Ep. 1457: Where you can't put it in the microwave

It's Tuesday, April 1st, 2014, I'm Ariel Nunez. From the CBS Studios in New York City, welcome to the 404. [MUSIC] That's just gonna get weirder and weirder the way Ariel says that. [LAUGH] Yeah. Welcome to the 404 Show, everyone. I'm Jeff Bakalar. I'm Justin Yu. Thanks for tuning into the program on this April first. [LAUGH] I want you to do a new voice every day Oh man! Every single day. I'll try. I'd appreciate that. I'll try. That one was your Ned Flanders. [LAUGH] That was my Ned Flanders, yeah. Yeah, follow, follow, I don't even know what the hell that was, but I loved it. I don't either [LAUGH]. Oh! And we got an email later on praising you. Just how awesome that new intro is, we really dig it. To welcome to the program, we've got a lot planned today, Justin, what have we got going on? yeah, lets get right into it, so, we're gonna have a couple stories, the first one's about printers and the government. Cool. I mean,really great news today. Hold on,hold on. What's that? Your interest is piqued? Go on [LAUGH]. So we're gonna lead with that story, so the rest of these are obviously really exciting, too. The second one's about an app that basically acts like your mother, checking in on you to make sure you're all right. But this one you can delete. This one you can delete. [LAUGH] Oh, I'm gonna get **** for that. Go on. Does your mom listen to the show? Maybe, go on [LAUGH]. We'll talk about that later. Number three, teens are smoking coffee beans. [CROSSTALK] There's no way that's true. Is that true or not true. The story came out before today, so it's not a joke. Oh, okay. Number four, We're gonna talk about inching a little bit closer to the singularity with machines that actually can trace what your thinking about. Right on. They can draw a picture of your thoughts. Yes. And then we'll get to an e-mail. Okay. Before we continue, once again, this show does not recognize April Fools Day as an actual thing. So you need to preface that. That's the last time you're going to say those three words in succession today. Continue. Okay, so you want to just get into it? Yeah, man this is a great story because I No pre-show banter? No, none whatsoever. No window love. Okay What's really cool and I'm excited to get into this first one because I was a gigantic typeface nerd. Oh yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah, you're a big fonts guy. No. Typeface. Sorry, typeface. Yeah, people who say fonts are silly. Why? Cuz it's typeface. Right. It's called typeface. When you're into the individual types it's called typeface. Yeah. Okay. I don't even know what exactly font is. I think font may be like the size. Yeah. I don't know. My brother's the same way so he's the one who schooled me on this. Fonts are like just simply not, you know aerial and [NOISE] helvetica. Mm-hm, [LAUGH]. Wow you really are passionate about [UNKNOWN] [LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] It took me a half second to register [LAUGH] what you just said and I cant ignore that. Well it's true. I'm pretty sure Get it together. I think, okay, so I think, i it correct me if I'm wrong, issue your dissent while I'm saying it, I think fonts are the pre-designated fonts like Helvetica and Jordanna. And then type faces are, it's like Kleenex versus Serviyettes. Nope. No? Nope. No? Coke versus soda? No, font is, like, the flavor of the type face. Like bold, or underlined, strike-through. That's what wikipedia says. Oh, the names of those things themselves are called typefaces. Yeah right. Ok. Like the typeface we use on a website. You're right, this is an interesting episode. But the font,the font is the bold slash italics slash underlined or strike-through variations. Or serif. No, Serif is a, is a type of typeface. Oh my gosh. Jesus!you know. Can I get an infographic? What Serifs are. Yeah, I know. Of course I know what a Serif is. The little line [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, yeah. The extra lines at the end. Tail. And at the bottom. Sure. Right, right. That's a Serif font. Okay. Sans Serif. Mm-hm. Is your arial. Right, right. No delineations. Sure. Who the hell really cares is the correct question. Go to CNET.com/the404 where we talk about this for six and a half hours. [LAUGH] Yeah that's an extended podcast. So this is cool cuz it interests both of us. You with your really nerdy typeface obsession. Yep. Me with my printing obsession. So, you know how we always talk about how teenagers don't have the patience or wherewithal to learn how things work these days. Sure. Technology wise. Sure. By the way, wherewithal, my favorite word in the English language. Is that a word, or is it like a, phrase. I don't, it's like. With hyphenated phrase. I think it's a word that people say to make themselves sound smart. Like forefront, you could just say front. You don't need to say forefront of my mind. Just say front of my mind. Wherewithal is a word. It is a word, but, no one uses that unless they wanna sound obnoxiously smart. Anyway, teens don't have the patience to learn new things. Sure. So I've talked about that before. Well, this is one story where teenagers have actually solved a really big problem, and in the process, wound up saving the government $400 million. It's really cool. Go on. It's a story about a student out of Pittsburgh, named Suvir Mirchandani. 