Oh, get a team. Welcome to another installment of the new project. Tiffany and Cook and Patrick, who's sitting somewhere in perspective of the lunar landscape. He seems to be hovering somewhere in a far away galaxy. TIF. Is there any way that you can take a photo of that to put it in the group? I don't know. Is that possible a screenshot? Could you? Because it's I love I love that that's not a virtual backdrop. That's a
physical backdrop that looks amazing. Hi, Patrick, Hey, crego a, how are you?
I got there first.
I'm good. I'm good. I'm I'm a little bit tired. I'm good, Like tiff was saying she'd had a little nana and app earlier. I've had to meet someone this morning at six thirty. I did a workshop last night till stupid o'clock with a whole bunch of people. I did a workshop the night before online also, you know, first world problems. I'm very lucky, very blessed, fortunate all that,
but a little tired. And I've got a big meeting tonight with my senior academic supervisor, who's a smarty pants, and so I always get a little bit anxious because I'm not a smarty pants, and I worry about what he's going to ask me. So I'll just do thirteen poos today and that'll happen at seven o'clock. And that's just my body getting ready. You know, you're welcome, You're welcome.
Does your body really do that when you're nervous?
Oh? Sometimes sometimes there might be a little bit of additional you know, bathroom work. Everybody's gone. The people who are brand new to this show are going, what the actual fuck? And all the old listeners are like, yep, that's jumbo. There you goes to do it? Talking about bodily functions.
Apparently that's a thing. I think it's a boy thing, is it? It must be a boy thing. I remember years ago one of my boyfriends he raced motorbikes, and I went to that day and I remember him saying that the bathroom always stunk because of all the nerves. I'm like, what do you mean us everyone goes for a nervous.
Pooh, it's it's it's real, it's real. There's a physiological consequence of anxiety, and sometimes that's to you know, release the chucky hostage. You know what? No, you know, I.
Was training at your gym one day, the plainer that I would train with Andrew, he'd suddenly at nine o'clock say I'm going to take the kids to the pool.
No, drop the kids off at the pool.
Yeah, something like that. And it's like, for for weeks, I thought he had kids. Regular didn't say it every time, you know, to finish a training session, and I just thought he was just jumping in the car.
And yeah, brings a new perspective to the term log on, doesn't it. You know, you're welcome, You're welcome. There's a computer term for you. You guys were talking when I came on late, as I always do. Well, No, I'm on time. You guys are always I feel like you guys turn up early just to talk about me, and then when I show up, it's like I've walked into a bedroom with two naughty children and everything just goes quiet and you both look at me like fucking meerkats. Then I
feel very nervous and a little left out. But Patrick was talking about were you talking about something about bone earphones? Oh?
Yeah, bone conducting headphones.
What does that mean?
Well, you don't put the headphones. I mean, Tiff got us onto this in the first place, but I forget rather than putting the headphones in your ear, they sit around your ear and they're pressed up against you, I guess your jawbone, I suppose all the back of your ear, and it's and it conducts through the bone into your inner ear rather than the headphones being inside your ear. It's really good because I mean, the quality isn't as good as really good over ear headphones, so you're not
going to be listening to high fidelity music. But what it's good for is if you're walking the dog, it means you can hear traffic, you can hear other people, and it's a lot safer I think if you're riding a bike that sort of thing. So, I mean, that's what you got them for, though, Tift, didn't you for the gen.
For riding a pushbike?
Yeah?
I really good.
I feel like I've never heard of them.
They're really good.
Who invented that? Who figures that out? That if we stick this, we stick this on your jaw.
Well, this go around your ears.
They work around Patrick's demonstrating now, which is probably not great for an audio product, but.
You could describe what you're seeing th right.
So they go around your ear and then the actual speaker bit is like at the top of your mandible.
There you go.
You're welcome. Yeah, I don't know about I know about human anatomy. I don't know about insect anatomy and proboscis. I've got a fucking proboscos. Don't worry about that, Jesus. Yesterday, when it was raining in the Hampton, it was torrential. Four people came and stood under my nose. It was very hurtful, but I kept them all dry. So that is important. That is important. T If what are those
headphones slash mandible phones called? If people want to look them up and check them out, what's what are they called?
Bro? The best known brand is by a company called Shocks s h O K S.
I believe shock Shocks.
They're really good.
How much are they couple hundred bucks?
I think I got mine for less than that different Yeah, yeah.
Patrick, you probably you probably know the answer to this, but I I want a filter. Okay. So I've had to do more videos lately for a range of reasons, which is essentially that he harps just talking at his phone. Now you might not have realized this, but I'm sixty one and apparently I'm not handsome anymore. So when I see the video, do you know, you know, like when I see myself on this on Zoom, there's a bit
of a Doris Day filter. I look at myself, I look not terrible, right, not terrible, not great, not terrible. But then when I look at the raw unfiltered, very very very clear iPhone fucking four D high def whatever it is, fuck, it's hideous. So Patrick, my question is, can I get an app that makes me look a little bit better when I feel like, how do I do this in my phone? What do you got your head in your hands for?
What?
Sorry, I just want to.
Be less offensive to the people that have to look up my face a vacillated lens.
