Michael Fisher

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, I'm Jason Howell, host of the Techsploder podcast.

[00:00:04] I want to let you know that I'm making some changes to the show that are going to take

[00:00:07] place immediately.

[00:00:09] For now, you can expect new episodes to arrive on a monthly basis and to be frank, I personally

[00:00:16] enjoy the conversations with my friends too much to just let the show go entirely but

[00:00:21] the weekly cadence has become too difficult for me this one-man shop to support entirely.

[00:00:27] Now, my hope is for that to change in the future to get back to a weekly schedule but

[00:00:33] for right now I really have no choice.

[00:00:36] I got to simplify.

[00:00:37] I hope you can understand.

[00:00:39] So please stay subscribed.

[00:00:41] I promise once I have a new conversation to share you will see it appear in your feeds

[00:00:46] automatically and thank you so much for your ongoing support.

[00:00:50] And now on with the show.

[00:01:27] Moderation is great.

[00:01:29] The comfort is also something that should be enjoyed in moderation.

[00:01:32] Discomfort is the only time you grow.

[00:01:37] This is the Techsploder podcast, conversations with tech professionals about being human in

[00:01:42] a binary world.

[00:01:43] Episode 17, Michael Fisher, aka Mr. Mobile.

[00:01:48] Techsploder is made possible by the financial support of our patrons like Peter Giftos.

[00:01:54] If you like what you hear, head on over to patreon.com slash Jason Howell to support

[00:01:58] the show directly and thank you for making independent podcasting possible.

[00:02:05] Hello, welcome to the Techsploder podcast.

[00:02:07] I'm your host Jason Howell.

[00:02:10] And let's go back in time with just a little bit here earlier this month.

[00:02:13] I was invited to Google's space age looking Mountain View campus to attend

[00:02:19] the product unveiling of the Pixel 9 family of smartphones.

[00:02:22] It was a lot of fun.

[00:02:23] Now, while I was there, I crossed paths with a lot of friends in the technology

[00:02:28] space, but in particular a great friend of mine in the world of tech, someone who

[00:02:33] has a very high profile presence on YouTube.

[00:02:36] You might even follow him.

[00:02:37] I'm sure you do.

[00:02:38] Michael Fisher, aka Mr. Mobile, has been doing the YouTube thing since 2016,

[00:02:44] has more than 1.2 million subscribers following his I feel impeccably

[00:02:51] produced and edited product reviews.

[00:02:54] Prior to YouTube, Michael actually worked as a tech journalist for Pocketnow.

[00:02:59] And before even that, he spent his time steeped in the professional acting space.

[00:03:05] Now, if you watch his reviews, you'll pick up on his acting roots immediately.

[00:03:10] He has a wonderful storytelling gift.

[00:03:12] It really does set his videos apart from the rest.

[00:03:16] Now, I sat down with Michael outside of his hotel in the South Bay

[00:03:19] after the full day's events with Google.

[00:03:22] So we're a little ragged.

[00:03:23] We shared a beer and this wonderful conversation.

[00:03:26] Here it is, my chat with Mr. Mobile.

[00:03:29] How's it going, Michael Fisher?

[00:03:30] Oh, man, I'm tense and unsure about everything.

[00:03:33] Yeah, I hear you.

[00:03:34] This moment, I'm happy.

[00:03:36] Good to be talking with you.

[00:03:37] I spend a lot of my life tense and unsure.

[00:03:40] At least at least the last like half year has been many moments of tense

[00:03:44] and unsure. You and I have had different but the same year.

[00:03:47] Yeah. Dude, well, you've got to, you're building momentum though.

[00:03:52] We like that. I mean, I think so.

[00:03:54] Yeah. I mean, the you the YouTube channel is feels like there's some momentum there.

[00:04:00] Yeah. The podcasts, you know, it's really hard.

[00:04:03] Like, you know, the you know, the YouTube thing.

[00:04:05] And we've actually talked about this.

[00:04:06] You know, the YouTube thing very well, in fact, and people who know you probably

[00:04:10] very well, yeah, very likely know you because of your YouTube presence.

[00:04:13] But, you know, YouTube's a strange world in that

[00:04:17] you mix too many different efforts in the same channel.

[00:04:21] And it can kind of it can kind of derail the progress of the channel.

[00:04:25] You know, putting too many ingredients in the same dish.

[00:04:28] Yeah. Like I've got a couple of podcasts going there.

[00:04:30] I've got regular reviews, content and different different stuff like that.

[00:04:34] Right. And they get different audiences depending on what they are.

[00:04:37] And yeah, podcast content might be good for what it is,

[00:04:40] but it might not match the numbers that the other type of content gets.

[00:04:43] And I don't know what that means for the whole whole bag.

[00:04:46] And then at some point you go, do I silo these or make them

[00:04:49] different channels? Yeah, it's not a bad idea.

[00:04:51] But yeah, well, I know, I feel like that's a that's a later problem.

[00:04:55] Maybe I don't know.

[00:04:56] Maybe it is a now problem.

[00:04:57] That's the thing I don't know.

[00:04:58] Well, and see what it see what you actually like doing more too.

[00:05:02] Because when I started, I was like, I'm going to do a lot.

[00:05:04] I'm going to cover everything.

[00:05:05] And then it turned out like these Kickstarter things that I was covering

[00:05:07] that were weird and fun 80 percent of the time wouldn't make it to market.

[00:05:11] And I'm like, well, look, I just can't do these anymore.

[00:05:13] Yeah. It's like thought experiment, not a product review.

[00:05:17] So totally, totally.

[00:05:18] It feels like a product review because you actually have a product

[00:05:22] and we're technology fans, so it's fun to have something in your hand and tangible.

[00:05:26] But if it never actually amounts to something more than like a prototype

[00:05:29] that a small select people, you know, group of people, including you,

[00:05:33] because you were willing to cover it, right?

[00:05:34] Get then it doesn't matter as well.

[00:05:37] The concept car channel.

[00:05:38] And that's, you know, that's fine.

[00:05:39] That's just not the channel set out to make.

[00:05:41] Right, right, right.

[00:05:43] So so thing I love about this show.

[00:05:45] And I think I say it at the top of every show is kind of the

[00:05:49] the fact that we all have very different stories,

[00:05:52] but we have a shared passion.

[00:05:54] Technology, you know, I imagine

[00:05:58] I mean, you live and breathe it on an outward facing perspective.

[00:06:02] I have to imagine that started somewhere when you were younger.

[00:06:06] Like what was it like being a young kid?

[00:06:10] Is there like a moment in time when you were younger where you were like,

[00:06:13] that's when the light switch turned on for me and technology.

[00:06:16] Yeah, I think so.

[00:06:17] And I think what's what's funny is I always go back to like the Star Trek example

[00:06:21] because that's the most concrete one.

[00:06:23] Of course, that's yeah, I mean, you know we're going to get there eventually.

[00:06:26] But what's funny is as I think about it now,

[00:06:28] there are some things that predate that.

[00:06:30] And for all the

[00:06:32] for all the fears and all the hand wringing about in the 80s

[00:06:35] when I grew up about how television was going to rot your brain

[00:06:38] and all this kind of stuff, like there was actually

[00:06:41] some really inspirational power to it.

