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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pillette, and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usually as senior writer Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: father wears his Sunday best mother's tired, she needs arrest.

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Speaker 1: The kids are playing up downstairs. I never could get

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Speaker 1: that line. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. I have

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Speaker 1: a feeling madness. I tell you madness. I figure it's

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Speaker 1: a colloquialism, but I'll settle for that. Sott. Yes, you

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Speaker 1: happen to know who lives at eighteen thirty five seventy

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Speaker 1: three Avenue, Northeast, Medina, Washington. Well I do, but I'll

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Speaker 1: pretend I don't know who that would be. Bill Gates. Ah, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates, the billionaire, the founder of Microsoft, the amazing philanthropist.

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Speaker 1: I mean his philanthropic efforts have been phenomenal. That that's

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Speaker 1: just me being genuine. The guy has given billions of

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Speaker 1: dollars to charities. I'm sorry when you say phenomenal, I

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Speaker 1: start singing phenomena in my head. So so we had

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Speaker 1: some people right in on both Facebook and an email

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Speaker 1: over well pretty much since we've done our did our

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Speaker 1: episode about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Ages and Ages ago.

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Speaker 1: You guys might not remember those, but we did a

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Speaker 1: pair of podcasts about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates because

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Speaker 1: the two have very interesting parallel lives. The development of

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Speaker 1: Microsoft in the development of Apple have almost the same

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Speaker 1: timeline but very different pathways. Anyway, we had several people

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Speaker 1: right in and say, Hey, I heard that Bill Gates

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Speaker 1: has this really cool house and it's really technologically advanced,

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Speaker 1: and I want to know more about it. So we

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Speaker 1: did some digging and we've got some information. Now we

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Speaker 1: should point out that neither of us have been to

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates's house. Nope, and neither has Tyler. Tyler, you

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Speaker 1: haven't been, have you? Okay that Tyler just said he

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Speaker 1: has not been. Um, Josh and Chuck, strangely enough, have

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Speaker 1: yet to go to Bill Gates's house, but that could

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Speaker 1: change by the time this podcast goes live. Anyway. Um,

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Speaker 1: what we do know we know from various articles. One

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Speaker 1: big one was in u S News and World Report. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I hadn't actually read that article before doing research on it,

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Speaker 1: and it is a few years old now. Um, but

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Speaker 1: they do give you an idea. They even have some

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Speaker 1: illustrations of what the house looks like. Of course there

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Speaker 1: are photos, um, mostly you know, taken either from a

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Speaker 1: boat from Lake Washington or from an airplane flying over

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Speaker 1: our helicopter flying over the estate. Yes. Yes, his pool

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Speaker 1: house is bigger than my house. Yeah, that was one

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Speaker 1: of the interesting notes I read repeatedly across various websites.

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Speaker 1: I should also say that kudos to U. S. News

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Speaker 1: and World Report because you created an article that has

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Speaker 1: been plagiarized widely on the internet. Um. That is a

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Speaker 1: problem when you're looking for multiple sources of information. Chris

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Speaker 1: and I were looking through lots and lots of different

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Speaker 1: sources and we kept coming across the same paragraphs, I mean,

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Speaker 1: exactly the same word for word, with the same titles

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Speaker 1: and everything. And I'm thinking, where the heck that was

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Speaker 1: Which one of these was the first? And it turns

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Speaker 1: out it was this U. S. News and World Report article. Um.

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Speaker 1: I had actually originally read about this his house in

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Speaker 1: a Sky magazine article years and years ago, but the Uh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the the whole size of it is enormous. According to

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Speaker 1: that U. S. News and World Report article, if you

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Speaker 1: add up all the buildings, because there are several on

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Speaker 1: his on his estate, if you add up all the buildings,

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Speaker 1: you get to about sixties six thousand square feet of building. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the average home is around two thousand square feet, yes,

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Speaker 1: which is still larger than my house. Yeah, but you know, yes,

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Speaker 1: and his garage is like three times as large as

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Speaker 1: the average house. Yes, it's silver six thousand square free

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Speaker 1: actually one of his one of his garages. He has

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Speaker 1: three of them, all right, So look we're jumping ahead

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Speaker 1: of ourselves, so let's give you a quick overview. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: sixty six thousand square feet of residents if you add

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Speaker 1: up all the buildings together, which U. S. News and

