This morning, I want to look at Psalm 23. So if you guys open up your Bibles to Psalm 23, I'm going to be looking at the entire chapter which is just six verses. And I've entitled this message Satisfied, and it's Psalm 23. I'm going to go ahead and read it, and then we'll get into our Bible study. Psalm 23 verses 1 through 6. Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23 is the most quoted, most memorized, and in more cards than any of the 150 Psalms we have in the Bible. It's a very popular Psalm. It has brought comfort to millions of people, and even non-Christians have actually taken Psalm and they have actually applied it to their own personal lives. It's even in movies, I've seen movies where they actually quote Psalm 23. So there's like this universal feel with Psalm 23 that not only just Christians embrace it, but also non-Christians embrace Psalm 23. But I wonder, out of all the people that actually know Psalm 23, how many of those people actually know the heart behind these six verses and who the shepherd is when it comes to Psalm 23? Another thing about Psalm 23 is that Psalm 23 is also misunderstood and misapplied by many people. When do you usually hear Psalm 23 quoted? Funerals. That's right. You hear it at funerals. But did you know that Psalm 23 has more to do with life than death? Look at the last verse, Psalm 23.6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of what? My life. See, the focus of Psalm 23 is on this side of heaven, not on the other side. And the focus of this Psalm is our personal relationship with a good shepherd, the living God today. Now, not later on in heaven, although we look forward to spending eternity with God, this Psalm has a lot to do with us on this side of heaven. Now, to make a few observations of Psalm 23, I want you to notice in verse 1, Psalm 23 verse 1 speaks about the Lord in the third person. He is my shepherd. But then, in Psalm 23 verse 4, David speaks to the Lord as a personal friend. He says, for you are with me. So what we see here in Psalm 23, and I'm going to kind of give you an outline of this morning, what we're going to look at here in Psalm 23. We see God in three ways, and we see three locations. Now, here's the way we look at it. Verses 1, 2, and 3, the location is a field. We see God as a shepherd who gives direction. In verse 4, we see that the location is a valley, and we see God as a friend who protects us. And the third division is verses 5 and 6, the location is a tent or a house, and we see God as a host providing for us. So you have three locations. You have the field, you have a valley, and then you have a house. You're inside of a house.  So let's look at the first one. Let's go out into the field, and let's look at God as a shepherd directing us. He says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. David, when he uses the metaphor of the shepherd to describe God, he's not talking about just a designation or a name for the Lord, but the relationship between God and his children. It's a great affirmation. What David is actually saying is this, I believe in God, I believe God cares, and I believe that God cares for me or about me. The Lord is my shepherd. Now this recurring idea of God as a shepherd is not a foreign idea in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament, you see God portrayed as a shepherd. Let me give you an example. Psalm 28, verse 9. The Psalmist says, save your people and bless your inheritance. Shepherd them also and bear them up forever. If you go to the last book of the Bible, Revelation 7, verse 17, it says, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of water.  So this idea of God as a shepherd is not something that is just found in Psalm 23. It's found throughout the Bible. The Lord is the shepherd of the people as a whole, but he's also the shepherd to individual members. So a shepherd, it's interesting that shepherds can have as few as 10 sheep or as much as hundreds of them. And the cool thing about a good shepherd is that the shepherd actually knows each and every sheep in the flock, regardless how big his flock is, whether it's 10 or 100 or 200.  If you already know that, you know what I mean. They're not smart animals. Sheep are defenseless and dependent, and they live by faith in the shepherd. Have you ever wondered why God calls us shepherd or sheep? I'm sorry? Why doesn't God call us tigers? What about cheetahs? You know, a lion. He doesn't call us that. He calls us sheep. And the reason why is because we, as human beings, resemble a lot of the characteristics of a sheep. One sheep are stubborn. I see the wives doing this to the husband. It's like, ah, no. Sheep are stubborn animals. They're very hard to move, to keep them going in a direction. Not only that, but sheep can get themselves involved in bad habits. Same with us. We can get involved in bad habits. God has to say, He wants to break us from these bad habits and say, get out of this. Quit doing this. This is not what you should be doing. But sheep are not smart animals. They need help living like we do. We are dependent on Jesus as they are dependent on their shepherd. Notice what he says, though. Not only is the Lord my shepherd. He says, I shall not want. The word want means to lack what one needs.  That's pretty radical. I have everything I need is what he's actually saying. You know, we live in a world or in a society filled with discontent people, don't we?  The scary thing is, is that you and I are conditioned to be discontent people. You guys remember the iPhone 3? A few of you are like turning it off right now. But do you remember the iPhone 3? From the 3 went to the 4, and then from the 4 went to the 5, and then from the 5 we have an iPhone 6 that's about this big, and it's like carrying a little TV in the back of your pocket. Now, I'm not against Apple products. I love Apple products, and I have an iPhone, but mine is at 4 right now. I'm too behind, and I'll stay that way. But you know, you buy one, and then in two years you've got to buy another one, and there's always that discontentment.  Well, people in general could be not content with their jobs, with their house, with their cars, and even their lives in general. They're just not content. Many of us today are living at the corner of complaints and regrets. And those people will say, if I only had this, or if only this had not happened to me, and many could say, the Lord is my shepherd, but not many can say, I shall not want. We can probably say confidently, the Lord is my shepherd, but when it comes to the second part here, I have everything I really need. A lot of us kind of choke saying that, because some of us, if we were honest with ourselves, we have set expectations of what our lives should look like. I call those people, they have a supermarket mentality. They have a list of things in how their lives should be, and the way they want their lives to be, and they thought that God would give them that list, or at least when they wanted it. But it didn't happen that way. And life is not like that. I wish it was. I wish it was that easy. But God has promised us one thing, and you can hold on to this promise, and you can claim this promise, and that is in Philippians 419, my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Did you see that? My God shall supply all your needs. So there's a problem with this, because when non-Christians see Christians complaining or being discontent, see a non-Christian will say, I don't want to follow your shepherd. Your shepherd doesn't provide for you. You're always complaining. You're always discontent. I don't want to be a Christian, because if that's the way your shepherd is, I don't want anything to do with him. He doesn't take care of you. He's a bad shepherd. And that's kind of like what we give people when we complain, when we are discontent, and people that non-Christians see that, they're like, I don't want to follow your shepherd. This is an important thing, because in verse 4, he develops this in verse 2, rather. He says that he makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. These are peaceful places for rest and feeding. Now, green pastures here, the fields and even parts of the desert would actually be green during the winter and spring. In summer and fall, the sheep would actually be led to many places in search of food. And what he's actually trying to convey to us with this verse is this, is that God's care is not seasonal, but constant and abundant. That's what he's saying. I mean, right now we're kind of moving towards the Christmas season, right? I mean, I've gone into Lowe's. I've gone into Costco. And I've seen aisles already with Christmas stuff. We haven't even gone through Halloween and Thanksgiving, and we're already being conditioned to actually get ready for the Christmas season. But we know, we all like that, I like the Christmas season. I mean, we always look forward to that time of celebration, eggnog, Christmas trees, presents and debt, right? We always look for that, right? It's great. We're looking forward to a great season of Christmas, where we're running towards it, where it's ramping it up for us. And imagine if God's care for us was like that. Got two more minutes for God to care for me. I can't wait. Right now we're on the off season. He's not caring for me right now, but soon it'll be the season for God to care for me. See, David says, no, it's not like that. See, God cares for us no matter what season you're in. He cares for us, and this is what he's saying. His care is not seasonal. It's constant and abundant. Now the still waters that you see here, the shepherd will not allow their sheep to drink from running water, rivers, anything that is running, because sheep, while bending to drink, could fall in and die and drown basically. So what a good shepherd will do, he will actually draw water from the well and feed that water to the sheep. So he will not get them close to a river because they're dumb, they fall in. You know what I mean? And we see here, this is exactly what he's saying, but what he wants us to understand is this, is that we don't need to worry about our needs because God is aware of our needs. He's totally aware of our needs. Back in Matthew chapter six, verse 25 and 34, Jesus encourages us to not feel anxious about tomorrow. He says it four times, do not worry about what? Tomorrow. He says it four times. I feed the birds, I take care of the animals, you know what, you're more valuable than birds. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. That's a promise because he is the God of our tomorrow. If you're worrying about tomorrow right now, stop. And I'd say it in love because Jesus said stop. You have to stop worrying about tomorrow because God will take care of your tomorrow. He will take care of your need. He's aware of your needs. God will take care of our genuine needs, not our wants. There's a problem with this because Christians will say, well, Robert, I've been praying and I'm not getting what I'm asking for. I'm gonna say, well, maybe you're guilty of James chapter four, verse three that says this, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Well, the reason why you're not getting it maybe is because you're trying to just do something just for your own good. There's no benefit to God or to anybody else. It's a selfish desire to want this thing and God says, no, you're not gonna get it or it could harm you. Maybe you've been praying for that boy, for that girlfriend. I know, I will just, I'll save them Lord if you, and it's like, no, you're not. Missionary dating never works or usually doesn't work. I was a product of missionary dating but I would never say to somebody, go date a non-Christian and get him saved. I would never say that. In fact, me and my wife, Kareen, we knew each other before we were Christians. We're both pagans, you know, non-Christians and then she got saved and then I came right after her. But I would never say to a Christian, go and date somebody. Hey, go ahead and pray for them. Yeah, they look good. No, God says that's to spend on your own place. A lot of you guys are like, yeah, maybe you brought that person here. But anyways, uncomfortable, weird, right? So, he says he restores my soul. The revival, the refreshment of the soul, it's interesting to me that this indicates the returning of life. Sheep that fall on their back cannot get up. You know that?  They could really die. So the shepherd, actually what he does, he scans his flock constantly. And if he sees one of his sheep on its back, he immediately runs to that sheep and he picks it up and puts it back on its feet. That right there, he just restored their soul. He saved that sheep's life. And it's interesting that this is what we see, that a well-informed shepherd is very good at that.  He restores their soul. Well, the same application can be made for us as Christians. Before you were a Christian, you were kind of like on your back, drowning in sin. You were dead, the Bible says, Ephesians 2-1.  So we see that God is the great restore of the soul. He's restored your soul. If you're a Christian here today, he's restored your soul. He's given you life. And not only that, but practically speaking, when you have failed the Lord, when you have, you know, basically just fumbled in your Christian life, God will still forgive you. He will still restore your soul. He will still renew a right spirit within you like he did with Peter, who denied him three times. God did not leave Peter on his own. He didn't leave Peter just to wallow up in his sadness and all the things that he was dealing with emotionally. Jesus went to Peter and he personally restored Peter. He didn't leave him alone. But not only that, in verse 3, notice, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. This speaks of the basic moral direction of God's children's lives towards an upright life. It's seen here as a blessing, not a burden. As a Christian, we are called to live upright lives. There shouldn't be any room for the old life. You know, we've just got saved out of that old life. So for us to continue in the old life is not biblical Christianity. For me to continue doing the things that I used to do when I was a non-Christian is actually violating Scripture and it's actually just basically just looking at the Scriptures as ineffective in my own life. But the Bible makes it clear that we are to live a holy life, a life that is upright. That's what he calls us to live. And this is what he's saying, it's this righteousness. And notice, though, it's for his name's sake. It's for his name's sake. What does that mean? Well, first of all, let me go back to the shepherd analogy. A shepherd with a bad reputation would be known throughout Israel. I mean, what kind of reputation would a shepherd have in Israel if everyone knew he was careless and irresponsible with his own sheep? It wouldn't be a good reputation. So what God is saying here, for his name's sake, that is in order for God to preserve his reputation for being true to his revealed character. What does this mean? Let me put this practically. God's name is on the line in your life. God's name is on the line in your life. You may be the only Bible that somebody's reading at work. Somebody's studying you.  Or a non-Christian in your family, a non-Christian that's a friend, when they find out you're a Christian, they're going to be watching you. They may not pick up a Bible, but you're going to be the Bible that they're actually going to be looking at and studying. So God's name is on the line in your life and in my life. So we are either giving Jesus a black eye or we're representing him well.   I don't know why. I mean, people will claim to be Christians on Facebook, and in the same post, they're tearing somebody else down and calling them bad names. I'm like, can you delete that post, please? I wish I was that bold to do it, because then everybody gets on that thread and they attack you. But you find that a lot and you're like, serious? Please don't say you're a Christian.  Put confused or something, right? Something. Just put something else but that. Because I think that's right. I mean, I think most of the time people are confused. And that's what I see. When I see somebody doing stuff, I'm like, oh, they're confused. They don't really understand what it means to be a Christian. And we see here that God's name is on the line in our lives. We have to be very careful because God wants to show the world that he is faithful to provide for all our needs and to guide us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. So what he's saying is show God off. Show Jesus off. Show him off to people. Represent Christ the way he should be represented. It's for his name's sake. David said this in Psalm 31. For you are my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for your name's sake, lead me and guide me. So we leave the field and now we go into the valley.  I'm checking out. You'll see why I said that here in a moment. Now, one thing about this, and I want to read this here for you. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, life, when we talk about life, life is full of peaks and valleys, calm streams, and roaring rapids, right? Sometimes. I mean, Jesus made it clear in John 1633, in this world what? You will have what? Tribulation. That's a very hard verse to take because our own savior warned you and I that we are going to have tribulation in this world. The word tribulation means pressure. So Jesus is saying in this world you're going to have pressure and how many of you probably had a lot of pressure coming to church today? Maybe somebody didn't want you to come to church and that you got pressure or at work or last week you just, you were pressured and it's true. We will have pressure in this world. So life will not always be about green pastures, still waters. There will be valleys. I have never met a Christian that says I am praying for valleys today. I have never met a Christian that says I am praying for trials today. I can't wait. Lord, what is it? You know, there are songs that have these kinds of lyrics in them that I don't sing and I'm not trying to be unspiritual here. I'm being honest with you.  She has played it and it's called something like Send Down the Rain. Something like that. Basically send out whatever trial you want to send on me. Do it for your glory. I don't sing that part. I have a hard time. I do. In fact, if I could get into that city, I would take that track out somehow because it's hard to say, oh, yes, you know, I mean, yeah, do I go through trials and vows? Absolutely, I do. But I don't want to ask for them. I'd rather have them come to me and then let the Lord deal with me during that time. But I'm not going to ask for them. You know, one person that comes to mind who had a very deep valley was Naomi. If you remember Ruth chapter, I think it was chapter one or two, you know, she lost her husband and then she lost her two children or two boys. She was literally just without any family. And she came back to her town, Bethlehem, and as she was heading towards her town, the Bible says that the people saw her come and there was something with her face because they said, is that you, Naomi? I'm sure they knew who she was, but there was something about her face. Something physically happened that she came and they said, is that you, Naomi? And what did she say to them? Don't call me Naomi, which means pleasant. Call me Mara, which means bitter. And then she gives it to them. He says, for the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. Whoa. What do you do with that?  How are you doing? The Lord is dealing very bitterly with me. What do you do with that? Next. What are you doing? We're uncomfortable. You're like, how do I deal with that? You know one thing, I love Naomi because Naomi was real and raw.  While you're going through a trial and you say, doing great, praise the Lord.  You're going through a hard time. Tell them, let them pray for you. See, Naomi was real and I think we should have more realness in church, don't you think? And I know that you're like, I don't know if I can do that. You know why? It's because there's a lot of judgment sometimes in church. Because if I share what I'm going through right now, what are they going to think about me?   So a lot of you hold back from, you know, being real with people. And I'm not saying pour out your heart to anybody.  