Bismillahirrahmanirrahim Alhamdulillahirrahmanirrahim Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wabarak ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala aliki wa sahbihi wa sallam As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Alhamdulillah I hope everybody is doing well, right? Just having some culties here Alhamdulillah All right, so today we are going to talk about we're going to continue this conversation on deceptive desires and really the focus for today is going to be on the framework reviewing the framework for desires and then we're going to talk a little bit more about the desire for money and kind of what this does and how it relates to greed and treating others poorly and just the overall sickness that having a deep attachment for money can bring to the heart. So as we've been discussing the human being we have desires, we have many desires, we have sexual desire, we have our carnal appetites, we have the desire for food, we have the desire for money, we have the desire for fame, we have the desire for power, we have the desire to be in control and so on and so forth. Not every desire is considered a bad desire, right? There are some desires that are actually considered good desires and there are some desires that are considered desires that can be channeled in an appropriate direction in a beneficial direction so that's something important for us to remember. The second point is the second kind of main takeaway from the conversations as far is that you and I can channel our desires either downwards or upwards and the goal is to channel them vertically upwards. What that means is to channel them in a way that you and I are desiring Allah, we are desiring love of Allah, we are desiring knowledge of Allah, we love vicar, we love these types of things and this might seem like a very very lofty type of state to be in but it is possible, right? And that's something that we want to try to aspire to inshallah. So now we'll get into the conversation for today. So we're really focusing now on the desire for money and what that is. So we live in a society that's really filled with, it's filled with everybody trying to get rich, right? Trying to get rich quick schemes are here. There are people who are trying to not only get rich quick but who will steal people's money in inadvertent ways, who will commit fraud, who will do anything it takes in order to get their share and to take somebody else's share and so it's important to talk about this concept of greed and this concept of money. We also live in a society where everybody wants to be rich and famous. Now it's important to know that there's nothing inherently wrong with having mashallah a lot of wealth and a lot of money but there is something inherently wrong with just like always desiring and doing whatever it takes and forgetting our religious obligations in order to just try to be ahead of everybody else and to try to be rich and so on and so forth. That is something for us to keep in mind. So Allah mentions in the Quran, he says that your wealth is a test for you. He says that and he gives us regular indications in the Quran that he's going to test us with different means and your wealth, wealth being one of them. He also says in Surah Ali Imran that the enjoyment of worldly desires that he tested mankind with various worldly desires including Zuyen, he says in the verse Zuyen that we have adorned various shahawat, various desires for the human being and in those he includes treasures of gold and silver and he includes horses and he includes cattle and fertile land. All of these he says these have been made appealing to people and then he says but these are the pleasures of the worldly life but with Allah is the finest destination right with Allah is the finest destination. So what does this mean? What does it mean when Allah is giving us this indication of desires and giving us these indication of gold and silver and horses and cattle and whatnot? Well we don't live in a time where most of us have horses and cattle and we don't really have gold and silver very much either and we don't have as many people have land and whatnot. So what does this mean? In our context you and I could translate this as saying okay gold and silver includes all of our money, our salary, our stocks, our investments like these are the types of things we get absorbed in many times and horses in this context could be translated as cars, the different types of vehicles that somebody has and just obsession with oh I gotta have this car, I gotta have this car, I gotta go for the utmost luxury and the next model comes out, I gotta get it right and it's like this attachment that you do by any means necessary will go to get that thing that it is that you want right and then land and cattle, other aspects of our wealth is this constant idea that I have to grow my portfolio, I have to grow my investments and whatnot. Again nothing inherently wrong with doing that but if that's our obsession, if that's the desire that fuels us that's where the problem comes in right and that's very very important for us to discuss. It's very also important for us to discuss as generally speaking if you come from a ma'sha'Allah a wealthy background a successful background no no nothing wrong with that it's a good thing. Alhamdulillah you should praise Allah you should feel grateful for but if somebody allows that to get in the way of their religious obligation, if somebody allows that to get in the way of doing the right thing, if somebody wants to keep going and going and growing in their wealth and society and they go and they do haram things in order to grow that starts to become a problem and so we have to look at that very very seriously. There's also hadith where the Prophet ﷺ indicates that true hungry wolves do not cause a destruction in a group of sheep in a flock of sheep as much as the love of rank and wealth does in a Muslim. The Prophet ﷺ is indicating right now imagine you had a 50 sheep right and again this is we're not most of us we're not farmers so these types of situations are harder for us to imagine but imagine if somebody had that and then you had two hungry wolves what type of damage they would do to the sheep they would just go after them right there would be carnage. The Prophet ﷺ is saying that they don't cause as much destruction to the sheep as does the love of wealth and rank and we're going to talk about rank next time inshallah as does the love of wealth and rank to the human being right so we have to take a look at this that these are things that are happening at the heart level the inner level rather than the enough level you and I not every single thing that's good is seen we're not every single thing that's bad that's is seen or our intentions you could have really pure sincere intentions and it could be a very very good thing and nobody would really see it though only Allah sees that intention you could have very very bad intentions you could have very very bad thoughts only Allah seen that in the same way in the same way you and I could have very very negative things going on deep down inside of us and only Allah is going to be able to see that right and so the obsession to by any means necessary obsession with wealth could be one of them right you have a another narration this is a story of with Islam and said the disciples of Islam asked him they said what what is the reason that you can walk upon water and we cannot he said how do you and so Islam replies to them right this is Jesus you reply to them he says well how do you value gold and silver in your hearts what's the value of these in your hearts and they said that they're good they're good he said they're the same as earth to me they're the same as dust to me they're the same as dirt to me right like that the the one of the traits right is that you had he had this trait of ascetic detachment where these types of things were not valuable these are not inherently seen as valuable and as a result he was able to achieve very very lofty stations and Allah blessed him through Allah's power he was able to have many miracles on his hands right so those are some of the examples of you know where wealth can become a risk for us and what we need to try to aspire to right with regards to this kind of love obsessive love that many of us have this deep attachment that we might have to money and that manifests in a couple of ways it can manifest when we have a hard time letting it go it can manifest that when somebody needs our help we don't want to help them it can manifest in a way that we have a hard time spending on other people it can manifest in a way that we are constantly stressed about money not like am i going to make ends meet but how am i going to get more and more and more we're never really satisfied can manifest like that this is a sickness that that many of us have inside i mean i know i definitely struggle with this right this is something we all have to work on right so there's another story in the Quran where Allah mentions the story of someone named Qarun this was a man at the time of