Hello and welcome to the Weird Things
podcast. I'm Andrew Maine joined by
Brian Brushwood.
>> Hello. Hello.
>> And Mr. Justin Robert Young.
>> Hello friends.
>> GENTLEMEN, A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED.
>> Oh goodness. I I I I'll get to my
hovercraft fourth width.
>> Yeah, I should have leaned back from the
microphone when I did that. I apologize
to our listener.
[laughter]
My my technique is a little bit off. Uh,
gentlemen, a great injustice may have
been committed by one of America's
heroes.
>> Oh, no. Wait.
>> Daniel Boone. Oh, okay. So, this is not
a uh I was thinking it was a current
political thing. Wait, Daniel Boone
outside of Well, this is Frontier Times.
Was it stealing land? I'm told some of
that happened.
Yeah. You know, little bit of parcel
here, a little bit of parcel there. You
say it belongs to everybody. I say it
belongs to me. Hey, everybody's happy.
Um, no, not that. Um,
>> so I watched a YouTube video as I do as
a, you know, my primary source of
research and I'm going to give you the
name of the video because I think
everybody should check it out. Um, it is
a I liked it because it was a a person
it's a channel called Man Versus
History. He doesn't normally do like
strange story stuff, but uh
there was a story about Daniel Boone.
And apparently the only way you can
actually find it is in the ar there's an
archive of a collection of stuff about
Daniel Boone. And this was written by a
guy named Payne who Daniel Boone told
him this story and he wrote it down and
Boon had told other people the story,
but this was the most detailed account
of the story.
the title of the video.
>> The title story, [laughter]
>> did you're looking for this?
>> Yes. Go ahead. [laughter]
>> The uh the title of the video is, "Did
Boon kill a Bigfoot?" And then the
actual text title is the 1800's letter
claiming Daniel Boone killed a hairy
giant.
>> Oh, well, that can mean a lot of things.
A hairy giant.
>> Well, that goes into detail. So
apparently Daniel Boone and his son were
trying to chase after some Indians that
stole some horses and went way off. This
is often like in, you know, Kentucky.
And uh lost track of them and they were
walking back at a distance apart through
the fog. Couldn't see each other. And
Daniel heard his son's rifle fire,
right? And he goes and runs towards the
sound and sees what he describes as like
was like a nine foot tall creature
grabbing his son
>> tall.
>> Lifting the sun up over his head, throws
his son down to the ground,
grabs the son up again, hurls him down
to the ground. Boon takes his gun out,
aims it, fires, hits the giant in the
eye. He collapses on his son. He runs
over there, pulls the giant off of his
son and his son is unconscious and he
spends a considerable time trying to
revive his son, getting his son back,
getting his win to him, whatever.
Finally, his son comes about and said
that yeah, it came at him and he tried
to fire. He shot him in the chest and
there was like fired like twice and
there was two shots around the nipple
and and Boon looks in there and can see
that the bullets went through, but there
was like thick thick bone, not ribs,
it's thick bones. And what finally
killed him was the shot to the eye,
which was basically what took him down.
He described him as, you know, like
giant, having yellowish hair, you know,
and and thick teeth and just a large
man. And they like took a measurement of
how long he was and then basically went
back, you know, to town and were like,
"Well, that was crazy."
>> Hulk Hogan
>> maybe. Uh the stories are apparently the
Indians in that area had folklore about
giants. They talk about like, yeah, we
know these these giants. They lived
around such Lake O and so and that a
while ago they went extinct or they went
away. So there is a lot of historical
folklore around there. So I had I had
GPT Pro go research this and first it's
like well it could be a tall tale. I'm
like well
>> duh. [laughter]
But uh let's look a little bit more.
>> Can you find more stuff like Indian
folklore about giants and stuff? There's
a lot and there's actually more recent
accounts I mean to that time period of
people talking about like some giants
and giant tribes and stuff. So
>> So what would we think? All right.
Obviously here on weird things we have
to take these
>> we think it's
>> seriously but like
>> that's correct. Would we
in a less connected world where things
can kind of exist in plain sight a lot
easier
if this were just kind of like a kind of
off thebeaten path
inbred family that you know had like
Neanderl DNA
like is this is that possible? Is it
like like some weird coven of massive
humans?
>> I mean, you have a period of time where
you're talking the this is the 1800s.
By this point, you've had 300 years of
people coming from the new world to
here.
um you know [laughter] a bunch of
Swedes, you know, just looking for some
peace, some hippie Swedes or something.
>> Well, I guess we could start we could
start with that. I mean, we know that
Nordic humans can be quite tall and
novel and uh I would imagine because you
know, copy of a copy of a story, we
we've all heard about the fish getting
bigger over time. I could imagine maybe
a 6'3
Nordic dude suddenly.
>> Yeah. Does Does 63 look nine in the fog?
Let's also understand that like
if you are slaying a giant literally the
most hack way to do it is to say you hit
it in the eye like they did in the
Bibles. So it's like like that is like
the famous way that you kill giants. Um,
so
yeah, like I I putting aside the exact
way that this,
you know, humanoid human gets killed.
Maybe it is just, you know, a a uh a
Norwegian.
I'll give you some some things to think
about, you know, in that the problem
with Bigfoot story. Like there's a big
there's a new documentary that came out,
the whole Patterson film of the Bigfoot
thing. It's pretty much well debunked.
They even think they got the guy that
was in the suit who said he was in the
suit and you see this dude walk and
you're like, "Yep, I believe it." I
never I never
>> By the way, when you see Oh, when you
You mean the guy in the suit has a
particular gate that looks exactly like
the
>> Yes. Oh, that's funny.
>> Big hillbilly guy and like I walk like
this. You see him walking and you're
like, "Oh, yeah, that's him." Um, so,
uh, uh, because a lot of people, they're
local. And that that's like I never I
never really took that film that
seriously because it just sounded like
there's so many things around it and and
and I think that you know the Bigfoot
the the hard part about Bigfoot stories
or giant homoded stories
is we don't on one hand they'll say we
don't have skulls or we don't have bones
but
even I know paleontologists say this we
might have them they might be sitting in
boxes somewhere unclassified
and if you don't have, you know, if you
have fragments of a skull, fragments of
something, you might not know. And it
was the case that up until like 10 years
ago,
we barely had any fossils bigger than a
your thumb of chimpanzees
because animals that live in lush
forests or jungles, the bones don't last
long. They get eaten, they get
dissolved, and they don't get preserved.
And so there's entire categories of of
of so much of our picture of stuff is
conditional upon certain things working
out right which makes the story of human
like we had a very clean story of like
human evolution and human progress
outside Africa. Then we found remnants
of humans that were there tens of
thousands years before they were
supposed to get out. And it looks like
yeah they're probably humans keep going
off and wandering off in directions all
the time. but they didn't stick until
much later. You know, a little band goes
off somewhere else, you know, and
survives for a while and dies, you know,
and so that's not probably not uncommon.
And I'll give you an example, too, is
that
uh Justin and I have a friend, his
name's Chris, who was a park ranger in
Fort Lauderdale and uh or Broward
County. And uh he's at this big park.
One day he sees some homeless guy
walking through the park and just going
to the bushes.
He's like, "All right, what's what's
what's going on here?" Goes into the
bushes and finds an entire homeless
encampment in the park. And nobody knew
other than the homeless dudes. And you
have to think stuff like this happened
all the time. Splinters from tribes,
splinters from, you know, runaway
slaves, other people, settlers, family
members, people like this.
>> And it's outlawed when people running
from previous identities. you know, a
scammer, a con artist wants to skip
town.
>> I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going
to go off there. And and that happens
probably a lot, but it's hard to find
that kind of evidence of that. And so I
would say that that one is that you know
yeah you could have groups and stuff and
there's like when you read explor
exploratory stories like there's a story
when you know Alexander when they went
into like like India they talk about
encountering like monkey men you know
that that they knew what apes were you
know they encountered those before but
these accounts were like gez like you
know did did you have we have pretty
good reasons to think that when groups
like the Novvians and the Neandertols
died out, but we we we only say this is
the last known point at which we found
their bones. That can't be the po. We
can't have found the last Neanderl to
ever die. That just seems unlikely. That
seems highly improbable. But did the
real last one die a year later, a
hundred years later, a thousand years
later, or 10,000 years later? You know,
remember we we thought that, you know,
that the woolly mammoth went extinct,
you know, 10,000 years ago. Then we go
to the Rangal Islands and we find out
that they were around during the times
of the Egyptians and we're like, "Oh,
shoot." You know, like, you know, you
could have gone and seen one.
