Better Offline CES 2025: Day 6 - Epilogue

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28:33So you've talked about the vibe people together here talking and happy. So effectively, I'm with the bar. I'm running the green room for what you're getting to hear over here. When people leave here and the next crew rotates in for your listening pleasure, the old crew does not immediately bolt for the door. They actually sat down with each other and enjoyed each other's time. I did notice that. And it's cool when we cycle out people like Ed, you go back to have a chat with them. and I realize like you've been like somewhat unimpressed with the actual stuff but you seem to have had a good time with everyone oh yeah I had a great time with everyone I had a great time with the people yeah and I think that it's so it's about the people but it kind of is I'm here to see the doodads, the gizmos, the apps no it's to pull together the tech media to have a conversation with people and try and actually talk about what happens here because as I was kind of getting earlier this place like Vegas is a fascinating place in and of itself But so is CES, even if the stuff is kind of the same as last year.

29:32Even capturing that mood is kind of important. And bringing you fresh was, I'm really happy. Yeah, and I'm really happy you brought me in. I mean, this was definitely an imprint experience.

29:45It's definitely left its mark on me. Would you have even dreamed, getting on a plane, coming to Las Vegas, that you were about to meet the crit readers for two of your favorite authors. No. Oh, my God. What a crazy... Yeah, that was such a wild turn of events. For listeners who don't know, they are... Father Gabriel and Phil are crit readers for Christopher Roccasino and Charles Strauss, who are two of my favorite writers right now. Charles Strauss does sci-fi. Christopher Roccasino is doing a science fantasy series, Sun Eater, which you should definitely check out if you are interested in Romans in space.

30:35Yes, space Romans. Yeah, space Romans that are in the deconstruction of Dune and Star Wars and also without the turgent prose of Foundation, the Foundation series. These are the happiest surprises that happen when you just sit down and start talking. There was a great moment where Robert Evans and Father Gabriel and Edom Gueso Jr. were sitting around for like 20 straight minutes. And they were having the, they were like, oh, but Hegel. And they were like naming all these philosophers. And I was just sitting there. And I think I understand what Babu, my cat, feels like when I'm talking to him. Because I was just looking at it.

31:15Just like, wow. I know these names. but they're connecting them in ways that clearly involve knowledge and then after 20 minutes i just said fuck is this what it's like what's it like being smart anyway that's the experience i bring to the sweep but honestly it's been kind of fun watching everyone just talk i want this to be yes and i want you the listener to be pulled into this and to kind of feel this because putting aside the very obvious and well documented side of ces of the it's full of shit that never goes anywhere and everyone's kind of annoyed. It's full of people. It's also full of people.

31:48Sorry. Sorry. Didn't bore you there, Ed. No, no, no. I'm blamed. Ed is well drank and well fed, as we all are. But also, we have had five straight days of just like our brains being punished. No, really. I think this might be a massage recovery. All the tension that's been holding me together, they removed it. And I'm feeling real good. I've been rubbing my stomach for five hours. I was rubbing it for five hours before that. I thought you were just accumulating wealth. I ran to this booth. Like the Buddha. I mean, I ran to the suite last night because I was going to... No, no. There was a crisis and it had to be addressed.

32:29Moving on. We're talking about how nice the solidarity here is. No, no, no, no. There was solidarity there. No. I will not elaborate. I was just about to do a whole thing about how, like, we've had a bunch of guys in a suite and I think for the most part we've done good positive masculinity without talking too much about our bowel movements. No one got in his way. Is it tough? And then the beginning I'm being open and vulnerable. I'm glad that we got Reuters' quotation on the horny check but also I'm tired of people on the Reddit asking to for one. But I think for the most part I hope we've shown a bunch of guys hanging out don't have to be nasty assholes.

33:10We've not been tearing each other down and i want this because this industry is very male dominated and something we do want to do better next year is i want more woman in this more diverse voices like this thing and i know some of you brought this up and it's a fair criticism we had we really only had like three one on woman on there and it's not enough and so we're going to do a much better job next year and we're already like making plans for this 2026 we are going to improve this show on that level but But also, I think we are going to try and, in as much as we can, sync up on coverage with these outlets and actually bring them in.

