Ep. 1295: Where we telegraph it in

-All right. It's Monday, July 1st, 2013. Thank you very much for tuning into The 404 Show. My name is Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Richard Peterson. -Certainly is Mr. Richard Peterson. Gems is here filling in for Ariel Nuñez who's away Safari. Right? -Yeah. -Some kind of Safari if you wanna call it that. -Some sort of Safari. -What's up, man? How's your weekend? -It was good. -I saw a really cool photo of you, Richard. Yeah. -What? What? -You posted an awesome photo on Facebook, of you at Pride. -Yes. -It's a huge Pride Parade. -It was. It was awesome. -Possibly the greatest Pride Parade ever in the history of Pride. -Probably. -Why is that? For me it's all because it was, yeah, that makes sense. -Yeah, everyone was so excited because of all the, you know, [unk] last week. -Yeah. -Yeah. -So, I've seen Pride happen at San Francisco before and that's a huge party. -Uh-hmm. -Never seen it in New York. Can you tell us a little bit about the route? What you saw? All that kind of stuff. Can I put this photo of you? -Yeah. -Would you mind if we switch to it? -All right. Let me bring this up. So, it goes down 5th Avenue, starts at 36th Street, goes down to 18th Street and turns on Christopher Street. -Yeah. So-- -Oh, okay. That's what that was. I didn't-- I guess, yeah, okay. What happened? We lost the-- -Oh, there. -Oh, there we go. -So, I watched with a group called Mormons Well Affirmation and Mormons for Marriage Equality. -Uh-hmm. -So, those that don't know how to treat Mormon, animals [unk]. So, this is the group I walked with. -You're gay? -Wait, what? -Wait a second, you're a Mormon? -Yes. -Wait a second. What year is it? -That's awesome. -Yeah. -So, now. This is-- -So, we have this big group like-- -Yeah. -I don't know, 25 people or so. -And it was awesome. -Which is a lot because it's a very-- you'd imagine that's a very small sort of niche right there. Right? -Yes. -Can you talk a little bit about the politics of that? -Yeah. Well, so, it's not just gay Mormons. We also have like straight Mormons that are supporting us. -Right, right. -And so we're more even like active devout members-- -Really? -is supporting. -Well, that's really awesome. -Yeah. It was awesome. -So-- but in general, that's the more mature just not cool with it, right? -Yeah. Like the-- yeah, not really. -Okay. -Like they're kind of slowly changing. -Right. -Like not too long ago they came out with a website called mormonsandgays.org. -Right. -Just like trying to tell the members of the church that you should not-- yeah, if your kids are gay, don't kick them out of the family. -Don't show on them- -Yeah, you should love them and support them and stuff and-- -Of course. -Yeah. -It's amazing not to be told that you like-- -I know. Yeah. Because a lot-- -Don't burn, don't-- whatever you do, don't burn them. -Yeah. Let's stop burning it. -Yeah, 'cause there's been a lot like bad stuff where parents will just like, okay, you're not part of our family-- -Oh, my God. -Yeah, crazy. -What a crazy world. -But yeah, it's slowly changing. -Very cool. -All right. Well, I'm very happy for you. It sounds like you had a great time. -Yeah. It was a lot of fun. -Rock and roll, man. -We were-- so, we were right behind this group. There's this bar called Eagle, which is like a leather bar. -What? -And so-- -Wait, wait, wait. Back up. A leather bar? What does that mean? -It's like-- -I just laugh. I'm laughing at you being [unk] and thinking about how you can best explain this. -I think I know what it means too. -And then probably broadcast. So, I-- so, the people in front of us-- -Yeah. -are like dressed and assless chaps and jack-- -Got you. I'm just imagining like forgive me for this-- -There's so many words that I've never had said on this show before. -Right, right. -But it's first time being uttered today. I love it. -But for the sake of you painting this picture, is this-- -Yeah. Assless chaps weren't good enough. It wasn't vivid enough picture for you. -Allow me to continue. You're at South Park, right? -Yeah. -Am I thinking like Mr. Slave? Like, is Mr. Slave the right image? Can you bring Mr. Slave? -I'm not sure. -Bring up Mr. Slave. -Marvin just typed in assless chaps in Google Images to get straight to the point. -Because this is cartoony and it's more-- -We have to do reference of reference. -But the cartoon is more easily digestible. -Yeah. -What is it? Mr. Ass? -Mr. Slave-- -Mr. Ass. -From South Park. You never heard of Mr. Slave? -I don't think so. I don't watch it that much. -Clearly this is why we don't watch it. -You've never-- I can't believe you've never watched South Park Mr.