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Speaker 1: Get in test with technology with text Stuff from stuff

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Speaker 1: dot com. Heathen and welcome to Text Stuff. I'm Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Strickland and I'm Lauren Bo. Today we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about some unmanned aerial vehicles you a v s, also

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Speaker 1: known as drones drones. So, drones have been in the

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Speaker 1: news a lot for multiple reasons. Some of them are

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Speaker 1: fun reasons and some of them are not so fun recently. Right,

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Speaker 1: they are a really interesting development in robotics that has

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Speaker 1: a lot of very positive applications and unfortunately a lot

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Speaker 1: of negative ones as well. Right, So we're going to

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Speaker 1: cover kind of the whole spectrum. Right, We're gonna look

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Speaker 1: at everything from the silly and sublime to the pretty serious,

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Speaker 1: pretty serious and scary really uh, and and also talk

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Speaker 1: about why is there a debate about drones. But so,

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Speaker 1: to start off, Jonathan, what actually is a U A

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Speaker 1: b okay so unmanned aerial vehicle? You can essentially say

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Speaker 1: that this is any sort of flying device that doesn't

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Speaker 1: carry a passenger in it, that is used for some

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Speaker 1: other purpose. Usually we go one step beyond what would

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Speaker 1: be a typical r C airplane or RC helicopter. You

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Speaker 1: wouldn't really call that a drone because there's not really

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Speaker 1: anything on there other than the fact that this is

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Speaker 1: something for you to pilot around and have fun with.

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Speaker 1: So like a remote control air shark, maybe maybe not

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Speaker 1: a drone. Yeah, probably not a drone. But if you

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Speaker 1: were to put say a camera in that remote controlled

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Speaker 1: air shark and you could actually spy on people, that

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Speaker 1: would be a air shark drone. Probably not the most

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Speaker 1: subtle of unmanned drones that you've ever seen. But maybe

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Speaker 1: you were to create something like a camera on it,

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Speaker 1: and also to have some sort of fabric display, which

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Speaker 1: is a possibility. Let's say you have a fabric display

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Speaker 1: and then on the underside it can actually show you pictures.

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Speaker 1: That would be like a crazy kind of art experiment

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Speaker 1: that I would expect to see it burning man or

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Speaker 1: dragon con. I really want that now, actually totally something

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Speaker 1: that could be a possibility. And so when we're talking

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Speaker 1: about drones, were usually talking about something that does something

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Speaker 1: on top of just flying around. Now that might mean

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Speaker 1: that it's got some cameras and sensors on it that

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Speaker 1: allow it to do some things like navigate through spaces

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Speaker 1: or give you a look at a particular area. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have those sensors. Maybe it just carries stuff.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk about some of the crazy delivery drones

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Speaker 1: that have popped up, sometimes literally across the globe. But

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Speaker 1: usually these are controlled remotely by a pilot using some

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Speaker 1: sort of interface that connects via radio signal to the

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Speaker 1: vehicle's navigation and control systems, or the vehicles themselves are autonomous,

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Speaker 1: meaning that they can use their own sensors. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: you have to program what it's going to do ahead

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Speaker 1: of time. It's not like they have artificial intelligence. And

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Speaker 1: can you know, it's not RoboCop on wings, you know,

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Speaker 1: I suppose it could could hypothetically be one day, One

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Speaker 1: day we might get there. But right now we're talking

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Speaker 1: about devices that you you give it a pre program

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Speaker 1: set of parameters. Perhaps it's to fly to a specific

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Speaker 1: coordinate and then fly back, and it's using things like

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Speaker 1: the GPS sensor to navigate to where it needs to go. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But otherwise, once once you've said in motion, it takes

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Speaker 1: control of itself. I think most drones tend to be

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Speaker 1: under human control. Although we have drastically increased that capability,

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Speaker 1: it used to be that it was all line of sight.

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Speaker 1: In other words, the controller had to be able to

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Speaker 1: see the the drone in order to maintain control. That's

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Speaker 1: not the case now. Increases in miniaturization and GPS technology

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Speaker 1: has has really pushed that field force certainly. Yeah, satellite

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Speaker 1: communications has made it possible for us to have ridiculous

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Speaker 1: kinds of control over unmanned aerial vehicles. So they can

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Speaker 1: often stay in the air for longer than a day,

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Speaker 1: particularly when we start talking about some of the ones

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Speaker 1: that are used in scientific research and military applications, they

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Speaker 1: can go for up to up I've heard up to

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Speaker 1: forty eight hours and without refueling in some cases. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: so you can have forty eight hours of consistent flight time.

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Speaker 1: And now, obviously, if you're talking about a manned control situation,

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Speaker 1: you then are also talking about having shifts switching off

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Speaker 1: teams of pilots, right, And there's there's usually for for

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Speaker 1: this kind of thing to pilots, one to actually do

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Speaker 1: the controlling assumed assuming that it's not being autonomously controlled,

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Speaker 1: and a second watching the sensory readouts and helping the

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Speaker 1: pilot there, right, And then some some cases you're talking

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Speaker 1: about even larger teams. But we'll talk about some of

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Speaker 1: the more complex ones in a bit. So they also

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Speaker 1: can very pretty widely in size and sophistication. So a

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Speaker 1: typical tiny little drone you might think of like the

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Speaker 1: parrot drone, which is a quadrocopter drone. It's the kind

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Speaker 1: of has the rotors on the four corners, so it

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Speaker 1: gives it a very stable flight path, and you can

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Speaker 1: even do some crazy trips tricks. Rather, you can do

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Speaker 1: crazy trips too if you wanted to, but crazy tricks

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Speaker 1: letting it do things like barrel rolls, although it's more

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Speaker 1: like a very quick flip because obviously you lose stabilization

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Speaker 1: once those those uh, those those blades go vertical as

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Speaker 1: opposed to horizontal, and then you can control that with

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Speaker 1: an iPhone, So you can actually use a smartphone to

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Speaker 1: control a parrot drone. I was talking earlier today about

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Speaker 1: how I had a really crazy schedule today. So today

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Speaker 1: Jonathan schedule included a phone call with FEMA uh A

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Speaker 1: talk about electronics in the f a A, which was

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Speaker 1: an episode that we recorded earlier today, although when it

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Speaker 1: publishes is a mystery, and then also talking about drones,

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Speaker 1: and so a friend of mine said, oh, so is

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Speaker 1: that is this all in preparation for talking about how

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Speaker 1: FEMA could control a drone with a an iPhone because

