 That is that is a commitment. Do we moved in together when we moved in together? She she came with an actual real But no actually when we know no I take it back when we moved in together She had a bed frame with a box spring and a mattress So I got up off the ground when we moved in together and when we got married is when we bought a brand new bed That actually had a platform And like a headboard. Yeah, yeah in that hole. Yeah sleigh bed You'll slay bed. No real big back in 2003. Hey, I had one. I had one I still have one if it didn't take up too much room That's slay bed from 2003. We finally got rid of when we moved here. Oh Wow, really? Yeah 15 years that bed lasted us by God I I Did your mattress after seven to eight years or something Like for health reasons. Yeah, we changed mattresses. It's just not bed frame. How often are you supposed to change a mattress? I just remember somewhere like every seven or eight years because I the mattress that I've been sleeping on for It's getting probably up to about seven There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't seem to be breaking down man. I'll tell you what I'm like If only there were online outlets for a new mattress Yeah, it's only we were that kind of podcast where we could offer you If we can offer you a great deal Perhaps a code Really, we're not so you're stuck finding your own mattress. Good. Well, what did you guys think of the Saturday Night Live podcast? I loved it catch Roger loved it. Tom and I didn't see it Are you are you purposely avoiding it? No, we just Haven't gotten there yet Was it funny? In your opinion, it was I think it was it was definitely I'm shocked it made air because it's a lot of like inside Sure podcast listener like I guess it is showing that podcast listenership is at least Grown to a point where there are tropes that we all understand that can now be made fun of to a more Wide a wider audience So it's like the the awards are Most awkward transition into a live read Like that But it's also it was the funniest to me because you could just you know for a fact These are the podcast that the SNL writers room listens It is it is Pod Save America and every true crime Like one of the categories whereas like Now it's situations where white girls don't belong or something and it's all about like these reporters going What situations but that was it was all that that was the true crime category that it was like like oh like I'm at a bar We're Nazis are hey, do you guy are you guys Nazis and they're like yeah, we love being Nazis But it was all like true crime investigative Like making sending up that genre and then there was another one after that where they clearly just ran out of podcast that they want To make fun of and just made up Well, we were sort of we were kind of laughing about the whole thing yesterday is like or two days ago whenever we were talking about this I think it was yesterday um that Podcasting may have arrived in a way that once SNL parodies you yeah, you're a real thing Well, I mean to me that this is the first time that they podcasted there They they sent up the jaunt the the whole idea of podcasting. I know that they yeah, and that was a a Phenomenon like a red hot phenomenon But this was the first time that I remember them Doing anything like that which I mean like it was funny they Called their their version of Pod Save America was like bros save America Roger should we start the show? Yes, we should start. Okay. All right if you say so Mr. Justin Robert Young I would prevail upon you to read line three today if you would indubitably all right delicious Delightful 10 seconds here. We go. I will give you a little count in five four three two one Thanks to everyone All right, we'll do this again Joe hold on hold on I was trying to I was trying to swallow a yawn right at the very beginning Uh, hold on let me readjust to my template. That's okay And I know it's a lot of pressure. Here we go five four three two Thanks to everyone who supports daily tech news show directly to find out more head to daily tech news show comm Slash support This is the daily tech news for Thursday November 15th 2018 in Los Angeles on Tom Merritt and from studio feline I'm Sarah Lane from smoky Oakland, California. I'm Justin Robert Young and now I'm Roger Chang the shows producer kudos to Justin for avoiding the portmanteau smokeland Well, that that is taken for other reasons in Oakland year-round but For this yeah, that nobody nobody likes this particular Permanent fog cloud hanging over. Yeah, no good. No good and and the fires down here are doing better I don't want to say they're Out of the woods literally but but they're doing better. How are they up on your end of the state? It is as bad as I've ever seen it including as bad as the Napa fires got last year I don't remember and we missed a large chunk of it because we were out of town But but just these last few days it's been thicker and and therefore longer Then I can remember to the point where you can stare at the Sun pretty much any any any moment of the day You can stare right at it and it's just this almost picturesque orange ball. Gotcha. All right. Well Stay safe anyone who is affected by the fires. Let's get on with the show and start with a few tech things You should know The raspberry pi foundation released the raspberry pi 3 model a plus Which has most of the improvements made to the B plus which was announced earlier this year But is cheaper at $25 and smaller with the board at 65 by 56 millimeters The a plus also features a 1.4 gigahertz 64 bit quad core arm cortex a 53 CPU 512 megabytes of LPDDR to SD ram dual band 802.11 ac and bluetooth 4.2 BLE USB mass storage boosting and thermal management have been approved as well The US FCC voted on Thursday to allow Telesat Canada SpaceX Kepler communications and Leo sat to roll out satellite based high speed internet services SpaceX had a preview previously been granted