Gourmet Coffee Robots, AI Heathcare Advocates, The World's Worst Streaming Service, and Modern Landlines

I'm Scott.

I'm Russell.

And I'm Leo.

This is Spitball.

Welcome to Spitball, where three tech troubadours and a guest empty our heads of startup and

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

Anything that we say is yours to keep.

And this week, our guest is brought to you, a friend of all three of ours, but a neighbor

of mine formerly, Mike, Mike Bass.

He is a musician and...

Oh, I got you.

Senior product manager.

Senior product manager.

He's a tech guy.

And when we were in college together, he was my next door neighbor in our dorm.

Mad respect for Mike.

He kind of fell off the radar for a little while, and I'm so excited to have him back in the

area near us.

Mike, welcome to Spitball.

I'm so excited to have you.

I am beholden to you for the time where you got not just one, but six HP touchpads for

the group of us.

And the things you taught me were formative.

I'm probably indebted to you for my salary that I've been compensated the last five years.

That was...

Oh, there it is.

I was going to ask you if you still have yours.

I used them for, like, desktop, like, wall clock kiosks and stuff.

I still got three of them down here.

Is that running, like, Android 4?

In arm's reach, too.

So my HP touchpad is lost in a Motel 8 in Arizona somewhere.

Yeah.

And I called the next day, and they denied.

Some housekeeper's life changed for the better.

Well, I'm not here to rant about how amazing Palm was for 10 minutes.

But...

I would like to believe that that house cleaner, she is now, like, has, like, worships the gods

of HTML5.

And has, like, given her life to HTML5.

Like, that's...

She's been...

Coding.

So there's stuff now, yeah.

Well, again, among other things, Mike is an accomplished musician.

So this week is a little warm-up game.

I've written a game that we're going to call MIDI or Metal.

Ooh.

I don't know if any of you guys know this, but...

Well, Mike certainly would.

A MIDI controller, M-I-D-I, is usually like a keyboard.

Looks kind of like a piano.

Plugs into the computer and speaks the language of MIDI in order to make, like, software instruments.

So, you know, press the keys and you're getting drums or bass sounds or whatever.

So I'm going to go down this list here, and we'll always start with our guest as we do every time.

I want to ask you, is this name the name of a brand name of a MIDI keyboard or a metal band of some kind?

Some sort of death metal.

Love it.

I'm going to start here with you, of course, Mike.

Nektar Panorama.

N-E-K-T-A-R.

Panorama.

Is that a MIDI controller?

Okay, never heard of anything, but I'm...

Okay, I'm going to act with MIDI.

It is a MIDI controller.

Very good.

Well done.

It's got that, like, that Japanese spirit to it.

You know, just like that kind of...

Nektar.

Yeah, Panorama.

You don't have that in a death metal band.

Nektar must be some kind of brand.

Yeah, I guess so.

Scott.

Dark Tranquility.

I'm hoping that's a death metal band.

It is.

It's a Swedish death metal band.

Well done.

Russell.

Complete Control.

Spelled with two Ks.

K-O-M-P-L-E-T-K-O-N-T-R-O-L.

MIDI controller.

Throwing some Ks for...

It is indeed a MIDI controller.

Well done.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Okay, maybe this is too easy.

Mike.

White Zombie.

Oh, that's a metal band.

It is a metal band.

I mean, they use MIDI.

They use MIDI, but...

Out of New York City.

You know them.

You would know them.

I figured this might be too easy for you.

Scott.

Symphony X.

Gotta be a MIDI controller, right?

Prog Metal from New Jersey.

Oh, man.

Scott's the first to go.

Yeah.

Russell.

Novation.

N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N.

Impulse.

Oh, shoot.

I was gonna go...

You know, it's MIDI controller.

It's gotta be.

Impulse.

It is indeed a MIDI controller.

Well done.

It's like, yeah.

No hints, Mike.

No hints.

One more time through.

Mike, Steel Panther.

I want to believe it's a MIDI controller.

I really do, but it's gotta be a metal band.

It's Glam Metal from LA.

Well done.

Glam Metal.

Glam Metal.

Scott, can you match him?

Power Trip.

Gotta be a MIDI controller.

Thrash Metal Band from Texas.

And Russell.

Scott gets the hardest ones.

Russell, last one.

Arturia Polybrute.

A-R-T-U-R-I-A.

All right.

This is gonna be some, like, Nordic Metal Band.

It's a MIDI controller.

Oh, man.

Arturia.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't like the Polybrute?

It's one of their best ones.

It's like...

Yeah.

Expectedly.

Mike, you got a perfect score.

Well done.

You won.

Russell, you are up first this week.

What do you got for us?

Okay.

So, went to Starbucks, and I noticed that they swapped out their typical, like, giant bun

coffee maker.

Okay.

For one of those...

Yeah.

You guys know the bun?

B-U-N-N.

The brand name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a brand of coffee.

Every, like, coffee...

I don't know.

Commercial coffee machine is bun.

It's just a giant industrial commercial unit.

But that's...

Okay.

I don't...

Yeah.

Starbucks used to have something like that, but now they just have one of those typical,

like, machines that grind beans right there, brew the coffee right in that moment, and

there you go.

You have your cup of Starbucks, right?

Sure.

Before, like, you see this at Speedway now.

Like, they grind the beans.

You see it, like, in certain coffee...

Like, not coffee...

Like, in stores, right?

So, my idea is just simply put, replace all...

Like, create a coffee drive-thru that is just that.

It's just fresh coffee grounded through a machine, like a vending machine, like a red box.

But it's drive-thru, okay?

And it's super quick.

You know exactly what you're getting.

It's the ATM of coffee, right?

So, I know you get this at gas stations.

I know that's a thing.

But, like, this will have a variety of different beans, different roasteries.

You can still create a coffee shop experience.

Just no person.

And I'll be honest.

Like, for my...

I was deep in the coffee game for a little bit.

I was roasting coffee and all this other stuff, right?

I remember this.

And there are, like, three core things that make coffee good.

And it's fresh beans, fresh ground.

And, like, you brew it a certain way, right?

They've kind of...

There's so much, like, tech...

Like, coffee nerds that created all this great tech to make really good, fresh-roasted brewed coffee.

And I think, like, 90% of Americans love just fresh black coffee.

Throw a little creamer.

Throw a little sugar.

Right?

Like, this would just be a drive...

Like, a vending machine experience.

Drive-through coffee.

Don't have to deal with tip.

You don't have to deal with the conversation.

I mean, it's too early.

Like, why talk to anybody?

It would still ask you for a tip.

Scott, you know my...

