The 404 1,529: Where we can't help but purge

It's Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014. I'm Ariel Nunez, and from our studios in New York City, welcome to the 404. [MUSIC] Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to the show. I'm Jeff Bakalar. I'm Justin Hu. How's everyone doing this Tuesday? Awesome You're doing awesome? Yeah That sounded like lie. I just threw that out there cause no one responded. [LAUGH] They never respond. Yeah. That's the problem. Got your back man. Thank you Areo. Even if it's fake. Even if it's disingenuous. Even though you feel terrible about it. Right. I mean I'm, you know, I think there's just a lot fo impending doom with our with our move coming up. >. Yeah. And then you know, an uncertain. So many moves. Sort, sort of issue. That we have to figure out. Never the less we've got a lot of stories. Obviously Justin's back today. And what was the one thing? There was something else I wanted to bring up. Oh I told, so I told everyone the deal about moving into the new studio and, Mm-hm. and all the chaos that's about to unfold. The darkness that's [CROSSTALK] gonna envelop us all. So people were like Aw, you guys should do reruns for the For the, you know, the time that you're dark, and I said okay we can do that, but I don't, I never know which reruns to do, so if you, if you have like a favorite one and I, I, it's a strange thing to request like, hey do have a favorite episode, tell me what it is instead of just going back and listening to it for yourself. Or typing in for random digits and seeing what comes up. Yeah. But you don't have a favorite episode. I mean they're all my favorites. That's just something you say when you can't remember. Exactly. I really don't have favorites. They're like children, you can't pick one over the other. Although in most cases you can but I don't really have one that like super stands out and that's partly my fault because I feel like at some point. We should have said like okay, you know, maybe in your own, on your own time privately, you like give each show a grade.>> Okay.>> Or it's like A through F.>> Mm-hm. And you know, okay, well 15/12 was an A-plus, 15/13 was a C-minus and then you get all the As and better and ya and you make that your go to rerun. It's been 1,529 episodes. Yeah. I don't think any of them have dropped below a C minus, right? We passed all of the podcasts. I don't think we dropped below a solid B. Yeah wouldn't put anything out on the air that wasnt, a C plus. No I think we would, but we havent, we've been fortuitous enough that we havent. Yeah, this shows not over yet. No, absolutely not. so, let us, if you, if there's one you're like dying to hear. Maybe you forgot which number it is, I don't know how we're gonna figure it out but. Nevertheless I'm gonna program some reruns for the the indeterminate time that we're dark again. It'll be Friday till at least I think Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Mm-hm. Let me know if there's one that you must listen too and I'll I'll hook it up for you cuz that's what kind of wizard I am. Cool. Yeah, so what do we got today man. Man, you ever go to a swimming hole before? That would, like a, what is that? Like a lake? Yeah, yeah. Like a lake. Like a little small lake. I was in a river. A river. I went whitewater rafting over the weekend. Where? Montreal. Oh, not the Delaware River. No. I've been on the Delaware. [CROSSTALK] Oh yeah, we didn't talk about that. Yeah. It was a really calm. And cool and collected. Why are you licking your lips then? I didn't do any of that. There's no such thing. [LAUGH] It was totally fine and polite. And G rated. And G, yeah, if there was a rating below G it would be that. Yeah, why don't you grade this weekend, too? This weekend was an A. Yeah? A solid A. Plus, plus. alright, I'll ask you after the show. Yes that is a better idea. We went to this place called Peekaboo's Blue Hole. Peekaboo's Blue Hole. Rolls off the tongue. I want to swim in whatever that is. It is super fun, look up some photos of this while I'm talking about it, it is rad. What is it called again? Peekamoose Blue Hole. Peekamoose, like, observe a moose? Yeah, with an a in the middle. Okay, Peekamoose. Peekamoose Blue Hole. It's a, it's a sort of, not a small swimming hole but it sort of comes off the ocean so the water is super cold. They shouldn't call it a swimming hole, for, for, for the record. Why? Something don't sound right about a swimming hole. Really? Oh, the hole part. [CROSSTALK] The whole sentence, Picamo Swimming hole, [LAUGH] sounds like if I looked on Urban Dictionary it would mean something gross. Way different. Yeah, it's like at a truck stop or something, Like, oh, I bruised my Picamoose blue hole, I sat funny, or I bruised it. Or you'll never guess what I did last night, she wanted to do the Picamoose. Blue roll. [LAUGH] [UNKNOWN] That's like an advance tactic check that one off the bucket list. Here it is here is the peek a moose blue hole. It's the Peekamoose blue hole it's a small lake but then there's a bunch of independent camp sites around it. And It was great and we just did like a bunch of swimming water's super cold so we got out immediately. Is amazing, Man, I really like