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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from hast

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Speaker 1: dot com. Heyl and welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: and today I thought I would address some listener mail.

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Speaker 1: I haven't done that in a while. And by address,

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Speaker 1: I mean read it and answer it, as opposed to

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Speaker 1: spinning out an address. You know what I meant at

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Speaker 1: any rate to We're going to be looking at several

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Speaker 1: questions and comments, including a correction, and also a little

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Speaker 1: bit later, I'm going to bring in a special mystery

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Speaker 1: guest to talk about one of the specific pieces that

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Speaker 1: were sent in to me. So let's get started. The

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Speaker 1: first message says, hello, longtime listener, first time emailer. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to slip in a quick correction in regards to

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Speaker 1: the Aircraft Carriers episode. In the episode, you said that

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Speaker 1: the US aircraft carrier, the Hornet, was sunk. It's actually not.

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Speaker 1: It's anchored in Oakland, California, across the Bay from San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: and it's open as a museum to teach visitors about

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Speaker 1: how aircraft carriers work. The flight deck, maintenance deck, and

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Speaker 1: some lower decks are open to explore with or without

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Speaker 1: a tour. The island and engine room are open for tours.

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Speaker 1: There's even an Apollo capsule on board, as the Hornet

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Speaker 1: was the recovery ship for two Apollo missions. If you're

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Speaker 1: ever in or around Oakland, check it out. Regards Alan, Alan,

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Speaker 1: thanks for sending in that correction. That's really awesome. The

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Speaker 1: Hornet was one of the stories that I thought was

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Speaker 1: particularly cool, and uh, and on it was an honest

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Speaker 1: mistake on my part. I had so many notes about

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Speaker 1: so many different aircraft carriers, and I should have been

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Speaker 1: more careful making sure that all of those were accurate.

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Speaker 1: And uh, Scott is not his fault at all. It's

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Speaker 1: all on me. I shall admonish myself repeatedly. Next, Dan

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Speaker 1: from Twitter asked, did I buy an Apple Uch? No? Okay,

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Speaker 1: well we're ready to move on. Well, I guess I

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Speaker 1: can address this a little further. Uh, I did not

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Speaker 1: buy an Apple watch. I don't have an iPhone, so

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Speaker 1: an Apple watch would be useless to me, and I

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Speaker 1: don't want to invest in an iPhone just to get

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Speaker 1: an Apple watch. That would end up being an incredibly

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Speaker 1: expensive endeavor. I mean, you're talking around bucks for the watch,

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Speaker 1: and that's you know, before you really start looking at

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Speaker 1: really nice bands. Or anything like that. Then you've got

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Speaker 1: another couple of hundred bucks for the iPhone, plus the

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Speaker 1: monthly fee for it and everything, and all of my

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Speaker 1: stuff is currently in the Android operating system universe. I

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Speaker 1: use a Nexus six as my smartphone. That's not a

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Speaker 1: plug for Android, it's not a plug for the Nexus

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Speaker 1: line of phones. I like it, and I'm used to it,

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Speaker 1: and all of my stuff is in that ecosystem, so

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Speaker 1: it would be very arduous to switch to a different

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Speaker 1: one at this point. I think the Apple Watches an

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Speaker 1: interesting product. I'm curious how well it will do in

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Speaker 1: the long run. As I record this, there are plenty

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Speaker 1: of stories about the Apple Watch getting some recalls because

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Speaker 1: of a faulty vibrating motor that's in some of them,

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Speaker 1: and that the production may have slowed down quite a bit,

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Speaker 1: which means it's going to take even longer for people

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Speaker 1: to get their pre ordered watches. Um it's it's a

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Speaker 1: bit of an issue for Apple, And honestly, the wearables

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Speaker 1: field is still one of those where a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are expressing a lot of skepticism about, you know what,

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Speaker 1: what's actually the utility of a smart watch? Is there

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Speaker 1: a need for it? Um, I own a Pebble, which

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Speaker 1: I would say is a smart ish watch. It is

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Speaker 1: good for giving me notifications that are coming through my phone,

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Speaker 1: which is actually really useful for me. I don't always

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Speaker 1: notice when my phone vibrates in my pocket, even though

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Speaker 1: the next of six is as large as some countries.

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Speaker 1: I don't always notice when it's vibrating. However, the motor

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Speaker 1: that's inside my watch, when it vibrates on my wrist,

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Speaker 1: I absolutely noticed that. And uh, it gives me the

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Speaker 1: notifications of who is calling or if I've received a

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Speaker 1: text message or some other notification. And I love that.

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Speaker 1: That to me is perfect, And uh, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: it's not super high tech as far as smart watches go.

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Speaker 1: It's not like there's a whole bunch of other usefulness

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Speaker 1: with it, apart from some of the cool apps you

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Speaker 1: can have, and you can do some controls with your smartphone,

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Speaker 1: like advancing through tracks in an audio list, that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing. That stuff is interesting and neat, but it

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a whole lot of utility beyond that. The

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Speaker 1: Apple Watch obviously is supposed to be more robust, and

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Speaker 1: I hope it does well because I want to see

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Speaker 1: this kind of technology. This, this whole branch of technology

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Speaker 1: continue and advance and evolve. And my worry is that

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Speaker 1: if the Apple Watch ultimately does not do well, because

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Speaker 1: it's such a high profile product, it could sink the

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Speaker 1: entire branch of technology or set it back by a

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Speaker 1: couple of years. It kind of reminds me of the

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Speaker 1: days when virtual reality things were coming out and people

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Speaker 1: were first getting a chance to actually use them, and

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Speaker 1: they became disappointed, disenchanted with the technology that they thought

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Speaker 1: was going to be amazing and turned out not to

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Speaker 1: be as amazing as they had hoped, and it's set

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Speaker 1: the entire field back by at least five years because

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Speaker 1: no one wanted to fund something that people no longer

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Speaker 1: had any interest or faith in. So my hope is

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Speaker 1: that the Apple Watch does well. I do not plan

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Speaker 1: to get one again, because I don't have an iPhone.

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Speaker 1: I may end up picking up a different smart watch.

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Speaker 1: There were a few that I supported on various crowdsourcing campaigns.

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Speaker 1: I'm still waiting on all three of the one that

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Speaker 1: I supported, one of which is not even a smart watch.

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Speaker 1: It's it's a just a cool concept watch. And so

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Speaker 1: I don't think i'd be eager to jump on the

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Speaker 1: smart watch train even if I did have an iPhone,

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Speaker 1: simply because I've already spent money on watches that I

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Speaker 1: don't have. Um and that's another discussion for another day.

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Speaker 1: The entire idea of crowdsourcing, you know, crowdfunding a technology project.

