Latest / Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker / HEADLINES: From $50B Drone Superpowers to Poisoned Playlists & Expensive Teachers

Transcript

HEADLINES: From $50B Drone Superpowers to Poisoned Playlists & Expensive Teachers · Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker

0:00
Sit down, let's sit some levels and get to work.
0:02
Right here. It'd be great.
0:02
You know, my kids are good eaters.
0:04
They love the meat. Apples and trees.
0:06
We're at a BBQ over the weekend. They're like a Persian grill
0:08
setup, which is awesome. Yeah.
0:10
And they did a bunch of lamb chops.
0:11
I'm not sure my kids have ever had lamb chops.
0:13
I don't cook them often. Not that I dislike them, just my
0:15
wife doesn't like them and their work.
0:16
My oldest son loved the lamb chops.
0:19
He literally ended up eating five of them.
0:21
Wow. After the second lamb chop, he
0:23
walked up to the table with a bone in his mouth.
0:25
And he's like that I want more lamb chops.
0:26
I was like, well, they're on the grill.
0:27
You have to wait a minute. And I was like, why don't you
0:28
give me the bone? I'll throw it away.
0:30
The kid looked at me and growled like a dog because he had the
0:33
bone in his mouth. I was like, whoa, you wouldn't
0:36
keep that one, son. Not giving this up, Dad.
0:38
There was no meat. I was like, what are you doing?
0:39
He's like, I like the flavour as he's just chewing on the bone
0:42
and I was like wow. I'm sucking out the marrow.
0:44
Quiet, please. We hit something primordial with
0:47
that party over the weekend. But yes, do not try to take a
0:50
meat bone on my son's mouths, apparently.
1:03
The Apple Company presents a truly terrible podcast.
1:05
Welcome to Nonsense Season 4, episode 18.
1:07
I'm Jeff. Parker, I'm CJ Little.
1:09
This is our take on the week's business, tech and entertainment
1:11
headlines. This time, engineering under
1:13
fire has turned Ukraine into a drone superpower.
1:16
It's taken a war with Iran for us to finally recognize
1:19
Ukraine's amazing engineering prowess.
1:21
That's true. Yay us.
1:22
Meta reportedly eyes 20% staff cuts to fuel AI.
1:25
Ambitions. So when they said meta AI is
1:27
powered by people I didn't realize as they were powering it
1:29
using the actual flesh of people.
1:31
Hormone disruptors found in popular audio gear.
1:34
Good news. My mono gear now identifies as
1:36
stereo. The great brain.
1:38
Drain Will Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee push the next Google to
1:42
Canada? I'm feeling lucky.
1:44
Hey also our big story later this week is about the real
1:47
reasons the government is hiding their UFO.
1:49
Data. They mislabeled it.
1:50
That's why they're hiding. It they just can't find it,
1:51
they've misplaced. It yeah, we're all they have
1:53
like the recipe index cards, like all the three by fives.
1:55
It's in there, OK. That's how they keep it 3 by 5
1:58
cards. How you hide it right?
1:59
Like you want to hide your valuables, you put it with.
2:00
Something that's not valuable. Happy Saint Patrick's Day, my
2:03
friend. Yes, thank you.
2:04
I appreciate. That Saint Patrick was not
2:06
Irish. Did you know that?
2:06
Everybody thinks he was Irish. He was not.
2:08
He was kidnapped at the age of 16 from his family's British
2:11
estate and taken to Ireland as a prisoner.
2:13
Why did they kidnap? Him They wanted the green beer.
2:15
I have no idea he. Refused to give up the secret
2:17
recipe of the green. Beer and he went back to Britain
2:19
and then he came back as a missionary, sure to Ireland and
2:23
supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland.
2:24
That's the legend he drove the snakes out of Ireland.
2:26
Yeah. Ignoring for a moment that there
2:28
were no snakes in the island of. Ireland.
2:30
I am looking forward to the larger than life bronze statue
2:33
when they put down in front of City Hall for driving all the
2:35
moose out of Los Angeles. That's what you did, Saint CJ.
2:38
Yeah. I never see moose anymore in Los
2:40
Angeles. You're welcome.
2:41
Absolutely incredible. Used to go to Tom Bergens with
2:43
my friend Tucker. Yeah, from Saint Patrick.
2:45
'S day, it was such a happy memory.
2:46
He has passed on now, so now it's a happy and sad memory.
2:49
A lot of happy memories from those mornings.
2:52
Between Tom Bergens and Molly Malone's down the street, you
2:54
get your Irish fill in one day. Man oh man, it was fun.
2:56
How was your? Week going.
2:57
My week has been lovely. I don't know if you know this
2:59
right or not, but summertime is here and it is ready to go.
3:02
Boy, is it ever we. Spent all weekend at pool
3:05
parties with some friends. The kids were in the pool, we
3:07
were barbecuing, we were having a blast.
3:09
Beautiful. It was absolutely enjoyable.
3:11
I I do apologize to all of our friends in the and listeners in
3:13
the Midwest and the East, right. I think the Upper Peninsula has
3:16
a time of recording of Michigan stills without power.
3:18
Most of it 'cause it has been they're getting snow measured in
3:21
feet like they're not even telling you inches.
3:22
They're just like, I got 2 feet last night.
3:24
Oh. And the South is about to get
3:25
smacked, too. Yeah, it's.
3:27
Been really nuts, but here we're just like, fortunately we have
3:29
that Dome created by the overpriced gasoline that we pay
3:32
for that just keeps us all. Is that what it is?