-- -Yes, a leather [unk]. -Okay. Can you put Mr. Slave on the screen? -Yes. -Okay. That's exactly-- -[unk] child. -That's exactly. -Yes, this-- -Thank you. -That's exactly what it is. -This cartoon is what we're talking about right now. -But for the purposes of visual demonstration, why is that so evil? -He's just a child. -It's not a childish. -Very [unk]. -Would you rather look for a guy? -Reference and understand. Freaking cartoon. Okay. Yeah. -And so, it was destruct. -Yeah. -Like a, you know, with a big-- a truck with a big bed and all of them-- all these guys dress like that or similar or-- -Yeah. -But they're in a truck. -But-- yeah. -Okay. -Yeah. -Okay. But then there were guys like walking around too and dancing. -Sure. -Because they had music playing. -Right. -Where I just though it was hilarious and kind of ironic that the Mormon group was right behind this group. -Right. It's funny. -Right, a few though, right? -Yeah, yeah. -Very few. -Yeah. -Very few from [unk]. -I was kinda worried about like our great allies, they were like they had just come from church to walk in a parade with that and they're like, behind us. -Oh, yeah. -There were guys like in jockstraps with their butts jiggling. -Yeah. -Jiggly butt. -Not everyone is used to-- -Yeah. -Jiggly butt. Oh, yes. -That's a new Pokemon character. -New Pokemon character. -What I'm confused about though is-- so, if these-- so, some of these Mormon, what is the coalition again? What is it called? The Mormons for Change? hat is it? -Mormons for Marriage Equality. -Mormons for Marriage Equality. So, the straight members of the church who were in that group, are they like self conflicted? Do they, you know, do they sort of like struggle with the whole thing? It's a reasonable [unk]. -Yeah. -I think some of them-- I don't like-- I don't know. I think some of them still are very like believing the church. -Some of them are kind of not so much-- -Right. -They're more progressive or some of them are not as believing-- yeah. -And are there local churches that you go to that are more welcoming to gay members? Or you just all go to your own churches? -Well, there's not like a specific. Yeah, we just kind all go to our own churches. There's none like a specific gay obligation of the church. -Gay friendly church. -Yeah. Like here New York, the congregations are definitely more supported than they are in a lot that you talk. -I wanna read the book, man. -Yeah. -We got enough stuff here for that? -The book? -I think so. -Write a book. -Yeah. -I was thinking about doing like a documentary [unk]. -Yeah, think about it. -You should. -I think that's a good idea. -Right. -Yes. -Yeah. -Have you been filming these events? I mean, I remember we talked to you about Pride last year as well. -Yeah. I've got some video of it. Yeah. -Awesome. -Well, yeah. I can't wait to see that. -Rock and roll. All right. That's what Richard did this weekend. -Yeah. -What did you do this weekend? -Ooh. I've been waiting for you to ask me that question because I have a surprise for you. -Oh. -Close your eyes and hold out your hands. -Better not pour soup in my hands. I'm gonna be really upset. I'm gonna be really upset if you just pour a hot soup in my hands right now. I'm not gonna-- -Just hold on your hands. -Damn it. All right. Eyes close. -Close your eyes. Make sure those eyes are close. -It better not be like liquid. -I'm just gonna stab your hand. -All right. All right. -Okay. -Hold on. Oh-- -Are those eyes close, Richard? -Yeah, they're closed. -They're closed. I don't like this. Don't put a spider in my hand. Don't put a spider in my hand. I'll be really upset if you put a mouse in my hand. -That. -Oh, are you excited? -What was it? -Yay! -Oh, Hi-Chew. -Hi-Chew. -Yeah. -This is the greatest surprise ever. Oh, my God. The Hi-Chew fairy came into the office today. -Yeah. -And sprinkled me with delights. -Those things are so good. -Oh, my God. -Yeah, so we were talking about Hi-Chew last week. -Oh, you're the best kind of friend. -Because Jeff like just realized that these things were great and so I went up to flashing queens. -Wait, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. -There's a bunch-- don't put in your-- -You put them in there. -Speaking of soup. -Yeah. -There's all these Asian grocery stores out there. -Right. -And they sell all different flavors of Hi-Chews. These are individually wrapped candies just for you buddy, because I know that you got that sweet teeth. -This is amazing. -Yeah. -I have Hi-Chews for the rest of the day now. -Share them with the rest with a pack. -Yeah. -Only today. Did you hear what I say? Because they'll all be gone. -It will go fast. -They'll all be gone by 4:00. -I've never seen them originally or individually wrapped like that. -Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. -When I was at E3, the-- what the hell was it? The NVIDIA booth, you know NVIDIA, right? You've heard of those guys. -Uh-hmm. -They had a huge gigantic bucket just of the green apple ones, my favorite kind. -Oh, beautiful. -I didn't go too far after that. -Well. -I'm pretty excited. I would eat one now but that'd be rude. -And it lasted long time. If you could just pop it in your mouth and swallow it-- -You'll die. -You could, it'd be fine but that thing takes a long time to chew. -But then a Hi-Chew tree will grow in your belly. -Right. -You couldn't-- the best way to appreciate those, eat it very slowly. -Yeah, oh absolutely. -Yes, that is true. -I don't think they ever have the strawberry ones. So, I'm excited today. -Wow. So, that's what you did this weekend. You bought Hi-Chews. -I bought Hi-Chews and went to IKEA as well. -Yeah. So, you know, we both went to IKEA ironically-- -Yeah, that's weird. Why did we both go to IKEA? Was