Summary
It’s the episode after NZ’s election, but the guys voted early to make time for the film festival. It’s been a sad week for Trekkies, there’s drama at the A&P Show, and Halloween gets wild with Heidi Klum’s bizarre costume.
From digital whiteboards that spy on you, to gold nuggets in the outback and the world’s weirdest police mistranslation, plus the latest in AI and a couple of quirky Kickstarters. All this and much more in this week’s episode.
Links
RIP Patrick Stewart
RIP Walter Keonig
Rice Krispies Change
Fart Police
Whiteboard Dramas
Be My Eyes app
Kickstart or Dropkick – Amoeba One
Kickstart or Dropkick – The Motion Box
Heidi Klum’s Hand
Potato Nugget
Sam Altman’s RAM comment
Show Transcript
This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be100% accurate. It pays to listen to the podcast, but 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 605 of the Chris and Sam Podcast. I’m Chris. And I’m Sam. Welcome along to your weekly fix of randomness, technology, and life. And this is the episode that comes out the It’s the day after election day here in New Zealand.
Chris [00:00:34]:
Yes.
Sam [00:00:34]:
Not the day after, sorry, just after. I forgot, I don’t publish on Sundays. Wednesdays now.
Chris [00:00:39]:
Yeah, Wednesday.
Sam [00:00:40]:
This is the episode after elections.
Chris [00:00:42]:
Yes, so we’re recording it before elections. So, uh, don’t know what your feeling would be right now. So commiserations or celebrations, whatever it is. In fact, whatever it is for you because—
Sam [00:00:53]:
Hope you voted.
Chris [00:00:54]:
Yes, that’s the main thing. That’s key. I’ve already voted. You’ve already voted.
Sam [00:00:57]:
Yep.
Chris [00:00:58]:
Um, we voted early because we’ve got the film festival this weekend, so we don’t want to vote during the, um, film festival. Uh, yeah, so a couple of things. First of all, I have to say it’s been a sad week for Trekkies.
Sam [00:01:10]:
Yes.
Chris [00:01:11]:
So we lost 2 people. Walter Koenig, who was, um, Chekov.
Sam [00:01:16]:
Yep. In the original series.
Chris [00:01:17]:
In the original series.
Sam [00:01:18]:
He was really old, eh?
Chris [00:01:20]:
Yeah, not as old as Takai. And Shatner. He’s, he was the youngest of that group.
Sam [00:01:26]:
Oh yeah. Okay. Yes.
Chris [00:01:28]:
So T’Kai and Shatner are still with us.
Sam [00:01:31]:
Yes.
Chris [00:01:31]:
Which is, um, Captain Kirk and, um, what was T’Kai’s name on the thing? I’ve forgotten that.
Sam [00:01:39]:
Someone’s gonna be yelling at us.
Chris [00:01:40]:
Sulu. Sulu.
Sam [00:01:42]:
It was Sulu, right?
Chris [00:01:42]:
Yeah. Lieutenant Sulu. And yeah, yeah. Adam’s gonna be moaning at that. And then, um, Patrick Stewart of course died, who was Jean-Luc Picard. And it’s really funny because he’s only Something like 8 years younger than Koenig, but because I was 8 or 9 when I started watching Chekhov, and then I was married when I started watching Jean-Luc Picard, there’s a big difference there. And so I keep thinking of him as being much younger than the other one, but he was only, only a few years younger. Oh,
Sam [00:02:13]:
okay.
Chris [00:02:13]:
Because he started late, you know, he was, he was already an older, older dude when he, um, started Next Generation. But anyway, so that’s sort of sad. So many of my hero active people dying. It’s like pretty depressing.
Sam [00:02:27]:
That’s what happens when you get old.
Chris [00:02:28]:
I know. I know. It’s pretty bad. So we’ve had a bit of an interesting week. Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday, last night?
Sam [00:02:36]:
Yes, we went along to the final Haha Hamilton being held at the Navara Lounge. And it also happened to be their 4th birthday. Now that surprised me. That was the bit that threw me because I thought they’d been around a lot longer.
Chris [00:02:49]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:02:49]:
I don’t know why. Anyway, a real mixed bag of comedians trying their best and some of them were good.
Chris [00:02:57]:
Um, I know Jamie’s going to be listening to this.
Sam [00:03:01]:
Oh, Jamie was great. And I will say, Jamie was
Chris [00:03:03]:
good. Yeah.
Sam [00:03:03]:
I will say, Jamie, um, last time I saw you, I think was the night Chris got up and did standup a couple of years ago.
Chris [00:03:11]:
Which probably made him look even better because I was so crap.
Sam [00:03:13]:
Oh, I don’t know. But I think Jamie has come a long way.
