0:00

Heads. Up this one is

0:02

a bout a fictional computer

0:05

from a nine These Children

0:07

This Enemy Television series. For

0:10

like. Thirty minutes? Just about that.

0:13

So. That's

0:15

what this is. And.

0:19

Now I'm gonna play the Pokemon theme

0:21

music but all playing in a mall

0:23

at night I find. Any

0:28

pilot of the very popular

0:30

Nineteen Ninety Seven animated television

0:32

series, Pokemon we introduced to

0:34

a portable computer basically like

0:36

the smartphone of the pre

0:38

smartphone world of Pokemon called

0:40

a poker decks. Just

0:43

like it decks. For.

0:50

Some of you me even explaining what

0:52

a pokemon x is exceptionally weird because

0:54

it's very obvious. For others it would

0:56

be equally weird if I didn't explain

0:58

what a poker Texas. The

1:02

Balkan X has evolved endlessly over

1:04

the years, but the original is

1:06

a small red portable computer if

1:08

you can google image it safely

1:11

giver. Otherwise, it has a book

1:13

style form factor with you know,

1:15

a small screen, a couple buttons

1:17

almost looks like a half a

1:20

calculator on the right side and

1:22

what's basically a Gameboy lay out

1:24

on the left side. And then

1:26

I was like a camera sensor,

1:29

something which The Pocket X could

1:31

importantly. Used to identify pokemon. the the

1:33

general use shown in the show is

1:35

like you walk up to like a

1:37

squirrel. you hold it up and it's

1:39

like that that the squirrel and it

1:41

tells you just enough about the pokemon

1:43

that the person watching the show now

1:46

knows what. that pogo on his. Which.

1:48

Implies that it has computer vision. And

1:51

text to voice synthesis because

1:53

it could tell the protagonist and

1:55

by extension that young audience.

1:57

Important exposition about the Pokemon. For.

2:01

What now to me as an adult seems like

2:03

marketing purposes. The

2:16

screen. Very Ninety Ninety Seven,

2:18

but it was. Other was a

2:20

very futuristic portable computer. He

2:23

could do stuff the would have been pretty

2:25

challenging for a portable computer to do until

2:27

like the last few years. And

2:30

ape we've been hearing

2:32

recently hacked when Together.

2:37

And I think if you look at

2:39

the history and might evolution of hardware

2:42

and devices that we deal with, a

2:44

lot of them take inspiration from fiction,

2:46

their science fiction ideas or whatever that

2:49

eventually became feasible and I think a

2:51

lot of a time what what's really

2:53

happening in sites technologies progressing and is

2:56

enabling things that are non obvious and.

2:58

I. Need a lot of sense of people who come

3:00

up with these ideas in the real world. Get.

3:03

The inspiration for that aware set at that

3:05

want that adds to that make said. You

3:07

know that last ten percent that really makes

3:10

a notable? They get that from fiction. The.

3:13

Six your computer for my use is

3:15

now a homebrew d I y Project

3:17

Street. He printed the body use the

3:19

school blend of still relatively new A

3:22

P Eyes were going to talk about

3:24

adult A custom poker decks are west.

3:26

kind of like stitch it all together.

3:29

So. Can opener petted x.

3:31

Point. It at a pokemon or

3:34

rather sculpture toy. drawing. any rendering

3:36

of a pokemon he will identify

3:38

it, displayed stats and tell you

3:40

about it. in the original voice

3:42

of the token decks we're getting

3:44

to the point with really printing

3:46

technology and access to a programming

3:48

tools and like these cheap parts

3:50

and all stuff where. It. Would

3:52

be feasible. For. You to

3:54

really build something that you used

3:56

every day but like from scratch

3:58

and quotes. You could make a

4:01

laptop you could make up taste for you that you

4:03

could make these things I would love to see. More

4:05

people seeing a project like this and having that

4:08

reaction that is like oh that's really cool. I

4:10

to do something like that or I could take

4:12

this idea, do my own thing. Sometimes.

4:15

We've got to talk about heavy

4:17

cyber crime type stuff on the

4:19

shelf. You were even be getting a few

4:21

of those are the next help Lab results. And

4:23

sometimes I get sad sack about stuff like

4:26

this. About. A

4:28

six your computer. From. And ninety's

4:30

Enemy. That. A packed together.

4:34

This is a fun one. Is

4:36

my conversation with ape haskins? a kid

4:38

A at a today on you tube?

4:41

About the D I y poco next. Year.

5:00

Saves ages much for us and down with me. Faint.

5:03

Your thanks for having me. Because. Of the

5:05

broadly speaking, for anyone that doesn't know

5:07

what is a token decks in the

5:10

games on the animated show originally, what

5:12

is it and what is it do.

5:14

So a pocket X is a small

5:17

device given by a poker mon professor.

5:19

It's when you when you decide as

5:21

an eleven year old that you're going

5:24

to go capture. poke him on I

5:26

guess for for a living free job.

5:28

Yeah, yeah, for your job they're like

5:30

I'd your eleven years old You don't

5:33

know anything about how. come on here

5:35

is this magical ah device bad. Somehow.

