Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2 - Better Offline

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
A media scorn by some, hated by all, welcomes a
better offline. I'm your host ed Zichron. We are still
at the Consumer Electronics Show. Due to events beyond my control.

(00:24):
We are recording at like eight pm, which means we're
all feeling great, but thankfully, thankfully, we're now joined by
David Roth of DEFECTA.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hi, how's it going?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, he's loving the show.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, I'm sorry. Is this too much energy? I can
take it down if this is if I'm like blowing
the monitors a little much.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
If this is always a problem.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So you all are feeling weird because you've been at
CES for a long time, and I'm feeling weird because
I've been at CS for like five hours and.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
That's all it takes.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, I mean, maybe do you what is it that
you acclimate? Right, Like, eventually at some point you're just
kind of like, wow, Scottish, I'm glad you've got AI
in that.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
So what what happens is that you get really sleep deprived, Right,
You're on your feet all day and then you don't
sleep and you don't eat properly, and so like your
brain just kind of like slowly shuts down on the
last like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Oh cool.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
So it's like it's like dying, but it kind of
like awakens in a weird way.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, you know, like.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
You it's actually like an undeath like I can.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
So when you go like in two thousand and one,
like you go through the stargate, you encounter yourself in
a weird yeom and it's like an old version.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Of you or a baby.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah. And then but and then at the end, yeah,
the child turns to regard you.

Speaker 6 (01:38):
So just just to introduce the other characters we've gone
with us a product, give me a way too much
in two thousand and one, there's a whole lot, there's
like two and a half. Okay, let's just say who
you are, though Namaya, wonderful auto journalist, you join me
on a previous episode here in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Good to see you again, Good to see you.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Jared Neuman, Freelanca. Wonderful to be here, great to be here.
Thank you. Correct.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Now, the effect that David is describing is actually remarkable
because it is true CES veterans generally experienced what I'm
experiencing right now.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
I'm in like the cocoons stage.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Which is you go through the Valley of the Shadow
of Death and look at your life. Nope, I and
you sit there and you go, I'm dying. And then
you get tomorrow. Like halfway through, you just get a
second and third win, win to even, and that's when
you fully jokeiphi and everything becomes darkly funny, you know,
oh aiys and everything.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Wouldn't it be bad if that would happen?

Speaker 1 (02:34):
So I'm jokeafying the next three episodes, which is gonna
be great. But David, it's great to have you here
because not only are you at your first CS, you're
not a tech journalist.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
You cover sports.

Speaker 7 (02:44):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
I had to say that to somebody earlier today because
I was playing around. I was down there with our
friend Jesse Ferrara, who I was on I Believe with
you this afternoon.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Oh, did he just came in to say Hi? Well,
do you not.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Remember you haven't been on the microphone yet?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Man, No, I don't know. I wasn't on with him.
I don't know what you do back.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
No, he was on the show. Sorry, that's what I
was suggesting. You forgot the No.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
No, So I saw Jesse and we walked around for
a bit and we were playing with a device I
guess was designed to give a pleasing jet of air
to your pet. It was a pet massager. It was
an air pet massage.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Okay, I think I saw them as well. Was that
the one with the spike at the bottom with the
pet is allegedly meant.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
To rub against No, you're well, yes, it's the same company,
but this was a different product. And I was messing
around with this one and they were fine with it,
and a lady was kind of trying to sell me
on this, and even though I told her, I was like,
I have a turtle like and I don't have a dog.
I don't think the turtle would like it. I don't
think the turtle really likes anything that I do. I
hadn't eaten, so I did tell them about the turtle.

(03:45):
That was unnecessary. It was wasting their time. And at
some point she was like, well, I can see that
you looked at my Okay, man, the totshit is my
lanyard and it's a you know, defector, which nobody knows
fuck that is. And if they did know, they'd be like, oh, yeah,
the one with the where Ray Ratto makes fun of
the raider. Yeah, like that website, and so she's like
I could see that you're you know, it's just a
work in design, and I was like, ma'am, I'm a

(04:06):
sports writer. And that was more or less enough because
you're basically saying like, first of all, I'm an idiot,
which you've already observed. Second of all, like I'm not
like rich either, and I already told you I don't
have a dog, so like, we really don't have very
much life to talk about.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
They tried to sell me a fifteen thousand dollars baseball simulator,
which was very cool.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Dude. I was ready to buy that.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
It was so cool, Like those are the only honest
people in this Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
There was a guy in there with one of the
best of the Like if you guys like played softball
at all or do you, like, are you familiar with
there's like an aesthetic of like a slow pitch softball
body type, and it is like you can be a
really good softball hitter with a body that would not
seemingly be suited for any sport.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Was he just crushing it.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Crushing it a sweet left handed swing and it's like
a similar it is like a golf simulat yeah. So
it's like showing you where in Yankee Stadium the fucking
tank shot that you just hit was. Oh, and he
was just launching them into the batter's eye. But he
was shaped like the grimace from McDonald land and I
could have watched him do that all day. I mean
maybe that's more of like a day four of to

(05:14):
be clear.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
I was there earlier and they were like, oh, you
should try it. I'm like, I'm really bad. I'm really
I'm bad, and they're like, oh, come on, come on.
I'm like, no, I'm really bad, and I stopped British.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I am modest about how good he is a base,
I'm the bridge.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
I'm a British Man who knows what kbo is. And
then they're like no going.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I'm like, I'm really bad, And then I was I
fucking missed it. It is a stationary object and I
like barely like grounded out to the well middlefield and
I was like, I hold you and they're like, yeah, okay,
we should.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
We should have believed you. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
My version of this was a few years back. I
stopped by the nine Bot booth when they had all this.
It was like his proliferation of various like small electric
like one wheel or like little skate roller skates and
all kind of electric or whatever, and people kept product
special is, kept being like, oh these are anyone can
do these. And I would get all these various like

(06:06):
you know things that we look one wheel the unicycle
and then the one on each and like I every
single I just kept falling down and falling out.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I'm not doing that. That sounds like how I would die.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, no, if I told my parents, if they my
parents found out I mean that I died getting on
like a cheap unicycle at a consumer electronics show, my
parents would not. They would just be like, oh, yeah,
that sure, I fully believe that. Just where can we
find the body is it's still on the floor, Like.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, I could see that was my I mean the
real trepidation with the swaying thing was that there were
other people around. But the idea of me like going
down with it, like six to eight weeks within obleikue
strain within my first like I haven't showered here yet,
do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Like I got gen Carlos stands in its whole like he's.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Torso fenestrated we've never seen it.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
You need to train next year.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, you know, like make sure that's that's a bit
of advice that everybody's giving me about Sea. Yes, they're
mostly people are like, here's where you can get drugs,
and then they're also like you gotta stretch.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
It's from but Evans. He's just saying the gas station mushrooms. Yeah,
I before did he offer you the mushrooms?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
I mean he offers you very gentlemanly various various things. Yes,
he had just like a still have pulling stuff out
of his bag. I imagine it's like what's seeing Carrot
Top is like.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Have you done an episode like that's like the guided
tour of the Nevada gas station, like the one all
the wonders because I hadn't know it, Like I have
no idea that these things exist in stations. Yeah, so
he got we do, but we don't have like baking mushrooms.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
You can't get mushrooms there.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well, I don't think the real Yeah that I mean
mushrooms are real.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
These were they've had a lot of words on them
and yeah, but the packaging looked like big league chww.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's that is.

Speaker 5 (07:50):
On the back. It said this is not an authorized product.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Was like it was like looking for the Union label,
like being like, all right, well this isn't this doesn't
have anything.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Well Robert, then he would say that like a point
of pride. Though you'd be like, and this is not approved.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Not for human consumption.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
That I enjoyed about that was your friend Garrison.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, like call me.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
That was like you just get a stomach ache, Like
it's not gonna like that.

Speaker 5 (08:20):
Yeah. It also had a had a list of other ingredients,
but it didn't say like what the the main ingredients.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Were ingredients just like miscellaneous.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, natural flavors, they're not.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
They're not purporting to tell you that there are hallucinogenic
mushrooms in there. But it has niosin and it was
made in a facility that processes tree nuts.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
It's just all the we put somehow.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Okay, So Ed you cover auto's in general and you
follow Elon Musk around.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Why what are you here for? Is there a big
mobility section here?

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, so I didn't mean dismiss it. No, you didn't
ask me.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
He was just like I don't know you. Well, yeah
you brought me here with me. Yeah that's true.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
But anyway, No, so, like a few years ago, quite
a few years ago actually before I started coming. Basically
like car shows are this antiquated thing, right, it's like
a one hundred year old plus tradition. Uh, you know,
as auto industry is sort of mature, the juice has
gone out of it. Like once upon a time, like
car shows were like like Detroit with Silicon Valley and

(09:30):
car shows there the.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Purpose of the having not been to any seen them
kind of from the distance. What is the actual purpose
of a carsh Is it to sell? Cause to consumers
there's like is there.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah, so so well so now it's like all bifurcated, right,
so so the ones that have survived are mostly like
small regional ones and it's literally just like here are
the cars that are for sale now and you can
go and said it's actually like a useful thing. But
facing yeah, but like so like originally it was it
was like here's introducing new models, introducing new technologies. And
then also like again like Detroit was the Silicon Value

(10:00):
of the twentieth century and just like these whole futurist
visions and like entertainment and like you know, celebrities, it
was a show.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
My dad used to take me to the one at
the Jacob Javitt Center in New York City. Yeah, and
it was like as a you know whatever, ten twelve
years old, Like that was the coolest shit I'd ever seen. Yeah,
the concept cars like looked I mean if they just
I mean, none of them as far as I can tell,
like came to market. Like it wasn't the sort of
thing where it was like, oh yeah I saw him
playing rookie ball. It was like something where they were like, yeah,
it's got a nuclear reactor in it, and I got

(10:29):
to sit at it and be like sick. And that
was it. But that was the last anyone saw of it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Yeah, So they'll show these concept cars to sort of
like sort of signal like the future direction that the
styling's going to take, and judge the sort of response
to it and whatever. And again like that, there's a
long tradition of like pageantry that sort of has like
faded out over the years, right, like come one of
the things that almost does not to throw that in there,
but he's bring that back. He's like kind of a
throwback to this old school showbiz version of it.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
But it also sucks well.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
And so so these car shows were losing their steam
as cars were becoming these like anonymous entertainable applients, right,
these were this is a connected trend. And then tech
started happening and cars they had someone had the great
idea that cars could be or really should be devices,
and with that CS became actually the most important. Like

