Bad Voltage » Ogg Vorbis: Recent Episodes
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Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which there is a particularly excellent shirt, a particularly absent salting of the conversation with, y’know, actual facts and that from Jeremy, and:
- [00:00:00] Intro
- [00:02:19] CrowdStrike: how half the computers in the world went down (with thanks to abadidea for research)
- [00:28:41] Reddit might paywall some subreddits and what this means about Reddit, their business model, and Silicon Valley thinking
- [00:57:14] Outro
We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we return after an unplanned hiatus, there is a squirrel in your car (not a euphemism), and:
- [00:00:00] Intro
- [00:04:16] The US government demands that Bytedance sell TikTok, or do they? There’s lots going on in this case, and it leads into lots of discussion about the purpose of tech regulation as a whole, which may well become a whole other show
- [00:24:59] Tesla’s US market share falls below 50%; the times they are a’changin’ for the EV industry
- [00:46:03] Windows Recall recalled (LOL)
- [00:52:00] Outro
We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we look to the year ahead (well, the 10 months ahead) and predict what will happen in the tech industry and the world in 2024.
2024’s predictions:
- [00:00:00] Intro
- [00:02:49] Jeremy: Sundar Pichai will not be CEO by end of 2024
- [00:06:55] Jeremy: At least one major streaming service will be shut down, or acquired
- [00:11:30] Jeremy: Elon Musk Sells X, or X goes public
- [00:13:42] Jeremy: Bonus
- [00:17:29] Stuart: Film studio to release movie with AI-revived deceased actor
- [00:21:08] Stuart: Fusion reactor generates surplus power for practical use, ready for widespread deployment
- [00:23:05] Stuart: A nuclear weapon is detonated
- [00:26:23] Stuart: Bonus
- [00:30:45] Jono: Tesla to release budget EV ~$30k
- [00:35:22] Jono: Google Gemini will get shut down and replaced
- [00:39:53] Jono: VR photorealistic avatars
- [00:46:35] Jono: Bonus
- [00:47:41] Gemini predictions
- [00:49:23] Outro
We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×54-the-joe-dolce-music-theatre/12476
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which in traditional Christmas style we look back on our predictions for 2024 and Jono whines about half points. More successfully than usual this year, admittedly.
Have a happy holiday season! We’ll be back in the new year.
- [00:00:00] Intro
- [00:01:44] Jeremy: Tiktok gets banned in the USA
- [00:05:59] Jeremy: Hidden Crypto Risks in a Traditional Financial Institution
- [00:07:17] Jeremy: Netflix gets acquired
- [00:08:26] Jeremy: AI’s Swift Progress Hits a Clear Slowdown
- [00:21:42] Jeremy: Web Splinters into Sino, Euro, and American Blocs
- [00:22:09] Jeremy: Mastodon Peaks Early, Declines Afterwards
- [00:24:28] Jeremy: Significant Equity Stake Acquired in Canonical
- [00:25:29] Stuart: Texas HB20 Social Media Law Heads to and is Upheld by US Supreme Court
- [00:28:01] Stuart: Global daily Twitter users will drop a minimum of 10% by the end of 2023
- [00:29:53] Stuart: AI-Generated Song Enters the Charts
- [00:33:40] Stuart: Apple to Permit Sideloading or Third-Party Browser Engines on iOS
- [00:34:49] Stuart: Someone buys Netflix
- [00:35:59] Jono: Meta to Announce Large-Scale Layoffs in Metaverse Division
- [00:37:45] Jono: Twitter to Introduce Long-Form Video Platform with Monetization Options
- [00:41:31] Jono: Anticipated Legal Restriction in US or EU for ChatGPT & Large Language Models
- [00:42:56] Jono: Apple’s AR/VR Headset Earns Praise Despite Lingering Viability Doubts
- [00:47:20] Jono: Potential Reasons for Trump’s Election Exit: Claims of Persecution or Legal Hurdles
- [00:48:36] Jono: Bing Introducing ChatGPT-Like Features, Expects Substantial Growth
- [00:53:51] Outro
We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×64-cassandra-go-home/12525
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is temporarily not present, website hosting issues are acknowledged and briefly discussed, and:
- [00:00:00] Intro
- [00:01:16] New York intends to have air taxis by 2025, including bonus London Illustrated News content
- [00:10:23] Microsoft Teams announce upcoming 3D meetings in VR, including a Lex Friedman/Mark Zuckerberg interview
- [00:24:32] As Nikki Haley pushes for “algorithm transparency” and banning anonymous accounts, we dive a bit into the murky waters of legislation of social media networks and what various governments want from that
- [00:45:27] Outro
We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we do a bit of a deep dive into the (semi-)recent trend of finding new ways for creators to get paid. Patreon’s been around for a long time (but could be doing better), and the idea of making a thing and getting paid for the thing has been around for considerably longer, but it’s a relatively new innovation for platforms to encourage payments and share revenue with creators. Or is it? Is this actually new? Is this what was there already but in a superficially different outfit? And… will it work?
