Ep. 1423: Where we let that baby settle

-What's up everyone? It's Monday, February 10th, 2014. Welcome to the 404 Show coming to you from cnet.com. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -How's everyone doing today? I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. -I did. -Good. -Somehow that 40-inch of snow never really materialized this morning. -Here's my new rule-- -I know we start every week by talking about whether-- -What's the-- -It's your new rule not talking about whether-- -Well, no. -It's gonna be for that. -It's been a typically bizarre in New York this winter. We've had I think 45 inches of snow already. -Yeah. -And we're still, you know, we still have a month and a half of winter left. My new rule is, I'm just gonna-- anytime you hear some jack-ass with please-- "oh, big storm coming next Thursday." -Yeah. -He doesn't even mean this Thursday. He means next Thursday. I'm putting blinders on. -Yeah, yeah. -Because you can't-- -Four days out. -you got minimum four days out. For me it's like two nights before then we can start getting worried. -Yeah, yeah. -You know, I change my whole life for yesterday and nothing happened. -Yeah, I know. I was fully planning on not coming in to work. I had all my whole day planned out for the day and now I'm here so that kinda stinks. -They-- no. We should actually did-- still get like two inches but two inches there wasn't it's like, you know, spitting out the rain there. I wanna bring up something real quick. Tomorrow night, if you're in the New York City/Brooklyn area, why don't you come out and see me? I'm gonna be presenting at the New York Video Games Critic Circle Awards. I'll be a member of their panel that's tomorrow night. It's the Third Annual Award Show. -Uh-hmm. -And they didn't let me in the first two, but now I'm there. I bought my way into it. So there's gonna be a panel of myself and four other video game reviewers from the New York area. -Uh-hmm. -And it's not just like, you know, this is significant people from the Time-- New York Times, Game Informer, Kotaku, Mashable. There's gonna be a great panel discussion about 2013 in video games followed by a 7:30 start of the award show, where we're giving out awards for the last year in video games and how Goldberg, who's been on the show a few times. This is his thing. He runs it. And we're gonna be doing it tomorrow in Brooklyn. So if you are interested in coming and checking it out, go to nygamecritics.com for all the information on how you can attend. If you're in the area and you got nothing to do tomorrow night, come and check it out, little conversation about games. I think there's free booze after. I mean what's there to complain about? -So there's actually gonna be people from the industry there accepting the awards? -Absolutely. We're gonna-- and actually, I think like the big gaming celebrity highlight is the guy who plays Trevor in GTA V is gonna be there giving out an award. It's hosted by The Daily Show writer Daniel Radosh, which is gonna be awesome, and I'm excited about that. It's a star-studded event. -Are you gonna wear tux? -And I'll be there too. I'm-- tux? No. -It's not like-- -This is the video game awards man. -Right. This is-- sweater pants only. -No, a hoodies are required. No, I think I'm gonna dress nicer than average. -Okay. -What's the actual award that they give out? It can't just be-- -So there's like 10-- I think there's like 10 categories. -No, no, no. I mean like the-- is there a statue or-- -Yeah, I think it's like a golden thing or probably like a crystal thing, you know. -Yeah. Crystal funyun. -Crystal funyun. Yes. A crystal funyun. -I wanna see what that is though. -So do I. I'll take a photo of it for tomorrow. -Okay. -'Cause I guess you're not gonna be there. -Yeah. I will be there. But other people should go. -Yeah, absolutely. If you're into games even in the slightest, apparently it's sold out every year. So-- -Okay, so if you haven't bought a ticket you can't go. -Well, no. But like, people who show up day of can get in but there's people who get turned away. -Cool. -So I'm excited to be there. Scott Stein is also presenting for an award. But I'm doing like a good amount of like voice over for the show-- -Uh-hmm. -which should be interesting-- which I don't really do. Although I guess I talk every day along with you. Anyway, go check it out nygamecritics.com. So what do we have coming on the show today? -Let's see. So in terms of the stories, we're gonna talk about a little more about Flappy Bird, some stuff happened over the weekend, sort of putting in perspective. And then we're gonna talk about the NYPD starting to adopt Google Glass. -Okay. -So calm down, it's not too crazy yet. -Sure. -It's just the pilot program so we'll talk about it how that'll be affected. And then we talk about a really cool Hack A Day. You read that website hackaday.com. -I had. Yeah, we've seen that. -So the latest post is about a guy that turned the 3D printer into an air hockey robot. Both very cool and super sad because he's playing by himself. -That's fun. -And then we'll talk about, you know, parents posting photos of their kids on Facebook. And it's not a complaint segment. So, get ready for that. -All right. And then maybe we get to this AMC Zombie story in New York but first, big controversy over the weekend. -Yeah, yeah. -And I can't say that we are completely innocent. -I think we are. I mean we talk about the stories. It's not like we try to hit up this guy for an interview so we're not personally bothering him. It's not our fault. -No. It's not our fault but-- -Like the general are maybe or the media are. -Yeah. And I guess, what I really wanna do is kind of like get in the mind of this guy. Of course, we're talking about the creator of Flappy Bird, Mr. Dong Nguyen,-- -Uh-hmm. -who said that he's removing his game his incredibly popular game from the iOS and Android app stores, a game that was earning him $50,000 in ad revenue each day from Mr. Nguyen he said, "I hate money. I'm not doing this anymore." So he does-- no, but seriously, what the hell like-- -So as of today, you can't find it on the app