camping. It was awesome, I spent like five hours inside of a hammock. It was great. Inside? You mean laying in the hammock. Laying in a hammock. Yeah. [NOISE] I don't know man. You're not into camping? Camping and Jeff are. Not exactly the best of friends. Yeah. The best part of camping for you is the shower afterward when you get home, ha? The best part of camping is the night. I do like the night when you make a fire. Yes. Sitting around the fire. But every time I've been camping in the last three years it's... It's been the worst weather imaginable. Oh yeah. So that doesn't help the cause and I, I don't know. I, I oh man, I don't know why you just don't go onto like onto your balcony. Oh you want urban camping. Yeah urban. Just on the roof. Just gonna light a bonfire on the roof. You know, and do that with all the light pollution. I go, when I want to see stars, you can see stars, we were in the middle of nowhere for a while on the trip and you can see stars, it is fun. It is kind of scary out there. It is man. When you are by yourself. The darkness will envelope you. I thought you would like that part of it, and then the light inevitably comes up again. No, it's. You know but, swimming holes like, when I think of swimming hole I just think of like an inferior. What about cliff jumping? That kind of thing. Looks like this was pretty deep. I mean there is there is a cliff right, you can't see it in this photo, but it was pretty fun. Little waterfall, just jump off of that. It's good to get out of the city every once and a while. Is there like a, a tire on a rope somewhere? Yeah, yeah, there was a rope swing. Yeah. Some nice rocks that you can crush your legs on. Yeah. When you jump into the water, it's beautiful. Just what I want. I want nature to hurt me. [LAUGH] All right. I'll take you to the. [CROSSTALK] Nature's obstacle course, how far away was this? It was about two and half hours upstate. It was right underneath Woodstock. Oh, it's freaking Catskills. Yeah, it's Catskills, yeah. Swimming hole. Come on down to you local swimming hole. Swimming hole. Yeah it was great. Bring that scorching case of Hepatitis. This water, I think, was actually pretty clean. There's no sewage runoff. There was no sewage runoff [LAUGH] like you would get in Rockaways or stuff like that. i fell like in the Rockaways and Fort Tilden, you get. All kinds of trash that I'm assuming are around your legs, but here it was [INAUDIBLE]. Are there series of wooden signs that say swimming hole with an arrow point? Yeah, and no G too, just swimming hole. Swimmin' apostrophe? Yeah, it was cool, I want to get up there again. Nice. Do they. Is, is this on Yelp? It is. I think it is on Yelp. Is it? Yeah. And I had to spend $500 to get all the camping gear just to go here. Oh my God. So now I'm really needing to, I, I got to find another excuse to get out there and use it. Camping stuff is so expensive. It is. That's why it sucks. Sleeping pad from REI over the weekend, 100 bucks. For a pad. Just that you don't have to sleep on the actual ground. It's crazy. I don't really rough it when I go camping. I have a, I have an inflatable mattress. Yeah. It fits in my Oh, you don't do car camping? No. What do you mean car camping? Yeah, like, driving up to the campsite. Yeah. And unloading the car. That's what I might do. Yeah, car camping. Yeah, firewood. Sure. So, it's all that. All right. Any way, let's get to the story for the day. [NOISE] Get to the story. You guys, watch that movie The Purge, by the way? Oh my god, that was like a major theme of my weekend. What, you killed some people? Well, no. Just talking about purging. Like Okay This, this guy I went on the trip with was like hey you know what we should do tonight we should purge. After dinner. I'm like you mean just go around committing awful crimes Yeah with no consequence what so ever. And he's like yeah let's do that. I was like no we can't do that. We're not, We're foreigners here. Did you watch that movie? No I'm not gonna watch that. Not even the first one? No I, come on that movie's for stupid people. Wait till the next time you're on an air plane then watch it, yeah. No. I mean, that's, it's the only excuse to watch a movie like that. It was really, really bad which is surprising cuz I like Ethan Hawke a lot. Well he clearly has no, sort of like, filter in what he says yes or no to in Hollywood. But he was explaining what the Purge was, and I didn't understand why, can we do that first Yeah, Yeah, So the purge is about. It's a movie that came out, I think like a couple of years ago, but it's a horror movie, and it's set in the near future, where the government, to curb crime and violence, they've mandated one night per year, called the Purge. And on that night at sundown. No emergency services are available so you can't call the cops no Paramedics no doctors. You can do whatever you want which includes killing people so. They basically condone murder and people use that day to purge whatever anger their feeling inside. For throughout the rest of the year. And they'll go and hunt down their boss. Or the, you know, college kids will go and hunt down their teachers. And then the next day, goes back to normal. People are dead. And everybody's