approval But this more recent approval allows for operations at lower altitudes Ubers reported net losses in Q3 were up 32% over last quarter However revenue in Q3 rose 5% quarter over quarter and rose 38% year over year for the first time Uber broke out Uber eats numbers and knew a separate line It makes up 2.1 billion of the overall gross bookings and the company says Uber eats is up 150% year over year Uber is releasing these earnings in advance of going public, which is expected to happen in 2019 Let's talk about those surface headphones Microsoft's entry into the headphone market in a big way and the reviews are in Justin. What do they say? Oh, they're good Tom Initial surface headphones reviews are in and for $350 the Verge says the wireless performance is quote-unquote Exceptional even with support only for Bluetooth 4.2 rather than the latest five Volume controls noise-canceling features are both impressive according to the Verge and the headphones have a good bass level Where the headphones are docked is with Cortana Which is overly sluggish and inconsistent and drains the battery life overall by constantly listening for the wake word Cortana Constantly so good headphones That's what I'm getting out of out of most of these reviews out there. Yeah, I mean the reviews across the board seem to be You know comfort level is pretty it varies by person but that the sound quality and and the you know the the the The headphones themselves seem to be pretty robust however, I Kept seeing over and over well, but the whole Cortana thing Kind of drains the battery and if you were using Google Home Assistant for example Yeah, it makes a lot more sense And so it's this whole thing where Microsoft's like we're not getting rid of Cortana But who is this actually for now some people might use it no problem But if you're not it sounds like it's a it's a it's a it's a mark against these headphones Well, what do you guys look for obviously sound is something that is paramount specifically to audio files But for Bluetooth headphones, what do you guys value the most because for me? It's just if it connects fast enough like I just went from the beats X to the AirPods And I don't think the AirPods look good. I feel like a weirdo wearing them They almost feel like they're gonna fall out of my ear at any second But they but do they fall out of your ear? They don't but I'm scared and that's yeah, which is why I never bought them But like they connect immediately. I can take one out. It pauses it. I put it back in like magic That to me is number one and as long as this does that I think that they'll be successful Yeah, battery life is number two for me though. I want them to last I don't want to constantly be thinking about charging them So that's that's a problem if this thing I don't want to use is draining my battery Maybe I and if Cortana worked really well if they weren't saying it was laggy and sort of Inconsistent they then maybe I'd put up with the battery life hit if it worked really well But it sounds like you don't get either Alphabet will stop development on bipedal robots at least as it dissolves a project that began in 2013 when the company bought Shaft which is a startup founded by University of Tokyo researchers Andy rumored led the project after he let left the android group before leaving the company entirely in 2014 Probably a factor as well in June of last year So 2017 soft bank announced it had agreed to purchase Shaft from alphabet However, reportedly some employees declined to be part of soft bank So they wouldn't do it. And so the deal fell through sources till Decay Yeah, this is Becoming a trend as we as we move into becoming comfortable those of us who have followed these companies from their infancy to now Google and Amazon and Apple and Facebook and everybody they're huge companies And they won't always follow through this is different than Google trying a beta of something and killing it This is Google buying a company Deciding they can't make it work and dissolving it And there's research that was done at the University of Tokyo that was essential to this and and granted the people Who have that knowledge are gonna go other places Google's trying to find a places to work But it's it's sad to see Something like this just get dissolved rather than the old Google with Project X would have continued to fund it to see where it ended up Well, the problem is where it can end up and we're gonna talk a lot more about the world of Facebook and public relations specifically when it comes to political issues but the most likely places that these kind of robots end up are either Automating businesses which gets you into a they took our jobs kind of situation or as a military supplier Which makes you now a in a very competitive space with Lockheed Boeing and all these other military contractors But also puts an element of your bottom line into a very politically motivated Area and that's something that I think Google is wise to divest themselves I think they could have divested themselves better and finding a home for this company now you tell me to shut my mouth Don't go. Oh, shut up. Um, just talking about shaft stop it you damn right Speaking of Japan Japan's new cyber security manager Yoshitaka Sakurada told lawmakers I have never used a computer in my life He said when computer use is necessary. I order my employees or secretaries To do it a follow-up question asked if USB drives were in use at nuclear power plants He said he didn't know details well and suggested having an expert answer that question. Oh man. Can you imagine that life? I don't use computers Some of my assistants might use computers, but I don't do it. I don't know what's going on I would like to be the person to make a defense of minister Sakurada and before I do Let me say I don't believe a word about what I'm about to say Okay, this person should be in charge of cyber security But if you are gonna make