Summary
This is our yearly podcast from Fieldays, we cover how Fieldays was for us, plus we mix in our normal randomness, technology and life as well, which included:
Sam and his trip to and from Fieldays, Spider Web 2.0 operation, a glacier collapse, robo centipedes and more.
All the Fieldays interviews will be coming out individually very soon, so keep an eye out for them.
Links
Fieldays
Kapiti Liquors
Spider Web 2.0
Glacier Collapse
Jiu Jitsu beginner left paralyzed
Robo centipedes to help with weeds
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 [00:00:00]:
Foreign Sam Podcast. Pull up a barstool and join us for a random conversation guaranteed to make you think, earn your money back. Hello and welcome to episode 535 of the Chris and Sam Podcast.
Chris [00:00:25]:
I’m Old Man Chris.
Sam [00:00:26]:
And I’m Sam. Welcome along to this randomness, Technology and Life podcast brought to you every week by us. 30 minutes or less. We are at Field Days right now, recording live. We are in the media section, so we are up above everyone in the pavilion.
Chris [00:00:39]:
Yeah. And. And I’m knackered because that’s why I said started this off with Old Man Chris, because we’ve been walking around a lot and it’s been pretty good at Field Days. We’ll no doubt go into that a little bit more.
Sam [00:00:51]:
Well, that’s probably the whole main part of the podcast. I was here yesterday and it was okay. It was pretty quiet until lunchtime and it got super busy. Now, yesterday I had to take my car in for a warrant, so I dropped that off in the morning. Then I caught a bus from where I live into town to then catch a different bus to come out to Field Days. And I sat next to someone called Amanda. I think, I hope I got that name right. And she was very interesting and we talked about podcasts and things, and the bus ride went real smooth and.
Sam [00:01:19]:
And I was quite impressed. Yes.
Chris [00:01:21]:
And do you want to talk about the celebrity hookups you almost had on the bus?
Sam [00:01:27]:
Yeah, almost in the. Sitting behind us to the left. I didn’t even notice until Amanda told me. And once you knew you could hear him talking on the phone. Paddy Gower, New Zealand journalist, health advocate, I think something like that. And I didn’t know what he was here for. And it turned out he was. Is working for Toyota New Zealand.
Sam [00:01:49]:
I don’t know if he’s doing travel. I don’t know how that works. But they got him and yesterday Richie McCaw as well. So a lot of people swarming around Richie and Paddy’s still there now talking random stories to people, it seems every time I saw him. So. Yeah. But on the way home yesterday, I had to catch a bus back and do the reverse trip to then get my car from the mechanics, which was good. And I actually came across some real life 100% boomers, and it was just next level.
Sam [00:02:19]:
So we’re waiting when you get the bus from here into town. There’s two pickup areas next to each other. One of them is the base, the other one is to the transport center. And these old couple in their 70s, I’m going to say maybe late 70s. They were sort of talking to this woman next to me and the woman next to me says, that bus, the first bus is going to the base. And they’re like, yep, that’s what we want. So off they went. And the bus pulled up and the guy that was letting people on, he said to them very specifically, he said, this bus is going to the base.
Sam [00:02:53]:
If you want to go to the transport center, you need to go onto the second bus. And they were like, oh, they got a little bit confused. And they’re like, we want to go to center transport. And he goes, no, that’s the second bus. And they’re like, okay. So they came back over and the woman next to me goes, I knew they were going to the wrong bus, but hey, what can I do? Not a problem. So then this old couple, I don’t know where they’re from originally, they go, what’s the base? And she goes, it’s the shopping centre. The base.
Sam [00:03:22]:
She goes, I don’t know what that means. What’s the base? And she goes, oh, it’s a big shopping thing north of Hamilton. And that’s where that bus is going. Well, I don’t want to go there, I want to go to the thing. So they’re okay, cool. So the second bus pulls up and they let us all on and it’s the double decker buses they’re running at the moment. And for some reason this old couple who probably shouldn’t be climbing stairs really want to get on top of this double decker bus. Oh, sorry, back up before this bus turns up.
Sam [00:03:49]:
Somebody, the guy in charge of the buses said something and I can’t remember what he said, but it was quite generic and it was like this bus is going to the transport centre or something. This old boomer just decides and thinks it’s funny to yell out Jason D. He just goes, j and what? Exactly. Because it sounded similar to that. Okay, anyway, so anyway, they’re back on the bus, they’re climbing up the top, they’re all decrepit ass. And he goes, oh. He turns to her, the wife, and he goes, oh, you know, you know when that guy said that thing like he didn’t even know. And he goes, and I just yelled out Jacinda.
