CES 2026: Part Ten (Epilogue)

Summary

Better Offline – CES 2026: Part Ten (Epilogue)

Podcast: Better Offline, Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts
Air Date: January 10, 2026
Host: Ed Zitron
Guests: Cory Doctorow (activist/author), Philip Broughton (science/tech), additional participants

---

Episode Overview

Theme:
The CES 2026 epilogue is a relaxed, candid after-party discussion among Ed Zitron, Cory Doctorow, Philip Broughton, and friends, reflecting on a week at CES and what it reveals about the state of the tech industry. They weave in commentary about the event’s history, the state of innovation, the rampant influence of growth-obsessed venture capital, and the societal implications of tech’s current trajectory. The tone is irreverent, insightful, at times exasperated—and rich with inside-baseball tech and cultural references.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The CES Suite’s History and Vibe

Timestamps: 03:08–07:10

• Ed and Phil reminisce about their long-running CES "suite" tradition, where journalists, technologists, and friends gather for drinks and decompression.
• The event faded around 2020 (not just due to COVID), revived in 2025, and hit new highs this year, sparking plans for CES 2027.
• Light banter about weird CES discoveries (e.g. the “courtesy sniff,” late-night party vibes, and outrageous new Avengers/X-Men movies).

“Our brains are reduced to a fine simmer.” — Ed Zitron (05:35)

2. Behind the Scenes at CES: Small-Scale Innovation

Timestamps: 07:46–16:16

• Cory Doctorow’s first CES in 23 years; he’s enthused by the lesser-known “makery” side—like inventive Chinese hardware knock-offs, charger adapters, and quirky practical designs.
• Discussion about how everyday tech is filled with small frustrations and workarounds:
  • The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design — how aesthetics and affection for devices make users better troubleshooters (09:31–13:25).
  • Tales of favorite gear: cable bags, chopsticks, and “useful shit” over flashy gadgets.
• Dreaming of a “Useful Shit Convention”—an expo for truly practical tech products.

“There are still little companies doing weird little shit at the side.” — Ed Zitron (09:03)
“Beautiful things make you happy, and when you’re happy, you’re a better troubleshooter.” — Cory Doctorow (13:07)

3. Tech’s Reckless Past: Security, WEIRD STUFF & Regulation

Timestamps: 16:32–24:00

• Anecdotes about dangerous or bizarre tech on the show floor: unlicensed MRI machines, shoe-fitting X-ray devices (“fluoroscopes”), and even 3D-printed “ghost guns.”
• Cory and Phil detail the legal grey areas: old shoe fluoroscopes, continued use of hazardous devices for questionable purposes, and the occasional appearance of 3D-printed firearm parts at CES or elsewhere.

“They seriously did this? ... Not surprised anymore when I hear anything like that.” — Ed Zitron (19:30)

4. Code as Speech & 3D Printing Legalities

Timestamps: 20:18–34:35

• Deep dive into the landmark concept: software/code—and by extension, 3D printer files—are protected speech (1st Amendment), following cases from the early ‘90s.
• 3D-printing gun controversy became a legal test case, but collapsed amid criminal charges unrelated to code.
• Cory points out the legal impossibility of policing "illegal geometry": STL files are just code, and can be endlessly re-expressed.

“I think making geometry illegal is dumb.” — Cory Doctorow (30:36)

5. Content Moderation, Platform Policy & Social Media Portability

Timestamps: 32:09–36:38

• Cory argues that policing hate speech is technically infeasible at platform scale; instead, focus on “administrable” policies like data portability (e.g., Mastodon’s easy migration).
• Smaller communities can moderate contextually; at scale, nuance is lost and trolls “work the ref.”
• Ed reflects on moderation as a “dread-handed” Reddit admin versus the unwieldy nature of legacy platforms.

“A hate speech regime is very hard to police because you have to have a common definition … and it’s an offense that occurs 100 times a minute.” — Cory Doctorow (32:09)
“In the smaller communities you could do that, but in a large social network you can't.” — Ed Zitron (35:25)

6. British Politics Sidebar: Starmer, Greens, and Protest Culture

Timestamps: 36:40–41:14

• Humorous take on the current state of UK politics, where neither left nor right likes Labor leader Keir Starmer.
• Cory predicts a rising green wave in the UK, led by a charismatic, younger leader.

“That’s the most British thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Not.” — Ed Zitron (37:04)

7. End of the “Venture Capital Era” and Tech’s Hollow Growth

Timestamps: 41:15–47:22

• Ed: 20+ years of “growth at all costs” has led CES and tech at large to reward hype over substance.
• Cory: Incumbent tech companies have made it nearly impossible for new entrants (unlike the “permissionless innovation” of the past)—“your margin is my opportunity” has become “we’ll lock out new competitors.”
• The “winner-take-all” logic appeals to VCs, especially for AI, and creates talent and capital moats.

“Of course you’re going to get a CES predominantly made of things that don’t [exist].” — Ed Zitron (43:26)
“Incumbents are able to block new market entry ... you can’t do that anymore.” — Cory Doctorow (44:00)
“It’s not technically challenging ... if you do this to Facebook, they’ll nuke you till you glow.” — Cory Doctorow (46:28)

8. AI Hype, Worker Replacement & VC Delusions

Timestamps: 47:22–56:34

• The futility of competing with the likes of OpenAI or Anthropic without vast resources.
• Cory notes bosses are eager for tech that eliminates professional workers who can say “no”—explaining the AI hype even when products don’t deliver.
• Ed and guests discuss managers with no clue what staff actually do, yet are all-in on “AI” anyway.

“All of these LLM rappers deserve to go in the trash along with their founders.” — Ed Zitron (43:33)
“Bosses have been furiously fantasizing about firing everyone who’s allowed to tell them to fuck off since the idea of a profession emerged.” — Cory Doctorow (48:34)
“They finally created an economy where they’ve cut out efficacy ... finally we created a thing for salespeople to sell to CEOs.” — Ed Zitron (54:34)

9. Aqua Hires, Patents, and the Illusion of IP Value in AI

Timestamps: 62:03–63:47

• “Aqua hires” (talent acquisitions) used to be a last resort; now even those are rare since AI ‘startups’ often have no defensible intellectual property (patents on prompt engineering? Unlikely).
• Cory notes the trend towards lower-quality, “bullshitty patents,” aided by regulatory capture and notorious jurisdictions (e.g. East Texas).

“There are a lot of VCs who said really what I am is a headhunter ... just the shittiest way to run an executive recruiting [firm].” — Cory Doctorow (62:16)

10. Reflections and Looking Ahead

Timestamps: 63:48–65:36

• The panel expresses a sense that tech, venture capital, and even CES itself are entering a reckoning—a correction from two decades of unsustainable, hype-driven decisions.
• Final thanks and sign-offs set the stage for post-CES discussions and next week’s guest.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Beautiful things make you happy, and when you’re happy, you’re a better troubleshooter.” (13:07, Cory Doctorow)
• “Making geometry illegal is dumb.” (30:36, Cory Doctorow)
• “A hate speech regime is very hard to police because you have to have a common definition … and it’s an offense that occurs 100 times a minute.” (32:09, Cory Doctorow)
• “All of these LLM rappers deserve to go in the trash along with their founders.” (43:33, Ed Zitron)
• “It’s almost like they actually know that’s it—they finally created an economy where they’ve cut out efficacy … finally, we created a thing for salespeople to sell to CEOs.” (54:34, Ed Zitron)
• “Bosses have been furiously fantasizing about firing everyone who’s allowed to tell them to fuck off since the idea of a profession emerged.” (48:34, Cory Doctorow)
• “There are a lot of VCs who said really what I am is a headhunter ... just the shittiest way to run an executive recruiting [firm].” (62:16, Cory Doctorow)

---

Segment Timestamps

• 03:08 – Show begins, introductions, suite history, light banter
• 07:46 – Cory’s return to CES; philosophy of makery/innovation
• 09:31 – The role of aesthetics and frustration in tech troubleshooting
• 16:32 – Outlandish/dangerous CES tech history (X-rays, ghost guns)
• 20:18 – Legalities of 3D-printed weapons, code as protected speech
• 32:09 – Platform regulation, content moderation, Mastodon portability
• 36:40 – British politics sidebar, protests against Starmer
• 41:15 – Tech’s growth obsession, loss of true competition
• 47:22 – AI, “winner-take-all,” and the real reasons for hype and layoffs
• 62:03 – Aqua hires, lack of defensible patents in the AI world
• 63:48 – Reflections, thanks, looking forward to post-CES analysis

---

Episode Tone

• Irreverent, nerdy, occasionally profane but sincere
• Jaded but hopeful for a reckoning in tech
• Casual camaraderie and deep expertise, especially from Doctorow

---

Overall:
This episode offers an unvarnished, behind-the-scenes look at CES and the state of contemporary tech, shot through with humor, critique, and lived experience. Whether it’s bad product design, venture capital’s destructive incentives, or the legal farce underlying “AI disruption,” the hosts dissect how tech has lost its way—yet underline the importance of fighting for products (and policies) that actually serve users’ needs.

