Interactive Pet Projector, Only Box Fans, Annoy-a-Trons for Good, and Pappy's Nuts
Ep. 29

Interactive Pet Projector, Only Box Fans, Annoy-a-Trons for Good, and Pappy's Nuts

Episode description

Special thanks to Drew for joining us on this episode!

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:53 - Will It Send?
00:10:34 - Interactive Pet Projector
00:20:32 - Only Box Fans
00:32:07 - Annoy-a-Trons for Good
00:40:42 - Pappy’s Nuts
00:51:53 - Outro

Download transcript (.srt)
0:00

I'm Scott. I'm Russell. I'm Leo. This is Spitball.

0:08

Welcome to Spitball where three venture visionaries and a guest empty their heads of

0:21

startup and tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for free.

0:26

Anything that we say is yours to keep. And Scott, I believe you brought our guest this week.

0:30

I did. I brought my coworker and friend, Drew Morgan. Drew is a mechanical product design

0:37

engineer at my work. He works on the advanced product development team. He's probably worked

0:41

on a thousand different early stage products and devices in his time here. And I'm very excited

0:47

to have him. So welcome, Drew. Welcome. Hey, thanks. Good to be here. This is going to be so fun.

0:53

This week, we're going to be doing another game where we're going to get ourselves warmed up here. I'm

0:57

calling this one. Will it send? We're going to go through I am services. You guys remember instant

1:03

messaging, how crucial that was to the world and how right. It's like schooler. Absolutely. Right. We

1:10

were of the age as middle millennials where like I would come home from school and spend time on

1:16

AOL instant messenger and all that. And I want to go through line by line here and pick a couple of

1:21

the favorites over the years and ask you guys, yes or no, does it still work? Can you download

1:25

and install and use these services? So for example, WhatsApp? Yes. Facebook bought it. It's huge

1:30

globally. Google Allo, like all other Google products was killed summarily. So of course we

1:36

always start with our guest, Drew. I want to ask you about Skype. Skype was founded 20 years ago in 2003.

1:43

Wow.

1:43

eBay owned it for a while. They were bought by Microsoft. MSN Messenger was folded into Skype and

1:49

they became one. Microsoft launched Teams in 2017. But does Skype itself still work? Yes or no?

1:56

I'm going to go with yes on this one. I think it does.

1:59

It totally does. You're absolutely right. For some reason, they had a 20-year head start on Zoom and

2:04

still didn't win.

2:06

I can't imagine why it still works. It was actually never that good.

2:10

I can still hear the noises in my head.

2:13

It's really cumbersome.

2:13

The desktop.

2:14

Do, do, do.

2:15

Yeah, right.

2:16

Yeah, it's not great, but you can download and install and use it today, even though they're

2:22

trying so hard to make Teams happen. It's not going to happen. Scott, have you heard of

2:26

Kik? K-I-K?

2:27

Nope.

2:28

Kik was launched as, well, it was relaunched. It was originally a music sharing service. But in 2010,

2:34

it was launched as a messaging app. And in May of 2016, they announced that they had approximately

2:39

300 million registered users. And they were used by 40% of United States teenagers in 2016.

2:47

I know. Apparently, we were just too old. And there's probably a lot of younger people saying,

2:51

yeah, of course, Kik. I kicked my friends or whatever. But yeah.

2:54

Dated ourselves. Okay.

2:56

I know. This whole thing happened right under our noses. But does it still work today?

3:00

I feel like a 2016. If Skype's around, Kik's got to be around. I'm going to say yes.

3:06

Kik still works. It was, actually, it did shut down in like 2019, but then they relaunched.

3:11

Somebody else bought the company and now it's back around again. I'm going to count relaunches as,

3:15

yes, that does count.

3:16

Cool.

3:17

Russell, I'm sure you know because you're hip and trendy with the hashtag teens about Yik Yak,

3:22

anonymous location-based posting service that launched in 2013. It was popular on college

3:26

campuses. They had a very famous cyberbullying problem. Usage peaked around 2014, 2015, but do

3:34

they still exist today?

3:35

They came up, they shut down, they came up again, and I think they shut down again. So I'm saying

3:41

no.

3:42

They did get shut down in 2017. They did relaunch in 2021, and they still exist today. You can use

3:49

them right now. So not quite.

3:50

Russell is the troll I'm kicking.

3:53

Very close to being detailed.

3:55

Russell, despite all your hard work, your cyberbullying just hasn't shut it down a second time.

4:01

It looks like I can get back online, boys.

4:04

Yeah, it's time to get back.

4:06

Put on the Anon mask, yeah.

4:11

Don't find my username.

4:12

Drew, did you ever own a BlackBerry?

4:13

I never did, no. I actually went to college and there were Palm Pilots.

4:18

Yeah, I love the Palm Trio, for sure.

4:20

And I had a little flip pad paper, and I called it my Palm Pilot in order to poke fun at the other

4:26

students that were rich and had Palm Pilots.

4:28

My next door neighbor in the dorm rooms, when iPhones were starting to become popular and

4:34

everything had sent from my iPhone in the signature, he made his email signature sent from

4:38

my really cool laptop. That always cracked me up.

4:40

BlackBerrys were good at a lot of things, but one of the things that they had that was especially

4:46

key for their success was BlackBerry Messenger, BBM. It was once exclusive to BlackBerry devices only

4:52

for like way too long, but then it opened up to other platforms. So you could download the

4:56

Android and iOS apps. Does it exist today?

4:59

Ooh, uh, you know, it sounds so far-fetched.

5:03

No, I'm gonna say no.

5:06

It was shut down in 2019 permanently. You're absolutely right.

5:09

2019?

5:09

I know!

5:11

That's too late.

5:13

It would have been the most valuable part of BlackBerry at this time.

5:16

All seven people were using it. We're very sad, I'm sure.

5:19

How do I export my messages, you know?

5:21

Into something. I don't even know what you'd bring them to.

5:25

Yeah.

5:25

Scott, the king, the goat. AOL Instant Messenger was started in 1997.

5:31

Oh, man.

5:33

But does it still exist today?

5:34

You can't, you can't kill AOL. Like, I feel like you could try and you just can't kill.

5:38

I'm gonna say they're still here.

5:39

They were shut down in 2017.

5:41

No!

5:41

Remember when they were bought by Verizon and Oath and that whole thing?

5:45

Yeah.

5:46

Oh, that's so sad.

5:47

But it's sister app, not sister app, another one just like it.

5:51

Russell, what about Yahoo Messenger, which was lost in 1998? Competitor to AIM.

5:57

Oh, no. Oh, no. You know what? Yahoo was like, it's still a thing.

6:03

They probably just bundle it in your email service and it still works somehow.

6:07

They got shut down in 2018.

6:08

Oh, my gosh.

6:11

Which means BBM BlackBerry Messenger survived both of them.

6:14

I was shocked.

6:16

Outlived AIM?

6:17

I know.

6:18

That's insane.

6:18

I know.

6:18

Oh, wow.

6:19

I know.

6:19

I have an AOL CD in the closet behind me.

6:21

Do you really?

6:22

Yeah.

6:23

That's fantastic.

6:25

Yeah, you could get about 20 of them every time you walked out of a Target, if I remember

6:29

right.

6:29

Go use them as Frisbees.

6:30

A stack of them.

6:31

I'm gonna use that for an art project, but I never got around to it.

6:34

There you go.

6:35

It's its own little treasure now.

6:36

It might be worth something on eBay.

6:38

You should check it out.

6:38

Drew, chat roulette.

6:40

It launched in 2009.

6:42

It was a website.

6:43

You go into it.

6:44

Oh, by the way, I wrote all these in past tense.

6:46

So it was a website that you would go and it would fire up your camera and microphone

6:50

and pair you up with a random user like Omegle.

