Podcasting Trends, Superhero Courses, and Tech News

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. Hello and welcome to Altered Geek. I'm

your host, Steve Megatron Phillips. And in this

episode, I have kind of a nice little grab bag

of variety of topics. Everything from some historical

options, some listener feedback, some podcasting

events coming up, Some news on shows coming back

and being cancelled and some Orville content.

It's going to be a lot of stuff today. So getting

right into it, those that may or may not know,

I did a video with my wife, Fit Ready Go. My

wife and I decided last week to do this whole

five -day fasting, water fast challenge, where

you basically just don't eat for five days. I

will say that the first two days were horrendous

for me, just based on the fact that I was having

caffeine withdrawals and I was hungry. But it

wasn't terribly bad. I did get to day three,

though, and I was like, okay, I'm done. I felt

better. I had my energy back. I had intense pain

on the second or third day in my legs, which

is supposed to, I guess, when you're doing this

this fast, it's supposed to unlock these innate

healing abilities in your body. I can actually

attest to the fact that it works because, in

a sense, because my knees and my legs have been

throbbing and killing me for months. And I did

this fast, and they hurt. Oh, I could barely

walk on the one day. And then the following day,

I've had full mobility back in my joints and

in my legs, and it's been awesome. But I also

noticed that the brain fog that I was under,

managed to lift so I'm able to wake up clearer

even if I got three and a half hours sleep which

is amazing it's it's made kind of a difference

in that that category I've I've been on it my

primary reason for doing it my wife's was she

was doing it for spiritual reasons I was doing

it for physical reasons because I have I've been

having stomach gut issues for the better part

of three months. I finally went to the doctor.

I don't know anything for the most part yet.

I've got to get tested, but the issue still persists

afterwards. I was hoping it would take care of

the issue, but it did not. Although, I have to

regard that with, I did eat. like crap once i

got back to food um we still had some candy and

chocolate left i ate it destroyed my stomach

um which my wife when she did the fast she did

the full five days i broke after three and a

half days i just was done um i i wanted to eat

a nice hearty meal um but yeah so she she did

the full fast she lost i think about 15 pounds

doing it, and it helped her in a variety of ways.

She's had the brain fog lifted as well, and it's

supposed to also kind of rebuild some of your

brain cells that may have gone asleep and kind

of put you on a different, instead of burning

sugar, you're burning fat kind of thing. So anyways,

that aside, I did that last week. So that was

part of the reason why I didn't have Future Imperfect

or All Things Transformers at the beginning of

this week was because I just didn't have it in

me to do anything. And yeah, next week there

will actually be no Tuesday and Thursday episode

of Altered Geek. Mike Powers is... We had an

option to connect and I was unavailable for the

day of connection. So we just opted to go into

it fresh next week and record. And then we'll

start off the following week with the triple

shot again. So next week it'll just be probably

one episode again. This week we've had three.

So anyways, getting into more of the episode

here. I've been kind of excited about something

that's coming up. And if you remember, a few

years ago, I did that Smithsonian X superheroes

class. Well, they're coming out with another

one. I may or may not have mentioned this, where

they're having, they created a character called

Veritas Man. The superhero and philosopher. Spokesperson

for Smithsonian X philosophy and superheroes

course. Yeah, it's by C .J. Rochebald. He's a...

Which is Chris Rochebald. He's a senior lecturer

in ethics and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy

School and publishes things on pop culture and

philosophy and RPGs, horror, whatever. So anyways,

he's teaching this online course and I think

it's kind of... cool how he's doing this. And

so I'm going to be taking this class and may

not be paying to get it with a certificate this

time, but I'm pretty excited for this to continue

my superhero knowledge. So yeah, getting into

that, it starts January 16th, 2018. So if you

want to take that, it's at edx .org. Just search

for power responsibility doing philosophy, Smithsonian

philosophy 1 .1. It's a one to five hour per

week class, five weeks free, but you can add

a certified certificate for $49. So yeah, going

to be pretty cool. Check it out. And then of

course, Weird Al. I am a huge fan. However, the

last time I got the opportunity to see him in

concert was in 1999, July of 99. I think I still

have the ticket somewhere. But he's coming back.

