TWiG 800: The Best of 2024 - Tree Pruning 101, Cow Magnets, The Skin

Summary

Summary of This Week in Google Episode 800: The Best of 2024 - "Tree Pruning 101, Cow Magnets, The Skin"

Release Date: December 23, 2024

In this landmark 800th episode, This Week in Google (TWiT) presents a comprehensive "Best of 2024" compilation, featuring highlights from the year’s most impactful discussions and memorable moments. Hosted by Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau, this special episode delves into a variety of topics ranging from technological innovations and philanthropic efforts to quirky agricultural tools and personal anecdotes. Below is a detailed breakdown of the episode's key segments, enriched with notable quotes and insights.

---

1. Jeff Jarvis Proposes a Bell Labs Museum and School of the Internet

The episode kicks off with Jeff Jarvis introducing an innovative proposal to transform the historic Bell Labs in Murray Hill into a museum and educational institution dedicated to the Internet's history and development.

• Jeff Jarvis ([00:55]): “The old Bell Labs... is going to be empty. And I'm proposing that it be turned into a museum and school of the Internet.”

Jeff emphasizes Bell Labs' pivotal role in technological advancements that underpin the modern Internet, including the development of the transistor, laser, Unix operating system, fiber optics, and the C programming language.

• Jeff Jarvis ([01:21]): “You wouldn't have an Internet without so much of what was done at Bell Labs.”

Leo Laporte and Paris Martineau express enthusiastic support, recognizing the significance of preserving such a monumental legacy.

• Leo Laporte ([01:45]): “Unix, for crying out loud.”
• Paris Martineau ([03:17]): “I love this.”

This proposal underscores the importance of historical preservation in tech and the need for educational programs that bridge humanities and Internet studies.

---

2. Examining Wikipedia’s Lamest Edit Wars

Transitioning to lighter content, the hosts explore some of the most trivial and humorous edit wars on Wikipedia, showcasing the platform's vibrant and sometimes absurd community dynamics.

• Leo Laporte ([10:30]): “Is the tiger the most powerful cat? I don't know. Complete with accusations that people were tiger fanboys.”

Topics range from debates over the geographical origins of the Bee Gees to the true ancestry of celebrities like Freddie Mercury and Jennifer Aniston.

• Jeff Jarvis ([10:37]): “These are hysterical, the things people fight over.”

The segment highlights how seemingly minor disagreements can escalate on collaborative platforms, reflecting broader human behaviors and interests.

---

3. Critical Analysis of Elon Musk’s Charitable Foundation

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting a New York Times article that scrutinizes Elon Musk’s charitable foundation. Ed Zitron provides an in-depth analysis, revealing concerns over transparency and the actual impact of Musk’s philanthropic efforts.

• Ed Zitron ([12:26]): “Elon Musk parked about 5, 6 billion dollars of Tesla shares... he regularly fails to donate enough money to do so.”

The discussion points out that while Musk’s foundation holds substantial assets, there is a lack of clarity regarding how these funds are allocated and whether they genuinely benefit the public or primarily support Musk’s ventures and associates.

• Paris Martineau ([14:08]): “It's unclear if any of the Musk Foundation's investments or philanthropic endeavors benefit anyone outside Elon Musk or Elon Musk's employees and customers.”

Jeff Jarvis echoes the need for more responsible and transparent philanthropic practices, criticizing the foundation's effectiveness and purpose.

---

4. The Tab Management Debate: Organizing Browser Tabs

In a humorous and relatable segment, the hosts debate the merits and challenges of managing numerous browser tabs, reflecting modern digital habits.

• Paris Martineau ([07:18]): “I do gorilla gardening.”
• Leo Laporte ([25:05]): “Poor cows.”

Paris boasts about having over 6,700 tabs open, sparking a playful conversation about the best practices for organizing and reducing browser clutter. Various strategies like using "OneTab" and other tab management tools are discussed, highlighting the diverse approaches individuals take to handle digital multitasking.

• Jeff Jarvis ([28:22]): “So you move them around.”
• Paris Martineau ([28:47]): “I really like OneTab, honestly.”

The banter underscores the common struggle with digital organization and the different ways people adapt to manage their online workflows.

---

5. Cow Magnets: A Quirky Agricultural Solution

Paris introduces the concept of cow magnets, devices used by farmers and veterinarians to prevent hardware disease in cattle—a condition where cows ingest metal objects harmful to their digestive systems.

• Paris Martineau ([21:53]): “Have you ever heard of this type of magnet? They’re very popular with farmers...”

The hosts engage in a humorous exploration of how these magnets work and their practical implications, blending agricultural science with lighthearted commentary.

• Leo Laporte ([25:05]): “Poor cows.”

This segment highlights the intersection of technology and agriculture, showcasing innovative yet unconventional solutions in animal husbandry.

---

6. Guest Appearance by Craig Newmark

An unexpected and delightful moment occurs when Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, joins the conversation. The hosts engage in friendly banter about his experiences with Alaska Airlines' pancake machines and his interactions with urban pigeons.

• Craig Newmark ([38:24]): “They are considerably better than you'd expect.”

Craig shares anecdotes that humanize him beyond his entrepreneurial persona, adding a personal and entertaining dimension to the discussion.

---

7. Leo Laporte’s Acting Experience with Francis Ford Coppola

Leo recounts a nostalgic and humorous story from his early acting days, detailing an audition and brief involvement with legendary director Francis Ford Coppola for the uncompleted film Megalopolis.

• Leo Laporte ([45:12]): “I was the voice talent for the detective in Megalopolis. I only did it for a few nights.”

Despite the short-lived role, Leo reflects on the unpredictability of the entertainment industry and the lasting memories from such unique experiences.

---

8. AI in Education: Exploring Notebook LM and AI-Generated Content

The hosts delve into the evolving role of artificial intelligence in education, focusing on tools like Notebook LM that leverage retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to enhance learning and content creation.

• Leo Laporte ([50:09]): “What's happening in schools today is way more complicated than that.”

They discuss the potential and challenges of integrating AI into educational settings, addressing fears and misconceptions while highlighting innovative applications that support both teaching and learning processes.

• Jeff Jarvis ([51:31]): “It's pretty damned amazing.”

This segment emphasizes the transformative impact of AI technologies in shaping the future of education.

---

9. Audience Engagement: Survey and Club Twit Membership

Leo encourages listeners to participate in an annual survey to help the podcast better understand and serve its audience. Additionally, he promotes Club Twit, an initiative for listeners to support the show financially in exchange for exclusive content and an ad-free experience.

• Leo Laporte ([52:22]): “It helps us with sales because we can say, you know, as we often do, 70% of our audience are IT decision makers.”

This call to action aims to foster a stronger connection between the hosts and their audience, ensuring the show's sustainability and growth.

---

10. Paris Martineau’s Tree Pruning Endeavors in NYC

Concluding the episode, Paris shares her journey into urban tree pruning, detailing her participation in courses offered by the New York City Parks Department’s citizen pruner program. She discusses the importance of maintaining street trees and her personal commitment to enhancing the city’s green spaces.