[00:06:45] There was there were shows like Inspector Gadget.

[00:06:48] Oh, cartoons for kids.

[00:06:50] And I was I was like six and Penny, his niece,

[00:06:53] had like this computer book and a computer watch.

[00:06:56] And I feel like those really planted those early seeds of like,

[00:06:59] well, that's cool.

[00:07:00] Like they're out getting stuff done in the world with the aid

[00:07:03] of this fantastical cool technology.

[00:07:05] Yeah.

[00:07:05] And then when I did get older and Star Trek became a big pronounced thing,

[00:07:08] you know, I was watching these these Starship crews whom I idolized

[00:07:14] have communications over the course of of hundreds of miles

[00:07:17] with these handheld devices, which in the early 90s was very fanciful.

[00:07:22] And it also happened to be a time when we had a home phone

[00:07:25] that I wasn't allowed to use as much as I would have liked to call my friends.

[00:07:28] Yeah. So this like there was there was an almost mythical power

[00:07:33] to this theoretical idea that I could have a device

[00:07:37] that would let me talk to all my friends.

[00:07:38] Mm hmm.

[00:07:39] And I never dreamed at that point in the early to mid 90s

[00:07:42] that it would ever become a consumer product that I could afford.

[00:07:46] I grew up like lower middle class, right?

[00:07:48] And by the end of the 90s, these things were walking to Radio Shack,

[00:07:53] $129, pay $40 a month.

[00:07:56] And I will always remember standing there on the sidewalk, calling my best

[00:07:59] friend on my first mobile phone call of my own with my own device

[00:08:02] and be like asking a question that would make no sense on any other device.

[00:08:05] Guess where I am?

[00:08:07] You know, is every time I called him before it was like, well,

[00:08:10] I'm calling from home, obviously.

[00:08:12] Yeah, of course. But I was out and about.

[00:08:14] I mean, you could have been in like a phone booth,

[00:08:16] which is the thing that existed back then.

[00:08:18] I suppose. Absolutely. Sure.

[00:08:19] But sure, sure.

[00:08:20] But most of the time, most of the time, absolutely not.

[00:08:22] What do you mean? Where are you calling from?

[00:08:23] So so I think that really just like I never recovered from that

[00:08:27] in much the same way that like trauma hits you and you never get over

[00:08:30] something. It's like in a very positive way.

[00:08:33] I never recovered from that moment of like

[00:08:36] like like a heroine grade freedom of communication.

[00:08:42] And you mean I'm not tied to the wire,

[00:08:44] the spirally wire that comes out of the wall. Exactly.

[00:08:46] You remember the time anywhere when when phones, you know,

[00:08:50] were attached to the wall and the only way you could go to the other

[00:08:53] room with that phone was to get really freaking long spirally cord.

[00:08:58] That was mobility.

[00:08:59] Yeah, that was mobility. 30 foot spiral.

[00:09:01] What do you call RS 232 cable?

[00:09:03] We had one of those in our in our kitchen slash living room area.

[00:09:07] And I mean, it was so long and spirally that it like crumpled up on the floor below it.

[00:09:12] Yeah, that was just that we could go to all the, you know,

[00:09:14] the rooms that were close by. That was normal. Right.

[00:09:17] And that was, you know, the limbo any time you want to walk

[00:09:20] by someone who's using the phone, or snaking through all the rooms of the house.

[00:09:25] Sister on the phone again.

[00:09:27] Exactly. There was obviously a pain point to solve there.

[00:09:30] That's something that cell phones have solved.

[00:09:32] Yes. Yeah.

[00:09:33] And and also, I think like

[00:09:37] with the building on that, like it was a moment, it was a revolution.

[00:09:41] It was kind of like the Internet.

[00:09:43] You know, these things came down in price so quickly that

[00:09:47] not only did you get a phone, but like all your friends had a phone

[00:09:49] within five years or maybe even less time.

[00:09:52] And being part of that, that like cresting wave of change

[00:09:57] was intoxicating in the same way that being online when everyone was getting

[00:10:00] a well, and I think that that also continues to like pollute my

[00:10:04] my brain in a way like now where I'm novelty obsessed.

[00:10:07] And I'm like, well, here we are in Mountain View,

[00:10:11] chasing down the next thing.

[00:10:12] And what is next on my agenda?

[00:10:15] The only important thing work wise is like,

[00:10:17] when is the next thing coming out that I'm going to see?

[00:10:20] New, new, new, new, new, constant.

[00:10:22] Hansel wheel, yeah, which is exciting, but also like toxic, I think.

[00:10:25] I mean, it can be a little exhausting for sure.

[00:10:27] Yeah. Well, so I look very young and not tired at all.

[00:10:31] You look wonderful.

[00:10:32] Yes, it does not look like you are exhausted at all leading out my eyeballs.

[00:10:36] It looks like thank you.

[00:10:38] So OK, so touching on that a little bit then,

[00:10:40] like I do remember being young and having,

[00:10:45] you know, pieces of technology that I suddenly become aware of.

[00:10:49] In fact, I specifically remember a catalog and seeing this like

[00:10:53] flight, SIM style joystick that I could get for my Commodore 64.

[00:10:58] Because I'm a little older than you.

[00:11:00] I had a Commodore 64. Oh, did you?

[00:11:02] Yeah. Oh, well, bravo.

[00:11:03] That's like my let that's like my cornerstone technology from from childhood.

[00:11:07] Absolutely. And seeing that joystick and, oh, my God,

[00:11:11] I wanted that joystick so bad and I had to save up my money.

[00:11:14] And I finally got, you know, my parents let me use

[00:11:17] use that money on this like mail order thing to get the joystick

[00:11:20] and just the design like coming home every day from school and checking.

[00:11:24] Like it was so exciting.

[00:11:26] Right. That feeling is their technology nowadays that gives you that feeling.

[00:11:31] Good question.

[00:11:33] And possibly working in this field as a career

[00:11:37] might permanently alter that to a certain degree.

[00:11:40] But I mean, and or or less than it, let's say it does, first of all,

[00:11:44] because it always used to make me happy or not happy.

[00:11:47] It always used to entertain me back when people used to

[00:11:49] because the commenters criticize you for everything. Right?

[00:11:51] Yeah. And back when commenters would choose the angle of like,

[00:11:54] you're just saying nice things about them because they send you free phones.

[00:11:57] And I would literally laugh at the computer.

[00:11:58] I'd be like, do you know that when a box shows up in my house,

[00:12:01] that it's just it may as well just be a box labeled like work.

[00:12:06] It's so true.

[00:12:07] You know, it's like it's not that I don't look forward to it.

[00:12:09] Yeah, sure. Right. No, this is the job.

[00:12:11] And this is what we do. Absolutely. So anyway.

[00:12:15] So true. I feel that so hard.

[00:12:17] You know, yeah. Absolutely.

[00:12:19] You just want to free phones.

[00:12:20] No, I don't want any more phones.

[00:12:22] Right. I was telling you right before we went on air,

[00:12:23] I want to go be a tour bus driver at Kennedy Space Center.

[00:12:27] Done. But no, I think

[00:12:29] oddly, I think the things that I look forward to trying and using now

[00:12:33] are the are things that decouple me from my phone.

