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On this week's show Patrick Gray and James Wilson are joined by former US Cyber Command executive director turned PwC's Cyber, Data & Technology Risk leader Morgan Adamski to talk through the week's news, including: More tech guys penned more open letters and AI will destroy us all! Another Wednesday, another congregation of OpenAI agents on wikis… yawn OpenAI agents were behind the headscratching RubyGems hacking campaign in May The FBI will disrupt more adversary operations, NSA is creating more mission centres, lawmakers want sanctions on hackers-for-hire… Release more hounds! So many platforms, so many bugs, so many patches breaking other stuff Much, much more… This week's show is brought to you by Airlock Digital. Its co-founders Daniel Schell and David Cottingham join Patrick to talk about how Airlock has integrated itself with Crowdstrike via its Falcon Foundry platform. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes AI researcher says there is 'substantial probability' AI could kill all humans in next decade | NBC News Tech Dario Amodei — We Must Pace the Frontier | Social Signals China spy chief points at US AI models in cyber threat warning | therecord.media Weixin Official Accounts Platform | Trump calls concerns over A.I. destroying humanity a “hoax” | NBC News Tech Dr_Gingerballs (@Dr_Gingerballs) on X | X (formerly Twitter) Sam Altman backs Anthropic CEO's call to slow down the global AI race | NBC News Anthropic: Detecting and countering misuse of AI, September 2026 | anthropic.com AI lets small actors run state-level hacking campaigns, Anthropic report finds | cyberscoop.com Users in Houthi-held Yemen tried to develop advanced weapons with AI, Anthropic says | apnews.com Anthropic caught Russia-linked spies using Claude in hacking operations | therecord.media OpenAI's rogue agents used at least 10 more sites for unauthorized comms, researchers say | reuters.com Researchers say OpenAI agents were behind May hacking campaign targeting RubyGems | cyberscoop.com Anthropic claims Moonshot, DeepSeek secretly diverted user requests to Claude | South China Morning Post WeWorm | Social Signals Hackers exploit Tencent app flaw to deploy GrayRabbit malware | BleepingComputer New FBI cyber strategy promises increase in adversary disruptions | Cybersecurity Dive US disrupts Xinbi Guarantee marketplace fueling the cyber scam economy | therecord.media Thorough reorganization at NSA will create five 'mission centers,' including cyber and AI | therecord.media Lawmakers call on Treasury to sanction hackers-for-hire | cyberscoop.com CISA: WatchGuard RCE flaw now exploited in ransomware attacks | BleepingComputer Dutch NCSC: Critical Check Point VPN flaws exploitation is imminent | BleepingComputer GitLab's critical flaw is already drawing internet-wide probes | cyberscoop.com Cisco warns customers of actively exploited zero-day in email gateways | cyberscoop.com 4 groups caught using the same Chrome and Windows exploit kit | Ars Technica September Windows Server updates break Remote Desktop Services | BleepingComputer Microsoft confirms KB5002914 Excel update breaks copy and paste | BleepingComputer Microsoft: September updates break audio on some Windows PCs | BleepingComputer ClickFix attacks infecting PCs and Macs are going viral | arstechnica.com Passkey-themed phishing attacks lead to Microsoft 365 data theft | BleepingComputer
Meta pode lançar óculos inteligentes sem câmera. Samsung começa a liberar One UI 9 para mais celulares Galaxy. EUA admitem ter armas no espaço. Meta One chega ao Brasil com assinatura de até R$ 1.999. Samsung lança Galaxy S26 FE no Brasil; confira os novos preços. UE vai oficializar banimento de redes sociais para menores de 13 anos. Amazon vai corrigir bug que impedia instalar apps ‘de fora' no Fire TV. Criminosos usam Claude para acelerar espionagem e ciberataques. Microsoft marca evento sobre o futuro de PCs e IA; o que esperar? Elon Musk e Apple encerram processo sobre monopólio sem julgamento.
Every PCS is either a financial reset or a financial opportunity, and most service members don't realize they get to choose which one it is. In this episode, I break down the exact framework I used (and would still use if I were still in uniform) to house hack at every duty station, from running your numbers in under an hour to knowing when renting beats buying. I walk through real deals, including my own house hack in Oceanside and my buddy Rio's five-bed dream home that now pays him fifteen hundred bucks a month, so you can see exactly what this looks like in practice and stop letting every PCS reset your finances back to zero. Timestamps (00:00) - Intro (00:30) - PCS as a Financial Reset (01:57) - Debunking the "Buy Every PCS" Myth (02:57) - David's Oceanside House Hack Story (04:51) - Case Study: Rio's House Hack Deal (05:57) - Running the Numbers in an Hour (08:21) - Buy With an Exit Strategy in Mind (10:39) - VA Loan Myths & Buyer Mistakes (11:57) - The PCS Wealth-Building Formula About the Show On the Military Millionaire Podcast, I share real conversations with service members, veterans, and their families. Each week, we explore how to build wealth through personal finance, entrepreneurship, and real estate investing. Get an intro to my recommended real estate agents and/or VA lenders: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/va-realtor Resources & Links Get help with your VA claim: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/claim Download a free copy of my book: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/free-book Sign up for free webinar trainings: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/register Get an intro to recommended VA agents/lenders: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/va-realtor Apply for The War Room Mastermind: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/mastermind-application Join our investor list: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/investors Guide to raising capital: https://www.frommilitarytomillionaire.com/capital-raising-guide Connect with David Pere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/militarymillionaire YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Frommilitarytomillionaire?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frommilitarytomillionaire/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-pere/ X (Twitter): https://x.com/militaryrei TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@militarymillionaire Produced by UNFLTR
Every day we see the latest and quirkiest gadgets and consumer technology previewed and reviewed, and at the forefront of that is I'mTech's Ray Shaw, who joins Influencing Insider next Thursday, 10th of September 2026 at 1 pm AEST to discuss: How the six months since I'mTech's launch have gone I'mTech's review processWhat topics I'mTech is particularly interested in coveringWhat some of Shaw's pitching preferences areAbout Ray Shaw A fan of unique stories, Ray Shaw is a veteran journo with over 45 years of experience in the media industry, where he has primarily covered technology topics such as gadgets, software and PCs, with a strong focus on deep-dive reviews. More recently, Shaw has worked for GadgetGuy, iTWire, and CyberShack, as well as launching I'mTech in March 2026. About I'mTechI'mTech is the new home for Ray Shaw's deep-dive reviews, with the journo launching the new masthead in March 2026. I'mTech covers a range of technology topics, including telecommunications, gadgets, consumer technology and much more.
The PCs find threats in Leżajsk that they were not expecting. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/f3vEnwswAoE Get BONUS CONTENT every week at http://jointhenaish.com, including the Mission Debrief, our exclusive We Shouldn't Be Alive companion where we discuss and break down the latest episode, plus ad-free episodes, exclusive podcasts, and more. Come see us LIVE in a city near you at https://www.glasscannonnetwork.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
With Microsoft shattering records for patched vulnerabilities and AI exposing even more bugs, Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell debate whether this tidal wave of fixes signals progress or just bigger trouble ahead for Windows users. Also, Sonos is back and here's something no one has been able to say for, well, forever: It's new app is great! Plus, Gemini's Daily Brief is surprisingly useful, and it's available for free to everyone in the U.S.MICROSOFT MAKES MAJOR FINANCIAL REPORTING CHANGE The canary in the coal mine has finally been rewarded: Microsoft will dramatically change how it reports earnings, effective immediately. The good: Didn't see this coming, Microsoft will allegedly be transparent about Azure revenues every quarter The bad: A simpler structure means more revenues are being hidden and you can only make accurate YOY comparisons dating back two years now The unknown: What this will really look like in practice How is it possible that Paul has been all over this for years and Wall Street has mostly ignored it? Windows Patch Tuesday arrives - And, yes, it's basically 26H2 New Start, Taskbar, and Windows Search are generally available Is the "real" 26H2 still on track for October or does it just happen whenever? Microsoft fixed almost 1000 security vulnerabilities this month (974), with 723 of them in Windows and 112 of them critical-severity. It has already released over double the number of security patches this year (2760) as it did in all of 2025 (1139). Five new builds drop just ahead of Patch Tuesday updates with three minor new features Project Zenith is a misguided attempt to make Windows better for developers that shows they've learned nothing Microsoft Edge team promises two contrary improvements: Faster extension approvals, better quality It came from IFA Lenovo: Two AMAZING prototype PCs, one of which is imminent as a shipping product. Two killer NVIDIA RTX Spark-based laptops. Colorful laptops and AIO deflate the MacBook Neo balloon nicely. New ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkBook laptops, including a killer AMD-based workstation that can be daisy-chained HP: Three new NVIDIA RTX Spark PCs, one of which is a desktop PC Acer: RTX Spark, gaming handheld, more Key takeaway: NVIDIA RTX Spark is a game-changer Apps Vivaldi adds PWA and address bar improvements Yes, Virginia, Brave is still the fastest web browser AI and dev Newsday and The Seattle Times sue OpenAI and Microsoft for stealing copyrighted content at scale There's a great new documentary about the making of Visual Studio Code out and it's free This is a modern example of how tech limitations can spur innovation, something that happened a lot in the early home computer era and happens a lot less now .NET 11 heads to release candidate phase ahead of November release XBOX and gaming XBOX Cloud Gaming is getting usage caps starting in November and a standalone service is on the way XBOX app is coming to TCL smart TVs XBOX Insiders are testing startup animation choices, Showcase customization, an improved Remote Play experience, background downloads for Cloud Gaming, and more Tips and picks Tip of the week: Gemini offers a useful and free daily briefing App pick of the week: Sonos RunAs Radio this week: State of WSUS with Adam Brown These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/1000 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Sponsor: cachefly.com/twit
With Microsoft shattering records for patched vulnerabilities and AI exposing even more bugs, Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell debate whether this tidal wave of fixes signals progress or just bigger trouble ahead for Windows users. Also, Sonos is back and here's something no one has been able to say for, well, forever: It's new app is great! Plus, Gemini's Daily Brief is surprisingly useful, and it's available for free to everyone in the U.S.MICROSOFT MAKES MAJOR FINANCIAL REPORTING CHANGE The canary in the coal mine has finally been rewarded: Microsoft will dramatically change how it reports earnings, effective immediately. The good: Didn't see this coming, Microsoft will allegedly be transparent about Azure revenues every quarter The bad: A simpler structure means more revenues are being hidden and you can only make accurate YOY comparisons dating back two years now The unknown: What this will really look like in practice How is it possible that Paul has been all over this for years and Wall Street has mostly ignored it? Windows Patch Tuesday arrives - And, yes, it's basically 26H2 New Start, Taskbar, and Windows Search are generally available Is the "real" 26H2 still on track for October or does it just happen whenever? Microsoft fixed almost 1000 security vulnerabilities this month (974), with 723 of them in Windows and 112 of them critical-severity. It has already released over double the number of security patches this year (2760) as it did in all of 2025 (1139). Five new builds drop just ahead of Patch Tuesday updates with three minor new features Project Zenith is a misguided attempt to make Windows better for developers that shows they've learned nothing Microsoft Edge team promises two contrary improvements: Faster extension approvals, better quality It came from IFA Lenovo: Two AMAZING prototype PCs, one of which is imminent as a shipping product. Two killer NVIDIA RTX Spark-based laptops. Colorful laptops and AIO deflate the MacBook Neo balloon nicely. New ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkBook laptops, including a killer AMD-based workstation that can be daisy-chained HP: Three new NVIDIA RTX Spark PCs, one of which is a desktop PC Acer: RTX Spark, gaming handheld, more Key takeaway: NVIDIA RTX Spark is a game-changer Apps Vivaldi adds PWA and address bar improvements Yes, Virginia, Brave is still the fastest web browser AI and dev Newsday and The Seattle Times sue OpenAI and Microsoft for stealing copyrighted content at scale There's a great new documentary about the making of Visual Studio Code out and it's free This is a modern example of how tech limitations can spur innovation, something that happened a lot in the early home computer era and happens a lot less now .NET 11 heads to release candidate phase ahead of November release XBOX and gaming XBOX Cloud Gaming is getting usage caps starting in November and a standalone service is on the way XBOX app is coming to TCL smart TVs XBOX Insiders are testing startup animation choices, Showcase customization, an improved Remote Play experience, background downloads for Cloud Gaming, and more Tips and picks Tip of the week: Gemini offers a useful and free daily briefing App pick of the week: Sonos RunAs Radio this week: State of WSUS with Adam Brown These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/1000 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Sponsor: cachefly.com/twit
With Microsoft shattering records for patched vulnerabilities and AI exposing even more bugs, Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell debate whether this tidal wave of fixes signals progress or just bigger trouble ahead for Windows users. Also, Sonos is back and here's something no one has been able to say for, well, forever: It's new app is great! Plus, Gemini's Daily Brief is surprisingly useful, and it's available for free to everyone in the U.S.MICROSOFT MAKES MAJOR FINANCIAL REPORTING CHANGE The canary in the coal mine has finally been rewarded: Microsoft will dramatically change how it reports earnings, effective immediately. The good: Didn't see this coming, Microsoft will allegedly be transparent about Azure revenues every quarter The bad: A simpler structure means more revenues are being hidden and you can only make accurate YOY comparisons dating back two years now The unknown: What this will really look like in practice How is it possible that Paul has been all over this for years and Wall Street has mostly ignored it? Windows Patch Tuesday arrives - And, yes, it's basically 26H2 New Start, Taskbar, and Windows Search are generally available Is the "real" 26H2 still on track for October or does it just happen whenever? Microsoft fixed almost 1000 security vulnerabilities this month (974), with 723 of them in Windows and 112 of them critical-severity. It has already released over double the number of security patches this year (2760) as it did in all of 2025 (1139). Five new builds drop just ahead of Patch Tuesday updates with three minor new features Project Zenith is a misguided attempt to make Windows better for developers that shows they've learned nothing Microsoft Edge team promises two contrary improvements: Faster extension approvals, better quality It came from IFA Lenovo: Two AMAZING prototype PCs, one of which is imminent as a shipping product. Two killer NVIDIA RTX Spark-based laptops. Colorful laptops and AIO deflate the MacBook Neo balloon nicely. New ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkBook laptops, including a killer AMD-based workstation that can be daisy-chained HP: Three new NVIDIA RTX Spark PCs, one of which is a desktop PC Acer: RTX Spark, gaming handheld, more Key takeaway: NVIDIA RTX Spark is a game-changer Apps Vivaldi adds PWA and address bar improvements Yes, Virginia, Brave is still the fastest web browser AI and dev Newsday and The Seattle Times sue OpenAI and Microsoft for stealing copyrighted content at scale There's a great new documentary about the making of Visual Studio Code out and it's free This is a modern example of how tech limitations can spur innovation, something that happened a lot in the early home computer era and happens a lot less now .NET 11 heads to release candidate phase ahead of November release XBOX and gaming XBOX Cloud Gaming is getting usage caps starting in November and a standalone service is on the way XBOX app is coming to TCL smart TVs XBOX Insiders are testing startup animation choices, Showcase customization, an improved Remote Play experience, background downloads for Cloud Gaming, and more Tips and picks Tip of the week: Gemini offers a useful and free daily briefing App pick of the week: Sonos RunAs Radio this week: State of WSUS with Adam Brown These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/1000 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Sponsor: cachefly.com/twit
With Microsoft shattering records for patched vulnerabilities and AI exposing even more bugs, Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell debate whether this tidal wave of fixes signals progress or just bigger trouble ahead for Windows users. Also, Sonos is back and here's something no one has been able to say for, well, forever: It's new app is great! Plus, Gemini's Daily Brief is surprisingly useful, and it's available for free to everyone in the U.S.MICROSOFT MAKES MAJOR FINANCIAL REPORTING CHANGE The canary in the coal mine has finally been rewarded: Microsoft will dramatically change how it reports earnings, effective immediately. The good: Didn't see this coming, Microsoft will allegedly be transparent about Azure revenues every quarter The bad: A simpler structure means more revenues are being hidden and you can only make accurate YOY comparisons dating back two years now The unknown: What this will really look like in practice How is it possible that Paul has been all over this for years and Wall Street has mostly ignored it? Windows Patch Tuesday arrives - And, yes, it's basically 26H2 New Start, Taskbar, and Windows Search are generally available Is the "real" 26H2 still on track for October or does it just happen whenever? Microsoft fixed almost 1000 security vulnerabilities this month (974), with 723 of them in Windows and 112 of them critical-severity. It has already released over double the number of security patches this year (2760) as it did in all of 2025 (1139). Five new builds drop just ahead of Patch Tuesday updates with three minor new features Project Zenith is a misguided attempt to make Windows better for developers that shows they've learned nothing Microsoft Edge team promises two contrary improvements: Faster extension approvals, better quality It came from IFA Lenovo: Two AMAZING prototype PCs, one of which is imminent as a shipping product. Two killer NVIDIA RTX Spark-based laptops. Colorful laptops and AIO deflate the MacBook Neo balloon nicely. New ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkBook laptops, including a killer AMD-based workstation that can be daisy-chained HP: Three new NVIDIA RTX Spark PCs, one of which is a desktop PC Acer: RTX Spark, gaming handheld, more Key takeaway: NVIDIA RTX Spark is a game-changer Apps Vivaldi adds PWA and address bar improvements Yes, Virginia, Brave is still the fastest web browser AI and dev Newsday and The Seattle Times sue OpenAI and Microsoft for stealing copyrighted content at scale There's a great new documentary about the making of Visual Studio Code out and it's free This is a modern example of how tech limitations can spur innovation, something that happened a lot in the early home computer era and happens a lot less now .NET 11 heads to release candidate phase ahead of November release XBOX and gaming XBOX Cloud Gaming is getting usage caps starting in November and a standalone service is on the way XBOX app is coming to TCL smart TVs XBOX Insiders are testing startup animation choices, Showcase customization, an improved Remote Play experience, background downloads for Cloud Gaming, and more Tips and picks Tip of the week: Gemini offers a useful and free daily briefing App pick of the week: Sonos RunAs Radio this week: State of WSUS with Adam Brown These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/1000 Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Sponsor: cachefly.com/twit
This week, Mike and Damien talk about specific tactics you can use as a GM to better challenge your PCs. From the ground up, we talk about everything from the Terrain to the weather, and more.Social mediahttps://bsky.app/profile/birdmanguelph.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/magickalhack.bsky.socialShow Email Thespellbookshow@gmail.comDamien's Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@magickalhackmakes4671Damien's Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/magickalhackhttps://www.cfru.ca/Listen - WEDNESDAYS at NOON AT CFRU 93.3 FMShow Notes:Your Geekmasters:Mike "The Birdman" - https://bsky.app/profile/birdmanguelph.bsky.socialAlex "The Producer" - https://bsky.app/profile/dethphasetwig.bsky.socialFeedback for the show?:Email: feedback@thisweekingeek.netTwitter: https://twitter.com/thisweekingeekBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisweekingeek.netSubscribe to our feed: https://www.spreaker.com/show/3571037/episodes/feediTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-geek/id215643675Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Lit2bzebJXMTIv7j7fkqqWebsite: https://www.thisweekingeek.netSeptember 9, 2026
Plus: Adobe stock falls after it names a new CEO. And computer makers are seeing gains from selling fewer PCs at higher prices. Julie Chang hosts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