• Paris Martineau ([54:37]): “Once I pass my test, I'll get a license to a smaller saw and another glove.”

Leo and Jeff express their support and amusement, celebrating Paris’s dedication to community service and environmental stewardship.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Jeff Jarvis ([01:21]): “You wouldn't have an Internet without so much of what was done at Bell Labs.”
• Paris Martineau ([03:17]): “I love this.”
• Paris Martineau ([14:08]): “It's unclear if any of the Musk Foundation's investments or philanthropic endeavors benefit anyone outside Elon Musk or Elon Musk's employees and customers.”
• Paris Martineau ([07:18]): “I do gorilla gardening.”
• Leo Laporte ([25:05]): “Poor cows.”
• Craig Newmark ([38:24]): “They are considerably better than you'd expect.”

---

Conclusion

Episode 800 of This Week in Google serves as a vibrant tapestry of the year’s most intriguing tech stories, personal narratives, and light-hearted exchanges. From preserving technological history and scrutinizing philanthropic transparency to managing digital chaos and embracing urban environmentalism, the hosts provide listeners with a well-rounded and engaging recap of 2024’s technological landscape. This special edition not only celebrates the podcast’s longevity but also reinforces its commitment to delivering thoughtful and entertaining content to its dedicated audience.

---

Note: This summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content segments to focus solely on the substantive discussions and interactions among the hosts and guests.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Twig this Week in Google. And this week it's a special Twig. The best of 2024 podcasts you love from people you trust. This is twig. This is twig. This week in Google. Episode 800 recorded for Christmas Day 2024. The best of 2024. Hello everybody, I'm Leo Laporte. We've given Paris and Jeff the week off, but believe me, we have lots of great content from the year gone by. It's a look back at 2024 on this special episode of this Week in Google. We'll start off with Jeff with an interesting proposition. So what I like your idea. Tell us what your idea.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So Bell Labs in Murray Hill with the famous Bell Labs where so much occur is, is closing. The Bell Labs, now owned by Nokia or whatever was left of it, is moving to a new facility in New Brunswick by Rutgers, whole modern. So the old Bell Labs, which is this phenomenal building in Murray Hill and phenomenal grounds, is going to be empty. And I'm proposing that it be turned into a museum and school of the Internet.

[Leo Laporte]

Brilliant.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You think about it, why there? The Internet wouldn't be possible without so much that was forged at Bell Labs. Transistor laser information theory, Unix communication satellites, fiber optics, advances in chip design, cellular phones, compression, microphones, talkies, the first digital art, artificial intelligence. You wouldn't have an Internet with so much of what was done at Bell Labs.

[Leo Laporte]

Unix, for crying out loud.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And the C programming language, both came out at Bell Labs. Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So there's a computer history museum in Silicon Valley. There is a television museum in the Paley center in New York and the Museum of the Movie and Image in New York. Glenn and I well know that Massachusetts. I give a plug to him in this. Glenn has a museum of printing online. There are, you know, amusing artifacts online. But I think it's important that we have a place to recognize the, the development of the Internet, to talk about it, to think about it. You all know that I want to start an educational program in Internet studies, bringing the humanities and social sciences into this. I think it's a place to do it. So this is my little jump on it idea. I want to end with one thing on this is this.

[Leo Laporte]

Does Nokia still own it by the way? Is it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, I believe so.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not AT&T anymore?

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, not AT&T anymore. No, no, not long since. So David Eisenberg, I think you know.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Of the Clue train, a clue. A 12 year veteran of Bell Labs wrote the infamous Memo pushing the value of the stupid network.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, no, that's a different David.

[Molly White]

You think?

[Jeff Jarvis]

David Weinberger.

[Leo Laporte]

Weinberg.

[Jeff Jarvis]

David Eisenberg.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So. So he, in his own website, says that the memo was received with acclaim everywhere in the global telecommunications community, with one exception, AT AT&T itself. So Eisenberg left AT&T in 1998. So I think it'd be wonderful, kind of justice to make Bell Labs the place for the Internet. So I just put it up.

[Leo Laporte]

I love this.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We'll see if there's any.

[Paris Martineau]

I love this.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, great idea.

[Paris Martineau]

It's also less than. It's an hour drive from where I am. So then I visit the Internet museum regularly.

[Leo Laporte]

Field trip.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I. I also thought I was there once we started NJ.com. we did start NJ.com.

[Leo Laporte]

It was the Star Ledger. Right. It's the Star Ledger.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Who I used to work with when I worked on that. So we went to visit Bell Labs, and I think Nokia owned it then before it went to Lucent or Lucent owned it. I don't know. It's. It's been a child shoved around from house to house. But it's. It's, you know, drab, as I remember, industrial green walls. But you walk by the labs and you see the benches and the blackboards, and you think, what genius was in there? What happened in these places? It's. It's haunted by genius, and we can't let it become condos or warehouses.

[Molly White]

Also good to be a place where you could go and see the Internet, right? And I'm sort of being funny, but back in the 90s when I had an early Internet company, I would get calls from local media all the time because they need kind of B roll they wanted to shoot. They'd say, can we come and look at the Internet? I'm like, well, like, Glenn has.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Glenn has it.

[Molly White]

Glenn has the Internet.

[Leo Laporte]

Sure.

[Molly White]

It's in this room. It's some sun systems. And they would come in and we would talk about the Internet or get like, national news and be like, this guy has the Internet. And it felt a little like, well, people are looking for a thing, a physical thing to put on it. And now is a phone, the Internet. So I think there's actually something nice about instantiating the notion of the Internet as a place, as a thing you could go and look at what made it. In a way. There's no, as you said, there's no technology museum that is specifically devoted to what the Internet was, what it became, what it is now, what it's going to become. I think it's great.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And do an oral history with Sir Tim Berners Lee and with vizsurf and the folks who were there at the beginning. And I think it's something we've got to remember. I plug my books at every opportunity. As the poor listeners of this show know. I did it in my testimony. I'm very proud of myself. I got a notebook, plugs my testimony.

[Leo Laporte]

We noted that, by the way, you also. They didn't. You didn't mention it by name, but you got to plug in for this show too.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, actually. Actually I did because that was my intro.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So the name of the show was in the intro.

[Leo Laporte]

Did they mention this week in Google?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes, they did.

[Leo Laporte]

And your AI Inside. And AI Inside, which by the way, continues on.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Which by the way. Well, while we're on that, just real quickly, tomorrow Jason is going to drop Episode 0 of AI Inside at AI Inside Story with his Patreon up to support it. And then next week we'll have our first real show.

[Molly White]

Great.

[Leo Laporte]

So it's the show basically you were workshopping in a club. You're just going to keep doing it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Wonderful. Glad to hear it. That's really.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So Anyway, it took 500 years to decide to study the book. We can't wait that long for the Internet. We need to study it now.

[Molly White]

And you can have an animatronic Al Gore who can guide you through the museum. Explain repeatedly. I didn't say what they said. I said. But anyway, I did.

[Leo Laporte]

I did it.

[Paris Martineau]

I was instrumental in the Internet growing. I did not build the Internet.