Well, Naomi was like, I'm coming to my people. This is where I'm at. Here it is. I read recently that a survey recently that showed that most American adults are facing their future with doubt and fear. Not with a feeling of invincibility, but with a feeling of vulnerability. When I read that, I'm like, whoa, that's so true. And I start thinking about our world. I'm like, we live in a very chaotic world today, don't we? We live in a fallen world, a world that is falling apart. I mean, when you have ISIS making threats against the United States, that they want to come here and wipe us out. And then you hear that this person got beheaded.  All of a sudden you're like, whoa, it's here. Wow, this is crazy. And now to add on top of those ISIS threats, now you have Ebola. Now you're freaking out because everybody, you're like, whoa, I'm not going to fly in a plane now. I'm not going to, you know, all of a sudden, things are getting a little bit more stressful. Then you have a mayor in Texas who said, I want all the pastor's sermons so I can review the sermons just to make sure that there's nothing here that's said about homosexuals, anything against them, or any type of gender stuff.  What is this world coming to?  Never go out. You know what I'm saying? It's like, what do you do in a world like that? It's like, you're getting just cornered, ISIS, Ebola, and people trying to take my sermon notes. I mean, what is going on here? Well, we live in a very unstable world. We know that. But here, we're talking about a valley. You know, in the Middle East, being really hot, shepherds will move their sheep down into the ravines called the wadis. Sheep hate it. You know why? Because they can't see well. And as they take some down to this wadi, it gets dark. That's why I say turn off the lights. It's an illustration, but don't do it. It gets dark and dark.  But they have to trust the shepherd that he knows what he's doing. And he takes them that far down into the darkness because at the bottom is where fresh water is. That's the good shepherd. That's what he wants to do. He wants to bring him to fresh water. So in applying this, we need to apply it in this way that in the darkest valleys of our lives are sometimes pathways to the greatest pastures, the greatest blessings sometimes. A good example of this is Joseph. You remember Joseph? When he was thrown in a pit, this dry well, he was thrown in there by his brothers, and he was left there. And then they sold him as a slave.  Then his boss's wife came on to him and wanted to basically sleep with him. And Joseph said, no way. I'm not going to give into your perversion. He went the other way, and then she got upset. And then she said, it was him who came on to me.  Then he's going to jail. And here is Joseph going through another valley from a pit to a slave, now in a dungeon. And then at the end of all these valleys, God worked something interesting. And he said this, and I quote, Genesis 50-20, speaking to his brothers, but as for you, human evil against me. But God meant it for good in order to bring it about. And it is this day to save many people alive. Isn't that awesome? You're like, no, it's not. I would want to go through all of that. But one of my point is this, is that God will take us through valleys because at the end of that valley, there's something more. There's something else that God is doing in our lives.  And he uses it figuratively, and it speaks of gloom. But I want you to notice something here that is very important that we miss. Notice it doesn't say the valley of death. What does it say? The valley of the shadow of death. Let me ask you this. Can a shadow hurt you? Can the shadow of a Doverman pincher bite you? Can the shadow of a knife cut you? No. Neither will the shadow of the valley of death.  And what he's talking about here is very important because he's telling us here basically that the valley of the shadow of death cannot destroy you. It's a shadow. She are feeling death, but it's just a shadow. There's nothing that you're going to get hurt by it. You're supposed to trust the shepherd. Another thing that I want you to notice that it says, though I walk, I wish it said though I run through the valley or though I hop over the valley, it says walk. Well, why would it say walk? Because see, listen, God will walk us through the valley. God is there in the midst of our valley. He's walking us through. He doesn't want you and I to run through our valley. He wants us to walk because there are lessons that we are taught through these valleys. You know, I love the story of Meshach, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's Daniel chapter three. You guys remember the whole story when you have Nebuchadnezzar, who was a weird king, erected this image and he sent out a decree for everybody to say, he said, every person now will need to worship this image. So at the sound of all these instruments, I want everybody to bow down to this image and worship it because it resembled him. Well, these three young Hebrews said, no, we're not. So when that happened, the time came, when all these instruments went out, that everybody bowed down to the image except for the three Hebrew men. Imagine how weird that must have looked. Everybody's on their faces and they're the only three going like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just standing up right here. Well, somebody saw it and they went up to King Nebuchadnezzar. King, remember that decree you sent out that said at the sound of all these instruments, everybody's to bow down and worship your image? Yeah. Well, guess what? There's three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, did not, they stayed up. They did not bow down. And he says, well, bring them to me. So he did. He brought them over. The three guys came up, young guys, and he said to them, hey, did you guys not bow down to my image? And you know what they said? They said, we didn't bow down to my interpretation. Yep. We didn't. Because we're not going to serve your gods. We're going to serve the God of heaven. We're going to serve him. He's the real God. And then he got all upset. The Bible says his countenance changed. You guys remember that Yosemite Sam? Remember when Bugs Bunny used to take them off and he would always get red and blow up? Remember that? I kind of picture Nebuchadnezzar doing one of those things. You know what I mean? Like, oh, what do you mean you didn't bow down? And he bound them and threw them into this fiery furnace. The weird thing is that he turned up the fire even more. I'm like, what is that going to do? They're burning already. That's not going to do anything to them.  You don't think right. So he throws them in to burn, to death, bound. And again, why would you bound them? It's not like they can come out of this hole. They're there, you're done. But then all of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzar had saw something very troubling. And he's like, hey, counselors, hey guys, can you guys come here for a minute? Could I throw in there three, King? Okay, there's four. And one looks like the Son of Man. God was in the midst of the fire with these three Hebrew men. And then he pulled them up and none of them were burned. Singed nothing. They didn't even smell like they were burned. And then that's when Nebuchadnezzar says, I'm going to worship your God. Okay, he's the right one. You're right. Let me tell you something. This morning, God is walking with you in your valley, whatever that valley is at this moment, God is walking with you. He's not going to leave you alone. He will be right there in the midst of the fire. That is why he says in verse four, I will fear no evil. David understood that, he understood this because he was under the shadow of death with Saul. Saul was running after his life. Saul wanted to kill him, but God had protected him. And he says, for you are with me. The evil that surrounded him was very scary, but when God was with him, there was no reason to fear evil. I love what Isaiah 54-17 says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. Second Corinthians 4-8, Paul says, we are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, he says. Now this doesn't mean that God will shield us from every harmful circumstance, because obviously you know that the three Hebrew guys went into the fire, they actually experienced this. But we got to understand one thing is that we should never fear evil in our valleys because God is the one in control. And not only that, but no one can knock him off his throne. God is stable, nor can anything or anyone remove you, remove me from the love of God. That is why Paul says in Romans chapter eight that you and I are more than conquerors because there's nothing on the face of this earth, under the earth or in heaven that can remove you and I from God's love. That makes us conquerors, amen? We have to understand that because when we understand this, then we can go through our valleys with a loving God. A God who loves me will protect me, he will give me direction and guidance, and nothing will smash me unless he allows it, of course. But he says there, though your rod and your staff comfort me. This is the equipment of a shepherd. A staff was used to direct the sheep, and a rod was a club that protected the sheep, and sometimes they would actually put nails at the end to actually fight off predators. But we see, though, that the shepherd here is seen here as a good shepherd, and Jesus himself said this in John chapter 10, verse nine. He says, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and we'll go in and out and find pastors. So God himself is our protector. He's our shield. Abram understood this. God said to Abram, Genesis 15-1, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. In Psalm 3320, David said, our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. So we go from the field and we go into a valley, and out of the valley, now we go into a house. A tent. And now he says here that God becomes our provider, our hosts. Notice what it says there in verse five and six. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  My cup, he says, runs over. Hospitality was very important in the Middle East, and it still is today. Hospitality was huge. They were famous for it. Here we see God as a great host who would bring you into his house and he would provide for you. He would be the greatest host ever. And we see that there are some enemies here, and the enemies here are portrayed as powerless to prevent the enjoyment of God's generous hospitality. Now the anointing part of oil, it says there, let you anoint my head with oil. She would have this problem with insects and lice. There is a fly that would actually land on its nose, and because of the wool being so thick, they couldn't, you know, swat a fly off their nose. If the fly landed, it would actually lay eggs there, or if it landed close to the ear, it would lay eggs and it would embed itself into the head, and it would actually kill the sheep if the shepherd did not put oil on top of its head, because the oil would cause the slipperiness to be upon the head, so any insect that would land wouldn't have the effectiveness to lay eggs on it. It just would slide off. So the shepherd would actually protect the sheep from those enemies, and that's what God is saying to us. He will protect us from our enemies, and notice that it's a cup overflowing. That's how generous God is, that it's overflowing. And then he says this, and I love this part, verse 6, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  You can count on these two every single day. It's what he's saying here, and notice that it says they will follow me. It doesn't say that you're going to go after them. You don't wake up in the morning and say, but please open my eyes to see your goodness, where your goodness is. I want to follow it. No, he says, no, it's going to follow you. Just live in Christ. You're going to see my goodness come upon you and my mercy. When you fail, you ask God to forgive you. That's his mercy that he actually forgave you. You experience that every single day. This mercy and goodness is part of our relationship with Christ. It's our daily experience with Jesus. Goodness and mercy, his mercy, his goodness leads us to his mercy because God is willing to forgive us. God is willing to help us. So we find these two all the time. They follow us. You know, I'm on these social media. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, MySpace. No, I'm not on that anymore. And I always tell people, follow me. Follow me on Twitter. Follow me on Instagram. Follow me on Facebook. And as I read this, I'm like, no, I want this to follow me. I want God's goodness and mercy to follow me because I need his mercy. I need his goodness. I want it to follow me. And it's interesting that we see here this is exactly what he's doing. He's showing us the blessings that we have from our great shepherd. But I want to close with a few things here. Today, there are thousands of people each day waking up with burdens that they're bearing, anxiety. And my question to you is, are you one of these people? Are you one of these people that are bearing these secret burdens that you're not telling anybody?  Let me encourage you, no matter what circumstances you're facing this morning, when you follow God, you are safe and sound because he cares for you. As one person put it, and I quote, though you may not know what will follow, you can know whom to follow. That's the promise that we have with our good shepherd. Another question that I want to ask you is this, do you know the Lord as a personal shepherd? Do you know him as the shepherd? Maybe you're here this morning, you were invited for the first time, or maybe the third time, and you don't know the shepherd personally. You don't know who this is, and you're being introduced to him, and that's Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Or maybe you do know the shepherd.  Maybe your life hasn't been all good, all bad, all right. Maybe you kind of left the sheep pen. Now you're kind of like the prodigal son, the prodigal daughter, whatever you want to call it.  You need to come back here. So either you don't know the shepherd personally, and I want to give you that opportunity tonight, today, or you do know the shepherd, you need to come back to the pen to Christ.


I first seed on Donald Lynx. I'm going off that bunker on the left. Bit of cut to chase it down there. Down so easy, doesn't it? Oh, hello. Bit of cut off the left and that's right down the middle. That's a nice start of the day, on Donald Lynx. Let's see what's happening here. I haven't been here for a couple of years and I'm looking forward to this.  Dog leg left to right. A couple of bunkers you can see. Framed, absolute stunning. Can we get another ball going down there? Oh, come on, hand. Out the car park. Off the blocks here. Don't go into that second bunker. It's gone into that second bunker. Great bit of course design. You don't want to go tight to the right. We haven't got the confidence to go tight to the right.  Again, as much as I don't like being in here, you've got to understand how the course has been put together. So I'm afraid. Driver to 60 degree wedge. I'm afraid. That's a shock gone. I just played an iron in. We're on the second hole. I already remember one of the key features of this course and how difficult it can be. Pitched up on the top, looked okay pin iron and it just starts to gather and you see it disappear down these banks. Then all of a sudden you've got a real tough shot now. You've got to get this up the hill and somewhere near that flag. That's not a bad effort. Go on ball. Oh hello. Touch your survey there because that was a tough hole shot. I'll play it with an eight iron up the hill and I'll take that any day of the week. You think you're close to the flag and then you're coming and it's like 25 foot away and it's no easy to put. Up the hill and then rolling away. Keep going, keep going. Keep going, keep going. Greens are pure and fast as well. She's happy with that too. Put from there, he says. Yeah, take that. He's still smiling. Greens are so good and so quick. Duneddonal displays maturity beyond its age. A lower course was laid in 1911. Following World War II the landscape had laid dormants until 2003 when Kyle Phillips brought this course back to life. We've got a gorgeous day for it. We're enjoying the golf but there's a lot going on in 21 in terms of some other exciting things on the course. Absolutely. It's one of the most exciting years in Duneddonals history to be honest. The course opened in 2003 but we're just about to have £25 million spent on the complex and develop a clubhouse and accommodation on site. Improvements to the golf course itself. When you say accommodations Hotel or lodges? We've got 18 lodges and 22 rooms that'll be very close to the clubhouse so you're really close to where all the action is. Lovely. We're really excited about it. When do you expect that to be is there an opening datas yet? We haven't got a specific date but we'll be open mid to end of September next year. The project hasn't been completely confirmed yet in terms of time skills but we're not far away. So we need to get a tea time book for September 2021. I think you will. Perfect. Still leaves a bit in here. Greens I don't know. Pretty close to the fastest greens I've played this year. You can't be too bold I can tell you because you're soon ready to buy and that's a twitchy one. Say the least. The changes in elevation both fairway and green are very much a feature throughout a greatly varied 18 holes of golf. I made our way to 13 and it was a great old just played there 12. I absolutely love that but the minute I see a railway line running parallel then you've got that sort of it's a must on any links. We've got the water over the other side we've got the isle of iron in the distance and it's nice. Really nice and a great golf hole like I said running parallel with the railway down the left. 370 stroke 9. There's not a lot of room rolling fairways need a three iron going down the middle. I say that with a grin on my face that's why I'm grinning. Oh not another bunker. No. Yep another bunker. These bunkers are in all the right places you know it depends which way you look at it. Another great piece of course designing on 13. Absolutely love this so you've got a reason I got mid length iron to say the least and you want to get to that front flag and there's a burn that you can see now literally I don't know it's probably 15 yards short of that pin. So that's a tough ask so what you do the average golf will do is take along the club and make sure you carry the burn and then you go long near end up here and you've got an absolute nightmare to put from the back here and that's the kind of thing that I love about this design it's so well designed of course. Let's just see how I get on with this first of all roll down a bit well that's a good effort. I'd take that any day of the week but the point is yet again this Kyle Phillips design it's so clever it keeps asking questions of you all the time and playing tricks with your mind the shot you might want to play is not the one you end up playing.  Yet Cabello bailed it to what was it eight foot from 275 yards that ain't going to be my finish but in terms of Don Donald Lynx it was in fantastic condition greens were superb. It's a tough old track and it's asked questions of your game I've mentioned about the quality of the design which I think is fantastic I've played one other course of Kyle Phillips which was Yas Lynx over in Abu Dhabi and it's got similarities the climate is a bit different but it's definitely similarities in the design and I really like him as a designer of course designer but yeah as you've already heard there's going to be some interesting changes in the next 18 months or so so I'll be interested to see how Don Donald transforms how it matures but it feels like it's been here for years already and I think it's only going to get better fantastic golf course really was


