Shownotes
The latest episode explores technology topics, including machine learning, AI tools in podcast hosting, and the impact of emerging tech like Meta's smart glasses with facial recognition. The hosts share personal stories about handling tech repairs after a hurricane and the challenges of aging equipment, blending humor with insights. The episode highlights how technology shapes daily life, and the privacy concerns tied to new innovations.
Takeaways:
- The hosts discuss the importance of managing expectations for podcast production timelines, especially around holidays.
- Donovan shares a personal story about sending a hammer to his son in Seattle, which got delayed due to a hurricane.
- Ben highlights the challenges of using machine learning on CPU-only systems, emphasizing the need for GPUs.
- The conversation touches on the evolving role of AI technologies in podcast production and content creation.
- Donovan reflects on past experiences with technology and how it has shaped current workflows for podcasting.
- The hosts express concerns about privacy issues related to emerging facial recognition technologies in smart glasses.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- NordVPN
- Pia
- Captivate FM
- OpenAI
- Tesla
- Geico
- NASA
- SpaceX
- Clearview AI
- Meta
- Ray-Ban
- Amazon
- Fisker
- Raspberry Pi
Hosts
---
---
Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm.
---
- GEICO is Terminating Insurance Coverage of Tesla Cybertrucks, Says “This Type of Vehicle Doesn't Meet Our Underwriting Guidelines” - GEICO has decided to terminate insurance coverage for Tesla Cybertrucks, stating that the vehicle does not meet its underwriting guidelines. This move affects only the Cybertruck on multi-vehicle policies, not other vehicles the customer may have. The decision may be influenced by concerns about the Cybertruck's high repair costs, frequent technical issues, durability in accidents, and potentially its construction material, which could pose risks to other road users. There is also speculation that the strained relationship between Elon Musk and Warren Buffett, whose company owns GEICO, may play a role.
- Tesla Recalls Over 27,000 Cybertrucks Over Rearview Camera Issue - Tesla has recalled over 27,000 Cybertrucks due to a rearview camera issue. Federal regulators found that the backup camera in some vehicles failed to display within the required two seconds after shifting into reverse, increasing the risk of collisions. The recall affects Cybertrucks produced between November 2023 and September 2024. Tesla has addressed the problem with an over-the-air software update. This is the fifth recall for the Cybertruck since deliveries began, and Tesla shares fell 2.3% following the news, continuing a decline after disappointing third-quarter deliveries.
- Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta's Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers - Two Harvard students have developed a project called I-XRAY, which integrates facial recognition technology into Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. This custom system can instantly identify people and retrieve personal information from the web, such as their home address and phone number, raising concerns about privacy and anonymity. While the creators do not plan to release the code, the experiment demonstrates the potential dangers of such technology, showing how quickly personal details can be exposed to strangers. The project aims to raise awareness about the risks associated with facial recognition technology.
- College students used Meta’s smart glasses to dox people in real time - The Verge - Two Harvard students created a demo showing how Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, paired with facial recognition software, can be used to dox people in real time. Their project, called I-XRAY, uses the glasses’ livestreaming feature to identify faces, match them with public databases, and retrieve personal details like names, addresses, and phone numbers. The students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, demonstrated how they could identify classmates and even strike up conversations with strangers based on the retrieved information. I-XRAY combines widely available technologies, including PimEyes, a powerful facial recognition tool, to make this possible. The students’ goal is to raise awareness of how easily current tech can invade privacy. While they don't plan to release the tool, their demo highlights the risks posed by the discreet design of smart glasses and their potential for misuse. Though Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses feature a privacy light to signal when video is being recorded, it's often unnoticed in bright or crowded areas. Meta’s policy advises users to respect privacy, but there’s no guarantee people will follow these guidelines. Nguyen and Ardayfio advise steps like opting out of public databases, but warn it’s nearly impossible to erase one’s online presence entirely.
- Raspberry Pi 5 powers the ultimate 'nostalgia machine' to bring 1980s television to 2024 | Tom's Hardware - "Shane Mason, also known as *Wrongdog Reckons*, has created a ""nostalgia machine"" that emulates the 1970s and 1980s TV-watching experience using modern technology, powered by a Raspberry Pi 5. Inspired by his childhood in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where over-the-air TV signals were weak, Mason recreated an authentic retro TV setup, using an actual 1986 RCA television. The system mimics period-accurate TV schedules, complete with commercials, holiday specials, and programming based on the time of day and season. The Raspberry Pi 5 plays back content from ripped VHS tapes and DVDs, while Python scripts generate weekly TV schedules using the MoviePY library. Mason also built a retro user interface, and the project even includes a functional rotary antenna control box to switch ""channels,"" operated by a Raspberry Pi Pico. This meticulous build, housed in a cigar box with clean wiring, recreates the full experience of analog TV, providing a unique blend of nostalgia and modern tech. All the project details and code are available on Hackaday and GitHub."
- Linux takes 4.76 days to boot on an ancient Intel 4004 CPU — CPU precedes the OS by 20 years | Tom's Hardware - "Programmer Dmitry Grinberg achieved a remarkable feat by booting Linux on the ancient Intel 4004 CPU, a processor from 1971. The boot process took 4.76 days, and even simple commands like listing directory contents took up to 16 hours to execute. Since Linux was released 20 years after the Intel 4004, Grinberg used an emulation of the MIPS R3000 processor to bridge the hardware and software gap. Through extensive optimization, he reduced the Linux kernel to 2.5MB, cutting boot times from 8.4 days to under 5. The project was more an artistic experiment than a practical endeavor, showcasing Linux's flexibility and Grinberg’s dedication to pushing hardware limits. Despite the extreme delays in execution, the project worked, and Grinberg shared details, schematics, and potentially pre-built kits for others interested in recreating it."
- Westinghouse's eVinci micro nuclear reactor for data centers delivers 5 megawatts of power for eight years without refueling — microreactors could power next-gen AI data centers | Tom's Hardware - Westinghouse's eVinci micro nuclear reactor is designed to power AI-driven data centers, producing 5 megawatts of energy for eight years without refueling. This compact reactor, which can be transported as a single unit, addresses the growing power demands of data centers fueled by AI's rise. Westinghouse is the first to submit safety designs for testing, and the eVinci microreactor could help reduce reliance on the aging electric grid. By using nuclear energy, the reactor allows data centers to operate in remote locations and sustain continuous power, making it a promising solution for future AI infrastructure.
Transcripts
Okay, well, we're back. This is episode three.
Ben:We're on a roll.
Donovan:We're on a roll. We do two a month. That means we might actually get 24 done in a year. But then again, depends on, I don't know, where Christmas lands this year.
You know, today is actually my wife's birthday, so. But she. She was okay with this. It's not like we were doing anything special.
She actually wound up, of all days, wound up getting sick last night, enough right before midnight that she was, like, queasy, sick. Almost like, I'm going to throw up sick. I'm dizzy sick. And I didn't know about it until this morning. And I was like, why didn't you wake me up?
I'd have gone, got you sprite or a charcoal or something. And she's like, well, you were sleeping so good. I'm like, so. But anyway, she finally caught up with me.
We're nine months apart, so she finally caught up with me. And now she's making the joke that in January, in a lot of the establishments around here, I'll finally qualify for senior discounts at 55.
Not all of them, but there are some. Some restaurants that'll do senior discounts at 55. You know, couple of percentage off.
Ben:I got a friend who really wears his veteran status on his sleeve, and he will ask quite quickly for a veterans discount, and on veterans day, he will come and pick me up so we can tour the restaurants and get the veteran meals.
Donovan:Nice.
Ben:I just. I'm not that kind of guy.
Donovan:No, but you're veteran, right?
Ben:Oh, yeah, I'm absolutely veteran.
Donovan:Yeah. I'm just.
Ben:I don't want to.
Donovan:You just don't want to use that?
Ben:I don't want that special. I mean, I got the VA loan for the house that I'll take, but.
Donovan:Yeah, I don't.
Ben:Feels petty, but it is free food.
Donovan:Hey, I'm not going to turn down free food as long as it's free, good food.
Ben:And usually he drives a. So.
Donovan:Well, there you go. Well, that works. Well, today. Today is October 9, and of course, we're sitting here.
Fortunately for us, we're not staring in the face of another hurricane, but down south they are, unfortunately, very much so. Um, we're only a few hours, I think, away from it supposedly making landfall.
