WEBVTT - A Conversation With Shannon Morse 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:11.640 Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot com. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:16.200 Hey even everyone, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.599 and today I've got a very special treat. The lovely, 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.920 the talented, the intelligent, the amazing. Shannon Morse has agreed 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:31.160 to grace me with an interview. Shannon stole my heart 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.519 the first time I met her in two thousand thirteen 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.720 at c e S because we uh we met and 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.879 she immediately, instead of shaking my hand as I was 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:42.720 putting my hand out, gave me a big old hug. 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.280 How you doing, Shannon, I'm doing wonderful. I remember that 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.240 day so crystal clear. I just ran up to you 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:54.000 and I was like, John, hugs. It was wonderful. I mean, yo, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.160 not that I not that I want everyone at c 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.240 e S to do that to me, but it's in 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:05.200 a while. It's nice, ye Shannon. For all of my 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.839 listeners who are may not be familiar with your work, 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.920 can you give us like a rundown of all the 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.920 amazing stuff you do? Absolutely? Um So. Of course you 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.360 can always find me on Twitter. I'm snubs on there, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.280 but if you're really interested in checking out my podcast, 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.760 I started podcasting in two thousand eight, and I do 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.720 about uh five six shows now, well one's kind of 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.400 in the work, so I can't talk about that one 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.399 quite yet. But I'm also doing Hack five, which is 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.360 j K five. It's all about hacking and moning and 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.600 really interesting things that you can do with not only 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:42.040 software but hardware as well. We break and we reconstruct things. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.120 It's really fun. Lately we've been hanging out with drones. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.840 It's super, super enjoyable. And I also do a show 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.400 called tech Zilla. That one's more of a question the 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.919 answer show. We get a lot of viewers that email 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.760 us with tech questions, so we try to answer those, 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.960 and we also do some tech reviews as well. Lately 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.240 I've been reviewing reviewing a lot of cell phones and tablets, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.880 Go Figure. And last, but not least, of course, is 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.280 Coding one oh one, and that is a beginner's programming show. 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.160 We're not really there to take place of college courses, 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.240 but we're there to kind of give you a grasp 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:17.800 of what programming looks like, what different languages are available 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.440 to you, and get you excited about it. So we're 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.400 hoping to get younger people really excited about programming and 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:28.040 hopefully increase their experience in it when they actually delve 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.440 into it in college. That's about it. That's fantastic. And 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.280 I mean it's great because it's coming in a time 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.639 when I'm seeing kind of a resurgence in that interest 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.400 in coding and sharing the love of coding, because you know, 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.280 in the early eighties, I'm older than Shannon. In the 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.960 early eighties, when people were getting hold of things like 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.040 Texas instruments, computers, Apple the Apple to e was my 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.919 my baby. Uh. You know, we started learning basic programming, 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:02.080 truly basic programming programming in Bay sick and uh and 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.680 and it was something that kids could get into. And 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:09.200 then as time progressed, we started to see these programming 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.119 languages become more and more sophisticated and complex, and therefore 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.480 the barrier to entrigue became higher and higher, and so 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.040 for some people they felt discouraged getting into it because 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.160 it just seemed like even the first steps were far 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.600 too advanced for them to really understand and appreciate it. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.839 And I love seeing shows like yours, as well as 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.960 people working in the field to build hardware for folks 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.400 to practice coding on. Things of course, like like the 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:42.280 R do we know, micro controllers and the Raspberry pie um. 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.360 These are great tools that I love seeing because it 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.760 lets people get that foot in the door and then 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.160 build upon the knowledge that they they they are able 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:59.000 to um gain in those early days. So what got 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:04.000 you Channon interested in all of this? Oh? Man, can 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.080 I blame my dad? Well? We can. We can give 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.080 him credit. Will give him credit. Well, when I was 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.320 really little, the very first thing that was in my 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:18.560 nursery was a computer, and that was the eighties, so 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.280 I grew up with computers in my house. My dad 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.919 taught me how to build my first machine. He brought 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.919 me to this PC store in Indiana back when I 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.599 was a little kid, and I just thought it was amazing. 