Pacific Time should be illegal

Nilay Patel is joined by Liz Lopatto, Loren Grush, and hype-seater Arielle Duhaime-Ross in a special science issue of The Vergecast. They break down why The Verge cares about science, the space (lack of) race, Verge staff childhood misadventures, the Vergier year ahead and the terrible, oh-so-terrible use of exclamation points in ad copy. Don't forget to check out our brand new podcast Ctrl-Walt-Delete with our very own Walt Mossberg. The first episode will be on our Vergecast feed right after this. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast. It is a day in September. The 24th of September. Twenty-four of these goddamn days have happened. There's gonna be six more.

• 0:17Nilay Patel?

  That's, that's life. That's just how punishing life is. Hello and welcome to The Vergecast. Today's a very special Vergecast. Many things are gonna happen on this show.

• 0:26Nilay Patel?

  So, here's the first thing I'm gonna say. I am joined by the cast of Verge Science, which is awesome. So, our science editor Liz Lopatto is in from Oakland. She's in New York visiting us. Lauren Grush is here. She's always in New York, but now she's here. In the, in the chair. She's on, she's on the eighth floor instead of the ninth floor.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I took an elevator ride.

• 0:46Nilay Patel?

  I'm blowing it, is what's happening. And then, this I didn't, this I did not know.

• 0:52Nilay Patel?

  Ariel de Hemmross is in the hype seat.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:55Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, man, should we, I'm having, we're having a science show. Why don't we all on the table? And Liz was like, it's actually Ariel's dream to be in the hype seat.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm so hype. I'm so hype.

• 1:06Nilay Patel?

  So that, I think, is very exciting. So, it's gonna be Science Cast. It's actually, Liz has been at The Verge for a year now.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  She has built an incredible science program. We're gonna talk about why we're covering science and all the science stuff that's happening. And you might be wondering, because this was iPhone review week, why we are not talking about the iPhone on The Vergecast. And there's a very special reason for that, which I'm announcing now to the live viewer. But then, many, tens of thousands of people will hear this in their cars and on the subway, and you'll be able to take action on what I'm about to say.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Suspense.

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  I know, it's crazy suspense. We have a new podcast. The Verge has a new podcast. It is called Control Walt Delete. It stars Walt Mossberg. The first episode was taped this week. It is- It would be, it would be up right now concurrently with us, but iTunes is a little glitchy for us right now. So Control, Alt, Delete is up. It is me and Walt. We're going to talk for 30 minutes every week about his column, about technology, about all of the stuff Walt knows that nobody knows. Walt is full of incredible stories. I'm so excited about it. So we did the first episode this week on the iPhone and our iPhone reviews. If you are into that, you want to hear some tech nerds talk about some tech nerd stuff,

• 2:25Nilay Patel?

  please listen to Control, Alt, Delete. You can go listen to it. It's in the iTunes store. Actually, they posted this one up on the site and it is 40 minutes of me and Walt just getting deep on the iPhone.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Can I just say that I'm so excited that that is the title of the podcast?

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Can I get a hype check on the title?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  So out of this world, so hype.

• 2:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Ariel, just ace that.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  I'm going to try to stick more to the Sam Sheffer version of the hype. So like less numbers, more like random throw out exclamations of things.

• 2:58Nilay Patel?

  Sam was always a free form hype checker.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  So free form.

• 3:01Nilay Patel?

  He was like the jazz of hype check. You know, in my mind, what's happening on a hype seed is sort of an open, you know, we're seeing it's, it's a name and a chair that I made up to make fun of Sam, rest in peace. Like, and now it's become like a thing, like people are into it. And so we've got to find somebody who can, who can embody it. So Ariel, this is your, I mean, this could be it.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  This is my tryout.

• 3:27Nilay Patel?

  This could be your career.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:29Nilay Patel?

  If you pull this off.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  I'm trying out for the hype desk.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  I think you're doing a great job.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Thank you. See, Lauren's always there.

• 3:36Nilay Patel?

  Bird science is like a cabal. You can't crack it.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  We're like our support system.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  It works out.

• 3:44Nilay Patel?

  Okay. So we should talk about science. So Liz, it's been a year. It has been a year. I will say, let me tell a little story about Elizabeth.

• 3:53Nilay Patel?

  So about a year and a half ago, I took over as editor in chief of The Verge and Dieter and I were, we had some open headcount. We were like, we need to hire, how are we going to grow the site? We need a fucking plan, basically. A plan? And we spent some time crying in each other's arms. With no plan. That was, it was very tender.

• 4:14Nilay Patel?

  We need a, like, our first hire has to be kick ass, has to be a leader, has to help us shape this thing called The Verge and like, explain why we're gonna do this stuff. And literally, like, the only person we called Liz. Like, that's what happened. We're like, it was, we talked to Liz a long time ago when we were thinking about hiring a science editor. And we're like, it's just Liz. So we called Liz. Liz conned us for more money.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  True.

• 4:36Nilay Patel?

  Totally accurate story. Which is great.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  As she should.

• 4:39Nilay Patel?

  As she absolutely should. But now it's a year and a half later. It's a year for Liz. And I think we have a really great and vibrant science program that has a lot of narrative and character and understands why it exists. So I just wanted to talk about like, what you were, what you've been trying to do for the past year.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I'm actually gonna finally answer all of those "why is this here?" comments that some people have been very graciously leaving on our articles.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  And the reason that we care about science is because that's really where the future starts. I was talking with Neelai about one of the things that is like, my biotech reporter PTSD.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  I don't think that anything that hits the market is new. Like, the stuff that I care about is five to 10 years from being in a consumer's hands. And that's, that's true in science, that's also true in tech. You know, there's a great story that Addie Robertson wrote a little while back about a lab that tests out, you know, the new VR tech. And they're not really interested in like, optimizing the user experience just so much as they wanna see what the possibilities are and play with those and then like, let other people like, make it beautiful and like, make it ready for the market. And that lab is like, right next to my heart. Like, that is exactly the kind of stuff that I care about is like, what can we possibly do? And then, you know, let somebody else figure out like, what the way to sell that is, or

• 6:02Speaker 03

  how to integrate that into society. But like, what are the possibilities that are open to us? And I really feel like, science is, is that kind of a thing for tech. And the other, the other piece of it, of course, is that increasingly, we're seeing a lot of Silicon Valley firms and a lot of sort of tech companies trying to get into science, trying to get into especially medicine. And I am so skeptical about it just because, you know, there's that credo like move fast and break things, literally the opposite of first do no harm. And so we occasionally run across things where we'll see someone doing something that's meant to be helpful for health, but that doesn't have the data to show that it actually is helpful.

• 6:47Nilay Patel?

  Right. And if you saw CES covers with Liz, she just blew these poor companies apart. Like she was just walking around the CES unveiled show floor being like, I don't, do you have any science? And they're like, I don't know, it counts you. And it just counts everything. And Liz would be like, I don't, do you science?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Do you science?

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Were there, were there studies? Did anybody like, think about like, you know, what, what might be important in terms of outcomes here? Like, and they're like, well, but uh, it counts your steps. And I remember I was, I was standing next to Thomas Ricker like, do I, do I need to write about these things? Like, are these, should I be writing about this? And he was like, obviously, you know, like, I don't, I don't know that people necessarily realize that these aren't real things because they sound real. They're using buzzwords, you know, that sound impressive. And, um, you know, if you don't necessarily get into the weeds on some of this stuff, you, you could potentially think, oh, this is a real thing. Um, and, and so, you know, just to, for example, yesterday on our site.

• 7:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, a website.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  A website, on theverge.com.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Hey, I like that site.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, we actually, uh,

• 7:55Speaker 01

  This is what happens when you invite us on the podcast.

• 7:58Nilay Patel?