store. -So now let's really try and like understand this. So he was making $50,000 a day. -Yeah, maybe. Yeah I think it was Forbes that initially posted that statistic and then everybody else jumped on board. -That's a reliable source. -But I'm not exactly sure what they were using to come up with that number. -I mean, I'll trust Forbes with money, you know. -I guess so but-- okay, sure. -Either way, let's try and understand why, like why stop doing this? Why take it down? It's so freaking popular? -Yeah. Well, I think-- okay. So I think my prediction is one of two scenarios. One, Nintendo contacted him with the [unk]. -He claims it was no legal issue. -Over the graphics. So, you know, he said that-- -He said there was no illegal reason that I took it down. -Okay. Then the other possibility that I'm thinking-- -He hates money. -Not that he hates money. He hates the effect of coming into a lot of money immediately and having your name broadcasted out there as somebody who is coming to a bunch of it. -All right. -You know, it's like the, you know, I think you could equate it to winning the lottery and having-- -Definitely. -that kind of sudden profiteering syndrome. -I understand that's probably traumatic for someone to deal with. But when you do decide to develop software-- -Uh-hmm. -are you not hoping for this exact result? Are you not hoping to make a fine living off of your product that you've put your blood, sweat and tears into? -I'm sure he was but he probably wasn't expecting his name to be so specifically attached to it. I'm just assuming. It can't be easy. -I just want-- I just want a good answer. -Yeah. -I just want a good reason-- -I know. -for what he's saying, I'm just not satisfied. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what it is. -Uh-hmm. -Like did you not like the attention? I understand maybe he's sort of a shut in and doesn't like it, was getting freaked out about it. You realized, if that is the reason taking your app-- -Just don't take interviews. -off the store will do nothing but draw more attention to you. -Right. -So maybe that's not the reason. He doesn't seem like a dumb guy. He seems like a bright kid. -Yeah. -So I just trying-- I mean, so he writes on February 8th, he tweeted, "I am sorry Flappy Bird users. Twenty-two hours from now, I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore." -Uh-hmm. -And that was retweeted 140,000 times. -Are you thinking that this is a publicity stunt that he's gonna put a back up in a few days and then it'll explode even faster in downloads than it was before? -I hope this is the teaser to Flappy Bird 2, to search for more money. -Yeah. That would be what it's called. -They call in, in search for more money. -Yeah. -That's-- I don't know. If it is, he's brilliant. If it's not, he's just-- he's acting a little strange. It's-- I'm actually little worried about. -Yeah. -And the lifespan of games that are this simple to are byte size, right? I mean, you could assume that, you know, if he was getting a lot of external pressure to talk about it, it'll probably be over soon. You know, the spotlight isn't very big for games like this. -Yeah. I mean he was-- -They'll move on to something else. -for sure. -Just enjoy the money for a little bit and then it'll probably go away when something new comes along. -You could not be more correct. Let's be honest Mr. Nguyen. You were in like minute 14 of your 15 minutes of fame. -Yeah. -Just hold on for, you know, 30 seconds longer and this all would have passed. -I sympathized with him though. -I do but I also, I sympathized but I'm way more fascinated by him now. -Uh-hmm. -Because now he has whether or not he wanted to. He has indirectly created a mystery surrounding him. -Uh-hmm. -And now I need to know more and I'm trying to get an exclusive interview with him. -Yeah. -With him coming in to the studio. Would that be great? -The only outlet that he talks to is The 404. -I mean, why the hell not? Why the hell not? -We're good candidates for because neither of us are big fans of the game. Did you try downloading it over the weekend before? -I mean look, this is me-- my personal opinion, I think the game sucks. -Yeah. -It's not about the game anymore. To me, it's not about the game anymore. I don't like the game. I don't think it's like fantastic. I think it's fascinating that it was so popular. -Uh-huh. -I don't like the game but I don't care. It's not about that anymore. I wanna talk to Mr. Nguyen like, "Dude, what's going on? Why" -Well he's not talking to the media anymore, that's for sure. -Yeah. -So I don't think we're gonna be able to get that interview. But he sort of trading the attention from off the media and onto his fans because now, a lot of people are really pissed off that he took the game down. -But why are they pissed off? 'Cause you can still play it if you have it. -Yeah. This is what I'm confused about. So right after he tweeted this out, a lot of people responded and there was one outlet that sort of compiled a few, the more angry tweets. And people were actually sending death threats. I know death threats on the internet completely empty hopefully. But, you know, people were like, you know, don't take it down. I will kill you M or F or like-- -Man. -Please don't do this to me, etc, etc. But then, I think these people that are just reactionary. -Yeah. -And they're not realizing that they already have it on their phones so they can continue playing. And that you could probably download it from Bitorrent anyway. -Death threats are weak now. Back in my day, death threats were written in blood. -Yeah, if you or your friends are-- -And send to your house laced glazed with anthrax. Now, it's just a tweet? That's not a real death threat. -Yeah. -Who's scared to that? How many times a day someone tells me they're gonna kill me over the internet? -I tell you every day in person. -A dozen. I want my death threats mailed to my house, cut out in random letters from different magazines was like a lock of my hair in there. -Yeah. -I mean like it's happening, you know. -Yeah. -Man, it's just crazy to me. -I feel bad for him man. -I do. Mr. Nguyen, whatever