Exploring the World Through Tech

She's a pioneer in the field of covering tech and explaining its significance and how it affects us. And she's an entrepreneur. She has done amazing things. Her story is phenomenal. You need to go and research her. Luria, Welcome to the show. Welcome, And I think you might have taken it a little too are I don't know if anybody can call me important. I think you are downplaying. You're downplaying the role Loria. Let me let me put to you this way. This is absolutely true. I'm not blowing smoke.

I'm not I'm not you know, flattering you. This is absolutely the truth. Before I worked at how Stuff, works dot Com. As I was getting into that, I was following all sorts of text stories and there were there were really only a couple of of outlets that I regularly went to, and I would follow your work and I followed c net. Those were the two so like buzz out Loud, that group, that's who I followed, So

Tom Merritt, Molly Wood, Jason Howell, uh Veronica Belmont. Those were the folks that were following over at c net at the time. And then I was following you, and that was before I had finally made it. Well, actually, you know what, the very first time I met you may have been at a south By Southwest and it just really impressed me because you were you just came

right up to me and chatting with me. And that's when I was like, hey, I made it because because I've got talking to me, and now I've got you

on the show. And and Luria, we we were chatting course, and we were chatting before about you know, what would we like to cover, and you you pitched an idea to me, this idea of how technology can be a tool for us to not shut the world off, which is the way I think a lot of people portray tech, right, they say that our personal gadgets have have made us focus on the screens of our phones and ignore everything else.

But rather how there are certain types of technology, whether it's actual gadgets or applications, that encourage us to go out and explore the world, to be part of the world. And uh, I think that's a really valuable narrative because it's so in opposition to the accepted truth that if you are into tech, you hide yourself away in the basement and you surround yourself with all your gadgets and you you don't have any interactions with the quote unquote

real world. And uh so we're going to explore that today. And um yeah, And I think you know this comes from my my recent obsession with trying to get out into the world. And I've uh yeah, I mean I sit behind my computer, I get involved in my tech. I have for eleven years of doing tech shows online. And I moved to the Pacific Northwest two years ago, sorry a year ago, and um, I just became so like,

oh my god, I'm I'm in the Pacific Northwest. It's this amazing place, gorgeous hikes everywhere, mountains, oceans, rivers, like everything is around here and I'm sitting in front of my computer. What am I doing? This doesn't make any sense. And I love the outdoors and I love to go on hikes, but I don't do it enough. So I started looking at ways of getting um out from my computer and taking technology, which I still love, and getting it out, getting um exploring the world, taking in the

world around us. And I've been encouraging our audience to do the same with a weekly show about it. And so, yeah, it's just been it's been an obsession of mine because I think we often do spend too much behind time behind the computers. But you're right, like technology can be something that allows us to do more out and about. Yeah. I one of my earliest episodes of tech stuff, UH. We published it on January nineteen, two thousand nine, so this wasn't even a full year of tech stuff yet.

We started in the summer of two thousand eight. In two thousand nine, we published an episode UH, and we were specifically looking at GEO cashing. It was actually called GPS games people play And for those who don't remember, I don't, I don't judge you. It has been something like seven hundred and fifty episodes since then, so I get it. But geo cashing came the The idea came

from people who are already enthusiasts about GPS receivers. And if you're of a young age, you may not be aware that GPS receivers when they first came out to the consumer market, we're not terribly useful. One they were not in your phone and to the devices you would get were expensive. And three they were not terribly accurate.

On purpose, the US government had restrictions on how accurate a GPS receiver could be two within something like, you know, a hundred meters, so that you could not use them for what we use them today, and the purpose of that was to preserve national security. But over the years those restrictions were lifted and people who were really enthusiasts, like the early adopters of GPS receivers, came up with this idea, what if we were to make a game

of it. And I created like a little a little hash a little box filled with tiny you know, goodies, usually some sort of like trinkets, key chains, that kind of stuff. I hit it, I noted the coordinates, and I listed the coordinates on a website, and other people could see what the coordinates were, plug it into their GPS receiver and use that to guide themselves to the location where I hit it. Now you've already got gamification

in there. You know, it's a treasure hunt, which I think the humans out there love a treasure hunt of some sort, right, So yeah, you tap right into that primal desire, like the idea of seeking and finding something. There's something really compelling about that, and you add the

