Ep. 1268: Where we buy beats behind bars

-All right. It's Friday. I'm excited. -Yes. -Way to end the week on the right foot. Thanks for tuning in to the 404 Show on this Friday, May 10, 2013. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -We've got a shell plan for you today. -Yes. -Not sure of the quality yet because it hasn't happened. -Yes. -But it's a show and we're gonna do it the best we can. -My last show of the week and then-- -Same with me, buddy. -Then that's it for me. I'm gonna be gone all next week. -Yes. -You're last show for a while. -Yes. -Last show for a very long time. So again quick programming note, I just realized we should start doing these at the beginning of the show because not everyone listens to the whole 40 minutes or however long we go. So programming notes for next week, get a Post-it pad and a pencil right now and a number 2 mechanical pencil right now because May 13th, Monday, this Monday no show. Then we'll have a show Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday with myself and Ariel and, you know, guests to be named at a future date and then no show Friday the 17th either. So just 3 shows next week and then we're back full time regular schedule again on Monday, May 20th. Then Tuesday May 21st there's no show because that's the Xbox 36-- not 360, the next Xbox event which we'll be covering live and we're gonna do a CNET Live for once out of New York which is gonna be pretty kickass, so it'll be myself, Ariel on the board and we're gonna have Bridget Carey and Scott Stein and attack this Xbox event from all different angles. So that's where CNET Live is gonna take care of on Tuesday, May 21st. -Yes. -I think we're gonna be starting the livestream then around 11:30 Eastern time in the morning. -Yes. -Xbox Infinity thing, Xbox 720, Xbox Whoop-ti-do whatever they call it. Hey, shot in the dark, man. What are they calling the next Xbox? Go. -Xbox 780? -Xbox-- -540. -Xbox Indefinitely, Xbox Forever. -I'm thinking about going to E3 with you next year. I mean judging from the past few weeks I've been putting a lot of game stories in the rundown lately. The culture of gaming is really starting to interest me, not the games themselves. -The guy's about to be 30. -But the people that play games. -You have missed your life's calling. -Yes. That's very strange. -You've been wasting your time with cats and, you know, bacon sandwiches. -Bikes. Yes, that too. Oh, I hadn't had one of those in a while. -No, but seriously, man, you're never too old-- -But I don't wanna play games though. I just wanna watch other people play. I'm a spectator and it turns out I'm not the only one because that's one of the big stories I wanted to talk about today. -All right. We talked about that a little yesterday, right? -Yes. -All right. So we'll get to that, but hold the phone here a bit, okay? I still wanna do that stuff with you we talked about we're like I get you to play a game. -Okay. -Can we do that? -Yes. -For realsies? -Yes. I still like Call of Duty so the original idea was that yes, I hate playing games. I'm awful at them. The last game that I played was Duke Nukem 3D I think or Wolfenstein 3D you know. -Yes. -And so our idea from a long time ago is for me to play, sit down and play a game. -With me like coaching you. -A new game. Yes. With you sort of coaching me through it-- -It's kind of like what they're doing out with Conan. -And you being the impatient bastard that you are will probably be yelling at me the entire time while I struggle with the joystick. -Yes. -Are they still called joysticks? -Whatever you want them to be called. I think you'll even-- I don't even think this guy will be able to walk around. -Yes. -I don't think you'll be able to maneuver in tandem-- -Yes. That's what I was gonna say. -The head and the body movement at the same time. -Yes, because the last time I played games it was just about moving left to right, back and forth. There was no aiming. -There was no Z axis. -It was like if you pointed a gun forward, you were gonna hit the guy. -It was just X and Y. I'm about to add Z to your life. -Wow. -These controllers now have like 6 buttons on the front, 2 like trigger, 4 triggers. -Right. -The analog. Yes, you're gonna be confused, man. -But you got the finger. You got the digits for it. You got those long ass penis digits. -Yes. -Wait, what? -That was good English. -Stop looking at my digits. -I thought that was easy. But seriously, look at me when I say this. -Yes. -We're gonna do this. -Yes. Let's do it. -Maybe we have to wait until the new studio but we're gonna do this. -Yes. I'm down. -Yes. -It's gonna be painful for you. