Now we sit and wait. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.

Oi. I feel like a moron. I tried to add a font-awesome icon to my blog title. It did not work as expected and now I’m stuck.

You might notice a bunch of older posts on my timeline - I’ve decided to move my blog from a self-hosted Hugo instance to micro.blog. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner. Thanks, Manton, et al!

Let's see if this Stoot thing works...

Chief TWiT :twit: @leo@twit.social

I'm starting to wish Apple would add an "I've alrfeady voted so stop bugging me" setting to iOS.

8:40 PM • November 3, 2024 (UTC)

Is it weird that the Advent of Code problems keep me up at night? I don’t mean I’m staying up late working on them, I mean I’m lying in bed trying to figure out how to find a single point in a 4,000,000x4,000,000 grid populated by scanners with varying positions and ranges. ZZzzzzzzzzzz

As of Sunday, December 18, 2022, the Tech Guy radio show is no more. But starting Sunday, January 8, 2023 a new and improved show will be born: Ask The Tech Guys with Leo and Mikah!

I may be “retiring from radio” but all that really means is that I’m hanging up the transmitter and towers. I’ll still be talking tech with you for six shows a week at TWiT.tv Most importantly, I’m still doing The Tech Guy show but without all the attendant radio cruft.

Here’s how the show will differ:

Mikah Sargent is co-hosting with me. Yay! Mikah represents the next generation of tech guys, and, more importantly to me, we have a lot of fun together!

We’re going to use the “Living Room” set in the studio with additional demos in “Radio Corner.” (If that’s confusing watch, you’ll see what I mean.)

No more 19 minutes of radio commercials per hour - seriously, that’s not an exaggeration, that’s the legal max. We’ll still have podcast ads but no more than three per show. Ironically this means the podcast will be longer because we’ve been cutting those radio ads, and local newscasts, etc, out. I anticipate the show will be closer to 3 hours than the previous 2 hours. Of course, there will be only one show a week instead of two, but still a net loss of an hour per weekend from previous years.

We’ll still stream it live at live.twit.tv Sundays 11a-2p Pacific/2-5p Eastern/1900-2200 UTC, and we’re hoping for plenty of live calls. Calls will be primarily via Zoom. We’re strongly encouraging everyone to call from their smart phones using call.twit.tv - you won’t need to install Zoom. We will also be answering emails at askthetechguys@twit.tv.. And encouraging recorded questions via email.

Expect two hands-on demos a week. We will always offer audio versions of the show, but we want to use the availability of video to do more. We’ll make sure to describe the video for people who only listen.

Questions and answers will still be the backbone of the show, as before, but we’ll also have several pre-recorded segments every week from the Tech Guy contributors (Scott, Johnny, Dick, Sam, Chris, and Rod) as well as short interview segments. For example, I’m interviewing Daniel Suarez about his new book Critical Mass, on Feb 10. A 10-minute except will be aired on ATG and the full interview will be a Triangulation special. I want to use ATG as a chance to do more short, one-off interviews. We need these short pre-recorded segments of 3-5 minutes to give us a break during the live recording on Sundays.

In short, the show will be the Tech Guy plus. I’ll still do the show opens, aka my Sunday Sermon, but I think it will feel a bit more relaxed without the clock forcing me to break at awkward moments. We are going to put a time limit on calls and segments, however, to maintain some pace.

I think it will be a really fun, engaging, and informative show unlike anything we’ve done in the past. I hope you’ll listen.

The feed is exactly the same, as is the show page: twit.tv/ttg or techguylabs.com. If you’re already subscribed to The Tech Guy feed in your podcast client do nothing. The show will continue with episode 1956.

See you Sunday!

UPDATE: Unfortunately, between diminishing ad revenue and a shrinking audience, we've had to close our TWiT studios as of August 2024. Mikah and I are now working from our respective homes, and it's difficult to continue the call-in show. For now, Mikah will continue to answer your questions at the same time every Sunday with Hands On Tech. 

