May 4, 2025 • 43 mins
Blake and Karen take a minute to catch their breath and talk about where things are in their lives and what's up next in MonsterTalk news.
Links:
Bitch: The Journey of a Word
Adhesive Capsulitis
Idiopathic Illnesses
Mechanical Turk
Speaking Machine
Replica of Speaking Machine (YouTube)
Wolfgang von Kempelen
Deep Mind
Deep Blue
Marvin Minsky
John McCarthy
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
Links:
Bitch: The Journey of a Word
Adhesive Capsulitis
Idiopathic Illnesses
Mechanical Turk
Speaking Machine
Replica of Speaking Machine (YouTube)
Wolfgang von Kempelen
Deep Mind
Deep Blue
Marvin Minsky
John McCarthy
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
A giant, very creature party part.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
In Luckness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake
in the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Monster Talk.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
This week, Kieren and I are just catching up our
respective lives have been super busy, and you'll hear about why.
Plus we'll hint at some upcoming episode topics.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We don't do this kind.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Of conversational episode very often, but this was a much
needed chat and we really appreciate being able to share
it with you.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
More instrtal All right, Hey Karen, how's it going?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hey? Ups and downs? Yeah, I think the same thing
for you.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, this has been a strange year. It has been
a strange year. I thought we should maybe use this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
We've got a lot of stuff coming up, and because
of some personal stuff in my life, which I'm going
to hint at without giving too many details. You know,
we didn't really have anything new, specifically monster related, but
I thought, you know what, occasionally it's nice to just
have a chat, talk about our mission, talk about what
we're up to.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So yeah, twenty twenty five has been kind of rough
on me, as you know, as listeners know, our friend
of the show and longtime colleague and mentor, Joe Nichol
passed away this year. My dog passed away this year,
And sadly, it seems like my mother is going to
not survive twenty twenty five. And I'm not sure when
(02:15):
she's going to be leaving us, but it is almost
certainly going to be pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
And that's that's been kind of hard.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And now I'm so sorry, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And you know, this is not one of those you know,
please send me your condulences or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
This My mom is hat a full life.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
She's in her eighties and we have a wonderful relationship,
and it's just that, you know, mortality is inevitable and
she's coming to the end.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So I empathize with you because my father passed in
twenty twenty of the same condition.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Sir. Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Common disorder and prevalence is on the increase too, So yeah,
it's suh yeah, uh, it's leaves you speechless.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It does, and then you know, I'm sitting here thinking,
oh no, my mother is going to pass away. And
then I almost passed away this week. That's been exciting.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Uh yeah, I don't know if you want to talk
about it or not.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't know, but I have I have.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I have a very unusual medical condition. Is it's very
you know what. Let me just let me give a
side brand. I love science, and I love medicine. I
love evidence based medicine, and I think maybe one of
the most disappointing things as a science enthusiast is to
come to the realization that as cool as science is
(03:40):
and as cool as medicine is, it doesn't have the
answers for everything. There are lots and lots and lots
of conditions that there's no there's no solution for you
at And one of the scariest words you can hear
is idiopathic.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I was thinking of that too.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I have an idiopathic condition that can take me out.
And I had not had any issues in a long time.
Mine is an allergic situation and I used to carry
an EpiPen and I didn't have my EpiPen because I
haven't had a problem in many years, and then suddenly
(04:14):
I did, and so it was really weird.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
You know, we had this show scheduled for today and
I've got a sudden flurry of texts and have an
ambulance there, and it was like, oh shit, what's happened?
And I didn't know all of the details, and it
was very worried about you. But I think, yeah, it's
you know, we talk about alternative medicine, and I think
(04:38):
that idiopathic conditions it's one of the reasons why alternative
medicine exists because there are so many.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, you want you want something to do, you want
something that you can prevent or you know, to cure
or to you know what. It's it's very frustrating for
a person who's you know, I am a habitual problem
solve right, I'm addicted to solving mysteries and.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
That sort of thing, and so me too. And I'm
also pretty analytical most of the time.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I mean, I mean, I look, I I don't want to,
you know, present myself as being smarter than I am.
I am no genius, but I I do tend to
think about things in pretty systematic ways and try to
figure out what's going on, and so you know, this is,
like I said, this maybe the third time in my
life I've I've been pretty sure, you know, with a
(05:29):
lot of certitude that if things didn't turn around, I
was going to die. And what's cool about it? Well,
that's what I was gonna say. The cool part is
it is I mean, I don't want to die. But
you know a lot of people are like, well, you know, atheists,
you know there's you know on the deathbed. You know
you you you turn around, you you you look for God. Well,
let me tell you, folks, I've faced death at least
(05:51):
three times. And what I did was thought, does my
wife have this under control? Yeah, she's got this. I'll
be okay, you know, I mean, I'm going to die.
What can I do? You know, I'm not afraid.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I don't like pain, but I don't And this is
not a brag. This is just how my brain works.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I just happened to know that I don't tend to
panic in these situations.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I just I'm calmly counting, I'm looking at the clock.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I'm thinking about here are my symptoms. I can tell
I'm going into shock. I could tell how my throat's
closing up, I'm like, okay, I probably have about fifteen minutes. Yeah,
and then you know, and I know it was terrifying
for my wife, but I was just thinking, Okay, the
ambulance people there probably in the fire department, they're about
five to seven minutes away. I probably have about fifteen minutes.
Unless something goes horribly wrong, they're gonna get here, give
(06:34):
me an epipinch shot, and I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Wow, there's some clarity of thought. And yeah, no near
death experiences, huh. Just perspective.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, just perspective.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And it's like, you know, when I recovered and it
takes a while to recover from both the epipinch shot
and you know all the Bina droll I took, it
was like, yeah, I need to I mean, there's some
things I need to get in better order. But yeah, yeah,
I mean I'm pretty happy with my situation mentally, Like
I I'm not afraid of death, which is sad because
(07:07):
many people I know who tell me I need to
be worried about what comes next, are far more afraid
of death.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Than I am.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And that but and again this is not me bragging.
This is just it's like, I'm very optimistic. I don't
tell people here's how you can think like me, because
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's why I think this way. I think it's just
my nature.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, everything's going to handle these situations differently.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, and so yeah, and I you know, maybe I
should be afraid. I don't know, you know, I mean,
I we'll all find out one day.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Right, So it's probably healthy to have the attitude that
you have. And I've had my health conditions too. I
have a number of autoimmune conditions, and yeah, I don't
know how much we want to delve into just how
old we're becoming. People say that when you develop one
autoimmune condition, you start collecting them, and that's the case
(07:59):
for me. And so nothing that's very serious. I had
fears of multiple sclerosis at one point, so nothing quite
as severe as that. But certainly a number of very
uncomfortable conditions that I've dealt with, and I have a
number of them in check. But the latest one to
happen to me is pretty monstrous. So the show's about monsters, right,
(08:20):
but a lot of conditions it is certainly monstrous. So
I've had a real ordeal since last year and I've
kind of told you bits and pieces of this, But
I had a little fall last year and it was
nothing serious. I was just going for a walk with
my son and it was twilight, so it was getting
dark and I just tripped. So I lost my footing
(08:41):
and fell and my shoulder took the branch of the fall.
But when you fall, you tend to go into a
little bit of shock, so I didn't really know exactly
where I hit myself and what was happening and anyway,
so I developed some pain and it was difficult to
sleep on that side, and I thought I'd better go
and get an X ray. So I went and saw.
(09:02):
I went to a clinic and saw a nurse, had
some X rays. Everything was fine. It started to abate
and I thought, okay, all's good. And then maybe a
couple of weeks later, I started the pain came back again.
And then I started developing this kind of stiffness and
a lot of pain trying to sleep on that side
at night, and I thought, look, I better pursue this further.
(09:26):
I went back to the nurse that I saw, and
she referred me to an orthopedic clinic, and they were concerned. Initially,
that it was a rotator cuff tear and because of
the amount of pain that I was in and my
range of motion was very limited and just a lot
of stiffness. And so anyway, I had to have an
MRI because the X rays didn't tell us enough and
(09:49):
they discovered that I have what is called the frozen shoulder.
I heard of that, so the technical name is adhesive capsulitis.