While Microsoft pushes Copilot+ PCs, NVIDIA storms into the Windows ecosystem with AI-focused Spark machines and game-changing specs, igniting new rivalries with Apple and upending expectations for what local hardware can do. Plus, Atari revives 39 Activision classics for a price that will make retro fans blink, while the Sonos saga continues as it pivots to an open AI platform that might finally win back old loyalties. Finally, Paul's Markdown book will be released sometime in the next week. Windows The mystery of 26H2 is now less mysterious Last week: Week D came and went without a preview release, triggering speculation Microsoft issues Windows 11 version 26H2 to Release Preview, a first This means a September or October release to stable. Just guessing, but Preview Update in September, general Update in October is most likely Version numbers don't matter much anymore. There are no unique 26H2 features, just a few unique 26H2 presets - These include Point-in-time restore and Memory Integrity Protection being on by default Two 26H1 pre-release builds with little to speak of IFA 2026 is underway in Berlin Acer is first out of the gates with dozens of new PCs, including one based on the NVIDIA RTX Spark EU General Court confirms that Microsoft Edge is not a gatekeeper Visual Studio Code now has a full Markdown Editor experience Brave now offers free email aliases, and will have a premium option soon Firefox for iOS now has integrated ad blocking NVIDIA - $96.2 billion in revenues, up 106 percent YOY Dell - record $47 billion in revenues, but it's all from server/infrastructure HP - $15.7 billion in revenues, up 12.5 percent - $11.8 billion from PCs, vs. $15 billion for all Dell client products AI/dev Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for stealing their music Gemini Notebook gets first Expert Intelligence upgrade with integrated e-book support Sonos announces Sonos 27 OS with major AI functionality Microsoft moves WinUI development fully to GitHub ahead of open-sourcing it XBOX and gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, more coming to Game Pass Every Activision title for the Atari 2600 is being reissued in cartridge form, but it's going to cost you Tips and picks Tip of the week: Markdown: A Field Guide for Writers App pick of the week: ImageGlass 10 RunAs Radio this week: Reimagining Intranets with Susan Hanley Brown liquor pick of the week: Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit threatlocker.com/twit helixsleep.com/windows
While Microsoft pushes Copilot+ PCs, NVIDIA storms into the Windows ecosystem with AI-focused Spark machines and game-changing specs, igniting new rivalries with Apple and upending expectations for what local hardware can do. Plus, Atari revives 39 Activision classics for a price that will make retro fans blink, while the Sonos saga continues as it pivots to an open AI platform that might finally win back old loyalties. Finally, Paul's Markdown book will be released sometime in the next week. Windows The mystery of 26H2 is now less mysterious Last week: Week D came and went without a preview release, triggering speculation Microsoft issues Windows 11 version 26H2 to Release Preview, a first This means a September or October release to stable. Just guessing, but Preview Update in September, general Update in October is most likely Version numbers don't matter much anymore. There are no unique 26H2 features, just a few unique 26H2 presets - These include Point-in-time restore and Memory Integrity Protection being on by default Two 26H1 pre-release builds with little to speak of IFA 2026 is underway in Berlin Acer is first out of the gates with dozens of new PCs, including one based on the NVIDIA RTX Spark EU General Court confirms that Microsoft Edge is not a gatekeeper Visual Studio Code now has a full Markdown Editor experience Brave now offers free email aliases, and will have a premium option soon Firefox for iOS now has integrated ad blocking NVIDIA - $96.2 billion in revenues, up 106 percent YOY Dell - record $47 billion in revenues, but it's all from server/infrastructure HP - $15.7 billion in revenues, up 12.5 percent - $11.8 billion from PCs, vs. $15 billion for all Dell client products AI/dev Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for stealing their music Gemini Notebook gets first Expert Intelligence upgrade with integrated e-book support Sonos announces Sonos 27 OS with major AI functionality Microsoft moves WinUI development fully to GitHub ahead of open-sourcing it XBOX and gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, more coming to Game Pass Every Activision title for the Atari 2600 is being reissued in cartridge form, but it's going to cost you Tips and picks Tip of the week: Markdown: A Field Guide for Writers App pick of the week: ImageGlass 10 RunAs Radio this week: Reimagining Intranets with Susan Hanley Brown liquor pick of the week: Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit threatlocker.com/twit helixsleep.com/windows
While Microsoft pushes Copilot+ PCs, NVIDIA storms into the Windows ecosystem with AI-focused Spark machines and game-changing specs, igniting new rivalries with Apple and upending expectations for what local hardware can do. Plus, Atari revives 39 Activision classics for a price that will make retro fans blink, while the Sonos saga continues as it pivots to an open AI platform that might finally win back old loyalties. Finally, Paul's Markdown book will be released sometime in the next week. Windows The mystery of 26H2 is now less mysterious Last week: Week D came and went without a preview release, triggering speculation Microsoft issues Windows 11 version 26H2 to Release Preview, a first This means a September or October release to stable. Just guessing, but Preview Update in September, general Update in October is most likely Version numbers don't matter much anymore. There are no unique 26H2 features, just a few unique 26H2 presets - These include Point-in-time restore and Memory Integrity Protection being on by default Two 26H1 pre-release builds with little to speak of IFA 2026 is underway in Berlin Acer is first out of the gates with dozens of new PCs, including one based on the NVIDIA RTX Spark EU General Court confirms that Microsoft Edge is not a gatekeeper Visual Studio Code now has a full Markdown Editor experience Brave now offers free email aliases, and will have a premium option soon Firefox for iOS now has integrated ad blocking NVIDIA - $96.2 billion in revenues, up 106 percent YOY Dell - record $47 billion in revenues, but it's all from server/infrastructure HP - $15.7 billion in revenues, up 12.5 percent - $11.8 billion from PCs, vs. $15 billion for all Dell client products AI/dev Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for stealing their music Gemini Notebook gets first Expert Intelligence upgrade with integrated e-book support Sonos announces Sonos 27 OS with major AI functionality Microsoft moves WinUI development fully to GitHub ahead of open-sourcing it XBOX and gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, more coming to Game Pass Every Activision title for the Atari 2600 is being reissued in cartridge form, but it's going to cost you Tips and picks Tip of the week: Markdown: A Field Guide for Writers App pick of the week: ImageGlass 10 RunAs Radio this week: Reimagining Intranets with Susan Hanley Brown liquor pick of the week: Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit threatlocker.com/twit helixsleep.com/windows
While Microsoft pushes Copilot+ PCs, NVIDIA storms into the Windows ecosystem with AI-focused Spark machines and game-changing specs, igniting new rivalries with Apple and upending expectations for what local hardware can do. Plus, Atari revives 39 Activision classics for a price that will make retro fans blink, while the Sonos saga continues as it pivots to an open AI platform that might finally win back old loyalties. Finally, Paul's Markdown book will be released sometime in the next week. Windows The mystery of 26H2 is now less mysterious Last week: Week D came and went without a preview release, triggering speculation Microsoft issues Windows 11 version 26H2 to Release Preview, a first This means a September or October release to stable. Just guessing, but Preview Update in September, general Update in October is most likely Version numbers don't matter much anymore. There are no unique 26H2 features, just a few unique 26H2 presets - These include Point-in-time restore and Memory Integrity Protection being on by default Two 26H1 pre-release builds with little to speak of IFA 2026 is underway in Berlin Acer is first out of the gates with dozens of new PCs, including one based on the NVIDIA RTX Spark EU General Court confirms that Microsoft Edge is not a gatekeeper Visual Studio Code now has a full Markdown Editor experience Brave now offers free email aliases, and will have a premium option soon Firefox for iOS now has integrated ad blocking NVIDIA - $96.2 billion in revenues, up 106 percent YOY Dell - record $47 billion in revenues, but it's all from server/infrastructure HP - $15.7 billion in revenues, up 12.5 percent - $11.8 billion from PCs, vs. $15 billion for all Dell client products AI/dev Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for stealing their music Gemini Notebook gets first Expert Intelligence upgrade with integrated e-book support Sonos announces Sonos 27 OS with major AI functionality Microsoft moves WinUI development fully to GitHub ahead of open-sourcing it XBOX and gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, more coming to Game Pass Every Activision title for the Atari 2600 is being reissued in cartridge form, but it's going to cost you Tips and picks Tip of the week: Markdown: A Field Guide for Writers App pick of the week: ImageGlass 10 RunAs Radio this week: Reimagining Intranets with Susan Hanley Brown liquor pick of the week: Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit threatlocker.com/twit helixsleep.com/windows
While Microsoft pushes Copilot+ PCs, NVIDIA storms into the Windows ecosystem with AI-focused Spark machines and game-changing specs, igniting new rivalries with Apple and upending expectations for what local hardware can do. Plus, Atari revives 39 Activision classics for a price that will make retro fans blink, while the Sonos saga continues as it pivots to an open AI platform that might finally win back old loyalties. Finally, Paul's Markdown book will be released sometime in the next week. Windows The mystery of 26H2 is now less mysterious Last week: Week D came and went without a preview release, triggering speculation Microsoft issues Windows 11 version 26H2 to Release Preview, a first This means a September or October release to stable. Just guessing, but Preview Update in September, general Update in October is most likely Version numbers don't matter much anymore. There are no unique 26H2 features, just a few unique 26H2 presets - These include Point-in-time restore and Memory Integrity Protection being on by default Two 26H1 pre-release builds with little to speak of IFA 2026 is underway in Berlin Acer is first out of the gates with dozens of new PCs, including one based on the NVIDIA RTX Spark EU General Court confirms that Microsoft Edge is not a gatekeeper Visual Studio Code now has a full Markdown Editor experience Brave now offers free email aliases, and will have a premium option soon Firefox for iOS now has integrated ad blocking NVIDIA - $96.2 billion in revenues, up 106 percent YOY Dell - record $47 billion in revenues, but it's all from server/infrastructure HP - $15.7 billion in revenues, up 12.5 percent - $11.8 billion from PCs, vs. $15 billion for all Dell client products AI/dev Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for stealing their music Gemini Notebook gets first Expert Intelligence upgrade with integrated e-book support Sonos announces Sonos 27 OS with major AI functionality Microsoft moves WinUI development fully to GitHub ahead of open-sourcing it XBOX and gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, more coming to Game Pass Every Activision title for the Atari 2600 is being reissued in cartridge form, but it's going to cost you Tips and picks Tip of the week: Markdown: A Field Guide for Writers App pick of the week: ImageGlass 10 RunAs Radio this week: Reimagining Intranets with Susan Hanley Brown liquor pick of the week: Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit threatlocker.com/twit helixsleep.com/windows
While Microsoft pushes Copilot+ PCs, NVIDIA storms into the Windows ecosystem with AI-focused Spark machines and game-changing specs, igniting new rivalries with Apple and upending expectations for what local hardware can do. Plus, Atari revives 39 Activision classics for a price that will make retro fans blink, while the Sonos saga continues as it pivots to an open AI platform that might finally win back old loyalties. Finally, Paul's Markdown book will be released sometime in the next week. Windows The mystery of 26H2 is now less mysterious Last week: Week D came and went without a preview release, triggering speculation Microsoft issues Windows 11 version 26H2 to Release Preview, a first This means a September or October release to stable. Just guessing, but Preview Update in September, general Update in October is most likely Version numbers don't matter much anymore. There are no unique 26H2 features, just a few unique 26H2 presets - These include Point-in-time restore and Memory Integrity Protection being on by default Two 26H1 pre-release builds with little to speak of IFA 2026 is underway in Berlin Acer is first out of the gates with dozens of new PCs, including one based on the NVIDIA RTX Spark EU General Court confirms that Microsoft Edge is not a gatekeeper Visual Studio Code now has a full Markdown Editor experience Brave now offers free email aliases, and will have a premium option soon Firefox for iOS now has integrated ad blocking NVIDIA - $96.2 billion in revenues, up 106 percent YOY Dell - record $47 billion in revenues, but it's all from server/infrastructure HP - $15.7 billion in revenues, up 12.5 percent - $11.8 billion from PCs, vs. $15 billion for all Dell client products AI/dev Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for stealing their music Gemini Notebook gets first Expert Intelligence upgrade with integrated e-book support Sonos announces Sonos 27 OS with major AI functionality Microsoft moves WinUI development fully to GitHub ahead of open-sourcing it XBOX and gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, more coming to Game Pass Every Activision title for the Atari 2600 is being reissued in cartridge form, but it's going to cost you Tips and picks Tip of the week: Markdown: A Field Guide for Writers App pick of the week: ImageGlass 10 RunAs Radio this week: Reimagining Intranets with Susan Hanley Brown liquor pick of the week: Macaloney's Cath-Nah-Aven Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: outsystems.com/twit threatlocker.com/twit helixsleep.com/windows
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. -------------------- 01 Introduction This is the second episode in an 8 part series. 02 In the previous episode we discussed the predecessors of PLCs, in particular relay logic. In this episode we will discuss how relay logic came to be expressed in software rather than in actual hardware components. 03 The topics to be covered include * Early computers in industry. * The first PLC. * PC versus PLC - what's in a name. * Who the major brands are. * What does a PLC actually look like. * Machine architecture. * PLC programs. * The scan. * PLC programming languages. * Relative popularity of PLC programming languages versus more conventional computer programming languages. -------------------- 04 Early Computers in Industry Computers came to be used in industry fairly early on. Minicomputers were used in some large industries to control things like electric power plants. For example, the DEC PDP8 was used to control the refuelling machines in CANDU nuclear power plants. These would load and unload fuel from the reactor, which happens continually on a daily basis while the reactor is running. 05 The first microprocessor based computer sold on the commercial market was the MICRAL from France, based on the Intel 8008. It was sold as a cost effective replacement for minicomputers used in industry. It preceded what are generally considered to be the first Personal Computers. So you can see that industry were not reluctant to adopt new technology. 06 However, mini computers were large complex systems that did not fit well into a factory floor. They had particular niches in very large complex integrated systems, but were not suited to controlling many individual machines in a factory that produced things like automobiles or appliances. 07 What was needed was something that would fit into a standard electrical enclosure, withstand the temperatures found in a factory, could stand up to vibration and noise, was tolerant of voltage fluctuations, interfaced directly to sensors and actuators, and could be readily programmed by engineers, technicians, and tradesmen who were familiar with the processes to be controlled, but had little or no experience with computers. 08 This required a complete integrated package covering hardware, software, and product distribution through industrial supply retailers. Something that could meet these criteria is what was needed to become the PLC. -------------------- 09 History Many histories point to a US developer that became Modicon. However, their first hardware was more a proof of concept than a viable commercial product. In fact multiple companies in the US, Europe, and Japan were working on the problem and released comparable products all at around the same time in the early 1970s. 10 The idea preceded the implementation by a number of years. For example, General Motors had asked industrial control equipment suppliers in the mid 1960s for some sort of programmable control device to replace relay logic. This showed potential suppliers that there was a market for this sort of thing, and gave them a clearer idea of what customers were looking for. 11 What made this possible was the development of the first 8 bit microprocessor in that time period, combined with readily available bit slice processors from the minicomputer industry and other components. 12 People knew what to do, the problem was waiting for the development of suitable component hardware. Minicomputers were already being used in industry, but were normally located in control rooms. PLCs were an effort to take that technology out of control rooms and put it on the shop floor. 13 PC Versus PLC - What's in a Name In the early days, these systems were known as either PLC, which means "Programmable Logic Controller", or PC, which means "Programmable Controller". Different vendors favoured different terminology, but both were common. I have a book which was at one time one of the standard reference handbooks for this industry which was published in 1989, and refers to them as Programmable Controllers, or PCs. 14 The term PC was also used to mean "Personal Computer", but that wasn't really a problem in the early days. However, a certain large company decided to call their entry into the personal computer market the "IBM PC", and suddenly "PC" became a generic term for desktop computers. 15 After a long struggle to keep referring to their products as "PCs", even the biggest vendors caved in and gave up the fight and switched to using the "PLC" term. I will therefore use the term "PLC" in this podcast series even when talking about products which were originally called "PCs" at the time they were introduced. 16 Who the Major Brands Are The companies that came to dominate the industry fairly early on were generally companies that already made industrial electrical hardware. These were Siemens Allen Bradley, later known as Rockwell Schneider Mitsubishi Omron 17 These are still the dominant companies in the business, although there are many small brands, particularly at the cheaper end of the market. All of them were suppliers of a wide range of industrial control hardware, such that you could build all or nearly all of the parts of your control system using only their products. 18 Each of these sells an integrated hardware and software package, including development software, that is completely proprietary. If you thought that the mainframe business had a lot of vendor lock-in, you haven't seen the industrial market. -------------------- 19 What Does One of These Things Actually Look Like? At this point you are probably still very confused as to what a PLC actually is. I will attempt to describe one in basic terms by giving an example of one. The smallest and simplest ones are what are termed "shoebox" PLCs. These are basically a rectangular box with a plastic case. 20 Here are the dimensions for a typical low end model, a Mitsubishi FX3U-32M. According to specs in the manual, it is 150mm wide, 90mm high, and 86mm deep. 21 It can be mounted to the panel in an electrical enclosure by snapping it onto what is termed a DIN rail. DIN rails are standard mounting systems which use a strip of metal which is U shaped with a lip at the top of each end of the U. You screw the DIN rail to the electrical panel in the enclosure, and most industrial components such as PLCs, terminal blocks, circuit breakers, and all sorts of other things will simply snap onto it and be ready to wire together. 22 Along the top and bottom of the PLC are terminals to which you can attach wires from the things you want to sense or control in the rest of the machine, such as push buttons, pilot lights, proximity sensors, and valves. 23 Inputs are along the top, and outputs are along the bottom. The FX3U-32M has 16 inputs and 16 outputs. These I/O can be 24 volts DC, or 100 to 120 volts AC, depending on the model. Alternatively it may have small relays for outputs. While AC I/O once predominated, 24VDC became the standard in most industries several decades ago as it interfaced with electronic devices more readily and also allowed for cheaper and more compact wiring. 24 More inputs and outputs can be added by connecting additional I/O modules to the main PLC next to it on the same DIN rail, up to a total of 256 I/O The connection is typically via short ribbon cables which plug into the adjacent module. These I/O modules look like the main PLC, but just add I/O. 25 Inside the PLC are a CPU, memory, and firmware. This model has 64K "steps" of memory, which can be thought of as how many instructions you can have. The program runs in RAM, but you can add a small flash memory device to save the program to. There is a run/stop switch that allows you to start or stop the user program. There is a port that you can use to connect the PLC to a laptop computer with a cable so you can download your program to it. 26 The biggest part of the market for PLCs is for these "shoebox" style. However, there are bigger ones as well which have more I/O, more memory, faster CPUs, etc. These are meant for tasks such as coordinating large assembly lines and things like that. These are what are termed rack systems, where the rack is an empty box which is open at the front and has a backplane bus running along the back. You plug the main CPU into the bus, normally in the leftmost position, and then plug I/O modules into the rack. The I/O modules are tall, thin, fully enclosed boxes with the I/O terminals along the front. 27 You should have a rough idea of their appearance at this stage, so I'll leave the physical description aside for now and go on to the concepts behind how they actually work and what makes them different from something like say a Raspberry Pi. -------------------- 28 Machine Architecture It is not really the hardware which defines the PLC. Rather, it is the software system architecture. Every PLC that I am aware of has a common set of features. 29 Data Table A data table is simply a block of memory which may or may not be subdivided into different parts. All logic, and all, or nearly all, I/O works by writing to and reading from addresses in the data table. 