6:52

You press a button to leave and be repaired with someone else immediately, which was good

6:57

because there were a lot of penises.

6:58

A lot of penises.

6:59

A lot of penises.

6:59

A lot.

7:00

It doesn't still exist today.

7:01

Ooh.

7:02

I haven't tried that.

7:03

I haven't tried that in a long time, but I did use to chat roulette occasionally.

7:06

Same.

7:07

No penises though.

7:09

I always was lucky too.

7:12

Yeah.

7:12

I don't know.

7:13

I was lucky.

7:16

I'm going to say maybe they shut down.

7:19

Chat roulette usage doubled during COVID.

7:22

They are more popular than ever.

7:25

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

7:27

Yeah, I was surprised.

7:27

All right.

7:28

I'm going to chat roulette after this and see what's up there.

7:30

Maybe don't.

7:31

Especially not at night.

7:32

Not with me.

7:33

I feel like COVID made or broke a lot of these.

7:35

Hey, it's daytime somewhere.

7:37

Right.

7:38

Scott, you may recall that your and my good friend Russell Fyfe tried for a hot minute to

7:43

make Voxer happen.

7:44

Voxer is a push to talk walkie talkie group chat app that launched in 2007.

7:49

Oh, wow.

7:50

It's kind of a chat thing, but you like push and hold and you're sending audio messages

7:53

to each other and they went live to everyone else.

7:55

Kind of Nextel phone style.

7:57

Does it still exist today?

7:59

I have no idea, but my gut is no.

8:02

I feel like that one came up really quick and died really quick.

8:05

Launched in 2007.

8:06

Still kicking.

8:07

You can play with Voxer.

8:09

Honestly, I'm happy for them.

8:10

That's awesome.

8:11

They kind of did a pivot to like business communication a little bit, but it's still a thing.

8:16

You could like use their SDK to make your construction site all use Voxer or whatever, I guess.

8:21

That actually is really cool.

8:22

My wife uses it.

8:23

Yeah.

8:23

Does she?

8:24

I hate it so much.

8:25

It's like all the worst parts of voicemail and then only that.

8:31

What does she use it for?

8:32

Work or friends or something else?

8:33

Yeah.

8:34

Work.

8:34

Okay.

8:35

Fascinating.

8:36

Is she like required to have the app for work or something?

8:39

No, it's just her and a friend slash business partner and they send messages back and forth

8:44

that way.

8:45

And they're like 15 minutes long and they're not talking about anything for most of it.

8:50

I just don't get it.

8:51

And it's always on speakerphone too.

8:53

Right.

8:53

It's never something you put it.

8:54

Well, maybe they've changed it, but it's always speakerphone.

8:57

It seems like the kind of thing that like, like what does it do better than just sending

9:01

an audio thing on iMessage or whatever?

9:03

I don't know.

9:04

I don't get it.

9:04

Lastly, Russell, I got a good one for you to finish this off.

9:07

The Facebook poke.

9:09

An early feature from 2004 that allowed somebody to go on Facebook and poke them.

9:14

That's all it did was it said, you've been poked by Russell.

9:16

It was a form of greeting, but does it still work today?

9:19

That's a good one.

9:20

Oh man.

9:21

2004.

9:22

It was one of the first features that the platform had.

9:24

That was like why you went on Facebook.

9:27

So you would poke every day.

9:29

The back and forth.

9:30

Poke streak.

9:32

Wow.

9:32

Probably some MBA at Facebook was like, this makes us no revenue.

9:37

Let's kill it.

9:37

And so they probably killed it.

9:40

It is nowhere, anywhere in the UI, unless you go to facebook.com slash poke.

9:46

There's still a list of all your friends and you can send pokes and it sends a notification.

9:50

It still works.

9:51

What?

9:52

That's my public service.

9:53

Like journalism for this episode today is you guys all got to go and get all of your friends

9:57

to see the notification.

9:58

You've just been poked.

10:00

They have a whole page just for that?

10:03

That's all it does.

10:03

Yeah.

10:04

Facebook.com slash poke.

10:05

It's a list of all your people and press to poke.

10:07

And 40 ads.

10:09

Yeah.

10:10

But there's nowhere else that you can find it that I could see.

10:12

Like all the news articles were saying that this is apparently resurging last May as popularity.

10:17

So maybe we're the last people to talk about it.

10:19

But I was amused.

10:21

That's what inspired this whole game.

10:22

It's like, hey, the poke.

10:24

Wow.

10:24

Time to poke some friends.

10:26

Which I think all three of you got two out of three, right?

10:28

So I guess it's a tie.

10:29

Woo, tie.

10:31

Congratulations, everybody.

10:32

I think that means you have to start then, Leo.

10:34

All right.

10:35

I'll go first.

10:35

If you guys aren't too sick of hearing me talk.

10:37

My pitch this week.

10:38

So do you guys remember as a kid, there were the cheap, like, it's a little globe that has

10:45

a light bulb inside.

10:46

A little bit like a disco ball, but with just little pinpricks of light.

10:48

And you'd get in a dark room and it would make like stars all over your wall.

10:51

Yeah.

10:52

I think that this could be modernized and turned into something really interactive and interesting.

10:57

So I'm imagining small short throw projector on a base that has a swivel up, down, left,

11:04

right, pointing all around it, all the different screens.

11:06

And you could have that be movies or whatever, but I think it'd be really fun if you had a

11:10

software hardware thing that made the whole purpose of it be an interactive pet.

11:15

So you're setting it in the middle of the room and you've got this cute little Tamagotchi

11:20

frog or like a little puppy who's hopping around your walls and like snuggling with your kid

11:26

and all that kind of stuff.

11:27

But they're just on the wall and they're being whimsical and you can have fun like Disney

11:30

animations and things that aren't possible in the real life.

11:33

You know, ooh, he turned, he grew wings and flew up into the whatever, you know what I mean?

11:37

Wouldn't it be neat if you could just like set down the one thing, it makes a rough 3D map

11:42

of the room and adjusts its skew proportionately so that it looked like it was like hopping

11:47

around the room and doing things.

11:50

That's my whole pitch.

11:51

It's like a half-baked idea, but I think it'd be so cool.

11:54

That is so cool.

11:55

So like projection mapped Tamagotchi.

11:58

Yeah.

11:58

And maybe like every day you got to like bring it a little biscuit that you put in the box

12:04

or something.

12:04

I don't know.

12:05

Yeah.

12:05

Leo, that is amazing.

12:08

That's a really good idea.

12:09

I don't know where it came from.

12:10

Friends come over and like, come, you have to go in the basement to see my pet, right?

12:16

I don't know.

12:18

I don't like the way you phrased that.

12:22

And then you murder them.

12:23

The basement.

12:23

I guess.

12:26

Sorry.

12:26

I was like, I was like a elementary kid in my mind.

12:29

Where's your pet?

12:30

It's in the walls.

12:32

It's in the walls.

12:32

He lives with people.

12:34

Yeah.

12:35

You could even have it be.

12:36

I don't know how good like compacts.

12:38

You always see those little cheap compact projectors that you could get on Amazon for a couple hundred

12:42

bucks, right?

12:42

Like, I don't know how miniature we could get with this thing, but it could be portable-ish,

12:46

right?

12:46

It'd be like a night's little, oh, my unicorn read me my nighttime story tonight kind of thing

12:52

or something, you know?

12:52

Oh, my niece is obsessed with Frozen 2.

12:55

Never seen Frozen, but loves Frozen 2.

12:57

And Elsa is like, you know, life and everything.

13:01

And if you had an Elsa on the wall, like the same size as her, you could just interact

13:05

with.

13:06

That would be incredible.

13:07

You know, the first thing that came to my mind is actually Peter Pan's shadow.

