Bad Voltage

By Bad VoltageComedy Society & Culture Technology

Bad Voltage episodes

March 03, 20223×42: That High Level of Unlikeliness
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia return, after a couple of months of trials and tribulations, to reveal our predictions for (the rest of) 2022! Prepare to find out What Comes Next in our roles as Cassandras:
[00:06:20] Jono:
VR bonanza: Apple will release their VR headset this year, and PSVR2 will be released, both purchasable by real people. Both will experience critical acclaim (although we won’t have good sales figures)

Tesla won’t release a phone, Neuralink will launch in beta this year

Truth Social will experience significant growth (but nowhere near as much as Twitter etc) but will be plagued with (1) stability issues, and (2) extremist content

Bonus 1: Canonical will not be acquired

Meta’s VR services will actually not be terrible

[00:28:35] Jeremy:
Apple will, for the first time in a long time, release a completely new product line. It will be AR/VR, and it will be panned by critics

At least one very large (think FAANG size but does not have to be a FAANG) will walk back their remote work policy

both the US and EU pass sweeping tech related laws that have broad impact on the industry (part of the “techlash”)

Bonus 1: Gamestop stock price still above $100

Inflation for the year below five percent

Truth Social will shut down

Mark Zuckerberg will not be CEO of Meta

[00:49:40] Stuart:
Apple will either allow sideloading or allow third-party browser engines on iOS

Matter (the common protocol for IoT stuff) will see first devices released, people will not care (they should, but they won’t, of course) and it won’t actually work

Meta’s share price a third at end of year what it is at start: under $100 at end of 2022.

Bonus 1: Some company will leak private customer data onto a blockchain so it’s there forever

Someone buys Twitter (likely to not happen because of the regulatory environment, as Jeremy points out!)

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×42-that-high-level-of-unlikeliness/12447
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 8 min
December 23, 20213×41: By A Hair Or Two
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia are in your ears for the last time in 2021, as we look back on what we thought this year would be back in January, and then how it’s actually been now that we’ve lived through it. Yes, it’s prediction review time! Did you do better than us?
We will do better next year. And we plan to do so, live and on camera! Keep an eye out for our first live stream of a show recording, January 13th 2022!
Have great holidays, and see you all in the new year!
[00:01:35] SIL: Remote work starts to hollow out cities

[00:05:44] SIL: Social media credibility checker

[00:09:37] SIL: Amazon buy Zoom

[00:10:58] SIL: Bonuses – Canonical, Vaccinations, Apple

[00:16:42] JG: Jeff Bezos richest man ever

[00:18:09] JG: Google makes largest acquisition in history of company

[00:19:20] JG: BTC below $5,000 or above $55,000

[00:22:05] JG: Facebook loses 15%-20% of active user count

[00:23:26] JG: Bonus – Amazon search engine, security breach larger than Solarwinds

[00:27:29] JB: Sony releases PSVR headset V2

[00:29:21] JB: vaccine passport required by airlines

[00:34:45] JB: Donald Trump’s Twitter account disabled but not banned

[00:35:52] JB: Zoom remote-working offering

[00:37:48] JB: Bonuses – Facebook spaces, Canonical not getting acquired

[00:41:12] Outro
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×41-by-a-hair-or-two/12445
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
44 min
November 25, 20213×40: The House on the Hill
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia hold these rights to be self-evident:
[00:02:17] Adele gets Spotify to remove shuffle button

[00:09:20] Apple announces self repair program

[00:26:25] Meta has a new VR glove

[00:35:11] Ubuntu Accomplishments rides again

[00:39:03] FTC says “click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal

[00:49:16] Cryptobros try to buy the US Constitution, fail, with ConstitutionDAO

[00:55:46] El Salvador government strikes deal with Bitfinex for “Bitcoin City”
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×40-the-house-on-the-hill/12441
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 8 min
November 11, 20213×39: Ready Player No
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia claim to do research, run conferences, encourage people to hire Marius, and:
Meta. Facebook rebranded to Meta and have gone all in on the “metaverse”, which they call “a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world”. VR and AR are coming with a Facebook brand on it, and we’re going to talk about it. What’s the metaverse all about? Can it work? Does anyone want it? And are Facebook (er, “Meta”) the people who should be providing it?
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×39-ready-player-no/12440
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 4 min
October 28, 20213×38: Nikola Where Are You Now
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which Stuart honestly thought for one second that the Americans have a very worryingly-titled show called “Poor Patrol” before realising that he misheard, and:
[00:02:33] The return of the legendary Bacommunity app! Made by friend of the show Roger Light, who has also been celebrating the 12th birthday of Mosquitto, the MQTT server he built!

[00:07:02] Roku and Google are fighting over content

[00:15:59] A man ate for an entire year at the Six Flags theme park

[00:20:52] F12 is a crime in Missouri, it seems: don’t look in the HTML or they’ll try to send you to prison, you filthy h4XX0r

[00:25:09] Hertz orders 100,000 Teslas in $4.2 billion deal

[00:40:50] Truth dot social dot hahaha dot ohno

[00:45:35] Happy 20th Birthday Windows XP!

