It's Thursday, April 10, 2014.
I'm Arial Nunez and from our CBS studios in New York City, welcome to The 404.
[MUSIC]
Oh yeah, welcome to The 404 everyone.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'm Jeff Bagalar.
I'm Justin Yu.
We've got a great program lined up for you on this Thursday, April 10, it's very exciting here.
A lot of stories to talk about, a few emails to get to, a few corrections, things like that.
Yeah.
Well, not corrections but we thought one thing was something, it turns out to be something else.
What?
Yeah, man, remember we were like looking through the Heart Bleed Bug?
Yeah.
And I'm like, "What the hell is Hide My ****?" Well, turns out, thanks to Mike and Scott, that Hide My **** is a VPN service.
Aww, man.
But think about it.
Not what we thought.
That totally makes sense.
What kid of porn site would be Hide My ****?
We, we were pronouncing it, Hide My **** but it's actually probably pronounced Hide, My ****.
Like that, that makes more sense.
Right.
Exactly.
Right, like it's a service that cloaks you pretty much.
Right, right, so it's a VPN.
Everyone knows what that is.
What a difference an emphasis makes.
It's so funny.
Mike from Toga's like, hey guys, Hide My **** is a VPN service and quite frankly, not a good one.
And then Mike writes in, Scott writes in and says, guys, Hide My **** is a VPN service.
I know many military people that use it to pretend they're in the US, so they can watch all their favorite videos online like Hulu, which would be blocked otherwise.
That's smart.
Not as nefarious as you guys thought.
Now nobody's using it, so it doesn't matter.
Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Man is that story over or what?
Yeah.
Talk about a 70 hour story, not even a 48 hour story.
Yeah, I mean.
It's over.
I figured they would fix it in 24 hours.
People were freaking out.
It was everywhere.
It was.
I saw that logo a lot.
But we're gonna talk about it a little bit more today because we're gonna talk a little bit more about passwords and why it may not be the offenders that you might think that they're giving away all their passwords.
Okay.
We're also gonna talk about restaurants.
That's actually less than five blocks away from our office that is Googling every costumers that enters the restaurant.
Cool.
We're also gonna talk about a television station for dogs that the Discovery channel just bought.
Well, they, they'll, they'll do anything.
Dog TV is coming to your television set.
Sure, sure.
And then finally it's a, we're gonna talk about a really funny story about Uber and a guy that sort of gamed the system.
Yes, he did.
I like hearing stories about this.
All right.
So now, we're gonna get into this Googling restaurant story.
Mm-hm.
I'm curious.
So there's a place, 11 Madison Park.
Yeah.
It's really close by.
It's actually in the Flatiron on 24th.
It's like a high end restaurant.
Yeah, it's three Michelin star restaurant.
I didn't realize we worked in such a high class area.
I mean, come on, ya know, Flatiron.
For sure.
So what, what are they doing to people that walk in to the restaurant?
And how do they do it?
How is it okay?
So this is interesting.
This restaurant is super high-class like we said.
A dinner for two with you know, 18 courses.
What?
Yeah, very big tasting menu.
But 18 courses?
18 courses on average, a couple of bottles of wine.
A round of golf.
Yeah.
Three and a half hour stay can easily cost $1,000.
For the couple.
For the couple, two people.
Okay, thought I was spending two grand.
Yeah, no.
A thousand I can manage.
What a deal.
Right.
That's crazy to me because I'm just not about, just call me cheap or old-fashioned or whatever, I'm just not into spending that much money on something that's gonna be so temporary.
I don't know.
You could buy.
Oh, you mean, like flowers?
A trip to Asia with that.
You mean, like, flowers?
Yeah, right.
That's my big thing.
Flowers are stupid.
But flowers, I mean, the gesture is like, flowers are expensive too, you're right.
They are.
They're like, 80 dollars for like, a dozen roses.
We basically, pull them out of the ground and then put them on life support.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, in a vase.
Mm hmm.
With water.
Yeah.
And then we pull the plug on them.
[LAUGH] How much do Christmas trees cost?
You're asking a Jewish person, how much a Christmas tree costs.
Yeah, no.
I forgot about that.
I don't know, a, a $100.
$200.
I have no idea, either.
So anyway, this is a very expensive restaurant, obviously, and you would imagine that a place like this would have a level of customer service that's on par with how good the food is.
There's got to be something that separates this place from a normal, I mean, like to me, a nice dinner.
Yeah.
Is like $60 bucks a person.
Yeah?
And that's high end, like really nice to me.
Our SOs are looking into this episode and just dying right now.
Yeah, they're cool.
I mean, they're cool.
