Special thanks to Della for joining us on this episode!
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:02 - Intramurals
00:12:02 - Dopamine Torpedo
00:21:17 - Side View Mirror Loyalty Programs
00:28:55 - Screaming Plants
00:35:13 - AR Kitchen Counters
00:43:37 - Outro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
I'm Scott.
I'm Russell.
And I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball, where three cyber crusaders and a guest empty our heads of startup and
tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for free.
(00:25):
Anything we say is yours to keep.
And Scott, I believe you brought our guest this week.
- I did.
I am very excited to
introduce Della.
So Della, we've worked with before.
She's an entrepreneur and plant genetics enthusiast.
She's founded the company Rebel Cultures
where her team is building the Plant Replicator.
It's a device that lets you clone clean, healthy plants
(00:47):
just outside of the traditional lab.
Della has been through every part of the startup world
from the napkin sketches all the way
through securing funding for her ever growing company.
So welcome, Della.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Awesome to be here.
This is going to be so fun.
And this week, as we are doing pre-show warm-ups,
you mentioned that you have four ideas,
I think you said, from this morning to now, which rules.
(01:09):
She was
built for this.
Yeah, it's really four and a half.
One's
really,
really out there.
That's so great.
So why not kick off this week with a game of intramurals,
where we throw out our half ideas
that we don't feel like deserve a full pitch,
but maybe have a little bit of legs
and need a little juice to get all the way there.
So who wants to kick us off?
- I would love to start this one.
(01:30):
- You would love to start this one.
No, Scott, do it,
hit us.
- Awesome.
This definitely can't be a full idea,
but I can't stop thinking about it.
I recently got back from a work event
where something cool happened at work
and it was a whole, the entire company's one room
and everyone started clapping and it was great.
And then the founder went up there and he's like,
"Okay, that was really cool.
"I think we can use this to make some sales.
(01:51):
"So I need everyone to sit back down
And I'm going to yell out a couple of potential customers of people that we've
been trying to entice and I want, and I'm just going to like, say welcome to the
customer and I'm going to pan the camera and everyone's going to clap for them.
We did this 10 times in a row for just different groups of people.
And he changed the name every time.
And the crowd just went nuts every time.
So I'm like, can we do crowds as a service?
(02:16):
Where like,
we just get a bunch of people in one spot and we all have them do
Something
but we like speed round it and we work out a logistics and have it all planned out for one day
And I can't get further than that,
but that's my birthday cameos or something
Exactly. You
have a huge crowd you go through a million birthdays and everyone chance that name for
like five seconds
(02:36):
And then you move on to the next one
That's great.
I just want my LinkedIn profile to be updated to me looking like I'm speaking to a crowd
Talk pose.
Yes
Boom, send it.
I'd pay for that.
- And you can get it like you have the key chains
at the little like gift shops with all the names on it,
(03:00):
but you can
just buy the
audio file
where people are
doing it for
you.
- Scott, yeah.
- Yeah, that's
my voicemail.
- It doesn't matter what it's
spelled like either.
That's the best part.
It's like the not the wrong spelling of Aiden, you know.
- I think my phone's going off.
Scott, Scott, Scott,
Scott.
Sorry, that's, hold
on one second.
- Truly 10,000 people yelling it.
(03:22):
(laughing)
I like it. - That's great.
- I love that.
So I've got one.
- Yeah, hit me.
- So when you're conceptualizing,
signing on like a big partner,
you don't need to do this for like a small client,
but you really want to vet how somebody is
on their worst day, not just their best day,
if you're gonna be doing like a multi-year project with them
(03:45):
that's, I was thinking about this in the business realm,
but it could be friendships, could be any sort of partnership, could be a romantic relationship.
I think we need to have a worst day simulator where
you get to
basically
test to
see how
this person reacts in the absolute worst circumstances and
(04:05):
then like the curtains
come up at the
end and you're like, "Oh no, it's fine.
This was a pre-planned like worst day simulator.
Don't worry about it."
We
both get to keep
our hands clean.
I did not pick this terrible idea.
And it's just
fine.
You're just like, oh, ha ha.
So glad we made it through that together.
And then you can decide if you want
to risk having that worst day again in real life.
(04:29):
If you don't see me at my worst, you
don't deserve me at my best.
Literally, though.
Literally,
though.
You can't
wait six months for that to happen
or whatever.
Just throw it out there.
Because by nature, if you're having the bad day,
That's when you don't want to like realize the person can't handle it.
Yeah.
Yes.
In a past job I had, we would design a factory lines, like what each station
(04:54):
is doing, what the person is doing on them.
And we always had this one guy who would come up to us after and be like,
you are designing this for that person having the worst day ever.
Like anyone could do it on a good day, but you got to make sure
that they can do it on a bad day.
And I think that would be perfect for this.
He would, he would be over the moon for this idea.
Yes.
I've heard that for drunkenness.
The user is drunk.
(05:15):
Everything.
They can't read anything.
They like pictures, but yeah, I get what you're saying.
It's like bad days.
Android has, uh, an API where you throw the monkey slamming on the keyboard
simulator at it, where like you have your app open and you just random inputs,
backspaces, touchscreen, whatever's or whatever, and that can be simulated.
(05:37):
Like, can my app withstand someone just like
a child doing
nonsense to it?
Without it like freezing or breaking or whatever. Yeah, exactly.
And
so there's an API that's is user monkey.
That's awesome
It cracks me up man,
how could you have like how could you simulate a bad day?
I like for somebody just like on an app or something. You're just like
(05:58):
I don't know that it's on an app
Have you guys seen like parks and rec?
Mm-hmm
Okay, so it's like it's like the disaster preparedness like you open the folder and you're simulating like what what is it?
like bird flu.
Oh, yeah.
And it's just like, all right.
So it is sort of like a choose your own adventure.
(06:20):
You like pull a random card and you're like, do this, do this, do this.
And then after all of that happens, you can be like, see, the card told me to do that.
So it
can be very analog.
It's
really just a deck of cards of terrible things to do to somebody.
Yeah.
This was all a test.
Oh, like a board game kind of style, right?
(06:40):
Right.
Yeah, shoot right like emergency
response teams will do the you know simulations where there's a mock
Building burning down or shooter or whatever and yeah, you I mean there's real value to red teaming that running that through
right?
Man,
that's cool. That'd be a board game worst day ever
(07:02):
Sold
Yeah, but only one person can be in on it. It has to be a single blind nut,
right?
You're right. You're right
a test.
All good relationships have the one party trying to test the other without them knowing.
That's healthy.
(07:22):
All right, Leo, what's yours?
I recently got together with some friends from high school, and this is a group that I don't see
too often, right? And so a big part of the sitting around the campfire is reminiscing about, "Hey,
I wonder what so-and-so's up to nowadays, and I haven't heard from them in a while," and stuff.
I want access to Ancestry.com, but for any arbitrary group of people, like you went to
(07:44):
high school with this group, or you haven't heard from that acapella group you were in,
or whatever, where you can suck in. You have their contact from 10 years ago, so I have
what might be their phone number, plus that can be looking at LinkedIn, and it can be looking at
if they have a Facebook or other social media, and it can be pulling in from other... So the
(08:05):
The genius of Ancestry.com is as people use it,
other people benefit, right?
So if you go and you list who your great-grandfather was,
other people using the service might also find
that that's their uncle or whatever.
So as you are putting in the details about this
into my Ancestry for Friends grinder,
(08:26):
perhaps it would help like,
oh,
that other user knows that they got married
and their name changed,
or oh, they actually live two towns away
from where you are right now or whatever.
We were kind of doing this by hand,
like scrolling through Facebook or whatever.
No, they don't have a Facebook.
Oh, well, maybe that,
oh, we did find that they have a whatever.
And it'd be cool if I could automate that somehow, right?
(08:47):
Ancestry for friends.
- That's cool.
Just connect to all your existing logins, you know?
- Yeah.
- Your phone contacts, boom, CRM.
- Seems like an AI agent,
something could poke around
and just kind of Google people's names,
see what they can find in the white pages or whatever.
- Yeah, it's kind of like the,
like why you would actually want to go to a like high school reunion.
(09:08):
Russell's up.
Yeah.
Why don't you go next?
Russell, what do you got?
All right.
My intramural is really crazy.
Uh, involves a synthetic dopamine.
So every time.
Yeah, totally.
Okay.
So you know how every idea has this like, Oh, if only we could gamify this so that
(09:30):
we can work out more or we can eat our vegetables.
Sure.
Skip all of that.
Go straight to the brain with some synthetic dopamine hits whenever
you meet your goals, right?
Okay.
Truly.
So like you get a little patch, like those insulin patches.
This is why it's an intramural.
(09:52):
Stick it right on your arm.
Right.
Same spot.
Like
an insulin pump maybe?
Yes.
Yes.
Dial in.
Yep.
maybe a little less than an insulin pump because it's dopamine.
So, and then every time you check an item off your list,
app sends a message to your little dopamine patch.
Boom.
Now you're straight addicted to completing the work, working out.
(10:16):
You are, you have truly biohacked your brain.
Dopamine.