[00:12:37] So I adore my phone.

[00:12:39] I adore my foldable phones.

[00:12:41] You know, I still think out about phones predominantly.

[00:12:43] That's my key passion.

[00:12:45] But and differentiation within phones.

[00:12:47] Seems like that's become a real pillar for critical.

[00:12:50] Yeah, if it doesn't have a hinge, a joke, like I don't care about it,

[00:12:52] but it's not really a joke.

[00:12:54] It has to be a foldable.

[00:12:55] But you know, that's a different thing.

[00:12:57] But I think you've got companies out here now

[00:13:00] like Teenage Engineering is a good example.

[00:13:02] I was just fiddling with one of their portable audio recorders.

[00:13:06] And it's way too much audio gear for me.

[00:13:11] I don't need it.

[00:13:11] In fact, it made this job harder covering the releases we were just doing

[00:13:14] now because it's not the right tool for the job I need.

[00:13:17] But it's such a beautiful piece of hardware.

[00:13:20] It is. And it's it's so specialized.

[00:13:24] And I think I missed the era before the convergence device,

[00:13:28] before the phone took over for everything.

[00:13:29] I miss that we had so many more gadgets to enjoy and to look forward to.

[00:13:35] Do you ever have you ever seen that radio shack, that old radio shack ad?

[00:13:39] I think that's what it was for where it's like a meme now.

[00:13:42] There's a guy very late eighties.

[00:13:44] Definitely a mullet.

[00:13:45] And he's like surrounded by all these single use gadgets.

[00:13:47] He's got like a boombox on his shoulders, got like a camcorder.

[00:13:50] He's wearing a Walkman and he's got like a flashlight or whatever.

[00:13:52] And the meme is like all this stuff from the eighties is now one device.

[00:13:57] Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:59] And it was we've seen this like as as companies have been able to be formed

[00:14:04] now that that make single like single use devices

[00:14:08] and confined a little niche market enough to like make a business out of.

[00:14:13] We've seen more and more of those.

[00:14:14] And I think that's really fun.

[00:14:15] So those are the ones I look forward to receiving in the mail now.

[00:14:19] Yeah, you know, whether it's a dumb phone or a or a TP7 from Teenage Engineering

[00:14:23] or, you know, I don't know, like like dumb little LED flashlights,

[00:14:27] like single use things.

[00:14:28] Yeah, single use, but does that very unique thing extremely well?

[00:14:33] Because that was their entire focus.

[00:14:36] Yes. Instead of where we are with cell phones.

[00:14:38] And granted, this is what a lot of people actually love about cell phones

[00:14:41] is what you're talking about, the fact that it's a Swiss army knife

[00:14:43] of all these things in every year, you know, a new release like we're out

[00:14:47] at, you know, Mountain View at the time of this recording for the made by Google

[00:14:50] event, you know, every made by Google event is about adding more features

[00:14:55] about now your phone can also do this on top of the thousands upon

[00:14:59] thousands of things that we've announced in years past that it could do before.

[00:15:02] Yes. That's a that's a great selling.

[00:15:04] Like that's a great thing for a technology lover to hear because it's

[00:15:08] like, oh man, this thing can really do everything.

[00:15:10] But I would agree.

[00:15:11] There's something special about that little thing that does one thing very well.

[00:15:16] Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:17] Purpose built thing. Yeah. Purpose built thing.

[00:15:20] And I think there's even a little like a like a content sector

[00:15:24] that's that's taken great advantage of that.

[00:15:26] And that's the everyday carry like community, you know, it's like

[00:15:29] there are some things your phone can't be and that's like a knife.

[00:15:33] You know, it's like, OK, well, then what does that mean for

[00:15:35] like what I carry every day and what does that mean to me that I mean,

[00:15:39] phone could be a knife.

[00:15:41] You could be the right case.

[00:15:42] Yeah, true enough.

[00:15:43] Yeah, I bet you someone has made that.

[00:15:45] And if not, that apparently is what you need to do after clicks.

[00:15:50] Remember that that old sprint commercial with the crime deterrent?

[00:15:53] No, no, no, no.

[00:15:54] Just like, you know, guys just like, oh, yeah, it's my new sprint

[00:15:57] phone. It's got push to talk. It's got FM radio crime deterrent.

[00:16:01] And the other guy, they're like in a locker in the other guy.

[00:16:03] It's a crime deterrent.

[00:16:04] It's like trying to take my phone that got reaches for his phone

[00:16:07] and he just picks it up and hits him in the head with it.

[00:16:10] Not over.

[00:16:11] I'm filing a grievance bill.

[00:16:15] Crime deterrent. I don't know.

[00:16:17] Late, mid late 90s or 90s, I'm guessing.

[00:16:19] It was early aughts.

[00:16:20] Oh, was it? OK.

[00:16:22] Well, actually, I guess in the realm of cell phones,

[00:16:24] because the 90s era cell phones.

[00:16:26] I mean, when I when I think of you and your coverage

[00:16:29] of the smartphone industry,

[00:16:33] I also think of you, whether this is true or not,

[00:16:37] being sort of encyclopedic about the history of cell phones

[00:16:40] or at least the kind of nerdery of cell phones that came before it.

[00:16:44] And there was the time when cell phones were literally a brick,

[00:16:48] like the terminology like it's a brick in the hand.

[00:16:50] I'm pretty sure it came from the fact

[00:16:52] that these things were the size of a brick.

[00:16:53] Wait eight pounds. Yeah.

[00:16:55] Or the suitcase pocket.

[00:16:56] Yeah. I mean, put it in like a big cargo pocket

[00:16:59] and take your pants down along with it.

[00:17:02] Yeah. And you know, that period, I'm not all that nostalgic for.

[00:17:05] I mean, you remember it too, right?

[00:17:06] But it's like they were inconvenient.

[00:17:07] And it didn't last long.

[00:17:08] I remember that that time period existed in that there were.

[00:17:11] But but I didn't have any personal connection.

[00:17:13] Like I, you know, yes, I was alive

[00:17:15] when there were those chunky phones in the cars.

[00:17:19] Like that was where they first began to appear.

[00:17:21] And I knew that they existed,

[00:17:22] but I never had that experience.

[00:17:24] No, I certainly didn't come from that era.

[00:17:25] It didn't and it didn't get personal for me

[00:17:28] until they became so small that I think, you know, they were.

[00:17:31] They were Star Trek communicators

[00:17:32] or they were Dick Tracy Watchers.

[00:17:33] So there are whatever you came up with

[00:17:34] that seemed fantastical, that then materialized,

[00:17:37] that then manifested.

[00:17:39] And when the internet came to

[00:17:40] I mean, that was also another just like hit of this this drug too.

[00:17:44] So I remember being addicted as we all were to AOL Insta Messenger

[00:17:48] and you could do that on wireless web

[00:17:50] and like using T9 predictive text to click out

[00:17:54] a simple aim message took like a minute, then you would send it

[00:17:58] and then it would go over this packet switch data

[00:18:00] and take forever.

[00:18:02] And the person on the other end

[00:18:03] would be four sentences deep into whatever they were talking about

[00:18:06] when the timer you could say OK,

[00:18:08] but it was still you were using the internet on this

[00:18:10] little monochrome green backlit screen.