So, if we're if we're placing a bet
>> there there's a number I love the
Sasquatch legend because there's
something primal in us that wants to
visualize and see a protohuman, a larger
than-l life beast or whatever. One of
the explanations, I think I mentioned
this a couple weeks ago, but somebody
forwarded me from a a biologist, a map
that showed all of the Sasquatch
sightings and also a sighting uh the map
had superimposed all of the black bear
uh places where they're known. And they
showed black bear, it said in the
picture, it said sometimes black bears
will oftenimes stand on their hind legs.
And it says, "This map shows all of the
Sasquatch sightings, the Bigfoot
sightings, overlaid with all of the
black bears. The correlation suggests a
possible symbiotic relationship between
these two magical species, which I just
uh I adored. So I obviously I suspect a
nonzero amount of them are natural
wildlife, but in this case, the fact
that he's talking about a giant and and
clearly portraying it as dead and
unambiguously humanoid maybe means he he
shot a Norwegian who was [laughter] in a
fight.
Well, it also kind of makes you wonder
what happened before that, you know, if
it wasn't some Wendigo coming out of the
mists and attacking this poor boy.
>> Yeah, I think that, you know, again, the
most likely case is that it's a tall
tale. You I think we're all on board of
that. But but you know, you can't I've
told this story before, but man, I love
this story. We have a friend, Jack
Latona, who was a city commissioner in
Fort Lauderdale. And uh
one day his secretary comes in and says,
"Jack, I got a a woman on the phone.
She's like talking about zombies or
something." It's like, "What?" And he's,
you know, city commissioner's like, "Put
her through." Picks up the phone. He
goes, "Jack Leona." She goes, "Uh, the
dead are coming out of the ground."
[laughter]
Excuse me? He says, "The dead are coming
out of the ground and nobody's doing
nothing about it. I called the police,
called the fire department, nobody's
doing nothing. The dead are crawling out
of the ground." He's like, "Uh, all
right." Um, and Jack's, you know, Jack's
like, "You know, citizen, we have a
question." Calls up the police, says, "I
want you to send a car by there." I know
it sounds crazy, but can you send a car?
They send a police car over and it's in
this uh part of Fort Lauderdale where
they had a bunch bunch of like
affordable homes were built. So it was
like, you know, older kind of crappy
housing. And they go there and the woman
waits for them and says, "Let me show
you." She takes them out back to the
area behind the houses.
The ground had eroded away.
They had built it on top of a popper
cemetery.
>> Oh Jesus.
>> Ever moved the bodies. And now from
erosion there were skeletons and
[laughter] hands and
>> which by the way which by the way is not
that far off from the literal plot of
poltergeist. That's how that movie ends.
>> I know I know I know you forgot to move
the bodies. Uh but yeah, here it was
like that's they're like, "Oh geez." You
know, like and and this poor woman is
it's like, you know, it's like it was
like Jeffrey Dmer's neighbor like
there's something terrible going. Oh,
come on, lady. You're like, "Oh, come
on, lady." Like listen to the old lady
cuz uh they got eyes on everything. Like
that's a case where you're like, "Where
could this possibly go?" Yeah. The dead
were coming out of the ground because
the rain had been massive rains eroding
away the dirt and revealing the bodies
beneath.
>> Yeah. Well, and it's it's one of those
things where it's like not technically
wrong. I mean, the the words that she
said were accur accurate. The dead were
coming out of the ground and nobody was
doing anything about it.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, in the case of this, you know, I I I
think that it's it's there are areas in
our history and prehistory that are kind
of inconvenient. And the problem too is
if you're an archaeologist or a
paleontologist,
you get inundated with so much BS and
nonsense and people clinging to things
much longer than they should and who
won't accept anything because we fall in
love with an idea. You like I think the
Yeti is a cool story. Yeti is a really
neat idea.
It's a bear. [laughter] You know, it's
it's even more closely seems like the
bear.
>> The Bigfoot black bear thing. I will say
this,
man. You know it's also if you told me
where can large mammals survive
[laughter]
you know you know might be the same area
but but yeah just hard you know that
that you know and there's thing too is
like we may have had instances where
things were around much more recent but
then get went extinct you know 200 years
ago you know or 100 years ago you know
the last one died in you know the the
mountains of Kentucky in 1922.
Yeah. Well, and uh this is one of those
things where the more over the
increasingly close to 20-year history of
this program, a number of stories, the
closer you get, you you find let let's
just say over the years, we've learned
to not so much trust eyewitness
testimony on this program. And there
there seems to be an ideal version of a
lot of stories that everybody wants like
whatever the source reality is in the
telling and retelling the story drifts
to a platonic ideal of that version
which is I suspect the reason we hear so
many familiar myths again and again and
again through various cultures.
>> Yeah. You know, I I wonder too where
we know the Neandertols and the Nobians
made it to Siberia
and there may they may have made it to
China. Um we have no evidence that they
ever made it to the Americas. But here's
the thing. Um sea levels were much
different. And that's the thing we
always forget as we look at a globe and
like look at this. sea levels were much
lower. Most of human a lot a big part of
human civilization may be underwater.
You know, if you look back at when that
could have happened 10,000 years ago,
etc. underwater. We we've been able to
market within human times. There were
there were like farms in southern
England and islands in southern England
during the Roman period that don't exist
anymore because water levels rose up and
covered them. Mhm.
>> And if you had if Neanderls were chasing
game that was making it across from one
side to the other on the land bridge. Um
and there periods when the land bridge
is iced over then it's uniced and
whatnot. But also kind of further out
like you could have had settlements of
Neanderls Denzovians that you know off
the coast of California and Washington
or whatever.
They're gone now. You know that that
just don't exist anymore. Unless they
made it into the highlands, but even
then if they were sporadically in the
Highlands, you know, which is, you know,
reguland, we never know.
>> Yeah, that'll be interesting to know.
>> Uh 66 to Kentucky.
>> I I I'm curious as as as
robots have gotten better and better at
inferring things from degraded materials
like including like uh here's a pro tip.
try having the most bizarre chicken
scratch. Try to have a robot read it.
And it's astonishingly good at figuring
out kind of the intention of sloppy
handwriting on there. And as we get
better, it makes me wonder to the extent
that that we could trust it. how much
recoverable unambiguous data is embedded
in the fossil record in the stone record
or I don't know in in some kind of
intermediate signal.
I I think that there's you know this
account the Daniel Boone account it
exists in an archive. You have to go
there and look at it in person. It's
never been digitized. It's not on the
web. And we are I am very guilty of
thinking of how much thinking that
everything that's searchable is already
on the web when actually a lot of the
interesting stuff like 99.9% of the
interesting stuff never been digitized
isn't there. Well, well, and and that
was a problem because I I thought of
what I thought was a very clever
storytelling apparatus where uh I
wondered if if I had a big enough
archive of just random public or CB
radio recordings, then I could get
transcripts of everything and then ask a
robot like, "Hey, somewhere out there
are probably enough records of people
meeting each other over walkie-talkies
on CB, eventually becoming friends, and
there's probably out there some random
recording of maybe the night before
Nixon stepped down or or some
interesting moment in history. And could
we out of this vast data set of randomly
recorded overthe-air broadcasts
construct a fascinating narrative
truthfully out of footage that's that's
there? I thought for sure there would be
vast treasure troves of random
recordings of CB radio and there almost
certainly are. certainly at the
government level, certainly at some
number of declassified giant uh troves
of them, not in any publicly searchable
way reaching out to archive.org. Uh if
they if they have it, they're too busy
with clients involving three-letter
agencies or something. But um the amount
of dark story that is locked away in
magnetic realtore tapes has to be
absolutely astonishing.
