Summary
From AI replacing — then rehiring — human workers to luxury wool wall coverings, solar-powered aircraft, and the curious fate of digital movie ownership. Plus, the latest in quirky Kickstarters and tech nostalgia.
Links
Measuring Volcanic Emissions with Drone Technology
Kea Aerospace
Great American State Fair
Sony Deleting Items
Ford Rehires Workers
Kickstart or Dropkick – Sony 80
Kickstart or Dropkick – Ruixin Pro Omni Sharpener
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 587 of the Chris and Sam podcast.
Chris [00:00:25]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:00:26]:
And I’m Sam. This is your weekly fix of randomness, technology and Life. Every week, 30 minutes you get us. There’s no guests. Sorry. I was just thinking about. I think we got another request in the junk mail maybe.
Chris [00:00:39]:
Oh, did we?
Sam [00:00:40]:
Oh, maybe. I just. I saw something the other day and I was like, nope. No. But I don’t know. I was just thinking about it and I was like, I don’t know. I do listen to podcasts where they have guests, but it’s usually celebrities. Which is fine.
Sam [00:00:55]:
I just don’t know. I think I could.
Chris [00:00:56]:
It makes sense if you’ve got a podcast about a certain specific topic to have guests on that topic.
Sam [00:01:03]:
Yes.
Chris [00:01:03]:
Like that makes perfect sense for us. I mean, it’d be cool to get somebody random. And every once in a while, maybe we do with the. The field days. Yeah. And we don’t want to interview more than 10 minutes. I don’t.
Sam [00:01:19]:
No. That’s right. Anyway, I’m fried because I’ve been at a work thing because I now belong to a new entity. And we had a big.
Chris [00:01:30]:
Do you really belong or are you one of the orphan children that don’t really belong because you’re with another entity?
Sam [00:01:36]:
We don’t belong anywhere. But I’m not. I’m not gonna get into it. Cause it’s too confusing. But I went to a big get together slash team building slash welcome thing today. Which is fine. And it’s great and it’s wonderful. Two things.
Sam [00:01:54]:
I don’t like it because I’ve just. I’m behind on a day’s worth of work now.
Chris [00:01:59]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:02:00]:
And I do not do work from home outside of my work hours. Cause I just don’t. And they’re pretty happy with that at work, which is great.
Chris [00:02:06]:
Good.
Sam [00:02:07]:
The other thing is, this week I’m getting a camera up the butt colonoscopy. But today’s the first day of my prep.
Chris [00:02:18]:
Oh, really?
Sam [00:02:18]:
So I can only eat really basic, bland food. So I could almost eat nothing at this thing today, which is annoying. And tomorrow I’m working from home. And then at 3pm I’ve got to start drinking all the liquids.
Chris [00:02:32]:
Right. Never done one of those.
Sam [00:02:33]:
So.
Speaker B [00:02:34]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:02:35]:
Good luck with that. Good luck with that.
Sam [00:02:37]:
I am a little bit concerned about being sedated and saying random stuff when I come out of it.
Chris [00:02:42]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:02:43]:
Yeah, we will see what happens.
Chris [00:02:46]:
So last night I went to a professorial lecture. Lecture.
Sam [00:02:53]:
So a lecture from a professor.
Chris [00:02:54]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:02:55]:
Okay.
Chris [00:02:55]:
So Professor Emma Nicholson. So she. She did a TEDx talk last year. It’s one of the ones. Yeah. With me. That I coached. And it was one of the ones that won the Editor’s Choice Award, which is great.
Chris [00:03:09]:
Except it still hasn’t come out on video. I still haven’t seen it on video yet. It hasn’t come out. That’s so slow.
Sam [00:03:15]:
Hang on. So they’ve said. Yeah, you’ve got. We picked it all.
Chris [00:03:19]:
The Editor’s Choice are slower than everyone else because they do a whole feature on them and stuff. So I guess they schedule them in. And I’m like.
Sam [00:03:27]:
So you get told that it’s Editor’s Choice, but it’s not released yet?
Chris [00:03:31]:
No. And so that’s one of the reasons. So Emma’s. And Andrea, she was also there. They’re both like. They still haven’t seen their video yet. Oh. And so.
Sam [00:03:42]:
Oh, okay. Yep. Strange. Yeah.
