I'm Scott, I'm Russell, and I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball, where three gigabit gurus 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 we say is yours to keep.
And this week I brought our guest.
I am delighted to introduce you all to Marcus.
My friend Marcus is a developer.
He is a tech enthusiast.
He is a small business owner, consultant,
and he's gonna fit in perfectly
with the vibes that we're going for here.
Marcus, welcome to Spitball.
- Hi guys, how's it going?
- I'm so glad you're here.
This is gonna be fun.
To get us warmed up this week,
I have a game that I'm gonna call this time,
Root Cause Roulette.
One of my favorite, in the spirit of Marcus,
my friend being a customer service help desk person in our day jobs. I am going to take
some inspiration from one of the best podcasts ever, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and radio
show, I guess, too. And give a little, not my job, by giving you guys a story from the
subreddit r/talesfromtechsupport. And I want you guys, I have a story, and then I want
to give you three options for how that problem was resolved. And I want you to guess which
one is the
real one. We're going to
start as we always do with our guest, Marcus. Marcus,
I got to tell you a story about Tales from Tech Support. One time a user reported that
every morning for a short time around the same time each day, their computer would have
a beeping sound. It would last for just a moment or two, and then it would stop. Troubleshooting
finally found the issue, and it was when the tech stayed in the room and found that the
source of the sound was which of these? A, an alarm clock in Windows that for some reason
came set out of the box on gateway computers, B) the user had left a 10-hour intermittent
beeping YouTube video on loop without realizing it, or C) the user's office was next to the
company loading dock and it was the sound of the UPS truck backing up each morning.
Which of those is
the real problem that they had found?
Uh, man, those are all awful answers.
Do you need them again?
I would have to go with the first one.
The alarm clock in
Windows, I
fooled you.
It was
the UPS
truck.
- No way. - It's gotta be C.
- Yeah. - I thought it was either A
or C.
- Some guy was like,
I don't think that's coming from your computer.
And they looked back there and sure enough,
it was the truck out the window.
- There's no way. - Amazing.
- Scott. - Yeah, me.
- In a small IT office,
the entire network mysteriously went down one day.
When the IT tech finally arrived,
like an outsourced third-party IT tech,
he discovered that what had happened.
A, the free roaming office mascot,
hamster had chewed through every single ethernet cable.
B, the clients had thrown away the server claiming quote, they
couldn't turn it on and no one uses that computer anyway, or C,
a new microwave upstairs had permanently disabled their office
router systems, wifi access points.
That has to be B.
It just seems so real.
It is.
It is B.
Not
only had they unplugged
their computer, thrown it in the dumpster
out back, but by the time the tech arrived, the garbage truck had
came and
collected the jig and they had thrown
away their server with all of their company files
and the last time they'd done a backup was over a year ago.
Oh that's hilarious.
Wow unplug that
yeah
no one sits at that computer throw it away.
So good.
Russell a proud IT father on this subreddit was watching his toddler play with a toy laptop when
it stopped flashing lights and making sounds like it was supposed to.
What did the man's toddler do to fix it?
A. He watched his kid crawl over to the batteries drawer, fetch two batteries, use a screwdriver
for the first time and successfully replace them.
B. He threw it away and begged to go to the Apple store to buy a new one.
C. He paused, used the power switch to turn it off and then back on again.
Oh man,
as a father of a toddler, a three year old now, I'm very curious what
your answer
is.
That's why I picked you for this one.
Man, you know, it's not going to be two.
I think it might be three.
He's gonna turn it off and on again.
- It is three, it's a great
story.
It's like one of the top posts of the whole, all time.
I watched my kid turn it off and on again.
He's an IT genius.
(laughing)
One more time through.
Marcus, a tech's boss, the CEO of the company,
was complaining incessantly about his new laptop's mouse
being quote, jittery.
How did the tech fix the issue?
A, he cosmetically cleaned the mouse,
put it in a bag and gave it to the boss
as his new replacement mouse.
B, he dunked it in a bag of rice overnight.
or C, he dropped it out of the office's five-story window and it magically started working.
Oh my god. Why do I feel like it's C?
No, right?
You
want to go with the final answer?
That is so ridiculous. Yeah, I'll go with C.
The dude just cleaned the mouse and put it back in the box.
Oh my god. Yeah, sorry that
was happening, boss. Here's your,
here's a, we got you a brand new one and the boss never said a word about it.
Oh my god, that's hilarious.
Scott,
I have a one from Hope College.
I have CIT lore that I'd love to share with you from my work and Marcus's job.
Marcus, you might have heard this one, I don't know.
A user was complaining years ago that they had an old-school 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive
that was failing to write files to the disk.
What was the issue?
A. Unbeknownst to him, his disk drive was filled with Apple Jacks cereal by his kids.
B. The disk drive was actually a VHS recorder.
Or C, the professor was writing the files,
taking the disks out, and pop,
magnet attaching their disk
to the side of their filing cabinet.
