Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2
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I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi.

How's it going? Yeah, he's loving the show, by the way. Yeah, I'm sorry. Is this too much energy? I can take it down if I'm, like, blowing the monitors out or anything like that. A little much, if I might. This is always a problem with you. So, you all are feeling weird because you've been at CES for a long time, and I'm feeling weird because I've been at CES for, like, five hours.

And that's all it takes. Yeah. I mean, maybe you, what is it that you acclimate, right? Like eventually at some point you're just kind of like, wow, I'm glad you've got AI in that. So what, what happens is that you get really sleep deprived, right? You're on your feet all day and then you, you don't sleep and you don't eat properly. And so like your brain just kind of like slowly shuts down over the last like, yeah. Oh cool. So it's like, it's like dying.

But it kind of like awakens in a weird way. Yeah. You know, like you tap this part of your brain that you didn't know exists. It's actually like an undeath, like an undying. So when you go, like in 2001, like you go through the Stargate, you encounter yourself in a weird room and it's like an old version of you.

Or a baby. Yeah, and then at the end, yeah, the star child turns to regard you. So just to introduce the other characters we've got with us, Jared Newman. And then you get a product demonstration. Am I giving away too much in 2001? There's a whole lot. There's like two and a half hours. Okay, let's just say who you are, though.

Ed Niedermeyer, wonderful auto journalist who joined me on a previous episode here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Good to see you, Gavin. Good to see you. Jared Newman, freelancer, wonderful to be here. Great to be here. Thank you. Correct. Now, the effect that David is describing is actually remarkable because it is true. CES veterans generally experience what I'm experiencing right now. I'm in like the cocoon stage.

Which is you go through Valley of the Shadow of Death, look at your life, nope. And you sit there and you go, I'm dying. And then you get tomorrow, like halfway through, you just get a second and third wind even. And that's when you fully jokify. And everything becomes darkly funny.

You know, ooh, AIs and everything. Wouldn't it be bad if that would happen? So I'm jokifying the next three episodes, which is going to be great. But David, it's great to have you here because not only are you at your first CS, you are not a tech journalist. You cover sports. No, I had to say that to somebody earlier today because I was...

playing around i was down there with uh our friend jesse farrar who i was on i believe with you this afternoon no oh did he just came in to say hi well do you not remember you haven't been on the microphone yet man no i don't know i wasn't on with him i don't know what you do back oh no he was on the show sorry i thought you were suggesting you forgot that anyway no no so i saw jesse and we walked around for a bit and we were uh playing with a device i guess was designed to give a a

A pleasing jet of air to your pet. It was a pet massager. It was an air pet massager. Okay, I think I saw them as well. Was that the one with the spike at the bottom where the pet is allegedly meant to rub against it? No, yes. It's the same company, but this was a different product. And I was messing around with this one and they were fine with it.

And a lady was kind of trying to sell me on this. And even though I told her, I was like, I have a turtle. And I don't have a dog. I don't think the turtle would like it. I don't think the turtle really likes anything that I do.

I hadn't eaten, so I did tell them about the turtle. That was unnecessary. I was wasting their time. And at some point she was like, well, I can see that you... She looked at my... Okay, man, the turtle shit is over here. My lanyard. And it said, you know, defector, which nobody knows what the fuck that is. And if they did know, they'd be like, oh, yeah, the one where Ray Ratto makes fun of the raiders. Yeah. Like that website. Yeah.

And so she's like, I can see that you're, you know, it's just a, so you work in design. And I was like, ma'am, I'm a sports writer. And that was more or less enough because you're basically saying like, first of all, I'm an idiot, which you've already observed. Second of all, like, I'm not like rich either. And I already told you I don't have a dog. So like, we really don't have very much left to talk about.

about. They tried to sell me a $15,000 baseball simulator, which was very cool earlier. Dude, I was ready to buy that shit. No, it was so cool. Like, those are the only honest people in this entire show. Yeah, there was a guy in there with one of the best of the, like, if you guys, like, played softball at all, or do you, like, are you familiar with this? There's, like, an aesthetic of, like, a slow-pitch softball body type. And it is, like, you can be a really good softball

softball hitter with a body that would not seemingly be suited for any sport. Was he just crushing it? Crushing it, a sweet left-handed swing, and it's like a simulator. It's like a golf simulator. Yeah, yeah. So it's like showing you where in Yankee Stadium the fucking tank shot that you just hit was. And he was just launching them into the batter's eye, but he was shaped like the Grimace from McDonaldland.

And I could have watched him do that all day. I mean, maybe that's more of like a day four of... To be clear, I was there earlier and they were like, oh, you should try it. I'm like, I'm really bad. I'm really, I'm bad. And they were like, oh, come on, come on. I'm like, no, I'm really bad. And I stopped short being like... This British guy is being modest about how good he is at baseball, I'm sure. I'm a British man who knows what KBO is. Yep.

And then they were like, no, go on. I'm like, I'm really bad. And then I was, I fucking missed it. It is a stationary object. And I like barely like grounded out to the middle field. And I was like, I told you. And they were like, yeah, okay. We should have believed you. I'm sorry. My version of this was a few years back. I stopped by the Ninebot booth when they had all of this. It was like this proliferation of various like small electric, like one wheel or like little skate, roller skates and all kinds of electric control or whatever. Right.

And people kept, product specialists kept being like, oh, these are easy. Anyone can do these. Yeah.

And I would get on these various things that were one wheel, the unicycle, and then the one on each. And every single, I just kept falling down and falling down. I'm not doing that shit. I'm that kind of a class. That sounds like how I would die. Yeah. No, if I told my parents, if my parents found out, I mean, that I died getting on a cheap unicycle at a consumer electronics show, my parents would not, they would just be like,

Oh, yeah, that. Sure. I fully believe that. Just where can we find the body? Is it still on the floor? Yeah, I could see that was my, I mean, the real trepidation with the swing thing was that there were other people around. But the idea of me like going down with it, like six to eight weeks with an oblique strain within my first, like I haven't showered here yet. Do you know what I mean? Like a Giancarlo Stanton style injury. Oh, it's tough. His whole, like his torso fenestrated. We've never seen it.

You need to train next year. Yeah. That's the bit of advice that everybody's giving me about CES. Mostly people are like, here's where you can get drugs. And then they're also like, you got to stretch. It's Robert Evans. He's just saying the gas station. The gas station. The mushrooms. Yeah. Before. Did he offer you the mushrooms? I mean, he offered. He was very gentlemanly about it. Various things. Yes. He kept sort of pulling stuff out of his bag. I imagine it's like what seeing Carrot Top is like.

Have you done an episode that's like the guided tour of the Nevada gas station? Like all the wonders? Because I had no idea that these things exist in Nevada. Gas stations? Yeah, so he got... You don't have those where you're from. But we do, but we don't have like baked mushrooms. Yeah, you can't get mushrooms there. Well, I don't think they're real. Yeah.

I mean, mushrooms are real. These had a lot of words on them, but the packaging looked like Big League Chew. On the back, it said, this is not an authorized product. That's terrific. Looking for the union label, being like, all right, well, this doesn't have anything in it. Well, Robert then, he would say that like a point of pride, though.

You'd be like, this is not approved by the government. Hey! Not for human consumption. What I enjoyed about that was your friend Garrison called me and was like, you just get a stomachache. Like, it's not going to, like, blow your mind or anything like that. It also had a list of other ingredients that

But it didn't say what the main ingredients were? It just said other ingredients. Wait, was it just like miscellaneous? Yeah, natural flavors. They're not purporting to tell you that there are hallucinogenic mushrooms in there, but it has niacin. And it was made in a facility that processes tree nuts. It's just all the allergies coming. We put penicillin in there somehow. Yeah.

Okay, so Ed, you cover autos in general and you follow Elon Musk around. What are you here for? Is there a big mobility section here? Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean that dismissively. No, no. No, you didn't ask me. He was just like, I don't know. Well, yeah, you brought me here. You are staying with me. Yeah, that's true. But anyway. No, so like a few years ago, well, I guess quite a few years ago, actually before I started coming, I'm

uh basically like car shows are this antiquated thing right it's like a hundred year old plus tradition uh you know as the auto industry sort of matured the juice has gone out of it like once upon a time like car shows were like like detroit was silicon valley and car shows what was the purpose of the sort of having not been to any and seen them kind of from distance what is the actual purpose of a car show is it to sell cars to consumers or is it hot like is there yeah so so well so now it's like all bifurcated right so so

the ones that have survived are mostly like small regional ones. And it's literally just like, here are the cars that are for sale now. And you can go and sit. It's actually like a useful thing, but like consumer facing. Yeah. But like, so like originally it was, it was like, here's introducing new models, introducing new technologies. And then also like, again, like Detroit was the Silicon Valley, the 20th century concept cars,

And just like these whole futurist visions and like entertainment and like, you know, celebrities. It was a show. My dad used to take me to the one at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. And it was like as a, you know, whatever, 10, 12 years old, like that was the coolest shit I'd ever seen. Yeah. Because the concept cars like looked –

I mean, they just... I mean, none of them, as far as I can tell, like, came to market. Like, it wasn't the sort of thing where it was like, oh, yeah, I saw him play in Rookie Ball. It was, like, something where they were like, yeah, it's got a nuclear reactor in it. And I got to sit in it and be like, sick. And that was it. But that was the last anyone saw of it. Yeah, yeah. So they'll show these concept cars to sort of, like, sort of signal, like, the future direction that the styling's going to take and judge the sort of response to it and whatever. And again, like, there's a long tradition of, like, pageantry that sort of has, like, faded out over the years. Right. And one of the things Elon Musk does, not to...