Yeah, I could see ham. Maybe not as much
C CV because at Citizens Band and the
range is smaller, which was means if
you're recording it,
>> somebody some crazy person had to be
recording everything in Manhattan for
some amount of time.
>> I It's a lot of channels. I mean, yeah,
I think that you're right. I think
there's probably somewhere in some
attics or something like that. But
that's the thing is like that media is
getting thrown away every day.
>> Every single day. you know, one of the
biggest
>> it was it was limited back then. So
clearing clearing the cash was kind of
more of a necessity.
>> But to your point, I think yeah, I think
there's tons of stuff out there and you
think about like how man like you know,
you go through your grandparents stuff
and you find tons of photographs and
either you throw them away or you just
put them in a box and like just all
those photographs. We just got uh my
wife my wife just transferred some
stuff. My mom made home videos of my mom
when she was a little girl, you know. Oh
wow. which is just stuff for the 1940s,
you know, just that kind of like slice
of Americana life.
>> Well, well, that's the uh the ratio that
I was thinking of like like taking my
own life. If I were to think of all of
the film, the photos,
>> don't take your own life, Brian. Never.
[laughter]
Um, when I when I think of all of the
magnetic storage, all the audio tapes,
all of the the film video footage or
whatever, and as a percentage, I would
say of all the the content generated in
my lifetime, 0.00001%
of it is online, which if that
>> you're saying it's a good thing.
>> Yes. But but if that is indicative of
just what a distortion we we have where
we think we're seeing the real world
when we look around YouTube.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean that that's
the that's why I really you know what
the internet archive that's why I really
appreciate most of what they're trying
to do you know um you know except during
the co when they decided to pirate every
author's books and take away their
livelihood. Other than that
>> oh wait what happened then? Tell me
about this.
>> Well, during they they said we're going
to do the emergency book library because
normally what it is, you have a book and
if you want to let borrow a digital
copy, they have to have a physical copy
of the book. Right. Right.
>> But they did this thing. They're like
emergency library all books any you
could just borrow any any unlimited
number of books you want. Right. which
if you were an author or an indie author
or somebody at that point who's looking
at your book income, you know, the idea
that that in the spirit of take sticking
it to the publishers, you're going to
stick it to, you know, the authors. I
was like, man, like uh I know why this
sounded like a good idea, but I can tell
you why for authors who are counting on
book royalties, particularly ebook
royalties, like this is this is not not
good, you know, like like you know,
nobody nobody was going to go stir crazy
for lack of things to read during that
period. But there were people counting
on book income that are all of a sudden
being threatened by the fact that you're
like, I know you're making money from
Kindle books, but we got to let
everybody read your stuff for free. you
know, go hunt for rats, you know.
[laughter]
>> But I mean, I think an amazing list of
bad ideas during the pandemic.
>> I'd say that's number one. [laughter]
You know, if anybody else has anything
to fill out the top five, I'm I'm
willing to hear. But number one with a
bullet.
>> Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. That's it.
>> The one mistake we made during the
pandemic. Make that the title of the
episode.
>> Yeah. Um but yeah, what? But that's
thing it's like an amazing you know
repository like but to your point like
you know in and like I agree is that you
know there was that time when like uh
the NSA asked NASA like hey if you had
another Hubble class telescope
>> would that be cool [laughter] and
they're like yeah I'm like
>> yeah you'll never guess what we found
you know in our basement multibillion
dollar highresolution telescope. Yeah,
just one rule. You must never point it
at Earth.
>> Yeah, that's it. That's it.
>> Not because it's not capable of pointing
at Earth, [laughter]
>> but but because you shouldn't.
>> Yeah. So, I think it's a that, you know,
the problem is is that
that stuff lasts as long as people care
about it and and agencies care about it
and as long as it's maintained, you
know. So,
Yeah. Hey, this is a good opportunity
for us to shout out everybody who's a
patron over at patreon.com/weird
things. Here's a fun fact. Patreon has
switched the way it counts your
contributions. We were per creation,
which was, you know, we were a little
bit erratic, a little bit behind
schedule or whatever. Good news, we are
very, very regular. so much fiber in our
intellectual diets that we are like a
clock give or take. But the important
part is you get all of the feed. You get
exclusive access to the after things or
yeah after things the super secret
patronon after things talk where we give
pro tips up totheminute for independent
creators of all stripes. Head on over to
patreon.com/weird
things and become a supporter. Thank you
for your support. Uh, I asked about
Neanderls in America.
>> Do you want the report?
>> I do.
>> And I used I used Astra High by the way.
>> Mhm.
>> Andrew again with this. No. Um, but
yeah. [laughter] Uh,
>> for the last time. Dot dot dot.
>> Jesus. Tokens cost money. I talked to
Sam and he said, "Cut it out." Uh, there
is no confirmed evidence Neanderl has
ever reached North America. No Neanderl
fossils, identical tools, or ancient DNA
have been found there. However, there's
an intriguing possibility that some
archaic humans reached Americas much
earlier than generally accepted. The
route would have been plausible
geographically. Neandertols reached
southern Siberia and during periods of
lower sea levels, the burying landbridge
connected northern Asia with Alaska,
northeastern Asia with Alaska. The
problem is that we have no evidence
Neanderls traveled that far northeast.
The intriguing exception California
130,000 years ago. In 2017, researchers
published a paper in nature describing
the Serudi Mastadon site near San Diego.
They discovered masttodon bones broken
in ways they interpret as deliberate
hammering along with the sto stones they
believe that were used as tools. The
material was dated to approximately
130,000 years ago when Neandertols and
Denisovians were still alive. The
researchers suggested that an
unidentified human relative might have
reached North America. They specifically
considered Neandertols and Denisovians
as possibilities, but the interpretation
remains highly controversial. Other
archaeologists argue that natural
processes or construction damage could
account for the broken bones. There are
no human fossils at the site and the
evidence has not gained widespread
acceptance.
There is much stronger evidence that
homo sapiens reached North America at
least 23,000 years ago. Yeah, I think
that we're nobody's really shocked by
that. So,
but that's just it is that some of these
sites like they could, you know, unless
they went further inland um who knows
and that's San Diego. That's a long
track. So, talking about how humans can
get around and how far they could get
around, have did you guys spot the news
of Carl Bushby, the guy who walked
around the freaking world,
including including walking across the
Bearing Straight. Uh, this is he he
started his journey in the late 90s
around 1998. He left the UK and said,
"I'm going to start walking and I'm
going to walk from Argentina all the way
up." He walked across the uh the
Illutian Islands during winter and
showed up in Russia. They were not fans
of these undocumented travelers just
showing up on the border. Ended up
taking two months to get all the
paperwork sorted out. And he continued
to walk. He swam across the English
Channel. That was the most recent part.
and he experienced according to the
article I believe I read in uh New York
Times he uh a profound sense of loss I
mean nearly 30 years and you just show
up and and your purpose that keeps you
walking step after step after step
you're about to just end then I guess I
guess you'll finally go on tour and say
yep I walked it the
>> I'd be pissed if I had to get a job too.
[laughter]
>> The bums lost. Mr. Labowski,
condolences.
[laughter]
>> You know, it it it it's
interesting too cuz like like that's you
brought that up like that's people like
you can like people like oh the land
bridge like you could do it now if you
did sleds and stuff like this. It's 53
miles. It's 53 miles between Alaska and
Russia at the closest point. And 20,000
years ago, you just walk across easier
with with wild weather. Here, you have
to do it when it's like really really
harsh, freezing cold. But and you can
you can do it and there's no reason to
think that, you know, it hasn't been
done a lot.
>> Uh Andrew, it sounded like you had a
little skepticism to The Walking Man.
>> Oh, Busby.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh no, I I I think I think technically
everything holds up to be true, you
know.
Um and I and he was like he would go do
the trip, go part of the journey, then
go back and do normal stuff, then come
back and go do it, right?
