I get a tamt you project.
It's Tiffany and Cook, Patrick, James Bonello and me with a beanie up at typ Central. That's how cold it is in my little studio at the moment.
Is it warm where you are?
Patrick, Well, it was three degrees when I took Fritzy out for a walk. But I had the forethought to put the heater on in my studio, so it was actually so warm.
I've had to take all my clothes off.
I've taken my market, my hoodie. I'm just sitting in a black T shirt.
I dared to take your black T shirt off.
Take you black, teach, Just do the topless show only if all three of us do.
Well, definitely not, because that would be inappropriate, because nobody needs to see my tits.
I wasn't thinking to you.
Ah, well, so many funny things I could say right now. Say no to them.
I can say enormously they wasn't fit on the screen.
Well, well, I actually think I might win the breast competition at typ Central, But you know, I don't know, I don't know if that's we probably don't need that competition.
He's probably right if you see what he just looks like, he's what it is when you start to put a little bit of flab on and then you've got to wear across your heart.
Me yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah, or yeah, or I've got to gaffer take my cans up to my fucking clavicles.
Just so they stay somewhere near horizontal.
Yeah. You get to a point where everything just starts falling down, right, even if you're in good shape, it's just like sh it's just falling down. Everything's pointing towards your feet. This is a tech podcast, right, Yeah, yeah, well I'm technically correct with this.
Yes, true. And gravity is a thing that does affect every wobbly bit, that is true.
What are you drinking over there? A roll with a punch of central.
I've got ginger tea cup of ginger tea this morning?
That is that meant to have some kind of medicinal therapeutic calm your farm kind of vibe about it.
I'm just trying to calm my soul down a bit, you know. I feel like I could do with some of that at times.
You should have a xanax casserole in the fridge that you can heat up at any time, just a little cutless poonfuls.
It probably wouldn't.
Do you know what xanax is, Patrick, He looks confused.
You look confused, No idea what xenx is.
It's an anti anxiotic drug, so it's a drug for anxiety. I don't recommend it.
Everyone.
That was me being funny.
I would never.
Recommend a xenax castrole, more like a xanax sandwich. But cast roles never. So are just fucking with you. Do you take any medication regularly? Patrick, with your healthy, lean body?
No, just just some supplements, you know, got to keep my eyron up in my BEE twelve, try to get as much in just food. But I do take supplements and vitamin D. I have a terrible vitamin D deficiency. Yeah, never going in the sun and being as pale as well. Actually I think I'm not as pale as you, but I'm still pretty pale.
Do you know what's good for B twelve? What's that cow?
I knew you're going to say that cow beef.
Just get some of that into you. I won't tell anyone, We won't tell anyone. We'll keep it quiet. It'll be our little type, just the listeners. Us goes no further Patrick, had a hamburger.
No, well the thing okay.
Gorillas, Oh, I shouldn't have opened this door. No, don't know.
In the world, and they're veget they're vegan as well. What is rhinoceros like the giant gorillas.
I don't want to fucking shock you, but you're not a rhinoceros.
Bro King Kong climbed all that way up.
Never that's true. Well, that's true.
Do you eat people in the movie?
No, just climb.
I'm on the fucking Empire State building and swatted biplanes.
What brand of iron supplements did they take.
At the day?
I think it was the TV they what all?
They just?
Oh, they didn't need it because they plant. They were built to eat plants.
Yeah, you know, gorillas et seventy pounds of fruit to day. So if you can do that.
Yeah, but I'm about one hundredth of the size of the gorilla, despite my outward appearance.
And I'll come over to your joint and stand behind you and pick knits off your back and out of your hair.
Someone said to me once my arms were disproportionately longer than the rest of my body, and I put it down to my family just climbing down from the trees later than everybody else.
Well, you're fifteen percent orangutan, just like tips thirty percent, dude. I mean, we've all got our heritage and our genetic.
Actually, given the color of her hair, she's probably got a bit of a rangutank in there as well.
Yeah, we'll tell people what TIF looks like the morning, because it's quite She keeps saying, Oh, I haven't changed anything.
She's studying. She's so hot? Is can I say that? I've just said it.
Well, if you're a gay dude, you can say that, but if you're a straight dude, you can't. Because isn't it funny that telling somebody that they're attractive is a big no no.
Do not tell them that you're a pig?
Well, it depends on the context as well, on the way you say it. Does it potentially not a good idea?
Well, that's not what we're talking about, you know, leaning over a fucking some kind of fence on a building site, fucking just with all your mates, just dribbling down the front of your big m T shirt.
I hope that doesn't I hope it doesn't happen anymore.
Do you think do you think that doesn't happen.
Tif, how are you?
If you read your red rang our curly hair.
It couldn't be better.
Well, you've got one gay bloke that wants to grope you. I don't know if that's winning.
They're my favorite that.
Well, he doesn't really favorite boyfriends.
They're the only one I like back.
I want to give her a heart.
Do you know what? You two would be the greatest couple of all time because you're never going to have sex problems. And when you go to if I'm just off for a route, she'll be like to see you when you get back, I make a casse role and when she does the same, When she does the same, she'll come home and debrief you.
And I'll say, hit the lentence.
Jew's ready, that's right?
And do you want to watch Priscilla again?
Oh? God? Patrick doesn't think anybody's still listening.
Not a chance, not a chance. In fact, my dog's not even listening. He's just looking away.
What did you say, Patrick's your backup plan?
Yeah, he doesn't know yet, my backup plan. When I get sick of the city, I'm going to move to the land.
Awesome, Yeah, come movie with me?
Wow?
How come your voice just went up seven octaves.
I'm so excited about Tiff moving in with me, Like she's great and she can teach me how to box. That'll be fun.