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.000 For me, it was like it was like Chucky Cheese 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.080 for nerds. It was so incredible with all the all 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.720 these pieces of ram just hanging out and all the 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.440 CPUs that you could choose from. It was just incredible 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.480 to me, and I got very excited to learn that, Like, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.840 it's not just the monitor that beholds what you can 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.000 do with a computer, but it's also all the insides 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:50.839 and how you can manipulate it to do all the 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.680 different things that you wanted to do, so he got 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.880 me interested in that. My mom got me interested in 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.880 theater because she basically forced me into it, and I 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.320 ended up falling in love with it. So I took 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.320 these two loves and I kind of combined them together 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.719 to start doing podcasting. So now I'm entertaining, but I'm 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:14.040 also trying to educate the masses about building computers, programming, 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.080 and hacking. So when you got into podcasting, that was, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.240 you know, that's not that far into when it was 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.040 really starting to take off. Uh, what was your experience 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.160 like when you first started? Um, it was kind of 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.080 weird because I didn't really work with a network or 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.240 anything like that. My my friends over at Hack five 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.160 were just like, Hey, you should come move in with us, 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.200 and I decided to because I was just out of 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.200 college and I didn't really have a job lying out 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:44.760 for me or anything. So I ended up moving out 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.679 there to Virginia, got a full time job at a 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.880 bank as a teller, which was really boring, and I 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.360 ended up doing this show Hack five pretty much at 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.520 like the middle of the night once a week for 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.240 us like a couple of years. When I first started 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:03.880 doing it, it was really weird. To me, it was 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:05.720 very awkward to be in front of a camera as 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:07.840 opposed to being in front of a theater audience because 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.560 there's a really big you know, it's a big difference. 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.800 You don't have that kind of interaction that you get 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.000 from theater. Yeah, there's no live feedback. You don't you 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.280 can't tell when you're doing well, and when you're not 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.240 doing well. You don't know when to amp up the 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.360 energy or maybe pull it back exactly, So you don't 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.240 you don't know if you're doing well until the shows 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.560 on YouTube and then you start seeing the comments. Well, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:33.240 and you can't judge your performance by YouTube comments. It 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.120 took me a long time to learn that, So, um, yeah, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:38.360 it was It was very interesting to me. It was 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.120 a little bit hard. Some of my first segments are 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.920 incredibly terrible, and I suggest that nobody go watch them, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.800 and now everybody's going to. But I think that I've 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.479 learned a lot. I've been doing it since uh two 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.599 thousand and eight, and I've I've had more than ten 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:59.919 thousand hours just on podcasting alone, whether that's researching for 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:01.640 are you saying or actually being in front of the 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.320 camera and doing it. So I feel like I'm starting 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.479 to get it now. Yeah. They say that your first 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.720 ten thousand hours are your hardest. Oh yeah, you know. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.280 I I think that's about three episodes of tech stuff. 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.640 I do tend to get a little long winded, but 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.120 on a more serious note, I am curious when you 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.680 get you know, you do these episodes about hacking and 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.200 about coding. You do all these shows, not just episodes, 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.880 but entire shows about it. What is your favorite programming 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:36.520 language that you've worked with so far? Oh man, I know, 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.600 it's like choosing your favorite kid. It is. Oh man, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:45.040 that's a hard one because they all have good aspects. Well, 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.880 so far, I've done Java, c sharp, Python, and Pearl, 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.680 and um, I think c sharp is my favorite. I 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.000 really like the syntax, I like the organization, and we 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:59.200 just started getting into object oriented programming with c sharp, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.400 and I found it really compelling because like I was 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.920 able to build applications with it. It's just so cool, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.520 and it's it's so much easier to use than some 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.320 of the other ones because like even the gooey just 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.200 tells you whenever you make an error, and it tells 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.760 you exactly what line it does it's on, So it's 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.840 a lot more helpful to beginners. And I still consider 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.120 myself a beginner programmer, so right now, yeah, C sharp 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.880 is my favorite. Alright, So then no, no, no, no 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.080 one should hate you for that. I think just saying 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.840 that gives people that insight to know that, you know, 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.720 if they're interested in just getting their toes wet, which 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.199 programming language would be a fun one to start off with, 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:43.080 one that really appeals to them. I always tell people that, 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.720 you know, it may take some some experimentation with different 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.840 ones to kind of see which ones click with your 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:53.760 thinking style. Yes, you know, people thinking very different ways, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.679 and the way I think it organized my thoughts, there 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.080 are certain languages