Ep. 1394: Where we buy in bulk

-Hey, what's up everybody? It's Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013. You tuned in to The 404 Show on CNET.com. I'm Justin Yu. -And I'm Bridget Carey. -I'm Ariel Nunez. -Hey, what's going on guys? Welcome to this Tuesday episode of The 404. I'm back. Jeff is gone, though. So, Bridget Carey, thanks for coming in and help me out today. -It's the first time on the new set. -Yeah. -Loving it. -Are you nervous? -Rich mahogany and wood everywhere. -It feels a lot more official, but we're trying to keep it casual. -Okay. -I mean-- So, it's not like a CES episode. Just think of it like a normal 404 as if we're in that tiny shoebox in the studio, right? -Okay. -How was the show yesterday? It was good? -Oh man, it was awesome. I was on the edge of my feet the whole time. -Tell me three things they said yesterday. Yeah, a whole lot of video games. They said PS4. They said Xbox and a third thing I don't really-- Yeah. -I think they talked about video games. -They are even remotely interested in that stuff. -Yeah, I'm interested. -I think it's fascinating even if I don't have the consoles. -Yeah. -Well, it's starting to become a thing for everybody not just video gamers so video games are very hard to ignore that stuff. -Uh huh. -So, if you missed yesterday's show, go and check it out. We had Harold Goldberg on the show. He was-- If you just talking about a Playboy Profile of the Rockstar Game CEO. -Yeah. -I think he catch the whole show, right? -Yeah. Yeah. He did. -It seemed pretty good. -Uh huh. -So, we're here Tuesday. All the sales are over. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving. But more importantly, Black Friday is over. Cyber Monday is over and Brown Thursday is over, which I didn't realize it was a new day. -Well now it's-- -But Brown Thursday is over. -now it's Giving Tuesday. That's-- This is only the second year of it so-- -Wait, I'm sorry? -Yeah, it's a thing. It's another day thing. Giving Tuesday is a day for charity giving. -Okay. -So that's what they're trying to start. This is only the second year for it, so I don't blame you for not knowing 'cause I didn't know. I was like, "Oh, it's a thing second year." Then, I guess now we have another thing. -Right. -But everyone wants a marketing term and makes you think about spending more or another. But now that you did all your shopping, they want you to give-- -Yeah. -and there's like a lot of push for that. I saw some commercials on TV today and Google has a bunch of hang outs on Google Plus. We're like sure, we just can like push, you know, "Hey, we're doing this and that so donate." -I like that. -Yeah. -And Kickstarters don't count, right? Indiegogos don't count. Does not technically a charity. -I don't think-- It's not really bad that-- -These people don't really need the money. -This is about nonprofit. -Yeah. -People are doing good cause helping-- help your fellow brother, you know, not like, "I want a new case that also is a nice." -That's like 80% of Kickstarter said. -Yeah. -We added a lighter to this iPhone case-- with it. -Very much. -So that's a good cause. I like that of all the days. -Uh huh. -It's probably the best. I also-- -Brown Thursday, I haven't heard of that, which is called Thanksgiving Day. -Yeah. I guess Brown Thursday is supposed to be when shoppers go and line up after Thanksgiving for Black Friday. -This is-- right. -But Brown Thursday? Kinda makes you think a do-do. -Not right. -That is really good for Thanksgiving. It's kinda like when you empty out. -They said-- -Yeah. -Yes. Yes. Yes. -Open box, they said. -They said that online shopping on Thursday was up 20% online shopping so people were just, you know, on their phones and tablets, you know, shopping a lot of cookie. -Yeah. -And actually, I was browsing too like I was-- like all the sales started online-- -Uh huh. -on Thursday. So, if you don't wanna deal with the madness, I didn't-- I don't appreciate the whole opening early thing so-- -Yeah. -it's like I don't need to go deal with that and I just gonna browse on Amazon for a little bit. I did buy something so I-- I fell into it. -What did you buy? -Well, in this case, just small stuff like a cheap DVD. I'm sure-- And like-- like an Xbox LIVE subscription that was discounted, you know, it's like-- -Okay. -and a wine aerator like for the airing-- -Right. -of the wine. -Okay. -Some things are like-- it's a-- that's like a few bags like I have to get it and then I feel like, "I got a deal. I did something." -I like that. Yeah. -I didn't miss out, you know. -So, okay, not a lot of people know this, but before you were at CNET, you were actually a writer for the Miami Herald-- -Uh huh. -down in Florida. -And I covered Black Friday. -And you covered Black Friday so, you know, you've been doing this for a long time. Now, you're with CNET and all this and there's a huge market place for electronics online, but how is that changed sort of over the years? How's Black Friday sort of evolved? Obviously, there's a big-- -Oh gosh! When I-- When I used to cover it, I have to-- I went down to the stores when they opened at 5:00 or 4:00 in the morning. -Yeah. -It wasn't like in the afternoon Thanksgiving, but still, you know, everyone's out there, you know, just barely keeping awake and it's the-- first-- if first-- when one is really mad, it was about just rushing into the store and that's when you hear people getting trampled because it really was first to get back to electronics section of Target wins. -Right. Right. -And there have been years were like either I was participating or I was reporting, but you run and it didn't seem fair a couple of times when like you think that there's a line going on by the Game Boy section and suddenly like-- I'm in line for like a Wii and someone else's in line for a Wii and then they just grab it. I've seen-- The worst I saw was when I was reporting, the-- the guy 