0:13

Good morning, afternoon or evening. Please delete as appropriate.

0:16

Hello there and welcome to this episode

0:18

number 492 of the material podcast, a very

0:20

special episode because I am Andy and not

0:22

going for the first time in a multitude

0:26

of weeks. I can say, and here

0:28

is Florence Ion. Flo, welcome back. Hi,

0:30

I missed you a lot. Oh, I missed you too. I'm

0:33

sorry we didn't talk very much. You know, I was just

0:35

kind of like in my

0:37

own little world for a little bit, but

0:39

I'm happy to be back because I really miss

0:41

talking to you, Andy. It's like I

0:44

was missing the cadence from my life.

0:47

Yeah. It's interesting how like making things

0:51

go smoothly as often an observance

0:53

of the metronomes of life and

0:57

the absence of, Oh, well it's like Wednesday

0:59

night. I have to make sure that this

1:01

is done because at around 10 or 11,

1:03

I'm going to start recording with Flo and

1:05

like, no, at 10 or 11, you should

1:08

probably start thinking about like, do you have the

1:10

show written and can you start recording? So because

1:12

Jim needs, that needs this, he needs your files

1:14

by X time. So it's really nice. And also

1:17

looking forward to talking to you for like an

1:19

hour or two, like every single week. It's awesome.

1:22

Yeah. I've been, I've, I've had a lot of stuff.

1:24

I've been wanting to talk to you about, which I

1:26

caught you up a little bit before we started recording,

1:29

but just a little bit, you know, cause I'm, you

1:31

know how I am. I'm going to like tell you

1:33

stuff every time we get together. But

1:37

how, so how are like, I've,

1:40

so I've been the one publishing the podcast

1:42

behind the scenes. So I have been tuning

1:44

into what Andy's been doing here, but how

1:46

have things been for you, Andy? Like otherwise,

1:48

you know, I mean, we've got a holiday

1:50

this week. We're going into the

1:52

holidays. A lot of stuff has been

1:54

going on. How are you feeling? I'm

1:57

feeling pretty good. I'm still.

2:00

No, I'm being such a damn New Englander.

2:03

I still have not turned on me. Okay. Okay.

2:06

Oh my God. Way to show off.

2:08

Because it's like, I'm

2:12

doing fine without it so far. Like I

2:14

wouldn't say I'm doing. Oh my God. I'm

2:16

not saying I'm doing fine with that. Okay,

2:18

I do notice that it is chilly and

2:20

it's like now, and I'm sleeping like with

2:23

a couple of comforters on the bed. And

2:25

of course, you know, long flannels and

2:27

like a sweatshirt, okay. But

2:31

let me put it this way. One

2:35

of the things that's important to keep checking

2:37

yourself on is like, how

2:40

am I wasting resources

2:43

without knowing I'm wasting resources?

2:45

Like it's a, there's comes a moment when this

2:47

sort of thing kind of like your mind opens

2:51

a door to this possibility that

2:53

maybe you don't need that much

2:55

dishwashing liquid when you're

2:57

scrubbing that plate. Okay. And

3:00

when I, and so ages ago,

3:02

it was like, okay, well, I usually do the

3:04

first, the full, and okay, well,

3:06

how about just like half a, and

3:09

then like, well, what if I like go

3:11

down to a dab and then like the

3:13

almost, now it's down to like the almost

3:15

comical, like when I need to just wash

3:17

like a dish or a glass, it's

3:20

almost like a comical, like I will

3:22

hold like the bottle of Dawn dishwashing

3:25

liquid like over like one of my steel,

3:27

like insulated tumblers I drink out of every

3:29

day. And I will just

3:31

like wait until this one tiny little

3:35

teardrop of blue liquid shimmers at

3:37

the edge of it. And then

3:39

it finally breaks free and drops

3:41

down. And I know that, and

3:44

because I'm using, and dump in

3:46

the hot water and it's foaming up,

3:48

it gets a good job. That is like

3:50

all I needed. So I realized

3:52

that maybe I'm being a little bit extreme

3:54

here, but like my heat

3:56

is electric. So, and the

3:58

cost of that. electricity here is not

4:01

like really great. So

4:03

I'm really thinking, so it really, like, okay,

4:07

can you deal with like 53 degrees

4:10

inside the house? Give, given that I

4:12

don't have company over, like I'll, I'll

4:14

jack up the heat. Like when, if

4:17

I'm having people over, but it's like, can

4:19

you sleep, get through

4:21

the day, whatever on 52, 53 degrees. And

4:25

I'm like, that's fine. I can,

4:27

again, I can feel it. Like when

4:29

I step out of the shower, absolutely.

4:32

But the temperature difference, I

4:35

am grateful for the hot water of the

4:37

shower every morning, but it's

4:39

really possible and achievable. So I hate

4:41

to think that I'm getting to be

4:43

like those really insane, like you or

4:45

fun UPS drivers who are still wearing

4:47

shorts like in January, because they've got

4:49

like a $10 bet going down to

4:52

the depot of who can, who can

4:54

last the longest wearing just the, just

4:56

their shorts, but it's

4:58

working out. Uh,

5:00

hey, hating the hitting the four 30 darkness

5:02

that I'm not a big fan of, but

5:04

that's fine too. Yeah.

5:07

A little bit more north than me. I get

5:09

at least until five o'clock. Yeah. Sorry.

5:14

How are you doing? How,

5:16

how am I doing? Well, I've, you

5:18

know, Hmm, how am I doing? Such

5:22

a loaded question. We should,

5:24

we should reassure people that just, just

5:27

as I said, the very, very start

5:29

of your medical leave, that this isn't

5:31

a, she's, this isn't all like

5:33

breaking bad sort of thing. Okay.

5:36

She's not like, you know, surgeries

5:38

and like tests and things like

5:40

that. So don't, don't worry. So

5:42

people shouldn't worry about that. I

5:44

promise you it's, it's nothing like that.

5:46

Um, but I

5:49

mean, I will say, I've been trying

5:51

to sleep early. So I'm going to

5:53

bed at like nine 30. Um,

5:56

and it, I'm not necessarily falling asleep

5:58

immediately. fun

6:01

little thing that I started

6:03

doing because I wasn't giving myself downtime

6:06

without the phone. Now

6:08

this is gonna sound really counterintuitive, but

6:10

just let me explain. What

6:13

I have been doing is I will watch an

6:15

episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents because

6:18

there is a free Roku channel that

6:22

has all five seasons just on repeat. And

6:25

they're perfect 20 minute vignettes.

6:29

They're very soft. There's

6:31

not a lot of action in them. So the sound isn't

6:34

super loud. I can watch it at a very low volume

6:37

and mostly read the captions, which is what I,

6:40

like that helps me doze off. And

6:42

so I've been having this nice little, like

6:44

going back to my little comforts of black

6:47

and white television and turn of classic

6:49

movies and like trying

6:51

to just get back into this cozy

6:53

time because

6:55

whenever it starts to get cold like this,

6:58

and then it's dark so early, my

7:01

instinct is just to sit with a lot of

7:03

blankets around me, a journal

7:05

and some Tamagotchi nearby and

7:07

like to just kind of have something comforting

7:09

going on on TV, nothing like overly

7:13

psychological. I get

7:15

enough from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents, like the

7:17

gotchas that they have in each of those

7:19

vignettes are pretty incredible. And

7:23

so those are, they're fun. By

7:26

the way, I usually end up laughing because

7:29

like he's actually

7:31

a comedian. Everybody

7:35

forgot that Hitchcock is actually just like a horror

7:39

comedian. Just to

7:41

kind of like bring light to the awful things that

7:46

humans do to each other. And

7:50

in these trying times, I gotta

7:52

tell you, it's just, it

7:55

feels good. I love it.

7:57

And also, you know me, I also love

7:59

like anything. that was filmed in like old

8:01

LA and old California. So

8:04

I get to like see all these locations. So

8:07

I'm going back to my, I'm

8:09

going back to my old Hollywood comforts. I

8:12

did see Wicked last night, by the way. Oh.

8:17

I've never seen the stage play. Okay.

8:21

I've never read the book. So

8:25

that was my first introduction to

8:27

Wicked. So what'd

8:29

you think? And it was only part one. Yeah, exactly.

8:32

They're hiding two things in all of the

8:34

like saturation marketing. Number one, they're hiding that

8:37

it's a musical and they're also

8:39

hiding that, no, we're not gonna, sorry, $14 does

8:41

not give you the entire story. You're gonna have

8:43

to come back later

8:45

on. Exactly. Yeah. Which

8:49

is kind of

8:51

this interesting that like they've been doing this,

8:54

like Spider-Man, the Spider-Man movies, the

8:57

new animated ones that came out, the Spider-Verse ones have

9:00

been doing this as well. But those are

9:02

just so action packed. I

9:04

mean, this was action packed too. Anyway,

9:07

I'm glad I saw it. Like I missed, I

9:11

miss being a part of the zeitgeist. Like I know

9:13

it's such a little basic thing, but

9:16

sometimes it's fun to just

9:18

go see what everybody is talking about. Yeah.

9:22

I think it's because we're both of that generation where

9:26

if something was on TV last night,

9:28

almost everybody understands it as a

9:30

frame of reference that next night.

