been considered a geeky co founder
Speaker 1: of a personal computer company, back when we didn't even
Speaker 1: know that personal computers could be a viable business. Like
Speaker 1: that might have just, you know, imploded on itself if
Speaker 1: it hadn't been for a lot of people doing very
Speaker 1: creative things and a hobbyist community that kept it alive
Speaker 1: until it can find its feet. Then you get down
Speaker 1: to like two thousand and nine where you start having
Speaker 1: mainstream media following Steve jobs because he's having these sabbaticals
Speaker 1: from work and he's being very secretive about his health.
Speaker 1: And then twenty eleven, of course, when he passed away,
Speaker 1: and it was huge news, and it was reinforcing the
Speaker 1: idea that Apple had managed to make things that could
Speaker 1: have just been stuff for executives and geeks into an
Speaker 1: item that everybody wanted, like starting with the iPod, actually
Speaker 1: arguably starting with the iMac, but then the iPod definitely
Speaker 1: becoming that mainstream consumer product once you get past the
Speaker 1: Mac only days of the first two generations to the iPhone,
Speaker 1: which really opened up the doors to the point where
Speaker 1: even the iPad, something that people like me I talk
Speaker 1: about all the time. I dismissed the iPad because no
Speaker 1: one had made a tablet computer that anyone wanted, Like
Speaker 1: there were tablet computers, but nobody outside of specific jobs
Speaker 1: like in nursing or whatever, we're using them. I give
Speaker 1: Apple a hard time. I'm not an Apple person, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, I can't think of any other
Speaker 1: company that was as responsible for making tech into this sexy,
Speaker 1: mainstream consumer idea than Apple. I mean, arguably, social networks
Speaker 1: kind of did that for the web because they made
Speaker 1: initially they made it easy for you to connect with
Speaker 1: your friends or if you were a Facebook, to rate
Speaker 1: the attractiveness of your student colleagues. Let's never forget that, y'all.
Speaker 1: Let's never forget that Facebook started off as a way
Speaker 1: for dude bros. To say how hot they found their
Speaker 1: female colleagues at school.
Speaker 3: And then swayed the outcome of an election. Very interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the double edged sword.
Speaker 1: I think just keeping in mind where people came from
Speaker 1: is always a good idea. Not to say that people
Speaker 1: can't change, but just you know, sometimes you know that
Speaker 1: you get at the heart of who someone is. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think those would be the big things I would
Speaker 1: point at as the stuff that stands out to me
Speaker 1: was that Apple kind of forging this new appreciation of technology,
Speaker 1: which is phenomenal. If you look at Apple in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties, that company was in danger of going out
Speaker 1: of business. Yeah, so for it to go from that
Speaker 1: to becoming the definer, the style maker, if you will,
Speaker 1: of tech, Yeah, phenomenal story. And then flip side the growth,
Speaker 1: the consolidation, the failure in several cases of social networks.
Speaker 1: Those would be the two big things that just leap
Speaker 1: to my mind. If I were to sit down and
Speaker 1: think about it for forty five minutes, I'd probab they
Speaker 1: come back to you with like an eight page long
Speaker 1: list of stuff you know, I love. Like we mentioned VR, Kara,
Speaker 1: you mentioned VR earlier, and I laughed because you talked
Speaker 1: about the embrace or the the whether a VR is
Speaker 1: falling short, whether it's actually getting traction, because I remember
Speaker 1: those conversations again in the early nineties the first time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, tried to make it, you know, so good time.
Speaker 3: And I mean that's the thing. Some of these things
Speaker 3: are cyclical, you know, and that they don't work, and
Speaker 3: then it comes back around when the technology gets better
Speaker 3: around they see if people will adopt them again.
Speaker 1: They might get rebranded, they might get you know, a
Speaker 1: new new code of pain on. But it's the same idea,
Speaker 1: like Apple Vision. Apple Vision, I still haven't tried one.
Speaker 1: I mean in there, I hate the eyes on the outside.
Speaker 3: It is very weird. It's very wally. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: very strange.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of the first time I wore
Speaker 1: the Google glass out to friends of mine. Everyone was
Speaker 1: suddenly visibly uncomfortable around me because I was wearing a
Speaker 1: headset that everyone knew. It had a camera, and it
Speaker 1: had a microphone and had a screen, and so that
Speaker 1: immediately made people uncomfortable. And I thought, how interesting, because
Speaker 1: everyone in this place has a device in their pocket,
Speaker 1: has all of these elements all the time. But because
Speaker 1: I'm wearing mine on my face, that's what's making them uncomfortable. Interesting.