5:38

Has all the information by Parker Man and

5:40

the the general use shown in the show

5:42

is like you walk up to like a

5:44

squirrel your hold it up and it's like

5:46

that's that's a squirrel and it tells you

5:49

just enough about the puck a that the

5:51

person watching the show now knows what that.

5:53

oh come on it's if is. But

5:56

it's basically just like a it's a

5:58

tool in the show too, My

6:00

pokemon are opaque technically a tool but

6:02

also Agatha for the audience understand and

6:04

learn about yeah the dozens and dozens

6:06

of pokemon that accessed via physically small

6:08

little red device hand can wix, I

6:11

got a palm pilot. Are you say

6:13

like something kind A great yeah ninety

6:15

this. Most of the designed to these

6:17

are from the late nineties early two

6:19

thousand so they're kind of. That

6:21

version of a toy. a computer

6:24

kind a login thing. Ah,

6:27

And legacy there is some other. Stuff.

6:29

In there in some episodes Dell Dell actually

6:31

like use the on screen thing delight. Call.

6:34

Someone or something bell rang as if that

6:36

really is not used much. it's it's like

6:39

one random time they needed a plot device

6:41

and he could become that. but that most

6:43

slates just identifying dopamine is it's main thing.

6:45

Yeah it's funny when I was thinking about

6:47

this before a conversation I was just remember

6:50

that others are basically a it's an encyclopedia

6:52

pokemon be you are right it it functions

6:54

as a little bit of an exposition or

6:56

device like it is a means by which

6:59

they can just transmit information the audience. Here's

7:01

what a right to his or whatever. Yep,

7:03

Yep, exactly yeah. and I think that's what

7:05

I think a big problem in the say

7:08

Originally designed like we have a hundred and

7:10

fifty pokemon reacted, explain and we have to

7:12

get kids to love and correlate with as

7:14

the the other interesting is already attained of

7:17

in the pocket acts by the other thing

7:19

They did help people understand other pokemon was.

7:22

On. Commercial breaks. they would do this for

7:24

them and will come on segment where they

7:26

show an outlier milana an end up and

7:28

then you come back. So that is also

7:31

helping kids to memorize all the pokemon and

7:33

they'll start a song at the end which

7:35

was us hilarious Ninety Ninety eight rap song

7:37

about a have a different pokemon to also

7:40

have you remember to. they were really clearly

7:42

trying to each other some to the i

7:44

don't know if they were just like. We.

7:47

don't know which pokemon are going to be important in

7:49

the show or if they were just like we're trying

7:51

to get people to remember every single one but there

7:53

were multiple things including the bug in acts which were

7:55

just designed to get people to the point where they

7:58

knew what elaborate was which and probably failed because most

8:00

people I don't think know what a Lapras is. But,

8:02

you know, they were clearly putting a lot

8:04

of work into it and this device was part

8:07

of that. Yeah, kind of the beating heart.

8:09

So, okay, I could get pulled off onto

8:11

tangents about the Poker App all

8:13

day. The Poker App is good, you should look it

8:15

up. It's really good, it is really. It's vitally funny.

8:17

You should have it on your iPod if

8:20

we're talking about nostalgic tech. But just

8:22

to zoom in on the tech itself, the

8:25

show premiered in, I checked this before we talked, April

8:27

1st, 1997 here in the West. At

8:31

that time, this technology, which was a Palm

8:34

Pilot type device with

8:36

like a camera that

8:38

could identify a thing in the real world and then

8:40

talk to you, 1997, this

8:42

technology, a portable computer, this was not

8:45

possible. Just not to put too

8:47

fine a point on it, but like what

8:49

was impossible about the Pokedex when this came

8:51

out? Given that you did make one, really.

8:53

What was impossible? So, we had small

8:56

form factor device, right? So,

8:59

we had small things that were battery powered,

9:01

that had some level of operating system

9:03

on them. Some of them had speakers

9:05

and screens.

9:07

So, we had like several of the

9:10

core chunks, right? We had the form

9:12

factor of a Palm Pilot, PDA kind

9:14

of device. Things

9:16

like cellular phones were starting to

9:19

show up. They still weren't commonplace

9:21

in 97, but like

9:23

they were getting there for sure. And

9:26

so, you have a couple

9:28

core components there, right? You have a screen, you

9:30

have the ability for it to make noise, you

9:32

have input of some form, you have the form

9:34

factor of the battery. The cellular network to assume

9:36

like somehow this is like fetching

9:38

information from that professor who gave it

9:41

to you or like it's accessing an

9:43

encyclopedia somewhere that isn't actually on the

9:45

device. All of that was

9:47

close to possible. At least possible if like

9:50

a company the size of, whatever

9:53

Pokemon company in the show makes these with like

9:55

doing the research, like we could get close.

9:57

The part that really was not. there

10:00

was the computer vision and

10:03

the ability to take a photo and have any

10:05

idea what was in it. That

10:09

was like the technology they had at

10:11

the time was like, maybe they

10:13

could take a photo and like

10:15

see the shape of a person in it.

10:18

And like maybe they could do some

10:21

very basic analysis, but like cameras

10:23

weren't really there, webcams, any sort

10:25

of digital photography just as a

10:28

whole was not really there.

