Episodes

Monday Apr 12, 2021
Ep. 091 - Tech ecosystems and responsibility to end users and participants
Monday Apr 12, 2021
Monday Apr 12, 2021
This week we discuss ecosystems... not like where plants and animals live, but tech ecosystems like an app store, or Amazon or Facebook... or even operating systems like Microsoft with communication platforms, productivity tools and more.
The focus of the conversation is on the responsibilities of the ecosystem owners and how we see things currently working in ecosystems and how they might be changed moving forward.
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Mar 29, 2021
Monday Mar 29, 2021
Bob & Kevin are back this week with an episode about NFTs, the new crypto darlings of moment. What are they? What purpose do they serve? Why do we even care? and what comes next for NFTs? Also, dafuq, a robot just sold an NFT at auction for nearly $700k! oh, yeah... need to remember to say block chain, so we sound super cool, right?
Take a moment to read this gem, then buckle in for another fun episode!
https://www.fastcompany.com/90618623/nft-myths
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Mar 01, 2021
Ep. 089 -Mars landing, the race back to the moon, WandaVision and more
Monday Mar 01, 2021
Monday Mar 01, 2021
A lot has happened in the world of tech since our last episode and we break it all down in this one. We discuss the recent landing on Mars, the tech behind it and what it means for future visits. Bob & Kevin then transitioned into how the moon plays into all this and speculated on the upcoming race back to the surface of the moon and what that could mean for conflict outside of Earth's atmosphere. We covered a lot, but we hope you enjoyed it.
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Feb 08, 2021
Monday Feb 08, 2021
So, not sure if you heard, but the US government is scheduled to release all that they know about aliens this summer and the BK Show is EXCITED! So excited that we decided to talk all things aliens again this episode with new info that has been coming out.
We give our reaction to two, January episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience and we discuss some navy patents that sound an awful lot like some of the stuff Bob Lazar has been talking about for years!
Check out some of our research links!
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10144532B2/en
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Feb 01, 2021
Ep. 087 - GameStop, Reddit, Robinhood app and stonks, oh my!
Monday Feb 01, 2021
Monday Feb 01, 2021
Yup, you guessed it! Just like everyone else, we are talking STONKS!
Bob & Kevin take a look at what a short-squeeze is... how hedge funds traditionally work and why is everyone so upset that our friends over at Reddit just jumped into the game and CHANGED IT!
Or did they?
We look at how technology played a role in all this madness and if this will impact trading apps to come...or not so much.
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Jan 18, 2021
Monday Jan 18, 2021
Well, we got some listener feedback that maybe we needed to lighten things up a little bit... so here is what we ended up with! In this week's episode- yup, we are trying to get back to weekly, we reviewed a bunch of products from CES 2021 that we thought you might find as interesting as we did. Of course, we added the Bob & Kevin Show twist that we hope you enjoy. Many of the products we discussed can be found in the Wired article linked below.
https://www.wired.com/story/ces-2021-highlights-liveblog-whole-show/
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Can Facebook actually be broken up? This is the main question that Bob & Kevin try to answer this week along with a discussion of the recent sale of Slack to Salesforce for a whopping 27.7 billion dollars - we have THOUGHTS!
Lots of monopoly talk to be sure!
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Nov 23, 2020
Monday Nov 23, 2020
In this episode, Bob & Kevin discuss some of the interesting tech innovations that have been introduced during this time of COVID-19. The focus was on innovations around Zoom meetings and OBS Studio. One of the more exciting highlights is https://obs.ninja.
Bob & Kevin shared some things they have learned from their co-workers about working from home and work-life balance.
On the lighter side of things, Bob & Kevin talked about the new feature updated from Twitter, which they are calling Fleets. Have you fleeted yet?
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode, and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Oct 19, 2020
Monday Oct 19, 2020
This week, we celebrate our first in-studio guest from Studio 1A (our midwest location)! Grant Giszewski (the last name might ring a bell for some listeners) joined us to discuss a variety of film industry technology in addition to how some of that tech can be used to enhance social video and more.
Check out some of the links we discussed in this episode:
EbSynth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERp5tMqQkwU&list=LLT9aPwlqsVrppgcRZiKYK4w&index=2
Mandalorian virtual sets: https://youtu.be/Ufp8weYYDE8
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Sep 28, 2020
Ep. 079 - Discussing GPT-3 and the Twitter cropper bias controversy
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Monday Sep 28, 2020
In this episode, Bob & Kevin welcome our first paid sponsor - https://baty-barr.media to the show... well, technically, Josh has been our producer, editor, and engineer for a few episodes now, but this week he PAID US! Then, of course, we paid him to produce this week's show... LOL
Anyway, back to the episode description... Bob & Kevin discussed the recent tweets and discussions around the twitter cropper and racial bias and then shifted to the main topic of conversation GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) - a language-based General AI. Take a listen and find out all the ways it has been used thus far in a limited beta program and get our thoughts on where this tech might be headed.
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Sep 14, 2020
Ep. 078 - Thoughts on the Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma"
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
In this episode, Bob & Kevin discuss the newly released, Netflix, documentary "The Social Dilemma" (https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224). If you have not watched it, we strongly encourage you to do so. Topics covered range from AI to social engineering and the impact that social media has on our world today and its threat to freedom as we know it.
Shortly after the show was recorded, this article was posted to Medium and we think it adds some great flavor to the discussion: https://medium.com/@jeff_seibert/the-mechanics-and-psychology-behind-the-social-dilemma-719d618aa8ce
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Aug 31, 2020
Monday Aug 31, 2020
This week Bob & Kevin discuss how Zoom fatigue has or has NOT affected them and some strategies to help reduce the potential effects of Zoom fatigue. They also discussed social media's role in the spreading of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation with a strong focus on QAnon.
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Aug 24, 2020
Monday Aug 24, 2020
This week, Bob & Kevin discuss how, why, and if TikTok is indeed still for sale and the implications of such a sale and where Microsoft fits into the story. They also take another look at the entire "Apple App Store" thing. It appears yet another company, this time Epic games, is at odds with Apple over the very nature of how the app store makes money for Apple. Will Fortnite finally be the drivng force to change how app stores work? You will have to listen to find out!
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Aug 03, 2020
Ep. 075 - Cancel Culture: is it a myth or malicious mob mentality?
Monday Aug 03, 2020
Monday Aug 03, 2020
In this episode, Bob & Kevin take a look at cancel culture and debate if it is fact or fiction. We found some very interesting definitions of cancel culture and discussed what (if anything) actually constitutes being #cancelled.
As always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
In this episode...
Bob & Kevin discuss the https://hey.com/ email platform and their struggles with Apple (app store) to get and keep their app available to anyone that is interested. This brought the conversation around to "ecosystems" in general and the pros and cons of their existence.
Anyway, as always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Jun 22, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Things in the world are heavy right now, we get that. The Bob & Kevin Show is listening and we strongly believe that Black Lives Matter. We are also laser-focused on the impact companies like Facebook and Twitter have on the collective social and political mood of not just our nation, but the world. In this episode, we discuss some of Facebook's and Twitter's reactions and responses to world events addressing racial equality and some of the garbage being posted to social media by "dear leader" - you know the orange guy we are talking about!
Anyway, as always, let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday May 04, 2020
Monday May 04, 2020
Pop quiz for you Bob & Kevin Show listeners - when was the last time you COMPLETELY read a terms of service agreement for a website or software you have used? Yeah, we don't think we ever have either. Enter the hero of our story (sort of) https://tosdr.org/!
Yup, this site has a plugin that we eventually determined is quite helpful, but the site itself also gives you a quick snapshot of how crappy most companies are about their terms of service. Anyway, check it out and let us know what you think.
We also took some time at the beginning of the episode to discuss React JS and other javascript frameworks and how they impact front end web development.
Let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Okay, solve maybe a bit of a stretch, but in the era of social distancing and Covid-19 we think the word needs to take a hard look at what grocery shopping currently looks like and adopt some more digital and touchless solutions.
The other softball topic (yeah right) we try to tackle involves the establishment of some sort of universal digital identification - you can probably guess where Bob rests on this issue, but you may be surprised on where Kevin ends up on the issue! Hey, if y'all can figure out where he stands on this, feel free to reach out and let us know, please ;)
Let us know what you thought of this episode and feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.

Wednesday Feb 19, 2020
Ep. 065 - Iowa caucus app scandal. When in doubt, blame a developer
Wednesday Feb 19, 2020
Wednesday Feb 19, 2020
Bob & Kevin try to get to the bottom of the Iowa caucus app scandal and share their point of view on app development and development in general. Feel free to ping us on social media with your thoughts on this episode or any of our others - Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow.
Full transcription from Otter.ai
Kevin 0:00
So breaking news, your fearless leader has been acquitted of all charges Bob, and I will ask you how that makes you feel because I really know how that makes you feel. But it does.
Bob 0:13
I didn't think we were gonna date our podcasts like this, but that's okay.
Kevin 0:19
That's true. That's true. But we are going to talk about something that did happen recently. But we're gonna expand upon it and look towards the future as we often do. Can you guess what's happening? But before we get into that,
Bob 0:34
yep. Before we get into that, can we give a shout out or two to we had some social media engagement this week? from a recent episode about space travel to Mars? Shout out to Conrad.
Kevin 0:48
Yes, Conrad. He's probably like, damn you guys when we're gonna do this collaboration thing so I can like fight you mano a mano right on these topics.
Bob 0:59
Well, it's funny Though because I feel like Yes, we did ask a lot of questions. mostly focused around how, how this all works, you know how you make an engine that can do that trip. But then also, you know, the subspace communications thing. It's great. You can reference Star Trek, but I mean, we don't. That's fantasy, right?
Kevin 1:21
It is. But the best thing about Star Trek is it's like a Venn diagram. It's definitely real, in some cases, believable, and it's definitely fantastical. However, it's not just lasers from spaceships. I mean, I guess they do have lasers, which are very accurate, but they do have a lot of Well, technically, yes, that's possible, but it's completely unreachable by today's standards type stuff.
Bob 1:48
Right. And it does. Star Trek historically has driven a lot of our current technology on to watch how well I'm going to connect some things together right now. So Last night we were watching. Well, actually the last two nights we've been glued to the TV because we're old folks now. And we watch politically geared television, mostly following the Iowa caucus debacle, which we'll touch upon. But Caroline said to me, she goes, this is like 2020. Why is there such a delay between the asking of the question, and someone answering the question when they're really just from, you know, New York to Iowa? I'm like, still has to go up to the satellite and back down. It's about what a second and a half
Kevin 2:32
No, it well, yet. It's about 500 milliseconds, half second. Doesn't sound like a ton. But
Bob 2:38
is it a half up and half down or half total?
Kevin 2:41
It's a half total. It's 250 milliseconds up. 250 down.
Bob 2:45
Wow, it feels like a lot more on those live broadcasts, which is kind of it Yeah,
Kevin 2:50
I saw Biden the other days talking to Seth Stephanopoulos or however you say his name and it was awkward because they just kept stepping on each other and Biden. I think had Like no idea on how to like, Okay, hold on a second
Bob 3:04
Joe. Shut up. Let the man talk Grandpa Joe, Grandpa Joe doesn't understand
Kevin 3:11
satellite delay. He probably does. But he he definitely didn't handle it. Well, but Anyway, I digress.
Bob 3:18
So that half millisecond up and down though that's an ideal? Yes, it is circumstances. So it could lag long.
Kevin 3:24
Yeah. So that that's just your transit time, from ground to satellite to back. However, you still have encoders because, you know, in the modern world, we, we take the signal and we change it from analog to digital digital to analog, because that signal that goes all the way out to space is an analog radio wave. And we've got to convert those back into bits on both sides. So there's a little bit of latency there, injected as well. So I mean, yeah, we've got some additional stuff.
Bob 3:53
So we're learning a lot about the candidates every single day. And there's a lot of technology tied to that, but If I asked you this question, historically speaking, would you say that elections have been very tightly tied to technology? Other than recent history? I don't
Kevin 4:11
think so.
Bob 4:13
I mean, you think about you go into the booth. And for the most part and a lot of locations, you're still actually punching a hole in a piece of paper or, you know, there's there's a printed paper ballot. That's a result of that. I would not consider any of that very high tech.
Kevin 4:27
Yeah, so my earliest memories of going, tagging along to go voting with my parents in the 80s. My earliest memories of voting, you'd walk you go to the school or wherever your voting precinct is, you walk into this thing you draw the curtain behind you. It looked like something it looked like George Booleans analytical machine it just looked like this metal thing and really exactly levers pulley. I don't know how you people voted back then. But apparently, I mean, of course, I was, you know, young child. So this is just my impression of it all. But apparently you did something and it Did something in the outputted like a punch card or something, and I guess that was your boat, and then they threw it on the stack and the next person went in. So that's my earliest memory. And then my, my modern memory and it hasn't really changed. Since I've been able to vote. It's It's like an E ink type screen where you push the button either on the far left or far right, there's like buttons on the left and right. And then when you get to the last page, you push the giant red button, which is now lit up like a Christmas tree. This is pushing this button means your vote counts, you know, you push the button and that's
Bob 5:32
and then the dot matrix does its thing well,
Kevin 5:36
it feels like you know, like a calculator from the late 90s technology, like you know, like a ti 85 is probably what runs my voting machine like nowadays. So I guess that's because years have the Jogwheel have such things it must be like an innovative voting. Well, we still have the big red button, okay. And we have the left and the right arrows have another not their arrow shaped buttons but then most of my adult voting has had the machine with the jog wheel so that's how you like you know there's a 256 color screen and it moves the highlight oh we have ours is to color it's it's literally like II think so there's no color to it at all but you know what really grinds my gears now that you brought it up you've triggered me Bob what grinds my gears is you can there's buttons in Indiana you can say you can vote straight party lines push this button for all republican push this button for all democrat and then that just bothers me that you don't even have to look I'm just gonna go
Bob 6:40
over the screen. Yeah, on the first screen we get that option too but it's still like a screen and then in ours is like digital checkboxes I don't know it's pretty lame but it's still not I would not consider high tech in any way shape. I think they should ban those just like select all republican or select Oh democrat I just feel like that's totally disingenuous to the process. Just vote for the team. Well, it's funny that you bring up disingenuous to the process because the caucus the other night, the caucuses the other night in Iowa. I've never caucused personally have you.
Kevin 7:19
I have not cockiest and it's so weird to use that word as a verb. But no, I've never cockiest
Bob 7:25
apparently I'm going to get a chance to this year because my wife is either making me do that and or phone bank for a candidate coming up very soon. But anyway, I digress. The whole like disrespecting the process or whatever that exact phrase that you used, the fact that you line up in an area publicly, and then there's a chance for you then to persuade your friends and neighbors to join you in your area for the next phase that just feels
Kevin 7:53
feels kind of icky. Like you can bring like a cheesecake and be like, hey, Fred, I know you're in the cheesecake, but hey, I'm into I'm into Bernie What do you think? I'll give you a slice it
Bob 8:04
they were reporters talking about promising to shovel their neighbor snow for the following year baking them cookies like they've heard all these side conversations so yeah, people try to convince and or bribe each other to, to come stand in the corner with which is so weird is but part of me is like because it's not binding right?
Kevin 8:25
But part of me is like okay, you're trying to persuade people and let's be honest people persuade people all the time with things and whatnot and a private citizen persuading another private citizen is not as lucky as a government official. Who sits on government money person get it being persuaded by a lobbyist for instance.
Bob 8:46
Okay, fair enough. That's true. Just say
Kevin 8:50
for sure, but yet caucusing. Sounds weird only because I'm using the actual definition of weird which means something other than outside my norm. You know, not that Yeah, weird bad this is outside what I'm used to.
Bob 9:03
Well, I think we're gonna get to Is it weird bad or is it just bad bad here in a couple minutes, but do you think we should try to set a record and kick this off?
Kevin 9:12
Yeah, let's do it.
Bob 9:14
All right. So key music, edit that out.
Kevin 9:17
So to add a little context, so the Iowa caucuses recently happened, but it happens every year. So whenever you listen, this pot it it happened. But what happens every four years? Thank you. What happened this time around is at the end of the night. No winner could be declared because
Unknown Speaker 9:35
Bob, technology technology
Kevin 9:37
and a little more context is the results were to be transmitted by a mobile app to the DNC of Iowa, Democratic National Committee of Iowa's headquarters, so they could feed cnn they could feed Fox News, they could feed all the outlets right?
