Summary
This week, Chris has been busy with summits and panel discussions, while Sam masters the art of low-risk traffic management.
Crocodile chaos erupts in Singapore thanks to a fake AI photo, Mark Zuckerberg tries to be more human with a pint of Guinness, and the Queen of Thailand makes history as a fighter jet pilot.
We dive into absurd Kickstarter products, discover what a telescope ranch really is, and marvel at the dangers of AI-generated girlfriends.
All this and much more in this week’s episode.
Links
Smelly Gamers
No sitting for TSA agents
Drunk business man taken for frontline
Prison for using AI
Queen of Thailand flies fighter jet
Pay to spin streamers chair
Telescope ranches
Man travels to find AI girlfriend
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 603 of the Chris and Sam Podcast. I’m Chris. And I’m Sam. This is your weekly fix of randomness, technology, and life. Welcome along, buckle in, let’s go. What have you been up to this week?
Chris [00:00:34]:
Uh, I have been so busy, um, doing things. It’s good. No, no, no. There’s been a few, um, there’s a whole bunch of summits on at the moment. And so I spoke at—
Sam [00:00:46]:
There’s always a summit on. You’re always doing something.
Chris [00:00:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I spoke at a summit. I’ve got a panel discussion. I had a panel discussion yesterday. I’ve got another panel discussion.
Sam [00:00:54]:
Can we talk about your creepy photo that’s AI? Who did that? Did you make it?
Chris [00:00:58]:
What are you talking about?
Sam [00:00:59]:
Okay, carry on. You keep talking. There’s like, I got an email or something on LinkedIn or something, and there’s a photo and it’s you, but not you.
Chris [00:01:08]:
Oh, okay. Yeah. I think I know which one you mean. Uh, that was terrible. It was made by somebody else and I was like, I’ll just copy that and paste it.
Sam [00:01:16]:
Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough.
Chris [00:01:17]:
‘Cause I couldn’t be bothered making my own, but, um, I always do laugh at those, um, AI photos. There’s a good thumbnail of me, um, which is Doesn’t look like me at all. I don’t think it looks like me at all, but anyway.
Sam [00:01:30]:
I think people are going to be disappointed when this guy on this, whatever this post is, I can’t find now, doesn’t turn up.
Chris [00:01:38]:
But yeah, no, I, I actually said this to Quentin today. So I’m going to, I’m going to bare my soul in public here.
Sam [00:01:45]:
Oh, good God.
Chris [00:01:46]:
One of the things I have to get used to, and it sounds like it’s not a problem, but it really is a problem, is these people are keep going on about how amazing I am and I can’t handle it.
Sam [00:01:58]:
You’re not used to it.
Chris [00:01:59]:
I’m not used to it. And I’m like, I’m trying to be gracious about accepting that, but I have trouble with that.
Sam [00:02:05]:
I can’t make it any bigger. When I click on it, you pop up because you’re starting to do the video, but it’s that image.
Chris [00:02:11]:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s, that, that was me that actually created that.
Sam [00:02:14]:
Nah, delete that.
Chris [00:02:15]:
With, um, with, um,
Sam [00:02:17]:
the problem is though, like, I agree that these people are getting super good value out of you. And if you need speaker coaching or anything like that, talk to Chris. We, you just need to somehow convert more. Yeah. Like I,
Chris [00:02:30]:
yeah, I know.
Sam [00:02:31]:
No, because like you were telling me the other day, there was a guy in whatever that video you were showing me who’s like an expert, whatever. And he’s spoken or coached with amazing people, but then he’s in your group listening to you.
Chris [00:02:44]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam [00:02:45]:
So is his whole business model to get really good information from people that aren’t known and then sell it as his own?
Chris [00:02:52]:
Well, Colin’s an older guy. He’s semi-retired, to be fair, Scottish dude. And he has been living in Silicon Valley and doing coaching, a lot of business coaching and that sort of thing for decades. I mean, he’s in his 80s now, I think. And one of the people, the story I was telling you is one of the people he trained was Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA. So he was doing—
Sam [00:03:19]:
All he had to do was do some training and go, oh, if you just want to give me one stock.
Chris [00:03:24]:
Yeah. Well, he did. He had this, he was doing some stuff for Nvidia. So he did Apple and he did Microsoft and he did all the Valley people. He was doing Nvidia and this guy was in there, Jensen Huang, but he didn’t know who he was.
Sam [00:03:36]:
No.
