Summary
Chris is cast as a problematic patient in a mock medical exam, while Sam’s on top of the latest scams and wild world news—think painted squirrels, shootouts, and Netflix docos in the making.
We hear about Elon Musk’s eye-watering trillion-dollar pay proposal, the quirks of world record chasers, and a new AI-powered Coke machine that’s got wondering how it could be scammed.
There’s talk of unwanted pets at Danish zoos, atmospheric pollution vans, and all sorts of weird and wonderful updates from tech and life.
All this and much more in this week’s episode!
Links
Tom Phillips saga came to an end
New scam happening in NZ that is low effort
Department of War
Denmark Zoo wants your old animals
Elon’s potential payrise
Painted squirrels
Mobile Emissions Van
Show Transcript
This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you have questions about any of the information found here, please reach out to us.
Sam [00:00:21]:
Hello and welcome to episode 548 of the Christmas Sam podcast.
Chris [00:00:26]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:00:26]:
And I’m Sam. Welcome along to your weekly fix of random technology and life, brought to you.
Chris [00:00:31]:
By two really, really busy people who are tired.
Sam [00:00:34]:
I was going to say tired people, but you got there.
Chris [00:00:37]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it has been a pretty flat out week. I’ve done some late night bits and pieces.
Sam [00:00:45]:
No one cares about that. Let’s talk about the other thing, your weird acting thing.
Chris [00:00:49]:
Oh, yesterday’s acting.
Sam [00:00:50]:
Whatever. That was medical acting.
Chris [00:00:52]:
All right?
Sam [00:00:53]:
We talked about it last week. You sent me a message and you haven’t mentioned anything since.
Chris [00:00:57]:
Yeah, okay. That was actually what I was going to say was so cool. Yeah. So I was acting yesterday. I got paid to act as a patient in mock medical exams.
Sam [00:01:09]:
Yeah. And we sort of didn’t 100% understand what that meant.
Chris [00:01:13]:
No, I didn’t. I turned up pretty. Oh, no. I had a phone call with the woman from the agency the night before who gave me a bit more of an explanation.
Sam [00:01:21]:
Okay.
Chris [00:01:22]:
But yeah, I still turned up going, what is going. Going on here? So it was at the Cleveland showgrounds, and they had a lot of little rooms that we were in, like, meeting rooms. So the doctors have this exam at the end of the year, and this is as close to the exam as they.
Sam [00:01:39]:
It’s like a mock exam.
Chris [00:01:40]:
Yeah, exactly.
Sam [00:01:41]:
Okay, Right. So hang on, hang on. For the real exam, do they bring in pro actors?
Chris [00:01:45]:
Yes, but the pro actors are a lot better prepped than I was.
Sam [00:01:49]:
No. Yeah, I know that’s not proactive.
Chris [00:01:53]:
What are you talking about?
Sam [00:01:54]:
No, like, yeah, they bring in, like, real dude.
Chris [00:01:57]:
I. I memorize this background. I had pages of background. Yeah, nobody asked my date of birth. I knew my date of birth was 28th and 4th, 1959, because I’m 66 years old. My name’s Ian McLeod and I have a wife, Kate. We’ve been married for 32 years. I have three sons, two married with kids, but one that lives nearby and works with me.
Chris [00:02:20]:
Jimmy, he’s 19, he’s pain in the butt, and I run a fishmongers in town here.
Sam [00:02:25]:
Of course you do.
Chris [00:02:26]:
Of course, a fish market in Hamilton makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Sam [00:02:31]:
So does that mean they could have done better?
Chris [00:02:33]:
Oh, no, it was good.
Sam [00:02:35]:
So if they didn’t ask you certain.
Chris [00:02:36]:
Things, I. I don’t know if. Oh, like a lot of that background probably doesn’t matter. Knowing it makes a difference when you’re acting. You know what I mean?
Sam [00:02:45]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:02:46]:
So anyway, that was cool. So what happens is they had 14 rooms, 14 of these stations, they called them. Right. So 14 actors. Each station had an actor and an examiner.
Sam [00:03:00]:
Okay.
Chris [00:03:00]:
And then there was a roving supervisor, examiner that popped into different rooms and sat there as well. And then there was groups of three or four, actually. Yeah, three or four. Two or three. I should say two or three doctors. So these are. I think they’re graduate doctors, but they’re not GP registered yet. So they’re registrars or something like that.