it is you're looking for, I hope you find it. -Yeah. And of course, these are the people sort of trying to profit off getting it taken down. You see that story about how someone put a phone up on eBay? I think it was an iPhone 5S. -It still had Flappy Bird in it. -Yeah. -It was like, unlocked to iPhone 5S with Flappy Bird installed for $650 auctions up right now. -There's only 30 million phones like that out there. -Yeah. -That's pretty good. -You can rent your phone now to somebody who really needs to play the game. -Did you-- you'd have it played it? -I played it for five minutes. -What was your highest score? -I didn't even get past the first. I couldn't get past the first level. -So zero was your highest score. -Zero was my highest score, yeah. -Truly pathetic. -I just-- yeah, I didn't think it was fun. I'm with you-- -It's not. Yeah, it's not fun. Have you played it Ariel? -No, no. Christine plays it all the time. -Yeah? What's her highest score? -I don't even pay attention. I don't know. -You don't know. -I just let her play and I do something else. -I wanna know. I want screen shots of people who have beaten 53, which is I think what-- yeah. -We'll see that. -'Cause it's-- I mean it's hard but also terrible. -Yeah. -All right, moving along. Maybe this will close the book on Flappy Bird for good. -Hopefully. -Yeah. -Last time we'll talk about it for sure. Let's talk about Google Glass a little bit. So, New York-- the New York Police Department is developing a pilot program for their offices to use Google Glass. -Gotcha. -And right now the entire NYPD only has two sets of these items. -It's expensive. -But it's not-- I think, you know, the stories being reported on a lot, you know, in a lot of different outlets. I think the detail that needs to be reported specifically is that, it's not Google that's giving out the Glasses to the NYPD. They just signed up for the pilot program-- -Right. -which anybody could do. The three of us could do it but we're not going to. -No. -But, you know, the NYPD just basically signed up online and they got their first too. Are you surprised by this? Does it worry you? Do you feel like it's just another dashcam, you know, it's more personal dashcam. -I mean, it's a better dashcam. -We've been recorded by the cops before. -I think this is good, and I tell you why. -Uh-hmm. -I mean, how many cases of like misconduct and abuse of power are claimed? I mean like now that you're gonna have-- I mean basically, this could evolve to a future world like all people of authority and police officers, military, whatever it is have to wear a first person view camera. -Yeah. -That can be tampered with and now they will always be evidence of what happened. -Right. -And-- I mean, how many cases a year do you hear about like, you know, cops on trial or being sued for malpractice or whatever it is. Now it's just-- it's gonna make them think twice and hopefully will end, you know, any abuse. -Uh-hmm. -All right? I mean-- -Yeah, definitely I think-- -Definitely the pros outweigh the cons. -In New York Police Department, I think one of the biggest problem is obviously the "stop and frisk", right? -Sure. -And if we can keep a recording on at all times is I can do that. The problem with Google Glass is that it's not an always on system. It's sort of on when-- -Right. -wanted to be. -But I think the-- I think what it-- I'm saying is what's it's leading to. -Right. I'm hoping everyone will-- -But inevitably will the future of all this. -The other question to go along with that is who has access to the videos that get recorded? I think if there's a transparency system where we could access the videos that get recorded by the cops online, sort of like the checks and balances thing. -Right. -It would be really nice to be able to see the videos that they recorded if they don't have anything to hide, why can't we see them? -Well, because there's some things-- there's matters of privacy, right? -Yeah. -Like, you know-- -If it's inside of someone's house. -we don't have-- yeah, and we don't have access to dashcams. -No. -So I'm okay with it not being completely open to the public. But again, when the matter does come upwards, it's like, okay we need to see five minutes of unedited, uncompromised footage. -Right. -Like it'd better be there and they're better not be an excuse of why it's not there and it better not be tampered with. -Uh-hmm. -So I mean, you know, I'm okay with that. I think about-- you know, every like unfortunately these shootings or whatever happened and, you know, it's always like, "Well, they didn't need to fire them any times. All right, we'll now-- everyone will be able to see and make an educated decision for themselves." -Right. I remember when I was in San Francisco. I started noticing a lot of cops on their cellphones, which initially I was a little puzzled by 'cause you don't wanna see a cop-- -It drives me crazy. -You don't wanna see a cop buried into his cellphone when he's supposed to be patrolling the city that you live in. -They do it on the subway all the time. -And you see them doing that until I found out that one of my buddies told me that the SFPD actually issues cops in San Francisco Samsung S4s. They issued them Galaxys. And they used that to sort of do background checks immediately on the fly so they don't have to go back to their car or call it in. -Right. -And then it eliminates a lot of paperwork too, which apparently is sort of the bane of a lot of cops' jobs. -Yeah. -That, you know, they don't have to do that as much 'cause they can just dictate it into their phones or they can look up, you know, prior records and things like that. -So-- -Still though, they could be playing Flappy Bird, I have no idea. -Right. And I was just gonna say like how many times have I seeing a cop buried in their-- are they always looking up background checks? I don't think so. -That seems like a good alibi though for when they do get caught on Twitter and Instagram. -It's just-- I don't know. There's like a crowd of police officers, you know, five-- half the time outside the path. -Yeah. -And they're either like in a circle just