Isn't that what they used to do in the old days?
Well I might have to No, all right, I'm not sad.
Phones do have filters on them, Like there are filters you can put on them. I mean, when you're doing zoom meeting. There are features within the Zoom settings that allow you to soften the features.
Well I know that because I'm using it right now. I'm saying when I just want to record something on my iPhone. Whatever it is, is there a similar tiff? You probably know better than him. I feel like he's a dinosaur on this call.
I don't use the iPhone either, but Android definitely has features where you can filter.
Maybe it's already got it the features in iPhone, but I don't know how to operationalize it.
He's an interesting fact someone was talking about this morning. Facebook is planning to remove certain filter features from their app because people are getting too obsessed with exactly what you're talking about. I don't know much of the details on it. Someone just mentioned it when I was training them this morning.
Yeah, TikTok's actually going to block teenagers from beauty filters.
So I don't want to be beautiful. I just want to I don't want to look like a caricature. I just want as less red blotchy skin.
Craig as your counselor, I think it's important for you to embrace aging. Is that it happens.
Practice where you stand in front of a mirror and you just say I love you. Tis food off your own eyes.
Yeah I'm massive. Yeah, here's my affirmation. You're a fucking idiot. They're my affirmations, you know. Can I just say my affirmations are do better? That's what I tell myself.
As somebody who shaves their head every second day because they've got nothing to kind of cover the old dome. I started losing my hair in my late twenties, which is a real body blow when you're a young guy, right. I went to the same hairdresser and he did stuff to kind of hide stuff, but eventually he said to me one day, why don't you just shave it all off? And I thought, oh shit. You know that's a big thing, and it wasn't at a time when footy players did
it or anything like that. It's like you embrace being bored. I said, okay, I will, and luckily I have a relatively well shaped noggin, which helps, and so he shaved it. I went back to work and the first person I saw, one of the sales reps at work, she looked at me and she said, oh, you look like a criminal. It was the wor thing anybody can say. But I'm fifty seven now, and one of the things it does is it ages you prematurely when you go bald, but then you get to a point in your forties and
then into your fifties where it d ages you. I think, so, I don't know. If you look you're the probably the smartest person from that perspective. You tell us what you think of blokes who shave their head? Is that? Is that anything? You know? Do you think that it doesn't aid you after a certain point?
Maybe? I guess because you're not getting the gray hair. I don't know, it's interesting. I've never really thought about it.
Yeah, I just guess what I'm doing after, Yes, what I'm doing next? No, it's see your locks.
But I think what you need to do, Craigo is embrace craigo. You know, do some fows of yourself the mirror. You know, you kiss the mirror a bit.
All right, that's enough now, I see on your list of talking points today, we actually chatted about the Granny one with David Gillespie, but I would like to hear your take on it anyway. Did you just explain it?
Did I like you the Granny?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, Grannie.
Oh okay, that anti scammer Grannie that was created to keep scammers bloody caught up online so they can't. But I'm sure not everyone heard that what was your what did you think about it? What was your or just for those who didn't hear, just explain what it was and then your take.
Yep.
So obviously phone scams are a real problem and it tends to be older people who fall victim to that. And a UK based tech company or like a mobile phone company run by Virgin called Virgin Media ROH two, they've built this AI generated I guess it's called a scram Beta and what it does is it's just designed
solely to stall scammers. So they pick up on numbers that the scammers must have a way to kind of call through to a chain of numbers, and then what they do is they just keep them busy talking to this AI old lady, and it tricks these crims into thinking that they are actually defrauding a real person. So it's not just engaging it hands out bank details. It really is clever at fooling them into thinking they are actually talking to a real person on the other line.
And the theory being is the more time you can waste of these scammers, the less time they'll be scamming real people. So that's the gist of it. And her name is Daisy and she's been taking calls for quite a while now, and it's great. Just leverages off all the biases that those scammers have about older people and it's kind of used that to train the AI model and it's just really clever at engaging with these people and talking like an old person.
I saw this on the news and what was funny to see was like footage of some of the scammers, or at least audio of some of the scammers with the Daisy talking in inverted commas, and you could hear the frustration and the anger escalating in the scammers who started to like started to attack her after like an hour on the phone and started to lose their shit.
Because but I mean, what a testament to how much this stuff has evolved that an actual human can have a conversation in inverted commas for one hour with something that is not a human and not know it.
Yeah, that is amazing. You're absolutely nailing it right on the head there. It's interesting. In a survey that was done, seventy one percent of Britons want to get revenge on SMS. So you either have been scammed or you know somebody who's been scammed, and you really would love to get revenge on those people. So this aiitil plays right into the hands of what the majority of people in the UK what I reckon that to be pretty similar in Australia,
how many people would love to get revenge. There are videos where these really clever people go onto YouTube and they managed to turn the scammers against them. And what they do is they jump on and they use security cameras or they use the webcams built into the scammer's own devices, and then they pinpoint. They say we know where are, we know where you live, and it's just great to watch them. They're pretty pretty full on when
the scammers realize that they've been caught out. But not only did they get caught out, people know where they live, they know where they're working, they have footage of them, and in some cases has even resulted in some of those big I guess effectively from criminal syndicate having to shut down that operation.
