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What's the future of the internet? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Future of the Internet. It's called Stuff
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Speaker 1: you Should Know. We have the past, the present, in
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Speaker 1: the future of my friend choke on that haters. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so that's what we're talking about today, and I'm hoping
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Speaker 1: you have some awesome cool story about, you know, the
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Speaker 1: future or the Internet. You'd think I would no intro
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Speaker 1: on this one. No, there's a surprising um dearth of
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Speaker 1: stuff out there about the future of the Internet. I
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Speaker 1: found that a lot of people are really really nervous
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Speaker 1: about putting their neck out because we finally reached a
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Speaker 1: point in time where you can build a career based
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Speaker 1: on successfully and accurately predicting the next move right, So
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Speaker 1: everybody is kind of confident about what's coming five years
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Speaker 1: from now, seven years from now, and if we haven't
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Speaker 1: by the time this thing comes out, uh put it
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Speaker 1: on the actual name of this episode. I'm going to
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Speaker 1: go ahead and put what is the future of the
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Speaker 1: Internet parentheses seven years from now, because that's really what
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Speaker 1: it's about, unless you want to start talking trans humanism, chuck,
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Speaker 1: which I'm prepared to I like trans humanism, not on
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Speaker 1: this one though, Okay, but um, if you unless you're
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Speaker 1: prepared to talk about that. It's basically like, what's it
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Speaker 1: going to be like seven years from now? And there's
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Speaker 1: some pretty good guesses. Uh. And one of the people
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Speaker 1: who's not too shabby at guessing is um one of
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Speaker 1: our coworkers colleagues. His name is John Strickland, and if
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Speaker 1: you don't follow him on Twitter, you're missing out strick
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Speaker 1: of tex stuff. Yeah, his Twitter handles John Strickland, j
1:59
Speaker 1: o in Strickland obviously one word, no other anything in between. Well,
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Speaker 1: Josh and LOUI of an interesting story from you that
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Speaker 1: is the opposite is supportive? No, no, no, we should
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Speaker 1: totally support him. I always do. I love straight even
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Speaker 1: though there's a fake Internet battle between us that fans
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Speaker 1: like to think exists, I know it's. Uh in lieu
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Speaker 1: of a great story, then how about I have a
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Speaker 1: few stats on just the Internet as it is and
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Speaker 1: as it was, then we can talk about what it
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Speaker 1: might be. How does that sound. Um, here's a nice infographic.
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Speaker 1: These all come from the Pew Research Institute Research Center
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Speaker 1: for People in the Press specifically, that's US Pew the press.
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Speaker 1: Are we yeah, technically good journalists? Internet adoption. This is
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Speaker 1: just a little infographic. In June, about four of American
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Speaker 1: adults eighteen and over adopted an internet used the Internet.
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Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? What year is that sounds right? Not
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Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, not that long ago? No, but yeah, I
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Speaker 1: remember that was back in the day of like Prodigy,
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Speaker 1: and they'd have answer prodgy. You'd still be like what
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Speaker 1: the Prodigy? Yeah? Yeah, what was prodigy? An like it
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Speaker 1: was a it was a web server? Was browsing I
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Speaker 1: P or yes? No service provider? Yes? Uh? November oh one.
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Speaker 1: So between June and November one and went from fourteen
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Speaker 1: percent to sixty percent, and today we stand at about
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Speaker 1: seventy seven percent. That's staggering to me. Sent Yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: not higher. Seventy eight percenter, men seventy six percent or
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Speaker 1: women pretty evenly divided. Uh, if you want to go
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Speaker 1: to household income is interesting to the hundred and fifty
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Speaker 1: percent is split pretty much even. No, no, no, seventy
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Speaker 1: eight percent of men using it and of women, so
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Speaker 1: just two percent more of men for some reason, um
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Speaker 1: household income. Think of the reason. If you make seventy
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Speaker 1: five grand or more a year, you have a nine
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Speaker 1: chance that you use the internet. And I guess the
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Speaker 1: other four percent are old people that don't understand it.
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Speaker 1: They're filthy rich. They pick up the keyboard and try
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Speaker 1: to talking to It's uh less than thirty thou dollars
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Speaker 1: per year. Surprisingly, still use the internet on a daily basis. Well,
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Speaker 1: this is why they call it ubiquitous. It is ubiquitous.
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Speaker 1: And then finally, Josh, I'm going to finish up with
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Speaker 1: what people do on the internet. What American adults do
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Speaker 1: on the internet on an average day, Um, send or
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Speaker 1: read email? And then I found period like eight five
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Speaker 1: percent use email. So people don't check their email on
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Speaker 1: a daily basis. That's nuts. Those are what they call
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Speaker 1: the relaxed. People use a search engine to find information,
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Speaker 1: get their news, go online just for fun. Is that
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Speaker 1: the category? Yeah, thirty seven percent use some sort of
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Speaker 1: social networking site. Um, yeah that was November. That's probably
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Speaker 1: even higher right now. Check the weather bank online every day,
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Speaker 1: watch the YouTube or a video sharing site. And about
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Speaker 1: of people look for news and politics political information every day.
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Speaker 1: So just interesting. That's what's that is the current state
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Speaker 1: of the Internet. I think I do all of that
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Speaker 1: except um, news or not news, weather, little commerce, little news, shopping, communication,
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Speaker 1: social networking. It's all pretty basic it when you think
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Speaker 1: about it, compared to it's not basic. Um. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: well that's the whole point of the Internet. It's there
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Speaker 1: to serve us, right, that's right, Like it's supposedly all
6:10
Speaker 1: of our needs right there. And what we're seeing right
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Speaker 1: now is a movement toward making accessibility easier and easier.
