Leo [00:00:21]:
Gary, I wanna charge you 30% for doing this podcast.

Gary [00:00:25]:
Well, you would only be able to screw that up if I made more than a million dollars because because that's, you're, of course, referring to Apple's b for people making in app purchases and stuff through the App Store.

Leo [00:00:41]:
The b for the privilege of using the

Gary [00:00:43]:
app store. Yeah. And, of course, the thing that people still get wrong even though it's been years is that the vast majority of developers are charged 15% for that. It's only if you make more than a million that you're charged 30%.

Leo [00:00:56]:
Oh, really? I didn't know. I did not know that.

Gary [00:00:58]:
See? Yeah. And, that was one of the changes Apple made. Basically, them saying, look, we don't wanna make a fortune off of the little guys. You know? We wanna make a fortune off of the other guys that are already making a fortune. So, yeah, then that's kind of the thing. You know? We're gonna, of course, talk a little bit about Epic versus Apple and its, reappearance in the news this week. And that's one of the things that I hate about the other side from Apple on this is they constantly refer to 30%, thirty %, thirty % without qualifying it that, you know, you they're making it sound like they're taking 30% from, like, the small developers, and they're not. They're taking 15 from them.

Leo [00:01:40]:
Russ, how does the threshold work? Is it one of those things where, you know, the moment you make a million dollars, all of a sudden you have to throw in another 15%? Or is it being?

Gary [00:01:52]:
I don't know. I it's it's it's spelled out there somewhere.

Leo [00:01:55]:
Is it like The US tax code where you pay 15% on the first million dollars and then 30% after that?

Gary [00:02:01]:
Yeah. I don't think it's like that. I think it might be like an annual thing if you made more I don't know. All I know is if I ever made a million dollars in in app purchases from an app, I would, I would celebrate and give Apple their extra 15% and work on seeing if I could grow that beyond a million dollars the next year. But I've never gotten close even I've never gotten within three decimal places of that. So so, you know, but yeah. So the deal is that this week, it's it's back in the news because there's new news. So, basically, Apple, several years ago, Epic, the maker of the game Fortnite, which is really the main thing here.

Gary [00:02:43]:
Right? They had this hit game Fortnite that was a hit not just for players and people talking about it, but because they made a ton of money off of it mostly through in app purchases. It's like a free game to play. You could play it totally free. And I have played Fortnite in the past. I've never spent a penny playing Fortnite. But a lot of players like to buy little cosmetic costumes and things and upgrades, all sorts of stuff you can get. So when you buy them, of course you buy them through whatever system it is you're playing with. If you're playing the game that you downloaded on a PC, you're going through Epic's own little payment system, and that's all fine with everybody.

Gary [00:03:21]:
If you're playing on Google Play, you're going through Google's little in app purchase system. And if you're playing on an Apple device, like the iPhone, you're going through Apple's little purchase system, which both companies force, app developers to go through. So in other words, you could make a game and say, hey, you could get a cool top hat for your character in this game, but, it's gonna cost $4. And out of that $4, 70 percent goes to the developer, thirty percent is kept by Apple. Yeah. Assuming that it's a big game and they're raking a million dollars. Right?

Leo [00:03:55]:
Right.

Gary [00:03:56]:
And, and Epic basically said that's not fair. Like, we should have the ability to have our own payment system. And people could just pay us directly. And Apple said, hey, it's part of the terms of service of using our thing. We provide the bandwidth. We provide the marketplace. We provide like the download for the app. We provide the whole payment system, charging the card, all of that.

Gary [00:04:17]:
Even people just having their Apple account and the money just comes out of there. Like that whole thing, you get that. There's a little API. It's like three lines of code and now you can have people charge for their top hat in the game. And we're taking 15% for small developers, thirty percent for big ones. And Epic said, no. We still don't want that. We want to have our own payment system.

Gary [00:04:38]:
So they traded lawsuits with Apple. It went to a big court case, and there was a huge finding in that court case. And there were basically 10 points, and nine out of the 10 of those were ruled in favor of Apple, including them saying, look, Apple doesn't you don't have Apple doesn't have to let you have your own payment system in the game. Like that's Apple doesn't need to do that. Things like that. One of those 10 points was actually saying that okay there is this little bit here that says okay you can't even tell people that they could buy stuff outside of the game. Like because the idea is well it's not it's a system you log into your account. So if you were to go to, like, Epic site or, like, the PC version of the game by the top hat

Leo [00:05:25]:
Right.

Gary [00:05:25]:
You should be able to log into your account on the iPhone and then see the top hat.

Leo [00:05:29]:
Right.

Gary [00:05:29]:
And you can and you always could. Except that in the iPhone version of the game, Apple prohibited you from saying you could. Like you couldn't link to it and say, hey, go to our website, buy the top hat

Leo [00:05:42]:
Right.

Gary [00:05:43]:
From us.

Leo [00:05:44]:
And then come back. Yep.

Gary [00:05:45]:
Yeah. So they so they didn't allow that. And that part of it violated a California law. And so the ruling was nine in favor of Apple, one in favor Epic saying, yeah, they do have to let you have a a link. Like, you should be able to say, here's a link to buy the top hat. And then that goes to a web page like that nothing in the game. Whatever. So Epic, wasn't pleased with the whole thing, but also on top of that, Apple, they claimed Apple was not following the, like, the spirit of that.

Gary [00:06:21]:
Like Apple said, you still couldn't do you still couldn't put a link in the game. You had to apply for a a special, like, entitlement for your game to allow you to do that external link. You had to put a warning saying, like, you are leaving Apple's App Store. We don't know what's gonna happen to you. And it, like, you know, that kind of thing Right. For for leaving. And there were other things that really just, basically, Epic said, hey. The judge didn't have any of those details in there.

Gary [00:06:51]:
Like, you made those up. And Apple's like, well, we're just going strictly by the we don't like this, so we're gonna just do as little as we can to enable this. And so Epic basically appealed for that one item, and it was ruled this last week that, Epic is right. So Apple's gotta change its rules and be better about allowing, that stuff. So Apple said we'll change our rules and indeed that very night I as a developer got a an email from Apple saying you're now allowed to put links in your apps to buy stuff. There doesn't need to be an entitlement. There doesn't need to be a warning or anything. Oh, and the other the other part was I remember that this was a important part is that even after you linked to your own store, you still had to pay Apple twenty seven percent.