That's my business model, right?

That's where the revenue comes from.

Russell, I got two thoughts on this.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

One, completely agree.

It's...

If you had something like this, your coffee has to be freaking incredible.

Just got to taste super good.

And two, don't make it a drive-through.

Just put wheels on that thing.

That thing comes to you.

It just rolls around.

You hit a button in order.

Well, that's...

The coffee car.

Boom.

Door dash.

But the robot on its own.

Just scooting around on the sidewalks on this way to your house.

You just see one while you're driving near it.

It can just hand you one through the window or something.

Going door-to-door downtown for the business or whatever.

Middle of the city.

Can you...

Okay.

So, I'm not a coffee guy.

For those who are listening who are not coffee people, can you tell me a little bit more about

So, what Starbucks has converted to is basically what you're talking about?

Just this machine?

So, like, they put the cup under and they press 16 ounce, whatever, and it does the whole thing now?

Does the whole thing.

I mean, you're not...

You, as the person, don't go up to the machine and receive the coffee.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, like, the barista just presses three buttons.

Really?

Checks you out.

And then, that's it.

I mean, it's better coffee.

What did they do before?

It was just, like, discreet machines?

They'd brew a whole batch and you would receive a little bit from that batch.

Oh, okay.

And that's it.

I did not notice.

Most coffee shops...

I mean, most...

Yeah, coffee shops did that for a very long time.

I mean, they still do.

If you can afford this machine, then, yeah, you're...

In your coffee experience, does the new Starbucks taste any different?

Honestly, I think it tastes a little better.

No, maybe a little biased.

Consistent.

Yeah.

Consistent.

Because it's ground right then?

Yep.

It's...

Yeah.

Between the time...

Like, if you let coffee ground sit out for too long, it'll...

Like, that's why you never buy pre-ground coffee if you're a coffee drinker.

Like, you always grind it at your house, brew it then and there.

Yeah.

So, if your roast...

Also, like, if your roast date is, like, sooner, there's a perfect time.

Like, two weeks after it's been roasted or something.

Of course there is.

Yeah.

Everybody's got their preference, though.

But then, like, that's when the coffee's really good.

And so, if you think about, like, you turn and burn, like, your coffee.

Like, you buy all that coffee beans in the perfect amount of time.

Buy it in bulk.

And what's great is you can buy really good coffee because you don't have to pay employees.

You don't have to pay utilities to heat those employees.

You just have a hot water boiler and a couple machines.

And you just run around in a truck, let's say, filling tons of coffee beans in your machine.

That's it.

It's a...

Yeah.

Now, Russ, I got to visit Japan for the first time a year and a half ago.

And, you know, you want some ramen noodles, you go to the stand and you go to this vending machine.

You put your quarters in.

It spits out a token.

And then you give your token to the one single person that's staffing an 18-seat restaurant.

And so, it's a fully automated checkout.

You just give the receipt.

And the person then knows what to cook for you.

Similarly, I saw a crazy coffee option, mostly automated, which is very classic.

So, when I'm thinking about this, like, this robot going down the sidewalk, I'm imagining little Hello Kitty kind of, like, you know, like, little robot eyes and stuff.

Oh, yeah.

You could have that kind of, like, you know, Japanese sparkle to it of, like, kind of, like, that kind of automated, like, you know, my robot's my best friend sort of thing.

Kind of vibing with it.

That could be the next step.

Dude, I think I would more, like, there's this 2 o'clock low that I, so, like, I think in the morning, like, say, I pack up the units.

After they've done the vending machine in the morning, I pack them up and I put them on a cart and I wheel them around town.

Because at 2, 3 o'clock, you're like, I could use another cup of coffee.

But the inconvenience is just that there's a threshold.

And so, you know, if you have one of those drones walk around, like, that way I don't have to buy new machines, right?

Throw them in the back of a pickup and now I'm just wheeling around town, throwing some coffees at people that ask for it.

That's interesting, too.

But, yeah, also making it cute would also help with the branding.

Because right now it's just freaky fast and robot.

Right.

Could you build it so that it's stocked from the inside of a van and then the dispenser part is on the outside of the van?

Oh, yeah.

It's not a little vending machine, but you drive up and park in a spot.

Like, spick it on a van and that's it?

I just get a gas nozzle, rip it off.

Real bootstrapping, you know, here we go, fuel.

We'll call it fuel.

That's pretty good.

Now, do people have preferences for different coffee beans?

And so, like, what if the bot came to my house and I got to put my beans in that are my favorite and it makes me the perfect coffee with that fresh stuff that's of my preference of a local supplier?

Do they do that at Starbucks?

Starbucks is just like, this is the bean you get.

You can pick from two or three different roasts.

I'm not a coffee guy.

Two or three options.

Yeah.

Blonde, medium, or dark roast, right?

Something like that.

But dang.

Actually, that would be amazing.

I would love to drink, like, as a coffee nerd, like, drop a couple 43 grams of coffee beans into this machine and it produces the perfect.

Oh, shoot.

That would be, that's way better, actually.

So, how big is the one machine that's got, like, three different kinds of beans in it?

Vending machine sized?

You know, it's a, huh.

It's like, let's say two microwaves stacked on top of each other.

So, if you're making this thing vending machine sized, you could scale up and have a dozen or so varieties of bean in that thing.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Or you just have, like, a really intricate hopper system.

Yeah.

Right?

That's what I mean.

I also love the thought of just, like, brewing my coffee such a pain in the ass.

Like, if I could, I would literally take my beans to a drive-thru.

It sounds crazy, but I love that.

You know what I love?

It's that mix of just, like, robot, like, crazy robot automation with that, like, still homegrown personal vibe.

Like, it's that nice congruence.

I'm feeling that.

I'm always jealous of my coworkers who walk up and pour a cup of coffee and leave from the communal, like, coffee pot.

Whereas I have my tea apparatuses and I'm watching Steeping Times and getting it to exactly 185 and doing my whole chemistry set over there.

I feel like coffee is the convenient option and you guys are babies about it.

Dude.

When you get a really...

Is it really that, like, is it just that the communal coffee pot is bad coffee and this is way better?

Is that why you go through the hassle?

Yeah, I guess, like, coffee is good no matter what it is.

It's like, I love coffee that much.

Like, you give me gas station coffee, that's fine.

Free coffee at a car dealership, hey, whatever, right?

It's coffee.

But when you have, like, a really good pour over from an amazing roaster, you're like, am I drinking cookie coffee?

Is this sweetened?

No.

This is just...

That's what coffee is supposed to be.

