transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for. A first birthday party, a movie marathon, a reggie-friendly bathroom reno. And then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu-ray player calling it quits, stick-on tiles that looked way better on the package. For all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last-minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.

Speaker 2:
[00:38] Right now at the Home Depot, shop Spring Black Friday Savings and get up to 40% off plus up to $500 off select appliances from top brands like Samsung. Get a fridge with zero clearance hinges so the doors open fully even in tighter spaces in your kitchen. And laundry that saves you time, like an all-in-one washer dryer that can run a full load in just 68 minutes. Shop Spring Black Friday Savings plus get free delivery on appliance purchases of $998 or more at the Home Depot. Offer about April 9th or April 29th, US only C-Store Online for details.

Speaker 3:
[01:08] You know a good way to tell the difference between between what? Black Bear and a Grizzly Bear?

Speaker 4:
[01:12] If it's alive after 200 cups of coffee.

Speaker 5:
[01:22] Yo, what is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marques.

Speaker 3:
[01:27] I'm Andrew.

Speaker 5:
[01:28] I'm David. Today feels like a little bit of a, I'm not going to say throwback episode, but like a callback episode because we got a whole bunch of stuff that might sound like it was from months slash years ago, but it's all new. For real, for real. Update. We're going to talk about Samsung foldables, Google fixing something that should have been fixed 10 years ago, GoPro launching some new cameras, Samsung price hikes and a bunch of updates from existing previous stories that we've seen and talked about in the past. Also, I'm going to try to explain something that just happened last weekend in tech terms. It's in the sports world though. So it'll be a challenge. But first.

Speaker 3:
[02:01] Well, so we actually have something before, did we even test this? Which is, if last week, you noticed our audio-only episode had four and a half minutes of ads before the episode started playing, with like 10 to 15 second giant pauses in between them, that was our fault. If you want to know, we only run two 30 second pre-roll ads before the show starts, because we have two ad locations for pre-rolls. And last week, when we were cutting the ads out of the episode, accidentally named the full clip of all of the ads together after one of the sponsors, therefore uploading it to the one 30 second ad location, then giving four plus ads in that spot. So that's an oopsie.

Speaker 6:
[02:46] I wonder who did that.

Speaker 3:
[02:49] Sorry.

Speaker 5:
[02:49] I got a few messages from people saying, what the heck is going on? What did you guys do? Why do you have all these ads?

Speaker 3:
[02:55] Got one from someone and every time it's the first person who says it, I go, something must have been wrong with Spotify. And then the second one comes in and I go, I need to investigate.

Speaker 6:
[03:04] My favorite comment was someone commented on Spotify and said, bro is giving us time to reflect after this chat. I was cracking up, that was so good.

Speaker 3:
[03:14] Our badge should be fixed by now. Couple of companies got some free promotion, I guess, just in the midst of total confusion.

Speaker 5:
[03:22] Yeah, happens.

Speaker 3:
[03:23] But yeah, we're good.

Speaker 5:
[03:24] It happens.

Speaker 3:
[03:25] And David, you do have a, did they even?

Speaker 5:
[03:27] I do actually have a couple. I'm just gonna do one today because we're gonna save the best for not this week. This one's funny. So as we know, there are many Chinese phone brands, right? And some of them eventually bring some of their phones to the Western world, to global markets, you might say. One of these phones is the Xiaomi Leica phone that you just reviewed, I believe.

Speaker 4:
[03:50] Wait, it's not a phone? You just said it's Leica phone, but it's not a phone?

Speaker 5:
[03:54] Oh, it's like a Leica phone. Damn. Anyway, so the Xiaomi Leica phone, there are two models. There's a Chinese model, which I believe is the one Marques reviewed. Yeah. There's also a global model. I was hanging out with my friend Michael Fisher, a friend of the show. He is also putting out a video about this that should be out by the time the pod goes live, and I think he said he's going to mention this. But I just found it so freaking funny when he showed it to me. So clearly when they're making the global software, they don't generally care as much about the global market version of the phone because they sell the most of them in China. So they made the weather app. But I guess during making the weather app, they forgot to change the coding of the feels like to be able to reflect Fahrenheit. So on the screen of the phone, you'll have the weather widget, and it says like 82 Fahrenheit, but it says feels like 28 degrees.

Speaker 3:
[04:53] So you can change the weather to be Celsius or Fahrenheit, but then the feels like is unable to be changed.

Speaker 5:
[04:59] So here's a couple of screenshots. You can select the temperature units, select Fahrenheit, but the weather widget will always show the feels like in Celsius. They absolutely did not test this. They did not test this.

Speaker 4:
[05:09] Definitely did test this.

Speaker 5:
[05:11] Because we use freedom units, and you wouldn't use freedom units in honestly most of the world. So there's very little reason to test this.

Speaker 3:
[05:19] And the hotter it gets, the more...

Speaker 5:
[05:22] The bigger discrepancy.

Speaker 3:
[05:22] The bigger discrepancy between those two.

Speaker 5:
[05:24] If it's really cold, then it's very small. And the feels like might be fairly accurate.

Speaker 3:
[05:29] And something that's reasonable also.

Speaker 5:
[05:30] Yeah, reasonable. It'll say 34 feels like four or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[05:34] And you'll be like, oh, that's windchill.

Speaker 5:
[05:36] That seems about right. It's cold, but that's... This week we had a heat wave and it was 82 Fahrenheit and it says feels like 28. If that was crazy, that would be crazy. That's a 60 degree difference. Michael said that there are many, many things in this phone in the global version that basically this happened to. It's not just the Celsius Fahrenheit thing. There are a bunch of things where it's like they clearly did not translate this over to the global version. So yeah. This happens a lot. We review a lot of phones like this where you're like, well, this isn't made for this market, but I'm going to test it anyway and review it. And you just kind of start ignoring those things, even though there's a lot of them out the box. You try to change as many of them as you can. That's hilarious. They need to get testers for global markets to actually find all these bucks before they ship them. All right. I have a little segment that I wanted to do with you, Marques, because last week I saw that you were using the iPhone Air again. And I said, why are you doing that? You said, because it's black. Well, it's the only black iPhone they make. I have now acquired an iPhone Air. Yeah. But that's not a black phone. It's baby blue. Barely. Barely blue.

Speaker 6:
[06:46] Is that Brandon's? It looks...

Speaker 5:
[06:47] No, it's not Brandon's. It's Michael Fisher's. I stole it from him. And I just wanted us to do a little recap thing on it because the review went out fairly soon after the embargo and now it's been a while and I've been using it for a few days. So I just wanted to talk about some feelings. Sure. Well, I can give you my timeline and how it's gone. I reviewed all the phones at the beginning and when I was done reviewing all the iPhones, I stuck to the 17 Pro as my main iPhone for a while. And that's usually how it goes. I usually have the Pro. I use the cameras a lot. That's the whole point of me carrying an iPhone, is the things that the iPhone does well. And so I've just been carrying that phone for a bit, but it's orange. And I swear to God, that started getting on my nerves faster and faster. I knew it would. And eventually, yeah, I just started testing this other phone that we're actually, I can talk about now, it's the Oppo Find X9 Ultra. And the video on it is coming later. But it's got these incredible cameras and this incredible battery life. So what better time to see if I could use the iPhone with the worst cameras and the worst battery life? Yeah. So I flipped to the black iPhone Air. And it's been, I think, maybe two weeks now since I switched to it. A couple of things have happened. One, I've gotten really used to the thin and lightness of it. It's not just the thinness, it's the lightness that really gets you. You put it in your pocket, you forget that there's something in your pocket. That never happens with other phones. So that happened quite a few times. The other thing is, I just stopped trying to use Zoom, like Ultrawide and Zoom stuff, which I default do on the Pro iPhone all the time. It bummed me out, but I just stopped using Zoom, obviously, because there's no ability to zoom out or zoom in with any sort of quality. But I'm using this other incredible camera phone with this huge battery and these amazing cameras, and I'm taking all my pictures and videos on that one. So it's been fine so far, but we'll see how long that lasts. Yeah, my first few days, I was going to drop it a thousand times because of how thin it is. It's almost hard to grip because of how thin it is. Interesting. It's also hard to get out of my pocket. I have to put it in my pocket like this so that I can grab the camera bar and pull it out. You know, maybe I'm doing that weirdly, but that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 6:
[09:00] Wait, you don't put the phone in your pocket camera face down?

Speaker 3:
[09:04] Well, you know, he has to change his habit so he can have a lip to pick.

Speaker 6:
[09:08] Well, that's why I'm asking, did you change it specifically for this?

Speaker 5:
[09:10] No, I did not. I just kept putting my hand in my pocket and being like, oh, it's face up.

Speaker 3:
[09:14] Oh, so you always have put your phone in your pocket right side up?

Speaker 5:
[09:19] Not usually, but for some reason, apparently this phone has made me start doing that. That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. I've never heard that before. I don't do it on purpose. It's very weird. Other thing, I'm plugging it in a lot more, but it hasn't really been bugging me that I'm plugging it in a lot more. Oh yeah, the battery's so bad. It's pretty bad. Like I'm used to a good battery, and this one, I mean, I'm at 80%. I haven't really done much of anything. I navigated here in the morning, and that was the only thing I've done on it. But you probably didn't, did you use your phone to navigate here? Yeah. Oh, so it's been on Waze and then on, and usually I'd get here at like 93 or 94% or whatever. 80. Yeah. I'm at 74. I've done almost nothing with it.

Speaker 6:
[09:56] The other day I asked everyone in the office that uses an Air, aka Marques, Brandon and Rich.

Speaker 5:
[10:02] What's your battery?

Speaker 6:
[10:02] Yeah, what's your battery? And Marques was like, oh, I think I'm at like 70 something. Rich was like, oh, I just took it off the charger, so I'm pretty much topped off. And Brandon's just staring at me from across the room. And it's like 1 p.m. and he's like, I'm at like 38.

Speaker 5:
[10:14] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[10:14] Oh, thanks.

Speaker 5:
[10:15] Yeah, and that's about how it feels. I was at the gym the other day at 1 p.m. I was at like 12%. Yeah, and so if you're using multiple apps, like I was using a couple of music apps, podcast apps, the fitness app, it can drain pretty damn quick. I have gotten used to the thinness of it now and I'm not dropping it. The main problems I'm finding, one, when I'm traveling, I use the 4x telephoto lens a lot because I shoot in like Howlite or the Moment Camera Pro app and not having that sucks. Yeah. And I know that most people said that they didn't want to buy this because it didn't have the ultrawide. I never really use the ultrawide, so that's not really a problem for me. But the 4x lens, trash. And then the second thing is that I use this very specific app called Viewfinder Preview that helps me shoot ultrawide panoramas on my film cameras. And that uses the ultrawide camera, so I literally cannot main this if I'm going out to take pictures with my 3D printed camera. Yep. So, yeah. Yeah, kind of a problem. I have a question for you then. We all expect the next iPhone Air to have a second camera lens. Which one do you hope it is? Telephoto, but it won't be. You think it'll be the ultrawide?

Speaker 3:
[11:28] It's definitely the ultrawide.

Speaker 5:
[11:29] It's probably the ultrawide. I'm pretty sure most people said that their main problem was it didn't have an ultrawide. Which I don't understand, because that camera sucks anyway. It's always sucked. It looks terrible. Remember when Apple always goes, Oh, but yeah, you technically have a 2X lens built in with this optical zoom.

