Chit Chat Across The Pond Lite

Our guest this week on Chit Chat Across the Pond is John Siracusa of the Accidental Tech Podcast, Reconcilable Differences, and Robot or Not. He’s also the developer of two interesting Mac apps: Front and Center and SwitchGlass. You can find his blog at Hypercritical.co. You can find him on Twitter @siracusa I've been a fan of John's for a long time but I never knew anything about his background, so I asked him to start at the beginning and explain where he came from. Next I ask him some questions about screen brightness and arrangement of windows that I've heard him talking about and always wanted to investigate his ideas further. Then we get into a super meaty discussion where he explains display technology from LCD to OLED to QD-OLED (or Quantum Dot OLED). John was as delightful as I'd hoped, as knowledgeable as I'd expected and I had a fantastic time with him.

Back in August of 2019, Bart Busschots told us about how someday in the future, we would be able be living a passwordless future because of something called FIDO, AKA Fast ID Online. Back then it was really only helping corporations but this week the FIDO Alliance made an announcement that shows real promise that the dream will be realized for normal humans. In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart gives us a human-friendly explanation of why FIDO is awesome, how it will work, why it works, and what problems it solves. He even breaks it down into who will have to do what for this to work, and the good news is that normal humans won't have to do anything at all. While this may sound like a super nerdy topic, and it does include a few brief ventures into private/public key cryptography, it's really a joyful discussion of a future without password breaches. When Bart and I stopped recording, I asked him, "Did you notice how much I was smiling during this recording?" I think you'll really en

One of my pet peeves is podcasters who air reruns. Today I am that podcaster but I think I can justify what I'm doing so bear with me here. On June 1st, 2014, Dr. Maryanne Garry made her debut appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond. In this terrific interview, she explains her research and the research of others in the field of how memories are formed and retrieved. Every time Dr. Garry comes on as a self-proclaimed "Crusher of Dreams", these episodes seem to garner the most interest from the listeners. This seminal episode with Dr. Garry is the best of the best, and crushes every dream you have that your memory is flawless and it's everyone else who is misremembering. She explains the repressed memory fad that started in the 1990s, and how damaging this never scientifically-validated was to many people. She explains how she can actually induce false memories in people at an alarming rate. Now here's why I'm rerunning it. Eight years ago, Chit Chat Across the Pond was not a standalone podcast; it was

In this ~lite episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart Busschots explains why it's a good idea to have your an email address on your own domain. Then he digs deep into all of the different technologies involved in owning a domain, forwarding email, explains MX and NX records, and how to make sure you're never caught up in a spam scam. After digging deep, he then brings us up a level and explains the easy things you can do to have email forwarding that might protect you from some problems. I've worked my way through all of the technologies that Bart described, but I didn't understand a lot of it until Bart explained it in this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond. You'll find detailed shownotes of everything Bart describes at

This week our guest is Erin Carson, Senior Writer at CNET. She came on the show to talk to me about ear worms and the effect that TikTok is having on their prevalence. We go over the research she studied on earworms, finding out how long we've known about them, what goes on in our brains when we imagine music and why TikTok might be the perfect vehicle for getting them. We eventually go off the rails and enjoy a delightful conversation about music in her home town of Nashville. If you want to follow along with Erin's work, you can find her on cnet.com and you can follow her on Twitter @ErinCarson

While Steve and I were in Phoenix visiting Steve's sister, we made a trip out to meet the awesome Bodie Grimm, host of the Kilowatt podcast at 918digital.com. Bodie's show is all about electric vehicles, self driving, solar energy, and batteries. You can imagine that it would be impossible for a podcast to _not_ break out when two podcasters meet up like this. We decided to create this as a crossover episode that we would both post. I haven't listened to Bodie's intro yet, but I am willing to bet that he starts it with telling his audience they shouldn't listen on his show, they should subscribe to mine instead. That's just the kind of guy he is. I'm not that generous. Stay here, listen to it on my channel, but then you're allowed to go subscribe to the Kilowatt Podcast. In this episode Bodie and I talk about all kinds of things. I explain how weird it was for Steve and me to drive an internal combustion engine (ICE) car after two years of EV driving. But that wasn't the weirdest driving we did. Right befo

This week's guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Tom Merritt, host of the Daily Tech News Show, Cord Killers, Know a Little More, Sword and Laser and more podcasts than I can count. He's also a science fiction author with his book series Pilot X tommerrittbooks.com. I asked Tom to come on Chit Chat to help me "know a little more" (see what I did there?) about the past, present and future of messaging. We start by talking about the grand old days when on the computer we had interoperable messaging services, and later at least a way to aggregate the protocols so we could use one client to talk over different services. We covered SMS and the "new and improved" RCS from 2007 protocols when he explained the roles that carriers play in implementation. We talk about the green/blue bubble problem with splintered messages and how RCS might be able to help if Apple would implement it, and why they probably won't. Finally, we talk about the DMA (Digital Markets Act - see Bart's deep dive on this during Security Bi

Jill from the North Woods, host of the delightful and inspiring Start with Small Steps Podcast at smallstepspod.com decided a few years ago that she wanted to switch from Windows to the Mac. I was a bit of an enabler on this, so I've been watching her adventure with great interest. She recently made the final hard switchover and I thought it would be interesting to for you to hear her story. She'll talk about why she wanted to switch, how she tried to switch, challenges with hardware and software, and how she finally accomplished the switch.