3:34
I think that's how it works. I'm not sure, but it sure has
3:36
been nice. It's been lovely.
3:37
I really can't complain. You know that it's definitely
3:39
getting to be summertime in Southern California when the two
3:42
shelves that have my pants and sweaters on them all go into
3:44
little bins and I don't see them again until October.
3:46
They just go away and it's all shorts and and short sleeve
3:50
shirts. They do that automatically.
3:51
It's sort of like Groundhog Day. They.
3:53
Know they know they know they know that their time is is
3:55
limited and it. They don't see their shadow, so
3:57
they go into storage. They don't.
3:59
Yeah, no, to those of you who don't live in California.
4:01
Yeah, it's crowded here. Yeah, it's super expensive.
4:04
Miserable you? Do not want to live here.
4:06
The restrictions on everything you do are just outrageous laws.
4:09
This strange liberals and the things they force us to do
4:13
Terrible. Do not move to It's awful here.
4:15
Yes, to those of you who live in California, woo Hoo.
4:20
Now, it's been great. I said I've got no complaints.
4:22
I feel like you get this, my basic view of Southern
4:24
California's It rains two weeks out of the year and then it's
4:26
just beautiful the rest of the time.
4:27
Yeah. And I'm fine with that.
4:28
Yes, I quite enjoy that, to be honest.
4:29
How about you? How was your?
4:30
Week Did you watch the Oscars? I did not.
4:32
I was at a pool party as I mentioned earlier and couldn't
4:35
be bothered to watch the Oscars while at the pool party.
4:37
The Oscars are just not my show anymore.
4:39
Used to do. Used to be.
4:40
Don't Miss TV. Yeah, but they have become Don't
4:42
Miss TV again for me with Conan O'Brien.
4:44
So clever, so funny. It started off a year ago when
4:48
Conan O'Brien first came out. Yeah, the very first line.
4:50
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome four time Academy Award
4:54
watcher Conan O'Brien. Such a perfect Conan line.
4:56
Such a perfect I mean. Just great and fantastic this
5:00
year. Just saw it all the way through
5:01
Conan. Absolutely for the win.
5:03
Awesome. I'm not sure the Oscar show even
5:05
had a mixer this year. If you listen to it, sound
5:07
mixer, the sound was absolutely dreadful.
5:10
Terrible mic choices, terrible mic placement.
5:12
Best sound will definitely not go to the 98th Academy Awards.
5:15
There's like a voice over announcer when someone has
5:17
announced as a winner as people come up.
5:18
So and so has been nominated for 70 times.
5:21
For the life of me I could not hear whatever that person was
5:24
saying where they were mixing it so low.
5:25
But I mean that was one of 1,000,000 sound problems.
5:27
You would think that the things the people are saying would also
5:29
be important in those shows. Clearly the Academy Award
5:32
doesn't think that. Yeah.
5:32
Also Academy maybe don't give out awards if you have no
5:34
interest in what the winners had to say.
5:36
Yeah, I think that isn't that the point of the award show is
5:38
you give them the awards. Enough with the orchestra
5:39
jumping in and this year, the mic sinking into the stage.
5:42
What? Oh yeah, the mic went into the
5:44
stage. Yeah.
5:44
Golden made history as a first K pop song to win an Oscar.
5:48
May I please hear from both the songs writers?
5:51
The second songwriter comes up to the mic to give a speech, and
5:53
the mic just sinks down into the stage.
5:54
They grab it, Oh my God, trying to like, wrestle it back to the
5:56
stage that I would have done. Because he's a very nice person,
6:00
but it's still like, this is so awful.
6:02
Maybe we don't need the 8 hour bridesmaid reunion on stage.
6:05
Maybe we could have done that. I had two birthdays during that
6:07
segment. Yeah, OK, listen, I'd like to
6:10
see them try to pull that trick with, like, Nicholson.
6:12
He's just gonna procure A7 iron out of his pocket and just go
6:15
bananas on it. Go.
6:16
After the orchestra leader, could you?
6:19
See that? Yeah, that's Turns out that is a
6:21
high risk job work comp for being the orchestra leader at
6:24
the Oscars when Nicholson is nominated.
6:26
Is that's true? Although I I was gonna say I
6:27
miss violence at the Oscars, but then I remember like the last
6:30
time we've had violence at the Oscars, I don't miss that at
6:32
all. That's that's fine.
6:33
It was. Better when he just ate.
6:34
Spaghetti, wasn't it? Yeah.
6:35
On the plus side, it was the best and saddest in Memorium
6:38
segment ever. Wait the bet.
6:39
What were there a bunch of people you you were hoping were
6:41
dead? What was it?
6:42
The best? The best because they didn't try
6:44
to have a singer, sure, competing with the slides of who
6:47
passed away. It was just music.
6:48
And you could actually see. Yeah.
6:50
And read the, you know, you weren't trying to show the
6:51
singer at the same time you were trying to show this guy and that
6:54
guy who passed away. So it actually was quite
6:56
delightful. They stopped a couple of times
6:57
for little speeches inside that were wonderful.
6:59
Billy Crystal kicked it off with an amazing tribute to Rob
7:02
Reiner. That was wonderful.
7:04
It was absolutely delightful. It was a nice tribute to those
7:06
who have passed. Shall we get to our headline?
7:08
We should before we're canceled. It's coming.