Bob 9:57
It I don't know what it was that the intent of the app because See, I'm so confused by this because I was watching it live. And while you know, obviously, the news outlets can't be at each one of the 1700 caucus locations, they were at, they picked like some of the high profile ones. And they were five, I was watching the CNN broadcast full disclosure, but there were five locations that they were covering pretty much live. And those locations ranged from, you know, slightly over 100 people at the caucus location to I think one of them was approaching 1000. So like 900, some I think the attendees were, and it's a very analog. caucusing is a very analog event. They literally are counting people in an area. So one of the things that they did differently this time around, is for the first time ever, they were going to share transparently with the viewing public or with America, basically, the first round numbers so you basically pick a candidate And based on the number of people at the location, they pick a viability threshold at 15%. So if there were 100 people at the caucus location, you would have to have 15 members in your caucus group to be viable. If you weren't, if you were underneath that threshold, the people in the non viable groups had to pick a second pick. But then that was it, they were locked in. So the first time ever, they were going to share round one numbers, round two numbers, then, as always, the delegate distribution, which is a whole nother set of fuckery after So,
Kevin 11:38
so the app wasn't meant to integrate directly with CNN but it just you know, it's a means to say okay, I need to transmit numbers to from location A to location B, location being DNC headquarters to it, then the CNN of the world could then get tallies of all the precincts
Bob 11:57
right, but in the olden days, people would call And I'm assuming or if they were close enough to the central repository, they would just drive their ballots there. Because there are cards that for each individual preference. And they would still report those, like one of the things mentioned over and over on the night of the caucus, which was just a few nights ago, that, you know, historically will last for you know, at 2016. At this time, we were 80% reported already. And that was the good old fashioned way with paper. So,
Kevin 12:29
you know, I get the intent of, hey, it's it's the year 2020 let's let's find some slick technological way to make it easier because driving your your paper ballots there takes time. Sending a spreadsheet through email seems arcane. It just seems like you know, a lot of like, on the surface, hey, this is a great idea. But
Bob 12:54
those wait before you get to your buck, can I ask you a simple question? Did you hear about this app? Before the day of the course not, I did not. Okay. I didn't either. I just wanted to make sure that I was either a part of the uninformed masses or be just an idiot. So it sounds like not many people knew about this app Well, up until the day of But should we
Kevin 13:16
have? I think the answer is also no. I mean, this isn't one of those things that we should just be like, Hey, did you hear about Iowa? They're, they're running this new app. Let's see how it goes and do an elbow jab and somebody's rib, you know, I don't know.
Bob 13:27
Yeah. But as a fast forward, though, when things are going in the shitter. And then all of a sudden you hear somebody say, oh, there was this app that we are really worried about. And we think, because early on, it was like, well, maybe that's what caused it. Just like casual maybe it was the app that was causing the problem. So to inform the lay listener here, what had happened was
Kevin 13:50
apparently, not much because the there was a friction. There was a lot of friction between the precinct people trying to transmit Through this app to headquarters, and I was seeing some of the error messages, you know, basically couldn't connect or so there was some problem.
Bob 14:08
And look, did you see that XYZ protocol one? Yeah. I'm
Kevin 14:13
not. I'm not sure if that was like a placeholder, hey, you're using the wrong
Bob 14:17
know that looked like a screengrab?
Kevin 14:19
Well, it did. But I think it was a generic error message, hey, the protocol you're trying to use such as XYZ, blah, blah, blah. I don't think it was the actual literal one, like leaving foo, and bar code like I've done before, but I'm just saying, I hope that it was a generic label, but I was like, Well, fuck, that's not going to work. So there's no such thing as XYZ protocol. This app was created by a company called shadow Inc. And that is its own laughable thing. Wait a second. You tell me their shady operation and it's called shadow Inc. Okay.
Bob 14:55
What what government group? I mean, seriously, let's take Technology aside, this is just basic common sense. I'm a government organization who hires a company called shadow Inc. Well,
Kevin 15:09
I made the comment in her channel that Well, it's because sheisty ship com was already taken boots.
Bob 15:17
And government is just not supposed to be in the same phrase together in the public.
Kevin 15:24
So the app apparently costs 60 grand because my which is lower than my initial guy. I was thinking this was the least a seven digit app just because it's talking to government and put up with government bullshit, you add extra decimals and plays when we know.
Bob 15:38
Do we know that it was talking to government? Um, wait, it seems like a point to point like, I don't think the government was involved. Well,
Kevin 15:47
it's it was the DNC involved. So primaries are run by political parties. They're actually not run by the government. However, everyone at the DNC and all the candidates are completely associated with the government, right?
Bob 16:03
Yeah, but we're talking about the same DNC that's had servers exposed to the outside hacked. pillage. So, I mean, they don't have a great tech track, right?
Kevin 16:12
Total leadership via fail, I'll kind of get into that a little more. I'm gonna get through some of the details of the app and the company. So shadow Inc 60 grand, it used to factor off, which apparently was part of the problem. Hey, I'm all about to factor off. But we'll talk a little bit more about that. That the more shady part of this is that it was a side loaded app. Are you familiar with side loaded apps?
Bob 16:37
sideload apps or that? Isn't that the protocol that you have to go through when it's not officially in the app store?
Kevin 16:42
Because if you want to get an app on Android, you go to the Play Store, you want an app on? Apple, you're going to get it from the Apple Store, the App Store, and so wait, but
Bob 16:52
I'm thinking if I wanted to protect something like that, I would totally go the sideload mess right.
Kevin 16:59
I'm glad you brought Because I brought this up yesterday, too, because somebody said like, hey, shouldn't have been a warning flag. Yes and no. Because, Bob, what can I do with code, even if it's compiled?
Bob 17:08
You can decompile it. So if it's public, that's all right.
Kevin 17:12
So if I have an app that's meant to go to 1700 people, but it's on the Play store where anyone can download or apps or anyone can download it, that possibly opens up a bit of a risk there. Aside from that, Android will take any app, it could be a guest, your number game,
Bob 17:30
they'll take it. Where Apple, yes, your number game where we steal all your information,
Kevin 17:35
exactly. Where Apple is very stringent on their stuff, good for Apple. But let's say you don't want to go through that bullshit. And you're like, hey, look, there's 1700 people, we're going to use this. So there's different ways to distribute that and I think it's like fairy app or whatever they use, but there's one called hockey puck. So if you do mobile development, and you're like, Hey, Kevin, check this out. Or hey, Baba, can you test this out for me? It's not a In the store or this version is not in the store, you use the side services to get that app onto your phone. So at face value when somebody says, but it was sideload, isn't that shady? Well, yes and no. And I would actually come down on the idea that that's maybe what I would do too. Because,
Bob 18:19
yeah, unless you do unless you upload it into your own server and had secure distribution, I mean, but that's still a sideload.
Kevin 18:26
It's still a silo, because unless it's coming from the official Google Store, or iOS, it is a sideload, no matter where you get that from, and then to sideload that you got to turn off or turn on, if you will, developer mode. And there's just starting to become barriers to installing
Bob 18:42
this right. There's a giant general user barrier to entry. But can we can we talk a little bit about like, just the concept of the app in general, because you said 60 grand, and you were a little shocked that it was below your original gas, which, obviously if you say hey, guess how much the government paid for this piece of shit. You're going to say a million dollar. Right? Exactly. That's just, that's just your standard answer. But when you think about what that app actually had to do, so 1700 locations, but each one of those locations was literally only sharing three numbers. First round total, second round total per candidate. So times will say times 10, even though it wasn't 10 candidates, so 30 numbers. Yes. You and I could build that in half day. Yes. So, so 60 grand, still pretty expensive. So Bob,
Kevin 19:38
if you wouldn't mind in the top right. desk drawer, pull out your shiny tinfoil hat because I've got two answers for you.
Bob 19:47
Dude, I've been wearing that tinfoil hat for
Kevin 19:50
72 hours straight. I've got two answers for you and somebody put it in a tweet and I totally agree it was either gross incompetence, or somebody had an angle here and Angle like, hey, let's let's round this extra Penny and put it in a foreign bank account that went bad. It's like ship, ship ship, you know. So I am of the opinion that it is the former gross incompetence because you're right. All you gotta do is put some numbers in, send it to a server. Oh my god that is like every app ever and that is just like, I mean, we're not talking about threading. We're not talking about graphics.
Bob 20:28
We're just like, it's literally five lines of code to post something to another flex like
Kevin 20:35
this out, please. I mean, it wasn't hot. So I'm looking at this going. You have one job, but somebody actually tweeted, I think it was the voice of God handle you had na n Yeah, here, whatever.
Bob 20:49
final number to come job. Oh my. Um, but yeah, so I think it's a combination of both. I think because I'm still wearing tinfoil hat. It was shady shit with gross negligence.
Kevin 21:05
So to finish out the context, so it went completely horrible. We had no winner at the end of the night, which is worst case scenario, you have a sitting,
Bob 21:14
we still don't have one
Kevin 21:16
for dating ourselves.
Bob 21:18
They still they could have counted these votes 10 times. Oh,
Kevin 21:21
we have a sitting president, who's the opposition to these candidates laughing his ass off and going motherfuckers thank you for that gift. Thank you. And not that they need a new one. But thank you. All right. So, um, let me start kind of picking this apart. So where was the testing and where's the dry run? Because I think it was obvious based on some of the feedback of the people some people said they had no intention of using it because air quotes sounded too hard, or they waited till the Day of to try to install it to them,
Bob 21:57
but from what I read The committee chair people are captains or whatever they call it. We're getting emails up until the day of the caucus with updated links for the app, right.
Kevin 22:12
Which goes to show it's like, well, I am By the way, I don't blame developers. And
Bob 22:18
we'll get to that point, I think, because that's the big combination. But anyway, right. Okay.
Kevin 22:24
So, so some people are like, Oh, fuck, it's too hard. And then other people are like, hey, I've got this three year old or four year old android phone like me, and it just won't load because you know, part of the positive things of going through the apple review or getting it on Google Play as well you can you have a much wider distribution of bugs and whatnot, and hey, this doesn't work. When we report this bug. It just fucking sucks or, or it's great. But if you wait until the last minute and you have 1700 phones that may or may not work, I'm getting Android
Bob 22:55
song recipe. Candy Cane.
Kevin 22:58
Right or marshmallow. One of the main one like that Android naming is hard, right?
Bob 23:03
Don't ask me Well, okay.
Kevin 23:06
Okay. Apple named after mountains and shit like that.
Bob 23:08
Phone Oh, SF Tom crap like that.
Kevin 23:13
And it used to be big cats used to be like Cheetah and lion and like mountain lion or whatever, whatever. Anyway, yes, naming is hard. Okay, so. So clearly they were under some sort of last minute deadline for all we know they got this contract the week before, you know, and here you go. This has got to happen. It's 60 grand. And then they put their developers on the death mark. I feel
Bob 23:35
like there's a timetable printed out there somewhere. And it's a little bit more liberal than I think what we're giving them credit for.
Kevin 23:44
Maybe they oversold as an agency. Yeah, we'll take that back that never know. Let's do next week. That's it? Well, if we get into a waterfall versus agile, you will almost never have that problem with agile because you've got to show a working product weekly or every two weeks we're waterfall I think you can easily fall in that trap where it's like, oh shit, we've been planning and getting around to it. Our homework is actually due next week. And then you know, this is where you go like find something on the internet, cut and paste rename. Not saying I did that in college. But anyway, I like the internet barely existed back then. It was
Bob 24:25
called that avalanche development, not waterfall. Oh, nice.
Kevin 24:31
So do you have any other details on the applications development at all?
Bob 24:36
I'm scanning through, but I mean, no, actually the development of the app itself, other than the price tag and stuff like that. No. It's so simple, though. I mean, it's got to be simple.
Kevin 24:49
So in pop, and politics, everyone loves to point the finger actually, they do the they do the knuckle thing where, you know, I think Clinton started where you can't actually point and then Obama Did it you make this like random thing? It's kinda like a face with that first fingers like kind of push. Exactly. Bob, Bob knows the struggle. So the do knuckle pointing, right? Like cuz you don't think these days where the D. the DNC is basically like, Oh, this is a serious flaw in the app. Yeah.
Bob 25:18
And but that didn't come out until our three after the coxes. Were all done. Like it was delay, delay, no information, no information delay delay. We're being extra careful. We're going over the results with a fine tooth comb to make sure that they are you know, as legitimate and unquestionable as possible. And then all of a sudden people kept praying. Well, actually, no, that's not even true. People didn't keep praying tweets started surfacing of the chair people captains, the caucus captains saying that they were having trouble with the app. And then obviously some reporters dug into the fact, in then they said there was some inconsistency of the data submitted through the app.
Kevin 26:10
Yes. So there could be so many things. It could be simply Bob the precinct or not Bob. But Fred, the precinct Captain put in the wrong numbers. That's an inconsistent, right. But it has nothing to do no app. It could be that somebody who was looking at the source code told his boss Yeah, I see this bug here. But that wasn't it. But somehow some way that got transmitted up, hey, well, we did find this bug, but that wasn't it, which turned into Oh, they found the major bug. No, you know, over
Bob 26:39
midnight, eastern time, the night of the caucuses, so.
Kevin 26:44
So it was a huge clusterfuck. And but what was really obvious to me is their contingency plan either didn't exist, or they didn't take it serious.
Bob 26:52
In the original proposal. I did see this. So in the original proposal, it was the app and the call center. So So they were going to act in tandem to be fallbacks for each other, but also to potentially limit the bandwidth requirement for each. So you could call in, or you could use the app. The I think the committee, the the Iowa democratic committee, opted to not go with the full package. So they ended up only with the app in a severely understaffed call center.
Kevin 27:28
So if you're going to launch an app like that, do you think that's a high visibility app,
Bob 27:33
but I think the intention was it wasn't going to be high visibility at all. And that was where the oops hat Well,
Kevin 27:40
the curse of the IT industry as a whole. If you're doing your job, it's a non event, because the system is working. The bits are moving. Congratulations,
Bob 27:47
however,
Kevin 27:49
however, when Google goes down, Boss calls, why can't I google? And that's what happened, right? Why can't I send votes? So it's the curse of of visibility here that I think what got Miss allocated in terms of risk assessment here is, Hey, guys, what happens if this app just totally doesn't work? What if? What if the cell towers go down? What if? I don't know what, what if something, you know, what's the worst case scenario?
Bob 28:20
All those would have been like pretty legit. But apparently they didn't even test if people could log in.
Kevin 28:29
Right? Which is a bit mind blowing. But somebody pointed out to me at work. Kevin, do you realize what the average precinct workers demographic is? And it's not his words, but my words, but I would characterize them as this. There are people in their 60s or 70s and they are the same people who couldn't set their VCR clocks in the 80s and 90s. And we think Facebook and the internet are the same. Now I did. These are the people working The poll a
Bob 29:00
lot of younger precinct captains, but I think that those might have been the ones associated with that kind of the younger campaigns. You know, Bernie staffers are usually pretty young and their volunteers are pretty young Mayor Pete very much the same. Elizabeth probably the same as well, but yeah, so But yeah, it's they're they're not tech savvy users for the most part.
Kevin 29:25
No, and I would say the poll workers and the candidates
Bob 29:29
volunteers are to know the caucusing people are they're truly like the the ones that are the committee captains their volunteer
Kevin 29:38
there. So but are they associate with usually closely
Bob 29:41
tied to a candidate?
Kevin 29:44
Oh, man, that's news.
Bob 29:47
coverage. So anyway, coverage from group to route group, like you'd have a committee like a captain, a caucus captain, and he would put he or she would put themselves in a group and they would say we have to call somebody over over to Kenya. Because I'm you know, I'm caucusing for Elizabeth Warren, even though they were a volunteer for the caucus itself that they're all politically involved people so they are tied to candidate. Yeah, I'm sure.
Kevin 30:14
Well, I mean, who who works at polling doesn't have a candidate they like I mean, the reason you're there is because you're into politics right. So therefore you probably have
Bob 30:23
the politically agnostic yet interested in politics person is going to be very, like very much the exception.
Kevin 30:31
Right. All right. So their contingency plan was okay. The app is shit the bed. We have this hotline, and I was
Bob 30:40
watching this wolf blitzer. fuck that guy.