'cause the way sometimes Target sets it up they're kind of in an island, you know, surrounded by like tables all around them. There are some cameras here. There are some phones here and-- -Okay. -and they're kind of emerging from the space to hand things out whether it's a Nintendo-- -Oh, so they keep it controlled so that people can just grab it. Yeah. -But then when-- imagine you're being an employee-- -Uh huh. -and you're surrounded by this zombie-like hoard of everyone with their hands sticking out at you-- -Yeah. -going me mini-me. I've seen it where they just give up and go-- -Wooh! -Everybody does-- that. I just thought my bracelet-- -Bridget's bracelet came up almost killed him. -Things are-- -Yeah. Okay. -It's exciting now. -A good demonstration of how crazy people can get just thinking about Black Friday. -And hit the update. Well, I think I've damaged my own studio. Okay, well, you can-- -Don't cut that for the show. -No, no that's-- -Leave that is. -So anyways, little chaotic as you can imagine. -Yeah. -But I've seen people just throw things in the air and then employees go, "Hell with this!" And they ran away and then-- -Yeah. -and then the guest like start diving into the pool and I'm like seeing it with my camera recording everything. -Right. -But now, it's more like a ticket system and they've set up different areas. I know Walmart would have lines where you're waiting inside with one item. -All right. -You don't pick what items. You got to go in the tee. -Or they would give you bracelets for-- that would correspond to the section that you wanted to go and choose. They would let a certain amount of people in at a time. I like that too. -The ones that are 24 hours though, they would be like, "Okay, the cereal aisle is the aisle for the TV and you just sat there and waited. -Yeah. -And there was kind of-- That's how you keep it more controlled. These things that you've seen with the videos of the madness-- -Oh yeah. -that's one is not controlled. That's one is just a pile on the floor. -Yeah. -They're not handing out tickets. -Right. -And they're getting to fist fights. -Right. -Yeah. That always surprises me 'cause when you watch those videos and that's pretty much all I did this weekend was watched gruesome videos. -Oh, it's-- it brings you that holiday joy. -Yeah, I mean there's like-- -Yeah, like they'll have-- -hundreds of people that are swarming the store, but there's always one security guard. Why don't they instead of hiring more customer service employees, why they just hire more security guards? -Well, you saw some people get arrested and get handcuffed behind their backs so there are like cops around, but yet they have to run and they don't know what happen. -Yeah. -They're on the middle of the scene. -Right. -Hopefully like I hate when that happens. -Yeah. -But this may get worse. It's just-- -Well, it is kind of grisly. It's obviously not worth getting injured or killed over, but this is kind of grisly, Ariel. I think you just this up. It's the blackfridaydeathcount.com and, you know, there sort of just cool news reports online. And so far, according to this, seven deaths and 90 injuries. -90 injuries is what even freaks me more. -Yeah. -Like who's reporting there like twisted ankle or-- -Right. -you know-- -But the thing is I feel like and you should have make-- -I mean the deaths are bad. -The deaths are obviously horrible. -But it's like honey from how far back like we're talking about like [unk] and-- -Probably, it back-- No, no, no, this was-- this year alone 2013. -What? -Back to last Thursday. -What? -Yeah. Yeah. This isn't over-- That's fine that you thought it was over the last decade. -I thought this was like-- like-- well, like I figure, okay, there's someone unfortunate one year, someone unfortunate another year. -No, no. This is-- -I thought-- -2013, this year. Yeah, you can down and check out-- -I'm so-- -everything that's happened. -I'm so-- to believe this. -I know. You don't want to believe it, but it's actually a real thing. -Okay. I'm looking at the site now. It's-- -There's a thing like holes, Las Vegas. -People who was stabbed and shot. -Yeah, this is all nationally [unk] internationally. -Okay, I do remember reading a few people who were trying to steal and-- -Right. -and there is a, you know, some even cops who get hurt trying to chase these guys. -Uh huh. -Oh my goodness! -Yeah. I mean the thing about Black Friday is that there's a lot of datas that were debunking the fact that you can actually get real discounts at these stores. I've read an article that was talking about Black Friday's Dirty Little Secret where manufacturers sort of they're willing to work with stores to manufacture prices that are still sort of factoring in the discounts that you would get normally. So, they're hiking the prices up and then, you know, sort of artificially giving you this discount. That would, you know, basically be the retail price. That and then also apparently a lot of stores are advertising items at the same price, the same Black Friday price they were doing last year. -Uh huh. -So prices really haven't gone down since 2012 and a lot of times it's the exact same price that they were offering in last year's, you know, Thursday newspaper. -Forget Black Friday. I saw that some of the same prices were like on Veteran's Day. -Yeah. -And I'm not talking tech, I'm talking like also some like scarves or clothing items, you know, it depends on the store. -Right. -I thought a few that were like a deals that were like, "Oh, that's worth taking of if it was on my list." -Right. -You know, I picked-- I went to the mall. I did it. I did it early. -Right. -I showed up at 9:00 because some of the door busters for clothing end up 1:00. -Uh huh. -And I went in to Macy's, got what I wanted, got like a really cheap sweater. -Right. -I'm like, "There you go." And I got some gloves what I needed. -Yeah. -All right, got it. And