 We'll make a lot bit less the Great Lakes Megalopolis includes Toronto Detroit and Chicago So the Golden Horseshoe and then the area includes the whole Golden Horseshoe Yeah Good times good times. I want pie I'm going to have pie later today rub my face in it. Come on join me No one's stopping you Roger I can take care of themselves for an hour can't afford pie gotta feed the kids Roger has to put pie on the table for me. I gotta put I gotta put pie in my family Okay Well then friends shall we begin we shall let's do it here we go Right now DTNS has one more patron than last month and that patron is Beth Gilmore who has supported independent tech news directly for about a day Be like Beth become a DTNS member at patreon.com slash DTNS This is the Daily Tech news for Thursday May 9th 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio feline I'm Sarah Lane from Oakland, California. I'm Justin Robert Young and from somewhere on the show's producer Roger Chang Better than nowhere. We are going to talk about the editorial that's sweeping the nation From one of Facebook's founders about saying Facebook should be broken up That's a little bit like something a senator once proposed. We'll talk about all of that in a minute But let's start with a few tech things you should know Samsung co-CEO DJ co told the Korea Herald that the company has received the defect to the Galaxy Fold and plans to confirm a new launch date by the end of the week This would reportedly involve improving the durability of the exposed areas of that hinge and reducing the gap between the screens bezels and its protective layer Germany is testing a system that uses overhead electrified cabling to deliver six hundred and seventy volts of DC power to trucks Pentagraphs or conductor rods the Siemens developed e-highway is designed to work with a custom Scania hybrid truck developed by VW if it's going less than 56 miles an hour The test is set to run until 2022 and if successful could expand more broadly. Oh good Trollies just like in San Francisco Nintendo announced it will stream its next Nintendo Direct on June 11th at 12 Eastern Right at the open of E3 because that's 9 a.m. Pacific Nintendo says it will focus on its game lineup for 2019 Wink-wink, which means don't expect a hardware announcement All right, let's talk a little more about something Google is doing to help folks who don't have a credit card Google has announced it's launching pending transactions Which will let Android users in emerging markets pay for apps and in-app purchases with cash bank transfers and direct debit When downloading an app users can select an alternative payment at checkout This will generate a payment code which then can be taken to nearby stores that accept Google pay to make payment Users will receive their purchase within 10 minutes and a proof of payment email refunds will only be available with play store credit I love this idea as far as making Payments more accessible. It's not the easiest way to do it But I imagine if you don't have a credit card and you want to buy apps You know through the play store, which is a safer way to do it This this might be the way to do it I mean buying some some Google pay gift card type things would work, too But this is essentially opening up avenues for payments which in developing markets Which is where all the battle for market share is right now is an important avenue to provide It also shows you how valuable having the payment Of Google pay having that the method be pioneered is very very very important for the future of these companies where You are dealing with a lot of little transactions constantly now is Google Making sure that a store that offers Google pay must accept this Cash transaction could the store say we don't do that Good that is a good question. I did not see an answer to that here I didn't either I assume a store could say that, you know, we're we're not going to do that But but I don't know why they wouldn't I would guess that yeah that that's part Yeah, cuz then you're in the store and you might buy something else. Yeah, right Yeah, they want they want to get you in there even if you're just buying angry birds You know, I've got a friend. She's she's in the US who for her own reasons Doesn't have a bank account. She has an Android phone She pays for the phone at her local the store that she got the phone in cash when it's when the bill is due I mean her life runs fairly well considering she's pretty off the grid This would be perfect for her because up until now Anything that required payment that was that was you know, like a mobile Online payment or anything anything to do with her phone that wasn't just a free app that she could get you know By pressing a button. She just couldn't participate in so this would actually work for her. Wow. I don't That's fascinating. I feel like all I want to do is talk about your friend's life. Yeah, well That would be the last thing she'd want me to do but yeah, I mean it's that these this people do this This is this is the way to live but at the same time you are shut out of of I don't know a cool paid app that you'd be happy to read dollars for My mom does the same thing with iOS. She does not purchase anything that that isn't free And she will buy gift cards You know iTunes gift cards and give herself a little credit for some non-free stuff But she does not link a credit card to her iTunes account for her iPhone Well, good on you Google Helping people pay for apps. Yeah, if you too are hoarding money under your mattress, please email the show Samsung announced a new image sensor the ISO cell bright GW one It has a 64 megapixel sensor with the same size pixels as its 48 