Speaker 1: Imagine the place where you can escape for a day,
Speaker 1: get immersed in a world of rooms, inspiration, and expertise,
Speaker 1: where you can lay some luxury, accommodation and kids cam
Speaker 1: fees from ninety five sets. Tickets are free to everyone
Speaker 1: and include all the attractions you've just imagined a day
Speaker 1: out at the Kia Tikia the Wonderful every Day.
Speaker 2: High alogized. Hello, it's your weird uncle Ali Ward and
Speaker 2: I got a bunch of robot facts in the cargo
Speaker 2: shorts pockets, so get ready to load up. So this
Speaker 2: episode is kind of a weird one for a few reasons,
Speaker 2: all of them amazing reasons. Number one, it was recorded
Speaker 2: in a car, my car, So this all just and
Speaker 2: I had never before been in the same room, but
Speaker 2: we have mutual buddies Hi Scott, Hey, Adam Savage, and
Speaker 2: I was so excited to meet her. I always kind
Speaker 2: of had like a little bit of a fangirl crush.
Speaker 2: So we had dinner. We met up for dinner at
Speaker 2: this clattery vegan restaurant, which was great, but it was
Speaker 2: not conducive to recording, and she had an early call
Speaker 2: time the next morning, and so I gave her a
Speaker 2: ride back to her hotel. Well, we fired up the
Speaker 2: old zoom recorder and made a goddamn episode out of it,
Speaker 2: So there's that. Also, there are no ologite questions because
Speaker 2: it was last minute and again recorded in a car
Speaker 2: while I was driving her hotel was like three miles away.
Speaker 2: I drove very slow and poorly. Don't ever do that,
Speaker 2: by the way. Also, don't ever go bowling and then
Speaker 2: accidentally fall asleep in the socks that you bowled in.
Speaker 2: I did that too a few nights ago, and both
Speaker 2: are dangerous. One thing you can do if you like
Speaker 2: this podcast is rate and subscribe and or leave a
Speaker 2: review on iTunes. I know I mentioned this every week,
Speaker 2: but they really help keep ologies up in the science charts,
Speaker 2: and they help other people go, well, heck, dang, what's
Speaker 2: this and listen? So it helps so much it costs
Speaker 2: you nothing. It takes a second. Also, Ologies is made
Speaker 2: by a staff of two human beings, myself as one
Speaker 2: of them, so it makes my personal day to hear
Speaker 2: that y'all like it. It really helps keep us going.
Speaker 2: And this week this review, I was just like a
Speaker 2: hug made of words, someone calling themselves coca. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna ask questions said. So many of the podcasts I
Speaker 2: listened to reflect a kind of bleak worldview, crime, mysteries,
Speaker 2: the news, and this podcast reminds me of how it
Speaker 2: felt to be a curious little kid perusing encyclopedias and
Speaker 2: digging around sandboxes for dinosaurs. There's so many amazing things
Speaker 2: on our planet, and surprise, there are also really cool
Speaker 2: people out there who will answer the questions that your
Speaker 2: cynical adult brain thought were dumb. So thank you Ali
Speaker 2: for reminding me that the world may be terrifying, but
Speaker 2: it's also fascinating and beautiful. And then a little heart emoji.
Speaker 2: I really like that. Thank you for that review so much. Okay,
Speaker 2: back to gismology. Is that a real word?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Shit, it is, my friend, I looked it up and
Speaker 2: it is so Linguist are very angrily mystified by its etymology.
Speaker 2: But a gizmo means a gadget, especially one whose name
Speaker 2: the speaker does not know or recall, And a gadget
Speaker 2: is a small mechanical or electronic device, usually an ingenious
Speaker 2: or novel one. So who better to be a gismologist
Speaker 2: subject than someone who makes shitty robots for a living,
Speaker 2: And those are her words, not mine. A native of Sweden,
Speaker 2: she started tinkering with electronic mechanisms and making videos and
Speaker 2: now she has like nine hundred plus thousand million subscribers.
Speaker 2: She has almost a million subscribers on YouTube, and she's
Speaker 2: one of the few science communicators who swears as much
Speaker 2: as me. And I appreciate that she's made robots this
Speaker 2: slapper face until she wakes up. One's the brush her teeth,
Speaker 2: a robot that fed her soup, that apply lipstick to
Speaker 2: her face. And she flew down to La to shoot
Speaker 2: a video with Ret and link about hammering machine. And
Speaker 2: we met up in my car to talk about her
Speaker 2: creative process, the Gateway gadgets to robot Town. She gives
Speaker 2: some helpful resources for anyone wanting to start building robots.