>> Yeah. Uh yeah, he I'm certain that
during that time, you know, he would I
think I think the the game plan was to
resume. Okay. Where were we? We were
here. Now keep on going. But I think the
one hard and fast rule from what I read
in the stories is that he did adhere to
I don't set foot in the UK until I've
walked all the way back.
Well, I'm with you, brother. [laughter]
>> Way ahead of you.
>> I ain't even
>> Yeah, I just saw
>> there was just just last week we had a
guy that walked from New York to here,
which is, you know, different, but it
was just he was he was basically his
story was like like just nothing going
on. He's just like he's like bored. He's
like, I don't know, like what if I just
walk to California? [laughter] You know,
>> I watched I think Oh, go ahead.
>> Go. Oh, no. Go ahead, please.
>> Oh, uh, there there was a guy uh Oh,
goodness. I got to I can't access his
name right now, but there's a guy who
skateboarded across America just this
past summer. You live streamed the whole
thing on YouTube. It was it was a trip.
I would check in once a day and there
there'd be a lively chat where everyone
was just watching this dude skateboard
and it's like, you know, our days come
and go, but then over a month you're
like, "Oh yeah, he was in the desert and
now he's in Texas and and he went north
to Dallas instead of Austin. Otherwise,
I would have tried to high-five him or
whatever." Like those those Yeah, I was
trit to say, but it's like how do you
eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Yeah, I think we will see more of this.
I think we're going to see more of this
kind of stuff. I think that there's a
lot of like you have the Apple agent
trail, you have this. I think that as
we get tired of spending all of our time
on screens or in front of screens or the
fact that we can just take a screen with
us, I think that we're going to see I
think there's going to be a lot of that.
I I get, you know, f future prediction
times everybody
as
we I think we're going to have the next
10 years. I think it's going to see
physically we're going to see just a
bunch of radical changes and stuff. You
know, I I was, you know, was in Austin
last week took, you know, I have a
Tesla. I use it to drive me all the
time. I had to put my Tesla in the shop,
so I just rented another Tesla with full
self-driving because I just don't want
to drive. And when you use something
where it has complete full self-driving
like the Tesla Cyber Cab where there's
not even a steering wheel, you know, I
that's how I got around to Austin last
week was hopped into a Cyber Cab. No
steering wheel at all taking you from
point A to point B. I love Whimo, but
Whimo, you don't sit in the driver's
seat because there's still a steering
wheel there. It looks like a retrofitted
car, but when you sit inside of a car
meant for this, these things are going
to change the way we think about land,
the way we change about the world around
us. And I think that we're going to
start thinking about like, do we want to
build a really cool walking path, you
know, between, you know, Austin and, you
know, Houston? Do we want to build a
cool walking path, you know, along the
Mississippi? You know, do we want to
build these things
>> there? Last time I checked on it a
couple years ago, there was talk about a
hike and bike trail like 150 mi long
that would go from north of Austin all
the way to south of San Antonio. And uh
that seemed like a theoretical thing,
but as the nature of work changes where
you could do an awful lot by simply, you
know, by cell phone, uh your job is to
handle a task all the way to completion.
Who cares what your body is up to in
that meantime?
Yeah. Our buddy Brett, you know, he
bought a house in the Oakland Hills and
then to his delight found out at the end
of the street there was a trail that
goes all the way to the little small
town with an ice cream shop and and you
find the these things become delightful.
The things that we liked about small
town America, things we liked about
that. I think there'll be a big push
towards doing that. I think that there's
going to be a lot of energy towards
doing that. I live in an area with a lot
of hiking and whatnot and a lot of
trails lot of trails and stuff for
people to walk along and go around on
and I just think that trend is going to
continue because I think that you know
as we can reclaim a lot of land we'll
probably start using for you look at
what happened like you done the highline
in New York.
>> No.
>> Oh man is this is it's it's if you go to
New York you've got to go walk on the
Highline. Okay. What they did was they
had this big uh you know these subway
tracks, these elevated park thing, you
know, mile and a half that was part of
like the railroad that they didn't need
to use for that anymore. And they're
like, "Hey, what if we just turn this
into an elevated park?" And it's this
amazing elevated parkway above New York
City that you can just walk a mile and a
half without having to cross an
intersection. and they've got, you know,
you know, places to read, little hot dog
carts, whatever along the way. And it's
just I I think just it's changed my
experience of New York is to walk along
the Highline.
>> Well, and
>> and you look at this.
>> Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a fair bit of
distance. And that's all kind of uh
installed green belt the whole way.
>> Yeah.
>> That's very cool.
>> Well, kind of. I mean, it's greenish
belt. Not consistently, but yeah.
>> Green for New York.
Yeah, it's practically the freaking
rainforest over here. Hey, this city.
Yeah. So, I think it would be great. Uh,
you they just added some more sections
to it, which they say it's the final
piece, but I'm like, man, like let's
let's do that with the rest of the city,
you know? And, uh, you know about
Salesforce Park in San Francisco?
>> I don't.
>> Oh, man. Go look up Salesforce Park.
Okay, the city owns it. Salesforce got
the naming rights for this, but it's
right now if you look at you see the the
Salesforce building, which is the
tallest building in San Francisco, but
if you look at Salesforce Park and just
click on images, it looks like something
out of a science fiction movie. It's a
threeb block long elevated park in the
middle of the city
>> there. I'm going to go to boy all of the
let's see images. google.com.
Let's try that. Uh, salesforce park.
That's part park San Francisco. Oh,
there we go. Wow.
Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. They
have a jogging path all the way around
it. They have they have a public
sections where they like dance, you
know, do dance lessons. There's a coffee
and a bar up there.
uh just a really really neat place and
it's connected too on the upper level to
other buildings. So, I'll do meetings
where I'll go to Salesforce Park and
again, you're several stories up, you
know, but you just feel like you're in a
park and then you go to a meeting, you
know, at a building that's connected to
it that way. And I I think that I think
that's what's really going to be
exciting was because then with
automation, etc., these things become
cheaper. It's a lot lot cheaper to do
this. And that's the big thing, the big
blocker,
>> you know. Um, other things are going to
be provably hard. You know, building a
bullet train in California, which is
just a graft machine for consult.
>> It's a couple billion more, man. You're
only It's like that picture of the of
the guy who's digging a tunnel and he's
right about to get to the diamonds and
he gives up. That's the bullet train.
>> Same with the Austin light rail. We just
need a few more billion and this thing
is going to just be wired up.
>> It's going to be so light, so railed.
just uh you're not even going to need
whatever the other things are.
>> So, well, especially uh Andrew, to your
point, as studies show that there's
something
uh something important about humans
connecting to nature. And I know that in
the hippie standpoint, we all feel that
way. But like quite literally being
around natural environments rel releases
more of the appropriate endorphins and
hormones that cause anti-inflammatory
uh processes that saves lives that
extends life. And so we are built, you
know, whether you believe that that we
are inspired to be built by it or we
evolved to be in a natural habitat and
to feel good and relaxed and not have
cortisol in environments like that.
We're also built to move our bodies to
walk for long periods of times. That's
how we conquered the planet is by simply
out walking game. Then it makes sense
that the nature of work will be yeah
we'll have tasks to do but we will
arrange our lives such that we do a lot
of the things that we're built to do
like walking around and finding things
we'll call it shopping instead of
hunting but you know we'll be doing a
proto version of what we were designed
to be.
>> Yeah I think it we we find it enjoyable.
So I I I think that you know creating
these spaces so it's it's like what do I
look forward to the future? I look
forward to there's a lot of nice things
that we we could if they were slightly
cheaper we would build them. You know,
if if we had more labor to direct at
that. And it's also like ah what happens
to the construction people? Like there's
a thousand things you can do in your
city right now to make it a much more
enjoyable livable city that's going to
take way more people supervising
projects than there are people to do
them. And you know there will never be
enough robots or people to do all the
things we could do.
I mean right now it's like look uh uh
between now and the fully autom
robot uh run construction future there's
a lot of things to make and construction
people are making a pretty good uh
pretty penny these days.