Chris [00:03:45]:
So that’s annoying. But anyway, so she. She’s talking. She’s. She was my favorite.
Sam [00:03:50]:
And this talk she did last night that you listened to or watched is different to the TED Talk.
Chris [00:03:55]:
Yeah, it’s different to the TED Talk. Basically. It’s a. It’s a thing when you become a professor. This is an inaugural professor professorial address.
Sam [00:04:04]:
And are most people there professors or is it just random? Yes. Okay. Are you the. Are you the odd one out?
Chris [00:04:12]:
I mean, I think there’s friends and family, so I’d be in that category. Category, basically. So there’s some kids there, but she’s a volcanologist, which is the cool thing.
Sam [00:04:22]:
Okay.
Chris [00:04:23]:
And it was really interesting cause she basically. So she’s English and she basically went through what she’s done and she’s basically been at the forefront of using drones for volcanology, like. Cause it wasn’t a thing before.
Sam [00:04:38]:
And is all her.
Chris [00:04:39]:
Okay.
Sam [00:04:40]:
And is all her work here in New Zealand or is she here going somewhere else with more active volcanoes?
Chris [00:04:45]:
Oh, yeah, she. Gary spoke after her address or. No, Ian spoke after her address. So they have a follow up thing and he spoke and he’s like, I picked the wrong discipline because she went all around the world. She’s going to Italy for this one and Venezuela for this one and Chile for this one.
Sam [00:05:04]:
Okay.
Chris [00:05:05]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam [00:05:05]:
That’s what I was wondering.
Chris [00:05:06]:
Like. Damn it.
Sam [00:05:07]:
And is that Ian.
Chris [00:05:09]:
Ian White?
Sam [00:05:09]:
Yeah, yeah. Good, good.
Chris [00:05:10]:
Yeah. So. Yeah. So he’s like, oh, I picked the wrong, I picked. What is it he does environmental.
Sam [00:05:17]:
Just dumb stuff.
Chris [00:05:18]:
Yeah, yeah, Architecture basically.
Sam [00:05:21]:
So what did you learn?
Chris [00:05:22]:
Oh, I learned a few things. So first of all, they use this drones for collecting gases. And why do they want to collect gases? Well, this is really interesting. She’s really good Communicator, actually. Science communicator.
Sam [00:05:35]:
Did they show the drone?
Chris [00:05:36]:
They showed some video and stuff.
Sam [00:05:37]:
Is it okay, is it a traditional looking drone or is it sort of like an airplane one?
Chris [00:05:42]:
They used a fixed wing for the one they showed in the video. I think they use both, but this one was fixed wing because they go over the, into the plume and they’re getting the gas that way. Yeah. Checking the plume. So yeah, so that was cool. She, she goes, you know how gas is soluble under pressure?
Sam [00:06:04]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:06:05]:
Right. So when you open a bottle of Coke, when you look at a bottle of Coke, there’s no bubbles in it. And then as soon as you release the pressure, bubbles appear because it’s decompressing. Basically this happens with the lava or magma as it’s coming up through the earth. As it comes higher, the gas compresses and creates bubbles.
Sam [00:06:27]:
Okay.
Chris [00:06:28]:
Yeah. And that’s part of what makes things shoot up and erupt. Yeah. But the interesting thing is there’s three main gases and now I can’t remember what they were.
Sam [00:06:37]:
Doesn’t matter.
Chris [00:06:38]:
Doesn’t matter. And, but they decompress at different levels. So by the telling how, what gas is there, they can see what level it was released at. Yeah. And so they can sort of get a picture of how the magma is moving, how quickly it’s moving up, how,
Sam [00:06:56]:
how without the magma not even being present sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
Chris [00:07:02]:
So yeah, no, it’s very fascinating stuff. So that was really cool. So, yeah. And so it’s just about time for us to start working on next year’s TEDx University of Waikato. So I’m catching up with Gary in a couple of weeks time. So yeah, it was good. It was a bit of a TedX reunion. I was talking about five of the speakers I’d coached there and they’re like,
Sam [00:07:24]:
what have you been up to, Chris? And you’re like, well, hobbling. Let me tell you about my hip that’s slowly crumbling away.