And now everybody should experience that with these robot drive-thru, convenient hopper, or, like, whatever.

We drive-thru, we do some drone action or something to shoot.

But, like, yeah.

You always see those TikTok or Reddit where the videos of the guy who has, like, the $10,000 coffee machine and, like, the $500, like, little press thing alone.

And then he makes it and you're just, like, obviously you can't taste it, but you're just looking at it and it looks like liquid gold just coming out of this thing.

Like, okay, I bet that actually tastes incredible.

I just, I would pay a lot of money just to try that, just to see what good coffee actually is.

Now, Russ, how are you going to respond to, you know, the young people, the Gen Z?

They don't do coffee.

They, like, colorful things, you know?

So when you go to Starbucks now, you see, like, the rainbow, all the charade of different, like, you know, pink drinks and green drinks and, you know.

And so it's, like, kind of an evolving.

So how can you kind of, like, make it work and make this future-proof, you know?

We have cows on site.

It's pulled by cows.

There we go.

Instead of having motorized wheels, it's a cart.

Like, it's pulled by a team of four sled cows.

There's some almond trees back there in the second cart.

It's just a train.

We take the cows that advertise Chick-fil-A and we put them in our shop.

So it's moving carts and then drones that fly between the carts, transporting resources between the carts.

I mean, sure.

Like, let's throw some dyes.

It's a trick.

You can dupe him.

It's the nicest, most luxurious, fancy coffee you can get and also a squirt of red dye number eight.

Three pumps of red?

Well, oh, man.

You know what, Mike?

That actually...

Classic.

Okay.

So because this is like a fully automated machine, you could just have user-generated recipes, right?

With dyes or whatever.

You have all the different milk options, all the different flavor options.

And now, like, you roll up to this machine.

It does three squirts of milk of whatever options you like, you know?

Like the Coca-Cola freestyle machine thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You just had all the...

But he out-nailed it.

That's exactly it.

Now you get...

And you can share recipes.

It goes viral.

There it is.

Yeah.

There it is.

You got the Mr. Beast, you know, blend.

You know, you go there.

It's just...

Mr. Beans.

And it's...

I mean, it's all the same stuff, just different pumps.

Like, these Starbucks people have these crazy recipes for, like, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Three Pump Cinnamon, Three Punch French.

Have you seen these?

Like, they have a whole...

There's a whole community of Starbucks people that, like, host the recipes online.

And you walk up to the drive-thru and you ask for this crazy order.

Like, literally, like, five different...

You know what I'm saying?

The baristas hate them.

Absolutely.

I think they do.

But they also, like...

I don't know if they care that much.

They're just...

Because they're so used to it.

Like, Starbucks is, like, fine with it or something.

But don't have to deal with it.

You just whirl up, scan your QR code, and now you got your recipes or your...

Let's say your entire order, right?

That does sound fun.

You know, you go to McDonald's now and you just got a bazillion options.

You're like, I didn't know this was all possible.

There's all these, you know, on these tap menus.

I'm surprised that...

I think that's a great idea.

Some sort of viral, like, element of, like, here's what people are ordering.

Like, and you can take that and remix it, you know, and kind of just like it.

And it just, you know, keeps going and going.

I'm in.

Man.

Yeah.

Like, what if, you know, you do a promo of, like, we give you, like, samples, too.

Like, here's a little sample.

You would never do that at a coffee shop because economies of scale does not make sense for that,

right?

But, like, now you're like, here's a little sample with your coffee this morning to get

them to try new things, right?

Like, you could never get a sample of the caramel brulee at Starbucks.

Like, you know, you'd have to take a sip of some of your friends.

But if you don't have any, you know, two kids, you just dream.

Red box coffee.

Yeah.

That's another thing.

You could just set these up.

You get the brand recognition and you throw this at a Walgreens, right?

Like, it doesn't have to be a full-on stand.

Just, like, throw it everywhere, you know, and you just have, it's just, you have a really

intricate machine with all your...

It really has to be a premium product, but I think people could go for that.

Keep the beans in cold storage or nitrogen.

But I think there's a convenience element, too, of, like, it's pretty, seems pretty quick

and customizable and you don't have to, like, feel any sense of shame with your very strange

order.

Order ahead of time on the app.

It has your GPS location.

It's perfectly made by the time, the second you get there and reach for it.

I feel like your, uh, your main pushback is going to be from the, like, robots are taking

our jobs.

I want the human touch crowd.

You know what I mean?

So, like, how do we address that?

We will hire one human to hand you your coffee.

Just like Starbucks.

The vending machine arm.

It grabs it from the vending machine and hands it to you.

That'll be $6.

Put some googly eyes on it.

That seems to cover it.

I mean, in principle, yes, Leo.

But when you get those TikTokers on there, sharing their custom recipes, it's going to

be more human than Starbucks.

That's very true.

If you can somehow incorporate the social aspect of it, a social network, but for coffee that's

built in on the menu.

It's got the viral trends of the day.

Yeah.

Or just market it as, hey, you don't have to talk to a human.

You can just get your coffee without interacting with anyone.

For the socially anxious.

For the socially anxious.

But if you want to know who you're employing, just take, look at this picture of me and

my yacht just sailing around.

The CEO.

Working hard at my computer.

The CEO of Redbox, but for coffee.

Brown box.

Brown box.

Eh.

No, probably not that.

I have a job.

Like, you're employing me.

I mean...

Scott, this wouldn't work for you because I know you don't drink any coffee.

Same.

One thimble full and I'll be wired for a week.

Is that you, Scott, too?

Something hit me when I was 20 years old and I drank a little ounce of Coca-Cola in Phelps

Hall and I just...

Something hit me and I couldn't handle it.

So I get decaf coffee and it makes me...

It really shakes me up.

Just that stuff.

That's how my wife is, too.

Yeah.

I think I just got scarred by Russell and people when we did Ring Cam together because

they wouldn't make coffee.

They would make a pot of black acid over there and drink like three of them a day.

I'd try a little bit and people are like, oh my God.

And this seems to be inventing an automated robotic TikTok coffee machine.

Because he's terrible at it.

A pH of three.

All righty, Scotty B.

What do you got this week?

Okay.

I know we generally avoid AI topics, but I got one that I think is actually applicable here.

Hmm.

Okay.

All right.

I had a weird medical throat thing this year.

I got it resolved, but it took a crap ton of effort and specialists and ENTs and a lot of

like subreddit research to figure out what the heck was going on with me.

I hate getting older.

And one of the worst parts of the...

The whole thing was the amount of time between appointments.

You set up something with one person and then it's like months.

And then you finally go in to see them.

