Michael:
[0:00] On this week’s episode, we’re going to discuss Mozilla making some unpopular decisions again, so we’ll give our take on what’s happening and whether or not the criticism they’re getting is fair. Welcome to Destination Linux, where we discuss the latest news, hot topics, gaming, mobile, and all things open source and Linux and tech in general at this point. My name is Michael and joining me are my partners in trying to make sense of this crazy world we call tech, Jill and Ryan.

Jill:
[0:30] hello everyone

Ryan:
[0:31] wassup yo

Michael:
[0:32] I appreciate the fact that you said what’s up yo because i put that as like a filler you could change as a filler that i was supposed to change but yeah you could have you know i leave.

Ryan:
[0:43] Default and I left.

Michael:
[0:45] Its default I respect it also this week’s uh Pine64 recently shared some news about bringing their PineNote back from the depths of hades not the game of the underworld plus we got some Linux gaming we got some software spotlight and more so let’s get this show on the road toward Destination Linux,

Michael:
[1:13] our feedback this week comes from LC they have this to say i was wondering what kind of advice you would have for a 17 year old kid just out of high school wanting to get into a career of system administration. I just completed a summer internship, but now I’m kind of feeling lost as to what I should do next. I’ve got a lot of experience with Linux for my age, but I’m having some trouble differentiating myself from other job candidates.

Ryan:
[1:38] This is a really good question and appreciate you sending it in, Elsie. So, Great career choice, by the way. And that kind of goes into my first piece of advice to you is do not get distracted by the naysayers or the current economic trends out there is probably the most important advice I could give you. A lot of times people get passionate about something like you are with system administration, but then they quickly get discouraged because people in the field share their negative experiences, whether it’s on Reddit or other places you go where there are system admins or any career, for that matter. Or you see things on the news that the job’s no longer in demand or the jobs are being shipped overseas or, you know, being a system administrator is just not a great career path. And this goes for any title. I’m not just saying system admins here.

Michael:
[2:31] It goes for any industry too, because people like to be naysayers and negative people all the time. I mean, for example, Jill I mean she’s probably the most negative.

Ryan:
[2:41] On the show yeah you know and somehow we push through with our positivity we.

Michael:
[2:46] Keep we keep this show positive despite you.

Ryan:
[2:48] Yeah despite Jill’s negativity uh if you’re passionate about something uh and you enjoy it these factors will have of other people or other trends or economic downturns and things will have no impact on your ability to be successful. And that also goes to your question of how do you stand out amongst other people? I’ve told this story before, but I think it’s important in this context as well is there was a guy I worked with who was really into watches. I’m talking about the manual tick watches. And I could care less about a watch, you know, like I have a digital watch. It tracks my workouts. Yay. That’s what I needed to do. But he was so passionate about these watches and how every dial was so intricately, you know, handcrafted and how all the gears worked inside and how they were made and where they were made and who made it and all of these things that by the time I was done listening to him talk, I was like, dang, I want one of those watches. So that passion.

Michael:
[3:50] Now the real question is, did you get one of those watches?

Ryan:
[3:54] No, I’m not spending a thousand. Like when I saw the prices, I was like, no, like I wanted one because of his passion. But when I went and looked up the prices, I’m like, no.

Michael:
[4:03] Passion can only get you so far.

Ryan:
[4:04] Yeah, passion will get you to a bar in that case.

Michael:
[4:06] In that case of convincing someone. In that context.

Ryan:
[4:08] But my point is that when you go into these interviews, when you’re talking with somebody, there are moments where I’ve hired people on the spot. And it was because of the passion they had for what they were wanting to do. And there are several instances that I can think of right off the top of my head of interviews where they didn’t necessarily have the best skill set. But their passion was so strong. I was like, so when do you want to start? And that’s kind of how it went. Now, this economic downturn that we’re in with anything tech is going to be a hurdle that you have to overcome like anybody else. But I think that if you have that positivity, if you’re truly passionate about this, it’s going to make you far ahead of other candidates in there.

Ryan:
[4:59] Second is experience. You know, books and courses that you’ve went through, they’re great, certificates, those things, but definitely set up your own home server environment. You don’t have to go crazy. You can build it piece by piece and focus on a mixture of devices from Windows, Linux, and mobile integrations so that you can get that experience. You can go used equipment. There’s no reason to just go buy a whole bunch of thousands of dollars in new equipment. In fact, I’d highly recommend you don’t because most of the places you’re going to be a system admin are probably going to have older hardware, not brand new stuff in there anyways. There’s also virtual environments, cloud services. So if you have a smaller place, you can’t get that type of equipment, that would be your next best option. But I really feel like hands-on makes a huge difference in these cases, being able to touch those servers, power on those servers and do those types of things.

Ryan:
[5:49] And then third, I would get involved in communities of system admins. You know, open source projects are a great place to get your name out there and involved with communities like Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE, that they could be your future employers, frankly. But right now, in these economic situations that we’re in, and even outside of them, the most powerful candidates are the ones that have built a network. So you could be the most skilled person, system administrator, even at 17, that’s ever been alive and never get a job offer because nobody knows who you are. And so that’s where if you have connections and you start making friends, and that’s where open source is so amazing because you can work with some of the greatest programmers and minds that are out there.

Michael:
[6:37] And you don’t have to do that much to get involved in it. You can just ask them to let you participate in stuff. and in some cases you they’ll ask you to like submit you know some kind of code or whatever in other cases they’ll just be like hey yeah if you want to learn i’ll help you learn because a lot of the people who are in the open source space are also willing to help in because they’re already helping by making the open source software so they’re also already have that mindset to help others and i think that what you said about you know getting some experience is important but i also wanted to kind of just a little bit of like because that that that always has the well what how do i get the experience if I can’t get the job in order to get the experience and that sort of stuff and i think that we should make a very important point here now this individual uh we’re talking about in a in a broader scale but this individual is only 17 so you have plenty of time to do other internships and to other things to get access but you can also just request to.

Michael:
[7:35] Various different companies or whatever kind of project you want to be involved in what kind of structure you want. If you want to be a sysadman and that kind of thing, you can offer to help other companies that are a mom and pop shop, like a small company that doesn’t really have the ability to do that. And you can just offer it as a thing that you’ll do on the side and just get some experience that way. So you can kind of get your foot in the door and that sort of thing. But I think Ryan’s point about networking is probably the best part because the easiest way to get a job is to know someone who has a job available or at least has a connection with a job available and, In the future, maybe not early stages, because at 17, it doesn’t sound like you’re even in the full market yet. But at some point, that will come in handy very well.

Ryan:
[8:25] What’s really hard in this current environment, too, is that a lot of employers want you to have all the schooling and certificates. And then they want you to give experience, but they don’t want to hire new people on who don’t have experience. So how do you get experience? And again, open source is the key. I think you can get your experience there. your internships, fantastic. Make sure you’re recording the work that you do, like literally write it down, all the work that you accomplish when you’re at something, whether it’s open source and internship.

Michael:
[8:53] Create some kind of note taking system and put it all in there.

Ryan:
[8:56] Think about all the great things that you’ve done or accomplished. And if they’re not so great, exaggerate them a little bit till they are great. And then my final.

Michael:
[9:04] Just real quick. You’re right about the exaggerate. The way you phrase something, absolutely, you can say, I did this one commit for this project, okay? So, let’s say, for example, people have heard of KDE and the window manager in KDE, KWIN. It’s a huge, important piece of KDE Plasma, right? And I could say, well, I submitted a single commit to KWIN, and I have got my name in the commit log one time, and yeah. Or I could say, I have contributed for the KDE Plasma window manager, KWIN, and I did something very big to help the usability of everyone who is controlling their system in a way that gives them the power of using window roles. All of that is true. Both of those versions are true. One just sounds a little better. And the key point here is you can exaggerate the way you say it as long as it’s still true.