(laughing)
- That C seems like a realistic thing
that could happen nowadays.
- So specific.
- That's exactly what it is.
(laughing)
- He was grabbing his files,
plunk,
immediately erasing them by magneting them.
- Why is it not working?
- This did, something's wrong with the drive.
My department replaced the drive twice,
and then they said,
show us
what you're doing.
(laughing)
And Russell, let's finish it off.
A user was intermittently getting a black screen
on their computer,
but only when they were about to begin typing.
Not when they typed,
when they thought they were about to start typing.
Why?
What would end up being the root issue?
A, the user had a magnet clasp on their watch band,
and whenever they'd get near the palm rest,
the laptop would think the lid was closed.
B, a hacker who turned out to be the rascally nephew
was remoting into the computer and pranking her.
Or C, the user was using a solar panel as a charger,
and when a cloud went by, the laptop would run out of power.
It's got to be the Apple Watch, or the magnet watch thing,
because I feel like that's happened to me before.
The answer was A, you are correct, and
the user
was me.
[LAUGHTER]
It took me a couple of weeks of like,
why is this turning black sometimes?
I don't get it, before I realized
it was a magnet in my watch.
Amazing.
Very good.
- I
wasn't keeping track
of who won,
so I'm gonna go ahead and say Russell, you won.
Well done this week.
- Thank you.
- Russell,
you have earned the honor of kicking us off first.
What do you got this week for us?
- Okay, well, I don't know how I got the inspiration
for this, but yeah, this idea is a third party
bullshitter company, I don't know how else to call it.
And so what we do is we provide bullshitting services.
So if you wanted to be a leader that drove a million dollars in revenue at your
organization, we'll be your reference.
Did you need to give a competing offer that you need for your negotiation?
We'll write you the competing offer letter.
Did you need references?
Like you worked at Twitter for a long time?
I mean, we're the HR department chair that helped get you the job, you know,
and saw your leadership abilities.
(laughter)
Russell, this is brilliant.
Why
have we not done this?
So, okay.
That's it,
we're a professional bullshitting company.
We have phone lines, we have exit interviews,
we'll go on your LinkedIn and put bullshit,
like, you know, recommendations.
Endorsed for works for SpaceX or whatever.
Oh yeah, dude, we'll do it all, right?
Okay,
all right.
That's it,
that's it.
Professional bullshitters.
Is it like different tiers?
Like you could say, oh, I worked as Apple
as like a custodian, but like, no, I was in the C-suite
and like that costs way more.
- Oh yeah, 'cause we gotta put way more bullshit into it.
Right?
Our bullshit meter needs to go up
and your cost goes up, right?
We have to come up with like PR, you know,
we gotta have videos of you in front of a stage
if you're a chief executive, you know?
- You're great at screening people.
- Presenting in front of millions.
Yeah, you gotta, yeah.
OK, OK.
Make an about page, forge it on Apple's website.
Oh, we got to do a lot.
This is pretty much what Ringcam's org chart was already,
wasn't it?
It's exactly what it was, though.
Like, our startup, we hire these interns or people,
and we're like, look, we're not going to be able to pay you
much, but we guarantee we're going to give you
a good job by the end of this.
Because we would use this as a reference,
and this intern is all of a sudden the VP of sales
or something on paper.
And then they call our company, our hotline, like, oh, yeah,
yeah, such and such.
Absolutely.
Best salesman we ever had.
We've had him for years.
And we got
them all great jobs, and they're all happy.
Yeah, that's taking a page out of there.
And why not, right?
That's it.
I feel like it'd be very useful for job hunts.
But I was like, what else could you use it for?
If you wanted to get a quote, a competing quote for cars
or something, I'm trying to think of other
ways to do it.
Yeah, have them submit a house offer.
Surely this is fraud, right?
I mean, I don't know.
You could probably work out the deal.
So it's like, oh, do you want to buy a house?
Pretend to buy a house in my area.
You know what I mean?
Wow.
I don't know.
Why not?
Shoot.
It's so simple and so brilliant.
It's just lying.
Let's lie.
I mean, there are some really powerful people
that lie quite a lot and get away with it.
You know what I mean?
So why not just bring it to the masses?
Why did the top 1% get to bullshit their way up to the top?
This is for the mass market.
I'm having trouble figuring out where the limit is
before you're in legal trouble.
Like, are there any of those examples
that you could be taken to court for?
Or all of those, like, liabilities for--
That's a great question.
Is
there any consequence of a person out there
acting under the guise of a company saying,
"Yes, they worked at Twitter,"
and when they actually didn't?
Like, is that a legally chargeable offense?
We need a lawyer.
I think we could South Park our way through it.
I think we could, honestly, like you just say--
What does that mean?
