Latest / Hemispheric Views / 154: Organic Swiss Water Process!
Transcript
- Hemispheric Views 154.mp3 What are you, got a beverage, a fresh beverage there, Jason Burk? I just made myself a fresh pot of coffee because we're going to record this here audio internet archive for 2026. And I've got my McDonald's cup or Macca's. Do you get a screen capture of that mountain? I reckon we need a proper photo of it. Can you do a proper photo for the notes, Jason? I can do a proper photo. Yeah. This is one of those mugs that they used to have at the McDonald's establishments in the, I want to say, 70s. Wow. Okay. You know what? when i saw it i was going to make a comment that there's a very different kind of aesthetic from american mcdonald's from what we have but that makes sense because it's like 50 years old yeah it's very very old this was like physical cup it's like a um like a pyrex like it's a really nice cup oh it's it's not plastic it's pyrex no no it's like a it's like a it's not i want to i wanted to i was gonna say porcelain but it's not porcelain i think it's like a pyrex yeah kind of yeah i get what i know you what you're talking about now at first i thought it was just plastic yeah well you know we need to do i was gonna say andrew you and i don't have mugs at the moment because we're not having coffee but as a little ring in the new year i want a photo of jason's mug for the notes and we need to add photos of our own favorite mugs because is that your favorite mug jason or it's like your your best novelty it's one of it's probably my i love it a lot the problem with it is it's very small so you have to refill it many many many times throughout the day but i just i think it's just a it's a it's a a moment in time kind of thing that i have that is just like yep that was a time we had that we will never have again all right well i'll add my own photo of a mug that makes me okay perfect all right i can i can take a photo of a mug that makes my mug smile oh that's nice there it is 2026 we're back do you know what a mug is does there's a mug the same in america it is yeah like a mug shot we have lots of those we're not gonna get into i almost said something right now that would have surely we would have been banned the next topic well happy new year everyone thanks for joining us in 2026 i'm feeling feisty i've had coffee here we go better than last fortnight that was last year that was 2025 this is 2026 now god yeah that guy sucked well with your energy jason you're ready for thumbs up thumbs up i am ready for thumbs up yeah we're kicking off 2026 with thumbs up corner because why not and the first one is i've got a pick from not 2026 not 2025 but 2014 so pretty recent you know in the grand if you think about the existence of the world it's pretty recent it is and this is the ix500 scanner scan snap scanner I know this was like a thing it was real popular back in the day when everybody was talking about paperless and all that crap remember when we were all going to go paperless and then just didn't really happen the ix500 I picked it up for a steal steal. Andrew would be so proud of me. This scanner, when it was new, was like $600 or something. What did I pay for it? $40. $40? Wow. Put that in your depreciation spreadsheet. Is this a Fujitsu? Is that what we're looking at? It is. It is indeed. Yeah. So for the longest time, I've been doing the whole do scanning with my phone, and then I would scan with my phone, and it's kind of like fine, and then it would go somewhere. This thing, drop a paper in there, instantly scans it, both sides at once. You don't even have to flip it over. Immediately makes a PDF and throws it on my server and it's ready to go. It's incredible. And I'm beside myself with how happy I am with this piece of 2014 technology. And am I right in saying, because it's a vertical thing, it's like you don't have that scan bed dust problem. It's like It's not a, no, it's not a flatbed. It's like a, yeah, exactly. It's got a little feeder. So you can actually put in like a stack of 40 pieces of paper, hit the button, and it just flies through all of them and puts them all on their own PDFs, front and back. It straightens them. If like one of the pages in there is actually landscape versus horizontal, it'll just do that automatically. It's 2014 technology is where it's at. I wanted one of these things for the longest time. So you may be familiar with the Mac Power Users podcast and David Sparks. He used to talk about it all the time. And I lusted after one of those things and could never quite get over the hump of buying one. I know. But I'm still jealous. I'm actually really jealous because I would still love it. Even though I hardly get any paper these days. Most things are sent to me as a PDF or... Ten years later, it is still like magic. It's instant, both sides, perfect quality. It's incredible. Beside myself, it's so good. And the software, because didn't they basically given up on the software compatibility, haven't they? They did, but it works fine. I have it on the Mac Mini that I use for the iPod Hi-Fis in my office. Those are running off a Mac Mini. I have that as the end point. And you just drop a paper in, hit the button, and walk away. It's so good. And then it automatically goes in a folder. It even will do the thing you would normally do with Hazel, right? Where you'd be like, hey, pick up this thing from this place. Their software just puts it right into the server folder that I have set up, and it's all ready to go. It just falls right into the 2026 folder, and I'm off to the races. It's interesting to me to see Fujitsu on another product, because I'm sure other Australians listening will have this very strong connotation with Fujitsu. I know where you're going. I just think air conditioners being sold specifically by cricket star, like former cricketer Mark Taylor. Tubby Taylor. I think there would be, yeah, there'd be kids now watching. Like, I'm not a huge cricket fan. Sorry, you know, Andrew and all others listening. But, like, I think there are people out there who would go, oh, Mark Taylor, the Fujitsu air conditioning guy. Nothing to do with his, like, cricketing career. Just wandering into