  This is our show.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Get ready.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  Um, but we had Ariel, um, writing about an article that appeared in the British Medical Journal. And if you read the article by itself, it looked impressive.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Very convincing.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Very convincing. But, um, if you dig into the data, you discovered several big mistakes. And I don't expect most people to dig into the data the way that we do. But that's why we do it. Because we want, we want to make sure that the people who are reading The Verge aren't being ill-served by people who are marketing to them. Um, think of us as like ad blockers.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man, we're going there.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Ad blockers for bad ads. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw to Ariel and let you, let her tell us.

• 8:38Nilay Patel?

  Ariel, Ariel blew up the world.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  I mean, so, yeah, we got this, you know, the press release for an article that was gonna appear in the British Medical Journal, and it was super convincing. It stated that there were a number of issues with the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the issue of reports. So you have, you know, those guidelines that you have in, like, high school, maybe they'll tell you about it, like, you should eat this much of meat, this much of rice.

• 9:06Nilay Patel?

  The food triangle.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:08Nilay Patel?

  The now discounted pyramid.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  This much of grains, this much of whatever. Right, the food pyramid. So that changes every five years. And the reason that it changes, all of that is based on evidence that is in the report that this committee, the Dietary Guidelines Committee, puts out. And essentially, the article in the British Medical Journal was going after that report that was issued this year. The guidelines have yet to be issued, they will be later this year. Going after that report and saying that there were a number of issues with the science and that they didn't do proper analysis. But the thing is, is that that article was full of mistakes. There, the way that they looked at, for instance, you know, they fault the, they fault the committee

• 9:53Speaker 02

  for not including studies about diabetes. And, you know, the kinds of diets that can be helpful for managing diabetes. But the thing is, is that the guidelines are not supposed to be used to manage any kind of illness. They're really, the only thing that they can do is that they can be used to prevent the, like, to lower the risk of you developing a chronic illness like diabetes. But once you have diabetes, those studies, those guidelines aren't relevant anymore. And which means that any studies that looked at a population that already had diabetes, not helpful. So those are the kinds of things that we found in the BMJ article.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  They said that meat had been deleted as a recommendation, which was, like, not true. Like, Ariel went into the report and found the places where meat is included as part of a healthy diet.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  There's a sentence that says that lean meat can be a part of a healthy diet. So deleting meat, not a thing.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  They seem to harp on that part that it was, like, reduce red meat. Nobody, nowhere did it say, get rid of meat and tires.

• 10:51Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, it's like a thing, right? So that, like, the woman who wrote the article, she's like... And the anti-carb, pro-fat, right? And like-

• 10:59Speaker 02

  She has a book.

• 11:00Nilay Patel?

  All the tweets that have-

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:01Nilay Patel?

  Been directed at me. Yeah, she's got a book about how you shoot more fat in red meat. So I don't know if the listener knows this, but whenever anyone is mad at The Verge, they like tattle to me. And then if I don't respond, they'll like tattle to like Jim Bankoff, our CEO. And Jim is always like, "People are tweeting me, like, what did you do?" So I got a lot of tattly tweets today that were like, "You people don't understand how eating low carbs and red meat will save your life."

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:27Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, "Maybe."

• 11:28Speaker 02

  The caveman diet or whatever.

• 11:30Nilay Patel?

  So it feels like, but like the CrossFit paleo thing, it's like, it's deep.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:34Nilay Patel?

  It's deep in our culture.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  And see, the thing is that I like, I have actually no problem with that idea or that belief. I think that, you know, the science will tell us. But that's like neither here nor there. The problem is that this investigation that the BMJ put out was really bad. That's the issue.

• 11:51Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm. Right, and I think that's like a, I've noticed, like Lauren got in trouble, right? Like on our first day, Lauren was like, "What if I piss everybody off?"

• 12:01Speaker 02

  This is the other recurring BMJ aside section.

• 12:03Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's a thing, and it's a thing that I think is really interesting about The Verge and its audience and how we cover things and how you guys have chosen to cover science, which is, there's a lot of, I don't want, I'm like trying to find a word. There's a lot of reverence for science. And that reverence occasionally crosses into like, raw hero worship. And I've just noticed the three of you, like, you don't have any patience for that shit. Which is great, and I think it's really interesting. But it also leads you guys to say, like, we're, there's gonna be good science and there's gonna be bad science, and then in Lauren's case, like, there's gonna be a set of real expectations about what we should be accomplishing in a set of, like, distorted, you know, like, faith, right? And like what science can accomplish.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Well, with science, there's always talking points. There are the same talking points, and it, and things get very political. And I think Liz made a good point when I came on. She was like, "We're not cheerleaders here. Like, we're here to kind of wade through all of that and present to you what, what is being done correctly and what's not being done correctly." So that's kind of how I think we approach things. It's, we don't just take- Things at face value. And I think it's easy to do that because a lot of people are really into science these days, which is great. But at the same time, you know, being invested in science doesn't necessarily mean just championing everything that you hear.

• 13:21Nilay Patel?

  Or, or, and I, this is actually one Ariel has brought up repeatedly as we cover tech, like science lends a veneer of legitimacy to all kinds of technology where you need to do more work. And the one that, uh, right when the Apple Watch came out and Apple started tracking health, Ariel was like, well, you don't track 50% of the population that menstruates. And also like people with eating disorders like don't need everything in their lives quantified all the time by default.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:47Nilay Patel?

  Um, can you talk through that? Cause that was really interesting to me like.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, what's interesting about stuff like the Apple Watch is you can turn off health tracking, like you can turn off like calorie counting and everything, but it's really difficult to do that. And you have to really find, you have dig down deep into the settings. I think it took Neelai and I like a week and a half to figure out.

• 14:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  How to do it. Um, and you know, those are things that if you're going to turn those things on automatically, you, which might be fine for the majority of the population, but for some people, those things are going to be really triggering and it's really hard to get away from them. And everybody's wearing fitness trackers now and everybody's doing all these things. So if you have an eating disorder, um, and you know, and you have an app on your phone that you can't delete, like the health app on the iPhone, it's going to be really hard to avoid that, that trigger that tells you, oh, you should be checking this. Oh, you should turn it on. Like, it doesn't matter that you can turn it off. The app is still there and it's staring at you in the face every time you open your device.

• 14:43Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  And that is a real problem.

• 14:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's a real, I mean, uh, what I, actually I want you to talk about this part too, because it's, um, the notion that we should quantify everything and that will lead to better outcomes is like very interesting. And like just raw counting seems like, uh, cause that's a big moment, right? We cover the hell out of fitness trackers. Like they're everywhere.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  So here's the thing, right? Like we don't have data that shows that counting this stuff changes anybody's health outcomes.

• 15:08Nilay Patel?

  There's lots of anecdotes.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Right. There are plenty of anecdotes, but no actual data. And as everybody, uh, knows, the plural of anecdote is not in fact data.

• 15:18Nilay Patel?

  As everyone knows.

• 15:20Nilay Patel?

  That's a real slash dot gold mine that you just pulled into.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  But so, you know, um, this is, this is something that like I, I deal with a lot in the Bay area because that's very hot out there. And I was, was once out with coffee, at coffee with someone who's wearing like no fewer than like four of these trackers.

• 15:39Nilay Patel?

  This person work here?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  No.

• 15:40Nilay Patel?

  Was her name Lauren Good?

• 15:44Speaker 03

  And he was talking to me, he's like, oh, do you have trouble sleeping? And I was like, no, I don't. Like, I just, I just don't have, I get tired and go to bed. Um, but I feel like, for some people, this can really add a lot more anxiety, which can be really counterproductive, right? Like, if you were the person wearing four fitness trackers and trying to optimize everything, that's actually not going to reduce your stress levels or make it easier for you to sleep because you have this thing that you now have to monitor and, and pay attention to and, and think about. So, um, you know, it's, it's one of those things where I want to see outcomes. I want to see data. I want to see that like, these things do what we think they do, or what, what they're being promoted is doing before we go ahead and say, yes, they're good.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  And actually, it's like not enough to have a device that actually says what it's going to do. Like, it also needs to, like, the behavior, the human behavior that, that goes into interacting with this device also needs to be shown. Like, if, if people don't actually use them, then what's the point?