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Speaker 1: Very true. So um, one of the ways to make
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Speaker 1: accessing the Internet easier and easier, Chuck, is to um
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Speaker 1: increase download speeds or what's called the effective data data
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Speaker 1: transfer rate. And also, I think we should put disclaim
6:34
Speaker 1: right here. If you've ever wanted to chew me and
6:38
Speaker 1: chuck up alive for missing something, for screwing up something,
6:44
Speaker 1: for getting something just totally wrong, here's here's your chance. Um,
6:49
Speaker 1: if you if you couldn't get us on the Sun
6:51
Speaker 1: podcast or the Epigenetics podcast, here's your chance. So let
6:56
Speaker 1: us know you can be nice about it. You don't
6:57
Speaker 1: have to be a jerk, but you can definitely correct
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Speaker 1: us because we're open to that kind of thing. So
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Speaker 1: the effective data transfer rate, right, that's the the the
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Speaker 1: average rate at which x number of bits um transfers
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Speaker 1: from one place to another, uh in some block of time.
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Speaker 1: How fast you're junk runs? You know, that's what we're
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Speaker 1: talking about. When I click on this thing, how fast
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Speaker 1: is it gonna load this movie? Right? And that's funny
7:26
Speaker 1: because movies are pretty much the go to standard of
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Speaker 1: how fast something goes? Right. So um Strickling wrote this,
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Speaker 1: and one of his first prediction for the future of
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Speaker 1: the Internet is that it's speed speeds are going to
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Speaker 1: be increased tremendously. I really went out a lender, but
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Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. Like, if you go and look,
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Speaker 1: if you do a search for future of the Internet,
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Speaker 1: you're not gonna find anything different than this. It's crazy, like,
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Speaker 1: no one's no one's sticking their neck out at all.
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Speaker 1: No one knows but he but he said that. According
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Speaker 1: to Akamai Technologies, which puts out a State of the
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Speaker 1: Internet report on a quarterly basis, the average global data
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Speaker 1: transmission speed late two thousand nine, which might as well
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Speaker 1: was one point seven megabits per second megabytes. I can
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Speaker 1: find the current one. I couldn't either. One reason why
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Speaker 1: is because if you look up stuff like this, all
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Speaker 1: you're gonna find is a T and D says it's
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Speaker 1: this fast, Verizon says you can get it this fast.
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Speaker 1: And it's people advertising how fast they can do it
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Speaker 1: right or average. It's some obscure website about you know,
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Speaker 1: like what what a four G network should be for Um,
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Speaker 1: somebody broke a record, and in fact there's a record
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Speaker 1: um that he mentions from Bell Labs right from this
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Speaker 1: is the current record as far as I know. Yes,
8:53
Speaker 1: it could have been from yesterday and now it's outdated. Uh,
8:56
Speaker 1: this one, this one is pretty recent. Um. I believe
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Speaker 1: it was May maybe I'm not sure, but it was
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Speaker 1: a hundred petabytes. Okay, what's a pot a petabyte, chuck,
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Speaker 1: is a million gigabytes. So that's a hundred million gigabytes
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Speaker 1: in a second that they transferred, or a hundred billion
9:15
Speaker 1: megabits Okay, let's just another way to say it. Or
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Speaker 1: I guess a trillion bits right better? Math is wrong.
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Speaker 1: So the and then of course that's that's in a second.
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Speaker 1: So they managed to transfer, um a hundred million gigabytes
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Speaker 1: of information in a second. And what does that mean
9:35
Speaker 1: in DVDs, which are like the big max of the internet. Right, Well, um,
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Speaker 1: it turns out that they transferred twenty two million DVDs
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Speaker 1: worth of information in a second. Right now, this is
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Speaker 1: using a laser. Well yeah, and I need to point
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Speaker 1: out I did go to the Acamite technology site which
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Speaker 1: publishes this quarterly report, and it sat there as a PDF,
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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh great, Q four or Q one.
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Speaker 1: I was like, perfect, click. You must be a member
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Speaker 1: to access this information. So the point is, though, is
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Speaker 1: not that we know the average transfer rate worldwide. The
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Speaker 1: point is is what we're getting and what is potentially possible.
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Speaker 1: Uh is there's a huge gap there between what you
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Speaker 1: can get commercially, right and while that while that transfer
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Speaker 1: of a hundred peta bytes was across a laser, which
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Speaker 1: no one's using right now in a commercial network not
10:28
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, Um, there's the record for fiber optic, which
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Speaker 1: is in wide use, that's your broadband. Um it was
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Speaker 1: twenty six terabytes, which is um, I think a thousand gigabytes.
10:43
Speaker 1: That's fast. Yeah, So twenty six thousand gigabytes in a second.
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Speaker 1: So that's still a broadband, huge gap between what is
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Speaker 1: available to us. So the whole point of this is
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Speaker 1: is this is where we can potentially end up. Is
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Speaker 1: you can download a movie to watch an HD movie
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Speaker 1: in a second, right just by clicking on it. What
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Speaker 1: makes me said is that we're not already at like
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Speaker 1: a petabyte of information transferred already. I wonder what all
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Speaker 1: the reasons I don't like on our local area network
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Speaker 1: here at the office, it says like hundred megabytes a second.
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Speaker 1: It's like, no, it's like, that's what I could be getting,
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Speaker 1: but it's never what you get, and I just think
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Speaker 1: it's it's the Internet's fast, but it could be faster. Agreed.