33:46Because the big thing is, is like, better off line is pretty big now. I can't even say how big because I am told not to. But it's big. We have a real audience now. And the thing I think we can do with this show is, first of all, show you, the wonderful listener, what's going on in the tech industry. And what's going on in the tech industry is not just the thing you see on the page. Even people I've criticized, those people behind the byline are held by these restraints of editorial bullshit. But on top of that, there's only so much you can do if you're writing about laptop. How much will you know about that person?

34:15So I want this show to be that now. And when it comes to things like CES, I don't know where else I go. I'm not going to South by. No. Yeah, you will. You got to do it. You got to see how crypto's taking it over. I don't want to. That sounds awful. It is awful. My friends aren't there. It's the people who go. Molly White will go. Maybe. Molly White's great, but I would rather just like fly to Boston or whatever. Yeah. But nevertheless, this show is important to the tech industry. Yeah. And yet it's completely uncovered what actually happens here. There's a lot of stuff about this robot does this and this vacuum has an arm now, but not the actual vibe, not the actual feel.

34:56And it's interesting to finally capture that and put it in a bottle. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's interesting because when I was trying to look over coverage to get a sense of what to expect, it really was just people talking about past products and not like actual morale, energy, enthusiasm or lack thereof. Impact to larger society and programs. As well. But even then, the tech industry and the tech media, it's full of these weird, wonderful people we've had all week. And I feel like, and if you, the listener, disagree with this, please let me know, but it feels like people have responded really well to just hearing the people behind these bylines and actually talking about this.

35:36And that those people got a chance to expand on what they saw and what they felt in a way maybe they've been constrained from doing for a while. and not even for malevolent reasons. It's just that if you are writing a gadget blog and you write about gadgets, there's not really much space for editorializing. Someone we didn't get on was Michael Fisher, one of my favorite YouTubers. And he has done a really good job of expanding his YouTube. I sound 100 years old. He's got one of those YouTube channels with the videos now. YouTube-less. One of the light boxes captures his form. But he was here, sadly missed him.

36:13I'm going to see him for dinner, I think, next week. Nevertheless, he has done a really good thing of explaining kind of the ephemera around his travel, how, like, travel weighs upon him, how there are emotional contexts to places he goes, the societal parts. He did a great thing where he was in India talking about the smog, for example. You can do more with this medium. And I think that there's so much more interesting things that we could do even with this show because, let's be honest, you've got... I don't actually know how many actual reporters are here because the list includes every single possible person who could ever mention words.

36:46But I would say there's at least 100 members of the tech media here, like dyed-in-the-wool actual tech media. And the fact is, there isn't a damn place other than like Twitter and Blue Sky where you're actually able to get to know these people. I want Better Off Line to be that on some level. It's not just going to be that. It's not just the kind of mixer stuff. But I think it's a helpful function of what the show could be in the future. So something I, while I don't go to the floor because I'm bartending, something that I do get to do at DEFCON and at Photonics West is watching for governmental entities that are actually attending the show as well.

37:27I mean, it's a tradition at DEF CON to play the game Spot the Narc, which is if you can find the member of a given government agency and they've started playing with it and actually having official booths and saying, can you guess which agency I work for? And if you do, they'll give you a challenge coin or a pin. But conversely, the DEF CON people will give them a shirt for the narc to wear. but our governmental agencies, our regulators are actually, just like me, interested in what's coming that I should be prepared for. I like finding them and seeing what are you looking for. Right. If I could find someone willing to represent their agency that wanted to talk to us, I'd love them.

38:17No feds inside here, though. We don't let them in here. I mean, I will not allow. We're not having the government agencies in here. I will not. You can talk to them outside, but if you're a member of the feds, please don't come to my show. I don't think that's going to be fun. No, no, if they turn up, I'm going to have a word with them and say, please don't hurt me. Please don't kick me out. Well, actually, the hard part is the ones that are actually doing the things that are of interest, they can't talk. They're constrained by a public affairs office. Perfect, wonderful. Then they have no reason to be here then.

38:49But their interest is actually the public interest. You should listen to the show then. They do. Well. And are generally happy. Okay, I hope they are. Well, they're the ones I talked to. I really don't want to get up and put in the gulag. But putting aside the FBI's clearly active interest in me, that's a great phrase to say out loud. I do want this place to be without the feds an actual place where journalists come and I know that there are some people have reached out to me and they've said they weren't able to make it and such we're going to remove we're going to move stuff around next year I want to make sure there's more room for people and Mr.