Chris [00:03:24]:
Okay, yeah, yeah. But the. This is for the GP exam, so I. I think they’re qualified doctors anyway. Yeah, okay.
Sam [00:03:30]:
Qualified, yeah, that’s it. Okay, we’ll go with that.
Chris [00:03:32]:
And so they’d come in and one would be the. So the bell would ring. So this whole thing’s done by bells. The bell would ring, the two. Two or two. One or two observers would come in.
Sam [00:03:46]:
Yeah. So their group.
Chris [00:03:48]:
Only one’s doing it. So two would sit there and observe the whole thing and they’d give some feedback, but also that learning as well.
Sam [00:03:54]:
Oh, okay, okay.
Chris [00:03:56]:
And then the. That first bell, the guy who’s doing it is outside, and they’ve got the patient’s notes. They’ve got five minutes to read the patient’s notes and.
Sam [00:04:06]:
Which is probably.
Chris [00:04:07]:
Which is realistic to some degree. And then they. The bell rings again, they walk in. So the bell’s for everybody.
Sam [00:04:16]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:04:16]:
The bell rings again, they walk in, the examiner Sundays, you have 14 minutes to do the consultation. You can take notes, There will be no time notifications, and you can ask for the examination on.
Sam [00:04:35]:
They don’t have a computer with them or anything?
Chris [00:04:36]:
No. They come in, they got notes, so they sit down, they’ve got these patient notes which they’ve already sort of gone through, but they’ve got them in the hand. I’m sitting there and they go, oh, hi, you know, I’m Dr. Blah, blah, blah. And they introduce themselves and I. And they have 14 minutes.
Sam [00:04:53]:
Yeah, yeah. Because. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Chris [00:04:55]:
So they ask a few questions, they get lie of the land, and then they go, oh, are you okay for an examination? I’m like, yep, sure. And then they hand it, hold the hand out, and the guy gives them the examination results so they don’t have to examine me. And he goes, oh, yeah, your blood pressure’s a bit high. We’ve listened to your heart and it’s good. You know, all that sort of Waffle.
Sam [00:05:14]:
And is that different for different people?
Chris [00:05:17]:
It’ll be different from all sorts of people. So Mary, who got me involved, we were talking about, oh, what’s your case? And she was like, yeah, I’ve got heavy periods.
Sam [00:05:28]:
Okay.
Chris [00:05:29]:
And mine, I really was a red herring, I think. So I’m a stressed, so I go in. I’ll show you later. I’ve got the props in the other room. I went in. I’m on all these pills.
Sam [00:05:41]:
Yeah, yeah.
Chris [00:05:42]:
Because of a hot. High blood pressure, so a bit of a heart thing going on. And I’ve got asthma. And I got reflux. I said reflux. So I got pills for all of these things. And I’m having trouble sleeping, so I’m really keen of my Zoppoclones. I was just like, I need my Zoppies.
Chris [00:06:01]:
And so I basically said, oh, what are you in for today? Well, I just want these. These renewed. And I wrote them all out because I could not say them, let alone memorize all that. And I’m like, my wife gave me this. She wrote it out because she’s organized. No, I’m not.
Sam [00:06:17]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:06:18]:
And then. And then we go through this whole thing. But the problem was with mine, I don’t know what everybody else’s was like, but I get the idea that they had had one specific thing. They had to figure it out what it was and diagnose it. Mine. There was all these different things that could be. And they’re just going. And at the end, they go, okay.
Chris [00:06:37]:
And time’s up. Oh, Bellwood ring. Time’s up. That’s it. You must now go directly to the next station for the next exam. And they read that out, which is what happens in the real one. And then they go, but not today, because we’re doing a mock exam. You have.
Chris [00:06:50]:
We’ve got five minutes for feedback. And so that examiner would then give them feedback. You sort of missed this. You did this. And all of the ones in my station were like. Like, what were we doing? Like, there were too many things. And he’s like, yep. And that’s the whole point of this one, is that there’s so many things to follow up on.
Chris [00:07:09]:
You’ve got to follow up and show that you can do it and all the rest of it. Anyway, it was a fun day. I did about nine, 10 doctors, I think. Nine or 10. And it took a good period of time. Yeah, it was fun.
