0:00

Brought to you by Toyota. Let's

0:02

go places. Welcome

0:07

to Forward Thinking, Taylor,

0:13

and welcome to Forward Thinking, love podcast

0:16

that looks in the future and says it's so

0:18

hard to say goodbye to

0:20

tomorrow. I'm Jonathan Stripling

0:23

and I'm Joe McCormick. So,

0:26

guys, this is it. Um.

0:28

This is our final episode

0:30

of the audio podcast format

0:32

for Forward Thinking. And uh, this was

0:35

not something that we were uh

0:38

pushing for. It's something that kind of happened.

0:40

The video series is going to continue on. We

0:42

really appreciate all you fans out there who have been

0:45

sending us messages all this time. Uh,

0:47

And we didn't want to just leave with like an

0:49

episode and then have nothing happened.

0:52

So this is kind of our goodbye episode. We wanted

0:54

to spend a little time thinking about

0:56

some of the topics that we talked about in the past and kind

0:59

of just going a little bit stuff about the

1:01

episodes we've done so far. First, before

1:03

we even get started, I want to play this tiny

1:06

clip from the very first

1:08

episode of Forward Thinking's audio podcast

1:10

called forward Momentum. Welcome to Forward

1:12

Thinking. This is how we introduced ourselves in that

1:15

very first episode. Greetings, everyone,

1:17

Welcome to the very first episode of Forward

1:19

Thinking. I am your host, Jonathan

1:21

Strickland, and I am joined by two

1:24

phenomenal people, two of my favorite

1:26

people the whole wide world. And I'm going to

1:28

have the first one introduce herself to you

1:31

right now. Hey, I'm Lauren Vocalbon.

1:33

I'm the co host of another technology podcast

1:35

called tech Stuff. I am Joe McCormick,

1:37

and I'm a writer for the Forward Thinking

1:39

video series Excellent and so this

1:42

audio pod. Okay, so we

1:44

livened up a bit since then, did Yeah,

1:46

it was my very reserved You were a little reserved,

1:49

but I mean you were. Joe had just

1:51

started podcasting when he joined UH

1:53

and we started doing the Forward Thinking Audio

1:55

podcast and now you're a pro. So, yeah,

1:58

that was year. That was your first time podcasting

2:00

ever for that first episode, was it? Yes?

2:02

It was. So. I thought we could

2:04

touch a little bit on some of the topics that we've covered,

2:06

talk about some of our favorites, and just some other like behind

2:09

the scenes type stuff in a very short kind

2:11

of farewell to the fans episode.

2:14

Now, we've recently done episodes where we talked

2:16

about three D printers again and driverless cars,

2:18

We talked about that in an episode like two

2:20

back, so I don't want to even

2:23

touch on those because we've already just covered

2:25

them. But the very first topic we covered

2:27

on Forward Thinking was the Internet of Things, which is

2:29

no big surprise. It's a huge topic,

2:32

very buzzy. It was especially buzzy

2:34

right that very moment. Yes, it's still still buzzing

2:37

right now, but it was one of those things

2:39

where there was the topic was just starting to get

2:42

some momentum in the public consciousness.

2:44

Although I think there are still a lot of people who don't know

2:46

what the Internet of things means.

2:49

But recent stories have you

2:51

know, been uh continuing to develop

2:53

around the Internet of things. The basic idea being that

2:55

you have all these different devices that can connect

2:57

to the Internet and share information in some way

3:00

or enact change

3:02

in your environment in some way. Um.

3:05

But one of the stories I wanted to mention

3:07

is that apparently that also means creating

3:09

lots more security vulnerabilities. Yeah.

3:12

Yeah, You've got a ton of stuff connected to the Internet, to

3:14

make sense, Yeah, and not all of it is as

3:16

protected as your notebook or yes,

3:19

and you're less protected items.

3:22

People are still terrible at passwords, right, So

3:25

One problem is that you've got a lot of Internet of Things

3:27

devices that don't have any password protection at

3:29

all. Another problem is that some of them

3:31

have hard coded passwords, meaning that if you

3:33

get access to what a company uses

3:36

as the hard code password for that particular product,

3:39

it's open season. And then a lot of

3:41

people just never bother changing the

3:43

the standard password

3:45

that comes like with a router. For example,

3:48

I got a new router, and so

3:50

I went in and changed the password because

3:52

the default password was password.

3:55

Do you remember when we did the story about the

3:57

baby monitors that we're being taken

3:59

over by hackers from all over the

4:01

world to watch it on other people's

4:03

babies and talk to them and like yell

4:06

at them and tell them to start crying. Yep,

4:08

that's not not cool. Uh.

4:11

And I think that was because of unchanged default

4:13

passwords. Yeah, yeah, it exactly

4:15

was. What What wasn't there a story about

4:17

like like utility centers, like like

4:20

river dams or something like that having the

4:22

software in them that had unchanged

4:24

passwords. There were there were stories of

4:26

there were stories of they were using baby

4:28

monitors to control the damns. There

4:31

were stories of of code found

4:33

in some of those systems where it was clear that

4:35

foreign agents had managed

4:38

to infiltrate the systems

4:40

of various important utility companies

4:42

across the United States and put in code

4:44

that was not meant to be there, uh

4:47

through whatever. Who knows

4:49

how it got there. It could have gotten there by a thumb

4:51

drive or you know anything. But the

4:54

reason why I bring up Internet things in particular

4:56

is that recently there was a story that

4:58

I saw in tech Dirt about a security

5:00

researcher named Brian Krebs who was the

5:02

target of a directed denial

5:04

of service attack a di DOS attack, where

5:07

apparently he was being hit by a six twenty

5:09

gigabits per second of traffic

5:12

to the website that he he has.

5:14

That's a lot of gigabits. Gigabits, Yeah,

5:16

when a Google Fiber connection is one

5:18

gigabit per second and that's way faster than anything

5:20

I have. Six twenty is massive.

5:23

And the they suspect that the a

5:26

lot of this traffic came from Internet of Things devices

5:28

like digital video

5:30

recorders and routers. This

5:33

means that the hacker who was perpetrating

5:35

the attack and captured lots of devices

5:38

out in the wild essentially made them work

5:40

for him. Or her. Yeah, yeah,

5:43

yeah, very much. So. Uh,

5:45

there are other issues with Internet things, like the

5:47

concept of privacy. We've talked about this before,

5:49

the idea that if you have an environment that's

5:51

going to react to you and

5:53

change according to your preferences, it

5:56

has to know about you in order to do that,

5:58

which means you give up some of your private to see, even

6:00

if it's not your name or any other

6:02

kind of demographic information

6:04

about you, it starts to learn your preferences,

6:07

which alone is a very valuable

6:10

database of information for lots

6:12

of different companies. And as

6:15

it turns out, just if you want an Internet of things

6:17

that is customizable and personalized,

6:21

then you have to Yeah.

6:24

Yeah, so that's growing concern.

