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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And it is Tuesday,

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Speaker 1: June twenty two, twenty one. Time for some tech news,

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Speaker 1: and time for yet another cryptocurrency update. I should probably

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Speaker 1: get like some music or a sound effect to go

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Speaker 1: with that, so you might remember that. Earlier this year,

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Speaker 1: the Chinese government began to shut down bitcoin mining operations

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Speaker 1: within the country. It has continued to do that. And

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Speaker 1: bitcoin mining involves running very fast computer networks to essentially

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Speaker 1: guess a very large number before any other computer system

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Speaker 1: is able to do it, and doing so, being successful

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Speaker 1: in guessing that number, or which happens every ten minutes

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Speaker 1: or so. Nets use some bitcoin well. China has been

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Speaker 1: one of the top regions for bitcoin mining until recently.

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Speaker 1: Bitcoin mining requires an awful lot of electricity to run

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Speaker 1: those powerful computer systems they are, They are in need

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Speaker 1: of quite a bit of electricity, and that can actually

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Speaker 1: have a pretty massive environmental impact, and that might have

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Speaker 1: factored into China's decision. But bitcoin also is a decentralized

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Speaker 1: form of currency, and the Chinese government traditionally isn't super

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Speaker 1: keen on stuff that you know, isn't directly under its

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Speaker 1: own control. Anyway, there are likely a lot of different

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Speaker 1: reasons that the Chinese government shut down bitcoin mining. The

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Speaker 1: fact that bitcoin also is associated with a lot of

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Speaker 1: black market activity maybe part of it. And now China

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Speaker 1: is also requiring the financial sector to stop supporting cryptocurrencies,

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Speaker 1: so banks and aim at services within China are all

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Speaker 1: to halt support for any cryptocurrency, including any and all

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Speaker 1: transactions through cryptocurrency that are made within the country. Consequently,

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Speaker 1: the value of bitcoin has taken yet another hit. Early

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Speaker 1: in the spring, the cryptocurrency hit an all time high

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Speaker 1: value of nearly sixty five thousand dollars per bitcoin. Today,

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Speaker 1: it dipped below twenty nine thousand dollars, although as I

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Speaker 1: record this it is slightly recovered to around thirty thousand

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Speaker 1: and granted, thirty grand for a single unit of currency

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Speaker 1: is still a lot of money, but bitcoin has lost

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Speaker 1: more than fifty in value since its height this spring,

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Speaker 1: and some analysts are worried that more countries might follow

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Speaker 1: China's lead and further restricts bitcoin mining and bitcoin transactions.

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Speaker 1: That would likely cause the currency to suffer yet another

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Speaker 1: hit to its value. And as Bitcoin's value drops, so

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Speaker 1: do other cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, which had hit a high of

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Speaker 1: more than two thousand, five hundred dollars earlier this year,

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Speaker 1: was trading at around sevent d dollars earlier today, and

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Speaker 1: the poor doge coin, which enjoyed a brief spurt of popularity,

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Speaker 1: is hovering around sixteen cents per coin right now. Cryptocurrency

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Speaker 1: investors are feeling the squeeze and they're all screaming hottle

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Speaker 1: at the top of their lungs. Hottle or h O

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Speaker 1: d L stands for hold on for dear life, and

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Speaker 1: essentially it's saying, please, don't dump your cryptocurrency now, because

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Speaker 1: that's going to drive the value lower and then my

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Speaker 1: own investment will get even worse. That's essentially what hottle is. Ostensibly,

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Speaker 1: it's if you hold on and you wait out the

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Speaker 1: bad times, the good times will be even better on

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Speaker 1: the other side of it. But really I think it's

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Speaker 1: more of please don't make me regret this investment more

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Speaker 1: than I already do. In related news, however, gamers might

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Speaker 1: soon have something to celebrate because Bitcoin mining benefits from

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Speaker 1: massive parallel processing. That's when you have a bunch of

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Speaker 1: processors that are working together, that is in parallel, in

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Speaker 1: order to solve specific kinds of computational problems. That's something

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Speaker 1: that GPUs or graphics processing units do really, really well,

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Speaker 1: and for that reason, bitcoin miners often scoop up GPUs

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Speaker 1: as quickly as they possibly can, which reduces the overall

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Speaker 1: supply and it drives up prices, which makes it harder

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Speaker 1: for gamers to get a GPU in order to build

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Speaker 1: out a gaming rig. But with the price of bitcoin

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Speaker 1: falling and with entire sectors shut down due to government regulation,

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Speaker 1: we're seeing a reduction in miners going after GPUs and

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Speaker 1: it just doesn't make sense to spend an enormous amount

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Speaker 1: of money purchasing graphics cards if the return on investment

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Speaker 1: is starting to look bad. Over in China, the price