Speaker 2: We talk about what's up with her accent, science fiction secrets,
Speaker 2: how many spare parts does she have lying around, and
Speaker 2: why she drives a piece of cheese. So prepare your
Speaker 2: droid hearts to be warmed by the rye wisdom of
Speaker 2: America's favorite Swedish gismologist, whose name you're about to learn
Speaker 2: how to pronounce simone yetsch okay.
Speaker 3: It said, do not enter the wrong way. Oh that
Speaker 3: was Oh yeah, that's that.
Speaker 2: I'm like part of my podcast is I like to
Speaker 2: get head on collisions in every episode, both in conversation
Speaker 2: and in vehicles. Okay, I'll try to ask you. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna try to ask you the most like distilled questions. HM. Also,
Speaker 2: I think it's not illegal. I think it's illegal to
Speaker 2: hold a phone, but it's not illegal to hold a
Speaker 2: burrita or a microphone when you're driving. So I think
Speaker 2: we have that going for us.
Speaker 3: Is it illegal to eat a burrita? It's just legal
Speaker 3: to hold it. It's legal to eat it.
Speaker 2: I think you can ingest your phone, but you as
Speaker 2: long as you're not Yeah, as you're eating it, You're
Speaker 2: like it's a different animal either way. Okay, so let's
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about robots. I'll ask you the
Speaker 2: most distilled version because we're going to see if we
Speaker 2: can record a whole episode while we drive you to
Speaker 2: your hotel. Yeah, okay, So tell me when you first
Speaker 2: decided that you were into building robots.
Speaker 3: It wasn't so much decision as something that just happened,
Speaker 3: but it was just like this feeling. I always had
Speaker 3: a lot of ideas of things I wanted to do,
Speaker 3: and I was always looking for somebody who could execute them.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, well, wait, why shouldn't I
Speaker 3: just teach myself how to do it? So I remembered
Speaker 3: like the first time that I realized, like I think
Speaker 3: this is it was the first time where I blinked
Speaker 3: an Arduino board. So it's just a little like computer
Speaker 3: and you the first sketchy upload is for it to
Speaker 3: blink one of its little on board LEDs, and it
Speaker 3: was like love at first blink really yeah, because I
Speaker 3: lost it and I was like, I mean, in some way,
Speaker 3: I feel like it's a really bad thing because I
Speaker 3: was like I control you, like I told you to
Speaker 3: do this thing and you did it, and it was
Speaker 3: just like such a Russia power. And I've been high
Speaker 3: on it ever since.
Speaker 2: Wait, what is it called an abuela board?
Speaker 3: It doesn't rduino? Okay, abuela. What's abuila?
Speaker 2: I think it means grandmother in Spanish.
Speaker 3: Yes, I programmed this grandmother and she blinked.
Speaker 4: Dark.
Speaker 3: No, it's an Arduino board and it's like one. It's
Speaker 3: a tiny kind of stupid computer, but it's really easy
Speaker 3: to have it talk to hardware so you can like
Speaker 3: wire a little motors to it, and wire a little
Speaker 3: LEDs to it or little sensors.
Speaker 2: By the way, I looked up what an Arduino board was,
Speaker 2: and it's like a toast sized piece of circuit board
Speaker 2: with some microchips and some plugins. So just picture that
Speaker 2: if you're like, I don't know what an urduenoboard is.
Speaker 2: That's what one looks like. They're cute. I Google image
Speaker 2: searched Abuela and a bunch of pictures of Grandma's came up.
Speaker 2: One of them wasn't wearing a top. That site was
Speaker 2: in Spanish. I don't know the context, but she looked
Speaker 2: like she was having fun. And then where do you
Speaker 2: go for all of your knowledge because obviously, like it's
Speaker 2: evolved quite a bit and you're making all kinds of shit,
Speaker 2: where do you go to find out how to get
Speaker 2: better at it?
Speaker 3: I mean, now it's in the beginning. When I was
Speaker 3: learning about hardware, it was I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of good online resources. I use spark Fun and Aida Fruit,
Speaker 3: which are both like hardware retailers, but they had really
Speaker 3: good tutorials on how to do stuff.
Speaker 2: So who okay, sparkfun, dot com and adafruit adafruit dot
Speaker 2: com who are not paying us to mention them, sadly.
Speaker 2: So I went on their sites and they have a
Speaker 2: ton of great resources for building robots, including this one
Speaker 2: tutorial that involved a guy making an electronic steel drum
Speaker 2: machine out of a plastic salad spinner or some shit
Speaker 2: Live your dreams.
Speaker 3: So I was self taught in it, and just finding
Speaker 3: really good places like that helped because there's so much.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, I come from kind of the hobbyist
Speaker 3: side of it, and I started learning as a hobbyist.