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Speaker 1: That's point one, all right, And the prediction is it
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Speaker 1: probably will be wirelessly and landline base and wireless is
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Speaker 1: going to get faster and faster, and that's probably where
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Speaker 1: people are going to start putting most of their money
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Speaker 1: if they're not already in figuring out ways to make
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Speaker 1: it faster and faster, because wireless is what everybody wants, right. Um,
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Speaker 1: If the Internet is found in devices, if that's the
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Speaker 1: future of it and how it's consumed, then wireless is
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Speaker 1: probably the basis of most of these devices. And not
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Speaker 1: only that, Chuck, Not only do consumers want it, but
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Speaker 1: companies Internet service providers want wireless to be the next
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Speaker 1: Internet as well, because that SEC ruling from December of
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Speaker 1: two thousand ten on net neutrality basically said, yes, the
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Speaker 1: Net needs to remain neutral unless it's wireless, and they
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Speaker 1: left the door open for wireless Internet service providers to
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Speaker 1: show favoritism. And this is the second part of the
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Speaker 1: John Strickland prediction extravaganza of the future of the Internet.
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Speaker 1: Where the Net's going to be going. That's right. Net neutrality, Josh,
12:34
Speaker 1: is a big can of worms of which we could
12:37
Speaker 1: do an entire podcast, but we're gonna only pull one
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Speaker 1: worm from this and simply say, if you've heard the
12:44
Speaker 1: term net neutrality, you don't know what it is. Basically,
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Speaker 1: it is keeping the Internet wide open. No matter which
12:50
Speaker 1: I s P you're using, you can access the same
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Speaker 1: content as someone else using another I s P. The
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Speaker 1: potential against this would be, uh if an I s P,
13:02
Speaker 1: let's say, cuts a deal with certain vendors with the
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Speaker 1: site a website, Yeah, certain websites doesn't have to be
13:09
Speaker 1: a vendor, but it could be then they're gonna put
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Speaker 1: their juice, their best juice into making that really fast
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Speaker 1: fast load. Right, you would get your hundred megabytes a
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Speaker 1: second download for that website, but maybe the other website,
13:22
Speaker 1: which may be the competition of that other website, it's
13:25
Speaker 1: gonna make it really slow or just not make it
13:27
Speaker 1: be available at all. And like a cable company, you
13:30
Speaker 1: can't get our beloved science channel, which is wrong. Yes, uh,
13:37
Speaker 1: because you know certain cable companies they got a monopoly
13:40
Speaker 1: in your area and you're like, oh, I can only
13:41
Speaker 1: go with um blank cable company in my area, and
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Speaker 1: they don't carry these channels or they don't carry the websites.
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Speaker 1: That's the future, um And And that's a big problem
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Speaker 1: because the Internet was the model of it was kind
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Speaker 1: of based on all the mistakes that have been made
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Speaker 1: in the past, learning from that and then now once
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Speaker 1: we realize what we have at our hands, it became
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Speaker 1: less neutral in December two thousand ten, um And it's
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Speaker 1: a big, big deal. Yeah, it really is. You We've
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Speaker 1: seen with the Arab Spring how touchy people get when
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Speaker 1: um you shut down their access to the Internet. Revolutions occur, right,
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Speaker 1: So centering the Internet in any way, shape or form
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Speaker 1: is um is a definite no no. But the problem
14:27
Speaker 1: with this FCC ruling is that it allows for basically
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Speaker 1: um financial censorship of the Internet. And one of the
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Speaker 1: problems with this, this lack of net neutrality is if
14:41
Speaker 1: you get what you pay for, then the Internet will
14:44
Speaker 1: become divided across class lines. Yeah, the biggest websites that
14:49
Speaker 1: can afford fastest download times and speeds will weed out
14:55
Speaker 1: the mom and pop quote unquote of the Internet. Right,
14:57
Speaker 1: and then just based on the the basic capitalist theory,
15:02
Speaker 1: those websites aren't just gonna hang out over here and
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Speaker 1: hope that, you know, the net expands once again. They're
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Speaker 1: gonna weather on the vine and die, and we're going
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Speaker 1: to have a paired down, leaner, probably more corporates version
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Speaker 1: of the Internet exactly. And what I think should happen, Josh,
15:18
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people agree, is to
15:20
Speaker 1: let it be a little more Darwinian, which is what
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Speaker 1: it has been, which is keep it an even playing
15:29
Speaker 1: field and just see who survives. And if you if
15:31
Speaker 1: you remember when all the startups the big boom in
15:34
Speaker 1: the nineties, when I mean there were so many new
15:37
Speaker 1: commerce sites and I remember thinking at the time. You
15:41
Speaker 1: know the Amazons will survive and all the other ones
15:46
Speaker 1: are a lot of the other ones will die off,
15:48
Speaker 1: But you think is going to make it. I had
15:51
Speaker 1: a director I worked that bought a lot of stock
15:53
Speaker 1: in the web band. Yeah, I have a friend who
15:55
Speaker 1: did that didn't work out so well. And I'm not laughing.
15:57
Speaker 1: It's not funny. I feel very bad for people who
16:00
Speaker 1: put a lot of money into a start of field.
16:02
Speaker 1: But that's my point is it was. It was a
16:04
Speaker 1: level playing ground. At least, it's whoever does it the
16:07
Speaker 1: best will win out. And the Amazon's one out, the
16:11
Speaker 1: YouTube's one out. Did you did you put your money
16:14
Speaker 1: where your mouth was? And like invest in the Yahoo's Dude,
16:18
Speaker 1: do you think I had any money in? You can't
16:20
Speaker 1: have any money in two thousand eleven. If you had
16:23
Speaker 1: money in ninety five, you would have it in two
16:25
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. I imagine unless you hung onto that Yahoo stuck. UM.
