OnlyFans announces it will no longer allow explicit content on the platform, prompting a massive outcry. A family of hikers is found dead, with no discernible cause of death -- prompting authorities to wonder whether algae blooms may be the culprit. And it seems there's a surprising reason fast food ice cream machines seem to be constantly broken... a genuine conspiracy. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben, and we're joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. It's the top
of the week, which means it is time for our
strange news segment. They're shady stuff going on in the
(00:47):
world of fast food. There are mysteries in the hiking
trails of the West Coast. And if you are one
of the many, many people who started make being your
own business online during the pandemic a specific type of business,
then you may be running into trouble sooner rather than later.
(01:10):
It's true. Uh and and yeah we can we can
certainly lead with that one um. You might have heard
of of a site called only Fans, and I think
if you've heard of it, you probably have associations that
you make with that site. The idea is that it
is a paywalled um you know, creator driven platform where
folks who create stuff can reach their fans directly. Uh,
(01:32):
kind of like Patreon, except the content it's all bonus
that it's I mean, like in the way the Patreon.
You have a product like a podcast or some sort
of startup or whatever, some sort of project that exists
out in the world, and then Patreon uh pays you,
you know for this product that you do that isn't
hosted on Patreon necessarily. But then usually there are tears
of um extras that you can get to, you know,
(01:55):
certain levels of contribution as fans well only fans is
specific like paywalled content made by individuals and sold directly
to users. And that association that I'm talking about is
is pretty much porn um only fans, you know, theoretically
could have all kinds of content creators on it, and
(02:16):
there apparently is a small community of content creators that
are chefs and yoga instructors and you know, things like that.
But by and large they have made their money, and
it's quite a quite a lot of money, in fact,
billions of dollars off of the backs of sex workers.
And these include folks that are may be already known
in UM. In the world of adults, content like porn,
(02:38):
porn stars that you know do more, let's say, candid
videos that are then sold directly to individual users who
can subscribe to that person, that creator, that performer. UM
and there are ways of you know, doing private chats
and you know, situations that lead you to be able
to tip uh in all of that stuff. So on
(03:01):
the positive side, and what a big argument for the
positive impact of only fans is that it allows sex
workers or individuals that are comfortable with this kind of
work to make money directly from people that want to
pay them money. And obviously there's no actual sex involved,
it's just you know, videos and chats and things like that.
(03:23):
UM And you know, you could argue this is very
empowering for individuals, especially in a world where sex workers
are often highly stigmatized. UM. I was watching a video
on the YouTube channel I always shout out here Internet Today,
and they pointed to a scene in the movie Boogie Nights.
I completely agree with This is a really good example
where um Don Schiele's character has decided to get out
(03:46):
of the porn industry. He has made a good bit
of money and he decided to get out and he
wants to open a stereo shop. So he goes to
a bank yes for a loan, and the banker, basically
when he finds out what he's done to earn his money,
um says, no, we don't associate with your type of
people from your industry. Let's no matter what degree it
does or does not affect the situation at hand. Like
(04:09):
the numerous stories of people who are nurses, people who
are teachers, people who are working in office jobs who
get blacklisted or get effectively canceled in their field of
employment simply because of an only fans account, And that's
just an acceleration or a new iteration of the old story,
(04:31):
like somebody finding nude photographs from years ago. I think
we should be very clear at this point like sex
work is work, and regardless of somebody's you know, personal
morality about it, it's very it's very unhelpful, I think
to stigmatize people. I mean, don't we always don't. People
(04:55):
always make a big deal of platitudes like hey, you
are not your job, don't let your job define you.
I don't think that should be any different, right, and
unless it offends me on some sort of like spiritual level,
unless it helps me get better about myself without doing
better as a person's Yes, you're bad and you should
(05:16):
feel bad. You're bad and you should feel bad. But
you know, the Only fans also like it. You you
can't even see the content really unless you're a subscriber,
so it also it's probably a positive thing for you know,
limiting the exposure. You can't really you can screenshot at
I guess, but it feels like it's a community where
people are more or less respectful of the folks they
(05:37):
follow and don't go passing it around. So in theory,
if you had an account, you know, you might still
be able to have a life as a regular person
and not be not have that follow you into the workplace.
And uh, you know. Understandably, during COVID they saw their
profits rise significantly. I believe they made two billion dollars
last year. It is assumed that we will see that
(06:00):
pretty much double. But in a pretty shocking turn of events,
um the leadership Only Fans have decided to essentially ban
the very content that they are known for and the
very content that has made them all of this money
over these years, especially during COVID when folks literally were
(06:20):
out of work and they needed some folks decided to
turn to this as a revenue stream. And you know,
there are a handful of creators on only fans that
pull in like up to a million dollars a year.
Obviously that's at the very very top end of things,
but you know, you have folks making fifty dollars a year,
like the kind of money that would amount to like
a good salary. So understandably, the folks that are, you know,
(06:42):
relying on the ability to to get paid for this
content are kind of freaking out. And it does feel
like a form of cancelation or further stigmatization of sex
workers by a company that absolutely profited off of their
their backs, their literal backs. But it's it's not really
only fans, or at least their reasoning, right. If you
see the statement, that's right, that's right, Their statement is
(07:06):
they they kind of bury the lead. Um, we'll get
to what the real lead is. But they essentially are saying, uh,
they he'll just read the statement. We can we can
dissect it together. Um, it says this in order to
quote in order to ensure the long term sustainability of
our platform and to continue to host an inclusive community
(07:27):
of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines.
These changes are to comply with the requests of our
banking partners and payout providers. Okay, so you could have
ended it with content guidelines, but then that's the real
kicker there. These changes are to comply with the requests
of our banking partners and payout providers. So hence there
(07:49):
in lies the book unites comparison. UM turns out banks
and lenders and even payment providers are still kind of
squeamish about being associated with this kind of stuff, and
then there are reasons for that, um, you know, understandable reasons.
There's a really interesting investigative piece that the BBC did
(08:12):
about underage people, uh using only fans to create content
and make money. Uh. It's called The Children Selling Explicit
Videos on Only Fans and it was from May seven
of this year, and it's by Noel Man after my
own heart titherer raj and Rihanna Croxford, and it is
a really really well researched and investigated peace. They went
(08:34):
in UM and through various means, UM kind of exposed
some of the let's say, limitations of the age verification
methods that are in place and and these are some
of the most serious cases they found UM. One of
which is schools have shared anonymous reports of pupils using
the site, including a sixteen year old who boasted to
(08:54):
her careers advisor about the amount of money she made
on the site and showed off her quote exuberant spending
on Instagram. UM so essentially posted videos underage, bragged about
it at school to her guidance counselor, and then posted
flex type things on Instagram of like all the you know,
fancy swag she was buying with all this money. Um.
Another one is underage creators and users of the site
(09:14):
include victims of prior sexual abuse and those with mental
health issues and suicidal thoughts, according to Childline Counselor Notes,
which as a UK organization. By the way, only fans
of the UK based site. I only just recently found
that out UH. UK police forces say children have complained
about their images being uploaded to the site without consent,
and one seventeen year old reported being blackmailed. UH and
(09:36):
then you've got missing children are appearing in only fans videos.
According to a US watchdog, which also says it has
received reports of child sexual exploitation. UM, so those are
obviously very very serious violations of the terms of use
of the site and folks being able to kind of
bypass these age verifications things. The Only Fans leadership says
(09:57):
all of these were targeted and all of these were deleted,
and that they have since UM included a much more robust, uh,
let's say, age verification technique, because some folks were using
fake ideas or even like a grandmother's passport was used
in one situation. So I'm just trying to show both
sides of the issue, so understandable. Grandma's passport, the old
(10:21):
grandma's passport grifts classic, classic grift. I'm just trying to
show both sides because I think obviously there is a positive,
you know, for of age consenting adults trying to make
money off of this type of sex work, and then,
like you have with any sex work scenario, there are
going to be abuses of it. I would argue that
(10:41):
by and large these are like the exception to the rule,
but I'm not I didn't do this investigative piece, but
based on what I've read, it does seem like it
was maybe around seventeen cases and that they did, you
know up there their security precautions. But it's kind of
a moot point now because you know they're shutting it down. Um.
So I don't know that's the gist of the story.
But I think and even bigger part of the story
(11:04):
is how much control companies like PayPal and am X
and um, you know, Visa have over literally what we
can buy. They don't have to, you know, appeal a
decision that they make to cut somebody off from from
being a vendor of theirs. Um, they don't have to
do anything. They don't have to make a case to
(11:25):
any court. They can just say we don't like what
you're doing. We think it's in poor taste. We as
a brand don't want to be associated with you. Uh,
therefore you're now cut off. So you know, you could
argue that it's the big three here, but which I
think an online payment it would be Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.
Is that too much power? Is that essentially a monopoly
(11:46):
or an olagopoly of some kinds? Um? And and they
wield way more control. Because I watched a really great
video on a UK YouTube channel called t l d
R News I think is what it's called. It's not
associated with any of the big UK broad casters. It's independent.
But they mentioned that the only solution to this is
to start accepting cryptocurrency, and as we know, cryptocurrency has
(12:08):
its own issues in terms of regulation and regulation to come,
so you know, it would certainly put a wrench in
things to a degree, but they would still be able
to operate under the same model that's making them billions
of dollars instead of literally kind of pivoting to something
that is probably going to cause them to fall flat
on their faces. And if you ask me, um or
(12:29):
there was another thing that like I think UK governments
were talking about doing in general, which is like a
state sponsored type of peer to peer payment service that's
like a digital wallet. I forget that the acronym it
was like pd PP or something like that. Um But
in that case they make the point on this t
LDR video all these acronyms. Uh, the power is no
(12:50):
longer with these private companies, but it's with the state.
So isn't that even worse at scarier? Yeah? The so
I think there are two questions ass So the first
is what's the way around those those large, uh somewhat
monopolistic payment platforms. Unfortunately, there are other, you know, courses
(13:12):
in the race, but they are very distant, they're much smaller,
they're not near as ubiquitous, And these platforms, the majority
of their value is based on how ubiquitous and easy
to use they are. Right, So, like you could look
at another country or non western country that may have
their own payment platform, but with that might come a
(13:34):
little bit too much government control or overreach, you know,
if you're looking at an authoritarian country that monitors transactions.
So I'm sure a lot of people in the UK
would be worried about that. But the the second, I
guess to answer your second question, at least on my
end um, and I'm not an expert here. Governments in
(13:54):
general seem to have a really tough time staying up
to date with current technology, so much so that one
of the most successful security strategies of governments is to
purposely use anachronistic technology. So like, you can't you know,
bust the water treatment system because it's too old to
(14:15):
be online and it uses some like very vague old
testament deuteronomy level version of an OS or what they
used to do with like nuclear power facilities and things
like that. You don't want them to be directly connected
to the wider internet, would yes, air gap exactly? To me,
the the issue of can one trust a government not
(14:37):
to abuse it's monitoring power in that regard, to me,
that secondary to the immediate practical issue, which is could
a government actually do it? Like could they make something
that people would want to use? That would be my question.