Ben:Oh, it's. It's windy in Sarasota.
Donovan:Is it?
Ben:According to that map, yeah.
Donovan:Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. That reminds me. That reminds me of a story. So right before Helene came in, this was on a.
This was on a Tuesday. So quick backstory. Tyler had gotten a shelving unit, and so he was, you know, he's back in Seattle.
And so he was putting the shelving unit together, and one of the things that it said that you would need was a hammer. He did not have a hammer. He may do. You know, anything can be a hammer if you make it careful enough.
Yeah, well, when they were kids, we have a weird family, but when they were kids, they all got their own hammers. Don't ask this.
Believe it or not, they love stuff like this, especially the boys, because it was like building, you know, maybe not Orianna so much, but the boys. Lee found Tyler's hammer, so she told me, she said, I want to send this to him, but I don't want him to know that he's. He's going to get it.
And I was like, okay, so that was. That was Tuesday. So I mailed it, and Helene comes in Thursday night. Friday morning. Yeah, that week. Well, the.
The hammer was supposed to have been delivered on the 30th, which was the following Monday.
Ben:Right.
Donovan:It got held up in Sarasota.
Ben:Gotta take a step back to step forward.
Donovan:I had known that there was a damn hurricane that was about to screw everything up. I probably would have waited because he finally got it. Monday, of this, I think this past Monday, I believe he finally got it.
But it stayed in Florida for, like, three days, I bet.
But when I saw Sarasota today, because the cone of uncertainty had moved a little bit, and we were talking about it at lunch, and I saw that and I was. I just started laughing. I went, I know where that's at. That's where the hammer was hanging out for a while.
Ben:I don't understand why it would go to Sarasota first or in between here and there.
Donovan:I don't either, because it hit Jacksonville first, then it wound up in Eber. Wiper is yB, er place I've never heard of in Florida. Then it left there and went to Sarasota.
When it finally left Sarasota is when it took its long journey all the way to Seattle. Washington is so weird how the mail gets routed around here.
Ben:You know, I think that's probably anywhere.
Donovan:Well, you know, if I try to send you a letter, this is not the way it used to be. Years and years ago when I lived in Fitzgerald. You know, if I sent someone a letter in Fitzgerald, it never left Fitzgerald.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:If I send you a letter, the fucking thing goes to Albany.
Ben:Oh. I get mail from clients here in Tifton. They probably put it in the box at the post office to send it to me.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:It goes to Jacksonville, gets stamped get. You know, goes through the.
Donovan:That's right. That's right.
Ben:Sorter.
Donovan:It used to go to.
Ben:Back to Tifton.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And back to the post office. And they put it in my Po box.
Donovan:That makes no sense.
Ben:Literally comes back to the same building and just goes about 30ft away from where it was dropped off.
Donovan:I think. I think that's right. It used to go to Albany and then they changed that up and now it's Jacksonville. For some reason. I don't. I don't get it anyway.
Well, if you haven't figured out that's been over there. I'm Donovan and we're here to do a tech podcast. You know, podcast for the everyday person. At least we think so.
What's been going on with you for the last two weeks?
Ben:Cleaning up after the hurricane like I think most everybody has.
Donovan:Yep. I spent all day Saturday doing that. This past Saturday, all we had had.
Ben:To do was pick up a few limbs in the. In the yard. But out back we've got probably 20 mature trees either snapped or uprooted.
Donovan:Ooh.
Ben:It's. It's a huge game of pickup sticks.
Donovan:They. Are they still down?
Ben:Yeah. They didn't come back up.
Donovan:I mean, you hadn't cleaned them up yet?
Ben:No. I can't get the tractor back there because it's too wet.
I'm gonna just have to build a bridge or something out there and pick everything up or just wait. That's not in nobody's way.
Donovan:You started playing with machine learning.
Ben:Yeah, you said.
Donovan:So the note here said, discovered using hardware with no GPU's provides zero benefit.
Ben:Yeah. You want to explain running machine learning models? It's a ton of math.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And most cases it's a huge pile of data. So being able to run all of that through GPU's and, you know, the super fast CUDA cores and whatnot, I still don't know exactly how all that works.
But if you're doing it with cpu's only. It's just. It just takes a while and I almost forget what I was doing by the time this thing finishes.
And it's a really slow iteration, but yeah, I'm looking at ways to start collecting log data from every single thing on a network and push that through a single source, get it sorted out, and start trying to run it through a train of a machine learning model.
Donovan:Yeah, I remember you talked about that. I think in the last episode.
Ben:So, yeah, it was just an idea. And so far I haven't spent any money.
Donovan:So here, here you are trying to figure out how to use it to, to collect and aggregate and analyze data, and I just use it to summarize articles and, and write descriptions for me.
Ben:Yeah. You're just using an interface to a model that's, yeah, ready. And it's loaded, it's trained, it's, it's tuned.
But I, you know, I can't feed customers logs into that.
Donovan:I mean, you can get your own chat GPT.
Ben:Yeah, I could use the API to do some stuff.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And that might be cheaper than trying to buy my own hardware, but I really want to see, because it's, it's just log data and system information, things like that. It's not, you know, rendering video and trying to do natural language. And so I really don't know how much processing I'll need.
I might not need to get huge GPU's and whatnot.
Donovan:That's fair.
Ben:Yeah, that's fair, because I've, the more I read, I've looked into building one, which GPU's and blah, blah, blah, and somebody piped up and said, you could do this and build this, you know, multi GPU machine and keep it on and pay to power it and paid the extra ac to cool the room.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:Or you could pay.
Donovan:Open AI or.
Ben:Somebody like a dollar for millions of tokens to just to run it in there.
Donovan:Mm hmm.
Ben:And then when you don't need it, you don't pay so well. Yeah. You can build a whole model and train it for a $1,000. Then I don't have to keep the machines on.
I could just, yeah, run what I need locally, but have the open AI do the heavy lifting.
Donovan:I don't, I don't know what model, back end service, whatever that they're actually using, but the podcast hosting company that I use, captivate FM, two weeks ago, they had this grand announcement, and what it is, is they have now integrated, they call it Spark AI, and they've integrated it into the dashboard so that you drop your audio in there of your finished podcast, and you tell it generate, and it'll go through, and it'll generate the transcript, and then it'll take the transcript and use LLM to come up with a, like five to seven different titles based on what was in the episode. It'll do a. So it'll do an overall summary, and then it'll give you like, two or three extended summaries.
So you can pick and choose which one you like. It'll go through and automatically create chapter points and name them for you based on all of this information.
They have this thing called, I want to say it's called Aime. Basically, it's, it's a, it's a dynamic ad insertion, but they don't sell ads. It's a system where you can insert your own ads.
So you upload, like, you know, a sponsorship for NordVPN or whatever. I hate those things. I personally use Pia, but they, it will even go through and try to figure out and give you cue points.
Like, I tested it today on my call me Donovan podcast that I did this morning, and he gave me two cue points.
It said these two locations would be good for you to put in an ad about x, because I was talking about something, and it was like, if you've got an ad, this would be a good place to put it if it covered this. I was like, yeah, that's pretty cool. And the way they charge for this, see, I paid, I pay $19 a month to host basically as many podcasts as I want.
The way they charge for it is they said the heavy lifting in all of this was the transcription, that everything after the transcription was done was just, was really no compute power. And I'm like, okay, so you basically pay for the transcription. So it's a dollar an hour, basically. And I think it's a minimum of $5 a month.
So I paid it. I said, yeah, charge me $5.
And I tested it, and I was like, this will actually increase my workflow exponentially because right now, what I've been doing, and I've talked about this before, I've got OpenAI's whisper on my Mac mini, right?
And so, you know, I would do the podcast, get it in the final product, and then I would drop it and run these scripts that would convert it into the proper audio file and then run whisper against it, then get that SrT file, upload it, and depending on how long it was, actually do a text file, and then take and copy and paste that text file in the chat GPT and say, summarize this. So there were a lot of steps. Yeah, now I press a fucking button and captivate and just go, yeah, that looks good, that looks good.
I'll take that one, but I'll alter it a little bit because that's the thing is, you're not locked in. You know, you can take their examples, but then you can still edit them. It's like, add this to my show notes. Add that to my show notes.
Do this and that. It'll pick up. Like the episode I did this morning. I talked about, I've got these. This new Holly. Holly. I think it's Holly Lake.