Chris [00:03:16]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:03:16]:
Like he’s so deadpan and just telling a random story. It’s great. No, really good.
Chris [00:03:21]:
Yeah. Um, so my, my feedback and, and take it as positive is that the MCs,
Sam [00:03:28]:
they didn’t need 2 of them.
Chris [00:03:29]:
You didn’t need 2 of them. And probably Sam Barnes should have stayed on the desk all night. That would have been, that would have been badass. Um,
Sam [00:03:37]:
I was waiting for him to start yelling at clouds.
Chris [00:03:40]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:03:40]:
Shaking his fist.
Chris [00:03:41]:
I, yeah. Anyway. So, um, yeah, it was good though. And the girls really knocked it out of the park. I thought it was, what was it? Louise was the last one. I can’t remember the name.
Sam [00:03:51]:
No, it began with S.
Chris [00:03:53]:
Oh, okay. Whatever. The last comedian of the night and Katrina were both very good.
Sam [00:03:58]:
Very good.
Chris [00:03:59]:
So yeah, it was cool. I’m glad I went out. Thank you for taking me out. That was great. All right. So, oh,
Sam [00:04:05]:
no, Garry,
Chris [00:04:06]:
did you want to say something?
Sam [00:04:06]:
No, I’ll slot it in later.
Chris [00:04:08]:
All right. I’m going to mention the US elections and Sam’s going to go, ugh.
Sam [00:04:13]:
No, no, it’s fine. It’s happening. And it’s been a while since you’ve, you’ve brought up US election stuff.
Chris [00:04:17]:
Well, no, it’s actually quite important for New Zealand. So, so a lot of people will be going, well, why are we talking about American elections when we’re in New Zealand? But honestly, the reason we’ve got so many problems with gas and it costs and all that sort of thing is because of, um, the orange monster in the White House over there. And they have just castrated the orange monster. And it’s generationally a huge deal what they’ve done with the changes.
Sam [00:04:48]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:04:48]:
Nobody thought it would swing quite as bad, as much as it has. And more importantly, not only did they get all the senators in, which they didn’t think they’d get, but they got all these senators in. They got more governors in. So there’s only 4 governors or 5 governors, I think, that are not Democrats now. And even more importantly, which they don’t sort of say a lot about, each of the Senate houses. Oh, okay. So Texas Senate House has gone all blue. And what that means is, because they do that gerrymandering, do you know what that is? It’s where they rig the elections basically.
Chris [00:05:25]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:05:25]:
Okay.
Chris [00:05:25]:
That’s all done at that level.
Sam [00:05:26]:
Oh, okay.
Chris [00:05:27]:
So now they’re all blue. They can undo undo all these things. So it’s quite significant change.
Sam [00:05:32]:
When’s that election finish? Or is it?
Chris [00:05:35]:
Yeah, so some of the counting takes a while.
Sam [00:05:37]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:05:38]:
So, and there’s one race that they’re literally within 1,000 votes of each other.
Sam [00:05:45]:
Oh, wow.
Chris [00:05:45]:
And they’re still working that out and they’re all going to court about it because it’s like, oh, I’ve got affidavit votes because I turned up without my, without my license or my ID. So I have to do an affidavit and then you have to prove that you were that person and all that sort of stuff. So it’s coming down to that level. I forgot what country, uh, what county that is, but anyway, so there’s a bit of, I think it was Mississippi. I’m not sure.
Sam [00:06:11]:
Okay. Sounds a bit crazy, but, uh,
Chris [00:06:13]:
mental, mental. Uh, so I’m, I’m sort of quite interested to see what our election’s going to be like. And of course, when you hear this, you’ll know, but I don’t. So.
Sam [00:06:23]:
That’s right. If he’s lucky, we’ll talk about it next episode.
Chris [00:06:28]:
Yes.
Sam [00:06:28]:
A while ago, I don’t know when, I talked about an app on my phone called Be My Eyes.
Chris [00:06:33]:
Yes.
Sam [00:06:34]:
And it’s the app—
Chris [00:06:34]:
you’ve talked about it twice, I think.
Sam [00:06:36]:
Yeah. So this is when you help out a blind person somewhere in the world.
Chris [00:06:39]:
So first time you, you heard about it and the second time you used it or somebody got you to help.
Sam [00:06:44]:
Well, I used it again this week.
Chris [00:06:46]:
Oh, nice.
Sam [00:06:47]:
And I told no one. So I’m at work and I get a phone call and it’s Be My Eyes and you gotta be really quick. So I clicked it, I connected to a woman, she was a Kiwi, she was elderly, and she says, oh, hey. And I said, hey, what can I do for you? Now I’m in an office environment. I’ve got 2 of my team next to me. They just know that I’m answering a phone call. And she says, oh, I was really hoping to get a female. But, uh, I guess you’ll do.