Chris [00:03:37]:
And Jensen said, oh, I reckon you should do da, da, da, da, da. And Colin, who’s got a really thick Scottish accent, it’s pretty cool, says, oh, I don’t know about that, laddie. I think, I think the higher-ups will give you a hard time about that one. I don’t think you’ll get them, sell them on that idea. And the whole room erupted in laughter because he didn’t know who the dude was. And then, um, Jensen said to him afterwards, oh, do you want to go, uh, have a, have a glass of wine afterwards and have a chat? Because he’s staying overnight there or something.
Sam [00:04:08]:
Okay.
Chris [00:04:08]:
So he, he had dinner with him and he said, he is, Jensen’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life.
Sam [00:04:16]:
You’re 2 degrees away from some of the most powerful people in the world. They just have to give you like a little tip. They don’t even have to pay you. They just go, hey, here’s this, here’s just some, here’s some money I had lying around. And you’d be very happy with that.
Chris [00:04:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re getting there. We’re getting there.
Sam [00:04:32]:
You’re getting there.
Chris [00:04:32]:
Something will crack at some point. It’d be great.
Sam [00:04:35]:
So maybe just keep going. Yeah. It’s crazy. I have not done anything this week. Uh, oh, I did a course today on, um, low impact, low risk traffic management. So I’m now all over that. Uh, they’ve sort of changed how it worked. It’s pretty cool.
Sam [00:04:52]:
Like, um, they sort of had these rules and guidelines in place that were sort of, you had to pick the one that fitted you, but now it’s sort of like you need to assess the situation and the situation can change. And it’s very broad because they want you to think about it is the way the guy sort of described it. Yeah, it’s pretty good actually.
Chris [00:05:10]:
So it’s less prescriptive and more, uh, an
Sam [00:05:14]:
I believe, yeah, yeah, that’s the way to put it. So that happened. Mark Zuckerberg this week, have you seen him trying to drink a Guinness?
Chris [00:05:21]:
No.
Sam [00:05:21]:
He’s
Chris [00:05:22]:
on— I’m laughing at the image that just dropped into my head.
Sam [00:05:27]:
He’s trying to be more human day by day.
Chris [00:05:32]:
He goes, oh, that doesn’t taste like a milkshake at
Sam [00:05:34]:
all. He does not like it. He was on the Cheeky Pint podcast. Shout out to them. I don’t know what that is, but Hello. And— See,
Chris [00:05:43]:
drinking and podcasting sounds like a brilliant idea.
Sam [00:05:46]:
You would go—
Chris [00:05:46]:
Why didn’t we think of that?
Sam [00:05:48]:
No, no. I’ve done a podcast with you drinking and it goes off the rails.
Chris [00:05:52]:
Oh yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Episode 100. Don’t ever listen to that.
Sam [00:05:57]:
Oh no, that was, that was both of us, but normally it’s just you. Hey, did you see the Queen of Thailand?
Chris [00:06:02]:
No.
Sam [00:06:02]:
She’s the best. Uh, first queen ever to fly a fighter plane solo.
Chris [00:06:07]:
Woo.
Sam [00:06:08]:
She has got all the qualifications. She’s got, uh, almost 1,200 hours of flight experience. I think she can pilot like a, um, passenger plane, like a Boeing or something.
Chris [00:06:19]:
I must say she does beat out old Queen Elizabeth, but Queen Elizabeth was pretty good. She was a mechanic.
Sam [00:06:25]:
Oh yeah.
Chris [00:06:26]:
She could fix a Land Rover.
Sam [00:06:27]:
I’m sure if she was a bit younger, she’d be flying a jet fighter, but yeah. So she’s—
Chris [00:06:31]:
Well, yeah. And that was in the ’50s, so women didn’t do anything. So yeah. Yeah.
Sam [00:06:37]:
That’s right. So, uh, yeah, that happened this week, which I thought was pretty good. And then I saw what might be the most— okay, I don’t know if this is bizarre. It is bizarre. What am I talking about? Chinese streamer, right, is charging viewers $7.50 to spin her chair. Have you seen this?
Chris [00:06:55]:
No.
Sam [00:06:56]:
Okay. So I’ve just told you that, and they said that it’s very similar to the Black Mirror episode where the guy does all the random stuff online. to pay for his wife’s subscription for Her Brain.
Chris [00:07:08]:
All right.