Kevin 30:43
Yes. Oh my god. case you haven't seen that. Well, Blitzer is talking to a guy who's on hold with the DNC the hotline. And he's talking He's like, yeah, I'm on hold and this is what we're supposed to do. And I've been on hold forever. And then the lady finally says Hello. Hello. He's like Wolfie, you won't believe it. I'm finally off hold and she's like, hello. And she's like, She's like, Okay, I gotta go. And then she's like, click here, the click on the phone, Caroline,
Unknown Speaker 31:14
she has to call back and get back in line. We're yelling at the TV. We're like, no, she's gonna hang up. She's gonna hang up.
Kevin 31:23
It was amazing TV right there. So. So there's that that was a contingency plan. But how can you not just be like, Okay, if both of these should fail? Or maybe we didn't have enough people in the call center. Guys, can we just send out an email? This wasn't a part of the contingency plan. We have 1700 email addresses, I would think, can we just send out an email says, hey, I've set up a Dropbox. This is the official Dropbox, post some sort of file in here with your tallies, and then we'll we'll just throw them in a spreadsheet together, guys, let's just get that This done. But guess what, Bob, as you alluded to earlier in this frickin episode, it's been a couple days since the goddamn voting
Bob 32:09
is occurred, and they still haven't figured it out over over 48 hours are actually coming up on 48 hours. And we are 85% reported, I believe is last I saw like just a couple minutes ago,
Kevin 32:22
I mentioned that. I mentioned a scenario that could come up the New Hampshire primary is next week. What is the possibility that we might have new hampshire results officially in before we have Iowa results? Well,
Bob 32:37
technology aside, these results are going to get contested because of what's happening. So they might not be official, like they might reach 100% you know, like with 100% district reporting, but then somebody who didn't get their number that they wanted, they're gonna cry and they're going to contest it.
Kevin 32:58
Where it means Yo, guys Sorry, because I saw him on. Cuz I saw Joe Biden He's like, well, we'll get more than our fair share of delegates. Dude, go away. I mean, the only reason he's still around is because of the impeachment. In my humble opinion. It's like, ah, he would have gone away but we impeach the guy. Ah, now we have to deal with Biden for a little bit longer.
Bob 33:22
86% reporting right now. We got 14% left. Okay.
Kevin 33:30
So, I'm gonna ask you some pointy questions.
Bob 33:36
I love the pointy question segment of the show.
Unknown Speaker 33:41
Two questions from Kevin does Bob so
Kevin 33:44
so shadow Inc, apparently apparently took money or can take money from candidate parties to help for the development of the app. So I guess not just the DNC you know, hired them but they actually have Candidates allegedly or quotes contributing to the development of this app. Do you think there's a conflict of interest if I say I don't want to give $20,000 to shadowing for this talling thing to
Bob 34:13
know hey, make sure you count them right we have I think we didn't give money to shadow Inc we donated money to acronym dirty Are you familiar with that company after we are
Kevin 34:26
up um let me in on it because I did see the name but they're apparently distancing themselves from shadow
Bob 34:33
ink so also another oh shit like names are. These names are like hysterical. They're just so fake. So acronym is a nonprofit corporation funded in 2017 by Tara gallons, political strategist. But anyway, they launched shadow ink. So they were the ones collecting the money.
Kevin 34:56
Well, I was actually thinking about this Kevin Then maybe we have a show disclaimer at some point already. Kevin, you've been tasked to create this app the same app that you're going to do it right air quotes, because what is right anymore, right? So you're gonna do it. My first impression might be guys.
Unknown Speaker 35:18
Let's take a
Kevin 35:18
little bit of lesson learned out of this and go maybe we should set up a second company.
Bob 35:25
Guaranteed.
Kevin 35:28
I'm just saying because if this goes bad, and we need to rebrand like overnight, we could just get rid of that car.
Bob 35:35
Right? Right. And the internet is flooded with in this is what I love about the internet. When people see something that might be hinky they screen grab it. And so their screen grabs of you know, acronym walking back their association with with shadow, but then somebody is like, what about this post that used to be on your About Us page.
Kevin 35:58
So what does tinfoil hat say about a candidate contributing to a counting a simple counting tallying app. Do you think there's any chance that they're like, hey, sub adding just one at 1.1? And let's round up if you know what
Bob 36:16
I'm saying. Let me let me layer even more conspiracy theory on top of that. What if some of those candidates that were maybe sharing a little bit of money with those companies that may have been alphabet named acronym or shadow in nature name shadow? What if those political candidates have special ops background consultant that dealt with behavioral science for a large consulting firm in has some ties to the CIA? What would you think about those?
Kevin 36:48
I would think it would be a great documentary coming to Netflix.
Bob 36:53
I feel like hashtag Mayor cheats bio that I just read
Unknown Speaker 37:00
Yeah, that was
Kevin 37:03
kind of how Cambridge I see the parallels with Cambridge Analytica, just kind of like this company just kind of out there and you just give them the right amount of money and they make things happen Scott like the fixer from Pulp Fiction. Hey, what do you need? What happened was the body Okay, we'll take care of it. You know, don't worry about it. We got it. So I very much feel is you know, Shadow ink is definitely appropriately named. Ask me.
Bob 37:31
I'll also layer on some more conspiracy. Pete was the only one who went on TV and declared victory that night there were no results. Guess Guess who's in the lead? So
Kevin 37:45
Mayor P. So Mayor Pete is from the great state of Indiana to wit I am broadcasting from hasn't right now. I will say that I'm not 100% sure he would actually win the state of Indiana at this point. Only because he's very localized to South Bend as far as being, you know, popular obviously being running for president has brought attention to him so we'll see. Oh, don't sugarcoat it.
Bob 38:16
I'm a little shocked he won't win Indiana because he's gay.
Kevin 38:21
Well, there's definitely that I mean it's
Bob 38:23
no no Well, I mean to my primary my liberal Indiana friends but my conservative Indiana friends will be like
Unknown Speaker 38:31
yeah
Kevin 38:34
yeah, it's this is a tough state because the conservatives definitely wouldn't vote from the general election that but I don't know how it would go in the Democratic primary. You don't you might be right.
Bob 38:47
I don't think maybe surprise gonna kick in there.
Kevin 38:52
I have never voted in a democratic primary. So I don't even keep track. So I've barely been voted any primaries, because what's the point? Which takes me to my next point? primaries and this, I think this is for all states. They're all run by the DNC, the RNC. And it's really not government sponsored whatsoever, isn't even a real election. I know the general election is a real election, but is the primary an actual real election? You know,
Bob 39:27
I think it's just a mechanism to try to try to make it look like the people's voices are heard. I don't think it's official in any way, shape or form. I think the Democratic National Committee at any point in time could change the rules for the delegate convention and, you know, put their person up, but also, that's probably a tinfoil hat as well. I don't think there's any. I don't think there's any overarching legislation of how a political organizations candidate is put forward.
Kevin 39:57
So they could at any point, say okay, We're going to have our convention and the only one that can win is if your name rhymes with Bernie Sanders. Raise your hand if your name runs through,
Bob 40:10
then you're out because that's the whole DNC thing. But, um, let's get back to because I think one of the things that I got the biggest chuckle out of the other day was, you know, when all else fails, blame a developer. And that's been some very interesting chatter online, too. It's like, How in the hell yeah, sure, you could point the finger but the developers not going to be the one to stop. I mean, a rare one could but like, the developer isn't the problem here.
Kevin 40:43
I would hundred percent agree. We talked about this too. In the small group. developers do what they're asked really no more, no less. They do bring up challenges and like, Hey, I know you want that new feature, but I'm still working on this old features kind of buggy and heavily tested this because I don't feel Comfortable right now. And I know where all the bodies are buried, so to speak. So I think the developers just doing their job I really put this on my leadership fail at at shadowing. Firstly, and then secondly, at the DNC. So it's mostly the leaders at shadow Inc. There, hey, you're in charge of this. What is your load testing plan? What is your distribution plan? What is your we're going to be on 1700 phones of which we not sure necessarily what the mix of technology? Are they all apple? Are they all Android or that mix? Somebody's got a fucking Windows Phone out there. You know, what, what is your plan? And if this all goes to shit, have you communicated your risk assessment to the client and be like, Look, we're doing everything we can XYZ. But let's plan for fail because if you don't have a plan, you're if you fail to plan you plan to fail, right? But in the developer circles, I'm very much of the mantra that I plan for failure. What if this when I make this What if that service that I talked to dies? What am I gonna do? Yeah,
Bob 42:03
but how about that? I'm sorry. It's not ready. I can't. It's not working. Ah,
Kevin 42:10
well, do you really think a dev is hiding behind that going? I can't tell him it's not ready. I don't believe that because most Deb's I know go, No, I just couldn't get to that. Yeah. Or it's buggy.
Bob 42:21
Or when I experience a dev tells the truth to the project manager and the project manager somehow then doesn't tell the truth to everyone else.
Kevin 42:29
Yeah, you know what the most annoying thing about her is that the most annoying things about developers is they're typically very pragmatic, pessimistic and very honest. And that's not very good for sales. When we're like, No, you want to do what you want when you need that by Are you crazy? And you're right. And then when that gets put through the business filter Now, fortunately, and I Yes, I am. I am. I'm disclaiming here. I don't have that. From where I'm at, we have very good communication. And but I'm not seeing that this happened necessarily shadow ink, but I don't know it shadowing.
Bob 43:10
Well, yeah. And I'm also very curious to find out like, I haven't seen a body count. Like, you know how many people are actually employed by shadowing? How many developers how big the team was? None of that.
Kevin 43:23
But even if we did know that, I don't know if that would be insightful or not.
Bob 43:29
Well, I think it would be interesting. Definitely, because right now I feel like it's one guy in his basement who made 60 grand.
Kevin 43:38
Could be Hey, I mean, he took PR hit was
Bob 43:43
his buddy is the one who lied. The guy in the basement made 20 grand the guy who lied made 40 grand, you know?
Kevin 43:53
Put some I put some of this on the quiet. We've got the saying. Maybe just America, the customer is always right. Well, no, because here's why the customer has to do their own risk assessment to what if this company doesn't deliver? What if they deliver me? Shit on a shingle? What if you know what is our contingency? Has this ever been used before? Do we have a track record of this app just working to have a track record of this company providing services that are reliable, and I would have to say the DNC of Iowa, failed at their own mission? Because an app is just a tool in this situation.
Bob 44:35
Yeah, but where's that gray line though, where I'm paying for something, the person that I'm buying it from, not the developer, mind you, the person I'm buying it from? The company says, we're good to go. It's packaged people can start downloading it. I mean, if I'm working for the Iowa DNC, and I don't employ any kind of internal technical resources, I have to take that vendor at their word.
Kevin 45:00
So, so yes, you're right. But that goes on your risk assessment, hey, we don't have anyone that can verify these claims. So it's all about risk. And they accept that risk by not hiring somebody not having somebody on staff not not following up, because trust is very important. So Bob, let me let me put you in the hot seat. You are a business owner, and you hired a company to do an app. And then they say it works.
Bob 45:26
Are you just gonna take it from Well, no, and not distribute it to 1700 users and cross my fingers and you know, hope?
Kevin 45:35
As an educated IT professional yourself, you would probably say, well, let's do some user acceptance testing. Did you make what it is? I asked you to make? Let me Let's do it. Well, okay, great. How many users have you tested this on? Great, what kind of phones How does this work on? Great and if you're, you're naive, and you're like, Well, I know of Android and iOS, and I don't know what questions to ask. I think some of the best advice ever given Ever is to air quotes, hire somebody smarter than you hire somebody who does that, if you don't know, and if you're not comfortable hire somebody who does know. And if you're unwilling to do any of that, why are you willing to spend 60 grand on app that you're just going to accept them based on
Bob 46:19
the blind is really weird too.
Kevin 46:24
So who knows, maybe there was a bunch of back and forth, maybe with their reassurances. Maybe the DNC had somebody on staff saying, Oh, this is great. Yeah, worked Bible Latin, maybe all that maybe this was just a colossal fail. But I don't really believe that because I, I really believe if you go through all those exercises, and a lot of us don't like to go through those exercises of risk assessments and whatnot. But this is why this is definitely one of those cases where you go, yeah, I'm glad we did or Damn, we should have and this is going to be one of those where you come case studies for a long time.
Bob 46:57
Let me ask you a question in your research. Did you see any screen grabs that were beyond the failed logins?
Kevin 47:10
Are you saying? So you're saying? Did anyone actually get to Oh, yeah,
Bob 47:14
I'm curious. I mean, obviously, in a scenario like this, you're not going to hear any, you know, victory tales where, you know, like, Hi, I'm Jane user, and I got logged in and submitted my 15 sets of numbers, and everything was just great. And I was home and in bed by nine o'clock. But you would think if you were getting some balanced reporting, you would see more than just the failed logins. But once again, based on the fact that we're still not fully counted on 1700 locations. I'm going to guess nobody got their data through.
Kevin 47:52
Or if they did, I think it's potential that it's untrusted at this point. And so they may be compounding factors like well, of the Those who did get in, they didn't know how to use it. And it wasn't because of the ATMEGA calculations, because the user had no idea what to put in. So they just put in grandma's cookie recipe. Yeah. And that was,
Bob 48:11
yeah, we kind of just be like, first authenticate, get logged in. Step. Next, pick candidate from list, Joe Biden. First round, enter number, second round, enter number, third round, enter percentage of delegate votes.
Kevin 48:30
So all of that is user stories. And not every agency goes through the trouble of doing I had another quote that I stole from the internet and it was weeks of coding can save hours of planning. Yeah. And it's I got a good giggle on that one too. Because I think a lot of us used to or I used to go to the code, right? real quick. Oh, you need to say, oh, let me start sketching out.
Bob 48:54
No, I've been pretty tactile. You know what problem it is. you're solving very tactical in my ears to me
Kevin 49:01
Step one, understand the problem you're actually solving and communicate this reciprocate the problem back in your own words back to the stakeholders and get the get the acknowledgement that yes or no, that's not what we meant, you know. So I think there's huge value in there. And I think, again, this is just so much case study stuff going on there. So in order to give a positive, well, what would you have done Mr. smarty Kevin? Well, I think I would have done a dry run. Hey, everyone needs to login. Hey, Sally, you. You didn't log in the summer day. bloggie logging in, what's the deal? Because it sounded like people literally met the app. The day of
Bob 49:45
right, that was, I think the earliest that I saw it was over the weekend. Like maybe it was a Friday or Thursday. And then there is another email sent out if you haven't downloaded the app. Over like maybe Saturday or Sunday. And then it was, you know, it was game time it was Monday. So, and I think they sent out an email saying that they needed to read download or something. So there's just a lot of bad planning, no testing. But I guess at the end of the day, my ultimate question is, are well, I think I know the answer this question, as a society as a nation. Are we ready for any kind of electronic, you know, voting or do we have to take it back full circle and stay with the hanging chads and the jog wheels?
Kevin 50:35
So I'm laughing because it's my next bullet point. And it was yet again, another topic that came up. And it's basically the question is, is should this technology have a place in our election system? Does it and will it ever and on face value as a technologist I would say, hell yeah. Why wouldn't you want to automate this bullshit, you know, and then upon further review, I'm like, God, no, no, we need to keep this simple. Yeah. You know, let's, let's just keep it we need an audit trail. We don't need the possibility of getting hacked. We don't need the possibility of somebody you know, you know, an app not working. Can we just have old fashioned easy these pieces of paper? What do you think?
Bob 51:23
I feel like I'm very much in line with you. I feel like technology. I feel like there's other parts of the world, the world that has embrace technology for their elections. Um, I just, I think we're too big. I think we're too. We're not as technologically advanced as we think we are, especially at the government level. And then when you start to bring private enterprise into it, Allah acronym and shadow Inc. Then you have an extra layer of liability there and I think we probably are. I mean, hell, I'd even go back to the Like putting rocks in a bucket.
Kevin 52:04
We need integrity to be maintained in the system. This week's episode of The IOA app definitely doesn't help integrity at all. And you security like and it's kind of weird. Because to make things more secure on the web, sometimes you have to mitigate things like brute force, you know, well, if I, if I just make it so you can only try to brute force five passwords, then I lock you out, I've made it very difficult for you. Well, the harder I make it to hack the system by creating out of no air gaps, you actually have to create these pieces of paper, not just, you know, for each loop and it you know, it tallies or or just set a number in a system. It's like altering your bank account. You can't just put a million dollars in your bank account, there has to be a check and balance in the whole system. Otherwise, that's going to get flagged, boy, he don't have a million dollars just because you say you know somebody went in the database and change 2 million there has to be the debits and credits the trail
Unknown Speaker 53:02
No, you just oh,
Bob 53:04
I definitely offer tools you just changed the number in the front end.
