Finding your digital prophet

The Vergecast is a discussion of all things relevant and irreverent in the worlds of art, culture, science, and technology. On this week's episode, we discuss SXSW, compare Jared Leto to a beautiful pony, and explore the notion of heaven as portrayed by Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Hey and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 10th, 2014. I'm Josh Tepulsky.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  I'm TC Sodik and this is my third week in captivity.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Please help.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  And

• 0:32Speaker 02

  I'm Katie.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, Katie. Good old TC and Katie. My two favorite people to do the Vergecast with.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  I look like there's an oil spill on my head with this hair, with my hair.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  It's getting really long.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  It is getting long. Here's the question. How long will it get?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Pigtails long.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  I'm thinking mini pony.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? Like Jared Leto.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  I want to have like a Jared Leto style hair situation.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  His hair is very long.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  I'll never be as beautiful as Jared Leto, but I can have long hair like him. I want to be like, he looks like a beautiful horse.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  Running through the fields of

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Like, no, like a tiny little pony.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Like a pony.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Who loves his mom?

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Like a beautiful pony.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  I think, oh, we're drinking again.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Look, look at him. He's a beautiful man with a beautiful head of hair. I need to get some highlights like that.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  He has really nice bone structure.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  He looks like Gaius Baltar from Battlestar with long hair.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  He really does. Let's have a, let's have a little clink of the old

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Cheers.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, cheers.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Cheers.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  What do they say in Canada when you cheers?

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Cheers. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Sorry our glasses touch.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Sorry this is such an aggressive action. I didn't mean to

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Please, please forgive this, please forgive this intrusion on your personal space.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Someone asked me to wear this hat today.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Who's someone? Who's that?

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Someone I'd wear.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Special lady in your life?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  A special fan.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Someone in your life, special lady, maybe? Special dude? Special bro ham? I mean, I'm not judging. I'm, you know, whatever is, I'm cool with whatever.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  I think it's Baru Man.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Baru Man?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  He just tweeted, "Ugh, so glad you're a cowboy."

• 2:02Speaker 01

  I'm an urban cowboy.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, check it out.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I shouldn't wear my boots today. Tried to bring my bolo tie, but I couldn't find it.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Anyhow, this is the Vergecast. This is the Vergecast, man. That's it.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  What did you guys want to talk about today?

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Um, well, there's a lot to talk about. I think, right?

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  What were we talking about just before we started rolling? I was talking about, I was talking about how I wanted to murder TC. And I was saying, he was like, please kill me. That's what he, I mean, he wasn't like, and I don't think he was joking. It was like, I'm ready to be done with life.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  What? I've had it.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Why?

• 2:33Speaker 00

  And then, um, and I was saying how amazing it would be if I killed him live for real on the Vergecast. Like, that would be one, that'd be a podcast you'd never forget.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  We have a spear in the office.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  That would be really easy to convict, too.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  We have a giant spear.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Unless it could be, there was some, that's like on The Good Wife, you know? Do you watch The Good Wife?

• 2:49Speaker 02

  I just, I've seen it too, episode 20.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  There would be a scene, there's like, you killed him on the Verge, on the Vergecast. And there's like, there's video, 20,000 people, a million people watch it. It's 20,000, by the way, don't worry, it's not a million.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  But it would be like the Wedgecast or something.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Something like that, right? And then be like, live, but then like, The Good Wife be like, wait a second, that knife wasn't even his. And like, his hand is like, look, it's been edited or something.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  And then she'd make out with her, with Will.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Hey, spoiler alert, okay?

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  No, they make out, they do.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Oh, I haven't seen that episode yet.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  And heavy.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  They do everything.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Spoiler.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  And they show it on CBS, which I thought was shocking.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  You need to catch up, I'm still watching Scandal.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  Full, full frontal nudity.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Really?

• 3:29Speaker 00

  What, what are we looking at? What is this? A clip, just a random clip from the, a trailer for The Good Wife.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  John Show the nudity?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  It's such a good show, though. Every, if you haven't seen it, it's incredible.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  It's unbelievable it's on CBS, a network known for several horrible, horrible programs.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  I hear it's better than House of Cards.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  I actually think, look, House of Cards is very good. I think some of it strays into a level of incredulous.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  You know-ness.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  That is pretty.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  I find it a little bit sort of meandery.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Meandery is, I think, well, that's not my main issue with it.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  When he kills the president, it just goes way over the top.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. No, but that's the thing about House of Cards, like that could happen on that show.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  And they'd be like, yeah, that's a totally reasonable plot point.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Frank Underwood puts ricin in his stevia.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's kind of like Homeland.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Multiple spoiler alert.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  I hope, by the way, I hope you're not watching this for any information about anything or any real conversation.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Important opinions, though.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  So Katie, we were talking about your haircut. You said you get your haircut by a woman named Letitia.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yes, in Brooklyn Heights.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  And, and I was like, oh, you're wearing a Brooklyn, you're like showing off your Brooklyn street cred.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Brooklyn Nets. I went to one game a year and a half ago.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  How was it?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  It was okay. Yeah, me too. I'm a big fan. I have their T-shirt.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Did you see Jay-Z?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  No, Jay-Z was not there.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  He's at every, every game.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  It was for Carl's birthday.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Does he like the Nets?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  No, we just decided together that we were gonna like the Nets and so we both bought T-shirts.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Well, they're awesome. They're, they're all, they have all black uniforms. They're in Brooklyn. They just seem really cool. They all listen to, I'm trying, Deerhoof or whatever. I don't know.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 5:05Speaker 00

  They're all, I'm trying to think of a band. They're all really into Interpol. Like, I don't know, what's a cool?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Interpol?

• 5:10Speaker 00

  I don't know. My references are all off. I have not been sleeping a lot. What's a cool band now that everybody's like, it's like indie, but they're cool?

• 5:16Speaker 02

  The National?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  Now, The National's like really popular.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're too popular.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  But they actually, I think they played at the, at the Barclay.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Oh, they did, but I didn't go because I was like, I'm not gonna see them at fucking Barclay.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  I gotta say something about The National. I really have a new.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Well, it's too big a venue.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  I have a, I agree. Not intimate enough because you're into that intimate indie vibe. Here's what I want to say about The National.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Uh oh.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  I didn't realize this. Number one, number one, they're from Cincinnati.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Which is a tough place for anybody to be from. And I think people in Cincinnati will back me up on this. They've been at this for a long time. Ninety-nine is when they formed.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  So just nothing but respect for The National. Also, the lead singer, if you saw him on Saturday Night Live, they were just on with Lena Dunham. He is a dead ringer for Randy Quaid in Independence Day. A particular Randy Quaid in Independence Day. Here he is. Can we get a close up on him? I mean, he looks so much like Randy Quaid from Independence Day.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Can we get, can we get a shot of Randy? Yes. Wow. Just get in there. Can we get a side by side of Randy Quaid from Independence Day, please? I'm just gonna wait. They're like live. I love that they're doing this live.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Aliens.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  I like, I like.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  So my.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  So you're ready for the presentation?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  I don't even remember what he sounds like.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  That's what he sounds like. Exactly.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  I'm supposed to be the person keeping us on topic today and I'm just gonna let everyone know I'm not gonna do my job.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  What's the top, first topic?

• 6:37Speaker 02

  What's the topic?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  We're supposed to talk about.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Worst first cast ever, am I right guys?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  The stuff that happened.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  No way, this is awesome.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Down in Austin, Texas.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  They're so.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  South by Southwest.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Other, otherwise known as Brand Hellworld.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Hell, Brand Hellworld. Where's my side by side? This is nonsense. What's worse, watching this or listening to it?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Being in it.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Wow. Oh, John, you don't like, I'm sorry, John, the, in the control booth, I was just told being in that room is the worst. You know what?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  The free wine is okay.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  You don't have to be in there.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  The perpetual bondage.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  No one's forcing you. I mean, it is your job, but, uh.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  You're getting paid right now to drink wine and just like, talk about whatever you want.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  But you guys don't see what happens off camera.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Somebody just asked if I completely, have we completely given up on the illusion of discussing tech on the first cast?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  You guys wanna discuss some tech?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  As long as I'm on it, yes.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Let's discuss some tech.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  I think, I think.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  You wanna talk about tech?

