029: Accept, Accept, ACCEPT!

All right, well, we're back recording just a couple days after we last recorded and ready to do it again. Are you ready Adam? Yep Awesome. Do you even care that we're recording a couple days after we last recorded?

Yeah, so we argued about this a little bit earlier But uh, it doesn't matter. No one's gonna know. I mean, it's still gonna release at the same time So there's always that tape delay. So it's like I feel like you always want to look under the skirt of the podcast But it's like I like pulling back the curtain sometimes just just showing them what's going on behind behind the curtain a little bit Showing a little bit of leg.

Yeah, it's a little bit of like you know, it's like my seven inch shorts. You want me in Say yep, I'm glad you picked that up. Just beat me to it by you know, like five seconds pasty lullegs what Adam really wants So it's not my resolutions this year is to get loot to wear lululemo seven-inch shorts I guess they go by the metric system though, right? So what was seven inches in there?

They're not a French company Like a French company or something. I just want to make it more exotic than it is, you know Yeah, you're just think because they sell $58 shorts They need to have like, you know lots of accents in their name Well, I feel like, you know, that's something luxury, right? And you think luxury cars you think all that kind of stuff I guess you would, you know, no, no, I wouldn't think U.S. But yeah, oh dear I can't wait for all the accents and crap you're gonna an extra vowels.

You're gonna put in Patagonia. Oh, man I go think about that one. I'll get back to you. Okay, sounds good So a little bit of other news going on this week is mobile world Congress, which is what is the best way to describe mobile Congress is kind of like the WWDC or something like that for the Android world.

I guess I would say it's like the best Way to equate it to the Apple world of things. Is that fair to say Adam? I wouldn't say like the dub dub, right? It's it's more like, you know how CES how we talked about their trends at CES and you know, just one product or one category would dominate CES Well, all the cell phone makers They didn't want to be overshadowed by each other at CES or like kind of lost in all the noise So, you know, mobile world Congress is a way for them to kind of like announce all their hardware You know out of you know iPhone season and out of you know other big product lunches and kind of like get their products out there And give them some highlights and stuff like that So I guess you could say you know Android sure because you know the iOS release schedule seems much different But the way I think of it is well We don't want to you know announce ourselves and have a get lost in the sea of you know smart toilets and smart fridges So let's just do something like a month after so everyone has like a chance to kind of cool off But there's still kind of on that, you know, like man I want to see some new stuff, you know, and then just release all these cell phones Okay, that's that's a fair way to put it So is there anything exciting coming out of it that you're you at least a you know bad and I at or thought was interesting?

It's kind of one of the things where I haven't followed it too much right you see the typical, you know Samsung, you know product announcements things like that and they're new flagship phones and it looks actually pretty boring this year Right? There's there's not a lot of new going on it's more a lot of refining And I mean, you know, you get to a point where it's like, well, okay like how much better can we get a designer rectangular, you know object that we're gonna hold in our hands and spend our whole Life on and design wise it all kind of comes down to you know the same thing but I don't know feature wise like you're not gonna see all that until later and To me following this stuff. There are people who get paid a lot of money to do that So I like reading the TLDRs and I'd much rather try for myself than like read a you know 500 word article about it Like, give me this synopsis and I'm good. So I don't really have much of an interest.

Okay, fair enough Yeah, I guess I'm kind of like you I always get the heads up from at least what Samsung did because arguably what they're the biggest, you know, Android maker out there and Google kind of does their own gig when they're ready to do their phones and so that always is kind of just off-cycle and comes out at What is it like IO? I think is there their big event and so, you know, I think Mobile Congress is something that you know Is basically a Samsung event at least from the press perspective But it's something that I think is also interesting is that I just read a something the other day that said that like the U.S. Is like 99.9% smart smartphone saturated and so like the market is pretty well saturated here and so I mean It's pretty well like just you're either on a Samsung phone mostly or you're on, you know, Apple's iPhone platform or your Maybe there's a few others that are still struggling along with the blackberry or the you know one of the Google phones But it's like the overall, you know, well-being interest is it's kind of all taken up So I don't know I just read it for the bullet points that you and kind of march on with my day I guess other people get paid a lot of money to analyze these things and I would love to try every phone out there that I could you know, but I have three kids. I'm not made of money.

So Nope. Yeah, I don't even do that. So then I'll tell you that Adam's not qualified to to just throw money at every phone No, like I said, these are all my opinions. It's not a fact, right?

Yeah, I gotcha Uh, so Adam you're berating me that I should try classic Skype. What is this? Well, you said you're a classic coke kind of fan too, right? You know, so Uh before we started the show, you know, we are recording on an off day and uh recording at a different time So I told you I was gonna be late.

So then I hop on and then you try calling me in. Oh, no, there's no audio So Luke gets a troubleshoot Skype and as we're troubleshooting Skype lose like how do I find the preferences for this because he's running the new version of Skype Which you know went through the radical redesign and everything looks different So I threw in the link for a classic Skype, which is much like classic coke where it's better than new coke It's just you know, the way that you liked your crappy sugar water or the way that you liked your crappy voice over IP solution So you're saying we should go back to uh, coke bottles in a glass bottle. Oh, man, the mexican coke is great Like real cane sugar coke. Yeah, it's definitely good.

Don't give me around I can't drink so anymore though, man. Like I used to have one of those every week and I was like my treat I was like my friday like I made it through the week It's friday friday rip back to black, right? And uh, I would grab my coke and it would be my nice classic coke with pure cane sugar And then I kind of like all sugar for my diet, you know And uh, I went to go have my classic coke of the week and felt immensely sick after that because you know, you just down like 40 grams of sugar And uh after that I have not partaken in a classic coke in probably six months Wow It's pretty uh, pretty good dedication there. Yeah, man.

I was addicted. I had a problem. I'm better now Keep on keeping on with the steps. I like it.

I like it. Um, I refuse to uh, go backwards I I run beta on everything. But you won't go back to classic skype? No Oh, well, it's okay.

Whenever you call me and you have problems all this way, classic skype working great I know you will you definitely and then two years down the road like mmm classic skype not working so great Yeah, when they like they're like, yeah, I'm sorry. We pulled the uh, you know, our uh, our certificates expired. Sorry Yeah, really not a crap. Yeah, they have to drag me kicking and screaming Yeah, they definitely will so in a little bit of other news in a little follow up from last week We talked a little bit about art and one thing I noticed we kind of We talked both about digital art, but we talked about you know, just old school mediums of painted art and and you know Tauptures and everything a little bit and one thing that I think is the huge that we kind of like skipped over was like fast art theft And I think this is is such a big problem And so I thought it was interesting that we kind of managed to skip that and then it's only becoming easier now that you know Digital is a thing.

So, um, is there anything that you can think of Adam in terms of art theft? It's kind of surprising to you or something that you know ways you've heard of protecting it or or anything like that You know, the way I think of art theft is I think of you know, the classic art theft right where someone breaks into museum and steals his precious Precious, you know piece of art. Um, but as we talk about, you know, technology and that's kind of, you know, very much where my brain goes is digital theft is It's same thing. It kind of runs rampant, right?

And uh, depending on where you store things and how you store them It'll be like I said, it'll be easier to counterfeit. It'll be easier to steal because It depends on where you're putting these things, right? You're not putting even a vault at the end of the night, right? And we see, you know, how company store information now and how easily accessible some of it is So, um, I know we were talking with Aaron, you know, in, uh, his company arteries, right?

And how they're kind of taking this into consideration, especially with digital art and like how you manage, you know, the original copies and license copies and things like that. So I think art theft itself, yes I mean, I think it will probably always be a big problem for the physical art world because You know, if things are displayed openly in a museum or if things are, you know, transported from place to place and people have manifested, people know where things are like Sure, people are gonna be able to get a hold of it. And as we move into a digital world where You now just basically take the tax surface and spread it across the internet, uh, it makes it a lot easier So I think it'll be something that's it'll be interesting to see how the security of that or the lockdown quote unquote, um, of digital art kind of plays out Yeah, I know we talked I think you talked on that show about a little bit of uh, will like DRM be a thing for art and um, you know, I think that might be something we see Especially because if you consider, you know, movies and and music, I mean, it's just a different form of art and um, you know, it's it's been digital for quite some time And they've worked out some of those issues and in those mediums and that'll probably have to come over to, you know, digital art that You know, Aaron and future artists are creating and so um, it's something that will have to be kind of worked out and applied and new laws will be made Like every, you know, piece of digital art that you buy will have like a hash and it's like to verify that you've got the real art Make sure that it's this hash. I can only imagine right?

So shaw two five six Oh dear. I can just see it now like like all the old people are gonna give up on art They're gonna be like, no, no, it's not doing this modern art honey. It wants me to put in an empty five Oh dear. It's only an empty five hash You know, you bought from some budget art dealer, you know, a bunch of art dealer and we went to make it easy on the old people that So yeah, you know, you look at a shot hash.