Leo [00:07:39]:
Oh, because they came from the Apple device.

Gary [00:07:41]:
So in other words, it would I would then have to go if I was gonna do it and, like, calculate, oh, this I made a thousand dollars in the net purchases and then write a check to Apple for that amount to give it back to them. Right?

Leo [00:07:53]:
Yikes. Yep.

Gary [00:07:54]:
And so, so they said no. So Apple doesn't nobody needs to do that then there's and there's no warning and you could just have the link in there. No no nothing special. Right. And Apple said, Apple said, alright. Well, we're gonna appeal that. But in the meantime, here's the rule because the judge made it clear that there's no negotiation. Do this now.

Gary [00:08:13]:
Alright. So the Apple said, okay. And they sent an email out and says, you can now have links right to whatever you and you don't owe us anything. And but they have to be clean links out of the app. Like, it has to just go to the default web browser.

Leo [00:08:26]:
Right.

Gary [00:08:26]:
And, and that's fine. But the weird thing is is that when I got the email, like, so well, yeah, let me go into this first. When I got the email, it was very specific as this is for US only. So because it's a US ruling. And so I thought, okay. I checked off the box like almost every other developer. Just make this available worldwide unless there's an issue. So my apps are available worldwide, except for, like, a cup there's a couple weird countries like South Korea has some really weird rules where you have to put, like, your phone number and address up on their site and all all this stuff.

Gary [00:09:03]:
So there's a few countries that there's, like, other things, so forget those countries. Not 80 countries or whatever. It's like like this. Now they say it's for US only. The my question is if I put a link in my game saying, hey, go to my page and and you can give me money here. Do I have to like make it only if you're in The US or like could I only do it if the app is available only in The US? Like, if I say US only, nowhere else. Mhmm. And I haven't figured that out yet.

Gary [00:09:32]:
There are a couple of apps out there that have, already implemented this. Spotify and Amazon Kindle.

Leo [00:09:42]:
Of course. And I

Gary [00:09:42]:
and and it's like, I don't really even know how to figure out, like I mean, there's special rules in the EU, so you'd probably wanna look in a place like Canada or Mexico or something and then figure out, like, what happens there. I would imagine it would be easy for companies like Amazon, to and maybe even Spotify because of licensing to have completely different apps in different stores.

Leo [00:10:03]:
Yes.

Gary [00:10:04]:
Like, here's The US app and that's what you see in The US. There's an actual Canadian app that's a different app and that one's like Canada, UK, Australia or something. You know? Maybe maybe that's one thing or maybe that's what you have to do. I don't know. I don't really have good clarification on that. I I don't really have a any good way to find out. And, so it's it's interesting. Also it's only iOS and iPadOS.

Gary [00:10:29]:
The only app that I've ever run into this issue with that's not true actually. It's happened twice. It's a very similar kind of thing. Recently my app, my clip tools app, my clipboard manager for Mac, I had a list of links in there. You could go down to the bottom. There's a little menu and it says, like, the most recent MacMost video. You know, the MacMost newsletter, you know, a couple things like that. Quick links.

Gary [00:10:54]:
Hey. I might as well just plug my own stuff. And it had in there support this app at Patreon. And I linked to the Patreon for MacMost, which says that it supports MacMost and clip tools. The first, like, three times the first three versions of clip tools that went right through. No problem. And then somebody noticed it was there and said you can't have a link asking for money outside of the App Store. Like, if you want people to contribute, they they need to you need to do it as an in app purchase.

Gary [00:11:25]:
So exactly what this whole thing is about. Right?

Leo [00:11:28]:
Right.

Gary [00:11:29]:
So the question is, you would think a link now is exactly what is allowed except they're very specific. IOS, iPad OS. My app is macOS. So I'm But

Leo [00:11:40]:
nothing's changed on the Mac.

Gary [00:11:42]:
Yeah. So I have a feeling that if I resubmit it just with that link there, that they would say, no. The the rule is still in place for macOS. Or maybe not because it may be that they don't want to they don't wanna say either way from macOS. But if you're going to force the issue, they don't want to invite Right. Any law other lawsuits. So it could be the kind of thing where, like, they're reserving the right to refuse it later, but right now, they'll just let it through without saying anything, like, pretending they didn't notice. So I don't know whether or not I'll do that, but that's another interesting thing about it.

Gary [00:12:17]:
This, by the way, does not really change anything about getting Fortnite in the App Store again because it's been banned. So so Apple's terms of service were, you know, all these things and Epic fought against them and then ultimately challenged them by putting in buttons to buy stuff directly from Epic. Directly violating Apple's rules. I think they even made a big stink about the fact that they were gonna do it and then they did it. And then Apple turned around and said, you violated our rules and we're going to enact the part of the rules that say, you know, Huling violated our rules. Your your company is now banned. And the judge in the initial ruling ruled that that stands. Like, they violated the contract.

Gary [00:13:01]:
Apple can keep the band as long you know, if they want. So even if Epic says, oh, we're fine with the way things are now. We'll have a link. Doesn't mean that it's coming back in the App Store because, Apple banned the developer and doesn't probably doesn't wanna turn that around. Now a way to get around that that's been suggested, is that when Apple started with the EU thing where you could have it your own little app store, but only in the EU, Epic put Fortnite back into the into their own store and submitted their own store to the App Store for The EU and basically went that whole route. And the way they did that is they incorporated it in Sweden. So there's Epic and there's Epic Sweden And Epic Sweden is what has the Epic App Store in The EU with Fortnite in it. So they're suggesting that perhaps Epic Sweden also resubmits Fortnite as another app worldwide.

Gary [00:14:03]:
And the rumors that Apple's has said that would be okay.

Leo [00:14:08]:
So but for US users right now who want Fortnite, where are they getting it from?

Gary [00:14:14]:
They're just not playing it on the iPhone. They're playing it on their PC. They're playing it on their, you know Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So they're just not it was like, it was a hot mobile game until this happened, and then it it went back to just being a hot like Xbox. I don't know if it's on other consoles too. I know people are playing the Xbox PC, game that you could play as well.

Gary [00:14:38]:
Okay. And yeah. So, anyway, that's kinda sub set up. It's kind of like it's all legal stuff, and it's silly because because on the one hand, I think it's silly that Epic was like they don't want the to give Apple the 30%, and that does seem like a lot. But on the other hand, the idea that Apple should just be like, you could do whatever you want and Apple gets nothing. Because if Apple said you could just have your own store, then the outcome may eventually be after several years that everybody has their own store or more likely third party stores. You know how, like, on websites now, Stripe is the king. Right?