Throw that in there. But he's bringing that back. He's kind of a throwback to this old school showbiz version of what – But it also sucks. And so these car shows were losing their steam as cars were becoming these anonymous, interchangeable appliances. This was a connected trend. And then tech started happening and cars – someone had the great idea that cars could be or really should be devices. Great. And with that, CES became actually the most important car show. And when in a while was that?

Like 20... I'm going to get called out for not knowing the exact date, but like 2014, like mid-2010s. You don't have to know stuff on the show, don't worry. Actually, it was a little earlier than that, I think. Cool. So what's the distinction with devices? Is it basically, is it like a Tesla-fication of the... Like where it's like touchscreens and applications? And is it that the designs are standardized as well? Yeah, so it's a lot of things. So really what it comes down to is tech...

sort of thinks everything should be like it. And it looks at cars and it sees a platform. And it says, we need to take this platform and make it like us. And some good things have actually come along with that, like electrification, right? Like electrification is good for completely other reasons. Tech and tech money likes it because...

The idea of replacing atoms with electrons is this core ideological thing that everyone texts like, oh yeah, anytime you make something more digital, more controllable, more computerized, that's just this intrinsically good thing. Electrification fits in with that. It makes cars literally more like computers and more like smartphones. The interesting thing about Tesla is that it...

really just exemplifies this in this visual way. Like I talk about in my book, the touchscreen, right? And like it's...

It's like tail fins in the 1950s. In the 1950s, the other big technology was airplanes and rockets. That was the pinnacle of high technology. And cars were already starting to lose. And there were sort of two ways you could go with that. One was you could put a rocket engine into a car, which the Detroit companies absolutely did, including with like taxpayer dollars and all kinds. But it was a dumb idea and it never went anywhere. What-

The smart approach was put tail fins on, make the cars look like airplanes, appropriate the aesthetics and associate with this other technology. And so that's what Tesla has really done in a lot of ways. They call it the iPhone of cars. It

It's a purely aesthetic thing. The screen and the UI are more like a smartphone than anything else. Whether or not that is a good thing for how you operate a car never gets questioned. They also took advantage of the fact that when the first testers were coming out, most cars had yet to really modernize in that level, right? Yeah, yeah. No, they were... Like, it was good. Well...

It was good in comparison to most car UIs. I think that's still an open question. No, I had a Volvo S60 in 2012. That was my last car. I had a Tesla for a few years. It was a big jump. It was more like I could do the things I wanted to do in a way that made sense.

Because the way they had buttons work was kind of like the devil made them. The problem is now Volvo is the best electric because it just works normal. I realize I've basically talked myself into a corner here, so please continue. No, no. I mean, well, I think for me, the open and unresolved question is like, what makes a car good? And I think as time goes on, right, like...

when I look at this stuff, people like it because they think the iPhone is the best product that we've seen in our lifetime. If you pick one good product, the iPhone is the one that changed everything. And...

This looks and feels like a knife. It must be good. But again, when you're driving a car, being able to reach over and there's a knob there that's always there and you can just change the volume. For me, I enjoy driving and I kind of get engaged with it, choose to engage with it. And so less distraction, more just sort of direct engagement with a car as a mechanical device for me.

And the big thing is robustness. Because when you add these screens, right? So the screen, the Model S, that changed everything. It was like, this is what the future is going to be. The reason they were able to put a bigger screen in that car than anyone else, and in fact,

I don't know when. I'm sure there's bigger screens now, but it took a really long time for there to be a screen as big as the one in the Model S. And it was because Tesla simply didn't use an automotive grade screen. So to put, yeah, so there's this whole thing, there's consumer grade, there's like industrial grade. And really what these are is you take the device and you put it through a series of like mostly thermal testing. Mm-hmm.

And automotive grade is like the highest one. And like, this is what the auto industry does well is they make things that are robust so that every time you go out in the car, whether it's in freezing weather or hot weather or rain, it just always works. All things I associate with Tesla. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There's like a kind of an ominous bit

of foreshadowing their team where they were just like, well, we'll just put it in. To be clear, I had a tester in like 2014 to 2016. Listeners are going to absolutely beat my ass in the comments, which I don't have on the podcast. But so just to get past the good, bad thing, let's just say everything's a trade-off, right? And so what we're doing as cars become more like devices is, yeah, they're connected, they're interactive, now they're software-defined, you can change how your car looks over their updates. All of these things have opened up, but you've lost...

the robustness of the core function of the car, which is driving around and getting you from point A to point B. And is this something that's affecting more than just Tesla? Yeah, yeah. So what Tesla has done in this, it has legitimized what the car companies have always wanted to do but were afraid to do because they thought there would be backlash to it, which is cut quality. And with Tesla, it's not just...

But by putting everything on a screen, then you don't have to have switches, you don't have to have buttons. Those are the things that the car companies are copying because it saves them money. It feels like we're in the take the piss era of society. It's like every company is testing boundaries.

Tesla's not here at CES, right? Tesla has never done – yeah, that's actually one of the things that I think was good with sort of how they've done the brand building stuff is they don't do – they don't show concepts, right? If they show you a car – Well, they've released concepts. This has changed. Okay, yeah, this has changed more recently. But like historically when they were building the brand, it was like they would show you a car. It would change maybe a little bit to production. Yeah.

But basically they were showing you the car that you were going to be able to buy. You wouldn't be able to get it at the price. There would be all kinds of other things that would happen by the time you got it. But visually, that was really important. They didn't show you something that they had no intention of making, which every other car company does. Okay, come on.

Again, this has changed. Okay, so like the roadster, the semi, yeah. I mean, yeah, the roadster, the classic product they launched. I'm talking about Tesla during the period where they were building. Sorry, I don't know why I'm bagging on you like you're an Elon Musk stan. I'm so sorry. No, no, no. I mean, it's a good point. It's actually an interesting gradual thing with them. There was a point when they said stuff and then it happened.

Yeah. And they were doing new things. As you said, they were doing things that to you were really, you were like, this is good. But I feel like also Tesla's just didn't change after a certain point. They just got worse in different ways. Yeah. Well, that's what I gather that that's what you meant by the sort of like the taking the piss. Yeah. But it's like you develop a product that like people like and then the game becomes trying to see how much worse you can make it and they'll-

And they'll continue buying it. Without describing the roticon. Right. But like, yeah, basically every aspect of this. It's just every... That's like... We're in the toilet, baby. Private equity buying newspapers. It's also like all the other shit. I need to find some rich people to help me buy the Washington Post.

Like that would just be the best thing. I will run it. You're going to become the first tech journalist to try to buy the Washington Post. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the first one to wear aviators too. And buy the Washington Post. Yes. No, that's one of those ideas that I'm going to start saying. And I think what's great about it is it could never happen. But saying it enough, people will be like, maybe this could. And that will really upset them. It's true.

Which is really most of my bag. It's called moving the Overton window. Yeah, I'm moving the Overton. Oh, yeah. You got to move that window. You got to move it. You got to open it a little bit. So, Jared, how many... Yeah, just getting you. How many CESs for you? How many have you done now? I think this is 13 or 14. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. How many of them have they had? It's too many CESs. The history goes back to before it was called CES. There was like...

CompuTex? No, is that the one in Thai? I think it was CompuTex. People are going to be mad that I don't know the history of CES. If anyone gets mad at you, I'll set my pigs on them. So before we were recording, you were part of this conversation about legendary CES fuck shit moments. The Yo Party was the one that people were talking about. Oh my god.

I wasn't cool enough to get invited. All my friends went. Given that everybody here was just talking about being like, I've been here since Monday and I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. 13 years? The funny thing is that I don't end up going to a ton of parties, but I do... I was talking about this earlier. A few years ago, maybe it was five, six years ago, I had been here for a long time, maybe four or five, six days or something. It was my last day. And I knew there was like...

There were a few things that I still wanted to see, and I was going to leave later in the day. And so I got on the monorail, and I went to the convention center. And I got off the monorail, and I started walking into the convention center. And I kind of just had like a physical reaction, like the closer I got. Yeah, I don't know how to describe it. So I just turned around and left.

Way to practice self-care. But it was basically your body telling you that you've had enough consumer electronics. I think I just rejected Vegas. If I walked away every time I felt like that, I wouldn't move. The thing is, so Vegas itself is one of those places where it's like, wait, if you hit three days, even if you're trying to have fun, you just cannot do more than about three days. And then with CES, you add all of the...

everything else on top of it, the absurdity, like the, and the walking. I mean, that's the other thing. So I think a lot of people, when they're doing like excess in Vegas, they're not taking like 15,000 steps. That is so, so actually not true. Really? Oh, you get enough dipshit bachelor party ones and then you get lost. Yeah.

You will walk in three miles, baby. That makes some sense. I did get lost a good amount today, but I also like, I mean, whatever. I haven't done, hardly done Vegas as an adult at all. And so the idea of like, the bit of today that I liked was that like my legs feel a little bit sore now.

It's 25 degrees in New York City right now. I legit did not leave my apartment on Monday. I feel amazing. I got shin splints I'm working on. It feeds into that tapping a well of energy. So we have a small announcement. David, do you mind turning your microphone to Phil? So it has been eight CESs, Phil. Yep, I've been here. This is my eighth CES to join you. Hi, I'm Phil Broughton again. The bartender, a health physicist. So...

Every time I come here, the charge for getting one of my drinks as a journalist and an attendee of CES is you need to tell me if you've seen something dangerous, something that scared you, something that left you with discomfort such that you think an illegality might be happening. I'm...