6:27

All that being said, I still think the Internet of things

6:29

concept is really cool, but

6:31

um, you know, it's we

6:33

we need to be really aware of how

6:36

we develop and implement that technology

6:38

in order to do it responsibly. Some

6:41

of the other cool things we talked about in

6:43

those early episodes. So I was going back through and I

6:45

was looking at all the different titles and stuff. I

6:47

reminded I was reminded that how much I loved

6:49

the episodes we did about time. Oh

6:52

that was fun. Yeah, talking about how time is

6:54

dependent upon your context, right, your frame

6:56

of reference. So if you're traveling

6:58

super fast and and some one else is on

7:00

is not traveling super fast. From your

7:03

perspective, traveling super fast, it looks

7:05

like their life is just whishing

7:08

by, and from their perspective, it would

7:10

look like you are barely moving at

7:12

all within the frame of one.

7:15

Yeah, that that episode gave me a headache, I remember,

7:18

because it was all like time is relative, literally

7:21

relative to your frame of

7:23

reference. That's why we say that. I

7:25

know some people take that to mean that time

7:28

does not exist, to which I disagree.

7:30

Yeah, I saw a recent article about

7:32

people suggesting that time was merely

7:36

a construct in our minds. It was essentially

7:38

our brain's way of making sense of things, and

7:40

that times arrow doesn't point

7:42

in one direction because if you start looking

7:44

at massive calculations

7:46

on the galactic scale, they are reversible,

7:48

whether time travels in one direction or the other. So

7:51

it may just be that at our very tiny

7:53

local level, we have to have time going

7:55

in a specific way or else things don't make sense. And like

7:58

what but what

8:01

I think? Time definitely does

8:03

exist, but it's possible that the present

8:06

does not exist. I get presents

8:08

all the time. We also talked

8:10

about some pop culture stuff.

8:12

Two of my favorite episodes We've ever done. Yeah,

8:15

those back to Back to the Future part

8:17

two, parts one and two where

8:20

it was back to Back to the Future to part

8:22

two. That was my favorite title ever. Those

8:25

those were some great episodes. Yeah, that's

8:27

where we learned that everyone will have a fax machine in

8:29

every room of their house. Yes, many

8:31

people would be Michael J. Fox. Did we rate that

8:33

true? I think we said that was a good one,

8:36

right, it might have been. I it's

8:38

been a long time. The what's the pizza

8:40

disc where they stick a little pizza disk? You

8:42

really know how to hydrated pizza? Yeah?

8:45

Yeah, and half of the pizza had just had

8:47

bell peppers on it, and I was like, what is wrong

8:49

with you? You know? One of my favorite

8:52

episodes we ever did was the one

8:54

about the future of talking,

8:57

the future of speech. Maybe not

8:59

the future of talk. That's not how should put it?

9:01

Language the languages that we speak, because

9:04

languages change over time. They evolve

9:06

over time just like organisms do, but

9:09

on much shorter time scales and

9:11

in very interesting ways. One of my favorite

9:14

classes I took in college was the history

9:16

of the English language, learning about

9:18

how English has changed since

9:20

you know, the year eight hundred, and it

9:22

has changed dramatically since then, it very

9:24

much. Yeah, an English speaker today without

9:27

a lot of training could not read Old

9:29

English Anglo Saxon would need

9:31

to have You would sit there and say like, I'm pretty

9:33

sure this is Germany. Yeah, yeah,

9:36

And and we we also got to to read a bunch

9:38

of of of different bits of language

9:40

from from uh, like a

9:42

hundred years in the past, each time like seventy

9:44

years in the past, something like that. We jumped back and back

9:46

and back until the old English

9:48

thought yeah,

9:51

yeah,

9:54

yeah, it's my favorite. Hailing

9:57

did the h for

10:00

the Middle English? Yeah yeah, okay,

10:04

fair enough, Okay, No,

10:08

So we we talked about how language changes over

10:10

time, and we tried to think, okay, well, looking

10:12

at how language has changed in the past, can we

10:14

make predictions about the future. We made a few,

10:17

but but we weren't able to make all

10:19

that many predictions about how English

10:21

is going to change in the future, because I don't know, it's

10:24

hard to predict things like this. But I went

10:26

back to see if there had been anything interesting

10:28

published on this topic since our podcast

10:31

came out. And Son of a Gun.

10:33

One really interesting article I read

10:36

was from The Economist and it

10:38

was published just about a month after

10:40

our podcast came out. This is the problem there,

10:44

and it would have been a great resource

10:46

for us because it was really interested interesting.

10:48

So it pointed out one thing

10:50

about English that is going to be

10:53

highly determinative of how it changes

10:55

in the future, which is that about two

10:57

thirds of the people who speak English in the world

10:59

are not native English speakers.

11:02

More people speak English as a non

11:04

native language than as a native language,

11:07

and so it's possible that English

11:10

has actually used more as a kind

11:12

of lingua franca around the world then it is

11:14

as somebody's default speaking language.

11:17

And there's no real sign of this reversing.

11:19

So what does this mean for the future

11:22

of English and uh And the article pointed

11:24

out that linguistics researchers have

11:26

short they've sort of shown that bigger

11:29

languages that you know, incorporate more speakers,

11:31

tend to become simpler. As

11:33

a language is spoken by more non native

11:36

adults, it's likely to lose

11:38

unnecessary bits and rules

11:41

such as grammatical inflection.

11:44

Jonathan, you know this from the history of English.

11:46

English used to have different

11:49

versions of the same word depending

11:52

on what grammatical role that

11:54

word played in English, and some languages are still

11:56

like this. Well yeah, like English used

11:58

to have different words or you as

12:01

a singular you, and you as

12:03

in a group of people you. In

12:06

fact, if you get down to it, it had

12:08

you you too and all of you guys,

12:11

which we we in the South still have

12:13

because we have y'all, and that that's a totally

12:15

different type of that's

12:18

true all y'all, which is way more people than

12:20

just y'all. Oh man, I love all y'all. Y'all

12:22

is a good word. I think all English

12:25

speakers should adopt y'all. But

12:27

but anyway, so the example that

12:30

that is given in the article of the grammatical

12:33

inflection changing would

12:35

be who versus whom. So

12:37

it's the same word, but it changes

12:39

whether based on whether you're using it is the

12:41

subject or the object and the sentence.

12:43

English used to have this kind of thing for all kinds

12:45

of words, and most of

12:47

these have already gone away, and whom is

12:49

probably going to disappear as well. But we can expect

12:52

similar types of streamlining

12:54

of the rules of language. And in a good

12:57

way to figure this out is to listen

12:59

to a adults trying to learn to

13:01

speak English. Whatever is

13:03

tripping them up the most, say

13:06

like verb tense aspect,

13:08

which is where there are three different forms

13:11

of the present tense. So

13:13

like, uh, let's say you know you've got

13:15

a saw and you're sawing a board, so

13:18

you say I saw. You

13:20

can also say I am sawing.

13:22

You can also say I do saw.

13:25

You're no matter what you're sawing? All the

13:28

what? What is with all these different tense cases?

13:30

This is stupid. We're probably

13:32

going to lose stuff like that.