He's doing a whole new thing. He's doing in March

one in Grand Rapids and he's doing another one

in... the very next day in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And I'm hoping to get my brother for the Ann

Arbor one and go see Weird Al. It's been a long

time, but he's doing, it's called the Ridiculously

Self -Indulgent Ill -Advised Vanity Tour with

special guest Emo Phillips, who was the dude

that cut his fingers off in UHF. So it's going

to be a set of compromised almost entirely of

his original non -parody songs. With limited

production, no costumes, props, or video screens.

Very scaled down, smaller, more intimate theaters

with limited production. So it sounds interesting.

So I'm going to try and get my brother to go

with me. I think that that would be really awesome.

And then when I was mentioning the thing about

YouTube and the... the posting the video, I tried

to monetize it and it was basically demonetized

right away because it doesn't have a thousand

views, which I think is ridiculous. But I haven't

uploaded a video in over a year, so I didn't

even really realize the rules had changed. But

I noticed Jason Inman, who's pretty popular with

DC All Access, host podcast here for geekhistorylesson

.com, you know, uh, Jupiter Jack comic, whatever.

Um, so anyways, he did a review on, on Star Trek,

uh, despite yourself, episode 10, uh, and it

was demonetized. And he says, if you would please

click on it. You know, the more views it gets,

the faster YouTube will remonetize. Thanks for

your help. Have a lovely day. I think that's

such crap of what, what YouTube is doing to these

people. Like you build this platform on helping

people. make a living and post content on your

platform and then you screw all of them like

simultaneously. So I, I just, I'm not a fan of

the whole, the whole thing is, is, is there kind

of marketing this? So returning with the feedbacks,

uh, we have, well, not a whole lot. This past

week. But everybody's been kind of busy. It's

been that time of year anyway. Little plus side.

I finally got all of the podcasts listed under

iTunes Connect for podcast analytics. They're

still not all under the same account for the

podcast part and management, but we're getting

a step closer. So we'll see how that goes. So

anyways, we had the Cinematic Disappointments

episode, which... Brad says, I think that the

internet has been toxic since it began. While

you remember Transformers 07 as being a start

because you're Transformers fans and the introduction

of social media defiantly or definitely brought

it out into the public eye, it's existed in fan

forums for even longer. Yeah, I forget about

that. You know, the alt forums and... Yeah, the

old school message boards. I forget about all

that because I've been on social media for so

long. No, I agree. It's been around since the

old 90s message boards, too. I forgot totally

about all that. There were even threats and a

lot of stuff that went on during the Beast Wars

era and stuff on there. And then Star Wars and

everything else. Going into the early 2000s,

we had the websites with the message boards instead

of just message boards on their own. Yeah, I

forgot there were a lot of Flame Wars on a lot

of them. I was on a lot of those forums that

had a lot of it. So yeah, thanks for reminding

me how old I am with that information. I forget

about it. I haven't used it in so long. He says,

even go back as far as Beast Wars, Chuck, not

Monkey. That's kind of what made me remember

the Transformers forums. Lord of the Rings fans

annoyed because Tom Babaldi was cut from the

films. And the year three franchises, you know,

Enders like Spidey 3 and X -Men 3, you know,

look at the hate for any new early Marvel film

pre -Iron Man. Yeah, I totally get it. Yep. Man,

that's crazy. So yeah, then continuing on in

this conversation, Booth Ninja says, oh yeah,

it existed for sure, but you weren't bathed in

it when you turned on your phone or computer.

You had to look for it. But it exploded into

the mainstream, in his opinion, with the Transformers

film, which he's not a fan of, and Facebook and

Twitter really taking off the same year. And

then Brad says, yeah, I see that. And Dave...