Transcript

[Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

Guaranteed Human running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory. A separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all in one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, E Commerce, hr. Fully integrated, easy to use and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you try Odoo for free at odoo.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

That's odoo.com this is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. As a fellow dude, do you ever get that not so fresh feeling in your butt? That's because you're probably using the dry stuff to wipe wet. Extra large flushable Dude Wipes get what toilet paper leaves behind in your behind. You wouldn't clean the tail end of your truck with dry paper towels, so why would you wipe with dry toilet paper? Wetter just cleans better. There are no more dingleberries, no more itch and irritation, just a deep down the seam. Confident clean. So don't fumble the ball with toilet paper. Stop being an A hole to your B hole. Drop the toilet paper. Available on Amazon and major retailers nationwide. Dude wipes best clean pants down Imagine knowing you're doing all the right things with your money. With fastt you will. Facet's Roadmap Builder shows you the impact of every decision before you make it. A certified financial planner helps you with every facet of your life with flat fee pricing that doesn't rise as your money grows. Financial planning for the life you want. Learn [e-mail] at is sponsored by Facet.

[Announcer]

And SEC registered investment advisor. Not an offer to buy or sell securities, nor is an investment legal or tax advice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures.

[Ed Zitron]

Media welcome to the Better Offline After Party Epilogue from CES it is like 11am on the Saturday we are I actually slept pretty well, weirdly. But we're all. This is the thing we do at the end of the show where the remaining people join us. We relax and we have to my right, Mr. Philip Broughton.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

Hello.

[Ed Zitron]

This is our bartender for the week, Phil. You've been. I don't. So I want to give Phil immense credit for what he's been doing all week. So the way this works we have the, we've got the main suite which is where people come, they come sit down. It's got the, the big daddy bedroom where I where I just kind of like sleep or like talk to myself.

[Philip Broughton]

Roll around a lot.

[Ed Zitron]

I roll around on the floor going. But then in the main room we have the bar that Phil's set up. And during the recordings Phil will come in and ferry in usually a Diet Coke or a little thing of Sotool, which is close to Mezcal. Jesus Christ. My voice just broke there. I'm of course Ed Zitron, by the way, the host of Better Offline and Phil has been bringing me drinks all week and bringing everyone drinks just kind of ferrying around the recording. He wouldn't know it to hear it, but he's been an incredible bartender.

[Philip Broughton]

I finally learned how to not walk into things after last year.

[Ed Zitron]

You were pretty good. You give yourself more credit. To our left, of course, is Mr. Cory Doctorow, activist, author, journalist.

[Cory Doctorow]

Hello.

[Ed Zitron]

And of course Mr. Edward on Grace O Junior.

[Cory Doctorow]

Hello my friends.

[Ed Zitron]

My man. Another year, another day, another year, another book. Yeah. Oh yeah. I should really have my book written by next year. No, it's. We were just talking about games and relaxing after it because you'd think after a week long podcast we'd go completely ape crazy. By which I mean I think all of us were in bed by 11.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

I mean hey there's before tonight.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh yeah. Junior and I are going to go out scheming 12:01am Plan. We're going to, we're going to go really crazy raging.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

I've Got. I feel like we're getting the Avengers together. Many people from different walks of life to come and party with you tonight.

[Ed Zitron]

I did see there's Avengers Doomsday now they're doing 3 hour 45 minute one. And they got. They got the X Men in it and the real just key jangling.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Yeah, it's either going to be okay or horrible.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, it's either going to be amazing in the sense that like Patrick Stewart get. If Patrick Stewart does. Just does X Men shit, I'm fine. But yeah, this is. This is what happens at the end of ces. Our brains are reduced to a fine simmer.

[Philip Broughton]

You're gonna do a courtesy sniff on me for Doomsday, aren't you?

[Ed Zitron]

I. I'm going to. If I manage to watch that fucking movie, I will actually.

[Philip Broughton]

Yeah, let's watch Courtesy sniff at me for.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Let's go see Avatar three Way Fire and Ass right now.

[Ed Zitron]

I've not seen any of the Avatar movies.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

I'll show you all. Let's go to Pandora.

[Cory Doctorow]

If it was literally watch it Pandora.

[Ed Zitron]

But no. The history of the suite is such that Phil has been. So when we first do The Sweet Phil 2015. 2015, we would have. It was from a PR firm. We'd all sit around, we'd have the journalists, we'd have drinks. But died in 2020 because of. Actually not because of the pandemic, just because we were. I think it was like there was something weird that CES and then. Then Covid happened.

[Philip Broughton]

We. People were already scared of COVID at ces.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, people were just sick. Like people were ambient. I was sick.

[Philip Broughton]

I was getting a lot of questions about is this okay? And I went, well, the other part of the worry is parts of China had already locked down at that point in January, so there were missing parts of the show which were starting people to worry about are we okay here?

[Ed Zitron]

I was also just like, I got. I knock on wood. I have done pretty well not getting sick at ces largely because the first few days when the show's the most crowded, I'm masked up immediately just to just. I have my big. Put my bane mask on. And yeah, that. That was a weird one. But we brought it back last year for the first time. It was good. I think this is the best one yet. And we were already scheming for 2027. We've. We've got Vice President J.D. vance now.

[Cory Doctorow]

I'm gonna go.

[Ed Zitron]

Do you even say please?

[Cory Doctorow]

Do you say please?

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

If we.

[Ed Zitron]

No, I. It's this year. The lesson I've learned is that I could use a sl. I could use help. I could use them. Not to say I didn't have it. I could use like an organizing document person.

[Philip Broughton]

So I have physics degrees, but I can't keep up with what you need to do for a show.

[Ed Zitron]

Also, neither could I. I was kind of putting it together as you went. But, Corey.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yes.

[Ed Zitron]

This is your first CES in what, 20 years?

[Cory Doctorow]

20. So it's 2003. So 23 years. Hail Discordia.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm really very grateful you came out here because it was. I know that we laughed about the Amazon. The Amazon thing where you, like asked the simplest questions. They freaked out. But it was quite nice watching you bring me in front of stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have got excited about. Like the. The 4 nanometer microscope and such. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

I love the stuff that's kind of makery. And then the other end of that, which is. I think we were talking about this yesterday. The hall where Chinese designers have taken a standard board that is for a point and shoot camera, and they've come up with 75 form factors for it. And like 73 of them are garbage and two of them are just really pretty. They look like something you'd have gotten out of a mid century designer or something. It's very striking. If you saw it in MoMA, you'd go, well, yeah, I get why that's a classic.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah. I. And, and I kind of. You. You stopped at one point in a wall of plugs as well. Yeah, that was. No, it was. That warmed my heart. That's my friend Matt. It was just like a wall of like data center level plugs with the ones that you'd usually put in a black back of the computer.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I think that that's the, the unseen magic of CES is that while we can complain about a lot of things, there are still little companies doing weird little shit at the side.

[Cory Doctorow]

Well, this is like what I was saying about the British collapsible Charger.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yesterday. Is that the stuff that you interact with every day that has like moving parts that you have to plug and unplug that, you know, like so much of your quality of life is in that stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

And you know, there's a really remarkable pair of books. There's a book called the Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman that's a design classic. And it's this very austere book. Norman's a designer and it's very austere book. Austere book aimed at designers saying, stop sacrificing functionality for aesthetics.

[Ed Zitron]

Right?

[Cory Doctorow]

And everyone read it. And this completely was, it was. It's impossible to overstate how important this was in how people think about design. And like, 25 years later, he wrote another book called Emotional Design, where he was like, I was totally wrong. Nearly everything that you use in a high tech society is nearly always broken. And the role of the user is actually the troubleshooter. And to be a troubleshooter is to be expansive. And to be expansive, you can't be frustrated and angry. When you're frustrated and angry, you tunnel down and you just keep like clicking the button over and over again and hoping it starts working.

[Ed Zitron]

Sorry, just what, when you say troubleshooter, what exactly do you mean?