Sam [00:07:22]:
So they have a problematic patient. Of course, they gotta wheel you in.
Chris [00:07:25]:
Oh.
Sam [00:07:26]:
Just to play the part.
Chris [00:07:27]:
So, Mary, when you Looked at this character and said, you know, do you know any overweight 66 year olds? You went, Chris, straight to it.
Sam [00:07:37]:
Perfect. Expert casting. So do you know how often they run these?
Chris [00:07:45]:
I don’t know, but apparently they’re always looking for people to help out with them. So I said, oh, yeah, I’ll be interested again. So, yeah, excellent.
Sam [00:07:54]:
It’s one of those. Add it to your list of rando jobs that you’ve done.
Chris [00:07:59]:
Yeah. No, and pay pretty girl too. Yeah.
Sam [00:08:03]:
This week, the Tom Phillips saga came to an end.
Chris [00:08:05]:
Yeah. I haven’t been following it. Like, obviously I knew what was going on roughly, but I didn’t. Somebody told me about it yesterday and was like, oh, whoa.
Sam [00:08:16]:
Yeah, yeah. So the man that disappeared by himself first.
Chris [00:08:20]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:08:21]:
And they thought he’d washed away to sea. Then they found him and then he ran off with his kids into the bush. Three of them for the last four years.
Chris [00:08:29]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:08:30]:
Been doing a bunch of robberies, God knows what else, and then basically had a shootout with the police. Yeah. But it was the local cops that sort of knew something was happening. They laid spikes down on a road they thought he was gonna drive because they don’t normally spike motorbikes. He was on a quad bike. Right, right. So he went over that. They released the transcript of the police comms today.
Sam [00:08:53]:
And yeah, he, the cop was basically following with no lights on. And then he goes, oh, he’s right there, he’s seen me. And then the other cops came up and said, shots fired. And then they’re like, that officer’s been hit.
Chris [00:09:04]:
Yeah. So was the officer killed?
Sam [00:09:06]:
No, Very, very lucky. High powered rifle, short range shot in the shoulder. And I don’t know if it ricocheted off there or. He did get shot, but something to do with the eye or face. So he’s already had multiple surgeries, I think.
Chris [00:09:19]:
Well, if it went through the windscreen, it might have been. Was he still in the car when he got shot?
Sam [00:09:24]:
Not 100% sure. The car did get shot up, but I don’t know.
Chris [00:09:28]:
Yeah, no, I don’t know. I don’t know.
Sam [00:09:29]:
So that’s happening. If you think he is. If you think he did the right thing and you’re against the police, you probably shouldn’t listen to this podcast because. Yeah, he’s just a terrible human being, Tom Phillips.
Chris [00:09:44]:
Yeah, he should. He deserved to die. Okay.
Sam [00:09:48]:
It was always going to end that way.
Chris [00:09:49]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:09:50]:
I just. And that’s why they couldn’t go find him in the bush, because he probably would have just used Children as shields.
Chris [00:09:56]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:09:57]:
Or it would have been a massive standoff.
Chris [00:09:59]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:09:59]:
With, you know, he would have.
Chris [00:10:01]:
Because I mean the victims here are the kids, like no doubt from. Yeah, yep. The trauma they’ve got to deal with.
Sam [00:10:07]:
Oh, yeah. It’s crazy. But the funny thing was, didn’t know this. There’s a award winning documentarian who’s been following this for a year and there’s a whole film crew that have had access to various things, police stuff. And the day after, I think they had photos of them set up on the road, like filming it all. I think that’s a Netflix doco. I think it’s a Netflix team. And his Tom Phillips family.
Sam [00:10:34]:
Rightfully so. I think have said we don’t agree to this. Like, it seems a bit weird. It seems a very. Yeah, it just seems a little bit weird because you, we do make films and TV of events here in New Zealand after the fact usually.
Chris [00:10:49]:
Yeah, I’ve been in a few.
Sam [00:10:51]:
Yep, that’s right, you have. I know. Break that shelf with your air tank. But yeah, so this crew has had a little bit of access already and we’re allowed to obviously film stuff real close to when it happened.
Chris [00:11:06]:
That’s weird.
Sam [00:11:07]:
So I don’t know what that’s gonna be like when it comes out. I don’t know if it’s.
Chris [00:11:11]:
Yeah, yeah.