Speaker 3:
[11:44] You've got 17 onzes.

Speaker 5:
[11:45] Very far, yeah, 17 lenses in your camera. Yeah, they love saying that, but it really doesn't translate that well. Well, we just saw the Huawei wide foldable that's gonna be released, right? And that has three lenses on it. So they can do that in an ultra thin body. Like, come on, Apple, please.

Speaker 6:
[12:01] Well, I just want to say a few weeks ago, we did a community post on YouTube talking about which secondary lens is everyone's favorite. 19% of people said the selfie, 31% of people said the ultra wide, and 50% of people said telephoto.

Speaker 5:
[12:15] Oh, this is interesting. All right, Apple, you're listening. This is data. You got to use the data to build your phone.

Speaker 6:
[12:21] Okay, wait, before we move on, question for both of you, now that you've been using the iPhone Air for a bit. Is it worth it? Are the trade offs worth it? Because the lightness is awesome, the size is awesome. Brandon loves it, even though the battery life is trash.

Speaker 5:
[12:33] Over the Pro or over the standard one? Yeah, that's the thing, I would not normally switch from the Pro to this phone. It is clearly not a better phone. No. It is a bigger screen. It's a totally fine phone. I have a Pro Max, so. Oh, okay, so I came from the Pro, so it's a bigger screen for me, slightly smaller for you. It's just that I've, it just came from the 17 Pro, so that's why I'm noticing all the downfalls of it. But if you're coming from any other random older phone and you're thinking about buying an Air, it's fine, it's gonna be a totally fine phone. Only one camera, fine. The battery life's kind of, cheeks, fine, whatever. You can do with that. But it would be so good with two or three cameras and a silicon-carbon battery. That would be a great phone. But it doesn't have that yet, so we're waiting for Air 2.

Speaker 4:
[13:17] Can I drop a crazy iPhone camera opinion that I discovered this weekend? Can I feel I need to let the world know? David, I just sent you two pictures via iMessage that I took on my iPhone. I've discovered, I forgot about Blip, I just discovered the sauce, okay? It's the Moment Cam. First, David, tell me that these photos...

Speaker 5:
[13:35] Did you bring this up last week?

Speaker 4:
[13:36] No, no, I've dialed it in even further with a crazy take. Moment Pro camera, you lock the ISO at 640 instead of 800, so you still get the flatness, but it's slightly less noisy. You put it in natural processing mode, so it's like almost a single exposure. And then you only use the telephoto lens. Wow. And it's beautiful. It looks amazing. Show Marques.

Speaker 3:
[13:59] Is that you playing disc golf?

Speaker 4:
[14:00] Yeah, it's me playing disc golf.

Speaker 3:
[14:01] Hell yeah. You play disc golf? I can tell because he has the pencil in his hat. He has a hat designed to have a pencil in his hat.

Speaker 5:
[14:06] I can tell because it's a guy in the woods. That's all you do in the woods, play disc golf. It just looks like the woods.

Speaker 4:
[14:13] I'm now telephoto superiority gang.

Speaker 5:
[14:16] Yeah, let's go. So you're hoping for a telephoto on the next Air.

Speaker 4:
[14:18] I think the telephoto is the only camera you need on an iPhone.

Speaker 5:
[14:21] Well, that's a crazy take. That is the hottest take yet. The only camera you need.

Speaker 4:
[14:26] Yeah, all of those are with the telephoto. I just run really far away to take a picture and run back to my friends.

Speaker 5:
[14:31] What if you can't move further away?

Speaker 3:
[14:32] I was at that really nice restaurant and just like scoots back, walks over three tables, snaps a picture of his food.

Speaker 4:
[14:38] You're laughing, but I did that.

Speaker 3:
[14:39] Yeah, you could.

Speaker 4:
[14:40] I literally did that.

Speaker 5:
[14:40] I mean, you get the portrait. When you go to take a portrait mode photo, it automatically on a lot of phones switches to the telephoto.

Speaker 6:
[14:47] If you need wide, you have a selfie camera. Just turn it around.

Speaker 5:
[14:50] Honestly, fair take, fair take. It's a technically true statement, but they suck. It's the worst. The thing is, the primary camera is always the biggest sensor. They get the most light and takes the best photos, has the fastest shutter speed, et cetera, et cetera. Telephoto cameras are getting better, so you can take better telephotos, but they're never as good as the primary. No, yeah, it's very hard. Electronauts and Artemis.

Speaker 3:
[15:13] I was gonna say, the most popular iPhone picture in the world, arguably, is with the selfie.

Speaker 5:
[15:17] I'm not arguing that. It's the most popular picture, but it is definitively not the highest quality picture. Yeah. That's facts. Yeah, facts. So, you know.

Speaker 3:
[15:24] That's the Hasselblad X1D.

Speaker 4:
[15:26] Jesus.

Speaker 5:
[15:27] Yeah, when I was in Colorado last week, I was shooting RAW a lot on the phone.

Speaker 4:
[15:30] Sorry, that was the...

Speaker 3:
[15:31] That was your phone.

Speaker 4:
[15:32] I actually blipped into myself instead of it.

Speaker 5:
[15:35] Oh my God. It's actually crazy how good the main... Oh my God.

Speaker 4:
[15:41] I'm leaving that in the podcast, too. I'm not deleting it.

Speaker 5:
[15:45] It's actually crazy how good the main sensor is now if you shoot in RAW. They're so flexible. I don't really feel like I need to carry around a digital camera anymore, almost at all. That's where I'm at with this... Well, I can't say too much, but with this Oppo phone. The whole point of me testing it is to be like, all right, it's got these crazy specs. Can it just be as good as a regular camera? And that's what a lot of people think about with phones with crazy cameras like this. I mean, we talked a little bit off the show about how all of the Chinese manufacturers now... It used to be like they would make a car version of their phone. It was like, oh, this company had Ferrari. This company had Porsche, Lamborghini, McLaren, Porsche, or whatever. And now they're all doing lens manufacturers and camera manufacturers. They're like Zeiss and Leica and Hasselblad. Yeah, which is funny because I don't think that most people know who these companies are.

Speaker 3:
[16:37] Yeah, agreed. Those companies might just need the extra money from licensing the most.

Speaker 6:
[16:41] They should just go back to animation.

Speaker 5:
[16:43] They could do a Canon collab or something. That would be kind of crazy with Canon Color Science. I think that's a better idea than doing like Zeiss, to be honest. Like Zeiss would pull the photographer crowd, but if you want mainstream people, regular people know what Canon is. Yeah, it's not like cars where everyone knows that a Ferrari is good, but not everybody can like experience a Ferrari. So they're like, oh, Ferrari, it must be a good collab. But with Zeiss, people don't know that Zeiss is the Ferrari of lenses. So they just kind of go, I don't know what that is. But if they see a Canon or Sony...

Speaker 6:
[17:17] Does Canon make sensors?

Speaker 5:
[17:18] They don't make the sensor, no.

Speaker 6:
[17:20] Because maybe that's the thing, because everyone uses the Sony sensors, they're not allowed to...

Speaker 5:
[17:23] Yeah, but Hasselblad doesn't make sensors either. You know what's funny? Sony made phones, and they still stamped Zeiss on the back of their phones. So like, I don't know, they make the sensors for everyone, but they still need that clout, that name. It's weird. Anyway. Anyway, yeah, I think I'm probably gonna go back to the Pro at some point. The main problem is that the Pro feels like 4X bigger than it did before now. Thicker. Yeah, it feels so thick now, and I'm like, damn.

Speaker 6:
[17:48] I was using the S25 Edge for a bit, and then I switched to the S26 Ultra, and this thing feels massive. I missed the edge.

Speaker 5:
[17:54] Yeah. The Ultra even is thinner than previous Ultras, so I'd pick up that Ultra and think it's thin, but when you come from a thinner phone, it just, it changes your world. Ruins it for you. I never should have tried in the first place. Speaking of Samsung, since Adam just said Samsung. True. We now have an alleged date for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide event. If you don't know what the Wide is, it's basically Samsung trying to get to the Wide boy before Apple does. Remember how that happened with the thin phone? This is exactly what happened with the S25 Edge. Yeah. There were rumors for an entire year and a half of an upcoming iPhone Air, and so months earlier, Samsung went, hey, check it out, we made an Ultra thin phone first. We were first. We did it first. They actually didn't ship it for a little while after that, but they did announce it first and they did ship it first. And now that there's rumors of this wide folding iPhone, guess what Samsung is about to do?

Speaker 3:
[18:47] Be second.

Speaker 5:
[18:47] The exact same thing. Actually, there's a couple of other wide folders. We actually used to have a bunch of these. We had like Oppo.

Speaker 3:
[18:53] It's also just...

Speaker 5:
[18:54] The Pixel Fold.

Speaker 3:
[18:54] Yeah, I was going to say, this is like Pete Google of like, we had the thing everyone liked and then we're like, no, no, no, no, go change with everyone else. Okay, cool. We're on the same page.

Speaker 5:
[19:02] And then everyone loses what they had. Yeah. Too ahead of their time. Google is always ahead of their time. Glasses. Anyway, so according to a South Korean publication, the next Galaxy Unpacked will be July 22nd in London, where they will unveil the Z Fold 8 wide. And hopefully, it does not get canceled within three months, like the, you know, the ultra long one, the trifold.

Speaker 3:
[19:23] Did you see, though, that weirdly, apparently, you can, you can buy trifolds in the US for a limited time till it like wipes out stock. They're like reintroducing a bunch of ones that weren't for sale yet.

Speaker 5:
[19:35] Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:
[19:35] I think it like comes out the day this episode airs. You can buy some or something. I don't know. I saw a Verge article like, if you really want the trifolds, here's like the last of the stock that's coming to the US.

Speaker 5:
[19:44] They're just re-releasing the stock.

Speaker 3:
[19:46] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[19:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[19:47] Which is funny that they canceled it and then you could buy it again. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[19:51] This event will also probably release the standard fold eight, which will probably be the super thin one, just like we saw with the fold seven. And then we've also been hearing rumors of an S27 Pro. This is hilarious. This is supposed to sit between the standard S27 and the S27 Ultra, which is probably coming later.

Speaker 3:
[20:08] Is that not just the Plus?

Speaker 5:
[20:10] But they've oscillated. So the Plus, they've like kind of down tuned a little. And the Ultra has, I think it's a high resolution display. It's a little bigger, bigger battery, or no, it might be the same battery, extra camera for the Ultra, and just a couple of other smaller things. So the S Pen, which kind of made its way into the Ultra when they killed the Note, is not necessarily used by everyone who wants an Ultra. So maybe if you could spend a little less on getting all the same stuff but not the Pen, it would make sense. And this is classic Samsung, which is like, we're gonna offer every phone that possibly could exist. So, it's funny, the first thing I thought of when I saw this is this is the Cadillac Vistique of smartphones.

Speaker 3:
[20:51] We all agree.

Speaker 5:
[20:52] You know why?

Speaker 6:
[20:53] I said it better myself.