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:44Nilay Patel?

  I'm wearing right now a dead Apple Watch. I've been wearing a dead Apple Watch for two weeks. Not one person has noticed at all. Like, it's just been like a random.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Why are you wearing a dead Apple Watch?

• 16:55Nilay Patel?

  So it started, like, I was wearing it, like, I got a new one with Watch West, so they gave me the phone, um, and then to review, and they're like, and we want you to check out Watch West 2. So, we know, I always wanted the black stainless steel, so like, here's one with black stainless steel, you can check it out. Uh, and then I wore it for like a week, uh, during the review period, and the battery died. And I just like, woke up the next morning, didn't think about it, and put it on. And then it was dead. And I was like, I'm just like, that's fine. And then I was like, wore it for like a day.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  You're fine with that?

• 17:23Nilay Patel?

  Cause I never, I never use it.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  See, this is why I think the Apple Watch is problematic. Because if you are wearing a watch every single day, and you are fine with the idea that it goes out. It's probably because it doesn't tell time all the time and you actually don't check it for time.

• 17:39Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, my thing is like, I, I hate wearing stuff when I use my computer because I'm afraid, like, I don't want it to scratch.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:46Nilay Patel?

  So every time I sit down, I take everything off, like.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  I think it's weird.

• 17:49Nilay Patel?

  Uh, my friends in college hated sitting next to me in school because I would like sit down and be like sunglasses and watch and keys and like, they'd be like, dude, you are a disaster. Like you explode over every desk at this university.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  So I used to sit fairly close to Neela and I can attest that is the truth.

• 18:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  He just like, he sits down and everything just comes off.

• 18:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  And you're like, the man basically strips and then like gets on his computer.

• 18:08Nilay Patel?

  I field strip myself. I'm like, I've got like a bullet chamber, I don't know, a magazine, a bullet chamber.

• 18:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, I screw that everyday carry stuff, man. Like, if like, if it's time for me to jam, I will not be prepared. Like, that's like basically it. I'm like, hold on, uh, I've got to put all my stuff back on.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  My thing is that with the Apple Watches, I wouldn't get it because I just don't wear anything. Like, that's, I don't wear jewelry. I don't wear bracelets.

• 18:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  I hate having things on my arm. So if I already have a phone with a time on it.

• 18:40Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, it's what I.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  It does most of the things that have.

• 18:42Nilay Patel?

  My point is like, this has just become like a hilarious social experiment in my life. Like, I'm just wearing this like dead thing on my wrist and literally until today, like, I have not told anyone and no one hasn't noticed. Like, I work in an office full of nerds.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Cause the Apple Watches faces just black anyways. Of course, nobody noticed.

• 18:59Nilay Patel?

  But no one's like, what time is it? And they watch me pull out my phone and no one's like, why aren't you checking your watch? Like, literally, no one cares. They're like, oh, yeah, you're just not using that watch.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Neela's.

• 19:08Nilay Patel?

  Although I will say.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Nothing went on.

• 19:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's, uh, no, I guess it's four. The sun is in the sky. Um, the sun is in the sky. It's four o'clock. Um, yesterday I was at the bar with Dieter and Chris and we're all wearing Apple Watches and I was like, I gotta take this off. Like, I can't be in this group. Like, the three of us can't be seen together.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Whenever I see somebody wearing a pebble, I get kind of excited and I want to say hi, but I don't. This is my problem.

• 19:34Nilay Patel?

  That's it?

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  We can hype check, hype check on the pebble.

• 19:37Nilay Patel?

  Hype check the pebble.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Okay, so with the iPhone, not hype, zero, not cool, negative. However.

• 19:47Nilay Patel?

  That was definitely a free form type check burn.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  However, with this Note 5 beauty that I have here that I'm very in love with, I think it's out of this world. It's awesome. It does most everything I wanted to do and I think that, you know, the trade off is the long battery life versus it being able to just like automatically pick a contact and be able to text them with your voice or whatever. Um, I think that's totally fine. Yeah. It works the way I want it to. I can use it to answer a text message in the shower and that is badass.

• 20:22Nilay Patel?

  Uh, are you a big phone person?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Uh, what do you mean?

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  Well, you've had a note. So like you, you've, I fully believe that all phones will be huge. And you're clearly on, on my, my team, the winning team.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  So I had the iPhone 6, not the 6 plus for the last year and I was sad the whole year.

• 20:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  I was super sad. Yeah. And everybody was telling me like it'd be too big. It'll never fit in your pockets when I'm wearing skinny jeans or whatever. And you know what? I don't care. I don't care. The protruding phone thing is not a problem for me. I'm fine.

• 20:50Nilay Patel?

  Um, what about you, Liz?

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm a small phone person. I just.

• 20:54Nilay Patel?

  I'm a losing team.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  I, I, well, I mean, I also like in fairness.

• 20:57Nilay Patel?

  Enjoy these, the last moments of your, your small phone existence.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  I don't know what's gonna happen. Cause like I, I have like an iPhone 4, maybe an iPhone 5. It's like, you know, like a normal size phone. I have no idea. I've had this phone for like three years now.

• 21:11Nilay Patel?

  That's a four. Um, the best iPhone in my, the best looking iPhone ever.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  So, so, you know, it's, it's small. It fits in my hand. Whereas the bigger phones don't like, I need to hold it with both hands and that, um.

• 21:21Nilay Patel?

  But that's, that's, you gotta grasp the future firmly.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  I need to show you my PDF magic with this thing.

• 21:27Nilay Patel?

  Oh my God.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  No, but I mean, like, you know, that's gonna salt my whole, like, I have like a, um, I, iPhone games that, um, you can play with just one hand so that when I'm on the bart and holding on to something, like I can just be like, yeah, this is cool. You know, whatever. And like, I'm not gonna be able to hold my phone in one hand and hold on to the, the rail with the other.

• 21:46Nilay Patel?

  Truly a first world problem.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Thank you, Neel.

• 21:49Nilay Patel?

  And now I will read an advert. Wait, what about Lauren? What about you?

• 21:51Speaker 01

  I have no preference. I would, I guess I'd give a bigger one if I could, but I have the iPhone 6.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Don't you have the plus?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  No, you have the 6. No, no, I have this, there's two versions of that one.

• 22:01Nilay Patel?

  Virg signs everybody.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Now, do not lump me in with those nerds.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  We'll talk about this later.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I have the smaller version of the iPhone 6 and it suits me fine, but if I had the option to get a bigger one, I would.

• 22:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, my wife is the same way. She's like, she bought the 6 and she's like, yeah, that's the one everyone's buying. And then literally she like holds my like the big phone and she's like, why?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. I would periodically ask Chris Seigler to like, take his plus and just like put it in my pocket and just play with it.

• 22:30Nilay Patel?

  Glasses should not cost as much as an iPhone.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 22:35Nilay Patel?

  Like, we're just getting, we're getting to stories about holding other people's phone. Glasses should, however, you can have all the glasses you want because they should be cheap.

• 22:47Nilay Patel?

  That is why Warby Parker is creating a new concept in eyewear, contemporary eyeglasses that are extremely affordable and fashion forward. This exclamation point is completely out of place.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Should I, is this?

• 22:57Nilay Patel?