megapixel sensor This means it'll be bigger and also capture more light It'll generate 16 megapixel images by emerging four pixels the 48 megapixel sensors generate 12 megapixel images Exactly the same way pretty same anyway The bright GW one will also be able to Descramble the color filter for a full res 64 megapixel shot if you have enough light for it And the part will go into mass production in the second half of the year So it could show up in phones later this year. Yeah This is similar to what Sony already does that the part where it can it can break descramble the color filter Sony does that with its 48 megapixel sensor right now So Samsung kind of leapfrogged ahead of them by doing this not only with a 48 megapixel But this new 64 megapixel sensor expect Sony to come out with a 64 megapixel sensor Soon and then by the end of the year we'll have we'll have a bunch of options for manufacturers to make these kind of cameras There are some limits though Roger I know you and you and Amos we're talking about this in our prep meeting about how yes, it's a bigger image sensor Which means or the pixels are the same size Which means that theoretically should still work, but there might be some limits to that I mean depends on how they package it and I mean there are limits to what you can do in order to have these things Uh fit into various devices, right? I mean ideally you would want as physically big of a An area as you as you can possibly get away with but you do have constraints on the target package It remains to be seen. I mean once it's out and and people can test it, you know, we'll get a better idea It definitely looks promising but at the same time I've seen similar attempts in the past end up with Kind of okay results, but the the current 48 megapixel sensors are pretty good, right? Yeah, and uh, you know This is one of the caveats about digital imaging more mega megapixels doesn't necessarily mean an increase in image quality Correct So we get an email every time we mention megapixels on the show instructing us that and that's why we're trying very hard to say It's also the same size pixels on a bigger sensor. So yeah Hopefully leaning into that a little because you're right, uh, and and hopefully this is a big enough sensor that it makes up for the fact that it has more of them Um Nike is adding a feature to its app called Nike fit that uses a computer vision Algorithm to scan your feet and then some other algorithms to recommend the right shoe size In the listing for for shoes in its app You'll have a new option to measure instead of just picking a size when you do that your camera opens up And instructs you to stand next to a wall you point your phone's camera at your feet You'll get a couple of circles appear. They're calling it augmented reality It's really just two circles appear but whatever two circles appear to help you get a level shot And then once it's good it scans your foot and recommends a size You can save the scan to your profile then to make future size choices And in fact, you can even Give it to people if you go into a nike store and say like hey This is my actual shoe sizes scanned by the app That'll help them pick the right shoe because different lines of shoes even within nike sometimes come in Varying sizes, even though they're all called nine or eight or ten or whatever This is expected to arrive in the u.s Nike app in july and in europe in august Yeah, my first reaction was like if you don't know your shoe size by now Well, it depends on how old you are of course, but you know if I don't like I kind of know my shoe size But nike specifically I use for running. It's a good running shoe. It just fits me well But only certain styles do not all nike styles Some of them are too wide in the heel and my left foot is slightly bigger than my right foot So there's you know, there's there's some There there are some some variables here. So, you know, it's pretty cool pretty cool I would also say that for and I would suspect many of the listeners if you are not a sneakerhead or Buying shoes for fashion purposes if you have a very utilitarian relationship with shoe buying Then you probably don't do it all that often and if you Purchased a too big Size shoe or maybe even a too small size shoe then a lot of those decisions last for years and years and years and years and years So you could really just make two bad decisions and have a miss size shoe for a decade Yeah And I know my shoe size it's between 10 and 11 depending on the brand depending on the type of shoe And I always have to try them on just to find out is this one the one that's 10 and a half is This is the one that's 11 And so having this system for any Uh a thing I don't really buy Nike shoes that often But man, I would love to have this on the shoes that I do buy to say like this is actually what my foot size is Can you match it with the shoes that fit so I don't have to sit here trying on three different pairs every time I go into a store You know, I actually I I kind of forgotten about this because I'm annoyed with myself But I bought a really cute pair of Adidas shoes online So I didn't try them on beforehand And I'm a pretty standard size six maybe 5.5 with a boot every once in a while, but um, they run big and Didn't say anything about that on the page and had adidas had this app because I don't have any shoes like this particular model I would have used this and I would have now So thanks a lot. Yeah, adidas all day. I dream about you having that app so I can have more Sure Of my online buying Tell us what your shoe size is. Oh I don't know. Yeah, pay up man. And I think Maybe nine and a half it depends. I really need the app On an investor