WEBVTT - What are tinnovators? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:17.000 from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.000 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Bryant, who is with me 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:21.840 is always. I don't know what I'd do without each 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:27.480 other man. Seriously, it'd be like having um a conjoined twins, separated, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.040 one that has its head into still alive. You were 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:31.840 being mean to me seconds before he went on, and 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:33.960 then he butter me up right when in front of people. 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.200 In front of people, you have hundreds of thousands of people. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:40.200 I'm secretly very abusive to you behind closed doors, aren't Yeah, 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:45.280 so chuck, Yes, my fellow ian f er. Oh yeah, 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.800 we took the Myers Briggs personality tests. Pretty cool. We 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.599 are again like conjoined twins, except for the distinction of 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.680 the P and the J. I'm a perceiver, you're a judger, right, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.240 and I think we compliment each other well in that regard. 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.120 I agree. I'd actually like to do a podcast on 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.120 that test. Let's do it. I think we should do. 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:03.400 We haven't do you know if we have an article 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.320 on that? Oh, we'll just make stuff up. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:07.760 I totally want to do it though. I found it 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.000 really fascinating and I did not think I would, and 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:11.959 I was. I was into it. So maybe we can 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.360 work swimming with whale sharks into that somehow too. Who're 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.240 just doing podcasts now based on personal experiences around the 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.320 office Tomorrow is going to be called ham and Eggs 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:26.080 for breakfast. So, speaking of around the office, Chuckers, as 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.200 you know, we have a bunch of new, kind of 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:33.400 cool articles about um al toys on the site. Who 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.640 to thunk It? Yeah, the curiously strong mint. She took 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.080 my line, I'll kill you. So yeah, We've got a 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.520 whole suite of articles. We have like a sub channel 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.640 in the science channel that's dedicated to Altoy's really yeah, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:49.600 have you been on you haven't been on it? Now? 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.360 I wrote a few of them now. The final products 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.120 look pretty good though, all right, I think so. The focus, 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:58.480 as you know, since you have written some, was on 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:04.560 this stre range little group of people called tent evaders. Right, yes, well, 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:09.560 let's talk about them a minute. First, let's discuss candy. Okay, yeah, 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.120 it sounds good talk about al twits, Chuckers. Do you 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:13.760 have candy in your mouth now like you did during 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.200 the Twinkies show. I know, let's let's address that show. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.000 We Yeah, we got a few letters that came in 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.519 that said, what was Josh eating during the twinkiespot? Even worse, 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.799 why was Josh eating? Yeah? It sounded like he had 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.000 a Werther's in his mouth or something, or candy and yeah, 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.920 one guy guess whethers are Jolly ranchers. Not true, Josh 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.320 didn't have anything in his mouth, and we've surmised that 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.919 because we're talking about twinkies. He was just frothy, and uh, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.240 it's weird. I went back and listened to it, and 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.240 I definitely sound like I'm chewing on something. But no, 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.000 I think I just really wanted a twinkie. I guess 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.080 you were too cheap to pick them up, weren't you. Right. Yeah, So, 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.040 just to let people know we're slightly more professional than 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.640 to suck on candy while we're trying to podcast despite 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.800 our illustrious surroundings. Rightly, although we do have jolly, we 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:58.760 have candy on our desk, and we we avoid it 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.280 during I think Jerry would literally murder us if we 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:06.520 just started eating candy during a podcast. Yeah, so um, yes, 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.079 I think I might salivate again. Okay, alright, So Chuck, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.520 did you know that altoids, these these little mints date 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.079 back to the reign of King George the Third, who 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.440 is the mad king who drove the colonists to revolt 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.680 seventeen eighty. Dude, people have been sucking on these mints. Also, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.240 did you know that King George may have had a perphyria? 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.760 And what is that? It's um, it's what's it called. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.440 There's acute intermittent perfyria, which is I think when they 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:41.320 think King George had it's a congenital disease where porphyrins. 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.400 I can't remember what they do. I think they get 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.040 rid of waste build up in your blood stream, in 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.080 your system, and uh, it can get kind of bad. 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.280 It can have um effects on the nervous system. You 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.680 can have psychological effects, which is why they think King 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.280 George was mad. Um. And the stomach cramping is unpara level. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.200 It's really horrible stuff. But the prefer you might be 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.640 most acquainted with. I can't remember what it's called, but um, 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.320 it's it's where your photo sensitive. You can't go out 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.080 into sunlight, you can't be exposed it's sunlight. It was 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.200 featured in the others you ever see that one? Um. 