M M. You can I ask this is related but not specific to what we're talking about. But related? Are you on LinkedIn? Patrick?
Yeah, that's a bit of a bugbear in my office because I am but I have an.
Updated long long I t if you're on LinkedIn, right, yep? What do you think of LinkedIn? In?
What respect?
Like? Do you like it? Do you think it's I don't mind it, I use it. I'm on it. One of the one of the things I find annoying is and I understand that, I mean maybe I think maybe I didn't really understand is is it just meant to be kind of almost like an online networking thing? TIF like, is that it's kind of mean business?
Facebook?
Yeah? Right? Because it's like, you know what I hate is when someone goes hikrage, just wondering if you need a little help promoting this or that, and dad da da da da, and I you know, I don't ask them to send me something, and so I just ignore it because I don't want to engage in a conversation with them.
Right, And then a.
Week later they're like, hey, buddy, just reaching out again, just circling back, just just opening the door again. Haha, I hope you haven't a great week all this shit, And I'm like, nah, Like sometimes I feel like going, if I don't answer you three times in a row, how fucking dumb are you that you keep reaching out? Like if I was interested, I would have said, yeah, sure, let's have a chat. But and I don't mind people trying to build business or all of that. I'm cool,
but they right like they're your buddy. And some of the people that send me stuff, they're like, hey, I can help you build your audience. And I'm a podcast this or that, and I look at what they do and I'm like, well, you've got seven fucking files like you. I can help you with your speaking career. I'm like, no, you can't, you absolutely can't. Oh anyway, so I don't know. Me and me and LinkedIn are a little bit up in the air at the moment. I'm not sure if that love affair is going to continue.
I've got to tell you something really funny. You know how, there's been all this legislation to try to stop young kids getting onto social media. So there's a social media band that they're trying to put into place via legislation. And you know what the LinkedIn people said when they were asked about this social media ban on young kids. Their response was, we're too boring for kids to be
part of a social media band. This thought was a crack up, They admitted, you know what, kids don't want to be anywhere near us.
It's kind of true. I mean, well it's not. It's definitely not a platform that's saying at kids or so. Yeah. But I mean, I guess if they're going to ban social media platforms, they have to ban them all. I guess. Is that, by the way, is that actually happening or is that still just an idea? No?
No, I think the legislation went through. They pushed it through in a very short amount of time, and that's caused lots of angst. In fact, because now a lot of people are coming out of the woodwork and saying, well, you know, this may hinder certain groups, it may cause problems.
There was a chap who I was reading an article about who has an intellectual disability and was saying that there are young people who use social media in different ways than what we traditionally see social media being used, and you could actually shut the door on ways they can interact with people and other people who have similar problems. So it's a tough one. But I think the legislation went through. I hadn't been following it as closely as
I probably should have. I know that they wanted to try to get it in for closer business, so to speak. And now they've basically taken you know, what do they call it when they finish up for the year? What they finish up for the year.
Wow, I think they've gone on holiday as Patrick. But they put the sign on the door back in January or probably.
March mates January. It's way too soon.
But it does raise an interesting point, and is is social media the problem underlined? Or is the way that some people use social media the problem. I use social media. You two both use social media. Most of our listeners use social media, I would think, and again, of course we're not children, but it's I don't know. Is the answer just to take it away or is the answer to help kids understand what is healthy what is unhealthy?
Because it's not you know, there's a million you know, there's vapes, there's cigarettes, there's there's a million things that kids can and do access. There's pawn there's all of the social media platforms. It's what rather than just taking shit away from them, by the way, I don't know what the answer is. Maybe that is the answer, but I feel like helping kids to make better decisions and be more aware and more responsible, to be able to you know, make what are decisions around you know, the
way that their life goes. I mean, you know what's funny is, oh, should I say this? No, I'm not going to say. But we let children make them think about the world right now. We let children make some very very big decisions now which are going to change their life forever. Right But we're going to say, nah, but you can't look at Instagram. You're fifteen. You can't look at Instagram. You know. It's like, I don't know that that's fixing a problem, and I'm not. It has
no impact on me. So I don't care either way. But I just don't know that that's the solution.
Look under sixteen year olds. I look again, I'm no expert. I don't have kids. However, one of the big concerns is that you can go into a rabbit hole. We've all done that with social media. I do it on YouTube all the time. But you know that social media rabbit hole. And I think kids are more vulnerable at the age being under sixteen. They're not mature, but they're exploring their world. They're exploring the world around them. They need more affirmations and social media can be so unrealistic
in that sense. So the ex and I'm not an expert, but you know, we keep hearing that the experts are saying that social media is detrimental to mental health for young people, for young kids particularly, And I mean I know older people. I know adults who have problems with social media, have problems spending too much time on social media. Who you know whose whole day can be ruined because they didn't get enough likes on their instapost. You know,
that's the type of thing that's detrimental. Now you look at a kid, you look at a young person who doesn't have the coping mechanisms, who doesn't have the maturity level to be able to make or realize that what has been said about them online just one person, you know, they don't have the resources psychologically to be able to cope with those sorts of things. There's got to be something to it. You know, we're talking world leading legislation
stopping children from accessing social media. I mean, you don't just throw that together unless there's a lot of experts out there saying that something needs to be done to protect kids online.