Ryan:
[10:05] Yep. And my final piece of advice is seek the uncomfortable. And this is after 25 years now of working for corporate America. Yeah. I find that looking for things that people hate doing the most and mastering it is the quickest way to get a leg up on everybody. Because if you notice most admins, maybe if you go into a work environment, when you do get a position or something, find the things that they don’t like to do. Maybe it’s the command line. Maybe it’s a certain piece of equipment. Nobody else wants to touch because it’s old and it’s archaic and it’s really hard to program in. Maybe it’s the Macarena. If they’re weak in security, you notice, go after the things everybody else is uncomfortable with and master that and you will absolutely stand out. Even in your internships or if you actually get a full-time position, it’s just good advice to look for the things other people don’t want to do. It’s a great way to make a name for yourself out there. So those are my pieces of advice. Congratulations, by the way, on all the incredibly hard work that you’ve done to this point. and for reaching out to us to ask these type of questions, which I think is brilliant. And now, Jill, what do you think about this? What are some of your tips?

Jill:
[11:26] Ryan, you are so on and your answers were perfect. And the same with Michael too.

Ryan:
[11:33] Mostly me, right?

Michael:
[11:35] Mine were better.

Jill:
[11:35] And speaking of networking, attending local Linux conferences is a great idea to network, to look at job boards. Some of them even have career expos like we do at the Southern California Linux Expo. So that’s a great place to go, local conventions. And in regards to old equipment, you can actually pick up old Xeon Blade servers from the likes of Dell and HP, from Amazon or eBay, really cheap, anywhere starting from $100 and up. And inexpensive of server racks from Amazon starting at $90. This would be a great, be a great way to learn how to administrate servers for businesses and, also inexpensive Dell HP or Lenovo workstations work great for that too as well as old Dell Optiplexes. There’s lots of those floating around.

Ryan:
[12:33] There’s so many of those.

Jill:
[12:34] You can get them literally for 30 bucks.

Michael:
[12:37] I think this is great for anybody who is not 17 but if you get like a free trial with DigitalOcean or something like that or, you know, like Linode and try to play with some virtual servers too. So that’s an option as well. But I do think that’s a good option if they have the ability to do that sort of thing. So if anybody does.

Ryan:
[12:55] What I like about the physical equipment too is you can take a picture of it if you set it up nicely. And that’s something that you could bring into an interview. Like I have my own home server. Probably everyone they interview might say that that’s around your age and things like that. So you actually having a picture of it set up and working well and what you’re doing with it, I think will make a difference there. Like if you have a picture and your desk is all messy and it’s got servers all over the place and wires running to the ceiling and then you’re like, I want to be a sysadmin. I’m like, eh, I don’t know. But, you know, if you’ve got a nice setup.

Michael:
[13:26] I mean, actually, that probably would still work.

Ryan:
[13:30] That looks like our server room.

Michael:
[13:32] That looks like you have done this years beyond your head.

Ryan:
[13:35] Now you’re wanting to be a server admin. So you want to talk about a lot of things you’re doing with it. Like why did you set it up? What are some of the security things that you’ve set up? user pieces you’ve set up that type of stuff but anyway sorry joe continue.

Jill:
[13:47] Oh no problem all great and um actually another tip of mine is learning how to build computers which i’m i’m sure um, LC has already probably worked on but um that will actually put you a step ahead and there are many reasons why there are times we have to have to fix the systems because you know they get They go down or you have, you know, your RAM dies or your power supply dies. So learning how to fix those, because there are some administrators that only do software and they can’t fix the hardware. So it’s really good to have that balance.

Ryan:
[14:31] I also think that the thinking process of repairing something, like there is a whole thought process of being able to troubleshoot something correctly.

Jill:
[14:40] Troubleshoot your hardware.

Ryan:
[14:41] And as a sysadmin, that’s what you’re going to be doing and getting your mindset into that troubleshooting. Like what is it that’s, what’s the factor that’s causing this machine to break and things is a very, very good talent to keep practicing.

Jill:
[14:54] Yeah.

Ryan:
[14:54] If you don’t keep practicing it, you kind of lose it a little bit.

Jill:
[14:56] Yeah. So, Elsie, years ago, when I was a student studying animation, I had actually collected lots of old Sun and Deck Alpha servers whenever I could. And I got them at SWAT meets and all kinds of places I could get them inexpensively. And I built computers for rendering to create my own render farm. And in doing so, it helped me learn not only server administration, but animation server administration and building high end workstations, which put which put me way ahead because there’s a lot of administrators who don’t know the animation side of it. It’s a whole nother beast. It’s a whole number.

Ryan:
[15:40] You sought the uncomfortable.

Jill:
[15:41] Yeah. Yeah. And so this turned out extremely useful for when I was a professional animator working in Hollywood and teaching animation, because not only could I do animation effects, rendering and editing, but administrate servers as well and the computers and workstations. And that put me ahead as a freelance animator in the industry, because I could set up servers for businesses and build the computers needed to render at my home studio and for businesses when needed. And actually one of my very first jobs I had, um, I, uh, I had to do a commercial and they had, they often, a lot of the animation houses, they give those jobs to freelancers because they don’t have the time to finish them in time. They can’t, you know, do it in-house quick enough because they’re working on other projects. Right. So in order for me to finish this project and get it rendered on time, I had to build two, and guess what computers they were? 486s. I built two extra 486s.

Jill:
[16:49] In 1997 so that i even even the 46 helped me get the rendering done quicker so i could get i could turn in the job and i turned it in two hours early and they were one of my you know best customers um after that and uh ended up uh yeah getting nominated for an emmy for that one so, of course you did oh my gosh Jill was what by the way those interested i just i.

Ryan:
[17:18] Know Jill doesn’t want to talk about but the company.

Jill:
[17:20] She did the commercial.

Ryan:
[17:21] For was head-on apply directly to forehead head-on she.

Jill:
[17:24] Showed she was doing the.

Michael:
[17:26] Animation of the of the.

Jill:
[17:27] Head-on yeah the head-on y’all remember that.

Ryan:
[17:30] Annoying commercial like.

Jill:
[17:31] Yeah oh.

Ryan:
[17:32] My gosh anyways but the kids won’t know what we’re talking about sorry by the way there.

Michael:
[17:37] Was a scientific.

Jill:
[17:38] Reason why they.

Michael:
[17:40] Did that yeah i’m sure it was.

Jill:
[17:42] Yeah say.

Michael:
[17:42] It enough it.

Jill:
[17:44] Annoys people and eventually.

Michael:
[17:45] It becomes funny which you’ve proven that after 20 years or whatever.

Jill:
[17:49] I’m still i.

Ryan:
[17:50] Don’t even know if it’s a product anymore but no it’s not a product it was actually.

Michael:
[17:54] Pulled for um not working.

Jill:
[17:56] Oh yeah not doing anything sorry.

Ryan:
[17:59] Jill give your great advice LC’s.

Michael:
[18:01] Like it was chapstick for your forehead for those who don’t know.

Jill:
[18:05] No problem and you know the other here’s something other interesting is i was i was literally the first uh female freelancer that these companies had ever worked with most of them you know is a male-dominant industry and most of them hadn’t worked with a woman and when they found out i could build the computers that could finish rendering their projects they were like oh okay that put me way ahead you know how most people are like in my next life.

Ryan:
[18:31] I want to be a dog i I want to be Jill. I want to be Jill in my next life. I just want to have that kind of life where I can be like, look, I was nominated for an Emmy. I was in Hollywood producing animation.

Michael:
[18:42] Jill has been on this show for about four years, almost four years. Yeah, I guess. I think it’s like four years and like a couple, like a month or two. And we still, to this day, learn things about Jill that make us go like, What? How?

Ryan:
[19:01] As opposed to me, where I could tell you everything exciting that’s happened to me in about four minutes. Jill’s on year four. We’re still learning.

Michael:
[19:09] We’re still learning things. And mine in about six and a half minutes.

Ryan:
[19:14] Yeah.

Michael:
[19:15] That’s just because I wanted to suggest. Oh, it’s probably because it would take me longer. Yeah.

Jill:
[19:21] Oh, not true. You guys have amazing stories. Everyone has their own journey. And everyone has their own journey in Linux.

Michael:
[19:29] Jill, Jill, stop being so negative. We told people earlier.

Ryan:
[19:36] Nice reversal.

Jill:
[19:37] All right, Jill. And I have one more piece of advice for Elsie. Elsie, it’s not too early to build a resume and put it online to do professional interviews with companies now while you’re in school and college in the future. So you can get the experience interviewing and see what skills the companies want.

Michael:
[19:59] And it’s also like mock interviews too. That’s a good idea. Yeah.