people's homes, spruiking air conditioners. Like, how did you get in here? Did I have the back door unlocked? He occasionally plays cricket on the weekends, I think. Yeah, exactly. And by air conditioners, Martin, you mean, I think what the Americans now call heat pumps. Oh, right. Heat pumps. Is that what we call them? I call it air conditioner. Did we talk about this with you and I? Did I read it? I read it on a blog somewhere. I had some conversation about this. Oh, the famous air conditioning blogosphere. Yeah, sure. Or heat pump. Sure. Heat pump. What's a heat pump? Heat pump. Turns out it's a split system air conditioner. Yeah, I was going to say, is it about ducted versus split system? Is that the difference? Yeah. Like, Jason, when you talk about air conditioning, you're talking about where you've got holes in your ceiling? Is that air conditioning? Not in the ceiling. But yeah, there's, yeah, vents. Yeah, central air, I believe is the term. Yeah, central air is what we would call that. But if there were like a rectangular protrusion on your wall and then this fan thing outside, what would you call that? I would just call that an air conditioner slash heater. Or HVAC. HVAC. ventilation air conditioner. Wow. See, something that we learned about when we got our new air conditioner, when the old one broke, that kind of came with the house, it was beautiful and cigarette stained. I'll forever remember that very fondly, that old one. The person who sold it to us said that apparently Australia is a bit of a weird market for air conditioners in that most other places around the world want air conditioners that can do hot and cold, but lots of Australians buy air conditioners that only do cold. And so it's like this, All right, we'll keep doing this thing for the Antipodes. It's a bit strange. Anyway, we got the thing that does both. Ours does both. There you go. So yeah, heat pumps. Oh, so does that mean HV stands for like heat vac? Are we the heat vac podcast now? We might be. Yeah, because we did refrigerators, right? Didn't we do that at one point? And scanners. And then scanners and then HVAC system. So I think we're pretty much leading the category, I think. It's very niche. At this point. For old shit. Oh, shit, no one cares about me. Yes. Wow. That's a brief thumbs up corner. Wow. That was a very But I'm already halfway through. But there's more. I've got one. There's more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's more. Just hold your horses. And by horses, I mean your actual transport. This is the old shit podcast. We've got horses tied outside. Yeah. Anyway. Tame your buggy whip. This is another great addition brought into my life by the wonderful Natasha. It is a thing called instant liquid decaf. And I know everyone's just fallen off the chair going, you monster, what are you doing drinking that stuff? Well, I have a justification because my name is Martin and I'm always justifying myself as I've learned. As you should be. That's right. As I should be. And the whole thing is I'm generally a one coffee a day person. I don't like to have more caffeine than that. That's enough. I have it in the morning. That's it. Not judging others. That's just what I do. But sometimes I go. Tan. Yes. Two questions. Yes. He hasn't even started yet. One coffee a day. No, that's fine. I already have questions. Did I say it a strange way? You're going to get me on technicality here. No, not at all. I was more curious just about the coffee etiquette, if you will. Oh, proceed, yes. The first coffee for you, well, I guess your only coffee, as you've previously stated, is that a, I wake up at, pick a time, let's say 7 a.m. Is this coffee happening at like 7.04? Or is this like a 9.30 after the day has kind of started kind of coffee? The latter. Yeah, I can't get up and do it straight away because I actually want my circadian rhythms to do their job in a way. Got it. Okay. Like personally, I feel strange if I get straight into it. So it is a bit later, but if I push it too far, then I'm reminded of the fact that I'm a mild drug addict and the headaches. Okay. So the second question I think answers itself in that that first coffee of the day slash only coffee of the day is not a home coffee. It is an away coffee. Yeah. Okay. That's it. Okay. Proceed. So yeah, look, sometimes though I go, I would like that one around two, three o'clock in the afternoon. And then I instantly feel guilty that I'm adding to the caffeine that will probably ruin my sleep or delay it later. And Natasha went, well, here's this cool thing. It's an Australian product and it uses what is known as the organic Swiss water process. Oh, of course. Which ensures that the coffee is 99.9, sorry, 99.95% caffeine free without the use of nasty chemicals. I don't know if you know what Swiss water decaf means, but it's like, it's like pulling it out. We're the like primary podcast that really covers that. So, well, I better just for those who are new to our expertise. Yeah. Basically, it's got a higher percentage than my website uptime. What, Decaf Co? 99.9. I think I'm only running at 99.2 or something. There's no five nines going on over there at Canyon.blog. Anyway, look, I just want to bring this up because you hear Decaf and you go, is that a good idea? But this stuff is fantastic. And I've actually been making like the equivalent of like home iced lattes with this stuff. The flavor is fantastic. I was genuinely surprised. And you get this little scoop. You just kind of straight into the glass and off you go. It's just a good tasting beverage for when you want that afternoon coffee, but don't want the caffeine hit. Follow up question. It's called liquid decaf. Is that opposed to a solid decaf? Why is it? Well, it's not grounds. It's not like it's not dry. It's actual liquid concentrate. So it's Oh, gotcha. Okay. It's kind of like making cordial, for example, or a mixer. Like a cold brew kind of thing where it's like a five to one ratio or something. So you're mixing that with water or something else. Well, what I'm doing, generally, I prefer like espresso based coffee. Sure. Like if it's a flat white, it's got some micro foam or froth or whatever you want to