I'm not going to say proud, but I'm shocked to say nothing on the floor of CES has concerned someone enough to tell me such that I needed to call the fire marshal to get an exhibitor removed or at least their exhibit shut down. So I don't... Congratulations, everyone. Congratulations, CEA. We did it. We did it finally. We've purged the throat. And actually, there is something in...

in line with this that I want to say it did feel like going down to Eureka Park which is the the nether region the dankest area it really is it's the it's the normal place they put dangerous things it wasn't as bad this year but there have been years where it just smelled like feet yeah it smelled it smelled crazy in there and

Games journalists listening all 12 of you think of Kentia Hall during E3 I get that reference it's like a place where you'd go and if you had a journalist badge on you'd have to run I can smell this comment yeah Kentia's fucked up

But yeah, so I really just felt like Eureka Park is usually like the place where you go to see the people working on multiple stages of fraud. Yes, that's where the MRI was that year that shouldn't have been on the floor. Yeah, that's where the lasers have been. Now it's all people like at the earlier stages of fraud where it's not as fun. No one even brought radioactive materials that anyone told me about. Shit, they barely brought anything that existed. That's happened.

Yes. Turn the microphone. Okay. I'm going to go bake more drinks now. Have fun, everyone. Thank you, Phil. Before you go, I'm just going to say that I mostly came here to see you.

I will say, though, Eureka Park 2, you do sometimes go and meet two guys in a folding table, and then next year, all of a sudden, they have some massive thing, and then the next year, they've taken over the biggest company in their space, the year that you discover them as two guys in a folding table. There's something interesting about that. That was the bit that... It's funny that you mentioned dankness. Funny that you mentioned dankness. Well, everything that I had been sort of like...

Not just Ed either. Like I go on Tuesdays, I do like a little standing bit with a ESPN radio station in Las Vegas. And I mentioned that I was going to be at the Consumer Electronics Show and they mentioned that it was going to be like sweaty and wet. Everybody is always using words having to do with dampness.

to describe this shit. In a very dry place. And in a very dry place indeed. And so the idea that there's like a sub-basement that's basically just... It's a part of the expo where the ceilings are too low. Yeah, like basically most of the action in the movie Aliens.

is what I'm imagining. You're kind of walking around and something comes up out of the floor and spits acid in your face or whatever. See, that's the thing though. It's better than it used to be though. You weren't here during the Indiegogo glory days. Well, I was expecting that. Was that when Eureka Park was in the sands? Because it used to be. I have to assume. It is the sands. Oh, it's in the same place. But it was basically every company was crowdfunded and the shit people would say.

So is Eureka Park like the rookie ball of this? It's the cheapest. Okay. It's the unfiltered stuff. All right. I've had demos with companies that later graduated to Eureka Park.

So I don't know what that means. What it means is they made more money. Where were you before? Outside. Yeah, we're outside the Cromwell. We're partied outside of the Strat. I mean, there's a lot of big fraud, like a lot of fraud, right? Like getting a lot of money to do fraud is actually not that hard these days. Which is why crowdfunding. And so actually in the big, like, you know, North Hall and stuff too, like, I mean, there've been plenty of companies that have these things.

In fact, a lot of times during certain periods of like, you know, big trends in investing in, you know, whether it's like LIDAR or this or, you know, some of these other specific technologies, you would see sort of certain names in the space would have these huge things. And, you know,

The point of this is to market, we're here, we're this big deal, but if you follow the space, you know the companies that invest in that stuff are the ones that don't have the good, right? A lot of times, not exclusively, but a lot of times, the biggest, splashiest booth in the big thing is where the fraud is. And sometimes the smaller thing in the kind of jumble of startups is actually, that could be cool legit stuff. That totally scans to me because that's like, again, from my sort of understanding of this as somebody who's interested in the space but not

covering it or not like he doesn't have a professional interest i'm just kind of like fascinated by everything that's kind of scammy scuzzy in our culture this is the thing it's so emblematic of this industry that we're just like yeah no the big frauds are the ones with the right the big scare but it's like there's so many lies here and that's what i think what it is i think this is why by saturday i'm going to be like i'm just going to wake up and the joke and make up

is because I've never talked about CES this much. And I realize that I say this putting on an actual pop-up radio show during CES that that would be inevitable, but talking about it, I'm like jokifying again. Jared and I talk about the Joker a lot for many reasons, but I thought I had fully become the Joker, but now just like as I... Fresh new CES people, they have the exact same... It's just like this place is just...

Very strange. It's strange, but what I was saying is I expected... Because I've only been to the... So we are recording in the Venetian. Beautiful Venetian. I've been to the big...

open exhibition space in the Venetian. Right. But I haven't been to the convention center yet. I got in here today at like 3 p.m. So what I saw, I expected to go down there and it was just going to be carnage. Yeah. It was just going to be like a super soaker that yells at you in the voice of Sir Peter O'Toole and has an AI aspect for some reason. Yeah.

And what it was instead was like, there were, like you were saying, there's people down there, there was like a dog door that Jesse and I were very taken by.

And the people were like, yeah, we were here last year and we'd set up this thing and if you hit it with a sledgehammer once, it got all screwed up. So we went back and we changed the metal and now we've had 650 blows from this. You pull a rope and a sledgehammer swings into the door and we haven't even dented it. It's like a good product. If I had a dog and a house and I have neither of those things, but if I had both, I'd be like, you know what? This might be worth $399. And I didn't expect to see a single thing like that.

The great paradox of CES is that it's kind of, it's like a place to get cynical, but yeah, joker-fied. But also de-joker-fied at the same time. It pulls your brain in these two opposing directions because there is a lot of that. And then there's also the stuff that reminds you why you like technology in the first place. And it's hard to balance those two things. I was pulling for a lot of the people. Not all of them. The ones that, when we were talking about the things that you saw that

fucked you up or made you want to like ask Phil to call the, you know, yeah. There's one that Edward flagged. I just saw he had posted it earlier. That was like a germ detection thing with very strange vibes. Was this the pass? Oh yeah. So chosen, chosen by God, perfected by science or something like that. Yeah. That's, that's me. So yeah, that's all. Hey, you know what? Yeah. It's all of us. But before we go any further, um,

We're now going to do an ad break. So David, where can people find you? Defector.com is the website. The Distraction is the podcast I do with Defector and I do a podcast about Hallmark movies called It's Christmastown that is not affiliated with any other website because it's about Hallmark movies.

Okay, is there a link they could go to? For those? I'll put them in the... Well, yeah, defector.com is a thing. It's Christmastown. It's like, I don't know, like do that. Look it up on the podcast. Mr. Niedermeyer, where can people find you? Niedermeyer.io on the World Wide Web and Blue Sky and Autonicast.com. The Autonicast is my... Mr. Newman.

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I want to get back to something we were talking about earlier, which is the reason that CES grinds you down and then you have a new justification and you get your powers back is because if you're only here, the ideal amount to be here is like three or four days. And I don't mean this for General Vegas. I mean specifically for CES because you get to see the show floor enough that you're like, I have a full concept of this. I couldn't have missed anything. You can then come to an opinion and then you meet the other people who are there too long. Yeah.

the other people who didn't leave in two days and you get a kind of like a trauma bonding experience which is what this podcast is going to be for the next few days by the way everyone who's left is just like I just

I just want to see my family again. And David, you're arriving at CES during this period. Yeah. So this is what I want to ask, just again, from the perspective, to bring an idiot's perspective to bear. Well, I'm here. Well, I know, but I mean, this is a different, it's more of an East Coast flavor. Like, who are these people that you're talking about? Who's staying here? So what it is. Tomorrow, it's like the general public can come in, right?

I actually haven't. I don't know either. It's probably worth clarifying that we're at the point of the show because it opened on Tuesday. Today's Wednesday. So when you go to booths tomorrow and talk to people, they're all going to hate you. Because they've been here. They don't want to be here anymore and you're going to be asking them a lot of questions about their products and stuff and they're not going to like that. No, you get the unvarnished booth experience. You get the booth from Samsung who are just like, I don't fucking care. Oh.

Also, I think tomorrow you do get the general public. Is it really? They allowed that? Yeah, so it's two days, I think, of sort of media and sort of controlled access. And then it opens up to the public. And then you get to see the technology fans. Yeah, the people who want to be at CES. It's actually a terrifying sample. People whose identity is fans of technology. And a

lot of them. Just technology as a concept, like anything. Like the Roblo NFL. Right, exactly. That's what I was going to say. It's just like, I love robots, all kinds of robots. Actually, the robots are cool. If only that was what CES was. Yeah.

Well, like, the version of robots here is just being, like, it's a thing that it mows your lawn and it also cleans your pool. It is $7,000. Right, yes. But, so, this is the bit that I'm kind of, because this felt like everyone I saw today and then also everyone I saw on the street when I was walking around, like, they just leave the lanyard on. Yeah. Like, it's not a thing where they, I mean, it's like, no one wants to, I guess maybe they don't want to send the message, like, I'm here to

to party they're like no I'm here to like yeah so they want to send the message that they're at a conference right I'm here no fun please I do like the people with the lanyard and then the people with the big plastic cups like that contrast is a beautiful thing yeah and so the idea of those people being together that there's going to be like someone that's got like a thing on that's just like you know like Shenzhen Robotic Corp and then there's also just another guy that's wearing like a Tebow Broncos jersey smoking and like vaping in there yeah like

But what's great is you are actually describing what happens tomorrow, which is Thursday is the day when Vegas and CES truly combine. Because it's the general public, but it's also the people that come to Vegas on Thursdays. And

And they are a rich tapestry of people. They are a beautiful creation. Sadly, the football season is over because had this happened, have we had like the Chargers Raiders game? You've got like a team and I say this as a Raiders fan. I don't know if there are Raiders fans who listen to this podcast, but...