13:11

Yeah.

13:12

Like, it's kind of like a living being in the room, but it's confined to stick to the

13:16

walls and floor.

13:17

Totally.

13:18

That would be cool.

13:19

Mm-hmm.

13:20

We had a coworker, Dan Parker, who had a, he was working on something like this.

13:26

It was a handheld projector, but it just had like a laser line of sight where, you know,

13:31

it measured the exact distance from the wall and it would set its focal point depending on

13:34

wherever it was in the wall looking for.

13:36

I mean, the hardware and everything for this is here.

13:39

And if you're pointing at like the corner of a room, the thing.

13:42

The actual image that you would have to be projecting out would be bigger and kind of

13:45

skewed and weird looking if it was on a flat surface.

13:48

Yeah.

13:48

But you can do that math to where you're doing it.

13:50

Yep.

13:51

Rough approximation of like keeping it the same size and shape as it goes around.

13:56

Absolutely.

13:56

But then you need like a laser mapping system.

13:59

I feel like I've seen some museum experiences that have a badge you wear around your neck

14:04

and it does this like projecting onto things in the room that way.

14:08

That's cool.

14:09

That'd be cool.

14:10

How does that, what kind of content do they show for something like that?

14:13

It's escaping me.

14:14

I don't remember.

14:15

That's really interesting.

14:16

You're going to watch on Mackinac now where you'll have some historical soldier telling

14:19

you the history of the fort and what we ate in the 1700s.

14:22

Okay.

14:23

Very thrilling.

14:24

Like a kids museum exhibit would be really neat with something like that.

14:28

And the brand, like you were saying, Elsa, like the brand tie-ins, you could partner with

14:32

Looney Tunes or whoever wants to get some advertisement for their cool new animated Paw Patrol movie or

14:38

something, right?

14:39

You're going to make this.

14:40

It's going to become super popular.

14:41

And then soon after, there's going to be a horror movie based on it.

14:46

I can't turn it off.

14:47

I can't turn it off.

14:48

Put a blanket over it.

14:49

I think this is like the coolest nightlight ever.

14:53

I feel like you're going to, if this is going to get made one day, Leo, whether you build it or not.

14:58

It's just one of those things.

15:00

I feel like if you just plug it into an outlet, it becomes a nightlight in the room.

15:04

It tells stories.

15:05

You could put like the whole, what is it?

15:08

Skylander stuff.

15:09

You can buy different toys and you put it on top and then it projects it into the room.

15:15

That's good.

15:15

Now you got insane monetization.

15:18

Even in standby mode, it could just be doing like a little soft red dot on the wall and that's my nightlight.

15:23

And it's bubbles that slowly go around the room while I'm sleeping or something.

15:27

There's all kinds of animation potential when you take the space you're in and you have free reign to augment it.

15:33

Your target markets are endless.

15:34

Okay, but here's the big question.

15:36

Is it internet connected?

15:38

If you need to download the content and stuff, I guess.

15:41

But that does open up a lot of scary.

15:44

Oh no, the Russians got my projector and now the scary stuff's happening on my wall.

15:48

Yeah.

15:50

You can buy like physical chips, like maybe like video game cartridges or something.

15:55

Yeah, like a Yoto player, I think is a product out there that does that.

16:01

It's a connected online system, but the only way to interact with it is through physical cards.

16:06

It's a little cube that's a speaker so you can set as apparent like this tile when you touch it to the speaker cube, honey, sets your audio book.

16:15

Or this one reads you a story and this one is the branded tie-in with Disney that tells you the Lion King, whatever.

16:22

Yeah, that's the kind of model that it seems like companies are a little bit more open to making those deals, like the content owners.

16:29

That'd be so cool to like sit in front of like even just like a small projector and like now you have the story that you're going to read with your kid.

16:37

It's like you put a little rug around it, becomes story time.

16:41

It doesn't feel like you're watching TV.

16:43

It feels like, it doesn't feel like screen time, right?

16:46

And so short little three minute things.

16:49

The storybook characters hopping around your wall on wall to wall, like the whole space.

16:54

That's the thing.

16:55

It's not fixed.

16:56

I'm not sitting on the couch.

16:57

I'm like, it's all around me.

16:59

And that's like the best part is that your market is so open to this.

17:03

Like you have the children's version, put like Cortana or something in there and turn it into Siri or something and just have it like, hey, this is who I interact with instead of this, you know, random device on my desk.

17:13

It's such a much better experience too than like a small screen.

17:16

A lot of home assistants have like you're, there's no reason that your pet, Tamagotchi, dog, whatever it is, can't also tell you what the weather's going to be.

17:25

Exactly.

17:26

And if it's internet connected, yeah.

17:27

Oh, true.

17:28

You're sitting in your home office and you're just talking at the wall and the wall's talking back at you.

17:34

Yeah.

17:34

You forgot to email Bob about those blueprints or whatever.

17:37

Ooh.

17:39

I wonder if you could do some directional speakers to really like kind of make it sound like the wall is talking.

17:44

We have standards for 360 audio, like the Dolby Atmos stuff.

17:47

Totally.

17:48

Yeah.

17:48

That would be maybe a little kind of breaking point of realism is where the sound is coming

17:52

from.

17:52

That's true.

17:53

Yeah.

17:53

Unless you did it.

17:54

Yeah.

17:55

Put a couple of satellite Sonos speakers around the room that it's talking to or something.

17:58

That'd be sweet.

17:59

Dude, I wonder if you could make us a version.

18:02

Like it's a little cheaper.

18:03

Like if you want to go really cheap with it, but you have like kind of like a music box with like,

18:09

I don't know if this is a little crazy, but like a ribbon that casts shadows across the

18:13

wall over a light.

18:14

Oh yeah.

18:15

And then that way it can like plays a movie almost from the project instead of having like

18:19

a film projector.

18:20

Yeah.

18:20

Like a, but it's just a light with shadows.

18:22

Right.

18:23

And so it like moves across the screen and maybe plays a song.

18:26

That's fun.

18:27

Before you go to the full 3d model, like the 3d version with audio, like all the bells and

18:32

whistles.

18:32

Cause I'm how expensive and how hard is like a short throw projector?

18:36

Those are like ridiculous, right?

18:38

They've come down, but you're still talking many hundreds, if not a grand or two.

18:41

Yeah.

18:42

Yeah.

18:42

Well, the engineers will fix that one, right?

18:45

Make it cheap.

18:48

I mean, or Timu.

18:49

I've got some ideas.

18:50

It actually brings to mind the Microsoft Surface, not the tablet, but the other one, which has

18:57

like a bunch of these weird pillars that go up and down.

19:00

I think it was also called Surface.

19:01

Yep.

19:02

Yep.

19:02

Yep.

19:02

Am I wrong about this?

19:03

The original table thing.

19:04

Is that a random James Bond movie where they're like touching the table and throwing pictures

19:09

back and forth on the surface?

19:11

Or is that just something else?

19:12

They tried really hard to promote it in a movie.

19:14

They wanted, I think you're right.

19:15

They wanted like hotel lobbies and restaurants to have this as their table and stuff.

19:20

And they had a bunch of cool demos, but I don't think it ever really caught on.

19:24

Anyway, there's like a particular kind of, I don't know, voxelized physical display that

19:31

probably could be amenable to your shadow puppetry idea that you just said of like somehow actually

19:37

flipping little windows in a ribbon that kind of creates that shadow on the wall.

19:41

Absolutely.

19:42

I don't know.

19:43

Like you're doing shadow puppets, but it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:46

Like a grid.

19:47

It's not a projector really.

19:49

It's a shadow project.

19:50

Yeah.

19:51

I mean, liquid crystal displays are the backlight shining through.

19:54

What if you just had like a really bright projector bulb with liquid crystal layer going on?