call it. This is mainly for my use for cold ones where it's like an iced latte where it's not having that steaming effect. Just milk. I think it's perfect. It's just milk and ice. Great. So, yeah, just thought I'd shout out a little Australian business. I think it is. It looks quite good. There's a couple of things I want to point out. The first is HackMD coming into its own with the link directly to the website, a simple markdown link. Happy to do that. Taking you straight there, which is fantastic. Thank you. It looks really good. So, do you have a coupon code, a referral code, a discount code? No, I can't be bothered with that. Sorry. Save. Okay. Secondly, I noticed they're sort of moving into our turf. They do have a sticker kit. Now I'm interested. So it looks like it's a little shiny holographic sticker. I've been wondering if we should do holographic stickers, actually. Is that something you guys would be interested in? Yes. Why not? Yeah. Okay. I feel like that kind of 90s aesthetic of stickers where they had like the kind of hollow, foily, shiny, flashy thing. Yeah. You're into that? Okay. All right. Yeah, why not? All right. And just while we're talking coffee. Good idea. I just want to give a shout out to Aeropress. We recently got an Aeropress. Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. And everybody's raved about them forever. And now I see why. Fantastic. They are absolutely great. I used one for many, many years. The only problem I ever had with it is the little rubber plunger part. All right. At some point, shrunk. And then it didn't like. It didn't plunge. It didn't plunge anymore. I don't know what was the cause of that. I used it every day religiously. And it just, at some point, the little rubber part was like, nope, shrink. So Jason, did you ever have the Apple Watch app to do your AeroPress? No. Okay. So yeah, I love the AeroPress too. I don't think I've used it quite as much as what you did if you use the word religiously, but it was actually a little farewell gift that I received when I left the old Apple reseller that I used to work at in my uni days. and they're like, oh, you know, we'll miss you and we know you like coffee, so here you go. That was very thoughtful. And I got into using it and there was a phone app, but I think there was like, you know, when I suppose like the older watch kit or whatever came out with 1.0 or whatever, the compatible app that came on your watch was you could do like AeroPress timing. Oh, sure. For certain recipes or the inverted version. Oh, the inverted, yeah. Yeah, I'm an inverted guy. Are you? Wow, okay. Like putting it upside down. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, I like the inversion. And then you put the mug on top, like upside down and then flip it. Oh, that is so much extra fanciness that I just don't. Oh, wow. I just love the idea of like holding the mug against the base of the AeroPress and then holding where the plunger part was meeting. It's like, I feel like I'm doing kind of like a semi, it's like a cross between plumbing and kung fu on your bench top. Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. I didn't realize you were an inverted guy. All right. Perfect. Liquid Decaf brought to you by Liquid Decaf. Code HV26 will do absolutely nothing. And enjoy your AeroPress intro with my liquid decaf that I'm now going to get. Try inversion. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Media Corner. First one I had was a film called Grand Hotel from 1932. So, again, pretty recent, I would say, in the time horizon of the world, 1932, not too far away. I picked it up on a whim and watched it and thought it was great. A lot of these old movies are movies where people are like, you know, these are the pinnacles of cinema. You have, these are all, and I don't, whatever, fine, sure. But I watched it and I thought it was absolutely incredible. I love these old movies where there's like 15 plots going on at once and you're trying to follow who's going where. There's a little bit of love. There's a little bit of like, there's a murder that happens, of course, because somebody's going to get murdered or it's not a movie. So yeah, if you've never seen Grand Hotel from 1932, I would actually highly recommend it. There we go. That's it. Cool. That was very efficient. Yeah. Well done. Trying to make up for our previous thumbs up corner. So my recommendation from probably, actually, I was going to say similar time to the ScanSnap, but I think it's probably about 10 years earlier than the ScanSnap. And that is a little movie by Tarantino called Kill Bill Volume 1. Oh. I rewatched this. I think I haven't seen it since it was released. Since it came out? Yeah. And I had a memory of it always being a good movie, at one i was like i don't think i'd bother watching it again um well after waiting 20 odd years turns out it's like it's like watching a new movie is that because you forgot most of it basically yes i had the vague memories of uma thurman wearing a yellow jumpsuit and not much else yeah uh fantastic absolutely fantastic i think being older now more seasoned movie watcher by about 20 years, I can now more greatly appreciate the cinematography and the mix of genres and the way that he's put his own spin on this oriental martial arts genre. Even having the little anime segment in the middle, which I had entirely forgotten. I think probably the first time I watched that being a younger person who didn't really like comics, I was like, ugh, this is not a real movie. This time around I'm like, this is amazing. You weren't appreciating his cultural hybridity. Yes. Very well put. So Kill Bill Volume 1, loved it. Very soon coming up, I will be watching Kill Bill Volume 2. Plus David Carradine. So you got that going for you. Is he the NCIS guy? No. No. Thinking of Mark Harmon? No, I'm thinking of that redhead guy that tried to make it in the movies. No. Or was it CSI? Not redhead guy. The redhead. You know that guy? David Caruso. You know the guy, you know the guy, he was in one of those police procedurals and then he said, oh, I'm really famous in this police procedural, so I'm going to go to Hollywood and make movies. And he bombed out. The redhead guy, Ginge. Ginge. No idea. He was, I think it was the Miami one or the Florida one or whatever, where he's on a boat a lot. Miami Vice. And he has sunglasses and he takes his sunglasses off. David Caruso. I said that before. Is that him? Yeah. With the sunglasses and he always had like the zingers and then people made memes with the music. Yeah. Hang on. Yeah, that's the guy. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's him. That's what I said. David Caruso. Oh, that guy. He looks a little like me. Especially this photo I've got of him as a 67-year-old man. Wow. All right. All right. Is it time for an impersonation? I can't do it. I can't remember what he... Look at this guy. I'm just going to copy the image address, paste it into HackMD because this is very important. And edit mode. So this is the specific David Caruso profile picture or portrait that looks like you. Yeah. I can already see the URL, base URL. So I know this is going to be, oh, it does look like you. Wow. That is not a flattering photo. And I can't believe that you would choose that to be the one that looks like you. Hey, Luke, I'm a realist. I mean, it's not flattering. But I mean, you can, if you just kind of look at it real quick and then look away, you're like, oh, is that, did, oh, no. Yeah. No, I just mean, you know, when tabloids catch people in the moment of talking or thinking or turning around to make them look like they're, you know, not all there. Like, it's just an unfortunate in-between moment. Like, all right. See, that looks. Yeah, I suppose if I really squint and you had glasses. It looks like a confused Andrew. Yeah, and a guy that didn't make it in Hollywood, right? Like, he's just not quite sure. Andrew doesn't know where he is right now. He's in the living room, but he's not quite sure. Okay, good point. That's what I get from this. Anyway. All right. Yeah, you are David Caruso. Sorry about that. You are faux Caruso. Sorry about that. Very weird tangent. Takes me to my next media corner very quickly. An old show, 2019, pre-COVID released. I've been meaning to watch it for a long time. The before times. The before times. And then the following three seasons were produced post-COVID. Doesn't really matter. I don't even know why I'm going into that. But the show is The Righteous Gemstones. Never heard of it. Never heard of it? It is a satirical black comedy almost built around the concept of the mega churches of the South of America. Oh, wow. That's going to be incredible. And essentially highlighting how they're not actually necessarily that Christian. And it's all about the money and the messed up families and the hunt and chase for power. Yeah. That sounds right. Yep. So it's a documentary. Nice. It is a very funny show. It's a very funny show. But just as a warning, if you're offended by full male frontal nudity and a lot of it. Bring it on. You won't like it. And I just love the seditious nature of that. The fact that it's all about this religiosity. But then there are so many like gay references and male genitalia. It's just like it just is like a shot across the bowels. But I feel like the English speaking world could do with a little bit more of that in movies. You know what I mean? And I don't mean that like, you know, Martin wants more in the show. It's more like we're watching this great show. This is like a quick media corner plug that I hadn't thought of. We've been watching a show from Germany called, I think in Germany it's just called Lust. But when they translate it or adapt the title, it's 30 Days of Lust. It's about this pair. They're just hitting 30. and the girlfriend goes, oh, why don't we see each other less over the next 30 days and we'll see other people, like a different person every day. And it shows the effects it has on that relationship. And you see his, like, occasionally in the show and you go, you know what? It's not that big a deal. It's not pornographic. It's not in your face. And it's like something that's so typical of European TVs or cinema. And the moment you say, oh, I'm watching that on SBS, people think, oh, okay. Yeah, we know what you're up to. But no, it's so utterly kind of mundane and not offensive. Let's make it less remarkable. Yeah, and Jason's now making one out of his finger dangle into the front of the camera. You know what? They're kind of funny. It's funny when you see one on screen. It's a non-event is what I'm saying. Look at that little guy. What, Jason's finger? Exactly. Yeah. Life size. I was like, have you seen more than I have, Andrew? I'm not sure what that means. You never know. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, you know, women in cinema and TV shows, it's like, oh, you know, we'll just as much as that as you like, but we're not men. Yeah, yeah. It's just this ridiculous imbalance. I agree. So, The Righteous Gemstones. If you want to up your quota, Martin, The Righteous Gemstones is for you. But it's also, it's hilarious. I have not laughed with a TV show as much as this one in a long, long time. It is hilarious. I have to keep pausing it because I'm laughing so much that I miss the next lines of dialogue. Fantastic. Good recommendation. I just threw this in because I missed that we actually had Media Corner and thought, oh, this is a good one to mention, so I'll be quick. On Apple TV, have you heard of a recent documentary called Stiller and Mirror, Nothing is Lost? No. I have not. No. So, it's essentially the family history documentary that was recently made by Ben Stiller. And it stood out to us because we went, oh, that's interesting, because it really highlighted maybe a cultural difference or a difference in knowledge between people in America and those outside America. So in it, he explores like the pop culture or comedic history of his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, and how they were just these like comedic late night show juggernauts, like this comedic duo for decades. And then the effects that that had on, you know, the family and his own career and, you know, on American kind of pop culture knowledge in general. It's really, really endearing and has all of this unbelievable footage instead of recordings