Daily Tech News show is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks, you, Kirk Stephenson, Miranda Janell, that Charlie Dude, and everybody, welcome new patrons, Sean, Lars, and Ry! Welcome! On this episode of DTNS Streaming Services, Want Your Money, how would you like to fork it over? Plus, YouTube wags the finger at open AI, and can we ever trust Google again? Probably not. Tasia's gonna tell us why. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, April 5th, 2024, in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Animal House, I'm Sarah Lane. Drawing the top tech stories in Cleveland, I'm Len Peralta. I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. And joining us, YouTuber and host of AI, I name the show, as well as talk techie-to-me podcasts, Tasia Kastodi! How's it going? Hi, gang! How is everybody? I'm good, thank you for asking. Yeah. It hailed today in Los Angeles earlier. It did? I didn't see that. At least in my neighborhood. Oh, yeah. It was like, it was crazy. I was like, it's raining, it's hailing, and now it's sunny. I don't know. Well, hailing frequencies are open in Los Angeles, apparently. All right, let's start with the quick hits. Reuters sources say Tesla no longer plans to make the Model 2 a more affordable sedan EV expected to be in the $25,000 range. The sources also said that Tesla will focus more on bringing a fully autonomous car to market that could be used as a robo-taxi. Samsung projects its operating profit for Q1 will rise 931% over last year. That's the kind of thing you get from a startup that's been in business two years. That's wild. It's thanks to memory chip prices. Samsung, if you didn't know, is the world's largest maker of DRAM for computers and phones. And memory prices dropped last year because there was a lot of excess inventory as demand for consumer electronics fell. But demand for data center building related to AI services is helping turn that trend around. Samsung may also expand more in the United States. CNBC sources say it plans to double its investment in plants in Taylor, Texas, and elsewhere near Austin to $44 billion. Samsung will also receive subsidies from the U.S. government through the CHIPS Act as part of that expansion. Mass production at the first of those facilities is expected to begin sometime next year. Or this year, sorry, sometime this year. A California warn notice that's required of large companies laying off large numbers of people indicates that Apple notified 614 employees on March 28 that they would be laid off as of May 27. The notice didn't specify which departments the employees worked in, but their locations were often in smaller satellite offices where secret research projects are more often carried out, indicating maybe that is where the bulk of the layoffs are going to come from. That backs up the guess that these folks are at least some of them working on Apple's CarTech project, Project Titan, that has reportedly been shut down. That project reportedly had about 2,000 people working on it overall. Wired has an article about a former TikTok employee named Zen Goziker, who says he met with members of the U.S. Congress to share concerns about TikTok's data practices after he stopped working there. Goziker also claims to be the source behind articles critical of the data practices at Project Texas, which is run by USDS and handles all the TikTok data in the U.S. separately from TikTok and its parent company ByteDance. Wired's Louise Marsalis considers many of the claims improbable, but they may have shaped current U.S. government views of the company. The northern German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has completed a pilot project and decided to convert its government offices from using Windows and Office to using Linux and Libra Office. The state operates about 30,000 computers and hopes to prevent the flow of public data from possibly being sent to third countries. I want to apologize. It was Louise Matsakis who wrote that Wired article, not Marsalis. That's my fault. Also, yes, we also know there was an earthquake in New York, so, you know, not just hail in Los Angeles. Everything's a little wild. All right, let's start with Disney. Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC that the company will begin its password sharing crackdown in June. The crackdown will start in a few countries, in a few markets, before expanding to all Disney subscribers in September. So that's not just Disney Plus, that's Hulu and ESPN Plus, Hotstar, et cetera. Disney implemented specific rules about sharing passwords outside of the household. New subscribers were subject to them starting January 25th and the terms changed for everybody on March 14th. When Disney Plus detects password sharing, it's going to prompt the user to get their own subscription. Account holders will also have an option to add a member from outside the house for an additional fee. Disney has not announced what that fee is going to be yet. Not coincidentally, Iger believes Disney streaming business will be profitable by the end of the year. Streaming companies are moving from acquiring users to figuring out how to make streaming businesses work. There's also stories out today about Roku putting ads on anything coming into an HDMI port on a Roku TV. Paramount trying to sell you shirts during the CMT Music Awards. Teja as a viewer, how does this make you feel? Well first I can just picture Paramount and what that's going to look like. I'm just picturing like a live infomercial. There's an armoire on the stage now.  Like you guys even notice, let's talk about old school TV for a second, but when they do very awkward product placement and you're like this is clearly or watch a reality show anything to do with anything and it's like let's bring up the Expedia app. And it's like oh come on guys. So I feel like this is all just where it's going and we're going to have to get used to it. But if I may, it wasn't that long ago. It seems like because you know what is time? I'm sure it was long ago. Remember when Netflix tweeted out all those years ago? What was it? Like love is sharing a password? Oh yeah. Yeah and you know HBO during the you know hide of game of thrones had said you know at one time yeah you know it just means our shows are popular. We're cool with it. With the torrenting right? Not directly saying torrenting, but we knew what they meant right? Yeah, yeah. Well it's just getting to the point now where like people are getting ticked because we're already paying for a service. So like a lot of these services that are adding even if it's not in the show like adding ads in some capacity whether that's like a visual ad or ad break we're getting irritated because it's like we're already paying more money every year by the way because you have the price every year and now we're getting like ad tiers and people that are already paying for something are like well wait what am I really paying for then if this is no longer like structured to be on demand because you know a lot of them have already shifted even that model of like how they're delivering the content again and I'm like is this just like are we going back in a circle? What's happening? I really can't fault Disney or any company for saying hey we're going to crack down on password sharing. You know it's unfortunate if that happens to be something that you're benefitting from and now it's like it doesn't work anymore. I remember the first time I ever had access to YouTube TV a friend of mine had it and he lived in a different state he lived in Arizona. I lived in California and it worked until it didn't and I was like bummer alright I'll just get it myself because I felt like the service was worth the money you know but I was going to ride that wave as long as I could. I don't fault companies for saying hey you know we want to keep track of our subscriber numbers we want to make as much money as possible but you're going to run the risk of a lot of people dropping off for that reason. Not only because now they have to pay but just because now they have to have the difficult conversation with themselves of like what am I really paying for to your point that's like you know at the end of the month I might drop Disney I don't really care about it that much well and you should right if it gets to that point you should drop it that's how the message is sent a lot of people say they'll cancel things because they're grumbly about it and they don't like that has been the stats is that people are actually increasing the number of subscriptions they have but they are being choosier about it so they're cancelling and adding in greater numbers and I think that makes sense because we're in the position now where companies have stopped making things really cheap to acquire customers and are starting to try to consolidate their business and that means you as a customer also should to consolidate your business and decide okay which of these are actually worth the money that I'm paying I think a lot of these other ideas are all in the execution right if the CMT Music Awards has somebody wearing like a pretty awesome shirt and it's really easy on your app to be like oh I can buy that shirt that's not bad if they pull out an armoire and go like hey everybody check out then yes no that is awful maybe you like the armoire but my point isn't that the armoire is good or bad it's how they do it if it fits into the flow of things great right if they're interrupting the music awards to explain an armoire then maybe that's not so good and if it's in your face constantly like if the host have to be like remember frequency you can do this and it's like enough like we're here watching awards brought to you by Expedia listen every Apple TV Plus show with the exception of the new Lincoln show because that would make no sense but you know everybody on those shows you know is using Apple products and I'm like I got it not a big deal I notice it but I don't feel like it's like ruining the plotline in any other way so there are times where you're like using Apple wallet to get into the theater yeah oh that booth boy was he ahead of his time but yeah there are times where you're like okay maybe it's a little egregious but whatever you know you can look past it and there are other times like you said Tasia where you're like oh come on you know this is getting a little ridiculous now let me quickly check Wayfair oh really okay cool I'll just watch this ad now this integrated ad that's what the Roku one bothers me the most because it's putting an ad on something that's from someone else right you can have your Apple TV plugged in pause your Apple TV show your Lincoln show and then Roku puts an ad up that better work right that better not show up when I'm just trying to navigate the home screen and stuff like that so that one's that one seems dicier to me they'll have some kinks to figure out probably some kinks to figure out our next story falls right into that category so back in March OpenAI CTO Mira Muradi would not confirm whether or not the company's SORA model that creates a video from text prompts was trained on any data from YouTube or Instagram or Facebook either didn't know or couldn't confirm YouTube CEO Neil Mohan now tells Bloomberg that if SORA did