And oh my god, it is so painful and it's
another one of those idiopathic kind of mysterious conditions. It's
often linked to diabetes and thiery disorders, which is something
that I have. I'm in the age group, I'm in
(10:11):
the gender that tends to suffer from this as well.
But I wanted to mention this because I wanted to
raise a bit of awareness about this condition, because to
maximize recovery, you need to get this diagnosed early, and
I have. I've had a cortisone shot just a couple
of days ago, and I'm having to use cold packs
and take iberprofen. But I want to urge anyone out
(10:35):
there because I've talked to so many people about this
already and they've said, you know, I'm getting similar pain
and I want people who are feeling any kind of
stiffness or soreness that is chronic to get it looked at,
because this is a surprisingly common disorder and it's really debilitating.
So I'm just hoping that anyone who's out there and
(10:57):
experiencing something similar do something about it, because as soon
as you get it addressed, the better. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I just I'm you know, our mission here is to
prote critical thinking and scientific thinking, and we use monsters
as a framework for that. And it's like, right now,
it feels to me, you know, like the academic world
is under attack here in America and the science based
medicine is under attack, and it's like it's really frustrating,
(11:24):
and you know, I think the work we do here
is very important, you know, raising awareness and trying to
keep that and you know, in our own lives, you know,
I can certainly feel the temptation when you want there
to be an instant fix or reliable fix and there's nothing.
It's so disappointing, and it's like, you know, it's it's
(11:44):
just a struggle. But maybe you know, some things don't
have an answer. But you're right, every every every modality
that we try to.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Use to mitigate these things.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
You know, we're trusting that the system itself is based
on hardway evidence, and sometimes it isn't.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
That's that's very disappointing too. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh and to go back to alternative medicine and alternative therapies.
I've just had a number of people recommend chiropractice and
going to local health food stores or supermarkets and just
asking what do you have in the way of topical
pain relief, and they direct me to homeopathic medicine in
(12:24):
quoty fingers and ah, you know, all kinds of arnica
stuff like that. That is it seems to work for
some people, but I think that's really a placebo effect.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Well exactly, and that gets so complicated, you know. So
for the entire time we've done this show, that there's
you know, we're we kind of emerged out of that
sort of mid two thousands, you know, online skeptical world.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Oh the heyday salad days.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
There was so much optimism then, but so many of
the shows and blogs and all the sort of content
that was coming out was focused on medicine because there's
so much harm and alternative medicine and I sometimes I
felt a little guilty, you know that, like, well, there's
so much real harm and Bigfoot hardly hurts anybody.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's not true if you read the novels.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Well, that's true too.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Everything everything we face, you know, we have to we
have to approach it with some framework of you know,
and we don't always have the cognitive time or energy
to evaluate stuff, and so we look to experts, and
we look to trusted sources. And that's that's a really
it's a really normal heuristic.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Which is difficult right now, right now, if.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You can't trust those sources, having good critical thinking skills
gives you a pathway to at least figure out if
you can't do the research yourself scientifically, you can at
least figure out which sources might be trustworthy, what experts.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Can you trust?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Way to look for exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
You know, and it a YouTube and Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's not where you find good information, is not, So
you have to try a little harder, dig a little.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Further, fortunately and unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But I'll tell you one thing, if you know, facing mortality,
facing all these things, one thing that keeps me optimistic
is looking forward.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Working on projects.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
You know that I think are going to make, you know,
leave a mark, hopefully leave something out there for people
to to listen to, to help guide them, you know,
in some way. And so you know, this show is
it is, and it keeps me happy. It keeps me
optimistic about the future. We we can't from just this
(14:44):
show fix the world, but individuals, maybe we'll learn something
here about one or two things and it will help
them along the way, and it maybe entertained.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And sometimes people just feel better for having listened to us.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
They've some people like our ps my pints, I should
be let me me make your puns.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, no, and I think I think we try to
make a difference. And certainly our listeners do reach out
to us on occasion and say that we helped them
to get through a dark time, or to get through
the pandemic, or I mean they're equally helping us to
(15:24):
get through our own.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, to twist a phrase, you know, think global but
act vocal.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
That's a podcasting.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Tricky for sure.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, we do have lots of things going on, I
guess work wise and Bobby wise as well. True enough,
tell me a little bit about what you've been working on.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Well, sure, Well, first of all, I've been working on
my computer situation, and I don't want to go into
a great, big technical thing, but basically, the audio software
that I use is Audacity, and it's free and open source,
which I really like. But recent up dates have made
it so that the file sizes get really enormous.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And even on my Mac it was.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Which was super fast when I first got it, Uh,
it just became untenable.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
It would sometimes take five or six minutes to save
a file. I tried lots of things to fix that,
but that's too slow when you're trying to edit.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And every time I make a change, yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I'd make an edit and it might take me two
or three minutes before the edit would show up on screen.
So you know, and Windows that already given me so
much trouble. So I rolled over to make my one
of my boxes into a LINEX workstation and I've been
using that. The only problem is I'm trying to use
vintage hardware and it's it's a little bit underwhelming in
the memory department. But I bought some new memory chips
(16:42):
and it turns out they have to be the same
speed as the one that's throwing on the board, and
so anyway this week I will find out if that's
going to work. If it doesn't, I'm going to probably
have to drive five or six drop five or six
hundred bucks on a new system board. But I'm trying
to get by with what I got, so unfortunately it is,
but I'm loving honestly, I've been using I am a
(17:04):
i don't know what you call it, a generalist. I
know how to use several operating systems, Unix based opportunity.
So I just like technology, and so I'm really enjoying
getting back into Linux more hardcore.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
It's so much fun.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I really hate the way the world's switching to subscription
based software for everything, so using free and open source
is so much better.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
It's great.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know, I just need to get a box that
is all right. I need to get this box up to.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Speed with the memory, or.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I'm gonna have to buy a new system board. I'm
not too happy about that, but it's okay. We're doing
okay this year. This year, things seem to be headed
in the right direction in some way, so I'm happy about.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, that's something.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
So a lot of I lost a lot of time
with heart computer issues. But but so that's that's been challenging.
But other than that, you know, I had big plans.
I was going to really try to get my first
draft of my my technology book out in April, and
thenmultiple deaths and medical issues made that laughably impossible.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It is, It is difficult.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, but we've got good stuff coming up for this show,
which I'm very excited about.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
We're gonna first of all, I read a book called High.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Weirdness by Eric Davis, and it's about the nineteen seventies
Terence mckinna and Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick
and the way there's sort of lives and creativity overlapped
and impacted the way the whole world thinks about hallucina,
(18:35):
gens and oh interesting alternate AI and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's really fascinating.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I really I think that'd be a great interview.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's a really terrific book.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, looking forward to that, hoping I can fit it
in before we chat with him.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, it is a fantastic reed. But if you can't,
I'll get you up to speed. But we also have
a friend of the show, Jerry Drakes, to be coming back.
He's been working on a book for a while now,
you got to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
He has. So, Hazel was a good girl. So this
is the story that inspired the Twin Peaks series, a
tale of a true crime, So the murder of a
young lady by the name of Hazel Drew. And So
I have not finished the book yet, but it is riveting.
I've really been enjoying it. And so he has a
(19:27):
new theory about who done it, and surprisingly he has
a ghost story to tell that's part of his research,
part of his investigation. So I really found that very surprising.
I saw him or one of his friends hint at
that on Facebook and I found it very astonishing. So
I'm looking forward to bringing him on the show and
(19:49):
hearing more about this strange, paranormal like experience that he
had that led to him to write this book.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, Jerry's a really fascinating guy.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I've always enjoyed talking with him.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And he's one of the people we've met through the
show that I've actually had the chance to meet in
real life.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And he was a delight.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh I haven't yet, I had so.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, So I really hope to get that red before
we talk to him as well. I know he's been
working a long time so and he's been with you know,
our magic series too.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Oh yeah. He gets a hyper focus on something and
works on it and comes up with answers. So I
really can't wait to see what his conclusions are.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I won't say anything about his day job, but he's
he's in an interesting place.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It's really cool.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Off the record, he works for the government, so we
can't say any.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
More than that.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
But anyway, speaking of magic, so this is a little sad.