They're, it's freaking her money, too.
[LAUGH]
You know.
I, well, at least for me I know Penia is the kind of girl who would appreciate a home cooked meal over a fancy place like this that's all stuck up.
Well, you're just not going to the right places.
Yeah, maybe that's what it is.
But anyway, the the difference in this restaurant is their level of customer service is so good that the maitre d' actually Googles beforehand every single customer that's made a reservation for that night's dinner.
Wow.
Googled them, which sounds kinda creepy but listen to this.
So they were profiled in the blog, Grubstreet, which is like a restaurant blog, and they talk about how you know, the, the maitre d'.
What are you laughing at?
[LAUGH] [LAUGH]
I'm just laughing at like.
Like a maître d in the back just typing on her laptop.
Yeah, and like what your table would look like before you got there.
Oh, me, specifically, you'd be like here are your Cheese Its, sir.
[LAUGH] [LAUGH] Way worse, way worse.
Oh, worse.
Yeah, like here's your bundle of twine and shovel, sir.
[LAUGH] But you.
[LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] No films requested>> [LAUGH] You can't be without.
And of course, 16 strips of uncooked bacon.
[LAUGH] Yeah.
Yeah.
We just from your Facebook likes.
We've, we've done our homework with you, sir.
We know you like the finer things in life.
[LAUGH]
[LAUGH] Right.
So here you have just like a plunger there.
Like a bike wheel for some reason on the table.
The finest bike wheel.
Just play with this for now.
And just yarn, like for your cat that's in your pocket.
[LAUGH] Makes you feel like home, that's a nice service.
You can't argue with the level of service.
But the thing is it's not just him Googling for names and faces.
The maitre d guy by the name Justin Roller over at 11 Madison Park, he actually looks for clues that can help him make you feel more comfortable when you're in the restaurant.
Right.
So he's looking for things like wine glasses, for example.
If you, a lot of your Facebook photos or whatever pictures that show up on Google have you drinking a lot of wine, well, then he's going to look at which wine you've been drinking and then cater the menu to your tastes.
Son of a ****.
It's kind of cool, right?
It is cool.
Or for you know, a lot of times, people go to these fancy restaurants to celebrate holidays, like an anniversary or a birthday, and he'll not only go so far as to find out if it's an anniversary but he wants to know what year you're celebrating too.
So when you walk in, he's going to greet you by saying, hey Jeff and Stacy, congratulations on your three year anniversary.
Wow, I've had that before.
Open Table does a thing like that.
Oh, that's cool.
You could write in beforehand?
Right, there's a place two places in Manhattan.
I will endorse the hell out of this place.
Uh-huh.
No paid advertising here.
Flex Mussels, the best mussels place in Manhattan.
There's two of them, one uptown on the Upper East Side and one downtown and when I, when we go there and we do open table they come and say, happy anniversary Jeff and Stacy.
You look great.
Yeah.
The two of you, you just look fantastic.
Here's your table by the window.
Yeah.
Right?
That's nice.
That's good.
And guess what we pay there?
Way less than $1,000.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
You don't have to pay that much do you?
Yeah.
Every restaurant should try to get that level.
Well, what I think, I personally think this is a cool feature.
Mm-hm.
Like I think there's something kinda special about it.
Yeah, sure.
I'm sure the, the privacy nutsos will get upset with like you know, whatever but I kinda wish like more places did this.
Yeah.
And you know, I think maybe there's like an easier way to do it.
Yeah, I, I, well, for repeat customers, I think that there's a really easy way.
There's like an NFC way to do it.
Just, what do you mean?
Like a GPS way.
Like there's a way to like, make, like have your app.
Like, like call the app like, I'm inventing apps all month.
Yeah, right.
I came up with Home Safe.
Yeah.
Now I'm coming up with Mater D.
It's just like taking out all the vowels so it looks trendy.
Yeah.
You call it Mater D and it's all you know, it's like this thing that you activate when you get to the restaurant and they're like, oh, your Mater D.
I've talked to our systems app here and now we know that you want the chicken parm.
Oh, right.
You know, that would be cool because you can tell them things like, oh, I don't like onions in my food and you don't have to tell them when you order.
They'll just automatically.
Right.
Or I'll always want tap water.
>Who the hell wants sparkling water?
Right?
>Who wants that?
I don't want it.
Do you want it, Ario?
I sure as **** don't.
I actually do like sparkling water.
>What?
Yeah, it's better than drinking soda.
>Of course, anything's better than drinking soda.
Really?
Do you bring like that sugar squeezy pack to make it.
No, I just drink it straight up.
You know, that's another thing that's an acquired taste like as you get older because I used to hate it.