I'm like, whoa, what the hell is all this? Someone's hacking into my main brain. Oh, grandma goes to the the grand side of what is going on Uh, uh, it'd be so funny The minds of them would just be blown insert, uh mind blown emoji here All right, so in a little bit of other news too. We talked about the company Um, that makes the stylist with the pad on your desk.

Nobody knows how to pronounce it long story short We don't either we've lifted up. We did a little research and it's you can call it wake home. You can call it wack home You can call it wake him. You could call it whatever you want long story short Whatever the guy next to you says when you're talking to him.

It's probably the right pronunciation. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's the safe bet. Like so you worked for the Stick with the the syllable you know or the sound that you know and then just yeah emulate what they say.

Yeah, pretty much It's uh, they're actually uh legitimate articles, uh that have different pronunciations So so that was a surprising thing to me too because I was like, okay, you know, we were we were talking about it last Less weekend or two days ago if you want to, you know, pull it pull up the the shorts a little bit Uh, and I was like, oh, that's that's a quick search like that's easy to do and then I found like 18 articles They're like all with three different answers and I'm like this is gonna take way too much work You know to do well. We're actually like talking so it starts looking into more and yeah sure enough It just depends on which you know, website you go to which answer you try to search I feel like so the fact that you found like 18 articles that all have three different answers to it tells me like what kind of student You were you were just like the student that like copied the question and then pasted it in google and like read the answer and then wrote it down You were like, no, I'm not reading the middle the the explanation of how they got this answer Well for the the classes I did not care about sure. Yeah, absolutely Like if I didn't want to know like, I'm sorry like honestly, I don't care how it's really pronounced, you know It was just something that we it was just the unfinished, you know, tie that we kind of left from the last episode So I wanted to, you know, be neat and tidy things up So the one thing I didn't do and this is really stupid is I probably should have just gone to uh, uh, walk home's website And actually look to see if there's any, you know, pronunciation or like promotional material or anything that was on there that would, you know, mention it But hey, good news you you have additional follow-up now Where you need to go to wacom's website and watch a video where they're introducing something and they say the company's name Someone tweet at me with their pronunciations of wacom or wake up. I'll make sure to buried you if nobody does Yeah, there you go.

Sounds good All right, so this week you want to talk about something that I think everybody doesn't really care about and just clicks agree And moves on with their life in today's day and age But um terms of service or terms of conditions or I mean it says like terms of use like 10 different names Ula software license agreements. Yeah, there's so many names. It's a big uh, CYA cover your ass right out of Oh, man. That's not until like eight points down like now.

I can't say the CYA was like a surprising delight. Oh, come on You can say CYA where everyone I mean throw a giant CYA like red stamp over the entire episode Well, that's all that okay. Well now we don't can we just end the episode now like okay That's why they exist because it's just people covering their ass But yeah, I mean that's that's why they exist right? I mean because we live in a world where people will sue for just about anything Right and it's important to know kind of you know, when you use something, you know, what you're getting into and that's what these things are for Welcome to america.

We're all so happy here. Well, it's not just america, but yes, it's a lot of america Yeah, we're kind of known for this though. Like we have a bad rap for it. I think so moving on though I should ask the question.

So in general, do you read uh terms of service or terms and conditions? Um, uh in general No, okay, so you just kind of If you if you trust the company to any degree kind of just agree and move on. Okay. Yeah, so that's a very good clarification right there is Yes, if I know the company and I trust the company sure right if i'm down with me something open source I'm like, okay.

Well, whatever, you know, the world's my oyster. I can do whatever I want if it's a company I'm not sure of then yeah, maybe I'll read a little bit more into it Um, my wife and I were just you know discussing this the other day where it's like, okay Well, we're looking at some service and it's like, well, let's look into it and then first kind of things rise is like Well, how do they make their money or what are they gonna do? How are they providing this service to us? You know, if we're not gonna pay them money like how are they gonna make their their dime?

So you know, we've we've gone through you know mortgage paperwork twice and if you want to talk about you know signing your life away Like yeah, I have fun signing, you know, your signature and initials any different times Luckily with technology now, it's just a bunch of clicks but you know before when you actually had to sign things was Literally signed in your life way sign everywhere, but it's just a lot of legalese in most cases So like I said trust of the company really plays a big factor in whether or not I'm going to even peruse the terms and conditions Okay, that's fair enough. Um, I can say at least for myself Generally, I kind of all the same rules. Um, if it's a big name company that uh, you know, millions of people are using I'm probably safe to say I'm just gonna click agree and move on with my life because whatever they're providing me as a service Probably is worth more to me than whatever. I'm giving away generally if it is Somebody who I'm not super familiar with I usually will just kind of skim the terms and conditions Um, just kind of get a rough idea of you know the releases and what I'm what I'm giving away to a slight degree And some of these are I mean, it's fair to say probably a little out of hand like they're like, you know, 100 pages And I'm not gonna do that but if I can just get kind of a bullet point idea, that's all I want to know Yeah, so I guess this thing right is we say terms and conditions and maybe people, you know If someone doesn't know how bad terms and conditions are or they've never read one Yeah, they're upwards of you know 50 to 100 pages most of the time and It's like I said, it's a whole bunch of you know legal.

Um, I don't want to say jargon, but it's legal Um, man, what's the word? I'm like a legal phrasing legal verbiage, right mumbo jumbo Yeah, that's a technical term, uh, the legal mumbo of the jumbo and It's it's just a very dry read and a lot of it, you know, you have to have definitions in the front Like when we say we we mean this when we say you we mean this when we say this we mean this and I'm like, okay Well, thanks. This is great. So I have indexed to refer to every time you mentioned the word, you know And then you talk about like footnotes too.

It's like, okay c section 72 and I'm like, what? How many sections do we have to have? Section 72 part a subsection one article for yeah, exactly and you know, we talk about that But a lot of countries have you know terms and conditions for you know being part of the country a constitution More like what we believe in everything, but you know, hey rules to follow, but yeah, it's I don't know I think terms and conditions have Have kind of gone so far and like we mentioned it's a cia moment, right? Like these companies trying to cover their basis so they don't get sued out of existence by other companies or by you know consumers But I think we've put a lot of negative spin on it But I know there were good examples of terms and conditions or you know, some companies that had done a good job So I can't remember enough top of my head I thought I knew of one and I went to go look at their terms and conditions and it was still a couple pages I was like, okay, well, obviously I was wrong So lu, do you know any that do like a good job of this like putting it in a concise way or giving you a tldr of the terms and conditions?

So yeah, I pretty much looked for a couple companies that did it and I couldn't find anything that was super great either So, um, I mean the least I got to was I saw a 10 page terms conditions and that that even that I think is a little excessive For most people to even skim Um, so the long story short here is and I think you and I kind of both cry for this a little bit Is I think we were both okay with having a long terms and conditions We understand that there's that's just legal it comes with it But please for the love of god just give us like the tldr just just put like some bullet points at the top They're like, hey, this is what's happening. This is what you need to know roughly And if it can be summarized in like half page or less, that would be amazing Yeah, I don't want to read to kill a bonky bird. I just want the cliff notes Yeah, I think that's a fair way to put it and I um, I know that some companies are I feel like getting better about this because It just it is what it is millenials wanna Uh, they don't want to uh, someone else just click past stuff and other ones I feel like actually are looking into this a little bit more and just want the simplicity or to know what front what they're giving away and um, you know It is what it is that way but The one website I did want to just kind of point out was is uh, terms of service Um, didn't read essentially or it's so it's uh, tos dr.org Um, and this website kind of gives a uh bullet point list for Terms of service or terms of conditions for often big name companies And the unfortunate part is it looks like the site is kind of undergoing some maintenance They're they are doing like a transition to a different site But they were kind of like a go-to for me in terms of like a thumbs up thumbs down and they would grade sites a to f And they grade all the big name brands that you can ever think of Yeah, I remember stumbling upon this and it was kind of like, uh, yes, this is great You know, and then same thing you look at the website and you're like, well, how are they gonna make their money? Like, how are you going to make a business out of this?

And it's like it has donate and I'm like, oh, yes, I will donate to you. Please, please do this And uh, you know, it's it's one of the things I mean, we we haven't really talked about news much, right? But do you remember when like, uh, Equifax, you know, we talked about their whole data breach, right? And then they offered all the the data recovery and stuff like that, but Deep in their terms and conditions on the data recovery, it's like, hey, if you do this, then you Wave the right to any legal action, you know, for pursuing us for whatever and they quickly had to take that out, but I think, you know, People are more annoyed by terms of service and I think that's more about them with like our generation generation before us, right?

Because it just got too overwhelming too quick and we're like, I forget this except except it's like just get me to what I need to do because This is just getting in the way. It's just adding more friction to my life and no one wants that But I think now where transparency is really important, right? Like companies like you said are graded and there are lots of places that grade them based on their transparency and how they handle You know, customer information, which is which is great. You know, it's it's really nice and encouraging to see that type of behavior But like this terms of service didn't read like shouldn't have to exist, right?