Yeah, yeah, and you can. I don't know what you can teach you. Hey, Patrick, Welcome to the show. Patrick Beranello. Hi comes every week? Well when I say comes, it does the podcast every I don't know how often he comes, but he's here on this show every two weeks. We're not that kind of show, but here he is welcome.
Can I say that this is our third effort at doing the show?
So I got canceled yesterday morning because I can't remember the stuff going on, and then we reach it and then I'll tell you what though. Can I give a plug to something that I did straight after our conversation last night, because I think it's a really important issue.
It's I went and saw a movie which was a fundraiser, a charity fundraiser for a local film that's called Just a Farmer And it's a story about the stress and I won't go I don't want to talk too much about it, but it talks about the suicide rate amongst Australian farmers is so ridiculously high, the stress levels that they're under, the adversity that they face, and our local community wants to raise awareness and office support because I'm
involved with an organization called the West Moirable Foundation, and so they put on this event and they sold out. All the tickets were free, but all the tickets just went, which was amazing that the community supported it. But if you get a chance to see just a Farmer, you've got to go and see it. If you see I know that it's cliche if you don't see anything this year, see this, but no, it is. It's an amazing event and it's just raising awareness of the plight of Australian
farmers and how hard they do it. And seriously, they had tissue boxes around the venue because it was so moving to see what even though in the first five minutes they did do a vegan joke.
That's great. While I'm going, I actually am aware of that movie Patrick, because I saw I don't know what it was, maybe Australian story. It was either the ABC or SBS. They did a like a you know how they have I don't know, one of those thirty minute kind of mini docco shows, and I think there was a lady on talking about it.
She was great, so the director and she also starred in it, I think is the Yeah.
Right, well she was brilliant. Was that actually? Because you know something's good because I tend to flick and I just watched a minute or two and then I just watched the whole thing because it was very good.
So thanks for bringing that to our awareness.
Let's talk about technology now, because that is your actual job description. Oh yeah, and you haven't sent me an invoice for a while, so you better.
Years.
Well, we can only backtrack four weeks. That's in the agreement. Tell us about online safety, crime stoppers, what are they up to?
This is crime stock.
There's so much concern at the moment for the fact that there's missing, not so much misinformation, but people are going on to Facebook and reporting crimes to their communities, and crime stoppers are saying, don't think just because you've posted it on Facebook that it's going to filter its way through to crime stoppers and the police. They're saying, call the police first, don't post about it.
So this is happening a lot.
So what's happening is people are posting on social media and they reckon that this can actually do more harm than good because it's unverified information, you know, and that could escalate fear, it leads to misinformation, it could even you know, cause vigilante behavior. Think about it, you know, if you're it's kind of almost jury by media or
jury by social media. And so crime Stoppers had to come out and just say please, please, please, And you know, there was an interesting statement from Tasmania's crime stoppers boss, a guy by the name of David Daniels, and he said posting to social media provided a false sense of action. And I thought that actually makes a lot of sense, because you know, if you're all pens up about something that's happened and you posted on socials, you get it off your chest. Do you think, right now I've done
my bit? But you're not, And in fact, you could be doing the wrong thing because just by typing it doesn't mean it's going to go to the police. So just a bit of a community service announcement from typ oh perfect.
And I guess also the other thing is that people not everything that people put up as accurate or true, right, So if you're believing everything that you're reading, you might take action on something that actually isn't true, or you might prepare for something or get stressed about something that didn't happen.
Yeah, and exactly.
I mean, go to your profile page on your website.
There we go, come on that say, I don't know, it's probably not true. It probably says a whole lot of good ship when we know. That's good point. Thanks for that, and apparently I have reason to hesitate next time I want to send a nudy a Noodi pic.
Well, not necessarily because you use an iPhone, don't you.
Wow, you can, I have to stand way back.
Let's be honest.
But yep, yeah, you know I'm going to I'm going to actually admit something I do send. I have seen a number of dick pics to my elderly female friends. Richard Nixon Ox.
See what you did there? I see what you did there?
Hey? No, okay.
So Android is the operating system of a lot of phones, so Google phones, so Pixels, Samsung phones, Opo.
Huawei, all that sort of stuff.
And what this starting to do is there there's a suggestion that going to start blurring sensitive or offensive images by default. So I don't know how they're going to work that one out. But you can turn the setting off, So there's good news. If you're using an Android phone, you can turn this privacy safeguard feature. I love how they call it a privacy safeguard pop up.
You're telling nudies.
Yeah, I wonder if I sent through a photo of myself to you if it had blur out my nose. But leave everything else intact, because that's way more offensive than anything else I've got.
Well, evidently, in Google messages, images that are flagged as nudity are being blurred before you open them, and it's kind of a bit of a warm so if someone sends you on in fact that that kind of makes sense, because if you're not expecting it and something gets sent through, then it's probably not a bad thing. But it's Google's what they call Sensitive Content Warning System, and the idea is behind it is to protect people from receiving unwanted
explicit photos. So it's about receiving the photos as opposed to sending the photos. But I reckon, you know, I'm always in two minds as a journalist as to whether we need somebody to be editing our lives for.
I agree, I one hundred percent agree. Like if I mean, obviously, you know there's a lot of shit that goes on. But if you're a part of a couple and you want to send your partner something which I never would never have but mainly because I've never been part of a couple, But like, why shouldn't you be able to like, you know, I'm not saying this should be a priority, but like when someone's saying you can't send your partner a picture of you, and we're making that determination, not you.
It's you, it's your photo, it's your phone, it's your life.
But no, we're not letting you do that.
I don't. I don't really I think people should be able to do that.
Can I just make a decision?
Craigi, you know you can actually send delayed texts, So what you can do? You could send a nudy to yourself delayed ten minutes or half an hour, and right now you've forgot your first explicit pick sent to you by yourself.
Great, Great, that'll make me feel better. That's not sad at all, that's not pathetic at all.