[Leo Laporte]

That's right.

[Molly White]

It's just in a loop and it follows you around. You're like, okay, Al, I get it, I get it.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't travel.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I'm thinking that you would Paris since you saw wood on the street because.

[Paris Martineau]

Of the outside wood on the street.

[Leo Laporte]

She builds furniture.

[Paris Martineau]

I do have a. An industrial size like measuring tape at my office desk just in case you.

[Leo Laporte]

This is what I travel with.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh.

[Paris Martineau]

And my version of that is during the summer months I travel with a pair of garden shears in my bag. I know you don't low hanging. I do. Cuz as Jeff A fellow tall person will understand the trees will sometimes be really low and then you. No, I'm not stealing anything. The trees will be really low on my walk to and from the subway and they'll hit me in the head and no one tries them. So I do gorilla gardening.

[Leo Laporte]

Too. But I never thought about doing this.

[Paris Martineau]

I would always just.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I would be limbo under the trees, not flew.

[Leo Laporte]

You go around with shears and you cut.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I'm Willa Gardner. I am joining this club.

[Paris Martineau]

It's great. It's phenomenal. It gives you a sense of power.

[Leo Laporte]

How big are these shears?

[Paris Martineau]

They're pretty large. I'll see if I can find them.

[Leo Laporte]

Dudes, put them up your sleeve, send.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Them to me because I'm gonna get some and I'm joining your club. Harris, you are gonna make such a great old ladybowitz.

[Leo Laporte]

I swear to God, that's the kind of thing Fran Leibowitz I have to say, the idea of Paris, walking around New York City pruning trees, randomly pruning trees cracks me up. There will be more about this later. By the way, you're watching Our best of 2024 for this week in Google. We're so glad you're here. Happy holidays.

[Ad]

After investing billions to light up our network, T Mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus right now you can switch keep your phone and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan versus Verizon and at and t@t.

Mobile.Com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service ported 90 plus days with device ineligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.

The holidays are here, and so is the IKEA Winter Sale. Now's your chance to make the holidays a little more magical and less expensive. Save up to 50% off on select items in store and online now through January 7th. Plus IKEA loyalty members get an extra 10% off on sale items. And if you spend $2.99 or more on a single order before December 10th, enjoy free delivery. Need help managing the clutter of decorations? IKEA Storage Solutions will keep your home tidy from toys and tinsel having extra guests over? Check out offers on select dining furniture to make more room for the people who matter most this time of year. Don't wait to finish your winter wish list. Shop the IKEA Winter Sale in store or online now until January 7th. Visit ikea-usa.com wintersale for more details. Terms applied offer valid dates may vary us only, while supplies last. Selection may vary by store and online. See store@ikea USA.com Wintersale for complete terms.

[Leo Laporte]

Restrictions apply on we go with one of our favorite guests on this week in Google. This was actually the first time the wonderful Molly White made her guest appearance.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I Was gonna point to the.

[Leo Laporte]

Wikipedia article on the lamest edit wars.

[Paris Martineau]

Were you Wikipedia edit?

[Leo Laporte]

Were you part of this lamest edit war?

[Paris Martineau]

It's a list of them.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh. So I don't think I've been a.

[Paris Martineau]

Part of any of them. Okay. I think it's really funny. The disclaimer up top says this page contains in bold material that because it is considered humorous, such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

[Leo Laporte]

We like to warn people before we get too crazy.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No irony on Wikipedia.

[Paris Martineau]

My favorite one is towards the bottom where people were edit warring, which is really just when you're editing back and.

[Leo Laporte]

Forth between versions of a page over whether or not we could call the tiger the world's most powerful cat. These are hysterical, the things people fight over. The Bee Gees. Are they a British or Australian group? Freddie Mercury. What's his true ancestry? Jennifer Aniston. Is she American or American born? Is she Greek? American English American Greek and English American. Does she need all those prefixes? So, Copernicus, PG Wodehouse, Werner Herzog, Saladin. All of these have been edit war subject matter. Which one is your favorite here? The last tiger. The tiger.

[Paris Martineau]

It's towards the bottom.

[Leo Laporte]

Is the tiger the. Well, that's a really good question. Is the tiger the most powerful cat? I don't know. Complete with accusations that people were tiger fanboys. A revert war.

[Paris Martineau]

It gradually led to arguments about how.

[Leo Laporte]

Tigers would match up versus bears and crocodiles. Oh, my. Complete with another revert war about the inclusion of a YouTube video showing a tiger fighting a crocodile. Wow. Wow. I love it.

[Paris Martineau]

I want to talk next about a great article that the New York Times did on taking a deep look into Musk's charitable foundation. And I want to also throw it to Ed for kind of an overview of this a little bit, because I know you just did a podcast episode about this where you interviewed one of the authors of it, David Fahrenthold, I guess. Could you tell me a little bit about the article and what that was like? Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Absolute, absolute legend, David. He jumped on the phone the day after the article went out. What a legend. So, long story short, Elon Musk parked about 5, 6 billion dollars of Tesla shares. To be clear, they didn't buy them. These are just chairs he had in the Musk Foundation, a nonprofit. Now, part of the rules of doing this is you have to spend 5% of it every year to qualify for the 2 billion odd dollar tax break he got. He regularly fails to do so. He regularly fails to invest, sorry, donate enough money to do so. But he also, unlike, say, Larry Page's foundation, he doesn't dump it in a donor advised fund, which is kind of a black box for giving grants to people. No, he staff, he has two unpaid volunteers and he is the other person on the board. And it isn't really obvious where the money goes when it does go somewhere. It goes in either very small amounts and does very little or very large amounts and also does very little. There is a school called Ad Astra which is literally inside a SpaceX compound. Where Musk's own children go. It used to be outside, now it's inside a SpaceX compound. They got several million dollars. He gave $100 million from the MUST foundation to another nonprofit just called the Foundation.

[Paris Martineau]

Really firing on all cylinders there, which is so.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So the foundation, it really is.

[Ed Zitron]

It bought a bunch of land out very close to a boring company site in Texas. Very cool, very good stuff there. He also donated $55 million to a cause of a guy who auctioned on a SpaceX flight, who then immediately bought three more seats on another SpaceX flight.

[Paris Martineau]

And I think one of the interesting things that I, that David, the reporter brought up in your interview is part of what is supposed to be happening here is if you are getting this tax break from being a charitable organization, you have to do charitable things, meaning you have to do things that benefit the public good. And this article, the thing that it kind of hits again and again is that it's unclear if any of kind of the Musk Foundation's investments or philanthropic endeavors. It's unclear who they benefit outside of Elon Musk or Elon Musk's employees and customers, which is incredibly unusual for a charitable foundation. Well, a good one.

[Ed Zitron]

He did as well as he said he was going to fix the water problem, the water contamination problems that plagued Flint, Michigan, promised to do so. He actually tweeted at one point that he'd already done so and then deleted the tweet. In 2018, he gave him about $1.2 million, which good. He did something. They bought water filters for the school. They bought laptops for the school. Great idea. They then responded to him with a four page plan, basically saying, here's how you do. Here's how we will do the thing you promised to help us with. And then you can fix the water. As he promised. He sent a Tesla development executive to Flint, Michigan who gave people rides around the, around the parking lot. What of the city hall?

