 Hello, and welcome to the Vergecast. The Vergecast is a place where we talk about our lives, our loves, our loves gone wrong, and our lives gone right. I'm Neil Apatow. And Gadgetz. Gadgetz! Gadgetz! I'm Paul Miller. I'm Ross Miller. Wow. That was, that kind of scared me. This was intended to be extremely romantic and deep, and you guys just... I blame him. Whoa! Oh, that's terrible. The romance is dead. Wow. Really, the love is truly gone in this room. Oh, that's painful. I'm still just thinking. So let me explain what's happening with the Lovecast today. It's the Lovecast. What sounds romantic to the audience, and I'm sure that you think this is romantic, is really just my voice being shot from CS, just completely destroyed. You know what? Ross, I believe you're sick too. I'm getting better. I'm not better. So Paul, you're basically in a hotbed of disease. You said hot. I came home and my roommate has bronchitis or something, and I'm doing fine. You're doing great. Which is real... I'm thankful. You're not weakened by the internet. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, so it goes. So anyway, look, we're back. We're back from CS, from an insane week. Paul, you use technology deeply and seriously for a whole week. I looked at it, at least. Yeah, you examined it. I held that wall-way, that six-inch wall-way. It wasn't connected? I have a lot to say about that six-inch wall-way, by the way. I hate the word phablet. I despise it. Oh, yeah. It is the worst word. No, I just read about that in the Wall Street Journal. Bad word. It's a terrible word, but the thing is they're just phones. They just run phone apps. They're just gigantic phones. If you have to come up with a new word to try to pretend that the thing is a phone or a tablet... Well, no, they were just pretending that it's a tablet. It's how they're sneaking in this idea. A tablet that makes phone calls. Right, but it's not because it's just a phone. It doesn't run any of the tablet apps. Little of them there are. But basically what they're trying to say is, look, this is clearly too big to put into your pocket. This is really large. It's silly large. You're very mad about this. Preposterously? Preposterously. No, but it's not because we thought the Galaxy Note was preposterously large. You're fired, Paul. Preposterously large. We thought it was stupid looking. Right? It was so large. But that's like what, 5.3? And now five-inch 1080p phones are like the best. There's physical constraints to how large of something that you can mount on your hip. Why would... Well, no, no, no. You just get bigger hips. First of all, you shouldn't... That's the American way. Yeah, that's true. Unless you're like... You are getting larger as a people. Laura Croft can put all sorts of guns and stuff on her hips. Also Batman. Batman. That's more on his waist though. Well, it's all around. Yeah, it's like, where does he get these wonderful phablets? It's like an utility belt. It's an utility belt. You don't do that. I'm saying like, as far as our pockets are concerned, we've reached the limit. Right. No, I mean, I disagree. What about flexible tablets? And that's why you have to call it a tablet. It's like, you need to store this in the same way you store a tablet. You need to have this in the same way that you have a tablet. Yes. I hear what you're saying. I just hate that word. And I think it's a lie. It's a terrible word. Because it makes people think like, oh, this phone has the utility of a tablet. And when people think tablet, they still think iPad. So like, oh, this phone has utility of an iPad. And they're like, no, that's a lie. That's not true. It's just a gigantic phone. Except for the note. The note is like, it's just, whatever. People love the note. That's fine. Well, at least that has functionality that is like different or beyond a phone in a way. But I still don't want to call it a phablet. I'm not doing it. I think we should just call everything phones. If it can make a call, it's a phone. If the TV has Skype, it's a phone. Well, yeah. But I don't know who's to, I said this. I like it. Yeah, I know. If the TV has Skype, it's a phone. Your car, it's a phone now. Your car is a phone. Your car has been a phone for a long time. And actually, I bet if you asked Ford or GM, they'd be very happy for teenagers to think of their cars as phones. Yeah. Because the teens are so with it now. And all the surveys. Every team, you're taking it to one. Man, I really want a phone. Ford's like, check out this phone. It has to be a new phone. It has to be under horsepower. It'll hold all your phablets. That's ridiculous. All right. Anything else we need to talk about is from CES. We're also trying to brainstorm. I mean, honestly, I am so burnt out from CES. We talk so much about it. Literally, listen to my voice. This is the sound of pain. Yeah, we really did all the talking about CES at CES. I'm gonna need a good three to six months to think about it. I'm just trying to heal. I'm literally trying to heal. I cannot wake up at a reasonable hour right now. I'm still on West Coast time. I don't know if it's like recovering from disease or if it's... No, I was telling you this story. I came home from dinner last night at 9.30. It was a long, delicious dinner. And I sat down on the couch next to Becky, and I literally tilted over and fell asleep. And then at 10 AM this morning, I tilted back up and was awake. I didn't even make it. That was just it. I'm broken. I'm gone. I got back from CES. Because I was outside a lot, because walking or skating from the hotel to the trailer and back, saw some outdoors. It's bright. It's sunny there, even though it's winter. And I got back to my apartment. It's just so dark in my apartment. I just hate it. So I got one of those sun boxes or light box. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. It's like regular light. It's so bright. I think I got a sunburn from my first use. But anyway, that's my... Only Paul Miller. That's my solution. I'm not gonna tell them that it hurt me. And I got alarm clock. I got two things from the same light store. I up-selled myself on the phone. And I got one of those alarm clocks that brightens slowly when it wakes you. I used that this morning. It didn't help. Didn't help. I had an alarm clock for the deaf when I was in law school that shook the bed. I learned to sleep through it. Wait, shook the entire bed? It had this thing. It would shake your bed. That is amazing. It was for the deaf, right? Well, I mean, the deaf and the people who just like to sleep in. The chronically hungover. But it was in my room and it would go off. My roommate always had this terrible dilemma of, do I turn off Neely's alarm clock by flipping the circuit breaker and taking myself away from this terrible noise? But at the same time, he did that. The router was in my room. So I killed the wireless. So every... He was just having a... Your room was locked? He didn't wanna go in there for some reason? My door was locked. Oh. Who knows what I did, man? Made a lot of weird decisions. Right. I'm trying to think of a solution. He could do a targeted EMP. Oh, wait, the router's in there. Shoot. Do you have a window? Did you have a window? He talks about this in very pained... This is years and years ago now. Did you have a window to your room? Oh, yeah, there was a window. I mean, it was... Yeah, he could shimmy up the side. Yeah. That's the way to do it. But he usually just flipped the circuit breaker. Anyway, I would say just wrap up CS. We're still waking up from CS. We're still waking up from CS. Everyone's gonna flip the breaker and take out internet. We have a few things coming out actually still from CS. We had one come out, I think yesterday that was big. We didn't talk about the China. Yeah, Adrian did a cool report on the rise of Chinese companies. So like Huawei, TCL, Hisense. You should read it. It's good. She has a video. It's interesting. Hisense was big because it took Microsoft's booth, which is such an iconic thing. And then TCL today is actually one of the big sponsors of Iron Man 3. When that movie comes out- Which is insane. TCL is gonna be everywhere. Adrian has a line in her report that's the copy, like the trailer of Iron Man 3 that was showing the TCL booth was so bad that people thought it was pirated. They didn't believe. Because the TV looks really bad. So they were like, is this a pirated copy of Iron Man 3? I was thinking about that. A lot of the... There's so much bad content on display at CES. Or like, because they're desperate to show something to show off their 4K. Back in the day, it was like 60p or 120p content. I