16:30
Speaker 1: One of the ways that that net neutrality, I guess
16:34
Speaker 1: is threatened is is UM a lot of companies that
16:38
Speaker 1: make devices UM weren't waiting around to see what how
16:43
Speaker 1: the FCC ultimately ruled or whether the net would remain neutral.
16:47
Speaker 1: They started making what are called walled gardens. Right, So
16:51
Speaker 1: the devices, I should say, by the way, they're called
16:53
Speaker 1: tethered appliances. What are we talking about. It's an iPhone
16:58
Speaker 1: and droid smartphone. But let's let me Apples is such
17:02
Speaker 1: a great example of this. I'm gonna pick on Apple,
17:04
Speaker 1: but it's not just Apple doing this. Like, um, the
17:08
Speaker 1: Xbox Xbox Live. You can't access Xbox Live through any
17:13
Speaker 1: other other device than the Xbox. That makes the Xbox
17:16
Speaker 1: the tethered appliance. You have to have that to do that. Okay,
17:20
Speaker 1: So um, with the with the iPad or the iPhone,
17:25
Speaker 1: it's a that's a tethered appliance. Um, you use that
17:29
Speaker 1: to access what's called a walled garden. Right. The the
17:33
Speaker 1: it does the iPhone, it's supposed to be. It's a
17:35
Speaker 1: very nice, pleasant, like um, user friendly, very design heavy
17:41
Speaker 1: corner of the Internet. It's part of the Internet, but
17:44
Speaker 1: you can't get to it through traditional means. You have
17:46
Speaker 1: to get to it through this device that you buy
17:48
Speaker 1: from this company, and they own this section of the Internet.
17:52
Speaker 1: The iPhone app Store is a part of the Internet
17:55
Speaker 1: that Apple owns that you can't get to any other way.
17:58
Speaker 1: So there's this one way to get in there. And
18:02
Speaker 1: as uh say, you know you can't get to the
18:04
Speaker 1: iPhone app store to your droid, right, so you can,
18:10
Speaker 1: you can. But let's say, let's say the market share
18:15
Speaker 1: for handheld mobile devices um went to Apple and droid
18:21
Speaker 1: head ten percent. But you can't survive with ten percent,
18:23
Speaker 1: and eventually it's going to be Apple that creates the
18:26
Speaker 1: user experience of the Internet. That ubiquitous design. I'm sorry
18:32
Speaker 1: to use that word twice, but that that design that's
18:35
Speaker 1: just so emblematic of Apple, that is so many people's
18:41
Speaker 1: experience of the Internet. Yet you're experiencing the Internet through
18:46
Speaker 1: Apple's exactly nice, chuck. But the Android has completely different design.
18:52
Speaker 1: It's a completely different experience. And if you ever put
18:55
Speaker 1: an Android user in an iPhone user into the same room,
18:59
Speaker 1: they are barely talking about the same thing. Yeah, even
19:02
Speaker 1: though what they're talking about our handheld devices that access
19:07
Speaker 1: the Internet supposedly the same Internet. And then all right,
19:11
Speaker 1: think about this. You've got, um, let's say, a less
19:15
Speaker 1: popular handheld device these days, like the Carnival, like the palm,
19:23
Speaker 1: Let's say the Carnival, the Carnival. A people are are
19:27
Speaker 1: designing apps for the droid, and the companies are designing
19:31
Speaker 1: apps for the droid and the and the iPhone like
19:34
Speaker 1: crazy because those are the two biggest ones and they
19:37
Speaker 1: want to get it all over the place. You feel
19:40
Speaker 1: maybe bad for other handheld devices that don't have people saying, oh, man,
19:45
Speaker 1: I want to design a CARNIVALI app so CARNIVALI users
19:49
Speaker 1: can have that same rich experience. CARNIVALI doesn't have the money.
19:53
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they're trying to get in that
19:56
Speaker 1: marketplace and design their own cool apps. But the apps
20:00
Speaker 1: are coming from the apps are coming from how stuff
20:04
Speaker 1: works dot com and what we do apps for. We
20:07
Speaker 1: did apps for the droid and for the iPhone. So far,
20:10
Speaker 1: we haven't done a car Carnival. We have not done one.
20:13
Speaker 1: And poor Carnivale is gonna suffer one day because essentially
20:17
Speaker 1: they're being left in the dust. And the Internet experience
20:20
Speaker 1: is being lived through two handheld devices and eventually there
20:24
Speaker 1: could possibly be one or you know, or it could
20:28
Speaker 1: expand in the BlackBerry or I'm sorry, the the uh,
20:31
Speaker 1: the Strawberry could catch up and and revolutionize things and
20:38
Speaker 1: get way more apps than the iPhone. Who knows, but
20:42
Speaker 1: itself follows that same model. I mean, ask Adobe. They
20:46
Speaker 1: make flash and everybody loves flash. A revolutionized how we
20:50
Speaker 1: how we consume material on the internet. Right. The Apple
20:55
Speaker 1: chose not to operate flash on its OS, and it's
20:58
Speaker 1: mobile OS. So any site that has flash, you just
21:03
Speaker 1: have that little cube, the little Rubric's cube, and that's it.
21:07
Speaker 1: In Apple is not the least bit apologetic of it.
21:09
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is is Apple users aren't demanding flash.
21:13
Speaker 1: Flash is just going the way of the dinosaur because
21:16
Speaker 1: Apple chose not to support it. And now everybody's like,
21:20
Speaker 1: there's a whole HTML five developer movements out there where
21:26
Speaker 1: this is the next thing that's going to replace flash,
21:28
Speaker 1: right because Apple chose not to support flash, Right, how's it?