I I don't know, Yeah, Matt, what do you think?
I mean, it's definitely seems like a question that's just
(14:58):
going to keep having to be asked, you know, moving forward,
Like in lots of other aspects of our lives, it
is a pretty small handful of companies that hold the
keys to the kingdom. Yeah, um, And I don't know
how anyone, even the most powerful military could pride those
keys from their hands, because they can just hire another
army to stand in front of whatever building holds the power. Uh.
(15:21):
But you know, for for me, guys, I'm thinking more
on the individual level of this story. There's a CNN
business article that you linked to knowl and in it
there's a person who goes by Maya on only Fans,
and she has a really interesting account here discussing how
over the past really four or five years, all of
(15:44):
these different companies places online like Craigslist, I think porn Hub,
several of the outlets were an individual who was trying
to make a living via this kind of work would
be able to post things and then make money, right
the outlets, We're an individual person could make money or disappearing,
(16:04):
and only Fans is just the next one of those.
And she's saying, you know, the reason why she isn't
out doing quote full service sex work right now is
because she has out an l a like this. But
if she doesn't, she will have to revert back to that,
which is far more dangerous personally. I mean, unless you
(16:25):
are really really cautious and vetting your clients and working
in maybe a more high class situation, you could I
think it's still very dangerous because I mean, law enforcement
tends to prosecute sex workers, uh to a much more
extreme degree than the John's right clients. And that's because
(16:47):
and that's because of it's almost like a slut shaming
kind of mentality that is ingrained in like our culture
and the police, because what why do you think is
it's the same thing where when you know a man
she eats let's say, or like a high profile situation
like that, the woman oftentimes is the one who gets
humiliated in the press, not the woman who he cheats with,
(17:08):
but the woman who he cheats on, and she becomes
pilloried as some sort of you know, oh she was
jilted you know by this like powerful man and like
we should mock her and pity her or something. Well,
it's a it's a matter. It's weird, the dichotomy of
lionizing a dude for doing this stuff a woman is
demonized for. But I would I would also point out
(17:29):
that the stark reality of it is that when there
are people and we have some people in the audience
who are sex workers, when there is a prosecution of
something like that, First off, it's already ridiculous because in
the United States, it's not illegal if you're filming it
and selling it. It's like, that's what makes it not
(17:51):
illegal exact cases, and that's just so bizarre. But also
the people like sex workers who are being prosecuted are
often in tremendously vulnerable positions, so they can't they may
not have legal recourse that other people may possess. I
don't know, but it's just really tough because there needs
to be some kind of online place for this stuff,
(18:16):
and at some point some company has to be bold
and just say this is what we're doing. The problem
is that comes with a whole host of other problems
that you already outlined about controlling who's using it and
how they're using it, and you know what types of
nefarious stuff could find its way onto one of those things.
But then they have to work directly with whatever banking
(18:36):
institution and or banking institutions to make it legal and
and work, and to make it air tight enough for
those banking institutions comfort level. But I would argue it
might not even be about that, because it's very similar
with like marijuana, for example, Like marijuana as legal and
in many parts of the country now, but a lot
of those, um, you know, companies have a hard time
(18:57):
getting bank loans or I've been into several old dispensaries
that are like chains. For example, there's one in the
California called Medmen, and they make you like take cash out,
they make you get cash back and then pay them
with the cash back. So it's obviously a point of
sale issue where they can't directly process your at your
(19:18):
visa so you get charged. It just seems really weird
and esoteric, like you know what I mean, like really
like outdated. But it's literally a product of them not
being able to have direct access to visa master card
and payment processing because for the same reason, because the
regulations are still on the fence nationally, they don't want
to be associated with it. So something to keep an
(19:40):
eye on. I mean, you know what happens with in
a situation like this, you know, uh goes down, there's
a vacuum, and then something usually fills that vacuum. So
I I don't imagine that that the folks that are
on this platform making their money are like losing their
minds entirely. Uh. The effect the new regulations don't go
into affect until October, and there are already other plot
forms like this that exist that many of these folks
(20:03):
probably are already on in tandem, which probably just means
that the audience will migrate to that other platform. It
was the thing that you guys remember tumbler Um. Tumbler
was like a blog site that had an interesting format
and and they also were known for being open to
pornography or explicit images. And uh, I believe Yahoo bought
(20:23):
them and did the very same thing that we're seeing here.
They wanted to get more investment, they wanted to try
to make into something more palatable, and so they also
banned the thing that literally made the product that they
bought what it was. Do you guys think about tumblre
much anymore these days? Not really? Uh? I know my
wife liked it a lot when it was around. Well,
(20:45):
there there was a lot of like, you know, kind
of cool art c type stuff, and some of it
happened to be a little bit on the erotic side.
I wouldn't say it was like hardcore pornography, but it
definitely aired on the side leaned more towards the like
kind of titillating type stuff. But um, somebody keep an
eye on It's interesting how much control these institutions have
over literally everything we consume. Um. And then we talked
(21:07):
about a lot, and we will talk about it more,
I have no doubt. But in the meantime, we're gonna
take quick break to hear from a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll be back with more strange news. All right,
welcome back. We are going to get pretty serious here
for a few minutes. Uh. This one. The story is
(21:29):
coming out of California, and it is about a very
tragic event, an event that is unsolved as we record this.
On the August I'm gonna read from the Mercury News.
Here's the headline, missing Northern California family of three found
dead in remote hiking area identified. This was written on
(21:51):
August nineteen of this year, so not long ago at all.
And I'm just gonna read a bit from this. It was,
uh is written by the Associated Press and put into
the Mercury News. It says a northern California family of
three that have been reported missing was found dead Tuesday
along with the family's dog on a hiking trail in
a remote area of the Sierra National Forest. People who
(22:15):
were looking for the family discovered the vehicle, the family vehicle.
It was parked at the Sierra National Forest, and not
that far away they found the bodies of John Garish,
Ellen Chung, their one year old daughter, and their dog Um.
They were found near a place called Devil's Gulch. And
(22:37):
this is a Mariposa County that was according to the
sheriff of that county. Now here's the thing. When the
family was initially discovered, the cause of death was not
immediately known and it wasn't easily discernible, so you know,
people were trying to figure out what the ha happened.
There's no you know, if you're if you're a crime
scene investigator, nothing jumps out as in, that's obb see
(23:00):
why one or more of these people expired. Um especially
finding the dog and the one year old also dead,
makes it extremely puzzling that there's no signs. So on
the nineteenth or right around that time, investigators there in
Mariposa County are hit with a mystery like what the
heck happened? And of course speculation begins because we don't
(23:23):
have answers what could possibly kill an entire family while
they're hiking. The first thing you may think about is
the heat. You've heard this, You've experienced this, no doubt,
depending where you live on this planet. Everywhere, but particularly
in the Western United States, there have been heat waves
where it gets up to a hundred degrees very easily,
(23:45):
sometimes a hundred and five on that day when they
were found, when they you know, perhaps died. It had
reached a hundred and nine degrees fahrenheit, which is not good.
But investigators found that there was water. They were carrying
water with them when they were hiking, because they were
on a hike as a family they like to do
that they were prepared. That doesn't seem to be the cause,
(24:09):
at least as of right now. And as the reporting
continued up until today on the twenty three, all kinds
of things, possibilities have been put out there. One that
I thought you guys might be interested in, one that
piqued my interest at least, was the concept that there
was an algae bloom on a nearby river or within
(24:30):
a nearby rivers system that perhaps could have contributed to
their deaths. And I had never heard of that as
a thing that could potentially be fatal to say, an
entire family just out of the blue, Like that sounds
like a red tide type situation where it can be
like toxic or something, or what's the deal with the
algae bloom? Well, I learned a little bit about it
(24:52):
from the BBC from an article they posted titled poison
algae may have killed California family, police say, And it
does say that the nearby waterways were being tested for
any some kind of toxic algae bloom that may have occurred,
because uh, not that long ago these same waterways did
have a toxic algae bloom. So I mean that very well.
(25:13):
Maybe the answer to the questions here and that's it
and mysteries over terrible tragedy. That's what happened, but perhaps not.
And I don't know much about toxic algae blooms how
they would actually kill a whole family like that. Do
you know anything about that, Ben, Yeah, just the brief
part of it. And this is from the California Department
(25:37):
of Public Health along with Sierra National Forest. It's weird
because algae bloom, I think for some of us might
make you think of a flower blossomy. Right, Uh, it's
not super different. Uh. This can happen with cyanobacteria and
then several kinds of different algae. And what happens is
when they bloom, they're growing out of troll at an
(26:00):
unprecedented pace. And this happens when water is warm, stagnant,
or slow moving, and it's full of stuff that maybe
is not the best for us to drink a ton of,
but is awesome for algae like nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
And when they when they grow that quickly, they become
(26:21):
too dense or they can use up the existing oxygen
in the water and that's when they start to release gases.
So you could you could be poisoned by the gas
admitted by this algae bloom. It's not like it's not
like a swamp thing moment where something rises from the
muck and then physically hits people, because then you would,
(26:44):
like to your point about what the investigator said, you
would see things like contusions, bruising, broken bones, broken highoid bone,
if they're getting choked. So what this sounds like is
more like um quite possibly asphyxiation um or or poisoning
in general role from the inhalation of those gases and
that like if you mixed ammonia and chlorine or something
(27:05):
like that and you created something, they would create a
chemical reaction that creates chlorine gas that would kill the
hell out of you. Just so, yeah, it reminds me
of those exploding lake stories. Remember about that on the
African continent, because when those those were dangerous, I think
one killed thousands of people and that wasn't an algae bloom.
(27:29):
That was just a concentration of carbon dioxide that blue
that created this gas cloud. But this gas cloud caught
people unawares and it took their lives as a result.
So it seems like a strange a culprit is an
algae bloom. May sound like it seems plausible, doesn't it.
I mean, you know, again, we're not experts on this, No,
(27:49):
we're not. It does seem like it could be that.
There are a couple other things that are being put
out by places like the Washington Post. You can read
about this story everywhere right now. Things like a nearby
cave system somehow, in one way or another released you know,
gases again, maybe anything from from rad on to carbon
(28:11):
monoxide to just other gases that are escaping a cave
system because of some small collapse or some release of
gas that generally wouldn't happen on a regular basis that
would cause the immediate area or maybe a depressed area
from an elevation standpoint of where they were in to
cause it to like fill up with gas and push
a lot of the oxygen out. If it's a heavier gas,
(28:34):
that's a possibility That's really all I've seen as how
it could have happened because of the state in which
everyone was found. Right now, the dog is going or
was maybe is going through a necropsy. There's going to
be toxicology reports coming back in the next you know,
several days week, so we will hopefully find out more.