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.960 And also that's where they think the vampire legend, or 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.200 that aspect of the vampire legend came from, was from 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.520 people who had I thought you're gonna say, given bad 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.800 breath or something. That's why they created Altoid. And I 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.920 think that was consumption, yeah, which was pretty big around 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.760 seventeen eighty, which is when they were first created, right, Yeah, 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.560 and that's always by the way, we mentioned the curiously 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.520 strong man. That was their slogan from day one. Yeah, 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.800 because they use real peppermint oil and lots of copious 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.679 amounts of it's hardcore stuff. Oh yeah, as anyone who's 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.320 ever had an Altoid knows. Yeah, it does a trick though. Yeah. So, um, 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:54.320 in America, we in America, we love uh to attach 0:04:54.800 --> 0:05:01.640 weird pop stuff to candy to food, like he's kool Aid, which, 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:03.640 by the way, we should probably make that correction to 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.479 while we're at it. It wasn't kool Aid at Jonestown. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.239 It turns out it was flavor Aid. I've done some terrible, 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.160 terrible things in my life. I don't I've never felt 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.000 more ashamed than I do for missing that really Yeah, well, 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.320 you know, like I told the hundreds of people that 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.800 wrote in and corrected us on that, sure it was 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.360 flavor Aid, but unfortunately for kool Aid. What matters is 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.359 what people think of and remember and don't drink, and 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.280 the kool Aid is what people remember. I don't even 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.000 know if unfortunately is the right word. It could be fortunate. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.440 I'm not sure about it. How's Flavoride's market share doing 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:40.359 since jonestown exactly? And and so basically in America, we 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.240 don't just eat things like we eat things and then 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.320 turn them into cultural phenomena but icons, right exactly. So 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.840 altoids isn't any different. Um, And it's not necessarily the mint, 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:55.640 although I agreed they are curiously strong. Um, it's the 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.320 tin that seems to like really get people's juices going, 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.920 you know. I mean, who out there hasn't had altois 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.800 at some point and saved the tin and kept you know, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.360 paper clips or spare buttons or rubber bands or something 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.480 in them. I don't know who. I at my house, Fuller, 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.440 Jimmy Fuller at home right now, I have a couple 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.360 of altoys tins on my desk with assorted, Uh, little knickknacks. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.800 because it's you know, it's it's perfect size, it is convenient, 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.760 snap shut, and I think that's what led this whole 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:30.560 tentovation thing. Well yeah, technically that makes you a tinovator 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.159 is exactly what I was gonna say. But a tinovator nonetheless, 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.960 which I guess we should define this a tentovator um 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.920 as we've turned up through our research as somebody who 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.280 um finds new and novel uses for old altoits tins. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:47.720 It's as simple as that, and it can be as 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.280 simple as throwing rubber bands in an old tin. But 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.760 some people have come up with much more advanced projects 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.080 of them that that that involved an nodes and electrodes 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.200 and weird stuff that I would electrocute myself trying. So 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.960 should we talk about ten evators? I don't see why 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.360 should we talk about these people? Yeah? Who you want 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.800 to talk about first? Because we did? I have to say, Chuck, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.200 this could have gone either way, this assignment writing these articles. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.160 But the but the people that we ran across, at 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.320 least the ones I wrote on, we're generally really interesting. 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.560 They were interesting people and the stuff they came up 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.720 with was very interesting, very creative, which I was very 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.760 thankful for. Let's start with Jake von Slat. Yes, let's 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.760 steam punk steampunk guy. Um. For those of you who 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.400 don't know what steampunk is, it's kind of this um 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.760 subculture movement that's based out of this sub genre, like 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:45.800 sub sub of speculative fiction that centers around the Victorian 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.760 era and all like the fantastic contraptions that like Jules 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.960 Verne and H. G. Wells came up with, right, so, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.120 like throwback stuff that's in fact kind of futuristic, right so. Um. 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.000 Jake von Slat came up with one of the most 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:03.600 recognizable steampunk relics at her, which is the steampunk desktop computer. Ude. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.040 Have you ever seen it? It's wicked cool. Have you 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.640 read the article that Jay strick wrote Jonathan Strickland, our 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.960 writer called the Stamfellow Podcaster. We have a cool, cool 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.280 article that's just on steampunk on the site. I think 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:18.960 it's pretty cool. I would never get caught up in 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.960 something like that because any any movement where you're dressing 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.360 up and going to events, it's not really up my alley. 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:27.760 But I like to look at them when they walk 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.480 by me on the way to their convention. Sure yeah, um, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.959 I'm more into first suiting, but I can see how 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.920 somebody would, you know, uh, get into steampunk. It's it's 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.000 interesting even looking from the outside in. But Jake fon 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:45.280 Slat is kind of the a de facto godfather steampunk. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.959 But it also happens to be a tent evator too, right, right, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.240 so he makes a little steampunk tens. Now that he 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.000 sells the too right, I don't know if he sells him. 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.559 I think it's he's there's there's kind of um. One 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.680 of the things that goes along with Altoyd's almost like 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.400 almost across the board is that, um it's open source. 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.000 So like Jake von Slat like puts instructions on how 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.240 to do his projects up for free on his website, 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.880 which I think is called steampunk workshop dot com, which 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.120 is really cool if you ever ever tooled around on it. 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.400 Um and also some of the other people will talk about, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.200 especially to do it yourself electronic electronic folks. There's kind 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.160 of this sentiment like I created this project and I 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:32.679 want to share it with the world, and here's how 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.040 you can do it step by step, which is really 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.840 big about sharing it seem like sort of a community, 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.400 and there a couple of the guys I interviewed had 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.839 um guys and gals had gotten in touch with other tentivators, 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.439 and I'm kind of surprised they don't have a little, 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.319 uh a little mini convention at some point. Oh yeah, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.760 just wait for it. It'll happen. We'll go. Yeah, well, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.880 just as a chipmunk and a rabbit and go to 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.880 the convention. Yeah. So, do you want to explain how 0:09:58.200 --> 0:09:59.360 how he does this or do you just want to 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.120 kind of give you what what? Von Slack came up, 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:03.719 but this is just one of his projects. He has 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.520 other altoyds Um projects too. Um. Since he steampunk, he's 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.319 being into Victorian stuff. So he shows an etching, a 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.960 copper plated etching, and um, I was on his site 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.079 just kind of getting the gist of it so I 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.160 could explain it in the article on him. It's called 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:24.480 how to make a Steampunk altoids tin um, and he 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:29.720 goes through all these really elaborate um techniques to copper 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.960 plate an altoids tin pretty advanced and somewhat dangerous. It is, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.559 it's very dangerous. He's using acids and chemicals and like hardcore. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:44.280 Um a POxy removers electricity and water together, yeah, which 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.280 is always a little fun. Yeah. I actually when I 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:48.960 when I wrote it, I copied and pasted the couple 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.240 of paragraphs describing that part and send it to him 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.200 to see. Like I said, I don't want any of 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.520 our readers to be electrocuted. Because he told me if 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.920 this is accurate, and he wrote back he's like, here's 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:00.720 a here's a much simpler way to do it. So basically, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.680 through trial and error he came up with the simplest method, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.520 which was good for me because I could comprehend it 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.760 and wrote about it. So basically what he does was 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.680 he takes um what is it? He calls it blue vitriol, 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.200 which is the Victorian era word for or phrase term 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.959 for copper sulfate. Right, so he uses the terminology to 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.480 the lang. Yeah. Yeah, actually he's steampunk to the core, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.360 buddy um. But anyway, he takes us and and just 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.520 with a with a Q tip, he dips it in 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.280 um the copper sulfate, rubs it on the back of 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.880 an Altoy's ten that's been stripped of its paint and 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.600 buffed and everything um, and it turns copper and copper 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.280 plates it like that. It looks really cool. Yeah it does. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.480 But that's not the end of it, right, So he 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:51.040 takes like a Victorian etching, like well a digital image 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.720 of digital like just something off the internet exactly, and 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.959 then he prints it out on like a transfer paper 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.280 like pressing peel or something. What do they call pressing 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:03.440 peel in Victorian era? You know? Know? So not that though, buddy, Yeah, 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.800 maybe was that my Victorian era lady? Was it? Really? Yeah? 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.679 I thought that was Eleanor Roosevelt. I think it was. Um. 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.480 So he'll take the transfer paper, put it onto the 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:18.160 back of the newly copper plated altoy's tin, and and yeah, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.760 here's where it gets very dangerous. Right, here's where electricity 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.960 comes into play. So he gets a twelve L one 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:29.120 amp d C wall mounted transformer, right, pulls one out 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.640 of his pocket. It's it's probably steam powered, um, And 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.640 he he clips the positive side to the altoy tin 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.000 he wants to etch. He clips the negative side to 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.000 like a dummy altoy tin to throw away one. And 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.120 then yeah, he drops it into a salt water solution. 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:49.400 He said, one teaspoon of salt for every quart of 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.880 water and I got the impression he wanted at least 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:56.040 a gallon enough to to submerge the altoys. Tin throws 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.720 it in there, turns on the power weights ten to 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.760 twenty minutes, turns off the power this is very important, 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:04.839 reaches in right, and then removes it. And also I 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.160 saw a picture of it's cool like the the water 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.720 starts bubbling. In terms of dark. Yeah, it's pretty cool looking. 