then I waited in line for 40 minutes. -Yeah. -And then I was like, "You know what-- -You didn't try on? Did you-- I mean-- there's no trying anything. -No. No. These are for gifts. -Yeah. -And then-- So then I go out like, "You know what? Now that I'm here at the mall, let me go out. Let me see what else I get." -Oh you got robbed in. -And I'm like walking around. The deals are not that great. -The rabbit hole-- -I'm someone who's a bit of a coupon in Clipper. I'm a little obsessed. I was like, "Oh, he's having a coupon somewhere and hitting the deal. Oh, we gotta go to Bath & Body Works 3 for 1 so everyone-- I'm that kind of person. -You need to watch Extreme Cheapskates on TLC by the way. -I would probably get hooked in. But I'm looking with-- A lot of deals we're like spent 100 to get something for 20 more bucks. -Right. -I'm like, "What?" So, I feel like the magic wore off and I like to go in online more because I felt like it was better. -Yeah. -But I was upset cyber Monday too. I went to a couple of websites. I'm not seeing that free shipping, abundance of an offer as I used to. I mean how many places are really offering free shipping? It's more like free shipping if you spend 75 bucks or something. -Right, or if you just bought it in the Amazon. -I'm a little-- I'm still little upset of this thing. I'm just a little upset. -I think the thing about this shopping period right now is that, you know, I'm not gonna recommend people don't go out and do the Black Friday thing, because obviously there are great deals to be had. But you got to do more research. You know, you have to go to aggregators like Reddit and things like that to find out the best deals and then a lot of sites like Amazon and Best Buy did price matching this year with the Brick-and-Mortar stores. -Oh yeah. -So, that's really good way to sort of compare prices and get the best deal. -Uh huh, absolutely. You know what's funny when like the stores opened early, you know, the CEO of like Walmart asked, "So, how do you feel about the strength of Thanksgiving and having your door-- Well, you know, the industry, you know, did this-- -Right. -and you know, I just felt the industry. -Right. You can give what they want. -It's like imagine if-- Yeah, just imagine if you have five stores-- -Sales for everyone. -you got Walmart, you know, Target, and Macy's, all in hoods and some sort of clan and like voting on the industry-- -Right. -when they start and-- -Yeah. Like you control the industry. -The secret society. -Don't blame on the industry. -I know. -Walmart is the industry. -Exactly. -It's funny that you bring up Walmart because obviously Walmart did very well this year. They had a lot of great deals on TVs and tablets. They announced today that they sold 300,000 bikes, 1.4 million tablets and 2 million TVs, which is a ton just over the weekend, but this is a big surprise. The biggest seller wasn't anything that you could plug in. Weird, right? -Uh huh. If you're check is big. Yeah. -Yeah. You would think that the biggest thing would be Kindle Readers or something. But Walmart actually sold 2.8 million towels. That was their biggest seller over the weekend. -Like a washrag. -Washrag. These rags and towels, they're running a special on it and this is NBC news article that we're talking about here. They were charging $1.74 cents for a 6-pack of washcloth and bath towels, which factors that to about 29 cents per washcloth. And because of that price, people were beating each other up, climbing over each other's back just to get these washcloths. There were Twitter reports that people saying that they got into fights, people are yelling at each other-- -Wow! -and sort of just getting really agitated over these towels. -You know what's funny about it is that probably for most people that really isn't a great gift, it's a personal purchase. -Yeah. That's what they're saying is that, you know, with the holiday season coming up, you're gonna be hosting a lot of people at your house. Those people are gonna need bath towels and they're gonna need something to wash them out so and so. -Whether holiday towels or just white, you know, okay, okay. -Just plain towels. Yeah. Not everyone is okay with just using old T-shirts-- -You know what? If you're there, if you're on the hunt, you know, you figure why not. -Yeah. -But it does get-- it does get dicey when you get in a crowd like I remember said with the grabbing-- -Yeah. -So, I can imagine like it does get-- some of the, you know, most fun about the rush of it is just having a cart and then throwing it, "We'll decide later." -Right. Right. -'Cause you're in that impulse rush of it all. -Uh huh. -So, it's just-- if you see a crowd grabbing something, you don't even know what it is. You're running to go grab it too-- -Right. -and then you'll decide later so that adds to the craziness. -Ariel, did you do any Black Friday shopping over the weekend? -Yeah, actually I went up to the outlets, the Woodbury Outlets-- -Oh, very smart. -Yeah. -That you took like a coach bus there or something like that? -No, no. Actually my brother-in-law was in town. He has a car so we just rode-- drove up there, but he was crazy. He was pretty insane. Everyone was shopping with holding luggages. -Yeah. -Yeah. -And I guess they shop. -Yeah. -Wait. So, they brought luggage or they bought luggage at the store? -Well-- No, I think they brought it with them so that they could shop. -That's what you care-- No, no. In all sports, that's what you do. -That's smart. -Yeah. -So you could roll it instead of having to care the bad-- -Yeah, that was the first time I've ever seen and there was a line for like almost every store just to get into the store. -Oh, really? -Oh, yeah. It was insane. -So they were having discounts on the already marked down stuff at the outlet stores? -Yes. Yeah, it was crazy. Some stores were like 50% off. -So what did you get? -I got a bunch of stuff for