dead. Yeah. Sorry I killed your wife last night. Yeah. My bad. Didn't quite kill you. Just chopped off your arm. But you're good, right? Like, you know, it, it gets kinda crazy sometimes. Kind of? Yeah, the details. So ex, okay. How on Earth. As practical as it sounds. Yeah. How did it get like this? Well the argument is that violence go so manic, you know, in between our time and the movie's period that they decided to just go and test out this crazy theory and it turns out that it did cut down on crime through out the rest of the year when they just let people go crazy once. So it's. It takes place in the future. Yeah. And, and something got bad. Mm hm. Got so bad that they were like all right We're gonna have to clean it up. We're gonna have to do this. A twelve hour period. Night time. All crime legal. It's so stupid. [LAUGH] It's so stupid. So the story in the first movie, it stars Ethan Hawke as the father in this family. And he sells home security. And ironically enough, there are some people during that one night a year in his purge, where people are trying to break into his house. So why not just enter a bank vault? You could. If you can get in, then it's fine. Yeah, you've made it. I, [LAUGH] You don't understand the concept? No, it's like are you [UNKNOWN] the worst concept for a movie ever? [CROSSTALK] Including the Hunger Games. It's like five 15 year old dudes came up with. Yeah. In a sleep over. That's it. And their like wouldn't it be cool if we could do whatever we wanted one night? [LAUGH] Yeah, [LAUGH] Yeah. [LAUGH] I'm sorry. Go on, so tell me. So, the success of Purge one made it's way to Purge two. So now Purge two is out it came out on July 19th, I think. Right. Called the Purge colon anarchy. Anarchy. So this one. As if the first one was not enough. [CROSSTALK] Well that's the beauty of the purge is that it happens every year. So we can have an infinite number. Sequel. Goody. All right. Yeah, so the Purge 2 isn't about people from the outside trying to get in Purge 2 is about an innocent man that rounds up other innocent people in the city in the midst of the purge. [LAUGH] Is Ethan Hawke in this one? No. I don't think he's, it's all no name actors. Even Ethan Hawke said no to the second one. Yeah, just don't even make the movie. You wouldn't go crazy. I mean what would you guys do if this were a real thing? There's no way that you would kill What? What were you gonna say? Why are you looking at me like that? I'm not, I wouldn't kill you! I wouldn't kill anybody! I wouldn't kill anybody! Yeah okay. I don't even know what I would do I wouldn't leave the house I would stay underground and be like oh this stupid thing again Right yeah? And everyone has [CROSSTALK] To survive. insane home security systems too because [CROSSTALK] They have like [CROSSTALK] Yeah [CROSSTALK] Breaking and entering is illegal. They have like purge proof Yeah. like wind-, window covers, and, and door locks and things like that. And that's where Ethan Hawk [CROSSTALK] People who see these movies, man. Like I don't, I don't care that it's, it gets made. I care that you pay for it. Well what's the difference between The Purge and Hostel? Nothing. Yeah, it's the same stuff. Same thing. I, I don't personally love scary movies too much. Yeah. I just have a problem with people's taste now. It's kinda sick. I don't know if I've ever gotten that message across. Yeah, I know. After 1500 episodes. [LAUGH] America, I just wanted [CROSSTALK] right now. You don't agree with everyone all the time. [LAUGH] Okay? Now that we cleared that air, we can continue. So The Purge two, we can all agree is really bad. And it's gotten. Pretty terrible scores on Rotten Tomatoes. I don't know man, I'm looking at it on freaking IMDB and, and the, you know the imbeciles on IMDB said resting comfortably at a 7.2 which is well above the average. Metascore only has it at 49 which seems high. That's not something I'd want to give $13. And two hours of my time too. I would actually watch it and, wouldn't mind. I mean these movies are cash grabs, right? They, they don't cost a lot of money to make. Yeah. And you know, it just plays on every single human's desire to murder people innocently. [LAUGH] Right. [CROSSTALK] Yeah exactly. Good date movie though. [LAUGH] Your first date movie. [LAUGH] So, You know, with the Purge 2, that came out obviously movie studios try to promote the movies with their own promotional things. And they launches a social movie campaign for the Purge 2 and it didn't go the way they wanted it to be. Did people start killing each other for real? Almost, actually it might be worse. This is sort of a lesson in, in social media control and how things can get outta hand, because, the studio put out a hashtag on Twitter to promote the movie called, Twitter Purge, right. And they wanted you to sort of confess things online. You know, maybe not say, I wanna kill my brother, or something like that, but Why your brother? You know, something like, you know, white. Innocent confessions. Oh, why is it about, white? Did you, does that mean? Yeah, like white lies. You know what I mean, like very. Oh okay. I thought, I didn't, I didn't understand that. White people will confess something. Just white people