So I got contacted out of the blue by one
of Joe nichols friends and colleagues. And you know, Joe
passed away and a professor, doctor Phil Stevens, who knew
Joe and worked up in Buffalo, contacted me and said
(21:04):
that he was working on a New York Times obituary
for Joe. So I was delighted. It was so kind.
I was so glad that that happened. He did, and
it was really really heartwarming. I'll put a link to
that in the show notes. But but Phil himself is
an emeritus professor of anthropology and has written a book
(21:25):
about magic and witchcraft. And I was like, wow, I mean,
I didn't want We were talking about this very sensitive topic.
But at the same time, when I looked at his credentials,
I was like, Oh, I really want to talk to
him on the show, you know. So he's kindly agreed
to come on. Yeah, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, me too. And speaking of Phil's, we spoke with
Philip Center recently and we did that two parts yes episode,
the two episodes on Dino's.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And Yeah, he was getting some great feedback on that too.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
By the way, I really appreciate that from the listeners
wh've reached out.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That is really good to hear. And so we were
going back and forth with his editor, Christina Ward, and
she's a publisher with fare House.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yeah, they have an interesting catalog, I'll tell you you know.
I was delighted to hear that they had some content
that was actually aligned with how our show goes. But yeah,
they a lot of their stuff would be Look, they're edgy,
They're just they're kind of punk.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Honestly, I was.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Totally going to say they're the punk music of the
publishing world, and I will She mentioned something about food
publishing and I'm interested in that, and so I went
and checked out some of her books, and she very
kindly sent us some copies. And I'm very excited about
this because I've been looking for someone to talk to
about monstrous food, and so she said us a copy
(22:58):
of Holy Food, which is how cults, immunes, and religious
movements influenced what we eat at American History. So it's
a really thick book and weighty with knowledge. I'm really
looking forward to that. In the other books, Yesterday and
Your Wife, She's stolen there.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
She's such a foodie.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
In one of the books is I know there was
oh my gosh, speaking of people who past.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Was the other one, so American Advertising Cookbooks.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
One of my friends was in the skeptical movement, was
Leo Lincourt, and I loved him to death and we
never met, but he was he loved a few things.
He loved skepticism, and he loved kerbal Space program, and
he'd loved to post nineteen seventy's gelatinous recipes.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And there is one that I'm looking at now on
the cover of this book, American Advertising Cookbooks, How corporations
taught us to love spam of this trademark bananas and
Jello trademark, And yes, one of those horrifying concoctions. It
looks to me like it is with maybe lettuce and olives.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
This is going to be so much fun.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I grew up in that world and my great aunt
used to always make this hideous looking green yellow concoction
with milk and be kind.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
That was the Yeah, we didn't have too much of
that sort of stuff growing up in Australia, but certainly
my mother had some older cookbooks and Joy of Cooking
style thing and to Scotch eggs and lots of things
that looked a bit nasty to make toast. Yeah, I'm
(24:39):
not a veggie might fan. I think we've discussed that before.
So talking about monstrous food another reason I was exiled here.
But that is going to be a really fun interview.
And another one that I want Shah to tackle too
is to bring Matt back on again and to talk
about haunted chichen Itza. We made a very short true
(25:00):
to Cancun a couple of weeks ago. It was just
a very last minute thing, and you were very wrapped
up in things and we were We didn't talk for
a little bit there, and so we did this quick
getaway and visited Chitchinitze, which was just a marvelous experience.
I was so excited to visit there, and we were
(25:21):
collecting lots of ghost stories about the place, and there's
just a lot of folklore that's very interesting, and just
going to Mexico and the exposure to all of the
scams and interesting cultural things that took place there. So
we thought we could talk about those for an upcoming episode.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
That sounds cool, you remind me.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I had been working on an article for the UK
Skeptic magazine about the It's going to be a chapter
in my book, but it's about this moment in time
when sort of technology and magic and other things came
to get but I couldn't shrink it down into a
(26:03):
suitably small format, so I've decided to not do that,
but it will be in my book, but.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
You can use the research well exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
No, it's perfect for my book. It's just it fits
better in the whole context. So if you're reading it
in the context of the history of the personal computer,
which is kind of a focus of the book, because
you kind of see in that one field how innovation
can play out in a whole bunch of different ways.
But all the background information that I was trying to
(26:36):
cram into this one chapter will be spread out through
the whole book, so it's much easier to kind of
focus on that one scene anyway, so that's not lost
or wasted. But I wanted to give them an article,
and so I've decided to finally write up my thoughts
on this whole idea of scripted So I'm going to
do that's actually finally going to be in print hopefully. Yeah,
(26:58):
so pretty soon, probably in the next.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Three or four weeks. That should be finalized. Yeah, because
that whole idea, we talk about it all the time.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
This interplay between how you know, imagery and film and
pop culture influences the things people really report, and the
things people really report ends up influencing film and media.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So it is this feedback.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Loop and exactly, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And I guess I'm going to use Bigfoot as the
primary case, even though it's not the first, and then
talk about that, you know, because the Patterson Gimlan film,
you know, before the PGF, I think there was a
lot of variation in how people reported Bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I mean, there were lots of stories of it.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Yeah, sometimes he's like fifteen feet tall in those early reports,
it's crazy, and then suddenly we see the movie and
then that locks in.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
What Bigfoot is.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
But it's even funnier than that because he himself, Patterson
was copying a story that he had read from Canada,
so you know, there's all this feedback and it's just
it's really worth writing that up, I think, and so
I'm looking forward to that. And plus it'll put scripted
in print and not just here in the podcast.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So that'll be nice.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I'm just going to say, yeah, you definitely want to
do that before someone else does.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, if Joe was still alive, he'd be nagging me
to get it done because he was always saying, if
it's not print, it didn't happen, I will take over.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I will nag you more.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I appreciate that. That's what I need.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It's like somebody told me the other day or I
was talking about my optimism. I describe myself as pathologically optimistic,
and it was my sister. She was laughing about it,
and I said, well, you know, the good thing is
I've got Kathleen here to keep me grounded. In fact,
sometimes she keeps me so grounded i'm subterranean.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
She does a very good job she does, she does.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I'm very lucky.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So yeah, I'm just thinking about other news too. This
week I will be giving a talk. It's going to
be virtual to the gender Balanced It work at Cambridge
University Press, so I'm really excited about that. They read
my book Bitch, the Journey of a Word, and one of.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
The things I was going to ask you, how's that bitch?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Do it? It's do it, okay, just between you and
me and the listeners. I just found out that the
Cambridge University Press nominated me for a Pulitzer Prize and
they announced the results this week. I don't know how
any of this works. I think they have thousands of
nominations every year, but that would be that would be
(29:35):
incredibly cool if I had even a look in at that.
So it's an honor to be nominated, is an absolute.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Honored to be nominated. Nothing I've ever done is been
nominated for anything but that.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Well, I just didn't think it would be up there. Ali,
But I'm looking at some of the previous winners categories
like plays and musicals and things like that, that seems
like they are becoming a bit more progressive and edgy,
So you never know.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
They don't have a pun category though, do they they
need one?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
They do, they desperately do, clearly.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Going back to the talks, so I'm going to be
talking about sexus language in the workplace. And I just
finished up a research project at a university too, and
I've just become a visiting scholar at the University of
Colorado Boulder to congratulations, thank you. So it's it's unpaid,
it is just an affiliation. But I'm going to be
(30:33):
using that to work on a number of other book
proposals and book projects. And I've got another book which
is going to be coming out. I'm not sure if
it will be this year or next year, but it's
beyond words. It's about psycho linguistics, which is how we
learn language and how we use it, how we lose
language with various conditions like Alzheimer's and dementia and a phasia.