Sam [00:11:12]:
Anyway, that’s happening. Hey, you know how I like scams. We talked about one or two last week. There was the astronaut one and then we talked about the one that I quite liked. That was a bit more clever, I thought.
Chris [00:11:24]:
Yeah, yeah.
Sam [00:11:25]:
With the guy at the coffee machine. While Whangarei police are urging the public to remain alert because a bunch of. A couple, an old couple, lost ten tens of thousands of dollars. Someone rings them up and says, we’re from the bank, give us your PIN numbers. And then you have to leave your EFTPOS cards in the letterbox.
Chris [00:11:50]:
Okay.
Sam [00:11:51]:
I, I, I don’t.
Chris [00:11:52]:
These people also believe in Santa Claus, was my next question.
Sam [00:11:56]:
Well, the fraudsters are targeting very TR community members. I wonder how hard you have, I wonder how hard you have to spin that. Like I, yeah, it’s mind blowing. Mind blowing.
Chris [00:12:09]:
You’ve just got to have a huge high level of authority when you talk to people to be that con man. I know, you know, like, like Donald Trump is absolutely a con man. And you just go, how the hell does he get away with half the stuff? Even back in the day, stuff that he did in 80s and 90s, you’re like, how did he get away with that and it’s just because he’s.
Sam [00:12:31]:
I don’t know, there’s no. It’s just mind blowing.
Chris [00:12:35]:
Actually, speaking of that, I thought it was a joke, but it’s true. Have you heard about the Americans changing the name of the Department of Defense?
Sam [00:12:45]:
Oh, yeah, he wants the Department of War. Does that make sense?
Chris [00:12:50]:
I’m like, what? What the hell? I’d seen somebody go say something about the Department of War and I thought it was a joke.
Sam [00:12:56]:
And no, if anyone’s keen on watching this, I don’t know, there’s a John Oliver clip. No, not John Oliver. John Stewart. John Stewart clip. And he goes, it’s like they’re treating him like make a wish child. Have you seen this?
Chris [00:13:11]:
No.
Sam [00:13:12]:
Honestly, they’ve got these clips and they all talk to him like he’s dying. And they’re like, you’re the best. You’re the.
Chris [00:13:19]:
You know, those are painful.
Sam [00:13:22]:
They are so painful. And then this guy goes in, have you seen him? When they give him the marshal badge?
Chris [00:13:27]:
No.
Sam [00:13:27]:
This guy goes, sir, you’re the best president we’ve ever had. Or something. Rah, rah, rah. Hey, we want to give you this honorary marshal badge. And he has the biggest shit eating grin on his face. He is so happy.
Chris [00:13:40]:
Like, US Marshals.
Sam [00:13:41]:
Yeah, US Marshals. And they’re like, it’s like he’s.
Chris [00:13:44]:
You’re like Walker, Texas Ranger.
Sam [00:13:47]:
I know, it’s. I don’t know.
Chris [00:13:51]:
Oh, it’s so sad.
Sam [00:13:53]:
It’s nuts. You know what’ll make you happier?
Chris [00:13:56]:
What?
Sam [00:13:56]:
A zoo in Denmark is asking its patrons to donate their pets to feed.
Chris [00:14:03]:
What?
Sam [00:14:04]:
Whatever you want. You’re exactly correct.
Chris [00:14:07]:
Oh, really?
Sam [00:14:08]:
Yes. So you donate your unwanted pets to be euthanized and then fed to the captive predators. But this has been a long standing practice. It provides a natural diet for its carnivores, but there are restrictions. No dogs or cats. But if you’ve got chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs and even horses, hook them up. They will. Yeah.
Chris [00:14:31]:
Why no dogs or cats?
Sam [00:14:32]:
I don’t know. I guess that’s the line. That’s the line they draw.
Chris [00:14:36]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam [00:14:37]:
So for the smaller ones, the European lynx really likes to have some food like that. So a social media post apparently went viral and they were like, nah, we’ve been doing it for years. It’s. It’s to imitate the natural food chain.
Chris [00:14:50]:
Yeah, I, I get it. I wonder how they euthanize them though, because you wouldn’t want drugs in the system.
Sam [00:14:55]:
Oh, true. Didn’t think of that. It did say gently look at a little hammer. What are you doing? Just tap it 50 times.