that a planned event? -It's just weird, you know, strange people I think. -Yeah. But you went to IKEA because you wanted to buy something. -I bought some things and I'll keep those things to myself. Thank you very much. No, I bought a clock for the studio that will get-- -Also blows my mind that-- we were talking about this in the pre-show but Jeff, you'd never eaten any food at an IKEA or a Costco before which is unfortunate. -That is correct. -And those are two of the best-tasting Zagat-rated establishments. -Well, it's mostly because I'm not a homeless person. -Yet you still shop at those places but you won't eat there. That is-- -They have fine solutions for modern living. -Yes, sort of. -But they're-- well, they're cheap. -Temporary solutions. -Right. They're great temporary solutions for modern living but their food just isn't very appetizing. -You've never even seen it before. -I've seen the food which I've refused to partake. -Rich, can you vouch for the [unk] people [unk]? -Yes. Yeah, they are good and they're not like, I don't do the hotdogs and the pizza and that that the squish me [unk] of IKEA are good. -Yes. -Are they flying man from Sweden like the rest of the furniture? -Yeah. -Is that how did work. -Yeah, they're individually packaged. -Do you have to build the food yourself somehow? It comes with a little [unk], Jeff. It really is amazing. -They have like a really nice little cafeteria and-- -Yeah. -restaurants, eating and stuff. It's nice. -Yeah, it's great. I like it there. -Yeah, it's cool, man. Love IKEA. -So, that's what I did. I go to IKEA just to eat sometimes. -Yeah. It's delicious. -All right. -What did you do? Oh, we're not gonna talk about [unk]. -You know, I went to-- I did IKEA, I did some other stuff at a wedding, you know, crap like that. -Okay. -All right. Let's boogie. Let's get into one of the stories for today. -Okay. -Before I eat all these Hi-Chews. -You can eat those while I talk about this. Last week, [unk]. You should probably take it out of the packaging before [unk] in your mouth. -All right, right, right. Damn it. -Little pro tip there. Last week we talked about a new swarm of ants that are invading our electronics. -All right. -So-called Crazy Ants. That's the official scientific term for these ants. -Yeah. -And they are called that because they are specially small, they like to hoard into warm spaces and then it gets shorted out die and then send out this pheromone that attracts more ants. That's why they're called Crazy Ants. But apparently, Crazy Ants aren't the only thing that are damaging our electronics in the home. Our pet. That's right. Our pets, our cats and our dogs. -Specifically goldfish. -Yeah. Are also invading our electronics and breaking them. -How do you figure? -Well, there's a study. According to SquareTrade, that's a company that ensures your products and extends your warranty on things like iPhones and whatever else you gotta plug in, right? They release this study that says that pets are responsible for damaging 8 million electronic devices every year but there's more statistics. -But wait, there's more. -The company found that there are three times more likely to have a pet related accident if your pet sleeps with you. Now, Jeff, I know that Marty is a third party in your bed every night. -It's getting a little too comfortable for my case. -Yeah. -I'm not gonna lie. Last night-- -Is he nudging you off your own pillow? -Well, yeah, that's number one. Number two, he's starting to get a little aggressive. Like he's starting to think that he can get in between me and Stace. And he's like putting his head in between our pillows. -Oh, that's cute. So, he's like-- -It's cute. -I thought he started at the foot of the bed. -Yeah, he did. -And now he's like slowly inching forward. -Slowly inching up. And now he's like on the pillow. -Yeah. -But not to go to bed. You just wake up at 5 in the morning and you just like get some furry next to you and you're like, oh my God, this dog thinks he's a human being. -This is why I wouldn't appreciate having a dog in my bed, right? -It's not that but he's really small. -Because you take a dog outside, right? -Yeah. -At least in New York City. -We clean them off every time. -Oh, so you're like, you clean his feet. -I go to town on his paws and really wipe and clean. Yeah. -That's good. Okay. So, I don't think a lot of dog owners are as attentive as you. -No. -But I see these dogs went through-- -That freaks me out, yeah. -Yeah, parks and stepping on syringes in New York City and things like that. -Yeah, walking through their own urine. -Then they're just [unk] to their beds. -Right. -Yeah, exactly. -Right. -And then dogs also don't wipe their own butt too which creates a sanitary-- -Yeah. -issue when they then get into your bed and rub it on your pillow. -Right. -Right, that's kinda gross. -We take the necessary precautions for all of these scenarios that you've laid out in front of us. -You do that too? -Just go with the story. -Okay. So, dogs are also more likely to damage our products, two times more likely if you let them drive while sitting-- -Your car. -Yeah. Drive in your car. -I don't understand. -No, no. If you drive with your pet in your