So you create a company named Twitter
that sells grass clippings.
And you tell him, yeah, he helped build the technology.
Clipper.
And all that stuff.
And you just have him copy paste like a set of code
that you gave him, right?
I mean, I think technically you could--
where's the line to say that he didn't do it,
right?
We paid him $300,000.
a year, but he only worked there for three minutes.
So
there you go.
Right.
The pay sub $300
,000 a year, but that's divided minutely.
So he only got three minutes worth of it.
I see
the hourly rate.
It's not a lie.
Right.
At that point,
that's where the premium services, right?
This company is going to own like hundreds of domains that are
all for
email addresses
and stuff and fake video hosting and oh, that's fun.
Yeah, no, I feel like companies nowadays don't really do their own, like, research.
They're outsourcing it to a third party company.
So I feel like a lot of this, I don't know.
I just, I have to imagine there's a lot of stuff that goes under the radar.
Yeah.
It's harder and harder to figure out what random website is even owned by whom nowadays.
Your who is's and stuff don't work anymore.
Like it's, it said another way, it's easier to be anonymous on the internet as a business who's pretending to be something that they're not.
So this is like the prime time to do something.
No, no, that's so
true.
And kind of off topic, but like our local tulip time, like I'm assuming
Holland did something with the website, but it's a tulip time.org.
It's not tulip time.either.gov like you would expect.
You know what I mean?
So I thought that
was weird, but
it
seemed like a legit website.
Like it was like the city of Holland was promoting it.
So, but why aren't they like associated?
yeah yeah
that is weird Russell I want you to come in next week with your
anti-bullshitting pitch idea.
Just disrupt the entire credibility of every
single employee and fix it for
a price.
That's right brilliant that was brilliant
I
feel like Mark Cuban did that Mark Cuban had I was watching an interview
with him where he literally bought a company
that would go out and sleuth claims on the stock market.
Like a company would be like,
"Oh, we just opened this brand new warehouse,"
and such and such, and their stock price would go up.
He would actually send people to the warehouse,
look at their utility bills and other things,
like, "These guys don't even have internet at this place.
"How
could they possibly?
"It's not worth
it at all."
And then just to cut the price back down.
I don't know, I feel like that's
where you're gonna be next week.
- Whoa, that's interesting.
Yeah, if these two companies are both secretly owned then you
can have a monopoly on knowing
which ones are bullshit
And which ones are not and then sell that to the people who are interested in knowing
Could I bullshit my other company up to like the to be grandiose like we were on tech crunch like we're here to stop
Those bad people
right there are bad people everywhere pretending that everyone worked for Twitter
But we know that they didn't and we have a secret algorithm to know
just make an LLC's every other
day
Here's Joe,
he worked at Twitter from start to finish
and was an HR employee that saved some data about it.
(laughing)
- It's Russell's all the way down.
- Just me.
- Just me all the way down.
- It says Russell's all the way down.
(laughing)
Okay, what about for you guys, your role at IT?
You could totally, I could totally forge a Cisco
or a Lenovo letter that says, you're broken.
The thing is broken, or hey, nope,
they've done everything in their power.
Leo and Marcus have done everything in their power
to solve the issue.
It's a manufacturer error.
I need to buy new equipment, right?
Or something
crazy like
that, right?
Russell, I have so little trust in the system already
and now you're just deteriorating the rest of it.
What about if we sell people
literal
lies?
You're buying them though.
That's the other
thing.
People are buying lies.
Dear IT manager, it's me, Mr. Lenovo.
I promise.
Shit's real bad over there and he needs a new computer.
Please buy it from us.
Lenovo.
Here's a fake
coupon that I generated.
Hi, I'm Todd Lenovo.
I've known Rob Lenovo for years and he is a truthful man.
And then all of a sudden it just goes through a full loop.
You just find some guy in Instagram,
Nape, Rob, Lenovo.
Could you say
this?
I'll pay you a hundred dollars.
- Cameo.
- I want a fake doctor's note from this, Russell.
There we go.
Fake doctor's notes.
- Bonespurs,
can't go to Vietnam.
- Airlines, I don't know if you can like
fake a certificate to
change an airline date.
Like, I think there's a couple
of fake certificates or
something, you know?
- Oh my God.
You need to reschedule your vacation,
but you didn't pay for the insurance thing.
So I hire you to make a lie about,
man, you're gonna kill a lot of grandmas in this.
- Rest in peace, grandma.
I need to change a flight.
Grandma 48.
Alrighty, Scotty B, what do you got for us this week?
- All right, I actually want to do a Russell's Love Corner.
- Oh, baby.
Give the music.
Oh, yeah.
In addition, I am so sorry, guys,
but I have to put money into the AI swear jar.
Oh.
I
know.
Everybody's going to
talk about AI
again.
I know.
Wow,
how original.