Musgrave mentions that part of the problem is

also that people are obsessed with continuations

and exploring the origins of various stories

and characters and forego anything new and original.

Problem is, these sequels and prequels never

live up to expectations. And so the movie -going

audience is perpetually disappointed, but like

heroin junkies, they keep chasing the dragon.

I totally agree with everything he's just said.

It's kind of like... Funny, everything you've

just said is completely true. So yeah, it's kind

of funny. I have no nostalgia for the origins

or going back. I want to see the continuations

in a sense, but I don't want to see them fall

back on trying to fill an era. I would have rather

that they had just jumped. And again, this is

kind of even with Star Trek. It kind of jumped

into another random era or timeline. I'm kind

of sick of the multiple movie thing with franchises.

I don't feel like there needs to be more than

a trilogy. Because back in the day, a trilogy

was a huge deal. Now you look at it and you get

an entire tentpole franchise. It's just nuts.

And then Dave kind of continues it, you know,

when Brad mentions about the prequels, he's like,

for a long time, comics, expanded universe novels,

and video games sated fan bases of their hunger

for continued and alternative storylines. Which,

again, is true, and I think it fit really well

because it kind of played to that merchandising

capability that... It kind of kept the ball moving

to where people would buy the merchandise and

still get their fix of hearing a different side

of the story or different parts of the personas.

However, it's not canon. So it still fits into

the head canon, but every book has its own taste

and feel for every type of person. So it's kind

of interesting there. He says, while Hollywood

worked hard to perfect CGI and bloat production

budgets to fund such effects wizardry, thing

is, Tim Zahn's Heir to the Empire was a far more

interesting and fascinating read than the script

of The Force Awakens, which was a rehash of A

New Hope. He says, could or would ever be, as

were the Alien vs. Predator comics, compared

to what Milla Jovovich, Hubby, and the brothers

Strauss ended up uh, sharding into, uh, cinema

screens. It's, it's, this guy's like spot on.

Like, I think that these guys like kind of fit

the vibe that myself and Michael are at, at this

point with, with a lot of the stuff and it's,

um, just becoming more, more evident the more

time goes on of how, how this kind of works.

So, uh, yeah, that's, that's some craziness,

man. And, uh, anyways, Moving into last week's

full episode where I talked about the Animaniacs

and whatnot, I did have fun going back and watching

some of those old cartoons. Tim Silver says,

I am looking forward to the Animaniacs revival,

actually, and I'm glad it would be on Hulu since

I have a subscription and we don't have cable

anymore. Great show. Keep them coming. Thank

you for the info on the show. And, yeah, I'm...

I'm enjoying the stuff on Hulu as well and watching

these shows, and I'm not a big proponent of a

lot of the separate streaming services, but I

do have to say that I've enjoyed Netflix and

Hulu as a whole. Netflix just came to the point

where there was just nothing on it I really wanted

to watch that was different, and Hulu's kind

of full of it at this point. So I'm enjoying

my run through Hulu. So it's been an entertaining

run going through a lot of those shows. And plus

I can watch all the Star Trek shows on it as

well as like the old TGIF shows, which my wife

and I have been going back watching like Home

Improvement, Boy Meets World, Step by Step, Family

Matters, Full House, you know, a lot of the old

Friday. night shows and sitcom programming stuff

that was a part of the TGIF. So it's been a lot

of fun going back and re -watching that and reminiscing

on that old content. So yeah, that's about it.

And a couple of little things. Kind of jumping

into the Orville land since It's been a pretty

good show, and I'm looking forward to it coming

back. I wonder how long it's going to take people

to cosplay as this stuff. I've seen Star Trek

up the wazoo, but I haven't seen Orville. And

honestly, the Orville uniforms aren't that bad

looking. They look very Star Trek look. They

said that season two will feature more sci -fi

to be at least 14 episodes. And somewhere it

got miscommunicated that the show was going to

be... kind of not coming out in 2018 for season

two. And he says, you know, Seth MacFarlane comes

out with a bit of correction saying, no, there

won't be an Orville family guy crossover. And

yes, season two will arrive later this year.