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Speaker 1: World Report is very helpfully points out. Rather, they point

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Speaker 1: out helpfully that, um, that's one point five acres one

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Speaker 1: of half acres of just rooms. And uh it has

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Speaker 1: seven bedrooms, twenty four bathrooms including ten full baths, six kitchens,

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Speaker 1: and six fireplaces. So yeah, this is uh it's on

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Speaker 1: Lake Washington. Um. If you were to get in a

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Speaker 1: boat and go from Seattle across the lake. You would

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Speaker 1: eventually hit his his house and then be very politely

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Speaker 1: escorted off property, assuming you weren't invited. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: certain that he's very hospitable towards invited guests, but the

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Speaker 1: uninvited type, I assume we meet a a friendly but

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Speaker 1: stiff resistance. That's just me guessing. I have not tried

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Speaker 1: to get into Bill Gates's house. I learned my lesson

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Speaker 1: after going to Coubertino. Uh, that's a that's a joke.

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Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get into Steve jobs This house either.

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Speaker 1: He actually has Between the two would be more frightened

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Speaker 1: of Jobs. Um. Yeah, there's approximately ft of waterfront for

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Speaker 1: the property, which costs around twenty five thousand dollars a foot.

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Speaker 1: As I recall, I read an interview where he he

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Speaker 1: specifically pointed that out. It was kind of interesting. It's

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Speaker 1: built into a hillside. So the while there are there

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Speaker 1: is this huge square footage involved, most of that is

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Speaker 1: not visible or a good portion of it is invisible

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Speaker 1: because it's built into a hillside. Um, and that was

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Speaker 1: partly in order to improve energy efficiency. It was actually

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Speaker 1: thoughtfully done. It was like, you don't I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: this enormous estate, but I want to do it in

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Speaker 1: a way that is responsible. Yeah, there are there are

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Speaker 1: signs that heat. Uh. And the developers took developers, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: it just hit me. Um, they took some pains to

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Speaker 1: make it green, or at least greener than than you

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Speaker 1: might expect for such a large place, and including the

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Speaker 1: fact that there's an estuary, which is uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's an artificial stream and wetland area. Um designed basically

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Speaker 1: there there's some there are some retaining walls around the house. Um,

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Speaker 1: and there's some water runoff and the estuary is designed

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Speaker 1: to mitigate that somewhat. Yeah. Actually, one of the architects

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Speaker 1: and designers for his estate, Jim Cutler, was the one

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Speaker 1: to convince Bill Gates to include the wetlands as part

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Speaker 1: of the design in order to mitigate that runoff problem

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Speaker 1: that you mentioned. And according to an interview I read, uh,

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Speaker 1: Cutler said that it took it took some convincing because

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates pointed out that waterfront property and around Seattle

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Speaker 1: is very expensive. He said, well, I paid for this

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Speaker 1: waterfront property. You want me to turn into a swamp.

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Speaker 1: Cutler said, well, this is a way for you to

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Speaker 1: connect back to the world. It's a way for you

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Speaker 1: to provide a disappearing resource because more and more people

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Speaker 1: are building homes along the lake and destroying the natural wetlands.

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Speaker 1: This will create wet lands that will allow salmon to spawn.

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Speaker 1: It will allow wildlife to come back into the area.

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Speaker 1: And according to Cutler, he says that the wet lands

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Speaker 1: is now Bill Gates. One of Bill Gates's favorite UM

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Speaker 1: parts What favorite features of his of his home? Pretty cool? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Color also had a couple of other interesting things to say. Um.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, the a lot of the house. The

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Speaker 1: house is made up of various materials, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of the the wood of the house is a Douglas

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Speaker 1: fur that's recycled. It actually comes from an old warehouse

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Speaker 1: and lumber mill. And when Cutler talked to Bill Gates

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Speaker 1: about this, back when they were first talking about building

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Speaker 1: the house, that was when you may have heard about

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Speaker 1: the spotted owls. You remember that the spot owls in

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Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest they were in uh they were in

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Speaker 1: danger because their habitat was being destroyed in lumbering lumbering.