Chris [00:07:30]:
Yeah, that, that was a feature of conversation.
Sam [00:07:33]:
I wonder why. Because you hobble up.
Chris [00:07:35]:
Because I can’t walk.
Sam [00:07:36]:
You can’t walk.
Chris [00:07:38]:
I did one other thing today actually, just before you, you turned up, I got asked by Sarah to jump in last minute she only asked me the other day, what are you up to on Wednesday? Oh, she asked me Monday night at 9pm and I didn’t sit till Tuesday morning because it was on Monday night. So I said, oh, actually you’re in luck. So I basically sat in on Zoom with the startup founders for Tupu. So they’ve got a new startup accelerator.
Sam [00:08:11]:
Oh cool.
Chris [00:08:12]:
But it’s in Auckland.
Sam [00:08:13]:
Who cares? You can work remotely.
Chris [00:08:15]:
Exactly.
Sam [00:08:16]:
And you can bill remotely too.
Chris [00:08:19]:
Yeah, so I didn’t bill for this, so I don’t know, I think she’s got to sort me out something anyway. Good, we’ll work out.
Sam [00:08:25]:
Get in there anyway.
Chris [00:08:26]:
But yeah, so it’s pretty good. And I’ll mention a couple of these
Sam [00:08:29]:
things that I guess you’re allowed to.
Chris [00:08:31]:
Yes, I, I, there was one that doesn’t want their thing recorded so I’m not going to mention that. Okay. But I’m going to talk about three
Sam [00:08:40]:
that I, I really liked and hang on. And they’re just. What’s their background? Youth? Maori? No, just anything. I don’t know.
Chris [00:08:49]:
I think there is a Mori connection. I think there’s a Mori connection with them. Yeah.
Sam [00:08:54]:
Okay, go.
Chris [00:08:55]:
So the first one’s Rahi. It’s a luxury, well being wall coverings. So it’s, it really is high end. The, the presentation was flawless.
Sam [00:09:08]:
I’m already out. I don’t care what, what makes it special.
Chris [00:09:12]:
So the market is California and New York.
Sam [00:09:17]:
So when you say wall covering, you’re talking about like just basically a wallpaper
Chris [00:09:21]:
or made of New Zealand wool.
Sam [00:09:23]:
And so, so hang on. So okay, is it soft or is it fluffy or is it just got wool in it?
Chris [00:09:29]:
I can tell from the images and apparently it helps it, what do you call it, attracts or sucks out the pollutants. There’s more pollutants inside than there are outside these days with cleaners and stuff like that. And the wool attracts them and pulls them out of the air. And so they’re going through to prove that’s the next stage of what they.
Sam [00:09:52]:
Okay, so they’ve got.
Chris [00:09:53]:
Okay.
Sam [00:09:53]:
They want proof of concept, proof, proof
Chris [00:09:56]:
that medical proof that they can say, make claims in America that this is true.
Sam [00:10:02]:
Sounds interesting.
Chris [00:10:03]:
That was cool. Yeah, I was really taken with that. It was probably my favorite.
Sam [00:10:07]:
Okay.
Chris [00:10:07]:
Te Rama, which was interesting is she starts talking about these sticks and it’s like, oh, you know, fiber’s an important part of your diet. And these kiwi fruit sticks. And I’m like, I’m thinking my head like jerky. But it’s more like, you know those popsicle ice cream that ice ice blocks that you get? Yeah, yeah, it’s more like that. Apparently it’s a big thing in Japan and Singapore and that’s where they want to sell, not here. It’s like a real normal thing over there. They do these, these stick supplements all the time and so. But what they want to do is, you know, we’ve got a really good reputation for being, you know, clean and green and all that sort of stuff.
Chris [00:10:52]:
So they’re going to sell it over there.
Sam [00:10:53]:
Does this mean like the Kiwi Crush, which you can buy now in the supermarket but comes in a big packet and that’s frozen kiwifruit stuff, which is everything you just said. Very good for you. Have they just not tapped into a different way of packaging it? This sounds like it. That sounds like an existing product.
Chris [00:11:10]:
Yeah. And so both of the founders lived and worked in Japan markets and stuff, so. So they’re like, we can sell this over there. And so they want to do a pilot here because they’re here, but it’s all sold over there, which I think is a great idea.
