Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: textile from houstuffworks dot com. Well, our guest today is
Speaker 1: Brian Brushwood, Magician extraordinaire, critical thinker, skeptic, social engineer, gat
Speaker 1: about town like that last one the most. Thank you, Brian,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on our show. Dude,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. I don't know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about this for months. I'm glad we finally
Speaker 1: made it happen. Yeah, Brushwood and I are, we're like
Speaker 1: BFFs from way back. Yeah, we're roomy's. That's true. It's true.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Brushwood is a he's he's He's an amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing kind of guy. One of the nicest guys you
Speaker 1: guys could ever meet. I really do mean that, Mr Brushwood.
Speaker 1: You gotta ruin my reputations. Stop this. He's he's also
Speaker 1: a complete jerk. Now, so we wanted to talk today
Speaker 1: about lots of different topics. But before we get started,
Speaker 1: in your own words, can we get sort of a
Speaker 1: kind of a minute long or two minute long bio
Speaker 1: of who you are, how you got interested in stage
Speaker 1: magic and technology and all that kind of good stuff. Sure, man,
Speaker 1: it's really weird. I'm in a transition phase right now
Speaker 1: because if you'd asked me five years ago, the answer
Speaker 1: would have been dead simple. I would have told you
Speaker 1: I am a touring stage magician who tours colleges doing
Speaker 1: a punk rock magic show with fire eating escapes, mind reading.
Speaker 1: I stick and nail and one eye pops out, the
Speaker 1: other eye, I break thirty pound breaks over my head. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it was and that's that's all I did. But
Speaker 1: as I've transitioned, we launched Scam School. I pitched it
Speaker 1: five years ago right around this time, and now it's
Speaker 1: four years strong, two and twenty episodes, and now I'm
Speaker 1: hosting four other podcasts as well. But I'm still doing
Speaker 1: the live stage shows. So my identity, my identity is
Speaker 1: kind of in transition right now as I as I
Speaker 1: do more performing in front of the camera instead of
Speaker 1: in front of audiences. And now it's even more complicated since, uh,
Speaker 1: we just launched the Scam School book, which hit number
Speaker 1: one in Canada number three in the US on the
Speaker 1: iTunes store on the day of launch. So now I
Speaker 1: guess throw author in the mix as well, how about that.
Speaker 1: Huge props to you, and that's awesome and uh, you're
Speaker 1: also The Scam School show has also been featured on
Speaker 1: Discovery dot Com. Yeah, they apparently it was the awesomest thing,
Speaker 1: because I guess Discovery dot Com has been talking with
Speaker 1: Revision three and they were talking about some kind of
Speaker 1: partnership for a while, but since nothing was confirmed, nobody
Speaker 1: at Revision three really told me, because you know, it's
Speaker 1: like they didn't want to tell me if there was
Speaker 1: nothing to tell. But I guess within minutes of the
Speaker 1: deal being finalized, Discovery dot Com through the first episode
Speaker 1: up under their life section, and so I found out
Speaker 1: about it because somebody on Twitter is like, hey, were
Speaker 1: you just not gonna tell us that you joined Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com? And I'm like, what's take a look? And
Speaker 1: sure enough, there it is and it's is to be
Speaker 1: very well received. I'm excited about it. That's fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and as a you know, as a friend and fan,
Speaker 1: I was very pleased to see that join our our
Speaker 1: family here, and it was a it was a surprise
Speaker 1: to me as well. I had not I had no
Speaker 1: knowledge of any sort of Revision three work at that point.
Speaker 1: But it was very pleased to see you brought on board.
Speaker 1: And anytime I can see talented people who who are
Speaker 1: good at at at entertaining and informing, that's always a pleasure. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to talk a little bit today about
Speaker 1: the fact that since you have extensive experience being a
Speaker 1: stage magician, uh, that kind of gets your perspective on
Speaker 1: how stage magic has changed over the years and how
Speaker 1: the role of technology has sort of played a part
Speaker 1: in that and that, uh, and just get an idea
Speaker 1: of what's important when you're a stage magician. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean I would say as as far back as
Speaker 1: you look, there's been a very tight relationship between technology
Speaker 1: and magic. And uh, what's the Arthur's C. Clark quote
Speaker 1: for um Childhood's end. He says, any sufficiently advanced technology
Speaker 1: is indistinguishable from magic. Yes, one of our favorites. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: and that the magicians love that quote because it makes
Speaker 1: us sound important. But the but you know, you look
Speaker 1: back and uh, it seems like every time there's a
Speaker 1: novel new technology, uh, there is a magician to either
Speaker 1: exploit it secretly in a stage show or to make
Speaker 1: it integral to his stage performance. You know you go back.
Speaker 1: You know, you got Jean Eugene Robert Huddon uh doing
Speaker 1: doing bullet catches, you know when and this is in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century when we're still using a musket type rifles.
Speaker 1: You got um uh, you know Penn and Teller doing
Speaker 1: doing cell phone tricks, you know. And of course I
Speaker 1: I do an illusion in my stage show now where
Speaker 1: I make a ghost appear on everyone's cell phone in
Speaker 1: the audience. And there's something about the novelty of new
Speaker 1: technology that that puts a finger in that same part
Speaker 1: of the brain that good slot of hand does where
Speaker 1: it's just it's just incomprehensible and you can't even understand
Speaker 1: how that's possible. That's yeah, that's really cool. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not to not to pull back the veil
Speaker 1: too much from from the whole magic thing, but go ahead,
Speaker 1: pull it back in the In the biz, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we might refer to certain certain types of technology specifically
Speaker 1: made for stage magic, often referred to as as gimmicks,
Speaker 1: a gimmick that you use in order to pull off
Speaker 1: a trick. And I think it's an interesting thing that
Speaker 1: I see with a lot of people who just start
Speaker 1: off in magic, the beginners often, I think, place more
Speaker 1: stock in a gimmick than they do necessarily in stage presentation.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious as to what your view is on that.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the most important tool in
Speaker 1: any stage magician's toolbox? Us, Yeah, you nailed it right
Speaker 1: on the head. When I first started in magic, I
Speaker 1: was what eighteen years old and wandered into a magic
Speaker 1: shop in Austin, Texas that was run out of the
Speaker 1: garage of one of the local magicians. And since I
Speaker 1: didn't have a car at university, I had to take
Speaker 1: two different busses. It took me a forty five minutes
Speaker 1: just to go the eight miles to get there. And uh,
Speaker 1: this guy talked to me for like the three hours straight,
Speaker 1: and I just had my mind blown because I picked
Speaker 1: magic just out of the blue as as a hobby
Speaker 1: to try, and I didn't really know much about it.
Speaker 1: But one of the things he told me that really
Speaker 1: stuck with me is like, when when people first start
Speaker 1: doing magic, they always want the self working, no fail gimmicks.
Speaker 1: They want they want the tricky deck of cards to
Speaker 1: force someone a card rather than relying on slide of hand,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's a confidence booster, and it's something
Speaker 1: that always works. But then there's something kind of guilt
Speaker 1: that builds in you and makes you think like, I'm
Speaker 1: not really a magician. I should be doing everything with
Speaker 1: a real deck of cards. And you learn how to
Speaker 1: do these these fancy forces or these flourishes, or you know,
Speaker 1: turn over one card so it looks like a different card.
Speaker 1: And then after a while, once you have that down,
Speaker 1: you get lazy and say why am I doing all
Speaker 1: this extra work when the one who notices the difference?