Through dopamine.
Like, I mean, like that's what you're doing anyway, right?
Does dopamine
go in the blood?
Stay in the brain. The
engineers
will figure it out later.
That's right.
I think you know you get a little neuro link, okay? You get a little
(10:37):
neuro link in there.
Okay,
this is why it's...
But you can have a lot of human rights violations pretty quick on here, but I love where it's going. Okay.
Okay, so what got me thinking about this was when
my wife was having a baby. They pump you with progesterone,
which is a form of oxytocin.
Synthetic oxytocin, so I mean if you can't do dopamine you could do that
(11:00):
I think it's like the love drug or whatever like just fall in love with your Asana emails
Just or your test list like just pump a little
Oxytocin into the bad parts of your day, so you truly just love what you're doing
I
Don't I
(11:20):
I'm sure there's
a
Some some deregulated country or you know where you could totally do that and I think
why not?
I think you could probably get a lot of corporate sponsorships
They would save a ton of money on things like ice cream socials and work-life balance
That's true. I thought you were saying a lot of corporations might be interested in it because then there's a great advertising opportunity
(11:43):
Every time I drive by Arby's it gets a little shot right to the arm
boy. I love
Arby's so
much
that is
the
dystopian hellscape that you
have open possibility to.
Free Arby's for a year if you plug in.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeesh.
Yeah.
My real idea for tonight is actually weirdly close to this.
(12:09):
So I can't believe that you said that.
That's perfect.
Well, that's a perfect segue then.
Perfect
segue.
You
must go first, please.
I insist.
Della,
what is the idea
that you've brought for us this evening?
Okay,
so here's the idea and it's a little bit of a departure from Russ's in that where
(12:31):
he's maybe suggesting that we increase dopamine.
I am proposing somewhat of a dopamine torpedo.
So dopamine torpedo works a little bit like this.
So you know those in the early 2000s, those low res computer pranks you'd play on your
(12:56):
friends where you focus really hard on this little minivan driving down a hillside.
It's winding through the hill, it's driving through some trees, and then all of a sudden
your face is just inches from the screen and you experience the worst jump scare of your
life.
(13:16):
It just makes you want to throw your computer out the window, smash it into a million pieces.
It makes you need to leave the room.
You want nothing to do with it.
You're not just going to go do the next thing on the computer.
You want to be a mile away from that as fast as possible because what if it comes back?
Today, we are spending three and a half hours a day, literally inches from our screen.
(13:43):
Not capitalizing on this to
Deregulate our addiction to our phone
So we have all of these like it kicks you off after a certain amount of time
But you're still left wanting it at that moment
So it's like setting a limit for how many cigarettes you can have in a day instead of making you not want the cigarette
(14:04):
so
Dopamine torpedo I am proposing.
This is an operating system feature
Every say 10 seconds of active activity where you're interacting with something on your screen
Every maybe maybe five to ten minutes
There's like a coin flip on whether or not you'll get this just horrendous
(14:26):
Unpredictable jump scare
sure,
so it's got to be so worth it
Whatever you're doing that you're willing to just like ruin your day
To like remain on your phone for longer than you need to it doesn't activate if you're just like
Trying to watch a movie on the flight or something and you're just like, you know using your attention span
(14:47):
Appropriately to just watch a thing but like if you're scrolling if you're like doing a whole bunch of stuff
then yeah, you're gonna have an
experience
Direct your attention
elsewhere. So genius every minute you're on tick-tock the
probability.
Yeah. Yeah
(15:09):
3%
Terrifying.
Knowing that it's going to happen more and more likely.
Yeah.
I'm being held at gunpoint by my phone.
It's like a roulette, and the odds are not in your favor.
But the odds are in your favor for re-regulating your brain.
Totally.
Quality
of life.
Yeah.
(15:29):
Quality of life.
A couple of years
ago, both Apple and Google
made a really big deal about the digital wellness things
they were trying to push.
Like, this is the time we're going
Yeah, you know introduce these screen time and family parental monitoring and and lock yourself out of stuff
Make your phone black and white all those little features, but this is the like nuclear bomb version man that
(15:50):
rules
Yeah, it's gonna work get vibration involved as well. It's just like a multi-sensory experience
Right, yeah,
you override system volume absolutely do
throw a battery pack on their little shocks. Yeah
- Yeah,
oh yeah.
- Yeah, charges your phone and shocks you
(16:11):
every randomly 10 seconds.
- Right.
- I'm
picturing like the light version of this.
- Case that would like emit a terrible smell
or like some like goo or something
if you have sensory issues.
- Just old mushrooms.
- Ah, there's ketchup all over my
bed,
damn
it.
- Yes, yes, exactly.
- Is that a worm?
(16:31):
- Nope,
that's--
- That's incredible.
- I think I would install this.
I actually would install it.
And then every once in a while, it's just an ad,
just to keep the money generating.
It's like nothing more terrible than a fricking ad.
(laughing)
- Liberty Mutual Insurance!
(laughing)
(16:54):
- Well, and the number of completely unhinged jobs
that this creates as well,
because we get habituated to things so quickly.
So you have to come up with things
that are increasingly more scary.
I fear for like the personalization aspect of it
Like if it starts pulling from like, oh look at this terrible picture of you when you were 13
It's just like flashing at you in the face
(17:16):
Get it away from me.
Yeah, I'd rather be dead
The settings have things for gore and for like all of it totally
Fringe texts like the worst text you've ever sent just on your screen that it does
send to somebody
Locked and loaded if
you don't just anything we can do to keep you off
your phone locked out of that one
(17:37):
That's ready to go to your ex
It's a text from your mom it says did you mean to send this? Yeah, right
Just from the top
Della whoa, you're diabolical
How much I care yeah,
(17:58):
yeah, that's right it's
Sadism for better of humanity. It's for good.
Somehow it's better than
Spending your time your free time your limited free time on a thing that doesn't feel good and doesn't help people.
Yeah
No, we're just gonna dig into our brain in the amygdala and get that core guttural reaction of fear
(18:20):
That's how
we're gonna solve
the world's problems.
So Russell, how does this pair with your?
It's amazing or are they competitors in the market?
So after you drop your phone on the ground screaming you get hit with a dopamine hit
Because you're away from your phone
Really, you know send the mood swing all the way to the positive, you know
(18:45):
Sure. Yeah, I think that's
We could we could partner it could be a good way for
you to finally feel like not
Drawn to your phone if that happens to you two times
That
is a different relationship that you have with this object now.
Right.
Yeah, that's not just altering the behavior while the app is on.
(19:05):
That's like permanently changing the way I feel about it.
Right.
You might tune
the fear to a person too, because like you have accelerometers in your phone.
You can see how big the reaction, the jump is from that.
You're like, "What does this person react to?
How can we make this as horrible
as possible to them?"
All this has to do
is terrify
you three or four dozen times
(19:27):
you
right right I think the add
-ons of like you can put mousetraps you know
just go go full hardware with it right I'm gonna finger off yeah I'm that
addicted you know I mean this is the yeah dude
what if this is a parental
control setting oh no oh no Bob is not coming down for dinner so you have two
(19:52):
minutes or I'm sending the thing. Boom. You hear it like from the other room. I said get downstairs!
Dinner time!
Exactly.
Your number one investor is gonna be like big therapy for all the trauma
this is gonna induce.
Yes.
(20:13):
No, it's gonna be phone
companies because people are gonna have to buy a whole bunch of
new
phones.
Yeah
right. Toss it in a lake.
Chase the soul!
You break, I fix.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or like waterproof,
drop proof phone case companies like Otterbox.
Oh
yeah.
Would sponsor this.
Amazing.
We do awards for idea that's most likely to change the world.
(20:36):
Maybe not for the better, but change the world.
I love this one.
That's it,
man.
That's amazing.
We got to play into the fear aspect of the human psyche, you
know?
Look, people are doing something unhealthy, you really have to trick them out of it sometimes.
sites as a service.
I did look up like dopamine regulation services like apps
(20:59):
and they all I could find was like lockouts from things
but it's just
like
you still want more.
Sure. We need
to change it so you don't want more.
Yeah
yeah. Dopamine torpedo. It's such a
good name too.
You came named and it's like I
have no notes. 10 out of 10 improvement.
(laughing)
(21:21):
- All right, Russell, what do you got this week?
- So,
this idea might be more of an intramural,
but it's whatever.
(laughing)
So I'm sitting at Starbucks.
I've been going to Starbucks lately a lot,
just 'cause I don't wanna make coffee.
And every time I take out my phone,
I do the tap to pay, okay?
And I thought, (laughing)
(21:42):
sitting in the drive-thru,
why do I have to do this every time?
Why can't I just have on my side mirror, okay,
a tap to pay, a rewards app, all of that good stuff,
right?
- Duct tape, a credit card.
- Yes. - Boom, done.
- So this is a little bit more
of the corporate friendly side
(22:04):
because as a corporate entity,
oh, I can track that car that goes through,
I can associate it to their orders, rewards points,
you do the loyalty program thing, right?
And
like as a customer, I don't have to take out my phone
or maybe there's some extra benefits to this.