19:59

Yeah.

20:00

There you go.

20:00

To make it small, you have to have a very tiny LED.

20:03

So it's a point source.

20:04

So you don't get blurry shadows.

20:06

But we have those now.

20:08

LEDs are fantastic.

20:09

Unless you build the blur into your animations and it's a wispy little ghost.

20:13

Back to your Peter Pan shadow.

20:16

Yeah.

20:16

Yes.

20:17

Yes.

20:18

It's the cloud around the image.

20:20

Yeah.

20:21

Blobby.

20:22

He's my amorphous shadowy friend that lives in the walls.

20:26

You're getting institutionalized.

20:28

Smudge is my favorite.

20:31

Smudge.

20:31

All right, Russell, you're up next.

20:38

What do you got for us this week?

20:39

All right.

20:39

So I have been in painting my basement, doing a lot of work, and I have been drying my walls

20:47

with a ton of box fans.

20:49

And I started to think about this.

20:51

Like, and I guess you guys have probably seen this, like the box fan mods for like AC units,

20:57

you connect it to a cooler and you run like copper coils through it.

21:01

And like, yeah, there's like a bunch of mods.

21:03

I guess I was thinking, why don't we create a bunch of mods for the box fan as add-ons to

21:11

a line of products.

21:12

A standard box fan.

21:13

Yeah.

21:14

So you can use it as a filter.

21:16

Maybe you attach like, you can provide a special hose attachment that connects to your window

21:22

to help with the, you know how sometimes you throw a box fan in a window and shut the window

21:27

on it?

21:27

And it never works.

21:29

It falls out.

21:30

It never works.

21:30

It always does.

21:31

Interesting.

21:32

So you would create the mods.

21:34

You would, you would provide, you'd be a provider of all the different $20 accessories to the

21:39

$20 box fan.

21:40

And now you can have an air filter, like a real, you can, if you throw an air filter,

21:45

like an HVAC air filter on there, I mean, you have a pretty solid air filter running on

21:50

a box fan.

21:51

I told Scott about this, but University of Michigan did a study during COVID when people were really

21:55

worried about how to keep air clean.

21:56

And, uh, they tested a bunch of off the shelf, like the leading brands of air filter or whatever.

22:01

And the best performing one was a box fan with a 20 by 20 HVAC filter strapped to the

22:06

back.

22:06

It moved more air and got more stuff through it than like all these $300 home for filter

22:12

systems and stuff.

22:13

So, yeah, I'm so happy to hear that because that was the entirety of my concrete dust prevention

22:17

strategy at my old business that I ran.

22:19

It's great.

22:20

It does work super well.

22:21

It's kind of loud.

22:22

Like even on the low setting, the sound of a box fan with something up against it is pretty

22:26

noisy, but I 3d printed some little like clips that just held onto it.

22:30

It was super, super great.

22:32

Yeah.

22:32

That's the idea.

22:33

I think that's the key to it too, is you just have clips that'll fit on like any type

22:37

of box fan, just like the panel grid on front.

22:40

It doesn't matter the orientation.

22:41

They're all pretty much the same size.

22:42

Yeah.

22:43

I'm sure they're in weird orientations and stuff compared to each other, but you could

22:47

make something.

22:47

If you want to hook onto the grate, then probably, but just, I think like they're all the same

22:51

width and depth and height more or less.

22:54

Yeah.

22:54

Box fans are pretty universally about $1 per inch of diameter.

22:59

It's the cheapest price per inch of diameter that you can get from a fan.

23:02

But as long as you can make some assumptions about the dimensions of the unit itself, you can

23:08

have things grab onto the exterior of it and hook up to it.

23:11

Yeah.

23:12

Some kind of clamp system.

23:13

Yeah.

23:13

Just like phone clamps, you know, like in your car, there's the whole setup thing.

23:19

That's it.

23:20

So you've got your copper tubing that makes it cooler.

23:23

Got the AC version.

23:25

Yeah.

23:25

You have the connects to the window.

23:27

Okay.

23:28

Maybe, or somehow like you want to get, let's say a bathroom that doesn't have a fan.

23:34

There you go.

23:34

You could throw a box fan on it and create a system that allows for air to go out, but

23:40

not to go in.

23:41

A one-way valve.

23:42

Just like anywhere you want ventilation.

23:43

Yeah.

23:43

A one-way valve with a vent attached.

23:45

Yeah.

23:46

Those little louvers, little flaps.

23:48

Yeah.

23:48

One of those like dryer hose things that you can just extend it to where you want

23:53

to go.

23:53

Yeah.

23:53

I mean, you can get like, you can hang it on a wall if maybe, I know this sounds a little

23:57

tense, but like you could put maybe vent, like it could be a form of ventilation in your

24:02

home.

24:03

If you put the right, you know, make it not look like a box fan.

24:06

I don't know, like do some stuff to hide it or allow for circulation.

24:10

I just feel like even more like my house is kind of old, so it'd be cool to add a box

24:15

fan to certain vents without it looking like a giant box fan that's going to fall over at

24:20

any moment.

24:20

To just move some of the AC that's down in my basement, let's say, or my first floor up

24:26

to my second floor.

24:27

These HVAC things are basically, it seems like a bigger version of a box fan, like a super

24:34

box fan that moves all the ventilation in my house.

24:38

Like, I feel like you could create a whole setup in your house.

24:42

So one of your products is you cut a notch out of the duct work and you slide a box fan

24:48

into it and hold it with the clip and the kit and you've created like a, like a booster.

24:52

Yeah.

24:52

I like that.

24:53

Yeah.

24:54

Or maybe if it's, if you need to be in the room, you have a little duct that goes down

24:58

to your floor vent.

24:59

And so it just, all the air sucks up out of the floor vent.

25:01

Like your thing, Scott.

25:03

Yeah.

25:04

That's, I have just literally turned it off a second ago.

25:06

You have a thing?

25:07

Yeah.

25:08

But it's way more than $20.

25:09

Yes, it is.

25:11

You want to describe your, you know, your thing?

25:13

Yeah.

25:13

It's a little, I have terrible heating and cooling in my office.

25:17

And so there's just a little, like, it's like a PC fan that puts on top of my vent and

25:21

when it detects the air is flowing through it, it just turns on and forces more air into

25:25

my room versus the rest of the house.

25:27

It's very clever, but also you're right.

25:29

Expensive.

25:29

It acts as a pull.

25:30

It pulls more air out of it.

25:32

Oh, sick.

25:33

So there you go.

25:34

Box fan attachment.

25:35

Box fan attachment?

25:36

Box mods.

25:37

Seriously though.

25:37

So the whole thing goes as one big unit over the vent and like-

25:41

Funnels down into it.

25:42

Mega blasts into the, that's-

25:43

That's a really good one.

25:44

So I tried Scott's product.

25:46

I bought one too.

25:46

It didn't work for my kind of house very well.

25:48

But if I could take literal box fan, slide it into the thing that we're selling, which is

25:53

a shell that goes over and into the vent and like mega pulls it out.

25:58

And yeah, your thing but box fan would be sick.

26:02

No other room in the house would get any air.

26:05

I also have one of those things.

26:07

Nice.

26:08

Does it work for your house?

26:09

It does.

26:10

This is such an easy idea to start too, Russell.

26:12

All you need is like time and a 3D printer and a basic website.

26:17

And you could make a, you know, half a dozen different things like you just came up with.

26:20

I think the size scale, you might want to invest in a small vacuum former.

26:23

Like those are pretty cheap.

26:25

Yeah.

26:25

What's that mean?

26:26

What's a vacuum?

26:27

Oh, like a vacuum forming.

26:29

Like it sucks.