Kevin 53:08
Just yeah inspector take a screenshot call customer service or like hey, it says, Now I only have $1 What happened? You owe me answers. So in in Iraq and places like that, do you ever notice what they do after an election? They hold up a finger and you notice what's on their finger? They mark them, right?
Unknown Speaker 53:27
Yeah, ink.
Kevin 53:29
Because that ink is not easy, doesn't easily come off. So it signifies several things. It signifies that you have a church that's your
Unknown Speaker 53:36
sticker in
Kevin 53:39
and you can't go come back later and vote again. So that's that simple thing will prevent people from voting multiple times. No voting, you know, under different names. Now, I don't know if they like actually take their fingerprint. Yeah, like, hey, put your fingerprint on the person you want to vote for but I think that would be a great idea because it's like, Look, this is my vote. Here's who it's for, and it is very hard to fake. So, again, that's just a simple simple system. And maybe we just need to get simpler instead of more tech. Yeah.
Bob 54:11
Because I mean, think about this. A, they didn't save a lick of time with this.
Unknown Speaker 54:18
Be who's gonna,
Bob 54:19
who's gonna be a? Alright? So this is b one and B, two, B, one who's going to be the next company to say, Hey, we won't fuck up like shadow. You know, here's, here's our better mousetrap. And then B to who's going to be the organization that takes the risk to go with an outside vendor to try to do this the right way. Like it's basically set it back probably two to five years. Is what my guess is.
Kevin 54:48
So could could this resistance to technology election speed generational because our current workers are in their 60s and 70s. You know, fast forward When you and I are that age, we've never been alive at a time where our our elderly have had technology as ubiquitous as it is today. So right now the current 60s and 70 year olds, they're like, hey, VCR, that was pretty cool. And PCs, I really haven't gotten into a bucket. I can text that's the newest cool thing I can do, or this Facebook thing or whatever. But when you and I get older, in 2030 years, will have been on the bleeding edge of probably some of the smartest elderly people that have ever existed.
Unknown Speaker 55:32
Our kids are that age and then it's
Kevin 55:34
exactly and and it's just going to outweigh so eventually that word will turn but we're not ready for.
Bob 55:41
I'm not ready for that kind of price not ready for I don't trust my digital vote. Like I wouldn't trust a digital vote for like if I if I was given a device and said I had to vote electronically. I wouldn't trust that vote.
Kevin 55:56
So I want to bring up the idea of I read an academic paper on Hey, would it be cool if we issued a digital certificate to everyone so very much like an SSL cert to everyone in the country. And so instead of a social security card, you would digitally sign everything with your SSL cert. But you could also vote with it. So to the point where, hey, did my vote actually count? I'm looking at these numbers on the TV, and it says Bernie only got whatever or, or so and so only got whatever, ha, did they actually count my vote and then you'd be able to check the digital register and go Yeah,
Bob 56:30
there, there is my vote and they are in ties, the ultimate flaw in the entire system. Because you're voting for representative vote, that may or may not align with your actual vote. Meaning, I don't meaning that your candidate could get the popular vote, but the delegates system decides that your vote isn't really as informed as they think it is. And they cast their stone in that other person's bucket, even though you put yours in person ones bucket.
Kevin 57:08
So as cool as a system that I just described sounds, it's actually terrible. And it's terrible, because it's too
Bob 57:17
well it also sounds a lot like Salafi record to
Kevin 57:22
kinda, you know, that was actually on my list of, hey, maybe we should just put this on the blockchain, solve all our problems and make us breakfast and bucket. Yeah. So I think that the more clever we get with voting, the the worse of an idea it is. We need to keep it simple. And right now I'm not aware of any logistic problems with people voting through with paper or while we've had the hanging chads or disabled, we've had challenges but
Unknown Speaker 57:58
we have
Kevin 58:02
I would take that over a digital problem because, Bob, you want me to really wake up in the morning or if I can get you to really wake up in the morning. You know what I can send you a message Hey, Bob accidentally deleted the production database and we don't have backups. Can you help me out? There's, there's nothing I can do for you.
Bob 58:24
Nothing, right in this simple fact. So any kind of electronic system we do end up migrating to is still going to have a paper backup, guaranteed.
Kevin 58:35
So one of the last topics I have here, and do you have any more technology stuff, because this is less techie
Bob 58:41
now? I mean, it's, it might I mean, it was a pretty cut and dried tech thing. I
Kevin 58:48
I had an amazing day with co workers discussion and just the internet in general. The iOS app thing, just to be honest, was kind of a fun topic. I wouldn't say At this point hundred
Bob 59:00
percent
Kevin 59:02
so, so I want to get that out there. And one of the things that I learned in discussions was something called ranked choice voting. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Bob?
Bob 59:12
That's the new system that they introduced in Iowa right.
Kevin 59:17
It's similar to caucusing. But it It eliminates the third party spoiler. So back in the day, we had George W. Bush, we had Bill Clinton and H Ross per hour. And so as ross perot stole the republican vote, therefore gave us Bill Clinton as president because he split the vote. If you had ranked choice voting, those who you'd vote for you may rank george bush at one ross perot to Bill Clinton three or not even ranked Bill Clinton or reverse Hey, I just want Bill Clinton I don't care about the other guys. However, it's like a relegation if you came in last. Your votes go to whoever the second that's
Bob 59:56
kind of the modified system for Iowa with that three rounds are the two rounds.
Kevin 1:00:03
Right? The main difference, as pointed out to me is it's still anonymous. So you don't you don't hang around for three hours go, oh God, can we just pick somebody? He just say, 123. here's here's my ranked order. And then it just it's instant runoffs is is essentially what it is. And I watched a video on it, maybe I'll get it to you if you're interested. But it was I'm like, why don't we do that? Because our current system obviously favors big political parties. And if you're a third party spoiler like I don't know Gary Johnson that maybe I voted for instead of the other two. And the last you know, I don't get exactly it. I don't get the heat from the losing democrats go. Well, we got Trump because you Kevin, really? Sure. We got our
Bob 1:00:48
Yeah. The delegates didn't like Hillary Oh.
Kevin 1:00:53
Well, I humbly believe a society always gets the politicians it deserves nap though. voted for
Bob 1:01:03
that was my head.
Kevin 1:01:05
Yeah. All right. Uh, wow, we actually eat that. Good. I knew we would. All right, get any final thoughts or comments on the Iowa slash election technology ask
Bob 1:01:22
us what we've really been enjoying the interactions on Twitter. It is probably the best way to reach out to us. And it's fun to have these conversations because it kind of helps us set up show content and also helps us reflect on prior shows. So please keep that up. We really appreciate it and I got nothing else. What do you got?
Kevin 1:01:45
going on vacation I'm going to learn about the technology of Disney because disney world knows how to hurt people very well. electronically and I'm hoping to bend
Bob 1:01:56
Bob's ear a little bit about I will contribute very little to that conversation. But I will Enjoy it all the same. So until next time, tune in to the Bob and Kevin show in about a week or so. Talk to you later.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Saturday Jan 04, 2020
Ep. 062 - The decade in review - top 10 best and worst tech of the 2010s
Saturday Jan 04, 2020
Saturday Jan 04, 2020
Well, everyone else is doing a decade in review, so why not Bob & Kevin! Be sure to like, follow, subscribe or whatever the heck you need to do on your podcast listening platform of choice! Help us kick this show into high gear. Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow and enjoy the show transcript below from our friends at https://otter.ai/
Kevin 0:00
So we're back Holy crap, it's the year 2020
Bob 0:05
I have so much disappointment about the statement of year 2020 I just can't even not really about the year itself or anything that it may or may not bring but you know there's just a lot of bullshit flying around right now about not just New Year new me. new decade new me whatever they're saying. I have no idea.
Kevin 0:24
Yeah, this is the time of year when you start thinking, Man, maybe I should lose some weight. And of course, you know, even if you do lose weight, it finds you because the only thing that really works is changing the whole lifestyle thing like I don't know living to a state with mountains and hiking all the time. Hey, let me tell you that doesn't take off wait either, by the way, damn it. Oh, that stinks. So according to Back to the Future to in 1989 in the year 2015. Not only will the Cubs win the World Series, which was almost accurate as off by like one year, but we'd be flying around in our automobiles, Bob, are we there yet?
Bob 1:05
Well, depends which call flying around.
Yeah, we have some autonomous features and functionality in some of our vehicles. We even kind of have hovery skate boardy things. Not really though.
Kevin 1:23
I don't know. So it's been a few weeks since we had a pod. We've had a few holidays. Today, as I saw on the internet is the Monday-ist Thursday of the entire year, and it certainly felt that way.
Bob 1:37
This whole holiday break has been the shittiest shitty of anything. You could just fill in the blank Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Kevin 1:45
but did you acquire or partake in anything? especially notable over the holidays?
Bob 1:54
I had two have my three kids home so that was kind of cool. would have been nice to be 3-for-3 Um, didn't really get any tech related gifts were really minimizing the whole Christmas thing. got this cool piece of artwork though, that I was looking at and my kids noticed that I was looking at it and they bought it for me
Kevin 2:12
so awesome. So is it hanging in said, domicile,
Bob 2:18
it is prominently displayed in the dining area. It is a collection of hand crafted pine trees they are I think they're created with a arc welder to actually cut out the metal and then uses some kind of patina technique to give them a cool bluish green tint. They're pretty awesome. How
Kevin 2:42
about you? Um, yeah, so we are highly evolved. People as a couple my wife and I that is we don't buy each other gifts so usually tend to buy the kids some gifts. We've decided to go on a vacation few weeks after the holiday so that was part of their gift and then The fun thing I got to play with over the last week or so is a vinyl cutter that was not a part of Christmas. It was just one of those things sitting in a box that nobody
Bob 3:08
I can't believe you had one of those and no one was using it. That's crazy.
Kevin 3:12
Well, my wife's very into scrapbooking and she actually bought it for herself. And then once I learned we had set thing in our possession, boom, started using it and I've already made some stickers and tried screen printing with making it a laser cut stencils, some really cool things you can do.
Bob 3:32
So I've seen pictures and some of this stuff looks pretty big. What's that? Like? I don't really know much about vinyl cutters and maybe some of our listeners don't. What? Yeah, but I saw his and hers above your bathroom. That's pretty big.
Kevin 3:47
Yeah, so out of the box, so I have the cricket or we have I like it's mine now. Okay, we've got That's beautiful. Yeah, we've got the Cricut Explore air. I'm looking at it here it is on my desk. So possession is nine tenths of the law. So, out of the box, it cuts a 12 by 12 piece of vinyl if you want, and then it goes up to 12 by 24. If you buy a optional mat, which I've totally bought, and then really the sky's the limit because if you need something bigger than that, and you're using cricket, he just basically print it in sections and you put it together.
Bob 4:26
So you tile it out. Hmm,
Kevin 4:27
yeah, so the his and hers that you can find on my Instagram and or my Twitter account. Yeah. You probably won't go look for it. But I'm just saying the his and hers are one piece each and they are fairly large or like,
Bob 4:41
Oh, those are 1pm or one piece each. Yep.
So they worked probably on the 12 by 24.
Kevin 4:46
Yes, that is correct. And I've since printed, some stickers, some JavaScript stickers. It's great for like laptop stuff. I'm showing Bob here some stickers to the camera. I've made one here for one of my kids. gran starion Yep, and I made him a white and black version. I made a an airborne patch because I was in airborne in the army here this is gonna go to my car and if you notice, what Bob can see is that you can have multiple colors which is really cool. You just layer them on there you cut them in you cut you know one color then you cut the other color then you put them on top of each other. It's pretty cool.
Bob 5:23
Is any of this computer driven or is this all manual?
Kevin 5:27
Well, the cutting in the designing is all computer driven.
Bob 5:46
how much is a cricket runya
Kevin 5:48
that's a 200 bucks and there's different versions like version one back in the day you got like Nintendo cartridges. were basically you know you had to buy this cartridge from the local craft store. Plug it in like a video game. Then you get to choose, you know, from an enumerated list of things and is kind of shitty after a while because you're like, but I want to print this custom thing. Oh, here comes version two points version 2.0 is like, hey, we've got this app. And all you basically need is a transparent background. png file. And there we go. And then there's a ton of videos on YouTube to kind of get you going. And holy crap. I'm like, pretty excited. I'm not gonna lie. You appear to be having
Bob 6:30
fun with it, because I see lots of pictures. And sorry, you answer you said you're integrating that with your screen printing as well.
Kevin 6:37
So yeah, I guess I guess I haven't really talked about screen printing on the show. So I do screen printing. It's kind of like my analog hobby when I just want to get away from the digital world. And so there's many ways to screen printing Bobby, you said you use the screen for maybe you still do, but not still, but used to that there's three primary ways and the first way I I learned was you buy this thing called an emulsion sheet which is pre coated and it's sensitive to sunlight. You print something on a transparency, plop it on top, go out in the sun for a minute, and then you wash it out. And it works actually really well. One drawback there is you can't keep tension on it. So you know, it's guys drawbacks, but it's very easy to burn. The second is the traditional way, which is you, you.
Grape, I guess is the right or you go a screen, a traditional screen squeegee the screen. Well,
Bob 7:33
now before you get to the squeegee, you kind of said that most of you put the emotion on the squeegee to so
Kevin 7:39
well that's the thing I've got. It's like it's called a scoop coder. So you scoop code it and then that's like a
Bob 7:45
net sloshing around.
Kevin 7:46
You've got to do it in a dark room. So I've had to put together a makeshift dark room and a half and I had to buy red lights and everything. And then I had to build and I'm going to show Bob this. I don't know if you can see it right at the end of my desk here right radio. I know right? The end of my desk is it Hey, this houses my undeveloped screens because it's light sensitive. And so I turn all the lights out usually at night time and then I expose them with UV light. So that's method to method three to bring it back to the cricket is to vinyl cut something and then just apply it right to the screen but you do it in reverse and put it on the bottom side. And then you just squeegee it through. Now I think that's brilliant. Now each way actually has their pros and cons. Do you think that the vinyl cut way is like well, why wouldn't you always do that just less mess easy. The drawback is if you have very fine detail, the vinyl cutter isn't the best solution for that. Really? Yes, you'll want to go traditional in the ocean with the UV light or the or the first method.
Bob 8:45
Did I see that you did our logo as a final cut as well did and that turned out
Kevin 8:49
really freakin well. So if you want like a car sticker. Oh, that's great. Yes.
Bob 8:54
Oh shit. Yeah. Did you remake the did you make the audio waves or was that right from the logo? That
Kevin 8:59
is right. Right from the audio, I did not remake anything.
Bob 9:02
Damn, that did look good. I'm actually if anyone's interested in checking that out. Did you share that on the show Tweeter,
Kevin 9:09
I you know, I have no idea anymore. We have so many accounts, both personal and professional podcasting accounts that it's
Bob 9:17
really hard to keep track of super, super professional podcasting accounts. So, um, before we get into the meat of the show, this is kind of like a little transitional thing. Speaking of the show social media. One of the show New Year's resolutions that I've made for myself is to try to be more engaged in the marketing of the show. So I want to share with listeners since we're less than 10 minutes in and maybe most of you are still here, our primary platform appears to be looking back at the 2019 stats, Spotify. So if you are on Spotify, please I think they have a follow button and using that follow button actually subscribe to the podcast but then also helps Spotify algorithm determine where to show our podcast is recommended to some folks that may not have heard us in the past couple years. So that's pretty
Kevin 10:12
good do that. That'd be very that's a great resolution. I have traditionally stayed away from resolutions but I did give myself some. So a little more personal info about me. I am a arms dealer of Lego so
Bob 10:28
You scared the shit out of me for a second.
Kevin 10:31
I buy sell Lego and that's kind of a finicky thing because you know, you just got to pick out the right one then you basically turn around keep them for a while and you sell them
but what I learned with that experiences
Wow, it is really awesome to make money while you sleep. And I've tried six ways from Sunday to to make money in software like an open source projects making this little library that is that is a tough business. So selling frickin Legos has made Like a million times more money than any software gig I've tried to do on the side, just putting that out there. So the problem with Lego is, is, well, eventually you run out of the good stuff. So I've been into woodworking slash screen printing for the last four or five, six months. And that's where my future efforts are going to continue. And I'm going to open up an Etsy store and I'm going to sell a bunch of woodworking stuff. And I like to really bore the shit out of people by posting all my projects that I have on Instagram often
Bob 11:35
No, I love it because I'm not as artistic as I used to be. And it's cool to see you making stuff. I mean, I'm, I'm super engaged with all of my friends that do creative things outside of code. Because I don't do that much creatively outside of code. Well, except maybe podcast.