(28:58):
And one last thing from the Washington Post here, This
was just an extra bit of detail that I hadn't
seen before. This is posted today. The twenty three says
a couple of their baby and their dog died on
a California hiking trail and officials don't know why. And
it's just a little more detail, saying that the father, Garish,
(29:20):
was sitting. He was in a seated position, The baby
and the dog were near him and chung. The woman,
his wife, was found further away, not that far but
up the hill. To me, that reads, maybe she notices
something is wrong with either the dog, the child, somebody,
She feels something is wrong with herself and is trying
(29:42):
to get to higher ground, but she doesn't make it.
That's to me what it says. But I I have
no idea. Ben. You you found something about actually identifying
algae blooms can you tell us about that. Yeah, this
is something that could be helpful hopefully to anybody who
you might find themselves in the same situation. What could
(30:03):
surprise you is how quickly this stuff could become dangerous
if you're if it is nolge bloom, and if you're
around it at the wrong time. So the California Apartment
of Public Health says that first, you can notice something
odd about the color. It may appear as though paint
is floating on the water. Fellow color deficient people, this
(30:28):
is why you use the Buddy system, because you, like me,
may not know that is brown or red color in
the water, coloring to the water, but it could also
be green or blue. And uh there there are a
couple of other things you can you can tell just
by um what mac would call an ocular assessment. There
you go ocular assessments by yourself or a buddy, you
(30:52):
know what. Let's say, let's use Buddy system for everything,
every instance where you need to identify toxic algae balloons
just to get a second opinion. Yeah, I'd like to
have somebody else in the restroom, you know, just in case,
because there's toxic stuff that goes on there. Well, I mean,
we're also living in a dangerous world, fellas. I think
the buddy system is probably just in general, a good policy. Yeah, yeah,
(31:12):
especially especially unfortunately in Atlanta specifically these days. Uh, that
there were a couple of other indicators, right, that people
could use to tell whether there was potentially toxic algae
in water. Yes, you also want to look out for
cloudy water. Hmm yeah, cloudy water easy to tell, right.
(31:36):
I've started to think maybe we live in a dirty
part of town. Yeah, because get any river or lake
in Georgia, slash in near Atlanta, and that's what it
looks like. Dude. I recently saw some clear water before
I came back, and I thought it was dirty because
(31:58):
I realized it was so clear I could see the
ground under it, and I thought, oh, that's what That's
what water is supposed to look like. Yeah, that's when
it's not just the almost colloid consistency um that is
really important. The other thing is smell, Just to point
(32:19):
that out. If you're by a stream or something, or
you know, in my backyard down where the little creek
is and it smells awful, not great, it doesn't mean
it's a toxic algae. Bloom, but probably just standing water
or something gross like that. Yeah, but you just have
to be careful because it really depends on elevation a
lot of times. So where you are, and if there's
(32:40):
a pocket of say like in a in a toxic
algae bloom, a pocket of carbon monoxide, or like in
any of those other instances, that CEO will just pool
basically Eric can pool. So you just have to be
super careful of that stuff. Doesn't Doesn't this almost remind
you of like the twist ending to like ned Garland
post story or something like you think they're looking for
(33:02):
the murderer the whole time, and then at the end
it turns out it was like a monkey with a
razor or like a toxic algae blue like a twist. Yeah,
for mystery novel, right, Yeah for sure. Also, just really
quickly because I had this question, I just took it
upon myself looking up. Matt, you mentioned a neck cropsy
on the dog, and maybe folks already know this, but
I didn't. Uh. Neck cropsy and autopsy are essentially the
same thing. But neck cropsy is parlance used to refer
(33:24):
to digging, up, exhuming, and examining an animal specifically humans
are still about themselves. We need our own word. This
is an autotopsy. Uh no, don't do an autotopsy. Who
an autotopsy is? That? Is that what you take apart
a car to figure out? Yeah, well it's not working.
(33:46):
I was thinking more of in the sense of an autobiography,
so it's like that makes way more sense. Yes, I
always thought that was one of the I don't know
how realistic it is. I know what has happened in
the real world in the past, but I always thought
that was one of the most badass things you would
see in action movies where someone does some sort of
(34:07):
self administered surgery bites down on a wooden spoon. Yeah.
Like yeah, sometimes while they're giving a speech to like
the person they just met earlier at the mall or whatever,
and they're like fighting down. They're like stobbies by the clips,
(34:27):
I need you to run the foot locker exactly. Good teeth,
gritted yowl is always a good a good move um
and yeah, and the stitching it up. Also, the part
that always gives me that I don't like needles, But
the part that always makes me internally cringe is when
they pour the alcohol on it. You know, and you
(34:50):
know like, actually this is not a spoiler at all,
but if anyone's seen or plans to see, uh, the
New Quiet Place movie, there gnarly injury that takes place
in that and requires said self serry, not self surgery,
but real close and the part where the liquid gets
poured on it is a just absolute gut wrenching screen.
You could do it. This has nothing to do with
(35:12):
analogy Bloom and this tragic, tragic death, But I've always
been curious, Um, do you guys think Matt Noel doc
that if you were required to, you could take one
of those syringes and stab yourself with it, you know
where the ones where you have to like get into
your chest in the Yeah, do you think you could
do it? It's into the muscle, right, It's not like
(35:34):
a vein. You gotta literally just shove that thing into
a muscle. If I'm not mistaken, let me check to
make sure. You know a step self and chest with needle. Well,
that's that's like the pulp fiction scenario, or you're trying
to restart somebody's heart. There are there are situations where
if you have a real bad injury, you might need
to dis injected into the surrounding muscle tissue rather than like,
(35:58):
I'm not quite sure, there are intramuscular injections like say,
for um diabetes and things like that. Yes, yeah, like
you know, people administer um insulin to themselves aside dramatic thing. Well,
I just looked with not super heavy research, to be honest,
and it appears that in the idea of ejecting medication
(36:21):
straight into the heart is a movie myth. According to
Scott at Gizmoto, it is garbage. He seem yeah, yeah,
not having his first name on that really persuades me.
He's got a lot of hat if you just have
to know him bout his first name. But well, I
guess it's it's better that we, the four of us,
don't know whether we could do it, because it would
(36:43):
be a bad idea. Yes, just leave you with this
last thing. According to the Fresno B no signs of trauma.
According to CNN, no suicide note or indication that there
is something intentional that occurred while they were out hiking
the cause their deaths. It is a mystery. Hopefully you
will have answers soon, And dang it, it's just a
(37:07):
terrible tragedy that this occurred, and we can only hope
it doesn't happen again ever, especially anytime soon. All right,
right to us if you hear anything, and we will
tell you how to get in contact with us at
the end of this episode. For now, we'll be right
back after a word from our sponsor and we have returned.
(37:35):
But before we move on, Matt, I just uh, you know,
I wonder how many mysterious deaths like that occur each year,
you know, because it again, to Knowle's point, it does
have this troubly mysterious aspect to it. And I hope,
you know, with thoughts with the survivors. And I'm gonna
(37:55):
I think we're all gonna keep an eye on the
updates from the autopsy here, because if we don't know
what happened, then we have no way of preventing it
from happening in the future. So I was just something
on my mind, dear, you know, or break our last
story for today folks. Before we record the three of
us kind of we usually get together and we think like, hey,
(38:16):
what how should we present this? And that's why you
sometimes hear us say, Okay, we're gonna finish with a
light one because we did some heavy stuff. What did
you call it, Matt, A good sandwich? Serious sandwich? Serious? Sorry,
serious sandwich. Let we call it like a muffletta. That's
a serious sandwich. Yeah, mufflettas are so good. It's so
weird that people are against them. Uh. Sorry, I just
(38:38):
don't like it. Okay, that's right. It was you. It
was you. Afraid he doesn't like all of salad, which
I understand. I used to be really squeaky about alive
based products in my older age. I have gotten much
more cool with it. But I only like it in
certain situations, and that is as a topping, and that
muffletta is what's up. I feel kind of add because
(39:01):
now I think Nolan I both genuinely forgot. I was
remembering a mufflettic conversation where I was surprised it was you,
But you know what to eat their own to exactly exactly.
I try at least one per year on and you
(39:22):
went to the good place to write in the place
that's known and famous for mufflettics, Central Grocery, Right. Did Uh?
Don't feel bad, man, I think a lot of people
have foods like that. Like I'll be. This is kind
of dumb to admit. I don't understand why I try it.
You know, you're in situations where it's like you're supposed
(39:42):
to drink some wine and I'll sit there with a
glass in my hand, but I feel like a tool.
I don't know what I don't. I don't know the
difference between, you know, the really fancy stuff and the
really cheap, and science proves there's not that much of
a difference. Sorry, smiles. I don't either. I drink white
wine out of a box because I like the way
it makes me feel and I find it refreshing. I
(40:05):
put put ice cubes in it because I'm trash. I
like red wine though, for cooking. I like to put
a red wine in my ragou if I'm making like
a nice set spaghetti bolonets or something. I read wine
is a lovely thing, nice red wine in it or whatever.
For anyway, So how do we segue this? Gents? We
are talking about food, right This is this is an update,
(40:28):
a bit of an update to something we've talked about
a few times on this show. Yes, yeah uh. In
the past, we, like the rest of the denizens of
the Internet, made fun of McDonald's ice cream machines. This
joke has become so ubiquitous that people have it started
to reach the level of hack comedy, almost like airline food.
(40:53):
Come on, right, it's not so good, Right, it's not
so good. Some people walk different at the mall. Foot
else what else? Socks? How was the where do they go? Where?
Where do they go? Exactly? Exactly? And so the interesting thing,
and I think this was this was something we touched
on previously in Strange News, is that there is sand
(41:18):
to all the complaining about this. The McDonald's ice cream machines,
which can make both milkshakes and soft serve, are pretty
much broken a ludicrous amount of time, so much so
that in our previous segment, which I think you did, no,
there was nap created that would tell you in pretty
close to real time which machines were or were not
(41:39):
working in McDonald's across the United States. I think it
was like crowdsource the way, like the Ways app will
allow you to say is there a cop at this
intersection as they are disabled vehicle, and then you can
say yes or no. I think this one probably was
a similar grid where if you're in the proximity of McDonald's.
You're supposed to check in on them and then give
a R and A and so a view all these
(42:00):
little icons on these maps that would show you, like
which ones were out of order, And it was comical
ben the degree to which they were very much not
in order. And it turns out, it turns out that
that itself is a genuine conspiracy, which I was not expecting.
I don't know if anybody else was expecting this, But
(42:21):
the argument and the mystery of McDonald's ice cream machines
has escalated to a new level. People are filing restraining
orders over this. Here's what Here's what happened. The truth
of the matter is that the ice cream machines that
(42:42):
are used in McDonald's, at least across the US, if
not the world, are all the same type of machine.
