I Will Putter in RadioShack

We're back in the Bohn Zone this week. Nilay is away, but Dieter, Ross, Chris, and Sam are here to weave a tapestry of technology and pop culture, with a very professional introduction to kick it all off. Plus, this episode features the premiere of What's Tech, Chris Plante's new podcast. If you like What's Tech, be sure to subscribe on iTunes, or paste this feed into your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Welcome, everybody. This is The Vergecast. It's like the director's commentary for Theverge.com. My name is Dieter Bone.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  My name is Christopher Plant.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  My name is Ross Miller.

• 0:13Speaker 03

  My name is Sam Philip Schaefer.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  Sam Philip Schaefer. Hype check that intro.

• 0:17Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, wait. Is your name, your middle name actually Philip?

• 0:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  What?

• 0:21Speaker 03

  Why? Why?

• 0:22Speaker 02

  I've known you for years. I've never known you had a middle name.

• 0:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. And my, and my first name is Just Sam. Not Just Sam. Just Sam.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Not Samuel.

• 0:32Speaker 03

  No.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  Not Samwise.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  All right.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  All right.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  So, yeah, it's been, it's been a week. I think that, you know, the, there's been a bunch of entertainment news that we definitely want to get into later. There's a bunch, there's some like sad news. But before we get into that, I want to let everybody know that we are going to have a slightly shortened Vergecast today. It's going to be a little bit shorter because we just can't maintain without Eli. We don't know how to keep talking, as it is obvious. Oh, no, we're actually, we're going to be shorter because we are going to be premiering a episode of What's Tech? Which is a new podcast from The Verge that's hosted by the friend to my left, if you're watching the live stream. Chris Plant, you want to tell us a little bit about What's Tech?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  We're going to get into it much more later.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. What's Tech is a show that is like 15 to 20 minutes because I prefer a short podcast that I can listen to on a morning commute or during like a short workout session that explains technology one kind of corner of tech at a time. So the first two episodes that are available like now-ish or right after this are about drones and smartwatches. And it's amazing how even things that I kind of thought I did understand, like smartwatches, you sit down with somebody who like really gets it and like, oh, I had no clue. And same with the drones episode. That's what's been really fun. I mean, just for me as like an individual is learning from each episode.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Which, I mean, you can't, you can't ask for anything better, like to come into work and like be paid to get to learn about cool things from people who really, really understand them. I'm working on a special episode. We're hoping it's coming. Together for next Tuesday. You're already.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Now that you tease it, it better happen.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  I, I, I'm.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Is it tech, though?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  It is. It is because there's.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Very loose definition of tech.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  That's something that people will find out very quickly. I imagine this is a show that goes on is the show is really what I want to talk about or learn about. And I, and I just hope that people kind of.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  And you listen to it on a phone, so therefore tech.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  I love how by episode two, you're already like just breaking the title.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. I guess three, technically, episode three.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  It, it, yeah, yeah. Well, most, uh, well, you'll see. I, I mean, I, we, I'm not, I'm not giving away what this is, but I think, I think it'll be interesting to see how far we can stretch the idea of what technology is and how it fits into our lives.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  I'm really looking forward to the audio episode.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Okay, we're gonna talk about tech news.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Meta, it's the Metacast. It always is the Metacast.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  All we're gonna do is sit here and talk about ourselves. It's the most interesting thing ever. Microsoft.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  So, Satya Nadella has been CEO for a year, and I defy you to find somebody who doesn't think Microsoft is like really kind of interesting and cool.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  It's definitely in a better place than it was. And like, we were all excited when Nadella came out and like, he made that huge pitch, mobile first, cloud first.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Which is the worst. Let's just, you, you can't have two firsts. You just can't.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  But, this is, as close as you would have to this is what's happening. Like, they bought Sunrise.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  They bought Sunrise.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Damn good calendar.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  They bought a Kople.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  They're just, they're just buying stuff. They're buying like, they're like, eh, we need a better who? They just bought the best one.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  People are saying positive things about Outlook. That's a surprise.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  They're letting people test Office 2016, which is insane.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Um, I, I cannot wait for GDC.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  So, no, no, this connects. The Game Developers Conference is coming up. It's like three weeks away. Uh, Microsoft has been very, uh, forward and not saying nothing at all. But they like.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  What is that?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  You get messages like, yeah, I don't want to talk about anything, but, uh, but I want to talk about something. You're like, wait, what? What are you talking about? They're like, GDC, definitely can't say anything, but I can say one thing. You'll want to be there. It's like, but no, it's, it's good because like, I. At least somebody seems like they get it and care again. There was this weird thing where games are, one, just having a renaissance right now on PCs. But two, it's different than Apple where games are still carrying the weight of mobile for Apple. It is what people buy and they just don't give a shit. Oh yeah, we're not cursing, we just don't care.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  And it's cool, I'm hoping to see Windows designed around games in some capacity again. I'm just really curious and you're right, I don't know if I'd say they're cool again yet. I don't know if Microsoft can ever really be cool because it'll always be the thing that like, I associate with like having to go to a desk job, even though all of us use Apple products. But it just feels like they keep making good choices.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, the sunrise and accomplish thing are what really get me because these are two apps that anybody who like pays attention to productivity apps on iOS, which is presumably a pretty small sliver of the population. But if you are part of that sliver, you probably have really, really warm fuzzy feelings about these apps because they were legitimately great.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  And Microsoft's like, oh, we're just going to buy the apps that everybody feels the best about.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  It's not just that, they're going to keep it open for iOS and Android as far as I can tell. As far as they've announced, like they're just being open. It's like, yeah, we know it's not really a Windows app. It'll be on Windows, but like we'll keep it open for everybody because everyone loves it. They just want Microsoft's branding everywhere now.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  So the question that I have is, everybody, like people are feeling good about Microsoft. They're being incredibly open about all the stuff that they're working on.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Especially for Windows 10, but Windows 10 is coming later.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Well, it hit today for phones.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  For phones, well, yeah, but for some phones.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, for like one specific phone for like one person.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  And it's a preview.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  But it's coming.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Okay. But how long can they maintain this like? Warm, happy feelings. When am I gonna start being mad at Microsoft?

• 6:15Speaker 02

  As soon as you actually try it, is actually the thing. The dream is great. It's beautiful. I haven't had to touch it, so nothing is spoiled by the dream.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  I'm enthusiastic. It also, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like this is a new model that Facebook has really nailed, which is, again, buying the warm and fuzzies and then not touching them. Like, buying WhatsApp and being like, "Yeah, that, people love that. You know what we're gonna call it? WhatsApp. Hey, Oculus, everyone's really jazzed about that? Cool. Um, let's not have our name near it. Like, let's not bring any positive or negative to it. Let's just..."

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Well, they did rename Accompli to Outlook. There is that.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  There is that.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  I think it paid off because it made Outlook kind of cool.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Like, I would never in my life thought Outlook would be on top of the Apple App Store, but it was for a bit.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, which is insane. Um, I don't know. The phone thing is really a bummer. Like, I don't know. They, I don't think that they're anywhere close to where they need to be there. And I just don't know what this, I mean, this is the standard thing with Windows Phone. Like, are they trying to win or what are they trying to do? I don't know.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  I think it's tough at this point, because like, I think, and you know, this is harking back to a piece that Vlad did a long, long time ago. Like, choose your religion, like, Apple or basically Android at this point. People are so locked in. They've bought so many apps. They have so many devices and everything's interconnected. I mean, the nice thing about things like Sunrise and Accompli is that you can buy a different platform and they will all connect anyway. I don't know. I feel like...

