[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

All I can see is a giant hat occupying like 80% of the screen. That's enough.

Gotcha.

My introduction to him was through his books, which are friggin' awesome, so I was pre-configured to forgive the hat.

[The Final Dakar]

I just find it obnoxious. I have a feeling I'm not the only one if he's stopped wearing it.

[subego]

Oh, it's horrible. There's no question.

It's on the table though, he may have just been itchy.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Yeah this is boring.
Hey guess what, we don't care about the Olympics.
All this bitching is stupid anyway.
Hey NBC, I know you are providing the most coverage of the Olympics in history, broadcast online like never before and on like 8 different channels at once... but we want more. More better faster now. Wah.
This is not a tech story. Or if it is, it's a 2 minute tech story. Slow news week I guess.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nbc-sorry-we-didnt-alter-the-laws-of-space-and-tim,29011/

[subego]

Swish
Bott
Norton
Jury

Special guest Mat Honan (the guy who got his AppleID hacked and had everything remote wiped)

This could actually be decent.

[subego]

Twitter fight!

[The Final Dakar]

How dumb is Kara Swisher that she doesn't know how to control the brightness of her own home?

[subego]

I'm going to guess she has some sort of serious light-sensitivity issue, and a tolerable brightness level for her would be too dim for her wife and kids.

If that's true, she must be in serious pain during the D conferences.

[The Final Dakar]

I suppose I'd eat my words if she has Bono's condition.

[subego]

I looked and found nothing, so you'll have to go hungry tonight.

[The Final Dakar]

BTW, 2 1/2 hours? Didn't manage to finish it. The NSFW guy is good, though.

[subego]

Dvorak
Shwood
Pereira <-- fresh off the twitter fight with Leo.

Oops. Pereira is next week. Replace with Rose.

[The Final Dakar]

I have a theory to run by you, or gossipy one. What if Leo's cutbacks at TWiT are motivated by his impending divorce?

My inspiration for this theory is Roger Sterling at Mad Men.

[subego]

Not a bad theory. My guess is his wife is due half of TWiT.

Things however do not seem particularly acrimonious between them. He says they go out to dinner once a week or so.

I did find out his soon to be ex is a marriage and family counselor. That's gotta hurt.

[The Final Dakar]

I hope she saw it coming.

Actually given the timing, I wonder if they were holding out til the kids were almost out of the house.

[subego]

That's definitely the feeling I get.

[subego]

Lazar
Lewis
Pereira

[subego]

Curry
The Padre
Patel

[ort888]

Kevin Pereira was surprisingly not horrible.

His TV persona is so unbelievably grating, and attack of the show was so unbelievably horrible... that I really expected the worst.

He was still a little annoying, but seemed to at least be well informed and articulate.

I liked Adam Curry the last time and Nilay Patel is always good. He's surely on to talk about the big verdict.

Leo needs a new show called this week in patent litigation. Sadly, he could probably make a whole show about it.

[subego]

They actually do. It covers other law topics, but its partial tech-focus means the patent shit gets covered extensively. It's one of the few shows which I'm not enthusiastic about. Patent stuff pisses me off.

I like Patel and Curry, a lot, but the patent angle may sink it. I won't go back if I don't catch a rerun.

I did like Pereira too, and thought AOTS was a nightmare, so surprise there.

[Doc HM]

oops Curry

[subego]

Did he not show, or do something out-there?

[Doc HM]

took Leo's obit for Neil Armstrong as a chance to air his moon landing hoax views.

And Leo kind of Let him.

[subego]

SOLD!

[ort888]

Originally Posted by subego 

SOLD!

?

[subego]

Sold on going back and watching Adam Curry be wacky even though I missed the show.

[ort888]

Gotcha. I thought Leo sold TwiT or something.

[subego]

I found Curry's crazy to be a bit of a letdown, but Leo's been picking up steam on each of his pre-shows.

He's at the "yeah I'm pissing on him, because he's an idiot" stage.


This is why you watch live. Pretty sure he knows that, too.

[ort888]

I liked that episode. It was good to hear Niley Patel get to speak for a while about the trial without being interrupted constantly by Josh Topolski.

I also enjoyed his back and forth with Adam Curry about advertising. Curry is a bit of a nutter.

[subego]

Dvorak
Milian
Surprise special lack of guest

[The Final Dakar]

Ha, Jolie O'Dell-Dvorak pairing fall-through. How predictable.

[subego]

Dvorak was correct BTW, O'Dell had no idea she was supposed to be on the show.

Dvorak was supposed to carpool her there too, which he obviously didn't know either.

[ort888]

So why won't/can't Robert Cringley go on TwiT?