[00:51:27] The Steam Deck, with gaming correspondent Jorge
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×38-nikola-where-are-you-now/12439
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 10 min
October 14, 20213×37: I Will See Them In The Fire
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which whistles are blown, audio is twitched, and:
[00:02:18] A whole show on one topic: Facebook and content moderation. Since
Frances Haugen
left Facebook for the life of a whistleblower, filing complaints with federal law enforcement that Facebook knows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest and conceals that knowledge,
this discussion has been in the news a lot. We want to look at it from two different angles: policy and
process. Obviously Facebook could choose to do better; if they do not choose to do better, what if anything can be done to make them do better? Regulation may be required, but what should that regulation
say? And if we take the more charitable view that Facebook actually do want to fix the problems that hate speech causes on their platform and by extension for the world: is it even possible to do so? Facebook are in the business of spreading people’s thoughts, especially those which produce strong reactions. Is it possible for them to fix or even further alleviate this problem while continuing to be Facebook?
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×37-i-will-see-them-in-the-fire/12438
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
46 min
September 30, 20213×36: Nor Any Drop
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we discuss the mysterious arrival of boxes, how to play CDs, and:
[00:02:18] We review the 8Sleep Pod Pro Cover, an internet-connected mattress, which Jono claims is actually useful. There is, not surprisingly, some scepticism about this claim, but equally: sleep is important and basically nobody gets enough of it. So let’s have a look!

[00:21:35] There has recently been a bunch of governmental, court, and regulatory pushback on Apple around the world about their policies on their app store and their gatekeeping process for their platform: in the US and Japan, South Korea, and Russia among others. Relatedly, the UK are also doing a regulatory study into this sort of thing and Stuart was invited to speak to them as an expert and showed them some slides about browser choice on iOS. We’re going to talk about this a little.
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×36-nor-any-drop/12437
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 4 min
September 02, 20213×35: Generated For The Purpose Of Journalism
Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which
[00:02:50] Online trolls are assholes offline too, at least according to a new survey

[00:17:20] Facebook Workrooms seem to be the long-promised “Facebook Spaces”, much to Jono’s intemperate joy

[00:29:50] Excellently detailed albeit mildly depressing summary of Google’s myriad messaging apps which is worth reading

[00:40:50] The UK government’s planned “Online Harms Bill” tries, among other things, to define what a journalist is so they can be exempt from some regulations, which is possibly a very concerning development

[00:55:00] Twitter are allegedly going to start requiring viewers to be signed in to view tweets (pro tip: embrace nitter.net if this is a problem!)
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×35-generated-for-the-purpose-of-journalism/12435
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 2 min
August 19, 2021 3×34: The Days To Come Will Be Filled
Stuart Langridge and Jono Bacon present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is away, there used to be a star and now there isn’t, and we devote the whole show to a discussion of Apple’s recent announcement that your iPhone will now scan some of your photos and report them if they’re child porn. This has created quite a lot of discussion (ZDNet, EFF, Forbes). In particular, the concern from most is that this is the top of a slippery slope. We’ll dig into this a bit; when the former CSO of Facebook is writing New York Times editorials there’s a discussion to be had, at least, and when seventh-graders now think that Apple is looking at their photos, the message has got a bit out of control, especially as it may relate to Apple’s relationship with governments, especially the Chinese government. Let’s see what all this is about, and whether we’re merely one more screeching minority for asking questions.
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×34-the-days-to-come-will-be-filled/12432
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
1 hr 8 min
August 05, 20213×33: Eternal Bronze Medallists
Stuart Langridge and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Jono is away, you too are not an astronaut, and:
[00:02:00] Shares slide after China brands online games “electronic drugs”

[00:03:50] The US FAA changes the definition of “astronaut” after Bezos and Branson go into space, LOL

[00:06:25] Machine learning sucks at covid

[00:12:15] Sinclair are 60, and some thoughts on retro computing popularity prompted by @popey

[00:15:45] The Pixel 6 has been announced; what’s the score? They’re being a bit close-mouthed about it, but it’s apparently a real flagship this time, whatever that means

[00:23:00] Firefox lost 50M users since 2019, down from around 250 million

[00:26:25] Bronze Medalists Are Happier Than Silver Winners, although this is decided by facial recognition

[00:30:00] Facebook creates new unit to build a “metaverse”

[00:34:50] Scarlett Johansson sues Disney over streaming of Black Widow

[00:42:45] Netflix Plans to Offer Video Games in Push Beyond Films, TV

And we said we’d look into Amazon revenue per business unit, and an infographic from “visual capitalist” suggests that it’s 50% from their selling on Amazon.com (and .co.uk, etc) plus another 20% from third-party sales through amazon.com (etc). AWS is about half of the remainder (12.4% overall), and the remainder is divided roughly evenly between subscriptions (Prime), real-world stores (Whole Foods), and other, all at about 5% overall each.
Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!
https://community.badvoltage.org/t/3×33-eternal-bronze-medallists/12430
News music: Long Live Blind Joe by Robbero, used with attribution.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for being our audio producers!
55 min

About Bad Voltage

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Every two weeks Bad Voltage delivers an amusing take on technology, Open Source, politics, music, and anything else we think is interesting, as well as interviews and reviews. The show is presented by…

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