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Do you know the weird thing about, like, about that, though, about the idea of, like, you've invested all your money into all these things? Is, weirdly enough, owning an iPad Mini has made the idea of making the switch that I keep thinking I'm going to do to Android so much more palatable.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Really?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Because it's like, well, sure. I have lots of games. If I want to play them, I'll use iPad Mini. I mean, at this point, I just don't use my phone for much stuff other than getting work done. Which is, again, why I keep thinking I need to make the switch, because it's like, well, if I'm not using it for games...

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you're not using it. We've been meaning to talk with this for like, two weeks now. You're not using it for cameras.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I have my, I have my camera that I tool around.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  So what, what am I using it for? I'm using it to check my calendar and use email and get work done. And right now... Yeah, that's kind of what it's feeling like. And I don't feel bad doing it despite having spent all this money on the iTunes App Store, because if I ever want that stuff... I can pull out my iPad mini, which weighs nothing, and I can toss my backpack.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Sam, hype check Microsoft right now, in this moment in time.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  I mean, they're, they're, they are setting themselves up to be like, cool again. Very fast. I was gonna say slowly, but it's like happening fast. Like, Windows 10 looks beautiful. They're finally unifying it for across all their devices, although I don't know what they're gonna do with their phones, because it doesn't work on any of the hardware. The preview doesn't. They have a lot of cash and they're just buying stuff. Xbox One is Xbox One. And then they have the whole, whole deal.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  What I want from Microsoft is, uh, the apps need to be there. Because like, people still tweet at me when I like tease the Snapchat account. People are like, well Snapchat's not on Windows phone. And I'm like, then why the hell do you have a Windows phone? And like, Microsoft, Microsoft needs, no, like, and there's no Instagram. These are like, you know, AAA grade, however you want to rate these apps. Like, these are apps that everyone, everyone uses on their phones. And Microsoft just needs to get its crap together and convince these companies to make these apps for these phones. Or, I don't know.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  It does have Instagram.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  It does.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Oh, you just can't post video. That's what it is.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  It's a chicken and egg thing too, because there's just not enough people. But they won't get the people until Snapchat's there. Snapchat won't put it on there until the people are there.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  So Microsoft's doing everything else it can to incentivize, like, this is a really cool platform. Maybe the customers aren't here, but we've included everything we can to make it happen. All we need is Snapchat or Instagram video.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Right. And I think, go ahead.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Oh, I was gonna say, there is this strange thing of what it feels like, again, to somebody who doesn't fully understand how you develop for Windows at this point. But they keep talking about, oh, well, you develop for one, you develop for all. This giant cross-platform, you know, revolution. But what's strange is you think about Instagram or Snapchat, and they're, the specificity is what makes those work. Like, what people liked about Vine early on was you couldn't just throw it on your desktop and make a perfect video. Like, it lived on your phone, and there is a reason for it just to be on your phone. Same with Snapchat. So there's a weird thing here where it's like, sure, you can develop for all platforms on Windows. But a lot of these companies probably don't even intend to do that.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  So it's just extra work. Or, you know, something that you don't want to allow and then people are upset with you because you're not allowing it. And you never want to be the people have to explain to people why Instagram doesn't belong on your computer because you want the photos to look a little rough or you want there to be a grime to it in a certain way.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Guys.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Are you gonna talk about Radio Shack?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh my god. I just, I stuck my arms out. Thank you. I was preparing.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  I was wondering if that was the sigh of like, we're ending Microsoft or this is the sigh of we're talking about Radio Shack.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  Uh, just.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  I loved me some Radio Shack growing up.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Who didn't, really? Everyone shopped at Radio Shack.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  My father is an electrical engineer.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  So we would buy the kits and I would like go and like buy the wires and we'd put stuff together.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Just, I would be that guy hanging out at Radio Shack. We would go from, uh, Radio Shack, no, we'd go from Axeman to Radio Shack.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Okay. What is Axeman?

• 12:09Speaker 00

  So Axeman is like a surplus store in Minnesota where they just sell the most insane crap imaginable. And just in weird bins. So it's all stuff that like couldn't get sold at like the wholesale level. And so like, there's just like bins full of capacitors and like plastic doll heads.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Did you have a recovery sales outlet?

• 12:29Speaker 00

  It sounds like the same thing.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Which like, yeah, well, that was like, we're like a train wreck. And then they were like, well, I guess we can't ship these cans of tuna. So it's just like a whole bunch of.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was like that, but for mostly electronics.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that sounds nice.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  And like plumbing parts and like other stuff. So you, we'd go to Axeman and like be like, oh, let's try and make a thing today. And then you'd like get all the parts that were cheap at Axeman and be like, well, we need to actually make this thing for real. We need to finish it. And then we'd go to Radio Shack and that would be our whole afternoon. And it was awesome. And, and like, okay, when I was, you know, teenager into college, I was still the nerd who hung out at Radio Shack because that was the place where you went to talk to a human being who actually understood cell phones before carrier stores happened. And like, I would like shoot the shit with the Radio Shack manager and I thought that he was kind of a cool guy, which is really depressing to think about now, but back then.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  What was his name?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Such a different thing.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't remember.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  If you remember.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  I know, if I saw him on the street, I would recognize him.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Really?

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Start with a J. Yeah. Um, and like, you know, he sold me my first Ericsson phone. It was a candy bar. It had like a flip, but the flip didn't actually do anything. He sold me a first phone with Bluetooth.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  I just heard a careless whisper playing in my head.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  So it's now like gone.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, this thing still exists though.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  It's half sprint now.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like if I, this thing to me is Micro Center now. Do you have, have you ever been to a Micro Center? That is like the last, it's like if CompUSA and Radio Shack kind of like crashed into each other and they only kept the things that people actually want to use, like that they're actually going to fiddle around with.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And then the really hardcore stuff, I assume they asleep to Amazon or like an online place that you can order from. I mean, you go into a Radio Shack now and it's just surreal because the, the front is overpriced phones it looks like, or like weird like pseudo stereo, Bluetooth stereo.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, or bad remote control cars.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And bad, yes. Yeah. And motorcycles and different junk. And then you go to the back and it's like, this is a totally separate store. This is just cardboard boxes full of junk.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  It, it's so weird. I, I just, I can't, anytime I go in there, it's always because like, it's free, it's March, it's super cold. I desperately need like earphones because I've somehow lost them.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  It's the only place nearby.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Last time you went to Radio Shack, what'd you, what'd you go in for?

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I went in last month. I got like a network adapter for this laptop.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. So that's.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  But that's.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  That's legit. Like, but the last thing I went in for is I desperately needed a mini USB cable, not a micro USB cable. And those are getting harder to find. And I was in San Francisco. I didn't have time and it was the only store that had even a ghost of a chance of selling this cable. Guess how much I paid at Radio Shack for a mini USB cable?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Six dollars.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Wait, how long was it?