(30:56):
So that's really interesting stuff. I've found that medical parts
to be so fascinating. That's the kind of stuff I
love researching. And that's out to clearance review now. So
the peer review process at Cambridge University Press is that
they had I had oh maybe about six peer reviewers
(31:17):
and then I write the book and now it's out
for clearance too, so they certainly do their intelligence when
it comes to sure.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, but you know, again that's one of those things
where we're talking about sort of your epistemology, what do
you trust what do you not trust for knowledge? You
know that whole peer review it's not flawless, but you know,
it is really important to get that process done and
vent these ideas against experts within the field. That's really
really critical for a you know, a trustworthy product, right
(31:48):
it is.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And one of the first books that was written about
this topic goes back to the nineteen seventies and there's
a well the first book because it's a combination of
psychology and linguistics, and so one of the first people
to write it it was Gene Atchison, and she said
that I had a lot of feedback and a lot
of opinions about how I should have amended this book,
(32:08):
and but I should have added or excluded, and I
didn't listen to them. Perhaps it would have been a
better book had I done so, but I didn't. And
I think that this something like this, sometimes you need
to take the bull by the horns and really do
your own thing and go Maverick, and so that's what
this book is really about. There are a lot of
books on this topic, Chomsky, Hinker, and my book is
(32:32):
a different take. Again. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Chomsky's as I don't want to kill him by calling
his name, but he's somehow still alive.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
There was like a death rumor about.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Him, is yes, Yeah, I think every so often there's
news that he's passed. And it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Because he seems to have like two identities, like there's
Chompsky the linguists, and there's Champsky the political figure, you know,
and a lot of people like hate him for his politics,
you know, and don't want to recognize the other side.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So yeah, his work was absolutely groundbreaking in linguistics, but
people don't go to hear him talk about universal grammar,
right is that why.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Names?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
And that's you know, his name was always tied in
with that work.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So yeah, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
And obviously I knew nothing about linguistics compared to anyone
who's even halfway first.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
You know, I think you'd be very interested in this
book because I do talk about things like animal systems
of communication and attempts to try to get animals to talk.
So I'm also talking about different protagonists in the development
of psycholinguistics. So there are just so many different fields
that are connected to this kind of growing and burgeoning field.
(33:50):
And so these are people who historically wouldn't have described
themselves as psycholinguists, but to the extent that their work
informed accounts of the relationship between the brain and language,
they're no less a part of the history of the field.
So I wanted to just mention an Austrian inventor from
the eighteenth century. His name was Wolfgang von Kempelin, So
(34:11):
I'm not sure if you're familiar with him at all.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well, I am, weirdly because.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
One of his inventions is the mechanical turk or the
chess turk, and that's really important in.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
My research.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
For technology, because it's not that he made an invent
that turns out to be a huge hoax on the
chess tirk side.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It was actually a man in the machine. I'll put
a link in that the show.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Notes it inspired the whole idea of a mechanical chess device,
which led directly into some of the early work in
artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Well, yeah, I didn't know about that, but I knew
about his best known invention, the chess turk. So that
was an apparatus that played chess with an opponent, and
it had it was go and look it up, listeners,
because it's just a funny, funny device, and it has
a kind of turban wearing mannequin that's treaked in robes
and it's attached.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
To it Zoltan from Big.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, yes, absolutely, it's attached to this kind of box
like cabinet. So, as you said, it was a hoax.
So there was a hidden human chess master who was
manipulating a series of levers, but nobody was able to
expose it at the time, so you know, no one
could get in there and take a look at it.
But a lot of people fell for the ruse. Oh yeah,
and the turk was it checkmated both Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin,
(35:34):
which I thought was fascinating. So another device that Pempland
created was something called the speaking machine. So this was
probably devised to simulate the speech of the chess player.
So but it did really it became a pioneer, or
he became a pioneer in the field of speech synthesis technology.
(35:55):
So he devised this machine and it was really designed
to mimic human space each so it makes it a
full runner of modern speech programs like Siri. And what
it was created for was to mimic the vocal tract.
So it used bellows to stimulate lungs that were forcing
(36:15):
air through a kind of read that was acting as
the glottis, and then that vibrated like a voice box
to produce speech sounds through a kind of mouth or chamber.
And it's a really interesting device. You can go and
take a look at it online and it played like
a musical instrument and it's really creepy to listen to
examples of it. People have replicated it, and it has
(36:36):
this kind of childlike voice and it would say things
like mama and Papa. And it was also created to
add some phrases too, and it really creepy stuff like
you are my friend, I love you with all my
heart and come with me to Paris.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh wow, I'll have to see if I can find
a recording and drop in you. That is amazing. I
never heard about it.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
This device is a replica Von Campbell in speaking machine.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
This is a real invention. But he's so famous for
the hoax of the mechanical turk.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
That is just neat.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I love how this topic overlaps skepticism, your interest in
linguistics and my interest in innovation and artificial intelligence, and
that's that that is really cool.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
It really doesn't. He wrote a book too, so it
was in German, but it was essentially Mechanism of Human
Speech and Language, and so this examined the origin of
human speech, sounds, and the organs involved. So, you know,
he was kind of a huckster, but he was a genius.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
That's really neat. When is your book coming out or
when do you think it'll be out.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
It's currently undergoing a clearance review and then I have
to go through the process of proofing and editing and
all of that. Okaycha indexing, So I think it could
potentially come out later this year or as late as
early next year. Yeah, but he was the first person
to create a machine that's basically the foundation for all
(38:01):
of the devices that we have today. That it's the
comic speech.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Well, you know, and there's again, speaking of skepticism, there's
so much well I'm just gonna say bullshit. There's so
much bullshit in the technology world. So I mean, it's
amazing things happen, and then they get over hyped, and
then things that are not real get made that are
pretending to be real.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
So like like.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Elon Musk's Tesla robots, you know, they've had multiple events
where first they had a guy in a suit pretending
to be a robot and they're claiming, you know, trying
to get investors saying they're making a robots. They have
a guy in a suit, and then they have an
event where they have robots, but they're actually being remote controlled.
So the robots are talking to people and making drinks,
but it's being done remotely.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
There's companies that are doing.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
You know, automated drivers, but then humans drop in and
take over, so it's really remote control driving. And it's
like you just have to be so skeptical and you know,
and I don't mean that like dismissive. I mean you
have to just like you have to be able to
look under the hood or seek out people who know
how to look under the hood and see whether this
stuff is really.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Happening or whether it's just hype and bs. And it's
sad that the changes.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Well don't you think it's sad that We live in
a world where you can't call bullshit because people say
you don't say that word. But yet we get harmed
because of literal It's just bullshit.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
What's not literalists, But let's work on a farm.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
You're probably not literally being harmed by bullshit.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But there's that too. Yeah, but yeah, So I'm juggling
a lot now and quickly you are too. But a
lot's happening and lots of things worth living for.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yes, And I keep again, whether it's pathological or not,
my optimism is high.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I was feeling really down for a few months, and
something happened in about three four weeks ago. Something just
clicked and I felt like I was back in my
twenties mentally, Like suddenly my optimism returned. I'm thinking, and
clearly I'm getting a lot of stuff done on projects,
like I'm just having this moment of clarity.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
No, no, it seems to be.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
It does not seem to be medicinal, and nothing's changed
my medication or whatever, but I just my brain just
seems to be fired up. Like I think it's like
some depression cleared, you know, anxiety to cleared. I don't know,
you know what I'm back, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
I mean, and I know.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
It's like I've tried to arm myself because I know
bad things are coming. I've got you know, my loved
ones are getting old. They are going to die on me,
and there's nothing I can do to stop that. But
I am savoring every moment I can get with them.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
That is a great attitude, and I think it's all
about resilience.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
So I love my family, I love my friends, and
I love that we have listeners who are so supportive.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
So I love all listeners.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Thanks for giving us an episode where we're just catching
up because I mean, you know, a.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Little bit with all the things that we've been doing.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
So yeah, that's true. This is actually literally this is real.
This is me and Karen catching up.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
On for sure. This is very unscripted key stuff here.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Anyway, We got interviews coming up and new stuff coming out,
So stay tuned, and thank you for listening and supporting
our show.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
We really appreciate we do. We certainly do.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Monster You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show
about monsters. I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. You
were just listening to me and Karen catching up on
our lives and what's coming up from Monster Talk.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Thanks for listening along.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
As a reminder, you can always email me at Blake
at monster talk dot org or Karen at Karen at
monster talk dot org. We don't always have time to reply,
but we always appreciate your feedback. Hey, if you want
to support this show, If you like this show, it
really doesn't cost you anything to just tell a friend.