21:32
Speaker 1: That's that's the That's the Internet being carved down by
21:35
Speaker 1: people who, um are making decisions for everybody else. How
21:38
Speaker 1: are we doing on this? We could? I think we're okay.
21:41
Speaker 1: I think one of the ways we're getting away with
21:43
Speaker 1: this in large part is that we are this is
21:46
Speaker 1: opinion well, and I know I feel like I'm in
21:49
Speaker 1: a in a lake with like the waters just under
21:51
Speaker 1: my nose because dealing with this text stuff is such
21:54
Speaker 1: Strickland's line of work and he feels so comfortable with it,
21:58
Speaker 1: and uh, I just have And with Techy's especially, it's
22:01
Speaker 1: not like we're talking about you know, bear spray and
22:04
Speaker 1: like five people know that we're in over our heads.
22:07
Speaker 1: Techy's really pay attention and there to be like these
22:09
Speaker 1: guys are so wrong. I know, I know, and again
22:12
Speaker 1: if we are, if we are wrong, please do correct
22:14
Speaker 1: started discussion. We like that. Yeah, um, but Chuck, I
22:17
Speaker 1: feel like I'm bleeding from under my fingernails from just
22:19
Speaker 1: hanging on. That's two. Number two is that the Internet
22:24
Speaker 1: will be a leaner, slicker, more corporateised version of itself.
22:27
Speaker 1: Now perhaps possibly there's a book I read across. I
22:30
Speaker 1: haven't read it. I just came across it today. Um,
22:33
Speaker 1: it's by a guy named Jonathan ZiT Train z I
22:38
Speaker 1: T t R A I n uh. It's called The
22:40
Speaker 1: Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. That's
22:43
Speaker 1: where I got the tethered Appliances thing. And he's basically like,
22:47
Speaker 1: we need more like user generated stuff and less walled gardens.
22:52
Speaker 1: And if we don't have them, if we don't do
22:54
Speaker 1: something now, then when it's we're toast because there's so
22:58
Speaker 1: much cash to be made out there on the Internet,
23:01
Speaker 1: that it's gonna be a big fight either way, even
23:04
Speaker 1: if there is success in creating um a more democratic internet,
23:10
Speaker 1: right or maintaining it. I guess. So that's some of
23:13
Speaker 1: the tech stuff. What's the third one? Oh, yeah, we
23:16
Speaker 1: know this one. Yeah, Nicholas Carr, We've talked about this. Uh.
23:19
Speaker 1: This guy wrote a book, I'm sorry, an article called
23:21
Speaker 1: his Google making a Stupid that got a lot of press.
23:24
Speaker 1: We used it in presentations, we've used it in podcasts,
23:27
Speaker 1: and the hypothesis is that the way you navigate and
23:30
Speaker 1: read things on the Internet is not like book learning.
23:33
Speaker 1: In book reading, it's not deep vertical absorption. It's horizontal
23:39
Speaker 1: and it's spotty or right bapid absorption. And it's basically
23:43
Speaker 1: his argument that just because we have this library of
23:46
Speaker 1: information doesn't mean that we're using it to make a
23:50
Speaker 1: smarter Well, he was saying that it's it's so revolutionized
23:56
Speaker 1: how we learned by the access we have the information
23:59
Speaker 1: that it's changing our brains were being cognitively restructured. I
24:05
Speaker 1: believe that to a certain degree. Oh I do too, man.
24:07
Speaker 1: My attention has decreased spectacularly over the last four years.
24:13
Speaker 1: Since I've worked here well, and then I did Stuff
24:16
Speaker 1: from the Future podcast this week. It's one over us.
24:20
Speaker 1: It is out awesome. Tell them everybody about it, real quick.
24:22
Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. It's a podcast where someone just
24:25
Speaker 1: muses on something for about five minutes on what it
24:27
Speaker 1: might be like. Mine was personal communication, and my point
24:30
Speaker 1: that I was making is that people are not communicating
24:34
Speaker 1: the same way since the advent of the smartphone. They're
24:37
Speaker 1: not even talking on the phone as much because the texting. Uh,
24:40
Speaker 1: they're not talking face to face. And what does that
24:42
Speaker 1: mean a hundred years down the road? Are people gonna
24:46
Speaker 1: be freaked out having when someone drops by their house
24:48
Speaker 1: and knocks on the door, or when someone I'm already
24:51
Speaker 1: close to that point, or when somebody has a personal
24:56
Speaker 1: eye to eye confrontation with you. I'm right there, buddy,
24:59
Speaker 1: I'm the future. You're looking at it. So I argue
25:02
Speaker 1: that all you see nowadays, or the tops of people's
25:04
Speaker 1: heads instead of eyes, all you see is people looking
25:07
Speaker 1: down all the time everywhere, and that we're not flexing.
25:11
Speaker 1: We can't remember anything. We don't have the opportunity to
25:15
Speaker 1: remember something we used to know and flexing those deep
25:18
Speaker 1: memory muscles because you can hardly get the word out
25:21
Speaker 1: who was that someone before someone has looked it up
25:24
Speaker 1: and told you who it was. So there's no more
25:27
Speaker 1: tip of the tongue experiences, there's no more deep memory.
25:30
Speaker 1: But we're flexing different parts of our brain, like how
25:33
Speaker 1: to use my thumbs to type, so I think, but
25:37
Speaker 1: it's making us stupider. So that's your that's I mean,
25:41
Speaker 1: it's certainly changing things, and I don't know if it's
25:43
Speaker 1: for the better. I mean, we have immediacy of information.
25:45
Speaker 1: But the way Strickland took it was that car was saying,
25:49
Speaker 1: like we're taking our um need to keep this information.