• 7:31Speaker 00

  I think that I'm like, not going to talk about a smartphone for.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Don't talk to me about it.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Like, it's gotta be a really interesting development in smartphones to talk about it. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just not interested in talking. I mean, I, certain technology, like, like, I would talk about the, the, well, I mean, it's not really a tech story, but I would talk about what Casey wrote at South by Southwest.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Yes, everyone should talk about that.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  Which is about how South by Southwest Interactive, which is supposed to be this place where like, you know, beautiful, amazing, new ideas about like, the future of our world are born, is actually, has actually become this like, really weird brand. Like, he, you know, it's like, called it an orgy.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  And, um.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  A rollicking corporate brand orgy.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, which I think is like, totally valid.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Who's this guy? Mark Little wants us to talk about tech? Doesn't use capitalization when spelling his name. Who is he? Dana Boyd?

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, here we go. Look at this. Unbeliev- well.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  No, that's not it at all.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  That's not a good picture of him though.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Were you drinking on Saturday? No, I'm telling you, he looks like him. You just, it's the wrong angle.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  I'm a little disappointed. Can we get him in the, in a plane or something, flying into the alien ship?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  I got, I got what you need, John.

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Spo- you got the right image?

• 8:36Speaker 01

  I got it.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  He really does look like him. Anyhow. So what were we talking about? Oh, South by Southwest. So yeah, the thing is, I mean, it's not a surprise. I think this has been this way for a long time, but it's just a, it's just like a, it's just like a, a brand. It's just a clusterfuck of brands and it's all really nasty lame shit. It's like this guy Shingy from AOL. Do you know this dude, this digital prophet? This guy's like my least favorite. And by the way, I'm sure he's a really nice guy and I feel bad saying this because I'm sure he's a lovely man. But he's like, he calls himself a digital prophet, or that's what AOL calls him or something. Can we get a picture of Shingy up on the screen, view screen here? Can we just get Shingy, just do a Google search for Shingy? It's really great if you could just get an image of him up. I'm not going to talk till there's an image of Shingy on the screen.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  I don't like to put people on blast, but he kind of looks like what Sonic the Hedgehog would look like if he was a human being, I imagine.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  He looks super excited about everything.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  I feel like, well, he's prof, he's profit, he's profiting off of the digital, fourth W, digital. Here's Shingy speaking. It's a better image of Shingy. This is too dark. I need to see Shingy up close.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Wow, there he is.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  Can we get audio on this? Is this him profiting, right, to be in a profit? Profiteering?

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Look at those nails.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Is he?

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Largest contributor to stress today is media overload. We know that there's a challenge in terms of attention, but if you do get it right, mind share equals market share, and that's where consumers are going to pass your brand on.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Nice. Whoa, here he is thinking.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Wait, I'm sorry.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Mind share equals.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  It's Catherine Hepburn and this is it. If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. I think what we need to do is get into a fast experimentation mode. The platforms allow us to do that because you fundamentally have between six seconds and 13 hours to tell your brand story today. You're not limited.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  That's a big window.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  How are you telling your brand story?

• 10:31Speaker 03

  You have these different brand expressions today, these different engines to tell your story.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  So I would love to see.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  This is really long.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  That's enough, that's enough of Shingy.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  I can't do it. Wait, just to clarify, he is employed by?

• 10:42Speaker 00

  He's employed by AOL, as far as I know, and he's the, he's, his title is Digital Prophet.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Of course it is.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  And he's talking about how you can get your brand, just jam on your brand, get it jammed up into somebody's area.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Anyhow, but like that's South by Southwest. Here's the most striking image, actually, Valley Wag, Sam Biddle, I think, posted this. It was like a picture of Shingy on Mashable's wrecking ball. There it is. That's what South by Southwest is. It's like a sandwich of garbage.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  It's a garbage. I'm sorry, Shingy. I'm sorry. I know you're a nice guy, but you're a human being and I don't want to diss you. Like, I'm sure you're a lovely man to hang out with, but like, your stuff that you say is, sounds really horrible. And you're, I'm not gonna, you know, teach his own, your look is your look, like, whatever. But, you know, being called a digital prophet and saying shit like, brand message, or whatever, is the worst. So, I mean, is that tech? Is that a tech conversation? I don't know. Hey, wait a second, buddy. Hold on. Don't forget, don't forget Shingy Jr. over here. I'm changing my title, too.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  New trend will be friendly, unfollowing. Shingy. Anyhow, so that may be a tech story. I'm just, I think, you know, that's the kind of tech story I'm interested in, is like, how South by Southwest went from like, a really cool, interesting, a group of people telling each other very interesting stories and sharing knowledge to, you know, an Oreo, 3D-printed Oreo, like, marketing machine. And in Casey Newton, one of our writers wrote a really cool story about, "By the way, I'm not like bitter, this sounds like I'm bitter," or whatever. Like, that's just one, that's just, no, but that's just like, one small part of like, what's going on in the world. That, to me, is, and I think some of, like, you know why I don't want to talk about, like, the new smartphone, or like, you know, I don't want to talk about, like,

• 12:27Speaker 00

  iOS 8 leaks, except I will say, there's this, like, Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac had these, like, had these iOS 8 leaks, and they're like, they're gonna, they're gonna have, like, text edit, or something, or it's, you know, some really sad stuff. They're gonna-

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Walking, uh, public transit-

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, public transit directions and maps. Like, it's just the saddest update you can think of, because all this stuff is incremental, like, and that's why, like, you don't hear us talking a lot on The Vergecast anymore about these, like, weird little incremental, like, "Hey, there's a new 6.5-inch smartphone." Like, we're very, you know, I'm sure there's a set of people that's interested, we'll cover those when appropriate, we review them when appropriate. But like, when it comes to The Vergecast, like, you know, I don't want to sit here and talk about a 6.5-inch screen on a smartphone unless there's like, a really good reason to talk about it.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  I kinda do.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  Look, and you know what? This is the, this is the sleepless mind of a baby daddy.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  What is happening? Anyhow, so are we talking about tech, Mark Little?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  No, we should, we should.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  Where appropriate, my man.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  We should talk about Cosmos.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Although, wait, Mark Little also points out that he came up with drumroll as a replacement for Vergecast.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  It's pretty good.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Which I thought was pretty fucking good.

• 13:32Speaker 00

  Mark Little, I thought you were not on our, you were not on our side, but now you maybe are on our side.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Anyhow, but so what's in the news? What do we have on our list?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Tech is dead.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Tech is, is tech dead? Is tech dead?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  There's no more technology. It's all been done.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  I don't think, I don't think that's true. There we go. There we go.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  That's more likely. I still feel like you got the wrong image on the right now. Look, he looks like Randy Quaid, okay?

• 13:55Speaker 02

  He looks, he looks good there.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Okay, Katie, that's enough. Maybe you ought to back off that wine a little bit. We don't want, we don't want anything embarrassing to happen here. Like, the entire thing. We wouldn't want that to happen. Okay, so what's on our list?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's in the F word pretty early today, so.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  And repeatedly.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Okay, so Neil, hey, you want?

• 14:12Speaker 01

  No, Cosmos.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Cosmos. I was gonna say, we had, Katie did an amazing interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson. He came to, uh, our office, our stu-, and sat down with us. And, uh, obviously a super fascinating guy. Brilliant dude. We interviewed him, um, I interviewed him a couple of years ago on the, on The Verge, the first season of On The Verge. And, uh, he was so, were you there?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was there.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. He was like so engrossing, and I don't know if he did this with you, I don't, because I don't know the whole thing, but he would like, and I was like, oh, we gotta wrap up. It was like 45 minutes. I was like, we gotta wrap up. He's like, no. And we talked for like another 15 or 20 minutes because he just wanted to say more stuff. He, he's so smart and interesting that it just makes you feel like, it made me feel like the dumbest guy in the world.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't feel dumb.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Okay, okay. Well, I guess you're, I guess you're smarter.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  It felt like talking to a peer.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, no, but that's the thing, that's the thing about him, though. He's like super in your face.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  What an ego, what an ego.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  But it's, it's an awesome kind of like, super in your face, like he...