But what about the kids who are not those kids? I get it, what you're saying is true, right, some kids can't self regulate. Some kids they can't, but not all the kids. It's like, you know, it's like there are lots of guys, lots of guys who have porn addiction. Not you, not me? Why maybe you? I don't think so, do you know what I mean?
It's like screens going at the time, just would have let you know, what.
Is that grunting in the background.
I don't know.
It's like, yeah, I mean, I've got access to cigarettes and booze and drugs if I want. I guess. I'm not saying I'm great. I'm just saying when.
You know?
And why why sixteen? Why not eighteen? Why? I just don't know, Like I don't think it's that cut and dry or that arbitrary. And I think to say that all fourteen year olds can't self manage or regulate, can't make good decisions, therefore we need to take it away from them. I don't know that this is a good way for kids to learn. I mean, there are parts of the world where kids are working at fourteen and earning an income and supporting their family. Not saying that
should be a thing, but that is a thing. You know, I don't know, I don't know anyway, that's a philosophical discussion for another day.
Complicated, complicated argument. And you're right because you know it first came to mind to me, is what happens to some kid who's living out in the country, who might be on a closed Facebook support group and that might have autism, or they could be part of the LGBT community, and they find a perent and alone and this is their one way to interact with people in a private way that they feel like they've got a sense of community online. And that is the sense for people, you know.
If you're perfect example, perfect example, I mean that's where for some people, depending on And yes, it's like I always say, with most things, it's not the thing that's the problem. It's the dose. Yeah, it's the dose. You know, like as bro clear maybe good one or two, but thirty five not good. You know, a bit of cake fine, seven cakes not fine? You know, two leaders of water good, thirteen leaders of water bad. You know, like training in the gym an hour a day good, training nine hours
a day bad. You know, it's like it depends on the way that that whatever it is, that resource like a gym's a resource, food is a resource. The internet is a resource. It depends how we use it. And I just feel like we're not teaching kids to navigate the messiness of life. Hey, kids, life's unfair. There's going to be there are things out there that are going to try and fuck you over because it's in people's commercial interest to get you addicted. So let's just teach
you about the dangers of technology addiction. Let's talk to you about I don't know, it's just seems like there's an opportunity there to help kids become I don't know, more mature and more And I know there's a genetic and a physiological component and brain development component, but you know, there are a lot of kids in the world that are navigating a lot, a lot harder shit than bloody This stuff steps down our soapbox.
Wow, yeah, there you go, And all right, when's the sermon. No, you're right, and we're not going to solve it in forty five minutes. It's very detailed, long complicated, and parents need to be a part of the process as well. Responsible adults around kids who are using social media, because when you go to the supermarket and you see a three year old with an iPhone because it's a way to distract them while mum's doing the shopping. You know, that's the beginning of that connection with the screen.
Isn't it cheapest babysitter in the world, One of my friends says, cheapest babysitter ever. I'll tell us about it.
Let's tell you one more little thing. I was reading an article recently talking about breastfeeding mothers who are on their phones can actually cause problems for toddlers because they're not looking at the kid while they're breastfeeding. Yes, yeah, that so not making eye contact, not having that direct maternal connection with the child because there's a phone in the way away. I thought i'd throw that went in. Sorry, you're going to ask me something else.
I was just going to ask about the sad announcement email that implies your friend has done that SAPs dodgy. Ah.
There's so many scams going around at the moment, and they're getting so easy to be fooled. You know, the reality of it is what they're doing now is you get an email and titled a sad announcement, so it's inferring that someone close to you has passed away, and they're trying to use triggers that will get people to click. You know, you might like to see the last photo that was taken of and they name the person, so
you get an email from TIFF's email. It's like, I can't this is terrible to tell you that something's happened to Tiff. This is the last photo we took of her. It's like, what the you know what I mean like this? This is awful that you know, people are looking to scam in the every possible trigger that can be used, and this is just another one. You know, little things like I'm presuming you should remember these two ladies in that photo. You know, when I was looking through some
old fold as I found these picks. You know, it wasn't initially my plan, but I had to change my mind about it. Just little clever mechanisms try to get you to do that fatal click that then leads you down that hacking rabbit hole. It's it's so distressing that people are using this sort of leverage.
Have you seen the one that's doing the rounds of Simon cow You know that America's got talent. Dude, the judge he owns I think he actually owns the whole thing. So there's this picture of Simon Cow and it's like got candles around us, and it's in loving memory, and it's like he's died, and it's like there's a picture of him and his birth date to his death date in vert commas. I'm like, and it just came up on my phone. I'm like, Simon Cow's did, how the
fuck is what? And I very nearly clicked on it to open it up to read the story, and then I went, pretty sure it's not dead, and then this kind of looks real, but I doubt it. And then so I just went in and I went, is there a Simon Cow scam? And it's like, yes, don't open this, don't you know. That's the good thing, I guess, or one of the good things about the Internet is that people are going to go and tell the world when they get scammed.