[Cory Doctorow]

Well, think about your average day, right? Where you, you, you know, plug in your computer and you try to do a thing that you've done before and it just doesn't work the way it's supposed to work. You know, the app doesn't load correctly, the little charge light doesn't come on.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

The plug doesn't work, the latch doesn't work. Something. App closes, something's broken. The app closes. The. You get a weird cryptic timeout bug. You know, all kinds of. I'm the last Tumblr user on earth, but Tumblr changed their HTML editor a few years ago, about a year ago. And I only just figured out that the reason I can't type in it unless I flip it to HTML mode and write raw HTML is that the first character you enter into it has to have style data. It has to be like bold or italic or have a font size associated with it. So you have to copy it out of an app that has style data.

[Ed Zitron]

Jesus Christ.

[Cory Doctorow]

Paste it in and then it. And I don't know why.

[Ed Zitron]

Right?

[Cory Doctorow]

But like, now I can reliably type in the Tumblr compositor. And that's a, that's a troubleshooting thing, right? And we, we all do this all day long with everything we use. And it's not just gnarly Linux shit. It's like my, my LG electric stove top. My, my induction stove top.

[Ed Zitron]

You know, exactly like the beginning of my, my book why Working, Coming out next year. It's. I think I counted 131 within the space of a day of just shit that went wrong. Things like I went on Reddit to try and look at someone, but when I went to click it, the entire thing stopped responding to touch.

[Cory Doctorow]

Sure.

[Ed Zitron]

Or the many. The Many times that just my email just decides to reset itself or Google Calendar has locked me out. Sorry. Not just gone like, yeah, mate, log in again. And the funniest one, by the way, I don't know, has any this. Has this happened to you? Have you logged into Google Calendar, as in, like, and it said log in place, you log in and then you go to edit it and it logs you out again?

[Philip Broughton]

Yes, I have Google dysfunction instantly.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, you don't use Google.

[Cory Doctorow]

No, I use gcal because I have to share a calendar with a bunch of heterogeneous environments.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, but.

[Cory Doctorow]

But the point being that everyone's a troubleshooter all the time.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Cory Doctorow]

And if you're angry and frustrated and you're just like, you know, you've got the incipient aneurysm throbbing in your temple.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

And, you know, your fists are clenched and you've got the, you know, black halo contracting around your vision, you can't fix stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

You need to be able to kind of step back. Like, have you ever been trying to cook something with a couple of friends? Do you cook?

[Ed Zitron]

Yes. Yes.

[Cory Doctorow]

So you're cooking something with, say, a friend, and it's not quite gelling, you know, maybe literally, it's not gelling. Something's not right. And you just like, if you're kind of bopping around the kitchen, there's good music and you go, taste this. What does it need? Oh, yeah, you know, maybe try a little salt.

[Philip Broughton]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

But, like, if you're in a panic and you've got 10 people coming over.

[Ed Zitron]

Traveling, what have you, and you're trying.

[Cory Doctorow]

To cook and you're like, how do I get this to work? You're frustrated, you're angry, it's hard to think creatively. So his point is that beautiful things make you happy, and when you're happy, you're a better troubleshooter. And so for things to work well, they have to be beautiful.

[Ed Zitron]

I love that because my eyes, immediately, as you said that, draw to the Rodecaster Pro 2. And I will definitely say there is a level of, like, you look at it and you go, damn, I'm. I'll make Production. Me.

[Cory Doctorow]

Me.

[Ed Zitron]

Mr. Broadcast. And it sounds silly, but, yeah, it does kind of make you. You kind of feel like. You feel like a professional. You feel like. And so when shit's going wrong, you kind of look at it and go, no, but I'm a professional. I'm doing cool. And I know I sound silly, but every. To quote Carl McLaughlin in Twin Peaks, every day, give yourself A little present, which sometimes means setting things up to make yourself feel a little important.

[Cory Doctorow]

I love things that are quietly functional in my daily life. So I travel a lot. So I found a cable bag that, that I keep all my cables in and it sits flat when you open it instead of tipping over. And I get.

[Ed Zitron]

So you can just leave it on a table and it just sits open. Lovely.

[Cory Doctorow]

Holy moly. Is that very nice. And obviously like a bag that sits flat is not an innovation. Right. It's like it's a thing that's existed forever but someone made it into a cable bag.

[Ed Zitron]

That reminds me so good. That reminds me of another one exactly like that, which is a company called Pakt P A K T. I love them. They have a slightly dodgy design in this bag, but still it's a one that slight. It's a regular bag that slips over your, your suitcase. Which by the way is the worst part of it because you pack it too much. Slightly hard to get on there. But the killer instinct thing is it opens from the top, not the side. So when you're, when you're sliding it under, you're on a Southwest flight, you plug a Burbank flight, for example, and you need to get in there instead of having to like get a backpack and looking from the top, the whole thing, the whole thing flips open so you can delve into it and easily close it again. This sounds very minor. Sure. It's, this is the ability to just take a gander in there and plop it back in is immense.

[Cory Doctorow]

And it kind of explains like this is the, this is the non pathological version of everyday carry.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

You find a thing that you love that works perfectly well. You, you know, like I, I, I'm the kind of person who's on the road like 100, 150 days a year. And I have a fully set up travel package.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

You know, with duplicates of everything I need to travel with and, and whatever. And when you, when you dial it all in perfectly and the bag is great and the, the accessories are great and the way it's organized is great. And you always, you know, you get somewhere and something's broken and you can fix it again. I love, I have a set of titanium chopst times I've been able to like eat food in a hotel room without having to use the shitty plastic fork.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, that's bloody good. I should get some, I should get.

[Philip Broughton]

Some cutlery that we ran out of forks.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, this is, yeah, this is the thing like in a, in a Somewhat like grim CES for not useful things. I feel like I would. I would love a trade show where it was just like, useful shit.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

It's like a bag that's great for this kind of traveler. If you want to make the useful shit convention invite me, I'd love to cover it, because I would love. They need to start thinking that way with this show. I'd love, like, Battery Isle. I'd love. I'd love Battery Ville.

[Philip Broughton]

That would be a problem with the fire marshal.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay. But you space them out a little bit.

[Philip Broughton]

You would have to. Yes.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

You space them out.

[Philip Broughton]

On a positive note, I have not had to call the fire marshal this year.

[Ed Zitron]

You haven't had to call them in years. You didn't call them last year.

[Philip Broughton]

I didn't call them last year either. And for the previous four years, I didn't. Because we weren't here.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes, yes.

[Philip Broughton]

Every year.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah. There was that prolonged period where it was like, hey, Phil, we found a. A completely functional laser on the. And you're like, which kind? And they were like, well, mri.

[Philip Broughton]

The MRI in the middle of the electronics showed the worst.

[Ed Zitron]

I think that's an idea. How the. Did they even get that in?

[Philip Broughton]

Because they never told anyone and then rolled it onto the floor and good to go.

[Ed Zitron]

The perfect crime, you know, unlicensed medical.

[Philip Broughton]

Use on random passersby and destroying adjacent electronics.

[Cory Doctorow]

And it's a long tradition.

[Philip Broughton]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

The World's Fair used to be able to go and have your feet fluoroscoped in the shoe sales.

[Philip Broughton]

You didn't have go to the World's Fair. You just went to your local market.

[Ed Zitron]

Quick question. What's a fluoroscope?

[Cory Doctorow]

It's an X ray. So you used. So it used to be very common to sell shoes by putting your feet in a pair of shoes and then putting your foot in an X ray.

[Philip Broughton]

And then you can say, look how good your kid's foot fits in there.

[Cory Doctorow]

Not for a brief exposure.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

You leave it running like. Like a radiographically guided injection. You would leave it running for 10, 20 seconds. And the shoe fitting salesperson.

[Philip Broughton]

Or longer.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah. Would be just like, continuously bombarded.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Philip Broughton]

It's watching X ray tv.

[Ed Zitron]

Phil, as an expert in this kind of thing, how bad was that and why?

[Philip Broughton]

So it was a remarkable amount of dose to the foot, primarily of children. So you don't really want to drop dose on kids. But the worst and most exposed were the workers in the shoe store who were continually doing it. And also, more to the point, the way they had Built it is the X ray generator shot through your foot to the developing screen towards the lens for your face so that you could see how good your shoes were. Incidentally, we still use fluoroscopes. They are medical, and they are the majority of the dose that doctors and nurses take.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

If you ever get a radiographically guided injection, they.

