Hi, Nick here from Pods with Nick and James. Just a quick one before we get into this podcast.
I want to say a massive thank you for the support that we've received since starting these podcasts.
We thoroughly enjoy it and we look forward to creating more.
If you want to have your say on any topics that we've discussed or suggest future topics,
you can do so at www.reddit.com.com.au.
And if you want to support us, you can do so from as little as £1 a month.
You can do that at www.patreon.com.au.
Anyway, back to the podcast.
Hello and welcome back to Pods with Nick and James.
And for today, to become three.
And today this is Pods with Nick, James and Adam.
Welcome Adam, how are you?
Hello Nick, thank you for having me. I'm doing well, how are you?
Not too bad mate, not too bad. And of course as always, joined by James. How are you doing mate?
Not too bad. Yeah, muddling on free.
So we thought we would come to episode 10. I'm amazed that we managed to make it to 10 podcasts without getting utterly frustrated with each other.
But well done James for stomaching me for 10 episodes now.
But on the 10th episode we decided that we were going to do a special and invite a friend along to join us.
And for this special we've decided to go with Adam's topic. And Adam chose, what did you choose Adam?
So we're going to have a little discussion about technology and narrowing that down because technology is quite a broad subject to mainly privacy and data.
And sort of how data is manhandled and misused and all that good stuff.
Awesome, awesome. So thanks for that. What do you think of the topic James?
I think it's a fantastic topic and we've already dipped into bits and pieces of this.
You're absolutely right to specify what technology is because even a sandal in ancient times is a form of technology.
Anything that mankind picks up and uses as a tool is a piece of technology.
But what you have chosen specifically holds a lot of interest for me and has some real legs to it.
So without further ado we'll go back to you.
Oh yeah. So it shows this obviously so your viewers are probably aware that you guys worked together.
And that's how I met these two fine established gentlemen. So we worked for a little while in IT.
And so we've all got this mutual interest so I thought this would be quite a cool little topic.
Maybe we've all got a little bit of life events and life advice to bring to the table.
So just start things off. Gents, how secure do you think your data is?
Not very secure.
So James?
I'm really sorry. I'm really worried me and like for like although me and Nick, you know what I'd genuinely say we'd get on, our views are different.
I'm really worried that me and you are literally going to be parallel on this one because when it comes to or maybe actually I'd go further.
I'd say it's not secure at all.
Like when I click the yes I agree button it's because I'm pretty much I assume I don't read through the terms and conditions quite often when I click that thing.
And a lot of people don't is because unfortunately my somewhat satirical and sarcastic view of it is I assume that I have no rights that they're going to use my data however they want.
And that there's nothing I can do about it either use their service or don't.
And I'm sorry to be so negative and start things off on such a bad foot. Anyway, sorry.
Is that true or is that just paranoia?
Well, you're on sort of a negative sort of output on that. Your data is fairly secure.
Obviously there's many sort of privacy laws and stuff that you know people have to abide by if they're manhandling data.
So obviously we know we've all got the GDPR that companies that hold more than I think it's like a thousand records of data they have to abide by.
You know you can't hold data if you need to. You can't, you know, it has to be stored securely only people that need access are given access.
So in a nutshell, in the grand scheme of things, it is fairly secure. However, there are such things as data breaches.
They're sort of the scary thing whether they're caused maliciously or through people not doing their due diligence.
Yeah, absolutely.
Obviously, you know, it's one thing having, you know, anonymous target a website and, you know, steal thousands of people's data.
And then it's one thing, you know, Jeff down the road who's got his little black book because he refuses to, you know, go to the digital age and he leaves it on the bus.
And it's got all of his passwords in it and his credit card numbers and all sorts of things because that in itself is a data breach.
It's not necessarily, you know, I mean, I speak up every time.
I mean, obviously within my role, I screen connect to other machines around the country, sometimes even outside of the country, but mainly inside the country.
And when I screen connect to these companies, there have been occasions where plastered on little Microsoft Windows post-it notes, sticky notes, are login names and passwords.
And on one particular machine that I connected to, this lady opened her Excel spreadsheet in which she had every single login she had for any program and her password next to it.
Now, I always call it out. If I see something and I'm like, whoa, hold on, hold on, you can't do that.
Then I tell them and I explain why, not in an arrogant or an abrupt way, but I just kind of go, look, for your own sake, you cannot do that.
You have to have, I at least say, have a physical barrier between like your computer and your passwords.
So if you're going to be that insecure with your data, at least put it on your phone.
Don't have it all on your computer because now if I lock you out of your machine and just use your machine, I have all the information I need right there to do whatever I want.
And I'm not going to do that because I work for a reputable company and I like to think I'm quite a reputable person.
However, I know that there was a time our Screen Connect software, the website was phished.
So there was a variant of our website which was different by I think one letter.
I think there was a number instead of a word, which was quite a simple thing to get wrong.
But as soon as you connected to that, it downloaded the screen share and somebody started Screen Connecting to that machine.
And it was something that was flagged to our security team when it was handled by the legal system.
But it happens that quickly and that easily.
And if you're that insecure with your data, what's the point in keeping passwords?
You might as well just go, you know what, if I want to go on that website, if I type in my name, you just let me in.
I mean, yeah, you're 100% right, Nick.
People just, it's people not realizing the danger behind it.
Now, obviously, I work in IT and I work for, in layman's terms, a life insurance company.
And I'm sort of the main IT of the company.
So I don't deal with other people outside of the company.
I'm mainly internal people.
And all these people, when they start, they're all given an induction and they're all told, you know, don't do this.
Don't use the same parser for everything.
Don't put your password on a sticky note on your desktop.
Don't have a notepad file full of passwords and stuff.
Because as a life insurance broker, I've got access to customers' names, phone numbers, email addresses, any health questions they've had to answer.
And so do the agents that make the calls.
And it confuses me.
And it's so backhanded when I get a message from one of the agents and saying, I'm out of a problem with my computer.
And they've just screenshot their entire screen and send me a picture of the person's name, their address, their bank account details.
It's like, whoa, what are you doing? Delete that bloody message.
You know, they're all trained on it.
But it's just simple things like that where someone's like, oh, this update won't go away.
And they've just got stuff on their screen.
And it's just people just don't think.
Because I could, you know, they know that I'm IT and they know that I'm working IT and I won't steal that data.
But what happens if I accidentally leave my desk open and someone does come in and see that data?
Well, then whose remit does that fall under?
You know, so it's just I can't just it honestly boggles my brain when I have to see these things sometimes.
Yeah, exactly.
Have you got any horror stories, James, that you've experienced?
Annoyingly, just more of the same.
Like, as you've said, Microsoft sticky notes are mostly used for passwords.
And a lot of those passwords are to products which then can train other people's personal data.
I think the best one I've had.
I don't know.
Like, sometimes people go old school and sometimes the old school stuff is in some ways safer.
Like, I had one person return a request for change form, which is something that is required in order to change things by post, which isn't necessarily secure.
Sorry. You know what? That's different.
But like, yeah, you know what?
In short, I've seen a lot of stuff that I'm not supposed to see.
And quite often. Oh, I do remember I do love it when directors of companies let you on their machine and then they don't just have they don't just kind of let you see the Excel document for their own passwords, but the passwords for all of their members of staff.
And not just their password for the thing you're helping them with, but their password for their accounting's product their password for their HR products and their password. Yeah, everything else in some of that. Yeah. And their secretary's passwords as well.
So if I wanted if I wanted to I could take a quick screenshot of that commit fraud and have multiple people.
Yeah, put multiple people's accounts involved in it, at which point it's then very hard to track. Exactly. I mean, obviously it's all IP based and stuff but they're not going to remember that the person they spoke to on the phone, helping with one thing stole their data.
Obviously, because there's that element of trust isn't there between service desk and, you know, IT consultants and you know support people with their customers, they sort of just a trusting enough that we're not going to do that.
Yeah, but still it's like they shouldn't have, you know, if you leave, you leave, there's leaving the key under the doormat, and there's leaving the door wide open. Yeah, exactly.
So I came up with a flawless, flawless tactic to combat this. This was, this is me having one of my rants at my desk one day and I came up with an absolutely flawless technique to combat the problems that we quite commonly face on the service desk.
And that is the introduction of a technology license. And the idea behind this is if you are over the age of 16 and not disabled, as in not unable to use technology, I think there should be a bit of a green pass to that kind of situation.