39:33Angueso Jr. sounds like he will come back yeah I would love to Mr. Roth will as well and Phil is stuck with me but I think the thing I want to do differently as well is I want to really plan out the groups because, and I must be honest to the listeners, how much of this came together in real time. But also, I think you'll indulge me because what an insane thing I did here. Like, this has been very crazy. And it worked. I cannot believe how well it worked. And it's thanks to you guys. And of course, our producer, Matt Ossowski, who built this whole setup. But it's interesting because something like this could actually be useful for people to understand the mechanisms of power within tech.

40:13because I want people to realize how much of it's bullshit, sure, but how you've got journalists coming out here who are actually trying to find a way to cover it within the boundaries of journalism, which can be quite difficult because most people can't come on here and say, yeah, most of the shit I saw was bullshit and that was broken and this is shit. Not necessarily because of the byline, but also how do you write that story? How do you actually put that together? How do you actually say CES was full of dog shit? and please read the rest of my words after this yeah and i'll tell you the way you don't do that being sponsored by delta airlines i will i will voice my displeasure about mr nilaire mr nilaire patel uh he is a dirty dirty man some management questions aside nilaire had a chance to do something interesting at ces and somehow i did the more interesting thing which is disappointing but also if you're being interviewed by the ceo of delta vacations what who what are you doing like well sorry you're interviewing them to what end to what point and i feel like the people covering this show have got such a shit deal but the ones with the largest microphones other than my own don't seem to be full disclosure i as a platinum medallion member for Delta.

41:30Man, those are the emails I'd delete the fastest. It's just frustrating because people at The Verge, and I'm not attacking the writers there because Victoria's son was amazing on this. It feels like the people covering this show, some of them have potentially given up a little. The Verge should not have a live show where the summation of it starts with a fucking interview with a CEO of the worst part of the Delta experience. The mini CEO. And I saw people covering the Delta stuff just blandly. And it's like, who cares? Did you check out the interview? What was the interview itself? I have not listened to the Verge cast in some time.

42:08I'm not sure how you can cover that excitedly. I think that, no, actually, let me check my notes. I did listen. It was, let's see, it was James Teichlet, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, who said that, I love the Verge. It's my favorite publication. and then they were surprisingly joined by Hanwha chairman Sung-gyung Kim, who said how The Verge is the best place to find out about bombs. That is all a joke. I apologize. But nevertheless, it's... I thought you were serious. I've had that written down for a week. It's just frustrating because it's like, Nilay Patel, he can fucking do a better job. And honestly, there could be better things done at CES, the thing we've proven in the last week, not trying to pat myself on the back or anything, but I don't even need to say that.

42:55the people who've come on have been really interesting and i think there's more that we can do i don't even know whether to call myself part of the tech media on a fucking pr firm during the day i write a newsletter where i regularly make typos that really shouldn't be there i just i don't know man but nevertheless it's like there is more to be done and there's more to be done in the next year and i think the way everyone needs to go right now is this move towards the question we've been asking all week, which is why does this have to exist? Who is it for? Why? And I think, Ed, your frustration with this place is that question is so often not answerable somehow.

43:34Yeah. Yeah, deeply so. I feel like, or it is a constructed individual that's not necessarily real as the tech industry is like so fond of being. Yeah, they're solving for an imaginary person. Or that search for an investor. Yeah. The product is them. I mean, I think the tech industry has gotten better in the years of constructing the image that there is the person that wants what they are offering. I mean, I think the most recent example of this that was pretty poignant was the construction of the crypto voter as facilitated by Fairshake and their pretty massive lobbying campaign to punish any candidate that seemed remotely anti-crypto to resounding success.

44:24I think almost like a 90 plus percent hit rate for winning races where they put up ads against anti-crypto or ostensibly anti-crypto or insufficiently pro-crypto candidates. Yeah, that latter one is the really dirty one. You don't love us enough. Kiss the boot. The imaginary customer. And the imaginary customer there is this idea of a crypto voter, someone who is motivated by a desire to have a safe home for their crypto assets. Right. They want it in a bank that they would typically use. They want their dollars to be more easily transferable between or to these things. Right. They want to have more assets that they can trade in their dollars or their tokens for.