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna be mad the whole time. -I just wanna be miked up so I can say everything that's gonna be offensive-- -Yes. -To you. -You better censor yourself. -Yes. -No, but the idea is that we wanna be successful. That's gonna be like a team effort type thing, right-- -Right. Like I-- -So your coaching is really gonna reflect my gameplay. -We're not gonna play online though, like that'll just be the end of our friendship. -No. -If we did something like that. -Yes. -It'll have to be like an offline single player campaign sort of thing. -Imagine that we just had to shut down the show because you and I just went to head to head. -Like, oh dude, they thought about Call of Duty and it was over he like ruined his kill-death ratio and he couldn't take it anymore and they're like they got divorced. -First thing on the plate though, I need to think about my gamer tag. -Yes. -And that's really the test. -What's it gonna be? -I don't know. Someone help me out with that. -Fixie Bike 101. -Ew. -I can't ride one of those things. It's a lie. -Yes. -All right. We'll do you wanna give us the stories or you got anymore programming notes? -No. I think that's it. I think we're good for now. -Okay. So yesterday I just found out about something called Machinima and, Jeff, I guess you're as an avid gamer you already know what this is. -Yes. -But you wanna tell us about it because Salon has a really cool profile on Machinima Prime which is their YouTube channel. -Right. So and here's kind of where it's a little dicey because I'm not 100 percent sure like which came first, the chicken or the egg, but as far as I know what Machinima is like the portal, the media company. -Right. -But Machinima as an aesthetic in its own right as a noun is basically, you know, the crafting of storytelling using video game characters. -Okay, yes. -So like there is this big halo on these they do call red versus blue like that was like one of the first ones that was really popular. -Yes. -I'm not a huge fan because it's tough to-- you know what, they kind of do it on those game stop commercials. -Yes. -When they're promoting a game, they'll do like voice-overs and stuff like that, not a huge fan in that sort of stuff, but nevertheless, you know Machinima the company, the brand, the portal has this whole network of shows that they do. -It's all gamer-laden stuff so like trailers-- -It's all gamer-laden. -And gameplay previews. -It's like a gaming lifestyle hub sort of thing. -Right. -Where it's not for the casual gamer. It is not for the casual. It is for the hardcore, you know, I'm still working my way out of the basement sort of thing. -Yes. It's funny. Marketers have a name for that demographic. -Oh, my God. -It's from 18 to 34. -Yes, what's that called? -And sort of like the type of person, male obviously that grew up sort of watching Nickelodeon playing video games, listening to the 404 podcast on CNET.com. -Yes. -Marketers call them the Lost Boys. -That's kind of cool. -And they call them the Lost Boys because they're sort of anti-television, they don't consume television in a typical way, they watch it online which is where Machinima comes in. -Right. -Right? So the latest iteration of this channel is their own YouTube network called Machinima Prime, and it started in August and it's pretty much consistently gone to that number 1 spot on YouTube for the past few months. It's got 2.2 billion total views across all of their videos, but this is what really interested me, is that they have an open ad network, right? And so they have their own self-published shows, but they also invite their viewers to create their own shows and then broker ad placement on the success of them which then sort of entices people to, you know, make those shows as good as possible and a few of them actually make a living out of doing this. There are professional game players enough to wear and we're talking about this the other day, people will sit down and watch an entire 2-hour video of just somebody playing Halo. -Yes. It's over my head and I'm so deep into the scene and it's over my head. -Well, you can understand that, right? The idea that you can turn a hobby into a full-time job and be able to quit your job and sit on the couch all day long-- -No. -With just a camera in the room. -Yes. I mean I feel like we've done that. -Super lucrative. -But I'm just saying I don't know. I don't understand-- I mean I guess I could understand the hangout sort of thing of it all. -Yes. -Where you're just the fly on the wall in this awesome gaming room where a bunch of buddies are having fun talking junk and playing games. I get that. -I'd imagine it's the same idea behind listening to conversational podcast not unlike our own. You know people will tell us that it feels like they're in their parents' basement with like a couple of friends just shooting the shit talking about-- -No, they say they don't say parents' basement. They say at a bar. -At a bar, whatever. -A bar. -Yes. The den. -Good tunes, good friends, good jokes. -Right. -Good drinks. -But listen to this. There's one story on this article that talks about a 19-year-old U.K. native and his codename on his handle is Syndicate. -Yes. -Right? I don't know if you've heard of this guy but he's a huge gamer. He's earned himself enough ad dollars through Machinima Prime to buy a house. -What? -It's a single-story house, but he earned it all through a single 2-hour livestream of him killing zombies in Call of Duty, the Zombie Edition, right? -Wow. -And it's been viewed 9 million times since November 13 and through those ad rev share dollars, he was able to fund the purchase of his first house. -Mindblowing. -Yes. And this kid is really young. I believe he's under 25. -Amazing. -I don't know. -Yes. But it's like I watched a little bit of this video and read some of the commentary on it. It's really bad television. It's strange because they sort of defy the logic of what's considered entertainment especially for mass consumption. -It makes Wayne's World look like 60 Minutes. -That's exactly what it is, yes. It's funny like one time at one point during the commentary the guy is like oh, this map is tight and that's what she