And then the next appointment, they're like, I recommend this person.

And it's months.

Coordinating all of that was horrible.

Let alone my general practitioner was just like, I don't even remember who you are, let alone what's happening to you.

Because I haven't seen you in so long.

So what I started doing is just literally, I said, screw HIPAA and all this stuff.

I just started uploading documents to ChatGPT.

I blocked out a couple of things, but I'm just like, this is what's happening to me.

Walk me through it.

And it was like a project manager master.

It was just like, here's what's happening.

I see you've done this, this, and this.

I would recommend your next step would be this guy.

You should follow up with this one about this going through.

It was incredible.

And it was just something that never occurred to me that I could do with AI.

So pitch this week, I want an AI medical coordinator.

That's the only one that's actually on your side when you're trying to figure out some weird medical thing that's going on with you.

And I was talking about this to a co-worker, and he had literally the exact same thing.

He was having some weird medical issue, and he was going through all these different specialists and blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, I just wish I had a project manager to tell me what the frick to do next.

So that's my pitch this week.

An AI bot that walks through my medical records.

Well, when you first set this up, I thought you were going to talk about the scheduling nightmare.

And it does seem like there's like a traveling salesman problem of coordinating that, right?

That's its own other thing in just a shitty American healthcare system.

It's true.

I was wondering if that's the low-hanging fruit that AI could start with and step in as.

Like, I see that you have these three tests that need to get done.

I know that two of them are in the same building over here.

So I'm going to call both of them and try to get the first time that they're both available at the same time.

You know, that kind of like coordinating side of things.

That's, yeah, that's fair.

I've learned the secret with that is you just call whoever your appointment is for six months out and be like, if you have a cancellation, call me anytime and I'll make it work.

And then just like, I don't care.

I will quit my job and just go to that appointment.

And they get you in and it's great.

But no, it was the fact that it could read my test results, compare it with whatever intelligence it has on there and be like, I actually think you should be doing this instead of this guy over here.

This ENT.

When you go and talk to this ENT, make sure to ask these questions.

And it gave me a list of like seven things to think about going through.

And it was huge.

And it helped me figure this out.

It's like WebMD, but even more hallucinating.

It's WebMD, but much less scary and much more realistic.

I don't, everything wasn't lupus and cancer.

It was just like, oh no, it's just such and such.

So do they like give you medical advice, you know, quote unquote, like, or was it just more like medical coordination?

So I went like, for example, I went to one ENT and he's like, okay, we ran this test.

Take this test back to your general practitioner.

You do that several months later and they're just like, uh, I think the ENT summed it up.

You're fine.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then you went to chat GPT and you said, I don't know if they did a good job and they figured out the next thing.

Exactly.

And it's like, well, we would recommend your next step is you should go see this type of specialist and ask them these questions.

And it was still this whole rabbit trail to follow.

But I felt like I had someone on my side walking me through the path and remembering all the information of all the things I've told them before.

That's whack.

Yeah.

My medical data is like the last thing I would say.

I need to get stuff into AI.

So what would your proposed product to do that chat GPT can't do yet?

Are there things that would optimize this experience more where it's like, oh yeah, this is the medical version and here's why it's better.

You know what I mean?

I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of privacy things that we probably got to figure out with uploading any data to that.

But beyond that, no.

Notebook LM would be perfect for this.

Yeah.

Have you played with Notebook LM?

Google's Notebook LM.

What is it?

Up to 50 at time of recording.

50 sources of as big as the book you're working on to as small as a one-page PDF of some document or whatever.

Like your medical records or whatever.

They promise not to train on it.

And it's a LLM that's hyper-targeted at like pulling and summarizing and citing.

So it's not pulling from the copus of all knowledge so much as it's saying, well, here, here, and here I've noticed these patterns among these 50 documents or whatever.

And it seems like it'd be perfect for what you're talking about.

You have your like ongoing journal of all the recent tests and stuff that you've done.

And you can like interrogate that by typing along and asking it questions and stuff.

What have you noticed in my blood pressure in the last 12 months or whatever?

Yeah, and in terms of like liability and whatnot, you give it some instruction to say like do not give medical advice.

You know, give me and, you know, coach me on what I could do with a doctor.

And then you reassure people like, oh, don't worry.

It's only going to put you towards, you know, health and not towards, you know.

I think too, like if you actually, so like ChatGPT usually helps people do their job better, right?

So if you think about this being a superpower for the human job, that would be, let's say, using this tool, Scott, to help them do whatever it is that they're going to be doing.

So like kind of like a personal shopper, but for medical.

So they would set up your appointments.

They would talk to other doctors.

They would actually, let's say, go one step beyond and like receive that advice, call the ENT for you.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like sometimes you're going to the doctor and what are they going to do?

Just tell you, like ask you questions.

Like maybe it's just like a little bit of the telemedicine, you know, meets ChatGPT, meets your personal shopper, right?

And like in your specific experience, it's probably like there are people that have like really bad diseases that have to deal with the billing.

Not that you don't, I don't know what your disease is, but like or not.

Some people actually have it rough, Scott.

No, I got you.

You know what I mean?

Like the bad, the super bad ones, the ones that are like, oh, my entire financial life is crippled, right?

And so like now you have to deal with health insurance.

Now you have to figure out your like payment schedule.

And you know, like my mom's like a lot of my family, I'm half Filipino, right?

Is in the nursing and medical world.

And sometimes you just talk to the social worker at the hospital and they're like, yeah, we can wave like 80% of these fees for you just asking us.

And like it's kind of crazy how if you had somebody that's like, yeah, I navigate this system all day, every day.

Like the social engineer with this tool that you create, Scott, is like now you have the super duper power, right?

Because like if you think about it, if your medical expenses hit like 50K, let's say like why not hire a professional to help navigate that with this superpower tool with your other stuff, right?

So, yeah.

I get what you're saying.

And that's definitely like, you know, several steps beyond of what this thing, what I was thinking on this guy.

I'm still just like caught on the MVP of like, I just want someone to tell me just to remember what is happening and tell me what to do next on here.

Because these rabbit holes, when you start going on a subreddit of just like people who've had some similar problem, it gets very deep and very scary very quick.

Yeah.

This subreddit's killing me.

This could be the two-ended interface for both you and your primary care doctor where like, hey, you know, here's the like two-minute summary of everything that you've done for me.

What I have done up to this point and it sums it up in a way that your doctor's like, okay, I'm on the same page here.

Yeah, that connects to something I was thinking.

I was part of the value prop, part of the pitch is like what makes you different than GPT is that you have medical professionals on hand that can check your work.