Musa aslam and he had so much money in so much wealth insane amounts of wealth like next level amounts of wealth that it took a group of like it took a whole group imagine a whole group of like really strong dudes filled this this whole room this back room and that's how many people would not not be needed to carry his wealth but to carry the keys of his wealth to carry the keys that's how many people would be needed right a whole room of people would be needed in order to care a group of strong people would be needed to carry the keys of this guy's wealth right so he had a lie and what will people do people would look up to him people would be like oh look at him it's Qarun he's the boss he's the rich man he's like they would give deference to him they would have next level level of respect for him kind of you know as though as though he has some rightful for them just because of his money right so they had this immense respect for them and people with other people more more righteous people would say like why do you guys respect him so much like what are you doing and it's because oh he's he's look at this position that he has look at the station that he has look at all these types of things that he has right so what happened he became arrogant he's like you know when you have this much and you have a group of dudes who need to carry your keys just literally the keys to all your money you think you're a big shot right so he became super arrogant and he thought you know he he calls all the shots everything is about him and so he became so arrogant that and a lot opens up the earth and swallows him because of his arrogance because of his attachment to money and because of the arrogance that results now was money the problem no it was the arrogance that was the problem but if somebody has a lot of that how many of us could manage it that's we have to know we have to know the trades and that's what we're trying to you know trying to discuss right it's just like we talked about last time is let's say um sexual desire in and of itself is that the problem no it is the way that that manifests in the way we're not able to control it same thing with the desire for food is that in and of itself a problem no but we needed to eat but if we start doing haram and and so on and so forth then it starts to become a problem right so these are things for us to keep in mind now remember we have to just remember a couple things here what is the benefit of this wealth why do what is the benefit of of money right what is the benefit of this well the main benefit that we have to keep in mind is it is a means to an end that's what it is it's a means to an end it's a way you are going somewhere just like you need a car you need a car to get you from a to b right money it's a car it's a vehicle to get you from where you are here to the next life to traverse and you need a map you need it in order to not be always stressed in order to not always be worried in order to not um uh uh uh be be worried about different conditions that are going to go on in your life right we need that but when you spend on our families food house alhamdulillah that Allah has given us all this type of stuff however the way in which you spend is the issue right and it's can somebody handle the potential negative implications of having it in if do they become greedy as a result we we all have probably heard hadith of the Prophet says that the son of Adam or he indicates the son of Adam that if he or she had one mountain of one valley of gold they would just want another like they're never they never get the only thing to fill them will be the dirt in their grave right and Allah says in the Quran he says that vying for worldly increase has distracted you it's occupied you you've become so into it until it is that that that you will actually be um you know visiting the graves where you whether you are yourself in the grave or it is this kind of realization i'm going to end up in there and then Allah says that you will then know that's when you and i are going to realize so like our goal in this life is to realize that this is not the end game it is not the end game and i'm saying that to myself first and foremost it is not the end game to become rich it's not the end game to become uh wealthy it's that that's not the end game the end game for us is to get to the next life and to successfully uh successfully get to the next life and if wealth helps us do that alhamdulillah but we have to be on guard for any negative aspects of it so let's talk now about how this desire manifests right how does it manifest well remember this the desires of the root and the sins of the branches so you have to be able to to to cure the root before it becomes a disease right and spreads throughout everything else and becomes a sin can also become a good deed though if you cure it properly so what happens here a couple things happen if some the desire for wealth gets to somebody in a in a bad way first is that you begin to want everything around you you it manifests in greed i want this i want that i want more i want more it's always about more more more more more and that goes back to this hadith that if the son of adam had one valley of gold that they would want another the next thing that happens you and i become envious if we start looking at other people be like oh he has this he has that latest iphone i should get that oh he has a benz why don't i get a benz oh i should get this car oh he has a bmw oh he has a tesla oh she has this purse oh look at that they have a five bedroom house i have a four bedroom house i should get the five bedroom house but if i get a six bedroom house what about a swimming pool what about this again nothing inherently wrong except the fact that overly getting into these luxuries and forgetting the main point of our existence can become a problem because the one who keeps going and growing and growing it's like okay now the next thing is once the love of wealth is not sufficient for people then the love of fame comes in which we'll talk about next time love of status the love of power it keeps going and growing and growing which is why you'll never see people in society be content with just being rich they will actually want to then be more than rich they're going to want to quote unquote climb now we need power now we need influence i got to run for this position i got to run for that position once you have that you got to keep getting it right and because it doesn't stop the desire doesn't stop right and it can end up manifesting in negative consequences if it's not tamed properly so then what ends up happening if somebody does not tamed desire correctly they end up taking haram means many times they end up taking the wrong means to get wealth right and so the goal here is for us to always keep in mind if we do want to have a strong intention in mind and we do want to achieve worldly success i'm there not nothing wrong with that but if we now start to three things usually manifest with regards to someone taking the wrong means to acquire wealth first is they just go after haram jobs and haram income that's important for us to not do they're the obvious ones like selling you know liquor having a liquor store selling drugs these types of things but there are the unob they're the ones that are not so obvious like maybe working for a super unethical like weapons manufacturing that's kind of obvious but like working for an unethical organization or somebody that's an organization that's getting most of its money from completely haram sources these are questions we have to ask at the very least we have to look into it and we have to try we might not fail we might not succeed we might fail but we have to at least try because but if you and i become so obsessed so obsessed with this um with how much money we have how much rank we have how much influence we have and so on and so forth we'll go to any means necessary and i know many people that you know really really really high paying jobs like well they will reach out to them but they're in an industry that they're just not comfortable going in that industry and they'll just kind of turn they'll just turn down the job because that's not worth it to them it's not worth neither muslims it's not worth sacrificing that income for them right even if it's paying them two three times more than they might be making so that's one way the second way is if this love of wealth uh manifests is we start to take out impermissible amounts of money in the form of loans what does that look like what we live in a society where lending is a huge part of the society and so let's say again that we've given that car example oh i have a you know a solid car but everybody else around me has a Mercedes or a BMW or a fan some other fancy car now what i've got to get that too well i don't have enough money to buy it and so what am i going to do i'm going to go i'm going to take out a car loan i'm going to take out a two three percent apr car loan not thinking that there's any problem with it well there is a problem with it because having a car loan