and photos because his dad, Jerry Stiller, who many people would know as Frankestance from Seinfeld. He was a prolific recorder and photographer and just keeper of everything. But the thing that stood out to me as the key difference was that watching it, I had no idea that Ben Stiller was like the child of very famous people. Like he came up with this kind of being mocked as a child celebrity or actor. We always knew him as like the famous one and then discovered later that people like his dad were his dad. So I came with, even though I knew who Ben Stiller was and I know who all these people are, I had this completely, is this word again, inverted view of the history of the family. So it was just a really kind of eye-opening documentary experience into this comedic chunk of American TV history. And very well made. Martin's upside down a lot this episode. I am down under. Although we never say that. Oh, that's true. Good point. So yeah, and it's not that long. Give it a go if you have Apple TV. All right. Next. DNS. Yeah, just a little. See that segue? Man. Man, you're just good at this. That was the next topic, but then. Next DNS. Oh, first I thought that was a pathetic segue, but it's actually a pretty good one. It's pretty good, yeah. That's what they pay me for. For a few years, a number of years ago, I was a subscriber to NextDNS as a way of reducing the advertising content and tracking across my entire network. And then I got rid of it and I had a pie hole for a while and then I got rid of everything and I just went back to basics with a browser ad blocker. I've recently resubscribed to Apple One Premium, and that gives me all Apple News. Yeah, and all that kind of Apple News stuff. And, you know, it's really... Wow. And that gives me Apple News. I know, I know. It's amazing, right? Fanfare. Listen to the people go crazy over that one. And so I've been looking at a few of the Apple News articles, which are just repurposed newspaper articles. Yeah, I know. But it's fine. But the amount of junk ads. Oh, my God. The ads. The ads in that thing. It's fine. The ads in that. But do they still repeat the same ad like 10 times in a while? Same ad. And it's like this weird like old person. It's an utter joke. AI generated old person. It's like I can't even. It freaks me out. It's like Uncanny Valley. I can't see that face anymore. I hate to trot this out, but you know that it's the whole like Steve Jobs would be rolling in this grave. Like when you look at what Newsstand was, like iOS 5, if you showed him that today, I think half the company would be fired. Oh, my. Anyway, go on. So that was a straw that broke the camel's back, and I finally went back to NextDNS, used it for a few days, and then realized it's pretty fantastic. It hasn't changed at all in the two or three years since I last used it, but it's a DNS server. Do you really need it to? I've applied it to my Eros, so it's running across the whole network. None of the family have complained. I've not had any praise either for my appreciation of blocking ads, but I'm going to take the no complaints as a... That's a win. As a sign. Yeah, it's a win. So it just works. Yeah, yeah. And just to complete the loop, I just want to give a shout out that, or cross-reference to canyon.blog slash save. There it is. It's been a while. It's been a while. It has. Same wavelength. Yeah, okay. So if you want to enjoy the beauty of NextDNS, please, canyon.blog.com. You'll find a coupon code. Save you money. Just to make sure I fully have this straight in my head, you are overpaying for a news service that then also incorporates ads into the thing you're paying for, so therefore you go and pay for an additional service to then block said ads in the thing you're paying for too much already to view it. And then even then you probably still don't really open it that often. Yeah, this is how the economy works. It's all about stimulating the economy by circulating money through it. Oh, good. You've got to spend it to keep everybody... If I didn't spend that money, the economy would collapse. It would, yeah. We think the world stage thanks you. Everybody saves their money. It's a disaster, right? I almost want like a Burke-esque diagram or flow chart that shows this passage of money, like this kind of weird circular economy thing that Andrew's invented for himself. I think it's like a pyramid scheme, basically. Oh, it's a pyramid. I think so. It's a circle or a pyramid. But Andrew's the only one in it? No, I don't know. I don't know anymore. I just know none of it's working. I just hope it works. Well, speaking of pyramid schemes, in previously mentioning the righteous gemstones, I hope that everybody is remembering to tithe their 10% to me. Yeah. I am. I hope everyone else is. That's good. There we go. What do we got next? We got another one. Oh, you got another one. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. This kind of stems back from, I think I was talking about top grade recently. Top grade. And terminal and using brew. Yep. I found another little, It's actually old and maybe deprecated slash discontinued. So it's a bit of a bad reference. Old shit continues. That's kind of right up our alley though, actually. Here's the thing. It existed five years ago. Probably can't use it anymore, but let us tell you about it extensively. So plug in your ScanSnap and then load up Terminal and type brew install latest. And it's like a software updater program. So brew install is just a quick way of getting a, instead of downloading a DMG and then dragging into your applications folder and all that kind of stuff, you can just do brew install and latest is the name of the app and latest goes through and scans all your installed applications and tells you if there are any things that need to be upgraded. So kind of like top grade, but for your applications folder. Now the problem is it seems to work pretty well, but the problem apparently it is now discontinued. And I think Jason, you have a, You have an update from 2026 even that may be building on this? I do, yeah. So for those of you in the know, Mac Update, long-standing program from probably 130 years ago, I would guess, on Mac OS 1, would