Tech Tea

Tea: Liu An Gua Pian (“Melon Slice” or “Sunflower Seed”) green tea.  Damon talks about the developing drama around a purported iCloud ransom.  Michael touches on where you can and where you can’t make choices about your information online.  Also: Sichuan spicy dry green beans, a Sprint Saga update, bad predictions of male pregnancies, another … Continue reading "Tech Tea 021: Tea Drunk"

Tea: Golden Peacock (Jin Kong Que) black tea.  Damon talks about automating work.  Michael looks at different fountain pen technologies.  Also: second floor windows, daylight saving time, tea farm ownership structures, confusing Mandarin and Spanish, getting lost in interstellar space, being rude, phone keyboards, bullets vs. bullets, therapists, Michael’s ancestral home, wax cylinders and vinyl records, drawing … Continue reading "Tech Tea 020: Spider-Mike"

Tea: Meng Ding Mao Feng green tea.  Damon covers the “Cloudbleed” vulnerability that’s in the tech news recently.  Michael considers cybernetics and machine learning.  Also: hobbit feet, paper and pens in the news, being insecure, passing out, fifty (or more) shades of grey, The Goonies, turning green, being a beginner vs. being a wizard, and Candy Crush. This … Continue reading "Tech Tea 019: Fuzzy Bits from the Misty Mountains"

Tea: Golden Guan Yin wulong.  Damon talks about full drive encryption and encrypted chat apps.  Michael considers encryption and security from a behavioral perspective.  Also: water boiling technique, rhyming, sniffing microphones, automated reminder spam, Michael’s parents, 13 different operating systems, protecting your Justin Bieber collection, password managers, fast food, malicious encryption (ransom ware), going through your … Continue reading "Tech Tea 018: Green Granola"

Tea: Emperor’s Orchid (Wang  Zhe Zhi Xiang) green tea.  Damon talks about permission concerns in the hot new app, Meitu.  Michael considers the friction between different levels of technology.  Also: brown towels, InCoWriMo, Sprinting, the planet Baltimore, laptop touch screens, cutting arguments, never using Bluetooth, dongle reprogramming, putting stupid things on your face, Mahler and … Continue reading "Tech Tea 017: A Bag of Mice"

Tea: Qimen Caixia (“Sunrise Keemun”).  Damon talks about the shift to a new studio.  Both discuss public information as a security risk.  Michael looks at a new VR experience coming in early 2017.  Also: buzzing phones, dripping rain, spilling hot water, table bumps, echoes, rustling paper, last minute adjustments, winging it, physics, photography, sniffling, and more! … Continue reading "Tech Tea 016: The Miscellaneous Sounds Episode"

Tea: Palace (Gong Ting) Puer. Damon discusses some problems with ebooks and other cloud-storage solutions. Michael talks machine learning, language, and translation. Also: inappropriate names for digital assistants, cellphone problems and improvements, making fudge, Michael’s crowded desktop, job loss to automation, basic universal income, and of course a reference to Skynet. This episode was brought … Continue reading "Tech Tea 015: My Tasty Strips"

Tea: Yellow Sprig (Huang Zhi Xiang) Dan Cong.  Damon discusses the innovations of 2016.  Michael covers web projects that make people safer.   Also: Hacks and hacking, confused assistants, searching in Latin or when you don’t know how to spell, visualizing words, Michael dissecting Damon’s brain, Nerf, fear of VR pink-eye, language translation…and it’s our last … Continue reading "Tech Tea 014: It’s a Five not a 7"

Tea: Silver Dragon Jasmine Pearls.  Michael differentiates between “scented” and “flavored.”  Damon describes his week in Vegas learning about Amazon’s AI services. Also: helicopters coming to get us, watermelons, getting a lei in Hawai’i, cranky old men, the first movie Michael ever saw a second time, the Amazon Echo Dot, Damon’s preferences on comic book adaptations, getting Twitter love, genealogy … Continue reading "Tech Tea 013: These Tea Balls Smell Good"

Tea: Qi Dan (Da Hong Pao). Damon talks about his recent trip to Japan and Michael talks about taking the long view of technology and language. Also: tea and mental powers, sources of aftertastes, empathising with old plants, getting tongue-tied, sneaking into public spaces, derailed trains (of thought), the inconvenience of having your house burn down … Continue reading "Tech Tea 012: The Jet Lag Is Real"