So
last time I was traveling, I was
flipping through TV and Hitch was on with Will Smith and if you guys remember
that movie he's just like a real-time dating advice wingman and I'm sitting
like why we could do this now we can just have a little Will Smith sitting in
your ear is a little hidden earpiece and then just that is listening to the
entire conversation and just giving you little tips or jabs or being like hey
they're losing interest on you on here or hey you should ask them about this
because this is relevant to it. I went on a date once with a girl. It was she was
so nervous that she had brought flashcards with her to the date and was
reading them under
the table as props as in she would look down suddenly go do
you have any pets? And I like you know it's very I didn't call her out or
anything on it but it was quite obvious what was happening
on there and
I think
I feel like we could do this in a much better and more subtle way. The one that
- I got away, Scott.
I'm kidding,
I'm kidding.
(laughing)
I got away.
- Don't listen, don't
listen.
- Where is,
do
you have any pets
flashcard girl now?
(laughing)
- I have
no idea.
- So like, I mean, this would be, I think with Zoom
and like a smart, like a hidden camera,
a little bit of a, I mean, you could do this
with real people.
I feel like AI would be great too,
but I think just in general,
I would love to be a wingman to some dude
in the earpiece or whatever, right?
- Oh, I see.
You actually hire a real person.
- The surveillance
van out in the outside of the restaurant
Nathan Fielder style.
- Is that
creepier?
I don't even know.
It's already creepy to start with.
Actually, I kind of liked that.
- You
guys know the Be My Eyes app?
There's an app for if you have vision impairments,
you can get randomly matched up with somebody
who has installed the app, who is sighted,
who can, you know, what color are these shoes
or how many calories are in this can of beans
or whatever, you spin up a quick video call.
You could almost have a matching service
where you install Dating Wing Man
and say, "I'm interested in giving advice
"or taking advice."
And then you get a phone call out of nowhere
that's like, "Hey, I'm on a date right now.
"Would you mind moderating?"
Or whatever. (laughs)
Russell, you were saying you wanted
to be one of these people.
Are you saying that you're waiting
for someone in particular to ask?
- Or I
guess I'd be like, "Sure, dude.
I'll listen in and just give you encouragement,
but also like tips or something.
I don't know, like, hey, you're joking.
Just, I don't know, like ask a--
- Ask her if she has any pets.
- Follow up on that question, dude.
I don't know.
I might not be the best for this,
but like I'm sure there'd be people out there
that'd be like really good.
I mean, even if it's just audio, right?
Video would be great.
I don't know how you would,
I guess, is that what you were thinking, Scott?
Just audio?
Earbuds? - I was just thinking
purely audio all the way through.
Yeah, I guess you might need video cues though.
I mean, you don't even have to have it like talking to you.
You could just have it like one buzz means this,
two buzz means change the topic, and three.
- Yeah, you can have it on your Apple Watch too.
It's not just an app.
- It's just
an app on your Apple Watch.
- You're just watching, you're
just looking at it.
- Yeah,
it's got a microphone.
- That might look bad too
if you're just constantly looking at your watch.
Stop looking at me.
- Wait for the buzzes.
- The buzzes.
Yeah, it could be buzzes.
- Morse
code.
So this is technically legal in most states
that are one-party recording consent states.
We're not worried at all about introducing and normalizing,
just recording people without them knowing.
We're all good with
that.
Yeah, totally fine with that.
Ring doorbells do that all the time, right?
And we love it, how they give all the footage to the police.
We love it.
Oh,
yeah.
And posting it on Ring share community, it's like, oops.
Walking my dog.
Is it actually
recording if there's no transcript after?
Does that still count?
Yeah, I think so, as long as it's getting processed.
We'll
erase it.
We'll erase it at the end.
Oh.
Right?
Great.
That's it.
I swear,
Your Honor, I erased it.
I don't do anything weird with all this video
that I'm recording and storing.
We trained the AI
model and then deleted the file.
So it's not there anymore.
If it's listening, you might not need it to record anything.
but if there's an awkward
pause or something,
or you're rambling for too long,
maybe just measure how
much you're talking
versus how much the other person's talking
and help scoreboard.
- Yeah,
you can get
some good stats out of that.
- Right. - Use the
mood radar.
- Like if it's a one-sided conversation,
on your side of the house,
like this thing will help
you like, stop talking.
Like buzz buzz.
You talked for five minutes straight, you know, or something.
There's probably other scenarios like that where it would be really helpful to
catch
yourself
in some of the common issues,
right?
And then yeah, stats and tracking
and all that stuff would be really interesting too.
You cursed 45
times.
Not great for a first date.
Yeah.
You brought up your exes four times.
(laughing)
- I'll just make a bingo card by the
end.
Red flag
bingo.
- What if it just recorded,
I mean like even if it just recorded your own voice
the whole time, right?