saw this, I saw... What's it called? Ben Hur. Yeah. Remastered in 4K. Oh. But it had also been remastered from 24 frames per second to 30 frames per second. It's not upscaled by the TV, but remastered somehow. And the guy at the Sam's, it just looked terrible. It looked like somehow it was stopped. Yeah, that'll stop. Yeah, yeah. It was really bad. It was just a bunch of stupid moves. You can't do it. No, idiots. But so apparently the guy who... Bastards. Ben Hur, such a classic of cinema. It's preposterous. Yeah, you got it. The guy who did the remastering apparently kept on going by the booth and telling everybody that... This wasn't it. This was not my decision to do it like this. No, Leah, our operations assistant and I, we were walking through the Samsung booth and we were looking at the big, beautiful TVs. And she goes, man, I really want one of these, but I also want this footage of delicious food constantly playing. I mean, that's what you need. Yeah. I mean, that's what I want is a giant television that only shows me delicious foods. There's a lot of stuff in quaint Asian villages. Yeah. It's generic Asian villages. No, that was... And also carnivals, happy people dancing. Yeah. If you buy one of these TVs, you're only going to look at pictures of celebrations in one way or another, whether that celebration is a delicious steak or cupcake. It's all footage of stuff that... Whether it's carnival. This is like the calm that sets up a movie before some horrible disaster happens. Yeah. No, this is actually... It's the meet queue. Right. And then the explosion. Yeah. But the explosion also looks terrific. But on the China thing, I was thinking about this today and how rapidly Samsung has just taken over from Apple. They ripped market share and it seems almost entirely the Galaxy S3 and the Note a little bit, but it's just such a rapid, dramatic thing. And it's like Samsung finally found a real differentiator. It was like, let's just make a really big screen. And people want that. And they found something and they delivered it and it's good as if people want it. And I think that's a recipe for success. And I think if one of these Chinese companies, they clearly want it. They're really small screens. Their quality is ramping up. And I held that Huawei phone, I was like, I hate this. This is so large, but it felt good. The screen, there was a time when there was a real quality gap and that's disappearing. Well, they're all making them in the same factories. It makes a little bit of sense. In that sense too, yeah. But the thing with Samsung is... Well, there are two things. And I remember who said this to me at CS. They were like, the phones are gonna get bigger. The idea that the phone has to be small is tied to a generation of people who think the utility of a phone is making a phone call. But that's not what most people think anymore. They think it's for browsing the web or looking at photos or playing games. And that demands a bigger screen. So they were like, God, I wish I... I'm just gonna take credit for this. This is my thought, not the stranger's thought. Right, of course. But they were like, if in Zoolander 1, the phones are getting smaller as a sign of status, because they were just voice devices. If you made Zoolander 2, you would have a gigantic phone. I think they are making Zoolander 2. But that's it. But that's like... We'll see it. Go ahead. That's my idea, by the way. And if you're the person who told me that idea... They need to make a... Either way, obviously they need to make a Zoolander sequel. This is just a plea for Zoolander. Ben Stiller, get on this. We're starting the petition, onlinepetition.org, whatever it is. And Zoolander... Onlinepetition.org. Okay, whatever. But... Is this the new White House petition? I mean, is the inevitable... So I'm already thinking about... We were talking about this when I go back to the internet, getting like a Nexus 4, and then keeping my Huawei for a while, and then getting an iPhone. I mean, if you have a phablet, it doesn't stick in your foot. Why would you do that? Why would you do that to me on this show? I'm your friend. It's true. You know, I need to value that friendship. Yes. I take it for granted all the time. Why? If you have a really, really large phone that's almost silly large, almost a tablet. Or a very small tablet. And you don't wanna keep that in your pocket, but you wanna have an easily accessible... Like a Bluetooth headset, but it's a handset. Yeah. And it's got a keypad on it, or it's just like a tiny little thing with a screen, like maybe a three inch or 2.5 inch screen. You can scroll through your contacts and make phone calls. Or like a smartwatch. No, but you need to be able to hold it to your head and make phone calls. Hello. Hello. How are you? What's up, buddy? Adjust the video. This would be rad. You could do this to make voice calls. Hello. Right here. With the fingers too. Two rings. I think I actually saw that at concept. I think that was a Motorola concept at CS1. It's a SkyMall now too. Yeah. No, that's the future. Two rings? Yeah, two rings. But for now, I think we need like tiny little phones that connect to your large phone over Bluetooth. Hello. Two rings. Because it's ridiculous. I mean, I can take out of my pocket. Yeah. Look, just get bigger pockets. Yeah. And you know, I will say this. I love an active lifestyle. How big is the Nexus 4? Sometimes I'm moving my legs. I think it's less. I think it's like 4.7. So it's just under. I looked at... I played with the... And I find the Nexus phone to be fine. Some people think it's too big, but I think it's fine. It's a great phone. Except for the LTE. But I played with Sonys. I mean, there are tons of five inch 1080p phones at CS. I think that's like it. That's the sweet spot. That's where they're going. It's just too big. Because anything bigger than that is insane. Did you play with Sonys? Sonys is very nice. It's ergonomically... I don't know. I just don't like it. Anyway, let's move on. What is not CS news? What is not CS news is... Let's just go back to CS. No. You go back to CS. It will hurt me. I think we need to take a break from that. Yeah. It would be Google CEO Larry Page, who has not talked in a very long time. Gave the interview to Steven Levy. So here's the weird thing about this interview. So it's a good interview. You should read it. It's in Wired. It's Steven Levy, so he's very good at interviewing people. I love Steven. But Page has been a ghost. Yes. To the point where there were rumors that he was sick in some way because he wasn't visible, he wasn't out there, wasn't doing Google stuff. The weird thing about this interview is that there is a part of it where they talk about the ITU regulating the internet. And Levy's like, there's a link on the Google homepage about protesting this ITU decision. That was like months ago, or maybe a month ago. So this interview was done a while ago and published today, which I think is very interesting. The other really interesting thing about the timing is that in there, Page says, Facebook makes bad products, which is two days ago. Two days ago, Facebook... And he also says, Levy asked him about patent lawsuits and they asked him about Apple, obviously. And he goes, well, how well is that going for them? Which is very snarky and cool. But was there... Did we figure it out? Is he alive? The timing? He's obviously there. But what I think is really interesting is that the interview came out and there's this quote about Facebook making bad products, like two days after Facebook released the search engine. But Wired is... It's a magazine, it's a long lead time, like you said. Yeah, this was probably in the print magazine probably done, but like... You said it was done about a month or so ago because it's got a dated reference. See, literally, CES for me just erases my sense of time. There is things that happened before CES and that's just what all of those things. I was biking up... In that time period. I was biking up here today and there's like a new bike lane on 9th Ave, but it looks worn in. Yeah. And I was like, how... Because you were in Vegas for five days. Yeah. That's what happened. I know. Your five days are like six years the rest of the world. It's like Lion Witch in the wardrobe, but you go to the wardrobe and you come back out. No, that's opposite. Opposite of that. Wait, what's that? Time goes faster inside the wardrobe? No, yeah, time goes... Because when you come out of the wardrobe, it's like no time has passed. Oh, I see. Okay, so we're not in the wardrobe right now. How many dreams deep are you in? No, we are back in the