Ep. 1320: Where we're stuck in a hyperloop

-It's Tuesday, August 13th, 2013. This is The 404 Show. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -We're very pleased to have two fine gentlemen, two 404 alumni members here, Mr. Peter Ha and Mark Milian in the program, in the studio with full effects-- -I don't know why we're plying for you guys. You've been on the show so many times already. It's like you're part of it. -Thank you, thank you. -I don't know why I'm here. -It's strange because I get an e-mail from Mark the other day. He says, "Hey, Jeff. I'm back in New York. I would love to come on." And of course, I would love to have him on. We always love having Mark on. And he's like, "Oh, I'm gonna bring Peter along with me too." Like he's some sort of parasite. Oh my goodness. Can't you do anything by yourself, Peter? -I don't like where this is going. -I kid. I kid. Thank you, guys, for coming on today. -Yeah. I like that intro music. Is that Tupac or-- -It's Tupac inspired. -Yes. -It's what it is. We have our engineer, Ariel, to thank for that. Mark, you're currently writing for Bloomberg. How's that going, man? -It's going great. -Yeah. -For the last year we've been working on a new section of the website called Bloomberg Global Tech. -All right. -And you know, the ideas we take, our many reporters that we have overseas who are covering technology and covering big telecom companies-- -Right. -overseas for the news wire and to get them to start covering startups and covering tech culture trends and we can provide sort of like a unique look into tech that's happening outside Silicon Valley. That's cool. -That's pretty sweet. -Yes. So, we've broken some news about Robert Downey, Jr. signing a deal with HTC. -I heard about that. Yeah. -It's a marketing for them a couple of months ago. That was a good story. We've done, you know, some great startup stuff on what's happening in Tel Aviv, which is like a huge booming startup seen and yeah. -Really? In Tel Aviv? -Yeah. -I didn't know that. -Yeah. It was recently ranked the number two place to start a tech company behind Silicon Valley. -Really? Israel. -Yeah. New York was in a top 5, -Yeah. -but yeah, I was surprised to see Tel Aviv swoop in there. -Yeah, it's amazing. -Jeff, the fact that you don't know that doesn't surprise me. -Why? Because I'm like Jewish, I should know that? -No. -Because of the other thing we're talking about. I have no idea what's going on in the world. -Speaking of things I have no idea about, what the hell is Hyperloop? -So, we were talking about Hyperloop. -Wait. Hold on. I have to ask Mark something. Are you guys allowed to have Big Gulps in the office? -That's such a bad joke but I laughed. No. It's-- -Only in New York [unk] humor. -Yeah. -That's just a Bloomberg joke. -I know. -You've clearly been watching too much New York One, man. -Yeah. -I know that because you've cut the cable recently and then gone back. So, I guess now you're watching more stuff. -All right. So, we do have a lot to talk about with Peter. -We'll get to that. -Yeah, we'll get to that. -Peter is an editor. You're like-- what's you're real title [unk]? -News editor. -You're the news editor at Gizmodo.com. -Yeah. -It's a website. You've probably been to it. Great stuff coming out there. Explain to me, I feel ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated, all those adjectives about not knowing what Hyperloop is. It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie in 1960. -Yes. -But what is it really? -I just have one thing to say about it. I think Mark knows a lot more about it but you're familiar with air hockey tables. -Of course. -And how the discs float. -Yeah. These little holes spitting out very low-level of air. -Uh-hmm. -Okay. Combine that with a roller coaster and basically a Hyperloop. -No. -Yeah. It's that sort of, kind of like. -It is [unk] technology from the '60s. -Yeah. -What the hell-- so, now, please tell me it's going to be used exclusively for roller coasters because then I'm bored. No? -It's human transport at 760 miles an hour. -So, faster than the speed of sound. -Yes but not the speed of light. -I know how fast the speed of light is. -Of course. Almost faster than a speeding bullet is. -Almost. No, not even. -So, this is Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and one of the co-founders of PayPal. His new sort of human transportation concept which will be able to get you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 35 minutes. So, he released the draft plan for it last night. He talked about how you'll be able to just get in this pod, that's in this, you know, long steel tube and then you're just zipped to your location and he also-- he did an interview with my colleague Ashley Vance in Businessweek and said you'll also be able to transport cars on a version of this. You just drive on and it will zip your car at whatever your destination is. -Yeah. It's amazing. -You guys are yanking my chain. -No, no, no. -No. -Actually, I love the one quote in that interview that they left in. -Yeah. -You know which one? -The one word we can't say on this podcast. -Oh, you could say effing or whatever it is. -I'll take it. So, Musk said during the test learnings call last week or the week before, he said, "I basically wish I'd never mentioned Hyperloop." -Uh-hmm. -So, in the interview with Businessweek he says, "I wish I had not mentioned it. I still have to run SpaceX and Tesla and it's effing hard. -Uh-hmm. -Sure. -I love how-- -This brilliant guy is just like-- -It's real talk. -Yeah. -He's like being serious. -I like that. I respect his transparency. -Yeah. -I love how much he gets so arrogant about it too. -Yeah. -He's like, you know, I could really have finished it in maybe one or two years but I'm so busy. It will probably take 3 or 4 years. -Right. -Meanwhile, they've just approved the public transportation bullet system in California. That's supposed to be done