a defense It could be and I think there's other parts of minister Sakurada's past that may put the lie to my argument But it could be that this person is just really good at managing He knows who knows things and how to delegate and where to ask the questions And so he could not know anything about computers But still be the right person to run this department because he's really good at getting the people who do know how to do things That would be some wizard level stuff If you don't actually use a computer how would anybody reporting to you make any sense at all? You know who to trust to say like, ah, you're my But then why are you what why do they need you? Because you're the person who can pull the team together and make sure the right people are doing the right things Well, all right. I mean sure No, that's far fetched but I guess it's possible I'm glad that you said that you don't believe any of that that is Sarah You were totally right in your line of interrogation to that Ridiculous statement if you are only there as a project manager with no idea of how One of your deputies that can just operate without your Can you imagine someone like coming back to him being like our cloud division is fine And you're like great don't know what that is sure No, it's specifically with cyber security. Look, there's a lot of reasons why these are very very very very important They you know play governmental positions, and they're only going to get more important I hope this is appropriately embarrassing and shame bringing to the Japanese government because it is bad This is a bad bad thing for me. This is all a big bruise I'll be honest From what I can glean and folks in on the ground in Japan, I know you're out there Let me know how close I am to the mark here Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just recently shuffled up the cabinet and moved minister Sakurata into this position About a month ago This minister has been in hot water before for making comments about comfort women during World War two My guess is he thought he could shuffle them into this department and get him out of the headlines And that was a bad idea Welcome to the internet. Yeah Discord is adding discord early access where you can buy unfinished games and give feedback to the developers through their discord servers The new service includes descenders parkasaurus Kinsead Visage and mad machines among others now you may or may not have heard of any of those But that's the whole point steam's been doing this for a long time Where they get developers to put their games up for early access not because they're blockbuster titles blockbuster titles Don't need that. This is a way to build interest in the title and get direct feedback now The advantage discord has is you may already be in this developers discord server Talking to them every day And if you can now play their early version of the game and run into bugs and provide valuable feedback That makes the game that much better This is the great advantage that discord has over steam steam can push things to you and suggest things to you based on your Buying history discord can find or has the benefit of either developer creating their own community where they can serve them or Finding communities that are in similar genres where players might want to try these kinds of things out I I very much believe that discord is a major player in that steam space over the next year or so By the way, I do want to give credit It's not the first person I've seen make this argument But we should have brought it up regarding Minister Sakurata bad friend in the chat room points out He can't be hacked because he's not online Cyber security minister there we go that dunk on us thunderous throughout history Anyway, cool cool thing with the discord I think that's a I think that is a smart move on discord and they're slowly piecing together a Viable steam competitor because they're not trying to launch a steam competitor all at once No, no, no, they're just trying to sell games to their communities, which is perfect Firefox continuing to go all in on security The company will begin notifying at least their desktop users when at those users visit websites That were recently breached as an extension of Firefox monitor Which already lets users check if an email address is found in leak password databases Firefox monitor will soon be available in 26 different languages including German French Spanish Turkish Chinese Canadian English Russian Japanese and Portuguese the new notifications Will inform the user about a breach if they visit a website that is in the breach and Offers options to either dismiss that notification or check Firefox monitor for more options I know it's just spelling, but I like the idea that Canadian English warnings would just be a lot more polite Like hey, sorry Every time I say that I I'm sort of like he I don't know I'm laughing, but I'm like, oh Canadian English Because it doesn't matter whether you're logged in or not doesn't matter if you have a count or not You should know whether this site has been breached or not because maybe you just decide not to create an account and And so getting this warning is important And and it's done in a way where you can dismiss it if you're like no I know they got breached, but I'm gonna continue on anyway, right? Yeah, or or here are my other options based on something that Firefox has already put together for my my security safety Yeah, I wonder about this as a precedent specifically if some of the larger browsers and Firefox has a tremendous install base, but I Be curious if this becomes industry standard if there comes a point where some of the sites are like well We want to appeal how long you're saying that we were breached like at what point do we get our record expunged and we can shed Oh Yeah, like when do the companies go after Firefox should mean like take us off your breached list We were breached