Created: 12/09/2013 Every generation wags a finger at the one that comes after it, but kids these days really do have it the easiest. Well tell you about a handful of their stories, including a site that encourages student collaboration, a UK teenager that paid $750 for a photo of an Xbox One, and more.
-Hey, whats up everyone? It is Monday December 9th 2013. Thanks for tuning in to The 404 Show on this lovely day in New York City. Im Jeff Bakalar. -Im Justin Yu. -Im Ariel NuÃez. -Hows everyone doing? Did you miss me? -Welcome back man. -Awesome. -I did miss you. Yes. -Youre full of it. -Bridgets beacon of positivity was almost too much to-- -I heard about all the crappy talk about me while I was gone. -I did not talk crap. But it was-- actually there was nothing negative said for the entire week. -Also no one had any fun. -It was great. It was great. -Yeah? -It was just like us high-fiving each other, patting each other on the back. -But you-- like, you understand theres a reason to be-- -Yeah, its like a yin-yang type of thing. -Right. -Yeah, right like Im the positive guy-- -Two yins. -youre the negative one. -Great. But like with Bridget was theres just those cancel out? -There was a double yin. -There was a double yin. -How was San Francisco man? -You know, San Francisco is like a really-- its a good city. -Can I get, can I just go back in the tape and rewind-- I wanna hear that again. -Its a good city with good people. -Yeah. I agree. -It is. -I love it. -I mean everyone there is super nice. They dont know a jack about bagels. But other than that-- -Yeah. -you know, someone is trying to tell me Italian food was better in San Francisco and I just wagged my finger at them for 35 seconds. -Yeah, I dont know if thats the case. Asian food is definitely better in San Francisco. -No, see, everyone says its better out here. -Really? -Your people out there think its better here. -Really? The grass is always a greener type of thing. -Absolutely. So its fun. I got to shoot a bunch of videos out there with the great crew; Celso and Charlie. -Uh-hmm. -And then from GameSpot, there was Peter Brown. -Uh-hmm. Which Browns brother? -Which Browns little brother. I kept calling him little Pete Brown. -Yeah. -And then the producer out there Andy Bauman-- really good dude, very good people to work with. There was a blast. We had a lot of fun, learned a lot about everybody in a very short amount of time. -Uh-hmm. -Got to enjoy the space of the San Francisco office, all eight floors or how many they have? -Theyre six and-- you know, you can just do cartwheels wherever you want cause theres enough room. Its really upsetting. -Its not funny. This is total inside baseball because its not funny to anybody that hasnt seen the New York office. But the New York office is one floor and were all just sitting next to each other. -So if-- -S.F. office is huge. -Im trying like make comparisons that everyone can relate to. -Yeah. -So if you were to like trying to describe the 28th street office, its more of like a prison, right? -Okay. I was gonna say its more like Google and were like Lycos. I dont know a prison-- -You mean S.F. is like Google. -Yeah. Every office is like a prison. -Yeah, its just absurd like every rooms got a bull pit. -Yeah. -And theres like slides and theres popsicles and theres popcorn and theres like people waiting on you, hand and foot-- -Its like the tech bubble never burst in San Francisco. -Yeah, like its still 1997. -Thats cool. -In San Francisco. And so but its a great place. So if youre interesting in what I did out there, we shout a bunch of videos called, The Experts, where myself and Peter Brown from GameSpot basically have seven episodes of a show where we talk all about the Xbox One, PS4 and we had sort of solicited questions from our viewing audience and greeting audience. So for each episode, theyre themed in a specific sort of next gen topic. And then Peter and I chat the whole time about the subject at hand. So its pretty cool. -So youre saying you did another podcast while youre out in California. -Yeah. -With like different co-host? -No. I didnt cheat on you. -You know, little ping of jealousy in my heart right now. -First of all-- -Im not a jealous guy typically but when I hear about you podcasting with somebody else, feel like our five-year relationship is a little tarnished. -Peter is a gentle man. -Yeah? What is it like? -Hes super gentle. -Did you feel a breath of relief? -Being inside another parking list? -Yeah, yeah. -It was ual and it was sensual. -Thats not cool man. -No, Im kidding. But I didnt cheat on you. I told them I had someone back east that I really was exclusive to-- -Right. Youre doing another yard. -And I was committed, you know. And he understood, you know. -Thats good. -Like we definitely want to exchange numbers and whatnot. I told him, Im probably just not ready for that. -Its an investment for the future. If anything ever changes, youll him know Im sure. -Yeah, and hes like, look, you know, if you bells, you just call me. And Im like, all right. Tap the breaks a little hard guy. -Okay, all right. -There are good people out there man. -I dont just believe you. -So, you know, I had to maybe had a lie a little bit. -Yeah. -And like be, like Ill come back for you, you know, stuff like that. -Yeah, yeah. -But I was-- you know, it was cool and I thought of you the whole time and how you just sort of sat there saying nothing cause it was just about-- -Yeah. Just shaking my hands. -It was just about Next Gen stuff. It wasnt a podcast though, it was like a video series so you werent completely cheated on all the way. -Okay. -You werent dude. I just need you to know that. -Im joking, Im joking. Thats cool. -For your own sanity. -Theres room for opportunity podcast, this is-- -I think so. -free love podcast. -Yeah. The internets got the space for it. -Yeah. -So if youre curious about those they air, well at least start to air this-- what is that, Thursday the 12th. -Uh-hmm. -So that would be a lot of fun. We had a blast with them so I think some of them are kinda funny so go check them out and well obviously remind you guys on Thursday when they go