said. You know there's like really corny commentary like that that apparently only gamers that understand the play action will find funny. This is really weird. I don't know. You're more of a player and I'm more of a spectator, so I can see how watching someone who's really good could sort of seem like a sports arena type environment, but-- -I mean look. In South Korea they've built stadiums for Warcraft right, oh, StarCraft, right? They've done that. So I don't know. Is it a cultural thing? -No. Well, I think it's a gaming culture thing, not necessarily an ethnicity thing. -Right. No, I wasn't implying that. I was implying a cultural thing. -Yes. -I don't know. But I'm not against it. I just don't necessarily understand it. Maybe I'll dive a little deeper because they have just launched an Xbox app, so now you don't even need to leave your console. -Yes, well-- -You can just tune in from your actual Xbox-- -Yes. -That's available right now. We're not getting paid for this man. These guys are gonna hook it up with something or what? -Who, Machinima? -Yes, man. We're giving them all this free publicity. -Man, I don't think they need the publicity. -No, they don't. -We're just talking about it. -They seem to be doing fine on their own. -Yes. Actually I had a personal story that I was telling you guys that I wanted to talk about on the show too. So a couple of weeks ago my girlfriend returned from a trip to California, and she was telling me that when she arrived she stayed at a friend's house but when she got to the apartment, her friend was actually in a neighbor's apartment. And so she went over there to say hi and when she walked in, it was just a bunch of guys sitting around the apartment living room and they're playing a video game, but it was weird to her because none of them actually got up to say hi. Like no one really acknowledged her presence, but that was because they were being filmed at the time. -Yes. -They had put up a tripod and a video camera and they were taping themselves playing a video game. And so she asked what they were doing and no one really responded because they were sort of entrenched in this game. One guy eventually got up and took her for a tour around the room and explained to her the concept of Machinima, and they actually have their own YouTube channel where they're making ad dollars and she said at least one of the guys probably the one who pays for the apartment, he actually was able to quit his job and now he's doing this full time as his sole occupation, as his own form of income. -And what's really crazy is that it's not necessarily competitive, right? There's no-- this is just more like the culture and the lifestyle of it all. -Yes. -This really isn't like-- I mean I'm sure some of it is like skill and people are impressed with watching other skilled people. -Yes. -Because let's be honest. The average age of a cyber-athlete is like 22. -Yes. -You know. -For sure. -I'm a dinosaur in that landscape. -And obviously predominantly male too. She said at one point she like walked accidentally into the camera shot where the view is going on and the whole chat room where they were-- -And they made a million dollars. -Oh my God. Who is that? -Just made a million bucks. -Yes. -That guy has long hair. What the-- that's weird. -Isn't that weird though? -They freaked out. -Does that upset you? -I don't know. I mean it makes sense. -I don't like the whole misogynist dick sort of thing though. -Yes. -You know what I mean? I feel like-- -Oh and there are a lot of female gamers out there. -There are. I know there are. There are but there's just like you know a bunch of like salivating dogs. -Yes. -You know scratching with their paws going-- this is like come on, gentlemen. -Yes. Well, something similar happens when a female walks into this podcast studio-- -Not to us. -As well. -I mean we've been around women before. We know how to behave. -Oh, my chromosome. -Yes. Oh my God. What? Hey. I think we're cosmically attached to that something. Something about living on. -Yes. -I don't know. -We'll have to watch that. -All right. So check it out. We'll link to some of the stuff that Justin has curated in the show notes for today. So make sure you head over to-- -The Lost Boys. -CNET.com/the-404. I like that. -Yes. -I like that. -And you're Rufio. If that's the case and they're the Lost Boys, you're Rufio because you're the old one. -I can crow like no one's business. -Let's hear it. -Nope. I will do a lot of things on the show. Crow, I will not. -Yes. -Moving along today, let's do it. -This one cracks me up. I wanna talk about Pinterest. Are you guys on Pinterest? I know it's more of a female-dominated social network. -Again with the whole gender thing, dude. -It is. I mean those are the statistics. -No, but that's the numbers. -Yes. -Yes. -You can't knock the numbers. -Yes. Are you guys on that thing? -No, I've never been to the website once in my entire life. -Really? -100 percent truth. -I played with it. -Yes? -Yes. I was not into it. Yes. -Okay. What is it like? -It feels like it's kind of like Tumblr. I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but all it is, is like photos that you find online like the nice photos of pretty things. -Right. -Yes. -Question, what is Pinterest? -Yes. You honestly have no idea? It's like an online board where, yes, if you scour the internet you could pin images, articles, videos, whatever based