Speaker 3: Well, it's because Apple designed it. That's fine.
Speaker 1: If they designed the thing in the they designed the
Speaker 1: thing on my face, they'd be like, oh, well this
Speaker 1: is cool. But all this is really doing is just
Speaker 1: drag it to your face. Come on.
Speaker 2: I think Apple got a gotta find recently because of
Speaker 2: Siri listening to private conversations. I think it was like
Speaker 2: ninety five million bucks, which which is like the equivalent
Speaker 2: of the two million dollar fine Jet Blue got for
Speaker 2: being consistently late. It's like, guys, this is like.
Speaker 3: The Air or the Jordan fine where Michael Jordan was
Speaker 3: fined every time he wore his sneakers and he covered it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he covered it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I know. If you'd just shaken a couch
Speaker 1: over an Apple, it would cover that, but yeah, and
Speaker 1: then it ends up going back into that concern people
Speaker 1: had with smart speakers, right, anything that has a smart
Speaker 1: speaker in it, like or in my phone. For example,
Speaker 1: I have an Android phone, and if a song is
Speaker 1: playing and the phone recognizes it, it'll tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: what the song title and who's singing it, just like
Speaker 1: if you were using an app like Shazam. But it
Speaker 1: does it automatically, which immediately raises the question of wait,
Speaker 1: that means that the phone's listening even when I'm not
Speaker 1: actively using it. What else is it doing when it's listening,
Speaker 1: and those questions like you can be told again and again,
Speaker 1: oh well, nothing's being sent. You know, it's all native
Speaker 1: to the phone. It's not actually consulting the cloud or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you're still thinking, well, yeah, but it could, right
Speaker 1: because obviously it's doing something like that now even if
Speaker 1: it's native on the phone, so it could do the
Speaker 1: things you're saying it's not doing. You're just telling me
Speaker 1: that you pinky swear it's not doing those things. And
Speaker 1: whenever those stories pop up, I think, man, you're making
Speaker 1: my job so much harder. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: the person immediately jumping to conspiracies, but if all the
Speaker 1: technology facilitates it, it's hard.
Speaker 2: To avoid unless we forget you to give stuff they
Speaker 2: don't want you to know, or his name.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I did, I did? That was that was
Speaker 1: a fun story too. Yeah. Stuff you Should Know was
Speaker 1: already out and we were working on a new podcast
Speaker 1: that was gonna cover fringe theories, conspiracy theories, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and they were workshopping ideas for the name,
Speaker 1: and I said, why don't you just call it stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know? Because we already have
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know? And everyone's like, oh, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: And to this day Ben Bolin, who's one of the hosts,
Speaker 1: whenever this comes up, he's like, yeah, if we had
Speaker 1: thought about it for a second, we would say, shut up, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: that name's too long. We'll never put on any you know,
Speaker 1: the acronym doesn't make any sense. It has to be
Speaker 1: an initials. Yeah. So so with great power comes something,
Speaker 1: something is what we learn.
Speaker 3: That's right, all right, y'all?
Speaker 1: This conversation ran long. Who would have thunk a conversation
Speaker 1: with me would go long? And that means we need
Speaker 1: to take another quick break to think our sponsors, but
Speaker 1: we'll be right back to conclude our conversation about tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: and you want to stick around for the end, folks.
Speaker 1: This has been an epic episode, which is fitting for
Speaker 1: my last one. But what I want to walk away
Speaker 1: with in this episode is again, tech Stuff continues. You know,
Speaker 1: it started with me and Chris Poullette in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. Chris left around twenty thirteen early, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve at the end of twenty twelve, and Lauren
Speaker 1: came on until twenty fourteen. You know, we each had
Speaker 1: our own impact in forging what the show is. To me,
Speaker 1: this is going to be the exciting future of the show,
Speaker 1: arguably one of the most transformative. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: from talking to you, it sounds to me like it's
Speaker 1: really getting at the heart of what the show was
Speaker 1: all about from the very beginning, and I could not
Speaker 1: ask for better Stewards, So thank you for coming onto
Speaker 1: the show to talk about it, and I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to listen to Friday's episode.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Jonathan be going from fans and listeners to hosts,
Speaker 2: and you said it was your last episode, I would
Speaker 2: say it was your last episode as host.