To remove the legality of it all, right?
Like if it just recorded what you were saying.
- How does it only do your voice?
- That's for the engineers. - Engineers will figure it out.
(laughing)
- Don't worry
about it.
- Yeah, Apple already figured that out, voice isolation.
So, you don't have to worry about that.
- Boom.
- I think we've talked about this on the show before,
but Amazon had that Halo wristband.
They were gonna like
dip into the fitness trackers thing and one of the
one of the key features that
Maybe made it fail that people were not interested in was that it would
Listen to you all day and say you were really angry sounding today at these points and here's some points where you were
You should change your tone when you're talking to that person and stuff
I don't think people like that very much. I don't know if the world's ready for your idea
Yeah,
I I still just I want to take it back to the basics. I guess it's basics
I want Will Smith's voice in my
ear,
and I want him listening to both sides
of the conversation,
even if it's only allowed in certain states.
- Just step to the left, snap.
- And giving prodding me in the right direction.
- Ask if they
have any pets.
- Ask
if they have any pets.
- Okay, I'm seeing what you're saying.
So if I had Hitch, not Will Smith, Hitch, right?
'Cause
he's gonna make
me slap, you know,
Chris whatever,
Chris
Rock on
stage.
It was real.
But I mean like, yeah, Hitch,
right?
hitting us with that current event.
It's the hottest gossip of a year and a half ago.
- This episode was recorded a year and a half ago.
(laughing)
No, I mean, I haven't watched Hitch in a while,
but he's just like a pro then, right?
He just knows what you should say.
- All right, so we're several minutes into this pitch now.
I can ask, what's Hitch about?
- You haven't seen
Hitch?
- No, and maybe some listeners haven't either.
- Oops.
- Will Smith is
a--
- Will Smith is a
dating coach.
- Dating coach, and that's it.
- Okay.
- There wasn't any more that I needed then.
I got it.
- Nope.
- All right.
Cool.
- But he's a mastermind though.
He's not just a regular dating coach.
He's a super pro.
- Does he listen to the date?
- No, he coaches and then
they go on that date, right?
- Yeah, that's it.
- Well, shoot, that might even be good too.
- Maybe you need that.
Yeah, it sounds like your AI hitch
wouldn't happen during the date.
- I don't know, I just keep coming
back to Flashcard Girl
and I'm like, if she had something to do with it,
that was
driving the conversation
of just a little prod in the right direction.
- Pets!
You need more pets!
Sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing you.
There's something screaming in my ear, pets, pets,
pets.
- Dude, what's another example?
Hitch meant something,
I only remember the dance
move thing.
There was other steps, there was other stuff in Hitch
that was really like, oh man.
He just got you to a base level of cool, it sounds like,
Just to get past all that awkwardness,
that's what--
That was the
big
thing, get past all the awkwardness.
Hey, here's how
you break the touch barrier on a first date,
where you lightly put your hand on their back
or something when you're leaning forward.
And here's how you do such and such.
Duolingo has a paid premium tier,
but then they also have an extra, extra, extra premium
tier called Max.
And it lets you use AI to have video calls
with fake characters.
And they're not real video calls, of course,
with its AI driven character, like cartoon characters,
and you practice speaking the language you wanna learn.
- That's awesome.
- Would you be able to do that, but dating coach?
- Practice dates.
- Yeah. - That's it.
- Whoa, there's the pivot, I like that.
- So you're firing up a Zoom call,
but it's actually Will Smith. (laughs)
And he says, "All right, we're gonna hop
"into this first date."
And then you switch to a cartoon
of whatever sex you're interested in
at the table in the restaurant,
and you have a two minute back and forth,
and then it tells you what you did wrong.
And then
you end your game at halfway through
and all these Zoom calls,
and they actually switch over to a real person,
but you don't even
know it.
- Whoa, this whole time you've been speed dating on Zoom.
(laughing)
- That would be so cool though.
That'd be such a twist.
Like actually that was a real,
I was, she was training and I was training her
and you at the same time.
And you guys - It's
just all humans. (laughing)
And literally, it's just like a Zoom chat.
Like, the guy's just like, "Hey, you should talk more."
Like, "Hey, you should talk, you know, like, stop talking."
- I think that
Hard Fork, the New York Times podcast,
did an episode about Tinder doing something
kind of like this, where it'll like simulate a phone call
with a fake potential love interest,
first date type person,
and you kind of have a back and forth,
but it really it's AI,
and then it cuts off the call after a minute and says,
"Yeah, here's how your small talk went.
"It wasn't great.
Consider focusing more on blah blah blah and tries to give you like first date feedback
So there might be something to this seems like other people are playing in this space
Dude, that'd be just so funny if Duolingo just came out with like a quiz like what are you doing the first date?