30 I/O Every input and output point maps to a fixed memory address in the PLC. To read the state of an input, you read its memory address. To change the state of an output, you write to its memory address. 31 These digital I/O appear as single bit boolean values. The PLC programming language has instructions which allow single bits to be read or written to directly without have to mask off other bits as you would have to do if you were using a conventional programming language. I have so far only mentioned digital I/O, which are single bit on/off values. 32 Other types of I/O Many PLCs also have other types of I/O such as Analogue I/O, which represent variable voltages rather than just on/off values. For example you may wish to read a temperature from a thermocouple where the voltage level varies with the temperature. Often these are mapped into the data table as byte or word values. 33 Internal Bit or Boolean Memory There will be a range of single bit or boolean memory which is used for internal logic state. Your program may need to come up with a series of intermediate logical values, and you store them in these internal bits or flags. 34 Timers and Counters Control of machinery often involves timing and counting. Timer and counters are mapped into the data table. Timer and counter presets and values can be read as words, and there will be bit addresses which indicate the status of the timer or counter, such as whether it has reached its preset and is "done". 35 Integer and Floating Point Values There will be word addresses where integer and floating point words can be stored. If you need to do some mathematical calculations and store the results, you would save them in an integer or floating point word. 36 Typed Memory Unlike when programming something like a PC where you simply have a range of undifferentiated bytes and it is up to your software to impose meaning on it, PLC data table memory has defined types and meanings and the system firmware enforces the correct memory access methods. 37 Size of Data Table Data tables vary greatly in size. A bigger data table allows for bigger and more complex program. Generally, new PLCs will have bigger data tables than older ones, and more expensive PLCs will have bigger data tables than cheaper ones of the same generation. 38 Example Having picked a current PLC as an example for physical dimensions, I will pick an old and obsolete one for an example of a data table. The Siemens S5-100 series was a small PLC that came in several sizes. The basic S5-100 had the following data table size. 39 Digital I/O had a maximum of 128 inputs and outputs taken together. Analogue inputs and outputs had a maximum of 8 taken together. Flag, or bit, memory was 1024 Timers - 16 Counters - 16 40 The S5-103 offered more of everything in the same basic package, but of course at a higher cost. Digital I/O had a maximum of 256 inputs and outputs taken together. Analogue inputs and outputs had a maximum of 32 taken together. Flag, or bit, memory was 2048 Timers - 128 Counters - 128 -------------------- 41 The PLC Program A PLC will come with what amounts to an operating system and virtual machine built into it. You as the programmer use the vendor's proprietary development software, what is generally called the "PLC programming software" to write an application for it. 42 You then connect your PC to the PLC using a cable of some sort, and download your program into it. The program gets stored in the PLC's RAM. There may be flash memory which serves to back up the RAM when the power is off so you don't lose the program. Before flash was available, a battery was typically required to hold the static RAM memory. 43 There is just one program in the PLC. There is no file system, just the program memory and the data table. When the PLC starts up, it runs the program that you wrote. It continues running the program until you turn off the power or you set the run/stop switch to the stop position. 44 I will come back to programming later, but we needed to cover these basic points before I could describe some further concepts we need to cover. -------------------- 45 The Scan A key thing to understand about PLCs is the "scan" concept. This works as follows. There is a repeated cycle called the scan. 46 First, the PLC reads all the physical inputs and updates the corresponding input addresses in the data table. Next it runs the user program once. Finally it reads the output addresses in the data table and writes them to the corresponding physical outputs. Then it repeats the scan from step 1. 47 A scan can take anywhere from a few milliseconds to hundreds of milliseconds, depending on the model of PLC. Older PLCs and cheaper PLCs tended to be slower. However, as integrated circuit technology advanced, programs got faster. 48 The PLC has a watchdog timer. This is a timer which runs in the background and resets at the start of a scan. 49 If a scan takes too long, the watchdog will trip and stop the program and set the outputs to some defined state, either turning them all off or holding them at the last value. This is known as "faulting" the processor. 50 A watchdog fault may be caused by a program that is too long, or uses a lot of very slow instructions, or in some cases it may be due to a bug in your program. However, this last cause is not as common or as easy to cause as you may think when it comes to faults. -------------------- 51 PLC Programming Languages The key to all of this is the unique way in which the programming languages used in PLCs work. I will first briefly describe the two main programming languages and then explain how they work in a PLC as part of a complete system. 52 Ladder Logic There are several programming languages, but the main one is called ladder logic. If you listened to the previous episode, the word "ladder" will ring a bell. When machines were controlled by electromechanical relays, the electrical drawings which specified and documented the types of relays and the connections between them were called "ladder diagrams". 53 PLCs simply take these ladder diagrams and reproduce them on your computer screen in the programming software using the same standard schematic symbols. 54 You do not need to draw the symbols like it was CAD. Instead you simply use your keyboard or mouse to say that you want this symbol to be entered in the current cursor location or you want this wire to be connected from here to there. When your rung is complete the software will check at some point if it is syntactically correct. You then go on to entering the next rungs one after another until you have your complete program. 55 Instruction List An alternative representation is something called "instruction list", although various vendors may use other terms. This is a text representation that looks like a sort of assembly language. However, it's actually really ladder, just shown in a different way as text and some types of programming software will allow you to toggle between ladder and instruction list mode, translating between them automatically. 56 This should give you a clue as to how a PLC can execute a schematic diagram. Behind the scenes the programming software will translate the diagram into instruction list, and then the PLC will either execute those instructions in an interpreter, or compile them to machine code and execute those. 57 Other Programming Languages There are other programming languages, but they are rarely seen. I won't go into detail in terms of describing them, just briefly mention them. 58 One is called Sequential Function Chart. This is a type of flow chart which is designed to show complex sequences, including ones with alternate or parallel paths. The original name for this is Grafcet, spelled G R A F C E T. This stands for "Graphe Fonctionnel de Commande Étape Transition". As well as being a programming language, it is also a very good design and analysis tool even if the PLC being used doesn't support it. 59 Another is Function Block Diagram. This is another graphical language which resembles flow diagrams used in process industries. This is supposedly used mainly in industries such as chemical manufacturing. However it appears to be very niche and most people who use PLCs will never have seen it, and many will not have even heard of it. 60 Yet another language is Structured Text. This is very obviously derived from Modula-2 and strongly resembles it. If you are not familiar with Modula-2, it was created by Nikolas Wirth and intended as the successor to Pascal, which it was derived from. Structured Text seems to be much loved by a small number of academics, but seems to have little actual use in the field. You lose pretty much all of the monitoring and debugging facilities built into a PLC if you use it, so it's kind of pointless except perhaps for a few niche applications. There are a few other languages as well, mainly proprietary ones, often using flow charts or the like. 61 PLC Languages are Non-Blocking The important thing about a PLC program is that it executes from top to bottom, left to right, without stopping or blocking. There is no waiting on input or output or for a system call to return. Each rung immediately yields a result which is written to a memory address or which enables a timer or counter. Every rung is executed every scan. 62 You can reproduce this in a traditional computer programming language. In ladder logic it is inherent to the syntax and it is either very difficult or impossible to do it any other way. I'll give an example in Python of what I mean. 63 a = (b or c) and not d 64 If b or c are true and d is false, then a is set to true. If b and c are false or d is true, then a is false. 65 Now imagine that we are not executing this statement once, but rather are executing it repeatedly. This statement will never block execution. It will always immediately yield a result. Now let's modify that a bit. 66 a = (b or a) and not d 67 Note that we have replaced c with a. Now the value of a depends the previous value of a as well as b and d. However, once a becomes true, the value of b no longer matters because b is in an or condition with a. Now if we execute it over and over again, only d becoming true will make a go false. 68 This is a standard push button circuit, also known as a "seal in circuit", because it "seals" around the start condition. 69 b is the start push button with a normally open contact. d is the stop push button with a normally closed contact. a is a relay with one of its contacts being used to hold it on. 70 If you wired this up with actual push buttons and relays or if you programmed it into a PLC with ladder logic it would work the same way. A PLC program will consists of rung after rung of logic like this and executes it repeatedly scan after scan, only pausing to update its I/O. 71 Async Programming Some of you may be thinking that this cyclical scan sounds like the async programming that is all the rage with web server applications these days. Essentially it is exactly the same principle. 72 With async programming, your program must never use blocking instructions and execution proceeds on a repeated cycle. PLCs solve this by not having any instructions which block, and many PLCs do not allow backwards jumps. Tradesmen in coveralls in factories were doing async programming decades before the cool kids heard about it. 73 Most PLC Programming Languages are Visual or Graphical Languages If ladder, Sequential Function Chart, or Grafcet and Function Block Diagram sound like visual programming languages, they are. In fact ladder is probably one of the earliest visual languages in commercial use. Wikipedia defines a visual programming language as: 74 In computing, a visual programming language (visual programming system, VPL, or, VPS), also known as diagrammatic programming, graphical programming or block coding, is a programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used either as elements of syntax or secondary notation. For example, many VPLs are based on the idea of "boxes and arrows", where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities, connected by arrows, lines or arcs which represent relations. VPLs are generally the basis of low-code development platforms. Scratch is an example of a VPL 75 End of quote. As you can see, what is cool today was on the factory floor more than 40 years ago. -------------------- 76 Popularity of PLC Programming Languages PLCs are about as proprietary as you can get. Pretty much every vendor has his own proprietary take on each language. How you can program any particular PLC is determined by that vendor's programming software. If the vendor doesn't support it, you can't use it. An individual vendor may even have multiple incompatible product lines which have to be programmed in different ways with different software, although that is not as common these days as it once was. 77 Nearly all PLCs support programming in Ladder. Some support programming in instruction list as well as ladder. Anything else is much less common. 78 Ladder logic happens to be on the Tiobe Index by the way. For those who have not heard of it, the Tiobe Index, that is T I O B E, is a web site that lists the popularity of numerous programming languages based on various criteria. 79 Number one on their list happens to be Python, currently at 19.98%. Number two is C, at 11.55%. 80 At the time of writing this script, Ladder Logic was at number 46 with a 0.28% rating, which put it just below Erlang and just above Haskell. I'm not sure whether that means that Ladder Logic is not as obscure as you thought it was, or whether it means that Erlang and Haskell are in fact more obscure than you thought they were. -------------------- 81 Episode Summary In this episode we covered we covered The early history of computers in industrial control The early history of PLCs, including how they got their name Who the major brands are What they look like physically 82 A basic description of the abstract machine architecture A very brief look at what a PLC program is like The scan concept The main PLC programming languages The minor PLC programming languages The relative popularity of each of the programming languages 83 In the next episode we will take a look at one of the early PLCs from the era when they began seeing widespread use. This PLC was hugely successful and was for many companies the first PLC they used. This is the Allen Bradley PLC2. 84 This has been the second episode in an 8 part series. -------------------- Provide feedback on this episode.
Discovering Grayslake: Unveiling the Stories and People That Make Our Town Unique
Bill and Tony, two of the three founders of Run It Back a brand-new gaming lounge and card shop located in Grayslake. Open for less than two weeks at the time of recording, the business has already made a fantastic impression on the community. Bill and Tony share their vision of creating a welcoming "third space" for all ages, featuring PC and console gaming stations, a retro gaming room, card tournaments, and a shop carrying Pokémon, sports cards, and more. Building Community Through Gaming: The Story and Strategy Behind Run It Back in Grayslake Welcome to another in-depth feature from the heart of Grayslake! Today, we're diving into the inspiring journey of Run It Back, a gaming lounge and card shop that's quickly becoming a local favorite. Based on a recent episode of the Discovery and Grayslake podcast, we'll break down the main themes, actionable tips, and expert insights shared by founders Bill and Tony. Whether you're a gaming enthusiast, a small business owner, or someone passionate about community spaces, there's a wealth of knowledge here for you. Table of Contents The Power of Local Roots and Friendship Choosing the Right Location: Visibility and Community Creating a Multi-Generational Gaming Space Blending Retro and Modern Gaming Experiences Making Collectible Cards Accessible and Fun Building Community Through Events and Tournaments Flexible Pricing and Memberships for All Partnering with Local Businesses Leveraging Online Platforms for Growth Continuous Improvement and Community Feedback Final Thoughts: The Hometown Advantage 1. The Power of Local Roots and Friendship Key Insight: Bill and Tony's story is rooted in long-standing friendship and local ties. Both grew up in the Grayslake area, attended local high schools, and have deep connections to the community. Actionable Advice: Leverage Local Networks:** If you're starting a business, tap into your hometown connections. Familiarity with the area and its people can help you understand community needs and build trust quickly. Build with Friends:** Shared history and trust among founders can make the entrepreneurial journey smoother and more resilient. Expert Tip: Don't underestimate the value of local goodwill. People love supporting businesses run by "one of their own." 2. Choosing the Right Location: Visibility and Community Key Insight: Run It Back's founders prioritized visibility and accessibility when choosing their location. After their first choice fell through, they pivoted quickly, relying on local tips and their own knowledge of the area. Actionable Advice: Scout for High-Visibility Spots:** Look for locations near other popular businesses or community hubs. Foot traffic and easy access are crucial for new ventures. Be Flexible:** If your first choice doesn't work out, stay open to alternatives. Sometimes, the "second best" option turns out to be the perfect fit. Expert Tip: Ask friends, family, and local business owners for leads on available spaces. Word-of-mouth can uncover hidden gems. 3. Creating a Multi-Generational Gaming Space Key Insight: Run It Back is intentionally designed to welcome all ages—from kids to adults, casual players to hardcore gamers. Actionable Advice: Segment Your Hours:** Dedicate early hours to families and kids, and reserve late-night slots for adult gamers. This ensures everyone feels comfortable and catered to. Offer Something for Everyone:** Combine video gaming, card games, and board games to appeal to a broad audience. Expert Tip: Position your business as a "third space"—not home, not work, but a welcoming community hub. 4. Blending Retro and Modern Gaming Experiences Key Insight: The founders are passionate about reviving the social, in-person gaming experience, blending nostalgia with cutting-edge technology. Actionable Advice: Create a Retro Room:** Set up classic consoles (think Atari, Donkey Kong, Mario Party) alongside modern PCs and consoles. This attracts both older gamers and curious younger players. Encourage Social Play:** Design your space to foster face-to-face interaction—couches, shared tables, and group tournaments. Expert Tip: Host "throwback nights" or themed events to celebrate gaming history and bring generations together. 5. Making Collectible Cards Accessible and Fun Key Insight: Run It Back started as a card shop and remains committed to making collecting accessible, especially for kids. Actionable Advice: Combat Scalping:** Keep prices fair and offer free packs or affordable options for young collectors. Diversify Inventory:** Stock popular lines like Pokémon, Magic, and sports cards, but also introduce niche or international games (e.g., Azuki from Japan). Educate New Collectors:** Host "how-to" sessions or beginner nights to help newcomers learn the ropes. Expert Tip: Use online platforms like Whatnot to reach a broader audience and move high-value inventory, but keep your in-store experience welcoming and inclusive. 6. Building Community Through Events and Tournaments Key Insight: Events are at the heart of Run It Back's community-building strategy, from casual tournaments to movie watch parties. Actionable Advice: Host Regular Tournaments:** Use simple, inclusive formats (e.g., names in a hat, double elimination) and keep entry fees low. Offer Prizes:** Even small rewards can boost participation and excitement. Create Social Events:** Movie nights, watch parties, and themed gatherings foster a sense of belonging. Expert Tip: Encourage friendly competition and sportsmanship. Make sure your staff sets the tone for a welcoming, respectful environment. 7. Flexible Pricing and Memberships for All Key Insight: Run It Back offers a range of pricing options to suit different needs and budgets. Actionable Advice: Hourly Rates:** $10/hour for consoles, $12/hour for PCs. Free Board Gaming:** Keep some activities free to lower the barrier to entry. Membership Tiers:** Offer monthly memberships with perks like free hours, discounts, and exclusive access. Event Packages:** Birthday party packages ($299 for two hours) make the space accessible for special occasions. Expert Tip: Regularly review your pricing to ensure it remains competitive and accessible, especially for families and young gamers. 8. Partnering with Local Businesses Key Insight: Collaboration with nearby businesses (like Papa John's for pizza) enhances the customer experience and strengthens community ties. Actionable Advice: Cross-Promote:** Work with local restaurants, shops, and service providers to offer bundled deals or special promotions. Support Each Other:** Refer your customers to neighboring businesses and vice versa. Expert Tip: Joint events (e.g., pizza and gaming nights) can draw larger crowds and introduce your business to new audiences. 9. Leveraging Online Platforms for Growth Key Insight: Run It Back uses platforms like Whatnot, Instagram, Facebook, and Discord to build its brand and connect with customers. Actionable Advice: Sell Online:** Use auction sites to reach collectors beyond your local area. Stay Active on Social Media:** Share updates, event announcements, and behind-the-scenes content to keep your community engaged. Build a Discord Server:** Foster ongoing conversation and community among your most dedicated fans. Expert Tip: Your website should be more than a digital business card—include inventory updates, event sign-ups, and community resources. 10. Continuous Improvement and Community Feedback Key Insight: Bill and Tony are committed to evolving their offerings based on customer feedback and community needs. Actionable Advice: Solicit Feedback:** Regularly ask customers what they'd like to see—new games, events, or amenities. Stay Agile:** Be willing to pivot or expand your offerings as trends and interests shift. Celebrate Milestones:** Mark anniversaries, big tournaments, or community achievements with special events. Expert Tip: Transparency and responsiveness build loyalty. Let your community know you're listening and adapting. 11. Final Thoughts: The Hometown Advantage Run It Back's story is a testament to the power of local roots, friendship, and a genuine desire to serve the community. By blending nostalgia with innovation, and prioritizing inclusivity and accessibility, Bill and Tony have created more than just a gaming lounge—they've built a new "third space" for Grayslake. If you're in the area, stop by, say hello, and experience the magic for yourself. And if you're building your own community-focused business, take a page from Run It Back's playbook: stay rooted, stay flexible, and always put people first. Connect with Run It Back Instagram & Facebook:** Look for the big neon "Run It Back" sign Website:** Coming soon with inventory and event updates Discord:** Join to connect with fellow gamers and collectors Subscribe to the Discovery and Grayslake podcast for more local stories, and remember: a couple of random acts of kindness can make all the difference. See you next time!
