Tech Thursday w/ Marsha Collier & the Status of Uber/Lyft Drivers

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Tech Thursday and we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. And when I say Tech Thursday, that means Marcia Collier joins me in studio. Good evening, Marsha.

Oh mo, it's been so long since I've been here. I swear you've grown a couple of inches. No.

I wish that were true, but it is not true. In fact, in my age, I start to get shorter as my spine gets compacted, as it happens for all of us.

Do you do those stretches, you know, bending over and letting your back roll out.

Yeah. I actually had an inversion table at home. I don't use it as often as I should.

Get it's right.

The blood rushes to my head. It kind of defeats a purpose. But yeah, yeah, I know what that's like. But you know with it, No, I know, Look, my back could be worse than it is. You know, my life could be far worse than it is.

Grateful for everything I am.

And I was telling our health and wellness expert on Wednesday, I would take all my problems throwing into the center and look at everyone else's and take mine back exactly exactly.

The Lord doesn't give you anything you.

Can handle, no, no, but he can give us a lot because sure.

Yeah there's tests here.

But you know, speaking of which, so what would you you want to talk about water?

You said you were a tap water guy.

Yes, I grew up with tap water, and then the world changed with the whole idea of bottle water. The closest thing I got to bottle water in the eighties and nineties actually was the big bottle of water at the water cooler. That was it. I didn't carry around water, but I drank water all the time because my father, That's how I was raised. He didn't let us have soda in the sweetened juice. It was just I just have water.

I just had water.

When I moved to California, I heard of Arrowhead spring water.

What about sparklets?

That different? Erahead is spring water?

No, I'm saying that like the sparkless they had the big bottles.

That right, Remember those beautiful trucks they use. Yes, oh my goodness.

Yeah. And there were some people who had their own little water cooler at home. But you did you did that.

I have had a ceramic where you just put the bottle on top of it's not.

Electric or anything. Because I like room temperature water me too, and I like them.

I've been drinking that spring water since nineteen seventy nine solely unless I go to a restaurant, of course that but I love that water. And unfortunately here there's bottled water, and bottled water.

Makes plastics in the water.

And if we don't have enough to freak out about in today's world, there's the plastics in everything. Every day you seem to go to the internet in there's something. Oh my god, there's plastics in semen, there's plan plastics. There's plastics everywhere. Yeah, it's all over our bodies. Now, I figure we kind of know what our snickel do. What about the plastics? So I went deep and I looked into what about just tapwater? Because everybody I know has a picture at home?

Do you have a filter picture at home?

Yes?

We do.

Okay, we have a filtered picture. We have a refrigerator hooked up to the water with a filter on it.

Okay, right, we got that going by the way. Okay, well that's one of the four. We're going to mention the top four.

But you know.

So I looked and the La Times did a pace, and so I decided to go a little deeper. So I went to this website. Don't ask me what it stands for, EWG dot org slash tapwater. Okay, you go to that website and you put in your zip code.

All right on it.

MO, Well, you know I did, and it brings up my utility tap.

On that all right, because we don't know every utility who delivers water to California. In California, there are almost three thousand different community water systems that serve like forty million people. Yes, so it's a lot of places. Some of it's groundwater, some of it's well, the groundwater, you know, has chemicals such as arsenic that comes from bedrock. Who knew arsenic came from bedrock? And then we have the

And when I went to that page and I scrolled down.

On my DWP, it says thirty total contaminants, nine exceed ewg's health guidelines. Scroll further, it says what to do. We can filter contaminants out, contact your local officials.

It didn't tell you if you do it on a tablet.

Ok, you're on a mobile device.

You're on a phone with a small screen. But if you do it on a tablet or on a computer, it will tell you exactly. And I don't have my phone in my hands. Strangely, you know, there there's arsenic, there is chromium. There are all of these things in our water, which we're not sure now that the government says it's acceptable levels.

Yeah, I just remember Flat Michigan, right right, Jackson, Mississippi.

But I'm sorry, no, but this is the point, you know, Los Angeles Aqueduct. Think about it that four million people in Los Angeles are served by the DWP.

Let me ask you this to the best your knowledge, and I know you're making a generalization. Are these contaminants things which are being put in the water or is it a function of pipes or something else?

Well, okay, funny you mentioned that.

Like I said, the hexsavanian chromium comes from rocks and things under the I'm just gonna happen.

There's even uranium.