myself. -Yeah. -Yeah. -Of course. -Like it's a bunch of clothes and some shoes for myself, or my brother. I'm deciding which stuff I'm gonna get to my brother. -Yeah. -Most of it, it's for me. -That's fine. No one's in the Black Friday has to be about business or the people. -Yeah. Yeah. Merry Christmas to me. -Yeah. That's awesome. -Oh man. I went to Costco on Friday. -Uh huh. -So, I was talking about this all last week, right, about how I thought that was gonna be a nightmare, about how is gonna loose a limb or something going a Black Friday at the Costco, but it ended up being okay. -Yeah. -So my girlfriend really wanted to go because they were having a sale on a blender and there was like a $50 coupon of this blender for it's really expensive. It's like $350 blender. -Yeah, blenders can get up there in price. -Really crazy. So, we actually ended up going later on the day because they had a big stock of them and Costco apparently does a lot of online only sales, which kinda cuts down on the-- -Thanks God. -for traffic in the actual store and being not that bad, but also reaffirmed my love for Costco, because I hadn't been out to one in New York since I moved here from California. Do you guys go there a lot? -Uh huh. -I have been and we signed up for a membership. Nice. -First of all, forget about owning a dog together. You know a relationship is real when you guys investing a Costco membership together. That was a big step for me. -Yeah. -It's just like, "Oh man, what's next? You know, yeah, to marry this girl, right, or just end a Costco membership." -Right. -That was kind of-- -I'm serious. -Unnerving one. -Really unnerving for me. -Yeah. Having a-- Having a Costco, see I had a BJ's Membership. I let it expire. -Uh huh. -But you have it New York without a card. You end up like the one like this with like the 30-time like roll of paper towels-- -Yeah. -trying to get to the turn styles of the subway. -Right. -"Sure honey, I can't make it," you know, and that's what ends up being-- -Yeah. I was really worried about my girlfriend getting loaded on the way home from the train 'cause she was carrying all these groceries and huge blender and stuff. I don't know, I mean you got to worry about theft in the city after you go shopping like that. -Uh huh. -But now, I do love Costco a lot. I'm sure they have it in Florida too, right? -Oh yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. -You guys purveyors of this establishment? -I don't-- If you don't have a lot people, you waste so much food. -Yeah. -Yeah. -I mean it's fun when you're there. You're like, "I got some, you know, Chicken McNuggets next to the mattresses. Where am I?" You know, but it's just something that you end up going on and wasted so much, unless it's like food that like can never expire like-- -Yeah. -Just idea of saving money especially if you're New Yorker is a huge deal. -Yeah. -Yeah, it was like the only place you can go where you see adults riding on the back of their shopping carts. You know why they do that? They're like run and like adults are so happy at Costco because they're saving like four times the amount of money they would spend in the city. -It's good for family. -Yes. -That's how I feel at the Outlets. I was like, "Man, you'll never see any deals like this in the city." -Yeah. Why wouldn't you buy that if nothing else just to resale when you get back to the city? -Yeah, totally. We were doing that like for so many things like, "Oh my god, Vienna sausages. They're like 299 and there's some [unk] -Let's resale them on the street. -Yeah, it was like everything we saw we're just ogling at because it's just so unheard of to get these deals. -Totally. -In California, you can get a really good deal on gas. Gas is typically-- -Yeah. -under 250 or whatever the average prices then. -I used to get my tires changed there all the time. -Yeah. -They are the cheapest. -$12 for a 6-pack of chicken breasts. -Yeah. -I mean this is terrible radio-- just like talking about like Costco deals right now. I can't get over it though. -Every time my body always-- I always, you know, goes downtime at food somehow. -Yeah, that's true, that's true. We're gonna keep talking about it, because obviously the biggest draw about Costco is the-- -Their 50 cent hotdogs at the end or something. -Exactly. -Yeah. -Yeah, 50 cent hotdogs, the pizza and the chicken bakes-- -Uh huh. -the best-- which you can go and eat there without having to buy a membership card. -Yeah, totally. I used to do it all the time. I had a couple of good friends that work at Costco and I just hang out with them. Yeah. I didn't have a membership. I just walk-in and have lunch with them. -Yeah. -It was fun. -Yeah. -That's the best way to do it. -Yeah. -While we were there, someone told us a pretty good pro-tip if you don't wanna buy a membership. -Uh huh. -Because really a membership is only good at Costco if you have maybe like a four-person family. -You'll be go offing. -Yeah, you got to go like twice a month. -Yeah. Because it cost $50, right? -Exactly, yeah. Well, $100 if you get the executive membership, which I am. -Okay. -But there's a way to skirt the membership price, which is pretty cool. So one of the guys told us that if you wanna do that, you can either do what you do-- Ariel, you can go with a friend-- -Yeah. -or you can ask someone who has a membership to go and actually buy you a gift card. You can go into the store and use the gift card without presenting the membership because it's like, "Well, someone bought this from you, you got to use it." -Right. Right. Right. -It's kind of cool so if you really don't wanna get wear that, just have someone who ask one. So, we're just buying you a membership. -Interesting. -Yeah, I buy you some gift cards and stuff. -That's cool. -So that's my pro-tip, go and check at Costco. -Right. -But you live pretty close to one Ariel. -What? -We're in-- Well, we are in Sunset