Siracusa Says

What We Dislike About Tim Cook

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 21:15:09 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 679: An Adversarial Relationship With Myself

John
Just because Tim Cook has selected him doesn’t mean the person he’s selecting agrees with everything Tim Cook does and will do exactly what Tim Cook did. I mean, Steve Jobs picked Tim Cook and they were very different CEOs. So our expectation, our hope is that John Ternus will be different than Tim Cook in the same way that Tim Cook was different than Steve Jobs.

John
Now, he could be worse, could be better, could be worse. But like we’re hopeful because the things we hear are good. You know, like we we want to be hopeful. But the real point is, I think we’ve all basically resigned ourselves to the fact that nothing about what we dislike about what Tim Cook is doing is ever going to change until he leaves. So he has to leave.

John
So if you want to think of it this way, you can say, it’s not so much that we’re excited about John Ternus coming, it’s we’re excited about Tim Cook leaving. And we feel like anything’s got to be like, it’s the only chance we have for improvement. And I think it’s a little bit of both. Because again, we have very little info on John Ternus. So that is, we’ve said that before, like we don’t actually know he’s been in, he’s been in presentations for years. We see him on stage talking, but like he’s more of a cipher. We don’t have, he doesn’t have a track record that we know of other than he was in charge of hardware and hardware is great. Right.

John
But I’m, I’m personally optimistic, mostly because a transition, a departure, a change in leadership is the best opportunity for things to potentially get better. And I’m currently choosing to believe that they won’t get worse. We’ll see.

Bad at Estimating Chicken Hats

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 23:48:50 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 513: Scribble on the Shared Placemat

John
the chicken hat. the chicken hat is back. did you miss out on the chicken hat before are you disappointed that you didn’t get one are you still wanting a chicken hat? well i mean so here’s the news

Marco
you too could you can miss out on the chicken hat again!

John
listen oh this is on us we’re bad at estimating how many chicken hats we need to to order and it’s because we have to like we have to pay for these up front so

Marco
No, it’s because there’s not a lot of data to base our decision on and how many chicken hats we should order

John
yeah so and so we have to buy them all up front so we’re like oh these you know it’s expensive and you gotta outlay this money and what if we buy all these chicken hats and nobody wants them now we’re just stuck with it right?

so we kept ordering them in increasingly large amounts uh and then our sale ended right and we told people like we’re gonna try to get more as soon as we can.

so we got some more chicken hats this is not part of our regular sales so there’s no member only discount code. like it’s not this is just a one off special things we felt bad because like even after we sold through all our chicken hats more wanted them so we ordered a bunch more that we thought would satisfy the demand of all the people who signed up and said hey tell me when the chicken tell me when the hat is back so i can order it.

we may or may not have done that because i put them on on sale earlier today and i posted on it uh posted about the hats to mastodon i posted to mastodon first and i gave those people first crack at it so uh you’re welcome if you’re following me on mastodon um then i posted on twitter anyway

i feel like we’ve already sold through half of the hats in this episode is just being recorded now. So maybe by the time you hear this, they’re not there.

Appeasing the Monster

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:21:10 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 660: It’s All Chicken Salad

John
This whole thing is a good example of the limits of Apple’s strategy, because Apple’s strategy with the Trump administration both times has been essentially appeasement. Try to make nice with them. Try to make them not mad at you, because when they’re mad at you, they they are. You know, it’s a corrupt administration and they will do things to harm your company individually in a vindictive way because they because they’re just, you know, mobsters and bullies. Right.

They will specifically hurt your company and we want them specifically not hurt our company. So we’re working within a corrupt system to try to get favors, blah, blah, blah. The problem with that strategy is the strategy is not to make them mad. And you can blow that whole strategy. Appeasement stops working and becomes pointless the second you push back at all and make them mad at you. Because then it’s like, well, what did you do all that appeasement for?

So it leads to like the sunk cost fallacy of saying, well, we already made nice with all these things. We already did all this stuff. When they ask us to pull the ice block out, if we say no, they’ll be mad at us. And it’s like, well, then what did we do all that appeasement for? What did we sell our souls for before? And so you’re inclined to say yes and say yes to the next thing and say yes to the next thing. And it’s a slippery slope of appeasement.

The word comes up in the context of World War II all the time. Appeasement looks great right up until you have the rise of Hitler. And then it doesn’t look so good anymore, does it? Because you’re like, anyone who is on board with that appeasement thing tends to look bad in the eye of history of saying you are appeasing this monster.

Cost, Benefit, No

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:00:58 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 666: We Have Nothing That Hot

John
In particular, like setting aside when they screwed up the GPU thing by under-resourcing some buffer or something, the fact that they insist on building their Ultras out of two Maxes is, it’s a clever idea if it had worked out for them, but I think that hurt the scaling more than anything else. Whereas if they had made a dedicated chip, it wouldn’t.

But if they made a dedicated chip, they can’t justify the expense. That’s been the whole thing with the Extreme, you know, with the Quad thing. They can’t justify the expense. We’re not going to sell, we’re going to sell this many of them and it’s going to cost this much to make. It’ll be our most expensive, you know, like Intel had this problem to some. degree but not really because they were sold to server farms and everything like this chip this whatever this high-end chip is going to cost the most and be the most complicated chip that we make and we’re going to sell a tiny tiny fraction of the number we sell of our other chips like why are we doing this again?

and i would point them to my case for a true mac pro successor article and saying you’re you know mount everest you’re climbing because it’s there blah blah blah but apple doesn’t apple doesn’t have that they don’t they don’t have that in them they can’t justify it someone comes down and says cost benefit no

A Long T-Shirt

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 03:03:54 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 656: A Long T-Shirt

Marco
I am not confident enough to be Mr. AirPods translation before it becomes commonplace for people to do this while traveling. So I’m hoping, hey, everyone else go do this, please. So then I can feel more comfortable doing it when I need to.

John
I feel like you’d have to wear a T-shirt or a sign or something that says, this is what’s happening here. My AirPods are trying to translate you, but there’s a time delay and it’s muting your actual talking, which I can’t understand anyway. and then it’s playing back what it thinks you said after some delay. So if it looks like I’m just waiting after you talked and saying nothing, I’m waiting for my phone to like, it would be a long t-shirt. But like…

Just Break the Law, Apple

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 08:03:50 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 662: Just Break the Law

John
I’m talking about the M2 Vision Pro in 2025. This is old news, I know, but it’s not old news for me. But anyway, you’ve heard people complain that when they demo, it’s hard to demo things because when you try to get somebody to watch video and you’re mirroring what they see on your laptop screen or something, it blacks out because of stupid copyright stuff.

Casey
It’s the worst.