So, if it suggests something and you're like, I really love this and I want to make sure it's good before I bet on it, you just click a button.

It gets cued to the medical professional.

Then they confirm it back to you within 24 hours.

Apple Watches and Withings and Fitbits of the world are adding more and more features where it's like, spit out a PDF of the last like 60 days of my sleep data or my heart rate data or whatever.

And you can use this to give it to your medical professional.

But like, what doctor is going to look at your heart rate for the last two months and say, oh, I get exactly what's going on here, right?

This is like that idea, but actually useful where like, hey, doc.

Here's what I've tried so far.

Here's the summary of what's been.

Yeah, exactly.

Because like you said, he's got a million patients and it's been four months since you've seen him last and stuff.

Like, how is he supposed to remember or she?

Yeah, I guess I think the MVP is dope.

I think it would be supercharged by like the medical professional, right?

That would be interesting.

I mean, I'm excited about it because I feel like I stop when the doctor says, ah, you're fine, right?

I'm like, great.

I just need somebody to tell me that so I can move on with my life.

Like, even my wife's like, ah, you don't need it.

We got a baby.

You got to leave that one for the next year, right?

I'm sorry.

But I mean, like, I think like, okay, I have an advocate, right?

Like, you kind of need, you know, words of, what are they called?

When you speak.

Affirmation.

Words of affirmation, right, Mike?

Yeah.

Words of affirmation.

To like get you the confidence to like, all right, this is my health.

This is my future.

Like, this is, I got to do this, right?

I mean, there's an element of that that you're, that this, what do we call it?

Like, Dr. GPT or something.

Dr. GPT.

Oh, God.

I mean, Dr. Phil.

I was thinking project manager, but.

Dr. Phil GPT.

Dr. Chad.

Okay, so that way it's not.

Sorry, I'm attacking Dr. Phil.

So the robots are going to take our coffee jobs and our doctor jobs.

Yeah.

I mean, Scott, it's actually like making a GPT on, it's like, it's literally like you could

do it in the background while we're having this conversation.

Yeah.

You just give it up.

That's simple on there.

Like, I did this.

I used this and it was fantastic.

How do we monetize?

Have you made the actual like custom GPTs?

No.

No.

They're dope.

You'd like that system where you give it all the pre-trained info.

I tried to make one for reading data sheets and it wasn't very good at that.

That's exactly what I did, Scott.

I never went to it again.

Someone else will do it better.

I'll just wait a year.

Where's the overlay on top of GPT to help me?

Yeah.

But if you get your instructions and your prompts right, I know your current system is putting

them into notepad or whatever and like a copy pasting everything.

But if you get that right into a GPT, then you can monetize them within the platform.

Other people can pay to use your GPT like instructions and stuff.

You can also create a standalone app and charge the subscription for it like all these other

companies that do it.

The classic version.

This is why I don't like talking about AI.

There's so many wrappers out there.

Yeah.

This is one that was actually helpful.

That's really cool.

But I think this is different.

Like I feel like all the other GPTs or AI tools are like superhuman thinking.

This is just like helpful.

Like and this is such an in like in a system that needs this right now.

Yeah.

That's the big one.

You could also monetize by making a badass tool and then get it acquired by Epic.

There's like two companies that run all the records, the medical record system.

So it's pretty easy.

And that's very true.

Epic would never want to do this themselves.

maybe right away.

They want to get it tested by somebody else, you know, in their startup.

So.

And like two thirds of all these AI startups that are getting millions of dollars of venture

capital seed money or just GPT wrappers on the open AI APIs anyway.

So you make yourself your little prompts, put a little website together.

Boom.

Millionaire.

But seriously.

Is that too cynical of a note to end on?

All right, Leo.

What do you have this week?

All right.

Time to lighten the mood.

You guys have been way too dark.

You're trying to take all our jobs.

Dark like coffee.

Medical issues.

Dark roast.

I've got an idea for a fun, lighthearted art project and tech website.

That's one of those like single page apps that I'd want to throw together if I had the time

to do it.

So someone out there needs to do this.

Did you know there are 500 hours of YouTube content uploaded to the platform every minute?

I know.

That's as of 2022.

It's probably even higher now.

I have many coworkers, especially of generations older than mine, who love looking at clips of

videos and movies and TV shows that they treasure on YouTube.

They just pull up the, yeah, isn't that the hilarious joke from Seinfeld that you remember?

Or Tommy boy.

I got to show you this Tommy boy clip over and over again, right?

I bet that across those 500 hours of content a minute, every part of most Hollywood movies has

been uploaded to YouTube at some point as a three second clip.

I want to use AI to try to make the movie streaming service of the worst possible quality where you're

preloading three to 10 YouTube videos that are the sequential overlapping cut to cut to cut movie

in as much of an entirety as you can, just for fun.

Even if it's one like predefined movie that you just try to put together, I bet you could assemble

all of the Avengers or whatever, just from people's shaky cams and like 10 second clip of that one

scene that they love.

So they uploaded it and stuff.

All you need to do is break down all the frames of a Hollywood movie or a TV show episode and

try to like find where they all exist across the platform.

Right.

And some of them will be in videos named hilarious fart joke dot MP4.

Right.

But I bet you could do it if you have the right search tools at your disposal.

The hard part is going to be the content discovery, but I want to make podunk streaming dot biz where

you go there and you type in a Hollywood movie and it tries its very best.

It'll take a long time to process to use the search API and find all of these frames and put

them together.

Because once you have the list of movies and the time codes of the actual like source,

it'd be pretty easy to like get all these YouTube embedded players all loading in the background

and then play to play to play to play to play and stitch them all start to end.

That's the art project that I'd love someone to build if they have the time.

I love this so much.

And I got I got I got two extensions to throw off there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Number one, you can flip a switch and opt instead of like school stage recreations.

So you're watching like Shrek.

Yeah.

And it's like the actual DreamWorks film.

But there's one shot where suddenly it's in a middle school like theater room.

And then it comes back.

It comes back to the DreamWorks CGI after.

There was someone who did this with Star Wars.

The entirety of Star Wars was broken up into like one minute or less chunks.

And they gave all of those different chunks to various creators and said, you do a claymation

one.

You do an animated one.

You do like your friends with paper plate costumes and robes and you act it out.

And they like stitched it all together to be the whole movie.

It's really fun.

Yeah.

That'd be so fun.

Yeah.

Okay.

extension number two and it's art so I can make reference to AI is if it's missing a

clip, you can opt to say, I want to reference all the other clips to generate what would

be the filler clip.