Jill:
[20:02] I had interviewed with several animation houses before I graduated to get the experience. So that was really, really great. And this is something that I always, I, I was, I also taught animation for 30 years. And it’s one of the things I would stress to my students, make those practice and do a resume and do those practice interviews.

Michael:
[20:22] Yeah, that’s good. And also, just a quick note, I’ve been mostly reacting to your ideas and stuff, but I did have one of my own. And that is, when you’re getting started, this applies to anyone, especially people who are getting started into careers, but it applies to anyone who’s looking for a job. There is going to be a time where you’re going to receive the answer that no one likes, and that is no. And by time, I mean frequently, almost constantly, because that’s the typical reaction that people have just by default when they’re being critical of something. It’s usually on a negative starting point. So don’t look at it as this is a proof that I’m not good enough or anything like that, because no is just… You’re just going to have to get used to it. And in the marketing world, in the sales world, where I’ve done lots of work, there is a saying that if you don’t get a no on your first time, you have somehow broken through this magic aura of life that please share your wisdom. Because it’s almost a guarantee that you’ll get 100 no’s before you get the first yes. Yeah. And that’s okay.

Jill:
[21:38] So true, Michael. don’t get depressed. There will be that time when someone says, yes, and they’ll see your passion and say, yes, I want you on my team.

Ryan:
[21:47] There’s this great moment, Michael, that’s such a good point. And there’s this great moment in the book, Stephen King wrote a biography and he was talking about his first book, which was Carrie. And he had submitted it to publishers and he had a nail on the wall and everyone that rejected, he would put the rejection letter on the nail on the wall to the point where the nail got so full, there was no more room to put any more rejection letters for the book that eventually became a movie and all that. He took the book and threw it in the trash. His wife took it out of the trash and sent it in to one of the people he hadn’t sent it in, and that publisher picked it up. And that to me is a fascinating story of number one, how important a supportive spouse can be. But number two, that this person is considered one of the greatest writers of all time and was so sick of being called no, for a fantastic book that became a movie. So don’t, Michael, that advice is fantastic. Like, especially in this environment where we now have AI reviewing resumes and all this type of stuff.

Michael:
[22:50] Just real quick, I know from experience, as I have talked about on a previous episode, I was let go from my job due to the current economy of nightmarish, you know? But the amount of no’s that I’ve received is just enormous to the point that sometimes they’ll they’ll they’ll do it so quickly that there’s no way that they read the resume it’s just like an auto auto filter thing and that that’s it’s definitely concerning and it kind of makes you feel a little bit down but just know that this is the thing that just happened even before this current climate it’s gonna happen anyway because no is a thing that people have to get used to hearing in order to power through in order to get to the yes. And that’s just an unfortunate reality, I guess. But in the sales world, you hear it every day. When you’re trying to get a job, you’ll hear it still pretty frequently. So just keep that in mind. And you will get something as long as you continue to push through.

Ryan:
[23:54] So, Elsie, fantastic question. I hope some of this advice helps you. Other people out there, If you’re looking for a job, I hope it helps you.

Michael:
[24:03] Just real quick. No. No, Michael. Yes.

Jill:
[24:07] Yes.

Ryan:
[24:08] Wow, look how he did it. He did it live.

Michael:
[24:10] See? I just ignored his no. But there’s a saying that I remembered that I wanted to give you. Now, it’s modified by different people. I don’t know what the original was. But the one I say, which is basically the same message, it’s just a different way of saying it, is that the answer is always no, if you don’t ask the question. So you will get no’s, but if you don’t try, you already got to know. So that’s why trying is the most important piece.

Ryan:
[24:41] Very good.

Jill:
[24:41] Fantastic.

Ryan:
[24:42] Well, we want you, the community, to send in your advice. If you have some advice for LC, if you’re a system administrator and you’re looking for someone to maybe come in as an intern or even as a job, you’re looking for somebody to help, let us know. We can get that over to LC. So send in your questions, comments, thoughts on the advice to destinationLinux.net/comments or destinationLinux.net/forum. By the way, on our forum, we do have a job section there where people can post jobs that they find online and hopefully help you land your next job. We know it’s tough out there. Speaking of tough out there, our hearts are going out to all the people in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia.

Michael:
[25:25] Just real quick, for those who are looking at the video and thought I was laughing at this, I thought he was going towards Mozilla. Speaking of tough out there.

Ryan:
[25:33] Oh, you thought I was spinning that towards the next story.

Michael:
[25:36] I was like, that’s funny. But then you’re like, okay, genuinely. Truly, truly.

Ryan:
[25:41] Our hearts go out to all those people out there impacted. I have family in Florida right now. It’s going down right now as we’re recording. So I’m kind of watching this live and things. And I know a lot of you have friends, family, and other stuff out there. So be kind to each other, support each other out there. A lot of crazy stuff going on right now. And of course, we have listeners across the country. And I know there are other, atrocities going on there. Same thing. Like world’s tough right now, man. It’s just not fun.

Jill:
[26:12] Love and hugs to everyone and penguins too.

Ryan:
[26:16] And penguins too. Oh my gosh, Jill, you’re so cute.

Jill:
[26:20] Ridiculous.

Ryan:
[26:21] All right. Now let’s get into our main topic. You know, Mozilla hasn’t had a lot of wins lately. I can’t think of a lot of wins for them. The last big win I remember is container tabs. That’s the last time I was like, man, Mozilla’s killing it out there. And unfortunately, they’re not making many fans with their latest decisions, but we’re going to try.

Michael:
[26:43] The sync service is kind of okay, right?

Ryan:
[26:46] I mean, I said made fans and big wins.

Michael:
[26:49] Oh, wins. Okay. You’re not thinking about what’s a good thing that they did. You’re talking about what was like, oh yeah, great. Yeah, it was probably container tabs.

Ryan:
[26:58] But we’re going to do is try to look at the situation without blinders on to see if it’s worth getting our pitchforks out or not. So we do have our pitchforks.

Michael:
[27:05] I would like to put blinders on.

Ryan:
[27:06] Michael’s is in his corner. Jill’s is behind the door. I’ve got mine over there. We’ve got our pitchforks ready in case we need them, but we’re going to, we’re going to go through this latest news and see if we’re going to pull them out. Um, So Mozilla published two blogs on October 3rd.

Michael:
[27:20] How dare you publish a blog? Get my pitchfork.

Ryan:
[27:23] Michael, you’re a little jumping the gun.

Michael:
[27:26] Was that too early?

Ryan:
[27:27] Yeah, you got to build up.

Jill:
[27:29] Michael and Ryan, I don’t own a pitchfork.

Ryan:
[27:32] Jill, don’t tell people that.

Michael:
[27:33] We don’t either, just.

Ryan:
[27:35] Do you think I own a pitchfork? She’s like, look at him. He clearly owns a pitchfork. Just look at him and tell.

Michael:
[27:43] The only way he got those muscles is because he’d pick up a bays of hell with his pitchforks.

Jill:
[27:48] Yeah, I was going to say, I do have something like it in the garage, but…

Michael:
[27:51] Wait, wait. Bales of hay. So, I don’t know what I just said, but I’m pretty sure I mixed the words together in this weird jumble. So, anyway. It worked.

Ryan:
[28:06] So, Mozilla published two blogs on October 3rd, one from Mark Sermon, president of Mozilla, titled, A Free and Open Internet Shouldn’t Come at the Expense of Privacy. I mean, you can’t get mad at that. Greed. And follow up piece from CEO Laura Chambers titled Improving Online Advertising Through Product and Infrastructure.

Michael:
[28:22] That would also be good.

Ryan:
[28:23] So let’s start with Mark’s piece real quick. And I’m going to summarize. You know, it was a nice read. I suggest you go read it. We’ll have it in the show notes. He starts out by saying, essentially, advertising is broken. Totally agree with that. It’s important to fix it because it’s a fundamental way for sites to get funding, which I also agree with. I know there’s a lot of people who are so have been so honestly, it’s because advertising has been so abusive, and they have been, that people are so frustrated, their only option in their minds is just kill it all. And I get that. If you’re there and you’re that frustrated, I get it. But… This is also true. What Mark’s saying is that a lot of sites, a lot of great sites would not exist without funding. So we’ve got to figure out a way to fund things. And there are three areas they’re focusing on as a part of this. Regulation, which is supporting and introducing regulations to protect privacy.