Chris [00:15:06]:
So yeah, it might be a. Yeah, a brain gun thing, whatever you call it. You know, the.
Sam [00:15:11]:
Oh, it’d have to be, wouldn’t it?
Chris [00:15:13]:
Yeah, I guess so.
Sam [00:15:14]:
Anyway, that’s a thing to think about in your daily life. Maybe bring that up at work and go, how would you with euthanized animals for a zoo? It’s a good. It’s a good icebreaker. I didn’t say it was good.
Chris [00:15:30]:
Speaking of things you don’t say is good, have you heard about Elon Musk’s maybe pay rise?
Sam [00:15:37]:
I. I heard that he’s on paper. Not the richest man in the world anymore.
Chris [00:15:41]:
Right. Well, they’re trying to work fix that.
Sam [00:15:44]:
Yeah. So.
Chris [00:15:45]:
Okay, so you know how he had a.
Sam [00:15:49]:
He had a crazy clause, a crazy.
Chris [00:15:52]:
Crazy high payout of, you know, if you do all this and meet this and meet this, you’ll get $260 billion. Don’t quote me on that number. But something like that. Ridiculous number. Right. And so he hit those targets which they thought were ridiculous, but the Delaware courts. Cause he got sued by some shareholders saying we shouldn’t be giving him 260 billion. The Delaware courts held up his payment.
Sam [00:16:18]:
Okay.
Chris [00:16:19]:
Yeah, yeah. No, because of this, this and this. So he didn’t get it. But then they changed something around and so he got a different pay package and he pretty much it. Right. So that’s old news because now they’re putting him in for another paper raise.
Sam [00:16:30]:
Doesn’t he have to do something real crazy, though?
Chris [00:16:32]:
Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right. He has to do something really crazy. He has to come to work. He has to turn up at the office and do work. Which apparently is not something a CEO these days is really willing to do unless you pay them. Do you know what his new pay thing is?
Sam [00:16:47]:
Hang on. So this is like a. It’s not a bonus, but if he meets.
Chris [00:16:51]:
It’s his pay. If he meets targets.
Sam [00:16:53]:
Okay, go.
Chris [00:16:54]:
Wanna guess?
Sam [00:16:55]:
I wasn’t. I don’t know. It’s gonna be billions. 500 billion.
Chris [00:17:00]:
$1 trillion. No shit. 1 trillion. Okay, so his $1 trillion by 20. When was it? 20? 20, 30. 2035. 2035, I think it is.
Sam [00:17:14]:
Okay, 10 years.
Chris [00:17:15]:
So 10 years, he’ll get his trillion dollars if he creates a million 20 million cars.
Sam [00:17:24]:
Okay, right.
Chris [00:17:25]:
20 million cars.
Sam [00:17:26]:
Yeah. And then that’s not selling them, that’s just creating them.
Chris [00:17:29]:
Yeah. No, they’ve got to have sold 20 million. Sorry, 20 million cars. They’ve got to sold 1 million robots. 1 million. I think these numbers are right. Oh, there might be more. Anyway, it’s in the millions of robots and in the millions of robo taxis, right?
Sam [00:17:46]:
Oh, okay. Okay.
Chris [00:17:48]:
So it’s like. Oh, that sounds like a lot. That sounds pretty impossible. But. But then somebody broke it down and went. He was promising that he would be doing 20 million a year by the, by the. By the end of 2030 or something.
Sam [00:18:02]:
Okay.
Chris [00:18:03]:
But they’ve basically dropped it down to a lifetime goal of 20 million Teslas and they’ve already got 8 million. So he just has to get 12 million before the next 10 years.
Sam [00:18:15]:
I hope he gets it because he really needs the money.
Chris [00:18:17]:
He needs the money. And then the robots, they have a really loose definition of what a robot is.
Sam [00:18:26]:
Oh.
Chris [00:18:26]:
So I’m half expecting him to sell robot toys to get his trillion dollars. So as long as I meet these. Meet these criteria, I get my trillion dollars, Right? And it’s like. But your criteria, it’s. It’s really bad. So I got these, These stats actually, because. From a podcast I listened to. I thought it was pretty cool.
Chris [00:18:48]:
So these are the things you can do with a trillion dollars.
Sam [00:18:51]:
Oh, this is interesting. Okay. Yep.