around whatever themes you want on your board. So for example a lot of women use it for their wedding. -That's what it was. That's when-- oh, okay. That was like the big breakout sort of you know aha moment. Right? Okay. -Right, exactly. -Got you. That's on the internet. -That is on the web. -Yes. -Yes. You can only find that there. -Which is the one with the email. -Yes. -You have keyboards and the clicking stuff. -Right. -So as if moms didn't have enough stress in their life already, there's a new thing coming out and today I actually wrote an article about it. It's called Pinterest stress and this cracks me up. It's the idea that online social networks that are geared towards creatives like Pinterest or Etsy.com, it's actually causing moms to question their creative acumen. In other words, they're sort of worried that when they watch this and when they look at this stuff and see things that people post online that they've made, it then makes them feel creatively sort of like, I don't know, just not as good. -Yes. -Yes. It makes them feel sort of self-conscious about their own craftiness. And so this is crazy. Today surveyed 7,000 mothers and found that 42 percent felt worse after seeing Pinterest crafts posted online. And it's that sort of competitive drive, right? Like when you see, you know, oh a mom posted these like handmade gift sets for her kid's birthday party, you know, that and then makes you feel like crap because you didn't design something for your own. -Don't forget though these things are just like everything else. These are highlight reels for human beings. -Yes. -This is the best we can do, right? You go on Facebook. This is what people are-- everyone is in the business now of just like inflating themselves, right? -Right. -And so it's all about one-upmanship and doing that sort of stuff. So you're seeing a highlight reel. You're seeing the trailer if you will-- -Yes. -Of people's consciousness. -Right. -So don't sell yourself short. You're special. -Right. -You're important. You do cool things. -And it's not supposed to be a competition. You're supposed to glean inspiration from these kinds of things, so maybe you don't-- -Oh, it's a competition. -Maybe you don't grow your own-- -You're not married. -Hibiscus but you know you can do your own thing. -Yes. -Okay. Maybe it's easier said than done. You're saying-- -I'm just saying-- -Kind of like it more? -No. I'm just saying I understand where that sense of competitiveness emanates from. -Right. -I'll leave it at that. -Also, don't forget that when people post stuff online like this, it probably took them months to create or come up-- -That's what I'm saying. -It's all just-- -Highlight reel. -Its' a photo shoot. -Yes. -And that's really all it is and it's all crafted and you know. Don't worry about that. You're doing good. -Yes. Seriously. You don't worry about that. You're beautiful person. You're great. -The first thing that came to mind when I read this article was Lunchbox Awesome. You guys ever hear about this site? -No. I've never heard of it. I've never-- it's like this and Pinterest. I've never heard of it. -So Lunchbox Awesome is a Tumblr and it's a mom who basically decided to make a fun Bento-box-style lunchbox for her kid for an entire year. -Wow. -And she got really creative with it. She must have a lot of time on her hands. So check this out. We're looking at the website right now. These school lunches she sort of manipulates the food into shapes and patterns and we're looking at a Disney character. -She ain't doing this for her kid. She's doing this for the internet. -Yes. -Exactly. -Yes. -Yes. I'm sorry. Like there's-- -The fact that she had to photograph them and curate all these individual art projects. -I hate her. -It's a hobby. -I hate her. -It's a hobby masked under philanthropy I think. -Right? No. Disguised as this amazing mom. -Right. But she is an amazing mom. She is not doing it for herself. She's just flagrantly self-promoting after it. -I feel guilty eating this every day. -Yes. -I'll be like damn, this looks just like freaking Wreck It Ralph. I don't wanna eat this. -Yes. -She made the carrots like his hair. It looks amazing. -Cool vegetable platter. You know that kids throwing this away and change for a Cherry Coke and a pizza stick on his way to work. -Totally. -Hey, Jimmy, I'll trade you my veggie platter Wreck It Ralph for your Twinkie. -Yes. -Deal. -Definitely. Or he's selling them all on eBay afterward. But who has time for this kind of thing? Like I'd imagine like if I were a parent and I saw this, I would just be rolling my eyes all day long like there's no way that you can compete with this type of thing. -I mean there's no way you can compete, but that's amazing that Sally from freaking-- this is unreal by the way. -Yes. -She's an artist. -Of course. -I mean she's brilliant. Look at the shark with Nemo. That's fantastic. -Yes. How would you go about eating this? -You have to go. It's LunchboxAwesome.com. -But the thing is when kids bring their lunch to school, they don't wanna have anything different from somebody else. -No. I think-- -They don't want-- no. They don't want a Mickey Mouse sandwich. -No. You're wrong. -They want exactly the same as everyone else so they won't stick out and get bullied. I guarantee you this kid is got made fun of for it. -You're telling me this kid is getting his ass kicked because he's got Mickey Mouse-shaped lunch? -100 