Yes. He had the child over the weekend. Do we know details or are we not talking about it? He talked about it on Twitter. Yeah. I haven't heard a name. Oh, yeah. He hasn't said I will go and catch up. Yeah, we know it's a boy. We don't know the name, do we? Congratulations to Patrick Beja. Absolutely. I can't wait to meet little Bitcoin. We, of course, will never refer to Patrick's son as anything but Bitcoin, no matter what he names them. That's correct. Yeah, that's the goal. How's little Bitcoin? That's not his name. But how is he? Right. Like nicknames don't have to matter. It's just. Right. What up Bitcoin? I found it. I think this is the name. Really, really? How do you spell that in Finnish or Swedish? Swedish. Two E's in an umlaut somewhere. Two E's in an umlaut. Two bits. That was cheap. I guess there's not really much nickname to be named. Scott doesn't really, Scott is, you don't really have nicknames. I always got Scottie growing up, which always, and always threw me because that's longer than the name. You know, it's an extra syllable, so I don't know why people did it, but. Right. Yeah. I'm going to throw this Zuckerberg statement into the Facebook earnings bit for you too. I don't think it's related to the earnings, but he said it just now. So I think it's meant to be timed with the earnings. Who's you? Me? It's going in the Facebook story, which I think is yours, right? Yes. No, it's mine. It's never mine. I'm telling myself. Hey, Tom, doing this thing for you. Sorry. I forgot who had it, but. Have you trademarked Tom Merritt? Because that'd be great to see Tom Merritt. Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely should. Why have I not done that? Yeah. Really should. Oh, Lordy. I never went in the chat room because of all this earnings nonsense. Good day, bio cow. Bio cow. I don't have a cow. I have a bio cow instead. Biological cow. All right. You guys ready? Oh, yeah. Are you ready like Bitcoin, Beja? Yeah. Little Bitcoin, Beja. Bitcoin. Here we go. A Nikola show keeps you in the know. If you'd like to find out more, please go to dailytechnewshow.com slash support and find out how to keep us on the air. Thank you. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, January 31st, 2018 from DTNS headquarters in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Feline, I'm Sarah Lane. And from still sort of getting used to our new mailcat, I'm Scott Johnson. Also joining us today, deep within the earnings report minds, Roger Chang, our producer. It's very earnings down here. Yeah. Do you have the mask that filters out the earnings dust to keep your lungs clean? No, I have earnings, earning lung disease. Earnings lung. Oh, no. We'll have to see if our insurance covers that. I apologize. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Speaking of earnings, we have some. Samsung had a record Q4 profit of $14.15 billion driven by chip sales, which now gives Samsung the distinction of being world's largest chip maker above all others, including Intel. Samsung cited strong demand for its memory chips that are used in data centers and smartphones. However, not all totally great news. The mobile business saw a 3.2% year over year profits decline to 2.25 billion. Yeah. Just keep selling those chips. Yep. All the chips you can eat. Xerox will merge with a joint venture. It operates with Fujifilm in Asia. And guess what that does? That essentially makes Xerox a division of Fujifilm. Xerox, a division of Fujifilm. That's how the commercials will be. Fujifilm will ultimately own 50.1% of the combined entity, which will encompass all of Xerox's operations. That is the exact amount of percentage my wife owns of FrogPan Studios. And you'll also tell people to go Fujifilm you this document. YouTube TV, YouTube's cable replacement service has the exclusive rights to telecasts of the Los Angeles FC MLS soccer games starting when the season starts in March. The LAFC, their LA second soccer team now starting in March. 18 games will be available on an LAFC YouTube TV channel. Geofence to LA subscribers and YouTube won't charge subscribers and additional free all part of your $35 a month service subscription. Isn't it always a rule that LA has two teams of everything? I thought that was like, well, didn't have any football teams for years. Yeah. Two or nothing. Right. GoPro has added device replacement to its plus subscription service, which previously included cloud backup for photos and videos. So you can replace any GoPro camera twice within a 12 month subscription. The service still costs $5 a month. And on that note, we will be talking about subscriptions and their value later in the show. Yes, we will. Should you just rent everything? Even the air you breathe? Okay, we're not going to go that far. But here are some more top stories. I wouldn't put it past people. Speaking of renting things or subscriptions anyway, Spotify released an Android app called Stations. This is going to let users stream Pandora style curated music stations without having to pay for a Spotify premium subscription. The app, which Spotify describes as an experiment, is only available in Australia right now, which is why Tom is planning a trip there. Exactly. I need to experience this Android app. So I'll be taking my essential phone to Australia in May. Not for my nephew's wedding. That's what he thinks. It sounds like Spotify, I mean, and companies do this all the time, experiments and, you know, seeing what sticks, but it hasn't been downloaded much. They haven't really advertised it. It's only in one region. Great. If you're a Spotify customer who likes the, you know, the service and doesn't necessarily want to pay a pro fee for Pandora style stuff. But I don't know. I mean, is Spotify really like these standalone apps with services that are already pretty valuable on their own and people use them and don't really have a lot of complaints about what is offered, they never really make a lot of sense to me. Let me reverse engineer the meeting in which this happened. Somebody brought up some data that showed that major complaint, one of the major complaints we get is difficulty accessing your playlist from the Spotify app. And the product team said, well, but it's really difficult because, you know, we have so many functions that the Spotify app does like managing your account and all of this stuff. And then somebody said, well, you know, what if we had a separate app just for playlists? It could be a suite of Spotify apps eventually. And somebody said, great, but we should test that in Australia. I'm going to throw an extra wrinkle in there if you don't mind an extra wrinkle or two. This, I think one of the things we're forgetting is one of the ways a lot of people are starting to listen to random music in a more random radio style way is through their home assistance. So I know that right now when I want to use my Echo, I ask it to play a something from the 90s and it comes up the playlist and it just plays it. And that service already exists with Amazon music without having to pay for the full Amazon music experience. So they're going to provide this in a way that will, I would assume, extend its reach on these devices. And instead of me automatically using Amazon service or in the case of Google, Google play or whatever else, maybe this puts in a position to be like, okay, well, Spotify is the radio station I use instead of Pandora or tune in or whoever. I don't know. Do you need this app to do that though? No, no, that's the thing. And I know that Australia was probably chosen for a reason, but it's like, I don't get the significance of that. It's also Android only. So it's, you know, it's a limited experiment as Spotify calls it themselves on the Google Play Store. So I, I don't know. It's, I mean, Australia probably just fit the demo or they just picked it a random like let's pick an area where we have good subscribers and they picked Australia. I don't think an area where Spotify is somehow lagging, but they still know that people want a certain service and might be able to market it differently. I don't know. Google flights will start telling you the reason for flight delays. It will also start using historical flight status data with machine learning to alert you when it's 80% certain your flight will be delayed. Now, they'll be the first to tell you when they tell you this like we're not saying it is delayed. So don't delay going to the airport. So I'm not sure how useful that is, but they'll say, I'm pretty sure your flight's going to get delayed. So maybe you get mentally prepared. Google flights will also now tell you which amenities are not included in a basic economy fare. This is a more practical piece of information when you're booking a flight. You see that really cheap fare and you don't know what basic economy means on United versus Delta versus American Airlines. This will tell you, well, this, this one means that you can't do overhead storage or this one means that you won't be able to pick your seat, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I've already, I already get sort of notified from, I guess, whenever I use Delta, I get notified of something's major delay. Like if the flight is delayed and they know it. That's when it's actually delayed. This is going to tell you before it's delayed. It could or might be, sure. And it's probably going to get delayed. Yeah. And I think I like that. But what more, what more I like is, in other words, I don't think those two services are all that different. I mean, one's a little bit more predictive, maybe, but what I like about this is some of the other stuff, like, eh, and you might not, they're going to have a full flight. So chances of you waiting around for an extra seat aren't going to be good or, hey, they're not going to do onboard luggage because they don't have enough room for overheads. No, no. This is just the fare when you book it. That's not after you book it. Oh. This is telling you like this basic economy fare doesn't include the right to pick your seat. Oh, gotcha. Okay. You're