confession, right. Just like, you know, white collar crimes. Yeah. Okay that's what you mean, okay. So they put out Twitter purge, and it started off pretty slowly. You know, some people were just admitting to thing they had lied about. And then it kinda crossed over to infidelity, and worse purges. And then it got really outta hand, because users completely hijacked that tag, and started using hashtag twitter purge to pose nudes of ex-girlfriends. And so, that was what twitter purge turned out to be. It's like well, I still have these photos of my naked girlfriend left over from an ex-relationship. I'll just put those online for everyone to see. Obviously, Twitter isn't anonymous. And why would you want to post personal stuff on your own page? So people were creating new Twitter accounts just to post those photos. And by the look on your face. And how high those eyebrow are getting, I'm assuming you're looking at those photos now. No, it's just, it's, it's insane. Yeah, and it got insane too cuz it spread to Facebook and Instagram. So people were using Twitter purge for all three of those social networks and the photos that go with them. Are not only illegal because, you know, their private but, a lot of 'em aren't of age either. Give credit to the people behind the marketing of The Purge though. Yeah. I mean, they truly set out to make something viral, and my oh my did it go viral. Yeah. Yeah, this is, this is what happens right? This is what happens. You give people too much power and this is what happens. It's not really the movie studio's fault, right? No. No [CROSSTALK] It's not the [INAUDIBLE] fault. They were just trying the best they could and it was working for a while. It's just the internet. I mean they. [CROSSTALK] It's always devolves. It does always devolve and you know, should the campaign have been vetted more? I mean come on. [CROSSTALK] a hashtag. You can't vet anything like this because the whole thing is like organic spreading. Yeah, yeah, yeah But, but at the same time, I would imagine revenge porn would have come in under the possible negative consequences. Right Or side effects of such a campaign. Right Like, let's encourage the entire internet. To, you know, come clean about stuff. Right. I mean it's the same thing with like that secret, you know? Oh, Post Secret. Yeah. It turns out there are terrible people in this world hiding awful secrets. Turns out most people are just plain old evil. Yeah. So. There you have it. Oh my gosh. So go and watch The Purge: Anarchy. I'm going to purge right now. It actually worked, though. I mean, people are talking about this story and it, it's gotten a lot of news attention, so. See. Any publicity is good publicity? Yeah, I get it. I'm totally conflicted because I kind of like horror movies. But, This isn't really horror. This isn't horror. This is just stupidity. I like supernatural horror, Yeah. Like Poltergeist. Sure. I don't know about hostile and things like that, where it's just about mindless murder. Versus mindless gore. Did you watch any of those movies like, No. Human centipede? Or [CROSSTALK] Nodule? No. All those. The first saw I kind of enjoyed a little bit because it was like. A psycho thriller. And to watch the Princess Bride kind of off it's foot. Yeah, Kerry Ellis just like, chop off his leg was kind of funny, not because, you know, dismemberment is funny, but because Robinhood Men In Tights starts doing it, you wish. You sort of disassociate. A yea i like that but I, but you know cabin in the woods kind of stuff. I like Cabin the woods. Cabins in the was a, I dont want to ruin it but it was completely different tae in the classic horror movie. Right you know and I like the i like the campy stuff too I love Evil Dead. You know, I, I like legitimate horror. Yeah. But this just doesn't really you know, satiate that desire. Yeah. Creepy. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't kill anyone online? In real life, I don't wanna kill anyone. You wouldn't steal anything? You wouldn't go and, and rob anyone? I guess I would. I don't even know. Maybe go to a bank and steal money. But that hockey equipment, I feel like you could you know. I'd have to try it on. Like it's a long process. Really scare people. Although I'd probably be the only one doing that, so I wouldn't have time. Like oh man, no one's at Sports Authority. Yeah. You know, let's go nuts over there. Sports Authority. Well, no. I go, I go to like places like, Hockey Monkey. [LAUGH] That's what you would break into? I'd break into Hockey Monkey and just be like, 'scuse me. Yeah. [LAUGH] Oh, that's the [UNKNOWN] [LAUGH] Shoot, shoot a puck through the front door. Yeah. [LAUGH]. Get on in there. [LAUGH] Get to dip those $400 hockey sticks that I've had my eye on. Break through a Starbucks later on. Break into a Barnes and Noble. [LAUGH] [LAUGH] Not bad, not bad. All right, all right. So tell us about the Walkman sort of coming back. So remember when Steve was here a couple times ago. I wanna say, like maybe four months ago. He told us about Neal Young's high-end audio player. The Pono thing, what was it called? Yeah, Pono player right? Pono player, whatever it was. And it was sorta ridiculous because it had a triangular shape. [LAUGH]. That