technology to it. And then on top of it, the people who started doing this began to go to places that they fought thought were really inspiring or beautiful or something that a person should really experience, and they would hide the treasure box there, and that way it became not just a treasure hunt but a discovery. You would go to a place you had not been before, and you would see something that someone else had found impactful

for one reason or another. And I found that story so compelling, so interesting that that my co host and I did a full episode on it, and we've followed it up a couple of times since then. But that was the first time I really thought about using technology almost in a tangential way to get out there and explore the world. And uh, I want to hear some of the things that you have encountered in your experiences of covering this particular topic. Okay, and now from Geokashi,

we have Pokemon Go. But I'm not going to mention Pokemon at all in this episode because Pokemon Go it just is way overtalked about, and I don't think we should mention Pokemon Go at all. This isn't this is fair because I think I think that that when we first started talking about this, I said, let's not talk about Pokemon. I did a full episode of Pokemon Go and it published probably about two weeks too late. Oh no, because because we're past, we're past that peak, that that

that game is now on the down slope. I mean, there's still people who really play it, but the I would I have a friend who still really play. But I have a friend who just posted she said I got to level thirty, but I wasn't happy with the choices I made, so I started over. I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, I don't. I don't haven't. I never hit level twenty. I gave up before then. So let's talk about my friend. Actually, okay, no, no, no, no,

I want to hear your friend. She actually started to She changed her phone so that she didn't have to use her boyfriend's phone in order to play the game. Right, when you when you're making when you're making hardware decisions, that that tells you that is that's the definition of the killer app, right, because if you make an app that is so compelling, people go out to buy the hardware so they can put the app on the hardware.

You've struck gold, even if they have even if it's only for like a month and a half, you've struck gold. But we are not going to be talking about Pokemon go on this episode, all right, So let's talk about some mother just after Um first and foremost. Now, this has just come out recently, the d j I Osmo mobile. Um. This is a wonderful gadget that I that we've fallen in love with around here, h do you know what it is this yet? I know what d j I does, but I want to hear more about this. So d

j I is of course the drone company. Um, and they came out with a little gimble, a handheld gimble. So it's like a steady cam. It is UM, So it's like just a little, you know, hand tell selfie stick if you if you think about that, except it doesn't extend to be like a selfie stick. But it's just a it's a it's a handheld gimble. UM. You put your phone in it and it keeps your video stable. So basically, like if it can do so much, it's

it's pretty pretty incredible. So you take it and you've got a steadicam on the go for all of the photos and the video, all all the video that you're recording, and uh, it will track you through like you can set it to track somebody, so uh set it to go and as somebody moves around or as you move around, you can can keep the video stable, not only stable, but also keep track of the person that you're trying to shoot. It's not just it's not just a dumb gimble.

It actually has some some motorization so that it can it can stay keep in on a specific person. That is really cool. It is brilliant. And now at first when I on packed it, I was a little disappointed because they don't include like, they don't include all the parts, so you have to kind of like piecemail it together on and through the order process, which we didn't understand it first. So like if you have if you have one phone versus another, you might have to order different pieces.

It's the power adapters. So if you can you can actually charge it um so you know, with with the one battery that goes inside of it, you can charge it through um, just a cable. But if you get an extra battery pack and you get the charging station, the power adapter for the charging station doesn't come with it, which I found really odd. Um, that's just stupid in my opinion. But uh, they anyway, so you have to piecemail that together. So I was a little like, oh,

come on, DJ, come on. It sounds like they were taking a note from the uh the Japanese smartphone market where everything has been standardized. So you never get a charging chord when you buy a smartphone in Japan because since all the chords fit all the phones, they think, well, once you buy a charging kit for one phone, it's good for all of them, so therefore it never comes with the hardware anymore. But that's not the world we live in. That is not the world we live in.