It's naturally occurring.

You're going to see uranium also when you look at that on a laptop. It's naturally occurring. But then also it goes through the pipes of your house. How old are the pipes.

In your How leaded are they?

How leaded are they?

Yeah, and how leaded are the pipes coming from the main, the water main to your house that you have no control over.

Right, you have control over the pipes in your house, maybe your housing development, but not two blocks away coming in.

Yeah, so scary period.

If you're obsessive and you have nerd time, you can go to home depot and get little test strips. Costs about fifteen bucks to test your water and see what kind of poison you have. You can filter it the way mo does. I filter in my refrigerator also, but I like to have a picture in the house, like when I get home, if there's any water left in this bottle of plastic water, I will pour it into the top of mine. So I wanted to tell everybody

We've had.

There's a brand called Pure Pure, yes that I didn't know familiar to that one. And I'm in earthquake mode all the time. And I have a thing called a life straw, which, oh you don't know if for me, your boy scout, you'd know about it. If you're out in the wilderness, there's a thing called a life straw. You can put it in a nasty looking thing of water. It filters out everything and makes water safe to drink.

No, I'm not familiar with that. I was four aged, not boy scouts.

Okay, I bought after the earthquake. We have life straw and I got this big pool got its. It filters out the chlorine, it filters out the bacteria. It's amazing and it's a straw. But now the number one best and when I researched them, is made by life water, which is excuse me, and life straw, and it's absolutely amazing they make Now everybody makes them in plastic, which makes me a little nervous because it's.

Just your purpose. Yeah, you're trading one for the other.

Not BPA. I get it, but I don't know what that means. But pure not pure. Life Straw also makes one in borosilicate glass.

What's that pyrex pyrax?

Oh?

Okay, except it's a lot thinner than pyrex. Pyrex you always know is thick because boris silicate glass breaks reel easily. But they have a lovely silicone base to it, so you can set it down on something. And so whatever your choice is, whatever you go to that website, and whatever you're worried about, go to the website of either Brita Zero Water, Pure or Life Straw and see if what you're freaked about is gonna be filtered out.

And let's not forget ewg dot org forward slash tapwater.

Tapwater and do your tapwater too.

And the reason I picked that LifeStraw one is because it filters out micro micro plastics, not the macro.

Oh the macro is easy. It's the micro you have to worry about.

So when we come back, can you scare us some more with the concerns about credit card skimmers.

I didn't want to scare anybody.

I just want to tell you, like you should maybe you know, think about which water filtered cats.

Everything's trying to kill us. It's Later with mo Kelly. I'm joined in the studio by Marshall Callier on this Tech Thursday.

You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six.

Forty Tech Thursday with Marsha Callier. Now, Marshall, you also have some other really important recommendations and warnings as it comes as it relates to credit card skimmers. We know about it, we hear some of the horror stories, but what are some of the things that we really need to be mindful of.

Okay, this is positive. This is good stuff for you. When you look like gas stations, they creep me out really bad. At least maybe an ATM you go to, the one at the bank might be a little safer. I'm never going to one in a seven eleven.

Take you, thank you.

Not going to happen.

So when you get to a place and you're looking for a skimmer, For those who don't know, a skimmer is something that has been inserted into where you put your card to get your money and to read the information, and this is put by someone other than the bank, and then the information is sent to the get bad guys in the short long story short. So what you need to do to protect yourself? First of all, look around. If there's more than one credit card reader in the

Does that?

Okay, that tape just creeps me out. I don't know why it's there, but I don't.

Know anything which would seem unusual.

Right, and now they all look unusual. Now there's mo you were telling me you do this, and my husband does it. Try to remove it, like, grab it, give it a good tug. If it comes out in your hand, it's probably a skimmer, because those machines are really built.

And this is something I got to interrupt you there because I was told, hey, don't use your ATM or credit card at the pump, use it inside. But many times the credit card skimmer is inside.

Yep, it is.

And also take your fingernail, put it under the keypad and try and lift that mm.

I mean, this is insane. Look for residue.

If you see maybe a little glop of glue or a little something weird around the slot.

Anything that would live to the ordinary that has been jimmied in any way.

Right, um, and again, check the tape. I don't know what the tape is. I see it the tape.

It hasn't been cut, so I figured that means it's okay. I still don't get the tape. Look inside if you can, you know, shine a light. I have a little tiny flashlight and my purse men carry them in their pockets.