Speaker 1: Then you go back to using gimmicks. Soum, Yeah it is,
Speaker 1: but but but you come out the other side because
Speaker 1: it's one of those once you get enough flight time,
Speaker 1: you build an engaging presentation. And I'll tell you that's
Speaker 1: the biggest I don't want to say betrayal. That's the
Speaker 1: biggest confusion that people have. A lot of folks get
Speaker 1: into magic when they're fourteen and hitting puberty because they
Speaker 1: feel powerless and they want a way to get other
Speaker 1: people to be interested in something they're doing, and so
Speaker 1: they follow the script the way it's written, They do
Speaker 1: the moves the way it's written, and either they get
Speaker 1: stuck in that rut and they become those socially awkward
Speaker 1: people who can't relate to other people except with the
Speaker 1: deck of cards in their hand, or they pull through
Speaker 1: it and they realize, wow, it's not really They'll they'll realize, like,
Speaker 1: out of everything, the one joke they made up on
Speaker 1: the spot got a bigger reaction than any of the
Speaker 1: prepackaged can jokes that they had before then. And then
Speaker 1: they realized that the magic is just that social lubricant,
Speaker 1: it's just that excuse to start interacting with someone, and
Speaker 1: it's really it's your personality that matters way more than anything.
Speaker 1: And you, I mean, there are parts of Pen and
Speaker 1: Teller's show that are utterly transparent to anyone who knows
Speaker 1: a thing or two about magic. And yet there are
Speaker 1: some of the most important, beautiful routines that they've ever written,
Speaker 1: because they speak to something bigger than the trick they're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm always reminded of their routine of doing the cups
Speaker 1: and balls with the transparent cups. Yeah, and even as
Speaker 1: you're watching it, and even as they're explaining how they
Speaker 1: do it, doing it so seamlessly and so smoothly, that's
Speaker 1: so clear that they've they've really polished that routine that
Speaker 1: it still feels like magic. Well, I think there's a
Speaker 1: real uh, there's something that we really crave in the
Speaker 1: illusion of being educated. And I say the illusion because
Speaker 1: because by the time that trick, ostensibly the whole purpose
Speaker 1: of that routine is for them to teach you how
Speaker 1: to do the cups of balls, because you see it
Speaker 1: done with transparent cups. By the time that's over, I
Speaker 1: would I would challenge you to a hundred thousand yen
Speaker 1: that is that a hundred bucks something like that, not
Speaker 1: recreate even one phase of that routine accurately. And likewise,
Speaker 1: one of the things people seem to like most of
Speaker 1: my stage show is I begin with this four and
Speaker 1: a half minute illustrated history of fire reading, right explained
Speaker 1: from the earliest references to resistance to fire to uh
Speaker 1: to to the touring uh you know stage performer Richardson
Speaker 1: in the sixteen hundreds. I explained the progression of fire reading,
Speaker 1: and everyone's oh, I just so educational. I learned so much,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you cannot repeat back one fact.
Speaker 1: I gave you that entire time. But it's that blend
Speaker 1: of feeling like you're learning while you're seeing something visually
Speaker 1: interesting that seems to uh, seems to sit well with people. Excellent. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and it's it's interesting to me on this show in
Speaker 1: several different episodes. Uh, and Chris can attest to this
Speaker 1: because he had to listen to me do it just
Speaker 1: a second ago. I stress the importance of of critical
Speaker 1: thinking and really uh, taking taking time to think things through,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you just tend to accept stuff on a
Speaker 1: surface level, and it becomes very easy to get tricked
Speaker 1: into things. This is one of those things that magicians
Speaker 1: that actually can depend upon depending on their their routines.
Speaker 1: But but there does seem to be an interesting relationship
Speaker 1: between people who are are who get into stage magic
Speaker 1: and people who are advocates for critical thinking. Um. And
Speaker 1: I mean that all that all really began with Houdini.
Speaker 1: You know, Judini was obsessed with trying to contact his
Speaker 1: dead mother and this is at the height of spiritualism
Speaker 1: in uh, you know, early twentieth century. But being a magician,
Speaker 1: he was offended when he went to spiritual mediums and
Speaker 1: saw they were using standard slide of hand tricks. And
Speaker 1: yet these people with the straight face we're saying no
Speaker 1: I'm contacting the spirit world. He's like, no, you got
Speaker 1: that palm, you know, and he would he would call
Speaker 1: them out. He was he was kind of he was
Speaker 1: kind of an able about it, you know. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that tradition continues to this day well well and and
Speaker 1: to be honest, nobody was doing it after Houdini until
Speaker 1: James Randy came along and back in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: That started off with with I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: started with a hundred dollars out of his own pocket
Speaker 1: or a thousand dollars out of his own pocket, but
Speaker 1: he's always offered this, uh, this, this dollar amount challenge
Speaker 1: to anyone who can demonstrate any psychic EESP or supernatural
Speaker 1: phenomenon under double blind test conditions. Uh And, and nobody's
Speaker 1: gotten anywhere close. And in fact, the challenge is now,
Speaker 1: of course, the world famous million dollar challenge, and it
Speaker 1: actually extends to things beyond your typical you know, the
Speaker 1: we typically think of things like being able to move
Speaker 1: something with your mind or prove that dowsing is real,
Speaker 1: but it actually I've seen him extend that to uh,
Speaker 1: to technological claims as well. For example, monster, That's where
Speaker 1: I was headed beating me there, And I guess it's true.
Speaker 1: I think I've read an article recently saying that a
Speaker 1: wire coat hanger demonstrated the ability to perform just as
Speaker 1: well as a hundred dollar monster cable. Yeah, we, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, talked about that on a previous podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that exact same subject. But which it's interesting to
Speaker 1: think that it's a stage magician, someone who is is
Speaker 1: skilled in the arts of deception, who who comes forward
Speaker 1: as an advocate for this. Then, but then again, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the people who know these tools, because like
Speaker 1: you were saying with Houdini, there, these are the tools
Speaker 1: of the trade, and they're seeing it being done not
Speaker 1: for entertainment purposes, but to pull the wool over the
Speaker 1: eyes and try and builk people out of money. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, well, go ahead. I was gonna say, in
Speaker 1: a way, the people that that sell paraphernalia like that,
Speaker 1: the the high end audio cables that work theoretically just
Speaker 1: as well as a code hanger, they're involved in an
Speaker 1: act of showmanship as well. Oh, certainly showmanship. And also
Speaker 1: there's there's certain things, um, when there's a market need
Speaker 1: for something, whether it exists or not, somebody will figure
Speaker 1: out a way to fill it. And that's why I
Speaker 1: don't think Marster cables are going anywhere, is because whether
Speaker 1: or not it's true, if you have more money than cents,
Speaker 1: you want to believe that there's something better than the
Speaker 1: ten dollar cable, and and Monster is gonna be there
Speaker 1: to say, yes, yes there is, and here it is.
Speaker 1: And and the thing that really drives me crazy is
Speaker 1: you could actually come into contact with a system that
Speaker 1: is measurably through very very finely two instruments, better than
Speaker 1: a cheaper system. But to the human ear is indistinguishable, right,
Speaker 1: because we're not capable of hearing that well. And and
Speaker 1: in fact, uh, there's a man it must have been.