Sam [00:04:22]:
And she goes, yeah. And they’re like. And they thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I’m just, I don’t know what’s going on. Anyway, then a little bit later on they were talking about something, I don’t know what it was. He was talking about something and the wife shit you not goes, oh, Mike Hosking and Heather du Plessis alone are going to be talking about that for days. It’s going to be so good. Can’t wait to hear them.
Chris [00:04:45]:
I don’t know what to say, bro. I have no words.
Sam [00:04:48]:
I just felt a bit punchy at that moment. Yeah. So that was. That was it today. We’ve already done a bunch of interviews, we’ve got a few more to go. Wide range as always, so look forward to having them come out. I will say, and I think I was talking to Mariana from NZ Herald earlier. A lot of the people this year seem to be way more switched on with media.
Sam [00:05:13]:
Have you noticed that?
Chris [00:05:15]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we’ve seen a bunch of a lot more QR codes. You mentioned that. A lot more posters with QR codes from the actual exhibitors and stuff like that. I want to yell out for one of these exhibitors for. Let me pull out this card. Carbony liqueur. I don’t know.
Chris [00:05:33]:
Oh, I’ve got Cheryl.
Sam [00:05:35]:
You were lurking. She’s the bar manager. She was the one on the right. I think of the one person you were talking to. You were going around doing some taste testing.
Chris [00:05:42]:
Yeah, I like to do a bit of tasting of all the liqueurs and the things that I cannot afford to buy, but, you know, so she gave me some. Some taste of a damson plum and also a Doris pump. Right. And I’m like, I really like that damson. She goes, would you like a bottle? And I’m like, no, I don’t think so.
Sam [00:06:02]:
How much was it?
Chris [00:06:02]:
It’s $55 for one or two bottles for a hundred. And I’m like, nah. And then she goes, oh, let me give you a card and let me write down the one you tasted that you like. So you can. If you do it on the website, there’s still a special on. And it looks like it’s such a simple thing. She wrote it down. She gave me a card, she wrote down the one I liked and she gave it to me.
Chris [00:06:26]:
No bother, no fuss, no shaming, just really, really well done.
Sam [00:06:31]:
Yeah, simple things done well. And, you know, even in six months time, if you’ve still got that card and you’re going to be like, I can buy this. I know exactly what it is. You’re not relying on your memory or trying to figure out what that little thing was they poured into a little plastic shotgun.
Chris [00:06:46]:
Yeah. And so we also talked to. We interviewed Maddie from Iona College. Now, we wanted to talk to her last year and we forgot we missed her and all that sort of stuff, but she’s, I’m gonna guess, 16, 17 years old, something like that. She’s doing some wallacoustic stuff. Great for podcasting, by the way. But I was just so impressed with her ability to hold a conversation for somebody of that age. Cause I don’t think many people that age do that well, and I don’t think I did that very well at that age myself.
Chris [00:07:18]:
And yeah, it’s. We. We talked about it with her and said this is a real skill that you can talk to a whole variety of different people without losing enthusiasm, all day, every day for four days. It’s a skill. And so more people need to do that.
Sam [00:07:36]:
That’s true. It sure is a skill. A lot of places here want to switch out their staff or students every day to spread the load mentally and physically, I guess, get. Keep the energy up and make sure nobody feels left out. Maybe, I’m not sure, but sometimes I don’t think that’s the best way to do it. Depends on what it is.
Chris [00:08:01]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s a trade off always between the energy thing and the consistency. And consistency is important. And either you train your staff really well, so they’re all hitting the same high points, which is one way of doing it and which when you do that, switching it out makes a lot of sense. But if you got one person that knows everything and all these people that have no idea what’s going on, there’s nothing more frustrating than having a really good question. And the guy goes, I don’t know. You should talk to Mark. But he’s out getting sandwiches at the moment. He might be back in an hour.
Sam [00:08:31]:
Or he’s here tomorrow.
Chris [00:08:33]:
Yeah, it’s like, dude, you lost your chance. I’m not getting that question answered.
Sam [00:08:37]:
So a lot of people don’t come to field days for more than one day.
Chris [00:08:41]:
Oh, hell no. And honestly, I don’t think I can handle a whole day these days. Like, it’s. It’s a lot.
Sam [00:08:49]:
Do you have anything else you want to talk about at field days or are you going to go into one of these topics you got.