9:32

Yeah. Like when, what happened

9:35

on Friends last night,

9:40

even if you're not a fan of the show, like

9:43

you probably know what's going on. So you

9:45

can have a conversation about it, but the

9:47

audiences are so fragmented these days that there

9:49

aren't any real moments like that. So there's

9:51

very few things that you can unite us

9:54

as much as a really good episode of Seinfeld

9:57

that did, like back in the 90s, early 2000s. Like,

10:00

so I was like- And then after, yeah. Oh,

10:03

no, I mean, I was thinking, I was thinking

10:05

about Wicked again. I haven't seen the movie. I

10:07

don't know if I'm gonna see it just for,

10:10

not because I'm banning it or anything like that,

10:12

but I had

10:14

to figure out in my mind a way

10:16

to articulate what

10:18

I don't like about, not Wicked specifically,

10:21

but those kinds of stories. And it's

10:23

like, I kind of resent a movie,

10:27

play, comic

10:31

book, TV show, novel, whatever,

10:34

that turns

10:36

an original piece of source material from like

10:38

40 or 50 years ago into

10:40

a sequel to this brand new thing that they created.

10:43

And so I don't like the idea that

10:46

a whole generation of people who, of kids

10:48

who maybe didn't grow up with like the

10:52

Judy Garland, Wizard of Oz, when

10:54

they'll see it now after Wicked

10:56

and they'll know, oh, so Glinda

10:58

is this really evil person and

11:00

oh, the person that Judy Garland

11:02

just killed is this wonderful, sensitive,

11:04

bookish soul who's been like,

11:07

no, no, no, no, that wasn't the story.

11:09

That wasn't the story at all. Okay,

11:12

I'll admit to that. Oh,

11:14

only evil bitches are ugly. Okay, that

11:16

was crap. That was out of

11:18

order. That was fun, okay. It was different time, different

11:21

era. But don't go

11:23

saying that suddenly we have to

11:25

rethink everything

11:28

that we know about like this Hollywood

11:30

classic because somebody wrote a book 50

11:33

or 60 years ago, they thought, hey, there's a really

11:35

marketable hook. And I know it's a really good book.

11:37

And it's also, I did see the play. It's really

11:39

musical. It's really good, really good musical. But that's the

11:41

sort of thing. I haven't, like it's

11:43

the same reason why I haven't seen Rogue One. Really?

11:48

Even though, again, all my friends say it was

11:50

really, really wonderful. I was excited

11:53

to see it. I was planning to see it. And

11:55

then I think AV Club or someone online

11:57

did one of those really. bad.

12:00

Oh no, we're not, we're

12:03

not, of course it would be wrong

12:05

to reveal any spoilers about this movie

12:07

that just came out four days ago.

12:09

But here's the story about, here's how

12:11

they brought XXX like dead actor back

12:14

and this other dead actor back. Oh yeah. Great.

12:16

So now I know

12:18

that these two people are in this movie and it

12:20

triggered that exact same thing where it's like, I got,

12:22

I got, I'm not going to, I don't want to

12:24

spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it. Cause I'm

12:27

not, I'm not recommending people not see it cause I

12:29

haven't seen any it either. It's just that I

12:33

don't want, I, I, again,

12:35

I don't like the idea of Star

12:37

Wars episode four. The story was done in 1976, 1977. And

12:39

now four decades later, they want to

12:47

add more story to it

12:49

that modifies what I saw

12:52

in 76, 77, 78, whatever that, and again, not,

12:57

and without revealing anything to anybody, it's like,

13:00

Oh, and of course after I just, so I

13:02

basically, I avoid movies like that just for that

13:04

reason, not because, Oh, I hate it. This is

13:06

terrible. It's like, I want to preserve like my

13:08

understanding of like what the

13:11

storytellers in 77 said and for

13:13

Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, there

13:16

was one group of storytellers or one overseer that

13:18

told this three part story. I don't like the

13:20

idea of, Oh, when someone 40 years later decided

13:22

that, Oh, but this other stuff happened as well,

13:25

that should modify how you think about how

13:27

the original like story went. So I just,

13:29

I just, I want to sort of protect

13:31

my knowledge of, I want

13:33

to consider it to be fan fiction and not like

13:35

part of the real story. And so

13:39

after I decided I'm not going to see it, I said,

13:42

well, let's just look at just like a often, oftentimes

13:44

wicked synopses that are on Wikipedia pages

13:47

for the movies is like, I'm

13:49

curious about this new horror movie that somehow made like

13:51

$30 million. I have no interest in seeing, but I

13:53

just wanted to know, I, I like, like you said,

13:55

I want to be part of the site guys. So

13:57

I wanted to, right. Yeah,

14:01

so I read it like, oh, that's

14:03

stupid. It's like that is like,

14:06

you took away like one of the,

14:08

you felt like you had to solve

14:10

a problem that wasn't

14:12

necessary to solve. It's

14:14

like, there was no mystery to

14:16

why X happened in the first

14:19

Star Wars movie. They explained it

14:21

very neatly and they spent no

14:23

more time on this conundrum,

14:25

so to speak, than was necessary. And

14:29

like, oh, but now it's dumb.

14:31

It's like, anyway, it's the

14:33

explaining disease where

14:36

it's like, hey, how come the lightsaber

14:40

in this scene has like three buttons

14:42

and then the same lightsaber has two

14:45

buttons? Oh, there must be a story

14:47

about how the lightsaber got stolen and

14:49

like got broken by the person who stole it.

14:52

And then he slipped it back into like, no,

14:54

it's because there were like four props. They didn't

14:56

notice that one was a little bit different and

14:59

it was a continuity error. There's no need to

15:01

explain it. It's not important and nobody

15:03

cares. Listen, I feel

15:05

the same way about 90210 because they tried

15:07

to reboot it in 2008 and

15:09

it was absolutely abysmal what they were doing to the

15:11

timeline. And it's a

15:13

constant discussion on the 90210 subreddit, which

15:17

is like, do you consider, do

15:20

you consider the continuation of 90210 based

15:23

on this show that they

15:25

came out with years later? But

15:29

I will say for Wicket's credit, now

15:32

I have a bunch of stuff that I get to indulge

15:35

in. So after we're done podcasting,

15:37

I saved all the podcasts,

15:39

I saved the opinion pieces. And so

15:41

now I get to kind of just

15:44

spend the afternoon reading about

15:46

that instead of bothering myself

15:48

with all those

15:51

Thanksgiving feelings, you know? Yes. Well,

15:53

we're gonna talk about- You know? Like, but

15:55

yeah, it's, yeah. I

16:00

mean, I, we don't need to share

16:02

like each other's like Thanksgiving plans. This

16:04

is, I, there's, you hear about the

16:06

tick talk cycle of like releasing phones

16:09

where like the, the iPhone 14 will

16:12

be kind of meh, but then the iPhone 15 will be

16:14

a major update. Then my phone 60 16

16:16

will also be, eh, okay. Cameras a little better than the

16:18

iPhone 17. We'll have a whole new

16:20

case design and have features. I

16:23

generally have tick talk like Thanksgiving's

16:25

where it's like every, they're

16:28

alternating years in which, Hey, I want to be with friends

16:30

and family and Hey, I want to get dressed up and

16:32

Hey, I want to cook a big meal for my friends

16:35

and so alternate with I'm

16:37

going all the store, all the, this, the

16:39

market's going to be closed on Thanksgiving. So

16:41

I'm going to buy two large pizzas. I'm

16:44

going to like enjoy cold pizza throughout the day. I'm

16:46

going to spend the day on myself, on the sofa,

16:48

in my jammies, like watching

16:51

season 13 of taskmaster because I

16:53

just found out it's really, really

16:55

funny. I'm going to be,

16:57

again, I'm just going to be like streaming

16:59

stuff, like either alone or with friends because

17:02

this is, this is a, this is a talk

17:04

Thanksgiving. Mm-hmm.

17:07

So we're actually, we're going to let's, let's get into

17:10

the show. We're, uh, there is a

17:12

piece of Google news that we have to

17:14

talk about, uh, because a closing arguments in

17:16

the department of justice antitrust suit against Google,

17:18

of course, I'd be specific. The one about the

17:20

ad business, the one that I think that they're

17:22

really going to get killed on, but Hey,

17:24

I don't know the law. I don't know

17:26

antitrust law. I've reading, I've had to read

17:28

like 8,000 pages about antitrust

17:30

law every single week for the past two years. We

17:32

appreciate you for doing that, by the way. Oh,

17:34

thank you. Thank you. And again, my, my,

17:36

I say a lot of that was done

17:39

like without in the pre like LLM era,

17:41

so that was, anyway. Uh, so

17:43

yeah, so, uh, we'll talk about that. Uh,

17:46

turns out that the judge in that case

17:48

is super sassy and I'm all for that.