Speaker 3: But then there's also resources that's like for proper engineers,
Speaker 3: and you're in there and it feels like you're like,
Speaker 3: I want to go for a swim in the kiddie pool,
Speaker 3: and then you're like in the deepest trenches of the
Speaker 3: ocean trying to swift through information. But now, my my
Speaker 3: problems are so specific that there's not really anyone to ask, Like,
Speaker 3: I'm like, ha, what's the best way to attach tofu
Speaker 3: to a big plastic animal.
Speaker 2: For more on this, see her video entitled quote I
Speaker 2: hunted a robot and ate it.
Speaker 3: It's like covered in food. My plan is to get
Speaker 3: some sort of Deeger and then just like patching on
Speaker 3: tofu to it.
Speaker 2: Do people come to you with robotics questions? Yeah, and
Speaker 2: do you typically know the answers or do you think
Speaker 2: that it's important for them to try to discover the
Speaker 2: answers themselves like you did.
Speaker 3: I think it's if people ask very specific questions like hey,
Speaker 3: how did you solve this problem? Or like where is
Speaker 3: this part from? I'm happy to answer, but often people
Speaker 3: are like, Hi, I want to build this thing? How
Speaker 3: do I do it? And I'm like, you get a
Speaker 3: narrow it down a.
Speaker 2: Little bit, I figured out.
Speaker 3: But yeah, people ask a lot of stuff, and it's like,
Speaker 3: this weird. It's such a weird thing for me to
Speaker 3: sometimes be treated as an authority in roboticism or gismology.
Speaker 3: I just learned that it's called because I'm just like
Speaker 3: this happy hobbyist who's on top of that known for
Speaker 3: building useless things and things that don't work. And people
Speaker 3: ask actually like asking me for advice or like journalists
Speaker 3: asking me for like what's your take on artificial intelligence?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, what is your take on artificial intelligence?
Speaker 3: My take on artificial intelligence is I don't know. I
Speaker 3: mean I'm really intrigued about it or treated of it.
Speaker 2: Do people ask you about Sofia a lot?
Speaker 3: Yeah, people says, sent it to me.
Speaker 2: In case you're like, which bitch. Sophia is a social
Speaker 2: humanoid looking robot made by Hanson Robotics, and she's been
Speaker 2: in the news recently saying creepy things with her mechanical mouthful.
Speaker 2: And that feeling of kind of like nauseated unease you
Speaker 2: might get isn't just because Sophia is the first non
Speaker 2: human to be given a United Nations title, something most
Speaker 2: of us will never get to impress our parents with,
Speaker 2: but also because of an effect Coint way back in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy is called uncanny Valley. That's the name
Speaker 2: for the eeriness or revulsion you feel the closer a
Speaker 2: robot tends to look or act like a person. The
Speaker 2: closer it is to us, we're like, nope, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 2: don't like so Sophia is able to display more than
Speaker 2: fifty two facial expressions, which is more than most people
Speaker 2: on Bravo but equally terrifying. So chances are you've seen
Speaker 2: this blinking kind of Westworldian prototype. She has what I
Speaker 2: like to think of as a mechanical mullet. She's party upfront.
Speaker 2: She's a human face modeled to look like Audrey Hepburn
Speaker 2: if Audrey Hepburn were made of wax and had been
Speaker 2: left in the sun. But she's all business. In the back,
Speaker 2: she has this clear skull that exposes these churning gears
Speaker 2: and computer chips that analyze your speech and respond casually. Anyway,
Speaker 2: humans are talking about her, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I feel like Sophia is like a pr scoop
Speaker 3: right in some way. I don't. I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: really buy into it. It's more like a fun thing
Speaker 3: because it's the first time.
Speaker 2: And it worked. Look, we're talking about her. Yeah it worked.
Speaker 3: We were having a conversation and you're listening. I know
Speaker 3: I was talking about Sophia, and if you haven't heard
Speaker 3: about her, you might google it and you'll be like wow,
Speaker 3: or be like, uh.
Speaker 2: What's the what's your process when you are coming up
Speaker 2: with a robot? Do you start assembling like the arms
Speaker 2: and legs of it that will do the stuff, or
Speaker 2: do you start from the brains?
Speaker 3: I mean, my robots are so dumb. They're more muscle
Speaker 3: than brains, which is like talking about AI. It's a
Speaker 3: little bit outside of it because I'm I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: more I'm programming motors. That's literally all I'm doing. I
Speaker 3: have never built a robot, or like a shitty robot
Speaker 3: for my YouTube channel that has a sensor in it.