Time for Windows Weekly. Listen live at live.twit.tv

I’m turning off my automated news feed on my micro.blog (https://leo.social). If you still want links to stories we’re planning to cover on TWiT follow:

twit.social/@twitnews

Thanks!

So I guess this means I have three Fediverse accounts: leo.social, @leo@twit.social, and @leolaporte@pixelfed.social.

Not to mention my long abandoned mastodon.social account.

And I always thought I was anti-social.

Hello. I’m reconnecting my micro.blog to leo.social. I’m also @leo@twit.social.

Roger Angell passed away yesterday at the age of 101. 

A long-time editor at The New Yorker, he was also the best damn baseball writer ever. His essay This Old Man from 2014 is a lovely paen to old age and features these words of wisdom from another old coot, Walter Cronkite.

Never trust a fart. Never pass up a drink. Never ignore an erection.

Truer words were never spoke.

I created this site in the midst of a pandemic. Now two years later, it’s over. Right?

Today mask mandates are lifted in our county and, despite cowardly quibbling from the CDC, most of the US. It seems the pandemic ends with a whimper, not a bang. Sunday’s mostly-maskless Superbowl was the party we’ve all been waiting for. And, yet, I’m not exactly ready to celebrate. Personally, I’m planning to tiptoe back, mask at the ready. I’d love to make a pyre in the backyard to burn them all, but what if there’s a new virulent variant? We still have Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ and Ω if we need them.

But, for now, I’m willing to say Mission Accomplished. Good job everyone. Let’s say a prayer for the nearly one million dead in the US, nearly six million worldwide (a chilling number) and get back to living. Save the remaining ivermectin for the horses, shall we?

Oh, and get your goldurn vaccine, will ya? For me? For all of us!

Yesterday my son showed up at the studio. I took the opportunity to interview him!

Henry (or Hank as he’s known now) has become a big-time Tik Tok chef with 1.8 million followers and nearly 30 million likes. Check out his videos and, as soon as he gets more, you can also buy his salt at salthank.com.

We tried to reproduce a photo from 27-years-ago at KSFO.

Father and Sons 27-years apart

Thanks to RailEuropeGroups from Club TWiT for the Photoshop! And here’s the clip from Sunday’s show.

I guess I’m kind of a proud father!

I pulled the trigger on a Monster Gaming Machine. I know it’s crazy, but boys just want to have fun.

See I have a three-year-old iMac Pro, but it’s getting flaky and I’ve been eyeing my wife’s 49" monitor for months.

Apple’s never going to do something like that! And how long before they ship something powerful that can work with an external monitor: A high-end mac Mini or a new mini-Mac Pro?

I finally lost my patience and pulled the trigger on something completely different.

Maxed out with a Ryzen 7 5800X, nVidia GTX 3080, 128GB RAM, and dual 2TB drives (1 m.2, 1 spinning).

I know I could save money and probably get something better by building my own or going to a custom gaming PC maker, but these components are hard to get and I figure Dell can get them faster than anyone else. Even so this baby doesn’t ship ‘til May.

And as long as I’m going for a power rig, I might as well go all out with a monster monitor, right?

A 55-inch OLED monitor that’s absurdly expensive. (It’s basically a hi-res TV but it costs a lot more.)

I rationalize this crazy purchase because

1. I believe in open source, and like Linux as much as I like macOS. Dell supports Linux pretty well. (No I don’t plan on using Windows. Ick.)
2. I really need to get to know the new PC hardware. Specifically The AMD Ryzen and the new nVidia ray-tracing GPUs.
3. I can’t get an Xbox Series X or Playstation 5 to save my life, but I really want to play something new.
4. and the real reason… Valheim (it runs on Linux!)

I’ve been saving up for something like this for some time. It’s kind of the Ultimate Gaming Machine for 2021.

OK tell me I’m a fool. I’m ready to be roasted. Or you can come over and watch me play Valheim come May.