Speaker 1: It was over a decade ago that I read in
Speaker 1: Wired magazine. I wish I could remember the name of
Speaker 1: the audio engineer that he set up a super calibrated
Speaker 1: sound system at one dance club and people were complaining
Speaker 1: that it just it just wasn't loud. And meanwhile he's
Speaker 1: looking at the decibel meter and this thing is like
Speaker 1: almost damaging you're hearing it's so loud. So he goes
Speaker 1: to radio shack and gets a I think it was
Speaker 1: like as in Peter that would that would clip the
Speaker 1: highest end, but the the audio queue of hearing the
Speaker 1: high end being clipped made them think that the speakers
Speaker 1: were maxed, and even though the volume was actually lower,
Speaker 1: people reported how much more they liked the music, how
Speaker 1: much louder it was. That's that now that I don't
Speaker 1: find that hard to believe, but it is. It is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. It is amazing, I'll tell you, man, it's
Speaker 1: amazing to me what what a mystery our own minds are.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things my favorite, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest things I got to do at the University
Speaker 1: of Texas was I was part of this honors program
Speaker 1: where they only took a hundred and fifty students each year,
Speaker 1: and they'd have over a thousand applicants, but you could take.
Speaker 1: You took pretty much what they told you the first
Speaker 1: couple of years, but the last two years you took
Speaker 1: whatever classes were related to your thesis. You had to
Speaker 1: have a thesis in order to graduate. And some of
Speaker 1: the students would write their first novel. Some of them
Speaker 1: would write these two or three d page biographies on
Speaker 1: obscure figures from history. And I was doing magic on
Speaker 1: the side at this point, and I thought, well, maybe
Speaker 1: it would be awesome if I could get away with
Speaker 1: writing a paper on the history of magic, because that
Speaker 1: would be fun, or even better, if I could claim
Speaker 1: that it was my thesis to get a trick published
Speaker 1: in one of these magic journals, so, you know, still
Speaker 1: putting a significant amount of work on myself, but at
Speaker 1: least it would be fun and magic related. And when
Speaker 1: I went into pitch my idea to the dean, she said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do for your thesis? And
Speaker 1: I got as far as saying, well, for the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, I've been doing magic on the side,
Speaker 1: and as I drew in a breath to continue, she
Speaker 1: interrupted saying, and you want to do a magic show
Speaker 1: as a creative writing thesis. What a great idea. And
Speaker 1: so as it retrol, I got to take whatever courses
Speaker 1: I wanted for the last two years, as long as
Speaker 1: I could justify being related to magic. So I took
Speaker 1: courses on you know, you know, on artificial intelligence, on psychology,
Speaker 1: on the history of witchcraft, on pseudoscience and the paranormal. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was, it was amazing. But it was those courses
Speaker 1: on brain development that really cemented in my mind what wonderful,
Speaker 1: flawed machines we all are. And once you see, once
Speaker 1: you spend a few years deceiving people, and even better,
Speaker 1: hearing back from people after the fact, having them describe
Speaker 1: to you what they think you did or what they
Speaker 1: remember you doing, it is unreal how wrong all of
Speaker 1: our memories are all the time, on everything. And once
Speaker 1: you accept that, I find I find I'm a lot
Speaker 1: happier about everything. I don't argue anymore. Like if I
Speaker 1: remember something happening one way and someone remembers in another way,
Speaker 1: I'm like, whatever, I'm probably we're probably both wrong. Thing
Speaker 1: like that. And likewise, when you look at um, you know,
Speaker 1: eye witness testimony, you you you devalue it severely because
Speaker 1: you understand that even if they're not intentionally lying to themselves,
Speaker 1: they there's just no way that they can accurately remember anything.
Speaker 1: So you're making me feel a lot more comfortable about
Speaker 1: the fact that I offload a lot of my own
Speaker 1: mental uh, my my own mental practices onto my technology. Now, oh,
Speaker 1: you should, you should, And in fact I think that, uh,
Speaker 1: we're entering an age where unfortunately, in the legal system
Speaker 1: right now, we still are in a place where, uh,
Speaker 1: where we value I witness testimony far more than we
Speaker 1: should because there's and if you've if you're familiar with
Speaker 1: the work of Elizabeth Loftus, uh, it is unreal. They've
Speaker 1: been able to induce false memories and other people by
Speaker 1: asking leading questions. There was one story where they took
Speaker 1: a young kid named Chris and they laid out five stories.
Speaker 1: Four of them were tales that actually happened to him.
Speaker 1: One was a totally made up story about being lost
Speaker 1: at the mall. And they asked a bunch of questions
Speaker 1: about all five and uh and then like two weeks later,
Speaker 1: they said, well, which of these one of these was
Speaker 1: a made up story that never happened to you, Chris,
Speaker 1: which one was the one that we made up? And
Speaker 1: he picked an actual story from his past as being
Speaker 1: a made up one because he couldn't believe that he
Speaker 1: wasn't lost at the mall at age five. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like, wasn't there that story about the other? The
Speaker 1: other experiment with the showing an ad a fake ad
Speaker 1: for some popcorn uh to some people during a thing,
Speaker 1: and then like a survey, two weeks later, they asked
Speaker 1: them how the popcorn was but no one in the
Speaker 1: study had actually had any popcorn, but they all remembered
Speaker 1: trying it and then it was delicious because of the ad.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I haven't now that was that was just
Speaker 1: I think that was when I heard that. I think
Speaker 1: I heard that on Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Um,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. Yeah, And this is why focus groups aren't
Speaker 1: so great for marketing purposes, because the leader often sort
Speaker 1: of steers it in the direction of the of what
Speaker 1: the the company that has organized as focus group is
Speaker 1: trying to achieve, like oh, hey, look it works right,
Speaker 1: go it? Yeah, which comes That's that's the important of
Speaker 1: double blind experimentation, which we you know, of course they
Speaker 1: do very very well with the with the FDA and
Speaker 1: for for you know, new drugs. When it comes to
Speaker 1: consumer marketing, there's probably not much of a reason to
Speaker 1: try that. And for those out there who don't know
Speaker 1: what a double blind test is, all right, So a
Speaker 1: blind test means that the person who's taking the test
Speaker 1: has no knowledge of whether or not they are in
Speaker 1: a control group or the test group. Double blind is
Speaker 1: that the person administering the test also does not know
Speaker 1: if that person if they are ministering a test to
Speaker 1: the control group or to the test group, so that
Speaker 1: that it limits the chance that data will be uh
Speaker 1: leaked to a test subject and influence his or her results. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That one of the earliest cases of that where it's
Speaker 1: so important is Michelle. Eugene Chevroule is a French scientist,
Speaker 1: and this is back in the I believe, the nineteenth
Speaker 1: century when dowsing was super popular, and dowsing is, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, finding water with a forked stick or holding
Speaker 1: a pendulum over a substance and it swings one way
Speaker 1: if it's supposed to be one thing, or swings another
Speaker 1: way if it's another. And when he tried it, he
Speaker 1: set out the way he tried it was, of course,
Speaker 1: he set out a bowl of mercury, held out the pendulum,
Speaker 1: and that things started swinging like crazy, pulled the mercury
Speaker 1: away and it stayed totally still still. He was like,
Speaker 1: holy crap, maybe there's something to this, although he didn't
Speaker 1: say that because he was French soccer crap. But then
Speaker 1: he had it. But but he had the idea. He
Speaker 1: had his assistant set up a partition and he just
Speaker 1: held out the pen alum and and the assistant would
Speaker 1: either set down an empty bowl or a bowl filled
Speaker 1: with mercury, and once he didn't know which which one
Speaker 1: it was, it didn't do anything. Yeah, I know that
Speaker 1: James Randy had suggested a similar test where it would
Speaker 1: involve burying UH PBC pipes with water in them, for example,
Speaker 1: under a certain area of land, covering it all up,
Speaker 1: and then the person ministering the test would have no
Speaker 1: idea where the the PBC pipe actually was. They would
Speaker 1: just observe the test subjects as they would walk across,
Speaker 1: and the test subjects would let them know if they
Speaker 1: had found a hit or not, and that that would
Speaker 1: be you know, a typical, very simple double blind test,
Speaker 1: although the actual administration would require more. But out of
Speaker 1: everybody who goes for the James Randy million dollar prize, UH,
Speaker 1: the dowsers seemed to be the most intense because they
Speaker 1: truly believe what they're doing is a science. And the
Speaker 1: reason they truly believe it is because they have so
Speaker 1: many stories of personal validation where they looked for water
Speaker 1: pipes behind the wall and found them, They look for
Speaker 1: water at their uncle's farm and they found it, or
Speaker 1: you know, they look for a lost object, they find it.
