Matthew Prater joins Parker and Stephen to discuss his student's innovation projects and antimatter positrons.
Figure 1: Annika O’brien
Figure 2: Drawing of Piper the robot.
Parker is an Electrical Engineer with backgrounds in Embedded System Design and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. The following year he designed and produced an Atari 2600 video mod to allow the Atari to display a crisp, RF fuzz free picture on newer TVs. Over a thousand Atari video mods where produced by Parker from 2006 to 2011 and the mod is still made by other enthusiasts in the Atari community.
In 2006, Parker enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as a Petroleum Engineer. After realizing electronics was his passion he switched majors in 2007 to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Following his previous background in making the Atari 2600 video mod, Parker decided to take more board layout classes and circuit design classes. Other areas of study include robotics, microcontroller theory and design, FPGA development with VHDL and Verilog, and image and signal processing with DSPs. In 2010, Parker won a Ti sponsored Launchpad programming and design contest that was held by the IEEE CS chapter at the University. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Spring of 2012.
In the Summer of 2012, Parker was hired on as an Electrical Engineer at Dynamic Perception to design and prototype new electronic products. Here, Parker learned about full product development cycles and honed his board layout skills. Seeing the difficulties in managing operations and FCC/CE compliance testing, Parker thought there had to be a better way for small electronic companies to get their product out in customer's hands.
Parker also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components.
Stephen Kraig began his electronics career by building musical oriented circuits in 2003. Stephen is an avid guitar player and, in his down time, manufactures audio electronics including guitar amplifiers, pedals, and pro audio gear. Stephen graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!
Welcome to the macro fab engineering podcast. I am your guest, Annika O'Brien.
And we are your hosts Parker
Dolan and Steven Craig. And this is episode 86.
So next week, Wednesday, what is that? September 27? At 6pm We'll have our meetup here at macro fab. And Houston, Texas. So if you're in Houston, come on by. It's free. There's food, what kind of food? We haven't. Sandwiches. There's beer. There's gonna be two talks. Mouser will be here giving a talk. Now there's awesome. And Steven will be giving a talk. That's right. Yeah. And what's your talk about?
What is my talk about doing Lean Manufacturing and how to design for it.
And Mouser is talking about their website and parametric searching, if I recall,
basically how to drill down to the component that you're looking for as fast as possible. Yeah. Okay.
So yeah, come on by RSVP. There's will be a link to the Eventbrite
and I will probably be there if I'm in town. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I went to your your inaugural. Meet
the very first people there. Yeah. Pizza. There was pizza. We swapped over to sandwiches, the beers all that really matters, right? Yeah. Okay, so founder and driving force behind the LA Robotics Club and Houston Robotics Club, Annika O'Brien has put a lot of focus into creating communities for people of all ages, who have an interest in learning more about robotics and electronics. Is that anything? Is that or not anything? Is that everything?
Is there anything you would like me to add? Yeah, I can't really think of anything that's pertinent to today's discussion, I mostly wanted to talk about humanitarian ism and kind of community stuff.
Sure, because that one paragraph is highly simplistic in comparison to everything that encompasses you.
Yeah. And it's weird when I add the number of CDs that I have, depending on what projects I'm looking at. Because there's so different because I have a because of the software background. And then I have the, the, you know, the actual, with my hands making things like I did a Kickstarter that's only relevant to some people. I don't consider it successful, even though it was mostly because I made a i, it was at a time in Kickstarter, when they didn't have a lot of tools that they have today. One of those tools being the ability to allow your users to update their address. So if things take longer than then you expect, like I was not aware of the Chinese New Year being six to eight weeks long. So the end of the year when I go to put in my order. Nobody's responding. I'm like, we've been talking about this for the last few months. Where are you guys?
And I'm tired country just dropped off the map.
Pretty much. Yeah, nobody answers like Europe in August. Yeah. But they work really, really hard. Yes, yes, it is really hard the rest of the year, so that they can afford to do that. And I was unaware, so I had to update people. And of course, by that point, some people will move and they'll email you. Also you get users who don't feel comfortable giving their home address to Kickstarter. So I get a lot of like, an example 123 Big Bird lane. And you're like, that's not how do we get your stuff to you? Yeah, so there there were some issues like that. Some of it was just mistakes I made so I was hoping for that Kickstarter to be the first of many. And then I realized after I was done with that, that I it was such a nightmare. I was so far in the hole I ended up having to I shipped a lot of stuff and I didn't make any money I actually was and I didn't intend to make money on that one that was going to be my ham gonna get my feet wet and learn how to do this like manufacture was it process? It was a small arduino board. Oh god dollar arduino board. So at the time, it was groundbreaking. This was over four years ago. And it had it had two different parts. It had the bootloader was separate. But it was mostly so that you could use it on something lightweight. It was very similar to just the dual Melano Vai. Yep. So and it was open source, I ended up giving out all my Gerber gerber files, which was my intentions from the beginning so that people could replicate the project on their own. So it was successful in the fact that it taught me a lot about about crowdfunding and about dealing with you know, 10s of 1000s of strangers that expect a product. Yeah, like and it definitely
How big was your email inbox on like day one.