14-year old kid out of a middle school in Pittsburgh. 'Kay. One day he was in class, and he was getting a bunch of handouts. And he started getting irritated about how much he thought the school was wasting on paper and ink. So, based on that, he decided to calculate as a hobby, how much the printouts cost his school. And he found out that an ounce of ink, or toner in this case, cuz the school is probably using laser printers. That's my nerdiness coming out. An ounce of the toner cost the school around $75. Okay. Which was more then twice the price of bottle of Chanel Number five perfume. He did this calculation. Because. Why is he comparing it to perfume. Just to illustrate how expensive it is. And listen to this, it is a really crazy statistic. Chanel number five perfume, an ounce of that, cost about $38. Okay. A lot of money. But the equivalent amount of per ounce of Hewlett Packard toner ink can cost upto $75. Wow. So that's a lot of money. That's more than double. And then he used software to calculate the amount of ink that was used, and the most commonly used fonts in the school. What do you think [LAUGH] were the, you, [INAUDIBLE]. It's gotta be Times New Roman, right? Times New Roman was definitely on of them. The other three are- If it's Comic Sans I'm jumping out the building. See ya. Aw! Really? One of them is actually Comic Sans. No way. Comics Sans was. So big in the 90's, in the mid 90's. Yeah. People lost it over that stuff. It's so playful. No one says anything serious in Common, Comic Sans. Yeah. Anything you read in that type face must be wimsical. Yeah or sarcastic. Yeah, well not even. I don't even think Comic Sans can carry the weight of sarcasm. Right. That's how nonsensical of a type face. It's so innocent. And that's probably why they use it so much because we're talking about a middle school. It's for simpletons. Right. You know, it's, it might as well be written in crayon. [LAUGH] It really might as well be. It's, it's true. Like if you, you're handing anything in in comic sans. I mean, I, if I was a teacher I'd just be like Fs. See me after class. Yeah. It's like the Bill Cosby of fonts. I'm sorry, typefaces. What do you mean, comic sans is the Bill Cosby of typefaces? You know, meaning that only kids like and use Bill Cosby's comic, sans, thing. Anyway. That seems really prepared. All right. Go on. Yeah, so it was comic sans. Times New Roman, the third most popular one on the handouts used was Arial Century Gothic, not Arial. Century Gothic, showing up! Century Gothic, for the ones that had to get really serious. That was a really low seed, I gotta look that one up, what does Century Gothic even look like? It's a serif. Okay [LAUGH]. I know ,I know [LAUGH] all my fonts from memory It's so weird I mean, time faces. That's your fault And then the last one was Garamond. I say it [UNKNOWN] [LAUGH] Was it century gothic? Yeah. Century gothic, comic sans, garamond, and times new roman. So, gothic is a sans serif. Right,right garamond sans serif. No, no, I'm sorry, garamond is a serif, it has the things. Get your type-face crap together dude. So confusing. So anyway, he realized those were the four most popularly used. But they cycled between those four pretty often. And without any real rhyme or reason. No real reason. Strange. I think it was just up to whoever printing it out. [CROSSTALK] Principles etcetera. So he had this stunning realization that by switching to Jermond or Germond alone. You could save the school $21,000 a year simply because that font or typeface. Requires less ink. Requires less ink. It's a skinnier typeface. Sure. As opposed to Century Gothic or Comic Sans, which uses really thick bars for the letters. Right. Does that make sense. It does, but okay, so 21 grand a year. You can't argue with that. Yeah. The difference you can see up on the screen, not that severe. I mean Garamond is definitely a lighter font. Yep definitely. Type face. Type face. Look at times new roman comparatively though it's super thick. You're gonna use, I don't know what the percentage is but it looks like a lot more ink. So he. Of course I want everyone to realize we're still talking about. Printing crap on paper. Yeah. The real way to save money, don't freaking print it all. How about that. Yeah. But, for the sake of the story's purpose Regardless, not everyone can afford a tablet or whatever so by using the same math he applied that calculation to the government. And by switching to Times New Roman of course is a very simple Calculation here. But, he says the company could save $370 million. The compa, you mean the country. The country. Could save $370 million, nationally. So the U.S. government exclusively prints in the Times New Roman typeface. No, Garamond. You, but no, you're saying we need to switch from Times. From Times New Roman to Garamond, they