13:35

I'm okay with most of that. Yeah, we we

13:37

can also expect dialects

13:39

and pronunciation to continue to change. All

13:41

the Northern cities shift in how

13:43

we pronounce American vowels that

13:46

we mentioned that in our old episode. And

13:48

another interesting thing they pointed out in this

13:51

article is is sort of eui

13:53

isms, which is how

13:55

we're the meanings of words

13:58

changing based on words

14:00

in English being misused because

14:03

similar sounding words means something

14:05

different in another language. Yes,

14:08

so they give a great example of this. I'm just

14:10

going to read a quote from the article. Quote. For

14:13

example, European Union bureaucrats

14:15

are likely to use the English control

14:18

to mean monitor or verify

14:21

because controller or controllery

14:24

in have this meaning. In French and

14:26

German. Other examples

14:28

are assist for attend

14:31

and actual for current. Yeah,

14:34

control being used to mean monitor

14:36

a verif I could cause some real confusion

14:38

right now, Yeah, yeah, because

14:41

you use that in just the you

14:43

know you're talking about like let's say, let's say that you're talking

14:45

about monitoring the behavior of a crowd.

14:47

If you're talking about controlling the behavior of a crowd, that

14:49

has a totally different meaning, right yeah, yeah,

14:51

And I'm sure it could lead to those kinds of confusions.

14:54

But but yeah, I don't know that that was

14:56

really interesting to me. I don't know, maybe this is more

14:58

interesting to me than it is to other but trying

15:00

to imagine just how the

15:03

very words we speak will be different. Well,

15:05

and we had so many episodes that

15:07

kind of we're spokes

15:09

connected to this concept, right. We had the ones

15:11

where we said, well, how do you create a

15:14

language that people will be able to understand

15:16

ten thousand years from now? Right? How do you

15:18

create ways of

15:20

alerting people to your intent

15:22

when you have no way of knowing how how the language

15:25

is going to evolve change, Maybe even the language

15:27

you're using is completely eradicated by the time,

15:30

and and you need that for certain things

15:32

like telling people, hey, this is where we stored

15:34

all our nuclear waste. Don't go in here, exactly

15:36

touch it, don't put it in your eyeballs. It's going

15:39

to be dangerous for longer than your language

15:41

exists, and exactly

15:44

on eyestalks. That's a great way of saying that. We

15:47

also had an episode about how would we

15:49

talk to aliens? Like, we

15:51

really did focus on language in quite a few

15:53

episodes. And and possibly because we're in

15:55

English major, I was about to make the same reference.

15:57

Yes, the fact that we're English majors probably

16:00

had something to do with that, but it's it is a

16:02

really interesting to think about, the thing to think

16:04

about. I don't think we're ever going

16:06

to get to the point where we only uh

16:09

communicate in references

16:11

and metaphor the way that Star Trek Next

16:13

Generation episode everyone likes but is actually

16:15

secretly terrible um

16:17

dead the Star

16:19

Trek episodes, Yes,

16:22

Darmak so Picard

16:24

beams down to a planet he's down

16:26

with an alien leader. They

16:28

do not the universal translator

16:31

will not translate what the guy is saying, and

16:33

the guy only speaks in um

16:35

in in references

16:38

to things that are relevant in his culture. So

16:41

like if he wants to say right

16:44

if well, sadly no, or interpretive dance

16:46

would have been great too, but neither is true. So

16:48

so if he wanted to say, you and I need to work together

16:51

in order to overcome this challenge, instead he would

16:53

say like Darmak and jannad at Tanagra, that

16:55

would be because in his culture that references

16:58

a story of two powl who

17:00

used to be at cross purposes, but who then

17:03

work together to overcome a third problem.

17:06

Uh, that would be. But the issue

17:08

I have there is that unless you have a language, you cannot

17:11

build the stories that you then use

17:13

as reference to communicate your ideas.

17:15

Well, maybe they had a language and they forgotten

17:18

and now, but how do you That seems

17:20

like a really inefficient way to teach people how to communicate,

17:24

like talking you to a baby, like once they get to the

17:26

point where they are beyond making the

17:28

actual sounds like all right, now, I gotta teach

17:30

you an entire sentence to mean this

17:33

general idea

17:35

that that can be applied to anything

17:37

that falls within that general idea. I can imagine

17:40

that maybe if all

17:42

teaching of language is done with visual aids,

17:45

like if they don't just have books that are just

17:47

text, but everything is like captions

17:49

accompanying images. Yeah, maybe,

17:52

sure, Sure. There was an interesting

17:54

play by by Johnny Drago that happened

17:56

here in Atlanta that positive um

17:59

that that in some not too distant future

18:02

are archaeologists would would find

18:05

scraps of of of what we know today's

18:07

human language and call it proto emoji.

18:12

I both love it and hate it at the same

18:14

time. That's fantastic, Jonathan,

18:17

what's your favorite emoji? I mean,

18:20

poop, It's always going to be the answer.

18:23

I'm a big fan of the alligator. I don't know why.

18:25

Sometimes I just send my wife an alligator, very

18:28

very rarely. I mean the closest I I

18:30

use are still emoticons. I don't tend to use

18:32

a lot of emojis. Some some of the chat

18:35

stuff will automatically translate an

18:37

emoticon into an emoji. Was so mad

18:39

about that, Like, if I wanted an emoji,

18:41

I would have put it in there. I just wanted to colon

18:43

end up, you know, a closed parentheses.

18:46

I didn't want it to be like this weird

18:48

gaping smiling thing.

18:51

Uh, but I'm old So, okay,

18:54

I've got another favorite episode. Okay, you don't want to tell

18:56

us about your favorite emoji? Oh you did? You did?

18:58

Alligator? Like alg it? And I like

19:00

the devil. I

19:02

like I like the I like the cat, not the cat face, the

19:05

kind of disdainful cat. Yeah,

19:08

yeah, cat frowning

19:10

upon you. Yeah. I don't know how a cat that's like less

19:12

than a centimeter manages to still look disdainful.

19:15

It's like a cat's superpower, pretty sure. Disdainful

19:17

cat and devil or suck it petting?

19:20

All right, what any

19:22

other favorite episodes you want to cover? Yeah?

19:25

There was one I remembered that I had a lot of

19:27

fun thinking about, and it was the one about what

19:29

happens when a robot breaks the law? Where

19:32

we were covering a couple of stories about

19:34

computer programs that had

19:38

had had done something autonomously

19:41

that required the attention of law enforcement.

19:44

Now, it's not any big problem

19:46

to imagine what should be

19:48

done when a robot does

19:50

a essentially performs a directed

19:53

action that it was program to do,

19:56

and then it breaks the law. Right then you would you would

19:58

argue whoever, whomever programmed

20:00

the robot would be at fault. Yeah, but

20:02

what about when when robots or computer

20:05

programs autonomously do something

20:08

that has harmful legal repercussions,

20:11

but nobody directly told it to do that,

20:13

It's just emergent behavior. Uh.

20:16

And so I really

20:18

remember thinking that was a very interesting problem

20:21

problem to think about, like what

20:23

it makes you consider, what is the nature of

20:26

legal and moral responsibility? Who

20:28

really should bear it? And then also I

20:30

know that you guys did an episode without

20:32

me about robot personhood,

20:35

which I think sort of revisited this topic,

20:37

didn't. Yeah, definitely, it wasn't on

20:39

purpose. We wanted you to be there. You just weren't

20:41

there for whatever personal reason you had for not being

20:44

there that day. We weren't like, let us exclude Joe

20:46

from this episode. That's when I was out of town

20:48

for something I would imagine

20:50

so um but but yeah, yeah, the episode

20:53

was called Our Robots Electronic Persons.