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Speaker 1: Is that a good idea? What are the dangers? I

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Speaker 1: should probably do a full episode about that. I know

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Speaker 1: I've talked about once or twice in previous episodes, but

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Speaker 1: we should probably go into an in depth discussion about

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Speaker 1: what is What should your expectations be if you participate

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Speaker 1: in that sort of thing. So there's your long answer

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Speaker 1: to your simple question. Uh no, And because all right,

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Speaker 1: we'll move on to the next one. Luke on Twitter

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Speaker 1: asks how soon I expect we'll see stores like Kinko's

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Speaker 1: get three D printers for customers to us. I think

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Speaker 1: that's actually gonna be probably at least a couple of

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Speaker 1: years further down the line from the thing I think

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Speaker 1: three D pryers are really going to be useful for

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Speaker 1: is gonna be on demand fabrication for small businesses, meaning

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Speaker 1: that instead of having a giant furniture store with an

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Speaker 1: enormous warehouse, like Ikea, where you've got, you know, tons

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Speaker 1: of inventory, and you have no way of knowing how

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Speaker 1: how well one is going to sell versus other versions

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Speaker 1: of the same sort of stuff, Like how how well

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Speaker 1: is this one cabinet gonna sell compared to this other cabinet,

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Speaker 1: both of which have Norwegian or Danish or Swedish or

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Speaker 1: Swiss or some Scandinavian name that has far more oom

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Speaker 1: louds than is remotely necessary. Um, how well is that

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Speaker 1: going to sell versus any other one? You have to

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Speaker 1: keep enough in stock so that you meet whatever demands

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Speaker 1: you expect there to be, but there's no way of

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Speaker 1: knowing from one day to the next how popular an

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Speaker 1: item is going to be, even if you put one

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Speaker 1: on sale and one's not on sale. Three D printers, however,

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Speaker 1: can let you get around that. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: have a huge warehouse to store all of your inventory.

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Speaker 1: You can have essentially a storage space for the raw

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Speaker 1: material for your printer, and then you create the items

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Speaker 1: on demand when you get in order. So if someone

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Speaker 1: wants a particular cabinet, you print out the parts and

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Speaker 1: then sell the kit to the customer. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to keep eight different types of cabinets and storage. You

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Speaker 1: just keep the digital plans and you print them as needed.

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Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be a very popular business model

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Speaker 1: once we get to a point where these printers that

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Speaker 1: are are ready for commercial use like that fall into

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Speaker 1: the range that a small business can can actually make

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Speaker 1: that a workable business model. It's pretty expensive if you

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Speaker 1: want a really high quality three D printer, especially one

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Speaker 1: that can produced on an industrial level, even a small

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Speaker 1: industrial level, asked for things like Kinko's. I think that's

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Speaker 1: gonna take more time. Uh. And I think there's gonna

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Speaker 1: be some barriers as well, because obviously, you if you

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Speaker 1: are a business like Kinkos, you want to be able

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Speaker 1: to have at least some control over what is getting

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Speaker 1: sent to that three D printer. Uh. If it's something

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Speaker 1: that is illegal, for example, or the legality is questionable,

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Speaker 1: for example, a three D printed gun. That's that could

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Speaker 1: be a concern, especially if there were any crime associated

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Speaker 1: with that weapon down the line, and it gets brought

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Speaker 1: in that your establishment was the one that allowed it

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Speaker 1: to be printed. There could be some legal complications that.

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Speaker 1: I bet a lot of the big companies don't want

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Speaker 1: to get bogged down in and it may be that

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Speaker 1: eventually things work out where the accountability lies with other

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Speaker 1: other players and not the company that act is housing

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Speaker 1: the three D printer, in which case you know it

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Speaker 1: may be open season. No pun intended with the gun

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Speaker 1: thing to allow everyone to send whatever they want to

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Speaker 1: the printer, and as long as they're paying the rate

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Speaker 1: for however much plastic is going through the extruder, they're fine.

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Speaker 1: So I think we'll see the fabrication on demand model first.

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Speaker 1: Of course, three D printers are already being used in

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Speaker 1: research and development as well as in manufacturing for other reasons.

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Speaker 1: But but the as far as customers getting access to

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Speaker 1: three D printers, I think it will be fabrication on demand,

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Speaker 1: where the company will be the one responsible for sending

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Speaker 1: the specific plan to the specific printer, and the customer

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Speaker 1: only says okay, I want this item, so they don't

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Speaker 1: get to say exactly what gets printed. And then maybe

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Speaker 1: a couple of years later we'll see models where people

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Speaker 1: can send their their digital file to a printer directly

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Speaker 1: without having to just choose from a catalog of files.

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Speaker 1: Um In the meantime, you know there will be plenty

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Speaker 1: of people who will just go out and buy their

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Speaker 1: own three D printer. Depending upon how much money they spend,

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Speaker 1: the stuff they print may or may not look really great,

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Speaker 1: or it may look kind of clunky. I've seen some

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Speaker 1: three D printers where the the fidelity, the resolution is

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Speaker 1: incredible and you you can feel the edges of each layer,

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Speaker 1: but you can't really see them easily. And then I've

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Speaker 1: seen other ones where it's very apparent where each layer

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Speaker 1: is kind of overhanging the next layer by you know,

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Speaker 1: a millimeter or whatever, and it's very noticeable. Uh So

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Speaker 1: we'll see. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I suspect not.

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Speaker 1: All right, we'll go to the next question. Nathaniel from

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Speaker 1: Twitter asked how track pads register input. How does a

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Speaker 1: track pad know where your finger is? There are two

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Speaker 1: main ways that track pads are manufactured. There are resistive

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Speaker 1: track pads and capacitive track pads or touch pads. And

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Speaker 1: I know I've talked about this on the show before,

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Speaker 1: but it you know, I'll go ahead and explain how

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Speaker 1: these work because I think it is interesting. So the

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Speaker 1: resist of touch pads or track pads are the easiest

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Speaker 1: to understand. Um they're also not as not necessarily as

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Speaker 1: resilient as capacity, but we'll get there. So resistive touch

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Speaker 1: pads use a couple of different films with kind of

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Speaker 1: a uh electrodes. Well, one film will have an electrode

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Speaker 1: on it, uh, the next film like a sandwich filling

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Speaker 1: that one would be uh somewhat resistive, and then you

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Speaker 1: would have a bottom plate that would also have an

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Speaker 1: electrode on it. So you've got electrodes separated by a

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Speaker 1: resistive film. When you press down on the surface of

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Speaker 1: the top layer, it presses that electrode closer to the

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Speaker 1: other electrode on the bottom and you end up creating

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Speaker 1: essentially a circuit. There is a connection there. And if

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Speaker 1: you think about the two films as as sort of wires,

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Speaker 1: right like, you have a series of horizontal wires along

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Speaker 1: one film and vertical wires along the other electrode. Then

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Speaker 1: you've got a grid. So imagine you've got this grid there.