George talks with UK-based voiceover engineer and demo producer Henry Willard about the rise of virtual engineering and why more actors are bringing their own engineers into remote directed sessions. Henry explains how having someone handle recording, playback, timing, and client requests can free the actor to stay where they belong: in the performance. They also explore Henry's approach to creating authentic commercial demos, why overproducing auditions can backfire, the never-ending battle with mouth noise, common home-studio mistakes, and the realities of producing audiobooks by hand in an increasingly automated world. And because two audio engineers can only behave themselves for so long, there's plenty of talk about Pro Tools, headphones, plugins, noise reduction, Macs vs. PCs, and keeping your processing chain simple. Timeline 00:00 Sponsor and Sound Check 01:00 Meet Henry Willard 03:00 Running an Audio Business with Two Young Kids 05:00 The Reality of Working from a Home Studio 07:00 Why Voice Actors Are Hiring Their Own Engineers 10:00 What a Virtual Engineer Actually Does 11:00 Henry's Start in Remote Recording 14:00 How COVID Changed the Voiceover Workflow 16:00 Building a Freelance Voiceover Engineering Business 19:00 Getting Into Voiceover Demo Production 20:00 Making a Demo Sound Authentic—not Overproduced 22:00 Music Choices That Can Ruin a Demo 24:00 Henry's “Palette Call” for Building Personalized Demos 27:00 Why Demo Spots Need a Beginning, Middle, and End 28:00 Mouth Noise, Perfectionism, and Over-Editing 29:00 Mac vs. Windows for Voiceover Recording 34:00 How Much Mouth Noise Should You Actually Remove? 35:00 RX Mouth De-click and the Problem with Overprocessing 37:00 Alternatives to RX and When Your Headphones Are Too Good 39:00 Fix the Room and Mic Technique Before Adding Plugins 40:00 The Wrong Mic, the Wrong Input—and Other Common Mistakes 43:00 Henry's Approach to Audiobook Production 46:00 Punch and Roll vs. Continuous Recording 49:00 AI Proofing vs. Actually Listening to the Audiobook 51:00 Why Henry Takes a Premium Approach to Audiobook Editing 53:00 Henry's Favorite Tools: Pro Tools, Editus Keys, and Headphones 58:00 Keeping Plugins Simple 59:00 Waves NS1 and Noise Reduction 1:00:00 Apollo C-Vox and Real-Time Noise Reduction 1:02:00 More Audio Geekery—and an Invitation to Pro Audio Suite
This conversation explores the critical topic of mental health during the perinatal years, focusing on the integration of mental health services in OB-GYN practices, the barriers women face in accessing care, and the common symptoms of perinatal mood disorders. Carrie McCahan, a psychiatric physician assistant, discusses the importance of normalizing conversations around mental health, the impact of parental mental health on families, and the necessity of support systems for new parents. The dialogue emphasizes that it is okay to experience complex emotions during this transformative time and highlights the need for community and understanding.For more information on Dr. Erin Buggy, or Alethia Wood, please visit PCS' website here. For more information on Carrie McCahan, please visit here. You can now find her helping expecting parents at Uptown Psychiatry.
Chinese memory-chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies is moving closer to a vanguard position amid the global DRAM race with one of the earliest commercial deployments of LPDDR6 in a flagship smartphone, industry experts said on Monday.业内专家周一表示，在全球DRAM（动态随机存取存储器）竞争中，中国存储芯片企业长鑫存储正加速向行业前沿迈进。其LPDDR6产品将率先实现商业化应用，搭载于一款旗舰智能手机。They made the comments as CXMT said on Saturday that it had begun mass production of its self-developed LPDDR6 DRAM, which will debut in Xiaomi's upcoming 18 Fold handset.长鑫存储周六宣布，其自主研发的LPDDR6 DRAM已实现量产，并将在小米即将推出的18 Fold手机上首发搭载。The chip has a peak data-transfer rate of 12,800 megabits per second and capacity of up to 16 gigabytes.这款芯片的峰值数据传输速率可达每秒12800兆比特，最高容量达16GB。"For a Chinese company that only began mass-producing its first DRAM products in 2019, the bigger significance is not simply being first with one product," said Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.北京社会科学院研究员王鹏表示：“对于一家直到2019年才开始量产首批DRAM产品的中国企业而言，更大的意义并不只是某一款产品实现率先突破。”"It put CXMT into the first wave of competition around the latest mobile-memory standard alongside global heavyweights Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology," Wang said.“这意味着长鑫存储已经跻身最新一代移动存储标准的第一梯队，与三星电子、SK海力士和美光科技等全球行业巨头同场竞技。”王鹏说。LPDDR6 is designed to raise memory bandwidth and parallelism while cutting power consumption, with these features becoming increasingly important as artificial intelligence models migrate from cloud data centers into phones, PCs, cars and other modalities.LPDDR6旨在提高内存带宽和并行处理能力，同时降低功耗。随着人工智能模型逐步从云端数据中心向手机、个人电脑、汽车等各类终端迁移，这些性能正变得愈发重要。The Xiaomi partnership adds another dimension. It puts a Chinese-designed mobile processor and the country's newest-generation DRAM together inside a premium smartphone.与小米的合作则为这一进展增添了另一层意义：在一款高端智能手机中，中国自主设计的移动处理器将与国产最新一代DRAM实现协同应用。Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun said the company's Xring O3 would support CXMT's LPDDR6, and he expects deeper collaboration among Chinese tech companies.小米创始人兼首席执行官雷军表示，小米玄戒O3芯片将支持长鑫存储LPDDR6，并期待中国科技企业之间开展更加深入的合作。Advanced chips require years of engineering but also large-scale customer validation to improve yields, reliability and costs.先进芯片的研发不仅需要多年技术攻关，还需要通过大规模客户应用进行验证，以不断提高良率、可靠性并降低成本。China's huge base of smartphone, computer, electric vehicle and internet companies can give local chipmakers something laboratory breakthroughs alone cannot provide — millions of devices on which new technology can be tested and refined, industry experts said.业内专家表示，中国拥有庞大的智能手机、计算机、电动汽车和互联网产业，这可以为本土芯片企业提供单纯依靠实验室技术突破所无法获得的条件——让新技术在数以百万计的终端设备上接受检验，并在实际应用中持续迭代完善。Liu Zhiying, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, said, "An important factor in the growth of Chinese high-tech companies is their ability to connect research, commercialization and market applications, allowing leading companies to pull suppliers across the industrial chain forward."中国科学技术大学教授刘志迎表示：“中国高科技企业成长的一个重要因素，在于能够打通科研、商业化和市场应用各环节，让龙头企业发挥牵引作用，带动整个产业链上的供应商共同向前发展。”CXMT's technological progress is arriving alongside a dramatic expansion in its financial firepower. On Monday, shares of CXMT closed at 58.01 yuan ($8.6), down 1.01 percent on the day, valuing the company at about 3.94 trillion yuan and making it one of China's most valuable listed companies.长鑫存储在技术上取得进展的同时，资本实力也在迅速增强。周一，长鑫存储股价收于58.01元（约合8.6美元），当日下跌1.01%，公司市值约达3.94万亿元，跻身中国市值最高的上市公司之列。The company recently reported first-half revenue of 150.31 billion yuan, up about 874 percent from a year earlier, while net profit attributable to shareholders reached 77.61 billion yuan, reversing a 2.33 billion yuan loss a year earlier.公司近期公布的数据显示，上半年实现营业收入1503.1亿元，同比增长约874%；归属于股东的净利润达到776.1亿元，而去年同期则亏损23.3亿元，实现扭亏为盈。The surge was driven by sharply higher memory prices and rising sales as demand for computing power tightened global DRAM supplies, the company said.长鑫存储表示，这一大幅增长主要得益于存储芯片价格显著上涨以及销量增加。随着算力需求不断攀升，全球DRAM供应趋紧，进一步推高了市场需求。CXMT has grown into the world's fourth-largest DRAM producer, behind Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron, turning China from a marginal player in memory chips into an increasingly consequential competitor.目前，长鑫存储已成长为全球第四大DRAM生产商，仅次于三星电子、SK海力士和美光。这也推动中国从全球存储芯片市场中相对边缘的参与者，逐渐成长为一支影响力日益增强的竞争力量。Last week, CXMT sued the US Department of Defense in federal court in Washington, seeking removal from a Pentagon list of companies alleged to have ties to China's military.与此同时，长鑫存储上周在华盛顿联邦法院起诉美国国防部，要求将其从五角大楼一份所谓“与中国军方存在关联”的企业名单中移除。CXMT said its chips are designed primarily for civilian and commercial use and that it has no affiliation with the Chinese military.长鑫存储表示，其芯片主要面向民用和商业用途，公司与中国军方不存在关联。It said the designation was unsupported by facts and had damaged its reputation and business interests since it was first placed on the Pentagon's blacklist in January 2025.该公司称，美方这一认定缺乏事实依据。自2025年1月被列入五角大楼黑名单以来，这一做法已经损害了公司的声誉和商业利益。The lawsuit follows similar legal challenges by Chinese companies including Xiaomi and WuXi AppTec. Xiaomi successfully challenged an earlier Pentagon military designation in 2021.在长鑫存储之前，包括小米和药明康德在内的多家中国企业也曾针对美方类似认定发起法律挑战。其中，小米曾于2021年成功挑战五角大楼此前对其作出的所谓“涉军”认定。Zhang Sinan, an independent commentator who has been following the situation, said, "The US can keep extending the list, but the world will not stop needing cheaper clean energy, more efficient electric vehicles, more advanced drug development services or more flexible robotic applications simply because of a list."长期关注此事的独立评论人士张思南表示：“美国可以不断延长这份名单，但世界不会因为一份名单，就不再需要成本更低的清洁能源、更高效的电动汽车、更先进的药物研发服务，或更加灵活的机器人应用。”重点词汇提炼debut / ˈdeɪbjuː/ v./n.首次亮相；首发vanguard position / ˈvænɡɑːd pəˈzɪʃn/ n.前沿位置；领先地位global heavyweight / ˈɡləʊbl ˈheviweɪt/ n.全球行业巨头；重量级企业parallelism / ˈpærəlelɪzəm/ n.并行性；并行处理能力commercialization / kəˌmɜːʃəlaɪˈzeɪʃn/ n.商业化listed company / ˈlɪstɪd ˈkʌmpəni/ n.上市公司blacklist / ˈblæklɪst/ n./v.黑名单；列入黑名单
Picture by Michael Martine, Dennis, MA, August 2026 Published 31 August 2026 e566 with Michael M and Andy who strive to make fetch happen with AI podcast search and news aggregation, spoof computers (Mactini & MacBook Wheel), Doom ports & mods, Flying Toasters, falling Acme anvils and a whole lot more! Michael M and Andy get together while Michael R is away, starting and ending the episode with some classic lines from stage and screen. Michael M is freshly back from seeing the Cape Playhouse's rendition of Mean Girls, which was such a delight. Turning then to AI – the cohosts start off with a story about making podcasts searchable and usable by AI agents. This reminds Andy of Particle, an app that both he and Michael use occasionally to review the news. Next, they both use the Cringebot 3000 to make up some LinkedIn posts. Then, a series of hacks – beginning with a super fun one, the Apple Mactini, not to be confused with Dr. Dorian from Scrubs favorite drink – the appletini. The Mactini is not a watered down cocktail, rather it is a one button computer that Tucker Osman made based on the spoof of an Apple TV commercial from 20 years ago, and that remained true to the spoof in it's function. The Onion made a spoof of a click wheel (from the iPod) Mac in 2009 – and you can see that video in in the notes below. After checking out a number of LEGO gaming PCs, Andy shares the story of the eenk firmware for Xteink devices to create the choose your own adventure games we've been sharing on the podcast recently. Longtime listeners will know that the Games at Work team collects Doom stories, and for this episode, there are a couple of new examples. There's a story about Doom running on the EMFCamp Tildagon Badge, a mod called Mr. Friendly whose objective is to help the monsters recover from the latest space marine rampage, and an article about Anthropic's Claude playing the game. Closing out the show, Andy and Michael take a look at a port of the After Dark screen savers which you can now experience again thanks to Afterglow. They also look at a review of the Coyote vs Acme film that is premiering, and the linkage to Looney Tunes, and Ben Moor's talk entitled “Pronoun Trouble”. And, as mentioned at the start of the show notes, the ending for the episode ties everything up with an Elmer Fudd bow where we is hunting Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and Daffy of course utters the classic line in his classic voice, “You're despicable.” What is your favorite Acme product? Have your bots
Zum 15-jährigen Jubiläum von Stay Forever haben sich Gunnar und Chris ein besonderes Spiel ausgesucht. Also: jeder eines. Denn wie schon vor fünf Jahren beschenken wir uns gegenseitig mit einer Stay-Forever-Folge. Und so hat jeder von uns jeweils ein Spiel gewählt, an das er warme Erinnerungen hat, aber das eigentlich zu unbedeutend für eine SF-Hauptfolge wäre. Dies ist die Folge, die sich Chris gewünscht hat: Alley Cat ist ein frühes Jump&Run für die Atari 400/800-Geräte, das über einen Deal mit IBM für den PCJr. portiert wurde und dann auf den PCs der 80er im Wesentlichen per Raubkopie Verbreitung fand. Der Titel ist ein Solowerk von Bill Willams, dessen tragische Lebensgeschichte auch Thema in der Folge ist.
Timon and Corille travel through the underground. Scene 18 Notes In the audio for this episode, we mention other PCs who, like Timon, have Ignorance as their flaw. Imogen is from our StarCraft: FRAWD Investigators campaign and Heppa is from Wesnoth: Echoes of Invasion. Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com. Need context? Jump to the start of the series!