20:55

It was from July of this year. Um,

20:58

And we did it because

21:00

the European Parliament had released

21:02

a proposal for civil laws

21:05

that relate to robotics um

21:07

and very much so talked about section

21:09

of this proposal discussed possibilities

21:12

for robot person right. Essentially, this was

21:14

a committee that said, we got

21:16

together to think about these things that we've been saying

21:18

we should think about for quite some time, and here's

21:21

what we concluded. And they had some suggestions,

21:23

but nothing that was definitive. Right. It wasn't like

21:25

this was going to be enacted into law. Yeah,

21:27

it was more like, we really should have a committee that's

21:30

thinking about this thing, that can create something

21:32

that can be enacted into Right, here's here's

21:34

a here are some basic ideas that

21:36

we could head toward. But we're not suggesting this

21:38

is the end goal. Rather, these are the

21:40

sort of things that these dedicated committees

21:43

should talk about. It was a meeting calling for more meetings,

21:45

yeah, but they were also being more They're

21:48

also calling for people who were experts not just

21:50

in the technology, but also in social

21:53

social law, things that would be important

21:56

to make sure they could roll out also

21:59

throughout the entire European Union and not They

22:01

didn't want to see a future where various

22:04

countries were taking their own approaches

22:06

to this and creating an incompatible

22:08

system within the European Union. So

22:11

it was actually a very a very forward

22:13

thinking proposal. There were some segments

22:15

in it that did kind of lend themselves to at

22:18

least some simple jokes about the idea

22:20

of robots, like robots getting

22:22

paid a salary, for example, But

22:24

the whole purpose of that was not to pay

22:26

a robot so that the robot is

22:29

motivated to do a good job, but rather to

22:31

have a fund so that if that robot

22:33

ever were to do something that would

22:35

cause harm or damage, then money

22:38

from that fund could go towards compensating

22:40

the injured party. That sort of idea, So

22:43

it was really an interesting thing to look into. I

22:45

really, I really enjoyed that episode. Both of those

22:47

episodes yeah yeah, UM. A

22:50

lot of my favorite ones over the years have

22:52

have of course been the medical ones. That's kind of one of my

22:54

beats, Like I'm I'm so excited whenever

22:56

we get to talk about things like vaccines or

22:58

pain, or blood or bacteria.

23:02

Um. I was not in a few of these. I know

23:04

that because I listened to so many

23:06

in preparation for this episode. Uh

23:08

so so so those those have been some of my favorites, and

23:10

of course medical technology is advancing all the

23:12

time. I honestly didn't check to

23:15

see what exactly we said about things

23:17

in all of those episodes. I just wanted to be like, oh, man,

23:19

wasn't it great when we talked about the future of Blood.

23:22

Wasn't it Blood was fun? I think

23:24

I think Blood the Blood

23:27

was the one that I think we released it with

23:29

a technical error where my microphone

23:31

was turned off and they

23:34

were hearing me through y'all's microphones. We

23:36

had to re release it. That

23:38

sometimes happens. Yeah, sure, technical

23:40

difficulties do in fact occur, although for

23:43

for the for for very much the most part,

23:46

Mr Noel Brown and Mr Dilan Fagan do

23:48

excellent work. Yeah, he is waving at

23:51

us right now. Another one, as I was scrolling

23:53

through archive, was the one about

23:55

US search results in swaying elections, because

24:00

that was one that I I love it when

24:02

I'm completely flabbergasted by things that

24:04

I learned here around the house to works offices,

24:06

and and that was one that I had no idea

24:09

about and it was so surprising to me. And the

24:12

concept is that we all rely

24:14

on Google so

24:16

so much and so trustfully that

24:18

um that the first what is it

24:20

for search results or I mean, depending on the size

24:22

of your screen, I suppose that show up in your immediate

24:25

field of vision are basically what

24:27

what opinion you draw about something that

24:29

you don't know about, right, you don't, You don't. Very

24:31

few people go beyond even

24:33

what is above the fold. If

24:36

they do scroll down, they even fewer

24:38

will go to page two for example of

24:40

results, and and to go beyond that is

24:42

essentially unheard of. So uh,

24:45

if you are able to position your

24:47

results so that they appear in those first couple

24:50

of links, you are in really good position

24:52

to have people check your stuff out. So if

24:55

you have to believe it to to to believe that

24:57

because it is that high in the Google search, also

24:59

that of worthwhile news sources. Yeah, Google

25:01

has built its reputation on having very reliable

25:04

search results. So part of that then lens

25:06

this idea that whatever links you see

25:09

have inherent credibility to Yeah.

25:11

Yeah, so yeah, and and this is a

25:13

story that we've seen resurface

25:15

as we lead up to the elections

25:17

here in the United States. Uh, just a

25:19

couple of weeks ago, I saw a story where

25:22

the same sort of idea was being brought up. In fact, I

25:24

think one of our pitch meetings for How Stuff Works,

25:26

someone brought it up on a Monday editorial

25:29

brainstorming. And when I heard them, like, I'm

25:31

pretty sure we covered that like a year ago. Yeah,

25:34

yeah, so so I guess as the

25:36

elections are coming up as of this recording,

25:39

do do actual research, don't do Google

25:41

researches. What dive into

25:44

at this point is anybody still forming their

25:46

opinions of the candidates though, well,

25:48

the presidential candidates maybe not, but local

25:50

local candidates. Yeah, good point. There

25:52

are many local candidates to be to to take

25:54

into consideration. I think I think a

25:56

majority of Congress members are up for reelection

26:00

here, so uh, I don't know.

26:02

Maybe if y'all have some opinions about how things have been

26:04

happening in this country, check that up.

26:06

Rock the vote. Don't write my name in for

26:09

anything. I don't need that level

26:11

of response to everything.

26:15

Luckily, not every state is allowed to do

26:17

that, so I'm not going to become the governor of everywhere.

26:21

That would be real awkward. Yeah,

26:23

I can't split my time like that. Other

26:26

other favorite episodes are, of course the food

26:28

episodes, and we've had some great episodes

26:31

about food um uh. We

26:33

had that really early couple of episodes about

26:35

the future of protein um

26:37

in which we mentioned that we

26:39

mentioned that lab grown burger. This was and

26:43

and at the time carried a thousand

26:45

dollar price tech um,

26:47

which we all agreed was a bit steep

26:50

for a burger. Yeah, even even for one

26:52

grown in a lab. I think that'd be a bit dear

26:54

for me, as

26:57

just just three years later, these

26:59

things cost eleven dollars and thirty

27:01

six cents to produce. Phenomenal. Now

27:04

you're talking about Atlanta high

27:06

end burger joint price ranges. Oh yeah,

27:09

yeah, there are burgers sold in the

27:11

building we're in right now that cost

27:13

more than that. Yeah, that's true right

27:15

downstairs. Yep. But

27:17

so that was fascinating the borg chef y'all,

27:20

uh, including our very like I think

27:22

still our favorite moment and all a forward thinking

27:24

when you guys looked up recipes, Um,

27:27

you never did cook and we

27:31

still can just not just not on this audio

27:33

show. Snack stuff sometimes snack stuff

27:35

two, Yes, that

27:38

was it that on a cooking show. There was some like

27:41

some like dumpling that just mustard

27:43

green dumplings. Actually the

27:45

filling for the dumplings was just pure

27:48

olives. It's going to be

27:50

the saltiest salties. Mustard

27:53

greens were used to line

27:55

the bamboo steamer. When

27:58

you right, we talked about how often whatever

28:00

the identified main ingredient was

28:02

sometimes didn't appear in the dish or was

28:05

listed as optional. Oh

28:07

I love you, Chef Watson, You're you're, You're

28:09

the very best chef ever um and

28:12

uh and then oh it's speaking of

28:15

Star Trek. Is I feel like we have a whole bunch

28:17

over the past couple episodes here? Uh,

28:19

Star Trek Economy from way back in

28:21

December. Yeah, that

28:23

was usually economic

28:25

topics aren't the thing that I'm psyched about.