Chris [00:18:54]:
And it’s quite US focused because it was a US postcard, but I think it’s still worth sharing. So with a trillion dollars, you could fund universal child care in the USA for a decade.
Sam [00:19:07]:
Mans, you’re not going to, though, because you’ll lose that money. You need the money.
Chris [00:19:12]:
Yeah. Or you could pay for the education of every child in America for more than a year.
Sam [00:19:19]:
Okay. Yeah.
Chris [00:19:20]:
Yeah. Or you could pay the entire annual interest on the US national debt.
Sam [00:19:25]:
Yeah, you could, but you’re not going to.
Chris [00:19:28]:
Or you could, if you were just so inclined, you could end world hunger three times over.
Sam [00:19:36]:
Wow.
Chris [00:19:37]:
Or you could just pay freaking Elon Musk so he’d turn up to work. Because that. The whole point of this in the shareholder notes is we need this. This to retain him as CEO, because if we don’t promise him this, he’s not going to turn up to work.
Sam [00:19:52]:
But then he’s on, like, ketamine and probably off his face, so it makes no sense.
Chris [00:19:57]:
I got one more stat from this thing, which I think is cool too. So in 1965, okay, the ratio of pay, the pay ratio from CEO to worker was a CEO would get paid the average CEO on the average worker wage. Average CEO would get paid 20 times more. Yes. The average worker Good.
Sam [00:20:18]:
What is it now with this?
Chris [00:20:20]:
What do you think it is?
Sam [00:20:21]:
I don’t know. Billion times?
Chris [00:20:23]:
No, no, it’s 285 times.
Sam [00:20:27]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:20:27]:
Right. Now, that might not really hit home to you, but what that means is if you’re an average worker in the States and you’re earning, I don’t know what the average wages, but let’s just say 50 grand. Us like, I don’t know, it might be high, it might be low, but let’s say it was. And you earning that average wage for you to get the same amount to accumulate. The same amount as your CEO got this year.
Sam [00:20:51]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:20:52]:
And you were at that wage, you would have had to start work in 1746, 285 years ago, and then you would. I’ve probably done the math wrong, but, you know, you get the. You get the gist.
Sam [00:21:08]:
You get the gist.
Chris [00:21:10]:
I thought that was hilarious.
Sam [00:21:12]:
That’s crazy.
Chris [00:21:13]:
So, yeah. Anyway, good on you, Elon. We’re all rooting for you.
Sam [00:21:20]:
Exactly. How do you feel about these people that do Guinness World Records for the hell of doing Guinness World Records and then seem to just be never ending doing Guinness World Records?
Chris [00:21:32]:
And the. The. The real record is the creativity with coming up with something that could be a record?
Sam [00:21:38]:
Well, I don’t even. I don’t even know if they’ve come up with. But they’re out there trying to break their record. They always seem to be beating their own records.
Chris [00:21:46]:
Right. But they’ve made those things up to begin with.
Sam [00:21:49]:
I assume so. Or someone else has done it. Christian Roberto Lopez Rodriguez. He’s a serial Guinness World Record breaker from Spain and he broke his own record for the fastest 100 meters backwards wearing. What is. What do you. What do you guess?
Chris [00:22:04]:
Jandals high heels. Okay.
Sam [00:22:08]:
He ran the hundred metres backwards in 16.55 seconds.
Chris [00:22:14]:
Holy crap, that’s moving.
Sam [00:22:16]:
This dude’s got some.
Chris [00:22:17]:
In high heels backwards.
Sam [00:22:19]:
I know.
Chris [00:22:20]:
Jesus. I couldn’t do that in high heels. Forwards. I couldn’t do that. Forwards.
Sam [00:22:24]:
I can’t do it with no normal shoes. I can’t do it forward with running shoes on and a head start. So his old record was 20.05. His shoes must be at least 2.76 inches high and no wider than 59 inches at the tip. If you wanted to take part in this. He has more than.
Chris [00:22:47]:
That would be a hard. No.
Sam [00:22:50]:
He has more than 80 Guinness World Record titles and some of his other notable achievements. Now, there’s a bit of a trend here with some of his things fastest 400 meters in clogs. 1 minute and 38 seconds. Fastest 100 meters wearing flip flops. 12.10 seconds.
Chris [00:23:09]:
Holy crap.