We’re on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we revisit an old friend, Room 101, the place where all the things we hate should be banished. At least according to each of us: whether the other two can be so convinced is another thing entirely… [00:04:07] Jono: All videoconferencing except Zoom […]
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which multiple minutes of pre-show work are awkwardly wasted, we haven’t got a sign on the roof, and: [00:01:39] GPTBot is launched to crawl your websites and add their technological distinctiveness to its own model, and there is discussion of robots.txt changes [00:11:08] MDN, […]
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we discuss ad-supported services and the (potential?) rise of subscriptions. Have ads gone away, or started to? Are social media networks being supported by ads now pivoting to something else? And are Patreon and sponsorships mostly a boon for small creators, or a […]
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which there is unsceptical intensity, we are all eaten by a T-1000, and we have collected a list of concerns about Large Language Model-based AI, which we’re going to dive into!
- [00:00:00] Introduction
- [00:04:30] The “free software” concern: it normalises inhaling information for free and then renting out access to it. Upcoming EU regulation requires LLM creators to declare copyrighted material used in training corpora
- [00:09:30] The automation one: puts lots of mid-level workers people out of a job, with zero provision for what should happen to those people
- [00:25:25] The costlessness one: if it’s free (or at least easy) to generate text (and images and sound and so on), it becomes easy to flood places with it, which leads to finding hotels online being even more difficult, more fake news sites, students submitting LLM-written essays, etc
- [00:30:40] The inaccuracy one: LLMs “hallucinate”, meaning that they make up lies and present it with as much confidence as actual information, so it’s very hard to tell the difference, which is problematic when it’s relied upon and can be downright defamatory (as in the case of Jonathan Turley, law professor, on an LLM-generated list of “lecturers who have sexually harassed their students” which he didn’t)
- [00:33:35] The magnification of existing bias one: generated text embeds existing biases
- [00:53:30] The creativity one: where does the next generation of music and art and writing come from if this generation is written largely by LLMs?
Also, we’re now on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
https://community.badvoltage.org/
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which there’s more smoky back rooms than usual, everyone’s on Orkut, and:
- [00:01:14] Who likes Microsoft Teams? Microsoft promises it’s made Teams less confusing and resource hungry, while Teams surprisingly now has 270m users to Slack’s 20m.
- [00:08:21] An “open letter” from tech pioneers calls for a halt on AI development
- [00:20:31] USA wants to ban TikTok: is this tech, security, or geopolitics?
- [00:33:25] Google Search Adds Features for Info Verification: will this work? can this work?
Also, we’re now on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmX7qyr1nV4https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×54-the-joe-dolce-music-theatre/12476
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we spend a show inventing topics which need a whole other show to talk about, we reminisce about Google Plus, and:
- [00:01:36] Twitter Blue, Meta Verified: the social networks go premium. Is it going to work?
- [00:35:45] The FBI recommend that everyone uses an ad-blocker
- [00:45:16] Salesforce pays Matthew McConaughey $10M/year
- [00:52:47] LastPass hack, allegedly via a senior developer’s Plex?
- [00:57:11] Reddit does comments search!
Also, we’re now on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://join.slack.com/t/badvoltage/shared_invite/zt-1porzolgy-eNrK6wREoVIINTbLi_kbsg!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×54-the-joe-dolce-music-theatre/12476
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we look, as has been threatened a bunch recently, at Mastodon. What’s it all about? Is Mastodon the new Twitter, and is it trying to be? And how far have we got into it?