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Speaker 1: In lumber lumber yards, people were cutting down the trees

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Speaker 1: that the spot owls were living in and because we're

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Speaker 1: you know, walking very heavily through there and it was destructing. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they were lumbering through. That was that was my mistake,

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Speaker 1: and I'm glad that we managed to have to highlight it. Um.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't bother me at all. I do it all

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Speaker 1: the time. So at any rate, you know, I just

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Speaker 1: love the mental picture. It is pretty funny. I think

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Speaker 1: these lumbering owls. Actually, I just imagined these enormous ones.

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Speaker 1: At any rate, let's get back to the topic at hand,

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Speaker 1: uh cutler. Bill Gates really wanted the Douglas fur as

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Speaker 1: part of the wood being you and Color said, well,

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Speaker 1: you know it's we got to find a way to

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Speaker 1: do this in a responsible manner and found a guy

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Speaker 1: who sold um reclaimed would essentially recycled wood, and told

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates, hey, if we if if you buy, if

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Speaker 1: you build a sawmill to in order to uh to

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Speaker 1: um produce this repurposed wood and you know, cut it

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Speaker 1: down to the right size and everything, we could build

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Speaker 1: your house out of it. And Bill Gates thought this

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Speaker 1: was actually a great idea, and he set up a

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Speaker 1: sawmill for salvage lumber. It was called g. R. Plume

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Speaker 1: and Company and Corey to Cutler. It costs a couple

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Speaker 1: of million dollars to build, and Bill Gates funded it.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't you know, it was not just to

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Speaker 1: build his house. It's also the idea of being able

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Speaker 1: to reuse wood so that you don't have to cut down,

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Speaker 1: you know, adult trees. That's pretty phenomenal too. I think, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that that is um and I ironically enough, I

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Speaker 1: guess in the way of the the Douglas fur that

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Speaker 1: is used in Mr. Gates house, uh comes. It's five

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Speaker 1: years old apparently, um, but it came from an ancient

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Speaker 1: lumber mill. Uh so, and as part of the construction

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Speaker 1: process they really polished it up and made it look

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Speaker 1: really really nice. Um. The house, by the way, is

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Speaker 1: in a large style, um so they used that in

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Speaker 1: a stainless steel roof, and uh they made the hardware.

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Speaker 1: They analyzed the hardware, so all the the metal furnished

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Speaker 1: UM finishings basically look sort of used but are still

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Speaker 1: you know, very very up to date. Yep. It's got

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of like the above ground parts, any

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Speaker 1: we have lots of glass that kind of most of

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Speaker 1: the windows face west so that you get the beautiful

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Speaker 1: sunsets over Seattle. And then, uh, the the house itself

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Speaker 1: has a very sophisticated computer system running all the way

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Speaker 1: through it. This is probably what most of our fans

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Speaker 1: were curious about, was the computer system running on are

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Speaker 1: in the house. Yeah. Um, it turns out this is

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Speaker 1: a what we know of. It sounds like it's pretty sophisticated,

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Speaker 1: pretty cool idea. And actually, Chris, you pointed out a

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Speaker 1: few episodes ago and a neat update that the house

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Speaker 1: could have using the the software from Connect, the capabilities

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Speaker 1: of Connect. But we'll we'll get into what the original

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Speaker 1: design was. We don't have any way of knowing whether

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Speaker 1: or not Gates would upgrade. I mean I would imagine so,

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Speaker 1: but we don't know, right because neither of us are

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Speaker 1: on speaking terms of Mr Gates. Yeah, that's the That's

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Speaker 1: the thing. The U. S. News and World Report, UH

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Speaker 1: profile of the house is several years old. The house

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Speaker 1: is built in the late ninety nineties, you believe, or

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Speaker 1: mid to late nineties, and UH from the U. S.

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Speaker 1: News and World War part article, you might get the

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Speaker 1: feeling that the technology is somewhat dated because the report

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Speaker 1: said that it's running. Um. The system that runs the

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Speaker 1: house uses Windows nt uh, which you might go, ha

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Speaker 1: ha ha, how old. I'm sure that it's probably been

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Speaker 1: upgraded once or maybe even twice since that article was

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Speaker 1: just unlivable terrible, um. But you know, honestly, it's designed

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Speaker 1: to be Bill Gates's vision of the House of the future,

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Speaker 1: so there's still some many things that I'm sure even

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Speaker 1: if it were still running on Windows NTI. UM, I

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Speaker 1: haven't seen anything that's newer than that that actually tells

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Speaker 1: tells us whether or not the computer systems have been upgraded.