out. -Cool. Well, this is our last week of shows before Im going. Youre gonna be doing the show on Monday and Tuesday of next week. -Correct. -But this will be the last batch of shows. Its gonna be a good one too. We have a lot of-- -We got guests the whole rest of the week. -good guests this week. This is the only story-driven show of the week, right? -Uh-hmm. -We have Jill coming in tomorrow. -Yup. -Steve Guttenberg on Thursday. -Correct. -And then we have a really special guest on Friday that Im excited about, a return guest, right? -Yes. We could talk about that. -Yeah, I pimp it out last week. -All right, yes. So Alex Winter is back on Friday and then dont forget Shannon, our Spotify friend will be here Wednesday for the first time in like a month and a half, two months. -Great. Yeah. -So that should be awesome as well. -Yeah. All right, can I bit for a second really quick before we jump into the stories? -Be my guest. -So over the weekend, it was my girlfriends birthday and so I surprised her with these two tickets to go at the Lincoln Center Philharmonic. -Okay. Wow, look at you. -Right-- to go to see the performance. I know. It was like a high-class weekend, very rare. -Did you wear a tie? -I did not wear a tie. -Or a hat? -Or tuxedo-- -Oh, way cool. -with the hat. -You know that its a classic right out there. -Yeah, it was really fun, you know, its kinda of a new experience. Ive never been to the Lincoln Center Performing Art Center before at least for a musical performance and-- -Sure. -it was great. Its kind of a high-class thing. It was an 8 PM Performance, not cheap tickets, I will say. But yeah, when we are sitting there, were in the orchestra level, pretty close up, its like in the 5th row of the orchestra. -Yeah. -Its very nice. Great view and it was beautiful. But any amphitheater, you know, the sound gets really amplified, you know-- -Right. -Even the slightest cough or a rustling can pretty much disturb the entire performance. -What did you do? -I didnt do anything, it wasnt me. Let me protest this. Its not like me. Youre a mistake. -Im just-- I just picture you like-- -So my phone went off in the middle of nowhere. -No, on your best day ever, you lean to the left and then its over. -Yeah. -All right. -So I rted in the middle of the-- -So I interrupted the opera with flatulence. -Yeah. No I want preferences by saying that I know that parenting is hard, right? Its so hard that obviously the three of us are totally unprepared to have kids and thats why you dont have one yet, right? -Uh-hmm. Pretty much, yeah. -And it must be a way harder now to have kids than it was say when our parents were young. -Sure. -Right? There are so many things you have to monitor and its a constant process. Its like a 24-hour job. You had so much to-- those kids -Got you. Yeah, it sucks man. -There was this mily of five in front of us, right? A mom and a Dad and their three young kids probably between the ages of like 10 and 15. -Okay. -The entire performance they were on their phones. The two parents were filming and taking photos until they were asked to stop. But then what really was irritating was that the three kids were all on their phones, which is something that, you know, I think would go over well or at least acceptable at say, you know, a Rock Heads performance that supposed to be for kids or-- -This is the Phil-freaking-harmonic. -maybe even a movie. But its the Philharmonic,Cheap Michael Kors bag you know, and the thing is, a lot of people were upset about it and I wanted to ask you guys if you think its something that maybe, us specifically being in the tech industry are especially sensitive too or if its something that everybody has to stop and be like, What the hell are we doing? You know, its said clearly, please turn off your phones and silence your volume and all that. -I think it ends right there dude. -But these kids were watching-- all three kids were watching movies on their phones, which one is just a huge waste of money, right, for the parents and have to pay for their seats. -And the parents were using their phones as well? -And they were allowed to do that and was condoned by their parents because the parents themselves were the ones not or taking photos. -So whats the-- the parents are idiots. -Taking photos. -This is the crazy part, is that multiple people complain. -Right. -You know, someone in my row complained the guy that was sitting directly behind the kids. They complain to the ushers during intermission because they could see the light and obviously thats distracting. -Sure. -Now that there-- I mean, there is a ton of stuff to see on the stage. Its not like a-- -It doesnt matter. -Yeah. -Its inappropriate in the movie theater, youre at Lincoln freaking Center, I mean-- -A hundred percent, yeah. -Yeah. -Its like a historical venue. And then, its funny cause then the people in front of those kids using their phones were also complaining because they were wearing glasses, like, you know, like My Focals. -Ive seen those. -Yeah. And the light from of iPhones behind them was actually reflecting off their lenses. So the people in front of the row were complaining and then the people in the orchestra level were also complaining. -Sure, because theres no place for this. -Yeah. -Especially since there is a sign-- there signage that says dont do this. -It was crazy and multiple times there are several ushers each time those three people were complaining. The ushers came by and asked them to stop and they didnt stop. -And they didnt? Oh, these guys are not only are they-- -They didnt kick them out but the parents also werent like, Hey, you know, youve been asked three times now to stop. You need to like put the phone away. -Why did you not just like destroy these people? -Because at that point, what are you gonna do? You know, Im not gonna interrupt their performance to ask them to stop. But its just-- it was so frustrating because you could see these assholes breeding, you know, like you could see that theyre gonna be a future assholes when they grow up. But theres nothing I can do about it because they were kids. -For the long lineage of that. -Yeah, you know what I mean