John
It’s so frustrating. Here’s the thing that I didn’t fully understand or have forgotten. when you do that and by the way the reason we’re mirroring what they see on the screen because otherwise try explaining it’s like playing charades. Try explaining to somebody who’s never used vision pro what they’re supposed to do without being able to see what they’re seeing.

John
I’d only use it for like a day before i gave my wife a demo so it’s not like i’ve memorized every pixel that’s going to be on the screen but it really is like describe to me what you see it’s like trying to do tech support over the phone with somebody because they can see stuff but you can’t see it so that’s why apple provides this great feature where you can see a version of what they’re seeing on your laptop screen or whatever.

John
That’s really helpful because then you can see what they’re seeing although you also see their foveated rendering so a lot of times it’s blurry you’re like go look over there look over there anyway as soon as you bring them to like okay go to the tv app go to this thing you know run the play this immersive demo uh you can’t see it on your laptop screen laptop screen goes black because it’s immersive video goes around everything

Casey
which that is that is totally fine and i’m not that aggrieved by that

John
well it’s stupid but okay. But also i mean inside the headset they only see blackness too but it still plays the video so they hear the sound they’re like it took me a while to even realize it’s just like am i supposed to be seeing something i’m like but i could hear the audio playing because she didn’t have headphones using the the speakers and the straps and she’s like i’m supposed to be seeing something.

John
like she just sees blackness but it tries to play it anyway that is insane like i get that you can’t show it on two screens it once showed on one and then as we said in the past when we talked about Apple, it’s your own video.

John
Like, break the law, Apple. This is a rare case where I’m saying, Apple, just break the law. Civil disobedience. Literally implement this thing that violates the HGCP standard. Break the law. See if somebody comes for you. No one’s going to care because nobody has Vision Pros. No one is pirating things by mirroring the foveated rendering of a Vision Pro on a laptop and then screen recording it. We have way better ways to pirate things. Nobody would want that.

John
Just break the law. All right? And see if somebody comes through. You’ve got so much money. I believe you could defend this lawsuit. Maybe we’ll change the HCCP standard. Apple, you need to break the law. Because this is so stupid.

I'm Irreplaceable

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 11:34:50 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 650: Whatever It Takes to Get the Laundry Folded

Casey
Do you have any intention on relocating before both kids are graduated from college?

John
No.

Casey
Do you have any intentions before both of you are retired?

John
Probably not.

Casey
To be clear, you’re never allowed to retire because…

Marco
I was going to say, he kind of already is retired.

Casey
Well, I’m trying to take the happy path, but Marco’s not wrong. But I don’t think that I can handle replacing either of you, really. So you two are stuck with me forever. I hate to break it to you.

John
I’m irreplaceable.

Marco
I mean, yeah.

John
don’t worry about it i got uh you know one whole kid to put through college

John
and one one-fourth of a kid to put through college i’m not going anywhere yeah

The Stock Market Loves Cancer

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 11:34:50 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 641: We’re Saving That for the Egg

John
uh growth the hard way so many of things that we talk about are like oh they need apple needs growth and the iphone is leveling off and so they need services revenue because that’s growing and look at the service revenue graph has been going up up up for years and years and years

John
this is the source of apple’s growth and as you know every company needs a source of growth because they’re like cancer and that’s what the stock market loves is cancer

John
constant growth

Casey
wow

John
constant growth in the entire until the entire planet has been turned into paper clips that’s what the stock market wants so they need growth

I'm Glad He's Not at Apple Anymore

Tue, 20 May 2025 22:50:29 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 639: Crimp the World

Casey
There’s a conversation between Patrick Collison and Johnny Ive. I guess it’s some Stripe thing recently. And I’m only about halfway through it so far. But, hey, guess what? It’s really freaking good.

Casey
And for all of the things that I blame on Johnny Ive, of which there are many, including but not limited to the butterfly keyboard, he’s really smart and really good at what he does in the broad scheme of things.

Casey
So both of these, I think, are worth your time.

John
But he’s a slow talker. Oh, my God. He’s so slow.

Marco
He really needs an editor and smart speed.

John
I don’t know. Johnny Ive, obviously, his resume is basically… It will never be equal, probably, in terms of how important… Amazing work, right?

John
But every time I see him talk, I’m like, yeah, this is why I wouldn’t let an unencumbered Johnny Ive anywhere near a product that I wanted to make.

John
Because he’s got amazing talent, and he’s got great ideas, and he’s got good instincts, but he’s also got some really bad instincts and ideas.

John
I feel like, I don’t know if that has changed about him as he’s aged, or it was always like that and he was always constrained, but he is a powerful force, let’s put it that way. And you’ve got to be careful when you’re employing a powerful force to do anything.

John
But yeah, it’s a good interview, and I’m glad he’s not at Apple anymore.

Immersive Bono

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 628: There’s a Certain Smell

Casey
But anyway, if you have Vision Pro, go check that out. It’s worth six and a half minutes of your time.

John
How did you miss this one? The link that I just put in there. They also are doing some kind of immersive documentary film based on Bono’s autobiography book thingy.

Casey
Cool.

John
You’re watching people Arctic surfing and doing a rodeo, but you’re not going to listen to Bono do his weird narration of his own life?

Casey
I’m sorry, John. U2 has never done anything for me.

John
It’s not. I guess there probably will be some music part of it. All the stuff you’re watching, you’ll watch anything except for something that you might have some familiarity with.

Casey
I’ll watch it. But, I mean, again, I have.

John
This one has a narrative, supposedly. I don’t know. I guess they will play U2 music. I don’t know if you’ll survive.

Casey
No, I mean, I’ve seen U2 in concert. They were fine.

John
But they’re no rodeos or Arctic surfing.

Your Apple Id Is an Email Address

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 580: Socks in the Knob-Hole

John
Your Apple ID is an email address. Is it an Apple email address? Sometimes, but not always. It’s like, ooh, it’s rough.

So, but why is it Apple ID? Well, it’s always been Apple ID, and it’s just easy to be consistent. And at a certain point after several decades, I think it is wise. Again, I’m not even putting any stake in this rumor. I don’t even know if this is going to happen.

But I think it should happen because Apple account is so much better than Apple ID, especially since now they’re all forced to be email addresses. And Google account is also an email address, and so is an Apple account, and so is a Microsoft account.

And you see how it works here? And Apple ID has always been weird. So much so that I, you know, as a developer of software in the Apple ecosystem, way too many times I have tried to communicate with a customer about something, and they’ve said to me in response to me asking them questions to help debug a problem, I’m not giving you my Apple ID because it sounds like a secret thing, and it sounds like I’m trying to pump them for secret information.

It’s like, no. it’s just your email address. Why Apple? Why do you do this to us?