talking not looking at like the comings and goings or they're just-- in their own sort of world, and I get it like, you know, it's boring, right? Not a lot of stuff happens and, you know, you gotta like make the day go by but-- -A lot of stuff happens that you have to look at to see-- -Exactly. And I get it. It's like the illusion of safety and all that. But I don't know man. It's just like, keep your-- I don't know. Just look at me every now and then. -Yeah. -You know. -I may be doing something and you just-- and then-- -Just make eye contact with me and tell me you're alive. -Yeah, definitely. Speaking of which, are you gonna see Robocop when it comes out next week? -No. Any remake that gets demoted a letter rating. -Yeah. -I boycott. -So we're talking-- yeah, so the new Robocop reboot is gonna be-- -You know what I'm saying. -PG-13. -Yeah, boycott. -But obviously a huge part about what Robocop, the original was good for is-- -Its extreme violence-- -all the extreme violence, the nudity-- -Right. -it's just insane because it's supposed to be this dystopic Detroit. -Yeah. They did it with Die Hard. -Yeah. -Die Hard is PG-13 movie. I don't care about it anymore. -Yeah. -What else they do it with something recently? -I'm not sure. -I forgot what they did but it was like a-- it was either a sequel or a remake. If you bump it down a letter, it doesn't fly for me. It sounds super trivial and it sounds ridiculous. But how can you maintain the integrity of the original piece of art. -Uh-hmm. -The original piece of work if you're just gonna sugar coat it with unicorn kisses and rainbow farts. -Yeah, I wanna see Robocop shooting guys' dicks off through dresses of the girls in front of them. -Okay, that's-- -That was part of the first movie. -I know. -Do you remember that? -But you're not to like come out and say exactly what it was. I think everyone got the message. -No, because there's a lot of scenes in Robocop that are gonna be taken out of the new one like for example the death scene. -It's clearly not-- -It's not gonna be there, which is super frustrating. -But it's clearly not a shot by shot recreation. -No. -I'm sure it's just-- it's just the brand. It's just him. -Yeah. -You know-- it's just the idea of a robotic cop, which is so stupid. I'm sorry, I hate Robocop. -Well, they shouldn't call it Robocop. They should just call it Robot Cop. -Robot Cop. -Yeah. Remember that scene in-- well, so the big, I think a lot of fans of the original Robocop movie are angry about the human hand that he has before both hands were bionic. -Yes, Robocop purists. -Yeah. -A fine collection of humanity. -Of which I let myself into proudly. -Of which you are a card-carrying member. -Yeah, proudly. When he goes and tries to hack into the police database but all he does is like, he extended that spike out of his head. -I guess. I don't remember. -It's so good. I was just wondering how they're gonna do that in the next Robocop movie. -Yeah. -It's gonna be like USB keys coming out of his hand. -I guess. Wake me up when they redo Demolition Man, how about that? -Why do I feel like that's a thing already? -I don't know. Demolition Man is probably another film that's turning 20 or is 20. -Yeah. -They should redo Johnny Mnemonic while they're at it. They should redo Hackers. -Oh, no. -Was that Rated R? -Hackers was PG-13, I think. -Really? -What year is Hackers-- was what year? I think it was '96-- it's '95. So next year it'll turn 20. -Uh-hmm. -Good Lord. Yeah, I don't know. I'd be okay if they redid that I think. -Yeah, if they did it right. -But now hacking is nowhere near as glamorous at it used to be or at least was considered to be. -Yeah. -Well, Jeff, I'm glad you brought up hacking, because that's a good transition into our next story. So, we haven't talked about 3D printers in a while and this isn't even the 3D printing story because there's nothing actually printed by something here. A guy named Jose Julio. He took to Hack A Day, a website that shows you different hacks. And he showed how you can sort of reverse engineer a riprap branded 3D printer and make it into an air hockey table that where you compete against a robot. -This is pretty awesome. -This is really cool. So basically-- I'm sorry, I should go back on when I said early. So the bracketry, the puck and the paddle are all 3D printed. -Right. -Assuming before he took apart the 3D printer to make this. -Right. So explain what it is. So he basically refitted-- -Yeah. -the sliding double-barred mechanism that access the 3D printing head. -Yeah, normally an extruder would go into that head and go back and forth laying down the ABS plastic to print something out. -Right. -In this case it's being used as the puck, the opposing puck for the robot that you're competing in this game against. -Right. It's kind of amazing because not only does it work on like one access. It goes like front and back too, so basically does like horizontal and vertical adjustments to play. -Yeah. -Which I think is really impressive. How did he do this stuff? -So he has a kinect camera that sort of monitors the play and that sort of the robot's eye that watches your movements and tracks the puck. But then there's also two PC fans underneath this hand-built table. -Uh-hmm. -And that sort of pushes air up making it into an official air hockey table. -Gotcha. -I think it's really cool. -That is-- I didn't realize he built the freaking table too this guy. -Yeah. Crazy right? -Talking about forever alone. Oh, my God. -I know it's really kinda sad. -It's sad and awesome. -Well, he built it for his daughter who really likes air hockey but apparently sucks to the point where he doesn't wanna play with her anymore. He said that it's actually possible to beat the game. You could beat the robot if you're good enough. -If you're fast enough. -Yeah. -It's clearly too advanced for a child. But what's really cool about it is that it can defend and-- try to score against you. -Offend. -Yeah. -Is that the-- how you say that word? -Yeah, defend. -It can defend and attack. -Attack-- yes, which is cool. I wanna play against this thing. -That is right. It looks really good