scan all your stuff and tell you when there's updates. I am a habitual updater. I don't know. I'm going to guess Martin probably never updates anything. If it tells him to update, he's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll get to it. I think Andrew's maybe a little bit closer to what I'm putting down here of like checking for updates all the time because you just want to make sure you always have the latest thing. Because if you don't have the latest thing, are you even using your computer? Not really. So I'm a habitual updater. Mac update. Mac updater was always great. It's dead as of three days ago. It no longer works as of January 1st, 2026. So what are we going to do? There's TopGrade. You may have heard on the prolific Heat Pump podcast about Latest, which is another one that may or may not be deprecated. We're not sure. Isn't that the one I'm talking about? Yeah, that's the one. Oh, yeah. Yep. Sorry. And then Updatest is the latest to the updates that I have found, which is a nice GUI that does the Mac App Store. It does Brew. It kind of is like a, it feels like a spiritual successor to Mac Updater in a way, but it's just another option to look at outside of top grade or latest. It is updatest. But it's a paid one, right? It is currently in beta while it's being built. And I believe it is a paid one-time fee at some point in the future. Okay. Well, look, to answer the question, that wasn't really a question. It was more of an assumption. Well, I think it was not really an assumption. I think it was probably a guess. Fact. Fact. I am a bit of a habitual updater. Really? I get to things pretty quickly. It's on the iPhone ages ago. Like, I don't like auto updates. I don't want apps just to update, right? I want to do it manually. But then I hate actually doing it and seeing stuff for things that I have to have on my phone. And so, they actually just sit there going out of date for, like, 18 months. the app store with the badge that says like 108 no i have the badge turned off and it's in a folder ah perfect okay yeah so on the mac and the ipad basically it's like i'm looking at that but the phone i'm like you know what i hate that app and i don't want to touch it uh okay i suppose i better do it so i kind of go and update the ones that i like and then just leave the others to languish until maybe i think there'd be a problem he puts them in their corner he's like you're not getting updated because i don't like you yeah pretty much i'm like i don't like that app so you can sit there and then when it becomes a problem then maybe i'll deal with it but on the mac if it's like oh you know you've got a new security thing or here's a version and that's kind of where i feel like if i could go back in time and tell myself not to upgrade to tahoe oh that ship has sailed yeah and i'm not gonna do the whole like oh let's restore it to sequoia i mean what's you could live in the past as long as you want but why it's not like you can be there forever so just i I feel like upgrading to Tahoe actually was the big wake up call about the state of things. And so I'm happy that I've experienced this misery. So hopefully the only way is up. You just have to rip the bandaid off though. Like this whole like, oh, just live on Mac OS 15 for like, but what's the end goal there? Yeah. Like you're going to upgrade at some point. Just get it over with. It's an unfortunate like corporate inevitability that we've all accepted by buying these products. So yeah. There you go. Next topic. I'm so excited. Maybe something a bit more humorous or positive, but also an area of concern in it for part of it that I want to mention. I want to talk about ringtones. And people are going, wow, Martin, the future. Talking about old shit. Everybody owes us $1.99. Martin said ringtone. You have to now PayPal us $1.99. SMS best tones now to one threat. This is like the podcast from 20 years ago, isn't it? today it's like 2026 and we are just going back in time we've got scan snap we got heat pumps we got ringtones we got it all on your nokia 3210 anyway um so ringtones have been on my mind recently because having discarded the apple watch as an everyday device for my life after 10 years 10 continuous years of wearing it i'm not like oh a bit here but they're like 10 years right i didn't have ringtones i didn't have any sound coming out of my watch my phone nothing because I figured it's something that's tapping me. It's like this intimate personal device and other people don't need to know when something's happening. It's just going on my wrist with the haptic feedback. But now that I'm just phone only, I actually need to know when something's happening. It's not always in my pocket. So what do you need? You need a ringtone. Now I had all of my old custom tones for notifications like messages and calendars, and they're all Star Wars themed, right? So I've got like an R2-D2 noise when the message goes off. I've got the mouse droid like... anytime there's like a calendar notification, all these great things. But the phone, that was a bit of a problem because I don't really like having songs because then it makes me kind of sick of the song. But then I don't want excerpts of things because I don't want people talking at me. So of course, because the only thing I ever talk about is the Matrix. I got that old Matrix ringtone from like the first film. You know, the one that Neo gets delivered in the parcel and Morpheus is guiding him, right? Because it sounds like a phone, but no one really has like a Nokia sounding phone anymore. So I went for that. Yeah. If I were on a game show and I was on like the last stage of the game show and they're like, this is for the million bucks. What ringtone does Martin have? A hundred percent would have guessed that. So. Yeah. Cause I want it to sound like a phone, but I don't want it to be everyone else's phone. Right. When everybody had Marimba around the entire world for like eight years. Exactly. Yes. That's exactly right. So it's always going to be some sort of sci-fi or old phone inspired noise so that I know it's a phone, but it's not someone else's phone. Sure. Anyway, I know you've got something to say, Jason, but I