years ago. Yeah, not fair Well, we've got one company that would like to be forgotten today But if you want to keep up on the headlines of the day in about five minutes subscribe to daily tech headlines comm and start next week This is going to be news to Sarah and Roger and Justin too, so I'm putting the news out there forever Starting next week on Saturdays rich straffolino will be doing the daily tech headlines week in review So you can skip that if you want, but if you missed a headline during the day during the week You'll also get kind of a wrap-up of these are the most important stories of the week right there in your daily tech headlines feed That's available at daily tech headlines dot-com All right, New York Times article out today by a team Shira Frankel Nicholas Confessori Cecilia Kang Matthew Rosenberg and Jack Nickus detailing inside meetings at Facebook They based their reporting on interviews with more than 50 people including government folks people inside of Facebook former employees former executives, etc and There are many Revelations in this article a lot of them have to do with the Russian election stuff Some of that is just sort of saying a little more about who knew what when Among the revelations, they're a little more than that though Apparently Facebook employed a Republican opposition research firm This is something that a lot of companies do so I know a lot of people like they did what they were digging dirt on their companies Well, they wouldn't be the first company to do that But this firm was hired to discredit Activist protesters in part by linking them to liberal financier George Soros Justin can explain more but if you're on the right hearing that someone's linked to George Soros is basically Like saying they're a villain So Facebook was trying to discredit these protesters that way They were lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic Including a protest poster that showed Zuckerberg and Sandberg's head on an octopus In gripping the world and the one that's getting the most headline in the tech circles Tim Cook's criticisms of Facebook infuriated Mark Zuckerberg so much Allegedly, he ordered his management team to use only Android phones Arguing that the operating system had far more users than apples now Facebook has posted a point-by-point rebuttal of a lot of the accusations particularly the accusations that they were Knowing about the Russian election stuff before they they made progress and that they dragged their feet. They say they didn't it's a little bit Of a he said she she said Particularly on the Tim Cook stuff. They say that they were order They were never ordering actually what they didn't say anything particularly refuting this. They said they have always encouraged their Employees to use Android phones because it is the largest market of users out there And in a call with reporters Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook is going to create an independent oversight committee in 2019 where people can appeal decisions for content to stay up or down on Facebook now Facebook will create this but the idea is It'd be like an ombudsman. They'll put impartial people or attempts to put impartial people on it And if you have some content that is up that you think should have been brought down and and you've reported it to Facebook And they didn't take it down or vice versa Some content got reported and was taken down and you don't feel like it should have you'll be able to appeal to this oversight committee Who will decide once and for all what is allowed to be posted on Facebook Justin? I already hear you laughing with glee at the brilliance of this solution that Say say with me kids Hashtag hell porter the hell portal a hashtag portal to hell. This is what happens whenever you get into a Moderation of speech. All right, let's let's let's lay out some of these things number one Just real quick tidbit first time I ever remember Facebook giving a directive to their developers to only use Android phones Was when their Android app sucked and they and they made there was a concerted effort for developers and coders to use Android so the the internal focus was to make their Android app a little bit better Let's get into the politics George Soros is a Liberal mega-finite financier. He has been for many many years and he operates in a realm similar to But not exactly save your emails But but if you're gonna look for a rough analog. It is how liberals looked at the Koch brothers, right? They're the same we're saying one side looks at one the same way that the others yeah Just just rough and parallels to be drawn rough the analogs right that they are they are mostly in the shadows they are oftentimes painted to be tremendous villains and It is an immediate rallying cry to your base if you have caught money from one or the other that being said Facebook and this is what I found most fascinating about this New York Times article Mark Zuckerberg the DNA of this company always comes from any company comes from the top Mark Zuckerberg cared about the engineering side of Facebook He cared about making Facebook something that people could use and look Facebook has made tremendous rides in Autoplay video and video compression and stuff like that. They have done a lot of great engineering feats They have hired a lot of great engineers to make that site run that being said the fact that he continually Delegated these problems that we're obviously going to they were percolating for years and years and years and now is in a Media and political crosshairs means that the problem got too big too, Harry And it's too late to really do anything At this point to do stop it where you could have years and years and years ago I do think that there's an element of neglect not necessarily maliciously from Mark Zuckerberg, but it Buck stops with him if this is going this is right now the biggest problem with his company Not the engineering