Kevin 11:54
I've definitely I'm at peace with the idea that I'm a creative person, but I don't necessarily have to do In the digital realm, and so I really really, really like balancing my digital creativity with analog creativity. So I played music play guitar, I
Bob 12:10
I draw I you know, I fabric Kevin does all the show artwork in case anybody didn't know that. Yes,
Kevin 12:16
stick figure art is harder than it looks.
Bob 12:21
Especially when you have an annoying co host. It's like, Can you make it look like this?
Kevin 12:25
Yes. So yeah, the creativity thing. That's kind of my resolution thing, but in so expect more show swag. Bob and Kevin show branded show swag that you probably can't buy because you probably don't want to buy it. But
Bob 12:41
I might have but if you're good listeners and drop us some lines on social media, maybe you'll just could
Kevin 12:47
Yeah,
Bob 12:48
possibly get some and then
Kevin 12:50
I've done a lot of signs that. So confession time Kevin really likes Pinterest and from what I understand That's that's, you know, takes a lot of courage sticks, you know, to say that so I really like Pinterest and I steal all my great woodworking ideas from there. There I said it.
Bob 13:10
You use it as your creative Muse you don't steal? Yeah,
Kevin 13:13
I liked you could be my marketing manager if this ever goes anywhere.
Bob 13:18
I like it. I don't think you're going to need one. I think the shop speaks for itself. Well, alright, so we've talked a little bit about some resolutions. And I think that it's a very popular, hip trendy thing for shows like ours to take a look back at the prior year and technology or whatever the topic of conversation is, but since we did turn that big decade clock, I think we turned the decade clock. I think there's debate on that as well. But everyone's saying we turn the decade clock. So I think we're going to take a little bit of a look back at the the decade in tech.
Kevin 13:56
Does that sound about right? Yeah. So the other day, I think we'd agreed upon some ground rules on what should we freakin talk about in our New Year's episode? And you didn't follow any of the ground rules? Oh, we'll see. We'll see. So the rules were that we had to come up with the 10 best and 10 worst things and or releases or objects tech related in the last decade. Right. That was kind of the right rules.
Bob 14:22
Yeah. And a little glimpse behind the curtain for those of you who listen, and we probably mentioned this before, this show is not highly scripted at all. And when we do come up with topics like this, we don't share like our our conversations during the day get very awkward because we want to talk about this stuff, but we can't. So I have no idea what Kevin's top 10 and top 10 lists are and he has no idea what mine are. But I'm actually pretty excited to see if there's any overlap at all. In which would be even the most entertaining is if I have something on the good list. He has it on the bad. Or vice versa. Like,
Kevin 15:03
it's like the naughty and nice list.
Bob 15:05
Yes. So So where do we want to start? Let's hear let's just so I did rank Where did you rank yours? I don't know how heavy my writer rank in descending order from 10 to one, I have two honorable mentions in each category. All right,
Kevin 15:19
very good. Let's just give me your 10th best technology of the 2010s.
Bob 15:25
What should I do my honorable mentions first because they're outside the top 10?
Kevin 15:31
Uh, no. Give me
Bob 15:33
the Oh, we're going to close out with those after we get the number one. Yes. So we're doing the positive ones first.
Kevin 15:39
Let's go back and forth. So we'll do a best one will do this one and then so Okay.
Bob 15:45
All right. So this one is going to be my number 10 of the most positive things and tech from the last decade. For me, I said the rise of music subscription services and the end of the CD and Digital piracy era I key cuz full disclosure, I used to sometimes stumble across music that I didn't own prior to the 2010s
Kevin 16:11
that's, that's interesting because
look, are you including or maybe you don't want to tell me streaming video as well
Bob 16:20
and this this is specifically to get it so so I was kind of looking at personal things so as well as like big industries the
Kevin 16:28
streaming is huge and it's such a strange concept to no longer have a tangible piece of music like an album if you are does an album even exist anymore.
Bob 16:41
Yeah, actually really cool. hipsters will release their albums on vinyl on very limited release, although it has been increasing in popularity again. But this has been a very big conversation in our house over the holidays to with the digital music, because nobody actually owns the music anymore. So David, for the most part, David Neil
Kevin 17:00
Also known as at Reverend geek, he was on one of the early Bob and Kevin show, YouTube additions. He tweeted the other day is like, hey, CDs, it's kind of like an offline version of Spotify just laughed my ass off. So,
Bob 17:16
but it's not, though, because the CD doesn't know what you want to hear next.
Kevin 17:20
There's no algorithm,
Bob 17:22
right? There's no algorithm on the disk. Okay,
Kevin 17:25
well, you can burn your own playlist. So I guess there's, there's some in there,
Bob 17:29
I know. But think about it. So we went through that evolution where you had a bunch of CDs that you purchased at the store, then you digitize those CDs. And then you took those CDs in major own mix CDs. So think about how much waste we've,
Kevin 17:46
I don't know, not prevented, but ceased to create because of this movement, but that or do we just move it because now everything's streamed and you have to create the energy to move the bits each and every time
Bob 18:00
Yeah, but the internet was gonna do that anyway. But it
Kevin 18:03
didn't need to do this.
Pick a song over and over and over and over and over and over again and it never downloads anyway,
Bob 18:10
that's what bandwidth is about. Alright, so let me throw that was my number 10. What was yours?
Kevin 18:15
My number 10 Best thing was the iPad slash smartphone. So I realized that's a very broad category.
Bob 18:23
I like where you're going with that though, because phones have basically become iPads lately.
Kevin 18:26
Well, the iPad was released in 2010. And full disclosure, I made a lot of fun of it at the time because I'm like, this is stupid. This will never work. There's no keyboard oh my gosh, why would she do there's no apps you know, live to do them. I was wrong. I am raising my hand for the camera here. I was wrong. And then smartphones themselves I worked at a wireless carrier, a Verizon Wireless carrier, and I was a part of the retail side of moving a bunch of smartphones to the public. I realized the iPhone was invested in 2007. But I really don't think it took off until Android was released, which was in that neighborhood. I'd have to have the internet we don't have and can't afford look that up. But I do remember at the time blackberry happened to be king,
Bob 19:17
right? Hey, oh, god, you're gonna laugh so hard. This is the best radio ever got. I can't wait, keep going.
Kevin 19:23
Well, I was just gonna mention Whatever happened to hard Qwerty keyboards on the phones. Well, they lost to the soft screen. So what do you think?
Bob 19:33
Well, I think that that's a great number 10 for the positives. Do you want to hear my number 10 for the negative laid on me. Listeners at home, this is not scripted by number 10 for some of the downside things, I guess this actually could be spent as a positive people who should not have been making phones like Facebook, Amazon, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone Those are all really bad smartphones of the 20.
Kevin 20:04
Well, I allow me to split hairs. blackberry was the jam. So if you want a corporate email on your phone, Blackberry was it. I mean, even President Obama was like, give me my crackberry
Bob 20:19
it was, but very early on in the 2010s. blackberry was already in the throes of like the death throes the last twitches of life where they came out with their tablet. I can't remember what they called it, but it was you know, they were trying to revive their, their smartphone presence and they just couldn't do it. So I totally
Kevin 20:41
missed by I totally missed Windows Phone but I wouldn't say I missed it. Or do miss it. Blackberry. I think they tried to come out with a soft screen again. Bob, Bob's holding up his
Bob 20:54
apparently I my windows 8.1 phone that I still have because it runs like a beat
Kevin 21:00
So in Facebook, do they actually have a smartphone?
Bob 21:04
So Facebook was toying with the idea of a smartphone and what they did instead of making the hardware, they came out with a basically a flavor of Android that they tried to distribute on pre made devices and, like a lot of Facebook things it didn't.
Kevin 21:21
While we're talking Facebook up a quick reminder that my particular version of Android cannot uninstall Facebook. I can only disable it. Thanks, Mark, because I didn't need that 300 mega space on my phone anyway, right.
Bob 21:36
I'm gonna make a quick prediction here that Facebook is going to come up in this conversation more than what can I do my
Kevin 21:41
number 10 then Hell yeah. Number 10. Worst thing the bad thing was the bad yeah, bad things. Facebook acquires Instagram in 2012
Bob 21:53
Wow, that was still that was wet number 10. For you. Wow. It's it's in this list is gonna get into
Kevin 22:00
Yeah the list is young. So yeah so in in 2012 I don't know that any of us including the FTC, or whatever government agency overlords you know, mergers and stuff like that. I don't think they necessarily saw future things like surveillance state 2016 election, Cambridge Analytica, yada yada yada in 2012. So yeah, sure, why not? You got money, they, you can buy them great. And nobody really understood how the filter bubbles and how speech was going to be shaped in 2019 2020. Well, pick a year.
Bob 22:38
So you're so funny. God, this is the best. I knew this was going to be great.
Kevin 22:42
So what do you think? hasman number 10.
Bob 22:46
Number. Yeah, that's very interesting that that's your number 10 because you kind of bit off a lot there. So I'm very curious to hear what 931 are for the bad. Well,
Kevin 22:57
yeah, I may have tipped my hand a little bit. But let's let's go with your number nine, what's your number nine.
Bob 23:02
Okay thing. So number nine positives. It's funny that you said iPad was your number 10. Number nine for me was the Microsoft Surface Book. Because in the surface the surface line of products from Microsoft, very much along the same lines, full functional computing with detachable screens in still very pop powerful graphics processing and overall CPU not just the GPU so I love my Surface Book. I have one personally and one professionally, and they're talking about getting new machines at work. Luckily, we've already run the disclaimer If not, I'll drop it in here as well. But I don't want a new one. I don't want a new machine. I like my surface. Wow. So Microsoft for as much as they struggle. I feel like in various consumer based hardwares and software's windows 10 and Surface line we're pretty big in the 2010s for me so I think so
Kevin 24:04
I've never had a surface but here's what grinds my gears with when with with Microsoft Surface before the Microsoft Surface that you're talking about debuted Microsoft had another surface Do you remember that at all?
Bob 24:19
Well, I think they have the I would guess they call it the they don't call it the plain vanilla but they do have just the surface period. And it you know, has a type of cover and Nope, nope, nope.
Kevin 24:30
Other surface so in 2011 I went to Indianapolis, Indiana to the Gen Con board game convention. Yeah, nerd alert.
Bob 24:40
Right. So we need to alert nerd alert drop right.
Kevin 24:44
So back then Microsoft had a product called surface but it was a table that was so thick of the screen is the table top and you can put things on it and it would you know like capacitive touch, you would know what's on it and then they would it was really good. Cool, but they totally went away from that. So,
Bob 25:03
yeah, I wish I wish they would go back. Maybe they'll bring it back maybe. All right. Are you ready? So that was my nine, number nine positive. So your number nine positive is
Kevin 25:12
Azure, AWS slash cloud, the cloud, all the things now this is cloud computing, cloud computing, right? And this is very near and dear to my like, daily professional life, because one of the worst things that I can imagine as a web developer is on premise hosting. You know, yeah, on one hand, you're like, yeah, I have control the box, I can do whatever. But with AWS and Azure, there's this concept of server less, which, by the way, it's still
Bob 25:42
a real server, right? It's in a box, which
Kevin 25:44
it's terrible naming when they say server lists it, explaining it to non tech people. Oh, so there's no server. No, there is a server, it's just virtualized. Anyway, I digress. So but it's really changed my day to day job. It's really enabled this thing called DevOps automation, and it's really changed. Like the landscape of everyone because it what it does, what it does is it lowers the bar, you know, expose the CD ends to Joe developer, Jane developer. It does all these things. So you mentioned earlier music streaming, I humbly think that the cloud revolution helped enable the streaming revolution. What do you think?
Bob 26:23
Oh, I think so much of that is dead on, you know, physical boxes. Don't really, I mean, I'm sure they exist. I'm sure there's tons of them out there still. But yeah, that platform, the whole idea of that distributed computing that is easily accessible and the, you know, the front end that they've given all that stuff with the front end tool, so it's not all command line stuff. Yeah. It's pretty amazing.
Kevin 26:50
Yeah. And AWS started because they basically had an internal need and then they just said, Hey, wouldn't be cool if we just sold some of our capacity. I don't know. Azure has a similar history but I thought that is some of the best ways to create tech you know, create a business which is solve a real problem and then see if you can make it generic and or you know, you know, abstracted if you will, so that was mine. Which guy
Bob 27:19
so, we're on so my it's my number nine bad one, right? Yes. Okay, so I kind of went off the beaten path a little bit on this one. This is kind of more of a pet peeve than a so my number nine is bad Kickstarter tech launches. And the one that really comes to mind from the 2010s is the the coolest cooler, which was the cooler that was just trying to be way too many things than just a cooler. I think it had streamable music it had multiple USB chargers speakers on board. It had everything Swiss Army knife
Kevin 27:58
or cooler Right.
Bob 27:59
Yeah. But for a fucking cooler so
I think that paved the way for a bunch of people to be like, Hey, I know this crazy thing that's a bunch of things taper to other things and let's start a Kickstarter for it. And that got really annoying. So
Kevin 28:15
full disclosure, I think in 2013 or 14 I was part of a Kickstarter campaign totally failed. But that reminds me because this isn't on any of my list. I'm glad you brought this one up. Because Patreon, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe. Those are the ones just off the top my head. Everyone in their brother and sister are holding their hand out going Hey, give me money. Why? Because of an idea. Okay, well,
Bob 28:48
or I can't make rent. here's the kicker. Here's a good one for I can't make rent this month. Yeah.
Kevin 28:54
Yeah. So I still like being, you know, contributing when I can can do a charity I'm mostly I can contribute my time not so much money. Every time I see a Patreon for somebody I know, we call it the Tupperware problems, like, I gotta buy at least two bowls, you know, a salad bowl with the leg, make sure you get the lids, otherwise, you know, he's gonna be pissed. And you know, I want to be friends still. And so we call it the Tupperware party, Bob and I do and it's really hard because you look, as a creator, we're Bob and I are both creators, we look and go, I look at all these great, you know, people doing great things and getting Patreon. But then it's like the top 1% It feels like that's, that's actually getting somewhere on these platforms. And then there's everyone else. So Kickstarter sells you this dream and with the 1% actually doing it and they collect, you know, the funds underneath as a fee. So I really look at that stuff and go on. That's just, I don't even know what to call it's not really snake oil, but it's definitely like Same shit different, you know method here where, hey, we're just trying to separate people from money, right?
Bob 30:06
Well, my boys bless their hearts. They're both big fans of Kickstarter type projects. And they are just now receiving stuff that they invested in when they were in their mid teens. And they're both in their 20s
Kevin 30:23
man, also not a super long game. I guess I won't tell you what's not on my list just in case it's still on your list. All right, let me go with my number nine and you'll be like we're What?
The Video Game fortnight This is on my negative list.
Bob 30:38
Oh, that's so funny.
Kevin 30:42
Video Game my mind. So go ahead. So I put fortnite on there. Mostly
Bob 30:46
for shit. No, I did put a video game on mine. Well, I'm
Kevin 30:51
so fortnite just the way
it affects all the kids. All the children in my orbit. my nieces, my nephews, my own kids. These people are dicted listen Like a real drug and on top of that, it pretty much shut down every other video game except for maybe Minecraft and untitled goose game. Alright, so there's like three video games left in the world because of fortnight has just totally come in steamrolled everything. And they have this concept of V bucks, where, you know, the kids are like, Hey, can we get or can we get a gift card for Microsoft so we can apply it to our Xbox so we can basically just give it away. I'm like, Oh my god, this is this is life. And then there's like this internal gambling addiction that they all have, because you can get these llamas and these crates and you get this random thing that comes out. And while I'm on the gambling thing, my girls who don't play fortnight as much they do play fortnight. They have toys like lol dolls are familiar lol dolls. It so so. So if you go to Walmart or any retailer, they'll have them so it's a sealed box opaque. You can't see what's in it. The whole idea is you got to buy it to see what's in it and it plays on these like human emotions. curiosity. Anyway, so number nine is fortnight for me What am I?
