Episode 850

Dick's Model 604-C
Dick's version of the Altec Lansing Model 604 Duplex Speakers is the 604-C.  At the time of writing, there is one available on eBay.  For pictures of some Voice of the Theatre models, see Episode 137.

More about the Gadget Warehouse
Dick's Gadget Warehouse is a 10' x 10' x 10' room, complete with floor to ceiling shelves, with no windows and no doors (well, there must be one door), at Sofia Bros Storage Center, 475 Amsterdam Avenue, New York.  You can see some pictures of the warehouse taken by Leo when he visited it back in Episode 246.  For a look inside the building, see Sofia Bros' video:

Keeping One's Sanity
Chris Lind Hodson, from Richland, Washington, started working last August as a high school graduate.  Listening to the Daily Giz Wiz and other TWiT shows helps keep his sanity and dignity, as he stacked pop bottles and juices in the cooler of 7-Eleven and filled oxygen tanks in a different business location.  If Dick and Leo should one day hear about an explosion relating to oxygen, it might have been Chris.  Fatalistic thoughts, but understandable when you know where Chris lives.  Richland, Washington is sandwiched between the US Army's Umatilla Chemical Depot to its south and the Hanford Works to its north, home of the atomic bomb in World War II.

Episode 849

Altec Lansing iM237/Orbit MP3 Speaker



Companion Drug and Endless Disclaimers
Dick and Leo are baffled by some TV ads, including one (called Abilify, thanks to DrMom, the chatroom's resident doctor) which is a companion drug to the anti-depressant drugs you are already taking, and those ads with endless disclaimers that spill over to the next ad.

New Home Office for TWiT
G' Day from over-the-road truck driver Kevin Cameron-Parks, an Aussie who has lived in the States for 11 years who has a Swedish wife who does not speak English with Leo's Swedish accent. He heard that Leo is looking for a place for the TWiT Home Office, and he is more than happy to offer his humble abode at Gassville, Arkansas to Leo.

Read about all the other suggestions at Answer Giz Wiz Questions.

Episode 848

Chowing Down
Dick and Leo reminisce about the joys and horrors of faux Chinese food in stacked cans (like chow mein), Hungry Man's TV Dinners, and talk about the Chungking and Swanson brands.

Hazardous Wastes
Rod Miller from California writes in about hazardous wastes, and he's not talking the Daily Giz Wiz podcasts.  Back in Episode 819, Dick talked in the Letters Section about scrapping a GE microwave oven with a misbehaving door.  In California, used electronics are considered hazardous wastes which cannot be disposed of in the regular trash streams.  He recommends, for Californians, erecycle.org that he works for, with which you can make an appointment (3 days a week) for disposing of your e-waste.

Cellphones for Troops
Dick and Leo talk more about recycling, including batteries, underwear, cellphones and their own podcasts.  Joking aside, there is a programme called Cellphones for Soldiers, which helps overseas soldiers call home.

Episode 847

VX Nano Mouse Reprise
Right at the beginning of the show, Leo asks Dick if Dick has done the Logitech VX Nano before.  Dick doesn't think so, and the chatroom, who have already dozed off at the sound of another TTTT, do not demur. Leo has been prompted by Steve Gibson's recent recommendation of this mouse in Security Now! Episode 197 to cover it on TTTT.  So, on Leo goes.  Then Dick reveals that he is already using that mouse.

A quick search over at Ludwik's GizWizSearch would have revealed that Dick did actually cover this gadget, in Episode 523.  What's funnier is, Leo himself was half way into his introduction of this mouse in Episode 522, but when he found out that it was going to be one of Dick's gadgets for the week, he switched to the Tom Bihn Western Flyer instead.  It has to be fate, that the VX Nano should appear on the show 3 times.  It is a neat little mouse, and worth a reprise.  Listen to excerpts of the 2 earlier episodes.

What takes Steve Gibson's fancy, and Leo's, is VX Nano's very fast scrolling ability (particularly useful for long web pages and verbose posts, like the insideDGW blog).  "Zero-friction", is how Steve describes it.

Gadget Encores
With the sheer number of gadgets covered in the Daily Giz Wiz, it is a wonder that gadgets have not been repeated more often.  The only other gadgets which have been featured twice were the HydraBrush in Episodes 226 and 480 (which Dick was aware of), and a Gadget Warehouse resident, the Motorola add-on MP3 player for cellphones (Episodes 380 and 630).

iTunes Misbehaving
Mike Gigabyte has found that the Daily Giz Wiz, apart from being in the Podcast category, has now crept into the iTunes Music folder, so that it gets shuffled and played at random along with the rest of his music.  And "What is wrong with that, my friend?" one may ask.  But Mike asks if Leo has put the wrong tag on the downloads.  Leo doesn't think so, but can't really figure out why this is suddenly happening.  Either it's because of all the jingles, or iTunes thinks that the Giz Wiz Got Talent.

Episode 846

Missing 499
Curt Estridge, whose letter was referred to in Episode 841, listens to the Daily Giz Wiz at work with one earbud, leaving half an ear for his boss.  Curt does listen to a stereo podcast which it is OK to listen to with only one ear, and that's "Says You", also available on Audible.  Curt loves the Daily Giz Wiz, and all the MAD Magazines he's won from the WTHII game.  He hasn't missed a MAD issue, except Issue 499 which he couldn't find anywhere.  Dick invites Curt to send him an email to sort that out.

Leo doesn't beg
Leo is looking for cycling accessories to deck out his Terratrike, including the cyclocomputer-GPS Garmin Edge 705.  Leo will not beg for it from Garmin, but Dick might.  Dick's got Plantronics to send Leo a Voyager Pro (Episode 829) for him to review.  Dick and Leo are of course joshing about it, but little do they know that 2 weeks after recording the show in advance, this issue is going to come up in a very public way.

Pre-View Unit Controversy
Right now, it's not a good time to joke with Leo about review units, or talk to him about them, as yesterday, Leo, ever the nice guy, threw an uncharacteristic fit on TWiTLive during the Gillmor Gang show, over his being one of a select group of tech journalists who had been given a review unit of the Palm Pre.   Read a summary of it on John C Dvorak's blog, which also has a clip of the video that contains strong language from Leo in reaction to comments from Mike Arrington.

Anyone who has listened to Leo for any length of time knows how meticulous Leo tries to be in returning review units, and how many gadgets he's had to buy for himself, to avoid even the appearance of a possibility of conflict of interest, even though it is fairly common for journalists to keep some review units - in which case the reviewer needs to prove his credibility in the long term, and many journalists have succeeded in doing so.  But it is against this background that Leo's reaction and use of language must be understood.   It must have been extremely galling for Leo, who has spent so many years building up a reputation of integrity and a relationship of trust with his audience, to find himself at the wrong end of a suggestion of a possible lack of independence, by another tech journalist as experienced and knowledgeable as Arrington, just because Leo got a review unit.

Arrington has put his side of the story on TechCrunch.  In the midst of the explanations and justifications in that blog post, Arrington has made an apology.  Leo in response has also made an apology in the comments section.  Read it all for yourself.