That's all we need you to do. If you can
support us on Patreon, that's great. If you want to
give us review on iTunes, that certainly helps.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
But you know, just telling a friend it means a lot.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Monster Talk theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys. If
my philosophy was a bumper Sticker would probably say, I
don't believe in much, but I believe in you.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
This has been a Monster House presentation
Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
A giant, very creature party part.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
In Luckness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake
in the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Monster Talk.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
This week, Kieren and I are just catching up our
respective lives have been super busy, and you'll hear about why.
Plus we'll hint at some upcoming episode topics.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We don't do this kind.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Of conversational episode very often, but this was a much
needed chat and we really appreciate being able to share
it with you.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
More instrtal All right, Hey Karen, how's it going?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hey? Ups and downs? Yeah, I think the same thing
for you.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, this has been a strange year. It has been
a strange year. I thought we should maybe use this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
We've got a lot of stuff coming up, and because
of some personal stuff in my life, which I'm going
to hint at without giving too many details. You know,
we didn't really have anything new, specifically monster related, but
I thought, you know what, occasionally it's nice to just
have a chat, talk about our mission, talk about what
we're up to.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So yeah, twenty twenty five has been kind of rough
on me, as you know, as listeners know, our friend
of the show and longtime colleague and mentor, Joe Nichol
passed away this year. My dog passed away this year,
And sadly, it seems like my mother is going to
not survive twenty twenty five. And I'm not sure when
(02:15):
she's going to be leaving us, but it is almost
certainly going to be pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
And that's that's been kind of hard.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And now I'm so sorry, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And you know, this is not one of those you know,
please send me your condulences or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
This My mom is hat a full life.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
She's in her eighties and we have a wonderful relationship,
and it's just that, you know, mortality is inevitable and
she's coming to the end.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So I empathize with you because my father passed in
twenty twenty of the same condition.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Sir. Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Common disorder and prevalence is on the increase too, So yeah,
it's suh yeah, uh, it's leaves you speechless.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It does, and then you know, I'm sitting here thinking,
oh no, my mother is going to pass away. And
then I almost passed away this week. That's been exciting.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Uh yeah, I don't know if you want to talk
about it or not.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't know, but I have I have.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I have a very unusual medical condition. Is it's very
you know what. Let me just let me give a
side brand. I love science, and I love medicine. I
love evidence based medicine, and I think maybe one of
the most disappointing things as a science enthusiast is to
come to the realization that as cool as science is
(03:40):
and as cool as medicine is, it doesn't have the
answers for everything. There are lots and lots and lots
of conditions that there's no there's no solution for you
at And one of the scariest words you can hear
is idiopathic.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I was thinking of that too.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I have an idiopathic condition that can take me out.
And I had not had any issues in a long time.
Mine is an allergic situation and I used to carry
an EpiPen and I didn't have my EpiPen because I
haven't had a problem in many years, and then suddenly
(04:14):
I did, and so it was really weird.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
You know, we had this show scheduled for today and
I've got a sudden flurry of texts and have an
ambulance there, and it was like, oh shit, what's happened?
And I didn't know all of the details, and it
was very worried about you. But I think, yeah, it's
you know, we talk about alternative medicine, and I think
(04:38):
that idiopathic conditions it's one of the reasons why alternative
medicine exists because there are so many.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, you want you want something to do, you want
something that you can prevent or you know, to cure
or to you know what. It's it's very frustrating for
a person who's you know, I am a habitual problem
solve right, I'm addicted to solving mysteries and.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
That sort of thing, and so me too. And I'm
also pretty analytical most of the time.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I mean, I mean, I look, I I don't want to,
you know, present myself as being smarter than I am.
I am no genius, but I I do tend to
think about things in pretty systematic ways and try to
figure out what's going on, and so you know, this is,
like I said, this maybe the third time in my
life I've I've been pretty sure, you know, with a
(05:29):
lot of certitude that if things didn't turn around, I
was going to die. And what's cool about it? Well,
that's what I was gonna say. The cool part is
it is I mean, I don't want to die. But
you know a lot of people are like, well, you know, atheists,
you know there's you know on the deathbed. You know
you you you turn around, you you you look for God. Well,
let me tell you, folks, I've faced death at least
(05:51):
three times. And what I did was thought, does my
wife have this under control? Yeah, she's got this. I'll
be okay, you know, I mean, I'm going to die.
What can I do? You know, I'm not afraid.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I don't like pain, but I don't And this is
not a brag. This is just how my brain works.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I just happened to know that I don't tend to
panic in these situations.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I just I'm calmly counting, I'm looking at the clock.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I'm thinking about here are my symptoms. I can tell
I'm going into shock. I could tell how my throat's
closing up, I'm like, okay, I probably have about fifteen minutes. Yeah,
and then you know, and I know it was terrifying
for my wife, but I was just thinking, Okay, the
ambulance people there probably in the fire department, they're about
five to seven minutes away. I probably have about fifteen minutes.
Unless something goes horribly wrong, they're gonna get here, give
(06:34):
me an epipinch shot, and I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Wow, there's some clarity of thought. And yeah, no near
death experiences, huh. Just perspective.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, just perspective.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And it's like, you know, when I recovered and it
takes a while to recover from both the epipinch shot
and you know all the Bina droll I took, it
was like, yeah, I need to I mean, there's some
things I need to get in better order. But yeah, yeah,
I mean I'm pretty happy with my situation mentally, Like
I I'm not afraid of death, which is sad because
(07:07):
many people I know who tell me I need to
be worried about what comes next, are far more afraid
of death.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Than I am.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And that but and again this is not me bragging.
This is just it's like, I'm very optimistic. I don't
tell people here's how you can think like me, because
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's why I think this way. I think it's just
my nature.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, everything's going to handle these situations differently.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, and so yeah, and I you know, maybe I
should be afraid. I don't know, you know, I mean,
I we'll all find out one day.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Right, So it's probably healthy to have the attitude that
you have. And I've had my health conditions too. I
have a number of autoimmune conditions, and yeah, I don't
know how much we want to delve into just how
old we're becoming. People say that when you develop one
autoimmune condition, you start collecting them, and that's the case
(07:59):
for me. And so nothing that's very serious. I had
fears of multiple sclerosis at one point, so nothing quite
as severe as that. But certainly a number of very
uncomfortable conditions that I've dealt with, and I have a
number of them in check. But the latest one to
happen to me is pretty monstrous. So the show's about monsters, right,
(08:20):
but a lot of conditions it is certainly monstrous. So
I've had a real ordeal since last year and I've
kind of told you bits and pieces of this, But
I had a little fall last year and it was
nothing serious. I was just going for a walk with
my son and it was twilight, so it was getting
dark and I just tripped. So I lost my footing
(08:41):
and fell and my shoulder took the branch of the fall.
But when you fall, you tend to go into a
little bit of shock, so I didn't really know exactly
where I hit myself and what was happening and anyway,
so I developed some pain and it was difficult to
sleep on that side, and I thought I'd better go
and get an X ray. So I went and saw.
(09:02):
I went to a clinic and saw a nurse, had
some X rays. Everything was fine. It started to abate
and I thought, okay, all's good. And then maybe a
couple of weeks later, I started the pain came back again.
And then I started developing this kind of stiffness and
a lot of pain trying to sleep on that side
at night, and I thought, look, I better pursue this further.
(09:26):
I went back to the nurse that I saw, and
she referred me to an orthopedic clinic, and they were concerned. Initially,
that it was a rotator cuff tear and because of
the amount of pain that I was in and my
range of motion was very limited and just a lot
of stiffness. And so anyway, I had to have an
MRI because the X rays didn't tell us enough and
(09:49):
they discovered that I have what is called the frozen shoulder.
I heard of that, so the technical name is adhesive capsulitis.
And oh my god, it is so painful and it's
another one of those idiopathic kind of mysterious conditions. It's
often linked to diabetes and thiery disorders, which is something
that I have. I'm in the age group, I'm in
(10:11):
the gender that tends to suffer from this as well.