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Speaker 1: But it's still far The functionality is far more advanced

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Speaker 1: than most of the stuff that most of us have

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Speaker 1: in our homes because it's got the ability to recognize

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Speaker 1: individuals and taylor what's going on uh in the house

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Speaker 1: around them based on the identification of the person in question,

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Speaker 1: right right, Yeah. Essentially, every person gets to build their

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Speaker 1: own profile, and the profile will as they move through

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Speaker 1: the house, the house adjusts to the person, which is

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Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. It reminds me actually of did you

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Speaker 1: ever see the show Eureka? Yes, Eureka had Sarah. Sarah

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Speaker 1: was the home of the Sheriff of Eureka, and Sarah

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Speaker 1: was an automated house. My wife could tell you the

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Speaker 1: entire what the acronym stands for. I don't remember. It's

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Speaker 1: like self automated residents something or other. Unfortunately I don't

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Speaker 1: have the whole thing. But anyway, Sarah would could identify

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Speaker 1: people as they walked in and set the profile properly. Well,

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Speaker 1: Gates's house can do the same thing. Now. The way

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Speaker 1: it works in Gates's house is that um it runs

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Speaker 1: on well, at least originally anyway, runs on r f

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Speaker 1: I D chips radio frequency chips. So each person gets

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Speaker 1: a badge or a pen of some sort, pen p

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Speaker 1: I in of some sort that has an r f

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Speaker 1: I D chip in it. And then you create your profile.

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Speaker 1: So you tell the master computer system that you know,

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Speaker 1: I really like Beethoven, I really and you know, Beethoven's

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Speaker 1: Seventh Symphony, second movement is my favorite piece of classical

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Speaker 1: music in particular, I want that in heavy rotation, but

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Speaker 1: in general Beethoven, maybe some Mozart, etcetera, etcetera. And then

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Speaker 1: as you move through the house, if you weren't wanted

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Speaker 1: to listen to music, it would start playing. And if

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Speaker 1: you went to a different room, the music would follow you,

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Speaker 1: so the music system would shut down in the room

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Speaker 1: you have just left and start up in the room

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Speaker 1: you just walked into. But it goes well beyond that.

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Speaker 1: It goes into everything from let's say you watch you

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Speaker 1: were watching a movie in one of the rooms, and

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Speaker 1: then you need to move into a different room, and

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Speaker 1: the television would come on and the movie would pick

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Speaker 1: up exactly where it left off when you were in

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Speaker 1: the other room. Or even the climate controls. Let's say

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Speaker 1: that you like it a little cooler than everyone else

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Speaker 1: in the house, so you've established that it should be

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Speaker 1: at seventy degrees, which in whichever room you're in, the

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Speaker 1: climate controls would adjust automatically as you move through. Because

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Speaker 1: all of these different systems were tied into the master

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Speaker 1: computer system and could be customized for a particular person.

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Speaker 1: The question I have, of course, yes, how do you

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Speaker 1: rank those R F I D chips so that if

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Speaker 1: multiple people are in the same room, because these rooms

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Speaker 1: are enormous. Some of these rooms are bigger than like

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Speaker 1: a basketball court. So you sit there and think, well,

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Speaker 1: if I'm the only person in this room, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to feel mighty lonely. So assuming there's more than one person,

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Speaker 1: I wonder how it determines which person's profile wins out. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I know who's gonna Well, I know

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Speaker 1: who wins overall. Yes, exactly, exactly. Chris and I are

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Speaker 1: both married, and we always know who wins in the end.

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Speaker 1: It's always going to be the wife. But let's say

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Speaker 1: she's not in the room, or that Bills not in

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Speaker 1: the room. Let's say it's two guests. I wonder whose

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Speaker 1: winds maybe the first? Yeah, I'm sorry, that's that's microsoft

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Speaker 1: if Bomber. If Bombers in the room, you defer to

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Speaker 1: him out of fear. You don't want to be Limb

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Speaker 1: from Limb. No, he's gonna call us one of these days. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but we won't be able to understand anything. I'll just

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Speaker 1: be screaming. Come on. I respect the heck out of

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Speaker 1: him as a salesman, as as a businessman. He's far

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Speaker 1: more intelligent than I am. But man, that guy intimidates

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Speaker 1: the heck out of me. Just watch go to YouTube.