I used to hate it back in the day.
A few more years, my friend.
Yeah, my beard has yet to gray now.
So you're telling me like carbonated water.
It's delicious.
You can mess with it but all it does is make you burp, right?
Yeah, I mean it helps digest stuff, you know?
Makes you feel fancy.
You fancy.
Yeah [CROSSTALK]
I have a, I have a Soda Stream at home and it's nonstop.
I'll drink that instead of regular water.
Yeah, then you don't have to buy the syrupy stuff, right?
Yeah.
You just make as much soda water as you want at home.
Yep.
Mm.
[CROSSTALK]
Or you could just buy seltzer.
Same deal.
Yeah, isn't that the same thing?
Right?
Are we all on the same.
Seltzer and.
Yeah, you could.
It's just carbonated water.
I think that's the same thing, yeah.
It's not, like, some weirdo kind of water like distilled water or something?
No, no.
I think it's just regular tap water but sparkling.
See the problem with Soda Stream, I was so close to buying it the other day.
It's expensive.
Well, it's like $80 bucks but that's fine.
But my problem is like the second I start making my own carbonated whatever, I'm gonna dump all that sugar in and I'm basically, gonna go back to drinking soda and it's something I never want to do.
Mm-hm.
Like that was the worst time of my life, when I would drink soda.
Yeah, I use to drink a lot of sodas too, in college especially.
Yeah, oh my God, so bad.
Yeah.
What the hell was I thinking?
Well, now soda is something where you treat yourself.
Yeah.
Where you get like a local home brew kind of soda.
You got to get a soda when you like have a slice of pizza or like a hamburger.
Like some meals, just, you have to have a soda with but getting back to this restaurant deal.
Right, right, right, right.
You know my dad owned a restaurant for 34 years, right?
I do I do.
Golden Garden.
Golden Garden, open for 34 years.
I think it's very hard for independent restaurants to stay open for that long.
Yeah.
Especially, Chinese restaurants because you can get Chinese food anywhere.
Plus, it's very filling.
Yeah, Chinese food's very filling and there's a million restaurants everywhere.
You can go to, especially in the area that Golden Garden was, because it recently shut down.
It was a buffet, right?
It was not a buffet.
What?
I thought it was a buffet, I'm sorry.
You thought it was a Chinese buffet?
Is that insulting?
That is classless, my friend.
Golden Garden was like.
High end?
Yeah.
If there was a Michelin star rating for Chinese restaurants, it would get three fortune cookies.
Okay.
Whatever the rating would be.
Whatever that mea, measuring system is.
Yeah.
Now was your dad's restaurant one of those Chinese places with like big glass on top of the tablecloths?
No, no, no, no.
It was like a Chinese American style restaurant, so I wouldn't say it was super authentic.
It was Cantonese style.
Right.
But for an American palate.
Right.
But the point is.
Did you guys have like Chinese pizza?
Yeah.
No, no.
There were spare ribs, which isn't super Chinese.
Yeah.
They had like Kung Pao Chicken and things like that, which.
Sesame chicken.
Yeah, which isn't exactly traditional.
Sure, sure.
But, you know, my dad always told me and yeah, I used to work in the restaurant when I was a kid as like a busboy and I'd see him in action and it was really impressive because his level of customer service was like top tier, man.
That's good.
Like, he would have repeat customers coming in for decades, you know.
Really?
And he would like, everyone that would come in, he would know their first and last names.
He would know like, details about their life.
They didn't have to Google.
You know, it's just from them coming in and talking to him over the years.
So he'd be like, Jeff, how's Stacy?
You know.
Sure.
How's married life?
The new dog, right?
Like all this stuff, like details about their lives.
Can I say something?
Hold on and then they would keep coming back because you know, like when you go to a restaurant like that, you want to feel like it's sort of personalized.
100%.
And now it's cool.
You would keep seeing people do that like, [CROSSTALK] returning.
It is a lost art.
Yeah.
It is something at the time we took for granted but that doesn't really happen anymore.
That and I gotta tell you and I can say this because I'm Chinese, a lot of Chinese restaurants do not have good customer service.
A lot of them are straight up mean.
Yeah.
Or just sort of plain.
Well, I told you, you know, the famous story about growing up the, the one incident I had at the Chinese, what the hell was it called?
Think it was like Chinese garden involved.
Yeah, they're all garden.
Variation of like garden, gold.
Gold or like a dragon.
Or unicorn, dragon.
Yeah.
Something like that.
What happened to you again?
Or like happy, the word happy sometimes enters.
Oh, right.