by like 2030. So, I don't know. I just love how he's very genius about it. He's such a Tony Stark character. -He is a Tony Stark character. -Yeah. -There's no way you can roll something out like that in three years. -Yeah. -I mean-- -No. It's not gonna be three years. He talks a little bit on the conference call last night about the timing. He's trying to distance himself as far from the project as possible. He said, okay, if I never ever wanted-- because he's been talking about this for months. He said, "I'll release a draft plan. Here's like the grand vision that me and I engineers at Tesla and SpaceX come up with and I want someone else to build it." -Okay. -Last night, he sort of backed off a little bit and said, "All right. You know what, I'll probably have to build the prototype of this thing." -Yeah. -"I'll build a working prototype and then I'll hand it off to someone else to build." So, when he was asked about timing, he said, you know, it will take, you know, a few years to do one of those small prototypes and then-- -Uh-hmm. -in order to build this, you know, transit system from LA to San Francisco, maybe 7 to 10 years or-- -That's not terrible. -Yeah. -Six billion, right? -Six billion dollars, that kinda seems cheap. -Considering that the train system is gonna be what, $30, $40 million? -Yeah. -I thought it was $70 billion. No? -The bullet train? -Yeah. -What-- so, what about-- -Maybe California trains system. -Yeah. -So, now, how fast would that be like New York to LA? Seven hundred miles an hour. It'll be a little-- I mean, so it takes usually like an hour and twenty, right, to fly from LA to San Francisco. I just did it in June. -I think he said the idea would be for travel under 1,000 miles. Just because you probably wouldn't be wanting to sit in pneumatic tube for more than half an hour. -Yeah. -It look like-- -Oh, you sat economy class like that. -There's no washroom. -It's like the prototypes. -It's a 28 seater, no bathroom. -This is what the prototypes look like. -Yeah. It looks that. -Twenty-eight-seat, I know that. Okay. -And you can't move. -Yeah. -You're traveling 700-- I mean, it's ridiculous. There's no way you're gonna be able to go to bathroom on this thing either because you can't walk around. -And it runs along I-5. -Yeah. -I assume that's a road. -Oh, yeah, in New York. -Oh, that's [unk]-- -Okay. -between its inner state. -It sounds super psyched though too because you're in a tube. So, well, you can't crash in a tube, right? -Unless you're-- you have earthquakes. -Well, I mean, you could. -Unless the tubes falls apart. -Right. -From an earthquake. Yeah. -But so you're also so far east from any major like town? -Yeah. -You get stuck in the middle somewhere in I-5. -Uh-hmm. -In the middle of the state. It kinda [unk]. There's nothing there. -To me, the claustrophobia is already in-- -Right. -like, you know, hovering over this entire story. -Yeah. I've seen Source Code. I know how that will turn out, right? -Oh, I never-- that's the Jake Gyllenhaal? -Yeah, yeah. Turning back at them. -Clearly out of every-- I'm out of every loop on earth this week I guess. -Yeah. -Hyperloop. -Hyperloop. -Hyperloop. -I could have sworn I saw something on the news the other day about and east to west coast thing that would take 45 minutes. I'm not joking. It was like some sort of trans thing. -It is. -Well, another thing that Elon Musk wants to build is a all electric supersonic jet. -Yeah. -Okay. -That may have been-- although-- -The supersonic just means faster than the speed of sound, right? -What have the Concord do though from like New York to LA? -The Concord, I think did 800 miles an hour. -Yeah, but like how quick was the trip? -Oh, I don't know. -A couple of hours? -I think it did New York to London in like 5. -At supersonic speeds, I calculated this the other day because I-- -This is so nerdy. I love it. -Nerdy, edited the jet's story. -Wait. Say it again. Say that in supersonic speed. -At supersonic speeds, -Yeah. -it would be able to get you from London to Shanghai in 8-1/2 hours. -See, I can understand the geography of that. -How long is that trip anyway? -I don't know. -Do you know? -It's like used to 13. -Yeah, about 11 hours. -So, it's shaving like a [unk]. -Right. -That's pretty good. That's not bad. -So, not only is Musk playing, this was one of our global tech stories with international travels as a hot topic for global business people. -Yeah. -At super-- in addition to supersonic speeds all electric plane, his concept would also have the plane taking off and landing vertically like a rocket. -Oh, SpaceX does that. -No, no, no, no, no. I don't wanna do that at all. -No. His Grasshopper does that. -Yeah. -His what? -His Grasshopper rocket. -The rocket. -How does it land perpendicularly? That's weird to me, right? -Imagine. -Check out the video of the Grasshopper. It's awesome. -I would ditch that. -Yeah but that just goes vertically and then goes back down and had it like going around. -Oh, yeah. -I feel like a-- what are those old fighter jets that would land, you know, they wouldn't land, they're just-- -Like a hovercraft. -A helicopter land. -Yeah, like an FTT. -Right. And then tilts its riders and then-- -Yeah. -I need that. I don't want a rocket ship landing the way on its butt. -Uh-hmm. -And it freaks me out. -Watch the video. It's pretty cool. -Yeah. Apparently, the chat room is saying Elon Musk mentioned that this new Hyperloop would be earthquake proof as well. -Yeah. -Bastard. What was this guy think he is? Who does he think he is? -Tony Stark. -He does. He thinks he's Stony Stark. -Wasn't he the inspiration for-- -Yeah, supposedly the inspiration for the Iron Man, Tony Stark. -Yeah. -Would you guys write something like this? I mean, the first thing I thought it would be cool is that I could live in San Francisco and then go and visit my family in LA. -Yeah. -Every single weekend, -Yeah. I thought about everyday. -which would mean