solutions that he was that he was interested in pushing forward. I Think that Facebook is has suffered from the beginning From a mindset and you could call it an engineer's mindset but I know plenty of engineers that don't have this mindset of Hey, we're making a thing you can use it or not But our thing works this way and that's the way we mean it to work and if you use it some other way Well, you're using it wrong, right? I mean Steve Jobs actually used that mentality in and ten a gate years ago You're holding it wrong, right? There is a mentality that says I made this product for this And so any other use of it is not my problem That's your problem for using it that way and I feel like That Zuckerberg suffered from that and he also suffers from a bit over the years We have seen of a I'm right I'm really really right about stuff like I couldn't have missed anything because I'm smart and he is very smart And so when people start to point out that there's a problem He starts to minimize it because he's like well surely I would have thought that was a problem before You know, there are problems that I know might be problems and when people point those out I act but I know I have already Anticipated that that might be a problem and I don't think it's a big one So it takes a lot to jar him out of that mindset and say hey You were wrong in not anticipating this to be a bigger problem that it is because I really do think That Zuckerberg believed in openness, right? He wanted to take advantage of that openness to make a lot of money. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying he's just open-hearted, but I think he really believed like yeah People will be more open and the more open they are the better it will get and that will self-correct and he wasn't alone That was a way a lot of us thought the internet was going to play out And it hasn't been playing out that way Well, I mean has it has it not been playing out that way or are Correct. No openness has not been self-correcting That I think that that's that's probably too broad for my taste Okay, I do think that openness can be self-correcting However, once you don't floorboards and I think it often is but once you built the floorboards You now need to define what the rest of your house is, right? And I do think if the foundation is let's get people talking then that's fine The problem is that Facebook as always is a company line hid behind Well, look, we know what you want. We know where you go. We know what you click on We know what gets you with what gets you going in the morning And it just so happens that if you and this is the subtext that I think has come around to bite him in the butt The subject says listen if you really want to go to all these meme factories and you really want to get more Threads where your aunt says something racist in a you know comment section for a dog video Then we're gonna feed you more of that not because we've made a decision that that's good Far be it for us to say we're just giving you what you clearly and plainly want And we can show you the data to show you that that's what you want And then the question when the question becomes is this good let alone is this Functional to our democracy is this are you profiteering on a foreign government trying to meddle in an election? You can't hide behind that puritanical idea of but you wanted it We can show you the data tree And I want to be clear when I say openness isn't self-correcting. I'm talking specifically about Facebook I'm not talking about a wider principle I realized when you're like that's too broad that I was sounding too broad I meant that Zuckerberg thought the more we can we get people to be open and share things The more standard it will be to share things and then sharing things won't be a problem And it has not worked out that way on Facebook So Yeah, look here's here's here's the bottom line Facebook is in serious trouble if they are now getting into a realm where It is politically viable to attack them Then there is going to be a constant pressure for regulation Whether or not it happens It will be something that is mentioned. It will be something that is talked about They will they are now squarely in these crosshairs and I To be totally honest as somebody who covers both tech and politics I don't know how you get out of it without there being another bigger thing that people are focusing on and they are pretty effing big Yeah, uh, when you've got both sides equally angry at you for entirely different reasons Makes it tough well A group of folks that we are not angry with All the folks that contribute to our sub reddit You can submit stories and vote on others at daily tech news show dot reddit.com Also on facebook Hey, hey, if you want to hang out on our facebook page in our group with other like minded facebook folks There are a lot of nice people there as well facebook.com slash groups slash daily tech news show Let's check out the mailbag Let's do it. So ben wanted to add to our discussion about telecom investment. We were talking about 5g specifically ben said He works as a low voltage electrical contractor for one of the big telecom companies and says from my experience I can believe the appearance of Low investment due to poor timing or the concept of that anyway with the beginning of 5g rollout We've been busy at my site over the course of 2018. I work in a lab environment So we've been installing new radios cat 5 connections fiber optics to support the new testing equipment That has been installed for 5g However, the very large national site, which is just a few miles away Has seen a huge downturn in work in the past six months. In fact, we've pulled three of their electricians from that site to assist us Leaving only three electricians at the national site a reduction in workforce of 50 percent I don't know for sure But I would assume that our site would be considered or indeed not network investment