call redfin ceo glenn kelman Acknowledge that the company has started the redfin direct program in boston over the last six weeks Allowing home buyers to make an offer on real estate listings without an agent Potential home buyers must complete a 55 question form to build a competitive offer And pay redfin one percent of the purchase price Replacing agent fees that can be up to two and a half percent in the initial trial of the 122 listings with accepted offers Five were from redfin direct with 12 rejecting a direct offer Kelman stated that the program will expand to virginia Yeah, so the first thing that roger and I who have both purchased homes Thought of is well, wait But realtors do other things than just negotiate the price and accept the offer There's there's there's things involved with paperwork and getting your mortgage together and the escrow and titles and and that sort of thing And I wonder how these people handle that are these people who feel comfortable doing that themselves and getting the escrow company themselves Why don't you want to know what tom? You're absolutely right travel agents do so much more than just booking your hotel They also lay out your travel. They lay man Oh, I immediately I immediately jumped on the train a book of my own travel online I'm not I'm I just I'm not saying you can't do this But I'm wondering what other parts of that process are involved here because these are serious legal parts like title insurance and title transfer Not like oh, but the travel agent also books your hotel for you I guess my larger point is that if they do get into this Yes Homebuying is something that is monumental that is very legally binding that is oftentimes the largest financial decision that you will make and It can be automated like everything else can you you can even if it's Finding another human that does it a part and parcel but at a cheaper rate at a more A economic rate than you know giving a percentage of the home buying purchase over to somebody else I think that you can handle a lot of this kind of stuff this to me It's just more legally complex than a lot of other things that most people do and that's why there's a 55 question form to build Your competitive offer. I get that it sounds like they're trying to cover some of that stuff I'm just curious how much of that is well. Yeah, and so okay So say you're a real estate agent, which I've always kind of thought maybe I'd end up doing if I don't know technology goes away Any day now, but uh, you're you know, are you in trouble? Okay. This is a small roll out Sure, redfin is like, okay. Well people are kind of starting to use it and we're going to expand a little bit But let's look a few years into the future. I mean is being a real estate agent something that you know was going to go away and If if I wanted to use redfin direct to take advantage Of that, but you know having a lower fee than what the agent would would Ask me to give If you use an agent if you work with an agent It's sort of like going into a store and seeing what you like and then buying it on amazon for cheaper later It's like now where how do we get into that weird gray area because if an agent's mad at you, but you buy the house I mean, do you really care? Yeah Again, I I would be curious to see real estate agents who listen to this show Let us know how much they are afraid of these platforms Effectively taking their chaps Or how much the platform it just doesn't worry them because it doesn't provide the right services Feedback at daily tech news show.com. Uh, let us know what you think because I'm with Justin on the longer term Like all that stuff can be automated I'm just not sure 55 questions is enough to automate it and I didn't get any uh clarity out of the ski choir story Particularly about that part of the process. So I'm just curious Well, maybe you'll like this next story French company pop show built an app on snapchat snap kit platform called yolo that lets users solicit anonymous questions Oh, what could go wrong? You use yolo to send and ask me anything invitation to selected contacts Order the public on snapchat questions are then sent through yolo and then your answers show up on snapchat One week later the company is as surprised as anyone that is the number one most downloaded iphone app in the u.s And the uk yolo has a warning at launch that says it has no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users And it contains flagging and blocking features as well child safety advocates are criticizing the app not surprising Yeah, uh, there's there's the whole child safety Part of this which is like this is being used by teens This is most popular by teens and will it be used for bullying? How badly will that happen? So far it doesn't seem like those complaints are very high But it's also early days The other aspect of this is is this just the next sarahah slash yip yak Where it'll be popular for a period of time and then fade away as teens get bored with it I remember form spring. It was kind of before the mobile days But that was that was a big deal and then it got real nasty and it kind of went away Everybody was like, well, okay. That was an interesting fad. I see this exact thing that yolo does on on instagram stories Um, and I don't know some people like that kind of thing like hey, that's not anonymous. That's the only different, right? Right, but it's not us. But sure. No, no, no, no, it's almost the exact same thing Instagram stories you can uh, solicit like you ask your your people a question, right? And then they can respond back to you but you see who it is. That's Yeah, oh, yeah Exactly this is it's I would I would almost Bet my well, I won't