like this was the perfect opportunity for the parents to be like, Hey, theres a right and wrong situation to use your phone. -Right. -And you could use it at the dinner table for an Applebees or something like that. But when youre at the Lincoln Center, put the phone away. This would be a perfect opportunity to teach that lesson. -Its not the kids ult. Its the parent. -But its not that-- right, its not the kids ult. -I mean like, if youre an idiot parent, youre gonna have idiot kids. -Right. -And hopefully ugly. -And the crazy thing is that, instead of turning off their phones entirely and putting them away each time they were asked by the users to put it away, they just dim the phone a little more. -Oh, my God. -So they start a full brightness. The first time that was 75 percent then it went down to 30 percent. -I dont know you like maintain yourself though? Like it was happening right in front of me and it would just freaking little kids-- -Right. -with stupid, idiot parent, I mean. It would have gone ugly for sure. -I just cant check the feeling that maybe Im just being crazy about this, and I know each generation thinks at the following generation are rude and insolent and inconsiderate. But this one really does seem like its the worst. -In pretty much any other scenario, I dont think you really have to say. -Yeah. -But the ct that like, when you enter this place and you buy the ticket, you kind of agree to the rules that are in place there. -Right. -Like I got no problem. Being awkward and being insensitive and inappropriate is everyones right outside of where the rules dont apply to that. -Sure. -Right? Like you can-- if you wanna, you know, walk down the street being a total dick yelling on your phone like thats your right. -Uh-hmm. -And you can beat that guy. -There is no law against that. -And technically theres no law against what they were doing but its within the place is right to kick them out, which they should have done. -Yeah. -How do they not get kicked out? -Cause it would have interrupted their performance? -So why not just do it in intermission? -I dont know. I think because during intermission was when all the patrons were complaining around them and that was when the performance, you know, began, I guess. -I would have-- I just would have lost it. -Right. -I would sort of like kick the kids chair. Why you didnt even kicked the chair? -I tapped him in the shoulder and asked him to put it away like everybody else did and they were like, Okay. And instead of dimming it, cause it was already fully dimmed. This kid just turn around and instead of like using his phone normally, he crotch down and covered the phone with his body so that it would stop the light from reflecting-- -You know what I would have done after the non-compliance from the ushers for everyone else in the room now like all batts are off. -Sure. -This means war. -Theres no rules. -I would have just reached out because youre the row behind that. -Grab it. -Right? No, no, no, I dont wanna grab it thats your phone, thats your phone. Youre entitled to your phone. I just want to yell in the youngest child-- not yelled but like whispered in the youngest childs ear. -Right. -Let me show that phone up here as when were done-- I think thats what I wanna say to the-- -Yeah. Again, that was-- -It was not like I dont know, maybe I dont know what his reaction would have been to it but I would have actually follow through-- -Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. -You would have done it? -No. Last thing Ill say about this is that, you know, its like-- -Oh, man Im so mad for you. -I know I was really upset. Thats why Im bringing it up first thing here, but, you know, last thing I say about it is that, I get it. You know, like a Philharmonic Classical Performance, where theyre playing Mozart Conciertos and symphonies probably not the most exciting thing that a kid wants to see. -Im not saying the kid cant be bored. He could be bored. -Right. The kid was bored, and I think weve all been bored as kids before but it doesnt mean that I have my Game Boy out when I was a kid and doing-- -Right. Its really up to the parent to be like, you need to leave or just hire a babysitter. -its a cultural thing too, dont forget. -You know-- will these people tourists? They sound like tourists. -I dont know. I have no idea. I have no idea where they were from but-- -Where they all wearing like the same color shirt? -It just mainly not wanna have kids because its just-- it must be-- theres a whole new set of rules that you have to teach your kids nowadays. -But you understand youre like in control of them. -I would never do anything like these parents were, of course. -Right. Like these parents sound terrible and they should probably just be arrested. -Yeah, I know, I know. -Just because of how poor of a job theyre doing. -And you know what, even if theyre werent smartphones in these world, these parents would somehow find a way to do their kids wrong. -Oh, my God. If there were no cellphones, the kids would have been doing something else. -Yeah. -They would have like been, I dont know, playing like jacks. -Yeah. -Something like that if there were no cellphones. -Playing jacks on the ground. -Just like what a bouncing ball in jacks, I dont know what the hell-- what the hell everyone do before-- -They have the paddle and the ball-- -Big bowling cup. -Just playing bowling cup. -Thats what they would have done. -Thats a good-- its a good idea. -We should do like old school-- -Like all kids throughout the generations. -Go back to the globe theater in London. -Yeah. -That would be sick. That would be sick. All right, there we go. Thats for the new show. -Oh, man. Im upset for you brother. -It is really frustrating especially because, you know, in my head I had [unk], is a special night, her birthday and I wanted everything to be perfect. -I cant believe you were able to just maintain yourself dude, I would have steam-- the steam from my ears would have been smellable in the air. -Yeah. You have to desensitize yourself to this kind of thing cause its not just cellphone distractions, you know, those guy in front of us that