So that's nice to hear. He says, I think it's

going to be at least 14 episodes. I'd rather

do fewer episodes and have them be better content

-wise than do 22 and have them be filler, which

is exactly the mentality that myself and Michael

Powers had talked about months ago with any of

the shows. Even when I was talking with Birdman

Don about Star Trek, less is better. They can

put more money into it, better production quality,

better stories, and not... have a throwaway show.

Like I, I hate filler episodes. So like when

there's something of purpose, it makes it all

the better to watch every episode. Um, so, uh,

they, they also said that the show was, you know,

experimental in a lot of ways, you know, tone

biggest experiment and, and, uh, um, yeah. So

they, uh, They were teasing in December that

they were creating Muppets for the Auroville,

so it should be funny. I also want to bring up

how Jonathan Frakes, who directed episodes of

the Auroville and Discovery, primarily the recent

episode, Despite Yourself on Discovery, he says

stylistically... between the two he says your

responsibility as an episodic television director

is when you do a show like the orville you wanted

that show to look like next generation which

is what i've been alluding to the entire time

and he said and when you go to canada to do star

trek discovery they want the show to have the

feeling and look and vibe of the jj abrams era

star trek which again i've been saying uh much

more cinematic a lot of crane work and a lot

of movement a lot of dutch angles on next generation

the traditional framing and the things we became

accustomed to as fans of the show we see in the

orville because that's the look and i i've been

basically saying the same thing and so it's just

kind of funny to hear somebody officially say

it that's a director um he says uh freaks also

added that he felt that the two shows can coexist

peacefully noting there's room obviously in the

fans heart for both styles of star trek so he

even equates it to being a star trek of sorts

and i i totally agree i i like the show i think

that it's got a lot of promise on both of them

and and there's little rumors now on legends

of tomorrow that um with the the removal of some

characters and john constantine showing up and

uh they're saying that uh we could see wally

west join They said that you might see Wally

West show up on Legends. And they were asking

to get an answer. And he's like, I can't answer

it. You'll have to watch. And I think that we're

going to eventually see Wally become a member

of the Legends because there's really no place

for him elsewhere. And he kind of will fill that

void by Firestorm. And I think that that's kind

of the perfect fit at this point for his character.

Another side note is we have the new Ninja Turtles

show getting ready to come up. We've got the

new kind of shell -looking thing in blue and

white. It kind of looks like a shell with almost

like a snowflake, and it's got TMNT in the new

text style. Their Twitter account, TMNT, which

is funny, they actually follow me on Twitter,

which is kind of cool. They have the 1984, 87,

all the way through to the 2018 iterations of

characters. And they've got Ben Schwartz, who's

going to be playing Leonardo on the show. And

I guess he's Dewey on the current DuckTales.

I'm kind of excited to see where they go with

this. I'm not entirely sure what... this series

has in store. Um, it says that, uh, uh, and they're

having fun just posting random images of stuff.

And then, um, Ninja turtles, winter starter pack,

three cheese pizzas and gloves. Um, you know,

a collage of like Mikey sticking his tongue out

and stuff. And they said, um, John Cena will

be voicing Baron Drack, Draxum, the newest villain

in rise of the TMNT, uh, which that just came

out literally 58 minutes ago. Had I recorded

this any sooner, you would have not had that

in this episode. I'm kind of looking forward

to seeing what they do with all the characters

and the designs of these characters in the show.

It's going to be an interesting ride, that's

all I have to say. So stay tuned to TMNT on that.