Sam [00:11:25]:
Interesting. Yeah.
Chris [00:11:26]:
And then the last one that was interesting, it was actually the first one they talked about today was the Long game. And basically it’s connecting athletes with the next part of their lives. So all these athletes train so hard. They get all this. They get to the level they get to and. And then it’s like, oh, your career’s over and they are stuffed. And so they have this whole program for getting people, these high level athletes into.
Sam [00:11:54]:
I’ve already heard of this and I don’t know if it’s that, but I’ve heard of this. There’s the crowd.
Chris [00:11:59]:
Oh, this is a new thing. I think so.
Sam [00:12:00]:
Oh, there’s somebody already doing it. Cause I’ve heard the exact pitch.
Chris [00:12:03]:
I’ve heard the pitch before.
Sam [00:12:05]:
Exactly what you just told me.
Chris [00:12:06]:
I don’t know where, but their pitch on this, I was very impressed. In fact, most of the pictures, there’s a couple that need a bit of work, but most of them and, and I was there for the icing because they’re delivering tomorrow. So I was there like, you’ve already baked the cake. We can’t change anything fundamental. In fact, even the slide order I found out later was already set because it’s already been put into the av. So I can’t change anything because there’s a couple I want to change. But yeah, anyway, that was cool. I felt good about it.
Chris [00:12:36]:
It was good to Be useful.
Sam [00:12:38]:
Needed.
Chris [00:12:39]:
Needed.
Sam [00:12:41]:
Do you know who else is being felt needed this week? Nope. Ford Motor Company workers, a whole bunch got laid off a while back because of AI. AI will fix everything and do everything. And AI is amazing. And Ford expanded AI across all its operations, including quality control, and that’s to reduce costs and improve productivity. Turns out AI is a bit crap. It can’t do everything the humans can. So they’ve re.
Sam [00:13:06]:
They’ve brought them all back. They’ve brought back veteran quality inspectors, human engineers as well, because they just don’t. They’re just idiots. And someone in the comments wrote a thing and I think I agree with it. You can, like, have people that do a job really well and the bosses automatically assume that every time there’s a new process or a new way of doing something, especially in car manufacturing, that that person somehow has a magical amount of time to write down the process or document what they’re doing. Yeah, but that’s not the case. They retain it and know how to do it. And they’ve probably trained other people on how to do it, but the AI doesn’t know that.
Sam [00:13:48]:
And I think they found that out. So I think it was about 300 jobs they had to bring back.
Chris [00:13:52]:
And you’re much better to have somebody like, I think if you’re. If you’re a company and you’ve got these skilled workers and you want benefits from AI, is you give the AI to the skilled workers so they use it in a way that’s effective. You don’t get rid of the skilled workers and then try and replace them with AI because that’s not going to work.
Sam [00:14:14]:
They. They have. Yeah, no, exactly. They’ve brought them back 300 of them. They’re going to help train AI systems a bit better because they put in like 900 AI powered cameras to detect defects. So that sounds really good. Like that’s a lot of cameras to look for things. And they’re gonna be mentoring younger employees, so we’ll see how that goes.
Sam [00:14:33]:
But yeah, this AI thing’s just a bit nutso.
Chris [00:14:37]:
Have you heard about the Kia Aerospace this week?
Sam [00:14:41]:
Well, here’s a funny story. Every now and then I just get a feeling that I should pre check your stories so I don’t have to retroactively. This happened in October last year, but carry on. Okay, all right, all right, the story’s good.
Chris [00:14:58]:
The story’s good. October last year. God damn it. All right, so Kia Aerospace is leading the world in sustainable flight. Their Kia Atmos Mark 1B has become as of last October, the first solar powered aircraft in New Zealand to reach the stratosphere. Flying for over eight hours at more than 56,000ft, powered entirely by the sun. Now, now what got me was I was wondering. Yeah, but how do you launch? Because it’s solar powered.
Sam [00:15:31]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:15:32]:
So how do they launch? Do you know how they launch?
Sam [00:15:34]:
I think it’s on the. Oh, I can’t remember now.
Chris [00:15:37]:
It’s on the roof of a car.
Sam [00:15:38]:
That’s right, yeah.
Chris [00:15:39]:
Or a back, back of a pickup truck.