28:28

I think that was one of our most popular podcast

28:30

episodes ever. It was fun to talk

28:33

about, largely because first

28:35

we got to address the fact that Star Trek

28:37

has not been consistent with the way that it's

28:39

treated its economy. Like essentially, in Star Trek

28:41

it says money doesn't exist unless

28:43

the plot requires it too. Um.

28:45

But it was also just funny fun to talk

28:47

about, Well, how would we would it

28:49

be possible to get to a time when

28:52

currency and wealth are no longer

28:55

really a thing, or at least personal wealth isn't.

28:57

Maybe you know, species wealth

29:00

idea of having enough resources of energy

29:02

and all the other needs to distribute

29:05

to everybody so that there's no want

29:08

or or wanting

29:10

of things. Then um,

29:12

maybe, but yeah, that was a fun one to

29:14

talk about, really, to to kind of wrap your head

29:16

around what would it take for us to get to that

29:19

point? Uh, And it's it's

29:21

mostly boils down to lots

29:23

and lots of energy and jumpsuits. Jumpsuits

29:26

as well. Yes, and the Picard maneuver where

29:28

you stand up and then you you know, or you sit down and

29:30

then you tug your Also

29:33

the Riker maneuver, which involves sitting in chairs

29:35

by swinging your leg over the back of the chair

29:37

and then sitting down and sometimes getting up the same

29:39

way but in reverse. It's

29:42

amazing how often he does that. Yeah, there's or

29:45

or or rests the rests the foot on the

29:47

top of a chair, like like not on the seat

29:50

of a chair, like on the top of the back like

29:52

I mean, I understand he's tall, right, Well

29:55

he needs it's it's a it's a form of dominance.

29:57

He's called number two and he has to

30:00

constantly prove himself to everybody else

30:02

because he's not number one. Ricker

30:04

doesn't have to prove anything to you. He had

30:06

to grow a beard. It was from

30:08

season one to season two, and it proved

30:10

to me that he could grow facial hair. He

30:13

can very nice facial hair. Jonathan

30:15

preferred him with the beard. Yeah.

30:20

Also also one of the episodes

30:22

that you that you were not here with us for Jonathan

30:25

Bees Future

30:27

of Bees. What was

30:30

in my eyes? I'm

30:32

forgetting Oh man, I wish I had looked this up. I

30:35

think I think I have the notes open. Maybe I can

30:37

go check it out. There. There was some kind of terrible

30:40

wonderful word that we discovered.

30:43

Uh, that we discovered a

30:45

lot of maybe maybe it was just robobies.

30:48

There were robbies. There was some kind of there

30:50

was kind of be vitamin. There

30:52

was a thing they fed bees.

30:55

No, I

30:58

mean some kind of like

31:00

like be steroids to give them powers,

31:03

give them. Missed

31:05

out on that one. No, that was that was megabe

31:09

Megabe. It was called megabee

31:11

Megabee. What was megabee? Was that the stuff? Yeah?

31:13

It was like a little like be like protein shaken

31:16

kind of Yeah, that you feed, you

31:18

feed bees to to help keep them through through

31:20

the winter. Yeah. That

31:23

and uh, I remember we did a commercial

31:25

for it. Didn't me it was beef

31:28

up your nice.

31:32

Well, I'm sad I missed all the being activity.

31:34

I'm sad that you missed it to um

31:37

also, and this is a visual reference

31:39

because I don't remember how how good

31:41

the actual episode

31:44

was, but we did. We did a spider episode,

31:46

I think also were you okay

31:49

okay, But Joe added this amazing

31:51

photograph into into the

31:53

notes and let me explain it to you, and then I'm

31:56

going to show it to the guys for for visual reference.

31:58

Um. It's it's a it's a kind of like a close

32:00

up of the spider with like really pretty

32:02

blue beady eyes and

32:04

it's it's like little mandibles and and so

32:07

it's it's it's very it's sort of like like fish islands,

32:09

like when you have like a dog that's like right up in a camera

32:12

and the and the caption plastered

32:14

across it is Spiber, Spiper,

32:17

Spiber and

32:20

this is what it looks like. Dudes. Yeah,

32:22

that's that's what I'm

32:25

nearly. I didn't make it, uh,

32:28

and and it just it brings me such joy

32:30

occasionally I just think about it and a giggle.

32:33

Rarely do we include images

32:35

in our notes, but once in a while that does

32:37

happen, and it's typically for our benefit

32:40

and not for yours. But one thing

32:42

we have done for your benefit

32:44

is. While most of the episodes have

32:47

at least some combination of the three of us

32:49

in them, we've also had some other folks

32:51

on our show as well. Oh yeah, we should give them

32:53

all a shout out. We've appreciated all

32:55

of our wonderful co hosts, or

32:58

get our wonderful guests. Yes,

33:00

yes, we we had Holly Fry come

33:02

on and talk about the future of fashion. That

33:05

one lovely time that Julie joined us for a couple

33:07

episodes about weather control Julie

33:10

Douglas. That is um, Raquel

33:12

Willis talking about gender. Uh.

33:14

Scott Benjamin and Benjamin

33:17

Bolan talking about

33:20

car computerization. I think it's just called Scott

33:22

Benjamin Bolan Yes, um,

33:25

Christian Sager talking about superheroes,

33:28

also about ruins, the ruins

33:30

of the future, Oh yeah, yeah yeah um.

33:33

And also Robert Liam talking about

33:35

monsters, the future of monsters,

33:37

like what monsters will inhabit our future. So

33:39

thanks to all of them for lending their

33:42

talent and expertise and making our

33:44

show better and giving us, giving us

33:46

the opportunity to talk about subjects that

33:48

aren't necessarily within our own wheelhouses.

33:51

But we have so much knowledge

33:54

available here at how Stuff works. It's actually pretty

33:56

humbling. It's intimidating as heck. Yeah,

33:59

that's absolutely a thing that Jonathan

34:01

you have added to this show is ridiculously

34:04

penny title honey, titles and references.

34:06

So I decided to just get a collection of some

34:08

of the best of the worst or worst

34:10

of the best, or however you want to define it. And

34:12

I haven't shared this with the with

34:15

Joe and Lauren, although I'm sure you both were scrolling

34:17

through the episodes and everything. Here's some

34:19

of the titles that we have used in past episodes.