It was big on and I was very open about, you know, the whole process. Yeah. And and there were there were some responses that I received that were not savory. I actually ended up getting a few Kickstarter users banned. And I had to make it, it turned into a very crazy thing at the end. Yeah, I almost got a restraining order against a guy who lived in my city. And I had given my my return address on the envelopes, because I had nothing to hide. I mean, I pay my taxes, and I vote so I figured anybody has my address, right? So. So I hit some guy had like, threatened to show up at my door because he didn't get his $5 Duino board if he paid $15. Well, no, he had received it. But he didn't get like one. He couldn't get the bootloader to work. And I guess he was trying to communicate with me quite a bit. And I wasn't responding. And have you done a Kickstarter? Macro fab? Or have you done?
Yeah, not not through Kickstarter.
But we did a crowd fund. Okay, so So you're familiar with just how crazy how? Oh, yeah, for three times more than what you think it'll cost? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And this person continued to harass me to the point where I had to get the LAPD involved. And like, I had his address. Yeah. And I had his name. And unfortunately, when he corresponded with me, he has small, small daughter's face as his profile image. So as I'm like, writing this ain't this like, back, you know, and I know that everything will probably, you know, like, come out at some point. So I'm trying to be as is. I'm not, I'm trying to be very calm when I speak with him. And the whole time I'm responding me like a two year old, little girl. That's kind of weird. So anyway, so Kickstarter, I thought I was going to kind of go that path and do do manufacturing, similar to what you guys do here at macro fab. And then I realized that I don't have it in me to, to manufacture it just there's a lot there. The dealing with China, I mean, it. I'm sure for people that really enjoy that. It's very fulfilling. But it was way too much for me. But hats off to you guys for being as successful as you are at what you do. I actually connected with a company who's very similar to macro fab out in Pasadena, California, that they do similar stuff that you do here, the rapid prototyping and stuff like that. So when you guys also do like you do your own wave soldering, right, don't you? We know what you do. I know what you do. And I've seen Chris church give his interview, but you guys kind of do
their whole Well, yeah, we. Yeah, we have all the capabilities. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Prototype prototypes is a huge portion of it here. Yeah.
Anyway, so my point is, I found that to be a very attractive, and then I, I learned by doing a Kickstarter that that was not, that was not where my strengths lie. So
it's a lot of work. It's an enormous amount of work. So
so the the robotics club? Yes. You started out in LA, right?
Yeah, it started the Los Angeles Robotics Club in about 2008. Ish. I think I became official in about 2010.
So it was that? That's before the Kickstarter. Yes. That's before I even started,
my friends kind of pressured me to do a Kickstarter.
Yeah, because it was the hip new thing. Probably. Yes.
It was the hip knee thing. They were like, come on. Yeah, there's peer pressure. Gotta do a TED talk. He got to do a Kickstarter. Oh, yeah. Ted X. Yes.
We'd have you done a TEDx?
No, I have had my arm twisted a handful of times,
too. Is that something you're interested in doing? Maybe maybe at
some point, I mean, I'm supposed to speak at South by Southwest. Cool. This next coming up, but I might have other things that are going on at the time there. I'm not opposed to it. I was the maker guest of honor at last con and I had to get up on stage and give a talk. I've spoken at Dover I've done a lot of talks that were pertained to women in STEM. I just don't I don't know I did a Kickstarter already. Isn't that like, I've got
it. It's like you've got your wings.
It's like you go down the list of like stuff makers have to do Kickstarter is right there.
Yeah, Kickstarter. There's there's also
oh my gosh, you have an article posted on Hackaday. Oh,
no, but I my company was mentioned in Y Combinator.
The other one, so yeah. So what else would be on that list? Yeah, Hackaday
but my Kevin Bacon score on Hackaday is pretty high because most of my friends have been on there. Well, I've interviewed with Make Magazine a handful of times.
Oh, sure, sure. Well, I would say you, you'd probably have to somehow create your own Arduino board. You'd have to 3d print something and then either blog about it or have a YouTube video about it. And then you'd also have to see and see something and do the same. Like those three right there would kind of cheer. Yeah. Then then you and I like a pro maker.