What does AI think those three minutes of Shrek that are missing would be?

Exactly.

That would be so crazy.

Oh, man.

Generate a script.

Generate what the frames would look like.

Oh, that'd be awesome.

And then we watch B-movie.

Oh, man.

I just want to build that now.

So you take the whole two hour movie and then you choose like a point where you cut out three

minutes of it and you have AI trying to guess what that would have been.

That would be really fun.

But really, how messed up would B-movie be?

If you try to watch B-movie, there's so many B-movie memes.

Yeah.

That it just would get broken.

It would just break.

The data sets all screwed up with people.

Yeah, right.

That's how we're going to stop our AI overlords one day.

Get occupied and distracted.

Okay.

So like another way you could do this too is you take the transcript of the whole movie

and it's way easier for YouTube to read like transcripts because they got it available.

You could just generate the entire movie using random clips that have the same lines.

Oh, yeah.

So like every line you just generate.

All right.

Where's the words?

Fly you fools.

Right.

And it just goes and finds some random clip with that transcript, adds it in there,

and now you have this entire movie end to end from random YouTube clips from the transcripts

That's fun.

Like you see those videos of people stitching together like some CNN anchor rapping or like

Obama doing Gangster's Paradise or whatever just because it's a bunch of little clips of

him saying half of one syllable of one word, cutting straight to another one.

Yeah.

You do that, but the whole movie, that'd be great.

Yeah.

And then you add like a layer of like to that end, like only presidents or like only celebrities

or yeah.

Only middle school plays.

Children.

Acting out like, yeah, the B movie or something.

Or a Pulp Fiction, just a bunch of clips of random school plays making the whole.

You're making me think of what movies would I want to watch with all these fun little elements.

All the Shreks is the right answer.

That was a fantastic idea.

I had some dark thoughts like The Passion of the Christ or something, but I don't know if

that's okay.

You can cut that if you want.

Somebody.

I'm so curious about the legality of just like normal YouTube.

I can upload, you know, a minute or two apparently of some movie clip.

I could watch the bar scene and then Glorious Bastards and that's just on YouTube.

And that would feed into your thing.

But if I put the entire movie together from a thousand different sources, who's suing who

at this point?

Yeah.

Because Fair Use says that you can do it as long as it's not transformative.

Or it is transformative and it's not like taking away revenue.

Right.

So it's a very squishy and legally dubious definition.

But basically the gist of it is trying to say, I'm not going to take away revenue from the

person who made it with this little one minute clip.

So it's okay for me to put on there.

Right.

But when you're stitching together 800 embedded videos, you're basically getting all the way

there.

It's different sources.

It's fine, Your Honor.

Yeah.

Right, right.

I also learned recently about like comedic or like satire law.

So I learned this through Enron.com.

If you didn't know, Enron.com is alive and kicking.

It's actually a very impressive website.

But when you go into the terms of service of Enron.com, you then learn that it is a satire.

What's on there?

What is it?

It's inspirational.

It reminds you of why you're alive.

A little exercise for the listeners.

I mean, it uses the Enron branding, you know, and it says that we're back and, you know,

we're here to change the world and make it a better place.

You know, everything that our corporations are, you know, here for.

It's just a bunch of videos of just like people moving really fast in like New York and like

transformation, rebirth.

What is this?

Oh, wow.

That sound you hear is this deafening silence of three guys furiously Googling.

Big leaders, bigger ideas.

And one of the CTAs is I am Enron.

Loop pie.

This is audio poison.

This is not content.

You can do this with songs almost, right?

Like if you like all these like 10 second clips of different songs in the background, right?

Oh, like random guy who's filming out of his taxi cab window, but the radio is on in the background

of that four seconds of Taylor Swift.

And then it cuts right to the next thing.

Oh, that'd be a fun start because then the, oh, I love that.

It's like Shazam.

Because the world's worst like music streaming service.

That's a good name for it too.

Yeah.

100% free music.

Shittyspotify.net.

All the music on earth for free.

I love it because then it tells a story of all the different life situations where someone

listens to Taylor Swift of like, of like, like, you know, it's all these very dynamic, diverse

sort of, you know.

And it's totally legal.

Right?

Concert videos.

Like every time you listen to Taylor Swift 22 and you have different videos because there's

so many probably versions of that, right?

10 second clips.

You hear it different every time.

Every single, that's how you saw it.

Like you just different version, different humans or whatever.

The three minute Taylor Swift compilation is probably a little bit less ambitious than

my Shrek idea.

So that's good.

That's a lot of work.

You build into the Shrek idea, you know.

Are you all familiar with, with Superstar, the Karen Carpenter story?

No.

This was 87.

Todd Haynes, you know, he director, this was kind of his first breakout.

And what he did is it's stop motion and it's telling the story of the Carpenters, you

know, in the death of Karen Carpenter, but told through Barbie dolls.

And it's stop motion Barbie dolls.

And the reason I bring it up is because the movie was, you know, very quickly sued, you

know, for, for rights usage, you know, cause it was referencing songs.

And so, but it was such a viral, well, this was, again, this was the eighties, but it had

such like a cult following that people were duping their cassettes.

So they, you know, put one VHS tape in, then copy it to another VHS and then share

it with a friend.

Then they would make a copy and share it with a friend.

And so part of like the cult nature of this film is that you'll never see the same film

twice.

Sure.

Because every copy is unique in the way that it was duplicated.

All the little artifacts.

Or maybe had, you know, it was duped over maybe other family videos and, or other like

commercials or television.

So it has like all these other elements.

And so it has a real call status and what you're describing, it kind of feel it carries

that legacy into kind of a digital age where this was VHS in the eighties.

This is a very kind of contemporary version of that.

All of the popular scenes of these like a list movies that we're talking about.

I'm sure that there's hundreds, thousands of different uploads to choose from, right?

So if you can catalog all of those with the exact timestamps that they occur of the actual

movie, you could stitch together a unique experience for every person who watches it.

You know, you pick number 681 for those nine seconds and you pick number 2825 for those 12

seconds.

Yeah.

And like you said, it's even better if it's like a handy cam of someone putting it on a projector

screen somewhere or like there's some other experience happening around the content for

sure.

You're jumping around from theater to theater or something.

I don't know.

Anyway, hope that inspires you listener.

All right, Mike, we're so glad that you're here.

What have you brought for us this evening?

Right.

In March, I became one of those people and I, I got a flip phone.

Um, so yeah, your anti-smartphone.

Is that the principle here?

No, no, no.

I'm just more comfortable with it.

And I talk to people and whenever I bring it up, a lot of people are like, oh, I want

to do that.