Anyway, lapel mics, I really like them. Learned about them from watching MKBHD. Marcus Brownlee, because I mentioned him and them in the AI stuff.
It said, hey, these two companies were mentioned. And I was like, okay, that's. That's pretty cool. So it's. It's infecting everything to the.
Ben:Yeah, it's increased my workflow. It's. It's. It's allowed me to satisfy my curiosity so much quicker.
Well, yesterday I was looking at the traffic cameras on Georgia five one one and Florida 511. And I thought, this is how. This is how they get the streams on the Weather Channel. They show you the traffic.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:So there's an API, but can I just pull that feed that I see on that web page?
Donovan:I thought the same thing.
Ben:So. So I. I grabbed the URL of the feed from the camera's playlist or something like that, and I told chat GBT.
I was like, I want a webpage that displays these camera feeds with URL's like this. And it just spit out the. I didn't have to remember all those syntax and how to embed a video feed.
Donovan:And it spit out all the HTML and everything for you.
Ben:And it's like. And then it said, you want to add more of these videos? Is just add more of this, this, you know, this unit.
Donovan:But did it work?
Ben:No, because I need an API key. But it did. It. I pulled the page up locally and it had the video box, and it just was spinning because the video wouldn't load.
But it was there, and it was a little embedded HTML five player.
Donovan:You know, that that's actually pretty cool. I mean, all of that, you know, the fact that you could get chat GPT to do that. But that made me think I had this idea.
And of course, I don't think I get anybody on board, but if we could go around the various businesses and get them to okay us to put cameras up around, say, like, Tifton in certain central key areas. I've always wanted to have something like that.
Ben:Too many domains. I don't want to know.
Donovan: e's at least, I think there's: Ben:On top of that, I'm at like three registrars and I haven't bothered to consolidate.
Donovan:I still have to use namecheap because there are certain domains that certain TLD's that Cloudflare still can't do. Like now I can't think of one.
Ben:Is IO one of them actually.
Donovan:I don't know. Dot FM is definitely not one that they can do. But then again, Dot FM is expensive. That's about $80 a year. Really? Yeah.
Remember back, I don't, you probably don't, but I used to have slant FM years ago. Oliver actually registered that for me. I made it. I told, uh, I was talking, we, this is back when on Friday nights we'd all get in discord.
We just, you know, shoot the shit. What have you have? Pretty good time.
I was drunk most of the time, but I made the comment that I was thinking about uh, starting up a new podcast production company and I had this idea that I wanted to call it slant S l A N T, you know, what's the, what's the slant on this? What's the slant on that? And, and I, I said, you know, I like, I like the dot FM. You know, there's relay dot FM, it's a very popular podcast company.
And next thing I know he see, he sends me the credentials and he's like, here you go. And he bought slant FM for the first year for me. And at that time you had to go through a registrar in the UK to do it. But now Namecheap will do it.
But yeah, they're about 80, $80 to $90 somewhere in there. Yeah.
Ben:My dot tech domain is 40. I think that's the most expensive one I have.
Donovan:Yeah. Yeah, I used to, remember I used to have a narrow tv. Tv cost me like 24, $25. But I don't do.
The only specialty one I have now is I have south tech network and that. I try to use that as my, I mean I've got south tech networks.com but then south tech.net work, when I found I could get it, I got it too.
And so I have all the emails, I've got aliases and all this other crap. You know how that works.
Ben:So yeah, I've got the, what did I just say?
Donovan:Tech?
Ben:Yeah, Tifton Tech. And tech works cloud or it's twks cloud.
Donovan:And that made sense.
Ben:Ben on beer, you still have that, still registered? Yeah.
Donovan:You still pay for it?
Ben: domain. I did, I did. Back in: Donovan:Oh, wow.
Ben:He's got techpickle.com dot au and then maybe techpickle.com. and he asked, he's like, are you using that? I was like, yeah. He's like, how much you want? I was like, I don't know. Let's make an offer.
And he never did. And then it came time to renew it. I was like, man, let it go. So I let it go and told him. I was like, hey, I just let it expire. You can have it.
Did he get. I think so. His name is Matt Tiley. I don't know how I remember that from 20 years ago.
Donovan:So, Matt, if you're listening, reach out. Yeah, I've, I'm letting one lapse this time around. Before I, before I created Tifton Media works, about a year ago, I created south tech media.
So south tech. South tech media. So I registered south tech media, and it's with namecheap and it's coming up for renewal. And I turned off the auto renew.
I'm like, I don't need that. I mean, you know, I've got this other, this other one's a bonafide LLC. The other one was just a DBA coming off of the main thing, so.
But, yeah, I've had to. It's hard. It's hard to let domains go because you look at it in your brain is like, but I might, might do something with this in the future, right?
I might. And then five years later, you're still going, I might. I might do something with this. And you don't.
Ben:I've got, well, I've got one that I've registered, I don't know, very early. My wife's name.com.
Donovan:Mm hmm.
Ben:And when my daughter was born, I registered her first middle name.com. and same with my son. His first is middle calm. They don't do anything. But earlier this year, I was offered money to sell my wife's name.com.
Donovan:And did you, did you mention this to her?
Ben:Oh, yeah. Yeah. She wanted a front door. She wanted a new front door. And I was like, but they offered to, just came out, said, would you take dollar 500?
I was like, no. And I think, well, I think I ignored the first. Is he, would you willing to be to sell? And then I ignored it. And they came back, we just take $500.
No, I was like, I'll sell it, but not that price.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:The door costs more than if somebody comes to me and wants that domain for whatever reason. Yeah, they want something.
Donovan:Yeah. So there's a need on their part, which means the price just goes up.
Ben:And then. And in a couple of weeks, the offer is $1,000. I was like, you know, what's this going to be for? Because this is a broker contacting me.
So what's this gonna be for? So I just kind of go, look, I google her name. I find a couple. There's one in Jacksonville, oddly enough, and she's in a.
Like a financial consultant, something like that. But there's a little backstory. Last year sometime, she got, my wife got an email said, welcome to onlyfans. And she's like, what?
And then, I don't know, within a week or a few weeks or a month, she got another email, and somebody, some viewer, had sent her a gift certificate to some lingerie place. So my wife has this in her email because somebody put her email in a profile somewhere.
Donovan:Did y'all go look at the lingerie?
Ben:Yeah. Apparently $300 was not enough to get much.
Donovan:Wow. Yeah.
Ben:I don't even know where it was, but I was like, and then, you know, the following year or earlier this year, somebody's offering to buy the domain. I was like, whoa.
Donovan:Yeah. What's going on here? What.
Ben:What's the intention here? And then it took a few days for the broker to come back and say, it'll be used, you know, for financial advice.
You know, it was related to financials. I was like, okay, it's her in Jacksonville. So I was like, you know, I finally responded as did, you know, it's.
This domain means a lot, and I want to make sure that it does not reflect poorly on my wife. And because of the sentimental value, I will sell it for $5,000. And it's crickets. No? Okay. Yeah, it's mine.
The auto renew switch, it will forever be on.
Donovan:Yeah. Yeah. I did something very similar to what you did. I registered all the kids names, first and last name.
I don't think I registered Lee's first and last name because she didn't really care or I may have at the time. I don't know. This was several years ago, like, easily 20 years ago. And of course, I still have donovan Adkisson.com dot. That's. That's.
That is the oldest domain that I actually own, and it's gone from being my personal website to being a podcast website to, honestly, I don't even know where it goes now. Um, I think I have a forward on it. Donovan Adkissent, where do you go? Oh, it goes to my link tree. That's right. I did something smart.
It actually goes to my link tree where it's got call me Donovan radio Tiff South Tech Network Solutions, LLC. Tifton talks and Tifton Media works and then has my various socials down below that.
Ben:I should have OpenAI create something like that for me and then redirect all of my park domains there.
Donovan:Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Ben:Yeah, sure it's gonna do any good?
Donovan:I mean, Link, Link, link tree is, is free. There is a paid tier, but, you know.
Anyway, okay, well, I've had, initially I put in here that I had two PSU's go out on three different, on two different PCs. As of today, I've had three PSU's go out. I got a call today from a client and they were like, we got an emergency. I'm like, okay, what do you got?
Well, the computer over, and I'm not gonna say where it's at, but I, it's one of two computers on this particular counter. And it was like, there was a sound like a gunshot went off. And I was like, really? And it's like, yeah. And now the computer won't come on.