could stand to save $370 million. What are they printing? What are they printing out? Well, there are like hand outs, things they have to get sent. You know, you can't print them out cuz you need them to be, I don't know, [CROSSTALK] or something like that. Regardless, he did the math, $370 million. Right. You could save $500 million by only printing in two font, too, but no one's gonna do that. Of course. I think the problem is that there's no standardized font or typeface that the government use. It's 2014. Literally the precipice of the best of print. Right. First to realize we could save half a billion dollars. It's crazy. I mean what's our, how much are we in debt right now? Do you know off the top of your head? It's trillions. It's a lot, but you could save a lot of money year over year by doing this. So, of course. [LAUGH] It would only take about 43 centuries. Yeah. Right? We just need to have kids running the government. I guess so. And, no surprise here, the media manager for the government printing office responded By saying, what. Shut up kid. [LAUGH] Yes. Absolutely. You just tweeted back, shut up. [LAUGH] Really? No. [LAUGH] Shut up! Shut up, kid. No one asked you. No one tells you how to do your job. Yeah. So no, they said that You know, they would, you know, consider this. Right, but, it's only $400 million dollars. Right now what they do to save money on ink and toner by printing on both sides of a sheet of paper, and of course they use recycled paper as well. Right. But they'll consider it, they said. They're non-committal with is a passive aggressive response. What the hell does that mean? Yeah. Kid just found you a way to save half a billion dollars. Yeah. And you're like we'll ponder it. Yeah. Give him a Nobel Peace Prize and just use his idea. Real quick before we move onto the next story. Mm-hm. I want to do like a little pipe phase link wrap up. Well if, if they had not used a serif font, they probably could have saved a couple more dollars too. I suppose. Like a really skinny serif font. But serif look more important. Right, yeah yeah yeah. Non, san serif typefaces Simple. Kinda don't maybe think you carry as much weight. Right. You know. Kinda not taking what you say that seriously. Yeah. So here's a good link for people who share my obsession with typefaces. Even though the link is, the title of the site is wrong. Fontsinuse.com is like a typeface review site. Uh-huh. That analyzes corporate, corporate and like media outlet font uses [CROSSTALK] uses. Oh, that's cool. Cool. So like, if you're ever like, man, what's the typeface they use in, you know, Wired magazine? You'd go to Fonts In Use. Then you find out. That's cool. Is there something [UNKNOWN] in Photoshop where you can scan a font and then it'll tell you what it is? I don't know yeah I don't know. That would be kinda cool, you know how you can do that with colours or whatever. You can point to a color [CROSSTALK]. Sure. That's a great question. I'm sure there's something out there that uses like an OCR technology to do that. Yeah. I remember a couple years ago there was this story that was huge into the printing community. About a new font called eco font. And basically, it was the same as a normal serif font, or type face. Except it actually had a bunch of holes punched into it. Oh, right. We talked about that. Yeah, it sort of looks like swiss cheese font, right? Like a regular looking type face but with holes in it. So that way, if you printed it out it would save you a nominal amount of ink because it wasn't filling those in. Right. This is basically what it was. Here's the. Ecofont website. Oh yea, here you go like perforated basically it looks like everything is in marquee Right, right Or bedazzled [LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] Or punk rock, whichever way you look at it Fancy type face needs Yea, that's kind of cool So check out that website Serif fonts are back, serif font typefaces are back in a big way. Yeah they are. They're everywhere. Most you know, every re-designed website, even including CNET, although I think our headlines are serif but our text is san serif. I'm gonna shut up now. Give me a mraw. Mraw typeface. [LAUGH] Alright. I had this conspiracy theory that one of the printer ink companies actually invented the Times New Roman Type face. Because it's thicker, and so that way they would force customers to spend more money on font. Nope. What do you think about that? I don't know. I think there, the whole racket was, you know, sort of called out. We realized it was gonna cost way more money To fill printers up with ink. Yeah. Then it was. It's crazy, I remember there was an info graphic that came out a couple years ago that showed the cost of blood is actually cheaper than printer ink sort of the same analogy as the perfume we talked about. You're printing with blood. Crazy. alright, which one do you want to talk about next? Kite string. Oh, pipe stream is kind of interesting. It's really attractive serif type face here. Yup. So, I sort of stumbled upon this story yesterday because I was looking up hiking destinations