26:30

You heat up the sheet of plastic and it sucks it down over a mold to create a thin, large

26:37

sturdy, you know, part.

26:39

You can cut out sections of it afterwards.

26:41

3D printing, but a little more permanent.

26:43

Not quite an injection mold.

26:45

Yeah, right.

26:46

It's way cheaper.

26:47

The tooling is way cheap.

26:48

You can make the tooling out of literally anything.

26:50

You can make it out of cardboard.

26:51

Okay.

26:52

I got some crazy ideas that maybe you guys would know.

26:55

So what it, could you make a box fan as powerful as a vacuum and create a vacuum out of a box

27:02

fan or, uh, just up the voltage.

27:06

It'll do it.

27:06

Yeah.

27:07

Like, I don't know.

27:08

Or like if you set, if you create the right, uh, like weird ass oblong shapes and sizes to

27:15

it or, uh, a shop vac, you know, I guess, I guess what I was saying is, could you go crazy

27:23

or a water pump?

27:23

Like what if you unscrew the whole box fan?

27:26

All right.

27:27

Put it in your pool.

27:28

Use the, you figure out the whole rotary system and you just attach like these five clips to

27:34

the fan and it spins to create a pump.

27:37

Like, could you go one step further and literally unscrew the five screws or on a box fan, attach

27:46

something to it.

27:47

And now I'm like, yeah, I have my box fan vacuum for $40, but it works.

27:53

And I'm, and listen, I'll throw it out.

27:55

Look out Dyson.

27:56

Russell, you once said that the electric lawnmowers are just like putting a box fan on wheels and

28:02

pushing it around your yard.

28:03

Like, let's just do it.

28:05

Let's put some casters on it and turn it into a Roomba.

28:08

Yep.

28:08

Metal blades.

28:08

You put metal blades on a box fan and you have a straight up Sun Joe on Amazon for $80.

28:14

Or casters and some metal blades.

28:17

You can put a bag on top, dude.

28:19

It would suck the grass in too.

28:20

Like, it would work.

28:22

Now you need a second box fan on top for that.

28:25

Box fans used to have metal blades, right?

28:27

Maybe when the ones that would rattle?

28:29

Yeah, back in the day.

28:30

Basically there.

28:30

He's buying old one on eBay.

28:32

He recycled them into our Sun Joes.

28:34

Disposable.

28:36

Well, you can edit out this comment from the mechanical engineer, but one of the features

28:41

that a box fan has going for it that makes it quite safe is that there's big gaps in the

28:46

corners where the fan doesn't touch the walls.

28:48

So even if you lay it down on the floor, it just churns air through those gaps and back into

28:53

itself and doesn't like burn up the motor.

28:56

So they actually cannot build up hardly any pressure from behind or in front of them.

29:02

The vacuum cleaner idea would be a stretch, but if you chain a bunch of them together, you

29:06

might get there.

29:07

Or could Russell's attachment cover those inlets and create that extra suction?

29:11

You've got a backpack with like six...

29:14

I may or may not have tried that out of cardboard once.

29:17

Just trying to blow up a bunch.

29:18

And Drew, did it work?

29:19

That's the question.

29:20

Did it kind of work?

29:22

I don't know.

29:24

It's top secret.

29:27

The government doesn't want you to know now.

29:29

It's just Drew's sworn to secrecy.

29:31

James Dyson.

29:32

He's going to kill you.

29:34

That's the box fan that had the air filter on it to protect me from concrete death.

29:37

Oh, you see?

29:39

I have two box fans I'm looking at right now.

29:41

I'm like, man, I could chain them together and create a...

29:44

What?

29:44

What are those called?

29:46

Super box fans?

29:47

The boats that fly on the water.

29:50

Like a hovercraft?

29:52

Or a swamp boat?

29:53

New Orleans swamp running around?

29:56

Yes.

29:56

That's one fan.

29:58

I got eight box fans and a buoy.

30:03

You know, I've seen giant walls of PC fans.

30:05

You can make an even gianter wall of box fans.

30:08

Yeah, you could for pretty cheap.

30:10

Yeah, real cheap.

30:12

It's cheaper than bricks.

30:13

It's cheaper than bricks by a lot.

30:16

And if you get them all pointed at a little bit of an angle, you can make a tornado.

30:20

Like, guys, what if your screen door at your old...

30:24

You know that one house that you lived at with no AC?

30:27

I want a screen door of box fans.

30:29

Three box fans stacked on top of each other.

30:32

Did you say you did that?

30:33

Right.

30:33

Yeah, we did that in college.

30:35

Really?

30:35

We did several of these in college where we took, you know, the copper tubing.

30:39

We ran a cooler full of ice that siphoned water through the tooling and then just had the cool air going out.

30:46

And it worked.

30:47

We had a door that we replaced with box fans coming inward.

30:50

It was so hard to make the damn thing that by the time you're like, get it, you know, you're using it.

30:54

You're like, oh, this is kind of sucky.

30:56

I wish I had put two hours of my time into it.

30:58

And that's the service your company provides.

31:00

20 bucks more, you get AC.

31:02

20 bucks more, it's battery powered.

31:04

20 bucks more.

31:05

Triple A's only.

31:07

Like mosquitoes.

31:08

Can you imagine?

31:09

Guys, a bunch of these around a campfire to kill mosquitoes.

31:13

Hmm.

31:14

Put a little zapper on it.

31:15

Well, you've seen those fire tornadoes, right?

31:18

Yeah.

31:18

Yeah.

31:19

Fire tornado.

31:22

I like the bug zapper idea.

31:23

You put the mesh.

31:24

Okay.

31:24

Bug zapper on a box fan.

31:25

That would be really good.

31:26

Yeah.

31:27

Guys, I'm on the fly with this stuff right now.

31:30

I'm like, this is.

31:31

You're going.

31:32

We need an open marketplace.

31:33

We just open source this and everybody just.

31:36

Lasco.

31:37

Lasco, pay attention.

31:38

But what's your company called, Russell?

31:40

That Roku competitor from a long time ago called Boxy Box is folded so you could make the Boxy Box.

31:46

That's a good name.

31:47

Boxy Box.

31:48

Ooh, hear me out on this one.

31:50

Open fan.

31:51

What about box dazzled?

31:53

Ooh.

31:54

The dazzle of your box.

31:55

You're box dazzling mine.

31:57

I bought this one just to box dazzle.

32:00

I didn't even have it already.

32:02

Mom, I bought you a box dazzle.

32:04

Oh, which one?

32:06

Oh, man.

32:07

Oh, yeah.

32:11

All right, Scott.

32:13

Let's hear your idea this week.

32:15

All right.

32:15

So we have a dryer, a washer and dryer that is probably one of the most annoying devices on the planet Earth.

32:24

It is very, it really wants your attention all the time.

32:29

And if a load is complete, if the door is left open, if you've hit a button on it and haven't hit like a second button to finish whatever you started, every 30 seconds, it'll give out a little doo-doo, doo-doo.

32:41

It's horrible.

32:42

What?

32:43

I've also learned that it is extremely motivating to turn it off.

32:48

Just like if you have like a seatbelt and you're driving and you don't plug in your seatbelt and like it'll just beep again and again until you are so pissed that you're just like, fine, I will do it.

32:57

I will do it.

32:57

I move my car up the driveway, but like...

33:00

Or the microwave.

33:01

My food's done.

33:02

Yes, exactly.

33:03

My microwave is pretty polite compared to the dryer.

33:06

It's like every like two minutes or something.

33:07

Anyway, small annoying noises or small annoying things can be very motivating.

33:12

So I want to utilize this.

33:13

Do you guys remember annoyatrons?

33:15

Yeah.

33:15

Do you ever have those in high school?

33:16

Button cell coin.