Sam [00:23:10]:
So he can actually go fastest mile traveled while balancing a pull cue on a finger. 5 minutes roughly. Fastest hundred meters on a space hopper. 29 seconds. Fastest 100 meters carrying an egg on a spoon in the mouth. 17.21.
Chris [00:23:30]:
Jeez, that’s moving.
Sam [00:23:32]:
And then. Fastest 50 meters backwards wearing swim fins. 8.82 seconds. I haven’t watched any of this. I assume it’s pretty like amazing. Anyway, that led me on to this other guy actually.
Chris [00:23:45]:
Just on that.
Sam [00:23:46]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:23:46]:
Were you around when they did the hoodie Hood street races and they had high heel races down Hood Street?
Sam [00:23:53]:
No, I don’t remember.
Chris [00:23:54]:
One of the guys from telecom. So that’s how long ago it was probably 10, 15 years ago, if not longer.
Sam [00:24:00]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:24:00]:
Ryan. Ryan, Joe, he one of our mates, he was in it. I think it was a radio station thing.
Sam [00:24:06]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:24:07]:
And the streets were crowded and they had all these guys line up and they had them put high heels on and they run down the street. It’s crazy. It was a lot of fun, to be honest. Yeah. Back in the day when they used to close off Hood street so you couldn’t drive around there in the evenings. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam [00:24:23]:
There’s another guy I came across. I don’t know why it keeps showing me this stuff. David Rush. He’s a serial Guinness World Record breaker and he holds over 181 concurrent Guinness World Records and he broke his own Guinness World record for the most table tennis balls bounced against a wall with the mouth in 30 seconds. He got 51 bounces which surpassed his 43.
Chris [00:24:47]:
So that’s where you blow it out. It bounce off the wall and you suck it back into your mouth and you blow it out.
Sam [00:24:53]:
And as far as I understand. Yes. And he, yeah, he. He decided to do it when he was on a cruise ship. He already had the record before at 43 and 47, so he decided to do it again. It requires perfect aim, precise pressure, correct angle and accurate timing for each bounce. And this is just one of the 181 things that this guy has a record for. I guess it’s no different from somebody that’s a professional athlete, I guess.
Chris [00:25:25]:
Yes.
Sam [00:25:25]:
Is it?
Chris [00:25:26]:
Well, yeah, I mean, you’re right, because the, the only thing with the professional athlete is more people go, oh, yeah, jumping over sticks that are across the track is a good idea.
Sam [00:25:36]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:25:37]:
For hurdles or, you know. Yeah. Why don’t you Use a pole and go as high as you can over a bar.
Sam [00:25:42]:
What could go wrong?
Chris [00:25:43]:
You know, it’s. When you say it like that, pole vaulting does sound really dumb.
Sam [00:25:49]:
Most sports do.
Chris [00:25:51]:
Yeah, true.
Sam [00:25:52]:
This is just interesting, I think, but it’s not much of a story. Radio New Zealand has a podcast episode which I did not listen to, but I read the article. They’ve got this thing called Carbon Watch. So, you know, I think there’s one at the hospital. It’s like a little box that records atmospheric conditions and all sorts of things like that. And pollution and air quality. Well, these guys in Hutt Valley in Wellington, they’ve jammed it in a van and they can drive around with it and it can detect carbon monoxide, methane, carbon monoxide. Oh, carbon dioxide monoxide and black carbon as it moves.
Sam [00:26:28]:
It’s all electric, of course, because if it wasn’t, that would be causing problems.
Chris [00:26:32]:
Oh, the van.
Sam [00:26:33]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they seem quite excited about it because it apparently took a while to get all the gear into a van for real time monitoring. So I don’t know. Yeah, they can work out the ratios of different carbon isotopes so they can figure out where natural carbon dioxide’s happening and all this other stuff. They’re going to travel across the country for the next three years. Its mission involves mapping emissions and engaging with local communities to raise awareness and gather insights. I’m claiming it now. It’s gonna be parked somewhere, maybe locally to us, and it’s gonna get robbed.
Chris [00:27:12]:
Or at least the pizza thrown at it. Yeah, I thought this was funny. This is. There’s probably not a lot to the story, but I just find it amusing. This is in a Connecticut town in the usa.
Sam [00:27:27]:
Okay.
Chris [00:27:27]:
Animal control are really concerned because someone is painting the squirrels in Eastart.