use YouTube data it didn't have permission to do that and it would be a clear violation of YouTube's terms of use those terms don't allow for transcripts or video to be downloaded without creator permission Mohan said Google's Gemini abides by those rules no of course that is a Google company so that's a little bit different but says only Gemini only is training on YouTube data where the creators have licensed contract and given permission Now Teja these are big companies starting to question each other's data collection policies so what do you think is next as far as how enforcement will play out Well they're first going to have to prove it which I'm still luck Well and OpenAI has been sort of famously tight lipped about how their data is collected based on certain models that they've been training And I think that's why this became one of the reasons because now we're in this realm of neither confirm nor deny means probably it probably happens and it's probably happening is what we're all making this assumption So they're going to claim on their end that it's whatever fares under the fair use act or whatever it falls under the fair use act which you know clearly for a company because as you guys know and I've talked a lot about before YouTube and I'm sure a lot of the other companies has a lot of issues when it comes to even things like where all their traffic comes from and they just have a blanket policy like well it's up to the creator to control traffic when they're controlled by one of the biggest tech companies in the world so what do you mean like if you can't figure out where your traffic is coming from so that's why I just say good luck proving it because how can they possibly do it so like as far as enforcement let's say because you know Sundar pinch I came out yesterday and said basically how he wants to use AI to help with regulation and enforceability and stuff and it's like well how and then how is that going to impact the end user as well because how are we supposed to trust now these algorithms that things aren't getting flagged inappropriately or like there's just so many different implications now that I just think this is like such a new world that they're waiting into and they don't even have the answers because I don't think there are no that's the thing like how do you prove that it's like do you guys remember when the New York Times was like hey we figured out you're scraping our content open AI well how do they figure it out they basically tricked chat GPT and like kept problem kept kept feeding it all these different paragraphs from the same articles until it finally gave it what they wanted which I would have to right leave me alone stop pestering but it's that exact thing of how how else do you prove this so what's YouTube going to do and like YouTube and their Gemini thing I think is also kind of a bit of it we need to be skeptical about what they're saying because like now with advanced they're letting people connect their accounts and stuff and not just that but now other users can go on Gemini advance and say like pull out information directly from a YouTube video without somebody having to go watch that YouTube video so there's also things like that in terms of content creators on any of these platforms need to be aware of it's no longer even just your data but it's like your views where the traffic is coming from there's just so many layers to it you guys there I would say in in the most dramatic outcome of something like this scenario and this could happen between a lot of companies but let's say you know it's you know open AI slash Microsoft versus YouTube slash Google in this situation they could go to court let's say YouTube wins open AI they're asked to disclose that they did do this which is against YouTube's terms of service again this is hypothetical I'm not saying this is happening but let's say it does okay well then open AI would have to disclose a lot more information than they want anybody to know about what their models are trained on and how their models are getting smarter over time and then let's say you know a judge or jury says all right well you have to just get all the YouTube stuff out of there well now it gets interesting because open AI can say well we did okay we did but you know the model does the model you know revert back to v1 when it's on v12 well yeah what does it mean to say get all the stuff out of there because that's not how these models work the model is a relational database of learned connections that doesn't include any of YouTube's you know stuff so kind of the damage is done you can't you can't pull something out that's not actually there it's the fact that it was used to trade it that it seems to be what bothers people it's interesting the Wall Street Journal asked if because Marathi said we used public available data and license data and Wall Street Journal says does that include YouTube Instagram and Facebook and Marathi is like I don't know I'll check went back and confirmed that licensed material included content from Shutterstock which kind of left unanswered the question of okay but does it include YouTube Instagram and Facebook and I wonder if that story kind of blowing up into like oh it looks like open AI open AI might be using YouTube stuff becomes something that YouTube doesn't want other companies to think is true so it's less about we're going to sue open AI and more about we need to make a public statement that if they were doing that that would not be okay so don't anybody else get any ideas bingo on on the subject of AI because we have a lot of those in shows these days Meta says that starting in May it's going to expand the content it labels as made by AI by looking at industry standard AI image indicators or when users just identify their content as AI generated on their own. Meta's vice president of content policy Monica Bickert wrote that the company will only remove AI generated material if it violates our policies against voter interference, bullying and harassment, violence and incitement or any other policy in our community standards. Yeah and that is in response to the oversight board recommendation they actually went farther than the oversight board had even recommended. Alright from AI to TikTok this week's top 5 is out it's 60 seconds long doesn't take you much time to get informed on a cool thing that I have broken down into the top 5 things you need to know about technology and this week's is things you probably didn't know about TikTok. You can catch it at daily tech news show on TikTok itself DTNS pics DTNS PIX on Instagram and at youtube.com daily tech news show. Tuesday April 2nd Google podcasts finally sunset in the United States later this summer it's sunsetting everywhere. The website followed in a suit later in the week with podcast.google.com shutting down April 4th here in the U.S. The site will allow users access to a settings page where they can move subscriptions over to YouTube music Google's official replacement for the podcasting service or download an opml file that you can use with third party podcasting apps that export functionality will remain until everything is done on July 30th Tasia it seems like you were pretty invested in Google podcasts what are you going to do now? I liked Google podcasts it did one thing and one thing very well that was organize and play podcasts that's all I wanted from an app I was always between kind of that and stitcher guys RIP to another one if we may but right now I actually just made a YouTube video on it too I have finally made a switch you guys to another app because I'm on I you know I have multiple devices one Android one's iPhone and on iPhone can I just tell you Apple podcasts she's not cutting it it's not great especially when you come from like a Google podcast or a stitcher so I liked overcast a lot specifically the feature to share clips up to a minute of a voice or video clip how great is that and then you can share that out so like someone else can listen to that podcast if you're like hey you should listen to this but I have decided but a goodie pocket casts does it get better than pocket casts the UI is so good and can I tell you why and I'm probably not going to use the right terminology but you know when you go to tap on like an image the image of the podcast and sometimes some of these apps don't bring you to like that podcast page with all the episode list I just want to go to the podcast page with the episode list I just like scrolling back through episodes it's weird and pocket cast is so great for this it's so easy to use I don't think it's weird at all I do that too and Apple podcast which I do use it's just I don't know I know I have many other third party options but I'm just kind of using Apple podcast these days but that is the number one thing that drives me absolutely baddie is you know I'll kind of be like oh this episode is playing but you know I haven't listened to this podcast and if you know like maybe a couple weeks or you know maybe it's a daily show type thing I just want to go to the show page and that's always very hard to do yes you tap on it and then it opens the freaking episode and you're like nooo or you're trying to yeah like it's it does drive me crazy the UI does so pocket cast that's a good reminder I know a lot of folks who listen to DTNS are pocket cast fans as well yeah me too I use pocket cast because I can sync it across my pixel fold and my iPhone right so that I can pick up where I left off which is pretty pretty great Android, iOS, it's also very easy to import yeah export import all there so okay so you found a home that isn't YouTube music from podcasts which is what Google wanted you to do David Pierce from the Verge wrote a piece about Google podcast shutdown being part of what he calls the Google cycle and that the repeated killing of services like Google podcast which by the way used to be in Google music before it was then kicked back out is making David Pierce more resentful and less trustful of Google's current and any future products now some people may say late to the party David Pierce but Tasia how do you feel about this yeah I loved his piece but that was my first reaction was this this is what makes you lose faith in Google like this is classic Google playbook let's throw everything at the wall see what sticks and then we're just going