What language
do you want to learn the language of love
Is chivalry dead
Depends on who you ask. Yeah,
see there'd have to be levels to it because it depends on what generation of woman that you're going for
Yeah, cuz yeah,
the older women are gonna want that man who lays their jacket down, but if you're a young
Rizzler, you know
You can't be doing nothing. That's
Skippity
questionable
I
don't know if
I used that terminology correctly.
How old is she?
All right, don't open doors.
Right.
Eat when the food's down, not when she gets her.
Hitch, you know, Hitch Live is like
the premium, super premium
product, Scott,
that
you get after you've launched your
training service.
Your live Zoom, you know, like literally,
Flashcard Girl could have done AI
Scott date,
And instead of doing the,
she could have the flashcards then,
but not when she's
on the date,
'cause
she'd take your images and put 'em on an AI avatar.
Not weird at all.
- Not weird at all.
(group
laughing)
- Just flashcards through
the whole date, you know?
Then she'd memorize the questions.
- So your service, a creeper goes to,
uploads a bunch of photos of his target,
turns them into some sort of interactive bot that they fall in love with.
Oh my god.
Why'd you say target acquired?
Victim, sorry.
Target acquired.
Much better.
AI uploading.
Oh yeah.
Alright, Leo, what have you brought us this week?
I've got a banger for you this week, guys.
So all around us there are treasure hunts, easter egg hunts, whatever you want to call
it that kids would super enjoy to participate in, and they're called geocaches.
Geocaching!
A fringe hobby for a couple of mapping nerds and cartography people and Xander and myself
and a few other friends of mine.
It's something that's always interested me and something I've never really gotten into,
And now that I have a couple of young ones, boy oh boy, would I love to introduce my five-year-old
to, "Hey, did you know that people around the country and around the world hide secret
fun treasure dumps that we could go on adventures to go find?"
Dang, that would be so fun.
Right now, if you want to get a kid into geocaching, you have to buy an old Android phone and put
the geocaching app on it and hotspot it to your phone, and it works okay.
If they can read, maybe it'd be a little better,
but if it's like a little kid, not really.
There were a couple of like kid-specific geocaching devices
over the years, but they've come and gone.
I want to create a pretty simple device.
You've got handheld GPS, maybe it's got Bluetooth
so it can talk to a phone or something,
but it doesn't need connectivity itself.
It's preloaded with some local geocache spots,
and then it's talking to my phone, the parent, the guardian,
who's controlling where we're headed
and what hints are popping up with like a map and an arrow
and however much little detail that you wanna have,
that's all like done on the parent side of stuff, right?
This could be dedicated hardware, that'd be really fun.
This could even be like a web app
where like two different devices load the web app.
One says I'm the parent and one says I'm the kid
and it uses the geocaching API
and you've got like two Android phones or whatever
that have loaded it up,
some old iPhone that you pull out of a drawer.
Whatever you wanna use to make this happen,
It's very clear that geocaching is like a niche hobby.
And I think that kids are the way to make it go mainstream.
Right?
Like I know that there's a park that I can see
from my front yard that has a geocache in it.
I've seen it once.
It's kind of neat.
It's a little like bullet sized piece of metal
that is magneted under a sign.
And you can like write your name.
I found this on April, whatever, or May, whatever.
And then you put it back and that's it.
We did it.
Woo hoo.
Some other geocaches have like little trinkets
people will leave that you can like go find and grab one of that's so fun and
that's totally the kind of thing that would inspire wonder in a kid right so
there needs to be a more accessible way to bring your kid along without having
to like pull up the geocaching account and sign up for geocaching premium and
say yeah this modal dialogue says that we're 600 feet from this sign but the
hint is whatever like we need to make this kid-friendly
I want to just design
the UI for that kid-friendly app because
that sounds
so much fun like a big
over-the-top cartoon radar or something.
Yeah, right.
Distance away.
Pirate map.
Yeah, that's brilliant.
Yes.
A little treasure.
It's got like the dotted lines and the X's and stuff.
You can have the dotted line be where they've been so far,
the trail
that they've laid.
Oh, yeah.
Teach them how to read a map.
Oh, so this could be like a newspaper-sized E-ink tablet.
Okay.
[laughter]
Scroll.
There's bendable displays out there now. Marcus you have a little one would they
be are they old enough to go on? Not quite yet.
No she she might like the end
like actually opening the geocache but she's one and a half so. Okay yeah. Not
quite yet. No.
It's coming man.
No but I love the idea.
I'm on weekend duty what
do I do with my kid? My partner's out of town I need to find an activity this is
cheap or free this is outside.
Yeah no I love the idea I've honestly I've wanted
to do geocaching, but I've never like had the time or it was never like that,
that exciting to me.
So yeah, I think you're right.
Like bringing a kid into it would make it way more enticing, especially
for me having a daughter.
Yeah.
I mean, this, this like for geocaching, like is one thing I bet you could
create scavenger hunts and stuff too.