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Speaker 1: the Apple event was also the day that we're recording

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Speaker 1: this and said, you know, you're making a joke, but

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Speaker 1: that's totally possible. But as the parent drone allows you

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Speaker 1: to control it with an iPhone, absolutely, and uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: these are small, you know, commercial devices. You can you

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Speaker 1: can go out and buy something. Yeah, yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: actually buy one right now. And I remember the first

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Speaker 1: time I saw one at ce S several years ago,

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Speaker 1: maybe twenty ten or maybe even earlier, and I was

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Speaker 1: really impressed. And it included a little camera on the

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Speaker 1: device itself, so it could allow you to look around

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Speaker 1: and you were you were able to play games with

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Speaker 1: other people who had parent drones and do kind of

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Speaker 1: a virtual shoot him up type thing that would be

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Speaker 1: reflected with your actual drones real world location. So it's

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Speaker 1: kind of neat stuff. But if you want to talk

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Speaker 1: about the other end of the spectrum, now, that's on

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Speaker 1: the simple side, right, that's that's a very small, portable

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Speaker 1: device that the average person can use and you're using

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Speaker 1: a very simple interface to control it. The other end

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Speaker 1: of that spectrum is drones that are the size of

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Speaker 1: an actual like manned aircraft, like a small business jet

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Speaker 1: or so I think is the size that which I

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Speaker 1: think are the largest military drone and predators are both

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Speaker 1: pretty big. Yeah, because a predator. If you see a

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Speaker 1: picture of a predator drone, you might think, what's the

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Speaker 1: size of that? Is that like maybe you know, half

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Speaker 1: the size of a car? No, those are much bigger

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Speaker 1: than cars, but they if from casual glance, if you

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Speaker 1: were near one, you might think, well, that's an interesting jet.

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Speaker 1: Where's the cockpit because I don't see where the person

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Speaker 1: would look out because it looks blank. Yeah, but it's

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Speaker 1: in fact a drone, and so you end up flying

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Speaker 1: it using all the different sensors and cameras that are

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Speaker 1: on it as the guidance. Although for aerodynamic purposes it's

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Speaker 1: still shaped more or less the way that a passenger

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Speaker 1: airplane would be, right, I mean, and that just makes

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Speaker 1: sense for pure physics, right, I Mean, it's not like

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Speaker 1: theoretically we could have it shaped anything that would fly,

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Speaker 1: But why would you change it up so much if

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Speaker 1: that's the most efficient shape. I kind of want them

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Speaker 1: to paint just just go ahead and paint like a

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Speaker 1: cylon toaster, have like a little led that goes back

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Speaker 1: and forth and it just constantly chanced by your command.

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Speaker 1: That's from the nineteen superior version of Bellstar Galatica. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're really gonna have to have a geek fight about

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Speaker 1: that same day, Chaathan. Anyway, there will be a reckoning.

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Speaker 1: So with those kind of military style drones are the

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Speaker 1: ones that scientific endeavors are using. These large, large drones,

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Speaker 1: those are the ones that need multiple people to really

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Speaker 1: control it. And also they usually have a link up

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Speaker 1: where you can control it from quite a far away away.

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Speaker 1: But we'll get into that a little bit later. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's some rules about drones though, right, Yes, some some

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Speaker 1: countries China for example, and this will become important in

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Speaker 1: a moment. Uh. It's it's basically legal to operate commercial

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Speaker 1: drones anywhere that you want, as long as you get

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Speaker 1: local authorization. Here in the US, um, drones are authorized

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Speaker 1: in some military airspace and patroller borders. Also there's some

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Speaker 1: three public agencies that can use them at low altitudes

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Speaker 1: away from airport. Right. It's essentially the same sort of

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Speaker 1: rules that the Guide r C h r C flight

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Speaker 1: vehicles like anything like a remote control plane and remote

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Speaker 1: controlled helicopter. There are specific rules that that are dictated

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Speaker 1: by the US government and most of them are the

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Speaker 1: same as for the drones. Sure, sure, And now, um,

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Speaker 1: the f a A. H the Federal Administration, thank you.

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Speaker 1: I always want to say aeronautics, and that's not quite

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Speaker 1: the right word. Um, it does is working on new

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Speaker 1: regulations right now. They're supposed to come out in and

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Speaker 1: at that point we're probably going to see a lot

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Speaker 1: more commercial and private drones flying around. Yeah, it's going

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Speaker 1: to be one of those those things where they'll be

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Speaker 1: there may be some more specific rules to guide this

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. You know. This is again another one

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Speaker 1: of those examples of how technology evolves faster than the

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Speaker 1: laure because I don't know if you've ever noticed, but

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Speaker 1: the government does not move in the speed of night,

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Speaker 1: certainly not by Morris law. No, no, no, no no.

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Speaker 1: So so we see these developments happen faster than the

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Speaker 1: way agencies can legislate them. But that is coming. The

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Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen will be interesting to see exactly how

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Speaker 1: the f a A handles that and and how, you know,

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Speaker 1: is it going to be really restricted? Is it going

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Speaker 1: to open things up. Will there be specific agencies that

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Speaker 1: people who operate drones will have to report to? We

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Speaker 1: don't know. We have to wait. It's a it's it's

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Speaker 1: part of a larger like sixty three point four billion

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Speaker 1: dollar initiative for the f A to to update traffic

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Speaker 1: control systems and expand airspace. So that's important stuff. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about some uses fun uses of some drones,

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Speaker 1: like scientific research. So there are a lot of organizations

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Speaker 1: out there that are using drones in some way or

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Speaker 1: another to conduct scientific research, and that includes NASA and Noah.

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Speaker 1: Those organizations are both using drones to study inhospitable environments

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Speaker 1: here on Earth, right, you know, lots of places that

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Speaker 1: it would either be uh overly expensive or difficult or

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Speaker 1: dangerous to get humans out to to take a look at. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if we can get an unmanned aerial vehicle to fly by,

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Speaker 1: say a giant crater that's remote and difficult to access otherwise, oh,

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Speaker 1: to say, or in a volcano or at an oil

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Speaker 1: spill or exactly. Yeah. So here's some of the examples,

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Speaker 1: and we've mentioned a couple of them. Oil spills, volcanic ash,

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Looking at these sort of things

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Speaker 1: that's that can be hazardous, but also they using UH

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Speaker 1: drones to explore repositories of ice in Greenland, Antarctica, and Alaska.