[CROSSTALK]
Yeah, oh my God, Crystal Palace, yeah.
One time I was at a Chinese restaurant with my friends and we had asked for more water.
Yeah.
And we were told that more water was not possible.
Really?
And that was like, it wasn't, it was like, not possible.
Yeah.
And we said no, could we just get some more water?
And he kept saying not possible.
Maybe it was like.
He was very upset.
There was a problem with the plumbing.
No.
Or something?
Wow, that, see, that sucks.
Not possible.
That's not cool.
You never went back there again, I'm sure.
But no, we did not.
But I will say this and I thought you were going to say this when you said, because I could say this cuz I'm Asian.
Mm-hm.
But I've had that similar sort of treatment in business.
Uh-huh.
From other Asian people throughout whatever service and I'm going to say this one service that is historically associated with Asians.
Uh-huh.
It has nothing to do with the level of niceness.
I love going to this guy, he's a great person.
Right.
But my dry cleaner.
Uh-huh.
And he, after the first time I brought, I used him.
Uh-huh.
He knew my name, how you doing?
Hm.
And he just like never forgot my name.
Yeah.
Never forgot Stacy's name.
Always like and even when I'm, I'm just walking by, he'll be like, hey Jeff, how you doing, man?
Yeah.
What's up?
Yeah.
Man.
I mean, it's not even just an Asian thing, just good customer service.
But I'm saying, I think it is.
Maybe that is it?
I think Asian's are just way, they're just better people.
It could be.
I'm not going to argue that.
They're just more, they're more, they're friendlier and they and they and they appreciate the, the, the amount of respect you need to give your customers.
Yeah, you know what's funny?
Is my dad said that once he was nice to people, he noticed that they would start bringing other people in.
There you go.
Just because when you.
You gotta meet this guy.
Yeah, exactly, and that and you know he'd, he would like you know, people would bring dates in because when you go to a restaurant, you want them to be like, hey, what's up Jeff, and then you look cool because you're like in with the Chinese guy.
Right.
But like.
And then he comes over and he's like, tell me who these beautiful people are.
Yeah, exactly.
You get that customer service.
It was funny like one time I was working there and this guy had a kid who was using the highchair in the restaurant and he was kinda a young guy, maybe like mid 30s or whatever, and he was like, man, you know what's crazy is that I use to actually sit in this highchair when I was a kid and now my kid is sitting in this highchair.
And that just goes to show you that like, people will keep going there like, for decades of time.
For sure, loyalty, man.
You don't get that because there's like, a Yan Can't Cook across the street.
> Right.
There's like a Panda Express right down the street.
Right.
You can go anywhere for Chinese food but if you get that customer service, you don't have to pay a $1,000 to get it.
I hear you, man.
Yeah.
I think that's like a lost art these days.
It is.
Especially, with those chain restaurants.
Get a lot of bad customer service.
Taking out all the personality.
Yeah.
Especially, in retail establishments.
It's just these faceless restaurants now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wanna get, I like when I'm at dinner and the manager comes over.
How's everything doing?
Oh, yeah.
How's everything going tonight?
He like puts his hand on your back.
Sort of stroking your back maybe a little bit.
Running his hand through your hair.
Yeah.
I'm okay with that.
As long as my meat was cooked to perfection.
Yeah.
What do I care.
It's really important.
Yeah.
Little massage.
Blowing on your ear.
Hm.
Part of the experience, part of the ambiance.
Then you tip a little more too.
There you go.
It comes full circle.
It's all about that tip.
Yeah, all right so let's talk a little bit more about this, Heart Bleed thing.
So amongst everyone changing their passwords yesterday, did you change all your passwords?
No.
You didn't.
I didn't change anything because.
See, this is perfect for this story.
By the time that I was gonna do that, I had looked at every website that I frequent and they were all fixed and secured.
Oh okay, so you didn't have to, they did it for you.
I guess.
I think yesterday when people were talking and listening about this story with the Heart Bleed Bug, a lot of people assume that it's all older people that were sort of letting their passwords get stolen and losing their passwords and things like that and like the stereotype, and that's what it is the stereotype, is that older people just don't understand technology.
Right.
And while that may be true for a lot of older people.
Oh, they definitely don't.
Yeah, with passwords at least, a, a study conducted in the work, workplace earlier this year in January, showed that young people are actually way more likely to leave their passwords out in the open They just don't get it.
Yeah they just don't get it.
Like they just leave them at, in the workplace next to their computers.
You mean like written down?
Written down.
Oh, that's stupid.
Yeah, so this study showed that 25.8% of twenty somethings and in the workplace kept their passwords in sight as compared to about 10% of baby boomers.
