[music] All right, here we go. All right, today is August 5, 2024. This is both of these podcasts four, nine, and one, eight, three. I'm tired of that, so all right with my good friend, Steven Hughes, and we are in a car. Waiting to pull out of his hotel parking lot and go do some exploring in Honolulu. Are you doing Steve? Good. Really good. Joining the nice weather here. [inaudible] Yeah. Yeah, that's been nice. Just a little bit of rain, not too much to annoy any-- You sprinkle showers? Nothing. Yeah. Trying to lap onto Kalyelani Avenue, then continue straight onto Kanekka-Fil-A Street. I love the pronunciation. You get the right accent, so what are you doing in time? You're working, right? Yep, I am working. Yep, just preparing one of our sites. It's at the Tripler, the VAMC, at the Tripler Army Base. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Triple medical center. Know it well. Yeah, and helping them get ready for an OAG audit. Oh, always fun. Cybersecurity's not nice. All right, so we are-- We're going to go straight onto Kanekka-Fil-A Street. Sorry. [LAUGHS] Anyway, I just love the approximate pronunciation of the Y word. In E100T, is any lane to turn left on all of Y Boulevard? So as those who know Hawaii know from those approximations of street names, we are in Waikiki, and we are driving west. We're trying to get west. Mountains. Towards the mountains. Mountains, mauka. Yeah. But actually, we're going to work by that away. Yeah. What does it call that? If I'm-- Yep. I'm going to get this that way. Yeah, I hiked that a few days ago. Did you? Yeah. How was it? Beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Like the view from the pillbox. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. That's a light. You're watching the wild chickens. You're left on the yellow light. The little baby chickens come up right up to you. They're so dumb, so. You know, during the pandemic, feral chickens-- I think you weren't on the wide boulevard. --took over every place. Really? Yeah. Because you just grew on with the woody wells. I don't know. So I know Maui is a lot of feral cats. I don't know if that's-- Oh, yeah, we got those, too, but yeah, even downtown Honolulu where we're heading to, it's like chicken heaven. Yeah, and the Mankos, too. Saw a few of those around. Yeah. Whether those brought in, what, 1930s or something like that? Sure, I don't know. With the rat infestation and then there was-- No, I don't know. --not turned along was diurnal. Right. And so it never matched up. I think it was earlier than that. But anyway, yeah. So well, yeah, the reason why you may-- well, why isn't he why isn't Stephen working? He started to work at one time. He started to work at one time. 3 AM. So that's why the East Ghost is here. Classic. Yeah, I think it's enjoyed the day. I guess that it was a long day. But today is a little bit shorter. We were able to-- OK. --a little bit softer. I can imagine. Yeah, I didn't expect to pick you up. At this time, I thought you were going to take a power nap or something. Yeah, but did yesterday. So I know you've been working, but did you pay attention at all or have time to pay attention to that made by Google Event the other day? Yeah, it did. I actually caught a bit of that, most of it with the Pixel 9. Yeah. And then all different versions of Pixel, run a new cancer processor, and the Pixel 9 fold. It's like it's going to have what an 8-inch display when you finally open it up. Yeah, that's crazy, right? That's a large display for any phone now. Yeah, yeah. But the only thing is like all the features that they featured are only very exclusive to the Pixel 9. Exactly. It needs out all of their dedicated customers, which is like-- I don't know. It just seems like-- Like me. --this is harsh. Yeah, very harsh. It's like getting a fortune to upgrade to-- and it was $8.99, $9.99, $1,000. Right. And not too much memory on the phone. Oh, no, I think it's-- I don't know. Was it 64s with me? Yeah, it's a tiny amount. 16. 16 gig, I think. That's wonderful. But-- Which I think everything should be like 128, 256 nowadays. Exactly. If not a terabyte. But I do offer like, was it like three, two years of Google-- Oh, that VM-- Service. Was it the two terabytes stores? Yeah. Right, right, right. The Google 1 AI premium. The Google 1 means like Microsoft. Yeah. OK, so there's Google Premium. No, wait. Google 1, which I have a two terabyte subscription to. But that does not include the AI component. Oh, OK. And you've got to pay another 20 bucks a month to get the AI component. Oh, so it's not free, so everything they were telling that didn't work in the demo. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's free for two years or whatever. OK. Yeah. The Google 1, two terabyte without the AI, it's actually pretty reasonable. It's $100 a year. And it used to include Google 1's VPN. But it doesn't include that anymore. Oh, my Pixel's talking to me. But-- And it has Google Meet recording, which is what we've been using for a podcast. So-- But it does have really cool new features. I mean, so a lot of it looks like it's going to be privacy security issues. Yeah. Like the new notes feature they have, where you can take notes of phone calls. It does give a notification the person that the call's being recorded. But it pulls text and does transcription of the call. Kind of say, well, we have a zoom and all. So we're passing the Alawai Canal, which was until recently really polluted. Oh, yeah. Kind of like the sun. We've just sent all the sun for a little bit. 1,800 feet, turned left onto Lepea-Paid Street. But they've put in what's called ginky balls. And ginky means health in Japanese. And apparently, it's cleaned it up. Don't I made it? I don't know. I don't know. But I will take a look on it. There's like, I've got bacterial plastic balls. Yeah. Yeah, that supposedly absorbs, or maybe not absorbs, but that's something. I don't map onto Lepea-Paid Street. Then turn right onto Hopron Lane. That's cool, Bron. That's OK. Close enough. Who's right onto Hopron Lane? So I use a GPS everywhere in Honolulu, even though I know where I'm going. Just for ETA. Well, for ETA traffic, we have some of the worst traffic in the US. Oh, it's like the medicine is 10 minutes away, and it takes half hours for an hour. Yeah. Because I remember you always said they always walk the work because it's a way of way faster. Now I understand why. It's all talking to a lot of locals. A lot of people just ride bikes or walk. See, this guy really parked. It's parked. At the light, turn right onto all the Milana Boulevard. Yeah, so I'm one of those ticked off pixel owners. You know, I bought a 7A. What was the spring of last year, 2023. And I know I'm not going to get all the fancy, the fancy features, but I expect something. But I'm getting nothing. Yeah. It's pretty sad. And that's unfortunate. That's one thing I think Apple does really well. At least you have some features. You have some features only for like a pro-pro version. It's like the really must-have stuff. But like, I understand like the new camera features. Yeah, sure. Hardware. Yeah, right. But they should be able to do that virtual, like, add in person to the picture if they had it. Yeah, yeah. But you can just ask someone else to take a picture, too. Well-- And they also said that the new panoramic feature, which look passionate, is pretty good. Or they have a little guide where you put your finger on it to make sure you're going in a straight line. So your panoramic pictures come out nice. They do a lot that was the two picture transition thing, kind of like HDR, where they take a dark contrast and a light contrast and then they merged it together. So you get a bit of-- Go in. Court, yeah, good. So we're going to figure out how this works. And there's a lot of pauses because I'm driving. But I'll use Audacity's silence trimmer, too. I can't read off my pauses. There's some podcast editors that actually do that, too. They'll skip ahead of any pause bases or compression, as well as, like, your forex or two hex times. I tend to do it a lot now. You bring the process so much faster than-- Yeah, true. Especially when it has a pitch correction for you, so you're not listening to a chipmunk. Exactly. But yeah, so was there anything-- I have to say, there was nothing-- I felt like I was going to buy. That tells you to buy it. Although I know I'll get a lot more features. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but-- Better battery life. And it doesn't get hot. It doesn't burn your head. Yeah, that's what they say. They had better cooling with it, though. Yeah, that's what they say. I'll tell you, my Pixel 7A runs way hotter than my iPhones. I did some initial podcast in-person podcast recordings of my Pixel 7 because I get this. The first wireless laugh I bought did not work with iPhone. It was supposed to, but it just didn't. Or, well, I should say it worked. But the volume levels are so low that it was laughable at best. But it worked fine at Android. And my Android overheated in the shade in, you know, like, 79, 80-degree weather. So it wasn't-- That's not too hot. It's talking depth, Valley. Not in direct sunlight. But I either got a, you know, I got a screening. Yeah. So fortunately, we had just finished the podcast. So it didn't cause a problem with the podcast. So I'm using something called-- well, we're using something called the Airhug 30 wireless laughs right now. I've tried it with the AI noise, a legit AI noise cancellation. It's OK. But, quite frankly, I'd rather use that Dolby podcast enhanced to fix it. Yeah. It's got-- gives me more control. They also announced what, new earbuds or Google buzz. Yeah, they're here. What does it go? Pro 2, whatever it is. They're smaller, supposed to sound better. Yeah. A better, well, ANC on mass cancellation. I could say, you know, I've been trying a bunch of lower costs, like $1,100 earbuds, including some bone conduction. Yep. The bone conductions are nice. Yeah. Because it's open here and stuff. It's not that weird feeling like you have water in your ear. Right, right. And also, you know-- You have that problem with the falling out of your ears, right? Well, yeah. I can't wear the Airpods when I'm walking because they fall out. But with the bone conduction, especially, or air conduction, I'm not sure how they actually look. But the bone conduction type device is-- Oh, this is an overhead pass, apparently. It's a pedestrian walk. That's nice. But the bone conduction, not only did they not fall off the ear, they're pretty comfortable. They kind of pinch on my ear. Which one are you going to have? I can't wear one of these. I'm trying to talk to the shocks. All right, Brandon, have you seen part of that? I've seen shocks, yeah. I've seen it, like Sam's. If you go to your best buy, you can try them on. Yeah. They're pretty amazing. I couldn't even tell they were version 8 and a version 9 with a noise cancellation. One uses, like, kind of like a differential and an AI. It had better noise cancelation on the mics, but I couldn't really tell it. The thing I really like about it-- A little more bass, I was about it. Because instead of noise cancelation, it doesn't have real noise cancelation. It's OK. But it doesn't shut you off from the world, and I don't want to cancel the world, because sometimes the world wants to tell me stuff. Yeah, exactly. Like, there's a car that's going to hit you. Well, that's a pretty fancy little rep. Oh, yeah. What do you think they just didn't finish the paint job? No, they did. So we're a couple miles away from Waikiki now, heading to Downtown Honolulu. Have you been here? Have you been here? Yeah, you drove by it on the way back, because we have waited the traffic. No, have you been to Hawaii any too long before? I've been here before. I was a lot younger, and the whole strip was near. Yeah, University of Hawaii is that way, the main campus. University of Hawaii, medical school is right over here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You'd be more interested in your bi-medical engineer, right? Yeah. I took a tour of that. Yeah. But it's important, yeah, Honolulu has changed a lot. Very different. It's a lot emptier now, let me tell you. I mean, we've still got a same number of people, but Downtown-- Yeah, we have a lot of Native Hawaiians that move into our area going to Reno, Las Vegas. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Because they just can't afford it later. Yes. Very true. Very complex, though. Especially a lot of people from Maui as well, too. Yes. That's a year ago. Yes. That's a year ago, like this week. Right. August 8th was the anniversary. That's just that, because I flew out of there, jumped over here a little bit. It's like, saw that. It was just devastating. You see, all the way up and down now, just Smith-Pat's, they've been in, like, the building to try. It is crazy, and all the small, tiny homes they had for these people, they can use them. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah, now let's see. What does it say, right? They can flow to the headquarters directly into it. Well, we'll see. It should be able to find a way. You can just tell them to keep going, so we'll find out about the way you'll get. In its order box, you can write us all the kids. Using Apple Maps so much. Google Maps, totally. So one of the interesting that's going to happen here, not too distant future, is the rail system is finally going to reach downtown. Oh, that's nice. That'll give you so much traffic. Well, how far it's going to go, though? It's going to be, like, the Simpson's Bonnarail, or-- How pretty much it goes. The little one in Seattle that just ended, didn't go anywhere. It goes about 10 miles? Maybe more. It doesn't go at the central wall, or where it really needs to go. Yeah. OK, we're almost there. Well, I'd say they have one that looks like Pearl Harbor. That seems a lot of the tourists come from Pearl Harbor. In Pearl Harbor model, your destination will be on the right. Was it the eight, nine-hour tours? Yeah. These are five. OK, we have reached downtown Honolulu, going to park in a few minutes, and podcast part one. Can you go on? By the way, I'll go getting back to the Google stuff, by the way, I was really disappointed they didn't announce a Pixel 2. What about the watch? It's another round watch. Yeah, I do like round watches. And I've got an awful Fitbit Charge 5 on my wrist right now. And this will be the last fit-- I've had every fit-- not ever. You've had the Fitbits in it. Yeah, me too, when they were the one with the little pill. Little ones that flipped your belt. And they've been great, but this, the last two, that fit the Charge 4 and 5-- well, it's just not reliable. They flake out on me, and they stop sinking, and they stop displaying. And they've taken away features, like the Fitbit Charge 4 had stairs, a number of floors climbed. This 5 doesn't. They took away the community challenge. That was one of the best features. Exactly, right? Slinging it to Strava? No, or no? No, I don't know. Well, I have my Apple watch, so I'm probably going to-- it's a 6, it's an old one. So I might get-- It's a 6, too. I might get a-- what's it carrying? 8 or 9? 9. 9 is the newest one. They took away, depending on what brain you have, has a slash in it from the model number that took out this video, too, sensor, because of the-- Yeah, oops. So there's somebody blind. I don't know why they just don't pay the company in order to serve, because they stole their pet. No, you want to go? Letting you go? All righty. The destination is on the right. The ultimate looks like a good one, too. It looks big and heavy, but it's nice to have, I think. Yeah, so-- But it's a large screen, especially if you're our agent where you need to wear glasses. It's like easy to read. Thank you for including me and your age group. I think I'm a bunch older for you. Is there anyone from 4.0? Because the theory is that it's a common thing. Parting of the lenses, yes. Boy, OK, so I just opened my window if there's an increase in noise. We're in a parking garage. And-- There you go. Just cash on me. Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? What's that? I liked it. I had to check my wall a bit before I went to pick you up, because I wasn't sure. Yeah, so we're in this parking garage. It's a very nice parking garage. Actually, I used to park through my next work for a number of years. But it's interesting-- so we're going to be in a public parking not in a reserve park for ice. But they don't take credit cards. And they have a person. They have an attendant, a human. Human attendant. Yeah, like blood and everything here. Yeah, pretty amazing. You know, that's a call number when a gate doesn't open. Yeah, it's a real-- it's a real-- That's a noise to the good, like, 20% of all the cars here are electric or hybrid. The gas prices, too. It's cheaper in California, but-- Yeah, we have very high gas prices. And the other thing is, we're not in a very big place. So you can reach anywhere-- You can feel up to take gas in a lot of months. I could fit in there, but that has to go to the line. Very, very small. What's straight ahead with the truck? I think that's reserve. Yeah. Let's see what we've got. I'll fight something. I'll fight something. What's that? No. I am old. Is that a handy thing? I feel it is something. Let's see. But one more floor. And I've got other places to try. This one's actually very conveniently located. Come around, kick-truck. Yep. Oh, there we go. That's a fucking just spot. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm going to take that one. It's reasonably-- All righty. OK. We have safely arrived. I should say that after-- There we go. We have safely arrived. Never caught your chickens before they hatch, right? So I'm going to--