It's like, okay, y'all check the power of the, uh, the power strip. Everything. Yeah, everything. All that monitors come on. Computer won't come on. I'm like, hmm.
I think I know that what this probably is, I can honestly say this is the first time I've had a PSU blow in a computer like that. One of the capacitors, I don't really know. It's a, it's a dale, so it's a, well, it's that power supply right there.
It's these 240, but that's an older one that's got the, the wider power connector for the main power. The newer ones have the eight and then the four.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:So I grabbed, I've got, I've got these. As I would decommission these older PCs, I'd snatch these power supplies out and throw them, you know, up under here.
And I'm pointing, you know, great audio, but for this particular reason. So I grabbed all of them up and I looked up what that model, what, what that power supply is supposed to be.
So I get there and I just, I'm like, okay, it's not the one that I thought it was going to be, but I did have one that had the right connectors, but it's the wrong form factor. So I went ahead and I connected everything in, plugged it in, it powered up. I went, yep, blown, blown power supply.
So I had to Frankenstein this thing, and I told him, I said, look, it's. It's going to run, but I've got a Frankenstein it until I can get a replacement power supply, which won't be in until the 15th.
And they're like, we don't care as long as it works. So you see, as that one's a slender one. This one is shorter but taller. So the lid, the case, the side of the case is just kind of laying there.
It's sitting on top of it with the power connectors down and everything. And it works?
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:I've had two other. And it's weird. All three of these machines were dells, and I had another one that just died. And then I had a newer computer that's got, like, I.
was bought, I think, in like,:And the guy, the guy, he texted me and he was like, this is at a body shop. And he said, every time the air compressor goes on, the computer shuts off. I'm like, what? So this thing is hooked through the upS, right?
He's like, yeah. He's like, but every time the. The compressor kicks on, computer goes off. Okay, so I go through. I don't think I told this story last time.
I think this has happened the last two weeks. So I go through and I'm like, okay, you need to check the voltage. Check the voltage coming out of the. Out of the wall. See it?
Are we seeing a voltage drop? We seeing a surge?
What is it also suggested that they check the power coming out of the upS, because you and I both know that there's an upper and a lower threshold on those ups's so that it will let the voltage float down to a certain point before it's like, oh, shit, I need to go on battery. Apparently, after Helene weirdness, this PSU, the best way I can describe it is it was weak, sensitive.
It was very sensitive because as soon as there was, we're going to presume a voltage drop. And the compressor in this body shop was causing just enough of a voltage drop that the PSU would go dinghy. I'm off.
And so I basically had to do the same thing with that one that day. I didn't have one that would actually fit in the. The case. It almost would. So I was like, we're going to have to keep the side off. And.
And he was like, I don't care as long as it, you know, I can work. And I said, well, it's going to be about a week.
So I fixed that one yesterday, I fixed the other one yesterday, and then I had that one today that is temporarily fixed. So I've had this run on power supplies after this fucking hurricane.
Ben:Yeah, that's, that's weird. And, and for them to just show up.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:Two weeks after the storm.
Donovan:Yeah, it was so. It was, I was like, I've never seen this before.
Ben:Well, keep my fingers crossed.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:The only thing I've had since the hurricane was somebody complains their machine is slow. I was like, well, yeah, software is heavy now, so we're gonna, I've just picked it up in the truck.
We're gonna migrate to a solid state drive and add eight more gigs of ram.
Donovan:That, that's what I do, too.
f the machine is, like, circa: Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:But that is one of the first things I do is I look at it and I'm like, you still have a spindle drive in it? Yes. Okay. We're going to SSD.
And of course, I use Tyler software to image it and restore it and all this other kind of stuff, and that usually gets me a few more years. Sometimes I put more ram in it, but if, if they've got at least eight gigs in it, I leave it. Now if it's four. Yeah.
I try to put more ram in it, but if it's eight, I normally don't double it because. For what? The workloads for most of my clients that I'm having to do this for, they don't need the extra memory.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:What they need is the faster access to the drive.
Ben:Yeah. Just to open programs.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And access files quicker.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:Our, yeah. This one here is for photography. So it's just a lot of simple image editing. So it's, I mean, it's tearing up eight gigs right now.
Donovan:Oh, yeah.
Ben:And, and mostly because it's having to swap on that spindle drive.
Donovan:So that'll help.
Ben:Yeah. So just SSD will help. But I happen to have plenty of new memory on hand.
Donovan:DDR four, I'm presuming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's getting harder and harder to get DDR three.
Ben:Well, if it's DDR three machine, it's time to replace.
Donovan:It's time to replace it. Yeah.
Ben: Because these are: Donovan:Yeah. And I think I've told you, but I've started buying these little mini PCs from like, beelink and places like that. I mean, for 300, $350, I've got a.
I got a surveying client that I bought. I had him buy. I think it's got one 1 nvme for the drive and 32 gigs of RAm. And it's a rise in seven. And this thing runs like a. Like a scalded cat.
They come with windows eleven. I downgrade them to windows ten because windows ten just still runs better than windows eleven. I'm sorry. It just does.
But, you know, but that's what I've gone with.
And the reason why I started doing that is once I discovered the price point on these things, I was literally buying refurbished 6th and 7th gen I five dales for $200 or 225 or 250, depending on what the market was at the time. You toss in another hundred bucks, you got a brand new machine with a modern processor.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:Because a 6th and 7th generation I five is not a modern processor. It's just nothing. Will it work? Yes, it will, but, you know, throw a little bit more into the pile here and you.
You got this little thing that just fits on the back of a monitor. I mean, come on.
Ben:Yeah, yeah, I put one of those in. In the shelter.
Donovan:Mm hmm.
Ben:And it just runs the conference room thing.
Donovan:Yeah, it's.
Ben:I 3d printed a case. So it's on the wall behind the tv.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:That way they can reach the USB ports if they need to.
Donovan:Well, the radio station. And of course, I'm pointing over to my left, there's two monitors. It runs radiotiff.com. that is an n 100 processor. That's in that one.
It only cost me like $150. And Tyler and I both. He got. He got one. Not the same model, but he got one.
And he's like, I'm impressed with how efficient and fast even these little n 100s are. You. You know, it's. It's not like back in the day of the atom processors and. Oh, shit, what was the name of that intel processor? It started with a C.
Celeron. Celerons. Now these, these little bastards, they, they run. And I mean, I've. Everything I've thrown at this thing now.
I haven't tried to stream video or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, it's literally running radio DJ software. It's running voicemeeter potato. It's running the butt streaming application.
Right now I've got it running audacity as a backup recording for what we're doing here, you know, and it's not, it's not sweating at all. So it's amazing what, what we can get now for the price point that we can get.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan: d, you still going to need a $: Ben:Yeah, well, I did find like the most expensive graphics card, Nvidia card at my distributor right now is $993. That's my cost.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben: So retail is probably like: Donovan: higher, I think he spent like: Ben:Can you imagine what kind of AI models could be built on all those gpu's that were sold during the mining process?
Donovan:All the bitcoin.
Ben:Crazy.
Donovan:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben:So this is probably, GPU's are probably more expensive than they should be right now.
Donovan:Oh, yeah, they are.
Ben:Everybody wants the h 100.
Donovan:Mm hmm.
Ben:Whatever that is.
Donovan:And then of course you got Elon over there going, you know, I need to buy everything that Nvidia makes right now for his x AI.
Ben:They, they've installed quite the data center from what I have seen.
Donovan:Oh, I don't know, it's tainted because it's musk.
Ben:Yeah, it's musky.
Donovan:Mm hmm. All right, how about some, how about some news? How about some articles? We're talking about processors. This one I thought would be interesting.
So over at Tom's hardware, you were done, right? We didn't have anything yet.
Ben:Okay.
Donovan: s to boot on an ancient Intel: ing Linux on an ancient Intel:The boot process took 4.76 days, and even simple commands like listing directory contents took up to 16 hours to execute.
Ben:But you know what? Just imagining that that 50 year old processor has enough memory, enough cache to run Linux, that tells me that Linux is pretty damn efficient.
Donovan: ed an emulation of the MIPS R:And through extensive optimization, he reduced the Linux kernel to 2.5 megabytes of cutting the boot time from its original 8.4 days to under five.