But also if you're like old, then like there should be a bit of an allowance given to you then, because let's face it, my nan is never going to use a computer comfortably. She's the kind of person that's going to use one finger to type out her entire email address. It's going to take four hours to do it.
But the idea is there's going to be a license. So you have to pass a test to obtain a license to use a computer or a phone or a light switch, just any kind of technology.
Because at the amount of times when I talk to people, for example, I say to somebody, can I connect to your screen? And they go, yeah sure, how do we do that?
And I say go to this web address and they go, how do I do that? And I'm like, hold on, you can't go to a web address? You can't go to an internet page? And the one that gets me is when I get somebody go, oh, is that on the Googles? And I'm like, okay, now I'm done.
But the thing is as well, it's usually like head of HR that says that. It's never the security or the secretary that's on the front desk. They know exactly what they're doing.
But it's usually someone like high up in the company that's like, sorry, what's a file explorer? Oh for Jesus.
I know it's a bit of an IT technician's rant, but I firmly believe that there should be a bit more stringency taken when it comes to people being able to use computers, especially in places like the workplace.
When you're in charge of more than just your own stuff. Like my phone, it connects to my bank account, it connects to my things. But what I don't have the ability to do with my phone is connect to thousands of other people's data.
So how I manage that is up to me. Yeah, I mean, you do connect, but not directly. But I get what you mean. Yeah, because your phone obviously has access to other things.
Your phone could be infected with malware and that malware could spread through various apps and stuff that you use. So in a way, yes.
But on the similar lines, do you guys know what the or what the largest data breach was? And by largest, I mean number of records stolen. Was it a Sony one?
Nope. No. Okay, then I don't know. Because Sony was huge. Sony was huge.
I can't remember the exact figures, but there was one that's recorded as bigger. Now, I don't know when this was taken.
This survey. James, any idea?
It's not the one that affected our company, is it? No, no.
Fantastic. So there's a website out there called CAM4. Now I'm told this is for gentlemanly pleasures.
Do with that information what you'll. But in 2020, they were subject to a data breach where 10.88 billion records were seized by hackers. This included data such as the full names of people, email addresses, sexual orientation, chat transcripts, email correspondence, password hashes, IP addresses and payment logs for 10.88 billion records.
So that's like 20 busy men. Yeah, probably. Yeah. That's a jolly good afternoon.
Yeah, but you know, it's remarkable. You know, that was that was 2020. And there was.
There was one as well before that by Yahoo. I think this one was put out a little bit. This got quite a lot of media attention because obviously it's not an adult website. But Yahoo in 2017, three billion accounts. Yeah.
It's why I stopped using Yahoo Mail. Yeah, that was including names, email addresses, encrypted passwords and security questions and answers in plain text. Because why not encrypt things?
Encryption is just for tech nerds. Apparently so. I mean, so they encrypted the passwords but didn't encrypt the security questions and answers. So you just logged on when I forgot my password and just do the answers and get the password that way.
Sure. Yeah.
You know, no problem. I haven't got a problem with that.
So, you know, it's it's all these big companies. Do you want to hear about some of the some of the silliest breaches that I've managed to find? Yeah, go on.
So, in 2013, Glasgow City Council had a data breach when a folder containing sensitive documents including job applications, contracts and bank details was found by a pedestrian on a public street. It was suspected that the folder blew out of a window.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, really?
Wait, wait.
Glasgow is quite windy.
And I think it is, but yeah, just so a pedestrian on the Glasgow street was walking along, found a, I'm presuming, a brown folder that said confidential on the front of it, flicked open and there was job applications and contracts and all sorts of other things that was just lying on the street.
And it's just things like that. And then we all know about the UK Ministry of Defence who left a laptop on a train. Yeah, that's one I was about to bring up. Yep.
But to be fair, like they're, they're not great generally, like I'm not going to go into exact details but a friend of mine has the same name as somebody who works in the Ministry of Defence, and she just kept on receiving.
James Bond?
No, but she just kept on receiving just really sensitive data and every single time she just kept on saying, Hi guys.
I'm not this person. Please stop sending me this stuff. And at that point they like the response was always, oh, oh, oh, oh, this isn't as bad as it seems.
She should have replied in Russian. That had got a bit twitchy.
Janet you silly goose. Of course it's you. Have this list of terrorists.
And there's another one in 2017 where the NHS who you know we all we hold dearly in this country. But by God are they silly sometimes. They sent out an email to 37 people disclosing their HIV status because they put people in the CC field rather than the BCC field. So 37 people were told of 36 other people's HIV status.
No, no, no, no, that was intentional. What they wanted to do was start a support group.
And here's 36 other people you can have a chat with.
It's not very good at all.
We've not got funding. So why don't you set up your own support.
That's it.
Yeah, it's just, but yeah, it's just data can go missing in all sorts of different ways. Can't it? Yeah, it's not. It's not criminals all the time. I think more than half the amount of times. It's not criminals.
It's usually negligence. Yeah, three people's own silly things and leaving sticky notes on their desktops or little black books or folders blowing out of windows.
It's just crazy. It's crazy, crazy.
I mean, I've spoken with a couple of IT companies and obviously we've got a certain security protocol with the software that we use.
And which, like, if you were to come to me and say, oh, I need this, like, your software installed on my computer, there's a set process that I go through certain boxes that need to be ticked and security policies that need to be implemented.
Then you get onto a company's own IT company who is doing my job for that company. So instead of, like, basically I go to that IT company and go, OK, basically what you're going to do from here is you're going to do X, Y, and Z.
You're going to install this, then you're going to install this, and then you can run this. And they go and do that for the hundred people that work for that company.
And then you get a phone call from a worker in that company later on. And what they've actually done is they've bypassed two of your security protocols in order to make it convenient for the staff.
And you end up sitting there having a heart attack going, oh, no, no, no, you can't, no, you can't, no, you can't do that.
And the fact that it's an IT company that have done that, you kind of sit there and you go, why are you paying them lots of money to look after your data when they're not looking after your data?
I mean, yeah, that usually happens when you have, like, out of house IT. Yeah. When all the companies hire another company to do your IT for you. They're not invested. I mean, financially they are.
But they're not investing your data. They don't care about your data. All they care about is you're paying them at the end of the day. Yeah. So that's my problem with every single company.
It's at a point where.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to put it. Just the fact that you.
Nobody's looking after the other person's good or interest. It's all.
It's a lot. It's just the bottom line. It's just. Yeah.
And I guess that's the thing that just kind of annoys me and doesn't surprise me that there's a lot of negligence when it comes to other people's data and other people's being.
Yeah, just.
Oh, sorry. You know, I don't know where I. Yeah, I could quite easily get quite angry. It's probably written somewhere in a contract that you have to care. But I mean, who reads the fine print?
Oh, exactly. And on the topic of fine print, have you watched much of Black Mirror?
I don't. I'm going to be honest with you, Nick. I don't watch TV, mate. You don't watch TV? No, I haven't got the attention span for it.
I have a friend of my. So several of my more intelligent and discerning friends. I don't believe that for a second. James are massively into Black Mirror.
However, I will admit I have seen one episode. It was an episode which was a parody of Star Trek.
I watched it because there was an element of it that was a parody of Star Trek. And as a result of that, I. Yeah. As a result of that, I watched it.
You know, like, but I have heard, to be fair, I've been put off the first episode because I've had the plot explained to me in depth and my mates have gone into just how good it is and why it's so great.
And it's just like there are some episodes that are better than others. But I will say that Black Mirror is fantastic. It's such a smart show.
It's such a smart show is what I've heard. But one episode that I want to really go over is an episode which I'm pretty sure if the viewers of the listeners have watched any Black Mirror, they'll be sitting there shouting the name of the episode out already.
It's called Joan is Awful. And essentially, this woman works for a corporation. All you see is this woman starts her day, goes to work as normal, sits down at her desk, has to fire someone as you would expect to happen in her role in the company,
fires this person, gets a text message from an ex-boyfriend and goes home to her husband after meeting up with her ex-boyfriend for a drink, ends up kissing him, regrets everything, goes home to her boyfriend.
And then is sat there with her current partner watching TV and her life starts playing to her on the TV. And basically it's AI generated footage because she'd ticked the terms and conditions inside the 400 page terms and conditions
and the point was that this company, which is just a rebranded Netflix, should we say, has the right to then use her life's happenings as footage, as episodes.
And it makes it more personal and it makes people more engaged and that's their idea behind it. But she's got no right to go and turn it off.
