Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst joins me to talk about two recent articles he wrote for TidBITS. The first topic is life-changing for me. Have you ever wanted to send someone a link to a specific spot on a long web page? With text fragments, most, if not all, web browsers now allow you to select some text, right-click, and select "Copy Link with Highlight". This link will not only take them to the right spot on the page, but it will highlight the text you selected. Learn the details in Adam's article: Text Fragments Enable Deep Linking on Web Pages. Next up, we talk about a survey Adam conducted amongst TidBITS readers asking them about their usage of VPNs. We had a fun discussion about how he figured out what four simple questions to ask before he even started the survey. He walks through the results, and we talk about some of the more surprising results. you can read the full article here: Do You Use It? VPN Use Is Widespread During our discussion, we talked a little bit about Tailscale, and we referred to the article that the great Glenn Fleishman wrote on the topic: Tailscale Gives You Remote Access to Your LAN from Anywhere

This episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond is going to be a bit different. On the NosillaCast #1042 for April 27th, Bart Busschots and I recorded his usual segment on Security Bits, but the majority of it was a deep dive. The subject was whether cryptography as we know it is doomed because of quantum computing. His explanation was so good that I wanted to be able to point people directly to the audio instead of referencing the chapter mark or a time stamp so we decided to make it a standalone Chit Chat Across the Pond. If you want to listen to the rest of the original recording of Security Bits, be sure to subscribe to the NosillaCast and look for episode #1042. You can find Bart's shownotes for the episode of Security Bits at Security Bits — 27 April 2025 — Deep Dive into Quantum Computing. [audio mp3="https://media.blubrry.com/nosillacast/traffic.libsyn.com/nosillacast/CCATP_2025_04_29.mp3"] mp3 download Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_04_29 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst from TidBITS talks about how traditional search engines like Google and Bing no longer provide valuable information because they surface unreliable content first. Instead of using traditional search engines, he's been testing tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Claude to see how well they search the web. He calls these tools "Answer Engines" when they're used to search the web rather than generate their own responses to your prompts. You can read Adam's extensive blog post about Answer Engines, and his see his research results at tidbits.com/... Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_04_29 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

This week, Adam Engst joins us to talk about some work he did to try to measure the accuracy of several different AI models in creating audio transcriptions. He let me help him with some of the transcriptions so I was invested in his findings. We'll learn about ways to measure accuracy, including Word Error Rate aka WER. You can read Adam's article where he describes in detail the process he followed and the rather unsatisfying results at [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2025/02/28/comparing-audio-transcription-in-notes-audio-hijack-and-macwhisper/). Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_03_23

You know I'm not a music person, but I've invited Steve Mallard onto the show to talk about a topic he's quite passionate about - the evolution of music tech. He is not an expert in this field, he just finds the history fascinating. Steve will take us back to the first acoustic guitars, and explain why electric guitars needed to be invented. He'll talk a little bit about the early effects that could be added with vacuum tube amps and how the invention of the transistor revolutionized the music industry. Things accelerate after that up to where digital signal processing began allowing new music effects and replication of tone became possible. At the end, we get into a bit of a debate on whether this democratization of music creation has ruined music. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks:

This week, the delightful Adam Engst of TidBITS joins us to talk about how he learned to write so well, what it's like having an editor, and then moves into how he uses the AI tool Grammarly to improve his writing. It's great fun as always and convinced me to pay for one month of Grammarly to see if it will make me as awesome of a writer as Adam. You can read all the details of his use of Grammarly in his article entitled ["Why Grammarly Beats Apple's Writing Tools for Serious Writers" on tidbits.com](https://tidbits.com/2025/01/30/why-grammarly-beats-apples-writing-tools-for-serious-writers/) Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