Speaker 5:
[20:54] Because Cadillac made the Lyric, which is like the S25 and S25 Plus. They also made the Escalade, which is, the Escalade IQ is this enormous 200 kilowatt hour battery, 9,000 pound truck. But they also made the Vistique, which is the same size as the Escalade, but only a regular sized battery. So you still get the 300 SUV, but you don't have to carry around 3000 extra pounds of battery and spend the extra, however many thousand dollars it costs. So you still get, that's exactly what this is. Why didn't they call it just a different trim? Because the Escalade is the big boy and it has a massive battery and it's all about the massive, you know, range and all that fun stuff. So the floor for that car needs to be high. Yes. But like, what if you don't need that extra range and all that extra weight and don't want to spend the extra 30 grand? You make a new model. That's where the Vistique is. That's exactly what this phone is. S27 Pro, it's gonna be the same size as the Ultra. I just don't need to carry around that extra S Pen and spend the extra money on it. It's such a good analogy. You guys aren't expecting this great analogy in this moment.

Speaker 3:
[21:54] We're confused by the Pro in this lineup.

Speaker 5:
[21:56] No, it's just Samsung has a phone at every price and every possible buyer, so.

Speaker 6:
[22:00] Will it have a bigger battery?

Speaker 5:
[22:01] I wish, but probably not.

Speaker 6:
[22:03] So they're going to get rid of the S Pen and not give you a bigger battery.

Speaker 5:
[22:06] Yeah, they're going to make it cheaper.

Speaker 3:
[22:07] It's so funny Samsung hasn't done anything cool with their lineup in the last three years, and they're like, we got them this year. Let's put one kind of in between the kind of higher mid-range and the really flagship. That'll get everyone excited.

Speaker 5:
[22:19] Will it have privacy display? Probably not. That's probably an Ultra only feature. I can see that.

Speaker 3:
[22:24] So then what is this phone?

Speaker 5:
[22:26] Cheaper. It's an Ultra, but cheaper. Which they kind of need to do, because... The Ultra's $1,250 or something. Now it's more, wait, no, is it? Is it? Oh, I think the higher... Doesn't it start at $1,200? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah, it's expensive. So now what is it gonna be, $1,100? $1,100. I guess. I guess. That's all it is. It's just a cheaper version. That's crazy. Well, you know, speaking of that, Samsung has quietly raised their prices across almost all of the mobile devices that they sell. Oh, yeah. Which is kind of crazy. Samsung CEO, co-CEO, TM Rowe, did say that no company would be immune to the global memory shortage quite a while ago, and it would be inevitable that Samsung would likely have to raise their prices. And now we're seeing the result of that.

Speaker 4:
[23:12] Samsung makes the memory.

Speaker 5:
[23:14] Yeah, I mean, yeah, but Samsung has a different. They sell to themselves.

Speaker 3:
[23:17] Samsung wants to make the money also.

Speaker 5:
[23:20] Yeah, it's like Samsung fab is different than like Samsung, the mobile.

Speaker 2:
[23:25] How different display?

Speaker 5:
[23:26] I don't know. Like they don't talk really different. They probably this has happened before with like LG and LG display.

Speaker 4:
[23:31] Yeah, I was like, those are actually two separate.

Speaker 5:
[23:34] It's the same. It's the same effect. And they they negotiate and contract with each other and are suppliers of each other and have relationships with each other.

Speaker 4:
[23:42] Really, like the Samsung phones and the Samsung, like there's no shared ownership, like they're too in... Because LG and LG displays are literally two separate companies, no relation.

Speaker 5:
[23:53] Yeah. Yeah. It's unfortunate because you'd think that they would talk and you think that they would simply make the cheaper memory for themselves. You think that many of these companies would talk. Yeah, you did think that, but they don't. Even if they're not in the same exact way that LG display and LG aren't, they are effectively separate. A lot of this happens with Google. I'll talk to Google and people in different buildings at Google and different departments effectively never communicate with each other in weird ways. And I wouldn't be shocked if this is the exact same. Which is why random apps get updated to support different things and then they just don't have very obvious things with each other. It's stupid. Well, regardless, Samsung has jacked up the price of almost a dozen Galaxy phones and tablets to up to $280 from as little as $40 to as high as $280. The Z Fold 7, last week, already had its price increased by about $80 across models, which makes the one terabyte model $2,500 and the 512 gigabyte model $2,200. But now they're raising the price of pretty much all the models except for the standard S26 series and the Ultra, which it seems like so far. I think that they're doing that because they're trying, you know, that's their their most sold phones in the US besides like the A series are the S26 Ultra and the main S26 series. And also they have those, they have all the carrier partners with Verizon and AT&T and whatnot. I think they're trying to pad the margin on everything else. So most of their tablets went up in price.

Speaker 3:
[25:21] Dude, the S11 Ultra one terabyte is the $280 drum.

Speaker 5:
[25:26] That's crazy.

Speaker 3:
[25:26] That's three, it went from 1619 to 1899.

Speaker 5:
[25:31] For S26?

Speaker 3:
[25:32] No, the S11 Ultra tablet. The one-terabyte version.

Speaker 5:
[25:35] Went from what to what?

Speaker 3:
[25:36] 1619 to 1899, $280.

Speaker 5:
[25:40] It honestly seems like the things they sell the least amount of, they raise the prices on the most. So I think they're just trying to figure out how to pad the margin on the perimeter. It's gonna be interesting to see if all the other phone companies start jacking their prices up this year. We haven't really seen that yet. This is kind of the first. I heard the memory crisis was almost over. Yeah, I mean, there was a thing with like, OpenAI didn't actually purchase all the memory and it started to go down a little bit, but apparently it's still a major problem. It's definitely still a problem, but maybe with a light at the end of the tunnel.

Speaker 3:
[26:13] I'm sure the variability of it is a major problem. Maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel now, but who knows who's gonna screw something up any day now. By the time, between us recording and this coming out, it could change dramatically. What could happen?

Speaker 5:
[26:26] True. Speaking of companies not really talking to themselves, Andrew, do you want to take us through this Google back button hijacking scam?

Speaker 3:
[26:34] I am very passionate about this article. Because it's something that... This feels like Google made their own version of did they even test this and then realized it and they were like, we should fix this. So, do you know what, I've never heard the term before, but back button hijacking is?

Speaker 5:
[26:50] I think I understand it now.

Speaker 3:
[26:51] Yes. I think everyone's dealt with it, whether it's like clicked in your head of what's going on.

Speaker 6:
[26:57] I had never heard of this before you explained it to me.

Speaker 3:
[26:58] But then I explained it and you can remember a time it's happened to you.

Speaker 5:
[27:02] Everyone's experienced it.

Speaker 3:
[27:03] Exactly. It's like when you go to usually more sketchy websites, if you click in from a Google search result, you realize that's not the page you want to be on and you click back and you wind up at the page you were at already and you click back again and you're still at the same page. You click back and you're still at the same page. If you wind up holding that back button, you'll see this big because that's like when you show your whole history of back, you'll notice there are like four or five pages between you and the search result you came from. That's back button hijacking. There's a bunch of different ways to do it. It's a tool that was made for actually really specific things. I think someone described like if you're in Gmail and you're inside of a email and you want to click back, it should take you still to the Gmail URL, but in your inbox instead. That's what it's meant to do, but people can do that to bring it to a super fast loading redirect link. So if you're on All Recipes and you go back, it's going to just whip you to All Recipes again.

Speaker 5:
[27:59] You have to just like mash the back button like seven times.

Speaker 3:
[28:02] Or hold it down and come up to, I mean, I think most people just close the tab and start Google searching again, because that's the easiest way of doing it. And it is infuriating. So finally, Google is now going to consider this a malicious practice. And if it finds your website is partaking in those practices, you could be listed as spam, which will impact your performance in search results. The funniest part of the whole release of this is they said, they've noticed a rise in this behavior. This has been going on for like 10 years. There's no way now there's a rise in this behavior, probably because less people are going to websites because it's all getting scraped from Google. Honestly, probably Gemini started getting pissed when it was trying to back after scraping all the, it kept scraping the same thing over and over again. But like, I'm not going to be mad, late is better than never. But this should have been fixed a really, really long time ago. But thank you for finally fixing it.

Speaker 5:
[28:55] I guess they're doing some spring cleaning, you know?

Speaker 3:
[28:58] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[28:58] Somebody in like the 70th Google building on the corner logged in one day and was like, I could fix this.

Speaker 3:
[29:03] Or he found like that post-it note that's buried on his desk that's like, fix back button hijacking. When did I write this?

Speaker 5:
[29:09] 12 years ago. 12 years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:12] That's it, but thank you.

Speaker 5:
[29:13] Speaking of something that has gotten an update that I'd hoped got updated a long time ago. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:21] Nailed it.

Speaker 5:
[29:22] New GoPros. This is like a blast. You guys remember GoPro?

Speaker 3:
[29:26] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[29:27] Yeah. They're still around.

Speaker 3:
[29:29] They helped you go.

Speaker 5:
[29:30] They, well, because they've been, their lunch has been eaten by Insta360 and DJI in the past couple of years. But they're still around making action cameras, making 360 cameras. And they came out with this new camera called the Mission One. It's kind of interesting. We love these tiny action cameras for being in the corner of a car, or being in the mounted on the outside of a car, or a small space where it's kind of a crash cam. If it falls off, it's fine. But it's just sort of an extra angle that you can get because this camera is so small and versatile. But the quality is not that great, typically. It's good enough, but it's not amazing. So the Mission One is a new camera that is a larger 1-inch sensor, and the entire thing is built around being a cinema-grade proper camera. Now, all of this is dependent on the footage actually looking good, but this is everything I ever wanted from a GoPro. It frees them up to keep making the hero like an action cam, a crash cam. But now with this larger sensor, they've made an interchangeable lens mount version. They've made a bunch of accessories where you can plug in extra memory, you can plug in microphones, you can pair all sorts of things to the GoPro. It makes it a much more, I don't want to say RX100, but like a cinema version of an RX100.

Speaker 3:
[30:46] It's rigable. You can rig it up to your cage.

Speaker 5:
[30:49] They showed me a bunch of accessories for it, a cage for it, a bunch of underwater shooting accessories. It'll shoot 8K, open gate, the whole sensor. It's a really convincing set of specs, so I would like to use it and verify that the footage actually looks better. But they showed me some footage that they essentially, they've rigged this thing up with huge lenses and a cage and mics and everything and shot really good looking stuff with it. So I'm curious. They have my attention. The one that most people are interested in is the ILS, which is interchangeable lens system version. It takes Micro Four Thirds lenses, which is very interesting. Now, obviously Micro Four Thirds lenses are pretty much the smallest lenses that you can get. So they are still small, but on a GoPro, they still look huge. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know when I would want to rig up. My example of when this could be awesome is we shoot inside a car and the car windshield has like a super low rake, so you can't fit like a Komodo or something in there. You could fit a little GoPro with like a 70 mil or a 50 mil lens on it.

Speaker 6:
[31:57] Yeah. Could be great.

Speaker 5:
[31:58] I guess so. Maybe. But the weird thing about it is that the lens mount for Micro Four Thirds that they have doesn't have any contacts, so it can't do autofocus.

Speaker 6:
[32:07] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[32:08] Which is very weird. You have to have all the cameras that are just focusing at infinity or focusing at a very specific distance. Yeah. That kind of sucks. That's true of the Komodo. I mean, the Komodo has autofocus, but we always just manual focus. Yeah, but at least you're carrying that camera and you can just rack focus. But if this is mounted in a car, on the side of a car, in the corner, you have to set the focus very specifically. And then what happens if it changes? And I don't know.