But I wanted to mention this because I wanted to
raise a bit of awareness about this condition, because to
maximize recovery, you need to get this diagnosed early, and
I have. I've had a cortisone shot just a couple
of days ago, and I'm having to use cold packs
and take iberprofen. But I want to urge anyone out
(10:35):
there because I've talked to so many people about this
already and they've said, you know, I'm getting similar pain
and I want people who are feeling any kind of
stiffness or soreness that is chronic to get it looked at,
because this is a surprisingly common disorder and it's really debilitating.
So I'm just hoping that anyone who's out there and
(10:57):
experiencing something similar do something about it, because as soon
as you get it addressed, the better. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I just I'm you know, our mission here is to
prote critical thinking and scientific thinking, and we use monsters
as a framework for that. And it's like, right now,
it feels to me, you know, like the academic world
is under attack here in America and the science based
medicine is under attack, and it's like it's really frustrating,
(11:24):
and you know, I think the work we do here
is very important, you know, raising awareness and trying to
keep that and you know, in our own lives, you know,
I can certainly feel the temptation when you want there
to be an instant fix or reliable fix and there's nothing.
It's so disappointing, and it's like, you know, it's it's
(11:44):
just a struggle. But maybe you know, some things don't
have an answer. But you're right, every every every modality
that we try to.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Use to mitigate these things.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
You know, we're trusting that the system itself is based
on hardway evidence, and sometimes it isn't.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
That's that's very disappointing too. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh and to go back to alternative medicine and alternative therapies.
I've just had a number of people recommend chiropractice and
going to local health food stores or supermarkets and just
asking what do you have in the way of topical
pain relief, and they direct me to homeopathic medicine in
(12:24):
quoty fingers and ah, you know, all kinds of arnica
stuff like that. That is it seems to work for
some people, but I think that's really a placebo effect.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Well exactly, and that gets so complicated, you know. So
for the entire time we've done this show, that there's
you know, we're we kind of emerged out of that
sort of mid two thousands, you know, online skeptical world.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Oh the heyday salad days.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
There was so much optimism then, but so many of
the shows and blogs and all the sort of content
that was coming out was focused on medicine because there's
so much harm and alternative medicine and I sometimes I
felt a little guilty, you know that, like, well, there's
so much real harm and Bigfoot hardly hurts anybody.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's not true if you read the novels.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Well, that's true too.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Everything everything we face, you know, we have to we
have to approach it with some framework of you know,
and we don't always have the cognitive time or energy
to evaluate stuff, and so we look to experts, and
we look to trusted sources. And that's that's a really
it's a really normal heuristic.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Which is difficult right now, right now, if.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You can't trust those sources, having good critical thinking skills
gives you a pathway to at least figure out if
you can't do the research yourself scientifically, you can at
least figure out which sources might be trustworthy, what experts.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Can you trust?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Way to look for exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
You know, and it a YouTube and Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's not where you find good information, is not, So
you have to try a little harder, dig a little.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Further, fortunately and unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But I'll tell you one thing, if you know, facing mortality,
facing all these things, one thing that keeps me optimistic
is looking forward.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Working on projects.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
You know that I think are going to make, you know,
leave a mark, hopefully leave something out there for people
to to listen to, to help guide them, you know,
in some way. And so you know, this show is
it is, and it keeps me happy. It keeps me
optimistic about the future. We we can't from just this
(14:44):
show fix the world, but individuals, maybe we'll learn something
here about one or two things and it will help
them along the way, and it maybe entertained.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And sometimes people just feel better for having listened to us.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
They've some people like our ps my pints, I should
be let me me make your puns.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, no, and I think I think we try to
make a difference. And certainly our listeners do reach out
to us on occasion and say that we helped them
to get through a dark time, or to get through
the pandemic, or I mean they're equally helping us to
(15:24):
get through our own.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, to twist a phrase, you know, think global but
act vocal.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
That's a podcasting.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Tricky for sure.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, we do have lots of things going on, I
guess work wise and Bobby wise as well. True enough,
tell me a little bit about what you've been working on.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Well, sure, Well, first of all, I've been working on
my computer situation, and I don't want to go into
a great, big technical thing, but basically, the audio software
that I use is Audacity, and it's free and open source,
which I really like. But recent up dates have made
it so that the file sizes get really enormous.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And even on my Mac it was.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Which was super fast when I first got it, Uh,
it just became untenable.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
It would sometimes take five or six minutes to save
a file. I tried lots of things to fix that,
but that's too slow when you're trying to edit.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And every time I make a change, yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I'd make an edit and it might take me two
or three minutes before the edit would show up on screen.
So you know, and Windows that already given me so
much trouble. So I rolled over to make my one
of my boxes into a LINEX workstation and I've been
using that. The only problem is I'm trying to use
vintage hardware and it's it's a little bit underwhelming in
the memory department. But I bought some new memory chips
(16:42):
and it turns out they have to be the same
speed as the one that's throwing on the board, and
so anyway this week I will find out if that's
going to work. If it doesn't, I'm going to probably
have to drive five or six drop five or six
hundred bucks on a new system board. But I'm trying
to get by with what I got, so unfortunately it is,
but I'm loving honestly, I've been using I am a
(17:04):
i don't know what you call it, a generalist. I
know how to use several operating systems, Unix based opportunity.
So I just like technology, and so I'm really enjoying
getting back into Linux more hardcore.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
It's so much fun.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I really hate the way the world's switching to subscription
based software for everything, so using free and open source
is so much better.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
It's great.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know, I just need to get a box that
is all right. I need to get this box up to.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Speed with the memory, or.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I'm gonna have to buy a new system board. I'm
not too happy about that, but it's okay. We're doing
okay this year. This year, things seem to be headed
in the right direction in some way, so I'm happy about.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, that's something.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
So a lot of I lost a lot of time
with heart computer issues. But but so that's that's been challenging.
But other than that, you know, I had big plans.
I was going to really try to get my first
draft of my my technology book out in April, and
thenmultiple deaths and medical issues made that laughably impossible.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It is, It is difficult.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, but we've got good stuff coming up for this show,
which I'm very excited about.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
We're gonna first of all, I read a book called High.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Weirdness by Eric Davis, and it's about the nineteen seventies
Terence mckinna and Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick
and the way there's sort of lives and creativity overlapped
and impacted the way the whole world thinks about hallucina,
(18:35):
gens and oh interesting alternate AI and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's really fascinating.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I really I think that'd be a great interview.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's a really terrific book.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, looking forward to that, hoping I can fit it
in before we chat with him.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, it is a fantastic reed. But if you can't,
I'll get you up to speed. But we also have
a friend of the show, Jerry Drakes, to be coming back.
He's been working on a book for a while now,
you got to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
He has. So, Hazel was a good girl. So this
is the story that inspired the Twin Peaks series, a
tale of a true crime, So the murder of a
young lady by the name of Hazel Drew. And So
I have not finished the book yet, but it is riveting.
I've really been enjoying it. And so he has a
(19:27):
new theory about who done it, and surprisingly he has
a ghost story to tell that's part of his research,
part of his investigation. So I really found that very surprising.
I saw him or one of his friends hint at
that on Facebook and I found it very astonishing. So
I'm looking forward to bringing him on the show and
(19:49):
hearing more about this strange, paranormal like experience that he
had that led to him to write this book.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, Jerry's a really fascinating guy.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I've always enjoyed talking with him.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And he's one of the people we've met through the
show that I've actually had the chance to meet in
real life.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And he was a delight.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh I haven't yet, I had so.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, So I really hope to get that red before
we talk to him as well. I know he's been
working a long time so and he's been with you know,
our magic series too.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Oh yeah. He gets a hyper focus on something and
works on it and comes up with answers. So I
really can't wait to see what his conclusions are.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I won't say anything about his day job, but he's
he's in an interesting place.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It's really cool.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Off the record, he works for the government, so we
can't say any.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
More than that.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
But anyway, speaking of magic, so this is a little sad.
So I got contacted out of the blue by one
of Joe nichols friends and colleagues. And you know, Joe
passed away and a professor, doctor Phil Stevens, who knew
Joe and worked up in Buffalo, contacted me and said
(21:04):
that he was working on a New York Times obituary
for Joe. So I was delighted. It was so kind.