Bob 32:08
Oh, that is a great
so now we're to my number eight.
Kevin 32:13
Number eight positive
Bob 32:14
number eight positive and I lied and I want to stress again this is not scripted, we did not see each other's list. My number eight positive tech from the 2010s is Minecraft because it's a family focused gaming adventure and you can play it with your kids and actually with my kids, I taught them how to manage their own minecraft server so they weren't out there messing around with the general public so taught them how to give server line commands basically through the through the Minecraft thing so this is so funny that you were fortnight and now I'm on Minecraft so
Kevin 32:56
okay so interesting sacred you're picking Minecraft Yes, Minecraft
Bob 33:02
positive. Oh, okay.
Kevin 33:03
Yeah so Minecraft I think has replaced Lego and a lot of housecalls for sure yeah
Bob 33:09
digital Lego without a doubt yeah and when I again
Kevin 33:12
another thing I was totally wrong on with Minecraft cuz I see it I'm like what the hell is this shit The graphics are terrible right you know it's very blocky no kids gonna like this right they're just gonna be like oh well you know give me like Call of Duty or something with high end graphics but actually I kind of like Minecraft because it It stimulates creativity and building and whatnot.
Bob 33:38
Yep, that's pretty much why I was coming in at number eight for me of the 2010 Alright, so
Kevin 33:42
my number eight you'll probably snicker a little bit is crypto slash blockchain.
Bob 33:51
So this is your number eight positive Oh,
Kevin 33:53
oh, I'm sorry. This is my negative shoot.
Bob 33:58
No, that's why
Kevin 34:00
I totally messed up. So all right,
I'm gonna I'll come back to my number eight positive
because I've already tipped my hand. So my number eight negative is crypto blockchain because as of right now, I don't think crypto blockchain has changed the world because that's basically what all the crypto slash blockchain people are saying, Oh, we got a blockchain all the thing it will change the face of insert industry, crypto currency, it will change the face of whatever. I'm still waiting for it to change any part of my life. Bob, what part of your life has it changed?
Bob 34:35
Um, I think the only thing that it's really affected is our podcasting because of the Libra kinds of Libra crypto trying to desperately make its way to market. We did do that experiment a couple years back with investing in crypto and tracking the markets. So but that was more just fun. And I Still have not recouped from where we invested.
Kevin 35:03
Yeah, you and I totally hit the apex of crypto hey look at all this great stuff happening in crypto let's invest and the good thing I sold out right, I am out for save whatever 15 bucks a Bitcoin was worth a few months ago.
Bob 35:19
Yeah, I'm still in. I'm still in.
Kevin 35:22
Yeah, we're such suckers, man.
Such suckers. Alright, so that was my number eight negative. Do you want me to catch up and just do my number eight positive and then we'll Yeah, we'll just flip it so you do your number a positive so my number eight positive is SpaceX reusable rockets. Wow. So you and I had a live stream of the Falcon Heavy launch which highlighted the landing of the booster rockets and that was in 2017. We had my kids.
Bob 35:56
They got two out of three on that one, right?
Kevin 35:59
Something like that. But it looked like a frickin science fiction alien invasion movie, which was awesome.
Bob 36:07
Suit I got choked up.
Kevin 36:09
Oh, me too. And to this day every time they stick the landing, which is it pretty much every
Bob 36:14
time now it's regular now. Yeah,
Kevin 36:16
that's, that's awesome. I think one of the rockets that went up recently was like its fourth or fifth flight. And that's gotta save money somewhere. And I've heard a lot of people say, Oh, it won't be financially feasible still, you just gotta throw those away and start over. But I think they're starting to prove that wrong. What do you think?
Bob 36:35
Yeah, no, I think they're getting financial benefit with the multi launch multi land for sure. That's how they're able to really kind of like supplement the starlink programs. So yeah, the reusable rockets. That's brilliant. Yeah. So and for the most part right now, those are 100%. unmanned trips, right?
Kevin 36:55
Yeah. They are testing the ability to send up manned crew and they've had some success recently, because right now we're actually dependent on Russia of all people to send people up the space station. And I will be in Florida in a couple months and trying to catch a falcon nine launch for the starlink program but that's about like thread that needle at this point.
Bob 37:21
Right You showed me the schedule it looks like it's not going to happen while you're there.
Kevin 37:25
You know, I don't know the schedule enough to know that maybe I'm just looking too far out and they're just gonna fill the schedule or or what have you, but I'm excited. My kids are too They want to see it.
Bob 37:35
That would be awesome.
Kevin 37:36
Yes. All right. We're up to your number eight. Worst, my number. My number eight bad. Yes.
Bob 37:44
This could be a trip down memory lane for some not a positive one. Kevin, did you ever hear of the lytro camera back in the 2010 never heard of it. It is a light Field Camera. And it was supposed to revolutionized digital photography. And it looked like a rectangular tube. But what the camera did it was supposed to capture the infinity of the light that created an image. So you could capture that photograph doing air quotes. And then you could do it ever you wanted to with after that, because it had infinite resolution. That's interesting. So,
Kevin 38:28
yeah, it failed, by the way. So have you ever been in photography?
Bob 38:33
I yeah, I actually do love photography. And I should love to
Kevin 38:37
talk. So when you focus on a certain spot it becomes or there's a certain spot of moving the focal length and you'll hit what's called the hyper focal distance. And everything beyond that point is in focus. It's just like, we can take a picture of a mountain range and it's like, why is that always in vice, the background noise and focus because you've got the focal length, that's the hyperfocal distance, anything in front of You start getting the beaucaire or Boca or however you want to pronounce it. I don't even know what the real word way of pronouncing that is.
Bob 39:07
But it's I'm not that big in photography,
Kevin 39:09
but to get the subject in focus in the background out of focus. So anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sounds interesting. But you said it totally failed.
Bob 39:17
Yeah, first of all, they were super expensive. And the UX, the form factor for the device itself was just very clunky. So, but it was something at the time, I was very into photography and spending money on lenses and things like that, and was very excited about but there was no way I could afford it. When it came out. They came up with a better form factor, but it was still like over 1600 dollars. I think at the time, well,
Kevin 39:47
you know what, there's a there's a thing called the iPhone 11. That's got about three cameras on it, and it's a little less than that. So
Bob 39:54
right and you can totally adjust that bootcut whatever it is, too. So yeah.
Kevin 39:59
Interesting.
Bob 40:01
All right, but yeah, so that was yet some of these are very personal to me. So this is pretty fun.
Kevin 40:07
I'm glad I didn't bet money if what your number eight was eight would be all right, my number seven positive is 3d printing slash CNC slash vinyl cutting.
Bob 40:22
Man, I'm so glad you hit that market too.
Kevin 40:24
So 3d printing for me it's very cool. I've seen people make just some ridiculously cool things are basically like hey, yeah, we'll take one of those it's sort of like the the real life replicator from Star Trek shout out to start a supplemental. We need a nice here we need to eventually do this crossover episode
Bob 40:43
crossover coming soon.
Kevin 40:44
Yes. So that's what I think a 3d printer does. My vinyl cutter is that 2d printer very cool. In I've also seen that they can 3d print organs now which is like totally mind blowing like, hey, can 3d print a new heart and stuff They're printing.
Bob 41:00
Yeah, they're printing meat too, which is really weird.
Kevin 41:04
So I think 3d printing is still early, but I think it has a lot of promise. I've seen 3d printed houses out of concrete, you know, for in developing countries, just they can just set up a machine and it prints overnight. Yeah, just mind boggling. So what do you think?
Bob 41:21
Yeah, I think that that's a really good one. I actually did not touch upon 3d printing. But it's funny that you brought it up because my wife the other day was asking if 3d printers were getting cheaper, and so I thought that was really like that was a bizarre, surreal moment in the baby bar household that she was even considering 3d 3d printing. I like the aspect of 3d printing as well as like printing pieces or tools to do things without having to go to the store to purchase tools. I think that's pretty cool as well.
Kevin 41:54
Yeah. Yeah. I played the game civilization quite often. And one of the technologies that you can unlock is called replaceable parts, you know, like preceeds. Like, it's like Civil War era type thing where you could start, you know, fixing things rather than just having to craft it from A to Z every time well give me a couple of these parts, and then we're back to New. So I see the 3d printer is an extension of replaceable parts. And not that I think a hardware store is going to go out of business anytime soon. But when 3d printers become more ubiquitous, that might change.
Bob 42:30
Well didn't one of the like space shuttle missions or some space mission space station, maybe even they were able to 3d print a wrench that helped them out in a situation or something like that
Kevin 42:42
sounds familiar, but I can't recall the exact one. All right, we got anyway. Yeah, that's a great, well gotta move on. I say what's your number seven positive
Bob 42:51
by number seven positive is pretty interesting because I think you've already alluded to this, but number seven positive was cable cutting with streaming services like Sling TV. And we've talked about this on the show several times where I think in the early 2010s when this started to happen, it was meant to be a very positive thing. But now with every service jumping on the streaming subscription bandwagon, really if you add them all back together, it probably costs more than traditional cable
Kevin 43:22
and it has the side effect of putting us into an additional filter bubble. We haven't really talked about filter bubbles on this episode just yet, but you know, you're in your platform, you're in your channels and you're you know, you're on Netflix. I cord cut in 2012 off of DirecTV and my wife was pissed she's like, I want my whatever that we remember DVR. I mean, back then, you had to DVR things now. Everything's on demand. I mean, just the world has changed so much.
Bob 43:51
Yeah, we need my family off. DVR was a very interesting experience to the cord cutting. So
Kevin 43:56
yeah, I like it. I guess now we can transition to My number seven worst and it is crisper. Are you familiar with crisper?
Bob 44:07
The DNA editor
Kevin 44:08
so I would like to bundle this with DNA testing as well. So there's a Netflix series I forget what it's called, but it follows how crisper works and things like that. And I don't even want to you know, it's not a religious thing and nothing like that. I just think it's a bad idea to fuck with nature,
Bob 44:26
right? Oh, I think gene editing is a terrible idea.
Kevin 44:29
Yeah, um, the The one thing I think is is way more acceptable is GMOs. You know, if we can make corn feed us more and you know, whatever, that's fine but trying to alter somebody's intellect I color you know, the frick people aren't frickin ecommerce items. I mean, I guess you are in some countries, which is very sad. But so, you know, you don't order your children often many right?
Bob 44:57
Yeah, and I can really can't imagine a society where you Would I mean, that's definitely a black mirror up. So
Kevin 45:02
for sure, well, I mean, I could definitely, you know, play antagonistic to myself. People would say, Well, Kevin, we can eliminate cancer, we can eliminate whatever, whatever. But you and I are coders what happens when we fix bugs Bob?
Bob 45:17
New bugs have Thank you.
Kevin 45:20
cancer, but you're gonna create God knows what
literally God knows wouldn't be the only one who knows what. And maybe that wipes this all out. Period.
Bob 45:28
Right. It's just a cascade of it's just a bit. It's a cascade of bad consequences.
Kevin 45:33
Yeah, so.
All right, well, so I think the pendulum has now swung your number six.
Bob 45:41
Good. Now I think we're on my saddle bag. Right.
Kevin 45:44
Say it's good thing. We should call it a good thing. We're calling this out because I can't even count the 10 apparently.
Bob 45:49
That's okay. Number seven bad is Google in perpetual beta throughout the 20 times, and then the ultimate bait and switch where free services no longer We're free services. That one's pretty self explanatory. I think we hate all the big tech giants with equal
Kevin 46:07
disregard. So I'm familiar with the website, killed by Google. com.
Bob 46:14
I'm pretty sure we brought it up. And when you're talking about all the companies
Kevin 46:16
are also actually brought this up just for this episode. And I did not know two things on here are actually already scheduled for the X number one is Angular JS be one that is no longer supported, as of one year from now, so in one year for using Angular one dot, whatever, and I realized that's very nerdy and very like specific to coding and I am trying not to go down specific things here. But Angular JS is an older but super popular thing that we used
Bob 46:49
to go super stable.
Kevin 46:50
Yes, absolutely. I
Bob 46:51
don't know why they fucked with the law.
Kevin 46:53
Well, reasons right. Then here's the one that I was like. Are you kidding me? Google Hangouts is being
Bob 47:01
I did hear that they were sundowning that, but I think they're just giving it a different name to be on it.
Kevin 47:06
Yeah, apparently it's going to be called shit. I don't sit here, it's gonna be part of the G Suite. So maybe it's just, they're just not making direct money on because people just use hangouts for random garden variety shit. And that probably costs money. Right?
Bob 47:22
Right. And they want to bring it into G Suite because G Suite is not one of their paid things. Yeah, so that's
Kevin 47:27
kind of another 12 months according to kill by Google, but killed by Google is kind of a fun website because he just I mean, it's a lot of scrolling a lot of vertical scrolling of Holy shit. All of that is now dead. And while the lay person could probably care less than we do, but Bob and I, you know, when when we're asked to integrate with service x, I don't know about you, Bob. But when it's owned by Google, I go, Oh, well, how long do we even have left with whatever this is,
Bob 47:58
right. It's a Total question mark for sure.
Kevin 48:01
hate it. And I, you mentioned google maps that totally did a bait and switch on that. I'm trying to get Google out of my life, if you will. I'm actually using DuckDuckGo lot more. And if you do like a search on DuckDuckGo, and like directions, it's actually powered by Apple Maps, which is kind of an interesting twist on things. Oh, boy. Apparently, I don't know if I like that. I haven't really used Apple Maps. I heard it was really bad. And they've made improvements and I'm know apple.
Bob 48:36
I think they bought ways one of them bought ways Google or Apple to go. Okay, Google that. Okay. Yeah,
Kevin 48:41
that was unceremoniously explained to me the other day when I was like, why is Google Maps and way so similar? Whatever ignorant thing I said. Okay, so, so your number six positive, that's what we're up to. And then I know this is gonna be real nerdy, so I'll try to keep up light for the general listener. hub picks the number one spot over there the decade to become the go to place to dump your source code.
Bob 49:08
Now, I think that's a good one.
Kevin 49:10
Now, why does that matter? Well, I can tell you it prior to the 2010s. Source Control was very optional. And a lot of people may say, Yeah, right, not where we work. But let me tell you, I worked a lot of places, and it was copy paste, and you do control C, Control V, that's your backup. And they said, you know, it just put the little numbers that Windows does, you know, 123 as you control C, Control V. So GitHub really changed it. There was a bunch of competitors, and there still are subversion, whatnot, and then Microsoft bought them. So that was kind of a big deal that happened recently. And why does this matter? Well, GitHub is very known for open source and basically, the open source revolution. I'm going to try to put that in here as well. It's a big deal for both programmers and non programmers why is it important for non programmers? Because the programmers can bring you things that they couldn't before. What do you think?
Bob 50:08
Yeah, and I think it's a great learning tool opportunity for developers and non developers alike. If you're interested in getting into code. GitHub being basically the open source, you know, realm, you can, you can just pick up a lot of great grades. I'm sure you can pick up a lot of garbage too, but there's a lot of good stuff out there.
Kevin 50:27
So okay, where does that leave us? Which list are you on? Remember now?
Bob 50:32
That was your number six positive so it's time for my number six positive and I think this one will be brief. I think slack is my number six positive and its ability to kind of almost fulfill the Facebook mission of bringing people together without necessarily all the ads in bullshit stuff that I'm sure we'll talk about a little later.
Kevin 50:58
So yeah, slack is my number six. Good. So when I worked at the first agency I worked at we were an early adopter of slack. So slack was created in 2012. We start using in 2013. And, and at at the time, it's like, yes, it's cool, but I thought it was just yet another thing that you know, was out there. But it's really changed things because it's dead simple. It's web based. It pretty much killed off things. And it'll probably laugh AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, remember, I mean, you'd have to have all of those installed. Because depending on who you want to talk to, right?
Bob 51:34
Yes. Do you remember that one that pulled them all together? I can't think of the name of it now. But there was like a universal chat app that you basically registered all your other accounts through and you could use it Damn it. I can't remember it was called
Kevin 51:46
it sounds sketchy price stores your password.
Bob 51:49
Yeah, there was all kinds of shitty stuff with that, but it was a trillion trillion Pro. I love to trillion.