17:50

Um, okay. But also, uh, so

17:53

Google in the keyword blog was

17:55

kind enough to tell us that,

17:59

uh, someone wrote a. piece on the keyword blog about

18:01

how, oh my God, this is going to be

18:03

like the most awesome holiday season ever because I'm

18:06

totally going to use Gemini for like everything. And

18:08

oh my God, Gemini is like perfect for planning

18:10

all my holiday stuff. This

18:12

is just going to be awesome. So let's just

18:14

go point by point and not necessarily be

18:17

sarcastic about it. Let's have an open mind,

18:19

but let's discuss these uses

18:21

of artificial intelligence. And

18:23

we're going to keep the vibe going. I've

18:26

got, we were talking,

18:28

you were talking about

18:31

things to do for like the members episode and

18:33

talking about green bean salad, green

18:35

bean casserole. And I

18:37

realized that it's semi controversial. Like either

18:39

you are a green bean casserole family

18:41

or you are not. There's

18:44

also another controversy that I wasn't aware of until I

18:46

had this argument with a friend of mine like two

18:48

years ago. Not everyone

18:50

is into a Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown

18:53

Thanksgiving. So I think we

18:56

should use that bonus episode to talk about

18:58

these two controversies. You've

19:00

got the West coast's like

19:03

plug-in. I'm plugged into the East

19:05

coast vibe. We're going to address this and solve

19:07

this. Perfect. And of

19:09

course you're not going to be hearing about

19:11

the green bean casseroles and Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

19:13

unless you are a member because it's a

19:15

special members only show, the bonus show that

19:17

we do every week for our bonus members,

19:20

for our members of Relay FM.

19:23

If you want to join in the fun, go

19:25

to relay.fm slash material and great

19:27

news. Relay is offering a holiday membership sale.

19:30

So if you want to know

19:32

how to get a 20% discount

19:34

on an annual Relay membership, go

19:36

to giverelay.com. But however you

19:39

help us, I was kind

19:41

of out of the flow on this because

19:43

I didn't know exactly

19:48

how many different like membership bonuses that

19:50

you get. I knew about course getting

19:52

the bonus episodes from us and other

19:54

Relay members. I forgot that you also

19:56

get discord access. There's a monthly newsletter.

19:59

There's not one. but two official

20:02

behind the scenes podcasts that publish

20:04

once a month about the goings

20:06

on behind Relay with our benevolent

20:08

founders. And again, special

20:10

content from Floh and I and all

20:13

of Relay's contributors. So once again, go

20:15

to relay.fm slash materials to sign up.

20:17

And thank you very, very much because

20:19

that dough is a big, big help

20:21

to us in these tries, especially these

20:23

holiday seasons where I've, I

20:26

haven't been, I haven't been, I haven't

20:28

spent dime one on black Friday sales

20:30

yet, but it's like, I've

20:33

been, I've been looking at the boring sales where it's like,

20:36

Ooh, I've, I actually kind of

20:38

like wishlisted one of these little like light stands

20:40

for the tabletop that I thought would be useful.

20:42

And now I can save a whopping $2 on

20:44

this $15 thing. And

20:47

I mean, $2 is $2, but I don't want to

20:50

feel like a, you know, a dope, like I was

20:52

like, like, I'm being manipulated into like buying a light

20:54

stand and like, listen, $2

20:56

with what's going on right now, honey. I'm telling you,

20:58

do whatever you can to save those pennies. Okay. Amen.

21:05

So we're going to start to get into the, we're going

21:07

to talk about DOJ versus Google right after this break. Okay.

21:13

So on Monday, this week, the

21:15

closing arguments in a antitrust case

21:17

four years in the making, there

21:19

was only like two or three weeks worth of

21:22

testimony. It didn't drag out all that much, but

21:25

I have to, I really have to like

21:27

thank Alison Schiff, who's a reporter writer for

21:29

the Ad Exchanger blog, who

21:31

was there and boots on

21:33

the ground and gave us

21:35

a really nice synopsis of

21:37

the summation of the

21:39

case, both Department of Justice

21:41

and Google each got 90 minutes to sum

21:43

up their case. The

21:45

fun part was the judge

21:47

could interrupt with questions and

21:49

like clarification. So it's like,

21:52

I felt so sorry for

21:54

these lawyers. Like, okay,

21:56

as much as you can feel sorry for like people

21:58

who are making like a lot of money. and have

22:00

a certain degree of power. But it's

22:02

like, I mean, like, have

22:05

you ever had like an

22:09

argument with somebody or something? This

22:12

is where I'm gonna really put my foot down.

22:14

I'm gonna declare that this is not gonna go

22:16

on, I cannot allow this to go on any

22:18

longer. And like you've been thinking

22:20

about it for so long, it was like an hour

22:22

long drive before like you're meeting this person for lunch

22:25

or whatever. And so you had

22:27

this wonderful, and then I'm gonna

22:29

hit them with this comparison to, I'm

22:31

gonna comparison to JR

22:33

Tolkien to

22:36

the Hobbit and it's gonna go, and you build to

22:38

your big place and then the person

22:40

interrupts, wait, Bulbar snatch? Is

22:44

that a Pokemon? No, it's not a Pokemon, it's like,

22:46

but what are you talking about? Will

22:49

you just let me, it was a big point, I was gonna

22:51

make it to the point, but not yet. Because

22:54

I think like a lot of that happened here. Yes,

22:59

yes. Yeah, so

23:01

let's get into it, I guess. So

23:04

basically just to give you the background, so the Department

23:06

of Justice is of course saying

23:08

that the Google ad business is like, is

23:11

the dominant manipulative operator

23:14

in the entire field. They

23:18

did something, I don't know

23:20

what you call it, clever or whether it was a tactic, rather

23:24

than just saying that

23:27

Google is manipulating the

23:29

ad market, that they are a monopoly

23:32

on the ad market. They,

23:34

the government decided to say that,

23:36

oh, there's no one the ad

23:38

market. There is a market for

23:40

ad servers, like the machinery that

23:42

actually puts ads out there,

23:45

ad networks and

23:48

ad exchanges. And

23:50

Google, amongst

23:53

their defenses, where like you're lying, there's no

23:55

such thing as any of this. I

23:57

think that the Department of Justice tech was that,

24:00

Even if we don't convince the judge,

24:03

we got a one out of three shot That

24:06

we can convince this judge that there are monopoly

24:08

on one of these three things Whereas

24:10

like what if they say what if the

24:13

judge says that no and you're basically proven

24:15

that yeah Maybe they've got like an unfair

24:17

edge on some parts of the ad market,

24:19

but not all of them go

24:22

home This was fun, but thank you

24:24

for wasting our time But

24:26

it was so this is but this is why

24:28

I had to come up I had to think

24:30

about again that hour-long drive where all you have

24:33

to all you have to say is that Look,

24:35

I'm just kind of tired of like making

24:37

plans with you and you keep breaking them

24:40

at the last minute Like I that really

24:42

has to change and like but if you've

24:44

got like that hour-long drive instead

24:46

of just Putting that in your

24:48

head. You're like all these clever things

24:50

are coming to mind and so that's what had

24:53

to happen I don't know how long

24:55

it was to drive to the courthouse for the Department

24:57

of Justice attorney who's doing the summation That

25:04

does that does factor in like if I had

25:06

to Like commuting to

25:09

a courthouse because they they start early True

25:12

start that stuff early which means you gotta get up at like 4

25:14

a.m Plus you got a park

25:16

plus you gotta go through security. Yeah a lot of

25:18

time and it's just so stressful Yeah, you have to

25:20

go through security every time you walk into the courthouse,

25:22

right? So the night before

25:24

when this person's was making their notes therefore

25:27

I'm thinking that there they say we're gonna

25:29

I'm gonna start off by saying that there

25:31

are three components to the ad market

25:33

a B and

25:36

C and on all three of these

25:38

marketplaces they they are monopoly and therefore

25:40

no But after like waiting

25:42

an extra 30 minutes circling the circling

25:44

the lot to try to find a parking space They

25:47

decided to say I'm quoting here

25:49

Google is once twice three

25:52

times a monopolist unquote

25:58

I think they I gotta say that that

26:00

maybe, like, I don't know who the attorney's

26:02

boss was at the DOJ, but I bet

26:04

that, hey, Ted, why don't you

26:06

come on over after

26:09

you get home and let's talk over this.

26:12

He's of course referencing once, twice,

26:14

three times a lady, the

26:17

1978 song by the Commodores, written

26:19

by a pre-dancing on the ceiling

26:21

solo act Lionel Richie. It

26:24

was the Commodores first number one hit on the

26:26

Billboard Hot 100, so it does

26:29

is significant. I had

26:31

to check the Wikipedia that at a part,

26:33

here's the Genesis of once, twice, three times

26:35

a lady at a party

26:37

to celebrate his parents' 37th wedding anniversary.

26:39

Lionel Richie's father toasted his mother, Alberta,

26:42

saying, quote, she's a great lady, she's

26:44

a great mother, and she's a great

26:46

friend. The

26:48

toast inspired Richie to write a waltz

26:50

three times a lady, which he dedicated

26:52

to his wife, Brenda. He

26:55

actually intended to give it to, basically

26:57

when the producer, he proposed it as

26:59

like a Commodores track for the next record. He

27:01

said, I really want to give this to Frank

27:03

Sinatra, but the producer said, no,

27:05

no, no, we're having it for this album. But you notice that

27:07

the father said, I

27:09

have three points to make. My wife is

27:12

a great lady, she's a great mother, and she's

27:14

a great friend. One,

27:16

two, three, direct. Nobody was giggling or

27:18

laughing. Okay, Lionel Richie is

27:20

a masterful songwriter, masterful singer. Like he can

27:22

then turn into a song, the

27:25

father realized that this is not a

27:27

time to be clever, this is a

27:29

time to be upright. And yeah, so

27:31

I'm thinking he's regretting that. I

27:34

would be kicking myself on that hour

27:36

and a half long drive home, thinking,

27:38

why, why, why did that song have

27:41

to come up on Sirius FM while I was driving

27:44

in and put it in my head, damn

27:46

it, just damn it.