And that the large investments in our site is actually pretty small compared to the national network level Yeah, so he's saying uh, if they're pulling people into his Department, that's not considered investment in infrastructure And if they're pulling them off infrastructure, that would be considered a reduction in the investment in that infrastructure Because you're not have those people on there. So great to have that insight from the inside ben Thank you. Thank you for that experience and I I agree I think I don't think the carriers are are lying when they say hey, this is just a timing thing Uh, it just it goes with what I've been saying for a long time Is I don't think the open internet guidelines when they were in force or when they are now repealed Had much effect on this investment at all either way Yeah, thanks ben for the um for the added, uh Feedback on this topic keep them coming feedback of daily tech new show dot com And also thanks to justin rubber young for being with us this fine thursday. Justin Have you finally stopped traveling? I have I have no longer traveling I'm here localized uh in my uh The fine hamlet of oakland, california for the rest of the year, which is very very exciting proud hamlet The proud hamlet undefiled though it is, uh But uh, yeah, I'll tell you what but i'm i'm not stopping working. Uh, uh, no every single day I'm writing the uh free political newsletter and you can sign up at free political newsletter dot com In fact, it was not but yesterday That one tom merit emailed me about a breaking political story And I literally just took a picture of my screen because I was writing the newsletter about that topic as he emailed me I am working for you america and all ships at sea Uh, so go ahead and uh sign up at free political newsletter dot com And folks, uh, you can get our newsletter as well If you're a patron at patreon dot com slash dtns I wrote an article today about tablet operating systems and why I actually think they need their own Operating system not just stretched out versions of other Form factors operating systems You can find that in a summary of the week's news along with all kinds of other cool perks of membership at patreon dot com slash dtns We love your feedback our email address is feedback at daily tech news show dot com We are also live if you can join us, please do money through friday at 4 30 p.m. Eastern 21 30 utc Find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live Not tomorrow and robert heron will tell us which tv we might want to buy for the holiday season See you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com Club hopes you have enjoyed this bro You know, I am looking for a new tv So this could not come at a better time. You could just pepper robert with all your questions tomorrow I don't really need one. I I scheduled it just but I want a bigger one. Thank you I appreciate that. I was thinking like who do we need? What does sarah need? What does sarah want for the holidays? I'm kind of with you sarah. I feel like i'm i'm like we got a new tv a couple years ago But it was like definitely for the price It was just like we wanted a certain size like for the price and now i'm like, yeah I think I think it's time to invest well, so So the tv I have it's a samsung. It's a 55 inch So, you know, it's not huge, but it's a good size. Um, and uh Where my new apartment the way that it's in my new apartment My couch is actually further away than my old apartment even though my old apartment was bigger It's just the way it works And you know some sort of sitting there like this is fine, but like I could probably go 70 And it would like really look good. I have a 46 inch and I was thinking oh, I need a bigger tv, but This is something I do not need but I want and I want robert heron to tell me what that should be 70 inch Every time I get in that mode I I I see my daughter come up and start pawing the screen. It's like no I'll wait. I'll wait until this one breaks or something So you want to fill the space that you're in now that you have a little more space Justin what what what's motivating you to want to get a new one? I want a bigger tv You want a bigger one here? All right. I want to just want a bigger better tv I want a tv that I look at and I'm like god damn. That's a big tv. That's what that's what I I'm surprised with all y'all Well, I mean no end picture to be honest like I I do want a better picture because there's a there's plenty of stuff Specifically low light that just pixelates like uh like a like a lot of times and this is something to ask robert about tomorrow Too a lot of times that's your settings not your television Sure. Well, maybe Maybe I need to put more effort into it or I mean my tv is everything's great about the tv. Um, I love it. I just Yeah, I look on the wall. No, I'm like I could fill up the wall with more tv because that's the only thing on that wall like why wouldn't I I mean, are you complaining about banding in images? Justin like you see like banding because I know I see it more on Some streaming services than others. Yeah Like you like especially if it's smoke or if there's a gradation of gray to dark No, no, no, no, it's not necessarily I'm looking. I did not know what banding was but now I am looking it up It's not necessarily that it's more in low light pictures And it might be the fact that we're streaming everything like that that I'm fully willing to Say that that might be an issue But also it's just I don't know I'm just not in love with it and and I feel like I need a new one And even if I don't I want to contribute to our roaring american economy. You want to contribute to south korea? Yes Helping hand to our friends in south korea So you're buying an lg. Okay lg samson I have an lg fridge It works out very nicely I have a I have a whirlpool. I have a general electric fridge. Thank you very much I have a whirlpool And a dishwasher. So this is what I don't understand. I have I have a Maytag washer. I have a ge dryer. I have a whirlpool refrigerator frigid air dishwasher and like What are we calling this episode? Oh, it's just got too big. Oh, no Right here. The zuck stops here. Okay No, no, I have a sneaking suspicion. I may have used that before what about the buck stops with zuck It's kind of the same title. It's just different phrasing Totally illustrative of the topic Well, in fact, it's the opposite the zuck didn't stop there And that was the problem Cooking up the face books Ooh, I like that one. Yeah cooking the face books Cooking up All right, just cooking the face books. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, carry on with listening to some book cooking I need a new stove. I need a I need a hood I don't have a hood in my kitchen I have one one final thought on on the facebook thing like and and this is kind of maybe a larger idea of How we want to handle some of these things like like the Koch brothers and George Soros and everything is pointing out that they Use their money to shape public opinion a bad thing like is is it an invalid point to say that George Soros has funded this thing in that it would not have existed if he did not put his money behind it But it's I think part of the criticism is because it's it's a thinly veiled dog whistle Right, you're not saying it really because George Soros is Somehow influencing the things against you. It's just a kind of an easy Catch-all phrase to get a certain segment of the population I have a hard time making that jump in that I think that there is room Yes, certainly anti-semitism is alive and well in america and all around the world. There is no So this is this is my thing with the Soros thing is he's the bogeyman. It's like literally the go-to anytime you have something that you need to instigate like they They're literally more than a dozen different organizations that do the same thing. They could pick them as well but these Be it the Koch's Sheldon Adelson Foster freeze A lot of guys on the right that do a lot of the same stuff And they are Yeah, they are they are looked at as people that are trying to affected look I know that there is a red team blue team element to this where the people that do it for us are doing it for The right reasons the people that do it for them are doing it for the wrong reasons I can appreciate and pick up that but I do think that there is a There is a criticism to be hand about George Soros that is not me Semitism I totally agree But I think in this instance in this particular instance, I don't think that's what they were looking for They weren't looking for a broad reaching kind of conversation about that. They were just trying to Essentially they were they were saying that this argument is astroturfed And that that is something that both sides have used with tremendous to a tremendous effect with Organizations or movement. Yeah, but you could also say that that's just an immediate dismissal of the complaints, right? I'm just going to deflect Onto this big target that it wouldn't matter what side you could pick the Koch brothers or whatever But it instead of trying to just say like listen, you know, these are what we did or whatever It was more of a I think more of a cynical Attempt to do the political Oh, it is certainly cynical. It is certainly a cynical argument to say well If you agree with this What would you really think if I told you that they were not just a bunch of scrappy kids that put together A bunch of stuff and they put together all their pennies They all broke their little piggy banks and put together all their loose change and now they bought all this nationwide advertising Uh that this was indeed a a billionaire who is trying to antagonize us for one reason or another Uh, I do think that that is a cynical argument that is trying to undercut Somebody saying something without like as you said directly dealing with it head-on You're trying to smear it on some level, but I don't think that that's rare I think we do it. No, I'm not saying it's rare, but I'm like I if you were to say outside of this facebook context that these large politically aligned but not directly political organizations that That have undue influence. I would totally agree like in the political process of this country or any any country for that matter But I mean, I I think that's a separate conversation. I don't think that's necessarily the The one you would try to step from from but what I have a hard time reconciling as somebody who watches A lot of political discourse is Where are our lines? What what is fair and what is unfair and I'm not saying this like I have an answer here because I think you that is an totally legitimate Um, um, you know statement to make I'm not saying that that isn't what's happening or that shouldn't be addressed I'm just saying that in the context and this is the thing context is important, right? If if you were to if you were to get a bad batch of you got a bad cup of coffee at mcdonald's And you start screaming like oh source is bankrolling mcdonald's giving me bad coffee You would think you'd be a nut, right because it the contextually wouldn't have a meaning but If if a company is trying to kind of deflect blame By just saying like well some outside Conspiracy is trying to smear me and everything you've read is wrong I mean instead of addressing the direct complaints I think it seems it seems a little It is it is and uh, you know, anywhere else I go is only going to get more I'm going to grip this third rail hard Go ahead tom. I was just real quick Because I need to get back to publishing the show Stop being so damn compelling with your conversation. You see, but what I would say is There is This is this is the brilliance of any Organization's movement is to take an argument that stands on its own and as justin has put it Showing that certain protests might not be grassroots Is perfectly legitimate