just wanted to dive into this quickly because then Natasha was looking through, and she suggested this because she's a great topic suggester from behind the scenes. Sure. She went looking at the top charts for the ringtone genre under the Australian iTunes store. Still there? And it's a mix of, oh, yeah, huh? And, oh, dear me. Wait, how do you even get to that? So, when you look in your iTunes store app on your phone, not the TV app or music, like the stuff that is really just digital purchases. The iTunes store. I think I deleted that. Yeah, it's still there. Like on an iOS device? Yes. Yeah, I deleted it. Shit. Oh, Jason, you can't participate. Can you please hold one second while I grab an old device and turn it on? Okay. Well, I can still talk, can't I? Yeah, you carry on. No, you have to absolutely be silent. Okay. Well, because this is Australian stuff that only Andrew and I can see. You won't see the same thing, Jason, right? So looking in there, and it's moved around a bit since we looked, But it's interesting to see like the top 10, right? Number one at the moment is Hypnotized by Biggie, right? You've got Thunderstruck second by ACDC, Man I Need by Olivia Dean. And you look down the list, there's like Uptown Funk, No Broke Boys, Where Is My Husband by Ray, but it's like a DJ bubble pop mix. So it's a mix of stereotypical kind of classic songs and also new entrants. But there's one here that I thought was a seriously revealing and concerning element of like Australia's undercurrent of racism. We come from. Can you see what I'm talking about? I'm scrolling through. I found it. And tell you what, this app is a pleasure to use because it feels like it hasn't been updated. It is. And it's so easy to find. It feels like proper iOS. So if anyone wants to relive iOS in its glory days, visit the iTunes store. I can't believe it's $2.19 for a ringtone change. $2.19? Oh, I guess that's probably, is that $1.99 US? Probably. It's saving you significant time in having to follow Apple's ridiculous rule of loading a song that you do have the rights to into the GarageBand for iOS app on your iPhone or iPad and then cut it. So it's a small price to pay to save yourself the pain. Yeah. Number four is, I don't know how to put this. It's like a made up impersonation ringtone called your phone linging. What is that? And it's someone poorly impersonating a vague Asian person yelling at you that your phone is linging. Jesus. I see. And I just thought, sorry to bring the tone of the podcast down a bit here, but like we on here and we're like, oh, yeah, we kind of think this is accepting or this is diverse or this is what the world's like. And it just kind of reminds you that there are just these weird pockets of society where you just think you're having like a kind of nostalgic scroll through the old iTunes to find your favorite ringtone. And then suddenly, wow, most of Australia is racist because number four is an Asian person yelling at you from your phone. And the author. And I have never heard this come out of anyone's phone, but it's obviously a big deal. That's ridiculous. Have you seen the author? It's horrible. The author's name is even a pun. I have. I wasn't going to say that. Yeah, it's just a pun. Yeah, so I'm going to include a shot of this in the show notes so people can see it for themselves. Because if you look from overseas, you're not going to see the same list as what we have in Australia. But yeah, it's just funny to see. It's like, oh, modern tunes, oh, nostalgic classics, and then races. I'm still trying to find where this exists. So you said there's actually something called, oh, wow. Yep, it's a weird purple star. So if you go to the bottom right, you can see the more tab with the ellipsis, the three dots. And then you've got the tones option and then it takes you there. Oh, charts. Martin, this ringtone actually appears multiple times in the charts. Yeah, there are different versions. It appears at number 15. It appears at number 22. So ours are $1.29, which I am going to assume just directly correlates to 219 AUD, I would guess. Seems like it. Okay, so I did find it. A, I'm absolutely shocked that the iTunes app exists. or that anyone in 2026 even knows what itunes is would be amazing i've bought stuff from it because this is the old shit hfx podcast yeah of course my mistake um the first thing i'm i'm very interested in is that in the top 10 three of them have the little explicit tag on them which i think is absolutely great i love that i love some some explicit ringtones finally um but yeah it's just kind of a it's just stuff i've never heard of there's like number one is stranger things season five theme okay um something called twitch meme central don't know what that is um a song it's really just songs like songs that are popular right now nothing oh gta5 text sure i'd pay a dollar 30 for that yeah oh oh my god martin the shit ringtone you just talked about is number 13 the linging one yes so people in america obviously and like extrapolate like think about the number of people in america number 13 on the top itunes store ringtone charts people have your phone is linging yelling right below inter sandman by metallica so you know pretty pretty similar wow that's minute work number 15 vegemite sandwich yeah oh these are terrible wow so to save us from this like pit of despair like jason what fun element did you have to add about oh i was just really excited that you were talking about ringtones because i got a new phone recently and i and i had to like find new ringtones that i wanted to use so yeah it was very it was very timely so that's why i was excited about that what did you settle on um i settled on for my ringtone i'm using a little little jingle called bubble and for my notifications a little jingle called alpha that kind of sounds like a video game almost like a metal gear solid ringtone where like you're getting like a message but not metal gear solid and then of course i have custom ones that i've loaded but yeah there you go i just i was excited maybe i could can i can you hear them let's see yeah so you kind of want fun sounds that sound like something's ringing or beeping but isn't a direct cut