45:15And I think similarly sometimes when I see, you know, I think about especially the global pavilion for crypto, right? Where it's like these people are sitting here talking about how, you know, for your brand, one way to increase its authenticity, as Objectify, the company said, is to offer limited edition goods that will add an air of rarity to your brand. Like a non-fungible token of some sort? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all tokens, right? And the idea here is also when you listen to them closely, they're not actually saying there's any use value. What they're saying is that we realized we have a use case for justifying our service, which is that you can make your thing more exclusive in partnership with us if you cut us a fee and you generate a useless token.

46:10I feel like there is a lot of this where a solution in search of a problem or a business in search of an opportunity to extract a fee. Rather than solving a need. Someone once asked me if I was willing to do limited NFT coded release labels on Black Blood of the Earth bottles so that someone could have their very own NFT run of Black Blood. and that would be an email that deleted. That would be so funny. I would take such pleasure from watching you enter the blockchain. That was the point. They wanted blockchain coffee. Block blood of the earth. I hate you. So Ed, slightly different direction.

47:01Do you actually like any technology? I don't mean this in like anything. You seem to enjoy your phone and such. Like you enjoy connecting with people. Yeah. I mean, I like, I like my phone, computers, screens. But most things I'm just like, I'm not really. Trains are cool. Yeah. Trains are cool. I mean, if we're talking about, for example, non-digitally mediated, I mean, of course, we're talking about digitally mediated. I really have to be, because I'm not interested in like productivity hacks or saving time. As a regular person. Yeah. For me, it's like the things I'm interested in, software and programs that have helped me.

47:44I'm interested sometimes in – I have a friend who I learned coding with maybe 10 years ago. You can code? What in? Well, I don't talk about it because I don't like doing it because I don't really care for much and because the reason I don't talk about it is because it's always fun when a tech person gets a little mad at me. And it's like, why is this guy who doesn't even code? And I'm like, what about me? Makes you think I can't code. Yeah, please tell me. That's cool, though. So, you know, especially with the more recent wave of tools, of generative tools for coding supplements. I mean, I've kind of been inspired by writing from Brian Eno and Yav Genni Moore's off to try and create small applications that help us learn other languages because I've been trying to learn Mandarin for a long time.

48:48And so stuff like this is fun and interesting, like little trinkets, little short desktop apps, small little programs that help me in my daily life, but I'm not really interested in some overhaul. It feels like what you're describing is the purest form of technology, which is why do we use the computer to connect with people or connect with ourselves a bit more? To actually truly love what we want to do more, to enhance ourselves. Because the reason I'm asking these questions is because there are some fucking idiots, I'm just going to skip to that part, who would just be like, well, Ed's just a hater.

49:26And I've got the same thing as an Ed who is hating. otherwise. Can I say a terrifying thing? Let him finish his point and then we'll get to you. Don't worry. I am a hater in that. I think that a lot of times... The greatest haters love. Anyway, please continue. When someone is talking to me or trying to convince me to integrate some algorithm or digital program into my life, what they're usually talking about is a way to like offload some of the cognitive burden and not actually cut through a stupid a task or to not come up for example like you know me and my friend we've you know Yvgeny Morshuff is an inspiration for this where he talks about in one of his essays about how he uses generative tools to try to create a group of language programs so that he'll try to talk in another language or answer questions in another language and then based on the weaknesses it will generate kind of questions and exams and stories that will test what he has shown a deficiency in.

50:28Like elements of how one structures a sentence maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grammar, sentence structure, ambiguities of descriptive language. I mean, and this is stuff that interests us more than the way in which we typically have been trying to learn the languages, especially, you know, because I'm trying to do Swahili as well. So Swahili and Mandarin and he's doing Spanish and Pashtun. And so it's like there are a lot of the apps that are offered in a lot of the programs, a lot of the methods, we simply either don't have the time to do them or the gamification that's presented is bullshit. Well, that Duolingo style.

51:13You know, so if you can figure out a way to do it that is more closer resembling how a human-to-human interaction does it without trying to convince me that I need to offload onto some sort of platform, enter some ecosystem, sure, I'm interested, right? But most of the time, you have to make the case, and it has to be a convincing case for why an algorithm needs to be introduced into something that I'm interested in using. And I think that most of the times if you actually spend time talking with the people about it and interrogating it, it doesn't pass the sniff test. This is where the solving the language problem and the human interaction level, this is where I have to say the terrifying words, I love Uber.

51:56Because it did one thing that they are not proud of, that they do not tout as a thing they can do.