The project was more of an artistic experiment than a practical endeavor, showcasing Linux's flexibility and Greenberg's dedication, I would say nay, that's insanity. Not dedication to pushing hardware limits. And despite the extreme delays in execution, the project worked.
And Grinberg shared detailed schematics and potentially pre built kits. For others interested in recreating his little art experiment.
Ben:Can you imagine calling tech support? And their first, their first response was go. Could you reboot it? All right, I'll call you next week.
Donovan:Yeah, I'll call you next week. That is wild. This literally reminds me of something that Tyler would attempt. He would, he would try something like this.
Ben:Yeah. Like what did that processor look like? Like how big? Like what's the physical size of the.
Donovan:Well, that's what it looks like chip.
Ben:Okay, so it's. Yeah, all right. Yeah, that seems like something you could.
Not that particular chip, but you could replicate that chip out of like vacuum tubes and whatnot. Like build an old school machine.
Donovan:Yeah, to.
Ben:And perform. Maybe not that quickly, but I bet you could. Do. You might want to run Linux.
Donovan:Could you virtualize it? Could you?
Ben:Sure. There is, yeah.
Donovan: Virtualize the: Ben:Just so you can wait eight days.
Donovan:Just so you can wait eight days for it to boot in a virtualized environment. Yes, exactly.
Ben: could you imagine running the: Donovan:What does this thing even run at? Did it say, hang on, I don't.
Ben:Know, 6 hz probably.
Donovan:Let's see. He booted the machine using the Linux prompt, thankfully via the magic video editing.
Much of the waiting around because there's a YouTube video of this between commands, gets very fast forward. An unedited version of the video running at 120 times real time exists, but takes over 1 hour and 40 minutes for completus.
Ben:Wait, didn't, didn't Mister Beast put out a video of himself counting to a million?
Donovan:I think it was one just livestream. Earlier videos. Yeah.
Ben:Could you imagine watching a live stream of this boot process?
Donovan:I don't drink anymore, but I think I have to have a drink. I mean, come on.
Ben:Yeah, a drink and a few meals and a shit.
Donovan:Yeah, exactly.
Ben:Podcast and a pod.
Donovan:Yeah, yeah, we're in the middle of the, of day 17. I was trying to find if it would tell me, do I have to look this up? It does not tell.
Ben:I was about to look it up.
Donovan: All right. Intel:A japanese company called Busycom, b u s I C o M, made an order to intel for the design of twelve special purpose integrated circuits, which would be used in a new line of programmable electronic calculators. Intel assigned the study of Busycom's design to Martian Edward Ted Hoff. After. You need your glasses.
Ben:No, I found it, though.
Donovan:What is it?
Ben:740.
Donovan:Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Ben:I was like, wait. Yeah, what?
Donovan: It's only got: Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:60,000 operations per second. And that. That's the maximum frequency of 740 khz. We can't even get to an em.
Ben:No mega, no turbo button.
Donovan:No turbo button, nothing. Oh, man, those were the days.
Ben:It's 0.74 m. God, that is so wild.
Donovan: rtly after the release of the:Two years later, in 74, the Intel 80 80 was introduced, retaining the eight bit architecture. Blah, blah, blah. Man, talk about going down memory lane. All right, all right.
Well, hats off to you, you mad bastard, for 4.7 days or 4.6 days or whatever. Yikes.
Ben:Well, at least he documented it.
Donovan:Oh, yeah, I just. Let's make kits. Yeah, I'm gonna buy a kit so I can put it together and watch this thing take almost five days.
Ben:You can host a party and go, hey, guys, watch this.
Donovan: te nostalgia machine to bring: Ben:Okay, so, I mean, sure, yeah, hats off.
Donovan:Shane Mason, also known as wrong Dog, reckons has created a nostalgia machine that emulates the seventies and eighties tv watching experience using modern technology powered by a Raspberry PI five.
etro tv setup using an actual:The Raspberry PI five plays back content from ripped vhs tapes and dvd's, while Python scripts generate weekly tv schedules.
Using the movie PI library, Mason also built a retro user interface, and the project even includes a functional rotary antenna control box to switch channels operated by Raspberry PI. Is it Pico? Or Pico. Pico.
Ben:I guess I always called it Pico.
Donovan:Okay.
The meticulous build, housed in a cigar box with clean wiring, recreates the full experience of analog tv, providing a unique blend of nostalgia and modern tech. All the project details and code are available on Hackaday and GitHub. This is also at Tom's hardware. Okay, so, yes, I remember this.
Having been born and raised in podcast Fitzgerald, Georgia, Ben Hill county. We only had access to three channels and that was if the weather was, was good.
Ben:Yeah, we had, I don't know, maybe ten channels in Albuquerque over there. We never had cable. We didn't have cable till we moved back to Georgia.
Donovan:Well, we still don't have. I say we because I don't own that property anymore. But that, that property over there in Ben Hill county still does not have cable.
Will never have cable. It's got fiber, Internet. I'm taking a moment. Hang on.
The mere fact that I moved away from Fitzgerald, Georgia, to Tifton, Georgia, that had better prospects are broadband. And for the longest time was much better than what we had over there.
And now you can get two gigabit fiber connection at the place that I sold over a year and a half ago. All right, I'm done.
Ben:What did you end up getting here?
Donovan:Oh, I'm still on, I'm still on a standard cable modem, 500 by 50.
Ben:I thought they were gonna, I thought they were gonna be able to switch you over.
Donovan:There's some bureaucracy, I think. Yeah, there's some complications and some other nonsense and all of that. And then this little thing called Helene came through and basically.
Ben:Oh, well, now we're gonna go do this.
Donovan:Yeah.
So I'm, I'm fairly confident because I kept getting emails almost on a daily basis from true Vista about how they, they've restored x percentage of the system and all of that. And look, I'm not, I'm not knocking them. I know. Shit was, was screwed up.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:You know, power was. I get it. A lot of damage was done, but I want my fiber. All right.
Ben:You know, maybe after this one.
Donovan:Yeah. Yeah.
Ben:After Milton leaves.
Donovan: h, I might get it sometime in:Matter of fact, I used to work for an interconnect company, and not to be confused with an Internet company, but it was a colony telephone in Fitzgerald, Georgia. It was owned by Joe Rogers. He was a, an old at and t microwave tower maintainer.
And so he bought the Radio Shack franchise over there in Fitzgerald, and he created a company around it called Colony Telephone. And one of the things, of course, one of the big, big things for Radio Shack, especially in the eighties and nineties, was tv antennas.
You know, and we're talking, I forget what they were called, but they had their flagship antenna. It was huge.
Ben:And they call it aerial.
Donovan:Yeah, but it was like the something Max or whatever. It was like $125 for the antenna. Just. Just the antenna. Okay. Then you needed to put it up on a pole. All right?
So the biggest or the tallest pole that Radio Shack actually sold, if I remember correctly, was a 36 footer. So we went to third parties and could get up to a 50 footer. So I remember we had this one. We had this one customer.
They were in a double wide mobile home. And this was before you had DirecTV and dish and prime star and all of that coming around. And so they.
They wanted to be able to get as many channels as they possibly could out of the air. So we. We put up a 50 foot pole, and you have to guide these things, you know, down to central points. Every section had a ring and it had these holes.
And then you took these guy wires, which basically is just stranded metal.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:And then you. You would raise it up. You would tighten it up a little.
You'd raise it up a little bit more and you tighten it up a little because you had to keep it from swaying. Because if it ever went one way or the other, the pole was toast.
Ben:Let it go.
Donovan:You just have to let it go. It was bent and you were starting over. And you had. You put the amplifiers up there.
You had the coax run up there and the control leads for the motor and everything so that you could rotate it. Yeah, I remember all of that. I did that.
Ben:We just had rabbit ears on the back of the tv because we lived in. It was probably 400,000 people in Albuquerque when we were there. So, you know, I got to watch he man, oh, in the afternoons.
And was it Pee wee's playhouse on. On Saturday mornings, other cartoons.
Donovan:Good old Pee wee Herman. Paul Rubens. Yeah, it was.
It was funny because my grandmother lived in town and she had cable, but we lived out in the country, in the boonies, and we didn't. You know, but we had a. We had.
My dad was always big on the big, biggest antenna that he could get with the tallest pole that he could get at the time and that. That ro. That rotator box. And you, like, tuned tune to channel 13, which is out of Macon.