It gets better for other teams. Now, I wish the Raiders fans and the various transient fan bases that come in greater number than Raiders fans here, I wish they'd have met. But really just people coming to Vegas in like the first working week of January, meeting with the people made to come here due to job, it's going to be great. You're going to see...

a very special kind of Vegas. I can't wait to hear. I had a nice experience of just kind of like drifting by the sports book earlier today. And it's still, yeah, just the one cause I was, you know, wandering around the floor. There's a lot of, you know, this is a, again, hadn't eaten very much. Uh, there's like a bunch of really name brand Italian restaurants in this hotel. Unfortunately, there's also 80,000 people attending this conference. So it wasn't like, you can't walk into Jelena and be like, I'd love to eat at the bar.

Like you can tell them that and they'll be like, that's great. A lot of people would love to eat at the bar. So would I. Yeah. But the sportsbook area was like that felt like a CES free zone because the only things that you can watch right now are like it's Big Ten conference play basketball. It's like USC and Maryland. Yeah. And also there is not a single person going to the Consumer Electronics Show.

who can do anything to any of the guys in the sports book who are there. Specific, like the day traders. The ones who are like, okay, NCAA men's volleyball. I've got my mortgage payment for this month on this one. You come and talk to him about the computer, he will punch through you. He'll do a fist in the north star thing on you. A robot that cleans your pool. Doesn't that beat all? Unfortunately, if Bowling Green doesn't score 71 points in this Ohio Valley conference game...

Is it really possible for a person to really fully be both a sports fan and a technology fan? I feel like at the end of the day... Yes, I am that. I love baseball. You identify as a technology fan. I'm doing a baseball prospectus column about the Mets. You don't know this. Oh, really? Yeah, I probably should have told you. Um...

Getting a place in New York? Anyway, we need to talk. Yeah, no, that I know. Okay, cool. But no, it is possible because they actually both have some similarities. Obsession with weird numbers, obsession with weird guys. And in general, a complete lack of progress, despite it seeming like there should be one. Right, the more sophisticated it gets, somehow also the dumber and worse it gets. Yeah, that makes sense. But also the problem is they start in very different neighborhoods. Oh.

It's very rare that someone who's a big tech person, and you start that usually because you haven't got any other options. And then there's the sports people who usually get into that because they can move at speed or do things with their hands. Those are two different points. I only came there because I'm magnificent. But it is a very different...

Nevertheless, one of the reasons I brought David here was I believe it's a similar... I think the skill set for sports journalism applies very well to tech for that reason. Well, certainly it depends on what kind of version. Because I think that's an interesting question of like, can you be a fan of both? And I think that... I am a sports fan. I don't know that I would say that I'm like a technology fan, but I find both of them interesting in the same sort of ways because they all sort of like point back to the same...

human aspirations and then also like frailties, bloopers, so on and so forth. But being interested in something and being a fan to the extent that that is the defining characteristic of your personality. Oh, okay. These are two different... And I think that's the bit that I wanted to kind of like try to...

figure out because I think there's people that are fans of like... What is a fan of technology? Go to the show tomorrow and people, you will see them. You will hear the things that they say and they're not the things that normal people say. That's something that I've been kind of like struggling with again from my like, you know, everybody that is online or that reads too much or, you know, cares too much about too many stupid things or whatever. Like I have had to think about technology a lot like everybody else and

And yet, like, the thing that was interesting to me about the, like, the Adrian Dittman saga, for instance, is that there, I know that there are people that are, like, not just, you know, that they think that Elon Musk is a cool guy or they like that he's, you know, dedicated to finally telling the truth about minorities. But I think that there's also something to it where there's people that, like, are fans of him the way that, like,

people yelling like it's in the hole when like Tiger Woods hits the ball like people that are fans at that level where they basically are like they've removed a lot of the higher level stuff from their brain and they're just cavemen at this point just explain the Adrian Dittman thing if you don't know don't do it there is no explanation there is a guy who sounds just like Elon Musk and appears to have all his beliefs and talk exactly like and then occasionally say he is Elon Musk

who is not Elon Musk. He is potentially a weird, strangely jacked German man. And this account is called Adrian Dittman. And...

I don't even know what to believe anymore. But nevertheless, it appears that it's just a strange man. Yeah, it's still up in the air. Like a Waluigi situation. Apparently Waluigi is not actually related to Wario. He's just a weird guy that met Wario. Again, I'm not saying Wario correctly. Someone's going to fucking say that and I have to deal with the piss. These are related things, though. What you're talking about, even

Elon, Tesla fan, right? So I feel like a lot of people who are sort of recently coming to this, Elon Musk is a bad guy, kind of coming in with the sort of political approach to it. What you've missed was many, many, many years of this incredible online movement.

And, like, I followed it very closely because I had never seen anything like it in cars. Like, it's just people are passionate about cars. People, like, when the bailout was happening, that was sort of my first story. And people would be like, you hate General Motors. And, you know, we're a General Motors family. And, like, there was some of that stuff. But this was totally different because, you know, it was the seed of the personal cult of Elon Musk. But then there were all of these sorts of, like,

techno-ideological sort of neo-modernist kind of ideology that was just sort of all wrapped into it. And what was interesting is that it really pulled together people from both sides. That was really interesting to me. Both sides of the sort of culture war and sort of partisan divide in the country could find things about that that they liked. And it wasn't until Elon Musk decided to pick one

one side or the other that all of a sudden people were like, holy shit. And so like, so if you go to like Tesla subreddits, for example, now, like, yeah, no, I know what normal person would, but you don't, you don't see, you don't see this old time religion anymore. The only place you really see it online is the SpaceX ones. The space people are kind of like insular and they, they don't like politics. Don't touch them. Like they just ignore, it doesn't matter to them. But,

But with the Tesla one, we've just exited this really fascinating period where this cult – and again, it's not just a cult. It was a stock pumping thing. And there's all these – I won't go into all the details of it. But the important thing was there was this moment where people woke up.

and realized, wait, holy shit, I have a trans kid and I just supported one of the biggest trans people. Not just supported, went online every single day, found anybody making any criticisms of Tesla and spending all day attacking them. I endured years and years and years of just this relentless... And they would take shifts and they would come in waves and a new guy would decide this was going to be his thing and he'd build his little crew and go out wrecking...

A whole lot of stuff happened online and people shouldn't have paid attention to it. But it's really important context because it shows that like the dynamics that people can point to as being bad in a partisan sense, they fall prey to them when you strip away that partisan framework that allows you – that gives you that sort of like moral –

But the thing I've noticed about these kind of techno enthusiasts is they don't seem to enjoy the computer. They don't like the computer. They don't have any joy out of even a faster phone or a new graphics card. This is actually a problem I have with the tech. What's the...

the appeal then. Is it a stock price thing? It is. I think what it is, is it's an identity thing. It's like the game. That's another type of sports fandom too. It's basically GM Stan stuff. I think it's probably. Where you're like excited when your team gets under the salary cap. Wait, but is there a. No, no, I think, I think what it is, is the, it's an identity thing. It's when Gamergate and things of that nature happened. What I know, and I've, I've been a gamer since I like way too young, like 10. I love gaming. I fucking, I,

In my darkest times, I play like Hades or something. And I just put a few hours and I genuinely feel better. It like engages my mind. It makes me feel some industry. I think a lot of people listening to this feel the same way about games. And then there are people who were just like, well, gaming was my fucking thing. And now the woman's are in it.

And now the wokeness is in it because they don't really give a shit about the actual gaming. It's just an identity thing for them. It's just this is a thing that made me special and now someone else is weighing in. I don't really believe in anything. And so there are people who attest the stance who I just think are just like, wow, it's a sports team. I don't even watch the games anymore.

I go on ESPN and I click on the box score and then I actually there's a great tweet about this where it's just like going on ESPN and looking at the box score and arguing with people which is funny but I think these people are like well Elon Musk is the kind of guy I want to feel I want to be like that guy I want to stand for like nothing but be very angry and rich all the time and believe in nothing because Elon Musk seems completely fucking joyless this is a half formed thought and it may be bad but um this never stopped me mate yeah

So I guess you would think like fandom of a tech company. You're an Apple fanboy, a Tesla fanboy. And they've been around a while. Yeah. Analogous to sports team fanboyism. But then there's Elon Musk fanboyism or Steve Jobs fanboyism. That's a person. Is there an equivalent to that in sports? Like are people fanboying out over a person? Yeah. I mean to a certain extent. Although I think that –

It depends. I mean, I think that like there's individual sports. Yes, there are people that like, I mean, one of the things that I remember being struck by when we go to the US Open most summers when we can figure out how to do it, when Roger Federer was still playing, that there's like a hat that you can wear that just has RF on it, like an interlocking like the Dodgers logo. And they're just like people that they're basically wearing like a Roger Federer hat.

Like, just Roger Federer pajamas to the Roger Federer match. Or he's not even playing, but they're wearing their Roger Federer hat because they just... That's when they think of tennis, they think of Roger Federer. It's like I saw a guy in a Cowboys jersey at a Raiders game. Yeah. The Cowboys were not playing. Yes. And that is... I mean...

That's a classic Cowboys fan move too. Well, I mean, not in the sense that like... They just kind of show up and lout. Yeah, you're correct in assessing that as being like a fucked up thing to do. But it is also... Yeah, but it is also Cowboys fan stuff. But I think that that's an interesting distinction because the idea of being like...