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's like, it's like, you want him in your face.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  There's some people you're like, dude, get out, just stop.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, he's like, an evangelical scientist.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  He's extremely intelligent, but I also find him extremely kind and thoughtful.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  No, he's, yes, yeah, totally.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  And like, very easy to talk to. Like, I was nervous. This was the first one-on-one, like, sit-down video interview I've ever done. Um, and I was very nervous, but we made eye contact the whole time.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Well, that's, that's good.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  We drank wine.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  You did have wine with him.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  Which just proves my theory that you have a drinking problem.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  No, I mean, so...

• 15:35Speaker 01

  I'll drink to that.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  All right. I have one of these right here.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Cheers. We don't have to do this every time.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Why, why shouldn't we do it every time? Huh?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Let's talk about more tech.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  No, but so Neil.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  Okay, here we go.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Doctor Tyson.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Oh, all of a sudden Neil.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Doctor. Is a huge wine buff, um, which I found out when I interviewed him, uh, for the verge 50.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  And he hated, he hated your wine.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  He did hate the wine, um.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  Just think about the kind of wine he's drinking, cause let me tell you something.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  No, I know, right, so I.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  He has the money to buy good wine.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  He has a wine cellar at his house.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  Oh, God, I'm so envious.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  And so I, I said to the, the, the guys buying the wine, I was like, get something nice. They got a $32 bottle of wine. I'm like, okay, fair, like, that's a nice bottle of wine by my standards. And he took one sip and was like, yeah, this could use another eight years, another eight years.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  And he, and he would know.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  And he would know.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  You can tell he's somewhat disgusted by the wine he's drinking, but he drank a full glass, didn't he?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  He drank a full glass and I did not because I was trying to like.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  And it was like one in the afternoon.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Be a professional.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's so great.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Well, it was gonna, my week would be shot.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Well, dude, I mean, he's gonna get in, he gets into some sick limo and just goes to his next awesome event.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  And I saw him outside leaving and he got into a, a big, like a, not a Hummer, but like a.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Like a, like a Suburban.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  At New Bernascale.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  He's a total player.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  I mean, I, I mean, that's, I only, like, Suburban is apparently like, that's the car. Like, I now get Uber, once in a while I'll get an Uber black car and a lot of times they send, um, cause they have like Uber T, Uber X, Uber black car, and then Uber whatever's above that. It's like something.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  A jet?

• 17:09Speaker 00

  It's like Uber.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Uber ultimate.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  I don't know, it's like a Bentley. Anyhow, but, but they send Suburbans all the time.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  Which are like huge.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Maybe he got an Uber.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  I don't know, anyhow, he was getting into a car.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  And then what?

• 17:21Speaker 02

  He had an interview with People Magazine.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Probably a very different interview.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  I bet.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Right?

• 17:26Speaker 02

  But he talked a lot about wine, that was probably most of the interview, off camera. Gave us lots of good wine advice. But, you know, and also said some really interesting stuff.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  I wish, I wish you'd use some of that advice today with this bottle of wine that we're drinking. God knows, I don't have a wine cellar, but I can tell you this is crap.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  I like it.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Shout out to Justin.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Um.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Thanks, Justin. Wine brand. By the way, Borrow Man just said he would, he's gonna fight somebody. When I was going. Wait, Alice Hamburgers, is he trolling us on Twitter?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  This is the worst Vergecast ever, can I just say?

• 17:58Speaker 01

  It is kinda bad.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  We started, can I just say, before we started, we were having like a really great, exciting conversation. And then something happened during the intro that just threw us off. It was TC's stupid hat.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Anyhow.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  No, let's talk about Odyssey, though. Space Time Odyssey.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Cosmos.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Have you seen it?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Review. We all watched it, right?

• 18:18Speaker 00

  I've only, I only started watching, I didn't. I'm, I have a baby.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  All right, well, I'm gonna talk to you now.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  You understand, you don't understand. Yeah, go ahead, you guys talk.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  What'd you think?

• 18:26Speaker 00

  I'm gonna enjoy my wine.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  I thought it was fantastic.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  I thought it was really great, too. Um, I was surprised at how closely he stuck with the Carl Sagan. Like, I mean, like, the cosmic calendar.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  The spaceship of the imagination. It was all like, I'm not gonna say ripped off. He used the word borrowed, sort of like as an homage.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  It was a reboot in like a very literal sense.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, he said it's a continuation. It's like the second season of Cosmos, but it's 30 years later. Which I did not know was, was what they were gonna do.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  I think the most controversial part of that first episode, though, was the, the religion.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Segment.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  I mean, he's, he's clearly a hardcore atheist.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Definitely, and he's made very strong statements to that effect before.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  And he's unabashed in his, um, in his sort of, uh, you know, science as religion viewpoint. And I mean, I don't think religion in the sense of like worship it, but just.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  You know, I really appreciate the, the fact that they included that thread, though, because I think one, and it was very clear at the end when he talked about Sagan and what Sagan's mission was and how this is a very practical thing. It's not just like, oh, look at these cool NASA photos. It's like, science is a real fucking thing that improves our lives.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  F-bomb.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a real thing.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  It's like, it's absolutely necessary.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  It's super important.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Not only to improve our lives, but, you know, uh, from a nationalistic standpoint, like, you know, America's.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  And, and, no, that's, that, that's. One of his huge trips and one of the things he talked about when he was on The Verge, and I know that he speaks about often, is this concept of the love and appreciation and need for science as like an underlying driver of like, in America, who we are and what we do and what we'll build and how like, we will, you know, it's not about just about like, hey, it's like cool to experiment and find something out. It's like, hey, this stuff actually leads to legitimate new areas of exploration, of business, of intellect. And it's not, and that drives like, a nation or a world, you know, forward.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  And I think that's true. You know, I think science underlies, you know, so many of the advances of civilization, you know. I think about like longevity and, I mean, health in general, just full stop, like anything related to health is like, that is science in action. That is, you know, that is like really insane progress. We've expanded, expanded and extended like the human lifespan by 40 years or something in the last 100 years or, you know, 250 years or whatever it is, just because like we know we've learned things about how stuff works.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  And like, you know, learning about how things work and undertaking that apart and utilizing it is, you can't put a price on it, you know, it's the most valuable thing.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  I'm really glad they, you know, opened with the cosmic calendar concept because it's like one of the, you know, just putting the historical perspective in there is so important. You know, just the idea that in 500 years, we went from like inventing the first telescope to putting someone on the moon.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Is absolutely insane.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  No, it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. The things that, that even in the last 100, the things that have occurred in terms of discovery are astounding.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Well, and also that when put in, in perspective, that that's what, it was what, like five minutes at the end of an hour?

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Right. No, like all of meaningful modern history was like six seconds or something in the final minute, the final hour.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Right. It's just, it really is a, I mean, I hope, I don't know if it's happening or not. I do hope things like this spark a new appreciation for, I feel like we went through a period, and I'll just say like the Bush era was the, was the, you know, pinnacle of just utter ignorance and stupidity amongst like the populace of America, where it was like just denial of facts, you know, and like our, up from, from our government down to like, just, and the average citizen, we were like denying truth and facts and replacing it with, I don't know what, greed, or, you know, like, just forced ignorance, if purposeful ignorance. I don't really understand it, because to me, you know, like, it's the most

• 22:35Speaker 00

  disturbing thing in the world to imagine that like, the President of the United States lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to like spark a war, which we know basically happened for real, like definitely happened. And, you know, I think that if I were a part of the, the populace that voted for that guy and like, was like, yeah, creationism and all this other stuff that was happening during that time, I would feel like this one is definitely having an effect, I just wanna say, because I'm way down a rabbit hole in this one.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I think that it's still a very real fight, like, progress is not inevitable.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  No, it is, it is real, it is real, and, and we're, and we're still coming out of this like period of just like, like, sustained and unbelievable ignorance, that like, it's like either you're not paying attention, or you don't care, or like you're, you're just doing it to be an asshole, like, you're being ignorant to be an asshole. Like, I think that we're still coming out of that, and I really hope that things like Cosmos start to help to shake more people out of this weird trance they've been in about, you know, and I think the internet is like one of those tools where it's so easy to convince yourself of that you're right, and that the things you believe are true, because there's a bunch of people on the internet who are like, yeah, you're right, those things you believe are true. And finding truth, and finding real answers to real problems, is