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Speaker 1: In other words, trying to get a real look at

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Speaker 1: what how how these giant areas of ice are doing

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Speaker 1: because the melt off is happening pretty quick quickly, but

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Speaker 1: it's hard to get a good look at it because

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Speaker 1: these are pretty remote areas. U a v s can

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Speaker 1: give us a much closer look at that. NASA is

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Speaker 1: using them to study hurricanes, so we're looking at the

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Speaker 1: way hurricanes develop and sort of the paths they take,

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Speaker 1: and also how hurricanes how storms can change when they

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Speaker 1: start to encounter different types of land masses. This hurricane

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Speaker 1: season in particular, NASA is using a lot of drones

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Speaker 1: to um to just watch the way storms are developing

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Speaker 1: and and send information back. Yeah, they're using what are

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Speaker 1: called global Hawk drones, which are the same type of

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Speaker 1: drones that are used in some military surveillance operations. Global

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Speaker 1: Hawk is not the most prevalent of the drones that

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Speaker 1: the military uses, but it's sort of one of the

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Speaker 1: precursors to what we tend to use today. We've also

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Speaker 1: seen agencies use these drones to study wildfires and to

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Speaker 1: get an idea of where the wildfire is spreading. Again,

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Speaker 1: obviously a very dangerous situation to send people into. And

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Speaker 1: you know, the worst case scenario with a drone in

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Speaker 1: this kind of situation is that you lose an expensive

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Speaker 1: piece of equipment. But the worst case scenario in other

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Speaker 1: situations is that you lose human life. So that's obviously

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Speaker 1: one of those reasons why it's very attractive for science.

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Speaker 1: Diffic study also is a bonus. These things can can

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Speaker 1: fly lower, slower, and more quietly than um than a

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Speaker 1: typical manned aircraft, right, so you can get a longer

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Speaker 1: look at things. And perhaps if you're using it even

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Speaker 1: to study things like wildlife, it's not as likely. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and these research vehicles can vary, just like the

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Speaker 1: U A v's we talked about at the top of

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Speaker 1: the show. And and Lauren, I think you found an

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Speaker 1: interesting U A V that's being used in scientific research,

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Speaker 1: something that's actually using solar power. Right, there's something called

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Speaker 1: a pathfinder that was built in the nineties for civilian

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Speaker 1: purposes like collecting data on on weather and the climate. UM.

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Speaker 1: It's it's reached. It's it's reached a record of of

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Speaker 1: height for solar powered aircraft, which is what's that sixty feet? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is something like twenty kilometers kilometers. That's that's pretty

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Speaker 1: incredible elevation for an unmanned vehicle, right and you know

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Speaker 1: not not too and that kind of data is is important.

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Speaker 1: Yep yep. Uh. So other uses for drones include things

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Speaker 1: like historic research. I came across an article that was

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Speaker 1: interesting was talking about Peruvian archaeologists who were using drones

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Speaker 1: to explore ancient ruins without disturbing the area with actual

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Speaker 1: vehicle or foot traffic. So they didn't want to disturb

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Speaker 1: an area that had a lot of cultural and historical significance. Also,

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Speaker 1: they want to use drones as a way of monitoring

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Speaker 1: a site, so not just mapping a site, which has

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Speaker 1: turned out to be incredibly useful. In fact, I read

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Speaker 1: one archaeologist report that said that they were able to

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Speaker 1: do in a few days the same sort of work

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Speaker 1: that normally would take them years to map out a site.

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Speaker 1: But they also want to use it in order to

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Speaker 1: monitor a site and keep people from taking advantage of it.

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Speaker 1: There are examples of people who have squatted on land

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Speaker 1: that's directly a adjacent to historic sites, either as a

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Speaker 1: means of trying to monetize that or just because they

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Speaker 1: figure that by being close to something like that they

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Speaker 1: are less likely to be displaced. So it's kind of, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's this idea of trying to protect the area before

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Speaker 1: people try and leverage that in some other way. You

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Speaker 1: also have a note about using using this for pest control. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Florida is looking at using drones for pest control. Now

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Speaker 1: they're not actually talking about arming drones with some sort

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Speaker 1: of pesticide and then blasting it at laser mosquitoes, app

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Speaker 1: or something like that. They're outfitting all the drones with

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Speaker 1: these two giant robot arms that come together in a

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Speaker 1: slapping motion and then they're just gonna squish them one

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Speaker 1: by one. So that's not true. Now, it's Florida's using

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Speaker 1: looking at using drones in a way of controlling the

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Speaker 1: mosquito population. Now, mosquitoes obviously can carry lots of different

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Speaker 1: diseases that can be very harmful to animals and people,

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Speaker 1: and they mostly they must be breed in very shallow

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Speaker 1: pools of water. Still shallow pools of water. That's where

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Speaker 1: you get the mosquitoes breeding, you get all the mosquito

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Speaker 1: larva and uh, I don't know if you're familiar with

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Speaker 1: Florida having lived there for so long, only four years.

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Speaker 1: So there's some some there's like a little puddle called

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Speaker 1: the Everglades that's out there where there could that's a

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Speaker 1: lot of It's a large area, right, We're talking like

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of square miles or kilometers if you prefer,

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Speaker 1: that could potentially have this kind of shallow water where

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Speaker 1: mosquitoes could breed. Now, traditionally what would happen is Florida

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Speaker 1: would send out people to go and cover this ground

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Speaker 1: and look for places that would be mosquito breeding grounds

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Speaker 1: and then treat those areas so that they could control

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Speaker 1: the mosquito population somewhat. But that's time consuming and expensive,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's hard. It's hard to send people out

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Speaker 1: and really, you know, covered all that ground, because it

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Speaker 1: really is a great deal of ground. There's alligators and

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Speaker 1: sometimes crocodiles if you get far enough towards the coast. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the point being that there are many things that could

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Speaker 1: potentially cause someone harm or just be difficult to navigate around.