going to get, you're going to get docked in other ways. I took a flight recently from San Francisco to LA and it was delayed and it was weather-related and I was on United and they were pretty good about communicating that. But I didn't know until I was like almost going to be late for the original time. So, you know, anything that would have given me a little context, even an hour in advance, I would welcome. So if people could do that, great. Even if you're at the airport already, tell us more info. I like it. Amazon's launching a new messaging feature for Alexa devices. Sorry, everybody. I'm going to turn mine off too. In the U.S. that will allow you to send SMS to contacts using your voice. Depending on the contact, the assistant will decide how to route your message using either the previous launched Alexa messaging system. I tried to say in a way that wasn't too weird or via SMS. The feature only works for sending SMS messages to Android phones and doesn't currently work with third-party smart speakers. Amazon introduced free calls and messaging last year, but the feature only works between Echo devices. I'll be honest. The most significant part of this is also the significant part of the Spotify story for Android only. I'm starting to see this happen a little more often. Android has dominated the marketplace for a long time, but iOS always got the development love because of the uptake and the monetization. And it seems like maybe that playing field is leveling out finally. Well, I mean, more of the total people who might use your service are on Android, right? Well, yeah, but that's been true for a long time. The reason that it didn't level out before was, well, but they don't spend as much money or they end up wanting the free apps. But now features are coming to Android first and sometimes only, like in this case, quite regularly. I mean, this is limited in two ways. First of all, I, well, no, I mean, certainly I have friends with Android devices, but I have a third-party smart speaker, so I can't actually use this yet. I assume I'll get it eventually. But, you know, it was weird at one point for me to voice dictate texts to people, and now I do it all the time. So this seems like an evolution that a lot of people will just get used to. I don't know. Absolutely. Unless you don't. All right. Move it on. Nintendo beat market expectations in its third quarter and also increased the sales forecast for its Switch console. Seems to be pretty popular. Revenue was 482.97 billion yen, which comes out to about 4.44 billion US dollars, which is more than a 177 percent year over year rise. And also the highest quarterly revenue figure for Nintendo, since their quarter that ended December 2009. Yeah, that's about two years into the Switch or to the Wii and its existence back then. And that was really the highest point Nintendo's ever had in terms of market share. They were leading the console world at that point. And embarrassing, the crap out of Sony and Microsoft and a lot of really interesting stuff back then. And then they took another dive backwards. And now this is a jump forward. And Tom and I this morning we're talking about how they tend to do this kind of every other thing. And I really hope whatever's after this is great. But for today, this is enough to hear that these earnings are good and that they're doing well. Yeah. They're switching things up finally. Yeah. I see. Because they're using the Switch and their earnings are pretty good. It's pretty good. Man, maybe. Facebook reported its adjusted earnings right before the show. Earnings per share was $2.21 versus an expected $1.95 revenue came in a $12.97 billion versus an expected $12.55 billion. And people had been really paying attention to that big revenue number and beating expectations is almost the expectation, right? I think meeting expectations might have disappointed people. Because of tax on overseas earnings, you're going to hear this a lot on earnings in lots of different companies. We didn't talk about it in some of them, but it's true of every single U.S. company. They're setting aside $2.27 billion decreasing the diluted earnings by 77 cents per share for both the fourth quarter and all of last year. But these are one-time charges because they're moving money back into the U.S. to take advantage of the new tax law. Facebook reports $1.4 billion daily active users versus an expected $1.41 billion. Zuckerberg may have an explanation for that, though. Monthly active users came in at $2.13 billion meeting expectations, up 3.39% from Q3 compared to a 3.19% growth that quarter. So the growth is slowing. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that last quarter, they made changes to show fewer viral videos to make sure people's time is well spent. In total, he says, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day. So in this effort that they've been saying to make Facebook a more quality experience, they are avowedly, admittedly reducing the engagement of the site. I have a question about this. And I have never quite really gotten to reconcile my feelings with what Facebook has decided to do over time. But this is another reminder that I'm not seeing my raw feed. I don't see what my friends are posting because they're posting. And I'm seeing kind of what Facebook thinks I want to see, algorithmic reasons I should see them. And this is a yet chiseling away at what I get to see. So if my friends are posting nothing but viral videos, I don't know how many of those I'm actually seeing for my friends. So what am I even doing there?  I don't like it curation, man. But you only hate it when you think about it. You're absolutely right. Because all the time it's like, whatever, whatever. But right now, and most of what I interact on there is with groups and stuff like that or private messages. So it's really not that big of an effect on me, but I don't like being told what I want to see. I hate that.  So it has, you know, the privilege to say, you know what, we just want our users to have more quality experiences rather than, you know, kind of that desperation that a lot of companies have to deal with. So yeah, stuff like this is Facebook can do it. Not every company could do the same. That revenue is still growing. Great. Let's say things that sound really, really cool. And make it, you know, better for the community. And I know that sounds like really pessimistic on my part, but I'm like, no, companies of that size don't do things for the good. It's not even necessarily evil. It just makes it easier for them to do it. That revenue figure goes down. Suddenly it'll be harder for them to make those kinds of pronouncements. Rounding out earnings, Microsoft reported Q2 earnings per share of 96 cents. This is adjusted versus analysts expectations of 86 cents. Q2 revenues were $29.92 billion beating analysts expectations as well. Those were $28.39 billion. Analysts expected big gains from Microsoft's cloud business and Azure revenue grew 98%. 98% year over year. And Satya Nadella has said gaming will become one of the biggest businesses in the company. Yeah, still, we'll have a little more on this once we get the full breakdown of how each division did. But upshot is Microsoft had a good quarter because Azure did well. So there you go. Yeah. Hey, folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, subscribe to Daily Tech Headlines on your Amazon Echo, on your Google Home, on your anchor app, or as a podcast at DailyTechHeadlines.com. So today on TechCrunch, I read a story about Joy Mode. Joy Mode is an LA startup, but I wasn't aware of it even though I'm in LA. Jonathan Scheiber wrote the story up for TechCrunch. They do subscription rental of experience-related stuff, which just sounds like I strung a lot of buzzwords together, but I just made that up because I'm trying to describe what they do. I think an easier way to describe it is you pay a certain amount of month and then you'll get cheaper access to like say, I want to go camping this week. You can rent all the things I need to go camping, the tent, the sleeping bags, everything. I don't have to buy it and keep it in my garage. Go into the beach. I can get the seats and the overhead shade and the floaty toys and all that. Don't have to own it. This started me thinking about all the different subscription rental services out there. Now, your mind's going to immediately, as mine did and many others, go to Loot Crate or Stitch Fix where you subscribe to buy things. That's the opposite of this. Subscribing to those makes you get more stuff, right? Because every month, they send you things. Subscription rentals allow you to act as if you own stuff without having to own it. You may not even have to store it in the case of joy mode. Examples of this and big thanks to all the people in our bosses' Slack for the ideas. There are so many car services like this. I don't know if you realized there's book by Cadillac, which is $1800 a month. There's Care by Volvo, which gets you an XC40 crossover for $600 a month. Hyundai has one called Unlimited Plus for its Ionic Electric for $275 a month. Ford Canvas does one for pre-owned vehicles with different mileage limits at different price points. There's one called Fair that includes a down payment, but you can switch your vehicle up every month. Most of these, if not all of them, include maintenance, which you don't get with your lease. All you have to pay is gas. There's also one for Legos. There's one for sports jerseys. If you keep on a change your allegiance to which player on your team, or even change the team, I guess, you can just subscribe. And when you're done with the jersey, send it back and get a different one. There's one for toys, which is great for kids.  