• 23:48Speaker 00

  like, the basis of science, you know, and I think it's so important that we actually put value in that, like, consider that to be a highly valued thing.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know, I don't know what the solution to that problem is, I mean, a TV show.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Like, it's a great show. I enjoyed it a lot. From what I've read, the ratings had not been what they were expected to be, um, which is disappointing. But, I don't know, I don't know how you solve that problem, right? Like NASA's budget this year is, is flat again. It's the same shit, different year.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Pop culture's a huge, a huge deal, especially like on a, a network like Fox. Like, that's one of the things that I was most excited about. Like, this was far and away the biggest launch of any television show in history. Like, Fox put so much money behind it.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  It's so weird that it's on Fox.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, for a network that's like-

• 24:34Speaker 00

  It's like they have to pay back all the damage they've done.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, a network that's known for American Idol and Family Guy.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  And also for Fox News. It's, it's known for like the most destructive force in journalism since, I don't know, like Hitler-controlled newspapers in Germany.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Fox News is a lot different than Fox News, but it's all the same.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  Except for the Daily, which was an amazing beacon of light in otherwise gloomy, uh, place.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  But, um, but, you know, RIP.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, RIP Daily.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  RIP Daily.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  It was a good year.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  But, uh, yeah, no, Fox definitely has to pay it back, and that's what they're doing now. Um, I just think, I just think it's so crazy to me that, that, uh, we have this, um, almost like a real, I don't know, I don't know if this is true in other countries. I can't, I don't want to speak for other countries. I live in America, and I grew up in America. But it does seem like, and I don't know if this happened during the Reagan years, and then it sort of got solidified in the Bush years, but this like appreciation for, it's like a willful ignorance that is almost like, it's not cool to be smart. It's not cool to know things. Like, it sucks. Like, you're a terrible person if you read books. And I think that, that like, that really has cemented itself in some part of the firmament, some part of the, the, uh, the layers of, of, uh, dirt that we stand on. I don't know what I'm talking about right now.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think, I honestly don't think it's a modern phenomenon.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  You, no, I mean, probably not. I mean, you know, knowledge is, is like scary, you know? Like, the thing about atheism and religion is that, you know, it's, it's-

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Speaking as an atheist.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  It's scary to go like, oh, yeah, like, there are no easy answers. Like, there isn't a simple, like, God's got it.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Why do you think I have a drinking problem?

• 26:14Speaker 00

  No, tell me about it.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Like, actually.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  I know, sure.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Because you recognize absurdity of life.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Well, but you still believe in the heaven that exists.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  No, see, it's.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Above, above the planet.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Where there's lots of full of the cream cheese.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Fully spreadable cream cheese, just so soft, ready to go on any bagel that you choose, no matter what. No matter what type of bagel.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  I couldn't even eat bread. I have a gluten intolerance.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  That was racist. You know, an everything bagel, onion bagel, raisin bagel, you want to put cream cheese on that? No one's gonna stop you. Anyhow.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Continue.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Bagel, up in your bagel heaven.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  What was I talking about?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Atheism.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah. It's just scary, you know, to go like, hey, I don't, there's, God doesn't have it. Because he doesn't exist, because it's a made up idea. Because like, you know, anyhow, I don't, I'm getting, right now, I'm getting so many death threats and hate mail. I can't even, I can't even keep up, I can't even keep up with it. But here's what I'll say about, can I say, I'm talking about atheism, and I'm sure people will be up in arms. But the most controversial thing that I've ever said in public is about being a vegetarian. That's like, far and away, like, right now, if I was like, meat eaters are terrible, way more controversial than like, God is dead, or whatever.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm on certain audiences, I'm sure.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Here it is. Is this a real thing? What is this? Is this bagel heaven?

• 27:29Speaker 02

  That's heaven.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  This is real?

• 27:31Speaker 02

  That's how I learned what heaven was as a child. My parents put me in front of the TV and I watched those ads.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  Is this an ad? Is it a print ad? What is that?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  It's an ad.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  It's fucking insane.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing, like, not everybody, I'm, I'm probably within this group as an agnostic atheist, but I, you know.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  Really hedging your bets there.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  I'm righter than you are.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  What was I saying?

• 27:54Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know, we should have started.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  I'm saying, you know, like, not everybody that believes in God is, like, completely disavows science. Like, that's a completely...

• 28:03Speaker 00

  No, I agree. I agree.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Idiotic.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  No, totally true.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  You know, connection.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  It's just that, it's just that the Bible contradicts all scientific discovery, so...

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but not everybody believes the Bible, literally.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  No, I know, but then what's, then what is religion?

• 28:15Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, like, I have to ask that question, like, if you don't believe that, okay, literally, like, what is the Bible's purpose? But, like, if you're, if you're, if you believe in...

• 28:22Speaker 01

  There's praxis and community involved and all kinds of other...

• 28:25Speaker 00

  But you know that, like, if you...

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Things that are unrelated to the scientific method.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Total, no, I mean, there's...

• 28:28Speaker 01

  And there's, like, obviously some cognitive dissonance involved.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  But, like, you know not to murder people without the Bible, right?

• 28:33Speaker 01

  No, we're...

• 28:33Speaker 02

  It's called morality.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, you don't need the Bible to tell you not to steal from people.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I'm, I do.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Maybe you do. Oh, boy, I should not be going down this path. Where's Paul Miller when you need him? This would be a great conversation for him to join in. Is this a commercial? This is real?

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's my lady!

• 28:49Speaker 00

  What?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  That's my lady, yeah.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  Did you have this in mind when you were talking about cream cheese heaven?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  That's like Sandra Bernhardt's sibling.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  This is disturbing.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  I grew up watching these ads.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  And there's like this beefcake, this beautiful beefcake there, kind of watching her.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Like that, like, growing up, that's actually what I thought heaven was.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  The Verge Cast brought to you by...

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Was just like Philadelphia cream cheese.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  Brought to you by Philadelphia cream cheese.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  It's creamy. Is that a lie?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  It's heavenly.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  What's Philadelphia cream cheese's tagline? I need to know right now.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  A little taste of heaven.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm pissing some people off right now.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  No, like, that's actually what their tagline is.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, I've just seen tweets from people who are like, I've, I've, I've... Listen, I just want to say, if I offended you at all, that was not my intention. If you are a Christian and you believe in science, that's wonderful. I think that's great. I do think there's a, I do think at some point you get to a, what, what is religion? If you are a believer in science?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Well, you're not, I mean, like, here's the thing, there's a difference between the

• 29:45Speaker 02

  I mean, it's comforting.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Christian who is, you know, on board with science.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  Totally comforting, I agree. I wish I, I wish I could be comforted by religion the way that other people are.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm sure that, like, look, when the, when I feel like bad turbulence on a plane, I get really religious really fast. Because, like, you're like, well, you never know. I'm go, the plane's going down, so I better just be like, hey, God.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  This is why I need, like, Xanax to get a...

• 30:05Speaker 00

  The only time I'm religious, the only time I feel even the slightest hint of religion is the plane, terrible turbulence on the plane, it's like white knuckle turbulence, and I'm like, I'm like, all right, God, I know you don't exist, but if you do...

• 30:19Speaker 00

  I don't want to die.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  You're like the worst kind of atheist.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  I am terrible. I can't believe I admitted that to the world.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Atheists in foxholes.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  It means when you're on an airplane that's going down, you're not an atheist.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're like, God help me out. Cause you'll, he's just grasping. You're like, I'll take anything, you know? Somebody threw me a parachute, I'd be like, cool, I'm out of here.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd be, I'd be calm.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  And I'm, by the way, the idea of jumping out of a plane.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Plenty of cream cheese coming.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  You're like, I would welcome death because I want it so badly. The idea of jumping out of a, the idea of jumping out of a, of a plane is terrifying to me, but I would happily take a parachute if I felt my plane was going down.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Think about that shit. Let that stew for a minute.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  I try not to fly.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Are you finishing? Oh, it's the worst. Okay, fine.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  I hate it.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. All right, can we talk about something that isn't atheism or religion? This one's, this is the worst Virg. I mean, when I say it's the worst.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  This is great.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  We come back, we're gonna come back to this every week.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Let's talk about tech. What's going on with tech?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Tech.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  I have no idea.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Are there any cool?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  What kind of smartphone do you think God would use?