If you've been on the Internet before, and you've heard of a little fruit company called Apple, then you've probably seen Jason Snell's famous Six Colors charts on Apple earnings. In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, we don't talk about earnings, we talk about the magic behind how he creates his famous charts. It's full of nerdy fun like how he decides when to use a serape chart vs. a bar chart, how he calculates a rolling average, how he gets the data for the charts, and how he gets the charts from Apple Numbers into his website. His joy at finding people who want to talk about the nerd side of this is evident in his enthusiasm. * Apple Q1 Earnings charts on Six Colors including video of Jason Snell and Dan Moren discussing what the numbers mean. * How Jason automated creating the blog posts from Numbers: Chart Party at sixcolors.com. * Jason's podcasts: The Incomparable, Upgrade, and other appearances Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst of TidBITS joins us to talk about a bug in macOS Sequoia 15.2 that affected a low-level system tool called Apple System Restore or ASR. This tool is the path for developers of backup tools to create true bootable backups, and the bug makes it now impossible to create bootable backups. We talk about the different viewpoints of the developers of Superduper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, and Chronosyc regarding the future of bootable backups. Then Adam talks about whether we really _need_ bootable backups anymore. We then segue into a survey Adam conducted on backup strategies with TidBITS readers and he discusses the relative merits of the different strategies. Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Andrea Jones-Rooy is a data scientist, a standup comedian, _and_ a circus performer. Andrea delves into the realms of data science, its significance, and how it is often misunderstood in mainstream narratives. Andrea begins by reflecting on their journey to becoming a data scientist. Andrea was a professor of data science at NYU Center for Data Science and they taught an undergraduate course called "Data Science for Everyone". The cool thing is you can watch Andrea teach the same material for free in a video series of the same name: Data Science for Everyone on YouTube. I watched all 20 episodes, and I have to tell you it was fascinating. I may have gushed just a little bit about how awesome it was. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_01_10 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart talks about his job as a cybersecurity specialist. We get a bit silly in our early part of the chat, the reasons for which will become obvious when you listen to the beginning but he successfully gives a flavor of what "a day in the life" is like for him. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_12_29 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Certified Apple Consultant Pat Dengler joins me to tell the harrowing story of how her neighbor was seconds away from being scammed out of $30,000. In an elaborate web of lies with multiple people involved, she was connected supposedly to Amazon, the FBI, lawyers, and more, and every single person gave their IDs and return phone numbers. Pat saved her literally in the nick of time. This story aired as part of the NosillaCast on December 1st, 2024 but I made it a standalone episode so folks can point directly to it to help raise awareness. If you need a Certified Apple Consultant, Pat can be contacted at pat@denglerconsulting.com. Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst of TidBITS back again to talk about an unusual and clever scam experienced by one of his TidBITS readers. It involved fake obituaries triggering iPhone security warnings triggering App Store downloads. You can find Adam's written article on the topic at [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2024/12/06/beware-obituary-scam-sites-and-fake-iphone-security-warnings/). Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst and I discussed his October 24th article entitled [Exposé Reveals Ongoing Smartphone Location Tracking Threats](https://tidbits.com/2024/10/23/expose-reveals-ongoing-smartphone-location-tracking-threats/). He explained how much easier it is now for your precise location to be determined because of your online activity, in spite of the safeguards Apple has instituted in an attempt to anonymize your data. Adam gives chilling examples of what's possible today. Adam doesn't leave us with doom and gloom though, he arms us with some tools to fight this tracking as best we can in his article, [Protect Yourself Against Location Tracking Abuses](https://tidbits.com/2024/10/27/protect-yourself-against-location-tracking-abuses/). [audio mp3="https://media.blubrry.com/nosillacast/traffic.libsyn.com/nosillacast/CCATP_2024_11_12.mp3"] mp3 download Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_11_12

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam King, chief revenue officer for eSIM provider GigSky. As an unwritten policy, I don't generally interview people who sell products or services, but since it's my own guideline, I can color outside the lines when I want to, and this is one of those times. We do a fair bit of international travel, and I have always chosen my eSIM by going to esimDB and choosing the best combination of data and length of time of my stay for the price. On our last two trips, GigSky met our needs the best. But I didn't understand something pretty fundamental about choosing an eSIM provider. Sam explained that most eSIM providers are simply resellers. That matters because if there are any network or installation issues, these companies have no way of fixing the problem and lack any accountability. It turns out there are only a handful of eSIM companies (including GigSky) that are network operators who supply their own US-based eSIMs. He went on to explain that network operators actually can fix network problems, including automatically moving you to a different local provider with that same eSIM. I highly encourage you to listen to the interview to understand the subtleties of Sam's explanation. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_11_03 During our conversation, we started talking about how eSIMs are generally just data, and the various ways to maintain your own cell number while on travel. You may not care about making phone calls, but you may need to receive SMS messages to log into certain services, such as banks. This very problem happened to Steve on our trip to Africa when everyone was using WhatsApp but he hadn't installed it on his iPhone yet. He had to receive an SMS to authenticate but he didn't have his home cell number enabled for fear of getting huge roaming charges from AT&T. And that's when Sam told me about an interesting hack that he says will allow you to use your US phone number with your data eSIM for SMS and WiFi calling. Disclaimer: I have not tested this process, so this is exactly as written by Sam to you. I definitely plan on trying it before our next international travel. Sam's process: 1. Purchase a data plan from an eSIM data provider (like GigSky :)) Make sure your eSIM from your preferred provider is installed and the plan activated before you take off from home (this is my night before my flight routine). 2. Make sure that you have Wifi calling set up on your home account (this is important for when you arrive in country) 3. Before you leave, tell your home operator customer service that you want international roaming turned off. For this, you have to contact customer service and tell them that you do NOT want to get an offer for their roaming service while you are overseas, that you want a zero % chance that you will get charged for roaming. If you do this, your home operator SIM will not attach to a network when you land in overseas (and that's a good thing). 4. As you're taxing to the gate in your destination country - turn on your eSIM in cellular settings and set "Cellular Data" to GigSky (or whichever provider you chose) and set the "Default Voice Line" to your home network. 5. Because you are overseas AND your home SIM is 1) Configured for WiFi calling &2) has no connection outside of the US, iOS will try to fall back on the WiFi calling feature. It turns out that a cellular connection over the eSIM works exactly the same way! So you'll see in the status screen (what you see when you swipe up on an iPhone) Top SIM: GigSky LTE & Bottom SIM: Home Operator e.g. Verizon using cellular data. For all intents and purposes you can continue to use your phone as if you were in the USA... Verizon treats it as WiFi calling from a billing standpoint; you can send SMS, make voice calls, get your voicemail, etc. at no additional cost because Verizon thinks you're at home using WiFi calling even though you're in Europe! Calls to European numbers are still long-distance for Verizon so you might want to get a Google Voice number to make calls within Europe but that is a fairly small incremental cost. Below is what your phone will look like when it is set up correctly: How Your Phone Will Look with Sean's Strategy