you could live in SF and work in LA ostensibly, right? -Yeah. -He could easily do that. -Yeah, 35 minutes. That's shorter than my commute into the office which is like 2 miles. -And the ticket was closed like 25 bucks or something, right? -Twenty bucks per ticket. -It's supposedly gonna be a really cheap ticket. Yeah. -Well, there's commuter planes. -That's incredible. -There's people who take commuter planes. -Right. -But the speed yeah. -Thirty-five minutes. -It's crazy. I can't even comprehend it. -I will move to California just-- -Just so you could ride this. -Yeah. -Someone give me a job in LA or San Francisco. I live in the other city and just do that. -Oh, man. Once they extend it to Tijuana, then I'm there. Or Las Vegas, then I'll go right there. -All right. I mean-- -Would booze be aloud on the Vegas route? -Has to be. -All-- everything-- -And slot machines in those seats too. -Stripper poles. -I thought there's none of room for that, Peter. -Hey, man. I'd like a modified one. -I'm sure you will. -Make your own modified car. -All right. Let's talk about other futuristic crap, other things I don't know about, things like parallax. -All right. -Here we go. Tell me what you know. I wanna hear about this. We talked about this in the pre-show a little bit. Explain to me, I wanna hear this great Peter Ha hypothesis. -I don't know the exact definition of parallax but-- -But it's a Peter Ha hypothesis. -Okay. So, in iOS 7 which I'm testing on my iPhone 5, -There's a show [unk]. -there's a little thing called parallax which-- -Yeah, go on. It's a little thing called parallax, show it in the camera there. Now, to describe what he's doing-- -Make it dance. -Anything you can make here. -What kind of a Batman is that? -What's wrong with you? -So, what he's doing, he's tilting his iPhone 5 that's running iOS 7. -Can't see it all. -If you could barely see it, what he's doing is he's tilting it back and forth and what's happening is that the background is moving a few millimeters left and right. -Correct. -And tell me what you said about that. What do you think that means? -So, everyone has been talking about 3D for a long time, right? 3D in movie or TVs and then eventually like phones will have 3Ds, right? -Uh-hmm. -But I don't think that's actually gonna be feasible and no one really wants a 3D. -Yeah, I don't want that. -The LG put out a 3D phone and it bummed. -Yeah, exactly. -Yeah. I mean, I remember when I went to Korea years ago and went to random Samsung store and they have like 3D phone. Well, I don't actually had a 3D phone too and I was like-- -There was an HTC One too that did it, right? And it was the Evo 3D and it bummed. -Oh, yeah, yeah. So, they don't work and my theory is that Apple is going to rather than go that route, that's what their [unk] parallax for. -Uh-hmm. -For eventual 3D. -Right. Some sort of their own-- -It's a simulated 3D. It's not gonna pop out of the screen. -Right. It's not like a diorama effect. -Yeah, gives a sense of perspective. -Right. -Exactly. -Now-- -Do you think that's why they also went with the flat icons in iOS 7 to sort of not have too many layers of 3D eventually? -Yeah. -So, one day it will just become 2 layers, the background and the icons, right? -Right. -But right now, it's a little bit pointless. -Uh-hmm. -And you can only see it and use it when you're on your lock screen or you're just looking at your homepage. -But it's in there. It's baked in there. -It's in there. It's baked in there, yeah, and-- -Is there an API for it for developers? -That I don't know. So, the other part is, the other part of the theory is that at the iPhone event, whether it happens in a month or not or in 6 weeks or whatever it is, if they want parallax be a really big thing, they'll probably have some sort of app built that takes advantage of it. -Uh-hmm. -Otherwise, it might just be something that they're testing and that they will roll out-- -Uh-hmm. -at some other point out there. -What kind of apps are you envisioning would use this 3D thing? -I don't know. That's the thing. -And what if the gaming, or like photos and stuff, because I mean, the whole 3D gaming thing, I mean, Jeff can speak more of this but hasn't really taken off too much. -Well, I mean, a lot of people use their 3DS with the 3D turned off, myself included. -Yeah, I don't ever turn it on. -Yeah. -Maybe there's some sort of weird Lytro style camera effect where they can make happen down the road. -Yeah. -But it's obviously just that. -I mean, my knee-jerk reaction to hearing about parallax for the first time only ten minutes ago is that, they, you know, Apple loves Doing cosmetic stuff and I feel like right now, like it's-- that's really all you can-- -It's really pointless. -do with it. It's just this like cosmetic sort of pleasing effect. -I don't know that it's even pleasing. It's kind of annoying. -It's not even pleasing and you can't turn it off. -And you can't turn it off. -It's strange. What the hell are they doing with that? -I don't know. Mark, what do you think? -What do you think, Mark? It's a good question. What do you think? Because you-- come on. Come on, Mark. Come on. -You can talk about this. -Oh, no. I think I'm waiting to hear what they say at the September 10th event. -Yeah. All right. So, let's talk about the September 10th. -Wait, is Bloomberg confirming September 10th? -Bloomberg reported last night. September 10th and also this year that Apple is going to be releasing a thinner iPad and an iPad mini with a Retina display. -So, the Retina is gonna happen this year. -Yes. -Really? -Later this year. Not at the iPhone event but later this year. -So, do you think it's-- on September 10th they are also-- they're gonna announce the slimmer iPad. -I think that's unlikely. They'll go probably hold another event before the holidays. -Do you think they are annoying with the amount of events they hold? -Not as bad as Facebook. -That's true. But I feel like those