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how Google Cloud is expanding the Gemini ecosystem into the automotive world through its partnership with Mahindra. Highlights 00:03 — Google Cloud is partnering with the Indian automobile manufacturer Mahindra to get Gemini Enterprise installed directly into its vehicles. That's another interesting example that we're seeing here of AI leaping out of the digital space and becoming something much more physical. 00:23 — In this new development, the automotive agent in Gemini Enterprise is being integrated into MAIA, Mahindra's Artificial Intelligence Architecture platform. Beyond being a voice assistant, Gemini can understand natural language requests and actually interact with a car and its functions. 00:41 — Sashi Sreedharan, Managing Director of Google Cloud India, explained that "by enhancing its in-vehicle assistant with an automotive agent built on Gemini Enterprise, Mahindra is creating personalized and helpful conversational interactions for navigation, search, media communication, and other vehicle controls that will help drivers navigate and explore rich features in a more natural and helpful way." 01:13 — What we're seeing here is pretty significant: AI operating at the edge, with this idea of the digital and physical working together, and the car becoming the AI endpoint. This is also a really important way for Google Cloud to expand the Gemini ecosystem beyond smartphones, PCs, and enterprise software. 01:37 — The real opportunity that I see here isn't necessarily about Gemini as an AI assistant, but where the tech is embedded; it's those all-important endpoints. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
A New Law That Could Destroy Open Source Forever SUPPORT MY WORK: Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at https://www.usermag.co Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz To listen to the full episode and get access to more bonus episodes, an ad-free listening experience, and my weekly newsletter, subscribe to my Patreon or Substack
Watch the Devotion Based on Matthew 16:21-26 Embrace the Suck They've cut off all your hair and the only personal possessions you have are your Bible and a notebook? Embrace the suck. Deployment has been extended again? Embrace the suck. PCS orders have been delayed? Embrace the suck. Oh, our household goods won't arrive on time and when they do some of them will be broken? Embrace the suck. Whether you are new to the military community or you're counting down the days and weeks to retirement, you know that there are circumstances beyond your control, ones that are unique to a life that is scripted by the Department of War. And when an event happens today that is beyond your control you have learned to say, “Embrace the suck,” and to do just that. I know that most of the time this is said tongue in cheek, but sometimes that event, those circumstances that are beyond your control, can be miserable, painful, they weigh on your heart and mind and soul. There are different ways you can respond. You can accept it and move on with resiliency. Easier said than done. . . Or. . . you can run away from it, ignore it, as if it didn't happen, but you'll eventually have to deal with it. Or. . . you can sit and wallow in your self-pity. Or. . . you can ask Jesus, “What did you do, when you had to embrace the suck?” Because Jesus, too, had to embrace the suck. Jesus addresses all of those times in life when we as Christians have to do things we don't want to do, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). When Jesus tells you to deny yourself, he means that you learn to say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” God does have your best interests in mind. He promises it, “I will make all things work out for your benefit” (Romans 8:28). And so you have to trust him even when that thing you are going through seems to challenge his word. When Jesus tells you to take up your cross and follow me, it means that you must deny your own doubts and fears, and say, “No matter how great my pain, how horrible my suffering, my God remains my God and Savior because he has promised to be my God and Savior. I will embrace his promises even when they seem to contradict his promise of grace and help in every need.” Christ doesn't just tell us to do these things without showing us that he did them for us. Christ embraced the suck, but more than that! He embraced the good and gracious will of his Father, even when it was difficult, even when it meant he suffered, even when it meant he endured the separation of hell and death and grave for us. He grasped the cross for you so that one day, you will set it down and rest forever. Prayer: Lord Jesus, you know the unique hardships that our war fighters and their dependents must endure. Teach them to embrace their crosses with joy, keeping your promises ever before their eyes, so that they may always know that you love them, that you will be their strength and their hope until life eternal. Use us to remind those who are deployed or separated from their loved ones of your promises. Preserve their faith in you until you bring them home again. In your name we pray it. Amen. Written and recorded by Rev. Paul Horn, WELS National Civilian Chaplain to the Military, San Diego, California. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Note: Scripture reading footnotes are clickable only in the web version.
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Jay Ritter. They break down what Apple, Nvidia, the dot-com boom, and today's AI giants can teach us about IPOs, why companies leave money on the table on day one, why firms stay private longer, and what the data actually says about long-term IPO performance.—SPONSORS:Pulley is an equity management platform that lets you issue options, model dilution, and complete 409As without your cap table turning into a spreadsheet disaster. Founders raising, hiring, and scaling use Pulley to keep equity clean and stay focused on building. Learn more or request a demo at https://pulley.com/mostlymetricsRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjMaximor is an autonomous finance platform that runs order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, the close, cash management, and reporting on self-learning agents instead of a dozen disconnected tools. One PE-backed customer posts 98% of transactions directly to its ERP, with the remaining 2% routed to a human for review. You pay for outcomes, not seats. See it at https://www.maximor.ai/Brex is an intelligent finance platform with AI-powered workflows that enforce expense policies at the point of sale, match receipts automatically, and reduce month-end close from weeks to hours. Thousands of companies, including Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash, already run on Brex. Stop asking A-level finance talent to do B-level admin work. Learn more at https://www.brex.com/metricsAnrok is the sales tax platform that watches your exposure everywhere, automates compliance, and flags risk before it turns into a surprise back-tax letter from a state you've never set foot in. Companies like Anthropic, Notion, and Vanta already trust Anrok to stay ahead of rules that move faster than any spreadsheet can. Talk to a sales tax expert for a personalized exposure estimate at https://www.anrok.com/rtnRightRev is a revenue recognition platform built for the AI economy, helping finance support usage-based pricing, credits, hybrid contracts, seats plus consumption, and whatever commercial model comes next. It gives product teams the freedom to keep innovating without outdated revenue systems slowing them down. Learn how RightRev can help at https://rightrev.com/cjEY has been part of Silicon Valley since it was just a valley, helping the most successful names in tech go from startup to exit to megacap. With teams across strategy, tax, audit, and transactions, EY helps you get your financials right early, long before your investors start asking for it. You build the next big thing, and EY will help you build it right. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartups—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-ritter-1323861/Company: https://www.ufl.edu/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and Intro3:10 Meet Jay Ritter, Mr. IPO4:02 The Original 1983 Question5:08 PCs, Internet, and AI Compared9:36 Network Effects14:46 Sitzfleisch: Outlasting the Field16:10 Where Have All the IPOs Gone23:29 IPOs as Relationship-Building26:31 Why Investors Tolerate Founder Control29:16 Dual-Class Stock's Origins30:21 How Jay's Thinking Evolved31:36 Why Boards Don't Get Angry34:39 Banks' Real Client: Institutions37:08 Book Building38:56 Why Direct Listings Haven't Taken Over39:57 What Goldman Is Really Selling41:57 Sentiment vs. Long-Term Performance43:13 Does Staying Private Help Society49:35 Asking Better Questions with EY52:12 Are Markets Efficient
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PHP Podcast – August 27, 2026 Hosts: Joe Ferguson, Sara Golemon & Holly Schilling Zero-downtime swaps that nobody noticed, 3D printers that refuse to calibrate, a nostalgia tour through the entire PHPArch back catalog, Go generics, TypePHP, and a very good reason to book a flight to Belgium. This one lived in the gutter and loved it. Zero-Downtime Environment Swaps in AWS Joe kicked off the show talking about migrating a client’s production, staging, and test environments to completely new Elastic Beanstalk setups in AWS — during one of the client’s biggest selling seasons — and nobody noticed except him. That’s the dream: a zero-downtime upgrade that customers never feel. He explained that this was actually the second full rebuild of these servers in two months. The first migration got them off an aging Amazon Linux platform, and once everything was captured in CloudFormation templates and supporting scripts, swapping to an entirely new environment for an SSL certificate adjustment was suddenly no big deal. Being able to swap whole fleets of application servers behind a CNAME or DNS record and have clients never know is, in Joe’s words, one of the coolest things about cloud computing that will never get old. It also spawned a new accidental buzzword: “infrastructure as cloud.” 3D Printing Trials, Tribulations, and Guitar-String Belts Sara got her 3D printer working and has been printing everything from QR codes to a donate-link plaque for the PHP Foundation booth (inspired by feedback Sebastian got at a conference), all using the tried-and-true multicolor technique of hitting pause at the right layer and swapping filament. This is Sara’s fourth printer that should have been her third — she detailed the multi-day kit assemblies, belts that had to be tightened like guitar strings before calibration would work, and a tiny plastic pulley holder that snapped apart. Apparently nobody in Lisbon has a working 3D printer to help print a replacement part, so she resorted to sanding wood into a makeshift holder before finally getting it running and printing spares of everything. Holly admitted 3D printing is another expensive hobby she’d never follow through on, and Joe confessed he’d want the “Apple of 3D printers” that never jams — the same reason flying drones didn’t stick for him, since what he was actually doing was crashing and repairing drones. Sara later shared her first real project: little blue printed brackets that consolidate her monitor’s power and Thunderbolt into a single clean cord. Old Tech Nostalgia: Radio Shack Kits, Punch Cards, and Hard Drive Platters The crew took a deep dive into computing nostalgia. Sara reminisced about Radio Shack electronics kits with big springs you’d push aside to hold wires in place, lamenting that modern kits just have you jumper a GPS to a single-board computer — something big is missing from that experience. Holly recalled hacking on a third-hand 8088 laptop from a garage sale because her parents wouldn’t let her touch the family 486, and spending a full year in 1997 trying to get DHCP working across three Windows 95 machines before giving up and hard-coding IP addresses. Sara topped it with serial null-modem cables running between rooms in her first apartment, back when your serial port was your network. Holly then held up hard-drive platters she keeps as wall decoration, prompting a genuinely fun tangent about whether you could manually write bits to a low-density platter with a needle and magnet — a “solvable problem” per Joe, complete with G-code and a printed robot housing. The group also swapped memories of building PCs when a video card was mandatory and Sound Blaster was king, plus punch cards still stacked in a university basement at the turn of the century. Go Generic Methods, the PHPArch Archive Vault, and PHP 8.6 Go’s newest release finally added support for generic methods (it already had generic structs and functions), which Holly noted is PHP-relevant since it ties back to her own generics proposal debates. Sara puzzled over why methods and functions weren’t just supported together, since the only declarative difference is that receiver parameter — leading to an impromptu live look at the syntax and the conclusion that “all of Go is weird, just in the opposite direction PHP is weird.” Eric dropped breaking news mid-show: anyone with a phparch.com account — even an old one from a lapsed subscription — now has access to the magazine archive going all the way back. Joe pulled up Volume One, Issue One, and dug up a November 2002 piece about PHP 4.3 RC2 — right around when Sara submitted her first PHP patch and gave the world unified streams. They also covered Eric Van Johnson’s blog post on the PHP 8.6 soft feature freeze. Beta 2 shipped with a lot more deprecations landing that weren’t in beta 1, and the hosts encouraged listeners feeling froggy to grab it and test drive. Holly griped that one of her merged 8.6 changes didn’t even get a mention — thanks a lot, Eric. TypePHP and Competing Runtimes The team dug into TypePHP, which compiles PHP down to a native binary. Sara was openly dubious of the speed claims — a 50% gain wouldn’t surprise her, but an 8x gain needs much better data — while Joe noted the only demos so far are CLI apps, not traditional web workloads, and worried the authors are writing a very different style of PHP than most people do. Holly framed it through history: the whole reason PHP, Perl, and CGI exist is to avoid the per-request cost of loading and launching a native binary, so she’s curious what tradeoffs a compiled approach makes — especially since people sensitive to raw performance often reach for Go in the first place. She also pointed out most PHP code is just reading a file, not running the billion-row challenge. Sara pushed back on the “competing runtime” framing, recalling HHVM as more synergistic than antagonistic — it launched with PHP’s own code inside it, and PHP 7 hitting the speed of PHP 5 was directly informed by HHVM’s research. The real test will be whether TypePHP can run real Laravel apps and WordPress sites reliably enough for ecosystem adoption, the same way HHVM eventually powered Wikipedia’s front end with just a single WordPress patch. PHP Foundation Speaker Accreditation & PHP BeNeLux Returns Joe covered today’s PHP Foundation Ambassador SIG meeting, focused on the speaker subgroup and a proposal James Seconde has been working on. The goal is a foundation accreditation program that builds a list of speakers who can carry a consistent PHP message, tapped by geographic region so events get local speakers, more diverse voices get on stage, and nobody gets burned out flying halfway across the world when four nearby speakers could do the same talk. The big excitement, though, was the announcement of PHP BeNeLux in Antwerp, Belgium in January 2027 — the first since January 2020 before COVID. Sara audibly lost it, partly because it lines up with FOSDEM and partly out of love for longtime organizer Michelangelo van Dam, whom Joe credited as a huge, welcoming reason he got involved in the PHP community in the first place. Both hosts are already thinking about submitting talks. Links from the show: PHP Tek 2027 CFP — extended through end of October PHP Tek 2027 — April 27–29, Chicago (tickets available) PHPArch Swag Store 3D Code Generator Export QR codes as STL for 3D printing PHPArch.com Magazine Archive — now available to all account holders PHP 8.6 Beta 2 — now available for testing TypePHP — PHP compiled to a native binary PHPBenelux — Antwerp, Belgium, January 2027 Host: Joe Ferguson Mastodon: @joepferguson@phpc.social PHPArch.me: @svpernova09 Sara Golemon Mastodon: @pollita@phpc.social Holly Schilling Mastodon: @TheCodeLorax@tech.lgbt Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ OurCVEs Your security posture, on autopilot with OurCVEs CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. PHP Architect Consulting Your PHP codebase deserves a partner, not a contractor PHP Architect provides long-term technical partnerships for organizations that need senior-level PHP expertise that you can depend on. https://www.phparch.com/consulting/ Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Join Us Live Next Week Youtube Channel Got feedback? Join us on Discord at discord.phparch.com The post The PHP Podcast 2026.08.27 appeared first on PHP Architect.
What if you didn't have as much time as you think you do? It might be an uncomfortable question, but it can also bring incredible clarity to the way you're living your life right now.In this episode of Leading With Heart, I'm joined once again by transformational wellness educator, certified grief coach, retired U.S. Air Force officer, and bestselling author Christina Stiverson for a conversation about mortality, meaning, and what it really means to live with intention. We talk about the identities we build around our roles, accomplishments, military service, and responsibilities, and what can happen when we create enough space to ask ourselves what actually matters. Christina also shares how losing her daughter Addie changed the way she thinks about her own legacy and why your legacy isn't something you leave behind someday. You're creating it through the way you live, love, and show up today.In This Episode:Why thinking about mortality can actually help you live with more intentionHow military service can shape your identity, values, and definition of successWhy grief can show up through transitions, PCS moves, retirement, and changes in identityWhat it means to separate who you are from your roles, rank, and accomplishmentsHow Christina uses the five mirrors of meaning, awareness, relationships, preparation, and legacyWhy your legacy is something you are actively creating every dayChristina will also be joining us inside the Lead Your Life app as our September guest coach for a four-week Live With Intention experience. Together, we'll move beyond listening and actually create space to examine what matters, where you may be living on autopilot, and how you want to use the life you have right now.RESOURCES:Christina's Book: https://a.co/d/0dYJsOSrTough Conversations - Navigating Grief in Leadership with Christina Stiversonhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tough-conversations-navigating-grief-in-leadership/id1690855329?i=1000679196952Join the Lead Your Life App: https://www.christinamattisonyoga.com/lead-your-life-appSHOW NOTES: https://www.christinamattisonyoga.com/blog/episode98Thanks for listening! Connect with me in the Strong and Resilient Woman Community on Facebook HERE (https://www.facebook.com/groups/yogaformilitarywomen), or on Instagram @themilitaryyogiConnect with me in the Strong and Resilient Woman Community on Facebook HERE (https://www.facebook.com/groups/yogaformilitarywomen), or on Instagram @themilitaryyogiMore about Christina Mattison and the Leading with Heart PodcastHey there! I'm Christina Mattison, an Air Force Officer, yoga teacher, dedicated wife, and proud mother of two. But most importantly, I'm here as a wellness and leadership coach for women in the military. I want you to know something: It doesn't have to be this way.I've walked in your combat boots, and I understand the chaos that often accompanies military life. But I'm here to share a powerful truth with you: You have the innate ability to transform your own life. I've personally experienced this transformation, and I've witnessed it in the lives of countless clients I've had the privilege to guide.Welcome to the Leading With Heart podcast your ultimate resource for discovering how to infuse joy, peace, and true success into every facet of military life.**The views and opinions expressed within this podcast episode are those of the individual, and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of Defense or its components.
Most people dread PCS season for how much it drains the bank account — Jared flips it into a $7,500 payday. Back on the show, the host of the Military Miler podcast breaks down the exact moves he used moving his family from Italy to Japan: circuitous travel memos, leave in conjunction with official travel, stacking credit card credits, and pocketing thousands in COLA and utilities along the way. But this one goes deeper than travel hacking — it's a candid conversation about budgeting overseas, why your savings rate should bend to your values, and the trap of chasing financial independence so hard you forget to live. Practical tactics up front, real talk about "enjoying the ride" on the back half. Questions Asked: What's the strategy you're using to plus up your bank account before your next OCONUS assignment? Why did your chief recommend NOT going TDY en route, and how does transient BAH factor in? How does circuitous travel work, and how much does the Air Force reimburse per person? How do programs like LICWO (Leave in Conjunction with Official Travel) and circuitous travel actually save families money? What credit card moves are you stacking to get reimbursed for flights, fees, and pet travel? Living OCONUS, have you found any apps, tips, or systems that help track expenses and stick to a budget? Why did you switch from YNAB to Monarch Money, and what won you over? How do you handle irregular overseas bills, currency exchange, and fuel cards when budgeting? Which credit cards make sense overseas (foreign transaction fees, Visa/Mastercard acceptance)? How do you decide between living on base vs. off base — and paying above your BAH? What do you give up by chasing an extremely high savings rate, and is there a better balance? Where can people find you and what are you working on? Main Topics Covered: Turning a PCS into a profit: banking ~$2,500/month in saved COLA and utilities for a ~$7,500 net gain Circuitous travel and LICWO explained — and getting a $4,500-per-person reimbursement memo "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" — advocating for better travel options instead of accepting the worst flights Keeping family in a higher-BAH location, SCRA lease breaks, and shipping goods early to save Reducing the PCS burden on your spouse as part of the service member's job Credit card strategy: airline fee credits (Amex Platinum, Ritz-Carlton), Sapphire Reserve travel credits, and getting cat/pet fees reimbursed Budgeting overseas: YNAB vs. Monarch Money, auto-categorization, and creating spending rules Handling irregular utility bills, delayed charges, currency swings, and fuel cards abroad Building a bigger emergency fund and "don't spend your utility money" advice for new OCONUS airmen Foreign transaction fees — why annual-fee cards (waived for active duty) and Visa/Mastercard win overseas Weekly money meetings and aligning spending with your values (h/t Rebel Finance School, Ramit Sethi) Using points and miles to fly family in, book cheap intra-Asia trips, and buy "free" wants (Sonos speakers) A real-world redemption: 27,000 Alaska points + $150 vs. $1,600 cash for family flights Seasons of military life — the adventure vs. community continuum, and choosing per assignment The FIRE trap: why "sacrifice everything now" is shortsighted, and enjoying the ride to financial independence Bonus: Japanese microvans and minivans (Honda N-Box, Toyota Alphard, Delica) and the weak yen Links & Resources Mentioned: Military Miler podcast (YouTube and all podcast platforms) militarytravelrewards.com Monarch Money https://www.monarch.com/ (referral link for ~50% off first year) https://www.monarch.com/referral?code=iqj4r4ixad Military Money Manual mentorship — militarymoneymanual.com/mentor Referenced first appearance: Military Money Manual episode 217 Spencer and Jamie offer one-on-one Military Money Mentor sessions. Get your personal military money and personal finance questions answered in a confidential coaching call. militarymoneymanual.com/mentor Over 24,000 military servicemembers and military spouses have graduated from the 100% free, Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course available at militarymoneymanual.com/umc3 In the Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course, you can learn how to apply for the most premium credit cards and get special military protections, such as waived annual fees, on elite cards. Learn how active duty military, military spouses, and Guard and Reserves on 30+ day active orders can get your annual fees waived on premium credit cards in the Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course at militarymoneymanual.com/umc3 If you want to maximize your military paycheck, check out Spencer's 5 star rated book The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom on Amazon or at shop.militarymoneymanual.com. If you have a question you would like us to answer on the podcast, please reach out on instagram.com/militarymoneymanual.