33:17

A little device that you can hide somewhere that's just on like a simple, yeah, coin cell battery that will just beep every four minutes or whatever at a random interval to just kind of antagonize someone.

33:27

Let's combine the two.

33:29

Let's make an IoT annoyatron to motivate you to do things.

33:33

Like you've seen some examples where it's like, hey, I got to get up in the morning, my alarm clock.

33:38

If I put my alarm clock across the room, then I have to get out of bed to actually hit the snooze or something.

33:43

What other things could you do?

33:44

If you had an IoT device that had, you know, the classic sensors, an accelerometer, a speaker on it, maybe a flashing LED or something.

33:51

How could we use this to motivate people to do things if it's fully IoT?

33:56

What if the flashing light was also running around the wall and you had to catch up?

33:59

Fantastic.

34:01

We'll combine it with Leo's idea.

34:04

Well, you always jump with your assistant ideas, Scott, to like the don't forget to take out the trash type thing.

34:09

I'm trying to be a little bit more creative here about that.

34:11

Hey, taking out the trash is a good one.

34:13

My trash can just chirps at me.

34:15

You got to catch the trash can.

34:17

Everyone hates to do workouts.

34:18

That's good.

34:19

What if your weight's chirped?

34:21

There it is.

34:21

They will not shut up until you go in there and do X amount of reps.

34:26

The treadmill only stops chirping when you're actually running.

34:30

Whoa.

34:30

That is...

34:32

Oh, yeah.

34:32

Oh, no.

34:33

And then after you've done like a half hour, it's good for the day, but then it starts up again.

34:38

Oh, that's haunting.

34:39

My chirp has been satisfied.

34:41

That's right.

34:42

That's great.

34:45

Put it on a water bottle.

34:47

If you don't take a drink every 30 minutes or something, just have it just go nuts until...

34:52

It's kind of like a mouse jiggler.

34:53

Yeah, exactly.

34:54

The little USB.

34:54

Like those ones that remind you to take a wrist break.

34:57

Just put the smoke alarm chirp in there.

34:59

Oh, gosh.

35:00

Oh, like a really loud one.

35:02

That would be the ultimate motivation.

35:04

Because then all the people around you are also helping you be motivated.

35:09

What is that?

35:10

Turn that off.

35:10

Oh, my God.

35:10

Like, I honestly think like of all the like exercise fitness ideas out there, this sounds

35:17

like the most motivating one because knowing, all right, if I don't wake up at 6 a.m. to

35:23

run or whatever, I'm going to have trips all day.

35:25

Yeah.

35:26

All day.

35:27

Motivatron.

35:28

You'd break it.

35:29

I feel like...

35:30

Battery removed.

35:31

Like every...

35:32

Solar.

35:32

You didn't make...

35:33

You couldn't make...

35:34

Like, that would be your thing, though.

35:36

In order to stop it, you'd have to destroy it.

35:39

That's your business model.

35:40

People are always going to be destroying these things in order to not do whatever they're

35:45

doing with it, right?

35:45

I mean, how much power do you need to like chirp every four minutes?

35:48

You could just have it be like those solar calculators, the little Casio thing, and it

35:52

doesn't even have batteries.

35:53

True.

35:54

What if it was mobile and could run away?

35:56

I've seen the...

35:58

There's an alarm clock with wheels that'll like...

36:00

If you snooze it too many times, it'll take off screaming.

36:02

You gotta like go chase it down.

36:03

I think that was a thing on ThinkGeek years ago.

36:06

So like micro drone with a chirp?

36:09

Yeah.

36:10

Like flies up and sticks to the wall?

36:12

My cat would be all over that.

36:14

Or like the ring one, the little home security drone, but it's just running away from you.

36:19

Yeah.

36:20

Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.

36:22

Oh, dude.

36:22

Frickin' get back here.

36:24

I swear I'll do the dishes.

36:25

My wife would divorce me.

36:27

You go on vacation for a week and literally you walk in your home and everything is chirping.

36:33

You're sprinting upstairs and trying to pump weights while you're throwing laundry in.

36:42

Make it stop.

36:43

Changing the dishes.

36:44

Take out the trash again.

36:45

All right, I'm going to take this in a real weird direction.

36:47

Oh, yeah.

36:48

Are you ready?

36:49

It's an implantable chirp machine.

36:52

Into your body?

36:53

That goes in your skin.

36:55

No.

36:56

You can't turn it off.

36:59

The worst Fitbit ever created.

37:01

Oh, man.

37:02

Honestly, though?

37:03

For the all or nothing people.

37:04

And I'm going to take it even a little weirder.

37:09

It doesn't chirp.

37:10

It just gives you weird doses of chemicals that make you feel sad.

37:14

Oh, I thought you were going to go the other way.

37:17

It's like a little jolt of...

37:19

Oh, it could just shock you.

37:20

Oh, that's good.

37:21

I was going to say...

37:22

That seems simpler than putting anti-antidepressants into you.

37:27

Is it epinephrine?

37:28

Just depressants?

37:28

Yeah, they're called depressants.

37:29

You want to stick them full of like a little EpiPen jolt to get their heart rate going?

37:33

You don't want to make them sad.

37:34

Honestly, if I'm walking around in public and I'm just chirping randomly, that would be pretty

37:40

motivating for me to be like, I need to stop this.

37:43

How do I stop this?

37:44

You could never fly on an airplane.

37:48

I'm trying to figure out how you could do it to stop like doom scrolling or like you have

37:53

someone who's been on TikTok or something for way too long.

37:55

I mean, I guess chirping the corner is good.

37:57

Maybe it just texts your phone or sends you notifications you can't get rid of and just

38:01

keep spamming them across your screen.

38:03

I guess it's more the IoT version.

38:05

This is like user hostile as a service.

38:08

Yes.

38:09

I feel like you could probably integrate some social aspects of this, like social accountability,

38:15

right?

38:16

Like if you're doom scrolling for too long, it starts texting all your friends saying like,

38:19

Hey, Scott's doom scrolling.

38:20

That's the ticket.

38:21

Scott's been on his phone for two hours and 48 minutes.

38:23

But it doesn't tell you that it's doing that.

38:26

It just doesn't.

38:26

You just know in the back of your mind that there's a risk that gets higher and higher.

38:30

Yeah.

38:31

Oh, that's fun.

38:31

Oh, the probability goes up for every like five minutes you've been on the phone or something.

38:35

In fact, your chirp thing could be in someone else's house that you care about.

38:40

Whoa.

38:41

He hasn't worked out today.

38:43

The sensor's at your house, but the chirp is somewhere else.

38:46

If you don't work out.

38:47

Oh, man.

38:47

Get up, you son of a...

38:49

I am tired of the chirps.

38:51

Drive my ass over there.

38:53

Leo, do your dishes.

38:54

God damn it.

38:55

Because there's...

38:57

I will definitely take care of other people better than I'll take care of my own self.

39:00

Yeah, for real.

39:01

Dude, the world needs these types of products where it's just like ridiculous.

39:04

Like, all right, who's going to do this with me?

39:07

You know, like that would be awesome.

39:08

You could build a whole brand around whimsy.

39:10

Yes.

39:11

Have you heard of the most dangerous writing app?

39:14

No.

39:14

I don't think so.

39:14

For authors who have struggled just getting words on the page, it's like a text editor and

39:21

you can type in it normally.

39:22

But if you stop typing more than five seconds, it starts backspacing faster and faster.

39:28

Or whatever the time limit is.

39:30

Don't go get coffee.

39:30

That's fun.

39:31

So basically, it's a text editor that forces you to just stream of consciousness.

39:35

Yeah.

39:35

Keep typing.

39:36

Or else it deletes everything you've done.

39:38

Is that helpful?

39:39

Like, does that help people?

39:40

That's a whole different thing.