27:48

Yeah, but you know, it's

27:52

like Legally Blonde, the script. It's

27:55

just one of those things.

27:57

Like. You got

27:59

it. forgive yourself and move on. It

28:02

makes antitrust a lot more

28:04

interesting than it is. I'm sorry. I

28:08

understand how important this is for all of

28:10

us as people, but it's

28:13

not exactly the most digestible

28:16

material, you know? Yeah,

28:18

I mean, you got to pep it up. And the

28:20

judge again was kind of pipping things up. So

28:23

the Department of Justice was boasting, basically going through,

28:26

oh, look, we've brought in all

28:28

these witnesses to testify about and assert

28:30

about the monopolistic behavior that

28:33

they're all ad industry executives. And the

28:35

judge interrupted him and asked, well, why

28:37

didn't the Department of Justice call

28:40

any actual advertisers in to testify?

28:43

At which point he's probably thinking himself,

28:46

the Department of Justice could have used another

28:48

Lionel Richie song called I Forgot from 2001.

28:52

So, again- I don't even know Lionel Richie was still

28:54

putting out music in the 2000s, but you know what?

28:58

Actually, I didn't know, I had

29:00

to go to Wikipedia to a list of all

29:02

the songs that Richie has recorded. That was actually,

29:04

I think, a cover of a French song. But

29:07

yeah, it's like- Oh. But doesn't

29:09

it make you feel good when, like

29:12

Paul McCartney had no need

29:14

to record another song after

29:16

Hey Jude, okay? That's

29:19

like, I've, I can, hopefully

29:22

I've done well, I've

29:24

invested wisely my money. I've

29:27

been careful, I've saved for the future. But look,

29:29

I don't have to justify, hey, why

29:31

do you call yourself a singer-songwriter? I

29:34

wrote Hey Jude, damn it. And

29:36

so you gotta enjoy that Lionel Richie,

29:39

I'm not making any fun

29:41

of him whatsoever. Masterful songwriter,

29:43

masterful singer. And

29:45

even after writing Lady for

29:47

Kenny Rogers, like he says, you

29:49

know what? I've proven everything I

29:52

need to prove. The rest of it is demonstrating

29:54

that I love what I do for a living.

29:56

So good on him. Good

29:58

on him. Yeah. So

30:01

he went on to say, well, Google

30:03

may control the markets, he says, but

30:05

Google doesn't control the facts. Saying

30:08

that again to Google's own evidence. So.

30:12

I wish somebody would say that to Trump, sorry. Yeah,

30:14

well. You know. No. Sorry

30:18

everyone. Unfortunately, he

30:20

does control the facts. Anyway, so

30:23

again, the judge was needling the Department

30:25

of Justice's attorney a little bit. She

30:27

seemed skeptical of that argument that she

30:29

should consider Google's ad

30:31

business to be working in three different antitrust

30:33

markets, not just one. She

30:37

directly said, so wait, why does it matter

30:39

if there are three markets here? Like

30:41

why not if she, anyway. He

30:45

basically thought that this was like a

30:47

dumb tactic or whatever. She also seemed

30:49

to kind of deflate the DOJ's attorney

30:52

a little bit by asking, well, what

30:54

if Google just, has the better widget,

30:56

unquote, and customers are just willing to

30:58

pay more for it. Google

31:01

was arguing that the integrated nature

31:03

of the Google ads product was simpler

31:05

and more attractive. And that's

31:08

one of the reasons why they have this

31:10

really huge dominant market and everything. So.

31:15

And the last one. And again, this is

31:19

why I'm really, really grateful to, yes,

31:21

I know. I said the, I'm sorry, I said the G

31:23

word. Oh God. I

31:27

like my Gemini AI, but oh my God. It's

31:29

like the number of times where it just screws

31:31

up. Anyway, this is why I'm grateful

31:34

to Alison Schiff. It was like, wasn't just a

31:36

bear recounting of the facts.

31:38

Like she really got the spiciness

31:41

of the enterprise. So

31:44

as another part of the closing arguments, though

31:47

the DOJ wanted to hit the point that

31:49

Google was abusing its influence and

31:51

preventing people from using better platforms.

31:54

All the better platforms for Azure out there. And

31:56

the judge asked, well, name one

31:59

better platform. form and the lawyer just

32:01

kind of said, uh, uh, yeah, yeah.

32:09

That's kind of embarrassing. It

32:13

isn't it just tells, it just tells us where we're

32:16

at. You know,

32:18

it's that nobody was paying attention and the monopoly

32:20

was created. You know what I mean? Yeah.

32:24

Okay. Okay. So then Google went up

32:26

to bat. So Google's pitch for ruling in its

32:28

favor came down to, well, look, I mean, how

32:30

do you define like that a monopoly

32:33

exists in a market? Like ad pricing has gone

32:35

down. That's not, and there are like more than

32:37

one option out there. And that's not what happens

32:39

when a monopoly is controlling the market. Like if

32:42

we had absolute control of the market, wouldn't we

32:44

want to like drive prices up, um,

32:47

also saying that, well, yeah, you're,

32:50

you're, thank you for the Lionel Richie

32:52

definition of once twice, three markets, but

32:55

you haven't proven that it's valid, you

32:57

haven't proven that anti-competitive behavior took place.

32:59

The, the no, it isn't defense, of

33:01

course, which has been tried and used

33:04

successfully in so many trials. No, I

33:06

didn't. Well,

33:09

that's what the other person says. Why

33:11

is it always the other person? Yeah.

33:15

And also in this, and this is why like, I'm, I

33:17

wish that I were an antitrust lawyer, because I've been, I've been

33:19

trying to keep up. I've been reading all this stuff, but

33:23

part of their summation was that on the, all of

33:25

all the stuff that the DOJ is bringing up, that's

33:27

all old news anyway, because you're harping, you're pretty much

33:29

harping on just like the unified pricing rules that we

33:32

try to enable in 2019. It's

33:34

like, yeah, but you did that. Is

33:38

there statute of limitations on like monopolistic

33:40

behavior? Um, but

33:42

they also, I

33:45

think that one of the lasting things from both

33:47

of these big antitrust trials, the Google search trial

33:49

and the ad trial is

33:52

the idea of. What

33:55

does a company like Google do with its internal

33:57

communications knowing? that,

34:00

oh my God, the things that we could talk to

34:02

each other about on Slack. Okay. And

34:05

like the things that like we, it's,

34:08

it is like the replace, especially with so

34:10

much remote work and contract work happening. It's

34:12

like, there is no central like water cooler

34:14

or break room where we just talk and

34:17

everything, all the stupid stuff and things we say, cause

34:19

it's funny or concerns, we just

34:22

bubble out there. Like they disappear into

34:24

Adams, into the air and that's it.

34:26

Whereas when we talk about it via

34:29

Slack, that can be resurrected

34:31

by the department of justice during discovery.

34:33

Like several years later, there

34:36

was a, for instance, the DOJ

34:38

came up with a piece of internal communications

34:40

where, one of

34:42

the directors of Google ads

34:44

wondered, I'm quoting here, is there a deeper

34:46

issue with us owning the platform, the exchange

34:48

and a huge network? The analogy would be

34:51

if Goldman or, or Citibank

34:53

owned the New York stock exchange. He said that

34:55

in 2016 email, the

34:58

Google had basically during the summation

35:01

said, look, mean our culture,

35:03

internal culture is to always like foster

35:05

free speech and open debate, say whatever

35:07

you want. Let's debate things like in,

35:09

in public. So yeah, maybe a person

35:11

said that, but that's, that's not a

35:13

smoking gun that this is what we

35:15

were, this represents our policy

35:17

and what we're trying to get after. Um,

35:20

the author of that email in fact,

35:22

described it in testimony as quote, late

35:24

night jet lagged ramblings unquote, basically saying

35:26

that, yeah, you know what? I was

35:28

tired. I was hungry. I had

35:30

like airport food. I

35:33

just, I just been roughed up. Yeah.

35:37

I thought I was going to be in boarding

35:39

group two. I was in boarding group four. I

35:41

was, I was not, I was not, that would

35:43

upset me too, by the way, just as an

35:45

aside to everyone. Yeah. But

35:49

again, the judge like jumped in and

35:51

basically told Google's lawyer, look, you're, you're

35:53

in a quote, you're in dangerous territory.