Other than that, simply put, it'd be like an NFC tag.
(22:24):
You stick right on there and now everything's good to go.
You go full country club with it, right?
Convenience at its finest.
Oh, Mr. Russell, I see you've made it
to the drive-thru again.
Your regular order?
Yes, Jarvis, Starbucks man.
I would like the Pike's Place Venti
(22:46):
with an extra shot today.
You know, it kinda creates a little bit more
of that personalization too, which would be kinda cool.
I don't know how a McDonald's would use this
'cause I just think there's a lot of soullessness in there,
but maybe it could bring it back, right?
Create a little bit more relationship
at maybe like a drive-thru or a bank teller
(23:08):
or that kinda thing, right?
Yeah, that's
it.
I did a McDonald's breakfast with the app recently.
I hadn't done that in a couple years.
And man, it's so tedious.
I don't know how-- do they expect everyone doing this
to do this while driving to the McDonald's?
Is that the idea?
In
the car.
(23:28):
Right?
Yeah.
I think that's what everyone is doing,
whether they acknowledge it or not.
But it is awful trying to poke through the rewards, whatever.
Which deal, daily deal, do you want to redeem today?
It's like a fricking, like a children's game on the phone
just to get a, like a McMuffin.
- I love that app because I get dollar coffees
(23:49):
all the time on the McDonald's.
- But you know what would be
better?
You drive up with your side view mirror thing.
And then instead of having to communicate your code,
RF67 or whatever, you just like, it's there.
You've been read.
I love that.
- And I wonder if you could even have a little bit more
of a two-way exchange where, you know, they are catering to you, you feel very
(24:13):
posh, like you are known, maybe you could help them as well by, you know, let's say
you leave a really good review, it'll show them like the nice thing you said
last time you went through so that they feel some
kinship with you
and you feel
like you're already friends, like it's your favorite barista and they're happy
to see you as well.
(24:33):
This is like awesome. Disney World's, they're whispering in
cast members earpiece that it's your birthday today kind of level.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Dang.
Oh, that'd be cool.
Oh, it's your birthday coming up.
Blah, blah.
That'd be awesome.
Your
anniversary.
Right.
Just like, why not?
And it can go anywhere your car goes, right?
(24:55):
So then are businesses paying to get access to the system?
Is that the business model here?
You could have like customers get the tag for free and then the Starbucks's of the world
have to like subscribe to get the readers to be able to like get at the
customer data or whatever you know?
Oh yeah. You're a broker. It turns into like
Google Analytics of you know, oh they shop at these places
(25:18):
so
now you can
advertise to them. Because I do not want to have...
everyone hates having 15 fast
food apps on their phone. You don't want to have 15 tags all stuck to the side of your mirror.
Oh no, yeah, just be one. That one's my Wendy's one and that one is my... so yeah no right?
No, no, no, no.
Yeah, it'd have to be one universal.
It'd be like the gold club, you know, kind of options, right?
(25:38):
Yeah.
Exclusive.
AARP.
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, why not?
Right.
Yeah.
I want some kind of card that gives me discounts everywhere I go.
Yeah.
I'm not able to like steal this off your car and run up to a McDonald's and get
something
in my,
or like take a reader and go to all the cars in a parking lot
(25:59):
and charge them for a small coffee.
That's Mike.
That's Andrea.
That's Derek.
Your phone will
catch on
fire because of
our Adela's
app when you do that.
So,
well, it's fine because our cars are all like looking at our faces anyway.
Right.
So like, it's not going to work unless it's actually you or
your
(26:19):
partner.
Two factor it or something, whenever
the car
keys are not near
it or
whenever the car's not started, it doesn't
have power or something.
Right.
So if your 16-year-old steals your car
and tries to get a double quarter pounder, it won't work.
That's my quarter pounder son.
Thanks for picking it up, right?
(26:41):
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, I guess this would be cool for parking garages
and that kind of stuff, too, just the convenience of that.
Never having to pull a ticket out, push it back in.
It just scans and goes.
I think they
have probably some of that.
Essentially, the iPass, the toll booth system,
But for all
businesses,
isn't it?
I know iPass is kind of moving away
from the physical hardware to a camera and license plate based
(27:05):
system.
Well, that could be really interesting too,
because iPass, I think you can preload a certain budget
as well.
So your thing could tell you, hey,
you are low on fast food budget for this month
based on what you preloaded it.
It's a wellness program.
Right, so it's like super frictionless
(27:25):
to spend your budget and then higher friction
to go above your budget.
-Yeah.
-You want to add another $10?
There's a three-minute cool down,
and you have to
drive around.
-Right.
Then you have to go to a smoothie king.
-Tropical smoothie, please, right?
Only.
You know, this would be good for Kurt, because I was like,
(27:49):
I do some drive-thrus, but I do a lot of side store pickups,
right?
So when they deliver the food, they
and tap, transaction's done, boom, right?
- Curbside.
- Curbside, that's it, yeah, curbside.
- That could work too.
- Just a verification thing and all that jazz.
- Does it have a name?
Catchy name?
That's usually your bread and butter, Russell.
(28:11):
- Yeah, there's some--
- So you want a
mirror, objects in mirror may
look large.
- Sidecar.
- Sidecar's
good.
- That's a healthcare insurance alternative.
- Better sidecar. - Not for long.
Sidecar
2.
Nice.
Double car.
(28:31):
Double car?
No.
Double car.
Race through? I'm trying to think like drive through but like
speed.
Fast pass.
Turbo.
This is work.
Something like that.
We'll have to AI it.
(28:54):
put that in the focus groups
Scott what do you got for us this week?
this too was also an intramural but we have a
plant expert and
an audiophile on
so I figure let's just run with it and see what happens so that same work event
(29:14):
that I was telling you about earlier they also ended that night on a karaoke
night and I haven't done one of those in probably a decade, but it got me
thinking though, and I recently saw a YouTube where a guy was just taking.
Heart tangent, a bunch of electrodes, putting it on plant leaves and running
a current through it and spitting it out to a MIDI file and I'm like, that's awesome.
(29:35):
So I'm thinking, can you combine those two things and have a karaoke plant,
something that you actually have different electrodes on, maybe you can,
different plants have different sounds and coming, uh, whatever,
bioelectrical signals coming out of this.
Please correct me if I'm completely wrong on this, but can different plants.
Essentially play different tunes.
(29:55):
And I find some cool combination of plants that all kind of mesh together.
Obviously you're going to be doing a little bit of auto tune to the
synthesis of this coming out, but
I feel
like you could have some fun with this.
Yeah.
Della can plant sing.
What's the best
singing voice?
Does exist.
What does exist?
Yes.
I was actually even at an event with one recently
(30:17):
where this was
happening.
- What
exactly does it look like?
- So they are, like Scott was saying,
you can clamp these electrodes onto the leaf
and they will respond to sound and touch
and the electrodes are hooked up to an amp.
(30:38):
So when the guitar player was playing along with them
And when the crowd was clapping, you
could hear the sound changing
and coming out of the app.
And that's based off of electrical signals.
That's not
just
the waves of sound hitting it,
therefore making it amplified or something?
Right.
(30:58):
Really?
So
could
I hook this onto the stem of a large plant
and then tap the leaves like a MIDI drum
and play some steel drums or something on it?
It's not going to be a one-to-one.
plant's gonna read it a little differently based on what the plant is
and kind of what's going on with it electrochemically.
(31:19):
Whoa. Yeah.
Wow. So we need an at-home
version. Yeah.
My boss in Fern has got like a full
piano on every leaf. I've
always said that.
Isn't that the tagline of the product I think?
A full piano on every leaf.
I
like that. It's um it's definitely like there's a strong
potential for conservation angle there.
(31:43):
Like, "Oh, you can hear them.
They're a little bit more anthropomorphized now.
It's very avatar."
-Yes. -Very avatar.
-Could
you make them talk?
Kind of like make screams?
Sorry, I'm going back to horror.
(32:03):
[laughter]
-This
is a
dopamine torpedo
episode.
in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and when the loggers come, it starts screaming.
I guess, yeah.
Oh my god.
Or just, I need to water my plant, you know?
So it starts, "Hey, so
thirsty."
Yeah,
that's interesting.
(32:24):
So is it for caring for the plant better or is it for the entertainment angle on the karaoke
stage because I feel like the sounds that you're asking it to emit are gonna
be a little different like what signals are you trying to optimize for?
Don't mix
those two.
Maybe plant death metal is a genre waiting to be discovered.
(32:48):
What's
wrong with your fern? This would be cool like a botanic gardens like a
special event
you know. Oh yeah. It's like super niche but still. Yeah
you travel
around with all your equipment you plug in for like a couple days or a week-long
event they pay you to show up boom boom right now you know the season pass
(33:08):
holders now can hear the sound of their favorite plant they always go to see
right
that's cool that's true you guys hear the latest single from the four
petunias man
the four petunias what a
quartet
playlist
on Spotify yeah
yeah
Love them. All right, Della. What would be the best sounding and worst sounding plant?