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Speaker 1: Go to YouTube and look look up bomb Steve Bomber

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Speaker 1: on YouTube, and you will see some videos of something

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Speaker 1: A very intense man, Yes, intense is probably the best word. Uh. Anyhow, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry I got off on a tangent there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: your fault. I actually went looking for the acronym for

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Speaker 1: for Sarah, which which I found. But before I do that,

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Speaker 1: I found that. UM actually an article on device, which

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Speaker 1: you know is sci fi with the channel that shows Eureka.

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Speaker 1: But um, they did a little piece on it just

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Speaker 1: just this July. They called this ambient intelligence when your

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Speaker 1: environment can know about you and know what's going on

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, basically make things the way you

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Speaker 1: like them and taylor the environment around you. UM. And

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Speaker 1: there's a group at the University of Essex and the

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Speaker 1: United Kingdom that are working on a technology uh which

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Speaker 1: is called I Space. UM. Yes, very appily. As some

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Speaker 1: of the contents point out on the HDS it is

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Speaker 1: a work aside. But they're basically trying to find ways

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Speaker 1: to adapt technology like the stuff that you find in

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Speaker 1: UH bill Gates home to the average person and how

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Speaker 1: to make that possible. Course we've run into people like

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Speaker 1: the eyelink on the she leg locks where you can

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Speaker 1: have control over that and the other automated home devices.

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Speaker 1: But um, I think the the idea is to make

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Speaker 1: them much more usable for the average person and hopefully

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Speaker 1: affordable because this stuff is expensive. And it's passive, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean passive in the sense that you don't have

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Speaker 1: to pick up a remote control and tell it to

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Speaker 1: do these things. Right, It actually is sensing what's going

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Speaker 1: on and you know, hey, Steve's in the room now

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Speaker 1: I need to make you know, go ahead and turn

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Speaker 1: on the coffee maker. You know, with this particular blend

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Speaker 1: of being or whatever. You know, so passive from a

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Speaker 1: user perspective, but active from the actual device perspective. Wow,

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Speaker 1: messed in my head. Well, it's because when I said passive,

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Speaker 1: I realized that, well, it's actively doing something. I meant

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Speaker 1: passive from the from my like, if I were walking

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Speaker 1: through the room, I'd be like, I don't have to

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Speaker 1: do anything, exact and everything for me. By the way,

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Speaker 1: SARAH stands for self actuated residential automated habitat. There we are,

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Speaker 1: I was, I was. I only got two of those

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Speaker 1: words semi rights. But but no, there there are other

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Speaker 1: things that I thought were kind of strange. Um because

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Speaker 1: according to the the article by Richard Folker's from This

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Speaker 1: is the US News and World War War thing, you

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Speaker 1: can you know, tell it you want to watch a

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Speaker 1: particular TV show and you can walk through the house

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Speaker 1: and the TV show will be on in whatever room

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Speaker 1: you happen to be walking into. And I'm thinking it's

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Speaker 1: going to be difficult to watch if you're moving from

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Speaker 1: room to room. But okay, but I'm thinking, like, let's

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Speaker 1: say that, you know, I mean, I can think of

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Speaker 1: an example. Let's say that you want you know, you're

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Speaker 1: you're watching in the living room, and then you think,

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Speaker 1: I could really go for a grilled cheese sandwich right now,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to walk to one of the six kitchens

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Speaker 1: within this estate and make myself a grilled cheese sandwich.

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Speaker 1: But then you're thinking, but that do I pause the

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Speaker 1: I want to be able to watch this this show

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Speaker 1: while I'm making my sandwich, But unfortunately, the kitchen is

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Speaker 1: approximately a two mile walk from the living room. So

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Speaker 1: how am I going to be able to do that?

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Speaker 1: I'm just exaggerating for comedic effect, obviously, But then if

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Speaker 1: you have again a television screen in said kitchen, there

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Speaker 1: you go. Problem solved. You go into the kitchen and

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Speaker 1: television pops on. It picks up right where you left off,

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Speaker 1: and then you can make your sandwich while being entertained.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I'm sure people are gonn right to me

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Speaker 1: and barrate me for you pronouncing sandwich as sandwich. I

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Speaker 1: hope not. Some other elements that they have at this house.