Speaker 4:
[32:33] It's strange. Is there focus peaking? Are there like assists in the camera?

Speaker 5:
[32:37] Probably, most likely. And they have a lot of very capable software things already built in. So I wouldn't be shocked if it added more over time. But I think it shoots 8K 60 or 4K 240. Yeah. Which there's not a lot of other cameras that do that, period.

Speaker 4:
[32:54] I'm kind of interested because as someone who really likes shooting vintage like 16mm and 8mm film lenses, like the Micro Four Thirds standard is like really easy to adapt vintage glass to. And if the GoPro has a one inch sensor, this might actually be like the best vintage glass rig possible.

Speaker 5:
[33:17] Could be interesting.

Speaker 4:
[33:17] Especially if there are focus assist, because it's really hard to find affordable Micro Four Thirds cameras that have focus assists. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[33:26] Yeah. Pretty different. I think I saw something that said like this is the first time in 22 years that they have released a GoPro that is not under the hero line.

Speaker 4:
[33:33] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[33:33] Which is crazy. So it's a big jump for them. They needed it because they were like on the verge of bankruptcy. So hopefully this is successful for them. They're also releasing a new wireless lav mic set that looks almost identical to the DJI ones.

Speaker 3:
[33:47] I think it's a necessity they have to do that.

Speaker 5:
[33:50] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[33:50] Like that is the best part about the action cam is that you can just plug those DJI mics in. This turns into a camera that you could buy starting out trying to make some sort of a YouTube channel for content.

Speaker 5:
[34:02] This could be an awesome vlog camera. All of this is the asterisk of like, does the footage actually look good? But this could be a great vlog camera. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. The sad part about these mics is that they do not do 32-bit float like the DJI ones do.

Speaker 7:
[34:14] So got it.

Speaker 4:
[34:16] So many asterisks necessary there. I forget the exact thing, but it's just like all of those wireless mics are like, we do 32-bit float if you stand on one leg and put your hand over your head and use them in exactly this workflow.

Speaker 6:
[34:29] Only when it's a full moon.

Speaker 4:
[34:30] Yeah, it is like, yeah, it's nonsense.

Speaker 5:
[34:33] Okay. Well, yeah, that should be interesting. You already got them in, right? I saw you took a photo. So they brought them here. They showed them to us. I got to handle them for an hour and then they left and they were like, trust me, we'll send you one. So I'm like, yes, please let me try them. I want to shoot 8K 60 log at 30 FPS open gate in my, in a handheld camera. Like that just sounds awesome. So hopefully soon.

Speaker 6:
[34:56] I can't wait for the autofocus video with you using these.

Speaker 5:
[34:59] Yeah, I can shoot an autofocus video with it.

Speaker 3:
[35:00] I can't wait till Ellis is walking around Brooklyn with his vintage glass on the newest GoPro, taking photos. It's gonna be so funny.

Speaker 4:
[35:07] When you get one in, I'll order a micro four thirds to C mount adapter and I'll 3D print something goofy. And I will make the vintage GoPro camera.

Speaker 5:
[35:18] It seems perfect for that. They showed me a... Shutter accessory. Oh no, they showed me they had adapted to PL mount. And they put a massive cinema lens on it for some reason. It's like a 30X prop factor. Some insane.

Speaker 6:
[35:32] What do you mean for some reason?

Speaker 4:
[35:33] That's awesome. It's so tiny.

Speaker 5:
[35:35] If you're gonna rig that much up, you might as well throw like a Komodo in front of it. A 28-year-old meter is gonna be like a 120 equivalent on that thing.

Speaker 4:
[35:42] Do we know the price?

Speaker 5:
[35:44] No. I can do my best guessing job. I think it'll be under 1,000. I think it'll be over the current... A current GoPro post tariff pricing is like $400-something, right?

Speaker 4:
[35:55] This might be the greatest vintage glass camera. Dude, straight up, if there's focus peaking and magnification in it for like... Oh, my God.

Speaker 5:
[36:07] Yeah, so you don't have to buy it. So the hipster era has peaked.

Speaker 4:
[36:10] Yeah, if you want to do this with an actual micro four-thirds camera, like you don't get those features until you're spending like $900 on a used camera, which is like kind of defeats the point. Anyway, sorry.

Speaker 5:
[36:21] Another quick story. Google randomly released this new spotlight for Windows application, which is actually quite cool. It's a little floating window that pops up when you use a keyboard shortcut. And you can ask it for a context about your screen. It can do screen recordings. You can use Google Lens to sort of drag your cursor over something and it'll Google it for you. It can access files on your computer and it can access files on your Google Drive all at once. So it's kind of like this cool hybrid, like on device and also in cloud little pop up box that you could just call it anytime. Dare I say, this is just a better version of Copilot. It's like what I was thinking. Yeah, I was gonna say, this is kind of fire. I don't have a Chromebook, but I want most of the nice parts. I mean, more people use Google Drive than use OneDrive. Exactly. And it only works on Windows, so.

Speaker 6:
[37:15] There's like Google Cowork.

Speaker 5:
[37:17] Kind of.

Speaker 6:
[37:18] Like Cloud Cowork, but Googleified.

Speaker 5:
[37:19] Well, it can't really do things for you.

Speaker 6:
[37:21] But you said it could like reach into Drive and local files.

Speaker 5:
[37:24] Yeah, it can search.

Speaker 6:
[37:25] Oh, it can only search? So you can't like copy it from one place to another or like manipulate things?

Speaker 5:
[37:29] I think you can.

Speaker 6:
[37:30] Can you tell it to like rename a bunch of files in your downloads folder? That's like the classic Cloud Cowork example.

Speaker 5:
[37:35] It doesn't have like autonomous, like it can't do things for you autonomously. When I say like you can access those files, it's like you do a search and it's like a universal search that goes between your desktop and also your Google Drive. It's still handy. It's interesting. And it's quite cool. And it's cool that just like floats to the side and you can just like invoke it with a keyboard shortcut. So I don't know why they made this or why they made this now. Super random, but it's very cool. And I wish they had it.

Speaker 4:
[38:03] Have you ever tried to search for a local file on a Windows computer? That's why they made it.

Speaker 5:
[38:07] Yeah. Just why in 2026, that's been a problem for like 30 years.

Speaker 6:
[38:11] Can they make search in Gmail better? Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[38:13] I was going to say this company is bad at some search. Yeah. You know what I really want? On mobile version of Gmail, there's the all mail function. They do not have that on the desktop and you have to keep changing your accounts over and over again. It's so annoying. Anyway, I love that. Let's see if side by side browser windows open like a king.

Speaker 7:
[38:36] Like a king.

Speaker 3:
[38:37] I want to hit you with the dumbest headline I saw.

Speaker 7:
[38:39] Kidding me.

Speaker 3:
[38:40] You all talked about it before. I was trying to keep this a secret, but it sounds like half of you read this. Struggling shoe retailer Allbirds makes bizarre pivot from shoes to AI. Stock explodes more than 700 percent. 700 percent? Did you hear about this this morning when they were talking about it?

Speaker 5:
[38:55] That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 3:
[38:56] Allbirds is pivoting from shoes to AI. They're going to sell off their shoe assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. They quote, they are going to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU as a service. GPU AAS?

Speaker 5:
[39:15] This is...

Speaker 3:
[39:16] Sorry. There's more.

Speaker 5:
[39:18] Was this April Fool's Day or this came out?

Speaker 3:
[39:19] No. Everything I said had to have a line that said, this is real. It says, an AI native cloud solutions provider in connection with this pivot, the company anticipates changing its names to Newbird AI. Newbird.

Speaker 5:
[39:31] This reads strikingly like an April Fool's Day joke.

Speaker 3:
[39:34] This really reads like an AI. Look at this stock chart.

Speaker 5:
[39:37] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[39:38] So they also...

Speaker 5:
[39:40] It's not the onion?

Speaker 3:
[39:41] Because of this pivot, they proposed to their shareholders if they could remove all references to the company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit. Oh my God. Imagine saying that out loud.

Speaker 5:
[39:53] This reads, now are you sure it's not the onion?

Speaker 3:
[39:56] The onion's like, we're out of a job, man.

Speaker 5:
[39:58] Crazy. Wait, so they're selling the shoe company?

Speaker 3:
[40:01] They're selling all their shoe assets.

Speaker 5:
[40:03] To who?

Speaker 3:
[40:04] The American Exchange Group.

Speaker 5:
[40:06] The shoe assets, just like the shoes and the designs and the IP.

Speaker 3:
[40:09] I'm assuming the rest of the shoe.

Speaker 5:
[40:10] Are they still going to be sold under Allbirds?

Speaker 3:
[40:13] They're changing their name to Newbird AI.

Speaker 4:
[40:15] Yes, their shoes will be Oldbirds.

Speaker 5:
[40:17] This is the biggest f*** it game plan I've ever seen. They thought that they were going to be a tech company because they were selling products to tech people, but it wasn't really tech. And then they've just been in Silicon Valley so long, you're like, f*** it.

Speaker 3:
[40:32] The articles I read at basically was like, our evaluation when we IPO'ed was like $4 billion, and now it's so, so, so, so, so much less than that, that they're like, we need to do something else because we're IPO'ed and we have to please share.

Speaker 5:
[40:46] They IPO'ed at 1,000, wait, that can't be right. That's $1 million a share. I don't know enough about the stock market, but I do think $4 billion is maybe a little bit silly for a shoe company. That is so gross.

Speaker 3:
[40:57] I mean, dude, do you remember when Allbirds first came out? They were so popular.

Speaker 5:
[41:02] They were so popular. They were so high. Yeah, but they were fashion.

Speaker 3:
[41:05] Valuation of $2.2 to $4 billion when they IPO'ed in 2021.

Speaker 5:
[41:09] I'm just Googling how much Nike is worth right now. 67 billion. Okay, I guess that is pretty hard.

Speaker 3:
[41:19] Dude, Allbirds are everyone.

Speaker 5:
[41:21] They're so hyped.

Speaker 3:
[41:21] Everyone loves them.

Speaker 6:
[41:22] Are the shoes on sale right now?

Speaker 3:
[41:24] Apparently through American Exchange, whatever.

Speaker 5:
[41:27] That's crazy.

Speaker 4:
[41:28] Well, rip to it.

Speaker 3:
[41:30] Your new Allbirds come with a GP, actually they don't. You have to pay with a GPU so they can put it in their infrastructure.

Speaker 5:
[41:35] And people still say we're not in a bubble. Let's see how this goes for them. This may age incredibly poorly. I mean, honestly, maybe GoPro should have done the same thing. You know what I mean? It's like, if you're gonna sink, you might as well become an AI company before you think. I guess so, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:50] Just paint AI over your company and hope that it changes.

Speaker 4:
[41:53] They already have the first two letters. They got the G and the P, you know, in GoPro. Or just the U.

Speaker 5:
[41:59] GoPro Universe. GoPro Universe. Wow. Good for them. Their online crypto. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Get your bag. Their company's not gonna die.

Speaker 3:
[42:09] The straight up just asking if we can remove all references that we care about the environment is a wild thing to put out in the public.