So, I I met with some people earlier in
the week who've been going around
talking to different uh um
companies and one of the things they
just talked to a fusion company working
on fusion and they said that AI has been
so helpful now for doing complex
problems because if you want to build a
fusion reactor turns out not easy
>> and you have to solve for all kinds of
things figuring out like what's going to
happen with your plasma energy things
all these prediction models and stuff
and they're saying that they're just
they're so excited now because they're
able to use these AI models to generate
algorithms and predictions that were
just previously like you know extremely
time consuming which you know
accelerates us towards stuff. So do do
we think it's not a question of if but
when on fusion being being like how we
power at least the USA.
>> Uh yeah so I ran into Daario Gil who's
the under secretary of the department of
energy a couple weeks ago.
>> Ran into as one does.
>> As you do well you know it was a party
thrown by Mark Zuckerberg you know as
one attend.
Oh, Mark Bark, what are you up to now?
[laughter]
Uh,
he uh I asked Under Secretary Gil like
he originally was at IBM working on
quantum, which is interesting, you know,
quantum computing and stuff and then he
went to work for the government and to
help the the DOE. And I asked him, you
know, like what's what's his what is his
timeline for Fusion? And then I told him
he was wrong, by the way. Um, so, uh, he
was he's very very bullish on Fusion. He
says he it's [laughter] everybody
>> under secretary. There you go again.
>> I I'll tell you why. I'll tell you what
I said and I think you would agree. Um
is that is that there is this
expectation we think in the next couple
years we'll probably have a breakthrough
and see some sort of sustainable fusion
reaction that generates more energy than
it takes in and that there's enough
players at it enough reason. It really
comes down to just some engineering
problems. We like ah is it impossible?
Yay. I say nay look at the sun. We know
it. We know it works at that scale. Um
so we we know fusion works and we know
that fusion is the source of all energy
that we have on earth is pretty much
came from fusion and even if the
radioactive elements that we use to
generate stuff originally formed inside
of stars based on fusion. So we know
fusion is downstream everything. Anyhow,
he was he was very bullish on it, you
know, thinking that, you know, it's
likely to happen. Um, you know, you
know, the time frame, you know, like
he's thinking like mid mid 2030s, you
know, we'll probably start to see, you
know, realistically happening. And I
said, I think the roll out will happen
faster than people think. He's like, you
know, well, you're an idiot. I'm the
under secretary. Why would you even
think that? I said, you are correct,
sir. Uh, I've said this to other people,
and this is why I think the roll out
will happen.
the from the point at which somebody
makes a sustainable fusion reaction.
Okay? And I I I I bring I bring receipts
here.
If I went we went back in time
36 months
and said the amount of compute that we
were going to have online right now the
valuations of anthropic and opening eye
how many trillions of dollars were being
spent on AI
>> you would think I was crazy you would
think that's absurd once we had chat GPT
moment and then we saw scaling with GPT4
everybody else woke up and said oh
Shoot, let's make this happen. Now I
have on my phone I have AI systems that
we did not think were possible 3 years
ago because all this effort, all this
energy went into going to do that. Now
the moment somebody steps forward and
says, "Yes, we've have a sustainable
fusion reaction." What is every nation
on the planet going to go do? Well,
shoot, we need our own energy program,
too. We need to put money and effort
into this. What is everybody who's going
to be paying tons of money for energy,
particularly all the people paying a lot
right now for AI is going to say, "Well,
shoot. We need to have our version of
this right now." And I think it will
dwarf AI spend.
Really? I mean, okay, I'm trying to
think of what negative externality, like
for example, Generation Z, uh, we talked
about this on on our comedy podcast of
all things, uh, seems to have a boomers
dropped the ball on nuclear fision. It
was greener than expected. Their fear
>> progressive boomers dropped the ball.
>> Correct. Correct. But there is among the
youths a strong inclination to get, you
know, to go nuclear. And if there's
clean nuclear in the form of fusion,
like the only negative externality that
pops to my mind immediately is maybe
quite literally too much energy heating
up the the earth. I don't know what what
would be the
>> downside. I believe in the negative
externalities. I think they're going to
rise to the occasion. I [laughter] think
that we can't see them right now, but I
I'm not counting them out. I mean, like,
imagine
there were something so prolific yet so
benign, just these silent
big buildings that were in inconspicuous
places all throughout America that all
of a sudden became highly highly highly
controversial because of negative
externalities. like you know that that
would be that would be the kind of thing
that I think we don't discount in terms
of the track record of raising negative
salience against anything new that
requires a tremendous amount of capital
investment.
>> Well, it's not like Justin in the town
of let's say Los Angeles, California,
giant wouldbe fourstory tall buildings
with no windows were secretly housing
energy generators. Uh, I'm talking about
the hidden oil derks all over freaking
uh Los Angeles that are that do have
negative externalities. Boy, that would
be a hard cell to explain to taxpayers
why you shouldn't have fusion reactors
all over the place. But I'm sure
somebody will rise to the occasion.
>> Yeah. No, there'll be a reason. You
know, you'll you'll invent,
you know, some kind of downstream
negative thing that happens with uh
fusion. I mean, anything new will be
scary. Anything new will have,
especially with with entrenched
powers like there are in um
in energy, let alone uh you know, kind
of foreign push back because uh you
know, it's very cheap to sway public
opinion in America relatively. Uh
>> can I Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Um
>> no, you go ahead.
No, I yeah, I think that we're going to
see, like I said, I think the energy is
considered downstream of just everything
else. The global demand for this is
going to be phenomenal that I think that
we're cuz once you solve for energy, you
know,
>> you solve for transportation, you solve
for construction, you solve for
cleaning. Uh like think about like this
will be hard. This will be really hard
for humans to wrap their mind around.
Let's go ahead and say you get fusion,
which means you get clean uh robots or
whatever. Like, do you think humans give
up sorting their recycling? Do you think
humans are able to emotionally embrace
uh I'm gonna throw all my trash in the
same bucket and clean run hunting and
pecking robots are going to sort
everything such that everything gets
perfectly reused and recycled? I I don't
know. I I think that just like we talked
about at the beginning of the show,
certain stories, we have archetypes that
we want all the stories to drift to. I
think that I think that we want to every
single part of our lives do a a sorting
of of dirty things from clean things.
some more than that. Well, I
>> but I would just say though that yeah I
mean but back but I do think that I'm
from saying from a capital expenditure
point of view we we're spending we know
that and like I think long term it's AI
is going to be bigger but I think that
the amount of money that will be spent
towards this particularly by AI
companies that want to lower the cost of
energy is going to be colossal and I
think that it's going to be the data
center build I think from a buildout
point of view it's going to be even
bigger than the data center buildout and
economically I think it's going to be
just this incredible boom. I think that
um I am scared about getting an
administration that's anti-AI because
that could lead to anti-growth. I make
myself optimistic in the sense that even
if that happens, we will probably see
within the next five years hopefully a
fusion boom which will then create a new
which will probably have less
resistance, you know, but the best would
be both.
>> Here's here's what I know. But when it
booms, it will boom first in Texas. Like
the one thing about Texas is when it
comes to diversification of new energy
sources. Like it it does not care.
There's a reason why Texas leads the
nation in green energy uh uh production.
They're like, "Do you want to, you know,
solar farm?" It's like, "I don't know.
Sounds French. Here's your permit. Good
luck." [laughter]
>> Yeah. Well, and uh yeah, two even talk
about negative externalities. When the
ice apocalypse hit in Texas, that was
largely because, ironically, Texas has
the biggest green energy grid in the
United States, which meant unreliable
generation. Yeah, there was there was I
don't know that that's that's a that's a
whole another chestnut to crack on on
who who pointed the finger at various
different places, but um there's no
doubt that it has a diversified and
resilient energy portfolio and that's
because Texas has kept a a relatively
light touch on on approving any and all
uh forms of it. I think largely because
it it is on its own grid and it wants to
make sure that it has every available
advantage because of it.
>> All right. Uh Brian, I sent you a link.
>> Okie do.
>> Something that back to an earlier topic
we talked about something I always think
about is like it's interesting to
visualize what the coastlines were.
I just had Chat GPT Pro build
a tool with a slider.
>> Oh. So you can see what coastlines are.