Cranky Gas Engine

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 619: Master Plan to Take Over the World

John
It’s one of the things that always worries me about hybrids and we’re so worried about Marco’s i3’s range extension is like, if you don’t ever use the gas engine, A, you’re just, you know, wasting electricity hauling this big heavy thing.

Casey
That is true. Yeah.

John
And B, if you don’t run a gasoline engine for long periods of time, it gets cranky. Like you do have to occasionally start it. And you are like you’re it’s clearly turning on. And although I auto stop start also makes me have empathy for the engine.

Casey
Yes.

John
I know they’re designed to auto stop start. I know all the things they did to change the engine so they can do that and more robust starters and yada yada. It’s still not good for the engine still.

Casey
Right.

John
So I do worry that I mean, you’re at least answer who cares. But like it’s one of the strange compromises about hybrids is, you know, depending on how you use them in like the quote unquote best case scenario where you’re basically on EV almost all the time. It’s inefficient to hug the line, lug the engine around and be that engine is having a sad, difficult life.

John
That’s probably not being run enough. It wants to.

John
It’s like, you know, you know, a thoroughbred horse. It wants to get out there and run. And you’re just like, nope, electric motors got it.

I've Got a Member Special For That

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 614: Don’t Puke for the Show

Marco
So when you are logging in to Safari with, you know, to App Store Connect or something with a developer account, and it sends you the 2FA code, it shows the 2FA box on the Mac exactly centered in your screen.

Marco
You know what else is exactly centered in your screen? The input boxes in Safari that you have to type it into.

Marco
So every single time I have to drag the little window out of the way so I can see it. It’s always on top, of course. So I can type in the code. And it’s like, doesn’t this happen to everyone inside Apple?

Marco
How has this not been fixed after all these years?

John
Maybe everyone’s using their windows like I am. I’ve got a member special video you can watch so you can learn how to arrange your windows so they’re not always dead center on your giant screen.

Casey
Oh, my goodness.

The Shrinking Modem Sound

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 514: My Immense Softness

Casey
I get the bad feeling all of our good content happened before we went live

Marco
Don’t worry i’m using some of that for the pre-show in the in the release version all right good deal yeah bootleg people go listen to the release version of like the first you know five minutes and you’ll hear everything that just happened not even 45 seconds yeah listen to the modem sound

John
How many people i i guess in our audience it’s fine but we always refer to it as the modem sound just the number of people who know what that is or will recognize it when they hear it or know what we’re talking about just shrinks every day

Marco
Yeah but but i think among our i think it’s shrinking in the world but i think in our audience is staying about the same possibly even growing

John
We need some more period like period piece movies that are that capture that little slice of time when the internet was a thing but most people were getting onto it with modems like that that was not a very long period of time but for the people who lived through it it was significant and no one has really done like a period piece.

I mean setting aside like war games and the acoustic coupler and all that this is i’m talking about the like you know 2400 baud and on normal people are on the internet but they’re using modems to do it era

RAM Christmas

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 611: RAM Christmas

John
If you get the M4 Mac mini, your maximum is 32 gigs of RAM and your maximum is two terabytes of SSD just because Apple says so. Right. There’s the RAM. Maybe that’s a limitation based on the SOC on which ones they want to manufacture. But the SSD doesn’t make any sense.

And the M4 Pro. Imagine this. It starts at 24 gigabytes of RAM.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine? How is this even happening? It starts at 20. The base RAM on the M4 Pro model is 24 gigs.

It’s like, it’s just, it’s Ram Christmas around here.

Celebrating the Roundness of the Number 600

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 600: Everyone Ends Up at Crab

Marco
This is our 600th episode.

Casey
Oh, crap.

Casey
I didn’t even realize.

John
I cannot believe Casey didn’t know this.

Casey
I completely forgot.

Marco
You really didn’t know?

Casey
Well, I knew like a few days ago, and I just hadn’t thought about it since then. Oh, man.

John
Mr. Anniversary. Jeez.

Casey
I know. I have fallen down on the job. Genuinely, I am gobsmacked because I completely forgot that that was today. Holy crap. 600 episodes. How?

John
I mean, it’s not our 600th. It’s our 600 and something because we have like, you know, we did the special interview episode. Of course, there’s all the member specials and so on and so forth. Even just in the main feed, because we did that interview special separately, we already passed 600.

But anyway, it is the 600th numbered episode of ATP.

Marco
John’s going to John.

John
I’m just saying, like I said, what we’re celebrating is the roundness of the number that’s in front of the title and not necessarily the number of things that we have made.

Marco
laughing

Eight Outstays Its Welcome

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 602: A Glimpse of a Better World

John
Again, RAM is usually sold in powers of two, and it usually makes sense to do the doubling or whatever. But what it means, if Apple is going to really hold the line on RAM for a long time, is it’s not a smooth ramp. It’s like just 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 for just years and years and years. And you’re like, oh, it’s OK.

You know, when it went from 4 to 8, it’s like, wow, everyone gets 8. That’s going to be great. And then you’re like, 8 is OK. And then you’re like, well, you know, you probably shouldn’t buy one with 8. And you’re like, oh, really, don’t get the base model that has it. You really need to get 16.

Like, 8 outstays its welcome. And it’s like, you know, you could have gone to 12 at some point in there. But instead, it’s just going to be 8 forever.

And this rumor is we’re going to go from 8 to 16, which I’m all for. I’d rather go from 8 to 16, right? But I’d rather not always have to wait for the doubling because it’s going to become untenable. Like, what about when you’re going from 64 to 128?

That’s a missing 64 gigs of RAM that you have to live with until finally it becomes completely ridiculous that they’re only shipping with 64 gigs of RAM. And then finally you get 128, right?

How about a 96? How about throw a 96 in there somewhere?

Tell Us You're Not Going to Break the Rules

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 577: Colorful Criticism

John
So Phil Schiller says, Epic, you’ve been bad. Are you going to be good? Tell us in writing you’re going to be good. Tim Sweeney says, in a very short paragraph, we are totally going to be good. We will comply with all your terms, current and future. If there’s anything specific you want us, any specific assurances, if you want us to say specifically, we won’t TP your house. We’ll say it. Just let us know. So I saw this exchange and I’m like, all right, well, so Phil Schiller is basically saying, look, we don’t like you. You’re bad. You’re saying mean things about us. Seems like you’re going to break the rules. Tell us you’re not going to break them. Tim Sweeney says, we’re totally not going to break the rules. Here’s Apple’s response.

Casey
Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request was wholly insufficient and not credible. He’s the CEO. How is that not credible? Anyway, it boiled down to an unsupported trust us.

John
I mean, let’s pause here. What did he want? What could be in that document in text, in written form, that would not be trust? Is there some kind of like, like blockchain derived, like trusted intermediate, like you asked for written assurances. You got written assurances and it’s like, they were wholly insufficient. Like, was there not enough groveling? Did he not apologize for the hot garbage?