(11:19):
twenty I'm gonna get called out for not knowing the
exact day, but it's like twenty fourteen, like mid twin cards.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, like you don't have to know stuff on the
show don't work.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Actually it was littler than that, I think.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
But so what's the distinction with devices? Is it basically
is it like teslification of the like where it's like
touchscreens and applications.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
And is it the designs to standardized as well.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
So yeah, so it's a lot of things. So it's
it's it's so really what it comes down to is
tech sort of thinks that everything should be like it,
and it looks at cars and it sees a platform
and it says, we need to take this platform and
make it, make it like us. And you know, some
good things that have actually come along with that, like electrification, right,

(12:00):
Like electrification is good for completely other reasons. Tech and
tech money likes it because, you know, the idea of
replacing what'sever replacing electron or atoms with electrons is like
this sort of core ideological thing that everyone texts like,
oh yeah, Like anytime you make something more digital, more controllable,
more computerized, that's just like this intrinsically good thing. Electrification

(12:23):
fits in with that. It makes cars literally more like
computers and more like and more like smartphones to the extent,
and like Tesla is. The interesting thing about Tesla is
is that it really just exemplifies this in this visual way,
like I talked about in my book the touch screen, right,
and like it's it's like tail fins on a in

(12:45):
the nineteen fifties. In the nineteen fifties, the other big
technology was airplanes and rockets. Like that was the hot
that was the pinnacle of high technology, right, and cars
were already sort of starting to lose. And there were
sort of two ways you could go with that. One
was you could put a rocket engine into a car,
which the right companies absolutely did, including with like taxpayer
to dollars and like all kinds. But it was a
dumb idea and it never went anywhere. What the smart

(13:08):
approach was put tail fins on, make the cars look
like airplanes, appropriate the aesthetics and associate with this other
technology and so like, that's what Tesla has really done
in a lot of ways. They caught the iPhone of cars.
It's a purely aesthetic thing. The screen and the UI
are more like a smartphone than anything else. Whether or
not that is a good thing for how you operate

(13:28):
a car never gets questioned.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
They also took advantage of the fact that when the
first test thats were coming out, most cars had yet
to really modernize in that level.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Right, Yeah, no, they were, they were. It was good.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
It was good in comparison to most car UIs uh, I.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Think that's like it's a pill an open question.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
No, I had a Fall of Ours sixty and twenty twelve.
That was my last car for I had a Tesla
for a few years. Yeah, it was a big jump.
It was more like I could do the things I
wanted to do in a way that made sense because
the way they had buttons work was kind.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Of like the devil made them.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
The problem is now Volvo is the best electric because
it just works normal. I realize I've basically taught myself
into a corner here, soue.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
No, No, I mean, well, I you know, I think for me,
the open and unresolved question is like what makes a
car good? And I think as time goes on, right,
like when I look at this stuff, people like it
because they think that the iPhone is the best product
that we've seen in our lifetime. Like ever, if you
pick one good product, the iPhone is like one that
changed everything and associating with it like this looks and

(14:30):
feels like a knife, it must be it must be good.
But again, like when you're driving a car, you know,
being able to reach over and there's knob there that's
always there and you can just change the volume. And
you know, for me, like I enjoy driving and like
I take I kind of get engaged with it, choose
to engage with it, and so less distraction like more
just sort of direct engagement with the mechanical car's mechanical

(14:52):
device for me is good. And then and the big
thing is robustness because when you add these screens, right,
so like the screen the model s that changed everything,
It was like this is what the future is gonna
be the reason they were able to put a bigger
screen in that car than anyone else. And in fact,
I don't know, I'm sure there's bigger screens now, but
it took a really long time for there to be
a screen as big as the one in the Model

(15:13):
Esque and it was because Tesla simply didn't use an
automotive grade screen, so to put. Yeah, so there's a
whole thing. There's consumer grade, there's like industrial grade, and
really what these are is you take the device and
you put it through a series of like mostly thermal testing,
and automotive grade is like the highest one. And like,
this is what the auto industry does well, is they
make things that are robust so that every time you

(15:34):
go out in the car, whether it's in freezing weather
or hot weather or rain or it just always works.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
All things I associate with Tesla.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. There's like a
kind of an ominous bit of foreshadowing. Yeah, where they
were just like, well, well we'll just put it in.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
To be clear, I had to test her in like
twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen. Yeah, listeners are gonna absolutely
beat my ass in the comments.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
So I don't have on the podcast.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
But so just to get past the good bad thing,
let's just say everything's a trade off, right, And so
what we're doing as cars we come more like devices
is yeah, we're getting they're connected, they're interactive. Now, they're
software defined. You can change how your car looks with
over their updates and all. You know, all these things
have opened up, but you've lost the robustness of the
core you know, function of the car, which is driving

(16:16):
around and getting you from from pointed.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
And is this something that's affecting more than just Tesla.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah, yeah, So what Tesla has done in this right,
it is its legitimized what the car companies have always
wanted to do but we're afraid to do because they
thought consumers would there be backlash to it, which is
cut quality, right, And what Tesla it's not just we're
but like by putting everything on the screen, then you
don't have to have switches, you have to have buttons.

(16:41):
Those are the things that the car companies are copying
because it saves them money.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
It feels like.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
We're gonna take the piss era of society. Just like
it's like every company's like testing boundaries.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yeah, Tesla's not here at CS right, Tesla has never
done Yeah, that's actually one of the things that that
I think was good with the sort of how they've
done the brand building stuff is they don't do they
they don't show concepts, right if they show you a car.
This has changed Okay, yeah, this has changed more recently,
but like historically when they were building the brand, it

(17:12):
was like they would show you a car. It would
change maybe a little bit to production, but basically they
were showing you the car that you were going to
be able to buy. You wouldn't be able to get
it at the price, you know, there would be all
kinds of other things that would happen by the time
you got it, but but visually that was really important.
They didn't show you something that they had no intention
of making, which every other car does.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Come on again, this is this has changed.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Okay, So like the roads during the semi Yeah, this,
I mean the road the classic Progesla during the period
where they're when you like, I'm so sorry, no, no, no,
I mean it's a good point.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
It's actually an interesting gradual thing with them. There was
a point when they said stuff and then it happened.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah. Yeah, well and they were doing new things. As
you said, they were doing things that to you were
really you were like, this is this is good, this
is I feel like also, Tesla's just didn't change after
a certain point.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
They just got worse in different ways.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, well that's what I gather that. That's what you
meant by the sort of like the taking the pissy. Yeah,
that it's like you develop a product that like people like,
and then the game becomes trying to see how much
worse you can make it and they'll describing right, but like, yeah,
basically everything, it's just every day that's like the toilet
based private equity buying newspapers. It's also like you know

(18:29):
all the.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Other I need to find like some rich people to
help me buy the Washington Post, Like that would just
be the best thing I will run it.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
You're going to become the first tech journalist to try
to buy the Washington Post.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, yeah, the first one where aviate is by the
Washington Post. Yes, no, that would That's one of those
ideas that I'm going to start saying. And I think
what's great about it is it could never happen. But
saying it enough, people will be like maybe this could
and that really upset them, which is really most of
my bag.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Moving the Overton window.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, I'm moving the oval.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah you got to move that window to move open
it a little bit.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
So Jared, this is how many? Yeah, just getting you.
How many cees is for you? How many of you thinks.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
This is thirteen or four?

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (19:14):
My god Christ? How many of them?

Speaker 5 (19:16):
Guess? Uh? The history goes back to before it was
called c Yes, it was like Condex or.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Something compy text. Now that it's not the one in time.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
I think it was Condex. Sad that I don't know
the history.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
I would if anyone gets mad at you, I will
set my pigs on them.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Before we were recording people, you were part of this
conversation about like legendary cees, fuck shit moments. The Yo
party was the one that people were talking about.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
But like, I wasn't cool in that my friends went
given it.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Everybody here was just talking about being like I've been
here since Monday and I've seen things you people wouldn't
believe thirteen years.

Speaker 5 (19:55):
The funny thing is that I don't end up going
to a ton of parties, but I do I was
talking about earlier a few years ago. It was like
five six years ago. I had been here for a
long time, maybe four or five six days or something.
It was my last day, and I knew there was
like there were a few things that I like still
wanted to see, and I was gonna leave later in

(20:16):
the day, and so I I got on the monorail
and I went to the convention center. And I got
off the monorail and I started walking into the convention
center and I kind of just had like a physical reaction,
like the closer I got. Yeah, and I describe it.
So I just turned around and left.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
That's yeah, way to practice self care.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, it was basically your body telling you that you've
had enough.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
I think I think I just rejected Vegas.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
If I worked, if I walked away every time I
felt like that, I wouldn't move.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Yeah. The thing is like so Vegas itself is one
of those places where it's like, way if you hit
three days, like even if you're trying to have fun
the whole, like you just cannot do more than about
three days. Yep. And then with Cees you add all
of the everything else on top of it. The absurdity,
like the and the walking.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
I mean, yeah, that's the other thing.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
So I think a lot of people when they're doing
like excess in Vegas, they're not taking like fifteen thousand steps.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
That is extill so to come actually not true.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Really, Oh you get enough dipshit bachelor party ones and
then you get lost, you will walk in three miles.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
But that makes some sense. I did get lost a
good amount today. But I also, like, I mean whatever,
I haven't done hardly done Vegas as an adult at all.
And so the idea of like the bit of today
that I liked was that, like, my legs feel a
little bit sore now, well, like twenty five degrees in
New York City right now, Like I legit did not
leave my apartment on Monday.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
I got I'm working. Yeah, Like it.

Speaker 5 (21:42):
Feets into that like tapping, tapping a weal of energy
that you.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
So we have a small announcement, David, do you mind
turning your microphone to Phil? So it has been eight
cs is Phil.

Speaker 8 (21:51):
Yep, I've been here. This is my eighth ses to
join you.

Speaker 9 (21:54):
Hi.

Speaker 8 (21:54):
I'm Phil Broughton again.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
The Baltender health physicist.

Speaker 8 (21:58):
So every time I come here a charge for getting
one of my drinks. As a journalist is an attendee
of cs IS, you need to tell me if you've
seen something dangerous, something that scared you, something that left
you with discomfort such that you think an illegality might
be happening. I'm I'm not going to say proud, but

(22:22):
I'm shocked to say nothing on the floor of CEES
is concerned someone enough to tell me such that I
needed to call the fire marshal to get an exhibitor
removed or at least their exhibit shut down. So I
don't angratulations, congratulations, CEA.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
We did it, We did it.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Finally we've perched through and actually there is something in
line with this.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
I want to say.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
It did feel like going down to Eureka Park, which
is the the nether Regions.

Speaker 8 (22:58):
They put dangerous things.