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Speaker 1: When you put pressure on the touch pad, it acts

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Speaker 1: like these It pushes these these two wires together at

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Speaker 1: some point on that grid, and by locating the the

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Speaker 1: area of connection along that grid, a computer knows, oh,

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Speaker 1: there has been a touch registered at this point on

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Speaker 1: the touch pad. So um, you know, it's almost like

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Speaker 1: a spider web, right, So you've got this this grid

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Speaker 1: of connections and when you press down, it sends the signal,

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Speaker 1: and by measuring that signal, the computer can tell where

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Speaker 1: along the touchpad you are touching. Capacity is a little different,

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Speaker 1: so instead of instead of it being the series of

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Speaker 1: wires and the physical connection is what indicates where there's

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Speaker 1: a touch, Capacity creates an electric field when your finger

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Speaker 1: encounters that electric field. Really, any capacitive or conductive surface

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Speaker 1: I should say, not capacity, but a conductive surface, it

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Speaker 1: alters that electric field, and sensors inside the device can

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Speaker 1: detect where that that point of contact is based upon

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Speaker 1: the change of the electric field itself. Now, this is

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Speaker 1: why if you use gloves that don't have a conductive

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Speaker 1: surface on them, so they don't have like conductive thread

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Speaker 1: woven into them or anything, it's very difficult to get

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Speaker 1: a capacitive touchscreen to work because you're you don't have

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Speaker 1: a conductive urface interfering with that electric field. Generally speaking,

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Speaker 1: gloves don't tend to be conductive unless again, you have

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Speaker 1: that conductive thread woven into them. It's also why I

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Speaker 1: remember a story from several years ago that people. I

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Speaker 1: want to say it was in Japan, we're starting to

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Speaker 1: use hot dogs as a stylus for their smartphones when

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Speaker 1: it would get cold, so they would have gloves and

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Speaker 1: use a hot dog, which would be conductive if they

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Speaker 1: would use that to make selections and commands on their phones. Um.

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Speaker 1: So with the resistive approach, it's all dependent upon pressure

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Speaker 1: you have to press, and if you're not pressing hard

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Speaker 1: enough to make the contact with those wires, then it

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Speaker 1: won't be registered. With the capacity of it's not dependent

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Speaker 1: upon pressure. You don't need to push harder to make

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Speaker 1: a stronger electric field, although it may by pressing harder

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Speaker 1: indicate a larger surface area coming into contact with the screen,

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Speaker 1: which you know, you could design a program that would

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Speaker 1: react differently depending upon how much pressure was applied, simply

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Speaker 1: by many sharing how much surface areas being affected. Ah.

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Speaker 1: The problem with the resilience that was talking about earlier

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Speaker 1: is that, at least with earlier resistive touch pads, the

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Speaker 1: more you would move around, the more you would use it,

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Speaker 1: the more it would start to wear down, and over

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Speaker 1: time your touch pad would become less responsive because it

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Speaker 1: was starting to just wear away from use. Whereas capacitive ones.

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Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to have this hard contact

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Speaker 1: to make sure that it's registering a touch, and they

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Speaker 1: could last longer for a while. Capacity of touch pads

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Speaker 1: were much more expensive than resistive, so resistive we're very popular,

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Speaker 1: particularly in industrial uses where you might have like a

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Speaker 1: tablet that has a resistive screen and it's meant for

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Speaker 1: heavy duty use. There's no point in making it delicate

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Speaker 1: because it was going to be in a tough environment anyway,

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Speaker 1: and resistive was really popular. These days, the difference in

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Speaker 1: price is not as great, so we mostly see capacity

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Speaker 1: of screens but reicularly in things like smartphones and tablets.

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Speaker 1: So I hope that answers that question. All right, let's

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Speaker 1: move on to the next email. This one comes from

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Speaker 1: Greg and says, Hey, Jonathan, I enjoy your show Tech

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Speaker 1: Stuff and forward Thinking a lot. Y'all are some real

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Speaker 1: gangster's thanks. I don't really think of myself as gangster.

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Speaker 1: That's that's a new one for me. So you did

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Speaker 1: an episode on TV Connectors recently and mentioned impedance gain

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Speaker 1: and attenuation and then said that could be its own podcast.

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Speaker 1: So I'd love to hear a podcast about those topics.

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Speaker 1: Maybe also explain decibels as well. All right, Greg, here goes.

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Speaker 1: This is gonna be an attempt on my part to

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Speaker 1: explain these concepts. First of all, I gotta come clean,

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Speaker 1: because you know, have you ever had that experience where

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Speaker 1: you encounter a word and you have to say the

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Speaker 1: word out loud, and then you realize as you're about

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Speaker 1: to say the word out loud that you have never

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Speaker 1: really heard that word spoken before, or if you had,

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Speaker 1: you hadn't really paid attention, and so you just have

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Speaker 1: to give a wild guess as to how it's pronounced,

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Speaker 1: and then you guess wrong. Because that is exactly what

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Speaker 1: happened to me the last time I talked about impedance.

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Speaker 1: I believe I meant I pronounced it impedence, which, while hilarious,

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Speaker 1: is not correct. So if any of my listeners out

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Speaker 1: there tried to follow my lead and found themselves in

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Speaker 1: socially awkward situations because of their pronunciation, I humbly apologize, Um,

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Speaker 1: but no, that was definitely one of those cases where

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Speaker 1: in my brain I'm like, oh, it has to be

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Speaker 1: spelled like are pronounced like this because the way it's spelled,

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Speaker 1: and I was absolutely wrong. And in fact, if I

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Speaker 1: had thought about it for a second, I would have

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Speaker 1: realized how wrong I was, because it's about impeding. It's

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Speaker 1: impedence because it impedes the flow of electricity. But I'm

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Speaker 1: getting ahead of myself. So when when we talk about impedance,

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Speaker 1: we need to first talk about voltage. And for those

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Speaker 1: of you who have taken physics and you know all

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Speaker 1: about circuitry and voltage and current uh and resistance, I apologize,

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Speaker 1: But in order to explain impedance, I kind of have

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Speaker 1: to lay some groundwork, So just stick with me here.

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Speaker 1: Voltage is the difference in electrical energy charge of electrical

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Speaker 1: potential energy between two points. Uh. And that sounds weird,

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Speaker 1: but another way to look at is that voltage is

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Speaker 1: how we describe an electric field. We measure electric fields

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Speaker 1: and volts over a distance, so you have to have

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Speaker 1: a difference in voltage in order for current to flow.

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Speaker 1: Another way of thinking that is you need to have

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Speaker 1: an excess of electrons on one side of your circuit

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Speaker 1: and a place for electrons to go on the other

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Speaker 1: side of your circuit, and that is a difference in voltage.