10:30

The first digital cameras were coming

10:32

out in the 90s really, there might have been a

10:34

couple early ones, but they were around that time that

10:36

they were like becoming feasible and

10:39

like they weren't good. So like

10:41

these pictures not only are very bad pictures

10:43

compared to traditional photography, but we also didn't

10:45

have the computational knowledge or power

10:47

to like analyze them and be like, this is

10:49

the thing. The computer vision

10:52

aspect of it and the understanding of what

10:54

it is seeing, that wouldn't come around to

10:56

anything close to capable of doing that until

10:59

probably 2014 ish. So

11:02

it was quite early, but everything else

11:04

like the hardware, it was

11:06

not that far off. The hardware was close to

11:09

reasonable. Relevant

11:11

to your project in the last year and

11:13

change, boom, we all get pretty

11:16

easy API access to really,

11:18

really, really good computer vision.

11:22

And you were able to use that amongst

11:24

a couple other things to DIY hack together

11:27

this device, the Pokedex. Do you

11:29

want to take me through the

11:31

basic sequence of technologies that goes

11:33

into building this thing? Yeah.

11:37

So the problems you have to solve

11:39

if you're building any device, any handheld

11:42

device like this, whether it's a little

11:44

game console or something like this, there's

11:47

kind of those table stakes of like

11:50

you need battery for it. You need

11:52

some sort of processor microcontroller, probably

11:54

need some sort of display and need

11:57

some sort of like button input. All

11:59

of that. They're not

12:01

really like solved problems, but they're things that

12:04

people have done. There's nothing that crazy about

12:06

that. You can kind of look up, you

12:09

know, how can I add a rechargeable

12:11

battery to my microcontroller project and you

12:13

can figure it out. So the core

12:16

components there are, like I said, microcontroller,

12:18

that is actually the brain of the

12:20

little device, some sort of screen. I

12:22

used a little OLED screen in mine.

12:25

You know, there's a bajillion options that you could go

12:27

with. All of that will get you

12:29

to the point where you have a device with a screen and

12:31

a button. And after

12:34

that, that's when you get a little

12:37

bit more into uncharted territory. And

12:39

it comes to that like integration

12:42

with those APIs that are available,

12:44

chat GPTs, GPT-4 Vision API. There's

12:47

other models available that have, you

12:49

know, vision capabilities. And

12:52

that is stuff that although

12:54

technically reasonable to do on

12:56

these really low power,

12:58

like a microcontroller, you

13:00

know, a modern microcontroller, you can

13:02

compare the processing power it had

13:04

to probably like somewhere

13:07

between a Game Boy Advance and a PSP. So

13:10

they're pretty light

13:12

device, like they're pretty weak devices, but

13:15

they're not crazy weak. Like they're okay,

13:18

especially considering that they cost like $6. So

13:23

the part that gets tricky is

13:25

writing code that can deal

13:27

with these APIs and talk

13:30

to these models and deal

13:32

with the unexpected nature

13:34

of large language models that sometimes

13:36

just don't answer your question or

13:38

they do random stuff. And

13:41

writing that in and writing code that

13:43

is actually like reliable and consistent and can do that.

13:46

And again, like this is not uncharted

13:48

territory for one of

13:50

these little controllers. Most of the time, these

13:52

little microcontrollers are used to like read a sensor

13:54

and post that up to a server somewhere.

13:57

We're not doing something that different reading a camera

13:59

and post. but sending it up to chat

14:01

GPT. But like

14:03

the devil is really in the details

14:05

of the software here to make it

14:07

nice, to make it feel reliable, you

14:10

know, even dealing with stuff like wifi

14:12

connections or something we take for granted

14:14

on a mobile phone, it, you know,

14:16

really flawlessly switches between cellular and wifi

14:18

and stuff like that. These microcontrollers, they're

14:20

much lower level. There's times

14:22

when like wifi just won't connect, you have

14:24

to deal with that. All sorts of little

14:27

details. So yeah, but

14:29

that's kind of where you get to, you get like the hardware

14:31

that is not that, you know, new.