You can use AI to change your face and maybe AI to change.
Could you never become a therapist?
You'd be shit at it.
Yeah, I don't think I'd be very good, would I? Hey, you know talking about camera rolls and photos and stuff. Can I talk about something else? Because these Facebook's now going to well, it's not just Facebook, it's actually all of the Facebook sweet And what I mean by that is meta owns Facebook, and that means it's Instagram and WhatsApp. But it seems that a new setting has appeared, and by default it can look through your library of photos
to make suggestions. So say, for example, you post something on Insta and it says, oh, I found another photo that might be relevant to what you're posting about, creepy or what, because that means it's looking through your library of photos. See, when you go to post something, you look through, you curate it, and then you decide you
want to make that a public photo. So off those But now by default what it's doing is Insta and Facebook potentially could be looking through your photo library and it's not taking the images away, but it's scanning them to look for suggestions. And that to me is so creepy. I don't want anything digging around my phone and looking at morm the photos and stuff. You know, the person or Schnauzer picks.
Yes, we don't know that you or your schnaus are out in the world, do we damedna.
What I was going to.
Ask you a question pursuant to this.
Okay.
You know how people say, even when I'm my phone, I'm not on my phone, but my phone's near me, people go, oh, it's still listening, as in, it's still hearing what you're saying, even though it's you're not on a call. So it's not for that purpose. It's not functional, it's not operating.
Is that true?
Does it for one of a more accurate technical term, does it hear what you're saying?
Okay? In different applications.
Yes, So Facebook has been accused and they're saying that it's been accused of monitoring conversations and to serve up ads related to what you've been talking about. Now that's been nipped in the butt because it was a legal case about it.
The other thing is, if you.
Use smart speakers or smart devices in your home, then your phone. If you use any sort of AI on your phone, or any sort of engagement where you ask your phone what the weather is, then it's in a passive listening mode. So it's called constantly listening, but it's waiting for key phrases before it acts. So what Gil says is that we're listening, yes, but we're not listening contextually. We're just listening out for the key phrase of say hey Google. Now after saying that, my phone just live
up because it's now listening for me to talk to it. So, but our whole conversation prior to that, for the last twenty minutes, nothing's been active on my phone, so it didn't light up to say that it was now interacting with me until I used those key phrases.
So yes and no is the answer to that question.
Wow, wow, because so many times I've yeah, I've had a chat with someone, and one recently about it motorbike, a particular motorbike, not just motorbike, particular motorbike, and when I jumped on my phone, there was an ad for that motorbike, but that I've never ever seen an ad for.
Yeah, it's a bit of a frightening when you think about it. And look, the answer to that is there's so much speculation online. People talk about it a lot. The companies who manufacture our phone say they don't do it. Meta God in trouble. Facebook, God in trouble for doing it, but allegedly that's been switched off. So look, the reality of it is, we use a lot of these services that are all free. But we know we've spoken many
times about this. It's not free because we're giving over as much content and that's how they serve up their ads. That's why they can go to their advertisers and say, well, we've got two point six billion people who were constantly on their phones.
And that's why they give you Facebook for free.
That's why they give you Instagram for free and all those other things, because it means that they've got data.
What's happening. What's the latest on the potential media ban or social media ban for kids that we've heard a lot about.
This is a really interesting one because it is coming into force. I think it's the tenth of December. I think I wrote something about it somewhere in our notes and I can't.
Remember, but it's in December.
I think it's the tough that will mean is that children under the age of sixteen will be banned from social media. But now there is a push from the overriding authorities saying they actually need to start the ban preparations now because there's a concern that young people might just go into their social media and change their age
from fourteen to nineteen. And so I mean, of course they're thinking about it now, since they know they announced it a year ago, it has probably already done that anyway. So the e Safety Commission is the person in Australia who I guess oversees and was part of the committee of experts looking into that, and interestingly, one of those experts pull the pin on the whole program. It was the Frontiers guy. I'll think of his name in a moment.
But effectively, there are concerns over whether or not kids are going to start switching over their phones now, so that's one thing.
So there's a bit of pressure being put on Meta.
And Google and TikTok and all the other social media companies to start preparing for this and stopping kids being able to change their birthdays. One of the things that they're saying will happen is their accounts will not be deleted but deactivated right and they will allow the option
to be able to download their data. Because at the end of the day, if you're a really tech savvy fourteen year old and you've been doing a YouTube video channel on something that you're interested on, skateboarding for example, you'd be freaking out right now because a it could have been a really successful channel, and now you're thinking, well, I've got to download all my staff.
This belongs to me. I've created it.
So potentially it could mean that they could deactivate it and then in two years time reactivate it, but they're definitely saying not to be deleted. The idea is that it would be deactivated when the band comes in.
Speaking on behalf of the kids, of which I was one once, it seems unfair for for the kids who don't have massive issues, or who aren't addicted, or who use it in a sensible practical way. And I know a lot don't, but not everyone does. You know. It's like there's like anyone who's overrated and can drink booze. Well, we know how destructive it is, how much sickness and disease it causes, how many road accidents and deaths it causes,
But you know that's not most people. Most people are not doing that, so we permit it.
And sorry, Craig, there's a concrete argument about giving kids alcohol. All of my Italian friends, all of my Austrian friends, they were allowed to have small So the Austrians would have drunk a little bit of beer when they were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen with a meal, and a lot of the Italian friends would have a glass of wine or a little
bit of wine during a meal. And for a lot of them, when they reach that magic age of eighteen when everything's leap, it wasn't a big thing for them because they've already had some and they weren't going to and so really, in a lot of ways, it was desensitizing them to the mystique around alcohol. You know, you suddenly go to your first eighteenth and end up absolutely paralytic because you've drunk to exist.
But if you've had experience with.
Drinking in a controlled environment that's condoned by your parents, it actually becomes demystified, doesn't it.