[Philip Broughton]

It's so they don't stab you or put the drugs where it shouldn't go.

[Cory Doctorow]

They are good into your face. A joint or whatever that has a person with a lot of medical things. I've had a lot of radiographically guided procedures.

[Philip Broughton]

They're useful, but you don't want to use them for bullshit. Like shoes.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That is some classic humanity there. They were just like, how the fuck we're going to fit shoes on is X ray.

[Philip Broughton]

If you try hard, you can still find them in remote stores in Appalachia. But if you want to see one in person, there was one on display at the Bradbury Museum that they have now equipped with digital cameras to simulate the effect of what the fluoro unit for shoes used to be like.

[Ed Zitron]

Jesus.

[Philip Broughton]

It's one of those. They seriously did this? Yeah. Yeah. They really.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm not surprised anymore when I hear anything like that. I'm. I'm honestly, I'm shocked. They haven't had a ghost gun problem here. I'm shocked because think about it.

[Philip Broughton]

That came to the floor in a prior year.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. What really?

[Philip Broughton]

3D printing of firearms with.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, the 3D printing arms.

[Philip Broughton]

It also came to definitely.

[Cory Doctorow]

What's his name? Got busted for the minor.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Oh, God.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

What?

[Philip Broughton]

It's a deep, dark industry.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. You've got. You've got the horrifying billionaires who are just talking about the 14 words. And then you've got the makers printing.

[Philip Broughton]

Them on their 3D gun.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

I mean, this was a guy who heard the phrase hard cases make bad law. And he was like. Like, I've got a hard case.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

I'll make it.

[Cory Doctorow]

Because we were trying to figure out, like, our STL files, you know, so there's this principle in law that we established in 1992 when we sued the NSA for civilian access to crypto, which is that code is a form of expressive speech covered by the First Amendment.

[Announcer]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

And so prior restraint on the publication of code is unconstitutional. It was narrowed in another case about the magazine 2600. But it's still a bedrock principle. Code speech. And then it's like, well, RSTL file speech. I mean, they're code. Right. And Ideally, what you'd want to have it about is something that has some nexus with privacy or political activity, like protected activity. And this guy was like, no, I'm gonna just start with guns, because I think Second Amendment weirdos will have my back. Which is probably true, but also, like, the court is gonna go, okay, but, like, if we rule in favor of this, you got. You're making guns at home. That. I feel like that's a. I, the judge, feel a little uncomfortable about it. So he was really. He was like, let's roll the dice on the entire idea that Coda's speech on my folk theory about guns and whether Second amendment weirdos will be able to sway the court. And it sort of all fell apart because he had sex with a minor.

[Ed Zitron]

Right? Yeah, That's.

[Philip Broughton]

There was a previous terrifying trip to Vegas where on the floor of Caesars, we were playing craps. You had wandered off to bed, and I ran into a former student from one of my classes who was so excited to see me say, hey, Phil. And he was decked to the nines, heavy gold rings, clearly doing way better than I'd seen him when he'd been laid off from New me. And you're doing great.

[Ed Zitron]

What is New Me?

[Philip Broughton]

The. It's now the Tesla plant in Fremont. Formerly, it was a cooperative between GM and Toyota that gave birth to Saturn.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah, right.

[Philip Broughton]

But it folded, and now it's Tesla and Elon bought it, and that became their first factory. But I saw that student who had been working in all of the support machine shops that ring New me. Bad economics happen. But he was. Looked like he was doing good.

[Ed Zitron]

From Green Lantern.

[Philip Broughton]

I asked, how you doing? He said, you have no idea how great it is to be able to just print lowers and uppers left, right, center.

[Ed Zitron]

So he was a gun.

[Philip Broughton]

He reached out into his pocket and said, here, I got a fresh one. And just handed me a lower.

[Ed Zitron]

No, thanks. And. And for the.

[Philip Broughton]

On the floor of the casino, uninitiated.

[Ed Zitron]

And through my very low gun knowledge, the lower is the part that actually makes a gun a gun. Right. Like, that's. That's the part that is the actual thing that you require to make a gun shoot. Boom, boom.

[Philip Broughton]

And it absolutely had no serial numbers. And it was. He handed me a ghost gun on the floor of a.

[Ed Zitron]

You were required to put a serial number on a lower.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Philip Broughton]

Yeah, you are.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm saying this because I know sometimes I get the occasional email saying, eddie, keep passing things out. The one thing. The one rule Sophie and Robert gave me was to be like, yeah, what's that mean? Say what this means. Say what this means. Because otherwise no one knows anything, including me. But that's fucking insane. This person was just walking Vegas, baby.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software. Instead of growing your business, this is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's o d o o.com Financial.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Planning used to only be for the few expensive, exclusive and tied to huge account minimums. At fassit we change the rules. No more high fees based on your assets, just a simple flat fee. Membership guidance from a certified financial planner and planning that covers every facet of your life from big goals to everyday decisions. Learn [e-mail] Add a Sponsored by facet.

[Announcer]

An SEC registered investment advisor. Not an offer to buy or sell securities nor is an investment legal or tax advice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

[Cory Doctorow]

This week on Point game with me, C.J.

[Philip Broughton]

Toledano and Isaiah Thomas. It answered some questions from you, the fans.

[Cory Doctorow]

Here's a sneak peek.

[Philip Broughton]

Check it out.

[Ed Zitron]

My favorite TV show.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Ever is Law and Order. Oh yeah, you could pick up any.

[Cory Doctorow]

You can watch any episode. Did you know I'm on a Law and Order episode?

[Philip Broughton]

Which one?

[Cory Doctorow]

You don't even know I'm gonna look.

[Ed Zitron]

Law and Order is my favorite ever.

[Cory Doctorow]

So when I. When that was my. One of my dreams as a kid.

[Ed Zitron]

To be on Law and Order. I'm gonna go off and watch it. Okay.

[Cory Doctorow]

Do you want it? I got reading lines and everything. Oh my God. Reading lines and everything. Download DraftKings sportsbook and use code PointGame for your shot at a share of.

[Philip Broughton]

$1 million in bonus bets with the code PointGame in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER NEW YORK. Call 877-8-HOPE and wire text hope and why connecticut? Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas.

[Cory Doctorow]

Wager tax pass through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over in most states.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply.

[Cory Doctorow]

Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days minimum. For additional terms on responsible gaming resources.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

See DKNG Co Audio Limited time offer.

[Announcer]

For period protection you can put on and forget about nothing Beats NYX Leakproof underwear North America's number one leak proof underwear brand. Let's face it, life can be unpredictable. But your leak proof underwear shouldn't be. That's why millions of people choose NYX for periods, for light leaks, for everyday freshness. NYX undies are super comfy, super absorbent and made to handle whatever your day throws at you. Day two of your period, your daily run. No problem. That big sneeze? You know the one? Yep, we've got you. And with styles like bikinis, boy shorts, thongs and high rise plus sizes from extra small to 4 XL NYX makes it easy to find your perfect fit. Say goodbye to stress and leaks and say hello to undies that work just as hard as you do no matter the leak. Find the style and level of protection you [e-mail] and use code flow15 for 15% off. That's K-N-I x.com code flow15 for 15% off Nick's for your leaks for your life.

[Cory Doctorow]

So as a Canadian, I have a piece of gun lore for everyone that I learned from John McDonald or Jim McDonald rather, is a science fiction writer, ex military, writes military science fiction, very well regarded. And he said when you write science fiction with a gun in it, or any fiction with a gun in it, someone out there who really cares about guns will find something that you said that was wrong and they'll make fun of you.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Cory Doctorow]

And if you want to avoid this, you just need to know one word. Modified. And if you say he opened fire with his modified whatever Walther ppk, no matter what it is, you then make the gun do the person out there who's a, you know, amosexual musket fucker is going to be is going to be so interested in figuring out what modification you thought of to make this gun do this. And the weirder it is, the cleverer they'll think you are. Just Getting like I figured out the cool thing you thought of. Am I right?

[Ed Zitron]

It's kind of like.

[Philip Broughton]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yes.

[Ed Zitron]

This is a very specific reference. There's a show called Reaper where Ray Wise from Twin Peaks was the devil. And it's kind of like how they play a game of coin flip, I think it is. And they use a reflection on the. On the tabletop to distract the devil because the devil is distracted by his own reflection. You just need to key jingle for the musket. The amosexual musket. That's. That's a good one. But also that's so far. I know. I mean with my work, when I'm doing my AI stuff my favorite thing is like someone will take one of my shorter pieces so they're like 29000 ones and we'll say like this guy doesn't know. And they will find one line and they'll be like look, look on that. And it will be the weirdest smallest thing. And I'll always be like. So can you be specific about what this changes? They block me. They block me every time. And actually there was a. So there is a B. This is a random aside, but this.