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Speaker 1: Um and uh not to mention things like boa constrictors

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Speaker 1: and anacondas. But more importantly, drones can be used to

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Speaker 1: deliver cakes. Okay, yes, alright, so we're going beyond past

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Speaker 1: control here, we're going into using drones to deliver things,

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Speaker 1: including possibly cake, although that may or may not also

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Speaker 1: be a lie. Uh no, no. Drone delivery is something

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Speaker 1: that has popped up a few places, and it's mostly,

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Speaker 1: I would argue, a kind of us A publicity stunts,

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Speaker 1: the marketing. It's not not meant as actual like here

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Speaker 1: here's service because it is so much more expensive and unreliabing,

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Speaker 1: and it's still very werek intensive because you still have

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Speaker 1: to have someone navigating the drones and in most of

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Speaker 1: these cases the drones are remote controlled, so there's actually

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Speaker 1: you have to have a car or a person following

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Speaker 1: the drone right when you could just have that person

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Speaker 1: deliver whatever it is. But that's not nearly as cool

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Speaker 1: as having this rhodocopter thing dropped from the sky and

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Speaker 1: deliver your pizza. And by the way, pizza is one

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Speaker 1: of the things in fact Domino's Pizza, the doma coopter

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Speaker 1: demacopter this is this is in the UK right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as in the UK. It was a joint effort between

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Speaker 1: Aero Site, which was the company that built the drone,

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Speaker 1: a company called Big Communications, in another company called T

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Speaker 1: Plus Biscuits. It's cute that very very British. Um. And

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Speaker 1: so this was a sort of a publicity stunt where

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Speaker 1: they showed a a quad copter very similar to something

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Speaker 1: like the Parrot drone that you could you could look

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Speaker 1: up online. There's a quad copter that could carry a

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Speaker 1: bag that would contain pizzas. Um, there's a heat bag,

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Speaker 1: you know. It's one of those that is lined with

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Speaker 1: a reflective material on the inside to try and keep

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Speaker 1: as much heat in as possible. And I saw a

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Speaker 1: video where they loaded one up with two pizzas and

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Speaker 1: then flew it over some fields into a different, uh

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Speaker 1: like neighborhood and landed it near a guy who pulled

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Speaker 1: his pizzas out, and then it flew off again. Very clever,

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Speaker 1: but again mostly just a marketing kind of stunt here.

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Speaker 1: It's not something you're not going to get robot delivery

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Speaker 1: of pizzas because, like you were saying, Lauren, you had

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Speaker 1: to have a human pilot who had to have a

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Speaker 1: line of sight on this to make sure that they

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Speaker 1: were not going to pilot into a tree or or

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Speaker 1: drop the pizza in the wrong place. I mean, nothing

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Speaker 1: is more irritating. I think you'll agree that when you

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Speaker 1: order pizza and you find out that you know you're

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Speaker 1: you're my pizza drone has delivered to the next house

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Speaker 1: over right. Yeah, like all those people who listen to

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Speaker 1: fish all night long at all your pizza, you know

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Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, Lauren. Anyway, so all the time

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Speaker 1: with those pizza drones. Also in Shanghai, China, a company

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Speaker 1: called in Cake was was delivering cakes in a very

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Speaker 1: similar way. Yeah. Another delivery company in China called SF

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Speaker 1: Express was using drunes to deliver packages. The packages could

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Speaker 1: weigh up to six point six pounds or just under

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Speaker 1: three kilograms, and the drones themselves could fly at an

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Speaker 1: elevation of three thirty feet or just over one which

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Speaker 1: is pretty high for one of those old quad copters.

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Speaker 1: Supposedly that that in Cake company got got shut down,

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Speaker 1: or the drone delivery system anyway got shut down by

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Speaker 1: Shanghai police when they got worried calls in from the

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Speaker 1: populace saying like I am in danger from this cake Drone.

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Speaker 1: There are from this cake drone aliens flying over the

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Speaker 1: city and they're dropping confectionery on us. Uh, I think

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Speaker 1: we're like three D cakes. I'm still I'm a little

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Speaker 1: bit obsessed with this. Yeah, I need some flying cake.

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Speaker 1: So in Philadelphia there was a cleaner, a dry cleaner.

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Speaker 1: The men a young cleaners and I'm sure I'm this

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Speaker 1: pronouncing that, but any kind of Native American names from

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Speaker 1: the Northeast are completely beyond my ability to pronounce. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: this was a dry cleaners that used a drone to

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Speaker 1: deliver dry cleaned clothing to cut to mers. But that

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Speaker 1: one required two operators, and it required someone who was

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Speaker 1: holding the controller and also a spotter. There was no camera, right,

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Speaker 1: most most of these rigs have included cameras, right, But

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Speaker 1: like the one the Dominoes, one had a camera bill

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Speaker 1: it so if you watch the video you can actually

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Speaker 1: see it from the the drones point of view as

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Speaker 1: it flies across the English countryside delivering pizza by by

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Speaker 1: by flight. But there's also the Taco copter, which I

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Speaker 1: really hope this becomes a thing because I want if

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Speaker 1: I could get my tacos delivered by robot I don't

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Speaker 1: think I'd ever leave the house. Um to San Francisco

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Speaker 1: area Bay Area invite only app where you can order

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Speaker 1: tacos and have them delivered via drone. Although it's more

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Speaker 1: or less just a concept right now, it's not really

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Speaker 1: a service. And again, this is one of those things

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Speaker 1: where they are talking about waiting for the f a

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Speaker 1: a S regulations to really you know, it doesn't make

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Speaker 1: sense to pour a lot of money into a business

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Speaker 1: that might not be able to operate depending upon what

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Speaker 1: the FAA's regulations are. Right. Sure that goes along with

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Speaker 1: your next note, which is for a burrito bomber. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Darwin Arrow spaces burrito bomber. It's a drone that drops

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Speaker 1: burritos on you. But the burritos also have little little parachutes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you get parachute dropped burritos. I would also be

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Speaker 1: I would welcome I would welcome a delivery of burritos

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Speaker 1: by a parachute over my place. UM, I do not

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Speaker 1: welcome people just pelting my place with burritos. I want

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Speaker 1: to be clear about this. I want to go home

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Speaker 1: and find a bunch of burritos splatted against my house.

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Speaker 1: You guys, I have to admit, I think that would

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Speaker 1: be hilarious. Yeah, what's your address, Lauren? So yeah, these

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Speaker 1: are these are some of those kind of gimmicky, clever

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Speaker 1: things that we're seeing. But I don't think that it's

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Speaker 1: necessarily going to become a real delivery service anytime soon

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Speaker 1: beyond just the the curiosity. Certainly not until here in

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Speaker 1: the U s. The f A passes this new regulation.