Speaker 5:
[42:17] Can't really say you do when you just run a GPU farm. It's not really compatible.

Speaker 4:
[42:23] What if you like heated your pool with it or something? Then, you know, technically you're removing.

Speaker 5:
[42:28] Isn't that what Linus did in one of his videos?

Speaker 3:
[42:30] I think he, he, he, he cooled is the other way around. He cooled his computers off with the pool water, correct?

Speaker 4:
[42:36] Oh.

Speaker 5:
[42:36] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[42:37] I mean, it would be crazy to heat your pool with it. That's the same thing.

Speaker 5:
[42:41] Then the pool water goes back into the pool and it's warmer.

Speaker 3:
[42:44] Yeah. The difference it would make to the pool is the difference it's making to the ocean. I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[42:48] It depends on how many computers you got. Damn. Heat the oceans. All right. We're going to take a break. We'll be back with some updates from the last year that all have lots of updates that we can tell you about. So it's going to be fun. But first, you know what doesn't get updated that we do every single week?

Speaker 4:
[43:07] Trivia.

Speaker 5:
[43:07] Dude.

Speaker 4:
[43:08] Guys, we're pivoting the podcast. Guys, we all know GoPro for its hero and now mission line of little tiny cameras. But from 2016 to 2018, GoPro briefly entered this adjacent product category. What is it?

Speaker 5:
[43:29] What was your timeline?

Speaker 4:
[43:30] 2016 to 2018. It didn't go well and they stopped.

Speaker 5:
[43:34] Oh, I think I might have had that product.

Speaker 4:
[43:37] GoPro entered and then promptly left.

Speaker 5:
[43:40] Shoes. Yeah. All birds.

Speaker 4:
[43:44] GPU compute.

Speaker 5:
[43:46] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[43:47] GPUs.

Speaker 5:
[43:47] Well, we'll think about it. It's a blast from the past, kind of like for us this episode. Answers will be at the end like usual. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Shopify. Every thriving, successful business has to start somewhere. A good place to start is with the relatively simple question, what if, given the right tools, I really put my all into this? One tool that can help grow your sprouting business to new heights is Shopify. Millions of businesses around the world rely on Shopify for e-commerce, from businesses just getting started to your favorite name brands. They offer a host of helpful tools you can take advantage of, from payment processing to analytics to website design. Their design studio includes hundreds of templates to help you create the exact website you've been envisioning for your business. Their email and marketing tools make it easy to get your name out there and stay connected with their customers. If you're thinking, what if I need help? Well then no worries, because you're never left to fend for yourself. Shopify's award-winning customer support is available 24-7. So it's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/waveform. Go to shopify.com/waveform. That's shopify.com/waveform.

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[45:04] Whoa, okay. This one says you get a free phone if you switch. Hey, this one also says you get a free phone if you switch.

Speaker 8:
[45:12] Yeah, they all do one.

Speaker 7:
[45:13] Wait, wait, wait, wait. The T-Mobile one says families saved over $3,700 versus the other big guys in the past five years. And their experience plans have Netflix included, plus the year of Dash passed by DoorDash.

Speaker 9:
[45:27] Hang on.

Speaker 7:
[45:28] Let me see that.

Speaker 9:
[45:29] And a five-year price guarantee?

Speaker 2:
[45:30] Oh, yeah, we're switching.

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[45:32] That's what I'm talking about. Do we clap now or I'm thinking half-ass?

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Speaker 1:
[46:05] Support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for. A first birthday party, a movie marathon, a renter-friendly bathroom reno. And then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu-ray player calling it quits, stick-on tiles that looked way better on the package. For all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last-minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.

Speaker 5:
[46:42] All right, welcome back. Welcome to this segment where we mostly talk about things that may sound familiar because they're updates to things that we've previously talked about. This segment is called Circling Back. Ari, my last conversation.

Speaker 3:
[47:00] We're not even sure if it's going to be a segment, but that's too good of a name, so it's now a segment.

Speaker 5:
[47:04] Even if it's just a one-time segment. For my last email. All right. First up, we talked about Khaby Lamy's near billion dollar deal, something about he was selling his company and his image for unlimited use to turn into an AI likeness content generator version of himself or something for a billion dollars. We were a little skeptical, because they promised to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of his likeness in no time. Turned out, we were right to be skeptical. They essentially paid him in stock, and then obviously all those headlines go out. The stock price goes up, and then shortly after crashes, and is, I don't want to say worthless now, but I think you understand the risk of a all-stock deal when they're promising you billions of dollars like that. It was a rug pull. It's very similar to what happens in CryptoCoins, where they basically IPO-ed it, and then they merged his image as a new company, and then a ton of fans bought a ton of stock, because they're like, oh, they're gonna make hundreds of billions of dollars. And then, all of a sudden, the price completely collapsed, which means that the company probably had most of the stock. It probably sold it all. Yeah. And now, Khaby Lamy doesn't own his likeness or have any of the stock. No, but he might have made the money. We're not really sure.

Speaker 3:
[48:30] That's the tough part about all of this is, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[48:33] He might have been the rug puller.

Speaker 3:
[48:33] It is a weird thing, there were lots of company... You don't know for sure, but lots of companies tag on to people with a lot of influence and then rug pull under them because then that person with the influence as the public facing person gets to a backlash, they get all, they get shit on.

Speaker 5:
[48:49] I was talking about rich sparkle holdings. Yeah, even though they probably should be. Everything's a scam these days.

Speaker 3:
[48:55] Pretty much.

Speaker 5:
[48:56] Everything's a scam. If someone offers you a billion dollars to your likeness, maybe think a little bit more about that.

Speaker 3:
[49:02] If you're getting offered more than the highest contract in the MLB, there's probably something wrong with that.

Speaker 5:
[49:07] But there is have more followers in that person.

Speaker 3:
[49:10] True.

Speaker 5:
[49:10] Is that...

Speaker 3:
[49:12] Wonsodo. You think you can do this?

Speaker 5:
[49:14] What's this?

Speaker 3:
[49:14] You're thinking Shohei.

Speaker 5:
[49:16] Yeah, Shohei Otani.

Speaker 3:
[49:17] It's Wonsodo.

Speaker 5:
[49:18] Sports. Wonsodo?

Speaker 3:
[49:20] Yeah. 765 million. I only know because I reference it every time a company gets sold. Per year? No, no, no, no. Over 10-ish years. Oh.

Speaker 4:
[49:27] I thought Shohei was a billion.

Speaker 3:
[49:28] Was Shohei's bigger? But didn't Shohei's have a bunch, I don't know. Wonsodo's was after maybe. I just use Wonsodo's because there's lots of tech companies that get sold for less money than Wonsodo's making.

Speaker 5:
[49:41] That's crazy.

Speaker 3:
[49:41] And that's hilarious.

Speaker 5:
[49:42] Well, Wonsodo should buy Apple. Speaking of scams, as you saw.

Speaker 3:
[49:48] Yeah. NZXT and their Flex PC rentals. Do you remember that at all? Yes. That's a fun one.

Speaker 5:
[49:55] It's a big Gamers Nexus investigation into this.

Speaker 3:
[49:57] Exactly. If you really want everything that happened here, there's about seven hours of footage from Gamers Nexus. That is really, really interesting. But really quick TLDR, 2024 NZXT was renting out computers on a subscription basis. The weird thing about it was, one, when you didn't buy the computer outright, when you got to the price of the computer, that was crazy. Some of the times you would switch from buying the computer to renting the computer on their website, it would change the specs without really noticing, so you'd get a worse computer. And then they had a bunch of promotions and integrations where, I don't know if they told the people to say this, but somebody was saying something like, you could rent this computer and then win a Fortnite tournament and then buy a computer. It's like one of those, it's basically making you money. You're losing money by not doing it. Really, really sketchy, borderline scammy, if not a total scam. But they just reached a settlement for $3.4 million, I think. $3.45 million, essentially, in the lawsuit, it's saying that people who are getting collected debt from, which apparently some of the instances are where people actually paid and they still have debt collectors coming at them. So it just sounds like the company that they're working with, I forget the name in here, is doing it really poorly. So some people who are paying, they're gonna get money back from the settlement. And then some people who were paying for over two years, they're saying get to own the computer outright.

Speaker 5:
[51:31] Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 3:
[51:32] And the weird thing is though, NCXT is still offering some rental programs. They've changed a couple of things in it, but it still seems really sketchy. Don't rent a computer. It's stupid. It also, if you're renting a computer, the computers change so much, that's gonna be like obsolete by the time. Yeah. You don't even get to pay it off. I don't even know what's going on.

Speaker 5:
[51:51] I mean, that's rent-a-center's entire point. That's the reason that was basically a scam too.

Speaker 3:
[51:58] Yeah. Go watch the Gamers Nexus video for the whole thing on this, but NZXT, that sucks.

Speaker 5:
[52:03] This is extra lame because they were target... I mean, if you're talking about, you could win a Fortnite tournament and then buy your own computer, they're probably kind of targeting 15-year-olds.

Speaker 3:
[52:12] Oh yeah.

Speaker 5:
[52:12] You know, it's like kids who probably don't have enough money to buy a gaming PC, and then they entice you with this idea of like, you could win this thing that you play all the time, and then you could buy it yourself, and you don't have any money, and like, that's predatory. That's super predatory.

Speaker 3:
[52:27] And also by doing that is like, when you look at a computer at first, that's maybe close to your price range, maybe it's like $1,200, then you go to the rental version, which is showing a monthly payment, then you're like, oh, I can bump up the specs on this a little bit. It's only changing my rental price a couple of dollars a month. And then it's not that far off from like car payments, at this point, like tacking on extra trim levels and stuff. So, but when you're targeting Fortnite players, which we all know is a certain age group, you're targeting the most vulnerable party.

Speaker 5:
[52:54] Yeah. Very lame. But good that this lawsuit went through. So I'm glad that people are getting the money back.

Speaker 3:
[53:00] Agreed. Do you want to do the...

Speaker 5:
[53:02] Yeah. Yeah. Next one. This was only a few weeks ago that this happened, but things in this administration change very quickly. We didn't know why, but the Pentagon decided to ban all routers from being imported into the US in the future that were not made in America.

Speaker 3:
[53:21] So all routers?

Speaker 5:
[53:22] So all routers. Practically. Maybe not Cisco, but they're probably still assembled in Vietnam or something. Yeah. So we don't really know why, but just today, the FCC gave Net... Or I guess yesterday, the FCC gave Netgear conditional approval to import future routers, modems and gateways into the US through October 1st of 2027. Netgear has not announced any plans to bring its manufacturing to the United States, and the Pentagon has stated that such devices do not pose risk to the US national security. So Pete Hegseth, why did you ban them in the first place? Tell me that.

Speaker 3:
[53:58] You know what's funny? Netgear was one of the main targets of the Chinese hacking group attack.

Speaker 5:
[54:04] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[54:04] That was because a bunch of people did a really bad job of updating the security issues with it, but Netgear is like the router that got hacked in the whole thing they're referencing for doing the banning list.

Speaker 5:
[54:18] And they said it wasn't explicitly Netgear's fault because it was some ISP firmware thing that happened to go through the router.

Speaker 3:
[54:24] I think it was just a lacking of updating a security measure in the routers.

