2x03: And Those Who Dig

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Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, with special guest presenter Christina Warren, speaker, tech journalist from Gizmodo, and podcaster at Rocket. In this show:

Also, Bad Voltage are returning to SCALE in Pasadena in March for a live show! With free food and an open bar, and the 80s nerd rocker band the Spazmatics, the show's gonna be great. Buy your SCaLE tickets now!

Download the show now!

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I was interested in the topic of a “third player” on mobile phones. I think there is room for someone to come in and believe security and privacy will be the driver here but that it’s going to take someone getting burned to convince many people that this is something they should care about seriously.

I know many people for whom privacy is a major concern but I think today I am part of a self selecting group and that @jonobacon is probably correct in his belief that for many today, it’s a none issue.

I am an Ubuntu phone user and for what I use it fits my needs 100%. It doesn’t have the range of games and other apps you find on Android or an Apple phone and I could care less, but not much. So while it works for me it wouldn’t work for my teenage daughter.

The lack of app support means not enough people will buy one. The fact relatively few people have bought one makes it less attractive for developers to create apps. This means it is very difficult for a new product to get any traction in the market so we need something else to drive the need and for me I think that will be privacy.

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Also interested in the link above to Visio getting fined, the first comment emphasises the point that many people don’t care about privacy.

We need to be careful about what data can be shared and what can not. In principle I am not over concerned if, for example, Netflix want to count how many people watch a particular show. I’d also accept there is some merit in tracking individual users to see what else they watch, I’m feeling less comfortable now but providing the information is anonymous passing on the information that many Bad Voltage fans also watch @bryanlunduke’s YouTube channel is fine, Bad Voltage might choose to advertise Bryan and Bryan may choose to advertise Bad Voltage - no problem. Passing on IP addresses, or any other details which would potentially link someone to a particular organisation or individual is wrong however and something we should all be fighting.

I have already made it clear I support Bryan and Bad Voltage, I have also been clear that I am a Labour Party member and active with Amnesty International. This is fine, and I don’t care who knows it - you can’t be an activist if you don’t stand up for what you believe, but I also have links to other organisations who I am not prepared to admit to because of potential risks to myself and others.

I realise I am more sensitive than most on issues like this but the idea that if you have nothing to worry about is clearly male cow poop. We don’t have any control how personal information about us is being used: I personally know several people, around the world, who are risking life and liberty to keep the rest of us informed about what’s going on.

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@jeremy that was a nice review of the Pico Brew. Why does it need to ‘phone home’? Would it work without a network connection?

Edit: And it was really nice to have @christina back. Hope she can do this again!

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Before I nitpick, my good, bad, ugly:

Heat is just an utter, utter classic. Michael Mann, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, et al at their best.

Always isn’t a bad film, per se, but coming from Spielberg it got shredded by the critics (Roger Ebert basically called it as bad as 1941).

Birdemic is just so unbelievably bad that the only way to watch it and remain sane is to watch the Rifftrax version.

@jonobacon mention’s Kevin Smith’s story about Superman and Wild Wild West: it was producer Jon Peters who wanted a giant spider at the end of Superman Lives, the film was never made, and he went on to produce Wild Wild West. Normally, I’d have been like “yeah, Jono’s just being a bit forgetful here and not remembering the details”, but after the “Star Trek is the Dungeons and Dragons of science-fiction” comment, and ripping into Memento because you didn’t understand it, you, sir, can go fuck yourself about movies.

Actually, in all seriousness, Jono, please don’t introduce Transformers to Jack using the shit Bay movies; go for the animated movie and the cartoons! They’re way more fun and nowhere near as mean-spirited (especially as you move into the really shit sequels).

And @sil is thinking of Speed 2, not Under Siege 2 (which was Under Siege on a train), but his selection of one of my favourites Sneakers saves him from a slapping. Well, almost, until I heard the Blade Runner comment. HOW CAN YOU HATE BLADE RUNNER?! How can a movie that starts like this be anything but FUCKING GREAT?!

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Here is where he talks about it:

I did LOL at this comment.