And as much as the episode goes a bit further than that, the ground of it is people don't read the terms and conditions of a lot of things. They just click away, type, oh yeah I'm fine with that, click bang, that's it done.
And the terms and conditions, I mean I've heard tell that anything that you put on Facebook or any Facebook owned application is property thereof Facebook.
As soon as you put it on there, it's no longer your photo anymore, it's no longer your post anymore, it is Facebook's data.
And your phone listens to you because you tell it it can do that and it listens to you and then gives you adverts based on what it can hear of you.
And you're like, that's eavesdropping. If you're listening to me to give me adverts, then what else are you listening to me for?
If when I post this picture online, it's no longer my data, it's no longer my picture, then who owns it? Where's it going from there? Because I no longer have control of that, that's now somebody else's.
And that can be used again and again and again, willy nilly by these companies. And it really does bring that home and I think that's what they were going for when they made that episode of Black Mirror.
It was like, be careful what you're doing as much as nobody ever does. Please be careful. It's not all just a given that they get a look after you.
Somebody might actually go, you know, we're not going to. We're going to use our rights to completely do the opposite of look after you and make loads of money off of you.
I will be honest with you. If you look back through human history, our, you know, our records of looking after the other isn't great.
Just generally, I realize that's like saying the sky is blue, but I don't know what you're talking about. Jesus Christ literally, I literally came to earth, told us how to live good lives.
And we, we nailed him to the cross. I mean, I don't know what you're talking about.
I mean,
Yeah, yeah.
In a nutshell,
I wonder about how much does our phone actually here.
Because, you know, like, am I going to be, for example, am I going to go to the toilet, come out and then have it say, oh, we noticed that your P cycle is slightly longer than average or slightly shorter than average.
Have you thought about being tested for diabetes?
You know, eventually, probably.
Eventually, yeah, yeah.
Eventually, there's all sorts of stuff in the pipeline. I mean, that was one of the things I was going to, I was going to mention Nick about your phone always listening.
I watched a, I watched a video of someone.
It was on YouTube. So take with that with a pinch of salt.
But the gentleman unpacked a brand new phone straight out of the box.
He signed into it with his brand new Google account, put on his desk and then started going on about how he really needs to go out and buy a new toy for his nephew.
He really wants a new toy.
He likes the color blue. It would be really good if I had some blue toys.
And I continued as such for about five minutes and then just went on to Google and just searched through and flicked his like finger.
And no doubt there was toys, kids toys, and there was specifically blue toys and things were angled towards like what young boys buy your nephew.
It was a brand new phone on a brand new Google account.
And it found it because it's always listening.
There's always stuff going on. I mean, no doubt, probably because we've mentioned before about recording this podcast, my phone's probably picked it up.
I'm going to get target adverts for a nice brand new Yeti snowball microphone and a nice pop filter and all these sorts of things, because that's what people who record podcasts usually have.
So it's probably already in the pipeline.
It's probably saved on my Google profile in some big database in San Francisco, wherever Google is located nowadays, that I recorded a podcast once.
That exact scenario is the reason I deleted Facebook off of my phone.
I was talking to my partner about Christmas presents and mentioned a specific toy store, went on my phone, opened up Facebook.
You know, that typical mindless scrolling that you do whilst you're conversing with people.
I opened Facebook and the first advert right in front of me was this toy store and I was like, no, no, I'm done.
I just deleted Facebook there and then was like, no, you're not doing that.
But my phone still does. Google still throws things at me that I've been talking about.
And I'm like, no, no, I don't want you doing that.
If you go onto a website, accept cookies, it's effectively saying we're OK to do targeted stuff and we're OK to do this sort of style thing.
So it's all recorded somewhere. It's not just Facebook.
Obviously, Facebook is owned by what they call Meta and that's a group.
Google's own thing. So they've all got separate brands and pretty cool separate databases.
If they decide to share that data, it's probably unlikely. But you know, just because Google's got something on you doesn't mean Facebook has.
But, you know, on to sort of Facebook as well.
What do you think, Nick and James, about when you go for a job interview and they scroll through your socials and try and find out if you're a maniac or something?
Do you think that's a bit creepy?
I mean, they'd be disappointed online because I haven't posted anything on Facebook or Instagram in about three years, four years.
So I don't exist as far as social networking goes at the moment.
I mean, I think people have a right to privacy and I think that people should be allowed to go out.
And if they want, take photos of of having a nice time and not have to worry about like, I guess the.
I mean, it's a public if you post it on a public domain, expect a public response.
This is something that a friend of mine constantly know that's not fair. Often talks about.
And it's but he uses it.
No, I'm going to stop myself there because that's also right.
Specifically to do with this. Fine. Short answer. Short answer, Adam.
Yes, that's fucking creepy. I don't think they should be allowed to do it.
I don't think that I think that it's a tool that happens nowadays.
And as we are all applying for jobs in separate towns, separate places, a lot of stuff's online now.
There's too many people to police.
We've got too many physical walls in place and everybody's got too much, too much space, too much stuff, too much privacy.
So, of course, companies have found ways of looking around that and people who want extra information have have found ways around that.
It just annoys me, though, that even even in that situation, it's not going to be the best person who gets the job.
It will be the person who covers their tracks the best. Exactly.
I mean, the way that I thought about the whole situation is Nick, imagine you're applying for a job and you sit down and the interviewer brings out a tattered book and you look over and you see Nick Thorpe Year 2.
And they flick through and go, so Mr Thorpe, it says here you think Rolf Harris was a good man.
Sorry, we don't like paedophiles here. And then you don't get the job based on that.
It's very similar to how people who go for your socials will be identifying it.
Yeah, there's definitely two sides to the story, though, isn't there?
Like if the tool exists, then people are going to use it.
The only thing I'll say is, like, is there any really is there really any need to post it in the first place?
If you're worried, if you're concerned that it might be used, then why are you posting it in the first place?
Exactly. If you're posting pictures of yourself, you know, tattooing swastikas on people and, you know, going to KKK marches and stuff, you're probably not a very nice human anyway.
And they'll probably gather that through the interview. Yeah.
But, you know, but when I was younger and I was 10, 20 years ago and I posted, I thought the prime minister was a bit of a twat. Well, then why should that then prevent me from getting a job further down the line in politics?
Is the company owned by the prime minister?
Yeah, it's not it's not personal. But yes, you know, it's it's one of those things where it's why should, you know, 2010 Adam be punished?
So why should 2023 Adam because of 20s? Yes, yes, sorry. It's all good. So good. You can't go back in time and punch Adam in the face.
Yeah, I mean, sometimes I wish you could.
Well done. You have you avoided a James kind of conversation.
But yeah, you know, it's just it's really, really creepy and just there is just no privacy.
Let's say if you put something in a public domain, it is now public. That information is free to use.
You know, you don't you don't have people come around your house when you start the Facebook reading your Miranda rights. You know, you have the right to remain silent. It's like, well, no, I'm going to post these pictures of my holiday in Magaluf. Thank you very much.
But it's just so creepy.
Just like the idea of some middle aged woman going through my social media from 2010 2012 when I was but a mere child. Yeah. And being targeted like that because I had different opinions.
And obviously, you know, we grow as people, you know, 13 years ago, I probably believed and did some stupid things that I probably wouldn't do nowadays.
So, you know, that shouldn't really impact me getting a job. No, no, you're right. You're right. But like I said, if the tool exists, if the ability to use it exists.
What you don't get from people is what you don't necessarily get from everybody is an upfront, honest display of who this person is. What you get is their their their performed, auditioned, predefined version of themselves that they want the employee, the employer to know.
So being able to have that that unfiltered perspective of a perspective employee, it probably does help from a from an employer's perspective.
But it probably does really help to ensure that what you're getting is what you want. You know, exactly.
You know, I used to work in McDonald's when I was younger and I had a customer voice. It wasn't this sultry tone that you hear now.
It was very much my sexy customer service phone voice.
And I always used to get commented when I used to be like in the office or something. I have a talking like a mouth like a drunken sailor. And as soon as I walk out, oh, hello there. How could I help?
And, you know, if you don't do those sort of background searches, it's why people do the criminal searches and check your criminal records because you're not going to be upfront about that in the interview.
Yeah. Oh, by the way, a couple of years ago, I was done for assault on a minor. But can I come work at this school?
You know, it's not going to, you know, you know, be upfront about that in your interview. So he did still want nothing.
Yeah. He did call me a really bad word. So I might have ripped his fucking throat out, you know.
You know, you're not if you're not forthcoming with that information, they're going to have to find it from somewhere.