August is a time of change for many. For families with children, it's back-to-school time. For many AFSPA members, it's also PCS season. This can all combine to make for a challenging period. To help us talk through ways to manage these changes, we're talking with Catherine McLean, MSW, LCSW, from the Truman Group. She shares her knowledge as a licensed clinical social worker and her experience as an expat and a counselor to many other expats. To help after the episode ends, she's also shared an infographic available here.Upcoming events: www.afspa.org/events Truman Group: www.trumangroup.com
SSDs und Arbeitsspeicher sind weiter teuer, und wie die c't-Experten Christian Hirsch und Florian Müssig analysieren, wird das vorläufig so bleiben – und zwar nicht nur ein paar Wochen lang, sondern eher auf einige Jahre hinaus. Aber derart lange vorhandene PCs und Notebooks weiter zu nutzen und die Speicherkrise einfach auszusitzen, ist nicht für jeden praktikabel. Lässt sich ein Neukauf nicht weiter hinauszögern, sollten auch Gebrauchtgeräte in die Überlegungen einbezogen werden. In diesem Video-Podcast stellen wir Hardware-Empfehlungen zusammen und diskutieren Alternativen wie externe SSDs oder Aufrüsten. Auch warnen wir vor einigen Fallstricken, denn inzwischen ist auch der Gebrauchtmarkt ganz schön abgegrast. Die empfehlenswerten Gebrauchtgeräte sind Firmenrückläufer. Was nach drei Jahren abgeschrieben ist oder aus dem Leasing fällt, geht an Refurbisher, die sich um Details wie das Aufspielen gültiger Windows-Lizenzen kümmern. Aber weil auch die Firmen unter den gestiegenen Neupreisen leiden, nutzen viele die Geräte fünf Jahre und länger. Entsprechend ältere Geräte dominieren nun den Gebrauchtmarkt. In vieler Hinsicht ist das kein Risiko, weil wichtige Techniken wie schnelle Prozessoren, vollwertige USB-C-Ports und auch die Windows-11-Tauglichkeit seit vielen Jahren üblich sind. Aber Vorsicht ist dennoch geboten, da einige Händler nun auch die verstaubtesten Ladenhüter auf den Markt bringen. Und einige Details wie gute Mikrofone und Webcams kamen teils erst deutlich nach Corona in Mode und in die Firmengeräte. Christian und Florian geben weitere Tipps und erklären, warum auch die Gebrauchtpreise mit den Speicherpreisen steigen. Im Windows-Bereich sollte man Intel- oder AMD-Geräte kaufen. ARM/Qualcomm holt zwar auf, aber die guten Prozessoren sind im Gebrauchtmarkt noch nicht zu finden. Genau anders herum bei macOS: Für Intel geht die Unterstützung absehbar zurück, also sollte man gebrauchte Apple-Hardware nur mit M-Prozessoren kaufen – der M1 ist für vieles weiterhin schnell genug. Dem Aufrüsten – sowohl der eigenen Geräte als auch etwaigen nur zu schwachbrüstig gefundenen Gebrauchten – sind enge Grenzen gesetzt: Bei vielen Notebooks ist der Speicher fest aufgelötet, der Prozessor inzwischen immer. An die SSD-Module kommt man zwar bei manchen Modellen, aber fast alle Firmen-Notebooks vertragen nur ganz bestimmte Module. Die c't-Redakteure erklären, warum man dann nicht einmal herausfinden kann, welche Module das sind. Spannend in dieser Hinsicht sind die modularen und aufrüstfreudigen Notebooks vom Hersteller Framework. Diese durchaus erfolgreiche Firmenstrategie führt allerdings dazu, dass Framework im Gebrauchtmarkt kaum eine Rolle spielt. Die Zusammenhänge erläutert Florian. Besser sieht's bei Desktop-Rechnern aus. Passende RAM-Riegel und SSDs lassen sich einfacher finden, und mit etwas Vorplanung verträgt das Mainboard sogar noch ein paar neuere Prozessorgenerationen. Trotzdem empfehlen Christian und Florian, gebrauchte Notebooks und PCs komplett zu kaufen, vor allem aufgrund der Händlergewährleistung. Das ist auch der Hauptgrund, weswegen die c't-Redakteure vom Privatkauf abraten – oder man sollte sich zumindest der Risiken bewusst sein, auch in Bezug auf Verschmutzungen oder Windows-Lizenz. Zudem haben die Consumer-Baureihen inzwischen manchen technischen Fortschritt erst später bekommen als die Business-Baureihen. Ach, und wer Gaming-Grafik erwartet, der Podcast geht ausführlich drauf ein, aber die Kurzform ist: das gibt der Gebrauchtmarkt nicht her.
SSDs und Arbeitsspeicher sind weiter teuer, und wie die c't-Experten Christian Hirsch und Florian Müssig analysieren, wird das vorläufig so bleiben – und zwar nicht nur ein paar Wochen lang, sondern eher auf einige Jahre hinaus. Aber derart lange vorhandene PCs und Notebooks weiter zu nutzen und die Speicherkrise einfach auszusitzen, ist nicht für jeden praktikabel. Lässt sich ein Neukauf nicht weiter hinauszögern, sollten auch Gebrauchtgeräte in die Überlegungen einbezogen werden. In diesem Video-Podcast stellen wir Hardware-Empfehlungen zusammen und diskutieren Alternativen wie externe SSDs oder Aufrüsten. Auch warnen wir vor einigen Fallstricken, denn inzwischen ist auch der Gebrauchtmarkt ganz schön abgegrast. Die empfehlenswerten Gebrauchtgeräte sind Firmenrückläufer. Was nach drei Jahren abgeschrieben ist oder aus dem Leasing fällt, geht an Refurbisher, die sich um Details wie das Aufspielen gültiger Windows-Lizenzen kümmern. Aber weil auch die Firmen unter den gestiegenen Neupreisen leiden, nutzen viele die Geräte fünf Jahre und länger. Entsprechend ältere Geräte dominieren nun den Gebrauchtmarkt. In vieler Hinsicht ist das kein Risiko, weil wichtige Techniken wie schnelle Prozessoren, vollwertige USB-C-Ports und auch die Windows-11-Tauglichkeit seit vielen Jahren üblich sind. Aber Vorsicht ist dennoch geboten, da einige Händler nun auch die verstaubtesten Ladenhüter auf den Markt bringen. Und einige Details wie gute Mikrofone und Webcams kamen teils erst deutlich nach Corona in Mode und in die Firmengeräte. Christian und Florian geben weitere Tipps und erklären, warum auch die Gebrauchtpreise mit den Speicherpreisen steigen. Im Windows-Bereich sollte man Intel- oder AMD-Geräte kaufen. ARM/Qualcomm holt zwar auf, aber die guten Prozessoren sind im Gebrauchtmarkt noch nicht zu finden. Genau anders herum bei macOS: Für Intel geht die Unterstützung absehbar zurück, also sollte man gebrauchte Apple-Hardware nur mit M-Prozessoren kaufen – der M1 ist für vieles weiterhin schnell genug. Dem Aufrüsten – sowohl der eigenen Geräte als auch etwaigen nur zu schwachbrüstig gefundenen Gebrauchten – sind enge Grenzen gesetzt: Bei vielen Notebooks ist der Speicher fest aufgelötet, der Prozessor inzwischen immer. An die SSD-Module kommt man zwar bei manchen Modellen, aber fast alle Firmen-Notebooks vertragen nur ganz bestimmte Module. Die c't-Redakteure erklären, warum man dann nicht einmal herausfinden kann, welche Module das sind. Spannend in dieser Hinsicht sind die modularen und aufrüstfreudigen Notebooks vom Hersteller Framework. Diese durchaus erfolgreiche Firmenstrategie führt allerdings dazu, dass Framework im Gebrauchtmarkt kaum eine Rolle spielt. Die Zusammenhänge erläutert Florian. Besser sieht's bei Desktop-Rechnern aus. Passende RAM-Riegel und SSDs lassen sich einfacher finden, und mit etwas Vorplanung verträgt das Mainboard sogar noch ein paar neuere Prozessorgenerationen. Trotzdem empfehlen Christian und Florian, gebrauchte Notebooks und PCs komplett zu kaufen, vor allem aufgrund der Händlergewährleistung. Das ist auch der Hauptgrund, weswegen die c't-Redakteure vom Privatkauf abraten – oder man sollte sich zumindest der Risiken bewusst sein, auch in Bezug auf Verschmutzungen oder Windows-Lizenz. Zudem haben die Consumer-Baureihen inzwischen manchen technischen Fortschritt erst später bekommen als die Business-Baureihen. Ach, und wer Gaming-Grafik erwartet, der Podcast geht ausführlich drauf ein, aber die Kurzform ist: das gibt der Gebrauchtmarkt nicht her. Mit dabei: Christian Hirsch, Florian Müssig Moderation: Jörg Wirtgen Produktion: Tobias Reimer
SSDs und Arbeitsspeicher sind weiter teuer, und wie die c't-Experten Christian Hirsch und Florian Müssig analysieren, wird das vorläufig so bleiben – und zwar nicht nur ein paar Wochen lang, sondern eher auf einige Jahre hinaus. Aber derart lange vorhandene PCs und Notebooks weiter zu nutzen und die Speicherkrise einfach auszusitzen, ist nicht für jeden praktikabel. Lässt sich ein Neukauf nicht weiter hinauszögern, sollten auch Gebrauchtgeräte in die Überlegungen einbezogen werden. In diesem Video-Podcast stellen wir Hardware-Empfehlungen zusammen und diskutieren Alternativen wie externe SSDs oder Aufrüsten. Auch warnen wir vor einigen Fallstricken, denn inzwischen ist auch der Gebrauchtmarkt ganz schön abgegrast. Die empfehlenswerten Gebrauchtgeräte sind Firmenrückläufer. Was nach drei Jahren abgeschrieben ist oder aus dem Leasing fällt, geht an Refurbisher, die sich um Details wie das Aufspielen gültiger Windows-Lizenzen kümmern. Aber weil auch die Firmen unter den gestiegenen Neupreisen leiden, nutzen viele die Geräte fünf Jahre und länger. Entsprechend ältere Geräte dominieren nun den Gebrauchtmarkt. In vieler Hinsicht ist das kein Risiko, weil wichtige Techniken wie schnelle Prozessoren, vollwertige USB-C-Ports und auch die Windows-11-Tauglichkeit seit vielen Jahren üblich sind. Aber Vorsicht ist dennoch geboten, da einige Händler nun auch die verstaubtesten Ladenhüter auf den Markt bringen. Und einige Details wie gute Mikrofone und Webcams kamen teils erst deutlich nach Corona in Mode und in die Firmengeräte. Christian und Florian geben weitere Tipps und erklären, warum auch die Gebrauchtpreise mit den Speicherpreisen steigen. Im Windows-Bereich sollte man Intel- oder AMD-Geräte kaufen. ARM/Qualcomm holt zwar auf, aber die guten Prozessoren sind im Gebrauchtmarkt noch nicht zu finden. Genau anders herum bei macOS: Für Intel geht die Unterstützung absehbar zurück, also sollte man gebrauchte Apple-Hardware nur mit M-Prozessoren kaufen – der M1 ist für vieles weiterhin schnell genug. Dem Aufrüsten – sowohl der eigenen Geräte als auch etwaigen nur zu schwachbrüstig gefundenen Gebrauchten – sind enge Grenzen gesetzt: Bei vielen Notebooks ist der Speicher fest aufgelötet, der Prozessor inzwischen immer. An die SSD-Module kommt man zwar bei manchen Modellen, aber fast alle Firmen-Notebooks vertragen nur ganz bestimmte Module. Die c't-Redakteure erklären, warum man dann nicht einmal herausfinden kann, welche Module das sind. Spannend in dieser Hinsicht sind die modularen und aufrüstfreudigen Notebooks vom Hersteller Framework. Diese durchaus erfolgreiche Firmenstrategie führt allerdings dazu, dass Framework im Gebrauchtmarkt kaum eine Rolle spielt. Die Zusammenhänge erläutert Florian. Besser sieht's bei Desktop-Rechnern aus. Passende RAM-Riegel und SSDs lassen sich einfacher finden, und mit etwas Vorplanung verträgt das Mainboard sogar noch ein paar neuere Prozessorgenerationen. Trotzdem empfehlen Christian und Florian, gebrauchte Notebooks und PCs komplett zu kaufen, vor allem aufgrund der Händlergewährleistung. Das ist auch der Hauptgrund, weswegen die c't-Redakteure vom Privatkauf abraten – oder man sollte sich zumindest der Risiken bewusst sein, auch in Bezug auf Verschmutzungen oder Windows-Lizenz. Zudem haben die Consumer-Baureihen inzwischen manchen technischen Fortschritt erst später bekommen als die Business-Baureihen. Ach, und wer Gaming-Grafik erwartet, der Podcast geht ausführlich drauf ein, aber die Kurzform ist: das gibt der Gebrauchtmarkt nicht her. Mit dabei: Christian Hirsch, Florian Müssig Moderation: Jörg Wirtgen Produktion: Tobias Reimer
The PCs shift the balance of power during a roadside ambush. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/85L22GAPBAE Get BONUS CONTENT every week at http://jointhenaish.com, including the Mission Debrief, our exclusive We Shouldn't Be Alive companion where we discuss and break down the latest episode, plus ad-free episodes, exclusive podcasts, and more. Come see us LIVE in a city near you at https://www.glasscannonnetwork.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What would happen to your business tomorrow if you suddenly could not personally handle every task you handle today?? In this episode of the Real Estate Excellence Podcast, Tracy Hayes sits down with Angela Stancil. Angela Stancil is a Northeast Florida REALTOR whose career began in education, first in the classroom and later in school administration, before an unexpected relocation to Florida opened the door to real estate. Working behind the scenes with Team Davidow gave Angela an unusual introduction to the industry. Instead of beginning by chasing transactions, she first learned operations, client communication, negotiation, marketing, organization, and the systems that make a productive real estate business work. Angela shares how relationships became the foundation of her business and why listening carefully to buyers and sellers creates better outcomes than simply trying to make a sale. She explains the importance of consultations, transaction support, assistants, CRMs, customer appreciation events, vendor relationships, and delegation. Her experience also demonstrates why a business needs systems strong enough to continue when life becomes unpredictable. Angela's story ultimately shows that sustainable success comes from relationships, preparation, communication, and building a business that does not depend on one person doing everything. If you are building a real estate career, take Angela's advice seriously. Strengthen your systems, stay connected with your clients, delegate the work that keeps you away from relationships, and build a business capable of serving people consistently through every season. HighlightsTop of FormBottom of Form 00:00-24:46 From Education to Real Estate Angela's career in teaching and school administration Relocating from North Carolina to Florida Meeting Amy Davidow through relocation Learning real estate from the back end Growing from open houses into millions in production 24:46-42:34 Systems Delegation and Client Service Building systems that allow agents to grow Hiring an assistant and delegating repeatable tasks Using client events and local businesses to stay connected Hiring transaction support before marketing support Using AI to simplify client communication 42:34-56:16 Relationships Team Culture and Cancer How Angela's own relocation shaped her client experience Applying lessons from education to real estate Building an all for one team culture Keeping the business running through cancer treatment Using the CRM team and systems when she could not work fully 56:16-01:05:06 Relocation and Northeast Florida Expertise Helping military families with PCS relocations Balancing commute schools work and lifestyle Comparing Shearwater Silverleaf Rivertown and other communities Using area tours to help families make decisions Educating buyers about future roads schools and community changes 01:05:06-01:19:09 New Construction and Lifelong Clients Evaluating how long buyers plan to stay Understanding builders products and future phases Using multiple inspections in new construction Matching communities to family activities and lifestyle Maintaining vendor connections long after closing 01:19:09-01:24:45 Current Market Challenges and Choosing the Right Agent Setting realistic seller pricing and timing expectations Helping buyers understand available negotiation options Choosing an experienced new construction agent Asking builders lenders and insurance questions Using better questions to make more informed real estate decisions Quotes: "Tell me more. What's your end goal? How can I get you there?" – Angela Stancil "Our goal is not to make decisions. The buyer or the seller is the one making the decisions, but we are to lay out pathways." – Angela Stancil "The lender on the buy side and the title company on the sell side literally can make or break a deal." – Angela Stancil "The building blocks and the foundation of your business are so much more important than your business card." – Angela Stancil To contact Angela Stancil, learn more about her business, and make her a part of your network, make sure to follow her Website, Instagram, and Facebook. Connect with Angela Stancil! Website: https://www.teamdavidow.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/angelastancilrealtor Facebook: https://facebook.com/teamdavidow Connect with me! Website: toprealtorjacksonville.com Website: toprealtorstaugustine.com SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW as we discuss real estate excellence with the best of the best. #RealEstateExcellence #AngelaStancil #RealEstatePodcast #TeamDavidow #ColdwellBankerVanguard #NortheastFloridaRealEstate #JacksonvilleRealEstate #FlemingIslandRealEstate #ClayCountyRealEstate #StJohnsCountyRealEstate #FloridaRealEstate #RealEstateAgent #RealEstateSystems #ReferralBusiness #RealEstateMarketing #ClientRelationships #RealEstateCareer #RealEstateSuccess #RealEstateTips #RealEstateLeadership
Episode Description That magazine you grab on your way into the commissary? It's been there for nearly 70 years — and there's a four-generation family story behind it. In this episode, Spencer sits down with Joe Mugnai, whose grandfather launched Family Magazine in 1958 to help military families stretch every dollar. Today it distributes 400,000 copies a month across commissaries worldwide. But Joe isn't just carrying the torch — he's building the next chapter: The Garrison Ledger, a free suite of always-accurate military benefit tools designed to cut through confusing government archives and give service members straight answers they can actually trust. Questions Asked Where did Family Magazine start in 1958, and how are you connected to it? Why turn a coupon flyer into a full editorial magazine? When your dad (Joe III) joined, was it his first job or was he reluctant to take over the family business? How did you come to join the company in 2011? How many copies of Family Magazine are distributed each month today? What can readers do if they can't find the magazine at their commissary? What is Family Media doing to pivot toward the digital age and reach military families online? What's an example of a question someone might bring to The Garrison Ledger, and how does it work behind the scenes? How is your approach different from using ChatGPT or Gemini for benefit questions? How does someone enter the $500 Family Media quarterly giveaway? Main Topics Covered The origin of Family Magazine in 1958 and the four generations of Joe Mugnai behind it Why the founder added editorial content (PCS, travel, pets, beauty) instead of a plain coupon book The magazine's scale today: 400,000 copies monthly, ~30,000 overseas, reaching commissaries worldwide The enduring value of the commissary benefit — especially overseas in places like Japan and Germany How coupons (BOGOs, manufacturer deals from Eggland's, Unilever/Dove) stack on top of commissary savings The challenge of constantly changing military numbers: BAH, base pay, TSP limits, Roth IRA limits, the JTR Why AI chatbots give confidently wrong answers — outdated training data and hallucination The Garrison Ledger: free military tools built to pull only from current, official government sources The TSP modeler and how a "single source of truth" prevents hallucinated answers Real-world accuracy in action, like temporary location-specific BAH adjustments The $500 Family Media quarterly giveaway — five $100 winners, and how to enter via the newsletter Links Mentioned familymedia.com garrisonledger.com Spencer and Jamie offer one-on-one Military Money Mentor sessions. Get your personal military money and personal finance questions answered in a confidential coaching call. militarymoneymanual.com/mentor Over 24,000 military servicemembers and military spouses have graduated from the 100% free, Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course available at militarymoneymanual.com/umc3 In the Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course, you can learn how to apply for the most premium credit cards and get special military protections, such as waived annual fees, on elite cards. Learn how active duty military, military spouses, and Guard and Reserves on 30+ day active orders can get your annual fees waived on premium credit cards in the Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course at militarymoneymanual.com/umc3 If you want to maximize your military paycheck, check out Spencer's 5 star rated book The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom on Amazon or at shop.militarymoneymanual.com. If you have a question you would like us to answer on the podcast, please reach out on instagram.com/militarymoneymanual.