They're manufactured by the same company. There's something called a
Taylor C six O two digital ice cream machine. This thing,
this Taylor contraption, is in these McDonald's because the franchisees
(43:05):
are legally required to only have that machine. Furthermore, that machine,
which is notoriously complicated and fragile and finicky, can only
be serviced by a technician who is certified by Taylor
and Taylor has a deal with management of McDonald's. In fact,
(43:29):
there are allegations that part of this deal came about
because members of McDonald's management, whether pastor present, had a
lot of stock and Taylor. So what we're really talking
about past the fun memes, which are great and I'm
sorry I called them a hack comedy. That doesn't mean
it's bad. I laugh at them too. Write the past
the memes, though, this is a very serious conversation about
(43:53):
something known as the right to repair, which is just
going to get more and more um controversy shoal and
more of a hot issue as the years go by.
It's something that we've encountered before. We talked about planned obts,
lescens It's something that we encounter before we talked about like, um,
I can't remember if it was us a few years ago.
We're talking about trying to fix our iPhones on our
(44:15):
own or androids. If you guys ever attempted that. There
are little videos and walkthroughs and how to do it.
You gotta have tiny little tools, I think, some proprietary tools,
but it can be done. I mean, the folks that
have those kiosks at them all are basically just like
self starters that figured out how to do that and
made a little business out of it, but they're not
like certified apple people. Yeah, and we see that civilization
(44:35):
is moving away from an ownership society in general to
a service society. Right, it's not impossible to say that
in the future, you might have a car that is
free but supported by ads. See's sitting a self driving
car and you just have to watch advertisements the entire time.
(44:56):
I don't know how the business model works. They're gonna
have to figure out a few things there. I can't
really name the book, Gosh darn it. It It was a
really cool book by this futurist guy, and he was
kind of predicting all of the like escalations of our
like crowdsourced models of things. And one of them went
so far as to be like, you don't even own
furniture anymore. You kind of like pay a pay ah,
(45:17):
you know, you subscribe to a service that gets you
what furniture you need, will occasionally switch it out. Or
maybe you don't own your clothes. You just like wear
them around until you don't like them anymore, and then
you get new ones, but you're not actually ever buying it.
You're just paying a monthly thing. And that's the same
with video games. You know, you don't have the actual
disc anymore. In theory, if the whole system went belly up,
(45:37):
you might not actually own that at all. Or e
books right when when Amazon fold of all books nine
from the contol that was not on their irony was
not lost on the internet on that one. So here's
what happened here, here's what's been happening with McDonald's ice
cream machines. So they're they're a pain, right. You hear
(45:58):
farmers complaining about this in the US too. They might
have a piece of farming equipment, you know, attractor or something,
and they would totally be able to fix it. They
would just need to have access to a way to
understand the error codes the machine is giving them. But
because of various proprietary measures, they cannot fix the thing
(46:21):
that they purchased. What's happening with the McDonald's machines is
that each one cost eighteen thousand dollars and the restaurant
owners don't get to know how they work. Basically, so
if anything goes wrong and a lot of stuff goes wrong,
they have to call in one of these people. They
have to pay that person to come in, by the way,
(46:42):
it's not free. And then the idea is that this
somehow results in a kickback for for some faction of
the fast food empire at play. So there are these
two folks, Melissa Nelson and Jeremy O'Sullivan who started thinking
of a way to get around this, and they began
(47:03):
selling something they created which they called kitch k y
t c H. So you can install it inside of
this tailor ice cream machine, you connect it to your WiFi,
and then it tells you what's going on. It tells
you what the purpose lee of two codes on the
machine mean, and then that lets you know how you
(47:27):
can fix it. So the device lets you see what's
going on in this thing that you again own, and
then it'll suggest trouble shooting solutions and keep uh and
and keep track of what could be a larger problem.
You know what that reminds me of, been um thinking
back to your car stuff days. Those little boxes that
they can hook up to the electronics on a car
(47:49):
that reads the codes that like their literal codes that
you as a layman would never know what the hell
they mean. But there's like a database they keep up
with and they know which manufacturer makes the car are
and they can interpret it and it could be something
that you, as a novice, could probably figure out, but
it just might be something you would never know unless
you hooked up that. I think that's very much like
what this is. And it's like a little diagnostic reader
(48:12):
kind of thing that reads these different like sensors or whatever. Yeah,
that's a great comparison. Yeah, that's the in a vehicle.
That's the O B D two ports which you can
you can plug in and you can get code readers
for it, and they are all kinds of neat little
things you can do with it, up to and including
hacking a car and taking control of it if you're
(48:32):
clever and also somehow sneaky enough to sit in the
backseat of the car and not get caught. Yeah, or
sometimes in the front, depending on where it is. My
older vehicles, it was always right there in the front
driver's scene. You can access it. But that was the thing,
though there's no way to do it like remotely yet officially. Yeah, man,
(48:56):
I saw your eyes light up though, And this ice
Cream Diagnostics that you well, the I love that we're
talking about cars in this way because I really think
this whole thing has a lot to do with the
car industry, especially when you you know, we've talked about
it before when we were discussing new cars and buying cars.
A company, let's say a Mazda dealer, he cheers to you, Mazda.
(49:23):
They will make a certain amount of money selling new vehicles.
But the way they'll really make their money because they
you know, they make a certain amount on top of
whatever the manufacturers prices for that vehicle. The way that
dealership actually makes money is by having that person that
just drove away with a new or used Mazda is
going to agree as a part of that purchase to
(49:45):
only bring their Mazda back to this service center. Is
that there actually our exclusivity agreements that get you some
kind of special deal or I would never agree to that,
right if you just did. I mean, we have in
and out of network healthcare in the US. That's but
(50:05):
it's only up to a certain um period of time though,
right once your warranty runs out, then all bets are
off and you can do whatever you want. Is that
the deal? Yes? But here's you pay for a certain
amount of time, like life, certain life of the vehicle,
right in many of those deals. But what the you know,
and I'm not I don't own a car dealership. What
the dealership banks on is that you become so accustomed
(50:28):
to taking your Masda to their Masda dealership that when
it's time for some small change, you just go to
that Masda dealership because it's what you do now, and
then you hopefully buy your next car from that same
Masa dealership too. They've got you in the family. It's
an easy kind of routine. I remember, now, I bought
a car to a a dealership. It wasn't new, but it
was so far away from me I never would have
(50:49):
taken it there in a million years. So I'm I
think I got a certified pre owned car that was
like you didn't have very many miles off. I don't
think that was part of the deal, but I can
certainly see how that makes a lot of sense because
also in the mind of the consumer, they're the experts.
They're the ones that made the car, you know, so
therefore who better to work on it than the experts.
If I'm going to pay anybody a hundred and fifty
(51:11):
dollars for an oil change. You know it's gonna be
the same people who ripped me off last I just like,
I just liked Rod so much. He gave me such
a good deal, uh, such a good rate. Right, yeah,
I mean this is a big thing, and I think
you're You're absolutely right, Matt. First off, not we're not
accusing dealership of any kind of untoward activity, because that
(51:34):
that is just familiarity. And I'm not saying that dealerships
are ripping people off. In fact, there are, like there
are tons of fantastic mechanics at dealerships, and they choose
to work at those dealerships when they could have gone
somewhere else. Certainly limits your options to shop around, though,
and to find the best price. You can maybe leave
that it is. It is a bargain with definitive pros
(51:58):
and cons. But also this is part of a new reality. Increasingly,
automobiles are especially the ones that are more on the
bleeding edge of technology, like the newer electric vehicles, new
or hybrid vehicles. Those aren't really things the average person
can work on in their home garage. And this is
(52:18):
also happening with phones. It's also happening with ice cream.
If you've ever cracked open maybe a laptop to do
some repairs, you know that mac book can be notoriously finicky.
To wrap this up, and I do want to keep
an eye on this, There is what Andy Greenberg over
at Wired called a cold war between Kitch and McDonald
(52:45):
no pun left behind, no wordplay left behind. And what's
going on now is that so Kitch got in trouble
with Taylor because they felt like they were taking this
proprietary information or they were they were breaking a profit
system that kind of tax the franchise ease of these
fast food places, arguably because you know, just like the
(53:06):
dealership example, Matt use, they're locked in. They can only
go to this one source, even if they know how
to repair a thing. So Taylor, the manufacturer of these machines,
hit back with a really weird objection in court. Uh,
they said, you can't if you're a franchise eve McDonald's,
(53:28):
you can't use these kitchen devices because they can cause
quote serious human injury death by ice cream machine, or
may mean by ice cream machine. Matt's nodding like, yeah,
it's it's a tragedy. Those things, those things turn and
turn for a reason, that's true, and sometimes they could
(53:48):
turn and churn on you. So earlier this summer, Kitch
one a legal battle against this company Taylor, and a
California judge issued a temporary raining order against the company
because apparently the bigger the bigger dog in the fight, Taylor,
had acquired one of these kitchen Solution devices and they
(54:09):
were trying to reverse engineer it and build their own
version of the same thing. So every time you get, um,
it's a good mcflurry, every time you get a mcflurry,
or every time you you know it gets some delicious
ice cream from McDonald's and machines working, you are, in
a way a by standard on a battlefield, right that's
(54:32):
taking place at fourteen thousand locations or something like that
across the US, tens of thousands across the world. Uh,
And that might be the thing, you know, that might
be the thing that makes you think I should have
gone to Blubadubba is the best? Um Ben This rang
a bell for me from a story that I thought
(54:54):
I may have heard on public radio, and I just
confirmed that I did. In fact, here it um Apparently
in states and Congress are looking at something called right
to repair legislation uh this year. Um. Also, this is
something that's happening globally and it is largely spurred by
the isolation of COVID nineteen lockdowns. Um. The you know,
(55:15):
people are really getting tired of having to send their
crap back the manufacturer because then you're at the mercy
of the manufacturer. You don't know how they don't have
any Uh, there's no requirement they guarantee how quickly you'll
get your stuff back. You'd much more likely try to
give it a go yourself, and with YouTube and you know,
manuals and all of that. Uh, it's certainly something within
the realm of possibility. But because of exactly what we're
(55:38):
talking about, ben, a lot of the types of tools
and diagnostic things, they are kept on lock by the manufacturers,
so they're essentially they have you over a barrel. And
this legislation that's being looked at would seek to prevent
manufacturers from keeping those proprietary tools from the public. And
(55:58):
you know, there are arguments that companies will have against
what we will call the right the right to repair.
And then you know, like anybody who's thought, boy, I'm
sure getting ripped off because I can't. I don't have
the ability or the wherewithal to fix the thing that
I paid for. You can see how this could be
(56:19):
an immensely frustrating situation, but we wanted to give you
an inside look at ice cream conspiracy. You know what
I'd love to hear from someone who has had experience
fighting for the right to repair something. I mentioned farmers
earlier to their horror stories about farmers trying to say,
let me, let me fix the thing I own. I
(56:40):
know what's wrong with it, I know how to fix it.
Your system won't let me. But then, also let us
know about mysterious deaths similar to the tragic events in
California that we just explored today, and let us know
your position. How much power should payment platforms have In general?
(57:01):
We'd love to hear from you. We can't wait to
do so. We try to make it easy to find
us online. That's why you can find us in the
usual Internet places of note, we are conspiracy stuff on Twitter,
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can also give us a telephone call. That's right. Our
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(57:23):
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give us an email instead. We are conspiracy at iHeart
(57:45):
radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you to know.