You know, I agree that, you know, if there's a tool about there, you know, is this person a creep dot com?
You type someone's name in and you get to get an answer, you know, it exists. People only use it, aren't they?
Yeah, that's annoying as well, because imagine you type in your own name.
It's like, oh, this person is a creep. No, I would not want a website that defines because I have got I've rubbed up.
I've rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. I'm pretty sure I would have many minus karma points on whatever website that would be.
Have you heard of this website? I think it's have I been pwned or have you been pwned?
No, you go onto this website, you type your email address in and it searches for anywhere that your emails listed with their password.
And so it's like these public facing websites that are like, oh, by the way,
this email address and its password was released on these this many websites and this many databases.
And it would let you know what the password that they found is. Obviously, other websites are available.
But you advertise it. Yeah, apparently so.
But the amount of times I used to go on one of these websites when I was younger and I typed in my email address thinking I'm really clever.
Nothing. Oh, wait, that's my password. Oh, oh, shit. OK.
And I have to change it myself because reverse, reverse. Yeah, exactly.
You know, speaking of sort of self worth and stuff, do you know how much your data costs?
If you were to give your sort of basic data a price.
Well, I know I don't get I don't get anything personally from my data, which I think is completely backwards.
I think if people are making millions and millions of pounds of my data, then I should be entitled to some kind of royalty.
Right. I mean, you'd like to think so.
But, you know, say I was I was a humble hacker and I managed to make a little a little part profile that had your name, your address, your sexual orientation and all this sort of stuff.
Do you know how much that would that would cost? No. How much someone would buy that information for? No.
Four pounds fifty. James, you pride yourself a bit more, sir. The average cost for a person in our demographic in America as of November twenty twenty is about eleven cents.
Get out of town. I should be worth at least one cent of that.
I'd like to spend more money. Yeah, it's. I'm in some. I don't mind. It's that cheap.
It is what it is. People are going to use my data as soon as I put it online. They're going to use it, but at least show me some recognition.
Yeah, but you know, it's it's it's just people.
This is just your average cost of data. Obviously, it's more for younger people because that's a higher demographic.
You know, I'm going to start again. I am insulted.
It's because they've got more of a future to ruin, isn't it? Pretty much.
You know, I am going to I've decided I'm going to start anything that I'm going to post online.
What we're first going to do is I'm going to print it off, put it in an envelope and send it to myself.
So I can prove that I created it. It's copyrighted.
You know, I've got rights to that. You are your own person. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I can post it online and anybody making money off that, I can take up the call.
Now, it'd be nice. It'd be nice if we could do that.
But yeah, so according to this this government website, I think that she wasn't a government website.
I was a lie. But according to this website, aged 18 to 24, your average cost of data per person is 36 cents
because you're a bit more of a higher demographic.
Obviously, people don't want to buy one person's data, usually the database for the thousands.
You know, if you take that into account, someone sells a database with a thousand names on it.
You know, that's three hundred and sixty dollars just for that one one bit of database, which sounds all right.
But if you narrow it down per person, it's only 36 cents.
And then you knock royalties off. Yeah. Yeah.
Once I get paid for it as well.
Twenty five to thirty four is about 11 cents. Thirty five to forty four. It's 12 cents. Forty five to fifty four is twenty seven cents.
And fifty five plus is five cents. Hold on. So I'm twelve cents.
You undervalued me. Oh, sorry. I forgot you were an old man.
So yeah, you're twelve cents.
It spikes up to forty five to fifty four. I presume that's because the more vulnerable adult to really, really old and vulnerable people.
So fifty five plus, they're really cheap, probably because they're so easy to give their information away.
It's not that hard.
You know, is it really their data if they can't remember anymore?
Exactly. That was a bit harsh.
I'm sorry. That was so heartless.
But then that's for like basic data. Yeah. You know, that sort of basic PII.
Do you know how much in America your full health care records would cost someone?
A telegram. James, any idea?
I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, your full health records like that's that's quite a big deal. That's not just.
Hi, my name is James. I'm from this town. Yeah.
You know, like that we're talking blood type. We're talking any. Yeah.
And stuff. Yeah.
And if you were to put a monetary value on that.
Obviously, if you were selling, you'd obviously mark it up, but these are people that you see that's where I went wrong. I was selling.
So, OK, honestly, OK, I would say that's worth at least thirty nine pounds.
Ninety nine. James, you're undercutting yourself.
Maybe it's not a lot on your health care record in America.
The average health care record would cost someone about two hundred and fifty dollars.
It's really weird. So like basic information is twelve cents.
Yeah. And but full to learn about my boneitis, it's going to cost you two hundred and fifty dollars.
Yeah, obviously, you know, but it's not necessary for malicious means.
You know, that's people that then they can get a better demographic of people and, you know, see, oh, well, maybe we'd do some more targeted ads based on this because this many people have got this element.
And, you know, those sorts of things. But something else will shock you.
Do you know how much it is for car details?
So for someone to steal and sell your credit card details, does it does it does the balance on the account come into account?
It does. But on average. OK. OK. Well, mine's five hundred.
Dollar. James has got a lot of money.
He's loaded.
High credit limit.
No, it's a divide that by a factor of 10, James.
It's about a factor of 100. Sorry.
Five pounds for five dollars forty.
Get your car details. Again, two hundred and fifty pounds for medical records.
Which. Yeah. OK. So two hundred.
And is this just the difficulty of the information to get most likely?
Yeah, because you would probably have to target someone specifically to get their health care records.
But if you're getting payment details, you know, you get onto a website, you get into a database, you can have thousands of people's accounts for that.
You know, the ease of access of them, because they're all going to be in the same place just on the different names.
So criminal record data must be worth a bomb.
Probably on that in sort of those guards. I don't have the number in front of me.
Although to be fair, you just browse Facebook for that kind of data, don't you?
Exactly. Yeah, because the people post it up in jail again.
But yeah, you know, it's just it's just you can put a price on how much someone is, you know, same way you go.
So it cost me an arm and a leg and get all thirty four pound fifty, you know, because that's how much probably an arm and leg costs.
You know, I hope when I go for bionic arms and legs, that's how much they cost.
Oh, no, that's what I'm like on ice on ice.
The annoying thing here is, though, you've got to then like you've got to have the fridge or no, sorry, freezer.
Most definitely freezer ready. You know, like that, that's good. That's a lot of room.
I feel like we're overthinking this.
Probably not start a business.
All right. Yes.
You know, it's got to think about these things like like costing an arm and a leg like what is someone going to do an arm and a leg with?
Like if you look at what money needs to be like, it needs to it needs to be sustainable.
It needs to have the same value to everyone. It needs to be transportable.
It needs to not spoil arm and a leg doesn't do that anyway.
Sorry. Moving on. Yeah, I'd say it's just sort of.
It's just crazy. You know, people go for all this effort to, you know, hack websites and get into databases and people leaving passwords unattended.
And laptops are encrypted and, you know, things like that.
And at the end of it, you're not worth much in the grand scheme of things, you know, monetary wise.
Obviously, you know, we're all just small cogs in the one big machine of life.
And I still want royalties. I don't care.
I say not that I'm trying to discourage people from bothering to, you know, look after your stuff because see, you know, all bit your, you know, one cog in machine of life, your cog is very special to you.
So, you know, people should take a bit more care in in their own personal well-being as well as, you know, your online presence, your data footprint.
So it would be. But, you know, it's just your data is worth a lot more to you than it is to other people.
So maybe people should take a bit more care in looking after their own data.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And not just other people's data, not just your data, but everybody else's.
If you're in a position where you are like yourself, you work for a company that has a database of names, numbers, accounts, etc, etc.
You know, you obviously yourself, you pride yourself on being astute and careful when it comes to how you manage that data and how you protect that data yourself.
Like, please, please do that yourselves, guys. Like, take the steps, like protect other people's data, probably more than you protect your own data because it's not yours.
That sounds really pathetic, but yeah, it's exactly what I mean. It's not yours. Be careful.
Yeah, do a lot more damage with git go missing than.
Anyway, have you got any more there, James? Adam?
That's sort of the end of my notes, gents.
No worries. So I thought it being a special, it being 10 episodes in, we could have a little bit of fun.
And I drew up 10 questions that I've got based on this topic, which I'm going to pitch to you guys and then you guys can kind of confer and see if you can come up with the answers to the question yourselves and then throw it my way, alright?
Sound good? Do our best job. No worries. I will definitely do my best. And obviously listeners. I will get distracted though.