Speaker 1: And the problem is, Uh, you can be right, you
Speaker 1: can get lucky, and you can maybe you rely on
Speaker 1: your intuition, uh and not realize you're you're doing that.
Speaker 1: So even if they're right and get a hit, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it proves that dowsing works. It means
Speaker 1: that it proves that that either you know, one of
Speaker 1: the other things happen. Yeah, And this kind of leads
Speaker 1: us in this whole, this whole belief the fact that
Speaker 1: we're we we are fallible constructs. You know, we we don't.
Speaker 1: We make mistakes and often we don't realize we're making
Speaker 1: the mistakes, and that there are ways of tweaking that.
Speaker 1: That kind of leads into the discussion I want to
Speaker 1: have about social engineering. Now you have your show Scam School,
Speaker 1: which has a lot to do with social engineering. Can
Speaker 1: you explain to our listeners what is social engineering? Oh?
Speaker 1: I think the definition is is clinically something like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a set of tools designed to induce a
Speaker 1: certain response and people in certain environments. I I just
Speaker 1: claim that it's cheap, dirty psychological tricks to get people
Speaker 1: to do what you want. But whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: and on scam School. We try to keep it light
Speaker 1: so more often than not, uh, where we explain the
Speaker 1: ways that you can use uh you know, magic tricks
Speaker 1: or psychological manipulation to get the girl's phone number or
Speaker 1: to win free beers off of your friends. Uh uh.
Speaker 1: One of the best experiences that I got to have
Speaker 1: was uh what three years ago, I got selected at
Speaker 1: south By Southwest to give a keynote presentation on social
Speaker 1: engineering scam your way into anything or from anyone. And
Speaker 1: in the research putting together on that, I read a
Speaker 1: number of books, including Robert Chaldini's Influence, which is fantastic,
Speaker 1: so many amazing tidbits in there that are all based
Speaker 1: on you know, real psychological surveys. Stuff like um uh,
Speaker 1: there's these fixed action pattern patterns, these psychological backdoors that
Speaker 1: that anyone from con artists to magicians can use to
Speaker 1: to make people feel obligated to do certain things, for
Speaker 1: example reciprocation. There was a Dennis Reagan did this uh
Speaker 1: fake art experiment where he had a group of people
Speaker 1: come in and they were either they were signed in
Speaker 1: in twos now one of them was a real experimentee,
Speaker 1: the other was a fake experiment tee. And they spent
Speaker 1: all day reviewing art on a scale of one to five.
Speaker 1: I love it, I hated this, that the other. And
Speaker 1: about halfway it was time to take a break, and
Speaker 1: so Mr Fake tester goes off to the bathroom and
Speaker 1: when he comes back, and one of two things would happen.
Speaker 1: Either he came back empty handed and they just went
Speaker 1: back to work, or he came back with with two
Speaker 1: cokes in his hand, and he would say, hey, I
Speaker 1: went to the bathroom and I grabbed myself a coke
Speaker 1: and I figured I grab one for you. Here you
Speaker 1: go enjoy a coke. And then they go back to testing.
Speaker 1: And then at the very end of the day, Mr
Speaker 1: Fake tester would in both in both groups say hey,
Speaker 1: I hate to bug you about this, but we're doing
Speaker 1: this raffle for work, and if if I sell enough,
Speaker 1: there's a chance I could win a cars as many
Speaker 1: as you could buy. The more the better. And they
Speaker 1: measured how many of these of these tickets he would sell,
Speaker 1: and under reciprocation, people bought either two or three times
Speaker 1: as much as they did without reciprocation. Now some people say, like, okay,
Speaker 1: well if maybe maybe when they gave him a coke.
Speaker 1: They liked the guy more and that's why they went
Speaker 1: ahead and uh and bought more tickets. But it turns
Speaker 1: out that wasn't the case. Exit surveys show that even
Speaker 1: if they actively disliked the Mr. Fake tester, they still
Speaker 1: bought two or three times more than they would without reciprocation.
Speaker 1: Socially impelled to buy those those tickets. Yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: it's it's that we hate owing people anything. And there's
Speaker 1: there's other things like uh, social proof. There's there's the
Speaker 1: idea that the trappings of authority forced people to to
Speaker 1: to comply, even if that that authority is just a
Speaker 1: well tailored suit. They did studies where they measure how
Speaker 1: many people would follow when somebody started jaywalking, and if
Speaker 1: that person was just worked wearing work clothes, they would
Speaker 1: be you know, X number of people would start following
Speaker 1: if he started jaywalking, but when it was a guy
Speaker 1: in a suit, three times as many people would follow him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was in high school. I remember
Speaker 1: seeing a demonstration where I just thought it was incredibly
Speaker 1: cruel at the time, but it was a it was
Speaker 1: a a fast talker. It was a guy who just
Speaker 1: spoken and jargon meaningless jargon uh and demonstrating how how
Speaker 1: social pressures would make people agree to things even if
Speaker 1: they had no idea what was being said. And I
Speaker 1: would demonstrate it by bringing someone who was unaware of
Speaker 1: the fact that he was, you know, just a flim
Speaker 1: flam guy. You know, I thought that he was. Was
Speaker 1: introduced to him as if he were an expert in
Speaker 1: a particular subject, and then he just started uh, having
Speaker 1: this conversation and saying that after it was over, said, well,
Speaker 1: the reason why she never stopped me to ask what
Speaker 1: was going on is there's a social pressure on her
Speaker 1: too act like she understands it. And you know, it
Speaker 1: would be it would be mortifying to admit that you
Speaker 1: don't know what what someone meant when they said something
Speaker 1: to you in front of a crowd of other people. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: and in fact, that's a that's probably the biggest component
Speaker 1: of what makes stage hypnosis possible. People always ask whether
Speaker 1: or not hypnosis is are real or not. It's like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's real to the extent that you believe
Speaker 1: it's real. But but the biggest factor is the ability.