Twice as likely.
Twice as likely.
But do you know why that is?
Apparently, it's because a lot of companies that young people work at require them to have multiple unique passwords for Cloud base services.
Okay.
Does that make sense?
Like I.
I'm,
Our company is totally like that.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
I only have one password for most of my stuff.
No, well, okay, maybe you, you have one password but we should have unique passwords for multiple things like.
Right, right, well that's the.
RCMS.
Sure, sure.
And then like CBS and You.
Yeah.
Which is like our healthcare stuff and 401K.
That's the thing they and one of the services we use on our back end requires you to change the password probably every two weeks.
Yeah, that, that's another thing, is like, they have to be unique.
Yeah.
And then refreshed.
So annoying.
So the problem with that, that these new services face, is like, you have to keep changing them.
So in order to remember, young people tend to write them down and keep them next to their computers, which is obviously vulnerable or they'll do something like email them to themselves.
And of course, when your email gets compromised because you left it open at an Apple Store, then all of your stuff gets hacked.
You know like, so that's basically the reason why, whereas older people, they'll like write it down, put it in their wallet or something.
Put it in their safety deposit box.
Yeah, yeah.
[LAUGH]
They have to go to the bank to retrieve passwords.
Yeah.
so, here's my thing with passwords.
I truly believe and I have no evidence that supports this theory.
Mm-hm.
But I truly do believe that passwords will not be around that much longer.
I just simply believe there's gonna be a better thing, some sort of verification.
Mm.
i don't know if it's a thumb print.
I mean, we're already kind of seeing it with thumbprints.
Yeah.
Stuff on your iPhone.
Speech recognition or something.
There's gonna be something that just is a better layer and level of security.
Yeah.
It's just, it's, it's arguably the most antiquated thing on the internet right now, in my opinion.
Yeah, it's like having to show your ID when you give out your credit card or something, like when you pay for a transaction.
Yeah.
It, it, it's just.
That doesn't really prove much.
To me, it's just very ancient sort of element to the whole experience and I, right, don't you think like, passwords can't be very long for this world.
Well, just like the amount of stories that we talk about on this show, where people's passwords get hacked or leaked.
Right.
And things like that.
Like, it, it can't stand for much longer.
Nothing will ever be secure but once you have, like, once anyone can access anything just with information, rather than like a biometric exclusivity that's attached to your body or some sort of unique thing, I really don't believe it's, it can you know, it's gonna get any better until we do start doing that, right?
I can see that happening.
That's a logical way to think about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see it.
I mean, you're right, it's already starting to happen with like biometric fingerprints scanners.
Right.
On iPhones, why not?
You know, just put your thumb to the door, Jennifer.
I can't wait cause I frickin' hate typing in passwords.
[CROSSTALK]
It's the worst.
You know, I'm so freaking lazy with passwords that all my passwords are constructed to be the easiest typed words.
Like, I will actually create words that are very like, close together.
Yeah.
Like the last two letters are close together just so I don't have to [LAUGH]
Yeah.
Continually, just so like going through the motions is that much easier.
Yeah, all somebody needs is a black light to like, scan your com-, keyboard,
Right.
See what the most commonly typed.
And you'll see, and you'll see which four letters are.
Yeah.
Are used most.
[LAUGH]
Yeah, that's it.
Oh, my gosh.
Right on.
Good story.
Yeah, old people not as inept technologically as we thought.
No, I think it's safe to say they are but I, I for the purposes of this story, fine.
Fine.
You wanna hear a funny story?
Please.
So I was hanging out in somebody's cube in the office, an editor that will not be named, live on this show.
It was probably me.
No, it wasn't you.
It was someone who is older and we were going to Amazon, right?
I told this person to go to Amazon and you know what they did?
Search Google for Amazon?
Yes.
They went to Google.com first.
They typed in Google.com in the URL box, which is what you're supposed to do, not really.
I know who it was.
Hold on.
And then in the Google search box, they typed in Amazon and clicked on the first link.
I was like cringing.
It took every atom in my body not to say something and then they were doing something else that really annoyed me too.
Such a minor thing,but I bet IT people will, will see this.
Hunt and pecking, yeah.
He this person.
He.
Oh, no, no, I didn't say it.
Oh, it's a he.
Everyone is an opposite to he.
Well, that really doesn't narrow it down, but yeah.
This person was double clicking on hyperlinks.
Yeah, no.
Yes.
No.
Double clicking on hyperlinks.
No.
Is everyone understand how crazy that is?
You've re, oh, that is such an insult.
On like an, a bolded, underlined.
Blue.
Blue link.
Doubling clicking.