[Philip Broughton]

Rough lines, LARPers or sickos.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, no, this is. I got sent a very fun one. So there's this guy on Twitter, real horrible website, Buco Capital bloke who is like a. A weirdly popular guy and he deleted this tweet but an eagle eyed reader caught it. It said conflict it because if the AI trade blows up then take him's head explodes which would be very funny. But then Ed's itch won't be right and that would not be funny at all. And I just to be. Just to be clear, this would be the funniest possible situation because that guy deleted it and thinks I didn't get it. Sadly I got the screenshot. It's gonna be a great. It's gonna be a great year for stuff like that. I don't know about the rest of the world, but yeah, this actually Corey back to the ghost gun stuff.

[Philip Broughton]

Stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

What happened with all that?

[Cory Doctorow]

Because I don't remember. Yeah, I mean it just.

[Philip Broughton]

The prison thing happened.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Not for that specific guy, but I.

[Cory Doctorow]

Mean I don't remember what happened to defense distributed. I don't think. Yeah, I don't think we've had a case that was litigated to final judgment about the legality of shape files. I mean the legality of the gun itself is pretty established. Right, but that's good. Shape files. And, and look, I just, I do think that making geometry illegal is done.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes.

[Cory Doctorow]

As a person who would throw all the guns into the sea or whatever.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, right.

[Cory Doctorow]

I still think making geometry illegal is dumb.

[Ed Zitron]

And also, yeah, at that point, you can't build things. You can't 3D print at all.

[Cory Doctorow]

And also impractical. Right? Because like, what are you actually going to do? Because there are so many ways to express a file that will be that shape. Because STLs can express logic. Right. They can be parametric. So you can, like, for example, you can have a shapefile for a key, like a door key, and there are variables you can set in the shapefile for where you want the teeth and how deep they're going to go.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

So it is a programmable piece of descriptive code. Right. And so there are like an infinitude of ways you could write a program in the STL description language that would emit the illegal geometry. So how do you police the illegal geometry?

[Ed Zitron]

You can't.

[Cory Doctorow]

You know, it just, it just feels like if it's. It's one thing to make a law that says something is illegal, it's another thing to make a law. And even if that thing is bad and you want to extinguish it, but if you have no way to administer that law, you are setting yourself up either for heartbreak or for something really bad where you just run around and you accuse everyone of having broken the law. Because no one can ever tell who's broken the law and who hasn't. Like, administrator is the single most important, important factor in policy design. Because.

[Ed Zitron]

And just administratability means being able to do.

[Cory Doctorow]

Can you administer it right?

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

Can you figure out whether someone's violated it?

[Philip Broughton]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

So to bring this to the Internet, there are a lot of people who are very angry, and I think rightfully so, about harassment and hate speech on the platforms. But a hate speech regime is very hard to police because you have to have a common definition of hate speech. You have to evaluate whether a given piece of speech rises to the definition. You have to make a technical determination about whether the firm took, took reasonable technical steps to address the hate speech. And you know, this is an offense that occurs on the platform 100 times a minute, but it's a question that takes five years to adjudicate.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

So this, it's just not a good. You know, there are other fact intensive regimes in law like, like probate law.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

But it's fine because the average person dies one or fewer times and so the fact that it takes a minute to figure out what to do when they die, not a big deal.

[Ed Zitron]

Build different.

[Philip Broughton]

You never die.

[Cory Doctorow]

Say you'll never die.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm going to die three times.

[Cory Doctorow]

But, you know, you could imagine another regime where, like, if you. I don't know if you're a Mastodon user, but in.

[Ed Zitron]

No.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

No.

[Cory Doctorow]

So in Mastodon, there's this feature. It's a beautiful piece of design, where if you want to go from one Mastodon server to another, because you can access Mastodon from a lot of different servers run by lots of different people, you click a link and it exports all of your data about who you were following and who was following you. And then you click another link on the new server and it imports it, and then just all that stuff moves over. So we could say to Elon Musk, like, yeah, we're still going to have some standards for hate speech and whatever. We're going to worry about whether your. Your chat bot is shitting out child pornography. But at the same time, what we're going to do is create a mandate that you give people the data they need, that if they leave Twitter and go to another server, they can still talk to the people they left behind on Twitter. Because that way, if you don't like the way you're being treated on Twitter, you can leave one second later. And then this is very easy to administer because, say, you know, you're running the server, and I leave the server and I. And I don't get my file from you, I go to the regulator and. And the regulator comes to you and says, look, I know you told me that you gave Corey his file. He says, you didn't give it to him. I don't care who's right or who's wrong. Give it to me and I'll give it to him.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

And then you just resolve the whole question. So you could have, like, one person administering this policy for a billion users, and then they could all just leave the platforms where they're being abused without having to pay a high switching cost by exiting a community that means something to them. Customers or audience members or family members or people of the same rare disease as them that they're in a support group with. They could continue to talk with those people.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

So this is a very administrable remedy. It's much. It's much more streamlined. It actually solves a great deal of the problem. It's not as good as eliminating hate speech. But I don't think you can.

[Ed Zitron]

I just. I Feel like with some of these platforms, I'm not talking about Blue sky, but the original, the original Twitter problems of like slurs, for example. And it's like you can't unilaterally ban them other than the fact you could kind of lean that way. I feel like you could be like, you will have to have a little more nuance than that. You will have to. But I feel like starting from there and working back, I'm sure you'll push back on. This is just. They usually go the other way. It's like, well, let people do everything. We'll work out later. I just feel like it's just a half ass attitude. I run the better offline Reddit with a dread hand. Yeah. In the sense.

[Philip Broughton]

But I think Iron law of the mods. Beautiful.

[Ed Zitron]

But the smaller communities you could do that with but a large social network you can't.

[Cory Doctorow]

And you understand the context right? Like the understanding the difference between. And then I called him this slur and made him really sad. Ha ha ha. And then I got called the slur and I was sad. Please come and give me comfort. Requires a lot of context knowledge. And you know, oftentimes the people using the slurs are like that's their hobby and they're really good at, you know, working the ref and so it's much more common that they're figuring out how to use the slur in a way that doesn't get them kicked off and getting the people they're using the slur against kicked off for complaining about it.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And the classic one being like reporting people for death threats. But it's, it's friends being like I'm gonna kill you, man. Yeah, that's not the classic like I, I don't. Social networks still fall for this year but it's like they will be the, the people doing light hearted stuff that get banned and then the people with the 14 words and saying 88 gets get to keep around. I, I really, I am excited to see though how the world reacts to Twitter becoming the CSAM generator. Because if Keir Starmer bans X, that'd be the funniest thing I've seen in my fucking.

[Philip Broughton]

To do it.

[Ed Zitron]

He won't do it.

[Cory Doctorow]

Doesn't have a spine.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Have you been seeing this Came up on my feed today that the right and the left in the UK are having dueling protests about who hates Keir Starmer more.

[Cory Doctorow]

Oh yeah, that's.

[Ed Zitron]

That is. You know what?

[Philip Broughton]

That's the most together.

[Ed Zitron]

That's the most British thing I'VE ever heard. We all know we don't agree about.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

This is called we know we hate Keir Starmer more than you.

[Ed Zitron]

That's so British. That's the most British thing I've ever heard in my life. Not.

[Cory Doctorow]

No.

[Ed Zitron]

And then someone's gonna have a protest saying that we shouldn't have a protest about anything. That we need like at least four more protests. It's the bit for the People's Front of Judea from Life of Brian. I. I love that I don't love Keir Starmer. Not gonna lie. Doesn't seem to it. I didn't know that we could get a Conservative, Labor Conservative. Just a guy who's like no one's happy. He doesn't really have policies.

[Cory Doctorow]

He has the lowest approval ratings of any prime minister since measurement began. He has a lower approval rating than Boris Johnson. During the pandemic after it was discovered that he was having parties while everyone else was locked down, not able to grandmother's funerals.

[Ed Zitron]

We found the least popular.

[Cory Doctorow]

And Rachel Reeves is even less popular than he is.

[Ed Zitron]

What about Theresa May?

[Cory Doctorow]

Less popular than Theresa May. Less popular than Liz Truss.

[Philip Broughton]

Yeah.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

I was just about half.