• 31:17Speaker 00

  A huge one.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  A huge one.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  He wouldn't have to, he doesn't have to worry about like what size his hand is.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Six point three screen.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Curved though.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Curved.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  To keep the glare of heaven out.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  He's wanting to see cream cheese reflections while he's, while he's checking his Google Calendar.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  On the eighth day, God created.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, by the way, God uses an Android phone. Did I mention that? Okay, there we go.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Jay Wayne, Mayor Junior wants us to move on.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  What about, uh, we could do, speaking of airplanes, we could do the Malaysian, uh,

• 31:51Speaker 02

  tragedy.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Jay Wayne, Jay Wayne does not like this conversation. Not surprised. By the way, this is not the worst, I'll tell you, this is not the worst Virg cast has ever happened. I've, I've been on worse.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  I think this is great. I'm having a great time.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Whatever. Doesn't matter.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  It matters to me.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  So there's this airplane that was in the sky and then it didn't land.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Oh, Malaysia Airlines.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  I mean, this story is fascinating.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Let's talk about this. This is not, this actually is a bit of a tech story. I mean, you want to talk about tech? I mean, here's the thing about tech. Like, let me just say this so I can just get it out in the open. Like, the way The Verge thinks about technology is that it is deeply connected, intrinsically connected to so much of like what is going on in our world that like, we're not, this isn't about tech. It's like, hey, there's this gadget over here. It's like, this stuff is all strewn in, in together. It's all connected. And so this Malaysia Airlines, this Malaysia Airlines story is really interesting because there is a, there is a, you know, news aspect to it. Like, oh, my God, this plane's missing and did it go down and what happened? But the actual story is like, how did it go missing? Where did it go? What do we know about it? How do we track it?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  You know, it's really sad, but it actually reminds me of the movie Contact, where Jodie Foster is falling, you know, and at the end falling through that ball.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Spoiler alert.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  And they're like, yeah, spoiler for a movie from the 90s.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  It's a good movie. It's a great movie.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like, oh.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  Based on a Carl Sagan.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  You were only falling through the air for 15 seconds.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  And then they were like, oh, wait. The in-ball recorder had like 24 hours of time.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  It's chilling.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  It actually reminded me of Scandal.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Okay, spoiler alert on Scandal because I've never seen a single episode. And I know Carl's like, Scandal's the best.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  It's terrible.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  That's how Carl talks about it.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  It's terrible.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  That's his voice. Is it terrible? It looks terrible.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  It looks like the worst.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  If you like The Good Wife, like.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  You'll love Scandal.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  All right. I'll watch it.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Don't listen to Katie.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  Seriously, you think it's bad?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  I think it's terrible.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Shut up.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Sorry, I just caught this headline on our site. Can we talk about this for a second?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  All right.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  Disney is releasing an EDM album with remixes from Avicii and Cascade.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Sorry, who?

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Disney, Disney, the Walt Disney Company.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Disney.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  The Walt Disney Corporation.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  I know them.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  If you like The Little Mermaid, you'll like Skrillex.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Wow, wow. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, what's the name of the crab in The Little Mermaid?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Sebastian. Sebastian.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  It's like the Sebastian, like, the like Snippy Snap remix. It's like samples of Sebastian and it's like wow wow wow wow wow.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Well, I guess Disney did Tron.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Well, they, they, they funded and released Tron.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. God, this is, come on. Let's talk about something. Malaysia Airlines.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  So, um.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Where the fuck's that plane?

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Where, wow. Where is the plane? So we were talking to Chris Ziegler about this. He's actually, Chris is our, like, an airplane buff.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  He is.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  He's an airplane nerd. Like, he knows stuff about airplanes that you, that you can't even begin to imagine.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  He's actually working on something right now, like a story about, something about what's, there's a new discovery that, that this, there are electronics trans, that were transmitting on this plane or from this plane for five hours after it kind of dropped off of radar. Well, interesting fact, like, it drops off of radar 100 miles outside of Malaysia.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  Right. I had no idea that.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, when they're, when they're over the ocean, they're flying blind. They're just like.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Terrifying.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Like, hey, just check it out. I mean, I assume that they're, they can see other planes, but in terms of.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  I'm never leaving the continent.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, you don't want to do that. You don't want to fly over the ocean.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Insane.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  But, um, but so, so the story's got a little bit more interesting because there's this, now they're saying like, hey, the plane, it was like, hey, the plane went into the ocean, it dropped from radar and it probably crashed and they just can't find it.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Um, now they're saying, well, there's five hours of transmitting data past the point where it dropped off of radar. And what Chris was saying to me, which I find fascinating, is that it might have landed somewhere. They're like, what are you doing? What's happening? Can you stop that? We're on, we're on, we're on a national, international broadcast right now.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  She's whispering trash talk.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Are you trash talking him? This is outrageous, Katie. What did you say?

• 36:06Speaker 02

  He's just like threatening me.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  He's threatening? Are you threatening her?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  This is the worst.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Did you threaten her? Be honest.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. It's the same accusation she leveled last week.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  It's a she, she's, uh, it's a blast, really.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Listen, people's lives are at stake here. And we're having a petty feud.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  They're not at stake, I'm pretty sure, like.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Okay, all right, we don't know. What I was saying is Chris was like, we don't know what happened to this plane. It's possible it could have landed somewhere.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  No, that's so crazy.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Isn't that creepy?

• 36:43Speaker 00

  No, but he's actually.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  On the lost island.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  It's lost.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  No, or somewhere else. They may just, you know, might not be identified yet. It may, we don't know, it could, yeah. It's not on the lost island, because that doesn't exist.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Well, we'll see.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  This feels really insensitive.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  You know why? Because it was from a TV show.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  I mean, I didn't watch the show.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  On ABC. It was interrupted by commercials.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  There's a golden retriever.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  So like, this whole thing from the stolen passports.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Go on.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  To now. Like, wasn't anyone else just like, how the hell?

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, apparently that happens all the time, though.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  People stealing passports.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  Now you're gonna edit yourself on a hell? How the heck?

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm going to cream cheese heaven.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Keep it clean, Katie, that's great.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  I'm going to cream cheese heaven.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Okay. Yeah, keep your language nice and clean on this Verge cast. We want you to say anything that was off color. Go on.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  I was just like, really taken aback by the fact that you can steal a passport and then fly, take an international flight somewhere.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, it's probably not that simple.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  But like, apparently it happens all the time.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  No, I don't know. You have to, you have to.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Somebody just tweeted, somebody was standing behind, standing behind me.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  You just, uh, that was a made you look moment.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  No, somebody was like, who's the person? Here's what they said.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  You just got trolled.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Why has that same guy been standing behind the glass near Josh the entire podcast?

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Oh, that's crazy.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Tired of seeing his ass, literally.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Oh, it's Evan.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  Is it Evan? He's got a nice ass, though.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, he does.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  It's pretty good. That's technically a violation of some type.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  You know how you said you were gonna murder me earlier? We have this, this ass comment on record for HR now.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  You just, you're gonna, you just self doxed yourself.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Um, believe me, there's plenty of, plenty of bad, plenty of bad stuff on record for me, okay? Who is doing this, um, this woman, Trisha Neider, is doing drawings of, of people, members of The Verge? Have you seen these on Twitter?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Creepiest thing I've ever seen.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  So she just did one. Can we get this up? Can, let me just look at who just tweeted at me in this image. First off, it's a great drawing. It's disturbing.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  Uh, it's upsetting, but I like it. There it is. Can we zoom in on that?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Is that you?

• 38:51Speaker 00

  I don't know. You tell me.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's definitely.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Is it me or is it Randy Quaid?

• 38:54Speaker 02

  I think that's you.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  Or the lead singer of the national.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Uh, we gotta do this one.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  That's very well done.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Dieter, uh, it's at the top.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  What did Dieter do?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  It's at the top here.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  What'd you just tweet?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  John. No.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  You dropped, you dropped.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  It's coming up. It's coming up.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Okay. Great.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Dieter Bone.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  Bone Zone. He was almost on this, uh,

• 39:15Speaker 00

  what is this? Arielle is, hold on, do I follow her, by the way? I need to. I didn't, I can't believe I wasn't. So Arielle, our new writer, just dissed me on Twitter.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  She did.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  Josh's lack of cream cheese ad knowledge makes me wonder if the quote, "cream cheese taught me about heaven" thing is Canadian specific.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  I think it might be.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Did Arielle like, "Yeah, cream cheese heaven."