Yeah. And I was a maker guest of honor the first year that they had it at last con, which is the LA sci fi fantasy convention. My nerd cred. And then and then I was the Google's I was one of the camp counselors for Google's maker. The Maker Faire. What did they call it? Oh, my goodness. I'm drawing a blank. The White House there Maker Camp. I was like one of their camp counselors. There were eight of us. Gotcha. So that was kind of cool. Yeah, I mean, so I definitely made my bones or got my wings or whatever. And the maker, yeah. street cred.
So the robotics club. Yes. Which one?
La or Houston?
The LA ones. You're not associated with anymore? I'm
not No, I'm not. I pass that off to some people. There were some issues in LA, we had a lot of people that wanted to be involved. But as soon as, but I had to bankroll the thing my myself, which was fine. But as soon as I'd asked people to help, they're like nobody ever had time. So I think it was just a matter of in LA, there's, you know, the cost of living there on his
street cred without putting in the time. Yeah, I
think a lot of people came to me and asked if I was hiring. It's like, I don't have money. I'm sorry. I'm like scrambling to pay $19 a month for the meetup group, you know, at the time. And now with the Houston Robotics Club, I have an overwhelming just outpouring of physical support. Not just you know, Pat's on the back. So to get to your original question, the one in Los Angeles, I had, I kind of handed that one over to a group that was doing the quad copters out there. And this was out, you know, four or five years ago and quad copters weren't as big as they are now. Before I got involved. Yeah, yeah. So um,
we are the government got rid of all our fun.
Yeah. Before stupid people could afford to purchase them. And they do stupid things with them. And by stupid, I mean, illegal. And I mean, unsafe. I don't mean, I don't mean ignorant people that don't understand robotics. I mean, people that don't care to look up the rules, and they fly them over, like White House lawns, and you go the freeway stuff like that. Yeah, exactly. Are they attached laser pointers to them? And you go into areas that are not supposed to be?
That's only acceptable when you're distracting cats?
Yes. Indoors, indoors indoors? So? Yeah, so it's all in the
rulebook? Right? Yeah.
Robotics Club got passed off to some friends of mine. And then I ended up, you know, I moved here for my startup. I had gotten funding I was trying to get out of California at the time, but I hadn't told anybody. I was looking for an opportunity out. And funny story, the provost of Rice University contacted me through a website, it was a ladder, it was either ladders or wasn't LinkedIn, it was one of those job posting sites. And it offered me more of a startup position. And I ignored his first email, not thinking he was serious, because it seems kind of a little too good to be true. Like, yeah, because he threw some numbers out there for startup capital, and I'm like, That's not real. And then email me again, through or messaged me again and said, hey, just you know, and he sent a link to his bio at Rice and said, I'm actually legit. I thought it was a headhunter. And so, you know, I was reading through his him from nothing
alien versus predator.
I thought he was like a like, you know, that works. Yeah. job searching. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. An employee finding company. Contractor. Yeah. And then so he had sent me another message and said, hey, just to let you know, I'm serious. And he threw in some, some buzzwords, like, you know, 3d printing whatever.
Cloud. Exactly.
You'd like to upload you to the cloud?
Yeah. There's a lot of money in the cloud.
And coin, there's coin at some point. Yeah. Anyway, so my point and so I responded to him and we ended up taking it over to email and then phones and then one of his close investor friends who's a woman. I don't know if you're familiar with Nancy Ching. She's out here. She sold her her first company for 900 million. Her second company she sold for close to 2 billion, and then doing HIV, or AIDS research and medication, she sold it to Genentech, the name of the company, multi billion dollar company. Nancy Chang, if you go, Nancy Chang in Houston, you'll find a restaurant. Ironically, she's invested in a restaurant here, but it's not that one sound. So she, she was the one who told me that if I come out to Houston, they will give me whatever I need to get started. And I said, well, I need proper transportation. So he was driving a 20 year old piece of poop at the time. And I said, Well, you know, a, I have like, a small list. And I said, I mostly just want to make sure I have a place to sleep, food to eat and transportation, I'm good. And so they flew me out here. And things went really well, our first round of funding came through, like within a couple of weeks or second round within a couple of months. And then we we had not agreed on being acquired, I had to get my attorney involved. And our company was acquired. And I didn't want that. Because this was my dream job. I mean, I was doing K through 12 engineering curriculum. And so it was a very sad time for me, because when your company is being bought out, yeah, you're thrown tons of money. And you know, people, people are happy for you, because you'll never have to work again. But it was what I wanted to do with my life. And you know, every time I there's a lot of articles that have been written about how, like, what actually makes people happy, and it's usually not money. I mean, you need money to survive, and you need, you know,
to pay your bills, right. But once you're past that, yeah,
then it's like you want sleep, you want vacations, you know, you want family time, things like that. And money can only do so much. So I went through kind of a slight depression time. And I think for like, a few months, it was kind of sad, even though I had money, finally. But a friend of mine contacted me and said, Well, do you want to get involved in this other project that I had kind of tinkered with in Houston, or sorry, in Los Angeles? That's humanitarian. And that's symbiotic. So we formed a company around it, and it's my portion of it was going to be like, sticking with the engineering in the open sourcing of a robot. It's a mining robot and the mining robot. It doesn't mind yet. Right now. It's just supposed to communicate with a rat. And the rat can smell TNT.