Ryan:
[29:16] Standard setting. So Mozilla is actively involved in advancing cutting edge proposals for privacy preserving advertising. So the question is, can you do advertising correctly in a way that doesn’t violate people’s privacy. And this includes collaborating with the Interoperable Private Attribution, or IPA, and contributing to Private Advertising Technology Community Group, which is the PATCG, and products like Total Cookie Protection and Enhanced Tracking Protection, with the goal to build a model to demonstrate how ads can sustain a business online while respecting people’s privacy. and it wraps up by saying advertising isn’t going away so let’s find a way to make it private and safe so this i fundamentally agree with like i again i know some of you out there like no they’ve abused too much i’m done i don’t want any advertising i block everything and all that uh but you’re also killing off a lot of content that way just being maybe.

Michael:
[30:14] You don’t care if you don’t know the show uses advertising to exist because if we have we at the moment we’re not having sponsors because this is a interesting advertising world we’re in now but uh this like the youtube ads and stuff like that we need to have that sort of thing to be able to make this show go and this applies to you know your favorite website your favorite blogger like all this sort of stuff it’s not like we can all you know do everything for free the open source idea is fantastic and it is yeah But everyone typically has some being paid by someone to do something in order. Maybe it’s not even related, but it’s still there. Money, unfortunately, runs the world.

Ryan:
[31:02] And Mozilla is in some interesting spot right now, which we’ll get into a little bit. Now, Laura came out with a little more punch stating up front, Mozilla is going to be more active in digital advertising and how this will work with Firefox and their acquisition of Anonym. I don’t know. Anonym.

Michael:
[31:18] Anonym. Anonym? Anonym.

Ryan:
[31:21] Anonym? It’s more than one syllable. I’m done. I’m tapping out.

Michael:
[31:25] It’s also, it’s half of anonymous or 75% of anonymous.

Ryan:
[31:30] Anonym? Anonym. Anonym states it’s a privacy-preserving digital advertising company that they acquired. And here’s how it works. It’s a secure environment. Datasets are matched in a highly secure environment, which what does that mean? I don’t know. Ensuring advertisers, publishers.

Michael:
[31:45] It’s an environment that it’s highly secure. Duh.

Ryan:
[31:46] Of course. Yeah, it’s got like a padlock on that.

Michael:
[31:49] Side of it.

Ryan:
[31:50] And anonymous don’t access any user level data and, you know, anonymized analytics process results and anonymized insights and models helping advertisers measure and improve campaign performance while safeguarding consumer privacy and then differential privacy algorithms, algorithms that add noise to the data, protecting it from being traced to individual users. Why is the noise important? Because sometimes you’re looking up things that are so obscure that it would be easy, like only maybe 500 people look for that same thing. I’m just using a random example here and that makes it very easy for advertisers to pinpoint you and.

Michael:
[32:21] Figure it out so and also the noises in this case the noise is added automatically based on what data they have and no one sees the individual data they only see the aggregate and they only see the stuff with the noise and once the noise is created the individual data is destroyed they say so that’s an important note I mean, also they say yes, but I mean, that’s the whole, this is probably going to be open source because Mozilla purchased it, but the idea of it.

Ryan:
[32:52] It ain’t though. That’d be a problem, you know?

Michael:
[32:55] Well, yes, that’s fair.

Ryan:
[32:57] So the company, not an anonymous.

Michael:
[33:01] Not an anonymous. No.

Ryan:
[33:02] The company M&Ms was founded in 2022 by former meta executives, Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. the article ends with as we integrate M&M’s into the Mozilla family we’re excited about the possibilities this partnership brings while M&M’s will continue to serve its customer base together we are poised to lead the industry toward a future where privacy and effective advertising go hand in hand supporting a free and open internet did I just advertise for M&M’s? yes and also.

Michael:
[33:33] It’s important that advertising go hand in hand and melt in your mouth not in your.

Ryan:
[33:36] Hand so none of this seemed really bad to me however you know when I was thinking about this there’s a trust issue, And people are getting really upset about this. A lot of people are on forums talking about finding alternatives. And they’re like, well, what is there as an alternative? Which is a great question.

Michael:
[33:55] It’s Chrome and stuff that’s not been updated for years.

Ryan:
[33:59] And then there’s Brave, you know, which you could be like, oh, Brave. But keep in mind, Brave has their own little advertising thing they’re doing with cryptocurrency. I don’t know how it all works anymore.

Michael:
[34:07] And they’re also based on Chromium. So you’re still giving Google the power. So anyway.

Ryan:
[34:12] So you recently, you know, Mozilla even got accused of tracking users without their consent. This was part of their partnership with Meta, where they included something called PPA, which is Privacy Preserving Attribution, which sounds really nice.

Michael:
[34:29] It does.

Ryan:
[34:30] Allegedly, it was turned on automatically enabled in Firefox 128.

Michael:
[34:35] It’s also important to note that the organization, it’s a digital rights group from Europe that is called the NYOB or None of Your Business None Your Business.

Ryan:
[34:46] They should just change it to None Your Business None Your Business That would be a better name that would be way better.

Michael:
[34:54] And actually they would just be like, every time they would refer to it we would just call it None Your Business 100% do this this would be a great marketing opportunity for you to say welcome.

Ryan:
[35:04] None your business.

Michael:
[35:05] No you’re no you’re welcome none yeah then yeah uh but uh they filed a complaint about this uh ppa or the privacy protecting or preserving attribution and they’re saying that it enables um firefox to store data on users uh like ad interactions and bundle that information for advertisers and that sort of stuff and they’re also claiming that it was enabled by default however uh based on statements from mozilla they say that it was not enabled by default it was installed by default automatically with firefox 128 but it wasn’t turned on it was only in a small testing for the developers network of mozilla and i also tested it i did not have it on by default and other people and i searched for different forums and there were like the comments for the article that we’re going to have linked in the show notes uh from bleeping computer which is by the way fantastic name always love that and then there’s always a bunch of people commenting like 80 of them said it was not turned on and a few said they were having had it turned on but it’s kind of hard to tell if they were in like maybe if using a developer version yeah maybe if like the developer build of mozilla you might get it turned on but none people who said that it was turned on didn’t give any more information about that so that’s kind of hard to say like 80 didn’t i.

Ryan:
[36:23] Feel picture it didn’t happen I just feel like at this point I, This is Mozilla’s fault, in my opinion, that even if it’s true, which it sounds like it is, that Mozilla didn’t have this turned on by default. Mozilla has made so many bad calls historically. I’m thinking of this, what’s that TV show that was really popular?

Michael:
[36:46] The Robot, Mr. Robot.

Ryan:
[36:48] Mr. Robot stuff and things like that.

Michael:
[36:50] Okay, here’s the thing.

Ryan:
[36:51] Already made mistakes similar where they’ve turned things on and weren’t supposed to. And now they’re like, oh, we did it and we’re sorry and we’re going to be more transparent right now but.

Michael:
[37:00] You’re not wrong you’re not wrong about this the problem is is that i i think saying it’s their fault is a little bit like too pointed because i feel like yes they have made a mistake but they didn’t do what people are saying they did and that is in itself a problem because it’s the fault of the people who made this claim saying this is what happened even though they were wrong, and not coming back and saying, oh, maybe they were wrong. Well, based on the user reactions, I wasn’t just basing it on Mozilla’s. But either way, the point is that what you’re saying is correct and another way at the same time too because with Mozilla doing these things in the past, doing things that are kind of, maybe not sketchy, but questionable. They’ve done multiple things that are questionable and you go like, it just kind of makes you feel like, what are you doing? Why are you doing these things? And just to have a recommendation, for Mozilla, if you’re looking for someone who is a marketing professional and a PR professional, I’m currently unemployed at the moment, so feel free to give me a call or send an email and that sort of stuff because you need it.

Ryan:
[38:17] You need it bad. You need it. I think, you know.

Michael:
[38:22] Mozilla’s done. Because none of you are doing it right right now.

Ryan:
[38:24] No, nice. I think, you know, I struggle with this because Mozilla’s done so many good things for the internet.

Michael:
[38:33] Oh, yeah.

Ryan:
[38:33] And they have been pioneers for a lot of us for the privacy movement.

Jill:
[38:39] Yeah.