lap, you're 2-1/2 times more likely to damage your device. -Of course. -And also die a fatal death. -Yeah and get in a car accident. You're not supposed to do that. You shouldn't be driving a car with-- -Who does that? -My-- I know my parents used to do it with our dogs and that's no longer with us. -That's not cool. -But she would just sit-- I mean, she was super small and she wasn't, you know, very active in the car. -Regardless. -I'm with you and I was guilty of doing it as well back in the day but you shouldn't drive with a dog in your lap. -Yeah. -It's just a simple commonsense sort of thing. -That's not cool. -Yeah. -So, back to this topic. One in six cat or dog owners, right? -Yeah. -Have also reported that a pet has vomited or what? -That's gross. Go on. -Vomited or shut directly on one of their devices. -That's really-- I'm not even mad. -I think that's cool. -That's kinda cool. -Right on it. -Isn't that-- -Like right on their keyboard. -Just right on the screen. -Just lay a little soft serve on your iPhone. -Now, that's happening. Yeah. -That's amazing. -Yaeh. Just like a little-- one in six cat or dog owners, does that happen to you? -Never. -I mean, my cat pukes a lot because she's fat, she's really fat. -Marty will puke maybe once a month but just because he eats too fast. -Yeah. See, that's the thing. Here's another statistic too, is that, 72%-- you're 72% more likely to have your device damaged if your pet is overweight. -Oh, okay. This is really specific metrics we're getting into here. -Yeah. I'm assuming that's if they sit and then shatter the screen of your device or-- -Right. -do something like vomit on your stuff. -Wow. I didn't realize that. I would imagine the size of the animal has a lot to do with it as well. -Right. -You know, because Marty, he's kinda clumsy and he bumps into stuff. -Right. -But he's only 25 pounds, so he doesn't really like do any damage. -Right. But if you have like a margie or something-- -If you have like a Great Dane who's clumsy and it just-- -Right. -Great Dane Steps on an iPad, it's done. -Right. -You know. Doesn't talk of-- -I think you-- -Sorry, doesn't talk about like hair getting sucked into the computer's fan and that. -Yeah. Now, he's right. -That's true. -I think that's good-- -I don't know. I didn't say anything about that but I'm sure that could happen. -Yeah, especially animals that shed a lot. -Right. -Yeah, like airborne hair and things like that. -Yeah. -Male pets, 50% more likely to damage device than females. Weird, right? -How much more? -Fifty. -Huh. -Fifty percent. -Wow. -Yeah. But it also probably doesn't help that there are so many apps that are designed for your pets too, right? -This is all news to me. I had no idea there's even a marketplace for pet apps. -Oh, you didn't know that? -How could it be a pet app? -Oh, you haven't heard of Snapcat? -Oh, is that like Snapchot for the cat photos? -Yeah, for the cats. Yeah. So, I downloaded this one to my phone the other day. -Yeah, man. I didn't hear it. -They have it for the Google thing too if you have major device. -The Google thing. -Snapcat. Yeah, it's great. So, it's basically this app here. I pulled it up on the screen here. It's an app that puts an icon on your screen that moves around, right? And then cats love looming things. -Right and their claws scratch up your screen and your-- -Right, exactly. So, when they put their paw on to your screen, it automatically takes a photo of the cat, a selfie. Isn't that genius? -That is genius. That's so clever. -So, look. Here we are. We're looking at a screen shot of the app right now. -That's kinda funny. -Look, it basically forces them to look into the camera lens. -Right. I get it. -So, that's really cool. -Stupid. -Shut up. Snapcat. And unlike Snapchat, it retains those photos for you to share with your friends. -Oh. -Can your dog take a picture of himself? -Yeah because it work with paws. Again, make sure you don't have a big dog. It's just like smashes your screen. -That's funny. -But that's really cool. Yeah, go download Snapcat if you have a kitty. -Okay. -It's a great way to get and take photos of themselves. -Very nice. What else you got for us, buddy? -Oh, man. I've done the greatest cat photos yet, here we go. -I'm so sick of cat. I'm done with cats, man. I'm done-- There's no way he took that. -Yeah. -That's not selfie. -Yeah, that's not. -That's amazing. He was-- he's not even touching the screen. -He tapped it with his tail. -Shh. -That's adorable, right? Come on. -Can we talk about the game-- the female gamer tag story? That sounds like a great story. I wanna get that. -Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about this and I wanted you to preface this with maybe a story or two about Stacy's involvement in gaming because I know that she's a big gamer herself, Stacy being your wife. -When you say big-- -You need to remind her-- -When you say big gamer-- -Well, she-- you said she plays games and you guys will play co-op games sometimes. -Sorta, kinda. It's not such much recently. She was-- she really likes, you now, the BioShock stuff, she watched all of that-- -Uh-hmm. -She watched some of the last device. She's mixed feelings about the last device. -You