Also, we’re now on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we create predictions for 2023! What will happen over the next twelve months in the world of tech? Here’s what we think…
- Stuart: the Texas HB20 social media law will come before the US Supreme Court, and the US Supreme Court will uphold it as constitutional
- Stuart: Global daily Twitter users will drop a minimum of 10% by the end of 2023
- Stuart: A song claimed to be composed and performed entirely by AI will get in the charts
- Stuart (Bonus): Apple will either allow sideloading or allow third-party browser engines on iOS
- Stuart (Bonus): Someone buys Netflix
- Jeremy: Tiktok gets banned in the USA
- Jeremy: At least one traditional financial institution will have taken on substantial crypto risk that wasn’t fully disclosed
- Jeremy: Netflix is acquired
- Jeremy: The rapid advances in AI slow down in a very obvious way
- Jeremy (Bonus): the web starts fragmenting into 3 distinct blocs: sino, euro, americano
- Jeremy (Bonus): Mastodon usage peaks in the first half and drops steadily from there
- Jeremy (Bonus): someone takes a large equity stake in Canonical
- Jono: Meta will announce significant (1000+ peolpe) layoffs in their Metaverse division
- Jono: Twitter will launch a YouTube competitor. Users will be able to upload long-form videos (1hr+), monetize their videos with ads, and see a video view
- Jono: There will be at least 1 legal regulatory requirement be put into practice in the US or EU that restricts the use of ChatGPT and/or Large Language Models
- Jono (Bonus): Apple will release their AR/VR headset, will garner positive reviews for the product, but press will still question the viability of AR/VR
- Jono (Bonus): Donald Trump will drop out of the election for one of two reasons: (1) claims of persecution, or (2) a legal decision prevents him from running
- Jono (Bonus): Bing will launch with ChatGPT-like functionality and see significantly increased growth. Significantly increased = 30%+
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×54-the-joe-dolce-music-theatre/12476
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage for the last time in 2022, in which we take a look back at our predictions for this year and review how we did. Surprisingly… not as badly as last year. Although as you may expect there is shameless jockeying for extra points. How did you do by comparison?
We’ll see you in 2023!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×53-representative-but-not-shining/12473
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are not necessarily “extremely hardcore”, we aren’t verified (or are we?), we aren’t fleeing the country with a load of money that isn’t ours, and:
- [00:00:00] Intro
- [00:02:37] Twitter and Musk: much change is afoot in the world of Twitter, as Elon Musk completes his purchase of the social media network and immediately starts changing things and staffing with varying degrees of competence and forethought. We have Opinions on this, not surprisingly
- [00:34:46] Tech Layoffs: the world is heading into a recession, and tech firms are at the forefront of at least some of that. Some of the biggest names are laying off thousands of staff: many are affected
- [00:40:24] FTX: the latest crypto explosion is bigger than most, but it’s also pretty confusing to understand what exactly it’s all about. We’ll dive in for explanations!
- [00:49:38] Outro
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×52-click-by-5pm/12471
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jono Bacon, Stuart Langridge, and special guest Adam Lorimer present Bad Voltage, in which reality is virtual, metas are connected, and:
- Meta, nee Facebook, had their Meta Connect conference where they announced their upcoming plans, recent hardware and software releases, and the like. We have some interest in VR generally, as evidenced by Jono always having a prediction about it at Christmas, and so we’d like to dig a bit more into what’s going on over there, some of the upcoming hardware, and talk a little about the place of VR (and AR and MR) in the world order and how it does and might fit in with everything, especially with Adam who actually does this stuff for a living!