This should just be baked into a company's culture to where they just give you a TLDR And I understand that like you can't fit everything in a TLDR But the bullet points right the most important things I mean if this website can do it and bring it down into you know, like hey, this is what it is And if you really want to dig into it, here you go, you know, I think that'll be great And then it'll be up to other companies to keep these people honest right or you know up to What we have organizations that you know, do these kinds of things right? Like we have better business bearers up and can argue whether you know for those are, you know, commercially funded or You know influencers way what have you whatever, but I just think you know, this just needs to be commonplace Yeah, I mean, I think mostly businesses would struggle to play a TLDR In their actual terms and conditions because they would actually have to you know, that is a legal document a living legal document But if they could even just on a support page somewhere say, you know, okay, here's the copy of our terms and conditions And if you don't want to read this here's, you know, that half page about you know, what what this basically summarizes That would be amazing I would I'd be more than grateful and you're totally right that this basically this website should not have to exist But if you remember back to our episode about security and we talked about two factor authentication and stuff like that I think I talked about a two factor off.org. I think it's the website and it's the same sort of idea when it comes to security It's like policing the websites of the internet as to whether they have two factor authentication And is it a hardware token a software token? Like what is it, you know, text messaging?

And this is you know, the the TLDR of terms of conditions and it's something that a service that I think we all need in today As an agent, I I do hope that this kind of becomes a collective of a bunch of sites But I would like to see, you know, maybe even like a standards body or somebody come out and say, hey, you know, this should be You know, something that is commonplace for for all major services Yeah, and I totally agree And I can give a pass on like two factor off even, you know, like I can understand my companies are slower to adopt that because That you know requires underlying technology and changes to frameworks and stuff like that Like all you need to do to give me a TLDR on your legal service is hire a lawyer for, you know, however long Or when you're actually drafting up your terms of conditions have the TLDR put in beforehand like it's not fucking hard You know, it's not like engineering something from the ground up and granted, you know With today's technology and frameworks, you don't have to, you know, build two factor from the ground up either But this isn't even any technology. This is just terms of terms and conditions. This is just literally just a document It's just words and you know, these words have meaning. Yes, and they are there for a reason but it's not It's not code.

It's just words. So I guess that's why I kind of give it like a Like you said, I know you always say the gimmes, right? Like this should have been the gimme like 10 years ago Yeah, I got you. Lawyers aren't cheap, but but I mean, come on It's not that hard and I mean, I think the longest order this is And I like what you put in the in the show outline your animus Just just click accept and then click accept and just click accept move on That's not my advice to people that I'm not saying just click accept But I'm just saying usually what this entails is because no one reads them Is you have to click a checkbox you have to click accept and then you have to verify that you're accepting the clicking of the acceptance of the checkbox That you're accepting the terms of conditions.

Yeah, I do love when It's like are you a robot? Let's check that and then hold on wait We need to put another UI pop up over the fact that we weren't sure if you were a robot already So yeah, did you accept or did you or did you just fall asleep and click on the you know accept button? And once again, that's just because people have to you know cover their ass because the one person said like well It reminded me once and didn't really give me a link to you know the full thing where I could read all of it I just click accept and now I'm still suing you for whatever reason Yeah, so I think that pretty well answers actually the next question that I had which was you know What do most terms of conditions even cover and you know as you put it? It's it's pretty much a a giant cover your ass so that they They being any company release their you know liability to ever be sued from you and And you know put it squarely back in your court to say Here is exactly what you can expect to get out of our service and anything more than that or if you use it incorrectly You you you're not you know gonna get anything out from us and and that's that is that kind of fair to say?

Yeah, like I said, it's it's basically releasing liability from you, right? It's you're releasing something in a digital form to somebody and having them use it and them using it comes with a bunch of you know stipulations, right? They can't use it for this or this or this so a lot of it is you know Everyone has rights and you know companies have rights too and you know a lot of it's further protection So we'll talk a little bit of you know things that you know customers should look out And you know end users should look at as well because there are things that are important to you and there as well You know and you want to make sure that your best interest is taking into account as well But yeah, most most of TOCs are just for the company to make sure that what they're doing is okay with the person using the software And if you're not okay with it, well, then I don't know Have you ever said no to terms and conditions or terms of service? You know, I don't know that I've said no in the moment when I was signing up for service I've definitely reneged on you know something because I learned of some either to change or or that they you know Had something in there that I didn't know about and I went backwards and said, you know I'm kind of deleting my account or you know going backwards if I can So I don't know have you ever done that?

Yeah, so when I was when I was younger and I was kind of getting into computers You know, I was installing I think like windows 95 or you know windows 98 something some windows version And I put in the install desk right and it brings up this whole thing It says like do you agree and I was like well I don't feel like I should be agreeing to anything because of how old I am so I say no And it's like all right. We're shutting down your computer now. I'm like well crap. I guess I have to say yes I could just see little Adam.

He's like, you know, 10 years old just sitting there Well, I guess I'm gonna go ahead and click no because I'm under the age of 18 and I can't agree to this and oh sad Yeah, well, I was just like I don't know mom dad is like it's okay for me to click yes like I don't know you know I'm asking you for permission where you know, you're so you're still yielding those questions to you know your parents, right? When someone asks you a question that you don't know like this will make us do all the time though We'll ask you some will ask them something and then answer please I am using my lifeline right now. I'll take the 5050 option, please They have a constant amount of photo friends. Yeah, exactly.

I'm gonna phone my parents How many people phone their parents on like the who wants to be a millionaire? Oh god, I know it's usually like the friend, right? Yeah, I know they have to like put it in ahead of time But I wonder how many people are like I'm gonna call my dad. I'm gonna call my mom It's so funny too because like kids today like if you guys think about like how they handle The terms and conditions like I feel like in general they are just so trained to be like accept agree accept move on How do we get past this too many words Well, like there's a right age for terms and conditions right and anything under 18 Which I don't even think you're supposed to be signing right is uh, it's too young because like you don't care You don't care.

It's the same reason you don't let people under 18 like vote in a lot of instances too Right because like let's put down whatever, you know, there's not a lot of thought That goes into that because that's not their primary, you know method of of thinking about things right? They don't They don't really value this right they don't see the ramifications or you know the benefit or the consequences That may you know occur when they look at this kind of thing right whereas as you get older as you kind of like see more and you learn more You live through more life experiences, right? You kind of realize the importance and you realize the the need for something like this or the the purpose of its existence So but yeah kids like all I want to do is play sonic CD on the goddamn computer And I said no and this thing shut off and I wanted to stay on so I can play sonic CD So I guess I'll say yes god damn it I can't play my damn organ trail if I don't hit agree Right man First first kid problems right like first world problems for kids or can trail won't start because I didn't accept the terms and conditions That's definitely not on their list the first first world problems. Yeah, no definitely not Yeah, so my story.

I think was um Actually not that long ago. Um, you probably remember the whole like a scandal of with that like uber doing the whole like We're gonna track you for five minutes after you uh, you know get out of your your uber And I mean I think we've already talked at length on this podcast about uber and it being a little bit creepy Is that we talked about that? I don't know I feel like we have they're they're just creepy I feel like it's something we probably would have talked about but I don't know if we have but I know exactly what you mean when this whole thing came up Yeah, so this whole thing came out and basically they're like yeah They like point to some you know line in their terms of conditions and says like you know, you know, we're covered And the long short of it was essentially when the driver says I've dropped your ass off at wherever you needed to go to They are going to monitor your phone for five minutes and anywhere you walk or go or do It's paying the gps and sending that back to uber and it was a way for them to be like hey We're, you know, ensuring that the driver's not kidnapping you or something like that We know where you are. We know where the driver is and therefore we know you two are separated and it's a liability thing for them That's fine.

Totally. Okay. I didn't agree with it I didn't really want them dragging me and they had already kind of had like a I don't know a three strikes rule and that was kind of a third strike if you will and and I was like, okay I'm done. So I I definitely submitted a request to delete my account and said thanks.

Thanks, but no thanks Yeah, but I mean if that just goes to speak to you know being transparent, right? And even in a TLDR like do you have something like this as like hey, we're gonna do this and this is a scenario where they probably had like I don't want to give uber the benefit of the doubt just because of their history But let's just say the benefit of the doubt, uh, you know, they had your best interest in mind But it wasn't communicated well, right and when someone discovers it. It's more like, okay. Well It's now perceived so negative negatively negatively whatever Um, it's now perceiving such a negative light that There's no amount that you can say to justify it at this point, right?