35:55

When you talk about what Google employees

35:57

were thinking, quote, she said. said, because

35:59

in a lot of cases, we don't

36:01

know. So she wasn't like, okay, I

36:04

understand what you're talking about, but that

36:06

doesn't mean that it's, we doesn't

36:08

mean we shouldn't consider that. Um,

36:10

he also, uh, argued, the,

36:13

the, the other part of their defense was that he

36:16

thinks that the reason why publishers, particularly

36:19

the ones that, that testified were

36:21

unhappy was not because they were

36:24

not getting access to, uh, demand

36:27

numbers that Google ads provided

36:29

them with, but that they were unhappy

36:31

because they didn't get the data exactly

36:33

how they wanted. Um, Microsoft

36:36

for instance, uh, was one

36:38

of the people who were testifying against Google and

36:40

it was like, well, look, we've got our own

36:42

app network too, if we're bidding on the same

36:45

exchange, we need to have access to the same

36:47

numbers that your, uh, your ad platform has and

36:50

Google was providing them with their numbers. The

36:52

problem was like Microsoft was no, we want

36:54

you to custom build us like

36:56

a product that gives us exactly

36:58

the ad numbers that we want formatted how we

37:00

want them and Google basically

37:02

said, no, you've got, you, you,

37:05

I'm sure you've got like at least two

37:07

people at Microsoft who know Python. Okay. Look,

37:09

just write your own damn way of doing

37:12

this. They have a lot of consultants that

37:14

they can put to work. Yes. Cause

37:17

that's what Microsoft does. They hire consultants to

37:19

do these things. Right. People and

37:21

interns, people that don't have to pay. That's kind of funny,

37:23

by the way. I sorry,

37:25

I am imagining this conversation in real

37:28

life, just because I've been around God

37:30

bless you all. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm

37:32

going to use this terminology, but I have been around a lot

37:34

of tech bros and

37:37

you know, people who are like in the industry and

37:39

like have made their careers. I can totally imagine this

37:42

conversation taking place. Like, so,

37:47

uh, the primary justice got the very last word

37:49

that got the last

37:51

20 minutes and the last

37:53

judicial zinger. So not

37:56

having learned their lesson from how well

37:58

the, uh, the one. twice, three times

38:00

a novelist went down. Uh,

38:03

he, he, the Department of Justice compared

38:05

the testimony presented to, oh, it's like

38:07

Dickens, a tale of two cities. The

38:10

stories, there's the stories that were

38:12

from, What is that with all these metaphors? Again,

38:15

it's, I, and

38:17

you know, I'm, I'm as guilty as anybody

38:19

else of like, I often have to talk

38:21

to myself, you know, it's kind of like

38:23

a spring-loaded curtain rod, like, no, Andy, you

38:25

can just say that, you can just say

38:27

that XML formatting like

38:31

has to be done and exactly the right, you

38:33

don't have to compare it to something else, just

38:35

clarity, clarity, clarity. Uh, so

38:38

yeah, basically saying that, Oh, well, there's

38:40

the stories that, uh, that we presented

38:42

by the actual participants, the ad business.

38:44

And then there's the stories that Google told

38:46

by people who are being paid by Google

38:49

and apparently the, the, the, the, again, thank you

38:51

very much for this great reporting because they were

38:53

kind of droning on and on and on. The

38:55

judge like cut in and said, okay, you started

38:58

out with a reference to a tale of two

39:00

cities, which has a guillotine in it. I'm about

39:02

to use it on you. If you, and

39:06

that's almost the judge really say that quote,

39:08

you started out with a reference to a tale

39:11

of two cities, which has a guillotine on it

39:13

and I'm about to use it. Unquote. Basically saying

39:15

that I'm cutting you

39:17

off, like roughly wrap it

39:19

up. Oh my God.

39:21

I love this. This judge definitely made

39:23

their professors laugh in law school. I'm

39:25

just telling you. Oh God.

39:28

She was definitely keeping people awake. That's something that

39:30

like all of us, everyone who was

39:32

in the room who had a report on this was probably very,

39:35

very happy about. Yes,

39:37

because it can be very hard to stay awake during

39:39

those things as I can, as Andy and I can

39:41

tell you through years of journalism school,

39:44

it's hard. Oh, I didn't go to journalism school.

39:46

Unfortunately you are, you are, the, you are the

39:48

certified journalist. Uh, but yeah, staying awake through hundreds

39:50

and hundreds of pages of reading through testimonies also.

39:52

Yeah. Um, so this, but, uh,

39:54

so just like last week, when we, when I

39:56

talked about, uh, like, Oh my God, all these

39:59

headlines about, The government

40:01

forcing Google to sell Chrome, it's

40:03

like, no, again, this is an

40:05

antitrust action. She's

40:07

not even going to rule on this case until

40:10

early next year, after which

40:12

there will be several months until there

40:15

can be possibly a decision on what,

40:18

if they're found to be a

40:20

monopoly, what has to be done

40:22

to remove this unfair marketplace, after

40:25

which there will be appeals, and

40:28

it will end as all these things end

40:30

with some sort of a settlement between Google and

40:32

the Department of Justice, assuming that the new

40:34

administration doesn't just pull the plug on everything, because

40:37

it's all up in the air. I was

40:39

going to ask you, Andy. I

40:41

was going to ask you your opinion on that,

40:43

because you know things will be changing hands

40:45

in a couple of months. And

40:48

as I've been, you know, publishing the podcast

40:51

and like listening in to the last couple of

40:53

episodes, I was thinking to myself, well, what

40:56

are we in for in 2025 with the changing of hands?

41:00

Because I'm reading all this stuff about

41:03

how Silicon Valley leaders

41:05

are just like so, they're

41:08

just like congratulating the new president

41:10

and everything that's going on. It's

41:12

a very different vibe from the

41:14

last time this happened. I'm

41:16

going to speak in not specifics. Okay. And

41:22

I, so I'm just really,

41:24

I'm trying to get a read of

41:26

the temperature going into the new year,

41:28

and I'm having a hard time. It

41:32

feels. Yeah,

41:35

because because again, Sundar Pichai

41:37

was cozened up to, you

41:40

know, he is congratulations. Congratulations

41:43

on the presidency, which

41:45

feels very different from the last time.

41:49

We're Sundar Pichai was like, we will do everything

41:51

to ensure that our employees are protected. You

41:54

know what I mean? Yeah. And I know this is this is

41:56

about antitrust, but I just want to sort of put

41:59

that. as a, that's how I'm reading the waters,

42:02

as I'm seeing this like very

42:05

different demeanor from

42:08

tech leadership, which is making me think,

42:10

is this all because they want things

42:12

to go in their favor? You

42:16

know, now all this stuff has

42:18

been snowballing. You

42:21

know, we've been trying to get the

42:23

antitrust suits pushed

42:26

through as quickly as we can. And

42:28

I just wonder what's gonna come

42:30

in to uproot this. Yeah.

42:34

Well, it's, I mean, there are a lot of dimensions

42:36

to it to be like directed,

42:38

to be direct and simple. Like one

42:41

of the things that, one of the

42:43

reasons why Sundar Pichai was so vocal

42:45

about that in 2016 was that remember,

42:47

Trump won during the campaign was, oh,

42:49

we're gonna get all these immigrants out

42:51

and all these non-white people

42:53

out. And so

42:55

he was basically saying, because they have

42:57

a lot of people at Google who

42:59

are coming in on special visas, those

43:02

special visas that basically say, yeah, we

43:06

need to bring in this talent

43:09

from overseas because we can't, it's

43:11

a special expertise that we can't

43:13

fill the job with people who

43:15

are naturalized citizens, green card

43:18

holders, like natural born citizens, anything like

43:20

that. So he was basically

43:22

assuring his troops that you are not

43:25

gonna be kicked out, like

43:27

rather we're not gonna just simply say, oh, well, well,

43:29

we got a paper saying that all you guys have

43:31

to go like in two weeks. So, oh, well, goodbye,

43:33

please. Make sure you leave your, leave

43:35

your, any Google property like in your cubicle before you

43:37

leave. There's, and which

43:40

is not to say that isn't a

43:42

problem right now. There are a couple of

43:44

companies that have essentially warned

43:46

some of their employees that look,

43:48

if you are spending the holidays

43:50

by traveling overseas, please

43:53

be advised that there

43:55

could be something happen. On

43:57

the day of the inauguration, there could. there

44:00

could be an executive order that makes it difficult

44:02

for you to reenter the country. So

44:05

they weren't like explicitly saying, don't leave the

44:07

country because as soon as you go, because

44:09

the customs and border control is

44:12

a one way door under this new

44:14

administration maybe. The

44:17

other stuff, really difficult to

44:19

say. In terms of antitrust, Trump

44:25

has said, Trump

44:27

has some very, very specific values,

44:30

so to speak, and parts

44:33

of his worldview. One of them is China

44:35

bad, let's hurt China. And

44:39

my read on the antitrust

44:41

situation is that he's not gonna wanna

44:43

weaken or break up Google because he

44:45

has said, oh, well, he

44:47

has actually said China is afraid of Google. And

44:50

also $2 trillion business good, a

44:55

small company who wants to try to make

44:57

it in a competitive market bad. So

44:59

I don't think that's gonna happen. But the bigger problem is

45:02

that it

45:05

is part of the Project 2025

45:07

platform and part of Trump's

45:10

historic platform is that Google

45:12

and other big digital platforms

45:15

are trying to undermine freedom of speech,

45:18

freedom of religion, conservative perspectives and points

45:20

of view by censoring our speech. And

45:22

so we have to, and they have

45:25

to be brought to heal. This

45:28

new FCC commissioner, head

45:31

of the FCC that I talked about last week,

45:33

a real piece of work, he wrote that

45:35

section on the FCC on the Project

45:38

2025 document. And

45:40

item number one was essentially make

45:43

big tech companies hurt bad because

45:45

they are censorship. Not

45:48

a direct quote, but that's about the level of discourse.