14:33

People have been building little portable devices

14:35

for a long time in the hobbyist world. And

14:38

then just kind of pushing into, you know,

14:40

what type of safety and what do we have

14:42

to design in those large, like when interacting with

14:44

those large language models to make it feel

14:48

complete and feel like a thing that actually works

14:50

versus like something that works like 10% of the

14:52

time and crashes and all that

14:54

stuff. But

14:56

yeah, that's kind of where the difficulty lies

14:59

and where the balance kind of

15:01

is. It's funny, when I first read coverage

15:03

of it, I was thinking this is so cool, but

15:05

I can imagine how it works. You know,

15:08

it's you using chat GPTs, computer

15:10

vision, you sort of imagine it. And then

15:12

you realize you actually watch the way it works. You're like, no,

15:15

yes, you can analyze the

15:17

image using that API, but

15:20

you have to get the answer back out and

15:22

then display it as this low resolution version of

15:25

the thing. Like the art of it really was

15:27

in recreating the Pokedex OS for lack of a

15:30

better term to make sure that that process of

15:32

using it felt seamless and analogous to

15:34

what was in the show. Yeah, and I

15:36

think that's the case a lot of time

15:39

where with technology especially, and

15:41

I think if you look at the history

15:43

and like evolution of hardware and devices that

15:45

we deal with, a lot of them take

15:48

inspiration from fiction, their science fiction

15:50

ideas or whatever that eventually became

15:52

feasible. And I think a

15:55

lot of the time, what's really happening is

15:57

like technology is progressing and

15:59

it's enabling things. that are non-obvious, that

16:01

are that extra percent you're talking about

16:03

where it's like, yes, we

16:05

technically could do this, but there's a

16:07

design element to it. There's a warmth

16:10

to it that makes it magical to

16:12

a consumer. And I think

16:15

a lot of times the people who come up with

16:17

these ideas in the real world get

16:19

the inspiration for that OS, that

16:21

warmth, that edge that makes it

16:23

that last 10% that really

16:25

makes it notable, they get that from

16:27

fiction. So, you know, the

16:29

Pokedex is not a really great example of

16:31

this, but it's kind of the same thing

16:34

that like what makes this project interesting is

16:36

its connection back to

16:38

that and the great design

16:40

of the original device. That it's so

16:42

simple, like it's a really cool little

16:44

thing that they designed, and

16:47

now I can kind of stand on those shoulders

16:49

and make a realer version of it, but it's,

16:52

you know, because of that original design work that was

16:54

so good that I can then be like, okay, now

16:56

when I have all these random components that aren't that

16:58

interesting on their own, if I make it into this

17:01

thing that was already cool, now

17:03

it, you know, feels like something grander

17:05

than the sum of its parts. It's

17:07

poking at some deep core memory. Warps

17:10

is such a good word for it. I'm, every

17:14

so often will be traveling. You know, the phone is

17:16

such a regular part of your life, it kind of

17:19

just becomes invisible. It's just wallpaper at a certain point.

17:21

But whenever I go traveling and I find myself

17:23

in an unfamiliar environment and I get the SIM

17:25

card plugged into it and I bring up Google

17:28

maps, I have this Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

17:30

moment where I'm suddenly like, I'm out there in

17:32

the world, but I have this thing and it

17:34

gives me access to all of the information I

17:36

could ever need. And the capability and the utility

17:38

that is inherent in this thing that is again,

17:40

invisible to me, you know,

17:42

99 days out of a hundred, suddenly it

17:46

becomes clear again. It

17:48

is only that connection to a fictional device,

17:51

rooted in sci-fi through

17:54

which I'm able to do that. It's an interesting,

17:56

is an interesting point. Yeah. And it's cool to

17:58

have those moments, right? Where you realize. you

18:00

know, the like really

18:03

sci-fi world we're living in. Because

18:07

yeah, things like just even having a map in

18:09

your pocket, I mean, that's a completely novel idea.

18:12

It's amazing that it works

18:14

as well as it does. You

18:17

know, I used to work at Google, I

18:19

worked near the Google Maps teams and I,

18:22

you know, always really respected

18:25

the design of Google Maps specifically in terms

18:27

of product design, visual design as well, keeping

18:29

it as simple as it is. But you

18:32

know, having this really, really

18:34

hard technical problem of digesting

18:37

a world of map

18:39

data and taking

18:42

it and making it so simple

18:44

and so approachable that everyone in

18:46

the world, one

18:48

of their top like three use cases of their

18:50

phone is using Google Maps.

18:52

Like that's crazy.

18:54

And it's a really,

18:58

Google Maps specifically is a really magical

19:00

thing that summarizes a world of information

19:02

into something that it's so approachable. It's

19:04

really a notable example of this type

19:06

of thing where it's more than the

19:09

sum of its parts, but it's also

19:11

hiding so much complexity under the surface.

19:13

Well put, you use the term warmth.

19:15

And I think that so much of the, when I

19:18

think of that device from the 90s show, I

19:20

picture the hardware and I think about the voice. Because

19:23

as you said, it was an expositional device from the TV

19:25

show. Use the service called I think

19:27

Play HT for the voice. Take me

19:30

through that cloning process. How did you get this thing

19:32

talking? Yeah, I mean the cloning was, I mentioned in

19:34

the video, but it was trivial. I

19:36

looked up a clip of the Pokedex

19:38

on YouTube, downloaded that clip and

19:41

like converted it to a WAV file. And it

19:43

was a really bad clip too. It was like

19:45

maybe 10, not even 10

19:48

seconds of voice and

19:50

handed that over to that language

19:52

model and it immediately got, what

19:54

I would consider somewhat close, depending

19:58

on who you ask, it's closer. farther

20:00

from the original voice. But

20:02

yeah, the actual process was

20:05

functionally nothing. It was minutes

20:08

of work to get it to be able to

20:10

generate something that sounded reminiscent of

20:12

the original voice. It was unreal.

20:14

We've every so often, every couple of

20:16

years we've done check-in episodes on the

20:18

state of voice synthesis on this show.

20:22

And from where we were even two years ago, where

20:24

I would have to record 15, 20, 30 minutes of

20:27

speaking a specific script into a system to get a

20:29

result that I would call like a C, C

20:32

plus maybe, to

20:34

where we are now where I can shout

20:36

at a phone for 15 seconds

20:39

and it will do a recent, like a

20:41

not bad version of my

20:43

voice. It's pretty wild. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean,

20:45

it's definitely a very recent improvement. I was amazed

20:47

when I did it, that it worked as well

20:49

as it did. That one's a little bit of

20:52

a magic trick. And then the other part of

20:54

the pipeline, and this was the, I

20:56

hadn't heard of Play HD for the voice cloning,

20:58

but it was similar to things I had bumped

21:00

into. I'm familiar with the

21:03

OpenAI API. And

21:05

then I came across the Pokemon API.