25:55
Speaker 1: And I know he made this point in this article,
25:57
Speaker 1: but like we had to to to to know the
26:00
Speaker 1: right answer to something before we had to know it,
26:03
Speaker 1: and now we don't have to know it because we
26:05
Speaker 1: have a repository that anybody can access through their phone
26:09
Speaker 1: now to go get the answer. So it's like a
26:12
Speaker 1: giant collective brain that we're coming to rely on, exactly.
26:15
Speaker 1: But what happens when that brain malfunctions or that brain
26:18
Speaker 1: is being fed certain information that's false, that's false, or
26:24
Speaker 1: that's you know. I'm not saying it's gonna be like
26:27
Speaker 1: but dumbed down if it net neutrality, if the government
26:29
Speaker 1: gets more involved and all of a sudden, I mean,
26:31
Speaker 1: look at what's already going on in China. They're being
26:33
Speaker 1: fed specific information and that could one day be our
26:38
Speaker 1: truth in reality. Man, that was dystopian. Yeah, with my
26:45
Speaker 1: my um concern about it, it's kind of closer to yours.
26:49
Speaker 1: But it's more that, like my brain is literally being
26:52
Speaker 1: restructured physically through plasticity, that instead of being able to
26:57
Speaker 1: absorb something deeply, I'm getting the bits of information I
27:02
Speaker 1: need out of something very quickly. And then you know,
27:05
Speaker 1: when that brings up another question, I just opened a
27:07
Speaker 1: new tab swarch for that question. Start putting stuff together,
27:11
Speaker 1: so I'm able to connect seemingly disparate ideas into a
27:17
Speaker 1: third hybrid idea. But at the same time, I'm not
27:22
Speaker 1: necessarily getting it that you know, when something clicks, it's
27:27
Speaker 1: things don't click anymore, But though those are such beautiful
27:30
Speaker 1: moments when they do click, the tip of the tongue
27:33
Speaker 1: moments when you finally think that thing, it's such a
27:35
Speaker 1: rewarding experience. And that's going away to a large degree. Yeah,
27:39
Speaker 1: when things just clicking, when you know it is that
27:40
Speaker 1: what you mean, that's not what you're saying. Is it clicking?
27:43
Speaker 1: You know? What I'm saying is like the tip of
27:45
Speaker 1: the tongue moment, like when you can't think of something
27:46
Speaker 1: like oh, what was it? What was it? And when
27:48
Speaker 1: you finally think of it two hours later, it's so great.
27:51
Speaker 1: But that can't happen anymore because I'm dummy, won't even
27:54
Speaker 1: give you the chance to think of it. It's just here.
27:56
Speaker 1: It was the Jackie Chan We actually at Max foncan
28:01
Speaker 1: at um Uh the after party in Hodgeman's room. He
28:07
Speaker 1: was about twelve folks hanging out and he'd said, this
28:09
Speaker 1: is a Google free evening. He said, no one touch
28:11
Speaker 1: your phone, leave in your pocket. And we spent three
28:14
Speaker 1: hours talking and many things came up that people were like, oh,
28:18
Speaker 1: what was that? What was that? And it was it
28:21
Speaker 1: was like no one like it was like the old
28:24
Speaker 1: days six years ago when you would have these awesome
28:26
Speaker 1: conversations and not be able to think of something and
28:29
Speaker 1: be like, oh man, And then the next day you
28:31
Speaker 1: would see one of those people and say, dude, I
28:32
Speaker 1: thought of what that was? And uh, I don't know.
28:36
Speaker 1: I think the smartphones are ruining things in a lot
28:38
Speaker 1: of ways. Yeah, there's a lot of problems they're not
28:41
Speaker 1: connecting people like they're kind of putting up walls in
28:43
Speaker 1: a lot of ways as they also connect. It's a conundrum.
28:47
Speaker 1: I read something once. I think we should end on this. UM.
28:51
Speaker 1: There's a rule of thumb out there that if it's
28:56
Speaker 1: basically ETIQUETTEUM, when you can use your phone in a
28:58
Speaker 1: social situation where I feel like, if you follow it,
29:00
Speaker 1: you can still be a normal person. But if you wouldn't,
29:05
Speaker 1: if you wouldn't pull out a crossword puzzle and start
29:08
Speaker 1: doing it in the social situation, you shouldn't pull out
29:10
Speaker 1: your fun right, It's pretty much the same thing. Yeah,
29:14
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna just go over
29:17
Speaker 1: a few of these. UM. Sarah Kessler at Mashable road. Oh, yeah,
29:21
Speaker 1: these are a cool thing. UM. Six web pioneers on
29:24
Speaker 1: what the Internet of the future will look like. Chuck
29:26
Speaker 1: found five satisfactory, and so we'll this briefly go over
29:31
Speaker 1: a couple of these. UM. Verry Glick, founder of map Quest,
29:36
Speaker 1: you know the glixter. He says, uh, kind of what
29:40
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier. He said, right now, the
29:41
Speaker 1: internet has been very computer oriented and that's the association.