Chris [00:08:55]:
No, I don’t think there’s anything else. Field days wise, I wanted to talk about. No, there’s been a lot more rain. And we were talking about it before with Katie, who we talked about. Talked to last year here. And last year it was quieter than this year. It feels like it was quieter than this year. This Year is really wet and last year was pretty wet.
Chris [00:09:19]:
But I think the difference is it’s been wet longer this year. Like, the last two weeks have been wet, so people are still coming out because it’s like, we’re used to being wet. Whereas last year it was sunny and then it suddenly got wet, it filled days and everyone went, bugger that. And we’re going outside. That’s one theory. The other theory is it feels like it’s busier. Everybody’s indoors because it’s pissing down outside.
Sam [00:09:39]:
Yeah, that’s true. I think bringing people in, it makes a real difference. But trying to find a dry spot that you want to hang out in. Yeah, because some places are, like, a bit weird.
Chris [00:09:49]:
Yeah. So we normally. Or the last couple of times, we’ve podcasted here from a pavilion in the lake. And so we went to the pavilion in the lake because it’s dry and we were going to do that here. And then. Yeah, there was some people in there and we saw, oh, we’ll keep walking around. They can’t stay in there very long. They’ll probably.
Chris [00:10:08]:
Probably leave as we get there. And we get there and they’re snogging away. And I’m like, sam, have we been doing our podcast in the local lovers lane? What.
Sam [00:10:18]:
What.
Chris [00:10:18]:
What’s going on here?
Sam [00:10:20]:
Chris’s plan was to just walk in there and just start doing a podcast in the hope that they left. Drive them away with this, random stories. I don’t know.
Chris [00:10:30]:
It would have worked, I reckon. I stand by that plan. That would have worked.
Sam [00:10:35]:
I wasn’t so keen. You’ve got a thing here with Spiderweb 2.0. Now you’ve got a disclaimer before you talk about this. Eh?
Chris [00:10:42]:
Yeah. So I wrote this up when I first heard about it and I had. So a lot of it came from a variety of sources, but a lot of it was Russian bloggers and it was, you know, they were all pissed off and upset about it, which is why it gave it some credibility. But I haven’t seen enough corroborating information to. I’ve seen a bit, but not enough. So I’m not sure if it’s some sort of misinformation thing, but it’s a good enough story that I’m going to share it anyway. So we all remember Spiderweb one. We talked about it last week, I think.
Sam [00:11:16]:
I think it was just last week.
Chris [00:11:18]:
Yeah, it was last week. Right. So we talked about that. And that was where the drones came out of the top of the trucks. And blew up the airfield. So two days after that, I think it was two days after that the Kerch Bridge was hit. Didn’t do as much damage as they hoped, but that’s okay. And then two days after that, I want to say one or two days after that, Spiderweb 2.0 they started calling it.
Chris [00:11:38]:
And so what apparently happened, we’ve got a train, a supply train coming from Russia. And I think this happened while it was still in Russia. The supply train had all these tanks, armored vehicles, so long train. And this is how Russia moves a lot of its material around. And it also hit, for some reason, grain hoppers, which I presume have some. Something to do with the food supplies as well.
Sam [00:12:04]:
So it’s hoppers.
Chris [00:12:06]:
Grain hoppers.
Sam [00:12:07]:
Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Your note says grain hooters.
Chris [00:12:11]:
Okay? No, it’s supposed to say hoppers. So at some point, the hedges on the grain hoppers pop off and drone comes out, goes forward, attacks the locomotive, which slows to a stop, and all these drains come out of these hoppers and hit all these tanks and armored vehicles in the train, like. And it was pretty impressive sounding. There was 41, 40 something armored cars and a dozen tanks or something like that, and apparently did a lot of damage to them. But it’s been. It hasn’t got the coverage I would have expected if it was real. Real.
Sam [00:12:52]:
So the drones themselves didn’t have to fly very far. They just came out and flew backwards or forwards a little bit.
Chris [00:12:58]:
Yeah. So the blogging, the. The tweeting and what have you from these Russian guys were like, what the hell is our service. Secret Service guys doing? What the hell is going on here? SBU are making us look stupid. Da, da, da, da. How the hell did they get there? The hide the drones in the hoppers and what. Whose brilliant idea was it to put grain hoppers on a military train? So I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a thing. And I thought I was really on the.
Chris [00:13:27]:
On the. You know, because I heard about this as it was, you know, just after it was happening. So I was right on the ball with it, and then I heard nothing else. So anyway, that was my Spider 2.0 story. It’s a good enough story to tell, even if it’s not true, but I wish it was true.