• 15:21Speaker 00

  It was four foot.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Six dollars.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  The only one they had in the store.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's six, ten.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Fifteen.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Twenty dollars.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  I went on the Price is Right. Yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  But like, that's like, that's the problem with Radio Shack. It's both of those things. It's one, I didn't go in there to hang out on Saturday with my father to build some cool stuff. I went in because I was desperate and I needed a USB cable, which you could get anywhere for dirt cheap, but I just needed it. And two, they charged me twenty dollars.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Mini USB cable, uh, three feet on Amazon, five dollars on Prime.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Right?

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  And if you're in this zip code, I would imagine you could do it with the Prime app on your phone. You get it an hour later.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, or just go to Best Buy. It's like.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, then he charged you forty dollars.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Well, no, you get a cheap kind of piece of crap one.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  It's brass wire, so like.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Oh, no, it's gold. Gold, monster gold.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Gold wire is so much better. The data transfer just looks nice.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Fortunately concealed under black plastic.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  So, so Radio Shack is going away?

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Well, they're, yeah, basically.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  They're turning into Sprint stores is kind of what's happening.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  They're gonna share space. Uh, but I think the, the real problem is, uh, in some ways, Radio Shack had already gone away, right? The, the, the reason you went there was to, you know, do cool projects, or at least it was for me.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  And there's been a whole million think pieces about this. Like, they, they didn't catch on the, the trend of the maker, or like, nobody has free time anymore at all, and they just spend it playing video games, and so they're doomed. Or, you know, the classic, you know, here's all the stuff in the Radio Shack catalog from nineteen eighty-four, and you do them all on your phone now.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I, I think, I mean, who knows? There's, there's no way to solve the problem with how big they were and find anything that could like, fill up those stores. But if Maker-Etsy mashup seemed like such a great idea of like, offering the tools to have like, cool, make your own things, have like, a retro brand, and then sell some of those things that people end up making. Like, incentivize people that this is a marketplace for the best ideas. That would have been, it'd be thrilling to see, I mean, we, we live in New York, we get to see Etsy stores every Christmas, and they're one of the coolest things whenever they bring those out, and you can see Etsy products in real life. And you end up buying way more than you ever think you would.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Cause they're right there. Uh, and they, if there was a company that had a shot, at least a shot at it.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  It was, it was radio.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  I mean, if you take the ethos of old Radio Shack and you modernize it, it would be a store with a giant 3D printer, a bunch of Arduino kits, a couple of Raspberry Pis. And like exactly what you said, like you can make your shit here.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I mean, is that a sustainable business?

• 17:55Speaker 02

  God, no. But at least it's better than like fake drones in a weird Al commercial that they paid way too much for.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  So, I mean, the, the tragedy here, I mean, there's lots of tragedies. There's a tragedy for all the employees and how badly they've been treated over time and how they're, a bunch of people are probably gonna lose their jobs. Now, for me, the tragedy is Radio Shack was a place where you could go and be a gadget nerd, I R L, face to face with somebody and not in some forum where you end up getting in a flame war with somebody on the internet. That you could, you could go and hang out at the mall. And if you're like, oh, I'm bored, you could go and just be a gadget nerd in this space that is everywhere in the country. And no matter what, you'll like find time to putter, like, you know, I hate shopping. I hate puttering around, but like, I will putter in Radio Shack. Like, oh, look, there are some alligator clips for like, I don't,

• 18:42Speaker 00

  I will find myself staring at random electronic junk at a Radio Shack in a way that I don't do anywhere else.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Um, and like, that's not having that space for people is like really depressing.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  I mean, you've seen, like, Copia SA went, Circuit City's pretty much like, it's gone, isn't it? Yeah, it's gone forever.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  And so that means people are shopping at Best Buy then? Is that?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  No, they're, no, definitely not.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Where, where?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  It's all online.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  So, Amazon, like these?

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you can follow, I mean, I, this is speculation, but if you think about the type of people who would be going to this place, where they were the people who were buying online before everyone else.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  And they've become more accustomed to it than anyone else.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Ah, that's true.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  And, and they're going to be able to find the deals. And that, that's, that's why you lose those people. Eventually, everyone becomes that. So if I'm any other store, it's kind of like the beginning of like when music was pirated and then like every other industry, industry is like, oh, this won't be a problem. I mean, sure, those were just young people. It'll never spread. They'll never grow up. Uh, and then everything ends up getting pirated.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  For a while, I was like, as long as I didn't need it within like two business days, it'd be fine. I'll order it online. It's cheaper that way. And now there's seven day, there's same day delivery anyway. So that impetus to like, to have to go to the store because you need it right away, it's gone.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Or it's going away.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  And I, I used to also only use online shopping for my tech stuff. And now it's everything. By the way, just so everybody knows, I did get the copy of my Winnipeg with the $20 I got from Amazon. So follow up. It was 100% worth it.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Do we want to talk about, well, before we leave Radio Shack, I do want to make a plug.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  Do. I know what you're gonna plug.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  John Boyes?

• 20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  So there is, John Boyes, who is the author of the Breaking Madden series on SB Nation, which is, I think, one of the most essential pieces of video game criticism ever created. As funny as it is, it is also, I think, vital. Did a great piece on his experience working at Radio Shack. And it's basically a, at this point, a eulogy. And it's excellent. So, I mean, for now, until the post is live, you can Google it. It's on SB Nation, John Boyes Radio Shack.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  And it's just excellent. Should we jump over to the next big thing?

• 20:57Speaker 00

  I've checked Breaking Madden.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  I will admit that I have never, no.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  No.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Are you for real?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  It's, come on.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  It's been around for two seasons.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  I'm being honest here. I don't, I've never seen a single episode.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't care if you don't know what American football is, and you don't know what Madden is. It is legitimate art, just on its own.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  I mean, like, I'm not a big football guy either, but the Breaking Madden season one finale, I cry laughing every time I see it. Like, I'm sending you away now. Just stop everything. Stop everything you're doing right now and just read this.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  But I love John, I love John Boyes. Like, you know, it's nothing personally against him and just.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:39Speaker 00

  It is, actually.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  It's a personal thing against all of us.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  And now, and now Thorman's gonna kill me. Michael Kass is gonna kill me.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Jimmy Bankoff is gonna let me send you a personal email.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  You realize this company was founded on this.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Deep trouble.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Well, since Sam failed the hype check, we have help on the hype check formula. This is Sebastian Plamauer, who's a turbine and writer on Twitter. He has submitted to us a paper, which has been peer reviewed, by the way, by Verge commenters.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Okay, but that's not exactly like Nature Journal or anything.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  It's pretty good.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  I think it's better than we ever saw it. It's well respected in the community of journalists.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  It is an academic paper laying out the formula for hype and not just hype, but hype over time and the integral necessary for it.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Okay, this is a statistical analysis of hype.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Given that hype is a popularity of a product in a given moment, we can easily see that the hype is something that changes over time. The total hype is composed of a brand hype and product hype. For example, hype timelines based on Google Trends see figures 2.1 and 2.2. We have to integrate the hype over time.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  I'm gonna tweet about this right now. I'm just gonna put this out.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  There's a full analysis of the hype of the iPhone 6 versus the Nexus 5 and the hype quotient, and it's just, it's just shockingly good. If the hype quotient is lower than one, it means the post-release hype can't hold up to the pre-release hype. The product doesn't meet its hype standard. This means the product was overhyped. And we've got like, it's amazing. This is the formula for hype. I'm telling you, I wish I could, Ross, read this formula.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Which one?