Sam [00:07:16]:
We’ll see. I was like, okay. I said, I do have a female colleague right next to me if that helps. That colleague has no idea what’s going on. And, uh, they don’t know that this person’s blind or who they are. So she says, oh, normally my daughter helps me with this, but she’s not here. And she said, hey, you should use Be My Eyes. So I’m doing it.
Sam [00:07:36]:
And she goes, look, I don’t have any eyeballs. Uh, I lost my— I’ve got no vision. I’ve got no eyeballs. I’m putting— I’m going out and I’m putting in my prosthetic eyes. And I need to know that they’re looking in the right direction. So she’s telling me this, but I can’t see anything at the moment. So it’s sort of pointing down and then she must pop her eyes in, I guess. And then she just holds up her phone.
Sam [00:07:58]:
Now, obviously she can’t see me, but there’s no video going back. But my work colleagues don’t know this and they sort of don’t really know what’s going on. So I’m looking at this thing and this woman’s eyes are like in, and one of them’s pointing. She goes, I’m really worried about my right eye. And I said, no, no, your right eye is fine. It’s your left eye that’s sort of off. She goes, hang on, puts the phone down, pops this eye out, jiggles it around, pops it back in. How’s that? And I said, yeah, that’s good.
Sam [00:08:22]:
Okay, sweet. And hangs up. And then my colleagues are like, who was that? And I was like, I don’t know. And they’re like, what do you mean you don’t know? I said, I don’t know. I just answered this thing and I helped someone and this person happened to have no eyeballs. And you were just there. Like, I’m like, she just popped them in. Like you saw her at Wonky Eye and they’re like, oh yeah, we thought you knew her.
Sam [00:08:44]:
I was like, no. And then I explained the app and they were just like, how do you know this stuff? I said, I don’t know. And they were like, you’re so in shape.
Chris [00:08:55]:
I should do this. I should do this. I actually, I should get my dad to start looking at that because, um,
Sam [00:09:00]:
it could be helpful.
Chris [00:09:01]:
It could be helpful. He’s not, he’s not quite at that point yet. Well, he’s not. He’s not blind, but he’s starting to have trouble and it’d be better to use it when you don’t, don’t need it so much, you know, so that later on if you need it, you’re used to it.
Sam [00:09:17]:
Yeah. True. Since I last saw you, I went to the ANP Show at Claudelands.
Chris [00:09:22]:
All right.
Sam [00:09:23]:
I’ve never been to the ANP Show at Claudelands.
Chris [00:09:25]:
I was just going to say, neither have I.
Sam [00:09:26]:
Don’t go. It’s pretty average.
Chris [00:09:29]:
Well, you know, we’ve got field days in this area. Like, why would you have an ANP Show in this area?
Sam [00:09:35]:
Because you can enter multiple competitions and stuff like that. But when I, when we went in there, there was a crowd of people and this guy bailed me out.
Chris [00:09:44]:
Actually, do you want to tell people that are not from New Zealand what an A&P show is?
Sam [00:09:49]:
Agricultural and Pastoral Show, and they have animals and displays and, uh, food entry competitions, like pickles and stuff.
Chris [00:09:59]:
Actually, I shouldn’t say people from, that are not from New Zealand. I should say people that are not from rural New Zealand, because I came to Hamilton not knowing what an AMP show was. Oh, my, uh, wife had to tell me, um, okay, it was. So yeah.
Sam [00:10:14]:
Uh, so this guy bowed me up and he’s like, hey, do you want to go in the draw to win a queen-size bed? I’m like, okay. So I fill out some form, give some dude my details, then we walk another 50 meters and there’s another 4 of them all dressed in blue, and they’re like, hey, Do you want to enter the draw to win a queen-size bed? And I was like, oh no, I just spoke to Harry. He’s over there. And they didn’t think this guy had turned up. And they’re like, oh my gosh, he’s over there. Ah, it was a big thing. And because—
Chris [00:10:49]:
How big is this show?
Sam [00:10:51]:
Well, no, we’re outside.
Chris [00:10:53]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:10:53]:
Yeah. And anyway, he, uh, they’re from Pukekohe, this company. Because where are you from? Okay, sweet as. So that was all good. We had a look around the show. We are thinking of entering almost everything we can next year because some of the entries for like baking and photography were just out the gate. Like if you bake some scones right now with whatever ingredients you’ve got, you would have been in the running to get a prize.
Chris [00:11:19]:
Oh my God. Okay.
Sam [00:11:20]:
Yeah. So anyway, we’re doing that. That’s all good. And then we left there and that was fine. And, uh, that was all good. And yesterday I get a phone call last night. Hey, it’s Harry. Harry? He goes, yeah, the bed guy.