So getting into a little bit of, I'm going to

talk a little bit of tech. However, I'm not going

to talk CES. I'm going to wait until Mike Powers

joins me because I think that that would be a

fun discussion to go around with an additional

person rather than just myself because there

may be different things that interest me than

what interests him. So I don't really want to

dive into that at this point. So I'm going to

leave that there until next week. And hopefully

we come back to it. I'm going to try. Something

that is cool, though, is Razer. They make mice

keyboard peripherals for computers. They used

to make gamepads. I don't know if they still

do. They have a new battery -free wireless gaming

mouse, which is supposed to be surprisingly light.

They said that the mouse is sitting on a Razer

gaming pad. It means that everything is black

except for some bright, colorful lights. And

when you pick the mouse up, it's way too light

to be wireless. After 10 seconds, the cursor

and screen flickers and lights on the mouse turn

off. It's disconnected because this mouse, the

Razer Mamba HyperFlex, powers itself entirely

from the mouse pad. There's no battery. Which,

honestly, is fine. Like, if the mouse pad is

decently sized, I'm totally game with that. I

really like the idea of not having this big hulk

of a thing to move around. And when I say hulk,

I mean I don't like the heaviness. I don't like

having to put batteries in. For it to basically

run itself while on the mouse pad that's plugged

into the computer anyway, it's kind of eliminating

that cord without really eliminating the cord,

if it makes any sense. You're getting the cord

still. like you would power the mouse. However,

it's not in your way. From what I see, though,

this pad surface is replaceable, so you can switch

between a hard surface to the original Firefly

or a soft surface similar to the mouse pads most

of us are accustomed to. It says the Mamba Hyperflex

requires the Hyperflex, Firefly Hyperflex. mouse

pad in order to function. It has a magnetic coil

built in that powers the mouse no matter where

it is on the pad. And it looks to be pretty large,

almost like it's the size of a small laptop,

kind of. It doesn't have a battery, obviously,

so it weighs like 0 .21 pounds. I'm kind of excited

for this. However, it'll be sold. The pad and

the mouse is sold for $250 and expected to hit

stores at the end of quarter one, 2018. But I'm

definitely down with this. I like this concept

just because it gives you a nice surface to use

it on and you get a really beastly mouse. The

other thing is Microsoft, and this came out a

couple days ago, but Microsoft shares its pre

-order details for the $319 Cortana thermostat.

I'm not a fan of the $319 aspect, but the thing

with a thermostat, it's digital. It's very crystal

clear to read. It's on a piece of glass, which

if you have children, that's going to get shattered

the first time it gets hit with a ball. Uh, cause

it's not flat against the wall. It's, I do like

how it juts out. Like there's this little, it

looks like a two to three inch high box and,

uh, it powers it and it's got everything on there.

And then you've got this glass screen, uh, with

a pull down so you can modify things. Uh, it

tells like the temperature inside, outside, um,

you know, the, the settings, uh, air quality,

uh, day of the week. And so you can edit all

those things and it's very plain, but it's, it's,

it's to the point. Like I, I, don't like modern

thermostats or prehistoric thermostats. I'm all

for this higher, intelligent, better designed

digital aspect of the thermostat because I find

them to be very irritating to program with all

the various buttons. I just want something where

I can actually just, it says change settings

and then I can just change what I need to and

then go back to main screen. It's so frustrating.

I'm not... I'm not a fan of the old stuff. But

anyways, they're saying that the software giant

partnered with Johnson Controls, the maker of

the first in -room thermostat to create the device.

And it's going to be for pre -order for delivery

in March 2018. But Glass is powered by Windows

10 IoT Core and features basically the translucent

screen. But I do like how it's going to monitor

the indoor -outdoor weather, the air quality.

So I kind of want to mention as well some of

the other things that kind of came up. So I noticed

this article of current Fox shows will not be

moving to ABC despite the Disney merger, which

is, I kind of expect that. I mean, it's not,

just because it's a part of the same mouse house

doesn't mean that it's going to be on the same

channel. That would be like Lucasfilms taking

on Marvel projects. I mean, it's not, it just

doesn't mesh in the same way. It just makes it

another avenue for people to consume the content.