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Speaker 1: You have a positive charge on one side and a

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Speaker 1: negative charge on the other. And that allows the electrons

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Speaker 1: to move from negative to positive. We won't go into

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Speaker 1: the difference between the flow of electrons and the flow

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Speaker 1: of current here. I know I've talked about that in

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Speaker 1: previous episodes of tech Stuff, and it's not really relevant

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Speaker 1: in this case. You just need to know that voltage

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Speaker 1: is this difference in electric charge and electric potential energy

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Speaker 1: between two points across some distance. When you apply voltage

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Speaker 1: to a circuit, that's when you induce electricity to flow

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Speaker 1: through that circuit. Now, the circuit is made of some

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Speaker 1: sort of conductive material. Now, conductive material doesn't allow electricity

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Speaker 1: to flow through effortlessly. There's an opposition to the flow

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Speaker 1: of electricity, and it's called resistance. And resistance depends upon

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Speaker 1: a couple of different factors um well several. Actually, it

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Speaker 1: depends upon the material. It depends upon how much the

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Speaker 1: material is there. In other words, if you have a

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Speaker 1: very small copper wire that actually has a much higher

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Speaker 1: resistance than say, very thick copper cable. It also depends

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Speaker 1: upon temperature. You know, super cooling semiconductors can reduce the

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Speaker 1: resistance to near zero or effectively zero, and you get

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Speaker 1: you know, free and clear electricity. Flowing through without any resistance,

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Speaker 1: and you know, otherwise what happens is the opposition to

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Speaker 1: that electrical flow will end up having you uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the component will actually start to generate heat. And this

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Speaker 1: is where we talk about how efficient and electronic devices.

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Speaker 1: If it's generating a lot of heat, you're losing a

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Speaker 1: lot of energy to heat. That electricity is being converted

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Speaker 1: into heat energy and not doing whatever it was you

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Speaker 1: were hoping for it to do, unless, of course, it

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Speaker 1: was a heating component, in which case it's doing exactly

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Speaker 1: what you wanted it to do. So that's resistance. Now.

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Speaker 1: In direct current circuits, resistance suffices as the term we

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Speaker 1: use for this phenomenon. But with alternating current a C applications,

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Speaker 1: these are different because the current alternates. It flows in

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Speaker 1: one direction the circuit and then flows in the opposite direction. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it does this in cycles different frequencies that will

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Speaker 1: usually it's in a single frequency, but the frequencies can

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Speaker 1: vary depending upon the technology we're talking about. So in

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Speaker 1: this case we don't use the term resistance. We actually

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Speaker 1: use a different term, and that is impedance because uh,

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Speaker 1: impedance relies on two factors, not just the magnitude, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty much what resistance is considered concerned with, but

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Speaker 1: the phase of the of the system as well. UH

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Speaker 1: So impedance impedes the flow of electricity, but it consists

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Speaker 1: of reactants as well as resistance, and reactance is the

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Speaker 1: extent to which a circuit stores and releases energy as

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Speaker 1: the current and voltage fluctuate with each alternating current cycle.

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Speaker 1: So we describe reactance in terms terms of ohms, and

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Speaker 1: it really only applies to a C circuits. Reactance allows

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Speaker 1: us to use circuit components such as capacitors and inductors.

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Speaker 1: Capacitors store energy in an electric field and inductor's store

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Speaker 1: energy in a magnetic field, and both can operate as

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Speaker 1: resistors and they don't generate heat the same way that

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Speaker 1: resistors do, so they're very useful in a C circuitry.

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Speaker 1: So that's impedance. Uh it's an important factor whenever you're

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Speaker 1: designing any kind of electronic component that has that's working

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Speaker 1: on a C. Next, we have gain, which is the

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Speaker 1: next thing that that Greg asked us about. This is

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Speaker 1: also known as the amplification factor, and it gives you

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Speaker 1: some clue as to what's going on with gain. It's

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Speaker 1: all about amplifying a signal to boost its strength from

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Speaker 1: input to output. So you've got an incoming signal, then

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Speaker 1: you use a means of amplification to increase the strength

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Speaker 1: of that signal, so it's the same frequency but greater amplitude,

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Speaker 1: and then you put it through the output. This is

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Speaker 1: used in all sorts of applications. The easiest one to

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Speaker 1: imagine happens to be sound, where a microphone will convert

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Speaker 1: acoustic waves into electrical impulses that then will go to

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Speaker 1: a an amplifier before going to a speaker in order

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Speaker 1: to strengthen the signals so that you can get an

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Speaker 1: audible acoustic wave on the other end once you get

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Speaker 1: through the stereo. But amplifiers are used for all sorts

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Speaker 1: of technology, not just acoustic technology. At any rate, we

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Speaker 1: express gain in terms of decibels, and this is where

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Speaker 1: things get a little confusing for people often because I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of people are familiar with decibels as

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Speaker 1: a means of measuring the volume of sound. But it's

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Speaker 1: be It's not just the volume of sound, it's the

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Speaker 1: strength of signals. And the decibel is a logarithmic unit,

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Speaker 1: which makes it a little tricky to understand, particularly you're

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Speaker 1: mostly familiar with them. In terms of that sound magnitude

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Speaker 1: gains more about um in electronics anyway, it's about electric

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Speaker 1: signal strength, not about sound volume. Uh. And decibels are

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Speaker 1: really a way of describing two different levels of signal strength,

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Speaker 1: you you know, instead of just saying this one stronger

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Speaker 1: than that one, it's a way of giving a unit

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Speaker 1: to it and saying this is how much stronger the

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Speaker 1: signal is going out than it was coming in. You know,

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Speaker 1: we were talking about amplifying, So the incoming signal is

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Speaker 1: at a certain strength. How do you describe the outgoing

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Speaker 1: strength compared to the incoming strength. Let's talk about sound

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Speaker 1: first though. So when we're considering sound, near total silence

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Speaker 1: is zero decibels, and it acts as our starting point.

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Speaker 1: So this isn't completely silent. It's not like what you

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Speaker 1: would experience if you were somehow able to live out

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Speaker 1: in space where there's no sound. Uh. This it's a

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Speaker 1: ventially the strength of the smallest audible sound. Now, a

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00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 1: sound that's ten times louder than that than zero decibels

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Speaker 1: would be at ten decibels, but a sound one hundred

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Speaker 1: times more powerful than zero isn't one hundred decibels, it's

431
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: twenty decibels. And a sound one thousand times stronger than

432
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 1: zero decibles isn't one thousand dB or decibels, it's thirty decibels. Now,

433
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: normal conversation is in the range of sixty decibles. A

434
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: car horn is around a hundred ten decibles, a jet

435
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:39,159
Speaker 1: engine is around one twenty decibles. A gunshot right at

436
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 1: the sources about a hundred forty decibels. So in this case,

437
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: we're talking about the difference in intensity on a logarithmic

438
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 1: scale from being practically silent now amplic amplification factors are

439
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 1: a little different because you can actually have negative decibels

440
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: and sound. That doesn't make any sense. It's not like

441
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: you could be quieter than silent or get somehow more

442
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,719
Speaker 1: quiet than no noise at all. That's not what negative

443
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 1: decibels means. Instead, what it means is that you have

444
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: an incoming signal and then you step down the power

445
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: of that signal before you put it through output, So

446
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: you can have negative decibels the incoming signal is stronger

447
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: than the outgoing signal. Is This is also really important

448
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: for um sound engineers as well. So UH, that is

449
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: an amplification that is attenuation, but more on that in

450
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: a second. So with gain, we're talking about boosting signal

451
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: power and not stepping it down. Game can boost a

452
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: signal's power a few decipls two around thirty deciples and

453
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: strength depending upon the application, and you can also cascade

454
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: amplification to boost it further. But there is a problem

455
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: in that amplification can introduce noise into the signal, and

456
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: each time you amplify that signal again, it's going to

457
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: also amplify the noise, So you can't continuously amplify a signal.