Sam [00:07:09]:
Don’t know if you’ve seen that episode. It’s really good. ‘Cause at the end he’s like humiliating himself and he goes, is this what you wanna see? And it’s, um, the dude from, um, IT Crowd, the, uh, Irishman, Mose. No, not Mose, the other one. Anyway, uh, he’s in it and he’s pulling his teeth out at the end. Oh, like to make money, you know? Anyway, so this is what, this is what they’re saying. Now I just said to you, $7.50 to spin her chair.
Chris [00:07:35]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:07:35]:
How do you think they’re spinning the chair?
Chris [00:07:38]:
I’m thinking there’s some sort of button you can press and it turns it, uh, uh, there’s a motor and it turns it.
Sam [00:07:45]:
No, no. Which way do you think the chair spins?
Chris [00:07:48]:
Round and round.
Sam [00:07:49]:
No, no, you’d be wrong.
Chris [00:07:50]:
Holy crap.
Sam [00:07:53]:
They don’t know how it stops or if people buy multiple times, she just keeps going. So she’s—
Chris [00:07:58]:
oh my God. So it’s a robot. I’m going to explain this. She’s, she’s like a propeller. Yeah. But the robot arm, she’s going over, over, totally over. And it moves back and forth between the desks like a, like a robot arm does. Like even the jolting of moving across side to side, uh, is killer.
Chris [00:08:19]:
Oh my God. That is—
Sam [00:08:20]:
Not what you expected, eh? Because I just clicked on it. I was like, oh yeah, whatever. But, uh, it looks pretty violent. So that’s happened.
Chris [00:08:28]:
Well, I’m going to tell you something. This gave me a new appreciation for calling a foul in a, um, in a sports competition. So it’s a Pokémon VGC champ. I don’t know what a VGC is.
Sam [00:08:43]:
Uh, I don’t know. Okay. Maybe it’s the latest Pokémon things. I don’t know.
Chris [00:08:49]:
Anyway. The VGC champ calls for better hygiene after opponent’s smell made him throw up. So this is becoming a real problem, actually. Donghun Yoon, champion of the 2023 Pokémon Milwaukee Regional Championships, recounted the bizarre incident following his run at the Baltimore Regionals.
Sam [00:09:08]:
Yep.
Chris [00:09:09]:
Regionals. According to Yoon, a nearby player’s stench became so intense it threw off multiple competitors across the floor. It smelled so bad he had to throw up.
Sam [00:09:23]:
That is pretty bad though.
Chris [00:09:25]:
Yeah. So they’re actually changing the rules. So the tournament, um, tournament hygiene remains an ongoing problem.
Sam [00:09:34]:
It does. ‘Cause they’re stinky weirdos that live in a basement.
Chris [00:09:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam [00:09:39]:
No, really.
Chris [00:09:39]:
And then somebody else was going on. Yeah. I claim they claim once matched up against someone who smelled like a literal dumpster. Yeah. Um, oh my God. So anyway, I, I like that calling foul. Anyway, that’s foul.
Sam [00:09:54]:
I, yeah, that’s pretty gross. Uh, do you know what a telescope ranch is?
Chris [00:10:00]:
No.
Sam [00:10:00]:
It sounds, I mean, you can have a guess if you want.
Chris [00:10:02]:
I’m going to guess that it’s a place that you can observe the stars without lots of light being around to make it difficult to see the stars.
Sam [00:10:10]:
You’re 50% of the way there.
Chris [00:10:12]:
Okay.
Sam [00:10:13]:
So telescope ranches are in Texas and people store their $10,000 plus telescope rigs there in a giant building, multiple buildings that have a retractable roof. And they pay to have their telescopes stored there and then they can access them remotely and take photos of the night sky whenever they want. And they pay. Uh, I think it starts at $99 a month. Like you ship your telescope to this place. They look after everything. High, high-speed internet. The roof comes off when it’s clear, weather’s fine.
Sam [00:10:51]:
What a great idea.
Chris [00:10:53]:
I don’t know that I’d—
Sam [00:10:54]:
Insurance is covered, everything.
Chris [00:10:56]:
Yeah, it’s not a bad idea.
Sam [00:10:59]:
But it’s these—
Chris [00:10:59]:
it looks weird though, the photo, because there’s just a gazillion telescopes pointed upwards.
Sam [00:11:03]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:11:04]:
Um, and it’s like, you know, you’re paying all this extra money, but you’re getting the same photo that the person next to you is getting. Well, except for your gear. Yeah.
