 This is the Vergecast where we discuss what's happening. What is this? What is going on? What's going on with this right here? What is going on up here? What is happening? Your hair was out of control. What is going on here? What's going on with my hair? What is going on? Very, very, very. All honesty. I can already tell I have a hair problem. I've been off. I've missed. Oh, what is going on here? What is going on with this hair? What's happening to this weird tentacle hair? I gotta do something about this. Yeah. I got some hair stuff running around here. This is insane. How do they get my hair to do that? How much lift do you get on that? Like an inch and a half? I gotta look like a young Republican. I look like Kramer. I gotta get a double Superman curl here. Does this mean I'm twice as super? I am so desperately in need of a haircut. It's bigger than usual. You got some volume, man. I didn't put any product in it. You should use mousse. I'm moussing. Sorry, can we get that shot back up? I just need to fix whatever's going on. This is what happens when I put nothing in my hair. My hair is doing some really weird curl stuff here. I like it. Yeah, it's great. Hey, and welcome to the 100th Vergecast. Let me ask you. What is going on here? What is going on? Actually right now... It's pretty good. Now there's this thing. Oh God. I don't know what this is. Welcome to 100th Vergecast. We made it to 100. I'm Josh Dapolsky. I'm Neil Iovetel. And we have a very special guest today, Paul Miller. Yeah. Now look, we wanted to get Paul in the studio. We tried to get him in the studio. Needless to say, we could not get him in the studio. It's not easy to get Paul anywhere. Paul should be appearing on Skype magically. There he is. Paul Miller from Colorado, from what appears to be sunny Colorado. Can you hear us? Hello? Yes, I can hear you. Oh, there he is. Oh, thank God. Paul. Yeah, we got it. Welcome to the Vergecast. You're back, man. So exciting. 100 episodes. It's good to have you back. Can we get his volume up a little bit? Did you ever think that you would make it, that we would make it to 100 and that you would be dialing in on Skype? Well, yes. That's how you always thought it happened? The first moment I see this going. And then I'm and Josh is here. What is going on? Skype. No, come on. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding? Is he back? Can we get him back? Can we get him? Guys, what's happening? Working. Working on it. That's great. That's good stuff. That's super cool. You know, it's really a testament to I think the high quality production that we run here. I think it's a testament to Colorado. I'm just going to blame. You're blaming the entire state of Colorado. Okay, so look, we're going to hold on. So obviously it's disappointing. Wait, what's our ETA? We've lost Paul yet. Do we know how long this is going to take? Are we? A minute. Okay, cool. Just sorry. You know what? The internet just doesn't work anymore. Okay, so look, we're going to get Paul back. Don't worry about it. But I think we should get into the day's news. There's a lot to talk about. Because there's news to talk about today on the 100th Ridgecast. The Nexus 5 has been announced. Yeah. Google's new Kit Kat 4.4. It's a thing. Horrible. Let's just make it five. Just stop torturing us. Yeah. And we have one here with us in the studio. I'm holding. What is happening? What is that? What's going on? Do you hear this music? What is happening? Get in here. Stop looking so proud of yourself. Is there fog? Is that something burning or is that a fog machine? Paul started a fire. Now he's leaving. It doesn't read on the camera, but there's something. There's some type of smoke back here. Should I be worried? Hey. Ladies and gentlemen. Paul. Josiah. Hampton Miller III. I wanted to add that. I thought you'd do the other name there. You don't know this, but Paul's sitting in the studio with us right now. It was all an elaborate hoax. It was a ruse. It was all an elaborate hoax. You guys sold it pretty well. How are we a ruse? I got to tell you both. You got a little upset. You were like, why couldn't I be there? Well, both during the rehearsal and then this time I thought we dropped a Skype call. Both times. Yeah, it really worked out. Yes, we played a cruel prank on you. Paul was here all along in studio with us in New York City, the greatest city ever in the history of the world. That's right. And currently also. And Paul Miller is here. Paul. Look, I even have a drink. Welcome. You should have a soda waiting for you. I am drinking whiskey. Cheers, guys. Cheers. Cheers to 100. To 100. Also, by the way, the verge is two years old. Oh yeah. The verge of tomorrow at the stroke of midnight tonight, Hallow's Eve. All Hallows Eve. All Hallows Eve. Not just Hallows Eve. That's like, what is that? The verge turns two. Yeah. Which is nuts. Two years young. Two years of sweet, delicious, delectable, succulent, sexy, wonderful news and fun. Cultural. News and fun. We actually should change the tagline. This is the verge. Let me see some reactions. I just want to see some. By the way, I should never have had a computer here. No, I don't know why we allowed that. I'm going to shut it in a second. It's like we want 100 episodes knowing this was a bad idea. 100, you show up. I'm done. All right. I don't need a computer. You know why? I have the computer of love that's being generated by you guys in this room right now. Mainframe of devotion. The mainframe of devotion and friendship, which is powering the GPU of action. I think in year three, this computer is going to go quantum. Paul, you look really good. Let me just tell you. Paul's like reverse AG. I saw him earlier today and I was like, are you, you're like Benjamin Buttoning. Yeah. Yeah. It's disturbing and upsetting. It's really like, like well put together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to be like coasting. Wait a second. Is Benjamin Button played by Brad Pitt? Yes. I've never seen it. I just know that he goes from old to young. I only read it. Does he actually go back to the, does he go back into the womb? What do you mean? Like does he go up inside a woman? He's born as an old man. Right. How does he get out? He dies, right? He's born as a tiny old man. This is all, you know, I'm so old. No, I'm sorry. I think they might've stretched, I think they might've stretched the logic and the truth of this Benjamin Button story. What do you mean? F. Scott Fitzgerald fame novelist. I'm not so worried about my hair right now, but I do seem to be sweating or as the Jews call it, shvitzing. Wow. Wow. I'm a Jew. I can say that. Can you? I mean, I was raised a Jew, but you know how I feel about God. Yeah. Drifting in and out of orbit. I love him. I love him. It's for Paul. It's for Paul. Anyhow, we're back on the Vergecast. Paul, what have you been doing? We've missed you. So far, this is the worst Vergecast. Yeah, it's already deeply off the rails. I've been taking care of children. My brother's three- Taken care of them? No. That's awful. What do the Jews call that, Josh? No! No! Let's hear more about your... You've been a caretaker of children. And I haven't killed a single child. Just so quickly. No, my brother was... It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. Yeah. So my brother was deployed with the air force. Could I get a little paper towel or something? Yeah. I'm just really... Can I get a sedative maybe, and something stronger to drink? And then maybe the air could be turned up, Ross. Yeah? I mean, down. Down. So it's cooler? Cold. Cold. Cold. Can the air can be turned cold? Anyhow, you've been taking care of children in Colorado. Yes, my brother's children while he was deployed with the air force. He was back? He was back. He was in... Hold on. Yep. Yeah. So one thing I've remembered, you remember my middle name? I was surprised about Josiah. Yeah, yeah. And then I added. What was it? Hamilton, Hamilton, Hampton, Hampton, Hampton, Paul, Paul Josiah Hampton. All right. Well, I mean, Paul, we've missed you. Thank you. I'm not not for this immediate detour into insanity. Right? That I have not missed. Right. In general. Well, you know, it's a whole package. And I will say that. You take the good you take the bad our listeners, the bitter and the sweet. I've missed the point where they produced what I would characterize as fanfiction fanfic, Paul fanfic, or just regular and he went right there. Slash fake is the sexy stuff, right? Okay, yeah. Nothing I would know. I mean, I don't know. Obviously, it's cleared. I have too much stuff. Can I get a little apple box here? Can I also get an apple? I'm just starting a box of apples. I'd like some granny Smith's. All right. So I want to show you something. Okay, Fuji. It's called convoy. Oh, can we talk about what are we doing? We're gonna run convoy. Oh, yeah. So Paul's been gone, you know, and, and people out there in the world have been creating fanfic. And we got in particular. Well, when I don't know if it's called fanfic, I don't know what it is. But a very talented guy named bored Edlund. Yeah. created a film, a short film, which we have not been able to share until this moment. And we want you to take a look at it. And you know, there, there, I hope in the future you see more of this. I know I can't say for sure. Yeah. But here's a little taste of something that should make you feel warm and fuzzy about the Verge cast. Take a look. Can I say something? Yeah. It's dark in here. Am I crazy? It's dark. I'm just gonna say it. Like, here's what I think. What's going on my hair? I look like you don't seem to care. I don't care if your AT&T service, like, sexually assaults you in the night. Okay. It's very disappointing. That's great. This jacket was a mistake. Yeah, it's like it's stupid. What it boils down to is this. I got this like weird like Tucker Carlson hair happening. I don't know how that computes. I agree with you. But here's the deal. It feels really solid. It's not a product. You're being harsh for no reason. This is not slimy. Okay. It's not right. And I don't appreciate it. Just a little taste. Yeah. Just a taste. It's how I picture you floating. I'm not that flexible. I can't. Yeah, you're floating behind. We're in, we're in we're in. We're in two separate 18 wheelers. Nila and I. Powering down the highway. Are you guys hauling by the way? Well, don't you worry about that. But we're anxious. We're argumentative. We're worried. We're worried. Mostly, from what I can tell, the Virgcast is centered mostly around my completely self-obsessed, like my problems with the way I look. Right. Which is very depressing to see, to be confronted with it in such a manner. But anyhow, we're barreling down the highway of life with hauling a lot of stuff. Worried, angry, argumentative, concerned that we look like Tucker Carlson is one of us. You're floating. You're floating down that highway. I'm trying. Zen'd out. You're trying. I'm trying. That's good. Really earnest. The way you said that was really earnest, like a guy who's gotten sober, who's just living day to day. That's right. Day by day. You can't take anything for granted. That's right. Yeah, like the internet? Or like the fact that you're floating on a highway. Don't take it for granted. I wouldn't say. That doesn't always last. I wouldn't take that for granted. So Paul, you are, basically you're not really writing much. No. You're working on a book? Tell me about that. It's not materialized yet. Well, books are not easy. You know what I've been doing a lot? I've been learning how to program. Yeah. You're a programmer. Learning JavaScript. Little AngularJS. You're doing some programming. Programming, yeah, yeah. Do you have friends who are programmers that you hang out with? No, I need more programming friends. There's no programming clicks in Colorado. If you live in, what area of Colorado are you in? Colorado Springs. Yeah, I mean it's a big town. But I'm back. I'm in New York now. I moved back. Shut up. I live in New York. I have my apartment back. Are you kidding me? I have a bed. Wait, you're back in New York permanently? Yes. Really? Yes. You say you have your luggage? With you here? Can we unpack into what's in there? When you say your apartment, you don't mean a corner of the office, right? He's curling up in... Interesting. He's like, you know, there's some space in the server room that we're not using. Yeah, it's really warm too. It's nice. It shouldn't be warm. It should be cooled down. It's got its own air conditioning system. Yeah, but then the heat from the servers. All right, anyhow. That's good, Paul. You're a king. You're back in New York. I'm a server. I'm a cat. So if you're ever in the, what's your neighborhood? Union Square. If you're ever in the Union Square area. Paul was often recognized in the Union Square area. That's right. He was a local celebrity, haunted. Weird Paul. He was also a ghost. Yeah. And then sometimes if I'm skateboarding, people are like, do a kickflip. Cool. Paul was often heckled in the Union Square area. I'm often heckled. All right, let's get into, by the way, now something is going on with my hair. Yeah. It's like something's moved. Paul, it is really hot in here. But you've been keeping up with the heat. Yeah, why is it so hot in here? You're wearing like a sporty, like you're like a Don Draper on the weekends over here. Well, that's true. I'm like Don Draper during the week. I have, I've been reading theverge.com a lot. I'm Don Draper lately. Yeah. I wanted to say that you guys have been doing a very good job. Thank you. Well, you know, it's, we couldn't have done it without you. It's informative, but it's also insightful. That's something that we have been trying to avoid, but unfortunately I guess failing. Can't stop it. You know, it's like, let's just inform today. And then gosh darn it, we also do insightful work on top of it. It's the worst. Well, I'm glad that you've been reading. That would explain our explosive growth. And then like all the stuff happened today that like I had no idea about. Yeah, you didn't know. So that's good segue. It's here. It's actually here. Good segue. The Nexus 5. Surprise, surprise. Here it is right here, right there. I'm trying to get the right angle. I think that's the right angle. Here it is, Kit Kat, as delicious as it is nutritious. So as far as I can tell. Do you want to see it? You haven't seen it yet. So by the way, come on, before I give it to you. We did a rehearsal. We did. You touched it a little bit. I'm not gonna lie. I've done enough lying for the day. I said like I took it. I've done enough lying for the day. We did one joke. But I took it back from you. What other lies have you told today? That was a lie. But hold on. Now you're lying. What? Because I took it back from you. I handed it to you. Right. And then you were like, oh, let me check this out. And I was like, no. But I touched it. He did touch it. I saw it. Hold on, wait. What I want to say about it before you touch it again. I gotta say, you know, this design is not revolutionary or anything, but I'm pretty psyched on it. Because that's saying Kit Kat's pretty slick. Josh has been freaking out all day. Kit Kat is pretty slick. So I understand that. I was saying, this is the Chromebook. It's the matte black. This is all I want. I'm like smudging oil all over it. It gets fingerprints on it real fast. The matte's a little smudging. Within seconds of you taking it out of the box, I notice it has fingerprints on it. Yeah, but my hands are. I don't mind. You know what? Everything gets. You know what? Where fingerprints come from? Humans. What do you want? You want me to get it on the camera? It's like you're leaving a little bit of human. Yeah. Can you show it to the camera there? Do you want me to smudge it for you? This one here. This one, there's a. Put a little bit of human on there. Wow. Please don't refer to finger oil as human. Please don't do that. Please don't do that. Do you want to show? Can you show it at all, Paul? You're not graded product at all. No. Yeah, you've forgotten how. In fact, Josh took a picture of me, and I could not find, remember photo location. Josh, would you like to remember photo location? Yes, yes I would. Yes, let's do it. I always save my photo. What's happening? There's no photo. I wiped it. Don't you understand about me wiping it? Okay. Hey, everybody's back together. Josh and I are always here. We're here. You would be the person who's interested in that photo. It's not. We've been here. Can you zoom in? It's a little blurry. Despite the fact that we are. That's a terrible photo. That's the studio lighting. Oh, give me this. It's the single worst photo. Let me see that. Don't delete it. Don't be one of those guys who deletes photos. Put a filter on it. Oh, I'm that guy. Oh, God. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Smile. I don't know, now that I'm hearing this, I feel like maybe it's better without Paul on the Vergecast. Why isn't this working? What's happening? Do something. You have problematic thumbs. Where are the controls? Is he not recognizing my face or something? Where are the controls for that? This thing's mad at me. What did you do? It knows that I ate a Kit Kat. It's mad. It's mad at its brother. It's not gonna work. I'm the only guy in the room who knows how to use an Android phone. Beautiful photo. No, yeah. It's like, it's okay. No, it's blurry. It's awful. Yeah, like why can't they up the shutter speed? Let's just get into it. The Nexus 5 is here. Kit Kat is here. The only question about the Nexus 5. Oh, this is five. There's a bug here. Google is allergic to cameras. In my mind is whether or not this thing will have a good camera, because it's what made the Nexus 1 not such a great phone. It's what made the Galaxy Nexus not such a great phone. It's what made the Nexus 4 not a great phone. It's what made my HTC One with Google Play not such a great phone. Same with the GS4. Give me your iPhone. Let me see. I'm gonna take the same picture. I wanna see what happens. This is gonna look great. Somebody, and the only reason. I'm just gonna do the same thing. The only reason it's gonna look great is because somebody cares about that camera. Here we go. When Samsung makes the camera for the GS4, it looks fine too. First off, it's a billion times faster in taking. Oh my God. It's ridiculous. The picture is really good, but. What is wrong with you? But here's the comparison. Look at the comparison. Why does my face do that? Look at the comparison quality. No, I don't want anybody. Nela, you're not allowed to delete photos. We live in a time where everything is permanent. Everything is out there. I live in a time where everything can be deleted. I gotta say, I have to say I'm very disappointed. This is the worst Vergecast. Wow, that camera is so much faster. Yes. Okay, so that's. In all of these, somebody cares about this camera. So this is a very, very big disappointment. In the Nexus 5's defense, the iPhone 5S costs like $1,000 off contract. And that costs like $350. I will say this is kind of a. But that's not an excuse for the speed of the software. If it's gonna take terrible photos, at least just do it fast. Do we know what, that's based on the LG G2, right? G5. G27. It's based on the G2. I mean, I think it's based on the G2. But Paul just gave me the look like I said it wrong, but then I realized that Paul doesn't actually know. So he's just instinctively giving me the look like I think he's correct. You know what, when rappers say like G6. I thought that was like erroneous reference to like how they had the G4 and then the G5. You thought it was a PowerPC reference. I thought it was a PowerPC reference. Really? I did not know that was a hit. I can understand that. You thought there was a hit club song about a PowerPC. Yeah, like, you know. Now I get it. They're like trying to predict the future. Like I already have a G6. Just like when in Mission Impossible when Tom Cruise asks for a 486 processor or a 586 processor. Oh my gosh. Wait, did somebody say like that doesn't exist? No, they're like we have one because we're the secret agency. Right. They're like yeah, we'll just boot up on the 586 PC. The PCX is a 586. I just like the idea that you thought Like a G6 was about like a never released MacBook Pro. Can you imagine how good that would be back when with PowerPC architecture? Song was like three years ago. You can really tell that you haven't been in New York. It's really. You're having not been in New York. You really are wearing it on your sleeve. All right. Can we, let's talk about this phone. We need to talk about the phone. Let's talk about the phone. So you've noticed a lot of differences since you've been playing with it. There are some significant, I mean, visually there are some little touches that I think. So first off, it's got a couple of interesting features. It has, it's always listening. So you can say, okay, Google. That's creepy. I want everything to stop always listening. It works really well except that. How long does it take a picture of you? If you just talk to it. What? How long does it take to take a picture if you just talk to it? What do you mean if you just talk to it? Like say, okay, Google, I want to take a picture. Why would you do that? Well, it's. I don't think that works. Let's try it. Does it work? Okay, Google, take a picture. Yeah, it didn't work. No. It's picking up. No. What is it doing? Is it calling your friend picture? I don't think we all. How is that more convenient than just hitting the button? I'm just saying the button's slow. So maybe the, I don't know. That's an insane premise. Oh, they finally turned the air on in here. Yeah. I've been asking for this for. This is delightful. Minutes and hours. Yeah. What feels like hours but was actually several minutes. So anyhow, there's some visual changes, some pretty notable if you've used the previous version of Android, some pretty notable visual changes. They've tweaked the dialer with some really interesting new features which is. Oh, sorry, I just saw the B roll and I. Go ahead. What's happening? Hangouts. Yeah, hangouts. We'll get to that. The dialer has some really interesting new features that if you search for pizza in your dialer, it'll find like if you have like pizza joint is a saved thing, whatever it'll find it. No, I think it also has like the yellow page. It's the yellow page. No, no, yeah, it'll, I think it's Google Maps. I don't think it's the yellow pages. I mean, why would it be the yellow pages? I don't know. Of all things to build in, why would Google build in a thing that they don't own? I don't know. Search for something. Search for something. Well, okay, fine, I'll search for pizza. No, go to like Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Here's Little Italy pizza ready to Pizza Hut in Pennsylvania Plaza, oh, Penn Plaza. Oh. I was gonna say Pizza Hut. Pennsylvania. That's how cool New York is. The nearest Pizza Hut is in Pennsylvania. But SMS is now built into Hangouts. Emoji is now. So does it work just like iMessage where you get a different color text or somehow notified that you're doing a Hangout? No, I haven't put my SIM in this phone yet, so I don't know. Yeah. There's an SMS tag. There's an SMS tag. Yeah. By the way, like since Mavericks started to get messaging a little bit better, a little more integrated, I've been like letting my phone die for like a week at a time. Paul, Paul, Paul. And doing all of my texting. That's not a change. With my computer. That's not new in the app, bro. That's just Paul. People without iPhones. That's just you. That's just you. Don't exist to me. Yeah. And it's great. I like all of these people. I guess that's why you have a hand in touch. I think it makes you a racist. What? Yeah, you're racist because people are like that. That's not racist. I mean the difference in room temperature right now. That's not racist, it's true. Having actually turned on. Well that's what racists say about racism. Yeah, right. That's not racist, it's just true. That's just, no that's racist. Yeah, that's not really an argument. Like that's not really a way you win an argument is you just say, no I'm not wrong. I'm just saying how it is. It's basically saying like I'm not wrong, I'm right. Yeah. I'm not wrong, I'm right. Talking about. That's exactly correct. Thank you. It's not racist. People with iPhones are dead to me. You heard it here first folks. It's not racist, it's true. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the worst Vergecast ever, and one being the best Vergecast ever, this is like a 400. That's like what number is this? We're trying to focus on the gadget. Anyhow, so what else is going on? It's got a, it's visually refined. Right, so here's the big question on this phone. And we ran a post on it too. KitKat's gonna come to a whole bunch of other phones. Yes, supposedly. It's gonna come to the Nexus 4, it's gonna come to the Google Play ones. Yeah, it needs to come to like real phones. But then it's supposed to be one with Google Play as a real phone. That's a real phone. Reduced system. Yeah, but three people in the world own them. Right, but why would you buy this phone instead of the GS4 with KitKat or, because it's cheaper. I mean, honestly it's cheaper, but also I think the hardware is like a little bit, I mean it's not nicer than the One, but I like the fact that it has a very small bezel and these like very sharp edges. I don't know, I think I would, this definitely will be a replacement for the GS4. Yeah. Well, the Moto X has already been a replacement, but this will replace the Moto X. Especially now they've put that sombrero app on it. What's this for? Which is like, I woke up today and like accidentally hit a sombrero and was taken into like a magical 3D adventure on my phone. Seriously, Motorola, like what are you thinking? It's like you force an app onto my phone that literally invades. I thought, did everybody get this, or is it just for viewers? No, I think everybody got it. I don't think, look, it's this thing. Where is it? Now it's not here. Yeah. It was floating around. So, Moto X owners yesterday, I saw one of these two. A hat. Oh, here it is. A red hat. A windy day. Yeah, this thing, you see that hat floating through? It's just floating around. Okay, now I'm in a magical adventure. It's cool, it's really cool. But like when you wake up at eight in the morning and you're like doing this magical adventure and there's like a flute playing, it's crazy. This is awesome. We've lost Paul, he's gone now. You're not gonna need to refill on this whiskey. Thank you, Ross. You're a really good man. Ross is in costume today. It's like you're just looking through a window into a forest. Ross is in costume. Ross, come on in. Come on over here. He's in Ross' costume. Yeah, but why are you in a costume? Show us your costume today. Yeah, there it is. This is whimsy right here. This is whimsy? This is whimsy. Thank you. Why is Motorola just randomly delivering whimsy to you? Yeah, I'm cool with whimsy. Just don't force it on my phone at eight in the morning. Give me that. That's like a 10 a.m. sort of thing. What do you do, you touch the hat? Do you see the little guy come out? No. Look, here he is, he's sweeping. Look, look, look. Do you see him? He's like a little mouse. We're looking in like the opposite direction though. Oh, here, you gotta. I mean, I have to say, look, look, look. Here's the problem with cell phones. This is really cool. Let me just lay out what the problem with cell phones in this day and ages. We have a brand new cell phone with a brand new version of Android and we are actively ignoring it for an old cell phone with a hat that's playing a flute song with a mouse chasing the hat. I see the mouse, I see the mouse. I see the mouse, I get it. What's under the hat? But we're all way more excited about the mouse than we are about the Nexus 5. Is there like a dude under there? Errors under the hat. Oh, it's like float. And I would submit to you that that says something about the state of our industry. Oh, here it is. We have a video of it. Of the hat? Oh, the five. Yeah, look how much they're enjoying it. Like, hey, this woke me up and now I'm living an adventure. This guy's like, what's happening on my phone? I just wanted to send an email and now I'm chasing it. I'm chasing around a rat in a hat. Like, I wish this was not, this is real. But that's not, do we? Like, guys, cool, you went to Brooklyn. We're happy for you. This is like a shared experience that people are having right now. Yeah, in Brooklyn. It's like, only people in Brooklyn. Wait, so do you show up as the rat for all the other people? You don't understand. I don't understand. It's not a massive multiplayer online. It should be. I don't know, I think I'm pro hat. Yeah, let's talk about the Nexus 5. It's impossible to talk about the Nexus 5. That's kind of what we're saying. It's weird, because it's a Google-owned company. I think they would have waited a day to roll it. Anyhow, that's not important. The Nexus 5, though, this is the thing about the Nexus 5. 16 gig. It's 349. LTE, nice display. Obviously, cutting-edge software, LTE, 349, off contract. Take it to whatever carrier you want, as long as it's not Verizon. And Sprint. By the way, the Verizon- I'll just sign the Sprint version. The Verizon-Google relationship continues to just be a disaster, as far as I can tell. Well, I mean, Verizon has set itself up as the, they are the- As the evil carrier. They're the enemy of neutrality, net neutrality, and freedom. They're like Steve Carell and Despicable Me. I haven't seen it, spoiler alert, okay? Yeah, they're the enemy of choice, and then their winning argument is, by the way, our network works all the time. Yeah, but I mean, you know what? Whatever, AT&T services have been fine for me. I can't remember the last time I was like, damn you, AT&T, how dare you? I can think of that time. Well, in our building. In our building. It's in our building. I'm doing pretty good on T-Mobile. Every time I walk out of an elevator and it picks up 4G first, and I have to flip back and forth in the airplane mode to get it to hit LTE, I curse. I definitely seriously consider T-Mobile all the time. No, don't do that. Let's talk about the Nexus 5 for just one second, okay? I just wanna say a few things. You could get the Nexus 5 on T-Mobile. Yeah, I just wanna say a few things about it. I think that from a software perspective, Google took what was very good and has made it better. I think there's actually some- And it's slower, speaking to older phones, it's slower system requirements. This is like the Windows 8 of- Or Windows 7. Or Windows 7, rather, of- Of Android. Of Android, yeah. But, you know, the one, honestly, and I'll say this, the one place where every single Android phone is awful, or near awful, is the camera. And there was an opportunity here, there is always an opportunity for somebody to make a great Android phone with a great camera. Not anymore, because Microsoft bought Nokia, right? Am I right? Yeah. And nobody does it. And nobody does it, and it's- I actually wanna know how long you've been waiting for that. Yeah, seriously, I mean, we also just- Was it months? Well, Nokia's the only- Do you have like a laughs journal in Colorado? Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I could go for a daycare. You just wait. Thanks, what's happening there? Oh, great, Ross has me a drink. Well, we need to add to this mix right now is alcohol. Thank you, but what I wanna say is, it's disappointing to me, you know, everything else about this phone feels very high quality. Yeah. It really does, it feels like a really nicely made phone. It's awesome. And the software is very elegant. Yeah. More elegant than it's ever been, as far as Android goes. Yeah, they keep cleaning up. The camera, it's like, if I can't take a picture of my dog on the sofa at night, in low light, with good results- Without it looking like it's somehow- You lost my vote. You're spinning in a chair. No, that's what I'm saying, and the only difference is, as far as I can tell, between this camera and the one that Samsung ships, and the GS4, and the one that HTC is shipping in the One, which is slightly better, but still just okay, and Apple's, and Nokia's, is that those people care, and Google doesn't seem to care about the camera on stock devices. I mean, it's capable of taking good photos. But it's like, it's kind of like, that's a super easy photo to take. Yeah. Like, of something that's not moving, with a giant light pointed at it. You're right. Like, that's not gonna, there isn't a camera, a modern camera that can't take a good photo in that condition. The problem is- That was terrible. The problem is that I don't think Google has any incentive. Like you said, they don't even sell, like, a thousand of those. Well, that's the thing, is that it feels like all of these Nexus phones are just like, kiddie joke phones. Like, they're just doing them as a joke, some kind of weird joke to make everybody laugh. To push the platform. To make everybody laugh hysterically. We know Motorola did- Yeah, to push the platform with the last generation LG chassis. Well, no, this is a modern- Well, the newest generation, but they've already released the phone. It's not like they were like, we just set the bar really high, now LG's gonna come out with their device that's like this. Right. It's the other way around. I don't know why they don't just use, like let Motorola build all the camera stuff, and then like take that and use it. Well, how much better is the camera on that? Well, it's better. You know, Motorola, to get past carrier crap today, released their camera app on Google Play. Yeah, let me see how this fares. Can you put the Motorola Google Play camera app onto that phone? Would that make it better? I don't think you can do that. That'd be wild. So yeah, to get around Verizon and AT&T and all the stuff, Motorola just put its app in the store today, which I think is very clever. Oh yeah, this is not, by comparison, I mean. Well, I don't think the Moto X camera's gonna give you. Again, by the way, another bad picture of you. God, stop it. I don't know why that's happening. I really don't. Let's see here. I just look sad or drunk in all these photos, which to be honest is really my natural state. I mean, actually the- Paul looks very handsome in that one. Yeah, here's what's going on in this picture with Paul. Yeah. I mean, it's just blurry everywhere. Yeah. I mean, no, this is not a review, but if I had to do an initial review right now, I'd say this camera is not very good. Yeah. It doesn't, it's really disappointing too. I don't know how to pose anymore. Well, it doesn't matter because no matter how you pose, it'll be blurry. It'll be bad. I mean, it really is, it really is like- And then Eli is gonna delete it. It's actually rather incredible. I'm sorry to be eviscerating it here for all the people who were excited about getting one of these, but if you thought this was gonna be like the Android phone with a good camera, no. This is such an old story. This is so like- It's so lame. It's such a lame story too. Moto X definitely taking better photos in my opinion. You have the latest app on the Moto X. Yeah, not a great pose from either one of you. Oh God. But like a way better photo. Yeah. Well, I guess I'm gonna have to keep the sombrero phone. I don't know if it's a sombrero or not, but whatever it is, I chased after it. Blerry eyed. All right, you wanna talk about something else cool that Motorola is doing? Yeah, well, do we have anything else to say about Kit Kat? Do you wanna take calls in the Nexus 5? Do we wanna take calls in the Nexus 5? Sure, why not? This has already been a complete pile. Let's take some calls on the Nexus 5. Let's see what happens. Bring it on internet. All right. We're taking calls on the Nexus 5. Please dial our number. We're gonna put up our number any moment now, John. There it is. All right. 1888-418-4074. Dial in, ask us anything you want. You know, even if it's not about the Nexus 5, it could be about us. Just enjoy it. It could be about our hopes, our dreams. So let's talk about Project Ara. Which is Motorola's modular phone thing. Project Ara. Ara, Ara? I don't know, I think it's Ara. So Motorola this week, I think this is kind of the most interesting news of the week. They announced a project to build modular phones. They teamed up with this dude who's running a project called PhoneBlocks, who, as far as they can tell, was not an engineer, did not have a project, just had like an idea, a cool Kickstarter, a video, and a bunch of people who were like into it. And Motorola was like, we've got engineers, and you've got a big community of excited people. Let's do this thing. So they're trying to build a modular phone. Which I think is a brilliant idea on several levels, but only if you can actually pull it off. I think it's a totally ill-fated dream. Well, here's the thing, it may be an ill-fated dream, but here's the thing. I think there's a couple different ways to think about it. I had a little bit of a, maybe not an argument, but a conversation with somebody on Twitter about like, oh, this isn't gonna work because of system architecture and the way phones are, and you don't understand the challenges of engineering. It's like, yes, the way that phones are made now, you can't just take that model and go like, that's gonna be a phone block phone. That's how it's gonna work. You may not be able to say, the way they have phone blocks is really particular. You'll have a wifi module and a Bluetooth module, and this might, it's like, yeah, that may not really be how it turns out. But if you have the option of a battery module and a CPU and GPU and a brain module and a memory module and a storage module and a different type of camera, like some of these things are possible. Like some of the things that are possible is you can hot swap the camera. That I believe is actually possible. I mean, this is just cool. Like this is obviously not a real thing, but this is a really cool idea. Yeah, that's big. It's like a Newton. Well, I mean, you say it's big, but you know, why are all of these videos, why is every tech video like people in these environments doing insane things? Have you noticed this? With like backpacks on. Yeah, they get it. It's always people with backpacks. No, we're all really. Why do we hate people with backpacks on this show? Racism. It's backpack racism. I don't think it's made for the entire world. I think they're kidding themselves. I just feel like a phone is a modular, it's like a little kind of tiny slab of hardware that you slot into your ecosystem. I feel like the way it's manufactured, it's so embedded to make it small and to make it good. Yeah, I think the big issue with this idea is that I think the consumer angle is that people don't want to get a new part for their phone. They wanna buy a brand new phone. That's how we think. You think about the 2014 car. That's how we're programmed. If I could put the iPhone 5S camera on my iPhone 5, I would do it. If that was like. If I could put the iPhone 5S camera on this. If that was $100. That's true. But to actually make that happen, my phone would have to be twice as large. Maybe. Probably start out more expensive. And I don't know. We don't know because it hasn't been engineered yet. I think what you're saying about people wanting new stuff is like, I just put an SSD into my iMac. Yeah, you still don't have it. And the iMac is fine. No, it's fine. It's really fast. It's actually faster in benchmarks than a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. So that's fast. But I'm kind of like, man, maybe I should have gotten a new iMac. But that's a horrible. There's no reason why. That's a horrible way to live. I mean, basically like. It is. I mean, look, I have a two. My car is from 2010. And I love it. You should get a new car. I love it. And I barely drive it. And all the time I'm like, ooh, maybe I should get a new car. It doesn't make any sense. I don't need one. But that's what this project is like. No, right. But it would be cool. But to his point, if I had a phone and I was like, yeah, this camera sucks. And they're like, well, for $100 more, you can get a much better camera. And if that's important to you, I'd be all over that. Or even $200 more. Like, it would matter that much to me. I mean, how many of the components of these. I mean, the cameras are going to be bumping up against physics before very long. Already are. No, actually, so I don't think so. I think what's interesting about these cameras, these really small cameras in the phones, is that they're having to do different tricks to make them better than we've traditionally done with regular DSLR, point and shoot stuff. And the tricks, they're getting better and better at approximating the big cameras, the little sensors. And they're going off in wild new directions. And I think people are looking at these pictures. And they're getting used to them in a way that we weren't ready for. And so the tricks are going to start to reinforce what people expect photos to look like. And they're going to get better in a different way than you would expect a DSLR picture. How much of that is going to be software, though? I think it's a combination. And I think that's software-hardware combination. These camera sensors, I guarantee you that's the same sensor as the G2. It's just Google's crappier at writing software for it. Which you think they would, at this point, they would just get some killer camera people to create. I mean, I can't imagine. But why? I can't imagine. I don't know, but I can't imagine Mathias Uarte or anybody at Google going home and taking photos of this thing and feeling satisfied that it's a product they released. Right. Oh, we got a caller about cameras. What's his name? Raj. Raj is on the line, wants to talk about cameras. Raj, what's happening? Yeah, so I have a new. Hello, first of all, nice to speak to you guys. Hi, how are you? Welcome. Welcome to the best Vergecast episode ever. That's right. So I'm actually seriously considering buying a Nexus 5. Sure, we all are. And one of the things that would hold me back is a good camera. I have a HTC One X. And it's a pretty neat camera. So jumping from that to something that's going to be blurry all the time is kind of a scary prospect. Yeah. But what's surprising to me is that Google seems to be really having good people who seem to work with cameras in Google. I upload all my raw images from my Sony NEX 6 to Google+. The murder is awesome. You're breaking up. Oh, god. Are you guys going to show up in the studio too? Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Raj. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that with Google+, having such great camera features, that they can't write good software for the Nexus. I think that's a great point. I mean, Google has pushed so hard on, look at our photo gallery features. You can auto upload. They're not a hardware company. Google+. No, but they're saying this is your repository for photos. Put all your stuff here. We have all these tools now. You can edit, blah, blah, blah. It's like, why wouldn't you say, we built this awesome library, this gallery for your photos, and a way to share them. We're going to give you the best camera possible to capture. I think they've got some sort of budget. And they just have to decide at some point it's good enough. I feel like Apple, I mean, I would love to see the percentage of the cost of the iPhone 5S that is that camera. I think that's iFixit has that. Like, they are insane. Apple clearly sees that as the most important feature of a phone, which it is. Well, it is. I mean, it's definitely, I've talked a lot about at home. Laura and I have discussed this a lot about really having a camera with you all the time that is going to be of good enough quality that you're not going to be like, god, I wish I took that with a real camera. You feel that way with an iPhone. I think what it shows is that the iPhone is not built with off-the-shelf parts. Apple is super custom about everything they have. And Google is not a hardware company. And they are sourcing that camera from somebody who makes probably the best camera of that size. What's weird about that is that Sony can't make a good camera on their phones. It's fine. Is it fine? It's not as good as that. Is it as good as the iPhone 5S? No. So it's not fine. So it isn't fine. It's Apple and Nokia that are good at this. That's it. Yeah. There you go. But Nokia had to really compete how to make a phone with essentially a point and shoot in the back of it. Yeah. Well, a 41 megapixel point. 41 megapixel, but still. And that's, I think, really the 1020 is a good example of what I'm saying with like. The tricks. It's tricks. They built a gigantic image sensor so they could do digital zoom, which has been soundly rejected by every point and shoot maker in every traditional camera sort of world. And you put it on a phone, and everyone's like, a digital zoom. Zoom reinvented. You know, it definitely is a software issue for these guys. I mean, I don't think this camera is, I mean, based on just taking a few shots here, like I think the camera's capable of taking good photos. We're under studio lights. Like, there is absolutely enough light for almost any camera. Well, studio light can be harsh and unforgiving. Yeah, but also can allow for faster shutter speeds. Sure. Except on the Nexus 5. So actually, speaking of phones. Raj, thank you. Thank you for the call. I appreciate the, it's actually a really good point. I mean, I think Google, and certainly if they want to reinforce it, they're capable of being this resource for. I mean, their first ad for the Nexus 5 is about the camera. So I don't understand how they put an effort into it. No, it should have been incredible. They should have blown everybody away with the camera. I totally agree. Raj, thank you so much for calling in. And it's funny that the ad for the Nexus 5 is the camera. Because the ad for the iPhone is the camera. And the ad for every phone in the world is the camera, because it's a camera in your pocket that's connected to the internet. You know what? Just saying it is not enough. Like, you have to be able to deliver. And I think this is a killer price point for an LTE phone. $349 off contract is really impressive. It's funny that you keep saying it's a killer price for an LTE phone. It's like, oh, it's a high end. It's a high end. The specs, as far as. But what phone isn't LTE? You can get an HT1 for $99. You can get an iPhone 5C for $500. Those are high end LTE phones. Yeah, but the iPhone 5 camera, they don't have the 5S on here. But to buy a replacement. I'm just saying, you weren't so scarred, like emotionally scarred for the Nexus 4. But you think LTE is worth like hundreds of dollars. But I think it's table stakes on this phone. What are the brand new flagship device with extremely modern hardware? And matte black. No, but can you buy? No, it's a great price. I mean, even the. I think it's funny you keep saying LTE. No, but as a comparison, look at the 1 or the S4. What is their base? Their $500. They're like $600. So it's a pretty big jump. Right. You know, I think that's notable. And it has LTE. The 5C is $550. The 5C is $550 on unlocked. Yeah. And it's last year's phone. So it's not, you know. It's unapologetically plastic. Unapologetically plastic. We have a caller. Who is the caller? Who? Mark. Mark. Mark, you're on the air. Tell us what you're feeling. Tell us what you're thinking. Hello. Hello. I just recently saw the. Mark, are you British? Are you British? Yes. Is this a fake British accent? This is real or fake? No, it's not fake. It's real. I'm real. I'm not made of plastic. OK, good. My question is. Is it? Yeah, go ahead. Anyway, my question is. Not your accent. Hey, hey, hold on. Go ahead. Can I ask about the Nexus 5 already? OK. I saw the video. They had the hands-on video. But I think it was D-the-bone. And you said that the performance wasn't very good on KitKat