So I was curious if you guys have tried these or have thought about trying these and what your experiences have been. Sarah, I know you said you tried clothing, but you didn't stick with it. I didn't. And that's because for me, I realized that the subscription, well-convenient, keeping me out of the mall, which I am 100% for, was going to be more expensive over time because I wasn't really utilizing it. I wasn't sending stuff back and you have to be part of the deal. Oh, wait, so which service was it? For a lot of folks, for example, if I was invited to a fancy party, I can't afford some couture dress, but Runway would allow me to rent one and pretend I'm a little bit, I don't know, deeper pockets than I actually have, fit in. So there's a status. You mentioned the jerseys. It's kind of like sneakers. For some people, you want to have certain things that you know, it just isn't economical for you to buy. And then there's the storage aspect of it too. A lot of people don't have space for things. So owning something is not convenient. It's inconvenient. Which clothing one were you using? It wasn't Stitch Fix. But was it one where you had to buy the stuff? Or was it one where you could just wear it and send it back? Because that makes all the difference. You would wear it and send it back, but if you wanted to buy it, you could. Okay. I do that with the Mr. Collection. And this shirt came from the Mr. Collection and I kept it. Right now my Mr. Collection stuff is out, so I don't have an example of the rental stuff. But I find that the perfect balance because I get new things that I can wear and not look like I only have five shirts, which is actually sort of true. Some of which are 10, 15 years old.  And every once in a while, I can keep something. You're saying that you kept things too often, it sounds like. I just, I don't know. It just didn't, you know, it's like, for some people, it's very personal, right? Like, if I buy electronics, I want them, I want to go to the store and look at them and touch them. Clothes are kind of the same way. So it's not a one-size-fits-all, haha, pardon the pun. But for something like digital music, my subscription service, like, I don't ever need to own a file. I've gotten over that whole thing. It works for me, and not for everybody, but it works for me. The convenience is worth the money. I want to add that for clothing, the maternity rental sounds awesome because there is, it's one of those things where you only needed for a specific amount of time. And by the way, we didn't mention this on the show. Roger's talking about a link in our show notes, rent your maternity clothes so that you just use them while you're pregnant and you don't have to borrow old ones. I thought I was learning something about Roger. I didn't know before, but go ahead. I don't wear maternity clothes. But the other one is baby clothes.  And it's not just the purchasing aspect, it's the storage. Like, I literally have five boxes worth of space-bagged baby clothes that I got to find space for in the garage to store because my kid has grown out of them so quickly. And being able to, like, rent it and then just send it back would be great because it means that, you know, someone else will be able to get those same clothes, but at the same time, I don't necessarily need to hold on to things that take up room and add to the clutter in the house. Tom Cloud who runs Omni, which is a storage and rental, you know, totally in this whole wheelhouse of this conversation, he said that as, you know, they've grown and have amassed users, a lot of surprises with what people end up not wanting to own and really want to rent. Not only stuff for, yeah, like babies or, you know, little kids who are still growing and just won't be wearing or using things for very long, but also seasonal stuff, you know, snowboard, that's a high-priced item.  It makes sense to rent when you need. If you know, you're going to get something of high quality. And that's exactly what Joy Mode's banking on is when it's snowboard season, you'll use your Joy Mode subscription to get the snow stuff and not have to keep it all year. And it's weird because I find something very similar happened around because I had a bunch of friends that were pilots. And one of the things is, as soon as you get your pilot's license, you're super excited. I can fly. I'm awesome. I'm like, you know, I'm Mr. Jetsetter. The thing is owning a plane is expensive. Not just buying it, but the hangar fees and the maintenance. And so what happens is everyone... Most of us don't own a plane. And you only really fly, like, maybe a couple of times a year. And what happens is that people eventually fall into kind of a timeshare model where you rent or you subscribe to a lot of times you have with the plane and then you can schedule it kind of like a timeshare throughout the year when you want to use it. And that's all you have to pay. Although it's more expensive per flight hour, it's actually cheaper in the long run because you're not holding under the plane. I don't know if that's an example that most people could relate to, but I get what you're saying. It's the same kind of thing. I just prefer to rent. That happens often. I think a lot of the stuff that's just like, it's almost like a credit card in a way. It's like, there are things in this world that are just beyond our financial means for most people. But you don't necessarily need to have it all the time. And if there's an opportunity to have it on demand, that opens up a whole new market for lots of things that previously I just would never have considered. Yeah. I mean, digital for me has been an easy transition. I've loved that move in my life. I don't have any CDs anymore. I don't have stuff clogging up hard drives. I like that with movies, with TV, with music. That is totally my jam. I suspect that with a recent move by Microsoft and others, video games are very much headed in this direction as well. Renting instead of buying makes a lot of sense in those places. It's been harder with durable goods. I think that's why this startup is so interesting. I wanted to ask you because you're sort of a creative dude. The whole idea of the creative suite model, subscription model, where it's like, yeah, they'll get more of your money in the end. It'll take a while, but they will.  What are your thoughts on that? I was very hesitant. When Adobe CC launched, I was concerned. Many have followed suit. There are a lot of other services now that have their suite of applications. Autodesk has a whole bunch of stuff in a similar boat, but I am completely in on it now, and I actually really, really like it. Now, part of that is because the company in question has done a really good job supporting me. What I need, they take care of. If there's a bug, it gets squished. They're very fast on the pick up and take service calls. They don't just sort of put it out there and hope for the best. That's one big part of this. But also, I used to have to spend the $2,000 for the suite every few years when they make a new version because that's the kind of work I do and I had to do it. Now, I don't have to think about that giant lump sum. It's easily paid for itself every month with a $40 subscription, and it's always up to date. I get the latest version. They've really made it convenient and no hassle, and that's the biggest key with all of these things. It's like, I don't know, iTunes to MP3 is back in 2001 or it's like Netflix to movies today. You make this easy, priced affordably, and two clicks and you're in, and suddenly the value shows up and it occurred to me in all this conversation, we're finally getting in 2018 what I think the internet bubble of 2000, 2001 thought we were going to be. And that was these weird services like pets.com and a million other weird kind of combinations of strange things the internet was going to do for us. It was a little premature and we got a little ahead of ourselves, but we're finally getting to a place where weird stuff like that not only works, but works really well. And across the board, whether it's high-end creative software for professional artists or it's somebody who needs a new pair of socks every month, it's the kind of the same thing. And I love that we're here. I think it's great and there's so much more choice now and I don't have to own everything anymore. And in some cases, I'm going to spend less money. And that's what this is about. Most of these don't save you money. Most of them are about convenience. None of the car things are actually going to be a better buy than buying a car, but you don't have to deal with the hassle of maintenance. You get the flexibility of changing your cars. And that's what you're talking about. You're probably spending more money on your software, but it's more convenient and it's more up to date. And so it's worth the extra money to you. Andy Beach said he used ReachNow, BMW's car sharing service for most of last year and saved $1,500 in car payments and insurance because of his situation. And Guy from Trinidad said he reminded him of the 60s and 70s rent to own. In fact, in Trinidad, he said they used to just rent televisions. Sometimes they just rent them for the World Cup because they couldn't afford to purchase them. But once the economy improved and prices of TVs came down, that model went away. So I want to thank them, Gadget Virtuoso and KJ Murphy17 all for contributing to our conversation around this, which will continue, I think, in the Slack and on patreon.com slash DTNS and at facebook.com slash groups daily tech news show and on our subreddit at daily tech news show dot reddit.com. Lots of ways to interact. Hope you do. We have, we were talking about airline stuff earlier, Chris Christensen, our friend of our amateur traveler has an update on technology of jet emissions. This is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute. As you know, one of the problems that we have with jet travel is the fact that it gives off a lot of greenhouse gases. And there's continuing efforts to try and reduce that. One of the latest things that's happened is Qantas has launched the first flight that is using a blended biofuel between the US and Australia, Melbourne, Australia. And by blending in 10% of this fuel coming from non food grade mustard seeds, they've actually managed to cut 7% of the carbon emissions on this long flight. So