I'm Living Your Future

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 494: Ultra-Wideband Park Bench

John
I’m living in your future. Someday you will all listeners and co-hosts have a quantum dot OLED television probably. And you’ll like it a lot.

Every iPhone Will Have as Much RAM as the Mac

Thu, 30 May 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 584: Daisy Hates Ticketmaster

John
We are at the moment where every, uh, you know, iPhone, current model, iPhone, the iPhone 16 or whatever, will come with as much base RAM as the low end Macs.

Marco
Oh my God,

Casey
that’s so bad.

John
How soon before every new iPhone you can buy has more base RAM than say a MacBook Air, because apparently Apple will increase the RAM inside its, inside its iPhones, but they will not increase the RAM inside the Macs.

Y'all is Spreading

Mon, 27 May 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 585: Everyone Heard the Same Nonsense

John
Did they say howdy in Tennessee? Is that a howdy state?

Casey
I don’t even know.

John
It definitely seems like a howdy state.

Casey
I mean, I’m in a y’all state, so who am I to really throw stones on that issue?

Marco
Honestly, I kind of wish I was in a y’all state.

Casey
Oh, it’s the best.

Marco
The second person plural is extremely useful, and the rest of English doesn’t really…

John
I think y’all is spreading. I think I need to see the y’all map. I think it’s spreading. I don’t think it’s South only anymore. I hear it a lot around here. I used it myself a lot at work. I heard it a lot at work at my jobby jobs. Yeah.

Casey
I cannot fathom…

John
Like, unironically, not trying to do…

Casey
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John
I think it’s not common, but I think it’s spreading. That’s my opinion.

Casey
Man, I am here for you, Mr. John Syracuse, saying y’all. Like, that…

John
I’m sure I have. I’m sure I have said it on the show, and I bet you two didn’t even bat an eye at it.

Casey
Well, I certainly wouldn’t.

John
Because you’re so used to hearing it. Like, I didn’t say it with a Southern accent.

Thank You, Plumber

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Robot or Not?
Episode: 286: Dishwashing Methods

John
My practice has always been more or less what you said. We do also have compost and we also have garbage disposal, though we use it much less now. After it clogged and I asked the plumber, is there anything I can do to avoid having this problem in the future? He said, yeah, don’t use your garbage disposal. So thank you, plumber, for the advice. But anyway, we compost now.

Fans Are a Threat to Me

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 580: Socks in the Knob-Hole

Casey
Anyway what’s wrong with ceiling fans? John what is your ridiculous angst against them?

John
I’m not it’s not angst, i don’t say there’s anything wrong i just didn’t know Marco was a fan person. Fan people are people who need to have fans blowing on them in most of the rooms in their house

Marco
I wouldn’t say need to but

John
I would say need to

Marco
What a fan does is it it buys you some headroom from needing like the air conditioning to be colder. So for instance

John
Speaking of headroom, fan people tend to be shorter no offense

Marco
How low are your ceilings that you’re going to hit your head on a fan?

John
My ceilings are very low and in my in-laws house where they are fan people i am forever dodging fans with my head.

Marco
How tall are you?

Casey
Yeah, John, you’re not 17 feet tall, my word!

John
I’m tall enough that fans are a threat to me

Cereal Density

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Upgrade
Episode: 490: The Cat Has a Team of Lawyers

John: The second question you were getting to is, okay, but what if the cereal floats?

Jason: Yeah.

John: Because now as you’re putting liquid in there, the cereal is moving because it starts to float. That’s why you have to have different amounts, different rules sort of for filling things based on how much you know the cereal floats.

Jason: Density of the cereal, right.

John: Yeah. And that happens when you put the cereal in. When you put it in the bowl, if it’s a floaty cereal, you can’t put as much in because as you put the milk in, it’s going to rise and then the cereal is going to spill over the edge before the liquid gets to the edge. You know what I mean?

Jason: It’s true.

John: Yeah. I have precise amounts for all different kinds of cereal brands and I know how high I have to put the milk in my bowl. And unlike you, my goal is not to be done with everything at the same time. My goal is to have a little bit of milk left because I like to have the second little helping of cereal to get rid of the milk that’s left because one bowl of cereal is just not quite enough with the size of my bowls.

Cars with No Steering Wheels

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 576: Quiet Little Leech

John: With the car project, Apple, like all those excited scientists in the 70s that I was reading about, and like so many other companies in the world, decided that cars that drive themselves are probably right around the corner.

Look what we can do now. It’s pretty impressive.

And if we just extrapolate and say, if we just continue along this path and our computing resources get better, like in, you know, five to 10 years, all of our cars are going to have no steering wheels and they’re going to be driving ourselves.

Because look at our progress and look what we’re already able to do in such a short time.

Surely by, insert year that has already passed here, all cars will be self-driving and driving will be obsolete.

The Finder Was My House

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Upgrade
Episode: 496: 40th Anniversary of the Mac Draft

John: Back before the internet, I would spend hours and hours and hours and hours, kind of like John’s parents feared he would, sitting in front of my computer. And this computer was not connected to any network. I had no way to get new software onto it. It was just a computer in my house, no modem, no internet, no BBS, no America Online, nothing. It was just me and that computer.

And in that little world, it was just like playing with a tiny, you know, electrical dollhouse. I was rearranging everything. I was setting things up the way I wanted. I would launch applications. I would use ResEdit to manipulate them. It was like being in a garage with your car and your tools. And there’s nothing else there. Like once or twice a year, I’d go to my grandfather’s house and get a new floppy disk from the Mac user group. And I’d have some new software.

But for the rest of the amount of time, I try to talk to my kids about this. I would use a computer for hours with no access to the internet and no new software. And like, what were you doing? And a lot of what I was doing was spending time in the Finder, you know, manipulating things, launching new things, moving things around. You know, I’d go into applications and I’d go back to the file. I should still put up on my old computers. I had everything so arranged. All the windows were arranged the way they were supposed to be at custom icons and everything.

It’s just it was beautiful. It was a lovely place to live. Well before we all like lived on the internet, I lived inside my computer and the Finder was my house.

A Toddler's Innate Sense of Justice

Tue, 26 Dec 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: The Talk Show
Episode: 391: ‘ERROR -37’, with John Siracusa

John: Yes, he was not shy about saying when we make something, it’s almost, here’s the thing. I think in his mind, it’s rude for people to try to make another phone that works like the iPhone. It’s just not quite, it’s rude. Like, no, you shouldn’t do that. And once you do that, you’re downgraded his book as bad manners, right? And it’s just a very naive view of the world. But he just really like this, we deserve this. He would be very gung-ho and he loves the patents.