[Paris Martineau]

Hey, a ride in a Tesla, that's incredibly charitable.

[Ed Zitron]

And then he Said, hey, well, we might build an office out here. You'll never guess what happened. He didn't build anything. He didn't fix Flint, Michigan, at all.

[Paris Martineau]

Some of the details in this story are just wild. I mean, as you'd expect from an Elon Musk story, some of them are kind of. I'll quote from it here. Among the donations the Musk foundation has made, there was a 55. There was 55 million to help a major SpaceX customer meet a charitable pledge. There were millions that went to Cameron County, Texas, after a rocket blew up. And there were donations to two schools closely tied to his business. One that was literally physically walled off inside a SpaceX factory compound. And the other, like you mentioned, is located next to a new subdivision for Musk employees. I just want to go into a little bit more about the one you mentioned. Ad Astra, which is Latin for to the stars, ostensibly was founded by Musk as a nonprofit school to explore new ways to teach math and science. And this is from the Times again. But that school, too, would serve a personal purpose for Mr. Musk. In its first year of operation. Out of his home in the Bel air neighborhood of LA, five of Ad Astra's 14 students were his own children. The headmaster said the only criteria for admission were, quote, kindness and eagerness to learn. And parent that worked at SpaceX company store.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I just want to again underscore. I made fun of the New York Times using the verb underscore the other day for what reporters really want to say themselves. So anyway, I'll underscore Kashmir Hill and David Fahrenholt. I've. I'm. The Times is driving me completely batty lately with its credulous coverage of fascism and it's Biden but his birthday polls and all this stuff. But the Times is also the repository for people like Fahrenholt and Hill who do this kind of great work. And we just. More of this, please, less of the other crap.

[Leo Laporte]

That Ed Zittran, he's quite the character, isn't he? Wow. I'm glad I was not here for that. But it was wild, wasn't it? You're watching the best of 2024 on a special episode of this week in Google. Happy holidays. We're glad you're here.

[Ad]

Now, at T Mobile, get four 5G phones on us and four lines for $25 a line per month when you switch with eligible trade ins, all on America's largest 5G network.

Minimum of 4 lines for $25 per line per month with autopay discount using debit or bank account, $5 more per line without autopay plus taxes and fees and $10 device connection charge phones via 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on a required finance agreement due bill credits end if you pay off devices or early ct mobile.com the holidays.

Are here and so is the Ikea Winter Sale. Now's your chance to make the holidays a little more magical and less expensive. Save up to 50% off on select items in store and online now through January 7th. Plus IKEA loyalty members get an extra 10% off on sale items. And if you spend $2.99 or more on a single order before December 10th, enjoy free delivery. Need help managing the clutter of decorations? Ikea Storage Solutions will keep your home tidy from toys and tinsel having extra guests over? Check out offers on select dining furniture to make more room for the people who matter most this time of year. Don't wait to finish your winter wish list. Shop the Ikea Winter Sale in store or online now until January 7th. Visit ikea-usa.com wintersale for more details. Term supplied offer valid dates may vary us only, while supplies last. Selection may vary by store and online. See [e-mail] wintersale for complete terms. Restrictions apply.

[Leo Laporte]

On we go now with let's see a visit to a New York City apartment with a built in podcast studio. It's a dream come true.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We're gonna. We're gonna go to. To Paris's Burrow. We're gonna go to Brooklyn and Borum Hill. A new building, a lovely new building trying to be in the neighborhood. Nice place. Read about it all. It has a steam room. It has all kinds of other things. It has a podcast studio.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh I'm moving there now in the apartment building. I bet you the rent in that apartment would be less than the cost of our studio here, right?

[Jeff Jarvis]

And you get neighbors with Paris.

[Leo Laporte]

I like Brooklyn. Is this a good Is Borum a nice place to live?

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I like Boreham Hill.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay.

[Paris Martineau]

It's cute.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah. Cute story. Word. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Is there a picture of the podcast?

[Paris Martineau]

I want to see how what the rent is here. What's the address?

[Jeff Jarvis]

It says. It says the small ones they have five bedroom ones. They haven't priced that.

[Paris Martineau]

The small ones start at studio starts at 700,000amonth. No, no, that's a purchase purchase.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually that ain't bad.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's not for anything under a million Dollars.

[Leo Laporte]

That's how much it would cost. For a studio here?

[Paris Martineau]

No, for a studio apartment in bore. The studios in the buildings are like a small, barely big enough.

[Leo Laporte]

1100 square foot house in Petaluma would be a million dollars, believe it or not.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh yeah. 1100 square foot anything in Brooklyn, this is 50s. A couple million probably. Probably, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Studios of five bedrooms start at 700,000. 12,000 square feet of exterior amenities. A cold plunge pool, a podcast studio, a steam room.

[Paris Martineau]

You do your cold plunge, you record a quick pot, a quick three hours.

[Leo Laporte]

That's what I'm thinking.

[Paris Martineau]

Then you go into the podcast.

[Leo Laporte]

That's what I'm thinking. We spent $8,000 a month on this. I could just shut this place down, live in Boreham Hills, do the show.

[Paris Martineau]

From there, get one and a half apartments in the show from there.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I don't know if I want a studio. I'm a little old for that.

[Paris Martineau]

My other thing is very silly, but I saw it and I thought you guys would find it fun. It's cow magnets. Which.

[Leo Laporte]

Not something you put on your fridge.

[Paris Martineau]

No, not something you put in your fridge. This site explains what is a cow magnet. Have you ever heard of this type of magnet? Actually, cow magnets are very popular with farmers, ranchers and veterinarians because they're a well known method of preventing hardware disease in cattle. Hardware disease is basically where cows just eat some sort of metal and then it like ends up in their digestive tract and hurts them when they try to expel it. So in order to fix it, what they just basically do is they put a bit. They give the cow a big magnet, they swallow it and it sits there and it just collects all the metal. It's cow magnets.

[Leo Laporte]

Do they occasionally.

[Paris Martineau]

Do they ever open up the cow.

[Leo Laporte]

And get it out or does it live there?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, it just stays there.

[Paris Martineau]

I think it just. Yeah, it just stays there.

[Leo Laporte]

They're very strong magnets. Al Nico magnets in the shape of a smooth rod, about half an inch by 3 inches.

[Jeff Jarvis]

This is life with Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

Honestly, I saw it on Y combinators news website. Sometimes I just go on there, look.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Don'T tell me it's worth billion doll.

[Leo Laporte]

I must have missed the hacker news cow magnet piece. I love hacker news.

[Paris Martineau]

They just linked to this website and I was like, listen, I'm here for cow magnets.

[Jeff Jarvis]

This is it.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Who knew? I wonder. I bet you there are people in our audience who are saying right now, oh yeah, cow magnets, sure.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes. Well, you can't eat Cow through tsa.