Sam [00:11:13]:
Yeah. Maybe. Uh, I’m just liking these weird little mashups of things at the moment where it’s like, oh, we’ll look after your gear, store it, point it. I mean, some of them are way, uh, way more bigger than the others.
Chris [00:11:26]:
So like, yeah.
Sam [00:11:28]:
But interesting.
Chris [00:11:29]:
I think it’s part of the thing too, though. If you’ve got a really good one, you want to be able to show it off. You don’t have to fly to Texas to show your girlfriend. Who am I kidding? These guys don’t have girlfriends.
Sam [00:11:39]:
They’ve got no girlfriends. They’re going to show you, and they’re going to show you these photos on their phone. Like, look at this photo I took.
Chris [00:11:45]:
Yeah, on this crap phone.
Sam [00:11:46]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:11:47]:
Oh, well, no, they’ve probably got a decent, better phone than me.
Sam [00:11:49]:
That’s okay.
Chris [00:11:50]:
Okay. So I want to get your feedback on this. So I, this is a silly story. Like it’s not a, It’s not a big deal, but it was bugging me. So I’m just curious on your thing.
Sam [00:12:02]:
Okay.
Chris [00:12:03]:
They’ve made this rule in America now that TSA officers are not allowed to sit down while they’re checking boarding passes and IDs. They’re not allowed to sit in a stool or whatever. Don’t start the video.
Sam [00:12:17]:
I didn’t know they were sitting to begin with, but okay.
Chris [00:12:19]:
I don’t think they sit down all the time, but I think they had stools there so they could because they’re there for 8 hours.
Sam [00:12:25]:
Hey, what are you? Yeah. I don’t find a problem with this. If our checkout operators at Pack ‘n Save here are not allowed to sit at all ever and just stand there, why should these guys?
Chris [00:12:35]:
That’s true.
Sam [00:12:35]:
No, I’m kidding. There is a whole movement, I believe, maybe in America for other jobs. Maybe it’s the checkout operators there where they’ll like, just give them a stool. Like, what is going on here? But we do it here. We don’t, they’re always standing.
Chris [00:12:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. I, I don’t know. I don’t think, I don’t, if they can do their job and check the passports, like sitting on a stool, I don’t see be the problem. Oh
Sam [00:12:57]:
no, there shouldn’t be a problem. Like, yeah, you’re exactly right. If they could do the job, like, they could potentially be more efficient because they could swivel from one side to the other if they needed to. I don’t know.
Chris [00:13:07]:
Yeah, so they did— they made this rule. They didn’t, um, get hold of the unions or anything. They just said— the American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100 said it found out about the decision from its members and called it a disregard for workers’ rights and safety. And I, I’m sort of— yeah, I’m a little ambivalent because I’ve worked in jobs where you’re basically on your feet all night Like working in bars and stuff, you don’t sit down. No, no, no. Until you’ve got a break. When you’ve got a break, you get to sit down.
Sam [00:13:35]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I don’t know. So if I said a Brazilian man sold his home and rode a bus 2,000 kilometers to meet his online girlfriend, what do you think happened?
Chris [00:13:46]:
She turned out to be a guy.
Sam [00:13:48]:
No, that’s the old way. Now she’s an AI model. She’s not real. She has 300,000 followers. This person does not look real at all. If this is the photo that he fell for, people cannot, people, uh, you’re, you’re, you’re the wrong, you’re the wrong person to talk to because you don’t notice anything.
Chris [00:14:07]:
No, no, she does look a bit fake, but yeah.
Sam [00:14:11]:
Yeah. He’s a 49-year-old bricklayer and, uh, he went to meet Jessica Oliveira and he arrived, uh, he went to a city he didn’t know. No woman was there to locate. And the confirmation that the person he had trusted was an AI-generated character built for engagement and sales. Yeah, they, oh yeah, okay, she, uh, no, she still looks fake there.
Chris [00:14:33]:
Oh, it looks a bit more, bit more real.
Sam [00:14:36]:
Bit more real. But where did, I don’t think it says, but where did he turn up? Like, if the bot wasn’t scamming him as such and they were using it for market outreach and the thing’s got 300,000 followers.
Chris [00:14:51]:
How is he stalking?
Sam [00:14:52]:
Where did he go? Who did he talk to? Did he—
Chris [00:14:55]:
I don’t know. I think, I think it’s a, I think it’s a scam story. You’re falling for a scam story.
Sam [00:14:59]:
Oh yeah, maybe, maybe. Oh, I see viral marketing on the scam story, which isn’t real. Well, what happens if I gave him $50? What happens then? Asking for a friend.