it's just interesting to see all of these different experiments that are going on. They seem to be getting some results. Oh, they're still a long way to go. I'm Chris Christensen from amateur traveler mustard seeds, not just pretty in January. Right. Or delicious when printed in mustard. Let's check what's in the mailbag really quick before we're out of here. Got an email from Lewis who says he's in sunny and sweltering Moombella. Hope I said that right, which is in South Africa. He says, the recent discussions on digital wallets and modern banking got me thinking banking technology situation in the US kind of perplexing to me. As far as I know, banks and consumers seem resident to just take advantage of newer technologies here in South Africa, chip and pin been the norm for years. Contactless is gaining popularity as well. In April of last year, Mastercard started a trial in partnership with two local retail shops to test biometric cards. They're planning to roll out, which is a chip with a built-in fingerprint sensor for user authentication. Whereas I know South Africa was one of the first markets to test this. He says most of the South African banks have full featured cell phone banking apps too. The bank I'm with even allows the app to use the phone's NFC reader to make payments at all contactless enabled terminals. I recently had to use this. I was traveling. I had my wife's car. I left my wallet at home. The cashier at the filling station gas station was skeptical and then extremely surprised that it all works. Yeah. Everybody's ahead of us now, man. I use my phone to pay more and more over here. And there's that Zell app from the banks. I think people overestimate how far behind the U.S. is because they're used to the U.S. being ahead and so many other things. We're not that far. No. Also, you have to look at the difference in the market. I think there are people more skittish here to make big sweeping changes to the way things work because maybe some of the stakes are a little higher. It's not to say that South Africa doesn't have a great economy and a rad way of doing banking. It's just that you can make a smaller mistake and be okay. It's a little like opening a, can you? It's like opening a jar of, I don't know if that's true. I think it's true. You open it. Hold on. Listen to my scenario here. You open a jar of grape jelly in a fancy car with leather seats where you open it. My old B210 from 19th. So you're calling South Africa an old car. I'm not sure if that's true. I don't mean it in a disparaging way. What I'm saying is let's say you had a huge hack and it took down the entirety of Wall Street or whatever, whatever system in America that will have a greater impact on the world economy than it would if it happened in South Africa. That's just the numbers. I'm not sure if that's the underlying reason or not. I'm not saying reason. I'm saying we're skittish because of that. I'm not saying we should be. I'm not saying it's the right way to react. I think US markets are skittish when change comes because they think the fallout is going to be bigger.  But I have a card. Why do I need to use my phone? It is more convenient, kind of, but if you don't care, then you don't care. Well, Scott Johnson, as always, wonderful to have your opinions on everything that we talk about on the show. What else do you have going on? Well, like a big bullet jelly spilling on the carpet, you can follow all the cool things I'm doing. There's lots of rad stuff happening right now. But as I announced yesterday and since then, we've had our first session. I started with a group of friends. We started a D&D weekly show called There Will Be Dungeons at therewillbedungeons.com. If you are interested in following along with those exploits, our second session is this Saturday so far. The response has been over the moon and I could not be more happy about it. So if you're feeling a little nerd itch and you want to get it scratched, show up at 3 p.m. mountain time over at frogpants.tv and you can catch it all live or catch it later on the podcast. You can find that again over at therewillbedungeons.com. There is a huge thanks in order for everyone who supports this show at patreon.com.com. DTNS up 28 patrons over last month at this point. So just hold on and we will definitely set a new goal for next month. Thank you to everyone who supports the show at patreon.com.com. And not only are we happy for your support, but we're happy for your feedback. Questions, comments, everything, email address, feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. We're also live Monday through Friday, 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 21.30 UTC. Got a couple options, elfikikradio.com and diamondclub.tv. And our email address for everything is dailytechnewshow.com. Back tomorrow with Justin and Robert Young. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program. Yeah. Sorry. Stop that. That was good timing, wasn't it? Yeah, it was just a time. I usually turn off my Wi-Fi on my phone so that FaceTime won't pick it up on my computer, but I forgot today. So saved by the bill. So what are we going to call this little thing that we call our show? Should you rent everything? I like that one.  Pardon me. Still got that cough. Man, I can't get rid of it. Subscribe to life. Um, will you switch for more money? Get it? Will you switch for more money? Earnings Lung. I like that one. I actually might have that. I don't know. Maybe that's why you have the cough. That's what I'm thinking. You got Earnings Lung. Roger does not like maternity I'm just using it as an example. A lot of things I have to do with Earnings Lung, you know, working in those, working in that bank for so long. Subscribe to your life. No, I just said subscribe to life or subscribe to your life. I like those. Oh, help me cancel grandpa's subscriptions. I know that one. I know that feeling. Roger rents his jets. I do. I read it a seed at a time. I like subscribed to life. That's good. What do you like, Scott? I like earners lung. I know it's not on there, but if you're asking if you want an honest answer, I like earners lung. Roger, you got a tiebreaker Earnings Lung or Earnings Lung is on there too. I like subscribed to life. I like it. Kind of partial to Earnings Lung too. No, it's got. That's what these titles are. They're just a Rorschach test. In what way? People are drawn to. It's like, oh, that's what I see. Oh, you see what you want to see in them. Yeah. I see a dead butterfly shot by a deer in Earnings Lung. I see an old woman. I see a splotch of ink folded between a piece of paper and then brought to my eyes. I see two candles with faces. I see Andre the giant. No, Scott, I was just trying to fend off the angry South African emails on the car analogy. I apologize. I get those. I think some of the reluctance is just that in the U.S., there's a huge install base and that takes money to turn over and also initially with the pen and chip. This was maybe eight years ago. There was some pushback because the credit card companies wanted to offload the liabilities that they were carrying. Like, oh, someone used your card maliciously. They stole your credit card number. You wouldn't be charged and we would take the hit. They wanted to offload that back onto the store. Well, and that's to Scott's point, right? Of like, we don't want to minimize the risk. Yeah. I probably could have just said they want to minimize risk. I think that would have been a better scenario than what I explained, but any chance I get to have a really bad metaphor, I always go for it. Any chance you get to compare a populist to jelly? Yeah. Jelly. Roger, can I get into the post? Are you still in it? Oh, no, I'm not in it. I'll take over. I just didn't want to take over if you were actually doing something. No, I think I was sitting on it. I was sitting on it by accident, like jam and jelly. What I would like is for someone to send us some South African jelly. Actually, marmalade would be better for me. Does South Africa do marmalade, like specific marmalade? Is marmalade only just for citrus? Can you not do marmalade with, because you need the rinds, right? Oh, dear. No wonder I don't like marmalade. Yeah. What do you think the little pieces of it? That's why I don't like it.  I didn't know what they were, though. Well, you like zest, don't you? Is that what they call it? When you shave the outside of a fruit into a... No, I don't. I don't like zest. I don't like... Well, everyone likes zest. I like zest soap, but I don't like pulp of any sort. Yeah, I'm with you. I love pulp.  That's the worst. That's how you know you're eating the real deal. No, they just make it up. That's probably like South African jelly in there. You know that just isn't like outdated boxes of jello, and then they just mixed it in with food coloring. Oh, there's a grape jam. Yeah. Now, I want my juice very clean and strained.  I have no problem with that. I just don't like the pieces. Yeah, little bitty pieces. It just feels like you're eating left mistakes. They feel like... No, exactly. It feels when you swallow it, like you swallowed something by accident. Like, ooh, what was in there? I think you guys are just raised in an antiseptic environment. No, I was raised with a mom who liked to buy oranges with pieces, and I hated it. Oh, I love that. That's the best part when you're chewing on your drink. Oh, gosh, no, that's awful. No, that's bad. This is the part where I just understand. They were trying to get us a drink pulp. We grew up in environments where they were all pounding that down our throat. Oh, yeah, it's great. I liked crunchy peanut butter, and my mom wouldn't buy the crunchy peanut butter. She only bought the smooth peanut butter. Oh, crunchy is so good. I see. You and I are food brothers. Smooth peanut butter is worthless. Thank you. We are food brothers and sisters. As I get older, I like the crunchy less because it gets stuck in my teeth. Does it? Yeah, it does.  I don't get scoopy or anything. I probably would like it left.  