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst of TidBITS joins us to join in the fun conversation about limiting your iPhone's charging to 80%. He wrote up an article entitled Does Limiting an iPhone's Battery Charging to 80% Increase Lifespan? in which he references an article by Juli Clover of MacRumors. Juli used her iPhone 15 Pro Max for a solid year with charging set to a max of 80%. Juli freely admits this was not a terribly scientific effort to determine whether it helps because there are far too many variables at play and not enough data points to form any conclusions. That doesn't stop me and Adam from pretending to do science with her results, Adam and my results charging normally, and even more anecdotal data collected by Nick Heer on Pixel Envy. I even threw around a pivot table I made with this "data" which is well known to turn anecdotes into scientifically derived proof. On top of that, I nerdily referenced Battery University that sheds a wee bit of light on the subject. Before we kicked into that topic, we spent a few minutes revisiting our topic from last time, the annoying monthly popups to allow recording of your screen and microphone. Since we last talked, people have hacked the plist that contains the timing of the nagging, and Jordi Bruin has even written an app called Amnesia to help you hack it. I suggest this proves it's security theater if you can bypass it. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_10_02 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst joins me again, this time to talk about the patently wrong decision by Apple to include repetitive permissions requests for screen recording in the macOS Sequoia beta. As he explains in his article on TidBITS.com entitled Apple Reduces Excessive Sequoia Permission Requests, Shifts to Monthly, changing from weekly permissions requests to monthly is 4 times less wrong, but still 12 times per year wrong. We discuss the types of applications this will affect, from screenshot utilities like CleanShot, to menu bar modifiers like Bartender and Ice, as well as apps like Photoshop that simply use an eye dropper to let you choose colors outside of the app interface. Adam has a no whining policy in his community, so this isn't just a big complaint conversation, he explains some ideas he has the Apple could implement which might give users the desired security protections without causing them permissions fatigue. Even in this rather fist-shaking episode, Adam is a delight and we had a lot of fun chit chatting.

This week our guest is the venerable Adam Engst of TidBITS. Adam wrote an article recently about his solar inverters that ended up being a story about troubleshooting. That inspired me last week to tell you our troubleshooting story about our home network. We thought it would be fun to go through Adam's story and pick out ideas for troubleshooting and where our own weaknesses are. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_08_06

CATP #793 for July 9, 2024, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. In case you missed the announcement, Adam Engst of TidBITS is now a member of the Podfeet Podcasts family as a continuing contributor to Chit Chat Across the Pond. In this week's episode, we talked about why Adam believes we need persistent calendar and reminder notifications. Adam is hyper-focused and when he's writing it's not uncommon for him to easily dismiss a notification of an upcoming event. Articles referenced in the conversation: * A Call to Alarms: Why We Need Persistent Calendar and Reminder Notifications. * In Your Face Provides Persistent Notifications for Events and Tasks * Just Due It: Persistent Notifications for Tasks - TidBITS * CalAlarm app Adam is testing for iOS Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_07_09 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

So ... I made a wee mistake this morning when I accidentally told the NosillaCast feed to move to the Chit Chat Across the Pond feed! I thought I fixed it right away, but then Louis Trapani told me that he was seeing all of the NosillaCast content slopped into Chit Chat Across the Pond! Evidently, the fix didn't "stick". Overcast subscribers are fine because the RSS feed is ok, but Apple Podcasts subscribers may not ever get the NosillaCast again unless you resubscribe. I can't believe I did this on the day before my 1000th episode and I'm very sorry and sad! I sure hope you see this and you'll resubscribe and get all that NosillaCast goodness - especially the 1000th episode! Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_07_06

Well hello there, this is Alison Sheridan and I have a very special announcement for July 5th, 2024, to the Chit Chat Across the Pond light audience and the Programming By Stealth audience. If you were subscribed to the Lite feed, you may have noticed that your Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite logo changed into the Chit Chat Across the Pond logo and that you see a whole pile of recent episodes that are all Programming By Stealth. As a Programming By Stealth learner, you won't have noticed a difference yet, but you also care about this. I've decided to make some changes to the podcast, which I'm pretty sure will benefit everyone. There will be a full explanation of all of the changes in the NosillaCast on episode 1000, but let's talk about you first. The first change is that we've stopped publishing Programming by Stealth as part of Chit Chat Across the Pond. If you want the Programming By Stealth content, then you'll need to subscribe to the standalone podcast that we've always had. Since Programming By Stealth won't be in the regular Chit Chat Across the Pond feed, that means it IS the Lite feed. I've done a fancy redirect thingy that folded the Lite audience into the "full fat" Chit Chat Across the Pond feed so you don't have to do a thing to get your regular Lite content. I will be publishing Lite episodes more often with a HUGE guest! If you want to read about the new guest and all of the changes and why, check out this post: Changes Coming to the Podcasts — All Good News! Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_07_05

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about weather apps. He's a serious weather nerd by necessity, living in Ireland and being an avid bike rider. As he walks through the apps he'll explain which ones fall down on privacy, which ones have good apps for everything from the watch to iOS to the Mac. He'll even go through how he uses different widgets to help him decide how much rain gear to wear. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_04_26 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart Busschots joins us to talk Dyson vacuums. I know that doesn't sound too technical but you'd be surprised how advanced the tech is in the new devices. I share a few of my Dyson stories too and we both talk about our love for everything Dyson. Hide your pocketbooks before listening because all Dyson products are super expensive!