bet my life on anything But I would bet some money that yolo will fade away as its predecessors have Contrary an opinion then does it mean something that this idea does keep popping up. We like we named like three different things Like right yeah, is somebody gonna figure out how it stays around and then the question is Did yolo do it by adding snapchat images building it on snapchats new platform and putting in warnings and controls Or is it still yet the magic formula to be determined? Hey folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to a daily tech headlines dot com all right In an op-ed in the new york times facebook Co-founder as he's sometimes called chris use called on the u.s. Government to break up facebook Let's dig into first who chris uses he was one of the roommates in harvard along with eduardo saverin Dustin moskovitz andrew mccullum who helped zuckerberg get facebook off the ground in 2004 If you're curious, he was played by patrick mappel in the movie the social network mappel also played pfc dinkins in madman Dinkins is associated with the jfk conspiracy theory. But anyway, that's a side thing Hughes left facebook in 2007 to volunteer for the obama campaign. So he's political that's going to play into this He was the publisher and editor in chief of the new republic from 2012 to 2016 Most people think it was not terribly successful under his stewardship And he's now a co-chair of the economic security project He has sold all of his stock in facebook. That's important to know He's not trying to hurt or drive it up. He sold it all in 2012 And thursday in an op-ed piece published in the new york times Hughes argued that the ftc and the department of justice should force facebook to spin off instagram and whatsapp and bar facebook from acquisitions for several years wherever i heard that before He writes mark is a good kind person But i'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for cliques And i'm worried that mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them He goes on to say mark alone can decide how to configure facebook's algorithms to determine what people see in their news feeds What privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered When it hasn't acquired its way to dominance facebook has used its monopoly position to shut out competing companies or has copied their technology Now he does talk about the wider philosophy Of whether companies are getting too big these days in the us and he also calls for a government agency to regulate privacy And create guidelines for acceptable speech on social media But justin you seem to have something to say Well, uh, you've kind of hinted at it twice and and that was exactly my reaction in reading the op-ed is man, this seems familiar This seems a lot like elizabeth warren's uh stated plan not only to break up facebook but also amazon and google Uh, I then did a little digging and indeed hughes has given the maximum allowable donation to elizabeth warren's current presidential campaign in february That is two thousand eight hundred dollars months after he gave ten thousand four hundred to her joint fundraising committee He is also given a twenty seven hundred to mayor pet Buddha judge the south bend mayor and two hundred and fifty dollars To the leader of the yang gang andrew yang, uh, who are also running for president in the democratic primary I don't I think I mean Upon realizing that this this seems to me like a campaign ad that's what it reads like to me And I have the same feelings about it Although undoubtedly this is a more personal tale than elizabeth warren making a policy proposal But I have the same feelings about it that I did her policy proposal, which is I don't exactly know what this achieves even if you are to spin off what's app and uh instagram I don't know how viable what's up and instagram are as other companies nor do I think that it necessarily gets To the heart of why we have problems with facebook Which is the fact that they are an ad sales company and they continue to funnel Everybody in to get maximum usage out of them So they can sell ads against them if this proposal was to spin off facebook's ad sales I I think that you would be driving more to the uh more to the heart of of Controlling their their instincts, but I don't think that facebook Of snapping up companies and spinning off the ones that they have Really does much Yeah, I we should mention facebook's response because former liberal democrat party leader in the uk and one time deputy prime minister The uk who is now the facebook vp of global affairs nicklas clag Said facebook accepts that with success comes accountability But you don't enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful american company Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet So really pushing that zuckerberg op-ed that he wrote for the washington post of hey Now that we're big enough that we can survive. Please come regulate our competition out of i'm sorry That's not what he said. He said please regulate the internet Uh, this is this is what we need. We need your help government. And that's so that's the party line Yes, and I think it was it was not uh, uh, not not a A mistake or not not not a coincidence that they got somebody that Definitely isn't connected to mark zuckerberg So it didn't seem like this was a personal thing between zuckerberg and hues I mean, what's happened instagram being independent companies on the surface? It's like well a lot of people don't even know facebook owns them anyway They'll just keep chugging along But it all depends on who runs those companies right if facebook was gotten broken up Like is the rule then that nobody