Ryan:
[38:39] And you’ve got Google here who is now being sued because of them paying companies to make them the default search engine and a whole antitrust thing going on. And so what this means is that currently, as I understand it, Mozilla, one of their primary, and when I mean primary, I think it’s like 90, 70% or higher of their money comes in from Google and them paying Google to be the default search engine. Yeah. So this is likely to end. And when it does end, this means that a lot of great people who’ve done a lot of great work for privacy will lose their jobs likely because what else are you going to do? I mean, as a company to bring in money, I wish they would have gone more into services that they were making and selling. because I would love to, you know, like DuckDuckGo, I pay monthly because of their privacy essentials tools and things. Like I would love to pay Mozilla monthly if they had something that was cool. Now they have a VPN and things, but…

Michael:
[39:39] Yeah, something that was actually worth buying.

Ryan:
[39:42] And actually worked on Linux when you released it would have been nice too.

Michael:
[39:45] Yeah.

Ryan:
[39:46] Really?

Michael:
[39:46] And also the fact that they just now started supporting Linux on the browsers because it’s been open source forever. So anybody could have Firefox on Linux and it’s always been here. However, it was never maintained by Mozilla. They only started doing that in the past couple of years. And that blows my mind. I feel like I was… I don’t know for a fact if this is true, but I feel like… It was probably Firefox that introduced me to the idea of open source, you know, like way back in the day. And this was an interesting thing because it’s like you I want Firefox to be the dominant browser. At one point, it was on the way to do that. And it was like 60 percent usage. And then Chrome came out and started like kicking it in the face. and i feel like the problem is is that mozilla doesn’t really have a like an actual vision of what they want to do that’s so true and it just feels like they’re kind of they do.

Ryan:
[40:48] Nobody knows what it is.

Michael:
[40:50] So yeah but again why they need you yeah exactly exactly i feel like they’re trying to just grab at random things and like they talked about how they were uh trying to fix the advertising world in the past couple of years like why do you why did you wait till now like this is something in my opinion Mozilla should have their own ad network they should build an ad network that competes with Google and then, they could have like yes relying there’s another key thing about business and entrepreneurship which I have also done, Do not have all your eggs in one basket. If Google is the dominant player of paying you and you funding your entire organization, at any point, they could just leave and you’re screwed. Or in this case, some government will screw you. That’s a huge problem to be in. So make some services like Ryan was talking about. And also this ad thing, go all out. Make an ad network that is privacy respecting. And then people could use that instead of Google and then trying to have this thing on the top layer that’s sort of manipulating the ads and whatever you’re trying to do. How about do both and just compete in a real way?

Ryan:
[42:04] Yeah.

Jill:
[42:05] Yeah, I think that’s great. You know, they just don’t have many funding options right now. So to me, you know.

Michael:
[42:14] Just real quick, you’re a great point, Jill. And saying that makes me instantly think, well, you could get some tech money, the Silicon Valley investing money to battle against Google. I know a lot of people want someone to battle against Google in the ad space. So just think about it.

Jill:
[42:31] Perfect.

Michael:
[42:31] Yeah.

Jill:
[42:32] So yeah, like Ryan was saying, they may be losing their Google search funding with the Google search antitrust lawsuit, which is Mozilla’s largest income. So ad revenue does make sense. like Google has done for many years to keep services running. And the CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers, actually talked about the importance of keeping privacy their main focus as they build a framework for advertising. And, you know, like we’ve been talking about today, Mozilla has been a champion in the privacy respecting area a long time with the Mozilla Firefox web browser. And I personally just, I’m going to have to trust their decision in their use of ads. Whether I like it or not, because not doing so means we may no longer have our favorite open source and privacy-focused web browser around Mozilla Firefox. And can you imagine a world with only Chrome-based web browsers? It’s scary.

Michael:
[43:33] Here’s also the saddest part about that is that most people think we’re in that world now.

Jill:
[43:39] Yeah, I know.

Ryan:
[43:40] We kind of are.

Jill:
[43:40] I know. We kind of are, yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, Google Chrome needs competition and Google wants Firefox to survive, to progress web browser innovation. And because it doesn’t want to be attached to a monopoly. Yeah.

Ryan:
[43:55] This is what happened.

Jill:
[43:56] Interest to do so. So, you know, I think the next, the next antitrust lawsuit is going to be their browser itself because it’s killing the likes of Firefox. We’re, we’re back to Internet Explorer and Netscape all over again.

Michael:
[44:09] I feel like one of the reasons they even gave Firefox the funding was that they wanted to not have deal with this monopoly thing.

Jill:
[44:17] Exactly.

Ryan:
[44:18] Well, yeah. I mean, Microsoft kept Apple afloat. A lot of people don’t know that, but they gave a huge amount of money to Apple.

Jill:
[44:24] Yeah, they did.

Ryan:
[44:25] Apple was hurting. And now Apple, of course, trillions of dollars, but that backfired. So the whole thing here is…

Michael:
[44:32] Microsoft’s doing okay, though.

Ryan:
[44:33] You know, Jill, I respect your position of, hey, I want to trust it because I’m in a different position. I am at the point where Firefox needs to prove to me that their words that the CEO is using actually mean something other than words. Because, by the way, those same words get echoed by Google. They get echoed by Facebook and Meta. They get echoed by every executive now that, oh, your privacy is our primary concern. yeah so like when i heard zuckerberg saying.

Michael:
[45:03] That there’s no way.

Ryan:
[45:05] Uh they you know i i think they need to to prove that they’re going to be transparent that they’re going to tell the community what they’re doing that they’re going to explain how these things work that they’re going to make it all open source and then i’ll be like yeah until then i’m more excited about future projects like ladybird which doesn’t exist at the moment but is a very exciting project.

Michael:
[45:30] Just so you know, everybody, the reason why he just said it doesn’t exist is because he knew that I was going to say that.

Ryan:
[45:35] Michael went on a huge rant before the show.

Michael:
[45:37] He preemptively stopped me from saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t get why the hype exists for a browser that doesn’t exist. I understand what they’re trying to do. What Firefox can be is to fix all this. That’s great. If they could.

Ryan:
[45:58] I have more trust in another company now because Firefox has just stumbled so much.

Michael:
[46:05] But I would say you are more open to the idea of another company.

Ryan:
[46:10] There you go.

Michael:
[46:11] Have you heard of them at all before this?

Ryan:
[46:14] Shut your mouth, Michael. Here’s the thing that Lady Bird is bringing in. Truly independent, their own engine. So they’re doing their own engine. No monetization. They’re doing purely by funding, which here’s the problem. I love this idea. Like you come in, you sponsor, Shopify is a sponsor, Fudo is a sponsor. So they’re getting big players to sponsor. As a company that also relies on sponsorships, this tends to have an ebb and flow. Sometimes we’re heavily sponsored. And the money and we can pay, you know, all the different hosts that we have on a network. We can keep our servers online. And sometimes when you go through economy like this, the sponsors go away. And so Mozilla also probably was heavily sponsored by big company sponsors for a minute there. And then it starts to fade away like the Google thing and other stuff happens. So I like their idea. But I also think Lady Bird, as cool of an idea it is and as excited as I am to have an alpha in 2026 to test it out. Yes, I said 2026, not 2025.

Michael:
[47:16] Alpha in 2026.

Ryan:
[47:19] This is very early stages. And part of their plan needs to be, how are you going to create an ad network that’s privacy enabled that would allow people to be like DuckDuckGo does?

Michael:
[47:32] What you’re saying is that they should do what I’m saying Mozilla should do.

Ryan:
[47:36] Yes, but Mozilla has no track record of actually accomplishing this because how long have they been saying we’re going to create privacy secure Well.

Michael:
[47:45] They have created a privacy secure ad platform, idea like they’ve they’ve they’ve they’re what they’re trying to do is actually wrong what they’re trying to do is take something like that is the current invasive ad networks that exist put something on top to kind of clean it up and then so now the ad networks have all.

Ryan:
[48:10] The data they already had plus mozilla’s.

Michael:
[48:14] New data.

Ryan:
[48:15] That they put on top.

Michael:
[48:16] I don’t know but here’s the thing is that only mozilla is doing this right so that the the privacy protection stuff they do for the ads is only in the firefox browser so all of the massive data that is in google’s hands from the chrome-based stuff doesn’t change your these are not affecting those things so what you actually need to do is create an ad network advertising data.

Ryan:
[48:42] What i’m going to do is i’m going to take all the data that i get out there from google and mastercard and all these visa and all.