[00:18:12] And that what a, you know, what a what a.

[00:18:16] What a new experience.

[00:18:17] What? Yeah. What a different flavor of freedom.

[00:18:20] It only seems limiting now

[00:18:23] because we have the benefit of time

[00:18:26] and all the development that has come since it.

[00:18:29] But at the time, all of what seems now to be

[00:18:33] inconveniences or imperfections in technology at the time

[00:18:37] were a really, really big deal. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:40] And they the biggest of them was probably like the whole act of going online.

[00:18:46] I was doing a video on the AOL pocket communicator

[00:18:50] or mobile communicator, whatever it's called.

[00:18:52] It was a rebranded Blackberry that AOL

[00:18:54] sold as an instant message and email machine.

[00:18:56] And I talked about this and and and it occurred to me that I don't know.

[00:19:01] I never consciously clocked

[00:19:03] right around the mid-auts when it happened, when we all became

[00:19:07] always online.

[00:19:09] You used to have to start a session.

[00:19:11] You would go home and you would have to sit in a particular room

[00:19:14] in front of a particular box and decide you were going to go online.

[00:19:17] And then you would have to go offline. Yeah.

[00:19:20] You'd connect and then you disconnect.

[00:19:22] Disconnect and at some point, you know, over the course of many years,

[00:19:26] but there was a very definite shift to where you're suddenly

[00:19:29] oh, you're always reachable and you're always online.

[00:19:32] And I think that felt great in in the moment unconsciously.

[00:19:36] And now I think more and more,

[00:19:39] I think it would be very nice to be able to be offline

[00:19:42] until I need to be online.

[00:19:44] Yeah, it's almost like we were we were ramping up

[00:19:47] this mountain of a discovery of what this could be.

[00:19:52] And in the world of technology, suddenly this field had opened up in front of us

[00:19:56] that, oh, my goodness, all these things are possible.

[00:20:00] The restriction is that, you know, we it's not fast enough

[00:20:03] or the restriction is, you know, we have to do it in these segmented times.

[00:20:08] What if we could do it all the time? Right?

[00:20:10] That's an obvious next step.

[00:20:11] And only once you get there and, you know,

[00:20:14] do you realize maybe on the other side?

[00:20:16] And I don't think everybody is there.

[00:20:18] But I know exactly where you're coming from is that, OK, maybe

[00:20:22] maybe there's a happy medium or maybe it doesn't have to be all the time

[00:20:27] or whatever, you know, what seemed like total progress

[00:20:31] and was progress from a technological standpoint.

[00:20:33] Might not necessarily always be the best thing for me or for us.

[00:20:38] Yeah, I mean, it's such a simple truth

[00:20:40] that it's almost stupid to be talking about it like it's some revelation.

[00:20:43] But like it is something that I'm consciously,

[00:20:46] constantly, consciously like becoming cognizant.

[00:20:48] I was like, man,

[00:20:50] moderation is great.

[00:20:52] And I have built a life in the past over the past decade

[00:20:56] that I've recently discovered has been entirely based on preserving comfort.

[00:21:03] Comfort is also something that should be enjoyed in moderation.

[00:21:06] Oh, 100 percent.

[00:21:07] Discomfort is the only time you grow.

[00:21:09] Mm hmm.

[00:21:11] And so, like, you know, prioritizing comfort above everything is like

[00:21:15] it seemed like a great idea.

[00:21:17] And then you've you become, I don't know,

[00:21:21] what are you atrophy?

[00:21:23] Yeah, yeah, I 100 percent agree.

[00:21:26] Yeah, yeah. So it's good.

[00:21:27] So I mean, so the change that that that you've been going through

[00:21:30] over the past year, half year and the and very uncomfortable.

[00:21:36] I was all saying

[00:21:36] but you got to you got to take the positive from it.

[00:21:42] Right? You got to say like, hey, no, you know,

[00:21:45] like the old country song used to say, I'm leaving here a better man.

[00:21:49] Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:50] Yeah, for sure.

[00:21:51] It's good. It's the only way to change discomfort.

[00:21:54] Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that.

[00:21:57] When you're talking about kind of the arc

[00:22:00] of the development of these phones that you've been following

[00:22:04] and all that kind of stuff, is there

[00:22:06] is there an old device like let's let's say pre smartphone

[00:22:11] that like really just kind of comes to mind as like, man, that was

[00:22:16] you know, do you have a certain nostalgic kind of cushion for something?

[00:22:21] You know, I don't know if that's the right word, but I have a weird way to put it.

[00:22:24] No, I mean, nostalgia is soft and comfortable.

[00:22:27] Yes, it is. It is.

[00:22:28] There's something really nice about it.

[00:22:30] I've got nothing but nostalgia for so many so many phone models.

[00:22:32] But the one that that really leaps out, I think it's no

[00:22:37] it's no coincidence that I identify it with a period of my life that I really enjoyed.

[00:22:42] Yeah, early college years like 2003 was the first camera phone I ever got

[00:22:46] because that was the first time I also remember being absolutely convinced

[00:22:50] that the manufacturers who were trying to cram a camera into a phone

[00:22:54] and who to give them credit in Japan that already been doing for two or three years

[00:22:58] were correct. And like the press, I don't know if you remember,

[00:23:02] the media coverage at the time of these devices was skeptical with a capital S.

[00:23:07] I don't remember it. I don't recall that actually.

[00:23:09] And you're talking about cell phones, not smartphones.

[00:23:12] Right. And these cameras.

[00:23:14] So so we're talking early 2000s 2002, 2003, the first digital

[00:23:18] camera that I ever had any sort of personal involvement with was a Sony

[00:23:22] Mavica floppy disk with the big floppy disk.

[00:23:25] This was 99.

[00:23:27] And I think it was like VGA quality or something.

[00:23:29] You know what I mean?

[00:23:30] So digital cameras back then did not produce amazing pictures.

[00:23:34] No, they were struggling.

[00:23:35] You know, the cell phones that I remember having,

[00:23:37] I think I had like the chocolate at one point or whatever.

[00:23:41] You know, they took pictures.

[00:23:42] Yes, but you know, not that great of pictures.

[00:23:44] I think the chocolate might have even been like a one megapixel camera,

[00:23:47] which yeah, no, the chocolate was a little bit later.

[00:23:49] Yeah. Well, these first ones were I mean, 0.3 megapixels.

[00:23:53] 640 by 480, whatever it was.

[00:23:55] Yeah. And you know, it was crap and I got it.

[00:23:57] But it was like, it made all the sense in the world to me that you would

[00:24:02] want to take a photo and then immediately send it or take a photo

[00:24:05] and use it on your phone.

[00:24:06] And I feel like caller ID.

[00:24:08] And most importantly, be able to take a photo when you don't want to

[00:24:11] be carrying a camera around.

[00:24:13] Yeah. Again, the early kind of convergence device.

[00:24:15] But the thing that I personally really liked about it was that I was

[00:24:17] like, no, all you guys are wrong.

[00:24:20] The skeptics are incorrect about this.

[00:24:23] These are going to become a thing.

[00:24:25] And I can't wait until really, I mean, so I'm so such a douche.