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Speaker 1: According to various articles, the uh, there's a pool, a

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Speaker 1: huge pool. Yes, seventeen by sixty foot swimming pool has

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Speaker 1: an underwater music system installed in there, so you can

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Speaker 1: actually listen to your music while you're swimming underneath the water. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I would recommend perhaps the swimming pool cues if you're

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Speaker 1: going to be listening underwater. Nice just a guess, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would. I would recommend the aquabats. That's a nice little,

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Speaker 1: uh little hey. If you haven't heard the aquabats, go

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00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:43,080
Speaker 1: check them out. Any perhaps fish, Yeah, but you would

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Speaker 1: drown if you would never come up for air fish

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00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:51,480
Speaker 1: because their jams last approximately three days. But the pools

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00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:53,800
Speaker 1: an indoor outdoor pool. You can actually go. You can

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Speaker 1: swim under the wall, under a glass wall and emerge outside.

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Speaker 1: I think that's pretty cool. Uh. There's a from the entry,

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Speaker 1: there's apparently a grand staircase that is eight four steps tall.

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Speaker 1: That is a very grand stair two ft long and

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Speaker 1: sixty three ft high. Um, there's also an elevator, so

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Speaker 1: if you need an elevator, you can have one. There's

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Speaker 1: a they have a theater inside the house, Um, seats

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Speaker 1: twenty and uh there's a library that is bigger than

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Speaker 1: Chris's house. Yes, don't remind me square feet library. Oh

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Speaker 1: my gosh, this is the images I saw for the library, which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, we're all um they were all uh

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Speaker 1: computer generated images. It wasn't like an actual photograph of

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Speaker 1: an illustration. Uh. They looked amazing. And supposedly the library

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Speaker 1: even has a pivoting bookcases, which is awesome, one of

378
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:49,639
Speaker 1: which hides a bar and uh I get ripped to

379
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Speaker 1: read read Bill Gates's autobiography, that is the place to

380
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Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. Actually, there's apparently some information about the

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Speaker 1: house on the road ahead. Oh okay, so I wish

382
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,159
Speaker 1: I have not read. But I really wish I had

383
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,080
Speaker 1: known that before today. Would have been helpful to know

384
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 1: before we started recording Plette. However, there is a very

385
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Speaker 1: famous book in that library, apparently the Codex Lester. Oh yeah,

386
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:16,760
Speaker 1: that's by one of my favorite guys in the whole

387
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:21,239
Speaker 1: wild world. It would be a Leonardo da Vinci. I'm

388
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:23,959
Speaker 1: wondering if I wonder if it has the code in it.

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Speaker 1: The code, Oh that code, yeah, you know, the Da

390
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: Vinci code. I hear a lot about it. I mean

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Speaker 1: they've already got the swiveling bookcase. You know, it's just

392
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Speaker 1: just a little bit longer. Can you imagine a scavenger

393
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,920
Speaker 1: hunt in his house? Holy cow? Um, But he paid

394
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 1: thirty point eight million dollars for that book, which is

395
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Speaker 1: a sixteenth century notebook. It's Da Vinci's notebook. It is

396
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:48,240
Speaker 1: Da Vinci's No. Oh my god. Oh we have solved

397
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:52,160
Speaker 1: the mystery right here. On tech stuff. Uh yeah, there's

398
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 1: also all these flat pal displays that are throughout the

399
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: home that will well, this is another thing that's tied

400
00:22:57,359 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 1: into the r F I D chap Right, it's the

401
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: it will display art that you like. So let's say

402
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 1: that you go and you tell that tell Bill that,

403
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 1: uh I call him Bill, You tell Mr Gates or

404
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: you very politely mentioned at Mr Gates like I happen

405
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: to really like art from the late Renaissance, and then

406
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 1: he You can have your chip program so that every

407
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,760
Speaker 1: time you're walking through an area, it will automatically load images.

408
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: Uh as if they were framed paintings from whichever era

409
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 1: or artist you happen to like, and your experience is

410
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: even more accustomized. It's pretty when I don't know, of course,

411
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Speaker 1: might I be like, can you generate stuff from the

412
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: Calvin and Hobbes milieu. I just sort of assumed that

413
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Speaker 1: it would show pictures of Mr Garf uncle and Mr

414
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: link Letter. Oh yeah, that's kind of art. That kind

415
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: of art. Actually, I think I'll probably say Berkeley Breath,

416
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:58,440
Speaker 1: We'll go with that early Bloom County. Yeah, it's it's possible.