for this weekend. And hiking season's coming up. So I love doing that kind of stuff. Wanted to get outdoors, cuz it's been a long winter, right? And if you remember, [UNKNOWN] and I Didn't have a great Memorial Day last year. I don't know what you're talking about. We got suspended. Oh right you guys almost died. Yeah, we almost died in one of the state parks, which is really embarrassing. It's not like we were in some random tundra. It was in a start park. And that was a big mishap but if you're like us and you're not really that keen on reading maps. If you're like us and you're terrible at [INAUDIBLE] And you're an idiot, yeah. The one thing you should do is. One, always let somebody know where you're going before you go on a hike that you're unfamiliar with. Okay. Right? And there's an app called Kitestring that can actually help you out with this, and it just came out recently. It sounds pretty cool. The app is available for IOS. I'm not sure if it's there on Android yet. By the idea is if you're going out somewhere outside the range of satellites and phone service this is what you should get, its called Kitestring, its free and essentially its an almost motherly app that tracks your whereabouts, send checkups on you and then freaks out if you don't respond to those checkups. So let me explain. Okay. The first thing you do when you launch the app is enter a list of emergency contacts. So I would list, you know, Ariel's phone number, Jeff's phone number, Peony's phone number, whatever. Unless, you're with that person, then of course you wouldn't list them. Sure. Before you head out, let the app know when you're leaving and when you're gonna return again. So you kinda list your itinerary, right? Where you're gonna be. Then while your gone the app will actually send out these random text messages to you and your responsibility from there is when you get them, reply to confirm and it will go away. Okay. Right. And it' ll send you these intermittent messages to sort of check up on you. If you don't respond within a set amount of time after they send those out The the app alerts those predetermined emergency contacts, alright? I think personally it should go one step further and drop a pin and let your contacts know exactly where you are, but it doesn't do that. It just kind of tells them where you said you were gong to be. It should. So you could predesignate that location. The other thing that's kind of the loophole in this, is of course if you don't get phone service, then you wouldn't get these. Text messages, and it wouldn't be able to notify your contacts. Does that make sense? Right. It does. And then, of course, if you run out of battery or something like that, then you're screwed. Or you forget your phone somewhere. Right. You're screwed. I'm sure there's an app that does this, but there should be something that, especially in the age of, you know, checking in and whatnot. Yeah. I can only imagine parents, you know, they, the kids go out at night, we wanna know you got home safe. Hm-mm. Yeah. Alright? So this is essentially kind of a step in that direction. Hm-mm. And I am sure, there is, like I said, I am sure there is an app. that does this but what about something that just sort of like Automatically sends out something when you, enter a, a predetermined sort of like GPS area. Well I know that makes, like I got homesick, I call it homesick. Right, or like tether or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like mine better, but sure. [LAUGH] There's a lot of hikers After we got lost I looked into this. There's a lot of personal beacons that have their own satellite up-link. Right. But you have to subscribe to those. It's like a monthly fee to access the satellite. Sure. But it doesn't, it's not connected to anyone personally. Like it doesn't notify anybody. Uh-huh. Your idea is good cuz it takes it You know, kind of a little bit further for some people. I mean like, you know, why, why not? Yes. Why not just do that? We should. And be done with it and be, and then the per, you know, it's a two way street. The person who has the other end of the app. Mm-hm. Sees, oh Jeff. Is in your GPS area. He's back. They've gotta have this for kids. They have to. Right. It's like the modern day version of those identification bracelets we all had. Like call me when you get there. Yeah, yeah, we should really do that. Home safe. There you go. Mm-hm. If it's not created, we're going to create it. Let's do that. It also doesn't work. This, this SkyChain idea is a good idea but it also doesn't work if. Someone in the comments section said, what if you get abducted and the kidnapper steals your phone. Right. And replies to those. Right. Alerts. Yeah. Then you're screwed too. Not exactly foolproof. At least, with getting kidnapped and The new app called Home Safe, they wouldn't necessarily know where you live. Right. And you couldn't just like fake it. It's a good idea, but there's some privacy issues. And I'm sure, well not if you just share it with you and your you know, significant others or parents or whatever your family. Yeah, yeah, give