[00:24:30] I'm like, I can't wait to be proven right.

[00:24:32] And I think it took, you know, less than.

[00:24:36] Yes, you will rule the day you challenged me.

[00:24:40] And I think I really don't think it took until even 2008, 2009,

[00:24:45] where we started to see cameras on phones where like, you know,

[00:24:48] the resolutions were up to three, five megapixels and you'd had

[00:24:51] things like autofocus and stuff.

[00:24:52] And sure enough, you know, they weren't going to win any photography

[00:24:55] contest that you could preserve memories.

[00:24:57] Yeah, totally with a degree that like was fine for most people.

[00:25:01] And then you could do things with those memories, like, like share them.

[00:25:04] And I mean, it was like, perfect.

[00:25:05] Yeah.

[00:25:06] And then I think at the time I was still so bullish.

[00:25:08] It was like, good phone come for more things.

[00:25:11] I remember when the Android with that Motorola launched the droid

[00:25:14] and it launched with Android 2.0 and it came with free Google

[00:25:17] Maps turn by turn directions.

[00:25:18] I remember standing there in the bar looking at this.

[00:25:20] Dude, I'm looking at.

[00:25:21] I'm like, Garmin, you're done.

[00:25:23] Tom Tom.

[00:25:23] Absolutely.

[00:25:24] I remember that same same.

[00:25:26] Right?

[00:25:26] I mean, like being witness to that was super cool.

[00:25:30] It was fun in a way that I feel like today I don't get the same joy

[00:25:35] from, from new features.

[00:25:38] Yeah.

[00:25:39] Because you've seen it all.

[00:25:41] No, I think the new features are demonstrably less impactful.

[00:25:45] Like the major, the major problems have, have been tackled.

[00:25:50] Long been solved.

[00:25:50] And now they're like searching for more problems.

[00:25:54] But there's a little tiny ones right there.

[00:25:56] It's the, it's the, the stuff that writes a document for you, you know,

[00:26:02] because you're going to be sick at your job.

[00:26:05] Don't get me started.

[00:26:05] Okay.

[00:26:06] Please don't hold the thought.

[00:26:07] Hold the thought.

[00:26:07] We need to take a break.

[00:26:08] Okay.

[00:26:09] And then I want to come back and talk about what is arguably kind

[00:26:12] of the current hotness around, you know, new technology features.

[00:26:16] AI.

[00:26:16] I'm super curious to hear what you have to say about that.

[00:26:19] That's coming up in a second.

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[00:26:53] So we're talking about kind of the way technology has evolved

[00:26:57] over time, sometimes it's been really exciting with these new

[00:27:00] features, maybe things have kind of plateaued and everything.

[00:27:02] But I don't think big tech thinks that things have plateaued

[00:27:06] because now this, you know, this handsome devil walks

[00:27:09] through the door called artificial intelligence.

[00:27:12] It's been around for a while, but you know, it went away

[00:27:15] for the summer.

[00:27:15] And when it came back to school, everybody was like, Oh,

[00:27:18] who are you?

[00:27:20] Oh, I may I.

[00:27:21] Oh, you're a.

[00:27:23] And now big tech is real, really all about proving to you

[00:27:26] why, you know, why it is the new hotness and everything.

[00:27:30] Do you like?

[00:27:31] How do you how do you feel about that from a kind of from

[00:27:35] from the standpoint of what we're talking about earlier?

[00:27:37] You know, these earlier devices when we were younger, they

[00:27:39] promised to deliver on certain things and they did them well

[00:27:43] or they didn't.

[00:27:44] But there was some excitement around that.

[00:27:45] Do you find any sort of excitement around some of these

[00:27:48] AI features that you're seeing nowadays?

[00:27:50] Some for sure.

[00:27:51] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:52] I mean, as somebody with a with a really busy inbox, this

[00:27:57] notion of a virtual assistant who can like rifle through my

[00:28:00] inbox and be like, well, you got 80, 80 emails this morning

[00:28:02] like every Tuesday.

[00:28:04] Five of them are important.

[00:28:06] And here's here's the rundown of those.

[00:28:08] Right.

[00:28:08] You know what's funny about that, though?

[00:28:10] What?

[00:28:10] It's not very long.

[00:28:11] What was it five years ago?

[00:28:13] Google had Google inbox.

[00:28:14] Yeah, true.

[00:28:15] And inbox really did solve a lot of exactly what you're

[00:28:20] talking about for me.

[00:28:21] It did.

[00:28:21] For a lot of people, it's from an execution standpoint.

[00:28:24] It was super effective and they just killed it.

[00:28:26] And you know, they're probably going to come back and

[00:28:28] resolve it again.

[00:28:29] But probably some of these problems like they were they

[00:28:31] were solved before we had this catchall terminology of

[00:28:34] artificial intelligence.

[00:28:35] Absolutely.

[00:28:36] Right.

[00:28:36] And so much of what's currently being sold under the

[00:28:39] manner of AI is existing technology anyway.

[00:28:41] So yeah, so it's kind of a problem.

[00:28:43] It's a marketing and messaging problem where you have a

[00:28:46] lot of unrelated stuff being grouped together and being

[00:28:49] pushed under the same umbrella, which is.

[00:28:51] Yeah.

[00:28:51] I have a problem with the messaging.

[00:28:53] Um, I also have a problem with AI like it's weird.

[00:28:58] It feels like the companies have decided that things

[00:29:00] need to be sold as self-contained products almost.

[00:29:04] And that's why you get that demo that I absolutely

[00:29:06] hate that, that like, you know, it's like, isn't it

[00:29:08] hard to express yourself?

[00:29:10] What if instead of sending a text message, you told an

[00:29:13] AI to do it for you and it could build the text

[00:29:15] for you.

[00:29:15] And then when it gets it wrong, you'd be like, no,

[00:29:17] make me sound more excited.

[00:29:18] Yeah.

[00:29:19] Write your own freaking text message.

[00:29:21] Stop it.

[00:29:22] So these and you know, I was glad though we've started

[00:29:25] to see, because I thought I was alone in this, but

[00:29:28] we've started to see mainstream people push back

[00:29:30] against this too.

[00:29:32] But we just saw this with the Olympics.

[00:29:34] Yeah.

[00:29:35] Google just had that commercial.

[00:29:37] What is it?

[00:29:37] The kid wants to write a fan letter to an athlete.

[00:29:40] Yeah.

[00:29:40] To tell the athlete how much the kid appreciates

[00:29:44] and idolizes this, you know, this athlete.

[00:29:47] Right.

[00:29:47] Oh, just use Gemini for that.

[00:29:49] How inauthentic.

[00:29:51] No, how about wait?

[00:29:52] Why don't you teach your child?

[00:29:54] That's the benefit of that thing.

[00:29:56] So do write it yourself.

[00:29:57] Let's write this letter together and it'll be genuine

[00:29:59] and won't be a machine.

[00:30:00] That's by the way also like lowest common

[00:30:02] denominator in every everything because it can

[00:30:05] only predict what's been made before.

[00:30:07] Right.

[00:30:07] Right.

[00:30:08] So that's I hate that stuff.