Chris [00:15:11]:
I’m going to talk about this thing that’s happening overseas that it’s just highlights it’s a different world. Okay.
Sam [00:15:19]:
Okay.
Chris [00:15:20]:
This is in Siberia. This is in Russia.
Sam [00:15:22]:
Good.
Chris [00:15:22]:
Nikolai Konatovsky.
Sam [00:15:25]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:15:25]:
Oh, oh no, that’s the police officer.
Sam [00:15:28]:
Okay.
Chris [00:15:28]:
He went and grabbed Vladimir from an apartment after the neighbors complained. Um, he was drunk. He was at some friend’s place by the sounds of it, or a party or something. He was overly drunk.
Sam [00:15:40]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:15:40]:
The police came, grabbed him and said, oh, we need to look at your documents. So they take him home to his apartment.
Sam [00:15:45]:
Seems legit.
Chris [00:15:45]:
So yeah. where his phone and papers were confiscated.
Sam [00:15:49]:
Oh, okay.
Chris [00:15:51]:
They gave him and another man detained at the same apartment food and vodka.
Sam [00:15:58]:
Okay.
Chris [00:15:58]:
Then they took him to the police station for 12 hours and kept plying him with vodka.
Sam [00:16:03]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:16:03]:
Any problems so far?
Sam [00:16:05]:
Nah, seems legit.
Chris [00:16:08]:
Basically, this guy’s a 54-year-old businessman, right?
Sam [00:16:12]:
Oh, the guy they grabbed?
Chris [00:16:13]:
That, that they grabbed.
Sam [00:16:14]:
Oh, okay. For some reason I thought it was a young guy.
Chris [00:16:15]:
No. And, um, and they just, for almost a day, they just tried to force him to sign a contract to fight in Ukraine because they get a commission on it if—
Sam [00:16:26]:
Yeah, of course.
Chris [00:16:27]:
Makes sense. Um, and so what happened? Well, eventually the next day, like overnight, so his wife knew he’d been taken to police station.
Sam [00:16:36]:
Oh yeah. Okay. He’s got a wife.
Chris [00:16:37]:
Okay. His wife came. He’s got a wife and daughter. Uh, his wife met him there and, and, um, they were like, you know, you can’t come in and all the rest of it. Anyway, in the morning at some point, he managed to talk them into letting him go outside for a cigarette.
Sam [00:16:51]:
Okay.
Chris [00:16:52]:
His wife was sitting in the car. He jumped in the car and they screamed off and he’s in hiding at the moment.
Sam [00:16:57]:
I was going to say, he can’t go home.
Chris [00:16:58]:
No, he can’t go home.
Sam [00:17:00]:
Like they’ll, they’ll, they’ll, um, make him accidentally fall out of a window.
Chris [00:17:02]:
Well, no, they’ll send him to the front because, you know, it’s It’s much more effective for him to be blown up in a meat— what do they call them? Meat attack, rather than falling out a window. But it’s just mental.
Sam [00:17:18]:
But he escaped and his story’s out there. So how many other people have they grabbed?
Chris [00:17:22]:
Oh, exactly. That’s the point.
Sam [00:17:24]:
They’re sending a whole bunch.
Chris [00:17:26]:
I mean, so the whole vodka issue and drinking in Russia is a different thing than we’re used to here, for starters, right?
Sam [00:17:33]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:17:34]:
Um, but you can’t afford to do that over there anymore because you don’t know where you’re going to wake up and where you’re going to end up.
Sam [00:17:42]:
Yeah. I mean, if that’s not a sobering wake-up call, I don’t know what is.
Chris [00:17:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, so maybe not drunken podcasts in Russia.
Sam [00:17:49]:
Probably not. Uh, I’ve got Kickstart or Dropkick for you this week.
Chris [00:17:55]:
Sweet. What do we got?
Sam [00:17:56]:
The MetMo Precision Grip. Or the AeroSpace S1?
Chris [00:18:01]:
Let’s go with the Precision Grip first. Sounds like a pair of pliers.
Sam [00:18:06]:
You’re not that far off.
Chris [00:18:09]:
Okay.
Sam [00:18:09]:
It’s a pair of locking tweezers. Oh,
Chris [00:18:12]:
okay. Yep.
Sam [00:18:13]:
That’s what I’d say.
Chris [00:18:14]:
I almost bought some titanium tweezers once. So really good.
Sam [00:18:19]:
Okay.