Speaker 1: I would like to have you as a guest. As
Speaker 1: a guest, boy, you're not gonna like it because uh,
Speaker 1: my writer is super long, so many demands for low
Speaker 1: sodium snacks you want and believe now.
Speaker 2: No, but thank you seriously, and and and thank you
Speaker 2: to anyone on everyone listening to for giving us a
Speaker 2: chance as a new host, and please do right into
Speaker 2: tech Stuff Podcast at gmail dot com with any with
Speaker 2: any feedback, because I think the most important thing for
Speaker 2: me and Kara is to honor your time and we're grateful,
Speaker 2: we're great.
Speaker 3: Fans forgiving the ways in which technology intersects with your life.
Speaker 3: I mean not I don't want any feedback personally.
Speaker 1: What I want to know is we are one and
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 3: No, I want, I want to know you know the ways.
Speaker 3: I mean. I think ring camera technology is one of
Speaker 3: my favorite Just the way that that has unleashed itself
Speaker 3: onto the world is some of just the great comedy
Speaker 3: and great darkness that we have in our world. And
Speaker 3: I use that as an example because I think that
Speaker 3: people listening to this show who already hopefully think in
Speaker 3: this way, or maybe don't yet and will in the future.
Speaker 3: You know, have plenty of day to day interactions that
Speaker 3: you know should be shared, and you know things that
Speaker 3: they're thinking in terms of how their life intersects with
Speaker 3: technology on a daily basis that I think sometimes we
Speaker 3: just won't think of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think anytime anyone out there has an interaction
Speaker 1: with technology or something related to tech and you're left
Speaker 1: with a question like why is it like this?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: How did it get this way? Right? To textuff podcast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com and ask your question, because that
Speaker 1: will launch an investigation and conversation that will be so
Speaker 1: entertaining and informative. It will not only answer your question,
Speaker 1: but it will get you excited about other elements of
Speaker 1: tech and critical thinking. Like I said, it's not just
Speaker 1: for technology, that's for every part of your life. The
Speaker 1: more often you start to engage that skill, the better
Speaker 1: you will get at it. It will always be something
Speaker 1: you have to engage. Can't just count on it because
Speaker 1: like I certainly have fallen victim to more than a
Speaker 1: few japes, let us say, because of a failure to
Speaker 1: apply my own critical thinking. But yeah, I absolutely loved
Speaker 1: all of that. And again, you think of a question,
Speaker 1: send it their way because it's going to be a
Speaker 1: wild a wild ride and a fascinating look into technology
Speaker 1: and how it impacts culture. I also love that you
Speaker 1: look at it that way. Specifically, I've always said technology
Speaker 1: does not exist in a vacuum. The one criticism I
Speaker 1: would receive that I never really paid much mind to was, hey,
Speaker 1: you're bringing too much you know, politics or culture into
Speaker 1: this conversation. Like, well, yeah, because tech doesn't exist on
Speaker 1: its own. Tech exists because we built it, and we
Speaker 1: built it to do something for us, So we have
Speaker 1: to take that relationship into consider it or else what
Speaker 1: are we doing? Like I guess I could tell you
Speaker 1: how a circuit board works on a very technical level,
Speaker 1: but you can go take a class in that. That's
Speaker 1: not an interesting story. So that to me is again
Speaker 1: the heart of what I tried to do. So I'm
Speaker 1: always happy to be a guest. I will I promise
Speaker 1: I'll be as gracious as possible and hopefully less verbose.
Speaker 3: Never Thank you, Jonathan, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what editors are for. Well, y'all, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. It has been my honor to host this
Speaker 1: show for sixteen and a half years. The day this
Speaker 1: episode goes out January eighth, like I started June eighth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight January eighth, twenty twenty five. What
Speaker 1: a heck of a run. It has been fantastic. You'll
Speaker 1: hear my voice again, I'm sure. And usually I would
Speaker 1: say at the end of an episode, I look forward
Speaker 1: to talking to you again really soon, but I guess
Speaker 1: today I'm just going to say, sure, has been nice
Speaker 1: talking to you. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.