• 39:36Speaker 02

  It sounds like it.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Oh, you know what? He probably didn't run this ad in America. You know why?

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Probably not.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Cause we know what real heaven's like.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  We don't call.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  You ride on a gold, you ride on a gold bust. Do you remember this article that was written in like the Atlanta Journal? The, "Hey, guys, hey, you know what?"

• 39:50Speaker 01

  You saw that that time. You saw that. You saw that.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  I did see that and it's upsetting, Katie. Don't, don't, don't do an F-bomb to him quietly on The Vergecast. That's not right. Who tell you it's Canadian manners, I guess, is what we're seeing here.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  I don't think she's a real Canadian.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Really? Please elaborate on that.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  She doesn't say sorry enough.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  I say sorry constantly.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Why don't you say like, "Sorry"?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  You say sorry less than you say the F-bomb.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  You say the F-bomb a lot. That's not very.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Sorry, Dad, that you have to watch this.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  He's not watching. Is he watching this?

• 40:18Speaker 02

  He watches every week.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Oh, he's like, "Well, Josh, he talks a lot."

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Well, I'm sorry. You know what? I'm the host.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  And that TC is really abusive.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  We're, traditionally, I am the host of The Vergecast.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Well, you're very talkative.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  I am talkative. It's probably because I'm Jewish.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  I thought you were an atheist.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Uh, well, I was raised Jewish. Socially, socially culturally Jewish, religiously atheist. Which means I'm just very nervous. Right?

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  So apologies to your dad, if you're watching.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Hi, Katie's dad.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  I guess I'll let Katie talk more.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Your daughter's normally very nice.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  Katie, why don't you run, why don't you run the rest of this thing?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Okay, great.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Whew. Thank God. Take a break. Drink some of this Vina, am I right? Cheers.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Cheers. Bilateral cheers.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Do we want to talk about gas leaks?

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm terrified.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  I'm super freaked out.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  So I was listening to NPR today, and NPR, it's funny, um, WNYC, which is the NPR, of course, I was listening to NPR, right? So it's just stereotype, but, um, cliche, New Yorker, Jewish New Yorker listens to NPR, like, okay, um, they were like, they had a, they had a show on a couple of days ago, it's about the failing infrastructure of New York.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  And today, they're like, yeah, this could be evidence of the failing infrastructure of New York. I live in a house that was built in 1860.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  You do?

• 41:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  I live in a, I live in a very, very-

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Are you kidding? Yeah, for real.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  That's pretty old.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  It's super duper old.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  I think my building is about-

• 41:41Speaker 00

  And now I'm just like, every day, I'm like, my family's going to blow up.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  1860?

• 41:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  That's like Civil War era.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's really old. Are you, like, are you kidding? That's when it was built? We have, like, records.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  It's a, it's actually, what's interesting about my house is that Thomas Ricker, who lives in Amsterdam, has a very similar tiny house. I have a very tiny house. And Thomas Ricker's, that's so upsetting. Can we get that on screen, please, the Dieter image? Totally unrelated to my house and to explosions. Please get the Dieter graphic on screen immediately. I won't say another word until it happens.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  There we go. There we go. By the way, that was the longest moment of silence ever in the history of The Vergecast.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  In the history of Josh.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  In the history of, actually, yeah, my uncle used to pay me money to be quiet. He'd be like, how long can you be quiet? I'll give you a dollar if you be quiet. I was, I'm not a terrible kid, terrible adult. What are you gonna do? Anyhow, so, yeah, so there was this terrible, huge explosion in Harlem, East Harlem.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  Apparently a gas leak, leveled two buildings, seven people are dead. I mean, just look at this. I mean, just, it is breathtaking that, that, that something like this could happen. It's not, it wasn't, you know, it didn't happen on purpose. It wasn't planned. There were no explosives in this building. As far as we know at this point, and I think probably for real. Ariel, our new writer, did a great piece about how this happens and why this happens, which is really interesting. But it, it just made me feel just utter and constant fear now about my house exploding.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's especially insane is that apparently they have been like reporting the smell of gas or a gas leak for like two weeks before this happened.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  So what I read, which was very, very sad, was a woman talking to the New York Times and her husband was unaccounted for. And they lived in one of these buildings. So, super sad. But she said to them something along the lines of, "We thought we smelled gas before we went to bed. Then it went away. So we just went to bed and then the next morning, there was this explosion." And I think in terms of Ariel's piece, what was most disturbing to me was, I think it was something like 35 or 38% of gas mains in Manhattan are made of chrome? What is the makeup? Some, some, whatever the material is that makes them more vulnerable to these cracks and predate 1960.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  In other words, they're outdated and they are vulnerable to cracks. That's terrifying.

• 44:25Speaker 00

  No, it's, it's

• 44:26Speaker 02

  That's terrifying.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  That, no, I mean, the, the, uh, on NPR, they were saying that the average

• 44:34Speaker 00

  age of the mains in New York is 56 years old, which is really old. And that they're made of, you know, this, uh, what is it? Uh, cast iron.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Cast iron, that's what it is. Not chrome.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  No, not chrome.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  I'm thinking about

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Chrome is what you put on your wheels.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Chrome is what you

• 44:53Speaker 02

  I wouldn't know.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Is a browser.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's an internet thing.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  It's weird that my, my reference point was about wheels.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  And yours was about a browser.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Just shows how out of touch you are.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Tech, tech, tech talk, tech talk, right there. But, uh,

• 45:06Speaker 00

  So anyhow, it's just terrifying. And since my house is a super duper old, I'm just imagining everything in it is ready to explode at any given moment. And you know, today, we had our heat on and it's making some weird screeching noise. It's hot water heat, it's not gas or anything, but it's making some weird high pitched screeching noise. And it's like, oh, this is it, here we go. We're gonna blow up. So it's a terrible, it's a terrible tragedy and a shocking story. And also like, I think, not to get all political on you yet again, but is a demonstration of the need for us to be concerned about the infrastructure in America. Not just, you know, this is a, this is a privately owned company that is responsible for these gas lines, but you know, they're responsible to the citizens of this city.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  It's a public utility, though.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  It is a public utility, but I mean...

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Like Con Edison has the privilege of being...

• 45:55Speaker 00

  It's not Con Ed, it's National Grid.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  National Grid.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  I think.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  No, it's Con Ed.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  It's Con Ed.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Con Ed doesn't do gas.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do.

• 46:00Speaker 00

  Do they?

• 46:01Speaker 01

  They're my gas.

• 46:02Speaker 00

  They do gas? I thought they only did electricity. Very confused. At any rate, also I've been drinking. At any rate, this wine is really affecting me, I have to say. Is Justin high in alcohol content?

• 46:14Speaker 02

  I don't think so, I just didn't have lunch.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Justin's messing me up.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  So, the thing is...

• 46:22Speaker 02

  A little high.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  The point is, it's like, infrastructure is a real issue. I mean, there have been, Frontline Act, I think actually did a great piece on infrastructure, if I'm not mistaken, a couple of years ago. I could be totally making that up, but there's definitely, you know, our roadways, bridges...

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Bridges are collapsing.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  We're literally, like, America's like falling apart.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  So I can think about how much money the federal government spent on public projects in the last hundred years. National Park building, international...

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Look at, look at, there's a great chart of the, of the spending, our budget in the US. Look at the, look at the budget for defense spending versus the kind of thing, the spending we're doing on things like infrastructure. It's depressing.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  It's insane. And like, look, so far, you know, I don't know, I'm not gonna get into terrorism and stuff, but we've had, you know, 9/11 was awful, but...

• 47:10Speaker 01

  It's just such an...