said that she was a game observer. -Yeah, she likes to watch. She likes to watch. See, I was listening how long we can stay quiet. -Yeah, yeah. -Just staring at each other. -Rich actually muted the mics when-- -Just let everyone-- -Soak that in. -Soak that in. -Just let it marinate for a little bit. -Yeah, let it simmer. -Yup. Put them on the table. -You like it, set them on back. We're talking about girl gamers here. But even the casual gamer understands that. When you enter an online gaming environment, a lot of blows are gonna be thrown and a lot of those blows are low ones. Right? Especially if you're a female gamer. And so, one guy, "That's not right." Even though he understands this, he really wanted to get a first-person understanding of it. You wanted to find out exactly what happens. When females log on to things like Xbox Live in the PSN. -It's-- you ask-- it's just unfortunately. -Yeah. -You're just asking for trouble. -You are. -Oh, not necessarily trouble bit harassment. -Right. So, this is a story of one man's venture into the gulch of online multiplayer games. -Oh, this is good. -As a female. -Let's hear this. -So, this is what he did, right? He went into the trenches undercover, sort of find out what it's really like. And the story starts with the description of a man who's basically in love with Mass Effect 3, right? -Yeah. -And he's really good. He spent a lot of time playing games. He's [unk] a bunch of hours and he's so good that he pretty much guarantees first or second ranking everytime he plays a game. -Wow. -Right? He also got to play with his friend and a lot of his friends are also on the network as well. He's on a team. And one day, he decided to unlock a few perks and packs for his wife because she's also into the game as well. She's part of the time. -Got you. -She's not quite as good as he is because she doesn't log as many hours and so he decided to do her a favor and maybe just unlock one or two perks on her behalf. Right? So, in order to do this, he had to log into her Gamer tag, which is a female. Her avatar is a female. -Okay. -And her gamer tag also indicates that she's a female as well. -Okay. -All right. So, that's pretty transparent. -Sure. -He decided to log in and play as her character to rack up enough packs to sort of, let her have a little more fun in the game. -Got you. -Right? So, what do you think happen? -I know. I know what happens. -All right. Just guess the cusswords here. We could play like a Mad Libs of cusswords but as soon as he logged into the lobby, that's where the four players sort of convene before going into the-- -Right, right. -The first thing you heard was, "Oh, great. A girl player? [unk]. Are you serious? Let's kick her out and hope we can get someone else." Right? And then another player says, "We can't even do a golf match with a girl player. There are even girls that play this game? Shouldn't they be playing My Little Pony or something?" -Oh, my God. -I mean, a side note here. The fact that he made such an obscure early 90s cartoon reference, kind of indicates that he is way too old to be making these kinds of sex. It's not-- -It's not even [unk]. -Right. It's not even 11-year-old making My Little Pony references, right? Like this guy remembers something that happened 25 years ago. [unk] to-- -It's like, oh, Little Pony is actually having a comeback. -Yeah. -It's real. -It's popular recently, yeah. -Wait, really? -Yeah. Do you remember the Comic-Con exclusive, the DJ Pony? -Nope. Didn't pay attention to that booth. -It was your story and-- anyway. -So, anyway, the point is that you should know better regardless of how old My Little Pony is. -All right? -It's just-- I'm a grownup man making this comment. -What-- look, no one is approving of this, like it's just so sad. -Yeah. -But it will-- how do you fix this? -I don't know. I have no idea. -We don't have that answer. We can just draw attention to where it happens. -I mean these guys were saying really terrible things. -Yeah. -Yeah, they are saying like-- it's funny because-- -You don't have to repeat everything. -No, no, but-- and I think it's funny that, like you know, in the beginning they were saying, "Oh, man. Why is a girl even playing this game?" -Right. -[unk] to hold her on in a golf match. -They don't even like give her a chance. -But then this guy, you know, he's really good. He doesn't tell them that he's actually a guy and he's good at it playing. So, he like basically proceeds to dominate everyone of the game and then they switched their manager. They switched from the goddess girl can't play to let's dominate, let's kick this girl's ass. There's no way we're gonna let ourselves be busted by a girl. -So, not only-- yeah, well. -So, then they switched their tone and it's just like a girl can't win, you know, if they suck then they're gonna get made fun of. They're good, then they're gonna get challenged. There's no way. It's sad. I don't know. -This is a depressing story. -How can a girl fix this as a girl gamer? -I don't know. And I think it's just education. It really is. -Yeah. -And that's you know, it's a very-- it's a ecosystem-- mostly filled with men. -Yeah. -So, from a get-go there's this