That would be like, I don't know if you wanted to build on top of it too,
like multiple geocaches or turn any walking experience to be better.
Right.
Geocaching would be a layer you could add to the map.
Parks, cool trees, events.
I don't know.
Stuff like
that.
Stuff like that.
Cool tree.
Yeah.
The, this would be interesting to kids database.
There's a rock over here that looks crazy.
I got to mark that in the treasure
map.
Ant Hill.
(laughing)
Staying here
for 15
minutes.
Dude, I saw a bug over here.
(laughing)
I bet there's like, it'd be cool to know
what geocaches would be more kid-friendly
and more interesting for kids too.
The geocaching website has like,
these are the tiers of easy and hard to find.
These are like the ratings.
This is how much time it takes to get to it.
It's like really broken down and indexed
and subcategorized and all that.
So you could have the like kid-friendly tag on it or something, right?
Yeah,
I've thought about this too because I my co-worker gifted me a
Like standalone Garmin
GPS that
you could load the waypoints onto and it kind of works
But you have to use the crappy Garmin sync software that doesn't work well anymore
And it's for a couple of reasons not super practical and it seems like we're we're in this era where you could build the like
dedicated device hardware out the door for like really cheap, right? It's a frickin
chip and an Arduino and a screen and a GPS like
receiver
that's got to be like 20 bucks parts max.
It could be like a compass like a round compass like
a big
That's a good one.
Always points. A physical dial.
Yeah, you can change it to be like map view, compass view
Direction you know point to where we're supposed to go
I thought
you meant a physical like so you've got like a round piece of metal with actual dials
But they're on a motor or whatever and so like as you move it around with the accelerometer
It's physically pointing to the the cache. That'd be kind
of fun. Oh, I mean sure that's probably more like a clock
That you're holding where the hands are pointed the right way. That'd be cool
Yeah,
it's like Sparrow
That's
it. That would be
cool. Is that a
product that has to be a product for something?
Is this thought that's a great idea on its own?
Just this is
always pointing towards something no matter where you are in the world
partners phone
You're it's my Valentine's Day gift
Well always know where you
are.
Oh, yeah, maybe not
It's a little stalkery the
old-school pirate treasure map. I can't get that out of my head
I would have loved that as a kid.
I did geocaching all the time
growing up.
You did?
Oh yeah.
We had this very old clunky GPS and you can only get like four or
five satellites ever on the guy.
But
it was so much fun.
It was back when it was just like whatever geocaching.org and there'd
only be X posts in your area, but you would find a little film canister or
something around with a piece of paper.
And, and it was, it was a lot of fun.
That's cool.
We do a toy exchange on it.
You bring a toy and you take a toy from it.
I think what would be really cool is bringing like VR into it.
I mean, right now VR is a little, little subpar.
I think it's getting closer.
Like it wouldn't be super cool to have like a big old thing out of your head,
but once tech is more like maybe a little like glasses on your eyes and then yeah,
you can have like the arrow out in front of you.
And
yeah.
Have you done Google maps when you hold it up and it puts the
arrows to navigate up over the UI?
I've seen, I've seen the update, but I haven't actually used it myself.
It's
basically what you're describing,
where like he's just showing you a pass through
of your camera and stuff, but then on the road
or nearby it plops big arrows like,
this is the way to go, dummy.
It's when you're walking around, walking directions.
- I don't see, maybe that's even better.
Maybe,
like maybe you just--
- No, I'm saying you want that on your
Vision, man.
- I mean, that would be cool too, but I don't know.
I had the Vision Pro, the Apple Vision Pro,
and it's cool and all, but it's still a big thing
you have to wear on your face.
- Ski goggles.
- Yeah.
- And you don't want your kid like staring
at a screen while outside.
- Exactly.
We
finally are going on a walk,
put this TV on your face.
[laughter]
Defeats the purpose a little bit.
I like the idea of it somehow being like a scroll that you hold.
This is like the
Marauder's Map.
You know what I mean?
It's a live updating
screen
tablet thing.
Have you seen the rollable Samsung screens?
They're like proof of concept though, right?
No, they're real.
I'm pretty sure they're
real.
I can't remember now if it's LG or Samsung, but
I
swear one.
It's like every year at CES, there's some like rollable TV,
but then I don't know if there's--
can you buy
that?
I think they're still
in concept in the sense of they're not
really affordable to create.
And I think there's some issues with the backlighting
and the brightness and whatnot.
So you have to have a specific background with it.
But I'm fairly confident it is a real product now.
That would be really cool.
Right?
That would be sick.
It doesn't do anything except show the map where you are,
your trail of where you've walked, and there's the X.
That's it.
Get on it, Samsung.
All right, Marcus, what do you got for us this week?
- After that, man, I feel like mine's pretty lame.
- No, hit us.