And it was like, we came up with this idea. It’s ours. No one can copy it. And the sad fact is they totally can copy it and they can find a way to copy it without technically violating your patents. And if you try to fight them out, it’ll just burn up time and money. And it’s a waste of everyone’s time. Like the look and feel lawsuit that no one remembers anymore. It’s just, it’s a, it’s a tar pit for everybody involved. But his sense of justice is once I’ve done something and I do the good one, no one should have the nerve to copy us. And that’s not way the market works, nor should it be.

Gruber: It is some sort of innate sense of justice that I think is at least in jobs was misguided.

John: Yeah. It’s like a toddler’s innate sense of justice. Little kids have the same sense of justice that is just, they think things should be the way they are and it’s not really a real sense of justice.

The Substitute

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Upgrade
Episode: 490: The Cat Has a Team of Lawyers

Jason: As a guest, it is John Siracusa. Hi, John.

John: I’m like a substitute teacher.

Jason: A little bit.

John: I’m not your normal Mike Hurley. I’m a substitute today, so we’ll probably just watch a movie.

The cat has a team of lawyers

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Upgrade
Episode: 490: The Cat Has a Team of Lawyers

Jason: In our chat room just sent a link saying that Beeper Mini now works again, but only if you’ve got an email-based existing Apple ID Not the phone number registration.

So they’ve taken that part out of the equation and they’re like, no just use your real Apple ID and So, okay, cat. I guess it’s back in your corner, mouse.

John: Oh, yeah But the cat has another thing the cat has a team of lawyers and like I said on ATP Apple can play the tech cat and mouse game forever and they will win it. But they also have another game that is much easier and faster to in which is hey, you’re not legally allowed to connect to our servers and use our service if you’re not an Apple device.

So especially since people trying to make money off of this, it’s probably pretty easy to send a bunch of lawyers and say yeah.

You know because there’s got to be something in the terms of service that you agree to when you get an Apple ID that says you’re only allowed to use Apple services Apple device like that’s in the legalese somewhere, I’m sure, so they can just lawyer the way out of this as well.

So there are many avenues to shutting down this business. The idea that the company thinks that they’re gonna be charging their customers two dollars a Month and build a burgeoning business and Apple’s just gonna look the other way just seems highly unlikely.

I will fight you every second of the way

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 523: I Can’t Give Him the Carrot Fast Enough

Casey: Just yesterday I sat down to watch the first episode of Ted Lasso to prepare myself for the new season. I think I’m a day behind already, but this is the time that if you watch one a day you’ll be roughly synced up by the time the new season starts. And for the life of me, the information architecture on the Apple TV app is the biggest pile of garbage. It is so bad. Maybe it’s just my brain doesn’t work the way that those designers do.

John: Just give up and search, because if you have a goal in mind, that UI will fight you every second of the way. Their whole point is that they don’t want you to have a goal. They want to say, don’t you try to watch something, let us tell you what to watch. But what if I already know what I want to watch? It’s like, no, sorry, that’s wrong user. You should not know what you want to watch. I know you think you want to watch the next episode of the show you’ve been watching. For the past 30 days, all you’ve been doing every night is watching the show. You probably want to watch the next episode, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to show that to you. Try and find it.

Sell More Macs

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 559: The Tall Lettuce

John: The Mac is a great product. We love it. They don’t sell as many of those as they do iPhones they don’t even sell as many of those as the world does Windows PCs and So the thing Apple see always seems to be proud of is the quality of their product But I feel like I should say we deserve part of your money because we sold 17 billion iPhones That like we did that and that makes you able to make money on our platform Why not because the phone is great, but we sold a billion of it’s like one degree like they they’re so focused on We’ve done such a good job on our products. That’s why we deserve this one.

I wish they were focused more on how can we sell more of these and if you wanted to sell more Macs for example You’d cut your margins you’d make a low-cost macbook that we keep talking about that Well, maybe you’ll actually be really like there are different ways to sell more Macs.

And I love the fact that they made the max better and they’re great and they’re awesome. That should help them sell more But if you ever really want to move the needle on Mac gaming, you shouldn’t be like people should be coming big games on our Platform maybe we just need to make the technology better.

No, Apple, you need to sell more Macs That’s how you do it. Sell more Macs. I know Tim Cook doesn’t need to hear that

I did fix one incorrectly curled apostrophe

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 556: Apple Chips Are People

Casey: John, while you’re taking over the CMS, can you make it so that the button that does new episode automatically disables it as soon as it’s tapped, checked, clicked, whatever?

John: So you know the story of the cobbler’s children don’t have shoes. I will do things for the end user, but for us I’ll just say be careful when clicking, Casey.

Casey: Fine. Fine.

Marco: Oh man, John, you should be able to do like a, like, you know, conflict save detection.

John: Yeah, let’s not get crazy here.

Marco: Maybe you could do a whole Google Docs, like, you know, live editing thing. Just re-implement Subetha edit all, you know. How hard could it be?

Casey: Small matter of programming.

John: Just, yeah, well. I did fix one incorrectly curled apostrophe, so I’m really doing the important work.

Do you agree to maintain smithfamily.com?

Sun, 24 Sep 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 549: Unathorized Trash Can

John: And what if they don’t want to deal with domains? You’d be like, oh, it’s easy. Dealing with domains is easy. It’s really easy to control. And fast mail setup is really like, you say that because you’re listening to ATP. But your kid may not want to have anything to do with computers.

So you can’t actually, you know, oh, I’m just going to have a family domain because there’s like, there’s no continuity plan. Unless you have like a chain of younger relations who agree to continue to maintain smithfamily.com in perpetuity, don’t give your kids email addresses on that, don’t make them use it.

Millions of Person-Hours Wasted

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 553: Cut the Bridges to the Mainland

John: There are actually rumors that like, I think Apple has some patents on this, but Apple patents everything they ever think of, like every company, like magnetic connectors. That’s what Marco was kind of looking at. It’s not like MagSafe, but for data, right? So you wouldn’t actually have to have a hole in the device to stick a plug into, just magnetically connect to it. There’s all sorts of problems with that or whatever.

But anyway, I think there will be a successor design, but this USB-C design I think has just as much legs as USB-A. USB-A is like one of the worst connectors of our entire lives because of the external symmetry and internal asymmetry just frustrating just millions of person hours wasted putting the plug in twice or whatever.

Herds of Roombas

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Robot or Not?
Episode: 242: A Group of Robots

John: animals any animal that’s solitary we don’t have i don’t think we have a collective noun for. I mean i suppose maybe if you have like snakes where they have like a a litter of snakes if a whole bunch are born at once or something like that but yeah it doesn’t apply to roombas because they don’t they don’t form groups so there is no collective noun they’re just robots. Or roomba. Or vacuums.

Don't Call Me Merch

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 532: The Meat Part of Multitasking

(modem screech)

Casey: The merch store is open, hooray!