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Any of them, 2 point, 2 point whatever.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Okay, let's go to figure 2.1. The cumulative hype is equal to the integral between time zero and time one, basically the before and the after, of the hype over a period of time. It says this is calculus. Guys, if you know calculus, please read this hype check and you will learn so much.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  This is one of the most in-depth, like, mathematical formulas that has ever come out of a Verge cast.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  So, we now, we now have, not only do we have hype check, we have the hype quotient, the hype standard, the optimal hype efficiency.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  See, my only concern, I need to read through this.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  But like, my only concern is like, are we, are we treating time as like a linear concept? Or is it more of a logarithmic? Because once you get closer to something, the hype should be like naturally a little like more intense. So like, are we counting for that?

• 24:14Speaker 00

  Well, that's why you do the integral of it. So over time, you want the, you want the hype quotient to approach one.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  Because that means if it's below one, then you haven't had enough hype and you have a hype gap that you need to match. If it's above one, you're way overhyped and people are going to be annoyed with you.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Okay. All right, all right.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Dieter's smart is really what.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Sam, hype check, hype check.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  It's a mate, it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful work of art. No, this is like.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  I can't read it, but I love the numbers.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  No, exactly right. I just, I, I can't read this because I don't know calculus. And I am just extremely thankful for Sebastian for like, this, this dude just like sat here and did this because he watches the Vergecast and like enjoys the hype check joke. That's, you know, for, you know, now it's like a real thing. Like this is, this is the definition of hype check.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  I really hope this becomes like, like a dissertation or something like he's going for a doctorate. And like, he can take this and just expand on it.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  No, it's great. It's really great.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Speaking of bad hype, let's talk about Spider-Man. That's the worst transition ever. I'm sorry.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Before you do that.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  I'm just doing it.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Can we talk about?

• 25:20Speaker 00

  I'm just jumping right in.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Can I give, oh no, I want to talk about a creepy brand thing.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Okay. So before this, Sam posted on the Verge account a photo of us. And what people don't know is we remove our beer bottles before the episode starts, but we had not done this because the photo was taken before the episode.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  And somehow Brooklyn Brewery.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  No.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Immediately responded.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  No.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  All these drank Brooklyn Lager. It's like, what, what are, maybe the one photo where we forgot to remove it and they immediately saw it.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  No.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  But, but at the same time, they forgot to put a period before at Verge, so it was only for us. But I am, I am, I am impressed. That is a social media person who, who has an eye right there.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  That means they're watching the Vergecast.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Or they follow us on Twitter or, or something.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Some sort of visual recognition software that scans the entire area.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  And the labels turned around too. Like you have to know that that's Brooklyn Lager.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, oh no, that's, yeah, you can just kind of half see the B.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  I cannot look at Twitter when I'm doing the Vergecast.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  It's too much.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  Apparently I stared directly at the camera intently. And it drives people crazy. So I'm not gonna do that.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  So literally seconds after this photo was taken, Dieter was like, get your goddamn beer bottle. We are not a Brooklyn Brewery sponsor. And I was like, but Dieter, Brooklyn Brewery is like the best local brew in New York.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  I hear the checks don't cash if you don't say it at camera.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry. Excuse you guys. Brooklyn Brewery, no.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  So speaking of.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Spider-Man.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Terrible marketing.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Speaking of the extended Marvel.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  So, so I didn't know. I mean, I knew, but I didn't really know that the Marvel Universe was like a thing that existed. I'm not a comic book nerd. I'm not by, by all means. Um, and I read Ross's like, we were like discussing this tweet, like when we were gonna put this piece and I was just like, it was like Spider-Man returns to, or Spider-Man is finally gonna be in the Marvel Universe.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Well, there's two Marvel Universe I.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Okay. So, so, so again, I know very, very little about this.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  There's Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  So, so yeah, we put up, well, let me, let's talk about the news first and then I'll tell, I'll tell my story after.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  There's much more.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  There's way more.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Sam, Sam, Earth 616 is ours. Okay. We're 616.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  Is that real? Is that for real?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Go wiki it.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  Probably.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Son, don't question things.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Whatever. All I know now is that I'll be able to see whoever Peter Parker is, hopefully.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Well, maybe not whoever Spider-Man is.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  Okay. So if you don't get hurt, you're under a rock. Uh, traditionally for the Spider-Man movies were under Sony Pictures control and they, they own the rights to it. And they made a pretty good first one and amazing second one. And then everything after that was just garbage, hot, stinky garbage. And, but you know, their Spider-Man in the comic books hangs out with all the other cool Marvel people.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Slash sort of people.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  And even though the movies have been going progressively worse.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Again, like the box office specifically, they've been doing less and less and less each one. It's still a $4 billion franchise, which is the biggest single superhero franchise that Marvel, Marvel's name could even be associated with. So it's a huge deal.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  It's bigger than the...

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Except for Iron Man 2 or Iron Man 1. Like, it's outperformed, I think, all of them.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Yes, as a franchise, just because there's more of them too.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  So, Marvel got Spider-Man back, right?

• 28:58Speaker 02

  They kind of do, kind of don't.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  What does that even mean?

• 29:01Speaker 02

  They're leasing them, essentially.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  So, hype check ambiguity.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Like, what? Can we, can we watch Spider-Man and Iron Man and the Hulk, like, fight in battles?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Like, yes, theoretically.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  How about, I'll explain the deal, and then maybe you can explain Civil War, because that'll be even more complex.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Oh, my god.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Civil War's like a movie.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  And do it all in, do it all in three minutes.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  We'll do it super, super limited.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  I'm just gonna listen.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Okay, good. So, generous of you, person who doesn't know anything about the topic.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  So, okay, so Spider-Man is still owned by Sony. They basically had bought the rights a long time ago, and they're doing all these Spider-Man movies, before Marvel did movies. And to retain them, they had to keep making Spider-Man movies before a certain deadline. Like, a certain amount of time could not pass without them making a Spider-Man movie, or else they would lose the rights.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  That is why they made the most recent Spider-Man movies, and they rushed production on it, because they had to get in under a certain deadline, which kind of can explain why the movies are not so good, okay?

• 30:10Speaker 02

  Like, movies like The Punisher and Black Panther, those used to not be owned by Marvel too, but they stopped making them, so they kind of just reverted back. Daredevil as well.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  So, they still retain the rights to Spider-Man. Marvel has obviously wanted Spider-Man for something Ross is gonna talk about really quickly in a moment, called Civil War, which is going to be a big part of this new phase of movies. But, obviously, Sony would not want to surrender it, even if the movies are not so good, they still make quite a bit of money. And their whole big idea was like, okay, well, we can't make more Spider-Man movies if we want to do our own Avengers, but he has a lot of villains, so we'll just do a villain Avengers. And they were gonna make gobs of movies about other characters in the Spider-Man universe. It was the stupidest idea. There was a time where they were talking about making a movie about, it was like a detective movie around his mom, or his...