Chris [00:18:20]:
And I never did, but
Sam [00:18:21]:
okay. Uh,
Chris [00:18:23]:
from, from Kickstarter.
Sam [00:18:25]:
Okay. I’m just waiting to see if this actually loads a photo. For some— yeah. Okay.
Chris [00:18:30]:
I don’t know what locking tweezers are though.
Sam [00:18:32]:
They look like that.
Chris [00:18:34]:
Okay. That’s what— that looks more like a compass. You know, the—
Sam [00:18:38]:
It does look like a compass, but it’s a set of tweezers. Yeah. So it’s used for holding intricate parts. If you’re building something, they’ve created a new class of gripping tool apparently called the Precision Grip. Um, whatever you need to, yeah, whatever you want to do with them.
Chris [00:18:57]:
Um, it just helps you offload. Yeah, definitely for circuitry, bomb making, all those sorts of things.
Sam [00:19:01]:
Uh, model making of some sort.
Chris [00:19:03]:
That’s what I meant. What did I say? I don’t know.
Sam [00:19:06]:
7 days to go at the time of this recording. They want to raise $23,500 New Zealand dollars.
Chris [00:19:13]:
How much are they each?
Sam [00:19:15]:
About to get there. I’ve, I think it was super early bird will cost you $210. For one? Yeah, for one. Oh, do you want a multipack? If you want to buy 3, you can get that for $823. Oh my God. But one, one is the thing. And they come in black, some sort of silver, and maybe, uh, oh, titanium. Yeah, stainless steel, titanium, or black.
Sam [00:19:41]:
Oh, titanium is $422, in case you’re wondering. Anyway, the basic, the basic black one, which is for the poor people out there, is $210. I can tell you’re interested.
Chris [00:19:54]:
All right. Sorry. How many days did you say?
Sam [00:19:56]:
Only 7. Left?
Chris [00:19:58]:
Yes.
Sam [00:19:58]:
Almost at the end.
Chris [00:20:00]:
And they were after $14,000 or something?
Sam [00:20:02]:
$23,500 New Zealand.
Chris [00:20:05]:
Okay. They’ve gone past that, but I don’t know how or why, but okay. I’m
Sam [00:20:08]:
going to say— People need precision tweezers.
Chris [00:20:11]:
Yeah. They’re not tweezers as what you would expect tweezers to be.
Sam [00:20:14]:
They’re called that.
Chris [00:20:15]:
I’m going to say they got to 50 grand easy.
Sam [00:20:18]:
Do you want to reassess your figure?
Chris [00:20:21]:
100 grand?
Sam [00:20:23]:
$2.4 million!
Chris [00:20:27]:
What the actual?
Sam [00:20:28]:
That’s, it’s a high precision tool that people need. I don’t know why you don’t get this, game. Okay.
Chris [00:20:36]:
Who on earth needs that?
Sam [00:20:38]:
I don’t know, but the people need it. Okay. Now the next—
Chris [00:20:41]:
They’re going for $23,000. They got $2.4. Million.
Sam [00:20:46]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:20:46]:
Holy crap. How many times do we have to play this game before we start getting some cash in here?
Sam [00:20:52]:
I don’t know, but hang on, hang on. I, I didn’t put the link in this one. I got to find it. And this one’s interesting because I almost didn’t include it until I realized what the value proposition was.
Chris [00:21:05]:
Okay.
Sam [00:21:06]:
So
Chris [00:21:07]:
what’s it called again?
Sam [00:21:08]:
It’s called the, the AeroSpace S1.
Chris [00:21:12]:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Sam [00:21:12]:
It’s an electric screwdriver. That’s the gist. That’s the start of it.
Chris [00:21:17]:
Okay.
Sam [00:21:17]:
But I was like looking at it and it’s got all these little bits and it’s for opening up electronics. So, um, Apple and laptops and Samsung and Android, they’ve all got a bunch of different screws. Even within one machine, there’s a bunch of screws. So this little, um, uh, screwdriver looks like a lot of the different ones that you can get from AliExpress.
Chris [00:21:40]:
Right.
Sam [00:21:41]:
And I was like, okay, I don’t know why this is on Kickstarter. So I’m like, oh, okay. The thing that it has, you can adjust the torque so you can never strip the screw in your device. But its real big selling point is it’s got a camera on the end with AI built into it. You hold it to the screw, the screwdriver knows what it is, and then it lights up the little case and says, this is the bit that you need.
Chris [00:22:05]:
Oh, that’s pretty cool.