that has interest associated with it under no circumstance like under most circumstances right why we couldn't be we shouldn't be doing that we know that interest a love very severely warrants against interest in the Quran he says that tells us to stop taking interest he says stop giving interest he says he wages a lot in his messenger wage war on the one who takes out interest right so there's very very these are verses in the Quran very serious but we don't consider them because the love of money is so deep rooted and then it becomes it i gotta have this thing i gotta have that thing and then that's one example okay well maybe there's somebody who um wants to go and remodel their house okay cool we're now taking out a loan at five to ten percent apr over going on my credit card bill just so i can have really really nice cabinets let's say okay nothing wrong with having the nice cabinets if we say alhamdulillah but what means are we going these are just examples apply them to whatever situation we have in life but the excessive credit card debt the excessive debt that accrues as a result just because we weren't satisfied just because the love of that greed deep down inside of material objects and money was just deep down inside right and then the third way this manifests is we just over indulge right over indulge all we do is just shop and buy things and i gotta get this i gotta get that that's an issue right we can't we can't be getting into a life as Muslims we're like all we care about is consumption no we have to care about giving back to others we have to care about if if somebody uses their wealth to give to others to build massage it to assist others of course to take care of their family you know alhamdulillah if you have nice things we say alhamdulillah for them but in the appropriate ways in the time that we live in that's so different than somebody who just is like i have the best of five designer bags and then ten this and you know i have to i have to buy a five thousand dollar shirt and you know five thousand dollar dress and just all these types of things that like just keep on accumulating because when you have the money it's all relative people say that right wealth is relative hundred thousand dollars to somebody might be chump change versus to somebody else it might be their entire year of salary it just depends but it doesn't mean that it's worth squandering that's when luxurious which is a disease that was it that's part of the kind of catholic framework and the christian framework but it's also manifests in our in our sense right looks like this love of luxurious things all we want to do is spend our money on luxurious things it's a problem we have to think about that nothing again wrong with doing things within limit but overdoing it beyond beyond even a bit more than what we need it can become an issue so we have to think about that so what then is wealth for us we talk about this desire for wealth and desire for money what is it for it's for three things according to mama he says first it is a vehicle as I mentioned to get you to the destination use it wisely it'll help you in the next life the promises on me indicated he said in various hadith and stories how much have you sent forth for the next life right and it's how much have you saved for the next life and he said that everything it is that you give in the way of charity is what you've saved for the next life everything you've saved in your savings account if you don't give it away at some point right or use it for something beneficial it's not saving for the next life right it's used in this life so there is that aspect use it to get to the next life this is in two ways it should be to to to give or to help us get the things we need to have a car to have a home and to take care of our family and put food on the table all these things some of the great things if done with the right intention and we try to do them with a lot of income but that's the main goal right it's not to that we cannot let the means become the goal it's not the goal it really isn't the goal the second thing wealth is for is to help build either ourselves our families our institutions to let's say you you want to hire someone to help you so you can focus on your taking care of your family or focus on learning the dean or something like those are praiseworthy things mama because Ali mentions that right because you will free up your time to do things only you can do right let's say you want to read Quran and someone and so on and so forth rather than spending you'd say Allah bless you with wealth rather than spending four hours cleaning your home you spend that time in beneficial activities and you maybe get some help to clean your home you're using it in an appropriate way you're you are focusing on building your own knowledge your own skill set and in the same way building out institutions taking care of family and and whatnot it's all positive things right and then um so these are really the vehicles that we can keep in mind that this is what the the goal one of the goals for wealth is and so the Prophet has warned us against this kind of intense greedy competition and told us and indicated to us many times how detrimental it can be for our community and we don't have to go much farther than the Muslim world even to see like the level of the how much the negativity that the desire for wealth and the desire for money and fame has crept into some of these societies I mean you it's it's amazing you can have literally people who are struggling significantly and the people who are competing to build super tall buildings and who are paying like for example in parts of the Emirates you have people who pay insane amounts of money to get their license plate to be the absolute best license plate so like it's something like I think I think it's in Dubai there's fewer numbers you have license plate the more high class you are seen in society they'll pay like hundreds of thousands of dollars equivalent to getting the numbers reduced on their license plate they have like very few numbers it's a form of status it's part of love status but it also just shows that like what is that wealth being used for right how is it that we can get into that level I mean what is the point of that is literally zero zero point absolutely zero point zero benefit to that it's just somehow Muslims weird we're doing that type of stuff because we've lost we've lost the way of what we're supposed to be going right so what is the cure for this what is the cure for this excessive love of money the cure according to the scholars is first is to get rid of the haram sources of the money so if we are in love with it so much that we spend a lot of money on haram things or sorry we're getting a lot of money from haram sources we have to reduce that either slowly or get rid of it completely we can't keep getting access to our wealth from sources that we know our question but we have to work on that the second is to reduce haram spending so spending that we know is not good things we shouldn't be buying but we are buying right that we that that are impermissible same thing then goes with loans if we all do are caught up in loans we got to get rid of them as soon as possible right we have to work on paying them off we have a car loan got to work on paying it off because it shows that there are many other ways to get the car most likely there was probably a way to lease it and to negotiate the rate let's call the money factor rate and a lease that you're basically paying you know close to nothing and what would be and what would be the interest or the money factor there are ways to do that but are we going out and finding these ways are we just going out and doing everybody else is doing and trying to compete with everybody these are the questions we have to ask and then the next thing to do is to just overall reduce our consumption and to not be so focused on luxury right okay i'm going to get what i have alhamdulillah and these are unpopular topics i know because the nuts we like this stuff i mean this is this is hard for all of us right to really really really think about this um but the the reality is is that it should not cause should not make us obsessed whatever occupies you all the time means we are obsessed with it we got to get rid of that obsession and you have it alhamdulillah you just say alhamdulillah being having things is not a bad thing we have to say alhamdulillah we got to keep that in mind but excessive attachment to them such that it distracts you from your theme that's where the issue comes and we ask Allah for guidance because for some people wealth is a blessing and for others the same thing is a test a test in in the sense that we do Allah is going to see how you handle that right the third way to do this and by the way i see this question come in until i'm going to get to this just a second um and please if anybody has questions please just post them in the chat that the third thing is uh to contemplate death that is one of the ways to remember okay this is not everything this world is not