There's validity to the teeth thing. The crunchy peanut butter just reminds me that you're eating peanuts. The thing about eating, like, I get the, I know it's the all-natural stuff, so it's like big, you know, meaty peanut chunks. Oh, yeah. And it reminds me of eating popcorn in the movie theater, where you get that one errant kernel wedge between your teeth.  I just like the texture. It's fun. It's crunchy. The texture is good. It's braille for your tongue. Pulp in your peanuts, not in your juice. Pulp in your peanuts, not in your juice. No just, no juiciness. I played bass for pulping your peanuts back in the day. Remember when they used to open for Fog Hat? Oh, they were so good. They were bigger than the main act. Pulp in your peanuts followed by Trooper and Fog Hat. What a triple bill. Those were the days. Those were the days. Eileen's been on an 80s kick. She keeps listening to 80s music in the car. That's what I do. I listen to retro new wave music. No, no. She's listening to, like, top 40. Like, Quiet Riot, Billy Squire, Kim Karns. What did Billy Squire have in the 80s? Billy Squire? Oh, stroke meh, stroke meh. Is she listening to Steve? If she's listening to Steve Winwood, I might be a little worried. You know what? Sometimes life gives you a gift, and sometimes it's in the form of Tom singing stroke meh. That's going to be a morning stream outtake soon, isn't it? I want it to be. Someone's going to have to cap it for me. That actually happened to me in my car the other day because I've got, like, a little knob where you change the radio station that's kind of by me, and sometimes I hit it by mistake, and I landed on some... It was sort of, like, late 80s rock, and I haven't changed the station in, like, a week. Because I'm like, I kind of like every song. I didn't know that I wanted to hear it, but I like them. This playlist that she's on is all over the place, though. Like, it doesn't stay on rock. Oh, it's just a genre. It's the date. Yeah, because it was Betty Davis' Eyes as well. Yeah, great karaoke song. Who didn't like that song? They used to play that all the time when they had the Betty Davis Movie Week on Channel 44. Eyes without a face. Also good. Always something there to remind me. Oh, it's so good. It's basically a soundtrack to... Oh, what was it called? The Grand Casado Something City. What's wrong with me? Oh, Vice. Vice City. It's that soundtrack. It's one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. It has all that music on it. I need to... I know Scott got very excited about me singing some Billy Squire, and I didn't hear if Sarah recognized that song. She asked which Billy Squire was a hit in the 80s. He was very heard. That would have been early 80s, right? Do you not know that song? Which one? Drogue, The Stroke. No. That? No. No. Oh, yeah, I know that song. I don't know it. Wow. I'll just play it. Damn it. I mean, it's no Africa. I get it. I actually tried to read that article this morning, and I was like, you know what? I don't even want to know. I like it the way it is. It's like you didn't need to peek behind the curtain. Right, yeah. It wasn't bad. The way what he said about why he wrote it was kind of sweet. It was like, oh. Yeah. Interesting that they were like, yeah, you know, it's kind of like didn't really fit the rest of the album. And then they were like, it's actually a hit. People really like the song. Yeah, I know. It's funny how they're like, almost didn't make it probably one of their biggest hits ever. I would, I mean, what? Is that Billy Square? Because I know that. That's Billy Square. Yes, that's Billy Square. That's the song I've been playing this whole time. I just didn't, I didn't hear it. Like, I didn't recognize it. Right? Yeah, I didn't hear that. I didn't hear the whole thing. We'll get the YouTube video taken down. Probably going to get taken down anyway. If someone played that song and was like, do you know the song? I'd be like, uh-huh. But I don't know who sings it. There you go. Okay, Mystery Solved. Just one of those. That's, that's not, there's no shame in that. There's plenty of songs where I'm like, I don't know who sings that, but I know the song. You're right. Yeah. I was surprised that you had never heard it before because it's, you know, a bowling alley classic. I've definitely heard that song. Billy Square. Wonder what he's doing right now. Yeah, what's he up to? T-Ram? He lives on my street. He means it's a knighthood. He's on your street. Billy Knight. He's 67. He's a quiet and nice. Still rocking it. All right. Good for him. He also plays Bart Mitzvah's birthday parties and wins. Where does he live? What? Let's see. Let's see where he lives. He was born in Massachusetts, but let's not say where he currently resides. I'm guessing LA, but where everyone lives. You might just live in an RV and travels from state to state playing music for people who need it. Love that idea. Oh man, like Kane from Kung Fu. Well, Kane was actually on a mission to find his half brother. Sure. He wasn't a musician, but still. He was an Asian either, not even a little bit. Well, sure. Neither was Kane from Kung Fu. Where does he live? Tommy, you'll be all interested in the Mr. Collection. Someone stop me. You should call it the Mr. Mr. Collection, and then you can get the clothes. I don't go clothes shopping anymore. I always have at least two new shirts and sometimes a new pair of pants every month, and then I usually send them all back, but like, I don't know, three or four times a year, I'm like, you know, that one's worth keeping. I have a little secret. All the pants I've been wearing for the past six years, I bought like nine years ago. Like I bought like 20 pairs of pants because- Let me just say, nothing that starts, I've got a little secret about my pants. It's going to disappoint ever. I bought like a whole stack of pants because they were like, I only wear 501s, right? And so I just bought like a stack of them in like a variety of colors because they were like 30 bucks each. And it's like, oh, this is great. And at the time, my waist size wasn't really changing. So I said, why that? I wish this was in the main show. We could title it The Secret of Roger's Pants. That's pretty nice. You know what you like. You knew what your size was. That would be totally right. You need like a ton of variety, necessarily. Right. I haven't really gained weight in the midsection too much. It's gone mostly around the face. So, you know, they all fit. That's the other thing about the Mr. Collection is I never can find pants that fit in a store. It's always a pain. I have to take three different types in and try them all on and try them on pants is the worst. I hate it. For some reason, Mr. Collection, maybe it's because they actually use accurate measurements. The pants they send me always fit. So I've actually probably bought as many pants as I have shirts from them because I'm like, oh my gosh, these fit. In fact, my only regret of anything I've kept from the Mr. Collection is a pair of red pants because I'm never going to wear them again. But I was so excited that they fit. And I'm like, I'm going to change my look.  You should. You should wear red pants in a purpleish top. I mean, you can be that guy. Why are you? I could. I could, Sarah. I'm just I'm just too much of a coward. And just wear it. Look at all sneakers or red. They don't have XL or 2 XL sizes.  What? Your 2 XL? I'm looking at the sizes on the Mr. Play Collection, which is the one I'd want. Oh, yeah. And it says, what shirt size? Small, medium, large or XL? I am 2 XL because of my height.  If I try XL. Yeah, maybe it'd fit. I'm wondering if they can take the scan that the TSA does at the airport. Turn that into like clothing. Just go through TSA. Can I have that? Okay. Yeah. So this is the cool thing in Amazon. When you buy car stuff, you put you put in the model in your car. And then it tells you whether or not the stuff you selected fits it. It'd be great if you could do that. Put like a model of yourself. And then the clothing is like, will fit, won't fit, or it'll be tight here, or too long here or short here. That would be awesome. Well, that's a bummer if they don't do it. This will be tight in the crotch. Right on the edge here. You know what? We didn't talk about this angle of it, but, you know, if enough people were renting their clothes, you'd have a whole lot less waste. Yeah. Well, it turns out donating your clothes in some cases is detrimental to certain areas. In terms of, for example, when they ship, you know, huge cargo container ship loads of donated clothing from like developed countries into emerging economies, oftentimes what happens is the local textiles companies go under because everyone gets all these clothes for free. Yeah, that's a limited look at something. I mean, in general for the planet, making fewer clothes is probably better for the environment, and in making fewer clothes is definitely going to lose jobs places. But no, that's what I'm saying. Like, if you make fewer clothes, you wouldn't have an excess amount of clothes you would need to offload somewhere. But you'd still run that factory out of business somewhere because you'd need fewer clothes. I want the infinity clothes, cloth collection, like the dress. I want the vibranium cloth. You can tie it in different ways, and there would be different outfits. It would be a onesie. It would be like a jumpsuit vibranium light breathable bulletproof. You could turn into a coveralls, overalls, shorts, a shirt. Put two of them together. Convertible clothes are weird. Hair washer. Those are what? Convenient yet weird. Convenient and yes. Is that the side of a somewhat odd utopian society? I actually have no real problem with them, but sometimes I'm like, oh, it's everything. Got it. Well, remember when the ultimate unisex article of clothing was like an overall, right? No matter who you were or where you put it overall, you know. That reminds me. I got a Mr. Collection reversible shirt that I loved. It was like checks on one side, solid on the other. It felt really good. I thought I kept it, and now I realize I haven't worn it in a long time. Maybe I didn't keep it. That's sad. The other day a girlfriend said, what's the newest place for like cute, sort of fashionable workout clothes? And I was like, there are rags to the gym. I don't like I'm the last person who knows things like fashion. I try to keep up on, but when it comes to like sweating, yeah, not happening. I keep a I have an old cat country t-shirt. That's what that. Oh, I want to show you guys a shirt. I got a very of Lenai. Oh, wow. Nice. Oh, yeah. Look at that. And that's the front. Isn't that so cute? Yeah, I love it. How's it a cat sanctuary? Is it in Hawaii? Hawaii? It's in Lenai. It's in Lenai. And apparently there's like hundreds of cats that live there. Yeah. Like, well, I noticed that in Kauai. There was like just a lot of cats, like feral cats. I would assume a cat sanctuary is a place particularly devoted to taking care of them. Taking care of them. And in many cases, like rescuing them from, Yeah, yeah.  