are not as attended as much as the Apple on top. -That is true. -What-- so-- okay, so you think September 10th is just gonna be the iPhone 5 successor? -Yeah, I think. -And iOS. -As they've done in the past, they wanna end iOS. I'm sure they'll say, you know, iOS 7 comes out in a week or something like that. -Right. -If you wanna download in the phone, it comes out in 2 weeks. -Right. -What they normally do. -So, this would be the 6th iPad Micro [unk] I believe. -iPhone. -I know. I'm sorry about the iPad the 6th. -Oh, iPhone and the 6th iPad. -Is it the 6th? -No, it will more. It's like 7 or 8. -Yeah. -Oh, my gosh. -Yeah because there's an SG, OS3. So, what do you think it's gonna be called? iPhone 5S? -What, the phone? -Can we also talk about the cheap iPhone? -Yeah, you can. -The iPhone 5C. -Which stands for cheap dumbass-- it's C for cheap thing. I've heard that anyone has ever come up with. -Why is that? -Why would you call it 5C if that's the actual name which hell yeah-- -Right. -5 Color maybe. -Yeah or 5 Cheap. -In different colors. -Uh-hmm. -I would not wanna buy that phone. -Is your problem with the fact that they're making a cheaper product? Or it is the-- is it like the fragmentation of the product line that's really upsetting? -I don't care about that. -Because I feel like a lot of people are saying now that Apple is a follower and they're not really a leader anymore. CNET had an article about that the other day. -Yeah. -That, you know, obviously they're getting a lot of pressure to put out new products in the face of like Moto X and stuff like that. -Right. -Do you guys buy into that? Do you guys think that Apple is sort of the second place finisher now? -I think the article also mentioned that-- -We're just like I don't know. -Didn't the article that we posted talk about how they're board members were claiming as the stagnancy or-- -Right, right. They're obsess with tinker-- -They innovate-- -Right, right. -Yeah. -Do you think it's too much pressure? Are they gonna be able to meet up with that? Or is it something that they're gonna have to introduce that's brand new. -I don't understand. They're still selling millions upon millions of iPhones and iPads and whatever else. -Uh-hmm. -Like-- -And they're beating expectations too, right? -Yeah. -Right? -So, I think they are, right? -Yeah. -Yeah. -They've been doing well. -One of the, you know, in terms of innovation, one of the difference is now versus before, is that there's so much attention on Apple within the last few years. -Right. Good point. -Reporters and supply chain poking holes with every bit of secrecy they ever tried to maintain. And so, we kind of have a sense of what they're working on. We know that they're working on a watch, we know that we're working on a TV, and so do all their competitors. -Uh-hmm. -So, the moment that it's pretty confident that Apple is working on a watch, Samsung is like, we're working on a watch. -Right. -They go like, we're working on a watch. -Yeah. -Everybody is working on a watch. -Yeah. -I think largely that has to do with the expectation that Apple is going to put out a lot to create a market for it. -Uh-hmm. -But that's not confirmed though, right? We don't have that directly through anybody else's. -Apple is not saying without anything. Yeah. -Right. -So, I feel like all these rumors are just based on us, on speculation from tech blogs and things like that that assumed they're gonna make a watch. -Well, no. I mean-- -But we really have no confirmation on this, right? -Or report. Yeah, resources have sources in the supply chain, -Right. -with partners and with software developer. -Right. Let's not pull that with thin air. -Yeah. -There's stuff to back it up for sure. -The companies are always making like random products that might not ever make it to market, right? -Sure. -True. -Happens all the time. -They've been working on this cheap version of the iPhone like [unk] years I think. -Uh-hmm. -So, now, do you think this cheap version of the iPhone that we call 5C for now as a placeholder name, do you think it's gonna have anything lacking that the regular 5? -I don't know. Just be like a-- -Maybe no retina display. -iPad touch or something. -Maybe no retina display, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say. I don't know that it's necessarily geared towards this market though because you know, in the U.S., as people who will either buy a 5 or a 4, if they can get the phone cheap enough, it's very significant in China, India-- -Sure, emerging markets. -a lot of emerging markets which have huge, huge money. I mean, China is now the number one smartphone market in the world. -Sure. -They shot past the U.S. -Yeah. And there's lots of other emerging markets where they can-- I mean, China's-- China Mobile just announced a phone was coming out. It's gonna be $82. -Wow. -Their smartphone powered by Android. One of the biggest companies over there is a company called [unk] or something like that and they just announced $130 smartphone. -Uh-hmm. -So, Apple selling their phone at between $600 and $1,000 in China. It's just an insane. -Yeah. -That is not as much the market for you. -No, it's smart. It makes economical sense to do that, bring the price down. All right. Let's switch gears a little bit. This has been a great conversation so far. I don't think we're gonna get it out of Peter. I knew you expected for Mark. I don't think we're gonna get out of Peter but we're getting it out of him. -All right. -Speaking against the value, tell me about your cord quoting misadventures that you've decided to profile on your little site Gizmodo there, okay? -So, 2-1/2 years ago when I moved to my new apparently, I opted out of getting cable TV. -You rebel. -I know. -You crazy guy, you-- -No. because mostly I just can't afford it. -Yeah. Did you push this? It's too expensive. -All though cable in that guy's mouth too. How that works? -There is a discussion going on, actually