Whether if you were just upfront and people were knowing what they got into when they got in the car when they signed up for the service Whatever, then it would be okay So I think that just you know goes to show the importance of having a clear and concise or easy way to access how people use your data Or what you're getting into when you accept a tnt or to us Yeah, I think it's important to point out too that you know, I mean They were kind of already on on thin ice and anytime you are You know under that sort of increased scrutiny and then someone digs up something like this It's it's sort of the right recipe for the start of the break scandals back And so for me, that's exactly what it was and I was I was on to the you know I'm just gonna use lifter or or not use these services at all. So, um, you know, it is what it is It's not the end of the world. I probably You know used uber less than 25 times in my life It really wasn't that big of a deal but it was something that I didn't fundamentally agree with Their decision as a company. So and so I have done it.

I guess you could say I just kind of didn't do it when I signed up for the service Yeah, so you declined after the fact, right? Yeah And I've definitely requested to have my account deleted as well. Um, I don't remember the specifics But I know I've been through the process before and usually it's I know it's gotten better But usually it's not the cleanest, you know Process you just like email this, you know with your information and your account and will delete it And then you have to wait for someone to kind of respond. Yep And at least that's what it was when I was doing it and it's it's ugly I mean mostly services.

It's like go to some random web page, you know buried deep deep deep Then fill this out and yeah, we'll get back to you And it's they don't make it easy either, right? Yeah, see but that's shady as fuck right because they're just adding more friction to get you to not leave, right? Because it's in their best interest to make it hard for you to get out of this You know, it's like, okay Well, maybe you know if we make it hard for them to leave their account in three weeks They'll forget about you know the whole thing and then they'll use the service again, right? But that's why you know the funnel, you know making it really easy for people to you know sign up That's why that that exists, right?

They want people to get on the service and they don't want them to leave That's the problem with you know every company these days, right? Like every social, you know media is like hey, we got tons and tons of people and you mentioned this with like, you know Even smartphone saturation, right? Hey, we have tons and tons of customers like okay Well, how do you keep them right? How do you get them to not go somewhere else?

How do you get them to kind of stay where they're at and you know making it hard for them to leave, right? Is one way and it sounds really kind of creepy when you get into it But that's just kind of the reality of how This stuff works at this point in time and you know, hopefully those things will change And I know you kind of want to go in here of you know good questions for people to you know Ask or look at when we get the terms of terms and conditions, so I think that's something we should definitely explore Yeah, I mean speaking of some good questions I mean, I think one of the first is around the you know anytime you're signing up for any of these services It doesn't matter whether it's a website or it's an app or whatever There is some amount of data that you're creating as a user and that data that is created I think the big question is always who owns that data and so have you Has a user Adam looked into that more than anything else? I mean I know for me that's often times one of the few things I actually do look at is I want to know Is it miners or yours kind of thing? Yeah, so for anything where I'm giving it like Baking credentials or anything like that where it's going to have that information that I'll look at and I'll say like okay Well, who owns this data?

You know, what do you do with this data that kind of thing? So I think um recently right I was on mint before I switched to you know white app and with mints I knew like they had my stuff and I knew that they were using it But I knew I could revoke my account and after 30 days they would give rid of all of my data Like I knew that was baked in the terms and conditions signing up for the service So I can tell you that yeah When I went through you know the process to give it my account And this is the example that I you know forgot to talk about earlier So we yay, I'm glad that you know it finally came to me but they then you know said okay cool We're gonna email you know, we've removed your account You know all of your transactions will be deleted after this many days and after those many days laps then it was like okay Here you go, you know, we removed all your data you're gone So I think you know the data collection For a lot of services like you don't realize how much they actually collect right whether it's you know Your general location or you know other sensor data if it's like an app or something on a phone or I think I don't know if we're gonna talk about this later, but What they do with that data, I think is a it's a bigger question, right? I mean having the data is one thing, you know collecting the data usually you kind of Can understand why they would need that but I think it's what they do with it after it That's the big thing. Yeah, I mean I think where you're going with that item is sort of do they sell that data or share that data or do anything else with that data?

Is that fair to say? Oh, yeah That's I didn't want to you know like jump a gun and like talk about something that you want to talk about later But that's that's exactly where my head was going. Okay. Well, I'm fine We can open that kind of arms now because uh, I'm not sure we're gonna get too far down that path but I understand how that can be a slimy and kind of slippery slope in a lot of ways and so it's something to To definitely look into you know, you you brought this up earlier You said, you know, how does the set company, you know, make their money And I think that's always a good way to look at it because are you the product or are you paying for the product?

Is is another way to look at it, right? Yeah, we talked about that before too Yeah, I think you know data wise it's always important to understand who owns it and You're totally right out of it. A lot of these companies do a surprising amount of like like the monitor the IP you log in from and You know, they'll collect all that that information and it's like just that alone You could start to like develop a dot map of where you actually go on a regular basis And you know your travel patterns and you know, where's home and where's work and you know, when you're when you're at one and when you're at another it's it starts to get pretty Pretty slimy pretty quick. So I know that's kind of always a an issue and another kind of stickiness Peace to a lot of these services is can you export your data or essentially what you're I think you're getting that here is Can you leave if you want to?

Is that right Adam? Well, I think you know having who owns the data right like the people in the data and whether they give that to a third party or not You know is is really kind of like we mentioned how are they making money? Are they gonna sell it to advertisers or are they going to share it with other parties? You know provide a better product or whatever and those are all things are legally supposed to tell you know what you're doing And whether you can limit your sharing if you've ever signed up for a bank account or anything there You'll notice you'll get you know letters in the mail Let's say like hey, you know, just an update to our privacy statement This is what we do, you know, we share with these people and can you limit the sharing?

Yes, and some of it's no so I think where I was going with you know exporting data is There's all this data that gets collected and when you say can you export your data? It's more can you see that data a should be the first? You know thing I should have put down is like can you even see what data is collected and then be can you export that data? Or can you take that data to you know keep for your records or you know have it in a format that you can use to cover your own Ass right because your data is your data or your data is their data and this goes into the whole ownership question But I think where I wanted to go with export is yeah Is there a way that you can confidently take all of your stuff off of a service right still have that information, right?

Because it's one thing for me to delete my account with something But if they take all my data with it, but let's say I wanted that data for some reason like that data was my data Right, that was all you know, I was having this service collect that data Yes, but that's still my information in a sense and that's the way I view it So yeah, can you export your data is a big thing I look for and it's something that a lot of companies have gotten better with I'll talk about another product that got sunsetted a while back which was a RDO and I was definitely a big RDO Fan I definitely you know signed up for that music streaming service and like when it launched and you like that that UI, didn't you? I loved RDO for the UI. Yes, that was a that was a big thing It still had to run on flash though, so it was never you know the best I think eventually updated but I just I like the interface and I got the student discount all that stuff and Spotify always felt clunky to me And yeah, I loved RDO for the UI. I'm a sucker for there UI and when they kind of shut down because They couldn't keep enough customers right with competition and everything They you know, basically said like hey, we're getting rid of all the data if you want to export it, you know, do it now So I exported basically a giant, you know database of all of the data that RDO had collected about me Whether that was the playlist I created how many times I played certain songs, you know, which computers I had registered all that kind of stuff I was able to export all of that into just basically a CSV and you know throw that wherever I wanted to and see all of my data Yeah, you can't complain about you know a service that does that it I don't know it's not that you're gonna run from it but it sort of speaks to the values of the people that are behind the service and You can tell that it's it's the people that are behind it are upstanding people and that they're transparent and that they're probably not going to do You know nefarious things with the data itself.

It's not to say that it couldn't happen But you can start to see that there's you know, they're not holding your data ransom, you know Yeah, yeah, I think that's the best way to put it right is like if they're gonna let you export it It means they're definitely not you know trying to hide it from you or as you mentioned hold it for ransom So I think that's a big big thing right like data collection and retention is an important thing to watch out for it I think the questions of who owns the data and can you see that data and can you export the data or questions you should think about? I think that's fair. So moving right along. So there there's also oftentimes the right to be forgotten, you know, clause or essentially the layman's term is Can you delete your account?

And I know we've kind of cashed this over in the sense that I said, you know, I deleted my my uber account but There are a lot of services out there that I can think of that you basically can't delete your account your account is just gonna forever remain where it is And what data is in it is in it and there's no way to feasibly like shut an account down And is this something that for you Adam is kind of a make it a break it kind of thing I can say for any new services like going forward. Yeah, it's it's Because we'll talk about this a little bit too is There are countries who have basically, you know But forth that you have to have every company has to have a way for people to remove their data or remove their account And some companies and some countries are kind of lacking in that aspect And yeah, it's an important thing right like you said you sign up for something and then you want to get out of that something You should be able to get out of that something right? Nothing should be you know permanent right like we have ways to get out of all sorts of commitments And I don't want to get out of right but there are ways that you can legally exit any form of agreement, right? You talk about like mortgages.

You talk about, you know credit content you talk about marriage, right? You talk about all these things and there are ways there are legal ways for you to go and you know kind of break an agreement or You know stop the a service. Let's say and I think you know the right to be forgotten or being able to delete your account Is definitely something that you should look for when you're signing up for a service because if you can't I mean like you said Why the big question is why can't I delete myself? Why do why is it so important to said company or said service?