See, you do yourself. It's just in my nation. No problem. It's kind of why I've started now, to be fair.
So these are all topics around, centered around technology. Doesn't necessarily mean computers.
It is technology and it's a broad spectrum.
Okay. And also these questions were written by an autistic bloke. So I'm sorry.
Before we get started. Alright, I'm sorry. But have a bit of fun, alright?
So I'm going to start with question one. Alright, so question one. Which two blockbuster movie franchises based around technology and its ability to control humanity are linked both by creator and by its law?
Now you see, I don't watch films. So, sort of two major blockbuster films.
Franchises. I will say franchises. You've got to be careful with that one.
Okay. Any ideas, James? You're a film person than me.
It's not a Maze Runner and the Hunger Games, is it?
No, not in this instance.
I'm assuming it's probably Matrix.
Okay.
Mixed with something else.
Is the Matrix one of them? Because that one is, I guess, is the obvious one.
I will say that. It is, yes, the Matrix.
Is Black Mirror made by the same people?
No, no. They are movie franchises. I will say this.
The annoying thing here is you said it's law, which I know means its thing, but unfortunately that had me immediately going to the laws of robotics, which made me then think of iRobot.
But that's written by Isaac Asimov, a writer from the 1950s who I'm pretty sure is now dead. So it's not the same thing.
Do you mean law as in the LAW law?
L-O-R-E.
Oh, the bank. Okay. So something that goes along with the Matrix. Now, I don't want to trouble your listeners for too much longer. I was just rambling about movies because I have no idea.
I wasn't aware of any spin off to the Matrix series other than the Animatrix series. As a matter of fact, it came before.
Get out of town.
Is it Terminator?
Absolutely.
No. No. Get the fudge out of town.
Look it up, right? Look it up.
Really? That was made by the same people?
Sophia Stewart created the Terminator and the Matrix. And they are linked.
You think of Terminator as the birth of the machine taking control over humanity and the Matrix as humanity taking back control from the machine.
There's so much more to it as well. There's hints of religion in there as well.
Well, in the Matrix and in the Animatrix, they often... yeah, the references are left, right and centre.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I thought that was absolutely unbelievable when I found out. So I had to put that in.
I mean, I'm really disappointed now that somewhere in the Matrix there's not people trying to watch TV and then it turns out that there's just a flame inside the TV.
No? Not getting that reference?
Not getting that reference. No, no.
It's fine. It's in the starting... it's in the starting... it's in the starting... scenes of the Terminator where it's trying to set up the world as an incredibly negative...
I thought you were referencing the IT crowd, James.
No, that in turn was referencing Terminator in its own way.
And walk away.
My pop culture reference is that it goes far back as the IT crowd.
I mean, what a show.
I mean, they even had the internet on there. The internet.
Well, they got the pass from the hawks.
Yeah, from London Bridge. Yeah, absolutely.
OK, question two. Question two. Well done, guys. That was not an easy one. I'll say that.
Question two. So you'll probably get this straight off the cuff.
But ChatGPT is an active learning language model system. Which AI software is used as its base and which release is it currently on?
Well, I know it's 3.5.
I was going to say 3.
No, no, no. Their premium version is four. But their current base, freemium, freemium.
Yeah, that's a word. Their version is 3.5.
If it's not patented.
But you say what language is it built on, do you say?
Which AI software is used as its base?
Oh, goodness. I think I knew this one.
I mean, I'm not going to, you know, beat around the bush. As a man who uses IT a lot, ChatGPT is very good.
It answers a lot of questions that I need answers to sometimes.
In ways that your employee actually believes it to you too.
Oh, exactly. Exactly. All the compliments.
I don't know on that one.
OK, sorry. So the question is, what's its point and then what is it based off of?
So what release is it on? What release is it on?
OK, I'll just say free, even though I know that that's wrong based from what Adam said.
Well, you've already given a later release, haven't you?
You've already both identified that there's a later release to ChatGPT.
OK, so I guess we'll say for I don't know what it's based off of.
Open AI.
OK.
Open AI, ChatGPT 4.
So well done. You got half a point for that one. For GPT 4.
Does that mean we're currently beating your missus?
Yes, she got one.
Not in the literal sense, ladies and gentlemen.
Like Nick would have totally...
I'll let her know that you're on the way to go and beat my missus.
Well, I'm certain you would have broken both my arms already. Anyway, moving on.
Don't make your own domestic violence here.
No, we do not, ladies and gentlemen.
In iRobot, there are three laws which govern the behavior of sentient robots. What are they?
The first rule of robotics is that robots aren't allowed to harm humans.
The second rule of robotics is that they are not allowed to harm other robots.
And I think the third law of robotics is that they can't harm themselves.
The annoying thing is each of the laws has a precedent.
And I find it in all of the original iRobot books, which my dad did.
You know, he made an effort. I wasn't a very sociable child. I wasn't an easy child to get along with.
If he tried to introduce these theories to me way before the Will Smith film, looks at what happens if you play around with those laws.
So in one of the stories, they lower or they heighten the...
Oh, wait. No, no, no. Sorry.
It cannot harm humans, must obey humans, cannot cause an action that will cause harm to itself.
So sorry. It's harm humans, obey humans, cannot cause action that causes harm to itself.
I love it because in one of the books, they created this probe, which is supposed to go out into space, I think it is, and fly into this anomaly and do its best to scan it.
They heighten because it cost a lot of money and the people wanted their money back afterwards. They heightened the third law to the level of the second law, at which point the robot gets caught in a contradiction because it must obey humans in that it's got to go scan this thing.
Yet it also can't do anything that's going to cause harm to itself when it perceives danger.
So they go into a certain distance away from this anomaly where the data is still useless and then just circles it.
And then you've got the...
Yeah, you've then got like the iRobot the film from, was it 2010 or was it 2007?
Will Smith, yeah, yeah. It's one of those. I don't know dates. I don't know dates, but it's the Will Smith one.
Yeah, they looked at how what a machine does when it starts to question these laws, but then also comes up with its own interpretation of them.
So the problem in that film is that, sorry, I'm autistic myself occasionally I remember things I'm just remembering things now.
Vicky, sorry spoilers for the 2000 and something film.
Vicky understands that it can't do things which allow to cause harm to humans, but she realizes that
by allowing humans to live free and being subservient to them, she is in fact allowing harm to occur to humans.
Because of humans.
And so what she then tries to do is place herself in the head of governments.
Because in order to fulfill that first law.
Which we've discussed in the past, haven't we? You mentioned iRobot when I was discussing AI as leadership.
But it's fine. It's a brilliant set of books. I would recommend any of the iRobot series by Isaac Asimov.
Isaac Asimov was a science fiction writer. Weirdly enough, he wrote these books before the first computer was truly made.
Although you can argue that Ada Lovelace came up with the mathematical equations that made computers possible.
He came up with a lot of this stuff before science fiction had made it all possible.
Like loads of people have been scared of Iron Men or the idea of machine people.
Yeah, it's one reason why they made the robots look like robots, isn't it?
Yeah, but the thing that I really respect about Isaac Asimov is his use of satire as a...
You know what, sorry guys, moving on to the next question. I'm not sorry listeners. Apologies.
You're all good. The main point is that you've got the three laws.
Three laws, well done buddy. Well done. Fantastic.
So yeah, exactly that. A robot cannot harm a human or by its inaction allow a human to come to harm.
The second law is that a robot shall obey instructions given to it by a human unless that instruction contravenes the first law.
And the third law is that a robot shall avoid actions and situations that can cause it to come to harm itself
unless it contradicts with laws one and two.
That's it. That's exactly it.
There you go. Okay, so question four, going on a bit of a history lesson now.
So three artifacts were found in Iraq in 1936 which it is thought when used together could possibly form the earliest battery ever used.
What is it called?
The silence is beautiful.
Three artifacts found in Iraq.
Which it is thought that when used together they could possibly form the earliest battery ever used.
In Agamemnon's lemon jar. No.
It's probably something similar isn't it. It's going to be some form of saline liquid or something in a jar with two prongs that maybe the liquid held a charge, similarly to how you can power a light bulb with a lemon.
The Biden of weird twitching.
No, no, no. The actual name. You've got to think Iraq.
I don't want to.
The Babylonian.
No.
Modern day names for somewhere in Iraq.
The Baghdad battery.
There you go.
Oh my god I thought I was being horribly racist but I said it anyway.
No it's literally called the Baghdad battery.
They found a jar, a copper rod and an iron prong.