What are you doing?
How do you, this person works at Cnet.
I don't want to undermine the credibility of.
I know who it is.
Who do you think it is?
I am not going to say but I know exactly who it is.
Okay.
He's got a biblical first name.
[LAUGH]
That goes for a lot of people here.
No, not really, I know who it is.
I'm not [CROSSTALK]
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna rat him out.
I'm not gonna confirm either way.
[LAUGH]
I think I know who it is.
You know who it is too.
[LAUGH] Yeah, I think I know.
Even if we tell people who it is, it ain't gonna do much for him.
[LAUGH]
We just don't want it to come back to him.
[LAUGH] But it was painful.
How much time do you think he's wasted collectively?
Like, six years?
Yeah.
Probably like, over the course of the amount of time at the beginning.
Okay.
So, even though I don't definitively know who you're talking about, this same guy, I've seen him do like, not knowing that like, Apple C is a short cut for cut.
Oh right, right.
He'll like right click.
Like Apple X is paste or V rather is paste.
Yeah, yeah, right, right.
Oof.
Outing this guy.
He's, he's he's into it.
We should roast him on this show.
I think so.
Just invite him in and ambush him.
Oh, take forever.
Beat him up.
We don't have that kind of time.
Oh, my god.
All right.
Discover Channel wants your dog to watch more TV.
Yeah.
[LAUGH]
I mean, I want your dog to watch more TV as well.
This is funny
So here's the story we're gonna call What the Hell are They Thinking?
It's real, too.
I mean, you keep your dog at home, obviously, probably in front of the TV, right?
No.
Is there's a TV in his view?
There is but it's not on.
It's not on?
All right.
He doesn't see TV.
What does he see?
Marty doesn't, like, if I put, if I pause, you know, Animal Planet and there's a dog that resembles Marty, I will pick him up and shove his face into the TV.
[UNKNOWN]
And just be like, acknowledge this **** dog and he doesn't.
He like sees through it.
He doesn't, his eyes don't even connect to the screen.
Huh.
He just doesn't see television.
Or maybe he's just so smart that he is like, that's not a real dog, you can't fool me with this.
Well, he treats mirrors the same way.
Hey.
He just like, doesn't respect them.
Mm.
You know?
Maybe he's got like, an issue.
He's got bad self esteem?
Something like that.
Yeah, he can't look at himself in the eye.
But he refuses to look at.
Now, whenever there's a dog barking on TV, the ears perk up and he.
Right.
Sort of, there's a moment of confusion.
Yeah.
But showing him?
He don't see anything.
He just, he don't, he doesn't get it.
I think that's cuz dogs see with their noses.
Nope, they see with their eyes.
[LAUGH]
Yep, but like, they sense a lot more with their.
Sure, like they're like Daredevil.
[CROSSTALK]
Pretty much, yeah.
Right.
So anyway, this week, Discovery Communications like the tele, television network, [INAUDIBLE] Animal Planet.
That's the conglomerate, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, the parent company of Animal Planet, they announced that they've acquired a part of Dog TV.
Oh, my God.
With plans to sort of air a new channel dedicated to round the clock entertainment for dogs.
This isn't dog based programming for humans, this is literally for people who want to leave their dogs at home but have a level of guilt, so they want entertainment for their dogs, pets to watch.
We cannot tell other countries and civilizations that we're doing this.
Yeah.
This has to be kept quiet.
It's so sad.
Would you like me to show a sample?
Yes.
So, the channels consist of relaxation episodes, which are things like slow moving pans of forests and, and beaches, like what we're watching here.
Super sad, is that playing?
It is.
Oh, it's moving so slowly I couldn't even tell.
I mean it's, it's actually a really nice soothing sort of environment.
Yeah, it's like HD sort of relaxing, like HD pan of, of like some kind of a rain forest.
Beautiful.
The, the funny thing is that it's in perfect color.
Yeah.
Which dogs can't see.
Oh, that's true.
Dogs cannot see in perfect color.
Mm-hm.
They see shades of black and white and a little red, I think.
Yeah.
Like a baby.
This is so sad, it's like when you.
Oh, that is cute though.
I just frickin love dogs so much, I don't care if this is stupid.
Yeah, and there's like, other dogs.
I mean, this is great entertainment for human beings but do you think dogs care that there are other dogs on the TV?
Wow, that is a really beautifully shot dog on the beach.
The dog just chilling out on the beach.
It's great.
Bring up this other video.
This one's even more sad, in my opinion.
Okay.
Videos of dogs playing in the field and then in this one, which is, which are exposure videos, they're basically first person shots of humans commanding your dog to do things.