I think that's fair for myself. I really I guess I'm not as concerned about this going forward I usually kind of group different accounts into different Sort of levels of security I guess or or or data that I could be giving them and so Certainly things like you know bank accounts or accounts They're gonna I'm gonna give a social security number or or something You know that complex too. It is something that definitely it needs to be deleteable if I need to But there are other you know types of accounts that are kind of just one off and I'm not as concerned as whether I can delete them or I don't believe I'm giving them enough information that if it Couldn't be deleted it wouldn't be the end of the world for me. So it really does depend for me It's I'm not that's not a hard and fast rule, but when I definitely kind of glance at for sure Yeah, that's when you got to go by your alias right for the the one off accounts.

Yes. You don't use your real name You give them your alias. Yeah, you give them your your gamer tag from xbox. Oh, no You just use your your French name from lululemo.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll start you Not only works for you. It doesn't work for me, but you know, I forgot what my my alias used to be What the hell's your French name? My French name?

Uh, I'm not a comedian. I can't think of anything like you know on the spot This is an improv class. This is this is a podcast. It's gonna turn into a brown glass.

Don't worry Yeah, you're gonna keep asking me questions like right here at a bar and there's three people I see you and this go see what what I I can't I think that's funny too, right because you know you mentioned grouping them in based on you know their importance or their security level, right and In a way, yes, more data some data is more sensitive than others where you talk about your social security number You talk about this stuff and but you mentioned before that you hey, man You sign up for a credit card and it got sent to Equifax, you know and Equifax is like oops Like we let all that stuff out. So our bad also we share it with everyone all the time. So Yeah, you know, so there are things where it's like it doesn't seem like you can really get out of you know Sharing that information or giving up that information. But yeah, man If you're gonna sign up for you know a free trial of whatever let's say like coffee or What I want to say I don't know insert random subscription service here.

I totally is an alias, you know It's still me, but it's just you know, not the real me I don't know if that's legal or not. I didn't read the legalese in the contract, but you know Joe Sanchez over there. Yeah, he definitely did so I generally use my my correct first and last name but sometimes if I am a little skeptical about something I'll use a an alias email and I got to keep a couple alias email addresses on on retainer just in case I need to delete one or or go ahead and You know use one and that way If I think they're gonna just like sell my information or or I'm just gonna start all of a sudden get spammed like You know 15 times a week with their newsletter. I'm like, okay, cool.

Yep. You you spoke for yourself I'm going to unsubscribe from your newsletter delete this alias and I'm on to the next one We'll see you later. So yeah, that's the other uh pro tip right is like use aliases You know most email clients will give you like some form of aliasing for you know, basically giving out to whoever so use those Yeah, like I think we you know have a shopping one There's a couple of other like junk ones that we have so instead of getting out, you know, your personal email Right, you're giving out this this alias which still goes to your inbox, right? But there's an easy way to basically get rid of that at any point time without having to go through like changing your address or anything like that, you know Yeah, I definitely think that's kind of a pro tip and one that if you're in the tech world already Hopefully you know, but if you if you aren't using that definitely looking to it That's a big win ever know all sorts of people listen to the podcast.

You never know who's who's gonna know about that or not Yeah, no, and that's what I'm saying if you're not doing that already definitely look into it It's a big win So what we're talking about again though was that all about that right to be forgotten? I lost track of where we were Yeah, right to be forgotten Yeah, make sure you can delete your account Or make sure that you know that you can't delete your account and that you're okay with that said well So the next thing I guess the tldr of the Podcast welcome to the tldr with Adam All right, so the next thing in here is a government request and this is of course Just kind of an interesting area that I think is heating up more and more in the last couple years and I think you'll find that the If you're dealing with big big name companies google dropbox Apple facebook they all have kind of reports that they release annually about government requests and and they get these National security letters, which are basically you know just government requests for data within you know some users account And based on their terms of conditions. They may turn over some data They may not turn over other types of data It really does depend on a case-by-case basis what they have and what they will or will not be able to turn over Um, but I think it is important that to some degree you understand what they will and will not be able to turn over And I think it's also important to If you can it I'll get a gauge of how much they're actually granting these because if they just agreed to every one of them Well, that's probably not the best thing for you to just go ahead and sign up for them because they're basically just sharing It with the government at that point and if if they don't agree to any of them Well, that that's probably a bad for other reasons as well But I think it is important to kind of just get a gauge maybe of that But what's your thoughts on this whole government request debacle? Yeah for me this kind of fell under you know the data thing as well where it's you know Just make sure that companies are transparent right and in some clouds somewhere They'll mention you know the information that they will collect and that they will you know cooperate with you know law enforcement and you know and government requests and various things there and I think there's always a balance that needs to be stricken, right?

Then that's kind of the role that we play with everything is like there's a balance There's a tug on both sides, right? We can have you know too much on one side or too little on one on the other or too much on the other side bubble block So I think with anything like you said, Lou It's good to know that you know information can be sent to legal law enforcement or to you know Can be basically given up in the events of a government request but Knowing that the company will be transparent about it is kind of like you said a growing trend and these transparency reports Really kind of shed some light on how the company you know treats their customers data, right? Where if it's like you said if they're giving every you know every request is like yep Yep, you're just take it all take it all take it all It's like why is there even a request system in place, right? Like if you're just gonna give it to them give it to them So I think you summed it up pretty well Yeah, that point just given the keys of the server and say how about it It's like well, why don't we just host this in your office?

I mean like it's just eating up electricity in mind like do you want to you know just host it yourself like Do do me a favor take my server go down the Pentagon and plug it in. Thanks. Yeah. Here's my Mac maybe that's under my bed next door Just go ahead and uh Since you're willing to pay for the electricity, I guess just tell me where to point the IP tube Yeah, exactly.

I still get a you know VNC access, right? Right. Can you punch a hole through the firewall for me? Yeah, I need a punch a hole for Plex, please Stream my movies No, don't worry about where they came from.

I still need to stream them now. Oh dear. Oh dear Well, I think the sort of one of the last pieces to this puzzle is the you know right to update The terms of conditions or the agreement that you have the terms of service with any company And it is something to point out that sometimes and I would say actually probably more often than not These companies have a right to update their You know terms of conditions without your notice Which is kind of a scary line of walk because you don't know what they went ahead and put in after you know Something went live and so you agreed to it on one day and you know six months later It is totally different and this may have been true in my uber example I'm not I'm not sure but other times they actually have to notify you and there are a couple services that I think I use Like educational emails and they're like, hey, we want to just let you know, you know something updated our privacy policy changed or whatever Read it here and I actually do enjoy that. I think that um Kind of going along with our our idea of like just please provide us a summary or the tldr of your terms of conditions I think companies should have to do this maybe on like a yearly basis and just send out one email and be like, hey Here's the tldr and here's here's what's changed from the last year I wouldn't mind getting an email like that just so I know what's what's going on But i'm kind of curious Adam would you kind of be in support of something like that?

Yeah, my dream scenario would be you know, we all have to You know, usually we all review You know kind of accounts and stuff like that at a certain time But I would love for you know there to be like some holiday or like at the beginning of the year We're on your anniversary for a service, right that they just send you like just a feeler or whenever they update I know like you said right like send out a feeler and say like hey, this is the stuff that we're doing or hey This is the stuff, you know, this changed and yeah, I absolutely I would like it all to be in one chunk so I can be like all right I'm gonna carve out some time here I'm gonna put all this on my Kindle and I'm just gonna go, you know sit at the beach and just read terms of service all day long You know, I think I'd rather just suffer one whole day of you know getting through all the updates I've just got this great image of you at the beach Which is like 300 pages worth of terms conditions just go in hog wild I was gonna put him out right like this. I'm like put him on the Kindle So it's like it doesn't look like I have all these paper Me and my glasses out there in the sun, you know, like just getting sunburts by the end of the day I finally have all of them, you know, like bookmarked and tagged a little like Post-it flags are all over them, right and I'm getting up and then like I had this big old tan line from like You know the hat or even like a piece of paper or like a pen that I was, you know Like I could just see a fellow california walking by you just you read a good book there Now just the google terms of conditions don't worry Guys like weirdo and just in terms of service, you know how it goes People would be like oh which one I'm reading that one too We're reading the same terms of service. What are the odds? Have you gotten to page 37?

Yeah, have you gotten to subsection 72 part a oh that's where it goes juicy No spoilers though. No spoilers. I want to see what happens to you know article five section three Oh dear. Oh dear.