Yeah, for sure, if you've got an iPhone, a mac, an iPad, you happen to be an Apple user. One of the other recent things is that your Apple ID has been suspended. Now, this is a tough one for people because if you were to make purchases online, you need your Apple ID quite often to log into the device if you're using your iPhone to make a purchase or whatever it happens to be. So again another trigger point and they're over to hang on, hang.
On, are you saying the scam is they're telling you it's been suspended or no? No, no, that's when you said that. You just said the bad news is You're I'm like, fuck, has it exactly? You nearly scammed me? So right, so right, so it hasn't really been. But that's the story. Chick your email, Craig, your account.
Might have been suspended. Let me just get that email out natif that was an easy con.
If I click on that, and that's you want a fucking bare skin rug, I'm out.
Dear hey, yeah, so what they're doing so it's it's an ID, the Apple I D suspension thing. It's one thing that Apple people are in fear of because you can't do a lot without logging into your Apple I D. So particularly now we've got all those big sales on at the moment, you know, the Black Friday stuff, and two billion people are active Apple users. So whether as you know an iPad, you know an iPhone, So there's
a lot of people in that ecosystem. It's really funny that I'm going to tell you this little side story. Apple used to have this great ad and it said Apple computers don't get PC viruses. It's like, of course they don't get PC viruses, they get Apple viruses. I mean, because it makes sense. If you're going to put a virus out there, you're going to send it to the
majority of people who happened to be on PC. But it was a really clever marketing trick to infer that you wouldn't get a virus if you had an Apple device. But with two billion users out there, yes, you now are ripe as a target four scammers, and this just happens to be one of the latest scams that's hitting the Apple ecosystem specifically.
Excuse my aggnorance, but an Apple laptop is still a PC.
Right, No, No, it's a Mac. It runs Mac operating.
Doesn't PC stand for personal computer?
It does? But Apples aren't personal computers?
Well what are they? Impersonal max? That's bullshit, that's fucking bullshit. It's a computer and it's yours. It's you fucking Apple tops. It's so fucking up yourselves. It's like a cult. Apple's a cult. Fuck your cult?
Can you say? I just asked Gemini the Google AI. Yes, technically Apple is a personal computer.
Thank you, the end, the end, the end.
Yes, a PC is a general term for a personal computer, and MAC is a specific brand of a PC made by exactly exactly.
That's why all kleenex are still tissues but not moving the deck chairs.
PC's typically run Windows, whereas max run on the mac os.
Yeah, but to my question, is it still a personal computer? Yes, well that's a PC in a technical term. Stop trying to be right? Will you just swallow your big Apple ego and just fucking move on?
Oh?
Dear, tell us a house. Tell us. By the way, everyone who's like, is that real? Do they really? No? We don't hate each other. This is how we talk. I love him. He's wrong, but I love him. Tell me about I've always wondered about this virtual like VR headsets for people who are using them for fitness purposes, so for workouts.
Yeah, yeah, you saw this story. It's kind of funny. I do use my VR headset for lots of stuff. And there's a game that I really love to play called Beat Saber and by the end of the game, you've built up quite a sweat. Now that's a problem because they've picked up an issue with the Metaquest three, which is the top of the range meta headset, and it's causing problems because when people get super sweaty, the sweat is seeping into the electronics and so Meta actually
replacing the devices, which is great. They're actually allowing that people can send them in and get them replaced, but it doesn't seem like there's a permanent solution for them yet. So it just seems like for those extra sweaty people, this can be a problem. So you know, take the headset off, get your tissues out.
What's the game that you play? What's it called again?
I beat Saber?
Okay, Shocker Shocker? Tell our listeners what that is.
If you imagine you're standing in a day.
Before you tell us, can you just remind us how old you are again.
I'm fifty seven years old.
That I never sorry, go on answer the question.
Thank you call me Peter. Yeah, and I do believe in fairies. So anyway, what you're doing is you're standing on a platform with two effectively light sabers and two different colors. So you can imagine you got a blue lightsaber and a red.
Lights and TIFF's losing her ship.
And when she comes over, I'm going to make her play this and use a song, and you choose a level of difficulty and these cubes come flying at you and listen to the beat of the music. It shouldn't YouTube, but it's great to the beat of the music. And what you've got to do is you've got to swipe down and slice the cube by swiping down or up into the side, and you do it all in time
to music. So it's very much based on coordination and movement to be able to continue to get through the song, and as you get better at it, it's really quite interesting the way your brain is able.
What you know, Can I just say, oh God, there's something so funny I want to say, but I can't because I can't, But I can I just point out that no I can't. I'll get in trouble. Fuck who knew I had a filter. Everyone's going to send me an e mail now going what were you going to say?
What were you going to say?
We want to know It's it just seems like the gayest game I've ever heard of. And that's because you're gay. And it's okay. I love you and I love all my gay friends, but I can't what really, all.
The Beat Saber people out there, it's okay. You don't have to be part of the Rainbow Flag generation to play Beat Saber. Really, it's good.
I'm probably going to come up and fucking love it. You will love it, I guarantee, and then and then I'll be out loud and proud, just on's my saber.
You will now. Look, you know, the other fascinating thing is and I know I'm going down a rabbit hole here. When you get to a certain level of difficulty, when you first play it, you're really unco you know.