34:21

I'm just gonna go through them. We're not going to talk about

34:24

necessarily what the subjects were. But there was

34:26

my so called life casting. It's

34:28

for that MTV generation out there. Uh,

34:30

no more waking up in a bathtub full of ice

34:34

artificial organs. Yep

34:36

ye, your brother, brother, Can you spare

34:38

a zero one one zero zero one zero

34:41

zero? Who wants

34:43

to live forever? Shades

34:46

of degray?

34:50

Uh, it's coming right for us. That

34:53

was another one. That was the autonomous car trolley

34:55

problem episode. Oh not not

34:57

about an asteroid? Oh no, no, you're right.

34:59

That one was the asteroid one. Yeah. Then

35:01

there's a four D printing is one d better?

35:04

Uh do robots rite of

35:06

electric sheep? Uh play

35:08

that funky music Android send

35:12

in the clones. That's the best Babies

35:15

in Space Inconceivable, and

35:19

that was about conception. And and

35:21

then there was there was Babies in Space

35:23

That's Heavy, which was about microgravity effects

35:26

on babies. Uh Quick to the

35:28

Zeppelin. I just think that's an awesome title.

35:30

Also, Uh Pew pew laser.

35:33

Uh. And then there's a That's so random

35:36

parentheses number generator in parentheses.

35:39

Uh. Then Finding Nemo that's in

35:41

E E M O, which was about a

35:43

nautical facility. There

35:46

was where we're going we do need

35:48

roads. Uh, computers

35:50

know if you're sarcastic, Yeah, right, our

35:53

cryonics cool and

35:57

you have twenty seconds to comply. Uh.

36:00

Those are Yeah, it's a RoboCop

36:02

because we did one about robo security. And so that

36:04

was the quote I used as or the

36:06

reference I used as the title. And

36:08

finally, let's let's kind of conclude this

36:11

with a discussion about one of the most irritating

36:13

things about this show that I introduced fairly

36:16

early on, opening up episodes

36:18

with song quotes. Why do you say irritating,

36:20

because whenever I wasn't here. You

36:22

had to do it, and based upon the

36:25

entries you guys made, I'm guessing it wasn't

36:27

necessarily fun. We

36:33

we enjoy it when you do it,

36:36

do we always forget until we were literally right

36:38

in the studio And that happened to me on a few

36:40

occasions too, as will be apparent

36:42

when I go through some of the stats. But first I want

36:45

to say that we when we started the show,

36:47

we didn't do that right. That wasn't something that I

36:49

just did from the very beginning, although it didn't

36:51

take too long into the existence

36:53

of the show before I introduced it, but I

36:56

was. I started by just introducing silly

36:58

comments about the future in

37:00

general, starting in the spring, and

37:02

I would say things like this is an actual quote, welcome

37:04

to forward Thinking, the show where we look at the future and

37:06

say can we hear you? And

37:09

well, that is kind of what we do, isn't it. Yeah.

37:11

There was another one where it's like how are you doing? That

37:14

was we look at the future and say, how are you doing? We're

37:16

not like Ray Bradberry who want to

37:18

prevent the future from happening. So,

37:21

but the one I just referred to the camere year

37:24

that one came from Hollywood Ruined Holograms

37:27

that episode, but I hadn't started quoting

37:29

songs yet. And when I did start quoting songs,

37:32

I didn't go all in like another

37:34

episode. I might just say something weird.

37:36

I wouldn't necessarily quote a song or might quote a

37:38

movie. It wasn't until later that

37:40

I got into doing it frequently, but

37:43

those early ones, like I was quoting some really

37:45

uh wonderful

37:48

pieces of music like Rebecca Black's Friday

37:50

or they Carli ray Jefson's song called

37:53

Me Maybe that was one, And I remember when I did

37:55

that one, I started getting judged by you two.

37:57

And that's I think what drove me into doing it

37:59

more free quickly, because it

38:01

was the trolling aspect in

38:05

about half of the episodes early on. I'm like

38:07

that sounds you're hearing is Lauren shaking her head and me

38:11

but um uh. The from what I can

38:13

tell, the first song lyric I ever referenced

38:15

was put Me in a Wheelchair and Get Me to the Show, which

38:18

is from the Ramones song I Want to Be Sedated.

38:20

I'm a big fan of punk rock in general, the

38:23

Ramons in particular, and other stuff like rockabilly,

38:25

surf rock, and garage rock, so as well

38:27

as glam and new wave. Like a lot of those

38:29

songs have representation if you look at

38:31

the full list. Um, that episode

38:34

that I quoted that song in was Building

38:36

with Bacteria, which published May. By

38:39

the time we got two Shades of Degree, I was quoting

38:41

songs pretty much with every episode. There were

38:43

a couple of exceptions, but um,

38:46

there was a time in the summer, late summer

38:48

of that I kind of stopped and I was doing

38:50

other stuff. But then I came back to songs,

38:52

so I decided to do some something insane.

38:55

Leaving up to this episode. I did not get

38:57

a chance to listen to every

39:00

single entry or intro

39:02

rather, but I listened to two hundred and seventy seven

39:04

of them home dang, So

39:07

it's just a whole bunch o buddy, or your

39:09

ears hurting. Let me tell you

39:11

this. I could stand to go the rest of my life

39:13

without hearing Ben Boland say welcome to

39:15

forward Thinking, because I heard it. I

39:18

heard it two hundred and seventy seven

39:20

times. Uh So, here here's some

39:22

stats for you guys. First of all, we know which

39:25

band I referenced the most frequently

39:27

they might be giants. It's exactly right.

39:30

So out of those two seventy seven song

39:32

entries, which by the way, that that does not correspond

39:35

to two d seventy seven episodes, there was one

39:37

episode where I did three song quotes in a

39:39

go, so that's a little different. Also,

39:42

there's at least twenty year thirty that I didn't

39:44

get to. But out of the two seven

39:46

I listened to, I quoted that they

39:48

might be giants song sixteen times,

39:51

by far by by twice as much as

39:53

the next leading artist. But

39:56

I bet you won't guess who the second highest

40:00

are are. The second most frequent artist would be

40:02

Prince, not not really

40:04

Prince. Actually a little bit further down the list,

40:07

Prince had five total. Okay,

40:09

I know I did Prince at least twice. Yeah,

40:11

you did the same song twice, did couple

40:14

Rain twice in a row. But uh,

40:16

you know the Beatles, and

40:20

we both did Fixing the Hole. We both quoted

40:22

fixing the Hole, Joe, Um, you and

40:24

I. So that was why. And I'll talk more about some

40:26

of the songs that were listed more than once in just

40:28

a second. Talking Heads and uh

40:31

Weird Al Yankovic were next at seven

40:33

songs each. This is not my surprised face. Yeah.

40:36

Jonathan Colton followed up with six to

40:38

be fair. Actually, I guess technically it's no,

40:40

it's is six because I I quoted him

40:43

in that last episode last week and I went ahead through that one

40:45

in Prince would be five as well

40:47

as Rocky Horror Picture Show songs

40:49

were done five times, David Bowie

40:52

five times, Huey Lewis and

40:54

The News five times. Uh.