it to kids too. Kids have no assumption of privacy. There's a lot of things I don't know about on the internet and most of them I. Don't really admit, I kinda just like, lie about it, go along, and you know, act like I know what I'm talking about when [CROSSTALK] Talking about that on a technology podcast. Believe me, you'd know when I'm trying to get my way around it. But for this urban legend slash myth Yeah. I don't know anything about. Okay. So what the hell is this? Let me preface this explanation by saying this is not an April fool's story. I thought you said you weren't going to say that again. I know, I know, but this is not that. I'm just, you know, a little buffer. Yesterday was somewhat of a slow news day. It took a little while for us to, for me to get the stories. I mean I had researched them over the weekend. But yesterday was nevertheless slow news day, not a lot happened. But, it quickly picked up in the afternoon when we finished broadcasting our show. Because a lot of publications, including Gawker, started posting about a new teen trend. And that trend is that teens are starting to smoke coffee beans to get high on caffeine. Sounds like a joke, but it seems like all the sites were pointing back to one news story. So they were referring back to a local television station that broadcasted this story over the weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. A network WCCB. So if we have any Charlotte, North Carolina listeners I wanna hear from them. Yeah. It claims, it was only this 25 second news bid, and we'll post up a link to it on our blog but it claimed that kids were actually rolling coffee joints with beans and then smoking it for a really quick caffeine rush and. Can you smoke caffeine? Well you could smoke coffee beans that have caffeine in them. You can snort, you can also snort coffee beans and still get the caffeine rush. Right, okay. So, I don't know about smoking it, but they, in the news report, were saying that the side effects of doing this, including getting mild hallucinations, you're also getting a burst of energy. And then- Bind me up. Yeah. And then the best part, vomiting. Oh. So, that's great, right? Who wouldn't wanna do that? [LAUGH] It was kinda weird though, because this is one of those, I hate to say this word because it's just disgusting, but viral. It's one of these viral news stories that went on across the internet that were completely Fabricated. Oh, this is not the first time this has happened. No, definitely not. And it also wasn't a joke either because this act the news story in North Carolina came out of the weekend. There's not really [UNKNOWN] trace of teens doing this on the internet, which is really weird, right? You can probably find people doing anything on the web. But there were no YouTube videos or other Others, you know, other blogs sort of substantiating the story, and if you go [LAUGH] back and watch the video it's really funny because they actually go to a coffee shop and interview some random patron drinking coffee who says that, you know, just because we're about to legalize marijuana in this country, you know, what's the harm And having a few bean heads. [LAUGH] He actually says the word bean heads in a completely straight face. So this is a danger here that just because you read it online or even television stations, you'd think that they're not getting duped by Jimmy Kimmel here they're just, I don't know where it came from. It's it's just. Do you think they're just making it up or do they. It's strange Hear like a, a rumor about some kid? From Yeah, I don't know how it happens, I mean not every news outlet would pick this up. No it's definitely a local news urban legend. You know this would not make eyewitness New York, like they wouldn't run a story about people about kids smoking coffee beans. Yeah I don't know how it happened thought. That's the most interesting part of the whole thing. Right. How does this happen? I don't know. I have no idea how these things start. [UNKNOWN] that knock out game one. Cuz that was completely fake too. No. [CROSSTALK] Last week. It's still going on? Yeah, no for sure. Yeah. That's very real. Yeah, I knocked someone out on the street on the way here. Wait, time out. Why did you think it was fake? Yeah, we talked about that on this show. Yeah. Well, I saw a story where it said all those clips, those regular clips you see. They're all old clips. They're super old. Right. Like the the one with the lady getting knocked out in Euro, that's super old. The one with the professor getting knocked out. That's old. And those are the same clips you see over and over. Mm. Yeah, so obviously. So, maybe it's not happening as much as everyone says it is. Yeah, it's like not [CROSSTALK] Although I seriously read a report over the weekend about something happening like that in, in Alphabet City. It definitely- He. There was like a good six month period where it was happening, which. Yeah. I don't know how this happens. I don't know how, you know, crap news like that filters through the top. Yeah. It's just this game of telephone that just sorta