[00:30:09] But when you take, when you kind of deproductify

[00:30:12] AI and use it more as an analogy I stumbled upon

[00:30:17] when doing another podcast I was doing a while back

[00:30:20] was it would use it as kind of a seasoning to existing

[00:30:23] things.

[00:30:24] I think that's where the real power and promise

[00:30:29] start to become realized, obviously, and photo

[00:30:31] photo editing stuff like that.

[00:30:33] That's a whole other like kind of kind of mass

[00:30:35] parlor tricks.

[00:30:36] Yeah.

[00:30:36] You know, it's kind of playground stuff.

[00:30:38] Right.

[00:30:38] But like, you know, introducing it to other

[00:30:40] things like, you know, Evernote has his new

[00:30:42] AI stuff that helps you file your notes a

[00:30:45] little bit better and stuff.

[00:30:46] And you know, half of it is half broken and

[00:30:48] doesn't really work right.

[00:30:49] But it's like, no, that's what it should be.

[00:30:51] It should be a seasoning.

[00:30:52] It should be a modifier to something I already

[00:30:56] find useful or something that's new enough

[00:30:58] that will be found useful in the future.

[00:31:00] But this like standalone stuff, I don't know.

[00:31:03] I don't know that I will ever.

[00:31:05] I hope I'm wrong because I did like it when

[00:31:08] Siri and Google Assistant and Alexa sort of

[00:31:11] started this revolution of virtual assistance.

[00:31:13] Yeah, I did too.

[00:31:14] Yeah.

[00:31:14] Yeah.

[00:31:15] But now, you know, they were limited.

[00:31:21] But the worst thing that could happen is

[00:31:22] they could tell you, I don't know how to do that.

[00:31:24] And the way a lot of these AI models work

[00:31:27] and LLMs work, they don't know that they don't know.

[00:31:29] I don't know how I don't actually know anything.

[00:31:32] So I'm just going to make up because I make

[00:31:34] up things out of whole cloth.

[00:31:35] That's what I do.

[00:31:36] That's what I'm designed to do.

[00:31:37] So yeah, their their purpose is to give you

[00:31:40] something really at the end of the day.

[00:31:42] Yeah.

[00:31:43] And the I don't know.

[00:31:45] I mean, occasionally they'll they'll you know,

[00:31:47] they'll work those in hard code.

[00:31:49] Those those I don't know answers, but it has to be

[00:31:52] really intentional and you're right.

[00:31:53] They the AI assistants that came before the

[00:31:56] Google Assistant, you know, I've used those a lot.

[00:32:00] And I think I appreciated knowing the limitations

[00:32:03] versus always getting an answer, whether it's right or wrong.

[00:32:08] And I don't know if that's a problem that

[00:32:09] that can be solved around AI.

[00:32:11] Like, I'll be really curious to see if that's ever solved.

[00:32:13] Me too.

[00:32:13] And you know, I.

[00:32:16] I think that's really dangerous.

[00:32:18] And I had to get like breathless and stuff like that.

[00:32:20] But I mean, like I'm concerned about that because we're

[00:32:22] already living an era where like a lot of people don't

[00:32:25] not only don't know how to fact check, but like have no

[00:32:28] interest in fact checking.

[00:32:29] Right.

[00:32:29] And this is perfect for them.

[00:32:31] Just give me my answer.

[00:32:32] Just give me the answer.

[00:32:32] I'm looking for.

[00:32:33] Yeah, you know what?

[00:32:34] You didn't give me the answer.

[00:32:35] I'm like, let me ask you again.

[00:32:36] Yeah, I'll ask you in a different way.

[00:32:37] OK, there it is.

[00:32:38] There we go.

[00:32:39] Nailed it.

[00:32:40] So I think that's frustrating.

[00:32:41] And I think it's I think it's sad that, you know, after having

[00:32:44] having gone through such a great decade and a half, two decades

[00:32:47] of like real features that are that really make our lives better.

[00:32:52] Now, you know, these are being kind of sold to us as features

[00:32:55] that are just just as revolutionary.

[00:32:58] And it's like, well, it's no.

[00:33:00] And also they're more dangerous or they're less reliable.

[00:33:03] And I don't know.

[00:33:04] And it just seems cynical.

[00:33:07] It all seems like a bit of a cash grab to me.

[00:33:09] Yeah.

[00:33:09] I mean, there it certainly is that.

[00:33:11] And at the same time, there are certainly some things that come along

[00:33:14] and I'm like, OK, you know, like, like at the time of this recording,

[00:33:19] we're here for right like a Google event, which by the time this plays,

[00:33:23] I think all the information is all out and everything.

[00:33:25] Anyways, but, you know, the whole idea of like a call summary

[00:33:30] for my brain, those are those are features that are like

[00:33:34] actually useful for me because I can't tell you how many times

[00:33:38] I hang up the phone with someone.

[00:33:39] And I'm like, damn, I wish I like I tried to take notes.

[00:33:42] What are we even talking about?

[00:33:43] There's a lot in there that I was not able to keep up with.

[00:33:46] Like I would love that to be synthesized and agreed.

[00:33:49] So there's certain things about it.

[00:33:51] Voice recorder feature on phones now that lets you record

[00:33:54] thing that gives you a transcript of the conversation

[00:33:56] and also a summary.

[00:33:57] Pretty cool stuff.

[00:33:58] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:59] I think it's weird because like, but that's no,

[00:34:01] that's the point we were looking at earlier.

[00:34:03] The things that it does best and the things that are actually useful

[00:34:06] are just not as sexy.

[00:34:07] Yeah, you cannot get anyone to pay attention.

[00:34:10] You cannot blow anyone's skirt up by talking about summaries.

[00:34:13] Yeah, totally.

[00:34:16] So it's a seasoning.

[00:34:18] It's or 20 or 30 different variations of summaries,

[00:34:21] you know, which sometimes these events feel like right now.

[00:34:24] It really does feel like 2024.

[00:34:26] All of the events, that's the cornerstone.

[00:34:29] That's the peak and, you know, that filters through

[00:34:32] everything that is announced from beginning to end is

[00:34:35] it all has to do with AI.

[00:34:36] Here's 30 examples of how we're doing it.

[00:34:40] And also, I mean, and the photo stuff, you know, to a degree,

[00:34:42] like I, we talked about camera phones a minute ago,

[00:34:45] like I love, I love taking photos.

[00:34:47] I'm not a photographer, but I love taking photos.

[00:34:49] Yeah.

[00:34:50] And we had a demo today.

[00:34:51] I think you're a photographer.

[00:34:52] You're damn damn good at taking photos.

[00:34:53] Thanks, Sam.

[00:34:54] Come on.

[00:34:54] But like this great, this great example

[00:34:59] of a kid in a field blowing a bubble.

[00:35:02] Yeah.

[00:35:02] And well, you know, the horizon is not quite right.

[00:35:04] So let's fix that.

[00:35:05] I'm like, OK, you're not going to stop there.

[00:35:07] Are you?

[00:35:07] No, he's just in a plane field.

[00:35:09] What if we added wildflowers?

[00:35:11] What if we put a hot air balloon this guy?

[00:35:12] I'm like, cool.

[00:35:13] I guess.

[00:35:15] But that is the kind of thing that I think 10 years ago

[00:35:17] we would have spent 30 seconds on in an app demo.