to move stuff to the Google graveyard it's it's such a classic move that I just think this is the one where he's hanging his hat on like this is it to me like this is the final straw do you guys can we please take a moment Google Reader RIP was one of the best things in the world this is way before pocket way before any other you know feedly whatever I loved Google Reader I added to the list of dead Google products Aloe, Duo Google Plus Hangouts Hangouts on Air so it's just really funny that this was it but I do agree with his sentiment in that you know the usability of like podcast discovery first of all on YouTube is a complete joke and he brought up a really good thing in the article which it could have been great right like if you you know they've been pushing so much on YouTube which is like a whole other argument we could talk about on a different different day but say you discover something in shorts to be able to tap through easily if that would have been a feature to tap through and subscribe on Google podcast like they could have made this marriage work so well and instead Google's done this thing where they want to funnel everything onto YouTube and they want YouTube to be all things to all people and I cannot stand when platforms do that you can do one thing and do it really really well and just kill at that game that they had done for so many years because you start to confuddle what the service actually was and beyond like searchability I mean if you guys actually think about it podcasts on YouTube is really just a playlist like that's all it is they haven't done anything with it it's a playlist so back when all those articles broke and they're like podcasts now on YouTube no it's not it's you have a video like you normally would into a playlist so it's kind of this really messy way of doing it but he's completely right as to why it all comes back to the money because ad revenue and they're like if we can stick ads on videos and that's more lucrative than our podcast app over here then that's what we're going to do users be darned unfortunately and y'all know how I feel about the ad revenue situation because YouTube's still taking mine so I feel like there's two big things that Google is keeps missing and one is they don't stick with good things long enough right they tend to just decide well it's not the success that searches or Gmail so kill it and I think they are guilty of that sometimes I think they get a bad rap for killing some things I'm like yeah that wasn't that popular Google wave as fun as it was nobody used right but there's some on the edge like Google plus and there's some like Google podcast that I think we're doing well the second thing I would add is why not transition it instead of kill it I think a lot of times they just close stuff instead of merging what if you just took Google podcast and renamed it YouTube podcast to begin and say like hey we've got a YouTube music app we've got a YouTube studio app now we've got a YouTube podcast app that's such a simple thing it makes so much sense and then you could still integrate podcast into YouTube to be like well hey if you're in the main YouTube app you can get it there too just like you can with music and with YouTube TV and everything else but if you want to experience it outside we'll still let you do that there's lots of options for them to transition maybe mine is not the right one but there are better ways than just like oh yeah no we're going to kill that now too and renaming it oh go ahead Teja, sorry yeah I was just saying that's what Google loves to play with naming conventions too how many times do they rename things so that would have been right up their alley yeah Google play music Google podcast YouTube music there was something before podcasts were in Google music too and I don't remember what it was off the top of my head but I remember when podcasts came to Google music then they got spun back out because Google music became YouTube music they didn't rename Google music YouTube music they built a whole new app one of my biggest pet peeves is when a service calls itself music but you're supposed to know that podcasts live inside now if you know then you're not going to be mad forever because you're like okay now I know but it's really just it's a terrible user experience it's like how podcasts used to be bundled into iTunes in the Apple ecosystem you can still access podcasts that way but there's a podcast app now and an Apple music app and that's the way it should have been it's just that we didn't use to have podcasts gosh we've been doing this a well Google get with the program it's a cultural thing I'd be curious to know from other users on the user standpoint because YouTube will only share so much data I want to know how all of this is affecting the YouTube platform because it's one thing from a creator's end and what I can complain about you know what I mean and say this is why I don't like it but from the user end very curious to see are people actually doing this I get it in terms of like visual podcasts like I've there's one podcast I subscribe to that I actually watch it but it's because it's an actual visual I mean so even though it's podcast it's a YouTube video but the rest all my podcasts I listen on dedicated podcast apps so that's what I'm just curious to see like is this really working for YouTube in terms of the revenue and is it working for the users is everybody going there for podcasts I don't know anecdotally it doesn't sound like it most of the people I've talked to who are moving off Google podcasts are moving to overcast or pocket casts or something like that so alright before we get out of here today let's check out the mail bag what do we got Sarah let's do it Scott wrote in about our conversation in Good Day Internet yesterday about the limitations of AI image generation Scott says one of the issues I've had is trying to describe different actors in an image example trying to get a red head and a brunette in an image resulting in two red heads or two brunettes or a red headed person and a gray wolf ended up with a red wolf this might not even be an image set for training but just being able to parse identifying features from the prompt and implying them to each figure I haven't used Google's generator but this is based off my experience with other AI image tools yeah this was in response to the discussion that was kicked off by was it Metas Lama that was only making everyone Asian it was having a hard time with different races it wouldn't make anyone Asian and then yeah it had other problems following on that I gotta say Scott the red wolf does sound cool but yes if you want a red head a human and a gray wolf you don't want a red wolf yeah I think this is a parameter issue when it can't handle those two things that is what I've been told anyway and then there's filters and tuning to try to make it do better things cause it to have issues like it did yesterday alright there is so much fodder in this show for Len Peralta to draw today I'm very curious what he decided to illustrate Len what did you do you know doesn't the the term google cycle sound like a podcast like a good podcast like you know with a guy who has a kind of an NPR smooth NPR voice welcome to google cycle yeah welcome to the final episode of google cycle the podcast where we discuss the lifespan of google initiatives I thought you said ghoul cycle well you know google loves to kill its children and this is sort of the image that I had here you really went for it you know he is sponsored by he is sponsored by Total Wine though so that's so yeah this image google cycle which shows a very you know kind of cool podcaster dude there ready to get his fate you can actually get this right now at my Patreon patreon.com forward slash Len where you can back me and everybody gets it now you're not just to be at the DTNS lover level to get it or you can go to my old online store lennpraltestore.com you can get it right there on the front page or you can go ahead and just don't even get it hire me for something commission google podcast google podcast eternal sleep brought to you by purple mattress purple mattress on Expedia thank you so much also Teja Custody such a pleasure to have you on the show as always let folks know what they can keep up with your work you can head on over to my youtube channel it's just at Teja Custody I'm at Teja Custody on all the things friend of the show Tristan Zutra and I for AI named this show new episodes every Friday we try our very best to dive in to the realm of AI there's a lot you have a lot of material I'll give you that the panic just put it that way every episode's a panic folks go go find out what they're doing today AI named this show dot com patrons stick around for the extended show good day internet it's Friday and time for a very pertinent quiz Roger outdid himself with a quiz specifically about Google's launched and killed off products can you remember them all before we do stick around just a reminder we do DTNS live Monday through Friday at 4pm eastern that's 2100 UTC and you can find out more about joining us live at dailytechnewshow.com we'll be back on Monday with Chris Ashley joining us have a wonderful weekend everyone this week's episodes of dailytech new show were created by the following people host producer and writer Tom Merritt host producer and writer Sarah Lane executive producer and Booker Roger Chang producer writer and co-host Rob Dunwood video producer and twitch producer Joe Kuntz technical producer Anthony Lemos Spanish language host writer and producer Dan Campos science correspondent Dr. Nicky Kuntz social media producer and moderator Zoe Detterding our mods beatmaster W. Scottis one bio cow captain Kipper Steve Guadirama Paul Reese Matthew J. Stevens a.k.a. Gadget Virtuoso and JD Galloway mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen music and art provided by Martin Bell Dan Looters Mustafa A. A. Cast and Len Peralta live art performed by Len Peralta a cast ad support from Tatiana Matias Patreon support creators for this week's shows include Justin Robert Young Scott Johnson and Patrick Norton our guest this week was Tasia Custody and thanks to all the patrons who make the show possible this show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com Diamond Club hope you have enjoyed this program.