everything it's not always about this world i gotta remember gotta remember what i'm here for i'm here to make it across this journey of this world so i can enter into the next world inshallah in peace and then hopefully make it through that journey so i can enter heaven inshallah that's my goal to be with the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to be with Allah so i remembering death contemplating death just sitting just tried a couple things that the scholars recommend sit alone with all the lights off and just imagine what it will be like to be in your grave there will be no phone there will be no people there will be no facebook there will be no instagram there will be nothing with you it's just you and your grave and Allah hopefully is with you in there right like from a from a spiritual perspective or or not it could be negative right we don't know so we have to contemplate this let death settle in let the reality again unpopular topics but let the reality of the fact that i am going to die i'm going to meet my lord let that sink in let it let it really sink in so that we start to realize that oh this stuff dude it's petty why am i worried about it i just gotta keep moving in life get through it make sure i'm praying my five prayers make sure i'm doing a little extra and just kind of make moves right and then the fourth thing is in order to cure this is to contemplate right the uh the the fact that all this is going to disappear and death contemplation will help with that right all this is going to disappear your the money that you save for the next life is the money you and i will give it's not the money that we just literally save and hold on to right and the fifth way to cure ourselves is to be generous and to give money away if we have it to be to give our here i'm going to give a donation even five dollars ten dollars anything we can do if we have more hundred dollars five hundred dollars a thousand dollars give it to an institution give it to somebody in need give it to you know charity or something but to to get rid of this idea that like i have to hold on to everything right and this is the way then to channel the money and we said that with every desire we'll talk about how to channel it in the right direction the way to channel this in the right direction is to use it for the right reasons to be generous and to build for with it to build institutions with it to make it a saddha kajaria for us to to to help people with it right and again that means then there's nothing wrong with having it it just cannot be an obsessive desire that we are really really attached to so just a quick review of these q we get rid of the haram sources that includes our loans that like that includes the haram income that we have we stop spending on impermissible and haram things we reduce our consumption overall and we stop just becoming consumers we're always buying i gotta buy this you know 50 outfits and this many bads and this so on and so forth we begin to contemplate death right and then we are generous and we give our money away often we try to be generous with it we try to give out we try to give back we try to take care of people inshallah if we do these things this desire will go away and once the desire goes away mama rizali this is a very interesting analogy he says wealth is not it's like a snake he says you have to be a snake charmer you got to know how to work with it not everybody can do that though not everybody can do this we can't just think like oh everybody can handle sometimes like oh i want to be a billionaire well not everybody could handle being a billionaire most people can't handle being a billionaire because i mean there's a lot of there's a lot of things that come with that right like a lot of accountability will come with that and on the day of judgment potentially a lot knows best and we ask you doesn't take us to account for anything but not everybody can handle all the different things that come with having significant amounts of money we have to know how to handle our wealth we have to know how to handle it as mama rizali says so may Allah assist us we'll just get to this question if you're coming from a poorer family and you're looking working to change your family wealth status and um is that an unhealthy or an islamic mindset no no not at all that's an amazing mindset mashallah if somebody is trying to do more for their family if someone is trying to assist their family and trying to kind of quote unquote move up and establish themselves i from my understanding um there is nothing wrong with that uh the main thing though to remember is to just do it in a permissible way to not find impermissible sources if something is impermissible to to project it right to not like take out a loan to then start a business so that you can grow right because that would be then impermissible root and as a result something impermissible to go to continue with that type of thing would be something to watch out for but overall like if someone is doing in a halal way and they're able to give themselves a solid life and that's their intention to take care of the family take care of the parents those that that goes into the praiseworthy direction inshallah so hopefully um brother that answers the other question so if anybody has any other questions inshallah please just post them we'll just wait in the chat for just a 30 seconds or a minute or so and otherwise we will go ahead and do a short dua and end i don't see anything i'll just do a dua and if anybody has anything please go ahead and post it it's been like my name alhamdulillah oh i'm salli wasallam abarak ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wasallam ya Allah ya rahman ya raheem ya Allah please assist us please uh help us with our lives ya Allah please help us with any difficulty that we are going through please ya Allah remove these any desires that we have that are negative ya Allah please allow us to channel those in the right direction ya Allah please allow our our nafs to not have control over us and please bestow sakina upon us and please bestow tranquility upon us and please cure all the Muslims of any diseases and please cure all of our loved ones and family members anybody else who's struggling with COVID in any other situation wasallallahu wasallam abarak ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa alihi wasallam alhamdulillah we have another question come in unrelated what do i do if i've not fasted for many years since Ramadan is coming soon um alhamdulillah so if you have not fasted for many years so if you could just clarify in the question is this what do you do if you need to make up your fasts or what do you do if you're just kind of out of practice um uh that would be that would be helpful uh if you if Ramadan is coming up the best thing for us to do is first to know it's it's going to be here in about a month and a half inshallah for us to start to get in the rhythm of fasting okay maybe we try to fast once every other week or even once this month and then two three two two times in the next month just kind of get in a rhythm or fast once a week whatever it is that we can do or just start to maybe you skip a meal here and there right you start to get your body used to skipping a meal so that you can be ready for Ramadan um the second thing though if you're saying for not faster than again if you can clarify in the chat i we can try to respond in a more specific way but if you're saying what do you do in terms of makeup fasts right if you have to make up those fast then of course you fast this Ramadan um okay got it got it got it's not just make up fast you're saying overall well look don't don't stress get do what you can right so if somebody is just getting into Islam and you're just starting to you know get into a rhythm take it slow do what you can right okay you can do if you can go into it you gotta know the obligation is okay i gotta do 30 days i gotta do the full 30 days right um except the time for a woman when they're on their cycle if someone is getting into the religion newly entering the religion newly starting to practice you do manage it with whatever you can do so you make the intention i'm going to fast the whole month you ask Allah for assistance and you start with that and hopefully Allah will help you inshallah will help you get through it so just kind of begin right so from a um a basic perspective it's fasting from the time right before fudger comes in uh what's known as pre dawn up until sunset you don't eat or drink water and then of course you try to pray all of your prayers during that time and try to limit any other haram things that we would be doing or try not to do any of those at all that's like the basic kind of rule of the fast uh but you know we can get more into that jala we'll try to do some basic Ramadan prep so hopefully that answers the question that was being asked with regards to Ramadan but uh if one does have an out of practice or have a lot of makeup fast and whatnot to do it's okay just take it slowly do what you can okay of course the obligation is the obligation get into it but if somebody it's like impossible for someone to handle all the makeups or whatever it is that they have to do they just slowly work through it and ask Allah for assistance inshallah may Allah assist all of you and help you and make this time easy for everybody inshallah if there's any more questions we'll please post them otherwise and i'll see any others okay alhamdulillah well jizakalaka yassalamu alaykum inshallah we'll see you next week uh same time Wednesday 7 p.m inshallah alaykum