John: It’s not called the merch store, please, please. Let’s not sell it yet with this terrible name. It’s the ATP store. The ATP store has returned. Time was that Casey would herald the return to the ATP store, but now he keeps saying merch and I don’t know why.

Casey: Do you wanna take this, John?

John: No, ATP store, please.

Casey: The ATP, don’t call it merch, don’t call it merchandise, it’s just the ATP store. It’s back, baby.

John: Thank you, that’s right.

You Wasted a Lot of Time With That Preamble

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 538: We Studied Thousands of Heads

Casey: All right, we have been recording for something to the order of an hour and a half, hour and forty-five minutes. I have a feeling, John, you’re going to have a couple of words to say about gaming, but please remember that we have an entire other product line to talk about. So, use your time wisely, sir. Go.

John: Seems like you wasted a lot of time with that preamble. I could have just done it quickly.

A Mere 5K

Sat, 27 May 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 531: Rock It in the Right Direction

Casey: Oh, the struggle! The struggle with your mere 5Ks, but now you’re back with all six of them.

John: But still not tiny enough. I know they did an update to Audio Hijack, probably partially in response to me complaining that you couldn’t make the window small enough, and so they made it so you can make the window smaller. And I can make it narrow enough now, but I can’t make it short enough. I gotta fit it into the little corner of my screen where it goes.

Casey: So, you know, I was gonna unload on YouTube about how ridiculous you are that you two, with your 6K monitors are somehow pressed for real estate, apparently?

John: I have a few windows open, I’m not sure if you heard.

They're Delusional

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 530: You Are Not Nintendo

JOHN: So if these car makers kick software platforms out of the car, which is what they’re doing if they don’t allow CarPlay, you don’t android those are ways for those existing software platforms to allow applications developed for those platforms to get into the car.

If car makers kick them out, if they think hey, we’ll just write all the applications ourselves, no, you won’t you suck at this and even if you didn’t nobody can write all their own applications. Even Nintendo can’t get by only with first-party games and Nintendo is Nintendo. You are not Nintendo, right?

If you have none of those applications, you will just have a lesser platform. You say, okay, well, everybody does that, then just everyone will have crap applications. Ah, but if everyone has crap applications, someone, the Cingular of the car company, Cingular with a c, the Cingular of the car world will say, you know what, everybody else kicked all the other software platforms out, but you know what, Apple, Android, we’re gonna invite you back in.

And suddenly, it’s their unique selling proposition for whatever brand of car this is that decides to do this, like the last place competitor, Cingular, right? Says, iPhone, you can come on our platform and suddenly people are looking at Cingular again. No one was looking at Cingular before, but hey, you know what, if you want the iPhone, the literal only place to get it is on Cingular, which will eventually be called AT&T, and i was never a fan of Cingular/at&t before, but they have the iPhone, so I’m going over there.

That’s what’ll happen, and it’ll just reverse and ripple back through, because there is absolutely no way that any of these car makers are going to make a successful software platform, and they’re delusional If they think that you can either make one of their own, which will never, never, never work, or we don’t need a software platform, we’ll just write all the applications in-house.

Go ahead, do that, you’ll get Cingular. That’s what’ll happen. And it may take two decades of pain and suffering, to Marco’s point, it’ll suck for us the whole time if this reverses and goes through the whole industry and we gotta wait for a whole other decade long cycle for these idiots to get their heads out of their butts.

But inevitably it will happen because there is no fighting against software platforms. That’s where the innovation happens. Wherever the platforms are popular, where developers are making software, that’s where it happens.

And look at Waze, it’s like, well, that’s software innovation for like cell phones. We want software innovation for cars. That also happened on the phone. Phones aren’t cars, but that’s where all the good applications for cars came from. On the, because people can bring their phones into their cars.

So there’s just, there’s literally, it’s like the worst decision ever to decide, I don’t want any of the world’s most popular software application platforms to be able to use their software integrated into my car.

Classified as a Munition

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 528: My Favorite Slap in the Face

JOHN: I locked myself out of a locked note. You know, the Apple Notes back before you could use your Apple ID to lock a note, you could put individual passwords on notes. And I had a note that I had put an individual password on that I had forgotten and hadn’t put it in keychain or anything like that.

JOHN: And so I used my dual GPUs to crack it, like brute force. To brute force crack my own password. And guess what? The fans really spun up on my Mac Pro. But I did crack it because it was a short throwaway password or whatever.

MARCO: How long did it take?

JOHN: I don’t know, like five minutes. I did not use a 15 character password. This is an argument for you to do the thing where, I don’t remember when they did that, it was ages ago, where they let you do the thing like, “Do you want to update your thing so your Apple ID and your face can unlock all your notes?” I eventually did that.

JOHN: And that’s just a silly example, but I could have also cracked it on an iPhone. I’m not pretending that I need a big GPU to do this but the same reason people don’t need a sports car because they’re not race car drivers they just like to have one even though you you know you can’t really use it without breaking the law.

JOHN: At least I’m not you know breaking the law with my Mac Pro here or whatever remember those ads when you could couldn’t you couldn’t export the g4 to to communist countries because it was like a restricted export

MARCO: Yeah

JOHN: I think Apple had an ad campaign about that

MARCO: Classified as a munition because it’s too good of a computer

It's Not Like We Don't Have Horses

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 503: Draw Your Own Slice of Pizza

Anytime there’s any kind of technology that previously does something that could only be done by humans there is this battle saying that the new way to do it is soulless and bad and evil and is going to corrupt the youth and so on and so forth and then the other people who are excited about the tech and just want it to go forward.

And many times throughout history there has been a technology that has caused entire professions and entire industries to basically disappear or shrink to the point or transform in a way that’s you know, not even recognizable.

Witness the entire industry surrounding having horses pull things with people in them and the advent of the automobile. It’s not like we don’t have horses. Not like people don’t have jobs making saddles for horses and shoeing horses and taking care of horses all those jobs still exist. But boy, that industry looks a lot different than it did before the advent of the automobile. A lot different.

Step One, Be Handsome

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Hypercritical
Episode: 11: I Am the Steve Jobs of This Sandwich

JOHN: There are some lessons to be learned from what Apple does that maybe that will help you succeed in your business. But the things that help you more are the intangibles. You can’t copy those.

“Oh, I’ll just do what Apple does. Make really good products. Make the right decisions about what features to include and what features not to include. And figure out what people want before they even know that they’re going to want it themselves.”

That stuff, you can say it, but you can’t copy it. It’s in the same way that you can say, “Write your own infrastructure software just like Google does and make it awesome.”

“Yeah, how do I do that again?”

It’s tough to copy greatness. So whenever I see these things of like, “Do what Apple does and you will succeed,” half of that is true and then half of it is like the great instruction on how to avoid sexual harassment in the workplace.