Yeah, one hundred percent, And I mean, well we're getting off track. We'll come back to that matter at hand. But you think about in Victoria, where when you're seventeen and eleven point nine months, you can't drink, you can't drive, you can't vote, you can't do a myriad of things and now we go, oh, on this day, now you can do it all. Now.
Of course, you can't drink and drive.
Legally, but you can drink legally and you can drive legally. So on the same day we're giving people their license and also access to booze in a legal capacity.
Although yes and no, because if you're driving and you're under a pea plate, you can't drink.
No, that's what I'm saying. You can't drink and drive.
I said that, yeah, But what I mean is you can legally drink. I'm not saying with driving, but you can also drive, and you can also vote, and you can you know, there's so many things that you're allowed to do on one day. When I think, you know, Tazzy at sixteen, I think South Australia at sixteen and New South Wales at seventeen, where you can drive, you know, and people are like, oh, they're two to this or that. I go, do you know how fucking great their eyesight
is and their judgment and their dexterity? And compare that to my mum who drives, God bless her, She's eighty six. Fucking hell, Get out of the way. If you see Mary fucking Duck under a hedge.
You know, I truck a sixteen year old behind the wheel of the.
Carb be for a lot of people.
Oh that's what I mean.
I mean sixteen year olds, you know, unless they're being irresponsible. But I just think to give them that responsibility and to value them and respect them in that way, and give them an opportunity not to be a dickhead, but just go all right, So you can't drink and you can't vote, but for the next year or two, you can develop driving skills and awareness and a level of competence that by the time you're eighteen, you've now got two years of driving under your belt. You're an experienced,
somewhat experienced road user. I just think that's a much smarter you know, the fact that we think seventy year olds can drive or have potential to drive better just because they've done it for a long time. Like, there's a lot of physiological and cognitive and eyesight and all of those things typically not with everyone, but deterioration. So what were we talking about? Actually, social media band? What about for those who have businesses, mate and make money?
It's an age restriction that's exactly right.
We know at the moment that ninety five percent of Australian children between the age of ten and fifteen year old have at least one social media account. Ninety five percent. So there's a lot of young people who are going to be affected by this. It's a heck of a lot. And as I said, you know that the call or the moment is to deactivate the accounts and impose some
sort of limitation. The fines are going to be pretty big because at the moment, this consultation that's been going on has come up with these guidelines for what they call reasonable steps that social media companies will have to take to enforce the ban, and the fine are forty nine point five million dollars, which is a drop in the ocean, we know.
Yeah, of course, I mean most kids can afford that.
Yeah, I don't mean the kids, it's the social media think the kids are.
Ah, that's a lot of pocket money. Bro. Hey tell me why when Google says jump, businesses say how high?
Ah.
This is a really interesting one. And I've got to say I had to do a double take. I read the article and then I sent it to my collegue Robert to read the article because this affects a lot of our clients. When you have a Google business listing, okay, so it's separate from a website. So you type in I don't know plumber Hampton and a list of plumbers
comes up. But on the right hand side you have the Google business listing, which might have a map, could have some photographs, and then it's got links to website.
Now this is a bugbear with me.
Cafes tend to not have websites, and you go to the website link, it takes you to Facebook, and you go to Facebook and you can't find the menu, and then when you finally find the menu and the feed, it's really crap quality because Facebook compacts it and optimizes the image, but doesn't optimize the image for reading. So what Google is going to do is now stop all of those businesses that don't have websites and nominate Facebook
or social media as that primary link. Then that's going to mean they're not going to be allowed to do that anymore. So, in essence, if you want to promote your business using your Google Business listing, you may be restricted or you may be forced to go out and get a website, and so I'm into minds about this because as an end user, it frustrates me because if I want to go to the website, I want to know where they are, I want to see their menu.
Then that's important, But I just hate the fact that Google as the major search engine, and we know it is the major search engine on the planet. Once they make a decision, everybody is then impacted by that, and there's a lot of small businesses that might have to fork out money to do this. So you know, it kind of hits the nerve in two different ways. In
some ways, I think it's a good idea. But so for example, if you also have a book now button and you click the button to book say accommodation or order now to order food, it has to go to the specific area that it says. It can't be just a random link on a general website. In the same way, if you want to go to gym's mowing in Saint Kilda, you can't just go to the general gym's mowing website. It has to take you to the Sin Kilda website.
And again that means the onus is going to have to be on big companies that have lots of franchise operators to not just go to a generic location, but to specifically have the location that you're searching for. It's going to make searching a little bit better too.
Wow, if only, Tiff, we knew somebody who built websites.
I mean, fuck, that would be if only there was someone on this call.
You know exactly why we're talking about this topic, Tif, don't you?
It does seem serving sides?
Ah ah, oh my god, that's right. I build websites. I could be part of the cure to this cancer.
Oh no, I.
Didn't mean that at all.
No, no, fucking hell. Could you make it a bit less thinly disguised? Next Times now, Dot come today you exactly? Can you tell us why two billion smartphones are now global earthquake warning systems?
That's a cool thing, don't you reckon?
Oh shit, y'all want to know when an earthquake's coming?
Yeah, exactly just when you.
I guess you'd love to know when the Earth's going to move for you.
So what's happened is Google has been inside each of our phones. We have, you know, basically, an ability to detect where the phone's being moved, when the phone's being moved. It's called an accelerometer, and Google has employed the use of these in a passive way a lot with all of their phones. So say, for example, the three of us are in a location and all of a sudden, it detects a slight movement, and then suddenly everybody around
us there's more movement. Well, it's it's basically a massive seismometer, and now they're able to use it as an early warning system. So this has been rolled out in ninety eight countries. It's kind of a motion sensor. That's that's kind of a mesh of motion sensors right around the world,
and it's called Android's Earthquake Alert system. So the AA ye it's been it's been around for a little while, but it's I just kind of thought it was so cool, you know, two point five billion phones around the planet being used in a positive way.