in the comments about whether or not it's-- I don't know. -Uh-hmm. -I don't-- we don't need to go. -Whether or not it's what? -No, whether it's coming out of his mouth, into his mouth, out of his butt. -Oh. -Oh, God. -All right. Yeah well, I guess they gotta terminate somewhere. -Are you reading this-- -People are just getting a little bit weird. -Sure. -Well, you're the guys who all of a sudden allowed-- oh, can we talk real quick? -Oh, God. What? -No, we're talking-- you-- -What? -We brought this up the other day. We will get to your story. -Oh, yeah. Those are annoying. -What's with the freaking annotating on the pictures, man? -Oh, yeah. What is that? -What is that? -All-- it's not just a Gizmodo thing. It's a Gawker thing, but what is that? Who ask for that? Did you ask for that? -No. -You know what I'm talking. Did you ask for that? I didn't ask for that. -I didn't ask for that. -Did you ask for that? -All I'm gonna say is that, image annotation is a thing that has existed for decades in magazines and newspapers. -That's a no comment from Peter. -What do you mean? Like people are just writing funny messages on the newspaper? -No. -I mean, you look at any, like-- -It's digital graffiti. -Just look at like any magazines-- -Look at in bathroom or-- -spread right for like a package, feature package and then there's just like bubbles that-- -But is it crowd-source annotation or is it the-- -Oh, common interest, yeah. We just don't really take advantage of image annotations. Some of the other sites like-- let's say Jalopnik for io9. -Yeah. -They do a very good job of three-- -The blogger will actually-- -Pre-image annotating or pre-annotating the image. -I wanna be much more transparent, yeah. -Nobody knows what we're talking about. -Yeah. So, we're talking about anytime you visit a Gawker article. -Yeah. -And there's a big photo at the top of the post. -Right. -Users-- registered users-- -Can click wherever. -can click anywhere on there and like you can tag a face on Facebook. You can tag a certain section of the image and writing a little stupid comment there. -Right. -And now, can anyone do that? -This image is-- -Yeah, anyone that as long as-- -Then you can have a comment about the comment. -Right. -We have a whole discussion thread just about this one empty-- -Well, this is just not a very good image to users to make samples. -Are they ever good? -I think it is. -[unk] enriched the photo? -I guess if you're writing about, you know, Nokia releasing a new line of phones, -Right. -you could say, this is the-- -Yeah, point stuff out. -That's bright. -Yeah. -I get that but giving that power to the masses-- -But there's gonna be moderators. Look at the comments. -Of course. -Yeah the writer. -Okay. -All right. -So, this is all your job. All right. Let's get back to the story. So, -Anyway-- -you got the cord, was that-- -Yeah. -That was for frugality, right? -Right. -It wasn't because you were taking a political stand against Time Warner. -No. I just-- just like it was too expensive. -No one will hold against you. Okay. So, it's just about the press. -Right. -Because you're paying what? Fifty bucks for internet and then another like 70 something. -Yeah, whatever it was. It was just something ridiculous. So, I was like I don't watch TV enough as it is and-- -Did you have a DVR with that as well? -I did. -Okay. So, that [unk]. -So, I had FiOS DVR and the whole thing and it was awesome. It was great. -Yeah. -So, when I move, I was like-- I just don't-- I made a point not to watch TV, that much TV anymore. -Okay. -So, I opted out a cable and also only had-- Time Warner was only other choice. -Uh-hmm. -Or was my only choice. So, I was like, screw that. I'll just pay for the internet. -Right. -And in that time, I have used any combination of like Netflix, Hulu, Aerio, torrenting apps. -Uh-hmm. -iTunes, whatever you name it. -Okay. -And just the other week I was like-- I kinda wanna just get cable TV just to see what it's like. -Yeah. Like, I miss commercials. What's going on with those? -And honestly, it sucks, dude. Cable TV is the worst thing imaginable. Right. -Yeah, it's the worst. -Yeah, it's bad. -There's never anything on. I have like 300 channels and I'm like, -Right. -what? There's nothing to watch. -You have 900 channels. -Yeah, I have like unlimited amount of channels or whatever. -Uh-hmm. -But there's never anything to watch and I don't understand why everything is a reality TV show. -Right. -Why does Dave Navarro have a show for crying out loud? -Yeah. Right. -I don't understand that. -Yeah, you're watching like 8 or 9 programs, maybe like 12 hours a week total, but then you have all these extra channels-- -Yeah. -and you're paying now, what? Like 120 bucks for it. -I don't even know what it is. I'm just like this-- I'm honestly probably gonna get rid of it in a couple of weeks. -But the one thing cable does have that's worthwhile is a better selection of on-demand than-- -Right. -any internet service out there. -Right. -I mean, you can get Breaking Bad, you know, 3 hours after an air. -Uh-hmm. -And it's all inclusive too. -Yeah. -It's not you don't have to search that hard. -Yeah. -It's just there and they're seemingly infinite library. -Right. -And you're set to go. -But that's a deal baked into the contracts that they have been providing. -Uh-hmm. Right. -That's not like an extra curricular or something. -I mean, in an ideal world, obviously I just want ala carte. -Right. -But that's never gonna happen. -Right. -It's just not going to happen. -No. It will not happen. -You can have that but it just takes so much more work, -right. -and I think that's the reason why I've always kind of kept off cable but I wish I had it because I really miss that passive TV watching experience. -Yeah. -You know, like curating your own experience with like-- -Right. -Hulu, Roku, all that stuff. It just-- it's like online dating. It takes the romance out of just sitting