was absurd, and would never happen, if it was Toblerone it would never fit in your pocket, but we weren't too, we weren't necessarily mad at the idea or the ambition of the product, well, Sony has a high res Walkman called the ZX-1 and it's actually starting to make some waves in Japan. Through Asian and European markets as well. It is called the ZX-1 and it is 700 dollars. It came out February and while they haven't released any plans to make this available in the states, the increasing popularity of the device does. Sort of, you know, hint that maybe this will come stateside Yeah. It's pretty impressive on paper. It's a solid block of aluminum. It's 128 GB player. I think that should be larger. I think it should be a terabyte. Especially if it's for hi res music. Exactly. But it plays back wav and aiff. Files, FLAC files, which I'm really getting into these days. And, A-L-A-C, ALAC? I've never heard of that. I've never heard of that format. It also features Sony's proprietary d-s-e-h-x technology, which supposedly upscales compressed files to near high res audio quality by quote, Restoring the subtleties of the original recording. How is that possible? Like isn't that information physically gone from the ones and zeros that make [CROSSTALK] Yeah. Once you [INAUDIBLE] for it. Like isn't that the point of [INAUDIBLE], to remove stuff that's not necessary? How do you add stuff? I guess you do it the same way you add frames that aren't there in a 120 hertz television. Anyway. Sony did not disclose the details of when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts of the ZX1, but it's 700 dollars, so it's definitely something that is pretty you know, luxurious. I'm into it man, I think it's maybe got like a niche sort of market that you know [UNKNOWN]. Just say you're going to bring back the, quote, unquote, Walkman brand, even though I don't believe it's called a Walkman. Oh, no, it is called a Walkman. I, I think this is maybe the way to do it, you know, I'm not totally mad at this the way I was mad at Neil Young's pono word play Yeah, if there's a market for it and people really want to spend that much. I mean, it includes a digital audio converter like you said, and those aren't cheap. Right They're always at least 500 bucks, especially when you get them portable. And it's you're. You know, I'm, I, I was really excited when I, I started getting FLAC music. And I was like man, this sounds really good. Yeah. Like if you listen compared to an MP3. Even like a 320 kit you know, a, a like compressed MP3. Mm-hm. You could tell the difference right away. Right. I mean the quality is just. Mind blowing. But the question is, is it good enough over just a standard hundred and twenty eight K MP3 enough to warrant carrying around another device that's carved out of a solid piece of aluminum? It might, it looks pretty big. Right. It's for the hardcore for sure. Yeah. It's not for the, it's not for Joe, you know, You Tube who just. You know, crazed music out of the speaker. Yeah. of this song. [UNKNOWN] a Walkman the other day. [CROSSTALK] Are you using that thing yet? I have it hooked up, yeah I've played a few tapes. [CROSSTALK] [CROSSTALK] Um-hum. He actually used that on a subway, do you walk out with it? Naw, no, not at all. [CROSSTALK] I don't wanna be made fun of. Yeah, what did that sound like? [LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] Were you let down? No, I know what gets. You knew what you were getting into. Yeah, I knew what I was getting into, yeah. I don't really even listen to a lot of my cassette tapes, I just let them sit there, but when I want to, yeah. Hey I'm gonna be home this weekend and I'm gonna try and dig up some cassette tapes that I have. It's all gonna be like Rancid. Yeah. And NOFX and stuff like that. Operation right. Yeah, for sure, look at that. [LAUGH] That's awesome, yeah I. I think the best part of a cassette is like the sound of the plastic clacking against that. Who don't understand why that's fun. I dont know it's so cool it's tactile. Again I can get on board with the vinyl stuff. but again I think this is I don't know I necessarily be the one to buy this. But I want to listen to flack in my car. I can't do that I can do that with this. Mm-hm. So, yeah. You actually have to go to Japan to buy it right now, but [CROSSTALK] it may be coming here. Odds are it's gonna come here. Will it still hold onto that $700 price tag? That remains to be seen. Yeah. You know, 700 bucks is a lot to ask for. I think you can, you know, maybe bring this down to four, 500 dollars and you'll, you'll maybe have little more success. But there you have it. Check it out. The ZX1. Yeah. Man, I used to love my cassette, radio, Walkman. Yeah. It is so crucial. I guess. It took, it only took 14 double-A batteries. Yeah. That lasted maybe three hours. Well for me it was nice because it just gave me a private experience, even though I was still living in my parents' house. Right. You know, so it kind of took me away from, from whatever teenage year problems I was having. Yeah. yeah, kind of ironic that the same device eventually, I don't know, eventually that same Walkman that we had in our pocket, changed into something that lets us communicate