This week's Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite is a stretch to the word "Lite". I'd call it a crossover episode of Lite and Programming By Stealth. Helma van der Linden joins me to tell the story of how she has successfully started the new version of Bart's fabulous xkpasswd password generation service. xkpasswd.net was written in perl ages ago and depends on very old and outdated libraries. Bart spent many months teaching the Programming By Stealth students the tools we (and he) would need to port the code over to JavaScript. His plan all along was to have students help him make the new version of XKPASSWD a reality. It turns out that Helma is an extraordinary student and has done most of the work to make it a minimal viable product, all without Bart's help. In this conversation, we'll talk about how she did this without getting _too_ nerdy. Some nerdy but not too nerdy. If you'd like to give the very beta version of the new tool a try (without knowing any coding), check it out at bartificer.github.io/xkpasswd-js/. In a few days, Bart will have it up as the beta version of the _real_ xkpasswd at beta.xkpasswd.net. This beta version is not feature-complete, but it allows you to create 1-10 passwords that use the default preset from the original xkpasswd. You can't choose different presets, and you can't make customized passwords, but at least it does create long, strong, memorable, and typable passwords. And it's REALLY pretty! We end with the call for others to come help work on the code. The GitHub repo is at github.com/bartificer/xkpasswd-js. If you have or create a GitHub account, you can contribute to the project. If you don't have programming skills but you have feature requests, it counts as contributing if you use the "issues" tab for the GitHub project to post your feature request. Helma is great fun and we had a blast talking about what she's accomplished so I think you'll enjoy the conversation no matter how nerdy you might be. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_02_03

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Jason Howell, podcaster and producer for the TWiT network, and musician joins me to talk about what it's like to use an Android phone with a Mac. I live in an Apple-centric bubble, so I am very curious about how he works with these two operating systems. We talk about his origin story on the Mac and his Android hardware of choice. We talk a lot about how he manages his photos, and what messaging is like in this mixed blue-bubble/green-bubble environment. Jason is great fun and introspective and we had an absolute blast chatting. If you'd like to find everything Jason does, go to raygun.fun - it rhymes _and_ it's fun (as Jason pointed out). Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_12_04

One of the great joys of Mastodon is that I'm meeting new people with a cross-section of interests that overlap with my own. By following hashtags like #programming and #technology and #knitting and #crocheting, I can find fellow nerds who are also into the crafts I enjoy. I discovered this week's guest, Angela Preston through these hashtags. She's a knitter and she created a website by hand that explains how she built a font for knitting at sites.google.com/.... The best part is she created the font with an open source tool called FontStruct at fontstruct.com. The conversation bounces back and forth between explaining what knitting is, how traditional text-based patterns are written, how diagram-based knitting works, and then flipping over to how a font is created in FontStruct. Angela is fun and interesting and I think you'll really enjoy the conversation even if you're not a programmer or a knitter. Angela's font is called Kauri Knits, where Kauri is a name from the book series "Dancing Gods" by Jack L Chalker. (It's also the Māori name for a cool tree in New Zealand.) If people want to follow Angela on Mastodon, you find her at @AngelaPreston@toot.site. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_11_06

After a long hiatus for which I have no excuse, Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite is back with a fabulous interview with Adam Engst, publisher of the long-running Internet-based email newsletter, TidBITS. Adam's been on the show a few times and he's always a delight. This episode focussed on an article he published in TidBits entitled, iPhone Recommendations for Senior Citizens. My audience knows that I'm an advocate for the accessibility of technology in all forms, and they also know that I bristle at the suggestion that people past a certain age aren't good at technology. If you throw in gender along with that, such as a phrase I hear all too often, “It's so easy your mother could use it”, the top of my head blows off. I read Adam's article with a desire to learn any tips he could provide to making the iPhone more accessible to seniors _and_ at the same time I was ready to jump down his throat if you implied that elderly people can't be technically competent. I was delighted to find that he pushed none of my hot buttons and gave terrific advice. In our conversation we talk about how to approach senior citizens on what their needs are, and to understand where their limitations might be. Do they lave low vision? Arthritis? Cognitive issues? Dry fingers? We talk about the pros and cons of Face ID vs. Touch ID as it relates to the different challenges each person might be facing. Adam even gives some cool suggestions on how to rearrange their home screen on the iPhone including a Shortcut he created that might make communicating with just a few people easier.