Well see whether people are meteorologists. Patrick's making you redundant via the U project. Hey, I don't don't tell me what this means, but I want to tell you what I think. The next topic is airborne wind turbine with one mega what output set for testing in China? So airborne to me it's in the air. It's a wind turbine and it's producing power or electricity. Okay, but it's in there.
So imagine the Hindenburg cut in half but not exploding in flames.
Can you explain to people what the Hindenburg is? I know it at TIF Do you know what the Hindenburg is?
Negative?
Yeah? Right? So stop moving forward, Patrick thinking everyone's you remember external self awareness period? Mind all that shit I taught you, all.
Right, dirigible a hot air balloon, a flow.
There we go, there we go.
That's not a UFO, so effectively what it is, it's a giant balloon, but it's kind of hollowed out in the middle. It's got a turbine at the front, it's got little fins at the back to direct it. But it's going to be one point five kilometers up like it's really high to take advantage of the high speed
winds that are in that part of the atmosphere. And they're testing this at the moment in charge China, because they're talking about a massive amount of wind up there that can then be turned into quite large amounts of electricity. I'm not sure what's going to happen in terms of planes. So I guess there'll be no fly zones and they'll put it in areas where there's no air traffic. But
that could be pretty cool. And if you think of the ability to be a and we're talking quite a significant amount of electricity being able to be generated constantly because there's always that movement of air in those higher up atmosphere.
Can you go to your computer right now and type in Zeppelin ze double pel I, not the group, just Zeppelin, the.
Word in front of it, don't put lead in front of it.
Yeah, and you'll see what Patrick's or a few versions of what Patrick's so hit images and you'll see so yeah, they're kind of almost like a hybrid of a plane and a balloon.
And that's amazing, mate.
So yeah, I guess they're going to have to like, is this happening or is this just a no?
They're testing in China.
Yeah, so they reckon. They could run for twenty five years without interruption, is what they say.
And we're talking one.
Megawatt output, like it's a ton of electricity. So it's called the S fifteen hundred and it's just a yeah, it's it's they're saying that it could also be deployed in locations where they've been natural disasters. So if the infrastructure has been destroyed or something's happened, they could put these wind turbines up, these power generating airships, and at fifteen hundred meters high they can leave ridge all those really strong winds and be able to generate electricity.
That's good. I like that. Let's talk about cars. I'm going to start with your last dot point and then you can go wherever you want. But Porsche considering adding fake engine sounds for their evs, which you can already get that in some other evs, but it's like, yeah, fake V eight sounds and yeah, you know, just coming out of a speaker.
And gear shifting as well.
Yeah, yeah, that's the one.
Yeah, that's the one I can't see.
There was talk a few years ago when the first lot of electric cars hit the market, not actually not the first lot of electric cars, because the first lot of electric cars were in the late early nineteen hundreds, but that was never a problem.
Yeah.
Thanks.
So there was almost like three waves because there was a Toyota Prius right in the nineties.
Yeah, and then tests.
Like wasn't that a hybrid?
I know there were hybrid and actual plug and electric. I think, yeah, oh.
Cool, tif can you just look for it the first.
He doesn't fucking believe me.
I did say, that's right.
I could be wrong. Toyota, Prius electric, full electric.
So all right, you keep talking.
Okay, So Porsche wants to add this, but it has it's not a precedent because there was a talk. There was actually talk a little while ago to force car makers to actually deliberately make engine noise sounds so that in car parks where it's really quiet, people.
Don't get run over by electric cars.
I mean, you have eyes, but for people who might be vision impaired, you potentially could be crossing over and not hear an electric car coming.
I've always thought that. I mean, there's where I live.
I would say twenty percent of the cars are electric around my like, there are just a lot of electric cars, and yeah there's I mean, I've never nearly died, but there's times when I could have just stepped out because there was no noise. And then you have some fucking you know, Tesla rocket by and you're like, oh, I'm glad I paid attention.
What do you got to So we're looking at the Toyota Prez full electric. Yeah yeah, seven in Japan only and two year two thousand worldwide.
But still so that's quarter.
Of a century.
And what about Chevy Vault, which was here called a Holden Vault. I think that also came out in the early two thousands as fully electric, So I think that doesn't really matter.
But you know, there was like that, and then really.
Tesla just hijacked it or didn't they?
Oh look absolutely, do you.
Say hijacked it just sound a bit kind of mean. And they just did well. They marketed really well. They produced exceptional vehicles that had great range and all the things that people were worried about, because range has always
been the biggest thing, particularly for Australian car buyers. Think the stats for August was one in ten cars purchased in Australia was an electric car, that said by d for the first time in August, just by percentage on all of the vehicles sold, just tipped Tesla off the top of the pole, just by a little. So if you combine all the sales of all their range of models of electric cars, they beat out Tesla for the
first time. I still think that Tesla the Y model is still the most popular car in the electric car in Australia by sales, just on an individual model.
How do we go tip with a Vault seven as well?
What was I going to say? Yeah?
I think I mean I'm a car head. I'm always reading. Not that I buy a lot of cars, but I used to. But I'm always reading reviews and that you know, remember remember back in the day, Patrick, when Korean cars were frowned upon by Assies. What are you laughing at?
Because just being realized I much head, says the guy who drives this Zuki Swift.
That's very hurtful.
That's very hurtful, very funny. That's so true, though.
Can I say I do have another car that isn't a Suzuki Swift.
But you had that Suzuki for a long time before you bought the new car.
I think you.
Guys underestimate my Suzuki Swift.
Tried to talk me into buy I guess Azuki Swift.
So hurtfulful way to butch to drive a Suzuki Swift.