>> Okay, here. There we go. Oh, wow. Okay,
so this is uh for the audio listeners,
I'm seeing a globe uh or a Mercer
projection map of the world and it's at
current time and I'm scrolling backwards
and we're seeing the water levels rise a
lot around 80,000 years ago.
Is there continental drift over time?
>> Marginal marginal.
>> We're going back.
Wow. There was uh I guess during an ice
age around 290,000
years ago here. Let me see if I can make
this a little bit bigger for the video,
folks.
This is cool.
>> Um let me see if I can figure out a way
to save it with everybody. Um,
>> uh, I think you could just tell it to
make it publicly available. I could
paste it in the chat.
>> No, it's publicly available. We paste. I
was just going to try to find a better
name for it.
>> Okay. Well, here I'll I'll paste it in
the chat for everyone. By the way,
shouts out to everyone who shows up
live. Um, again, Friday afternoons is
when we like to go live with this
program.
>> Yeah.
Although we're told some people listen
years and years and years in the future.
We marveled at one of our listeners who
discovered the program and was like,
"Well, let me go to episode one."
So, I I to me it's amazing because
I I've thought about how it would be
really cool to have this tool to sort of
show this
And here it exists. And and so go back.
>> Oh, go back to when
>> So we had this period of time we talked
about when they the San Diego bones was
like 133,000 years ago.
>> Mhm.
>> Go back to like 130,000 years and look
there.
>> Okay.
It looks like we had a lot more
coastlines. So I assume it was a lot
colder back then.
>> Yeah. But look at look at Alaska and
look at Russia.
>> Yeah.
Wow. Yeah. You could just walk across.
>> Yep.
Just a jaunty little walk across.
Hop skipping a jump.
>> Just an easy breezy. So wait a minute.
If if let's say let's say we have
fusion, which means we have as much
energy as we want. Can the globe get in
the business of just straight up saying
we got too much water. Let's let's
freeze a bunch of it.
>> Could we say that again?
>> Like if we had infinite energy, can we
globally because I know we're a closed
system globally. That's part of the
reason that we have to worry about
global warming. But but with energy,
could we just cause the ice caps to get
gigantic and freeze?
>> Repack the ice caps.
>> Yeah, exactly. And then have set the
water level globally to whatever we want
it to be.
your okay you have two issues there.
One is the amount of energy it would
take would be because if you think of
like what energy how much energy does it
take to make you know one kilogram of
water freeze you got to remove that heat
from it right
>> oh no I would imagine that we would
manufacture cloud cover it would take a
lot of energy to basically reflect a lot
of light is what I'm imagining
>> oh you want to do that you want to do
you want to do geoengineering at that
level you monster
>> um if We learned anything from the movie
I haven't seen called Digger. [laughter]
It's that box office poison is his
nested levels of of
uh farce.
>> Well, you know, we do that with like
we'll do like black balls and stuff like
this. You know, one of the things that
causes uh one of the things that we
think may have caused ice loss is
actually suit. You know, like right now,
China has built more coal plants than
you can imagine in the last 10 years
like we had like the last history or
something crazy like that. And that
sends fine dust particles which changes
the albido of snow which causes greater
snow loss
>> and melt. So, would I be right in sort
of reducing it down to uh black, the
color black absorbs more heat and and
when you got soot everywhere? Yeah.
>> Yep. That's it. Um so, that's an issue.
But if all of a sudden we're able to get
rid of that, we're able to get rid of
the the the the dust particles and stuff
like that that cause ice melt, whatever,
that alone can help. But also, you know,
one of the things you could do too is
just if you want to lower sea levels to
make available more land and, you know,
strip away and destroy a lot of the
coastal life that we come to love.
Brian, um, [clears throat]
>> that's what Brian Brian will often lose
himself talking about how much he wants
coastal wildlife genocide. Oh,
>> he will just uh uh just just musing
endlessly about shrimp corpses as far as
the eye can see. [laughter]
>> Yeah, I heard that some people want to
minimize shrimp suffering. And I said,
"No, we we got to maximize it."
>> Yeah. Brian wanders around the woods of
his property naked but for dead coral
upon his head like antlers.
>> Yep.
>> I wonder Yeah. I mean, I wonder if he
did a project where you're like, "Let's
just fill the Grand Canyon."
[laughter]
>> Uh well, who knows what kind of crazy
eco
>> That'd be amazing if it's like
>> I'm gonna I'm gonna be a single issue
presidential candidate. We're filling
the grandkid. [laughter]
This mistake has been a glaring error in
America's dominance for too long. And
I'm gonna fix it. I'm filling the Grand
Canyon.
>> Yeah.
>> I am mobilizing every resource the
federal government has to fill the Grand
Canyon first and foremost before any
other priority.
Uh,
>> so, uh, rumor has it that Tesla is about
to announce
reservations for the Optimus robot later
this year.
>> Uh, yeah.
>> If we're going to go by Elon M,
when would the first Optimus robot be
delivered, Maine?
>> Well, if you paid for a Tesla Roadster
deposit. Mhm.
>> In the original time, which was like
2017 or what was it? Let me get this
right. I don't want to say it wrong. Uh
um
when was the the when did you originally
start taking
deposits on that? because I I think
that's
that's a the second generation was
announced in November 2017
and they started taking uh deposits
which by my math uh next year will be
nine years ago.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh flexible relationship with deadlines
that one.
>> Yeah. Now, uh, it was set to start
production 2020. That was the promise,
which was six years ago. Uh, so
the demo, we talked about the demo. The
demo was amazing of the new Roadster
with the cold cold gas thrusters.
Fantastic. Amazing. I I
>> even if it does turn out that that was a
helium balloon with I don't care.
>> Still cool. I I I have had people like,
ah, they gutted it out, but I they
probably gutted out whatever. Still
amazing. still cool. Like I don't care.
I don't think a human being will ever go
through it in that capacity will do that
ever outside of a Red Bull, you know,
spot.
>> Yeah. Like like I'm sure this will make
for an amazing moment during Nitro
Circus.
>> Exactly. Uh it's phenomenal. But I'd say
that's that's the challenge. So in
theory, he says they're going to start,
you know, pre-selling uh and we don't
even know what the new the new price is
for the new Tesla. By the way, the new
Roadster is though. They like they like,
"Oh, I heard that last $50,000." I'm
like, "No, that's the deposit."
[laughter]
>> Yeah,
>> it's price TVD
$50,000 deposit because if you blanket
that, you are not going to like the
actual price. I mean, that's that's sort
of a selection filtering mechanism where
it's like if you want to know what's on
the other side of that deposit, then
then
>> because the good news is for people who
give you $50,000 is that they're not
going to ask any questions up to and
including whatever happened to my
$50,000. [laughter]
If you are giving $50,000 away that
freely, like you're like, "Ah, let me
know. Let me know when if it's done.
Otherwise, okay." Yeah.
>> Hey, so uh
>> we we tap danced around it, but we lost
a major Star Trek icon,
>> Walter Koig,
>> dead at 90.
>> And then Patrick Stewart. Holy moly.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Two of those guys back to
back. You know,
>> this is I'm choosing to believe they
don't come in threes.
I am. That's it. Two.
>> Look. Yeah, let's let's not let's not
even start listing off anybody that
would be uh the third man on the match
there. But uh
yeah, Patrick Stewart, man, what a
career. Absolutely stellar career.
Somebody who kind of did it all. drama,
comedy, genre, uh, Shakespeare, you
know, really pioneered that entire
pathway,
uh, like to legitimize
comic book movies with like
Shakespearean talent. Uh, and that was
after, you know, just totally uh uh
doing, you know, the the not impossible,
but incredibly difficult of keeping Star
Trek alive for literally a new
generation.
>> Yeah. Boy, what a what an audacious plan
that sounded like when it was baked into
the title and then became true.
>> Yeah. It's it's a when that immers next
generation launched and I think a lot of
us wanted you know another Kirk you know
our our expectation was we're going to
get a new Kirk we're going to get this
and we get a you know bald Shakespearean
actor and Shatner did Shakespeare to his
credit too but we get this actor that's
you know British and whatnot and it's
amazing how quickly he won everybody
over
>> and and to now you When you think Star
Trek, you either think I either think
like Shatner or I think Bquard and then
you know others, you know, have done the
>> rest. Others others receiving votes.