(58:06):
Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben, and we're joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. It's the top
of the week, which means it is time for our
strange news segment. They're shady stuff going on in the
(00:47):
world of fast food. There are mysteries in the hiking
trails of the West Coast. And if you are one
of the many, many people who started make being your
own business online during the pandemic a specific type of business,
then you may be running into trouble sooner rather than later.
(01:10):
It's true. Uh and and yeah we can we can
certainly lead with that one um. You might have heard
of of a site called only Fans, and I think
if you've heard of it, you probably have associations that
you make with that site. The idea is that it
is a paywalled um you know, creator driven platform where
folks who create stuff can reach their fans directly. Uh,
(01:32):
kind of like Patreon, except the content it's all bonus
that it's I mean, like in the way the Patreon.
You have a product like a podcast or some sort
of startup or whatever, some sort of project that exists
out in the world, and then Patreon uh pays you,
you know for this product that you do that isn't
hosted on Patreon necessarily. But then usually there are tears
of um extras that you can get to, you know,
(01:55):
certain levels of contribution as fans well only fans is
specific like paywalled content made by individuals and sold directly
to users. And that association that I'm talking about is
is pretty much porn um only fans, you know, theoretically
could have all kinds of content creators on it, and
(02:16):
there apparently is a small community of content creators that
are chefs and yoga instructors and you know, things like that.
But by and large they have made their money, and
it's quite a quite a lot of money, in fact,
billions of dollars off of the backs of sex workers.
And these include folks that are may be already known
in UM. In the world of adults, content like porn,
(02:38):
porn stars that you know do more, let's say, candid
videos that are then sold directly to individual users who
can subscribe to that person, that creator, that performer. UM
and there are ways of you know, doing private chats
and you know, situations that lead you to be able
to tip uh in all of that stuff. So on
(03:01):
the positive side, and what a big argument for the
positive impact of only fans is that it allows sex
workers or individuals that are comfortable with this kind of
work to make money directly from people that want to
pay them money. And obviously there's no actual sex involved,
it's just you know, videos and chats and things like that.
(03:23):
UM And you know, you could argue this is very
empowering for individuals, especially in a world where sex workers
are often highly stigmatized. UM. I was watching a video
on the YouTube channel I always shout out here Internet Today,
and they pointed to a scene in the movie Boogie Nights.
I completely agree with This is a really good example
where um Don Schiele's character has decided to get out
(03:46):
of the porn industry. He has made a good bit
of money and he decided to get out and he
wants to open a stereo shop. So he goes to
a bank yes for a loan, and the banker, basically
when he finds out what he's done to earn his money,
um says, no, we don't associate with your type of
people from your industry. Let's no matter what degree it
does or does not affect the situation at hand. Like
(04:09):
the numerous stories of people who are nurses, people who
are teachers, people who are working in office jobs who
get blacklisted or get effectively canceled in their field of
employment simply because of an only fans account, And that's
just an acceleration or a new iteration of the old story,
(04:31):
like somebody finding nude photographs from years ago. I think
we should be very clear at this point like sex
work is work, and regardless of somebody's you know, personal
morality about it, it's very it's very unhelpful, I think
to stigmatize people. I mean, don't we always don't. People
(04:55):
always make a big deal of platitudes like hey, you
are not your job, don't let your job define you.
I don't think that should be any different, right, and
unless it offends me on some sort of like spiritual level,
unless it helps me get better about myself without doing
better as a person's Yes, you're bad and you should
(05:16):
feel bad. You're bad and you should feel bad. But
you know, the Only fans also like it. You you
can't even see the content really unless you're a subscriber,
so it also it's probably a positive thing for you know,
limiting the exposure. You can't really you can screenshot at
I guess, but it feels like it's a community where
people are more or less respectful of the folks they
(05:37):
follow and don't go passing it around. So in theory,
if you had an account, you know, you might still
be able to have a life as a regular person
and not be not have that follow you into the workplace.
And uh, you know. Understandably, during COVID they saw their
profits rise significantly. I believe they made two billion dollars
last year. It is assumed that we will see that
(06:00):
pretty much double. But in a pretty shocking turn of events,
um the leadership Only Fans have decided to essentially ban
the very content that they are known for and the
very content that has made them all of this money
over these years, especially during COVID when folks literally were
(06:20):
out of work and they needed some folks decided to
turn to this as a revenue stream. And you know,
there are a handful of creators on only fans that
pull in like up to a million dollars a year.
Obviously that's at the very very top end of things,
but you know, you have folks making fifty dollars a year,
like the kind of money that would amount to like
a good salary. So understandably, the folks that are, you know,
(06:42):
relying on the ability to to get paid for this
content are kind of freaking out. And it does feel
like a form of cancelation or further stigmatization of sex
workers by a company that absolutely profited off of their
their backs, their literal backs. But it's it's not really
only fans, or at least their reasoning, right. If you
see the statement, that's right, that's right, Their statement is
(07:06):
they they kind of bury the lead. Um, we'll get
to what the real lead is. But they essentially are saying, uh,
they he'll just read the statement. We can we can
dissect it together. Um, it says this in order to
quote in order to ensure the long term sustainability of
our platform and to continue to host an inclusive community
(07:27):
of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines.
These changes are to comply with the requests of our
banking partners and payout providers. Okay, so you could have
ended it with content guidelines, but then that's the real
kicker there. These changes are to comply with the requests
of our banking partners and payout providers. So hence there
(07:49):
in lies the book unites comparison. UM turns out banks
and lenders and even payment providers are still kind of
squeamish about being associated with this kind of stuff, and
then there are reasons for that, um, you know, understandable reasons.
There's a really interesting investigative piece that the BBC did
(08:12):
about underage people, uh using only fans to create content
and make money. Uh. It's called The Children Selling Explicit
Videos on Only Fans and it was from May seven
of this year, and it's by Noel Man after my
own heart titherer raj and Rihanna Croxford, and it is
a really really well researched and investigated peace. They went
(08:34):
in UM and through various means, UM kind of exposed
some of the let's say, limitations of the age verification
methods that are in place and and these are some
of the most serious cases they found UM. One of
which is schools have shared anonymous reports of pupils using
the site, including a sixteen year old who boasted to
(08:54):
her careers advisor about the amount of money she made
on the site and showed off her quote exuberant spending
on Instagram. UM so essentially posted videos underage, bragged about
it at school to her guidance counselor, and then posted
flex type things on Instagram of like all the you know,
fancy swag she was buying with all this money. Um.
Another one is underage creators and users of the site
(09:14):
include victims of prior sexual abuse and those with mental
health issues and suicidal thoughts, according to Childline Counselor Notes,
which as a UK organization. By the way, only fans
of the UK based site. I only just recently found
that out UH. UK police forces say children have complained
about their images being uploaded to the site without consent,
and one seventeen year old reported being blackmailed. UH and
(09:36):
then you've got missing children are appearing in only fans videos.
According to a US watchdog, which also says it has
received reports of child sexual exploitation. UM, so those are
obviously very very serious violations of the terms of use
of the site and folks being able to kind of
bypass these age verifications things. The Only Fans leadership says
(09:57):
all of these were targeted and all of these were deleted,
and that they have since UM included a much more robust, uh,
let's say, age verification technique, because some folks were using
fake ideas or even like a grandmother's passport was used
in one situation. So I'm just trying to show both
sides of the issue, so understandable. Grandma's passport, the old
(10:21):
grandma's passport grifts classic, classic grift. I'm just trying to
show both sides because I think obviously there is a positive,
you know, for of age consenting adults trying to make
money off of this type of sex work, and then,
like you have with any sex work scenario, there are
going to be abuses of it. I would argue that
(10:41):
by and large these are like the exception to the rule,
but I'm not I didn't do this investigative piece, but
based on what I've read, it does seem like it
was maybe around seventeen cases and that they did, you
know up there their security precautions. But it's kind of
a moot point now because you know they're shutting it down. Um.
So I don't know that's the gist of the story.
But I think and even bigger part of the story
(11:04):
is how much control companies like PayPal and am X
and um, you know, Visa have over literally what we
can buy. They don't have to, you know, appeal a
decision that they make to cut somebody off from from
being a vendor of theirs. Um, they don't have to
do anything. They don't have to make a case to
(11:25):
any court. They can just say we don't like what
you're doing. We think it's in poor taste. We as
a brand don't want to be associated with you. Uh,
therefore you're now cut off. So you know, you could
argue that it's the big three here, but which I
think an online payment it would be Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.
Is that too much power? Is that essentially a monopoly
(11:46):
or an olagopoly of some kinds? Um? And and they
wield way more control. Because I watched a really great
video on a UK YouTube channel called t l d
R News I think is what it's called. It's not
associated with any of the big UK broad casters. It's independent.
But they mentioned that the only solution to this is
to start accepting cryptocurrency, and as we know, cryptocurrency has
(12:08):
its own issues in terms of regulation and regulation to come,
so you know, it would certainly put a wrench in
things to a degree, but they would still be able
to operate under the same model that's making them billions
of dollars instead of literally kind of pivoting to something
that is probably going to cause them to fall flat
on their faces. And if you ask me, um or
(12:29):
there was another thing that like I think UK governments
were talking about doing in general, which is like a
state sponsored type of peer to peer payment service that's
like a digital wallet. I forget that the acronym it
was like pd PP or something like that. Um But
in that case they make the point on this t
LDR video all these acronyms. Uh, the power is no
(12:50):
longer with these private companies, but it's with the state.
So isn't that even worse at scarier? Yeah? The so
I think there are two questions ass So the first
is what's the way around those those large, uh somewhat
monopolistic payment platforms. Unfortunately, there are other, you know, courses
(13:12):
in the race, but they are very distant, they're much smaller,
they're not near as ubiquitous, And these platforms, the majority
of their value is based on how ubiquitous and easy
to use they are. Right, So, like you could look
at another country or non western country that may have
their own payment platform, but with that might come a
(13:34):
little bit too much government control or overreach, you know,
if you're looking at an authoritarian country that monitors transactions.
So I'm sure a lot of people in the UK
would be worried about that. But the the second, I
guess to answer your second question, at least on my
end um, and I'm not an expert here. Governments in
(13:54):
general seem to have a really tough time staying up
to date with current technology, so much so that one
of the most successful security strategies of governments is to
purposely use anachronistic technology. So like, you can't you know,
bust the water treatment system because it's too old to
(14:15):
be online and it uses some like very vague old
testament deuteronomy level version of an OS or what they
used to do with like nuclear power facilities and things
like that. You don't want them to be directly connected
to the wider internet, would yes, air gap exactly? To me,
the the issue of can one trust a government not
(14:37):
to abuse it's monitoring power in that regard, to me,
that secondary to the immediate practical issue, which is could
a government actually do it? Like could they make something
that people would want to use? That would be my question.
I I don't know, Yeah, Matt, what do you think?