was really feeling the music, and he was like shaking his head and, you know, he was really into it. -Im okay with that. -And even now it was a little bit distraction but you cant ask people to-- -Stop feeling the music sir. -Yeah, stop jamming. -Yeah. Wow, Sac Louis Vuitton Pas Cher man. Good for you like holding through and whatnot. -It took a lot of restraint. All right, speaking of kids being dumb-- -Yeah. -lets talk about another way that kids are taking shortcuts and thereby their lives much easier than when we were kids. These are our first story of the day. Its about a new-- I wanna say these next words, these next with loosely but homework help site. -Okay. -Its a new website that claims to help kids with their homework and its getting attraction with a lot of middle school and high school students. -Sure. -And it sort of not the first smartphone app design to sort of help kids out with their homework. Theres been a lot of those on the internet. But this one is the first one because it employs a bounty program to pay you for answers to popular questions on tests and textbooks. -Got you. -The site is called Slater.com. And I think the best way to explain it is just put it up on the screen because I sort of have it already laid out here. So what were looking at is a site on Slater.com. This basically gives you access to every popular textbook in the United States used by public schools. So what were looking at now is Geometry, a Geometry book thats being used. And you can go down to a specific page, right? So, you know, obviously in every teachers edition of a textbook, there are recommended tests to give based on that subject, right? -Sure. -So this gives all the answers to the test down to the page and the specific question that theyre asking, right? Since I dont have a paid account, I cant see this but this is basically how it works. When anyone signs up, they automatically get 500 gold credits, right? These credits can be used to buy answers to their questions. -Right. -But if you run out of credits, you can either get new ones by answering hard questions, by answering other questions on the site or you can use your credit card and your Paypal account to buy more credits that you can then use to source for questions-- source more answers, I guess. -So this is more than just challenge-- to me, this like I think the bigger issue is challenging the way kids learn. -Right. -Right. Like this is always gonna happen. This kind of stuff will always be around. -Right. -Right. -The thing is they sort of justify it by saying, its not a cheating site because we show you how to do the work. Its more of a tutor program. -Well-- -How do you feel about that? Did you have tutors in high school? Did you go to one? -Me personally, no. But I think-- -Tutors dont just give you the answers to that. -No. -Thats the huge difference between them. -A tutor is an individualized learning experience-- -Yeah. -where is not working in the classrooms, you need special attention because you learn a different way or youre just not able to jump at the same speed as everyone else in the class. -At the speed-- -So theres nothing wrong with the tutor. But with this site, I dont know. I mean, do you think its okay for building a college degrees online like its the same sort of thing, you know-- -Yeah, youre right. Youre totally is. -So I think its not like I dont care how youre getting the answer. Its more like-- even when you take a regular test, youre just memorizing stuff. Youre not necessarily learning it, right? -Uh-hmm. -Like this not only brings up the idea of like, is it cheating? But it also brings up the discussion of how were learning the right way. -Yeah. -So I think you have to really like take a step back and kind of just-- let me give you, let me give you this. -Okay. -When I was in high school I had a really good friend who ran a term website. -Okay. -And you could pay for term s. -Yeah, those would be around for a while. -That is clearly a much different thing where you are just paying $50 for someone to write a biology essay for you. -Right. -That is totally different than this sort of-- -Uh-hmm. -If youre describing it correctly. -You could use this arguably to double check the work that youve done organically beforehand. -But youre like paying for it and the ct that money comes in to the equation. It feels dirty. -See, thats the dirty part is that this basically teaches kids that you can buy whatever you want if you have enough money. -Just screw. -I mean, you can do whatever you want if you have enough money. -But thats true. -Which is true, but its not something that we should be teaching kids and, you know-- -Well, I think kids should be rewarded for good grades. -Sure. -I think like if you get As, you get money. Thats how it should work. -Yeah,Ep 1398 Where we put it on a floppy cheap juicy couture purses I think a lot of people would do that style-- -Like when I was growing up that was so frowned upon, I remember. Like I remember my mom being like, oh, those kids who get paid for As, theyre just, you know, a-holes. And Im like, I kinda think thats like what you get paid for, right? -Yeah. -When you get a job and you do well, you get more money. -I think the argument for that though is that the hardest thing is to teach kids that the subject that theyre learning in school is sort of irrelevant, right? Unless its what their major wants to be. -I feel like-- -You know, I got taught chemistry not because I wanted to be a chemist but because I needed to learn that critical thought. -The basics. -Yeah, and I needed to figure out problem solving. -Its a [unk] thing. Yeah. -And thats really what the underlying lesson is. But good luck telling a high school kid that. -Well, its the same thing like, lets be honest. All you need in terms of math is Algebra like thats really all you need to get by in life. -Yeah, and its like. -You dont need Trig. -Right. -You dont need stuff like that. -You dont need stats unless youre gonna be like to [unk] as scientist. -Right. So, I mean, you know, its all relative. -Yeah. -And youre not gonna be able to use a site like this. I dont think for something like