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Speaker 1: of GPUs has plummeted. For example, the Asus g Force

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Speaker 1: r t X thirty sixty had been selling for around

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Speaker 1: two thousand eighty seven dollars in China but for the

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Speaker 1: clamp down, and now it's being sold at around seven

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Speaker 1: hundred sixty three dollars, which you know, obviously that's still

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Speaker 1: expensive to buy a computer component for seven sixty three dollars,

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Speaker 1: but it's less than half of what the price had

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Speaker 1: been just a few months earlier. Hopefully this means that

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Speaker 1: it will be easier to find and less expensive to

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Speaker 1: buy a GPU if you want to build out a

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Speaker 1: gaming rig. I kind of want to build out a

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Speaker 1: gaming rig, so I guess this is good news for me,

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Speaker 1: particularly since I don't have a bunch of money sunk

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Speaker 1: into bitcoin. In space news, the Hubble space Telescope has

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Speaker 1: been struggling this month. On June, the Space Telescopes payload computer,

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Speaker 1: which controls the various scientific instruments aboard the Hubble and

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Speaker 1: also monitors them to make sure that they're working properly

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Speaker 1: and you know, they're in good health. Essentially, it went offline.

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Speaker 1: NASA has attempted to restart the computer a couple of times,

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Speaker 1: but with no success. This week, the agency tried to

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Speaker 1: switch the computer from one memory module to another. It

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Speaker 1: has four, each of them is an independent unit, and

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Speaker 1: it's there for redundancy, but that also hasn't worked. There

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Speaker 1: is a second onboard computer, again for the purposes of redundancy,

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Speaker 1: so NASA might be able to rely on that while

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Speaker 1: trying to restore the primary computer to operational status. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, the scientific instruments connected to the computer are

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Speaker 1: in safe mode. The Hubble Space Telescope has been in

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Speaker 1: service for decades, and the last maintenance mission took place

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Speaker 1: way back in two thousand nine. The James Webb Space Telescope,

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Speaker 1: which in many ways is this successor to the Hubble,

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Speaker 1: should launch this November. If all goes well, and this

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Speaker 1: particular space telescopes launch date has slipped several times already,

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Speaker 1: I am very eager to see it actually enter into orbit.

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Speaker 1: Also in space news, it's time to talk about the

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Speaker 1: intersection of space politics and money. All right, So here's

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Speaker 1: the deal. NASA has the Artemis program, which is supposed

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Speaker 1: to send astronauts back to the Moon for the first

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Speaker 1: time in more than half a century. The last moon

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Speaker 1: landing with astronauts was in nineteen seventy two. The goal

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Speaker 1: is to do this by twenty four, which is right

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Speaker 1: around the Ding Dang corner. But the agency is to

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Speaker 1: do this with very little in the way of additional budget.

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Speaker 1: Setting a lofty goal with little financial support seems like

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Speaker 1: it's a recipe for failure right anyway, Faced with this

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Speaker 1: seemingly impossible situation, NASA chose to work with SpaceX to

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Speaker 1: develop a lunar landing module that could land on and

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Speaker 1: take off from the Moon's surface. It's pretty much what

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Speaker 1: NASA could afford. Then the US Senate approved an additional

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Speaker 1: budget of ten billion dollars to help NASA fund the

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Speaker 1: development of a second lander so that the agency would

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Speaker 1: not be totally dependent upon SpaceX, And all seemed to

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Speaker 1: go well until we got to the House of Representatives,

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Speaker 1: that's the other half of the US Congress. US there,

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Speaker 1: NASA saw some opposition, with the House Science Committee skipping

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Speaker 1: over supporting those extra funds. The heart of the matter

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Speaker 1: is that NASA would look to Blue Origin, which is

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Speaker 1: the Jeff Bezos private space company, and that you know,

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Speaker 1: the representatives aren't necessarily a fan of using taxpayer money

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Speaker 1: to make the world's richest man even wealthier. And NASA

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Speaker 1: wants to pursue a fixed price contract, while Congress would

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Speaker 1: prefer a cost plus contract. Fixed price means what it

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Speaker 1: sounds like, the parties inside the contract they all agree

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Speaker 1: ahead of time as to how much goods and services

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Speaker 1: are going to cost right at the front end of

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Speaker 1: the agreement, and even if the materials or the services

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Speaker 1: increase in the amount that they you know, are required,

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Speaker 1: the cost doesn't go up. The cost is fixed at

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Speaker 1: whatever level it was said at, and same if the

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Speaker 1: cost goes down, like if materials suddenly get cheaper, well

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Speaker 1: they're still gonna cost the same because that was the

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Speaker 1: agreed upon price. Cost plus reflects the actual cost of production,

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Speaker 1: which can vary over time. So at some points in

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Speaker 1: the project it might be that you're paying more per unit,

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Speaker 1: and at other times you might be paying less. And

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Speaker 1: in government jobs, the cost plus approach typically means that

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Speaker 1: the government has some leverage when it comes to where

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Speaker 1: these projects can happen, and that can mean jobs. And

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Speaker 1: congress folks love to make sure that the regions they

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Speaker 1: represent get lots of jobs. That's the way you get

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Speaker 1: a lot of voters is you deliver jobs to that region.