Yeah, I would enjoy something like this If we got a at least like a yearly update on what's changed um, you know, I It probably changes more than we want to know on a yearly basis And that's why even just reading something like what's been redacted and what's been added would be And it's in such legal mumbo jumbo as we put it that it would be a pain in the ass. So Evil a point would be oh greatly appreciated. I would say it's uh, you know, it's just gonna turn into like That those christmas cards you get from a relative that has like a one page, you know, like Hey, you know 2017 was a great year. Joe, you know, learned to ride his bike and so and so went to you know middle school band practice or It's gonna turn to that, you know, that's true.

That's true. That's true. There's a fine line man There's a fine line between too much info and not enough. Yeah, it's not easy.

I'm not saying that it's easy and that's why I don't work in PR or communications or any of that So, uh, I guess there's a couple other things to watch out for um, and the big one that I guess I would say is rates of use Which is essentially a fancy way of saying like can you use this for a business or can what can you and can you not use it for? Because there's basically some limitations on a lot of services and If you're not careful either they won't support you or they'll shut you down or they'll do whatever the heck they want to do But there's usually clauses around that and uh, I'm sure Adam We have all been guilty of this at some point like we set up for some service and we're essentially just kind of mooching, right? Mooching what do you what are you referring to? Oh, everybody's done this at some point in their life even even I have I'm sure Uh, but you know, you're just kind of like a you may be using some service under the pretense that at some point you'll be For example, I don't know a business But you don't start as a business right like you anybody who's launching a business starts You know day one and they're kind of not really a business yet and it's an idea and it's a working idea and there's a lot of times You don't sign up for something under our business account use it as a personal account Then as the business grows you you have to migrate move and change Okay, I see where you're going.

I was like, what are you implying? I'm like, I didn't see where you're going right away But yeah, yeah, I I I may or may not be guilty of this. I will not self-incriminate Adam's gonna plead the fifth on uh rights of use in terms of conditions Amen. I read those terms of conditions.

I know that's my right Okay, fair enough. Yeah, so just just watch out for that You know, it's it's not about idea to just skim that know what you can't can't do with it So that you don't get yourself in a pickle. Yeah, the other thing is like most software comes with no warranty And they say that right out off the bat like yeah, so this right here There's no warranty. So don't don't even try.

Yep. It's uh, that's definitely the case I think there are very few pieces of software that have ever been shipped that come with any amount of warranty So good luck good luck, uh trying to you know win anything with that battle This thing broke after I updated, you know windows to or I update this guy to version eight and it broke So I want my money back Yeah, no warranty bro. Oh The other things I guess keep an eye on are limitations of liability. So it was responsible for your you know issues as well as termination clauses, which I think this is the one that fights people more than anything because You were using your you know, audio example like company comes along shuts down because they weren't making a money They didn't have enough customers and what does that entail?

You know, and um, you know when when a company wants to shut down What do they have to do with your data? What is the proper shutdown way and and do you get your data back and and you know? Is there advanced notice of it? Do you get refunded for anything?

There's there's a whole heck of a lot down that path that we probably can't cover in the scope of this Discussion, but it's something that I think if you haven't at least thought down that path No company is immune to something like this. You should at least know what that roughly looks like Agreed. All right. So I guess that that kind of rounds out some of the main things that we wanted to kind of hit on But the other thing I love that you put this in the outline Adam is uh, why does the US suck at this?

Is it? I'm just reading reading Yeah, I did not want to sugarcoat that because uh, it's not even the ad. It's just the ad symbol Yes, it is. Why does the US suck at this?

And uh, and then after it it's uh other countries put uh data privacy first so you're referencing data privacy So, um, I'm gonna give you your soapbox and uh, go ahead stand on it and uh, comment down I think we already touched on this, you know a little bit where it seems and I know we've talked about multiple times in previous episodes And now in this episode, but you know, it seems like a lot of times companies don't put the customer first, right? They put their product first, which makes sense. They're companies to make money, right? But I think like you said it goes a long way to build trust with, you know, a customer to Put their best interests first, right?

And other countries have basically, you know, noticed that this is an issue and they've like, hey, you know what? Like we want to make sure companies do the right thing and we want to make sure that people are protected and people's, you know, privacy is protected and their data is protected So we're basically going to make it, you know, illegal for a company to not allow these things, right? We said, hey, it would be great if you know all these companies had, you know, a TLDR for their shouldn't service or the right to be forgotten all of them. The fact is that in other countries, hey, you know what, if a business doesn't do that, they can't run there They can't basically offer service in that country and that's a big incentive for companies to, you know, kind of follow the rules and, you know, put, you know, customers' data and privacy and everything first.

Their needs and their privacy above their product, you know. So yeah, I asked why, why does the US suck at this? And the answer is because, you know, like we're very slow to change and a lot of things, you know, in the tech world kind of move very fast and We don't like moving very fast and those things scare us and, you know, we have a lot of old people who really don't care about that stuff in elected offices, you know. So I don't know, I don't like being on the soapbox.

So I just, why does the US suck? Because it's a bunch of old people who don't really care and I think we should, you know, kind of take note from other countries and start realizing that people's data is theirs and make it so companies have to, you know, treat customers' data with respect. Because right now that's really not the case. And soapbox right now.

I think that's fair. I mean, I think in general, the EU is probably the most strict on this and they, they tend to favor more the user than the company. And the US seems to favor the company over the user. And so there is much weaker, you know, restrictions on how you handle customer data and, you know, people's privacy here.

And that's not the case in the EU. And I definitely like to say, I think this should change. I think I can, you know, hate this to be kind of a cheerleading session, you know, because we're pretty much in complete agreement with each other on this whole subject matter. But, you know, the fact is the fact that it's, it's pretty, it's sometimes scary what companies get away with here and that, you know, this stuff would never fly in a, you know, modern, you know, country, you know, and it's just 5000 miles across the ocean from us.

And, you know, it's just, it's amazing what you can get away with in sort of the greatest country in the world. So that's, that's arguable. But it's kind of something where it's like, I can tell you have some hesitation talking to you. It's like, I don't want to bag, you know, like our country, you know, anything like that.

But there's some things that we're just, we're not quick to change on. And we're not quick to kind of move with, with changes. And this is one of those instances where it's like, we're dragging our feet, you know, and we've never really seen this as a priority. And I think as we, you know, kind of move forward and as the world moves to more and more digital, you know, service based economy, right?

Like, we look at everything now and more and more and more shifting to, you know, kind of services and it's not, you know, what you're selling, it's, I guess not what you're selling, but it's a service that you're selling rather than a product, right? And as we move more and more towards that, right? You're talking about just more and more data that's probably going to be collected with a service rather than a product. So since that's the way kind of companies are moving and that's the way that the economy is moving, it's like, why are we not thinking about this now, right?

We should have been thinking about this 10 years ago, like, you know, other countries were and putting these protections in place before we got to this point. And now it's like, we're going to just scramble to try to get this up and place. And now there's going to be so, so many, so much more just kind of like crap in the way, right? Whether that's companies, you know, who don't want to change and, you know, lobby against, you know, any legislation that will go towards this or whether it's, you know, just new developments, you know, for things or new ways to sneak around it, because we didn't have these protections put in place beforehand.

So I think, you know, like, I love living in the United States, but there are some things I wish, you know, we would do better and kind of modernizing and thinking in more modern terms with how people, you know, use products and how people are, you know, just our priorities changed, you know, before it was like data privacy wasn't really a thing, right? Because everyone was listening to a phone book and everyone was listening everywhere and everyone knew everybody. And now it's like, well, no, I don't want all my stuff there or I don't want people to have access to this and privacy is a big thing. So, you know, this gets into a whole privacy discussion, but I think what terms and service it just kind of sheds more light on like, hey, you know, you think you're super private, but if you use any of these services are chances are you're not as private as you think you are.

I think in general, if most people could actually see the data that they create, they would kind of be scared. Not a lot of these services in general would be as successful as they are. But you brought up a point of lobbying, and I think in this country that is probably what, at least for the subject matter is probably stagnating some of the change a lot because I don't think that's as popular in the EU, if at all, I'm not sure that you can lobby in the EU. And so, you know, in America, you get these huge corporations that can pay money so that they basically stop legislation.

And it's just going to trap this sort of change for a long, long time in Congress. And hopefully, as more and more millennials come of age, we'll actually see the stuff as a value and change that. And Congress will have to move forward and act rules. But the longer we take the stand on the road, the harder it's going to be, for sure.

Don't take away my classic Skype. Oh, dear. Your damn Skype version 7. 7.57, I think.

Let me double check here. 7.59, build number 37. Getting crazy. Don't take that away from me.

All right. So do we do a decent job of covering terms of service, anything else that you want to say before we put this one to bed? You always ask if we do a good job. I mean, like, I don't think we're the best judges for that, but I know, I know, but I just want to say before we like, you know, move on to a little bit of like, you know, wrap up or after show or whatever you want to call it and like give you a last chance before I just be ready with whatever's next.

No final thoughts. I'm good. Awesome. Cool.

So speaking of wrap up, you said, I think you mentioned this on the last episode, actually, but you went to an RC car, like short course. What is this? What do you, what do you been like, reliving your childhood? So reliving my childhood.