back-- -Right. -and watching out like vegging out. -It's just way more convenient and-- -Yeah. -that's what it is. -That's what you're paying for. -Yeah. -It's the convenience. -Right. -It's having content spit into your face. -Right. -And then also just because of the job and sort of what we do, we kinda hve to pay attention to things like Twitter and whatever, right? -Right. -I don't know. I'm sorry. But like I don't understand why people that cover tech or just not television entertainment but media, I don't understand why everyone feels the need to like get on Twitter during let's say Breaking Bad the season premiere. -Right. -And like tweet every single freaking thing. I'm like, shut up. It's not your job. -You're preaching to the choir, man. -Right? -You're complaining about how much cable TV sucks and how annoying it is that people live tweet TV shows. -Yes. -We all know that sucks. -I know. -Why don't you get off Twitter while you're watching? -Yeah. Why don't you cut the cord on Twitter? -Why are you even checking that kind of stuff? -Why don't cut the Twitter cord? -Right? And in order to see this stuff, you have to be on Twitter as well. -Oh, jeez. Are you the ones in the comment saying that to me? Why don't you just quit Twitter? Why don't you just quit Twitter? -Oh, no. That's me right here right now, so-- -Whatever. -Everyone else's-- you're the one. -The last thing I'm gonna say about cable TV is-- -Yeah. -how disgusting and ugly the menu system is. -Yes. -Well, for-- what do you have? -It's so-- -On Verizon? -I'm Dish. -Oh, that's-- come on. That varies by carrier. -I'm sure that applies to any other cable company. -It's miserable on Time Warner. It's miserable on Cablevision which is a New York, New Jersey thing. -Yeah. -I have FiOS, it's the-- FiOS is one of the best that I've ever come across. -Right. -Yeah. -So, here's my-- here's what I have to do now. I have to take my phone now and loo at the Dish app to actually understand to know what's playing right now. -Oh, I believe it. -Isn't Dish one of the ones where you can plug it into the Xbox or one of those systems and-- -But you could do that with FiOS too. -No. You can't. -Well, wait. What are you-- are you talking about streaming over IP? Or what are you talking about? -No, you can-- can't you access all of your live channels with certain providers over Xbox? -I know for Verizon you can do about a quarter of the channels. -Uh-hmm. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. -I have not yet tested that. -Right. On the other side of it, though, at least you don't have to browse through Netflix anymore, which is a really dismal experience. -Well, that's the other thing. -Right. That's the worst-- everything. -I just watch everything that I could possibly watch. -Yeah. -I'm like, I don't have any-- -No, you probably haven't seen all the weird 80's b-movies and made for TV movies that exist on Netflix. -Like what? -Like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective 2 or Jr. -Whoa, that one is-- -That one maniac. -That was not-- -Not When Nature Calls. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr., the made for TV movie from 1998 that I watched on Netflix. -We shall not speak of such blasphemy. -It's bad. Yeah. -We shall not speak of such blasphemy in the show. -Because there's a lot of bad stuff on Netflix, right? And now you're obsessed with that. Congratulations. -Yup. There's one movie title that I watched the other day. I didn't watch the movie. I was like-- why is this on here? -Yeah. -None-- wait. Oh, what was it? -It's-- -Nude Nuns with Big Guns but it was like Big Boob Nuns with Big Guns or something. -Not seeing a problem here, Peter. -I don't know. I find that to be a little bit weird and freakish. -Okay. You could find that stuff elsewhere too. -Yeah, yeah. -What I'm confused about, Peter, -Yes. -the title of this is I Quit Cable 2-1/2 Years Ago. Here's Why I Came Back. -Yeah. -So, the takeaway from the headline alone is, oh, Pete's back. -Cable-- -Yeah. -Pete's back. He's back in business. -But now he's-- -Cable is working. -It seems like you hate that too. -So, explain yourself with that. I mean, you know, I mean like why did you come back? You didn't say why you came back. -Because I just want to watch TV to be-- I want it to be more convenient, right? -Right. -So, like come you know, next month, like all the shows that I would watch and want to watch are coming back on. -Right. -And I hate spoilers for whatever-- I mean, obviously everyone hates spoilers. -Yeah. -But I don't wanna wait another year for those shows for that season, you know, in Netflix. -And binge to watch it all, right. Yeah. -And I really-- I mean, yeah. I could torn every single thing but let's be honest like-- -It's annoying. -That's annoying. -It's just annoying in-- I, you know, I just don't wanna do it. -I mean, you're basically claiming-- -I feel. -came back to cable for the same reason we all currently subscribe to it. -Yeah. -I pay $170 a month so I can watch Archer and Sons of Anarchy and Hockey. -Yeah. -I love Archer. -Yeah, and Hockey. -Yeah. -Well, that's the only thing. It's like, do you miss sports? I feel like all my friends that have cut the cable have now become alcoholics because they just watch sports at bars now. And all of the money that they spend on cable, they now spend with beers. -I don't really care about most sports. I watch MotoGP and that's it. -Okay. Is that on TV? -Yeah. -I'm kidding. I know what it is. -Sure. -I know what it is. -Jerk. -Dude, it's much cooler than like, you know, four wheels. All right. So-- -See you at the public library-- -It was like, oh [unk]. -So, how long have you been back on the cable train? -it's probably been like 3 weeks and I don't watch TV. The first night that I had it, I could stand like 2 hours of TV and then I was like I have to turn this off. -Allow me to give you a very well curated list of stuff you should probably