Park again. You and I have hung there-- -Uh huh. -out there before. -Uh huh. -And we definitely have to go back there. -Oh, is that where the Costco is? -Yeah. -Okay, it's great. -Oh yeah. -Well, there's four of them around the city. -Yeah. Okay. -It's the best. -Let's do it. -I'm not getting paid for Costco like [unk]. This is just my own passion for it. -The best is the samples too. -I'm happy for you. -Obviously, right? I mean, ideally if you stuck up on samples, then you don't have to pay for lunch at all. -Uh huh. -That was like the sad thing is like there are a lot of people there and there are people that are like waiting in line for samples. You know it was like always like vouchers just like waiting for this guy and like finish cooking a spaghetti and stuff. And the saddest part is seeing like grown adults like 35-year-old adult with salary-paying jobs-- -Yeah. -like waiting in line in front of the samples guy for like five minutes just to get one dry ravioli. Yeah, like no sauce, no like anything just-- -Take like-- -Yeah, just like a boiled ravioli. -I've been here in cold for three hours waiting for some blender that my girlfriend wants to buy. I will take whatever I can get. -Yeah. That was me. Anyway, it doesn't sound like I had a lot of fun, but it was good times over the weekend. -That's cool. -So, I may just go back anytime you guys wanna go. -You have the same passion that Ikea shoppers have. -Yeah. -Yeah. -Well, if you're saving money like anytime New Yorkers can save money you know. -Yeah. -We're gonna take amends of that. So-- -Look at that. -Yeah! -Executive member. Let's go over on it and everything. -Yes, it does. I'm excited. -It's like an ampersand on it or [unk] -Yeah. All right, let's get into something that happened over the weekend that I wanted to talk about. And if you guys watched 60 minutes, I mean they're owned by CBS so I know we're contracturally obligated to tune in. -Yeah. -Nope, but-- -I know-- I know what story you're talking about. -Yeah. Yeah. So, over the weekend, of course, on Sunday, 60 minutes aired and did a profile on Amazon. -Uh huh. -And they sort of talked about Sunday delivery and how Amazon sort of revolutionizing the shopping industry online and in person. But they also talked about, you know, sort of how the products organized in the warehouses; they called them fulfilment centers and things like that. And another thing that they talked about was kinda cool was the future roadmap and so they had Jeff Bezos, obviously, the CEO of Amazon talking about what the future holds for the company. And they talked about a technology that will probably be around in the next five years and it's the next venture that Amazon is working on to distribute products too and it's called Prime Air. -Yes. -Prime Air is an aerial drone that will fly your order directly to you-- just straight to your porch in under 30 minutes as long as you live 10 miles inside of the Amazon fulfillment area. So, I know these sounds like a joke, but this is real. I actually thought it was like an onion thing or maybe some kind of like April fools joke, but this is actually real and although it's not a real service just yet, Amazon is actually working on it. -Of course they are, but-- and you know what, I'm gonna jump in here 'cause I have a lot of-- I have a lot of passion and stay in here. -Okay, wait, before you-- before you give us your opinions 'cause I do wanna hear that, -Okay. -let's watch this really quick minute long promo video. -All right. on what the service is all about. -Okay. -Okay, that's Amazon Prime Air. Now, start the hating. What do you think about this service? I wanna know what do you think to it? -All right. -Okay. -Ariel, you have an Amazon Prime Account. -I do. -We obviously all use Amazon a lot. I get stuff delivered a couple of times a month. -Well, Amazon, I give you a little golf clap-- -Yeah. for being innovative-- -Okay. -for pushing the conversation forward, for actually showing that you can make it work-- -As a big old button here. -Oh well, you know, but honestly there are so many questions and I don't think it's gonna happen in five years like he hopes. He spin-- You know, he's really spinning it here to make Amazon like-- -For the best case scenario. -"Hey, look what Amazon can do in five years maybe." -Sure. -Here's the thing. I'll be working on the concept of drones, you know. -Uh huh. -And so they wanna lead the conversation, you know. This is them showing off. Sure, we have no idea how it's not gonna land on someone's head or-- -Right. -if someone can like trap the thing, or if it's gonna 'cause other problems. -Yeah. -But we wanna show you that we should be having this conversations so we can be the leader winning if it ever happens-- -Yeah. -and I don't think we're ready or the world wants it, -Right. -because of all of the different issues that are involved including law enforcement issues 'cause they don't want these things buzzing around that they can't track-- -Right. -like there's a lot of logistics. -Well, security is obviously the big concern 'cause the FAA doesn't have any rules about unmanned aircraft right now. There are so many logistic issues. -Yeah. -And you know what? Something I read today as an update UPS says, "Hey, just because they did a video, we're thinking about it too." -Right. -There are other companies out there playing around with the idea. -Right. -I remember seeing promos that were joky about pizza delivery. -Right. And it was like the taco delivery drone to that and they had been safe. -And beer delivery. You know, these are all like little joke things. -Yeah. -But okay, so we can invent a robot. That's pretty good and general GPS-- -Right. -maybe not able to know if it's landing exactly in the right spot. -That's a warning. -So, we had to get the tech advanced and we have also have a-- have a government now actually wants to have that conversation. -Yeah. Yeah, my