7:09
Soon the $50 billion Ukraine drone disruptor yeah Kiev is
7:13
flipping the script on Modern Warfare.
7:15
Once a desperate recipient of western aid, Ukraine is
7:17
leveraging its battle hardened tech to become a global defense
7:20
powerhouse. The headline act a massive $50
7:22
billion drone pipeline targeting the Middle East.
7:24
From kamikaze sea drones to AI driven swarms, these systems
7:28
offer a lethal return on investment that has Gulf nations
7:31
reaching for their checkbooks. This strategic shift is anchored
7:33
by a massive $50 billion strategic drone deal proposed by
7:36
President Zielinski. The deal seeks to trade cranium,
7:39
tactical brilliance and electronic warfare systems for
7:41
the high end technology and capital needed to scale Kiev's
7:44
domestic production to 7 million units annually.
7:47
By transforming from a victim of aggression to a premier vendor,
7:49
Kiev is securing its economic future and shifting the
7:52
geopolitical axis. It's a master class and turning
7:55
necessity into a dominant global brand.
7:57
First of all, let's not lose sight of the fact that Ukraine
8:00
has paid for this, not just in in necessity, but in blood, real
8:03
blood. It's pretty nuts that they are
8:05
now the leader of this and it puts them into some modicum of
8:09
of power, which frankly they shouldn't need to get the
8:11
support that they that they deserve.
8:13
They should get, yeah. But what's kind of fascinating
8:15
to think about this, first of all, these numbers are insane.
8:18
You're like $50 billion. Like, how could you even do
8:20
this? They're currently cranking out
8:21
100,000 drones a month currently, right?
8:24
That's the current numbers that they're at, so 3. 1000 drones a
8:27
day, something like. That they're already doing
8:28
1,000,000 + a year, so right, they want to go up sort of 5X6X
8:31
that which which certainly seems feasible. 50 billion seems like
8:34
a giant number. I think my hunch is sure they're
8:37
going to lever that like sort of like a, like a, a you buy one,
8:41
We get one sort of thing, right. They want to, they want to be
8:43
able to produce more for themselves as well.
8:45
Of course, of course they will be able to do.
8:47
You'll get economies of scale at this, which is, which is pretty.
8:49
Nice BOGO drones it's a. BOGO it's a it's a drone.
8:51
BOGO exactly what I think is kind of more interesting to
8:53
consider on this is they've presented this as like, Oh yeah,
8:56
hey, we're happy to help, right? And they they've come to the US
8:58
and said like, yes, we would love to help you.
9:00
Here are these drones. Now, if the US says.
9:02
No, and we don't like no, no, we don't need your tech.
9:04
We got we got the Sony my first drone kit over here.
9:07
We're fine like then like could could the Ukraine just be like,
9:11
all right, second bidder Iran, are you interested in drone?
9:14
Tech Oh, they have made deals with Saudi Arabia and the UAE,
9:16
have signed smaller, huge but smaller individual contractors
9:20
for interceptors and tech. But those are at least on kind
9:22
of the same side, sort of, if you will.
9:25
Yeah. So I was just curious, like, do
9:26
they have a commit to us if we're not gonna help them?
9:30
This is actually the thing that's frustrating everyone is
9:32
Trump is was waffling on the deal and it's like a great deal
9:35
not just because they make quantity drones.
9:37
Yes, those drones are amazing. The engineer, the quality of the
9:39
engineering is absolutely outstanding.
9:41
The best product? That's out there like absolutely
9:43
we should get. The way that Ukraine has
9:45
innovative on drones because of necessity has been.
9:48
Mind blowing. Yeah.
9:49
Many of these drone manufacturers are a handful of
9:53
years old. They've started since the
9:54
conflict with Russia, right? And they're just cranking out
9:56
this massive volume, right? And not because they're doing it
9:58
to make profit. They're doing it to stay alive.
9:59
Yeah, I have some Ukrainian home automation technology.
10:02
Really. It's fantal yet.
10:04
Wow, really good. Yeah, this is very interesting
10:05
to see how this is gonna go down.
10:06
They've gone from being this sort of, you know, dude, as a
10:09
recipient of aid. It was really a lot more than
10:11
that to now a not just a pioneer, but a leader in this
10:14
tech and that. I I can't imagine anybody would
10:15
have better than this I. Do not understand why the US has
10:18
not come to the Ukrainians aid in a bigger, more aggressive,
10:22
decisive way. I mean, we're currently using
10:25
Patriots to shoot down these drones.
10:27
These drones cost Iran like 1520 grand, and we're using a
10:30
Patriot, which is like a multi $1,000,000 missile.
10:32
Yeah, it's like we are literally using the golden hammer to go
10:34
hit these things. Like maybe we shouldn't do that.
10:36
So the Ukrainian solution gets us more parity.
10:38
Where you're getting something like 1520 thousand dollar
10:41
interceptor drones that you can now throw at this.
10:43
So you're getting 80X of those drones.
10:45
Wow, math that that just seems been like what a deal.
10:47
That is, they are very efficient.
10:49
I mean, the drones that they started out using, they were
10:51
using some inexpensive Turkish drones that were like $100,000
10:54
each after we had offered them drones that were hundreds of
10:57
millions of dollars. So these much cheaper Turkish
10:59
drones that they were starting out with, they managed to make
11:01
work because Russia was not able to jam their radios.
11:04
Yeah. Now they've come up with their
11:05
own drones and they're they're all sorts of specialty drones
11:08
and wow, yeah, so much better than anything that existed.