Speaker 5 (22:59):
It wasn't as bad this year, but there have been
years where it just smelled like feet.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yes, crazy and no games. Journalists listening, all twelve of
you think of kenty A Hall during E three.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
I get that reference.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, it's like a place where you'd go and if
you had a journalist badge on, you'd have to run.

Speaker 8 (23:17):
I can smell this comment.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, ky Kenty is fucked up, but yeah, so I
really just felt like Eureka Park is usually like the
place where you go to see the people working on
multiple stages of fraud.

Speaker 8 (23:30):
Most of that's where the MRI was that year that
shouldn't have been on the floor. Yeah, that's it been.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Now it's all people like at the earliest stages of
fraud where it's not as fun.

Speaker 8 (23:41):
Materials that anyone told me about ship.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
They barely brought anything that existed. Yes, turn the microrae.

Speaker 8 (23:47):
Okay, I'm gonna google big more drinks now have fun.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
Thank you fail before you go, I'm just gonna say
that I mostly came here to see you, So.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
I will say the Eurka Park two. You do sometimes
go and meet like two guys in a folding table,
and then like next year, all of a sudden they
have some massive thing, and then the next year like
they've like taken over like the biggest company in their space,
Like the year that you you discovered them as two
guys in a folding and that there's something interesting about that.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
That was the bit that so I it's funny that
you mentioned dankness. Fun Well, everything that I had been
sort of like not just ed either. Like I go
on Tuesdays, I do like a little standing bit with
a ESPN radio station in Las Vegas, and I mentioned
that I was going to be at the Consumer Electronic Show,
and they mentioned that it was going to be like

(24:33):
sweaty and wet. Everybody is always using words having to
do a dampness.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
To describe this shit a very dry place.

Speaker 5 (24:41):
It's a very and in a very dry place, indeed,
And so the idea that there's like a sub basement,
that's basically just it's a part of it's a part
of the expo where the ceilings are too low.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, like basically like most of the action in the
movie Aliens is what I'm imagining. I'm like, you're kind
of walking around line something comes up out of the
floor or and spits acid in your face or whatever.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
But see that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Though it's better than it used to be. Though you
weren't here during the indieg go.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
Well, I was expecting that when it was in the
Eurica Parker was in the sands, because it used to.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
I have to.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
It's in the same place, but it was basically every
company was crowdfunded and the ship.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
People would say, so.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Is Eureka Park like the key ball.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
It's just unfiltered stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
All right.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
I've had demos with companies that later like graduated to
to Eureka Park. So I don't know what that.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Made more money?

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Where were you before?

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Also outside ye, like we're outside the cromwell, like outside
of the scrap.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
I mean, like there's a lot of big fraud, Like
a lot of fraud, right, Like getting a lot of
money to do fraud is actually not that hard?

Speaker 6 (25:56):
Is so?

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Actually in the big like you know Northall and stuff too.
I mean there's been plenty of companies these In fact,
a lot of times during certain periods of like you know,
big h trends and investing in you know, whether it's
like light ar or this or you know, some of
these other specific technologies, you would see sort of certain
names in the space would have these huge things and
you know, right the point of this is to market

(26:18):
We're here, we're this big deal. But like if you
follow the space, you know, like the companies that invest
in that stuff are the ones that don't have the
good right, Like a lot of times, not not exclusively,
but a lot of times the biggest splashiest booth in
the biggest in the big thing is is where the
fraud is, and sometimes the smaller thing in the in
the kind of jumble of startups is actually they.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Totally Because that's like, again from my sort of understanding
of this as somebody who's interested in the space but
not covering it or not like he doesn't have a
professional interest. I'm just kind of like fascinated by everything
that's kind of scammy scusy in our culture.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
But this is the thing, it's so emblematic of this
industry that which like, yeah, no, the big frauds are
the ones.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
With the right the big scam, but it's like that
there have so many lies here, and that's what I
think what it is.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
I think this is why by Saturday, I'm going to
be like I'm just gonna wake up in the joke
and make up.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Is because I've never talked.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
About CEES this much, and I realized that I say
this putting on an actual like pop up radio show
during ces that that would be inevitable talking about it.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
I'm like joke offying again.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Jared and I talk about the joker love for many reasons,
but like I thought, I had fully become the joker.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
But now just like as I.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Fresh new CS people, they have the exact same and
it's just like this place is just very strange.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Well but it's strange. But what I was saying is
I expected because I've only been to the we're recording
in the Venetian, like the big open exhibition space in
the Venetian, right, but I haven't been to the Convention
Center yet. I got in here today at like three pm.
So what I saw I expected to go down there
and it was just gonna be carnage. It was just

(27:58):
going to be like a suit soaker that yells at
you in the voice of Sir Peter O'Toole has an
ai aspects for some reason, you know. And what it
was instead was like there were like you were saying
it that there's like people down there there, there's like
a dog door that like, yeah, Jesse and I were
very taken by, and the people were like, yeah, we

(28:19):
were here last year, and like we'd been you know,
we'd set up this thing and if you hit it
with a sledgehammer once it got all screwed up. So
like we went back and we changed the metal and
now we've had. You know, it's like six hundred and
fifty blows from this, Like you pull a rope and
a sledgehammer swings into the dorm. We haven't even dented it.
It's like a good product if I had a dog
and a house, and I have neither of those things,
but if I had both, I'd be like, well, you

(28:41):
know what, like this might be worth three hundred and
ninety nine dollars, And I didn't expect to see a
single thing like that.

Speaker 5 (28:47):
But the great paradox of CS is that it's kind
of it's like a place to get cynical, but yeah jokerfried, Yeah,
but also like d jokerfried at the same time. Yeah,
it like pulls your brain in these two opposing directions
because there is a lot of that, and then there's
also like the stuff that like reminds you why you
like technology in the first place, and it's hard to balance.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yes, that was like pulling for a lot of the people,
not all of them, the ones that when we were
talking about, like the things that you saw that like
fucked you up or made you want to like ask
Phil to call the you know, yeah, there is one
that Edward flagged. I just saw he had posted it earlier.
That was like a germ detection thing with very strange vibes.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Was this the pass?

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Oh yeah, so chosen by God, perfected by science or
something like that.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah, that's that's me.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
So, yeah, that's all. Hey, you know what, Yeah, it's
all of us.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
But before we go any further, we're now going to
do an ad break. So, David, where can people find you?

Speaker 8 (29:46):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Defector dot COM's the website. The distraction is the podcast
I do with Defector, and then I do a podcast
about a Hallmark movies that's Christmas Town that is not
affiliated with any other website because it's about Hallmark movies. Okay,
is there are linked they could go for those, I'll
put them in there. Well, yeah, Defector dot com is
the thing. It's Christmas Town. It's like, I don't know,
like do that look it up podcast or something. Yeah,

(30:08):
mister need By, where can people find you?

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Neederm dot io on the World Wide Web and blue
Sky and uh autonoast dot com. The autonoast is my podcast.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
Mister Newman, I write for a bunch of websites, but
you should sign up for my newsletters at Jarednewman dot com.
Slash newsletters and now if you need to sign up
for something else and you wish to help this show continue,
if you, and I know many of you, pray for
my me to fall victim to falling pianos in various

(30:38):
carnage situations in which I suffer greatly, which you would love.
Of course, if you don't, and if you love me dearly,
you'll follow this by listening to the ad more intently
than you evident anything in your life.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
And we're back, So I want to get back to
something we were talking about earlier. Which is the reason
that CS grinds you down and then you have a
new joivocation and get your powers back. Is because if
you're only here, the ideal amount to be here is
like three or four days. And I don't mean this
for general Vegas. I mean specifically for CES, because you
get to see the show thought enough that you're like,

(31:21):
I have a full concept of this, I couldn't have
missed anything. You can then come to an opinion, and
then you meet the other people who are there too long,
the other people who didn't live in two days, and
you get a kind of like a trauma bonding experience,
which is what this podcast is going to be for
the next few days.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
By the way, everyone who's left is just like, I
just want to see my family again.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
And David, you're going to get you're arriving at CS
during this period.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, So this is what I want to ask, just
again from the perspective to bring, to bring an idiot's
perspective to bear. Well, I'm here, Well I know, but
I mean this is a different it's more of an
East Coast flavor. Uh, Like, who are these people that
you're talking about? Who's staying here?

Speaker 3 (32:02):
So what it is?

Speaker 2 (32:03):
And tomorrow it's like the general public income in right.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
I Actually I don't know either. It's probably worth clarifying that.
Like we're at the point of the show because it
open on Tuesday. Today's Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
But people will hear it.

Speaker 5 (32:15):
So when you go to Booth's tomorrow and talk to people,
they're all gonna hate you.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, because they've been here.

Speaker 5 (32:21):
They've been here, they don't want to be here anymore,
and you're gonna be asking them like a lot of
questions about their products and stuff and they're not gonna
like that.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
No, you get like the unvarnished booth experience. You get
it big from Samsung coach like I don't care.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Also, I think tomorrow you do get the general public.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Is it really they allowed that?

Speaker 4 (32:38):
Yeah, so it's two days. I think of sort of
media and sort of controlled access and then and then
it opens up to the public and then you get
to see the technology fans.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, the people who want to be.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Is fans of technology and a lot of.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Just technology as a concept, like anything.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
That's what I'm gonna say. Just like I love robots,
all kinds of.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Robots' cool if only that was what's the Yeah, well
they're like the version of robots here is just being
like it's the thing that it mows your lawn and
it also cleans.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Your seven thousand dollars, right, Yes, But so this is
the bit that I'm kind of because this felt like
everyone I saw today and then also everyone I saw
on the street when I was walking around, like they
just leave the lanyard on. Yeah, Like it's not a
thing where I mean, it's like no one wants to
be I guess maybe they don't want to send the
message like I'm here to party. They're like, no, I'm

(33:30):
here to.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yes, so they want to send the message to the
actual conference, right.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
I'm here, no fun please.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
I do like that with the.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
Lanyard and then the people with the big plastic cups. Yeah,
sort of like that contrast is beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, And so the idea of those people being together,
that there's going to be like someone that's got like
a thing on that's just like you know, like Shensen
Robotic corps. And then there's also just another guy that's
wearing like a t bow Broncos jersey.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
But what's great is you are right describing what happens tomorrow,
which isick. Thursday is the day when Vegas and CS
truly can buy because it's the general public, but it's
also the people that come to Vegas on Thursdays, and
they are a rich tapestry of people. They are beautiful creation.
Sadly the football season is over because had this happened,