say like hey these guys are trying to say they're grassroots, but they're not perfectly legitimate So the where the best lies always have a lot of truth in them The best propaganda has a lot of legitimacy to it and I feel like that's that's what you guys are arguing about is How you know what there these were arguments that facebook was making for a cynical reason But they weren't necessarily entirely unfounded arguments Well, because they feel that the argument being made against them is cynical and this is I think as we have watched Communication in the world become more transparent. Thanks to the internet But we have found in my opinion the defining lesson of my life has been specifically in politics I'm doing I'm committing bad behavior because others are committing bad behavior And and this is just the world we live in And that's why I'm doing it and and that's I think what is what is happening here and we can Sure as a heck go into more examples politically about this, but It is it is fascinating for me to see How we handle figures like Soros and the Koch brothers and the Adelson's and the foster for you You know, it's what's fascinating is that a lot of countries, you know Oftentimes in a compare and contrast with the American, you know, political fundraising system Have, you know tight laws for political parties raising funds and spending money But it doesn't have any limitations on people who might be sympathetic to your cause You know, what we would call super PACs in the u.s. Where they don't directly support the candidate They just tend to run ads that support Or leave, you know, yeah, so how do you get around that right? Do you do you put? I mean, it's just a larger, you know Question about how you would control this in a in a democratic and ostensibly This is why for anybody who thinks that and this is something that Tom you you and I probably could have a good conversation about but Not only campaign contributions Discourses or donations and expenditures to the political discourse. I think it's a very very very complicated That is oftentimes in my opinion Boiled down too far too as simple. Well, we just need to get the money out of politics. All right. Well That's a little bit harder than people might think specifically Politics is presupposing a solution to a problem, right? I I tend to think that money is probably a large part of solving that problem but you Got to decide what your goal is like, okay, we want free and fair elections. Great. What does that mean? Let's describe what a free and fair election works in the current system in the current society It was easy when it meant all the men who are white Walk down to the polling place and anonymously drop a card in a ballot box, right? That was pretty easy You could tell if pretty much everyone voted and it was easy to know what the issues were because there were fewer people It's a whole different situation now when we have we we let everybody who's an adult vote At least we mostly do at least that's the ideal and and so you Don't have people who are educated in every issue that is up for a stake And you don't have personal relationships with the people being voted for And so how do you make free and fair elections work in that situation? I think part of the problem Is gerrymandering and the fact that you don't get representative people in representative democracies If you if you have gerrymandering going on and that's why I love that the secret Win in this last election had nothing to do with republicans and democrats. It was schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives to kind of commissions to drop congressional districts Uh That's just i would i would like to recommend your friend all of our friends, uh, brian brushwood's appearance on the something's off Uh with andrew heaton podcast yesterday where they talked about exactly that And and they had a really good conversation about gerrymandering with some conversations about where gerrymandering might not Be Dorsing in the world, uh, which is I think an interesting, uh at it But with that with any solution right you you don't want to and the same thing would get the money out of the politics Right, you don't want to solve something by saying this seems to be causing a problem Get rid of it because then you cause a new problem, right? It's it's like oh man that gum on the dyke is ugly. Oh wait, we got rid of the gum Now there's water pouring through. Uh, maybe we should have just replaced the gum and it's The as we become a more informed and Interconnected society. I mean, there's just multiple ways of supporting your For example, if you made a facebook post in favor of your preferred candidate Is that considered to be a political ad? And therefore, you know, you know for forbidden on social media platforms during an election season ads are not forbidden on social media Endorsements are not ads To to I mean it can be I think is what I I would find that to be and this is where you get into a free speech issue And whether or not money is speech whether or not you donating Your time and effort, uh, if you are an influencer and that as a definition that has slid You know far beyond what we would imagine it was in the 90s when you could say, okay Well, like radio television print you're all people that influence so if you're putting your time and effort and money behind it Then that's a different thing than like now where it's You know Who is it? Uh, I think it was on a on a have such a good day where there was a An instagram lady who just eats bananas in the jungle like if she Yeah, if she if she takes money to Yeah, Louisa race like where where do we draw that line? No bananas and political discourse Well, just maybe not only bananas, right? Uh, we have lost sight in this country of the fact That we have to end the video But we uh, we will look forward to continuing this discussion for the audio people stick around there's more to come Uh