(33:29):
I
Don't know. I think you know the the worst sounding plant
Probably one that's just having a really bad time a really bad day
mites or something
Mites the emerald ash borer
yeah, you know
slow
slow death or like the death of of a
(33:50):
Brother or sister tree nearby. They just like feel it slowly
They're like I'm gonna just be declining for the next 15 years before I fall over I guess yeah
I don't know if they mind it though. I think they're just like okay with it. They're like yeah
I'm I'm like gonna be a habitat and food for forever
(34:12):
So I think they like get things that we probably don't
it's probably not the
answer you wanted at all
We'll need your plant translator. We'll start working on that.
Yeah, it's just as easy as the dog one the cat one
You
would make a lot of crazy people really happy if you could turn sounds and signals into words like
(34:34):
Definitely
definitely try to figure that one out doesn't
even have to make sense, right? It's just
They'll figure it out eventually. It's a horoscope.
I think plants with like different sized leaves
Scott would be like the ones that sound really cool bunch of
variety of
and then the ones that are
(34:55):
boring
They got the full octaves
right or like big
old. I don't know maybe a weeping willow dude. That's the one sorry
Wow, that's the one that's gonna
sound amazing
The weed plant just plays Bob Marley when you plug
it in. Oh, yeah
Yeah.
Yes.
(35:18):
All right, Leo, what do you got this week?
All right.
Have you seen the cool things that people have made with projectors and Xbox Kinects
or other 3D cameras?
So people make like sandboxes where it's interactive.
There's a projector shining down on the sand and you make a valley and then the projector
shows like water trickling over your sand that's not really there or things like that.
(35:39):
I had
an epiphany recently.
You ready for this one?
Xbox connect projector system in the kitchen.
You're mounting it to the ceiling, shining down on your counter.
You've got your recipe.
You've got what looks like a bento box with like sections.
You're putting your two pounds of potatoes over here,
and then it's putting a little checkmark.
(36:00):
You're putting your half a gallon of boiling water over on this side over here.
And OK, you got that part. Great.
Now go, it says right on the counter,
preheat the oven next to 350.
I'm talking interactive recipes that guide you
by showing you where to put stuff,
when to do stuff that like holds your hand through it.
It can be for like a cooking class.
(36:21):
It can be for your own personal organization needs.
It can be, there's a spot in our houses
where it sucks to use technology.
And that's when you're covered with like chicken grease
in your hands and you don't wanna like manipulate
that iPad with the recipe on it or whatever, right?
3D projector, connect cameras.
(36:41):
It's right there guys.
You could have it all hands-free.
Voice control, I don't care.
Gesture control, whatever.
I want to have this be a Tony Stark interface
for my cooking.
- Whoa. - I love it.
- That's cool.
- Giant virtual buttons projected down
and I can tap and do all the things
and then with just my greasy hands.
- It's already on the counter.
(37:02):
- That's really cool. - I want a 14 inch pizza.
Oh, here's 14 inches.
Boom, circle right there.
Or, I don't know.
- When I'm doing something wrong, right?
That dough is too wet.
Put more flour.
- You're going
to go line up that big yam
that you need to cut into half inch thick
things.
So it's putting lines
across it.
(37:22):
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, or whatever.
Augmented reality.
- Julianne, right?
- No, dummy, hold it like this, not like that.
- I like it. - I'm guiding you.
Would it also come with all of the tools that you need so that it would have like the chips inside?
Or do you buy like a set of chips like you can buy labels for your spice jars?
(37:42):
Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. That could be a monetization strategy
I was thinking because
it's optical and camera based that you wouldn't need anything proprietary to read it
But I mean maybe you have to like scan in the 12 ingredients that you know
You're gonna need by touching them on their little reader slash scale or something, you know
QR codes just everywhere just every
(38:05):
Put a little sticker on them, it doesn't even have to correlate to this is the sticker for time
It's just this is a sticker with a serial number on it and you tell the computer ahead of time like this code means this
Is you know lettuce or whatever? I don't know
or yeah, it's just a red box and listens for your voice
What
is that?
There
you go
bananas.
I could see major applications for this in training on like a manufacturing line as well
(38:29):
Totally a sweet training tool.
People talk about, I think it was Hololens and other augmented reality, Vision Pro
ideas of like, I need to repair this motorcycle and put new spark plugs in.
So I'm looking through augmented reality and it's showing the exploded diagram of
where that part's going to be.
And it's saying, go over to this side and putting arrows where I need to be and all that kind of
(38:52):
stuff. That's cool.
But like, there's no people who want to wear a VR headset for nine hours a day on an assembly
a hot factory, right?
Like, there's
got to be a better way to do this. And if you've got projectors
and cameras, you're there.
Right. I've also seen this successfully used, sort of, in like a human
dissection simulator in a university. They have like a table that's the size of a cadaver, but you
(39:19):
can just re-dissect it,
unlike a
cadaver. So you can
like, you know, cut and peel
and, you know,
Things back in in whatever order. I'm sure it tells you when you got it right and got it wrong
That's not where
brains go
Yeah, exactly
exactly
(39:44):
That cadavers nose just let it
Pivoting new pitch
Turns
into like Don't Like Daddy, it
just like sits all the way up.
Full-size real human scale operation.
On a cadaver. That's awful.
(40:07):
Terrifying, yes.
No, no, food, kitchen, cooking, factory line, right.
Sorry,
that's not what you were taking.
No,
that's great.
- I think this is really good for,
like you know mise en place,
like that whole
concept
of keeping everything
in
its place.
Right?
(40:28):
Every, yeah, so like when you're cooking,
if you have, this is where your potatoes go,
they should stay there, right?
When you're done,
you move it over here.
It's like this method of cooking
where it keeps everything in order.
You can use your projector to like,
when you're done,
put it here
on your counter.
Move those books and toys off the counter
so you have the room to keep your space organized.
(40:51):
It makes cleanup easier.
It actually, even if you're a good home chef,
it'll actually make you a better one, right?
That'd be cool.
- It's like Scott's gridfinity thing
that you're
on a
kick for right now.
Organizational trays for everything.
Don't we all want the cooking show,
(41:11):
and here is exactly two tablespoons of salt
in a beautiful little bowl, right?
We're not gonna get that.
There's no way you're gonna take the time to pre-measure everything out in a gorgeous matching cookware.
So, what's the easiest next best thing?
What if it was shining it on an interactive malleable projector surface?
Yeah.
Oh man.
(41:31):
I like that. Probably clear bowls.
Sure.
Ooh.
Yes.
If you had a clear bowl and it was watching, you could be holding it, the camera's shining down,
and you've got like a little like keep going, keep going indicator as you're pulling,
And then, oh, it's just about end stop.
This is almost like a video game you've created for yourself.
Like how close, it's like WarioWare, how close can you get the thing chopped to diced, but
(41:57):
not to minced or whatever, you know what I mean?
You could make this a whole game.
- And the messier you are, the less clear the instructions become as well.
Because if you leave
flour and
bits all over, all of a sudden you're cooking blind again.
- Yeah, it punishes you.
Yeah.
Clean, clean, clean.
(42:18):
Yeah.
30% counter must be a visible.
Yeah.
That's fun.
This would be, if you put ingredients out there and then it would come up with
a recipe using those ingredients.
So you like, here's all the stuff I got.
Just lay it out on the counter.
Yeah.
That's a thing.
And then, boom.
I've never seen it just cataloged like a, you know, here, look
(42:39):
at it all and do it for me.
You always have to like speak it or type it or something.
That's cool.
Let me throw a bunch of stuff on the counter and let the computer decide. Yeah
got some stuff
I need to get rid of your expiration throw on the counter. Oh,
there's expirations on them, too
I see those lasagna noodles are going bad and you have stuff. What about breakfast lasagna? Oh, I wouldn't have considered that
(43:00):
Yeah, thank you computer, you know, that's fun
Yes, there we go
Breakfast lasagna that would totally never cross my mind until I'd put it on a counter
once or twice, but yeah
And that's
where like Instacart comes in because they're like if you just hit order on these three ingredients
You could have this five course meal
(43:22):
right right now
Oh, man, the tie-in tap your counter over here to confirm purchase delivery in the hour
Slam your forehead right here
Well, dear listener, if you are listening to this podcast, terrified that any moment
it's going to scream in your ear because you've been wasting time.
(43:45):
Thank you very much for sticking through.
We hope that you don't have a jump scare in the next three minutes and we hope you enjoyed
yourself.
And thank you so much, Della, for joining us.
This was so fun.
Absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me.
Dave Our website is Spitball.show.
There you can find links to our YouTube channel, other social media.
Please email us comments, feedback, ideas.
(44:06):
We would love to hear from you.
We are podcast@spitball.show.
That's also how you can follow us
in the Fediverse, such as Mastodon.
We are podcast@spitball.show,
and we're on Blue Sky at spitball.show.
Our subreddit is r/SpitballShow.
Our intro/outro music is "Swingers" by Bonkers Beat Club.
Please, if you wouldn't mind listening while cooking
on your cool augmented reality Tony Stark Jarvis kitchen,
(44:28):
whatever you're listening on right now,
Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, please leave us a review.
whatever platform you're on, that is the best way
for people to find out about the show.