or the Nexus 5. Is that true? I mean, the performance I've seen seems at least concurrent with something like the Moto X, which I've had. I've no. The Moto X is a mid-range phone. But I have no complaints. That's the thing about it. I've been using the Moto X as my daily driver. And I'm not like, god, this is so slow or jeez, this scrolling. I don't have any of those feelings whatsoever. I feel it's a very fast phone. Here's the number one thing you can do if you're an Android user. If you want to make your phone actually feel faster, open up developer options. Turn all of your animations off. Suddenly, your phone will feel blazingly fast. At a glance, using this phone, I do not feel that it's slow. I don't know. Dieter spent some time with it doing a hands-on today. He may have a totally different take on it. He said that there's like an Android lag that exists in the world. You mean this doesn't solve it? It does not solve it. Kikant doesn't solve it. I've used the Galaxy S4. It's as smooth as an iPhone, as far as I'm concerned. I think that side by side, what you'd find is that it is not as smooth as an iPhone. One of the things that is Apple's, and this is the truth, and this goes beyond the whole how many milliseconds it responds to touch. One of Apple's secret weapons is the brain that controls the screen and touch sensitivity on it. They really have a whole separate architecture for how your finger interacts with the screen. And it is like a patented secret sauce thing that they do. My sister-in-law has an iPhone 4, and it still feels really, really fast. If you're going to compare touch sensitivity and speed side by side to an iPhone, or perception of speed rather, there's going to be a difference in any Android phone, in my opinion. I mean, the GS4 may feel, and having used the GS4 side by side to an iPhone, I don't think it is as smooth or as sensitive as an iPhone. But that said, these phones have different flows. I mean, when I use Windows, I'm like, god, the feeling of Windows is so different than OS X. And it's not comfortable to me. I feel like I'm at a completely different speed. But there are people who use Windows and think it's incredible and efficient. Yeah, I feel like those people find me all the time. They know where I live. Yeah, they know where I live. That's right. When I started working for Engadget, pretty shortly in, I got a PC. And so I did a lot of work on a PC. And I eventually went back to the Mac. But I still feel like a power user on the PC. You just get in a zone or something like that. And I think I've been playing with Android a little bit. And I was starting to get there. It's cool. I don't know. I mean, look, I love my HTC One. I think it's a fine phone. It's a great piece of hardware. It runs 4.3 great. 4.3 is great. I just don't think the specs matter anymore, except for the camera. Yeah, I think, I mean, I'll be honest with you. I'm just flipping around here going through web pages. And this doesn't feel like a slow phone to me. And it doesn't feel like it's, you know, scrolling to me feels like pretty slow. That screen looks really washed out to me. This does have a motion. The screen is a little washed out, but let's decide. That has a motion processor, like a separate motion processor or something? No, the Moto X has a separate motion processor. So it's just KitKat that's doing that? What? KitKat does something with like, it does your accelerometer stuff, like step counting and stuff like that. So the app's doing that. They all do that. I mean, to some degree, depending on. OK, but it's not like. But sorry, to get to the, Mark, to get to your question, I'm using it right now. It does not feel slow to me. By comparison of other Android devices, it does not feel slow. It feels like a pretty speedy Android phone. And it's stock. What? It's stock. It's stock. I mean, it doesn't. You know, there's another thing that's, yeah, this is a good example. But it's, you know, the funny thing is like, you know, I find that Android phones have to settle in. You spend a couple of days with them. And they do. And they do. And they do have to be babied. They do. They do have to be babied a little bit. But by comparison of my Moto X, this doesn't feel slower. Let's put it that way. And in some ways, in some ways, my phone. I'm selling my One and buying this phone and not knowing why. So I don't know why you have the One. I mean, just stick with your iPhone. Just admit that you're an iPhone user. Just stop pretending. This one's new. I go back and forth. It's whatever's new. I just wanted to point out that the iPhone 5 camera, because we were talking about this before, the iPhone 5 camera, they don't have the 5S. iPhone 5 camera is $40 on iFixit. You're telling me they haven't done the 5S yet, a teardown? No, they've done it. You can't just buy the part. They don't have the price. To buy the part for the iPhone 5, which is more than a year old. Yeah, but that's like a consumer. But a year old used part or whatever. That is a lot of money for a single part. That camera's also still better than this camera. Right. The year old iPhone 5 camera is still better than the iPhone 5. I don't think Google's paying $40 for that camera part. But that's a marked up, like, god only knows where those iPhone 5 cameras are coming from. That's not what Apple pays for the camera either. I mean, actually, I don't want to know. This is actually, this takes some pretty nice looking macro shots. Oh, god. No, I mean, this is a kind of a good shot. Like, you're just trying to, you know, I'll be honest with you. Macros is. It's a terrible picture. No, it's not. Only one part of it's in focus. That's what it's macro. That's what macros. That's a macro. You have a color on the phone. Who's the color? No, we still have the same color on the phone. Are you still there? Is the camera just, yeah, I'm still here. Is the camera app just really superficial still on Android 4.4? It's the same app. It's the same. The app is still the same. I mean, I disagree. I think this is actually a pretty impressive macro photo, I'm going to tell you right now. Having tried to take, I bet you if you tried to take the same photo with your iPhone, you would have difficulty focusing in on that close. Yeah. All right, Mark, thank you for calling in. I mean, we're basically, yeah, look, I can't even focus on that. It's pathetic. Pathetic. Thank you for calling in, Mark. And we appreciate your thoughts. And we're sorry for watching. And we're sorry for keeping you on the phone for no reason. That's fine. Is there anything else you want to know before you go? Well, if somebody questions, I would like to mention that you were talking about the prices in Exasaur and how it's good value for money in the US. But in the UK, it's 340 pounds, which is $545. Yeah. So you're saying it's not a very good deal. But you live in a country. How much does the iPhone 5C cost? It's more. It certainly is more. Yeah. But if you want to compare it to, say, the US price and compare it to the UK price of the Nexus 4, or, sorry, Nexus 5, it's not great. It's OK. Yeah, I mean, look, I think Google's game with this phone is to lose money to make it seem like high-end phones should be cheaper. And I think that's a great game that Google's playing. But it doesn't necessarily make it a great product. And they've got to finish these phones at some point. Say what? No, I do realize that they are literally just gateways into Google services. That's the only reason why they're making these, as far as I'm concerned. Josh is having a real photo off you. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just, I have to say, on macro, it couldn't really focus in on that same angle. But this is, anyhow, this is really good. To Mark's point, thank you, Mark. Yes, Mark, thank you. As a gateway to Google services, the Nexus 5 is not Google's equivalent of a Kindle device. No, because nobody buys them. And lots of people buy Kindles. Right, I don't think that this phone is about being a gateway into Google services. I think it's about putting price pressure on Samsung and HTC. What is it about? I don't think it's about that either, because I don't think it puts any pressure on anybody, because they go, look, this is a niche device that nobody's really buying. It's like a hobby for them. It's not even a hobby. Like, I don't even understand it anymore. Like, I thought it was about making the most cutting edge phone you could make to show off all the features. Here's what I think it is. I think this is a dev device. I think that's what they're doing. They need a dev device for their latest version of their software. That runs kickass. Yeah, and they're saying, you know what? We'll sell a few of them, too. Like, we're going to make the dev device anyhow. We have thousands of developers who are going to want them. And we're rich. Why not sell them? If somebody, right, we're Google. If somebody wants them, LG will just change the body shape a little bit. We'll take off your skin, and we'll sell them. I'm into that theory. I mean, because I don't really see another. And you know what? You know who doesn't take pictures? Developers. But they advertise the hell. They advertise the hell. Developers don't have children that they want to remember later in life. They advertise the hell out of the Nexus 7. Yeah. That is a real product for them. That's their Kindle. That is their Kindle. And I think they're actually gaining some traction with it. Like, those commercials are good. They're cheap. The thing is cheap. And it's a decent tablet. I have a Nexus 7. I really like it. I think Apple's pricing on the iPad Mini is all broken around the Nexus 7. Because I think $299 for the non-retina Mini is an old processor, in effect. Right. But people don't know that. But it's the old stuff. It's Apple's old one. And Google's newest one is $229. And I think that's meaningful. And Amazon's newest one is $199. Yeah. But the iPad runs iPad apps. It runs iPad apps. But most people aren't like, man, I need GarageBand. I agree with you. The apps are way better. I am in the position of recommending tablets currently. And it's the app. Why are you in such a position? He's taking care of kids. I don't want to spoil it. But my brother's thinking about getting an iPad for his kids. I hope they're not listening to this. Yeah. Cover your ears, little. Maybe. He's thinking about it. Wait. One of the kids' names, maybe? No, God. No, Kaziah. Kaziah? He's probably not. Kaziah and? Zion. Those are some deep, serious names. Those are like names of people in the matrix. They're Bible references. Yeah. Well, obviously. Yeah, the matrix. Yeah. Anyhow. I'm telling them to get the iPad mini for a kid. The cheap one. Yeah, get the cheap, the $300 iPad mini for a kid. They're not going to whine over the retina. Yeah. They're not going to whine over the processor. It's going to be amazing if a kid is like, why is this a retina to this boy? The apps on there are so amazing. I'm not a child, so I'm not normally in the market for child apps. But I was looking through the iPad. I mean, I would like to point out that you did show up here in an Elmo shirt. And you have stickers all over your computer. Is that swag? That's true. Yeah, no. I do. Do you like my stickers? I'm just saying. I think you know a little bit more. Did you get a new computer? Yeah, I got the 11-inch 2013. I'm really jealous of that computer. You guys got the newest one? Yeah. Yeah. OK, cool. It's pretty great. Do we have any other topics besides the Nexus 5 camera? We have lots of topics. Let's get into them. Let's talk about them. You didn't realize we'd do an actual Vergecast today, did you? We thought we were just going to be nostalgic. We're just going to congratulate each other. And I think that's really why the people come back. It really is. I've been listening to the podcast a little bit. I listened to the last episode, which you guys were not on. And you really enjoyed it. Ellis did a Paul impression. And also, can I point out? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. There's going to be some rife and some anger here. Can I point out that it's really weird when you get to the end of the podcast and somebody says Paul? I'm touched and emotional. And it's awesome that you guys remember me and you say Paul. But for somebody who doesn't know this podcast and watches it, they're like, hey, this is a relatively same kind of awkward kind of, you know, they talk over each other. And then they get to the end of the podcast. And someone says Paul. And they're like, what did I just watch? Yeah. You think it says that to you? And that's really the feeling I want to give our listeners. I just wanted you to know that I was the Paul. You, the stranger who made the mistake of watching for the first time today. Well, backstory is I have a hard time saying my name. God, this is nightmarish. Like, I'm at Starbucks. I'm at Starbucks. It's been this way the whole time. And they ask me my name. Can I do, can I do, I want to do like a DVD track. And I tell them my name. I want to do like a, the narration of it. And they have to ask for it again. Better background. Yeah, I'll never forget this. This is what I wanted to do. They don't, they didn't get it the first time. I said Paul. This is great. And they're like, what was that? I can just see the email right now. And they're right there with their sharpie and their cup. I love you guys, but can you please stop talking over each other, it's very distracting. Do you think we could do one of those like, you know, when they have presidential debates, they have like live audience reaction meters. The DVD track would just be like how much I want to do a suicide. Yeah, just to turn it up a little. Oh, I really wanted to go at this point. OK, so what's, what else? There's a few things to talk about. My hair is doing something weird. There are, there are many things to talk about. One, FAA today told us, I'm very happy about this. Cell phones and electronics and airplanes. Nick building his own thing. Delta says they're going to start doing it tomorrow. Here's what I don't care. Here's what I think. I hope, I really hope and I pray and I hope and I pray and also hope that there is really no, there's really no danger whatsoever. There's no danger whatsoever. But do you know how I know this? But if there is a crash because you babies couldn't wait 10 minutes. What do you do when you're waiting? Just read a magazine which exists. No, here's my theory. I hope, I really hope that there's nothing goes wrong. And I want to be right. I'm happy for him that he won. Here's the thing. But if somebody dies because you babies couldn't wait 10 minutes to use your freaking kid. Cool. That's OK. OK, so then you really you should feel you should feel horrible. Here's the thing. But no one. No one's done. Here's how I know. And here's here's the two things. It doesn't happen. One, I'm worried that sales of print publications are going to fall off a cliff. Right. Oh, that's what that's. You think that's what's been keeping them going is airports. I do. Really? Because I buy a car and driver in every airport that I'm in. I'm not going to do it anymore. Some people really like magazines. And I love car and driver. And I love that magazine. But I don't need to buy it anymore. Read it on your iPad mini. See how it feels. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm going to do because I can use it now. Second. There's one thing I like. It's a magazine on a small screen that's the wrong shape. This is personal for me. I'm sad that my tiny feeling of pulling one over on the man has now been removed from the screen. Oh, my God. They're just noise canceling. Yeah, I do that all the time. Party creating. I'm like, they're like, turn it off. I'm like, yep, I'm just going to hit the sleep. Yeah. Airplane. No, what I said, I literally turn it off. I like literally. Of course, you're a law abiding citizen. The rest of us are. You love abiding the law. You are of all the people I know who abide. But it sucks. Yeah. It sucks. Sucks to abide. It sucks to abide. You know what? Now you don't have to abide. Well, I do. I will continue to abide. By doing whatever you want. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I just hope. You're going to abide by having freedom. I just hope for your sake. The law is now freedom. You know what? You know what? One day, one day, I want to get on an airplane, pull out a book, read that book through takeoff, flight, and landing. You can do that. Of my own volition. You can do that right now. Non-digitally. I know. But wait, Paul, why do you want to do that? Like, I want to feel like I have the freedom. But I'm saying, why is that still a desire for you? I want to have the freedom. But why? Freedom is key. But you currently have that freedom. When you, like, let's say you put, if you put somebody on a couch. Paul, this is like saying you do TV. Hold on. I want to hear this. If someone's got a, this is going to be good. Suicide. Put somebody on a couch. Go on. And they have a TV. Go on. They're not going to want to leave. If you put. What does that mean? If you put a cage around that couch and TV, they're going to want to get out because they'll feel trapped. I just don't want to feel trapped anymore. What if there's a way to get out that gets you another way? Hold on. Like by not abiding? By thinking about it. By thinking your way out. I think what he's saying is if you're comfortable and enjoying yourself. I want to be able to do that. But if I feel like, oh, I've got to get my phone timing. I don't have to worry about that. I'm just doing what I choose to do on an airplane. Let me just say this to you. Things that are perfectly legal on or off an airplane. I don't know another actual person. There's not another person in my life who has more conclusively proven that they are not tempted by their phone or the internet and they can manage such temptation. You know, another thing about an access five camera that I want to talk about. I want freedom in choice. You have it. Well, what you're saying to me is like a man saying, I've always wanted a glass of water. Here's the thing. Just have one. If you'd walked up to me. That's a good point. You know what that is. It's self punishment really. If you walked up to me and said, hey, Paul, you leave the internet for one year or we'll fire you. I mean, that is what I said. Disclaimer. Pointing out. Disclaimer was not said. Was not said. It's sort of the opposite actually. I might have left the internet. I might have learned some valuable lessons. But I would have been pissed at you guys the whole time. Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. But I did it of choice. So I understand now. So you want to read a book on airplanes. You've always had the choice. What we're fighting about is you want to read a book on an airplane. I see. I see. Hold on. What you're saying is you've always had the choice to get a physical book, take it onto the plane, open it during takeoff, begin reading it, read it throughout the flight, read it throughout landing, and then leave the plane. But now, and that was all you could do. Because you couldn't have your kiddo. You couldn't have your kiddo. You were free. You were free, but inside of a cage. Now, true freedom is known. And what is going on? True freedom is known. Oh, it's a cage, Coach. Oh, I see. I have a number of questions about this image. Wow, you picked that up really quickly. Yeah. And now that you're able to taste true freedom, which is reading a Kindle during takeoff and landing, you are going to do that. Because I don't know what the because. There's nothing. I don't have anything after because why I don't have it. Do you feel oppressed by the rules? I want to be an iconoclast that follows the rules. You're the worst. Please leave. What? You said mean. I rebel by perfectly following the rules. Go back to Colorado. Anybody who says, I want to be an iconoclast, that's a thing that I think I'm going to be, just go right now. Go back to Skype. I was flying here from Colorado, and I'm reading a book. The girl next to me is reading a book. Wait, what book are you reading? The J.D. Salinger Nine Stories. OK, what book is she reading? I didn't look. Did you feel there was a love connection happening? A little bit. Really? Was she cute? No, I didn't. Not at all. I didn't really get a look. Not in your age range? Yeah, I didn't. You don't think about that kind of stuff? I did not look closely. OK, go on. I want to get more of like a Julia Roberts sort of rom-com situation going on. You need to meet cute, I apologize. No, no, no. But so like during takeoff, when it's like bumpy and stuff, my thing is to put down my book and close my eyes. To sleep. So I get nauseated. But she put her book down and closed her eyes. And then held your hand. And then I felt like I couldn't put down my book. Because you didn't want to sleep with her. Were you sitting next to each other? Yes. Yeah. You didn't want to sleep together. You know her eyes were closed. She wouldn't have any sleep now. She would have no way of knowing what you were doing. It wasn't about her knowing. It was just about doing the same thing as somebody else. This must be what it's like, like people who work at insane asylums, when they bring in the new patient and you're like, tell me, and they're like they're doing the check-in process and all that stuff. And then they bring them in. They're like, tell me what's been, or just tell me what's been going on with you. And then they do that. They tell that story. That's what it must feel like for that person, for what I just felt. I'm just saying I hope the FAA isn't pulling my leg. Because I'm excited. Because you're excited about freedom. Because you close your eyes. And you don't want a hand on your leg with your eyes closed. I think we all know how that goes. That is not a cool feeling. You're in bed. You're in a chair on a plane. Suddenly you feel somebody pulling at your leg with your eyes closed. You wake up, and it's a monster on the wing. Right. You know? They call it the FAA. It's the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone. Movie. Film. Yeah. Do you do a thing to force yourself to go to sleep on red-eye flights? I can't sleep on red eyes. I can't sleep on any flight. Because I've all discovered that our staff all has a different collection of really weird tricks. There's only one trick. It's called Ambien. Well, Christian, like slow release Ambien. Christian, one of our video guys, slams a beer. And then like, which makes sense. Slam a beer. Jordan. Yeah, one beer that's like having a sip of water. Another one of our video directors was like, you got to drink like four cups of coffee three hours before your flight, and the caffeine crash will take you down. That's interesting. Why not combine that with a beer? And my morning plan is I eat a McGriddle. That's good. That's solid advice. It's like a bomb. Like that should be like, ah. And then it's like. Your body's like shut. Has to shut down. Weaving down the eye. I've never had a McGriddle in so long. It's really a weird food. It sounds good. It's not a. No, wait. Let me just be clear. I mean, eating McGriddle is like. I know. I've experienced it. I want to get straight on. It's like the future's exploding in your mouth. That's right. No. It's like it's a completely synthesized food. That is not what it's like. It is a synthesized food. It comes out of a tube. Can we just get. Ugh, this is spun wildly out of control. Can I get a read? I just want to get clear on what is on a McGriddle. First off, McGriddle is, just to be clear, the bread component of McGriddle is made of. It's like they. It's made of. It's like a pancake. It's like a pancake. It's a pancake. It's a pancake. OK. It has McDonald's logo on it. But no. By the way, I don't eat meat. But this looks. It's a compromise. It's ridiculous. Like a biscuit and a pancake. What are the odds we could get some sandwiches in here? We could get some McGriddles in here. Are we doing four hours? Yeah, we're going to keep going. The thing is, if I eat a McGriddle, we won't do 10 more minutes. Because I will be on the ground. We'll just slam three cups of coffee. That's it. But that's my J. I'll be honest with you. I need a drink. Ross, what's our situation with drinks? What do you want? Yo. What do you have? McGriddle. Whatever case they make McGriddle of. Do you have whiskey? We're out. We're out of whiskey? I mean, I work here. What are we out of? I think we have like, we've been using sandwiches. We're out of McGriddles. Do you have vodka? Do we? Do you have any? I like how Ross is very not subtly. Well, you're wearing a different hat. And he's telling us that he is not actually a bartender. When did you change your hat? Well, I'm sorry, you shouldn't be in the room then. What else are we going to do? We can't get out. Can we do the next 200 episodes with like a bartender in the room? That is a great idea. Just kind of like shaking drinks. I read an article in the New York Times that said that's a real sign of status when you have a bartender at one of your parties. Yeah. So you know. Yeah. We can finally be there. We can finally be classy. We can finally make it. Actually, one of the first. We can call it a bartender. All right, fine. It's fine. It's fine. Just whatever, you know, some crocodile, a little battery acid. If you have some windshield wiper fluid. Gold up in the cup. You really don't want to get on camera, do you? Why not? Here you go. Just a phantom hand reaching in. Take this. Look at this. No, just a phantom body. Whole body. I don't know. Whole body situation here. There you go. Thank you. OK. Now, getting back on topic. So the Nexus 5 was released today with KitKat, Android 4.5. What do you think about the camera? Oh, god. I'm not crazy about the camera. Though it's macro. There's another big story to talk about. Yeah. There is actually a huge story to talk about. More NSA crap this week. Yeah. Edward Snowden has taken a job as tech support. I don't get this. In Russia. This is some kind of weird tabloid. This is like the guy, Greg Packer, the guy who sits at the front of the iPhone line. His whole job is to sit at the front of the iPhone line. That's what he does for a living. He wasn't there this time. Hold on a second. I didn't see any Packer stories. Hold on. Yes. The New Yorker just did a video on him. But I was going to say that he now gets paid to wear somebody's lame t-shirt that's like, you know, it's like Virus Cleanse 6,000. He gets paid $100 to wear their t-shirt. That's what this Edward Snowden job is. He's getting tax support. No, this is like some kind of like propaganda. You mean like how like Scoble has a job at Rackspace? Yeah, Scoble has a job at Rackspace. He's working there. There's Greg Packer. This is the worst. Why am I looking at that? You know, Greg Packer and I almost got into a scuffle during the iPad relaunch. Why is it still on the screen? You guys could, I was going to say, why would you do that to the people? No, so you think this is a stunt? Like Snowden's taking publicity money. I think he actually needs to get a job. Like I don't think people in Russia are like, yes, let's, Snowden will just live here. Russia is not known for its charity. Is that a thing? It can be a hard country, hard people. Really? It's cold. I don't know. But anyhow, I think something's fishy about this situation. I mean, mostly what I know about Russia is from the novel Hunter Red October. Is this really the biggest NSA news is that he got a job? No, the big, the big, the huge. We're working on it. That's just the hilarious piece of news from today. The huge news is the revelation that the NSA has tapped directly into the fiber optic links between Google and Yahoo's data centers. So Google and Yahoo both lease private lines. And because some of the data centers are overseas, the NSA is like, oh, yeah, it's international stuff. We were chartered there. And they've tapped directly to them. If you look at this slide, Current Efforts Google, which looks like a brain. It's like the right side is Google. The left side is a public internet. The right side is Google. And in the middle, if we can zoom in on that, it says, here's where SSL is added and removed with a smiley face. And it's like, what the hell is this? There's nothing like imagining the people who are doing this stuff. They all wear brown suits and can't tie a tie properly. And they're like a little bit, they have some facial hair. Maybe they have a mustache. They haven't committed to a beard. They're balding probably pretty badly. And those are the people who are reading your email and stealing your important information. And there's been how many, the dude got fired for looking at his girlfriend with the NSA's supercomputer. That's already happened. Well, he's like the Bernie Madoff of the NSA scandal. They're like, we got him. We got the guy looking at his girlfriend. Nothing else to see here. Everybody else is fine. Well, this is a real problem. So today, just now, there's a huge Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, AOL, a huge list of companies, just wrote a letter saying they need to reform the NSA. Is this up on the verge? It should be up on the verge. OK, can we hear the letter? Will you read it to us? Do you want me to read the letter? Yes. Can you read it in a dramatic accent? No, just do it. You want me to read the whole thing? Do you want me to read it? Would you prefer that I read it? Dear Mr. Chairman, ranking members and members. This is like four paragraphs. Who's this from? It's really long. Who's this from? Let me get this full list here. It's signed by their logos. AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. This is super weird, by the way. No, but hold on. This is like the next. This is huge. Right. This is huge, because these guys have been basically, they have a. They hate each other. No, but beyond that, they have a gag order. They can't talk about what the government is asking them to do. I really think, I don't know, I've been kind of laissez-faire about the whole NSA thing, just because it feels so out of my control. But I really think the policy, the way to start is just by making things clear and obvious, and just say how far they're going to go. Well, no, here's the letter. Let me just read these lines of this letter. Recent disclosures regarding surveillance activity raise important concerns about the United States and abroad. The volume and complexity of information has been disclosed in recent months, has created significant confusion, making it difficult to identify policy prescriptions. And then they get into this stuff. We need allowing our companies to be transparent with a number of nature requests will help the public understand the facts about the government's authority to compel technology companies to disclose user data. Transparency will also help us counter erroneous reports so we permit intelligence agencies direct access to our servers, or that we are participants in a bulk internet records collection program. So what they're saying is, people are saying that we're helping you. Complicit. And we're just doing what we're required to do by law, but we're not allowed to tell anybody. No, right, of course. That's the thing that is. Right, and then here's the second, and then there's a follow up. Transparency is a critical first step to an informed public debate, but it's clear that more needs to be done. Our companies believe that government surveillance practices should be reformed to include substantial enhancements to privacy and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms. So they're saying, first, we need to tell people what's actually going on. Second, we need to stop doing this and actually building privacy. And this is what I've been. I see only one problem with this. Asking the government to do it? That AOL has signed the document. No, but this is definitely a. Can you pass that down? Well, these are the largest internet companies in the