Shine a light into it. See if you see something dangling around in there.

You never know, right, Just be aware look around you when you're going to do this is a financial transaction with your bank.

Be aware. Be aware who's around you.

Be aware if there are cameras around you, maybe.

A can, right, maybe a camera that doesn't belong.

Cover the keypad with your hand boo boo boo, and press.

The buttons underneath.

And if possible, at all times, go contactless. And that means tapping your card with that little boat. Yes, that's the safest way. But I wanted to finish up real quick because I wanted to talk to you at the Olympics, because I so love the Olympics. Okay, okay, it has a tech theme here or it does. Yes, opening ceremonies in Los Angeles tomorrow are at four thirty pm.

Not you mean time to air.

Okay, they air LA for thirty pm.

And I love it because all the countries come out, they have their uniforms, they're all proud, they're waving the flags. It's just makes my heart feel good. Well, this year making it different. I was told instead of walking into a building, they're going to be on the sand River in Paris.

That's going to be cool.

And each country is going to have a boat or a couple of boats, but you know those sand river boats, so just perfect. They're going to have their flags, they're going to wear their uniforms, and Samsung has put Samsung phones for their cameras on the different boats so that the players and the athletes can also take a part in the opening ceremonies by saying something or pointing pictures at certain things as they go by. So it'll make it a much better I think multimedia performance.

See that was always my question. There was a news report that Mark Runner did earlier about the waning television that's just say viewership of the Olympics, and a lot of this is all tied together. You have to give the younger generation a reason to tune in. Exactly, the Olympics for us is our generation is not these folks generation, and you have you can't present it the same way as they did in nineteen eighty four, nineteen eighty.

Eight, right right.

It's a new world. So I think that's why they're getting all the celebrities involved. I mean, Flavor flav is going to be at the Olympics.

Snoop, I love Snoop. I'm just sorry.

He's hilarious to me and Flavor flav is, please.

And hear what the shot put in flav a five.

You know, this is going to be kind of interesting, but it's going to be something to watch and it's going to hopefully amuse as well as educate everybody to these sports.

And you can pull out your Olympic Barbie.

I gotta say, I am tickled that you know who Flavor flav is. I am really tickled.

I love him. How many clocks does.

He have a bunch that goes back to when he was a part of Public Enemy and that was part of his his get up. He's worn at for at least forty years that I know of.

I mean, it's amazing.

I think I met him once in an airport and I didn't walk up to him or anything, but I saw a guy with a clock.

You know, he's kind of recognizable and identifiable. Ye, he was.

I saw Sammy Davis Junior in an airport. Wants to very man wore more jewelry. He couldn't hold his head up.

He's a tiny man, wasn't he.

He was really really five foot uh huh, five foot one, five foot two. But he was very old when I saw him. He was at Burbank Airport, and he had so much goal jewelry. I'm surprised he could stand.

It was a different time, you know, people wore jewelry, they wore gold back what you could. That's true, you could again a different time.

Yeah, not afraid of having your arm chopped off for your watch, which you know. We live in a strange time. And I really don't like wearing a fitbit. You know, I want to wear a watch. I want to wear a pretty piece of jewelry.

Yeah. I don't wear any jewelry in part for that reason. I just don't. I don't live in a way that suggests, oh, he might be a good target.

Yeah, and that's sad.

You know.

I don't even use my good purses anymore either, do Why?

And you looked so good in them?

Oh, I had a burk in bag. It was to die for.

I'm sweetie, I love it.

But now it's Louis No Mo, it's great to be here this week. Thank you so much. I promise to try and come up with a happier story next.

We just talk about the news that's in front of us. That's all we can do. Tech we love and we'll do it again next week.

Bye bye, everybody. See you next week.

It's Later with Mo Kelly. I Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Hey, Mark Ronner, I know you're busy it, but I need to interrupt you. First. You didn't say thank you like you were supposed to earlier for the Shia. Well, no, no, thank you for the pizza. I'm enjoying it right now. I'm not eating pizza tonight. Know what I am, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. Okay, let me take you behind the scenes. Usually we'll get food on a Friday, but we're doing it on a Thursday. And I say, if you want food, you decide, I'll

You really need to start taking better care of yourself. Yes, he said this with a mouthful pizza that I am.