  They believe in glasses that should be viewed as a fashion accessory, just like a bag, a shoe, a necktie, or a hat. At $95, Warby Parker makes it easy to accessorize with glasses. On top of their great price, all glasses from Warby Parker include anti-reflective, anti-glitter coating, at no additional cost, and all the glasses include a hard case and a cleaning cloth. There are no additional items you will need to purchase, except additional glasses, because then you'll have so many of them. Best of all, Warby Parker makes buying high-quality prescription glasses online easy, risk-free, and most of all, enjoyable. With the Home Try-On program, you can, there's so many exclamation points here that just seem randomly, with the Home Try-On program, you can order five pairs of glasses to be shipped directly to you for free. You can try all the frames on, get a feel for them, get feedback from others,

• 23:41Nilay Patel?

  because what you want to do in life is wander through the world wearing different pairs of glasses and saying, are these cool? These, these cool. And then other people will tell you. You get five pairs for five days, you mail them back to Warby Parker in a prepaid package. You just go to warbyparker.com/vergecast. That's cool. You got a little, you got a little.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Sweet.

• 23:58Nilay Patel?

  Get your, choose five pairs of glasses, try them on for free for five days, and then pick ones you want, send the ones you don't like back, and then order the ones you like. So visit that URL, that's warbyparker.com/vergecast. You get free three-day shipping on your final frame choice. Your experience is completely risk-free, there's free shipping all around, and for every pair of glasses sold, someone in need will get a free pair of glasses. So you're basically a bad person if you're not buying glasses from Warby Parker. So please, I beg of you, desperately.

• 24:29Nilay Patel?

  Go to warbyparker.com/vergecast today. Get started on finding your new look and also hopefully seeing more accurately, which is a key component of wearing sunglasses or regular glasses or whatever.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Or sunglasses.

• 24:42Nilay Patel?

  Just buy some glasses at this URL, which is warbyparker.com/vergecast. It's the only thing you can possibly do to make yourself feel better about yourself.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  I just, you know.

• 24:54Nilay Patel?

  Try blocking that ad.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  I was threatening, I was threatening Neelam, for those of you who are a pro ad blocker, with ad blocking him like during the episode and just interrupting him as he was trying to read the ad throughout.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  The exclamation points did that for him.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  I know.

• 25:11Nilay Patel?

  They're, I mean, I'll say it's good copy.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  But it's really exciting.

• 25:15Nilay Patel?

  It's just, why would you mix bullet points and exclamation points?

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Can we get a hype check on exclamation points?

• 25:21Nilay Patel?

  I have an idea. I have a thought about this.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Abysmal.

• 25:24Nilay Patel?

  I have a deep thought about this.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Too many exclamation points.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Too many.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  People use them too much.

• 25:28Nilay Patel?

  Okay, the only, the only correct number of exclamation points is three. In any, like you can use.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  In a text message, like give me context here.

• 25:37Nilay Patel?

  So you can't use one. One is too sincere. In it, like in a regular piece of correspondence, like in IM or text or something, right? You use one.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Oh, you mean in succession. You mean three in succession.

• 25:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, three in succession.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. All right.

• 25:48Nilay Patel?

  You use one, you're like, it's a little too like, dude, like calm down, right?

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Three is a joke.

• 25:53Nilay Patel?

  You use two, you're like, you just, you can't choose. And then three is like the right level of.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  I disagree.

• 25:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's just where I'm at right now.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  And I'm not, I use exclamation points more than I should. I just, like in an email, I hate it.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  I love them.

• 26:08Nilay Patel?

  Lauren, you gotta be.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  I, I actually read somewhere recently, like why you should like lower the amount of times you use exclamation points. And they were like, one of the arguments is like, what are you in kindergarten?

• 26:22Speaker 03

  You know what it is, is I read Cory Sika at like a formative period as a young writer and like now I can't not use exclamation marks. Like, you know, because part of it too is that it conveys tone, right? Like, you know, I'm so excited, period.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:40Nilay Patel?

  But that's, that's, that's like my affect.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  I mean, then you use an exclamation point. If you're excited, then you can use it.

• 26:45Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  There are rules.

• 26:46Nilay Patel?

  Speaking of things we're excited about, space is on that list, he said awkwardly to transition away from this conversation.

• 26:56Nilay Patel?

  So Lauren.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  We're very professional today.

• 26:59Nilay Patel?

  Have you ever heard this show? This is like, this is where we live. So let's talk about space. Lauren.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Let's talk about it.

• 27:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, there's breaking Pluto news, I was told as I sat down.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:08Nilay Patel?

  Uh, we're also worried the government shutdown is gonna affect NASA.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:12Nilay Patel?

  And then billionaires keep firing shit into space. It just keeps happening over and over again.

• 27:18Nilay Patel?

  And then failing to land them.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Didn't happen recently, but sure.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Uh, so first one, okay, so Pluto. So we got some great, high-resolution images from NASA right before we hopped on this podcast. I was kind of racing to get them up before, before we got in here.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  You can view them at theverge.com.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Oh, hey. Um, so the cool thing about this is, uh, these are prob- I think they're the, the highest resolution ones we have from New Horizons, which was the probe that we sent there in July. Probe took, what, nine years to get there. Pluto is far.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  And now it's like, it sent us a bunch of pictures back when it first was over there, but now like, it's gotta, it's gotta download all of those and it takes a while. Like, I think from where New Horizons is right now, it takes four and a half hours for information to get to Earth. So after we got some really cool images in July, NASA kind of shut down New Horizons as it was preparing to download the rest of the data and now we're starting to get those, those, uh, images in. I think we got, started getting them in September.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  And we're getting them at like dial-up speed, right?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's very slow. So NASA's been like, releasing just a, a little treat for us every week.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Um, and with each new image, we learn something new. So like today, um, they had like a close-up view of the, if you've looked at pictures of Pluto, there's like a big heart region on it, which they've called Sputnik Planum. And, um, they think that, you know, that area has like a bunch of methane ice in it.

• 28:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Um, so like, that's what some of these images are telling us. They, they, they kind of reveal little clues about like the composition of the dwarf planet and like, you know, what, like, I think there's like crazy icy mountain ranges that they showed in one of the pictures today.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  There's an ice lake.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Ice lakes. Uh, there's like glacial flow, like, they think that, so you-

• 29:21Nilay Patel?

  Glacial flow sounds like a soap.

• 29:24Nilay Patel?

  I'm just putting it out there. Like, you could tell me there's glacial flow, like the CVS. I'm like, yeah, no, it smells really good.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  I think one of the cool things, as he said, was, so on Earth, we have like this, um, this cycle for our water. We evaporate, it condenses in the air, and then it precipitates. Same thing happens on Pluto, but it's just in the form of, I think, nitrogen or methane. So they have like these crazy cycles, just like on Earth. So it's like, really fun. Each, each new picture reveals some new science about the dwarf planet. I almost called it a planet and I don't want to piss.

• 29:56Nilay Patel?

  So you're, you're really on one side of that debate. Cause you know, you pissed off all the other people. Dwarf planet, dwarf planet is like the worst compromise. It's like a, yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  It's just harder to say, because you just want to say planet. But it's, I, I'm not of either.

• 30:10Nilay Patel?

  But then Neil deGrasse Tyson is gonna show up here and be like, you know what? I hate dreams.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  He's gonna, he's gonna interrupt the Verge cast. It's gonna be like, and then like, it's just gonna go blank.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  I have to say, like, I'm, I'm a Neil deGrasse Tyson fan. He's been on some of our shows. He's like, done a bunch of stuff with The Verge. And like, the only mistake he consistently makes is like, kinda being a jerk about Pluto. And it's like, why?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  I feel like I'm so tired of defending himself, you know? Like, I watch, I was, I went to the Natural History Museum when the Pluto flyby was happening, and he was there. And of course, everybody was like, huh, so are we gonna call it a planet now? And he was like, guys, like, he's just like, so over that question.

• 30:51Nilay Patel?