stats or pre-calc-- where you actually need to show proofs and things like that. -Right. -Unless you just copy it down. -Oh, will you just said the word proofs and you died a little-- -A little bit of you just came out. -Man, I dont think I ever had a math teacher that I got along with-- -Yeah. -you know. -Yeah. -Were you good at math growing up? -No. I was terrible. -Yeah. -I actually had to get tutors specifically for pre-calc and stat. -Oh, youre taking a creep out-- -I just couldnt through. -like I never took any of those advanced math things, so Im not gonna be, Im not gonna look down just-- is this a stereotype of-- -The thing is, I was-- -Im not like complaining about math to the Asian guy, it was like, Oh, I wanna take a pre-calculus, really-- -No I wasnt. I was always under the impression that if I took pre-calc, I could eventually take AP Calc and then not have to take college courses and math at all. -Right. -Just skip all the GE and then get to my-- whatever major I wanted. -Yeah. -And that wasnt the case. I still had to take math in college because I iled my AP class. -Oh, you did. -Yeah, because Im terrible in math-- -Dude-- -and no one told me that. I mean, I did all this ground work to get the good grade but then the test seem long. -Sure-- to get into but then you iled. The GE, like I dont know about where you went to school. General Education Math in college is insulting. -Yeah. -You know how easy it is, right? Like you thought it was a joke, right? -Yeah, yeah. This remedial like 50, maybe 60 kids on one class. Its crazy. -Yeah, and its just like, Okay everyone, were gonna count how many people are-- -Yeah, yeah. -Its pretty absurd. -Yeah, one of our co-workers here, Sally. She does some of the CNET EspaÃol stuff. -Yeah. -And she was telling me that where she grew up in Mexico City, they actually dont have general education at all. They handle all of that in high school and they just do their vocational work or major programs in the Universities after-- -Its pretty amazing. -which is smart, right? Then youre not wasting money like so many people do to go to afford University. -It seems like unnecessary credits, [unk] where you have to do four. -Yeah. -And my Mom was a math teacher so shes like-- -Oh, you really dont have an excuse. You had a free tutor in math. -Yeah. I mean, you know, I dont know what level she taught. I think she taught like early high school. -Yeah. -But still, early high school math is kinda easy. -Yeah. I mean, the bottom line here, going back to the story, is that kids will always find creative ways to cheat. -Exactly. -And then not to-- even if this Slater site wasnt around, its not really to be blame for cheating because, dont forget theres the entire internet to be looked out as well. They kind of synthesized the information and put it into a social network. -But dont you think-- -You could still use like Wolfram Alpha to look up anything. -Right, right. You mean Wolfram. Dont you think empirically now that its probably tougher to cheat on like a test in a classroom now than ever before probably? -Probably because they know anytime cellphone is out-- -All the tricks. No cellphones. Youre stripped of everything. -Yeah. -I feel like its probably tougher now. -Yeah, yeah, probably. -Yeah. -Well-- -Im curious. I wanna hear from like a high school kid, is it easy to cheat? -I think its-- yeah,Moncler España youre probably right. Its easy to cheat on test in class but its probably a lot easier to cheat at home with your homework. -Well, of course-- -More difficult to cheat in class, a lot easier now. -cant even found a Wikipedia through high school. -Holy crap. -Yeah. -Okay, well talk a little bit about Xbox One now. -Yeah. -I love the story. -Why? -I just love dummies. -Yeah, this is proof why kids actually need to go to school to study and learn goodwill thinking. Now that the Xbox One is totally sold out, right? A lot of people are turning to eBay, no surprise there-- -Sure. -to get a hold of the consoles for Christmas. And surprisingly enough, I guess the PS4s are actually crushing sales on eBay specifically in the after-market compared to the Xbox. -Okay. -Well, you could still get an Xbox. I think theyre going for, maybe like not that much over the retail price like 650-700 bucks. -Sure. -Not crazy but this is a story about one 19-year-old student in the UK, who-- you know, he wanted to buy an Xbox One for his 4-year-old kid. Lets hold on there. Lets just stop the story right there and talk about how a 19-year-old ther of a 4-year-old wants to buy him a $500 Xbox. -I didnt know that hes 19 years old and hes got a 4-year-old. -Hes 19 years old. -And why are you-- number one, whats up with that? -So thats the setting of the story immediately, yeah. -Number one, whoa! Number two, why are you buying a 4-year-old an Xbox? -Right. This is the equivalent of the Simpsons episode-- -I didnt know these details. -Remember that Simpsons episodes where Homer buy Marge a birthday present but it ends up being a bowling ball with his name already engraved on it. Thats basically what were talking about. -I hate this kid and Im glad he got jacked like this. -Im glad that youre calling me kid cause hes a teenager. You know, 19 years old. -Why is this headlines? -Okay, regardless of past mistakes, thats obviously-- -At least one big mistake. -Yeah. This is the second mistake -- -God dude, come on. -He saved up-- -I mean he was 15 at the time, so how can you really blame him? -Fifteen, give him a break, right? Good on it. -Jesus. -He won an auction for this limited edition Day One version of the console of the Xbox One. Now, I wanted to ask you cause it didnt explain in the article what is the Day one version and how is it special? -As r as I understand, the Day One just comes in a different colored box. -Okay. -It has like a special graphic on the controller-- -Okay. -And like thats it. -Okay. -I dont really think there are too many other incentives. There could be like a special deal with like, you know, Xbox Live memberships or whatever. Its not that big of a deal. -[unk] this stupid ce-- -I hate his ce. -Its actually like, it make sense that Day One version