with the outside world [CROSSTALK] when in the beginning the whole point was to bring it all in. It was funny, I always remember. Being, You know, Being like man, why, how come batteries such an issue. I just always remember being like, there's gotta be a better way. Yeah [LAUGH] It would have been [INAUDIBLE] to have like diskman with a rechargeable battery. Yeah. That's like a weird mashup. There was, I remember I put rechargeable batteries in mine but that was like in the 90s [CROSSTALK] Rechargeable batteries. You know on a consumer like the double AA's, like they've only been good in the last five years. Yeah. The last five to ten years. There you have it ZX1. Watch out pono player. I wonder how many pono players knew Neil Young's been able to hock. Yeah. How much were they they're so expensive. I don't, I don't know how that did anything. Alright so let's move onto this story there's a new start up out of MIT and CNET interviewed the developers they developed this website called Eturner.me. And here's the elevator pitch. People hate it when the ones they love leave this Earth. [LAUGH] What? . That's the elevator pitch. Death is bad. Okay. And you know, when they do die though. These days they leave a presence in their wake. On the internet. Right. And we've talked about this before, how social media profile extend past the lifetime of a person. Right. People will use them for memorial walls after one passes. Sure, sure. So of course the natural response is why can't we use what we know about their online presence through what they posted. In life, to reconstruct their personality as a sentient being. Oh no. God. So this is, something out of Johnny Depp's Transcendence, you know that movie? Oh right. Sounds exactly the same, but Enternamed is basically a service that scans a dead person's chat logs, social media accounts, like Facebook and twitter and instagram, to look for photos emails. any kind of clue that they can glean about a person's life and, and, you know, the morals they have, the things they would say, their, their speech patterns, etcetera. They take all that stuff, kind of mash together, use, and use this algorithm to stitch what. This probably should be called what? An avatar or something of, of a person that can communicate even through the app. So you go on this website, and eventually if you lose someone you love,. You know, God forbid. You can actually re-create their personality and even talk to them through the site. They say you can retrieve advice from this person. You can, they can offer information to you that maybe you didn't know if you are participating in those chat logs. They can reveal secrets if you as about them. Oh man. It's bad. Yeah. It's bad but I'm not gonna start hating on this cause this is our future. It's super scary. It's in a very you know, early phase, but this is one hundred percent the way things will work. Yeah. In the future where. You lose a loved one and there's virtual representation of them that you can interact with. Mm-hm. And it's gonna be weird. But it'll be way better than Yeah. Just sort of, being alone with your thoughts. Yeah. It would just be a big scanner. You just put all your notes and photos into it. Morgan Spurlock did an episode on his show about this very thing. Mm-hm. And how. You can basically, I think it was MIT, that they were trying to basically digitize people. Mm-hm. And have it be this interactive, almost hologram. Mm-hm. That's a scene, man. Like that is going to be our reality. Yeah. It's almost unavoidable. It's basically the singularity, right? I mean, the singularity proposes it happens in life. The singularity is about living forever, in some degree. Right. But this is more like preserving the memories and actions and behaviors, and getting them to the point where. You know, I guess the goal is to make them indistinguishable from the real life person. That will act the same way, talk the same way, have the same mannerisms and all that stuff. Maybe even come up with your own, their own ideas through artificial intelligence in the future. I could see this being a really big deal for things like philosophers, scientists. Professionals sure, instead of just a personal thing you know? Like there parents, this first law. Yeah it could be let's, yeah. L, let's make sure that their [CROSSTALK]. And then you can get into like, the cyberpunk like, the dark side of it all. You know, movies like A.I. and Blade Runner and stuff like that. And you think about like, all right. Well who's gonna like, manage these dead people? Right. Like, I'm, I manage the, the ghost of Albert Einstein. Mm-hm. You know? He's available for this. Yeah, if you wanna book him. And then one day you'll have the option to. Basically go into sleep mode or something like in a chamber and have your mind just live on as it normally would. Well that's a big jump but you know we got talking into talking about this over the weekend. Hum, we talked about a lot. More than more like a sexual capacity if you will. Like, robots, and stuff like that? How many times on the show do we talk about, check out this thing that is going to you know... Yeah, yank you or something like that. Or something like that, sperm extractor Yeah and it reminds