I'm on a roll with scientists on Chit Chat Across the Pond. This week my guest is Professor Jason Briner from the University of Buffalo. Dr. Briner joins us to tell us tales of adventure as he and his team go to Greenland to study the polar ice sheet. I never thought of geology as a sexy, exciting field of science, but after learning about Dr. Briner's work and the incredible importance of that work to climate science, my view of geology has been turned upside down. Dr. Briner is serious and funny and engaging and fascinating and I really enjoyed talking to him on the show. I'm really glad we got to know Dr. Briner on our trip to Antarctica where he was one of the brilliant scientists lecturing on the university alumni trip. You can find photos and videos from Dr. Briner's very recent research trip to Greenland at [www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/...](http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/2023nwgreenland/2023nwgreenland.html). Might be fun to follow along with the images while listening to him describe the work.

ave you always figured that astrophysics was a subject beyond your grasp? In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Andrea Ghez from UCLA joins me to explain how she and her team proved there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy and she does it in _human friendly_ terms! In 2020 she became only the fourth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. Steve and I were lucky enough to become friends with Andrea on our circumnavigation around Iceland and also on our trip to Antarctica. To be perfectly honest, we signed up for Antarctica _because_ we knew Andrea was going to be lecturing. Since this was such a momentous interview, we have audio _and_ video embedded of the interview with Dr. Ghez. Many thanks to Steve for putting the video together. If you'd like to learn more about Andrea and her team's work, and to see photos and video animations of their discoveries, follow the link to the UCLA Galactic Center Group. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_06_22

This week our guest is Bart Busschots but this is not a Programming By Stealth episode, it's a Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. At least within my personal definition of Lite! Bart joined the show this week to talk about visionOS, the new operating system that will power the Vision Pro headset Apple announced at their World Wide Developer's Conference. We talked about how we can see the future now in spatial computing as a big shift. Bart tells us about what he learned about visionOS from the Platforms State of the Union, as well as two sessions: Principles of Spatial Design and Design for Spatial Input. He gave us links to the chapterized videos so you can jump right to the parts he talks about if you like. As a bonus, my granddaughter Siena made her debut appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond (she's an old hand at coming on the live show). It was a bit of a surprise and she didn't stay long but she did want to say hi. I made it a chapter mark just for fun! * Keynote - jump to the Vision Pro chapter: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/101/ * Platforms State of the Union: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/ * Principles of spatial design: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10072/ * Design for spatial input: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10073/ Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us

This week our guest is your favorite psychological scientist, Dr. Maryanne Garry of the University of Waikato in New Zealand and garrylab.com Dr. Garry and four of her colleagues published a paper recently in the Royal Society Open Science called "Trivially informative semantic context inflates people's confidence they can perform a highly complex skill". The experiments built on previous studies which demonstrated that people have highly inflated beliefs of their capabilities doing highly complex tasks for which they are entirely unqualified. In particular, a high percentage of people have high confidence that they could land a commercial plane with no help from the tower. In this study, they tested whether watching a short, trivially informative video of two pilots landing a plane would influence that confidence level. As always with Dr. Garry, you'll learn a lot, you'll laugh along with us, and your dreams will be crushed as only she can. If you want to listen to more interviews with Dr. Garry, check out these episodes of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite: * CCATP #727 – Dr. Maryanne Garry on How Everything You Remember is Wrong * CCATP #629 - Dr. Garry on Study of Language Skills vs Numeracy In Learning to Program * CCATP #576 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Grammar Pet Peeves * CCATP #554 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Persuasion with Facts and Data * CCATP #510 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Many Memory Questions * CCATP #452 Dr. Garry Asks "Compared to What?" * CCATP #441 Dr. Maryanne Garry on Cognitive Biases, Learning and Aging

Adam Engst of TidBITS joins me on Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite to talk about the changes Apple made recently to the File Provider Extension. These changes had a fairly significant effect on how cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box work with macOS. Whether you realize it or not, you've very likely been upgraded to new versions of these services. While the new File Provider Extension improves several things about our interface with these cloud storage providers, there are also some serious "gotchas" that may affect you. For example, before talking to Adam, I didn't realize that the change caused us to have local copies of our entire Google Drive and anything added there isn't being synced to the could. Being Adam, he's written an extremely well-researched and well-explained article on [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2023/03/10/apples-file-provider-forces-mac-cloud-storage-changes/) where you can follow along with our conversation. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_04_13 During the conversation, Adam referenced a couple of other articles: * Adam's TidBITS article from February 2022 predicting these problems: Cloud Storage Forecast Unsettled, with Possible Storms - TidBITS * LucidLink is a better alternative for people who used to use Dropbox as a cloud service provider for huge, shared video files LucidLink Offers Streaming Vision of Cloud-Based Storage * Adam and I said at the end of the conversation that the next time we'd talk it would be about doing clean installs of macOS. He sent me this link where he talks about three levels of clean installs: Level 2 Clean Install of Ventura Solves Deep-Rooted Problems

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Rod Simmons of the SMR Podcast and BBQ and Tech joins me to talk about password managers. After the recent breaches and more importantly breaches of trust from LastPass, Rod migrated over to 1Password and changed all 400 of his passwords. We talk through what LastPass did wrong, and what Rod appreciates about 1Password and misses about LastPass. I found it a really interesting conversation about UI design, trust, and what makes an app feel right. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_03_01 Rod mentioned Okta's annual report on business tools: okta.com/... LastPass's final report: blog.lastpass.com/... 1Password forum on merging accounts into a family: 1password.community/...