Speaker 1: Like you'll notice that most hypnosis shows begin with with
Speaker 1: very small tests and it's very clear that this is
Speaker 1: a test, like I'm telling you what to do, um
Speaker 1: and imagine this and react as if it's real. And
Speaker 1: then he says, imagine this, imagine this, and at some
Speaker 1: point he stopped saying imagine, but instead he just says,
Speaker 1: now you're hot, and now you start acting like you're
Speaker 1: hot because that's what you've been doing. And then he says,
Speaker 1: now you're cold, and now you're fanning yourself or you're
Speaker 1: you're shivering because you're cold, and then and then he
Speaker 1: just starts setting up scenes and at some point you've
Speaker 1: entered this contract where he says what to do and
Speaker 1: you acted out, and at some point you realize twenty
Speaker 1: minutes in that you're committed a percent and the only
Speaker 1: way out is to is to ruin the show. Would
Speaker 1: be like, I'm not I'm not hypnotized. So it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: and hypnosis is real, and that there's no way I
Speaker 1: could just walk up to somebody and say, hey, get
Speaker 1: on stage and pretend to be Lady Gaga. There'll be like, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. But hypnosis is real in that it is
Speaker 1: a construct that creates a situation where somebody goes way
Speaker 1: outside of their comfort zone, because that is a safer
Speaker 1: choice than than blowing up and ruining the stage show.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, there is I don't want
Speaker 1: to take away from stage hypnotist, because there is an
Speaker 1: aspect to it where people, when they vividly imagine something
Speaker 1: strong enough, it does induce a physical response. If you've
Speaker 1: ever been to a movie and laughter cried, you know,
Speaker 1: you're crying about a person who never existed and a
Speaker 1: thing that never happened, but you make it real in
Speaker 1: your mind. You know that's that's that's as real as
Speaker 1: hypnosis is. Well, I have to tell you, Brian that
Speaker 1: if you ever asked me to get up on stage
Speaker 1: and pretend to be Lady Gaga, that's a pact I
Speaker 1: am willing to make with you right here and now,
Speaker 1: good good, because you know, no hypnosis necessary. You have
Speaker 1: sold sir. Uh uh. So. The reason why I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring up social engineering is that it's not just
Speaker 1: important in things like like stage magic, but also that's
Speaker 1: one of those tools that that a lot of people
Speaker 1: we call hackers use in order to get access to
Speaker 1: to secure systems and has has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: sitting down at a computer typing in three different passwords,
Speaker 1: and the third ones the one that works. But despite
Speaker 1: the way Hollywood would have us believe, but has more
Speaker 1: frequently has something to do with befriending someone or or
Speaker 1: opposing as a maintenance worker of some sort and just
Speaker 1: engineering your way through people to get access to secure systems,
Speaker 1: because that's way easier than trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to break through a a technological secure system. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: if you think of technology as a sealed room him,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could either try to pick that lock,
Speaker 1: or you could beat down the door, or you could
Speaker 1: just ask nicely for the person behind the counter to
Speaker 1: open it for you. And obviously there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people where that last one works best and and the
Speaker 1: far and away. The best example of this is if
Speaker 1: if you haven't read the original book, catch Me if
Speaker 1: you can, Uh, it's way better. The movie was was fine,
Speaker 1: but the book is unreal because it's actually written in
Speaker 1: the voice of Frank abcnail, very honestly talking about his exploits,
Speaker 1: you know, over the the what two or three years
Speaker 1: that he flew all around the world cashing over million
Speaker 1: dollars in bogus checks. That's one where it's it's a
Speaker 1: case where he realized that wearing the trappings of authority,
Speaker 1: by looking like a doctor or looking like a pilot,
Speaker 1: he was able to pass checks that otherwise would never pass.
Speaker 1: Mustard people would be like, this is obviously bogus, get
Speaker 1: out of here, we call the cops. But but when
Speaker 1: it's a when it's a pilot, you know, held in
Speaker 1: such high regard, people just shut up and cashed him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, Kevin Mitnick's book to that that came out
Speaker 1: recently has been uh has been doing well. And I
Speaker 1: think it's the same thing as the person just explaining
Speaker 1: what what he was doing at the time. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: I just as an aside that we probably shouldn't get into,
Speaker 1: I find it kind of amusing that we're talking about
Speaker 1: social engineering and an election year here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, I mean that's a boy. I mean
Speaker 1: you'll see, you'll see all kinds of of trappings of authority.
Speaker 1: And that's why part of the reason the little things
Speaker 1: like people can't wait to get to that level of
Speaker 1: success where they can have the secret Service around them,
Speaker 1: because that starts to reinforce the idea that this candidate
Speaker 1: is important, and it starts to uh, reaffirmed that the
Speaker 1: trappings of authority become as important as actual authority. I'm
Speaker 1: just waiting to reach that level of success where I
Speaker 1: can get a decent table at a restaurant. That's I
Speaker 1: like to set realistic goals. I'll tell you what, man,
Speaker 1: it is unreal what a little what one phone call
Speaker 1: will do in in front of me. My friend Dan
Speaker 1: Martin is one of these guys who scams his way
Speaker 1: into upgrades left and right and pretends to be his
Speaker 1: own manager. He he gives another name and says, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the manager for Daniel Martin. You've probably seen him
Speaker 1: on List a bunch of different stuff. And of course
Speaker 1: nobody wants to admit that they don't know who the
Speaker 1: hell damn Dan Martin is. And they're like, oh, yes, no,
Speaker 1: that's great, And he's like, well, listen, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: He's got a very important client that he's trying to impress.
Speaker 1: We understand, there's an hour and a half wait, is
Speaker 1: there any way you guys can take care of us?
Speaker 1: And uh and and sure enough, you know, and I've
Speaker 1: seen him do it. Where we we skipped an hour
Speaker 1: long line to go to the steakhouse. We sit down,
Speaker 1: and then the management comes over and says, oh, thank you,
Speaker 1: Mr Martin, We're so glad to have you here. I
Speaker 1: understand you have a celebrity guest. And without missing a beat,
Speaker 1: he turns to my assistant at the time, Captain MG.
Speaker 1: We called him, uh, this big tall guy. He's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably you probably seen him in the office. He's
Speaker 1: one of the guys who works down in the in
Speaker 1: the warehouse. And instantly people are like, oh, I think
Speaker 1: I do remember you, and a couple of because again,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to admit that they don't remember the guy.
Speaker 1: And and Dan's whole idea is like, look, man, I'm
Speaker 1: doing these people a favor. They're gonna go home and
Speaker 1: talk about the selected. Oh gosh, this reminds me of
Speaker 1: a story my dad tells. Um So, my dad's a
Speaker 1: science fiction author and an English professor and occasionally would
Speaker 1: teach a stint down at the Governor's Honors Program, which
Speaker 1: in Georgia is a program that selects I think it's
Speaker 1: around between six hundred and seven hundred high school students
Speaker 1: to study for a summer uh in in very focused groups,
Speaker 1: depending upon you know, whatever their major is for that program.