me of A.I., in A.I. Jude Law plays an android, he plays a robot who is a gigalo. Right. So, like when, you know, are, are we gonna be able to create a robot an [UNKNOWN], that looks human, talks human, feels human, sounds human. And, then what? And then we just start banging him? Because that's obviously the first thing that's gonna happen. Yeah. Were gonna start banging them. Right, and of course if one day you'll be able to just upload your own photo of whoever's face you want it to look like then you have a whole different set of problems. Make that person? And then, is that cheating. Does the robot look like your wife? Well, I would imagine the idea is no. Yeah. [LAUGH] I imagine the idea is be like no, it looks like Scarlett Johansson. Right. In fact, it is Scarlett Johansson. And by every sense of, of the word, the way we understand like you Know, human to human contact. All camouflaged by this robot, and you could not tell the difference. [CROSSTALK] [UNKNOWN] years from now. Right. Right? Is that cheating? Is this, what, you know, where are we going with that? that's not cheating if you call it contraception. Right. You could say that in order to curb the overpopulation problem, that, that's being caused by. You know people just had so much sex. Oh that's a form of birth control You could say its a form of birth control. No its a form of sexual ambition. That's the argument you give when you want to buy a robot.>> I think that would make for a really great narrative. Yeah.>> You know to speculate about the future, and it wouldn't be called, like you know, what its gonna be like to bang robots but, I'm telling ya right.>> I think we have the hardest part to replicate, figure it out right now. What? Listen to what I'm referring. Read the subtext. Okay. You're talking about. Yeah, Yeah. We have the hardest part already developed. Figured out. We just have to build the rest of it. Oh we have that [INAUDIBLE] The unnecessary part. We have that [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, yeah. All that other stuff, you know, like we don't really need. Semantics, semantics That'll come in the future. But the important thing is that we get that The plumbing's in place. Yeah, that. Feel like we're almost there. We're, we're close man. Yeah, we're super close. What's you dream little kid? By the time I'm a grandpa I wanna be able to bang a robot. With a face. Hey, in due time. In due time. I'm telling ya. That's what gets me thinking about. That's what makes me wanna live forever. That's what makes me want the singularity to get its **** in check and arrive already. Yeah. Aw, someday. All right. Eterna.me. Weird, creepy. Very. Very scary. So I subscribed to a new Sub-Reddit over the weekend and it is totally relevent to what we talk about on the show. I'm assuming it will help pitch a few stories for future episodes of the 404. That Sub-Reddit is R/shittykickstarters. really, really, like this sub Reddit and it inspired me to put this story in the run down about a really, really **** sub Reddit. I love that name, what a brilliant idea. Yeah, and there's no shortage of content to post on there to. [LAUGH] So here's the pitch, for the sub Reddit that we're talking about today. Its called Smart Line. Smart Line. And the pitch is, imagine a sex line, phone sex line, remember those? But instead of calling to have sex on the phone, you call to be connected with an intelligent person to have a lucid conversation with someone on demand. If your smart enough, you can pay fifty cents and connect with someone whose an expert on your proposed topic. So, the, the pitch here is meant for people that are extremely smart. But also tragically lonely. I don't have anyone that's at their IQ level that don't have the same philosophies and theories that they do on a specific subject. So, say you're a rocket scientist and you wanna talk about the industry, but your coworkers don't care. So you can pay fifty cents a minute and talk to somebody about that. Topic. That's basically all it is. There's no sex implied at all. Right. It's not a sexual thing. Right. It's really just a phone line for really lonely, [CROSSTALK] So, so, so [CROSSTALK] People. What's like the joke? I know I obviously, this is the worst idea in the history of ideas. [LAUGH] Yeah. But it's like, I can't tell what's worse. Where it's like someone so miraculously smart would not be able to find a way to talk to other people Right, right. Right. Or like wouldn't figure out that there's an internet. And be like i'll just go to a forum with really bright people. Yeah, I mean a lot of times smart people tend to be introverts. Okay. And they're also, you know, maybe they're very critical of other people. So what do you think the dumbest part of about this whole idea is? All right, well, the dumbest part, I think, is about the employees that they're planning to hire. Oh, I [CROSSTALK]. So, of course, in the kickstarter description, they talk about the, the, some of the harder parts of developing, This goal. Right? So they say the employees are gonna be based hired based on a number of factors. Right? So of course, when you connect with someone, they're gonna have to have experts in every single field. Sure. Obviously that's