wardrobe. CES is the real world. That... No. Denied. I refuse to believe. Do not... Does not compute. Okay. The idea of CES being the real world is the worst. Although it kind of is. That's the state of nature. There are no laws, no rules, no checks on morality. You can just do whatever you want on the fly. You really do... It's like you're Vegas is such a weird but accurate light. Yeah. No, it is. It's the state of nature. It's... What is it? Gassily cruel and short. Thomas Hobbes. Nasty, brutish and short. I'm gonna stick with the Lord of the Flies reference and just slice the pig, split his throat. Ghoulish. I don't know what... So there was no big news from the Larry Page. Those are the two things. And I think it's really interesting that... You're right. Long lead time. So this interview was obviously done a while ago. But it's interesting in the sense that he's obviously still running the company. He says he wants to improve everything 1000%. There's a really great story in there from an engineer who's like... A Google X engineer who's like, I could walk in there with a time machine, plug it in and be like, look, this works. I could walk in there and be like, why does it need power? I like that sense. Larry Page tells that story? No, one of the engineers tells that about Larry Page and the level of improvement that he wants constantly. And I think that's great. I think it's great that there's a company that's this devoted to bonkers innovation. I think Apple clearly with the iOS felt like it's good enough for a while and that's been a real problem with them. And the fact that Android keeps getting better is big credit. I like that mentality. No, it's great. But what I think is really interesting is particularly this quote about Facebook making bad products is... Because at the Facebook event, they asked about Google because Facebook has search. Do you know about this? So I read cursory Facebook is making search out of your friends' data. So it's called graph search, which is a terrible name, just a stupid name. Just look at Facebook. Well, they knew social graph is a stupid term, so they just... We're doubling down on stupidity. Why don't they call it social search? That's good. Anything other than graph search. It's like, what kind of... Like search through all your PowerPoint presentations. I made a number of pie charts in 2007. Help me find them. So it's like a... It's just a stupid name. What? I can't top that. Anyway, so it allows you to do natural language search across all your friends' data. But it's one of these Facebook products that assumes everybody uses Facebook like Facebook employees. So if you work at Facebook, it's probably great because you can type in all the restaurants in Palo Alto that my friends under 27 like. Have to check in and like things. And that data set exists. But it doesn't exist. So Dieter and Ellis were at the event. Thomas Huston did a hands-on afterwards. And they were like, it works, but in severely limited ways because the data set isn't there for most people. Well, the note that really stuck out to me is that it's starting out on their website and then it will come to mobile. And the thing is they need all the data that they want in this needs to come from mobile. So they're doing it backwards. And it's... I mean, they really sound... It's so funny. They sound like a, like a, like an old company, you know, like let's put it on our website. We need a web presence. Tim wrote a report on this on the site, which you can't read. We should just make a list of things that you have to read when you come back. They were published on the... I get handed articles on thumb drives from time to time. I give like a shadow market of like art material. I roomed with Trent. No, I get them straight from the source. So I like room with Trent. No middlemen. I roomed with Trent at CES. So I got his like piece on Carly Rae Jepsen, Adderall. You're months behind the curve. I know, I'm very excited. Well, you should take Adderall at the end and read all the articles. I do take Adderall, but not that much. Not that much. OD, AD. No. No? Okay. No, Tim wrote a piece and that headline of piece was for Facebook mobile always comes tomorrow. Right? And that's like, that's exactly right. It's they don't know. It's they know how to make money on the desktop. So innovating on the desktop, which is fair, but their problems with investors and the public is basically that the world is going mobile. So people want to use Instagram because it's a mobile first application and not Facebook. That's why they bought Instagram. They tip toes on mobile too, but they do it in like this way. It's definitely not to make money. It's just to experiment like this voice over IP. Or poke, right? I mean, it's like, how is it that you can spin up poke as a mobile application like two seconds and like, you're like, we spent two years building search that maybe no one wants. But okay. And that was Ellis's question. So there's a Q and a at the end event and Ellis's question was, how do you know that this is what people want? And Mark Zuckerberg was like, we don't, but we think they do. I mean, it is a step to where like things we want to see, like Siri was supposed to be a natural language thing you could talk to. Google Now is like, we don't want natural language. We're just going to know what you want because you do everything with us. There is an element of this where it's like, you know, like I think most people have this dream where like they constantly have this like assistant, like the assistant's aware of your network. So it's like, you can be like, who do I know who's like really good at fixing cars? And like that person will answer the question for you. Like Facebook could do that. Maybe. But like the reality of that is the way that you know that information about your network, the way you become like, like a connector or whatever that lame pop psychology term is is by actually knowing the people, not by the people like downloading their skill sets and preferences into a computer, pressing buttons. I did that today. I like, I like a buddy of mine married this girl who, who studied like linguistics. Yeah. So I just called him. I haven't talked to him in like years. Yeah. And he turned out to be in a car with his wife who, and I talked to her about linguistics today. That's right. But like there's no way Facebook could have helped you. I graph searched it. Yeah. Manual graph search. Well, I like the idea that Facebook could help me with that, but, but like Facebook needs to say, this is a great product. You might have to learn how to use it. I feel like timeline was like that. No, but this is the thing. This is like a feature. Like that's great. They should have made this. I granted, that's what I should have done, but my compare, but they should have just rolled it out. Like first of all, they had a press event. They made reporters get on a bus to come to Facebook headquarters. Like they made a big deal out of it. Right. And it's like, why? Because they should have just put this out. Like we're rolling on graph search. We think it's really interesting. People are going to like it. Right. And the second thing is what if this event, they'd done all the same things around it. And then they said, we made a kick ass iPad app. Right. And this is the best way to look at Facebook on the iPad. It's super visual. It's not so clunky. It's really fast. We think the best Facebook experience is on the iPad or Android or whatever tablet. I think that would have like, people would have freaked out. Right. They would have been like, this is finally Facebook is reinventing itself. Graph search is like, so I can do this thing that I never knew I wanted to do. Well, that's the thing. It's like, it's one thing to create a great product that people have to learn how to use, but Facebook has created a product that people have to learn how to use and start using before it's actually a great product. Right. And here's the problem. You and I talked about this a little bit yesterday. When Apple or Google does a big press event and you're getting there and you're excited, they say, this is something that you can buy or you can make an active effort to get. Facebook is like, here's this thing that we're going to give to you whether you want it or not. Right. You have to make a choice. What are you going to get excited about? Right. Like, I have like six girlfriends of mine who maybe want to get back together. That is definitely like the number one query in the system. Like extra friends of mine who have lowered their standards, raised their standards. Has she forgiven