(34:19):
have we had like the Chargers Raiders game.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
You've got like a team and I said, this is
a Raiders fan.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
I don't know if there are Raiders fans who listen
to this podcast, but it gets better for other teams now.
I wish the Raiders fans and the various transient fan
bases that come in greater number than Raiders fans here.
I wish they'd have met, but really just people coming
to Vegas in like the first working week of January,
meeting with the people made to come here due to

(34:46):
job is. It's going to be great. You're going to
see a very special kind of Vegas. I can't wait
to hear.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
I had a nice experience of just kind of like
drifting by the sports book earlier today and it's still yeah,
just the one because I was, you know, wandering around
the floor. There's a lot of you know, this is
a again hadn't eaten very much. There's like a bunch
of really name brand Italian restaurants in this hotel. Unfortunately,
there's also eighty thousand people attending this conference, so it

(35:15):
wasn't like you can't walk into Jelina and be like,
I'd love to eat at the bar. Like you can
tell them that and they'll be like, that's great. A
lot of people would love to eat it. So yeah,
but the uh, the sports book area was like that
felt like a Cees free zone because the only things
that you can watch right now are like it's Big
Ten Conference play basketball. It's like the USC and Maryland. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
I also there's not a single person going to the
Consumer Electronics show who can do anything to any of
the guys in the sports book who are there.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Specific like the day Traders. The ones were like okay
and say Men's spot volleyball, I've got my my mortgage
payment for this month. This one. You come and talk
to him about the computer, he will punch through. He'll
do a fist in the North Star thing.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Actually, a robot that cleans your pool, doesn't that beat all? Unfortunately,
if Bowling Green doesn't score seventy one points in this
Ohio Valley Conference.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
Game, is it really possible for a person to really
fully be both a sportsman and a technology fan. I
feel like yes, at the end of the day, I
am that. Yeah, I love basic you identify as the
time Baseball.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm doing a baseball prospectives column about the Mets. You
don't know really, Yeah, yeah, I probably should have told
you getting placed in New York.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Anyway, we need to talk.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah, I know that's okay, cooler, but no, it is
possible because they actually both have some similarities. Obsession with
weird numbers, obsession with weird guys, and in general, a
complete lack of progress, despite it seeming like there should
be one, right, the.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
More sophisticated it gets. Somehow, also the dumber and worse
it gets. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
But also the problem is they start in very different neighborhoods.
It's very rare that someone who's a big tech person
and you start that usually because you haven't got any
other options. And then there's the sports people who usually
get into that because they can move at speed or
do things with their hands. Those those are two different points.

(37:09):
I only came there because I'm magnificent, but is a
very different thing. Nevertheless, one of the reasons I brought
David Hay was I believe it's a similars. I think
the skill set for sports jeneraism applies very well to
tech for that reason.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, certainly it depends on what kind of version, because
I think that's an interesting question of like can you
be a fan of both? And I think that it's
I am a sports fan, you know, I don't know
that I would say that I'm like a technology fan,
but I am. I find both of them interesting in
the same sort of ways because they all sort of
like point back to the same human aspirations and then

(37:45):
also like frailties, bloopers, yeah, so on and so forth.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
But being interested in something and being a fan to
the extent that that is the defining characteristic of your personality.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Oh okay, these are different.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
And I think that's the bit that I wanted to
kind of like try to figure out, because I think
there's people that are fans of technology.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
Yeah, to the show tomorrow and people you will see them,
That's what you will hear the things that they say,
and they're not the things that normal people say.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's something that I've been kind of like struggling with
again from my like you know, everybody that is online
or that reads too much or you know, cares too
much about too many stupid things or whatever, Like, I
have had to think about technology a lot like everybody else.
And yet like, the thing that was interesting to me
about the like the Adrian Dittman saga for instance, is

(38:32):
that there I know that there are people that are
like not just you know that they think that Elon
Musk is a cool guy, or they like that he's
you know, dedicated to finally telling the truth about minorities.
But I think that there's also something to do it
where there's people that like are fans of him the

(38:52):
way that like people yelling like it's in the hole
when like Tiger Woods hits the ball, like people that
are fans at that level just but they basically are
like they've removed a lot of the higher level stuff
from their brain and their just cavemen.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Just explain the Adrian Dittman thing. If you don't know,
don't do it.

Speaker 5 (39:10):
There is.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
There is a guy who sounds just like Elon Musk
and appears to have all his beliefs and talk exactly
like and then occasionally say he is Elon Musk, who
is not Elon Musk. He is potentially a weird, strangely
jacked German Man. And this account is called Adrian Ditman.
And I don't even know what to believe anymore, But

(39:34):
nevertheless it appears that it's just a strange man. Yeah,
it's still like a Wallowigi situation. Apparently Walluigi is not
actually like related to Warrio, Like he's just a weird
guy that met Warrio.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Again, I'm not saying Warrio correctly. Someone's gonna fucking say that.
And I have to deal with is.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
A related thing though, what you're talking about about Tesla fan, right,
So I feel like a lot of people who are
recently coming to this Elon Musk is a bad guy
kind of coming in with the sort of political, you know,
approach to it. What you've missed was many many, many
years of this incredible online movement and like, I follow

(40:12):
it very close to because I had never seen anything
like it in cars, Like, it's just people are passionate
about cars. People like when the bailout was happening, I
was sort of my first story, and people would be like,
you hate General Motors, and you know, we're General Motors family,
and like there was some of that stuff, but this
was totally different because you know, it was the seed
of the personal cult of Elon Musk. But then there

(40:34):
were all of these sorts of like techno ideological, sort
of neo modernist, you know, kind of ideology that was
just sort of all wrapped into it. And what was
interesting is is that it really pulled together people from
from both sides of that was resually interesting to me,
both sides of the of the sort of cultural war

(40:54):
and sort of partisan divide in the country could find
things about that that they liked. And it wasn't until
Elon Musk decided I need to pick one side or
the other that all of a sudden, people were like,
holy shit and so like. So if you got to
like Tesla subreddits for example, now like yeah, no, I
know what normal person would, but you don't. You don't
see you don't see this whole time religion anymore. The
only place to really see it online is the SpaceX ones.

(41:17):
The space people are kind of like insular and they
they don't like politics, don't touch them, like, they just ignore.
It doesn't matter to them. But with the Tesla one,
we've just exited this really fascinating period where you know,
this cult and again it's not just a cult. It
was a stock pumping thing and there's all the damage.
I won't get into all the details of it, but
but the important thing was, like there was this moment

(41:38):
where people woke up and realized, wait, holy holy shit,
Like I have a trans kid, and I just supported
like one of the biggest trans people, like not just
supported went online every single day, found anybody making any
criticisms of Tesla and and spending all day attacking them,
Like I endured like years and years and years of justice,
like relentless, and like they would take shifts come in waves,

(42:00):
and a new guy would decide this was gonna be
his thing, and he'd build his little crew and and
go out wrecking. Like a whole lot of stuff happened online,
and you know, people shouldn't have paid attention to it,
but it's really important context because it shows that like
the dynamics that people can point to as being bad
in a partisan sense, they they fall prey to them

(42:21):
when you strip away that partisan framework that allows you,
that gives you that sort of like moral you know, compass.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
But the thing I've noticed about these kind of techno
enthusiasts is they don't seem to enjoy the computer.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
They don't like the computer.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
So they don't have any joy of even a faster
phone or a new graphics card.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
These This is actually a problem I have with sech
what's the the appeal? Then?

Speaker 5 (42:42):
Is it a stock price thing?

Speaker 3 (42:44):
It is? I think what it is is it's like thing,
it's like the game.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
That's another type of sports fandom too, is basically GM
stand stuff. I think it's where you're like excited when
your team gets under the salary cap.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Wait, but is there a no No.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
I think I think what it is is the it's
an identity thing. It's when gamergain and things of that
nature happened. What I know, and I've been a gamer since.
I'm like way too yet, like ten, and I love gaming.
I fucking I in my darkest times, I play like
Hades or something. I just put a few hours and
I genuinely feel better, like engaging in my mind. It
makes me feel some industry. I think a lot of

(43:17):
people listening to this feel the same way about games.
And then there are people who were just like, well,
gaming was my fucking thing, and now the womans are
in it, and now the wokeness is in it because
they don't really give a shit about the actual gaming.
It's just an identity thing for them. It's just this
is a thing that made me special, and now someone else.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Is weighing in.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
I don't really believe in anything, ye, And so there
are people who are test the stands who I just
think are just like, wow, it's my it's a sports team.
It's I don't even watch the games. I go on
ESPN and I click on the box score, and then
I actually there's a great tweet about this where it's
just like going on ESPN and looking at the box
score and arguing with people, which is funny. But I
think these people are like, well, Elon Musk is the

(43:57):
kind of guy I want to feel. I want to
be like that guy. I want to stand form like
nothing but be very angry and rich all the time
and believe in nothing. Because Elon Musk seems completely fucking joyless.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
This is a half formed thought and it may be bad,
but this.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Never stunt may make.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
So I guess you know, you would think like fandom
of a a tech company. You're an Apple fan boy
or Tesla fan boy, right h while yeah, analogous to
UH sports team and fanboyism. But then there's Elon Musk
fanboyism or Steve jobs fist. That's a person. Is there

(44:36):
an equivalent to that in sports?

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Like?

Speaker 5 (44:38):
Are people fanboying out over a person?

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah? I mean to a certain extent, although I think
that it depends. I mean I think that like there's
individual sports, Yes, there are people that like I mean,
one of the things that I remember being struck by
when we go to the US Open most summers, when
we can figure out how to do it when Roger
Federer was still playing that there's like a hat that
you can wear that just has r F on it,
like in an inner line fucking like the Dodgers logo.

(45:01):
And they're just like people that they're basically wearing like
a Roger Federer, like just Roger Federer pajamas to the
Roger Federer match, or he's not even playing, but they're
wearing their Roger Federer hat because they just that's when
they think of tennis, they think of Roger Federer.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
It's like I saw a guy on a Cowboys jersey
at a ratous game. Yeah, Cowboys were not playing.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yes, And that is I mean, that's a classic Cowboys
fan move too, where it's just sort of well, I
mean not in the sense they just yeah, you're correct
in assessing that as being like a fucked up thing
to do, but it is also yeah, but it is
also it's Cowboys fan stuff. But I think that that's
an interesting distinction because the idea of being like, there's
all these different ways to be stupid about sports, right

(45:40):
that there's like and a lot of it does sort
of have its own political valence, even if it doesn't
fully land like you know that. One of the things
I've been thinking about this because the college football playoffs
are going on that uh, the SEC Conference, which you
don't know, like is in the southeast of the United States,
so it's like kind of these like super red states

(46:04):
with a college football is a big part of their identity.
Oftentimes these are states that don't have professional teams in them,
and it was a thing for a while. Less the
case this year because the SEC weirdly had a super
shit year and is basically like done for the college
football season, where if like if Alabama was beating Illinois,

(46:24):
fans would not and Alabama fans were there, they would
not necessarily do a Bama related chant, they would chant SEC,
which is basically like their way of being like, you're
getting your asses kicked right now by a state that
is like, you know, Republican trifecta in the legislature, like
Tommy Tarberville is our senator. Like that's the bit that

(46:45):
I feel like there is like an identity politics aspect
of it where they're lording it over it like and
it is a regional thing.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
Like red versus blue, like tech company.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Oh that's a good one. Now it's red versus daka red.
I think no, that was a point when I think
people thought Apple was the nice one, and they are
by comparison now, which is not a good thing. I
think Facebook is the one that weirdly people thought was
blue but was redder than all of them combined.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just a question.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Google Google, Google was the nice one for a while.
They did the it gets better thing, and now they
do it gets worse.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
And I gather they were also like all in their way,
like culturally like it was like they were good employers,
they were inclusive.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
And whatever, and it really is were ye think pretending?