happens. Right. Do you think that not being able to put aluminum foil in the microwave is an urban legend? Or is that real? No, that is real. Are you sure? I've seen it. Oh, you've seen it. Hell, yeah. I don't know. See I've always maintained that was an urban legend because the fact that everyone says that you shouldn't do it means that no one's tried it. Which means that, it's probably just a big joke. Go try it. I want to try it. Go try it in your apartment. What do you think is the worst that's going to happen if you put aluminum foil in the microwave? It catches on fire. And your whole house explodes? No. No, it won't explode, your house will not explode but you could cause a fire. Really? Dude it's metal. You can't put metal in a microwave. How. How bad could that be. Here's, okay, this is my thing about doing that, is, how long have microwave technologies been out? 40 years? Okay, 40 years microwaves have been around. Aluminum foil, probably been around for the same amount of time. In the last 40 years Reynolds hasn't got together with the microwave companies and figured out a way to not make stuff explode when you put their product in the microwave. How many people do you think have made that mistake? So many. It's, it's technically common knowledge. But I think a lot of people have done it before. [LAUGH] Can't tell if he's trolling me right now. No, I'm not trolling you. But do you know what I mean though? How come they haven't found a way yet to make aluminum foil not explode in the microwave? Because then it wouldn't be aluminum foil. No, that's not a good explanation. You are aware that aluminum is metal? I do understand that, yes [CROSSTALK] you can't put a fork in the microwave. When you blast metal with microwaves, which what a microwave does. Righ. Creates friction and heats things up. Yeah, I get the science. No, apparently not. Yeah, you can't put a fork, you can't put a spoon, you can't put metal in the microwave. So, what are we talking about? But the fact that [CROSSTALK], but Reynold's Wrap wha,okay then why is Reynold's Wrap even a thing. Because you are supposed to wrap food in metal to what, keep it fresh. You realize you can put aluminum foil in an oven. Sure. Which is probably where you probably should be cooking things if you have the time. Right. Everything tastes better out of an oven than a microwave. That's trivia, so what else. So just put it in the oven. What other world problems would you like me to solve in this short program that we do. It's just one thing that never, never really made sense to me. Really? Yeah, yeah, because. Really? A lot of times you'll be at you know, wanting to warm up your food but you put into aluminum foil. Why the hell do I have to put that into a separate container in order to heat up in the microwave? It just doesn't make sense. Yes it does. Okay. I, I feel like everyone agrees on this, you're the only one [CROSSTALK] [LAUGHS] I agree with you, it's just an annoying first world problem that I always have to deal with. It's more than a first, it's, it's like, more upsetting than a first world problem. Yeah, it's just like yeah, it's whatever you wanna call that. It's an uber first world problem. Yeah. I don't know what to tell you man. Oh and Saran Wrap! Don't even get me started on Saran Wrap! Most frustrating thing in the world! Right? Saran Wrap is the devils creation. It's the devils creation. What the hell is up with Saran Wrap? [LAUGH] There is a com, there is a standup comedy bit to be talked about with Saran Wrap. Well - And I'm not gonna try to go into right now but - [CROSSTALK] Alright, hold your horses there. That's okay. It's very,it's a very frustrating thing to have to deal with. Yeah it is. Is it not. Has anyone ever had a positive experience with Saran Wrap? [LAUGH] I don't think people really think about it that much. They're not just like man, you know, my day was going great until I had a run in with the Saran Wrap, and then it all went downhill. Always maddening. I always try not to get upset at inanimate objects but, I'm sorry, saran wrap always gets to me. I really wanna explore this aluminium foil thing more with you. [LAUGH] Yeah? Cuz I just, I just, I'm blown away how you want like The tin, you know, the tin foil. It's just that it's such a huge problem. And I'm sure aluminum, I'm sure Reynold's Wrap, right, has that. And also Reynold's Wrap is the only company that makes aluminum foil, too. No, there's generic kinds, there's plenty of kinds. You're crazy. It's like So you think like, every month when they empty out the suggestion [CROSSTALK] Make it microwavable, for Christ's sake! [LAUGH] And you think like, well, it's basically putting a square peg into a circular hole. Yeah, why do we tempt people to do this? I'm sure Children every single day have caused fires in houses because they've tried to put aluminum foil in the microwave. Well, the beauty of it is that it just doesn't always cause a fire. It's usually just like sparks. Oh, okay. So, it's not like an explosion. It's not an explosion, Although, I'm sure things could explode. I'm gonna YouTube this