Leo [00:15:15]:
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Gary [00:15:15]:
And installs Stripe so easily. So imagine Stripe, they move in and they say, hey. Here's a little three lines of code, and now you can add Stripe to your app. And then within a few years, everybody switches to that. And then the entire app store in the iPhone is completely free apps. And in the app, there's a little Stripe checkout, you know, upgrade to from the trial to the full version or the, you know, thirty day trial to beyond that or buy this in app purchase, all of it, and Apple gets nothing. And then the entire App Store model falls apart. They're spending, I think, they estimated a few billion dollars a year on supporting the App Store, and suddenly the revenue drops to zero.

Leo [00:15:56]:
But to be fair, for one thing, I'm not gonna be doing too much crying for Apple. Right? I mean, I get I get that this is a business decision, but, honestly, Apple Apple ain't hurting. So if the App Store only had free apps Yeah. With no in in app purchases Yeah. No in app purchases

Gary [00:16:17]:
Yeah.

Leo [00:16:17]:
Apple wouldn't make anything.

Gary [00:16:19]:
Right.

Leo [00:16:20]:
So the model is then to have either purchased apps, which you're buying through the app store, or in app purchases, which is what this controversy is all about. If another company were to come in, like, say, Stripe or any of it, there's others as well. But Stripe is the biggie. Isn't that really an argument for saying, you know what? This is what the marketplace is all about. This is called competition. Apple now has some competition. Would they not then have to either change their model or somehow make what they're offering more lucrative in comparison to these third party apps?

Gary [00:17:01]:
Yeah. Except that they except the problem is so so say Apple said, okay. We'll have our Apple payment system, and Stripe is gonna be the competitor. Right? Okay. Apple still has the overhead of all the bandwidth for the apps for downloading the apps, and it's not trivial. Right? The ban all that bandwidth. All the overhead for all of the systems, like the in app purchasing systems, the downloading additional content systems, multiplayer communication when it comes to games. There's all these parts to the App Store beyond this huge infrastructure they've got that supports all the apps plus the entire development environment which is all from Apple, you know, Xcode and Swift and, all this stuff.

Gary [00:17:46]:
Apple's developed all that. Stripe would have would have nothing from that. Like, it wouldn't cost them anything. They would be getting that for free, and any developer would then be taking all this stuff from Apple, including the marketplace. Right? Going I mean, the App Store maintained by Apple, including that. And then they would be like, okay. I'll give 3% to Apple for purchases or 3% to Stripe. And Stripe is like, well, we don't do anything except give you some some code to, you know, put money through us.

Gary [00:18:14]:
And Apple, on the other hand, does the same thing plus 50 other things that support the app itself. So it becomes a little tough. The the alternative might be that Apple simply says, okay. Well, we're just gonna charge a fee per download. You know, you wanna be in the App Store free, not free, in app purchases, whatever it is, per download, it's gonna cost a penny. And, or maybe a penny if it's under a hundred megs, if it's then a, you know, under 200 megs, it's 5¢, whatever it is. You know? So a bandwidth issue. If you wanna use our API for multiplayer gaming, it's gonna be this.

Gary [00:18:54]:
If you wanna use our API for downloading additional content, it's that. You know, they could just nickel and dime developers. And then you have, like, developers that wanna do stuff for free that on the one hand are like, oh, I wanna develop an app that 10,000 people are going to download, but suddenly now that's gonna cost me a hundred bucks.

Leo [00:19:12]:
Right.

Gary [00:19:12]:
Whereas I'm just a student. I was just developing something that I think might help. Like, it's a cool thing to help you find coffee shops in your area or whatever, you know. There's that. And then there's also the thread, which has, been around of, like, I developed my little cool app and it takes off and it's free. Right? I wake up one morning to find that a magazine is written about me, and I now owe Apple four million dollars because the number of downloads I got last night. So there's a lot of stuff like that, that, you know, and and I guess what's really helped the app development environment is the whole idea that you can develop something for free to see how it goes.

Leo [00:19:54]:
Right.

Gary [00:19:54]:
And then go beyond that. Like so many apps were like first version was free and it really took off. Let's develop version two, these new features, but we're gonna charge for this one or let's add new features that have them as in app purchases, but you can kind of dip your toe in the water and say, let's try this. Let's develop this app idea I've got. Whether you're an individual developer or, like, a couple people inside of a company that convinces their boss to, like, hey, this would be, like, a useful thing we could develop in the company here. Having all this stuff where there has to be a budget upfront because, you know, Apple's charging you for all of the stuff, that's that's going to be it's it's gonna make it a harder sell.

Leo [00:20:33]:
Yeah. I was gonna say it'll it'll basically put the whole free app market out of business.

Gary [00:20:38]:
Right. And there's a lot of great free apps. There's a ton of great ones.

Leo [00:20:42]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. There are

Gary [00:20:42]:
I love the free mod I mean, that's what I did with clip tools. Clip tools is totally free. I I any all the ideas I've got for apps and things now, I think free would be the way to go. Even games, like, I'd love to get back into making games. But I imagine if I would do it now, my initial thinking would be to whatever game I make, just make it totally free. If it does if it doesn't do well or if it does okay, then I wouldn't have made any money through in app purchases or anything anyway. But at least I don't I'm not sitting there thinking, wow. I wonder if the game would have been successful if they didn't charge $3 for

Leo [00:21:18]:
it. Right. Right.

Gary [00:21:19]:
And then if it is hugely successful, then I could be like, great. Can I add in app purchases or can I make a second version, a follow-up to the game? Right. That because the first game has a big following, now the second one, like, it's an adventure game. And if you wanna continue the adventure, the second one is gonna be $3. But now I know that, you know, a million people played it. That's the way I'd want it I would do it personally if I was gonna get back into it.

Leo [00:21:47]:
Complicated for sure.

Gary [00:21:49]:
Complicated and yeah. Yeah. And, of course, it doesn't it doesn't really affect things too much for people in general. Like, you know, most users of the devices, it doesn't affect them day to day. Right. Yeah. So

Leo [00:22:04]:
in other topics, it's time to talk about AI. Hooray. I ran across an article, actually this morning. We've talked a lot about AI voice cloning. We had some examples here, and we've done various things with it. And the comment that I have in our notes, of course, is that it's in the wild, but it's more than that. It's gone mainstream. There's nothing more mainstream, I think, than, United States televised sporting events.