Speaker 4 (47:31):
I mean I think so. So fandom it gives you
a sort of like personality prosthetic right then sense of
a sense of community, and I think I think those
are like universal across most fandoms. I think what tech
offered so and I just use Tesla as the example
of that, and it may not be as broadly, you know,

(47:51):
but what it gave, what it added to that that
basic fandom package was two things. There is, there was
a growing social capital to be gained from being someone
who could speak confidently about like this is what the
future is going to be and like Elon Musk gives
the patron saint of that right, He's shown how much
power just doing that even yeah, and people realized all

(48:16):
they had to do was copy, just repeat what he
said and say it with the same confidence. And people
be like, whoa, this guy knows what he's talking about.
And and you know, Elon must says so, and and
you get a couple of other little fastil arguments to
go a wrong with that. The third thing and this
I'm curious if this is maybe where these things are
converging that The other thing is is the stock thing
right where you could buy the stock and then now

(48:38):
you have financial incentive to go out and proselytize and
attack people critics, pump the thing, you know, repeat the narrative.
And I wonder if gambling and like the rise of
gambling is is maybe starting to add that into the sports.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
I think there's an aspect of that. I think the
bit that is interesting to me about when you were
talking about how like once you are a tesla like stockholder,
that like the idea that that is functionally now like
a meme stock with Elon as the load bearing meme
at the center of it. And the fact that the
cars are you know, decreasing in quality and maybe also

(49:13):
decreasing in popularity and sales. Yeah, kind of doesn't matter
that Like if the stock stays high, you're doing all right.
But in that case, it's like you're actually in some ways,
like when you're going out there and you know, spending
your leisure time being a fucking online shooter for Elon Musk,
you're also advocating for yourself in some ways, like that's
your portfolios.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
In the In the really early days of what we
were talking about this Tesla online sort of phenomenon, there
was really one website, the forum, an old school you
know forum that we all know and love that was
really so it was the main time Tesla Motor Club
and it was like kind of the main one. There
was a subreddit, but started out really small. This was
the place, and a lot of the website, you know,
they were like talk about the company, you talk about Elon,

(49:53):
you know, and then as cars came out, you know,
so you know, and and and the ownership was sort
of the main part of the thing of the site.
At least if you look at, you know, the list
of all the sub forums and so people were on
there and they wanted an open exchange of information because
they had problems with their cars and they want to
understand them and what the fix was and what Tesla
was doing about them. And that was the main activity

(50:15):
of this community. It was helping each other out and
as consumers.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Ye.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Now there was another a sub form of this that
was the Tesla Investors sub forum, and that was it
looked small, it looked like one little thing, but you
went there and it was so so so active and
it had its own radicalizing internally like radicalizing culture. And
then there was this key point where I and others
started to write stories based on the the other part

(50:42):
of the where it's owners wanting this free exchange of
information and saying, we have this problem, Tesla's not really
dealing with it.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
And did that bring them into conflict with the investors
where they were like, can you just keep that in house?

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Exactly what happened there? And it's this fascinating thing because
Tesla became this fandom that bridged not just like sort
of political partisan, but like on a fundamental level, the
divide between capital, like between between management and consumer. Right,
as a consumer, you want certain things like if you're
a fan of you want the product to be good.
You want certain things. As an investor, you want other things. Right,

(51:16):
you want the quality be as low as possible and
the marg high, and that comes at the expense of.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
The keep scessarily. Mind if the product is good, but
it's not as important to you as the others.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
So these two parts of the relationship of any company
came into came to conflict because it had to be
one community like the the and capital one. I think
it's a really interesting thing and this is why Tesla became.
It went from a company. Is one of the reasons
that it went from being a company that was sort
of rooted in really trying to surprise and delight customer,

(51:46):
Like that was a really fundamental thing. Over time, you've
seen the cynical stock being part of it has just
completely consumed and like people who are like who were
fans of the company are like, wait, where is the
stuff that I was a fan of? And it's because
that relationship was they want in capital one and the
and the consumer lot.

Speaker 5 (52:05):
So this is why sorry, so this is so, this
is why you have people who's like cars have blown
up and then they do the interview and they're like,
I still love Elon Mustok.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
That all goes back to that, and that's where they
diverge from sports fans.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Well to a certain extent though, because I think that
that still is the kind of thing where there's like
an element of that where like there's different ways to
be a fan of a team, right, but that I
think that there is this aspect of it. It's like
Auburn loses by five touchdowns to Florida Ryan and it's
like you want to fire the coach, but at the
same time, you're not like I'm giving up like war Eagle,

(52:38):
no more like no. It's the sort of thing where
like that's when you do the like the super psychotic
fan stuff where it's like, well, now I'm going to
poison some plants something.

Speaker 5 (52:46):
Or like the Kobe Bryant like I'm willing to overlook
some stuff.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Yes, exactly. Can I say one bit so too, because
you made an interesting point about the gambling aspect of
it that I wanted to speak on because I think
that that has but both of you were talking about it,
I guess, but the the idea of like gambling as
a type of fandom, I think is like way more.

(53:10):
There's like a way for if you're a fan of
a team, right, Like you're giving some bit of your
leisure time as a person to this thing that you
can control. It's not a smart decision. Nobody does it
because it's smart. You know, you do it because it's
fun and because it's like kind of like a way
to fill other spots in your life that might otherwise

(53:31):
be quiet with noise, which is reasonable, like what are
what are any of us doing? Who is listening to this?
That is not doing that? But there is also this
other part of it where it's like it's an emotional commitment.
It's like it's a thing about caring. And I think
that gambling to me feels more like for one thing,
you are the people that are doing that. I think

(53:53):
it is more of like what you were talking about
in terms of the like the Tesla Investors part of
the forum where it is basically like it and everyone
that gambles on sports pretty much everybody loses. The people
that are professionals, the people that are down in the
sports book, like if they're really, really, really good, they
still lose forty six percent of the time. Or whatever,

(54:14):
you know, and the people that are just flushing three
hundred dollars down the draft kings app every Sunday are
not good at it, but they're like that aspect of
it is not It's the opposite of fandom to me.
Of course, if you're ESPN or the or your NFL,
you know, executives, their money spends the same. It doesn't
really matter if they're watching. They're watching. If they care,

(54:36):
they care, like and you know, the money that you're
getting from your partnerships with draft kings and stuff that
also spends the same. But I think it's the opposite
of fandom in like in an emotional sense that it
is like it's not just transactional, but that it is
sort of taking all of the stuff that you would
have cared about in this sort of more communal way

(54:59):
and making it about yourself, your experience of it, and
that like and that like goes and that you know,
I think there's a whole sort of like newish thread
of that in the culture that has been enabled by technology,
not just in terms of being able to gamble on
your phone, but that's to me, that's cryptocurrency speculation. It's
the same adset.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
I think they all come back to a fundamental point,
which is a lack of control that we all feel
over our lives. The idea that we can now gamble
like anywhere and we're gonna have a refa some from
a sixty minute drill my podcast on football, which I've
never talked about.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
They love this.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
So it's this thing of like, oh, I can have
some control over my destiny. I can now gamble like
the gamblers in the same way that people use the
trade and then lost the shit ton of money.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
So we've got to sports books.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
The idea of opening sports books up at this scale.
The only thing worse than it is the thing that
Robin Hood did, which was opening up the idea of
options trading to everyone. But I think it activates the
same thing, where it's this desperation for control in least
control in a way in a situation where you're being
obviously controlled, and the same way those odds are so

(56:07):
precisely calculated, in the same way that like whatever pricing
you're getting an options is going to be calculated by
the hedge funds that are extra millimeters closer to the
stock exchange, so they can activate that trade and it
is like it's the but it's a fandom. You don't
give a shit about these companies. You give a shit
about money and go up and you feel like you

(56:27):
have control because you're smart, but the right side.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
But they're not selling it as gamble because you like money,
and this is like a pretty critical thing they're they're
they're presenting it as a way. It's like I've been
looking at ads actually around there's a lot so many
sports going to say, and they're all sort of like
you're watching sports anyway, you enjoy it anyway.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Just to get in the game.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
It's a little enhancement and and yeah, it's an enhancement
to the core fan experience. And what I think is
in common here with the Tesla thing is that Tesla's
whole pitch was these contradictions can all work together, right,
not just the the You know, consumers and investors are

(57:07):
both going to benefit at no cost to each other, right,
there's no trade off there. But then also like you know,
venture capital can fund environmental transformation and there's no trade
offs there. You know, government doesn't have to get involved.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
We can do this all getting too complex, and I
think it's just invest in the future.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
That's what I'm saying for. The lesson out of all
of it is that people desperately want to believe that
you can you can have your cake. Needed to that
fundamental trade offs, And in both of these cases, the
trade off that always wins is the money. Whatever it
is that you think you can reconcile with some kind
of financial incentive over time it's like drugs or something else,

(57:43):
like overtime, the financial incentive not with everybody, but like
over the aggregate, it wins. And that's what we're seen
with time.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
It's being framed as freedom though it's like you can
do this. You're already doing sports watching, why not make sports?