UPDATE: It has arrived. I’ve been playing with it all day and it’s so fast. Super happy with the purchase. Dual booting Windows 10 with Manjaro Linux and everything is working perfectly. I think I’m in love.

UPDATE (4 years later): I’m still playing Valheim, but now it’s on an M4Pro Mac mini with the same monster monitor. As usual, the monitor outlived the computer.

Yesterday I got the first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine!

When I arrived at Kaiser they threw me a curve. “Would you like Moderna or Johnson & Johnson?” I chose Moderna for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I think the mRNA technology is very cool. The process was quick and nearly painless. Afterwards I hod to wait 15 minutes, just in case I had a bad reaction. I didn’t. My arm hurts a bit today, but that’s the extent of the side effects. I expect worse after the second shot, April 14.

Now we just have to get the rest of my friends and family vaccinated and life can kind of get back to normal!

Just because someone believes in conspiracy theories, doesn’t mean they’re dumb.

From an article in The New Republic:

The University of Minnesota’s Joanne Miller and Christina Farhart and Colorado State University’s Kyle Saunders conducted a survey examining support for conspiracy theories, including birtherism and 9/11 trutherism. In a result unsurprising to those who follow this research, they found that higher levels of political knowledge actually deepened the likelihood that conservatives with low trust in people and major institutions would endorse right-wing conspiracy theories. In a section reviewing previous research on the subject, the authors explained that political sophisticates “have the ability to make connections between abstract principles and more concrete attitudes and are therefore more fully able to notice the implications of specific attitudes for their worldviews.” “Because politically knowledgeable people care more about politics and hold stronger political attitudes,” they added, “they are especially likely to want to protect those attitudes.”

The researchers conclude that “people will believe what they want to believe in spite of available data and evidence.”

A new study from CU Boulder (my son’s alma mater) and Harvard’s TF Chan School of Public Health points to a way forward in the pandemic.

The study says

“These rapid tests are contagiousness tests,” said senior co-author Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “They are extremely effective in detecting COVID-19 when people are contagious.”

They are also affordable, he added. The rapid tests can cost as little as $1 each and return results in 15 minutes.

Best of all, “testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid-turnaround COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks.”

This is something we could do today to end the pandemic by Christmas. The FDA has already approved the tests.

For more information and some easy ways to get Congress off its butt visit rapidtests.org.

(NOTE FROM 2024: Yet another example of how the pandemic was mishandled. Due to foot dragging from the FDA, the tests weren’t in widespread use until 2022.)

I resemble that cartoon.

(UPDATE from 2024:) and here I am, moving my blog yet again!

One of our hosts asked me for some talent coaching. This is how I responded.

I’ll tell you what I do, but this is only what works for me. I don’t have any talent. I can’t tell jokes. I can’t juggle. I’m not sexy. So all I can do is try to be myself, be likable, and serve my audience. I’m always trying to get to the love that’s at the core of all human interactions. For me, connecting with the audience is to love and honor who they are. And connecting with the audience is my job. It’s what I strive to do every time I’m on the air.

I do very little prep these days - I should definitely do more but I’m lazy. Remember I’ve been on the radio for 43 years, and doing interviews since 1987, so everything I do is totally internalized and mostly unconscious. There’s no way I could pass it on to you, and you wouldn’t want me to if I could, since the essence of being good on the air is to be totally yourself. And, bad news, you can’t pursue being centered and authentic on the air. You can only relax into it. And that just takes practice. It took me 15 years before I was any good.¹

In interviews, I am naturally curious. That helps. Always pay attention like a hawk to what people are saying. They’ll tell you what they want to talk about. Make it a conversation, not a series of questions. I will sometimes think of a question or two ahead of time, just so I have something to fall back on, but generally, if you are really engaged in the conversation, the next question will come easily. Never be thinking of what you’re going to ask next; you’ll miss the cues your guest is giving you. The essence of great interviewing is to be a great listener. Engage in the conversation and let your natural curiosity direct you. Be very careful about trying to show what you know. I hear a lot of interviewers trying to be smart. It’s better to be dumb. That’s how you learn.