Leo [00:22:38]:
And as it turns out, what they're doing is, they've got the voice of an announcer, Jim Fagan, who passed away several years ago, but he's coming back. Right? They actually are using his voice in announcements for, I believe it is, yeah, the NBA on NBC. And I just thought that that was fascinating that you can now and I did this. There's an example clip, in the, The Verge article that I linked to in the show notes where you get to hear him. And absolutely, you would not know that this was not the real person, if you did not realize it. I think that there is indeed a future for that because not necessarily that NBA announcers are that necessarily vocally recognizable, although I'll admit that's not a pool I play in. I don't watch a lot of NBA basketball on TV. But the classic one that came to mind is James Earl Jones, the voice of, Darth Vader.

Leo [00:23:44]:
He actually did sign a contract before his death that authorizes, I think it's just Lucas films, but it could be others, to use samples of his voice to recreate new, Darth Vader dialogue and possibly other things as well. That's a recognizable voice. And while there definitely are people that can do similar versions or imitations of the voice, for various reasons, there's just nothing quite like James Earl Jones. So I'm just it's it's interesting to see exactly where this is headed and to see it hit the mainstream already, in the situation. I just thought it was pretty interesting.

Gary [00:24:25]:
Oh, yeah. Definitely. Voice cloning is really interesting. I was actually playing a lot this week with, voices. I have cloned my voice to 11 labs Mhmm. And played around with that. I was doing the opposite this week using a variety of AI tools that actually take my voice and then make them another voice. So in other words, I record a video and I press a button and the my voice is now another voice.

Gary [00:24:56]:
And I was doing yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. I was just using their sample voices and stuff. So there are celebrities there, but I was doing, like, the the idea being that, it makes it interesting. I I don't have to use any kind of special mic, right, at all, really, but it was matching my voice perfectly. So it wasn't just it was, like, transcribing my voice and then having, you know, an AI speaker speak it. Mhmm.

Gary [00:25:22]:
Like, my any pauses I had or times I was talking a little faster or slower, they were matched. So the lips were synced perfectly. And then I also tried cloned, you know, having another talking head in place of mine. So the interesting thing was, and this was a fun experiment, was I recorded a tutorial, an example tutorial, where it was me talking. So microphone only, I was doing screen capture.

Leo [00:25:49]:
Right.

Gary [00:25:49]:
I ran it through this software, and I had a talking head at the bottom right hand corner that was not me. It was an AI talking head

Leo [00:25:56]:
Mhmm.

Gary [00:25:57]:
With a voice to match that AI talking head, so not my voice. And it was just all done automatically. So it had the feeling of being the same kind of video that I make. And the content, like, if you wanted to go and make an argument of, like, what's better? Really, there was no difference. I was somebody else saying the same thing I would have said in the same way. And it was it was interesting, but I could have done the video instead of, fairly expensive camera, lights everywhere, cluttering up my my space. I'm always staring at lights even when I'm not using them. Green screen behind me.

Leo [00:26:33]:
Right.

Gary [00:26:34]:
Pads on the wall for soundproofing. Close the windows even on a hot day because I gotta keep the sound out, and a really good microphone pointed at me. And I have to, you know, do everything kind of like, you know, get sound and video working perfectly. Forget all that. Just record the screenshot and use the microphone on my MacBook or whatever to talk while I'm doing it.

Leo [00:26:56]:
And then revoice it.

Gary [00:26:57]:
And then it gets revoiced and a a an image is added. And if it's you know, I was doing, like, a woman and it was a female voice, and it it was perfect. It was just like it worked exactly as if it was a real person that looked like that saying the those exact things. So it's interesting. It really got my mind going. The I don't know where I'm going with it. But

Leo [00:27:20]:
What I find fascinating about about the whole voice thing, the scenario you just described is essentially post processing. In other words, you've got the recording, and then you basically turn the technology loose on it however long it takes. It can do a really good job. It's there's no lag. It's gonna match your lips exactly.

Gary [00:27:38]:
Yep.

Leo [00:27:39]:
What amazes me are the voice changers in the real time

Gary [00:27:43]:
Oh, yeah.

Leo [00:27:44]:
Where they just kick in and they do the thing in absolute real time. The one that cracks me up is that there are now I guess we still would end up calling them voice changers, but they are voice changers that would claim to remove accents. Right? So if you've got, say, a strong Southern accent or some other kind of accent and you run it through this, it would still be your voice, but without the accent, which I find also just incredibly fascinating. It's funny because I was watching a video from a YouTube creator that I follow who is talking about creating YouTube videos. And she's from the South, and she has not a strong accent at all, but you can definitely tell it's not the the flat Midwestern or Pacific Northwest kind of flat English accent, or American accent. But she has also pointed out that her accent for her videos is kind of a distinguisher. It makes her channel a little bit unique. People are drawn to that lilt, that that kind of speaking.

Leo [00:28:57]:
So I was also thinking, okay. Well, let's reverse it. Let's take a flat accent such as mine Yeah. And add add a southern twang or or or a Brooklyn accent or something. You know? Any anyway, I just the the the possibilities are absolutely fascinating, and the fact that it can all happen in real time just blows me away.

Gary [00:29:17]:
I, I I actually tried exactly what you just said. It's funny. I picked a British accent and had it do that, and I was surprised to find that it kinda removed the British accent. So the voice was definitely the same voice, but because it was taking what I said and matching it to me, it like, I had to listen to the sample. The sample was a strong British accent. The result was kind of like a really watered down British accent and when I tried it on just some text, like, say this text, strong British accent. So it was because it was taking what I said and I guess it could only go so far to push it and and and make it different. But I did like the idea that it did make me sound not only was the the the tone of the voice different, but it did change a little bit.

Gary [00:30:12]:
And I and I also came to the conclusion that I've spent years trying to become more like an like a like a newscaster. Right? Trying to get my ums and ahs out and try to, like, not not be like, well, this is kinda like if you clicked over here, you know, I just want I wanna be professional and say it. Yes. If I wanted to go this route and say create a series of videos where it was it looked like it was somebody else talking and it was their voice and their image, but it was actually me being the puppeteer by speaking Sure. I may wanna go in reverse. And instead of making it feel like AI generated content, really try to make it feel like, no. This is not AI generated content because the way the person talks is very casual.