Michael:
[48:49] These companies and then compare it to whatever maruzilla’s and i’m going to tie.

Ryan:
[48:53] It in there and now i have all of.

Michael:
[48:56] The data so like i get.

Ryan:
[48:58] Their idea i think there’s something that could be done here i think you need to involve the community because there’s a lot of brilliant people in the community could probably think of a way to do this the right way and i think you need to be transparent and i think you need to build that trust back until then I mean there’s nowhere for me to go so like i’m still in firefox but whatever shut up anyway.

Michael:
[49:17] The person who’s using firefox i was I mean i am a big fan of firefox also yes there is a new browser that came out i think it’s called zen zen browser oh yeah it’s it is a fork of firefox but it’s one of the best forks i’ve ever seen like it’s very interesting it’s got some really clever stuff good, Well, a spork is not that. I think sporks are overrated.

Ryan:
[49:42] Whoa, that’s the stupidest thing that’s ever come out of your mouth. A spork, everyone should have a spork.

Michael:
[49:48] A spork is useful for multiple things. It is not good.

Ryan:
[49:52] It is the Swiss Army knife.

Michael:
[49:54] No, it’s not. A Swiss Army knife is a knife. So a spork is not a good spoon because it has holes in it. And it’s not a good fork because the fork’s prongs are not that big. So it’s mediocre at both of those things. But it can do both of those things.

Ryan:
[50:07] Yeah.

Michael:
[50:07] So what we’re saying is, Mozilla, don’t be the spork of web browsers.

Ryan:
[50:13] No, be a spork. Sporks are the great deal.

Michael:
[50:15] I don’t want you to be mediocre at being a press brother.

Ryan:
[50:18] Sporks are the best, right?

Jill:
[50:19] Actually, I like sporks. I like when I was a little kid getting them at the local Taco Bell.

Michael:
[50:24] A very interesting comment on this particular episode.

Ryan:
[50:29] Are you on Team Ryan and Jill?

Michael:
[50:31] Are you on the spork team? Are you on the team of useful utensils for what they’re intended?

Ryan:
[50:36] I’m going to win this because are you on the team with Jill or are you on the team with that?

Michael:
[50:41] That’s cheating.

Ryan:
[50:42] That’s so good. I win automatically.

Jill:
[50:45] I like Sporks because it’s Sporky from Toy Story, the last Toy Story movie.

Ryan:
[50:50] I have a Star Trek Spork.

Jill:
[50:51] Yeah. Oh, I have one of those too, the metal ones from ThinkGeek.

Ryan:
[50:54] Yes. So good. Yes, from ThinkGeek. That’s where I got mine too. Gosh, we’re nerds. I love it.

Ryan:
[51:00] All right. Speaking of, we’ve just gone so long. You know, we’ve got to speed things along here, Michael. And in our news, we’ve got Pine64, which I’m really excited. We’re talking about a company I trust and I like a lot, Pine64, at the top, tippity, tippity, top of that list.

Michael:
[51:16] They have some really interesting news.

Ryan:
[51:19] Yeah.

Michael:
[51:20] We haven’t heard a lot from them, actually, in a while. They have been doing stuff related to like some single system on a chip boards and those little things like Raspberry Pi type things. but we have a great news now because Pine64 is going to be relaunching their PineNote which is an e-ink tablet and we had a wucash from Pine64 on the episode of Destination Linux where we interviewed him about the PineNote although that was in 2021 so um there’s gonna be some changes related to that after a couple of years in a minute yeah it’s been a minute so go check out that episode which uh we’ll have linked in the show notes i don’t remember what number that was but i’m Destination Linux episode 239 yes that’s what i thought Jill would probably know.

Ryan:
[52:05] That’s incredible uh why this is why this took so long though is there a lot of supply chain issues you remember the whole covid thing you couldn’t get all this that impacted Pine64.

Michael:
[52:14] Greatly what was covid i have completely forgot about yeah pandemic uh yeah but i’m excited this is come back era.

Ryan:
[52:21] This is a really cool device. And, you know, they’re going to have things like Firefox enabled on it, Xournal++ for note taking and Fullyit for reading e-books. And they’re going to have a fully featured Debian based OS on this to support, which is really cool with Pine64, because a lot of times they just build the hardware and they kind of let everyone else do the software. This one’s got software ready to go, which is really important.

Michael:
[52:48] Well, I mean, it is also still true that they let someone else do the software.

Ryan:
[52:51] But it’s ready at the same time.

Michael:
[52:53] But yes. So the reason why they’re bringing it back because someone built the software / firmware for the PineNote and now they can bring it out. They usually have it like the first thing they did was like the Pine book and then the Pine phone and they would release it without having any OS at all. So I think this one is good that they waited until there was actually something to use for it because this is only so useful as what software is on it exactly this is a laptop you could kind of mess with and fix it and do things with it a phone maybe maybe not with this you have to have something that is a good solid experience you.

Ryan:
[53:33] Get a 1404 by 1872 227 dpi was the original but that may get improved in the new one again we’re talking e-ink grayscale 16 levels of grayscale so this is not you can’t compare this to like an ipad it’s not what it’s meant for.

Michael:
[53:46] You can pair it to like a paperwhite Kindle.

Ryan:
[53:48] Yeah, something like that. You get a quad core, four gigs of RAM. Again, I’m talking about the older specs. We don’t have the new specs. There was nothing saying that they were going to refresh it greatly, but I assume there’s going to be some changes ahead.

Michael:
[54:00] It’s got to be something.

Ryan:
[54:01] Microphone, speakers, type C USB port for charging and data. You have front lights on there. So like 36 levels of warm and cold lighting. So really, really cool device out there. So why is this interesting to me, especially right now? is because my boss uses a Remarkable 2. This is an e-ink notebook. You’ve probably seen their advertising. They advertise very heavily, and it’s really nice. It’s for note-taking is the primary use case. And when I went on a work trip, and I was seeing how he was able to organize all these meetings and things that were going on and tasks that everybody was doing, I was like, man, I want one of these. This this is cool because I was using OneNote work and standard notes at home and they never emerged. And usually with college and everything else I’m doing, I’ve got these huge lists of to do things and I need to keep it organized.

Michael:
[54:58] Yeah.

Ryan:
[54:58] And so having one device where I could do all of that, that I could carry with me, that was super thin. And its only purpose was really for note taking. in my case was very important because i’m one of those people like oh it’s got a browser and I can go here in full color and I can look at a youtube video you know we all get distracted but this has a single purpose um but the remarkable is like 500 plus and there’s also a subscription on top of it if you want to use their cloud which you know the whole point is you can sync things uh so i was like, Not having that at that moment.

Michael:
[55:33] Yeah.

Ryan:
[55:34] I was like, yeah, nah. I love it. I think if you have that kind of money, like go for it. But I was looking for something a little cheaper and it’s not super cheap, but I found a Penn Star note-taking tablet, which is 10.3 inch e-ink tablet with a paper white display. It comes with the stylus, comes with the magnetic cover and costs about 360 bucks. and there’s no subscription fee to integrate with its existing cloud services. And I found that it does fantastic for taking notes. It’s very fast. It’s very responsive.

Ryan:
[56:05] I want my boss, when we get together again, we’re going to compare the two. I have no doubt Remarkable is probably more responsive, probably even darker colors and things like that. We’ll see. Maybe we’ll do a video on it. That would be dope. But the writing process is good enough. And I really have found myself incredibly more organized by using this. So piece of advice, kind of tip of the week right there to do, to look for something like this. The thing I’m excited about is Pine64 having a version because even on the Penn Star, one of the weaknesses is its ability to integrate with the other cloud services like DigitalOcean. The sync system sucks. You’ve got to manually go note by note and upload it to DigitalOcean. Really stupid. Really stupid. Or you can sync to their cloud, which I don’t trust. And a lot of this stuff is my personal things as well. So I don’t want to sync to their service. I don’t know what PennStars like cloud security is on that thing. I want to use something I know, you know. So I think Pine64 has an incredible opportunity here. My advice to them is don’t make the thing do too much. Like keep it simple. This is to serve a very specific purpose. You should be able to read PDFs, eBooks and take notes. Anything else, if you’re trying to integrate browsers in a huge way and have it do play videos and do all this i just think it kills the whole point at that point you might as well get an apple ipad why do you need this uh this is to keep focused that’s where it’s.