And it's like, are we going to ride the skip tonight, if anybody knows anything about CB radio and ham, then you know exactly what I was talking about. But you're watching it, and it's like, oh, wait, wait. I'm seeing a picture. I'm seeing a picture. I'm saying, oh, no, no, the picture goes away.
So, yeah, but, hey, that's cool. These people have too much time on their hands for their little pet project.
Ben:They don't have enough other projects is what it is.
Donovan:I'm guessing that's true.
Ben:I wish I just had one.
Donovan:Okay. This is something that, you know, always, I've. I've heard over the years that something like this could potentially exist, but now I want it.
Westinghouse's, I guess you pronounce this evening, micro nuclear reactor for data centers delivers 5 power for eight years without refueling. Microreactors could power next gen AI data centers. So, yeah, they've got this thing.
It's a compact reactor which can be transported as a single unit, addresses the growing power demands of data centers fueled by AI's rise. Westinghouse is the first to submit safety designs for testing.
And the evency microreactor could help reduce reliance on the aging electric grid by using nuclear energy.
The reactor allows data centers to operate in remote locations and sustain continuous power, making it a promising solution for the future of AI infrastructure.
his. Expected to go online in:Dvorak on the no agenda show, so I was like, maybe, but he was talking about having micro or many nuclear reactors for the home. You know, that was actually something that could be plausible in a few years.
Ben:It sounds like something you'd see in popular science in the sixties.
Donovan:Yeah. Yeah.
Ben:Like, oh, yeah, that'll never happen.
Donovan:Yeah, but I mean, I could, you.
Ben:Know, I mean, if, if they can keep one safe on a battleship.
Donovan:Yeah, I don't think I need 5 mean.
Ben:Right?
Donovan:Make it smaller. Yeah, make it smaller. I've already figured out how many watts I need in this house. I mean, I've been going down the whole generator route.
Oh, there's a lot to learn there.
Ben:But one at the end of the street.
Donovan:That's right. You could put one at the end of the street and power this entire neighborhood. Yeah. I don't even think this entire neighborhood would take 5 mw.
Ben:Send the rest to battery storage.
Donovan: mean, my house peaks at like: Ben:Yeah. The backup generator we were quoted was 26 kw.
Donovan:That's too much.
Ben:That's what they say.
Donovan:Yeah, that's too much.
Ben:I'd rather have that than not enough.
Donovan:That's true.
everything, and it peaked at: Ben:So, but, and we're gonna, we're eventually gonna go to tankless water heaters, which would. Propane.
Donovan:Propane. Yeah.
Ben:So they don't, they wouldn't use much electricity. And before they become illegal, I want to get a gas range.
Donovan:They're not gonna be coming. Good lord.
Ben:Now we get a gas range in that, you know, that's only a 110 outlet to run that. So we will.
Donovan:Damn democrats coming from a gas range will use.
Ben:So we'll use a lot less anyway.
Donovan:Yeah, that's true. But your propane bill will go up for sure.
Ben:Only if we're running the generator all the time. Like if we're not running hot water and we're not cooking on the stove.
Donovan:That's true.
Ben:We're not using it. I love that.
Donovan:See, I, look, I looked into trying to do a tankless, okay. I actually had them come out many years ago about doing a tankless hot water heater for this house.
And of course they were going to have to put in the tank and I was actually going to have them run a lineup on the deck. So I could also do a gas grill.
Ben:Right.
Donovan: d it. It was going to be like:Okay, what are the electric alternatives? No, no, no, no, no.
Ben:The first time we ask someone about it, he's like, we don't even sell those anymore because they're crap.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:They will not perform and they just chew up electricity.
Donovan:Well, the one I looked at required like 450 ounce breakers or some crap. And I was like, are you kidding me?
Ben:Then you need 5.
Donovan:Need this reactor.
Ben:Yeah, you need a nuclear reactor and then you're good.
Donovan:I do. I need it.
Ben:Or you could just take a bath in the water that comes out of the cooler in the reactor.
Donovan:Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, hurt a bit. It wouldn't hurt at all. It's not tainted or anything.
Ben:Just let it run out in the gutter.
Donovan:Let it run over into the pond next door.
Ben:It'd be bad for the septic tank. So just run it out in the street.
Donovan:Yeah, yeah, over into the pond. You know, the fish don't have enough, you know, fins or eyeballs right now.
Ben:To those who would believe that, that was a joke.
Donovan:Or was it?
Ben:Anyway, this is how conspiracy theories get started.
Donovan:Yeah, that's true. College students use meta smart glasses to dox people in real time. Now, you'll need to go watch the video on this one. It's actually pretty cool.
But two Harvard students created a demo showing how Meta's ray ban smart glasses, paired with facial recognition software, can be used to dox people in real time.
The project, called ixraydeh, uses the glasses live streaming feature to identify faces, match them with public databases, and retrieve personal details like names, addresses, and phone numbers.
The students, I'm not going to try to pronounce their names, demonstrated how they could identify classmates and even strike up conversations with strangers based on the retrieved information. And they do. In the video, they literally, they walk up to people and they're like, are you so and so? Do you work at such and such?
And the people are like, yeah.
Ben:And they're just seeing this real time right in front of their eyes.
Donovan:Yeah, exactly.
Ben:The face. And then bubbles pop up with information.
Donovan:I think it says ix ray combines widely available technologies, including pim eyes. It's P I m e y e s, a powerful facial recognition tool. To make this possible.
The students goal is to raise awareness of how easily current tech can invade privacy.
While they don't plan to release the tool, their demo highlights the risk posed by the discrete design of smart glasses and their potential for misuse, aka how you can be a glasshole. Though Meta's ray ban smart glasses feature a privacy light to signal when video is being recorded, it's often unnoticed in bright or crowded areas.
Meta's policy advises users to respect privacy, but there's no guarantee people will follow these guidelines. The two students advise steps like opting out of public databases, but warn it's nearly impossible to erase one's online presence entirely.
This article was at the verge. Yeah. Have you ever googled yourself?
Ben:Yeah, well, years ago. I'm not that interested in myself anymore.
Donovan:Well, me either. But from time to time, it's probably good practice just to make sure that there's no bullshit, there's no way I can wipe myself off the Internet. And.
And most everything about me is tied to the city of Tifton.
Ben:I would be curious to know how much about me they would find.
Donovan:Yeah. It's scary, though.
Ben:I want to know their data sources so I can dox myself and just find out. I mean, just how much private information is out there.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:But I also would like to know where they got there, because if. If they. All of their, uh, data is mainly from social media, may not even find me.
Donovan:That's true, because my personal profile, like, on, say, Facebook, I only have two people I'm even friends with and their family, my wife and Tyler. Mm hmm. My daughter has no social media whatsoever. None.
Ben:I think that's good.
Donovan:Yeah. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no threads, nothing. She's like, I'm not gonna have it. And Tyler's on Twitter. He's on Facebook.
I don't know about Instagram, but pretty much, if you're on Instagram, you're on threads, which, honestly, threads is a much, much better place, more level headed place to be than Twitter.
Ben:I've. Well, let's not go there. I managed to clean up my feed, but did you? Yeah. You know, a crazy does, but I think that was in a comment on something.
It was. I was nuts.
Donovan:I named that. I named that episode after a statement that you said, cruising the crazy. I was like, yes, yes. That's got to be the title. That's got to be the title.
Yeah. This Pym eyes, I'm not aware of.
e New York Times described in: Ben:I bet it's for money.
Donovan:It says, concerns around this tech have been heightened since it came out that Clearview AI was using facial recognition help law enforcement. So. Yeah, I I don't know anything about this. This pim eyes. Let's see. Oh, create a free account. Thank you, New York Times.
I do have a free account, actually. No, I actually have a paid account, but I'm not logging in anyway. Yeah.
That's the very last thing it says in this article, is this is a sobering reminder of how smart glasses can be abused. But there are some steps people can take to protect themselves.
Yeah, but trying to erase yourself and get yourself out of public databases, I mean, come on. That's. That's not realistic. I mean, I know there's.
I know there's services out there, like in incogni and Twitter, delete and all kinds of crazy stuff. That's. Yeah, but really, you find out anything about pim eyes.
Ben:It's an online service base search engine. Reverse image shirts. So you upload a photo and find out where images are published. Or you can take a photo with your device's camera.
Don't worry, we will not store it.