And to make it worse. So if you have a d j I Phantom four or you know, a drone, then you have a cable that will charge it, but it's a proprietary cable, so you have to already be well inside the d j I ecosystem in order to have Yeah, I think most of us don't have those just laying around in the cord drawer at home. No. Luckily we did because we have a Phantom four, But otherwise I would have been screwed. So just be aware of that. And it does take a little bit of

a process to get it set up. You know, these these motorized gimbals are not the super easiest to set up, so it's not like you're going to unpack it and go, um, so you do need to settle aside, like fifteen minutes to get it set up. We did a blog post about how to do that, just because it's a little bit weird. But um, once you get it going, it's like the most brilliant thing in the world, and we've

been using it for everything. So like steadicams have been traditionally a super expensive piece of equipment that takes a ton of practice. Um that not everybody has the skills to do UM, and so this really puts it in your hand and it makes it UM easy ish. You know, once you get a set up, it makes it easy for everybody to have steady video on the go. So I have really fallen in love with it. It's only two,

which is brilliant. Yeah, especially when you if you were thinking like a two or nine or a gamble, but we're talking about one where with this tracking ability, it makes it fantastic. I mean, it means that you can actually shoot decent movies with a phone. I mean we've seen that get become more and more of a thing. We've even seen some kind of experimental films that have

been shot at least in part with phones. This makes it even easier where if you're not like because it it's it could be difficult when you're shooting with a phone just making sure that you've got everything in frame, especially if you're using a forward facing camera as opposed to the rear facing camera, and having that that tracking ability is fantastic. UM. Yeah, I I know exactly what you mean when it comes to developing that skill with steadicam.

We have a steadicam set up here at work for UM for for small DSLR type cameras, not even a big camera type. Uh. And I there were so many days where the video crew you would just see them walking around the office, swooping around, practicing their moves because we had a shoot coming up. Uh. It's very entertaining, but a little distracting when you're at work. That's great.

Yeah for me, I got. I got doubly excited, not just from a gadget perspective and from a mobile perspective, but also because one of my other brands is I teach video and live streaming, and that made it just incredibly easy for me to say, Okay, just get this

and you're good to go. You know you can. You can skip all that other high tech stuff and all the uh the classes or training you would need and get something that can really get you up to speed pretty quickly once you get past that actual learning curve and all the shaky cam goes away in the world

that I can't wait for that. And also because because the way the mount is, at least in all the pictures I'm looking at of this, it has has the phone already in portrait mode, which gets rid of the other issue that I have with all video shot on phones except except. One of my team members actually found on d j i's website a picture of a mom using this this piece of equipment with it in portrait mode,

and I was like, what, why why? But yeah, it is a lap dape mode where you get that nice you get that nice horizontal wide and the way that we're used to watching videos on screens. Um. Yeah, It's one of those things where where whenever I see apps that are designed to share video from phones, I get that almost all of them always start with a portrait only mode because that's how we tend to hold our phones. But let's get past that as soon as possible, alright,

So one next. All right, So All Trails App. Um, this is an app that I have been using for years to find hikes around me. Um. This is it's called All Trails, like all the trails in the world. Um. But um, it's a It's an app that is full because it's been around for so long. It has a huge community of people flushing out all of the information and giving reviews, um tips for particular trails. So when you go into the All Trails app, you can just

locate trails around you. So um and this is this is a great way to get out and if you need to have your phone on you at all times, you can use it while you're on the trail and get tips about what to look at or what to go exploring, you know, through through the throughout the trail. Um so people will tell you know, okay, you can, well you can when you can. You can filter by easy, moderate, or hard. Um and people are very specific, like okay

on this particular trail. If you don't exercise a lot, that's cool, this is not this trail is not for you, you know, like um and and they're very they give very good and accurate advice on this app. So I have loved this app for years. Um I used it to find things like even and when I when I lived in Dallas, I didn't think I had many places to go out wars um and this app told me about places that I never would have found out about otherwise without some major googling. Um So it was. It's

a it's a great app. If you are a hiker or you want to just go explore some cool places around you that you probably don't know exist, use this app. Um It's free, but they do have a pro version that gives you even more UM for I think it's and I saw you talking about this on a recent video over at geeks live dot com, and it was great. You were at a gorgeous hiking location, there's like a

waterfall and all this kind of nice stuff. Yeah, it was a fantastic way to showcase how the app can let you discover places that you would not have known about otherwise. And uh, you touched on something that I think is also really inspiring about this particular type of tech. Now it's not the case with everything that falls into this category, but there are a lot of things that you know, a lot of the exploration style gadgets and technology that have depended at least in part, if not primarily,

on uh sort of the crowdsourcing of information. Geo cashing is definitely that way. That's how it started. In fact, if it weren't for crowdsourcing, it wouldn't exist. Um And so it not only does it reward you by giving you places to go and check out and see, it's always possible that if you see something that isn't on one of these apps, that you have discovered something that is in fact a publicly available trail and you're not trespassing. Yeah,

then you can. You can share it and increase the functionality and the value of that app and even perhaps lead someone else to discover that same place that you've been. It also makes me like I over the summer, I went to northern England. Um, actually I went to all