This is my adulthood. If that makes any sense. So yeah. So I know last time I mentioned like, hey, you know, went and raised in RC car today or drove around in RC cars.

So I may or may not have an RC car that costs, you know, maybe close to $400 in my garage that may or may not have been sitting in said garage for the better part of three years, which seems like a big waste of money and you were absolutely right. It is. So where we live, there's a park is pretty close by and they have like a little BMX track or like a mountain bike kind of like track that's there. So I've always kind of, I didn't, I'm like, you know what, like, maybe I should take the RC truck out, you know, so I finally dusted the thing off, you know, charged up the battery, got everything, you know, up and running and I took it for a little spin last weekend.

And I had my wife Alex, she took some video of it. So I'm going to post that when this episode goes out so people can kind of see the fun little shenanigans I had going on there. But, you know, we mentioned all these gadgets and I know, Lou, you take your drone out flying all the time and here I am just with a little, you know, remote control, you know, truck on the BMX track, you know, going over jumps and stuff like that and having the time of my life and I didn't get any awesome pictures or anything out of it because I didn't strap like a GoPro to it. But I don't know, it was just my little fun little tidbit of fun that I'm having and ways that I'm kind of using technology that's been just kind of collecting dust that I spent way too much money on.

But these, do the RC cars use, like, lipo batteries or do you know what else? Yeah, they run on lipo. Yep. Cool.

And are they still using that? I don't know, when I was a little kid, I had one of these, I think, but or my dad did and I raised it a little bit with it. But is it still the controller type where it's like throttle and then like, there's like a tiny little wheel on it and you just turn the wheel? Yeah, it's still those, but they've gotten a lot better and they've moved to more like digital throttle controls.

So it's not as much of an analog pull, it's more of a digital. So it's just kind of like a sensor reading, you know, like where the throttle, you know, stick it. So things are a lot more responsive. They've stepped up the radio game a bunch, right, with the speed controllers and the radio controllers.

So, you know, things, it's very much like taking, you know, the RC car you had as a kid and just being like, all right, instead of using like 50 cent parts, we're going to use 50 dollar parts. So well, like it's expensive quick, but I guess it's, I mean, it's cool because like, when I was a kid, like, you could actually get the RC car to like a section of the track where you were like far enough back or there was some corner where you lost radio contact if you weren't careful. And we're literally talking like 75 feet, you know, or something like that. It's not that far away.

But I assume that, you know, that's like not even a problem anymore. Now you can probably try to think like, you know, hundreds of feet away without any issue. They basically run their own Wi-Fi networks, you know, so you can go there. Yeah, so it's funny because, you know, yeah, it's very much a throwback, you know, to be a kid and as a kid, I never got RC cars, like my parents would never buy them ever.

So like every birthday Christmas, like if I ever asked for an RC car, they'd be like, no way, no way. And then my dad, when I was like 14 or something like that, he bought basically a nitro RC car. So, you know, one that ran on nitrous and like that was the grown up RC car and like that was, you know, his toy and you know, we had to play with that and that was a lot of fun and I loved having fun on that thing. And after, you know, that kind of died, then I didn't get another RC car and it wasn't until I was going to college and there was the, the sys admin or the system analyst at the college I was going to.

And he and I were kind of, you know, pretty chummy because I was taking computer courses and, you know, you know, just kind of got along and hit it off. And he was like, Hey, you know, like, I race RC cars, like you should come with some time. So I went with him one night and we went to this track in San Diego. It's called SDRC.

So I'll include a link to their Facebook page because I'm looking at, I was looking at earlier and it was this indoor track and they would basically switch up the track and they'd have, you know, jumps and everything on there. And you would pay like $20 for the night and you got to basically race in an event and there would be two practice or a practice, a qualifier and then the final event. Then you could have potentially up to three races that were basically all determined by lap time, they would strap a little sensor to, you know, the inside of your car and there would be a lap sensor at the, the start at the end of the track. And you just go through, you know, like the whole night and do that and they'd have people, you know, bring food and there'd be music and this big giant platform so you could oversee the whole track and it was just a blast.

So after that, I bought my own car and, you know, I'd race it a couple of times. And the problem was is that, like I said, you know, the cost, you know, was $400 upfront to get the car and then the first time you go to a race, you inevitably break something. So when you break something, you got to go buy parts for it and everything comes in a set of two or three, right? So you buy a set of parts, you only need one part, you fix it, you know, you race again, then the next week you come back and you do the same thing.

And each time, you know, you're breaking something, it's now, you know, an extra $20 or an extra $30. And so every week paying $50 for a one night event, you know, got a little, a little problematic with the budget, especially with, you know, my wife is, and I was gone for, you know, like, hours too, right? Because you go to this place and say Diego and just sink four hours in there and when you have, you know, a family, like a wife and a child, like, it's definitely shouldn't be on your priority list. But, but now I get to relive those times.

So I get to take their seat car out and the kids are older and they just have fun, you know, like, let's take, you know, the car out and let's take it over jumps and do all that kind of stuff. And they're riding their bikes around the track the whole time anyway. So, like I said, this wrap up was just me kind of just reflecting on the fun times that I had in the last week. Thanks.

Well, I'm glad you have found an outlet in your adult childhood to enjoy the RC truck. It's great. They're really fast now too. Like, they're tons of fun.

Great fun. So what else is going on in the life of Adam that I see that you have two other things here. So which one are we going to talk about first? I know, I love how the wrap up is just all my stuff, right?

Like, you just like, you never include anything on yours and I was like, all right, well, I'll just talk about stuff that I do. So Adam got to have fun as a child and then Adam was shortly snap back to reality when he realized he had to file his taxes. So definitely did that. Taxes are filed and done.

So I can check that off of my list. Have you finished yours, Mr. Liu? No, I actually haven't even started them.

I usually wait until like mid to late February to start them anyway, because it just seems like longer and longer and longer. It goes like, or that I should say longer goes the older I get, the more documents I need to collect from like all these organizations. It's like, there's tax documents. There's healthcare documents.

There's, you know, your W two, there's all this stuff. And I'm just like, I used to be like, Oh, cool. It's like, it's late January. I got my W two file tax.

And now I'm like, all these organizations drag their feet. And next thing you know, they're like, yeah, we'll get it to you by mid February or something. And I'm like, OK, cool. Well, why am I even fighting this battle to start the taxes when I'm just going to hurry up and wait for the next organization to give me what I need.

So I usually don't even think about it until about this time. Do you use tax software or do you have unprepared or do you do yourself? What do you do? I usually use tax software.

I just use something like TurboTax or something like that. I could very easily probably just have somebody do it because oh, my dad still is a public accountant and has his license and everything, but he doesn't do him for me. He's he's not going to be that nice. He doesn't.

I feel like if your dad was an accountant, he would make you do your own taxes, right? Like that would be the one person who's like, no, you're going to do that. You'd be surprised. No, he doesn't.

He wouldn't want me to do my own taxes. I mean, like, I think one year when I was younger, he did make me like, I just think if you asked him, if he said, yeah, can you do my taxes? Like, fuck off. No, he's definitely not going to do that.

He doesn't even do his own taxes. So that's all you like that. I tell you, I mean, today, he's not a practicing public accountant, but he still has a license and maintains all his continuing education and all that good jazz that he has to do. But yeah, he could find me somebody that could, you know, get it done and I could probably get it done in a discount or whatever, because he's got friends that are still doing it.

But I don't know. It's just not something like I, my taxes are not significantly complicated enough that it requires that yet. So when it does, or if it does, I'll seek that out. But for now, it's a lot of just plugging in numbers and hurry up and wait for the next organization to send me whatever, you know, is in box 26 of document, whatever.

And so I guess the next question for me is, I know obviously our tax situations are way different. And you can decline to answer this if you don't want to, is do you usually end up owing taxes or do you get a refund? Generally, I get a refund of some amount. And for whatever reason, well, we'll see that could change because of who's an office now.

But I noticed the big thing that ends up getting me a refund a lot of times is student loan interest. I think it's like, I think it's the 1098 T. So whatever interest I pay on that, I always notice when I type that number. And it's like, who drops a bunch, you know, from me owing some to usually, you know, I get a refund.

Yeah, that's that's me with mortgage interest. I'm like, oh, and then it's like, oh, you know, I've got all this money interest. And I go, OK, cool. Yeah, so we'll see what changes, but we try to toe the line like right between owing and, you know, paying because they say like that's supposed to be, right?

Like, you don't want to, you know, withhold too much money from, you know, your day to day life, but you don't want to get sacked with a giant tax bill at the end of the year. So I don't know. We'll see. We, we came out pretty good this year, got a couple of other things to lock down.