52:08In general, Uber is toxin to regulated right environments. It destroys taxi networks. Never mind adoption of technology that taxis should have done to approve service. Uber obliterates that good ecosystem. However, in unregulated markets or ones that are highly corrupt and barter-based, where, I don't know about it. Such as? Such as Ukraine and most of Eastern Europe. Now, your experience with this was pre-war though, right? It was pre-war. In Kiev, I do not speak Ukrainian, although my feeble language skills of, I speak English, I have technical Spanish, I can have commerce Spanish, but don't ask me to talk about poetry.

52:59If you make two Spanishes, I was doing a callback to another. Anyway, continue. But when I got done playing in the Great Patriotic War Museum, and it was snowing, the first snow of the season in Kiev, and I did not feel like doing my normal thing of walking all the way across the city just to enjoy and absorb the city. And on international data rates, I downloaded Uber on the principle of, I just want to get back to my hotel. Uber was able to, within its app, allow me to arrange a ride, negotiate – well, I didn't even want to negotiate – set price. Yeah, they're negotiating for you. It isn't great.

53:48For a set price that is firm and get my destination correct with a driver, neither of us spoke each other's language, and it was seamless. that that is a thing they never tout they are not proud of but they do everywhere in the world and with time i did that in 2016 their language translation on either end of their app has only gotten better but that but the problem is that you're completely right except for the fact that uber also had a bigger opportunity they didn't do which was if they'd have grown sustainably and set real labor rates and demanded benefits, Uber could probably be a$15 trillion company.

54:30Oh, you mean actually be profitable? No, I mean beyond that. If Uber had slowly grown and done a more than minimum wage and used their scale to actually commit themselves to getting real benefits rates for employees and grown like that, they could have actually grown to be probably the largest employer in the world and actually giving people benefits. So they chose the other. And what sucks is that the reason they did what you just described, which is genuinely good, is so that they could find new people that spoke other languages to extract from. That was the first time I called an Uber of my own.

55:09I remember. And it sucks that they didn't do it to make sure that you could do the thing you did. It was just like we had to get that extraction. I know. It fucking sucks. It makes me mad. with the simultaneous, you made a human experience I couldn't have otherwise had. But is this not CES? A lot of ideas that are made up that could be for ostensibly good reasons, but are really done for the investor, for the theoretical customer. Fundamentally, everything we're describing that's good here is about actually connecting the smart cane, as glib as I might have been about it. People genuinely will find good in that.

55:45I'm legit excited about that. The medical devices, these are all good. And I mean, we've also, you know, we've talked before about how there are lots of algorithmic things that have nothing to do with the consumer that are helpful, you know, that are on the back end of helping test things or discover or do trials for various compounds, right? As long as you don't put, you know, I'm very skeptical of the generative tools that are being deployed for this. But, you know, more traditionally when they're done for this is, you know, it's something that's interesting. I mean, there's a host of applications that we wanted to sit down, we could talk about.

56:22But, you know, for me, the thing I don't hate, I mean, the thing I don't like and the stuff I just like kind of informs my antipathy towards it, my Luddism is like, you know, usually when we have a venture capital firm, a private firm, a well-capitalized individual, a hedge fund, whatever, pushing a certain type of technology innovation. it's because they're interested in prioritizing the startup form, which itself already closes a lot of doors because you have to adopt a certain product. You have to adopt a certain value structure so that you can pay the software tax or the cloud tax. You have to figure out a way that you're going to organize labor so that you can have contractors and employees.

57:07And all of these limitations, There's more energy being spent on evading all the barriers to maximizing potential valuation and profitability in market share instead of the actual technological innovation itself.

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1:01:00so we are at the end i'm afraid and yesterday you got my kind of teary goodbye to everyone and to give you an idea of what the room was like yesterday it was full of people and everyone was yelling and it was very fun that's where you got the yes chef from we have had an insanely cool crew of people of course led by matt salski our producer here but we've really gone through a lot of the tech media and the thing i'll say for next year is i'm gonna have more of them we had 20 guests on this damn show, including the people in front of me as well. I have more liquor to serve. Indeed he does. And it's fun.