Michael:
[57:31] I am very interested in this when they announced in the first place i was super interested and then i had heard of the remarkable at the time but i i also looked at the price and was like that’s not for me, but the the idea of it is fantastic and i agree that they should not try to do some kind of video solution or whatever, I think that would be, pretty problematic, but they are trying to make it super powerful, which the specs they have provided are much more powerful than the other stuff on the market. So if they can have something that’s super focused on the note-taking thing with the e-ink thing, where you can also have like an e-reader and all that sort of stuff, which you can take the value of the e-ink and then have it when it is powerful enough to do all sorts of stuff. I think there is a huge, huge market for this and I would love to play with this kind of thing uh also real quick we don’t have much news or updates on the pinote itself but they did say they’re going to update some of the stuff like the stylus is going to be updated so that you don’t have to have like a charger for it or anything like that it’s just like a regular stylus so that’s great uh so they are working on some things but i i suspect that like the next month or so they’ll kind of give us like more information about what’s coming with the thing we don’t have an eta on it yet and um based on the previous, version of the PineNote who knows but pine releases is typically really it’ll be ready to go yeah it’ll.

Ryan:
[59:00] Be ready to go when they do it and hopefully we can have them on the show to talk about it.

Michael:
[59:03] Somehow we’re like.

Ryan:
[59:04] Already at an hour we talk too much like i don’t.

Michael:
[59:07] Know i think that it’s i think that it’s okay because I mean there’s so many great things to talk about Now, by the way, I don’t know if you know this or your boss knows this, but Remarkable uses a Linux operating system to power their tablet.

Ryan:
[59:21] I actually did not know that.

Michael:
[59:22] Yeah.

Ryan:
[59:23] I did not know that.

Michael:
[59:24] That’s incredible.

Jill:
[59:24] That’s really cool.

Michael:
[59:25] So your boss uses Linux. Yeah.

Jill:
[59:28] There we go. And something else I wanted to point out, when we initially did the PineNote interview with Wukash, we were actually the official media announcement for the PineNote back in August 16th of 2021.

Ryan:
[59:41] Who’s the monster here, Michael or Jill? I think it’s Jill. Boom.

Michael:
[59:48] I facilitated that happening. Jill remembered that part. As I mentioned that she knew the episode, Jill is the person who facilitates the archive and the history of the show. And I show up sometimes. I know that you’re the best. All I said was Jill is great and I show up. That’s what I said, but a really long way of saying it.

Jill:
[1:00:13] Oh and and yeah like you guys said earlier me and you know the three of us we had geek chills and we all wanted the PineNote when we were originally talking about it back in 2021 so i am excited that all the issues with cost and the operating system have been resolved with the PineNote too so it can come to fruition and another interesting thing is they they have updated their pine tab tablet as well that’s the full color tablet and that’s coming out not in october so they’re they they are doing good things behind coming out not in october.

Ryan:
[1:00:51] So when is it coming.

Jill:
[1:00:52] Oh it’s coming out in october oh okay i think so but maybe not i’m sorry it’s coming out the end of october they said we got not in october so like oh.

Michael:
[1:01:03] Okay well deal with.

Jill:
[1:01:04] It more you.

Michael:
[1:01:06] Know we got a little bit of weight of the ways so this this is also uh cool but there is something that i i’m a huge fan of the like what they’re trying to do at Pine64 with a lot of their products I mean i have a pine phone i’ve had a.

Jill:
[1:01:19] Pine book um.

Michael:
[1:01:21] And i think that they have a lot of potential there the PineNote looks really cool and it’s probably the most the thing i’m the most interested in however i do have some sad news for some people, originally the PineNote was intended to be kde plasma kde plasma But this one is going to be coming with Gnome.

Jill:
[1:01:40] Gnome, yeah.

Ryan:
[1:01:41] That’s such good news.

Michael:
[1:01:41] Sad.

Ryan:
[1:01:42] Good job.

Michael:
[1:01:42] Sad news.

Ryan:
[1:01:43] Good job. Just because I want to spite Michael, not because it was actually a good job, but just because it was such Michael. All right. We are out of time, so we’re going to skip the actual mobile news that we had because there’s another hot take story that’s hit, and I want to cover it.

Jill:
[1:02:01] Yeah.

Ryan:
[1:02:01] And we have very little time to do so, but it’s really important.

Ryan:
[1:02:04] I think it’s interesting. In fact, this is one of those stories that we’re going to give you what we know now, and it’s certainly going to evolve and expand.

Michael:
[1:02:11] And also, we’re recording this a couple of days before it releases, so there might have been changes once we did this.

Ryan:
[1:02:16] Yeah, so feel free to send in your comments, updates, what you find interesting about it. Obviously, the story is subject to change. But what’s in the news at this moment today is that hackers in China have breached the networks of several major U.S. internet service providers, including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen.

Ryan:
[1:02:37] And they potentially gained access, or allegedly, to court-authorized wiretaps of communication networks. And they’ve been holding access for months. the hacking group is called salt typhoon and they’re linked to directly to the chinese government and is believed to be behind the attacks the breach has exposed federal communications data related to lawful u.s wiretapping requests they’ve also accessed apparently to general internet traffic beyond just wiretapping the attack is suspected to be part of an espionage operation aimed at discouraging, um.

Ryan:
[1:03:15] Targets of, for, you know, the targets of FBI has, uh, intelligence agencies, department of Homeland security, all of this. Um, there are war rooms now going on with the FBI and all of these telco companies, uh, to figure out how this has happened and what’s going on. Again, this is information we have at this point and the hacking groups activities have been reported earlier. Um, But they had not known the specific ISPs until now. And again, that is subject to change as well. Why is this really interesting to me? I, number one, I’m going to school for cybersecurity, so it’s obviously very interesting. But number two is how many times do we talk on this show and say that when you make a backdoor, it’s not just for the person that you hope it’s for? So when an ISP or anybody else making a device goes, well, we’re going to make this backdoor into our encryption, we’re going to make this backdoor into our network that’s just for the good guys.

Ryan:
[1:04:11] Guess who also can walk through that door? And this is perfect proof.

Michael:
[1:04:16] Anyone who can find it. Yeah. And also it’s hilarious because this is making us agree with Apple because they said the same thing. We’re not going to put a backdoor in because then bad people could get access to the backdoor. And why are you making us philosophically agree with Apple?

Ryan:
[1:04:35] Yeah. How dare you?

Michael:
[1:04:37] How dare you?

Ryan:
[1:04:38] We like oranges on this show.

Michael:
[1:04:40] Exactly. We prefer oranges because they pale better. And actually bananas too, because I mean, who doesn’t love bananas?

Ryan:
[1:04:45] Dude, come on. Why do you got to bring a banana? Of course a banana wins. That’s stupid.

Michael:
[1:04:48] I know. That’s what I’m saying. You bring in a banana because banana is the most epic kind you can have.

Ryan:
[1:04:54] Banana with peanut butter, banana with honey, banana with ice cream.

Jill:
[1:04:58] Oh, banana. Yeah. Chocolate-covered banana with nuts on the outside and frozen.

Michael:
[1:05:03] And frozen. Also, a banana with chocolate and peanut butter in a milkshake.

Jill:
[1:05:10] Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s good, too.

Ryan:
[1:05:12] I like banana milkshake. I’m starving right now.

Michael:
[1:05:15] By the way, that’s a fantastic combination if you’ve never tried it.

Jill:
[1:05:19] Try it. Yeah.

Ryan:
[1:05:20] All right, so guess what?

Michael:
[1:05:22] Oh, wait, we’re talking about something, aren’t we?

Ryan:
[1:05:23] We’ve gone so long that the audience gets nothing else. They’re not getting gaming. They’re not getting a software spotlight. And we’ve kind of already given a tip of the week. So this is y’all’s fault. First of all, you all have been really up in your game with the community questions. And so that’s your fault.

Michael:
[1:05:39] This is y’all’s fault. You give us such good feedback.

Ryan:
[1:05:42] You’ve been giving us great feedback, great comments that we can rip off of. And so you’re being punished for that. because we’ve run long again.

Michael:
[1:05:52] We’re giving you so much content that it’s more than we typically do anyway, but we don’t have time for the rest.

Ryan:
[1:05:57] We don’t have time. The good news is I have to write less next week. So thank you for that. You’re actually helping me.