Alrighty everyone, we are ripping case 5 22 in case football random team style Here's your results in case you missed it. Let's get this show on the road Case 5. Good luck. We got six and seven still to fill right behind it Eight nine and ten are sold out. They're all divisionals So we got three sold out breaks behind the next two Good luck. Come on. She'll I'm ready Ready to pull a shield to 25 Mike Williams chargers Calvin Austin the third rookie catpatch auto number to 50 Pittsburgh We pulled a filthy one of his earlier Jumbo Jersey same guy Mike Willie Chargers again Washington jumbo patch rookie Jahan Dotson the 10 nice. I hope so William Number to 10 on the Dotson first mag and it's Jets rookie auto gold to a 25 sauce gardener Pull a few sauces today J ETS Will it be their year? I'm excited to see I can't stand the Jets But I do enjoy parody And I would like to see some different teams get some love this year. I'm a Patriots fan. I hate the Jets, but It'd be nice to mix it up this year Washington Carson Wentz base What happened to Carson Wentz? Is he with the team? Steelers George Pickens jump double patch rookie auto to 50 Very nice hit Pittsburgh Haven't seen one of these yet the double Steelers big hit congrats Very nice bears jumbo patch to 50 Justin Fields nice hit on the jumbo for the Bears. I mean, it's no ink bud, but it's this 18 of 25 rookie triple patch Brock Purdy Niners. There you go. There you go That's a good box That's a good box and for the Giants Jersey number hit auto 10 of 10 Eli Manning Wow G-man congrats on the hit Giants Edward E That's a beauty congrats, buddy Jersey number hit We're doing good Alvin. We're doing good bub. How you doing? Oh Boy dots in the 25 Washington Washington just killing it in these breaks man. Look at his beauty rookie cat patch auto for the Bears 17 to 25 VELS Jones Jr. Nice patch on that There you go bears triple relic rookie BRJ Washington again and patch Houston this guy was a monster Andre Johnson First one made 125 God, he was so good. Yeah, right Paul Washington again rookie out of the 50 John Dodson. Why not? pour it on baby Pour it on now. We got to spread the love let's spread the love The collation in this product has been very peculiar to say the least Very peculiar The hits have been amazing Detroit Janice and Williams Rookie base Houston rookie auto I'm gonna 99 met you the third on card Green Bay rookie quad Christian Watson 17 of 25 nice Yeah, we only got some wind and rain. It wasn't anything crazy Just wind and rain We got very lucky and Houston another matchy triple relic to 99 Texans yet again. What's up, David? How you doing buddy?  Or is it 99 of 99 That's for you to decide that's for you to decide But we're gonna end up with every freaking dots and pose under the Sun Yeah, we've had exactly we've had way worse regular old thunderstorms like the three o'clock thunderstorm we've had Some of those storms that we get in the afternoon are gnarly scary Last night into today. We just had gusty wind and rain That was it you got very lucky Houston another hit rookie auto Damian Pierce not bad Texans doing well Yeah, the storm surges the issue along the coast especially and then also if you're along the river Like the St. John's River or whatever Quad patch Atlanta Drake London 10 of 15. That's cool. They go Falcons How about a rookie triple Jersey Giants? Kevon Tividow don't see a lot of his hits He is a beast Jacksonville base Trevor Lawrence T-Law hackers rookie auto to 25 Christian Randy Watson Packers doing some work way to go. That's Green Bay Samuel W. Having a good break Nice Watson. That's nice The auntie Johnson parallel to 25 Steelers. Let's fill up case number six breaking next everybody Jersey auto Chargers One of 50 Austin Echler nice sweet hit Chargers and Jags with the quad rookie Trayvon Walker number to 50 Jacksonville Jacksonville Jumbo Jersey rookie Kenny to gloves Steelers to 99 and Washington. Oh my god Crazy two of 99 rookie auto Sam Howell Holy moly. Yeah, but half the hits in this break This nuts Was that you Jay Jason H. Man, you are feasting today my friend Way to go having a day. That's nice PS2 number to 25 Denver Broncos PS2 How about a green Autograph number to ten Texans again Damian Pierce nice hit Houston Pierce to 10. Oh Look at this beauty Very cool car dolphins Murd four of ten Encore patch Dan Marino Awesome hit for the fins. I love the photo too. Check that out Marino to ten dolphins Congrats Cool card and a sauce triple jersey for the Jets Cool card on the Marino Seattle Rookie dual patch auto number to 50 Kenneth Walker the third. There you go Hawks. It's going to Jonathan D Nice hit for the dolphins Was Philip M. You got that Marino way to go Philip last box of case five Let's get case six filled We're breaking right after this Cornell Patterson parallel to 25 Atlanta The CP and then a vet auto Green Bay again That's Alan Lazard On card to 15 Packers He's with the Jets now, right? Let me follow Rogers over Speaking of the Jets patch card another vet patch 10 of 10 Broadway Joe Couple of sweet Joe Willys today Congrats Jets and then we got one more for the Titans quad It's Traylon Burks To 50 Tennessee nice card pretty with the coloring there. All right last hit Unbelievable number to 50 BRJ Washington again Jason man could get a lottery ticket buddy. Why not? Ride that wave Washington had Just only in case hits Just on in case tits Thanks everybody appreciate that was fun. Let's get the next couple filled up keep on rolling


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you, including Eric Holm, Carmine Bailey, and Vince Power. Coming up on DTNS, Rich DeMuro is here with some excellent last-minute tech gift ideas. Scott Johnson talks about Microsoft's 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to the Nintendo Switch. And what would it take to get you to use a super app? Americans? Why? Why can't you be more like China? Says business. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, December 7th, 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. In Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. I'm the show's producer, Roger Jang. And joining us, tech reporter for KTLA TV and host of a new radio show called Rich on Tech, starting January 7th on stations nationwide, Rich DeMuro. Thank you. Also in Los Angeles. Yes. Yes. Also in Los Angeles, where we are. You now have a majority of the house on the shelf. Nice. Indeed. Indeed. All right, let's start with the quick hits. Uber and Motional began offering self-driving car service in Las Vegas. Users booking through UberX or UberComfort Electric in service areas have a chance to be matched with emotional autonomous vehicle. Now, as a user, you have to opt into the sort of ride. They're currently free with plans for a commercial launch to come. The rides include safety drivers at launch with fully autonomous service scheduled for some time next year 2023. I got lots of little Apple things here. Apple announced changes to the App Store pricing model. There's like 900 prices now, which is about 10 times as many as there used to be for developers. Minimum app price drops to $0.29. Used to be $0.99. They increased the maximum price of an app. You may not have realized this, but you could only charge up to $1,000 for an app before. Now you can charge up to $10,000. It also provides more incremental pricing, so $0.10 increments up to $10. It allows setting prices on a per-country basis, auto-renewable subscriptions can start using the price changes now, and other apps will get it in spring 2023. Apple also introduced new security measures for cloud data, including end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups, photos, and more. Wall Street Journal says the company has dropped its proposed system for trying to identify child sexual abuse material or CSAM. They had an automatic system that had some controversy around it. They're just not going to implement it. And finally, the release of iOS 16.2 will revert airdrop sharing to contacts only after 10 minutes automatically to prevent unwanted requests to receive content. That's the thing that Chinese iPhone users already have to stop them from hearing anything bad. Remember how important Dish getting Spectrum was to the approval of T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint? Well, they're finally doing something with that Spectrum. Dish Wireless launched a beta program for its post-paid, boost infinite wireless service, offering unlimited calls, texts, and high-speed data for $25 per month. Data throttles after 30 gigabytes, so that'll be a factor for some