21:09

Hadn't heard of that one. Can you tell me a

21:11

little bit about it? Yeah, the Pokemon

21:13

API is, it's like

21:15

a fan project to

21:17

provide every bit of information

21:20

about Pokemon you could

21:22

possibly want in a

21:24

structured format. In other words, like

21:26

a machine readable API format. It's

21:30

really mostly used for like

21:32

educational stuff. It's really common

21:34

for university students who need a big data

21:36

set to just like poke around with

21:38

like something they're mildly familiar with. It

21:41

gets used a lot for that. It

21:46

has more detail

21:49

about Pokemon than you could ever possibly

21:51

imagine. Like down to the

21:54

sprites for every single game every Pokemon's

21:56

ever been in, including all the offshoots.

21:58

It has every bit of

22:01

flavor text that every Pokemon has

22:03

ever been described as in every

22:05

Pokemon game. So

22:07

the amount of that that I used

22:09

was really minimal. I basically pulled Pokemon

22:12

names and associated those with sprites that

22:14

I thought would look good on the

22:17

black and white screen, but it's

22:19

really a very impressive dataset. I

22:21

think it's like mildly out of date now,

22:23

like it hasn't been, you might be trailing

22:25

a little bit with the new games, but

22:27

I mean it's a really cool resource and

22:29

something great for like people who are beginning

22:31

the program because it's just so much data

22:34

to poke around with and you know build

22:36

an app on top of or whatever. Okay,

22:38

that makes a lot more

22:40

sense now, the educational use case,

22:42

because on the you go

22:44

to the website it says it's serving a billion

22:46

API calls each month, and I was like I

22:49

get that Pokemon is popular. Lord, what are people

22:52

doing with this thing? Yeah, there's a bit

22:54

of a catch-22 with things

22:56

that are examples for programmers.

22:59

The same issue happens with example.com.

23:02

example.com serves an

23:04

absurd amount of requests because it's

23:07

used in every textbook and every

23:09

example as like the default domain,

23:12

so it's kept up basically as a public

23:14

good for programmers

23:16

to practice against. Right,

23:19

sure. That's yeah, you don't want that one falling

23:21

into the wrong hands because a lot of textbooks

23:23

suddenly become kind of insidious. Yeah, exactly, yeah. You

23:25

got to keep it safe. I think Microsoft owns

23:28

it. I might be wrong though. microsoft.com is also

23:30

a very common one where they were

23:32

like please stop using us as an example because

23:35

it's just sending absurd amounts of traffic,

23:37

especially for young programmers who like write

23:39

an infinite loop that curls the website

23:41

a thousand times a second. Okay, they're

23:44

like please stop doing that.

23:47

Okay, so you got play HD doing

23:49

the voice, you got chat GPT doing

23:51

your computer vision, you

23:54

got poke API with the hard data.

23:57

Tell me a little bit about the hardware. How do you put this

23:59

thing all together physically? Yeah, so

24:01

like I said, the electronic

24:04

components, nothing too new

24:06

there. You

24:09

can get screen

24:11

modules that have good documentation that are

24:14

basically like wire it to a microcontroller

24:17

in this way. Buttons

24:19

are easy. Speakers

24:21

are a little trickier just because

24:23

any time a component is moving, which

24:26

a speaker does, it has the magnetic

24:28

element of it that's physically moving to

24:30

produce sound. You

24:32

get a little sketchy because any time things move,

24:34

it's a little harder. But all of

24:37

that, pretty reasonable.

24:40

You could Google any given component of that and

24:42

find a dozen tutorials explaining how to wire it

24:44

up. So that part was all pretty straightforward. And

24:46

then the big issue with these types of projects

24:49

is just if

24:51

you have an iPhone, that

24:54

internal circuitry is super

24:56

precisely engineered and very

24:58

carefully laid out and

25:00

designed to fit in that small package.