Sam [00:22:07]:
That’s pretty cool, eh?
Chris [00:22:08]:
That’s very cool.
Sam [00:22:09]:
So they sort of said like, they, they actually have pictures of other ones that you can buy that, you know, I’ve seen before on AliExpress and stuff. So you get 52-piece screwdriver set in this little case. And then you sort of hop, yeah, you hover over it and it can highlight the screw. There’s a companion app and the companion app, it pairs with the screwdriver and it shows you on the display. It goes, right, this is the dimensions of the screw. This is the screw. driver head that you need. So I thought—
Chris [00:22:37]:
Does it also give you an idea of the torque that you were talking about?
Sam [00:22:42]:
I think you have to adjust it and there’s 4 different modes apparently. So there’s automatic gear mode selection, so it can try and do it automatically. There’s adjustment, there’s images from the camera, so it’s saving all of that and it’s got parameter display. So I think it’s telling you—
Chris [00:23:00]:
This is cool.
Sam [00:23:01]:
All the dimensions.
Chris [00:23:01]:
I like this one. I
Sam [00:23:02]:
like this one.
Chris [00:23:03]:
How much are we talking for one of these amazing smart screwdriver sets?
Sam [00:23:07]:
I think it’s around about the same price as the, um, tweezer thing. $229 New Zealand.
Chris [00:23:14]:
Way better value. Way better value.
Sam [00:23:16]:
Um, you get the whole case, the whole thing.
Chris [00:23:19]:
Yeah. And the heads, it looks like there’s about 30, 40 heads there, maybe?
Sam [00:23:24]:
52, I think I said.
Chris [00:23:25]:
Oh, okay.
Sam [00:23:26]:
Yeah. Uh, no, pretty good. Um, yeah, 52 bits, the smart case, the screwdriver, a power tip extension. Um, and they seem quite, when you read this one, they seem quite open about like, it just works like that. Their idea is, I think that you’ve got this app, you don’t have to pay a subscription. It’s sort of just, yeah, it doesn’t need to do anything else. I don’t believe it’s just sort of works together.
Chris [00:23:50]:
It’s very, yeah, a narrow case.
Sam [00:23:52]:
43 days to go.
Chris [00:23:55]:
Okay. So it’s early days.
Sam [00:23:56]:
They want $20,000 New Zealand dollars to bring this to market.
Chris [00:24:00]:
They’ve already well passed that.
Sam [00:24:02]:
But how much? That’s the question. ‘Cause you, you’re an expert at this now. Just remember, it’s pretty early on.
Chris [00:24:08]:
It is early on and I want to go like a million dollars, but I think it’s too early for that. So I’m going to say $400,000.
Sam [00:24:14]:
No, it’s only $106,000 at the moment.
Chris [00:24:17]:
Okay.
Sam [00:24:18]:
And I don’t know if there’s a market for this thing.
Chris [00:24:21]:
I think there is. I think it’s good. I, the interesting thing is how well it’s marketed because those Freaking tweezers must have been well marketed.
Sam [00:24:29]:
I mean, I have not looked into it. They, a lot of the time when you, when we talk about these weird niche products and they’ve done really, really well, it’s like the 4th or 5th product.
Chris [00:24:40]:
Yeah. And so I don’t know what’s up, uh, uh, an audience.
Sam [00:24:43]:
Yeah. And
Chris [00:24:43]:
people use a base who love them. Yeah.
Sam [00:24:46]:
And I don’t know if that is the case or not, but I don’t know what their, um, earlier products may have been.
Chris [00:24:53]:
Yeah. Yep. True, true, true.
Sam [00:24:55]:
So that’s pretty cool. Different. What are you going to end the podcast on?
Chris [00:24:59]:
I’m going to end the podcast on this. This is amusing.
Sam [00:25:02]:
Okay.
Chris [00:25:02]:
It better be good. I don’t know if it is amusing. I feel sorry for this. I feel sorry for this guy. You tell me whether you feel sorry for this guy.
Sam [00:25:09]:
Oh no, I don’t have much feeling for people.
Chris [00:25:11]:
He made a fake crocodile photo with Gemini.
Sam [00:25:17]:
Hang on. Hang on. Yeah.
Chris [00:25:19]:
Okay.
Sam [00:25:19]:
No, no, I get that. But what, just by itself? Was he with the crocodile?
Chris [00:25:22]:
No, it’s just a, an AI slop image that he shared with somebody.