me yet? No. No. Please move on. A single serving. Like some Confucianism. You have to click the back button. If you're asking this question to Facebook, probably not. Right. But so the interesting thing about that is that we're joking about the dating site, but they made the explicit like, this is a dating site. Like we can use this for dating. You can be like, find single men who like this movie and like, it'll do it for you. Right. They're like journalists. There's a whole page they have on the website. Journalists can use this in the way, the same way they use LinkedIn. So now we're competing with LinkedIn using graph search. Right. And the final piece is that they have, well, it is, it's only surprising in the sense that they're making the explicit comparisons. They said the word LinkedIn. Well, they said journalists can use this and that, but at the same time, they also like, it's like the private messaging thing they did a while back. Anyway, give you a real point. Yeah. But so they're like, they're, they're, they're obviously like, it's obvious. Find restaurants that my friends like is like, let's compete with Yelp. Right. Find single people that my friends know and like, is like, let's go from match.com or whatever. Uh, find journalists use this to source contacts is definitely like LinkedIn. Uh, and then the one thing that they didn't explicitly say was we're targeting Google, which is weird because here's all the, every other social network, but not Google. But they have, so they have Bing integration. You can like web search. It's like the last option and I'll show you Bing results. Right. And like, we don't think a lot of people are gonna use web search for this, but what's interesting is that they're building this huge social search for being integration, being integration. What else are you going to have, man? They're not going to do Google. No, I still stand by my max. So I don't know when I put this forward, but I put it forward a long time ago. If you use Bing as your default search, which is all based on like deal making and you don't want to be friends with Google, you don't care about your users. You don't, you're not putting them first because what users actually want is Google. And if you choose Bing because you're not good friends with Google, you want to help out Microsoft, you've made some cool, great handshake in a boardroom somewhere. You didn't put your users first and it really, really pisses me off when companies use Bing. And I'm still seeing it. So Zuckerberg was like, we're happy to work with Google, which is funny because Page today was like Facebook makes bad products. So it's clear how the companies see each other. Page also did say like, we don't think Facebook has to lose for us to win. Well, so here's the thing. So Google, the reason Google Plus exists is because Google is aware that the future of search is the social recommendations. There are obviously direct competitors, social signals. And so they're trying to like edge into the market with Google Plus and compete with Facebook in that way. And they will swear up and down that Google Plus is not a competitor to Facebook and they didn't build a regular social network and whatever they think Google Plus is doing. And Facebook is swearing up and down that like web search is not the primary focus of products, it's a social search. But really they're both just lying. Like fundamentally it's like you're going to search for things. You're looking for things, you're looking for answers on the internet and either you're going to say to yourself, my primary data set is my friends or my primary data set is Google's algorithm informed by my friends. And it's like, wow. So now you're definitely on a collision course. And like this is Facebook saying we're going to, we are going to be the front door to the internet. Like, and I think Google in much the same way. Like what is your, where do you start on the internet in the morning? Like do you start on Facebook with your friends or do you start on Google with like a wide open set of queries? You ever do like, let's say like, Oh man, you ever like open up your browser Chrome and then you type in the address bar, which is a search bar now. Google. Yeah. I love it when I do. It's just so hilarious. Like imagine doing somebody do that on Facebook, Google. I bet the first, I bet the number one search engines my friends like, they like Google. Does Google have a like button? I bet not. That would be terrible. A like button. If I had a like button on its homepage so everybody could just like, I mean that would, that would like seriously, unless you have any more deep thoughts. I do think, of course I have deep thoughts. Um, I mean Facebook, I just, it, the whole thing of liking and having like pages is kind of like a dated notion. It's not a hard fact. It's like a pretty messy amorphous user selective thing. And I don't think it's going to, it's not, I don't think it's aging very well. No, it's not. That's what I'm saying. It's, you have to, if the data set is things my friends like, right? That data set is constantly evolving and changing and I might like something today that I'm like over tomorrow. Right? Right. Like I might like a movie today and then be totally sick of it tomorrow. My Facebook profile specifically says under, I have, I list books I like and some music I like and under films it says, I don't like movies. All right. Right. All right. So you are truly, truly beating the system. I was like going through a phase where they're like movies and I haven't updated in like however long, six years. I was going through a phase where I didn't like movies. I was watching a lot of TV. Right. All right. So let's, let's go ahead and move on. But to answer your query, 3,129 people in New York plus one google.com. That's amazing. A lot of people. Let's move on. This the other big story this year, this year, this week. What is this year? I mean, we're only just like post CS. This feels like it's gone forever. It's a seven 87 dreamliner. This a Boeing jet. I was told we have Chris on the line. And I also heard what you're hearing. Okay. But you guys, this was the transition to getting Chris on. I didn't know Chris knows about, I guess it doesn't make sense. I thought Chris was going to talk about Facebook and then like, but then I was going to be like behind the scenes. I was going to be like, you know what, Chris is pretty good with like, like things like planes and cars and trains and trains and automobiles. Chris, are you there? Hello. This is the worst, the worst. Chris, Chris, what's your favorite train right now? My favorite train? I think GE makes some pretty sweet locomotives. I've actually driven a GE train simulator. Oh nice. Oh yeah. Cause you went to GE that one time. Yeah. And they're upgrading the Amtrak to 4G, but all the articles were like, they're upgrading Amtrak to 4G, but the wifi will still suck. It's still going to suck. Yeah. Chris, let's talk Dreamliner. Can you catch us up on what's going on? Why this plane is down? What happened? Yeah. So, so basically we've had a couple incidents in the past where the batteries, the lithium ion batteries that power a lot of the systems on the aircraft have basically started smoking, which you know, if you go back 10 years. That's so bad for them. Why do they do that? Don't they know the warning signs? Menthol or regular? If you go back, I mean like anyone who's been reading technology sites over the past decade knows that lithium ion batteries run into issues every once in a while. And now Boeing is learning that firsthand. So you know, just to catch you up on what this is all about, historically airliners have used hydraulic systems to power, you know, different control surfaces in their aircraft that require more, more force than the human body of the pilot can provide. And the 787 to save weight, one of the things that does is it uses electrical systems in places some of these hydraulic systems. So that's why they need these giant batteries on and that's where they're running into issues. But I mean, just from a tech nerd perspective, I feel like we solved the exploding lithium ion battery situation like years ago, right? Like Sony made a bunch of batteries and like laptops are exploding left and right. Like didn't, isn't this problem solved where they just like, Hey, we've got, was Boeing like, Hey Sony, do you have any leftover laptop batteries? And so he was like, yes we do. I mean, look, yes and no. Like if you look at like, you know, the, the Shibold, it had an issue last year where in impact situations, the battery could leak and start a fire. And