• 30:54Speaker 02

  The, yeah, the rumor was Aunt May. It was gonna be like, this kind of like, old-school detective noir.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Wait, aunt or aunt?

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Uh...

• 31:01Speaker 01

  It depends on where you live.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  I don't think.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  But in the Marvel Universe, is it aunt or aunt?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  I think I always thought it was Ant.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  And Ant, man.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Anyway, so, uh, so, basically...

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Sam is real mad right now.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  What are we talking about?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Guys, here it is.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Okay, see this?

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Under this deal, Sony will still be making the movies. And from what I understand, they'll still get the money from the movies that are specifically about Spider-Man. Spider-Man and whichever actor they cast can be used in these new Marvel movies.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Also...

• 31:32Speaker 00

  But Marvel, they can't make a Spider-Man movie. They can just have Spider-Man in the movies that are already made.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  So they're, basically... They're kind of co-producing or something like that?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  So, in return, instead of having to pay Sony any money for this, because they said it was more or less free.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  They have volunteered their expertise in crafting the movie for Sony. So, what my prediction is, uh, is this lot storyline, which Ross is going to talk about. They needed it to happen anyway, so they may have even already had a script essentially ready. Because this movie's coming out in 2017, the standalone Spider-Man movie. Which means that script needs to be ready yesterday.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Uh, so they probably have a script ready, and they were like, "Listen, this fits into our canon. Do it." Uh, and in return, you don't have to worry about a script. Everything's taken care of for you. We'll help market and advertise it. Because they still own the rights to toys and everything around Spider-Man.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  So we'll make...

• 32:25Speaker 02

  They'll make a ton of money anyway.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Marvel will make a lot of money anyway, and then we can fit him into our movie. So, do you want to explain some more?

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, and a quick two caveats to all that, that just has to be noted, like, just a quick two ones. Uh, number one, um, the Rooster Brothers, who are making the next Captain America, which is going to come into this. Huge Spider-Man fans, they tried to steal the franchise from Sony a while ago. This was in the Sony hacks. Like, they wanted to own the Spider-Man franchise as well. That's kind of another reason this all kind of came together. Uh, the second thing, I forgot the second thing, let's just move on to that later.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Uh, it's a...

• 32:52Speaker 02

  So, this is the comp- this is the part where it gets weird. So, the next Captain America is called Civil War.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Now, the movies haven't followed exactly what the comics. They're kind of doing their own thing, which is good, because they're cleaning up a lot of, like, weird continuity issues. This is like a clean universe, they're keeping everything tightly controlled. But what Civil War is supposed to do is to take all the superheroes and just split them up. So the big event in the comics was can superheroes' identities be known, should they be known for the greater good?

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Which became this thing called the Superhero Registration Act. So on one side you have Iron Man, you have Tony Stark, who's like, yes, we should register every Superman because they're a threat to society. If they're not checked, if the government's not watching them, then they could cause a catastrophe and we can't be there to save them.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Captain America's like, civil liberties and First Amendment, and like, this is wrong.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  I don't think Captain America sounds like that.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Well, Captain America's a good old boy, no.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  He's not, he's not the intern from 30 Rock.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  You know what? Just because I'm from the hometown of the intern from 30 Rock, you gotta keep bringing that-

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Wait, what? Really?

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, he's a Georgia boy. He's a Georgia boy.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Gosh. Anyway, no, and I'm not taking a side either. It's an interesting, it's an interesting way to take on it.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Alright.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  But there are, there are no secret identities in the Marvel movie universe.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  But there is the whole idea like, I think everyone knows who Iron Man is.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Captain America doesn't wear a mask.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it, yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  It's, they can't do the same storyline for say-

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Spider-Man's just very important to, to this entire arc. And to not have him would have been strange, to say the very least.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  So, so in the movies, they're gonna find some way for Iron Man and Captain America to get real mad at each other? And then, but Spider-Man has to be involved in that.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Basically, so it's like government oversight versus civil liberties.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  And Spider-Man's kind of the pawn slash weapon slash tool that gets used between the two of them.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  So like, that's, that's like the relatable character as these two sides kind of like ideologically war.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  And more than likely what will happen, the obvious prediction if you've seen a single trailer for Avengers 2 or whatever, is that Ultron is a creation of Tony Stark.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  He will maybe take some form of control over Iron Man's suit or something. We see this big battle between Hulk and Iron Man in the trailer.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  And as obvious guilt, which, you know, he is a great cipher for, he will go into the, you know, I need to reveal my own identity to protect myself from myself and everybody should else-

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Well, everyone knows who Iron Man is already.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it'll be interesting.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Gosh, nerds, all of us.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Here's my question. Can I watch the next movie without knowing all this crap?

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  You can absolutely.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  I've skipped some of the movies, to be honest.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  I just read about them on Wikipedia.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's about all you need to do.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Not all looked that good to me, man. Guardians of the Galaxy, though.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Just, just watch the last Avengers and then watch the next one, and you're good. Like, you're pretty much good.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Sam?

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Dieter, we gotta watch these together, cuz I am so lost. Really, really, I've seen like Iron Man-

• 35:49Speaker 00

  So, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna watch these while I read this, uh, this paper about the hype quotient to you.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  And that we're gonna hype check these movies as we watch them?

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  Sounds good.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Sounds great.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Just watch Fast and the Furious and think Vin Diesel's the Hulk.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  The difference is, every Fast and the Furious movie's good, except for two.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Wait.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Which is?

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Two's bad.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  It was really bad.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Is that?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Too Fast, Too Furious. That's the best title, without question.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  But it is not the best movie. Guys.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  We're not gonna talk about Fast and the Furious.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  I'll save it for the Fast and the Furious episode.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Which is every other episode.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  What's tech, Fast and Furious?

• 36:26Speaker 00

  I will say that the best thing about not having any emotional investment in the Fast and the Furious is I can troll the entire staff all the time. All the time.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  It's cruel.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  It's the best. I definitely made a really, really off-color joke on Twitter earlier this week, and I feel bad about it, but I don't feel bad at all.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  What was it?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  There may have been a Weekend at Bernie's reference for the next sequel.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm not, I don't wanna look at it.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  You don't need to do the, the pantomime. Thank, thank goodness people who are just listening can't see what Sam just did.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  I like, I know it, I'm proud of myself.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  It's like, we, we defined that we had gone past the line, and you're like, well, there's another line to go past.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Then it gets drive fast.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  Should we?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Guys, should, do you, do we wanna talk about the Jon Stewart thing?

• 37:18Speaker 00

  He's gone. He's going, he's retiring.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  He's gone.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's retiring.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  He's changed.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  He's...

• 37:24Speaker 03

  I mean-

• 37:24Speaker 00

  So, here's my question about Jon Stewart. Who is gonna make fun of cable news now?