Michael:
[1:06:03] See, look on the positive side of things, Ryan. That’s what you need to have from Jill.

Jill:
[1:06:08] Yes.

Ryan:
[1:06:09] Yeah. All right. Some events coming up. Linux App Summit just happened. So check out the videos from that. You’ve got Ubuntu Summit, which is happening at the end of this month. Speaking of networking opportunities, You can find your way to get into the Ubuntu Summit. A lot of geniuses, brilliant people, minds that will be going there. And then Scale 22X is coming up. So not only do they have presenter call already. So if you want to present, we’re talking about networking. By the way, one of the things I loved because I started my career in corporate America when I was 17 is I loved doing presentations and things at that age. because people, when you walk into that room, they’re like, oh, here’s the person to come refill my water. And then you get on stage and actually give the presentation. It’s like an oomph moment. So at 17, find your way to do some presentations at scale and things like that.

Michael:
[1:06:58] And also, if it goes bad, it doesn’t matter because they’re going to be like, well, he’s 17. It’s okay.

Ryan:
[1:07:04] Exactly.

Jill:
[1:07:05] And in particular, we have a youth track at scale called Scale the Next Generation, which they are looking for people to submit proposals for presentations right now. And these presentations close November 1st. And it’s a little less than a month from now.

Ryan:
[1:07:23] We have so many young, amazing audience members that listen to our show.

Jill:
[1:07:28] Exactly, in our community. And that we met at the last Southern California Linux.

Ryan:
[1:07:31] By the way, we’ve been known to give away equipment and stuff like raspberry pies and things to some of the youth that listen to our show. So, you know, you want to definitely network with us. That’s what I’m saying. Well, Jill, mostly.

Michael:
[1:07:44] We’re not going to guarantee giving away hardware and stuff.

Ryan:
[1:07:47] We guarantee you may, probably, could possibly get something.

Michael:
[1:07:52] Potentially.

Ryan:
[1:07:53] If we like you.

Jill:
[1:07:54] Yeah.

Ryan:
[1:07:54] Which our standards are very high. So it’s not like that. All right. So.

Ryan:
[1:07:59] Uh, we’re looking for a sponsor for our scale trip. You know, we go to scale every single year. Thanks to our sponsors. We’re looking for a sponsor this year. So if you want to promote your company on your, uh, you will have you on our streams. We will have, uh, potentially your, we’ll negotiate everything with you, but if you got pamphlets and things to hand out, maybe a great opportunity. Uh, but most important part is you get the warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing that you You get to unite me, Michael, and Jill together in person at scale. And we do a lot of awesome work there at scale and a lot of streams and things like that. Really great way to promote your company. And we talk about marketing and things. There you go. So if you want to sponsor us for scale this year, reach out. Michael, where do they reach out to? Where do they go to reach out?

Michael:
[1:08:47] You can actually go to tuxdigital.com/advertise. And there’s a whole page right there that tells you why you’d want to do it. and how to do it and you can book a meeting with me to talk about these kinds of things.

Ryan:
[1:09:02] Someone’s gonna someone’s gonna really abuse that.

Michael:
[1:09:04] I mean I can also just not accept meetings like I would like to talk to you about why you’re wrong about firefox uh okay uh no thank you what was that product.

Ryan:
[1:09:15] We talked about apply directly to forehead I want to.

Michael:
[1:09:17] I’m gonna sponsor the head on for chapstick head on forehead chapstick.

Ryan:
[1:09:23] Hey if you’re paying right we’ll we’ll talk about it I mean if it’s.

Michael:
[1:09:28] If it’s good and we can apply directly to our podcast I mean.

Ryan:
[1:09:31] There you go sure big thank you to each and every one of you supporting us by watching or listening to Destination Linux however you do it we love your faces join us in our discord by going to tuxdigital.com/discord you talk about the show talk about other things you do maybe you’re into fitness too maybe you’re into Linux movies tv all that stuff we have rooms for on our discord to hang out in the public and and get to know people you already have something in common it’s Linux I mean it’s awesome and if you’re an awesome show yeah and if you want to watch the show live you can become a patron of Destination Linux record every wednesday at around 6 30 6 45 6 50 6 55 658 7 602 uh it just sometime around then Okay.

Michael:
[1:10:19] So just show up at around 6.30 and give or take us 15 minutes or so.

Ryan:
[1:10:23] Yeah, there you go.

Michael:
[1:10:24] I mean, he’s making a joke, but he’s not wrong, really, because it does look good when we start, technically speaking.

Ryan:
[1:10:30] Michael’s always late.

Michael:
[1:10:32] No, I was on time this time to the point where your brain exploded this week.

Ryan:
[1:10:36] But you still delayed stuff because your teleprompter didn’t work right or something. You know, you were still working on something like an old dad with a VCR. It was embarrassing, honestly.

Michael:
[1:10:46] What does 12 mean? It’s blinking. 12. What does that mean?

Ryan:
[1:10:51] All right. Go to our text digital store, pick up some merch.

Michael:
[1:10:54] And also, LC and other people who are 17. A VCR is an old way of watching a DVD. And also to LC and other people who are 17. A DVD is a thing that’s a physical item you can watch content from.

Ryan:
[1:11:08] A physical item is something you could hold that’s not in the cloud in your hands.

Michael:
[1:11:14] Exactly. it’s a thing that exists a tangible thing that exists, Also, if you would like to join us in our patron section, you can go to tuxdigital.com/membership. And Ryan talked about our Discord server. We also have a patron-only section of our Discord server. And if you become a membership, you get access to that.

Ryan:
[1:11:36] I’m joining right now.

Michael:
[1:11:36] And many other things, especially we have at the end of each show, a patron-only post show. So join us, tuxdigital.com/membership. And if you’d like to support the show and get some awesome merch, you go to tuxdigital.com/store and get this shirt. the shirt Jill is wearing and Ryan is uh not representing whatsoever and is picking up random things he still has his batman of course he has the batman so if you go to tuxdigital.com/store

Jill:
[1:12:04]tuxdigital.com/store and.

Michael:
[1:12:05] Get a bunch of cool merch like hats mugs hoodies t-shirts all sorts of stuff

Michael:
[1:12:09] and we’re getting some new things coming soon.

Jill:
[1:12:12] Yay and make sure to check out all the amazing shows here on camera cap that’s right we have an entire network of shows to fill your whole week with geeky goodness head to tuxdigital.com to keep those Linux penguins marching and I want to do a shout out again make sure to check out Michael’s this week in Linux for your source for Linux news twill is now live on youtube fridays at 10 a.m pacific 1 p.m.

Ryan:
[1:12:38] Eastern you got nothing else to do it’s all right.

Michael:
[1:12:41] Thank you for that glowing praise you shouldn’t be glazing so much on me like that I mean come on sorry about that.

Ryan:
[1:12:50] No it’s very good it’s awesome.

Michael:
[1:12:52] Definitely doing it he’s basically trying to say it’s mid don’t let him hear.

Ryan:
[1:12:55] That but it’s pretty good.

Michael:
[1:12:57] I’m so glad that was recorded I’m gonna have that just constantly playing in a loop during the live streams it’s what you’ll go to sleep to it’s like your ASMR that would be terrifying, thank you for coming to the show everybody Michael you didn’t do the closing I’m getting to it. Y’all are so impatient. You’re so slow. Why are you so impatient? Everybody.

Ryan:
[1:13:23] You forgot.

Michael:
[1:13:24] Everybody have a great week. And remember that the journey itself is just as important as the destination.

Jill:
[1:13:31] Yay, the penguins.

Michael:
[1:13:32] I completely remembered to do this part. It’s not like we’ve done it every time for the past 300 something episodes. All right. Whatever.

Ryan:
[1:13:40] The rest of this is for the patrons. For everybody else, get this show out your mouth.

Jill:
[1:13:46] Okay, Will. We did it! Yay!

Ryan:
[1:13:50] Keep this show out your mouth!

Michael:
[1:13:52] I feel like that’s a… That’s too much, Will. Too much.

Ryan:
[1:13:58] Oh, alright. Next week. Everyone.

Michael:
[1:14:03] See you next week.

Jill:
[1:14:04] Bye, everyone. Love you all.

Ryan:
[1:14:06] Till next week, keep this show out your mouth!