Speaker 1: I actually went in communicative Arts, which was you know,
Speaker 1: English when back in back. But before that, my dad
Speaker 1: was teaching there in the eighties, and he tells a
Speaker 1: story about how he and some of the other teachers,
Speaker 1: uh went to I think it was like an International
Speaker 1: House of Pancakes or something like that, some some sort
Speaker 1: of diner, and they walked in and one of their
Speaker 1: one of their fellow teachers, a Frican American fellow who
Speaker 1: wore were traditional African garments occasionally, and they just decided
Speaker 1: on a whim as they walked in that he was
Speaker 1: a visiting dignitary from Africa, and he put on the
Speaker 1: whole role of it, and even went so far as saying,
Speaker 1: these greeds, what these greeds? I would take great, No, honey,
Speaker 1: you're gonna need more than one. Uh So. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they tell the whole story about how they ended up
Speaker 1: the check was picked up, and Dad's the sort where
Speaker 1: it was a very funny story, but you could tell
Speaker 1: there was still that little bit of guilt. Yes, And
Speaker 1: that's that's the that's the problem with magic in general,
Speaker 1: is there's some part of me that that is compelled.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of why scam school is good
Speaker 1: for my soul because I don't want to be that
Speaker 1: that that jerk who goes around letting people believe he
Speaker 1: has wizard powers. And there's some part of me that
Speaker 1: wants to tell everyone it's all a lie, which is
Speaker 1: why I really do respect stage magicians who who go
Speaker 1: out other way to say, all right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: perform an illusion for you, and you know it's it's
Speaker 1: very clear they're they're they're telling you up front and
Speaker 1: they said, but if you're willing to go with me
Speaker 1: on this trip, you're gonna see something amazing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean Penn, Penn and Teller do some great
Speaker 1: stuff where they even go so far as to say,
Speaker 1: you could question how we do it, but if you
Speaker 1: learn the answer, then it just sort of takes away
Speaker 1: from the performance. The question we wish you would ask
Speaker 1: us is why do we do it? Yeah? I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: what's what's the quote that we the magicians say magicians
Speaker 1: are guarding an empty vault? Like whatever it is you
Speaker 1: think the method is is way more fantastic than than
Speaker 1: how it actually is. Nothing but disappointment lay on the
Speaker 1: other side of that vault door, except that there are
Speaker 1: a few cases where where the actual method is even
Speaker 1: more interesting than the trick itself. And once that's true,
Speaker 1: then then by all means teach the entire thing. And
Speaker 1: in fact, um it used to be. The very first
Speaker 1: episode of scam School we did was something called the
Speaker 1: human chimney, where you essentially make smoke appear from nowhere
Speaker 1: out of your lung and uh. It got great reactions
Speaker 1: when I did it, but everybody thought the method everybody
Speaker 1: assumed was happening was not nearly as interesting as the
Speaker 1: science behind what happens when you you secretly inhaled this
Speaker 1: poisonous white white phosphor, and the white phosphor SAPs out
Speaker 1: all of the moisture out of your lungs, creating this
Speaker 1: super thick water vapor and it Uh. Once I found
Speaker 1: that I get much more joy and a bigger reaction
Speaker 1: out of people by explaining how it's done and encouraging
Speaker 1: them to try it, because it's it's interesting when a
Speaker 1: magician can make spoke apure of the lungs. It's magic
Speaker 1: when somebody could do it to themselves. Yeah, exactly, yea.
Speaker 1: And I've even heard magicians talk about how they would
Speaker 1: see someone do uh. Like some close up magic and uh,
Speaker 1: and they would just you know, they knew a way
Speaker 1: of doing it and that was immediately what they go to.
Speaker 1: They assumed that that's the way. And then when it's
Speaker 1: demonstrated that there's a different way and it might be
Speaker 1: an incredibly difficult and and complain with it requires lots
Speaker 1: more practice than the simple way, but stagement you should say, wow,
Speaker 1: that was amazing. As a matter of fact, the fantastic
Speaker 1: performer Tom Mulika is a legend in magic. He's one
Speaker 1: of the most talented slide around artists out there, and
Speaker 1: he's got that that gift of personality and charisma and
Speaker 1: he did this. He has this like three and a
Speaker 1: half minute routine where he appears to eat one at
Speaker 1: one by one, an entire box of cigarettes. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there's actually heavy these are lit cigarettes. He lights them all,
Speaker 1: he smokes them all at once. He has this you know,
Speaker 1: it's like that Homer Simpson photo of the mouthful of cigarettes. Uh.
Speaker 1: He does that and then appears to swallow all of
Speaker 1: them and there's heavy duty, awesome side of hand going
Speaker 1: on in there. But he goes to fism and if
Speaker 1: you don't know f I s M is like the
Speaker 1: Olympics of Magic. They have it. I think every third
Speaker 1: or second year. A couple of years ago, was in
Speaker 1: in China. But he goes to FISSM and just totally
Speaker 1: bombs because all of the judges just assume this guy's
Speaker 1: a freak who just swallowed a bunch of lit cigarettes.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew it was magic, and as a result, he
Speaker 1: he didn't win. Wow. Yeah, isn't that is that crazy?
Speaker 1: That's that's almost an accolade. Awesome enough all on its own,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah, that's part of it. I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: why the story is being told. Well. To transition out
Speaker 1: of this, I wanted to talk more about some of
Speaker 1: the other projects you've worked on, some of which are
Speaker 1: closely related to technology. In fact, one of these we've
Speaker 1: we've talked about on our show in the past, and
Speaker 1: I think I might have even talked about this before
Speaker 1: I met you, which is the whole idea of leaving
Speaker 1: behind a virtual ghost. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think it might have been before we we
Speaker 1: had met each other. Yeah, that's the the afterlife dot
Speaker 1: Me project. Um, if you we don't really have anything
Speaker 1: up there, but if you want to sign up to
Speaker 1: be notified when it's a I'm gonna make sure it's
Speaker 1: actually still alive here before that's a f T E
Speaker 1: r l y f E dot me afterlife dot me. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's the nuts and bolts are are being tinkered
Speaker 1: with by Patrick Dela Hanty, who's super talented web developer.
Speaker 1: And uh, you're starting to see similar projects pop up,
Speaker 1: but all of them they're all sanctimonious, and they're all like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're here to help with the grieving process,
Speaker 1: and we're here to we're here to clean up your
Speaker 1: data after you passed away. After lifetime me is freaking honest.
Speaker 1: After Lifetime is an opportunity to become a virtual ghost
Speaker 1: just to annoy and freak out everyone for the rest
Speaker 1: of eternity. Uh. And essentially what happens is it's a
Speaker 1: dead man switch where every day, every year, on your birthday,
Speaker 1: you log in and let it know you're alive, and
Speaker 1: of course it will bug you by email to UH
Speaker 1: to tell you to um, you know, make sure to
Speaker 1: check in, but if it doesn't hear back, it assumes
Speaker 1: you're dead and then it takes all of your past
Speaker 1: tweets and just starts repeating them on the same times
Speaker 1: at the same dates that you said it year after year.
Speaker 1: And what I love about this is, isn't that what
Speaker 1: ghosts are in history are items that don't know they're dead.