after the show. [CROSSTALK] You know an interesting thing you can do. Mm-hm. And we've definitely talked about this before. So you know those variety pack Fritos bags you get. Like the little. Yeah, yeah, yeah. out of a vending machine. Yeah if you put that bag into a microwave for a short amount of time, I don't know what it is, it'll like shrink. What? Yeah, it turned into like a little tiny like, action figure accessory [LAUGH] Shut up, that's not true. That's not true. All right. What do you mean? What happens to the chips. They also shrink? No, no. You gotta empty the bag. It shrinks that small? Yeah, the chips do not shrink. Just the bag. Yeah [CROSSTALK] Okay, so you've got to eat all the chips before you put the bag in the microwave. Or dump them out, whatever, yeah. Yeah, and then it'll shrink to how, how big are we talking about? Like action figure accessory size. No. What? That's definitely not true. I'm gonna let this one Hang out there, you. [LAUGH] Send it back [CROSSTALK] Is it also, it is also flammable too? Will it create sparks? Well, it is a little bit of [INAUDIBLE] so. Yeah, there's a little methyl in it. Well, so, you'll have to see. Shut up. We're gonna do that after this, okay? Fine. I can't tell if now you're trolling me. We're gonna see buddy. Two can play this game. It's so weird [LAUGH]. Two can play this game. Okay, how did you discover this. Don't worry about it. College. Okay. [LAUGH] Alright, that's. Don't look it up now. That's so weird. Alright. Don't look it up. Alright my hands are off the keyboard. You look it up, you lose. Finger. That is really bizarre. Yeah, we're gonna do that. Hm. Okay. Okay. [LAUGH] Goodbye. [LAUGH] Goodbye everyone. We're remodeling this office anyway, right? [LAUGH] Damn, you're sure, you're exactly right and this is the easy way to demo the whole point. But this is gonna, this is gonna be like an HR memo tomorrow. To the people microwaving Frito's bags [LAUGH] the hell is the matter with you? Tell me about this machine that knows what I'm thinking. We got so far off the mark there, I don't even know what the story's about. It's not about aluminum foil, I'll tell you that So, I'm just gonna start with this next story by reading the headline. 'Kay. Cuz the headline's really crazy. Quote, groundbreaking trials believed to be most advanced mind reading experiment ever carried out. Okay. [LAUGH] I'm still on. That's an actual story from the Daily Mail, a semi-reputable news, so [CROSSTALK] it's not, unlike the Star and, you know, it's States. Okay, so it's a tabloid? It's technically a tabloid, yeah. But they have actual, we've referenced the Daily Mail as a real news source before and they've published authenticated news. > >We've gotta ask like out buddy Luke Westaway or something like, is this legit. Is the Daily Mail a legit publication. We, for whatever reason when we cross the pond we just sort of like Don't know. Yeah, I don't think it's like, it's not like the National Enquirer or bat kid found. You know? It's not like one of those where they completely make it up, but it's certainly not a New York Times. They publish a lot of celebrity gossip and stuff, I think. Okay, go on. Anyway, so, that's the article and this story does not only appear on this publication. It's you know, nationally recognized too. So the jist of the story is that the technology of MRI machines, you know, brain scanners, are getting so sophisticated that scientists can determine now whether or not a patient is thinking about a beach or a city scene. Just by looking at those brain scans. But it's just those two things. [LAUGH] Yeah,just those two things. Totally useless. No, it's not just those two things. It can also, it can also distinguish things like whether or not you're thinking about an animal or a building, right? That's pretty separate. [LAUGH] Unless you're thinking about a giraffe, and then who the hell [UNKNOWN] And then it gets confused. [LAUGH] No, based on this Yale University launched a study to see if a group of people could reconstruct a human face. Just by looking at patterns of brain activity. Right? So eventually this technology can be used for someone who witnesses a crime, for example, and they had to recreate a face. It's not just drawings anymore. Woah. Woah. Precog. And so, bring, bring this up. Yeah, exactly, Precogs is the end result here. So, look at what they did, they basically showed a bunch of subjects a series of faces, and then after that scroll down a little bit, they were able to distinguish different people based from memories, and they actually drew a composite picture and, and showed a side by side comparison, which is what we're looking at now. And the results of what those composite drawings were Not very good! Not very good, they look nothing No, they actually do. Eh. Yeah! Eh. This might be a case of you just looking for similarities here. Right, it's like that phenomenon. They've always seemed to have gotten [INAUDIBLE] if you're looking for something then you're gonna find it. But they do sort of look like it. Right? No. I mean the skin tone is fairly similar, light