  No, I just think it's funny that you can like, you can, you can always turn him. Like, that's the one. You just like, you walk up behind him, you're like, Pluto. And he's like, that motherfucker. It's like, good. Uh, anyway, so, uh, more dwarf planet news. I mean, what a, like, what a rhetorical compromise. So like, you know, it is a planet. It's just a dwarf planet. Anyway, keep going.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Um, I think I was done. Uh, but yeah, no, I, I don't care if we call it a planet or a dwarf planet. I, I just think it's an awesome.

• 31:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that we're out there.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Space rock. Yeah.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  Space rock.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  That's what I like calling.

• 31:25Nilay Patel?

  So, let me ask you, so transitioning into the NASA thing. So, obviously. As always, Republicans are threatening to shut down the government.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:34Nilay Patel?

  For whatever reason, this time is like important.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  It's a year.

• 31:36Nilay Patel?

  It's a regular. No, it's like, you know, things happen. The sun rises, it sets, we shut down the government. Does this affect like New Horizons, does it affect NASA? Like, what are the implications?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  So it could very well. I don't know how if it'll affect New Horizons specifically, but it the basically what happens when the government shuts down is every one deemed non-essential goes home. So I'm, I would assume unfortunately that New Horizons would be deemed inessential and that people would not be coming into work to work on it. Maybe they might have like a few core people, but the entire team I don't think would be, would be.

• 32:15Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Doing science on it.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Now, does that mean that we would like lose data that we would never get to analyze? Or does that mean that it's just like put off?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I mean, it's possible. I'm not sure. I would have to talk to people on the New Horizons team. I don't know if they've really thought about it because we're not sure if it's going to happen yet. But I know that when like, like last year or in 2013, like 17,000 more, like almost 18,000 of the, of the entire like 18, 18,250 total employees went home during the shutdown.

• 32:48Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  And yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  It's not just, you know, NASA either, like the big physics labs, like those, those nuclear reactors, all of the reactors have to be shut down. And they take days to get back online, like after the, the government, you know, starts up again, like it's like, it's weeks.

• 33:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  You know, before they can start going back, before physicists can start going back to their projects. You know, it really interrupts the ability that a lot of our scientists have to actually do stuff that could potentially be helpful for our knowledge of the world. I don't know.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would assume at NASA, the people that would stay would be related to the International Space Station because we have people up there right now. So that would be the main focus and all the other projects would kind of fall by the wayside.

• 33:31Nilay Patel?

  Right. I just feel like. I anthropomorphize like our robots.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  As one does.

• 33:39Nilay Patel?

  And I'm like, poor New Horizons, just like desperately trying to send.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Trailing off into the universe.

• 33:44Nilay Patel?

  Picture and they're like, we're not, sorry dude.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Not right now.

• 33:46Nilay Patel?

  I unfriended you.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  I would assume that, because right now, like I said, we're in the middle of downlinking these photos. I would assume that that would halt.

• 33:56Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  That's crazy. It's just computers doing stuff, right?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't want to say for sure, but it's, it seems, it seems like something that would definitely get under the chopping block.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  So anyway, you know, call your representative. Tell them you don't want the government to be shut down because science is cool.

• 34:13Nilay Patel?

  Well, well, it's, so this is a thing that we talked about. It's a thing that Liz and I talked about at the very beginning. And then Lauren, actually, when she came in to interview, like, we talked a lot about private space companies and how they're affecting sort of our relationship with NASA and just sort of how we think about innovation generally. Because you have Elon Musk, who has an electric car company and is like everyone's hero because he's like doing SpaceX. And then you have Jeff Bezos, who runs Amazon, but also shoots rockets into space.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:41Nilay Patel?

  Which is crazy.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  It's like the thing to do when you founded, you know, a website, is to start your private spaceflight company.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  So we know what Jim Bankoff is gonna be doing.

• 34:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man. I can't even, I can't even get him to like buy a first class plane tickets. Like if he starts shooting robots into space, I'd be real mad.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  He's saving up. He's saving up for rockets.

• 35:01Nilay Patel?

  I mean, just like, get me the PJ. Like, I keep talking about box one and he keeps looking at me like I'm crazy. Like, if we had a Gulfstream, I would be podcasting from the Gulfstream like all the time. Like, it would be parked at the airport and I'd be like, whatever, I'm never leaving Gulfstream. I don't care what you say. I live in this plane.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  I live here now.

• 35:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so the private space company, and this is actually where you got in trouble because SpaceX keeps trying to land its, its rocket on a barge, which they keep saying is like, this is the hardest thing you could possibly do. And then like, keep blowing it.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Okay, if, if I'm going to defend the.

• 35:33Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna go there. Get in there.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  We're going there.

• 35:35Nilay Patel?

  And I'll, when you get too far, I'll just read this ad for, for something.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  Ladies and gentlemen, Grush goes in.

• 35:42Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Grush chain.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  And.

• 35:47Nilay Patel?

  All right, go for it.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  An oft-repeated talking point, like I was saying, when shit goes wrong.

• 35:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  With space is space is hard, which isn't incorrect. Okay, that's not the point I was making. It is extremely hard. I have parents who are rocket scientists. I would never, never presume to say that it is an easy science.

• 36:12Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  However, saying that over and over again, in my opinion, I believe it, it kind of makes us settle for when things go wrong. So I made the point of let's stop saying space is hard when stuff blows up.

• 36:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Because we need to reach an area where, or we need to reach, you know, this time where things don't go wrong normally.

• 36:37Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Because right now about, I think it's like one in 10 rockets fail.

• 36:41Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Which, that's great, but you know, we put people on the moon in the 60s. Okay. And, and I'm not saying that, you know, there's no threshold I think we should be at right now. However, we should demand excellence of our space companies. Let's not give them the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong.

• 37:04Nilay Patel?

  I think particularly when they're private companies.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:06Nilay Patel?

  Right. And I, that's like the weird new piece of this that I don't think existed before. Right? Like you have the private companies involved in spaceflight, but they were shielded by the government to kind of an extreme extent. And now you have them being like, we're gonna, like Elon Musk is like, I want to colonize the moon.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:24Nilay Patel?

  But first, space is hard. And like, and that, that's a disconnect. And like, you wouldn't, I don't know, like you, you don't expect him to say that about anything else you try.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Well, it's like, it's also like, it's, to me, it's like saying the sky is blue. I mean, it is blue, so what?

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, space is hard. Of course, space is hard. It's remarkable that we get there at all. Like I've said this before, I think it's one of the most remarkable things we've done as a species. It's like the only thing that some other species hasn't done, right?

• 37:50Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Every time we've had a candidate thing that's like, oh, this is just humans. Like this is a uniquely human trait. Then like we do a little more science and we're like, oh.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Find it somewhere else.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Oh, look, uh, these other social animals do it too.

• 38:02Nilay Patel?

  There are dolphins who blog. BlockingDolphins.com, my new website. It's just me recording dolphin chatter. And being like, they're great. So personable. They're really...

• 38:13Speaker 03

  You know, like getting off the planet is something that is uniquely human, right?

• 38:17Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Like deliberately like shooting ourselves into space and, and making it a goal to, to, to go see the rest of the solar system. That is something that, um, that, that other animals don't do.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I just think we move forward by taking what is hard and making it easy. You know, like, like, like, uh, air travel. I mean, that was a risky business, like a hundred years ago. But now if a plane goes down, that is an embarrassment.

• 38:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  You know, and I'm not saying we're at that level by any means.

• 38:50Nilay Patel?

  But that's, but that's everybody's like dream, right? Like the dream is that we'll have space tourism.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:55Nilay Patel?

  You can't really do that if like one out of 10 times you're gonna blow it.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  I guess the point, like for me, the point that you're making is that like by saying space is hard, we are not anywhere closer to actually getting to the point where that we are with planes.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  We're coddling ourselves.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  By saying it's okay. We've only reached halfway.