New episodes coming out in two weeks.
We'll see you then.
(dramatic music)
I'm Scott.
I'm Russell.
And I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball, where three cyber crusaders and a guest empty our heads of startup and
tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for free.
(00:25):
Anything we say is yours to keep.
And Scott, I believe you brought our guest this week.
- I did.
I am very excited to
introduce Della.
So Della, we've worked with before.
She's an entrepreneur and plant genetics enthusiast.
She's founded the company Rebel Cultures
where her team is building the Plant Replicator.
It's a device that lets you clone clean, healthy plants
(00:47):
just outside of the traditional lab.
Della has been through every part of the startup world
from the napkin sketches all the way
through securing funding for her ever growing company.
So welcome, Della.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Awesome to be here.
This is going to be so fun.
And this week, as we are doing pre-show warm-ups,
you mentioned that you have four ideas,
I think you said, from this morning to now, which rules.
(01:09):
She was
built for this.
Yeah, it's really four and a half.
One's
really,
really out there.
That's so great.
So why not kick off this week with a game of intramurals,
where we throw out our half ideas
that we don't feel like deserve a full pitch,
but maybe have a little bit of legs
and need a little juice to get all the way there.
So who wants to kick us off?
- I would love to start this one.
(01:30):
- You would love to start this one.
No, Scott, do it,
hit us.
- Awesome.
This definitely can't be a full idea,
but I can't stop thinking about it.
I recently got back from a work event
where something cool happened at work
and it was a whole, the entire company's one room
and everyone started clapping and it was great.
And then the founder went up there and he's like,
"Okay, that was really cool.
"I think we can use this to make some sales.
(01:51):
"So I need everyone to sit back down
And I'm going to yell out a couple of potential customers of people that we've
been trying to entice and I want, and I'm just going to like, say welcome to the
customer and I'm going to pan the camera and everyone's going to clap for them.
We did this 10 times in a row for just different groups of people.
And he changed the name every time.
And the crowd just went nuts every time.
So I'm like, can we do crowds as a service?
(02:16):
Where like,
we just get a bunch of people in one spot and we all have them do
Something
but we like speed round it and we work out a logistics and have it all planned out for one day
And I can't get further than that,
but that's my birthday cameos or something
Exactly. You
have a huge crowd you go through a million birthdays and everyone chance that name for
like five seconds
(02:36):
And then you move on to the next one
That's great.
I just want my LinkedIn profile to be updated to me looking like I'm speaking to a crowd
Talk pose.
Yes
Boom, send it.
I'd pay for that.
- And you can get it like you have the key chains
at the little like gift shops with all the names on it,
(03:00):
but you can
just buy the
audio file
where people are
doing it for
you.
- Scott, yeah.
- Yeah, that's
my voicemail.
- It doesn't matter what it's
spelled like either.
That's the best part.
It's like the not the wrong spelling of Aiden, you know.
- I think my phone's going off.
Scott, Scott, Scott,
Scott.
Sorry, that's, hold
on one second.
- Truly 10,000 people yelling it.
(03:22):
(laughing)
I like it. - That's great.
- I love that.
So I've got one.
- Yeah, hit me.
- So when you're conceptualizing,
signing on like a big partner,
you don't need to do this for like a small client,
but you really want to vet how somebody is
on their worst day, not just their best day,
if you're gonna be doing like a multi-year project with them
(03:45):
that's, I was thinking about this in the business realm,
but it could be friendships, could be any sort of partnership, could be a romantic relationship.
I think we need to have a worst day simulator where
you get to
basically
test to
see how
this person reacts in the absolute worst circumstances and
(04:05):
then like the curtains
come up at the
end and you're like, "Oh no, it's fine.
This was a pre-planned like worst day simulator.
Don't worry about it."
We
both get to keep
our hands clean.
I did not pick this terrible idea.
And it's just
fine.
You're just like, oh, ha ha.
So glad we made it through that together.
And then you can decide if you want
to risk having that worst day again in real life.
(04:29):
If you don't see me at my worst, you
don't deserve me at my best.
Literally, though.
Literally,
though.
You can't
wait six months for that to happen
or whatever.
Just throw it out there.
Because by nature, if you're having the bad day,
That's when you don't want to like realize the person can't handle it.
Yeah.
Yes.
In a past job I had, we would design a factory lines, like what each station
(04:54):
is doing, what the person is doing on them.
And we always had this one guy who would come up to us after and be like,
you are designing this for that person having the worst day ever.
Like anyone could do it on a good day, but you got to make sure
that they can do it on a bad day.
And I think that would be perfect for this.
He would, he would be over the moon for this idea.
Yes.
I've heard that for drunkenness.
The user is drunk.
(05:15):
Everything.
They can't read anything.
They like pictures, but yeah, I get what you're saying.
It's like bad days.
Android has, uh, an API where you throw the monkey slamming on the keyboard
simulator at it, where like you have your app open and you just random inputs,
backspaces, touchscreen, whatever's or whatever, and that can be simulated.
(05:37):
Like, can my app withstand someone just like
a child doing
nonsense to it?
Without it like freezing or breaking or whatever. Yeah, exactly.
And
so there's an API that's is user monkey.
That's awesome
It cracks me up man,
how could you have like how could you simulate a bad day?
I like for somebody just like on an app or something. You're just like
(05:58):
I don't know that it's on an app
Have you guys seen like parks and rec?
Mm-hmm
Okay, so it's like it's like the disaster preparedness like you open the folder and you're simulating like what what is it?
like bird flu.
Oh, yeah.
And it's just like, all right.
So it is sort of like a choose your own adventure.
(06:20):
You like pull a random card and you're like, do this, do this, do this.
And then after all of that happens, you can be like, see, the card told me to do that.
So it
can be very analog.
It's
really just a deck of cards of terrible things to do to somebody.
Yeah.
This was all a test.
Oh, like a board game kind of style, right?
(06:40):
Right.
Yeah, shoot right like emergency
response teams will do the you know simulations where there's a mock
Building burning down or shooter or whatever and yeah, you I mean there's real value to red teaming that running that through
right?
Man,
that's cool. That'd be a board game worst day ever
(07:02):
Sold
Yeah, but only one person can be in on it. It has to be a single blind nut,
right?
You're right. You're right
a test.
All good relationships have the one party trying to test the other without them knowing.
That's healthy.
(07:22):
All right, Leo, what's yours?
I recently got together with some friends from high school, and this is a group that I don't see
too often, right? And so a big part of the sitting around the campfire is reminiscing about, "Hey,
I wonder what so-and-so's up to nowadays, and I haven't heard from them in a while," and stuff.
I want access to Ancestry.com, but for any arbitrary group of people, like you went to
(07:44):
high school with this group, or you haven't heard from that acapella group you were in,
or whatever, where you can suck in. You have their contact from 10 years ago, so I have
what might be their phone number, plus that can be looking at LinkedIn, and it can be looking at
if they have a Facebook or other social media, and it can be pulling in from other... So the
(08:05):
The genius of Ancestry.com is as people use it,
other people benefit, right?
So if you go and you list who your great-grandfather was,
other people using the service might also find
that that's their uncle or whatever.
So as you are putting in the details about this
into my Ancestry for Friends grinder,
(08:26):
perhaps it would help like,
oh,
that other user knows that they got married
and their name changed,
or oh, they actually live two towns away
from where you are right now or whatever.
We were kind of doing this by hand,
like scrolling through Facebook or whatever.
No, they don't have a Facebook.
Oh, well, maybe that,
oh, we did find that they have a whatever.
And it'd be cool if I could automate that somehow, right?
(08:47):
Ancestry for friends.
- That's cool.
Just connect to all your existing logins, you know?
- Yeah.
- Your phone contacts, boom, CRM.
- Seems like an AI agent,
something could poke around
and just kind of Google people's names,
see what they can find in the white pages or whatever.
- Yeah, it's kind of like the,
like why you would actually want to go to a like high school reunion.
(09:08):
Russell's up.
Yeah.
Why don't you go next?
Russell, what do you got?
All right.
My intramural is really crazy.
Uh, involves a synthetic dopamine.
So every time.
Yeah, totally.
Okay.
So you know how every idea has this like, Oh, if only we could gamify this so that
(09:30):
we can work out more or we can eat our vegetables.
Sure.
Skip all of that.
Go straight to the brain with some synthetic dopamine hits whenever
you meet your goals, right?
Okay.
Truly.
So like you get a little patch, like those insulin patches.
This is why it's an intramural.
(09:52):
Stick it right on your arm.
Right.
Same spot.
Like
an insulin pump maybe?
Yes.
Yes.
Dial in.
Yep.
maybe a little less than an insulin pump because it's dopamine.
So, and then every time you check an item off your list,
app sends a message to your little dopamine patch.
Boom.
Now you're straight addicted to completing the work, working out.
(10:16):
You are, you have truly biohacked your brain.
Dopamine.
Through dopamine.
Like, I mean, like that's what you're doing anyway, right?
Does dopamine
go in the blood?
Stay in the brain. The
engineers
will figure it out later.