Sam [00:13:45]:
I’m amazed that you put a disclaimer in and semi fact checked it, because I thought you’d just tell us something and then the next week you’d be like, oh, bit of a correction.
Chris [00:13:55]:
James Bond is not Henry Cavill is not James Bond.
Sam [00:14:00]:
Don’t upset Adam.
Chris [00:14:02]:
Did you hear about this glacier collapse?
Sam [00:14:06]:
No.
Chris [00:14:07]:
So this was okay. This is a few weeks ago now because this has been hanging around the story and I haven’t shed it, but it is huge. You got to see this video. We’ll put it in the show notes, the link to the story. But this glacier collapsed and like buried a village. Most of a Swiss village. Village’s 300 inhabitants basically had to leave their homes. They already knew that there was problems with this, like.
Chris [00:14:33]:
So the water melt from the glacier was coming too much and apparently it’s like a dam. The water came too much burst the side and it just. The whole thing just decimated this village. But I was so impressed. I think there was only one person missing. They evacuated everybody from the village the night before or two nights before. But you’ve got to see the video, the footage of it or at least the after photos of it. Because that village, there’s this huge village and it’s right smack in the centre.
Chris [00:15:07]:
Not like hit the side of it, like. No, let’s aim for the centre of the village and split it in two halves.
Sam [00:15:13]:
Craziness. But I guess I wonder if the person that didn’t make it out was super old.
Chris [00:15:17]:
Yeah. And they might have gone back in for to pick something up or. You know what I mean? Or they might have gone to a friend’s place in Germany and just nobody’s caught up with them. Like I said, this is a couple weeks ago. So.
Sam [00:15:28]:
Yeah, who really knows? But yeah, that’s scary. But at least they knew about it beforehand. I got a story for you. This guy, okay, there’s a beginner jiu jitsu student. Did you hear about this? He got paralyzed after his black belt instructor did a move on him. He was doing a sparring session with his black belt instructor and he was paralyzed from the neck down. And it was a rolling back take move which was botched. He went under nine hour emergency surgery.
Sam [00:16:01]:
The court held the instructor a higher standard, said that he was acted as a peer, not a teacher responsible for a novice’s safety is what they were saying. And yeah, this is in 2018. And I think he must have just got paid out. Yeah. Now how much do you think he got? What country was this is America in? San Diego.
Chris [00:16:23]:
Oh, it’s got to be in the millions then.
Sam [00:16:25]:
Maybe. What’s your guess?
Chris [00:16:27]:
4 million?
Sam [00:16:29]:
56 million.
Chris [00:16:31]:
Holy shit. So who pays that? The insurance pay that?
Sam [00:16:35]:
Yeah, it was his routine. Routine class. He was dumped. Yeah, he Treated it like he was fighting with a peer and not a student. So the guy was supposed to be under his career, I don’t know. I assume. Oh, the CCTV footage of the incident started. Oh, okay, that’s terrible.
Sam [00:16:55]:
The establishment where it was held was ordered to pay $46 million in damages in 2023, but it appealed the decision. And then. Yeah, the amount was meant to cover past and future medical expenses, potential lost earnings, and an extra 36 million for the pain and suffering. So it sounds like they pushed it up anyway. I don’t know, it must be like. Yeah, it must be insurance on the club.
Chris [00:17:21]:
Yeah, they must have a liability insurance. That’s scary stuff. Closer to home, we had somebody in Hamilton, actually, this is when I lived in Wellington. So we’re talking about the 80s. One of the black belts, I won’t mention his name, he was a bouncer up here in Hamilton and somebody started a fight and he kicked him in the head. And not what you do as a bouncer, like that’s not the thing to do. But I mean, he was a tournament fighter and that’s what he did all the time. And so he kicked him in the head and the guy got brain damage.
Chris [00:17:55]:
And I don’t think he had to pay anything. I think he might have actually done some community service or something like that back in the day because, you know, it’s more. Back then it was like, okay, the guys are retard now. Harden them up.
Sam [00:18:12]:
Is this guy still around?
Chris [00:18:12]:
Do you know the guy that did it? I. I don’t know. Actually, I haven’t heard from him for years and years. Yeah, we weren’t. We were. He was a lot older than me and we weren’t very close and he was. He was much more competitive than I was. So, yeah, I just knew of him more than knew him.
Sam [00:18:32]:
Very good. I’ve just been sent a video of us recording. It’s not. It’s like we’ve got a stalker pointing at us. There she goes with it. She’s got the world’s largest sack with her. Did you see it? It’s like she’s going mountain climbing with this giant waterproof dive bag thing.