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Speaker 1: The China one, I can almost understand because at least

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Speaker 1: the SF Express one was all about delivering in a

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Speaker 1: city in China that was known for its massive traffic congestion. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's a city of about eight million. I think that

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Speaker 1: that was on relatively small territory and uh, and it

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Speaker 1: was in the testing phases as of the last time

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Speaker 1: that I read an article about it, but it seemed

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Speaker 1: like it was operating within parameters as of yet. So

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Speaker 1: and since and since it is legal in China, basically, yeah,

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Speaker 1: in that case, I can kind of see it happening

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Speaker 1: in the sense that, well, there are some use case

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Speaker 1: scenarios where it would actually be more efficient to have

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Speaker 1: someone who perhaps is on like a fairly tall building

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Speaker 1: and can navigate something that way. But even then it's

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a little it's a little weird. Um.

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Speaker 1: So that kind of covers the civilian and corporate uses

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Speaker 1: of drones, as well as the re search institute uses

431
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,960
Speaker 1: of drones. But there's another use that we need to cover,

432
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: and that of course is military. But that's a huge,

433
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: huge topic. So before we get into that, let's take

434
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. All Right, so

435
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: here's the part of our our conversation where we really

436
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:21,200
Speaker 1: do get pretty serious and talk about a controversial use

437
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 1: of of drones. And there are a couple of different

438
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:28,120
Speaker 1: ways that the military uses them, um and and one

439
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: is certainly far more controversial than the other. But first

440
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: let's look at sort of the history of unmanned aerial

441
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: vehicles in the military, because yeah, in fact, the first

442
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,160
Speaker 1: one is arguably you can argue this is the first

443
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 1: use of u a v s in military. The first

444
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: one actually pre dates powered manned flight, and that would

445
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: be on August twenty two, eighteen forty nine. And I

446
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: know what you're all thinking, like, how could there be

447
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: a drone in eighteen forty nine. It wasn't so much

448
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 1: a drone as it was this concept of I want

449
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 1: to be able to UH to attack a certain target,

450
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: and I want to do it in a way that's

451
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: going to minimize risk to my resources. How do I

452
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: do that? Well, the Austrians figured during the First Italian

453
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: War of Independence, which was a war that was fought

454
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire for control,

455
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: really they figured, well, we want to attack Venice, but

456
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: we don't want to risk our own resources. We're going

457
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: to use two hundred balloons, and each balloon is going

458
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: to carry a bomb, and those bombs will have some

459
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: method of detonation. I have read different reports, nothing that

460
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,479
Speaker 1: was completely confirmed, but one was that there was actually

461
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: a wire that would come back that they would apply

462
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: an electric charge too, and that would detonate the bombs.

463
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: Others said it was just a fuse, but at any rate,

464
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: the balloons were meant to float over towards Venice and

465
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: then detonate their UH. From why I understand it was

466
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: not a very successful attack. I think only a handful

467
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: of balloons actually made it towards Venice, but a shift

468
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: in the wind meant that some of them just started

469
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: floating right back toward the Austrian lines, which is not

470
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: what you want to see when you're launching an attack.

471
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: Of course, if they had complete control of when those

472
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: bombs detonated, then that would be that would just mean

473
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: it would be a failed attack as opposed to accus danger.

474
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 1: Right um. During the American Civil War, a patent was

475
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 1: filed for a similar time delay fuse mechanism balloon based

476
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: bomber that I don't think ever went into use because

477
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: they couldn't ever quite figure out how to make that

478
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: fuse work proper rate in a non hazardous way right

479
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: where you you know, you're not just as likely to

480
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,199
Speaker 1: blow up yourself as you are your target. Sure. In

481
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties, cameras were used on kites during the

482
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 1: Spanish American War for reconnaissance purposes. Right uh. The British

483
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: Royal Navy began to experiment with radio controlled Queen b

484
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: This was this was a drone of radio controlled drone

485
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: for mostly for target practice. But but but it could

486
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: fly like a hundred miles per hour, which I feel

487
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 1: like it is a pretty impressive drone capacity for the time. Um.

488
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: During World War Two, the Nazis developed what was called

489
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: the Revenge Weapon one or or V one more commonly,

490
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: which was an unmanned bomber that was responsible form for

491
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: over nine British civilian deaths. And that was when ah, wait,

492
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: what bomb wielding bats? Am I reading this note? Right?

493
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: So so Franklin D. Roosevelt approved research into releasing bomb

494
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: wielding bats from airplanes. And ideally with the way this

495
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 1: would work would be that the bats would seek shelter

496
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: and buildings too through the strings separating themselves from the devices,

497
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: and then the device would detonate, you know, blowing up

498
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: the enemy's buildings. In In the only test that ever

499
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: happened that I've heard about, um, a bunch of hibernating

500
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: bomb ladin acts were dropped to their deaths from an airplane.

501
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: So the bats were asleep and then just were dropped

502
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: and then they splatted. Wow, well we salute you splatted bats.

503
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: So in the sixties and seventies, the US used the

504
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: a q M thirty four Ryan fire bees and elect

505
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: and lightning bugs. So what these are re reconnaissance robots? Yeah, yeah,

506
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: they were. They were controlled from a host plane. Um

507
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 1: those lightning bugs where were joystick controlled? Actually? And those

508
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: were used for reconnaissance in China and Vietnam. They had

509
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: a lot of problems with these reconnaissance vehicles, particularly in

510
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: in harsh weather conditions, and that was one of the

511
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: things that would uh really spur the military to try

512
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: and develop more robust, unmanned aerial vehicles. It also was

513
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: one of the things that critics would point out as saying,

514
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: this is kind of a fool's errand like, we're spending

515
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: a lot of money developing and building these things, but

516
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: if they crash just as frequently as they come back,

517
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: and it's not because of enemy encounters, it is just

518
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: because of the weather, then there have to be better

519
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: use for our resources. So uh, in fact, you could

520
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: argue that drone technology isn't as far along as it

521
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: could be because of things like this. Sure Israel, in fact,

522
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: is was the first country to to develop very modern

523
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: advanced drones in the in the seventies and eighties. They

524
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: developed gliders along the same the same concept as the

525
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: quadrocopters and octocopters that we have these days, called the

526
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: Scout and the Pioneer. The Scout had live video and

527
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: like three sixty degree views views, so I could see

528
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: an entire like all the way around the actual vehicle

529
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: itself right right, and Um, the pioneers the US acquired

530
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,959
Speaker 1: from Israel for use in the Gulf War, gotcha. So now,

531
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: one of the main uses the military has for these

532
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 1: drones is for surveillance and reconnaissance, and in those cases

533
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: you don't have to necessarily have weapons aboard the drones.