- It's more for the socially awkward folk, right?
- Flashcard dates, I gotcha.
- Yeah, basically it's in the same realm.
It's in the same realm, but I think you could use it outside of dating.
I think we could use it in work settings if you're having an awkward conversation.
Essentially what I'm thinking of calling it is Control-Alt-Defeat.
It's an insole you put into your shoe and you can either toe tap or do a heel twitch
and that triggers a call on your phone.
So you can be like, "Sorry guys, I gotta walk away and take this call."
Yes!
Get you out of those awkward conversations. That's so
good!
It's so simple!
That's what I'm saying.
You guys'
was way more complex but...
So this is a quick escape hatch. Absolutely. Oh shoot, my grandma's calling. I gotta take this.
Just James Bond your way out of there. I love it.
A two hour town hall meeting like, "Yeah man, I gotta go.
Sorry."
- I'm
telling you again, it must be important,
right?
- Yeah,
that's
clever, you ignore it the first two times,
you'll be like, "I'm the third one."
I'm sorry guys, I gotta figure out what's going on here.
- Make it realistic.
- Rotate between multiple contexts too,
so you know it's tragic.
(laughing)
- I better take this.
- Elgato makes a USB peripheral that is switches,
so you can have like the,
I press this to switch my scene when I'm live streaming,
or this is my button to make the bomb go off in my game
or whatever.
I wonder if you could just make this a peripheral
where it just like, I tapped my toe
and now it's locked my computer as I get up to go
or I tap my
toe and it does
like some other practical
useful thing and then one of the four gestures
is fake a call.
- Right, ooh, I like that actually.
- Would
a foot pad
be
useful for some other,
what are the contexts where you wish you had
hands free?
- Yeah, 100%, maybe if you could connect it
to your home internet of things somehow.
I mean, but yeah, what would you--
Lock the doors.
--still have your-- yeah,
OK.
Maybe close the garage.
Yeah, right.
Yes.
[LAUGHTER]
Tap, tap.
When
is it useful because your hands are busy?
Groceries.
When you're
cooking.
You have like food all over your hands
because you're mixing the whatever
and you just tap, tap to go to the next song
or tap, tap to go to the next page in the recipe or--
Yes.
--something
like that.
- I've seen the iPad, like, so bad.
Sometimes you're like
making something
and your iPad just turns off.
You have to
press
the button to
unlock the screen.
- Get chicken grease all over it or whatever, yeah.
- Yeah, you're like, oh, should
I, yeah.
No exact, yeah, that pain, that'd be so helpful.
- Okay, I like that, multi-use insole.
A tech insole.
- I've seen the, like, you press a button
and it automatically closes your tailgate,
your back, you know, a motorized trunk thing, but you're carrying all those
groceries you just tap tap tap and your car door shuts and locks itself that'd
be cool.
I've seen some where it's just like a wave of your foot underneath
the but I've seen some of them not work as you'd expect like I
just seen an Instagram reel of some dude like showing it off and he had
to like get on the ground and like bend all the way under it to trigger it
So he was like making fun of it. So this could be a
great alternative
Bluetooth insoles.
Yeah, you have to plug in your shoe
Sorry, honey, I forgot to charge my shoes again.
No, it runs off the heating of your feet.
Yeah. Oh shoot
low energy
Every step is a
little
Exactly. Exactly
that actually in itself is legit
My shoes don't do anything except for charge battery packs
Love that I love that Scott's
like damn that's actually a really good idea
How much power can you generate from walking 10,000
springy would it feel to like be pushing down on like a thing all day
Okay, this sounds crazy what about like tap dancing
Can you imagine I don't know what you could uh, you
forgot to take
a my
Technophile like tap dancing. Okay, so
you throw like
a theranin nearby, okay
And then like
You
put a full-ass piano in there somehow like or like a set of keys or like I don't know chords
Let's say you put chords in different buttons on that foot pad. Boom. You got tap dancing with like some crazy
I don't know like matching music or background vibes
You ever see those one-man band guys who will have like drums strapped to their back and they're like doing a wiggle to make the
Cymbals go and stuff you've got that but it's just the tap dance in souls on an electric drum kit. So as they're tapping it's
I'm playing the drums way
out there. But like this is like the broadness is how broad
This idea could be right it could be from tap dancing to call on your phone, right?
I love I love how the product morphed
Scope it always does
Curve ball
Vision for it. I did I
did. Yeah, you got yeah, it's really opened up my eyes to the
possibilities
- The world of possibilities.
Well, dear listener, we know you have that phone call
that's gonna start in a second.
Grandma's in the hospital again,
so before she calls, I just want to quick say
thank you very much for listening.
We hope you enjoyed yourself,
and thank you very much, Marcus, for joining us.
This was super fun.
- Yeah, no, it was great.
Thank you guys for having me.
- Our website is Spitball.show.
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