I mean, it's definitely seems like a question that's just
(14:58):
going to keep having to be asked, you know, moving forward,
Like in lots of other aspects of our lives, it
is a pretty small handful of companies that hold the
keys to the kingdom. Yeah, um, And I don't know
how anyone, even the most powerful military could pride those
keys from their hands, because they can just hire another
army to stand in front of whatever building holds the power. Uh.
(15:21):
But you know, for for me, guys, I'm thinking more
on the individual level of this story. There's a CNN
business article that you linked to knowl and in it
there's a person who goes by Maya on only Fans,
and she has a really interesting account here discussing how
over the past really four or five years, all of
(15:44):
these different companies places online like Craigslist, I think porn Hub,
several of the outlets were an individual who was trying
to make a living via this kind of work would
be able to post things and then make money, right
the outlets, We're an individual person could make money or disappearing,
(16:04):
and only Fans is just the next one of those.
And she's saying, you know, the reason why she isn't
out doing quote full service sex work right now is
because she has out an l a like this. But
if she doesn't, she will have to revert back to that,
which is far more dangerous personally. I mean, unless you
(16:25):
are really really cautious and vetting your clients and working
in maybe a more high class situation, you could I
think it's still very dangerous because I mean, law enforcement
tends to prosecute sex workers, uh to a much more
extreme degree than the John's right clients. And that's because
(16:47):
and that's because of it's almost like a slut shaming
kind of mentality that is ingrained in like our culture
and the police, because what why do you think is
it's the same thing where when you know a man
she eats let's say, or like a high profile situation
like that, the woman oftentimes is the one who gets
humiliated in the press, not the woman who he cheats with,
(17:08):
but the woman who he cheats on, and she becomes
pilloried as some sort of you know, oh she was
jilted you know by this like powerful man and like
we should mock her and pity her or something. Well,
it's a it's a matter. It's weird, the dichotomy of
lionizing a dude for doing this stuff a woman is
demonized for. But I would I would also point out
(17:29):
that the stark reality of it is that when there
are people and we have some people in the audience
who are sex workers, when there is a prosecution of
something like that, First off, it's already ridiculous because in
the United States, it's not illegal if you're filming it
and selling it. It's like, that's what makes it not
(17:51):
illegal exact cases, and that's just so bizarre. But also
the people like sex workers who are being prosecuted are
often in tremendously vulnerable positions, so they can't they may
not have legal recourse that other people may possess. I
don't know, but it's just really tough because there needs
to be some kind of online place for this stuff,
(18:16):
and at some point some company has to be bold
and just say this is what we're doing. The problem
is that comes with a whole host of other problems
that you already outlined about controlling who's using it and
how they're using it, and you know what types of
nefarious stuff could find its way onto one of those things.
But then they have to work directly with whatever banking
(18:36):
institution and or banking institutions to make it legal and
and work, and to make it air tight enough for
those banking institutions comfort level. But I would argue it
might not even be about that, because it's very similar
with like marijuana, for example, Like marijuana as legal and
in many parts of the country now, but a lot
of those, um, you know, companies have a hard time
(18:57):
getting bank loans or I've been into several old dispensaries
that are like chains. For example, there's one in the
California called Medmen, and they make you like take cash out,
they make you get cash back and then pay them
with the cash back. So it's obviously a point of
sale issue where they can't directly process your at your
(19:18):
visa so you get charged. It just seems really weird
and esoteric, like you know what I mean, like really
like outdated. But it's literally a product of them not
being able to have direct access to visa master card
and payment processing because for the same reason, because the
regulations are still on the fence nationally, they don't want
to be associated with it. So something to keep an
(19:40):
eye on. I mean, you know what happens with in
a situation like this, you know, uh goes down, there's
a vacuum, and then something usually fills that vacuum. So
I I don't imagine that that the folks that are
on this platform making their money are like losing their
minds entirely. Uh. The effect the new regulations don't go
into affect until October, and there are already other plot
forms like this that exist that many of these folks
(20:03):
probably are already on in tandem, which probably just means
that the audience will migrate to that other platform. It
was the thing that you guys remember tumbler Um. Tumbler
was like a blog site that had an interesting format
and and they also were known for being open to
pornography or explicit images. And uh, I believe Yahoo bought
(20:23):
them and did the very same thing that we're seeing here.
They wanted to get more investment, they wanted to try
to make into something more palatable, and so they also
banned the thing that literally made the product that they
bought what it was. Do you guys think about tumblre
much anymore these days? Not really? Uh? I know my
wife liked it a lot when it was around. Well,
(20:45):
there there was a lot of like, you know, kind
of cool art c type stuff, and some of it
happened to be a little bit on the erotic side.
I wouldn't say it was like hardcore pornography, but it
definitely aired on the side leaned more towards the like
kind of titillating type stuff. But um, somebody keep an
eye on It's interesting how much control these institutions have
over literally everything we consume. Um. And then we talked
(21:07):
about a lot, and we will talk about it more,
I have no doubt. But in the meantime, we're gonna
take quick break to hear from a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll be back with more strange news. All right,
welcome back. We are going to get pretty serious here
for a few minutes. Uh. This one. The story is
(21:29):
coming out of California, and it is about a very
tragic event, an event that is unsolved as we record this.
On the August I'm gonna read from the Mercury News.
Here's the headline, missing Northern California family of three found
dead in remote hiking area identified. This was written on
(21:51):
August nineteen of this year, so not long ago at all.
And I'm just gonna read a bit from this. It was,
uh is written by the Associated Press and put into
the Mercury News. It says a northern California family of
three that have been reported missing was found dead Tuesday
along with the family's dog on a hiking trail in
a remote area of the Sierra National Forest. People who
(22:15):
were looking for the family discovered the vehicle, the family vehicle.
It was parked at the Sierra National Forest, and not
that far away they found the bodies of John Garish,
Ellen Chung, their one year old daughter, and their dog Um.
They were found near a place called Devil's Gulch. And
(22:37):
this is a Mariposa County that was according to the
sheriff of that county. Now here's the thing. When the
family was initially discovered, the cause of death was not
immediately known and it wasn't easily discernible, so you know,
people were trying to figure out what the ha happened.
There's no you know, if you're if you're a crime
scene investigator, nothing jumps out as in, that's obb see
(23:00):
why one or more of these people expired. Um especially
finding the dog and the one year old also dead,
makes it extremely puzzling that there's no signs. So on
the nineteenth or right around that time, investigators there in
Mariposa County are hit with a mystery like what the
heck happened? And of course speculation begins because we don't
(23:23):
have answers what could possibly kill an entire family while
they're hiking. The first thing you may think about is
the heat. You've heard this, You've experienced this, no doubt,
depending where you live on this planet. Everywhere, but particularly
in the Western United States, there have been heat waves
where it gets up to a hundred degrees very easily,
(23:45):
sometimes a hundred and five on that day when they
were found, when they you know, perhaps died. It had
reached a hundred and nine degrees fahrenheit, which is not good.
But investigators found that there was water. They were carrying
water with them when they were hiking, because they were
on a hike as a family they like to do
that they were prepared. That doesn't seem to be the cause,
(24:09):
at least as of right now. And as the reporting
continued up until today on the twenty three, all kinds
of things, possibilities have been put out there. One that
I thought you guys might be interested in, one that
piqued my interest at least, was the concept that there
was an algae bloom on a nearby river or within
(24:30):
a nearby rivers system that perhaps could have contributed to
their deaths. And I had never heard of that as
a thing that could potentially be fatal to say, an
entire family just out of the blue, Like that sounds
like a red tide type situation where it can be
like toxic or something, or what's the deal with the
algae bloom? Well, I learned a little bit about it
(24:52):
from the BBC from an article they posted titled poison
algae may have killed California family, police say, And it
does say that the nearby waterways were being tested for
any some kind of toxic algae bloom that may have occurred,
because uh, not that long ago these same waterways did
have a toxic algae bloom. So I mean that very well.
(25:13):
Maybe the answer to the questions here and that's it
and mysteries over terrible tragedy. That's what happened, but perhaps not.
And I don't know much about toxic algae blooms how
they would actually kill a whole family like that. Do
you know anything about that, Ben, Yeah, just the brief
part of it. And this is from the California Department
(25:37):
of Public Health along with Sierra National Forest. It's weird
because algae bloom, I think for some of us might
make you think of a flower blossomy. Right, Uh, it's
not super different. Uh. This can happen with cyanobacteria and
then several kinds of different algae. And what happens is
when they bloom, they're growing out of troll at an
(26:00):
unprecedented pace. And this happens when water is warm, stagnant,
or slow moving, and it's full of stuff that maybe
is not the best for us to drink a ton of,
but is awesome for algae like nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
And when they when they grow that quickly, they become
(26:21):
too dense or they can use up the existing oxygen
in the water and that's when they start to release gases.
So you could you could be poisoned by the gas
admitted by this algae bloom. It's not like it's not
like a swamp thing moment where something rises from the
muck and then physically hits people, because then you would,
(26:44):
like to your point about what the investigator said, you
would see things like contusions, bruising, broken bones, broken highoid bone,
if they're getting choked. So what this sounds like is
more like um quite possibly asphyxiation um or or poisoning
in general role from the inhalation of those gases and
that like if you mixed ammonia and chlorine or something
(27:05):
like that and you created something, they would create a
chemical reaction that creates chlorine gas that would kill the
hell out of you. Just so, yeah, it reminds me
of those exploding lake stories. Remember about that on the
African continent, because when those those were dangerous, I think
one killed thousands of people and that wasn't an algae bloom.
(27:29):
That was just a concentration of carbon dioxide that blue
that created this gas cloud. But this gas cloud caught
people unawares and it took their lives as a result.
So it seems like a strange a culprit is an
algae bloom. May sound like it seems plausible, doesn't it.
I mean, you know, again, we're not experts on this, No,
(27:49):
we're not. It does seem like it could be that.
There are a couple other things that are being put
out by places like the Washington Post. You can read
about this story everywhere right now. Things like a nearby
cave system somehow, in one way or another released you know,
gases again, maybe anything from from rad on to carbon
(28:11):
monoxide to just other gases that are escaping a cave
system because of some small collapse or some release of
gas that generally wouldn't happen on a regular basis that
would cause the immediate area or maybe a depressed area
from an elevation standpoint of where they were in to
cause it to like fill up with gas and push
a lot of the oxygen out. If it's a heavier gas,
(28:34):
that's a possibility That's really all I've seen as how
it could have happened because of the state in which
everyone was found. Right now, the dog is going or
was maybe is going through a necropsy. There's going to
be toxicology reports coming back in the next you know,
several days week, so we will hopefully find out more.
(28:58):
And one last thing from the Washington Post here, This
was just an extra bit of detail that I hadn't
seen before. This is posted today. The twenty three says
a couple of their baby and their dog died on
a California hiking trail and officials don't know why. And
it's just a little more detail, saying that the father, Garish,
(29:20):
was sitting. He was in a seated position, The baby
and the dog were near him and chung. The woman,
his wife, was found further away, not that far but
up the hill. To me, that reads, maybe she notices
something is wrong with either the dog, the child, somebody,
She feels something is wrong with herself and is trying
(29:42):
to get to higher ground, but she doesn't make it.