folks. The beta will use AT&T's network. After fully launching in Q1 of 2023, it will use Dish's 5G network in addition to AT&T and T-Mobile. Connections for smartwatches and tablets will be available at the full launch. The messaging app Telegram dropped its requirement for using a SIM card, if you want to sign up for its service, to verify users. Telegram partnered with a company called Fragment, which will let users create an anonymous phone number to sign up. It also added a global auto delete timer for all chats, upgraded its topics feature to sort group topics into multiple threads, and added a new quote-unquote aggressive anti-spam filter for group chats. SpaceX launched Starshield, a version of its Starlink satellite internet technology, designed for government and military use. The company claims it could quickly build end-to-end systems for government clients, from launching dedicated satellites to user terminals, offering additional high assurance cryptographic capability on top of Starlink's existing end-to-end encryption. You know, things like that, that the military might want. SpaceX claims that Starshield service would remain interoperable with Starlink's network. Yeah, they're probably going to run on the same network with some firewalls in between. All right, that's the quick hits. Microsoft announced it has reached deals with Nintendo and Valve to make Call of Duty available for the Switch and Steam for at least 10 years. I mean, it was already on Steam, but it's going to stay on Steam for 10 years and Switch for 10 years if Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard. Microsoft reportedly offered the same deal to Sony, but Sony has not accepted. The deal is, of course, contingent on regulators approving Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard. They told Activision Blizzard, hey, we made this commitment in case we get you, but they can't force Activision Blizzard to do anything about it yet, because the rules around mergers mean no development can begin until the acquisition is closed. Microsoft says it expects it to close in June of 2023. The US Federal Trade Commission meets Thursday, December 8th, to discuss the acquisition. Regulators in the UK and EU are also investigating the acquisition for antitrust concerns. So there's some stuff yet to happen. But the fate of Call of Duty is not the only antitrust consideration. It's often been brought up as an example of the power that Microsoft would have over the gaming market if such a deal is approved. Now, Scott, I know you've been following the story. What's your best guess on how this shakes out? Well, for me, shake out is an interesting proposition because there are a few things a little bit vague here. For one, when they say 10 years on the Switch, what they really mean is 10 years on Nintendo platforms. It's entirely possible. In fact, likely that sooner than later, Nintendo will have a successor to the Switch or whatever their new platform will be. So the idea of people still playing Call of Duty in 10 years on a Switch is probably not quite what they think it is. Secondly, it doesn't even guarantee that we're talking about day-in-day releases of new Call of Duty products, of cutting-edge stuff that needs 200 gigabytes of space, and all of the bells and whistles the new consoles and PCs provide. So just a little bit of a reality check on the Nintendo side. But what it does tell me is they're saying, I think it's a strategy. This is Microsoft saying, look, we're putting our best foot forward and saying to our competitors where they will accept it, hey, we're not going to take Call of Duty away from you. In fact, Nintendo would like to offer you Call of Duty again. It's been a long time since anything has come from this franchise onto your platform. So there's that. There's your 10 years of that. And of course, Nintendo stoked about it or at least accepting of it. In Steam's case, they already had it, like Tom mentioned. However, it's been pulled before when things only were available on the Blizzard launcher. They pulled it from Steam. It's now back on Steam. And this is them saying, hey, we'll keep it on there. So you guys are good. I think these two steps are an additional way for them to say, we're feeling very benevolent about all of this. We want everybody to have our stuff that includes Sony. They're just not doing it yet. But boy, we sure are trying to give it to everybody. I actually think it's a good move. I think it's smart for them to do it. I also think that we're going to do this anyway. They don't want. There's money on the table that you would leave in massive amounts if you didn't put Call of Duty on other platforms. So I think this actually may help Microsoft down the road for this getting approved and over with. Yeah, I think their benevolence is definitely fueled by that Thursday to some great meeting that Sarah mentioned. I think Microsoft is trying to do everything they can to show that the concerns about Call of Duty, at least, that Sony are bringing up are not anything to be worried about. It's not what this is about, though. It's about whether this gives Microsoft too much control, whether they're going to do 10-year deals or not. It's about, does it give it too much control? So I'm not sure whether it's actually going to save this deal or not. Rich, I don't know. Do you play Call of Duty? Does this affect your life at all? It does not, but I saw the tweet from, I think it was a lawyer at Microsoft, and he was like, this is a good thing for consumers. And any time you have a lawyer saying that, during any sort of merger, it is most certainly not a good thing for consumers. So none of these mergers, none of these acquisitions, they're never good for consumers. They can promise 10 years, but when everyone kind of forgets about it, the prices start to creep up, the things start to scale back, and it's always the same story. So I'm not buying it. I think that there's a chance for Microsoft to do good here. And here's my only thinking. Up till now, with Game Pass and kind of the new Microsoft, in terms of their gaming division, has been, look, we're not so concerned that you're buying our exact console. What we'd love it is if you'd play our games no matter where they are via cloud. So hey, get on Xbox Game Pass and let's do that. PC, you want to play it there? Great. You want to play Halo there? Great. You want to play it on a console? Great. You want to play it on your tablet? Great. And also, if you don't just pay cash for it on Steam, that's fine too. Oh, you're on the Epic Store? Cool. Buy it there. If that attitude continues where they're like, get our games wherever you game, then this fits that. If this doesn't hold, then maybe we got a problem down the road. I think, as is often the case in these antitrust situations, the cases are always about the past, not what's actually going to happen. So it's interesting to note that Microsoft being dominant on Windows was a huge deal a few years before the desktop operating system stopped being the thing anyone cared about and everyone was caring about the browser and then after that the phone operating system. So these things are always a little bit lagging and I think if it were to look forward, which I don't expect it will, they would be looking at Project Luna. Are you going to make Call of Duty available there? Are you going to make all your games available to Amazon? Are you going to make them available to Nvidia Shield? Are you going to make them available to any other streaming service that comes along? Because I think that's the devil's in the details there. Microsoft's like, yeah, of course we'll let Steam and Sony and Nintendo do this, even if it costs them development money because what we want to do is make our money off the streaming service. We know that's where the future is. Yeah, well we'll keep our eyes on it. In other Microsoft news, the information sources say Microsoft wants to develop a new, they're calling Super App on mobile that would combine shopping, messaging, web search, games and news feeds. Sound familiar? Maybe like WeChat a little bit. The report actually mentions that. They want to emulate the mobile strategy of Tencent's WeChat. Microsoft reportedly sees this as a way to boost its advertising and its search business as well as draw more users to Teams. It's unclear if Microsoft will actually launch the app, but it seems the desire is there. Yeah, I mean, let's just say, let's say that Microsoft does launch some sort of a Super App and other companies certainly could do that as well. WeChat is the very obvious example of a very successful Super App where many millions of people can do all sorts of things within WeChat and not use 10 different apps to do the same, but many of us, myself included, I'm not used to that all-in-one model. There are certain things I might be able to do within an app like send a friend some money and also chat with them, but it's pretty limited, and certainly a lot of users in the U.S. are not as used to the Super App situation as in certain other markets. So I thought it might be kind of