Over or the British Isles. It was fantastic. But one of the things that really struck me, and it I didn't even think about this as a cultural thing, but in England there are walking trails all over the country, and the culture in England is that those walking trails are available for people to walk across, even if it crosses private land, because the trail itself is um is protected. Um. But so it means that you can walk from one shore of the UK to the other on some of

these trails. Uh. And often it's a several days of hiking in order to do all of that. And that's it's a very different culture than what you find here in the United States, where obviously private property we treat it very differently. And yeah, I have been guilty of saying that, but I am old and I am allowed. But uh, yeah, it's it's this allows you to go and find those places where you are allowed to explore

and to have those experiences. There's so many times where I would have liked to have had access to that when I was traveling when I was younger, because I would find out later after having gone someplace like, oh man, that that looks like that was right around the corner from where we were. Uh For example, there was a trip I made with my wife to Kawaiti, beautiful place in Hawaii, one of the most gorgeous islands I've ever

been on. And there's so many different waterfalls in Kawaiti that you can hike to and go and see in trails that you can go to, and we went to maybe two and afterward you've you've then come across all these photos you think, wow, um, well, I mean, it's a reason to go back. But it's nice to have uh apps like this to to really help you and guide you so that you don't miss those opportunities, whether they are the ones that are in your neighborhood or

someplace that you're visiting. Absolutely, yeah, you you've hit it on the head. I usually talked about it in terms of where you live because we don't know what's around us even. But yes, when you're traveling, that's a that's a great use for it for sure. All Right. So we've got we've got our our motorized gimble, we've got our app to discover hiking trails. What else have you gun in store for us? So I do have another

hiking app, but a totally different twist on it. Um. So it's called I really don't know how you say it, Karen. I guess it's k A I r in So Karen is how I'm saying. So make it so excellently. Um. This is all about safety. So if you're you know, worried about not having coverage, if you're worried about their tagline is fine, sell coverage in the wilderness. Um. So if you're worried as a as a woman sometimes you

know you do worry about those things. Um. And if you're or if you're worried about you know, hey, I don't know if I'm gonna you know, come out of this live if they're bears or if they're whatever any kind of safety concern. Um, this app is for you. So it's a called It's at Karen me dot com. And it's all about saying safe. So before you get out of coverage, so before you like go um onto the trail. Uh, then you tell it where you're going, you UM tell it where who your safety contacts are.

So you set up safety contacts. And what it does is it sends UM them an alert to say, hey, I'm going out on this trail, and then when you get back, it will send them an alert that you've gotten back. So if you go for you know, if your friends know that you've that you typically go out for an hour or for four hours or whatever the time period is, they would know that if they don't hear back from the app in six hours, there's probably

something wrong. Let's send a search party out for you. UM. So it's it's all about, you know, just making sure that you have um A that that you're not going to be left out there to die. Yeah, you have that, you have a that you have a safety net there. Yeah, this is this is definitely something I was gonna say. I think safety net is probably a less dire and

less I mean, you know, it's it's all on the marketing. Uh. Now I agree that that's an excellent app and that anything that takes the work away from the stuff that you you should do in order to be safe is great, because I worry. I agree entirely that that it's the responsible and safe thing to do to alert people when you're gonna go on a hike, especially if it's gonna be a long hike and you know you're not gonna

necessarily have that cell phone coverage. Let's say that, um like, if I wanted to go hiking in Appalachia, then there are plenty of places where I am not gonna have any signal whatsoever. I'm gonna be too far away from any cell towers, and there's some gorgeous sights to see there. But you should let people know that you're going and that, you know, give them a general idea of when you would be checking back in, and using an app like

this would make it a lot more automated. I think that removes a barrier that some people see or or anticipate, right because yeah, they're like, well I don't know about that, or they're or they're like, I would go on a hike, but I'm not gonna have to call people, and then I've gotta I gotta have this weird awkward conversation where I'm saying, listen, I'm fine, and I'm sure I will be fine, but if I'm not fine, I definitely want you to come look for me. Right, Like, that's that's