If you're looking for a methodical walk through the Apple March Peek Event that discusses point-by-point every detail and spec that Apple presented, you will be sorely disappointed with this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond. Instead of being methodical, Adam Engst of TidBITS and I dive right into the middle and enjoy ourselves talking about what we enjoyed. We jump around, we tell anecdotes, we talk about how the landscape is changing for Apple and the industry. We do get into a spec here and there to add flavor to the discussion and we do talk about the products, but to call our conversation methodical and meticulous would be highly misleading. If you'd like to follow Adam's work, just head over to tidbits.com to read the longest-running Internet technology publication.

Cheyenne's EV6 SpaceshipIn this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Cheyenne Swenson joins us to tell us about her new electric vehicle – the Kia EV6. Cheyenne explains how she calls it a spaceship because it's got two 12-inch wide aspect ratio displays and because of how different it is to drive from any car she's ever owned. We talked about how she chose this particular EV and why she went electric in the first place. She explains the two screens and what information goes where and why, and also holds it over me that her car actually has dedicated dials for temperature and the radio. We talk about the backup cameras, how well the cruise control with lane steering works, and how weird the door handles are. Cheyenne is a joy to talk to as she's funny and well informed at the same time.

This week's guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is the Wizard Alec Johnson. Alec is the host of the YouTube channel Take One Tech. He creates amazing how-to guides on tools such as Stream Deck, Hazel, Keyboard Maestro, Ecamm Live, and many basic features of the Mac operating systems. When I found his video tutorials, I started devouring them I was learning so much. I asked Alec if he’d come on the show to talk about _how_ he creates these amazing tutorials because they’re unique in the style and quality of the content. We talk about the gear he uses, and more importantly his software setup that allows him to create 30-minute video tutorials in _one take_. Even after learning how he automates with Keyboard Maestro and Stream Deck, I still believe he's a wizard that he can create such smooth video tutorials with relatively few mistakes, all in one take. Get this, in one take he has created 100 videos in 100 days! His next goal is 365 videos in 365 days. This is why I introduced him as the wizard Alec Johnso

Adam Engst, publisher of the long-running Internet-based email newsletter, TidBITS joins us on Chit Chat Across the Pond to talk about an article he wrote for TidBITS about the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking. Adam starts our conversation by taking us into the WABAC machine to learn about Project Xanadu which was the vision of Ted Nelson to link all information bidirectionally. Working off that foundational vision he explains that a group of developers and tech visionaries have created the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking as a way to encourage the concept of linking as much information as we can within and between apps and operating systems. At the link to the Manifesto, you can learn more about the originators, the vision, and the technical requirements for making this work. Adam even gives us a call to action at the end if we'd like to see this future realized. I told Adam at the end of the conversation that I knew it was a great talk because my cheeks hurt from smiling talking to him.

In late October, Facebook announced that The Facebook Company was name to Meta. A little bit later, Mark Zuckerberg published a video where he described his vision of the future metaverse. I haven't been following this too closely but it seems to be turning into something I might want to understand. I asked Tom Merritt, host of Daily Tech News Show and many other fine shows, to come on Chit Chat to try to make sense of these two things for us. We talk about what the name change for Facebook really means and what it probably doesn't mean (is it just like Google becoming part of Alphabet?) Then Tom explains the vision of what the metaverse is expected to be. I thought it was a fascinating explanation and I learned a lot from talking to Tom. During the conversation, Tom references his show Know a Little More where he explains complex technical topics in a short form, deep dive format. He talks in Chit Chat about NFTs and Blockchain, but suggests listening to his episodes on those topics if you want to, wel

This week I'm pleased to have Chris Ashley and Rod Simmons on the Chit Chat Across the Pond. You may know them from the SMR Podcast they do with Robb Dunewood, or you may remember them from their frequent appearances on Chit Chat Across the Pond to talk tech. They're joining me today to talk about their brand new podcast, BBQ and Tech. I've also asked Steve (the husband) to join us because he's really enjoying what the guys are teaching, while I'm just the beneficiary in the eating part. This episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond hits on a lot of the high points of what Chris and Rod are teaching in BBQ and Tech. The difference between grilling and barbecuing (also known as smoking), some of the different options for getting started in barbecue, and how the tech angle comes into the show. Chris and Rod have been friends since they were 5 years old and they've been barbecuing together for a very long time. This friendship makes listening to them talk about barbecue a real joy. During the show we talked