Step one, be handsome.

Succeed like Apple.

Xcode's price is right

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 521: Dance Compatible

John: Before he goes, I’ve got the number of files. Without cheating, you want to do Price is Right rules. What are your two guesses?

Marco: I’ll say a million.

Casey: Oh, come on now. $1.00. $1.00. $1.00.

John: You’re gonna go one, you’re gonna go one.

Casey: All kidding aside, if I were to, I know to do Price is Right rules, I would guess one file, but I think it’s something to the order of 5,000 to 7,000 files, so we’re in that neck of the woods.

John: So your guess is 5 to 7,000, Marco’s is one million. Do you wanna converse with each other to figure out why you’re this far apart and maybe think about which one of you is closer to right?

Later is a Lie!

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 511: Moving to Antarctica

Marco: Whenever I see a dialogue that says like, maybe later, when I just wanna say, no, I never wanna do this.

John: They changed it, they changed the button in an Xcode update to say like, yes, and like, I don’t know if it says yes, but whatever it says, it’s like the positive one, then the other one says dismiss, which at least is better than later, because later is a lie.

Later is like, but here’s the thing, you hit dismiss, right? You’re not saying later, you hit dismiss, but you’ll be seeing that dialogue again.

Who Doesn't Want to Scribble?

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 513: Scribble on the Shared Placemat

John: I’m just so angry that I can’t scribble. I’m unreasonably angry.

Casey: I can tell.

John: Like I don’t understand it. Who doesn’t want to scribble on the shared placemat, right? That’s the whole fun of it. And you guys are all having fun and doing your little messages with your handwriting, with your fingers or your Apple Pencil. And here I am, I can draw like, look, it’s a box, it’s a square. It’s just so terrible. It’s just, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why I’m being left out of the scribble party.

Casey: Because you insist on using a Mac and putting your iPad up near your bed.

When the HomePod Grows Up

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 518: Deconstructed iMac

It would be kind of cool if Apple eventually figured out where what the homepods are gonna be when it grows up. Right now what it is is the second generation of the exact product that they made before, it’s just they took a long vacation in between to like, I don’t know, think about stuff for a while.

Because if this had come out like a year after the home pod we’d be like, oh the next homepod is out and it’s better than the first one. And Marco probably wouldn’t even had time to have all of his fail but he just would have replaced them with the new one anyway.

But there was this weird time in the wilderness where they didn’t know what they were gonna do, and they came out of the wilderness and they said, “Let’s just do what we did before.”

I Wasn't a Mobster, But Some of My Relatives Probably Were

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 515: The Elder Programmer Look

I think it is a well executed version of what it is, but it is a nostalgia trip for people of a certain age. It is nostalgic for a time that is before my time, but it is my parents’ time. So I can relate to it in kind of the same way I can relate to Good Fellas. I wasn’t a mobster in the 70’s but some of my relatives probably were.

That's Plenty of Nines for You

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 494: Ultra-Wideband Park Bench

If you want to save some money, you don’t need 11 nines of data durability for your things, I’m assuming you don’t. You’d take 7 nines probably! It’s plenty of nines for you. Some people don’t need any nines!

From Antarctica, with Linux

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 511: Moving to Antarctica

Well who else uses this, and who else develops software for it, and so there is a network effect on platforms as well. And you mentioned like moving to another country, it’s like, well, if I don’t want to use Apple platforms and I don’t want to use Windows or Android, I’m going to use Linux on the desktop, but that’s like moving to Antarctica. I mean, it exists, and it’s a land mass, and you can go there and stand on it, but ewwww.

Revenge Namespacing

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 510: It’s Occupied by Bears

One of the accidental booby-trap, bear trap, accidental pitfalls that lies lurking in the Perl programming language - yeah, I know everyone is saying “yeah, among the many” - if you’re writing like a little test thing where you’re like “I just want to try something out” and you just make up class names or whatever. If you call your classes foo and bar you’re fine, but if you have the misfortune to decide “I’m going to name a class A, B, C, and D”, you know what I mean? Uh, there already is a B class and it’s kind of important to the way Perl works.

“Why isn’t this working right, what is it doing?”, because of course Perl will let you do whatever you want to the B namespace but guess what, the B namespace is occupied and it’s occupied by bears. B does not stand for bear.

I don’t even know enough about how Swift namespacing works to know how they get away with it, I’m assuming like all the names are scoped to the module or something like that, but I just go with the Swift convention. If they’re going to call their things in SwiftUI “view” and stuff like that, well I’m calling my thing “app”. Deal with it.

90's BMW Eyeballs

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 500: All the Nerds in the Room

A more plausible reason why your eyes are getting tired is part of the aging process is your squishy little eyeballs get stiffer. Kind of like the interior of a ‘90’s BMW, slowly getting hard, you know, and then crumbling, right?

So your eyeballs get stiffer and that means it is harder to change the shape of your eyeball to change your focal distance. That means the muscles that do that have to work harder and so for a day of like your eyes going “Ah, I gotta squish this old 40 year old eyeball to focus on this screen, I’ve been doing it all day long, boy my eyes feel tired”…

I’m not an eye doctor, this is my vaguely plausible theory that makes more sense than blue light makes you tired.”

Apple Phone

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 84: The Load Bearing Finger

John: In Apple’s history, and we’ll get to this if we actually do get to the iPhone 6 Plus bending, Apple has always chosen, when they have a choice between keep it the same thickness and increase battery life or make it thinner, they always choose make it thinner. That’s where we’re mentioning I’m ready for the iPhone 4s form factor of this watch, we all assume that this is the first Apple Watch, and just like the first Apple Phone…

John: Yeah, I’m going to call it Apple Phone, I’m going to switch it around. Instead of mistakenly saying iWatch, I’m going to say Apple Phone from now on. Thanks a lot, guys.

Marco: Apple Touch.

The Mouse is Not a Finger

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Hypercritical
Episode: 3: The Mouse is Not a Finger

John: At a certain point, you need multiple windows. You need to be looking at more than one thing at once. You need these persnickety little controls to do certain types of tasks. And the mouse is not a finger.

Not Using Computers To Their Fullest Potential

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 96: The Windows of Siracusa County

Marco: I thought this was going to be a short show, we’d like barely get to an hour 20, have no idea what to talk about because the news wasn’t that interesting, and I thought we’d be scraping around for desperation topics.

John: I can talk to people all day about how they’re not using computers to their fullest potential. Like, think of this way: when you see somebody else use a computer, do you feel like they could be doing it better or faster?

Casey: Of course!

Marco: Yeah, all the time.

John: I have that feeling so much. I cannot look at other people using computers.

Casey: I cannot imagine what it’s like for you!

Marco: This is the hell of your life.