We actually introduced him to it via Rescue Bots, which is a pretty cool show designed for kids his age. He loves it. One thing that is cool is that the franchise has a bunch of cartoons for different ages.

Not sure how the original series from the 80s would work. Jack got into the modern CG animated Fireman Sam for a bit and one day I accidentally put on the version from our childhood. Same basic theme but claymation and he looked on confused as if to say “what is this shit, dad?”

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ha! yes. Nice one.

Totally stand by my Blade Runner views though :slight_smile:

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fergawdsake. Is nothing sacred? There’ll be a cartoon Morph next.

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The Internet is used to look up the brew information for the picopak you’re brewing, and to update the real-time graphs and brew information. I didn’t test the Pico without it, so am unsure of the answer to your question.

–jeremy

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Great show with some of my favorite topics!

  1. Movies
  • Beer
  • Alternative mobile OS

V for Vendetta recently came in german free TV. It’s really a good movie with an important message. I’m sure the timing is not a coincidence. The same channel recently televised The Hunger Games.

Home beer brewing sounds like fun. The price of the pico is really the point.

Third player in mobile phones? SailfishOS! It has the best Bad Voltage app of all platforms. Point.

I think thats right. But in another way. Jolla recently is heading into emerging markets, such as the BRICS countries. These countries are looking for an alternative to the proprietary native american OSes. SailfishOS is the only mobile OS certified by the Russian government. A blog post from Jolla CEO describes the situation. Windows phone obviously does not fit into this. Ubuntu touch is not matured enough to fulfill the daily the daily business of an average user. Sailfish is just much more feature complete and has the Android compatibility.

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It was an interesting review of the Pico Brew. There has been existing product similar to this developed here in Belfast called Brewbot http://www.brewbot.io. The Picobrew seems to have a good business model though with its “Dolce Gusto style” premade brews.

I do find it funny though when people talk about price though especially compared to a mobile phone. Smart phones are available for 80 pounds yet how many spend over 1200 on their phone .

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Well, Jono does; the rest of us not quite that much!

I take your point, but I see this as down to personal value; I look at my phone every five minutes all the time I’m awake. It’s therefore worth more to me than a lot of other stuff. A Picobrew; I mean, I like beer quite a bit, but if I were getting as much use out of it as I do out of my phone then I’d be dead in a fortnight :slight_smile:

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We clearly need to change this. :slight_smile:

Speaking of which, do we have Bad Voltage apps for Android and IOS?

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I am curious to see how they do here.

I have to say, I am not convinced as much by the model of companies building super-cheap stripped down phones for emerging markets. I am not suggesting you are this way, @scharelc, but I think there is an arrogance in the west that people in these other markets will be OK with stripped down cheap phones. I think though that they want the same that the rest of us want - feature packed smartphones that run the apps we want, just (a) affordable, and (b) less dependent on wireless networks as they are typically unaffordable too.

I get the impression this is part of the reason FirefoxOS failed. I think people in those markets don’t want some weird different OS - they want Android or IOS.

It wouldn’t surprise me also if there is a lot of peer pressure involved. It is like me being at school in North Yorkshire when I was 8. I wanted the Liverpool football strip with Crown Paints written on the front, and my parents couldn’t afford it so I got some knock-off Liverpool branded shirt, that wasn’t the kit. I got mocked to hell and back because I didn’t have what my friends had. I bet the same thing happens with mobile devices.

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It does. Niamh has an iPhone, basically because they’re cool.

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I’m still likely to bodyswerve the books, since the mere thought of Twilight ruined the whole concept of YA fiction for me forever. But I found the Hunger Games movies to be actually pretty damn good, with a strong cast (Philip Seymour Hoffman in his last role ffs!).

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I don’t think that’s the direction Jolla wants to go. Mainly they don’t see them selves as a mobile phone manufacturer, they see them selves as a software company. I’d be very surprised if they ever will release another piece of hardware because that’s not their target.

The main goal is to license their OS. And currently the Russian government seem to be their biggest licensee or at least the biggest opportunity.

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And Hunger Games has Jennifer Lawrence.
Giggity Giggity

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I’m curious, when did you first see Blade Runner?