458
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: Eventually you're going to have so much noise that there

459
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: won't be any signal anymore. It ends up creating distortion,

460
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: so you have a limitation of practical limitation on how

461
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: much you can amplify a signal. Attenuation going back to

462
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: that is the reduction of a signal strength. So this

463
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: can be any signal, doesn't have to be an electric signal. UH.

464
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 1: Sunglasses attenuate the light that comes from the sun that

465
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: hits your eyeballs, for example. UH. This is also called loss.

466
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 1: Often in the UH, the the engineering electrical engineering BIZ

467
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: and signals attenuate over distance. It's just something that happens.

468
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: So radio waves will attenuate over a distance, UM light

469
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 1: will attenuate over distance across things like fiber optic cables.

470
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: Electricity will attenuate over great distances. And it's one of

471
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: those problems that engineers had to get around using various means,

472
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: one of the big ones being repeaters. So let's say

473
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: you've got a cable and you've got a signal going

474
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: through the cable. It's going to attenuate as it travels

475
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: down this cable. You may have to have a repeater

476
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: that would take in the incoming signal and generate a

477
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: new one to continue down the line to keep on

478
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: going toward its destination. And you might have multiple repeaters

479
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: across an entire network in order to get signals to

480
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: go from point A to point B. So attenuation is

481
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: just a fact of physics. You know, you can't you

482
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: can't engineer your way around it entirely. You can find

483
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 1: better and better ways of preserving signals so that they

484
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: attenuate more slowly. And in fact, if you look at

485
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: uh the attenuation in cables, the less attenuation per distance

486
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:53,479
Speaker 1: you have, the more efficient that cable is there's some

487
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: cable manufacturers that really rely on this as a way

488
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: of saying, hey, our cables are way better than our

489
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: competitor is because we have very little loss. We have

490
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: engineered our cables so that they are superior in most cases,

491
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: at least for consumers. I would argue that the difference

492
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: is negligible. The signal loss is so small and the

493
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: error correction and most electronics is so good that it

494
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: would be difficult to notice as a consumer, if not

495
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: impossible to notice. Um However, depending upon what you're using

496
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: it for, if it's something super high end and you're

497
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: having to have truly very long cables, attenuation can be

498
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: a problem. This is particularly an issue with like quantum computing.

499
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: In fact, with quantum computing right now, we expect that

500
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: there is a hard limit to how far away you

501
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: could have nodes be from one another in order to

502
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: communicate effectively. I believe I don't have this figure in

503
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: front of me, but I believe that the theoretical upper

504
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: limit is somewhere around five kilometers, and beyond that you

505
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: would not be able to have a quantum computer network

506
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: be able to communicate with a node to node. So

507
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: that's an issue um. It's one of the limiting factors.

508
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: It maybe that that means we'll have quantum computing networks,

509
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: but never a quantum Internet, not a true one anyway,

510
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: that's a possibility. Anyway. I hope that ends up explaining

511
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: the concepts of impedance, gain and attenuation. Uh. It's pretty

512
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: interesting stuff and uh, I feel like I could go

513
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: on a lot more about that, probably bring in a

514
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: couple of engineers and really talk about it. But I

515
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: hope that serves as a good introduction into the concepts.

516
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. You know,

517
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521
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525
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526
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530
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531
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539
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: stuff all right. Our next piece of listener mail comes

540
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: from listener Keegan McDougall, who had a really cool question. Uh.

541
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: And Kegan was asking about a philosophical question and ethical

542
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: question that is called the trolley problem and wanted to

543
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: know how it relates to autonomous cars. And I thought, well,

544
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: this is this is a point where I could kind

545
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: of give my own answer and that would be fine,

546
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 1: but I think it would really benefit from an actual discussion,

547
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: which is why I have invited my super secret guest star,

548
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: whom I alluded to earlier in the show, and it

549
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: turns out to be Ben bowling of car stuff and

550
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. I think both

551
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: of those shows relate to the topic we're going to

552
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: talk about. Yeah, hey, thanks for having me on. And

553
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: I gotta say I love the Listener Male episodes. So

554
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: this is a really great question that ke Getting has asked. Yeah,

555
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: I think I think first obviously we should probably talk

556
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: about what the trolley problem is, what the trolley question is,

557
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: and this is really kind of a cognitive science slash

558
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: um ethical slash moral quandary kind of question, and it's

559
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:34,359
Speaker 1: a hypothetical situation, thankfully not not a practical exam So

560
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 1: the the hypothetical question that the most basic version of

561
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: this is that there is a track and a trolley

562
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: is out of control running down this track, and the

563
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 1: there is a person on the track, and if the

564
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: trolley are actually there's five people on on the track,

565
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: and if the trolley continues it will collide with and

566
00:34:55,800 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: presumably kill all five of these people. You are next

567
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: to a switch that will switch the track to a

568
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: separate run of track, and there's one person on that

569
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: separate one. So if you pull the switch. You will

570
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: save the five people from certain death, but you will

571
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: condemn the person who's on the separate track to death.

572
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: And the question is do you pull the trick the

573
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,240
Speaker 1: lever or not do you actually make that move? Uh?

574
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: And it's not like there's a a right or wrong

575
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: answer to this. There there are answers that more people

576
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: are that freque will frequently give um And most people

577
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,400
Speaker 1: would say that to save one to you know, to

578
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: sacrifice one person, to say five people makes the most sense.

579
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: We're doing the vulcan response, right, Right, the needs of

580
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Uh. Yeah,

581
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 1: also known as the utilitarian response. Right. That's a very

582
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: common way of looking at it. And then there are

583
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: variations on this this question, like what if instead of

584
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: pulling a lever, you are on the trolley and the

585
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: trolley is out of control and it's heading towards five

586
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: people on the track, and you can stop the trolley

587
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 1: if you push a fat person who's on the trolley

588
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: with you out in front. The trolley will hit the

589
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: fat person and come to a stop before hitting anyone else.