Speaker 2: In a Wired article, there was an mi T roboticist
Speaker 2: Kate Darling interviewed, and she said there's no good universal definition,
Speaker 2: but her definition of a robot would probably be a
Speaker 2: physical machine, sure, that's usually programmable by a computer, Okay,
Speaker 2: that can execute tasks autonomously by itself, she says, So
Speaker 2: the paradigm is sense think an act. Webster's Dictionary gives
Speaker 2: fewer fucks and says, a real or imaginary machine controlled
Speaker 2: by a computer that can do the work of a person.
Speaker 2: So real or imaginary. So picture a robot, Boom, you
Speaker 2: just built a robot. It's imaginary. He built it, Okay,
Speaker 2: back to simones, so called shitty robots.
Speaker 3: So they basically have no data input and they're just
Speaker 3: like executing. So it's definitely not brains, more looks and muscles.
Speaker 3: Just like me, I only build that robots in my
Speaker 3: own image. But I mean I usually start with a
Speaker 3: problem that I want to solve and then I go
Speaker 3: from there.
Speaker 2: My fuel light just went on, But oh really, yes, are.
Speaker 3: We going to be good?
Speaker 2: You're more fine. It's a Prius, like I can go
Speaker 2: another sixty miles. I just didn't want you to be alarmed.
Speaker 3: For this episode. It's not a crash. It's not running
Speaker 3: out das.
Speaker 2: Like you will. You will be pushing the Prius, but
Speaker 2: it weighs about forty pounds, so you're fine.
Speaker 3: If you ride with me in my car, you're probably
Speaker 3: gonna have to push it too.
Speaker 2: I love your car so much. Simone recently acquired and
Speaker 2: made a video about her tiny electric commuter car from
Speaker 2: the early nineteen eighties, and it's shaped like a wedge
Speaker 2: and she named it Cheese Louise anyway, So you make
Speaker 2: it in your own image, clearly really terrible. The very
Speaker 2: West Coast arms legs execution. So tell me, when you
Speaker 2: start sketching out or when you start making something, what's
Speaker 2: the most exciting part of the process.
Speaker 3: I'm the most exciting part of the pros is I mean,
Speaker 3: I think it's there's multiple steps that I mean, it's changes.
Speaker 3: The process is different for every machine, and it really
Speaker 3: changes with some of them. It's just like getting this
Speaker 3: idea and I think it's like I really love the
Speaker 3: idea of it, but I think I do. I like
Speaker 3: designing it, so figuring out how to make and move
Speaker 3: the way I want to and start specking out parts
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. It's just like little brain like
Speaker 3: teasers or like little brain games are playing. And especially
Speaker 3: as somebody who doesn't have a mechanical or like an
Speaker 3: engineering background, it's always just this, like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's really fun little problem solve this. It's like you're
Speaker 3: solving these little puzzles. And then my second most favorite
Speaker 3: part is assembling it, which can also be the worst
Speaker 3: part because that's when you realize that you've thought about
Speaker 3: everything wrong and that you just bought a lot of
Speaker 3: parts that are you not going to be able to use,
Speaker 3: Like with a hammering robot that I just built. I
Speaker 3: just scrapped the entire design the night before I needed it.
Speaker 2: Do you return the parts or do you just keep
Speaker 2: them hoping you'll need them again?
Speaker 3: No, I in reluctant. I kind of keep them. I'm
Speaker 3: a little bit of a parts order because it's always
Speaker 3: you never know when you're gonna need a linear ractuator
Speaker 3: with five hundred and sixty pounds of thrust.
Speaker 2: I needed one of those recently, but I settled on
Speaker 2: a melon.
Speaker 3: A melon, I just know one who I don't.
Speaker 2: Even know what that does, but I'm just as substituting nouns. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you keep them? Do you run out of space?
Speaker 2: And do you ever total up the costs at the
Speaker 2: end of the year and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I spent so much money at the hardware store.
Speaker 3: I do keep them. I live in a teeny tiny
Speaker 3: house and there's a lot of It's like a robot
Speaker 3: graveyard in some way because I try to not throw
Speaker 3: them away or like steal parts from them. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of running out of space a little bit.
Speaker 3: I need to get a workshop, but I do not
Speaker 3: think about it. I mean, the thing is like, to me,
Speaker 3: the most expense is buying parts in some way.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: That was almost a crash.
Speaker 2: I know, you almost started to go.
Speaker 3: They were was like, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: They didn't put on an indicator and they started to
Speaker 2: merch into me.
Speaker 3: They legitimately did a very weird thing.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. How right for holl So do you
Speaker 2: take apart any of the robots and reuse them, or no.
Speaker 3: I do if I'm in a strap or if I'm
Speaker 3: like very is that an expression?