I want to do that.

Oh, it's just, it's just this one app that I need to use or for work or like, oh, it's

like, it's for my kids or like, oh, it's just like this, like one kind of like utility

for this or that.

And, and, you know, I can, I don't, I don't pressure, pressure anyone, but I, I got thinking

about it more.

And I think we have this, we have this assumption that the phone is always tied to us.

And so either you have a smartphone or you have a dumb phone and it's either or, but I think

that there's still another way.

And the idea is landlines make home phones great again.

So what, what does it look like?

Okay.

So imagine you're out and about, you know, you're scrolling, you're working, you're using

your phone just as ever.

But when you get home, you dock your phone and whenever someone calls you, it rings throughout

your house.

And so you can always pick up the phone, your spouse or whoever significant other or whoever

else lives with you.

They can also dock their phone.

And whenever your phone rings, it rings throughout the house and could pick it up.

And it says, oh, dad, it's from you.

It's uncle Steve.

And then, you know, just like you, we all know, we remember that.

Um, it's like, again, you get the benefit of the smartphone cause you're out and about,

you know, you're sitting on the toilet, you want to scroll through Instagram or whatever,

or you, or you have a utility you need to use for work or whatever.

But when you get home, you feel like you're able to set it aside.

Um, so then what would you do in terms of like SMS, right?

If people might text you or whatnot.

So then imagine using just like a, um, uh, a glorified iPad.

It's a display in it.

And I know it's scary, but it publicly shows the text messages that are coming through.

But again, it reinforces the home that this is the home.

We are first and foremost here.

And then we can see the messages that are coming through on the screen.

And then if we need to go pick up our phone and then next level, you can't do this probably

on an iPhone, but on Android, you have some sort of local processing of the text messages.

And if they seem especially urgent, then it rings the phone and says, Hey, you know, there's

an important text message you should pick up, but you should go look at.

Um, so then you can especially rest easy in that way.

Yeah.

So the reason you went for the flip phone primarily is to be able to make it easy to disconnect.

Yeah.

So when you're, when you're home, you're home, you know, in your home, you're with the people

and then you do other things, even if you're just watching TV or whatnot.

But yeah, that, that's the idea is, is kind of, it revives that spirit of the cell phone

is that the cell phone is what you take when you're out and when you're home, you're home

and you're not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's a niche, it's a niche, you know, you know, not at all.

And the hardware is in a lot of people's homes with smart connected speakers and stuff.

You got your Google assistants in here.

I always forget that I could just answer my phone through the Google home at any time.

Yeah.

That should be a feature, right?

Where like you optionally go in and you say, yeah, ring my smart speakers instead.

Wow.

I have eight or 10 smart speakers around my house already.

And it's ridiculous that they're not connected.

We taught our two and four year old to go up to the touchscreen thing.

And like, if there's an emergency, you know, you can press this button to get to dad or mom,

right?

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

Got it.

You know what I mean?

Like if, you know, mom falls over and isn't talking, you can go and call for something.

But like, yeah, the ability to make the home itself have the connectivity there was kind

of a promise that was never fulfilled from all these smart speaker vendors.

Dude, Mike, this is awesome.

I am a terrible texter.

I, but I think I, it's because I kind of live that lifestyle of like unconsciously.

Like I just, I don't know what it is.

I think I just suck at typing on my keyboard.

And so it just has really burned me from like doing, using it as often.

Like I will find the moment of time where I just answer all my texts.

Leo has gotten all this, answer all my texts, my, my messages on Facebook and all that stuff.

And I think all at once, all at once.

Right.

And I think there's something to that.

Like, sure.

Like you put your phone aside partially because I have to, but partially because like, Hey,

this is a good, healthy way to have devices.

Right.

Or just communication.

Right.

You're at home.

Like the people you're around in real human being world is probably where you should spend

your time.

Right.

And so like you plug it in or whatever, but like, I think there is something about

like, you know, the, the hand phone, right.

Or something like the old dial, like picking up, at least you got your, you received your

call, like who calls anymore anyway, wait to that end too.

But also you have like, let's say a station in which you receive all your text messages and

you're not going to be standing in front of your text station all night.

Make it inconvenient for you so that you don't want to do it.

Yeah.

Like create a intentionally hard user experience for you to do this at home.

Like, it's just, I think it's healthy.

I think, I think, I think it'll catch on as like a health trend or something.

Right.

And just like people going to flip phones.

I like that.

And if you have the dedicated station, like you're describing, then people who are bad

texters like you or my darling wife would be like, I would feel less bad about saying

like I'm calling the house and interrupting and getting attention because this is important.

They need to go to the texting station and answer because I have a time sensitive thing.

Whereas right now, if I'm dead in a ditch, there's no way that I'm calling my, my darling

bride to try to get help.

Like some people are not the texter like you wrestle and that's okay.

But like, if you've got the house aware of it all, not only do you have the separation

of this is the spot or don't let things through that are urgent or whatever, but then you make

it easier for the people who want to be present to like prioritize and triage, you know?

Yeah.

And I think you kind of start to communicate, like people might get annoyed at certain points

of like, why didn't you respond as quickly?

But you start to, they start to get the picture, you know, over time, you know, and it starts

to become kind of like a thing they can, you know, they can deal with.

And you could even, again, on Android, you could do automatic replies if you really wanted

to, you know, this person's at home.

They won't be answering.

It's like those drive-ins.

Like if you, if you call me the phones, you know, you're going, everyone's going to hear,

you know?

So we, we learned with Russell, we know he'll respond eventually.

It comes around, but it comes around.

He'll respond to all eight queries at once.

Yeah.

I'll get, I'll answer like 16 group messages at once going through and it's amazing.

I'll say there's something too, like when the whole house rings, like it calms the kids

down, you know, it's like, oh, I want to pick up the phone.

Who is it?

Right.

There's like a connection to, it's like the mail.

I don't know if you guys still feel like.

It makes it a communal experience for sure.

And you know, now it's like, okay, everybody attention.

I'm about to take a call.

It also sets the expectation.

Back to nineties.

Yeah.

Cause in a way, like the phone was, is now right.

Tied to you as the person instead of tied to the home as a whole.

Right.

And so now you can't like the five household.

Right.

Leave a message for all of us.

Right.

And it kind of turned into like a family aspect.

Right.

Of communication, which is lost.

I feel like definitely.

Right.

Like I can't imagine being a kid now without a phone because you literally have no communication

with the world where before you could call landline.

At least you get to know the parents a little bit more.

Now you skip all that.

You go straight to the source and you'll lose.