25:03

Even something the size of the Pokedex, which

25:05

is, I don't know, maybe three quarters of

25:08

an inch thick or something like that. That's

25:11

pretty tight when you're dealing with like

25:13

off the shelf screens or

25:15

you're dealing with off the shelf batteries

25:18

or whatever. So

25:20

the tricky part there is really just

25:22

designing a 3D case and printing it

25:24

in a way that once you have

25:26

that, all your components actually lay perfectly

25:28

and the device has a form factor

25:30

and the thickness that you want. It's

25:33

not that difficult, but it is the type of

25:35

thing that if you don't really think ahead, you'll

25:38

be like, all right, my project's almost done. And

25:40

then you go to close the cover and it

25:42

just doesn't actually close because you didn't think about

25:44

the wires or you didn't think about two things

25:46

sitting on top of each other. Like the solder

25:48

joints, which add like a millimeter of height or

25:50

whatever, you're like, dang it, now that doesn't quite

25:52

fit. But

25:55

yeah, the main process, as outlined in

25:57

the video, you figure out

25:59

the gist of the components you want to use, go

26:02

do a 3D model case, print out

26:04

the case, hope everything fits, iterate

26:06

on that when things inevitably don't fit,

26:09

and you can get there pretty quick. I

26:12

caught a short that you posted where you were

26:14

talking about how the sort of like primary use

26:17

case for this is pointed at a toy, 3D

26:19

object of the Pokémon, and then you did sort

26:21

of a quick pencil crayon sketch

26:23

of a Gengar, and you

26:25

took a snap of it. I guess this

26:28

is basically just a question about the reliability

26:30

of the chat GPT API, but to

26:33

get abstract here, if

26:35

you were to come across a Pokémon in the

26:37

real world, just like a Charmander

26:39

chilling, do you think it would

26:41

work? Do you think that it would correctly

26:43

identify a living animal? It's

26:45

a good question. I would

26:47

say probably. We'd

26:50

have to get a real Charmander to

26:52

test this, but expensive. Yeah,

26:55

expensive. We'd have to genetically engineer

26:58

a Charmander. Probably worth

27:00

it for the test. If you

27:02

got the money. Yeah. No,

27:05

I think it's feasible to think

27:07

it would. These

27:11

models are really good at understanding

27:13

things that are adjacent to things, right?

27:15

So if you're looking at a cartoon

27:17

drawing of a Pokémon, that is adjacent

27:19

to a 3D rendering of

27:21

a Pokémon, something like Detective Pikachu, where you're

27:24

like, these are not super

27:26

realistic models, but they're real. They're

27:30

close enough. And then you can imagine

27:32

that is adjacent to what an actual photo of

27:34

a real Charmander would look like. I

27:36

think it's reasonable to think it could make that

27:38

leap through those things.

27:41

I think if we

27:43

had less data about Pokémon out there,

27:45

if, for example, we only had the

27:47

sprites from the original games, which are

27:49

just black and white pixel art, that

27:52

jump it would never

27:54

make. But because we have 30 years

27:57

of fan art and fan renderings and

27:59

movies and all of these

28:01

things, like its understanding of the

28:03

geometry of a Charmander is probably

28:05

actually quite good, but it probably

28:07

also breaks down with newer

28:10

and newer Pokemon because it has less and

28:13

less resources to pull from

28:15

and understand. Right, and later

28:17

generations are quite as carefully

28:20

and thoroughly indexed across decades and

28:22

decades of media. Yeah,

28:24

exactly, and they're just newer, even if it was

28:26

the same rate, right? They haven't had

28:29

the same time to get that exposure. Eh,

28:32

but a Charmander specifically, I think you'd have a

28:34

very good chance. This

28:39

is Jess Betancourt, the host of DNAID, the

28:42

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29:01

that we all crave with a straightforward,

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no-nonsense delivery. You can find DNAID on

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any podcast platform. Episodes come out weekly

29:08

on Mondays. You

29:13

obviously do a lot of DIY open source

29:15

projects like this. How

29:20

has the response from the community been to this

29:22

in particular? Have you thought about collaborating with others

29:24

on something like a Gen 2 of this? Do

29:27

you think about open sourcing it? How

29:29

have people received your Pokedex? No,

29:32

I mean, I think people really like it. I think there

29:34

is a really

29:37

positive reaction for most people. I

29:39

do think there's an interesting cultural

29:43

thing that I think is

29:45

interesting. I've

29:48

had with a few other projects, which is where I'll

29:51

create something like the Pokedex, which I just

29:53

do basically for fun. I mean, it's part

29:55

of my job as a YouTuber, but it

29:57

is mostly for my own entertainment. And

30:01

the reaction people have is like, can I

30:04

buy that? Like will you sell it to

30:06

me? Are you planning on turning it into

30:08

a product? You know, that type

30:10

of thing. And

30:13

to me, the answer is obviously no

30:15

to both of those things. One, because, you know,

30:17

it took me a long time to

30:19

make it. I'm not gonna say anything you would buy it

30:21

for would not be worth it to me to sell. But

30:23

also, like, that's not the

30:25

point. And I think that's

30:27

kind of the interesting reaction people have to

30:29

this type of project. And something that I

30:32

think would be really cool to work on

30:34

as a culture is to say

30:37

like, we're getting to the point with

30:39

3D printing technology and access to programming

30:41

tools and like these cheap parts and

30:43

all this stuff where it

30:45

would be feasible for you to

30:48

really build something that you use every

30:50

day, but like from scratch

30:52

in quotes, like you could make a laptop. You

30:54

could make a case for it. You could make

30:56

these things. And I would love to see more

30:59

people seeing a project like this and having that

31:01

reaction that is like, oh, that's really cool. I

31:03

could do something like that. Or I could, you

31:06

know, like take this idea and do

31:08

my own thing versus the reaction I get now

31:10

a lot, like I said, which is like, can

31:12

I buy this, which is also great. And I

31:15

appreciate that support and enthusiasm. But

31:17

my real goal is to have

31:19

people walk away inspired to like

31:21

learn about these technologies and to

31:24

do their own thing because we're at a point more

31:26

than ever where it is feasible to like make your

31:28

own stuff. And I think that's super cool. Yeah.