1:01:33It's also, it seems like the listeners, and I want this to be an active conversation with you, you're on the Reddit, you email me, I love it. Please get in touch on Blue Sky. You get in touch on Threads, I'm not listening. Like, I just want to be clear, like I look down at you. Instagram DMs, absolutely. Threads, not so much. Why? I'm a hippograme. Anyway, this has been an amazing show and I want to hear from you but next year we're going to be a bit more structured but also it's probably going to be the same format we're going to have more diverse voices and we're also going to get into more definitive subjects I think the one thing I could have done but there are a few things I could have done better one thing I could have is subject matter and having subject matter experts we have people like Max Schurney and DaVinci Hardware who like really knew their chips for example we can wrangle that coverage far more specifically but also there was something fun about having the slop of the week just kind of wash over us because I wanted all of you listening to kind of get an idea of how obtuse a conference is.

1:02:33And I know some of you go to weird conferences and such, and thus you have this experience. But Phil, thank you for being our bartender. Thank you for serving everyone. I really treasure your hard work and let's do nine next year. Oh, yeah. Something I'm very proud of that I started trying to kick in the sixth and seventh time we did this was making sure I had non-alcoholic options available for people. I had more than ever available this year and I'm glad I got to give it to people who want it. Yeah, because this is not a place where you have to drink. Because most people who don't drink can't drink.

1:03:14Yeah. They usually feel very asked out when they go to events at conventions like this and I want people to feel welcome. And you are here. Like I don't care if you don't have any substances. Maybe you don't even have food. You don't even eat gas station mushrooms. I was just going to say. Thank you Robert for the gas station mushrooms you brought in. I didn't take them because I don't just eat food off the floor. Or gas stations. I gotta introduce you to some of my friends. Yeah. Drug freegans we would call some of them. Okay that's a new term. That is a series of words that I will be unpacking for some time.

1:03:50elaborate more off the pod. It's a bit of pleasure. It's been real fun. And this is kind of the, I was about to say the end of the road, but it's quite the opposite. The beginning of something cool, because Phil and I have been doing this for so long, and some of you have got in touch and asked, this was a suite where we brought our friends in from the tech media, and now it's turned into something really cool that I look to grow and turn into something weird and fun every year. If you're a member of the tech media who was not on here listening to this, get in touch. If you're in New York, for example, we will be doing what you heard this week very regularly.

1:04:23Every other week, I would say, get in touch. Maybe it's not the next episode, but I want a chunk of the tech media on there. I want this. The tech media is full of such insanely fun and weird and wonderful voices. Tons of people so good on the mic that you wouldn't know. I want to help with that. I want this to be something. Phil? And if you're coming to the Bay Area for some reason, I'm always happy to give the Phil Broughton tour where I point at Manhattan Project things that aren't there anymore. Oh, you're on the Bay? Yeah. Wow, we did how many hours and we just didn't reveal that? Oh, yeah.

1:05:02Well, yeah, I live in the Bay Area and I work at University that is somewhere in the Bay Area. I'll be there 28th to 31st. Also, if you're in the Bay Area 28th to 31st, you should come to my co-host, Jathan Sadowski's book launch at City Lights. Jathan Sadowski, of course, the inventor of the Habsburg AI term. Yes. And got the heir apparent of the Habsburg Empire to yell at him and say, this is a stereotype. Man. I am so jealous of him that that happened. And I am so upset that I've not had like a... Hansburg AI and Potemkin AI, you know. Very nice. Those are my two favorite kinds. Right. But also, Edwin Gueso Jr., thank you so much.

1:05:45You have battled through this week for your first CES. I would say the conditions have been chaotic. But I made it. He made it. My stomach made it. He cooked. but also you're going to see in the next year exactly how much Mr. Anguesso Jr. does he is incredible and we've been so lucky to have him I got to meet one of my favorite writers I've been enjoying your work for so long I really appreciate that and I will say this as I say every time when I meet you man I also got to have drinks with one of my favorite writers thank you so much for your time it's been a genuine pleasure I imagine for the listeners but selfishly for me me too i wouldn't have done it with anyone else guys so hell yeah and this is the thing like this has been very guy weighted but also i want all the fellas to listen to remember that you can love your male friends and talk about how fucking rocking they are and how much they've supported you all week you don't have to be so fucking self-conscious you fucking cowards compliment each other man also ed is like the best dressed man i've ever fucking every fucking day i'm just swearing too much ed looks just amazing i look pretty good too don't say it i'm jealous of his suit yeah he actually has like the most wonderful i wish i was this cool but nevertheless we've had an incredible crew of people i want to start by thanking jared newman the freelancer henry casey of cnn underscored ed niedemeyer of the autonomic cast father gabriel mosher of course of the church jesse ferrara and michael hale of your kickstarter sucks tom mckay of it brew of course david roth of Defecta, Matt Binder of Mashable, Max Churney of Reuters, Gare Davis and Robert Evans, of course, if it could happen here, Phil Broughton, who's sitting across from me of what I've just written as Miscellaneous.