• 39:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  You know, because it's hard. I want to say, no, we can do way better. And that's, that is more of a love letter to our species than it was a criticism on SpaceX. I think it's, cause yeah, I mean, I'm not a rocket scientist. I'm not going to say I can do better. I'm saying we as a species can do better.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  You know, the other piece of it too, right? Is like Elon Musk has these, um, almost groupies, I would call them.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Like you say, you say anything mildly critical of any of his projects and people come out of the woodwork. It's like, there's like a cult of personality almost, you know? Like I, um, a while back noted that, you know, some of the Tesla vehicles that had been promised were delayed. And like his, his stock had fallen, you know, like...

• 39:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Nilay Patel?

  But by the way, what you guys don't know about Liz is that she used to be a hardcore Bloomberg financial.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  Every once in a while, I, I, I think I told you at CES, like, um, my own personal Tyler Durden, like if I were to have like a split personality, like works on Goldman and is going to tank the economy.

• 40:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  That way.

• 40:14Nilay Patel?

  And I say this with love in my heart, like true, deep affection. Liz is one of the most terrifying people I've ever met.

• 40:21Nilay Patel?

  Like, I'm just happy she's on my team, but I'm also afraid. Like, every day, I'm afraid. Anyway, carry on.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  But so, you know, I feel like because there is this cult of personality and this resistance to recognize that, like, I think, you know, Elon Musk is kind of spreading himself pretty thin. He's got his solar battery company, right?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's not his. Like, that's... Okay, I'm doing it.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  The cult speaks.

• 40:48Nilay Patel?

  But that's not him. Like, that's somebody else does it.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  And then...

• 40:50Nilay Patel?

  Like, his brother does it, and he controls his brother from afar.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 40:54Nilay Patel?

  With lasers.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  With lasers. From his lair, where he's launching rockets, and, you know, and then he's got Tesla. And like, any one of those companies, you know, to say nothing of a Hyperloop, good lord, but any one of those companies in and of itself would be a full-time job. Like, those are really ambitious things to be doing that would require all of your attention as an executive. And so to be splitting it like that, like, that really concerns me. It makes me feel like he's not serious.

• 41:19Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  And we also forget, just to throw in one more point, is there are companies that have a very reliable, well, I should say company, reliable, reliable launch record, and that's the United Launch Alliance, which doesn't get, it's not as flashy as SpaceX.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Not as sexy.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Not as sexy. Doesn't have a crazy, you know, billionaire running it. I mean, he's probably a billionaire, I don't know. But it's just, they, they have a reliable rocket, the Atlas V. It has, I think it's gone up like 99% of the time. Maybe, no, I don't think it's ever crashed, actually.

• 41:56Nilay Patel?

  But there, but the United Launch Alliance is like, A, called the United Launch Alliance, which like, definitely means that they're also deploying missiles into space.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:05Nilay Patel?

  Zero question, like, when the evil comes, like, we, like, what will we fight? Like, the ULA, like, what does that stand for? Well, it used to stand for, like, like, now it's the Uniform Laser Association, like, whatever, like, it's just such a bad, like...

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Might as well just call it Skynet.

• 42:23Nilay Patel?

  It's like, every airline frequent flyer consortium has a name that speaks to world domination. Like, there, it's the fucking Star Alliance.

• 42:34Nilay Patel?

  You're like, that is an association of planets that's trying to destroy a planet. Like, that's not a frequent flyer sharing program. That's ridiculous. Anyway, but so, but they don't get any credit because they're, they're the entrenched players fundamentally.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  I mean, they get credit, but they don't, they don't, I don't think they have this cult of personality that Liz was talking about. Like, no one's gonna, if, if an Atlas V were to blow up tomorrow, I don't think people, and if I wrote an article saying, like, don't say space is hard in response to that, I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much crap about it.

• 43:05Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's, this is, and I have to make more money, but, uh, this is a thing that we talked about at the top of the show, and again, Verge Science is always talking about, which is, there's, there's an amount of reverence that you give to scientists and people who can speak the language of science, because it's like they're magicians, or they're magic, or they're wizards, and they understand something you don't know. But the whole point is to, like, democratize that information.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  It's also that, like, loving science is kind of, like, loving science and critiquing science is, is very intimately linked. Like, that's how you make science better, and that's how I love science.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 43:44Nilay Patel?

  Right. Okay. I love money. So, yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 43:51Nilay Patel?

  Go on. Yeah. That's all, that's all that's happening. Look, Softlayer delivers a cloud built for power. And if our cloud was better, I would have loaded that PDF faster. Let's be clear. Your business, your applications, your computational workloads are unique. You deserve cloud resources that meet your specific needs. For example, loading PDFs of your advertising. Google Docs. Softlayer is one of the only cloud providers that provides dedicated servers and virtual servers, otherwise known as the public cloud, from a single seamless platform. Everything Softlayer does is on-demand, it's connected to the same open API, it's connected to the global private network. It allows you to scale your workloads up and down quickly and have ample space for your storage-intensive tasks. Softlayer, as you

• 44:36Nilay Patel?

  may know, if you've been listening to this show, like, the dedicated listener that you are, is an IBM company. And I want you to think about that now on your commute. As you drive your car, you ride your train. What does that mean? In fact, Softlayer, it powers IBM's cloud infrastructure foundation. I'm really trying to sell Softlayer right now. For all of its IBM cloud products and services. I've been told I do a bad job of reading the ads, so I'm trying to, like, get into it.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  You're doing great.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  No, not. But even if you're not looking for infrastructure, you can benefit from Softlayer infrastructure.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  I don't even need to ad-block him.

• 45:05Nilay Patel?

  Buy ICM cloud services. So all of our listeners have the opportunity to get $500 of cloud infrastructure by visiting softlayer.com/podcast. That's 500 bucks of stuff, of cloud stuff. You can order bare metal servers, you can get virtual servers, you can get storage, you can get networking and security services. A billionaire will launch a rocket for you. Softlayer has 24 data centers around the world, and all those servers and services are connected to Softlayer's unique network of networks, which separates public, private, and management traffic, ensuring that traffic to and from your cloud infrastructure travels more efficiently. You can automate and control your cloud infrastructure with granular APIs, or just YOLO and use a Softlayer customer portal. Visit softlayer.com/podcast to get started with your $500 off of server, storage, network, and security on a cloud built for power from Softlayer.

• 45:52Nilay Patel?

  We got through it together. I want to thank you all for being on the show.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Didn't know we were gonna make it.

• 45:56Nilay Patel?

  This disaster show.

• 45:59Nilay Patel?

  But that's the Verge. I think that's, that's, that's... I will say this about The Verge Cast. It continually surprises me. When we have, so it's been a year for Liz. She's been on the show a couple of times. When we have people on the show, immediately, like, our hardest core audience, like, knows everybody. It's like the funniest thing. And I'm like, they're like, ah, you know, it's such a great thing that you finally, like, hired Emily to cover entertainment. I'm like, she's been here for months. Like, we just finally had her on the show.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Hey, this is my first Verge Cast. So after, yeah, after like, a year and a little bit over half, a year and a half.

• 46:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Like, people will know who I am.

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  Finally, it's gonna happen.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  So hype.

• 46:41Nilay Patel?

  So hype. Oh, yeah, we've forgotten to hype-check anything.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, let's hype-check the hype desk.

• 46:44Nilay Patel?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Let's hype-check Ariel.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Can I hype-check myself? Because I get flying colors.

• 46:50Nilay Patel?

  Everyone? Okay, one, the hype checker cannot hype check himself. Two, I firmly believe that hype checking the hype desk like takes us to like

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Does that remove? No, no, no. Does that remove the hype desk's power? Like, you take everything away?

• 47:07Nilay Patel?

  Right. The point of the hype desk is to validate or devalidate other things. So if you begin to validate the hype desk, it loses its ability to do the validation that's so thoroughly its power derives from.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  You've lost me.