so I think that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the safety of lithium ion chemistry. And and you know, especially when you're talking about a battery this big that powers systems this big and powerful. There are a lot of things that are unique to the environment of an aircraft that, you know, this is a new situation. Batteries haven't been used in this way before. So, but you were saying, you wrote a report today, but in your report you're like compared to like the 737 and the Airbus A320, which are both like the most common aircraft around now this rate of incidence is not, not outside of the mainstream, right? Yeah, yeah. If you look at, yeah, that's exactly right. If you look at every airliner in the sky today, whether it be the A320, the 737, the A380, A330, whatever, all of these aircraft had safety issues that have been, you know, retroactively resolved after the aircraft launched through airworthiness directors issued by American and European aviation authorities. And these aircraft are now part of an extremely safe, you know, aviation environment. In fact, 2012 was the safest year for air travel in the past 50 years. So there's no- But those were all, but I, just in reading your thing, what struck me was the 737 and the Airbus stuff, it was, they were all like basically mechanical issues. Like, you know, this bushing is wearing out or these, what were they called? Pitot tubes? Or like these need to be bigger. You should, we'll get you a flash drive, Paul. Pitot tubes. Don't let- She just made that up. Pitot tubes. Pitot tubes, which sounds better. No, but it was like, they were all mechanical issues, right? And what strikes me as being different about the Dreamliner is the, like, there have to be batteries and the batteries have to not be on fire. And like literally, like the FAA issuing a piece of paper that says, don't let those start on fire is like not, not the same as like mandating that something change mechanically. Yeah, but it could be as simple as a manufacturing issue in these batteries at this point. Just, you know, we just don't know. But think about these airliners going back to the start of the jet age. Every single one of these aircraft is carrying literally thousands of pounds of jet fuel. And- My God. And that seems to be okay. It's worked out okay for them. Yeah. So there's no reason to think that they won't be able to solve this issue with the batteries as well. I mean, EVs are now a common sight on roads across the US and I'm sure- EVs. Chris is a car nerd. Oh. He thinks cars are, EVs are electric vehicles. Oh. Chris, talk to the humans now. No, I hear what you're saying. And like, I gather that, you know, Priuses aren't lighting on fire every day, but it just seems, it seems like if I'm driving a Prius or a Volt or whatever, and I'm sitting on a stack of batteries and something goes wrong, I can like go away from them. I can like stop the car and like- You ain't run- I think that's why the fault tolerance for planes is so low. But to Chris's point, I mean, these things are dramatically, insanely safe. Like really ridiculous. And that's why these are grounded right now. But yeah, I don't know- You know what was interesting? Chris, and maybe I want you to talk about this a little bit too. The FAA this week also started its review of electronic devices during takeoff and landing. I mean, to me, you know, to me what's funniest about this is I bought noise canceling headphones finally. And if you have headphones with an LED, they'll just let you wear them. Cause it's like, that's the one thing that's allowed. Noise canceling headphones are allowed. So I'm sitting there just like jamming away to music cause my headphones are allowed. Yeah, they're always like, you can wear the headphones, but what are they plugged in to that's okay. No, I think you're supposed to just sit there like quietly canceling noise. Yeah. But like nobody listens to this rule obviously. So if you have headphones with an LED, you can just wear them. But you can't wear regular headphones if they don't have an LED. Well they, cause they know that they're not noise canceling cause noise canceling headphones are allowed. Oh man. And I never knew about this rule. Really? So I was like wearing them and I was like getting ready to take them off and she's like, no, no, they're fine. Oh my gosh. You just, well, I don't want to pack noise canceling headphones. Here's the thing that people need to realize about the FAA. It's a, yes, it is an extremely bureaucratic organization, but it is one of the few cases where it works to everyone's advantage because they need, they need literally years of study and rulemaking to figure out what the optimal and safest way is to deal with these kinds of situations. And I don't, like I know it's really frustrating that you can't read your stupid Kindle for eight minutes and it's only 10,000 feet. I get it. But like deal with it. Like I, you know, I'd rather the, and I, in fact, I wrote an editorial about this on the site about a year ago. Like I would much rather the FAA take its sweet time triple checking the safety of this rather than letting people just go hog wild. I mean, it just isn't that. What I'm suggesting to you, Chris, is that the people have already gone hog wild, right? Like they're, I don't turn my phone off. I never even put my iPad in a tablet. Nobody turns their phone. I turn my phone off. You have a Huawei flip phone. Turning your phone off is the same as putting it in a standby. I used to turn my iPhone off. You're a maniac. I mean, I don't know anybody, anybody who turns their phone off regardless of the repeated warnings. A lot of people at least do airplane mode though. A lot of people turn off their radios. Right, but you're supposed to turn them all the way off. I know you're supposed to. I never put my iPad in airplane mode because it's not a wild rodeo in there yet, but Chris is wrong. I mean, but I'm wearing the noise cancelers, man. Like I'm doing it. I've gotten really good at like avoiding the stewardess. Like when they're like walking by like, oh God, no, everybody's some sort of like, I don't see that. I don't want to be like a secret agent on a plane. No, no. And that's why I just pack a book. But what crazy options you live in anyway, of course you pack a book. What else would you do? I can read on my iPad. Paul pulls out the giant Gameboy black and white Tetris. That'd be awesome. That'd be great. It's still the best version. Anyway. What else is on our list? Is Chris sticking around? I mean, Chris, we want to stick around. I mean, we need to talk a little bit about Air Swartz and then let's move on to a couple of the bigger things and like let's just wrap up. Chris, do you want to stick around? I would love to. I might puke or cough during this and I apologize if that's- Welcome. No, you don't understand what I mean. Sure. We've all been sneezing or blowing our nose or hacking up here. You're a little fan of the Chris. Are you calling us from an Amtrak train? Or the air? I'm on a 787 right now. Oh, well, he's on the ground then. It's okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about Aaron Swartz just a little bit. Very little bit. We're still getting caught up on the story. Okay. I'll do the short about the background. So Aaron Swartz, and forgive me for not having all the details here because this happened mostly while we were at CS and I just didn't have time to read everything. So there was Aaron Swartz is an internet activist, tragically committed suicide last week. I mean, his list of... He was very young, 26? 26 or 25. 26. 