Donovan:So what these guys are doing.
Ben:Doubt that.
Donovan:Yeah, what these guys are doing are using the ray bans to take snapshots of that, of the person's face and submitting it where that they've written. Yeah.
Ben:And then. So I don't know if, if there's a paid tier because I'm sure if you have do multiple calls in a day like the. Yeah, the glasses would.
I'm sure you've got to have some sort of paid agreement.
Donovan:Yeah. You wouldn't think they do it for free. Not at all.
Ben:It might not cost you money.
Donovan:But.
Ben:It'Ll cost you your privacy.
Donovan:Mmm. Yeah, no thanks. I swear, the older. The older I have gotten, a. The less I'm inclined.
I mean, that's like, as much as, as much as we talk about artificial intelligence, things like chat GPT and open a eyes and everything that they're doing and the stuff that you want to do and all, I'm still very hesitant on, have we opened up pandora's box? So, you know, ten years ago, I'd have been like, woohoo, you know, let's bring out the streamers, let's party, you know, toss a few back.
But now I'm like, I'm not so sure about this.
Ben:Yeah, I hear everything else, you know, all the different things, things that I never thought I'd hear, never imagined we would ever need coming up because this AI companies are just sprouting now. And I think it. I think it's good, but also it makes me incredibly tired.
I just, I just want to go take a nap and then get up and eat dinner and go to bed.
Donovan:Mm hmm.
Ben:And get up and start a lawn mowering company that just work for cash.
Donovan:Yeah, yeah, it's, uh. I'm about. I'm about there. I'm like, what other vocation can I learn that I can actually make a livelihood that's not tech related?
This podcasting thing ain't doing it, I can tell you that. I'm doing it for funsies.
Ben:You know, I'm. I'm getting. We are too old for that shit. But I keep saying this, build submarines.com. like, you can just go get a job as a welder and.
Because you probably had to work in Virginia or somewhere.
Donovan:Yeah, that's true. Be my luck. I'd have to work underwater somewhere in the deep sea.
Ben:If you don't get certified, you don't have to do that.
Donovan:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So don't do that. Don't get certified.
Ben:No, no. Don't get certified to do underwater.
Donovan:Yeah. Next thing I know, I'll be on an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.
Ben:But who knows? I mean, if you're like the longshoremen, you can crack out 300,000 a year.
Donovan:I did not realize until I was listening to a podcast today how much they make.
Ben:It's incredible.
Donovan:It's like, holy crap. And the dude, the dude that's, like, in charge of it, he's like, rich. He drives a Bentley.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:You know, there's a. There's a conspiracy theory that he's pro Trump. And did he decide to do this because of the things that they're bitching about?
Has been something that things have been bitching about for years. Did he decide to pull this stunt now to make it where it would hurt the democrats? And I'm like, I don't know.
Ben:If.
If you pretend to be blue collar and you drive a Bentley and you at one time at a 76 foot yacht or 36ft anyway, a yacht, you'd likely live in a big year. You're a Trump fan.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:You're going to vote for Trump?
Donovan:Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt. There's no doubt.
I can guarantee you that if I win the lottery, you know, $150 million and however many, much of that I wind up with, I still won't vote for Trump, but I'll be rich.
Ben:If I were to win the lottery, I wouldn't vote.
Donovan:That's true. I just quit. I'm not voting for anybody. I check out.
Ben:You'd find me in New Zealand.
Donovan:Yeah. Can we. Can we go find the hobbit? The hobbit holes. We'll just move in there.
Ben:I don't have a look. I just have to get out of here. Yeah, this bullshit. I want to move to a country that's the size of the state I currently live.
Donovan:Yeah. Yeah. I don't blame you.
Ben:Iceland, they seem like fun people.
Donovan:Wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn't move to Oregon. I'll just move to New Zealand.
Ben:Just immigrate. Yeah, get out.
Donovan:Yeah. I might have some useful skills that they could still use, you know, as I get older.
Ben:It's a free country and we are free to leave.
Donovan:Yeah, that is true.
Ben:Just to turn everything off, disappear. That's. That's what I want to do sometimes.
Donovan:All right, ladies and gentlemen, that'll be the, this is the last episode of the South Geek news podcast.
Ben:Well, you got a plate of win.
Donovan:Yeah, that's true. All right, so the last two articles are dealing with your favorite truck in mine.
Ben:Mm hmm.
Donovan:Cybertruck.
Ben:Oh, it's the pinnacle of engineering. Manufacturer.
Donovan:Of course, because Tesla recalls over 27,000 cybertrucks over rear view camera issue. It's.
rd,:Tesla has addressed the problem with an over the air software update. This is the fifth recall for the Cybertruck since deliveries began.
And Tesla shares fell 2.3% following the news, continuing a decline after disappointing third quarter deliveries. So here's what I find interesting. The mere fact that you have to have. I remember a time where a rear view camera was a luxury.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:Based on the way the damn Cybertruck is designed, I think it's a necessity. You can't see out of the back of it.
Ben:Yeah. Unless you open the, that.
Donovan:Yeah, that thing, the vault door, and.
Ben:You peer out this tiny back window. I don't know how, what you can see. You're going to use camera.
Donovan:Yeah, that, that's, that's wild. That is wild. Because then on top of that, this one to me is, is even more interesting.
It's, it's one thing when you have insurance companies that are refusing to insure homes, like in Florida.
Ben:Right.
Donovan:They're like, you know, we're getting wrecked.
Ben:That's a good reason.
Donovan:Yeah, there's a good reason. Then Geico comes along and says, you know what? We're not going to cover cybertrucks.
Ben:Right.
Donovan:They've decided to terminate insurance coverage for Tesla Cybertrucks, stating that the vehicle does not meet its underwriting guidelines. This move affects only the cybertrucks on multi vehicle policies, not other vehicles the customer may have.
The decision may be influenced by concerns about the cybertrucks high repair costs, frequent technical issues, durability and accidents, and potentially its construction material, which can pose risk to other road users. Theres also speculation that the strained relationship between Elon Musk and Warren Buffet, whose company owns Geico, may play a role.
Ben:Now that I doubt that.
Donovan:Did you put that note in there?
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:Article at Jalopnik says this is being seen more in New York than other places. Not too many reports otherwise. But it kind of makes sense.
Ben:It makes sense because if you bump into the wrong thing, you've. Well, you might not. You might not. Can total it, but repair cost could be half. Half what you paid, you know?
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:Because of how it's built. It's a. It's a. It's stamped structural. It's not like a body on frame. And the battery is part of the vehicle structure.
I mean, if you rupture the battery pack, who knows what that would cost? And to. Just to repair the. The body. I mean, it's made out of cold rolled stainless steel. It is. It stops bullets, supposedly. No, it's some. Not all.
I would stop by nine millimeter, but if you fire a. An m 16 round, they stopped that.
Donovan:But armor piercing, anything like that?
Ben:Sure. Yes. That would go right.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:Like a hunting rifle would. Would pierce it, but, you know, small arms pistol.
Donovan:And as he pointed out, the glass is not unbreakable either.
Ben:No, it's still tough.
Donovan:Yeah, it's tough, and it's ugly. I hate the design. It's horrible.
Ben:Oh, I finally saw one up close. I didn't go and gawk at it, but I finally saw one. It was parked, you know, in the space next to mine in grocery store.
And it was nighttime, and I just looked, and I thought, yeah, that's. I think that was early foundation edition. So that was $122,000.
Donovan:Mm hmm. You know what it reminds me of? Have you ever seen the movie damnation alley with George Bapard?
Ben:No.
Donovan:So it's a post apocalyptic movie where basically, nuclear war, there's irradiated cockroaches and all kind of crazy crap like that. They've got to get through what they call in Damnation Alley.
And I'm a little vague on the details, but I do remember that this stretch of road that they've got to get through to get from point a to point b, there's a reason it's called damnation Alley. The vehicles that they are in are armored up almost like ba Barakis, you know, 18 type stuff.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:That's what the Cybertruck reminds me of.
Ben:I I wish it was. I wish it was what it.
Donovan:What he promised it would be to be.
Ben:When I made my reservation, which is the day after the announcement. Yeah. You know, I knew the price would not be, because at that time, it.
Donovan:Was supposed to be, what, 65 or something started.