31:32

Can I buy that is so flattering for

31:34

a hardware project you built out of parts

31:36

like this. It's really,

31:38

really cool. And I would have, I'm reticent to

31:40

even bring this up because it feels like summoning

31:43

a very litigious Bloody Mary, but it is also

31:45

the point at which an open source DIY project

31:48

intersects with a large corporation that

31:50

does have lawyers and IP that

31:53

they like to protect. Like how do

31:55

you, how do you navigate creating an

31:58

open source project like this? knowing

32:00

that it is based on that pre-existing

32:03

intellectual property. Yeah, you

32:05

know, I think it's always a fine

32:07

line. Nintendo specifically, who's

32:10

obviously the big owner of the Pokémon

32:12

company, who owns the Pokedex IP, they

32:16

are known for being particularly litigious,

32:19

which I get. And I respect, as someone

32:21

who's worked for a lot of big companies,

32:23

done a lot of complicated projects, I get

32:25

why they need to do that. I

32:28

think with something like

32:30

this, you have a bit more leeway,

32:33

especially if you're not selling something, if

32:35

you're not, you

32:38

know, really monetizing it

32:40

in any way. And especially

32:43

something like this, where it's

32:45

clearly a prototype, clearly a demo,

32:49

you know, I'm not going out and saying that

32:52

this is, you know, anything.

32:57

Even something like fan games that people will

32:59

sometimes do, you know, they'll remake Mario or

33:01

whatever, and Nintendo gets mad about that. Even

33:03

that's quite a bit different, because it's closer

33:05

to a real product in a real space

33:08

that Nintendo would get into. But,

33:10

you know, I'm

33:12

not particularly concerned about that. You

33:15

know, I would never sell, like, I

33:17

would never productize this and sell it

33:19

to begin with, but I would also

33:21

not do it, because, as you point out, it's not my IP.

33:24

And I think there's just, like, a bit of an ethical quandary

33:26

there where I'm like, I'm not particularly

33:29

interested in doing that. But if someone wants to take

33:31

this, make their own version,

33:33

do whatever, make it something like a Pokedex,

33:35

but not, you know, a lot of

33:37

people suggested in the comments, like, oh, it'd be great

33:39

if it's worked with real animals, or if it worked

33:42

with plants, or whatever. Like, if you want to take

33:44

this and run with this idea and

33:46

turn it into something like that, that's an original idea

33:49

that is not, you know, it might now have a

33:51

reminiscent form factor, but it's, you know,

33:53

it's its own thing. So I think those types of things

33:57

are really cool, but, yeah, it's always

33:59

a little bit of a problem. The. Minefield.

34:02

If you're doing anything that isn't completely

34:04

original, I'd be very to me. this

34:06

is such a good. Even more so

34:08

then I think that those other games

34:10

built on. You know obviously they're

34:12

reworked versions of the pre existing games

34:14

but even that is so much more

34:16

based on had creative output from the

34:18

Nintendo corporation that this a sample Certain

34:20

this is you know the out is

34:23

somebody just love spoke I'm on him

34:25

wanted to make a thing from the

34:27

show and had access to the technology

34:29

to make it. Ah yes. Yeah.

34:31

I view it more akin to like a

34:33

prop making and cosplay as going I like

34:36

as you would never look at someone dressed

34:38

up as messenger chief and deal I

34:40

wait a minute be about to get suicide

34:42

yeah but not at the be I got

34:44

it's cool. It's cool that you made that

34:47

armor as a as his nails are getting

34:49

more functional but yeah same same kind of

34:51

space the system as in layers sprinting

34:53

around a clean with this account is tackling

34:56

totally one person after another. Yeah. Before

34:59

he figure out there's more of us that there are of

35:01

them. When. He bring

35:03

up an interesting point in oh I

35:05

think about you're talking at the very

35:07

start of a conversation about size I

35:09

technologies. it inspires and at some point

35:12

becomes just checked knowledge. He and Nine

35:14

and I think about this device which

35:16

is basically a multi modal ai with

35:18

computer vision that you carry around in

35:20

your pocket and then I think about

35:22

the Med or a dance. Which.

35:25

Are a pair of glasses with a camera

35:27

said does basically the same thing beacon and

35:29

it's take a photo and tell you what

35:31

you're looking at. I think about ah a

35:33

device like the rabbit ai which none of

35:36

us really notice any good yet but. Where

35:39

do you think devices that would evoke a

35:41

poker decks you know twenty years ago are

35:43

going next? What do you think we're at?

35:45

We might be carrying around in our pockets.

35:47

And ten years, that sort of of votes.

35:50

The. Classic Bucket x. Yeah. I

35:52

mean a smartphone is the obvious sure of is

35:54

parallel and I ask you to enter and I

35:56

don't think that's a form factor will be will

35:58

be leaving any time. When I'm.

36:02

An. Addict The Truth. As for

36:04

the vast majority of people, even if devices

36:06

like. Bad. A rabbit

36:08

mob. Do. A

36:10

hickey is really novel and really

36:13

sick assaults like a It's much

36:15

more likely that. The you

36:17

why are you acts Yes! Improvements that

36:20

that thing has are gonna have merged

36:22

back into the devices we already used.

36:24

Some I'm carrying around a rabbits ah.