isnt that much better than the regular because he won the console on eBay for $740, which, you know, thats not too much. -You got that money hanging around 19-year-old guy with a kid? -Yeah, 450 pounds, you know, maybe just buy your kid a bunch of presents. You could buy a lot of presents, its a lot actually. -Maybe buy like diapers or whatever the hell you need for a 4-year-old. -Yeah. Or put that in the old college account. You know, college [unk] account. Anyway, he saved up to get his 4-year-old son McKenzie the $740 toy and the auction listing said it was for among other things, a photo of an Xbox Day One edition console. -It was clearance day like it said photo-- -It said photo in the listing. But then a lot of the listing also save photo to say that the auction has a photo in it. -Right. And Im not gonna sit here and call this guy an idiot because he should have realized-- -Well he did his, he did his [unk]. -Right. -He looked up the sellers past feedback information and it was all positive. So he did a little bit of background research. So he expected to get the real one, the one in the photo. When he got the package, it was literally a photo of an Xbox and thats what were looking at here, a very poorly printed out photo on Xbox One. -Yeah, but youre offended by that. -Yeah, and the accompanying fee for 14 gig. -So Im-- -You clearly con and so much so that on the back, it actually says, thank you for your purchase. -Nice. -This is some high-level controlling here. -Thats rubbing in the lemon juice to the wounds right there. -Yeah. -Okay, whats funny to me is that there was even a photo scent. -Uh-hmm. Yeah. -Like thats amazing to me. -Yeah, with some efforts. -The guys were like, you know what, I just jack this guy for over 700 bucks. Im gonna send him his photo. -Right. -He deserves what he paid for. -Right. You know, I dont know. -I mean that its better than the guy that you hear about that buys Xbox box in a gas station transaction and then ends up being like a pile of wood inside of it or something. I mean, this is never-- slightly better than that. And I mean its smart because obviously eBay and Paypal have their safe on their programs. -Yeah, hes gonna get it-- -So he can get a refund. But this is really upsetting part of the story is that, you know, a lot of-- the story has gain attraction over the weekend. -It is. Its everywhere. -A lot of people have heard about this and one-- -Do they all feel bad for this kid? -They all feel bad for it to the point where electronics retailer in the UK called CEX. They were so touched by Peter story, that they actually donated an Xbox One to his son to get this. And Im not saying its excusing stupidity. -Whats that kid gonna play? -But this guy could wait maybe a couple of weeks until the Xbox is being sold again at retailers and buy it for less than the price that he paid. -Yeah. Its just like, you know-- -Its just rewarding this type of-- its like the squeakiest will gets the grease. -Yeah. There are so many things that I have a problem with the story but I just think its awesome that, you know, hes 19. -Yeah. -Why is that not of the story? Right? Ariel, right? -Yeah, thats a huge part of this. -Yeah, I agree. -Like what the hell is going on? -Its weird. -Well, this is not weird. Have you ever seen a 4-year-old with an Xbox controller? They dont know whether to eat it or to do what like theyre just not there. Four-year-olds cant play games that well. -Theyre probably more interested in the box and the zip ties that are around it. It actually [unk] self. -They wanna play with the Styrofoam. -Yeah, yeah, hundred percent. -All right, these kind leads into another awesome Xbox story. -Yeah. -Which Im back in every way possible. -Yeah, a lot of dummies on todays shows; kids, these other kids-- -Dummies, dummies central. -and now this, so you remember one of the iPhone 5S and the 5 came out, there was this, it was like an advertisement that came out that look like it was all in Apples marketing style. -Right. -And it was like sort of this advertisement saying that with the new upgraded iOS 7 software for the iPhone, it actually makes the hardware waterproof. -Right. -And it was this big prank that was getting disseminated a line and a lot of people idiots were actually dunking their iPhones in water thinking that they were protected by the new iOS. -So now-- -Remember that? -I do. -Those were ridiculous, right? -Right. -I mean a lot of people fell for that so its no surprise that the same guys behind that have come out with a new prank thats getting spread around and you wanna just tell people what this is? -So the prank-- and it comes from our, I dont wanna say friends. Was it like co-internet inhibitors. -Sure. -On fortune. The prank is a graphic thats going around and its called the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility unlock for Xbox One. -Uh-hmm. -As if there some hidden sort of backwards compatibility that could be unlock with like some Konami code. -Right. -And its a series of six steps that basically tell you how to brick your console but it disguise it as a way to turn it into a backwards compatible Xbox One. -Right. -Now, I wanna talk real quick about what we think is the situation here. Is this straight up like empirical stupidity or is this just people not savvy enough to understand that theyre getting duped? -I just think that people dont get that unless thats on the Microsoft site and being blogged by all the, you know, big sites. -Right. -And its not real. I mean-- just-- its Twitters ult. Right? Its gotta be Twitter and Facebooks ult. -Definitely. Yeah. -Because they just believe everything they see on social media-- -Like I wanna ask someone who doesnt know about this and like, I wanna just like, would you just do this? -Yeah. -Would you just like-- -Its probably not people at our age too. This is probably like teenagers that are doing-- -To me, this is the same thing as like seeing a bottle of half drinking soda on the subway and starting to-- someone didnt want this. -Yeah, yeah, freaking food. -Like thats the same sort of mentality. -Totally, totally. -Right? -Uh-hmm. -Like what are you freaking