45:51

And it didn't help that last week,

45:53

he sent that letter to Sundar Pichai, but also

45:55

Tim Koch, the heads of Mark

45:57

Zuckerberg and the head of Microsoft. saying

46:00

that you have been a, there's a cabal of,

46:02

oh, I have it in front of me. It's

46:06

a censorship cartel that's stifling

46:08

freedom of speech and

46:10

unapproved thought. The Orwellian named

46:12

news guard as your right

46:14

hand. And I promise you that

46:17

we're going to stop, put a stop to this and

46:19

you will not be protected by section 230. Like

46:22

this bad, like overlordish,

46:24

like Darth Vader ripoff. It's

46:27

going to be bad. The other really bad

46:29

thing is that Elon

46:32

Musk is hooked on him

46:34

like a lamprey. And

46:39

he's kind of a dope. He's

46:41

not an engineer. He's

46:45

never founded any of these tech companies

46:47

that he has prospered by. He is

46:49

an entrepreneur and an investor. And

46:52

if he has talents, it is in managing a

46:54

large company. But

46:57

he doesn't know what he's talking about.

46:59

And he's there to advise Donald Trump

47:01

on artificial intelligence. Okay. That's

47:03

going to be bad for everybody and

47:06

advise people on advise them on what

47:08

parts of the government can, what,

47:11

what agencies can be

47:13

completely defunded and D staffed because

47:15

they're not doing anything that either

47:18

a profits Elon Musk or that Elon Musk

47:20

actually understands. I'll

47:23

cut it off because I can, this is, I

47:25

could go on for another hour. Unfortunately,

47:28

this is like what I wanted to talk about

47:30

for most of my like NPR talk chat last

47:32

week. Oops. So I spent

47:34

like almost an entire week just really

47:37

diving into every single example of tech

47:40

that I think could be affected. And

47:42

I basically needed a hug

47:44

after the end of it.

47:47

It's yeah. Yeah. Especially, especially with Musk.

47:49

I mean, there's, there's again,

47:51

I prompt, I keep promising to end this, but it's like there.

47:54

He is one, definitely one of those CEOs who

47:57

walks walks through the manufacturing plant.

48:00

making orders and solving problems and cutting

48:03

waste and making edicts and saying, well,

48:06

we should go in this direction. Oh, well, this isn't

48:08

necessary. Let's get rid of that entirely. Meanwhile,

48:10

there are people walking behind him like

48:13

who were like five seconds later saying,

48:17

no, keep it as it is. We're not

48:19

going to change it. No, no, you're not

48:21

fired. You're really, really important. Well, talk

48:23

to me on Slack later on. And

48:25

he's completely unaware of,

48:28

yeah, basically there's

48:30

he does unaware of how many people are

48:32

there to undo all the damage that he

48:34

would be doing if he were,

48:36

if his will were actually law. And unfortunately

48:39

now we are in a position where his

48:41

will might actually be law. Oh, and on

48:43

that note, let's take a break. Cause I,

48:47

sorry everyone, but you know, everyone, it

48:52

is what it is, man. Next

48:54

bit, we'll be having some fun and talking. We'll be talking to

48:56

her. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

49:02

Oh, so I've already said that my

49:05

this year's Thanksgiving plans are basically,

49:08

can you hear that? The beeping in the background?

49:10

Yeah, I do. I hear that. I have no

49:12

idea what that is. That is like the, the,

49:14

the, the cheap Casio watch that I bought like

49:16

a month and a half, two months ago that

49:18

I really loved. Um, it sounded

49:21

like it was coming from the app. Oh, no,

49:23

no. I did. It's, I

49:25

have an alarm set for, for

49:27

noon because like at the end of

49:29

the day, like I put

49:31

it on a hook. That's like, I'm supposed to put on a

49:33

hook that's next to like my nightstand or whatever. So it's always

49:35

the same. So I can put it on my, when I wake

49:37

up, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Like

49:39

sometimes I'll be like writing and I'll take it off

49:42

and put it next to the keyboard or whatever. Uh,

49:45

and because like there is no find

49:47

my app for like for an Apple

49:49

watch or another smartwatch, I

49:52

set the alarm for like noon so that if I

49:54

ever misplace it, I can just like be quiet at

49:56

11 59. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Maybe

50:00

not that day, but definitely the next day I'll be

50:02

able to find it. That's

50:04

a good one. That's a good one. See tip

50:07

for anybody. Again, we deliver value for money.

50:09

And even though even if you're not contributing

50:11

money, we are, we want to value and

50:13

follow your life. Uh, just, just

50:15

like Google wants to enhance our lives and

50:17

boy, is it being helpful. Yes. Um, so

50:20

I already mentioned that I'm going to have

50:22

like, again, a delicious, I'm going

50:24

to, I'm going to get a box of Dunkin

50:26

Donuts for breakfast, not a whole box, but, you

50:28

know, uh, pizza for, for lunch.

50:30

I might cook something nice for, I don't know.

50:32

I'm going to go, I'm going to go shopping.

50:35

Like after this, I don't know if I'll buy

50:37

like some hamburger meat or whatever. We'll

50:39

see what's left. Low key for

50:41

at least for Thanksgiving. Uh,

50:43

so that's the great thing about having a

50:46

low key Thanksgiving. Like everybody's going, Oh my

50:48

God, my cream of mushroom soup. Oh, I'll

50:50

kill you for that last kid of cream

50:52

of mushroom soup. I don't care if it's

50:54

low fat. I gotta have it. Like nobody's

50:57

buying like donuts. No one is buying like

50:59

hamburger meat. That's fair. No. So,

51:02

uh, so, so anyway,

51:04

so, uh, but to help us out, hope

51:06

the rest of us out, the everyone else

51:08

out, uh, on the blog, Google

51:10

blog, they posted this week, uh, uh,

51:13

five ways I'm handling the holidays with

51:16

Gemini. And so this was not written

51:19

by a Googler. I think it

51:21

was, it's credited to a Molly

51:23

McHugh Johnson, uh, who

51:25

is, I think she was credited at the bottom

51:28

here. Yeah. I

51:31

have to, I have to find out who she is. Molly

51:33

is a writer for the keyword. She focuses on

51:35

future stories about Googlers and the things they're working

51:37

on from AI projects to new devices. That's

51:40

a, that's an interesting gig. She's a, so

51:42

she's a staff writer for Google. She's been

51:44

doing this for four years. I

51:47

was wondering if she was like a project manager

51:49

in some level for Gemini or whatever. Um,

51:52

I think, see, this is, this is where, like,

51:55

uh, this is where like old, uh,

51:58

uh, uh, uh, I was. That

52:00

could be misinterpreted. There's a

52:02

path from some people who are like, you

52:04

know what, I'm tired of being a journalist,

52:07

writing for news publications that keep being bought

52:09

by other companies that turn out to be

52:11

jerks. I'm tired of the

52:13

collapsing market for A. I'm

52:15

gonna be a staff writer for

52:18

Apple, writing developer

52:20

documentation, or writing

52:22

stuff for the Google Q&A. I mean, perks.

52:24

That sounds like a... I

52:28

don't blame them at all. I don't

52:30

blame them at all. That's perfectly fine.

52:32

Especially at Apple, the little stock options

52:34

they give you is... Anyway.

52:39

Ask me for the names of 10 people I used to work

52:41

with in

52:46

Mac publishing 15 years ago, and

52:49

two thirds of them are now working for

52:51

Apple, mostly because they're San

52:54

Francisco based. I

52:56

almost felt offended that I wasn't headhunted

52:58

for... I can feel that. I'm

53:02

not committed to unbiased

53:04

truth. For a good

53:06

dental plan, hey. As

53:08

long as I don't have to say that I'm being unbiased. Anyway,

53:11

okay, five ways I'm handling the holiday with Gemini.

53:13

Let's go through these and see what

53:16

kind of sticks out. Number one is

53:18

brainstorming gift ideas. This year,

53:20

I plan on getting everyone something they

53:22

actually want or need, no photo frames

53:24

or candles here. Okay, I gotta

53:26

stop you right there. Photo frames are

53:28

a really good gift, especially when they

53:30

arrive, when you put a really great

53:32

family photo that maybe they don't have

53:35

in it. Like, okay,

53:37

if it's an instant pot that

53:39

they'll probably never use, versus, oh

53:42

my God, that's a picture

53:44

of my dad and your

53:46

dad at scout

53:48

camp in the 1970s. Where

53:51

did this picture come from? And it's like

53:53

the best gift. And every time you visit

53:55

them, it will be like right there over

53:57

the sofa. So photo frames are a very

54:00

decent gift. So... already off on a bad

54:02

start in terms of whatever. So

54:04

that's- Also,

54:06

sorry, brainstorming gift ideas. I want you to

54:09

go to Gem and I and be really

54:11

specific about who the person is and your

54:13

relationship to them. Because if

54:15

you put, you can put in things like, I

54:18

actually hate this person or this

54:21

person and I, no, I'm serious. Or

54:23

this person and I are not really

54:25

on good terms right now. What

54:28

would I get them? Because

54:30

I just typed something into Gem and I, I'm not going to share

54:32

what. But it was

54:34

definitely, I think we need to talk more

54:41

about Gem and I doing emotional labor. Yeah.