who's ever worked at facebook can be the ceo of either of these companies We're in some sort of management role or on the board There there are like you said just I mean there are a lot of questions of what what would change unless it was really stringent rules Yeah, good good good instagram not contract with facebook to sell their ads Because that's effectively the relationship that they have now I mean obviously people that are employed by facebook are running instagram and the founders for both of those companies have You know since left because they didn't uh feel that that match with their initial vision, but That is the relationship the the relationship that matters Right now is that facebook owns these companies because they are going to put ads in them They are going to continue to bolster how they make money, which is selling advertisement I mean, I think This is why I think that you're right This is either a political ad or an audition for somebody who likes to work on campaigns to say hey beth look what I could do Uh, I this this is an easy thing to get people to understand. Let's break up facebook You're all mad at facebook right right am I right great? Let's knock them apart into those three pieces instagram. What's up in facebook? Uh, but mike masik wrote a really detailed breakdown of how all of the problems that hues identifies in his op-ed Aren't necessarily solved by taking instagram and whatsapp away from facebook Facebook would still have zuckerberg in charge zuckerberg would still be in charge of the news feed He would still be in charge of your privacy controls He would still be in charge of marketing data to third party people Facebook would still see all the things all the problems with facebook Aren't fixed by getting rid of instagram and whatsapp now granted it would reduce the income It would could potentially provide some competitors But even before facebook owned them instagram and whatsapp weren't particularly competitors with facebook Yeah has plenty of competitors right now and has also been encrypted So it's not contributing to the problem of facebook spying on you and it's the more competitive aspect of the business I think you have to Limit what facebook can do with its market position if you wanted to go after them at all breaking them up into three companies doesn't seem to solve the problem No, how it is. However a very good campaign thing because like you mentioned Technological questions business like monopoly questions are complicated the solutions take forever And you need to justify them repeatedly. This is a process that moves Glacially, however You that's hard to say to a voter that that's hard to get across in a soundbite. What's easy is you know these things You know these things we're gonna separate them, you know, we're going to break them up That's it's just leveraging the brand names of these companies To make a larger point, which is that tech has gone out of control and there is a larger hues makes a larger philosophical idea that America has strayed too far away from its Roots of having a firmer hand and breaking up monopolies and that we should return to that which is you know That that's that's an intellectual line of thought that he's allowed to have but here we are Well, you know who else is intellectual? Everyone who participates in our subreddit Or even competitive with each other because you never know who's gonna rise to the top Unless it's a really good story You can submit your own and vote on them at daily tech news show dot reddit.com and facebook.com Slash groups slash daily tech news show We also like your emails. We do we do almost 100 of the time. It's a wonderful email Tyler wrote on dtns number 35 26. You were discussing the reduction in google assistant ai model sizes You discussed the improvement in latency and commented that this could allow for greater security They did in fact address address this during i o they discussed the use of federated learning to enhance security An excerpt from a google blog post says as follows It works like this your device downloads the current model Improves it by learning from data on your phone and then summarizes the changes as a small focused update Only this update to the model is sent to the cloud Using encrypted communication where it's immediately averaged with other user updates to improve the shared model All the training data remains on your device and no individual updates are stored in the cloud Keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Tyler. I I wish google had hit that a little more in its keynote But uh, but i'm i'm glad that that they have that there and it's very well explained It's very similar to the way apple was explaining their model as well And i'm glad to see google moving to that so really appreciate sending along that link tyler. You're the best We also got Some feedback about our discussion of neighborhoods and apps like next door and amazon's neighbors Upcoming neighbors. Um kimberley the texas teacher wrote in and a really great email. We don't have time to read it In full, but she made some good points about some issues that she's had where she lives Which is in texas and one of them was that a neighbor had incorrectly identified A a common neighbor of theirs as a sex offender because she'd found the address on an outdated list somewhere And the person who lived there ended up getting harassed by neighbors who Incorrectly thought that she was the person so that's not good You know a little bit of that herd mentality that that spread really quickly another example. She used was that She walks her dog a lot and a neighbor Uh started getting suspicious like this woman is walking