Chit Chat Across The Pond Lite

This week we have returning guest, Dr. Maryanne Garry from the University of Waikato but this time it will not be an intellectual, deep learning experience about the mysteries of human memory. This time we're going to talk about our grammar pet peeves. As Maryanne would say, we're both quite pedantic on this topic. Sit back and enjoy our silliness, and please add _your_ grammar pet peeves as comments on podfeet.com, in our Slack group at podfeet.com/slack or in our Facebook group at podfeet.com/facebook. I bet you have your own grammar pet peeves, add them in the comments!

Nica Montfort, co-host of the snobOS Podcast (along with Terrance Gaines) answers my questions about her education (two STEM degrees, about to be a third), her mentors growing up, how it was getting an education as the only woman or the only black person in her classes. She then tells us why she and Terrance felt it was important for them to create their Apple-centric podcast and why they add the cultural flavor to the show. I think you will to be enchanted by Nica, at least I was! Partway through you'll hear us incorrectly quote the percentage of Facebook users that are African American. We come back after the end of the show and correct ourselves. Here's the article to which we were referring: Facebook is failing its black employees and its black users.

Dave Ginsburg, host of the In Touch with iOS podcast at intouchwithios.com joins us to teach us his top favorite iOS 12 tips. Dave is a master at iOS and I learned a lot so I think you will too. You can find Dave on Twitter @DaveG65.

This is a rather unusual Chit Chat Across the Pond where I interview Joe Dugandzic as he walks us around his tiny, smart home. Joe's home is 395 square feet and he produces his Smarter Home Life Youtube series all in that space. The interview is a combination of learning about how to create lighting that is intentional to what you're doing, how he's automated certain functions of his lighting and television and security, and how he's done the Master Class by programming on his Mac through the Indigo software using AppleScript and Python. Steve has also recorded it on video and the video version should be up soon.

I get a lot of PR emails trying to get me to interview people. I’ve never responded to one until just now. I was asked if I wanted to interview a former NASA Space Shuttle Engineer turned science fiction author. How could I possibly refuse? Darren’s stories were fascinating as he described being one of the last people tramping around in the cargo bay of the Shuttle before the astronauts got into it to go to space. Crazy dream job! We then shifted gears into his science fiction books. He’s got two books out in The Anghazi Series, book one called “Casimir Bridge” and book two was just released, called “Pathogen Protocol”. I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to Darren’s stories as much as I did.

We're joined by Nuris Coronado and Dan Eckmeier this week as they talk about their experiences as blind users upgrading from iPhone 7 to iPhone XS. How is the transition from a home button to Face ID if you can't see? What about the form factor for women vs. men? I learned a few things about iPhone XS that I didn't know along the way.

I met Matthias Keller on Patrick Beja's Phileas Club when we were both guests on episode 114 entitled "The Social Media Sickness". Matthias mentioned how he's on Mastadon, which is a new-ish social network. I've tried to figure Mastadon out, and hadn't cracked the code, so I asked Matthias if he could come on Chit Chat Across the Pond and explain to us how it works and why he thinks it's useful and fun. Matthias explains what federated instances are, how the local timeline works and how you can follow people who aren't in your instance. If you'd like to connect with Matthias on Mastadon you can find him at: @matzkult@chaos.social. I'm not sure I've figured it out yet, but you can find me on Mastadon at @podfeet@mastadon.social

I know I say this every week, but I had the best time recording this week with Dr. Michael Kramer, a digital historian from Middlebury College in Vermont. Michael talks about the impact of digital technology on history and culture and the humanities. We talk about the impact of women actually being the computers in the 1960s. We talk about what he hopes his students will do differently in their careers as a result of what they learn in his class. We talk about the insane number of books he makes his students read (but they look really fascinating!

Rob Dunewood of the SMR Podcast joins us to talk about how Epic Games has decided to support their insanely popular app Fortnite on Android but will not offer it through the Google Play Store. This may have significant security implications for users so I asked Rob to come on the show to walk me through what all of this means.

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond I talk to Sal Soghoian and Ray Robertson. Sal was the Product Manager of Automation Technologies at Apple from 1997 to 2016. During his tenure, he was pretty much responsible for all of the automation in the Mac operating system and even the Terminal. Ray Robertson is a seasoned instructor of AppleScript who has spent most of his career teaching beginners and creative people how to use AppleScript. Be sure to check out their Down-Home Scripting Bootcamp at cmddconf.com/... and don't forget the coupon code you'll hear in the interview to get $200 off.