Show Notes: Kristen Fowler Garland majored in East Asian Studies and Japanese at Harvard. She explains her decision to spend five years in Japan after graduation, including two years with the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program. She describes her experience with the JET program, teaching conversational English in Toyama, and her efforts to learn Japanese. Kristen shares her job search in Japan, landing a position with a foreign subsidiary in Tokyo, where she learned to use Excel in Japanese. Market Research and Field Hockey Kristen recounts her work in market research, tracking the shift from mainframe computers to networked PCs in Japan. She discusses her involvement in the field hockey club in Toyama, which helped her practice Japanese and immerse in Japanese culture. Kristen reflects on the overwhelming population density of Tokyo and her decision to return to the United States after five years. She mentions connections developed at a hiking club in Tokyo, which led her to move to Alaska. Moving to Alaska Kristen describes her move to Alaska, where she found a job at REI and fell in love with the state's open and supportive community. She explains her transition from market research to starting her own digital agency, focusing on SEO and tourism marketing. Kristen highlights the impact of the internet on Alaska's tourism industry, reducing the cost of customer acquisition for small businesses. She shares her experience of growing her business, including working with clients in the tourism sector and adapting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tips for Travelers to Alaska Kristen provides tips for traveling to Alaska, advising against cruises and recommending self-guided vacation packages. She discusses the different segments of travelers to Alaska, including fishermen, adventure travelers, and independent travelers. Kristen mentions the popularity of commercial fishing and the seasonal nature of tourism in Alaska. She reflects on her personal life, including her first marriage, raising a daughter in Alaska, and remarrying in 2022. Community Dynamics and Professional Achievements Kristen describes the close-knit and supportive community in Alaska, where people often know each other from various social and professional circles. She highlights the tourism industry's annual convention, which is a lively event where industry professionals let off steam and network. Kristen contrasts the community dynamics in Alaska with those in New England, noting the openness and lack of focus on professional achievements in Alaska. Outdoor Activities in Alaska She shares her love for outdoor activities in Alaska, including cross-country skiing, hiking, and mountain biking, and the accessibility of these activities in Anchorage. Kristen discusses her habit of moving her body every day, emphasizing the importance of mindfulness and reducing pressure on herself. She reflects on her transition from running to walking, which has provided her with new perspectives and aerobic benefits. Harvard Reflections Kristen shares memories from her time at Harvard, including a guest lecture by B.F. Skinner on operant conditioning and his baby box experiment. She recounts a guest lecture on the Cultural Revolution, which had a profound impact on her understanding of historical events and personal stories. Kristen explains her decision to major in Japanese studies, influenced by a high school professor and her interest in medieval Japan. She reflects on the personal and academic challenges she faced at Harvard, including a transition from applied math to Japanese studies. Timestamps: 0:02: Kristen Fowler Garland's Journey to Japan 02:36: Market Research and Cultural Immersion in Japan 06:25: Life in Alaska and Business Ventures 10:40: Tourism in Alaska and Personal Life 15:20: Community and Outdoor Activities in Alaska 23:56: Personal Habits and College Memories 27:25: Career and Personal Growth Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/empowereddigitaltransformation/ Tonbo Digital Website: https://www.tonbodigital.com *AI generated transcript and show notes.
Apple's latest financial results drive a discussion about record iPhone, Mac, Services, subscription, and R&D numbers, along with the market's negative reaction and stock volatility. The MacVoices Live! panel also examines leadership changes under new CEO John Ternus, including the return of a retired engineering executive, before debating Apple's planned clipboard sharing between iPhones and Windows PCs, its implications for users, and whether it introduces meaningful security concerns. Panel members include: Marty Jencius, David Ginsburg, Jim Rea, Chuck Joiner, Eric Bolden, Web Bixby, and Brian Flanigan-Arthurs. This edition of MacVoices is supported by MacVoices Magazine, our free magazine on Flipboard. Updated daily with the best articles on the web to help you do more with your Apple gear and adjacent tech, access MacVoices Magazine content on Flipboard, on the web, or in your favorite RSS reader. Show Notes: Chapters: 00:00 Introduction, Riverside updates, and panel introductions 04:20 Marty celebrates his 42nd wedding anniversary 07:30 Apple's quarterly earnings and Wall Street's reaction 15:10 Record iPhone, Mac, Services, subscriptions, and R&D spending 20:15 John Ternus' influence on the MacBook Neo 24:30 Apple brings a retired hardware executive back to the company 31:40 Organizational changes under Apple's new leadership 34:45 UK App Store steering rules and regulatory concerns 37:15 Apple brings clipboard sharing between iPhone and Windows PCs 43:15 Security, usability, and the future of cross-platform clipboard support Links: iPhone, Mac and Services revenue set new June quarter records https://appleworld.today/2026/07/iphone-mac-and-services-revenue-set-new-june-quarter-records/ Apple spent a record $11.73 billion in R&D during Q3 2026 – 9to5Mac https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/30/apple-spent-a-record-11-73-billion-in-rd-during-q3-2026/ Apple just hit 1.5 billion paid subscriptions from its user base – 9to5Mac https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/30/apple-just-hit-1-5-billion-paid-subscriptions-from-its-user-base/ Ternus's MacBook Neo pushes Mac sales to unexpected Q3 heights https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/07/30/ternuss-macbook-neo-pushes-mac-sales-to-unexpected-q3-heights?utm_source=rss Team Ternus drags retired vice president of hardware engineering back into Apple https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/08/03/team-ternus-drags-retired-vice-president-of-hardware-engineering-back-into-apple?utm_source=rss Apple Says UK App Store Steering Rules Would Be 'Highly Intrusive' https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/29/app-store-uk-rules-highly-intrusive/ Apple is finally making copy-paste work between iPhones and PCs https://www.macworld.com/article/3205820/apple-is-finally-making-copy-paste-work-between-iphones-and-pcs.html Guests: Get detailed bios and contact information about for the panel on the MacVoices Live! Panel page on our web site: https://macvoices.com/macvoiceslive/macvoices-live-panel/ Support: Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon http://patreon.com/macvoices Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect: Web: http://macvoices.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner http://www.twitter.com/macvoices Mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner MacVoices Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/ MacVoices Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe: Audio in iTunes Video in iTunes Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher: Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss Apple's latest financial results drive a lively discussion about record iPhone, Mac, Services, subscription, and R&D numbers, along with the market's negative reaction and stock decline. The panel also examines leadership changes under new CEO John Ternus, including the return of a retired engineering executive, before debating Apple's planned clipboard sharing between iPhones and Windows PCs, its implications for users, and whether it introduces meaningful security concerns. SEO Keywords Apple, iPhone, Mac, earnings, subscriptions, R&D, JohnTernus, Windows, clipboard, security, AppStore, stock, engineering, Europe, revenue Possible Episode Titles 1. Apple's Strong Quarter Meets a Wall Street Reality Check 2. Record Revenue, New Leadership, and Apple's Windows Surprise 3. Why Apple's Stock Fell Despite Record Financial Results 4. John Ternus Reshapes Apple as Windows Integration Expands 5. Apple Earnings, Executive Changes, and the Windows Clipboard Debate Chapter Markers 00:00 Introduction, Riverside updates, and panel introductions 04:20 Marty celebrates his 42nd wedding anniversary 07:30 Apple's quarterly earnings and Wall Street's reaction 15:10 Record iPhone, Mac, Services, subscriptions, and R&D spending 20:15 John Ternus' influence on the MacBook Neo 24:30 Apple brings a retired hardware executive back to the company 31:40 Organizational changes under Apple's new leadership 34:45 UK App Store steering rules and regulatory concerns 37:15 Apple brings clipboard sharing between iPhone and Windows PCs 43:15 Security, usability, and the future of cross-platform clipboard support
Coming up this week, Microsoft patches 400 vulnerabilities, including an actively exploited zero-day. Microsoft accidentally pushes a new OneDrive app to Windows 11 PCs, DEF CON attendees are accused of causing Wi-Fi chaos on a Delta flight, and OpenAI rolls out a powerful new AI model specifically for cybersecurity. Plus, we've got some notable Windows 365 updates and plenty more. All that and more on this week's episode of the 5 Bytes Podcast. Reference Links: https://www.rorymon.com/blog/400-microsoft-flaws-rogue-wi-fi-at-30000-feet-gpt-5-6-cyber/
Mid-August to mid-September marks the time every year when hospitals need to recertify for 340B. Failure to recertify in time could cost a hospital its ability to participate in 340B. 340B Health Associate Director of Policy and Compliance Rebecca Swartz joins us to walk listeners through the process.Why recertification is “exceptionally important”Swartz says annual recertification is not just important, it's also one of the central tenets of 340B compliance. All hospital types except critical access hospitals need to make sure they're meeting the minimum disproportionate share percentage threshold. Hospitals also need to affirm that they are nonprofit facilities and that all their registered parent and child sites continue to have reimbursable outpatient costs and charges on their Medicare cost reports.The cost of losing eligibility is highFailure to recertify 340B eligibility in a timely manner can lock hospitals out of their access to 340B pricing for a year or more. That could deprive a hospital of crucial resources to provide the care and support its patients need.Tips for a smooth recertificationSwartz says a key to making the process go smoothly is to start early and make sure hospital officials have the necessary worksheets and other documentation before the recertification process begins. Authorized officials (AOs) and primary contacts (PCs) should be on the lookout for returned tasks from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) and other messages to ensure their recertification process is complete. Taking screenshots of each step of the process also can help identify and fix discrepancies that might arise.ResourcesHospital Recertification Begins Aug. 10, Prepare Now!340B Health Registration and Recertification Resource Page340B Health Webinars
We are in the midst of the Practicing our Faith Sermon Series. This series highlights voices from within our community, sharing how each of us embodies spiritual practices in everyday life. Spiritual Practices are concrete activities to engage in to open ourselves to the transforming presence of God. Our Embodiment Sundays offer guided ways to step into the practice together.Hospitality is the practice of making room for others and welcoming them as they are. More than entertaining guests, it is participating in God's welcome by extending care, presence, and belonging to neighbors, strangers, friends, and even those who challenge us. Rachel Kongshaug, PT, MPT, PCS is a pediatric physical therapist and healthcare leader with more than 20 years of experience serving children and families. She currently serves as Director of Clinical Services for Eastern Iowa at ChildServe, where she oversees rehabilitation therapies, behavioral health, and clinical programs.Rachel is passionate about helping people flourish through compassionate care, both professionally and personally. She and her husband live in Cedar Rapids with their five children and are active members of Wellington Heights Community Church, where she volunteers in children's ministry. In her free time, Rachel enjoys reading, knitting, and coaching volleyball.