Sam [00:27:34]:
What? What does that mean? Like a different color? What. What does painting them mean?
Chris [00:27:39]:
Well, you can see in the video there’s a pink squirrel.
Sam [00:27:42]:
Okay, good.
Chris [00:27:43]:
And they painted one blue, and I think they painted one green. Someone’s been.
Sam [00:27:47]:
What are the logistics of doing that?
Chris [00:27:49]:
How do you do that? Who knows? But they’re trying to find out who. And, like, that’s the whole story there. Like, there’s no story. It’s one. Oh, sorry. One was blue and the other was red, according to photos in the department shared on social media.
Sam [00:28:03]:
This can’t be good for the animal.
Chris [00:28:04]:
Squirrel said the squirrels appear to be okay. I reckon they’re looking for whoever is responsible.
Sam [00:28:09]:
I reckon it’s their eyes and mouth is where you don’t want to get the paint.
Chris [00:28:13]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:28:13]:
Well, but if they’re spray painting them, like how?
Chris [00:28:15]:
Like you’d think they’re going through a trap that sprays them as they go through or something like that. Yeah. I mean, I can’t think of any other way.
Sam [00:28:23]:
Talking about logistics of things, I spend a lot of time. We’re going to end with this. I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of days at work talking about a bloody Coke machine. We got new Coke machines at work. Don’t know why. We had traditional ones where the thing went up, got the bottle and brought it down to you. Okay. Now we’ve got Coke fridges and it’s called.
Sam [00:28:43]:
I can’t remember what the term is called, but I looked them up online. It seems like they’re quite new. You tap the payment thing on the handle and it unlocks the fridge door and you open it and you just grab whatever you want and close the door. And then Coke charges you. That’s it. There’s two cameras. There’s one at the top here, one at the bottom looking up. And with the power of AI, it knows what you’ve done, apparently.
Chris [00:29:08]:
And how does it know who you are? Do you swipe a card or.
Sam [00:29:10]:
No, you’re paying with your EFTPOS card.
Chris [00:29:12]:
Oh, you pay with your.
Sam [00:29:12]:
Yeah. So you tap it, unlocks the door. You can buy multiple drinks too. You can grab whatever you want. There’s two of them side by side. And then you close the door and then that’s it.
Chris [00:29:22]:
And then it charges you, whatever you’ve taken.
Sam [00:29:23]:
So I’ve had lots of discussions about if you open the door and then you turn it off, what happens if there’s no power? I think there’s mirrors involved. If you could somehow put these thing. What happens if you have a rando debit card but it’s only got the $4 on it, and then you just take all the drinks and you close it. What happens? Lots of questions, no answers. Probably not going to try and work this one out, but obviously you need it in a very trustworthy place. But we did see someone on the very first day. She swiped her card. Oh.
Sam [00:29:57]:
So I don’t know if you know this, but Coke at the moment has a whole range of Star wars themed cans and bottles.
Chris [00:30:03]:
Right.
Sam [00:30:04]:
And some of the guys I work with are trying to collect all the different ones. That’s cool. But this woman.
Chris [00:30:09]:
So now they can shuffle through and pick the right one out and grab it.
Sam [00:30:12]:
Well, this woman opened it, grabbed a Coke, pulled it out. Realized she didn’t want that, put it back into the fridge, and then grabbed a different one. And we were like, I assume it knows that and did. Well, I don’t know. It was just some random person. I don’t know. It was on the very first day. It seems like there’s room for error or room for something going on, whereas the old machine just worked.
Chris [00:30:41]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:30:42]:
Anyway, that brings us to the end of this podcast.
Chris [00:30:46]:
So this weekend. So when this drops tonight, when this drops, I’ll be doing my first improv combat show. So I will be letting you know next week how that went.
Sam [00:31:00]:
Excellent. Can’t wait. How many weeks is this show running?
Chris [00:31:04]:
There’s four event, spades fortnightly, so it’s not weekly, so fortnightly.
Sam [00:31:09]:
There we go. Keep that in mind. Make sure you go along.
Chris [00:31:12]:
Only $15 a ticket. Limited to around 30 tickets.
Sam [00:31:16]:
Yes. Okay. Until next time. I’m Sam.
Chris [00:31:19]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:31:19]:
See ya.
Chris [00:31:20]:
Bye.
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