11:10
Before, I mean, they've made a bunch of mistakes, right?
11:13
That's how you get to be good. You learn from your mistakes.
11:15
Yeah, that's pretty. It's pretty interesting.
11:16
Smart, smart people. The idea of having a massive
11:19
drone wall, right like, so you go to the Olympics and you see
11:22
the drones flying around spelling little things out in
11:24
the sky. Oh, that's cute.
11:25
It's the Olympic rings. But thinking about that from a
11:27
from a defense perspective is really fascinating.
11:30
And it's just how much warfare has changed from giant ICBM's to
11:34
a bunch of these little tiny mosquitoes that are basically
11:37
going to protect you and even go on the offensive.
11:38
It's that's incredible. Zelensky warned that a
11:40
protracted war in Iran could drain global supply of air
11:43
defense missiles like the Patriots or Ukraine still
11:46
desperately needs for its own survival against Russia.
11:48
That's. An interesting swap.
11:49
That's what they should do. We'll give you 4 drones for
11:52
every patriot that you give us right?
11:53
They're in the money while. Ukraine is exporting its tech.
11:55
It must ensure that it doesn't demilitarize itself.
11:57
Zelensky's strategy is to allow controlled exports.
12:00
Of course it's a balance. Like private companies to boost
12:02
the National Treasury without depleting the frontline drone.
12:05
Wall It's also interesting to note that part of how they got
12:07
here and why I think they being the Ukrainian drones are are
12:11
going to be so much more effective is Iran pioneered that
12:14
Shaheed drone that they exported to Russia to to help destroy
12:18
Ukraine. So those lessons learned were
12:20
against Iranian drones, right, that the Ukraine has worked with
12:23
these drones already, right? So they already sort of know
12:26
what the soft spots are, if you will, or, or how to, how to
12:28
counter them. So they already have this
12:30
experience baked in from the last 3-4 years of fighting,
12:32
which you, there's no price you could put on that, right?
12:35
That's invaluable you. Hate the way they got this
12:37
course but wow is it cool. What they've done with it, but
12:39
they have it now. Meta Cuts human staff to Fund
12:42
$135 Billion AI infrastructure Meta is reportedly preparing a
12:46
massive workforce reduction that could eliminate up to 20% of its
12:49
staff, potentially impacting approximately 16,000 employees.
12:53
This historic move, first reported by Reuters on March
12:55
13th, marks the company's largest layoff round since the
12:58
2022-2023 Year of Efficiency not that many years ago.
13:01
The primary driver is the skyrocketing cost of the AI arms
13:04
race. Meta plans to spend up to $135
13:06
billion this year alone on data centers and infrastructure
13:09
structure to power its upcoming avocado and mango AI models.
13:12
That'll go good with the chips and salsa act.
13:14
To fund these expensive bets, top executives have reportedly
13:16
instructed senior leaders to begin streamlining operations.
13:20
While Meta has officially dismissed these reports as
13:22
speculative, the potential cuts signal a fundamental shift
13:25
toward an AI assisted workforce where automation replaces
13:28
traditional human role. That I think is probably not
13:30
+20%'s a big number. I don't know how much of this
13:33
was metaverse related. They still smoothly had a lot of
13:36
people that were in that group. Not nearly that many.
13:38
They've been getting of that group for a.
13:39
While I think this they're talking about 100 plus billion
13:43
dollar annual spend, that's their current spend, right?
13:46
Like $135 billion yeah, these cuts total around $6 billion.
13:50
So not even a drop in the bucket of supporting what they're
13:53
trying to do here, right. I mean that's yeah, 5%, so
13:56
extremely small number, but it's very interesting to see how this
14:00
is progressing. My hunch is they're gonna keep
14:02
investing in AI. Clearly that's that's the race
14:04
yeah. And I, I also read that they're
14:06
targeting a, a manager to contributor ratio of 1 to 50,
14:09
which is kind of fascinating. That to me is the like, what
14:12
you're going to see happen with this is more orchestration,
14:15
folks managing more things is what you're going to.
14:17
See, I don't understand how any of this is going to play out.
14:19
The more I think about it, the more it's like as chips get more
14:22
powerful and require less power to operate, yes.
14:25
Don't all these data centers just diminish in value quickly?
14:28
Well, yes, that's what happened before, right?
14:31
Remember, data centers in 2000 were like super exciting, but
14:33
they became very unexciting because it was completely
14:35
commoditized. And you didn't the the the
14:37
physical space and power that you had an upper bound on.
14:40
Technology was getting smaller and more efficient within that
14:42
same space. So building more data doesn't
14:44
make a ton of sense. Yeah.
14:45
I think The X Factor here, though, is we don't know how
14:47
much we need. And that's what's fueling this
14:49
fire is we don't know how much space or how much processing we
14:52
need. Is there gonna be some amazing
14:54
AGI that requires A2000 petaflops for me to ask a simple
14:57
question too? We don't know.
14:58
I think that's what's really fueling this is the unknown of
15:00
what the upper bound looks. Like, but eventually we do.
15:02
Have to be a flattening to the curve at some point, so how
15:04
does? This end well for anyone who's
15:06
spending like this so well, so aggressive.
15:09
So that's a great question. I really, I really think it's a
15:11
race. It's an existential race.
15:13
There's only going to be a couple winners.
15:15
So you have to spend, otherwise you're dead.
15:17
You're not going to survive if you're not the winner.