percent. -There's no way. -And it's my little brother doing the ass kicking. -There is no way. This is too cool. Are you kidding? This is too cool. -Little mama's boy got his Disney little lunchbox. -What's that? Your mama's brilliant? Your mom's freaking a genius. -Yes. -And you're lucky enough to have that DNA. -I hope he appreciates it. -Those genes. This kid, man. He's got high expectations to live up to, I'll tell you that. -Yes. Really mom? Smurf sandwich again? -I mean she's running out of ideas. This really is amazing and she should be featured in some sort of art you know museum. -Yes. It's called Tumblr.com. -I guess, but that's really talented stuff right there. -Yes, it is. -Yes. -That's sick. Really cool. -But anyway, Pinterest stress. Don't let yourself get stressed out. -Don't fall victim. -Yes. -All right. This is another brilliant choice of stories this week. I just want you to know that. -Thank you, thank you. -The music business, this is something from Spin.com which I heard someone told me they're stopping the magazine. -Oh, really? -Oh, wow. -Well, they're stopping the print version. -I didn't know that. -That I understand. I just hope they're not stopping the magazine. -No, they wouldn't do it online. -Yes, I don't know. Anyway, this comes from Spin.com talking about the music business that has evolved inside of America's prisons. -Yes. -Well, we incarcerate more people than anyone else on the planet. I know that. -Yes. -There's a lot of people in our jail system. -Right. I didn't realize that there was a whole business of entertaining those people. I thought they were there for punishment, not entertainment but regardless, Spin magazine yes, they're profiling the rise, not just in music but digital music in prisons. Did you know that inmates have access to MP3 players in there? -I think it will hold on, okay? It depends on what you're in for. They don't just give everyone like here yo, welcome to you know Marlboro Maximum Security. -Right. -Here's your iPod. It doesn't work like that. -Right. -You know it depends on what you've done. -Oh, you kidnapped 3 people for 10 years? -Here you go. -Yes. -Here's your freaking iPad. Welcome to prison, sir. -Right. -We'll order those headphones for you. Don't worry. No, it doesn't work like that. -Yes. Okay. So a really quick history lesson on music in America's prisons. So inmates have apparently always been able to listen to music in prisons, but previously about 15 years ago, it started with tapes and CDs, right? But obviously like the idea of like exchangeable media, physical media, it always creates problems. So specifically in this case you got CDs that can be created, you can create weapons out of their sharp edges, right? That's a problem. Also the idea that tapes and CDs have to be shipped in from outside vendors, which you know it's a little shady because, you know, they can ship in other things along with them. There's a lot of moving parts too that you can take apart. Inmates can get really creative with weapons by making knives-- -I've seen Oz, I know. -Whatever. -Yes. -Yes. So there's a lot of contraband that can be created out of this stuff. So it took a while because present technology is typically about 10 years behind the outside world, but now according to the Spin magazine profile, there was 1 prison in Idaho, the Idaho Correctional Institute in Orofino, I think it's how you pronounce it, they're bringing MP3 players to this prison and it's sort of starting a trend that's gonna trickle out to the rest of them in the country. So it's actually by way of a company called Access Corrections, and I wanna show you guys a picture of an inmate listening to the MP3 player. So here it is. It's made by a company called Access Corrections and inmates can buy this sort of like crude, it's really small. It looks sort of like a pager, right? So you can see in a photo here he's holding on to it in his hand and unfortunately that's the best picture we have of it. But yes, it's like the size of an old school like 90s pager. -Would you wanna get closer to this guy? -Hey, looks like a nice guy. -Okay. So they can buy this for $127-- -Yes. -For the 4-gigabyte version or they can pay $153 for the 8-gigabyte version. -Where's the money for this? -So they can earn the money to buy this stuff and then obviously the media afterward in 2 ways. One, either they get money from the outside world through their friends and family and a commissary that can, you know, they transfer money in. -They bake it into a cake. -Or they can bake that sex thing. They can do a cake. Bake those songs right in there. Or they can work for the money. -Right. -Right? But here's the problem and I'm glad that you brought this up. The price for an average song is about $1.50 to $2. -Yes. -Right? And if you're gonna work for the money, those pay about 10 to 30 cents for an hour. So a lot of these inmates are working an entire day just to buy 1 song. -Right. -You know you wanna hear that Sierra song, you're gonna have to work all day long for it. -Am I the only one who thinks that people in prison, the majority of them shouldn't be afforded the luxuries that us on the outside have? -Yes. -Like if you're in prison you did something probably really nasty. -Not necessarily. -You're in prison for an extended period of time for more than a year. -Nasty is a subjective term though. -Is it though, I mean okay. So what kind of prisoners should