In This Episode: A laughable review of the new Kindle Oasis. Twitter goes 280. New “Quad9” DNS server protects against malware. Proposed ATSC 3.0 TV standard. The fragmentation of streaming for TV cord-cutters. Are kids’ smartwatches really “illegal” in Germany? And forget Mac vs. PC: the new “religious wars” may be about worshiping the right benevolent A.I. construct.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 58:42 — 26.9MB)
This Week’s Hosts
- Randy Cassingham, founder of This is True and the Internet Spam Primer.
- Gary Rosenzweig, host and producer of MacMost, and mobile game developer at CleverMedia.
- Kevin Savetz, web site publisher and Computer Historian at Atari Podcast.
- Longer Bios on the Hosts page.
Show Notes
- The hilarious Associated Press review of the Kindle Oasis book reader:
not for scuba diving! - Yep, TEH is on Twitter, and may or may not use more than 140 characters per tweet: @theTEHpodcast. (And we’re on Facebook, too.)
- A report on the new Quad9 DNS server. (Wikipedia article: the Domain Name System.)
- The Reuters article about the proposed ATSC 3.0 TV standard. And are there too many streaming services? Cord cutters can now pick from 200 services, but mostly want the top four, says USA Today.
- The Verge reports Germany bans smartwatches for kids and asks parents to destroy them, but that report is based on a report from Bleeping Computer which The Verge found out about via Gizmodo (yes, Randy got that order backwards when talking about it). That chain of vague links also shows a “game of telephone” (aka Chinese Whispers) going on — which is not uncommon in such click-baity stories. What’s the real truth? Simply, Germany has certainly not banned smartwatches for kids.
- And Futurism’s report on a “newly established religion” called “Way of the Future” to “worship” artificial intelligence. (More from GearsOfBiz.) (And Wikipedia explains Pascal’s Wager.)
Don’t know the meme behind the title of this episode? Here’s 48 seconds of entertaining education on the matter, from The Simpsons:
Really enjoyed this, and learned a little.
Very enjoyable, even if I didn’t quite understand everything. I especially enjoyed the bit about Quad 9 DNS. I wish I knew enough to understand how to set it up. Also learned quite a bit.
Now that you know you want it, at least you know what to ask a techie friend to help you with! And watch, take notes, and then know how to change it again later by yourself, if you wish.