Look at Tiff Space. Can I just interrupt TIF? What are you looking at?
I'm watching Beat Saber on YouTube as we speak.
What do you think? Tip doesn't look cool?
I'm just trying to visualize how this has become a thing. That is.
But if you think of fun for you playing this to your or Queen song or something new Lady Gaga, doesn't matter what song you're listening to.
Again, rest my case, Queen and Lady Gaga. Is there any midnight.
Oil floating around Jim Lincoln Park, Imagine the Wons. There are two of my other albums that I've got on there, but you know what, here's one that you might be able to put some insight into. When I first started playing, it was hard to play. But as you get better and better, you go to a high level of skill. But I got to a point where I couldn't concentrate on both hands at the same time because the blocks were moving toward me so quickly, So I only focus
on one hand by say my right hand. Now my brain is still taking care of the left hand side. So when you think about playing a game, say you were playing a sport where you're using both arms at the same time, you need to be cognitively aware of what both arms are doing. But I've got to a point in the game where I only concentrate on one side and the other side of my brain or the other side of my brain that's controlling my other hand is just doing it without me thinking about it. So
visually I'm seeing it. I know that I have to swipe And am I even making sense to you?
So you're telling me.
Jim in wherever that place you live is the land? Yeah, just go to the land boxing gym and now up a new sport.
Yeah something where yeah, something where you're hitting actual things.
If no one needs me back when I played beats saber, that's hilarious.
Tell us about gadgets that only millennials will remember. Look when you think from the nineties, is it?
Yeah, we'll think about the stuff that we I mean, did you ever have a disc man or a walkman?
Sure? Did?
Yeah?
Sure?
Kids have no idea what they are.
That's because that's because they've got one million songs at their fingertip.
But it's making a revival. The thing is cassettes. They're making cassette players again. They're making the d players again because kids want analog media, they want vinyl, they want CDs, and now they want cassettes.
What do you think is like, what is the catalyst for that?
Like?
Why would you want something that's not as good as what they're currently is? Like from a use point, like you what can you have ten songs on a cassette and then you've got to record them? Then you've got to stick it in and press play and put batteries in it.
The mixtape? Remember the mixtape? Now, I wonder if it's pushback against technology. I wonder if if they're I mean, I we know young Chris who did the show for me a little while ago. He he's into kiss and he he's got vinyl. I brought him a record player for his birthday. So he's fifteen and he's obsessed with VINYLNT And that's great. The kids are doing that and getting an interest. I mean, it's bloody expensive to go. Have a look at what it costs for an album,
and they're not cheap. But I just thought that was really interesting that that there is a pushback against tech and there are kids who aren't. I mean, I've got a seventeen year old who works for me and he's not on social media. It's like they don't want to be on They certainly don't want to be on Facebook. You know, don't get a young people that was so twenty years ago. You know, young people now they want to be seen. They're not places where their grandparents hang out.
I've got something that I want to show you. It's going to take me thirty seconds to get so I want speaking of this. I'm going to go get it. You two keep talking. I don't say anything bad because I'll listen back timmy second.
It occurred to me, Tiff, did you hear the grandma like AI grandma? Yeah?
And we played a little bit. Yeah.
Yeah. It was really good, wasn't it. Yeah, because I had it all cued up ready to play. Anyway, I just want.
To go with the phone numbers that ring you and then hang up if you answer.
Oh.
I think they just want to check to see if there's actually a person who's going to answer the phone.
I get those from the same but a variation of the same number. The last three yeah, zero, yeah, zero, And I've blocked them all the time, and if I ever accidentally answer, they hang up.
Well, what I tend to do now is unless the number is in my list in my phone list, I just let it go to a message bank, and if they leave a message, I'll call them back. If they don't, I won't. No, it is problematic, and I tend to get them later in the afternoon. Do you get those No?
No, I don't pay attention.
So I'm back.
Oh yeah, well you should have heard.
So I was cleaning out a draw. I'm going to just bring it up just the top of it and see if you can guess game Boy.
Oh, oh, oh my god, it is too. It's a green, a bright green game Boy, isn't it?
And can you see what's in?
No? I can't see what game have you got on it? I can't believe he's taking the piss out of me for playing Beats Saber and he's got his green fluorescent game Boy. Dude, that's pretty excellent. I can't quite see it. It's too small. What game are you played?
So Tetris so I got, I've got my I've got my game Boy color with Tetris so fucking good. And I think this I think this bad boy is about thirty years old.
Oh they're great. Game boys are fantastic.
And how game Boy? I don't know how much this is worth? But no one's buying it. No, yeah, I found it. I didn't. I was going to say the other day. I found it a couple of months ago. I was cleaning stuff up, and I'm like, I wonder if this still works. I turned it on because the batteries has got to be thirty years old. Bing wow, yeah, amazing.
Yeah. See that's so, I'll.
Let you have a go of it. You're welcome.
Awesome, that'd be great Tetris is a laser discs? Did you ever remember we had friends of ours that had laser discs. Now, I'm not talking about CDs or Dvds're talking about like laser dicks discs. Keeping cut that one out.
Laser dicks. Wow, that's going to be painful all round. Laser discs for music.