game, right? Thank you, Scott. Scott? Thank you, Scott. Scott Kellum? Oh, tell Scott I said thank you. What a wonderful gift, unless this is poison, in which case, how dare you? What do you think? Very smooth. I think this is an important start. I mean, if the government wants to go into my house, they absolutely can. But there's a process. They can do it physically. And they probably will. But here's the thing. There's a process. I know what it is. And I also know once they've gone into my house. But you also know that they won't come into your house because you're not doing anything wrong. That's part of our deal with the government, is that if you don't do anything wrong, they don't come into your house. Nine times out of 10, 99 out of 100, they're not busting down people's doors who haven't done anything wrong. If they think I'm doing something wrong, then they go to a judge and they get a warrant. They go into my house. They take my computer with my hard drives full of gifts of Neelai. That's a crime. I would also like to go into your house to take this hard drive away. Me too. I'd like to see what's on there. And it's also kind of obvious that they've done that. Yeah. Well, it's obvious. We need some sort of process that makes it obvious. Well, no, no, no. But just showing what you've done isn't the problem. It's what you're doing. It is the bulk collection. It is the interception. It is the broad search and seizure of people's private information. No, actually, what gets me is that it just common sense tells you this is wrong, right? That the government shouldn't be able to even collect your metadata about this stuff. But what they're dancing through, they're playing legalistic games by saying, well, that data center is in Europe. And we have charter in Europe. And it's like, well, dude, I'm still an American citizen when my information is sitting on a hard drive in Europe. Let's put it this way. When you sign up for a Google account, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. When they ask me to, they say, we're at a great place to store your photos. We'll keep them private. You can share them when you want or keep them to yourself. My expectation is, and by the way, this isn't just an expectation. There's stuff that they write about, my reasonable expectation of privacy. That privacy has been violated in secret by the government. And the premise is we have to violate your privacy. You're a US citizen. You've done nothing wrong. But in order to ensure that there's not a terrorist attack, we have to violate your privacy. But we're not looking specifically at your stuff. We're just trying to get a sense of where all this is going. Or we think there may be some third, fourth, fifth connection out there. And I think. But the fact is, but here's the deal. Here's what I'm saying. And I think what most Americans would say as citizens. I'm willing to accept the danger of another terrorist attack in exchange for my continued privacy as a US citizen. I'm not willing to accept a police state where all of my documents are viewed continuously by a secret part of the government so that maybe someday they'll find a thing that connects some other stuff up. The next wave of this stuff is like crazy shit. It's like pre-crime and thought crime. It's like it's saying like. You mentioned, God, I want to kill him in an email to somebody. And the next thing you know, you set off a bell somewhere. And there's investigators at your house saying, we understand that you've got a death threat. And there are examples of this floating around in the world. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the police are already using this stuff out of context. And they should be allowed to track and monitor and record public connections that you make in public. Yeah, of course. I can't shake when you hand shake with people. Yeah, oh yeah. In front of the CCTV. And the hand of bruisers. I mean, I think this, like, if you really are, if there's real data that suggests that you are part of a terrorist organization, like safety's off, fire at will. But how do you see that data? Well, no, but that's the thing. Like, you've got to. They already need that data. You can't go get it. Exactly. I mean, that's exactly. Just the way you can't break down my. You can't break down every door in America. And you can't pop open people's trunks and see if they've got pot in there. Exactly. But the problem is that. I was talking to my brother about this. And he actually put it in a really, really great light that I hadn't thought about before. The police of our country are kind of like the executive, in the sense like you could have martial law, essentially. Like, the police are the people who prosecute the laws. No, they're not. In the sense of, or execute the laws. They execute the. They physically execute. They're around. Right. They're the physical manifestation of the law. Is that a good way to say it? Sure. In a way. Well, sometimes. I mean, yes. Let's just, for the sake of this analogy. Is this what it's like talking to a crazy person? No, this is like that you would drive. It's like a verge cast. And they are kept in check by judicial brands, by lawyers. This is right. This is basically right. And judges. And they have to ask judges for permission. And that's what keeps them in check. A detective can't. I have a hunch that this guy's a murderer. They have to go to a judge and say, we've got to search his house. We've got good. And here's proof. Here's evidence that we have that suggests that this guy's a murderer. And now we're going to get a warrant and go search his house. And I say. You can't just go search his house. NSA's entire working structure, operation, and going in and getting data all needs to be subservient to or checked by some similar structure. You can't have something in government with the sort of power that the NSA has without a direct check. Time out. This is their whole argument. The NSA has no jurisdiction over America. That's why they're tapping Angela Merkel's cell phone. Because they can. Also because she's saying crazy stuff. She's just constantly Snapchatting. She's just, uh. No, wrong. Wrong. No, but that's why they can, right? There's like a scene in the movie Sneakers where like. Too many secrets. Well, no. Robert Redford is like, oh, you're the guys listening to my phone. And the dude's like, no, that's the FBI. The NSA is not chartered for domestic surveillance. And like, what they're doing is they're because the internet is not respectful of boundaries, like political or physical boundaries. They're saying as soon as your information leaves the boundaries of the United States, which it's doing all the time, now we have charter to do it. I was talking to my brother about this. He's in the military. And the military is another organization that has power to act. And that power is kept in check by a ton of regulations. And any strike that they would execute, you have to basically have a legal proof for why it is an appropriate war action that were to ever be questioned would uphold legally that that was an appropriate war action. That's not our people. It's like the military just because, well, they're not US citizens, so we can shoot everybody. The military follows a very close code. No, that's right. That's right. Right. But there's a difference between shooting people and spying on them. And we've decided that it's 100% OK to spy on everybody. I think the fact is, oh my god. We've mostly given the NSA the right to spy on things. Because the balance of the equation is that if we give them all kinds of power to spy on things, we probably won't have to use the military as much. But or less. Well, I said as much. We keep using the hell out of the military. But that's the equation. But what's happening is that they're turning around. Because the internet is where the people are, and now the people are spread out over the world. And that old boundary of you can operate outside that border but not inside this one doesn't exist for our behavior. It's like they're sneaking into our borders. But the fact is, the NSA is illegal immigrants. But here's the thing. I mean, the long and short of it is this. We have to accept. And I think maybe weirdly we all agree on this. But we have to accept that there is and always will be a danger, a threat. There's always a threat, right? That threat is you. Well, no, no, no. But hold on. But we have to accept that you could be the safest, the most careful. You could spy on everybody. You could have every communication. But there's always going to be a threat. Like this kind of surveillance, this kind of broad surveillance is a fear-based reaction to something. He who gives up freedom for safety deserves freedom. Wait, what is it? What was it? No, go. Who was that? Get out. Was it Ron Paul? It was the Benjamin Franklin. Go. Get out of here. What's wrong with Benjamin Franklin? Benjamin Franklin is a true patriot. My Wi-Fi is messed up on here. Now I'm going to have to reconnect. Yeah. And I think you deserve it for throwing that old stale ass quote in my face. What was the quote? He who gives up safety. Yeah, go ahead. Do it. No, he who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither. Yeah, I agree. That's ridiculous. Let me tell you something. It's a great quote. It's not worth giving up our right as Americans to privacy. It all goes back to the Patriot Act. Oh, yes, it does. Wait, are you pro or? Are you pro? I'm against the Patriot Act. I'm against the Patriot Act, too. Everyone has to agree on that. I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe it either. But here's the thing. The Patriot Act ruined everything. It basically was like at a time of the greatest fear in America. We were like, hey, guys, stuff's really messed up. Let's just sign this crazy thing into law, and we're going to use it for all sorts of stuff. Don't worry about it. And it's been a nightmare ever since. I'm pretty sure that's why we had a financial collapse this card is a Patriot Act. They're like, oh, yeah, by the way, no regulation of anything. I think the government absolutely needs to have the power to look in on absolutely any digital communication. So then you agree that Bush was a terrible president, right? Oh, god, why? No. Suicide. Suicide. It's his era is the Patriot Act era. Anything. Anything else. Come on. Let's talk about abortion. Just kidding. I'm kidding. But seriously, folks, the new Nexus 5 with KitKat has some interesting features that I would like to talk about. Guys, Paul's back on the VirgCat. It really is. But you know, Paul did take the Virg. With Paul on the VirgCast on a regular basis, he took it. Yeah, that was rude. You owe him an apology. I did. I just apologized. You don't need to apologize. A better apology, but a bigger one. A more heartfelt apology. I don't think you really meant that. Yeah, I agree. Can we see something really with feelings? Well, I don't apologize about my feelings. Can you cry on demand? No, I don't know how. OK. Have you seen that film? It's on demand. Cry. I believe it says that. The thing is to cry on demand, you have to think of something sad. Marisa Tomei. And I refuse to acknowledge sad things. Yeah, Cry. There's a new James Franco. It's on VELV on demand. Really? No. Cry. You said cry on demand. Is there a movie called Cry? No. OK. Moving on. What else do we have to talk about, Eli? What else is in there? How long have we been doing this for, by the way? Can we talk about? 90 crazy minutes. Can we talk about Lou Reed? Like as a whole movie? Yeah. Can we? Bring it way down. Totally different. Lou Reed. Best segue ever. OK. So the, the, the, the, the, the, Are you, I don't know. Are you a Velvet Underground fan? I don't know what your story is. The famous, you know, the line is that like, you know, like what is it? Only like a thousand people bought Velvet Underground. I'm not going to Google it. Yeah, Google it. Just Google it. Just Google it. Well, now you can Google that, bro. Yeah, you're like, the famous line is, one second. Everybody knows that old adage that, well, in one moment I have to look this up. I'm sorry. Lou, no, but Lou Reed, I was very, very, very bummed and very depressed when I heard the news. Yeah. You know, a lot of people, my favorite Lou Reed record is Street Hassle. Interesting. And yeah, well, a lot of people are like, oh, I love the Velvet Underground. And, and, you know, there's, it's not his most, it's not his most popular record, Street Hassle. Yeah. But it's got some amazing songs. Like the song Street Hassle? The song Street Hassle, which features Bruce Springsteen. It is amazing. And it's like, it's just crazy. He just appears in the middle of the song and like said, does some beat poetry. Right. And then just jams out. He's like, I'm out of here. And he kind of like references Born to Run a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean, he's, he's, cause you know, he's an e-beater. Can I, can I ask something? So the line, the Velvet Underground's first album. You've never heard Street Hassle? I've heard Street Hassle. I just really dislike Bruce Springsteen. Well, yeah, I don't like Bruce Springsteen either. I mean, I, I, there's not. I mean, I like him as a man. I just don't like his music. As a guy. I mean, I like drinking with him. No, no, as a person, he's great. But like none of his albums or, or most of them? No, I mean, I keep. On Nebraska's, obviously. No. I live in Nebraska. Sure, why not? Who wouldn't? I don't. Okay. Anyhow, go on. What were you going to say? Velvet Underground's first album only sold a few thousand copies, but everyone who bought one formed a band. Yeah. And I, I can't, I don't, I wasn't around. But you weren't around in 1968. I think that quote has been repurposed about like the first Ramones album, the first Pistols album. But what it meant for me. No, the Ramones, hold on. The Ramones formed in a cauldron of activity in the New York scene. I mean, they were, they were certainly not. They did not. They created the London scene. They did not. They did not. I mean, if you've read Please Kill Me, you would know, of course, that they were highly influential. The Sex Pistols were huge posters. We sound like old rockers right now. We're huge posers. Okay, anyhow. What happened for me is- Have you seen a picture of Malcolm Mc, Steve Jones? Malcolm McLaren turned into like an old English grandma over time. Yeah, sure. But Steve Jones now looks completely insane. Does he? Yeah. I haven't seen a recent photo. You going to pull it up? Okay, go ahead. Paul? I grew up with pretty bad, you know, 90s alternative ska tastes. Can you give us an example, specific example? Is it the New Jersey Orange County Supertones? No. Can you name a band that I've actually heard of? Probably not. MXPX? Yeah, I've heard of them. That's what I grew up in. And then, you know, early 2000s, I- You heard White Lie, White Heat. I heard The Strokes. Oh. And I was reading reviews of The Strokes. Yeah. And they kept on comparing them to the Velvet Underground and television. And I never heard of either. God, television's amazing. Yeah. And so I- Marquee Moon, unbelievable record. I looked up Velvet Underground on Morpheus or whatever I was using to steal music at the time. You called Morpheus and you were like, I need an operator. No, because it was Napster and then it was- And Neo was like, Trinity, Morpheus. Whoa. Well, what did I just say? Anyhow, go ahead. It was before Lye Wire, so I think it was Morpheus. You're right, it was Morpheus. And I started listening to Velvet Underground and they fundamentally changed- Can you give a sample of Keanu Reeves saying Morpheus? Changed my- Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. Morpheus. And they changed my- Morpheus. My taste in music. It really- They changed your life. They changed my life very much brought it- What was the first Velvet Underground song you heard, do you remember? Well, the first one I remember being obsessed with and still am obsessed with is Heroine. I think that's just