by my house way too often She's doing something nefarious here And some other neighbors had seen that post on the app that everybody was involved with And then ended up coming back to kimberley and saying We're just saying this stuff about you so you can see where this does go haywire sometimes where people are They're not necessarily china ruin anybody's day, but they're they're spreading false information Too quickly on the other side. Uh, I was real hard on the ring App but capy wrote in to say that uh That some some police arrests have been made based on information from ring in his neighborhood And including a couple break-ins to his car. So there's there's positive on that side of the ledger too Thanks to everybody, uh, who wrote in with their experiences on this It's a it's a nuanced issue as I hope we got across yesterday when we talked about And thanks also to justin robert young nuanced or not We love you every thursday whenever we can have you and let folks know where they can Keep up with your work. Well, I'll tell you what I'll be writing a little bit more about this op-ed and the political ramifications of it On my newsletter the free political newsletter that you can get at free political newsletter dot com Head on over there right now sign up. By the way, thank you. I shout it out last week We were looking for our 177 to break the 1776 barrier and we did it in like minutes So I'm excited. We are now on to the the the year 2000 barrier So if you want to join the team head on over free political newsletter dot com And this is the best time to become a dts member that I could think of in a long time Right now if you're an associate producer or level or up you have a column from roger If you're like any more roger opinion in my life He's got a column of the things he liked out of google i o up there right now Coming soon within the next day You're going to get live with it a report on the jabra headphones by sarah lane a very detailed report is coming your way I've got an editor's desk where I break down an article about hacks to mri and ct scanners And how well that's performed that's coming to the associate producer level and then early access to my interview this weekend About rfid and what you really need to be worried about and what you don't so you got to get all this stuff folks patreon.com Slash dts If you've got feedback direct that feedback to feedback at daily tech news show dot com If you'd like to join us live monday through friday at 4 30 p.m eastern 2030 utc Put it on your calendar and find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live back tomorrow with len parolta and patrick norton talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com So Jam packed show wouldn't it though Tasty layer cake of a show yum yum including feet Wow feet Oh, yeah, I was like tasty feet No such thing Well, it depends on who you ask although. Yeah, it sounds like a question come in on that yolo app Yeah Are you hoarding cash email dts? Yeah Uh, you know, my mom doesn't have a credit card. She is nothing's paranoid. Oh, I know i'm uh google gives you some credit We're not talking about facebook. Well, but we are Uh, nikey glass slipper. Okay, I got it Facebook breaking up is hard to do. I feel familiar somehow Uh Hughes gets in zuck's face book Get it gets in his face That's okay Facebook's x wants a breakup. Huh clever Hughes facebook breakup pictures of feet isn't always creepy Actually like the uh Facebook's x wants a breakup I like that one. That's pretty very clever. Yeah, they're all good, but this one shines Yeah, you're you're you're all my favorite this one this one spark join So which one was it the uh, these mix x wants a breakup Got it and the doc for you. You can just cut and paste it Gdi though First rule of gdi Don't talk about facebook. Don't talk about facebook because you're gonna talk about facebook a lot I need a face. I need a face space from facebook The safe space a face space um Something that we didn't get to on the show Uh, I I was curious to see whether or not elizabeth warren has uh trumpeted this op ed You would think that she would considering Uh similar to her proposal, but as of yet at the very least She has not uh on her instagram Pay no attention to the senator behind the op ed Yeah, I mean, I I don't think there's necessarily anything uh, uh nefarious about it. Uh, although it is a very very funny picture of uh zuckerberg on the uh on the on the op ed it's just like like the the side-by-side of chris hughes looking very serious directly around then zuckerberg with the like I swear to god, I'm never if I ever become a public figure. I'm in politics. I'm never looking down Always you're getting every politician has the shot of them Down or even worse looking down and in silhouette and you can't help So many pictures being taken of you it does it takes half a second for you to go like Who and then bow me not today satan? No nose will never will never go below 50 degrees You'll have a harness on that'll just stop it. Yeah, I'll just You know the chin will always be up By the way bio cows wanting me uh to continue my my promised conversation on the great lakes megalopolis I don't know that I have that much more to say on it. What is the great lakes megalopolis? Well, okay, so i'm i'm headed up to hamilton ontario For the marshal mcloon round table or marshal mcloon variety hour round table event In in july And I was talking to david the psychologist Who's one of the co-hosts of that show and and a buddy of mine? About you know, he's like don't call it to ronoh at hamilton people in hamilton get real sensitive about the fact that they're their own town Yeah, they're not a suburb of