Sam [00:15:41]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris [00:15:42]:
And they go fly, driving along until it launches, which makes sense. But that’s cool. But yeah, basically this, very few globally aerospace companies that can do that. And this will be good for monitoring environmental monitoring, disaster response and maritime awareness because it can stay up that foot.
Sam [00:16:02]:
But what they actually use it for I think and make money from is high resolution imagery of the earth. For mapping.
Chris [00:16:11]:
Yeah, exactly. Because they’re so much closer than satellites.
Sam [00:16:14]:
Because. Yes, because all the photos in Google Maps and things like that is not from a satellite, it’s from an airplane currently. Oh, the satellite’s too far away and they can’t get the resolution that detailed. So planes do it. Now the thing that you may have seen but you linked to the October story, this might be where the confusion is because they did have a story from May 8th this year. They went up again for the 23rd test flight out of Christchurch that got like peak altitude 42,000ft this thing and they reckon that they’re about to come up with a bigger version. Now did you see the CEO’s name?
Chris [00:16:55]:
I can’t remember.
Sam [00:16:56]:
His name’s Mark Rocket. So Mark Rocket has got this little plane company, it’s going great. They’re gonna have this bigger one and the current one that we’re talking about is 12.5 meter wingspan. The bigger one that they’re working on now is 30 meter wingspan.
Chris [00:17:16]:
Wow.
Sam [00:17:16]:
And they’re real proud to be doing it here in New Zealand. And I think this one is planning to go up from like flight all non stop all day long, if not longer. Cause I think the one you were talking about, maybe eight hours I’ve got out of it.
Chris [00:17:30]:
Something like that I think.
Sam [00:17:32]:
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Oh, talking about space and stuff. Did you see what Rocket Labs. Yeah, Rocket Lab have just brought.
Chris [00:17:39]:
Bought iridium.
Sam [00:17:40]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Iridium. I mean I guess they’re still doing the same thing but back in the day they were the satellite phone provider.
Chris [00:17:48]:
Oh, of course they were.
Sam [00:17:49]:
So you’d get it.
Chris [00:17:50]:
I Knew. I knew I recognized the name.
Sam [00:17:52]:
Yeah, I thought you might, but.
Chris [00:17:53]:
But they were. Cuz I think they started out, their thing was maritime. Oh, the, the maritime thing. And then that became. When mobile became normal because it was normal for ships because they had to connect without wires. They became the, you know, GPS and all, you know, mobile and all that.
Sam [00:18:13]:
Yeah. So it’d be pretty interesting. So I saw. Basically it’s going to potentially be the biggest competitor to SpaceX. SpaceX’s Starlink.
Chris [00:18:25]:
Starlink, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because. Because I’ve already have the LEOs, the Low Earth orbit. Earth orbit things. Yeah. So it’s a huge thing. So basically Rocket Labs has bought them for. Was it 3 billion or 8 billion? I forget one of them.
Chris [00:18:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. Which is a hell of a lot of money. Oh yeah. Well done, Peter. And did you.
Sam [00:18:49]:
I didn’t watch the thing or anything, but did you see him, you know, when it auto plays a video? Did you see the start of the video? It must be.
Chris [00:18:57]:
No, I didn’t.
Sam [00:18:58]:
Yeah, it must be him.
Chris [00:19:01]:
I saw a news story. I didn’t see a video.
Sam [00:19:02]:
Oh, there’s a video. And it must be him doing the announcement or something. And he comes out and he’s putting on a jacket and it’s. It’s like a fraction too small for
Chris [00:19:13]:
him and he’s like.
Sam [00:19:15]:
But they left it in. Like they haven’t cut that. I think, I think that’s how it starts. It’s just so queuey.
Chris [00:19:23]:
That’s funny.
Sam [00:19:24]:
So that’s been happening, Sony, for you people out there. How do you feel about the. There’s a resurgence or movement, I guess it is for people that. And you’re a hoarder pretty much. So you’re pretty much in this realm. But I don’t think you’ve added to it people that still have digital media. Physical media. Sorry, Physical media.
Sam [00:19:46]:
So you’ve still got DVDs, you’ve still got CDs.
Chris [00:19:49]:
Oh, I’ve got. Yeah, because you haven’t. Just look around.
