2×64: Nobrac

02/06/20 • 56 min

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which is discussed the prodigal’s opinions of what we got up to while he was prodigaling, the Wurzels get a second look-in, and:

ul>

[00:01:40] People who have fled Wuhan, site of the largest outbreak of coronavirus, are reputedly being “digitally” quarantined; cut off from WeChat, which renders them unable to pay for rather a lot of things such as hotels, petrol, and so on, and the Chinese computerised ID system. Relatedly, Uber in Australia are suspending drivers and passengers as risk of spreading the virus. Is this sort of “digital quarantine” an acceptable response to contagious medical crises? We have some surprisingly nuanced and undecided thoughts on the matter

[00:24:04] Microsoft have pledged to be carbon negative by 2030, meaning that they remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they create, to the point where by 2050 they’ve removed more carbon than the company have ever put into the atmosphere. Is this… plausible? Is it a good idea? Will others follow where MS lead? And do we believe them?

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!

https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×64-nobrac/12330

ul>

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!

https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×64-nobrac/12330

Previous Episode

2×63: Give You The Key

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which the nature of purchasing goods is discussed.

There seem to have recently been various examples of companies selling a thing and then exerting control over it after they’ve sold it. Sonos speakers have “recycle mode”, HP printer cartridges in their “Instant Ink” programme stop working if you unsubscribe, and farmers buy 30-year-old tractors rather than new ones because they’re still fixable in the field. But are these actually examples of a trend for the worse, or is this not actually the problem that it’s being painted as? Is this just how capitalism works, and is this how we want it to work? We’ll dive into this, from a few different perspectives, and see where we end up…

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!

https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×63-give-you-the-key/12326

Next Episode

2×65: Email Avengers Assemble

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are all waaaaay more invested in email than certain companies would like us to be, and:

In this episode we discuss Superhuman, a new email app. Jono, the email power user’s email power user, has been getting to grips with it and is frankly a bit of a fan. Jeremy and Stuart are perhaps a bit more sceptical of some of the claims that it makes. So, we drill down into it; what does it do, how does it work, who needs it... and what does this mean for the development of design-led apps as a whole? Is this a move in a good direction? All the people trying to claim that email is dead so you use their proprietary system instead... are they wrong? Is this the way to prove that? And why didn’t Gmail do it already?

Come chat with us and the community in our Slack channel via https://badvoltage-slack.herokuapp.com/!

https://community.badvoltage.org/t/2×65-email-avengers-assemble/12332