No movies. They were big, yeah, yeah, not blu ray no, no, no, no, no, giant, big, twelve inch enormous like a record like it was like a vinyl, but it was a laser disc.
I remember ones that were size of a CD where you could play movies.
Now, these these were these came out before the traditional CDs and DVDs came out. The only problem was they cost so much more than VHS tapes to make. They were five times more expensive. I knew someone who had like a whole collection of them, and they just didn't take off so much. What did and it was more than I was thinking of other gadgets that took off. PDAs. Do you remember what a PDA was?
No, people?
Was it like a like a recorder or something that was a personal digital assistant. So it had a calendar in it and it had a pen. I think Hewlett Packard made them, so it was green on it with a little pen. Do you remember business people used to have them?
Yeah, yeah, I remember, and they were like the size of a pager, but a bit bigger or something.
Oh they were kind of like the size of a more standard mobile phone, is now right right?
Did you ever have a pager? Oh? Yeah I did.
I did. I had one as a journalist, I had yep, yep, that was.
I had a pager before I got my motor rolla brick. I thought I was the ship, you know, and like were like, people like, what's that. I'm like, that's my pager. A pager, it's a pager. Is that funny? Hell, there was a point time we're the most embarrassing bullshit. Now. Back then was like social status points. It's like you've got a pager. Oh yeah, yeah, I need to be reachable.
And then I had my motor roll of brick, which was about as big as a bloody VHS player that I carried around like some kind of status symbol.
No wonder, you've got such big guns. Those things were heavy.
Well, I remember when they I think I was one of the well, I was one of the first people that I knew of anyway like that when that just come out, and I was training lots of people and had making lots of cash, remember cash, So I just went and bought one and it was I can't remember, but it was ridiculous. I think it was like four grand.
It was so expensive, and it had a big rubber aerial yep and it was literally about, oh, I don't know, twenty I've like eight nine inches long, and it was big and gray, and it was two dollars thirty a minute or something to talk. It was fucking outrageous.
And you know what, you know what one of the telcoasts was doing. I won't mention which one, but what they used to do. No, no, no, the telco provided Telstra at Wellster Telecom. At the time, they were charging people who to receive the call.
Do you remember, yes, yes, yes, I remember.
So if Craig called you, it's like, fuck off, don't call me, it's costing.
Me exactly exactly.
Can you believe they did that? See if when someone called you can not only were you paying per minute, they were paying for the benefit of hearing from you.
I remember when I went, I actually feel like I've said this once on this show. I'm not sure, but
I went to the States in nine. The first time I went to the States was with my friend Greg, and I was going out with a girl at the time that one time, and I rang her about I don't know, not many times, about five times over two weeks for about three or four minutes a call, and then we left the hotel we're at and I think the bill was something like five hundred and thirty dollars, it was like, and then I got it was like twenty one dollars a minute or something doing an international
call through a hotel room phone by the US like and for me, I did not have any dough Then I'm like, oh my god, oh my god. Yeah. Crazy.
The other thing that were doing I going to tell you this last one was texting. Because texts used to be expensive. They would charge say twelve cents a text. But the reality of it is they when there was a I don't know if was you know, a study or not even a study, like the government looked at what telcos were charging and it ended up they were only it only cost them point zero something since per text, but they were charging twelve cents a text it was
the biggest scam ever. People were just being absolutely you know, whipped with all these bills for making calls, sending texts, and the reality was that they just didn't cost that much.
Let's talk about this one. Let's make this the home straight give yourself the silent treatment, Patrick, What is that about?
This has got to be one of the most interesting gadgets that I've heard of. And initially I thought of the Cone of Silence from Get Smart, which maybe a lot of our listeners will remember. Do you remember the cone of Silence?
Yeah? I love the kind of silence, that plastic thing that came like bumpily down from the roof.
Yeah, that's the one. Now, this is some research that's been done. This is really really clever stuff because I know you are a big fan of your noise canceling headphones. And the good thing about noise canceling what it can do is it allows you to get rid of repetitive noise in the area. So it might be if you're on a train, you don't hear the engine noise, if you happen to be on a plane, that sort of stuff.
But one of the challenges for people as they get older is your hearing not only gets reduced, but certain frequencies also are cut out as well. And if you think of going to a cafe with a group of people, it can be really problematic to try to hear with all the background noise going on. So this silent treatment, basically it's using noise canceling technology. But what they're trying to do, and what they've managed to try, is to create a basic sound bubble around you of say two meters.
So what it is is you put these little ear park plugs in with the people who are sitting there around you, and everything that happens within that two meter bubble you can hear clearly. Everything outside of the two met bubble is noise canceled.
Yeah. I saw a video on this with exactly what you're talking about, people at a table chatting yep. That I'm I think is that real or is that just conceptual?
It's concept, but it's it's functional concept. So they've main managed to make it happen. It's just a way of now being able to implement it. But you know, this noise canceling technology has been around for a long time. I mean I remember seeing it on the Curiosity show when I was a kid, the whole idea of negative soundweight. Do you remember that show, The Curiosity?
I remember that, I remember that show. What was that show? With all our older listeners that are Oh fuck, that was the day of the Curiosity Show? Do you remember that? Brian? Oh, what a great show. What about Professor Julius sum Namilla Do you remember him? Oh?