Water Systems getting hacked because Superintendents are leaving the systems WIDE OPEN!!! AARP Podcast on Scammers using someone else's likeness to perform Romance Scams, New laptop Scam but I have a WNC connected to my network, Two new PCs connected but not waking up the PCs we think he has an old Router, My PC is dead after a BIOS update, Security issue with Cars that have Bluetooth, Keep getting pop-ups on my phones to clean it u
Most agency owners probably haven’t thought much about shadow AI (the name for when employees use their personal ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini accounts to do work). In fact, owners may be doing it as well. In this episode, Chip and Gini walk through what the risks are and how to respond without overreacting. The instinct to crack down is understandable but wrong. Employees are going to use their own tools regardless, often because personal accounts are better trained or more accessible than whatever the company has set up. The goal should be education, not elimination. Most employees don’t know that personal accounts default to feeding data into training sets, or that a single toggle can turn that off. That one fix alone is worth a conversation with your team. Vibe coding and a plain-language AI policy get discussed, in addition to educating your team. Gini’s team runs weekly micro-learning sessions to help people use AI as a thinking partner, not just a drafting tool. Both Chip and Gini advise that owners and employees who aren’t using AI meaningfully within the next year or two are putting their careers and businesses at risk. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You’re probably not going to stamp it out. So at a minimum, you need to educate employees, because a lot of employees don’t realize the risks in what they’re doing.” Gini Dietrich: “I also think that shadow AI is one thing, but there are plenty of people who are not using it at all. And I was actually kind of shocked to find that in my own organization.” Chip Griffin: “We need to avoid the knee-jerk reaction when you hear an episode like this, shadow AI, oh my God, I need to shut this down. You cannot have that reaction.” Gini Dietrich: “The real value is that AI helps you operate at a completely different level.” Resources The Birthday Dirge View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I, think it’s appropriate that it suddenly got dark, in, in- Yeah. … in your office as we were trying to begin this recording- Mm-hmm … because we’re gonna be talking about being in the shadows. Gini Dietrich: Yes, we are. In the dark. But before we do that, happy birthday. Chip Griffin: Oh, thank you. Thank you. You’re welcome. I appreciate that. I thought maybe we’d escape that since- Nope … ’cause we were on hiatus during my actual- Nope … birthday month, so. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Ah, come on. Yeah. It was just a few days ago. Happy belated I guess. All right. Thank you. Especially by the time people hear this, but. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, nobody will really know, so. Gini Dietrich: I know. Chip Griffin: I, I, appreciate it, and I mostly appreciate that you’re not singing, so, Gini Dietrich: I can. Do you want me to? Chip Griffin: I do not. I- Okay, well- ‘Cause, ’cause isn’t, don’t you have to license “Happy Birthday,” I think? I think that’s- Gini Dietrich: Well, I have a different song. It’s a song that- Oh … the kids learned in third grade that we sing instead of “Happy Birthday.” Chip Griffin: Is, is this the dirge? Gini Dietrich: No. Chip Griffin: Oh. See, I like the birthday dirge. Gini Dietrich: I don’t know the birthday dirge. Chip Griffin: Oh, it, it, it’s, uh, it goes something like, you know, uh, another year closer to the grave or something. I mean, it’s very more… But, the- I wouldn’t- Our kids learned it, learned it at a kid’s party, you know, 20-some years ago. Oh, that’s so good. I’ll have to look it up and share it with you. It, or- I’ll look it, yeah. I’ll delete it … or maybe, maybe Jen can do that because, and maybe sh- b- maybe she can include a link to it, in, in the show notes, ’cause it is somewhat entertaining, but I, I don’t remember the lyrics, nor do I want to try to, to invent them or sing them even if I knew them. Gini Dietrich: All right, fine. Chip Griffin: But, no, the, the- Gini Dietrich: Maybe for my birthday. You have s- you have several months to, to learn it. You could sing it to me for my birthday. Chip Griffin: Well, more than several, but yes. Anywho, so moving on from that. We, are going to talk about the shadows, the deep, dark shadows of the PR world. No, we’re gonna be talking about, shadow AI, which is, in a lot of organizations, you have employees who are using their own ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whatever accounts to do work. They are not using corporate accounts. A lot of them do not understand the implications of it. The employees do not understand the implications. The employers do not understand the implications. And I’ve seen it, either bite people or potentially bite people of late, so I thought I would raise it as something that, that owners ought to be thinking about in the current environment. Gini Dietrich: I will tell you, not to get anyone in trouble, but almost every one of our clients, and they’re big clients, people do that. Could be, and they’re doing it from their personal devices. It could be because it’s blocked at work. It could be because what they have at work isn’t sufficient. It could be because CoWork is significantly better than, Copilot. It, like, there are lots of reasons, but people will full on pull out their phone or their iPad and do it on their personal device at work all the time. Chip Griffin: It is incredibly common, and, from my perspective and what I advise owners is that you’re probably not going to stamp it out. So at a minimum, you need to educate employees- Yep … because a lot of employees don’t realize the risks in what they’re doing, and they haven’t set up any kind of a, a process to make sure that they’re, you know, doing it as intelligently as possible at least, if they’re- Right … gonna use their own accounts. And, look, I, mean, I, don’t necessarily think that, that it’s awful for them to be doing this. I wouldn’t try to eliminate it. But you do need to educate them because a, a lot of times when I talk with rank and file employees of agencies, they don’t realize that, for example, that their personal accounts, by default, all of the data leaks out for training purposes. And it’s in many cases, depending on which tool you’re using, as simple as a toggle to make- Yep … sure that that information- Yep … does not go straight into the training sets- Yep … of these providers. And that’s the default setting on your corporate accounts if you’ve got them as an agency, but it is not the default on most personal accounts. And so just that one change can make a big difference. But I have yet to talk to any individual employee using their individual account who knows that that’s even something they can or should do. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I agree with you. I think that having just a really easy AI policy is the right way to go because I don’t– I think you’re right. I don’t think you’re gonna stamp it out. I mean, heck, I use my personal one for lots of stuff too. Mostly because I trained it before we had the corporate account, and I don’t wanna go back and retrain what I’ve already worked, what I’ve already created. So, but we just created a one-page, like, bullet points AI policy that says exactly what you said, like toggle it off. If you’re gonna be vibe coding, here’s what you need to be thinking about. You know, all of the things. I think it’s probably 12 bullet points. It’s not a huge lift, but it just helps them understand. And one of the things that we did is we spent some time building the cowork Instance for the organization, and it has, you know, our OKRs and our plan and our vision and, you know, all of the stuff, our brand kit, all of the stuff. So it’s easier for, my team now, it wasn’t six months ago, but now it’s easier for my team to use the company one because it has all of that stuff in there and it’s already been trained. Chip Griffin: Yep. Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, so I think there’s, this is a multi-stepped process. You know, part of it is the policy, part of it is education. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Part of it is you should have a standard corporate tool that you are using. It doesn’t mean that it’s the only one, but, it should be– If you do that, it will allow you to do a lot of the information sharing, skill sharing, things like that, that ensure the consistency across the organization and make sure that everybody doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel constantly. But I think the you brought up two things that I think are worth exploring more. One probably is a separate episode in addition to this, but the other, I think, makes sense within this context. The one to sort of put a pin in and come back to is your fear of moving from your personal one to the corporate one because of the lost, you know, memory and context and all of that kind of thing. And, I think that there is, I, I, think there’s a lack of knowledge in the agency community generally about how best to capture all of the, the knowledge and things that you’re developing alongside these AI tools and making it as portable as possible. So, you know, one of the things I’ve been focused on in recent months is really making sure that, that my second brain, if you will, in AI is portable across multiple tools. And so I’ve now built it so, for example, I have one brain that I share across both my Claude and ChatGPT accounts- Gini Dietrich: Yep. I do the same thing. Yep. Chip Griffin:… so that you have consistency, and, I think it’s worth sort of exploring that, maybe not in technical detail, but, you know, how you can share it amongst your own accounts, how you can share it more effectively with your colleagues and coworkers and that kind of thing. So I think that’s worth revisiting in more depth because I think there, particularly as we become more AI forward as agencies generally, that’s something that becomes increasingly valuable and increasingly important. But the, piece that, that I think really fits into this shadows discussion is the vibe coding, and we see a lot of agency employees doing vibe coding, which is fantastic. I am, I’m a huge advocate of it. I think that if you want to get ahead in professional services generally, in the agency world specifically, you need to learn how to do at least basic vibe coding. That said, I think people do not understand all of the risks and complexities associated with vibe coding. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And, so, there are a lot of basics that, that agencies need to be thinking about here, and again, it comes into that education and training piece in working with employees, because most of them don’t understand if you mess something up and you are not doing version control or keeping backups, you can be, you know, really up a creek without a paddle. Yep … and yes, you can reconstruct it in some fashion oftentimes by going back in the conversation, but it’s not simple. And because most people who are doing vibe coding today do not have any previous programming experience, they don’t understand these concepts like version control and being able to roll back easily and, all of the things that geeks like me who’ve been coding since, you know, the early ’80s get and understand. And, and, that Git reference, by the way, was for those of you who do actually know your coding stuff- … because it’s a great repository tool that most of you who are doing vibe coding should be looking into because it- Yeah … is really helpful- Gini Dietrich: Yep … Chip Griffin: in terms of making sure that when you have an oopsie, you can solve it and fix it easily. But a lot of people if, if they’re doing this on their own devices, they may not even have just regular backups of this stuff because maybe they’re saving their regular agency work to a Dropbox account or OneDrive or whatever you’re using. But whatever they’ve set up to use with Coworker or Codex or whatever, they may not have that in one of those directories that is by default syncing to the cloud and getting updated. And so you wanna make sure that you’re helping them understand that that needs to be part of the process, because how awful would it be if you just lost all of this work that you had been doing? And so much of what you do with Coworker, Codex is device specific, and you cannot access anywhere else. I suspect that will change over time. I suspect that, that those will become, you know, more cloud-like, and we’ve already seen Claude, for example, merging the chat and cowork functions somewhat in their app. Yep … and, so we’ll see a place where I think you can just share it across devices, but right now it is frustratingly difficult for those of us with multiple devices to manage. I’ve got two PCs and a laptop and other and, and so I’ve actually written my own systems for converting the code so that it all is accessible elsewhere. But if you don’t know how to do these things, you could be in a real world of hurt if your computer crashes and you’ve got no backups. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I will say that, not that I speak from experience or anything, but it only has to happen to you once, and then you learn very quickly how to make all of that happen. Because you’re right, I, I was vibe- I love to vibe code. It’s one of my favorite things to do, but the very first time I did it, I didn’t know I was supposed to do version control or any of that stuff. Right. I didn’t know anything about Git. I didn’t know any of it. I do now. Chip Griffin: Yep. And look, that’s, how most of us learned the hard way in the olden days of writing this code. You’re like, “Oh, shoot, I wish I had had a copy of that.” Yeah. You know? And, in the old days, our backups were printouts, right? Because you- Right … there was no way… Like, when I did computer coding on a cassette tape, you know, there was no real way to make a copy of that easily, so, you know, we would just, you know, hit print, and, you know, on a little dot matrix printer we’d have a copy of the code so we could retype it if we absolutely had to. Gini Dietrich: That’s so funny. Ugh … Chip Griffin: not ideal. A lot easier to do things today. Gini Dietrich: Not ideal, no. Chip Griffin: but, you know, those are the kinds of things, and, if we’re all going to become programmers of a sort, we need to be thinking about that. We need to be thinking about, how do you properly test and maintain some of this stuff that we’re creating? Because it’s super easy to vibe code the first version of something. It’s a lot harder to handle the maintenance that’s required on it, you know, when connections to data sources break or technology- Yep … evolves- Yep. Yep … or those kinds of things. Yep. Most, of the people who are vibe coding don’t do anything in terms of security testing of the, the code that they’re writing. And, if that vibe coded thing ties into other systems, which many times they do, you may have created, an opening that you’re not aware of into your back-end systems that could be problematic. And so these are all things that we need to increase the level of education about so that our teams are at least thinking about these things. I’m not saying they’re gonna solve them all. They’re not gonna… We’re still gonna have issues that crop up. But we’ve got to be doing more to try to educate owners, employees, and everybody else involved in the process. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I really think that starting with an AI policy is the right thing to do. Don’t make it overly complicated. Like, when we started, we had this big, like, AI policy legal packet. And I was like, “This is way too much. Way too much.” Like, people are not going to absorb that. So I used my AI to dumb it down, for lack of a better term, and, you know, really to highlight the things, and then I went through myself and said, “Okay, great. These, this is a good start. Now I need to add this, this, and this,” just based on how I see people using it. So, I also think that shadow AI is one thing, but there are plenty of people who are not using it at all. And I was actually kind of shocked to find that in my own organization, like, really? O-Okay. So we’ve done a little bit of, you know, we do a, we do micro-learning sessions every week. So we’ve done a little bit of AI micro-learning just to show people, like, it’s not just for a blog post draft or helping you refine an email. Like, it can h- it could be a thinking partner. It can help you with these things. And so we’ve been doing some micro lessons on that too to just help them understand that this isn’t gonna take your job. We still need you to do your work. We still need your brains for all of this, but this will make you more effective and more efficient. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Although I, I, have taken to becoming much scarier, and I’m telling people it is gonna take their job if they are not using it effectively themselves. Gini Dietrich: If they don’t use it. No, I agree with that. Chip Griffin: Yeah. But, I agree with you. Yeah. There are, there are a lot of folks in the agency community who are not using AI beyond very rudimentary use. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And, and I, I don’t think there are very many who aren’t using it at all, but there are a lot who are using it more like a, you know, a replacement for Google or something to, you know, give them a quick draft of a blog post or an email or something like that. And, you really need to be taking advantage of it at a much higher level if you want to be successful in really any kind of knowledge work moving forward. And- Yeah … and I think people have a relatively short window to get up to speed on this. I think we’re talking, you know, a year, two years tops. Gini Dietrich: If– Yeah, yeah. I think two years is being generous. Chip Griffin: And, I think if, if you are, if you are not, if a year from now you are not actively using AI every single day in a really intelligent way, I don’t know that you have a future. Gini Dietrich: I would agree with that. I would agree with that. And I think you have to use it, to your point, in a really intelligent way. I just answered, or I just had a conversation with a Forbes reporter who’s writing about, there’s a term for it… I can’t think of the term right now. There’s a term for you using it as a thinking partner, using AI as a thinking partner, and he was telling me that almost nobody does that, and I was like Really? Like, that’s the only thing I use it for is, you know, here’s what I’m thinking, poke some holes in it, play devil’s advocate, tell me, you know, what’s strong, what’s weak, what I need to think through more effectively. It has helped me with … I mean, I, I think I’ve mentioned before, I call it my co-CEO, and I’m like, “Okay, here’s today’s challenge. Here’s what I’m thinking. Here’s the documentation. Here’s the backup. Help me think this through.” And it’ll be like, “What about this, and what about that?” And I’ll say, “Well, no, I think you’re wrong about this,” and, “What about that?” And, like, we have ongoing conversations about things, and I don’t … From what he was saying, like, almost nobody uses it that way, and I think that is the real value because it helps you operate at a completely different level. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you’ve got … You have to, and, it, feels weird, but you have to treat these tools as if they are actual employees, consultants, whatever you wanna call them. And, it, it absolutely feels weird to anthropomorphize a chatbot. And, certainly there are ways to, to go way overboard, and y- you know, you hear these, you know- Gini Dietrich: You’re not gonna fall in love with it Chip Griffin: these really, really weird stories of, of what people have done. And, you can sort of … You know, the more time you spend with them, you s- you can kinda understand how it, you know, for the right personality, maybe it kind of veers down those- … creepy paths. I’m not encouraging that. No. I’m not encouraging that. Gini Dietrich: No, no. Chip Griffin: But, but you’re absolutely right. You have to be having meaningful conversations about the work that you do, your strategies. They are incredibly good at poking holes, incredibly good at helping you to think through things. I mean, I, have spent probably, I wouldn’t say an inordinate amount of time, but a lot of time having it challenge me. I have Claude interview me on a regular basis on different topics so that it can build its knowledge, because I’ve built a whole second brain operating system kind of thing. Yep, yep. I’ve had it mine through, and, maybe, this is another episode at some point where you and I can talk about some of the systems that we’ve put in place as examples, because I know from our previous conversations there’s some overlap, but also different ways that we do things. But you know, I, I’ve got 20-plus years of, a, a digital footprint, and AI is great at mining through that. And so I’ve had it do that so that it can, it knows more about me. And so when it pushes back, it pushes back with specific examples, and it will say, “Well, when you did this in, you know, 2007, you know, this was the decision you made. You know, why isn’t that relevant here?” Or things like that. And it’s weird at first, but, you’re ne- you wouldn’t even find an employee who could do that because none of them in, in all likelihood have been with you for 20 years. Yeah. And so having that available to you is something that you just should not be passing up, and we want to encourage our employees who probably don’t have a 20-year footprint like we do to be trying to find ways to do it, and we want to try to facilitate them using all of the tools at their disposal. So we certainly need to avoid the knee-jerk reaction when you hear an episode like this, shadow AI, oh my God, I need to shut this down. I can’t- No … I can’t have employees doing– You cannot have that reaction. Mm-mm. And you should not have, while you should have an AI policy, it should be simple- Yeah … and clean. We can’t go back to the early days of social media policies that, that organizations tried to put in place. And again, we’ve been around a long time, so we’ve seen this movie before. And some of the social media policies that people were putting in place 20 years ago were absolutely bonkers and unnecessary. And I fear that we’ll see some of the same thing on the AI front. Yes. And part of this, by the way, is, with all due respect to our lawyer friends, sorry, Sharon, don’t talk to your lawyer first about this. You can talk to your lawyer about it, but, lawyers are naturally risk-averse, right? And so if you, if you put this in the hands of your lawyer, particularly if it’s not someone like Sharon who has deep experience in the agency world, they’re gonna sit down and they’re gonna say, “Oh, you need to say no to this, and this, and this, and this.” And all of a sudden, nobody’s able to even use AI in a meaningful way. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah. Chip Griffin: And so you, you’ve got to try to put reasonable safeguards in place, reasonable policies, but I think the most important is the education piece. Yes. If you educate people, they are much more likely to make the right decision. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s more likely, and right now we’re at a place where we’re not doing the right level of education of our teams. And part of that is because a lot of owners don’t actually know a lot of what we’re talking about. I mean, I think, you know, you and I- Yep … are certainly at the leading edge- Yep … for a lot of folks in the agency community. We need to get more people at that same level and let it flow through to their teams to make sure that we really are leveraging this technology for all that it can do. Because it, I mean, I, I have n- I have not been this enthusiastic about a piece of technology in the world of PR and communications at least since the beginning of the World Wide Web in the mid-’90s. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree with you. And, like, the– I know I’ve said this before, but the amount of work and the productivity that I’ve been able to achieve, I honestly don’t know how I did my job without it. It’s, it is, it’s next level. And you know, there are some weekends where I’m so excited about something that I’m working on, it might be vibe coding or something else, that I will literally sit in front of my computer all weekend and just, like, in the zone because I’m so excited about it. So I think that there’s a big opportunity here for you to explore and to understand and to change the way that you do your business, run your business in a really fun and effective way. Chip Griffin: Well, and that’s probably yet another ep- episode topic, going forward in, in trying to figure out how you invest your time in AI, because it is, it is just as easy to go down unproductive rabbit holes because- Yeah … they are fun. Sure. Right? And so I, I often find myself sitting there saying, “Do I really need to build this? Is this- … is this really helpful?” You know, I… and it, it, reminds me a little bit of, woodworking, which is something that I’ve done for- Yeah, yeah, yeah … for many, many years. But, like many woodworkers, I have probably built more things for my shop than I have to use in my house, right? So you, you spend so much time, you know, building workbenches and cabinets and jigs and all of that kind of stuff, which are all really cool, but at the end of the day, they’re not the things that you, you know, it’s not the furniture or the built-ins or whatever that you can use around the house. And so we need to be careful that we don’t get so enthusiastic, that we’re only building for that. So making those decisions about where does AI actually help and where is it, you know, kinda using it for the sake of using it, is, is something to be paying attention to as well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, totally agree. I love it. I’m, I’m a big fan. Love, love, love it. Love. Chip Griffin: And so we’ve, after our summer hiatus, we sat here and we said, “You know, we should’ve been spending more time thinking of topics to come up with.” And, and so instead we kind of pick a random topic to go with, and we’ve come up with multiple episodes, for future discussions, so. Gini Dietrich: I wrote them all down too. So they’re in our document, so we have- Chip Griffin: Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that our shared document- … has been, been being updated. I, I cannot update while we’re talking because I have one of those really loud clickety-clack keyboards. And so it would, overwhelm the audio here. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Because I, I, like the noisiest possible keyboard you possibly can have. So. I love it. Anyway, on that note, I, I think it’s probably a good time to, wrap up. We can come out of the shadows with AI. Maybe it will, you know, the storm will pass, in Chicago, and it will get a little bit brighter for you in your office as well. It still seems like it- Gini Dietrich: It’s like nighttime … Chip Griffin: it must be pretty dark there. Yeah, crazy. If you’re, if you’re not watching us on video, and you really should watch us on video, because it is so compelling to see us and not just listen to us. But it, it definitely looks dark there. So on that note, we will wrap up here. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: You… Did you forget who you were? There was, there was a long pause there. Gini Dietrich: It’s because you, there’s a delay with you. Chip Griffin: Oh, okay. That’s good to know. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah. Chip Griffin: On that note, it depends.
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