fun to go around the horn quickly and just take some stock in what we might think a Super App would be helpful for if we don't have an option for one already. I think for me, sort of the messaging and payments thing, that's obvious, but you can do that within Messenger, you can do that within Venmo, you can do that within PayPal. There are ways to do that, but I think if I were to take that a step further, it would probably be some sort of a shopping experience, and that doesn't really mean that I want Amazon to give me a Super App, because I don't know if that's what I'm asking for, but I would say that would be the third thing if we're talking about money and chatting that I would probably throw in there. Yeah, for me, I think I'm like Sarah in that there's some habit involved here where I'm used to the same five, six apps a day that I do all these things with, and I don't think the American market or the US market is in the mood to shove a bunch of stuff under one roof and who's roof will that be and who will control it. I also think it's a little bit like saying, hey, I'm going to start a competitor to Facebook today and I expect it to be huge. I just think that's a really daunting process. I'd love it if somebody would, but I don't think anybody's going to. You have certain established norms. We're weird about that in some ways, and we just lock in on it. So I'm sure if I lived in Japan and I had one app that did everything or wherever it's prominent, I would be way into that, but it isn't here, and I don't know how everyone agrees to cozy up to it. It's like the insurance business. Nobody's going to do it. Rich, what are your thoughts on the idea of the super app? Is convenience key for you or does it make you feel weird to have too many things in one place? Yeah, I actually go the other way. I definitely don't want anything in the same place. I'm a big believer in the competition of the apps, and we're seeing a lot of apps try something like this.  They're blending in package delivery. They're blending in the ability to rent a car, and I'm not sure besides Uber Eats, if any of those things are super popular or have taken off. And I do see what you were saying about things like Venmo. If you're collecting money, we were on a text chain the other day with my kid's basketball team, and we needed to collect money from all the parents, and we went from iMessage to typing in all the phone numbers to a new message, and then getting everyone to Venmo in a separate thing, and of course the username and the confirming. So I mean, I see why there's some friction here, but at the same time, I think we also like to move around to the best thing. And so if that best thing is Venmo right now, that's great. A couple of years ago, it might have been PayPal and the same thing with email providers and all these different things that I feel like people have gotten so used to having apps for different purposes. And honestly, if you think about it, the iPhone is almost kind of what Apple's trying to build is a super app. When you think about all the different things that they've built into that phone, the services and the products, the magazine subscriptions, the messaging, the ability to send money. I mean, there's so many things, the maps. I mean, it's kind of a super app in itself. And it's great, it's convenient, but I hate the fact that people just open up the Maps app and think that it's the best Maps app out there and they should be using that. So I think what I hear you say, and I think it's very representative of what a lot of people feel, is I don't want one company controlling it all. But if you look at the way WeChat does it, Amazon is on some of these super apps in China. So if you do it right, it's saying, we're just going to make it easier to have everything integrated so you don't have to hop from app to app and the apps don't communicate to each other. I think the biggest reason, though, that it hasn't caught on in the United States is emblematic in this information article. The information writes, Microsoft executives wanted the app to boost the company's multi-billion dollar advertising business and Bing search, as well as draw more users to Teams messaging. In other words, they want it because they have reasons. That's not the right way to do it. If that's why they're going to do it, don't do it. What WeChat did was found things that made people's lives easier, which is why they integrated other shopping. They didn't try to run their own shopping. They integrated other shopping. They integrated other payment systems even at some points. They said, what makes people want to use our service better and then created that?  We're kind of stuck in our ways. It's the first mover disadvantage, right? We've already been using PayPal for a long time. We've already had Venmo, so we don't want to move. And I think the combination of that, it's hard to make the case, it's hard to create the service that's better, and the fact that we're all stuck in our ways and we're like, yeah, but we like it the way it is, makes it hard to see the advantage of jumping to something else. So I think the only way you do this in the United States is you get a neutral platform that convinces some, if not the number one in every vertical, at least the number two, where people go, oh, but it is way easier to use that service because it's integrated with this other thing in here. If you can make that happen, then it works. But that's really hard. And that may be why it never happens here. I have one good example of this real quick. So we were ordering pizza the other night and it was cheaper to go outside of DoorDash directly to the restaurant and use their app, which was horrendous, right? It was this poorly made app. And I sat there and I was like, I told my wife, I'm like, look, I think next time we'll just pay the extra $5 to go through DoorDash, even though it's a little bit more expensive because it's streamlined, it has all of our information, I don't have to type everything in, it's got my payment, and it's just simpler. And so I do see the appeal of something like that, especially if they are using different companies to do it. But just one company having all the control always kind of scares me. Indeed, indeed. Well, folks, if you've got a thought about this, I bet you do, or anything else we talk about on the show, our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. We want to hear from you. All right, so the big commercial pushes, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, those are in the past now, but you probably still have a few things you might need to get or even things you want to ask for. We've already covered gifts for gamers, home theater, TV shoppers, new smart home users. But what do you get for somebody who's hard to shop for? We had to call in our closer. Rich DeMuro has been doing tech gifts for literally decades. Rich, help us out, give us some ideas. Hey, Tom. Actually, today, Circuit City was trending on Twitter, and so I shared an old video from CNET Black Friday 2006 at Circuit City. I didn't even know I had this in my... I just happened to look up and was like, why is Circuit City trending? And it was just classic watching what people were buying on Black Friday so many years ago. It was mostly like DVDs and digital cameras. So things have changed. Let's go through a couple of the picks I have. So number one, I think the gift that is the easiest to give to anyone in your family is the Aura frame. So this is a digital frame, and what's neat about this frame is that you can send pictures from your phone to this frame. So it's all digital. You don't have to put a USB stick in the back, and you can do it as soon as you take a picture. If you're halfway across the world, you can send it right to your parents' frame or a loved one's frame, or even a frame that you have at home. And so it's just something that is such a crowd pleaser. I've gotten this for almost everyone in my family and extended family, because who doesn't like seeing a picture pop up on their kitchen counter of their grandkids? That's the picture, I guess. I guess so, yeah. This is a family thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a family thing. You got to be... I mean... You got to trust your family on this one, yeah. Yeah. That's a classic one. That one's been around for a long time. That's a good one. Yeah. That's a really great... I mean, it's just a crowd pleaser. Okay, moving on. So these earbuds, people always ask, I want a cheap, inexpensive pair of wireless earbuds. And of course, AirPods. Everyone has AirPods. Everyone loves AirPods. Not everyone wants to spend $100 up to $300 on those. Yeah. So the best earbuds I've tested in the last couple of years have been the OnePlus Nord Buds. These are just 39 bucks, and sometimes they go cheaper on sale. They don't have all the fancy schmancy stuff. So when you take them out of yours, they're not going to pause the music on your phone. But they sound really good. There's no noise cancellation. But they sound really good. They're water and dust resistant. The battery lasts a long time. And they're just simple. And they work with iPhones, androids. And if you just want something that you don't mind if you happen to lose them or leave them at the gym, and it's just an easy thing to give. Yeah. And OnePlus makes quality stuff in mid-range and affordable prices. So that makes sense to me. Yeah. Nord is sort of their basic lineup. I think they have a Nord phone, Nord Buds. So yeah, OnePlus is doing some good stuff there, too. All right. So this next one, you can see the picture theme. I get a lot of questions about, for some reason, people don't want to use the cloud for their pictures. I don't know why I recommend the cloud to store your pictures and, of course, having them backed up somewhere else. This is a way to free up space on your phone and also bypass the cloud if you don't want to use a cloud. It's the Sandisk I Expand Flash Drive Lux. And the reason why this is the fancy Lux version is if you look closely, one side is lightning, the other side is USB-C. And so you can plug one side into your iPhone. The app will help you take the pictures off your phone or copy them to this device. And then you can plug the other side into your computer to transfer them or access the photos. It's just kind of a nice tool to have in general.  