534
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,719
Speaker 1: So absolutely not. And I think that the development of

535
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: most of these in in the US anyway, has has

536
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: been for reconnaissance purposes, and and that weaponizing them has

537
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: been a secondary step taken afterwards, right right, And I

538
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: think I think when it comes to the controversy, while

539
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: reconstance and surveillance of course has its own set of

540
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: I would argue that I think most people when they

541
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: hear about drones are specifically thinking of the weaponized versions.

542
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: We'll talk about those in a minute. Um. And obviously

543
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: those have their own set of really big issues that

544
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: I think merit debate. In fact, and I think all

545
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: of it merits debate, but I think those in particular

546
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: ones that we really got to take a very close

547
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: look at and ask some very tough questions and maybe

548
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: finally get some answers, because that's that's part of the problem.

549
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: That would be good too, But but so so these

550
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: these drones these days, thanks to satellite umplinks have you know,

551
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 1: you can get live video of a place that would

552
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: be dangerous to send manned forces into, right. And not

553
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: only that, but you can have real time control of

554
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: a drone by someone who is nowhere near that actual

555
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: that actual zone. So, for example, if you need to

556
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: run a drone through a war zone so that you

557
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: can get real time look at what the conditions are

558
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: on the ground, you can send one of these drones

559
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: out and the pilot maybe on the other side of

560
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,479
Speaker 1: the world. Uh. In fact, in the United States, there's

561
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: a desert in Nevada where you can find some of

562
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: the trailers that that the US Air Force uses. And

563
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: the CIA also has its own drone program where the

564
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: pilots are nowhere near where the the actual drone is,

565
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: which means that the risk to pilot life is is

566
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,479
Speaker 1: completely negated. You don't have to worry about the pilot

567
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: being put in danger. Uh if even if the drone

568
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: flies into a truly hot spot of dangerous activity, and

569
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: you can hypothetically save military lives um out in those

570
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: areas by you know, getting information about what what what's

571
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, so it's you know, really meant to

572
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: maximize data while minimizing risk to human life. And these

573
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: are less expensive than military aircraft or satellites, so it's

574
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: considered to be a better, uh you know, better investment

575
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: in that sense as well. And not only are you

576
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: minimizing the risk to human life, but it's not as

577
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: expensive as something like a YouTube spy plane or a

578
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: spy satellite. Now there's the weaponized version, which is the

579
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: truly problematic one. Not that not that surveillance again is

580
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: you know, we can't give it a free pass. But

581
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: the weaponized ones are the ones that really come under

582
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: scrutiny recently. Um. These are battle drones, so they're armed

583
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: for combat. They actually carry weapons, usually in the form

584
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,719
Speaker 1: of either missiles or bombs or some combination thereof, and

585
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: usually more lightweight missiles or bombs than you would find

586
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: on on manned aircraft. However, yeah, like hell fire missiles.

587
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean, these are still weapons designed to damage. The

588
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: very first use of armed drones were in the Balkans War. UM.

589
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: The Predator drone is an example of a U S

590
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 1: military unmanned aerial vehicle capable of firing weapons. So it's

591
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: not the only one the UK has the Reaper drone,

592
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: which also can be weaponized, and and we do use

593
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: Reapers in the US as well. That the Predator. Predator

594
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: was originally met for surveillance and was later added. Yeah.

595
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: In fact, the first thing that was added to it

596
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: were targeting lasers and that was before it even had

597
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: weapons on the Predator. It was just sort of a

598
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: next step in the evolution of the Predator from surveillance

599
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: drone to battle drone. And keep in mind that the

600
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: military and the CIA both use these different variations. It's

601
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: not that all drones are weaponized. Uh, that's not the case.

602
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: Some of them are and some of them aren't. UM.

603
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: It all depends upon the parameters of the mission and

604
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 1: uh and what it is you are trying to actually achieve.

605
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: So usually the way this works is that you've got

606
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: three operators who are controlling the drone. One of them

607
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: is controlling the flight systems, another one, like you said, Lauren,

608
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: is monitoring those cameras and sensors. The third acts as

609
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,240
Speaker 1: a communications officer between the flight crew and the ground

610
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,439
Speaker 1: operations that are closer to the actual war zone, so

611
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: that to keep that line of communication open, so that

612
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: if you notice something with the drone where it's going

613
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: to affect operations in the ground. You can get that

614
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: information to the people who need it immediately and they're

615
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 1: not going to be surprised by it. UM. So perhaps

616
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: the best known bell drone I guess would be the

617
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: at least in the United States, is the Predator. UM.

618
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: You've probably seen pictures of it. It's it's pretty spooky looking, uh,

619
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: and it is larger, like I said, than you would

620
00:34:56,600 --> 00:34:58,320
Speaker 1: think if you see just a picture of it flying,

621
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 1: you don't really have anything necessarily to give you the

622
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: scale of this thing. But I've seen pictures of a

623
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: person standing next to them, and it does look like,

624
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 1: you know, like a fairly small but normal manned vehicle.

625
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like there could be a pilot

626
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: in there, if there were a cockpit. Who just isn't

627
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: it's it's it's weird because the c i A was

628
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: able to really develop a predator program. And when I

629
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:26,959
Speaker 1: say weird, I mean that you would think that would

630
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: normally fall under the purview of the United States military, right,

631
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 1: and the Department of Defense did spend some three billion

632
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 1: in drone research in the nineteen nineties. However, since the

633
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:43,319
Speaker 1: CIA basically since since the bombings of two thousand one,

634
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center and attacks. I suppose you you

635
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 1: would say, since then the CIA kind of took over.

636
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: You kind of used a loophole. Yeah, what what really

637
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: was happening was that the military had run into kind

638
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: of you know, they had consolidated a lot of departments,

639
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: and so the whole drone program now fell under a

640
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: sub department of a sub department of a department, and

641
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where it is really

642
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: hard to get any kind of funding for the drone program.

643
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: The CIA could sort of sidestep that, and because they're

644
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: not a military organization, they could end up requesting under

645
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,720
Speaker 1: their budget their own drone program. And so that's exactly

646
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: what they did. Um, and that's that's part of the

647
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: reason why it started as a reconnaissance issue and since

648
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: since two thousand one, developed into a targeted strike program. Yeah.

649
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: So these predator drones can hover for forty hours before

650
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 1: needing to refuel. Um, they are kind of uh there.

651
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: They were kind of the evolution of earlier drones developed

652
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: called Amber and NAT. These were drones that were used

653
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 1: previously but had had their own limitations, including things like

654
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: weather issues with a you know, inclement weather, So the

655
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,479
Speaker 1: Predator was meant to withstand that sort of stuff. UH.