This week Tom Merritt, host of the Daily Tech News Show, (and co-host of Cordkillers, Sword & Laser and Current Geek) joins us to talk about the importance of the community to his podcast. We’ll explore how he created such a thriving and participative community, what it means to him, what it would be like without it and even the downsides of having a community. It’s probably one of my favorite discussions with Tom and I always love talking to Tom. You can follow Tom on Twitter @acedtect.

Dr. Maryanne Garry returns to Chit Chat Across the Pond, this time to talk about how and why persuasion with facts and data simply doesn't work. If you haven't heard her before, she's a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand where she's a scientific researcher into memory, memory distortions, fans memories, the myth of repression and its overlap with the laws. She's also really funny and entertaining.

Steve Harris, developer of Feeder and Keep It from Reinvented Software joins us to talk about how much the Mac App Store has improved for developers and also about the work that will go into making apps work in Dark Mode on macOS Mojave.

This week our guest is Bart Busschots but this is not an episode of Programming By Stealth. Bart is here to talk about the tech tools he uses to prepare his shownotes for his podcast Let's Talk Apple and for his Security Bits segment for the NosillaCast.

Lupita Salazar talks to us about how she learned to read at 6 years old (just like everyone else) through Braille. She was highly influenced by my awesome friend Lore Schindler, who taught Tech and Braille to her and the other students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He explains why Braille is so important to literacy when many believe audio is a substitute for being able to read. Lupita is a hard core tech head who just loves to experiment and learn new tech (she even used Android for a year just to understand it!) She's funny and passionate and has a great perspective that I really enjoyed. You can find Lupita @queeenofthesea31 or email her at looptheloop31@gmail.com.

This week we had David Sparks, AKA MacSparky himself on the show to talk about iBooks Author, writing his famous Video Field Guides, how he traded in his saxophones for children, how he believes in "cooking ideas" and his love of mind maps. If you haven't learned from David Sparks, you haven't lived.

In another Lite version of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart agreed to come on and explain the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. This is a regulation that will take effect across the European Union starting on 25 May 2018. Bart first gives us an overview, outlining the main objectives, the 7 core principles, and explains how a regulation differs from a directive. From there he defines the terminology and concepts which are critical to understanding the regulation. He explains the legal grounds, what consent means and what rights individuals will have. Then he covers data processing objections, how automation decision making is affected, and people's right to erasure. Finally, he goes through what kind of data breaches are mandatory to be disclosed and to whom. It's a really impressive bit of work that the EU have done here, and Bart does a great job explaining it.

In this "Lite" version of Chit Chat Across the Pond (within a NosillaCastaway's definition of Lite), Bart teaches us about DNS Resolvers and helps give us the information to choose the right one for us. To get us there he starts by explaining the background technologies. He explains DNS and how there's two kinds of servers, he explains DNS Name resolution and why caching is important, and the security problems (and solutions) of DNS. Then he explains how third-party DNS providers can solve some of these problems. He explains their motivations which will inform your own decision. Finally (at about the 1 hour mark) he walks through the solutions offered by OpenDNS, Google, Quad9 and Cloudflare. I loved this episode and you can tell Bart really loves talking about DNS.

Joe Dugandzic of smarterhomelife.com joins us again, this time in a crossover episode. We start by him asking me to describe my progression in Home Automation from my first smart lightbulb to the more advanced capabilities Steve and I enjoy today. But then we turn the table around and I ask Joe a series of questions submitted by NosillaCastaways. If you'd like to see the video version of the show, check it out at: https://youtu.be/TlGtzGRL5o0

I asked Mike Potter to join us on Chit Chat Across the Pond this week with the express purpose of trying to convince you to come to Macstock Conference and Expo on July 20th and 21st. Do not listen to this episode if you don't want to be talked into it because I guarantee you'll want to after hearing Mike and me talk about how interesting and fun and inclusive and geeky it is. During the show Mike gives us a special $10 off coupon (discount off the $179 early bird price). That coupon code is podfeetbonus10. Learn more and sign up to attend at macstock2018.com.