I mean, I, I, I feel like my parents knew all my friends because of the landline.

Right.

I think that we're going to lose that connection with our, you know, kids or like even in general.

Right.

And just like the nineties, if you really want to bring it back, whenever someone's

on the landline phone, then you cut off the internet.

Ayo.

Play all the noise.

And only one person can use the phone at a time.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's definitely, it's funny.

There's been so much effort in the last years to kind of like be more, you know, tech

wise or kind of like reduce screen time.

But, but I think they're missing like this critical piece of like the household, you know,

in the home and differentiating that from everything else.

And I think that again, it's like, yeah, have a smartphone, but you know, but, but, but,

but think about the time and place of, of where it's used.

And I haven't heard that conversation.

So I, that's what kind of, I think this is a fun idea.

Digital wellness.

Yeah.

There was a whole push from both platforms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Two or three years ago to like, yeah, we're going to monitor your screen time and lock you

out of your apps and make it easier for you to do all these things.

Yeah.

I totally agree.

Best tip I ever heard of that.

Put your phone in black and white.

It's just, I don't know.

Just makes you not want to use your phone.

It's incredible.

After 10 PM, when my phone's plugged in and it turns black and white.

Yeah.

It's great.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, I think TikTok does that too.

Like there's, I think there must be some money maker.

Like there's some reason why if people got too sucked into TikTok after an hour and a half,

they're like, Hey, you should probably put your phone down.

Like, I think there is some, like, they don't want you to get your life.

I guess like what I'm saying is that maybe social media people or like,

these tech companies have a small incentive to keep you from like being, ruining your life

in it because then it turns into an addiction and like, they don't want to go into those lawsuits.

They don't want to go into like that world.

They just want you to take care of yourself, eat and breathe so you can come back and keep using it later.

That's all.

Don't forget to eat.

That's probably it.

Like after one.

Would you like to order a hot dog from the, or would you like to order a coffee from Russ's,

Russ's machine?

My partner, Dordash.

Russ's Redbox.

Brownbox, sorry.

If I could put my phone down and like it auto replied, let's say to messages or communicated back,

I think I'd feel a little more comfortable also with knowing that the people that are messaging me

understand the situation I'm in.

I know like do not disturb the thing on iPhone, but it just, it feels a little like, you know,

like you're, you're, you're blocking me.

Instead, it's like, I don't know, a little bit more intentional.

Like, Hey, we're, I'm at home, you know, feel free to send a text or a call, but like, this is the situation that we're in.

It's not going to be urgent.

It's not going to happen quickly, but at least it knows like my status or my aware, like a little bit of a communication back

instead of it just being for me.

Like, I think it's helpful to communicate out so that people know, Oh, I'm adopting this sent for my Blackberry vibe.

Right.

The move, yeah, the move away from instant messaging to texting and stuff has really have had us lose the,

the away message and the status indicator.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a universal status message like Slack and teams and stuff have where like,

you know, I'm at home, I'm busy, I'm commuting, whatever, you know,

part of what's fun too, is thinking of how would you design the hardware because you want to have some sort of like sense of sentimental throwback.

But you also want it to feel like very modern and fitting in your home.

And so it's like this kind of, it's kind of like the light phone where they kind of really try to find this balance of simplicity,

but also making it feel technologically reasonable and functional.

The e-paper one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think it would be just really fun to design the headset and or handset,

kind of some old school elements, but kind of sleek still.

Big buttons.

You are envisioning something that you're actually like picking up and walking around with,

not a fixture of the home.

It seems like you could have it be speakers.

Yeah.

I think of a phone.

Yeah.

Something like when you could like, yeah, still saying like,

if you want to be cooking food and on the phone, like you do that.

Like, or if you're like, yeah, it's not like saying don't use the phone,

but it's like centralizing the phone as a shared utility in the home.

I'd feel more comfortable with my kids having a phone to like being a part of that too,

where you, I do not want them to have any cellular device of any magnitude.

Right.

Like it'd be cool to like, let them pick up the smart or the dumb phone or the house phone and

talk to the grandparents or whatever.

And you've had your like Facebook portals and Amazon echo screens and stuff like that over the

years that have come and gone, but it seems like nothing's ever grabbed hold of that.

Like this is the appliance that does communication, but it stays still market.

And maybe part of that is because you want to be able to pick it up and move around like a landline.

I don't know.

Something about the form factor, like it found little niche audiences here and there,

but there's never been the, oh yeah, this is obviously the future of how home communication will go.

Hey, you're right.

That's really died down.

You don't hear about, I think they're all shutting down those divisions or kind of chilling them out.

Well, it's because they got too smart.

Like then you turn it, like the kids that I see have it, like they turn it into a blippy machine.

It's like the only way they can get their, their fix or they like Alexa play this song.

And now it just, it's not a device of communication.

It's a, it's a blippy.

It's an audio version of a smartphone, right?

It just turned into that.

Or like if you had a screen, it would turn into like a little bit of video and then you're just losing that.

So, so maybe the secrets here, making something purpose built that only does the calling grandparents

and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Just more human connection.

I feel like the smartphone was initially created for more human connection and then it turned into

whatever asynchronous robot talking screen to other robot talking screen that happens to get to my buddy.

Right.

I don't know.

Maybe that's, maybe that's the solution here.

We're going to figure out how more synchronous communication.

I feel like with Slack and texting and everything else, it's like, Oh, I'll answer you in a couple minutes.

Just not, I need real time, baby.

That's why I do this podcast too.

It was asynchronous.

I am trying to get comfortable with just calling people again.

It's not, it's not comfortable, but I'm trying just to call.

And then when they just text me, I leave a voicemail and they text me back and I say, you're being such a millennial.

You know?

Calling out.

Yeah.

I'm very fortunate in that the culture at Hope College is still very like, let's have a meeting.

Let's have a call.

And it feels like the public consciousness is starting to switch back to that again too.

Like away from, like you said, asynchronous.

People are starting to realize like, wow, remote work where I never actually speak to another person for months at a time has downsides too.

Yeah.

You all got to remember, I got an hour and 15 commute to work right now.

Like there are upsides and downs.

There's ups and downs.

I would.

Nope.

That.

Yep.

Put me in a basement.

Lock me up.

Yep.

Well, dear listener, if you are on your way and you've just about made it to work, we should

better wrap up really quick here so you can park and we won't keep you waiting.

Thanks very much for listening.

We hope you enjoyed yourself and thank you so much, Mike.

This was so much fun.

Yeah.

Great to be with you all.

Yeah.

We'll have to have you back, man.

Our website is Spitball.show.

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