40:57

And there's one artist

41:00

that we did four times,

41:02

and it was the same song every

41:04

single time Game Sticks Mr

41:07

Roboto. Um, So

41:09

every time I did a Sticks song it ended up being

41:11

Mr. Not necessarily the same line. Did you

41:13

just forget that you've done it? Yeah? Because

41:15

I didn't. Here's the thing, this show has been going on

41:18

a while. The reason why I had to listen

41:20

to these is because I didn't keep a

41:22

sheet of what I had used. I

41:24

didn't have a list, so I

41:26

had to go back and make a list because

41:29

I didn't I didn't have All I was doing

41:31

was listening for a lyric that I

41:33

Typically I wanted to try to find find something

41:35

that was relevant to the topic, although that

41:37

was not always the case. UM

41:40

and and when we've been we've been doing

41:42

this for three and a half years, about

41:44

a hundred episodes a year. Yeah, yeah,

41:46

so yeah, they add up pretty quickly. So here's

41:48

a couple of other little stats, and then we'll conclude

41:51

and say goodbye to everybody. About the songs.

41:53

Uh, if you wanted to know what

41:55

trend was the biggest in besides

41:58

you know, the individual artists that were on the most

42:01

musicals. I quoted more musicals

42:03

than any other genre. So here are

42:05

some of the musicals that you may have heard. Lyrics

42:07

from Rocky Horror and its sequel,

42:09

Shock Treatment, Fame, Tommy

42:12

Mary Poppins, Lame Zaraba, West

42:15

Side Story, Greece to Bye Bye

42:17

Birdie, Oklahoma a chorus Line,

42:19

Hair, Wizard of Oz, Cabaret,

42:22

The Producers, Jungle Book, Sunday

42:24

in the Park, next to Normal, and

42:26

I did Annie last week.

42:29

So lots of musicals. Uh.

42:31

Then if you want to talk, we also reference

42:33

some television show themes. Joe, on one of the episodes,

42:36

you said, uh,

42:39

the podcast that looks at the future and humes the

42:41

theme to TV's Night Writer. So

42:44

I was like that that was possibly my favorite

42:46

because it was the laziest and most awesome. At

42:48

the same time, I forgot about that. That was

42:50

definitely a day that we were like, screw this lyric

42:53

we did. I referenced. I referenced

42:55

the actual lyrics to the Star Trek theme twice,

42:59

because there are lyrics to the Star Trek. How

43:01

about the lyrics to yub Nub the Ewok celebration

43:04

Z No. But we did reference Jedi

43:06

Rocks okay, for the Lightsaber

43:09

episode we talked about I did

43:11

the the Alien language for the beginning

43:13

of Jedi Rocks. Lauren, how did you let

43:15

it happen that we never did an episode without Jonathan

43:18

that did yub Nub. I can't.

43:21

I'm very disappointed. It's

43:23

not Cannon anymore. Anyway, It's not in the

43:25

end of Return of the Jedi anymore. The yub

43:28

Nub is forever. No one

43:30

can take yub Nub away from us. Other TV

43:33

show themes we mentioned our TV music

43:35

that we mentioned. We mentioned ep up Or, which

43:38

came from the Jetsons. The Spider

43:40

Man theme song was referenced.

43:43

The Mickey Mouse Club theme song was referenced.

43:45

For songs that we use more than once,

43:48

um Mr Roboto leads at four,

43:51

but at three we have. I'm

43:53

so ashamed of this one bad case of

43:55

Loving You by Robert Palmer, and

43:57

we did that three till I'm sorry. Of

44:00

my mom's favorite songs, I didn't. We

44:02

did a lot of medical stuff, and there's only so

44:04

many songs that have doctor in them

44:07

that aren't about prescribing

44:09

drugs for the wrong reason or

44:11

or mistreating patients. And I'm like, I don't

44:13

want to go that route. Um Weird

44:16

Science also three times, Space

44:18

Oddity three times, Um

44:21

Marvin I Love You from Marvin

44:23

the Paranoid Android three times.

44:26

It is a sweet song Back

44:28

in Time by Huey Lewis in the News three

44:30

times, Purple Rain twice, Once

44:33

in a Lifetime by Talking Heads was at least

44:35

twice. Dr Worm was twice

44:37

from They Might Be Giants uh, and

44:39

a lot of other ones. I mean, we there were tons

44:41

of songs from things like Monty Python, uh,

44:44

Frank Sinatra. We did Come Fly with Me twice,

44:46

but we also did Fly Me to the Moon, but that was only

44:48

once, so Sinatra had some representation.

44:52

So anyway, Yeah, it was fun just to look over

44:54

these, and again, there's at least twenty or thirty

44:56

that I didn't get to now, Jonathan, do you

44:58

think that these, uh, these

45:00

talis of song lyrics provide

45:02

some insights about what we've learned

45:04

doing this show. I think mostly the

45:07

insight is Jonathan is really

45:09

good at searching for lyrics

45:11

that contain very specific keywords,

45:13

even if he isn't very familiar

45:15

with the song. I appreciate

45:17

your diligence on this front. I mean there

45:20

are I mean the fact that they might be giants was he sixteen

45:23

times tells you that I'm enormous they might be giants

45:25

fan obviously, and also I

45:27

used several of their songs more than once, like Nanobots,

45:30

even some songs that aren't widely

45:32

known outside of the dedicated

45:36

fan base where they might be giants. Um.

45:38

I think it also shows that I'm a kid of

45:40

the eighties because there were an awful lot of songs

45:43

that came from new wave bands, from Elton John

45:46

Uh, from Pink Floyd, Um

45:49

seventies and eighties songs. A lot of those and fewer

45:52

like two of the songs that Joe picked actually

45:55

the same song he picked twice, Toxic

45:58

by Britney Spears, Um

46:00

pick that two times? Yeah, I actually I

46:02

color coded uh

46:04

artists that other people picked, which included

46:07

you know, the Beatles, Fixing the Whole, Prince's

46:09

Purple Rain, Huey Lewis, and the News.

46:11

Uh. Lauren quoted Hip to be Square

46:13

in an episode I did not. I was very

46:16

proud of you though. Um Joe.

46:18

Twice you referenced Blondie also

46:21

Fantastic Blondie. Yeah, Rapture

46:24

and Heart of Glass you did both. Oh no, I did Heart

46:26

of Glass. You did Rapture. Um

46:28

because you did the man from Mars who was eating cars.

46:31

Uh. Lauren. You

46:33

referenced one of the greatest bands of all

46:35

time, Aqua with Barbie Girl, and

46:38

it wasn't for the Hello Barbie episode because I

46:40

referenced in that one. Uh.

46:43

Joe. You referenced Bobby pick It twice.

46:46

Um. Yeah, because he's the

46:48

guy who wrote Monster Mash. Uh.

46:51

You referenced Tracy Chapman once. Joe,

46:54

Um, Lauren, you referenced Jimi

46:56

Aquai with Virtual Insanity for

46:58

a VR episode. Joe, you reference

47:01

Madonna for a material girl for a material science

47:03

episode. I was so pleased. Lauren.

47:06

You reference ce low Green with Forget

47:09

You Uh once. Um.