So, yeah. It's also a good reminder. I mean, I'm an iPhone iCloud user. And I don't know. I mean, I have many thousands of photos in the cloud, but I haven't really backed them up anywhere recently as in the last five years because iCloud seems to be working. But good reminder that if you care about those photos, you want them in more than one place. SneakerNet lives. And you could move them from an iPhone to Android if the Android phone has USB-C, which the cloud may make it more difficult. This would be an easy way to do that. Yeah, it's just a nice thing to have.  Even if at the very least you still use iCloud, you can still back them up to this to have a secondary backup, which I always recommend. Okay, next up, this is something that I feel like everyone could use. This is a wireless portable charger, but it's MagSafe. This is from Belkin. It's one of those things that it's just, again, nice to have in your bag. I feel like everyone could use this. If you have an iPhone with MagSafe, which is the iPhone 12 and up, it's that circle in the back of the iPhone that lets you magnetically attach stuff. This is a wireless battery that will align itself. It will charge your phone. It's great if you're going to Disneyland. It's great if you just are on a long CES day. I know that's something for me. But it's just good to have your traveling, checking out a different city. Nothing is worse than being at the bottom of the battery on your phone and not having any charger in sight. So this is super easy to have in your bag. And it's 40 bucks. And it's just, to me, again, one of those things that anyone can use that has an iPhone with MagSafe. Is it just MagSafe? Or could you charge something else off of it too? Does it have the other port? Yeah, it still has USB-C. So you can still, you know, and when you, no matter which one of these things you get, any sort of portable battery bank, if you don't want the, you know, if you want one that's more Android oriented, you always want one that has USB-C in and out because it's going to charge the fastest both ways. Some of them are still kind of like slow on the charge in or out. So just be aware of that. Good to know. Okay, this one, do we have the Tesla up next? This one's kind of funny. This is something I personally use. Ever since I got an electric car, I've been using it as an office at times. And this laptop tray steering wheel desk, I know it looks funny. And the picture on Amazon has the person eating McDonald's, but I put my laptop on here. I've actually done work in my car. The thing you don't realize about an electric car is since it's not idling, you don't feel bad sitting in it for longer periods of time.  You're putting emissions out. So it's just kind of one of those things. It just seems strange. It seems odd, right? I mean, I know that people do it, but to me, when you're going electric, this kind of turns your car into an extra room, an extra place to work. So you can be anywhere. And to be clear, you don't use it while driving. This is when you're parked. Thank you for that clarification. Do not use this. This is when you're parked. And I've used it in both the passenger and also the driver's seat. But the problem with the passenger and the Tesla, everything sort of shuts off when you close the door. So I need to figure out how to like keep things on. I'm sure there's a way. But anyway, things seem to stay on when you're sitting in the driver's seat. Okay, next up, this is really cool. Again, on that charging, I travel a lot and I charge a lot of stuff. So you can see the themes here. But this is the STM Charge Tree Go. And what I love about this is you can charge three things all at once. You can charge the iPhone. You can charge even an Android phone. You can charge an Apple Watch and a pair of wireless earbuds on the backside. So three in one. And you just have to plug in one cable. It folds up all compact. So the side where the Apple Watch goes, that pushes in and then this folds down flat. So it's super easy to pack. First thing I do when I get to a hotel room, you set this up, all your stuff charges. Again, wireless charging is going to be a little bit slower, or actually a lot slower than wired charging.  Yeah, no, Eileen, my wife has one of these and they're great. We'll have a couple of bonus picks. We'll talk about on Good Day Internet if you get the extended show as a Patreon. And we'll throw up in the show notes as well, dailytechnewshow.com. Thank you, Rich. Let's check out the mailbag. Andrew wrote in about AI and code in general. Andrew says, I've been a software engineer for a while now. And one of the things I have to teach almost every new developer who joins my team is not to reinvent the wheel. It seems to be ingrained in them, regardless of institution, to come up with a completely new solution instead of using a well-vetted library. Now, this is Andrew's response to our conversation with John C. DeVorek yesterday. Andrew says, John was right in a sense that understanding code reuse earlier would be good, though an AI just designed to spit out code is not going to be any better at recommending libraries than a junior engineer. Yeah, we got a lot of really good responses to that discussion about having assistance with code from something like GPT-3 versus using it to replace code. Now, I really like Andrew's response here as somebody who's teaching it. I know we had other folks as well. So thanks to everybody for those responses. Good stuff. Indeed. Also good stuff from you, Rich Jamiro, and so nice to have you on the show. Where can people keep up with what's going to happen with you in 2023? It's going to be a big year. Sure. My website is richontech.tv. There you can find all the details and all my stories from TV. I'm on KTLA Channel 5 here in Los Angeles in the mornings and throughout the day. And then, of course, on social media, I am at Rich on Tech on all the various platforms. Instagram is probably where I'm the most active, but I do check in on the rest of them from time to time just to see what's going on. Well, very nice to have you on the show today. Also nice to have you, Scott Johnson. Where can people keep up with your latest? Well, it's pretty exciting stuff over here at the Frogpan Central Joint. I'm making a new card game, everybody. I learned a lot from making Rock Runners. I've moved on to a new game called Dungeon Murder, which you can learn all about at dungeonmurder.com. There's even a video to a 24-minute awkward tutorial of me playing my test deck currently in beta. But as you can see, we got some cool-looking cards with some nice card fronts, some nice card art. I did all the art, all the design. I invented another card game. Anyway, it's coming to Kickstarter soon. I'll have details soon. But if people want to bookmarkedungeonmurder.com, that's a great way to find out what's going on. So please do. I love it. We also love our patrons. We want to extend a special thanks to Dennis Wardell. Dennis is one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS. Dennis, who've been with us for quite a few years, thank you for all your support. Yeah, man. It's nice to have people who stick around that long and support us. We really appreciate folks like Dennis. You could start being like Dennis today at patreon.com slash DTNS. Indeed, speaking of patrons, stick around for our extended show, Good Day Internet. We're going to talk about all the things. Maybe Rich has a few more ideas for gift guides. Scott and I are going to fight about Christmas songs. You can also catch the show, this show, DTNS Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 2100 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We'll be back tomorrow doing it all again about how tech is shaping music with Justin Rubber Young joining us. 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.