It's a lot of cheap. I don't think the shirt is trying to imply that the entire island of Lenai is a cat sanctuary. Also that they play ukuleles. Yeah. Although they do play like ukuleles, that part's true. They feed them spam. Masubi. Ralph or Larry Ellison won't allow cats on his estate on Lenai. But I'm sure they're welcome everywhere else. Well, it's because they eat the birds and the rodents and the chickens.  Of house cats, yes. In Australia and New Zealand. I mean, there was a politician. Was it a politician? Or was it a cat? A science advisor.  So, you know, a various species of endangered fauna would have a chance to... What is this picture of googly eyes reading a book? Is that you, Scott? It's me when I was a kid. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. My sister or my sister. My daughter got a big scanner for all my dad's old photos. And she's been scanning stuff and sending them over by a drop box when they're done. And that one jumped out. That's great. Kind of a weirdo I was. What are you reading there? Uh, National Geographic, but it's backwards for some reason. Why, masons are your doctor? What? Really? No, it's National Geographic. But what does that back ad say? Why? It's reverse, so I'd have to... Yeah. Are your... Are your doctor is the last line? Wait, where are you reading that from? It's on Twitter. Scott's Twitter feed. Well, speaking of feeds, anyone want to say anything to the YouTube feed before we stop broadcast for the day? No, just thank you because you guys are the best. Yes. I just have a wonderful day, night, dinner, breakfast, wherever you are. Scott. All I would say is watch out where the Huskies go and don't you eat that yellow snow. And on that note, we'll see you tomorrow. Words of wisdom.


Welcome back to Howard Wigs Cold Green and this today is the Easter 2017 edition. And Easter, it's actually Easter on Monday, which me from Europe coming, it's a federal holiday, but here in the United States that got value engineered, so we're here in studio today and working hard. And value engineering is probably a good way to segue into the show, and I want to welcome here our guest, Mike Hedge. Thank you, Martin. Who is a CMCA at Hawaii Building Maintenance. So welcome and being with us here. Glad to be here. And so Howard is, I'm not Howard, I'm Martin, I'm Howard's deputy, and Howard is on his ongoing biclimatic building crusade and on the east coast and fighting that buildings are basically going to be in compliance with our natural environment and everything's going to be off the grid eventually. And until then we have a while to go and Howard being my great mentor and hero, he has a great way to relate to the shows by own personal little experiences to make the audience also come up with memories they have. So if we can have the first picture here, this is me many years ago talking Easter, this was my blackest Friday ever because it's just completing this building here and then I have the local authorities in Germany basically do a crash test of my just basically completed guardrails and you had a great term for that, how do you call that here? The Ferd maintenance? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that thing they were throwing against my guardrails test. Before the show you had a great term about that. So they brought, because I was trying to interpret codes in details, they brought a big swing with a rubber tire. And they started smashing into your brand newly installed guardrail. They did. I find that hard to believe. And that was a new building. And they were allowed to because? Because of code being so strict in Germany and I was playing around I guess with that. We could use some of that here. I guess. And so the next picture talking here, the most prominent example, tragically prominent example of that one is from here. That is what we're actually going to talk about. The first half of the show we're going to dedicate to that and that show title, which Howard always has the most catchiest, crazy terms. This has helped me, I'm spalling. Catch me, I'm spalling. And that's what when Howard contacted me and he mentioned the program, Code Green's mission is not just the energy efficiency side of a building, but the tenant's comfort. Whether it's indoor air quality or safety. So when this happened, I was of course honored and humbled to come on board, but it is just that. It's a case where things might have been prevented had they been maintained properly. And that was number two, just explain. Most people know this here from the media, number two, where is that? This case, if you can, this picture here, where is that? That was the Alamoana Center, you know, unfortunate incident. So prayers out to the young man and the person injured. But pretty soon the reason being is that legislation is in, proposed legislation is in the Honolulu government right now to make commercial buildings have a requirement that all their railings get inspected every year. So we're bringing this to light here, not just spalling, could be spalling, rusting a combination of things. And we'll talk a little bit more about deferred maintenance. But we just wanted to point this out, Howard wanted to point this out for safety. And let's just say that. I mean, what we're talking about is spalling, rusted railings, these are the type of things that definitely would, you know, you would think that because of the safety nature of it would, you would have inspections and some oversight. And if you do, if you have a property and you have this type of stuff, then you need to not just take action, but you need to call professionals if you're dealing with spalling.  You really need to turn to the pros. And the next picture sort of explains a little bit where, how it looks like. So this term, you know, spalling comes from when there isn't enough concrete over the rebars, which haven't been stainless because it's too costly. Today we have fiber reinforced concrete, which just doesn't happen anymore. But this is the stuff built in the, you know, 60s and the 70s increasingly and heavily. So when you start to see the rebars, that's something where, you know, this should catch your attention. Hopefully you can catch it before then. And in a lot of cases with spalling, what happens first is maybe a crack in the cement and typically a crack in the cement means nothing. But when you see rust color coming out of that crack, you know, something's underneath it. If you can catch spalling at that point and just like a cavity, you chip away all the bad tooth and you get in there and you bond it up, that should be the end of your story. If you try and do it haphazardly or how do you say, you know, not professionally, chances are it's going to come back. And the next picture illustrates that further. And you make these great analogies to actually other parts in life. We talked before the show, you know, let's say a car. You have a car, you buy a new car. There's warranty, but only if you drive this car through the car wash frequently, only if you do the service intervals, right? Because otherwise the car manufacturer says you're on your own, right? Right. Good luck with that.  In other areas, it's always like we know this, right?  Right. Yeah, life cycle costs. You're not just going to throw that shirt away. And so something like the last picture, number four, with the rusted railing, spalling is a different story. But you know, seemingly rust, the concrete looks intact. So what that is, that's just lack of proper maintenance. You know, so I'll use the extreme, a cruise ship. I was lucky to be on a cruise ship. And you see all the guys painting every day. They're painting everywhere. We're in the tropics. This type of rust is going to appear. So let that go and let that go. That's something that is going to be a source of contention forever. We talked about, because I'm from Germany, as everything is tougher in Germany, right? Another analogy I'm using is cars, as we do, yeah. And in Germany, the safety inspections are so tough. It's actually, there are some cars here that have more rust than body left, right? And in Germany is if you have the tiniest little spot, they're going to take the screwdriver and punch through it. And they're going to ask you to get it welded. So there's no rusty cars on the road, right? This is extreme, basically, mandating, right? Yes. From a society's point of view. We're not here yet, but you said, you know, there's things on the way, because of this tragic happening in Alamoana, that it might be. So we might want to be prepared for that. And same with a car, if you have that little thing that shows, you should take action immediately, because it only grows, right? It does. You know, that's a great way of getting rid of deferred maintenance, especially in Germany, when you guys are allowed to go 100 miles plus. You don't want the next car next to you to be some rumbling rocket of rust who just has been able to avoid any inspection and the wheels fall off running next to you. Then the Autobahn is no fun but hell, right?  