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×51-control-the-meta-connect/12470
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and special guest Erica Brescia present Bad Voltage, in which a generation of hypochondriacs is created, we are made to do research, and: [00:01:51] VC/WeWork/Flow [00:20:28] AI wins state fair art contest, annoys humans [00:28:14] New smart watches [00:38:22] Notkia [00:39:52] OSTP Issues Guidance to Make Federally Funded Research Freely Available […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the roflcopter is created, Soli is forgotten, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:02:04] Chorizo space prank [00:04:04] Floppotron 3.0 [00:10:47] Doom running on $15 smart lamp, and in Doom [00:16:22] SCaLE 19X [00:19:59] Who’s liable for AI-generated lies? [00:28:48] Amazon Slashing Private-Label Selection [00:31:29] Amazon […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which everyone’s middle name is Elaine, there is discussion of the nature of business in the modern age, and: [00:02:45] We look at Brave, a privacy-focused web browser. They’ve got some interesting technical choices, but more importantly we want to look at the question […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Victorian Tumblr is a thing, you should probably check out Lethality, Jono’s band’s latest, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:04:11] USB Type-C EVERYTHING [00:17:33] Firefox and Google are arguing about extension APIs that ad blockers use [00:34:00] Spotify comes for audiobooks [00:57:15] Outro Come chat […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest star Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which those of the team not currently having fun on a beach in Spain dig into the latest tech news, including (but not limited to): [00:08:26] Github start requiring two-factor authentication for contributors [00:16:21] This show was edited live on Twitch […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Times Square is a much better example, it is Stuart’s turn to seemingly sound like he recorded this at the bottom of a coal mine (sorry about that), and: [00:01:50] Elon Musk is buying Twitter. We have thoughts, and quite a few of […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest star Alan Pope present Bad Voltage, in which intelligence is artificial, snaps are un-ned, and art is what you make it: [00:04:00] popey’s latest tool is unsnap, which helps you “quickly and easily migrate from using snap for applications to flatpak”, and we’ll get into how it works […]
Stuart Langridge, Jeremy Garcia, and special guest star Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which we in theory want to talk about loads of news but actually we spend all our discussion time on one topic: [00:02:00] Jorge is into Flatpak. And there’s quite a lot to talk about here. This is very much about […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia return, after a couple of months of trials and tribulations, to reveal our predictions for (the rest of) 2022! Prepare to find out What Comes Next in our roles as Cassandras: [00:06:20] Jono: VR bonanza: Apple will release their VR headset this year, and PSVR2 will be released, […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia are in your ears for the last time in 2021, as we look back on what we thought this year would be back in January, and then how it’s actually been now that we’ve lived through it. Yes, it’s prediction review time! Did you do better than us? […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia hold these rights to be self-evident: [00:02:17] Adele gets Spotify to remove shuffle button [00:09:20] Apple announces self repair program [00:26:25] Meta has a new VR glove [00:35:11] Ubuntu Accomplishments rides again [00:39:03] FTC says “click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal [00:49:16] Cryptobros try to buy […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia claim to do research, run conferences, encourage people to hire Marius, and: Meta. Facebook rebranded to Meta and have gone all in on the “metaverse”, which they call “a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world”. VR and […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which Stuart honestly thought for one second that the Americans have a very worryingly-titled show called “Poor Patrol” before realising that he misheard, and: [00:02:33] The return of the legendary Bacommunity app! Made by friend of the show Roger Light, who has […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which whistles are blown, audio is twitched, and: [00:02:18] A whole show on one topic: Facebook and content moderation. Since Frances Haugen left Facebook for the life of a whistleblower, filing complaints with federal law enforcement that Facebook knows that it amplifies hate, misinformation […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we discuss the mysterious arrival of boxes, how to play CDs, and: [00:02:18] We review the 8Sleep Pod Pro Cover, an internet-connected mattress, which Jono claims is actually useful. There is, not surprisingly, some scepticism about this claim, but equally: sleep is important […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which [00:02:50] Online trolls are assholes offline too, at least according to a new survey [00:17:20] Facebook Workrooms seem to be the long-promised “Facebook Spaces”, much to Jono’s intemperate joy [00:29:50] Excellently detailed albeit mildly depressing summary of Google’s myriad messaging apps which is […]
Stuart Langridge and Jono Bacon present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is away, there used to be a star and now there isn’t, and we devote the whole show to a discussion of Apple’s recent announcement that your iPhone will now scan some of your photos and report them if they’re child porn. This has […]