[Leo Laporte]

You didn't know that? Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

I just think it would be really funny if we approached human medicine like these veterinarians where it's like people keep eating metal and getting sick. Let's just put a big magnet in there.

[Leo Laporte]

Scooter X has put a link to the Amazon cow magnets listing Master magnetics original cast Al Nico five cow magnet. Half an inch in diameter, three inches long. Pack of two for $22.

[Paris Martineau]

That's reasonable. Oh, it's got a little cartoon cow inside diagram. That's interesting. But you could only feed them one.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Because if they ate two, they go.

[Paris Martineau]

Then they would get preparations together.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, the history there. You need the cow's privacy to be violated under hipaa.

[Leo Laporte]

People who bought. People who bought. The Master Magnetics original cast cow magnet also bought. And then it's just a bunch of cow magnets.

[Paris Martineau]

The last slide in this Amazon display is the thing that says, that's agree get magnets in the cows early.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, my God. Don't wait till cows are already sick. Make them swallow this. Now. I wonder if humans should do this.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I mean there's the whole dangerous things putting little magnets in your hands and whatnot.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, here's here. Explains one magnet works for the life of the cow. Administer with an ordinary balling gun. Oh. Ow. I don't know what I don't want to know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Poor cows.

[Leo Laporte]

Poor cows.

[Paris Martineau]

Poor cows.

[Leo Laporte]

Poor cows.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We need an intervention.

[Paris Martineau]

No, we don't.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Jeff for Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

Stay away from me.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No.

[Paris Martineau]

No.

[Kathy Gellis]

Paris. Jeff has sadly miscalculated. I will stand by tab hoarding with you.

[Paris Martineau]

It's correct.

[Kathy Gellis]

Yes, it is correct.

[Leo Laporte]

From x dot com. I probably have a brain disease because I genuine believe I need every one of them. According to one tab, you have. Stand back. 6,775 tabs.

[Kathy Gellis]

I do have to say I don't think I've achieved numbers like that, but I am impressed and I will not give you crap.

[Leo Laporte]

Is that all at once? They're not all open?

[Paris Martineau]

Well, no, it's because I use one tab whenever. I have a lot of tabs going on. Frankly, my most common use of one tab is whenever I'm going on this show. I need to make room memory wise to be on Zoom for three hours or whatever. So then I click the one tab button on like 20 different windows and they all go in there. And then if I need to search for them again, they're all there.

[Leo Laporte]

This is actually of great interest to me. This is. Is this your habit as you're Researching for a story or whatever or what. Chicken to buy.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

You will open multiple tabs and you'll have them all open at once.

[Paris Martineau]

I will open. I'm trying to see if I can get a count here. Let's see. I just. I'll read the ones that I closed before I got in here. One was a window with 19 tabs, another window seven, another window with 36 tabs, a window with 16 tabs, a window with 20 tabs. These are all from today. A window with 24 tabs, another window with 11 tabs, six tabs, 23 tabs. I'm still on today. Okay, that was. That's all.

[Kathy Gellis]

I'm traumatized because I recently had some sort of crash where previous session could not be reloaded. And since then I'm already back to 103 and this was like a couple of days ago.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't understand. Have you as a non tab person. I don't get it. What, What?

[Paris Martineau]

How are you a non tab person? Are you just looking at one humble webpage?

[Leo Laporte]

I have two tabs open right now. Yeah, I close tabs all the time now. I pin tabs. I do have some pinned tabs, so maybe that's what we're talking about here. This is in Firefox. I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. These are sites that I go to all the time, like techmeme and so forth. These are more like bookmarks. These are actually the.

[Paris Martineau]

That I go to.23 tabs I've opened during this show.

[Leo Laporte]

So you never.

[Paris Martineau]

That's like me closing tabs.

[Leo Laporte]

You never.

[Kathy Gellis]

I try not to. I have to be careful when I close them because if I close them too soon, I will need them immediately. A half a second.

[Leo Laporte]

You know about history, right?

[Paris Martineau]

It's.

[Kathy Gellis]

The problem is I'm relying on the browser technology and you know, I keep achieving, you know, inadvertently tab bankruptcy because it blows itself up and I can't get them back. But. But no, normally I'm just trying to keep it as the running to do list. It's easier to go back to them where if they're closed, it's a too out of sight, out of mind.

[Leo Laporte]

See, it's interesting.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Mind you, the new Chrome has an organized uses AI to organize your tab.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh God, no, I think that's.

[Kathy Gellis]

I mean I.

[Paris Martineau]

My tabs are in specific orders and I need them to stay that way. Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So you, you move them around.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh yes. Oh, yes. This is also how I feel about Windows. On Mac, they, I believe, automatically Have a system on that will reorganize the order.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I turn that off.

[Paris Martineau]

Swipe left and right. I turn that off because I have an order and it does not need to be met.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. No, I agree with you on that.

[Kathy Gellis]

And I am interested in what Paris would recommend as tab managers because I've been relying on the browsers and I.

[Paris Martineau]

Really like one tab, honestly. Because especially, I mean, you can then like I'll hit the one tab button in Chrome or whatever and it will save. It'll say like you've saved your window that had 26 tabs and it'll have the icon for it and the name of the website. And so back when I had a computer with less ram, I would do that often whenever I overloaded my computer. Luckily, or I guess unluckily, I now have a computer that I maximize just to be able to hold as many tabs as possible. So I'm unchained.

[Leo Laporte]

But first of all, you get that many tabs, you can't tell from the tab what that page is. Right.

[Paris Martineau]

It's just seeing Leo. There's this. I mean, well, that is a problem. If I ever get to the point where you can't really even read the description at the top, then I move the tabs around. But there's also a feature I don't. I assume this is another browsers where right now I'm working on a story about a non profit organization. So I was looking for. I knew I had a section of tabs that were all the different annual reports. And so I just type in my browser window annual report. And then it says like, do you want to jump to these tabs? And I click it and then I go there, there, and I'm back in my spot.

[Leo Laporte]

You can only look at one tab at once though, right? You never look at. You don't like to split.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, I've got two screens up right now, so I can do two tabs or I could have multiple things on one screen.

[Leo Laporte]

I just don't understand it as an organizational style. And I also know that browsers just hate it. I mean, it's just a terrible thing to do to your computer.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, no, now Chrome will. Will. Will basically turn off a tab if it's not used up for a while.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that must be annoying.

[Jeff Jarvis]

As soon as you click on it. No, as soon as you click on it.

[Paris Martineau]

The problem is that there, it's just.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It just fades. It.

[Kathy Gellis]

Isn'T stateless anymore. So they're constantly using the data connection and doing some processing while it's open. So I think the point is it stops that to kind of make it stateless and then when you go back in it wakes it up.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know, I'm just a, I'm a tab closer apparently.

[Kathy Gellis]

It is a girly thing to have many tabs.

[Leo Laporte]

No, no, I, I, I have learned that I am in the minority that most people have lots of tabs, especially technical people.