imbalance. -Uh-hmm. -And unfortunately that, you know, that sort of renders out as being an environment that's just kinda anti-female. -Yeah. I also think that it's up to the other players that hear this going on to say something. -For sure. Yeah. -[unk] okay. -I mean, I think it's-- you know, I hear it all the time. Well, I used to hear it all the time when I would play Call of Duty, semi religiously. -Uh-hmm. -And you know, I don't really talk on it. Only and if I do, it's with my buddies. -Uh-hmm. -So, we don't hear the rest of the crap that's going on the room. It's sad. You know I don't know. The only advice I can give to female gamers to avoid having to deal with this sort of nonsense, is they just play with your friends and don't you know, don't-- I would really recommend this to anyone, not just females. -Yeah. -Just don't be a part of public chat. -Yeah. It's just-- -I know I'm hooked and like you know, it's not because-- it's just because the masses are evil and they're all just-- the majority of those people are just not fun to hear. -Yeah. I also think that a less desirable solution would be for girls not to blatantly advertise the fact that they're females. -No. I don't agree with that. -Oh, like I know that's such an unfortunate thing that if you really, really wanted to [unk]. -Yeah, but I don't want anyone to have to-- -And you could because I know that some people prefer to play as the opposite gender like Mark for example, he always plays with the female video game characters. He's not female. So, I don't know. I mean, that's-- I think that's not solving the problem at all. -I don't-- yeah, I don't think anyone should have to change who they wanna be online-- -Right, right. -to avoid stuff like this. I just think, you know, you protect yourself. It's just like the real world, you know. -Uh-hmm. -You protect yourself in the real world, you protect yourself in the virtual world. -You know what this reminds me of is a female's experience on online dating networks. Like one time I went over to my friend's house and she's on OkCupid. And just to prove a point, she logged onto her profile in front of me and immediately 18 notification windows popped up and it was all chats that are like [unk], you know, because they have like an instant message program on OkCupid's website. -Sure, sure. -And so many just popped up within minutes of her logging on and they were the rudest, rudest comments I had ever read. -Right. -You know this-- it was ranging from like commenting on her body parts because you have to show pictures obviously in an online dating profile and then just the things like let's meet up, like wanna hook up, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Stuff like that. And-- -Does she have like sexy pictures or just like normal face pictures? -No. She's just like a normal face, a normal OkCupid profile picture. You know, like a-- just what you look like or having fun with friends out doing things. And she was a, you know, she was basically verbally abused right a the get-go. -But you know, like if she wants to-- she explained it to me like if I wanna find someone no this website, I have to ignore all the other douche bags and shouldn't-- -Yeah. -It's just like in real life what she was saying. It's just tough. -It sucks. -Quite funny. -It sucks. -It sucks. -Yeah. -No. I mean-- and I guess the only thing that will really change our time is as you know, people just become more accepting. I mean, it's in every positive life. It just takes a really long time for things to evolve unfortunately. -Yeah. Yeah, yeah. -And this is just another one of those things. -And the female gaming communities growing everyday, right? -Of course and people who listen to this show are become educated by stuff like this and hopefully that spreads. -Yeah. -Like a good sort of spreading, good sort of virus, right? -Yeah. -And that goes, you know, makes its way and people become more understanding and more accepting and that sort of thing and we can only hope for the best. -Yeah. -I don't know. If there's-- if someone's got a better solution to all this, by all means let us know. -Yeah. -Because unfortunately we don't have a direct answer. -Yeah, yeah. I feel like we shouldn't transition to the point story yet because-- -No. No, no, no, no, no. -Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about-- -Yeah. No. I don't wanna do that. -Yeah. -What is a sad day for the internet though? -What's that? -Well, I do wanna talk about that. There's some bad news, two pieces of bad news in particular that I wanna report. And I know that we're already sort of on a downer mood but this is gonna make things way worse. -Okay. Cool. -So, Yahoo today announced that it will no longer support websites posted on it's AltaVista network. -What? -Yeah. I know. -Why is that? -Because it's just a long running service. -When it says support, it doesn't mean host. Does it mean host? -Yes. Yeah, you will no longer be able to host a website. -Or you can't visit these sites-- -On AltaVista servers. -Jesus. -No longer. -Why is that? What's happening? -Just because AltaVista is a dying network. It's been around for like 15 years. So, you can't do that anymore because all the rest