26. But young and just brilliant. So RSS at 14. RSS at 14 was John Gruber's only beta tester for Markdown. I didn't know that. Co-founder of Reddit. All sorts of other hacktivist projects. I think he's company got acquired by Reddit. Yeah, but like... It was company got acquired by Reddit. But he was so early in the mix. It was Lawrence Lassagher, Tim Wu, who said it was so early that he might as well have done it then. Okay. And that's like everything he did for Reddit after that, like all the code base. Right. I mean, he was a genius. But the thing that got him the most notoriety and most attention was that he hacked into JSTOR, which is an academic database of journal articles. When I was in college, I used it. When I was in law school, I used it. And it's useful. It's this tool that you can log into. Schools pay a lot of money for you to have access to it. And it's every academic journal goes into it. And so he... Is that like LexisNexis? It's kind of like LexisNexis. Right. Is that like another version? Yeah, they're all just different. LexisNexis kind of does... The Lexis side of Lexis is all the court decisions and things. The Nexus side is news, JSTOR is academic journal. So there's different categories of things. So Aaron, I think stupidly, I think we can all agree that this was not an optimal course of action, broke into a closet at MIT, installed a laptop that ran scripts to download everything from JSTOR. Right. And cat and mouse back and forth a few times. They cut off the laptop's access. He went and physically installed the laptop. He got caught on a video camera and was sued or prosecuted by the government for federal copyright infringement, which is criminal copyright infringement. JSTOR dropped its charges and said, please don't do this again. He was like, fine. MIT kind of wavered and did nothing as far as I can tell. Well, then they're currently investigating further what actually they did to help with the prosecution case because they're not clear right now. So it's JSTOR is like they were like, whatever, we're academics. Victim of crime, essentially. Yeah, right. Anyway, so all this happened. The prosecutors in the case pushed very, very hard to prosecute him for criminal copyright infringement. And on the table as part of his plea bargain was up to 35 years in jail, which is stupid. And then but they were saying like, you know, if he pleads guilty, he could be as low as six months. Right. Right. But the key there is just a plead guilty to all of the charges. So there's a lot of questions about prosecutorial discretion. Right. Right. Because the prosecutors have a choice. You know, you don't really know this when when you're the DA or whoever, like you get to choose exactly what you're going to charge, what you're going to ask for. It's in the law is built that way. Right. Because the idea is the prosecutor will make a choice. And in this case, they chose. And there's a lot of talk that Keed also set up a similar program called a recap. So there's a government operates a federal court database called Pacer. So when we covered Apple versus Samsung, we were in Pacer every day downloading all the court files every night. And so his is called recap. And it's people taking things off of Pacer, which has a fee and putting up into a free system called recap, which was they wanted to prosecute him for that. But it's legal. So they couldn't because everything government says he did that. They're like libraries or something. No, he had the other people doing it. But everything the government creates is public domain. So there's nothing to charge. Right. Right. Anyway, so all this happens. He was also very depressed and tragically took his own life. And now there's like this explosion of outrage. And to me, I agree like outrage as a general concept is there. But the outrage is to me should be directed at like, why was he being charged with criminal copyright infringement? Not our laws are so broken, or he should have definitely stolen everything from JSTOR. It's one of those things where the government has a lot of discretion and it needs to use it wisely. But in this case, like breaking into a closet. So there's a couple of facts that have made this like such a high profile issue. Number one, the family immediately came out the first letters like this is the families like we the finger was finger was pointed pretty harshly at that point. Number two, that prosecutors also linked to another hacker suicide. Right. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't know that. That's terrible. Yeah. Was it? I'm trying to look. So the Q Stephen Hayman of like, pushing this, you know, put the prosecutor pushing so hard that this costs words like, Wow, I didn't know that there's another person. I'm trying to think he's not to be JJ. This is from BuzzFeed, by the way. WJD the unindicted co-conspirator named the criminal complaints for another trial. He also committed suicide years before this is ridiculous. So it's like, that's ridiculous. Like there's a lot of like evidence like this is just there's a habit of pushing these, these hacker crimes so hard, right? He's like, you know, these people are like, not in a good state of mind and like, well, I mean, so I, I know, sorry. Well, I mean, saying that pushing the process, I mean, drawing the direct connection, I think is very tenuous, but I will say, and Josh Copstein is actually working on a piece, which is great on this. The government is in a moment in a moment of pure freak out over what people can do on computers and how we think about what they do on computers. And that is linked to everything from these guys stealing court, public domain court files and journal articles that don't make their academic owners any money anyway, to things like hacking Stratfor and getting credit card numbers to things like taking down PlayStation network to things like WikiLeaks. And it's a broad spectrum. Like the level of things that are wrong there is like, you can pick and choose. Like some things are actually crimes. Some things are not, and some things should be prosecuted and like vilified and some things should not be. And there's a huge gray area in between there. And the government doesn't know about that. They don't know how to deal with it. You cross the line and it's pretty black and white as far as if you're doing, I just, yeah, I don't know. I mean, like if you look at Bradley Manning, right? Bradley Manning is like the, the, the main person in the WikiLeaks case, right? Like he's been subjected to pretty terrible treatment by our government. And his trial is ongoing and it's not being covered by the media at this point. Like really hasn't been covered very thoroughly by the media because the government is so thoroughly vilified him as he stole a thumb drive full of documents. Which one's Bradley Manning? Is that the military guy who, yeah, right. He's been covered pretty, I mean his trial, have you read your, you read the paper every day. Do you know his trial is currently ongoing? No. Do you know that? I mean, do you know that we have a reporter there every day who's like writing something? No. So yeah, I haven't heard anything about him in a while. Because the rest of the media, you got a lot of cover, like when about a year, right? His trial is ongoing and it's not being covered. Okay. Which is crazy. Like that is crazy. Yeah. I, the air sports thing is really sad and I just, I don't, I don't really like the dramatic rapid finger pointing. It, these sound like things that need to be, these are policies that need to be worked on. I think we need more granularity as far as prosecuting and you know, what's what. Because he obviously broke the law. Right. So the distinction for me is. And I think, and that's, that's the, the, when you start like, I don't know, I don't like a lot of blame shifting or like this rapid desire to point fingers when something tragic like this happens. Right. Well, I mean, he was, he was very young and very brilliant and I think people are rightfully so very, very angry that he was put in this position and his parents, obviously his parents pissed. Right. But let me, let me ask you something. Just to kind of get a clarification, the prosecutor like was still like, this is just to the letter of the law as we can currently interpret it. Like is how he was being treated and charged. The prosecutor could have not charged him. Okay. Like that, that is the level of prosecutorial discretion. Like they're not, they can, it's literally the first part of law and order versus the second part of law and order. Like that's, that's how you should think of this in your mind. Like the evidence was collected, he was arrested and the prosecutors can do whatever they want. And they do have the discretion to not file the charges in return for any number of things. And they do have the discretion to not demand guilty, please. Right. They can demand what happens all the time. No contest, right? Not an admission of guilt. That's perfectly reasonable. But I think to your point, Paul, what I think is more important is that we don't know how to think about people doing bad things in the internet with their, with their computer keyboards. Right. Like if you had broken into a bank and like literally stolen files out of the bank, or if you had broken into a library and literally taken the journals out of the library, we would know, like we would instinctively, like that was wrong. He shouldn't have done that. Like if he had broken into a blockbuster and copied all their videotapes and sold them, right? We would know like that's wrong. You shouldn't do that. Like your level of effort to commit this