[00:35:22] It's like, this is a cool app.

[00:35:23] Look at what these guys do.

[00:35:24] OK, moving on.

[00:35:25] And now it's being presented as like, this is a cornerstone

[00:35:28] of our vision for the future of photography.

[00:35:30] And it's like making shit up.

[00:35:33] Yeah.

[00:35:34] That's our imagination.

[00:35:35] Yeah, right.

[00:35:36] Yeah, machine driven imagination.

[00:35:38] Yeah.

[00:35:39] Words to pictures.

[00:35:40] But it makes sense, you know, to I don't have a better idea

[00:35:43] to give them credit like, and I know we're not supposed.

[00:35:46] We've made it into a tech podcast.

[00:35:48] We it's no, no, no.

[00:35:49] I mean, it is that too.

[00:35:51] Right?

[00:35:51] Yeah, it's all these things.

[00:35:52] And really, I think it's actually pretty apropos

[00:35:55] because it is the moment that we're living in right now.

[00:35:58] It seems is the excitement.

[00:36:01] Du jour in technology is AI, whether that's manufactured

[00:36:06] or not. And I feel like more and more I talk to people about this.

[00:36:10] And most people that I talk to seem to share your opinion

[00:36:14] as far as it feeling a little manufactured, feeling like it's

[00:36:17] something someone wants you to feel about the technology

[00:36:21] versus something that you actually do feel.

[00:36:24] Yes.

[00:36:25] When we were younger, you know, it was just felt different.

[00:36:29] Maybe it felt different because we were younger

[00:36:31] and things were new and everything.

[00:36:33] But maybe there was that excitement.

[00:36:34] There was no, because the changes were all major.

[00:36:36] Because he hadn't seen it before.

[00:36:37] Yeah. And if it wasn't like if it wasn't a quantum leap

[00:36:39] in capability, well, then the prices were still coming down

[00:36:42] or something.

[00:36:43] There was something legit to get to embrace.

[00:36:45] Yeah.

[00:36:46] But and to be fair, like I don't know where we go from here either.

[00:36:49] Because once we got to a point where I stopped doing

[00:36:51] camera comparisons in my reviews, I used to do

[00:36:54] that religiously.

[00:36:55] Yeah, you were very good at that.

[00:36:57] Compared to last year's and look at what's different.

[00:36:59] And now we're at this point where there's so much processing

[00:37:00] that you take a photo and you can't you cannot qualitatively

[00:37:04] analyze it unless your DXO mark and you're doing a bunch of lab

[00:37:07] stuff or somebody who does other lab stuff.

[00:37:10] They're also good.

[00:37:11] You they're also good.

[00:37:12] And they also vary from moment to moment.

[00:37:14] Yeah, because there's a little oscillation of light or a

[00:37:17] shadow across the end.

[00:37:17] So the processing changes.

[00:37:18] And you so there's no real meaningful change year over year.

[00:37:21] So if you're Google or whoever, what are you going to do?

[00:37:23] All right.

[00:37:24] Add balloons.

[00:37:25] Exactly.

[00:37:26] Let's start making stuff up.

[00:37:27] If you're Samsung, like, yeah, use the USPEN to doodle a hotdog

[00:37:30] in the water.

[00:37:30] It's like, OK.

[00:37:32] Yeah.

[00:37:34] Yeah.

[00:37:34] Like I said, it's it's it's kind of a playground sort of stuff.

[00:37:39] And it should be fine.

[00:37:39] I don't know.

[00:37:40] I should be fine with it.

[00:37:41] Yeah.

[00:37:41] I think maybe I would have been.

[00:37:43] I don't know.

[00:37:44] I don't know if I ever would have.

[00:37:45] Do you think you would have been more excited about it?

[00:37:46] If you were younger, like are we cranky old men?

[00:37:48] Are we because I'm I am there's a certain degree of us

[00:37:51] being, yeah, cranky old men for sure.

[00:37:53] Yeah.

[00:37:54] It's hard.

[00:37:55] It's hard not to be.

[00:37:56] Time to hang it up.

[00:37:57] It seems to be the way of the world.

[00:37:58] But yeah, yeah.

[00:37:59] I mean, I I've told this story before, but I was in my daughter's

[00:38:04] classroom last year and I was helping out in the classroom

[00:38:08] and they were they had their art lesson going on.

[00:38:11] And there was a the art teacher was in there

[00:38:13] and she was giving the assignment.

[00:38:14] This is a fifth grade, fifth grade classroom.

[00:38:17] And she gives the assignment and one of the boys in the

[00:38:19] classroom raises his hand.

[00:38:20] He's like, can we use AI for this assignment?

[00:38:23] And it just really clicked to me that like, oh my goodness,

[00:38:27] like fifth graders are like actually actively thinking about

[00:38:31] how you use AI for certain things.

[00:38:34] Like that's amazing that like our kids are

[00:38:37] technologically adept to even consider this as an option.

[00:38:41] Wild. But yeah.

[00:38:43] I think if I was young, I probably would would find it

[00:38:46] interesting and I'd probably make bad things with it.

[00:38:50] That's what kind of scares me about AI.

[00:38:53] Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:38:54] And I'm glad there's a focus on some of the safety.

[00:38:56] Yeah, no, of course not.

[00:38:57] Right. You're doing stuff that you that you want to do.

[00:39:00] You're a kid. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:02] Yeah. I don't know.

[00:39:03] Well, I know we have to kind of wrap things up here

[00:39:07] pretty soon.

[00:39:07] One thing I like to ask everybody who comes on is,

[00:39:11] you know, we really cut our teeth in the world of technology.

[00:39:15] You know, our lives in tech have led us to this point

[00:39:18] where we work in a professional realm, whatever we do

[00:39:21] in the world of tech and you absolutely are there.

[00:39:24] Yeah. If technology didn't exist, what would what would your thing be?

[00:39:28] What would what would you be if you weren't the Michael Fischer of now?

[00:39:33] Like would would you be a photographer?

[00:39:35] Which I guess is a certain type of technology, but I don't know.

[00:39:39] No, no, no. I live.

[00:39:42] I probably.

[00:39:45] I probably would have stayed acting because that's what I did for a long time.

[00:39:50] Yeah. And I know you and I have also done each done voice work.

[00:39:54] And I I did that for a long time and I studied acting.

[00:39:57] That's what my degree is in.

[00:39:59] And I I really comes into play in your videos.

[00:40:02] I have to say there's something very

[00:40:03] theatric about your videos is something I highly respect about the work you do.

[00:40:08] It's a certain level of quality.

[00:40:10] You're really good at telling a story and writing a script and having

[00:40:13] there's your delivery is on point.

[00:40:16] I mean, I really respect your production from that perspective.

[00:40:18] And I know it comes from your background in theater.

[00:40:20] It does. Yeah. And I used to.

[00:40:22] Thanks, I appreciate that.

[00:40:23] And it definitely informs the style of video I do.

[00:40:27] Yeah. But I think the only, you know,

[00:40:30] I didn't necessarily want to stop acting.

[00:40:32] It just that world will wear you down.

[00:40:35] And it started to feel like an abusive relationship.