Sam [00:19:52]:
Yeah, I know. And books.
Chris [00:19:55]:
I’m gonna make CD ROM games over.
Sam [00:19:57]:
Yeah, they’ll never work again.
Chris [00:20:01]:
What am I gonna plug them in?
Sam [00:20:02]:
Oh, people will probably pay for them. There’s old anyway. But there’s people that got rid of everything got digital and like. No, like this is terrible. Like I want the physical copy because you always have it, you know, you physically own it. So Sony is deleting 551 movies and TV shows. You brought on your PlayStation because you don’t really own your Digital purchases. That’s what the headline is.
Sam [00:20:26]:
Sony failed to renew its licensing agreement with Studio Canal. They’ve done this mandatory purge of all their content. This includes John Wick, Terminator 2, Paddington, total recall, Rambo and Apocalypse now, plus other things. No refunds for customers. Sorry. Whoa.
Chris [00:20:44]:
So if you’d bought those movies on PlayStation, I didn’t even know you could do that.
Sam [00:20:50]:
Yeah, you buy a digital copy and you can watch it whenever you want apparently. Yeah, but you can’t because this is highlighting the growing consumer issue in the digital age where you’re sort of licensing it off someone but you don’t own it. The only downside to physical is the physical space it takes up.
Chris [00:21:10]:
Yeah. You should be able to download it when you buy it and then you’ve got to keep it in your hard drive or something, which then becomes a problem.
Sam [00:21:18]:
So Rockstar Games is bringing out Grand Theft Auto 6. I think it is.
Chris [00:21:24]:
I still haven’t got that big one that they did so many years ago.
Sam [00:21:28]:
Well, this has been 15 years in the making. This apparently has cost more than the giant tower or what’s the world’s tallest building. The Khalifa thing, the Burj Khalifa.
Chris [00:21:37]:
Yep.
Sam [00:21:37]:
This has cost more than building that. The time and effort put into it. You can pre order it right now and to be honest, the price is pretty good. I think it’s like $110 or something and people are like, that’s pretty good. I think it’s something like that. 120, whatever. You can buy the case and then you get a little digital download code and that’s it. And people are like, I want the actual disc and stuff.
Sam [00:21:59]:
So don’t know when that’s coming out. I don’t know if it’s fake or not, but some guy pre ordered a whole bunch thinking he was getting the discs and then he was going to try and flip them, but he’s just going to get all these codes.
Chris [00:22:12]:
You know, you still flip the code.
Sam [00:22:14]:
Maybe.
Chris [00:22:14]:
Have you heard much about this? I’m only just going to mention this real quickly because, you know, last week we talked about the reflecting pool, which doesn’t reflect because it’s green. Have you heard about this Great American State Fair?
Sam [00:22:27]:
No. No. Is this to do with the 250th
Chris [00:22:31]:
anniversary great American State Fair on and I saw.
Sam [00:22:35]:
What at the White House?
Chris [00:22:36]:
No, no. But it’s in Washington.
Sam [00:22:38]:
Has he done it? Has it happened?
Chris [00:22:39]:
It’s happening now. Like it’s the whole week for Fourth of July week or whatever. It Is. Yeah, yeah.
Sam [00:22:45]:
Okay.
Chris [00:22:47]:
So basically there’s these areas for each state because it’s the state fair. So there’s a. Area or a.
Sam [00:22:54]:
And then they. And then they can show off whatever they want.
Chris [00:22:57]:
And they’ve got exhibitors from all sorts in there and people are paid money.
Sam [00:23:01]:
The concept sounds great.
Chris [00:23:03]:
Yeah, exactly. They had the. What’s the name? The freaking chick. The PR chick. She’s just had another baby.
Sam [00:23:12]:
The blonde one.
Chris [00:23:13]:
Yeah, the blonde one.
Sam [00:23:13]:
I don’t know what her name is.
Chris [00:23:15]:
Yeah, McWinney or something like that. Anyway, she’s come back from maternity leave and they were interviewing her there and there’s nobody in the background. Like, there’s nobody. Because I was watching this interview going, huh?
Sam [00:23:28]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:23:28]:
It must be just before they open or something. Nope, it was open. It was the middle of the day and a couple of people walked past. I thought they were workers. Then somebody mentioned, nobody’s coming to the state fair.