Speaker 4 (57:54):
Just make it a little better as a hustle and
you won't use anything, and that's what you identify. I
think you do something.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
But I think the overarching theme of both is it
is selling you the idea of a con that you
will have industry over something that you have that you
are actively being controlled, and you you are being fucked with,
and you're like, I'm fucking back and you're not. Yeah,
you use the draft Kings code. There is not a
better offline one I'm terrified of gambling.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah, well the aspect of it too, that is like
the other bit of it that it seems like inimical
to Like the fun part of being a fan is that,
like when you see people talk about it like that,
the or generally, like the discourse surrounding like gambling is
that it makes you like sports less because you're liking

(58:39):
them in this different way. Yeah, because you're participating it
in this and this is something that you know, we
have a couple of stories out at the factor that
being written not written yet, that are basically about like
the way that athletes absorb this new sort of obsession
with gambling, opening that up has, you know, and by
making it possible for people to you know, whatever, put
money on whatever, like somebody getting more or less than

(59:03):
one and a half assists in an NBA game, like
just a building a parlay around the performances of bench
players in some ways, like you know, like obviously technologically,
I suppose it's a feat to make this possible because
you used to have to literally come to Las Vegas
to do that sort of thing traditionally. Boundaries, yes, and then,
but what's weird about it now is that like by

(59:24):
sort of putting in play everybody in every game in
all of these different ways. There's a lot of people
that you know, like you're a professional athlete, like you're
a public figure anyway, Like people are gonna recognize you
just because you're like taller and more buff than anybody
else in the you know, restaurant that you're in. But
there's a lot of these dudes that like otherwise would
be more or less getting left alone, that are just

(59:46):
sort of like when you miss that free throw, you
fuck me out of twenty five hundred dollars, and I'm
coming to your house and I'm going to push your
kids around, and like that's happening to like people in
like minor leaguers. Tom Hakimer, you are on the staff,
recently told me he had friends I had that experience
happened to him in spring in spring training games in baseball,
because you get like the real degenerates can bet on

(01:00:07):
stuff like that and so.

Speaker 5 (01:00:09):
And there's probably like a shame barrier when you had
to even if you could come to the casino, like
you wouldn't roll up and be like, yeah, put this
parlay with Blake Korm and samaj p Ryans.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Exactly what are you doing when you're like yeah, but
then you're like googling, like where does Sama GP Ryan live?
Like how fine? You know, like that's not like at
this point you can find him online. You place the
bet online, like you can do all you do like
three or four totally sociopathic things from your couch.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
And if you are looking to do one of those,
we will have some advertisers off to this. But David,
where can people find you?

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Defector dot com, the website, the Distraction podcast also affiliated
with Defector.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
You're gonna be saying that a lot on this camp. Wait,
I would not get exhausted. You are just at the beginning.
Ed needam iwackon they find.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
You, Niedermeyer dot io and theonics dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:01:03):
Mister Newman go to Jared Newman dot com and sign
up fort.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Go to Google.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Type in ways to give ed zetra on money and
then click every link There isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Actually, heypen Blake Koorham house photos.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
I want to see the AI summary of that one.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Okay, So just just to be clear, playing Madden, I've
been feeding the draft classes in I always take Blake Koram,
but also Trey Benson was way better and anyway, I
need to stop this right now. If you want to
spend some money or some shit, listen to a podcast.
I guess follow the following end, click it listen. I
don't know how you listen to these things. I don't
listen to podcasts. I'm at Zitra and you can find

(01:01:39):
me on the internet. Okay, so we've now returned to
the third section of this part of the podcast, and
it's important to add I have started to experience yes

(01:02:00):
brain myself, which means that I'm just thinking because Jared
said it the phrase google juice, So just think and
say that for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
We're, of course enjoyed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Jesus Christ, we aren't getting joined. Were joined. Just keep it, Matt,
I'm sorry. By Edward and Graso Junior. We now have
three ads on one podcast, not good.

Speaker 9 (01:02:22):
Growing, more powerful any other as any other ads that
c s want.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Just join us Ultron. Let's ed Vultron. Jesus you should
do a.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Segment.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
Is that a reference to something that you know, like
in the you know, crunchberries.

Speaker 5 (01:02:43):
I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Yeah, okay, well yeah, somebody someone's gonna email this to me.
I'm gonna look bad.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
David Rath of Defector is joining us, and of course Ednimyer,
the car expert.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Hello, my man loves wheels. Jared Newman, freelance journalist, tech journalist, advisorator.

Speaker 5 (01:03:01):
Oh thank you for calling that out.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Yeah you could have also when I asked you what
you do now? Sorry, I mean, I'm sorry for you.
Let's be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
But the reason I bring up ces brain is because
there is something very concussive about the Consumer Electronics Show.
And part of the reasons I did this, other than
the fact that I love podcasting, is because there is
a defined effect of this show. And it doesn't matter
whether you've been here a hundred times or two times
or no times, you experience the same thing because there

(01:03:32):
is just something about this place where you come in
and you're there ostensibly for something real, and then you
go on to a show floor where most of it
isn't or might be, and you think, wow, all that
latent potential. But if you've been here enough times, you
know that isn't potential. It's just lies.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
This may not be what you're talking about at all,
but it's fine. But like you know, in swimming, there's
like the thing where you like, you know, you train
with like heavy stuff on right, and then you like
you like shear all that and like shave all your
Don't ask me how I know this, you know, and
you feel like you're like in the in the in

(01:04:10):
the clear. Okay. But when I on this podcast and
when we've hung out after, you know, later in CS
and previous year, right, you know, I'm not really a
big partier or I don't even drink caffeine during the show,
and then I come here and I have a drink
that fills made with black blood of the earth, and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Like the I guess it's like the opposite, the opposite of.

Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
Like of like preparing for a meat and like tapering
down and being ready to Yeah, it's like making yourself feel.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
No, no, okay, this actually does make sense. I don't
know it does.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
There is also something very like self hommy about CS,
in the sense that like last g last times at
c S, I always find a play is to like
drive myself insane. Now, this year was just like trapped Headstrong.
But there was one year where I went and all
I listened to for hours on the LVCC floor was
party rock Anthem by LMFAO and Other World from the

(01:05:10):
Final Fantasy ten soundtrack. That's when you fight Jecked. Any
listeners you love Final Fantasy tex.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
You are trying to dissociate, Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Really tend to associate when I get here, so just
like it's just the pain begins. But I think that
there's just something weird about the show. And I realize
I've now described at length just the way I terrorized myself.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
We're just coming here. You're not like you're there for
a job, but you're surrounded by shit where like people
are like, my job is kind of lying, My job
is kind of suggesting I might do something.

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
But eh, so I actually what I like about saying
I'll put the positives me in on this. What I
like about ces the value I get out of it
is that like when you do if what you're trying
to do is discern between what might be real and
what might might not be In technology, right in an
emerging tech you don't have a lot to go on.

(01:06:01):
You're dealing with companies that control information like crazy, Yeah,
and that's what that's what you need to go on. Uh,
on the Internet, they have so much control over that
it's what you know. Uh, when you come here, you
have an opportunity to exercise like your human faculties of
like in person, right, you get the vibe of like
companies and people and things and to me, because a

(01:06:22):
lot of times that's all you have to go on,
Like that's a journey secret. Yeah, and you have to
like develop this skill of just like does this do
these people? How they talk about the product, how they
talk about the company, how they talk about their plans?
Is this feel like something that's like real smart people?
And like the more you talk to people, the more
you engage with stuff, the more you talk to again,
both the smart people and the frauds. You have to

(01:06:42):
talk to the frauds. You have to engage with them,
you have to look at them and you and in
a lot of ways, coming here for me is the
only way to actually exercise and develop this disability to
like kind of intuitively discern. And again it's horrifying that
journalism kind of depends on that in a fundamental way.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
In this don't feel like CS covers this in that
way though the coverage so rarely reflects that that kind
of situation. There's just like here's the ten fucking things
I saw at CS There's the AI fridge and the
other AI fridge, and the Bachelor of Dishwasher.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
But it's basically what I'm saying is it's basically impossible
to just show up look this thing and say yet,
like you have to really develop the skills over time, right,
It's it's training data. Well, you're just collecting training data.
It doesn't mean you can immediately say this is real,
this isn't. You have to build it up over time.

Speaker 5 (01:07:29):
There's a weird thing where, you know, especially if you're
a press and you're you're going to see, you know,
an exhibit or something, and somebody will will talk to
you about the product, and there's always this like moment
where you're trying to figure out like, Okay, was this
a person that was paid to be at the booth
and was told a bunch of stuff or is it
a marketing person or is it a product person? And

(01:07:49):
you're on the spectrum of like how much does this
person actually know about the product and can we have
a real conversation versus like you're feeding me bullshit for
fifteen minutes.

Speaker 9 (01:07:58):
I'm also curious you guys who have been here times before,
do you feel like there's any correlation between the boundaries
of hype and technical capabilities? Like do you think that
you know, if you're coming in here expecting and seeing
a lot of it is hype, A lot of it
is bullshit that a lot of that is inspired by

(01:08:21):
people looking at tech that we have now and hoping
that they can have some sort of application later, and
then the boundaries of that grow as the technical capacity
you could conceivably fib grows or are these like delusions
or hyper narratives that persist independent of what actually is developing.

Speaker 5 (01:08:43):
Yeah, Oh boy, I think it's kind of gets to
like what I was saying earlier about like being pulled
in both directions, right, because it's like my job being
here is to like try to ignore that stuff, which
there's a ton of. We didn't really talk about this,
but like I feel like I feel like it's like
AI gaslighting here. Yeah, because like everybody is like saying AI.

(01:09:09):
But then you go and like look at the demonstrations
and it's nothing Like it's just it's stuff that hasn't
been delivered. Like, Okay, I'll give a specific example, like Intel, right,
they had a big thing last year about AIPC. AIPC,
we're putting natural language cross or natural processing units in PCs.
We're gonna have all these like local on device AI.

(01:09:32):
It's gonna enable all these like low latency, amazing private
applications that you couldn't do with AI and the cloud.
It's gonna be amazing. That was last year, and now
I come back this year and they're like still talking
about AIPC, but nothing has changed. It's all the same,
like there's no applications yet, and I was like, what,
what what have you been doing? And it's like that
when you go everywhere, like you go to Samsung's booth

(01:09:53):
and they're talking about AI and TVs and AI this
and that, and it's like not really anything. And it's
definitely not like half of it is not like LLLM
generative AI, which is supposed to be the big thing.
It's just AI slapped onto algorithms that they've been using,
and so it's just like very disorienting to try to
figure out what is what is real AI, and there's

(01:10:14):
just really hasn't been that much of it when you
get down to it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
That's been my experience of AI in general from the
outside of it where there's like it just because you
do hear it a lot like AI gaslighting, I think
is like the condition of the American consumer in this
particular moment. And yet at the same time, there's something
about like when you see it in uh like in
an ad you know, where they're telling you that it's

(01:10:37):
like also it has AI or it's like you know,
common walking around like telling you about like you know,
it's like not our fingertips now AI is, So that's great,
we got that going for it's whatever, any of that shit, Like,
I discount it because I don't think that I've seen
an application of it that works or does anything cool.
But then I've also never been in a position where
someone has to like another person is like in a

(01:11:00):
human body that's in the same space as me, has
to like look me in the face and be like
and it has AI in it and that makes it better,
like and so that part of it is like I'm
kind of looking forward to that aspect of it tomorrow
to everyone. Much of what I saw on the floor
here was like inventions, you know, or it was somebody

(01:11:21):
just being like, it's a COVID test but it only
takes ten minutes to tell you the results instead of
fifteen or whatever, you know, all, which is like to me,
that shit's cool, Like I think it's great to invent.
It's not exciting, but I mean it's exciting to me
in this sense. But it's like just in you know,
like again like I'm far enough outside of it that
it's like it feels less like tech and more like
you made a thing and you try to sell it,

(01:11:41):
which you know that's neat. But then the but I
haven't been to like the Intel room or like the
big like Amazon Hall Amazone.

Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Like I'll give you another example.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Well, one thing I must say something that happened to me.
So regular listeners might know about something called the Smiling Man.
If you look up Google, it's not real, please look
at it. So I when I got my ce S
patch done, I put the Smiling Man on it because
they'll let you put anything on it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
And while walking into the Amazon room, the woman woman
who's doing the security goes, wow, so hot, which, if
you look up this image is not an appropriate reaction.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
Was that not what you were going for?

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
I don't know what the hell I was going for
that image?

Speaker 6 (01:12:24):
Mate?

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
Anyway, that happened to me.

Speaker 5 (01:12:26):
Jared had a PR person tell me I was extremely fancy.
I don't I don't even understand, like how to parse
that you were in your giant I'm wearing Like what
I'm wearing now is a bunch of questions.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
You fancy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
I didn't know I was talking to a fancy guy, like.

Speaker 5 (01:12:45):
Weird other worldly reactions, you know, interactions. It's hard to.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
Jared, you look great, but you're also in like a
light blue button down and like blue jeans.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
Were like the blogger uniform. That's how I dress.

Speaker 5 (01:12:59):
That's what it was, the blogger And I don't think
it was even like a remark on my clothes. I
think it was I don't even know whats.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
What was the example you were gonna give them that?
Y sorry because oh.

Speaker 5 (01:13:11):
Yeah, okay. So like like Lenovo, right, like they like
every other PC vendor, like all their stuff is like
AI and you go to their booth and like that
they're showing you their new computers. But on the new
computers is like these half baked like on device AI
applications cool that are right, not cool, no, no, no,

(01:13:31):
but the computers are cool as hell, Like they have
a they have a laptop where the screen like rolls out,
which that's cool, Like why and then you're talking about
AI but like talk about how cool your screen is,
Like that should be the focus.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
That's totally reasonable conflict for me. I mean, obviously you're
much more expert in the stuff than me. But to me,
it's like you made a thing that is cool that
didn't exist before. Like why do you feel compelled also
or even to lead with this thing that is like
it's not vapor where because it like is you know,
you burn an acre of old growth forest every time

(01:14:05):
you generate an image of like warriors pussy, like it's
like that's real, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:13):
Like, but wos pussy is?

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Really it's very real. It can hurt you.

Speaker 5 (01:14:18):
I didn't I didn't try it at the booth, so
I don't know if that's what they're like.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
I just to me though, it's like that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
We're moving on. We're moving on from bussy. No one's
saying whissy. It's a serious podcast. I have a serious question.
You want to have any.

Speaker 5 (01:14:36):
But that the problem.

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
So so what we've been talking about ces brain uh
And I think one of the things that we have
to make sure that we let people know my case
because clearly, like it's some symptoms, yes, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
Life never broken like this before.

Speaker 4 (01:14:49):
But eventually, the thing that's important for people to understand
it's not just we've been talking about the absurdity and
the weirdness and and like trying to figure out what real.
It's not like a fundamental part that colors all of
that is just the physical exhaustion bit. That's what makes
out all time. Yeah, And I'll tell you you get
a unique perspective on this, and I think it's really
like an interesting way to think about the whole show

(01:15:10):
if you cover mobility, because you come here every year
and you hear all these brand new things about how
the way we get around is all going to fundamentally change,
and like those things are different all the time. Sometimes
you know, micro little electric bikes are the thing, and
sometimes autonomous cars and some of these driver's sistants, and
you know, it's always different. It's all these different things.
Everyone is promising that this technology is going to fundamentally

(01:15:32):
change how you get around, and every time you come here,
it's getting around getting around Vegas periods. On the Vegas Strip,
there are three separate rail lines. None of which are connected. Yeah,
just on the Vegas just on a few blocks of
the Vegas Strip. And really, for me, like the lesson
and it's a really important one I think for Cees
is that like this whole thing is this festival of

(01:15:54):
stuff that's promising to fix things, and yet the structural
issues are what Matt, this is all stuff that doesn't
address the structural issue. The only way to make getting
around Las Vegas easier is to fix how it is
on a structural level. Is a car place. You go
to the city center. I love the city center on
the Vegas Strip. They built this thing that's supposed to

(01:16:14):
look like a little downtown and there is no way
as a pedestrian to engage with it. Go check it out.
It's like the Aria and the Cosmopolitan are It's this
amazing like American symbol of a city where visually it's
there and it looks cool, but it's all these like things.
So cars can go down to the parking lot. It's
a city for cars. And again, like we're talking about

(01:16:35):
what's real and what's bullshit, and and that's all fascinating
at the end of the day, Like it's kind of
all bullshit compared to like, like how how we really
experience things comes down to structural things that tech a
lot of times, sometimes it can change it in front
oft of ways, but ninety nine point nine percent of
the time it's just some little layer on top of these.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
So it can't feel like enough individual product experiences and
engagements that suddenly makes it city you know, like pedestrian
friendly or capable of, or it makes it, you know,
possible for you to get around the city without a
car or whatever. Like that's a state level intervention. That's
not the sort of thing where like if you give
everybody an e bike, suddenly Las Vegas makes sense a car.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
It's also this none of this matts is because Vegas
is functioning exactly as as it needs to, which is
much like the tech industry.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
You're trapped within the product and you'll follow its fucking rules.

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
Which is why this is the place where we've pioneered
the you know, most innovative and transformative form of public
mass transit, which is human driven. Tesla's in a tunnel
where you need to have like three people at the
station to make sure that when the drivers pull up,
they're not running my car. When I was in that
have you guys, if you haven't experienced that, go oh
oh no, no, no, do.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
Absolutely, yeah yeah, how can you do it from here?

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
It's for free? Yeah no, it's like results Resorts World
or like around the but look for the stations and
go in anyway, go anywhere and then come back. But
just experience. It is so stupid, and it's it's such
a classic example of like of technology for you.

Speaker 5 (01:18:07):
Know, and and and just I think what you're kind
of like hitting on is in technology, like this fundamental
frustration that I have and probably other people knows as well,
is like you know, everybody's going after like the flashy
like AI for example, like the thing that attracts shareholder
excitement or whatever. But there's all these like structural things
like I want to pay less for cloud storage, Like

(01:18:29):
I don't want every photo I take to hold me hostage.
Somebody should figure out how to like compete.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
With Google Photos or or like Handwest storage.

Speaker 5 (01:18:38):
Like yeah, like nobody's nobody's doing the unglamorous shit that
needs to be fixed because there's this other shiny thing.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
And what's the rock com bubble. It's the fact that
they need everything to grow it at oh costs and
they're running out of them, so they're getting crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:18:52):
Well, and for many years you would come here and
people the pitch from a lot of these mobility technology
kind of companies would be, we are going to move
past the car. We're gonna we're gonna unlock. It was
it's weird, you know, it's this weird moment where tech
and sort of progressive urbanist aspiration there there seems to
be some alignment around it. And the reality is is

(01:19:12):
cars are a structural thing. Yea. And that again, like
when the more tech solutionism right tries to tackle structural things,
the more it's sort of revealed to the lack of power.
Like we're surrounded by so much technological power, but you
see sometimes the limits of that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
But this is actually the principal dichotomy of Better Offline itself,
which is that you have companies that ostensibly sell the
idea that they're fixing problems, but fixing actual problems might
make them less profitable, and they certainly won't if they
start fixing those problems grow forever.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
So CS, Yeah, CS is selling the hype.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
And I think for and I said this first CS
was twenty eleven, so back then you could kind of
with a straight face believe it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
You could think the tech industry was going to fix
some shit, right you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
Maybe there were more cynical people back then, But back then,
at least in the media, I was a bit of
pr baby at the time. You just were like, oh, no,
the tech industry will work it. I was the early
days of Facebook. You're like, they're not completely evil. You
just didn't know at that point. And I think that
CES has never really graduated from it hasn't really tried
to adjust to the fact that I think more people
are like, I don't know about the tech people, and

(01:20:23):
I have to wonder how CES changes as the result.

Speaker 5 (01:20:26):
Yeah, there's a there's a a weird disconnect between like
the image that CS puts forth in like what you
have to then go and try to find as a
journalist covering it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
So what it's putting forth is basically like, here's the future,
this is what it's going to look like. Is that
the idea?

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Ideally?

Speaker 5 (01:20:45):
Do you remember, well, if you're list, they're the CEES
slogan was all all on and I remember that. Okay,
so the CS slogan last year was all on, which
I guess is a play on all in and like
all the imagery that they had was like extremely obvious
AI faces.

Speaker 3 (01:21:05):
Oh yeah, that's some of the things now I am.

Speaker 5 (01:21:07):
And so like that set the tone right, like there's
this obviously like unhinged thing that they're putting forth and
then you have to go and find things to actually
be maybe excited about, but that are not that I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
It's over the years just dodging just the made up
shit and before you would just accept.

Speaker 10 (01:21:24):
More of it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Well that's what I'm trying to sort of figure out.
How I haven't been to Edward. You went to the
convention center today, right, Yeah, so you saw like the
weird stuff. I mean, yeah, it was it was is
this your first go round to?

Speaker 3 (01:21:38):
This is my first one too?

Speaker 9 (01:21:39):
And the convention center was filled with a lot of
things that exist already without AI. But you had people
assuring you that they've reached a new level because of
the Aire.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Yeah, you've unlocked its potential.

Speaker 9 (01:21:55):
And I think, like you were saying, I was actually
kind of struck by that because when I was in
the expo, like you said, there were a lot of
gazemos and they were talking about a but they wouldn't
actually focus on the AI like.

Speaker 5 (01:22:06):
They were in the convention center.

Speaker 9 (01:22:08):
They would actually be like, you know, here's a problem.
Like even that CGM thing which you know, which we
talked about, which it doesn't work if you're which was
that one.