be afforded these opportunities? -Well, okay. So I think that yes. Being in prison is punishment enough, you know, being away from your family, from your friends. That isolation is punishment there, but also I also think that playing music and the ability to consume that type of media, one keeps you up to date, right? So that when you hopefully do get out and you're rehabilitated, then it won't be as hard for you to integrate yourself back into society. -Okay. -And then two, is sort of cuts down on the violence. I mean sure this article there's sort of-- -I like that. -They sort of talk about like the music that gets played and they judge it by the parental advisory rating on the front of it, so obviously there's not gonna have stuff that like plays, you know, offensive lyrics-- -Right. I got you. -That promotes violence or anything like that. So calming music can have a really good effect on the inmates and maybe cut down on violence within. Also they give you access to self-help books as well through audio books. -Okay. -That you can download in MP3 format. So I think those things like music can be very therapeutic for these people. -I believe it. -You know if you're thinking about prison that's a punishment system then that's one thing. It's another thing if you're trying to rehabilitate them, right? -Yes. I guess. I didn't know you became this like, you know, psychoanalyzing jail guy. -I'm not saying. Through my time in prison, I've realized these things. -Prison is a depressing place. My stepdad is a former prison correction officer. -Oh really? -And the stories he's told me, man-- -It sucks. -It's crazy. It's crazy. -It sounds terrible. -Yes. I know like a lot of people have done awful things, but I feel like you need to have something like that just to maintain sanity because I feel like being cooped up in a place with a bunch of other criminals, you just go insane. -Yes. You'd lose it. -Yes, exactly. So be able to have some music is kind of a way to get away and just maintain sanity. -Right. -You know what I mean? -Right. -Right. -But no Xbox. -No Xbox. -No Xbox. -They do have TVs and internet though. We talked about that guy who emerged after 20 years stint in prison. -Right. -And sort of knew what was going on. -Yes. -Check this out. This is the Music Warden, they call it. It doesn't talk to you. -No. -But this is the big black box where inmates can go and purchase their digital music. -Oh my God. -Yes. -I wanna know how music comes out of that thing. -Yes. -That's what I wanna know. -That's gotta be a ton of music in there. -It looks like-- -Like a huge trash can. -It looks like a freaking mail receptacle from the dystopian future. -Yes. -Is what it looks like. All right. -Maybe they can listen to some of Ariel's music in there. -Hey yes. They'll soothe you. -Yes. -Yes. -They'll relax you. -Absolutely. We're gonna go to CBSnews.com for the next story. From Chenda Ngak who's on the show. Remember when she was here? -Yes. I remember that. We gotta her back. It's cool. -We do. It's been a while. -Chenda. -Chenda. Here's the story from her. It's the NSA secret Google tricks have been revealed in a declassified guide book. The National Security Agency recently declassified a book called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research that's got 600 pages of tips for researching information online. -Yes. -Now how further along do you think the real world is in front of what the NSA's guide book says. I don't know. According to Wire, the book was released following a Freedom of Information Act. That request was filed in April by MuckRock, a group that specializes in processing public record requests. -Yes. -Sections in the guide include introduction to searching, which I could only imagine being go to google.com. -Yes. First step. -Mastering the art of search and uncovering the "invisible internet." -Oh. -Oh, you NSA guys, you're so sneaky. -Yes. -So what else about this stuff? Is this really amazing information or what? -Well, I haven't read the 643-page document. -Why the hell not? -Just yet. -You're supposed to prepare for this show. -I know. I'm sorry. But from the little bit I've read so far about it, they basically just give you tips on how to find publicly accessible networks online, and you know through Google you could do specific searches using colon, parentheses, and subtraction signs and they sort of teach you how to do that. So one example is that if you type in file type colon with quotations around it-- -Yes. -And then you do site colon whatever site you wanna go to-- -Right. -Plus the keyword confidential. -Yes. -It's funny that like some IT professionals will accidentally put stuff online that have the words confidential in it. -Right. -So if you just do a simple search for that word and the other string of characters, you can uncover a lot of things that are actually legally accessible online, legally accessible if you're an agent with the government. -Wow. -Not if you're a regular person because apparently a lot of people have gone to jail for something exactly like this. -That's kind of crazy. -Yes. I think we talked about this story on the show a few months ago about how people were finding printers online. -Oh and printing stuff out. -Yes, and printing stuff out in public networks that were posted there. -That's creepy. -Yes. -Yes. -So you can do all sorts of things like that. -Interesting. -Yes. -All right. We'll link