that work really well, and then there 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.120 are other ones where I look get and I say, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.200 I don't know what this this gobbledygook is supposed to do, 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.040 so I can't tell you that it doesn't. And I 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.160 think that's why a lot of people make their favorites 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.600 when it comes to programming, is just we we all 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.880 think very differently. So psychologically, you might look at the 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.120 data and think it's completely confusing, while I look at 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.120 it and say, oh, yeah, that completely makes sense. Well, then, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.520 now that we've talked about the the the programming language side, 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.160 you know, like you you said, hacking is so much 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.480 more than writing code than writing computer programs. A lot 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:39.680 of us associate the word hacking with the idea of 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.880 of breaking into a system, which is obviously a very 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.480 narrow definition. In the old days, what hacking was all 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:51.280 about was that you wanted some technology to do something specific. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.440 It was not necessarily meant to do that. So you 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.720 had to figure out how to make the stuff you 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.079 have do the stuff you wanted to do, and you 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.200 would create a hack. You would you know, elegance was 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.320 not necessary. You didn't have to worry about looking pretty. 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.760 It just needed to work. And so there's some hackers 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.680 who may take a little extra time and a little 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.840 extra effort and a little extra baggage to get the 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.000 thing done. But the important thing is at the end 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.160 of the day, it does what you wanted to do. 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:22.880 So with that in mind, with the with hacking taking 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:28.040 into account physical things not just code, are there any 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:33.040 physical hacks that you found to be particularly interesting, something 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:38.199 that really fascinated you. Yes, I've been doing some really 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.200 cool hacks lately with something called software defined radio, and 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.000 it sounds like it's just software but it's not. You 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.720 take these physical antennas and most of them have USB, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.000 your micro USB connectors and them, so you can plug 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:55.079 them into your computer. And you can build different uh, 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.800 different length antennas to be able to pick up different 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.760 kinds of frequencies. Plug him in to these little um 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.480 R T L SDR dongles that you plug into your computer, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:07.559 and then you can start picking up all sorts of 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.480 different frequencies through your computer. As opposed to the old 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.559 school Ham radio operators where they had the really really 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.520 big machines, these cost you know, a fraction of the price, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.560 and you can also do it straight from your desktop 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:25.000 or from your laptop. So I've been lately, I've been 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.760 building a bunch of different antennas. I've learned how to 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.320 basically do the math behind antenna building, and it's really 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.120 really complicated. Yeah, it's complicated. You have to make sure 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.319 one wire is grounded and the other one is picking 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.720 up lots of frequency speeds and whatnot, and then you 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.680 have to make sure that you have at level and 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.920 it's perfectly straight so yet that your all your your 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.280 bandwidth is going out the correct directions. It's really weird, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.880 but I've been having so much fun with like tracking 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.560 airplanes and ships that are coming into the bay and 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.240 being able to One thing I really want to do 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.280 is build an antenna to pick up the weather satellites. Luckily, 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.280 all of this stuff is legal, So this is this 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.880 is hacking in a legal aspect because that's what I 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.280 like to do. Um. But yeah, this is my new 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.520 favorite thing. Yeah, this is well, this is all about 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.560 receiving information. It's not like you're beaming out something so that. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.480 Uh you know that weather satellite was supposed to be 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.800 over Nevada but instead it's in the Pacific Ocean. Do 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.720 you know anything about that? It's not like that I 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:30.400 can do that, but i'd have to be a ham 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:35.240 radio operator licensed. Well, what's what's interesting is that you know, 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.640 when you were mentioning the fact that the math behind 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.480 antenna's is so complex, I know that really. Well is 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.040 because way back in the day, when when we first 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.280 started doing the Tech Stuff podcast me and my original 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.760 co host Chris Pollett, one of the earliest requests we 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:57.600 ever got was how Cantanna's work. So we started looking 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.880 into it, and the more we looked into it, the 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:04.560 more desperate we begin to feel. And to this day, 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:09.839 that episode has never been recorded. So listeners, I'm just 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.720 gonna throw this out in the middle of the episode. 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.160 If you in fact want to hear how cantenna's work 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.480 and you are curious about the technology that nearly broke text, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.080 stuff right in and let me know, and I will 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.760 once again go back to the drawing board and attempt 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.160 to explain it. Because yeah, I mean, I feel a 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.880 little more confident than I did back in those days. 