29:45
Speaker 1: You need a computer to connect. He said, that's going
29:47
Speaker 1: away of course already. But basically he sees the future
29:50
Speaker 1: of there being no boundaries. The Internet is just this
29:53
Speaker 1: invisible present power supply, and all you will have is
29:59
Speaker 1: uh access devices. There will be no more television, there
30:03
Speaker 1: will be no more telephone. You'll just have these devices,
30:07
Speaker 1: everything crammed into one that tap into the brain of
30:11
Speaker 1: the earth. Interesting, you came up with the brain of
30:16
Speaker 1: the earth thing, right, do you want to read? Uh? Yeah,
30:19
Speaker 1: I liked UM. Jeremy Stoppelman, who is the CEO of Yelp,
30:23
Speaker 1: and he talked about augmented augmented reality, which kind of
30:26
Speaker 1: UM dovetails with his business because of his applications. Well,
30:32
Speaker 1: there's an app for Atlanta I read about recently where
30:35
Speaker 1: it's like you hold up your phone, this Matt feature
30:39
Speaker 1: UM pops up like augmented reality on all the stuff
30:43
Speaker 1: that's showing up on your phone of the area around you,
30:47
Speaker 1: Like here's this restaurant special today, or um, this is
30:50
Speaker 1: a great place to go dancing if that's your kind
30:53
Speaker 1: of thing. But I don't think the augmented reality says
30:56
Speaker 1: that part. But it's UM. I mean, it's already here.
31:00
Speaker 1: That's that's I think extremely interesting to me that it's
31:05
Speaker 1: like this. Do you remember those um, the human body
31:10
Speaker 1: and like the little celluloid. Yeah, you could peel back
31:14
Speaker 1: right and it was like the skin and then you
31:15
Speaker 1: peel back the skin and there's like all the muscles.
31:17
Speaker 1: You peel that back, there's the organs and the nerves
31:19
Speaker 1: and all that. It's kind of like laying one of
31:21
Speaker 1: those over real life. I just it's really cool. I
31:24
Speaker 1: think if you peel back the final one of those
31:26
Speaker 1: books that just should have your face like the right
31:28
Speaker 1: around the abdomen, but it but it's dead. It's like rotting.
31:34
Speaker 1: U that's horrifying. Actually, Ryan osamec president of Open Source Matter,
31:39
Speaker 1: sees more and more focused on the cloud. Yeah, well yeah,
31:43
Speaker 1: I yeah, obviously yeah. Um, I mean, like I said,
31:48
Speaker 1: these guys aren't exactly going out on a limb uh
31:51
Speaker 1: dries uh by a tart of the founder of Drupele
31:56
Speaker 1: thinks more websites within a single organization, more different devices
32:02
Speaker 1: that need to consume those websites with different experiences, and
32:05
Speaker 1: more social things. So basically more of what's going on
32:08
Speaker 1: is what he thinks exactly more of the same. Interesting.
32:13
Speaker 1: So I guess I want to say if anybody wants
32:15
Speaker 1: to uh to tell us what we got wrong, that's fine,
32:19
Speaker 1: or speculate on what you think. Ye, we'd love to
32:23
Speaker 1: hear you stick your neck out, so send us an email.
32:25
Speaker 1: We'll give you the email address when we're finished. But
32:27
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about the future of
32:29
Speaker 1: the Internet, uh, type in future Internet in the search bar,
32:33
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and that brings up what
32:35
Speaker 1: chuck uh Facebook as Josh and Chuck feature. Let me
32:41
Speaker 1: call us something different every time? All right, we did
32:43
Speaker 1: this that these are running concurrently on the previous show
32:46
Speaker 1: where we post on Facebook. Ask us whatever. We'll buzz
32:49
Speaker 1: through as many as we can. Some are funny, some
32:52
Speaker 1: are serious, and we will treat them bestlie, We'll treat
32:55
Speaker 1: them all funny. H Alex Embre You do you guys
32:58
Speaker 1: prepare what you say together or by yourselves before your record? Alex,
33:02
Speaker 1: We've answered this before, but for new listeners, we do
33:05
Speaker 1: not prepare. We do not go over stuff. We try
33:09
Speaker 1: to just prepare separately and have a conversation. Yeah, and
33:12
Speaker 1: record it pretty simple, That is it. That's the mojo.
33:16
Speaker 1: Um I got one have we ever met Jad and
33:20
Speaker 1: Robert from Radio Lab. I have not, but Robert Lamb
33:24
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind has interviewed him one
33:26
Speaker 1: of the guys on the phone. Yeah, he's a big
33:28
Speaker 1: fan of this. Yeah, I am too a huge fan. Uh.
33:32
Speaker 1: What you gotta Chuck? Uh? What music are you listening
33:36
Speaker 1: to right now? Attending any concerts this summer? I'm hopefully
33:40
Speaker 1: going to attend here you, Louise, I'm listening to the
33:45
Speaker 1: new Bonnie Bear. It's good, new My Morning Jacket, New
33:48
Speaker 1: p J. Harvey Tyler the Creator. Have you heard this kid? No,
33:52
Speaker 1: it's your rapper. He's a part of that group DH
33:58
Speaker 1: Future Will Destroy or the Earth or something like that.
34:01
Speaker 1: They're there's just like nineteen year old kids out of
34:03
Speaker 1: l A and it's just crazy. I'll check it out.
34:07
Speaker 1: It's really good and it's very creepy to like there.
34:10
Speaker 1: I wouldn't kids shouldn't go listen to this stuff. No, yeah,
34:13
Speaker 1: they think about some pretty awful stuff that the snakes. Yeah. Uh,
34:16
Speaker 1: I'm listening to Herb Albert and Chuck Mangione. Two days
34:21
Speaker 1: that I've been listening to you. I am going to
34:23
Speaker 1: see Dylan in a couple of weeks. Are you Fred Dylan,
34:30
Speaker 1: Matt Dylan, my morning Jacket and with Niko ka is
34:34
Speaker 1: going to see them in a month or so. Oh
34:36
Speaker 1: that's a good uh mash up? Yeah, good twosome. Yeah.