[Philip Broughton]

Who was Lettuce.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh my God.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Now I'm going to say I hate the lettuce thing. I hate the lettuce thing so much. It's the most boring, corny wanky chungus from the uk. We're a country where we used to have. When Spitting Image used to have teeth and it wasn't just like poop and boat doing home.

[Announcer]

Like that's actually.

[Ed Zitron]

That really bothered me. I heard of a Spitting Image thing the other day which is this puppet show in England where they do like political stuff. And all it is now is just like outright homophobia. It's just like what if. What if Trump was gay? We're just lame ass pieces of.

[Philip Broughton]

We're a long way from the Land of Confusion video.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And it. Oh God. But it's. I can't believe kiss numbers that unpopular though. But actually I can. The only thing that labor does reliably is produce people that are less popular than the Conservative because it's just like, well, the Conservatives are bad. We'll give a Labor Party in. And they're like right.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Historic fumble.

[Ed Zitron]

Historic football. Every when you watch like Gordon Brown and you're like, God, I miss him. You know, things.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

They should have let my boy Corbin winning.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh yeah, Jeremy.

[Cory Doctorow]

He is also screwing up very badly. What's interesting, you know, party of his. Yeah. With our.

[Ed Zitron]

What the fuck Is.

[Cory Doctorow]

But, you know, the Greens are. Are circling. So after World War II.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, God.

[Cory Doctorow]

There was a. There was a reboot of British politics. The Liberal Party collapsed. So a party that had been around forever, the Whigs, just ceased to exist. Labor came into existence. That was happening to the Conservatives as of the last election. And the Reform Party were about to. To basically scoop up all the Conservative voters who didn't like the way the. The party was being run. But it looks like it's also happening to Labor.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

And there is. There are two potential places where the left is going to go. The Greens have not been great historically. They've had a lot of bad policies. They were into homeopathy for a while, whatever. But they have got a terrific new leader, Zach Polanski, who is basically young, charismatic. Corbin.

[Ed Zitron]

Interesting.

[Cory Doctorow]

And. And Corbin himself is not charismatic. Corbin and her husband. And just very bad at organizing. And Polanski's an organizer. It's. I'm very bullish on the British Greens.

[Ed Zitron]

That'd be nice. I mean, we did lose Scott Galloway. Sorry, We've got. They sent Scott Galloway there. I mean, like, they sent Scott Galloway to England, I thought. Or maybe he moved from England to Florida. I can't remember which direction they sent that piece.

[Philip Broughton]

Came to Florida.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. That's okay, by the way. Just want to just go. Completely blunt statement. If you move from England to Florida, they should put you on a list.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

I know what you are.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Philip Broughton]

As a Floridian, we have a very long tradition of accepting the garbage of the world and making it our own.

[Ed Zitron]

It's like the Staten island to Florida thing, except it's not just because you're old and hate everyone. It's because you're horny in a new way. They haven't quite identified yet.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Calibrating.

[Ed Zitron]

Check that out. Yeah. The male loneliness crisis is solved in Palm Beach, Florida, isn't it?

[Philip Broughton]

No, it's EOR city.

[Ed Zitron]

Is it? What's that?

[Philip Broughton]

Because even Tampa has a place. They need to make mistakes.

[Ed Zitron]

I thought that that was just Tampa.

[Philip Broughton]

No, Even Tampa has a place to go. To go make life errors.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Philip Broughton]

And that is Ebor City.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, God. Yeah, I'm. And as we look into this year, I got to admit I realized things are quite bad, and things are going to get a lot more chaotic. But I think the chaos is necessary. Coming out of this week, all I can feel in my gut is, like, destruction from this show. Not literally, but this feels like a reckoning of like. And Corey, you'll have some good historical knowledge of, like. 20 years of hubris in the tech industry, of moving away from. We made a thing that people could use towards actually. Random question. Corey, you ever read a the Case for the Fat Startup by Ben Horowitz? It was a piece he wrote actually. Before software is eating the world. Horowitz even. It was basically saying the. The worst thing hell was having a startup that was not the leader in the market.

[Cory Doctorow]

I know this. This. Yeah, this. I've not read the paper, but I've heard it described.

[Ed Zitron]

It's just, it's a. It's a guy, one of the Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz early on 2010, I think, and I think ever since then we have been leading to this point where you chase out the companies that are like, okay, we'll build something cool and we'll compete in a market and you'll chase them out in favor of companies like, we will win the market, even if it means changing the market materially, even if it means using means such as monopolistic tendencies or just race to the bottom or using funding to chase people out. Uber, to your point, Ed. And I think what we're seeing this CES is what happens when you just chase growth. Because the thing about all these companies is, yeah, you can judge them and you should judge them and they fucking suck. And I think all of these LLM rappers deserve to go in the trash along with their founders. But at the same time, it's like Scorpion the Frog. It's when you incentivize bringing things to a show that do not exist, when you give them awards, when you write them up and act like they're real year after year, regardless of whether they, the fucking thing actually exists. Of course you're going to get a CES predominantly made of things that don't and the things that exist only to get invested in, from the normie people who came here like Chloe Radcliffe, to the extreme technical people like Corey. It's the same thing of like, this is just a company that's here to jingle the keys in front of the investors or the. Not even the buyers, just investors invest in me and. Or in front of the press. And I think in this next year we're going to see what happens when you do that everywhere. And we're going to see the collapse of these AI startups that never had a point, were never built for anything other than selling to someone else or dumping onto the public markets. Except none of them can chase out all the smart people in favor of people who can't count So I think.

[Cory Doctorow]

If you want to identify something over 20 years that's monotonically increased, it's the way that incumbents are able to block new market entry theory. So, you know, historically, if you're going to make something new, you would make it work with the thing that already existed, you know?

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

Canonical example, like when we opened up at T after the breakup in 1982.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

The modem just plugged into their. Right. You didn't need to make a phone network, you just needed to make a modem.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

And that everything exploded.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Cory Doctorow]

That happened. Right. It's sometimes called permissionless innovation, sometimes it's called disruption. All both of those terms have got into bad odor. Bad. But this idea that you don't create a market de novo, you raid the high margin lines of sclerotic legacy companies that are dominating the market. And this is what Jeff Bezos said to the publishers when he launched Amazon. Infamously, he went to a boardroom full of publishers and he said, your margin is my opportunity. So you take those high margins, you make them your opportunity. And so when AT and T gets broken up and they lose the ability to control what you plug into the phone jack, we see modems, we see an explosion of answering machines, pbx. It's just all this stuff that is just like built, layered on top of the existing stuff, but you can't do that anymore. You know, when Facebook launched, they had this problem that everyone who could have used Facebook had a MySpace account. And so he gave, you know, Zuck gave everyone who had a MySpace account a bot that you fed your MySpace credentials to. And it would go to MySpace several times a day and impersonate you, scrape everything waiting for you and put it in your Facebook feed. And you could apply to it, right? So you didn't have to choose between your friends and superior service. Facebook's initial pitch was, we're like MySpace, but we're not run by an evil billionaire and we never spy on you.

[Ed Zitron]

Thank God.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah, thank God. And so you could have this. You could eat your cake and have it too. And, you know, you do this to Facebook, they will nuke you till you glow. It's not technically challenging, and it's not hard to think of cool things to do. So, you know, 2024, there was a startup from two teenagers called OG App, almost the same thing. You gave it your Insta credentials, it logged in as you. It grabbed everything Insta had waiting for you. It discarded all the suggestions, all the ads, all the recommendations, all the boosted content, and all the clickbait and showed you things from people you followed in reverse chronological order.

[Philip Broughton]

Oh, the Facebook I want.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

And that day it hit the top 10 of both app markets. And that night Meta sent a takedown notice to Apple and Google and they removed it.

[Ed Zitron]

Nice. And that's. That's. They won't remove X though.

[Cory Doctorow]

Sure.

[Ed Zitron]

No, but that's. No, but that's.

[Cory Doctorow]

There's honor. There's honor among thieves.

[Ed Zitron]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

No, no, these guys are not really competitors. They all sat behind Donald Trump on the dais.

[Ed Zitron]

But that's the thing, though. The egregious version of that is large language models. Hear me out. So none of these companies can be run on cash flow, though. I know, doing the bit. But you can't compete with OpenAI. You can't compete with anthropic. You can't, because to train these models requires the, at best, millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars and access to infrastructure at a scale. I mean, if you want to compete with them, you need hundreds of millions of dollars and you need the talent.

[Cory Doctorow]

They have a big capital moat.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, the capital moat, but also the talent moat.