I think it is worth trying to be as honest and genuine as you can be at all times. People can sniff inauthenticity. There’s plenty of it on the airwaves, but I believe people want to see you as you are. That’s scary because there’s always the risk people won’t like you, but it’s better to be yourself than to try to appeal to people by putting on a false persona. If they don’t like you, so be it.

Be open, be kind, and always aim toward honesty. It’s hard enough in real life, and it’s even harder on-the-air because you can’t see your audience. It’s easy to fall into the trap of being automatic. Always strive to be present and always ask yourself, “am I telling the truth?”

Studying improv was useful. In improv the rule is always to respond to every prompt with “yes, and” - never block, never say no. In improv you learn to listen. You also learn how to center and relax even while your energy is soaring. When the mic comes on you’re going to feel a rush of energy. Use it, don’t let it run you. You want to get into a heightened state of awareness without becoming amped up. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it flow. You’re always working to get into the flow state. Also, learn how to pronounce long last names.

This is all very meta advice. I don’t do “talent coaching.” Sometimes coaching is as simple as telling someone to say “you know” less, but I don’t like to operate at that level. You should do that yourself. Watch video and look for repetitive verbal crutches and tics. Practice reading until you can be fluent, even the first time you see something. I make little notes to myself about goals, “don’t interrupt,” “slow down,” “don’t curse,” etc. and then store them in the back of my mind. Practice one thing at a time. It’s good to work on technique, but you don’t want to become self-conscious.

It’s like learning to be a pro-basketball player. You can work on your skills, and I guess you have to, but nothing is going to sing until you can stop being self-conscious enough to flow. If you’re “working at it” on-the-air it shows. Never let them see you sweat. You don’t want to make your audience worry about you. You want them to feel like you’re supremely confident and in control. But if you’re not, and stuff is falling apart, don’t hide it, be honest. Don’t freak out, enjoy yourself. That’s another way to be in control: own what’s going on. Your audience always knows exactly what’s going on. Don’t cover up, own up.

Sometimes it all goes to hell. It happens to all of us. Don’t sweat it. Tomorrow is another show. Keep striving to connect with your audience, to be human, to be honest, to be vulnerable. Strip away the protective shell we all wear and be present. The best on-air talent is totally real.

It’s good to study others and notice what works. I love to study veteran performers. I am always impressed with how calm and in command they are. They never strive to entertain, they just do. Think of the person you like best on the air. What makes them interesting? What makes you like them? Find that in yourself. Don’t be them, of course, be you, but it’s normal to start out by imitating your heroes and develop your own style later. I was heavily influenced by David Letterman, and copied his mannerisms for a long time. Before that it was Don Imus. I liked them because they never seemed to be trying to please their audiences. They had a “take it or leave it” attitude. My career didn’t take off until I stopped trying so hard. You don’t want to be smarmy or ingratiating. Be cool.

Always remember you are there to serve your audience. That’s where the humility comes from. They aren’t here to listen to you; you are there to serve them. To keep them company. To inform. To entertain. To make their lives better. Even just to give them a little break from the day-to-day. You are performing a great service. Be grateful for the opportunity.

That’s it. That’s everything I know about being on-the-air. Now forget what I said and be yourself. Getting to perform for others is a great privilege. Enjoy it.

I love Paul Graham’s essays. This one, from 2016, truly hits home.

Life is short, so it’s worth eliminating the time wasters. For one, defending yourself online.

Your instinct when attacked is to defend yourself. But like a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for the world we now live in. Counterintuitive as it feels, it's better most of the time not to defend yourself. Otherwise these people are literally taking your life.

But that’s just one of many powerful ideas in this essay. Please take 10 of your precious remaining minutes to read it.

One heuristic for distinguishing stuff that matters is to ask yourself whether you'll care about it in the future. Fake stuff that matters usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter. That's how it tricks you. The area under the curve is small, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.

As I come to the waning years of my life, I want to make every minute count.

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short.