When you say mining not like drilling mining, like no, well,
it will eventually drill a tiny hole too. So let me let me back up and explain what I'm talking about now. Yeah, so I formed a company you got to like robots talk. Yeah, and I think that the beer is definitely hit me so it's a small tiny little Okay, hold that it will drill at a later date. Right now he's communicating it's a rover looks very much but
but but real quick look back up. Once again, when you say mining, you're talking about land mines, not like under the EarLens mine mining? Yes. That's what I was doing.
Okay. No more than a couple of feet into the earth. Okay, so land mines usually pretty shallow,
right? So it searches for land mines. Not yet Not just drills for ore. Okay,
so yeah, okay, so I'm gonna get that I'm gonna guess I wrapped right. Can I smell 20 So you can detect where the landmines are at?
Yes. And then he communicates he stands up and does little dance. The robots there's the rover. Yep, can see him. And the rovers name is Piper that's the name I gave him. That's great before the show silicon Pied Piper, but it had nothing to do with the show. Silicon Valley
it's a you know what's going through my head right now. Like I see this little miniature like Sherman tank with a rat out the top of it. And he's got like the old World War Two helmet on and he's like driving around this little tank.
And the the artist illustrations were done by the same. The Chiodo brothers which are the ones who did the puppets for?
Do you have an image of this? I
can go yeah, go symbiotics.com SY MB IO biotics, bo t ICs. So it's displaying to your listeners what I'm talking about. So we designed I designed it pretty much
as a Sherman tank, with a with a rat sticking out the front of it. Oh, that is cool.
So I designed we designed this robot so that we were trying to get it so that it could detect metal plates or rounded objects because a lot of times these water bottles underwater or sorry, under dirt, they use water and like getting my words all mixed up. No. Something like, like a spherical or cylindrical object to put the explosives. Yeah, everything in it so so that when you disturb the ground, it explodes. Well, that's going to be very complicated for us, especially because we're trying to get the price down. Because we're paying for this ourselves. We haven't sought funding because we don't know what direction we want to go. I'd like to open source and get but to the people, I don't really want to make money with the project, which is why I'm trying to be very inexpensive with everything. And so the rat can smell TNT. So rat is a perfect sensor already. So we can use the rat and we can use camera vision with the robot to communicate, and then give it a treat. And so a Popo if you go to I think a polka.org a P O. P. Oh,
I think I saw a documentary about rats being trained to find landmine. That's
probably I can I can totally see the GitHub repository for this have a bill of materials on it and the first thing is read. I think our trainer was trained, trained read. Yeah, yeah, no, my Apopo calm. That's it. That's it. Finding landmines saving lives is their tagline.
So our robot works with their rats. Gotcha. Yeah, there's cool. So to kind of bring this back to like the actual, like giving information to people not just rambling
on so you bet on this.
You can use a beer and I was like, huh, I'll do anything beer. So the idea is that it works with the rat, and then later we can mine. Yeah, in jet, a small amount of gel that biodegrades the TNT, gotcha. bits are getting better. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's a long process. So what we did, we decided to separate because I have the, I might want to go 501 C three with this at a later date. Or I might just want to open source and give it away. My partner's mostly Andrew McGregor, he decided to form a separate company because he couldn't get my my full attention at the time I had a bunch of other things going on. So I told him to form a separate entity. It's called Boom belt. It's like boom, well, but felt it's anyway with a gentleman named Ian Ingram. Who is a he makes robots that do all kinds of interesting. Very entertaining. So he does robots. Wait, no, Chucky Cheese, right? No, no, like, will feed squirrels. Okay, and things that come very, very entertaining. And I guess he had a YouTube channel. So Andrew, and he connected. In fact, speaking of, of TED talks, Andrew just gave a TEDx talk recently in Culver City, oh, cool, which is essentially Hollywood. That's where all the film studios are. And he he's given numerous TED talks like TEDx talks. And he talked about this, and I didn't get to watch the whole video yet. But I think he is mostly just talking about what they're doing with him belt. And they were designing sensors in Ingram is roboticist as well. And so they were designing things to, they're doing the hardware robot part. And then I'm going to work on the taking the entire project, and turning it into an educational platform for students in the US. And at some point in other countries, but kind of going with my contacts that I have here. First to create, like a curriculum based on the robot, and so that kids can learn education, or sorry, kids can learn like engineering principles, and electronics, and get kind of educational value out of this, while they're also figuring out how to improve it. So they could be our little test subjects. And they could be little engineers in high school. And then we could give that all of their findings to the people in like Tanzania, all over Africa. I mean, there's like 50 Something countries over there. So there's a huge portion of the countries that are affected by land mines, also in South America. But we haven't really dealt with that portion, because most of our connections are in Africa. So via Andrew McGregor. Yep. So that's a really long story to let you know, my my interests have kind of gone more the humanitarian route. And kind of what I'm doing with that. And I know, it's kind of a weird thing to explain, because I think this is the first time I've actually told somebody about it that wasn't, like involved. So I'm still trying to hash out how to how to describe it without like, so there's a rat and a robot.