Speaker 5 (01:22:17):
This was the.

Speaker 9 (01:22:20):
Well they said it was not a CGM, it was
a healthcare.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
Management continuous glucose mode.

Speaker 9 (01:22:27):
Yeah, yeah, continuous say it would great stuff it uh
so it monitors glucose. It's also supposed to monitor other
metabolic indexes for you to based off shining uh infrared
on your skin.

Speaker 4 (01:22:40):
Right.

Speaker 9 (01:22:41):
And here that's an interesting development because it's not invasive
and you can use it obstensively to monitor things that
might you know, you might actually have to get a
medical device. You might have to get something more invasive
to monitor. But then you you know, you you dig
a little bit and then you get the other problematic features. Oh,

(01:23:02):
we're gonna you know, we're gonna we're privacy oriented and
we're wards oriented, so we're gonna put it on the
blockchain and we're gonna tell your insurance company everything.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:23:10):
It's that differently from the main show, the main LVCC so.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
At the l v C C.

Speaker 9 (01:23:15):
It just it felt like it was less like here
is a bit of an improvement or like an issue
that we want to offer an innovative fix for, whether
or not you agree with the fix, and here is
uh this thing that you have that probably works, but
with AI you can access substantibly more potential.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
The more craving.

Speaker 5 (01:23:34):
That's that's a function of you know, l v C C,
especially Central Hall being like that's where the big companies are, LG, Samsung, whatever,
whereas uh, you know, Venetian is kind of these smaller
companies and so uh in South Hall even to some
this is very c S.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
I'm sorry, I should be writing and I should explain this.
I was into the ce S coverage. So there are
two areas.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
There's the venetianicks Poet which is connected to the Venetian
and the Las Vegas Convention Hole, and there is the Central,
North and South Hole.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
Excellent time to explain that at the end of like
the fourth hour.

Speaker 5 (01:24:13):
Yeah, So you know, you have big companies like Samsung
LG that are trying to show that they are doing
doing something big and flashy because what they really have
is like our O LED display is like a bit
brighter than it was last year, which again I think
is cool Like that that makes that makes more difference
to me than than this like AI stuff that they're

(01:24:34):
throwing on top. But that's the stuff that they have
to you know, focus on to get what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
I guess like this is maybe that's a naive question,
but it's not like basically because I feel like if
you are pointing this at consumers and you're basically like,
we solve the dog door, it's better now. It's never
gonna let in like, you know, a raccoon or like whatever.
Like you how you keep having like beavers from the

(01:25:02):
neighborhood let themselves in your kitchety?

Speaker 4 (01:25:05):
It just shows up in your house.

Speaker 5 (01:25:07):
Yeah, it's it's it's worth clarifying, like this show, despite
being called like consumer electronics show, it's not for consumers, right,
That's what I was going to say. The primary purpose
of the show historically that's probably true. Now it's still
is for buyers of technology, for retailers to go around
and see what they want to put, you know, how

(01:25:29):
much they want to buy of a TV or a whatever,
to figure out what they're going to stock this year
and so.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
But even in that case, wouldn't if it's for those people,
wouldn't the selling point be the oiled screen is a
little bit bright.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
He's left one important detail out, which is it's also
for Conning jennalists.

Speaker 4 (01:25:47):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
No, I was going to get to that continue them.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
No.

Speaker 5 (01:25:51):
Yeah, So I mean I think in both cases it's
kind of like, that's that's a that's a more attractive
story to tell, especially if you're not you know, it's
hard at see yes, and a lot of people aren't
looking at stuff super deep, right, and so they want
just the easy story. And so easy story is like
look at the AI we're putting into our TV versus
like we made our TV a little brighter. It's just

(01:26:13):
not as attractive if you're not really like paying super But.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
Also it's very hard to write an exciting story about
something getting slightly better that really.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
I guess that makes sense because if it's the idea
is that you're trying to generate some sort of heat
around a product, the idea of like, there's just something
strange about that. I mean, I guess we're probably gonna
wind up returning to this often. We were the next
few days that like, because AI is not real, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
Like in a meaningful except anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
Yeah, that like the idea that you have to in
order to make this an interesting story. You have to
be like, not only is it a better screen than
it was last year, something that we had like actual
something that helps you, Yes, something that like in rooves
your experience. Not only is that, but also we added it's.

Speaker 5 (01:27:04):
A whole new way to consume television. Yes, when it's not,
you get it in your home and you're like, I'm
glad it's brighter.

Speaker 4 (01:27:11):
So there's two things your intuition that like, this stuff
is not that stuff that consumers are screaming for it.
So there's two factors. One is that you know postive jobs.
Everyone is obsessed with this idea of like people don't
know what they want until you show it to them
as a huge factor in a lot of these things.
The other thing, though, you're right, like a lot of
this stuff isn't for consumers in a fundamental way in

(01:27:33):
that a lot of this is performance for investors.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
That's the bit that I was curious about. AI is
for like you're shown out for like the quarter zip
the v like because they're the ones they care about that.

Speaker 4 (01:27:46):
You're showing you're on trend, you're showing like there's this
almost like theater often of like how you position yourself
relative to your competitors. They have a little boots, you
have a big but like there's there's all of these
sorts of things and a lot of them are about
especially for the kind of earlier stay companies and like
which happened more in the in the the hype cycles. Right,
so you tell this a lot, and like you know

(01:28:06):
evs and avs and stuff like these title companies had
no revenue, no business, but they had these massive, massive things.
It wasn't for consumers because they didn't have anything to
sell consumers, but they're there and there were years away
from having something. It's for investors.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
I think all sense with evs, it's like it's hard
to make a car.

Speaker 4 (01:28:23):
It's also about about attracting partners from the ecosystem.

Speaker 5 (01:28:26):
I think also like just to put a finer maybe
a little more specificity with AI, like AI tends to demo. Well,
so if you're a buyer or investor or a journalist,
like you look at these things and they show you
for two minutes the canned demos that they have and
you're like Oh wow, this is really this is interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
I mean it's only when that Elon's robot can like
pop and lock.

Speaker 3 (01:28:51):
Podcasts.

Speaker 5 (01:28:51):
Really, it's only when you try to use it like
in a regular way that you're like, oh, this doesn't
actually work.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
So I feel like we're entering this like nexus of
what happens when you spend ten fucking years in the
tech industry building it for people who won't use it,
by people who don't care, and so you're at this
point where it's just like selling nothing to nothing.

Speaker 5 (01:29:11):
I always had this thing with with Google Home, Google Nests,
where I felt like like like nobody at Google was
using No, the.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
Google Home app is like an Escher painting. It's like,
oh I need like soon. Durpeachi doesn't use those, No,
he does.

Speaker 3 (01:29:27):
None of these people do. I just and it's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
We keep done hours of this now and it really
keeps coming back to this theme of just everyone going
what is this shit?

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
You don't know what it is as somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Who's like really just like I read about it, but
I don't consume a lot of this stuff. Our apartment
is effectively in two thousand and five and probably always
will be. But there's a lot of the I remember this,
especially with a lot of the like the metaverse stuff
on Facebook, uh huh, where there's a part of it where,
you know, like Zuck coming on with this fucking perm
being like if you ever wanted to do it, attend

(01:30:00):
a meeting on your computer, and it's like I do
it all the time, dude. It sucks ass, but also like, yeah,
it's like totally possible, Like I don't need to be
like a plush bear when I do it, you know,
like a legless bad but there is a legless kind
of like weirdly sad looking sorrowful eyes thirty minutes at Freddy's. Yeah,

(01:30:24):
but like to me with that, it's like, so where
did you get this idea? Because like, I don't know what,
Like Mark Zuckerberg's life is very different from mine, obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
No, No, it's someone making up what they think happens.
It really is that simple. They're just like, what the
fucking people do?

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):
People have jobs, right, they got cats, So that means
meetings when you have a job.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
What happens at job if you're a CEO of a
multi trillion dollar company, meetings if you don't do any
real work, that's what you think work is.

Speaker 5 (01:30:54):
But so your younger eyes on meetings as a CEO
and then you're like, what if I just became a bear?

Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
Yeah, this is it's also important. This is why it's
important to pay. Like the attendees are as much a
part of the shows as exhibitors, and and it's because
they like listen to what people say, listen to. It's
really fascinating because there is this core around you know
of people who are on this tech business who are
like conditioned, and part of their identity is to assume

(01:31:21):
that anything new that they see at sees is good
and better and something that they can buy and then
get social capital out of saying, you know, I have
this and you don't. I'm on the cutting edge and
more on the cutting edge than you are. Like this
is a really important part of our culture now is technology.
And and what's fascinating here is you know, we were
talking earlier about how the vibe is changing around tech

(01:31:42):
right like like ten years ago, fifteen years ago, like
attitudes towards this were very different. There still are these
people who are stuck in that old like sort of
tech is all unconditionally good, it's all progress it's all
making things better.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
And you're there tomorrow they're going to see.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
Wow, these people a lot of cyber trucks in the
parking line.

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
So we sadly at the end now then we're letting
you go listeners. Jared Human, Where where can people find you?

Speaker 5 (01:32:08):
Go to Jared Newman dot com, Slash Newsletters and I
will give you some great tech advice all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:32:14):
Miss the need of mile. Where can people find you?

Speaker 4 (01:32:17):
Needermeyer do Io and the Atonic Cast, Misterrongreso, jr.

Speaker 9 (01:32:21):
Uh tech Tech, Bubble dot Substack dot com, and then
Big black Jack have been on Instagram, I mean on Instagram,
on Blue Sky and Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Mister defector dot com is the website. Distraction is the
podcast I do with that? It's Christmas Town is the
Hallmark podcast. And I'm also David Jroth Blue Sky. I
should actually check how that's punctuated. It's hang on. Everybody's
gonna learn this. Hold on just a moment. I have
to get my phone out.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
I have to think of like a slightly sardonic way
to refer to myself.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
So yeah, David Jroth dot bsky dot Social.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
Go into Google, take the biggest idiot in tech and
I pop up. Not really, I'm the smartest man in
tech exitron. I'm the first person to wear aviators and
cover technology. You've been listening to a podcast. He will
be apologizing for for a while, but you'll be thanking me.
Thanks for listening, everyone, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

(01:33:29):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com, m.

Speaker 3 (01:33:37):
A T T O s O W s ki dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:33:42):
You can email me at easy at Better Offline dot
com or visit Better Offline dot com to find more
podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really
recommend you go to chat dot Where's youreaed dot at
to visit the discord, and go to our slash.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so
much for listening.

Speaker 10 (01:34:00):
Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

All Episodes

Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2

Episode Transcript

Host

Ed Zitron

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2