Sam [00:25:27]:
He, and okay. Yep. Carry
Chris [00:25:29]:
on. In Singapore.
Sam [00:25:30]:
Okay. Yeah.
Chris [00:25:32]:
And that person then shared it more widely.
Sam [00:25:37]:
Yep. Okay. So everybody, and is this crocodile doing anything weird or is it just a crocodile?
Chris [00:25:41]:
It’s just a crocodile.
Sam [00:25:42]:
Okay. Carry on. They’re sharing it around.
Chris [00:25:44]:
Um, so the image led to the crocodile sighting being reported to Singapore’s National Water Agency, PUB.
Sam [00:25:52]:
Okay.
Chris [00:25:53]:
The agency and national staff, national park staff suspended all aquatic activities in the area for 2 days.
Sam [00:26:02]:
I mean, I’m guessing it’s a big deal if there’s a crocodile there.
Chris [00:26:05]:
And started looking for a crocodile that didn’t exist in this popular kayaking spot.
Sam [00:26:11]:
Do they have crocodiles normally?
Chris [00:26:14]:
I don’t know. I didn’t think they did, but.
Sam [00:26:16]:
Oh, okay. So they’ve gone.
Chris [00:26:18]:
So I suppose they’re not far from Australia, like Northern Territories Australia is where crocodiles live and Singapore’s not like, I mean, okay.
Sam [00:26:26]:
Anyway,
Chris [00:26:26]:
so equatorially not.
Sam [00:26:28]:
Okay. So they’ve gone, they’ve, they’re gonna go find this crocodile.
Chris [00:26:30]:
So the following day, the agency confirmed the image was a fake and reported it to police leading to Lin’s arrest.
Sam [00:26:38]:
Oh, okay. Singapore don’t take this stuff lightly.
Chris [00:26:42]:
No.
Sam [00:26:42]:
Also, wouldn’t they have been able to work out that was a fake a lot quicker because Gemini puts in that watermark thing? Anyway,
Chris [00:26:49]:
I— this might have been before they did that, but I don’t know.
Sam [00:26:51]:
So what is— what has he been charged with?
Chris [00:26:53]:
Uh, Singapore takes this sort of thing very seriously. Transmitting, uh, transmitting a false message is a crime.
Sam [00:27:01]:
Okay.
Chris [00:27:01]:
It carries up to 3 years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000 or Do
Sam [00:27:07]:
we know what he got in the end?
Chris [00:27:09]:
Um, it wasn’t— if that wasn’t bad enough, police say Lin tried to hide what he’d done by deleting the image in the Gemini app from his phone.
Sam [00:27:18]:
Oh, he panicked. He’s panicked.
Chris [00:27:20]:
Which unfortunately meant he’s also being charged with the destruction of justice, which is punishment for which is up to 7 years more in prison. So he’s facing 10 years in prison.
Sam [00:27:33]:
Good, good. We need more people going to prison for AI art.
Chris [00:27:36]:
Yeah, how public officials were notified of the AI photo, it could have been the person Lin sent it to then forwarded it to someone else who thought it was real. That seems to be what it is. But it doesn’t sound like he didn’t try to intentionally start a panic. Like he was just playing with Gemini. It’s something we’d all maybe do at some point.
Sam [00:27:54]:
If there’s no ill intention and he didn’t like, I mean, I think they’re going a bit too hard on the guy. But I guess, but that’s the thing though, isn’t it? Like, aren’t they famous for not like, if you spit gum out, they’ll come after you? Like, they got a lot of rules.
Chris [00:28:08]:
Yeah, they are. And they’re pretty, you know, black and white. You’re in or you’re out. I think, I think he admitted to it. Uh, I’m sure I read earlier that he admitted to it. Like he’s not saying, he’s not denying it or anything. He goes, yeah, I did that. So he’s throwing himself on the mercy of the court.
Chris [00:28:25]:
But yeah, that’s a bit rough, eh? If you, if you end up Using Google Gemini and then ending up in prison for 10 years for using it, uh, you’d be—
Sam [00:28:34]:
I should already be in prison for some of our show notes.
Chris [00:28:37]:
And I should be for my, um, uh, YouTube, uh, thumbnail that you showed me earlier.
Sam [00:28:43]:
And just like that, we’ve completed a full circle and the podcast has ended. Thanks so much for listening. tcast.com for all the show notes and all the other things. Until next time, I’m Sam. I’m Chris. See ya.
Chris [00:28:55]:
Bye.
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