thinking? What is wrong with you people? -Yes, man. -Where do you come from? Where-- like is there a store that you came from? -Yeah, yeah. -Right? Like what kind of manucturing of idiots? -I mean, basically, this is what Buzzfeed has made an entire empire out of this, just exposing the stupidity of people. -But like I just dont get it. -Yeah. -The waterproof thing with the iPhone, I think thats worst than this. -There was another one that I dont think we talked about it on the show but it was similar prank after the iPhone 5 came out. There were claims that you could actually put your phone into the microwave and it would recharge in one minute. If you just put your phone in the microwave and then press that little minute button, it would recharge your phone like that. And people were saying that it wasnt very highly publicized because Apple wanted to sweep in under the rug because it would affect-- the charger sales. -Yeah, you think? -And some of you were like, Screw Apple. Im not gonna buy another charger. Im just gonna put it in the microwave. -[unk]. -Yeah, got you Apple. And then, of course, its exploding and there were all these videos online of people that were doing it. And then, longchamp outlet of course, they found out immediately that that was ke. -I mean the worst part about this, the ultimate irony is no one has ever gonna come forward and be like, Yeah, I did this. -Oh, theyre not gonna go to like a genius bar and not the Apple Store. -Yeah, right. I tried the microwave trick and it didnt work and theyre just holding a smoldering pile of ash. -Right. -I would wanna know and I wonder if any of our listeners are actually Apple geniuses themselves. -Im sure we got a couple. -I wanna know if people ask them about this like, you know, consult beforehand cause that would one step above just doing it, you know. -I think theyre laughing their ce? -Yeah, probably. Were trying to hold in our laughter. If youre the type of person who thinks that entering a magic code somehow magically unlocks in Xbox One-- -Uh-hmm. -But there are magic codes-- -backwards compatibility. -I mean, you know, obviously this is devils advocate but there are Kanomi codes that allow you to unlock features. -Features? -But maybe not feature is so big as backward compatibilities. -I mean, if you already owned an Xbox one, youre probably slightly in the no with the on goings of video games. -Right. -You know that Xbox One has an inmous lack of backwards compatibility. -Right. -Maybe if you are the type of person who thinks entering a magic code is gonna give you this feature that was clearly never available from the start. -Right. -Or maybe Justin Yu, you shouldnt be allowed to play video games. -I dont play video games and even I know that I cant do this. -I just-- right, like maybe youre not allowed to operate heavy machinery. -Right, you know. -Maybe we give your seat to the person whos gonna take advantage of it. -Yeah. Maybe you dont go to the Lincoln Center to see a Philharmonic performance. -Maybe youre not allowed to see classical music being played in the worlds arguably most mous venue. -Thank you. There should be like an I.Q. prerequisite to buying an Xbox. -Maybe we just like ship you to like some third-world country where you can deal with, you know-- -No. They dont want them. -I just dont what to do with these people. -Yeah. Interesting note-- side note. I found this story on the Daily Dot. Can you switch to the screen or shot really quick? Im assuming you havent read this review Jeff. But they actually quote you in this review. -Oh, on the Daily-- -On the Daily Dot they talked about this prank and they say the real surprise that [unk] managed to wait and this is the ultimate prank for anyone to hold on to the dreams of an Xbox not, fraud with frustrations which they hyperlinked to the CNET review. -Oh, sick. So, well done. That was like in your bottom like. You said it was [unk]. -Yeah, it would be cool to kinda give credit in the article. So Im just linking. I guess thats how the UK deals with their stuff. This is a UK publication? -No, the Daily Dot is an American publication. -Okay. Well, I cant get that-- -But thats cool that they read your reviews. -That is cool. Thanks Daily Dot. We got nothing but love for you. -So dont follow for this trick dummies. -Thats it. -And on the side note, I am a Nigerian Prince. I wanted to feel like-- -And I need money. -And I need money. But the only way I can wire the money is through a fingerprint sensor. So just send me all your iPhones and Ill take care of it. -And I just need your social security as well. -Yeah. Were all Nigerian Princes. -Someones gotta ll for it right? How many people do you think fell for this? -A lot. Im sure all wed have to do is type in its Twitter. -And you can see a bunch of like people about their broken Xboxes. -Do you think that Microsoft would refund these people? -No. -They wouldnt-- warranty them? Because, I mean, you could do this like-- -No. Well, okay, so. You could technically. -if you were a part of the developer program and you did this and entered in the right ID, then it would work for you but the ct that you werent kinda means that you are messing with the internals that could void your warranty. -The ct that its completely accessible through the controller and how theres really-- -But theres no way for this to be in excellent. -Right. -Unless you fell for a prank. -Right. I mean you could maybe like-- I dont know. Im trying to give people the benefit of that doubt like stumble upon it somehow-- -Right. -highly unlikely. -Uh-hmm. -If-- like I said, I cant see this happening in more than like 10 people, like I mean I know anyone listening who did this, who fell victim of it like first off, theres no way cause none of our listeners are that stupid. But I just-- I wanna talk to one person. I want to talk to them for 30 minutes cause I also wanna see like how do you get dress in the morning? -Right. -How do you take a shower? Do you forget to take your clothes off? -Well, you just trying to send them to a third-world country, doesnt know where theyre gonna come on to the show and [unk] themselves now. -They