Stuart Langridge and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Jono is away, you too are not an astronaut, and: [00:02:00] Shares slide after China brands online games “electronic drugs” [00:03:50] The US FAA changes the definition of “astronaut” after Bezos and Branson go into space, LOL [00:06:25] Machine learning sucks at covid [00:12:15] Sinclair […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which God is not our co-pilot. Instead, Github Copilot is. What’s the deal with this thing? Copilot is “an AI pair programmer that helps you write better code”, according to Github themselves. “GitHub Copilot draws context from the code you’re working on, suggesting whole […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which there is much news from all over the tech industry, including: [00:02:15] Anom app from FBI yanked in a huge amount of criminals [00:08:45] FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web, plus: how Apple’s rise to be the richest company […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which it is all the news all the time, including: [00:03:30] The results of our (flagrantly biased) Room 101 polls from the last episode! [00:10:29] The biggest GDPR fines so far [00:16:45] Charlie Bit My Finger becomes an NFT [00:31:50] Tesla (arguably) throttle older […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we emulate the old British talk/game show Room 101 by nominating our pet hates and consigning those hates to oblivion in Room 101, the ultimate destination for all rubbish things. Assuming, that is, that our explanations convince our colleagues, which is not as […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the subject of artificial intelligence is discussed. We’ve walked around the outside of this topic a few times on the show, and now it’s time to dig in; is AI actually real, or are the jokes about reclassifying a Python script as “AI” […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which horrible neologisms are proposed, things are both funny and also sad, and there is ooh gosh loads of news: [00:04:10] The BBC’s coverage of the life and death of Prince Philip breaks the UK TV complaints record, and the National Rail make their […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which flock is more than wallpaper, we say the word “cohort” about fifty billion times, and: [00:02:15] FLoC, the “federated learning of cohorts”, is a proposal from Google as part of their Privacy Sandbox initiative to replace third-party advertising cookies but still enable targeted […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we invite special guest star Augustus de Morgan to comment, there is an intemperate argument about jeans, and: [00:01:30] NFTs. “Non-fungible tokens“; a way to record ownership of some digital asset on a blockchain, something like a collectible or a trading card. Suddenly […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest star Alan Pope present Bad Voltage, in which we are large and in charge, there is ancient history about electricians and phones, and: [00:02:55] Rooster kills man in illegal cockfight [00:05:40] What are Twitter Spaces? iOS only, invite-only to create them, and not Facebook Spaces so no prediction […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Facebook aren’t watching our webinars and this is not nuanced, and: [00:02:50] Advertising. Apple’s new IDFA moves prompt a larger conversation about targeted advertising and whether it works, some examples of how we’ve actually tried using it, and then the bigger picture. Is […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we take what Jono calls an avant-garde and everyone else calls a ridiculous improvised approach to the set list. [00:01:10] Flash, aaargh. It saved every one of us. Flash is now dead. We take a look back over the history of the web […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Bad Voltage is on Spotify! Also, we have great content, you should review us on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere, and: [00:05:55] We review the Remarkable 2 e-ink writing pad, with reference to our previous show on using paper instead of tech and Alan […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we present our predictions for 2021! Stuart: [00:11:11] Remote work starts to hollow out cities and as a result, three major cities see population drops (or the populations drop more than they already were) [00:17:20] Social media sites band together to avoid fake […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we look back at 2×62, our predictions show from a year ago and see whether we correctly foresaw what happened in 2020, or… not. Also features SHAMELESS grovelling for points. [00:02:07] Stuart on Slack purchases, CCPA convictions, ePrivacy, Epic, and drones [00:22:20] Jono […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are ultracrepidarian, the Apple phone becomes slightly more annoying, and: [00:05:45] Lightheartedly, we take a look at metal monoliths around the world, drinking hand sanitizer instead of alcohol, a bunch of parrots were removed from UK family safari park after teaching each […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the reality distortion field is strong in this one, the middle name game continues unsuccessfully, and: [00:02:03] Jeremy has opted for the Pixel 5! So it’s time for a review. The latest Google phone is out, and we have thoughts on the direction […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the utilities question comes up again, we create spin-off show “Sussing Out Stocks With Stuart”, and: [00:02:50] Sony allow recording and reporting of private audio chats [00:09:40] Zoom are refusing events which talk about Zoom censorship [00:30:00] Quibi crashes and burns having spent […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which things are not necessarily jazzed up versions of other things, we wonder what data truly is, and: [00:00:45] We dive in depth into the notion of “collaborative workspaces”. Coda and Notion both paint themselves as a new kind of document: something which lets […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which no news is good news, hardware makes us hard-wary, and: [00:01:45] The PlayStation 5 and the Xbox. Specifically, can