Sam [00:11:32]:
I’m like, yes. And he goes, hey, just wondering, what’s your address so I can come drop off your free pillow?
Chris [00:11:42]:
I’m like, what?
Sam [00:11:47]:
And he goes, yeah, I’ve got this free pillow for you and it’s worth, I swear he says some stupid price. And he goes, it’s memory foam, bamboo gel,
Chris [00:11:57]:
Whatever. I have a memory foam bamboo pillow of my own. It’s quite a weird shape.
Sam [00:12:03]:
I
Chris [00:12:03]:
keep meaning to show you this and maybe talk about it on the podcast, but I never have. It’s got a hole in the middle where your ear can go in and it’s got little arm grooves so you can put your arms around it.
Sam [00:12:12]:
Oh, one of those ones. Yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. Anyway.
Chris [00:12:14]:
It’s really good.
Sam [00:12:15]:
So I, he goes, I can bring it around and then we can discuss beds. And I said, no, thank you. I’m too busy. Because I was like, when’s he going to come around? Because I’m busy for like next 5 days.
Chris [00:12:29]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:12:29]:
So anyway, didn’t get my free pillow. Didn’t really want to talk to a dude. So that was all good. Then the following day, the Scarecrow Festival was being held at Hamilton Gardens.
Chris [00:12:39]:
Oh, nice.
Sam [00:12:39]:
10 till 2, got there at quarter past 1, walked in after getting through because you’ve got to be a, um, local or pay.
Chris [00:12:47]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:12:48]:
And got in there and, uh, they were already doing their prize giving at like 20 past 1. So I don’t know, anyone turn up later, you’re out of luck. Anyway, uh, previous people that helped me run the pumpkin carnival there selling pumpkin seedlings. And they were like, oh, we’ve sold 40 of each. And I was like, okay. But there was no crates or anything. And I was like, and they were like day-old seedlings. Like they’d barely done anything.
Sam [00:13:14]:
And I was like, okay. And they’re like, hey, we, we brought your guide on to run how to run a pumpkin event. And I was like, oh, I saw that. So the day before, they brought the guide on how to run a pumpkin event that I wrote about running the event with these people.
Chris [00:13:31]:
Well, they weren’t paying much attention when you were there.
Sam [00:13:36]:
No. And all they had to do was like ask for a copy or just hit me up, but they didn’t want to do that. And I think I sort of surprised them that I was there at this thing. So,
Chris [00:13:47]:
oh, that’s I think that’s a good story. That’s good. I’m glad they do that. I picked this because I thought you were going in this direction before, but now it’s not such a good choice. But anyway—
Sam [00:14:00]:
We’re going in every direction.
Chris [00:14:02]:
We’ll go with this one. It’s whiteboards. Okay, so this story is based in Moscow, but my point is not that it’s Moscow at all.
Sam [00:14:13]:
What is a whiteboard?
Chris [00:14:14]:
You know, a whiteboard.
Sam [00:14:15]:
Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Carry on.
Chris [00:14:17]:
Sorry. It’s not really a whiteboard. It’s one of those digital whiteboards.
Sam [00:14:21]:
Okay. Smart whiteboard.
Chris [00:14:22]:
Smart whiteboard.
Sam [00:14:22]:
Yeah. Sorry. For some reason, when you said whiteboard, my brain did not comprehend what you were saying. Do you know why? Because when you said whiteboard, I was like, that’s not white bait like that guy was talking about last night. Okay.
Chris [00:14:33]:
Carry on. Yeah. So all these whiteboards that they’ve used, digital whiteboards. Yeah.
Sam [00:14:38]:
They should say digital whiteboards.
Chris [00:14:39]:
Have they been hacked? Yeah. They basically, they’re in all these schools in Russia. They just turn on remotely recording and they record audio and anything in the room and obviously what you’re writing and stuff.
Sam [00:14:56]:
I think my TV’s listening to me right now. No, like they’ve, the LG TVs are doing that.
Chris [00:15:01]:
Yeah. So, but I’m like, you just have to assume this now. Like, I don’t know that this is a news item. First of all, It’s freaking Russia. You probably— everything is bugged. Like, I don’t know what wouldn’t be bugged in Russia.
Sam [00:15:16]:
That’s right. I
Chris [00:15:16]:
mean, I don’t know who’s going to be bothering listening to it, but everything’s bugged. And then secondly, you just got to expect that everything you get that’s digital these days is listening and reporting to someone.
Sam [00:15:29]:
Or has the ability to be hacked.
Chris [00:15:31]:
Yeah. Or it’s feeding it through to an algorithm.
Sam [00:15:34]:
Yeah. Oh yeah, true, true, true. That’s right.