gonna be the biggest speed bump. Right? It's gonna be really hard to do that. But they say they're gonna first measure their employees' intelligence. In one of three ways: enrollment and completion of a top degree at a top ten university — all right, so that makes them super smart — they're also gonna have an IQ score that's 130 or above. And an SAT, ACT score at or above the 97th percentile. Yeah those. My problem with this is, if you're so smart why would you go to work and be an expert at a Kickstarter funded company. Exactly. You would just be a smart person with a good smart job. Right we would just be a rocket scientist. Yeah [LAUGH] And make millions of dollars. You wouldn't need to know about the subject just so you could talk about it at 50 cents a minute. There aren't. Too many out of work geniuses Yeah and that's all it takes to completely debunk the entire thing Sorry man, sorry [UNKNOWN] your idea is terrible It's probably just gonna be a teenager with Wikipedia in front of them Yeah I don't understand why this guy needs 2000$. Right. I mean what you even need the money for? [LAUGH] Yeah, you just need to set up a call center is essentially all he's doing. You just need to go back to the drawing board, is what he needs to do. He's like imagine a sex line. Okay. Now, forget a sex line cuz it has nothing to do with sex. You know the worse part of a sex line is? You have to have sex. [LAUGH] This is Craig, it's crazy! [LAUGH] Some people just get off on talking smart. See, We just don't get that because we don't have the IQ. No, it's not about that. This is the same god-damned thing we discussed yesterday with the projection watch. No. But in that bizarro universe, did you hear about this? There's this kickstarter with a, a wristband, it's an Indie Go-Go, whatever it is and the watch projects the time onto your hand I guess as a light source. Right. Yeah. So for those times when it's just too cold to roll up that coat. Whatever the hell wackadoo scenario you're gonna use it. And, but it got like mega funded like 180 times what they were asking for. And it was just, I don't know what it is. It just like you give people too much power and they'll, they'll go and fund, you know, and that's all the watch does Any watch does. That's just it. It just a simple watch face. Doesn't do anything. I mean I think, I think it has smart watch capabilities and whatever, but Yeah. We talked about it yesterday, it, it's just like, I was just like you watched a video and it's so, all it is is Photoshop high res photo. Right. It just. Maybe 130 dollars Yeah You have to charge it. I don't know.what. Yeah. It's crazy to me. That get's fun. This is gonna, you know, this will be, like, win the nobel prize. [LAUGH] How much is he asking for, for SmartLine. [CROSSTALK] He's asking for two grand. He's got a dollar. [CROSSTALK] Oh my gosh. He's got one backer. Oh. There's 24 days to go. Yeah, you can pledge a dollar. For this, and what do you get for a dollar? Oh you'll be added to a newsletter. Oh cool, that's worth it, you really made this worth my while. You've gotta pay for a newsletter? Yeah, that's crazy. Not everyone gets to grow up and do important things. That's what we learned today. Before we say goodbye, I want to get to, what do we want to get to, oh an e-mail from Lee. This Newfinland Canada writing from Lee. Thanks for all the great content. I've been tuning in for at least four to five years, and have never been disappointed by you. It's amazing how many people have been listening for so long as we never hear from them. Also the sphere is my Jesus. Well, at least we have something in common. Well, not really, but he's my favorite guest. That's not to speak ill of your other great guest, he's just my favorite. Anyway, this stuck me as quite funny. So I made it a thing on my phone. Party on dudes. Did I say this. Did I say DNA, its clearly a thing. I guess I might have said it. [LAUGH] Yeah I'm pretty sure you did, Sounds like. I think I was talking about, like, evidence of, like. Bout you know people's DNA being left behind or something like that. [LAUGH] But it's right, it's clearly a thing. It is. DNA. It's real. It looks like a poster that I would of had in like a. A school classroom. For sure. It's so weird. Yeah, biology class. Yeah. Yeah. Like, science. Get into it. Yeah. You know what's with that background? It just blows my mind, it's kind of clue. Yeah he kind of Photoshopped like my CNet profile photo here. You know, like, read a book. You won't regret it. Yeah. [LAUGH] Yeah. You know, like, one of those things. Well thanks Lee. You're truly a talented individual. And we appreciate the email. Keep on listening. Yes. Keep using your time productive- You kidding me? Well look, he said he whooped it up in a minute. All right? At least you didn't make a Kickstarter about it. True. That's it for us. Shoot us an email at the404@cnet.com, follow all of us on Twitter and the show. Subscribe to the sub Reddit and have some fun on there. And Facebook and Instagram and all that other crap. We'll be back tomorrow with brand new show. Until then, I'm Jeff Bagilier. I'm Justin Yu. I'm Ariel Nunez. This has been the 404 show, high tech, low brow, we'll see you tomorrow. [MUSIC]