Chris [00:18:52]:
I’ve got one there here that I put in a while ago that I thought would make a great field days thing if we should maybe just bring it in and say it’s our thing and bring it into field days innovation. So it’s Robo Centipede. So basically what they’re doing is instead of. There’s a lot of problems with agricultural. Agricultural robotics. And the idea of this is that they’re using bugs to work out how to do the locomotion and stuff on the ground. And I’ll put a link to the thing. It shows some video of these things walking.
Chris [00:19:32]:
But basically they’re using like centipede robots, pots for crop management. And it allows them to even have these jaw like things like ants, jaws that grab the weeds and pull them out so they can come along the bottom of vines where wheeled or tracked vehicles can’t really go as well.
Sam [00:19:52]:
Whereabouts is that happening? Because I’m expecting to see that in the next year or two here with maybe the Waikati Uni or some other crowd maybe. I wonder if you can compare them with. Pair them up with the guys that flame weeds.
Chris [00:20:08]:
I’m just looking through. I think this is California. Not 100% sure ground control robotics is what they’re called.
Sam [00:20:19]:
Interesting. Yeah. Okay, I’m not sure, like, because that’d be quite a slow moving thing, wouldn’t it be? I don’t know. Geek have wheeled or tracked. I don’t know.
Chris [00:20:29]:
So apparently it’s better than track. So track to wield. It’s better in those crops that are straight and stuff. This will work better for vineyards where the vines are all over the place and you don’t want to be trampling over them, as I understand it. So there’s a specific use case, but it’s a little bit more like the Roomba, right? They just go and do their thing and you just leave them at it and they go and recharge themselves and then keep wandering off and go and recharge and just wander off. So from that point of view, it sort of makes some sense.
Sam [00:21:01]:
How do you feel about a robot hand that moves really slowly and may or may not grab invisible fruit?
Chris [00:21:09]:
So what Sam’s referring to is the Waikato University has something at the innovation, which I didn’t interview them on this because I just saw their epic fails. They’ve got this.
Sam [00:21:20]:
Chris is like, no, they’ve got this.
Chris [00:21:25]:
Tree with kiwifruit on them. But they’re not real kiwi fruit. Plastic kiwifruit with magnets that hold them to the vine. And so the arm comes up and it grasps a kiwifruit, a magnetic kiwifruit, plucks it, then turns around and drops it. Right? Except it obviously has no sensor. So it goes up to one which has already been plugged and grabs the thin air and it turns and drops it. But when I say it turns and it drops. It.
Chris [00:21:52]:
It turns and it drops. It takes about 15 seconds. It’s like watching paint dry. And you’re. I’m watching this move so slowly. It hasn’t even picked anything up. So, no, I’m not going to interview these guys.
Sam [00:22:05]:
Yeah, it was a pretty slow process and we can’t really comment cause we didn’t talk to them. So, you know, they probably will have a sensor or something on it. I don’t know.
Chris [00:22:14]:
Well, they should at some point. They should at some point.
Sam [00:22:17]:
What else do you have? Anything else? We wrap this up. No, it’s been a great time here at Field Days. I’ve got a bunch of interviews to edit after this. Edit? Yeah. Shout out, as always to Steve Chappell from Field Days. I can’t remember what his exact title is. Anyway, he’s a big wig here. He helps out with different sections.
Sam [00:22:36]:
He said, hi, points us in direction of interesting people. And.
Chris [00:22:40]:
And this year they had a podcast section on the. When you apply for media passes. In the past, there never was. I’m a podcaster and we want to say that we were probably the ones that made that happen.
Sam [00:22:55]:
We’re the only podcasters we’ve seen. I’ve seen people doing social media. I’ve seen people doing film, video, radio. Oh, I haven’t seen any radio today.
Chris [00:23:04]:
Well, you had the NZ Music. Oh, the Herald. And you had the NZ nzb. Wasn’t it yesterday?
Sam [00:23:12]:
No.
Chris [00:23:12]:
Okay. Okay. I thought you.
Sam [00:23:15]:
No, I don’t know what he’s on about. No, Harold was doing written stories today. They just happened to be recording the conversation. Yeah, no. So anyway, thanks everyone for checking us out. If you come and saw us at Field Days or saw us around, that’s great. Just got a couple more people follow us on Instagram, which is cool. Big companies here at Field Days.
Sam [00:23:33]:
So, as always, I’m Sam.
Chris [00:23:35]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:23:36]:
See ya.
Chris [00:23:37]:
Bye.
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