Speaker 5:
[54:28] Right. So I'm not saying this was a bribe, but I'm not saying it wasn't a bribe. Just going to say that. You're not not saying. I'm not not saying. Allegedly.

Speaker 3:
[54:39] Do you know what email I did get this morning?

Speaker 5:
[54:41] What?

Speaker 3:
[54:42] From Netgear. It says, Netgear is the first retail consumer router company to receive conditional approval from the FCC. And then a whole thing about how they're the first ever retail customer with conditional approval.

Speaker 5:
[54:54] Two weeks ago when this first changed.

Speaker 3:
[54:56] Yeah. The SEC called for stronger safety and security standards. This aligns with our security first approach.

Speaker 5:
[55:02] That's like when businesses like put outside their business established 2026. And you're like, OK, that doesn't really help.

Speaker 3:
[55:11] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[55:11] So the funny thing about that, most people that got that e-mail probably don't even know what happened. They probably don't even know that the routers got banned because you've got to be pretty in the weeds to know that the Pentagon decided to ban routers that were coming from not the United States. So we'll see if this extends to more router companies. It would be very strange if Netgear was the only company allowed to sell routers in the United States in the future, given they are probably one of the larger router manufacturers in the US, unless you're a big gamer that can afford this and can buy like a Asus, you know, whatever, the spider one. Yeah, the one that looks like a spider. So I don't know. It's weird. All right. We got one more that is a, it's a far callback to a very early episode.

Speaker 3:
[55:56] Yeah. But I think arguably one of the biggest things, despite it sounding like it has absolutely nothing to do with tech, John Deere just settled for a $99 million lawsuit over a right to repair.

Speaker 5:
[56:08] Which was one of our first ever bonus episodes.

Speaker 3:
[56:11] Was it really?

Speaker 5:
[56:12] Right to repair episode where we talked to John Deere and a couple of right to repair advocates.

Speaker 3:
[56:16] Yeah. John Deere is like this thing where in the tech world doesn't feel like it has anything to do with us, but they are just right to repair hate John Deere because of all the stuff that they do.

Speaker 5:
[56:25] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[56:26] So this is obviously much larger. Ninety-nine million dollars of farmers in a class action lawsuit that accuses them of preventing farmers or mechanics from being able to repair their equipment. With the new lawsuit, John Deere is going to make repair resources, this is where I was a little confused, available for 10 years based on a license or subscriptions, which sounds like not the best way of doing this. I'm not totally sure how that's working out, but they have agreed to allow owners and shops to run diagnostics on equipment, while in offline mode by the end of the year, which is huge because previously what you had to do if you were a farmer who had a giant tractor break is bring it to an authorized dealer to get it fixed.

Speaker 5:
[57:06] Which is probably very far away from your farm.

Speaker 3:
[57:08] From your farm and the equipment you're bringing in is probably heavy.

Speaker 5:
[57:13] It has to be during business hours, it has to be like there have to be people that are not to fix it, it's probably going to take them at least a week to fix it. I remember talking to some farmers about this and they were like, it would just throw the most basic system error that, like I should be able to fix with a wrench. But because I can't access the firmware, I can't do anything to it. And it was a whole thing.

Speaker 3:
[57:33] Yeah, and you need to get it like toed to the nearest retailer. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. But the lawsuit was filed in 2022 and while the cinnamon's not perfect, this still in the right to repair world has got to be one of the biggest wins, whether it's a perfect one or not, probably one of the biggest wins in the battle of right to repair.

Speaker 5:
[57:52] Yeah, I'm curious what the details of that like subscription to be able to fix your things.

Speaker 3:
[57:56] My first thought was do just some different non-authorized retailers, can they like buy a subscription to access different parts if they're not the owner? So like maybe different, because it mentions mechanics. So maybe there are mechanics that aren't authorized and maybe they can somehow pay to have subscriptions or licenses for repairing equipment. So it doesn't have to be only specific ones. Not totally sure, but.

Speaker 5:
[58:20] Yeah, this is one of those things that you don't really realize has been like completely upended by technology. You know, tractors and farming in general have been like, they use a lot of AI stuff now to detect what's a weed and what's a crop. And it's to the point where like, you kind of have to use this stuff, because if you're using traditional equipment, it's going to be, you're going to be way, way, way behind in the amount of stuff that you can harvest. But at the same time, you have no control. You're basically selling your soul to like a giant farming company that allows you to use this stuff if you can't fix it yourself. And it's like a catch-22.

Speaker 3:
[58:55] It's very annoying and hopefully fixed soon.

Speaker 4:
[58:57] And I hope the legal precedent extends to other industries. I've been hearing a lot that things like cement mixers or weed whackers are also slightly different because it's not like they're using AI, but it's the same thing where it's like, there's no reason these things are not repairable other than the companies who make them refuse to sell spare parts at a fair price.

Speaker 5:
[59:22] Yeah. Yeah. Sounds about right. I mean, we saw a couple of years ago Apple started selling their own parts repair kits. And at first it was like a large, large heavy box that made it very difficult to use, but they've gotten better over time. So we saw the New York laws that were passed a couple of years ago about right to prepare. So I think we're going, we're getting there.

Speaker 3:
[59:41] More precedents that get set the better.

Speaker 6:
[59:44] That episode was so long ago. I don't even think Ellis was here yet.

Speaker 5:
[59:47] I don't think so. Right to Repair, Deep Dive was like episode three of the Waveform.

Speaker 4:
[59:53] That episode is so, I wasn't even born yet.

Speaker 5:
[59:56] Actually, was that even video Waveform or was it still on?

Speaker 6:
[59:59] It was, I went to Double Checker Radio.

Speaker 5:
[60:00] I think it was the first ever bonus episode.

Speaker 4:
[60:02] You guys published that episode by speaking into a can.

Speaker 3:
[60:07] I just went straight to Megafon. Marques, you typed breaking news in.

Speaker 6:
[60:13] Breaking news.

Speaker 5:
[60:15] Breaking news fish, that's a hilarious reference. I just got an email that Gemini for Mac just got released. It is essentially the same thing that we were talking about earlier for Windows, but it's also now on the Mac. So if you go to Gemini.Google.Mac, it's the same thing.

Speaker 3:
[60:35] Such a funny URL.

Speaker 5:
[60:36] Yeah, Gemini.Google.Mac, but it's-

Speaker 4:
[60:39] Pancakes.Bacon slash jam.

Speaker 5:
[60:41] It's essentially like it's the same thing. It replaces your keyboard shortcut. So like right now, you can replace Spotlight with whatever alternative. You can have this replace Spotlight and then jump in and access your files or your Google Drive or your whatever, and it's your chat button to Gemini or desktop.

Speaker 3:
[60:56] Google is going to Sherlock Spotlight.

Speaker 5:
[60:59] Oh my God.

Speaker 6:
[61:00] Well, what is the shortcut to activate this? Do you have it installed yet?

Speaker 5:
[61:04] I do have it installed already and the shortcut is customizable, but by default, your mini chat shortcut is option space, and your full chat shortcut is option shift space. But I think I can change that. Yeah, I can just change that to whatever.

Speaker 3:
[61:18] I just want it to be space.

Speaker 6:
[61:19] I want to change it to control, because then I could just use all of them. I'll have command space for Spotlight, option space for Raycast, and control space for Google Gemini.

Speaker 3:
[61:31] That's so funny because control is generally the hotkey for Windows. And here's the Gemini thing.

Speaker 4:
[61:37] I can't wait to be really old and talking to my great grandkids and say something like, I remember when Google Sherlocked Spotlight and also turned Raycast into Clubhouse. I'm going to be like, oh man, you really need to be in a home.

Speaker 5:
[61:51] It's time for a nap, all right, Grandpa?

Speaker 3:
[61:52] That's a big that happened.

Speaker 5:
[61:56] Back in the AI wars.

Speaker 3:
[61:59] I talked about it on a podcast once.

Speaker 4:
[62:01] What's a podcast?

Speaker 1:
[62:02] Dad, what's a podcast?

Speaker 5:
[62:04] I'm sure Grandpa, it's time to take a nap.

Speaker 4:
[62:06] It was an audio feed. It was syndicated really simply.

Speaker 5:
[62:10] You joke, but you will be telling them about it.

Speaker 1:
[62:12] You mean Spotify?

Speaker 4:
[62:14] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[62:14] No, they don't even, Spotify will be long gone. It'll be, they're going to rebrand to an AI, a GPU company at some point.

Speaker 4:
[62:22] There will just be like one giant data center somewhere in the desert that makes one continuous song with AI and you just sort of tune in to see what's going on with the song. It's like perpetual stew of music. I don't hate that.

Speaker 6:
[62:36] Someone back code this. I want that.

Speaker 5:
[62:38] I'm surprised you haven't already, Ellis.

Speaker 4:
[62:40] This is like, I remember like so long ago, I met someone who was at a VC firm that was like working on this exact project or it wasn't this exact project, but the idea was like, what if you could turn one song into an entire day's listening experience with generative AI? So like they would add guitar solos. And then one idea they pitched was they were like, yeah, at one point, the musical will get really quiet and it will be like a podcast about the song. And it's like...

Speaker 3:
[63:07] That guy's listening to this episode and he's like, shit, did it sound that stupid?

Speaker 4:
[63:13] I thought it was cool. This was like 2017, like very early, before AIs could generate any of these things. So it was very like pie in the sky. And I remember being like, that sounds kind of interesting. And now that they can, I'm like, oh my God, before we move on, I just want to say, while we're talking about AI music, I was in a coffee shop last weekend. I know. Was it outside? It was an indoor building, I think. But, listen to a song, I was like, oh, interesting song. Next song, I was like, oh, this coffee shop's, you know, pretty middle of the road. And then that song died down and I just heard, okay, Michael, I'm glad you enjoyed that. And I was like, no, they're not, they're using the Spotify DJ in the coffee shop. What's up, David?

Speaker 6:
[64:03] That's great. Quick update.

Speaker 5:
[64:05] Daft Punk, bring it home.

Speaker 6:
[64:06] You can make Control Space the shortcut.

Speaker 4:
[64:09] Sick.

Speaker 6:
[64:10] So, if you want, you can live this life.

Speaker 5:
[64:12] You got Claude on one, you got Gemini on the other. Tap tap.

Speaker 6:
[64:17] Caps lock, caps lock.

Speaker 4:
[64:18] That was a very Linux coded sentence of you because it's command space on Mac OS. Anyway, are we ready for trivia?

Speaker 5:
[64:25] I use Arch, by the way. I am ready for trivia.

Speaker 4:
[64:28] Let's get it.

Speaker 5:
[64:30] I need the points.

Speaker 1:
[64:31] Trivia.

Speaker 6:
[64:33] Trivia question number two. Earlier, I don't remember what we were talking about. We were talking about temperature and Celsius. Oh, it was the bug.

Speaker 4:
[64:38] It was the bug.

Speaker 6:
[64:39] That's what it was. So here's your question.

Speaker 4:
[64:42] Oh, no.

Speaker 6:
[64:43] 32 degrees Celsius is what in Fahrenheit?

Speaker 5:
[64:46] That's so obvious. I'm glad I know that one.

Speaker 6:
[64:48] I thought you were going to do that. The nearest 10th of the decimal without going over.

Speaker 5:
[64:52] Oh, wait. Oh, no.