39:42

Some people swear by like being forced to write all the time, like diary or you just like

39:47

have a blank page and just whatever comes to your mind.

39:50

It's a form of brainstorming that taps into like, I don't know what I was thinking here,

39:54

but that's an interesting idea.

39:55

There's a book called The Extended Mind that talks about how we use the world around us as

40:00

part of our thought process.

40:01

And I think that's what it does is it sort of causes the page to become a part of your

40:05

brain thought process, whatever.

40:07

So like you're not writing good stuff the whole time, right?

40:10

But it's changing yourself.

40:12

And you are trying to minimize the filter where like, oh, I wouldn't have written that down

40:17

otherwise because sometimes the good stuff dies with the bad.

40:20

So what's the chirp product called?

40:22

The chirp chip.

40:23

Chirps up, dude.

40:24

Chirps up.

40:25

I know you're trying to such a good name, but.

40:27

It is.

40:28

It is a good name.

40:28

Twerp.

40:29

Twerp.

40:30

Yeah.

40:31

And you buy twerps.

40:31

That is catchy.

40:32

You can buy, throw a thing in the front or a thing in the, like, twerps by Brandon

40:37

Ecio or twerp.

40:39

Twerpy.

40:40

Twerpy.

40:42

Twerpy.

40:42

All right, Drew.

40:48

What idea have you brought us this week?

40:50

Well, I was debating between a couple of them, but I'm going to give you the one that I've

40:55

thought about a little more and there's a lot more meat to dig into.

40:59

All right.

40:59

This is really more of a service.

41:00

Pretty much every guy I know to some extent has a coffee can of nuts and bolts in their

41:07

garage.

41:08

Some people have many.

41:10

Some people have veritable suitcases.

41:12

Some people just have a little Tupperware in the kitchen, you know, drawer, but everybody's

41:16

got this repository of garbage fasteners and we hold on to them.

41:23

We think we're going to maybe use them someday, whatever.

41:26

The idea here is that this is a service where I can turn in those crap nuts and bolts and

41:34

in exchange, I get useful nuts and bolts.

41:37

Yes.

41:38

That are labeled and sorted and ready to go.

41:42

Yes.

41:43

I don't know.

41:44

And maybe it's centralized.

41:45

Maybe it's peer to peer.

41:48

Maybe you ship them all to a sorting facility.

41:50

I kind of think that's the way it would have to go because of the tech overhead that required

41:54

for this.

41:56

But that's the basics.

41:58

That's so good.

41:59

I have a little cup of like drywall anchors that came with that kit that I didn't end up

42:04

using and stuff, but they're all just fricking loose next to quarters and rubber bands and

42:10

stuff.

42:10

I would love to ship away 30 of them and get back a 10 pack of whatever.

42:15

Absolutely.

42:16

Yeah.

42:16

There's some overhead that goes into it and not all of them are coming back into the circulation,

42:21

right?

42:21

Like some of these are rusty, damaged, screwed up.

42:25

But you send it in and then your account a couple of days later is given like credits

42:30

that you can then spend on the pool.

42:32

Yes.

42:33

Yeah.

42:33

And potentially even you buy into or you don't even buy it.

42:37

You sign up for this.

42:39

It's free.

42:39

And you send in your grandpa's coffee can of nuts and bolts and it gives you credits.

42:44

And, you know, maybe someday in the future, redeem those.

42:47

Maybe you don't.

42:48

And maybe the maybe it's kind of a business model like Planet Fitness used to be before Gen

42:53

Zers ruined it.

42:55

Where they count on people buying memberships and not going.

42:58

Or it's just a good way to clean out the drawer.

43:00

I don't really need my whatever.

43:02

I'll just send in the thing and maybe I'll use it.

43:04

Maybe I won't.

43:05

The Goodwill model or whatever.

43:07

Salvation Army.

43:08

Yeah.

43:08

I'm just picturing like like this website that has these nice, neat, organized boxes of

43:13

nuts and bolts.

43:14

Like McMaster Car.

43:15

Yeah.

43:16

But like it's a pre-assembled thing where it has a huge variety of them.

43:20

And you can go on this website and you can buy one of these packs.

43:23

But if you send them your by weight random jar of nuts and bolts, you get a discount on

43:29

this box of something.

43:30

Yeah.

43:30

And then they just use those bolts.

43:32

They come in and put them making more packs.

43:34

Totally.

43:35

Lots of disclaimers.

43:36

These are not load bearing.

43:37

These are not rated.

43:38

We don't know what the materials are.

43:40

Yeah.

43:40

I do wonder how automated you could get on the intake and sort.

43:44

Like I know that we have our coin sorter.

43:46

Like could you?

43:47

As long as you had somebody taking out all the nuts, all the whatever.

43:52

Have you seen the machines that sort bad blueberries from good blueberries or whatever with little

43:57

puffs of air?

43:57

Yeah.

43:58

Like I think it's possible.

43:59

There's some crazy vision sorting systems out now.

44:02

Just like trash intake.

44:04

Like the local dump is taking in that and sorting recyclables out sometimes and stuff.

44:08

Yeah.

44:09

And they're identifying materials with like infrared cameras and other kinds of spectroscopy.

44:16

All you need is one good sorting machine too.

44:18

You don't need a crazy infrastructure setup.

44:20

Just one thing that works and can tell you this bolt size is whatever.

44:24

It's all the screws.

44:25

Yeah.

44:26

And you know, it doesn't even really have to cover everything.

44:29

Like I don't care if you have some random specialty wall anchor that came with your chain

44:34

link fence accessory.

44:36

Like throw that away and nobody's going to use that.

44:39

Dude, I was thinking with this more being like a Coinstar model.

44:43

Like you go to your local hardware shop and like literally you dump your coffee can into

44:49

this machine and it's, you know, you can send it to a local storage facility or whatever.

44:53

But what if it was just like hyper localized?

44:55

It's like your community's nuts and bolts in a machine and on the wall.

45:00

It's like a vending machine, right?

45:02

That sorts it into like, you know, 150 or 250 little plastic boxes.

45:07

You're looking at the shelf and then you put in a hundred nuts and bolts or whatever.

45:12

It sorts it on the screen and then you can trade in, you know, it's like a five to one

45:16

model.

45:17

You put five nuts and bolts in.

45:18

You get to pick from your selection of a hundred, you know, 250 on the wall and like you get credits

45:25

or whatever.

45:25

But because for all the reasons why, you know, of the five bolts that you put in, one is probably

45:31

valuable and goes on the plastic wall.

45:33

But then that becomes the sort of, you don't need a facility.

45:36

You sell these to Home Depot and whatever for the people that just are like, I don't want

45:41

to keep them in my house.

45:42

Brings them back into the store.

45:44

Like those key cutting machines that have taken over all the key cutting.

45:47

Yeah, exactly.

45:48

Yes, that's it.

45:50

Yeah.

45:50

Like that.

45:51

But look, but like that way you don't have to send it.

45:53

Like, I feel like shipping logistics become this whole thing.

45:55

Yeah.

45:55

Metal's heavy.

45:56

Metal is heavy.

45:59

I just think it'd be, it'd be kind of cool to see like, oh, look at, uh, maybe not.

46:03

Maybe it wouldn't be as cool as I think it would be like, look at that classic bolt from

46:08

the seventies, 1920s, you know, roadster.

46:13

I wouldn't have any qualms buying, going to the hardware store and buying the nut off the

46:21

shelf that I need, whether it's used or new.

46:23

Like, why does it matter if this is 30 years old?

46:27

If it's not rusted, then just as good.

46:29

Like they don't degrade over time too bad.

46:31

Business model might not work well in Michigan.

46:34

Yes.

46:34

I mean, no, I'm saying you go up to the coin star, you dump your thing and then the people

46:38

just take that and put it back on the shelf.