15:19
You know, if you're not the top three, whatever the number is
15:20
going to be, the rest are going to be gone.
15:22
They're get gobbled up because they're not going to make it.
15:23
So you have to spend this in order to get there.
15:25
It's it's the only way to stay alive.
15:27
Those of us who come from the sound world, remember when a
15:29
sound studio, a sound studio that you would come and record
15:32
your album on, it was millions of dollars worth of gear.
15:35
And now it's. Totally miniaturized.
15:37
Now people are making their albums on a oddity PC.
15:39
Yeah, they sound great. They sound they.
15:41
Sound better? They did.
15:42
Then they did. For sure.
15:43
Yeah, for sure. I mean that is the general
15:44
nature of tech. Isn't this where this goes?
15:46
Yes, I think at at some time scale it does for sure.
15:49
That's always been the case with tech.
15:51
However, we don't know where that is.
15:52
Is that in five years? Is that in 15 years?
15:54
Is that in 30 years? We don't know 'cause I don't
15:56
think we know how powerful The thing is that we're gonna want
15:59
to run on it. And that to me is the real
16:00
unknown. If you, if you take some modicum
16:02
of history in reality, you go, well, this is not really a, a
16:05
stick up to the right, right? It's more of like a yeah, it's a
16:08
climb for a while. You're saying it'll level out in
16:10
a year or two and you'll have so much processing power on your
16:12
phone you can run most those models.
16:13
That might be the case. But it's also possible that we
16:16
get some giant breakthrough. And if if you've got an AGI
16:19
running in the cloud that can just do all this stuff for you
16:22
and I'm running, you know, Llama 3 on my phone.
16:24
I'm a knife in a gunfight, right?
16:26
I'm a knife in a ICBM fight. It doesn't, It just, you're not
16:29
competitive. And I think we don't know what
16:31
that looks like. That, to me is the biggest.
16:33
Problem. It just seems like existing
16:34
models are going to be 50% of what they are next year, but
16:37
that additional 50% is not going to add agree.
16:40
It's not going to add another 50% of utilitarian value.
16:44
But I think you're thinking incrementally.
16:45
It's the non incremental step that is the most jarring.
16:48
It's the one where you go from, oh, this is an AI that you can
16:50
train on models to. This is something that's as
16:53
smart as all humanity ever. Now would you want to have that
16:55
in your pocket? Are we close to that now?
16:58
I mean, when I when I ask my AIS, my various AIS, virtually
17:02
any question now, half the time that maybe they're making it up,
17:05
but I don't know. But I think it most of the
17:07
things do check out. And you say, yeah, this is
17:09
getting better. This is somebody who's it is
17:10
very much like having the smartest person in the world in
17:13
my pocket. It is.
17:14
But what about the all of that is the combination of human
17:17
knowledge, right? It's not really figuring much
17:19
out. Maybe you're asking it a
17:20
question in a different way or about some other thing, but it's
17:22
piercing together previous human knowledge.
17:24
I think the next big breakthrough is when it
17:26
transcends that, when it transcends human knowledge, or
17:29
known human knowledge I should say.
17:30
Executing complex tasks? That's just complex.
17:33
Tasks but just being. Like thing we're going to.
17:34
For example, hello Gemini, what's the cure for Cancer?
17:38
And then it just tells you like that, like it hasn't been done
17:40
before. They actually tried that for a
17:42
dog cancer and it. Worked, but I mean.
17:43
Like they were correct, you're put.
17:45
I'll put the link in the show notes.
17:46
You have to read this. Story.
17:47
That's what's so. This dog cancer.
17:48
But that's what's so crazy is like you're getting to this
17:51
place now where it's answering questions we don't know the
17:53
answer to. And I really, and we talked
17:54
about this in the show before. Yeah.
17:56
At some point, I suspect we're gonna stop fact checking those
17:58
things because we can't, right? You don't have the time or the
18:01
resource, you have to go. Oh well, it's been right most
18:03
the time before and it says because.
18:05
I have to say I haven't seen a hallucination in quite a while.
18:07
Yeah, I but I again, I, I feel like that's apples and oranges.
18:10
I'm not going to court with cases that are just made-up
18:13
though. Yeah, I would definitely Fact
18:14
Check if I were going to use something somewhere, but that
18:17
that's my. Needs that information again.
18:19
So court cases is an interesting one because to me that's all
18:21
referential, no knowledge, right?
18:22
You should be able to go search that like I can validate this
18:24
case. I can validate the one it says
18:25
is real when it gets the things that we don't know and then
18:27
yeah, beyond that, things that we don't under stand.
18:29
What do you do if it says ohh, you have a turns out you have
18:32
stage 3 kidney cancer. You need to go eat 2 sticks of
18:35
Rosemary and put your head in the sand for an hour and then
18:38
drink some bleach, 10 milliliters of bleach and you'll
18:40
be cured. What, like you go first?
18:44
I mean, that's good. Like first.
18:45
Yeah, exactly. But.
18:48
Like you're going to get there with stuff that we just don't
18:50
know. And to me it's, it just, it
18:52
shows how prophetic the 30 year old movie Contact was.
18:55
That's sort of what Contact was. It wasn't an AGI, but we thought
18:58
it was some extraterrestrial, you know, knowledge source that
19:01
transmitted these plans that we built.
19:04
And we dropped Jodie Foster in a little ball through a thing and
19:07
she went and had this amazing experience and they're like, no,
19:09
you just fell through and landed at the bottom.