Chris [00:15:36]:
Anyway, so, but I thought I’d mention that just because I thought it was a ludicrous story.
Sam [00:15:40]:
Uh, every year I don’t really care what celebrities are up to, but there is one celebrity that I do like to know.
Chris [00:15:46]:
I know, I saw this and I don’t know what it is, but I saw the name and I knew exactly what you were going to talk about. Carry on.
Sam [00:15:52]:
Yes. Uh, Halloween has just been and gone. Did you have trick-or-treaters?
Chris [00:15:57]:
No.
Sam [00:15:57]:
Good. Heidi Klum, the supermodel.
Chris [00:16:00]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:16:01]:
For some reason.
Chris [00:16:01]:
I really like Heidi. She’s good.
Sam [00:16:02]:
For some reason, she just loves Halloween. She spends a lot of money on it. And every year she comes out with the craziest
Chris [00:16:09]:
batshit.
Sam [00:16:10]:
And, and I, I don’t know, but I assume it’s the same special effects people that are doing it every year. So imagine having that contract.
Chris [00:16:17]:
Oh yeah.
Sam [00:16:18]:
So she wanted to be—
Chris [00:16:20]:
And she goes like, I, I’m, I’m just saying this for the audience, ’cause I’ve seen a couple of the videos, ’cause, oh, photos, ’cause Sam showed us in previous years. She goes to the wall for this stuff. I’m not— we’re not talking about the special effects guys do a lot of makeup. They’re talking like she is under the gun for this to make this work.
Sam [00:16:42]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:16:42]:
Yeah. So, okay. What has she done?
Sam [00:16:44]:
Uh, this year she was a severed hand.
Chris [00:16:47]:
Holy smokes.
Sam [00:16:48]:
Which, which is based on her actual hand. That’s her ring and the shape of her hand and everything.
Chris [00:16:54]:
Holy moly. Okay. So this is a video I’m looking at. We will absolutely have this in the link. Oh, that’s where her face is. I did. It took me a minute. Jeez.
Chris [00:17:05]:
That’s amazing.
Sam [00:17:06]:
I don’t know what her husband was this year. So usually her husband’s like next to her. And I think one year he was an egg while she was a worm or something.
Chris [00:17:15]:
Holy crap. That’s unbelievable.
Sam [00:17:18]:
I think it was 6 hours to get that done. And it was like 6 or 9 months worth of prep.
Chris [00:17:23]:
But you’re impressed that it was only 6 hours because that is huge. I mean, most of it must be a suit that you slip into, but still.
Sam [00:17:31]:
But you imagine Imagine having all the money and connections and just going, you know what, what should I be next year? And it doesn’t matter what you say, because one time she was E.T.
Chris [00:17:39]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:17:40]:
Uh, and you can just do it.
Chris [00:17:42]:
It’s pretty cool. Yeah, to a ridiculous degree. That is phenomenal. Yeah. Holy crap. Okay. Well, I’ve got a really dumb one then, uh, to follow with your good ones. Okay.
Chris [00:17:52]:
It’s called balance. Rice Krispies.
Sam [00:17:55]:
Okay.
Chris [00:17:56]:
In the U.S.
Sam [00:17:57]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:17:57]:
And Cocoa Puffs as well. Puffs? Puffs? Pops. Coco Pops or something like that. Yeah. They’ve taken out the rice, so they’re not using rice now.
Sam [00:18:06]:
Hang on. Okay. Cool. What do you get? Some dust?
Chris [00:18:11]:
Well, actually, yes, they’re using rice flour, but not rice.
Sam [00:18:15]:
Oh, okay.
Chris [00:18:17]:
So I don’t know what the bubbly things are, because in New Zealand, for those of you outside of New Zealand, we would normally term these rice bubbles. Rice Bubbles is a Sanitarium. Is that the Sanitarium name?
Sam [00:18:30]:
Yeah, sure. Sure.
Chris [00:18:31]:
I think Krispies is the Kellogg’s name.
Sam [00:18:33]:
Yeah. Okay.
Chris [00:18:33]:
And so we call them Rice Bubbles and that’s what the generic term for them would be anywhere in New Zealand would be Rice Bubbles. Um, but yeah, Rice Bubbles without rice is just like, why?
Sam [00:18:45]:
No, I think it’ll be like those pea-shaped crisps, uh, chip things where they get formed into that shape.
Chris [00:18:53]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:18:54]:
So it doesn’t really matter, I don’t think. Maybe? I don’t know.
Chris [00:18:58]:
It’s so weird. Anyway, I just, alright, right.