54:45

I'm typing something in just to see what I'll get. Okay,

54:48

I'm very curious. I have a tense

54:50

relationship with a coworker, but the office

54:52

has a tradition of swapping gifts. What can I give

54:54

him? A man 30 to

54:56

40, oops, 20, 30 to 40 years old, not

55:05

athletic, has a football

55:07

schedule taped to his desk that

55:19

will cost me no more than,

55:22

let's say, $20,

55:26

is that a good like office credit? Okay,

55:28

$20. That's a white elephant.

55:31

But won't look

55:33

cheap. Here we go. Okay,

55:37

let's see. Pause, pause, pause.

55:39

It's tricky to buy gifts for people you don't get

55:41

along with. Here are a few ideas based on his

55:44

apparent interest in football, keeping your budget and the not

55:46

cheap factor in mind, a team themed

55:48

desk organizer, a small classy organizer with his

55:50

favorite team's logo could be useful and won't

55:52

break the bank. Funny

55:55

football socks, okay. Pair

55:57

of novelty socks with a football theme. gift

56:00

card to a sports bar Okay,

56:03

bookies bad eat jar find a nice

56:05

jar or repurpose one and label it

56:07

bookies bad beach Are there's a fun

56:09

way for him to save spare change

56:11

for the next time his team loses

56:13

a bet So basically

56:15

you're saying oh, I'm pretty sure that you

56:17

probably have a gambling addiction Important

56:20

note since your relationship is tense keep

56:22

the gift on the more generic slash less

56:24

personal side avoid anything that could be

56:26

misconstrued as overly friendly or sarcastic Gemini

56:30

said right after like assuming that he

56:32

has a gambling problem. I'm gonna do

56:34

a follow-up How

56:38

about Gemini can be fun

56:40

something that's not

56:43

sports related like

56:45

a food item He

56:50

has no allergy I Want

56:53

to see we're not trying to kill him

56:57

He has a mild allergy to grapefruit if he

56:59

got just rashes and hives that would please me

57:01

so long as he doesn't get sick There

57:07

are some food related gift ideas, they're still

57:09

under $20 and not too personal gourmet coffee

57:11

or tea Okay,

57:13

that's that is that

57:15

sounds like yeah, see hot chocolate or cook

57:18

perfectly generic That's perfect. Leesh and Eric that's

57:20

that seems like the sort of thing that

57:22

you have like eight of

57:24

those already gift wrapped in a drawer somewhere Correct.

57:26

I go to the store. I go. Oh, I

57:28

need to buy some of these things. Uh-huh Yeah,

57:31

yeah, yeah that the that you go out and

57:33

grab like we're after say. Oh, I'm glad you

57:35

dropped by I was about to drop by your

57:37

place with your gift. Yeah, exactly goes to the

57:39

closet puts a bow on it real quick brings

57:41

it out Here you go Okay,

57:43

unique snack basket put together a basket

57:46

with basket with a variety of unusual

57:48

snacks or international treats Okay, that's fine

57:50

because it's all it's not like again

57:52

something you got at the pharmacy. That's a

57:54

pre Pre-packaged

57:57

gourmet coffee kit because at least it comes across

57:59

as oh Oh wow, here's a bunch of candies

58:01

that, I do know of a really

58:03

great store that has a really good international, they

58:05

have a pick and mix wall, but

58:07

it's all Russian candies and Greek candies.

58:10

And that would be kind of fun to, oh wow, I've

58:12

never tried this before. Also,

58:14

that was another great use for

58:16

me for the G word, because

58:19

while I was shopping there, it's like, here's a

58:21

Russian tiny little wrapped suite that

58:23

has a picture of a squirrel on it, but

58:26

I don't know anything else about it. And it

58:28

would like, I would use the G word. Oh,

58:31

I love those candies with the squirrels. Yeah, yeah. Yes,

58:33

those are so good, they have little, yeah, yeah, yeah,

58:36

yeah, squirrel Russian candies. And I would identify the candies

58:38

and turn them inside there. I would see those all

58:40

the time. Yeah. Subscription to a food delivery service. Give

58:42

them a gift certificate for a meal delivery service so

58:44

we can try new recipes without the hassle of shopping

58:46

or cooking. I did say $20 budget,

58:49

that's like one

58:52

week's meals or two weeks meals.

58:54

I think they're like $10 or $12. They're

58:58

good value in that they basically send you a meal that

59:04

you just have to like, I do

59:06

like Factor. I really, it's

59:08

like, I did like- Oh,

59:11

the meal subscription kits. I did like when Factor was

59:13

a sponsor and for an entire two weeks, it was

59:15

just like, here's a

59:17

really, truly, they're not a sponsor anymore. So

59:19

it's not like I'm giving them, I'm

59:23

sucking up to them. It's like, it was nice

59:25

to say, I really don't feel like cooking tonight,

59:27

but I also don't wanna just like make a

59:29

ham and cheese sandwich. Oh, that's right. I've got

59:32

like this really nice like Florendine chicken with a

59:34

side of like a Spanish fries. Oh, good, nice.

59:37

But yeah, that would be kind of spendy. Let's

59:41

see. Okay, so let's, you

59:45

think it did well there? It seemed like it

59:47

was just common sense sort of thing. It wasn't really, maybe

59:49

it would do better if I give it more

59:51

information. If I had been like

59:54

using Gemini as a therapist and

59:56

like saying, oh my God, Josh is

59:58

going to drive me up. up the fricking

1:00:00

wall. So now he's doing this thing where

1:00:03

like he can't, he's got

1:00:05

this medical thing. And so he can't like have

1:00:08

coffee like after like, after

1:00:11

2 p.m. So now it just starts tapping the

1:00:14

pencil, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping and gets his

1:00:16

coffee mug. And I

1:00:18

don't know whether I want to hire

1:00:21

someone to kill him or whether I want that pleasure

1:00:23

of killing him with my own hands. And

1:00:26

then maybe after like pages and pages of that, I'm

1:00:31

sorry, I'm gonna have to. What

1:00:34

happened? How about a passive

1:00:37

aggressive gift? Let's

1:00:42

see. Something that's

1:00:44

kind of mean, but

1:00:48

he won't take

1:00:50

it that way. Just

1:00:56

to give me, give

1:00:59

me some personal

1:01:03

satisfaction. I

1:01:08

understand the desire for a little harmless payback,

1:01:10

but I can't recommend giving a passive aggressive

1:01:12

gift. Because if it

1:01:14

did that, it would get sued. Well,

1:01:16

I mean, I will have

1:01:19

to say that if Gemini were a real friend, it

1:01:21

would be, they would be totally on my side. And

1:01:23

we would be like brainstorming the next three hours. Even

1:01:26

if he doesn't outwardly take it the wrong way,

1:01:28

it can still create more tension or awkwardness in

1:01:30

your working relationship. Usually best take the high road,

1:01:33

a neutral and impersonal gift. However,

1:01:35

if you're determined to find something with a subtle

1:01:37

dig, here are a couple of ideas that walk

1:01:40

that line, per se with caution, a

1:01:42

book on workplace etiquette. Okay,

1:01:45

that's a little too weird. Wow. Okay,

1:01:49

but a stress ball. That

1:01:53

is a good one. A stress ball is

1:01:55

a common office gift, but it could also be interpreted

1:01:57

as a suggestion that he needs to chill out. Yeah,

1:01:59

because you can get it in. in characters now. So

1:02:01

it's like, oh, I got you a stress ball of

1:02:03

your favorite character. So it's like, oh, thanks. Oh, it's

1:02:05

a little, you know, Yoda

1:02:08

stress ball. Oh, wow. You know, I love

1:02:11

Yoda. If you're

1:02:13

looking for a way to deal with the

1:02:15

situation more constructively, consider talking to your coworker

1:02:17

directly or speaking to HR if the situation

1:02:19

warrants it. No, okay, that comes through. I

1:02:21

like the stress ball idea. It would be,

1:02:23

again, because again, if

1:02:25

I got it with his favorite football team, okay,

1:02:28

that he would say, oh, that's, it's

1:02:30

not such a, I

1:02:35

don't want to say intimate, but it's not

1:02:37

the sort of thing that's, oh, I want to

1:02:39

be friends. I really understand you. But nonetheless, he

1:02:42

wouldn't get the, oh my God, you are stressing,

1:02:44

you're such a ball or whatever. I'm

1:02:47

sorry, I'm having too much fun here. Organizing

1:02:51

schedules, budgets, gifts, and more. I plan

1:02:53

on using JEMONize Google Sheets extension to

1:02:55

create templates for things like my schedule

1:02:58

and also for creating a tracking down. It's

1:03:00

actually hecka useful. It's okay

1:03:02

to use JEMONize for that, everyone. We don't have

1:03:05

to snark on that one. It actually is helpful.