Well, okay, so how far along are you? I mean, do you have a rat robot?
I really Yes. They actually went to Tanzania to test this. And I think, and I'm waiting to hear back on their funding. And like I said, that's for their company. And then that's going to work and then. So my idea for the educational stuff. I'm making progress on here in Houston, and I'm getting 501 C three status for the Houston Robotics Club, which is the club that I started here. And I think I'm kind of telling the story backwards right now.
That's fine. I'm guessing what's gonna what's gonna happen is the robotics platform is going to be for you know, helping kids learn robotics in the future. The Robotics Club?
Yes, yes, because we're going to be doing out outreach with young people like mentorship programs and educational programs that are free of charge, especially kids that what I really want to focus on our kids that wouldn't usually, we don't want to, in the past have always focused on either race or gender, you know, like, we focus on minority children or little girls or kids that are impoverished right now, we want to focus on kids that have an interest, because I find that when you try to target a specific identity, you end up passing over a bunch of kids that maybe don't meet the criteria you thought needed it, but they do. Mm hmm. You know, like, middle class white boy who's interested in robotics has just as much need for something like that. Because a lot of people like from what I've heard from teachers, a lot of middle class kids, their parents have enough. So they don't qualify for any kind of grants or services. They make too much money for that, but they don't have an extra couple of 100 a month for robotics projects. So we're trying to reach out to just kids that are interested, not in like I said, in the past, I've I've targeted specific groups. And I think that I kind of overlooked certain demographics that I didn't think it's very easy for people to just say, Oh, well, they don't really need help. But you know, and I think that's also our group is very diverse, like, extremely diverse, if you want to show up to the Houston Robotics Club. And even in our views, like we all approach problems from a different angle. And I'm, I'm very careful not to shut down people who I don't agree with, which is very difficult, especially when you're in charge. It's very easy to say, No, you get out of here. But so I think having that kind of viewpoint diversity, heterodoxy, I guess is the term is that sort of word? Google? I think it's a word. I just made it up if it's not. And how big is the club? Oh, so according to meetup, we have like 1000 people. Wow, we're not that big. We have less than 100 that are actual core people that show up, we have a lot of interest. But right now we're pursuing 501 C three so that we can get funding outside of my bank account. Right now. I've been paying for everything. And I have had people like companies like Adobe and shell that I know would be willing to donate to us if if we qualified for the funding through 501, c three. So it's kind of a 501. C three is very difficult, because you have to prove that you can afford to do it without money, which I can do. But then it's there's it's a balancing act Sure. Like they don't want you to, they don't want you to get 501 C three status if you can't afford to keep it going. So if you're kind of busted, broke, and you're like your PIN, yeah,
sorry about that.
And right, as I say, if you're if you're having an issue. If you're having an issue keeping the lights on, then you're probably not a good candidate for 501 C three, which sucks because it's like,
you have to be barely there. Or you have to have enough
money to get started. Like I we have an attorney we have, you know, a lot cost a lot of money to get 501 C three status. But you can't accept money. That's a tax write off for somebody until after so it's kind of like I've had companies that have said, Oh, well, yeah, we could add you to our list of people we donate to I'm like, Can you do it now so I can afford to get you know, because it's expensive. But I know that I know that if we never get a penny from now until whenever I know that I can afford to keep the lights on and I know that I can afford to. I know that I can afford to do all the things that are in our mission. And a lot of it is because we have so many great people and we have TX RX to give them a shout out their maker space here in Houston. And they've been extremely generous with their space. And as soon as I created the meetup without even reaching out to them, I'm Gabby, their director there had reached out to me and said, Hey, if you need a space to get you started, we're here. We'll let you you know, do your first few meetups here and we've been there ever since. So, but I also I had purchased a bay, like space there. Yeah. And then I got a bunch of my members to help support them so they can afford to keep us there. So we're not, you know, a leech. So, yeah, we've
shelled out TX RX a
lot. Yeah, they're really good. And they've also been involved in a lot of the Hardy cleanup. If you go to I think it's oh my goodness. Harvey seminars.com or.org One of the two. Ronnie Drew Brees. Who is one of the big Yeah, you know, big guys. They're taught me how to weld. He's taught a lot of people. He's a good welding teacher. I've not taken this class.