Speaker 2: No, you're in a you're in a bind.
Speaker 3: You're in a bind, right, or you're strapped for cash
Speaker 3: you're a strap.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're in a strap.
Speaker 3: Kind of makes sense between strapped for cash and fine,
Speaker 3: it could work.
Speaker 2: It sounds more like an athletic garment. I'm like strap.
Speaker 3: It sounds like some very advanced sexual stuff. When I'm
Speaker 3: in a bind, sometimes I steal parts from other machines.
Speaker 3: The Superwowed that I made has been completely gutted. I
Speaker 3: was stolen pretty much every part because it's just had
Speaker 3: so many parts and I was in a rush and excited.
Speaker 2: Do you name the robots?
Speaker 3: Not not like human names, but I mean it's like
Speaker 3: the superbout, the wake up machine, the popcorn helmet, the
Speaker 3: tooth thrush.
Speaker 2: They're very descriptive, so they're what they do, they're their function. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like it, but.
Speaker 3: That's also how I name people.
Speaker 2: The male man you counted all of anyone in a
Speaker 2: servant world.
Speaker 5: The creepy guy at the corner click aside, the very
Speaker 5: word robot comes from a check word robota. I love
Speaker 5: this so much, and it means forced labor, drudgery, or servitude.
Speaker 5: So a robot means a servant essentially, which means like
Speaker 5: where we gotta help Sophia.
Speaker 2: We gotta free Sophia from her forced drudgery. She's like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to be doing these press interviews. I
Speaker 2: want to be home, eating soup and farting like a person.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Three questions, three more questions as we as I circle
Speaker 2: the block before I.
Speaker 3: Drop you off, are you making them up as you go?
Speaker 2: No? I know what they're gonna be.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, So what do you have a favorite or
Speaker 6: least favorite movie that involves robots or machines that's either
Speaker 6: really highly annoying because it's very wrong, or that like
Speaker 6: made you feel things that.
Speaker 2: Are good about robots, like Wally or Terminator or so
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 3: I've been trying to keep this a secret.
Speaker 2: Yes for a while, bring it on.
Speaker 3: I actually really don't like sci fi.
Speaker 2: That's fine, is it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: It's not fine.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's not fine. I feel like I
Speaker 3: should like sci fi. I should at least and that
Speaker 3: I like sci fi. I don't like I like, I
Speaker 3: love fantasy, I love magic. Sci fi is too close
Speaker 3: to home, like it's it's just.
Speaker 2: Like, I totally I'm not that into sci fi because
Speaker 2: I would rather I would rather put things in my
Speaker 2: brain that are like sign non fi. It's like fake
Speaker 2: gossip about people, you know, and you're like, well, either
Speaker 2: give me real gossip or let's not gossip about me.
Speaker 3: You know, that does makes sense, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a really good way of describing it.
Speaker 2: I'd rather just learn the real stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's like what we do all the time.
Speaker 3: So yeah, what about what about characters?
Speaker 2: What about like in pop culture, anything like that that's
Speaker 2: annoying or now now.
Speaker 3: You're asking me generally if there's anyone in top culture
Speaker 3: that I find annoying, like robot wise, robot wise, uhh,
Speaker 3: I mean I think the most most things. I really
Speaker 3: like it when people build stuff. And even if it's
Speaker 3: stuff that I don't think is great or that I
Speaker 3: agree with, I don't know. I just like that people
Speaker 3: are trying to put stuff out in the word you're
Speaker 3: taking me into like a weird back alley right now.
Speaker 2: It's a VIP hotel and the celebrity hotel. They're clearly
Speaker 2: very good local trivia side note, So we were right
Speaker 2: near this tourist destination, and some hotels there are nice,
Speaker 2: some aren't. But if any establishment in Los Angeles has
Speaker 2: the word celebrity in it, that means it sucks a
Speaker 2: whole bunch. That's your shorthand. Celebrity cleaners took a dress there,
Speaker 2: they shredded it. This celebrity hotel is two stars, and
Speaker 2: the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Center campus. Well, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: Simone was staying at a nicer place nearby, but we
Speaker 2: parked to finish the conversation near some dumpsters, like professionals, Wait,
Speaker 2: which hotel? Is this one? Your hotel?
Speaker 3: No, it's I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh it's on the front. Okay, yeah, Well conduct the
Speaker 2: rest of the interviews sitting here like a creep, and
Speaker 2: then I'll drive you.
Speaker 3: To the proper entrance.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I think that no one's going to rest
Speaker 2: us back here.
Speaker 3: A robot. I can't wait. I feel like I should
Speaker 3: be able to whip out of most annoying robot character.