• 47:11Speaker 00

  But this is, but this, you know, it's, this is awful too, and like, 100 of these is even worse. And like, if the infrastructure doesn't get, if we don't care about it, we don't think about it, like, 100 of these is what's in store.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  But it should be such an obvious and like uncontroversial point that... Like this, this public stuff that we spend money on as a society enables us to do things privately.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Like the interstate highway system.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  You know, that wasn't a bunch, that wasn't like, you know, a company like Google or Microsoft saying, oh, we need to build some roads. It was all of us together.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  I mean, this gets to the, you know, this kind of leads back to net neutrality and talking about like what we value here and how we manage it. I mean, I think net neutrality is a great, that's, the internet is a great example of the next infrastructure crisis in America.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Where it's, where it's massively needed utility for all citizens of this country and of all countries. We have the ability and the opportunity to make it a, a widespread, easily accessible, open thing. And the direction we're headed is, you know, the, the FCC in cahoots with, you know, private companies is managing it into a private, expensive service, which will be controlled by people who have interests outside of what citizen, the citizens of this country need. They're controlled by, by monetary interests and in the interest of, of making money and getting paid for everything.

• 48:40Speaker 00

  And so it's like, it's like one of these things, it's like, we can't keep up the infrastructure we have that is shared. And we can't build new infrastructure where we need it, things like an open and free internet. Like what is, what is the future of America if we don't do something about?

• 48:54Speaker 01

  And also, no one gives a shit about science.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  Right. This is why, this is why the space program is being taken up by Elon Musk.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  And Jeff Bezos.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Because NASA gets 17 billion dollars a year.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  I'm not saying they're not profiting, I'm not saying they don't want profits from that stuff, but they're gonna, at least that will drive them to do something.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  You know, in, in America, we can't even see, I mean, the government can't even see the reason why we would want to, to work on a space program. You know, like they can't see the value in it.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Well, it's a, it's a long-term thing and, and profit-seeking companies are absolutely essential for innovation and.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  You know, driving the economy and everything else, but they're also beholden to shareholders in a way that makes them focus on quarterly results.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  You know, you can't, you know, we have big problems that require really long term.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  And most, and most companies aren't Apple in the sense that, you know, Verizon's not Apple. Verizon is happy to be relatively complacent with what they have, you know. If they weren't, the widespread Fios would be happening right now and it's not, you know. Comcast and Time Warner, this like, you know, disgusting merger that's probably going to happen, where it's going to create this like insane conglomerate, you know, it, it's their, their motivation for innovation doesn't exist. And it's like, and it sounds like at a very basic level, like, oh, that's some nerdy, like, what does that matter? Like, I need cable. That's not important. But it'll matter when like, you can't get the things you need on the internet because they have decided that it's more profitable to charge you for them. And so it's like, it's really a disturbing situation we have in this country.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Well, what are we supposed to do about it?

• 50:26Speaker 00

  A violent revolution. I said this a couple of, of Vergecast ago, the only answer ultimately is a violent overthrow of a corrupt government. And, you know, actually, like, that's, I'm joking around a little bit, but also somewhat, like, look at other countries, like, what's happening is violent overthrow of a corrupt government. And our government is, we like, we have a great way of like demonstrating that we're not, we, we, we like to act like we're not corrupt and it seems like we're not corrupt. We have like a tremendously corrupt, diseased government in America, which is poisoned by private interests and people who want to hoard money. And like, it damages the populace of this country in ways that like, we don't even, we can't even begin to understand. And yet, this, this fucking wine. And yet.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Cheers.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  And yet, like, we're not, there isn't, Occupy Wall Street was the closest thing we had to violent revolution. It was, it was a whiff of, it was a baby's, you know, by the way, as a new father, I'm aware of what babies can do, not very much. It was like a baby's version of, of like, a real, you know, revolutionary sort of movement. And I think that, I'm not saying we need to overthrow the government.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  That would be the worst, the worst thing that could ever happen.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  I'm not, let me just say, let me just say this clearly, do not overthrow the government. That would be a Bad idea, but I do think we need a stronger reaction to this stuff like you guys like, you know, net neutrality sucks like we'll blackout our website for a day or something like that. Like that can work in small doses.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  No, we can't overthrow the government every two and four years.

• 51:51Speaker 00

  No, but yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Like literally overthrow.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Well, but, but, but it's like you're trading one, you're trading like one evil for another.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. Right. Yeah. Like, I, I don't feel like I'm overthrowing the government when I vote every four years.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  But I think, I think it requires a, a, a fear and, and knowledge and understanding of what is going on at a level that will make you do something far more meaningful. And that's like, I, that's not like,

• 52:13Speaker 01

  You're saying we should vote for Rand Paul.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  No, don't vote for Rand Paul.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Don't do that.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  But I do think people getting involved, I think people getting, I think people getting legitimately involved in what is going on in their local governments, uh, and, and trying to find ways to affect real change by displacing, by removing people who are cancerous is like a serious, is a serious component of it. I'm really on a roll here. My God. I'll probably get shot leaving the building.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Don't say that.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  By me.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  TC just behind me, just, just clips me and that's it. Um, anyhow, I just think, you know, look, we have, uh, I mean, we have, what do you, I don't know, what do you do? We're not going to have a revolution in America until it gets really bad. But I will say this, we have a growing disparity between the haves and have nots. Everybody knows that. And at some point that begins to like really rot. And when it rots, like, you know, I don't know, you don't know. I mean, shit gets, shit gets bad. Shit gets funky.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  I am so glad to be a Canadian citizen right now.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. You think you can run up to Canada?

• 53:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm a dual citizen.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Guess what? Nuclear conflagration? That wave of nuclear, of, of nuclear waste will just flow right up to Canada, right?

• 53:21Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Judgment Day is what I'm talking about.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Universal healthcare.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  You're basically in a, in a daze anyway.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  How's that universal?

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Most Canadians live within a hundred miles of the.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  How's that universal healthcare gonna help you? When a wave of nuclear waste from our.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  What nuclear waste?

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Judgment Day.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Judgment.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 53:39Speaker 00

  Have you never seen Terminator, Terminator two or Terminator three?

• 53:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  What about Terminator four?

• 53:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  You should, you've never seen any of the Terminator movies?

• 53:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  Are you kidding me?

• 53:48Speaker 01

  There's the door.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Please leave.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  Just get out of here.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  No.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  How have you never seen a Terminator movie?

• 53:54Speaker 02

  I don't know. I watched a lot of like Melrose Place. I had two older sisters, like, you know, we watched like Beverly Hills.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  You gotta admit, this is the worst Verge cast ever.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  I think it's great.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  You do, really? I've been talking about violent revolution and overthrow. I'm gonna be arrested as soon as I leave.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  That's your problem, man.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  People want, people have been tweeting me, they want me to talk about vox.com, the new.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Oh, let's talk about that. That's exciting.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  The new news vertical that is being launched by Vox Media, our parent company.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  I would love to talk about that if we're allowed.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  I mean, we could talk about it. All I can say is, uh, uh, all I can say is, it's an exciting and interesting new venture for our company. It is going to be very different than what we do, very different than, here's a little bit of their, they have a video, a wonderful video, actually.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Ezra Klein may be a bigger nerd than anybody at The Verge.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Ezra Klein is a, is a big, big nerd, and I really like him, I have to say.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  He seems like a super nice dude.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  He's not only super nice, but he's super smart, and like, everybody who's, everybody who's.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Did you say he's not super nice?

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Did you say he's not super nice?

• 54:58Speaker 00

  I said he's not only super nice, but he's super smart.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  I think you skipped a word there.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  No, he's not super nice, but he is super smart. No, he is, he's nice. He's nice and smart, but all, but that whole team, they're very smart people that have very good ideas about how to cover, sort of a broader, more general news scope in a new way. And, and it'll be different than The Verge. Like, if you read The Verge, you'll find it's a very different publication. But I'm excited about it. I can't really reveal.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  They're hiring incredible people.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  I can't reveal much, because I know a lot. I'm not gonna tell you guys what's going on. But what I will say is that the, the, um, the thinking that's going into what they're doing, and the stuff that our product team is building with them is really exciting, and I'm very excited about it. What's going on with you guys? Are you threatening each other again?

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Are you? And, uh, and I have to say, oh, Jay Wayne Mayer wants us to talk. I don't know. How do you pronounce your last name?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Mayer? Mar, Bill Marr, like Bill Marr.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  So Ariel's, Ariel is a finally got my back here.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  She's seen the Terminator.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  What a traitor.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  How the hell have you not seen Terminator?