such an incredible song. Oh God, that's terrible. I thought it was a picture of- Yeah, it's a picture of Gene Jam. Heroine is... Heroine is... You want to hear something really funny and also horrible and embarrassing. Is it about Heroine? No, but yeah. In 1993, Billy Idol released a record called Cyberpunch. Oh God, worst record ever made. Which had a cover of Heroine on it. It did? Yeah, an insane cover of Heroine on it. It's really bad. And that was how I became aware of the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed. Yeah, is through Billy Idol. That's amazing. Are you kidding me? I was in 93, I mean I was a little kid. Yeah. Yeah, no, because I'd never heard- How would you- My parents listen to Frank Sinatra. My parents listened exclusively to Hindi film songs. That's awesome. I still got to Lou Reed. What did you get? What was yours? How did you get to Lou Reed? From The Clash to The Pistols to The Ramones to- You're on your way back to credibility. Well, no, I mean I was obsessed. No, The Clash is okay, but then The Pistols is- And then there was a cover of Sweet Jane on a Buzzcocks live album that I had. And then I hit the- You're like, what is this? Yeah. Where did this come from? It's funny now- Everybody's first exposure is not Sweet Jane. Well, what's funny is when you think about the opportunity that kids, that people have now- Guys, we sound so old. I sound like I'm a billion years old. No, but when you think about what it's like now versus what it was like 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago even in some- I mean you're talking about Morpheus- No, I had to dig through racks for some of this stuff. And you had to dig through virtual racks, like Morpheus and LimeWire. Right now- That shit was not readily accessible. You had to go spelunking down to find it. If I had audio now, I would have discovered this probably a lot quicker. That's why it's kind of scary, but also amazing to think about how kids are learning about music now. In fact, it was right around that time I got Rhapsody. And Rhapsody had- I love Rhapsody. Had a visual- How come Rhapsody's never hired you as a spokesperson? They still email me pictures. I'm just going to just throw that out there and say if they do make you that job offer, you should not join that company. The last time I talked with Rhapsody PR on the phone, I was almost crying when I was telling them about how bad their bit rate is on their mobile app. I was like, I'm over you guys. I've got Mog, I've got Rdio, I've got Spotify. High quality playback, man. That stuff sounds good. But they had a way to backtrack, like this band was influenced by these bands. And so I started doing that with all the bands I was interested in. But it really started with Velvet Under the Roof. But I got to say, Lou Reed, when you listen to his stuff, Street Hassle's a great record, by the way, if you want, I think if you want the full Lou Reed experience. Velvet Underground- Can you do the noise guitar stuff? Can you- Metal Machine Music? Can you sit through that? No. I mean, we did a playlist for the post about him dying and I put, I think it's the first track for Metal Machine Music as the last song. It's like 17 minutes long and it is insane. But did you read that interview? There's a great interview from Spin. It's a terrible interview, it's a recent interview, it's from a few years ago. And he gets pretty mad at the interviewer, at the guy interviewing him. But he talks about Metal Machine Music and he's like, I thought this was so cool, it's like pure guitar. I thought this was so rock and roll and people didn't get it at all. Have you read his review of Yeezus? Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. And he talks about making something abrasive like that, but you're not doing it right. Making it to piss people off or be abrasive, it's truly what you think is interesting. Yeah, I mean, and I think, but so on Street Hassle, I think if you listen to it, it's a really good, you get a really good sense of who Lou Reed was because you get a song like Street Hassle, which is this sort of orchestral long drug story. And then there's, I Wanna Be Black is on that record, which is literally him saying about how he wants to be a black guy. And it's pretty much, it's really racist. It kind of sounds racist, but it's also like Lou Reed. Here's the thing about Lou Reed. You just imagine he's one of these guys, like I always think about Mick Jagger in this way. He has to say whatever he wants. Well, he gets to say whatever he wants because he's like probably done everything. Like he's just been in every situation possible. Imagine like whatever kind of weird like race situation he may have got, like he's some weird sex situation he got himself into, like a, just an uncomfortable conversation with somebody. Like I have to imagine- Crocodile. Yeah, crocodile. Like Lou Reed and Mick Jagger have been in every possible permutation of a situation that could exist. And so like they can basically say whatever because you've done it all. Like you've been to the peaks and the valleys of all of existence. You've had every exchange possible. You've had every weird sexual encounter. What's the story? I think that's the one you keep coming back to. Well, no, because it's like, there's that story about how like David Bowie and Mick Jagger were found in bed by somebody's wife or whatever. You know, Lou Reed is all about, he sings about like, it's like, you know, he's singing about like transvestites and being like gay and being straight and he's a heroin addict and he's cleaned up. And it's like, it's just like you've been all over the place. Like I don't know. My life has been very boring by comparison. My life has been very tame. Like I've done very little, you know, I've never like found myself in a gutter with a needle hanging out of my arm going like, where am I? You're in like Berlin. That's never happened to me. Although we did go to Germany together. Although we did go to Berlin that one time. Paul and I, our first trip, we went to IFA together and I learned so much about Paul. I learned so much about Josh. That was like, by the way, I don't know if you remember this, but I'm just thinking about it. That was like, I was like, let's shoot some video here. Do you remember? And we were like, and we were like trying to do like an intro for a video and I was like, I look terrible. This is horrible. Josh was not secure in the configuration of his face. I'm still not. Like, look at this. It's a, it's like a horn. It was something like Samsung MP3 player. Yeah. We were like trying to do an intro for a Samsung MP3 player video. Good. I'm glad we threw our resources at that project. There were no resources. It was Paul. It was Paul with like a whatever camcorder he owned. That was back in the day when we had those exacties. Oh man. I started exacties. This is pre, this is like pre-Ricker exactie. Can we somehow stop saying things that make us seem old? Just an idea that I'm having in my mind. Look when I was coming up, we had exacties. We didn't have iPhones. You couldn't wifi your stuff. On this or to our second birthday. You couldn't wifi. None of the kids were air dropping. No, but listen, but I, but anyhow. All right. We should, we've got a 10 minutes left. We should talk about, we should talk about the future. I saw Lou Reed live a couple of years ago. Did you really? How was it? It was the Phil fast benefit concert. I mean, whatever you want to do is fine with me. That sounds amazing. Lou Reed was pretty good. Yeah. I saw, I've seen, I saw. He reads his lyrics off of a screen. I saw Lou Reed several times at shows in New York. Here's the thing about Lou Reed that was cool. I mean, he was, he died when he died. He died at 71. Like for several years I have seen Lou Reed at really cool, I think really cool, weird shows in New York. Like you know, in fact that interview in spin, he talks about like what's on his, his iPod. It's like battles and holy fuck, like weird bands, like bands that are not mainstream in any way, shape or form. That's a band by the way. I wasn't just swearing for the sake of it. I've heard of battles. Yeah. Battles. Battles is, is fronted by, well it was fronted by Ian Williams. Yeah. Who my brother was in a band with called Don Caballero. I didn't know there's a connection. Yeah. There's a connection. Oh man. Oh and Storm is Trash. My nerdiest friends in college loved Don Caballero. Yeah, Don Cab. Yeah. They were, they were. Don Cab was awesome man. In its day they were incredible. Anyhow. All right. Moving along. The future. Please. Let's talk about the future. Or I mean if you want to talk about. You don't want to keep going into this. Mining the past. You want to talk about Lou Reed. I see you guys have bought into the smartwatch trend. We love smartwatches right here. Look at this. Here in the future. Look at this. I can tell. Hey what, what are, by the way. I got the seconds, I got the seconds, I got the minutes. Speaking of smartwatches, Wall Street Journal. Google. Was the Wall Street Journal a Jessica Lesson? Doesn't. I don't know if you've decided Wall Street Journal or former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lesson. Reported this week Google Watch coming very soon. Running Google Now. Yeah. Which I think I will say is the best idea for a smartwatch I've heard yet. Because Google Now is the best ambient information service. The only problem with that is that I cannot get Google Now to understand me or do anything ever relevant to me. But other people struggle with that. I don't know how you're expecting a computer to do it. Oh, understand him. You're really mean. You know that? You know what? This guy came all the way to New York for us. Here's the thing. I'm going to, I'm going to, I go to Colorado. I'm helping out children. Yeah. You know? He's taking them out. And Google Now doesn't know what I'm up to. They don't understand that. Like I'm not, I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm taking them out. Yes. I'm going to start taking care of them. If I lived in San Francisco. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. And worked at a coffee shop or from a coffee shop. Okay. But if I lived in San Francisco, then Google Now might understand me a little better. You know, if I was one of these hipsters in San Francisco at a coffee shop. Taking care of children. Google Now would be like, hey, you know what? Let me tell you about Google Now. Paul, I'm not saying, look, here's what I'm saying. Because developers don't have children. I might struggle. Let me tell you something. I think other people might struggle. That's the ultimate development. But you look happier than anybody that I know. Yeah. Well, he's lazy. He's on easy streets. It's a facade. Yeah. What's wrong? Tell us what's wrong. I'm sad. Are you sad? No. Why? Because you're not happy with me. Are you? What's going on? Let's take a side. Let's take a little, let's take, go down a little side road. I know you're not going to like this at all. I love side roads. What's going on with your love life? So single. Wait. You're sad because you don't like this. Super single. Come on, ladies. We got all the whole package right here. Come on, ladies. Successful. Although, and you know what? You know what? This is probably- Good looking. Very good looking. Kind of like a young Brad Pitt. That's true. Faithful. Faithful on several levels. It's true-voted. Strong. Good with kids. Great with kids. Strong convictions. Amazing with kids. If I were a lady out there on the scene- I feel like we've done this several times. We have. I want this to be the lightning rod which captures the electricity of Paul's future relationship. Paul Miller is out there. You want the credit. That's the thing. I wouldn't mind getting the credit. What we're saying is the next time she falls asleep on the airplane, you should fall asleep. Yes. Yes. And pretend to like cuddle her. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Exactly. Oh, you're reading the same book as me. Oh my God. I didn't notice you were reading something really cool like Gilead Gibran's The Prophet. Do you think Katniss dies at the end? You guys are both reading The Prophet. Do you think Katniss dies at the end? No. Hey, hey, hey. I was just looking at my conversation starting. Spoiler alert. How was that question? I didn't spoil anything. Well, I don't even consider that because I've only read the first book and seen the first movie. Yeah, but everybody dies, Josh. Well, I started reading the second book. I started reading the second book and I was like- Do you think Joshua Topolsky dies in the end? I was like, no. I was reading the second book and I was like, oh, wait a second. This is not very good. Do you think the last line of the series is we're not hungry anymore? He knows. He's read it. It's not a bunch of like hunger jokes. Yeah, they're not hungry. Oh. Yeah. That's not what it's about. Why is it a joke? You need to read these books. It's not like the seven dwarfs. Why is it a joke? She's like, I killed her with my spear and then finally I had a steak to eat. Well, there is some eating in it though. You have to admit that. They do eat. And we all die. And then we all die. Maybe. Eventually. No, but aren't we all in a way- Except for Ray Kurzweil. Aren't we all in a way then reborn? As other murderers. Hold that thought. He's good looking. He's funny. He's well read. This is our worst show of all time. No, this is a great- I think this is a great- Can we see what's going on on Twitter? What's the temperature on this show? Let's take the temperature of Twitter right now. I like you guys are going to your consoles. What is this going to take for people to feel like I'm back all the time? People ask me- What's it going to take? What happened to Paul? Where's Paul? You'd have to be back. I tweet a few times a week. There's a lot of threads in the forums. They're like, what happened to Paul? And then somebody's like, he's working on his book and he's living in Colorado. And then there's always a few people that remind people and they're like, oh, sorry. I'm about done. Thank you for that. I don't know. I just feel like I've been trying to prove that I exist. The whole year I was off the internet, I was trying to prove people I exist. And it didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't work. Do we have a name for Paul fans? I know that Fallon fans are called foul pals. Foul pals. Okay. Do you have a name? No. Paul bros. I thought there was Polygon. That's not it. That's not anything. You just said a word. It's a word. It's just a word. It's a website named after me. What's our temperature here? Crazy. What are people saying? This is by far the best worst one. Okay. What else? I got to search for it again. You know what? If you're watching the Vergecast right now, I want real time feedback on Twitter right this second. People think it's awesome. Somebody else is single. Someone claims to be a developer with five kids and they take pictures. Well they obviously don't work at Google. I mean what? That's not funny. Is that a laugh journal too, buddy? Yeah, dude. You know, if I could eat anything at all right now, what would it be? I'm just trying to think because I feel very hungry. Pizza cone? Oh yeah, that sounds good. I mean I've never had one of those. We've been talking about them for a long time. I am really hungry. I ordered lunch and then I sit down at lunch and I'm not hungry so I had it packed up to go and then an hour later I'm super hungry. Classic. Suicide meat dish. Only in New York. Only in New York, right Paul? Total. Total. Total. Just kidding. All right, what other topics do we have to cover? It's us. We just have to talk about us, which I would say we've been doing a very good job of. Let me tell you something. When we started The Verge. Yeah. It's been two years, man. It's been two years. Well, it'll be officially two years tomorrow. In several hours. I know that two years ago on this day we were in full on panic mode