wrong is, we can balance that by some level of punishment. But what he did was like type type on a keyboard. No, no. And also, he didn't just do that. There was a level of effort. He snuck in, he broke into a place he shouldn't be in bypassed physical security. What I'm saying is even that is like, like I did that shit when I was in college. Here's the interesting thing to use your, to use your metaphor. Like if he went into a library and stole all those books or all those academic journals, like if we know there'd be a crime, he also took those away from someone else. Like when he copied. We don't know how to do copy. Look, our, our sense of, we still don't know how to prosecute people who steal MP3s. We don't know. No, we don't. I think that's the thing is we don't know what to do with this stuff. He's caught in the black brain area. While we're spinning our wheels trying to figure out how are we going to deal with people acting on the internet, which is now just real life where the government is way behind, right? And the people are getting more sophisticated. And what's happening is we're like, screw it. We'll just apply regular IRL law to things on the internet. And the imbalance is for the most part, it's just kids typing on keyboards. Right. Well, and I, I do, I don't know, I'm really speaking out of ignorance here, but I do imagine this sort of, um, the knee jerk reaction to the fact that like you said, you know, the government is way out of its depth here. There are horrible things that are being done by kids behind keyboards right now. There are a lot of, and I do think there's an aspect of wanting to be able to prosecute the horrible things to a full extent of a, of a, of a very hard nosed law. Right. You know, um, it's just figuring out and, and, and, but the definitions are so broad because the technology changes so quickly. But I would like to see, I would really like to see some examples of the horrible people doing horrible things behind their keyboards being brought to justice. Because I do think there's an aspect of just, well, let's make an example of a hacker, you know, so other hackers are scared. I'd like some examples to be made of, of LulzSec and anonymous guys who are, you know, ruining lives of individuals that they, that they, um, attack and, you know, and stealing credit cards and all the larger things that they do. No, I mean, I, but I think what you're getting at is the problem, which is the government thinks it's accomplishing that goal. Right. Clearly thinks it's accomplishing that goal by taking down like high profile, well known if, you know, if Aaron Swartz can get in trouble, then you can too anonymous. That message has never worked in the history of the internet. I don't think Aaron Swartz is sitting there thinking about Kevin Mitnick and being like, man, I shouldn't do this. I think he's thinking, uh, I think he was thinking rather, uh, that he was doing some greater social good and it was worth whatever risk he was taking. And I think that's the history of activism. And I think there's, there's a way to respect what those people are doing and there's a way to punish what anonymous is doing when it takes on PlayStation network. Right. I think that's fair. Do you want to move on? This has been sad enough. Chris, do you have any thoughts? Chris is done. I've been talking to Chris. He's hacking up a lung. I was explaining to Ross in chat just a minute ago that I was busy hacking my lungs out that entire time. Oh, so let's, uh, let's do one more topic real quick and let's try to wrap this up. Is this the story that came out last night? Uh, Matthew Tio, am I saying that right? Oh God. Like real terms of things that matter. This is like far on the other side. What was that? Uh, we, okay, this is another behind the scenes. The voice of God from the booth just try to correct the pronunciation. How do you say it? Man tie, no way. No way. It's not right. It's, it's, it's Monte Tio. Monte. Manti. This guy claims to be an espionage guy. Can we, can we put this voice of God on the air? Everyone is different that you're doing. Brendan will, can we say it one more time? Manti Tio. Manti Tio. I don't, I don't believe anyone. No. Look, MT. Yeah. Uh, and I honestly like to come from the one story of the story is so strange. I mean like, do you know what's going on? I heard you got like pranked by somebody. No, it's, it's far way worse than that. Yeah. Uh, so, or like hoax, like an internet hoax. Way, way stupider than that. What? It's just explained because I don't think it's a completely trivial thing. I think it's very tragic, but not in the same light. So he was a football player at Notre Dame, a star defensive player and very good. And then Notre Dame lost really hard. Uh, but anyway, so he was, he's going to go in the first round of the draft. He's really good. But he, um, was before they played Michigan state. There are all these news reports that like just before the game, his grandmother has died and his girlfriend had died of leukemia. And he was like, I'm playing through the pain. Like the news and the networks all had pictures of his girlfriend, like with a quote that was like, just play through a baby. Don't miss any games for me. And then she died and then he was a hero and they upset Michigan state. And it turns out it was all a hoax. Like she didn't exist. Like someone or someone plus MT, uh, either concocted this person on Twitter, use doctored photos that couldn't be reversed, reverse image searched, uh, like had some other woman talk to him on the phone every night. They never met in person. And it was just like a Twitter relationship that like happened. And he like, either he was implicit or he like completely fell for it. So like he fell in love with somebody over Twitter. The version of this where he's innocent is he fell in love with someone over Twitter who was dying of leukemia. No, the version of this is that, uh, no, the version of this where he's innocent is somebody created a fake person. Right. Right. He fell in love with the fake person over Twitter. The fake person who when the first time they were supposed to meet mysteriously got into a car accident. Okay. Uh, and then, uh, towards the end, uh, contracted leukemia and died right before this game. Okay. But this, none of these things happen. Right. Right. Right. It's horrible just to say, but they did not happen. Right. So the thing is that if he was dead, and to give credit where credit is due, this came out on dead spin yesterday. A tremendously reported piece. Uh, they dove into it. They looked for her birth. Her name was Lenny. Uh, something. It's L N L E N N A Y. And every time I read it, it just, it's Lenny Kikua. Um, uh, I mean, they, they looked for her birth certificate. They looked for birth announcements. They looked for a death certificate. They looked at the social security administration. They thought stories. They met at Stanford after a game. There's like a long piece in like, uh, the Notre Dame student newspaper, I think, or the South Bend journal, like the local about how they, they, the quote like stuck in my mind cause it's like, how do you invent this if it didn't happen? Their stares got pleasantly tangled after a game at Stanford. It's like it never happened cause she's not real. There are other players that also claim she exists too. Other random players claim that she exists. His dad was like quoting in before this all came out. Dead spin like has this whole timeline, this lengthy timeline of their relationship. It was reported by like a hundred media outlets. This is amazing. But she didn't exist. Right. This is incredible. I really, like, I do not want to think it's his cousin, this guy, like two years to Sopo. I don't, I can't pronounce his first name. It was last. Who's pranking him? They, or, or there was codes. I mean, okay. If it was, if they were like inclusion, like there were so many like little intricate details, what does he get out of this? Like what is his motive to make up a girlfriend and like draw to this all for months and months on end and then have her die just to sell a Heisman story. Yeah. It's the Heisman story. And that to me is like, whatever, like, yeah. What about the grandma stuff? That's true. That's true. She did also tragic. Oh, but like, it's just funny cause it was true. Well, the grant sadly the grandmother part was very true. Um, but it's, it's the, all the stuff about the girl, but the thing is like this only happens because of the internet. Like, and that's like, that's the flip side of this other story where she's like all this tragic stuff we don't know how to deal with. And