I don't know. I just thought that that was kind

of an interesting headline. There's really no

reason to go into it any further because it's

just, you know, you're not going to see The Simpsons

on ABC or on Disney Channel or something. So

it's kind of funny there. And then Warner Brothers,

because they have that new CEO, admits that Warner

Brothers copying Disney with Marvel is a bad

idea. And, you know, he wants to take them back

to being the more big budget productions and

just kind of doing what they do and setting their

own kind of timeline standard and goals and kind

of setting the fact that, you know, he's a fan

of superhero movies, too. So it's kind of interesting

to see that the shakeup is putting somebody in

there that. uh wants to make good movies not

necessarily make uh duplicates and clone what

disney's done with their their workflow which

honestly i'm kind of glad because disney's workflow

and and thing is is kind of getting old and stale

at this point i mean i enjoy the films don't

get me wrong but you you kind of get this formulate

kind of formulaic approach uh where you kind

of know who's living two movies at a time so

it kind of makes it a little anticlimactic like

you knew iron man and you knew Captain America

weren't going to die at any point, you know,

around Iron Man 3 just because we're after Civil

War because they were cast for Infinity War,

you know, Avengers 3, you know, 4 and everything

else. So, I mean, it's kind of funny that the

way this is all going down. And then Matt Reeves,

of course, this whole thing with Matt Reeves

and his Batman is kind of turning into that the

Beetlejuice 2, like Bill and Ted 3 scenario where

you're just going to continuously hear about

it and nothing's going to happen for a while,

if ever. And they keep saying that, oh, I've

worked this story out and he's... I'm going to

have Jake Gyllenhaal possibly or somebody like

that be Batman in it. I just, at this point,

I don't care. I get so tired of all these clickbaity

articles and content instead of just, you know,

they report on this one item. And, you know,

I'm no better in this instance to some degree,

but I don't. I don't see the reason for it. Anyways,

so I'm going to take a quick break and come back

with some kind of cool podcasting stuff on the

other side. So I'll be back after this. So I

mentioned how I wanted to talk about podcasting.

Well, I've always wanted to go to a podcasting

convention. I still do, and I'm hoping that this

year gets to be that year. Um, one of them that's

coming up is podcast movement and that's in,

uh, July, I believe. Yeah. July, uh, in Pennsylvania,

which isn't really that far from Michigan. And

I would honestly love to go. I really hoping

that I get to go at least for work or something

like that. But, uh, just because it would be

an incredible experience, um, meeting other podcasters,

learning a bunch of things from, from panels

and seminars and whatnot. and just kind of touring

around and learning things. So it would be kind

of cool to do that whole endeavor. I've been

following a lot of these for years just because

now that I'm kind of heavy into it and podcasting

is kind of coming into the mainstream, it's just

something I want to do. Actually, it's not Pennsylvania.

Yeah, it's in Philadelphia. So, whatever. I don't

know. I'm sounding super ignorant right now.