Yes.
>> Yeah. I done stuff, but like like it
just it just I think that you a high
point. I think I think Next Generation
was sort of in many ways like the
fulfillment of what Star Trek could be.
You know, the TV show had great
episodes, some great ideas. Third season
was lower budget and they had to deal
with all sorts of complications and
stuff. I think they did some movies
which the movies were fantastic. You
know, Star Trek, Wrath of Con, Voyage
Home, Undiscovered Country. Those things
were great. And the next generation was
like like what could what what does a
really great episodic science fiction
show look like? And I think that and you
look at the topics. I've been
re-watching it started a couple weeks
ago re-watching the first season. Uh not
knowing this was going to happen, but uh
you know, you look at the topic range
they cover, you know, and it it's it's
amazing. You know, a lot of social
stuff, a lot of really interesting
social stuff. And also too, like in ways
that I thought were now if they do
social it's going to be well it'll be
you know about acceptance or this. It's
like no they were doing social stuff on
like they go you know they go to a
planet which like this beautiful society
they imply that everybody's having sex
because Gene Rodenberry, you know, was
telling people what to do in the writer
rooms, you know, and they're having sex,
you know, but they go there and they
have a society where basically
everything's perfect. Then you find out
that they have these really, really
strict laws where they randomly survey
areas and if you do so much as trespass
on a flowered plant, they kill you.
>> And it was this really cool question of
is it worth it? Is are draconian laws
worth it for that thing? And they don't
give you an answer. The resolve it was
like this prime director thing. And I
love that. I love the fact that they're
like, you know, Wesley screws up as he
does and they got to scadaddle out of
there so he doesn't get killed. And it
was just like, "Oh, that's cool."
Because that's a story you could do
today without having to moralize and
TELL PEOPLE LIKE, "NO, it has to be
this." It's like, "Yeah, man. What a
question to think about." You know?
>> I think Yeah. Next Generation, if you
look at it legacy-wise, really cemented
what the brand of Star Trek is in in it
being a little bit more cerebral than
some of the other I mean, obviously Star
Wars being a a contemporary in terms of
what people think of. Like it's part of
the reason why the J.J. Abrams fit was
so weird in the new reboot for the
movies because he very much had more of
a Star Wars energy. Um
but uh Patrick Stewart just an icon
and you know also
you know he's going to be in what might
be the biggest movie of the year in a
couple weeks. You know he's he's in he's
like the lead dude in the trailer for
Doomsday.
>> Either way he was in a movie of the same
title that'll be the biggest movie of
the year. A Dune movie. What's funny is
when you said that I was like, "Oh my
god, did they do a tribute to Gurnie
Hock?"
Because before before he was Picard, he
was Gurnie Hack.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Uh,
you know, I didn't know that he had
suffered from dementia. Um, and I don't
know how
recently that came on, but it certainly,
you know, adds yet another
kind of layer to what was an already
amazing movie in Logan of, you know, his
Professor X slowly kind of deteriorating
mentally. Like,
uh, you know what what for whatever
reason has surfaced the most about him
in my timeline is all of the comedy
though. Like people are posting all the
clips of character that he played on
Family Guy and like his cameo as uh King
Richard in Robin Hood Men in Tights. Uh
obviously his uh Emmy nominated one
scene uh that got him an Emmy nomination
for guest appearance on Extras, which is
hands down one of the funniest scenes in
television history. Just an absolute
murder of a scene. Um for for the audio
listeners just if this just knows
>> Spice walks in and
>> her clothes fall off
>> instantly.
>> Sure.
>> And she she doesn't know what's
happening,
>> but uh I've seen everything
>> again. [laughter]
>> It's amazing. Just look up Patrick
Stewart extras.
>> The outtakes when they're trying to
record the scene is hilarious. Oh god.
>> And then her knickers fall off and Ricky
Ricky your face just
can't stop laughing because it's just
>> Yeah. But brings up
Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
>> Yeah. He's just always willing to play
the fool. The other thing that people
keep bringing up because it has the
sports context to it is there was these
series of Paramount Plus ads that they
did which was like a a a collection of
all the like characters from the content
that they were launching par Paramount
Plus with. But they're they're basically
Patrick Stewart sketch comedy. Like
Patrick Stewart led sketch comedy bits
because he's just so naturally funny.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. There's a there's a clip from like
like 16 years ago or something with uh
he was doing some
some stage presentation whatever in
England with James Cordon.
>> Mhm.
>> And and you just see he could see the
personality he was dealing with very
quickly. [laughter]
>> Yeah. You know, it's a very awkward sort
of thing, but you could just see that,
you know, he he kind of picked up like I
don't think this guy's being nice and
genuine. Um, so man, it's sad. I feel
sad for the family. Feel sad for all
involved. I am so grateful that we got
to see his talent. I'm so grateful that
he ignored Ian Mckllen and said, "Yes, I
will take the role of Star Trek.
>> Theater will always be there for me."
Um, always seemed joyful and full of
life in interviews, man. Very cool. And
and Walter Kaning, you mentioned him,
too. you know, this is a guy that uh,
you know, loved the fans, really really
embraced that, was was as far as I
understand, you know, people had just
great interactions with him, was a
person that just, you know, played a
very, very important part in, you know,
history of Trek, did a lot of stuff to
be very supportive of the fan community
and keep that flame alive. And, you
know, big loss there, too. Yeah, I ran
across my signed check off 8 by10 from
when I was I think 11 years old. He came
to a convention. I think it was one of
the first science fiction conventions
I'd ever been to and we went just to go
meet Chuck Hoffman. He was very nice and
I took it must have been sixth grade. I
went and took it to school the next day.
What a curious thing.
>> Yeah. And you know it's it's it's you
know and neat too like he also had a bit
if you're a science fiction fan he had
range because I remember he did Babylon
5 you know and played a very different
kind of character there and for hardcore
sci-fi fans really enjoyed it.
>> Yeah there was like a moon murder
mystery he did as well. I think some
kind of moon let me see if I can find
it.
Moon trap. Is that what it was?
>> Yeah, sounds sounds correct.
>> That sounds like a title.
Science fiction, you say?
>> Yeah, there he is.
>> Yeah. Um, it's been tragic, too. Like he
had his son Andrew, I remember him. He
was on the show Growing Pains and, you
know, played a character called Boner.
Oh, that's right.
>> He killed himself like 16 years ago, you
know. Um, which is just just, you know,
rough. I mean, let let me let me You
ever want to go down a dark rabbit hole,
go look at where are they now? Male
actors, young guys who had, you know,
popular as teenage teenage actors now.
And
>> it's it's cuz you're you're brought up,
you're in an environment where you're
getting praise, everything you're great,
and then a few years later, nobody takes
your call
>> and you keep thinking that it's going to
come back and it's going to happen. Um,
but anyhow, uh, Walter Kenny, he wrote a
story. He wrote a book, by the way, or
he co-wrote and it was called like Bucky
Robot and
uh Buck Alice and the Actor Robot. And
so I always thought that was kind of an
interesting I remember buying that
because I remember reading about it in
Starlo. For our younger listeners,
that's what we called the internet back
in the day [laughter]
was Starlo magazine. Um,
and I thought that
>> well, [laughter]
a little bit of terms of service on this
uh on this preview of uh uh there was a
topless woman appearing in Moon Trap
trailers. Oh, whoopsie.
Let me rewind that. Double check.
>> Science. But I was going to say is that
like I remember I remember when he came
out with this book and I was like why
don't more why don't more famous science
fiction characters or people like that
collaborate with writers to do series?
Shatner did that with Tech War.
>> Yep.
>> You know and I thought that was really
brilliant because you know to
collaborate just mean you bounce some
ideas off of but then you have a person
that can be in a convention or a con and
pitch the books and move them and do
them. I'm just surprised more of them
don't do that because I just think that
it's like, you know, you have a built-in
fan base. People want to pick stuff up.