and I was literally saying things to people like I'm pretty sure there's an email or a call at some point where I said to our court, at the time our staff was like 12 or something. I was like just get ready. They're going to hate it. You're going to get hate mail. They're going to say it's the worst thing ever. Because I'm always like kind of beat. I'm my own worst critic. I got to say it's pretty incredible. First off, it's great Paul. Seriously, it's great to have you back. I'm psyched that you're back in New York. I didn't actually know that. To be totally serious for a moment, it's awesome that you're back and I hope that we see more of you and I hope that these guys see more of you in the near future because you're a wonderful man and we love you. But you know two years ago we launched The Verge and it seemed like, I mean people were, they said things like why would anybody do that? People were like why would anybody launch a site like that? Why would you want to, we got Wired, we got Gizmodo, we got Engadget. Who needs The Verge or whatever? And two things I think have happened over this period of time. One like the question to why would anybody do it, I think has been answered. We answered it. I think we know why somebody would do it because you can make something different and better and strange and that isn't like the other stuff. And the other thing that's been answered is that like we've just started, you know Matt Buchanan, you actually sent an email about this today. Matt Buchanan wrote this great piece in the New Yorker. Is this the site originally? Yeah, that's the first day. Where are our ads? There's no ads on it. We couldn't even get advertisers. No money. Nobody believed in us. God, look at this. So sad looking. It looks pretty similar. We haven't used that, the big five in a long time. We haven't done five up in a long time. But Matt Buchanan wrote this great piece about Mossberg and Pogue and sort of the next generation of technology writers. And it was like, you know what, it's not about like this nuts and bolts stuff. It's about how we live with this stuff and how we use it. And I have to say, you know, he mentions us which is very nice but it does capture this whole idea that we had when we started working on this which was can we write about more than just cool gadgets or awesome futuristic things. Like can we write about the way we live with this stuff and how we use it and why and how it affects our lives and, you know, the culture that has been created because of it. And that stuff has become increasingly part of everything that everybody talks about. It's really weird to have seen and for us to have felt where like, okay, we have to go here because it's part of this big circle of things. It's funny because I joked on Twitter today. It's like right now I think of our president's legacy is the NSA, a broken healthcare website. Oh, Obama. Yeah. And letting me use gadgets on airplanes. And those are all technology stories. Well, those are our stories. I mean, there's also, I mean, obviously a lot of other stories. Those are like if you look at what like political news is in this country today, those are the stories. And it is very much tied up in how we live and in the technology we use and how we use it to live. Right. Well, one thing though I will say though, so we had the idea of what we thought was the right tech website and then we built it and it turned out to be right. And that was awesome. I would say it turned out to be like 80% right. I actually think it turned out to be, I think we had notions. Yeah. Of where it would go. A lot of those notions were right. But like when you started, as we have grown and you start to get more specific, we turn those notions into like justifiable, certifiable things. And that's what I want to say, like, you know, I was working, we launched and then six months later I left the internet. Yeah. I went, I didn't like- That was great. Paul had so many good ideas like by the way, I'm out of here. And now I've been, you know, living in Colorado, I'm not working at the verge right now. And I read the verge and I see things go up on the verge. And I remember how hard it was to make those things when I was involved with making it. And there's enough of them that go up every day on the verge. I'm like, who has the time? So I just think there's like- I like it. You're like a complaining old man. It's like, it's one thing to have a good idea, but to like, I just want to say like to everybody who has worked at the verge, like I, you know, I read this site and I know how hard it is to do all of the things, to make all of those words go down inside of your computer and to photos and the layouts and you know, the site stays up during live. Like there are so many crazy things that people work so hard at and they go on the verge all the time. And so it was a good idea, but the fact that it continues to be executed in just better and better ways more and more is just so awesome. Thanks for saying that, Paul. I mean, but you know- Good job on that, that burn pit layout, Josh. He did it himself. Hand coded by Jay Tom. Love all night. How do I get this animation? And we're only going to, we have a little thing. We're only going to get bigger and crazier in the next- Whoa. But I will say this, on all of this stuff, you know, and I don't want to like make this a thing where we talk about ourselves because that's not what we do. Like I will say this, you know, we wanted to make something cool that we loved for us and did the things that we thought would be great and interesting. And I think that we've done that and we continue to do that. The fact that other people like it and love it and get mad when we change things or do new things because they want to make sure we protect what the verge is, is extremely meaningful, you know, like really, really monumental to me. And without being like super serious, like we're a website on the internet. We cover news and sometimes it's really important. Sometimes it's just kind of cool or fun or whatever. But to everybody here, to me and to you guys and to all the people in this room and who work on the verge and to everybody upstairs, you know, it has been like an investment in years of our lives to make something that is lasting and it seems to be working and that's like a huge deal. And I hope that we, you know, continue to do that and to continue to provide, to build something and to make something that is, that people love and that people want to read and that people find value in, you know. And at the end of the day, the thing that, and we say this all the time, but the thing that we make is not for, it's not just for like an audience, it's for ourselves. And so we keep kind of challenging ourselves to make something good and that we really love and feel is worthy of, you know, your time. Of you, the people. Of you, the people. Yeah. And so with that said, I'm very excited and to everybody at the verge, to the team that is here, to people who have been here and have gone, like, you know, we, this is a team effort 100% like has been, I'm getting a little choked up actually. The three whiskeys. Yeah. No, but it has been a total team effort and something that like when we did it, when we started it, there are people, let's put it this way. There are people who were with us early on when, before we started and we're like, we're doing this and like, you're crazy. That's not going to work. And we went and did it anyhow and it worked. And it is not only working, but it is thriving. So screw you naysayers. Yeah, it is thriving as part of, and I have to say like as part of a company that is building a bunch of other stuff that's really great and really inspiring. And you know, when I look at like what we've done, you know, when we came to, at the time it was SB Nation, they were a sports site and people were like, what are you doing at a sports site? And it became Vox and Vox has become all of these brands now. It's Polygon, it's The Verge, SB Nation, all of the blogs under SB Nation. And you know, I think in the future you'll see that there are new, there are new things. And it is pretty incredible to be part of it and to have, to see it work. Josh's male grooming site. My male grooming site, Josh, Josh's hair.net. Yeah. Where I'm finally going to solve the mystery of. Josh chops. I'm surviving to solve the mystery of whatever is going on in this region of my hair. Oh my God. If I can just solve this. If we actually end this Vergecast with an appropriate callback, I'll be so proud of us. Solve. It's only taking us 100 episodes. I'm doing this, I didn't solve for ax, but the ax is just this region of my hair. Can I say something about my hair? Yeah. No. I got this haircut and you guys didn't make fun of me for it. No, we said you look amazing. No, thank you. It's awesome. We complimented you. Hold on, wait, wait, wait. Before we run that in Paul, your hair is great. There's two things to run. I just want to say, all right, chill out. It's just like, it was my one goal in life. Chill out, ghost voice. I want to say, yeah, chill out, voice. No one can hear XIV. I want to say one other thing as an, as a, as a, as a, uh, important connective piece to what I just said about like this team who built this thing. And your hair. My hair, which is a mess. Uh, we couldn't have done any of this. We would not be here talking about it. Nobody, it wouldn't matter at all without people who have supported us from like when we did, this is my next before the verge existed. And then we did, when we started the verge, who's kept reading and have, we've grown, I mean, our audience size has grown so much over the last two years. It's nuts. But like, you know, we've just kept doing the things we thought were good and we, that we liked and that we thought would be interesting to read. It is the audience that has kept this started here and kept coming back who, who has made it possible to do so. I would just say like, thank you. Yeah. Whoever you are, you millions and millions of insane lunatics. I'd like to personally thank the Microsoft tribe and the Android army. Yeah. Because I feel worried faction. Yeah. I know in particular, I feel, uh, I feel in danger for my life every day, but also very safe. It's weird. It's a strange feeling. Those are the guys like people who get mad at us for doing this stuff. I'm like, you care enough to get mad. That's amazing. But millions of people have, have, have, and will apparently continue to read the site. And that's incredible. So thank you. It is kind of crazy that we named it Microsoft tribe and Android army because when you, when you really come back to it, they called it microservice, but they didn't like that. Which was a great, it was a Douglas Copeland reference. They didn't like that either. And by the way, that book is amazing. We actually changed it. It's Googleplex now. It's Googleplex. We keep changing your names. Pretty soon. Pretty soon we're going to change the Apple, uh, people without a nation, people, nation without a state. We're not going to do that. Anyhow. I was just saying, all right, there's a lot coming next year. There's a surprise. You might be surprised. No, we're not just quitting today. Phantom voice in my ear. What is, what are we going to show people? Okay guys, here is, here is a taste of the verge. Enjoy. It's sweet. I did not think anybody would see that video. I put it on YouTube and it got like so many hits. When you dream about a future that you can enable with science and technology, then an innovation culture takes root in your nation. You get one shot. If you go to air and it's not right or there's a mistake. You're sitting right up right track. In the NBA draft, the Orlando magic select Victor Oladiko. The verge is awesome. Okay. It will blow your freaking mind out through the back of your head and your mind will go flying into a wall and that wall will explode and the explosion of the wall will rain down glitter on everybody on the street beneath you. They'll look up at the sky with tears in their eyes and they're going to say, what's happening to the world? Shout. It's the verge. Whatever that is, I want, Oh my God in heaven. What's happening? Whoa. We're like, look how slick our shit is. And then boom, we screwed it up. Paul, by the way, Paul had to leave. He was like, I've got, he's like, I've got to go to the bathroom so bad. He just bolted. Anyhow I think it's a fitting, by the way, I think very fitting to end our show on this note. Paul has gone again, but you know, not forgotten. And we're not joking. He's not coming back. He's not coming back. No tricks. This is not an illusion. He actually left. He was having an intense feeling of pressure in his bladder. It had to relieve it. Anyhow, that is the verge cast. That is the 100th verge cast. I'm so sorry. Yeah, we're so, we really do apologize. What? I don't know what happened there. It seems like we built such a great product and then, and then we do this every week. This is why are we doing this to people? I don't understand it. You don't understand it. But the point is it's happening. It's happening over and over again, like a recurring nightmare that you can't escape. That's the verge cast. The 100th verge cast. We'll be back next week for the 100th. First. The 101st. 101th? It's time for us to stop. The next verge cast. And as always, frankly, I think it bears saying now, as always from now, oh boy, is Paul back? Paul's coming back. We'll wait until he gets back. Come on, man. Sit down and tell the people what your next move is and we're going to wrap up. He's in New York now. I love the brothers so bad. Yeah, he really enjoyed that. Okay. Anyhow, we're wrapping up. The 100th verge cast. And one thing I can say to you that has been true from day one and will be true is that there is no quarter for your family. I'm coming for them and they can't escape. So just accept it. So thank you very much for listening. And I wish you and yours all the best on this upcoming weekend. Only the most joyous and all playful celebrations should be had. As always, I wish you and yours all the best for the upcoming weekend and week ahead. And until then, I wish you and yours the very best for the coming days and weeks ahead. The very best over this holiday weekend. It's not a holiday weekend. That doesn't matter. Why do you sound like Vincent Price? And I wish all of you in your homes happiness. The very best in the upcoming days and weeks. Yeah, coming days and weeks ahead as you live out your final moments here on the planet. And as always, I wish you and your family a great weekend alone. You know, I hope that you enjoy a safe, secure weekend in your homes. I'm sure there's nothing to fear in your home this weekend. I would not if I were you, I would not leave any of your doors or windows unlocked this weekend because it could cause horrible danger to your family. You know, whatever you do, don't turn out your bedroom lights this weekend. As always, I wish you and yours the very best for a happy and healthy weekend where nothing horrible will happen to you or your family, I'm sure. You know, I think don't worry about what's in the backseat of your car. It's probably nothing. All the best for what will be a very hard and upsetting weekend. We'll be back next weekend. As always, I wish you and your family the very best in this awful time. The very best in this troubling holiday week. No matter what happens to your family, I'm sure you'll be all right. And as always, your family is in danger and there's nothing you can do about it, but I'm sure everything will end up all right. I'm so sorry about your family. And as always, I wish you and your beautiful new family all the best. And until then, I think we're all going to be all right. All the best in what can only be described as a nightmare HowlRide. You know, enjoy your family while you got them. And that's it. I wish you and your family all the very best for this weekend and beyond. I wish you and your family all the best. Rock and roll.