He did the Cadbury Ads. Didn't he a glass and a half? A full tream dairy mount?
Yeah, he used to have I forget the name of his show, but he also had There used to be a lot of shows for kids that were kind of remember that show It's academic?
Oh yeah, it rings a bell yep.
Yeah. There was a bunch of shows which is about, you know, kids using their brain to solve problems. Essentially, we need we need those back.
What are you're not a fan of reality TV?
It depends what it is in general terms, Not really, that depends what it is. What's your favorite all time reality show? Patrick? And you tif too, what it like? Do you watch any of it?
No? I haven't watched television for twenty years.
Craig go, Oh that's right, that's right. I've never I don't think I've ever watched. I don't think I've ever watched. Maybe there's something I have, but all those things, like the closest thing I've watched, like in the irony is that reality TV is completely scriptured and manufactured most of it, right, Probably the one that's the least scripted is that show Alone where they just chuck people in the wilderness. Right, and you probably have seen that. Well you haven't seen that, Patrick,
but even my friend who films it. No, they do.
Oh they film themselves.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, so they are a lot No, there's no no, there's no camera crew. They have to film themselves. So they have multiple cameras, they wear a camera on their head, they talk all the time. They get they get kind of equipped and they'll have like a outside the shelter that they build, they'll put a camera on a tree that has a wide lens that will catch a lot of there's yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
it's true. They're in the middle of nowhere, and it's it's I mean, these people lose like some of them lose like fifty pounds in six weeks and near death and they have to get medically extracted from wherever, like they just they pull the pin on them. Some of them nearly kill themselves to because it's a million dollars.
Oh, I see, that's the reason they do it, Because I think it's just voyeurism to the extreme. Isn't it like we've like curiously living through their lives?
I guess so. I mean I find people who really, I mean, genuinely explore the outer limits of their potential. But there's a fine line between, you know, toughness and craziness, and sometimes it's intertwined. But even things like The Block. I mean Bianca Chapfield, who's a friend of a friend of mine and a friend of the show she's she was on The Block, and I watched a little bit of that, but I'm like, I can't.
Fuck.
It does my head in. It's because it ends up not being about the building, but the bitching, you know, the relationships and the you know, Donna and Brian are not on talking terms anymore, and you know whatever, I'm like, fuck, and how can we look at the houses that they're building? But TIV, do you have a favorite one?
No?
I don't watch any of them, but isn't what about that one that I also haven't really watched like goggle Box, where you watch people watching people on TV. You're watching people watch TV.
When I first saw that, I'm like, this is the dumbest shit of all time. There's people like there's a TV show of people watching TV shows. This is never going to take off. And I don't know if that speaks positively to the Australian TV viewing audience. And I know some people listening now like you haven't watched it's fucking brilliant. I don't know. Imagine sitting in your lounge on a couch and there's a TV camera pointing at you as you watch television. What is your thought of that?
And then who gave it the green light? But who was clever enough to know it's going to be a fucking ratings juggernaut? What do you know? What do I know? I mean that's the other thing. These things obviously work commercially or they wouldn't exist, So what the fuck do we know?
It's funny when you think about live TV and then you think about really well crafted TV shows. There's a series I started rewatching called Glitch on the ABC. Did you ever see that? No good Australia. I think it was shot around Castle, Maine as well. It was kind of local in Country Victoria, and effectively it happens overnight there.
You know.
It starts off at a grave at a cemetery and suddenly people are coming out of the graves and they don't realize they're coming out of their grave and they've just come back to life. And it's a whole story of what's happening in this town with may. I think it's maybe five or six people who come back to life, and one guy was in the First World War. Another person only died a few years earlier.
I actually think I did watch an episode of that. Is that Australian or American?
Australian Now it's an Australian series called Glitch and me the shame because I've written two pilot TV series so and spent like six six months eight months just writing script for a pilot and the closest we got was, you know, the program director at Channel seven showing an interest in this script. But pretty well crafted television. Whatever the series happens to me, yeah, yeah, it kind of rause me the wrong way when you know, when you talk about a TV show looking at people watching a
TV show. I just said, Man, I sweated over these two scripts over the years, and you know, and got my hopes up and thought, this is great, this is going to be fantastic, and to write a TV series and then you know, you look at reality TV. Maybe that's why I start watching TV twenty years.
Do you know what that reminded? How dumb that is? You know what? It reminds me of a fifty seven year old man in his lunde room with a fucking pretend saber cutting pretend boxers in half.
Yeah, you're going to do it?
Oh the irony? Patrick? How do people connect with you and find you?
I want to connect with me, seriously?
Who would well after today? Probably nobody, But on the off chance that there is some broken specimen out there who wants to in our real job.
You know, luckily I have staff.
Don't try and get some credibility now, don't try and talk yourself up.
Shut up websites, NOOW, dot com dot au and we can talk about VR. Come over to my place and I'll put a set on you and we can play beatsaper.
Yeah.
I don't want to do it because I'll probably like it.
You will. I guarantee you you like it. Tiff would love it.
I can't like Thanks Patrick, Thanks Tiff,