There's all these different ways to be stupid about sports, right? And a lot of it does sort of have its own political valence even if it doesn't fully land. Like you know that one of the things I've been thinking about this because the college football playoffs are going on, that the SEC conference, which is in the southeast of the United States, so it's like kind of these –

like super red states with a college football is a big part of their identity. Oftentimes these are states that don't have professional teams in them. And it was a thing for a while, less the case this year because the SEC weirdly had a super shit year and it's basically like done for the college football season. Great. Sorry. If like, if Alabama was beating Illinois, fans would not, and Alabama fans were there.

They would not necessarily do a Bama-related chant. They would chant SEC, which is basically like their way of being like you're getting your asses kicked right now by a state that is like Republican trifecta in the legislature, like Tommy Tuberville is our senator. Like that's the bit that I feel like there is like an identity politics aspect of it where they're lording it over. Like it is a regional thing.

Is there a red versus blue tech company divide? Oh, that's a good one. Now it's red versus darker red.

I think so. No, there was a point when I think people thought Apple was the nice one, and they are by comparison now, which is not a good thing. I think Facebook is the one that weirdly people thought was blue, but was redder than all of them combined. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just a question. Google, Google, Google was the nice one for a while. They did the it gets better thing. Yeah. And now they do it gets worse. And I gather they were also like all in their way, like culturally, like it was like they were good employers. They were inclusive or whatever. Yeah.

And it really is were. Yeah. But I think it's pretending. I mean, I think so. So fandom, it gives you a sort of like personality prosthetic, right? Then a sense of community. And I think those are like universal across most fandoms. I think what tech offered. So and I just use Tesla as the example that and it may not be as broadly, you know,

What it added to that basic fandom package was two things. There was a growing social...

capital to be gained from being someone who could speak confidently about like, this is what the future is going to be. And like Elon Musk is the patron saint of that, right? He's shown how much power just doing that has. Even resembling him. Yeah. And people realized all they had to do was copy, just repeat what he said and say it with the same confidence. And people would be like, whoa, this guy knows what he's talking about. And, you know, Elon Musk says so. And you get a couple of other little facile arguments to go along with that. The third thing, and this I'm curious about,

if this is maybe where these things are converging. The other thing is the stock thing, right? Where you could buy the stock and then now you have financial incentive to go out and proselytize and attack people, critics, pump the thing, repeat the narrative. And I wonder if gambling and like the rise of gambling is maybe starting to add that into the sports. I think there's an aspect of that. I think the bit that is interesting to me about –

When you were talking about how once you are a Tesla stockholder, the idea that that is functionally now a meme stock with Elon as the load-bearing meme at the center of it and the fact that the cars are decreasing in quality and maybe also decreasing in popularity and sales, it kind of doesn't matter. If the stock stays high, you're doing all right. But in that case, it's like you're actually...

In some ways, when you're going out there and spending your leisure time being a fucking online shooter for Elon Musk, you're also advocating for yourself in some ways. That's your portfolio. In the really early days of what we were talking about, this Tesla online phenomenon, there was really one website, a forum, an old-school forum that we all know and love. It was the main Tesla Motors Club. It was the main one. There was a subreddit, but it started out really small. This was the place. A lot of the website, there were like

Talk about the company, talk about Elon, you know, and then as cars came out, you know, and the ownership was sort of the main part of the thing, of the site. At least if you look at, you know, the list of all the subforums. And so people were on there and they wanted an open exchange of information because they had problems with their cars and they wanted to understand them and what the fix was and what Tesla was doing about them. And that was the main activity of this community, right?

It was helping each other out as consumers. Now, there was a sub-forum of this that was the Tesla Investors sub-forum. And that was – it looked small. It looked like one little thing. But you went there and it was so, so, so active. And it had its own radicalizing – internally radicalizing culture. And then there was this key point where –

I and others started to write stories based on the other part of the – where it's owners wanting this free exchange of information and saying, we have this problem. Tesla is not really dealing with it. Did that bring them into conflict with the investors where they were like, can you just keep that in-house? Exactly what happened. Oh, man. And it's a fascinating thing because Tesla became this fandom that bridged not just like sort of political partisan but like –

On a fundamental level, the divide between capital, between management and consumer. As a consumer, you want certain things. If you're a fan of, you want the product to be good, you want certain things. As an investor, you want other things. You want the quality to be as low as possible and the margins as high, and that comes at the expense of the consumer. You don't necessarily mind if the product is good, but it's not as important to you as the others. So these two parts of the relationship of any company...

came into conflict because it had to be one community. And Capital won. I think it's a really interesting thing. And this is why Tesla became, it went from a company, it's one of the reasons,

that it went from being a company that was sort of rooted in really trying to surprise and delight customers. Like that was a really fundamental thing. Over time, you've seen- Now it just surprises customers. The cynical stock pumping part of it has just completely consumed. And like people who were like, who were fans of the company are like, wait, where is the stuff that I was a fan of? And it's because-

That relationship was... They want Capital One and the consumer loss. So this is why you have people whose cars have blown up and then they do the interview and they're like, I still love Elon Musk though. I still love Tesla. That's exactly right. That all goes back to that. And that's where they diverge from sports fans. Well, to a certain extent though, because I think that that still is the kind of thing where...

there's like an element of that where like, there's different ways to be a fan of a team, right? But that I think that there is this aspect of where it's like, Auburn loses by five touchdowns to Florida. Right. And it's like, you want to fire the coach, but at the same time, you're not like,

I'm giving up. Like, War Eagle no more. Like, no, it's the sort of thing where, like, that's when you do the, like, the super psychotic fan stuff where it's like, well, now I'm going to poison some plants on their canvas. Or like the Kobe Bryant, like, I'm willing to overlook some stuff. Yes, exactly. Can I say one bit, though, too? Because you made an interesting point about the gambling aspect of it that I wanted to speak on because I think that that has...

Both of you were talking about it, I guess. But the idea of gambling as a type of fandom, I think, is way more... There's a way for... If you're a fan of a team, you're giving some bit of your leisure time as a person to this thing that you can't control. It's not a smart decision. Nobody does it because it's smart. You do it because it's fun and because it's a way to fill other...

spots in your life that might otherwise be quiet with noise, which is reasonable. Like what are, what are any of us doing? Who is listening to this that is not doing that? But there is also this other part of it where it's like, it's an emotional commitment. It's like, it's a thing about caring. And I think that gambling to me feels more, uh, like for one thing, you are,

The people that are doing that, I think it is more of like what you were talking about in terms of the Tesla investors part of the forum. Where it is basically like – and everyone that gambles on sports, pretty much everybody loses. The people that are professionals, the people that are down in the sports book, like if they're really, really, really good –

they still lose 46% of the time or whatever, you know, and the people that are just flushing $300 down the draft Kings app every Sunday are not good at it, but they're like that aspect of it is

is not, it's the opposite of fandom to me. Of course, if you're ESPN or you're the, or your NFL, you know, executives, their money spends the same. It doesn't really matter if they're watching, they're watching, if they care, they care like, and you know, the money that you're getting from your partnerships with DraftKings and stuff that also spends the same. But I think it's the opposite of fandom in like, in an emotional sense that it is like, it's not just transactional, but,

but that it is sort of taking all of the stuff that you would have cared about in this sort of more communal way and making it about yourself, your experience of it. And that like, and that like goes and that, you know, I think there's a whole, um,

sort of like new-ish thread of that in the culture that has been enabled by technology, not just in terms of being able to gamble on your phone, but that's, to me, that's cryptocurrency speculation. It's the same mindset. I think they all come back to a fundamental point, which is a lack of control that we all feel over our lives. The idea that we can now gamble like anywhere. And we're going to have Arif Hassan from 60 Minute Drill, my podcast on football, which I've never talked about. They'll love this. So,

It's this thing of like, oh, I can have some control over my destiny. I can now gamble like the gamblers in the same way that people use the trade and then lost a shit ton of money saying we've got sports books. The idea of opening sports books up

at this scale. The only thing worse than it is the thing that Robinhood did, which was opening up the idea of options trading to everyone. But I think it activates the same thing, where it's this desperation for control in the least control. In a way, in a situation where you're being obviously controlled. In the same way, those odds...

are so precisely calculated in the same way that like whatever pricing you're getting on options is going to be calculated by the hedge funds that are extra millimeters closer to the stock exchange so that they can activate that trade. And it is like, it's the opposite of fandom. You don't give a shit about these companies. You give a shit about...

and go up. And you feel like you have control because you're smart and you're allied with the right side. But they're not selling it as gamble because you like money. And this is like a pretty critical thing. They're presenting it as a way. It's like, I've been looking at ads actually around. There's so many sports gambling ads. Yeah, I was going to say. And they're all sort of like

You're watching sports anyway. You enjoy this anyway. Enjoy it just a little more. Get in the game. Get closer to the experience. It's a little enhancement to your fan. And yeah, it's an enhancement to the core fan experience. And what I think is in common here with the Tesla thing is that Tesla's whole pitch was it was –

These contradictions can all work together, right? Not just the consumers and investors are both going to benefit at no cost to each other, right? There's no trade-off there. But then also, venture capital can fund environmental transformation, and there's no trade-offs there. Government doesn't have to get involved. I think you're getting too complex. I think it's just invest in the future. With both of them. The lesson out of all of it is that people desperately want to believe that

you can have your cake and eat it too. That fundamental trade-offs aren't. And in both of these cases, the trade-off that always wins is the money.