I was so glad that that happened. He did, and
it was really really heartwarming. I'll put a link to
that in the show notes. But but Phil himself is
an emeritus professor of anthropology and has written a book
(21:25):
about magic and witchcraft. And I was like, wow, I mean,
I didn't want We were talking about this very sensitive topic.
But at the same time, when I looked at his credentials,
I was like, Oh, I really want to talk to
him on the show, you know. So he's kindly agreed
to come on. Yeah, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, me too. And speaking of Phil's, we spoke with
Philip Center recently and we did that two parts yes episode,
the two episodes on Dino's.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And Yeah, he was getting some great feedback on that too.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
By the way, I really appreciate that from the listeners
wh've reached out.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That is really good to hear. And so we were
going back and forth with his editor, Christina Ward, and
she's a publisher with fare House.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yeah, they have an interesting catalog, I'll tell you you know.
I was delighted to hear that they had some content
that was actually aligned with how our show goes. But yeah,
they a lot of their stuff would be Look, they're edgy,
They're just they're kind of punk.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Honestly, I was.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Totally going to say they're the punk music of the
publishing world, and I will She mentioned something about food
publishing and I'm interested in that, and so I went
and checked out some of her books, and she very
kindly sent us some copies. And I'm very excited about
this because I've been looking for someone to talk to
about monstrous food, and so she said us a copy
(22:58):
of Holy Food, which is how cults, immunes, and religious
movements influenced what we eat at American History. So it's
a really thick book and weighty with knowledge. I'm really
looking forward to that. In the other books, Yesterday and
Your Wife, She's stolen there.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
She's such a foodie.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
In one of the books is I know there was
oh my gosh, speaking of people who past.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Was the other one, so American Advertising Cookbooks.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
One of my friends was in the skeptical movement, was
Leo Lincourt, and I loved him to death and we
never met, but he was he loved a few things.
He loved skepticism, and he loved kerbal Space program, and
he'd loved to post nineteen seventy's gelatinous recipes.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And there is one that I'm looking at now on
the cover of this book, American Advertising Cookbooks, How corporations
taught us to love spam of this trademark bananas and
Jello trademark, And yes, one of those horrifying concoctions. It
looks to me like it is with maybe lettuce and olives.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
This is going to be so much fun.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I grew up in that world and my great aunt
used to always make this hideous looking green yellow concoction
with milk and be kind.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
That was the Yeah, we didn't have too much of
that sort of stuff growing up in Australia, but certainly
my mother had some older cookbooks and Joy of Cooking
style thing and to Scotch eggs and lots of things
that looked a bit nasty to make toast. Yeah, I'm
(24:39):
not a veggie might fan. I think we've discussed that before.
So talking about monstrous food another reason I was exiled here.
But that is going to be a really fun interview.
And another one that I want Shah to tackle too
is to bring Matt back on again and to talk
about haunted chichen Itza. We made a very short true
(25:00):
to Cancun a couple of weeks ago. It was just
a very last minute thing, and you were very wrapped
up in things and we were We didn't talk for
a little bit there, and so we did this quick
getaway and visited Chitchinitze, which was just a marvelous experience.
I was so excited to visit there, and we were
(25:21):
collecting lots of ghost stories about the place, and there's
just a lot of folklore that's very interesting, and just
going to Mexico and the exposure to all of the
scams and interesting cultural things that took place there. So
we thought we could talk about those for an upcoming episode.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
That sounds cool, you remind me.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I had been working on an article for the UK
Skeptic magazine about the It's going to be a chapter
in my book, but it's about this moment in time
when sort of technology and magic and other things came
to get but I couldn't shrink it down into a
(26:03):
suitably small format, so I've decided to not do that,
but it will be in my book, but.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
You can use the research well exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
No, it's perfect for my book. It's just it fits
better in the whole context. So if you're reading it
in the context of the history of the personal computer,
which is kind of a focus of the book, because
you kind of see in that one field how innovation
can play out in a whole bunch of different ways.
But all the background information that I was trying to
(26:36):
cram into this one chapter will be spread out through
the whole book, so it's much easier to kind of
focus on that one scene anyway, so that's not lost
or wasted. But I wanted to give them an article,
and so I've decided to finally write up my thoughts
on this whole idea of scripted So I'm going to
do that's actually finally going to be in print hopefully. Yeah,
(26:58):
so pretty soon, probably in the next.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Three or four weeks. That should be finalized. Yeah, because
that whole idea, we talk about it all the time.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
This interplay between how you know, imagery and film and
pop culture influences the things people really report, and the
things people really report ends up influencing film and media.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So it is this feedback.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Loop and exactly, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And I guess I'm going to use Bigfoot as the
primary case, even though it's not the first, and then
talk about that, you know, because the Patterson Gimlan film,
you know, before the PGF, I think there was a
lot of variation in how people reported Bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I mean, there were lots of stories of it.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Yeah, sometimes he's like fifteen feet tall in those early reports,
it's crazy, and then suddenly we see the movie and
then that locks in.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
What Bigfoot is.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
But it's even funnier than that because he himself, Patterson
was copying a story that he had read from Canada,
so you know, there's all this feedback and it's just
it's really worth writing that up, I think, and so
I'm looking forward to that. And plus it'll put scripted
in print and not just here in the podcast.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So that'll be nice.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I'm just going to say, yeah, you definitely want to
do that before someone else does.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, if Joe was still alive, he'd be nagging me
to get it done because he was always saying, if
it's not print, it didn't happen, I will take over.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I will nag you more.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I appreciate that. That's what I need.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It's like somebody told me the other day or I
was talking about my optimism. I describe myself as pathologically optimistic,
and it was my sister. She was laughing about it,
and I said, well, you know, the good thing is
I've got Kathleen here to keep me grounded. In fact,
sometimes she keeps me so grounded i'm subterranean.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
She does a very good job she does, she does.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I'm very lucky.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So yeah, I'm just thinking about other news too. This
week I will be giving a talk. It's going to
be virtual to the gender Balanced It work at Cambridge
University Press, so I'm really excited about that. They read
my book Bitch, the Journey of a Word, and one of.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
The things I was going to ask you, how's that bitch?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Do it? It's do it, okay, just between you and
me and the listeners. I just found out that the
Cambridge University Press nominated me for a Pulitzer Prize and
they announced the results this week. I don't know how
any of this works. I think they have thousands of
nominations every year, but that would be that would be
(29:35):
incredibly cool if I had even a look in at that.
So it's an honor to be nominated, is an absolute.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Honored to be nominated. Nothing I've ever done is been
nominated for anything but that.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Well, I just didn't think it would be up there. Ali,
But I'm looking at some of the previous winners categories
like plays and musicals and things like that, that seems
like they are becoming a bit more progressive and edgy,
So you never know.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
They don't have a pun category though, do they they
need one?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
They do, they desperately do, clearly.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Going back to the talks, so I'm going to be
talking about sexus language in the workplace. And I just
finished up a research project at a university too, and
I've just become a visiting scholar at the University of
Colorado Boulder to congratulations, thank you. So it's it's unpaid,
it is just an affiliation. But I'm going to be
(30:33):
using that to work on a number of other book
proposals and book projects. And I've got another book which
is going to be coming out. I'm not sure if
it will be this year or next year, but it's
beyond words. It's about psycho linguistics, which is how we
learn language and how we use it, how we lose
language with various conditions like Alzheimer's and dementia and a phasia.