Is this the beginning of the video?
This is where the timestamp is.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you'll see soon.
Like, there's a woman that sort of is commanding your dog and she's like looking at the lens of the video camera and saying like sit, be still, with the hope that this person will virtually train your dog to chill out and not wreck your stuff when you're away from the house.
This is absurd.
I'm sorry.
I really am sorry.
I'm not try to be just a skeptical **** about this whole thing.
I don't know [CROSSTALK]
I really, truly believe this is the dumbest thing I've heard of in a while.
It's like, almost like that, you know around the holidays, Netflix always puts out that yuletide log movie.
Right.
Which basically, just like, turn your TV into a fireplace
Right, right.
.
It's like that.
It's shockingly stupid.
Here's the first person view of the women.
Oh, right.
Trying to training your stupid dog.
She'll be like, she like wags her finger at the lens.
I don't think your dog is getting fooled by this.
Here's why it's stupid.
I don't, I mean it's a waste of energy.
Don't leave your TV on when you leave your house.
I'm sorry, that to me that is like a really bad waste of energy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, we maybe used to leave a radio on for the little guy but he's fine.
I know every dog situation is different and it varies by each breed and species but come on.
And if you, if you really cared about your dog, you would record a video of yourself and play that on a loop while you are away from the house.
It's better than how it's going to react to a complete stranger.
That's the thing.
That it can't smell.
Yeah.
And not necessarily lock, that's your right, they want to smell everything, right.
So they want to smell this person who is commanding them.
Yeah.
It's funny because I think the only thing this is going to do is going to piss off your neighbors that are working from home because if your dog does fall for it, all they're going to be doing is barking their **** off all day long.
I don't know.
I'm not going to lie, this relaxation stuff is pretty toy.
I'm like, feeling it.
They found like a cloud and it's just kinda hanging out.
This Husky, look at this guy.
Maybe it'll work, I don't know.
[CROSSTALK] I wanna hear from dog trainers.
If Cesar Milano's listening to this show, let us know if you think this is a good idea.
We need a dog whisperer.
Yeah.
You ever watch that Cesar show?
Yeah, all the time.
He is shockingly ama-, like he's amazing.
Yeah, but you know a lot of pet owners don't like his style of commands.
Why?
Because he, he does things like, he like pushes dogs down.
Okay.
And holds them onto the ground when they're not cooperating.
Well.
Obviously those are with [UNKNOWN].
We do own them.
Mm-hm.
Really extreme dogs that have like.
Right.
Have personality issues and stuff but I think a lot of people think he, he takes a very heavy hand with dogs.
I don't know, on his show they don't show him doing that.
Yeah.
Some just like, I mean you know, I hope, I'm might catch flak but I truly believe that sometimes you've gotta hit the dog.
You just got to punt your dog into next week.
Not punt it, you got to like, you know, poke it.
Yeah.
It will get the message.
Right.
You know?
You gotta like, when it pees on the ground, you gotta like mush its face into pee.
No, not touching it but maybe up to the point where it can really not be happy with what it's done.
Look, I've been lucky.
Marty is a good, he's a good boy.
He never pees in the house.
Yeah.
A few other things he does that we don't like and we let him know.
Yeah, by putting him in the boo box later.
You're not, you're dog's not gonna respond to, you know, nothing.
I guess you can, you can, you can train a dog through just positive interactions, you can but there's a time and a place where.
Some dogs only respond to that alpha male mentality, too.
I understand that.
You, part of owning a dog is, you need to establish dominance in the relationship.
Yeah.
You have to.
The dog must look to you.
You cannot have the dog taking control of the house.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm not saying punch him in the face.
No.
Oh, and what dog are you punching?
[LAUGH]
A chihuahua?
Hey, woah.
Okay?
Ariel has a chihuahua.
I know but.
I don't go around punching chihuahuas
Now I go around punching a chihuahua.
[LAUGH]
You just go up to your dog and you're just like kapow, right?
Yeah what do you do Ariel?
Yeah, I know you get frustrated with your chihuahua.
No, you love him.
no, no my little chihuahua's cool.
[CROSSTALK]
But once she gets crazy I just give her the look.
They usually respond to that.
Dogs can read your body emotion as well as your voice.
Yeah.
They know how you're feeling.
If your feeling nervous, it's gonna feel nervous.
Right.
If you're yanking on it's collar, it's gonna think that you're trying to stop it from running away, doing something.
Yeah.
So it all, it all makes sense.
Yeah, I heard that if you want to like, you know, discipline your dog you have to have a deep commanding voice.
And you have to have like stick out your chest and sort of be like this.
Point your body towards them.