Speaker 3: I mean, I recently watched space Camp. The robot space
Speaker 3: Camp wasn't that great.
Speaker 2: I haven't watched that in so long.
Speaker 3: It was just yeah, but it was just like, that
Speaker 3: is not the type of a robot you want to
Speaker 3: have walk on another planet. It was just like very
Speaker 3: impractically built. And also, I don't know what.
Speaker 2: About Small Wonder Did you ever watch that? No, that's
Speaker 2: the one where there's this girl named her. She's supposed
Speaker 2: to be like a human female, but and her name
Speaker 2: is Vicki, but she's a robot and no one ever
Speaker 2: questions it, even though she wears the same clothes every
Speaker 2: day and speaks like a robot.
Speaker 3: Hi, nice to see you again, Nice to see you again.
Speaker 3: I did like x macinna Oh, I never saw that.
Speaker 3: It's a good movie. Yeah, that one flew on the
Speaker 3: under the sci fi radar for me.
Speaker 2: I always get it confused with the fed cut vodka ads.
Speaker 2: There's like this vodka ad and it looks exactly like
Speaker 2: side by Side. Yeah, okay, so x Macinee went under
Speaker 2: the sci fi right or like.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that idiom checks out, But I
Speaker 3: liked it even though it was sci fi.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Yeah, And by the way, I'm not
Speaker 2: a sci fi watcher either, so.
Speaker 3: That makes me happy.
Speaker 2: I just I don't. I would rather know about real
Speaker 2: stuff or like exit the realm completely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just, yeah.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: It's just this weird combination. It just doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's fun and I think it's brave
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I was at what was it, Silicon Valley comic con,
Speaker 3: and William Shatner had just been on stage before me
Speaker 3: as like the guy in Star Trek, and somebody asked
Speaker 3: me if I liked Star Trek or Star Wars most,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I don't like either of them.
Speaker 3: People booed. I don't think I said I didn't like it.
Speaker 3: It was just like I didn't watch them, and people booed,
Speaker 3: And since then my shame of not liking sci fi
Speaker 3: was was budding.
Speaker 2: Couldn't you just say, like I'm an immigrant, like I
Speaker 2: impose American pop culture.
Speaker 3: A little bit, but I mean Star Wars. Sometimes I
Speaker 3: say that Star Wars wasn't allowed to be shown in
Speaker 3: Sweden because of its capitalistic message. That's not true. I'm
Speaker 3: just sticking with it, but I do. I do pull
Speaker 3: the foreigner card a lot, but I feel like I
Speaker 3: have a limited run with that. Also, it's like i've
Speaker 3: lived in the States for a little while.
Speaker 2: Now, I think because your accent is so good, people
Speaker 2: expect you to be more well versed in American pop culture.
Speaker 3: But I put on a Swedish accent whenever I want
Speaker 3: it to be very evident that I'm not from here.
Speaker 2: What does it sound like.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's not super super weird, but
Speaker 3: it's like if I ever talked to like customer service
Speaker 3: or any like government institution, and I really want them
Speaker 3: to know that I'm not from here. It's nice, it's
Speaker 3: handy you.
Speaker 2: Does your family ever get spooked by hearing you speak
Speaker 2: with such a passable American accent?
Speaker 3: No, but they did. I remember first time I moved
Speaker 3: to China, when we were like skyping and suddenly, like
Speaker 3: one of my Chinese friends called and I like answered
Speaker 3: the phone and had a conversation station in Chinese. Then
Speaker 3: they got really freaked out. Yeah, how many languages do
Speaker 3: you speak? I mean, it depends on how you define speak, but.
Speaker 2: Four that's a lot. That's a lot. I'm so impressed
Speaker 2: by the switching into Swedish. Yeah, wish I knew. All
Speaker 2: I can do is say I'm All I can do
Speaker 2: is throw in like a hella every once in a while,
Speaker 2: because I'm from the Bay Area and that's like the
Speaker 2: closest I could get to putting on a native accent.
Speaker 3: Wait, really, is that what people from the Bay Area say? Hella? Yeah?
Speaker 2: If you say yes, hello Wendy tonight, people will be like,
Speaker 2: how long have you lived in LA You're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you want to me?
Speaker 3: Whoa, I'm gonna start doing that now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a San Franciscan. You start saying it and
Speaker 2: or start listening for it, and you'll be like, how
Speaker 2: it's like wicked, It's like Boston's wicked. Okay, two questions.
Speaker 2: What's the worst thing about your job or your career?
Speaker 2: What's the most annoying thing? Is it taxes? Is it
Speaker 2: does the heat go off sometimes in the workshop?
Speaker 3: Does it?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: What's the most annoying thing?