That's not true, Oh she is, yet I'm not. I could drive a fucking Barbie Beetle, you know, with a fucking moon roof.
All right, continue on, Patrick, and I.
Just ask here's one.
Do you think electric car owners should be paying a road levee?
Why? Like, why would they?
Well, because there's a real problem at the moment with that many electric cars that people aren't paying their way because when we buy traditional fuel, part of the money that's raised in taxes goes to repairing roads and maintenance of roads. And they tried it in Victoria to bring in a levee for electric cars, but it was ruled an illegal action because it has to happen at a federal level. And now the federal government is saying they're going to bring it in. So they say that you know,
so basically it's a road user charge. You know, if you're driving an electric car, you're driving on the roads, then you need to pay some sort of levee to be able to keep those roads maintained. So and the prime ministers come out and said, but basically, we need some sort of sustainable revenue to keep our roads in good.
Nick.
And you know, with one in ten cars now being electric, they're going to try to overhaul the rules and extend it to electric cars.
That's why hybrids are the way to go because they're super economical and you don't get whacked with straight ev kind of taxes and things.
I think, see what happens with that, because there's some really good hybrids on the market at the moment where you use electric for the first forty kilometer speed, So if you're in low traffic, you could potentially be running off electric for the entire time, which is great, stuffs, fumes and all the rest of it, and then you kick into the petrol engine once you're on the highway.
Well, can I say that that is exactly what I have, despite TIFF's assault on my manlihood about the Suzuki, And like I get in my hybrid fourteen hundred kilometers per tach.
That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that's you.
Could drive to Sydney.
So yeah, it's yeah.
All right, tell us why are we done with cars?
Is there anything I'm used?
Well, I just just I'm not kind of backing the government to that degree, and I do I kind of agree with it. I think the answer to the question someone rhetorically, because no one answered whether they thought it was a good idea or not. But fifty one point six cents per liter of fuel at the bowser goes to the governments, like tax towards the roads. So that's the excise, that's what people are contributing towards the roads. Every time you put a leader of petrol in whatever
you've paid for it. I think I paid nearly two dollars a leader the other day, but about fifty one that is going toward road use.
I regularly pay over two dollars.
What do you put in yours?
Kerosene ninety eight? No, I only ever use ninety eight.
All right, it's dearer than that down here quite often?
Oh really, yeah, I think it was under two dollars. It has been over it, but very rarely is it for two dollars.
What are starlink doing? What are they what are they hitting their users up for?
Well, that's the thing.
They're not hitting their users, they're hitting their non users. Jessah went with.
That, Ah to Chay.
So what starlink are doing is for a long time, you know, people who have the mobile Starlink who go caravanning will open up an account, they get to the hardware, and then when they're not using it, they just suspend their account. Now starlink is saying, well, if you want to suspend your account and put it on hold. We're going to start charging you a fee to put it on hold.
It's in a sleeper mode to not use it.
What the that seems like a bad PR move?
You know it does.
And they're talking so if you want to pause your service, they're talking about five bucks.
Now.
I think this is Australian in terms of the five dollars, but it may be US five dollars. I'm not sure because it's a funny situation because starlink, even though it's based in the US, it's kind of based everywhere because the satellites are everywhere. But I thought, yeah, right, so they're kind of they're upgrading their fors mode to include what they call a standby mode.
You know when you put your.
TV on standby, so it comes on quicker when you they're doing with starlink, and they're charging you for it.
This one is This next one is very interesting to me because I've been looking at my farm ever since I read it.
You know what it is?
I do tell us, Craig, you tell us what it's about.
Study links thumb length to brain size and cognition. I've got to say I don't have overwhelmingly large thumbs. I don't think they're diminutive. But so what are we saying there's a correlation between bigger thumbs. Oh my god, yeah, I said, I said thumbs, bigger thumbs and bigger brain and cognitive capacity. Is that what we're saying?
And I just say that if the three of us put our thumbs up and measured them, we would not be able to pick the smartest person in the room.
Okay, so let me.
Dispel that myth right now, that's good. We're talking on an evolutionary scale, So we compare ourselves to other primates and animals that have opposable thumbs. There seems to be and we're talking also about Neanderthals and other primates that may have since gone by the way of the Dodo.
But what it effectively means is they think that there is a link to the neo cortex, and that's the part of the brain about well you know better than me, linked to higher thinking, and they reckon that it has something to do with the length of the thumb, or there seems to be some sort of parallel with that when they start looking through brain brain size and so it's.
Over evolutionarily, as thumbs have gotten bigger, cognitive capacity has improved.
Yeah, exactly. So this kind of neo cortex connection and the cognition and sensory processing, it seems to be linked to the length of the thumb. I thought you'd find that interesting.
Yeah, I do. I also find detecting Alzheimer's early via a three minute test if it's accurate and it works, yeah, very very interesting.
Yeah, this was really close to home for me with mum having had early on set Alzheimer's, and this is tests.
That are being done in Bath in the UK. I've been to Bath.
My god, if you ever go anywhere in the UK, you've got to go to Bath. It's stunning, beautiful, beautiful place.
Anyway, the Roman baths, all the rest of it.
But what they're saying at the moment is that they think they kind of put this kind of brain scanner on you and they start measuring stuff. Because I don't know much about it, that's smart. They think they may
have a better way to detect Alzheimer's. It's very difficult because you know, particularly with early onset or if you may be genetically disposed to it, it's hard to detect because it's so slow, and that's the real problem because quite often it may be something that's happened that's caused the symptoms to appear a bit more focused. So sometimes you know, when you have a trauma in a family and then after a period of time they say, oh, yeah,
they've bounced back. You know, someone ages over time. Sometimes that can be the real first sign for families that one of their loved ones actually has Alzheimer's because they're so good at masking it. People adapt constantly. The brain's amazing. People are fantastic at adapting. So if they're struggling with poor memory, they look at ways to maybe write notes down,
you know, whatever the technique they put into place. So sometimes it's really, you know, an issue that's happened that the family notices for the first time that that loved family member isn't recovering as quickly or hasn't bounced back as quick and that can be an initial indicator that
they've got Alzheimer's. So if you can test for this before those early symptoms and say okay, there's a possibility, you know, you've got members of the family who are elderly that have been diagnosed and you want to be you know, you want to be tested. That means they can have intervention drugs earlier, and which means it could stave off the you know, the ravages of Alzheimer's way before, and that that could help people quite significantly.