in this little gift they have at the top of this Gizmodo post. -Yeah. Look at-- like what's really cool is that sometimes it'll bank off the side of the table. -Yeah. -And then other times it'll just do a straight shot into what, into the goal. -Well, you gotta imagine. I mean, this is-- think about it. Like the first, the computing behind the first super popular video game was pong, right? -Uh-hmm. -So it can't be that tough of an AI. -Oh, true. -Right? And I'm not trying to take away anything from this. It is fantastic. -Yeah. -But like that's the brilliance of it is that it's, you know, it's probably super easy to program once you figure out what's arguably the way harder part is, you know, constructing all the mechanics and whatnot. It's really awesome. It looks like it has two kinect cameras, right? It looks like there's one sticking up in the middle on a rod. -Uh-huh. -And the maybe one on-- oh, no. Maybe that's it. Yeah, it looks like that's the only one. -Yeah, the one on table is just a shadow I think. -That's awesome. -So, you're a big hockey player. Are those skills translated into air hockey at all? You got those reflexes. -I mean, I love air hockey man. -If you're a goalie, do you think you'd be in an amazing air hockey player? -Definitely, I think you're better. -Really? -You just have an advantage. I mean-- -Just hand and eye coordination. -Yeah, and just like being able to see pucks and stop them and now that they're only traveling on like one plane. -Yeah. -It's the way easier I would imagine. But it's fun man. I love air hockey. We never played air hockey? -No. I don't think so. -Even went down to board walk? We didn't do that? -No, I don't think so. -All right. Add it to the bucket list. -Okay. -You and me brother. -Last story, you know, Facebook sort of gets a bad rap. And we talked a lot of bad things about it on the show because I don't think either of us are power users at all. -No. I've fallen out of love with it. -My frequency have gone down a ton. But I think one of the main complains for people on any social network, not just Facebook is seeing baby pictures in their feed. You know, the assumption is that like social media gave us new parents, this outlet to over share whether that's Facebook updates or Facebook photos, etc. And then, you know, the response to that everyone else without kids that has see that stuff is sick of seeing it. Would you agree with that? Do you find this problem on your own Facebook? -I mean I don't use it enough. -I mean we're all getting to the age, you know, we're like all in our early 30's. God, I can't believe I'm saying that. And yeah, and that's coming to an age where a lot of our friends are starting to have newborns. -Yeah. -So I've definitely noticed it a little bit more. But there's a lot of reactions to this going on. You know, there's this blog called STFU Parents blog. -Okay. -And it basically just take screenshots that people submit of annoying things parents post and then it just response to that. Yeah, bring it up. It's really just mean like, you know, these are parents that don't have any idea that they're on a website, whether they're being refuted against and basically made fun of. But, you know, my point being here that according to a new research publish this month, and this is the article that I wanted to talk about on slate. It's not really Facebook's fault and it's not really the parents' fault either. -Really just-- it's just like-- this is what happen. -Well, not-- -They created a monster. -That what Facebook did? -Yeah. -Yeah. -And this is the result. And this is what we have to deal with. -Right. -Feel like everything good on the internet eventually dies. -Well-- I also think that, you know, getting away from this study for a second, I also think that it's by nature of who your friends with on Facebook too. So if your friends with over shares-- that's not really Facebook's fault, that's your friend's fault for being dummies, and you for falling that-- -Right, of course. But I mean, but what I'm saying is that having this platform will bring out the worst in people. -Right. -And if you're-- there's a lot of people who are ostentatious on Facebook. -Yeah. -They don't realize they're being ostentatious and they do this like-- it's almost like this passive-aggressive thing were like, they'll, you know, they'll kinda be bragging about something and not even knowing that they're doing it. And it comes off, and the way people perceive things through the internet is different in a way they do with one on one human interaction. -Right. -And Facebook is just this like petri dish breathing out all the worst that people have to offer. -Well, yeah. -And it just enough. -It brings out your insecurities if you come to the table with like, you know, I'm behind of my timeline. -Right. -And then be having kids to myself. I'm tired of seeing other people post pictures of their kids. -And I hate it because it makes it way too easy for people to spread misinformation. And I noticed the same thing as Twitters guilty of. But there's more of a consequence on Twitter. -Yeah. But, I mean-- me personally, I do have a bunch of friends that are starting to post a lot of their baby photos on Instagram. But these are good friends of mine, so I'm sorry. I'm happy for them. -Of course. -You know, I actually like seeing those photos because these are like my close friends. -Yeah, I'm not saying you shouldn't be. -And I'm happy-- -We're kinda talking about two different things I think. -I think so, yeah. Let's get back to the story here. So, a survey of 412 mothers showed that-- mothers of newborns actually post less than they did before they give birth. And what they do post is what really about the newborn itself-- himself or herself. And then the frequency of that usually goes down exponentially after the first month that the baby is born. But also another thing that-- -Because they can't-- 'cause they're freaking busy. -Yeah. They're sleeping at any given-- -Or trying to sleep. -any free moment. Yeah. I think, you know, another thing that you have to consider here is the Facebook algorithm to. So anytime somebody