of the hosting services are down too, right? I don't think you can Geocities' website anymore. -I don't know. -And you know what else is dying today too? -What's that? -Today is the final Google Reader death day. -That's right. Yeah. It thought that was yesterday. Is it today? -It's-- I mean, the CNET's saying today but that could be wrong. Right. It's entirely possible-- -I can say CNET is not a trusted source. -It is entirely possible we are dead wrong on that story. -Well, okay. I'm gonna side with CNET on this. -Yeah, me too. -I guess they're right. -I'm gonna say yes. -So, that's 3. So, it's AltaVista shutting down, can't go to Google Reader anymore and you can no longer send a telegram in India. -Wait. What? A telegram in India. -No. No. -I didn't know you could up until now send a telegram in India. -Yeah. So, today, the-- -Telegram. I feel like that's-- I heard [unk] just-- -[unk] impression? -No. Like telegram, that's-- -All right. Yeah. -Yeah, I wasn't trying to-- oh, come on. I wasn't trying to do that. -The Indian government just announced that its Bangalore Telegraph Office will shut its doors today. It's the end of an era, that's right. Soon you'll no longer be able to send out that telegram to Mama. -Mama. -Who sends telegrams anymore? -But like that's always the-- like whenever I think of a guy like I think of like a little guy with little hat and he's like, telegram for Mr. Yu. -Yeah. And he just disappears in [unk]. -And he like-- -Right. -And he like, "Sign here, sign here and sign here." -Yeah, yeah. -And he just said like something and stop. Right? -Right. Yeah. So stop at the end of it because it was you choosing more [unk]. -Yeah. -So, yeah. It's crazy but I guess at India, over 150 telegrams are sent every single day. -It's a manual fax. -Yeah. That's right. So, do you even know what a telegram is? -It's not a fax. It's a freaking-- it's a manual e-mail. -Yeah. -Yeah. -It's like a letter that's just sent by carrier. -Why are they sending them still? -Yeah, why? -So, a lot of them are sent because Lori has used them to send papers for service. You know, when you get served a subpoena for example. -Right. -The lawyer will send the telegram in person cause you have to actually sign it. -Right. -You can serve. -Yeah. -The other thing is like legal documents and architectural papers and things like that are all sent in forms of telegram. That's boring stuff. -Very-- -A hundred and fifty telegrams sent on the office today and in the 1990s, they would book anywhere between 25,000 to 30,000 a day. -Wow. -That wasn't even that long ago. Twenty years. -Yeah. That's amazing. -Right? And back then, the team consisting of about 400 employees. How many employees do you think the office has today with 150 messages sent out everyday? -Twelve. -One. -No. -One guy. -Oh. -One guy but he's not out of job because they're putting him over into the customer service area of the office. -Okay good. Good for him. -Yeah. -Or her or whoever. -One guy sends out 150 telegrams. So, two things killed the telegram. What do you think those two things are? -Well, is it e-mail? Because it's just-- -No. -It's not e-mail. -No. it's not e-mail because people used to send e-mails to send telegrams. -I know. -Yeah. -Carrier pigeon. -What? No. -No? -No. -It's not that? -No. It's not that. SMS is one of them. -Oh, texting. -Yeah, texting is one of them. -Okay. -The other is a threat, right? The threat of people sending bombs-- -Oh, my. -and anthrax through letters is really what killed the telegram. -But I thought a telegram is someone just relaying a message that's been retyped. -Right. But a lot of times those people put the message-- the terrorist threats themselves into the message. That's the word. -Got you. So, it's all about the threatening language. -Right. Right, right, right. -Got you. -So-- -Really that's the number two thing. -That's the number two according to this article. Yeah. Current prices for a hand-delivered messages that consist of 30 words in a telegram, that's 30 Indian rupees which is about half a cent. -Really? -Yeah. -Huh. -Half a cent with an additional rupee for every additional word. So, no more. All right. -No more telegrams I guess. -Hey. It's time to change. -Yeah, it sucks, right? -Not really. I think we're gonna be okay with it. -Yeah. -All right. I think we have time for like maybe one or two more things to do or nothing. -Okay. All right. Well, which one do you wanna talk about? -I think we can tastefully cover the final story in their own down here. -Wait. The press? No, no, no. Let's talk about this other one because it's kinda relevant to my industry. -Okay. Okay for sure. -And I don't really get to talk about printers very often you guys. -Sure. -The love of your life. -The love of my life. The bane of my existence and the love of my life. -It's a love-hate relationship. -Can I talk about printers for a second? -I guess. -Well, I'm not gonna have a lot of more opportunities because they're slowly getting phased out, right? Everyone knows that printers and desktops will soon be a thing of the past. -Does that mean you become obsolete as well? -Well, I do the shows as well, so-- -Oh, okay. -and headphones too. -I don't think