It's awesome. It's just so expensive. I can't

afford it on my own. But you know podcasting

is getting big when there's a new series coming

to ABC about it. Remember when they did that

show Selfie and I thought that that was the dumbest

thing in the world just because it sounds like

it's centered around people taking a photo of

themselves? This one's called Alex Inc. And it's

got Zach Braff from... I forget what he's been

in, but he was in that comedy show. I'm trying

to think of the name of it. uh where he was scrubs

that's what it was scrubs um but anyways he was

in that and uh uh they've it looks like they've

shot most of the season or at least the first

half of it anyway like first seven or eight episodes

um and he's playing a guy named alex schumann

uh he's got a wife two kids uh and it starts

off with the trailer uh where he's basically

podcasting from his bed. I'm going to, in a second,

I'm going to put the clip in there. But anyways,

this is coming to ABC March 28th at 8 .30, 7

.30 Central. And so I'm kind of looking forward

to this to see how this kind of turns out just

because it's a 37 -year -old dude that starts

his own business in podcasting. And I find the

whole concept really, really intriguing. And

despite the fact that it could possibly fail,

I'm thinking it may fail. But then again, I've

seen worse things happen. And with the way that

podcasting is going in the modern day, I'm not

going to be surprised in the slightest if this

goes on further than that. So I'm going to take

a quick break, put in... Part of the trailer

here, and then pick it back up on the other side

with some thoughts on Pandora's podcast genome

project. It's 4 a .m., and I am too excited to

sleep. Tomorrow is my first official day as the

boss of my new podcast company. You might wonder

why someone with a good job, a wife... Two kids

and a dancer's body would do something so risky.

It's because I believe there's a place where

I can tell the kind of stories I want to tell.

Where I can work with the kind of people I want

to work with. And most of all, where no one,

and I mean no one, can tell me what to do. Will

you please shut up? Oh, sorry, honey. That's

the person who was snoring earlier. Now, guys,

this podcast about our lives only works if you

ignore the microphone and just act like you normally

act. I'm a British person. Or do that. Everyone

needs to be ready to walk out that door in five.

Wait, you're taking us? I know you're used to

Dad doing a lot more of these things because

at his old job he had more flexible hours and

made good money and had great benefits and still

decided to quit and thrust us into chaos. Come

on back, baby. Welcome to the Nerd Factory. It's

an incubator, babe. Everyone here has ideas they're

developing. Those guys are designing a robot

that rocks a baby to sleep. Heads up! Coming

along, fellas. I believe in this company. That's

why I'm putting everything I have into it. You

don't have anything. Yeah, but it's all in there.

Well, who's going to watch the kids? What about

Ben? I don't know. Where's the fire extinguisher?

Under the sink. Where's the other fire extinguisher?

Coat closet next to the broken vacuum. Okay.

Soraya chokes on a grape. How do you do the Heimlich

maneuver? With a strong side of my fist, I press

against her abdomen and exert pressure until

the grape is expelled. Wow. Is that right? What

do I know? I'm not a paramedic. The company's

going great. All we need is a name. Fire. Ooh,

I like that. Like stories around the campfire.

No, like the bacon's on fire. Yeah, I don't feel

good. Your temperature is 135 degrees. I told

you it was a doozy. I'm scared. We have... so

much writing on this our savings this house our

careers maybe this is why you shouldn't start

a company when you're a 37 year old dad nobody

thinks radio is cool but when you do it it's

amazing what did i say exactly what i needed

to hear this is a completely normal workplace

kids drum roll When you put your heart and soul

into something, it can be tough to release it

into the world. And in the end, the people you

love may make your life difficult. Whoa. Whoa,

indeed. But today, I succeeded not in spite of

my family, but because of them. Sorry, honey.

back so like i said it kind of sounds interesting

kind of sounds fun it's a little hokey but you

know you kind of get the gist it's kind of actually

in a sense like how podcasting actually is um

but anyways pandora wants to build the podcast

genome project and uh help shows monetize which

has been the uh kind of million dollar question

of what's going to go on but anyways pandora

has launched its apple music competitor after

acquiring RDO. So it sounds like they're going

to have a massive podcast catalog and it's next

on the radar. So honestly, I really am fine with

it as long as they beat Apple in a submission

because I find Apple annoying with their iTunes

and the way that they handle everything. It's

just too slow of a process. So anyways, Apple

hosts the largest... directory podcast that separates

from Apple Music, while Spotify and Apple Play

Music both include subscription music and podcasts

in the same experience. But Pandora wants to

further evolve it into a more modern entertainment

platform. So their primary product remains ad

-supported streaming music and not on -demand

subscription music like its competitors. However,

it hopes to apply that to podcasts too. So Lynch

describes the current monetization strategy of

ad reads per episode is not the most effective

advertising model and believes Pandora can help

podcasters monetize shows. So obviously that's

a win -win for listeners, podcasters, and Pandora

if it works out, but there's no clear indication

of whether Pandora will expand its streaming

catalog to become a podcast directory and advertising

opportunity. So it's definitely something to

keep on the horizon. I'm very hopeful on this

because, honestly, I would love another way to

monetize this and not be inadvertently annoying

with it. Don't get me wrong. I like advertisers.