Alright, so let's see. Where's an hour back to the bad? Right? Okay, so
Kevin 52:03
so my number six, and this is going to be specific. But Oracle sued Google because of Android, the API's and aerosol. Yeah. And that's still being litigated. And it's for like billions of dollars and Oracle is one the initial judgment, and Google's appealing. But the real trouble with this isn't the money that's changing hands, because you and I wouldn't say it anyway. It's doesn't have anything to do with us. But it set the precedent that the API signatures I believe, is, and I could have this totally wrong, but the API signature think of the interfaces as copyrightable. Not the implementation, but just having a method named void save or something.
Bob 52:42
Yeah, see, that's crap. That's like, I don't know. That's like trademarking toilet paper. Yeah.
Kevin 52:48
So, speaking of frivolous patents, I should maybe I put that in that maybe that's the overarching theme here. somebody tried to claim that the shaft car was their patented invention and in fact, I believe they actually got the patent, and Newegg contested it because this guy is like hey, Newegg. And if you're not familiar Newegg. They're like a computer retailer. You owe us a bunch of money because you have a shopping cart completely like was like, you know, you can't patent the mouse click. The shopping cart is obvious. So, patent trolls and whatnot. I just hate that kind of stuff. So we put that in there too. What do you think?
Bob 53:29
Well, I think that's great. I yeah, there's so many shitty things that apparently happened in 2010.
Kevin 53:34
And we're only halfway done.
Bob 53:37
So my number six is going to be super quick because we've already touched on it. My number six of the not so great tech would be the crypto craze. Bitcoin was pre 2010. But a theorem kind of brought wallet, online trading all that kind of good stuff to the forefront because it was something other than just Bitcoin. It's a mess.
Kevin 53:57
So that's a good one.
I'll just quickly transition to my number five positive and I'll just throw it out there as the gig economy so if you're a god damn
magician, car driver whatnot the power
is is did you
Bob 54:17
say magician? Yeah
Kevin 54:18
because the reason I said I'm watching on Netflix it's
Bob 54:22
Oh my son watches that one the magician's right
Kevin 54:24
well, there's a button no not not that one's on CW but there was one on Netflix. It's called, like, magic for humans or something. And it's like he actually mentioned in there the gig economy, you can basically get anyone to do anything on the internet these days. Whether it's, you know, back in the day when you're growing up, it's like, you can hire a band, you know, you have this like sketchy part of Craigslist. Well, that's come out and they're their apps. I mean, when I was at your there's an app for that when I was at your place, you had like three or four options of people who will bring you food to your house. Yeah, guess how many cats Has well we still have pizza hut and Papa John's that's about it and I don't think this qualifies gig economy, right?
Bob 55:07
Nope, not so. Alright, so that was your number five good? Yes. My number five good basically encompasses a lot of stuff we talked about today 4g LTE networks that came of age in the 2000s which made a lot of this digital communication streaming from your phones possible so
Kevin 55:30
that figure that was a really big that might be on my list that might be on my list of the a quick one. Okay, so 4g definitely did change it and I'm patiently frickin waiting for 5g because while sometimes I will use my 4g hotspot do work and or do a podcast with you. 5g is where I think I need to be for the whole house because I don't think my 4g phones gonna handle that.
Bob 55:57
So now melted.
Kevin 55:59
Yes. So that's good. Alright, moving along here.
Bob 56:03
Number five bad or five bad net
Kevin 56:05
neutrality. So good one net neutrality for the lay person is a topic that came up a couple of years ago, basically the current administration, FCC head said, you know, what, no longer are these protections in place? What protections were they? You say, Kevin? Well, what they are is let's say your internet provider wanted to throttle slow down your Netflix, because you're doing a lot of binge watching or whatever,
Bob 56:36
before net neutrality, or because large corporate interest, wanted more bandwidth and paid for it. That's yourself.
Kevin 56:42
That's it. So So net neutrality protected us. But those rules got rescinded. And now it is possible that you can be throttled unless you pay to play right.
Bob 56:56
Yeah, tinfoil hat guy and me says we've always been throttled.
Kevin 56:59
Yeah. How do you check that right?
Bob 57:02
Yeah, exactly. All right. I think we're back to the positives. Nope. My number five negative. You've just got the ping pong game all wrong. My number five negative. You've already brought it up. Mine was DNA kits for the masses. Yeah, so don't do it. We don't we Yeah, we don't need to be testing our DNA, who who cares? Who cares where we're from? Who cares what we might die? Well,
Kevin 57:24
it's a pseudoscience really Anyway, I've read so many articles were there. Who knows if what the information they're giving you is any were true because you can be, say Jewish as a race or a Jewish as a religion. You can be from the Middle East, but your skin color you know, I mean, there's just so many combinations and it's just doesn't make sense. Plus, the Pentagon just recently put out a warning saying, hey, if your God member you shouldn't be submitting these DNA tests for for security reasons.
Bob 57:59
That's got to be One of the biggest red flags I've ever seen it's just such a data grab so gross right all right, all right, so your number four good one he might
Kevin 58:09
crap your parents, but I'm gonna loop in AI ml and neural nets. Oh wait
Bob 58:16
as a good one
Kevin 58:17
toes you're gonna crap your pants. So actually, this one kind of rides the line for me between good and bad and I've got a few of those. So I was watching the YouTube series that I pass along you which is only three to three episodes before YouTube
Bob 58:33
I was gonna say it's paywalls right only
Kevin 58:35
the first three episodes are free but after that they want money and sorry YouTube, you've already you're already profiting off me somehow someway. But fucking drug dealers. One of the cool things in there was a guy a former Tennessee Titan football player had ALS or has ALS and they use speech recognition type things to help learn how he talks now. Excuse me versus how he used to talk Like press conferences and things like that. And now they can translate him very well. And I was like, that's what ml
Bob 59:07
is. Wait, so they can translate him in his own voice basically. Yes.
Kevin 59:11
So he's very well, that's beautiful. That's cool. He's very difficult to understand in real life now. But they can, they can go both ways they can, okay, he can say something now, and it can just do text, or they can also replay in his own voice, which is amazing. That's pretty awesome. They also have it where somebody has lost a limb and they have the Luke Skywalker hand where you know, you move these things in your arm and it knows then it learns you as a person on how to move it. Because previous attempts at like limbs, specially hands hands are very complicated is well how do we make this work for everyone? Well, you don't that's the problem. Everyone is wired kind of a little bit differently. And if you leverage machine learning, to kind of figure out you know, the nuances A few and hey, that work that didn't and adjust on the fly. That's great. And so that's where I think it's super. That's great noble, where I'm not so hot on AI and machine learning is like self driving cars. I really think that's just you know, I know. That's just a waste of time. You know, we're, you know, I just read the other day, Tesla hat was involved in another autopilot death, you know, where the car was an autopilot and killed some people. So, of course, yeah,
Bob 1:00:30
but still, they've got like, hundreds of thousands to go before that's really an issue.
Kevin 1:00:35
Right? I mean, the the easy defense of that is Yeah, and so and so died from dear, you know, crashes and that's human control. So what's your point carry
Bob 1:00:46
on? Yeah, on that same day, 3000 people probably got killed by regular people driving. So
Kevin 1:00:53
what I'm getting at is, I don't put auto or self driving cars at the top of the machine learning like to do list I put right mbts I put people who have medical, I put that high up. So that's why when I, when I see like, hey, there's this new self driving car and it's blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that's great and all but is that changing humanity? I mean, getting rid of effect. Yes. We're saving you from the tyranny of driving a car. Ooh, you know, that's, that's really not high on my list of things we need.
Bob 1:01:26
I'm telling you though, next year when I get my cyber truck, I'm getting it with the autonomous mode. Alright,
moving on. That is an upgrade.
Kevin 1:01:35
Alright, so we are on Bob's number four positive,
Bob 1:01:39
right my number four positive also spooky. You already had it ride sharing gig economy apps, basically, where's my number four. So Oh, the ability to have a system in your pocket where there's thousands of participants where you can pretty much good anything you need on because they're volunteering to be in the system. So
Kevin 1:01:58
the only notable thing there is With the gig economy comes the obvious potential exploitation by the overlords running the apps. Yes. Lyft Uber, I think are the two that are considering unionizing or you know, there's there's issues there. And then the other one is with YouTube, YouTube's not really a gig economy unless you look at it through the lens of Well, I'm a performer Raiders
Bob 1:02:21
kind of our Yeah,
Kevin 1:02:22
so yeah, so there's exploitation potential there. But
Bob 1:02:28
what I think the technology to make that open for pretty much anyone to participate in that economy is the bonus part. Maybe the way it's executed is not but the ability the technology is open that door.
Kevin 1:02:42
I think that's pretty Yeah. And let me tell you, Airbnb if we're considering that also a gig economy that is a huge huge plus thing I'm, I'm going to Disney World for the second time, or third time with an Airbnb because it's just way better than doing a hotel. So
Bob 1:02:58
we always look for the Yes, Airbnb places to quirkier the quirkier the better. Alright, so your to your number four bad
Kevin 1:03:09
Cambridge Analytica. That's my number four.
Bob 1:03:12
Wow, that's really far out. We thought it'd be higher up. I thought it'd be closer number one
Kevin 1:03:20
yeah, it gets pretty crowded here.
So Cambridge analytic if you're not very up on that there's a Netflix documentary called I think it's the great hack if I'm,
Bob 1:03:31
yeah, okay, I did an episode I
Kevin 1:03:32
did an episode on it. And basically, we're all suckers and it will be a component of one of my to a component of two of my top three negatives here in a bit. But Cambridge Analytica basically exposed how much data is the new oil. I'm channeling my inner Bob Baty buyer right there.
Bob 1:03:56
That's his data is the new oil that is trading. That's right.
Kevin 1:04:00
So I'll just leave it there. I don't have time to explain Cambridge Analytica, I, I don't think you would disagree with you. Maybe you went to high No,
Bob 1:04:07
not at all. No, my it's actually higher up on my list, but I don't disagree at all. My number four bad is an old guy rant. It's Instagram, Snapchat and tick tock. I just can't keep up with all this shit anymore. Like I was very active technology dad, and introduce my kids to Facebook and Twitter and kind of introduced them to Instagram and then Snapchat and tick tock all kind of blossomed on the scene in the 2010s. And I just can't keep up with all the different interfaces and what's the expectation how the content supposed to be formulated and delivered. It's just it's too hard. So that was my number four bad. It's just the rise of all these little micro networks. I still don't understand Instagram Stories dependent and people have explained it to me over and over and over. I just don't get it. I consume them pretty regularly because I think they're a good think they're good platform for consumption. But to have to make an Instagram story I struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real as the kids.
Kevin 1:05:07
Alright, we're back to the positive right?
Bob 1:05:09
Number Three positive for you, Kevin. Number three.
Kevin 1:05:13
Actually, this one's a mixed bag too. But it's gonna be like, Oh, I guess that is the thing, hashtags and the like button.
Bob 1:05:21
So Oh, that's a continuation of my old guy ran. Yeah. So
Kevin 1:05:24
hashtag, you would think that non tech users getting the them to use hashtag would be really difficult. But humans seem to know how to use hashtags nowadays. And the like button while it's positive is is it's a quick feedback. What I don't like about it is the ambiguity of not pushing the button. Does that mean people don't like the post? Or does that mean people haven't seen the post? And that ambiguity is by design, right where it's like, well It's not that people don't like it. Maybe they didn't see it or whatever. What do you think?
Bob 1:06:04
Yeah. Well, that I think that not seeing it, especially with all the stupid algorithms that these different networks have. I think that's a big possibility. I'm always, like perplexed by someone will post something that, especially on Twitter, actually Instagram too. So they'll post something that is actually kind of sad and not positive. But you want to show that you support them somehow. But your only option is to like the fact that they put something really sad there. Yeah. So I do like that Facebook has a little bit more wider range of things.
But yeah, I do struggle with that a little bit.
Kevin 1:06:43
Yeah. Do you think Twitter Instagram will adopt the multiple emoji reaction?
Bob 1:06:50
I don't know. Would Facebook come out and say against Twitter like No, we've patented that.
Kevin 1:06:56
We've patented the for emoji response or whatever it is now.
Bob 1:07:00
That's interesting. And then you'd have to remember what the equivalency is between the platforms. See, that part just pisses me off.
Kevin 1:07:06
There's there'll be an app for that. Don't worry, old guy rant continues. All right, your number three positive,
Bob 1:07:13
my number three positive. Actually, I struggled putting this as low as number three, I wanted it to be closer to one. But there's so many, I guess I didn't have so many good things. My number three positive was the Apple Watch and fitness trackers in general. Apple Watch kind of came to the largest prominence early in the 2010s. With that whole scheme and the connectivity, I dislike having, it's very futuristic, having all that stuff on your wrist. And I have the mentality where it doesn't consume me even if people in my household think it might. But I have the ability to focus my attention in many different directions. But I like that it's a constant reminder of your activity level and the ability to track it. I think. I love data, which which version
Kevin 1:08:00
do you have?
Bob 1:08:02
I am wearing a four which they discontinued because it was so similar to the five that they launched. So you today you can purchase a three or a five D. So do you have to have your phone close by? Is it near field required? Well, you still get all the functionality of the tracking on the watch so that you can still analyze your heart rate, you can still track a workout. I don't have the LTE version. So if I want interactivity with my phone, yeah, I have to be within Bluetooth range of it. So but it's still a watch. Regardless, I had a Dick Tracy watch, because that's what I think they are. I would prefer that it works by itself. And I don't have one because I'm in the Android side. Well, the LTE is more expensive and I'm a cheapskate. So
Kevin 1:08:48
I think my wife has the LTE version. She's in the apple ecosystem. And I really wish there were some more options and Andrew and I haven't looked for a while. I have a Fitbit That's really nice has nothing to do with my phone or anything. But I think that might be the future innovation where I mean, these phones are huge. And you guys stick them in your pocket, you know, they're just they're just somewhere or you're going to drop them. But I think if if the phones become exclusively wearable, I think that would be huge.
Bob 1:09:21
I think we're going there for sure. All right. So your number three. Good, right. I already did that one. Oh, then you're on number three bad Sorry, I lost track.
Kevin 1:09:34
By number three bad is the 2016 US election I realized that is not a tech topic. It is though, because we were basically compromised in a digital fashion from bad actors around the globe. It's the rise of fake accounts the rise of, of being an expert at being a bully online the expert of inflaming people and the exploitation of filter Bubbles. So I think that for me is one of the largest negatives that I could come up with, even though I have two more ahead of it.
I guess it was the third largest
Bob 1:10:12
thing. Yeah. If you haven't watched the Cambridge analytical special on Netflix, totally encourage you to do so.
Kevin 1:10:20
So, yeah, hopefully, hopefully we won't have a repeat in 2020. But guess what I think, Bob,
Bob 1:10:26
it's already happening. Yeah. Very good. All right. You're not on Facebook. So you don't see the shit show but it's already happening.
Kevin 1:10:32
Well, I I only see the Twitter side and thankfully, I don't see it on Instagram, which is a Facebook property.
Bob 1:10:38
Yeah, but Facebook is the worst. Yeah,
Kevin 1:10:41
I don't doubt
Bob 1:10:42
it. Alright, so where does that leave us is that you're not so my number three bad plays right off of that. Oddly enough, it's weird. It's like we know each other and our friends. Mine is the rise in social media addiction, and the rise of outrage culture, kancil culture, virtual signaling, virtue signaling, and all that. bullshit that goes with all that stuff. So, uh, yeah, social media really big negative, I think for the 2010s and I don't see that ending anytime soon. Uh,
Kevin 1:11:11
there's a, there's a lot of people who are good at psychology on Twitter, they know exactly how to word it. Because, like you said, virtue signaling, you know, I'm going to write this in a way that it'll make me sound superior to everyone else. And somehow, you know, gain sympathy or empathy for just like this negativity to propel yourself forward and people are very good at it.
Bob 1:11:39
Yeah or we all should be doing x y and z but if you dig into the profile the person who posted that they don't do anywhere near x y&z and in another problem is is the fake accounts thing. The person that's
Kevin 1:11:51
you know, we have
certain certain certain group for certain certain certain candidate and they're just flaming Each they're playing both sides. And it's hard to tell what's real, what's not. Side note, Facebook attempts to have a real person behind the username. Twitter does not give quick thoughts on, on whether making it real person would fix any of that.
Bob 1:12:22
No, because it's just kind of like the the spam bot issues with web forms. You know, we found ways to kind of mitigate that. But then people figured out that they can just employ people for pennies on the dollar to be the humans to do the same spam botting and check the box that says I'm not a robot. So the shits gonna go bad either way. All right, let's go back we need to shift to
Kevin 1:12:48
go back to the positive my number two positive is electric vehicles.