But so my adult fund was severely squashed by having to file taxes. But now that's done. I can feel OK about going out and raising the RC car. I was going to say, if usually, oh, then it makes sense to just wait because, like, why pay that money now when you can pay it, you know, in April?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely understand the argument of like, get a refund and, you know, get started on, you know, you have money that you didn't have. But it's, like I said, I think the last organization gives me the document I need on February 25th. So that would have been just a couple of days ago. And it's like, yeah, I'm in no major rush.

But usually I'm not like the I'm filing in April guy. I'm falling. I'm usually filing by mid-March. So usually with a couple of weeks of having everything, I'm good.

Well, happy filing, Lou. Oh, yeah. What a joy of being a US citizen. I can't wait to fill it all out.

Yeah, right. Woohoo. So the other thing that I did, and I just added this today because these are two things that I did today that were in, you know, my reminders that things I need to get. So I started playing some new games on iOS.

And one of them is by Howl Laboratories, which is the same studio that made Super Smash Bros and the Kirby franchise. So it's called part-time UFO. And basically what you do is you play this little UFO who operates a little like claw mechanism. So if you think like the claw game, like an arcade, it's essentially that your little UFO with a claw and you basically just find part-time work.

Helping people do like odd jobs here and there. So the first one is like, this guy, you know, crashes his truck and, you know, all of his oranges fall out of the truck. And you have to basically just pick up the boxes and put them back in the back of the truck. And afterwards you page you and you realize like, oh, hey, I can get paid for this.

The basically you're just a little cute UFO kind of going around part-time and picking up work. And I started playing that today. So that's been a lot of fun. I haven't played, you know, too much of it.

So I paid about, you know, 30 minutes, but it's a very simple game, right? There's not a lot of depth to it. It's kind of something you can pretty easily pick up and put down. And I'm assuming it's going to get much more challenging.

I can already see that there's some things that they'll throw at you because you're all on a timer, right? Like, you don't want to, you know, have to work overtime. No one likes working overtime. You get a bonus if you finish early and if you've been all these special conditions.

So that's a one that started playing today. So I don't know if you've heard of this, Lou or seen it? No, I definitely haven't heard of that one. I did today download a little bit of a throwback because I saw somebody playing it and I guess it's been kind of rehashed.

And the game is still in great condition, which is a vane glory. You remember that game? Hey, man, it's now five by five. Right.

Five V five. Five V five, man. And you could be like three V three and all sorts of stuff. I mean, I was like, Oh, OK, I think I might be in on this.

I mean, that game is how are you and I not friends on vane glory? How is that a thing? So I played it for probably like a month, month and a half when it was out. And then I was kind of like, OK, cool, I had my fun with this game.

I'm on to the next one or whatever, whatever else is next. And I deleted it from my device. So I don't really think I like lasted that long in it. But I don't know, man, that game to me has sort of what I would consider like triple A quality like graphics and animations and has been like updated and you know, kept up.

I don't know what sort of server costs they undergo and stuff like that. But like good God, it is a beautiful looking game and I commend them for it. So OK, so that whole genre, the MOBA genre, the multiplayer, online battle arena genre, have you ever heard of League of Legends? I know we talked about this and like you had no idea what League of Legends was, right?

I mean, I've heard the words League of Legends, but you know, no, I don't know like what it looks like. Vane glory is a basic is like the port of League of Legends for iOS. OK. I mean, League of Legends is the desktop version of vane glory.

Got it. OK. League of Legends came first and you can argue that Dota came before that, right? But but basically that whole genre is what esports is kind of like a lot of esports is surrounded, you know, with is that is that genre.

So you talk about people, you know, playing and having the concept of a lane and a jungle and a monster in the jungle and you go in against another team. I mean, League of Legends is 5v5. It's the exact same thing. And you basically have instead of one lane, you have three lanes in League of Legends, but it's all the same objective, like take down turrets and get to the enemy base.

So it's I find it actually kind of really surprising that you heard of Vane glory, but you didn't hear of League of Legends and if you liked Vane glory, dude, we should totally play sometime because I haven't, you know, actually gotten back into that game. The only bad thing is like, I'm surprised you played it because it usually has to suck, you know, 45 minutes out of your life, you know, to play a ranked match. But well, you know, that's the thing is like, I starting back up, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to like I downloaded it and I opened it. And I went as far as like, you know, figuring out signing back in and all that.

But I haven't played again and I'm curious. I may have lost all my progress. So I might have to start over. So we'll see.

What did you play before? Like what classes you played? Were you like in the lane? Were you a jungler?

Were you a sport? I was in the lane before, but I'm going to hate the lane. I'm going to have to like, I'm definitely going to suck. Let's be honest, I'm pretty much a new bet at any game.

So it'll be interesting. Oh, nice. Well, send me some of your friend thing and post it on whatever, show notes and all that good stuff and I'll post mine too. OK, sounds good.

Oh, that's exciting. Finally, I can share something with you. Oh, so I see you're also playing Altov's Odyssey, huh? Well, after after talking about Vangler, I don't care about Altov's Odyssey.

Like I don't care about Altov's Odyssey, like I don't care about Altov's Odyssey. OK, so download your 1.6 gigabyte Vangler. Is that the next one? Commence.

Yeah. Yeah, Altov's Odyssey. So I downloaded that this morning too. And these are all things that were kind of like on my wish list, right?

And I have a budget for apps. So it kind of comes up usually towards the end of the month where it's like, hey, you know, like time to actually look at apps. I was like, all right, cool. So I picked up our time.

You know, that was one of them that was on the list. And then Altov's Odyssey was the other one. And if you ever played Altov's adventure, you know, it's the snowboarding, like the endless snowboarder where it's just it was really beautiful. I had really cool music and this Altov's Odyssey is kind of like the sequel to that where you're now in the desert.

And I was playing it for a little bit, you know, just, you know, earlier this evening. And the one thing I've noticed is there hasn't been any of like the people chasing you. It's been kind of more just a, hey, you know, have fun. Go try to avoid all these obstacles and see all these tricks and grinds and gaps and jump off these balloons and jump through these tornadoes.

And it's just a really pretty game. So I guess those are the two games that I was playing. And that's why I want to talk about them. But I'm so excited about Vinklory, man.

Like, man, I got to dust off, you know, because I took it off my phone. Like, yeah, it was 1.7 gigs and it was too easy to just suck all this time away. So it's only on my iPad right now. Yeah, it's, it's also something it's one of those games, man.

I'm going to have to like carry a battery pack with me because it just destroys your battery on your phone. Oh, yeah. So you basically have to like play with your phone plugged in because it's that ridiculous. But I remember when it was like all the hotness and I mean, there would be like times where like there would be times that work where people would be like lunch hour or whatever.

And there's just like five people packed around the table. Like, what are you doing? Oh, we're all playing Vinklory. Like really, really.

It's so good. That's a great part about that genre, right? Because Amoeba is great when you have people that you know that you're playing with, right? And that's always fun because and if they're in the same room, the better, right?

And they have all sorts of, you know, like solutions that they try to implement with like voice chat and like discord and all sorts of stuff, right? But, and this is why I think Nintendo Switch was so successful too is you now take everyone who can basically be in the same room together, right? They don't have to be, but they can be and they can all play and they can all talk to each other, they can all see each other. And I think that just kind of like lends to the fun of it, right?

And having something where you don't have to have dedicated hardware for something like Vinklory, just makes sense, right? Like, yeah, you just pull out your phone or an iPad or you probably already have that on you and you can just start playing it at any time. Like that's pretty, pretty lucrative if you, if you think about it, right? And then you talk about, they usually run their seasons with skins and that's how they make their money to give their server costs is people pay, you know, all this money for in-game currency to buy and unlock skins for their favorite characters and stuff like that.

But I don't know, there's, there's something nice about, I don't know if you ever had like land parties when you were younger? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like the modern day land party, right? But it's on demand and it's kind of spur of the moment and just there's so little setup, you know, that's required now. I also went to like some sort of, I went a few times to like a, like a computer gaming business, a land cafe where there was like, yeah, there was like 30 computers all set up and they had like, you know, 10, 15 games on them, B's or whatever and, you know, I mean, I'd play Counter Strike or Command and Conquer or something like that, you know, I would be playing one of those usually.

But, but yeah, the, we definitely did some land parties and there was a, you know, there's only probably been like twice in my life. I bought like a hundred to an ethernet cable and it was usually for a land party. Like, you know, the moms of the house, you like berators like, why is there cables all over the place and you're like, sorry. It was like Teenage Boy and Machinery in here.

So true. All these Xbox's running, you know, full board on these like, you know, rear projection TVs like, yep, that recipe for just instant gross smells. So speaking of games, like, I wonder what Data Vanglory collects. Ooh, might need to read the terms of conditions.

I'll have to maybe that could be like some follow-up. I don't want to read terms of English for Vanglory. That's definitely what I'm saying except, except, except. Except, except let me play.

Accentuated K. Oh, come. It depends on where you're from. Right.

You can get nice and funny. You can get nice and funny. Like, I'm gross. No one wants to hear that in the.