656
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,439
Speaker 1: It was built by a company called General Atomics, and

657
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: UH it uses a SAT calm link up. So that's

658
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: why you can control these all the way out in

659
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: Nevada while the drones themselves are flying around perhaps in

660
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: Afghanistan or Pakistan or something like that. UH. They were

661
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: first flown in June n in the Balkans under Operation

662
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: Nomad Vigil and then in Operation Deliberate Force. And in

663
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: those initial phases it was just surveillance, like we had said.

664
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: But the Air Force and CIA both began to develop

665
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 1: their Predator piloting programs. The Air Forces is called the

666
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,760
Speaker 1: eleventh Reconnaissance Squadron at Indian Springs Auxiliary Airfield in Nevada,

667
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: which later became known as Creech Air Force Base UH

668
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 1: and tends to concentrate on on missions in places like Afghanistan. UH.

669
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: In two thousand one, the military began to test the

670
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: Predator drone as a weapon, and by October seventh, two

671
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: thousand one, armed Predator drones were deployed in the Middle East,

672
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: and that was very much in response to the September

673
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 1: eleventh attacks in two thousand one. UH. Prior to that,

674
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: they were just being used as reconnaissance. But those attacks

675
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: kind of spurred the development of weaponized drones and put

676
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: them on the fast track. And on February four, two

677
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: thousand two, we had the first use of a CIA

678
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: controlled Predator drone using a weapon. And what had happened

679
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 1: was a drone operator had identified a potential target. They

680
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 1: saw a tall man in robes and UH it seemed

681
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: to fit the description of Osama bin Laden, which obviously

682
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: was a top target of the c I A. And

683
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: so they the believing that to be Osama bin Laden,

684
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 1: the drone the pilot of the drone and they fired

685
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: a hellfire missile and it was actually three civilians. UM.

686
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: None of them are were identified as being connected to

687
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: any enemy forces whatsoever. UM. They had been gathering scrap

688
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: metal at the time. Now, they had been gathering scrap

689
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: metal that were from old pieces of missiles, but they were,

690
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,759
Speaker 1: from what I understand, trying to sell those in Pakistan

691
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: for about fifty cents. So it turned out that these

692
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: were appeared to be innocent victims. Although the United States

693
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: government continued to say that that they felt that they

694
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: got that the that firing on the targets were justified.

695
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: They just didn't know who they were, which I thought

696
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: was a weird way of putting it. That seems like

697
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: a poor justification to me personally, and that that is

698
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: kind of what was said by many people afterwards, right,

699
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: And this is this is illustrating very clearly, and you'll

700
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: keep in mind, this is the first use of the

701
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: CIA using a predator drone as a weapon, and the

702
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: very first use is a misidentification, a tragic mistake, and

703
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: that that illustrated very much the criticism that a lot

704
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: of people had. It's that multiple on multiple fronts. One

705
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: uh in this case that they were in a zone

706
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: that had been under contention in the past. So perhaps

707
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: the war zone question will put aside for a moment.

708
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: But the real question is that if you have a

709
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,800
Speaker 1: weapon where you are in no danger at all, that

710
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: the operator of the weapon is in no danger, right,

711
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: there's no risk to the operator whatsoever, does that lower

712
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 1: the bar to using the weapon because you don't have

713
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: to worry about anything, you know, any kind of direct

714
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: consequences as far as a life or death situation, meaning

715
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 1: that are you more likely to fire a gun if

716
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 1: it means that there's absolutely no way the other person

717
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: is going to fire back, and that furthermore, are you

718
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: not going to take time to assess the situation responsibly?

719
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: Right if you think that you have a target, are

720
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: you going to act rapidly because you think that you

721
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to take the target out rather than

722
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: to take the time you would need to assess the situation.

723
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 1: If your life was at risk, obviously you would be

724
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: assessing the situation very carefully to try and determine your

725
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: best chance of success and survival of that event. And

726
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: maybe in that process you might notice if someone is

727
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: not who you thought they were, in which case you

728
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 1: would abort the mission and no one would die. Um.

729
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: So there these were some of the objections that were raised,

730
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:23,720
Speaker 1: saying that this is making it too easy to kill people.

731
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, if it's outside a

732
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,760
Speaker 1: war zone, because the CIA was essentially given carte blanche

733
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: to go and go after what a lot of people

734
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: have called the kill list, a list of people that

735
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: the United States government had identified as top level threats.

736
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,720
Speaker 1: UH if the CIA were to use an unmanned aerial

737
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 1: vehicle to take out one of those targets in a

738
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 1: place that's not a war zone. So this is not

739
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 1: someone who is a soldier fighting a war in the

740
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:55,879
Speaker 1: traditional sense. Does that not amount to assassination? So how

741
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: is that any different than say, sending out somebody with

742
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: a sniper right full to take another person out in

743
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: the middle of a city. Uh. And and you know

744
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: there's they have no benefit of any sort of trial

745
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 1: or formal charges. It's just it's just a political assassination.

746
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 1: In this case, Instead of a sniper with a rifle,

747
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: you're talking about a pilot using a Predator drone and

748
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: that in reality, that's not any difference. So wouldn't that

749
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: mean that this is under international law illegal? And and furthermore,

750
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: isn't it something that shortly before the attacks of September eleventh,

751
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: the the US came down on Israel for for using

752
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: drones for assassinations. Yeah, and so this is I mean,

753
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: this is very tricky. We've got we've we've got government

754
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: officials on record as saying this is not something we

755
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: should do and then immediately authorizing it. Um. And you know,

756
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: certainly the fear of terrorism at that time and continually

757
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:59,319
Speaker 1: is an understandably serious. It's a powerful motivator. Absolutely, it's

758
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: a powerful motive later, and sometimes that means going to

759
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,919
Speaker 1: a course of action that perhaps, in hindsight we would

760
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,280
Speaker 1: say this was not the right choice. UH. The American

761
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: Civil Liberties Union the a c l U condemns these

762
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 1: actions and have said all right that they are essentially assassinations,

763
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 1: that people are being killed when they are are not

764
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: in war zones, and that's without charge or trial. And

765
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: they've submitted several Freedom of Information Act requests to the

766
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: government regarding missile strikes and various targets throughout the world,

767
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: and they've cited that in many of these cases, civilians

768
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 1: have died, children have died as a result of these

769
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,919
Speaker 1: UH these strikes, and they also have kind of met