Sam [00:23:39]:
Good, good.
Chris [00:23:41]:
And then I just saw this other story where they’re going. Mount Olive Pickles have just withdrawn from the Great American State Fair.
Sam [00:23:49]:
Should we know about Mount Olive Pickles?
Chris [00:23:50]:
Are they good? I don’t know. Because they were in the nc. Northern North Carolina. North Carolina, let’s call it that. And who had put a Confederate flag up. It’s like, you guys are just mental. You’re just mental. Anyway, so, yeah, great.
Chris [00:24:11]:
Americans State Fair is the latest suck full thing that Trump’s done.
Sam [00:24:15]:
Okay. I’m sure there’s great things happening in America, but we only hear about the crazy, weird stuff.
Chris [00:24:19]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:24:20]:
Hey, Kickstarter, Dropkick. I’ve got two of them for you to end the podcast with. Yep. The first one is. Actually involves Sony. These people have decided to put something together called Sony 80. It’s a hard covered book celebrating 80 years of Sony from 1946 to 2026. Now.
Chris [00:24:41]:
1946. Okay.
Sam [00:24:42]:
Yeah. Been around a long time.
Chris [00:24:43]:
Yeah, I did very.
Sam [00:24:44]:
They’ve brought out very stylish things. They’ve been innovators in different spaces.
Chris [00:24:49]:
Well, the Walkman was Sony, wasn’t it?
Sam [00:24:51]:
Exactly.
Chris [00:24:51]:
Yeah. And that was. I remember going to the trade fair in Wellington when the Walkman was just being introduced and there was this tiny. Well, you wouldn’t call it tiny now, but it seemed tiny to me.
Sam [00:25:05]:
Exactly.
Chris [00:25:06]:
And we put these headphones on and listened to the most amazing sound I’ve ever heard and it blew my mind.
Sam [00:25:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. And they’re real big and all sorts of stuff. I remember. I think it was like Dick Smith catalog always used to buy that every year and just stare at stuff I could never afford. Yeah, I think Sony had like a. I think a guy at high school got one. I think it was like a.
Sam [00:25:28]:
Was it 300 disc CD changer? Yeah, I think it was. And it was all slotted in. Yeah, I remember that. And they just had some cool looking stuff and like circle.
Chris [00:25:38]:
It was like a donut, wasn’t it?
Sam [00:25:40]:
There was that. Yeah there was. Yeah, I think that’s how it was working. Yeah, yeah. So anyway that’s all cool but these guys want to put together a 220 page premium hardcover book. There’s a guy that runs a website called Obsolete Sony, the largest online community dedicated to Sony technology have not checked that out but I’m going to. They’ve got this guy that’s going to edit and publish it. He’s a gaming historian and then they’ve got a designer as well.
Sam [00:26:05]:
That’s really good. And the mock up is just really nice looking book.
Chris [00:26:10]:
Okay.
Sam [00:26:10]:
You know nothing too.
Chris [00:26:11]:
So a coffee table book type thing.
Sam [00:26:12]:
Yeah, that’s the one. That’s the one. They 25 days to go. At the time of this recording they want to raise 37,355 New Zealand dollars.
Chris [00:26:23]:
Yeah, publishing costs.
Sam [00:26:25]:
Yeah, that’s what they want. And it will cost you about 82 New Zealand dollars.
Chris [00:26:30]:
That’s not bad actually because those things are bloody expensive.
Sam [00:26:33]:
They also do a digital PDF version. They’re going to do for 24 and. Or it’s 101 bucks for both I thought. Okay, that sounds good. They want to raise.
Chris [00:26:43]:
How many days did you say?
Sam [00:26:44]:
25 days to go.
Chris [00:26:46]:
Right.
Sam [00:26:47]:
They want to raise 37,355. How much have they made is your guess?
Chris [00:26:53]:
I’d say yeah, over 100, 150,000.
Sam [00:26:58]:
They’ve met their goal but it’s $45,000.
Chris [00:27:01]:
Oh okay.
Sam [00:27:02]:
So just so that’s interesting and they’re not like it’s funny because you think Sony themselves would bring that out. I don’t know if they have or not but you think Sony would have at some point.