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.920 But even so, there's a there's there's a lot of 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.679 physics involved. There's a lot of things about the wavelength 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:39.920 of the radio waves that you're trying to pick up 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.480 and the relationship between the length of the antenna and 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.480 the wavelength. Yeah, yeah, because you have to have you know, 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.880 that's when you see these antenna that have that are 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.680 really really tall for certain types of wavelengths of radio waves, 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.720 because that's the efficient means of picking up that frequency, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.160 and it has to be a certain fraction of the 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.120 wavelength for you to be able to do that. Not 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:07.880 something that all of us can easily do. But that's fantastic. 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.880 I mean, I love I love this idea of of 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.640 of using modern technology to achieve something that in the 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:20.960 old days, a very small dedicated population had access to 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.360 but anyone outside of that it just remained completely foreign. 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:26.400 And so now you can just go out and get 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.320 the pieces. I figure, you know, when the zombie apocalypse 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.160 happens and there's a big E m F and we 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.800 have to make sure that, you know, we have a 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:41.240 Faraday cage protecting our ham radio operations. I'm just gonna 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.520 have this little intenda in a little USB cable in 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:45.480 my laptop. I'll stick those in a fair Day cage, 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:47.280 and after the E m F happens, I'll plug him 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.160 in and I'll be good to go. Yeah, it's it's 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:56.960 good to have someone cheerful about the zombie apocalypse. Well, 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.360 we have walkers here in Atlanta, so I mean, it's 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.560 just that's true. It's just a way of life here. 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:03.840 You know. You you know, you're on your way to 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.800 the train station, you've got to dodge an entire group 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.760 of zombies. I joke about it, but there was a 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.800 day when I could not get to my favorite diner 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.880 because there was a mob of zombies between me and 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.160 the diner. That's awesome. Yeah, that's the wonderful thing about 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.880 people actually shooting on location. Moving on to other tech questions, 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.080 I want to know you've you've been covering technology for 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.400 a really long time and in various ways. Are there 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:35.960 any particular stories in tech that you really felt were 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.720 important and either you feel they weren't given the appropriate 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.840 amount of attention or maybe you feel like it's faded 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.480 from memory and should be brought back. Oh, that's a 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.920 good question. Well, the first one is still kind of 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.000 in the news, and it's the whole Edward Snowden thing. Yes, 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.800 and there were there were a whole bunch of hacks 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.560 and a whole bunch of security issues. Wait before Edwards 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.440 Snowden him along, but he really brought a lot of 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.480 it to light for the public. And I think that 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.120 was really really important because a lot of the public 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.320 just doesn't care about their security, and now that this 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.120 is starting to become an issue, they're starting to pay 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.000 more attention to when they you know, when they connect 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.640 their phone to open wireless, or when they go to 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.800 the Starbucks and somebody and they give somebody their password 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.040 or whatever it might be. So I think that was 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.880 really important. And the second thing I'm really itching to 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.080 see more of in the tech Techisphere would be women 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.000 in tech news about women that are, you know, taking 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.480 over for companies like um, the woman that works at 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.880 Yeah who. That was a really really big news thing 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.840 and she got a lot of controversy when she first started, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.440 and most of it was just because she was a woman. Um. 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.440 I think it's really important to get more women into 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.880 working in tech, whether that's just reporting on it or 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.640 actually doing behind the scenes stuff like hacking and programming. 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.480 It's so so important to me that I'm able to 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:01.880 you know, watch this and report on it as it 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:07.280 comes along and hopefully it's good stuff that I'm reporting on. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:12.840 We've also taken a few stabs at covering those those uh, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.840 those stories as well, including I did an episode recently 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.320 where I brought in Kristen Conger of stuff. Mom never 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.760 told her. She's been. She's phenomenal. Right, yeah, you've done 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.040 You've done some um hangouts with her, right hangouts. She's 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.320 so funny, she is, she's hilarious and she really knows 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.720 her stuff. And she joined me and we had a 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.560 nice frank conversation about Anita Sarkeesian and her work with 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.320 the women versus our troops versus women in video games, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.359 and yeah it was. It's a fantastic episode. If you 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.320 guys haven't listened to it, you should definitely go and 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.239 check that out. Kristen makes some great points. Um, and 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.119 I fumbled my way through and uh, as is my want. 