That's right.
I think you know you get a little neuro link, okay? You get a little
(10:37):
neuro link in there.
Okay,
this is why it's...
But you can have a lot of human rights violations pretty quick on here, but I love where it's going. Okay.
Okay, so what got me thinking about this was when
my wife was having a baby. They pump you with progesterone,
which is a form of oxytocin.
Synthetic oxytocin, so I mean if you can't do dopamine you could do that
(11:00):
I think it's like the love drug or whatever like just fall in love with your Asana emails
Just or your test list like just pump a little
Oxytocin into the bad parts of your day, so you truly just love what you're doing
I
Don't I
(11:20):
I'm sure there's
a
Some some deregulated country or you know where you could totally do that and I think
why not?
I think you could probably get a lot of corporate sponsorships
They would save a ton of money on things like ice cream socials and work-life balance
That's true. I thought you were saying a lot of corporations might be interested in it because then there's a great advertising opportunity
(11:43):
Every time I drive by Arby's it gets a little shot right to the arm
boy. I love
Arby's so
much
that is
the
dystopian hellscape that you
have open possibility to.
Free Arby's for a year if you plug in.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeesh.
Yeah.
My real idea for tonight is actually weirdly close to this.
(12:09):
So I can't believe that you said that.
That's perfect.
Well, that's a perfect segue then.
Perfect
segue.
You
must go first, please.
I insist.
Della,
what is the idea
that you've brought for us this evening?
Okay,
so here's the idea and it's a little bit of a departure from Russ's in that where
(12:31):
he's maybe suggesting that we increase dopamine.
I am proposing somewhat of a dopamine torpedo.
So dopamine torpedo works a little bit like this.
So you know those in the early 2000s, those low res computer pranks you'd play on your
(12:56):
friends where you focus really hard on this little minivan driving down a hillside.
It's winding through the hill, it's driving through some trees, and then all of a sudden
your face is just inches from the screen and you experience the worst jump scare of your
life.
(13:16):
It just makes you want to throw your computer out the window, smash it into a million pieces.
It makes you need to leave the room.
You want nothing to do with it.
You're not just going to go do the next thing on the computer.
You want to be a mile away from that as fast as possible because what if it comes back?
Today, we are spending three and a half hours a day, literally inches from our screen.
(13:43):
Not capitalizing on this to
Deregulate our addiction to our phone
So we have all of these like it kicks you off after a certain amount of time
But you're still left wanting it at that moment
So it's like setting a limit for how many cigarettes you can have in a day instead of making you not want the cigarette
(14:04):
so
Dopamine torpedo I am proposing.
This is an operating system feature
Every say 10 seconds of active activity where you're interacting with something on your screen
Every maybe maybe five to ten minutes
There's like a coin flip on whether or not you'll get this just horrendous
(14:26):
Unpredictable jump scare
sure,
so it's got to be so worth it
Whatever you're doing that you're willing to just like ruin your day
To like remain on your phone for longer than you need to it doesn't activate if you're just like
Trying to watch a movie on the flight or something and you're just like, you know using your attention span
(14:47):
Appropriately to just watch a thing but like if you're scrolling if you're like doing a whole bunch of stuff
then yeah, you're gonna have an
experience
Direct your attention
elsewhere. So genius every minute you're on tick-tock the
probability.
Yeah. Yeah
(15:09):
3%
Terrifying.
Knowing that it's going to happen more and more likely.
Yeah.
I'm being held at gunpoint by my phone.
It's like a roulette, and the odds are not in your favor.
But the odds are in your favor for re-regulating your brain.
Totally.
Quality
of life.
Yeah.
(15:29):
Quality of life.
A couple of years
ago, both Apple and Google
made a really big deal about the digital wellness things
they were trying to push.
Like, this is the time we're going
Yeah, you know introduce these screen time and family parental monitoring and and lock yourself out of stuff
Make your phone black and white all those little features, but this is the like nuclear bomb version man that
(15:50):
rules
Yeah, it's gonna work get vibration involved as well. It's just like a multi-sensory experience
Right, yeah,
you override system volume absolutely do
throw a battery pack on their little shocks. Yeah
- Yeah,
oh yeah.
- Yeah, charges your phone and shocks you
(16:11):
every randomly 10 seconds.
- Right.
- I'm
picturing like the light version of this.
- Case that would like emit a terrible smell
or like some like goo or something
if you have sensory issues.
- Just old mushrooms.
- Ah, there's ketchup all over my
bed,
damn
it.
- Yes, yes, exactly.
- Is that a worm?
(16:31):
- Nope,
that's--
- That's incredible.
- I think I would install this.
I actually would install it.
And then every once in a while, it's just an ad,
just to keep the money generating.
It's like nothing more terrible than a fricking ad.
(laughing)
- Liberty Mutual Insurance!
(laughing)
(16:54):
- Well, and the number of completely unhinged jobs
that this creates as well,
because we get habituated to things so quickly.
So you have to come up with things
that are increasingly more scary.
I fear for like the personalization aspect of it
Like if it starts pulling from like, oh look at this terrible picture of you when you were 13
It's just like flashing at you in the face
(17:16):
Get it away from me.
Yeah, I'd rather be dead
The settings have things for gore and for like all of it totally
Fringe texts like the worst text you've ever sent just on your screen that it does
send to somebody
Locked and loaded if
you don't just anything we can do to keep you off
your phone locked out of that one
(17:37):
That's ready to go to your ex
It's a text from your mom it says did you mean to send this? Yeah, right
Just from the top
Della whoa, you're diabolical
How much I care yeah,
(17:58):
yeah, that's right it's
Sadism for better of humanity. It's for good.
Somehow it's better than
Spending your time your free time your limited free time on a thing that doesn't feel good and doesn't help people.
Yeah
No, we're just gonna dig into our brain in the amygdala and get that core guttural reaction of fear
(18:20):
That's how
we're gonna solve
the world's problems.
So Russell, how does this pair with your?
It's amazing or are they competitors in the market?
So after you drop your phone on the ground screaming you get hit with a dopamine hit
Because you're away from your phone
Really, you know send the mood swing all the way to the positive, you know
(18:45):
Sure. Yeah, I think that's
We could we could partner it could be a good way for
you to finally feel like not
Drawn to your phone if that happens to you two times
That
is a different relationship that you have with this object now.
Right.
Yeah, that's not just altering the behavior while the app is on.
(19:05):
That's like permanently changing the way I feel about it.
Right.
You might tune
the fear to a person too, because like you have accelerometers in your phone.
You can see how big the reaction, the jump is from that.
You're like, "What does this person react to?
How can we make this as horrible
as possible to them?"
All this has to do
is terrify
you three or four dozen times
(19:27):
you
right right I think the add
-ons of like you can put mousetraps you know
just go go full hardware with it right I'm gonna finger off yeah I'm that
addicted you know I mean this is the yeah dude
what if this is a parental
control setting oh no oh no Bob is not coming down for dinner so you have two
(19:52):
minutes or I'm sending the thing. Boom. You hear it like from the other room. I said get downstairs!
Dinner time!
Exactly.
Your number one investor is gonna be like big therapy for all the trauma
this is gonna induce.
Yes.
(20:13):
No, it's gonna be phone
companies because people are gonna have to buy a whole bunch of
new
phones.
Yeah
right. Toss it in a lake.
Chase the soul!
You break, I fix.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or like waterproof,
drop proof phone case companies like Otterbox.
Oh
yeah.
Would sponsor this.
Amazing.
We do awards for idea that's most likely to change the world.
(20:36):
Maybe not for the better, but change the world.
I love this one.
That's it,
man.
That's amazing.
We got to play into the fear aspect of the human psyche, you
know?
Look, people are doing something unhealthy, you really have to trick them out of it sometimes.
sites as a service.
I did look up like dopamine regulation services like apps
(20:59):
and they all I could find was like lockouts from things
but it's just
like
you still want more.
Sure. We need
to change it so you don't want more.
Yeah
yeah. Dopamine torpedo. It's such a
good name too.
You came named and it's like I
have no notes. 10 out of 10 improvement.
(laughing)
(21:21):
- All right, Russell, what do you got this week?
- So,
this idea might be more of an intramural,
but it's whatever.
(laughing)
So I'm sitting at Starbucks.
I've been going to Starbucks lately a lot,
just 'cause I don't wanna make coffee.
And every time I take out my phone,
I do the tap to pay, okay?
And I thought, (laughing)
(21:42):
sitting in the drive-thru,
why do I have to do this every time?
Why can't I just have on my side mirror, okay,
a tap to pay, a rewards app, all of that good stuff,
right?
- Duct tape, a credit card.
- Yes. - Boom, done.
- So this is a little bit more
of the corporate friendly side
(22:04):
because as a corporate entity,
oh, I can track that car that goes through,
I can associate it to their orders, rewards points,
you do the loyalty program thing, right?
And
like as a customer, I don't have to take out my phone
or maybe there's some extra benefits to this.
Other than that, simply put, it'd be like an NFC tag.
(22:24):
You stick right on there and now everything's good to go.
You go full country club with it, right?