you get a PS5? We can’t (and Sony admitted it), but the graphical things look amazing. They claim to have eliminated loading times with […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the Magna Doodle makes a comeback, Stuart is discontent, and: [00:04:50] Taco Bell have made their own wine, which we’re sure is delicious… US customs seize a bunch of counterfeit Airpods which turn out to be completely legitimate OnePlus wireless earphones… and Dave […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which I buy your product but I still have virus, there are apparently cellphone pedestrian lanes all over the world, and: [00:04:30] Microsoft Flight Simulator has a very tall building in Melbourne, although the community are on the case; the FBI are worried that […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which there is seemingly a theme but it’s wholly coincidental, succulent flaky pastry is mentioned, and: [00:02:38] Japan opens see-through public toilets open in Tokyo parks, an Amazon driver allegedly defecates in a Nottingham woman’s back garden, and a man in Chicago breaks into […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we take the security advice of international expert Hans Gruber, we find Jono’s lack of middle name preparation disturbing, and: [00:02:00] Some “fresh baby witches” have put a hex on the moon, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about. Apparently this […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which there is a certain amount of disagreement but it all works out in the end, and: [00:03:20] There’s a lot of conversation about “open core”, and there’s increasing polarisation around the topic. But… what actually is an open core project or product? Does […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the word “content” gets used a lot, Stuart steals a double-bass joke from Dirk Gently, and: [00:03:20] In the second part of our speculation on how the tech world and the coronavirus pandemic intersect, we’re looking at how the world might be changed […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which there is much argument about technology choices and: [00:02:00] New York City Health discourages orgies, instead advocating “sexy Zoom parties”, and also in NYC apparently driving into protesters does not violate use-of-force policy, and on the morning of Juneteenth, Tesla tells employees they […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which 286s make a comeback, we might be on Spotify, and: [00:01:50] The BBC search desperately for a way to describe “anti-racism critics” while describing tea condemning racists, Burger King start selling the Social Distancing Whopper” in Italy which has three times the onions, […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are rendered with one meelion triangles. Also: [00:02:20] Three Bolivian brothers deliberately get bitten by a black widow spider in an attempt to get Spider-Man powers, while North Korea finally admit that Kim Il Sung wasn't a wizard, you should go feed […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we like egg. Also: [00:02:38] And now, this: Famous rapper Jason Zed orders deepfake parodies of his voice off YouTube… Virginia spend time debating whether it’s ok to be drunk in your car while it’s in your driveway… a five-year-old steals a car […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which apparently it is Coventry’s turn in the barrel, and: [00:02:20] And Now This: it is possible that the MMR vaccine helps protect you from coronavirus, game over antivaxxers, in cyberpunk dystopia news Microsoft want to use your body heat for mining cryptocurrency, Belgians […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which apparently it is Coventry’s turn in the barrel, and: [00:02:07] And Now This: Tourists in Rishikesh, India ignored quarantine to go wandering and were made to write “I did not follow the lockdown, I am sorry” 500 times on sheets of paper, Taiwanese […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we begin a new series, the world is under lockdown, and: [00:01:40] And Finally: a medical fetish site donates its stock of scrubs after being contacted by the NHS, cops in Hamilton bust a cocaine dealer for doing “non essential business” during the […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are all waaaaay more invested in email than certain companies would like us to be, and: In this episode we discuss Superhuman, a new email app. Jono, the email power user’s email power user, has been getting to grips with it and […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which is discussed the prodigal’s opinions of what we got up to while he was prodigaling, the Wurzels get a second look-in, and: < ul> [00:01:40] People who have fled Wuhan, site of the largest outbreak of coronavirus, are reputedly being “digitally” quarantined; cut […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which the nature of purchasing goods is discussed. There seem to have recently been various examples of companies selling a thing and then exerting control over it after they’ve sold it. Sonos speakers have “recycle mode”, HP printer cartridges in their “Instant […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which what will happen in 2020 is laid out for your consideration with perfect precision. Yes, it’s the predictions episode! This is what will happen in the next year: Stuart Slack will be purchased by either Microsoft, WebEx (Cisco) or Zoom. (Jeremy thinks the […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which a tenth of a point is more important than one might think it is, Mother Shipton is turning in her grave, and: [00:02:10] A year ago we predicted everything that would happen in technology in 2019. Now… we revisit those predictions and see […]
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are very different on flights, Jono knows about the Bills, and:
- [00:01:30] The .org registry has been sold to a private equity firm, and there is a whole lot of suspicion about how that deal went down. We’ll unpack it a bit.