In this final Chit Chat Across the Pond of the year, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about what verification really means, how you know a website is what it says it is, and how verification is accomplished and then explains how Twitter and Mastodon do their respective verification. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2022_12_17 This episode also has full shownotes at CCATP #756 — Bart Busschots on the Meaning of Verification and Twitter/Mastodon Implementations

On this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, we're joined by developer Casey Liss of the Accidental Tech Podcast and creator of the iOS apps MaskerAid and Peek-a-View. I asked Casey to come on the show to talk about automation. In particular, we talked about Unnecessary or overly-complex automations, automations that mysteriously run but we can't remember how or why they're running, automations we're really proud of, and darn it, these just make me happy automations. You can find Casey on Mastodon @CaseyLiss@mastodon.social, and on Micro.blog at . View an unedited transcript of this podcast auto-generated by Auphonic Speech Recognition Engine using Whisper by OpenAI (Beta).: CCATP_2022_12_08

This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Nic of Nic's HomePod Repair. You might remember the article about Steve's amazing experience with Nic repairing our big-girl HomePod a month or so ago. It wasn't just that some guy repaired our HomePod, it was how he did it and how he broadcast live video of the repair as it was happening that made it even more interesting. I wanted to know more about how Nic got into doing this and how he creates his videos so I asked him to come on to talk about it. I expected to have a fun, nerdy conversation, and that definitely happened, but what I didn't expect was to find a very kind, thoughtful person who exudes good karma. Whether you care about HomePod repairs or not, I'm sure you'll find this a delightful conversation. View an unedited transcript of this podcast auto-generated by Auphonic Speech Recognition Engine using Whisper by OpenAI (Beta): CCATP_2022_12_04

WiFi GenerationsIn this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, I asked Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab to come on to talk to us about mesh routers and why we might care about WiFi 6E. In order to get to that though, I asked him to lay out some groundwork. Remember when we used to talk about 802.11a then b then g then n and ac. All of us geeks memorized the speed of those different IEEE standards. And then one day the numbering scheme changed completely. I asked Dave to explain what happened and what the new numbers mean. From there Dave refreshed our memory on how mesh routers work, and how backhaul is the communication between the mesh access points. It took some work keeping the numbers and terminology straight but by the time we were done he had explained why WiFi 6E on the backhaul matters, even though we very likely don't have any WiFi 6E devices. You can find Dave Hamilton on Twitter @davehamilton and @macgeekgab and on Mastodon at @davehamilton@podcastindex.social.

This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Bart Busschots with a talk that's part Security Bits, part Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. Bart has been asked to speak at a Mac User's Group on the subject of security and he worked up a presentation on the subject. His goal in the presentation is to provide listeners with a better understanding of the types of threats that are out there and what the motivations of the threat actors are. There's a call to action in this talk by Bart. He wants to know if _you_ think the information he presents will be valuable to a Mac User Group. I (mostly) kept my opinions to myself because we want to hear from you. The best way to provide this feedback is to use our Podfeet Slack at podfeet.com/slack, or you can Tweet Bart at @bbusschots, or you can make a comment on the blog post for this episode. The slide deck presentation for Bart's talk can be viewed at [busschotsh-my.sharepoint.com/...](https://busschotsh-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/bart_busschots_ie/ESJOmYQKiORBiox-54y7NdEB660FYB3N54nrnBcBKl8yIA?e=TaBXcK)

This week I'm pleased to introduce you to Darcy Hegarty on Chit Chat Across the Pond. Darcy is a fellow screencaster for Don McAllister's ScreenCastsOnline and I'm really impressed with the videos he creates. They're tight, they tell a coherent story, and he even starts with the problem to be solved! I started chatting with him about his process and discovered that he's only been doing this for a short while. I also found out that he has a far different process for creating his screencasts than I do, so I asked him on the show so he could teach me how he does it and you get to learn along with me. You can find connect with Darcy by emailing him at darcyh@oceanfire.studio and follow him on Twitter at @sensible_of

This week our guest is Dan Moren (https://dmoren.com/). Dan is the author of the Galactic Cold War series of sci-fi espionage capers, a former senior editor at Macworld, a writer for Six Colors and TidBITS amongst other publications, and a prolific podcaster as co-host of Clockwise and The Rebound. But I did not have him on the show to talk about any of that. Dan is a very recent father and I wanted to talk about the latest and greatest in baby tech. You can find everything you need to know about Dan Moren at [dmoren.com/...](https://dmoren.com/) including links to the Galactic Cold War Series. You can follow him online @dmoren. If you want to buy his books at an independent bookstore, he suggests [indiebound.org](https://indiebound.org) to find them.