Leo [00:30:55]:
Right. Right.

Gary [00:30:57]:
That would be an interesting thing to have to, like, how would I force myself to be more casual? Anyway

Leo [00:31:02]:
It's funny. You're right. Because I I have the same thing. When I sit down I mean, it's different here. I mean, I'm sitting in exactly the same place facing the exact same camera that I face while I'm doing my videos. But because it's you and I having a discussion, it's different. But indeed, when I sit down to record a video, I put on, I don't know if you wanna call it a facade or style or whatever, in terms of both how I look at the camera and how I speak to the camera, that, you're right. It would be kinda difficult to not do after

Gary [00:31:35]:
But it might be might be important. I I don't know. I don't know. I have to experiment more with that. It would be interesting to do an AB test to, like, do do it like my normal voice, but with a woman and a woman's voice and then do an alternative take of the same content. But think in terms of a character of being like

Leo [00:31:52]:
Right.

Gary [00:31:52]:
Like, oh, just I don't know. Somebody explaining this to, like, somebody else in the room and just talking casually and then trying to do it that way and seeing if it comes off more natural. Anyway, speaking of yeah.

Leo [00:32:04]:
Okay. Go ahead. Yep. Go ahead. Oh, no.

Gary [00:32:05]:
I was gonna say speaking of natural versus, a real versus fake. I'm starting to segue to our next part.

Leo [00:32:13]:
Real ID is the topic, and, it's I think it's what? Tomorrow that it supposedly goes? Yeah.

Gary [00:32:19]:
Tomorrow or today that you'll be hearing this. Yeah.

Leo [00:32:23]:
And it's been twenty years in the making. Yeah. It's funny. I was thinking about it earlier. What problem is it really trying to solve? And the problem that apparently Real ID is trying to solve is simply that, especially in The United States, Fifty different states had 50 different ways of determining that you are who you say you are when you apply for a driver's license. That's basically it. There is no standard. There was no whatever.

Leo [00:32:47]:
In some cases, it was enough to be breathing. In other cases, you need to bring a birth certificate and everything in between. So the standard you know, whatever the rules are for proving you are who you say you are and are authorized to carry this real ID piece of of identification. Yep. Yep. You're you have to prove a couple of things. You have to have a Social Security number, I mean, whatever it is. What I find weird about this and the reason this came up for me just a couple of days ago is that I had to share my driver's license image with someone.

Leo [00:33:24]:
And they said, oh, I'm surprised you haven't gotten a real ID. I have real ID for years. I mean, it's in Washington state. It's called an enhanced driver's license. And, apparently, what's missing is there's a star.

Gary [00:33:40]:
Yeah. You don't have a star on your

Leo [00:33:41]:
I have no star on my driver's license.

Gary [00:33:44]:
Mm-mm.

Leo [00:33:44]:
And so that then leads into some of the confusion Because, technically, my driver's license is not, quote, unquote, real ID. Mhmm. But it's good enough. In other words, the the the the things that I had to the hoops that I had to jump through to get my enhanced driver's license were sufficient for that then driver's license to be treated as, quote, unquote, real ID. I I did not know that. I in fact, I I learned that only this morning by reading the Verge article that I've got linked to. Interesting.

Gary [00:34:23]:
You may need to, like many other people in Washington then, I would assume, lose your ID somehow mysteriously and get a replacement.

Leo [00:34:34]:
That's the thing. I don't know if Washington state is actually issuing, quote, unquote

Gary [00:34:39]:
Oh, any. Even now.

Leo [00:34:41]:
Right? Are they just doing the enhanced driver's license? And since that's good enough, that's good enough. Right? Now to be fair, I'm the paranoid kind. Right? Yeah. So if I'm gonna travel, in a in you know, through a border that's gonna require real ID, which is typically the air the airport, of course, I'm gonna have my passport with me.

Gary [00:35:01]:
Got it. Okay.

Leo [00:35:02]:
Of course, I'm gonna have I actually have a global entry, right, which is an additional number of hoops I have to jump through, which also suffices as federal photo ID that's acceptable for real ID. Did you know that there's such a thing as a passport card?

Gary [00:35:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I, I I actually I think my passport, it will be next time it's up for renewal, I can apply for both. You can just get both. That's the that's what I found out was if you're renewing your passport, getting your passport card with the renewal, easy. Right.

Leo [00:35:37]:
If

Gary [00:35:38]:
you wanna get it without a renewal

Leo [00:35:40]:
Right.

Gary [00:35:40]:
That's difficult. So yeah.

Leo [00:35:43]:
And passport card isn't a passport. Right? It doesn't work in all the places that a passport would work. For example, if you're traveling overseas, I don't think a passport card is good enough. But on the other hand, if you're just traveling into Canada, maybe next then I think it does work. So, anyway, again, more confusion. What kind of IDs

Gary [00:36:00]:
do we need? IDs. Yeah.

Leo [00:36:02]:
What I'm concerned about, are people showing up at the airport Yeah. Tomorrow, and whipping out their normal, not enhanced Washington state driver's license and TSA going, sorry. You had twenty years to get this straightened out. It's too late. What I read in the article was that, it's not like they're going to boot you from your flight. They the the phrase was, you may end up going through some enhanced screening

Gary [00:36:33]:
Right.

Leo [00:36:33]:
Which is honestly a terrifying phrase when applied to TSA. But, anyway, that's it's here. It's confusing. I noticed what I did re read, and you actually called this out already, that's Colorado. Not a problem.

Gary [00:36:49]:
It's a nonissue here because, Colorado jumped right on it. Right? A lot of states, ton of states went and said, oh, we don't want we don't want the federal government buddy into our business of issuing IDs and stuff. So when this initially came out, there was a lot of resistance from certain states. And some states had no resistance. The Colorado was one that had no resistance to it. So it went right to Real ID

Leo [00:37:15]:
Right.

Gary [00:37:15]:
And it made the, the process of getting one basically, oh, next time you renew your driver's license, you'll all our driver's licenses will now just be Real ID from now on.

Leo [00:37:25]:
Are they? Yeah.

Gary [00:37:25]:
And we won't just we won't have any spec we already had, like, you know, you had to prove who you are. We're not doing anything special beyond what we did before. Good. So that happened in 2012. The longest driver's licenses are four is ten years.