You basically have to be a bro douchebag.
Yeah, right, put on a wife beater.
Basically, have to do that.
Like a backwards hat and just be like hey, dog, this is what's happening and you like make it do a beer bong.
All right, this is crazy, Uber, constantly a reoccurring theme on the show this week.
Here's a story about a guy, who got $50,000 in uber credit by gaming the system.
Blake Jared seen here with his buddy **** Lovin,
[LAUGH] That guy does look like **** Lovin
Looks like **** Lovin with a **** load of chest hair.
Yeah, what the hell?
Button your shirt you stupid, anyway.
Here he is, Mr. Blake Jarods.
He basically gamed the system and continually racked up $20 credits till he amassed 50,000 bucks.
Here's what he did and it's kind of ingenious because I associate Uber with like the next evolution of the web, the cutting edge online technology.
You can't do this anymore obviously, because Uber's hip to it but first what he did was changed his Uber promo code from a random string of letters to Uber $ 20 free ride, which I don't know how he was able to change his promo code but that's what he did.
Then he send out mass emails via Mail Chimp to about 700 people from his email contact list.
So basically spammed everyone he knew and had 40% open rate success and about a 5% click through rate.
Yeah.
That, you know, he's like a finance dude.
He was playing the percentages.
He knew what he was doing.
Wait, so the deal here was that, in the beginning when you first signed up for Uber for every person that you referred the service to using that code you would $20 in free credit.
If they did arrive.
If they took it up, you'd get the code.
If they sign up, that's one thing.
But if they actually take a ride, then they give you the $20.
Then he posted the link to a subreddit, where users submit deals for free stuff and that, it was at that point, where he claims that Uber was hip to it.
It was also a, a situation where he, he gave the driver one star.
Right.
And because apparently Uber reviews every one star review.
Mm-hm.
they look into your account information and that kind of gave him away, also.
Right.
The combination of doing that custom promo code and Reddit earned Jared's link such a high level of search engine optimization that it started showing up when people would search for Uber coupon links.
Oh, cool.
That is when he got around 2,000 people to sign up.
Uh-huh.
And he hit $50 grand in credit.
Uber caught him and they were not too happy with him but the story actually has a kind of cool, happy ending.
Uber was pissed and understandably so.
Yeah.
But they, they talked it out and they actually wound up giving him $500 in Uber credit.
Right.
Now that is a gigantic loss to, from $50,000 but I think Uber sort of under appreciated, see that's why Uber has such a good reputation.
They seem like this laid back sort of thing where it's like all right you got us.
So instead of the 50K, here's $500.
Now, shut up and get out of here.
Right, because people still, I don't know how many actually did it, 2,000, right, you said?
Over 2,000.
Over 2,000 people still use Uber.
So that's something and then if they told friends, maybe, who knows how how big his network eventually got and how much service he gave to Uber.
So that's good that he, all the way around.
That's exactly it.
Like Uber clearly feels like, man, this kid totally jacked us for 50K in credit.
Yeah.
But at the same time, he got, like you said.
Yeah.
Well over 2,000 people.
That's smart, I like that.
And now he works for them.
It's crazy, right?
Yeah, I, I wish that we could do something like this.
We'd have free rides for life.
Yeah.
I would never step into a subway again, which is really all New Yorkers' goal, right?
Like we all just never want to go into the underground subway again.
It seems that the subway is, is becoming more and more stigmatized as the years go on.
[LAUGH] Did you see that video of the rat?
Yeah.
That somehow climbed into the car.
Yeah.
And people were standing on the seats this week?
Yeah.
**** like that.
It's, I mean, there are a lot of rats in the subway, it is underground.
It's part of you know, it's, it's part of the package.
What can, what can we say?
Greatest city in the world.
Yep.
That's what would happen when the guy Googles you for dinner.
sir, your dead rat.
You love these, right?
You've been watching rat videos all day.
[LAUGH] All right, that's gonna do it for us.
Shoot us an email.
Let us know what you think of the show the 404@cnet.com.
You can reach out on our subreddit.
The website is reddit.com/r/the404.
Click that little subscribe button and then every time you go to reddit, you get the coolest and latest trending topics in our subreddit.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and of course, like our Facebook page.
We're back here tomorrow.
It's Justin's last show for two friggin' weeks.
All right, so make sure you tune in for that and that's gonna do it for us guys.
Have a great Thursday.
Until then, I'm Jeff Bakalar.
I'm Justin Yu.
I'm Ariel Nunez.
Thank you for tuning in to the 404 Show.
High tech, low brow.
We'll see you guys, tomorrow.
[MUSIC]