Whatever it is that you think you can reconcile with some kind of financial incentive, over time, it's like drugs or something else. Over time, the financial incentive, not with everybody, but over the aggregate, it wins. And that's what we've seen with Tesla. And it's being framed as freedom, though. It's like, you can do this. You're already doing sports watching. Why not make sports money? Just make it a little better. Right, it's a hustle. And you won't lose anything. That's what you identified. You do lose something. But I think the overarching theme of both is...

it is selling you the idea of a con, that you will have industry over something, that you are actively being controlled. And you are being fucked with, and you're like, ah, I'm fucking back. And you're not. You use the DraftKings code, there is not a better offline one. I'm terrified of gambling. Yeah, well, the aspect of it, too, that is, like, the other bit of it that seems inimical to the fun part of being a fan is that when you see people talk about it, or generally the discourse surrounding, like,

is that it makes you like sports less because you're liking them in this different way, because you're participating in this. And this is something that, you know, we have a couple of stories out at Defector that are being written, not written yet, that are basically about, like, the way that athletes absorb this new sort of obsession with gambling. Opening that up has, you know, and by making it possible for people to, you know, whatever, put money on whatever, like somebody...

getting more or less than one and a half assists in an NBA game. Like just building a parlay around the performances of bench players. In some ways, like, you know, like obviously technologically, I suppose it's a feat to make this possible because you used to have to literally come to Las Vegas to do that sort of thing. We traditionally call those boundaries. Yes. And then, but what's weird about it now is that like by sort of putting in play the

everybody in every game in all of these different ways. There's a lot of people that, you know, like, you're a professional athlete, like, you're a public figure anyway. Like, people are going to recognize you just because you're, like, taller and more buff than anybody else in the, you know, restaurant that you're in. But there's a lot of these dudes that, like, otherwise would be more or less getting left alone that are just sort of like, when you miss that free throw, you fuck me out of $2,500 and I'm coming to your house and I'm going to push your kids around. And, like, that's happening to, like,

People in minor leaguers, Tom Hackmer, you were on the staff cast recently, told me he had friends that had that experience happen to him in spring training games in baseball. Because the real degenerates can bet on stuff like that. And there's probably a shame barrier when you had to come, even if you could come to the casino, you wouldn't roll up and be like,

Yeah, put this parlay with Blake Corum and Samaj Pirine. Yes, exactly. What are you doing? And then when they fuck up, you're like, all right. Somebody knows, bull. Yeah, but then you're like Googling, like, where does Samaj Pirine live? Like, how fine? You know, like, that's not... Like, at this point, you can find them online. You place the bet online. Like, you can do...

You do like three or four totally sociopathic things from your couch. And if you are looking to do one of those, we will have some advertisers after this. But David, where can people find you? Defector.com, the website, the distraction podcast, also affiliated with Defector. Mate, you're going to be saying that a lot.

on this trip so I would not get exhausted you were just at the beginning Ed Niedermeyer where can they find you? Niedermeyer.io and theatonicast.com Mr. Newman go to jarednewman.com and sign up for my newsletter

Go to Google, type in ways to give Ed Zittron money and then click every link. There isn't actually anything. Type in Blake Corum house photos. I want to see the AI summary of that one. Okay. So just, just to be clear, uh, playing Madden, I've been feeding the draft classes in. I always take Blake Corum, but also Trey Benson was way better in it. Anyway, I need to stop this right now. Uh,

If you want to spend some money or some shit, listen to a podcast, I guess. Follow the following ad. Click it. Listen. I don't know how you listen to these things. I don't listen to podcasts. I'm Ed Zittra and you can find me on the Internet.

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Okay, so we've now returned to the third section of this part of the podcast, and it's important to add I have started to experience CES brain myself, which means that I'm just thinking, because Jared said it, the phrase Google juice. So just think and say that for a while. We're, of course, enjoying... Jesus Christ. We're once again joined... We're enjoying... Just keep it, Matt. I'm sorry. By Edward Ongreso Jr., we now have three ads on one podcast. Mm-hmm.

Not good. We're growing more powerful by the minute. Any other Eds at CES who want to just join us? Let's Voltron. Let's go. Ed Voltron? Jesus. You should do an Oops All Ed segment. Is that a reference to something? Oh, you know, like in Crunch Berries.

I know what you're talking about. Yeah, okay. Yeah, somebody. Someone's going to email this to me. I'm going to look bad. David Roth of Defectors joining us. And, of course, Ed Niedermeyer, the car expert.

Hello, my man loves wheels. Jared Newman, freelance journalist, tech journalist. I love being here. Advisorator. Oh, thank you for calling that out. Yeah, you could have also when I asked you what you do. Now... Sorry. I mean, I'm sorry for you. Let's be honest. But the reason I bring up CES Brain is because...

There is something very concussive about the Consumer Electronics Show. And part of the reasons I did this, other than the fact that I love podcasting, is because there is a defined effect of this show. And it doesn't matter whether you've been here a hundred times or two times or no times. You experience the same thing because there is just something about this place where you come in and you're there ostensibly for something real. And then you go onto a show floor where most of it isn't.

Or might be. And you think, wow, all that latent potential. But if you've been here enough times, you know that isn't potential. It's just lies.

This may not be what you're talking about at all. Yeah, it's fine. But, like, you know, in swimming, there's, like, the thing where you, like, you train with, like, heavy stuff on. Right. Like broccoli in the room. Yeah, and then you, like, you, like, shear all of that and, like, shave all your... Don't ask me how I know this. You know, and you feel like you're, like, in the clear, okay? But when I...

on this podcast and when we've hung out after, you know, later in CS and previous years. Right, right. You know, I'm not really a big partier or I don't even drink caffeine during the show. And then I come here and I have a drink that Phil has made with Black Blood of the Earth. Right. And it's like the, I guess it's like the opposite. The opposite of what? Of like preparing for a meet and like tapering down and being ready to. Yeah. It's like making yourself feel

Worse? No, no. Okay, this actually leads into... Does this make sense? I don't know. No, no, it does. There is also something very self-harmy about CES in the sense that last year, last time I was at CES, I always find a playlist to drive myself insane. Now, this year was just like Trapped's headstrong, but there was one year where I went and all I listened to for hours on the LVCC floor was...

Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO and Otherworld from the Final Fantasy X soundtrack. That's when you fight Jecht. Any listeners who love Final Fantasy X? So you are trying to dissociate. Yeah. I don't really tend to associate when I get here, so it's just the pain begins. But I think that there's just something weird about the show, and I realize I've now described at length just the way I terrorize myself. We're just...

Coming here, you're there for a job, but you're surrounded by shit where people are like, my job is kind of lying.

My job is kind of suggesting I might do something, but eh. So I actually, what I like about, I'll put the positive spin on this. What I like about CES, the value I get out of it is that like when you do, if what you're trying to do is discern between what might be real and what might not be in technology, right? In emerging tech, you don't have a lot to go on. You're dealing with companies that control information like crazy. And that's what you need to go on.

On the internet, they have so much control over that. It's what, you know, when you come here, you have an opportunity to exercise like your human faculties of like in person, right? You get the vibe of like companies and people and things. And to me, because a lot of times that's all you have to go on. Like that's a dirty secret. Yeah. And you have to like develop this skill of just like,

do these people, how they talk about the product, how they talk about the company, how they talk about their plans, does this feel like something that's real smart people? And the more you talk to people, the more you engage with stuff, the more you talk to, again, both the smart people and the frauds. You have to talk to the frauds. You have to engage with them. You have to look at them. And in a lot of ways, coming here for me is the only way to actually exercise and develop this ability to intuitively discern. And again, it's horrifying that journalism depends

on that in a fundamental way in this. But I don't feel like CES covers this in that way, though. The coverage so rarely reflects that

That kind of situation. There's just like, here's the 10 fucking things I saw at CES. There's the AI fridge and the other AI fridge and the bachelor dishwasher. But it's basically, what I'm saying is it's basically impossible to just show up, look at this thing and say, yeah, like you have to really develop the skill over time, right? It's training data. When you're collecting training data, it doesn't mean you can immediately...

say this is real, this isn't. You have to build it up over time. There's a weird thing where, especially if you're a press and you're going to see an exhibit or something and somebody will talk to you about the product and there's always this moment where you're trying to figure out...

okay, was this a person that was paid to be at the booth and was told a bunch of stuff? Or is it a marketing person? Or is it a product person? And you're on the spectrum of like, how much does this person actually know about the product? And can we have a real conversation versus like, you're feeding me bullshit for 15 minutes? I'm also curious for you guys who have been here times before, like,

Do you feel like there's any correlation between the boundaries of hype and technical capabilities? Like, do you think that, you know, if you're coming in here expecting and seeing a lot of it is hype, a lot of it is bullshit, that a lot of that is inspired by people looking at tech that we have now and hoping that they can have some sort of application later and then...

The boundaries of that hype grow as the technical capacity you could conceivably fib grows? Or are these like...

or hyper narratives that persist independent of what actually is developing. Yeah. Oh boy. I think it's kind of gets to like what I was saying earlier about like being pulled in both directions, right? Because it's like my job being here is to like try to ignore that stuff, which there's a ton of, we didn't really talk about this, but like, I feel like,

I feel like it's like AI gaslighting here. Please elaborate. Yeah. Because everybody is saying AI, but then you go and look at the demonstrations, and it's nothing. It's stuff that hasn't been delivered. Okay, I'll give a specific example. Like Intel, right? They had a big thing last year about AI PC. AI PC, we're putting natural processing units in PCs. We're going to have all these like...

local on-device AI. It's going to enable all these low-latency, amazing private applications that you couldn't do with AI in the cloud. It's going to be amazing. That was last year. And now I come back this year, and they're still talking about AI PC, but nothing has changed. It's all the same. There's no applications yet. And I was like, what have you been doing? And it's like that when you go everywhere. You go to Samsung's booth, and they're talking about AI and TVs and AI and this and that. And it's not really...