[Cory Doctorow]

Sure.

[Ed Zitron]

And the RSU moat. They can just offer stocks, so it's impossible to enter there. But even as an AI startup, you can't compete with the venture capital industry. There is no scrappy AI startup. You can say, oh, well, we've got, you know, we scrape by with how much? Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Cory Doctorow]

I think you're right. I think AI has got formal characteristics that make it attractive to vc. And one of them is that it looks like it tends towards a winner take all market, which is a thing. VCs obviously love this. You know, zero to one, all of those, all the VC nonsense. I think the other one is that the jobs that they think AI will take are capital P. Professional jobs in the sense that a professional is someone. Yeah, A professional is someone who is bound to a code of ethics that not only permits them, but requires them to tell their boss to fuck off if their boss asks them to do something that's not moral. And so you have this whole class of people, teachers, nurses, rad techs, you know, whatever, who are like obliged to say fuck off to their bosses. And no wonder they're having such an easy time selling this otherwise vaporous technology, because bosses have been furiously fantasizing about firing everyone who's allowed to tell them to fuck off since the idea of a profession emerged. And so, you know, you have all these different formal characteristics. The winner Take all dynamic. The we fire all the people who get to tell us to fuck off dynamic, you know, like, like it's very exciting.

[Philip Broughton]

And the fight to maintain the codes of ethics, it also often teaching students that this is why I demand this of them and why they should demand it for themselves. May often be the first time they've ever heard of the concept of a code of ethics. Which is depressing. But also it warms my heart for a. Or I get to be the person who teaches you to care about yourself.

[Ed Zitron]

The thing is though, I also think there's something quite simple which is all of that's true and none of these people know what their people actually do. Like the people they want to fight, the people they want to fire. Yeah, they truly do not understand what it is they do. Like I'm going to choose like a random public business insider. All of the layoffs they did there and it's like, oh, we'll replace them with AI. Well, we won't. That didn't work. But you know, we, we're gonna, we're gonna say we're AI first. What does that mean? Well, I can't really stop asking so many questions. You.

[Odoo Sponsor Voice]

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other, One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software. Instead of growing your business, this is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

For too long, financial planning was expensive and exclusive. With fastt, you pay a simple flat membership fee instead of high fees based on how much money you have. No commissions, no surprises. You get guidance from a certified financial planner and help with every facet of your life, not just retirement facet, financial planning for the life you want. Learn [e-mail] ADA is sponsored by Facet.

[Announcer]

And SEC Registered Investment Advisor not an offer to buy or sell securities nor is it investment, legal or tax advice. Past performance is not a guarant guarantee of future performance. For period protection, you can put on and forget about nothing. Beats NYX Leak Proof Underwear North America's one leak proof underwear brand. Let's face it, life can be unpredictable, but your leak proof underwear shouldn't be. That's why millions of people choose NYX for periods, for light leaks, for everyday freshness. NYX undies are super comfy, super absorbent and made to handle whatever your day throws at you. Day two of your period covered your daily run. No problem. That big sneeze? You know the one? Yep, we've got you. And with styles like bikinis, boy shorts, thongs and high rise plus sizes from extra small to 4 XL NYX makes it easy to find your perfect fit. Say goodbye to stress and leaks and say hello to undies that work just as hard as you do no matter the leak. Find the style and level of protection you [e-mail] and use code flow15 for 15% off. That's kn Ix.com, code flow15 for 15% off NYX for your leaks for your.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

Life Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Ed Zitron]

Everyone around here talk about worker replacement and that I feel this is the thing that actually drives me the Craziest all the time. It's the people like, yeah, worker replacement. Worker replacement. Have you used one of them? They don't work. They just don't work. They don't work. Occasionally I'll see someone on Twitter, be like, my. My wife, who's a special doctor at the most genius hospital, New York City, she put in a thing and it came up with a differential diagnosis that usually. And it's just off you lying sack of.

[Philip Broughton]

And it's.

[Ed Zitron]

But everyone I've been talking to this week, outside of the. This room, of course, who talks about worker replacement, it's like, yeah. And, you know, of course right now it's replacing workers where. Well, I think coders aren't.

[Cory Doctorow]

You need to differentiate between the AI can do your job and an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you, replace you with the AI that can't do your job.

[Ed Zitron]

That's the point. That's exactly it. It's like the same. It's almost like they. They actually know that's it. They finally created an economy where they've cut out, like, efficacy or like, what a thing does to just like, finally we created a thing for salespeople to sell to CEOs. No one knows what's going on with the actual product or whether it works, whether it's good or bad. Just like the vibes, baby.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

But then also, there are bosses who could give less of a fuck about whether it works or not. They know that what their headcount reduction for the year has to be. And they're just going to be like, well, he. You know what?

[Ed Zitron]

I got.

[Cory Doctorow]

Excuse.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, I can do this.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

You know, Microsoft, for example, aren't they. They're like rumored to be doing massive layoffs again. And they keep doing layoffs every single year. Why they do them?

[Ed Zitron]

Because they just fucking work. Well, actually, Microsoft, I think, has genuine brain madness, though, because I talk to people that I have a ton of my. If you work for Microsoft, always reach out easyteroffline.com easytron76 on Signal. It's funny, every time I hear from them, I never hear from anyone who's like, I fucking love this AI is actually huge. It's always people being like, my product manager, who does not appear to do any work, has told me that AI and copilot must be used. And it's people again. Senior people, too, being like, I don't know what the fuck is going on. But Jay Parikh, who's over at Microsoft, real loser guy, went from a company called Moveworks, which was famous for buying $30,000 worth of Lululemon gifts cards to give to people to buy their software. Went to Meta, then went to Microsoft to run AI. It's just like there are these business idiots who bounce around and just go, AI, baby, we're here. It's time. And then the sales team goes out, tries to sell it, and they're like, yeah, it turns out that people want something that works, that actually does the job. And you keep saying it's digital labor, but that it don't do. Don't do that at all. And it gets back to the point I was making. It's like. Like we're at the natural end point when you start removing the product from the sale.

[Cory Doctorow]

Sure. I have a bit of Lululemon trivia for you.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, by all means.

[Cory Doctorow]

The guy who founded Lululemon, giant piece of Ayn Rand worshiping libertarian edge Lord. The reason he called it Lululemon, he thought it would be fun to hear Japanese tourists in Vancouver try and say Lululemon. So he picked a word with as many L's in it as possible.

[Ed Zitron]

I hate that so much.

[Cory Doctorow]

He also had a no fact checks policy for quite some time. Is like, no, we don't do. Do plus sizes.

[Ed Zitron]

No fact checks policy. Huh?

[Cory Doctorow]

No fact checks.

[Ed Zitron]

What is this, Platformer? The newsletter? No, not fact checks.

[Cory Doctorow]

Not fact checks. Fat chicks.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, my bad. Yes, I'd say I really misheard that once. It's usually.

[Cory Doctorow]

Usually the other way around.

[Ed Zitron]

I'll say something in an America, Sorry, Canadian won't understand.

[Philip Broughton]

Would you like to go to the pawn store?

[Ed Zitron]

No, we're not talking about Pawn Stars. I would. I. I'm serious. If I could get Chumley from that show.

[Philip Broughton]

You have to get him out of prison.

[Ed Zitron]

Is he in jail?

[Philip Broughton]

He may have had a teensy bit of a CCM problem.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, I'm. I can. I hate to say it, but look at him. Then listen to every time.

[Cory Doctorow]

We'll fix it and look.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, it's Jimmy. Jimmy Jingle Jankle. No, no, no, no, no. None of that. Yeah, it's gonna be an interesting year because I just think it's a reckoning of every, like, the 20 years of dumbfuck decisions, the Iraq war, the DHS and the venture capital era. I think the venture capital era is coming to an end. I'm not saying VC will go away, but I don't think people at a.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

16Z just raised their biggest fund and they got their return. They're going to make the tech industry multiples larger.

[Ed Zitron]

The funniest thing I saw though was someone posting about, wow, look how great Andreessen is. Look at these vintages. And they stop at 2017. It's just like, yeah, look how good this is. And as we know, as we all know, time stopped.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Listen, I believe in Conehead. I think he can do anything. I sets that point too.

[Ed Zitron]

That's the thing. Like even he can be wrong. And the whole thing, the whole reason that VCS like that have done well is not because of them being geniuses. It's because when the really obvious things that will obviously sell, they just go to them first. They just go and, or at a later round or. Yeah, they will always know that they can get in there and that company will help or whatever.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

That's a big thing of theirs, is that, you know, if you up and you don't get in on the winner, then get in on the winner on the, on the next round and crowd everyone out.

