Accidental Tech Podcast635: An Effective Operator
https://atp.fm/635
Chaos in the government, chaos in the Siri group, chaos in Casey's AirPods case… and new T-shirts!
Benn@atpfm your “12 April: Trump excludes some electronics from tariffs” link is to a Richmond dermatology website?
John Siracusa@_benn Fixed now, thanks.
Casey Liss
Jack Wellborn@caseyliss @siracusa @_benn I really don't see the issue. Trump leads to stress, which leads to bad skin, which leads to dermatological needs. It's plain as day.
Christof Stadler@caseyliss @siracusa @_benn Wait. I pay you to do the podcast and you do personal stuff during these working hours? I demand a refund 😛
@caseyliss no worries. Just trying to help. I figured it was a Casey thing as you do live in the greater Richmond area. Also great episode of Analogue with Erin. Also also I’m still excited for Myke to return.
jramskov@atpfm Regarding @caseyliss NOT buying a new car: BMW i-series is relatively soon getting replaced - first next generation (Neue Klasse) models should arrive (in Europe at least) later this year.
Jeremy@atpfm Casey, the polestar 2 is sitting right there!
Chris Branch
Michael Brown@atpfm that @marcoarment considers the Ioniq 5 a “small, or fairly small” car is hilarious for those who don’t live in the US. Its shape may be deceiving, but it is HUGE. It’s basically SUV sized.
Phil Crone@mluisbrown @atpfm @marcoarment I live in the US, have an Ioniq 5, and also thought that was hilarious.
Simon 🌻@atpfm @caseyliss EV’s. I’d look at Hyundai or a Kia if you want piece of mind. My kia has a 7 year warranty. Hyundai is either 5 or 7 too.
Great show again btw 😊
Great show again btw 😊
@atpfm are these the 20%
AI memes mock American factory workers as Chinese officials join
Robert Koons@atpfm I’ll throw the Mazda MX 30 in the “reasonable small car” hat. I got a killer deal on a lightly used 2022 model (full electric, not the hybrid) and so far love it.
Simon@atpfm @marcoarment I was having a similar conversation about where trump learned about tariffs and decided to look it up. This will blow you mind but he has a degree in economics
Joe Lion@atpfm re: people misusing ChatGPT results, even people like Paul Kafasis are “surprised” at how Apple Intelligence can’t do math, when we should all be very clear by now that LLMs aren’t able to do math, at least not out of the box
Joe Lion (@[email protected])
@[email protected] this quote shows that even Paul doesn’t understand what LLM’s are doing: “If we set aside the inaccurate addition in the second example, each one of these mistakes is understandable”. Of all the mistakes they make, “inaccurate addition” it’s actually the MOST understandable, in that the LLM isn’t doing math or even trying to do math. It just sees a series of relatively small numbers, and based on probability it just makes up another small number that “looks good“ in the sequence
James O’Loughlin@atpfm There’s a good reason beyond voice input Rockwell really cared about Siri on visionOS. AI in many forms is foundational for spatial computing especially true AR glasses that is mobile and worn outdoors in the chaotic real world. Without it, its usefulness drastically limited.
Jon Mullins@atpfm Swapped out m4 Mac Mini SSD 512GB with 2TB 3rd party SSD and haven't had any issues. Read/Write is the same. I would have bought a 256GB if I had known at the time the 2TB upgrade was a real thing.
@jxmullins Which third-party SSD did you get?
@siracusa I ended up rolling the dice with AliExpress. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808206087290.html
Reid@atpfm I sat in a taycan cross turismo after checking out a polestar 3 and 4 and wow- the taycan is hilariously small and hard to get in and out of, despite its prodigious length. This as the owner of a boxster and fiat 500.
𝙴𝙸𝙽𝚂𝟽𝟾@atpfm sounds like @caseyliss wants a Fiat 500e Abarth
https://www.abarth.com/new-abarth-electric-500e
https://www.abarth.com/new-abarth-electric-500e
Lee Gibson
roland lebrun@rolandlebrun @atpfm @siracusa
Sweeeeeet. Now I’ve mainlined SV Delos and I’m on to Sailing Uma. Moar sailboats. https://youtube.com/@sailinguma?si=BnHp3Tn9yiQnMDjV
Sweeeeeet. Now I’ve mainlined SV Delos and I’m on to Sailing Uma. Moar sailboats. https://youtube.com/@sailinguma?si=BnHp3Tn9yiQnMDjV
evan@atpfm I love my 2020 Chevy Bolt for exactly the reasons y'all described. It's VERY affordable especially when it comes to maintenance, it's small, it's fun to drive (like most EVs are), and it's range is more than enough for the amount of driving I do.
Also, because I'm a masochist, I did a 24 hour drive (with charging) from New Jersey to Florida and back again in my Bolt. Was it a pleasurable experience? No. But long range trips are certainly possible.