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:56.560 But that's why I feel the same way. I feel 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.840 very strongly about that, because I I am fortunate to 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.840 work in an office that is filled with some of 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.439 the most intelligent people I've ever had the luxury to know, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:13.439 and there men and women who are constantly keeping me 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.720 on my toes and to just see that and to say, 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.040 why is this? This is something that's just this is 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.280 the norm. This is actually normal, and a lot of 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.360 people don't end up appreciating that. So the folks who 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.960 do report on those stories to make sure that they 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.280 do get the attention they deserve, get my respect quite 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.399 a bit. So now you've said that you have to 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:41.000 talk a lot about tech reviews, you know, the kind 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.400 of things that you have to look at. Are there 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:48.920 any tech products that you felt, you know, were absolutely stellar, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.840 something that truly knocked your socks off? I mean, not 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:57.119 that it's an endorsement, I'm just curious. Yeah, there is, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.360 and it's gonna sound really cheesy, but there's these things 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:04.359 called the neco Mimi ears. Are these the ears that 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.000 react to your emotional status. So it sounds really cheesy. 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.760 This this is a kitty cat ears that perk up 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.720 if you're if you get if you're like, uh, become 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.879 suddenly alert you're you're mentally Yeah, So this is um 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.080 this is not a big surprise. It shouldn't. I'm obsessed 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.680 with anime and I love cats, so if I can 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.200 cause play as a cat, I'm perfectly fine with this, 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.280 especially if the ears move. So a lot of people 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.280 think that these things are totally fake, but I have some, 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:37.879 and I've warned them a lot, and I know that 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.840 you can. You can train them. You can you can 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.960 make your brain things certain things, and you'll figure out 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.440 what things that you think about that will make them 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.200 twitch or make them move softly and go to sleep. 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.720 I figured out that if I do math, they twitch nice. Yeah, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.200 it's I just think the the technology behind it is 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.320 really cool because they use the brain wave detector that 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.760 you put on your forehead as well as a little 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.679 one that you clip onto your ear, and it picks 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.320 up all sorts of different um you know, brain waves 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.200 that you're thinking about, so you can't really read your thoughts, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.960 but it can read how active your brain is. And uh, 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.159 it's not only like the ears that have been created 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.000 out of this, but also I went to the yeahoo 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.080 um campus about a year ago and there was a 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.280 really really cool uh display of this out in there, 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.160 just in their backyard. Basically, somebody had built a huge 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.800 like PVC piped ahead of a person, a human head, 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:38.399 but it was like ten ft tall and it was 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.199 really big and um. They lit it up with a 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:42.960 bunch of l d s and if you sit down 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.280 and put on the brain wave sensors, it would start 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.480 activating different l eds depending on how active your brain was. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.560 And it was such a huge display that you could 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.440 see it from really really far away and it would 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.240 just light up the entire the entire yard. It was beautiful. Really, 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.560 it's uh it reminds me actually of and I'm sure 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.800 you've you've heard of this too, people who are using 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.879 uh a similar set up, but instead of detecting brain waves, 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:15.919 they're trying to stimulate cognitive abilities by using light electrical current. 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.520 And it's the same sort of thing. You have one 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.880 one like sponge with an electrode in it that's over 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.879 essentially over uh, not quite over on your temple, but 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.479 sort of over your eyebrow, and another one that is 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.800 closer to your temple on the other side, and UH 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:37.320 you use that to stimulate your your brains activity, and 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:43.080 anecdotal UH responses say that helps boost things like, uh, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:47.080 your your mental acuity, and um, of course this sort 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.960 of thing I should, I should add is something you 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:54.040 want to be careful with. And I would not recommend 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:56.159 any of my listeners actually rush out and try and 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.800 do this. I did. Ah. I have another show called 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.359 Forward Thinking where UH Joe McCormick and I talked about 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.199 it and UH and he's he's the one of the 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.199 writers for the Forward Thinking Show, and he and I 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.040 and and my former co host Lauren we all talked 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.160 about this stuff and they were shocked when I said, yeah, 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.560 I I might try this, and they all thought you 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:21.359 were crazy, isn't you should? So now now that we've 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:23.760 talked about some of the stuff you've done since you 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:27.560