And it's definitely not like half of it is not like LLM generative AI, which is supposed to be the big thing. It's just AI slapped onto regular algorithms that they've been using. And so it's just like very disorienting to try to figure out what is real AI. And there's just really hasn't been that much of it when you get down to it. That's been my experience of AI in general from the outside of it, where there's like, it just, because you do hear it a lot. Like AI gaslighting, I think is like,

the condition of the American consumer in this particular moment. And yet at the same time, there's something about when you see it in an ad where they're telling you that also it has AI or it's common walking around telling you about it's at our fingertips now. AI is. So that's great. We got that going for us. Whatever. Any of that shit. I discount it because I don't

think that I've seen an application of it that works or does anything cool. But then I've also never been in a position where someone has to like, like another person who's like in a human body that's in the same space as me has to like look me in the face and be like,

and it has AI in it and that makes it better. Like, and so that part of it is like, I'm kind of looking forward to that aspect of it tomorrow. Please talk to everyone. Much of what I saw on the floor here was like inventions, you know, or it was somebody just being like, it's a COVID test, but it only takes 10 minutes to tell you the results instead of 15 or whatever, you know, all of which is like, to me,

That shit's cool. Like, I think it's great to invent stuff. It's not exciting, but... I mean, it's exciting to me in the sense, but it's like, just in, you know, like, again, like, I'm far enough outside of it that it's like, it feels less like tech and more like you made a thing and you want to try to sell it, which...

You know, that's neat. But I haven't been to the Intel room or the big Amazon hall. The Amazon goo. I'll give you another example. One thing, I must say something that happened to me. So regular listeners might know about something called the Smiling Man. If you look up Google, please look at it. So when I got my CES badge done, I put the Smiling Man on it because they'll let you put anything on it.

And while walking into the Amazon room, the woman who's doing the security goes, "Wow, so hot." Which if you look up this image is not an appropriate reaction. Was that not what you were going for? I don't know what the hell I was going for that image, mate.

Anyway, that happened to me. I had a PR person tell me I was extremely fancy. I don't even understand how to parse that. You were in your giant... I'm wearing what I'm wearing now. You're asking them a bunch of questions. They're like, hey, you are fancy. I didn't know I was talking to a fancy guy. This tech is not elegant. You get these weird otherworldly interactions that I think it's hard to...

Jared, you look great, but you're also in like a light blue button down and like blue jeans. Yeah, you're wearing like the blogger uniform. That's how I dress. That's what it was. It was the blogger. And I don't think it was even like a remark on my clothes. I think it was, I don't even know what it was. You're like twirling a cigarette in your fingers. What was the example you were going to give them? Yeah, sorry, Paul. Oh, yeah. Okay. So like Lenovo, right? Like every other PC vendor, like all their stuff is like AI and you go to their booth and like,

They're showing you their new computers, but on the new computers is these half-baked on-device AI applications that are not cool. No, no, no. But the computers are cool as hell. They have a laptop where the screen...

Which is so much cooler than AI. That's cool. And then you're talking about AI, but talk about how cool your screen is. That should be the focus. That's a totally reasonable conflict for me. I mean, obviously, you're much more expert in this stuff than me. But to me, it's like you made a thing that is cool that didn't exist before. Yeah. Why do you feel compelled also or even to lead with this thing that is like... It's not vaporware because it is...

you burn an acre of old growth forest every time you generate an image of Wario's pussy. It's like, that's real. Wario's pussy is real. It's very real. It can hurt you. I didn't try that at the booth, so I don't know if that's what they're letting you do. To me, though, it's like that bit of it. We're moving on. We're moving on from wussy. No one's saying wussy. It's been debilitating.

This is a serious podcast and I have a serious question. Do you want to have any remarks on this? Put that into the prompt. So we've been talking about CES brain.

And I think one of the things that we have to make sure that we let people know, because clearly there's some symptoms on display here. I've done ACS's and I've never broken like this before. The thing that's important for people to understand, it's not just we've been talking about the absurdity and the weirdness and trying to figure out what's real and what's not. A fundamental part that colors all of that is just the physical exhaustion bit.

That's what makes that stuff all so hard to... Yeah, and I'll tell you, you get a unique perspective on this, and I think it's really an interesting way to think about the whole show, if you cover mobility. Because you come here every year, and you hear all these... Fuck, you move. Brand new things about how the way we get around is all going to fundamentally change. And those things are different all the time. Sometimes little electric bikes are the thing, and sometimes autonomous cars, and sometimes driver assistance, and...

it's always different. It's all these different things. Everyone is promising that this technology is going to fundamentally change how you get around. And every time you come here, it's getting around, getting around Vegas period sucks. On the Vegas strip, there are three separate rail lines, none of which are connected. Yeah.

Yeah. Just on the Vegas, just on a few blocks of the Vegas Strip. And really for me, like the lesson, and it's a really important one I think for CES is that like this whole thing is this festival of stuff that's promising to fix things. And yet...

The structural issues are what matter. This is all stuff that doesn't address the structural issue. The only way to make getting around Las Vegas easier is to fix how it is on a structural level. It's a car place. You go to the city center. I love the city center on the Vegas Strip. They built this thing that's supposed to look like a little downtown.

And there is no way as a pedestrian to engage with it. Go check it out. It's like the Aria and the Cosmopolitan are. It's this amazing like American symbol of a city where visually it's there and it looks cool, but it's all these like things so cars can go down to the parking lot. It's a city for cars. And again, like we were talking about what's real and what's bullshit and that's all fascinating. At the end of the day, like it's kind of all bullshit compared to like how we really experience things

down to structural things that tech, a lot of times, sometimes it can change it in fundamental ways, but 99.9% of the time, it's just some little layer on top of these. Well, it can't be like enough individual product experiences and engagements that suddenly makes a city, you know, like pedestrian friendly or capable of

Or makes it possible for you to get around a city without a car or whatever. That's a state-level intervention. That's not the sort of thing where if you give everybody an e-bike, suddenly Las Vegas makes sense if you're not in a car. But also, none of this matters because Vegas is functioning exactly as it needs to, which is much like the tech industry. You're trapped within the product and you'll follow its fucking rules. Which is why this is the place where we've pioneered the most...

and transformative form of public mass transit, which is human-driven Teslas in a tunnel. Yeah. Where you need to have like three people at the station to make sure that when the drivers pull up, they're not running over people when they're trying to get into the car. My car when I was in there. Have you guys, if you haven't experienced that,

Go, oh, oh. No, no, no. Do. 100%. Absolutely. David, I actually need you both to go, please. Yeah, yeah. Can you do it from here? It's for free. No, you have to go to the LBCC. Resorts World or like around the, but look for the stations and go anywhere. Go anywhere and then come back. But just experience it because it's so stupid. And it's such a classic example of like,

Of technology, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think what you're kind of like hitting on is in technology, like this fundamental frustration that I have and probably other people notice as well is like, you know, everybody's going after like the flashy technology

like AI, for example, like the thing that attracts shareholder excitement or whatever, but there's all these structural things, like I want to pay less for cloud storage. I don't want every photo I take to hold me hostage. Somebody should figure out how to compete with Google Photos. Or even have hardware storage. Yeah, like nobody's doing the unglamorous stuff

shit that needs to be fixed because there's this other shiny thing in the corner. It's the rock-corn bubble. It's the fact that they need everything to grow at all costs and they're running out of them so they're getting crazier. And for many years, you would come here and people, the pitch from a lot of these mobility technology kind of companies would be we are going to

move past the car. We're going to unlock... It was this weird moment where tech and sort of progressive urbanist aspirations, there seems to be some alignment around it. And the reality is, is cars are a structural thing. And that, again, like when the more tech solutionism, right, tries to tackle structural things, the more it's sort of revealed to the lack of power. Like we

Like, we're surrounded by so much technological power, but you see sometimes the limits of that. But this is actually the principal dichotomy of Better Offline itself, which is that you have companies that ostensibly sell the idea that they're fixing problems, but fixing actual problems might make them less profitable. And they certainly won't if they start fixing those problems grow forever. So CES, yeah, CES is selling the hype. And I think for... And I say this, first CES was 2011. So...

Back then, you could kind of with a straight face believe it. You could think the tech industry was going to fix some shit, right? Maybe there were more cynical people back then, but back then, at least in the media, I was a bit of PR baby at the time. You just were like, oh no, the tech industry will work it out. It was the early days of Facebook. You're like, they're not completely evil. You just didn't know at that point.

And I think that CES has never really graduated from it. It hasn't really tried to adjust to the fact that I think more people are like, I don't know about the tech people. And I have to wonder how CES changes as a result. Yeah, there's a weird disconnect between like the image that CES puts forth and like

what you have to then go and try to find as a journalist. Yeah. Covering it. So what are the, what it's putting forth is basically like, here's the future. This is what it's going to look like. Is that the idea? Ideally. Do you remember? Well, I don't know if you're going to say your life, the, the CES slogan was all, all on. And, and I don't remember that. Okay. So the CES slogan last year was all on, which I guess is a play on all in and like all the imagery that they had was like extremely obvious AI faces. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's so fun. All of the things now are AI. And so that set the tone, right? There's this obviously unhinged thing that they're putting forth, and then you have to go and find things to actually be maybe excited about, but that are not that. I don't know. It's over the years just dodging just the made-up shit, and before you would just accept more of it.