So they recognize deferred maintenance. That's absolutely true. And let's get the next picture and talk about another material, which is wood, right? And wood is even here in the tropics, some call it termite food, right? Ever since it got brought, because it's not native to here. And you also have some great bullet points here to make the audience hyper aware. Completely applicable. I mean, in commercial buildings, most are going to be concrete and steel and glass. But there's going to be multifamily, family homes, things like that, where there is wood. And so, you know, you can't take anything for granted, really an inspection, even whether it's mandated by the government or not. This is, these are the type of practices that you have to enact in your building to take a proactive stance against safety. We'll get into the proactive stance again, efficiency shortly, but really the target focus, the beginning of this is to let you know, you know that it's a problem because we just saw an unfortunate accident. It doesn't have to get to that. You know, legislation's under the way it may come and make a requirement. Don't wait for that even, you know, start it now.  On your next opening, spend an hour, two hours, if it's eight hours, spend it, go look at everything. Be proactive. And another analogy maybe even closer for some in the audience, and this is ourselves as human beings, right? Because nature, by the way, it's like, whatever nature produces is so clever because it doesn't need any of that, right? It comes out of nothing, only needs photosynthesis, a plant, right, and then it's basically bi-degrading. But everything we human beings make is not as smart, let's just face it, and it basically degrades. And even we as being organic, but if we reach a certain age, I'm speaking about myself, your regular checkups are recommended, right? And the doctor is gonna go through these things, right? They're gonna check if there's some incidents here and there, and if there are, let's just say diabetes indication, you can take some actions, you can change your diet and things, right? That's a great example, because before we get into the next slide, you're almost talking about internal sensors, okay?   So same thing with high tech equipment, you're gonna have sensors that kind of give you some predictability, but there are others that don't. There's no sensors. And that's a great segue into the next picture, actually, where you can make this illustrated even more provocatively, right? Yeah, so preventive maintenance, just like Germany doesn't allow cars to get to that point. The FAA doesn't allow, does not take an airline's word that they're doing everything in that maintenance hanger. Every maintenance hanger is different, right? And, you know, not slamming anyone because I don't know the names of bads are good, but when you're talking about people's lives at 30,000 feet, what I've recently learned was that, of course, airplanes have the same, have sensors that automobiles have, but what they also have, and every airline flying over 30,000 feet has to have it, there's 3,500 sensors that communicate between the plane and the ground. So, and the points, there's never a place where the points, the plane is out of contact with the earth on all these things. So the moment something happens to their engine, the first little sign of trouble, a plan is made to get them down in the safest spot, that's the extreme side of not having deferred maintenance. And that's a great example, and first of all, there is sort of sociotel control, you know, there's laws, there's regulations about that, which we don't have in buildings yet, but then there's also at the end, the consumer, right? So if you read like, there's a $25, I read that, flights within reach from Boston to DC or something like that. And there were some cases in Europe where these cheap airlines, you know, critical investigators found out that the airlines are only able to provide that by saving on maintenance, which they found some loopholes, right? So is that a good investment to gamble with your life? No, I would say that's unsustainable and it would be extremely unfortunate to learn the hard way in a case like that. You're dealing with an air conditioner in a house or an automobile is way different when, you know, taking someone in the air and having their lives in your hands. So you can get killed by coming down with an airplane, right?  So not much different, right, in that case. And so we're gonna have, we're gonna say, well, if this isn't still not enough for some people to say, oh, you're just talking about, you know, airplanes and stuff like that, that's sort of like still pretty far away from me. I don't fly, let's just say, you know, I don't do that. But the next picture is like, maybe you have a kid. So talk about a little bit about that picture while you brought that in. One of the reasons I chose that picture is if I had a relative at my house and I had a stair railing and below that railing was eight feet before the floor. And I saw a young child going up to press that. I would have wished I already pressed each one, even if it was a brand new home, you know, something like that, I mean, railing inspection at its core starts with this and then goes into the general public. So whether, I mean, this is maybe a departure from the commercial building side that Howard and we want to reach, but it touches, you know, it touches everyone. And this is the type of, and this is what it comes down to. I mean, really it's personal safety. Nothing's more valuable than a life, you know. So there's too many reasons not to keep up on maintenance. So once again, there is, and at some point we wanted to say, you know, we're both not the engineers who's core business this is to deal with these things. Correct. But I'm a designer, I design these things and you're a maintenance expert in that. So we're involved together with the engineers, right? And advise them, consult them. And so we're like a team, right? Right. My job is on the AC side, AC and energy side. Certainly it's not spalling and railing safety, but it's the same thing. It's a building, it's part of your building, right? And it's something that has to be maintained. So I think, you know, the more unfortunate accidents there are, the more likely there is to be something imposed. And why wait for that? You know, seeing what can happen. Why don't you just take that in your own hands and do it? And that being said, we take a little promotional break for our colleagues to promote some of their shows to then actually get into the most juicy stuff, which you just already announced, which is your core expertise and experience. So see you back in a minute with Mike and the danger of deferred maintenance. Okay, so I'm Crystal. If you haven't tuned into the QWOP talk before, you better do it because you're missing out on all the information. We talk about sex, we talk about religion, we talk about everything and nothing. So we've got two gentlemen here gonna validate that, right? Greg Kinkley and Roy Chu. What's your take on the importance of talking about these issues? It's very important. It's two, I think, expressing ideas and exchanging ideas that we come to a better understanding of the world and each other. And without that, we live in ignorance and fear. Fear is based on ignorance. Amen. Greg. Amen. What more could I say than that? Something in Yiddish. I think... Roy, come, listen to QWOP talk. Tuesday mornings. Hello, I'm Dave Stevens, the host of the Cyber Underground on Think Tech, Hawaii. This is my co-host Andrew Lanning, the security guy. Every week at 5 p.m., we'll be discussing cyber security, the things to look out for and the things to do to keep yourself safe. Check us out on Think Tech away, five o'clock Fridays. Thank you. We're back here on Howard Wick. Show me the Deputy Martin here today with Mike Hedge, who is with Hawaiian Building Management. Maintenance. Maintenance, thank you very much. Sorry, it's okay. Can you manage maintenance? Yes. And energy. Almost good. And so we, before the little break, we talked about the human factor. We talked about potential threats to well-being. So we get to the next picture. And once again, I kick off with how I can relate to this. This traces back to my youth in Germany as already an Americano. I wanted to have a pair of cowboy boots. And my parents said, well, get yourself a job to get them. And I did. I worked in a cleaning company and we cleaned ducts of AC in insurance building and they were big enough for me to basically go in there. And what I saw is what's on the left on this picture and has grossed me out and left a lasting impact and probably made me a fan of natural ventilation ever since. And yeah, so please explain a little bit in your terms and from your field, your thoughts around this picture. Well, thanks to get into the code greed side of energy and use this program about deferred maintenance to kind of go into this. This is just another visual impacting photo that is typical in so many duct systems that I've looked in that you, even in Germany, you find like that, okay, we're humans. This is what happens. Your air filter does not catch all the dust, okay? And this picture is not a black, slimy ductwork where you think there's a big mold issue. Probably it's just dust. But the impacts on indoor air quality, okay, with this type of dust in the systems, there's, you have relatives and so do I that are more sensitive to others. They sneeze at every little things or eyes water and they get headaches and stuff. That's a prime example of what can happen. So you don't have a plan, if you don't have a plan to maintain that, this is what's gonna happen in the end. So what happens if you don't do it every year or every couple of years like you're recommended to, it gets to a point where it's built up and it's a chronic issue and already maybe tenants are affected and they've already looked to move into other buildings and get new leases and get out of your building. So don't put something like that off. And you use the great term from, in sort of the intersection of our disciplines, which is sick building syndrome, right? So this is a, doctors have sort of found scientific proof of evidence, right? Of that that exists, right? And the number one cause of sick building syndrome? Deferred maintenance, you know? It's not the AC systems that were put in brand new because when they were brand new, they were working fine. Yeah, and whereas I was way back able to get in because the ducts were so big in commercial residential, they're small. So you can maybe train your raccoon or something like that to be a brush and walk through. I'd like to see that. But you haven't found these employees yet, right? You're looking for them? No, no, no. There's machinery nowadays, you know, and depending on the type of duct that you have will depend on the machines they can use. Some duct work has lining that you have to be real sensitive with. Yeah, that one was a metal duct work so you can kind of go in there with scrubbers. Yeah, and another analogy that we had before is cars, you know?  