to that. I like it. -Yes. -Excellent. Let's get to some Calls from the Public. -Yes. -Is there anything else do you wanna talk about before we enter that segment of the show? -Nope. Let's do it. -All right. Calls from the Public time. This is a good one. We got some stuff here. -Time to show the love. -Call me. -866-404-CNET. -The 404. -All right. Calls from the Public time. Thanks for calling in. Love it when you guys get in touch with us. Next week we'll have a cool sort of calling contest that will start and we'll tell you guys all about it. But for now let's go to Jeff who says he hates Apple products now. -Hey, guys. [unk] This is Jeff from [unk]. I was calling to comment about I finally understand Jeff's hate of Apple products. -Oh, I just wanna get it out. I do not hate Apple products. -You in fact own many Apple products. -And I'm using a MacBook Pro right now. I hate some of the stuff they represent. I don't wanna go down this rabbit hole. Anyway, go on, Jeff. -I am currently about lost in God knows where thanks to Apple Maps. It's been an hour and a half since I saw a house. I'm not really sure where in Indiana I am, and it keeps telling me turn down these roads that don't exist. So my next guess I guess is to find a local and ask how do I get back to civilization. -All right. Good luck. I hope someone found you. I guess he very well could still be lost. That would be not fun. Dude, they have-- Google Maps is back on iPhones, right? -Yes. -What are you doing? No one's using Apple Maps anymore. -I know. I understand him though like he's probably annoyed because it doesn't automatically open Google Maps. -That sucks. -So he had to go to Apple one. -That's annoying. -Yes, it is. -Yesterday, we're deciding whether or not I'm dyslexic. This guy says the truth about it. -Thanks, 404 guys. This is Phuket, Thailand from Charlie. Hey, Jeff. You're not dyslexic. Transposing the first 2 consonants in successive words actually has a name. It's called a spoonerism, so you're knock knocking fuds. Later, guys. -I see what he did there. -I get it. -He says I'm not-- anyway. Spoonerisms, have you ever heard of that? -No. -No. Never. -I wanna know-- I still wanna know why I do that, right? There's gotta be some sort of brain fart that's happening. -Yes. -Why am I doing that? -I don't know. -Why am I doing that? -I don't know. Maybe you're processing too much information throughout the day or not enough information. -That sounds very unscientific. -I don't know. -I'm not gonna go with that. I like a better more comforting explanation for that. That seems-- -Maybe it's all these violent video games you're playing. -I'm not playing violent video games, Ariel. I'm playing-- -The source of everything evil. -I'm playing really good video games that have nothing to do with violence. -I like that answer. -You guys are dicks. All right, Ariel. Here's have called just for you, buddy. -Okay. -I'm gonna make you turn red right now. -I don't know. -Hey, gentlemen. This is Debbie from Brooklyn, really huge fan of the show quietly. I am calling because I have listened to Mr. Nuñez' music and don't understand why he is not even just raving like completely about what he does do, a guy from Brooklyn. Your shit is hot, dude. -Thank you. -Like what's the problem, like why were you so-- -What's the problem? -Like, well actually you know what, you describe yourself as an artist and what that means is that your humble factor is really high. Dude, you're really talented. Seriously. All right, you guys. Absolutely love the show. -Thank you. -Be well. -Oh. -Wow. -With the seductive voice too. -I know. -Well, she said she's a really quiet listener. -Recording his covers. -She wasn't joking. She is super quiet. That was awesome. -That was cool. -Thank you. I appreciate that. -Thanks for the call, Debbie from Brooklyn. -Get her a CD. -Which is so weird. -Which is very-- -Oh, yes. For sure. -Yes. Debbie. Tell us your address or you know what, Ariel is gonna hand deliver this. -I'll hand deliver that one. -Yes. Brooklyn, man. That's awesome. -Yes. -That was so awkward. All the listeners are like, oh. -Well, it was like you know like empirically just very seductive voice. -For sure. -Is she not? -Yes. -Totally. -So no, but seriously, Debbie, give us your address. We'll send you out-- -Yes. Just get in touch with me on Bang with Friends and we'll work it out. So-- -Oh, oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Hopefully his fiancée isn't listening. -Yes. Hope so too for your sake. -There it is. -Oh. -You're gonna get this. So-- -For sure. -Make sure you send us-- -Put your cellphone camera for a couple of seconds. -No, man. -Let her see. -I'm bashful. -You're bashful, Ariel. -Enjoy. -All right. Enough. -I love how honest she was. That was so kickass. -I know. That was cool. -We appreciate that sort of candidness on the program. All right. Next call is-- oh, this is great. This is our buddy from Boston who had called in and wanted us to help him raise money for his run. Let's hear how that went. -This is Boston from Jake again. I just wanted to give you guys an update on my running Boston for Boston fundraiser from a few weeks ago. -Yes. -Thank you, guys, for the shout-out on the air. I had set a thousand-dollar fundraising goal for myself. I ended up raising well over 3 grand-- -Hell, yes. -Which is totally awesome. I ended up with a sprained ankle. I had to delay my run by about 3 weeks. I