34:39
Speaker 1: So that's all I have on the concert schedule. Tapes
34:41
Speaker 1: and tapes actually in a few months too, Steve Mountain
34:44
Speaker 1: as he's coming to and you saw, Um, I saw
34:48
Speaker 1: a dinosaur Jr. Recently? Oh yeah, how's that? It was good?
34:52
Speaker 1: James mask Us at the airport. Yeah, he was not
34:54
Speaker 1: looking good. He was He was probably looking exactly the
34:57
Speaker 1: same as when I saw him, a little haggard. Still,
35:01
Speaker 1: it's a good show. Loud there, I said it was loud.
35:05
Speaker 1: That's what you can say about dinosaurs Jr. Um Let's see,
35:09
Speaker 1: what's my drink of choice, Chuck, what's your drink of choice?
35:14
Speaker 1: Like a good gin tonic or a good bourbon on
35:16
Speaker 1: the rocks on the gin and tonic. Right now, I'm
35:18
Speaker 1: on this one called Guadalajara Sour. It's awesome. Really. I
35:23
Speaker 1: make a modified version of it that I'm not going
35:25
Speaker 1: to give the secret away, okay, but um it's it's
35:28
Speaker 1: good stuff. Lately, I've been by Decatur has a craft
35:31
Speaker 1: beer store called Ale. Yeah, yeah, and they have they
35:34
Speaker 1: sell growlers, So you buy your growler for like five bucks,
35:38
Speaker 1: and then you just go up there and they have
35:39
Speaker 1: like eight beers on tap and you can fill it
35:41
Speaker 1: up for Can you ride off with it on your bike? Ah? Sure.
35:46
Speaker 1: There's a there's a little uh market by Dead's garage
35:52
Speaker 1: that has like a wine island, and it's like they
35:57
Speaker 1: sell it by this measured amount and that you go
36:00
Speaker 1: get a little prepaid car and you slap your card
36:03
Speaker 1: in there and you stay in the middle of this
36:04
Speaker 1: market and drink your wine start laughing at people after
36:07
Speaker 1: a couple of glasses. That's right next to in we shot.
36:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to check that out. No, no, no,
36:11
Speaker 1: not indicator. It's um Dead's garage. Okay. I was thinking
36:15
Speaker 1: Bush Bush Yeah, and him and part Yes, Brian TBone Perkins,
36:19
Speaker 1: Donald Duck versus Daffy Duck, Tim Boom Perkins, t Bone Perkins.
36:25
Speaker 1: You have Ryan Tibon Perkins, Donald Duck or Daffy Duck. Um,
36:29
Speaker 1: he says in a sing off. But I'm just gonna
36:30
Speaker 1: say in general, easy Daffy Duck, Like that's who you
36:37
Speaker 1: rather here, dude, No question. I was I was Looney
36:40
Speaker 1: Tunes all the way. I was not a Disney kid.
36:44
Speaker 1: I like Donald Duck. I heard when I was the
36:47
Speaker 1: Kids that he was banned from like Sweden or something
36:49
Speaker 1: like that for not wearing pain. You know, we heard
36:51
Speaker 1: that in the podcast. I heard it a long time ago,
36:53
Speaker 1: but the lady confirmed it in the podcast in a comic.
36:56
Speaker 1: I think it was Sweden. Yeah, that's right, she did
36:59
Speaker 1: send the calm. Yeah, what was that like two years ago?
37:02
Speaker 1: It was a long time ago. You got any more?
37:03
Speaker 1: You want to do one more each? Yeah? One more each? Um.
37:06
Speaker 1: Let's see. How was Nick Cage an Academy Award winner
37:11
Speaker 1: because of raising Arizona. That's not what he went for that.
37:15
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. He won because leaving Las Vegas. He
37:19
Speaker 1: was awesome in that, and the competition that he was
37:22
Speaker 1: pretty weak. The depressing movie Richard Dreyfuss and Mr Hollins
37:27
Speaker 1: Opus was that year. Anthony Hopkins, Is Nixon, Massimo Troy
37:33
Speaker 1: c and Il Postino. I thought bank I won. Now
37:36
Speaker 1: you're thinking of roberta be Eating No, No, I know,
37:39
Speaker 1: but Il Postino was like the Just and then the
37:44
Speaker 1: other actually Sean Penn and Dead Men Walking. That was
37:46
Speaker 1: his only real competition he didn't win. Now he should
37:48
Speaker 1: have that, although Nick Cave was great. Yeah, all right,
37:51
Speaker 1: my last one, Um, I ever want to do the
37:55
Speaker 1: show without wearing pants? And my that is Cody Hi
38:00
Speaker 1: Kneman and Cody. My answer is, what do you mean?
38:04
Speaker 1: How about with wearing pants? Hey? Nice Chuck, I think
38:09
Speaker 1: you answered for both of us on that. Yeah. Kelly
38:11
Speaker 1: Chromely asked about Nick Cage by the way, Yeah, I'm
38:13
Speaker 1: sorry about that. I haven't been uh saying people's names,
38:16
Speaker 1: have I I don't know, I haven't. Sarah Chriscilius asked
38:21
Speaker 1: what our drink of choice is? Uh. Well, if you
38:24
Speaker 1: want to ask us questions, go on to Facebook for
38:26
Speaker 1: once in your life, why don't you? That's Facebook dot
38:29
Speaker 1: com slash stuff you should know um, and you can
38:32
Speaker 1: also tweet to us at s y s K podcast
38:36
Speaker 1: and you can send us email. Remember, if you have
38:38
Speaker 1: a prediction for the future of the Internet, we want
38:40
Speaker 1: to hear it, right, We'll pass it along to all
38:42
Speaker 1: these so called experts. You can send us email at
38:46
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
38:55
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
38:58
Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
39:00
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
39:07
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