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Because Colbert is going and like running a standard late show.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  I just don't even care anymore. Like, a lot of people watch.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Don't you feel like those two guys held cable news in check a little bit?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  No, not even a little.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  I mean, we shut, he shut down Crossfire.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, he shut down Crossfire years ago.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Like, I love Stuart, and it's great, and it's biting satire and it's fun, but here's the thing that happened. Cable news realized they don't have to change anything, they don't care. He may be right, but they can still do what they do.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  And it's great promotion for them.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Like.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  So maybe things will get better.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Lacking a check, balance.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Saying things will get better, oh.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  That's how it usually is. Just a one-party system.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  But I will say, God.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Can we speculate on who's gonna replace him? Just for fun, I mean.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm looking at Ross.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Not to speculate, I'm just, I'm just looking at Ross.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Uh, no, no. Uh, the, the names that keep being bandied about are just like, like, just wishful thinking. Your Aisha Tylers, your Jessica Williams. Uh, and since the trip, the clip is out here, like, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is coming next week, and their big future prediction was Jessica Williams is hosting The Daily Show in 2025.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 38:40Speaker 02

  Which has now been a great marketing tool for Hot Tub Time Machine 2.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  That's about the only great thing about Hot Tub Time Machine 2, from what I can tell.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  You know, shut your mouth.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  I haven't seen it.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Y'all, you haven't even seen it.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Hot Tub Time Machine is funny as hell.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Hot Tub Time Machine is funny. I check on Hot Tub Time Machine.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  It's funny as hell.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  It really is, and I'm really excited to see the second one. It is. I mean.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  I mean, I like. I like what's his name, Jon Stewart Light, whoever's replacing him in Hot Tub Time Machine 2.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Jessica Williams?

• 39:08Speaker 00

  Jon Cusack Light. Jon Cusack Light.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Oh, Adam Scott.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Adam Scott. I like Adam Scott a lot.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  And this is also.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  This is the sec.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, he's much better.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  I gotta sauce out for Cusack.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Can we also note for like one second while we're on this tangent, that Adam Scott.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  Don't make that face at me.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  He's a grumpy Uz.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Ah, that's the point.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Can we also note that Adam Scott has now done two full futuristic, like, things in the last year? He's doing Parks and Rec, three years in the future. Now he's doing Hot Tub Time Machine 2, like, 10 years in the future. He just loves drones and holograms, man, and just keeping it real.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Adam Scott is the only person where I regularly quote a thing he said that we never actually heard. It was from a written interview.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And he was talking to a film critic, Mike Ryan, and he was asked about Dune. And he was like, I love Dune. I love David Lynch. I love Dune. And it's like, I don't even know if that's how he said it, but like anytime we like something, we're like, listen, I love AT, but I love Steven Spielberg. I love AT. It's so stupid. And I don't know, like, how does that happen? How, I, I, anyway, if you want more of this, we have a new show.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  It's amazing transition.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Is that it? It felt so short.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  No, well, we are, we're keeping it short.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  It's a short episode. We have enough stuff.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Well, it's gonna end up being long because we're gonna listen to a full episode of What's Tech. Right now, hopefully the cameras for the livestream won't continue to record.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  So we're gonna sit here and pick our news and listen to What's Tech. It's gonna be great.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  I almost killed a woman and her child on a bicycle with a drone.

• 40:51Speaker 04

  I was at my in-laws' house in Connecticut, suburban Connecticut, and I thought, this is a big backyard. I don't usually have this much space to fly. This is super safe. It's so much safer than when I fly in the city.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  I won't kill a woman and her child here.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  I won't kill anything here. And then I was flying and what I forgot was that the reason we call them drones in part is because they have intelligence inside and they assist you in flying. You're not in full manual. There's a GPS. It's connected to a satellite and that helps it to stay in position. But they live in like a total dead zone. I can't use my cellphone there. And I kept losing the signal without like really realizing that that was happening. It was kind of like going on and off the signal.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  It's like losing the signal to your iPhone or your Android phone, except for this thing's flying like 80 feet in the air.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, like I noticed that, but I made the mistake of continuing to fly. And I went up, I was doing speed runs back and forth in the backyard, just like practicing different maneuvers. And then I was hovering at maybe like 20 or 30 feet and a big gust of wind came and pushed the drone towards the road, over the house and towards the road. And at that point, I should have gone straight up. Because if you go way up there, it doesn't matter where you are, you're not going to hit anything. But instead, I tried to correct against the wind. But I had lost my orientation, and so when I pushed against the wind, I was actually going with the wind. So I doubled down on the problem. And then the drone went over the house and I couldn't see it. And then I freaked out, and I just killed the rotors.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  And the drone fell out of the sky and crashed into the road. I heard that, I couldn't see it. So I made a lot of mistakes in a very short period of time. All that took, you know, a couple seconds. So then I ran around the house, and this woman was in the road, just looking back like she had seen a UFO fall out of the sky. And the drone was shattered in pieces on the road. She was on her bike with a kid in the back in a bike seat, and they were just sort of staring at the drone. And then they were looking at me, and I was trying to apologize, and I was just sort of like collecting the drone and apologizing. And they were staring at me like I was an alien who'd come out of the UFO, and then they just biked away. Like, she didn't want to touch, she didn't want to hear an apology from me. She didn't want anything to do with me.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  The whole situation was incomprehensible. And I was terrified, because I realized, you know, she was like 10, 15 feet in front of the drone. I don't know where she was when it came down, but obviously it could have hit her, and then the bike could have fallen, and then there was a kid on the bike. Then I realized that my son was also outside, and I had left him, and so I had to run and go find him, because he'd been alone for some time. But that was, that was the experience.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  This is our future. This is, this is the future that we live in.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Hello, and welcome to the pilot episode of What's Tech. I am your host, Christopher Thomas Plant, Senior Editor at TheVerge.com. It's a website about technology and culture. And today, drones. I am joined by my colleague, my friend, my fellow Hearthstone player, Business Editor, Ben Popper. How are you doing today?

• 44:08Speaker 04

  Well met, sir.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Well, for those who don't know, which is, I assume, the entire audience. Since this is the pilot episode, What's Tech is a show that answers that question. What is tech? Literally, in the case of what makes anything tech. At this point, it seems like everything's tech. But also, what specifically works about the technology we have? What is a drone? And that's kind of the big question of today's episode. What is a drone? And is it going to kill the women and children of my neighborhood? So, let's start from the top. I want to know, what is a drone?

• 44:45Speaker 04

  Okay, I have an answer. It's extremely long. This will be edited down into something pithy.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  So, a drone is, can be many different things, right? I mean, like, the word is very old, and it used to mean, like, an insect. Like, if Shakespeare was writing about a drone, he meant, like, a little bug, a gnat, a bee.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Swatch drone!

• 45:05Speaker 04

  Right. And, obviously, a drone can be, like, a sound, like, "Stop droning on," or, like, a whole genre of music that I detest, right? Drone music. It just goes on and on and on. But then, in the 20th century, a drone was something that flew, but without a person inside of it. So, during, like, World War I and World War II, there were, like, these, you know, sort of self-guided, like, rockets that they would throw or shoot. And then, they had, like, a little propeller, and they would fly. Like, a prototype of a missile or something.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Terrifying paper airplanes that could explode.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, a paper airplane full of mustard gas was a drone. And then, more recently, you know, they were these military aircraft flying, or fighting in the war on terror. That's how we came to recognize them. The Predator drone. Although, in that case, really, somebody, again, is, like, flying it the whole time. They're just not sitting on it like a helicopter or an airplane. And then...