Chris [00:27:13]:
It’s a great thing when your fans are doing that for you though. And I mean it is funny. Cause I was going to say the only thing I reckon is a negative on that is it’s not niched enough. Cause it’s not just the games or it’s not just the hardware and I think that’s probably killing the a little bit on that.
Sam [00:27:30]:
That’s right. That’s coming from us, a non niche podcast
Chris [00:27:36]:
and we know the dramas that causes.
Sam [00:27:39]:
The second Kickstarter is called the Ruaksen Pro Omnic sharpener with built in angle indicator. It’s what you want. I’ll try and get a photo just to try and explain this thing to you. But basically any blade anywhere, the all in one modular sharpening studio. It’s a hell of a contraption. I’m looking at this and it’s just got these random like comments, but there’s no photos of it. Why is there no photos? What a we. Okay, this is very strange, but they’ve got a video of someone unboxing one.
Sam [00:28:14]:
Don’t let that put you off if you want to sharpen your knives. I don’t. I don’t want to show you this page because it’s. It’s got a video, but I can’t expand it. It’s very little. And if I show you the video, you’ll see the prices. The first. Okay, the first thing it says, it’s just that text there and it goes from Amazon top seller to Kickstarter innovation.
Sam [00:28:34]:
Work with your stone. Ultimate flexibility ready out of the box. And then for some reason we’ve got comments from this guy on YouTube talking about it. I don’t know if this is. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Okay, here we go. It’s a tabletop sharpening stone thing that looks like a little mini vise.
Chris [00:28:55]:
Oh, okay.
Sam [00:28:56]:
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you really need to check this out. Go find the [email protected]. 41 days to go. So this is quite new, which is, I guess, exciting. If you were to back this. I’ll tell you the price first.
Chris [00:29:11]:
Yeah, tell me a price because.
Sam [00:29:13]:
Okay. Launch day special. US$159.
Chris [00:29:17]:
That’s the cheap.
Sam [00:29:18]:
Sorry. 281 New Zealand dollars. 281 New Zealand dollars.
Chris [00:29:22]:
Oh my God.
Sam [00:29:24]:
You get. But you do get. You get the. The main module, the base, the 3 in 1g clamp, the 2 in 1 universal stone handle, a woodworking attachment, 2 in 1 blade platform, diamond file rod, a titanium coated diamond stone set, a spray bottle, a marker and a carrying case. There’s a lot of stuff there for knife people, I’m thinking.
Chris [00:29:46]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:29:47]:
Anyway, that’s the cheapest one. And then it just goes up from there.
Chris [00:29:49]:
Oh, really?
Sam [00:29:50]:
Yeah. That was like a super early bird on launch day special.
Chris [00:29:55]:
Okay.
Sam [00:29:57]:
Normally it will be $528. And that’s a Kickstarter special.
Chris [00:30:03]:
And what are they wanting to raise?
Sam [00:30:06]:
8,995 New Zealand dollars. 41 days to go.
Chris [00:30:13]:
I don’t think they’ve got their 8,000 yet.
Sam [00:30:16]:
Okay, what’s your guess then?
Chris [00:30:18]:
I guess they’re about five grand, and I guess they will struggle with getting that. Having said that, there are a lot of knife people out there that will go knife.
Sam [00:30:32]:
But yeah, yes, you should stick with that second bit that you just said. They’ve raised $239,000 already.
Chris [00:30:39]:
What the hell?
Sam [00:30:41]:
And with that comes to the end of our podcast.
Chris [00:30:43]:
Chris’s with the common humiliation that Chris endures every time.
Sam [00:30:51]:
You should know better if it involves knives.
Chris [00:30:53]:
Yeah, I should, actually.
Sam [00:30:55]:
Anyway, if you want to find out what we’re up to or check out the back catalogue, go to tcasp.com because that’s the shortest address I can give you. Or it’s thechristandsandpodcast.com. everything’s there. What else do they need to know?
Chris [00:31:08]:
Nothing. Just hold on to your hats because the 600th episode is coming up soon. I’m only saying that to one Sam, and you should see his face drop as I start saying he has achieved that.
Sam [00:31:27]:
Until next time, I’m Sam.
Chris [00:31:29]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:31:29]:
See ya.
Chris [00:31:30]:
Bye.
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