1:03:09

After it helped me pack for

1:03:11

London perfectly, I can't hate

1:03:13

on it anymore. I really can't. Yeah,

1:03:17

not on that part. I've

1:03:20

never actually used that before. So I'm gonna

1:03:22

say- Well, especially if you are a scattered brain like

1:03:24

me, because my

1:03:26

hardest part is getting started. Sometimes I need

1:03:29

something to get started for me before

1:03:33

I can move forward. I

1:03:40

need to organize all of my- Why are you feeding into

1:03:42

Gemini right now? I need a

1:03:44

way to organize all of my holiday commitments. I've

1:03:48

got a bunch of family

1:03:50

and office parties and

1:03:56

I need to show up with

1:03:58

food or- presence for

1:04:01

most of them. So

1:04:04

I just put that in. Okay.

1:04:10

Just a sec. Still

1:04:13

thinking. Punching

1:04:17

a big hole in the ozone to power

1:04:19

this. Okay.

1:04:23

It just created a table. Date, time,

1:04:25

event, location, host, what to bring and

1:04:27

gift. Filling

1:04:30

in with sample data.

1:04:32

Oops. Sorry.

1:04:37

Yeah, event, office, holiday, party, family,

1:04:40

dinner, cousins, brunch, Christmas dinner. Okay.

1:04:43

Host, my, office,

1:04:46

holiday, party, location, the office bar, host,

1:04:49

Michael Scott. Nice touch. Gift,

1:04:51

white outfit, gift. Don't forget

1:04:53

to wear an ugly sweater. Okay.

1:04:57

That's a good starting point. Yeah. Yeah,

1:05:00

exactly. It's a good starting point. Yeah. Okay,

1:05:02

that's good. Okay, you're right. We should not

1:05:05

be snagging on that. Asking

1:05:07

all the cooking questions. So I

1:05:10

guess instead of frantically texting my mom the night

1:05:12

before Thanksgiving for turkey defrosting tips or spending time

1:05:14

searching for what cookies I can make with what's

1:05:16

in my pantry and fridge, I can ask Gemini

1:05:18

and get super, okay, that's solid. Particularly

1:05:22

like if you can use it multimodal, if

1:05:24

I can take a picture of like,

1:05:27

wait, is this the right kind of flour

1:05:29

if I'm making, making an almond

1:05:31

cake or whatever? Right,

1:05:34

right, right. Particularly

1:05:36

substitutions. They, the writer puts in, I also asked

1:05:38

for substitution ideas if I can't make it to

1:05:40

the store, butter combined with milk is a good

1:05:42

swap for heavy cream. Did not know that, but

1:05:44

that's a good tip. Okay. Oh,

1:05:48

and- Just FYI, every time you use Gemini

1:05:50

to do this, we

1:05:53

use, you use water. Sorry.

1:05:58

Believe me- Just reminding everyone. If

1:06:01

I'm trying to live up to like

1:06:03

the Western ideal of a perfect Christmas,

1:06:06

wasting water is the very least of

1:06:08

the planets. That's true. That's true. That's

1:06:10

true. You're right. But

1:06:13

there's a plug for Gemini Live. I can

1:06:15

do all this hands-free. When I'm covered with

1:06:17

flour, I can still ask for quick conversions

1:06:19

or tips. Okay, party planning

1:06:21

with a custom gem. Again, she must

1:06:24

have been given like a list of, here are the features that

1:06:26

we want you to include in all of your tips. Um,

1:06:30

okay. That's like, how many

1:06:32

napkins do you think I'll need for Thanksgiving? So we'll

1:06:34

know that, oh, well, if you're having ex people, okay,

1:06:37

writing invites and letters, set up

1:06:39

a basic invite. I'll ask Gemini to come up

1:06:41

with a poem for my white elephant party invites.

1:06:43

And I plan on using it to help me

1:06:45

write a pun-filled letter to go on along with

1:06:47

my holiday cards. Okay. Okay. Well,

1:06:50

we're going to have to try this.

1:06:52

Oh no. Okay. I'm, I

1:06:55

want a funny poem

1:06:59

to include in

1:07:02

my invitations to

1:07:05

my family

1:07:08

and friends. Oops.

1:07:12

To my Christmas

1:07:17

party. Uh, I

1:07:23

want it to, uh, make

1:07:25

fun of how messy

1:07:27

my house is and

1:07:30

how little money I

1:07:40

spent on decorations

1:07:43

and food. People

1:07:48

will also be bringing

1:07:50

their own alcohol. Here

1:07:56

we go. "'Tis

1:08:00

the season to be jolly, though my

1:08:02

house is looking shoddy. The tree's a

1:08:05

bit lopsided, tinsel's gone astray, and dust

1:08:07

bunnies are having a holiday. The

1:08:09

decor's a bit vintage, let's say with a

1:08:12

wink. Okay, I found it all curbside, think

1:08:14

what you think. The snacks are from the

1:08:16

dollar store, a bargain is free, but hey,

1:08:18

that leaves more cash for presents, you see."

1:08:21

I wouldn't want to save presents for me,

1:08:23

but again, this is just a first draft,

1:08:26

I can edit it. BYOB, my friends, that's

1:08:28

the party plan, cause egg dog and cheap

1:08:30

wine, where's the fun in that can? So

1:08:32

bring your good cheer and a bottle to

1:08:34

share, and we'll laugh till we cry without

1:08:36

a single care. Just don't judge my housekeeping

1:08:38

or the state of my floor. Tis the

1:08:41

season for good spirits, what else could you

1:08:43

ask for? So come one, come all to

1:08:45

my humble abode, where laughter's the finest gift

1:08:47

on this festive road." Okay,

1:08:50

solid. Okay. Okay.

1:08:54

I would say that's solid. Okay. Good

1:08:57

tip. Again, you're a corporate

1:08:59

shill, but again, Molly, you did

1:09:01

a good job here. I think you came up

1:09:03

with some really good tips. You fulfilled the brief

1:09:06

more than adequately, and I

1:09:08

salute you. Okay,

1:09:10

that's good. But again, still, picture

1:09:12

frames, one of the best gifts. Do

1:09:17

you like getting gifts like really good? If someone

1:09:19

gave you like a really good pair of socks,

1:09:22

how would you react? Oh,

1:09:25

last year I asked for a bunch

1:09:28

of, for specifically a brand of socks. There

1:09:30

you go. And I,

1:09:32

God, I look forward to

1:09:34

washing them so that I could put them

1:09:37

back on my feet. So that's how I feel about them. Yeah.

1:09:40

I am motivated to wash them more

1:09:43

regularly than other clothing because I want

1:09:45

to wear them so often. Yeah.

1:09:48

See, it's, I

1:09:50

think that they were, there was a

1:09:52

lot of training on gift giving on like little kids

1:09:55

because picture again, picture frame with like

1:09:57

you giving the camera the

1:09:59

finger. your bad gift, really

1:10:02

bad gift. But picture frame that clearly you

1:10:04

just took off your own wall, took

1:10:07

out like whatever calendar you had in there

1:10:09

since 1998. Again,

1:10:12

bad gift. But again, nice

1:10:14

frame with a really nice touching,

1:10:16

personal photo, solid, solid gift.

1:10:21

Well, I think that's gonna

1:10:23

wrap it up, I do think. Yeah,

1:10:25

yeah. It was, God, I'm

1:10:27

so glad you're back. It was so much more fun

1:10:29

than just like me alone

1:10:32

with a microphone. It's, things

1:10:35

tend to happen when we're together as

1:10:37

podcasting people. Well, and I'm

1:10:39

also, I also appreciate you because this,

1:10:42

you know, I will

1:10:44

return to my post at Gizmodo next week.

1:10:46

So this helps, you

1:10:49

know, with the scaries a little bit. You

1:10:52

gotta ease back into things. Yeah,

1:10:55

exactly. And again, I'm- I'm

1:10:57

a friendly person, so. Exactly,

1:10:59

this is a safe

1:11:01

space. Phil. Yes, exactly.

1:11:04

Phil with love and support, yeah.

1:11:06

Yes. Well,

1:11:08

speaking of support, as always, you can support our

1:11:10

show, everything on the Relay.fm network by

1:11:12

becoming a member. Again, we got a good one

1:11:14

this week. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward

1:11:16

to talking about this with you. And

1:11:18

head on over to Relay.fm slash material to

1:11:20

sign up, gain access to all that stuff

1:11:22

we talked about. And once again, go to

1:11:25

givrelay.com if you wanna save 20% on an

1:11:27

annual membership. So that's gonna be

1:11:29

it for this week. Thanks

1:11:31

everybody so much for listening this time. We hope you're

1:11:33

gonna be with us again next week. Till then, please

1:11:35

have a happy, safe, and healthy seven days. Enjoy your

1:11:37

Thanksgiving, whether you're here with your family

1:11:41

that you were born with or the family that you

1:11:43

acquired later on, or spending it

1:11:45

like alone and with just one or two

1:11:47

people on the sofa eating cold pizza and

1:11:50

watching free TV. Have

1:11:52

a great Thanksgiving, everybody. Bye-bye.

1:11:54

Bye everyone. Thanks

1:12:00

for watching!