Speaker 1: These these echoes that think they're going about the daily
Speaker 1: business of their life when they're not. And the idea
Speaker 1: that we could do that digitally forever. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like picking up the kids, Merry Christmas and the birth
Speaker 1: day in the bank. You know, all these things that
Speaker 1: you say year after year can become these digital echoes
Speaker 1: for all eternity. I think it's really cool as an
Speaker 1: art project. And um, you know, I some people say
Speaker 1: it's tacky. Yes, it very likely is, but a lot
Speaker 1: of art can be tacky, and I think it's really
Speaker 1: cool performance art. Personally, I I love it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just love the idea of someone reading a tweet
Speaker 1: and saying, Jonathan's been dead for twenty years and he's
Speaker 1: still slamming the iPad. Yeah, well and think about this well,
Speaker 1: and that will be the other thing too. It's like
Speaker 1: it'll be more hilarious to hear you talking about stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't like Amy Winehouse die. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that'll that will become funny over time. But also think
Speaker 1: about the apt replies where all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: whisper a happy birthday to someone from five years after
Speaker 1: the fact. This just tells me that I just need
Speaker 1: to make a lot more younger friends. That's right, because
Speaker 1: I I do want to irritate people after I mean,
Speaker 1: I do it while I'm alive. Why would I want
Speaker 1: to stop after I'm dead. I want to irritate people.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's a great idea. As soon as
Speaker 1: I heard it, I completely appreciated it for what it
Speaker 1: was being being sort of a mischievous prank poller myself,
Speaker 1: I found it. I found it incredibly appealing. Um so
Speaker 1: why don't we talk about You can talk about some
Speaker 1: of the other shows you do, because we haven't really
Speaker 1: covered any of those. You've got some stuff on the
Speaker 1: Twitter network, for example. And also you I do want
Speaker 1: to hear more about your experience with the Scam School
Speaker 1: e book please Yeah. Well, Scam School, of course, is
Speaker 1: is the big coming out party that I had for
Speaker 1: with the internet. Um but a lot of people were
Speaker 1: surprised when it turns out I knew anything about technology
Speaker 1: as well. My past life. I I spent a year
Speaker 1: testing video games for Rockwell Semiconductors for a year, which
Speaker 1: was awesome. And I spent almost three years at Dell
Speaker 1: and their high end sales support, you know, designing networks
Speaker 1: for small businesses, or build high end systems for you know,
Speaker 1: three D modelers, animators, that kind of thing. Uh and uh,
Speaker 1: that's the first time I did this Weekend Tech. It
Speaker 1: just seemed like a natural fit. And Leo is nice
Speaker 1: enough to give me a number of shows to do,
Speaker 1: and now I'm doing three programs over there, including NSFW.
Speaker 1: Is is an utterly volatile powder keg where we never
Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen. Half the time, it blows up
Speaker 1: in our face. Every so often, we have moments of
Speaker 1: awesome hilarity. Um, it's it's almost it's a very weird
Speaker 1: show because it's almost openly hostile to new people trying
Speaker 1: to visit it. So if you don't understand what's going on,
Speaker 1: just give it a couple more episodes and see if
Speaker 1: it's seeks in. It's kind of your head with a
Speaker 1: hammer feels really good. Anytime you have Justin Robert Young involved,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be volatility exactly exactly. Uh, And then I
Speaker 1: started hosting a Frame Rate with Tom Merritt, which is
Speaker 1: a whole show about this whole emerging space with new media.
Speaker 1: This is in many ways the most exciting time to
Speaker 1: be a broadcaster or be somebody who's interested in reaching
Speaker 1: a large audience of all time, because essentially we're seeing
Speaker 1: exactly now the exact same thing that happened in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties with broadcast television and then in nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: with cable television. When when broadcast television began, there was
Speaker 1: no market because nobody had TVs, nobody knew what to do,
Speaker 1: and nobody had any money. So they just took their
Speaker 1: radio figures and threw them in front of a screen.
Speaker 1: And then they figured out that television is a different
Speaker 1: medium than these other things, and they were able to
Speaker 1: tell their own unique stories in their own unique ways.
Speaker 1: Same thing happened in the seventies with cable. Nobody was watching,
Speaker 1: so all of a sudden, there's all this band with
Speaker 1: all these channels. People are just throwing stuff. Ted Turner
Speaker 1: takes his local TBS W TBS station and throws it,
Speaker 1: calls it a superstation. But then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it becomes TBS this powerhouse. Same thing with CNN. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even possible to have a twenty four hour news
Speaker 1: network beforehand. So nowadays we're in the wild West of
Speaker 1: new media with just distribution from YouTube, with podcasting, with
Speaker 1: with pretty much anyone who's got a story to tell
Speaker 1: now has a global opportunity to to reach an audience
Speaker 1: worldwide and it cost him nothing. That there's no barrier
Speaker 1: to access and it's a it's this awesome land rush
Speaker 1: to see who can become king of which little circuits
Speaker 1: out there, because whoever gets there first has a huge advantage.
Speaker 1: That's the reason CNN was number one for so long
Speaker 1: was because it was the first twenty four hour cables
Speaker 1: network and it was everyone else was just couldn't couldn't
Speaker 1: top it. And so likewise that was the big push
Speaker 1: wick for why I did UH scam School. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what frame rate is about, is about the emerging
Speaker 1: digital transition, watching some new media stars transition to television
Speaker 1: and vice versa and UH And of course now we're
Speaker 1: hosting Game on on on twit which is every Sunday
Speaker 1: night Live. We talked about the video game news and reviews.
Speaker 1: And that's with Veronica Belmont. Yes I should lead off
Speaker 1: with that we like and that's fine. It's you know, Veronica,
Speaker 1: I I love her. She Um. She has shot me
Speaker 1: the look of death at least three times in my
Speaker 1: life and I have survived. So I got it once
Speaker 1: or twice. So it's there's a hair trigger, you know.
Speaker 1: Just it's right on the right ground. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get in trouble. But one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: about posting Game on is seeing the Veronica Belmont that
Speaker 1: that will never show herself on the internet. She is.
Speaker 1: She is delightfully, hilariously crass. She is a wonderful person.
Speaker 1: And that's all I'm going to say about this because
Speaker 1: I'm posting this show. Brian Brushwood had other things to say,
Speaker 1: but Jonathan Strickland just loves her all right. So um,
Speaker 1: now that we've got that clear, yeah, so tell tell
Speaker 1: us more about this e book. Oh my god. So
Speaker 1: for years I've been flapping my gums about how I
Speaker 1: want to do a book for the Scam school Book.
Speaker 1: And originally I had all these designs on a physical
Speaker 1: book that would have like magic ee kind of properties
Speaker 1: to it. Uh. The problem of course, is that physical
Speaker 1: media unless you get picked up by a big publisher
Speaker 1: who wants to invest a hundred thousand dollars. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: extremely it's the development costs are are are high, the
Speaker 1: printing costs are high, especially if you want to do
Speaker 1: something nonstandard or tricky with the pages. Uh. And you
Speaker 1: miss out on what's great about Scam School because of
Speaker 1: course we have all these episodes and the only way
Speaker 1: to get from a book to an episode would be
Speaker 1: like a clugi kind of QR code thing. And have
Speaker 1: you ever used that? If any of you guys ever
Speaker 1: read a book that a QR codes and actually pulled
Speaker 1: out your phone and clicked on it, went to the
Speaker 1: page once or twice, but you know, it's it's definitely,
Speaker 1: it's definitely there's a barrier there. It's just like with
Speaker 1: podcasts and and suggesting, like we tell in our podcast
Speaker 1: for people to go and read the articles and how
Speaker 1: stuff works. But that's kind of challenging because you know,
Speaker 1: it's two different, separate media. So to tell someone to
Speaker 1: go and and read this article and the article is amazing,
Speaker 1: and that it goes into far more detail than we
Speaker 1: ever could in a podcast and has visual effects and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Um, it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: smaller number of people who make that transition. We love
Speaker 1: those people and we would love that number to grow,
Speaker 1: but we understand it's it's two different media and often
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing in one instance is not
Speaker 1: really you don't. There's no way to pour it over easily.