Speaker 3:
[64:54] Yeah, you guys are backwards.

Speaker 5:
[64:56] You said 32 Celsius?

Speaker 6:
[64:57] 32 Celsius.

Speaker 3:
[64:59] Oh, whoops.

Speaker 5:
[65:00] Okay. I'll think.

Speaker 6:
[65:02] Everyone in other countries is yelling at us right now.

Speaker 3:
[65:05] No, because they have to know Fahrenheit. It's just the other way around.

Speaker 4:
[65:09] I think 32 Celsius is enough to kill a bear with the amount of caffeine. But maybe that's just me.

Speaker 6:
[65:18] Nice.

Speaker 5:
[65:20] How much caffeine would kill a bear? I did do a lot of research in how much caffeine would kill a person. You need a cocaine bear? Because I had a crazy experience once.

Speaker 4:
[65:30] Someone asked this question on Reddit, word for word, four weeks ago. How much caffeine would I need to kill a bear with a heart attack?

Speaker 3:
[65:37] What kind of bear?

Speaker 5:
[65:39] Brown bear or black bear?

Speaker 3:
[65:40] They're very different bears. Or polar bear.

Speaker 4:
[65:43] Like a man.

Speaker 5:
[65:45] No good answer.

Speaker 4:
[65:45] The top comment is, first of all, it would die of a seizure, not a heart attack. Second of all, 200 cups for a black bear, 400 cups for a grizzly bear. Assuming this random Reddit comment.

Speaker 3:
[65:58] Do you know a good way to tell the difference between?

Speaker 4:
[66:00] Between what?

Speaker 3:
[66:01] Black bear and a grizzly bear.

Speaker 4:
[66:02] If it's alive after 200 cups.

Speaker 5:
[66:09] That's when we take a break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 1:
[66:21] So good, so good, so good.

Speaker 8:
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Speaker 11:
[66:30] Cause I always find something amazing.

Speaker 10:
[66:32] Just so many good brands.

Speaker 9:
[66:34] Cause there's always something new.

Speaker 8:
[66:36] Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

Speaker 10:
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Speaker 11:
[67:19] No one goes to Hanks for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately though, the shop's been quiet. So Hanks decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs, help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza, Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365.copilot.com.

Speaker 3:
[67:48] All right, welcome back. I have a sports question that Marques is going to explain in tech terms, which is kind of weird because it feels like the basis of the question already kind of is within tech itself. Correct. There's also a reason in the beginning, Marques said, it's a sports related thing and not a golf related thing, because I'm sure most people wouldn't make it this far into the podcast if they knew it was about golf. Too bad you're here. Don't go away. Okay, so I saw this.

Speaker 4:
[68:13] Do you mean regular golf or ball golf?

Speaker 3:
[68:15] Ball golf.

Speaker 5:
[68:15] Okay, what?

Speaker 3:
[68:16] Not disc golf.

Speaker 4:
[68:17] Or?

Speaker 5:
[68:18] Wait.

Speaker 3:
[68:18] Not the superior.

Speaker 5:
[68:19] What is regular golf then?

Speaker 3:
[68:20] Ball golf.

Speaker 4:
[68:21] No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1:
[68:23] You sold us out.

Speaker 3:
[68:25] We're disc golf fans here.

Speaker 5:
[68:26] Oh, I knew that. We? So regular is disc is what you're saying.

Speaker 3:
[68:31] That's the end.

Speaker 5:
[68:31] You're saying it's superior.

Speaker 4:
[68:32] That was the joke. I feel like this is not even, please just continue.

Speaker 3:
[68:35] Okay, so the original tweet was actually from Andrew Martonik and he said, imagine being this crazy about your custom 3D printed irons and losing in every serious tournament to guys who don't do any of that and just play with normal equipment. And it's referencing a tweet about Bryson DeChambeau and his 3D printed five iron, where a reporter asked, are you satisfied with the five? He said, yeah, I mean, I only hit it once today. And the reporter said, how long does it take to make? Where he replied, prints in eight hours, machines there are three or four hours, then you have to cut grooves in it and a bunch of other stuff so you can have something within a day and a half.

Speaker 5:
[69:08] If it's 30 printed, is it still made of iron?

Speaker 3:
[69:12] I'm so confused about this. I mean, honestly, I am confused about the material of golf sports.

Speaker 5:
[69:21] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[69:22] This is at the Masters, this weekend, right?

Speaker 5:
[69:23] The disrespect is crazy, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[69:25] Which is like the minor league of golf?

Speaker 5:
[69:26] Yeah, no.

Speaker 3:
[69:27] It's the one with the really cheap food.

Speaker 5:
[69:30] Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. I'm glad you went there. So in order to understand why this is weird, you need to understand a little bit more about golf and about Bryson. Golf, you have a set of 18 clubs you're allowed to carry, and every club is typically a different loft and different length. So the higher the ball goes, the more lofted it is and the shorter the club.

Speaker 3:
[69:51] Which is the angle of the head. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[69:53] So a nine iron will have a lot of loft and will be shorter. And you go all the way to like a four iron and it will be not very lofted to go farther and the club is longer.

Speaker 3:
[70:02] When you say the club is, you mean the head is shorter or longer or the length of where the handle is?

Speaker 5:
[70:07] The length of the club.

Speaker 3:
[70:08] Okay. So every iron has a different angle and has a different physical length from ground to hands.

Speaker 5:
[70:14] Yes. And that's to give you a smooth transition from the shortest club is all the way to the longest club in the bag, which is the driver, which has the least loft, longest club goes the farthest, biggest swing.

Speaker 6:
[70:24] Can I ask a stupid question?

Speaker 5:
[70:25] Go ahead.

Speaker 6:
[70:26] Which is the one that I use for mini golf?

Speaker 5:
[70:28] You have a putter for mini golf, which is the shortest club. They're all putters. And it goes the shortest distance. It happens to have basically no loft. Typically, it actually has one degree of loft, but we'll ignore that. So, Bryson is a bit of an unusual golfer. Bryson has this history of the last couple years of really tweaking his clubs and trying to optimize his swing because the best golfers in the world are the most consistent golfers in the world. And he is the only one, as far as I know, who thought, you know, why do all my clubs have to be different lengths? I'm gonna have the same grip and the same length on every single one of my irons. Which doesn't sound that weird, but when you put the longest and shortest irons next to each other, you'll realize that that's really unusual. His shortest irons are the same length as his longest irons so that he can have the same swing with all of his irons. Why are they different lengths in the first place? They're all different lengths in the first place because to hit it further, you want a longer lever. So less loft and longer lever, it all just kind of smoothly graduates you to the longest club in the bag. But he's decided to just have the same exact length for all of his irons, which is highly unusual. And he's the only one who would do this kind of thing because he's kind of the mad scientist of the golf world of being willing to try and tinker with new equipment. So he's been one of the best golfers in the world, debatably, but for the last couple of years. The Masters, as you point out, very big tournament, maybe the biggest tournament. If you're a golfer, I'm understating this, it is the biggest tournament, obviously. He goes to the Masters and apparently, one of this new things he's trying is a 3D-printed 5-iron, specifically. Why is it called 5-iron? So a 9-iron, an 8-iron, a 7-iron, a 6-iron, a 5-iron are all next to each other in the bag. The 5-iron is a very specific club that typically goes the same distance every single time. It's slightly shorter than the 4-iron, slightly longer than the 6-iron. For some reason, just his 5-iron is the one that 3D-printed.

Speaker 3:
[72:25] Do you know the specifics of how?

Speaker 5:
[72:28] I don't. I would imagine it's a lot more complicated than the 3D-printers were picturing, which are plastic and obviously not. This is definitely still metal. The thing also about making clubs for a tournament like this is every tournament, every club has to be legally allowed and tested, so it has to pass USGA regulations, and so it has to meet a certain set of requirements for that. It has to have grooves, it has to have all this stuff, assuming, well, he played with it, so he got this 3D-printed club approved to be just special enough for this. The other thing about Bryson is he has a YouTube channel, he has big social media presence, and I love him, but he's very easy to make fun of because he's always messing with his equipment and has little tweaks with his driver and little tweaks with these clubs that have never been used before. He goes out to the Masters, he has a 3D-printed club, he does not have a good time, he plays two not-that-great rounds, and doesn't make the cut. Of course, they ask him about this club, and when he's in a good mood, he's willing to break down all of the fun, interesting things about his clubs. When he just missed the cut at the biggest tournament of the year, the Masters, he's just like, yeah, it didn't work, it wasn't that good. That's really actually the tech angle of this, which is he literally tried to 3D-print one of his clubs and make a specialized club just for this one tournament. What I think is even more interesting is the Masters itself is the least tech of any gulf tournament in the world. I wanted to conveniently use this to pivot to that. Which is if you actually go to the Masters, it is the one sporting event on earth, as far as I know, where smartphones are banned from the entire grounds the entire time. Isn't that the same with chess? Is that a sport?

Speaker 3:
[74:13] Well, okay, that was the thing that happened like a week or two ago. I don't think they're allowed on stage with the competitors.

Speaker 5:
[74:20] Are you saying the entire event? All of the audience, the patrons, all of the players, everyone there, nobody's taking photos with their phones because they're banned. And so when you see photos of the Masters, it is a golfer hitting a shot and everyone, instead of holding their phones, is just watching. And it is just such a blast from the past and a really refreshing, weird little piece of history every time they play the Masters.

Speaker 6:
[74:47] Give it a week until they're all wearing meta glasses.

Speaker 5:
[74:50] So that was one of the things that's actually come up, is people are going to the Masters wearing those smart glasses and everyone's going, hey, we got to protect Augusta and ban those glasses too. Like we really just need it to be as pure as possible. So that did come up quite a bit, but I think they will probably end up banning those glasses too. It is a little bit scary slash possibly cultish to the way they protect that course. Because if you are a YouTuber, for example, YouTube Golf has gotten really big in the last couple of years, you play all the biggest courses in the world. But if you go to play Augusta, no cameras allowed, and you sign an NDA and you can't talk about it. What? And it's like... You can't talk about the course? Yeah, you can't talk about the time that you played the course. And so there's no video evidence of it, and you sign these NDAs, it's like this really weird thing where you see it on TV. People there or something?

Speaker 7:
[75:39] You see it on TV.

Speaker 5:
[75:40] Every year on TV, this course looks absolutely perfect. The grass is the exact same shade of green as all the chairs that are on the course because they've matched those things. Like all of the scoreboards are in the exact same places every single year. It's this almost mythical course where if you ever do get the chance to go there, you don't have a camera with you, you don't have your phone, you just kind of have to take it in and experience it and go home. And that... Like the Stone Ages. Yeah, and that's what you leave with.

Speaker 6:
[76:09] What is the benefit of that? Is it like to prevent cheating or something or they just want to keep this aura of...

Speaker 5:
[76:16] Definitely creates an aura. Yeah, it definitely just protects the integrity of the historical nature of this. It's just the only original golf event left like that.

Speaker 3:
[76:27] Isn't there like extremely minimal ads? Are there like six sponsors for the whole thing? And so the whole thing is just OG, OG.

Speaker 5:
[76:36] And the thing you brought up about the food, the food is still the same price as that it was 50 years ago, it's still a dollar for a hot dog and a drink.