thing is that, you know, Amazon obviously delivers everywhere and so they're gonna need something for universal delivery access, right? -But you pointed this out in the-- while we're watching the video and you made a great point is that people that don't have front yards or backyards or even a doorstep, what are you gonna do? -Not gonna happen. No. -What are you gonna do if you live in New York and, you know, you're in the East Village-- -Too bad. -Yeah, and you're in the walk-up-- -No. -it's just gonna drop it off on your doorstep-- that's not gonna either-- at home. -No. But even-- even if it was like in your house like how do you prevent it like not landing on the dog in legs. -Or the dog attacking it too. -You know, I mean, there-- -Right. -you know, I have those cartoons that are like animations of the news that are done like to be really quirky summaries of news. -He's like the Taiwanese ones. -Yeah. -Yeah. -They did one for this and it was graphic about someone tripping and getting their heads up chopped off by one. -Like a postman. -Yeah, and-- -The ultimate revenge for me was not on the postman. -And like the famous pine in a blow-up santa and was taking pictures of people. -Yeah. -It was like, "Okay, I get that. It's fun to talk about science fiction-- -Right. -[unk] Could it be a fact? -Yeah. -but there's just too many what ifs. -You know my thing about this story and just drones in general, is that I'm not against the technology. -I'm not against either. -Drones are cool for entertainment value, but if we're gonna put this into widespread use, I'd rather them used on, you know, wide area of farming for example, or keep it constraint to military use where it can be regulated. -Start in the area that is-- for above populations and things landing on [unk]. -Or like individualized medical distribution for elderly people or those that can't live their house, you know, that will need to get their medical supplies delivered to them. That's very specific use case. Not so that some idiot can wait to the last minute to get a condom box delivered to them. You know what I mean? Like it's just-- -Oh what about people-- -I don't see a case where I would need something delivered in half an hour. -What about people like who forget about the half-hour thing, or if you're in the mountains and cars can't get up there and snowy like. -Yeah. -If you can't have a drone drop off in a general area 'cause that's [unk]. The GPS doesn't so exact that it can't get your doorstep. It's like an-- -Right. -But you can get a general area where you know supplies can be dropped off. Think of a bigger system of delivery maybe than this drone. -Uh huh. -This drone can only handle five pounds. -Right. -But it's interesting concept and I hope that-- that does start going somewhere it's more useful rather than-- yeah, exactly. I need my book right now. -Yeah. But then it's just weird case where, you know, you want it now, but they're not-- they're not-- maybe you're too lazy to go to the store-- -I need my shoes. -and that will take about half an hour so then you're still willing to wait, -Yeah. -but you're lazy. It just doesn't make sense. -Yeah. -What do you think man? Would you use something like this? -I would, yeah. I would definitely use it. I mean I think they're definitely like dumbing down. I'm sure there's gonna be some sort of stretch-ins and regulations when they do-- finally do it. -Uh huh. -But I used to see that thing flying up to my house. -I think it's-- Yeah, totally. Just order some paper clips. -And then you think of who wanna shoot it down. -Oh, yeah. -I don't trust people. -Right. That's-- That's a great point. No, the other thing is this can only handle up to 5 pounds, right? And you saw on that video that the item you have to get delivered-- I mean not everything is gonna available for Amazon Air. -They said 86 percent of the items that Amazon sells for delivery are only five pounds. -Right. But if you buy like jetskis or something like that, they're not gonna be able to-- -No, but-- No, but most things are under five pounds. -Yeah. But my problem with watching this concept video is that it can only hold one thing at a time, so you buy, you know, two things from the fulfilment center, then you're gonna have two separate drones coming at you that seems like a waste of air space and resources, right? Like the-- I envision this future where maybe someone from Amazon would order like five things, right? -Uh huh. -And then a massive drone like a Santa Claus drone would carry it on his back. -It's like future robots so-- -Yeah. Yeah. Like it would carry multiple packages on one drone and then deliver it to a fulfilment center like the Amazon locker storage that they were sort of pimping out last year-- -Right. -Uh huh. -where they have liked a central delivery location, you know, like a post office, which all seems very cyclical. -Well, yeah. -But yeah, you know, it would deliver it straight to these Amazon lockers and then you go and pick that up whenever you want it. -Uh huh. -It cost them on the immediacy, but it seems like an important issue. -Like a massive area where these things can drop off. -Yeah. It doesn't have to be directly to your house. -Right. And then that way, just makes it closer and faster. -Yeah. So, I don't know. I think there's a lot of improvements to be made. You're right though this did seem like a 15-minute advertisement like a free commercial for Amazon on CBS. -But look what we can do kind of-- -So there, we look out-- -Kinda like we Google those, you know, they kinda like, "Look, we have some awesome new tech. They'll never see the light of the day how I like it, you know." -Right. -And it makes them look like they're hip and cool and it was-- -Of course, and was there any coincidence that this aired on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? -Yeah. The day before Cyber Monday. -Yeah, exactly. So, that's