or a photo or an update gets a lot of likes or comments. That's gonna be pushed up in your feed because Facebook thinks that something that you should be aware of. -Right. -You know, it sort of part of their system for determining which posts they should show and shouldn't. -Sure. -So it's not really your friend's fault either. It's not they've been posting nonstop and that's why your feed is clogged. It might just be that the picture is popular because believe it or not, not everybody hates baby photos. -Yeah. I just don't, you know, and I-- look, some of them are ugly too. -Well, that's a different story. -Like a lot, you know what? Half, at least half of them. -Really? None of my friends have ugly babies. -Well, I mean, I feel like-- -I don't make friends with ugly people. -Well that's-- you know, you've made good decisions. But I'll tell you one thing. My wife didn't. -Wait what? -My wife didn't make those same decisions every now and then. -Okay. -One of these ugliest babies come through the feed-- -Can you bring one of those babies-- bring one of those pictures off right now. -So without getting too gross, sometimes people don't realize this because I guess they're so delirious and drunk with the joy of having a child, which I totally understand. -Uh-hmm. -They posts photos that maybe shouldn't be on the internet. They post photos way too close to like the actual birth of the child, where there's a few moments of privacy that should be maybe make good use of. You know what I mean like-- -Yeah. -there's times were like, look. This baby had a slight issue when it was born and it's gonna be fine like it's gonna be fine. There's nothing wrong with the baby. It's like sometimes it's not doesn't look like a baby yet, you know what I mean? -No. What are you talking about? -I'm just saying, like there's certain things-- -Are we talking about human babies? -Human babies. -Okay. -You know, like not premature or anything like that. But sometimes, babies look weird when they're first born. It takes like a few-- it takes like a month for it to settle. I'm serious dude. It's true. -Felt like they're not even like dried off yet? What are you talking about? -No-- yes dude. Like when a baby is born, it's super soft, right? -Yeah, okay. -And it takes-- -Could you still like bake a little bit? -Yeah, I'm dead serious about this dude like-- just the second it pops out, you don't have to take a photo to the damn thing and put it on Facebook. Let the child breathe a little bit. -Uh-huh. -You know, let it relax like sometimes you see a photo of a baby and you're like, "Oh, okay." -Too soon? -Too soon. Sometimes babies-- and even, you know, look, if you have an ugly baby, what can you do? You can't do anything. -There are no ugly babies according to the parents that have them. -Exactly. And every baby is special and beautiful in its own way. But there are some empirically ugly children out there that we just can't do anything about and I'm not saying you should not post your baby. I'm just saying, we all have to deal with these things and we're all in the same boat and we're all in it together. -Yeah. -Right? What I am saying is just wait a few-- wait three days. -Yeah. -Babies are soft and mushy when they come out. Sometimes they look-- they scare people. -You're scaring me. -Do you know how like the top of the baby's head is very soft like when it's born? -Yeah, but did you see that in the photo? -Sometimes. Sometimes they have like cone heads a little bit. -Like a crater head? -It's just-- again, let the baby settle, that's the show name today. Let that baby settle for a few days. -Yeah. -Before you put it on the internet. It's a long time. It's a working progress. -You let that baby settle. I'm gonna put that too 'cause that's the reason I feel like should be like the DAT. -Just let the baby settle a little bit. Let it breathe some oxygen. -Yeah. -Let it get the blood flowing through the veins. -Got it from-- -Cut the cord before you post it, okay? Cut the damn cord. Jesus-- it's like, it's like, before we hand the baby to its mother, selfie. It's like, come on, all right? Let the kid live a little bit. -Yeah, it's gotta-- I don't know. It's got a cure for a little bit. -Right? -I guess. -Let the little popper on the back pop up to let you know the turkey's done. -Do you like baby photos Ariel? Are you a fan? -I can't-- -Is it a popular thing-- -I've seen a lot lately like in the last few years. I can't, I can't-- -And some of them were ugly. -say I'm a huge fan. -Aren't some of the ugly? -I mean, I don't wanna call anyone's baby ugly but they do kinda like aliens at first. -Thank you. -Yeah. -Or old people. -That's the word I should have used, aliens. -Aliens, yeah. -That's the word. -The cone head thing maybe the hats they put on the baby. Do you realize that-- -It's the-- no, the cone head thing-- -Some babies clothes-- -Right. It's come from the thing of their heads being in the shape of a cone. -Right. -That's where that word comes from, right? -Yeah. I guess so. -Look, I love the fact that you guys had a baby. I love it. I-- so awesome. Just give me a minute on that. -Look man, I can't tell you something-- yeah, yeah. -That's why I don't go on Facebook that much anymore man. -There's that-- there's a chrome extension called unbaby.me. -Brilliant. -I think-- did we talk-- we might have talked about it 'cause it came out two years ago, so it's been a while. -I don't know. -But basically, it's an extension you can download on your chrome browser-- -Brilliant. -To replace every baby photo in your feed with-- -A photo of a puppy. -A photo of a puppy like wearing socks. -'Cause there are no ugly dogs. -Or-- that's not true. Or celebrity photos or something like that. -I would take the ugliest dog ever over a pretty decent-- a pretty decently ugly baby. -That just seems so mean though, I mean like, every baby photo-- -Why? The best part about-- the best part about saying that there are ugly babies out there is that you're not saying, "Oh, well Maria and Bob had an ugly baby." You're just saying there's ugly babies out there and I'm friends of plenty of people-- -That hopefully