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Speaker 1: And that makes sense, but it might also mean that

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Speaker 1: it might not be the best thing for the actual project.

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Speaker 1: This is complicated because you've got a lot of factors

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Speaker 1: that come into play. At the same time. You've got

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Speaker 1: a race to meet deadlines, you've got the desire to

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Speaker 1: be efficient with use of taxpayer money, you've got the

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Speaker 1: desire to bring jobs to your constituents. All of these

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Speaker 1: things aren't bad necessarily, but they don't necessarily work together

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Speaker 1: in harmony either, and that's where we see friction. Also,

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Speaker 1: there seems to be a lot of disdain being directed

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Speaker 1: towards the private space industry in general, like SpaceX and

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Speaker 1: Blue Origin. But really, once you strip away the veneer

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Speaker 1: of the space industry, you've got to admit that it

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Speaker 1: has always depended upon private companies. It's not like NASA

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Speaker 1: is filled with engineers who are actually making all the

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Speaker 1: rockets and stuff. They do play a big part in

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Speaker 1: design and making the specifications and all that, but NASA

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Speaker 1: signs contracts with various aerospace companies that end up making

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Speaker 1: the actual stuff that goes into space. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: NASA has always depended upon the private sector, just you know,

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Speaker 1: through government contracts. So I find it a little disingenuous

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Speaker 1: to specifically point out the private space sector. They're just

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Speaker 1: doing essentially the same thing, but in a different way.

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Speaker 1: Over in Ohio. Here in the United States, we're also

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Speaker 1: seeing politics, money, and tech conflict in another way. Over

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Speaker 1: the last twenty years, various communities within the US have

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Speaker 1: attempted to build out local community broadband infrastructure. Some places

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Speaker 1: have been wildly successful. Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's a jewel in

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Speaker 1: the crown when it comes to community broadband. Right now,

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Speaker 1: in the US, the national metric for meeting broadband speeds

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Speaker 1: is twenty five megabits per second. That's actually pretty low

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Speaker 1: when you look at things globally, it's definitely low. When

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Speaker 1: you look at Chattanooga, they're looking at ten gigabits a second.

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Speaker 1: And there are many places that have tried to build,

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Speaker 1: you know, out a broadband connectivity on a municipal or

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Speaker 1: regional level, only to meet resistance within local politics. So

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Speaker 1: why is there resistance, Well, it's probably because really big

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Speaker 1: telecommunications companies would rather they're not be regional options for

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Speaker 1: folks in order to get their internet service, because those

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Speaker 1: regional options usually mean that the big companies are going

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Speaker 1: to have to invest more money to build out infrastructure

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Speaker 1: and to service those communities in order to be competitive

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Speaker 1: with the local option. And competitiveness is something that the

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Speaker 1: big telecommunications companies traditionally aren't big fans of, particularly when

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Speaker 1: it comes to I s P s NOW. I've spoken

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Speaker 1: before about how in my own neighborhood the options for

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Speaker 1: internet services are really limited. There's only one provider that

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Speaker 1: actually offers a service that's faster than twenty five megabits

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Speaker 1: per second. Anyway, in Ohio, some politicians inserted an amendment

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Speaker 1: into the state budget that would limit community broadband to

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Speaker 1: areas that had less than ten megabits per second as

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Speaker 1: a download speed. That means that would restrict communities that

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Speaker 1: weren't even at the low national standard for broadband. If

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Speaker 1: that community was between ten and twenty five megabits per

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Speaker 1: second for downloads, they would be ineligible to set up

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Speaker 1: their own broadband network. It also limits how communities could

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Speaker 1: actually fund those initiatives. It would ban them from seeking

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Speaker 1: federal or state aid. They'd have to just fund it locally.