You know what they're testing or they're using now as potential intervention and doing mountains of research on in relation to slowing down or preventing Alzheimer's and also as a cognitive enhancer in general for the general pop.
Tiff knows.
Do you know what it is? Tif that supplement that people are using for cognitive improvement these days? Very common that we.
Were talking about the other day that I keep forgetting the.
Name of creatine. Oh really.
Yeah, creating like over the counter creatine and not dodgy studies like world leading universities, research teams, scientists. It's pretty like absolute now, like it's pretty They know that a high dose creatine, so like fifteen to twenty grams a day versus the kind of what people normally use five grams a day, but has shown significant benefits and potential benefits.
So it's definitely worth just having a look at. Again, not a personal recommendation, but it really if it works, which I think, like, I take twenty grams a day every day and I have for the last few months, and it generally helps me with mental acuity and focus and also what I call cognitive endurance, like just keeping your brain up for like the other day, I had to talk for eight hours, and so for eight hours, you've got to be pretty fucking one hundred percent switched on.
So I took creatine before I started, and I took Cretein at lunchtime.
Yeah, can we I just there was one other thing about this brain wave test. It's called fastball. I just mentioned that if people are actually interested, it only takes three minutes and they're using an EEG to basically have a look at what's you know, for mild cognitive impairment. But you know, Creatine's been used in the fitness industry.
For a long, long, long time.
So I think one of the good things about that is that we certainly know, you know, what the effects are on the body after all these years.
When did you first see it in the fitness industry, right.
Ah, probably before the turn of the century, probably nineties. Yeah, yeah, And so it's I was only five TI. If don't fucking laugh you were born last century? What are you laughing at?
Just made it sound so long ago.
Probably, Oh, you know, just after the model t Ford was penny Farthing.
That's rush.
I bought it from David Jones in Melbourne.
I just thought of something, what a zeppelin is. She probably doesn't know what a penny farthing is either, do you do?
Oh? Thank god for that.
That's because she's into bikes.
Penny Farthings.
Can you describe Simmons?
Can you describe a penny Farthing?
Well, I hope I've got it right.
They're the ones with the really massive back wheel and the tiny little front one.
Who is the other way around?
That's okay, we're close close enough that works and the pedals on the big wheel.
Come on, chat, we've got eight minutes. Do your best work.
City of Hobart trials AI software to clamp down on authorized short stay a com ready says go.
This has become a really big thing in a lot of places because in Hobart if you have short term accommodation, they slug you with double the rates. So they're trying to get a slice of the pie. And I mean there's a lot of arguments too, that that's part of our housing problem that people aren't renting houses.
They're just using it for short stay accommodation on.
Airbnb, but a lot of people don't claim it, and so what they're using is they're use in the city of Hobart's using AI to scan I guess the traditional areas of advertising, looking at like you know, Airbnb, and if they see a house popping up on a regular basis, then they just correlate that to their database and see is that person registered to have their house on Airbnb or as a short stay and if they're not, they're slugging them with the fee.
Wow. Wow. You know. It feels like whenever anyone does something where they can not scam the government but work, then the current laws or rules to go, oh, we could do this, this would make more money as soon as anyone. It's like a lot of people bought evs to save money right once, and then the government's like, nah, we're going to put impose a levy on you because you don't buy petrol and we make money from petrol, So because you're not buying petrol, we're going to charge
you for this. I mean, it seems it seems very hard to actually cut a brake, because as soon as you figure out a way that you can, within the laws and rules, do something that's financially beneficial for you, someone's going to figure it out and then figure out a way to penalize the thing that you're now doing.
Well, you know, it just got me thinking, I don't know what I didn't think about this before, Craigo. If you're if the current tax is fifty one points something since per liter of fuel, and you start to apply that same formula to electric cars, that could be crippling to those people. You know, people who've scrimped and saved and got leases on cars and suddenly you're going to
hit them up. I mean, that could be quite a lot of money if they're try I mean, they couldn't do a one to one parody with petrol cars.
Sure, and you think about, like, sorry, mate, the bottom the bottom of the mill or still a very very good car. But the Tesla three now you're still going to pay sixty grand for that, and that's your bottom of the range versus say a Toyota Corolla, which is comparable, but petrol you're going to pay maybe thirty grand. So your point of entry is double the price. But you go, well, I'm going to pay double because I'm going to save so much money in not using combustible fuel, you know.
But then they go, nah, you're not using fuel, so we're missing out on the money that you're not spending on fuel.
So now we're going to.
Tax you for this when you just paid sixty grand for an electric Corolla.
Well, a friend of mine lives down the road. Just when I was getting my first new car, which was the hybrid the Manaster, she was looking for a new car at the same time, and she decided to go for a secondhand and leaf and so buying a second vehicle because she couldn't afford to buy a.
New electric car.
It's got a limited range, but she'll be slugged exactly the same price as someone else with a one hundred and twenty thousand dollars Mercedes Electric if as a road user and it does open up, you know, how do you encourage people to go electric if sudden they are going to be slugged with a really big bill. I'm really going to watch this one with a lot of interest to see what they decide to hit people up for because I'm really in two minds about it. I think we've got to be able to keep our roads
in order. So I get that, I understand it, but I think they're going to really temper how much they try to rip people for well.