Doc Rock joins me for a fantastic discussion on Chit Chat Across the Pond. I asked Doc on the show originally to come on and explain ProRes video to me, but Apple delighted us by dropping the new M1 Max Macs and M1 Pro Macs the same day we were scheduled to record. We do spend a little bit of time talking about ProRes video where Doc explains what all those number people have been bandying about, like 4-4-4-4 and XQ. I really understood when he was done explaining to a video muggle like me. Then we take the least linear path through the MacBook Pro announcements you can imagine. It was positively delightful as we dug into specific specs and what they mean and who should care all the time bouncing around between the different options. I loved every single minute of tis conversation. You can find Doc Rock everywhere on the Internets @DocRock, especially his YouTube channel where he helps people learn to live stream like a boss. He'd also love it if you checked out his new audio podcast called Creator 50 wh

CCATP #697 for August 23, 2021, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week our guest is Bodie Grimm. Along with being a podcaster who specializes in the news about electric vehicles on his show the Kilowatt Podcast, Bodie is a firefighter and engineer on a ladder truck. He is in a unique position to answer some of my questions about fires in internal combustion vehicles. We also talked about the new investigation by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) into 11 reported accidents where Teslas ran into emergency vehicles. Bodie is super knowledgeable and has a lot of experience that's relevant to our conversation, and he's an awful lot of fun. You can find Bodie's Kilowatt podcast in your podcatcher of choice, and you can follow him on Twitter @918digital and you can email him at bodie@918digital.com. During our conversation he mentioned the Emergency Field Guide available for download here: catalog.nfpa.org/...

This week our guest is Dr. Niki Ackermans. Dr. Ackermans is a Postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. Her current work focuses on the anatomy and neuroscience of traumatic brain injury in head butting animals. She is also the science correspondent for the Daily Tech News Show, and hosted the Seniors in Tech series on DTNS, including interviewing NosillaCastaway Sandy Foster and me. She’s also the host of the podcast Stories Your Granny Never Told. Niki tells us about her research doing MRIs on ox and sheep brains and studying CT scans of their skulls to determine the effect of head butting on their brains and whether they suffer the same kinds of concussions as humans. The hope is to try to help humans who suffer concussions, including football players and people in the service. This sounds like a creepy topic but Niki is absolutely delightful as she describes her delight in her work and how much fun it is. She's entert

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Melissa Davis, aka TheMacMommy joins me to give us her tips for setting up an iPhone for a "Vintage User", in a dignified way. If you've ever heard Melissa on the Geekiest Show Ever podcast she does with Elisa Pacelli, you know she's a fantastic resource to the community. Her gentle voice and compassionate personality can help guide us in helping our vintage friends and family. She's got concrete, specific suggestions for how to configure the phone and how to listen to the person you're helping so you can ensure that the phone will bring them joy when you're done. Mellisa actually wrote up all of these tips as a reference guide for after you listen, and the notes include even more suggestions that we didn't get to in the episode. Even if you don't need to help anyone with their phone right now, I am sure you'll enjoy listening to Melissa describe how she helps others.

This week we have a very different episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. On the awesome Kilowatt podcast (a show all about electric vehicles), host Bodie Grimm asked me and my husband Steve to be his guests on the show. You really shouldn't be listening to it here, you should go subscribe to the Kilowatt podcast instead and listen to it there, but he _insisted_ that we should share the love and he let me broadcast it for you here as well. The Kilowatt Podcast is _not_ just about Teslas, it's about electric vehicles in general. You'll learn about all kinds of EVs from all different manufacturers. You'll get the latest news and breakthroughs in technologies in the EV space. I highly recommend subscribing to the Kilowatt Podcast if you're at all interested in electric vehicles. Bodie asked us to come on the Kilowatt Podcast to talk about what we _don't_ like about our Teslas, the fiddly bits if you will. You know we love our Model 3 and Model Y but there are definitely things we wish were different.

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Mikah Sargent joins us to explain why he's so excited about what the new technology called Thread is going to bring to the Internet of Things, or IoT. You may know Mikah from the awesome show Clockwise with Dan Moren, or perhaps iOS Today with Rosemary Orchard or Smart Tech Today with Matthew Cassinelli on the TWiT network. Mikah starts with the problem to be solved – slow Bluetooth devices vs. heavy WiFi devices and troublesome network connectivity. He explains how Thread will solve these problems, both at an overarching vision level as well as getting down into the nerdy bits of how Thread does its magic. We'll learn about sleepy Thread devices, Thread Border routers, and what it means when you see "Works with Matter." If you want to follow Mikah online, you can go to chihuahua.coffee and find him on all social media @mikahsargent.