47:12

We had a couple of other things, like nursy rhymes

47:15

things like or or baby

47:17

songs like rockabye baby, stuff like that,

47:19

which also on top of spaghetti

47:21

Joe, you're a big fan of those. You

47:25

reference free Falling by Tom Petty Joe. Uh.

47:27

Steam powered giraffes honey

47:30

Bee for the Bees episode, Lauren, Uh,

47:33

I did not know that. I had never heard of

47:35

steam powered giraffe, and now I know it's a thing.

47:38

So those are just some of the insights.

47:40

Uh. And then I did every pretty

47:42

much everything else. So I think, I think what we've

47:44

learned here is that, Uh, in

47:46

this journey we have taken together, we all

47:49

have something to be ashamed of. Yes, we

47:51

all can carry that shame with us and now

47:53

no longer share it with the rest of the world, at

47:56

least not in this format. But we

47:58

have really appreciated did you guys, you listeners

48:01

out there, We get your your messages

48:04

whenever we've had an issue with the episodes.

48:06

The fact that people respond so quickly tells us

48:08

that you care. So while it's frustrating

48:11

to have problems, even on our side, like

48:13

we don't like to see that either, but to see

48:15

that it would be awful to have problems

48:18

and no one say anything because

48:20

that means no one's listening, right, But we have

48:22

dedicated listeners who love the show, and so

48:24

I really appreciate that. And of course there are tons of people

48:27

who reach out and say wonderful positive things

48:29

to us, and we appreciate you guys. Oh yeah,

48:31

we are frequently really bad at answering

48:34

those messages. Um and an apologies

48:36

that you've never been shouting into avoid um

48:39

or or saying lovely things and to avoid

48:41

whichever right is. Um. But uh uh

48:44

we we we tend to get really very quite

48:47

busy with with other projects around the office

48:49

here, and uh, many of those projects

48:51

are going to be continuing. Yeah, we should talk about

48:53

that. So Lauren, first let people know what

48:56

other stuff you work on so that they can

48:58

check that out. Uh now,

49:01

my hull, what are my main

49:03

projects? That's an interesting question that I haven't

49:05

really thought about the answer to. Um. I'm doing

49:08

a video series and also a podcast,

49:10

a podcast podcast

49:13

called How Stuff Works Now, which

49:15

is virtually ungoogle able, but I have faith

49:17

in y'all, um, and I

49:20

do writing in performance for a bunch

49:22

of other How Stuff Works video kind of

49:24

stuff. So so, so watch the house touff

49:26

works channel in general and

49:28

and kind of beyond the lookout. Hopefully, hopefully,

49:31

sometime relatively soon, I will have a new podcast

49:33

to talk to you guys about. Oh and those

49:35

live things, the Facebook live stuff. Yes,

49:37

uh, snack

49:40

stuff and uh and et cetera. Um.

49:42

Usually happens either Monday

49:44

around three pm Eastern or Friday

49:47

around three pm Eastern. Lauren, what is

49:49

snack stuff? Is that like where you eat those cappuccino

49:51

flavored potato chips. That is exactly

49:53

what happened sometimes, but we haven't had one of the

49:56

cappuccino flavored ones. Yeah. Mr

49:58

Ben Bowling and I get together

50:01

on Facebook Live for about forty minutes

50:03

or so. I'll frequently Dylan subjects

50:05

himself to whatever we have brought as well, and

50:07

um we we yeah, so so yeah

50:10

we we we bring weird snacks and we eat them

50:12

and we talk a little bit a little bit about them. Um,

50:15

it's it's a lovely time. And we get

50:17

to eat on camera, which is a dream of

50:19

all of ours to just have all of those great

50:21

mouth noises and weird expressions that

50:23

you make when that's occurring broadcast

50:26

live to the world. Joe, what about you, Well,

50:28

I am also one of the hosts of the podcast

50:31

stuff to Blow Your Mind, one of How

50:33

Stuff Works as other podcast with our

50:36

co workers Robert Lamb and

50:38

Christian Saga. We cover

50:41

primarily science, but also with

50:43

a tinge of culture, history,

50:47

monsters, weirdness, anything

50:50

to make you squirm. And you

50:52

can find us at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

50:55

I also write for How Stuff Works videos,

50:57

So if you keep an eye out for House to Works,

50:59

the House to Works video channel where Lauren will

51:01

be doing things, I will be doing them there as well. Yeah,

51:04

I co ho Well now I host a show

51:07

called tech Stuff, occasionally co host because I grab people

51:09

all the time to sit in and join and

51:11

we talk about technology, how

51:14

it works and how it works on us

51:17

or with us uh, and

51:19

those topics can be very technical or

51:21

they can be really kind of more like

51:23

on the philosophical side of things. It all depends

51:25

upon the topic at the time. So you can check

51:27

that episode, those episodes out, there's like

51:30

eight hundred of them. So if you haven't

51:32

listened to Tech Stuff, you've got

51:34

some catching up to do. Big back catalog,

51:36

including stuff that is incredibly out

51:38

of date, so it's really entertaining. Um,

51:41

you can also find me hosting other videos

51:43

occasionally, including how Stuff Works Now videos.

51:45

I also write for how Stuff Works Now, so

51:48

check that out. And um, yeah,

51:50

you never know what else will pop up on And as

51:53

we said before, the Forward Thinking video

51:55

series is going to continue. It's just the audio

51:57

podcast that we're kind of uh pulling

51:59

back from so that we can dedicate our time

52:01

and work on other projects as well.

52:04

Uh. And again it's not that we don't love you, it's

52:06

that we have a limited amount of time and

52:09

so much we want to do. Um.

52:11

We have had a great time exploring these

52:13

topics. I want to say, it's been a really excellent

52:15

adventure to go on with y'all. Yeah,

52:18

yeah, thank thank both of you for Yeah,

52:22

it's it's been a good time. You know. We really

52:24

got to explore a lot of topics and

52:26

and look into things that will great a lot

52:29

more depth than we could with the video series. Obviously,

52:31

with the video series, they're about three to four minutes

52:33

long and we really want to hit like the

52:35

the big bullet points. But in the podcast,

52:37

we've been able to dive into some research and learn

52:40

stuff that was fascinating,

52:42

mind bending, sometimes it was infuriating.

52:44

It all depended on the topic, and we're so

52:46

glad you guys came along with us on that

52:49

journey. And uh, I guess

52:52

you can continue to follow us on

52:54

Twitter and Facebook. I mean I imagine

52:56

that both of those I'll still be maintaining

52:58

moving forward. But if you have

53:00

any suggestions for future audio podcasts,

53:03

um

53:05

okay, maybe be on the lookout for

53:07

some videos instead. Yeah, quite possible.

53:09

Because this is we were now

53:11

coming to a conclusion. I honestly don't know how to end

53:13

this because every episode I say, we'll talk to you

53:16

again really soon. But uh, I

53:18

guess I guess that's that's not you

53:20

know what, Go back and start at episode

53:22

one and just work your way through, and if

53:25

you do that, we will talk to you again really.

53:28

See for

53:33

more on this topic in the future of technology

53:36

visits Forward Thinking dot Com,

53:48

brought to you by Toyota. Let's

53:50

go places.