Sam [00:19:01]:
There’s this, um, I don’t know how legit this is. It must be legit. I think it’s legit. So this dude in October, yeah, in late October, there’s this video, and for some reason, it’s only on Reddit and TikTok, and I can’t really see his story anywhere else. Like, I think they’re just sharing it around. guy found this giant nugget in the Australian outback.
Chris [00:19:23]:
Oh, yep.
Sam [00:19:23]:
And he’s dug this—
Chris [00:19:24]:
Like gold?
Sam [00:19:25]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:19:25]:
Yeah, yep.
Sam [00:19:26]:
He’s dug this giant hole and he’s filming it because they do it and he goes, oh my gosh. So imagine a nugget that’s like the size of a potato, a standard potato. And he’s just like, oh my gosh, this better not be something that’s just painted gold. Um, yeah, it’s about 940 grams of pure gold.
Chris [00:19:47]:
Holy, what’s that worth?
Sam [00:19:49]:
About $160,000 Australian dollars spot price. So that means they’ll take it right now and melt it. And the whole thing itself would probably be more to a collector. Like people collect nuggets.
Chris [00:20:00]:
Yeah, because they’re natural. Yeah. Like as they are.
Sam [00:20:03]:
Yeah. But it does look like, um, a potato. Like it’s funny. It’s—
Chris [00:20:08]:
Oh, it does look like a potato with the dirt all over it. Holy crap.
Sam [00:20:13]:
Yeah. And he’s just freaking out.
Chris [00:20:14]:
It would be It would be heavy as. You’d pick that up.
Sam [00:20:17]:
So he’s just like so excited and freaking out, uh, as you would. But I just like, it seems like he hasn’t done an actual news story, which is probably good because maybe he doesn’t want people to know who he is.
Chris [00:20:29]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:20:29]:
But then he’s on a social channel. I don’t know.
Chris [00:20:33]:
Yeah. Um, talking about social, uh, I, I, this one cracked me up a little bit. Um, Because America is just so dumb. I don’t want to blame Hegseth, but I don’t think I can, but I want to. So the US Navy has just had its 251st birthday.
Sam [00:20:52]:
Nice.
Chris [00:20:52]:
And so all these American politicians are using photos to go, happy birthday to the Navy. But the Navy they’re using, all the ships are either Indian or, um, or Russian.
Sam [00:21:08]:
What?
Chris [00:21:08]:
They’re using all these photos and like, those are Indian ships. Those are Russian ships.
Sam [00:21:13]:
Are they using AI?
Chris [00:21:15]:
Possibly.
Sam [00:21:16]:
Are they like getting these ships? Okay.
Chris [00:21:17]:
They’re just like grabbing the wrong photos to use, whatever. And it’s just, anyway, that’s just so dumb.
Sam [00:21:24]:
That is dumb. Almost as dumb as Sam Altman.
Chris [00:21:29]:
Oh, what’s he done?
Sam [00:21:29]:
He’s an idiot. The OpenAI— What?
Chris [00:21:31]:
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Carry on.
Sam [00:21:33]:
The OpenAI I, uh, CEO, boss man, uh, he did an interview where he thought it was terrible for people to have RAM in their PCs rather than a data center is what he said.
Chris [00:21:47]:
Hmm.
Sam [00:21:49]:
Um, and now he, so there’s a whole bunch of memes around that and they’re pretty funny. And then he’s had to come back out and then backtracked and says, look, from a global allocation Like, they’re not, they’re not being used all the time. It’s better if they’re in a data center. Um, but you know, obviously his company is one of the main reasons that everything costs so much now.
Chris [00:22:11]:
So he’s just saying people shouldn’t have their own PCs anyway. They should all be virtual PCs in the cloud. Is effectively what he’s saying, right?
Sam [00:22:19]:
Oh, he said he wants the world to have tons of memory and for people to put as much as they want in their computers. He added it was effing annoying that this was taken out of context. I’ve been arguing for the world to ramp up memory production for a long time. That’s what he reckons. Anyway, more memes about that. He isn’t denying that he believes RAM would be better served in data centers, rather that there is enough RAM to go around. I want you to have as much RAM as you can possibly need. So anyway, just get the price back down.
Sam [00:22:48]:
That’d be great.
Chris [00:22:49]:
Well, just on a semi-related thing, which They’re just verifying I’m human as I get into this religion news service website.
Sam [00:22:58]:
You are, that’s right. They don’t want you to be anything else.
Chris [00:23:00]:
Well, they’ve got to make sure I have a soul. Otherwise there’s no point in me being in this religious news website. But no, a Kentucky man has become the first humanist granted a religious exemption from using AI.
Sam [00:23:14]:
What?
Chris [00:23:15]:
I know. I had to read it a couple of times.
Sam [00:23:17]:
Explain that to me.
Chris [00:23:18]:
Yeah, exactly. So basically this guy’s been told at work, hey, you have to use AI. And he’s like, But I’m a humanist.