19:11
It was all made-up, which is right.
19:12
We don't know like we are, we're you and I are likely going to
19:14
see that in our lifetime and that is mind bending to me of
19:18
what that's going to look like. But we don't know.
19:19
Is that next year? Is it in five years?
19:21
Is it in 15 years? We don't know, but it does seem
19:23
to be coming. The job disruption is coming
19:24
within 5 to 10 years. The job disruption is coming now
19:27
for sure. Massive seismic.
19:29
Shift but the big. One though, you're going to have
19:32
an even much. Bigger I'm not in shift, but I'm
19:34
not entirely convinced that it's all going to become Wally like
19:36
no, we in some ways we're more Wally now because of the
19:39
entertainment complex than I think what tech is going to do
19:41
to it right. We already have a bunch of folks
19:43
just want to be amused the entire time.
19:45
Sure, Like I, I think that's been, that's been a slow burn
19:47
over, I don't know, 30-40, fifty years.
19:49
Thanks television and TikTok. But I think the opportunity for
19:52
humans to do more and we've never been short of problems.
19:55
I've said this before, we've never been short of problems.
19:57
Sure, sure. That's where I think this is
19:58
going. And that to me is the most
19:59
exciting part. So if you're excited about
20:01
solving problems. This is bringing up a ton of
20:03
human labor to attack new things we've not never been able to get
20:05
to. If you're if you're afraid that
20:07
you're not going to be doing the things that you've been doing,
20:09
then yes, you have a good reason to be afraid.
20:11
But you should not be afraid of that.
20:12
You should embrace that. Yeah, that's what's coming.
20:14
With someone asked for a comment, Meta spokesman Andy
20:16
Stone said this is speculative reporting about theoretical
20:19
approaches, which if you have your Rosetta Stone, you can put
20:22
that up and you can see what it means.
20:23
Is pink slips coming Friday? I'd appreciate that.
20:25
So. So they're not confirming it.
20:27
They're saying it was leaked and we don't sleep well.
20:28
All right, Andy, we'll be back here next week for another quote
20:31
and see what you say theoretical approaches.
20:35
We're also considering just taking all crackers out of the
20:37
snack bar. We can also get the $6 billion a
20:39
year in that and spend $6 billion a year with Frito Lay.
20:42
So it's a trade off. What do you want to do?
20:44
Poison in your playlist Why headphones are leaking toxins A
20:48
groundbreaking EU funded study has sent shockwaves through the
20:51
consumer electronics industry after finding that 100% of the
20:54
81 headphone models tested contain hazardous hormone
20:58
disrupting chemicals. The investigation, part of the
21:00
Tox Free Life for All project, revealed that popular brands
21:04
including Apple, Samsung, Bose and JBL are using plastics laden
21:08
with bisphenol, phthalates and flame retardants.
21:11
While these devices don't pose an immediate acute danger,
21:13
researchers warn that the cocktail effect, where long term
21:16
daily exposure compounded by the heat and sweat of regular use,
21:20
could lead to significant reproductive and
21:21
neurodevelopmental health risks. You would think if they called
21:24
it the cocktail effect it would be like delicious and more
21:27
enjoyable than that doesn't sound like fun while.
21:29
The concentrations are low. The constant contact nature of
21:32
the wearable tech has sparked it's an immediate regulatory
21:35
backlash. Major chains across that you
21:37
aren't waiting for a formal ban, they're scrubbing shelves to
21:39
dodge APR nightmare. I mean, this is the problem When
21:42
you wear this tech in it, you know, you get these, these
21:45
toxins leaked into your body. We just all need to go nude.
21:47
Yeah, but what tech doesn't have plastics?
21:49
In it, there's so much plastic, Yeah, actually the plastics that
21:51
are inside the tech. Like my my like when we talked
21:53
about this before regarding like like cooking and food storage.
21:57
Sure you can make it all out of iron.
21:58
I don't want Airpod Iron Max. That sounds terrible.
22:02
It's a headset that weighs 26 lbs.
22:04
Your neck is just aching by the end of the day.
22:06
So my neck would be giant. I'd have the rocks neck.
22:09
Just walking around, just carrying this giant thing on my
22:12
head. Like, could you imagine walking
22:13
through the metal detector at the airport, like Airpod, Iron
22:16
Max? Yeah.
22:16
I like that it's not even steel, it's iron.
22:19
So it's like dripping rust out of your ears as you do your run,
22:22
no? If you're gonna do it total
22:25
totally, do you think, do you think we can make it a fad like
22:27
faded jeans where like you see who has the most rust on their
22:30
headphones? Like that's the most OG guy.
22:32
That's how much you worked out. It's the drips of rust.
22:36
Totally. Well, this in, in many ways,
22:38
yes, I want to open the the Pandora's box on this.
22:41
But much like when we talked about plastics last week, man,
22:43
this is a rabbit hole. Once you get in there and you're
22:45
like, oh, all of these things are terrible for me.
22:47
Like, they're all terrible, all of it.
22:49
I thought this study was really interesting.
22:50
They split up the testing into three basic chunks.
22:53
Yeah. They tested the things that
22:54
touch your skin, the things that don't touch your skin and then
22:56
an overall score. And they did a sort of a green,
22:58
yellow, red, green being meets all standard expectations.
23:03
Yellows, like you're at least legally compliant, but not as
23:05
good as you can be. And red is you just failed.