Antonio Rosario bills himself as a full-time unemployed photographer, part-time semi-employed videographer and photography instructor, and a volunteer bimonthly podcaster. He sent out a tweet in which he said, "Dear podcasters: Will someone PLEASE interview me about the #iPhone 14 ProMax?!" I expected that Antonio wanted to come on and have a discussion about the new phone's specs and a pixel-peeping level of detail about the resulting images from this new device. But that's not at all what he really wanted to talk about. Whether you consider yourself a "real" photographer or just someone who likes to take pictures, I think you'll find this introspective discussion heartfelt and memorable. You can find Antonio online in the following places: * Follow Antonio's work at [amrosario.com](http://amrosario.com/) * Podcast - Street Shots Photography Podcast [streetshots.photography/...](http://streetshots.photography/) * Vero: amrosario - [vero.co/amrosario](https://vero.co/amrosario) * Twitter [@amrosario](https://twitter.com/amrosario) * [iPhone 14 Pro Max RAW images by Antonio](https://adobe.ly/3CBp75P) * [Images shot using Fococ app (using portrait mode)](https://adobe.ly/3fLIRuA) Antonio talked about a video on the Three Blind Men and an Elephant channel

In this "Lite" episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart Busschots teaches us about a relatively new concept in IT security called Zero Trust. He explains how the old ways of simply securing the perimeter of your organization are no longer enough. You simply can't trust that inside your network you're safe from bad actors. The solution has three principles that guide organizations in developing the rules of who and which devices and networks are allowed to have access to what data and for how long. That part sounds like the heavy lifting to me! Bart then explains how the fun part is then using the rules that have been developed to implement these rules using technology. Bart's explanation of how the technology works is a bit specific to Microsoft's products but the concepts he explains are definitely applicable to any vendor's solution. Detailed shownotes are available at [www.podfeet.com/...](https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2022/10/ccatp-745)

Rogue Amoeba is celebrating 20 years in Mac software development this month and in honor of that accomplishment, I asked CEO Paul Kafasis to come on Chit Chat Across the Pond to take us on a walk down memory lane. We start by talking about Audio Hijack 1.0 and talk about the 266MHz PowerPC they used to develop the product. We talk about the problems that Rogue Amoeba's software solves, including SoundSource which is probably their application with the broadest appeal to people. We talk through design decisions including both making Audio Hijack completely accessible to visually-impaired users, and making it easier for all of us to understand. Audio Hijack 1.0 InterfaceI ask Paul the burning question on everyone's mind, where the heck did the name Rogue Amoeba come from? This is not an ad for Rogue Amoeba, but I'm afraid I _do_ gush quite a bit because I'm such a giant fan of everything they do. I spend time talking about how amazing their support staff is (I bother them a _lot_) which prompts Paul to explain the structure of the company and why it works so well. We talking about their pricing model in contrast with the companies that are adopting subscription pricing. And finally, I ask Paul when they are going to make the multi-track editor of my dreams. We had a blast recording together and swapping stories. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we did. A very rare 20% off sale is going on right now for all Rogue Amoeba products, so check it out at [macaudio.com/...](https://macaudio.com/)

Tom Merritt of the Daily Tech News Show joins me on Chit Chat Across the Pond to talk about a recent study published by Sweden's biggest car magazine, ViBilägare. The study timed drivers in how long it took them to perform a set of proscribed functions in a variety of cars with touchscreens and one vehicle without any touchscreen at all. While Tom and I agree that the study is flawed in a lot of ways, we differ on how it is flawed, which makes for a lively discussion. We talk about the merits and demerits of touchscreens and even throw CarPlay under the bus while praising its virtues. If you want to find all of Tom's work, you can go to [tommerritt.com/...](https://tommerritt.com/). He also encourages you to check out his newest podcast called A Word with Tom Merritt where he talks with people about how they think using one word as the start of the conversation.

This is another crossover episode - it's an interview Bart Busschots did with me for his Let's Talk Photography podcast at [lets-talk.ie/...](https://lets-talk.ie/) about the conversion I made ages ago to a mirrorless camera. He asked me on because it looks like DSLRs are winding down and he's contemplating making the jump soon. It's a fun conversation where I also confess that I've lost the touch of editing RAW photos but I'm still very glad I brought my Olympus E-M5 Mark III to Iceland.

A few years ago, when the SMR podcast hosts took over the NosillaCast while I was on vacation, Tom Merritt of the Daily Tech News Show called it "The Crossover Event of the Summer." Since then, the SMR hosts Rod, Chris, and Robb have all been on DTNS. Then Tom had Bodie Grimm of the Kilowatt podcast on his show, so Bodie and I got to be friends, and the crossovers just keep on coming. In this year's "Crossover Event of the Summer", Bodie Grimm interviews two gentlemen from a company called Orange Charger. Founder Nicholas Johnson and Product manager & Strategist Joseph Nagle talk to Bodie about their vision to bring affordable and convenient electric vehicle charging to multi-unit properties like apartments and condominiums. It's a fascinating discussion of what people think they need and want vs. what they actually need in a home charger. You can learn more about Orange Charger at [www.orangecharger.com](https://www.orangecharger.com/) Thanks, Bodie for letting us have this interview for Chit Chat Across the Pond!