a weird thing. But if you have an all automated and set up where it's just part of a routine experience of you going to do this hike, it removes that barrier. You have removed that awkward interaction. And a real life example of that is my sister. She has a guide business. She takes backpackers beginners out onto the trails and takes them on their first or second or third you know, backpacking experience, and uh, it's a wonderful

thing that she does. But like I'll get an email from her, a text from her, and she she does this every time she goes out on a trip. Hey, we're heading out to the Appalachian Trails and we'll be back in three days. You know, no, no, no text coverage or whatever. And so you know, we get we get that manual process from her every time she goes out on a hike, and then that's a great safety

thing for her to do. But yeah, if she used that app not only does it do all of that from a safety perspective, but it actually tracks any coverage that you hit while you're out. So if you if you you would have to leave it on in this case, but it would track where you're picking coverage up. And it fleshes out this system again crowdsourcing, uh and tracks tracks you, but it also tracks where that coverage is going to be for the next person who goes out

on that trail. Okay, so if your if your pathway does like pass by say a community, there's some cell tower service, then you're you're moving in and out of the coverage area. It actually tracks that in the app itself. That's pretty cool. I like, I like this idea a lot um. You know, not just the technology that inspires us to get out there, but the technology that says, hey, we understand like for people who maybe this is a new thing and you want to have the experience, but

it also can be a little intimidating. Let us take some of that anxiety away and we'll handle that and you don't need to worry about that so much that you can concentrate on enjoying your time when you are out there going through the different pathways. That's awesome totally. So, UM, next up is a nighttime app. Uh, it's not all about the daytime. Uh, this one, this one I don't. I'm not in astronomy geek, but I just enjoy looking up at the nights nighttime sky and just getting lost

in it. But there are lots of astronomy geeks out there, So this particular one is recommended by my UM, one of my teammates, who is a total astronomy geek. He's been through all of the apps UM out there that kind of track the night sky and show you what's out there. UM. And he says that Sky Safari five pro is the best out on the market. UM. Now, because it's a pro, it's forty dollars, So you have to really be an astronomy geek to really want this one. However,

the version three is to nine. It's an older version, but it's still very good, he says. So. UM, basically it you know, you pointed up at the sky and it shows you where all the constellations are. UM. It has a red light display option to preserve the night sky, so you're not like looking at this like bright screen. UM. And then he uses the accelerometer, so you can basically just wave the device around and the display a match is the part of the sky that you're looking at,

so it really kind of tracks everything and shows you. Uh, it's it's really detailed. Um I don't even know constellation names, like I'm terrible at that. You like, like I can pick out Oriyan. That's easy, right, Oriyan is? I don't. I don't even think I can pick out a ran like I know THET big and a little dipper Luria.

I'll show you, o Ryan, It's easy, it's easily. All you have to do is look for the belt and once you find the belt, you can see the head and shoulders and then you know where the club is. It's it's it's simple. It's simple. But but but beyond that, like beyond Oriyan and the big dipper and the little dipper, then I'm at That's where I've hit my limit. And partly it's because I also live in a city. You know, I live in Atlanta, and we have a lot of light pollution in Atlanta. Um So, but this is the

sort of app. I've used these kind of apps too, and I really like them because, for one thing, when you are not in those areas. When you're in an area where it's much darker and you're just looking up at the night sky, you're thinking. First you're thinking to yourself, wow, that's gorgeous, and then you're thinking, so in ancient times people made pictures of these and I'm trying, but uh, I have no idea how they were orienting everything, like what was what was a picture versus like what stars

belong to this group versus another group? Holding up that that up and seeing the different UH designs there and seeing how they relate to one another. It's really cool and you can start to learn some really interesting things, especially if you follow space news. Right. So let's say, let's say you've gone out there. You're outside, it's dark, it's beautiful, you can see the night sky, and you think,

where is Proximus Centauri. I may not be able to see it because it's a red dwarf star, so the light is very dim, but I can at least find Alpha Centauri, and I know Proximus Centauri is next to it, and I know that Proximu B is the newest exoplanet identified to be within the Goldilock Zone, and it is only four point two two light years away. You sound

like you know quite a bit. I did an episode about Proxima B. But but it's it's because that that's such cool news to sit there and think, this is a planet, potentially a planet within the habitable zone of its host star. It is the closest one we have

identified so far. It is about as close. It's as close as it could be, because Proxima B is the closest star to Earth apart from the Sun. The Sun is obviously the closest one, but then the next one's Proxima B, and so I you could not get any closer than that four point two light years away because