And I literally walked by Air Mix, which is the studio next to the main studio that Stephan and Lindsay are in, and I said, have you guys finished the pizza because I need you to hurry up and finish it so I will not be uh drawn to it. You know, I have been very good with my and I don't want to call it a diet. I would want to. I want to say it's a life change. It's been low calorie, low sodium, low sugar, low cholesterol, low taste, low enjoyment.

That's basically what it's been. If you don't want to be pear shaped anymore, you got to have the willpower. Well, not only not do I not want to be pear shaped?

I got to just make sure my numbers are in a better place when I do see my doctor. Yeah, let's watch those numbers. Yeah yeah, think you know your time is coming. Okay, but yes, that's as you guys much on pizza. I'm trying not to think about it. But the reason I did call you on the mic is I know you're a quasi sports fan to a certain degree. You had an interest in sports as an athlete.

Well, but in the unpopular ones like did you ever see the Breakfast Club?

Of course?

Okay, so I'm the guy who had to explain I wore the required singless.

Singless Yes, yeah, unless you understand anything about wrestling, you have no idea what a singlet is, and you're fur the better for it. You know, that was a sport which is really big at my high school, but I never had any desire to get into. I think it kept me out of prison. It's a hell of an outlet. It's good. Oh that was your release, one of it? Well, that in martial arts. Yeah, did you ever consider any other sports? There's a reason for this. I'm not sure

Long distance. I did the mile, I did the four hundred, I did the three hundred meters low hurdles.

Now, see, I didn't know that. I'm still learning new things about you. I thought you would have been more into like pole vault or shot put.

You're gonna make something dirty out of those. No, I feel like you're going No, you make it weird. I'm just making an observation. Okay, No, No, I was a halfway decent runner. It wasn't anywhere near the best.

But some No, I did not know that you did sprints and long in distance. Yeah, both completely different skills. The only reason I asked that is because this LA, for the most part, is the sports town. Dodgers lifelong fan Clayton Kershaw came back tonight from one understand, and the Dodgers did beat the Giants. They won like seven out of the last eight games, And I was wondering, do you follow baseball at all? No?

I just see the headlines. And when most sports headlines come across the wire and they're important enough for me to report, I just report them like I'm I'm reading a foreign language phonetically, so I don't.

Mess it up. It doesn't mean anything to you at all, not so much. Okay, growing up, did it matter at all what the Mariners did or the Seahawks or anything. I mean, you go to a game.

I used to really enjoy going to games at Wrigley Field in Chicago because a Chicago has the best drunks on earth. They're fun drunks. They're not particularly violent drunks. And Wrigley Field is just a beautiful facility. But it could be anybody playing, you know. It's like an onion headline. You know, regional area man supports regional team.

You know. I would like to go to Wrigley Field. That's one of the few ballparks of the old bar ballparks which is still around that I haven't been able to get to. I've never been to Boston, so then I've never been to Finway Park. Camden Yards is a great ballpark in Baltimore, great especially.

For the Baltimore but not there. I went to a great like old Art Deco movie theater with a crying room for kids in baltim More. Every theater should have one of those.

Yeah, but I'd like to when I usually go to a new city, I try to get a sports piece of paraphernalia, could be a jersey or something T shirt from one of the home teams, and add to my collection whenever I go to a different city. So how much stuff you got? A lot? A lot of it. I don't even wear anymore because my whole wardrobe has changed and I don't have enough reasons to wear all that stuff. Like I have a Saint Louis Ozzie Smith jersey. When am I gonna wear that in a Dodger Town?

I love it when sports people talk crap to each other and get up in it, Like when you and tuala argue about any sporting event whatsoever. It tickles me to death because it's like, you don't understand that. You sound like Charlie Brown's teachers. To people who were used to being marginalized for being nerds and arguing about like movies and comics and superheroes and stuff. You sound the same way. I was a nerd, I was a band geek.

I was marginalized, but I still liked sports talking about professional sports. I agree with.

That, and I think if you and I had known each other when we were kids, we would have been just inseparable nerds because we like all the same stuff. You have the sports angle covered, and I absolutely do not.

I think it was more a function of my dad, because he was the one who introduced me to the Lakers. He introduced me to the Dodgers. He was the one who told me how football works, what four downs was. He took me to Hollywood Park and sent a Nita and explain to me how to read a racing form. So anything that sports related came from him.