• 56:07Speaker 02

  I haven't seen a lot of things.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  I gotta be honest, I haven't seen Terminator either.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Um.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  Shut up. Shut. Seriously, shut up. Are you serious? You never seen Terminator?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  I've seen, no, I saw the one with Christian Bale.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Dude, please get out right now. Like you need to leave and just.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Listen, I've seen both the Blade Runners.

• 56:23Speaker 00

  Go upstairs.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  I've seen Blade Runner.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  Get your, just put up your shit in a box.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  It's a different generation.

• 56:27Speaker 00

  No, it's not a generational thing. It's a, really is Gone with the Wind a generational thing? Is Lawrence of Arabia? Is, is, is Ben Hur? Is Citizen Kane? Is, uh, uh?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Do you just sit at home and watch Turner Classic Movies with Penny all day?

• 56:41Speaker 00

  TCM, nonstop. What was that noise? Was somebody yelling?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  It's that guy that's been behind you and his ass.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  Sorry, I just spit over here. I apologize. Is the control, is the control booth going crazy? What's going on with those guys?

• 56:54Speaker 02

  They look to be under control.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  When do we start this?

• 56:57Speaker 00

  I don't like, I don't like.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Are we almost done?

• 56:58Speaker 00

  It seems like we should be ending pretty soon. Can we not, um?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Should we talk about Need for Speed?

• 57:03Speaker 00

  Can we not broadcast? Is there a way that we can just, this'll be the live one? Nobody will ever see this. Is that? Oh, really? Are you serious, John? You're not serious.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  About what?

• 57:15Speaker 00

  About what he just said to me. So you're just kidding is what you're saying, what you just said to me. Okay. Nothing. It was about, it's about a conversation John and I had earlier.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  Anyhow, you want to talk about Need for Speed?

• 57:25Speaker 01

  A lot of tension.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  I have nothing to say about. I didn't see the movie. Chris, Chris did not like it.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Let's talk about Aaron Paul.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  Okay, let's talk about Aaron Paul.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's just.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  No, no, no. Hold on. I want to hear what Katie has to say about Aaron Paul.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Very good looking human.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  You have a thing for like boyish?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Carl is watching this.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  I don't understand Carl's.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Carl, no, no. Carl looks, Carl looks a lot like Aaron Paul.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  I disagree, strongly disagree.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Well, you're wrong.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  Aaron Paul has like a boyish kind of like, he's blonde, no.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Aaron Paul is not blonde.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  Yes, he is.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  No, he's not.

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, Aaron Paul has blonde hair, basically.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  He has like brown hair.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  He's like dirty blonde.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  It's like brown.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  He's got a blonde face and you know it.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  A blonde face.

• 58:00Speaker 00

  You know what? You know what else? You were saying Brian Bonn saw you were really into, and I think he's got kind of this blondish, boyish thing going on. I'm worried about you. And also Carl, Carl does not look anything like Aaron Paul.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Looks like Jared Leto.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  He totally does.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  You need glasses.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  I have.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  Are you wearing contacts right now? They're not working.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  Yes, they are.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  New ones that function.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  I've talked to my sisters about this. We all agree.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  Well, your sisters are just humoring you, I think, of what's going on.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  No way do they look alike.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Yes, they do.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  No, they both have facial hair.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  They look a lot alike.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  No, they look not alike. TC, will you please back me up on this?

• 58:38Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna get involved.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Oh, really? Now you're not gonna get involved? Here's your chance.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Looks nothing like him.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  That's right. Thank you.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  I think they're both very handsome.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  I mean, I look more like Aaron Paul than Carl does.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  No, you do not.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  I don't look anything like him. That's my point. I don't look anything like him. That's what I'm saying.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  I look like Zach Galifianakis.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  A little bit.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  A little bit. So, anyway, movie looks awful.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  We'll get that side by side up, please.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  It was a really bad movie.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  Can you tell us about it a little bit?

• 59:08Speaker 01

  There was Aaron Paul.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  Oh, Jesus.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  And it was basically Jesse Pinkman driving cars.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  I don't understand. This is not part of the Fast and Furious franchise, is it? It's just like the same movie.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  It was a video game. It was a video game that EA made.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  And we got into the theater.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  There have been a thousand of them.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  No, it was unbelievable. We got into the theater and the EA logo splashed up on the screen as if you were playing a video game. And everybody just started cracking up.

• 59:33Speaker 00

  Wait, what happened?

• 59:34Speaker 01

  You're in the theater. You know how like it shows all the studios?

• 59:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Science, bitch.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  That's it. That was the week of March 10.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  From our family to yours. Don't use natural gas.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  No. You're not ending this. You don't get to say when it ends. Just you got a cowboy hat on. You're in control. You're not in control. Do you feel in control?

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  No, you're not. That's the Verge caster this week. I'd like to thank Katie and TC for being on it. It was great. Always a great time.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, guys. You know what? It's...

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  You guys want to talk about gonorrhea real quick?

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  It's going on with my hair right now. It's doing some really funky stuff.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  It's not good.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  I'm sweating.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  I think we're upsetting Billy and John, our producers.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. They thought this was such hot shit before we started. They're like, "It's so great. We love the Vergecast." "What do you think about the Vergecast now, guys? How are you feeling about it? Huh?" That's what I thought.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Can we talk about-

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  I'll see you in hell.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Can we talk about hat technology?

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  No, we gotta wrap up. That's the Vergecast for this week. Very sorry, by the way. Very sorry about, about... Sorry.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Sorry. Yes, what's happening? I'm not drunk. I'm just tired. And I am a little, maybe a little buzzed. That's the Vergecast for this week. We're very sorry about what it seemed like to you. I assure you that there is some audience for this. You just weren't it, probably.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  If you want to reach out to us and send us a message about how much you disliked what we did today, you can email us at vergeca... Sorry, at [email protected]. You can, uh... You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up, or the one that has gone up. You can drop something into the, uh, into the forum, into the forums on The Verge.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  Please don't. Don't do this. You're doing this. I hope you don't have lice. That's all I have to say. And, uh...

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  That's a really good look for you, actually.

• 1:01:43Speaker 00

  It's so sweaty. It's so sweaty in here. This is so disgusting. And yet, I do actually think this is kind of a good-

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  This is the best you've ever looked.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  It's kind of a fresh look.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  I've known you for three years. That's the best you've ever looked.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna lie to you, but this may become my thing. I'll be like the guy... Oh, they're like, "Oh, Josh Topolski, the guy who wears the cowboy hat." Like, yep, that's me. Uh, anyhow, by the way, this solves my hair problem completely. I guess like bald dudes are super into hats, right? They're like, hey, check it out. I got a thing going on up here. It's not hair, but it's a thing. That's the Vergecast. You can email us at [email protected]. You can leave a comment. You can throw something into forums. You can find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. I'm Joshua Topolsky. TC is laughingstoic.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Don't say it.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Totally garbage, garbage Twitter name. Katie Drummond is Katie Drum.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  With two M's.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  With two M's.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Cause she doesn't know how to spell drum properly.

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Um, cause she can't spell drum. They, in Canada, that's how they spell it with two M's. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, that's it. That's it for this Vergecast. And, uh, could be it for every Vergecast ever, frankly. Somebody just said best Vergecast ever.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  Somebody just tweeted that at me.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  It was probably my dad.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  It wasn't. Oh, really? Is your dad named Henrik Jansson?

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  Well, then I guess it wasn't your dad.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Let's say that now.

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  That's, that's, that's it for this Vergecast and, uh...

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Really? We're not gonna talk about gonorrhea?

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  Okay. What would you like to say?

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Next week, we'll talk about it. Cause by then, there will be no cure.

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  So Trisha Neider just did a new image. Can we get, can we get this image up? I don't know how she's turning these around so quickly. Can we just get the new image that she did for us up? It's of me. It's very good. Very good stuff. And it looks a lot like what you're looking at right now. You guys are too slow. Yeah, look at my feed. There it is. It's disturbing, isn't it?

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  It's like a fedora, though.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  People really are liking the hat. All right. Anyhow, that's the Vergecast for this week. Uh, we'll be back soon with so much more. And, uh, until that happens, I have to warn you. Something bad is coming for you and your family, and I can't stop it. May God be with you.