[subego]

No idea.

I assume Dvorak was trolling.

[ort888]

It seemed to me like it was something real. Leo was looking at a laptop with something the chat room figured out. Unless Leo was in on it or something.

Cringley is a weird dude, so who knows. I know he's a tech legend or whatever, but I think a lot of people don't like him for some reason. I'm not really sure though.

[subego]

Haven't been able to dig up anything obvious.

I do however hear that Dvorak is hosting this weekend.

[subego]

Block
Ratcliff
Elgan
Kaye

[subego]

Hosted by Dvorak
O'Dell
Enderle
Eisner

[ort888]

O'Dell and Dvorak discussing the iPhone launch. Hoo boy.

[subego]

It's what you'd expect, only more.

[OwlBoy]

Ugh.

[ort888]

That was beyond terrible.

Having an opinion is fine, but come on people, whether you like Apple or not, this is the biggest product launch of the year, and they could barely stand talking about it. And when they did talk about it, in between the bitching and moaning and whining, half of the stuff they said was simply wrong. They didn't even mention that the iPod Touch existed.

Leo Laporte should be fuming mad. A real black eye for the show.

Jolie O'Dell should never be on the show again. Why they keep giving that nitwit a soapbox is beyond me.

[ort888]

O'Dell quote of the show...

When talking about whether or not the old PC giants Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc... can keep innovating and stay relevant...

"I think they're keeping pace, keeping pace way better than APPLE"

(emphasis on apple, because she put the emphasis on the word. She says APPLE like a 17 year old cheerleader saying the name of the bitch who was talking to her boyfriend.

"He was over there, you know, talking to MEGAN."

[The Final Dakar]

Just starting this episode. For a guy with his own podcast Dvorak is a surprisingly shaky host.

[subego]

I'm guessing it's Curry who has the experience with running a show. I forget whether it was on the show itself or pre-show, but someone mentioned Worley (who also knows how to run a show) was supposed to do it but bailed.

The sad thing to me is I know Leo hired Merritt to do things like this, and there's no question he's good. Something obviously got ****ed up there.

[The Final Dakar]

Yeah when he mentioned Merritt I was like "Oh damn, why don't we have him?"

I get the feeling Sunday is about his only day off, though.

Edit: I have a feeling Dvorak put that panel together, and boy, what a shit show. (None of those guys were bad, but combined with Dvorak I think the average age was 79)

[ort888]

Hopefully next week they can have a big boy discussion about the new iPhone.

I mean, trust me I get it... from a journalistic perspective, the last few iPhones have been very dull. There isn't much to talk about... they are better, but better in a non-interesting way... for the most part. So what do you do if you are a guy who is supposed to have an opinion? Well, you whine and moan about it. Wah, the iPhone is boring. Wah, Apple is falling behind...

It's like people have lost all perspective. The smartphone category of products is still incredibly young. For the first few years, it was moving at lightning speed. Cool new things were appearing all the time. It was an interesting crazy ride... but it's all settling down now. New devices are going to be less exciting. Just like new laptops or new iMacs aren't that exciting anymore.

People still like iPhones and iMacs and laptops... there just isn't much to write or talk about. It doesn't mean that any of them are bad, or not innovative or that Apple is "dropping the ball" or falling behind.

And it's also annoying when people say crap like, oh wow, it's a little faster and has a bigger screen, wow, all the idiots will line up to buy it.

What is so new about the S3 or the new HTC phones? I mean really, this is how the entire industry works. You put out a new dingus that's a little better than the last dingus. People act as though that's not exactly how it's worked for last 30 years.

Just because apple has introduced 2 brand new tech categories in the last 6 years (touch screen smartphones and tablets*) doesn't mean they are going to be able to do it every few years. It's not going to work like that.






*Yes, I know touchscreen phones and tablets existed before. But apple popularized and redefined what the category really meant.

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Yeah when he mentioned Merritt I was like "Oh damn, why don't we have him?"
I get the feeling Sunday is about his only day off, though.
Edit: I have a feeling Dvorak put that panel together, and boy, what a shit show. (None of those guys were bad, but combined with Dvorak I think the average age was 79)

Merritt does have an insane work ethic type schedule, but the original hope was he'd direct more of that at TWiT. Leo knows he's getting on, and Tom was supposed to be the one to pick up the reins.

All indications are that ain't gonna happen.


If I heard right, there was supposed to be a panelist provided by Leo, but by looking at it, they bailed.

First time I've ever liked O'Dell's outfit.

[subego]

Snell
Rojas
Wood

[subego]

Dvorak
Heron
Ganned