obviously not a coincidence. We'll see. I'm gonna give it a 10-year roll out. -You know what? Yeah, I think we will have drone delivery of some kind-- -Yeah. -not of our pizza and our video games instead of, you know, like of some-- -Right. -of some comment in 10 years. -Yeah. I don't know-- Have you used any of like the eBay Now services that offers personal delivery? Amazon was testing this out a while ago, but they delivered in person not using drones, but just the immediacy of that I just don't see the huge gains over just going to the store. You're like limited in what you can buy-- -Yeah. -And so I didn't really care to spend it on like some sort of item at the mall like I just didn't feel like I needed like a power drill right at the second, you know. -Right. -I have so many opinions on it. -Yeah. We'll definitely go and watch that 60 minutes episode. We'll link you to that clip. What I found really cool was just these aerial shots of the massive fulfilment centers where they keep all the products. You know, when you think about Amazon, it's like you don't think about where your stuff is getting stored. -Uh huh. -And this sort of like shows the giant warehouses and it's so cool how they organize them 'cause it's not by size, it's not by-- it's not by made to order-- -It's not by type of products. -or type of products that you'll see like a plunger next to bunch of scouring pads just next to like a box of oatmeal. And those are placed strategically by size-- by shape I mean. -Yeah, 'cause it's really about how they can use their space most efficiently. -Yeah. -And the computers know that square A5 has that item. -Yeah. -So the personal go to that square to get it, but it's like a Susie Cries a Lot next to a book of Encyclopedia-- -Right. That's so good to me. -next to Mrs. Potato Head like they make no sense, but-- -The most efficient space possibly. -Yeah. -And think about how many products they have 'cause the center is too huge. -Yeah. -So that was cool. That was definitely cool so go and check that out. Last story of the day, how about you guys know your neighbors? Because Ariel you moved in earlier this year. -Uh huh. Yeah. -You've been there for a minute now. -Uh uh. -Have you met your neighbors? Do you have many people in the building? -No. The only time I ever meet my neighbors is when I'm doing laundry. -Okay. -Besides that like everyone just kinda walks, pass each other and doesn't really say hi. -Right. -It's weird. Yeah. -Is it because you have a lot of people in the building, or you just don't care. -Yeah, there's kind of a lot of people in our building and then like there's a lot of traffic 'cause we have a gate outside so there's a lot of traffic over there. -Right. -But I don't know it just seems like no one wants to talk to each other. -Is that a New York thing, do you think? -I feel like it is because I know when I was in SF like all-- I talked about all my neighbors. I don't know if it was just where I live or not, but-- -Right. -I've lived in two places in New York now and it's kinda been similar to that, you know, just like a smile here and there, but no one really talking, you know. -Yeah. -It's probably because everybody in New York is trying to do everything as quickly and as efficiently as possible. -Yeah. -Uh huh. -Yeah, yeah. True. -And so they're just making a beeline for the laundry, or whatever. -For sure. For sure. -What about you? -Yeah, I don't know their names and other faces. -Yeah. -It's not-- It's not that big of a building, but I feel bad if I do ask of the name once, I can't ask for it again so I'll never know their name forever-- -Right. Right. -going forward, you know, but it's a general like how you doin, you know-- -Yeah. Yeah. I do that like-- -Yeah. -Yeah, exactly. This is it. Least amount of energy spent. -Exactly. I tried-- I tried to like care about what's going on my town, I have like this small like community websites that try to let you know like what's going on with the bulletins and stuff. So, I do my best, but-- -Uh huh. -Yeah, it's hard to-- I don't really know my neighbors even though. -Yeah. I also feel that in New York, everyone is very irritated by their neighbors. -Yeah. -Because the walls were so thin and everyone is living in such a close quarters that you pretty much know the at least audio activities like everything that is going on in the adjacent buildings. -Well, that's a fact that I don't know about your places, but I can always smell that everyone's cooking and I'm like, "Oh, what is that?" -Yeah. -Yeah, exactly. You can smell, you can hear things. -Yeah. -I mean, this is a minor irritation, but one of my neighbors-- and I have talked about this on the show before. One of my neighbors still subscribes to AOL. -You hear the-- -So I-- Not the dialogue, thank god. It's not like that bad yet, but she does use AOL and so I can hear the doors opening when people sign online. Yeah. Exactly. -Wow. -And then the door slamming shot when people leave. I hear her IM sounds, -Goodbye. -her You've Got Mail. She still hasn't email account. -Wow. -I wanna meet her and shake her hands and-- -Yeah. You know, every time I passed by her in the hallway, I'm just like, "I hate you. Also, I love you at the same time." That's my neighbor. I'm imagining everybody in New York just hates their neighbors because of that sound stuff, so that's probably why they don't talk to each other. But for people that do, there's a new social network online. -Uh huh. -You can go to Nextdoor.com. Nextdoor.com is a social network just for neighbors. It's exactly how it sounds. It sorts of like Facebook or LinkedIn, but instead of connecting friends and colleagues, you're talking to your neighbors. -I've looked into this a little bit and-- -So, you're familiar with this? -and it intrigues me to sign up because you have to kind of prove that you live somewhere. You can do a couple of things. -Uh huh. -You can