36:28

But. I didn't that kind of fun of

36:30

center when I was saying earlier about this idea

36:32

of like home brewing devices and electronics becoming more

36:34

accessible because I i think. There. Is

36:37

a value proposition as we get

36:39

more connected to in a big

36:41

companies and clouds and all that

36:44

stuff they're they're becomes more value

36:46

to detach from. Matt. And.

36:48

Be like know my. You.

36:50

Know device I used to text my

36:53

friends is not something I bought to

36:55

up from Apple that's connected to Apple's

36:57

clouds. It's this you know, slightly esoteric

36:59

device but I know the only people

37:01

who can possibly read did this chat

37:03

log is me and my says who

37:06

also have this device or whatever and

37:08

I think we I would love to

37:10

see more stuff like that come up

37:12

more of that. Hobbyists,

37:14

Hacker culture. Because.

37:16

It is more accessible now and I think

37:19

we could get a lot of creativity and

37:21

and novel ideas. I think most people would

37:23

never get into that type of space, but

37:25

I do thank. You. Know it

37:27

would be. Feasible.

37:29

Turn to see people going down that route

37:32

more. we make it's medical innovation out of

37:34

at. but yeah, practically. I imagine we'll see

37:36

a lot more Smartphones and a few Vr

37:38

headsets are beyond that. The assisted by I

37:40

don't see any other huge wave coming down

37:42

the road, you know. I

37:44

think I think you put it well

37:46

that that hobbyist hacker side of it

37:49

is. You know I appreciate the Bleeding

37:51

Edge slick, polished thirty five hundred dollar

37:53

headset as much as the next guy,

37:55

but I'm definitely much more mostly in

37:57

destin what people are able to put

37:59

together. Yeah, and share it on a

38:01

youtube video. It's just it's I mean you

38:03

use the word warmth earlier. It's just there's

38:06

a warmth to it Yep. Yeah, it's the

38:08

electronics equivalent of like cottage core. There's a

38:10

reason people want to be

38:13

You know out in the woods on a fire and

38:15

it's because there is there's a warmth to it There's

38:17

a joy and I think All

38:19

these ai models and algorithms and stuff. They

38:21

they do Great in a lot of

38:24

ways you find a lot of stuff. That's really cool to them, but

38:27

They do lose some of that Organicness

38:30

and and I think it would be reasonable

38:33

to see a pushback and and see more

38:35

people hunting for that again Through

38:37

their electronics and the sites and the communities

38:40

and everything that they get involved with Yeah,

38:42

who is the musician the the sort of

38:44

like archetypal bonnie ver go into the woods

38:46

and record an album in a cabin type

38:48

thing That's the uh, it's the hacker equivalent

38:50

of that Yeah, definitely. It's

38:52

that same human thing of like

38:54

wanting small community and wanting small

38:57

You know connected feelings

38:59

versus being like part of Instagram

39:02

where you're like it's cool. I have an instagram account, but

39:05

It's this gigantic thing. I can't understand, you know

39:08

Well, maybe we wrap up there. So

39:11

in terms of hacking stuff together Computational

39:14

cottage core. Uh, what are you building

39:16

next? I mean, I

39:18

always got a hundred things going I

39:20

was just talking about the answer the other day and she

39:22

was saying like I don't know how you Move

39:25

all these projects forward and it's just You

39:28

know you get blocked on one and you jump to the

39:30

other you get upset about one and you do the other

39:32

one for a while So there's a

39:34

lot coming down the pipeline um You

39:38

know explorations of historical tech and

39:40

things that are now simple that

39:42

were very very difficult a few

39:44

decades ago, I think is uh

39:48

A trend I would like to keep working

39:50

on so similar to the pokedex how that

39:52

was not feasible But has become reasonable. I

39:54

think like that's cool. So i'm

39:57

doing explorations around 3d printing that

40:00

store data on them. So basically

40:03

creating my own version of CDs out

40:06

of 3D printed filament, or

40:09

doing similar

40:12

types of devices that are

40:14

cheap, low powered devices, but

40:16

customizable and have that warmth

40:18

to them, that nostalgia to

40:21

them. So I'm gonna be

40:23

doing a bunch more stuff with that

40:25

as well. But yeah, nothing specific to

40:28

announce, but there's always so many cool things

40:31

to build. The

40:33

list of ideas is pages and pages

40:35

long. So should be a lot of

40:37

fun stuff. It has 3D printed data

40:39

storage on it, that rules. Yeah,

40:42

if I get that to work, it's gonna be cool. Yeah,

40:44

that's really neat. Please send that to me if you do

40:46

it. I'm staring at

40:48

the 3D printed disc right now,

40:50

thinking about how it doesn't quite

40:52

work yet. But hopefully we'll

40:55

get that sorted. But yeah, that's that

40:57

same type of thing though, that physical

40:59

media, that feeling of, I

41:01

have my favorite movie in my hand

41:03

and all that stuff. It's that same warmth. And

41:05

I think that might be the overarching

41:08

thing of all my projects, is trying to

41:10

get technology back to being cozy

41:12

and fun again in that way. Abe,

41:15

thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I

41:17

love this project and the chat was a lot of

41:19

fun. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks

41:22

for watching. I'll see you next time.

41:25

See ya. Bye. Bye.

41:27

Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.

41:30

Bye. Bye. Bye bye.

41:32

Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye

41:35

bye.