John: It’s not as bad as having two hands on the mouse, slowly bringing the cursor up to the close box, but that’s what it feels like. And I feel better when I see, you ever see the people who do everything in one window but do everything on keyboard, those touch typist people? At least I feel better about those people because they may not be as efficient as they could be, but it’s clear that they have a system. And so, it’s like just a flurry of commands, and the screen is splitting and flashing and changing from one thing to the other, and they’re probably doing more work than they have to, but things are happening. Versus the person you see using the computer and you make a suggestion, and it’s like, alright so, I gotta go to that server, I guess I get a new window here, and I could type S, S, H…

Super Yellow or Super Orange

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 501: Torsional Rigidity Check

I think it might true in the same sense that if you’ve ever gone skiing and worn yellow ski goggles cause you were born in the 70s, you put the ski goggles over your face, yellow or orange ski goggles that are like super yellow or super orange, right? But then after you’ve had the goggles on for a little bit, your brain adjusts and you stop noticing that everything looks like pee.

HTML Threshing Machine

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Reconcilable Differences
Episode: 161: ASCII Salad Bar
Time Location: 00:29:52

The Markdown is meant to be readable as is by human beings, and not merely, like HTML, a, you know, sort of a pre-compiled format that you chuck into a threshing machine and that it grinds out into the real format.

John's Special Relativity

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 500: All the Nerds in the Room

John: A feeling I would get when I used to tell… this is going to sound nerdy…

Casey: NO!

John: The feeling you get when you tell people about special relativity.

Marco: Have you done this a lot??

Casey: Yeah, this is just something you do from time to time?

John: When I was a kid I used to do it, right, so here’s the thing

Casey: This is the least surprising thing you’ve ever said

John: This polarizer thing, if you haven’t ever seen this before, it will give you a similar feeling of learning about special relativity. Special relativity when you explain it to people, or when you first learn it, in my case when you’re a kid or whatever, like the ideas behind it, like wait a second. Everyone in the world has known that this is true, and no one has told me??

You're in a Religion

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Robot or Not?
Episode: 214: Religious or Spirtual
Time Location: 00:01:45

Maybe the money thing is even better. Maybe you’re super spiritual with you and your five friends and there’s an org chart among your five friends, but is somebody asking for money? As soon as somebody’s asking for money, you’re in a religion.

How Do You Like Your Microwave Oven?

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 16:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 483: The Faceless Knob
Time Location: 01:20:49

Aside from all the awesome things the space program does having to do with space, how do you like your microwave oven?

Hard Pear People

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 16:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 120: One Magical Wire
Time Location: 02:03:59

John: Are there hard pear people?

Marco: Yes!

John: I’ll eat a hard pear, right? I’m not against it. But you’re saying people who don’t like soft pears? It goes too soft and they’re like, “that’s it, I can’t handle it.”?

Marco: Yeah, people who just basically treat pears like apples and just bite them when they’re solid as a rock.

John: I can do that, I’m not against that, but I agree that they get… it’s like banana ripeness, have you seen the variability in the ripeness of bananas people are willing to eat? Some people will eat them super green to where you feel like they’re going to get a stomach ache, some people wait for them to go entirely brown on the outside, and some people are in-between. I think pear is, maybe the continuum is more abbreviated?

John: I will eat a pear when it’s way too hard because it’s better than not having a pear.

Angry Impairment

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Hypercritical
Episode: 3: The Mouse is Not a Finger
Time Location: 00:05:59

I don’t think I would feel impaired if hundreds of thousands of people were following me and everything I said got angry responses. People get angry about everything. Including me.

Chin Mask

Sun, 21 Aug 2022 16:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Reconcilable Differences
Episode: 189: The Cutting Edge of Technological Grievance
Time Location: 00:22:20

When I saw another masked person, we make eye contact and be like “Can you believe these people?” Like, what are they doing? You’re going to be in a tube with other people breathing each other’s air, and you’re not gonna wear…

And then occasionally you’d see there’s a mask but then it’s a chin mask. They got the chin mask. They’re not at a restaurant. They’re not eating, they’re not drinking from their water bottle. They’re chin mask… they’re sitting there.

People Are Not Thumb Drives

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 16:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Robot or Not?
Episode: 192: Backup Brain
Time Location: 00:02:25

John: Trying to transfer your memories to a baby, that doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t change the baby into you, even if you could do it.

Jason: So premise rejected.

John: Mmm-hmmm.

Jason: Sorry, Vitor, I tried.

John: People are not thumb drives.

These Birds Are Out Of Control

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 16:00:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 495: Five Points For Smell
Time Location: 01:16:07

While this is happening, I’m eating my sandwich. We make our own little sandwiches and bring them to the beach. I’m eating my sandwich, and a bird comes from behind me, in the air, and takes a bite of my sandwich that is in my hand, that I am in the process of eating. He didn’t get the sandwich because I grabbed it as they went away, but he took a bite out of it. And of course now I have to throw out that whole sandwich because it’s got bird bite on it, alright? I don’t want the bird slobber. It’s in my hand, right?

That happened to I think one other person so the new move was while we’re eating lunch, hold your food close to your chest and be aware that the nearest bird may be behind you. We’re watching in front of us, we’re watching all these birds, watching them or whatever, I thought I was covered.

And there was an umbrella too, the thing flew like under the umbrella, over my shoulder, over the back of the seat, and you know, while still flying went aah-chomp! and tried to grab the sandwich out of my hand.

These birds are out of control. I don’t know what has gotten into them. They’re not afraid anymore, and they’re poopin’ on us, and they’re stealing our food out of our hands while we eat it.

Micro-level

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 07:00:23 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 494: Ultra-Wideband Park Bench
Time Location: 01:25:02

I do like this stand, it’s served me well. It’s got glass shelves, holds everything up pretty well. I did micro-level it because of course nothing in my house is level.

It’s mostly level. If you put a level on it and look at the little bubble, it’s between the two lines. But is it in the middle between the two lines? Almost!

The Hole

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 07:23:38 GMT

Podcast: Robot or Not?
Episode: 240: Holes in a Straw
Time Location: 00:01:30

The hole is the top surface, the hole is not the interior, right?

Like if you’re inside a cave, right, the cave is the inside part, but you could go through a hole to get into the cave.

No Blooming

Sun, 07 Aug 2022 07:21:00 GMT

Podcast: Accidental Tech Podcast
Episode: 494: Ultra-Wideband Park Bench
Time Location: 1:22:10

So anyway, I give the whole experience a big thumbs up. I am much more excited and impressed by this television than anyone else in my family, I can tell you that. They don’t care.

I showed them the footage of the honey dripping onto the thing on a black background… how are you not impressed by that? There’s no blooming, it’s HDR, every pixel is individually lit up!