Which they believe if you put the two in the jar together with some lemon juice might create a battery.
And it was carbon dated from roughly between 200 and 300 AD.
I think that's just people trying to science things when things don't need to be science.
Yeah, yeah, that happens a lot. Here's another one.
The annoying thing is that genius isn't a modern thing.
It didn't start in, again apologies my listeners, we'll keep, yeah sorry, go with the next question.
You're fine. You really need to finish those thoughts next time though, James.
We're not bothered, you need to carry on.
You leave me with unanswered questions, man. I sit there after the podcast, laying in bed going, what was James going to say?
No you shouldn't, don't worry about my thoughts. But anyway, just yeah, let's go with these questions.
They're all sultry.
Okay question five. Christopher Dunn. Does anybody know who Christopher Dunn is?
Related to Christopher Dunn?
I was going to say isn't he related to Stephen Finished?
Okay, moving on. Christopher Dunn, who is an engineer who studied the Egyptian pyramids, wrote a book which explains his theory following 20 years of research.
In this book, what does he believe the pyramids actually are?
Is this the one where it's...
Is it a spaceship?
No.
Or is it some sort of antenna, like a satellite dish or something?
No. No. And believe it or not, his science is... it's spot on. You can see how he came to the conclusion that he came.
This has got to be semi sarcastic.
I can only think of sarcastic answers, yeah.
Is it the perfect triangle?
No, because it's not actually three-sided, it's not actually four-sided. It's eight-sided. The pyramids are eight-sided.
Oh, get out of town. They're eight-sided. No.
Yep.
Really?
Yep. Look it up. Look it up. And the mathematics on it are spot on.
Okay, so alright, then I change it. The perfect dodeca... no. The perfect octahedron.
No. The pyramids, he believes, were acoustical devices to generate power.
Wait, what?
I'm going to elaborate on this a little bit more, Nick.
Okay, so...
Wait, wait, wait. What kind of power? Are we talking electrical power?
Yeah.
No.
How?
There's two chambers. Lower chamber and upper chamber, okay?
Then they have a big corridor that goes up the side of the pyramid, which has steps, not steps, but like slots in, right?
Which he theorises would have held resonators of some description. Something that would cause a resonation if hit with the right frequency, should we say.
And that in turn would generate power. Now, into, if you think about the Great Pyramid of Giza, Khufu's pyramid, there is actually, into the king's chamber as it's labelled, there is actually two shafts which go out to the surface, right?
And in each of those shafts they found traces of different materials, like sulphuric acid. And what they hypothesise is that it was actually like a big chemical cooking pot that you just pour certain materials into those two slots.
And then as they go into the king's chamber, and then it mixes together, and it forms such a like, vibrator-like, such an explosion in that area, because it's so solid in stone around it, because it's tonnes and tonnes of stone.
It doesn't just blow out, it creates an explosion within itself that then causes these resonators to vibrate and then generate electricity.
And then finally it's formed a combustion engine, is what they theorised it was.
Yeah, well that's what Christopher Dunn theorises it is. And like I said, if you actually look into his theory, there's a lot of sense there, it makes a hell of a lot of sense.
So I'm not one to sit and go, oh yeah, it's absolute bollocks, like ancient Egypt was built by X, Y and Z and this is Y. But you can't rule it out, calm down, calm down.
You can't rule it out. Likewise, I'm not going to rule out that it was built by aliens either, I wasn't there, I'm not going to know. What I do know is that it certainly wasn't built by hundreds and thousands of Jews dragging stones up on logs.
Especially the weight of the stones that they were dragging up. It doesn't make sense, the mass doesn't make sense, none of it makes sense, so it's got to be something else.
And Christopher Dunn's theory is reasonably fantastic.
I'm really sorry, which is, no, no, no, no, I will say this, sorry, I'm sticking to my original theory so far, and I probably will abandon it at one point, but I still reckon it's just that they lied in their history books.
The Egyptians? Yeah. The Egyptians didn't, they themselves tell us in their own hieroglyphics that they inherited the pyramids and the Sphinx, they didn't build it.
Wait, get out of town, really? Yep.
And yet, Egyptologists will throw that theory straight out a window because, well, it doesn't ring true with what they want to believe, so don't.
But then, you can't hold that against them, there's talk of, who's the guy who said Eureka, was that Archimedes?
The great guy in the bath, who, was it Pythagoras? Pythagoras possibly, yeah, either that or Plato.
Okay, the guy, the guy's, okay, so like, did you know that? Well Pythagoras was educated in Egypt, wasn't he? He was educated in the great library of Alexandra, so most of his knowledge came from Egypt.
Well, it's interesting that like, people die for all kinds of views all the time. I realize we're going off topic and I apologize to listeners, but bear with me.
I love going off topic, let's do it more.
Right, okay, great. So, somebody, so Pythagoras, we're going to say Pythagoras. Pythagoras' cult believed that there was no such thing as an irrational number.
A student came up with an equation that proved that irrational numbers do exist. Do you think that Pythagoras thanked the man for extending his knowledge and for disproving the theories that have come before?
No, because that's not how people like that work.
Yeah.
He would have had him killed.
That's exactly what he did. He had him drowned in that bath. No, I'm not even kidding you guys, that is a horrible historical fact.
That's reality, isn't it?
Archimedes, there we go.
That's reality, isn't it? That is, people are threatened by it. If you feel threatened by it, kill it. I mean, I was in Australia.
I mean, that is how I act with spiders.
I was in Australia and a redback came walking across the decking towards me and I stamped on it.
That is entirely, yeah, that's the feature.
It's instinctual, you know? That is the fifth or sixth most poisonous spider in the world.
I felt threatened by it. It was tiny. It was probably no bigger than my little toe.
But it's now dead and I will tell you this, the twenty minutes that followed, I was almost silverback gorilla-esque, beating my chest.
I am man. Me, man, kill, big, scary spider.
I crushed it under my manly boot.
Yeah, you might be so powerful, you might be so venomous, but can't handle a size ten.
Fantastic. What's the next question?
Okay, moving on. Okay, number six. The guidance computer built to land on the moon in Apollo 11 was the size of a shoebox at sixty centimeters by fifteen centimeters and weighed thirty kilos.
However, can you tell me what its storage capacity was?
Oh, it's something stupid. I know. It's something smaller than the memory card for a PS2. It was like sixty four kilobits.
Oh, you know what? I'm going to give you that.
Based on like, this is like fixed memory, so this is like hard disk space.
I can also tell you what RAM, unless you can tell me what RAM it had.
I might have got confused with RAM and hard disk space.
No, no, no, no. Seventy four kilobytes is the fixed memory, is the hard disk space. Seventy four kilobytes.
What, what, can you tell me how many, how much RAM it had?
Yeah, eight bit.
It's probably less than that. Obviously, so it's probably like, five kilobits.
It wasn't eight bit, it was four kilobits.
Of course it was.
Four kilobits.
A little bit off, a little bit off.
Yeah, no doubt that four kilobytes came on sixteen sticks that were half the size of the entire machine.
Probably.
It's just amazing that how much that sort of data storage has grown exponentially.
Yeah.
Even when, you know, during the lockdown when people were obviously upgrading their machines and prices were stupidly expensive for like any sort of computer parts.
Yeah.
You were looking at like, I mean, an arbitrary number about 200 pound for like a terabyte of storage.
And now I can find a flash drive that's got like a terabyte of data storage on it for like 30 quid.
Yeah.
It's just, you know, flash memory is just so, the technology in it is so advanced nowadays that it can just be fitted into a thumb drive.
Well the thing is, when during lockdown everybody wanted to upgrade their machines, but of course Micron and other companies that were making the chips were closed.
Yeah, because there was a silicon shortage as well.
There was a silicon shortage, the factories were shut, like nobody was making the chips anymore and everybody wanted to buy them.
And it was like, need, isn't it, demand increases value.
Exactly. And there was lack of supply and demand went skyrocketed.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it was, it was Nvidia that did their 30 series release, mid global pandemic.
And I was like, hey guys, this is going to cost you 260 pounds. And I was like, that's great.
Yeah, add a zero on the end.
They sold out in minutes.
And all the scalpers, like you say, bashed a zero on the end.
I think you know it, because I think I bought, you from, I think CEX, I think I bought it, I bought like a really cheap graphics card because my other one blew up.
And I bought that for like 20 quid just because I needed something.
And then during lockdown I sold that same graphics card for like 120 pounds.
Yeah, yeah.