give like-- like your credit card billing address or you can get a post card sent to you via snail mail. Yeah, the special code on it that you enter on the website to prove that you actually got to that address. -Right. Right. -And the point is not-- so I just go, "Hey neighbor, what's going on 'cause I get annoying, but rather hey, there's-- like it's kind of like having that virtual bulletin board." -Right. -There's a big sale going on, or in cases when something like, you know, not good is going down. -Sure, yeah. -You can go as far as they send a mass text without knowing their phone numbers. You just kind of pop it if they had the app-- -Okay. -saying, "FYI, there was a car break-in just so you know, or FYI, my kid is missing, or FYI, something's going on." And theoretically, if everyone has this, it could be useful. -Uh huh. -Now, I didn't go all the way with my, you know, sign in and I just kind of browse it a little bit. -Uh huh. -But I get reminders like, "Hey, someone in your neighborhood joined Nextdoor and someone else here joined it. So, I think it's kind of an interesting concept because we don't talk to our neighbors and because we don't really know what's going on and something was going down and I thought I like to know. -Sure. -And it's now that-- I'd be a little more careful today or I feel bad for someone when something happened or just support someone's lemonade stand, you know. -Yeah. -Like that kind of stuff is helpful and it improves your quality of life and it helps-- if you can improve your neighborhood, then that just means that your apartment is better off and your neighborhood is better off and it spreads. -Uh huh. Yeah, it must be great for people that travel a lot because you can rely on your neighbors to check on your dog or what are your plans or things like that. -Yeah. -But I like the community aspect of it. In my building, there's always people that leave stuff down in the vestibule and that's like the free section, right? -Uh huh. -Stuff that they're getting rid off. -That's good for junkie. -Yeah, they're junked basically like, "What I'm gonna do with like nine pool balls?" So, it's always like that kind of stuff, but you know you could send a message that says, "Just throw that away." Maybe it will be good in this case so I would sign up for this and I also like that there's that small element of humid interaction that you still have to talk to a neighbor to get them to sign up for Nextdoor. -Yeah. -But it's just not like sign up on Facebook. -Uh huh. -You actually have to go and deliver a card or actually just talk to them and sort of pimp it out yourself. -Uh huh. -I like that concept. -What else so like though I was wondering what if someone abuses it, what if you're like a jerk and use constantly like mass-peeing everyone over non-emergencies-- -Oh, right. -Yeah. -There's a way to flag that and they put an end to that. -Yeah, it can quickly become like a corporate office type of-- -Or order some of his constantly pushing something like, "Buy my world's greatest chocolate bars." -Yeah. -Like I really don't everyday need to hear that. -I can also imagine to becoming sort of an anonymous passive-aggressive way to get out your frustrations-- -There's already that like weird notes in the elevator. Yeah. -Yeah, exactly like don't leave food out in the hallway because then we'll get rats, which is actually a good complaint-- -Uh huh. -in New York City at least. -Uh huh. -Yeah, this actually works pretty well. I might check this out. Not that I need to join another social network, but maybe. -If you can improve things in your actual physical where you live life, you know, instead of everything being virtual-- -Yeah. -it's only for the good of yourself. You're investing in an apartment. You're investing in the world around you. You go eat at the local restaurants-- -Yeah. -all that stuff just, you know, pass it on, stop always-- -Right. -doing the big stores and only going on Facebook, you're living on close off world. Open your world. -Yeah. -That's what I'm saying. -Yeah, I need to. -That's what I'm saying. -No, I need to close my world down a little bit. The neighbor behind me is that bar coyote ugly. I live in the East Village. -Oh. -And I didn't realize I was in an actual bar. I thought that was like a movie bar just for that movie. But no, it's a real thing and there are real terrible people that going inside of it and I just hear them screaming and shouting at each other-- -That's not lawfully. -until like 5:00 in the morning from Thursday to Tuesday. So, I'm trying to-- I'm trying to get rid of neighbors even we can bond together and do that, you know, all the best people in my neighborhood. -Team up. -Yeah. Well, that's gonna do it for us today you guys. Go and sign up for Nextdoor.com. Let us know what do you find out about your neighbors. That's gonna do it for us today. We actually do have a good group of shows coming up this week so I believe Bridget, if you're not doing anything-- -Yeah. -I haven't asked you yet I'm putting you on the spot, but-- -I ask-- Give me out right here? -Yes. -[unk] -No. Because Jose and-- No, we're gonna-- we're gonna do this right and I think you're gonna come back-- -Yeah. -Wednesday through Friday, hopefully and we'll get a really great week of shows. All right, so go ahead and send in your emails. Unfortunately, we still can't play voicemails or anything like that, but we can play video voicemails. So, record a message to us, upload it to YouTube, send us the link at the404@cnet.com. Well, so, take your messages through email the404@cnet.com, write at Facebook, Twitter of course, Instagram, all that stuff. Hit us up and we'll read some of your messages on the air later this week. All right. We'll see you guys tomorrow. I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Bridget Carey. -I'm Ariel Nunez. -So 404, it's high tech, low brow, we'll see you guys tomorrow.