You work with a writer and collaborate
on something. I just think that that's
that seems like an easy way to sort of,
you know,
>> well, and and also not only is there a
fan base there, but also, for example,
take Shatner. If you're somebody who
spends that much time in the head
thinking about what a star captain would
be thinking about, you probably bump
into some really interesting ideas.
or in the case of tech war, spend that
much time as TJ Hooker.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I'm gonna take this TJ Hooker story I
did and set it, you know, a couple
hundred years of the future. Um, but
yeah, let me see when did when did he do
1988.
So yeah, that was the the the canning
book was a year ahead of when Shatner
did Tech War uh with uh was you know
Ron Gulard's the guy that wrote it. Um
but it's fine. It's fine. It's
>> this would be in Hollywood terms
nowadays it would be a story by credit
for uh for Shatner, right?
>> Well no in books we still you still
don't know who wrote books. There are
some very famous authors putting out
books right now that are undergoing
dementia or whatever and are not writing
those books and they're being
ghostwritten.
>> Uh oh, sure. Sure. I I guess I mean in
terms of understanding the role uh not
so much the legal part.
>> Sure. Yeah. No, no, in books in books
the uh name that will sell the book is
uh the largest font on the book,
>> right? No, sometimes it's not. It's
sometimes it can literally be we wrote
this thing, we have it. Do you want your
actor or whatever to put their name on
it and they don't even have any
contribution at all to it. It can vary.
It can it can be variable. Um, ideally,
yeah, they sit down. They hash out the
story. It's like, that sounds great,
kid. Let's do this. I read the review.
Let's go do this. I led your latest
version. Let's do this. Often, it's
you know, tell me what it's about.
Sounds cool. Put my name on it. Ship it.
I loved it. Read the first four pages.
>> Yeah. So,
>> man, what a loss. What a loss.
>> Yeah. Salute.
>> We got
>> gentlemen. It's
>> Oh, yeah. Let's do some picks here.
>> Um
uh I This was my my pick previously, but
uh I watched the Norm documentary on
Netflix. Uh wonderful news. If you
didn't get around to listening to Nor
McDonald's audio book, like I told you a
few weeks ago, you can watch this and
see the audiobook with pictures. It
literally begins with with a mouse
double clicking on an Audible icon and
opening a thing. And then you get to
hear a lot of the audio book just
straight up with with some stock photos.
Cool.
Uh, my pick is is dot.
Boy, am I using the crap out of dot.
>> Yeah. Breaking news. Now, now I can text
it. I can I can use voice memos with it.
Like,
baby.
>> Wait, you can text it?
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Jerry.
>> Oh, nice.
>> I'll have to give that a try. Uh but
yeah, I've been doing I mean just a lot
of
video editing and scheduling and brain
ideiation.
Uh just been really really really really
helpful. Uh and and also working a
little bit more with shared spaces. Um
trying to just like make sure that
that's just like a place where
me and other collaborators like are both
just putting things. our dots are just
kind of constantly putting things that
we tell it to and then it can mix up
that goulash and bring it bring it back
to us on predetermined dates. Uh but
it's good. It's um
it's I don't know. I'm I am increasingly
bullish on the idea
that
agents plus dynamically generated user
interfaces
are just the future of all computing.
Hard will hardware will wrap around this
idea
and that will be the next
however many years. I mean, I would in
in a in a bygone era, I would say 50
years, but as fast as all this is going
to the next
>> Yeah. two seconds. But like, uh,
>> yeah, I just think that's what I want. I
want my agent to be able to visualize
stuff better for me via hardware. And I
want it to be able to reach me exactly
when I need to be reached in the methods
that I want it to reach me more than I
want anything else. Like the one the one
thing that I will always say is the
tailtale sign that you know that
technology is advancing in a positive
direction is that everything you're
using now starts feeling broken and old
and stupid. And I look at my I look at
my phone and I just see I'm scrolling
and I just see all these app icons with
little download things on them because
it's trying to save space dynamically by
like uninstalling it so we can
reddownload it. And I'm like what is
this is the dumbest thing. Why is this
so dumb? Just tell me what I want to
know.
Um, hold on a second. Let me take your
picture for a second, guys. Oh.
>> Oh my goodness. Is that the iPhone Duo?
How is it?
>> Congratulations on it functioning.
>> I am going to give you I Well, again,
here's the problem. You millions of
things ship, five of them get broken.
Bloomberg's like, "Ah, so I don't I
don't know that I don't I don't know how
widespread those issues are." We've seen
that before Apple products because that
was a problem. Is it like that people
don't appreciate the scale at which an
Apple product ships and also on social
media that if I do a search for Twitter
broken iPhone screen I find 10 like oh
my god but it's like well you know when
you're shipping millions of stuff but it
could be mine's been great. Um sorry my
little rant that was just a thing of
like the law of large numbers yeah which
applies to like Apple when Apple ship
stuff like people don't realize like
it's just how do you compare? Well, just
just to bookend it, this is also a
reflection of regardless of the
objective reality of how few broken
screens there are. The platonic ideal of
an iPhone launch, we want to hear about
the troubles. And so that, you know,
however many stories that like a gas, it
expands to fill the space in our minds.
>> 100%. And particularly with iPhone 2,
it's $2,000, which you know, arguably
could be a stupid amount to spend on
something. You want to hear, you want to
feel good about not buying it. like, "Oh
my god." Like,
>> you know, I can I can make you feel
really good about not buying my Apple
Vision Pro, [laughter] you know, like
which Apple may be abandoning. Uh, I'm
going to give you my way to look at the
iPhone Duo.
If you're like, "Man, I love working on
a small iPad. I really like a small form
factor iPad. I just wish I could take it
with me and I wish it could answer phone
calls." Man, have I got news for you.
You're going to love this. If you're
like, man, I love my phone. I love phone
size things. I love phone weight size
things. It would be cool to every now
and then unfold it for a bigger screen.
They're not going to be happy. Um
because it's a it's a chunky phone. It's
a it's a chunky boy here. This is a
pretty pretty hefty thing. And I would
say as a as a phone, um I don't I I
think it could be better designed for
your you know, they did things like
where they put the the cap, you know,
putting the icons on the side there. I
think as a phone it's fine. It's
absolutely fine. My preferred mode is to
just unfold it and use it in that mode.
And it's fantastic.
>> You know, the screen is amazing. And
I've been wanting to read more. So now I
just put my little Kindle icon there for
my Kindle widget. I really I never used
widgets as much as I've used now. Now
with this because it's so much easier. I
press that and I've got an amazing
e-reader with that matte screen. Looks
fantastic. So,
for me, amazing. If you didn't want to
order one, I get it. And if you ordered
one and you're still waiting for it,
man, I feel bad for you.
>> All right.
>> Keep it in your pants.
>> Yeah, I I I like it. Also, I will I'm
going to pitch the the overpriced I
don't normally buy Apple cases because
they're just ridiculously overpriced.
The Apple case for this is actually
pretty sweet. Um, so you you put it on
there, keeps it nice. If I want to look
at the front, I can do that. I can just
fold it around and I have access to it.
What's really cool about the Apple Case,
too, is that it's not too chunky
is it has this fold out stand.
>> Oh, nice.
>> And Mag Safe still works through there.
So, you have you've I've had people pick
this up, look at this, never realize
there is a stand there.
>> Uh, some complaints. doesn't have Face
ID, but if you have it on your Apple
Watch, it'll automatically open. So, I
use an Apple Watch, so I don't have to
worry about that. If it's near my Apple
Watch, it opens. Um, pretty easy to do
the fingerprint. So, I've been happy
with it. Very, very happy with it. But
again, if you're like, I want an iPad I
can take with me and make phone calls.
You'll love it.
>> Very cool.
>> Yeah, I uh I'm bullish. I'm excited. I'm
ready to I'm ready to go in two to five
weeks.
Yeah, gentlemen. It's been weird.
We got it.
Awesome. All right, beautiful live
stream people. We have to call it
because I have a call uh in five
minutes. But thank you guys so much for
joining us. We will see you guys next
Weird Things. Bye.