• 46:05Speaker 04

  What happened was all of these smarts that were inside of a smartphone went inside of model aircraft and remote-controlled helicopters, and they got really cool. It was much easier to fly. They could do all these things by themselves, and we started calling model aircraft, RC helicopters, drones. And now, that word is really established. Like, you go to CES, there's a whole, you know, section of things calling themselves drones. You watch Congress debating the safety of unmanned aerial systems, like, the congresspeople are calling them drones. People get them for Christmas, they ask for a drone.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  That's strange to me, because it seems like there are kind of three types of drones, then. There's the military drone, there's the commercial drone, and there's a consumer drone.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  But they can be wildly different things. Like, when I picture a military drone, I picture something that looks similar to a small plane. When I picture the drone that you would get for Christmas, it's like a helicopter.

• 47:08Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  So they're very different things, essentially.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you know, you could say, like, a car and a, you know, toy car and a remote-controlled car are all a car, but they, you know, have different functions and different capabilities. I mean, I think the important thing to understand about a drone when we talk about it now, like, the idea we're trying to convey is it's something that flies without a person in it, and it has intelligence.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Sure. Am I wrong to think there's something kind of dangerous about the semantics of this? Because you mentioned an RC car versus a real car, right? And if all those things were just called car, and we were having these large conversations about it, it could get a bit messy. I mean, when I thought of drones, probably, you know, five years ago, I thought of something that killed people, and sometimes innocent people, and it was a very controversial thing. Should we have drones flying over Afghanistan?

• 48:05Speaker 04

  I don't think that the commercial drone industry was like the nefarious creation of the military drone industry. You know, it's not like they were like- Let's make a toy version and then people will come to love drones and like we'll sell them on Christmas and like it'll soften the image of the war on terror. You know, I think they developed just sort of in parallel because of certain technologies, you know. But it is definitely true that if you were to say drone to somebody in the US now, they're equally as likely to think of the toy as the killing machine. I think that's true and maybe, you know, that does muddy the discussion of, you know, how we use drones in the war on terror. I would agree with that.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Let's talk policy, talking about things that are exciting. What is it? Because I remember when there was all the controversy around war drones, the question was, you know, like, is this legal? Does this count as an act of war? What makes this different than someone in a vehicle killing someone?

• 49:05Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  But then we have commercial and consumer policy, which from my understanding is next to nonexistent on consumer.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, I mean, I think you're coming up against the central issue, which is there isn't a person on board. So if there's a person in a helicopter and airplane, we know, hey, that person is responsible at all times. They're in control of this machine, similar to driverless cars. We know that they work, but we don't want them because who's responsible when the driverless car, you know, hits somebody? And so with the war on terror, what was the central question we were asking? Does it make it easier to go kill people overseas if we don't have to put any of our people in danger? And is it, you know, what are the ethics of war by remote control? And so now what we have is the opportunity to create an entire

• 49:54Speaker 04

  new aviation industry, to do things commercially, which are exciting, to do things on the consumer side, which are exciting. But we have to confront the same question of if nobody, if you can fly the drone out of your own sight easily, which you can do with these toys, they can go a mile away, and it's still in the air, it's still moving very fast, it's still making decisions, you know, who's responsible? How do we do that safely? How do we integrate that safely into the airspace? I mean, the real problem is that the FAA is the agency that should be regulating this, but they don't have the money or the size to create an entire new class of aircraft and monitor that. And so they were supposed to

• 50:38Speaker 04

  They're supposed to give us new rules this year. They're mandated by Congress, 2015. This is the deadline. Give us new rules. And they're just sort of still sitting on their thumbs.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it seems also like a much more difficult thing to enforce, right? Like, when a plane or a helicopter takes off, you know. Like, there's a place where people go to take off their plane or take off their helicopter. If drones are going to be in everyone's backyard, who's left to enforce that? The police? And then are the police working with the FAA? Like, it seems, like you said, it seems messy.

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I think some of the beginning solutions, we can sort of take lessons from what we did with commercial airliners. Like, if you had said at the beginning of the 20th century, "Oh, we'll have 10,000 flights crisscrossing the nation every day," people would say, "Well, those planes will crash into each other. How would they ever avoid that and know what to do?" And we learned how to do it, and we do it all the time. So if every drone that was sold came with a transponder, and, you know, when it launched, that sent out a clear message to everyone in the area, "Hey, I'm in the air. This is where I am. I know where you are." That's the kind of thing that you could draw on the knowledge of the FAA. But the genie's already out of the box, right? Like, we're selling tens of thousands of drones every month, and they don't have that

• 52:00Speaker 04

  technology. There is no standard. There are no rules about, you know, needing to be part of this system and communicate with other folks. And that means that the FAA can't really approve, can't really get going the big projects we want, like package delivery by Amazon and Google. And, you know, the contention there is that if we don't do it this year, if we don't do it soon, they're just going to go overseas. Other countries are going to beat us to it, and the US is not going to be the leader in drones the way we were the leader in the internet. Even though we came up with a lot of this technology, and we were pioneers, like, the regulatory framework here is much more restrictive than it is in Europe or Canada, for example.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's what I want to ask you as someone who I think is an expert on the topic. Do you think the regulation that is likely to be put in place will do bad? Will it do good? Will it do harm? What does it look like? Or is there literally just no idea of what this is going to be? Yeah.

• 52:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'm not in the, you know, just like with any agency in the government, it's tough to predict what they'll do, it's tough to predict on what timeframe and what all the interests are.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  God, it's just so hard. I just don't know. I think that the FAA wants to bring sensible regulations to the table that allow people to safely fly as hobbyists, just the way they're doing now, and begin to test out on the consumer. So we have like 11, I think, or we have a number of test sites around the country, and a number of companies have been given permission and they're already doing test flights. Just recently, a bunch of news organizations like CNN and the New York Times were given special license to go fly drones. So, right there, let's just stop, like, many, many news organizations flew drones this year at CES. Perhaps The Verge did, I don't remember. That was all technically illegal, but of course it happened, and it's not like the

• 53:56Speaker 04

  FAA is unaware of this. So everything is happening in this gray area right now. Again, I would say like Hollywood and TV studios are already using these drones out in the field without permission all the time. So it's not like we're not doing commerce with it all the time already.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  When you say that, you mean to get like high shots, like getting cityscape shots, getting things that used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to rent a helicopter to get.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Right, or a crane.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  And could be dangerous if you have somebody hanging off the side of a helicopter with a camera.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 04

  Now, you can do it with a drone, it's a huge advantage. You can repeat that shot 50 times instead of having the budget to do it once.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  And there's applications in firefighting, in search and rescue, in farming. We know, could be really great.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  So you already mentioned CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. It happens in Las Vegas every year, right after Christmas, a perfect time to schedule something.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Be away from your family for a week.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Oh, God. But there were a ton of drones there, and I'm curious, based off what you saw, what does, I mean, what do drones look like, especially for the consumer in, you know, five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now?