versus dark. That's about it. No shape of their mouth, whether or not they're smiling or frowning. Look at the lower left guy here. He sort of has a smirk on his face and you can see that in the recreation too. It is definitely strange and bizarre looking. It's closer to the marks and it is further away. Is that a favorite thing to say? I'm not sure I will agree with. No, you don't even agree with that. I feel like the way you, you figure this out is, you put the reconstructed MRI imaging. Mm-hm. In a bank of other ones, and try and draw the connections. And I almost promise you. Yeah. The same way you can't pick out your astrology report. Right. You won't figure out this. Well look at, look at this. In the, in the bottom left and right they have facial hair. And the facial hair is there, you could definitely see a mustache and a beard. You guys have to go to cnet.com/the404 and click on these images. Cuz they're, I personally think they're really they're really accurate. Well I also think tin foil should be [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGH] You're super skeptical, so I mean depending on where you're coming in the story with, you may see something different. But, you know that's just the first phase of this technology. The fact that they're coming up if it's out of nowhere,I mean it's really interesting. If this is real, if this is real, sure. It's definitely impressive. Yeah, and then the uh-uh scientists that did this research say that this technology could be used in the future for things like reconstructing crime scenes, a witness, whatever but also, reconstructing dreams, memories, just straight up imagination. Yeah. So, if you think about something you know, there could be a possibility that one day, you could do this in a pre-cog way. That's cool. I'll admit that is pretty cool. Yeah,next up, thought crimes. Minority report. I'm telling you, man, it's here. It's here. It is here. Yeah. Essentially what we're talking about here. Before we say goodbye for the day, I wanna get to an e-mail from our buddy Boo-boo Jenkins. Mm-hm. We gotta I, we got like, a couple dozen e-mails over the last few days and thanks to everyone who's been writing in about the feed stuff. But Boo Jenkins has sort of like a Summary that he once to get to about things we've talked, about week so let's get to that. Greetings 404 Supreme Beings. Finally, someone knows how to address us. Mm-hm. Gotta say how much I love Ariel's new intro. Yeah. Just when you think it couldn't get any better, you guys go and raise the bar. The hits just keep on commin. Well thank you Mr. Booloo. Had some thoughts I've been saving up, Jeff my friend, I come across, I come to your rescue as you seemed quite vulnerable and the need of backup during the mixed hit confession segment, you guys remember that? When I just let it all hang out. Yeah yeah yeah [CROSSTALK] I now provide you with my Lando cool smooth moves from when I was macing on the ladies. Already not cool. [LAUGH] Not only did I used to make mix tapes, but I'd take it one step further and when I'd, say, when I would get said ladyfriend on the telephone. Uh-huh. And as suddenly as the seventh or eighth grade dork such as I could, I would put some not so subliminal slogans on in the background. You're welcome Mr. Backilar, for me out-dorking you on the next tape mishaps. Wait, okay, so explain this, he would put on just, like R&B music [CROSSTALK] background of a telephone conversation just so what, they think that he was by himself. And it was like sexy time. Like making love to himself on the telephone. I don't know, we don't ask, we don't tell. Well, we do tell. Weird, okay. Quick [UNKNOWN] on Captain America. I talked before how I think he's a loser. he's, he's one of the first instances in American history of steroid use. [LAUGH] Which I thought was a funny look at it. Yeah that's true. I didn't like the fact that good old Cap was killed by a bullet to the dome, and that no one before that could get that done. He doesn't have a bulletproof head? Imagine that. Mm-hm. Also, loved the productive use of suspended animation in Demolition Man. How come they didn't bring that up? What a cool reference. Yeah, that's true. Save for the fact that Simon Phoenix was rehabbed to be a bad **** killing machine, while John Spartan had to learn how to knit. [LAUGH] The part of that move that nobody talks about. Well thank you [INAUDIBLE], that was a great little email. Appreciate the update from your world to ours. Yeah, any time someone gives us a Demolition Man reference I'm always very happy. Yeah, we're never going to get mad at that. Send us an email to 404@cnet.com. We'll get to as many as we can on coming shows. You can follow us on Instagram, Reddit, and Facebook, and Twitter. Make sure you participate in that conversation as well. That's gonna do it for us today. Everyone have a fantastic Tuesday. We're back here tomorrow with a brand new show. Until then, I'm Jeff Bagalar. I'm Justin Yuen. I'm Ariel Nunez. This has been the 404 Show high tech, low brow. Thank you for watching us. We'll see you guys tomorrow. [MUSIC]