Speaker 1: Like if I'm mowing the lawn and listening to a podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously not gonna jump on line and read an
Speaker 1: article about, you know, quantum suicide exactly. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's like you need to have
Speaker 1: as smooth a transition as possible. And uh about I
Speaker 1: guess two years ago when Kindle really started to get
Speaker 1: more popular, and of course uh iTunes started up their eyebookstore,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh dude, and it's gotta be it's
Speaker 1: gotta be e books, and so we we converted some
Speaker 1: of my old books to e books and we figured
Speaker 1: out really fast what a nightmare this This entire industry
Speaker 1: is in right now as far as like proper format,
Speaker 1: and you've got competing formats dot mobi, dot e pub
Speaker 1: They they handle stuff differently. They have different capabilities in
Speaker 1: dot in dot moby with a Kindle format, it's not
Speaker 1: even possible to wrap text around an image. All you
Speaker 1: can have is text, text, text block. Here's an image,
Speaker 1: and you can't control the size of it. It'll it'll
Speaker 1: reformat stuff. Uh. It was so difficult to try to
Speaker 1: build this tool that I really and disheartened as far
Speaker 1: as ever reaching that goal of what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: if have something that was rich media, that was detailed,
Speaker 1: that was pretty, that was highly interactive, and had embedded
Speaker 1: media content. But then along comes this company book that's
Speaker 1: v O o kay dot com and they essentially are
Speaker 1: trying to create a their own platform that once you
Speaker 1: create the book in book, you press publish and it
Speaker 1: converts it to dot mobi, dot e pub and it
Speaker 1: and it sends it out to to Barnes and Noble,
Speaker 1: to to Amazon and two iTunes. So with one click
Speaker 1: publishing you're able to create really good looking e books
Speaker 1: and with rich embedded media. And so we we participated
Speaker 1: in their beta program, which was a little bit heroin
Speaker 1: because there were times where the entire book would vanish
Speaker 1: or chapter which they disappear. We get on the phone,
Speaker 1: We're like, let's go on. They're like don't worry, We'll
Speaker 1: fix it. It's magic exactly like it's beta. But they
Speaker 1: but they had by the time we were done with
Speaker 1: the book, I'm I was extraordinarily proud of it. It
Speaker 1: is it is unlike any other e book I've seen
Speaker 1: in that it's uh it's almost like a Harry Potter book,
Speaker 1: where where the pictures and illustrations come alive, there's there's
Speaker 1: seventy audio commentary. I've never seen audio commentary tracks for
Speaker 1: chapters in a book before. Uh. And and it's amazing
Speaker 1: because the book itself is is a collection of eight
Speaker 1: plus tricks from the Scam School series. These are all
Speaker 1: things that are either street cons to watch out for
Speaker 1: or ways to score free drink, some kick ass magic
Speaker 1: tricks and if you really nasty pranks to pull on
Speaker 1: your friends. And it's I love the media format because
Speaker 1: I can spend two paragraphs explaining how to hold your
Speaker 1: pinky when you're holding a deck of cards. But none
Speaker 1: of that's as useful as when you press when you
Speaker 1: press on the on the photo and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it comes alive and illustrates animated for you and shows
Speaker 1: you exactly what you're supposed to do. So it's got
Speaker 1: it's got seventy plus audio commentary tracks and uh forty
Speaker 1: plus illustrations, and out of everything, I'm most pleased with
Speaker 1: the fact that Teller of Penn and Teller allowed me
Speaker 1: to publish an essay he wrote me seventeen years ago
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen years old, UH and looking for
Speaker 1: my place in magic. I wrote a letter to Teller
Speaker 1: and he was kind enough to write a response, like
Speaker 1: a four page essay talking about creativity and magic. And UH.
Speaker 1: Being able to publish that and share the word on
Speaker 1: that has been extremely gratifying. So I am very very happy.
Speaker 1: If you go to scam school book dot com you
Speaker 1: can find all all the different platforms. Fantastic. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that that is exciting to me because you know, we've
Speaker 1: been talking about this whole electronic book uh medium and
Speaker 1: and what the potential is and that it's been several
Speaker 1: years in the making, and and it's so exciting that
Speaker 1: it looks like now we're getting to the point where
Speaker 1: people are actually really cracking that nut, where they've managed
Speaker 1: to find a way to incorporate the different abilities you
Speaker 1: have in something like a web based presence and the
Speaker 1: things you have within a ectronic text, and that it's
Speaker 1: being brought together in ways to to really cater to
Speaker 1: a wider audience. Really because and we all know that
Speaker 1: people favor different ways to learn information. You know, some
Speaker 1: people some people reading texts that's what they like, and
Speaker 1: some people they have to see it work for it
Speaker 1: to really have an impact. And this is I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, this is an important phase we're entering with
Speaker 1: the books. Were just as we figured out that television
Speaker 1: is not radio with pictures. E books are not books
Speaker 1: on your iPad. It's it's an inherently different platform with
Speaker 1: different strengths and weak weaknesses. And I honestly feel like
Speaker 1: like the Scam School Book is the first book on
Speaker 1: the shelves, you know this minute that truly takes advantage
Speaker 1: of that unique nature and speaks the language of digital
Speaker 1: e books, and the reviews seem to indicate that there
Speaker 1: is something special happening there. That's awesome. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean I think the next if I were to put
Speaker 1: on my prognosticator had I would say the next step
Speaker 1: as far as the medium starting to come into its own, Uh,
Speaker 1: the e book is is what's happening now? I think
Speaker 1: the next step is augmented reality, because right now we're
Speaker 1: seeing it used in things like commercials and that kind
Speaker 1: of or games. But the idea of having a world
Speaker 1: of information overlaid on top of the real world around
Speaker 1: you and anchoring that information in the world to give
Speaker 1: it real and impactful meaning to the person who's who's
Speaker 1: looking at it and whatever context that might be, because
Speaker 1: there could be endless number of contexts for any particular region.
Speaker 1: That to me, that's the That's why I keep on
Speaker 1: whenever I get an opportunity, I keep on mentioning Google,
Speaker 1: if you're making those glasses, I want to pair absolutely.
Speaker 1: I fully believe that that you're already seeing this in
Speaker 1: the military, the video gamification of your job and uh
Speaker 1: and they are, Um, I don't know. I guess the
Speaker 1: military really pioneered the idea of of badges and medals
Speaker 1: and achievements. But but you know, of course we see
Speaker 1: it and stuff like World of Warcraft when you're grinding
Speaker 1: all the time. And a friend of mine is now
Speaker 1: a he was the CEO of a company put together
Speaker 1: a business plan to try to pitch the idea of
Speaker 1: of of of an achievement based system for all of
Speaker 1: his employees based on their class and their and their
Speaker 1: missions or their tasks where they could they could level
Speaker 1: up and get perks, they could win badges. The whole
Speaker 1: thing was clearly modeled right after World of Warcraft, and
Speaker 1: he I don't know if you ever implemented it, but
Speaker 1: it was so obviously right when I read it that
Speaker 1: I fully expect us to see more companies running their
Speaker 1: businesses like a video game. I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1: I expect that as well, especially since gamification is still
Speaker 1: an incredibly powerful buzzword in the business world. So well, Brian,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to talk
Speaker 1: with us. This has been a great discussion, really fascinating dude.
Speaker 1: Anytime you guys want me to talk about anything, just
Speaker 1: give me a call. We will take you up on that. Guys,
Speaker 1: definitely check out Brian Brushwood's work. Check out his Scam
Speaker 1: School ebook. Uh. The guy does some pretty amazing stuff
Speaker 1: and uh and he's just a super dude. So everyone
Speaker 1: check that out and we will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as
Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The House Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it
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