that Xerox machine could do the same. -Yeah. -It should do it. -Once they really started planting headphones in the people's ears, then I'm screwed. -Okay. -But long story short, the price of printers and desktop computers are about to go up quite a bit really significantly. And this is why. Last week, the European Union, they ruled in a lawsuit brought by a company that handles a collection of secondary royalties of copyrighted works in Germany, right? -Uh-hmm. -So, there was a lawsuit brought on by a company that handles copyrighted works in Germany against Canon, Epson, HP, Fujitsu and Xerox. All the big named manufacturers of printers and Xerox machines. -Okay. -Right? -Yeah. -The reason why VG WORT, that's the company. The reason why they brought this lawsuit against them is that they believe that printers are allowing people to reproduce copyrighted works. Illegal. -Are you freaking kidding me? -Yeah. They're worried that in the future, people could potentially print out books, magazines and other copyrighted works and therefore they think a levy should be enacted, a levy being a tax-- -Tax. -or a fee. -Are you freaking kidding me? -Yeah. A tax should be issued to these companies in order for them to sell these products that could potentially distribute copyrighted works and-- -Who-- -the most alarming thing is that the Court of Justice today agreed to it. So, how do you think this is gonna transfer over the consumers? Well, those companies, Xerox, HP, Fujitsu, etcetera, are gonna pass on those levies into the prices of these printers. -I don't understand-- -Isn't that crazy? -Why is this first coming out now? -Uh-hmm. -The Xerox machine has been around for decades. -Yeah. -What's the big deal? Right? I mean-- -Yeah. -I just don't understand and now they're worried, oh, they're gonna start printing books. -Yeah. -There are no books anymore. -Well, the problem is that apparently, I did notice either but the UK, it doesn't currently have a private copying permission under copyright law. So, this is basically a way for copyright owners if you create something, write a book, whatever. -Yeah. -To protect themselves for potential copyright infringements in the future. -Okay. -So, you know, like we're basically getting punished as printers and purchasers of these products-- -It's a very strange story. -or stuff that we haven't even done yet. -Yeah. -It's a really weird story. Right? It's more of a protective measure for the copyrighters. -Strange. -Right? That's weird. -But it's only in Europe. -Yeah. It's only in Europe but it also means that people in Europe, now that these taxes being levied, it also means that you're now able to print out copyrighted stuff or with no threat at all. -[unk] that's-- the ruling is that-- -Yeah. -yeah, you're gonna pay more for it but you can just have it free for all. -Yeah. -So, print all the money you want. -Yeah. It's basically what that means. -You could print it. -You can print-- -You can print any copyrighted material without buying it as long as it exists on the internet and not be faulted for the actual printing process-- -Got you. -because you've paid the tax on this. -Oh, you pay the tax and you print that, difference. -Yeah. -It's very weird, right? -Strange story. -Blank CDs already have the levy on them which is why they actually cost a little bit more in Europe compared to American prices. -Very bizarre. -Yeah. -All right. -I think VCR is the next. -I think so, man. -But you're active-- -Well, very interesting story. Than you, sir. -Yeah, very strange. -Thanks, everyone, for tuning in today, 866-404-CNET, that's the phone number. We're back here tomorrow. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Are you okay, Richard? -Goodbye, everybody. -Are you okay there again? -Yeah, I'm okay. -That's all right. Don't worry about it. As long as we're still-- got the voice on. -We're still going. -That's fine. Follow us on right at Instagram, join the Google Plus community and get involved in the show. We have a lot to talk about with Comic-Con around the corner. We're gonna have a meet-up On Saturday afternoon. There's also a really awesome contest that's gonna be starting very soon. I want to know about that so we'll keep you updated on that information as well. You're basically gonna get a chance to win $404. -Awesome. -Oh, wow. -All right. That's-- just so you know, that's our-- that's the show but in dollars. -Right. Yeah, 404. -Oh, $404.00 I believe. -It's also super easy too. -Yeah. -It's not one of these like create us a theme song or Photoshop this image. It's incredibly easy. -All you gotta do is like make a comment. -Yeah. -It's gonna be super easy to do it but we'll let you know how to do that as the week goes on. Again, only shows today, tomorrow and Wednesday. We're off for Thursday and Friday with the holiday here. And that's it. All right. Gems, you're back tomorrow. -Yes, I am. -Excellent. -I'm very excited to be here. -See you guys then. Thank you for being here. -You're welcome. -All right. We'll see you guys tomorrow. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Richard Peterson. -This has been The 404 Show. High tech, low brow. Have a great Monday. We'll see you tomorrow.