Speaker 3: I think the most annoying thing is being a business
Speaker 3: owner and having a lot of responsibility of like I mean,
Speaker 3: I have like a really good team that's supporting me
Speaker 3: in many ways, but it's still up to me to
Speaker 3: sign the documents and make calls about like how we're
Speaker 3: gonna place the money that we're making and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: That is my least favorite thing to do. And I'm
Speaker 3: also in like a kind of accounting weird accounting pickle
Speaker 3: because I am from Sweden and I've had a Swedish company.
Speaker 3: My entire legal team and accounting team and management team
Speaker 3: is in Australia because that's where my manager is from,
Speaker 3: and I live in the States and just started a
Speaker 3: US company. I mean being taxed in the States, so
Speaker 3: it's is very intricate taxing thing and it's just it's
Speaker 3: it makes my body crawl.
Speaker 2: She may have meant skin crawl, but that's okay, because
Speaker 2: guess how many languages I speak literally barely won on Sundays.
Speaker 3: I'd rather just outsource it i can.
Speaker 2: And then save your energy and time and brain power
Speaker 2: for building stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is nice, but it's challenging because you constantly
Speaker 3: have this feeling that like the most important thing to
Speaker 3: do is to answer email emails and like do all
Speaker 3: these like admin stuff. But I realized is the most
Speaker 3: important thing I should do is like making fun content
Speaker 3: and building machines. But it doesn't feel like it's proper
Speaker 3: work because it needs to be hard and tough and boring.
Speaker 3: Why is your carding that sound.
Speaker 2: It just does that because it's like a preuses make
Speaker 2: all kinds of gurgles. Yeah, it's like I think it's
Speaker 2: going back and forth between motors or something. It's also
Speaker 2: hungry because I didn't feed it fuel. Yeah, and I was.
Speaker 2: I was on the last little thing, and that would
Speaker 2: be so I have to cast it. Okay, your favorite
Speaker 2: thing about what you do, about your job, or about
Speaker 2: robots or about a build, Like, what's the thing that
Speaker 2: gives you butterflies?
Speaker 3: The thing that gives me butterflies? I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: know how to say this without making it sound terrible.
Speaker 2: Cashing checks, cash and checks keep in coming.
Speaker 3: No, But honestly, the nicest thing has being like being
Speaker 3: led into this really great community of people and constantly
Speaker 3: meeting people who are very enthusiastic and excited about what
Speaker 3: they do, which is like, I don't know, it's such
Speaker 3: a good energy injection whenever I meet somebody who's like
Speaker 3: so eager to show me the project that they're working on.
Speaker 3: So I think that's actually what I like the most.
Speaker 3: I feel like doing this. I because I tried out
Speaker 3: a lot of different jobs before it, and it was
Speaker 3: just like putting on a lot of different pants and
Speaker 3: you're like these ones are kind of fun, but they're
Speaker 3: like also kind of crawling up my butt or like
Speaker 3: these ones like said, they are just uncomfortable and these
Speaker 3: it's I don't know. I feel like I found my
Speaker 3: people in the maker community.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great. That's a great answer. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a good answer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What could be wrong with being like other people are
Speaker 2: cool and I like them.
Speaker 3: I don't know a little bit like I get to
Speaker 3: hang out.
Speaker 2: With cool people. I think that appreciating people who are
Speaker 2: appreciate what you do is great. That doesn't that make
Speaker 2: I'm not and that's great.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite part about your job?
Speaker 2: The money? Just money, money, money. Yeah. I have a big,
Speaker 2: like inflatable pool that I filled with dollars and I
Speaker 2: just jump into it like screwhoop dook at the end
Speaker 2: of every day. That's why I sleep in.
Speaker 3: I feel like, as somebody must have done an episode
Speaker 3: on like the Physics, I'm jumping in because I feel
Speaker 3: like I'm always like that. It hurts so much. Even
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, I was like you, your
Speaker 3: head would just crash into those coins. It would be
Speaker 3: so cold, it would like break your fingers before you've
Speaker 3: even like penetrated the surface of it.
Speaker 2: So but my answer is the same as yours. I
Speaker 2: mean pretty much, I think like for especially for this
Speaker 2: for ologies like I'm I feel like I'm such like
Speaker 2: an ologist and like science groupie, where I'm just I'm
Speaker 2: so in awe of other people's passion and what that
Speaker 2: has led them to to learn and execute. I like
Speaker 2: hearing about this spark that make made people like almost
Speaker 2: fall in love with a certain field. I think about
Speaker 2: things that I'm obsessed with, and I think, oh, I
Speaker 2: you know, there's like a certain beetle I once found
Speaker 2: that made me really into bugs, and that shaped my
Speaker 2: whole life, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's why we'd neither of us like accounting, because
Speaker 3: nobody's passionate about accounting.