46:40

And now you have your little coupon and you get a couple of them for free when you buy,

46:44

but it can be part of the inventory of the store.

46:46

Yeah.

46:47

Ooh.

46:48

Or like that actually would probably save on logistics, right?

46:51

Cause you get like 400 pounds of like input.

46:54

And instead of everybody sending their own individual Home Depot or whoever manages the

47:00

machines, bring it and consolidate it to that massive facility.

47:03

And now you have your, your intake, uh, like your, your supply model, right?

47:09

You got your demand booths like in the store and then, you know, you just get bought a

47:13

bunch of screws for this one project.

47:15

Don't need them anymore.

47:16

Do it a different project.

47:17

I did a deck project and was like four screws short and I needed to buy another hundred or

47:23

whatever.

47:23

Yeah.

47:23

That's wrong.

47:24

So that's something I often think about with these ideas is who is going to fight you.

47:29

Big screw.

47:30

And in this case, it's definitely big screw.

47:32

Their name is for their motto.

47:36

Screw you.

47:37

That's interesting.

47:39

Yeah.

47:39

Who, who doesn't want this to happen?

47:41

Like these companies are selling them for pennies.

47:44

So it's not like you're undercutting too bad.

47:47

I get the warm fuzzies just knowing I'm reusing them.

47:49

Totally.

47:50

The, and, and the ones that get scrapped, like metal has a good scrap value.

47:54

It's not, it's not the end of the world.

47:56

Like that's not a just trash.

47:58

I also wonder with this idea, if there's like a commercial or like B2B version of this where

48:05

like I've worked in several factory type settings and there's always like screws and nuts and

48:11

washers and bolts that get dropped on the floor constantly and they just get thrown away

48:14

because it's not worth resorting them.

48:16

But what if there was like a, you know, fast and all S company that just takes all that

48:23

in and gives you back, you know, maybe, maybe it's not your nuts, your, your staple things

48:28

that you use tons of, but maybe it's like the extras drawer, right?

48:31

Like, oh man, I just need to like hang this thing up.

48:34

Paperclips.

48:35

No.

48:35

What if this, is there a model where like the cans where it's like 10 cents a can, but could

48:40

you do this for the screws?

48:42

For fasteners?

48:42

Turn this into, yeah.

48:44

Turn this into like a metal recycle up program.

48:47

Like, oh, give us your old cups of screws and nuts.

48:50

I don't know how much metal would sell for like that.

48:53

Like if you had like, like 40 pounds of screws and bolts to collect it from your zinc tin.

48:59

Yeah.

48:59

Well, here in Michigan, you get 10 cents because you paid 10 cents when you bought it.

49:04

Like, I don't know if I want to pay a tax on every screw just that I get back by returning

49:09

it later.

49:09

But like scrap metal, I don't, I don't know how much metal it takes to actually make it

49:15

valuable.

49:15

But like, what if it was just like one of those programs?

49:18

Like, or like, can you recycle?

49:20

If you had enough screws and fasteners.

49:22

Is that possible?

49:23

I don't know.

49:24

Aluminum is pretty easy to melt down.

49:25

Yeah.

49:26

But some other ones like the zinc plated and then like, oh shoot.

49:30

How do I get like the different metals separated?

49:33

How do you get the zinc off?

49:34

Yeah.

49:35

Or whatever.

49:35

It's kind of depends.

49:36

Just burn it, right?

49:38

Just burn it.

49:38

Just melt it.

49:39

And burn it.

49:40

Just send it.

49:41

Burn it.

49:42

Engineers will figure that one out.

49:44

Don't worry.

49:44

Engineers will figure it out.

49:45

I think the chemists will figure that out in this case.

49:48

Just the big cauldron in the corner, right?

49:50

You throw the screws in there.

49:51

It's the metal vat.

49:52

Don't question it.

49:53

Yeah.

49:53

What's this one made of?

49:55

And then like, dribbling out the bottom is like little nuts and bolts.

49:59

That's so handy.

50:00

Could you do that?

50:03

No.

50:03

What if you put a bunch of metal in a cauldron and just started churning out like generic nuts and bolts?

50:08

Yeah.

50:08

That's all alloys are.

50:09

It's just mixed up metals.

50:10

Yeah.

50:11

I mean.

50:11

Will it blend?

50:12

Will it blend?

50:13

I'll give you a dollar if that's not what's actually happening in China for like a lot of the cheap screws that I get with some of these things I bought.

50:21

Right.

50:21

I'm ahead of my time, it sounds like, is what you're saying, Drew.

50:24

Ahead of, yes.

50:26

Definitely that.

50:26

It's not.

50:27

You can't make that in America.

50:29

That's what you're saying.

50:29

We got to ship all the screws and fasteners overseas in order to make this happen.

50:33

No, I'm not saying that.

50:35

Maybe we just haven't caught the vision yet.

50:38

So, yeah, maybe you are ahead of your time.

50:39

No.

50:40

Melt down everything.

50:42

Mix it all up.

50:44

My wedding ring.

50:45

No.

50:45

Shoot.

50:45

You accidentally get a golden screw.

50:48

It's like one of the ones in the pack.

50:53

Hey, that would be a pretty sweet promotion if a screw company put one gold screw in one of their packs of screws somewhere in a hardware store.

51:01

And you get to go visit the eccentric factory owner.

51:03

I got a golden screw.

51:05

Companies don't do promotions like that anymore, but they should.

51:10

Yeah.

51:10

The cereal box model.

51:11

They don't kill children and give away their whole factory.

51:14

Well, no, not that part.

51:16

No, yeah.

51:16

Do you have a name for your idea, Drew?

51:17

I'm voting for that's a lot of nuts.

51:19

I was kind of going with Pappy's Nuts.

51:22

Pappy's Nuts.

51:23

Come on down!

51:27

Pappy's Nuts.

51:29

Bolt Cauldron.

51:31

How about Bolt Cauldron?

51:32

The Bolt Cauldron?

51:33

Yeah, maybe.

51:34

Or Bolt Star.

51:35

Kind of riff on the Coinstar thing.

51:37

There you go.

51:39

Bolt Star sounds like a villain in an 80s cartoon.

51:41

It's not a bad name.

51:43

It's kind of growing on me now that I said it.

51:45

You might get sued by Coinstar.

51:46

Yeah, you might.

51:47

Well, dear listener.

51:48

They don't own Star.

51:49

They don't own the word Star.

51:52

Well, dear listener, if you're headed down to the hardware store to dump your bucket into

51:58

Pappy's Nuts and you're listening to us in your headphones, we thank you very much for

52:03

listening.

52:04

We hope you enjoyed yourself.

52:05

And thank you so much, Drew, for being here.

52:07

This was so fun.

52:08

You're welcome.

52:08

Thanks for having me.

52:09

Come back anytime.

52:10

You said you have multiple ideas.

52:12

We'd love to have you back sometime, man.

52:13

I got more.

52:14

All right.

52:15

Well, our website is Spitball.show.

52:18

There you can find out more about us.

52:20

Email us feedback, comments, ideas.

52:24

That's also how you can follow us in the Fediverse, such as Mastodon.

52:29

Our subreddit is r slash Spitball show.

52:31

Our intro/outro music is swingers by bonkers beat club.

52:34

And please, if you wouldn't mind, uh, pocket cast now has ratings, Apple podcast, Spotify,

52:39

whatever you're listening on a podcast app.

52:41

Most likely, if you wouldn't mind, there's a button next to our name.

52:43

If you wouldn't mind just pressing add subscribe review, whatever's next to us.

52:47

That's the best way for people to find out about the show.

52:50

New episodes coming out in two weeks.

52:52

We will see you then.

52:53

New episodes coming out in two weeks.