Convenience at its finest.
Oh, Mr. Russell, I see you've made it
to the drive-thru again.
Your regular order?
Yes, Jarvis, Starbucks man.
I would like the Pike's Place Venti
(22:46):
with an extra shot today.
You know, it kinda creates a little bit more
of that personalization too, which would be kinda cool.
I don't know how a McDonald's would use this
'cause I just think there's a lot of soullessness in there,
but maybe it could bring it back, right?
Create a little bit more relationship
at maybe like a drive-thru or a bank teller
(23:08):
or that kinda thing, right?
Yeah, that's
it.
I did a McDonald's breakfast with the app recently.
I hadn't done that in a couple years.
And man, it's so tedious.
I don't know how-- do they expect everyone doing this
to do this while driving to the McDonald's?
Is that the idea?
In
the car.
(23:28):
Right?
Yeah.
I think that's what everyone is doing,
whether they acknowledge it or not.
But it is awful trying to poke through the rewards, whatever.
Which deal, daily deal, do you want to redeem today?
It's like a fricking, like a children's game on the phone
just to get a, like a McMuffin.
- I love that app because I get dollar coffees
(23:49):
all the time on the McDonald's.
- But you know what would be
better?
You drive up with your side view mirror thing.
And then instead of having to communicate your code,
RF67 or whatever, you just like, it's there.
You've been read.
I love that.
- And I wonder if you could even have a little bit more
of a two-way exchange where, you know, they are catering to you, you feel very
(24:13):
posh, like you are known, maybe you could help them as well by, you know, let's say
you leave a really good review, it'll show them like the nice thing you said
last time you went through so that they feel some
kinship with you
and you feel
like you're already friends, like it's your favorite barista and they're happy
to see you as well.
(24:33):
This is like awesome. Disney World's, they're whispering in
cast members earpiece that it's your birthday today kind of level.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Dang.
Oh, that'd be cool.
Oh, it's your birthday coming up.
Blah, blah.
That'd be awesome.
Your
anniversary.
Right.
Just like, why not?
And it can go anywhere your car goes, right?
(24:55):
So then are businesses paying to get access to the system?
Is that the business model here?
You could have like customers get the tag for free and then the Starbucks's of the world
have to like subscribe to get the readers to be able to like get at the
customer data or whatever you know?
Oh yeah. You're a broker. It turns into like
Google Analytics of you know, oh they shop at these places
(25:18):
so
now you can
advertise to them. Because I do not want to have...
everyone hates having 15 fast
food apps on their phone. You don't want to have 15 tags all stuck to the side of your mirror.
Oh no, yeah, just be one. That one's my Wendy's one and that one is my... so yeah no right?
No, no, no, no.
Yeah, it'd have to be one universal.
It'd be like the gold club, you know, kind of options, right?
(25:38):
Yeah.
Exclusive.
AARP.
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, why not?
Right.
Yeah.
I want some kind of card that gives me discounts everywhere I go.
Yeah.
I'm not able to like steal this off your car and run up to a McDonald's and get
something
in my,
or like take a reader and go to all the cars in a parking lot
(25:59):
and charge them for a small coffee.
That's Mike.
That's Andrea.
That's Derek.
Your phone will
catch on
fire because of
our Adela's
app when you do that.
So,
well, it's fine because our cars are all like looking at our faces anyway.
Right.
So like, it's not going to work unless it's actually you or
your
(26:19):
partner.
Two factor it or something, whenever
the car
keys are not near
it or
whenever the car's not started, it doesn't
have power or something.
Right.
So if your 16-year-old steals your car
and tries to get a double quarter pounder, it won't work.
That's my quarter pounder son.
Thanks for picking it up, right?
(26:41):
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, I guess this would be cool for parking garages
and that kind of stuff, too, just the convenience of that.
Never having to pull a ticket out, push it back in.
It just scans and goes.
I think they
have probably some of that.
Essentially, the iPass, the toll booth system,
But for all
businesses,
isn't it?
I know iPass is kind of moving away
from the physical hardware to a camera and license plate based
(27:05):
system.
Well, that could be really interesting too,
because iPass, I think you can preload a certain budget
as well.
So your thing could tell you, hey,
you are low on fast food budget for this month
based on what you preloaded it.
It's a wellness program.
Right, so it's like super frictionless
(27:25):
to spend your budget and then higher friction
to go above your budget.
-Yeah.
-You want to add another $10?
There's a three-minute cool down,
and you have to
drive around.
-Right.
Then you have to go to a smoothie king.
-Tropical smoothie, please, right?
Only.
You know, this would be good for Kurt, because I was like,
(27:49):
I do some drive-thrus, but I do a lot of side store pickups,
right?
So when they deliver the food, they
and tap, transaction's done, boom, right?
- Curbside.
- Curbside, that's it, yeah, curbside.
- That could work too.
- Just a verification thing and all that jazz.
- Does it have a name?
Catchy name?
That's usually your bread and butter, Russell.
(28:11):
- Yeah, there's some--
- So you want a
mirror, objects in mirror may
look large.
- Sidecar.
- Sidecar's
good.
- That's a healthcare insurance alternative.
- Better sidecar. - Not for long.
Sidecar
2.
Nice.
Double car.
(28:31):
Double car?
No.
Double car.
Race through? I'm trying to think like drive through but like
speed.
Fast pass.
Turbo.
This is work.
Something like that.
We'll have to AI it.
(28:54):
put that in the focus groups
Scott what do you got for us this week?
this too was also an intramural but we have a
plant expert and
an audiophile on
so I figure let's just run with it and see what happens so that same work event
(29:14):
that I was telling you about earlier they also ended that night on a karaoke
night and I haven't done one of those in probably a decade, but it got me
thinking though, and I recently saw a YouTube where a guy was just taking.
Heart tangent, a bunch of electrodes, putting it on plant leaves and running
a current through it and spitting it out to a MIDI file and I'm like, that's awesome.
(29:35):
So I'm thinking, can you combine those two things and have a karaoke plant,
something that you actually have different electrodes on, maybe you can,
different plants have different sounds and coming, uh, whatever,
bioelectrical signals coming out of this.
Please correct me if I'm completely wrong on this, but can different plants.
Essentially play different tunes.
(29:55):
And I find some cool combination of plants that all kind of mesh together.
Obviously you're going to be doing a little bit of auto tune to the
synthesis of this coming out, but
I feel
like you could have some fun with this.
Yeah.
Della can plant sing.
What's the best
singing voice?
Does exist.
What does exist?
Yes.
I was actually even at an event with one recently
(30:17):
where this was
happening.
- What
exactly does it look like?
- So they are, like Scott was saying,
you can clamp these electrodes onto the leaf
and they will respond to sound and touch
and the electrodes are hooked up to an amp.
(30:38):
So when the guitar player was playing along with them
And when the crowd was clapping, you
could hear the sound changing
and coming out of the app.
And that's based off of electrical signals.
That's not
just
the waves of sound hitting it,
therefore making it amplified or something?
Right.
(30:58):
Really?
So
could
I hook this onto the stem of a large plant
and then tap the leaves like a MIDI drum
and play some steel drums or something on it?
It's not going to be a one-to-one.
plant's gonna read it a little differently based on what the plant is
and kind of what's going on with it electrochemically.
(31:19):
Whoa. Yeah.
Wow. So we need an at-home
version. Yeah.
My boss in Fern has got like a full
piano on every leaf. I've
always said that.
Isn't that the tagline of the product I think?
A full piano on every leaf.
I
like that. It's um it's definitely like there's a strong
potential for conservation angle there.
(31:43):
Like, "Oh, you can hear them.
They're a little bit more anthropomorphized now.
It's very avatar."
-Yes. -Very avatar.
-Could
you make them talk?
Kind of like make screams?
Sorry, I'm going back to horror.
(32:03):
[laughter]
-This
is a
dopamine torpedo
episode.
in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and when the loggers come, it starts screaming.
I guess, yeah.
Oh my god.
Or just, I need to water my plant, you know?
So it starts, "Hey, so
thirsty."
Yeah,
that's interesting.
(32:24):
So is it for caring for the plant better or is it for the entertainment angle on the karaoke
stage because I feel like the sounds that you're asking it to emit are gonna
be a little different like what signals are you trying to optimize for?
Don't mix
those two.
Maybe plant death metal is a genre waiting to be discovered.
(32:48):
What's
wrong with your fern? This would be cool like a botanic gardens like a
special event
you know. Oh yeah. It's like super niche but still. Yeah
you travel
around with all your equipment you plug in for like a couple days or a week-long
event they pay you to show up boom boom right now you know the season pass
(33:08):
holders now can hear the sound of their favorite plant they always go to see
right
that's cool that's true you guys hear the latest single from the four
petunias man
the four petunias what a
quartet
playlist
on Spotify yeah
yeah
Love them. All right, Della. What would be the best sounding and worst sounding plant?