I learned the fuselage and want to learn the weld.
Yes, that's that's good at XX if you're in Houston and want to learn to do anything, check out TX RX dot, it's TX RX labs.org. They are also a 501 C three. So if anybody wants to donate money to a group that just in general helps the community they've been helping with Harvey cleanup like MCing they've been helping with education, they help with all kinds of things. They also sponsor other small groups like myself, if you just make a donation to them, that money will go to a good cause. So that's
the second largest in terms of space. Yes,
square footage. Yes. Yeah.
Number one, New York, New York.
I think so. Yeah.
What what's their name? No labs or is that let me look at anything. Okay.
I know there's a brewery called no label. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.
So TX RX is funny because it's actually the power like TX Alright, like signal. Yeah. And people just I have people all the time. Say What does RX stand for? If you know what TX RX stands for transfer?
I think, I think that met and received. I think they're probably thinking TX stands for Texas.
I think that's what they were doing. Yeah. It's like,
I had to actually make the joke. Calm. Yeah. Insert wish wish
give? Um, maybe we were wrong about this. Apparently. Google says the largest maker space on the planet is in Columbus, Ohio. 65,000 square feet. That's like a grocery store and a half. So large, okay. Columbus, Ohio. A lot of makers.
What's What's that maker space called? The largest maker space in the world square.
What is it called? Oh, Columbus idea foundry. Okay, but this was 2014. It was saying, Oh, yeah. No. Internet years. That's like, oh, yeah, that's ancient. Right. Yeah. So but the it is the first, the first thing on the googly. So
yeah. So I talked about my Robotics Club. Yep. Which is my big project right now. When do you all meet? We meet on Saturday, Saturdays at 130. Every Saturday? Yes, every Saturday unless obviously not on Christmas Day. You really want to? We're also going to be doing live live casting, or I guess that's the wrong term. We're going to be live streaming our our meetups. And at a later date, we'll start posting those right now. It's been enough just to have a robot stuff going. But we have a telepresence robot named Ariel and we'll probably use her when she's actually working. And then there's Maker Faire coming up are you guys gonna be there?
Because you're local and you don't have to be a member of TX RX to show
up right now oh for Oh no, not at all. It would be nice. If if somebody wants to take classes and such we obviously promote TX RX Sure, sure. Because if it weren't for them, we'd be scrambling for location. And they like I said I really can't speak highly enough of them. Even if they kicked me out tomorrow. I'd still be saying go to dx. They have they have really good classes like you said welding. They teach leather crafting my friend summer is a leather crafter. You can learn to do laser cutting CNC, huge machine shop there. The people that run TX RX actually maintain everything themselves. We've actually
we've had we've had some work done. Okay. Some of our customers over there. Really? Yeah. It's laser engraving. Okay, on some
giant, that giant machine they have in the front that Yep. Yeah. thing's a beast. It is. It's the size of a car. So yeah,
TX RX is over on that. Nice. Downtown.
Yes. East downtown.
It's Robert Street. Yes. It was really close to our old location.
Yeah, just down the street from us. You guys have one of those warehouses over there. We were right next to Eighth Wonder brewery.
Oh, I like that area. That was a 1100 Hutchins block. Okay. We actually used to be right next door to eighth wonder when Eighth Wonder started. We were at 1207 Hudson Street, which is right next door.
Okay. Which was more closer to Midtown or no? Maybe right across. It's
where TX RX used to be over on commerce.
Okay. I didn't go there. Back then. When I when I showed up? I think they'd only been around for four or five years.
Okay. This, that place was right across the street from the Georgia brown Convention Center.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They converted it into a Harvey makeshift shelter. For now and then I guess everybody's going to be sorry. Everyone's either going to be energy or hopefully home. You know, relocated before Maker Faire so which is October 20/21. Okay. Yeah. Because then again,
it's crazy. I mean, not to get all super hung up on the hurricane or anything. I was I was actually driving to park House yesterday. I mean, this is weeks after the hurricane. And there's still parts of Houston that are completely shut down and still underwater.