I like money. But I don't want to rake anybody

over the coals. I do love doing this, though.

And that's kind of the point of it. I really

like podcasting, and I think this is kind of

cool information to have. So has anybody noticed

the audiograms? And what I mean by that is those

little portrait videos that I've been putting

out occasionally with the 20 -minute shows, kind

of teasing the next one. Has anybody noticed

those on Facebook and Twitter? And what are your

opinions of them? Where it kind of is, it turns

some of the audio into a video and it, this recent

one had a transcription of, of a thing that Mike

said in the actual episode. So what are you guys

thoughts on that whole thing? And is there anything

that you guys want me to talk about in the coming

episodes? Like whether it be in the 20 minute

episodes with Mike or like a certain topic or

a certain. or do you guys just want kind of random

opinions on things? I mean, just throw it out

here. Send it to me, feedback at AlteredGeek

.com. You can send it to at AlteredGeek on Facebook

or Twitter or at SCP21 on Twitter. Just hit me

up and let me know what you guys think and what

you guys want. Because I'm really looking for

more discussion things, and I'm kind of hoping

to break in there with a little bit more of that

and less of the newsy stuff. I mean, yeah, some

of it's interesting, but some of it's just kind

of like, meh, everybody's doing it. One thing

I did notice with the day in tech history thing.

And I found this to be kind of funny that there

was multiple things that were all in the same

day. And this was the January 1st, and I kind

of forgot to do this. They had in 1908 the first

ball drop in Times Square. Hewlett -Packard became

a thing instead of Hewlett and Packard. They

became Hewlett -Packard in 1939. In 1946, the

ENIAC basically... was created which it's like

a giant computer electron fully first fully electronic

computer is completed by its designers uh and

then 1970 they get the unix epoch time begins

in greenwich so Yeah, that's kind of cool. And

then in 1983, the dawn of the Internet with ARPANET

and the Internet Protocol. And then 1984, the

breakup of American Telephone and Telegraph Company,

you know, Bell, because of the antitrust of AT

&T. So they broke it up. And then in 1985, the

domain name services .com is created. Yeah, the

domain name system, Nordoo .net and whatnot.

And then in 2000, they had the Y2K thing, which

my grandfather was a very firm advocate, was

just baloney because everybody was like, oh,

the world's going to end. Everything's going

to shut down. The computers are going to delete

everything. Everybody's going to die, blah, blah,

blah. And so my grandpa's like, I'm going to

laugh when... the clock turns over and everything's

still here, everything still works, and everybody's,

you know, just making a mountain out of a molehill

because even in this thing, this is after years

of hysteria regarding the Y2K bug. The world's

computers begin using the date 2000 with no major

catastrophes. There's still debate whether the

year 2000 problem was overblown by the tech industry

or if the frantic updating done by armies of

software developers leading up to Y2K averted

the disaster. And I think it was just they made

a mountain out of a molehill and blew it out

of proportion. I still think it's hilarious,

the whole thing. Sadly, my grandfather did not

live to reach the year 2000. He passed away like

two weeks before that occasion, but I could imagine

his sarcasm and humor after the fact if he would

have survived that long and laughing in the faces

of the media and the tech industry and everybody

losing their crap over the fact that it was going

to turn into the year 2000. It's just mind -boggling.

It's hilarious, but it's still mind -boggling.

So yeah, anyways, I'm going to call this episode

to a close. I think it's been pretty decent.

I don't want to drag it on any further. There's

not really any other content I want to talk about

this episode. So until next time, get altered,

get geeky with the Altered Geeks.