(33:29):
I
Don't know. I think you know the the worst sounding plant
Probably one that's just having a really bad time a really bad day
mites or something
Mites the emerald ash borer
yeah, you know
slow
slow death or like the death of of a
(33:50):
Brother or sister tree nearby. They just like feel it slowly
They're like I'm gonna just be declining for the next 15 years before I fall over I guess yeah
I don't know if they mind it though. I think they're just like okay with it. They're like yeah
I'm I'm like gonna be a habitat and food for forever
(34:12):
So I think they like get things that we probably don't
it's probably not the
answer you wanted at all
We'll need your plant translator. We'll start working on that.
Yeah, it's just as easy as the dog one the cat one
You
would make a lot of crazy people really happy if you could turn sounds and signals into words like
(34:34):
Definitely
definitely try to figure that one out doesn't
even have to make sense, right? It's just
They'll figure it out eventually. It's a horoscope.
I think plants with like different sized leaves
Scott would be like the ones that sound really cool bunch of
variety of
and then the ones that are
(34:55):
boring
They got the full octaves
right or like big
old. I don't know maybe a weeping willow dude. That's the one sorry
Wow, that's the one that's gonna
sound amazing
The weed plant just plays Bob Marley when you plug
it in. Oh, yeah
Yeah.
Yes.
(35:18):
All right, Leo, what do you got this week?
All right.
Have you seen the cool things that people have made with projectors and Xbox Kinects
or other 3D cameras?
So people make like sandboxes where it's interactive.
There's a projector shining down on the sand and you make a valley and then the projector
shows like water trickling over your sand that's not really there or things like that.
(35:39):
I had
an epiphany recently.
You ready for this one?
Xbox connect projector system in the kitchen.
You're mounting it to the ceiling, shining down on your counter.
You've got your recipe.
You've got what looks like a bento box with like sections.
You're putting your two pounds of potatoes over here,
and then it's putting a little checkmark.
(36:00):
You're putting your half a gallon of boiling water over on this side over here.
And OK, you got that part. Great.
Now go, it says right on the counter,
preheat the oven next to 350.
I'm talking interactive recipes that guide you
by showing you where to put stuff,
when to do stuff that like holds your hand through it.
It can be for like a cooking class.
(36:21):
It can be for your own personal organization needs.
It can be, there's a spot in our houses
where it sucks to use technology.
And that's when you're covered with like chicken grease
in your hands and you don't wanna like manipulate
that iPad with the recipe on it or whatever, right?
3D projector, connect cameras.
(36:41):
It's right there guys.
You could have it all hands-free.
Voice control, I don't care.
Gesture control, whatever.
I want to have this be a Tony Stark interface
for my cooking.
- Whoa. - I love it.
- That's cool.
- Giant virtual buttons projected down
and I can tap and do all the things
and then with just my greasy hands.
- It's already on the counter.
(37:02):
- That's really cool. - I want a 14 inch pizza.
Oh, here's 14 inches.
Boom, circle right there.
Or, I don't know.
- When I'm doing something wrong, right?
That dough is too wet.
Put more flour.
- You're going
to go line up that big yam
that you need to cut into half inch thick
things.
So it's putting lines
across it.
(37:22):
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, or whatever.
Augmented reality.
- Julianne, right?
- No, dummy, hold it like this, not like that.
- I like it. - I'm guiding you.
Would it also come with all of the tools that you need so that it would have like the chips inside?
Or do you buy like a set of chips like you can buy labels for your spice jars?
(37:42):
Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. That could be a monetization strategy
I was thinking because
it's optical and camera based that you wouldn't need anything proprietary to read it
But I mean maybe you have to like scan in the 12 ingredients that you know
You're gonna need by touching them on their little reader slash scale or something, you know
QR codes just everywhere just every
(38:05):
Put a little sticker on them, it doesn't even have to correlate to this is the sticker for time
It's just this is a sticker with a serial number on it and you tell the computer ahead of time like this code means this
Is you know lettuce or whatever? I don't know
or yeah, it's just a red box and listens for your voice
What
is that?
There
you go
bananas.
I could see major applications for this in training on like a manufacturing line as well
(38:29):
Totally a sweet training tool.
People talk about, I think it was Hololens and other augmented reality, Vision Pro
ideas of like, I need to repair this motorcycle and put new spark plugs in.
So I'm looking through augmented reality and it's showing the exploded diagram of
where that part's going to be.
And it's saying, go over to this side and putting arrows where I need to be and all that kind of
(38:52):
stuff. That's cool.
But like, there's no people who want to wear a VR headset for nine hours a day on an assembly
a hot factory, right?
Like, there's
got to be a better way to do this. And if you've got projectors
and cameras, you're there.
Right. I've also seen this successfully used, sort of, in like a human
dissection simulator in a university. They have like a table that's the size of a cadaver, but you
(39:19):
can just re-dissect it,
unlike a
cadaver. So you can
like, you know, cut and peel
and, you know,
Things back in in whatever order. I'm sure it tells you when you got it right and got it wrong
That's not where
brains go
Yeah, exactly
exactly
(39:44):
That cadavers nose just let it
Pivoting new pitch
Turns
into like Don't Like Daddy, it
just like sits all the way up.
Full-size real human scale operation.
On a cadaver. That's awful.
(40:07):
Terrifying, yes.
No, no, food, kitchen, cooking, factory line, right.
Sorry,
that's not what you were taking.
No,
that's great.
- I think this is really good for,
like you know mise en place,
like that whole
concept
of keeping everything
in
its place.
Right?
(40:28):
Every, yeah, so like when you're cooking,
if you have, this is where your potatoes go,
they should stay there, right?
When you're done,
you move it over here.
It's like this method of cooking
where it keeps everything in order.
You can use your projector to like,
when you're done,
put it here
on your counter.
Move those books and toys off the counter
so you have the room to keep your space organized.
(40:51):
It makes cleanup easier.
It actually, even if you're a good home chef,
it'll actually make you a better one, right?
That'd be cool.
- It's like Scott's gridfinity thing
that you're
on a
kick for right now.
Organizational trays for everything.
Don't we all want the cooking show,
(41:11):
and here is exactly two tablespoons of salt
in a beautiful little bowl, right?
We're not gonna get that.
There's no way you're gonna take the time to pre-measure everything out in a gorgeous matching cookware.
So, what's the easiest next best thing?
What if it was shining it on an interactive malleable projector surface?
Yeah.
Oh man.
(41:31):
I like that. Probably clear bowls.
Sure.
Ooh.
Yes.
If you had a clear bowl and it was watching, you could be holding it, the camera's shining down,
and you've got like a little like keep going, keep going indicator as you're pulling,
And then, oh, it's just about end stop.
This is almost like a video game you've created for yourself.
Like how close, it's like WarioWare, how close can you get the thing chopped to diced, but
(41:57):
not to minced or whatever, you know what I mean?
You could make this a whole game.
- And the messier you are, the less clear the instructions become as well.
Because if you leave
flour and
bits all over, all of a sudden you're cooking blind again.
- Yeah, it punishes you.
Yeah.
Clean, clean, clean.
(42:18):
Yeah.
30% counter must be a visible.
Yeah.
That's fun.
This would be, if you put ingredients out there and then it would come up with
a recipe using those ingredients.
So you like, here's all the stuff I got.
Just lay it out on the counter.
Yeah.
That's a thing.
And then, boom.
I've never seen it just cataloged like a, you know, here, look
(42:39):
at it all and do it for me.
You always have to like speak it or type it or something.
That's cool.
Let me throw a bunch of stuff on the counter and let the computer decide. Yeah
got some stuff
I need to get rid of your expiration throw on the counter. Oh,
there's expirations on them, too
I see those lasagna noodles are going bad and you have stuff. What about breakfast lasagna? Oh, I wouldn't have considered that
(43:00):
Yeah, thank you computer, you know, that's fun
Yes, there we go
Breakfast lasagna that would totally never cross my mind until I'd put it on a counter
once or twice, but yeah
And that's
where like Instacart comes in because they're like if you just hit order on these three ingredients
You could have this five course meal
(43:22):
right right now
Oh, man, the tie-in tap your counter over here to confirm purchase delivery in the hour
Slam your forehead right here
Well, dear listener, if you are listening to this podcast, terrified that any moment
it's going to scream in your ear because you've been wasting time.
(43:45):
Thank you very much for sticking through.
We hope that you don't have a jump scare in the next three minutes and we hope you enjoyed
yourself.
And thank you so much, Della, for joining us.
This was so fun.
Absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me.
Dave Our website is Spitball.show.
There you can find links to our YouTube channel, other social media.
Please email us comments, feedback, ideas.
(44:06):
We would love to hear from you.
We are podcast@spitball.show.
That's also how you can follow us
in the Fediverse, such as Mastodon.
We are podcast@spitball.show,
and we're on Blue Sky at spitball.show.
Our subreddit is r/SpitballShow.
Our intro/outro music is "Swingers" by Bonkers Beat Club.
Please, if you wouldn't mind listening while cooking
on your cool augmented reality Tony Stark Jarvis kitchen,
(44:28):
whatever you're listening on right now,
Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, please leave us a review.
whatever platform you're on, that is the best way
for people to find out about the show.
New episodes coming out in two weeks.
We'll see you then.
(dramatic music)
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