Richard2001@atpfm an #AskATP question since DolbyVision briefly came up:
Is Apple’s implementation of HDR on iPhones not great? Pretty sure I turned it off in a number of social media apps where an HDR photo will show at what seems like max brightness even though the phone display is set at minimum brightness, for instance at night when scrolling in bed (I know, bad habit). Isn’t this something Apple could over-rule, e.g. don’t show HDR content below a certain display level setting?
@Richard2001 I think there might already be a power-saving setting that will disable HDR. (There is on macOS, anyway.)
outadoc 
@atpfm Thank you for reading my Immich toot in the show, I didn't expect to hear my silly display name read out loud 😁
DavidSchaubI dislike that 80% / 20% point.
The important number of workers who want to and are technically able to fill positions is: “enough”
… who cares if 90% of Americans don’t want to do factory jobs, if the total number of workers needed is 5%.
20% saying YES sounds like huge amount of interest to me.
Daniel Luz@atpfm @siracusa On File Provider, I can't say it’s better, but for the last few years since Dropbox suddenly promoted me to File Provider, it still works almost exactly the same for me, and definitely miles ahead of iCloud Drive. Purely anecdotal, I know, but I guess I’m the one person outside of Cupertino for whom File Provider works fine?
Only complaint is that files can suddenly disappear if the OS decides you're running out of space (and an unrelated APFS issue makes my computer occasionally miscount my free storage by 100 GB or so), but this is supposedly addressed in Sequoia, where you can mark files and folders to be kept offline.
Nathan Zanon@atpfm @siracusa I think these are the joke org-chart diagrams you were thinking of (mid-2011 & PNG).
Cartoon by Manu Cornet.
Source: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts
Fraser Hess
Erlend@atpfm I liked your after-show segment, @siracusa!
I had a concrete example of a simple thing that can go wrong, when a friend of mine used Perplexity whilst shopping for an iPhone: https://havn.blog/2025/04/02/why-i-dont-use-llms.html
I had a concrete example of a simple thing that can go wrong, when a friend of mine used Perplexity whilst shopping for an iPhone: https://havn.blog/2025/04/02/why-i-dont-use-llms.html
@atpfm I think the point you made here is _very_ important, @marcoarment 👇🏻
However, it also shows why I don't think "Apple missing AI" is half as important as Microsoft missing mobile. It's unsure how deep the moats are when it comes to AI – and Apple's offering doesn't need to be _good_ (just passable). And "rent seeking" is also a way to success for them.
Microsoft didn't have these options in mobile (which has a _serious_ moat).
mikesusz@atpfm @caseyliss casey. get a tiny usb-c to lightning adapter.
I don't understand the comparison between Microsoft missing mobile and Apple missing AI.
- AI is a feature, not a product and definitely not a platform.
- Apple can integrate others' models when needed.
- So far there is no evidence that there will be "lock in" in the future AI world.
- Apple just needs to be in the right situation when the AI investment bubble bursts.
Completely agree!
Simone Rizzo@atpfm @marcoarment I hear all the stories about antiglaring, but I bought a Samsung S95D Oled (https://www.samsung.com/it/tvs/oled-tv/s95d-55-inch-oled-4k-tizen-os-smart-tv-qe55s95datxzt/ ) a few months ago and it’s been just amazing for me. I understand it may not be the best TV for the perfect conditions, but our TV watching has improved 1000% in real life because of it. One of my best purchases ever.
Ricardo Tavares@atpfm It’s ironic when Apple find themselves in these situations when they have so much money and so little time to do things right.
Marcos Huerta
Steve Wilkinson (cgWerks)@atpfm re: car - I'm with Marco, Casey had a model known to be rather high-maintenance. I don't think the experience would be quite the same now, even with a gas model like the M340i (drivetrain shared with the Toyota Supra, for crying out loud!). I'd imagine the EV version would be a step more reliable (though you're paying $10ks more upfront, too).
I learned this before I bought my used E90 328. Certain BMW models can be even more reliable than Honda/Toyota, while others are money pits.
@atpfm Honda / Toyota have more consistency across the model lineup, but BMW exceeds them at certain points. (Don't recall how many years ago, but even Consumer Reports had this reflected in their brand reliability graphs.
@atpfm I'd buy a Tesla these days to support Elon, but politics aside, I'd go for a BMW EV. (And, in reality I would too, because the better car would get me in the end.)
@atpfm re: tariffs/'chaos' - for anyone more curious than political, this was a pretty good <15m presentation of what might be going on (I've listened to hours long versions by some economic heavy-hitters). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcHe7fI1Zk
And, while I suppose it is possible Trump might not have read a single economics book, do you really think people like Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, and Stephen Miran don't know what they are doing?