• 47:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So I'm just saying, don't do it.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:18Nilay Patel?

  I'm like.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  I won't do it.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, I have a different hype check then.

• 47:21Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Uh, super blood moon. What are our feelings on the super blood moon?

• 47:25Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. Somebody should explain the super blood moon.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  All right. Well, let's start with Lauren because she published a story about it.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Okay, so Sunday, we'll actually have a pretty good view of a lunar eclipse. It's like the east coast at least has a good view of it.

• 47:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  I think you can still see it on the other coast, but.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  The best coast is the name of the other coast.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 47:49Nilay Patel?

  Pacific time should be illegal. I'm just putting that out there. Like, we should just abolish it. It is the worst. Anyway, blood moon.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Okay, so the cool thing is we have a total lunar eclipse happening at the same time as we have a full super moon. So let's explain what this is. Super moon happens when, so, okay, I'm sorry, I'm terrible at explaining things. The moon, the moon has an elliptical orbit around Earth. So sometimes it's closer to Earth, sometimes it's far away. The super moon happens when a full moon happens when the moon is at its closest point to Earth. It's called perigee. So it's about 14% bigger. It looks 14% bigger and it's like 30% brighter. This is also happening on the same time as a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses look blood red because the Earth is between the sun and the moon.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  And so the light from the sun is coming around the Earth and it's refracting through our atmosphere. And it filters out pretty much all of the colors except for red because it has a shorter wavelength. So like the moon gets splattered with red and, and at the same time, the moon's going to be super big. So it's going to be a big old bloody red.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Blood on the moon.

• 49:03Nilay Patel?

  Blood on the moon, my favorite Eagles record.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, so it starts, I think the moon starts going in a shadow at like 8:11 PM Eastern time and then it starts to be totally red at like 10:11 and it'll last for an hour, a little over an hour.

• 49:22Nilay Patel?

  We should all go outside at the bar and stare at the moon.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Stare at the moon.

• 49:26Nilay Patel?

  Look at that. So I want to close. We've got about 10 minutes left. I want to close.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  We haven't hype checked. We haven't hype checked. Now that we've explained the super blood moon.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Okay, you guys ready?

• 49:36Nilay Patel?

  I feel like we hardcore sold the super blood moon. Like, I'm not sure what we... Okay, go ahead, though. No, I've checked the super blood moon.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I won't do it if you don't want me to do it.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Oh, she goes full Canadian here.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  The politeness.

• 49:50Nilay Patel?

  I will say that Ariel's Canadian, as you may have noticed. Very polite, but then when we push her over, it's like...

• 49:56Speaker 02

  The Trini comes out.

• 49:59Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'm hype checking it.

• 50:04Nilay Patel?

  Get it.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  I would say it's like a special kind of off-world cool.

• 50:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 50:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:09Nilay Patel?

  So we're going for a...

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Technically, yes, it is off-world.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  That's why it works.

• 50:17Nilay Patel?

  You know that feeling when you're like in the car and the brakes go out?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Um, no.

• 50:23Nilay Patel?

  So I've only experienced this once in my life and it was when I was four and I drove a car into a pond.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Wait, for real? Tell me more.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  A car actually?

• 50:31Nilay Patel?

  This is like my, it's like my, yeah, it's like a, this is such a stupid story. I was four. My dad used to let me drive the car home down the street. This is like millennials, like, I grew up in the 80s when it was like, all bets are off, like, whatever, like, wear a seatbelt? I don't know, like, have a beer, you know, like, uh, so when we would turn the corner onto my street, my dad would let me drive the car home. From the time I was very small. And he was like, okay, we got in the house, like, park the car. It was not our car, it was a loaner.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  So reaching the pedals?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:06Nilay Patel?

  I would like sit in the steering.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:08Nilay Patel?

  And then as I got bigger and bigger, I would start to actually use the vehicle.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  Great.

• 51:14Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so he got home, he's like, sit in the car, I'm gonna like take these groceries in. It was not our car, it was a loaner, our car was in the shop. And it was like the... The car dealer's loaner, it was a stick shift. And I was like, I'm gonna screw with the stick shift. Like, got it into neutral and it just rolled down the hill.

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  And then, and I think this is when I truly became a fan of technology and gadgets. A series of ever, the car got stuck in the muck of the pond and like an ever larger series of tow trucks kept arriving.

• 51:40Nilay Patel?

  There was like the one tow truck that couldn't do it. And I'm like, what about a bigger tow truck?

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Presumably by then you were out of the car.

• 51:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was, I mean, it was like a party. Like it was like Wisconsin, you know, like all the neighbors showed up.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Beer and ham.

• 51:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Nilay Patel?

  It was like crazy. And my, my dad was like very fond of like how much trouble I got into as a kid, which was like not a good. Right? Like bad feedback loop. And he was just like laughing. He's like, oh, my kid drove the car in the pond. The neighbors like grilling and like.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  For some reason, the story, everything makes sense now.

• 52:10Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, but you know that feeling when the brakes and you can't stop the car? That's this podcast is what I'm saying. And soon we're all gonna drink beer and grill and like the fire department will come.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  And the entire tow truck community will be there.

• 52:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, my dad was an ER doctor in Wisconsin, so he knew all the firemen. So I grew up thinking that firemen like perform services around the house.

• 52:31Nilay Patel?

  Cause like, my dad was like, uh, cause he knew, he was like, oh, we gotta build a treehouse. Like I know firemen who like, are like, wanted like do handiwork. And he was like, a fireman's coming to build a treehouse. I'd go to school, like, firemen built me a treehouse last week. What about you? And they're like, you're the coolest. I was like, I don't understand how anything works in the world.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Do you miss not being able to call firemen?

• 52:49Nilay Patel?

  No, that's what I'm saying. My sister and I grew up thinking that firemen like performed essential services.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 52:53Nilay Patel?

  So as we became adults, I'm like, oh man, like I need to like fix something in my home. Like you should call the firemen. My wife, my wife is like, that's not how it works.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  I had a similar experience growing up in Texas, or at least in Houston, everybody's parents were engineers. So there was like a point where I was like, oh, people's parents have other professions than engineers.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Wait, you're a doctor?

• 53:17Nilay Patel?

  How dare you? How dare you, sir?

• 53:19Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I feel you on that, though, because like my dad is a psychology professor and I very much grew up in the rat lab feeding the rats.

• 53:27Speaker 03

  And so like, you know, every once in a while I'll mention that I was involved in childhood experiments, because I was. And people get very like nervous about this.

• 53:36Nilay Patel?

  Wait, let's back that one up.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  So there was, so there's a preschool at Grinnell College, which is where my dad teaches. And they, it's, it's, I think, free to the community. And you can choose not to have your kids participate in the experiments if you want. Basically, it's like there's a developmental psych class and they put you in a room with like, like that glass that you can only see through one way. And they like do things like, gee, what toy will this child play with if we put 10 toys in here? Or like the marshmallow test or whatever, like just totally harmless stuff, right?

• 54:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  You know, like.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  For, for somebody who doesn't know what the marshmallow test is?

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Oh, right. Sorry. What is this ongoing problem on the science desk where we're all nerds and we don't realize that like we're talking past people?

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Right. It's when you like put a marshmallow and then you time how long it takes for them to like not.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Kind of. So what happens is, the setup is there's a marshmallow on a plate, or a cookie on a plate, famously a marshmallow, hence the name. And you're told, as like a five-year-old, if you can not eat this marshmallow, you'll get two when the experimenter comes back. And so, you know, you have to sit there and like, some kids can't do it. Like, they just eat the marshmallow and they're like, well. But, you know, some kids do. Some kids can wait and get two marshmallows. And it actually turns out to be a pretty good predictor of adult success, believe it or not.

• 54:55Nilay Patel?

  I would have never waited. Zero. Zero chance I would have.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  I honestly don't know if I would have.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  I would have waited.