actually didn't do the run until just this past Sunday. -Yes. I'm gonna need my donation back. -Yes. -I'm sorry, dude. Like you did not follow through in your promise. So I'm gonna need that back. -It took me 4 hours and 17 minutes but I was able to crank across the finish line there and Copley Square and delivered the one nice check to The One Fund for Boston. So thanks to everybody who gave and thanks to you guys for giving me the shout-out on the air. -All right. Round of applause, dude. -Very nice, very nice. -Good job, man. -Congratulations. -Way to be, way to be. And thank you for everyone who participated in that. You never know what's gonna happen when you talk about it, but I'm glad sounds like some people donated. So congrats to everybody involved. That is a very good cause. Let's go to this call about a hackathon, the hackathon we brought up the other day. -Hey, 404 crew. This is Boston from [unk] I thought I might let you guys know that I actually was a part of the hackathon and then I let you guys to discuss yesterday was pretty embarrassing. I have to say losing to a girl. -Wow. -Oh. -Wow, wow, wow. Again with this whole gender thing. First of all, there is nothing. Are you kidding me? Nothing to be embarrassed about losing to a girl. If you lost to like a 3-year-old, yes. -Yes. -Be embarrassed about that. -Don't be embarrassed to lose to a genius too. -Yes. Oh my God. Like come on. This girl is brilliant and you know don't say embarrassed. I hope he saves himself here. -But it happened. I got owned up to it. So there. I mean actually no. No, no. It wasn't really embarrassing. -Okay. There you go. -But the simple fact that it was my first hackathon and hopefully first of many, I was just happy to be there. The girl deserves to win and that's where all its worth. She pretty much executed great. -All right. So there you go. -Yes. -Good job. I wanna know what your project was. What did you, why did you lose? -Yes. -I don't know. Does she listen to the 404 Show? -I really hope she does, Jenny. -I guess only losers listen to the 404 Show. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. -Host the 404 Show. You know what was really cool about that story too. I don't know if I mentioned this during that episode, but she was actually only solo submission. Everyone else in the competition were groups of 2 or more. -Oh and she's too smart for everyone. -And she still won-- -That's so sick. -As the only solo programmer. -What a kickass person. -Really cool. -Finally, we talked a little bit yesterday about Frang with Biends. -Yes. -And here's a follow-up to that. Good story. -Hey, guys. Love the show. I'm not a long, long time listener, but I have been listening for a while. -Okay. -My call is about the Bang with Friends app. -Oh, yes. -Right after like I listened to the show and I saw you guys, I heard you guys talk about the app. I went and downloaded it myself to test it out and see how it would actually work with this app, and all I gotta say is it's easy to make mistakes. I was sliding through the friends that it's like it presents to you and it was on the top that said for hanging and the bottom was to bang. And I was sliding to the right I double tapped by accident and it was on my aunt. -Oh, shoot. -So by accident-- -Oh my God. -While I was double tapping, it automatically-- I don't know if it said hang or bang. -Oh my God. -But I hope I unclicked it in time because it accidentally clicked on her and I had to like I dropped my iPod trying to fix this mess. All right. Thanks for the quality entertainment. Have a good day. -Oh, my God. That's embarrassing. -Yes. -But don't worry, dude. You don't have to bang your aunt. Like it's-- -Don't worry. -It's not like you know you don't go to jail if you don't follow through with that. It's okay. -You checked it, you have to do it. -You know these guys like show up and well I mean you clicked it. So you must follow through. -That's in the terms and conditions. You have to. -You did not read the fine print. We're sorry. -Oh my God. -That's pretty good, man. Good story. Good story. -That's crazy. -Way to wrap up the week on a funny note like that. -Yes. -866-404-CNET. That is the number you can call. No show Monday, don't forget. We're back here Tuesday and we'll have 3 shows next week and then Justin's gone all next week too because he's gonna be away. -Yes. -Being a nice man. -That's right. What? -This is a very philanthropic excursion you're going. -You don't even know where I'm going. I purposely didn't tell you. -No clue. Not a damn clue. Do us a favor. Add us on Twitter, follow us on Twitter, okay? That means a lot to us when you do that. We love interacting with the listenership. It's a big part of the 404 experience. Do that, submit and subscribe to stories on our sub-Reddit, Reddit.com/r/the404. You can also follow us on Instagram and join our Facebook page because you get insight to the show that you would not get anywhere else. So for some reason you're interested in going beyond just the podcast listening experience, these are the ways you can participate. So do that for us, all right? Please? And that's it for us, guys. Have a freaking fantastic weekend. We'll see you here on Tuesday, don't forget, no show Monday and that's it, guys. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -This has been the 404 Show, High Tech, Low Brow. Again, have a great weekend. We'll see you Tuesday. Later.