Were you ever frustrated by trying to prove a point to a person who lacks critical thinking skills? It is a difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible task, but there is a way. Hey PCTs, in this video I'll introduce seven methods inspired by world-renowned critical thinking expert Peter Bergogian on how to debate with people who lack critical thinking skills. Focus on a specific question Take a lesson from Socrates. Focus your conversation on a specific question as opposed to a general topic. Socrates is most famous for his ability to shake people out of erroneous beliefs. He mostly did this not through careful argumentation, but with thoughtful, targeted questioning. When your questions are open-ended, meaning questions that allow your partner to talk at length about their thoughts in their own words, not give single-word answers like yes or no, they invite conversations. These types of questions usually start with how or what. How and what questions don't lend themselves to yes and no responses, as do questions beginning with can, is, are, does, and do. For example, ask how does this seem to you, as opposed to does this look good? This will set up the conversation to go in a more productive way, and will open up different options presented next. Be sincere in your questions. Do not make quagestions, a suggestion in the form of a question. Too many times we want to lead the other person to our own conclusions, but forcefully trying to do so may only lead them to become defensive and hunker down even deeper into their beliefs, where they find even more counter-arguments, even if not logical, in order to defend their positions. If you want the other person to consider that they may be wrong, no matter how deeply you believe that you are right, you have to be willing to consider the option that you may be wrong too, and ask questions from this perspective. Be sincere in your questions, allow yourself to doubt, and that may lead the other person to open up to a discussion and follow your example too. Figure out how people know what they claim to know. The most common mistake in a conversation is focusing on what people claim to know, beliefs and conclusions, as opposed to how they came to know it, their reasoning process. For example, if someone claims that abortion is murder, that is a conclusion. You may be tempted to argue or agree with this person about his belief. Don't. Instead, ask yourself how this person came to this belief. The best way to figure out how they concluded that abortion is murder is simply to ask calibrated questions centering on how they know what they think they know. For example, hey Fred, how do you know that abortion is murder? Then listen to their response. A significant benefit on focusing on epistemology, how the other person came to their conclusions, as opposed to engaging conclusions, is that people have developed practiced responses to having their conclusions challenged. Often referred to as talking points, these are rehearsed statements, messages, given in a response to frequently heard arguments. Focusing on their reasons helps people explain how they arrived at their conclusions, getting a fresh route around rehearsed messages. Further, if you challenge someone's beliefs, then you're far more likely to evoke a defensive posture than if you question their reasoning that led them to their beliefs. Challenging beliefs risks your conversation partner becoming defensive and hunkering down. Focusing on epistemology avoids many of these issues because people are less threatened by having their epistemology probed than having their beliefs challenged. Introduce Scales Introducing scales into your conversation can resolve places where the conversation got stuck, encourage new reflection and belief revision, and provide a means for you to track the success of your interventions. Ask on a scale from 1 to 10, how confident are you that X, the belief, is true? Let's suppose they say, I'm at an 8. Rather than asking, why not 6? Or even, what would it take for you to move to 6? Immediately follow up by asking about a higher number. Say, just out of curiosity, why didn't you say 9? Doing so will help them reveal their doubts. Another option is to say, I'm not sure how I'd get to where you are at 9. I want to see what I'm missing. Would you help walk me through it?  This is effective because they are explaining the epistemological gap without you having to think on your feet and generate questions. That is, they are clarifying what you're missing, which may decrease their confidence and may even reveal their own ignorance in the process. Better still, if their confidence in a belief is justified by the epistemological process that brought them to it, then you learn something and you can adjust or increase your confidence accordingly. Turn to outside information to answer the question, how do you know that? This method is called outsourcing. Outsourcing is a broad strategy turning to outside information to answer the question, how do you know that? The goal is to help your conversation partner become curious enough to want to know how they can justify their knowledge claims or to help you realize something you haven't had access to. One option is to use this method at the end of the conversation. See, I'm not sure about that. If I could be shown reliable data, I'm open to changing my mind. Bring it back next time we talk. If it's persuasive enough to change my mind, I will. This will lead the other person to reconsider their positions and will open up new options for discussing next time. Do not offer evidence yourself unless explicitly invited to do so. Even then, ask questions and make sure they genuinely want you to provide evidence. Presenting conflicting evidence may cause the backfire effect and further entrench your conversation partner in her beliefs. Do not bring facts into a conversation. The most difficult thing to accept for people who work hard at forming their beliefs on the basis of evidence is that not everyone forms their beliefs that way. The mistake made by people who form their beliefs on the evidence is thinking that if the other person with whom they are speaking just had a certain piece of evidence then they wouldn't believe what they do. Yet, many people believe what and how they do precisely because they do not formulate their beliefs on the basis of evidence. Not because they're lacking evidence. Offering evidence, facts, almost never facilitates belief revision for any belief with moral, social, or identity level salience. Instead, ask questions that expose problems and contradictions. For example, if Sam believes the soul weighs 7 pounds, ask, do you think 4 pound babies have 7 pound souls? Focus on epistemology. Once you have a thorough understanding of why someone believes what they do, you can offer targeted questions that severe the link between their conclusions and how they claim to know their conclusions. Combine these approaches with disconfirming questions. That is, ask what evidence would cause them to change their mind both about the soul's weight and the reliability of how they know it has weight. Today, what if that experiment couldn't be replicated? Would you change your mind? If the person says that nothing would change their mind, that is a clear sign that you shouldn't have high expectations on changing their minds. At best, you can continue to ask questions which will hopefully bring up a doubt in the other speakers somewhere down the road. If the other person states what would make them change their minds, this could plant a seed of doubt in them as a natural result, since they recognize on their own how their belief could be false and start contemplating it. Stop when reaching their first doubt. If you succeed in asking a question that makes the other person stop to think for 10 seconds or more, stop the debate there. This is most likely a sign that they discovered a doubt which is a huge achievement. Very few people are capable of radically changing their strong opinions in the midst of the conversation on the spot. Discovering a doubt in the other person may create a temptation to keep pushing, but this, yet again, would only lead them to become defensive and to hunker down even deeper in their beliefs, losing the benefit of the discovered doubt entirely. Instead, stop the conversation and leave the other person with a doubt. They will continue to think about it on their own, and many times this new contemplation may later lead to great change in their perspectives. Click on this playlist here if you want to learn more techniques and methods on how to effectively talk with difficult people. Also, check out Peter Bogotian's book, How to Have Impossible Conversations, which covers the subject in detail. This was Rokas, and let's keep creating a culture of critical thinking together.