we don't have any other stars near us. So you think you could hold the phone up and see where it is in the sky, and you could sit there and say, around that area is a planet that may not be that different from the one I'm on right now, and it gives you a total change in your perspective. It's not just news that you've heard about right now. It's a thing that you can look up at the sky and you say, that's where it is. There's something really powerful about that. Yeah, there is. And this this

particular app also tracks satellites in addition to stars. Um, so there's I don't know if you've ever seen a satellite go through it's it's kind of hard to tell the difference sometimes, but like that that gives you a whole different perspective as well. Yeah, like that's a satellite up there. You know when the Internet or the International Space Station is passing overhead, and you know that's there are people on that right, That's that's kind of incredible. Yeah.

I love those kind of apps because, uh, you know, it's it's I also, while I'm an enthusiast, I love to read about space news, I love to talk about space news. If you sat me down in like a planetarium or we were outside in a very dark, uh landscape, I wouldn't be able to identify stars to Like I could point out to you which one is obviously venus, I could point out where I could point. I could probably point out Polaris uh, and then beyond that and you know, if the sun's out then I can point

at that one. But apart from those I started, I don't know if I can handle that. My ability drops off pretty steeply after that. So the nice thing is these apps. These are the kind of apps where it's like having a scientist with you, right, It's like having an expert in that field right there with you. This is the sort of stuff that we all dream the Internet would give us back when it was first becoming a public utility, right, the idea that we would have

access to that knowledge. Yeah, and I mean both both you and Ilia. We the reason we do what we do, in part at least is because we have this deep sense of curiosity and we want to discover. So that is I mean all of these gadgets and apps fall into that, but that's really where the power is for me, for something like this, for sure. So um, that's that one. Now we move on to a gadget that, yes, you could take your your laptop with you and power it

on the go. So we all have battery pack I'm sure, um you know portable battery that we charge our phones on the go. But I have have tested all of them on the market. There there haven't been many, um over the years that will allow you to charge your computer on the go. Um. And so it's just they haven't had you know, had hasn't been able to be

condensed into you know, that little piece of equipment. UM so Omnicharge was an indie go go project that that came out recently and they're about to relaunch into UM two selling on the website. Uh. And it's been a wonderful one that I've enjoyed using. Now. They had two different versions, smaller one for like MacBook airs or smaller computers. Uh. And then if you have a larger computer, like a pro And sorry, I'm a Matt girl, so I think of the world in terms of Mac computers. It's thank you.

I'm sure some people will um. But yeah, So, like they have two different versions. So the more power your computer draws, obviously, the bigger device you need. But um, it's a wonderful device because you have it. Um you have two USB ports. Uh, you have a you know, an actual plug for your computer, so you don't have to take an adapter. You just take the regular power cable that you that you use to charge your your

laptop and you take it out. So like, I'll take it out on a hike to just sit and if I have to get some work done, why not do it in the middle of nature? Is my is my at least that's that's fantastic. Yeah, I uh as as someone who has attended c E S numerous times, the battery pack is an absolute necessity because you are I mean, if you're covering the show, you're just going from booth to booth to booth. You have no time to sit down and plug anything into anything else that's not on

your person. Uh So, so even though that doesn't quite fall into the category of going out and exploring your world, it is something that I will definitely look into just to preserve my what little sanity I have. By the end of c E S. I just I just got confirmation that yes, indeed, this will be the ninth time I go to c ES this coming year. So yeah, yeah, it's fun because I'm going with a crew that went for the first time last year. They had never been

before they went last year. Yeah, so it means it's kind of like if you were to go to Disneyland with a kid and you see that you're you. You get to experience some of the joy of discovery because to you, you're like, I've done this so many times. Yeah, it's right now, it's c C T C A is the one that holds, is the one that holds it, but it's officially CS now. It used to be the Consumer Electronics Show, but now it's c e S and it doesn't stand for anything. Okay, then it's still SOUND

stands for a Consumer Electronic Show. Yes, in our hearts, in our hearts, but yeah, this is great. So I I'm one of those people where I'm sure I'm surprised we haven't talked about yet, but I do have separation anxiety from my gadgets. Um, even when I'm going on a trip where I'm trying very hard to kind of not have that all around me. Uh, sometimes I don't do so well doing that. Like I I turns out I snuck a laptop into my my carry on that my wife saw when I had to take it out