That's to me what it says. But I I have
no idea. Ben. You you found something about actually identifying
algae blooms can you tell us about that. Yeah, this
is something that could be helpful hopefully to anybody who
you might find themselves in the same situation. What could
(30:03):
surprise you is how quickly this stuff could become dangerous
if you're if it is nolge bloom, and if you're
around it at the wrong time. So the California Apartment
of Public Health says that first, you can notice something
odd about the color. It may appear as though paint
is floating on the water. Fellow color deficient people, this
(30:28):
is why you use the Buddy system, because you, like me,
may not know that is brown or red color in
the water, coloring to the water, but it could also
be green or blue. And uh there there are a
couple of other things you can you can tell just
by um what mac would call an ocular assessment. There
you go ocular assessments by yourself or a buddy, you
(30:52):
know what. Let's say, let's use Buddy system for everything,
every instance where you need to identify toxic algae balloons
just to get a second opinion. Yeah, I'd like to
have somebody else in the restroom, you know, just in case,
because there's toxic stuff that goes on there. Well, I mean,
we're also living in a dangerous world, fellas. I think
the buddy system is probably just in general, a good policy. Yeah, yeah,
(31:12):
especially especially unfortunately in Atlanta specifically these days. Uh, that
there were a couple of other indicators, right, that people
could use to tell whether there was potentially toxic algae
in water. Yes, you also want to look out for
cloudy water. Hmm yeah, cloudy water easy to tell, right.
(31:36):
I've started to think maybe we live in a dirty
part of town. Yeah, because get any river or lake
in Georgia, slash in near Atlanta, and that's what it
looks like. Dude. I recently saw some clear water before
I came back, and I thought it was dirty because
(31:58):
I realized it was so clear I could see the
ground under it, and I thought, oh, that's what That's
what water is supposed to look like. Yeah, that's when
it's not just the almost colloid consistency um that is
really important. The other thing is smell, Just to point
(32:19):
that out. If you're by a stream or something, or
you know, in my backyard down where the little creek
is and it smells awful, not great, it doesn't mean
it's a toxic algae. Bloom, but probably just standing water
or something gross like that. Yeah, but you just have
to be careful because it really depends on elevation a
lot of times. So where you are, and if there's
(32:40):
a pocket of say like in a in a toxic
algae bloom, a pocket of carbon monoxide, or like in
any of those other instances, that CEO will just pool
basically Eric can pool. So you just have to be
super careful of that stuff. Doesn't Doesn't this almost remind
you of like the twist ending to like ned Garland
post story or something like you think they're looking for
(33:02):
the murderer the whole time, and then at the end
it turns out it was like a monkey with a
razor or like a toxic algae blue like a twist. Yeah,
for mystery novel, right, Yeah for sure. Also, just really
quickly because I had this question, I just took it
upon myself looking up. Matt, you mentioned a neck cropsy
on the dog, and maybe folks already know this, but
I didn't. Uh. Neck cropsy and autopsy are essentially the
same thing. But neck cropsy is parlance used to refer
(33:24):
to digging, up, exhuming, and examining an animal specifically humans
are still about themselves. We need our own word. This
is an autotopsy. Uh no, don't do an autotopsy. Who
an autotopsy is? That? Is that what you take apart
a car to figure out? Yeah, well it's not working.
(33:46):
I was thinking more of in the sense of an autobiography,
so it's like that makes way more sense. Yes, I
always thought that was one of the I don't know
how realistic it is. I know what has happened in
the real world in the past, but I always thought
that was one of the most badass things you would
see in action movies where someone does some sort of
(34:07):
self administered surgery bites down on a wooden spoon. Yeah.
Like yeah, sometimes while they're giving a speech to like
the person they just met earlier at the mall or whatever,
and they're like fighting down. They're like stobbies by the clips,
(34:27):
I need you to run the foot locker exactly. Good teeth,
gritted yowl is always a good a good move um
and yeah, and the stitching it up. Also, the part
that always gives me that I don't like needles, But
the part that always makes me internally cringe is when
they pour the alcohol on it. You know, and you
(34:50):
know like, actually this is not a spoiler at all,
but if anyone's seen or plans to see, uh, the
New Quiet Place movie, there gnarly injury that takes place
in that and requires said self serry, not self surgery,
but real close and the part where the liquid gets
poured on it is a just absolute gut wrenching screen.
You could do it. This has nothing to do with
(35:12):
analogy Bloom and this tragic, tragic death, But I've always
been curious, Um, do you guys think Matt Noel doc
that if you were required to, you could take one
of those syringes and stab yourself with it, you know
where the ones where you have to like get into
your chest in the Yeah, do you think you could
do it? It's into the muscle, right, It's not like
(35:34):
a vein. You gotta literally just shove that thing into
a muscle. If I'm not mistaken, let me check to
make sure. You know a step self and chest with needle. Well,
that's that's like the pulp fiction scenario, or you're trying
to restart somebody's heart. There are there are situations where
if you have a real bad injury, you might need
to dis injected into the surrounding muscle tissue rather than like,
(35:58):
I'm not quite sure, there are intramuscular injections like say,
for um diabetes and things like that. Yes, yeah, like
you know, people administer um insulin to themselves aside dramatic thing. Well,
I just looked with not super heavy research, to be honest,
and it appears that in the idea of ejecting medication
(36:21):
straight into the heart is a movie myth. According to
Scott at Gizmoto, it is garbage. He seem yeah, yeah,
not having his first name on that really persuades me.
He's got a lot of hat if you just have
to know him bout his first name. But well, I
guess it's it's better that we, the four of us,
don't know whether we could do it, because it would
(36:43):
be a bad idea. Yes, just leave you with this
last thing. According to the Fresno B no signs of trauma.
According to CNN, no suicide note or indication that there
is something intentional that occurred while they were out hiking
the cause their deaths. It is a mystery. Hopefully you
will have answers soon, And dang it, it's just a
(37:07):
terrible tragedy that this occurred, and we can only hope
it doesn't happen again ever, especially anytime soon. All right,
right to us if you hear anything, and we will
tell you how to get in contact with us at
the end of this episode. For now, we'll be right
back after a word from our sponsor and we have returned.
(37:35):
But before we move on, Matt, I just uh, you know,
I wonder how many mysterious deaths like that occur each year,
you know, because it again, to Knowle's point, it does
have this troubly mysterious aspect to it. And I hope,
you know, with thoughts with the survivors. And I'm gonna
(37:55):
I think we're all gonna keep an eye on the
updates from the autopsy here, because if we don't know
what happened, then we have no way of preventing it
from happening in the future. So I was just something
on my mind, dear, you know, or break our last
story for today folks. Before we record the three of
us kind of we usually get together and we think like, hey,
(38:16):
what how should we present this? And that's why you
sometimes hear us say, Okay, we're gonna finish with a
light one because we did some heavy stuff. What did
you call it, Matt, A good sandwich? Serious sandwich? Serious? Sorry,
serious sandwich. Let we call it like a muffletta. That's
a serious sandwich. Yeah, mufflettas are so good. It's so
weird that people are against them. Uh. Sorry, I just
(38:38):
don't like it. Okay, that's right. It was you. It
was you. Afraid he doesn't like all of salad, which
I understand. I used to be really squeaky about alive
based products in my older age. I have gotten much
more cool with it. But I only like it in
certain situations, and that is as a topping, and that
muffletta is what's up. I feel kind of add because
(39:01):
now I think Nolan I both genuinely forgot. I was
remembering a mufflettic conversation where I was surprised it was you,
But you know what to eat their own to exactly exactly.
I try at least one per year on and you
(39:22):
went to the good place to write in the place
that's known and famous for mufflettics, Central Grocery, Right. Did Uh?
Don't feel bad, man, I think a lot of people
have foods like that. Like I'll be. This is kind
of dumb to admit. I don't understand why I try it.
You know, you're in situations where it's like you're supposed
(39:42):
to drink some wine and I'll sit there with a
glass in my hand, but I feel like a tool.
I don't know what I don't. I don't know the
difference between, you know, the really fancy stuff and the
really cheap, and science proves there's not that much of
a difference. Sorry, smiles. I don't either. I drink white
wine out of a box because I like the way
it makes me feel and I find it refreshing. I
(40:05):
put put ice cubes in it because I'm trash. I
like red wine though, for cooking. I like to put
a red wine in my ragou if I'm making like
a nice set spaghetti bolonets or something. I read wine
is a lovely thing, nice red wine in it or whatever.
For anyway, So how do we segue this? Gents? We
are talking about food, right This is this is an update,
(40:28):
a bit of an update to something we've talked about
a few times on this show. Yes, yeah uh. In
the past, we, like the rest of the denizens of
the Internet, made fun of McDonald's ice cream machines. This
joke has become so ubiquitous that people have it started
to reach the level of hack comedy, almost like airline food.
(40:53):
Come on, right, it's not so good, Right, it's not
so good. Some people walk different at the mall. Foot
else what else? Socks? How was the where do they go? Where?
Where do they go? Exactly? Exactly? And so the interesting thing,
and I think this was this was something we touched
on previously in Strange News, is that there is sand
(41:18):
to all the complaining about this. The McDonald's ice cream machines,
which can make both milkshakes and soft serve, are pretty
much broken a ludicrous amount of time, so much so
that in our previous segment, which I think you did, no,
there was nap created that would tell you in pretty
close to real time which machines were or were not
(41:39):
working in McDonald's across the United States. I think it
was like crowdsource the way, like the Ways app will
allow you to say is there a cop at this
intersection as they are disabled vehicle, and then you can
say yes or no. I think this one probably was
a similar grid where if you're in the proximity of McDonald's.
You're supposed to check in on them and then give
a R and A and so a view all these
(42:00):
little icons on these maps that would show you, like
which ones were out of order, And it was comical
ben the degree to which they were very much not
in order. And it turns out, it turns out that
that itself is a genuine conspiracy, which I was not expecting.
I don't know if anybody else was expecting this, But
(42:21):
the argument and the mystery of McDonald's ice cream machines
has escalated to a new level. People are filing restraining
orders over this. Here's what Here's what happened. The truth
of the matter is that the ice cream machines that
(42:42):
are used in McDonald's, at least across the US, if
not the world, are all the same type of machine.
They're manufactured by the same company. There's something called a
Taylor C six O two digital ice cream machine. This thing,
this Taylor contraption, is in these McDonald's because the franchisees
(43:05):
are legally required to only have that machine. Furthermore, that machine,
which is notoriously complicated and fragile and finicky, can only
be serviced by a technician who is certified by Taylor
and Taylor has a deal with management of McDonald's. In fact,
(43:29):
there are allegations that part of this deal came about
because members of McDonald's management, whether pastor present, had a
lot of stock and Taylor. So what we're really talking
about past the fun memes, which are great and I'm
sorry I called them a hack comedy. That doesn't mean
it's bad. I laugh at them too. Write the past
the memes, though, this is a very serious conversation about
(43:53):
something known as the right to repair, which is just
going to get more and more um controversy shoal and
more of a hot issue as the years go by.