Speaker 3:
[76:42] It's for an egg salad sandwich.

Speaker 5:
[76:43] Which is hilarious because people will go straight to the merch shop and spend a thousand dollars on shirts and hats and stuff because that's super limited, but a two dollar hot dog. So it is very much a blast for the past and I appreciate that about it. Even though I'm a tech person, I do want to go to the Masters and just experience that. Where is it? It's in Georgia. Oh, Georgia. Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[77:02] If anyone from there is listening, your first video was about golf.

Speaker 5:
[77:06] My first ever video was about golf. Fun fact, I did get invited to go to this Masters and I didn't because I wanted to be here on the pod with you guys. That's not the reason. That's a wrong choice, I couldn't make it, but I hope I get invited next time because it looks sick.

Speaker 3:
[77:25] Can I go one more step off the rails into the most niche question possible?

Speaker 5:
[77:28] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[77:29] I probably could ask you this off the podcast, but since we're talking about golf anyways, I'm currently in a disc golf fantasy league and we had a huge argument over the weekend over how to properly score things.

Speaker 5:
[77:46] So if you miss the cut by a lot, you're gonna have a worse day for it. If you pick someone who barely misses the cut, then you only get penalized a little bit. That would like scale, I think, properly.

Speaker 3:
[77:55] We can talk more about this later, because I don't want to totally, but, Bo, you're out there listening.

Speaker 5:
[77:58] There it is.

Speaker 3:
[77:59] Text Marques and I.

Speaker 6:
[78:00] Oh, I think it's so cute, you think that's making it onto the podcast.

Speaker 3:
[78:05] Anyway, The Masters is great.

Speaker 5:
[78:07] I hope I get to go someday. Bryson is maybe the most unrelatable, but also a relatable golfer, because I'm a tech person, and he's also a YouTuber, so it's kind of a small world.

Speaker 3:
[78:18] He's relatable because when I do bad at things, I don't want to talk to anyone about it.

Speaker 5:
[78:22] That's facts, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[78:23] It's totally reasonable.

Speaker 4:
[78:24] We all know that person who participates in a thing, but is actually way more interested in doing some weird, technical, tweaky thing. But when I say we all know that person, I'm...

Speaker 5:
[78:34] We all know Ellis.

Speaker 4:
[78:35] We all know Ellis.

Speaker 5:
[78:38] Yeah, anyway, I think it's time for that last thing we do on every podcast. Go to the Masters. I wish.

Speaker 3:
[78:46] This is actually all recorded at the Masters, so it has to be deleted and we signed an MDA.

Speaker 5:
[78:51] That would be wild.

Speaker 6:
[78:52] Would we be allowed to do a pod from the Masters with no cameras, like just audio equipment?

Speaker 5:
[78:57] I don't even...

Speaker 6:
[78:58] Would they allow that?

Speaker 5:
[78:58] I don't think so.

Speaker 4:
[78:59] Make sure like this table on the green, like six feet from the hole and they just have to golf around us while we're talking.

Speaker 5:
[79:08] That would be a live golf event.

Speaker 4:
[79:10] Oh my gosh. Guys, GoPro between 2016 and 2018 made a thing that was not a little tiny camera. I mean, yeah, it was not a little... It was not a hero and it was not a mission. I'm so excited for that little thing. What was it?

Speaker 5:
[79:26] I feel like I should know this. What do they make? What do they make?

Speaker 3:
[79:30] I think I have a solid educated guess.

Speaker 4:
[79:35] Not a liquid educated guess.

Speaker 3:
[79:39] No, this can't come out of my fingers. Depending on what's in this podcast, that's going to be really confusing.

Speaker 4:
[79:46] I mean, we did record that conversation. Andrew's referencing a conversation we had before the podcast where we were discussing what five liquids we would have dispensed from each of our fingers, which you will never hear.

Speaker 3:
[79:56] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[79:57] I have a feeling this is going to make somebody mad. This is probably Ellis or Adam.

Speaker 4:
[80:04] All right. Who wants to go first?

Speaker 3:
[80:06] Well, I'm so mad at Marques' already.

Speaker 5:
[80:08] I picked one that's probably not the answer you want, but maybe also technically correct. They made an underwater housing for the GoPro.

Speaker 4:
[80:16] Not what I was looking for.

Speaker 3:
[80:17] The original GoPros needed waterproof housing, correct?

Speaker 5:
[80:20] Exactly. They sure did.

Speaker 4:
[80:21] This was not the answer.

Speaker 3:
[80:22] That's just part of the action camera, isn't it?

Speaker 5:
[80:24] Probably a product that GoPro made that's not the camera, but it is a product.

Speaker 4:
[80:29] Am I that pedantic with these questions?

Speaker 5:
[80:32] Let's see what the other answers are. Yes.

Speaker 4:
[80:34] Really?

Speaker 5:
[80:35] I might be the most correct.

Speaker 4:
[80:36] Let's see what they say.

Speaker 3:
[80:36] My theory was GoPro makes a bunch of stuff for people who do action sports that generally wear a helmet. So maybe they made some sort of headphones that work well with helmets.

Speaker 4:
[80:45] That's really interesting, but I don't think they ever made headphones.

Speaker 5:
[80:49] Mine is obviously not true, because I covered phones for like 15 years and I don't remember this, but I put phones.

Speaker 4:
[80:56] You don't remember the GoPro phone?

Speaker 3:
[80:58] Look.

Speaker 5:
[80:59] I don't know. They might have done some weird collab with some, I don't know, my two or something. I've seen weirder phones.

Speaker 4:
[81:05] I was referencing the GoPro Karma, which was a drone.

Speaker 5:
[81:09] You did do a video on that. I knew it. We did.

Speaker 4:
[81:14] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, come on, guys. You can't be mad that I'm not giving you.

Speaker 5:
[81:21] A drone is a camera, though.

Speaker 4:
[81:22] That's why I was like when I was like, it wasn't a little tiny camera. But it kind of is a little tiny camera.

Speaker 5:
[81:27] Gotcha.

Speaker 6:
[81:30] Quick update on the score. Marques with 21 after that incorrect answer, Andrew with 22 after getting that one wrong, and David with 25 after not getting the correct answer.

Speaker 4:
[81:41] Thanks. Okay, Mr. Thesaurus.

Speaker 6:
[81:44] Next question. 32 degrees Celsius is what in Fahrenheit? I'm accepting the answer to the nearest tenth of a decimal point without going over.

Speaker 3:
[81:54] Can we just do Delta?

Speaker 6:
[81:55] Nope. It's so easy.

Speaker 3:
[81:58] Oh, this is so easy. He never said it was easy. I know. No, both of them were just backwards.

Speaker 5:
[82:04] I was wrong.

Speaker 6:
[82:05] That was my original question.

Speaker 3:
[82:07] Can you say it one more time? Now I'm confused.

Speaker 6:
[82:09] 32 degrees Celsius is what in Fahrenheit?

Speaker 3:
[82:11] Okay.

Speaker 6:
[82:11] Do you remember the formula?

Speaker 5:
[82:13] Oh, wait.

Speaker 9:
[82:13] I don't remember the formula.

Speaker 5:
[82:15] I remember part of the formula. Oh, I wish.

Speaker 6:
[82:17] Flip them and read. What do you got?

Speaker 5:
[82:19] What? Oh, that's a... Is there a decimal in your number?

Speaker 3:
[82:21] Yes. Oh, sorry. That's a decimal.

Speaker 6:
[82:23] Thank God.

Speaker 10:
[82:24] You're actually answering in Kelvin.

Speaker 6:
[82:27] Okay. Marques, you first.

Speaker 5:
[82:29] I said 98.6.

Speaker 3:
[82:32] Oh, I was gonna say that's a really good guess because we were talking about body temperature.

Speaker 6:
[82:34] That is a really good guess.

Speaker 3:
[82:35] I wrote 101.5.

Speaker 5:
[82:38] That's like a radio station.

Speaker 3:
[82:39] It is. A really bad one in New Jersey.

Speaker 4:
[82:41] They're all bad.

Speaker 3:
[82:42] Losers.

Speaker 4:
[82:43] Whoa, whoa, whoa. New Jersey is home, the one of the nation's greatest radio stations. I'm talking about WMFU, okay? Or WFMU. That's it. WFMU. Don't talk smack about New Jersey radio if you're not...

Speaker 3:
[82:54] WUPH.

Speaker 4:
[82:55] WFMU?

Speaker 3:
[82:57] Never mind.

Speaker 5:
[82:57] It's okay. I like 96.9, The Eagle out of Sacramento, California.

Speaker 4:
[83:02] All right, David, what did you put?

Speaker 5:
[83:03] I put 74 degrees.

Speaker 6:
[83:05] Wrong, but you get the points because you didn't go over.

Speaker 3:
[83:08] So just under Marques's... So I wrote in the bottom how previously we talked about how...

Speaker 5:
[83:12] Like 94.

Speaker 3:
[83:13] The 82 degrees Fahrenheit felt like 28 degrees Celsius. So I was trying to go with an approximation with that.

Speaker 5:
[83:20] Well, that was completely wrong.

Speaker 3:
[83:22] Well, I'm assuming it was still basing it off of the 82. Maybe not exactly, but a slightly different temperature.

Speaker 5:
[83:28] Because of the wind factor.

Speaker 6:
[83:29] Marques had all the right digits just in the wrong order. It was 89.6.

Speaker 3:
[83:35] Oh, damn, I went high.

Speaker 5:
[83:37] I just want to see the strikes again. OK, isn't the calculation like times five ninths plus 12 or something?

Speaker 6:
[83:45] Degrees in Fahrenheit minus 32 times five ninths gives you Celsius. So you have to do that backwards to get there.

Speaker 5:
[83:53] So times nine fifths minus 32?

Speaker 3:
[83:57] Just for that, I'm never using WhatsApp.

Speaker 5:
[84:02] Wait, what? I should just Google it. Anyway. Why?

Speaker 3:
[84:06] Yeah, because Celsius people don't.

Speaker 5:
[84:08] Celsius people.

Speaker 4:
[84:09] Celsius people use it.

Speaker 5:
[84:10] Oh, you know, everyone else.

Speaker 4:
[84:15] Thanks for referring to non-Americans as Celsius people.

Speaker 3:
[84:19] WhatsApp users are telling me I'm wrong.

Speaker 5:
[84:22] You know, you've never been more right. Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of the golf podcast.

Speaker 3:
[84:29] Ball golf podcast.

Speaker 5:
[84:30] The ball golf podcast. The original golf, obviously. Yeah, we'll be back for more in April still.

Speaker 3:
[84:40] April fools.

Speaker 5:
[84:43] See you next time. Bye.

Speaker 4:
[84:44] Bye.

Speaker 3:
[84:45] Waveform, do you do it? No. Here, I'll do it like us. We produce by Adam Lee and Ellis from Vox Media Podcast Network and our intro music is made by Fade Cil.

Speaker 4:
[85:11] If you could have five liquids come out of each of your fingers.

Speaker 3:
[85:15] I had this conversation. Does it have to be your dominant hand?

Speaker 4:
[85:18] No, non-dominant hand. Which five would you pick?

Speaker 5:
[85:21] Water, Coke Zero, La La Che.

Speaker 3:
[85:24] You can get water anywhere.

Speaker 5:
[85:26] Yeah, but any time.