590
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: That means you actively have to kill a person. It's

591
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,439
Speaker 1: not so much you pull a switch and someone else

592
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: dies instead of five people, you are actively killing them.

593
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: And now we start seeing people say I don't know

594
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: that I could do that. Taking no action and allowing

595
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: people to die feels differently than taking an active role

596
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: and killing someone to prevent five other people from dying. Yeah,

597
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: And other people would argue, well, you're still committing a

598
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 1: murder by pulling the switch, just a more comfortable thing,

599
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,800
Speaker 1: sort of similar to uh, sort of similar to buying

600
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: prepared food versus going into the forest and killing your

601
00:36:57,560 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: own thing, right, or or if you want to think

602
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: of a in a in a kind of a military way,

603
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: it could be the general calling for the order of

604
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 1: the big push as opposed to someone who's actually on

605
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: the front lines who would make that same call. Yeah,

606
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 1: that's a really good point, which that actually comes up

607
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: in a lot of war crime trial. Oh yeah, I mean, well,

608
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of World War One,

609
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,280
Speaker 1: that was the history of World War One, right, there

610
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: were lots of criticisms leveled against generals who were who

611
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:31,400
Speaker 1: seemed far too eager to commit huge numbers of soldiers

612
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: to potential death and destruction for what we're often seen

613
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 1: as arbitrary gains. But getting back to the trolley problem

614
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:44,359
Speaker 1: and the question Kegan had. The reason this relates back

615
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: to autonomous cars is you could imagine scenarios in which

616
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: an autonomous car would have to make a split decision,

617
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: and how do you program in that decision. So here's

618
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: an example i'm I would give. Let's say that you

619
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 1: are in your autonomous car. The cars driving for you.

620
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: You are not in control. The car is going down

621
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: a street and there are pedestrians all along the sidewalk

622
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: to your right. All right, an oncoming car under manual

623
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: control uh loses control. So the driver loses control of

624
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: that vehicle and it begins to swerve into your lane.

625
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: Your car is unable to move off to the left

626
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: because of the trajectory of the incoming car. So what

627
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: does your car do. Your car, having traffic behind you,

628
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: can't back up, So your options are essentially to hit

629
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: the brakes and you're going to have a collision with

630
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 1: an oncoming car, which could potentially put you the passenger

631
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,439
Speaker 1: at risk, or the car could swerve to the right

632
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 1: avoid a collision but potentially collide with pedestrians. In either case,

633
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: you're talking about people potentially being hurt or killed. How

634
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: do you, as a programmer who's designing the autonomous car

635
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:04,479
Speaker 1: are make that call? And is it right for an

636
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: engineer to make that call knowing that the person who

637
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: is inside the car might have had a different reaction. Yeah,

638
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: these these are great questions and they tie into some

639
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 1: topical things that are going to become an increasingly big

640
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 1: issue for car owners and car manufacturers. As abstract and

641
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 1: philosophical as this might sound, in some degree, this is

642
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: a real life problem. So a brief explanation here. One

643
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 1: one of the things that we should mention when we

644
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: get to real world applications is if there is a

645
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: real person driving and trolley. Unfortunately, we do have to

646
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: allow for uh, their preformed opinions of the kind of

647
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: people they're saving to come into play. So five people

648
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 1: that they consider unsavory or you know, five elderly people

649
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: versus one child. Right. Usually the way we present this

650
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,280
Speaker 1: problem is that you have no information about the potential victims,

651
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: because otherwise, I mean there are variations like there's one

652
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: there's one where you're on the trolley, there are five

653
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 1: people on the tracks, and the person who's responsible for

654
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,760
Speaker 1: the trolley being out of control is also on the trolley.

655
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: You can push that person out, and most people would

656
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: say yes, because this person has committed the act that

657
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: has put everyone in danger in the first place, and

658
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: it is ethically all right to have that person be

659
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: held responsible by way of killing them to prevent the

660
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: deaths of their otherwise potential victims. Right, Yeah, and I

661
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: and I think it's correct for at least the hypothetical

662
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: nature of it to keep to keep the emphasis on

663
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: the problem, which is the problematic decision, that dilemma. But

664
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: when we talk about programming UM programming, we could potentially

665
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: be a death machine. You know what we what we

666
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 1: find quickly is that we might run into um problems

667
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 1: of profiling through code. Could we teach uh? Could we

668
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: teach a computer that level of fidelity? And could we

669
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: teach it to be something that people agree with directly? Furthermore,

670
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: I've got to say, Man, I was thinking about this

671
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 1: since we were talking about it briefly off air. The

672
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: one of the first answers that a lot of people

673
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: go to with an AI problem is, well, the three

674
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 1: laws of robotics, right are perfect, but they don't work

675
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:30,240
Speaker 1: in this occasion because they're asking the robot quote unquote

676
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 1: to uh differentiate between values of human life, which the

677
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: first law doesn't allow for it. Right. It's a it's

678
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: a no win scenario for the robot, right because no

679
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: matter what choice is made, there's going to be some

680
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: form of injury as a result. So there's no way

681
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: that the robot can make a decision that is going

682
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: to result and no one getting hurt. That's just not

683
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,840
Speaker 1: even an option. It's it's you know, you've got the

684
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: traffic behind you, so you can't magically say, oh, well

685
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: just PLoP it into reverse so that way you avoid

686
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: the collision. Uh, And you can't you know, you can't say, oh,

687
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: we'll find a gap in the people like there's going

688
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: they're going to be situations where this hypothetical question can

689
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: and will arise. Now, you could argue that when we

690
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: get closer and closer to more autonomous cars being on

691
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: the road, the likelihood of the situation decreases dramatically, um

692
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: particularly if you have vehicles that are capable of communicating

693
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: with one another, because then they're going to know each

694
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: other's positions well before you're in range of each other.

695
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: Then you just have to worry about the things that

696
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: are not part of the system, like pedestrians crossing the street,

697
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: jay walker's dogs, you know, that sort of stuff, which

698
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 1: could still be a factor. Also, we keep in mind

699
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:47,360
Speaker 1: that the autonomous cars are able to react in a

700
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: fraction of the time that humans are, and they're able

701
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: to detect everything that's going on. See, we humans, we're

702
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: limited by what we can focus on at any given time,

703
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: So even our field of view is a limitation, right,

704
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: so a car doesn't have that. A car can have

705
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: a three and sixty degree area of awareness and a

706
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: fraction of the amount of time it takes a human

707
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: to react to be able to make these decisions. That

708
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 1: being said, you still have this problem of there are

709
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: scenarios that are possible where ultimately someone has to figure

710
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: out how do they program this in do they have

711
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 1: do they build it in to the cars programming where

712
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: if it detects pedestrians, those have the top priority of

713
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:34,720
Speaker 1: safety because they are the ones who are least likely