23:07
Yeah. And it was really interesting to
23:08
see how that played out. It does seem like there's a
23:09
market for folks, like if you have a pair of headphones and
23:12
you can replace the cups or put some sort of like the thing that
23:14
touches your head. Yeah.
23:15
Where they can make it out of cotton or some a wool, some sort
23:18
of material that you have less worry about than than whatever
23:22
the the plastic crap is. Like some, you know, artisan.
23:24
I go buy my $300 Bose headphones and I can buy $80 cups that are
23:28
customized on Etsy that don't have these risks.
23:31
Like, I know some people are doing that.
23:32
I've bought different cups for some my headphones in the past.
23:34
Sure I have to, but I'm I'm sure they weren't sure they weren't
23:36
good. I'm sure they weren't good for
23:38
me. Just more of the same plastic
23:39
crap, right? Everyone is panicking over
23:42
Trump's new $100,000 visa levy. President Trump's proposed
23:46
$100,000 fee for H1B visas to send shockwaves through the tech
23:49
industry, transforming a standard hiring process into a
23:52
luxury gamble. Proponents claim the levy
23:54
protects American jobs by forcing companies to prioritize
23:57
local talent over cheaper foreign labor.
23:59
However, critics argue the math doesn't work for startups and
24:02
mid sized firms. That cost is prohibitive,
24:04
threatening to drain the US of specialized innovators who fuel
24:07
the Silicon Valley. University is warned of a brain
24:09
drain as top international graduates flee to Canada or
24:12
Europe. Meanwhile, industry giants fear
24:14
the policy will spike consumer prices and drive operations
24:17
offshore. By treating high skilled talent
24:19
as a tax revenue stream rather than a competitive asset, the
24:22
administration risks cooling the very economy it aims to protect.
24:25
I have so many issues with this. We talked about this before 1
24:28
Most of these jobs there isn't someone else who's applying for
24:32
it. That's not on a Nature 1B yeah.
24:34
Who's qualified? This is like having hired folks
24:36
on H1 BS. It's extremely difficult and
24:39
expensive. Before the $100,000 tax, sure.
24:42
So I would certainly hire somebody in that locality in the
24:45
if I wanted them in the US, in the US before I would do an H1B.
24:48
We're just out of people. We've got more jobs we want to
24:51
tackle than people. Also, specialty engineers and
24:54
things like that who know things that no other people know.
24:56
Yeah, it's not like you can just go down to your.
24:58
You're not giving them a. Discount, yes.
25:00
So that's like, but maybe that's the more esoteric problem.
25:02
I think what is what is going to hit people more close to home on
25:06
this is H1 BS aren't just used by folks in the tech industry
25:10
and super nerds. Used by everybody.
25:11
You've got, yeah, there's something like 5% of all H1B
25:13
petitions are going to medical professionals.
25:15
Oh yeah. And these are especially people
25:17
that are willing to work in what we call medically underserved
25:20
areas. Sure.
25:20
And you can't get US doctors and U.S. healthcare professionals to
25:24
go there. So those clinics now are going
25:26
to have they, they can't pay 100 grand on top that to have
25:29
somebody come in and work there, that's going to be hit hard.
25:31
And you see that with teachers as well, especially areas that
25:34
are underserved with teachers. $100,000 fee for a $50,000 a
25:37
year teacher doesn't make any sense.
25:39
And this was cited in Alaska where Alaska's are a hard time
25:41
getting folks to come there and teach, which which makes it hard
25:43
for them to get people to come there and stay there to raise a
25:45
family if they don't have good schools.
25:47
And they've used folks especially from the Philippines
25:49
there. And now they're like the the
25:50
state of Alaska can't afford to pay 100 grand for each one of
25:54
these that they've they've got there.
25:55
OK, now for the headlines. In fact, enough with this
25:57
episode. We have to get out of here
25:58
special next to our floor director.
25:59
Tara Chandler. Thank you, Tara.
26:01
We'll be back. Later this week with our big
26:02
story, the 2026 transparency mandate, the silent were over
26:05
unidentified aerial phenomena data.
26:07
Until then, thank you for listening to all this nonsense.
26:09
I'm Jeff Parker. Aliens.
26:10
Just about aliens. Why all those other words?
26:13
Just aliens. I'm an alien.
26:14
CJ Little. Nano nano, see you next time.
26:16
OK, got it. Aliens Thursday.
26:18
See you then. The Devon Systems DSI 501 Fixed
26:35
Disk Drive One low price buys you the expanded storage speed
26:38
and reliability of a Winchester technology hard disk system
26:41
designed for the IBM Personal Computer by Devon Systems, Inc
26:45
Wow. Full software support includes
26:46
an installation program and complete diagnostics.
26:48
The DS 501 disk drive runs both IBM DOS and QNIX, a Unix like
26:52
operating system for the IBM Personal computer.
26:54
OK, take this ad to your participating computer land
26:56
dealer. Ask for the $6800 Hard Disk
26:59
System by Devon. Wow, 68, $800 How big is this?
27:03
Yes, you don't have to tell me. So don't tell me that, because
27:06
if you do, then I'll know exactly what year.
27:07
Yes, I'm giving you a two-part on this one, you have to guess
27:10
the size in the year. Yeah.
27:12
I will tell you one thing which you always know to be true.
27:14
That dollar amount is cost adjusted for today dollars.
27:17
Sure. So if I can run that back till
27:20
it's probably what would you pay for a hard drive?
27:23
IBM Personal computers is the hint.