And so we know this. But it's a good example because also it's like, oh, do I really have to change your air filter again? Did not just do that? Maybe not. But it's only a couple of bucks. They're gonna pay off soon, right? And that's the reason that I kind of transitioned into deferred maintenance and not just into energy efficiency because really when you look at a commercial building or something, what's worse, not engaging in energy efficiency or having deferred maintenance? To me, they're both right there, right? But the thing is, unlike, let's say a leak on a pipe or unlike a crack in your asphalt parking lot, when you let air conditioning systems go beyond the amount of years that they were supposed to be in place, you not only have older compressors, older units using more electricity, they're older, they suffer more breakdowns, right? More breakdowns means more tenant discomfort. Old equipment is poor for appraisal value. You have old equipment on your roof or in your basement, they become bargaining chips on the day of sale. There's absolutely no benefit to deferred maintenance. It's all bad. And of the many grades because gross pictures you provided me, I think there were over 50s, I had the choice to pick the best off and the next picture I choose here. Some of my students and colleagues get excited about green walls, these walls. This is not the same one. Yeah, this is sort of an uncontrolled green wall because this once again, this is mold, right? This is gross stuff.  So you're thinking, oh, it's outside, it's just algae growth. But just like you said, that's impeding the flow into the machine and then that's a cooling tower in the background. So cooling towers, there's things in the water like Legionella and other bad stuff that if you don't treat it and you don't maintain it, you're gonna have problems. This is a red flag. If you're a facilities manager or asset manager or a property manager and you're walking your property and you see something like that, why is it like that? And don't accept the answer. Well, that's how it's always been. And whereas the last two pictures, like we're hardly ever in our ducts, we're hardly ever on the roofs, but the next picture shows us what we all see. We have the single units, unfortunately, things attached to our facades, which is bad enough from an architectural point of view. But then when they start to show signs like that, that's just the warning side, okay, it shows from the outside that it's time to let go, replace. That's right. So that airliner, that jet airliner that we saw earlier or that aircraft carrier that's in our background, those people like Hawaiian Airlines or the government, when they make decisions to buy an asset that big, it's not lowest bid, it's the cost, right? It's life cycle costs. What is my total cost of ownership over the life of that ship or that airliner? So with this last unit that you see, number eight, up in, I'm sorry, number 10, up in the corner, when you leave systems in place longer than they are supposed to be, you're gonna spend way more money.  If you can plan for a system that's supposed to last 10 years and you leave it in for 10, that's the best case scenario, because what happens? You let it go to 15, well, guess what? In your 11, you lose a condenser fan motor. Your 12, you lose a compressor.  And each time the units broke down, the tenants screaming and it's just all because you didn't plan. No, absolutely. And whereas, you know, the audience might still say, the last three pictures we try to get the audience by basically the human factor and saying it's about the health. But if people say, well, I don't really care, then maybe we jump to the next two pictures. And I always call architecture and best case to be planted in people friendly. So when you say, I don't care for people, then maybe some people care. Increasingly, we know society luckily is for the planet. And that's the mission that Howard is on internationally. So talk about this chart here. It is, and it's about education. It's about bringing things to light. Just like you said, you may have a shrewd business owner and I don't care. My tenants are paying electric bills. I'm not gonna engage in that. But that same owner has grandchildren and great grandchildren, okay? And is seeing where pollution's going, how smoggy things are. Are they really gonna just go down that path? So this one you have right here, it's basically, it shows higher efficiency equipment towards the end and the pounds of CO2 emitted during its life. So you have the worst energy efficiency rating of around 10 nowadays, still in place. And you can go to 23 or 28 or in the 30s. And over the life of those equipment, you've only added 50,000 instead of 200,000. That's huge. When one person takes that step and everyone takes it, I mean it's... No, great point. And maybe this is a little too academic. Let's take the next picture, which is I think a little bit more directly into people's face here, number 12. Again, just the same what you said, just illustrate it a little differently. So with the impact of AC. So you have plug load, we have cameras, we have lights here and everything else, right? That's great. But 50% or more in any building is related to air conditioning costs.  So I gave you one example a while ago. It was if you have two buildings built the same day with the same architect across the street from each other. And over the years, one building engages in energy efficiency and the other one doesn't. The building that engages in energy efficiency is gonna win in the end.  Why? Because electricity that they don't spend because they've engaged comes off the bottom line, whereas the energy hog building, the rent is the same for both of those buildings, but the cam cost, the common area maintenance cost or the energy efficiency building are higher and it puts them out of competition. So. So you made two great cases, you said care for the people, care for the planet. Yes. But what if none of these arguments really fly? And so we live in a highly capitalized society in Western civilizations, which includes Germany and the United States of America. So you already touched on it, just also make it a little bit more graphical. There's a third reason. So if you don't care for your people, you don't care for the planet, you might care for your wallet in a society you live. So we have a sibling chart to the one we had for the climate which is now here for the cost. And you would think this would resonate with most people, but sadly it doesn't, right? The mantra out there I experience every day is low bid wins, lowest first cost. You know what? When it comes to energy efficiency, lowest first cost never wins. So when you talk about not caring for anything else, if you are a businessman and you're deferring maintenance and you're putting off changing that air conditioner or that chiller plant, I would reconsider that right now and spring it into action because not only are you increasing your appraisal value, right, in tenant comfort and everything else, typically if you're a commercial building, the decrease in utility expenses go right to your bottom line. So a million dollar chiller project, oh well how long does it take me to pay that back? Could be five or seven years. Don't use a simple payback. That's a wrong metric. The initial investment, even if it only saves you 150 grand a year, that investment is already worth more than what you paid for. In other words, the appraisal, income appraisal value method of a building is the net operating income divided by the local capitalization rate. So if you have 150 grand in savings in a building and right now here in Hawaii, the local cap rate I think is around 7%, that's two million dollar increase in your asset. There's too many reasons not to do it. Thank you so much. We're getting to the end of the show and number 14, which is our permanent background, is the other example from that, but you already explained it. So we're phasing out with the last picture number 15, which is me thanking you, Mike, for having inspired me and encouraged me to continue to do with the emerging generation and colleagues of architecture. This is a building we're currently designing which tries to be a net zero off the grid, which has an innovative solution to the guardrails. And so we're gonna do a show. He inspired me to do a show on my own show, Human Humane Architecture, about that. That's great. Thank you for this sort of backup from a profession that we usually don't talk to and let's work together. Thanks for having been on the show. Much appreciated. Thank you. I'm glad to be up here because it really is about raising awareness, okay? It's about education, right? Thank you very much. So many things have been going on and let's bring everyone up to the same level. So thank you again and see you guys. I'll back for Howard. He's gonna be back in two weeks from his biochlametic crusade. So in two weeks on Monday, Code Green again. See you then.