417
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: I suppose, um you know, because I know that the

418
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 1: r f I D uh initially used a pin you

419
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: know that you'd wear on you think Star Trek communicator.

420
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 1: I I that's how I always saw it like that

421
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:15,119
Speaker 1: from the next generation. Uh, but you know, theoretically you

422
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: could have an r f I D chip implanted in

423
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 1: you and then you wouldn't have to carry anything. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you have to deal with the ethics

425
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: of implanting r F I D technology within a human being, yeah,

426
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: which has been done? Which has been done? It's an

427
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,640
Speaker 1: ethical question, Yeah, certainly, but you could you could certainly

428
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: do that. Um, I can just imagine that that process

429
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: when you walk through the front door. All right, now,

430
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: hold very still. It's like this is going to sting

431
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: like crazy for about an hour. Yeah, it's like you

432
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 1: want to get into it. You know, your study and

433
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 1: you left your badge at the other end of the house,

434
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: and it's like, you can't get in, but it's me.

435
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Dave Nice Nice. Bill Gates's house is guarded

436
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: by how fantastic um getting back to the house, there's

437
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: other there's obviously other really big rooms. There's a formal

438
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 1: dining room that can seed up to twenty four people. Um,

439
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: there's a reception hall that can actually hold up to

440
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty people. The reception halls is kind

441
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 1: of a separate building. It's designed for things like if

442
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: you were to have like a big corporate getaway where

443
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 1: all the executives would come to all the Microsoft executives

444
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: wouldkind of Bill Gates's house. He could do a presentation there.

445
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: You can have a full catered meal there. There's actually

446
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: one of the kitchens is connected to that hall, and

447
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,880
Speaker 1: there's also this enormous screen in that um that hall,

448
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: it's uh, what was it? It's twenty two ft wide

449
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 1: video display made up of twenty four rear projection television monitors,

450
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:45,479
Speaker 1: each with screen. Actually, that may have changed too. I

451
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: remember reading about another display that was some of similar size,

452
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 1: but it was using digital projectors as opposed to rear

453
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: projection screens, so it may be that that's changed. Um.

454
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: There's an activities building that's nine d square foot, so

455
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: if you want to be in one of the smaller rooms,

456
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: you can go there. That's got a putting green. It's

457
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 1: also got it's also the one that's connected to the

458
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,400
Speaker 1: boat docks. Yes. Uh, there's the three garages we talked about,

459
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: including the sixty hundred square foot garage that can hold

460
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: more than ten cars. Uh. There's a guesthouse. The guesthouse

461
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: is just under two thousand square feet, so if you

462
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,919
Speaker 1: are a guest, and Bill Gates wrote much of his

463
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: autobiography there, um in the guesthouse seat. That was the

464
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,679
Speaker 1: first building that was built on his residents, and it

465
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: was sort of the testing grounds for all this technology

466
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: to make sure that would work on a larger scale. Uh.

467
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: The exercise room is twenty five hundred square feet, bigger

468
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: than some of the gems that you've seen. I'm sure,

469
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: um and apparently has a trampoline room with the twenty

470
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: foot ceiling ceiling. Can you imagine bouncing high enough for

471
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: twenty ft high was like a legitimate concern. Well, I

472
00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: don't know the strength of that trampoline either. Well little

473
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: isn't known that Bill Gates can leap from a standing

474
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: position fifteen foot straight up in the air. Now we're

475
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: getting into Chuck Norris here, because only when he's wearing

476
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: punkistadors they run tight. Uh. That always a lie what

477
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: I just said. Yeah, we are getting into kind of

478
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:19,239
Speaker 1: a Bill Braski Chuck Norris sort of thing. When we

479
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: start talking about like that, um and you might wonder

480
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: how much is this property worth? Well, in two thousand nine,

481
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: the property taxes on the home were reported to be

482
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: one point oh six three million dollars on a total

483
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: assessed value of one forty seven point five million dollars,

484
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: so almost a hundred and fifty million dollar home. Yeah,

485
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: but you know, I mean again, we talked about this

486
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: and you think about, Wow, that's that's like, that's excess

487
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: right there. Compared to some of the opulent, crazy mansions

488
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: in the past. It's pretty modest. I mean, the the