27:25
That's the time. IBM DOS is the big hint.
27:27
That's a big hint. Winchester technology, not quite
27:30
as specific because that exists for a while yeah.
27:32
So I'm guessing probably in the early 80s computer land became
27:36
computer land in like 77 yes. They had been believe it or not
27:40
before that they were computer shack, yes, right.
27:42
If you remember they were Computer Shack and and
27:44
RadioShack got very upset about. That they need more names with
27:46
Shack in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:48
And so they became Computer Land, which I think is a much
27:50
better name. Yeah, you're so good at this.
27:52
So I'm gonna go after 77 before the mid 80s.
27:56
Let's make it 1982 and how the disk drive had to be at least 5,
28:01
5 megabytes, maybe 10. AM I close?
28:04
Look at you just doubling it like it was nothing. 10
28:07
megabytes. Listen to you go with five.
28:10
I'll go with five. You are, yes, it's it's in, it's
28:12
actually in the, the, the number there.
28:14
It's in the product number. It is 5 megabytes actually 6.8
28:18
megabytes unformatted, 5 megabytes usable.
28:20
What's interesting and you nailed the year it is 1982 is
28:22
when this ad is from. Interestingly, this DSI 501, it
28:25
appears to be a rebranded Tandon TM501.
28:29
Does the name Tandon mean anything to you?
28:31
Not a thing. OK, I sort of recognize this
28:34
name. I think This is why this is
28:35
somewhat interesting. Tandon Corporation was initially
28:37
an American disk drive PC manufacturer from the mid 70s.
28:41
They made floppy disk drives. They made the read write head.
28:44
Oh, the double sided. Floppy Dr. Market.
28:46
They yes, yes. They were the guys that that are
28:48
credited with inventing the double sided double density
28:51
version of floppy drives, Sure, which became very popular in the
28:53
early 80s. So they were the guys that made
28:56
basically all everything you saw in the trash 80s.
28:58
Yeah, I think they made them for the Apple, the Apple computers.
29:00
And then they said, oh, OK, we got to make make hard drives as
29:03
well. And they started making hard
29:04
drives. They didn't have a huge hard
29:05
drive business. They ended up selling it I think
29:07
in 1988 to Western Digital for 80 million bucks, which in
29:11
today's money is 1/4 of a billion dollars.
29:13
So that was a pretty big acquisition then.
29:15
Sure, sure. I went and pulled the spec sheet
29:17
on this TM 501, the same drive as the DSI 501.
29:20
Let me just throw a couple things at you that I think is
29:21
just amazing to show how far we've come.
29:23
The the DSI 5/01, it had five amps of startup current.
29:27
Wow, that is insane right when you turn this thing on it.
29:30
Drew 5. Amps it's like a microwave
29:34
compared to these days, you're less than half of that like this
29:36
is again, just startup current not to keep it spinning.
29:38
The average access time on this drive was 320 milliseconds.
29:43
Wow, 1/3 of a second. Wow.
29:45
So compared to drives today that are typically between 8 and 15
29:49
milliseconds, right? So effectively 2 orders of
29:51
magnitude less, which is which is also bananas.
29:54
Now this is the one that I love. The most I could scroll through
29:56
a reel of punch tape faster than that.
29:58
Basically you could. That's what it was doing.
30:00
I think inside it was a very small Keebler ELF scrolling
30:02
through bunch of tape. This is the one that broke my
30:05
brain the most, the MTBF. So that is the meantime between
30:08
failure for our non nerd listeners.
30:10
Sure, sure. So current drives, you're in the
30:12
sort of 1.2 to 2.5 million hours right of MTBF.
30:16
And that's just the statistical number to show multiple drives,
30:19
which shows how little drives fail.
30:21
The DSI five O 1 was 11,000 hours.
30:25
So a 1% of today's numbers, that's like 2 months of
30:28
operation. Yeah, that's incredibly sharp if
30:31
you left. This thing on for two months,
30:33
the odds were now favorable. You were gonna have an air,
30:35
which breaks my brain. And now we're getting, you know,
30:39
easily 5 to 10 years out of hard drive.
30:41
Sure. And we're grumpy about that.
30:43
And you're like, this wasn't that long ago.
30:44
This is 40 years ago. You couldn't get two months out
30:47
of one. It's bananas how far we've come
30:49
on this. Used to look at the hard drive
30:51
wrong and the the heads didn't even park.
30:53
Yeah, so you had to, if you like, move your computer.
30:55
You destroyed your hard drive if you auto.
30:57
Parking heads, the other thing that was.
30:59
That was a big advance. I'm really.
31:00
Surprised I was able to find the manual for this hard drive.
31:02
The other thing about the manual that I am not making up, the
31:05
last third of the manual just shows you packing instructions
31:09
for the hard drive how to transport.
31:10
It I'm sure, I'm sure. How to put it in a box with foam
31:13
and a little separator here and foam here because these things
31:15
like like Jeff said, if you looked at it wrong, the head
31:18
would would literally. Damage.
31:20
Crash into the disk and damage the disk.
31:22
That was before you had auto parking heads.
31:23
You remember you had a command called park.
31:25
Sure you'd run park just to park the drives.
31:27
So anyway, the long and short of it is we are old.
31:30
Old. Men is that is that what this?
31:31
That's where that's this whole segment is just to let people
31:34
know that we are old. Old men in our younger days,
31:37
people would chisel the data into the.
31:38
Stone, The Devon DSI, 501-1982. Fantastic.