Yeah, he raised 80% of my My neighborhood was underwater. So
yeah, I'm sorry. And we're
talking about we're not talking about like, neighborhood streets we're talking about major highways are still shut down. Crazy.
It's also I mean, there's, there's, you know, we can do a whole podcast about the about just the hurricane but it's also the type of water that was coming into homes. A lot of people just think, oh, it's water, it dries up, and it's gone. Well, I mean, like, I don't like to talk about my losses in the flood because I lost hardly anything compared to most people. Like, I had a lot of peat moss washed out of my landscaping and I lost all my edible vegetables. And then I had some water damage in my house. But it wasn't, it wasn't rising water. It was you know, sealing and my insurance is covering it, it's fine. And then there you know, there's psychological damage that I didn't expect it the like I was earlier today, it started raining and I just burst into tears. I'm freaking out and I didn't expect that. But we're standing. my recording studio has the glass French doors that go to the outside. So you hear everything. And I just heard the the rain, which was okay. And then it just started pouring. And I could hear it on the porch behind me and I just started to panic, because you get that like, what? What if it comes back? You know, and I'm fortunate that my area has really good drainage, which is something I complain about all the time. Open ditches at Rice military, it's like hey, come to Rice military buy a million dollar house with an open ditch? Yep. Yes. million dollar townhome I should say not even house. Three story nightmare.
Well, and it's not just the water. It's the sewage that gets in the water that just makes everything unsafe.
Yeah, and that's why I did throw it on my edibles my tomatoes around but my herb garden I was going organic, right, because I started over with landscaping. So I went ahead and had him do it organic just for the hell of it.
That was the one thing because I was helping, you know, my neighbors clean up and stuff. And I'm like, here's a box of of nitrile gloves. I'm like, we want to wear these.
And so I helped with the rescue efforts on Twitter with the Harvey SOS. I was helping coordinate the Navy the Nola the Cajun navy. Ah, yes. I was helping coordinate that with rescue efforts on Facebook and Twitter. And then that turned into helping with donations. And so a lot of the people in my neighborhood were filling their garages with donations. And I had posted I made a wedding registry on Amazon so that people could donate to it. I was getting Yeah, there was going on asking, Okay, what are the things that people need the most? Because at the time going to the stores was you know, impossible. Yeah. And they were they were all out so they said you know, clean underwear, which is something a lot of people take for granted feminine products are masculine. Don't offend anyone.
An old friend of mine completely. They lost everything. Yeah. And you know what socks was one of the biggest things for them like we've got fresh pair of socks. Yeah.
So I yeah, I used Amazon and I ordered giant gallons of Lysol pine saw the masks, the paper masks, not the not the respirator masks, but just the you know, the ones that you can do while you're just kind of cleaning up dust. Yeah, those are just all kinds of stuff and just hauling stuff where it needed to go. It was pretty crazy for about two weeks there burning through adrenaline to help people out you know, getting getting complete strangers call me and say Hey, I found your number on a on a Facebook posts somewhere somebody said to call you and it's it's weird how we go from being so protective of our information to doxing ourselves in a matter of moments. Because people need our information. But yeah, I doxxed myself completely. During Harvey, you know, we're given out our home addresses saying come over here, you know, and Twitter. But it was for a good cause. Yeah. And we're still dealing with the mess. And I think Station Houston. Are you familiar with them? They're local. They've got a few projects. I don't know exactly. But they've got a few projects that they're working on their app based data to help with future problems. Okay. Coordination, stuff like that. I don't know how much you want to talk about the Red Cross.
Hey, anything, sir.
They, let's just say TX RX could take over the Red Cross and do a better job than they do. Oh, well. In fact, they did. Ronnie Reese himself was in charge of over 20,000 volunteers or 20,000 people at the GRB, they that's incredible. Yeah, there's i, because I'm friends with a lot of the TX RX. People, they all have their Facebook updates I was getting in my feed and it was just, you know, Red Cross post after Red Cross post about please don't donate to them there. They apparently didn't get a whole lot of small children. So they had diapers piled up and they had small stuffed animals and children's clothing. Diapers is the big thing that's like, invaluable. Yeah, that's like cash. And they had it stacked up to the ceiling and they said, please stop donating diapers, they're causing a fire hazard because they had nowhere to put them. Yet there were people across town who I was going to CVS to buy diapers for complete strangers with a newborn, but GRB has like 1000s of boxes of cases of these things, and they weren't, they said that it's against their policy to just donate them. And you know, I was trying to communicate with a couple of the people there and say, Well, look, I have another 501 C three, it's TX RX, could you donate them to them? And then they could dismiss them? And they're like, it's against our policy.
So sounds like it sounds like bureaucracy getting in the way of hell?