489
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: rooms are huge doubt they could house many, many, many people,

490
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: and the technology is phenomenal and probably much more advanced

491
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: than what we've laid out here, because you know, Bill

492
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: Gates is a fairly private man. He's not going to

493
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 1: necessarily publicize the technology that's in his home. I'm sure

494
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: he has some Microsoft surfaces in there were around. These

495
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: were first built, right, but you think about some of

496
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: the other like massive homes built by millionaires and billionaires

497
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: over the past, like the Hearst Castle or the built

498
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: More Estate. These homes truly have access down to an

499
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: art and a science. I mean, they're they're crazy. If

500
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: you've ever toured any of those homes, they use your

501
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: mind boggles, and how opulent and over the top they are,

502
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: not necessarily like the Hearst Castle I think of as

503
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: being a little tacky, and the built Ware Estate is

504
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: a little less tacky, but both are way over the top, uh,

505
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: compared to those Actually Bill Gates's estate, and you've got

506
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: to remember he's worth several billion dollars is understated. Yeah, So,

507
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: I mean I find that admirable and the fact that

508
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: he took energy conservation into consideration when building, when you know,

509
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: having the house designed and everything. I think that says

510
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: a lot too. It speaks about a very responsible approach

511
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: to designing this massive estate, right Yeah. I mean it's

512
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: certainly not something that that had to be uh taken

513
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: into account. I mean he's you know, he could have

514
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: built a house many times the size of this one

515
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: and still not even dented the amount of money that

516
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: he has on hand. Um. So you know, it's pretty

517
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: impressive in because there's so much high technology woven into

518
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: the house. Um. I think that uh um, and probably

519
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: is why people find it so fascinating. Um. You know,

520
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: they're there are other tech personalities who have had uh,

521
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: you know houses mentioned, but I always hear Bill Gatesman

522
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: house mentioned as the one that people want to know

523
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: about because it's got, you know, the ability, it's got

524
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: that interactive nature to it where it knows who you

525
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: are and what you're doing. It's kind of creepy but

526
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: also cool and yeah. Like like we said before, Chris

527
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: had pointed out earlier that the Connect technology might be

528
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: used now instead of r F I D because connect

529
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: as you know, I'm sure he knows if you've listened

530
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: to our podcast about it has cameras in it that

531
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: can identify a person and link that person to a profile.

532
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: So you could just theoretically switch out the r f

533
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: I D readers with a series of cameras that are

534
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: designed to recognize faces, and then you no longer even

535
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: have to issue a pen to anyone when they enter

536
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: the home. They would just walk around and the home

537
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: would detect and identify the people as they walked around

538
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: and adjust settings from there, which is again sort of

539
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: creepy but also kind of cool. Um, So, yeah, I

540
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: mean that's a possible. We don't know for sure. We

541
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,239
Speaker 1: don't know that he's done that at all. It's just

542
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: a guess. Yep, yep, And it would certainly be easy enough.

543
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: I'm sure to have a couple of folks from Microsoft

544
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: come over and, you know, maybe plug some things in

545
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 1: for him. Do you guys want to help me out

546
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: with that? Hopefully, hopefully he doesn't have to wait long

547
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: for tech support. I wouldn't imagine. So can you imagine

548
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: if your house showed a blue screen of death? Yeah,

549
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: that'd be rough anyway, Bill, if you're listening, Um, we

550
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: would love to tour your home, either of us or

551
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: both of us. We we would find we would be

552
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: greatly honored. And uh and and um, I like the

553
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: Ramans and uh punk music in general, just so you know,

554
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: and and really, my art, let's just go with Andy Warhol.

555
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: We're gonna go with Warhol for my art, okay, And

556
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: so just keep that in mind, Billy and uh the

557
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 1: rest of you. If you guys have questions, if you

558
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: have comments, suggestions for future episodes, you can contact us

559
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled there is tech Stuff

560
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: hs W, or you can shoot us an email. That

561
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 1: address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com

562
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: and Chris and I will talk to you again really

563
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: soon if you're a tech stuff and be sure to

564
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: check us out on Twitter text Stuff hs wsr handle

565
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Facebook at Facebook

566
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: dot com slash tech Stuff h s W for more

567
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics because it how

568
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And be sure to check out

569
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: the new tech stuff blog now on the how Stuff

570
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: Works homepage, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand

571
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Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you