770
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: with a lot of non answers from the government. They

771
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 1: await the responses, you know, they're they're going through the

772
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: official government channels and not getting much response. In March,

773
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: Pitch Interactive released a report they they had gotten their

774
00:43:54,400 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: information from the UH New America Foundation, this saying that

775
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: UM the casualties from from drones in Pakistan alone totaled

776
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: some three thousand, hundred and five people since two thousand four,

777
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: and that that of that UM hundred, seventy five deaths

778
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: were children, five thirty five were adult civilians, over two

779
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: thousand were this gray area of of other they had

780
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:26,439
Speaker 1: been deemed a military age appropriate men who had been

781
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: termed military combatants, but whether or not they were actually

782
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 1: involved in in any nefarious military wrongdoing was kind of

783
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 1: like um and that only forty seven um one point

784
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: five percent of those deaths were high profile targets, and

785
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 1: there there had been somewhat under a hundred high profile

786
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:53,320
Speaker 1: targets from what I understand, and so having forty seven

787
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: deaths from that list is is huge. And and however,

788
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, gracious, that's that is just so many people. Yeah,

789
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: it's this is this is an incredibly you know, emotionally

790
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:10,319
Speaker 1: charged topic obviously, and and should be I mean, this

791
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: is again why we say there should be debate about this,

792
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,280
Speaker 1: and that there needs to be very close scrutiny over

793
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 1: when it's appropriate or if it ever is appropriate to

794
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: use this. I mean, obviously, anytime we're talking about warfare

795
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: in any capacity, uh, we're talking about the tragic loss

796
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:28,799
Speaker 1: of human life that kind of comes hand in hand

797
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: with warfare. The problem is that warfare itself has changed

798
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: dramatically since the you know, early twentieth century, when we

799
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: had two sides line up on trenches and shoot at

800
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: each other. Now, identifying who your enemy is and where

801
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: that your enemy happens to be is much more complicated.

802
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily have huge battalions of soldiers that we're

803
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: having to to aim at. It's it's it's gotten to

804
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:00,080
Speaker 1: be a very messy situation, and so we've try to

805
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 1: come up with some solutions to address that. The problem

806
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: is that the solutions may not truly be addressing the

807
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: issue and in fact could be causing far more harm

808
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: than good. And that's where we have to sit there

809
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: and really look and how we're using the technology, who

810
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: is being affected? Are we causing more harm than good?

811
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: And if so, then what can we do instead of that?

812
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: Because obviously that's a course of action. You cannot, you cannot,

813
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,879
Speaker 1: in any good conscience continue that and hope that there's

814
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 1: going to be a positive outcome. How can there be

815
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:33,879
Speaker 1: a positive outcome if you're not hitting who you want

816
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: to hit and the people you are hitting are completely innocent,

817
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 1: you're really there's or or if you've got such a

818
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 1: high loss of innocent life connected to your targets. Yeah,

819
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: I mean that's how can you criticize another government or

820
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: regime or however you want to find it, for their

821
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: behaviors if your own behaviors appear at least as if

822
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: you considered an acceptable loss of life to kill the

823
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: entire family someone who your target. Yeah. So, I mean,

824
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: obviously this is and this is obviously, like we said,

825
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: very tricky. It's not. It's not like we're trying to

826
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 1: say that there is some easy solution that cost not

827
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: and these these hope high profile targeted people were committing atrocities. Absolutely,

828
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: and so so it's you know, obviously by international law,

829
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: the the argument is that what should happen is that

830
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 1: every effort should be made to apprehend the individuals, put

831
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 1: them on trial, and then have them face their crimes

832
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,720
Speaker 1: in a court of law, as opposed to uh kind

833
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: of striking out and trying to to eliminate them. Uh,

834
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 1: whether it's in a war capacity or otherwise. Um, whether

835
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: or not that's correct, also, I guess, is a matter

836
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: of debated. It has to be answered by all the

837
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 1: different countries involved. And like I said, this is pretty

838
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: pretty sticky stuff. It goes pretty far outside the realm

839
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: of just talking about how drones work. But we really

840
00:47:57,520 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about this because it's one of those

841
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: topics that had has had a lot of conversation around

842
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: it over the last year or so. Absolutely, and I

843
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 1: did want to say that in addition to to those

844
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:11,760
Speaker 1: military uses, UH, drones have also been used, for example,

845
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: to detect detect bombs, which is wonderful and terrific, and

846
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: you know, in in the future they could possibly be

847
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:22,439
Speaker 1: used to create wireless networks and disaster areas that will

848
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:27,760
Speaker 1: significantly improve disaster relief. Sure, yeah, there, So it's nothing again,

849
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: just like any technology. We We've said this a lot

850
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: on the on various episodes of tech stuff. It's not

851
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: the technology that's good or bad, it's how we put

852
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 1: to use. We have to be responsible users of technology,

853
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: and that goes all the way from the individual in

854
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: the case of a parent drone that has a camera

855
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: attached to it, you know what I'm talking about, or

856
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about a military program or CIA program.

857
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:56,240
Speaker 1: That level of responsibility is something that we cannot ignore

858
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: or take for granted. I really do believe that, And

859
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:01,839
Speaker 1: now I'm going to respon honsibly tie up the end

860
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 1: of this podcast by letting you guys know that if

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00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 1: you have anything you want to share with us. You

862
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: have a topic that you think we should tackle. Maybe

863
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: you have your own thoughts about the way that drones

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00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: are being used throughout the world. Maybe you want a pizza.

865
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: Let us know. We probably can't get a pizza to you,

866
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: but we're happy to listen and then chat back with you.

867
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: Send us a line over at tech Stuff at Discovery

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00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: dot com, or drop us a note on Facebook or Twitter.

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Speaker 1: You can find our handle there tech Stuff hs W.

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Speaker 1: And there's something else I always forget. It's oh right,

871
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: because I don't do that one. We has a tumbler

872
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 1: you did You did start it and then promptly forgot

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00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 1: that it even existed. Yes, ore tumbler handle is also

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00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:46,520
Speaker 1: tex Stuff HSW. Alright, so track us down and h

875
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: take us gently by the shoulder, look us in the eye,

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00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: and tell us what it is you want us to

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00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: to cover next, because we generally want to know. And

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00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,719
Speaker 1: Lauren and I will talk to you again really sick,

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00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:58,359
Speaker 1: by the way, just do that virtually. We don't really

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00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 1: want you coming up to us for more on this

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00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com.