don't listen to the show if they probably all worried that their babies are ugly. -You know what? But the opposite of the whole thing is true as well like my friend Jarred. His daughter gorgeous, like the baby is beautiful. It's only a year old and it's like the cutest, most gorgeous little baby ever. -Uh-hmm. -And it puts a lot of pressure like if I were decided to have kid, I'm like, there's no way I'm gonna have a kid that cute. -But also, I would argue that, the way the baby looks when it's a baby isn't necessarily reflected of how it's gonna look when it's older. -Of course not. -Like for example, I was super fat like I was a chubby ass baby. -Yeah. -And then, I just grew like taller. -Well, every baby is fat. -No, but I was like 30 pounds. -Wait, not when you were born. -Not when I was born. I was very big, big. -Happy when you were born because when you said you were 30 pounds, I don't know when that happened. Do you know how heavy you are when you were born? -No, I'm not sure. I don't have the exact birth certificate. -'Cause he's gonna say like I was 4-- -I was 200 pounds. -Forty, thirty pounds-- -But I was a huge baby-- -Yeah. -and it's not necessarily how I look now. -Of course, everyone knows that. -Don't worry, if you-- according to Jeff's opinion, if you do have what Jeff thinks as an ugly baby-- -Oh, that's a beauty of it too, right? -Then you may not be ugly when you get old. -I mean that's the beauty of it too. Most babies that are ugly don't-- aren't ugly when they grow up. -Right. -You know-- it's just the way it is. Like me, I was really cute when I was a baby, and look what happened to me. So I'm dealing with this reality. -The reverse ugly baby syndrome. -Inverse ugly baby syndrome. It affects millions of Americans every year. -All right. Last thing I wanna talk about, sort of New York news, but I thought it was pretty cool. Did you watch The Walking Dead yesterday? It was the premiere, right? -No, I stop watching it. -You stop watching it. Okay. -I did, yeah. -Well, we sort of starting to see a lot of prank videos that are getting super popular on YouTube, right? -Sure. -It's like the new way to easily get viral hits online. -Yeah, it is. -Did you see that one for-- it was for the movie Devils Due? -Was that the Bookstore with the Coffee Shop or something like that? -Oh, no. There's that one were like, someone gets like telekinetic where they push up against the wall or something. There's that, which is good. -Doesn't make you mad like how people buy it so quick. They're like-- -Well, you just don't expect someone to put so much energy in technology into a prank that's extreme. -Well, do you think you would be fooled? -I would probably just leave. -I will just be like this, I'll be like, "What are they-- what am I supposed to buy now?" -Yeah, I certainly wouldn't pull out my phone and take a video, which a lot of people did in that video. -Well, like how do they know someone's not gonna pull out a gun and start shooting the demon? -Right. We all know demons can be killed by a bullet. -By bullets. -No. These are the ones for Devil's Due, where-- yeah, there was a random baby stroller that was getting remote controlled-- -Right. -through the city. -Right. I saw that. -And people were like, "Whose baby is this?" -Yeah. -And then when they went up to see what was inside the stroller, and it was like a devil baby that came out-- -And spits blood. -Yeah, yeah that just totally ruined people's work day. -Nice. -Well, this one is kinda cool. AMC put out a promotion for The Walking Dead, and they went to Union Square. And something that you may not know about New York unless you've been here is that there are grates everywhere. And a lot of people don't walk on them because they're afraid of falling down into them-- -Right. -into the sewer. -This is clever. I'm looking at the video now. -But AMC planned on that buy hiring a bunch of actors and making them up to look like zombies. And they stuck the zombies underneath one of these grates in the street. And when people walked over the grate the following day, they were just grabbed their ankles and things like that. -That's a shitty gig. -Yeah. -Like, I know you're an actor and you need work. -Yeah. -But you're hanging out on the ground for half a day that sucks. I'm sorry, that's sucks. That just sucks. -Yeah, in the middle of winter. -Yeah, in the middle of Manhattan. -Yeah. -Oh, I love it. There's your little baby getting like abused by zombies. This is kind of funny. -Yeah, soon they grabbed people's ankles. But you're right, you know, who's to say that someone is gonna pull out pepper spray and spray everybody underneath there or, you know. I don't know. -Pour their hot coffee down there. -Yeah, exactly. -It's funny because, you know, they're freaking out little kids. I endorse that. They're freaking out-- that's cute. It's fine. It's a good stunt. -Yeah. -Right? Would you agree? -Yeah. -Where was this, where in New York? -This was in Union Square. -Very cool. -Yes, this is right off at 14th. -It's pretty awesome dude. Wow, people-- man, people really just walk right over it. That's-- awesome. -Yeah, is it? I don't know. -I feel like I might get a broken arm out of this if I'm a zombie. -Yeah, I would start stomping on the hands. -Yeah, it's pretty-- it's clever, it's clever. -Oh, gross. But you could see that everybody, you know, like once they see it-- they're not buying it. -It's all people wanna do like all people wanna do is being dress up like a zombie. -Yeah. -Right? Like when we did the Walking Dead obstacle course in San Diego. -Walking or skate, yeah. They loved it. -They couldn't employ enough of that. It was just crazy. -People just wanna drool-- any kids just drool in public. -They're like, "Oh, if I could just walk around real slow and scream-- -Yeah. -that would make my day." -What's your best zombie role-- -No, no, no, no. I've never played the zombie role. -No, it's not that feel you would be really-- -Unfortunately, no matter how hard they try. No matter how clever their little marketing campaigns might be, it's not gonna change the fact that this show is simply not as good as the comic book. Would you agree? 