714
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 1: to be able to survive and impact. And therefore, let's

715
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,240
Speaker 1: let's uh, you know, you'd never want to have a crash,

716
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: but if the choices between crash or plowing into pedestrians,

717
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 1: you'd pick the crash. That's what I would suspect, because

718
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,280
Speaker 1: I would imagine also that anyone making these cars would

719
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: test to make sure that they withstood the same crash

720
00:43:55,239 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: test parameters that other vehicles do. So in that case,

721
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,720
Speaker 1: I would say that the autonomous car is more likely

722
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 1: to be designed. And I think that's from a manufacturer's

723
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 1: point of view, two to withstand the crash. That not

724
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: that not that that's necessarily always going to be the

725
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:18,919
Speaker 1: quote unquote right choice from an ethics point of view,

726
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: But if I'm a car manufacturer, I definitely would rather

727
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 1: have the message be in this very unlikely scenario, uh,

728
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: the car would prepare for impact essentially rather than run

729
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 1: a muck on the sidewalk exactly, And that that's the

730
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: primary concern as um. As cold as it may sound,

731
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is that if you are

732
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: a car manufacturer, part of what you're selling to car

733
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 1: buyers is a sense of safety. So I I think

734
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 1: that the priorities would be a little bit different. The

735
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: number one priority probably be the passengers within the vehicle.

736
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: To the point that with this preparation for impact, which

737
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,399
Speaker 1: I love what you're saying, than than it may be

738
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: a case where the car simply stops, uh like proactively

739
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: deploys its air bags. Uh and perhaps I don't know,

740
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: maybe has some brake system that braces for impact. It

741
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: might even orient itself so that the most the crumpled

742
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: zones are at their the best angle for preparing for

743
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: an impact. Which, you know, it sounds kind of crazy.

744
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: You're thinking, Oh, it's a car that would actually maneuver

745
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: itself so it would suffer more damage. But it may

746
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: be that that's the ideal way to deal with this

747
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: kind of situation, to make sure that everyone involved has

748
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 1: the best chance of uh of suffering the least amount

749
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: of injury. Yes, and this brings us to something that

750
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 1: we probably don't have time for today, but it's an

751
00:45:55,400 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: interesting question. I'd love to hear um your thoughts on this, two, Keegan. Uh.

752
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 1: If we have that kind of programming, which is really

753
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: really the definition of live fire, just the inherent danger here,

754
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: then what happens when people modify that programming, Because I mean,

755
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: you know this, Jonathan, there's this big there's this increasingly

756
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: big stink over the computerization of cars and the degree

757
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: of control over that that programming is still held by manufacturers. Sure,

758
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: and people are buying cars and saying, why can't I

759
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,320
Speaker 1: work on my car? Right? And then there's the hacker

760
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 1: community that have uh said that they would be able

761
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: to get control of various car systems, and that's been

762
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: demons demonstrated in the past. Now until very recently, it's

763
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: all been limited to people who are able to hook

764
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: a laptop directly into the wiring of a vehicle. So

765
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: it meant that you had to have physical access to

766
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 1: the car in order to have that happened. Uh. However,

767
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: that being said, I know there's a conference coming up

768
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 1: this summer in which a pair of presenters are going

769
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 1: to say that they have found a way of remotely

770
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 1: accessing a vehicle and hacking it. Um. I'm very curious

771
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 1: to hear how they did that. I imagine the only

772
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: way I can imagine it working is if I mean,

773
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: you would obviously have to have some sort of of

774
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: transceiver on the car that could communicate out and receive

775
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: communication back. Uh. And typically I would imagine that would

776
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 1: be limited to a car's entertainment system. Um. But if

777
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 1: that entertainment system is also hooked into the other various

778
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: computer systems on a car, then that is a potential

779
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 1: point of vulnerability. Uh. Now, if you've designed a car

780
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 1: where it can wirelessly communicate with a mechanic to allow

781
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: a mechanic to get more information about the vehicle and

782
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 1: it's its current state. Uh, then that would also be

783
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: a potential point of vulnerability. I just don't imagine that

784
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: happening because it's I don't think that it would be

785
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: I don't think the convenience of that particular system would

786
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 1: warrant the investment in it because it's not that much

787
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: more difficult for a mechanic to just hook their computer

788
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,239
Speaker 1: up to your cars computer system. It's it's not like

789
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: it's so hard to do that. You know, we needed

790
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 1: to find an alternative to that. But that being said,

791
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: knowing that this is a possibility that the ability to

792
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: to hack into a car could become a thing, and

793
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 1: knowing that autonomous cars are you know, they're they're growing reality.

794
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 1: It's something that you know, the roboticist Henrik Christensen said

795
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: the kids born today will never have to drive a

796
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 1: car because the cars that they'll have when they reach

797
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 1: driving age will all be autonomous. Uh. You know, I

798
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: I think that's fairly accurate. I mean, some people say

799
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:50,759
Speaker 1: it won't be till I don't think that's true. I

800
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: think that we're much closer to seeing it become a

801
00:48:54,520 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: commercial possibility within within a decade. That all of that

802
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 1: is to say that because of that that reality of

803
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: the autonomous cars, something like the possibility of hacking is

804
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: certainly a concern. If you are a hacker who owns

805
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: your own car and you wanted to remove things like

806
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:20,359
Speaker 1: the cap on speed limits so that your car could

807
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: drive much faster, even if you're not the one physically

808
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 1: controlling it, that you just enjoy the experience of writing

809
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: in a really fast car. That's a concern if you

810
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 1: are able to do things like, for whatever reason, remove

811
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: the safety features that would prevent your car from uh

812
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 1: breaking too late or accelerating too early, or position itself

813
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: correctly for a crash. Because you don't want to lose

814
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: a big investment. Yeah, any of those things would be

815
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: you know, a concern. So uh, I mean, these are

816
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,280
Speaker 1: questions that we don't have real answers to yet because

817
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: we're not we're not technologically there yet, but they are

818
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,439
Speaker 1: definitely questions that need to be thought of on the

819
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:03,359
Speaker 1: engineering and manufacturer side of things, because these are things

820
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: that are gonna come up, and you know, you might argue, well,

821
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: this is a now, it's a niche thing. It's only

822
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,879
Speaker 1: gonna happen like a few times, but potentially that could

823
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: be devastating if you don't actually address it. Yeah, and

824
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 1: and also you know, it's a tough spot for carmakers

825
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: because as as reasonable as it is for you and I,

826
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: um and probably a lot of you guys listening out

827
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 1: there too, as reasonable as is for all of us

828
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: as individuals to say, well, the utilitarian answer is correct,

829
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: Spock is correct. If GM or someone came out and said, well, guys,

830
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: autonomous cars are still in the early days, so here's

831
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do if someone has to die, if

832
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: this situation comes up, that it's going to make sure

833
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: it only kills one person, set of five. Then immediately