from a movie or a song that bores you that's it yeah yeah very nice hmm how about you andrew i don't really are you a marimba guy using marimba i'm a buzzer guy I just like don't play anything. The one that I currently have selected for whatever reason is Chalet. Chalet. What's that? Chalet. Like a French or Swiss Chalet. That's pleasant. Right. But the one that I actually is a personal one that I like, that Jason will enjoy, is actually from, now I've lost the little ringtones thing. It's just a bald eagle screeching. It's from a Japanese train station. Oh, yeah. Each train station has its own tune. Totally. As a way of helping to identify which station you're at. Yep. Well, this is from the Shinagawa station. Oh, I love Shinagawa. That's so pleasant. You've arrived at Shinagawa. I love it. I love that every station has its own and I could just sit there and listen to them all day. They're all so pleasant. I was going to say, I love that you've both gone for very gentle things and I've got like this. Oh God, that's harsh. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's shock. There's a phone in a package and agents are up to you. That sounds like. That sounds like. Like I'm scaring myself into answering. That sounds like we're back in the early 2000s and the office phone rings, the desk phone. Yep. Yeah. It's like. Yeah. Yeah. Like I hear it and I go, oh, wait, I did make that move. it's like an allergic reaction that he's like oh wait no it's fine it's good this is a good one gosh this is such a this is such a we are actually comparing ringtones hell yeah this is how old we are we've done mugs we've done ringtones there's like movies from years ago hvac systems discontinued software it's great man scanners wow welcome to 2026 listeners this has been a wild ride A special New Year's extravaganza. New Year's special. And they say that the youth aren't listening to podcasts. I don't understand it. I can't admit. Well, it's all relative. I mean, we're not octogenarians yet, so we are the youth. We're close. We're the youth. Oh, my God. Is that it? Well, that's it. That's the end of our topics. Is that the end of 2026? That's it. We're done. See you in 2027. We're done. Yeah, we're going to get, we used to do every two weeks, but now we're, I think, just going to do every two years. So 2028 will be the next one. Cool. That seems like a good cadence, right? 45 minutes every two years? See you for the next Olympics. All right, well, count us down. Three. Oh, where's the stop button? Yeah, I just want to tell you guys, I've been reflecting on this podcast. And why do I keep doing it? What am I getting from it? Nothing. Like, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of effort. It hasn't yet made me famous or rich. Then nor will it. But at the moment, I am reading a book called, I don't know if you can see that. Oh, yeah. How Not to Become a Grumpy Old Bugger. Too late. And it's a bunch of things, men who are getting older, and how can you maintain a life that is worthwhile as you get old and not become a little fathead. One of the things in this that I read last night, this chapter is called Why We Have to Work at Friendships. And you know what? I see this podcast, not so much as a podcast, not so much as a monetizing my hobbies situation, but more. You are very much not monetizing your hobby, my friend. Job done there. Good job. Congrats. More, more as an opportunity for on a regular basis to nurture my friendship relationship I have with the two of you. And I just want to say thank you for that. Thank you. Because, uh, you know, We never actually see each other in person, but it's still something that's very important to me and I value it. And it does help me stop being so grumpy. So thank you for being good friends through a long period of time. And I probably talk to you guys more than I talk to many of my other friends because I'm not very good at nurturing them, but this forces me to do it. I'm a horrible nurturer. I completely agree with that sentiment. Thank you very much. And I haven't read that book, but I agree. I talk to both of you and by extension people who listen to this show more than I have the opportunity with, you know, other competing work and family commitments, friends in this city. And that's, I mean, I imagine that would still happen just because that's life. But yeah, I love the show and I enjoy it and it's great. And you shouldn't read the book. You shouldn't read the book yet, Martin, because you want to read the one like how to exit your teenage years in being whole and hearty. It was said that when I was in kindergarten that I had the demeanour or the mental kind of state of a 40-year-old. So, I think I'm well past you, despite how I might appear. No, but I love this show. And it's good you bring it up at the beginning of this year because it's like, yeah, why do we do these things? And I think it's fun. Yeah. I think it's great. And thank you to everyone who listens. So, when you're hunched over your iPad on Ferrite editing the bloody thing. And Jason, when you're like searching randompedia articles. I'm not going to say Wikipedia because you find all sorts of pedias. There's a lot of pedias out there. No, it's appreciated. Your description, Andrew, about me hunched over a ferrite is accurate because if anyone had like a surveillance camera on me, I'm just going to paint this picture for you. Just imagine a dark cave. It's two in the morning and I've just hit share to files like a shit folder. I look remarkably like Gollum over his precious. Like I'm just this haggard kind of like with cramped hands. Pencil is his ring he's been searching for. Pretty much. It's the only thing I use that pencil for is ferret. Oh, if it didn't exist, I don't know what I would do. I don't think this show would exist. I think I would hate audio editing as much as Jason does. Yeah. Yeah. Thank goodness for the pencil. Well, thank you, Andrew. We appreciate that. We love you. I love you guys. You guys are great. And I changed my mind. We will now do this in another two weeks instead of two years. Woohoo! Perfect. The Olympics have better be brought forwards. But on that note, tight 45. Three, two, one, stop.