• 55:01Nilay Patel?

  We should do this with our staff. We should do this with our staff.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Let's just do it with Ben's kids.

• 55:09Nilay Patel?

  I'm often worried that we're experimenting on Ben's kids.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  I'm also worried about that, actually.

• 55:14Nilay Patel?

  We do it a lot. We're like, here's a gadget. Like, put it near your kids.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  And Ben's like, great, what a good idea. I love gadgets.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Ariel, can we hype check childhood experiments?

• 55:25Nilay Patel?

  Wow. Wow.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Okay, so.

• 55:28Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 55:28Speaker 02

  I'm going to disclose the conflict of interest.

• 55:33Nilay Patel?

  Liz is my boss.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yes, well, there's that. But also, my parents are also professors, not psychology professors, actually, marketing professors, but professors nonetheless. So, um, yeah, no, academia and childhood, awesome.

• 55:49Nilay Patel?

  All right, you have four minutes left, Liz, and then we gotta do all the wrap-up stuff. Here's what I want you to talk about. Where you've got, this is a year, we built out a great program. Where do you want to go the next year?

• 55:58Speaker 03

  I want to get, if it's possible, even Verge year.

• 56:01Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's my favorite.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  So, you know, we have, when I came in, I sort of had a plan about, you know, expanding into space, thinking about like, you know, doing rigorous analyses of some of the tech stuff that's coming towards us. I want to do more of that. And I also want to sort of explain the world a little bit more to people, because it turns out like a lot of the things that I think are obvious are in fact not obvious to everybody, possibly because I have been writing about science for too long. So, um, we're gonna think about ways, you know, to create cool science videos explaining how the world works, to introduce you to really weird animals. We've already started to do that with the Verge Animal Review.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 56:41Nilay Patel?

  The controversial Verge Animal...

• 56:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's one of those things where like, there were like, I was really entertained. You know, we put up the first Verge review of cats, which I wrote, I went first. And we had a couple of people like, oh, what is this? Has the Verge sunk this low that they now must put cats on the site?

• 56:58Nilay Patel?

  Joke's not allowed.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And it's like, um, my favorite part, though, was that people responded, like... And we're like, oh, uh, yeah, man, like, I don't know, uh, man, you know, the verge, I don't know what the verge is doing.

• 57:14Nilay Patel?

  What are we doing?

• 57:15Speaker 03

  And we don't know.

• 57:16Nilay Patel?

  Can I tell the true story of the Genesis fan of reviews?

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Please, please do.

• 57:20Nilay Patel?

  So all, we have all these section editors, like Liz is our science editor and Emily's our entertainment editor and Casey's our Silicon Valley, we have sections, right? And for a while, when we all, when all these people were like in their positions, we're like, okay, what's all the stuff we're gonna make? Like, we make TLDRs, and we make reports, and we make features, and we make news, and we make, in tech, we make reviews. So like, that was a column on our grid. And Liz is like, the fuck is a science review? She's like, what goes in this box? Like, can I just review animals? And I was like, you should review animals! And there was a hilarious joke that we were telling, and then we were trying to figure out, like, what are we gonna do on the weekends? Like, we should need to have some fun on the weekends. And like, animal reviews was like, the number one answer we had.

• 57:58Speaker 03

  We have to have it back.

• 58:00Nilay Patel?

  So there we are. But like, it was really funny, like, everyone just like, looked at that reviews box, like, what, what goes in here for this? And we answered, in some places, like, very normal, like, in tech, you're, but like, what is a science review? We have some other answers that are not just like, rodents.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  That's true, that's true. But, um, you know, and also, like, I am a well-known cat lady. Um, if you follow, like, it's just, it's just, I'm just gonna be real about it, like-

• 58:24Speaker 01

  To know Liz is to know Jeeves.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  That's true. My cat's name is Jeeves.

• 58:27Nilay Patel?

  We put Jeeves on our Facebook channel.

• 58:29Speaker 03

  We, you, you put Jeeves on our Facebook channel.

• 58:32Nilay Patel?

  Me and my friend Mark. Me and my friend Mark. He's a maker.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  Uh, I think I had posted some, some photo of her to Twitter. She has an Instagram account, it's Jeeves Old Sport on Instagram, if you wanna follow. She's beautiful. Um, but, so I had posted a photo, and Neil, I was, how is this cat so cute? And then he was like, I'm putting it on Facebook.

• 58:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  It's the middle of the night, no one will notice.

• 58:56Nilay Patel?

  It did really well.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Was it just a picture?

• 58:58Speaker 03

  Did it do really well?

• 58:59Nilay Patel?

  It did super well. Like, you people, you think we're just thirsty for traffic, but I could get all the clicks.

• 59:07Nilay Patel?

  Like, all day long with just photos of that cat. It's, it's, she's adorable.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  I'm now on a mission to get my dog on Facebook.

• 59:13Nilay Patel?

  Well, buy me suburban.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 59:16Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that is it. That has been our show. I would like to thank Verge Science for being with us today. Again, if you were looking for hardcore tech news on The Vergecast, I think we mildly provided that when Ariel talked to her in Note 5 lovingly for 30 seconds. But, uh, that's where we are. But, like I said, we have a brand new podcast called Control, Alt, Delete, which is now up on the site. It's on iTunes. You can search for it. It's 40 minutes of me and Walt talking about the iPhone. That should satiate you, you monsters.

• 59:45Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so please, thank you for listening. You can follow The Verge. We're at Verge on Twitter. We're The Real Verge on Snapchat. We're, we're on Instagram. I will say, we just hit 50,000 followers on Snapchat. We just hit a million followers on Twitter. Verge, I'm, fingers crossed.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Ad Verge Science is also doing very well. Yeah.

• 1:00:03Nilay Patel?

  Ad Verge Science also doing very well on Twitter. Fingers crossed. I think we're gonna have our biggest month ever as a website, brand, media, portfolio, uh, this month in September. So we're blowing up, partially thanks to the efforts of Verge Science, but also thanks to Verge Entertainment, Verge Cars, all these places we're growing. So follow us everywhere. Hit us on iTunes. I would love to know, give us five stars, and then you can say like how you'd like the Science section to expand. That's always my favorite.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  One other thing, I'm gonna just plug, Emily and I, Emily Yoshida-

• 1:00:30Nilay Patel?

  That was literally next on my list.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  You know.

• 1:00:33Nilay Patel?

  You're here, so you can do it.

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Emily Yoshida and I, she's our entertainment editor, as you've heard. We do a science and entertainment podcast together. It's Verge ESP. It's the only ESP that's real. And, uh, you know, we do something every, uh, every two weeks, and we have, uh, had a number of very cool guests, and we have some really cool stuff coming up, so.

• 1:00:52Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be exciting.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and then Chris Plant, who you may also know on our website, has What's Tech, which you can listen to.

• 1:01:00Nilay Patel?

  And you can go, get all of it by going to iTunes.com/verge. It's all on the website. Uh, you can also go to YouTube.com. The Vergecast has its own YouTube channel now. So just search The Vergecast. You can hit us on YouTube. Uh, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Reckless Liz.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  I'm at Ms. Lopato.

• 1:01:13Nilay Patel?

  Ms. Lopato.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  I'm at Ariel D. Ross.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  I'm at Lauren Gresh. L-O-R-E-N.

• 1:01:22Nilay Patel?

  So complicated. And that was it. That was our show. I want to thank Braintree for sponsoring today's episode of The Vergecast. Braintree gives you a full stack payment solution so you can pay us for this because we're blocking the fucking ads. So support all payment types your customers might want. Start accepting Android Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Bitcoin, Venmo, credit cards, whatever's next. All the single integration across all platforms that are possible in human existence with superior fraud protection, customer service, fast payouts. Please check it out for yourself. Visit braintreepayments.com/vergecast. Awesome. Thanks. Bye.