[Kathy Gellis]

Actually, this is something else. The Venn diagram of things I have in common with Mike Masnik is he has massive loads of tabs.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah, I feel left out. Honestly. I everybody I know is tab heavy and I just don't, I don't get how I don't understand the workflow at all. I close tabs as I go. Well, I just hope they have better tab hygiene in the new year, that's all I can say. We love having Kathy Gellis on. She's great and, and we will have more of her in the new year, I promise you. You're watching the best of this week in Google 2024. We're so glad you're here now.

[Ad]

AT T Mobile get four 5G phones on US plus and four lines for $25 a line per month when you switch with eligible trade ins. All on America's largest 5G network.

Minimum of 4 lines for 25 per line per month with auto pay discount using debit or bank account, $5 more per line without autopay plus taxes and fees and $10 device connection charge phones via 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue build credits or credit stop and balance on a required finance agreement due bill credits and if you pay off devices early.

CT mobile.com the holidays are here and so is the IKEA Winter Sale. Now's your chance to make the holidays a little more magical and less expensive. Save up to 50% off on select items in store and online now through January 7th. Plus IKEA loyalty members get an extra 10% off on sale items. And if you spend $2.99 or more on a single order before December 10th, enjoy free delivery. Need help managing the clutter of decorations? Ikea Storage Solutions will keep your home tidy from toys and tins. Having extra guests over. Check out offers on select dining furniture to make more room for the people who matter most this time of year. Don't wait to finish your winter wish list. Shop the Ikea Winter Sale in store or online now until January 7th. Visit ikea-usa.com wintersale for more details term supply offer validates may vary us only while supplies last selection may vary by store and online. See [e-mail] wintersale for complete terms. Rest restrictions apply.

[Leo Laporte]

On we go with more of the best of this week in Google. I was not here for this one. Micah Sargent was filling in for me. And we got a little taste of Paris's entrepreneurial reporting. Watch.

[Paris Martineau]

I found out where the skin came from. I don't know if you guys want to know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, I do. Yes, we do.

[Paris Martineau]

It's from a company called Promocell. It's called normal human dermal fibroblasts. And it's described on the website as, and I quote, primary normal human dermal fibroblasts isolated from the dermis of juvenile foreskin or adult skin.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, my God.

[Leo Laporte]

Stop. No, you're kidding me.

[Paris Martineau]

No, I'm not. Oh, Jesus.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's the scraps at the hospital, right?

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, it's either that or it came from adult skin from different donors. But, you know, that's just what the website said and I thought you all needed to know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So it's a smiling penis face.

[Paris Martineau]

Actually potentially show title. No, no, we can't.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, come on. Smiling penis face. No bad words.

[Paris Martineau]

Actually pretty good.

[Jeff Jarvis]

People are going to want to watch the show to find out. They gotta watch all three hours to find out what it is.

[Paris Martineau]

You can apparently request the available donors and ask.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't want to know. Hi.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I want. You know what I. Paris is a reporter. Amen.

[Paris Martineau]

This is what it's all about.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Scraping Paris, can you buy them? And can we order some for Leo?

[Paris Martineau]

We could. We could get 500,000 scales. Cells of juvenile foreskin cryopreserve for $662.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Come on, let's do a Kickstarter.

[Paris Martineau]

I think we can.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's cryopreserved, too. So he'd open it up and he'd be like, you ordered what?

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, they've got a real sale on just adult, no specification cryo preserve.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We don't want to know.

[Paris Martineau]

You can get it for $323.

[Leo Laporte]

It's like, where did that even come from? Great. Who knows? Holy cow.

[Jeff Jarvis]

My life has changed today because I.

[Leo Laporte]

Just wonder now how much skin that.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Is used in research is actually coming from that. From the byproduct of genital mutilation, which it is.

[Paris Martineau]

It's true. There's a lot of trucks talking about that in New York City.

[Leo Laporte]

Wait a minute. What? Wait, I'm hearing something. We coming in. Coming in from somewhere in pigeon park. Ladies and gentlemen. Oh, he's up in the gear one. Craig Newmark. How you doing, Craig? You wanna. You wanna set the record straight? I understand.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Correct me, please, on the pancake last week.

[Craig Newmark]

I own no pancake machines. I just think of how. How tough they'd be to clean. Plus Mrs. Newmark makes better.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the truth.

[Craig Newmark]

Machine are in airport lounges. And the first thing I do is push the start button even before I put my luggage down.

[Leo Laporte]

Because he's got priorities. You do it for the food or you do it for the fun. Food. Fun.

[Craig Newmark]

And to remind myself that I have the tastes of a peasant. I was raised that way in a junk. In a neighborhood with junkyards.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Craig Newmark]

I may be a peasant with money now, but I'm a peasant.

[Leo Laporte]

This is everyday people right here. You never. You never. You can take the boy out of the junkyard, but you can't take the pancake machine out of the boy. I guess. Or something.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So. So you spend, I think too much time in Alaskan air allowance, considering how often you have marked in social. I thought it was so often it had to be at home.

[Craig Newmark]

I've been traveling back and forth more than you think. Between New York and San Francisco. In New York now. But the deal is that, you know, the lounge is a nice indulgence. Like private jets are out of the question. But free pancakes. Not bad. But again, I. I commit to the statement that Mrs. Newmark makes better pancakes than the machine does.

[Leo Laporte]

I honestly would hope so. These are disgusting. That's horrible.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Or they're pretty good. I've had them too.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it. Are you saying. Craig. They're better than you would expect. But not as good as Mrs. Newmark's?

[Craig Newmark]

They are considerably better than you'd expect. They seem to be sanitary.

[Leo Laporte]

So they are. They're touchless. Seem to be. Seems.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How many do you have at a city?

[Craig Newmark]

Generally two. Sometimes more. As you see, I'm very efficient and I pre syrup the plate before. Before the pancakes drop.

[Leo Laporte]

I respect.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I'm anal enough that I actually get upset that. You see, it's a little off there. It's a little off.

[Leo Laporte]

Greg. I respect that. I have to try that I've never even thought about. All right, Queen Pruitt. Tomorrow we got pancakes pre syrup in the plates. Oh. Now, Craig. I guess really it does beg the question. You know, maybe you don't have it in the kitchen, but you could have it in your office or something just in case you had a craving for pancakes.

[Craig Newmark]

If I did that, then the pigeons would get to it.

[Leo Laporte]

Just don't confuse it with the shredder. How are. How are the. By the way, I share your fascination with how these things work. They are kind of an amazing scientific adventure. It's a genius invention. Craig is. Now we're looking at Craig's Insta. He's Craig Newmark on Instagram, and he's got close ups of the insides.

[Jeff Jarvis]

He's following the pancake wall.

[Leo Laporte]

World famous pancake printer from Alaska Airlines. My favorite one was the very sad one of the pancake machine all closed up for the night. No access to the panc. Thanks. That was tragic. Very tragic. How are the pigeons these days, by the way? Are they doing well?

[Craig Newmark]

The pigeons are. Well, we saw a ghost face killer this morning, and although I was surprised, there were a couple rivals for his. Well, he's boss of the pecking order. And we thought Scarface and Big Face were in a shallow grave someplace.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, wow.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It'd be New York sleeping with the fishes.