(30:56):
So that's really interesting stuff. I've found that medical parts
to be so fascinating. That's the kind of stuff I
love researching. And that's out to clearance review now. So
the peer review process at Cambridge University Press is that
they had I had oh maybe about six peer reviewers
(31:17):
and then I write the book and now it's out
for clearance too, so they certainly do their intelligence when
it comes to sure.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, but you know, again that's one of those things
where we're talking about sort of your epistemology, what do
you trust what do you not trust for knowledge? You
know that whole peer review it's not flawless, but you know,
it is really important to get that process done and
vent these ideas against experts within the field. That's really
really critical for a you know, a trustworthy product, right
(31:48):
it is.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And one of the first books that was written about
this topic goes back to the nineteen seventies and there's
a well the first book because it's a combination of
psychology and linguistics, and so one of the first people
to write it it was Gene Atchison, and she said
that I had a lot of feedback and a lot
of opinions about how I should have amended this book,
(32:08):
and but I should have added or excluded, and I
didn't listen to them. Perhaps it would have been a
better book had I done so, but I didn't. And
I think that this something like this, sometimes you need
to take the bull by the horns and really do
your own thing and go Maverick, and so that's what
this book is really about. There are a lot of
books on this topic, Chomsky, Hinker, and my book is
(32:32):
a different take. Again. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Chomsky's as I don't want to kill him by calling
his name, but he's somehow still alive.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
There was like a death rumor about.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Him, is yes, Yeah, I think every so often there's
news that he's passed. And it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Because he seems to have like two identities, like there's
Chompsky the linguists, and there's Champsky the political figure, you know,
and a lot of people like hate him for his politics,
you know, and don't want to recognize the other side.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So yeah, his work was absolutely groundbreaking in linguistics, but
people don't go to hear him talk about universal grammar,
right is that why.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Names?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
And that's you know, his name was always tied in
with that work.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So yeah, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
And obviously I knew nothing about linguistics compared to anyone
who's even halfway first.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
You know, I think you'd be very interested in this
book because I do talk about things like animal systems
of communication and attempts to try to get animals to talk.
So I'm also talking about different protagonists in the development
of psycholinguistics. So there are just so many different fields
that are connected to this kind of growing and burgeoning field.
(33:50):
And so these are people who historically wouldn't have described
themselves as psycholinguists, but to the extent that their work
informed accounts of the relationship between the brain and language,
they're no less a part of the history of the field.
So I wanted to just mention an Austrian inventor from
the eighteenth century. His name was Wolfgang von Kempelin, So
(34:11):
I'm not sure if you're familiar with him at all.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well, I am, weirdly because.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
One of his inventions is the mechanical turk or the
chess turk, and that's really important in.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
My research.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
For technology, because it's not that he made an invent
that turns out to be a huge hoax on the
chess tirk side.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It was actually a man in the machine. I'll put
a link in that the show.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Notes it inspired the whole idea of a mechanical chess device,
which led directly into some of the early work in
artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Well, yeah, I didn't know about that, but I knew
about his best known invention, the chess turk. So that
was an apparatus that played chess with an opponent, and
it had it was go and look it up, listeners,
because it's just a funny, funny device, and it has
a kind of turban wearing mannequin that's treaked in robes
and it's attached.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
To it Zoltan from Big.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, yes, absolutely, it's attached to this kind of box
like cabinet. So, as you said, it was a hoax.
So there was a hidden human chess master who was
manipulating a series of levers, but nobody was able to
expose it at the time, so you know, no one
could get in there and take a look at it.
But a lot of people fell for the ruse. Oh yeah,
and the turk was it checkmated both Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin,
(35:34):
which I thought was fascinating. So another device that Pempland
created was something called the speaking machine. So this was
probably devised to simulate the speech of the chess player.
So but it did really it became a pioneer, or
he became a pioneer in the field of speech synthesis technology.
(35:55):
So he devised this machine and it was really designed
to mimic human space each so it makes it a
full runner of modern speech programs like Siri. And what
it was created for was to mimic the vocal tract.
So it used bellows to stimulate lungs that were forcing
(36:15):
air through a kind of read that was acting as
the glottis, and then that vibrated like a voice box
to produce speech sounds through a kind of mouth or chamber.
And it's a really interesting device. You can go and
take a look at it online and it played like
a musical instrument and it's really creepy to listen to
examples of it. People have replicated it, and it has
(36:36):
this kind of childlike voice and it would say things
like mama and Papa. And it was also created to
add some phrases too, and it really creepy stuff like
you are my friend, I love you with all my
heart and come with me to Paris.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh wow, I'll have to see if I can find
a recording and drop in you. That is amazing. I
never heard about it.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
This device is a replica Von Campbell in speaking machine.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
This is a real invention. But he's so famous for
the hoax of the mechanical turk.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
That is just neat.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I love how this topic overlaps skepticism, your interest in
linguistics and my interest in innovation and artificial intelligence, and
that's that that is really cool.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
It really doesn't. He wrote a book too, so it
was in German, but it was essentially Mechanism of Human
Speech and Language, and so this examined the origin of
human speech, sounds, and the organs involved. So, you know,
he was kind of a huckster, but he was a genius.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
That's really neat. When is your book coming out or
when do you think it'll be out.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
It's currently undergoing a clearance review and then I have
to go through the process of proofing and editing and
all of that. Okaycha indexing, So I think it could
potentially come out later this year or as late as
early next year. Yeah, but he was the first person
to create a machine that's basically the foundation for all
(38:01):
of the devices that we have today. That it's the
comic speech.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Well, you know, and there's again, speaking of skepticism, there's
so much well I'm just gonna say bullshit. There's so
much bullshit in the technology world. So I mean, it's
amazing things happen, and then they get over hyped, and
then things that are not real get made that are
pretending to be real.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
So like like.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Elon Musk's Tesla robots, you know, they've had multiple events
where first they had a guy in a suit pretending
to be a robot and they're claiming, you know, trying
to get investors saying they're making a robots. They have
a guy in a suit, and then they have an
event where they have robots, but they're actually being remote controlled.
So the robots are talking to people and making drinks,
but it's being done remotely.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
There's companies that are doing.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
You know, automated drivers, but then humans drop in and
take over, so it's really remote control driving. And it's
like you just have to be so skeptical and you know,
and I don't mean that like dismissive. I mean you
have to just like you have to be able to
look under the hood or seek out people who know
how to look under the hood and see whether this
stuff is really.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Happening or whether it's just hype and bs. And it's
sad that the changes.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Well don't you think it's sad that We live in
a world where you can't call bullshit because people say
you don't say that word. But yet we get harmed
because of literal It's just bullshit.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
What's not literalists, But let's work on a farm.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
You're probably not literally being harmed by bullshit.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But there's that too. Yeah, but yeah, So I'm juggling
a lot now and quickly you are too. But a
lot's happening and lots of things worth living for.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yes, And I keep again, whether it's pathological or not,
my optimism is high.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I was feeling really down for a few months, and
something happened in about three four weeks ago. Something just
clicked and I felt like I was back in my
twenties mentally, Like suddenly my optimism returned. I'm thinking, and
clearly I'm getting a lot of stuff done on projects,
like I'm just having this moment of clarity.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
No, no, it seems to be.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
It does not seem to be medicinal, and nothing's changed
my medication or whatever, but I just my brain just
seems to be fired up. Like I think it's like
some depression cleared, you know, anxiety to cleared. I don't know,
you know what I'm back, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
I mean, and I know.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
It's like I've tried to arm myself because I know
bad things are coming. I've got you know, my loved
ones are getting old. They are going to die on me,
and there's nothing I can do to stop that. But
I am savoring every moment I can get with them.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
That is a great attitude, and I think it's all
about resilience.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
So I love my family, I love my friends, and
I love that we have listeners who are so supportive.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
So I love all listeners.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Thanks for giving us an episode where we're just catching
up because I mean, you know, a.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Little bit with all the things that we've been doing.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
So yeah, that's true. This is actually literally this is real.
This is me and Karen catching up.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
On for sure. This is very unscripted key stuff here.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Anyway, We got interviews coming up and new stuff coming out,
So stay tuned, and thank you for listening and supporting
our show.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
We really appreciate we do. We certainly do.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Monster You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show
about monsters. I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. You
were just listening to me and Karen catching up on
our lives and what's coming up from Monster Talk.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Thanks for listening along.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
As a reminder, you can always email me at Blake
at monster talk dot org or Karen at Karen at
monster talk dot org. We don't always have time to reply,
but we always appreciate your feedback. Hey, if you want
to support this show, If you like this show, it
really doesn't cost you anything to just tell a friend.
That's all we need you to do. If you can
support us on Patreon, that's great. If you want to
give us review on iTunes, that certainly helps.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
But you know, just telling a friend it means a lot.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Monster Talk theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys. If
my philosophy was a bumper Sticker would probably say, I
don't believe in much, but I believe in you.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
This has been a Monster House presentation
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