Bob 1:12:54
So very interesting.
Kevin 1:12:56
What's even more interesting is we've had electric vehicles for About 100 years now. And if you're a historian of vehicles, you'd you know, find where big oil I'm using air quotes is basically killed off that industry so that we can all have internal combustion engine vehicles and we all like hell yeah, we got muscle cars. I mean, we did it all. But now we're to the point where electric vehicles just kind of makes more sense and it's not even a clower
Bob 1:13:25
the point where the planet is definitely going to die. I was
Kevin 1:13:28
gonna say, I'm actually not into electric vehicles because the plants gonna die. I'm into it first, purely economics. Right and also maintainability and internal combustion engine has a lot of frickin moving parts and explosions under the hood, where no light by design and electric vehicle is literally
Bob 1:13:50
simple in it, but Kevin they catch fire. Well,
Kevin 1:13:54
you know what sort of cars with flammable liquids and so
Bob 1:13:59
that comes Last under the hood
Kevin 1:14:00
right so um I would like to think my next vehicle will be an electric car or vehicle but that's a bold statement however the reason that's I'm in a hybrid right now I'm telling you cyber truck is on my list what I really wish for the future though is the infrastructure because Big Oil had to put in had to solve the their distribution problem to hey you're in the middle of Utah How do you keep going without you know we need fueling stations well we need to figure out a way to have bigger life batteries and Tesla just got this was the patent you know that claiming to have a lot longer battery life but we also need to be able to charge faster or we need to be the ability to swap out batteries rather than go and charge the battery just say hey give me another one and in charge this one and then you pay like a propane fee like you you know changing out your grill propane cylinder you know, here you go. Here's my, my 20 bucks and whatever. So that's my hope and and electric vehicles a huge kind of an allegory or side to this one right? Here is I really wish we could harness the title energy of the moon. You know, when that moon spins around Earth, it does a lot of moving. So the kinetic energy from that and just like turbans underwater, you'd think we would have infinite free electricity at this point. But apparently we haven't figured that out yet.
Bob 1:15:20
It would definitely contribute for sure.
Kevin 1:15:22
So there we go. Evie, that's me. That's my number two.
Bob 1:15:26
My number two positive would be voice assistant services like Amazon, Google. Siri, all those good ones. So.
Kevin 1:15:37
So real quick, there's a lot of positive there in fact that my kids learned that this morning and if you say Alexa fart, she will comply.
Bob 1:15:46
You need to let me try that later. Try that out on the big speaker.
Kevin 1:15:51
It's it makes me giggle.
So there's that and then if I if I go ahead and put on the tin foil hat here and And say well we do invite the surveillance state into our home with all of these things. There's that.
Bob 1:16:09
So we have an episode for that as well. Yeah, once again, I think the big disclaimer on these these lists is I think the underlying technology is the positive the use of that technology is where things get totally sketched out Black Mirror, also know your number too bad.
Kevin 1:16:27
My number too bad.
You are last few ones here definitely gonna overlap. So
as it's written on my,
my little notepad here, mental health connection to technology. So I think technology number three, technology has a huge impact on mental health. And number one is we actually probably get doping mean highs. And then when that doping mean goes away. You are you have a little bit of withdrawal feeling but it also creates these highlight reels like Instagram is really a highlight reel.
The see
the idea that you do or don't get likes, I was talking to a school teacher recently. And she's like, it's actually become a problem where people get social care students are getting social anxiety because they'll post something and get no reactions. Or we are now in a world where are you cool? I don't know, how many followers do you have? Do you have the new iPhone? You know, it's like,
man, when I was growing up, it was
can you catch a football? How tall are you? But now it's what do you possess? What's your status symbols? You know, what's your social network look like? And holy crap. I've seen a lot of people and I really praise them for doing that. Like, hey, I need to take a break from social media. It's, you know, it's getting too much. I just need to take break. I'll see. We'll see you next week. Or I really don't like it. When they pick it. They
Bob 1:17:58
come back when you're ready. Giant the giant dick and me though, says that's virtue signaling as well. Um, Don't you wish you were as strong as I am that I can take a break from social media? All right, that's fair.
Kevin 1:18:11
That's totally fair. You don't have to announce it there. How about that? Right?
Bob 1:18:15
Yeah. Just do it and be quiet about.
Kevin 1:18:17
Yes.
Do you think there's a podcast version of virtue, virtue signaling? And did you just do it, Bob? I'm just asking asking for a friend.
Bob 1:18:27
Yeah. I do it all the time. I'll admit it. So
Kevin 1:18:31
mental health is something I've always struggled with. And technology sort of exploits those flaws sometimes. And it sucks. All right, back to you, Bob. What's your number two shitty thing.
Bob 1:18:45
My number two bad thing. We've already touched on this apps to collect data in the combination for now is that hold the Cambridge analytics thing? Or Cambridge Analytica. So basically coming out with apps that are viral in nature basically designed to help create that 3d avatar that data avatar of, you know, citizens around the globe. So that's my number two
Kevin 1:19:09
took me out to city. It took me a while to figure out that Oh, wait a second. How do you the original way of funding a free app is to have an ad supported and if you didn't want to ad supported the opposite of that was to pay for it. Well enter pick a pick an arbitrary time, some mid 2008, a mining 2010s. Facebook now incentivizes your free apps to to monetize that way. So you have a menu of things that could happen. You could have an app that is ad supported only app that is not ad supported, but it's Facebook supported because they're, they're shoveling all your stuff over the fence to Facebook, or you could have both. And then the third thing you could well there's like three and four here. The third thing you can have is it's you pay for it
and they still send it off
Bob 1:19:58
to Facebook. right and that's the ones will steal your data
Kevin 1:20:01
and that's the was a really pissed me off, especially Amazon. It's like, Wait a second, I'm paying. I'm a Prime member, I'm paying you 120 bucks a year, and you still have these fucking third party cookies that say, Hey, would you like to buy that? Whatever? No, I don't and when I do, I'll come back or I'll buy it Where the fuck I want.
Bob 1:20:20
Okay, but Here, take this music as a trade.
Take these videos as a trade. Oh my gosh, so, okay, so I want to finish on a good note. So we're going to double down and do okay, the bad ones are number one bad ones and then we'll go over to our number one good.
Kevin 1:20:36
How's that? Okay, well, I'll make it real easy on mine. My number one bad one was air quotes surveillance state. So it's basically what we just talked about where the culmination Yeah, yeah, it's, it's the weaponizing and let's just call it for what is the theft of your person, your persona that that of your persona,
in the real problem and
dh David Heinemeier him saying, whatever, sorry, I can't pronounce your name, right? The Ruby on Rails guy was just tweeting recently that, you know, we know it's bad, but why do we still do it? And I'll tell you why. Because there's so many hands in the cookie jar right now that it's become normalized. It's normal to steal data. And once it becomes normalized, go ahead and try to swim against that current because you're gonna have clients that say, Well, I want I want that too. Because the competitors doing this, why can't we do this, Kevin? You and your principles why, what? Why? Why? Why should you restrict me? Because I'm losing an economic advantage here, because over here, they're getting all this great data from Facebook.
Bob 1:21:38
Did you have you watched Have you finished Silicon Valley yet? I haven't yet. Oh, keep that in mind.
Kevin 1:21:46
Maybe I'm just in tune or the red is there in tune with?
Bob 1:21:48
Yeah, well, yeah. It's, it's, it's funny because it's true. Um, so my number one is Facebook in general. But the question I wanted to ask you was, do you Think so we've gone through this top 10 list almost in its entirety for good and bad. Do you think that the combination of all those good and bad things that we've that we've kind of highlighted today actually contribute to your both of our number ones that surveillance state? that such a negative?
Kevin 1:22:17
Yes.
Okay. Terrible radio have one word answer. Yes.
Bob 1:22:23
I think that's really what it boils down to you. I mean, we've covered a lot of ground. So yeah, um, Alright, so let's move to our number one positive. So let's, let's close it out on our number one positive notes. Do you want to go first, do you want to go set up?
Kevin 1:22:36
I'll let you go first. And it's really easy. My number one is actually on your list. And you may be surprised how how high it is, but mine's actually the 4g LTE infrastructure.
Bob 1:22:46
Well, and I debated on that too, because obviously that 4g LTE made most of the stuff we've talked about,
Kevin 1:22:54
yep. Everyone's pockets. It's the enabler of everything else.
Bob 1:23:00
That's a good one. I totally appreciate that. I fanboy it a little bit for number one, basically my number one, tech positive for the 2010s is Elon Musk. Everything that fine young gentleman has done from Tesla SpaceX to the boring company. You name it, even the fucking flame thrower. I'm a giant fan eaten that shit up, aren't you? I am. I think that, you know, the world needs great minds like his. And yeah, sure, he still makes money doing this stuff. But he spends a ton and he's almost single handedly responsible for saving the United States space, you know, space exploration platform, basically, because NASA is they washed out basically in the 2010s. And he helped to bring them back basically.
Kevin 1:23:51
So I look at Elon Musk is sort of the modern day, Thomas Edison, you know, insert inventor here and it's bet there was a large gap between Early 20th century inventors, and what we have today because there was a lot of just Yeah, I don't think a lot of people gave a fuck, you know, we had a lot of words in there, you know, just, you know, a lot of things happen. So, Mr. Musk,
you're not perfect, but damn, you're inspirational.
Bob 1:24:17
Yeah, I mean, you look at the Facebook's of the world, the Googles of the world, you know, the Amazons, the world, the people that are at the helm of those organizations, they're really not, even if they say they're doing it for the betterment of mankind, I don't really see a lot of positives from what they're doing. And I think our lists illustrated that pretty fairly. And I do feel like he's got a little bit of a, at least a for the betterment of mankind, backbone.
Kevin 1:24:45
So
I would like to point out, this is probably going to be the longest podcast date that we've ever done, and it's
Bob 1:24:53
close. It's definitely close. Well,
Kevin 1:24:55
you're gonna give your your honorable mentions and then actually have a list to
Bob 1:25:00
Oh geez. Okay, so really quickly because I know that we're, you know, we are pushing the envelope for length here, my honorable mentions from a negative standpoint, and I think you'll appreciate one of them movie pass is definitely one of my negative honorable mentions had such potential to. I did but it was dumb. And then the Xbox and the Xbox Kinect. I bought one in the early 2010s. And I think that the games total the number of like, in the handfuls and it just was not great. It's kind of like
Kevin 1:25:36
the light gun for the original Nintendo with that guy. You know, they had like, organic still play Duck Hunt, though. Yeah.
Bob 1:25:41
Fair enough. All right. And then my Do you want a guy of positive honor I mentioned him as well. Yeah. The commitment to teaching kids how to code in the 2010s. I feel like that was a really big movement with things like Lego Mindstorms and scratch. So I think that was a good one, and then the Xbox. So I slammed box for the negative, but their adaptive controller that they came out with in the late 2010s the commitment to inclusion in the consumer hardware world which, you know, unless you're building appliances for the differently abled, you know, there's really not much going on in the gaming world for that. So
Kevin 1:26:18
I thought that was pretty Have you actually seen the TV commercials for those controllers? Oh God, they make me ball my face. I was gonna say the same thing. I'm like, man, they're frickin touching is how all right? Yes, they are. Alright, so I'm going to go through it a little differently if you don't mind. I almost got like a timeline, just walk down memory lane of things. So in 2011, we had the first Chromebooks
Bob 1:26:42
in 2012. We had the first Raspberry Pi in 2010. That almost made my list to
Kevin 1:26:47
in 2012. We had windows eight with the Start button fiasco. Alexa fart. All right. Apple Watch was introduced in 2014. Also in 2014, we had the first eight core Intel I seven. Is she fighting? I hear something she did. She did in 2015 we skipped windows nine and went right for Windows 10.
Also in 2015, the alpha
go event which we covered somewhat in our great AI debate, I do believe or at least we had
Bob 1:27:26
talked about in the last episode. Yeah, I think we talked about last episode too, so that has definitely some
Kevin 1:27:32
talking points around it. 20 x I'm gonna go backwards little bit 2010 was when 4g LTE was released. Uber 2011 slack 2012. We did cover that. fortnight was released, I believe in 2017 ish. Wow. Yeah, felt closer. Um, and then 2017 also SpaceX landed their first reusable rockets. And then In 2012, kind of Golden sciency here, the Higgs boson was first discovered at the CERN Super Collider in Europe. Oh man, I thought they did that in Batavia. Do you want to guess when the Amazon Echo first debuted? 15 Yes, correct. 2019 saw the first starlink items go up. Oculus Rift. Pokemon GO Boston Dynamics robots, drones, Siri, and self driving cars. We're all a part of this crazy ass decade. And then one thing that will probably talk about in the future in 2019, Google achieved quantum supremacy Bob, do you even know what the fuck that means? I had to look it up.
Bob 1:28:48
I think they were the first one to actually develop true quantum computing, right?
Kevin 1:28:54
They are but quantum supremacy allegedly means it is that means that this computer can do With a quantum computer that no traditional computer can do as in if you use the regular modern day computer to figure could never complete the right right. It would just take crazy amount of time. So infinity amount of Exactly. And then oh, I did forget the most important one that Trumps all this technology. The Bob & Kevin show started in 2017.
Bob 1:29:24
Ooh, nice. I like that one.
Bob 1:29:30
Well, I can't think of a better way to close it out and that can you I cannot this was a good one. Also the longest one, maybe? Yes. So if you made it to the end, find us on social media. Have a great week, and we're back on a regular schedule.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Thursday Nov 28, 2019
Thursday Nov 28, 2019
In this episode Bob & Kevin discuss the recent troubles with YouTube and content geared towards children and the violation of child data privacy rights. We also discussed how the various social media platforms each have their unique rule sets and personalities.
We also tackled the apparent flooding of social media with Jeffery Epstein memes and how they are influencing public opinion and speculate what (or who) may be driving this agenda.
As always, feel free to reach out to us on twitter - https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow and let us know what you think of this episode or anything else we have covered!
Thanks,
- Bob & Kevin

Thursday Nov 14, 2019
Thursday Nov 14, 2019
Bob & Kevin continue their crusade against sketchy tech practices and in this episode discuss how the U.S. Government is taking issue with Tik Tok because it is an app developed out of China and it might be stealing our data... but apparently Facebook, Google and the like are just fine, because the government can actually request any of their data - or so Edward Snowden says!
We talk about some other tech stuff too. Hey, as always, reach out to us at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow and let us know what you like, what you don't like, or what you want to hear us discuss more of.
Thanks for listening!
- Bob & Kevin

Wednesday Oct 30, 2019
Wednesday Oct 30, 2019
Well, since everyone on the planet appears to be talking about Edward Snowden, we thought it was time that we weighed in. Bob & Kevin both recently listened to Mr. Snowden as a rare, remote guest on the Joe Rogan Experience (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efs3QRr8LWw) so we had to talk about the episode and a bunch around mass surveillance, our darn cell phones and how facebook just ruins everything for all of us!
We also discussed how the US government is basically in a "no lose" situation with Snowden and that Ed is basically in a "no win".
Of course, we discussed the area in the Snowden interview where he brought up aliens... and we had thoughts!
Feel free to message us on twitter (https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow) and let us know what you thought of this episode!

Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Yup, we did a retrospective on our 50 podcast episodes so far. We even talked a bit about our old YouTube channel experiences and how that led to our illustrious podcasting career... well, career in air quotes... we still have our day gigs!
We looked back at our most favorite and our least favorite episodes - let us know what you want to hear more of in our next 50! https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow

Wednesday Oct 09, 2019
Wednesday Oct 09, 2019
In this episode we celebrated our 50th! Sure we had about 30 or so YouTube Shows (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmOHJDCtT0THNKW49Ghxtmg) but can you believe we have recorded FIFTY podcast episodes!?!?!
We have been tackling some heavy topics lately on the show, so today we decided to talk some tech headlines and see where things took us.
We talked about the latest iteration of the Boston Dynamics Atlas robot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(robot) in addition to how the idea of the "personal brand" has evolved since we got in "the game".
We took a look at some recent press about podcast monetizing and the various options out there, plus much, much more! As always... if you want to leave us a comment, feel free to hit us up on twitter - https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow
Rumor has it, if you send us a DM, we will reach out to you with a very special gift! DO IT... DO IT NOW!