Leo [00:37:39]:
Right. Right.

Gary [00:37:40]:
So for almost three years now, Colorado has just had nearly 100%

Leo [00:37:47]:
Right.

Gary [00:37:47]:
Of matter of fact, it's 93%. The other 7% would be, like, mostly adults that don't have a driver's license for more reason. They're, like, seniors and, you know, they have stopped driving a long time ago. So yeah. So Colorado was like no issue with it. And strangely, there was an issue with Colorado Real IDs early on. It was a weird thing. What I'm worried about with you is, you know, you've got two issues.

Gary [00:38:10]:
One is you you're at the Seattle Tacoma Airport

Leo [00:38:13]:
Right.

Gary [00:38:13]:
Where it's all people from Washington mostly getting on the planes, and the GSA people, they're gonna be very aware what your driver's licenses look like. And maybe the first hundred people tomorrow, might be the test, you know, the test candidates for what happens. But very quickly, they're just going to, you know, get the hang of it, whatever they need to do. What happens when you, you know, first think of an airport like Denver or Atlanta or Cleveland, who sees some Washington driver's licenses, but not that many? How long will it take them to catch on?

Leo [00:38:46]:
Oh, I see.

Gary [00:38:46]:
And Yeah. Yeah. And then you go to the even smaller ones. You know, you go to a small airport that just just has its one, you know, Colorado Springs, Springs to mind. Just a few little flights here and there or even tinier ones, but they're still you know, they still have seven thirty sevens taken off, but maybe there's two a day, you know, that kind of airport. How long will it take before the TSA people there are used to seeing, oh, Washington state driver's license that they don't have the star. So that's gonna be a problem.

Leo [00:39:16]:
50 is a short list, to be honest. And given that most of them will have a star, the list of exceptions is gonna be even smaller.

Gary [00:39:26]:
But we'll see. But it the question is, is the exception, oh, it's Washington state. It's okay. Or it's Washington state. It's not okay. Like, you always have to get into the other line. You know what I'm saying? It's like we'll have to see.

Leo [00:39:39]:
I guess I guess we'll see. I guess

Gary [00:39:41]:
And and the thing about TSA is, of course, TSA is notorious for not having consistent rules. I mean, every it it's the whole this you could travel on one day. One day, you can travel, go through TSA in one airport, and somebody will yell at you. You have to take your laptop out of your bag and take off your belt and put it in there. And then you get to the next airport and then, you know, maybe you have a layover then you go through TSA again.

Leo [00:40:09]:
Right. Right.

Gary [00:40:09]:
And then you have somebody else yell at you, don't take your laptop out of your bag. You're holding up the line. Keep it in there. What are you doing? Don't take your belt off. I've had that happen, like, both of those. And I'm like, I was just at another airport where they had me do these both, and now you're telling me do the opposite. I'm fine with it. But why not be consistent, number one? Number two, if you're if you if you're gonna know you're inconsistent about certain things, have a sign.

Gary [00:40:36]:
In this airport, you, a, do not need to take out your laptop, b, you know, this with your shoes, that with your whatever. You know?

Leo [00:40:43]:
You have us. See, CTAC has those signs.

Gary [00:40:46]:
Good. Other airports don't. Yeah. They definitely don't. You just have to be like, what what's go what's today? What's happening? Okay. And I wanted to bring up one more thing is that, of course, there are a bunch of states, and I'll pick on Pennsylvania because I have family there, so I I hear about it, that they were the resistant ones to Real ID. So they waited and waited and waited. I think Pennsylvania didn't act until 2019.

Leo [00:41:08]:
Okay.

Gary [00:41:08]:
Right? Which was after the initial deadlines for getting this done. Right? The initial deadlines were pushed back because states like Pennsylvania, they hadn't still done anything. And then, Pennsylvania not only, waited till the last minute, but they also said, oh, we'll still gonna, give our standard IDs are not gonna be real ID. It's a special ID that's gonna be real ID, and it has additional requirements and additional fee, and we're only gonna offer them in 15 places throughout the state and all this ridiculous stuff making it very difficult. Right. And I have family members that basically just determined it was easier to get a passport.

Leo [00:41:45]:
I was gonna say, I mean, it seems like the the default reaction is get a freaking pass.

Gary [00:41:50]:
Just get it just get a pass and especially, like, one of the rules is that you have to show proof of your address. Right? That you live where you say you live. Yeah. Proof can be a driver's license. K? And proof needs to be something else like utility bill. That sounds pretty reasonable, except, the requirements start at the age of 18. So how many 18 year olds have a utility bill? I mean Oh. Yeah.

Gary [00:42:19]:
Yeah. And there are a lot of 18 year olds that still don't have a driver's license.

Leo [00:42:22]:
Right.

Gary [00:42:23]:
I mean, in our we're older and we were used to, like, I turned 16 yesterday. I need to get my driver's license right away. Today. Yeah. It hasn't always been like that. And there's plenty of plenty of you know, it's fine. You you know, you don't feel you need to learn how to drive now or whatever. You don't.

Gary [00:42:37]:
But now suddenly you don't have a driver's license and even if you do, it's like, I don't have a utility bill in my name. I live I'm in a college dorm or I still live with my parents or I live with three roommates and the utility bills are all on Joe's name because Joe was the one who had it together to actually, you know, set it up. Right. So it became, like, really impossible. You have all these 18, 19, 20 year olds running around not able at all to get a, a real ID because they just don't have that.

Leo [00:43:07]:
That's interesting. There's gotta be I mean, they there seems like there must be a a contingency for that. I although I suppose the contingency is the same one. It's easier just to get a passport.

Gary [00:43:17]:
Yeah. It's yeah. So, yeah, the contingency is there really isn't one. You have to go to a totally different type of thing thing or whatever. And, they estimate that it's, like, 30% of Pennsylvanians have a Real ID now, so you have a huge number of people. So I hate to be TSA in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, tomorrow because of this. Because Watch

Leo [00:43:39]:
watch for the headlines.

Gary [00:43:40]:
And and other states like New Jersey and stuff also have some of their issues. Anyway

Leo [00:43:46]:
so tariffs.