'Cause I know you read some of the first. -I've read some of the comic-- yeah. -Pretty damn good. -I continue to watch but not because I really love it. It's just good enough to not watch is a good promotion for the show. But, you know, if it's on, I'll check it out. -I think that of all the things they've-- the Walking Dead has been turned into, the show is not even in like the top 3. -Yeah. -The video game that TellTale did is amazing. -Uh-hmm. -You know, I watched the two and a half seasons, if someone thinks I'm crazy and like seasons 3 through now is that much better, something the acting is very good. -Yeah. But watch for Maggie. -That's the pretty much the only reason why I watched it. -What happens-- how is Maggie? -Maggie-- -Is it Glenn's girlfriend? -Glenn's girl. Yeah, yeah. I like her. -I'm not gonna say anything because the book-- I hear the book goes in a different direction than how the show end up. Anyway, that's that. I wanna get to an e-mail real quick and then we'll say goodbye to you fine people for the day. This e-mail comes from Howard and we're talking about our cellphones through the years. And Howard is a 60-year-old man and he says he has seen the evolution of telephones from back when he was a young kid and remember he had to crank the phone in his house. -Wow. -He would crank-- you would have to crank the phone and then the operator would answer. You would let her know the number you wanted and he said for an example, "Hopkins 555 please." -Wow. -And then like the operator I guess would like take a bunch of-- you've seen the switchboards. -Right. They're plug and unplug. -The old news real black and white thing or just like a maze of wires and they connect you. -Yeah. Hopkins triple five, please. -Right? And you just like-- everyone had a mustache. -Right. -A few years later, they got a rotary phone and he was really confused because of how you dial, which is confusing to someone who's never seen that. At this time, one of the things that Disneyland in their Tomorrowland, was a display of a rotary phone and a crazy phone with buttons. You would dial in the rotary and then the button-- and then on the button they would do the same thing, so it was like, I guess you like put your finger in the rotary disc and then there was like a mechanical robot that was like pushing the buttons that you were dialing which is weird. And then obviously, touch-tone phones and then the first cellphone in 1990, and we don't have the image attached here. But it was basically a battery with a phone on it. -Uh-huh. -As supposed to now have batteries are just small and inside of a phone. That's crazy people. -That's pretty cool. -You know what it was like-- it was like Big Lebowski, the phone that Jeff Bridges carries around with him. -Right. -Which is this like backpack battery. -Right, right. Like a Ghostbuster-- -So, it's pretty awesome to have seen the entire evolution of phones and where they've been and where they've gone. So thanks for the e-mail Howard. That was awesome sir. -I remember when I was a kid I just didn't have very good phone etiquette. This is when I was maybe like 10 or 11 years old. -Right. -And we had a house phone and anytime somebody would call, I would pick up the phone and say, "Who is this?" I wouldn't say hello. It was just the worst etiquette in the world. I remember my Mom actually sitting me down-- -How old are you? -Like 10 or 11. -Who is this? -Yeah, my Mom would sit me down to me and like, "Look, you can't answer the phone like that." -Where did you learn that? -I don't know. I have no idea. But every time I'd answer the phone personally aside of the-- would be so-- -Who is this? What's your business? -Yeah, yeah. -Are you dick? -Like I just call a crime scene like what's going on here? But-- -What terrible phone etiquette. -soon I learned how to do that. -It's awful. -Yeah, I don't know. Weird memory. -All right, check it out, last minute guest, you know him very well. You love him a lot. Dr. Michael Brues will be here tomorrow, The Sleep Doctor. If you've got last minute questions, then I guess perhaps we should have done this at the top of the show but-- -Yeah. -Yeah, if you've got a question that's concerning your sleep, write in to us the404@cnet.com and we'll get it answered right quick for you and then you can also tweet us @the404 is our Twitter handle and we'll get all those tweets compiled. We already have like a half a dozen from people on Twitter. I just put it up before the show started. -Yeah. -So, yeah, we'll get them all together. Again, don't forget, addiction questions. We've got about 20 now. So-- and some of them are serious man. They're heavy. -Yeah. -Heavy duty stuff. There some people out there with some stuff they need to get resolved. So hopefully we'll get that squared away real quick as well. -I wasn't here the last time the Sleep Doctor was on. But I did get one of his pillows. He left some pillows from all of us. -Yeah, it changed your life? -You guys been trying them out? -I didn't take one. -You didn't take one? Ariel, did you take-- definitely too. -Yeah, I took Jeff's also. -Oh, you did. Oh, okay. -That's two of them. -You got like the neck pillow, right? -Yeah. Those-- there's two of them. One was like to help snoring. I think both of them will help snoring. -And you like them? -Yeah. It's awesome man. -All right. I need to hit them up for one because I have to tell Ariel stole mine. -Yeah, that's cool. Next thing you know the Sleep Doctor's gonna come out with sleep blankets. -I guess. -Sleep pajamas. -It makes sense. All right? -Yeah. Let me see that whole line. -So, tune in tomorrow. Always a good time. We all learn a lot whenever he's here so make sure you do that. Again, the e-mail address is the404@cnet.com. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the coolest place to be these days is our sub Reddit and that's reddit.com/r/the404. Thank you for tuning in. We're back here tomorrow. Until then, I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -This has been The 404 Show, high tech, low brow. Have an awesome Monday. We'll see you tomorrow.