1:07:36Devendra Hardewa, Carissa Ballin, of course, Sherlyn Lowe of Engadget, Victoria Song of The Verge, Carl Chouinard of The Las Vegas Sun, and of course, Matt Asowski, our incredible goddamn producer. You have been an absolute legend this entire time we couldn't have done it without you but we also could not have done it without iheart radio's sophie lichterman and of course ian johnson who has been he is literally dealing with the wildfires at the moment and he is we like we didn't hear from him it's like oh crap shit and actually i want to do a shout out to miles gray of the daily zeitgeist the iheart radio show he literally lost everything i'll be dropping a link in there don't feel obligated to like many people going through many things but if you can donate please do and thank you for me this has been a very personal podcast a little too personal and i have no idea if it's good or bad i really don't know you seem to be happy but nevertheless this is you've all kind of witnessed my own personal journey with technology and technology has been part of my life since i was 10 i think and you've all been wonderful and i think you like this and i like doing this i love doing this we will be back in a year and I'll get to that in a second we'll also be back next week we're going to have better offline radio in New York I get on a plane to New York on Sunday it's going to be a complete nightmare no exciting it's an adventure it is and I just love cooking I could probably do another hour of podcasting but you're thinking please no more no more say we've had too much but in all seriousness we're going to be back immediately with Paris Martineau and of course Jeff Jarvis of Twit and their various associations but we are going to be back in a year.

1:09:21And I've learned so many ways to do this, but the biggest lesson I've learned, and that's right, it's friendship, is that everyone came together to support this show. Every single goddamn person who walked into this suite, walked in here intent on actually discussing what had happened and everyone was so fucking wonderful. And I think now of all times, it's really easy to be kind of cynical and definitely pessimistic about the tech industry and say that there's nothing to redeem it really and everything is growth at all costs. But I think that's reductive. I think it's something where you can look at the most powerful people and the things being talked about and lose the magic, which is as fucked up as the algorithms are making things, as detached as we might be from whatever social networks.

1:10:08This week has proven at the very least that there are human beings that truly love the computer and love the things that they can do with it and the people it connects with. I hope I've given you something in this week, and that's proof of solidarity with your fellow human being. And seeing that within this extremely boring, arduous show at times where most people are lying to you or thinking about ways they could put you in a position to lie to you more egregiously, there are people coming in here who are slightly excited or very excited about a smaller laptop because they're able to use the computer in a different place so they're able to do more with their lives.

1:10:44And as Ed said, the algorithms, he uses it. could potentially use for more accurate linguistics. He could learn more about a language. There are many wonderful things that technology can do. And I've been quite emotional, and I think you like it, and I fucking love it. But I'm emotional because I'm surrounded by people who really give a shit. Emotional because every single person that's come through this door, the people running it, but even the people visiting have shown that there's not a single half-arser in them. There's not a person that I've spoken to who has not deeply and meaningfully cared about something in technology.

1:11:17And there's nothing wrong with you if you truly love what technology has done for you. Nothing about this podcast is about trying to fracture you from the things that you love about it. If you're pissed off, I'm with you about the way it's being done. But what I hope I've shown you in the last week is that there are people that care as much as you do, if not more, people that love it as much as you do, and people who share your frustration with the way things have gone. We will be back next week and we will be back in 2026 for the Consumer Electronics Show. If you listen this long, I do love you all.

1:11:54And I'm so grateful for you listening to Better Offline.

1:12:04Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Ossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at matasowski.com, M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com. You can email me at ez at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.wheresyoured.at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

1:13:05We'll see you next time.

1:13:18park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Did it occur to you that he'd charmed you in any way? Yes, it did. But he was a charming man. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story. Because this ties together the Cold War with the new one. I often ask myself now, did I know the true Jan at all? Listen to Hot Money, Agent of Chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:14:16to protect yourself and your loved ones. Listen to Intentionally Disturbing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denial is easier. complex problem solving takes effort. Listen to the Psychology Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:14:55It's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone and there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join hosts Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. One tribe saved my life twice. Welcome to season two of The Good Stuff. Listen to The Good Stuff podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.