[00:40:38] And I think the reason I was able to pivot to tech is first of all,

[00:40:41] look, if you had told me that I that anyone would care what I had to say

[00:40:46] earlier, I would have done it earlier.

[00:40:48] But I was convinced I was I would read all the greats in 2011.

[00:40:52] And, you know, I'd be like, I can't write like these cats.

[00:40:55] Like they're amazing.

[00:40:56] I can't do videos like these guys.

[00:40:58] Yeah.

[00:40:59] But, you know, I had one of those years that everything went wrong.

[00:41:03] And I was like, I lost my job, the voiceover job.

[00:41:06] And I think the company got bought or whatever.

[00:41:09] And I said, I can't really pay my rent acting

[00:41:16] at this juncture in Boston where I was.

[00:41:19] And furthermore, what does this profession ever do to me?

[00:41:24] Except depress me and and fill me with anguish.

[00:41:28] I had just done a string of shows that I had a lot of passion for

[00:41:33] and it was a very ambitious idea.

[00:41:36] I was working with some of the best actors in my city,

[00:41:38] whom I respected for a director I deeply respected.

[00:41:41] And it collects.

[00:41:43] It just didn't work.

[00:41:44] And that happened like too many times in a row.

[00:41:48] And when I started dabbling in gadget blogging,

[00:41:51] I was like going to Germany to cover trade shows.

[00:41:54] And I was making videos for an audience that like turns out cared what I had to say.

[00:41:58] And I was getting paid a fair wage and I was getting paid more than a fair wage.

[00:42:02] And I was like, this world is giving me everything I wanted the acting world to give me.

[00:42:06] But it's only because I had that alternative that I felt like I could leave

[00:42:10] because the performance, the actual work of acting, the the craft.

[00:42:14] Oh, my God, I love it.

[00:42:15] I adore it.

[00:42:16] And I still miss it.

[00:42:18] But it was a it was a comparison I just couldn't ignore.

[00:42:20] It was well over here, I'm very fulfilled and very comfortable.

[00:42:25] And over here, I'm fulfilled twice a year and I'm very uncomfortable.

[00:42:30] So I think were it not for that juxtaposition,

[00:42:33] I would still be just doing what I could do to to make a performance career

[00:42:39] in my life for potentially for better or for worse.

[00:42:42] Yeah, hey, you know, yeah, right.

[00:42:44] And that alternate universe, who knows if I was successful, then cool.

[00:42:47] Could you ever see yourself going back to that?

[00:42:49] I thought about that recently.

[00:42:50] I would it would be fun.

[00:42:52] It would be really fun.

[00:42:55] But I did go out on a high note.

[00:42:57] Totally, you know, there was one show that I came back one last time.

[00:43:01] I was like, I'm coming back to see if this works.

[00:43:03] Yeah, we did a great show.

[00:43:04] And, you know, long story short, it was it was so successful

[00:43:09] that I was like, well, either this has to bring me back into the fold

[00:43:12] or I have to say that's it.

[00:43:14] That's it going out while I'm on the top.

[00:43:17] Yeah, and that was 2015.

[00:43:18] And I still I was just building starting to build Mr.

[00:43:20] Mobile at that point.

[00:43:21] So yeah, it needed to had to make a choice.

[00:43:24] Yeah, do not regret the choice I made.

[00:43:25] But yeah, history.

[00:43:27] Yeah, mobile is a force as far as I'm concerned.

[00:43:31] For as long as you last.

[00:43:32] Yeah, I hear you.

[00:43:33] I hear you.

[00:43:34] Well, I adore you.

[00:43:35] I think the work that you do is is at that that the top quality

[00:43:41] of tech reviewers that I follow.

[00:43:44] And thank you.

[00:43:45] Yeah, definitely a model that I that I look at closely

[00:43:48] in the work that I do.

[00:43:50] And you're just a hell of a guy.

[00:43:51] I appreciate you talking about yourself a little bit today.

[00:43:54] I appreciate you invited me to talk about myself.

[00:43:56] I try not to I try not to feed any narcissistic

[00:44:00] impulses vulnerable or otherwise.

[00:44:02] You're welcome to.

[00:44:03] Why have you here?

[00:44:04] And I'm I will always like I've been a big fan

[00:44:07] of yours for a very long time.

[00:44:08] So I'm very happy that you're doing this and doing it well.

[00:44:12] This is the kind of stuff that I don't have the like

[00:44:14] I can't find the resolve to do anymore.

[00:44:16] I'm like, you want to do this on my pixel fold?

[00:44:19] Yeah.

[00:44:21] It's a little bit of extra work, but it ends up being worth it.

[00:44:24] Great. Yeah.

[00:44:25] Yeah.

[00:44:26] So congratulations.

[00:44:27] And I look forward to listening to more.

[00:44:29] Thank you, Michael.

[00:44:30] Always a pleasure.

[00:44:31] And I hope to see you at the next MBG.

[00:44:34] Sounds good to me.

[00:44:36] Cheers, buddy.

[00:44:38] Huge thank you to my guest, Michael Fisher.

[00:44:41] It was so much fun hanging out and I just want to let you know.

[00:44:44] Real quick, we've got a Patreon.

[00:44:46] If you want to support this show and support everything that we're doing,

[00:44:48] you know, I'm trying to kind of reach out to people and and actually be

[00:44:52] in physical space for these interviews.

[00:44:55] I just find there's so much more rewarding

[00:44:58] when we do it in person.

[00:45:00] And, you know, that requires more resources.

[00:45:02] So Patreon.com slash Jason Howell.

[00:45:06] That's the Patreon for this show

[00:45:07] and everything that I'm doing with the Texploader YouTube channel.

[00:45:10] Ad free shows, early access to videos,

[00:45:13] Discord community and exclusive patrons only pre show

[00:45:17] live stream every week before the Texploader podcast airs.

[00:45:20] And so much more.

[00:45:22] We also offered the chance to be an executive producer of this show

[00:45:25] just like this week's executive producers.

[00:45:28] And there's four of them, Bill Rutter, Jeffrey Maricini,

[00:45:31] John Cuny and Taylor Sunderhass.

[00:45:33] Each of them is getting a T shirt with Texploader on it.

[00:45:37] And you could do the same if you support at that level.

[00:45:40] Patreon.com slash Jason Howell.

[00:45:44] Now, I produce this show every week, every Thursday at 10 a.m.

[00:45:48] Pacific 1 p.m. Eastern is when it premieres on the Texploader YouTube

[00:45:52] channel, whether I'm doing it live at that time or premiering

[00:45:55] a pre-recorded interview, as is the case this week.

[00:45:58] The audio podcast publishes to the feeds pretty soon after that.

[00:46:02] So you can really just find everything you need to know at the website.

[00:46:07] Texploader.com.

[00:46:08] That's got the video, that's got the audio, all the ways to subscribe.

[00:46:11] I have a new portion of the page dedicated to my ethics

[00:46:15] and kind of my promises there.

[00:46:17] So check it out.

[00:46:18] Texploader.com.

[00:46:19] Thanks again to our guest, Michael Fisher.

[00:46:22] Thanks to you for watching and listening.

[00:46:24] And we'll see you next week on another episode of the Texploader podcast.

[00:46:28] Bye, everybody.