know. Thats too easy of a sentence, like right like-- -I wanna know. I wanna know. -I wanna know. I wanna talk to this person. -Its not surprising. All right, do we have time for one more or-- -Yeah, lets do one more and then well say goodbye. -Okay, last thing well talk about and this is my vorite story of the day. You know, weve been talking lately about the medical industry, at least the consumer phasing side is kind of-- -Outdated. -outdated and theyre slow to become into new technology, right? -Sure. -That would probably make it easier for everyone to get their prescriptions and whatnot. Anyway, youre gonna be upset about this story because the medical industry arent the only ones that are slow to pick up technology. Theres a branch of the Federal government and this comes to us from the New York Times today. Theres a branch of the Federal government called the Federal Register that still uses 3.4-inch floppy disks. -As coasters? -Not as coasters, not as a weird [unk] our project to transfer data the way that was originally meant to be source. -No, no, no, no. -Yeah. This was revealed at a congressional hearing last Wednesday by the head of the government printing office. -I mean-- -It seems like a place I should be at. -So when you process this information, you understand why healthcare doesnt work. -Healthcare got-- yeah, exactly. -Thats like-- lets-- -And thats actually the crooks of this New York Times article. Thats what theyre talking about. Do you think healthcare.gov is bad? This is why. And at this congressional hearing, the head of the government printing office made a speech about how frustrating it is to deal with old technology. And every day the government publishes something called the Federal Register and that sort of daily update of everything that the branches of government had been doing, right? It sort of like a checks and balances type of thing. And it comes printed out and thats with the government printing office does. But it also gets-- the information gets delivered and report to the office by courier. And so, those couriers transport things like disks and USB keys and hard drives. But a lot of the time, the information that eventually gets published in the Federal Register comes by way of 3.5-inch floppy disks and a good amount of them too. -How? How? -The problem according to this article is that CD-ROMs and thumb drives can store so much information that is really easy to hide viruses inside of them and it sort of true. I mean, weve seen in the past, you know, we talked about Stuxnet before and that got them-- -Right. So this is like a security thing? -Its a security thing. That-- and also the ct that obviously a lot of those administrators are a little older and theyre sort of hesitant to adopt new technologies. But, you know, the 3.5 floppy is, you know, pretty reliable. Its durable, right? -Okay. -Youre not-- if you take a magnet to it, its not gonna-- -No. You cant destroy it. -immediately. Thats-- Im saying thats like the only thing, you know, like a CD you could scratch. You cant really scratch a floppy unless you pull back that thing. -A USB is so much more reliable than a floppy. -It is really-- I totally agree with you obviously. But, you know, the ct that you could put a virus on it, I sort of get that. But I think that sort of putting a band-aid over the bigger issues that we should be figuring out better security measures beyond USB drives. -Why? -Yeah. -Its 2013. I havent seen one of those in a decade. -The scary part is that they actually have to have computers thats still have floppy disk drives in them to access the data, which is an even upsetting thing, right? I mean, how old of these computers that they are using there? -This is going down the path thats gonna provide nothing but sadness. -Right? Can you even buy an external floppy disk drive? -Im sure for like $0.99. -That attaches to what? Like a USB port? -Yeah, then USB is like way too st for the floppy. -Im gonna look that out. -Its just way-- you doesnt know what you do with it. -Yeah. -God, thats upsetting. -I love to have-- -Remember laptops with the floppy drive in them? -Yeah. Wow, you can get one for $19. -Yeah, thats too much money. -At new age you can buy floppy disk drive-- -What I wanna know is like, so they were able-- they had enough information to-- like they, the information was small enough to fit on the 1.44 MB floppy disk? -Yeah. These are docs. You know, these are Word docs and Excel Spreadsheets. You dont need to put anything else on it. And theres no room for it either. -And you thought your workplace was asked backwards. -Yeah, yeah. Thats crazy. -All right. -That and the ct that theyre delivered by bike messengers. Both of those seemed really updated. We had to carry your pitch in that-- -I was gonna say that would be line up with that kind of technology, wouldnt it? -Its funny. -Well, all right. Well-- -Lot of headshaking topics. -were gonna end-- yeah, a lot of forehead slapping, lot of headshaking. -Yeah. -Thanks for tuning in today, 866-404-CNET is the number, although we still-- we can hear your voicemails but playing them on the air is proving to be a little difficult at this stage in the game. Were just honestly waiting for one little piece of equipment thats gonna help us do that. So keep them coming or you can e-mail us of course at the . We are back here tomorrow with Jill Schlesinger her debut in the brand new studio, so make sure you tune in to that. Until then, well see you. Im Jeff Bakalar. -Im Justin Yu. -Im Ariel NuÃez. -This has been The 404 Show. High-tech, low brow. Have a ntastic Monday, were back here tomorrow. See you.
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Ep. 1398: The Bing sting
Is Microsoft copying Googles search results? Probably: but how bad is that, really? Or is it just smart? Plus, the ISP conflict of interest nightmare scenario comes to pass in Canada, and its bad news for everyone. Are you watching, DOJ? Plus, a lawsuit accuses AT&he rumors of a Portal movie directed by J.J. Abrams; snow panic driving Weather.com completely insane; and a patent troll claiming to have the rights to every podcast on the Internet.