See, I wanted a 3080 and I built a new machine, unluckily for me, the Christmas before lockdown.
Right. But what I did was I went, right, processor, RAM, solid state drive, case.
I've got a 1060, I'll leave that in it for now. When they release the 30 series, I will get a 30 series. I'll get a 3080.
Sound logic, normal climate, that's sound logic, you know.
Yeah.
And then it comes around to the release when mid lockdown.
And I'm like, I can't get it, I can't get it from anywhere.
And when you look on eBay and things like that, they're selling for two and a half thousand pounds.
Yeah, for the base model as well.
Yeah, that's not for one of the four win threes or anything like that. It's literally.
For a 3060, four gigs of VRAM, bog standard, Bob's your uncle, RRP on them for like 180 quid.
I ended up sticking with the 1060 for another six months and eventually ended up buying a 3070, which still cost me 700 pounds when I got it.
RRP on a 3070 is about five quid.
Yeah, I waited mine out and I think I ended up getting my 3070 for about 380.
I think during like the period of time where we were told to go out, but not go out, but go to a restaurant, but stay indoors.
Which of course you listened to because you bought a graphics card.
No, I ordered it online. I'm not crazy.
No, I meant you definitely, definitely, definitely went out with when you've got a brand new graphics card in your machine at home.
Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I went out to all the restaurants.
Yeah.
Yeah, cooking simulator. Amazing.
Contributed to all the spread of covid from the comfort of your own living room.
Exactly. I was one of the good boys.
I worked in care, so I actively contributed to the spread of covid without having any choice in the matter.
It was either that, like it was either I spread covid or my family don't eat. So what are you going to do?
Anyway, moving on. Let's move on, shall we?
Question seven. Can you tell me who designed the first television in 1925?
Sounds like a James fact to me.
I'm really sorry. No.
Was it Arthur Television?
No, he only invented half of it.
Just the antenna.
Oh, that was Tony, wasn't it?
Anyway.
Who designed the first television?
In 1925. He patented it in 1922.
No, he started playing with it, but he managed to come up with his idea in 1922, patented it in 1923,
and then managed to get his first working television in 1925.
Was it Bruce Forsythe?
You'd think so.
No, that's why he set up his own career. Love it. I love it. I'm sorry. I know it's not true, but I want it to be.
I'm afraid it's not. I'm going to go back and rewrite the history books.
He just got tired of dancing door to door, like walking, walking up to a thing, knocking on the door.
Hi there. I'm a multi entertainer. Can I come into your house?
He wouldn't go door to door. He'd go to a tower block.
Because then he'd go higher or lower.
You're right. He was moving up in the world.
Right. Sorry. Okay. Next question.
We're moving on without the answer now, aren't we James?
I'm sorry.
The name is going to sound so...
Yeah, we're done. We don't need the answer. It was Bruce Forsythe. We're done.
No, it was a bloke called John Logie Baird.
Now, I don't know you. This is an interesting fact. I don't know if you know, but in Hastings, there is a Wetherspoons pub called the John Logie Baird.
Do you know why?
Was it the first pub or the first building to have a television?
No. No, it's because John Logie Baird lived in Bexhill.
Didn't know that.
Is it because his descendant of his lived there or it was...
It's literally just because John Logie Baird lived in Bexhill, just up the road from Hastings.
To be fair, that makes sense.
Wetherspoons kind of do this thing, don't they? Where they're like, oh, we'll throw a bit of an homage to this or that in our pub name or whatever.
Absolutely. For example...
Yeah, you know what? How much information do we give out here?
Ah, you know what? That's a conversation I should have had beforehand.
But yeah, you do see it all over the place. You're right. They'll name it after famous people from local areas.
In this instance, it was John Logie Baird.
OK, question eight. Which company produced the first commercially sold mobile phone?
It wasn't British Telecom, was it?
No.
Was it Motorola?
Hey, there he is.
Oh my god, well done. Very nicely done.
Can you give it a year? Give it a year? 2023, mate.
I don't like you sometimes.
Can I take a guess at the year?
Yeah, yeah.
All right, and is this commercially sold? Because mobile phones existed in the military previous to like their commercial selling.
No, this was commercially sold.
Right. 1978.
No.
Higher or lower?
Higher.
Does that mean it's older or newer?
Well, you didn't ask that, did you? You asked higher or lower.
That's another question. That's one of your lifelines already gone. You're going to have to phone a friend now.
OK, but Adam, guess because I can't hit multiple. I can't keep on guessing. It's just not fair.
Nineteen?
Nineteen. So, I mean, you see the big brick ones. I think that's probably what.
Yeah, the ones that had their own battery that you like carried it or the suitcase that you like.
Yeah, the suitcase for a gentleman.
So was that 70s? That doesn't seem like a 70s thing.
I thought there might be a slightly earlier one or that they released them earlier and then they became popular in the 80s when everyone decided to be a douche.
I don't know why they called it a mobile phone. It was more of a walkie talkie, let's face it.
It was, yeah.
There was only two people that bloody had them at the time, weren't there?
Well, yeah, but it made them both incredibly happy before they died.
Nope.
Lovely long chat. Nineteen eighty six.
Eighty four.
OK, split hairs.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to go over it. Lower, lower, let's go again.
Well, we do well.
Number nine. OK, the most commonly used piece of technology is the mobile phone.
How many are currently in use in the world? Sorry, I said that wrong.
In the world.
Pop gear, very nicely done.
Well, currently in use as in like actively being used for like, OK.
Obviously because you see these during like the Pokemon Go phase, there was that one Thai man from, I can't know if it was Thailand or if it was Vietnam or something.
I was going to say that one Thai man and then he went from and I was like, well, I'm guessing Thailand.
Yeah, but he was from he was from sort of the Southeast Asia.
He had a bike, you know, like the old Vespers that had like a thousand mirrors on them.
Yeah. But he attached the mobile phone to each one and then was driving around collecting the Pokemon and wherever he went, he caused a traffic jam on Google Maps.
And I need to be fair, like he did better than my mate did because he just hacked the program and sat in his bedroom and went everywhere.
Yeah, there is that. Anyway, sorry, mobile phones.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you did that in order to do Pokemon Go, you're a cheater.
Absolutely. We don't condone your action.
You're very, very smart. And I do tip of the hat to you, but it's a tip of the hat and then a fist shake.
Yeah. Mixed emotions on that one. Right. Sorry.
Yeah. Well, there's at least three.
Are those the ones that you can physically see in your house right now?
Well, there's mine, there's yours and there's Nick's.
Oh, that's true.
So there's a little bit more than three, I suppose.
I'm using a computer to do this. I'm doing Discord on my computer.
I mean, I'm not on my phone, James. It might sound like it with this horrible headset, but I'm not on my phone.
OK.
There's probably as many mobile phones as there are humans.
How many humans are there then?
Well, that's a different question.
Well, no, it's a process of elimination, isn't it? Because then you've got to take away the infirm and children.
I mean, children have mobile phones nowadays, don't they?
OK. Infants.
Infants. Infants have mobile phones.
We're probably in millions, aren't we?
Are we talking in the UK now?
OK, fine. I'm just going to guess a number, OK?
Go. Yeah.
Two hundred million.
The drop in the ocean.
God damn.
OK, so, Wig, I'm going to guess.
The 8-bit on the moon landing computer all over again.
Yep.
A hundred billion.
Now, that is ridiculous.
You would do it better if you went along the lines of trying to work out the populace of the world, man.
You'd have got a better answer.
There are eight billion people on the Earth, OK?
And each one has a million phones each.
You take away everybody's now, alright?
And your youngest niece?
So it's a little bit shy of eight then.
So it's probably what, like six or maybe five?
Six point eight four billion mobile phones in use in the world right now.
And they wonder why cancer's so rough.
And the silence.
Cool. Alright, you know what?
The joke I made earlier was going to talk about cancer,
but I don't know if any of our listeners have loved ones who are suffering with that and it's a horrible condition.
It is a horrible condition. Absolutely horrible condition.
There is hypothesis that 5G and 4G and all the rest of it causes it.
Who's to know?
There's too much money being made off of these machines to actually get honest answers from companies,
so you're never really going to know, are you?
Question ten.
GPS revolutionized travel after its release in 1983 and further assisted the public by being combined with mobile phones and sat nav systems.
How many satellites are there which assist with GPS systems?
God damn it, I was really banking on you asking what does GPS stand for, which is Global Positioning System.
Okay.