toronto And so we started riffing on on stuff like the golden horseshoe and and all these names for regions and everything And it turned and then I ran across the phrase the great lakes megalopolis great lakes megalopolis, which is a mega region of the us and canada consisting of uh pennsylvania and upstate new york Through southern ontario southwestern kebek and including parts of illinois ohio and michigan What the heck? And i'm just like how is this useful in any way? So it so it contains within it chicago toronto and detroit Yeah, as well as milwaukee grand rapids cleveland fitzberg buffalo rochester windsor Wait rochester. Yeah I know i mean it's it's the the original idea behind the megalopolis was to have economic ties like There had to be some sort of economic tie for all those areas to be kind of concerned into To one so i'm just wondering how upstate new york Like is there a lot of trade across the border? The same way yeah, but i mean for those cities like do they do they produce in their primary? Well, this is it. This is an outdated concept. Uh, so presumably in 1961 We're all feeding into detroit. Uh detroit was considered the the central urban area in the great lakes megalopolis So yeah down the seaway from rochester into detroit sure that makes sense. It doesn't make as much sense now when that's definitely not happening Um, yeah, it was outlined as an emergent megalopolis in the 1961 hit book megalopolis by french geographer john gullman. He also wrote, uh Towering inferno. No he did Man who gonna remember that who gonna forget that page turner Towering inferno is great. No the other one didn't write towering inferno It's not a joke if no one knows you're not serious That's just misinformation. It's just deliberate misinformation Uh I want to see these mega okay the great lakes megalopolis is huge Obviously the northeast megalopolis is all the things you'd expect philadelphia new york, boston, washington dc outside The piedmont atlantic megalopolis includes atlanta and stretches into south carolina and tennessee There's of course the florida megalopolis made up of florida nice So wait, it's just your crazy Although the panhandle is part of the gulf coast megalopolis good take it. Yeah Then there's the texas triangle of austin san antonio dallas and houston Yeah, but isn't that still a thing though like the texas triangle Yeah, I used to hear that every once in a while like not as a megalopolis, but just kind of like that I mean that's basically just referring to like The population center of town You know The two megalopolis is on here that feel real to me are southern california Which this little blob just looks like a map of la to me. I'm like, yeah That's pretty much right and northern california which extends into the the central valley a little more than than I think people think about it But otherwise like yes sacramento oakland san rafael San josei sure Yeah, well, yeah, the southern california one Is you know, it also includes teowanna anaheim bakersfield vega long beach I don't know if I go all the way down San diego almost feels like part of the whole la area these days sometimes Yeah, no, no, I I mean because it stretches as west of vegas Yeah, vegas is a little bit of a stretch or it's our east is vegas What was the well, what do they give as a definition for megalopolis like how does it megalopolis? Yeah, that's a good question Nobody knows I think we're just picking teams Yeah is defined as a chain of roughly adjacent metro areas which may be somewhat separated or merged into a continuous urban region Yeah, I mean that's All right, you mean like a country No, no Because there's gap between cities in the united states, but the united states is a country Yeah, so like if you look at there's the northeast megalopolis That goes about as south as virginia Uh, but includes new jersey new york, I mean it's basically the tri-state area plus Uh, virginia like pennsylvania and virginia I mean it all comes down to how much How much empty empty space has to exist to make separation between a city, right? It's a ridiculous. Let's also just make it clear. This is a ridiculous concept and really doesn't deserve I'm not sure it's a terribly useful concept. It feels like a like a 20th century like fear Like we used to have separate cities, but now we have suburbs and they're all starting to blend together Oh Big cities are going to blend together. Yeah, that's what we call. This isn't what we call the metro area But also it makes a lot of sense when you think about the the worries of like the population bomb That that we were going to run out of space and and these are the new actual things that are are going to define our lives and then Those fears proved somewhat unfounded as there are still indeed plenty of empty space Yeah, there's something in here that I saw about the decline of society uh, yeah Described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline That a megalopolis a megalopolis. Yeah So early in the 20th century it was used as a portent of of, you know, the collapse of the west But uh later it was just used as a way to describe cities and then kind of don't think it ever really caught on Because we have we have dma's now right metro like you said rather metro areas Yeah, I think some of them make sense. There was a thing I read the other day that uh was talking about how uh phoenix and tusan Continue to move ever closer together And uh, if you look at the population patterns, they could be one Super metro area. Yeah, a martin sergeant's parents moved to some I don't know if it was a retirement community or just some new suburb kind of equidistant between the two and it was like And at you know