Mark Pouley, the photographer behind Twin Lakes Images lives in a home that is in an urban area, but on a long, private road that hasn't been fed by fiber or cable. He and his wife also bought a vacation home in the far Northeast corner of the state of Washington where there's very little infrastructure and not even reliable cell service. He needed to find service that would meet his tech geek needs. In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Mark tells us about his experience with DSL service, and T-Mobile for home Internet, and why that lead him to pursue SpaceX's new Starlink satellite service. He explains the process of acquisition, costs, installation, and the speeds he's getting in his homes. Starlink is hot in the news right now, especially with their recent announcement that they'll be providing this service to the recreational vehicle (RV) community.

In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, I interview author Molly DeFrank on her book "Digital Detox: The Two-Week Tech Reset for Kids" along with Lindsay Tondee who put Molly's advice to the test with her son Forbes. As a geek, you'll probably think this is crazy talk, but I promise you it's a fun conversation and Molly's practical steps in her book might just be what you need if your kids turn into monsters when you take their screens away. Molly's book is available at: * Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Target You can find Molly at mollydefrank.com and you can follow Lindsay at twitter.com/idahomonkees. During the interview, Molly mentioned the Gabb "dumb" phone she bought her 12-year-old which you can find at gabbwireless.com/... We also talked about the Silverware Dance by Forbes and Molly asked for a GIF of it so you can all enjoy it. Silverware Dance by Forbes

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, I'm joined by long-time NosillaCastaway Seamus Lavery. Seamus started posting photos of his black lab Quaid to the live chatroom, and then explained that he's a “puppy raiser” for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. He agreed to come on the show to tell us what it's like to be a puppy raiser, what his responsibilities are, what he's supposed to teach Quaid, and the uphill road it is for Quaid to qualify to be a Service Dog for the blind. Bart is a Belgian living in the Republic of Ireland, while Seamus is a Northern Irishman who lived for 12 years in Belgium (now living in the Washington DC area). His accent is delightful and his story is fascinating. Links Seaumus mentions: * Guiding Eyes for The Blind * Pilots To The Rescue * Pilots to the Rescue delivering 3 Guiding Eyes Puppies * Trailer for Disney+'s series Pick of the Litter * Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History: The Dog Will See You Now * You can follow Seamus as @batfink2001 on Twitter

Recently Tom Merritt and Sarah Lane of DTNS fame hosted what they called a Solar Round Table. The guests were NosillaCast Live Producer Steve Sheridan, an engineer working at AES Solar named Joe Briney, and Boeing 777 captain Brian Hoffman. I tell you that whole story because when Steve got off the phone, he started telling me all about Brian's huge projects to use solar on his farm. Steve was so enthusiastic about these projects that he started barraging Brian with questions about his projects in email, so I suggested Brian come on Chit Chat and Steve help me co-host. You'll hear Brian explain how he and his wife planted literally more than 10,000 trees themselves, about how he grows the tilapia fish in the "pond" he built, and how creating that pond got him started getting into using solar to power his farm. He didn't just write a check and have someone come out and install solar, he bought the components but built everything himself. While you may not follow in Brian's footsteps, it's very cool to know that it's actually possible to do this yourself and to learn about how Brian gives back to his community. Steve and I had a great time talking to Brian and learning from him and I know you will too. Don't forget to go listen to the DTNS Solar Panel Panel too! Follow the link to the blog post to see photos of some of the panels and structures Brian built on his farm. Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. Google Fi - $20 Credit to both of our accounts after 30 days active PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us

This week our guest is Bart Busschots. This week we're going to do something a little different; we're doing an "Ask Me Anything (About Security)". I sent out the request for questions to our Slack community (), to Twitter, to a few user groups of which I am a member, and Steve posted it to our Facebook group. With the exception of one question which I sent to him ahead of time, Bart answered all of these on the fly while we were recording. For that reason, only the questions are available in the blog post, not the answers. In order to know his answers, you'll need to listen to the show. If you're hearing-impaired, and one of the questions is of particular interest to you, send me an email at and I'll try to reproduce Bart's answer for you.

In yet another crossover episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bodie Grimm of the Kilowatt Podcast joins me to talk about EVs. But this isn't just any EV, we get to talk to Chris Ashley of the SMR Podcast and BBQ and Tech about his brand new Ford F150 Lightning EV. We catch Chris on the very delivery day of his new hotness, and he's one of the first people to actually get the F150 Lightning. Chris put his $100 in the ring over a year ago, and bought the Lightning (in the Laredo trim) essentially sight unseen. He is besotted with the vehicle and from what he told us, we can see why. We start out with a big tease by talking about the work Chris had to do to be approved to install a charger at his townhouse, and what size battery he chose, but eventually we talk about what it feels like to drive with and without regenerative braking (also known as one-pedal driving), we talk about how well CarPlay works (it's over Bluetooth), what information is on the instrument panel, and a lot about the glory that is heated _and_ cooled seats. Bodie and Chris talk about how to remote start the car (which was a baffling subject for a California-bred woman). We even discuss whether Chris will fit in the frunk (aka Front Trunk). It's a fun and informative conversation I know you'll enjoy. And be sure to check out Kilowatt, SMR, and BBQ and Tech Podcasts to have even more fun with these awesome gentlemen.