watch. -Okay. -Because there's good stuff out there, just like any other media. -Yeah. -Whole lot of crap, smallest the winners. -Right. -Right? Movies, music, everything. -Okay. -So, the same thing applies to television. -Uh-hmm. -Fair enough. -And I'll help you through this tragic time in your life. -Okay. -What do you-- I'm curious what you think about all this. Do you think it's full of shit? What do you think? I mean-- and I'm sure he gets Bloomberg TV. I'm sure just like [unk] that 24/7. -It's also free online, bloomberg.com/tv. It's also on Aerio. -Nice, nice. What do you think? I mean, like-- -I know-- -What-- do you have cable? -I don't have cable. -You don't. -No. -Plot thickens. So, what about like why you've chosen not to subscribe? How do you consume content? -I don't watch it. [unk] TV when I do, I watch Netflix. -Yeah. -Or like, just like you know, daily show [unk] on my computer and you know, stream that to the TV. -Yeah. -Uh-hmm. -Or-- -Do you do that with a hardwired connection? Or do you do like a wireless HDMI? -Yeah. I think they block airplay for those videos. -Yeah. -Okay. -So, I have to do that wired. And then, I borrow a friend's subscription for HBO. -Lie. -I do that too. -Yeah, I love that. -I know more people that do that than have it-- like I don't know why I'll pay for it's-- yeah. -You probably borrow from the same friend actually. Everyone does the same thing. -What the hell am I paying for each bill? -One person pays for it. That's Yu. Everyone else borrows the same code. -Yeah. Can I have your login? -Yeah, you can. -HBO is so good though. -It is. -If I could just subscribe-- I would pay 20 bucks a month just to subscribe to HBO. -I do. -Yeah. -I think it's like 18. -I thought it was like 8 or 10 bucks now. -I think it's 18. -No. It's not cheap. -All right. I don't pay 30 bucks. -Yeah. -Just give me-- -You're right. It's excellent and I mean, that will be a loophole that closes as well eventually. Like the Netflix. -They've opened it in, I think like the Netherlands. -So, you can go to Amsterdam and watch HBO Go, no problems? -That would be such a bad life. -It would not be a bad life at all. -I would pay for HBO. -So, yeah. I mean, exclusively outside of-- yeah. We were reading something about that recently where they really-- the guys behind HBO were like, we really wanna be able to do something like this, -Uh-hmm. -but, we're in such, you know, cahoots with this cable like it could just never happen. -Yeah. -But what's really stopping them from doing it? What is really stopping HBO from saying fine. Comcast, Time Warner-- -Money. -Fine. Go F yourself, right? We're pulling out of all the providers and then we're just offering it to planet earth for 15 bucks a month. There's no way they would not cash-in on that, right? -I don't know if they make-- -They're not gonna make this much money. -I mean, when you consider that something like 9-- upwards of 90% of Americans have cable, -Right. But not-- -the market for what they're missing out on is pretty small. -Yeah. -Yeah. -So, if they're not gonna get the people who already subscribe to cable, they don't wanna add it on to their cable subscription, I don't think that's the remaining, you know, 5% or 10% you're gonna make up for what the [unk] add-on and all the cable companies are just gonna cut them out entirely. -And I get that. But not everyone who subscribes to cable has HBO obviously. How many subscribers does HBO have? Do we know? I wanna see like 50 million. -Yeah. It sounds beautiful. -Right? Does that sound reasonable? -Sounds like a good made-up number. I don't know. -I'm gonna respect that number. We could look it up. I don't know. I just think if you-- and if they made it a little cheaper than what it cost to subscribe through a cable provider, -Yeah. -come on. Who's not signing up for that? -That's the argument for all ala carte channels, right? I do that for AMC as well if it was available but I just don't think that's ever gonna have it. -I think regular standard like cable stuff is in a different category. -Yeah. -The premium content HBO. -Let me ask you this. Are you guys into any of the original content on Netflix? Because that's a huge thing now. I've been watching-- what do you call-- Orange is the New Black, which is great and the fact that I can get original programming for free kind of on Netflix, they're like 5 bucks a month now, is incredible. Do you guys consume any of that? -I like House of Cards. -That's speaking one of my favorite shows. -Yeah. -House of Cards. What about-- I heard that Orange is the New Black is pretty good. -I got through part of the first episode, -Yeah. -but then I'm like, well, it's from the same guy that did Weeds. -Yeah. -I'm like, okay. So, it's Weeds go to jail. -Like that, yeah. -Oh, Jenji Kohan? -Yeah. -Her? Yeah. -I was hoping it'd be dirtier too. It's not very dirty. -I'm sorry, Justin. -Right? Oh, I just thought there'd be-- I mean, if you're gonna make a present-- -Ladies in prison. -TV show, make it like a men's presentation. That's more exciting. -You want female Oz that's what you want. -Yeah. That's what you want. -Yeah, guys beating each other up basically. -All right. But, no. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff on there and I feel like it's a lot easier now to cut the cord too, which is I guess opposite of what you're doing. But like the Comcast for example, you guys played around with that thing. -No, I have an Apple TV. -Yeah, you-- -Everyone-- no, so the best thing came over, I asked him like, should I get one? Should I get one? Should I get one? They're like, do you have Apple TV? Do you have this or that? I'm like-- -Right. -I have all of those. -Right. -Well, then you don't need to buy it. -Right. -Okay. -No, you're right. -But you can't get a browser on your television screen from Apple TV. -Dude, I don't want that. -That's not appealing to you? -No. Why do I wanna search on my TV? -The one thing I do wanna see how this works is because they've got that feature to sling a browser tab. -Right. -So, if you open, say [unk], can you sling that and it will work? Because it can't with airplane. -I think you can. -Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can stream anything. -I believe you can. -Yeah, YouTube videos. Yeah. -But we tried it out here a couple of weeks ago when it came out, -Uh-hmm. -and we found that your mouse disappears. So, you're not really seeing a mirrored tab. You're just sort-- it's just basically turning your tab into like a video essentially and it's eliminating the cursor and it's delayed. So, it's not like you can use it like a monitor at all. -Well, the delay was because it's getting throttled by a WiFi connection. -But even when it's a perfect thing, even if there's a split second delay, it's enough to impede the use of a mouse. It's not like when you hardwire a computer to a TV and use the TV as a monitor. -What about full screen? Can you take a video? -Yeah, we put a YouTube video on full screen. -Yeah. -We put our live feed in full screen and it works. -And then doe sit stay full screen on your computer? -Yes. -Yeah. -But you can browse on your computer and it will stay full screen, yeah. -Oh, it's sounds kinda cool. -That's what I want. -Yeah. -Thirty-five bucks I'm getting it. -You get it right now. -No, I can't. -In like more months. -In 6 to 8 months. Yeah. -Order it now. -It will be there just in time. -It's still on eBay. -Just in time. -Five thousand dollars for one. -So, you're gonna recut the table then? Is that the plan? Or are you gonna keep it? -I'm pretty sure-- -How many months? I guess you're signed into a contract now. -This is an evolving story. -It doesn't matter. I'll cut the contract. I don't care. -They must have cut your pretty good deal to come back, right? I mean, Time Warner is losing a lot of money right now. I'm sure while everyone else is jumping ship because of the CBS-- -I have no idea what you're talking about. -You were getting back on to it, right? -It doesn't matter. -I have no idea what you're talking about. -No, we're not gonna talk about that. -I'm sorry. What are you gonna say? -What? What? -Huh? -Huh? -Are you gonna follow the story up? You can write to all these people and be like, I came on 404 Show and they changed my whole perspective on shit and now I'm changing my life? -I'm probably gonna get rid of cable at the end of the year. -Really? -Once all the-- seasons are-- yeah. Once the whatever is over. -Uh-hmm. -All the shows that I watched that-- -The promotions. -the season will end and I will get rid of it because I will have no use for it. -All right. Fair enough. -And also MotoGP will be done. So, season ends, so-- -Okay. -So, what's the new headline gonna be? -Yeah. -I cut the cable and then I came back and then I just cut it back again. -Cable TV is crap. This is why I'm leaving again. -Again in parenthesis. -Yeah. -Where we've been through out there. -Just wanna say, just because I looked into this a little while ago, I haven't tested it out myself, but apparently there are scripts you can download that will automatically download new episodes off of like Pirate Bay or-- -My brother does that. -websites. So, it kinda makes a little bit more convenient. -Right. -Not as much of a hassle to download your favorite shows. -True. -So, that could be an incentive once you cut it again. -You know, here's the thing. Like the whole torrenting thing is the obvious most, easiest thing you possibly do. -Yeah. -But I just want to just do things legally. -Legally? I don't buy that seriously. -I don't buy that. Suck it. You love flying that flag. -[unk] cold face lie. -You love flying that flag. -I know. -I'm not gonna look right now in-- -If I could pay for things straight up, -Sure. -just the way I wanted them, then I would. -Yes. Yes. -You can do that. It's called iTunes. -Really? -Yes. -Oh. -Right. So, when does iTunes get, say, Breaking Bad? -Usually the day of like hours afterward, yeah it's pretty quick. -It's expensive. -It is expensive. It's like $5.99 if you wanna buy a movie. -Yes. -And it's a rental too, it's not even a purchase. -So, you-- really? The-- so when you buy-- -How much is like a season pass? Like 60 bucks, isn't it? -I don't know. -Something expensive? -It doesn't make sense. It's a lot. Yup. You might as well just be channel surfing on your cable TV now. Like they only came until you last even watched it. -Yeah. -Yeah. -All right. Well, keep us updated in your missed adventures of cable TV. -I will. -I appreciate it. Mr. Milian, always a pleasure, sir. You got anything cooking right now you wanna promote real quick? You can follow Mark on Twitter @markmilian. -Yeah. -And obviously read all your stuff on Bloomberg. -Yeah, check out bloomberg.com/globaltech. -There you go. Make sure you do that. Read all of Peter's stuff on Gizmodo @ThePeterHa, this is hand-on Twitter and thanks for being here, man. Next time you're in your New York, as always, you gotta come back, man. -Definitely. -All right. Rock and roll. That's gonna do it for us. 866-404-CNET that's the phone number. You can give us an e-mail, the404@cnet.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and check out our Subreddit. You've ever been to our Subreddit, guys? -No. -No, yeah. I appreciate that. Really, I wanna appreciate that, guys. No, I'm joking. -You guys gotta calm down. There's too much energy coming from this side of-- -It's reddit.com/r/the404, so participate. -I'll give you some upvotes. -Yeah? Sweet. We love upvotes. -Peter is drooling into the mic. -Oh, Peter. You're better than that. -I'm sorry. What? -All right. We'll see you guys, though soon, back here tomorrow. Until then, I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -This has been The 404 Show. Big thanks again to Peter and Mark and Richard Peterson, -Yeah. -who we cannot hear but only see. We'll see you guys tomorrow, later.