from what I hear it it just sort of turned into something that was eventually going to be a big Yeah, it was all going to be one thing But they weren't in either city, but they weren't any further away from one than the other. Yeah Yeah, like in terms of yeah I feel like When I before I moved to la I would get in arguments a lot with people from la about whether anaheim was part of la Or not like no, it's not like but look it's right. I mean, how is that part of la? How is uh simi valley part of la, but anaheim's not like different county and people get weird It's old. It's like old definitions because yeah, this way of looking at it. It's like, yeah, it's all just one big region Well part of it is like simi valley A lot of those people who live in simi valley work in la and I so that goes back to the whole economic link Like if there's an economic linkage in other words, you might live in a suburb But you work or you generate a majority of your income from This region you would be connected to angeles do party at disneyland So there's an economic link. Hmm party at the disney I hear you're saying like we're you know, there's not a lot of people that commute To anaheim from simi valley. Probably I don't know. Maybe there I know there were people who commuted from sacramento into the bay into san francisco and People commute from a destoe in this the san francisco barrier. They wake up at 5 a.m The commute do it. That's a crazy thing. That is Anybody who does that should be crazy. I know if you have to do it, you have to do it Wow, it should affect your credit because how could anyone be lending you money when you're crazy Well because they already had those jobs, but when they were looking or for affordable housing They had to move further and further east companies should be informed that they're employing crazy people What they should do is build Efficient network linkage so you can kind of have Separate your workforce so they don't all have to be in one central space. I don't know My biggest problem is my friend who lives in sacramento is beating me in fantasy baseball right now. Oh, no wait does oh That is uh There's a conundrum jeff misado you guys Justin doesn't know. Oh wait. Does he still have the trophy? No, the trophy moves around every year to whoever wins the league That's the trophy of the fantasy baseball league. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, no, it moves to whoever when I've touched only But the one I've touched one time that one. It's like the stanley cup. It moves around You know, we don't give a new one to everybody It'd be great if you could alter it for each additional winners every time it comes around. There's like a new Yeah, that's what we do I've only seen it. But once how would I know? That was years ago that you saw it too and my I know in the place where east meets west was born A decade ago more that Yeah, I feel like I I've heard about east meets west for more than 10 years 14 October and turn 14 Wow, this is where it gets defiant and wants more wants more personal responsibility You're gonna have to get it in your own room. Yeah I need my own internet connection. I need to go live in the attic Is it you know, I guess There that used to be a big thing was like I need my own television my own phone line Those are the demands teenagers might make they may or may not get them at those things people wanted I bet it now it's just my own cell phone, right? Like that's pretty much covers all I remember I don't I mean I'm sure I wanted my own phone line You know because who wouldn't but like no one really had one that was like Because my the way that I've always worked There was a phone in the kitchen There was a phone in my parents bedroom and then at one point we got a portable phone So that could kind of roam around a little bit that was like Wow, yeah, the cordless. Oh, yeah Where you had to you know, take the antenna up and down But like you could like kind of go out into the front yard before But the the phone in my parents bedroom was always there because it was like an emergency thing Like they just had one like on the dresser and my friends would call in the middle of the night You know as you know in high school It's like you start getting phone calls at weird hours And they had just had it and so they just like threw a new phone line at me and was just like Now tell your friends to just call that line and stop all the rest of the houses So I was like bank error in my favor. Yeah, right That's great. Yeah I we never had a we had one phone on my entire Growing up. It was it was in We we had a kitchen that was kind of open into the fan into what we called the family room And it was like sitting right on the wall in between those two And my parents didn't put any other lines in the house. They were not even in their own room Was it the one with like the 12 foot or uh, like 54th cord cordless phone It was it was a beige phone with like the 12 foot Yes, ours was too. Yeah, like mounted on the wall. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah Yeah, and I would always you know, you kind of get the cord and my dad says don't pull the cord You're gonna you're gonna stretch the cord out, you know, like stop going so far away from the wall I could take it over into the living room. I couldn't quite sit on the couch I don't need to get away from everybody watching tv in the other room. Yeah Yeah Good times good times when everyone had to share the only communication device That was widely available Well video folks. Thank you for spending some time with us today. We really appreciate it Audio folks stick around. There's a little bit more to come started a little early today