- [00:15:00] Google release Stadia, their streaming gaming platform, to early adopters. Reception was… mixed. Here are some thoughts.
- [00:33:30] ~~Lex Luthor~~ Elon Musk invents a low-poly truck. What’s the market for the Cybertruck? Are we going to buy one?
- [00:49:25] The launch of Disney+, and their market. Disney now own rather a lot of video — their own films, but Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Hulu, Touchstone — and will this make Disney+ the thing that people buy instead of Netflix?
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×60-thanks-given/12313
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Jono and Jeremy are coming to you direct from the Open Source Summit in France, the word for “full of incitement” is not “inciteful”, Stuart, and:
- [00:01:55] Facebook News and what it should include and what not: what responsibility, if any, does Facebook’s newly-proposed News tab have to choose the journalistic contributions that go into it?
- [00:25:05] Using “AI” in job interviews and whether this is a good idea
- [00:33:30] Disney seem to be stopping good older films from going into cinemas
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×59-inciteful/12308
Stuart Langridge and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the summer break is over except that Jono is temporarily away, free software has some problems, and:
- [00:01:45] Is the definition of free software still fit for purpose? We’ve got companies trying to solve the problem of “we pay to build a thing then AWS get paid for it” and people trying to solve the problem of “we sweat to build a thing then ICE get to use it”, and both groups are doing so by looking at what the goals of free software are today, and whether current free software licences are still a good way of achieving those current goals. Matthew Garrett wrote some thoughts about this, and we have Opinions too, as we suspect will you. Give us your ideas on this topic at community.badvoltage.org.
- [00:23:02] There is speculation that the UK government are offering up quotes to the media which use the key words from negative stories in a new context, in an attempt to push those negative stories down the search rankings for those words. Real life SEO to get bad stories out of the news. Andy Maturin flags this for a search for “boris johnson model” (attempting to push this story down the rankings in favour of this story)
- [00:30:50] Gnome are being sued over a software patent (“a method that involves capturing a bunch of images, filtering them based on a topic, theme or individual, and wirelessly transmitting the filtered images to another device”) which Shotwell allegedly violates
- [00:40:08] The dating app maker, Match, are being sued by the US FTC for fraud for allegedly knowingly profiting from and sometimes augmenting the flood of fake profiles on their dating sites
- [00:45:45] More on Google’s determination to have a robot voice ring up restaurants and make bookings by talking to a real person: “Reserve With Google” seems to be the latest iteration of this plan, and it doesn’t seem to work all that well
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×58-fat-for-purpose/12300
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we h4XX0r the Dark Web to pwn your s3ns3s, other people are inexplicably less annoyed about this than Stuart is, and:
- [00:01:15] After a terrorist murdered 22 people and injured 24 others in the mass shooting in El Paso in 2019, police said that they are “reasonably confident” that the shooter published an anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant manifesto published on 8chan, a messageboard heavily linked to alt-right propaganda and mass shootings. Cloudflare then dropped their support for 8chan, refusing to provide them with DDOS protection.
In the midst of this, Kevin Roose, a tech writer for the NYT, said: there’s a big, interesting debate here about which layers of the internet should be responsible for banning extreme content. And we agree. So, this is that interesting debate: which levels should be banning stuff like this? ISPs, literally the provision of an internet service? Facebook and other end-user applications? Cloudflare and other infrastricture providers? And what justifies a decision to ban? Government regulation? Corporate PR? The CEO’s personal opinions? Is there a risk that challenging the orthodoxy results in banning by the mob, or is that just a fig-leaf used by those who want to keep their awful opinions? A bit of all of that, perhaps: we dig into the whole topic from a few different angles.
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×57-banned-on-the-run/12294