[Philip Broughton]

Yep.

[Ed Zitron]

And the thing is though, venture capital is running out of money. $15 billion go to Andreessen Horowitz. That's going to drain it from all the other people that need it. The other thing is, is who the they going to sell these startups to Aquaman? Like, what's going on?

[Cory Doctorow]

See, I think there's so much money to be made out there if, if we can unlock the, the, the, the silos. Right? So like just think about some of those fast adopted technologies in the history of the world, like the VCR. Right. People love home recording. We don't have VCRs anymore because it's illegal to break DRM. So it's still legal to record shows. It's just every show that arrives in your house either arrives by streaming, cable or satellite. They're all encrypted. It's against the law to break the encryption because of the dmca. The recording is legal. The breaking the encryption to do the recording isn't right. Who, who would not want, like, I think you could sell every person in America a PVR for streaming.

[Ed Zitron]

What?

[Cory Doctorow]

Just like recording, recording the stuff you watch.

[Ed Zitron]

Interesting.

[Cory Doctorow]

So you know, everyone's like, oh, I hate streaming because they take away the shows I love. You should just record them. You should just record them the way you did off your television. It is legal in exactly the same way it was legal to record it off your tv.

[Ed Zitron]

I think this company called Play On, I worked with like 15 years ago. So it's okay. Like it's. I just, I can send that. Does that. They seem to exist.

[Cory Doctorow]

Were they using the analog Outputs, I got no idea. You're now seeing down sampling on the. There's a thing called selectable output control that we fought really hard in Cable card and lost on where they down sample the analog outputs. And so the analog outputs are just garbage. So what you record off of it is like a postage stamp. And so, you know, there, that was like the, there were. Elgato did this for a long time. There were a bunch of companies that had, that had analog stuff. Stuff. There's actually a name for what they wanted to do about this. They called it plugging the analog hole. Which is like the, the people who pride themselves in their ability to communicate with the public. Coming up with we will now plug everyone's analog holes was just disgusting. A moment of just incredible.

[Ed Zitron]

Nice.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah. And I, I, I wrote something about it that got translated into German. I learned my most useful German phrase, which is plugging the analog hole in German, which is Das analog Stoen. And so now if I ever need, I can order tap water, I can ask if there are any hotel rooms and I can tell you I want to plug your analog hole in German. That's my vocabulary.

[Ed Zitron]

A very common German conversation.

[Philip Broughton]

Sex clubs all the time.

[Ed Zitron]

I, I just think, I, Oh my God. I, we're gonna. And I just think entering this year I'm just, I'm excited for it because I live in cash. But it's, I will say every day I keep seeing people increasingly more frantic about this market and about vc and also we can't sell any AI companies. No one's buying them. They have to do these weird like deals where it's like, yeah, we're not hiring you, we're signing a license and we're not going to pay all the people off off. We're going to pay the top brass off who will then join our company, the ip. Yeah, we're going to license it. We don't really care. We're just getting the talent.

[Cory Doctorow]

Yeah, it's just Aqua Hire.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes. But the thing is Aqua Hires were traditionally, I don't know, I'm old enough to remember back in like 2013 when an aqua Hire was you losing. Yeah, it was like when you sort.

[Cory Doctorow]

Of, I mean there were a lot of startups that were effectively just like there were a lot of VCs who set said really what I am is a headhunter and I go out and I get a bunch of promising people, maybe people who are already working at big tech. I give them some money to build what amounts to a postgraduate project and then they get hired back at either their former employer or a new employer and they get a hiring bonus in the form of their stock being bought by the company. I get a finder's fee in the form of my stock being bought by the company. Just the shittiest way to run an executive recruiting.

[Philip Broughton]

But the thing is the company gets the patent.

[Ed Zitron]

But the thing is though, that's not even happening anymore because there are no patents. Yeah, no one. You can't patent prompt engineering.

[Philip Broughton]

It's true.

[Ed Zitron]

Like you can't patent the. Because that's all it is.

[Cory Doctorow]

I haven't looked into it. So the USPTO is not issuing a ton of AI patents.

[Philip Broughton]

Also they damaged deeply the USPTO with Doge.

[Cory Doctorow]

Oh that's funny.

[Ed Zitron]

And it's also just you can't, I don't think you can patent. Yeah, I mean maybe you can try, but I haven't seen people patenting prompts.

[Cory Doctorow]

Well, the USPTO has historically been very bad about granting bullshitty patents. You know we, we fought and killed a patent that effectively would have allowed one company to control all podcasting. So like the reason this podcast is on the air is that we, we, we, we killed this patent. The Trump admin is now moving to make it harder to get patent reexamination. So if a bullshit patent issues, it's harder to challenge the patent. So I think we're see a lot more garbage patents, more patents, patent trolling. There's a town in east Texas.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Cory Doctorow]

Where they have a made judge and all of the, yeah, all the, all the patent cases go there to die. There's like 700 companies that are headquartered in like one dusty building and it's just a bunch of mailboxes with you know, brass keys. And then all the big companies that get sued by patent trolls try to sweeten the jury by putting money into public work. So Samsung built them a year round outdoor ice skating rink in I think it's west Texas in like it's 115 degrees in the summer and they have a year round outdoor ice skating rink that Samsung pays for.

[Ed Zitron]

This is like a capitalist libertarian paradise. This is just like what if actually like this is the world that the libertarians think that they could build. But you'll never beat Samsung. Yeah, Samsung, Samsung will you up big time. All right, I think we're gonna wrap this up. It has been such a wonderful show.

[Philip Broughton]

It's been fun.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

I've been really great.

[Ed Zitron]

Enjoyed having all of you here. Thank you Corey for making the trip out.

[Cory Doctorow]

Thanks Ed.

[Ed Zitron]

Thanks Phil thank you, thank you thank you. Matt Osalski, Our incredible producer, Mr. Ongueso Jr. Thank you for joining me once more.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Thank you for having me.

[Ed Zitron]

Mr. Philip Broughton thank you so much.

[Philip Broughton]

I do my thing.

[Ed Zitron]

Thank you for bartending and thank you for everyone who came through these doors and thank you to the incredible listeners have stuck with us. What an incredible show. We have done incredibly well. Where is a great show. We will be back next week with Mr. Stephen Burke of Gamers Nexus going to have a post CS show with him. Sadly not in person. It'll be it will be remote. I can speak flawlessly. Please subscribe to my newsletter and of course in dedication to Sean Paul Adams we will have a link to the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium. Remember that for the first time in the show Notes. Thank you all. It's been incredible.

[Guest/Additional Participant]

Later.

[Philip Broughton]

Bye bye.

[Ed Zitron]

Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Owski. You can check out more of his music and audio [e-mail] matt t o s o w s k-I.com you can email me at ezeteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's your ED to visit the Discord and go to R betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Announcer]

For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit.

[Cory Doctorow]

Our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out.

[Announcer]

On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cory Doctorow]

The new year brings new health goals and wealth goals.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

Protecting your identity is an important step. Your info is in endless places that could expose you to identity theft leading to lost funds. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, Lifelock's restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Resolve to make identity, health and wealth.

[Cory Doctorow]

Part of your New year's goals.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

With LifeLock, save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply for too.

[Announcer]

Long, financial planning was expensive and exclusive. With fasst, you pay a simple flat membership fee instead of high fees based on how much money you have. No commissions, no surprises. You get guidance from a certified financial planner and help with every facet of your life, not just retirement. Financial planning for the life you want. Learn [e-mail] at a sponsor by facet.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

An SEC registered investment advice, not an offer to buy or sell securities. Nor is it an investment, legal or tax advice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and.

[Cory Doctorow]

It gets complicated and confusing.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything.

[Cory Doctorow]

From accounting to inventory to sales.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out.

[Cory Doctorow]

On the features you need.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Check out Odoo at O D O O.com that's O D O O.com Pro.

[Cory Doctorow]

Drivers live for race day, but for.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Small business owners, every day is race day.

[Public Sponsor Voice]

That's why going pro with Lenovo Pro matters. One on one advice.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

IT solutions and customized hardware powered by.

[Cory Doctorow]

Int Intel Core Ultra processors.

[Facet Sponsor Voice]

Keep your business on the right track.

[Cory Doctorow]

Business goes pro with Lenovo Pro. Sign up for [e-mail] Pro.

[Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ed Zitron]

Guaranteed Human.