834
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: you've got everyone say, all right, we have it on

835
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: record that this this car company has said it's okay

836
00:50:56,040 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: to kill people. Right, so when it when it happened,

837
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: as we can totally go and say no, you have

838
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 1: it on record that this is what you've decided to do. Yeah, no,

839
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely Again, that's why I would think that

840
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: car manufacturers would try to limit the liability. They would

841
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:15,359
Speaker 1: be there and and say like, well, uh, you know,

842
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:19,319
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it ends up being common practice that when

843
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:22,760
Speaker 1: you buy a car that has an autonomous control feature

844
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: on it, that you also end up signing waivers that

845
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: wave your legal rights to go after a company should

846
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: one of these crazy scenarios come along. I don't know

847
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: if that would actually hold water, because I would say,

848
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: imagine there'd be a lot of pushback on that, saying, well,

849
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 1: how can you hold a a customer culpable when they

850
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: have literally no control over the vehicle. They didn't build

851
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: the vehicle, they didn't design the software, they didn't decide

852
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 1: how it navigates. They just told it a destination. How

853
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 1: can you hold them responsible for that just because they

854
00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: own the machine. They didn't make it do the thing

855
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,680
Speaker 1: it did. Um, these are great questions. I love, I

856
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 1: love thinking about it. I wish I had more answers,

857
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: But honestly, it's one of those deals that I think

858
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: is going to shake out as the technology matures, and uh,

859
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:13,880
Speaker 1: you know, in the best case scenario, they will largely

860
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: be moot questions because the implementation of the technology will

861
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: be sophisticated. Enough where these these problems will rarely, if

862
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 1: ever pop up. That's that's a dream, that's very optimistic.

863
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:28,239
Speaker 1: But but you know, shoot for the stars, right, I

864
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: want myself driving car. I want to make that clear.

865
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 1: I am not against the idea of autonomous cars. I

866
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 1: eagerly await the day when I can have an autonomous

867
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: car take me to work. Yeah, it was sure would

868
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 1: be nice to get here in twelve minutes in seven hour,

869
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 1: you know, And I don't drive, so for me, I

870
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: would need an autonomous car because I'm not a Driver's

871
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 1: not into it. I know. I've had him on the

872
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: show a couple of times to talk about In fact,

873
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,359
Speaker 1: we had a discussion about hacking cars, and we also

874
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: did a discussion about autonomous cars. And I can see,

875
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 1: you know, every time I started talking about autonomous cars,

876
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: he started to squirm in his seat a little. You know,

877
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 1: not all of us are like you know, race car

878
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: drivers in our heads with lead feet, lightning like reflections.

879
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: Some of us just want to get to where we

880
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:19,319
Speaker 1: need to go and and not have to deal with

881
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: the navigating through traffic on our own. I mean, I've

882
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 1: seen what it does to the same people. I cannot

883
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: take that Ben would not work. H Yeah. Well, well, luckily,

884
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 1: it looks like every everything that we have seen tells

885
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 1: us that there is a rise in autonomous vehicles, and

886
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: they are at some point wherever you are listening right now,

887
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,879
Speaker 1: they are at some point coming to your town. Yeah. Yeah,

888
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:47,760
Speaker 1: some of them may be driving around right now, depending

889
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: on where you're at. Um. Yeah, I've seen uh, I

890
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 1: got to see a few when I went out to

891
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 1: San Francisco. It's pretty cool. All right, Well, Ben, thank

892
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me for that segment, and

893
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,360
Speaker 1: I'm sure Kegan appreciates it too. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys,

894
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: And remember you can check out Ben's shows. He's on

895
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: car stuff, He's on stuff they don't want you to know.

896
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: He's also a writer and appears for shows like brain

897
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: Stuff and What the Stuff. Uh So Yeah, if you

898
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 1: guys are are big into video, you should definitely check

899
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 1: those out. You should check out the other podcast as well.

900
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 1: And of course it's always a pleasure having you on

901
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: and I will be asking you to be a guest

902
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 1: probably again really soon. Hey, thank you. Also, just to

903
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: point out to everybody, uh, Jonathan, in full disclosure, you're

904
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:33,879
Speaker 1: on like half of those shows as well. That's true.

905
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,359
Speaker 1: I also appear on those shows. So yeah, if you

906
00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:40,839
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen What the Stuff like, go ahead

907
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 1: and give a quick description. So What the Stuff is

908
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: kind of a show where we pick interesting topics and

909
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: give really cool examples of whatever that topic happens to be. So, uh,

910
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 1: you know, I've got one coming up about honest sports

911
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:58,399
Speaker 1: in the world, and I talk about some really crazy ones. Uh.

912
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 1: And then brain Stuff kind of a dive into really

913
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: cool questions about how stuff works or interesting science questions

914
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um, and those are always a

915
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:12,719
Speaker 1: lot of fun to do to. Yeah, you've got uh,

916
00:55:12,920 --> 00:55:15,399
Speaker 1: let's see you guys know, Jonathan's a little bit of

917
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:19,279
Speaker 1: an actor in a different light, right, Yeah, that's true.

918
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:21,560
Speaker 1: Can I say that on the air? Absolutely? And uh

919
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:25,320
Speaker 1: did this did this great piece on brain Stuff about

920
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 1: why people in old movies the Transatlantic accent? Yeah, I

921
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: think we've made the title why do people talk funny

922
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: in Old Movies? I think it was that ended up

923
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:38,319
Speaker 1: being a really popular one. Check that out if you

924
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: want to see some of the guy's chops, right and um,

925
00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 1: and and you know, obviously we've got tons of other

926
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:45,720
Speaker 1: shows here and how Stuff works not to mention crazy

927
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: amazing articles. I don't know how many of you have

928
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 1: been to the house stuff works dot com website, but

929
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: you should definitely check it out. Check out. We're gonna

930
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:56,760
Speaker 1: have some great things to announce in the near future.

931
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 1: Um really excited. I mean it's been it's always been

932
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 1: a great place to work, but it's really becoming like

933
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: crazy exciting over the last year. So check that out, guys.

934
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: I know that I haven't really talked about the website

935
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: in a long time, but you definitely need to check

936
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,040
Speaker 1: that out. All right, That wraps up this discussion. If

937
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,239
Speaker 1: you guys have any questions, if you want to have

938
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 1: your listener mail, be part of the next grab bag.

939
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 1: I want to do a lot more of these in

940
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: the future. It's always fun to kind of respond to

941
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:26,319
Speaker 1: what you guys have to say and think. Send me

942
00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 1: a message that email address is tech stuff at how

943
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:33,240
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or draw me a line on Twitter,

944
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:36,360
Speaker 1: Facebook or Tumbler at all three. I use the handle

945
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: of text stuff h s W and we'll talk to

946
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands

947
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:58,080
Speaker 1: of other topics Works dot Com