That's what I'm trying to sort of figure out. I haven't been to... Edward, you went to the convention center today, right? Yeah. So you saw the weird stuff. I mean, yeah. Is this your first go-around too? This is my first one too. And the convention center was filled with a lot of things that exist already without AI, but...

you had people assuring you that they've reached a new level because of the AI. There's more. Yeah. You've unlocked its potential. And I think, like you were saying, I was actually kind of struck by that because when I was in the expo, like you said, there were a lot of gizmos and they were talking about AI, but they wouldn't actually focus on AI like they were in the convention center. They would actually be like, you know, here's a problem. Like even that CGM thing, which, you know,

Which we talked about, which doesn't work if you're... Which was that one? This was the... Well, they said it was not a CGM. It was a healthcare management device. Continuous glucose monitor. Continuous glucose monitor? Yeah, continuous. I could not say a word. Great stuff. So it monitors glucose. It's also supposed to monitor other metabolic indexes for you based off shining infrared on your skin. Right. And...

And here, that's an interesting development because it's non-invasive. And you can use it ostensibly to monitor things that might – you might actually have to get a medical device. You might have to get something more invasive to monitor. But –

Then you dig a little bit and then you get the other problematic features. Oh, we're privacy-oriented and we're rewards-oriented, so we're going to put it on the blockchain and we're going to tell your insurance company everything. How is that different from the main show, the main LVCC? So at the LVCC, it felt like it was less like here is a bit of an improvement or an issue, right?

that we want to offer an innovative fix for whether or not you agree with the fix. And here is this thing that you have that probably works, but with AI, you can access ostensibly more potential. So more craving. That's a, that's a function of, you know, LVCC, especially central hall being like, that's where the big companies are, right? LG, Samsung, whatever. Whereas, yeah,

Venetian is kind of these smaller companies. And South Hall, even to some extent, this is very CES-y, I'm sorry. No, it's great. It's useful for me, man. I should be writing this down. And I should explain this hours into the CES coverage. So there are two areas. There's the Venetian Expo, which is connected to the Venetian and Las Vegas Convention Hall. And there is the Central, North, and South Hall.

Excellent time to explain that, at the end of like the fourth hour. Anyway, Tara, please continue. Yeah. So, you know, you have big companies like Samsung and LG that are trying to show that they are doing something big and flashy. Because what they really have is like our OLED display is like a bit brighter than it was last year, which –

Again, I think it's cool. That makes more difference to me than this AI stuff that they're throwing on top. But that's the stuff that they have to focus on to get people to listen. So why is that, I guess? Maybe that's a naive question, but is that basically... Because I feel like if you are...

Pointing this at consumers and you're basically like, we solved the dog door. It's better now. It's never going to let in a raccoon or whatever. You know how you keep having beavers from the neighborhood let themselves into your kitchen? It's worth clarifying. This show, despite being called Consumer Electronics Show...

It's not for consumers. That's what I was going to say. The primary purpose of the show historically, that's probably true now still, is for buyers of technology for retailers to go around and see what they want to put, how much they want to buy of a TV or whatever to figure out what they're going to stock this year. But even in that case, if it's for those people...

Wouldn't the selling point be the OLED screen is a little bit brighter? He's left one important detail out, which is it's also for conning journalists. Yes. No, I was going to get to that. Oh, sorry. Pardon me. Continue then. No, yeah. So, I mean, I think in both cases, it's kind of like that's a more attractive story to tell, especially if you're not –

It's hard at CES and a lot of people aren't looking at stuff super deep. And so they want just the easy story. And so easy story is like, look at the AI we're putting into our TV versus we made our TV a little brighter. It's just not as attractive if you're not really paying super close attention. But also it's very hard to write an exciting story about something getting slightly better. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I guess that makes sense. Because if the idea is that you're trying to generate...

some sort of heat around a product. The idea of like, there's just something strange about that. I mean, I guess we're probably going to wind up returning to this often over the next few days that like, because AI is not real. Yeah. Like in a meaningful way. Anyway. Yeah. That like the idea that you have to,

In order to make this an interesting story, you have to be like, not only is it a better screen than it was last year, something that we had actual... Something that helps you. Yes, something that improves your experience. Not only is that, but also we added... It's a whole new way to consume television. Yes. When it's not. You get it in your home and you're like, I'm glad it's brighter. So there's two things. Your intuition that this stuff is not stuff that consumers are screaming for. So there's two factors. One is that

Post Steve Jobs, everyone is obsessed with this idea of people don't know what they want until you show it to them. That is a huge factor in a lot of these things. The other thing though, you're right. A lot of this stuff isn't for consumers in a fundamental way in that a lot of this is performance for investors. That's the bit that I was curious about. Your AI is for like – you're showing out for like the quarter zip.

the VCs. Yeah. Because they're the ones that care about that shit. Patagonia perverts. You're showing you're on trend. You're showing like there's this almost like theater often of like how you position yourself relative to your competitors. They have a little booth. You have a big booth. Like there's all of these sorts of things and a lot of them are about, especially for the kind of earlier stage companies and like which happened more in the hype cycles, right? So you saw this a lot in like, you know, EVs and AVs and stuff. Like these tiny little companies that had no revenue, no business, but they had these

massive, massive things. It wasn't for consumers because they didn't have anything to sell consumers. But they're there. And they were years away from having something. It's for investors. It makes sense with EVs too. It's fucking hard to make a car. It's also about attracting partners from the ecosystem. I think also, just to put a finer, maybe a little more specificity with AI, AI tends to demo well.

So if you're a buyer or investor or a journalist, like you look at these things and they show you for two minutes the canned demos that they have and you're like, oh, wow, this is really – this is interesting. It's only when you actually – Like the way that Elon's robot can like pop and –

Yeah, exactly. It's only when you try to use it like in a regular way that you're like, oh, this doesn't actually work. I feel like we're entering this like nexus of what happens when you spend 10 fucking years in the tech industry building it for people who won't use it by people who don't care.

And so you're at this point where it's just like selling nothing to nothing. I always had this thing with Google Home, Google Nest, whatever device it is, where I felt like nobody at Google was using it. No, the Google Home app is like an Escher painting. It's like, oh, I need to go... Like Sundar Pichai doesn't use those. No, he doesn't. None of these people do. I just...

And it's funny, we keep, we've done hours of this now, and it really keeps coming back to this theme of just everyone going, what is this shit? You don't know what it is. As somebody who's like, really just like, I read about it, but I don't consume a lot of this stuff. Our apartment is effectively in 2005 and probably always will be.

But there's a lot of the – I remember this especially with a lot of the metaverse stuff on Facebook. Where there's a part of it where Zuck coming on with his fucking perm being like, have you ever wanted to attend a meeting on your computer? And it's like, I do it all the time, dude. It sucks ass. But also like, yeah, it's like totally possible. Like I don't need to be like a plush bear when I do it.

you know a legless bear but there is right a legless kind of like weirdly sad looking sorrowful eyes 30 minutes at Freddy's yeah but like to me with that it's like so where did you get this idea because like I don't know what like Mark Zuckerberg's life is very different from mine obviously no no it's someone making up what they think happens it really is that simple they're just like what do fucking people do people have jobs right

They got cats? So that means meetings. When you have a job. What happens at job if you're a CEO of a multi-trillion dollar company? Meetings. Right. If you don't do any real work, that's what you think work is.

So you jokerize on meetings as a CEO and then you're like, what if I just became a bear? It's also important – this is why it's important to pay – like the attendees are as much a part of the show as the exhibitors. And it's because – and again, like listen to what people say. Listen to – it's really fascinating because there is this core around people who –

around this tech business who are like conditioned. And part of their identity is to assume that anything new that they see at CES is good and better and something that they can buy and then get social capital out of saying, you know, I have this and you don't. I'm on the cutting edge. I'm more on the cutting edge than you are. Like this is a really important part of our culture now is technology. And what's fascinating here is, you know, we were talking earlier about how

The vibe is changing around tech, right? Like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, like attitudes towards this were very different. There still are these people who are stuck in that old like sort of tech is all unconditionally good. It's all progress. It's all making things better. And that's the ones that are going to be there tomorrow. They're just going to be like, wow. You're going to see a lot of cyber trucks in the parking lot. Right.

So we're sadly at the end now. We're letting you go, listeners. Jared Newman, where can people find you? Go to jarednewman.com slash newsletters and I will give you some great tech advice all the time. Mr. Niedermeyer, where can people find you? Niedermeyer.io and the Autonicast. Mr. Ron Grasso Jr. Techbubble.substack.com and then BigBlackJackabin on Instagram. I mean, not on Instagram. On Blue Sky and Twitter.

Mr. Roth. Defector.com is the website. Distraction is the podcast. I do with that. It's Christmastown is the Hallmark podcast. And I'm also David J. Roth on Blue Sky. I should actually check how that's punctuated. Hang on. Everybody's going to love this. This is the good stuff. Hold on just a moment. I have to get my phone out. I have to think of like a slightly sardonic way to refer to myself. Yeah, davidjroth.bsky.social.com.

that's that's how you can go into google take the biggest idiot in tech and i pop up not really i'm the smartest man in tech ed zitron i'm the first person to wear aviators and cover technology you've been listening to a podcast i'll be apologizing for for a while but you'll be thanking me thanks for listening everyone

Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I dot com.

You can email me at ez at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.whereisyoured.at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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