And also when you go there's all of these people driven by values, morals, ethics, whatever you want to call it, who are going, I'm actually buying an electric car mainly because of the benefit to the environment. And then they go and by the way, now you've got.
To pay this, you know.
And I think, actually, when ev sales incentivized by the government, wasn't there a five thousand dollars bonus for some period of time for buying one? Yeah?
I think so.
And I mean you mentioned the environmental impact, But there'd be a lot of people out there who've bought an electric car because it's going to save the money in the long term. They look at how much that's going to cost them in fuel over twelve months post five dollars to charge up the vehicle, and if you've got solar, potentially it could cost you nothing to charge the if you're in a slow trickle charge. And now suddenly, where
do you go with that? Because you're now try your incentivizing people from doing it from a cost perspective.
Yeah, hey, sorry, I just I'm interested in this next one, Gemini's arrival on our geminis like, is that Google's version of AI?
That's I am so excited about this. I am the side myself with excitement. So people who have smart homes who are using Google, Yeah, I know my voice can go up as high as when I took about Tiff, but it's still pretty excited. So with home speakers and home automation at the moment, people who use Google. So there's Alexa, which is the Amazon one, Siri which is kind of out there but not out there as much,
and then you've got Google Home. So Google Home currently uses a basic form of Google interaction where I might say, hey, Google, turn on the lights. And now Google's just heard me, and every light in my house has just turned on?
Is that true?
Did you hear that?
Google was just asking me which lights I wanted to turn on? So because it heard what I said, and everybody else who's listening who's got Google Home Automation, I've just turned on all their lights as well. They've got their speaker. Go sorry about that, guys. But at the moment, it's very limited interaction now, so what Google wants to do is incorporate Gemini to make the conversation a lot
more interactive. And it may be a case of I want to turn on the lights in my bedroom, but Google might come back and say, well, do you want me to turn the stair lights on as well? And the lights on downstairs because it knows that generally the pattern is I turn my bedroom lights on first, I get changed, get ready for Jim, and then go downstairs.
But because it knows that's that's the usual process, it may prompt me and say, oh, do you want me to turn the stair lights on on the downstairs lights at the same time, So it talks about a much more human interaction.
I know that do you use claud Is that what you used? Craigo?
I use Chat, GPT pro and Claude.
Yep, yep, sope. The type of conversational interactions has not been there for the Google Home speakers, and that's what I'm looking forward to, having more of a conversation or more natural interactions with those Google Home orders, and that's hopefully going to be rolled out later this year, which sounds pretty exciting.
And so that's is that one of those things that's like a physical thing that sits on a bench and you can just talk to it.
Well, it sits on beside my bed, it sits in the lounge room, it sits in my kitchen, it sits in my office. Basically, Google just minus as everything I'm doing, and I'm carrying one in my pocket.
You can, I ask, so how big are these things?
Like a small Google Home speaker would fit in the palm of your hand. It's really tiny, the size of a cup, a little bit wider, but just flat, like you know, it's really smart, like a.
Hockey puck, which is not a good analogy for a non sporting person.
A little bit bigger than a hockey puck. But yes, that's lawless speakers. Two larger ones that have you know, can be quite robust and larger bass sounds and all that sort of thing. And it's not just those, you know, there's lots of other devices smart a lot of smart smart speakers now incorporate this as well. So and I've got a Google Mesh system which is the retransmitting of my WiFi. So because I have quite a large house,
and my studio spaces in the garage. I can use my Google Mesh to create a larger footprint for my WiFi, and each of those Google Mesh speakers, each of those are also a Google speaker as well as a rebroadcaster of my WiFi. So quite often people who have I mean, you have the same problem with your Wi Fi around your place because of the way that it's set up. You find that there are little pockets of areas in your house that don't get good Wi Fi.
My WiFi is shit. I've been using my phone WiFi for the last three weeks. Yeah.
So if you can create a Mesh system, which is what Google has, it can rebroadcast and triple or quadruple the footprint, which is really handy, which is what I've done. But you also get the smart speaker technology built into those as well.
All right, you've got two minutes for our last story.
Then, for the first time, maybe in history, we've gone through every one of your stories.
Oh yeah, and it's pretty close. So a thirty seven year old guy, this was reported recently. He went to chat GPT. He had a sore throat and he went to chat CHEAPT and then months later doctors found out that he actually had cancer, and chat gept said, Nah, you haven't got cancer. You're fine. It's just a sore throat, you know. Just suck on a lifesaver or something. No, it's just jog it out. Yeah, jog it out, mate, You'll be fine. So I guess the moral of the story.
And I know we've said this before. Don't rely on medical diagnosis by chat GPT.
Please don't.
I had chat chat GPT.
He never tells you to suck on a lifesaver because that could be a very different outcome.
But anyway, not.
In the middle of country Victoria, it might have been easier.
Did what do you got going on this weekend?
Oh? I don't know, Halps, I don't even know.
Just take it easy, take it easy.
Take it easy.
Just you and you a shock of redhair. Just walk past a building site and see how you go.
Just mingle with the concrete is downstairs.
That's it. That's it.
Do you want to catch up and we'll go take Fritzy and Luna for a walk? Oh? Yes, see that.
I have to be today, though I work tomorrow, I can do it today. There we go, we'll get married.
Fucking fuck what are you? Both you and my dogs.
I'm just raising my social life.
Wow. Wow.
If anyone's not busy today or tomorrow, Patrick needs some friends.
But Patrick needs a disparate desperate, aren't I. I'm trying to even more.
Patrick, tell everyone about you about me?
Well, I think they've basically got it all now.
Now if they want to contact me, just go to websites NOOW dot com today you and we can have a chat about what is happening with your Google business profile.
Perfect. Thank you, Patrick, thank you, Thanks, Thanks listeners,