[Leo Laporte]

When you say ghost face killer, you're not. It's not a euphemism. He might well be. Wow.

[Craig Newmark]

Well, he's tougher than I am, but apparently I saw Scarface in front of the coffee shop today.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, thank God.

[Craig Newmark]

And apparently Scarface was exiled. For a moment, I thought it might have been a vision from pigeon heaven.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Ah, but you saw a Scarface outside your home, out on the wild wild outside of Joe's.

[Craig Newmark]

Joe's Coffee in the. In the village. So I was pretty glad to see him because again, I, you know, don't want. Didn't want it to be a seance.

[Leo Laporte]

A pigeon seance is kind of a pathetic event, I must say.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How many regular pigeons do you have? I mean, it's a regular cast of characters in your atrium.

[Leo Laporte]

There's a corn, I don't know, hit the table.

[Craig Newmark]

There's only a limited number that are visibly distinct. Pigeons mostly look the same, like the big.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They say the same thing about us. But yes.

[Leo Laporte]

I wasn't gonna go there.

[Craig Newmark]

There's a big pigeon idol going up on the high Line, and it conforms to the pigeon idea.

[Leo Laporte]

Ah, the platonic ideal of a pigeon. A perfect pigeon on the High Line. Craig. Does people, of course, know who Craig Newmark is? Craigslist. You ever hear of that? And his philanthropies are at craig newmark philanthropies.org. there's that. That's a sweet shot of you, Craig. Love that cute shot. Love that shot. Says, I'm an old school nerd helping to protect People protect our country. And the donations that you have given, not just a pigeon rescue you, but to journalism. You gave another $10 million to CUNY earlier this year. Well done. That's really great. And in fact, I don't think Jeff would have had a job if it weren't for you.

[Craig Newmark]

You might be able to hear me. Someone just tried calling me and it knocked Zoom off the air.

[Leo Laporte]

No, we hear you. No, we got you.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, we hear you.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, you're good. Yeah, we're going to let Craig push some buttons here. Here. Other donations, a million dollars back military connected families late last year. That was after the Lahaina fires. This is. I just. Craig, you are in every way kind of what we hope successful people become in this country. And what unfortunately, so rarely successful people become in this country. So thank you for being a Mitch. Well, I hope you're enjoying this Best stuff. It's always fun to do these. And I have to tell you, it's a lot of work. Work. And I really appreciate our team, the people who work so hard. Anthony Nielsen, our creative director. Our producers and editors, Benito Gonzalez, Kevin King, John Ashley. They work so hard to put this all together for you. All of our hosts, our contributors do. And of course, there's the office people who do work in continuity, like Viva and Sebastian. Our CEO, Lisa. Twit is a. Is a big effort and we think what we're doing is really important. I hope you do, too. I hope you enjoy the company and learn from the information. And if you do, I'd like you to consider joining our club because frankly, in 2025, that's the only thing that's going to keep Twit going. If you like what you hear and you want to continue, please, seven bucks a month consider joining Club Twit. Twit TV Club Twit. You get ad free versions of all the shows, access to our Discord special programming you don't get anywhere else. But really the main thing you get is that warm and fuzzy feeling that you're keeping Twit going. We need your help. I hate to beg, but we really do. Twit TV Club Twit. But enough of that. On with the show. I want to do this story because I was gonna be in this movie. Movie. I've told you this story. When I met Francis Ford Coppola and he cast me.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's a good story.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, no, you didn't tell the story. No, you didn't tell that story.

[Leo Laporte]

I never told that story.

[Paris Martineau]

He cast you in what?

[Leo Laporte]

So Way back when, when I was an acting student. So this is maybe 30 years ago. You know, when you're an acting. When you're an early actor, you get this magazine. I know they probably don't have it anymore. Where in the back there's all the auditions. And I spotted an audition for Francis Ford Coppola for Zoetrope. So I submitted a recorded monologue, Macbeth's.

[Paris Martineau]

How was it recorded? Was it on a vhs?

[Leo Laporte]

No, it was just audio.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Do you still have it?

[Leo Laporte]

No, I wish I did. It was audio.

[Paris Martineau]

Did you send it via mail?

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, I mailed it and they called me and they said, francis would like you to come down. So we went to the Zoetrope building in San Francisco with a few other actors down in the basement. Basement. Francis. Francis Ford Coppola, the great director, was pretty big and I think wore the same black suit every night. It was just like a tent that he wore. And so you go down in the basement. He has a beautiful recording studio and we recorded from the script that he had. It was for a movie that was going to be called Megalopolis. Now this is the 80s.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Geez.

[Leo Laporte]

He has been making this movie since then.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Wow.

[Leo Laporte]

The recordings that we were making were what they call previs. Some directors, Hitchcock was famous for doing a sketch of each shot. Many modern directors actually make audio comic books. Like a. Like almost an animated show of the movie ahead of time. And that's apparently what Coppola did. So I was the. We were do. I was the voice talent for the detective in Megalopolis. I only did it for a few nights. I Francis said, can you sound more like Bob Woodward? And I said, what? How does Bob.

[Jeff Jarvis]

He's from Nebraska.

[Leo Laporte]

I think he wanted me to sound more like Dustin Hoffman playing Bob Woodward.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But Bob Woodward has a unique. No, Bob Woodward and Kurt Anderson sound uniquely alike. They sound like. It's like a Nebraska accent.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, maybe, maybe that's what he wanted. He wasn't clear.

[Jeff Jarvis]

He could have been famous, Leo, if you just listened to him and did what he wanted.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, then I made a mistake.

[Paris Martineau]

Taken a while.

[Leo Laporte]

So the next day I had Father Guido Sarducci on my radio show. You probably don't remember.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes, I do.

[Leo Laporte]

He was on Saturday Night Live. He was a comedian, Don Noello, who played one role, one role only. It was a chain smoking Vatican priest named Father Guido Sarducci with a bad Italian accent. Coppola liked him. He had. He cast him in other movies. I mentioned. Made the mistake of mentioning mentioning. Oh yeah, I've been working with Francis.

[Paris Martineau]

We're doing the voice track you mentioned on air.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I was during the interviews, but it was. Probably wasn't on air, but. But it was. No, no, no, no, no. I know. I, I know better than that. But during a break I said, oh, you know Don, I was, you know, I know you're friends with Francis. I'm doing. He called and snarfed my job. They recast with Don Novello that. Anyway, the movie is finally out after.

[Jeff Jarvis]

With Don Dello in it.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I, I doubt.

[Paris Martineau]

Okay.

[Leo Laporte]

I still haven't seen Megalopolis. I'm not sure. I'm not sure at this point. I actually, I actually won Now AT.

[Ad]

T Mobile get four 5G phones on us and four lines for $25 a line per month when you switch with eligible trade ins. All on America's largest 5G network.

Minimum of 4 lines for $25 per line per month with autopay discount using debit or bank account. $5 more per line without autopay plus taxes and fees and $10 device connection charge phones via 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue build credits or credit stop and balance on a required finance agreement to build credits and if you pay off devices early ct mobile.com New York Times.