then all this stupid nonsense. And it's like the media never even like looked at it. Like they saw that she had a Twitter account that was like kind of active and they're like, yep, she must be real. And like, that's it. But it's actually like a dude. What? I hear a pizza commercial. Do journal or delivery. Literally listening to a pizza commercial in my head. Sorry. Now are you guys watching pizza commercials in there? Wow. All right. I just got one of these. Okay. So there's really not much more to say about this. It's tragic. It never would have happened years ago. Although it's tragic. I think it's stupid. I mean, look, I, how is this a tragic and define in which way is it? Is this a tragedy? If he was not complicit in this, then he's stupid. I'm sorry. I feel bad for the guy. I've had long distance girlfriends before. I know you have. Yes. You're, I'm, you're just a long distance kind of bro. I feel like you would do best with a long distance relationship. I don't think I've had a long distance, but I'm saying, I think if you had to pick one type, I think you would pick long distance. No, I'm kind of scared of that. Like you'd pick short distance, medium range relationship. No, I've had a long distance relationship and there's no way. I'm sorry, and I've known college football players. This is the part where I definitely side with you. He's not asking for more information. If you understand what I'm saying. And what do you mean by more information, Kelly? I think every, in this age of Snapchat, I, I. This is where the doctored photos come in. I disagree. I completely disagree. Doctored photos. There's no way that he didn't know. Really? I've had, I'm just saying, I've had long distance relationships before and there's just no way that these stories about. He's a busy guy. I used to go to sleep and I'm like, I would wake up and my call had run for eight hours and I could still hear her breathing. That that shit's not true, man. I was 16. I used to try to do that too. And you know what happened? My call hung up because I was just doing nothing on the phone. Right. But I mean, there's also, there's convenient lies. Like I like that I have something of this and then like, I don't know. I feel, I feel. There's no part of this in the tragedy. I blame it on testosterone and the want to like want to believe in this lie. Like I disagree. I, I, whatever. All right. That's my feeling on this. Okay. So, but I'm just saying like that is, this is a story that only exists because we, we allow what I would like things that happen online to feel this real. What I'd like to believe is that there's more pranksters out there than we think. And a lot more of our friends are fake. So this is a movie and a show it's called catfish like this scenario. And when I said this, uh, Russell and Tim wrote the report for us yesterday. I've heard catfish being dropped as like a, um, now or like a verb, like a general. Yeah. No. I mean, I think Tim should write this up. He literally, his response to me was, well, catfishing is real. Like everybody, like to him, it was like, Oh, this happens all the time, which makes you worry about Russell. Maybe Russell is a catfish. Probably he's right. Catfishing me right now. I've got some real babes. No, I'm just hoping that I have a friend who is not real. I think that's fun. That's exciting. That keeps things spicy. It keeps things spicy. You know? Unless you're looking for a Heisman trophy and you should probably keep it straight. Yeah. I don't know. I'll do it. I will make up a friend for you, Paul. And to be clear, he did not get the Heisman. So. And he lost Alabama. Yeah. And lost so hard. I mean, that was a good game story. And it's funny that, uh, where was I reading it today? I think it was on Aspination. Aspination has a headline up. That's why do we care about this story? And the lead is like, everybody cares about the story. There's like an angle for everybody into the story. And there's, there's usually like, no matter what the big mainstream media story, there's always some sort of backlash against it. There's no backlash against the story. It's always like, it's just, everybody wants a piece of it. It's just so bizarre. Like I can't even like wrap my head. Like why someone would do this so. And why he would have a fake girlfriend. I mean like imagine you're his friend and he's like, I've got a girlfriend that I've never met, but I love her on Twitter. There's just no way. Well, her name, her name is Vancouver. She lives in Alberta. Sorry. You're done. I'm done. Beautiful girl in the Niagara falls area. Yeah. I met her on summer break and we, we did stuff. You did. Tweeted it. Okay. We should end this before I say sexo. And on that note everybody. That's my new sexy nickname. Eli and I were working on it. It's called sexo. We're workshopping it. Oh man, you're real sexo. All right. So if you want to be my imaginary friend. Sexo. You can be my imaginary friend. You can be my imaginary friend. We should really end this. Let's see if I can remember everything. Okay. So that's the verge cast. Everyone that's number one. We should turn off the lights. Where is Josh today? Josh is sick. And girl scout cookies. Yeah. Yeah. Paul was late to the verge cast today. That's right. I bumped the verge cast from four to four 30 because he was assisting a girl scout. Yeah. I was walking girl scouts across the street and then helping them sell cookies at the office. How'd you do? How'd they do? Oh, I think we did really well. Do you buy me some Samoas? I think the girl scout organization is going to continue to be solvent for another year. What is the best cookie though? What did you get? I got some coconut ones. I think they changed the name. There's a Samoa. There's a Samoa. But I think they didn't change the name to caramel delights. This is not verge cast material. I don't know. This is absolutely verge cast material. They sold me cookies over the phone. And so I got coconut and something else. And then they came into the office and they sold everybody lots of cookies. That's good. So we're going to have a lot of girl scout cookies at the office. I should have bought some pretty soon. All right, so let's go to the list. So this is the verge cast. This is the verge cast. Thank you for watching us. Thank you for experiencing this with me. I give you another one for that. So sexo. I'll give you sexo. All right. Paul is going to be hit, man. Paul is going to be hit. This is a whole new look for me. Sexo. All right, so sexo. I think I'm going to be a sexo. I'm going to be a sexo. I'm going to be a sexo. I'm going to be a sexo. That was it. There's many ways to contact us and complain about what you just witnessed. You can send us an email, podcast at the verge.com. You can leave a comment on the post, which is I think preferred. You can call us somehow. Can they leave us a voicemail? I don't know. They cannot call us. But you can call them. Eli's home phone is here. Please. You can hit us on Twitter. I'm reckless. I'm on a Roscoe. I'm sexo. Paul is sexo. At sexo. Can we get at sexo for Paul? I'm going to find out who has at sexo right now. Josh, if you miss him, is at Josh Rotopolsky. Verge is at Verge. Paul, what's your PO box? PO box 501, New York, New York 10276. What I would really like someone to do, how many days do you have left before you come back? It's about three months. Three months? I'd really like somebody to figure out the number of days and mail Paul a card that counts down every day. Oh my gosh. I'm going to send you a mail like you know. You're assuming the post service will actually get there on time at the very day you ask it to. I mean, if you just start. The post service is surprisingly reliable. You know, if you mail a letter to somebody in the city, they get it the next day. I'm just saying. By the way, guys. This is your task. And how much does it cost to send a letter? Don't waste your time. Do this thing for me. But if you want to be my imaginary friend, please send me a letter. By the way, guys, sexo already exists. It has almost 7,000 followers. Shoot. It has one tweet from January 2010 that says, where lowercase w e apostrophe re. That is it. That is the extent of sexo. You're going down. It's 7,000 followers. Why wouldn't you? If you were on the tweets, you know, and you're like, hey, it's that sexo. I'm following sexo now. I'm happy. Why wouldn't you? All right. That's the Vergecast, everybody. Thank you for watching whatever this was. Thank you to Chris. I don't know if you're still here. Chris? Chris is at Z Power, by the way. Yeah. He's gone. He's on the train. Rock and roll. Paul. Paul. Paul.