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:12.880 So he turns the power off and then takes it 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.720 out and he uh, he scuffs off the transfer paper 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.720 and it's been etched into the metal, so into this 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.480 copperplated metal. He buts it, adds some rouge buffs, it 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:26.280 brings it to a high shine. There you go, such 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.680 a cool product. It is really cool. And I mean 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.600 again in the article, just from what I wrote, you 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.000 can do it. Uh. In all the articles we included 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.760 how to make your own of what these people made, 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.960 because like it's open source. Um. But yeah, if you 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.679 if you really want like detailed instructions, you can go 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:46.800 into his site too. Well. I think the fact that 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.720 they with all of these I noticed it was the 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.160 fact that it was an altoid sin is what got attention. 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.199 Basically because I did one on this kid, Nick Brand 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.160 who makes a little mini flashlights from the little small 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.400 I think it's the m tin and he sells these 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.640 kids online and kind of like your guy Aaron Dunlap 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.720 to who does the USB charger and Nick brnn with 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:10.559 a flashlight. The fact, the mere fact that it was 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.120 an Altoids tin made people go, oh, man, I gotta 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.040 have one of those, because it's really nothing more than 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.160 a little small, tiny flashlight you can put in your pocket, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.280 like the little plastic once you can get at the 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.520 gas station checkout line for nine nine cents. But it's 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.840 an outoid stin so it's cool. Yeah, yeah, that's Dunlap 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.800 said that, uh what he created his USB charger UM 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.240 just out of necessity he wanted he wanted. Uh. It 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.960 uses a nine volt battery like a dollar apiece UM, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.880 and he added the USB charger in the connector and 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.320 all that stuff and he just he connects his smartphone 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.600 to it and it gives it like sixty minutes of 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:48.920 talking time or four hours of standby just from one 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.280 nine volt battery, which is cool. He also makes kits 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.160 and sells them, and he said he had some left 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.560 over UM from his first project. That's why he put 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.360 kids together to sell them. Um and he said that 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.320 had he chosen just a plain old office sheelf metal enclosure, 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.720 he suspects he'd still be trying to sell the first 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.840 twenty five, but instead he sold thousands and actually founded 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.880 a company called the Electroids Company just to handle the order. 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.440 He got picked up on like dig and Boing boying, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:19.960 and he said it was the it was the allure 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.720 of the altoys, did it? Yeah? What is it about 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.640 the tin? Well? I think Well, I interviewed Nick Brand 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.000 and this other guy, Matthew Poech She does uh, he 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.320 does a speaker like you can plug your iPod into 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.360 this Altoids tin and play your music out loud because 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.400 he's drilled little holes like a speaker grill on the 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:39.680 top of what's it called the Minty Boost? No, no, no no, 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.960 that's it's called speaker Okay, Because there is an altoys project. 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:48.200 It's a legendary altoy project by um Leemore Freed, who 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.280 I haven't met her interview, but he he seems to 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.040 be kind of like this d I y Altoid's electronics guru. 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.160 Um and he came up with the Minty Boost, a 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.280 lot of people tip their hats to him or I 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.280 think I think you're steampunk guy kind of takes it 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.520 to the next level personally. Well, when you're etching a 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.880 Victorian era stuff, that's pretty cool. Yeah, he's a he's 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.680 a sub subgenre guy or a sub subculture guy. He's 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.680 a steampunk altoys tent evator, which it doesn't get more 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:17.840 niche than that. I don't think I had another actually 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:19.640 one of my guys too. A lot of there's kind 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.480 of two camps. You can either be artistic and like 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:24.520 we've seen some cool like shadow boxes and I know 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.280 one of your uh the ladies you wrote about that 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.760 a zen garden, which is kind of cool, and then 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:32.560 the other side of the coin is people that do 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:37.520 um a more useful thing like flashlight speakers, USB chargers, 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.800 that kind of thing. Right, Yeah, there's there's an artistic 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.880 side and then there's like a technical side. But the 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.120 artistic side, dude, I've got the man who I wrote, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.720 David's Alban He actually does fine art and makes big 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.880 dough so what's album does. He actually uses the tens 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.720 as his canvas, so he will mount tens, you know, 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.240 pressed against one another. I'd buy side and at whatever 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.200 a four ft by four ft frame and actually paint 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.600 over them all. So what you have is as a 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:11.040 complete finished painting in small little blocks, almost like a mosaic. Yeah. 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.240 I haven't seen this stuff. Yeah, he's based out of Miami. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.720 And the articles up on the site yet. Uh my 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.600 speaker article is, and the flashlight article is, and the 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.920 fine art article is cool, and the shadow box article. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.240 We'll check it out. Man. Lots of tentivators, I know, 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.040 I wrote at least ten, I think really. Yeah. So 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.280 there's a bunch of stuff about tentivators and how to 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.040 undertake their projects and if it was too involved, we 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.440 just kind of kicked it to a site like instructibles 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.600 dot com. Yeah that's a great site. Oh yeah yeah, 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.840 very in depth detail stuff. So you can buy some 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.480 of these kids too, if you're too lazy to do 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.040 it yourself, yeah yeah, or the kit you kind of 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.840 have to put together yourself. So that's fun, good projects 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.720 for kids. Yeah. And when there was another guy named 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.040 Matthew Pogue who came up with the Swiss AVR knife. Well, 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.480 and he's a saying guy that as a speaker. No, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:03.040 he he made his speaker based on Lemore Freeds Minty Boost. 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.719 So he's like he was just training himself in the 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.480 art of UM do it yourself electronics based on other projects. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.760 But he's also a tent invator as well, and he 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.520 came up with the Swiss AVR knife, which uses an 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.640 a VR chip. It's like, uh, I think eight bit 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.440 processor something like that, UM, and you can program and 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.320 it's reprogrammable because it uses onboard flash memory. But UM 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.800 using a little sound output device and some little LED lights. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.040 It goes through all these different UM mechanisms like the 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.840 mini menorah, so like all the LED lights light up 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:42.120 or um there's the uh, what's it called this noisemaker 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.480 and it just makes all these different digitized sounds that 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.560 fans of craft work would really appreciate that one. UM. 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.320 But there's a lot of people are putting a lot 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.159 of thought into altoids tunes. It makes I feel like 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:57.960 I'm wasting my life, you know. Well, let's go get 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.000 some altoids and empty them out and start painting on 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.320 them or something. Let's do that, Chuck. Let's do some 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.680 folk art. Okay, yeah, it's the easiest kind of art 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.760 I believe, so yes, well, Chuck, that's tinovators. If you 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.760 want to read more about tinivation. Uh. As we said, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:14.720 we have a ton of articles on the site. You 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.359 can find those just by typing altoys I imagine into 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.200 the handy search bar and how stuff works dot com. 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.639 Since I just said that, that means it's time for 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.520 listener mail. Yes, Josh, we gotta listener mail. I'm just 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.840 gonna call America's Funny Some Videos. Oh, I like this one. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:33.760 They took a bit of ribbing from us for me 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.280 specifically in this are Stupid People Happier? Because I put 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.359 that show at the very bottom of the food chain 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.120 comedy wise. Getting kicked in the groin? Yeah, what's funnier? 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.520 So this comes from Jason. Jason says, I just listened 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.920 to your podcast Stupid People Happier, and I loved it, 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.840 especially the part about the America's Funny Some Videos. I 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.960 thought you might be interested to know something that most 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.960 people don't know about laughter. The following excerpt about how 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.040 jokes work applies equally well to the a f V videos. 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.560 And this is from the Definitive Book of Body Language. 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.280 That's what he quoted. The basis of most jokes is 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.480 that at the punch line, something disastrous or painful happens 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.240 to someone. In effect, the unexpected ending frightens our brain 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.520 and we laugh with sounds similar to a chimp warning 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.280 others of imminent dancture. Even though we consciously know that 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.520 the joke is not a real event, our laugh releases 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:32.920 endorphins for self anesthesis as if the joke the word event. No, 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.520 that's a real word. If it is a real event, 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.040 we may go into crying mode, and the body would 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.320 also release endorphins. Crying is often an extension of laughing 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.320 about a laughing about, and is why in a serious 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.760 emotional crisis, such as hearing about a death, a person 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:53.400 who cannot mentally accept the death may begin laughing. Yeah, 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.120 it's interesting, it's right on the money. When the reality hits, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.119 the laughter turns into crying. So there you have it. 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.239 To be a dude get kicked in the groin and 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.240 it's funny. That explains it all. Yeah, so I guess 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.400 I am the stupid person. Yeah, the joke is on me, Chuck. 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:10.600 You're pretty far from stupid. And I think the only 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:11.960 way to end this is for you to keep me 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.840 in the groin. I I will do that. Come here. 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.560 Only way to come stand right here? No way right? Well, 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.960 I feel like plugging a few things. Look at you? Okay, So, Chuck, 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.399 We've got two pages on our face on Facebook. There's 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.280