[Leo Laporte]

Best selling author Jennifer L. Armentrout's Blood and Ass series is captivating and sexy. Chosen at birth to usher in a new era, Pop Poppy's life has never been hers. Waiting for the day of her ascension.

[Paris Martineau]

She would rather be with the gods.

[Leo Laporte]

Fighting the evil that took her family. The entire kingdom rests on her shoulders. When Hulk, a God bound to her ascension, enters her life, she is tangled with desire. He tempts her with the forbidden. A kingdom, blood and ash. A twisting, steamy escape. Available in print, ebook and audiobook where books are sold. Hey, we're so glad you're here. This is the best of 2024 for this week week in Google on we go with the best of 2024 with what was turning out to be, I think, one of the most interesting uses of AI. All year long, AI generated podcasts.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I did two. I did one where I took seven articles that were in the rundown last week on AI and put it in. But then I decided to do the Paris version where I took her oo about her new beat. So there was one, I think four stories. Oh, and I had to make PDFs of each story easy. Just print it.

[Paris Martineau]

Wow.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And then put it in. So here's the Paris Show.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a phrase that makes you think of, you know, robot teachers and kids writing essays with a blank. But that's funny, right? There was a lot of fear when tools like Chat GPT came out. Like everyone was worried about the future of learning. But what's happening in schools today is way more complicated than that. We've got a bunch of research. Do you recognize the article this is based on? Yes.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I mean, it's just very funny that it's got like a cold open.

[Leo Laporte]

So natural news articles, you name it, that paint an interesting picture. So let's dive deep into AI and education. Initially, yeah, there was a lot of fear and rightfully so. I remember those articles from the Atlantic and Inside Higher Ed Teachers. This is not good. This puts us out of business, Jeff. Yeah, this is better than anything we could do.

[Paris Martineau]

Why are we out here at 7pm at night doing this? Guys.

[Leo Laporte]

No kidding. Giggling. They're laughing. Yeah, we're saying, they're saying like, you know, about the death of critical thinking and all that. Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

It's interesting though, right? This fear. It always comes up with new tech in education, like think about calculators or the Internet. Even letting kids have cell phones in class every time there's anxiety. And to be fair, the worries about jobs and critical thinking.

[Leo Laporte]

Sounds nice. I'd like to get to know her. He's pretty friendly sounding too.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

So did Stephen explain how they're doing this? Are they. Those are real human voices that they've. I don't know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah. The thing about, about Notebook LM is that it's fairly rag based in the sense that it doesn't go off in making up stuff all over, but it obviously uses context, brings context into that discussion. It's. It's pretty damned amazing.

[Leo Laporte]

This is Stephen's post, actually, not Steven's from Biao Wang. Notebook LM now lets you listen to conversations about your sources. So you provide it with. What is the limit? You said the word rag retrieval, augmented generation. It's when you take documents and feed them to an LLM and then ask it to summarize what is the limit of the number of documents?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I think it's 50 now. It's quite a lot.

[Leo Laporte]

Lofty. Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We could take. It'd be, it'd be. I didn't want to. I. I have a life, so I didn't do this. But it would be interesting to take, let's say last week's show and take all the articles we in fact talked about, make a PDF of each and put it in and see what podcast it created.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't think it would have a fun diatribe about Wikifeet though.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, I wouldn't.

[Paris Martineau]

That's the sort of human content you can only get on this feature.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Google here with us.

[Leo Laporte]

I do want to ask a little tiny favor from all of you, not just Club Twitt members. Every year, you may remember, we do a survey of our audience. We want to get to know you a little bit better. It helps us with sales because we can say, you know, as we often do, 70% of our audience are it decision makers, that kind of thing. It's a very quick survey. Shouldn't only take you a couple of minutes. Twit TV survey this is the new 2024, 2025 survey. We're starting a little bit early, earlier this year than we usually do. It just helps us and it would be a be doing us all a favor if you if you did it. So in between shows, maybe Twitter TV survey thank you so much. Paris. How is that going, by the way?

[Jeff Jarvis]

How's it going?

[Paris Martineau]

Great. I had my final class on this weekend. I think somebody posted in the Discord earlier a photo of me with my my saw. I can repost it. So let me use a big saw. And I'm taking a test this weekend.

[Leo Laporte]

For people who perhaps don't listen to every single show.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Damn you.

[Leo Laporte]

What's wrong with you?

[Paris Martineau]

Catch us up. So the lore of this is that I have long been a gorilla gardener. In the spring and summer months, I carry around a little pair of pruning shears and I trim low hanging branches. I recently learned there's a way to go legit, and it's by taking classes offered by the New York City Tree. The New York City Parks Department funds this group called NY Trees that does a citizen pruner course. So I've been taking courses over the last couple of weeks on how to properly prune and care for New York City street trees. It was mostly virtual, but the last one was in person this weekend, the Upper west side, and I just posted in the Discord a photo of me with the big saw that they let me use to cut.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, amazing. Big saw. Whoa.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Don't mess with Paris Ranger. Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

Wow, that's me. So I've got to take a test. Probably going to do it this weekend and then pass. I'll get a license to a smaller saw and another glove.

[Leo Laporte]

Are you allowed to walk the streets of New York with that saw?

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I will.

[Leo Laporte]

I go the other way away if I saw somebody. You look like the Grim Reaper.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, it's not normally that big. I extended it because I had to cut down a branch.

[Leo Laporte]

Ah.

[Paris Martineau]

I was doing a three point cut to cut a larger branch to make sure it wouldn't fall.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Is the, is the test at a tree or over a piece of paper?

[Paris Martineau]

It's, it's virtual. It's like an online test.

[Leo Laporte]

Taking the coursework just to ask you if you.

[Paris Martineau]

I have to, I have to identify common street trees. I have to answer questions about how to prune and care for them. Different things like that.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I put a story in the rundown to this effect because it brings this together with Google line 138.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I was still looking at Paris and her giant saw. Hold on, hold on. I gotta move on. Is that your motto, by the way? Now don't feel guilty, feel healthy. I think that's appropriate.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Did you setting. It's kind of perfect. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

Pretty good, right?

[Leo Laporte]

So I, I Paris has told us that once she does get her actual physical license, she will, we'll have a little graduation party for her. And for those of you who live in New York City, beware of a lady with pruning shears. She has a license to prune. It is a fun show, I have to say. And we're so glad that you have been part of this week in Google in 2024. On behalf of Paris Martineau and Jeff Jarvis, I'm Leo Laporte. We hope you have been having a wonderful holiday, a wonderful Christmas day if you're watching on Christmas Day. And we wish you the best for 2025 and we will be here for you on the TWIT network. So we'll see you next year. Happy New Year everybody. Takes.

[Ad]

Now AT T Mobile get four 5G phones on us and four lines for 25 a line per month when you switch with eligible trade ins. All on America's largest 5G network.

Minimum of 4 lines for 25 per line per month with auto pay discount using debit or bank account. $5 more more pro line without autopay plus taxes and fees and $10 device connection charge phones via 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue build credits or credit stop and balance on a required finance agreement too. Bill credits end if you pay off devices early. Ctmobile.com.