It's something that we've encountered before. We talked about planned obts,
lescens It's something that we encounter before we talked about like, um,
I can't remember if it was us a few years ago.
We're talking about trying to fix our iPhones on our
(44:15):
own or androids. If you guys ever attempted that. There
are little videos and walkthroughs and how to do it.
You gotta have tiny little tools, I think, some proprietary tools,
but it can be done. I mean, the folks that
have those kiosks at them all are basically just like
self starters that figured out how to do that and
made a little business out of it, but they're not
like certified apple people. Yeah, and we see that civilization
(44:35):
is moving away from an ownership society in general to
a service society. Right, it's not impossible to say that
in the future, you might have a car that is
free but supported by ads. See's sitting a self driving
car and you just have to watch advertisements the entire time.
(44:56):
I don't know how the business model works. They're gonna
have to figure out a few things there. I can't
really name the book, Gosh darn it. It It was a
really cool book by this futurist guy, and he was
kind of predicting all of the like escalations of our
like crowdsourced models of things. And one of them went
so far as to be like, you don't even own
furniture anymore. You kind of like pay a pay ah,
(45:17):
you know, you subscribe to a service that gets you
what furniture you need, will occasionally switch it out. Or
maybe you don't own your clothes. You just like wear
them around until you don't like them anymore, and then
you get new ones, but you're not actually ever buying it.
You're just paying a monthly thing. And that's the same
with video games. You know, you don't have the actual
disc anymore. In theory, if the whole system went belly up,
(45:37):
you might not actually own that at all. Or e
books right when when Amazon fold of all books nine
from the contol that was not on their irony was
not lost on the internet on that one. So here's
what happened here, here's what's been happening with McDonald's ice
cream machines. So they're they're a pain, right. You hear
(45:58):
farmers complaining about this in the US too. They might
have a piece of farming equipment, you know, attractor or something,
and they would totally be able to fix it. They
would just need to have access to a way to
understand the error codes the machine is giving them. But
because of various proprietary measures, they cannot fix the thing
(46:21):
that they purchased. What's happening with the McDonald's machines is
that each one cost eighteen thousand dollars and the restaurant
owners don't get to know how they work. Basically, so
if anything goes wrong and a lot of stuff goes wrong,
they have to call in one of these people. They
have to pay that person to come in, by the way,
(46:42):
it's not free. And then the idea is that this
somehow results in a kickback for for some faction of
the fast food empire at play. So there are these
two folks, Melissa Nelson and Jeremy O'Sullivan who started thinking
of a way to get around this, and they began
(47:03):
selling something they created which they called kitch k y
t c H. So you can install it inside of
this tailor ice cream machine, you connect it to your WiFi,
and then it tells you what's going on. It tells
you what the purpose lee of two codes on the
machine mean, and then that lets you know how you
(47:27):
can fix it. So the device lets you see what's
going on in this thing that you again own, and
then it'll suggest trouble shooting solutions and keep uh and
and keep track of what could be a larger problem.
You know what that reminds me of, been um thinking
back to your car stuff days. Those little boxes that
they can hook up to the electronics on a car
(47:49):
that reads the codes that like their literal codes that
you as a layman would never know what the hell
they mean. But there's like a database they keep up
with and they know which manufacturer makes the car are
and they can interpret it and it could be something
that you, as a novice, could probably figure out, but
it just might be something you would never know unless
you hooked up that. I think that's very much like
what this is. And it's like a little diagnostic reader
(48:12):
kind of thing that reads these different like sensors or whatever. Yeah,
that's a great comparison. Yeah, that's the in a vehicle.
That's the O B D two ports which you can
you can plug in and you can get code readers
for it, and they are all kinds of neat little
things you can do with it, up to and including
hacking a car and taking control of it if you're
(48:32):
clever and also somehow sneaky enough to sit in the
backseat of the car and not get caught. Yeah, or
sometimes in the front, depending on where it is. My
older vehicles, it was always right there in the front
driver's scene. You can access it. But that was the thing,
though there's no way to do it like remotely yet officially. Yeah, man,
(48:56):
I saw your eyes light up though, And this ice
Cream Diagnostics that you well, the I love that we're
talking about cars in this way because I really think
this whole thing has a lot to do with the
car industry, especially when you you know, we've talked about
it before when we were discussing new cars and buying cars.
A company, let's say a Mazda dealer, he cheers to you, Mazda.
(49:23):
They will make a certain amount of money selling new vehicles.
But the way they'll really make their money because they
you know, they make a certain amount on top of
whatever the manufacturers prices for that vehicle. The way that
dealership actually makes money is by having that person that
just drove away with a new or used Mazda is
going to agree as a part of that purchase to
(49:45):
only bring their Mazda back to this service center. Is
that there actually our exclusivity agreements that get you some
kind of special deal or I would never agree to that,
right if you just did. I mean, we have in
and out of network healthcare in the US. That's but
(50:05):
it's only up to a certain um period of time though,
right once your warranty runs out, then all bets are
off and you can do whatever you want. Is that
the deal? Yes? But here's you pay for a certain
amount of time, like life, certain life of the vehicle,
right in many of those deals. But what the you know,
and I'm not I don't own a car dealership. What
the dealership banks on is that you become so accustomed
(50:28):
to taking your Masda to their Masda dealership that when
it's time for some small change, you just go to
that Masda dealership because it's what you do now, and
then you hopefully buy your next car from that same
Masa dealership too. They've got you in the family. It's
an easy kind of routine. I remember, now, I bought
a car to a a dealership. It wasn't new, but it
was so far away from me I never would have
(50:49):
taken it there in a million years. So I'm I
think I got a certified pre owned car that was
like you didn't have very many miles off. I don't
think that was part of the deal, but I can
certainly see how that makes a lot of sense because
also in the mind of the consumer, they're the experts.
They're the ones that made the car, you know, so
therefore who better to work on it than the experts.
If I'm going to pay anybody a hundred and fifty
(51:11):
dollars for an oil change. You know it's gonna be
the same people who ripped me off last I just like,
I just liked Rod so much. He gave me such
a good deal, uh, such a good rate. Right, yeah,
I mean this is a big thing, and I think
you're You're absolutely right, Matt. First off, not we're not
accusing dealership of any kind of untoward activity, because that
(51:34):
that is just familiarity. And I'm not saying that dealerships
are ripping people off. In fact, there are, like there
are tons of fantastic mechanics at dealerships, and they choose
to work at those dealerships when they could have gone
somewhere else. Certainly limits your options to shop around, though,
and to find the best price. You can maybe leave
that it is. It is a bargain with definitive pros
(51:58):
and cons. But also this is part of a new reality. Increasingly,
automobiles are especially the ones that are more on the
bleeding edge of technology, like the newer electric vehicles, new
or hybrid vehicles. Those aren't really things the average person
can work on in their home garage. And this is
(52:18):
also happening with phones. It's also happening with ice cream.
If you've ever cracked open maybe a laptop to do
some repairs, you know that mac book can be notoriously finicky.
To wrap this up, and I do want to keep
an eye on this, There is what Andy Greenberg over
at Wired called a cold war between Kitch and McDonald
(52:45):
no pun left behind, no wordplay left behind. And what's
going on now is that so Kitch got in trouble
with Taylor because they felt like they were taking this
proprietary information or they were they were breaking a profit
system that kind of tax the franchise ease of these
fast food places, arguably because you know, just like the
(53:06):
dealership example, Matt use, they're locked in. They can only
go to this one source, even if they know how
to repair a thing. So Taylor, the manufacturer of these machines,
hit back with a really weird objection in court. Uh,
they said, you can't if you're a franchise eve McDonald's,
(53:28):
you can't use these kitchen devices because they can cause
quote serious human injury death by ice cream machine, or
may mean by ice cream machine. Matt's nodding like, yeah,
it's it's a tragedy. Those things, those things turn and
turn for a reason, that's true, and sometimes they could
(53:48):
turn and churn on you. So earlier this summer, Kitch
one a legal battle against this company Taylor, and a
California judge issued a temporary raining order against the company
because apparently the bigger the bigger dog in the fight, Taylor,
had acquired one of these kitchen Solution devices and they
(54:09):
were trying to reverse engineer it and build their own
version of the same thing. So every time you get, um,
it's a good mcflurry, every time you get a mcflurry,
or every time you you know it gets some delicious
ice cream from McDonald's and machines working, you are, in
a way a by standard on a battlefield, right that's
(54:32):
taking place at fourteen thousand locations or something like that
across the US, tens of thousands across the world. Uh,
And that might be the thing, you know, that might
be the thing that makes you think I should have
gone to Blubadubba is the best? Um Ben This rang
a bell for me from a story that I thought
(54:54):
I may have heard on public radio, and I just
confirmed that I did. In fact, here it um Apparently
in states and Congress are looking at something called right
to repair legislation uh this year. Um. Also, this is
something that's happening globally and it is largely spurred by
the isolation of COVID nineteen lockdowns. Um. The you know,
(55:15):
people are really getting tired of having to send their
crap back the manufacturer because then you're at the mercy
of the manufacturer. You don't know how they don't have
any Uh, there's no requirement they guarantee how quickly you'll
get your stuff back. You'd much more likely try to
give it a go yourself, and with YouTube and you know,
manuals and all of that. Uh, it's certainly something within
the realm of possibility. But because of exactly what we're
(55:38):
talking about, ben, a lot of the types of tools
and diagnostic things, they are kept on lock by the manufacturers,
so they're essentially they have you over a barrel. And
this legislation that's being looked at would seek to prevent
manufacturers from keeping those proprietary tools from the public. And
(55:58):
you know, there are arguments that companies will have against
what we will call the right the right to repair.
And then you know, like anybody who's thought, boy, I'm
sure getting ripped off because I can't. I don't have
the ability or the wherewithal to fix the thing that
I paid for. You can see how this could be
(56:19):
an immensely frustrating situation, but we wanted to give you
an inside look at ice cream conspiracy. You know what
I'd love to hear from someone who has had experience
fighting for the right to repair something. I mentioned farmers
earlier to their horror stories about farmers trying to say,
let me, let me fix the thing I own. I
(56:40):
know what's wrong with it, I know how to fix it.
Your system won't let me. But then, also let us
know about mysterious deaths similar to the tragic events in
California that we just explored today, and let us know
your position. How much power should payment platforms have In general?
(57:01):
We'd love to hear from you. We can't wait to
do so. We try to make it easy to find
us online. That's why you can find us in the
usual Internet places of note, we are conspiracy stuff on Twitter,
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can also give us a telephone call. That's right. Our
number is one eight three three std w y t K.
(57:23):
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give us an email instead. We are conspiracy at iHeart
(57:45):
radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you to know.
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