Sam [00:23:27]:
Okay. Yeah. Okay. I’m with you now.
Chris [00:23:28]:
And so under, uh, due to beliefs, I guess, um, I, I, I, it’s against my beliefs to use AI. So I’m going to use this, I presume some sort of rule, law or something over there. So with the help of the American Humanist Association, he asked for an accommodation under the Title VII which is a federal law that allows employees to ask for a change in their work requirements to comply with religious beliefs.
Sam [00:24:00]:
Okay.
Chris [00:24:01]:
But I’m like, you’re not going to get far in a lot of jobs if you have to do that. I do appreciate there are things that, you know, I don’t think I would ever work in the liquor industry or with gambling ever again. Oh yeah. Because I think it does a whole lot of harm to people and I’ve decided, no, I’m not going that down track before. Again, I used to work for Terapetech.
Sam [00:24:26]:
That’s right. That’s right.
Chris [00:24:27]:
So, um, I do get that on one level, but on another level, I’m like, you effectively can’t use anything electronic these days without using AI. Like you can’t. And we were just talking a bit about that before we got onto this.
Sam [00:24:42]:
Off air.
Chris [00:24:43]:
Yeah. Uh, off air. So, um, I think that’s almost a bit ridiculous now.
Sam [00:24:48]:
I think so. I’ll tell you what’s not ridiculous. Kickstart or Dropkick.
Chris [00:24:52]:
Sweet.
Sam [00:24:53]:
We’re going to speed through these because we’re going to run out of time. Amoeba One. That’s the first one.
Chris [00:24:58]:
Yeah. Okay,
Sam [00:24:59]:
cool. What a name. So Amoeba One is a mini keychain phone. There’s these little phones you can get to reduce distraction, things like that. A lot of them are called companion phones. You need your normal phone. And the little phone works off Bluetooth to actually do any work, but you’ve got to have the other phone within range. This one you don’t.
Sam [00:25:23]:
It has its own SIM card. It can do its own thing. You can ring people, um, text people. It says Amoeba has a wavy screen, a built-in carabiner, and comes in a variety of fun colors. It looks like a Tamagotchi.
Chris [00:25:39]:
Hmm.
Sam [00:25:40]:
Uh, apparently you hold it. There’s a photo of this girl holding it up to her head to make a phone call.
Chris [00:25:44]:
Can you, can you use Bluetooth with it or not?
Sam [00:25:48]:
Well, no, it’s got all the most important apps in it. So it’s got Spotify and Uber and no social though. That’s the thing. And it’s got this little pop-out.
Chris [00:25:56]:
So you can use your headphones or whatever.
Sam [00:26:00]:
I would be surprised if you couldn’t.
Chris [00:26:02]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:26:03]:
Let’s say that.
Chris [00:26:04]:
It’s just when you said putting it up to your head, like, I’m like, really? I mean, cause I, yeah, I’d use my headphones.
Sam [00:26:10]:
Oh, I think it’s, I think it’s wired in that photo.
Chris [00:26:14]:
Huh.
Sam [00:26:14]:
Anyway, it looks like it probably has a battery life of about 37 minutes. Um, I don’t know. Uh, they want $44,000 New Zealand dollars to bring this to market. There’s 22 days to go. And to buy one, uh, random color, you don’t get to pick the color. So it’s a bit cheaper because they’ll just send you whatever. $169 New Zealand. And apparently it’s going to work in a whole bunch of countries around the world.
Sam [00:26:44]:
They are selling their own cellular network. If you don’t have a SIM card, you can sign up to their platform, but that doesn’t work in New Zealand currently. So the cheapest you could possibly get one of these little gadgets, it’s $169.
Chris [00:27:00]:
Yeah, I think that’ll sell. I think loads of people will give it to their kids.
Sam [00:27:04]:
Potentially.
Chris [00:27:05]:
Potentially. And at least for a safety device, $169 is nothing. Okay. So yeah. Um, so how much have they got?
Sam [00:27:13]:
Um, 22 days to go.
Chris [00:27:15]:
22 days to go.
Sam [00:27:17]:
Um, they want $44,000.
Chris [00:27:18]:
Yeah. Okay. I reckon they’re 10 times that. They’re $440,000.
Sam [00:27:23]:
$691,000.
Chris [00:27:25]:
Not bad. I’m in the ballpark.
Sam [00:27:28]:
You’re getting better at this game. Okay. Next up is MotionBox. Now MotionBox is the living home of real animation. Born from handcrafted animation, engineered into a tactile screenless device with swappable motion and adjustable speed. It’s a flipbook mounted into a box.
Chris [00:27:47]:
Oh, okay. Because I was really struggling with that description.