• 55:05Speaker 04

  So I had some really interesting conversations with people there. Right now, the consumer drone looks like a small, one to three-pound quadcopter that flies for 10 to 15 minutes, that you control with a RC remote controller that looks like a joystick. In the future, the perfect consumer drone will be small enough to fit in your pocket. It will have battery that will last way more than 15 minutes. And you won't need to be a pilot. You'll take it out of your pocket and hit a button on your phone and it will go up and take a 360 degree selfie of you and your friends, or follow you down a ski slope and then land and go back in your pocket. It'll be like a smartphone or a GoPro camera.

• 55:48Speaker 04

  That's like where the industry would love to be. The battery is the big holdup. The battery doesn't improve the way chips and sensors do on Moore's Law. It doesn't always get smaller and more powerful every year. So, flight takes a ton of battery. Like, a drone is much bigger than a smartphone, but the battery lasts way, a much shorter amount of time because it has to fly around. And so, I actually had a really interesting discussion, like, maybe the perfect form factor for a drone is just a cover that goes on your smartphone with like four rotors? And then you want to like take a picture and you just hit a button and your phone like takes off and does it and then like lands and then like you're done.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  You would have to trust that like it won't break your phone, which seems like a lot of, putting a lot of faith in like a-

• 56:36Speaker 01

  But people are already using selfie sticks. It's like people are already walking around with four foot long steel poles that can drop at any moment from a height.

• 56:44Speaker 04

  Right. You know, there's all kinds of really exciting applications, but for the consumer, what is a drone? It's a flying camera that can do things at your command. Right now, like the, the command prompt for the drone is the joystick. And that means you have to be the pilot. And that kind of sucks because you'd rather just be the star of the film and the drone should do everything for you. So that's where people want to go.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. And a little weird, imagining walking around Disneyland with like the, like slight buzz of thousands of drones following everyone.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. As disconcerting as it is to see like all these people on the Brooklyn Bridge with a selfie stick, you will, you will be like, oh, you just have a drone over your shoulder.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  No big deal.

• 57:27Speaker 04

  No big deal. You're a tourist.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  So, one other thing I want to talk about. In the recent Call of Duty, now it's recent S, Black Ops 2. It featured a drone takeover of Los Angeles. On a scale of unlikely to all of us being killed by drones taking over Los Angeles by like just some random dude who's like, "Hey, you know what? I know how to hack all these drones." Because apparently that's how it's gonna work. What are the odds?

• 58:01Speaker 04

  Well, if we lived in a world where they were all connected to some central command because they had to communicate with the FAA, maybe you could deploy a virus that would take over all of them. But in today's world, it's impossible. They're just autonomous toys hanging out in your backyard doing dangerous things. Although, I guess if you thought about like what you could do with a dozen drones, you could do some really dangerous stuff. I mean, people just post videos all the time on YouTube. "Hey, I flew my drone and landed on top of Cowboy Stadium." And it's like, okay, well, I didn't know you could just get up there,

• 58:45Speaker 04

  but what if you planted a bomb? So drones let us go places we could not previously access very easily. On the like scale of one to master hacker, take over the universe, I'm gonna say the chances are pretty slim. But I don't want to rule anything out.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  So you're saying it's more of a black hat than like a hack the planet?

• 59:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like, I could see people, you know, using, well, for example, I know people have used drones to like deliver drugs to other people in jail.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  What?

• 59:14Speaker 04

  Like, get over the fence and like drop off some like contraband. Like, that shit happens.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Drop off like a key? That's what I want if I'm in jail. Give me a key out of here. That's apparently how jails work. There's just one.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  There's one key.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  It's like a house key.

• 59:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  And it's got like an advertisement for like your fitness club on it.

• 59:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you can use them to do nefarious things, but you won't be using them to take over cities anytime soon.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Well, and on that note, you can possibly take out someone that lives close to you, but likely not all of the western side of Los Angeles.

• 59:47Speaker 04

  You should be more worried about people spying on you, taking you out.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Oh, cool. Don't worry, I am now. Thank you for joining me, Ben. This has been the first episode of What's Tech. If you enjoyed it, do me a solid and go to the iTunes, I guess, podcast spot. There's a thing that you can do there. You can rate podcasts. And you know, maybe you should give us five out of five stars. Why not?

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  Five out of five.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Some nice words. It goes a long way to getting word out about the show. And then we can make more episodes, hopefully more than just this episode you're listening to right now. Until next time, I am Chris Plant. I am joined by...

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  Ben Popper.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  We'll see you later. Bye.

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  And we're back.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Oh, and I made it back to my seat.

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Made it on time.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  That was really impressive.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  It's a good show.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  Do you want to tell us when we can get more of them?

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Sure. You can get these every Tuesday. We're still, I mean, it's still new, so we're figuring out how the whole getting these uploaded, not every single different podcast network. Yeah, so Tuesdays, we'll have new episodes, and I'm looking forward to the one that will air next Tuesday.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, and there's another one. That's the other thing.

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  You just listened to the drone episode. There's one about smart watches with Dan and involves one of our coworkers getting kicked out of Applebee's. And I assure you, you want to hear that one. And that is on iTunes right now.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  So yeah, if you subscribe, you'll get that right away.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  Subscribe in iTunes. It helps if you do it there. Even if you don't use iTunes, just open it up, subscribe, and then close it again. That's what I do.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really does help.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. You know what also helps is if you subscribe to the version iTunes and if you leave us a review. If you could go and leave us a five-star review.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'd be nice.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Those are the stars that we like. And tell us your favorite Radio Shack memory. That's a good, that's a good sad thing.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  I see some really depressing stories.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  No, they'll be good stories. It's just going to be depressing reading them.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. How's it feel at the table?

• 1:01:46Speaker 03

  I like it over there.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  You can find it. We've got a convenient iTunes URL too. It's iTunes.com/vergecast.

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  That is a great URL.

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  Do other social things, Sam.

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  That's your job.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  So you know where to find us, but if you don't, I'll tell you. We are at verge on Twitter. You should also hit us up on Snapchat. We are the real verge there. So yeah, there's Twitter, there's Snapchat, Instagram, or Instagram.com/verge. We are also on Twitter. Personally, I am at Sam Scheffer. This is at Backlon and that's at Plant.

• 1:02:20Speaker 00

  And Ross Miller is at Onorosco.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  And Ross Miller is, yes, is at Onorosco. And we're also on YouTube. We make YouTube videos, which you've probably seen. We did a few cool videos this week. The Dead Mass video went up. Binaural audio went up. So we are YouTube.com/verge.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Gosh, watch.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  Binaural audio with headphones.

• 1:02:38Speaker 03

  I would love to plug that right now because that is, I say this with every video we make. It's like, that's the best one. But this, seriously, if you watch this with headphones, you will be stunned at how cool this video is.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  And I think that's all I've got from the social corner here.

• 1:02:54Speaker 00

  We're coming back next week and the week after. And maybe the week after that, if you're good.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Keep appearing.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  But only if you're good.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Only.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  Thanks for watching.

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  That's our show.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Goodbye.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Bye.