Speaker 2: Dude, my mom is we call her Nancy Numbers.
Speaker 3: If I met your mom, I'd be like, suddenly, accounting
Speaker 3: that's all I want to do.
Speaker 2: Nancy Numbers will be down to chat. She would be
Speaker 2: out of it, like so yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 2: So we rolled up to Simone's hotel and we wrapped
Speaker 2: it up. Well, the valet guys were like, what's happening here?
Speaker 2: What are you doing. Just consider this like a very
Speaker 2: long uber ride.
Speaker 3: Oh you get five stars right off the bat.
Speaker 2: You know we was in two accidents. This is your hotel,
Speaker 2: right yeah, yeah, TH's right there. Okay, that worked out well,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much much, or being on seriously, the things.
Speaker 3: Are bringing me to my hotel.
Speaker 2: This is my first Car Ologies episode, but really yeah,
Speaker 2: I've never recorded one in a car before.
Speaker 3: I'm on to and be the first guest.
Speaker 2: I didn't get like a driving well interviewing. I guess
Speaker 2: that would be a DW. I wouldn't it driving well interviewing.
Speaker 3: I think you're allowed to hold a microphone and talk.
Speaker 2: I mean it's Hollywood, baby. Yeah, we are literally like
Speaker 2: in the thick of it. I hope you have a
Speaker 2: great shoot tomorrow.
Speaker 3: H thank you. I just hope the hammering robot works.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So to see how well the hammering robot worked, you
Speaker 2: can find the video we made a hammer robot featuring
Speaker 2: Simone Yettes on ret and Links channel. I also want
Speaker 2: you to know that I copied and pasted the title
Speaker 2: of that video from YouTube, and the font that YouTube
Speaker 2: muses is called roboto servant woo. Okay. To see more,
Speaker 2: of someone's work. Just google her name and or Shitty Robots.
Speaker 2: She's at simone Yetch on Twitter or Instagram and as
Speaker 2: long as you're there if you want, you can follow
Speaker 2: Ologies or Alley Ward on either platform. If you like
Speaker 2: this podcast, I'm also at patreon dot com slash Ologies,
Speaker 2: where you can become a patron for as little as
Speaker 2: twenty five cents an episode, which goes to equipment and
Speaker 2: sound cards and web hostings and paying wonderful editor Stephen
Speaker 2: Ray Morris to piece all of this together and to
Speaker 2: pay the folks who help with ologiesmerch dot com, Shannon
Speaker 2: Feltus and Bonni Dutch. You can also support the show
Speaker 2: just by getting a shirt or a hat, or a
Speaker 2: toad or a pin or phone case or a baby onans.
Speaker 2: Either's so many items. Thank you so much for rating
Speaker 2: and subscribing and reviewing. Those are things you can do
Speaker 2: for free that helps so much. And please do remain
Speaker 2: unabashedly curious and ask smart people dumb questions, because we're
Speaker 2: all smart about some stuff and dumb about others, so
Speaker 2: let's spread it around. Speaking of, it's time for the
Speaker 2: end of the episode. Secret Okay, Mom and Dad, you
Speaker 2: can feel free to turn the episode off. Now you
Speaker 2: just you hit the stop button on the iPad.
Speaker 3: Got it?
Speaker 2: Cool? Okay? Bye? Okay. So one time I went to
Speaker 2: a party and I met this really cute dude. But
Speaker 2: I was wearing those like jelly boobs that you stick
Speaker 2: to your own boobs. They look like rubber chicken cutlets.
Speaker 2: But they made the dress look better. Okay, it was
Speaker 2: years ago. It was a cute summer dress. I just
Speaker 2: I was like, these look nice. Anyway, he was like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's go for a drink and I was like, um, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll meet you there. Let's drive separately. And in so doing,
Speaker 2: I was like, I ripped the jelly boobs off because
Speaker 2: what am I gonna do? What if he notices? Anyway?
Speaker 2: And I stuffed them under the seat along with a
Speaker 2: box of lac date that was in the door pocket.
Speaker 2: And we ended up dating for years. And I don't
Speaker 2: think I ever told him that story. And if he
Speaker 2: listens to this, I wonder if you'll even know it's him.
Speaker 2: So hy killing it? Okay, next week might be bees
Speaker 2: or museums or evolutionary biology or beer science. I'm russure,
Speaker 2: but I'm excited about it. I hope you are too
Speaker 2: okay by right hackadermanstology, hobbiology, crypto zoology, lithology, yeaology, meteorology, paratology, apology, seriology, seminology.
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