at security or something. I've been I've known to do that on occasion. So being able to charge on the go, and you know, it's it's uh, sometimes it's just necessary. I get it. I mean maybe you maybe you're going on a camping trip and you want to uh write up your experience and it's just easier. It's easier to do that on a computer than it is on a phone, you know, I mean it is, Yeah, you might be vlogging or something, but you need to type. Sometimes you

just need to type. It's okay, we don't again, we don't judge. I mean, this is just this is really we're just enabling you at this point. That's so true. Sorry, Now, do we have time for a bonus? Let's please? I you you hinted at this when I first called you up that you had a bonus. I am dying to find out what it is. Okay, So the bonus I have for you is completely the opposite of taking our technology on the go, and it's if you just have

too much technology, then you can get a detox tour. Um. There's there's there are these detox um digital detox tours or resorts or campgrounds like there. There apparently are a few of them where you can pay to sign an agreement that you are not going to touch your gadgets, that you are not going to get on WiFi, that you are not going to do anything digital. You are just going to live in the world that surround you. So, uh, that exists if you have any interest in that, if

you just had too much of it. Yeah, I think detox is the perfect name for it, because I mean, I really do suffer from withdrawal when I get into a situation like I've gone on several cruises with my wife, and we love going on cruises, but you know, one of the things about cruises is that eventually you get so far away from the sure that you no longer have any connectivity and and by by design, connecting to any kind of WiFi aboard the ship is prohibitively expensive

unless you want to pay for another cruise while you're on your cruise. So so you get to it goes. It's the same every time, Lauria, same every time. You would laugh at the pathos that I display where you know, I sit there and I started getting a little auntsie, and my wife's just like, just calm down, it's fine. He's like, but but I'm thinking funny things and I can't tweet them. And she said, no, it's first of all, no one thinks you're funny. It's okay. She's she's good,

good to have grounding. Yeah, No, she she's awesome. She doesn't do that. I I joke a lot about my wife, but she she's actually incredibly supportive. Otherwise I never would have made it as far as I have, but but yeah, it's it's it's one of those experiences. And then once you get past that that initial wall where you have this feeling like I need to have to distractions around me, I need to have a way to express things to a larger audience, or I need to be able to

see what's going on. Once you get past that initial uh, well, which is different for everybody, right, some of us, like me, I'm so in that world all the time. It takes me a little longer to get through it than some other people. But once you do, you really start paying attention more to the people around you, to the experiences you're having, and you can really kind of just have the moment right to to to experience the present as

opposed to living through it through your technology. I also think of it in ways like, um, I'm sure this has happened to you, where you've gone to some sort of public event like a concert or something, and you just see a sea of phones being held up and people are looking looking at what is happening through the lens of their phone rather than just having the moment

to experience it right then and there. And I get it that you want to preserve that I understand that desire, but it does end up meaning that you're paying more attention to a representation of what is happening as opposed to what is happening well, and I experienced that all the time because of what I do. I do a daily tech show, you know, tech and the lifestyle show, and I am constantly recording my experience as for my audience,

or I'm I do. I do two different live streams every single day, plus I do on the go live streams, So I'm like constantly live, I'm constantly recording, I'm constantly sharing, and so I've done that for eleven years, and You're absolutely right. Like sometimes I will sit there and think I Am not even looking at the thing in front of me, like um virgencyeo, UM Branson, thank you Richard Branson. As soon as you said, I'm like, uh, well, technically,

technically Branson's the founder. The current CEO is John Bayliss. Not my sorry, that was my back. I was the one who gave you the wrong name. I was talking about Richard Brandon. Okay, So like Richard Branson standing right in front of him, I'm not even looking at him. I'm looking at my phone. Or my camera I private