Ben:39 for the single motor, two wheel drive, and then 59 for the all wheel drive, and then 69, 70 grand for the tri motor, all wheel drive. They're only making right now, they're only making the tri motor cyber beast and the dual motor all wheel drive.
So the dual motor all wheel drive is 79, 90. And the cyber beast, the tri motor, the one I have a reservation for, is $93,000. And it's not enough truck. There's not enough range in it.
Donovan:Now, that diesel you got sitting out there, the GMC, I think, is better value.
Ben:I. It has more ground clearance.
Donovan:True.
Ben:It weighs enough, but not as much as cybertruck.
Donovan:Yeah, but I don't need my truck to be a tank.
Ben:We want it to stick to the road.
Donovan:Yeah, but I also want it to be able to get out of the mud, which they can't.
Ben:Yeah, and I'm sure that the all wheel drive systems are improving with software. It's like Microsoft just ship it. We'll fix it later. Right. We'll patch it later.
Donovan:We'll fix it post. But that's this podcast.
Ben:Like the people who I hope, I hope most people are comfortable with what they've done.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:What they've bought. But I've seen, you know, good quality 4k videos on YouTube reviews, and you look at the. How the body panels misaligned.
You can hear just the clicks and the motors, as would they fold the mirrors or the, the window motor apparently is of the quietest, but it just sounds and feels cheap.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And some parts of the, the model three were that way when I drove it.
Donovan:But, yeah, MKBHD has another channel called Autofocus where he does a lot of reviews on various ev's. And I think even before he got his, because he does have a cybertruck, um, he had one loan to him that he did a review on.
Ben:I think I saw that.
Donovan:And even part of the door did not want to work right in the review unit.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:And I was like.
Ben:And the finish is just bad. Not, not like the appearance, but there's sharp edges on the doors.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:There's still burrs, there's machine marks. It's, I mean, it literally not a luxury. I would pay 50,000 for one.
Donovan:I won't pay $5 for one. No, I mean, it literally looks like something that Ba Barakis made on an episode of the A Team, but.
Ben:Oh, and when I, when I watch reviews, I realize how that yoke must feel. The steer by wire, to be physically driving down the road with a video game controller, essentially. That freaks me.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:I know there are redundancies. I know the Airbus 380 is fly by wire, but. But I don't know. And the speed at which it was developed and pushed to market.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:I mean, it was very, very slow. But once they started, once they finalized the design, got the factory going, they were just pushed out. Who missed QA on some of that shit?
Donovan:The only two products that I think that any of Elon Musk companies have actually produced that are good quality is SpaceX rockets and Starlink. Yeah, that's it. I don't care. I don't like.
Ben:It's because he might not have been there so much for those. I think he was more involved with Tesla than.
Donovan:And he didn't even start Tesla. He bought it. He bought into it, took control of it. But, yeah, he made it what it is today. That's not. That's not a positive thing.
Ben:It could have ended up like Fisker.
Donovan:Well, that's true. That's fair.
Ben:Yeah.
Donovan:But damn it. Mkbhd. Why'd you have to kill Fiske? No, I'm kidding.
Ben:You know, Elon Musk has a strange habit of forcing things into existence and to success. He. Well, with the exception of recent. Yeah, things, he doesn't really have terrible ideas. They're just gargantuan. I mean, can you imagine?
You don't want to start a company drilling tunnels under cities so we can build roads in there.
Donovan:I mean, that's great concept, that shit.
Ben:Up at a night out with the boys, they'll just say, dude, you're. You're nuts, man.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And then, you know, two weeks later, he's digging tunnels. Got a boring machine.
Donovan:Yeah. Now, it went nowhere, but it's not over. As far as I heard, the project was basically dead.
Ben:No, they're still digging. There's still. But, I mean, I'm sure some projects are halted, but he's still okay?
Donovan:Because I haven't heard anything else about it in several years.
Ben:I know. I've heard they finished completely completed so many. So much distance. Or just read it a few weeks ago. Yeah. The board company still.
Donovan:I do like the concept now.
Ben:Neuralinks. Different story.
Donovan:Mmm. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about that.
Ben:I think it's. It's. I think it's a grand idea.
Donovan:But I would if it weren't him.
Ben:But if. I don't mind that it's him. He needs to stay out of politics. He needs to just stay.
Donovan:You're right.
Ben:In tech, he shouldn't. About Twitter.
No, but, I mean, I don't know what Twitter was becoming when he bought it, and I think we're really getting off on a tangent here, but Elon has extremely good ideas, and I just read an article that highlighted the inefficiencies of NASA. Like, one of the booster rockets for the shuttle cost $20 million, and it's one time use.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:It's a firecracker.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:Whereas the dragon engine reusable costs about 1 million. They. They launch an entire drag capsule for about 20 million.
Donovan:For what, that actual booster for one.
Ben:Of the shuttle boosters?
Donovan:Yeah, yeah.
Ben:And, I mean, he went to Russia. Elon went to Russia and said, I want to buy a couple of ballistic missiles. He wanted the propulsion systems that he wanted to build rockets.
And, of course, they. They knew who he was, just sold his part of Paypal, and they were like, are we gonna get this guy?
And so they just, like, grossly overpriced the things, and he's like, so on the plane back from Russia is the people he went with looked back at him, and he's. He's like, touch us. Going away at an excel spreadsheet. And they're like, what's this nerd doing?
And at the end of the flight of, he goes, I think we just do this ourselves. And that's. It was the beginning of SpaceX.
Donovan:Wow. See, I've never heard that story.
Ben:I read one of his biographies.
Donovan:Okay.
Ben:Not the latest one, but the one.
Donovan:That actually, I really. I really admired him in the early years, because, you know, a lot. A lot of people was calling him our real life Tony Stark, and then he went.
He got into politics.
Ben:Yeah. I don't know what is.
Donovan:I don't know what's going on with that. Evan.
Ben:Yeah. I get some bad acid.
Donovan:It's that damn ketamine, which. I mean, ketamine therapy is actually a bona fide good thing.
Ben:Psychedelics.
Donovan:Kevin Rose, therapeutic. Kevin Rose is. Is a big proponent of it. He's. He's talked about it multiple times. I think there's even. He's got a video of him going through it.
But anyway, well, that's the end of the show.
Ben:I will say. If Elon Musk wanted to make a Tony Stark suit, that worked. Yeah, I would bet towards him getting extremely close.
Donovan:And then you would.
Ben:Except for the power source, because that's.
Donovan:Kind of bullshit, but, yeah. And then you'd sign up for one.
Ben:I would reserve one.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:For $5,000, and then it would cost 30,000.
Donovan:Yeah.
Ben:And I'd go, nah, but keep my hundred dollars. Just. That'd be my donation.
Donovan:Yeah, donation. All right, well, that's gonna wrap up the show.
I hope all of these topics were entertaining and our take on it, I would like to point out that some of the stuff that's in this episode I do pull out and I throw it into bonus episodes that I call SGN.
Ben:Ooh, you put it behind a paywall.
Donovan:Yeah, I do, I do. It's a. But it's early access. So it's $4 a month and you get it seven days early.
So once I publish it for seven days, if you're a member, you automatically get it. Seven days later, it goes into the main feed.
Now, this $4 a month will also include, if there's bonus content that we do that's not early access, it'll just be like four members. And I did a small episode that I released into the feed talking about this, I realized we're only, this is our third episode.
So I'm over here going, give me money, give me money.
I get it, but I'm going ahead and just setting it all up, getting the infrastructure, because captivate does a pretty good thing of having their own built in, patreon like scenario. So I figured, what the hell, I'll go ahead and do it. There's also a tip jar over there.
So if you go to southgeeknews.com support, you can either tip, you know, enough money for me to get a coffee, you to get a beer, and, or you can, for $4 a month, be a member and get this other stuff.
-: Ben:Two weeks from whenever. You. Well.
Donovan:I don't have a calendar. Oh, well, whatever.
Ben:I only have a camera and a video.
Donovan:You have a phone machine.
Ben:Today's the 9th? 23rd, okay.
Donovan:That's right. So the next one will be recorded on 23rd. It takes me almost half a day to actually do these, and I've got a job to do.
And tomorrow you see that mesh six right there? I've got to go deploy it into an office to extend their Wi Fi, so I'll do my best to get it out by Friday. Anyway, that's it, everybody take care. Bye.
This has been a production of Tifton Media Works. Check out all our podcasts by visiting tiftonmediaworks.com.