Gary [00:43:50]:
Yeah. So I just a quick little item here is I saw the first little blog post by somebody, that about the tech tariffs, willing to an article. This company, Wise, which I think I actually bought something from a year or two ago, it was like an Amazon offshoot that creates things like security devices, little like lights that are solar powered that go on motion detector and stuff. I think I'm pretty sure I actually bought, like, flood lights, like, from them from our last house. Anyway, they the CEO said he just got his first tariff bill, and the tariff for items manufactured in China is supposed to be a 45% for most tech items with these exceptions. His items did not have any exceptions, and sure enough, he got something like a $250,000 bill for a hundred and $67,000 worth of product. Yep. So, you know, the hundred which is about a 45%.

Gary [00:44:50]:
The numbers kinda match up. So, yeah, a whole shipment of their stuff now sitting at Amazon warehouses that you could buy on Amazon for these little lights, the company had to pay a ton of money for to get them into The US. They say that they've been working to move their manufacturing from China to Vietnam, and they're still sixty days away from that.

Leo [00:45:11]:
They've been apparently trying to do that for a year. Yeah. Right? They've been working on this for some time. It is no small change to boot pick up pack up your manufacturing and move

Gary [00:45:20]:
Oh, yeah. Anywhere. And he mentions in the article, well, it's something it's obvious as well. It's like moving manufacturing to The US for 0% tariff doesn't work because the different parts Yep. From other countries as well. So even if you move the factory here, you still have to import the parts. You would have to actually then go and look at all those parts and then move those factories here. And then some of those parts are made out of parts.

Gary [00:45:51]:
So

Leo [00:45:51]:
you are And all of the parts are made out of raw materials, and those raw materials have to come from somewhere, and it's often not The United States.

Gary [00:45:58]:
Yep. So so is that. And I I don't wanna say much more, but, you know, there's also, of course, the possible possibility of tariffs on Hollywood movies, which is very confusing, Hollywood movies, which is very confusing as to how that even works because it's a digital product. Like, how where when at what point does the importing actually happen? If somebody makes a a movie in, you know, Canada, it's like what and then it get released in theaters. It's not like there are reels of film that have to be loaded onto a truck and brought across the border. It's just a digital file that gets updated on servers for theater companies.

Leo [00:46:34]:
Yep. It's crazy. Yeah. So we'll see. I like I said, I don't know where where a tariff on a on a digital on any digital product, honestly, would would really apply. There's just no such thing as a concept of an import. I did wanna point out that Wyze, the company, they're just not that far from here. They actually Yeah.

Leo [00:46:53]:
They're they're headed not that far from

Gary [00:46:55]:
It makes sense. It's Amazon related company.

Leo [00:46:57]:
Yep. Yep.

Gary [00:46:58]:
Cool. Another thing I wanted to get on talk about briefly is, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, a friend of the show, I guess, Jay Schafer, who, is an amateur astronomer. The calling him amateur is really it does a service to the photos that he posts are incredible. I mean, he he, lives in New Mexico and takes amazing, astrophotography photos and post them online and all of this. He's just really become an expert using optics and stuff and different cameras and equipment and to take pictures. But he was telling me the other day that, when he takes a pic long exposure picture now, you expect there to be some, meteor your hope for some meteors to go across. That's like the that's what you want. It's like, oh, I caught a cool meteor flashing across my four hour exposure of the stars.

Gary [00:47:49]:
But in addition, you usually get some satellites, And it used to be you would get a satellite. It would be a, a constant streak all the way across, or sometimes they flare so it's like a dashed line as the, you know, the satellite reflects light at different angles. And then the cool thing is you used to be able to, like, identify what the satellite was. Oh, that's the, you know, CBS satellite whatever whatever, you know. And, but now, of course, it's the images are filled with Starlink satellites. More and more going up all the time. And now Amazon is launching their own array starting to. So eventually, that will double the number of satellites.

Gary [00:48:27]:
I believe there's a EU project as well, to launch more satellites. So there's gonna be many multiples of these small little satellites for, giving us Internet anywhere in the world, which is really nice. But the heyday of, astrophotography, maybe at an end because eventually, it's going to get so hard to take, you know, field photos where you see lots of stars Mhmm. Without having crisscross of all these satellites. It'll be easier if you wanna focus on something like, say, the Orion Nebula

Leo [00:49:03]:
Right.

Gary [00:49:03]:
And then hope a satellite doesn't cross the little tiny

Leo [00:49:06]:
That's a big big big window. Yeah.

Gary [00:49:08]:
And but you may wanna plan for several shots because you may get one of these in there. But anyway, it's interesting, you know, we're it's great that we're getting more Internet connectivity and competitors to Starlink on the one hand. On the other hand, it is there is something that's kind of dying, because of it.

Leo [00:49:28]:
It's yeah. The the only thing that comes to mind for me is that it's not it's certainly not the same, and it's certainly not even close to being the same price range. But when you think about it, the only way to get now high quality stellar photography, with without all of the satellites in the way is to be above them. Yeah. So things like Webb and Hubble and, presumably, maybe there'll be some other that will, you know, come up at some point in the future. But that seems like about the only approach to it, which is

Gary [00:50:04]:
Yeah. In the in the future. I know it's a shame, and it's you know? And the funny thing is that it it wasn't that long ago where you had to spend a lot of money to take, good, amateur astrophotography photos.

Leo [00:50:16]:
Right.

Gary [00:50:16]:
And now there are some products that are amazing. For a few thousand dollars, you can get these devices that are like telescopes that just take exposure after exposure and do it all automatically and tilt with, you know, the rotation of the Earth. And we'll layer it all together, and you can all control it from your phone. Of course. So you could be sitting inside where it's warm and have the telescope outside. And it's like and these things are so cheap compared to what it used to cost to be able to do the equivalent. So it's becoming in the range of more and more people to do astrophotography at the same time that it's becoming impossible to do surface based astrophotography.

Leo [00:50:52]:
Now a question. The the satellites that we're talking about here, the, the MS or the, STARLINK satellites

Gary [00:50:59]:
Yeah.

Leo [00:51:00]:
They're in low Earth orbit. Right? They're, like, couple hundred miles, 300 miles up?

Gary [00:51:04]:
Yeah. Or even even less. I'm not sure. Yeah.

Leo [00:51:06]:
Yeah. I I keep getting it confused with where the, space station is. But what that means, though, is that the only time that they are really visible Yeah. And this is true for any satellite, actually. But the only time they're really visible is when the sun is at an appropriate act angle just below the horizon, either in the morning or at night. If the sun is, well, literally behind the Earth with respect to what it is you're looking at, then the satellites aren't really reflecting any light. They don't have any light.