Willie Nelson concert. I'm looking at my camera. Wait this, I experienced such amazing things in this world, and you know, I obviously want to share it, but like sometimes it's it's overwhelming, uh, and I think I just need to

enjoy it. I just need to enjoy instead of trying to We have to be fair though we are in a we're in a position where, you know, not it's not just that we have the passion for it, which is clearly a big part of it, but also we have we we have created an obligation on the part of our audiences. Right. So, so there's not that we're blaming you audience. We love you, we appreciate that you're there. You are the reason we are able to do the things we do, and if you weren't there then we

would be very sad. So we're not blaming me. We're just saying that we do feel obligated to you, and so sometimes that means that we could use that as an excuse to do behaviors that perhaps weren't the most

healthy at times. I've heard about a lot of restaurants that have taken on the task of Uh, there's some like I think there's a couple in Atlanta actually where if you go to the restaurant, they say, all right, uh, you either surrender you surrender your phone when you come in, or they do the thing where they say, like, the first person to take out their phone is the one

who pays the bill. So if you if you take out your phone, and I sit there and I think, man, I would want to go to dinner with like Sarah Lane, Sarah Lane. If I could go to dinner with Sarah Lane, I would never pay for food again. Um, because and I love Sarah. Sarah is brilliant. She is a wonderful person. But but I don't think I've ever seen her like more than a foot away from some sort of device where she's checking on something. And she's a busy woman.

I get it, like she's doing business like no other. But but I would just be like I could stand a chance against Sarah some of these folks, maybe Veronica belmont To, I could probably it might be a little close, because she's got a power to stay away. She's stubborn right like she's I love Veronica too. That's not a judgment, that's that's me admiring Veronica. So yeah, there there's a lot of people in our space, in in the tech space, where every time I've gone to a dinner with them,

the first thing that happens is everyone sits down. The second thing that happens is everyone's phone hits the table, Like that's that's how it works. So getting away from that once in a while does have a real um appeal to it. And I mean there's it would depend for me where these digital detox tours would be taking place. Like if you're telling me, so there's one in Fiji, I'm like, sign me up. I will go right now.

I will. I will stay on the beach, I will not have any electronics near me, and I will just experience paradise. Uh. But but if you were like, okay, it's in Um. I don't want to pick any place

where someone's going to get mad at me. But maybe it's on the ice cap in Greenland, I'm like, well that's first of all, I probably wouldn't have any access anyway, but I'm pretty sure I would exhaust all forms of entertainment within thirty seconds unless I went into the secret military base under the ice cap in Greenland, which is crazy, but I talked about that in a different episodes. So, Louria Petrucci, thank you so much for joining me and and and this is great. I've been wanting to have

you on the show for years. It's a real thrill for me. I'm I'm being perfectly honest with that. Please look, it's a thrill for me as well than let my listeners know where they can find all your stuff because you do so much. Oh I know? Um so, uh are My techn lifestyle show is geeks Life dot com and we do a daily live stream where we geek out about different things every single week day. Uh So

that's at ten am Pacific every week day. That's a geeks Live dot com slash live or you can get it on Facebook dot com, slash geeks life net, or you can get it on YouTube. Um. But so geeks Life dot live is the easiest place just because it's right there. Um. But we also help people start and grow their live streaming shows. So if that's something you're interested in, you can go to live Streaming pros dot com. But yeah, tech and Lifestyle is is the daily show there.

I also have a daily show for live Streaming pros. Um I'm out there constantly so you can find me. Nice thing is also that you have an incredible backlog of tons of different material out there so people can can see. Like, like I said, you've been playing an important role in uh talking about just tech in general. You've had some great conversations about women in tech. You've

talked about the entrepreneur aspect of your job. These are all things that if you are out there and you're thinking, I would love to be able to chase my dream, but I just you know, there's so many obstacles in the way. Trust me, go and look up Luria and and learn from her. She's got some great, great knowledge to impart on all of you guys out there. And if you just love swell. I mean I've watched these videos, Luria.

I mean, I've known you for for a few years, but you know, we were been pretty far off circles. We don't get to hang out very frequently. So so when I follow up and I look at your story, I'm just amazed it, uh that you you have continued to to have that ambition and that drive and still be a nice person. That's insane. Lauria so well, I mean, I wouldn't do it if I didn't love people. So, yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, my favorite thing about the

job is getting to know people. It's great. I'm glad that there are people like you out there to balance out the missent thropes like me. That's really valuable. Loria. Thank you so much again. And guys, if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, here's what I want you to do. I want you to get on that little email de la Bob, and I want you to fill out the two form and say tech

stuff at how stuff works dot com. Send me that email, or you can always drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter the handle to use his text stuff hs W. Let me know what topics do you want me to cover. Is there someone you want me to interview, or another person you want me to have as a guest host, any of those sort of things. Let me know and I will talk to you guys again for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com m