Sam [00:27:51]:
Don’t you worry. Uh, I, yeah, so the animations come from different artists. I think you have to buy them off these people. Um, you load them in. Uh, to this device and, uh, there’s, you can mount them on the wall. Um, I’m guessing you could make your own if you’re clever enough.
Chris [00:28:09]:
I assume it doesn’t just keep going all the way through.
Sam [00:28:12]:
Yes.
Chris [00:28:13]:
It does keep going.
Sam [00:28:13]:
Yeah, so it’s like a Rolodex.
Chris [00:28:15]:
Ah,
Sam [00:28:15]:
okay.
Chris [00:28:16]:
No, that’s pretty cool because it’d be annoying if you had to restart every time.
Sam [00:28:20]:
Yeah, so this woman, Victoria Lopez, is bringing it to market. She’s a professional animator and educator with more than a decade of experience.
Chris [00:28:28]:
It’s pretty cool. I actually think there’s a market for this. I think, first of all, there’s a market for this, uh, like weirdos would like it, artists will like it, but also I think there’s a corporate market where you could, a few of those on a wall, like it’s got in that image.
Sam [00:28:44]:
Yeah, maybe.
Chris [00:28:45]:
For a, a, a show, you were talking about the A&P show before, but that sort of show would be ideal. That’d be pretty cool.
Sam [00:28:53]:
Okay. Well, you’re keen on it. I can tell.
Chris [00:28:55]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:28:56]:
They only want $4,400 New Zealand dollars to bring it to market. There’s 8 days to go and to buy one is $177, but you get 6 cartridges, like 6 different animations.
Chris [00:29:09]:
I’d say they’re around $80,000, $90,000.
Sam [00:29:12]:
Oh, if you only want the box and one animation of your choice, it’s only $88.
Chris [00:29:19]:
Yeah, no, I reckon, I reckon about $90,000. I don’t think they cracked $100,000, but I might be wrong.
Sam [00:29:24]:
$70,000.
Chris [00:29:26]:
I am getting better at this.
Sam [00:29:28]:
Holy shit. I know. It’s only taken years. Years.
Chris [00:29:32]:
Years. I’ve got a good one to end on. Okay. It’s, well, I think, I think it’s good. It tickled my fancy. So, um, the jury has just awarded a, this is in the States, obviously, uh, he, um, a Mexican tourist $200,000 in damages because they got— he’s a Mexican musician.
Sam [00:29:55]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:29:56]:
And he said he neither heard nor understood the police commands during a raid on a Colorado home in 2023.
Sam [00:30:05]:
Okay.
Chris [00:30:06]:
So there’s camera footage and all this, and he was attacked by a police dog, After the Colorado police officers were shouting commands in Spanish.
Sam [00:30:17]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:30:18]:
But the Spanish made no sense, which is why he didn’t comply, because he didn’t know what they meant.
Sam [00:30:24]:
Oh.
Chris [00:30:24]:
And basically it translated to fart police. Now somewhere it says what they actually said. Oh, the translator’s report later determined that this meant fart police, fart the wood, fart police, fart the wood. And he’s like, what do you want me to do? And then they set the dog on him because he wasn’t complying with fart police, fart the wood.
Sam [00:30:49]:
What if, but if they’re, if they’re screaming at you and there’s a dog, just get on the ground.
Chris [00:30:54]:
And then somebody else said, you just ordered the taco plate.
Sam [00:30:58]:
This sounds like a South Park episode.
Chris [00:31:00]:
It does. So anyway, he went to court using the police camera. police body cam’s own footage and sound and won $200,000.
Sam [00:31:12]:
Okay.
Chris [00:31:13]:
Because he was like, he’s on tour. He was on tour doing a concert. Oh, okay. And that was why he was there. And he had, I was like, here’s my visa. Here’s why I’m here. Like all this in Spanish because he doesn’t speak English. And that’s what happened.
Sam [00:31:29]:
Good, good, good.
Chris [00:31:32]:
That tickled me. I thought that was awesome.
Sam [00:31:34]:
That’s very good. Uh, and for more stories that are weird and wonderful like that, tcast.com for everything, all our show notes, last 14 years worth of podcast episodes are available for free. But you can also leave us a message. Oh, I keep forgetting to check it. So there might be a message. We will find out next time.
Chris [00:31:53]:
Oh yeah. Just worth noting. Um, when you hear this, the Mistyflix Film Festival will have been, but we’re recording this before it has been. So we’ll wrap up and tell you what all that was about next week.
Sam [00:32:06]:
If you wait, if you left until, if you, if you listen to this right to the end to hear that most important message, well done. Till next time, I’m Sam. I’m Chris. See ya.
Chris [00:32:17]:
Bye.
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