Gary [00:51:39]:
I don't I don't yeah. You're right. It's between two hundred and ten and three hundred and forty miles according to

Leo [00:51:44]:
Cool.

Gary [00:51:44]:
Yep. ChattGPT. But I don't think that's the case. I mean, I have personally observed lots of satellites crossing almost directly overhead late at night. And

Leo [00:51:56]:
But they all have to be high enough. Yeah. And the sun has to be low enough, high enough, wherever you wanna look at it, that even though the sun is set from your perspective Yeah. Its beams are still making it across the earth into, you know, to Yeah. The satellite.

Gary [00:52:12]:
I suppose it's not I mean, I don't know. I've I I'm not gonna try to work out the angles on this

Leo [00:52:18]:
side. I mean, if it's a if it's an issue, it'd be worth asking your friend Jay if that is in fact Yeah.

Gary [00:52:23]:
I will. Where the interference

Leo [00:52:24]:
is coming from in the middle of the night.

Gary [00:52:26]:
And I did wanna mention that he just started a, an audio podcast, called Deep Sage nine. Sage is a reference to his location in New Mexico. His, his his, very dark sky area that he lives. And, yeah. So he started a a an audio podcast. I'll link to that as well.

Leo [00:52:45]:
An oblique reference to Deep Space Nine.

Gary [00:52:48]:
Yes. Exactly.

Leo [00:52:50]:
Alrighty. Say what's cool this week? So Yeah. We finished watching the Righteous Gemstones over the weekend. Have you watched that one at all?

Gary [00:52:58]:
No. I have not.

Leo [00:53:00]:
It is on Max, or it was on Max. It was the final episode of the final season. And it is a parody of, basically, megachurches, the big megachurches and personalities behind them. And it's been hilarious. It's been quite the ride. It has, John Goodman, Walton Goggins both are in there. It was really kinda weird because for a few weeks, Walton Goggins was in both, White Lotus and Righteous Gemstones. Mhmm.

Leo [00:53:33]:
In fact, in some cases, one right after the other since they're both on Macs, playing two completely different characters. I mean, it would be different. He's quite the versatile actor. Anyway, we enjoyed it a lot. We we had a lot of fun watching it. There are some aspects of it that seemed almost a little over the top. But, but, yeah, we're sorta sorta sad to see that one go, Righteous Gemstones.

Gary [00:53:56]:
Cool. I just finished reading a new book called When the Moon Hits Your Eye by veteran sci fi author, John Scalzi. And basically, the whole premise for the book, he wrote it as almost seems like a challenge to himself, is what would happen if the moon would suddenly turn into cheese? And he writes it as a serious science fiction book. That's the premise. That's what happens at the beginning of the book, and then he carries it forward. It's it's an interesting book. It's a series of it's a series of kind of interconnected short stories. Mostly, it's really about people's reactions and what how it changes people's lives, more than the science fiction of the moon turning to cheese.

Gary [00:54:43]:
But that is the overbearing thing is the moon has turned to cheese. So it's really it's really interesting. And when I first read it, I read it for why I read it for plot. I wanted to know what happens. Right? What happens to have the moon has turned

Leo [00:54:56]:
How does that happen? Yeah.

Gary [00:54:57]:
Yeah. How and why and all this. But then then it's so then when it's done, now I find I'm reflecting back on some of the interesting things that people did and said in reaction to that. You know, how the government reacted, how people reacted, how scientists reacted, abnormal people, how, you know, of book writers. I mean, it's got a character that's a book writer and, you know, looking at her career based on now that this has happened. And so it's a fascinating, interesting, really different sci fi book by and, of course, he's a great writer. So it's just he's so easy to read. You just slip right into this world he's created.

Gary [00:55:35]:
And

Leo [00:55:36]:
that one is bizarre enough that I may just have to pick it up and find out what the heck is going.

Gary [00:55:40]:
Yep.

Leo [00:55:43]:
Blatantly self promoting ourselves. The one I'm gonna point folks out this week is the enduring myth of annual subscriptions to Windows. This is an issue that came up with Windows ten first was released because somebody in Microsoft marketing, described it as software as a service.

Gary [00:56:01]:
Mhmm.

Leo [00:56:01]:
And they were referring to things like continual updates, online connectivity, that kind of stuff. But a lot of people took that to mean that, not only is, you know, it going to be software as a service, but it means we're going to have to start paying for it on a regular basis, like an annual subscription or a monthly subscription or something like that. It's the myth that won't die because it now has come up again with the the impending demise of Windows 10 and and the, you know, the upcoming, requirement, if you will, of Windows 11. So, anyway, I wanted to talk about that some. It's askleo.com/18025three.

Gary [00:56:38]:
Cool. And I'll link to a video from, late last week. It turns out I don't know why I didn't realize this before because it's really obvious that one of the messiest places on people's computers is their contacts app. Right? I mean, who who maintains that thing, right, and gets rid of old contacts and it keeps things updated. Not nobody does. So I did a video on, you know, how to how to kind of clean that up because there's some tools for cleaning up especially people that end up with duplicates. It Apple really the Apple Contacts app is interesting because of the interest of being inclusive. You end up with duplicates because you sign into your Google account.

Gary [00:57:18]:
Hey. Your Google account has contacts. Their the contacts app will show them. It'll show your iCloud stuff. Oh, you signed in to Yahoo. Let's show your Yahoo once. So then you you find in your contacts app that you've got, like, three different contacts with the same person, and you're wondering why. And if you don't look carefully, you won't notice that, oh, this one's iCloud, this one's Google, and this one's Yahoo, and that's why I have

Leo [00:57:43]:
three. Heaven forbid one of them have a different phone number than the other.

Gary [00:57:47]:
Yeah. So you could merge them. You could link them, which is interesting. And, you know, just generally just, you know, a video about just kinda cleaning that stuff up. It went over so well. I'm considering doing videos on, like, cleaning up your calendar, you know, and other kinds of things like that.

Leo [00:58:03]:
Cool. Cool. Alrighty. Well, I think that pretty much wraps us up for yet another week. As always, thank you everyone for listening, and we will see you here again real soon. Take care. Bye bye.

Gary [00:58:16]:
Bye.