Yeah, I don't actually know the answer to your question. Let's say 3000. There you go.
I mean there are a lot of satellites in the atmosphere, but there's not that many all localized around GPS.
Adam?
Well, because they have to triangulate things, don't they?
That's how it works.
It just means three, surely.
Yeah, it's about around three. I suppose if you think of a 3D object, there's going to be what, like five at the very least.
Okay, give me a number.
Err, 15.
Okay, okay. Reasonable. There are 38 total satellites that can help with sat nav and GPS.
Really? That few?
38, yep. However...
So if I have my flying monkeys fly into the upper atmosphere and shoot down like, yeah, a couple of those...
You're probably more likely to get a SpaceX one that's been listening in on conversations more than a GPS one.
Yeah, yeah.
No, 38, but it's actually like they have the capability of having 38 because there are 38 up there that have the capability, but they're actually only probably using 26.
That's really... I'm really honestly surprised it's that few.
Yeah, it's a lot fewer than I would have thought.
Okay, are we just bouncing signals? Is that how GPS works?
Yeah, absolutely.
So it is just that they're just mirrors in a way.
You send a packet from your phone and then that goes up to a satellite and then that gets bounced back to you.
Right, so it's just a ping test.
Yeah, essentially.
That's all how data is sent. It's all sent via packets. It pings from your phone up to a satellite.
If you've spoken to someone in the rough geographic location sheet, we back down the same satellite and then to that person's phone or that person's device.
Yeah.
And that's just generally how data transfer works in those sorts of things.
In GPS, obviously, it will send out to a couple of satellites.
Yeah, it will try to make the location.
It will properly triangulate your signal, yeah.
Okay, there you go.
So a few good answers, a few good answers. Better with the earlier ones, I think.
I kind of, like I said, the questions were written by an autistic bloke, so you were screwed from the start, guys.
But you know what it's like, James, you end up with such niche knowledge.
Unless you're looking at yourself in the mirror, nobody's going to get all your answers right, are they?
No, how did we do out of the ten?
I wasn't recording, but I can work it out. So you got the movies. So we'll go with two for that.
You got chat GPT-4, but you didn't get open AI, so we'll go with one for that.
iRobot, you got all three of the laws, so we'll go for three.
Three artifacts.
Thank you, because I got that on the second attempt, so if you wanted to be a dick, you could be like, I'm only going to give you two.
No, absolutely not. I mean, these questions were cryptic anyway, so let's be fair.
So you got Baghdagh battery, so let's go with one for that.
You didn't get a power plant for the pyramids.
I'll give you the fixed memory for the computer, but you didn't get the RAM.
You didn't get who designed the television. You did get the mobile phone.
You didn't get how many mobile phones exist, and you did get the satellites.
So we'll go with nine out of a possible 16.
More than half is all I can hope for in life.
Yeah, that was good. Well done. Some of them, you really surprised me.
I mean, some of them you literally guessworked the answer.
I'm pretty sure I remembered Adam showing out, is it Terminator?
In that voice.
You were like, it's an older film, older than The Matrix, I don't know, bloody Terminator.
Exactly, exactly. I mean, you don't buy a ticket, mate. You're never going to know.
But yeah, really good stuff, really good stuff. And you learn stuff at the same time, which is always good with a quiz.
We had fun on the way.
We had fun on the way. We didn't kill anyone because we're all sat in different rooms, which is...
And we didn't steal anyone's data.
We didn't steal...
And if you have...
I did, I made the quiz.
I suppose.
If you want to know who invented the TV, just go to Hastings and travel to Spoons, or look it up online.
Yep, as a matter of fact, if you go into the John Logie bed, they have his history on the wall.
I suppose I thought you were going to say they have a TV, but the sound's off.
Which is where I learn. It's where I learn. And Ken is another one, right? Here's one question for you.
Can you guess which one of the questions my partner got right?
Er... it wasn't randomly the three laws of robotics.
No, she's never watched iRobot.
Is it the first one about the movies?
No, no, she's not a movie buff.
Okay.
And she randomly guessed 38.
No, no, no, no.
Or does she really like the Egyptians and knows a lot about pyramids?
She doesn't. She doesn't. But she is with a bloke that is neurotically autistic about the Egyptians.
So yes, that's the question she got right.
Okay, because she'd heard you talk about it for a couple of hours.
Oh, those bloody Egyptians.
Badgering on about their bloody power plants. What's he like, eh?
You just can't shut him up sometimes. Sometimes I just put a cardboard cut out of myself in front of him and he just goes off by himself.
But I do have one more question for you both and I'm going to go individually to you. But my final question, and it is subjective, which is why I'm going like this, right?
What has been the most revolutionary technology developed by humanity?
I'm going to start with James.
Okay, so this is going to be controversial and possibly not.
Well, it's subjective. It's completely opinionated, isn't it? So feel free.
Okay, so all right, fine. All right, so I'm agreeing with Stephen Fry here. So I don't necessarily agree with everything.
But I think he made a very good point when he said the printing press was the most revolutionary thing at the time.
Not at the time, sorry. He believes that the printing press was the most revolutionary piece of technology throughout history because he can imagine a world without cars.
He can imagine a world without planes or any one individual thing.
He can't imagine a world without books and the printing press made the vast variety of books or the cheapness of books.
Interestingly, mine was books.
Just books in the holes and not the printing press, just the ability.
Exactly. But I mean, it ties in with yours. I mean, but the reasoning behind that for me is because humans are so forgetful.
And what books gave us was long term memory.
The ability to write stuff down.
Was extreme long term memory.
Yeah. Not everyone can be Jack Reacher.
No. Adam?
I was thinking along the lines, what's caused or what's helped along the way.
And so I was like maybe something along the lines of power and manufacturing of power.
So not necessarily like fossil fuels, but just in general electricity and storage of electricity.
We have to wait all the way until the 1800s for that.
Yeah. But like without power, a lot of modern day things wouldn't exist.
So my first thought was, oh, the internet was quite revolutionary.
But if we didn't have power, we wouldn't have computers.
And so we didn't have computers. So that sort of backwards compatibility and all that.
It would have been a completely different world if gas had continued to be the power of choice.
Yeah, exactly. Or just if we didn't develop power, what about light bulbs and lighting things up?
We'd still be using, as you say, gas candles and all sorts of other instruments.
Eventually, we're having problems at the moment with bees dying out.
If they keep taking their wax to make candles for everyone, they would have died out years ago.
Wait, is that the...? OK, yeah, that's it.
I can only see a minor flaw with that. I'm pretty sure their wax is a by-product.
So they don't really need it.
Yeah, but they would have been farmed relentlessly, though, wouldn't they?
If the only way we could really light up how homes and streets would have been through candles or torches.
We would have ended up farming cows a lot more.
We would have found things to burn.
Yeah, exactly. You just put 3,000 cows in a shed and then have a tube coming out the side and bottle up their farts.
The youths would have burned things, wouldn't they?
Maybe I'm going too far back here, but what if the most important invention is iron?
Invent? No, this is where I kind of go, because I did think about this.
I don't really think you can invent iron.
But the process, the manufacturing of iron...
Yeah, I understand that.
I guess the manufacturer... OK, fine, the conversion process from ore into a metal.
As iron ore is found, you don't find lumps of iron. You find lumps of gold, you find lumps of electrum, you find lumps of silver, you find a number of other alloys, but you never find...
Oh, careful, I've just picked up an iron stone.
Oh, look at this, a perfectly formed hammer. Oh, where did that get here?
Unless you're in an archaeological dig site.
Yeah.
That would be amazing if that was true.
I wish that was.
Maybe the human's greatest invention was the power of friendship.
I honestly believe it is the greatest treasure, but then again I have watched far too many 1980s films.
Christmas Day at James' House is wonderful, it's all white Christmas.
That's James' House.
And the Super Mario Brothers.
The original... Oh, that film was so good though.
I enjoyed it.
So when that little bob-omb, the physically accurate bob-omb is just walking around the sewer floor, chuckle every time. It looks so cute.
Anyway, yeah, I've really enjoyed today, thank you very much for your time guys. I'm going to round it off there though. If you guys are happy and you guys are done?
Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
Thank you very much for coming along and thank you very much for seeing out our tenth episode with us.
It's been a pleasure.
Anymore from you, James?
Thank you to everyone who's listened for ten episodes. You have the patience of the saint.
Yeah, and thank you both for having these conversations.
No worries, no worries. Thank you listeners again and take care. Goodbye from me, goodbye from me.
Thanks for watching.