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Speaker 1: Such an amendment is um let's say, incredibly unpopular, and

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Speaker 1: now the politicians who introduced the amendment aren't really willing

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Speaker 1: to step forward and you know, vocally support it. There's

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Speaker 1: a general avoidance to holding public forums to discuss the matter. This,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is nothing new. There are other areas

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Speaker 1: where we've seen exactly the same thing, where these sorts

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Speaker 1: of amendments get buried into otherwise unrelated bills in an

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Speaker 1: effort to preserve telecommunication companies dominance in a region. So

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Speaker 1: we've seen it over and over again, and it'll be

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Speaker 1: interesting to see how it plays out in Ohio. There

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Speaker 1: are some places where this just hasn't come out in

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Speaker 1: the telecommunication company's favor, like Chattanooga. Now let's go underground,

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Speaker 1: as in the London Underground, the famous subway system that

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Speaker 1: makes getting around London a breeze, that is, if you're

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Speaker 1: paying attention to all maps and stuff. Now, I love

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Speaker 1: the Tube as it's also known, and I always mind

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Speaker 1: the gap, but I need to get to the story,

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Speaker 1: all right. So the Transport of London, that's an agency

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Speaker 1: in charge of these things, has a plan to provide

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Speaker 1: mobile phone connectivity throughout all of the London Underground by

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Speaker 1: the end of two Much of the Eastern Jubilee Line,

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Speaker 1: one of the many lines as part of London's underground,

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Speaker 1: already has a lot of coverage. So to provide this

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Speaker 1: kind of service, the Transport of London authority actually has

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Speaker 1: to work with providers to build out the equivalent of

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Speaker 1: cell towers underground, and collectively these provide uninterrupted service as

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Speaker 1: you wind your way under the city streets of London,

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Speaker 1: and considering that some of these trains feel like they've

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Speaker 1: been around since the subway first opened, I think that's

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Speaker 1: pretty darn nifty. Boston Dynamics, the robotics company famous for

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Speaker 1: viral videos showing four legged robots either being mercilessly shoved

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Speaker 1: or engaged in dancing routines, as a new owner, Young Day,

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Speaker 1: the South Korean car company, announced it has completed its

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Speaker 1: acquisition of a majority stake in Boston Dynamics. This was

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Speaker 1: a process that began last December. Day has a division

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Speaker 1: focused on mobility, and presumably Boston Dynamics will play a

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Speaker 1: part in that regard moving forward, and I'm sure we'll

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Speaker 1: continue to see more adorable and or terrifying videos of

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Speaker 1: Boston Dynamics robots. In the world of virtual reality, Facebook

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Speaker 1: saw a bit of a hiccup as a company that

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Speaker 1: had previously agreed to host ads within the Oculus VR

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Speaker 1: experience has since backed out of that agreement. The developer

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Speaker 1: in this case is Resolution Games, which has a paid

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Speaker 1: for title called blast On. So blast On is a

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Speaker 1: game that players purchase with their own dollar dollar bills.

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Speaker 1: Y'all and once it became known that blast On would

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Speaker 1: also act as a pilot for Facebook's AD project. In

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Speaker 1: VR gamer's got a wee bit upset, they provided let's

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Speaker 1: call it feedback to Resolution Games on the matter. My

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Speaker 1: guess is that people felt that it's not really cool

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Speaker 1: to see ads in a game that they had already

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Speaker 1: actually purchased. Some of them are may be likely concerned

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Speaker 1: about Facebook's rather shoddy passed when it comes to data

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Speaker 1: collection and advertising, and surely when the experience involves you

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Speaker 1: wearing a headset that provides everything you see and hear,

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Speaker 1: the idea of targeted, personalized advertising kind of gets pretty

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Speaker 1: darn creepy. Anyway, the response was strong enough to commence

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Speaker 1: Resolution Games to back pedal on the agreement, though the

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Speaker 1: company says it may use a different free to play

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Speaker 1: game as the testing grounds for ads. I think many

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Speaker 1: gamers would be somewhat mollified by that choice. No one

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Speaker 1: is super eager to see advertisements, but there does need

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Speaker 1: to be a revenue model in place for a company

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Speaker 1: to continue to make games. We'll follow up on this

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Speaker 1: story as we see how the ad project unfolds, and

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Speaker 1: finally have be twenty five birthday to the first person

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Speaker 1: shooter computer game Quake YEP. Quake launched on this day,

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Speaker 1: June twenty two. Way back in the title revolutionized the

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Speaker 1: computer games industry. While there had been other first person

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Speaker 1: shooters before Quake, like Wolfenstein three D and Doom, it

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Speaker 1: was Quake that introduced not just three dimensional environments, but

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Speaker 1: three dimensional characters as well. No longer were you running

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Speaker 1: around and shooting the equivalent of a cardboard cutout, and

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Speaker 1: the underlying game engine would become an incredibly popular one

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Speaker 1: for video game developers over the following years. While I

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Speaker 1: was never a big Quake player, I mean I played

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Speaker 1: a lot of Doom in Wolfenstein, I definitely recognized the

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Speaker 1: incredible contribution the game made to the entire industry. So

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Speaker 1: happy birthday, Quake. And that's it for the tech News

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Speaker 1: for Tuesday, June twenty two, twenty twenty one. If you

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Speaker 1: have any topics you would like me to cover in

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Speaker 1: future EPISO SuDS of tech Stuff, reach out to me

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Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle is tech Stuff h s W

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Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y text

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Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app

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Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.