Yeah, bonding with your dad over sports has to be one of the best things in the world. And I grew up without a dad. My Grandpa admonished me and despised me for not getting into basketball like he maybe saw like one wrestling match of mine. So I am deeply envious that you had that with your dad. Do you remember what a weight class you wrestled in? One fifty eight and one sixty eight?

How many years ago was that the last time you saw one fifty eight or one sixty eight? None of your damn disess.

No, it's funny.

When I graduated high school, I remember I weighed one hundred and thirty three pounds, A one hundred and thirty three, Well, one of your legs. One hundred and thirty three pounds, totally okay. And I gained fifteen pounds my freshman year in college, the freshman fifteen, Well that happens, It really happened, and I weighed a robust one forty eight.

Now we got the pandemic twenty two that I'm still trying to do.

Look, I will never see one forty eight again in my life unless I'm on my deathbed getting ready to lead up out of here. There's no way I'll ever get down to one forty eight, not without an amputation. And even then, you know that I'm not going to lose. I'm one seventy five right now, right now, one seventy five.

No, it feels great to just settle, just settle like an old person. Yeah, oh yeah, those might as well throw those pants away again. No.

I went through a whole period of that. I had all these clothes in my closet from years ago. Whatever. It's like, you know that doesn't fit right. Yeah, but on the get there one day, you know that doesn't fit right, and it's out of style, and it doesn't fit right, go ahead and throw it away. So I've been doing a lot of spring and summer cleaning, just kind of owning up to certain things I don't need to wear again, certain things I won't wear again, and I'll and what got me on this kick, This is

Wow.

Yeah, I'm hopefully by this cruise. When I get on with Twala, I'll have some shirtsaft photos just one last time. Oh no, don't do that. We don't need that. I don't need that when we come back. When I talk about Uber Lyft and Stefan whether any of this matters to him as a I don't know, former president Uber driver. Which is it seven in between right now? Okay, that's what I thought.

You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on Demand from KFI AM six forty.

California Supreme Court today upheld a voter approved law that allows Uber and other app makers to treat their drivers and delivery workers as independent contractors instead of employees. And you may remember here in the state. The decision on Proposition twenty two was just about unanimous, approved by fifty eight percent of California voters back in twenty twenty and

I mean, nothing's really changed for the most part, because what they've really done is just add what they call quest bonuses, And if you do a certain amount of trips, you get a bonus on top of what you make. So if you make let's say, two hundred dollars in any given week and you did thirty trips, they might throw an extra one hundred dollars or fifty dollars, depending

If someone was out of work, someone who had no employment but they have a reliable car, and if they were willing to drive let's say ten eleven hours a day, it's best you could guesstimate how much money could they conceivably be making a.

Week if they Because mine was Monday through Saturday, I always took Sunday off, and depending on if there's a holiday or not. But average, I would say I made somewhere around between one thoy thirteen hundred a week. I because I did most, I did a lot of hours, and plus Friday and Saturday nights, I stay out really late.

Okay, so let's just say if you lose your drop job and you're willing to commit to uber, you could bring home gross at least four thousand a month, yeah, give or take. Yeah, And of course I know there's cost of gas, there's a cost of maintenance. But you could survive, yeah, in.

Most instances, especially because if you have a really fueled like it was a good car and gas, like a Prius or just a four door sedan that'll go far and doing it, especially because if you're waiting around for trips, you don't have to worry about shutting the engine off all the time.

Stuff like that. How many miles did you drive on an average day?

Monday through Thursday was about a one hundred and fifty, and then Fridays and Saturdays was like three to three fifty.

Okay, so if you had the electric vehicle, conceivably you could do it. Oh yeah, you could do it.

The only thing that held me back from that was it's especially on Fridays and Saturdays. I've worked so long that I'd have to stop to get gas halfway through. So if you'd have an electric cart, it takes longer to charge it. Right, just filling up quick in ten minutes and you're off.

So let me just ask you this, given this story that y'all are going to remain as independent contractors instead of employees plus or minus, is that good or not so good? I would think it's better for drivers. Oh yeah, it's one hundred percent better. They they kind of try to brainwash some of those people into thinking that it should be hourly pay, But people don't realize they're gonna cut half of the workforce there. You're not gonna be able to work when you want.

You're gonna have caps, you're gonna have a schedule, and that defeats the purpose there you have it.

Yeah, it's later with Mo Keller k if I AM six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

We go through all the thing's going on so that we can tell you just that you need to know.

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