I think that's I think that's what the problem is, is that they're too big. Yeah, yeah. They're. Yeah, I don't know, if they've ever dealt with a natural disaster. I don't know if that's their forte.
Or not, or natural disaster in like, you know, the states.
Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, they, I did hear some personal stories from them that were really heartwarming, and, you know, people saying that, they helped them quite a bit. So I'm sure there are people that they're very good for. And, you know, they they had the GRB open, and they're really good at getting supplies donated. You know, I was, was calling out tampon companies on Twitter, saying, Hey, you guys want to help. And, you know, things like that, actually. So that's another thing not to get too graphic. But a lot of people don't realize that. Like, there were new mothers that had just given birth right before and there's, you know, healing processes that normally take place in the comfort of a clean home. And so women are trying to learn how to nurse. And so that was kind of a focus of mine for a while. And because I have children, is that there are all these people that just had babies and have small children. And so children's clean underwear, undergarments, getting things for kids that were clean that were needed, you know, women's products, things like that were really important diapers and wipes. And the good thing about wipes is you can use a diaper wipe and Purell and kind of take a quick shower.
Yes, that was that was I would say taking a shower. Like the my power was out for about a week and a half. And but I had no I had a gas heater for my water heater. That's probably the only reason like I didn't sleep here at the fab. Because we don't have a shower here. So I would go home and just like, there's no power, no, nothing. No, we had what was called the we had, like, you know, people had generators and stuff. But at night, you know, all you could hear it's just generators at night. And I had to live
in a neighborhood with people with generators. Yeah, are they preppers?
But the thing is a really loud and you have to sleep with the windows open? Because it's just it's gas. Yeah, yeah. And so what we did is I have my generators, a little tiny Honda. So it's really, really quiet. You can actually just, it can be running right here, you wouldn't? Well, you probably would hear it on the mics. But it's actually fairly quiet. And we would run it at night. And I basically went up and down the street asking for ascension chords. And I made my dub the Parker power grid. And basically was running just fans and people's living in their bedroom box fans, box fans in their bedrooms, just so they would have moving air at night and not here. All night long their generator. So. So that was one of the things is basically people would just my only requirement was that you had to provide gas for at least one day. Yeah. So because it would burn through about three gallons of gas a day. So
yeah. Gosh, so a friend of mine lives in Bel Air Bel Air has a lot of really nice houses, especially in in his particular street and watching Facebook updates with stressful people, you know, one person after another Well, we're moving. Yeah, I mean, it was really sad because, you know, some of them are people that I met through, like macro fab or you know, through the Houston startup scene, like Startup Grind. And there are people that you've met him a handful of times you follow him on Facebook and all of a sudden they're losing their homes and it's it's so weird to see. So many people going through the same Tragedy at the same time, and some of them have a good, you know, Outlook. It's almost like they're numb. But then I had one friend who said, Okay, well, it's time, you know, we're about a half an inch water's coming in, we probably won't have power. We'll try to check in with you guys tomorrow. Then the next update, the next day was okay, we have no power. All of our neighbors are in our home right now, because we're the only house that didn't flood and it was one of those and I really care about this person like he does. You know, he's one of my husband's best friends from childhood. And, you know, the whole time in our mind. We're like, oh, man, do you know do we have anything we can help them with, you know, and then the next update being okay, well, the water came up and then it went back down. It didn't come in the house, but we don't have power. So I think they went about 10 days, no power and they had neighbors camped out and they said they they actually develop stronger French. Oh, no, they have complete strangers.
We call it oh, oh, this we was a hurricane party. You just start emptying your freezer out and cooking. All the good. You gained the Harvey 15 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of our neighborhood evacuate.
We emptied our freezer and we I was making every day I spent through our pantry and ate everything.
Yeah, that was like our, all our neighbors that because I was fortunate enough where our house didn't get flooded by all our other neighbors did. And so we would go over there and start clean stuff out. But their freezer would still be frozen. And they would just have an I would call him hey, everything's good. You know, we were airing everything out and stuff. But your freezer so cold, but we don't have power for it. But did you have a gas stove or oven? Yeah. Okay, we're barbecuing and stuff. And so but they would allow us to eat their frozen food before that. So that's awesome. Yeah, like in one neighbor had like a really big wine cellar. That and so we I got the drink like a $400 bottle of wine. Yeah, a friend of mine. I had no idea worse. I'm not a wine person. So I'm just like,
ah, it tasted good.
And everyone else there's just like, you know, because, you know, I live in like, most of the people in my neighborhood are like, most of retired at this point. We're like, 5060. So they're like, oh, it's got this tobacco flavor and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like,
I don't want my wife to have
tobacco. I think it's that a lot of the aroma that they put in wine. They also put in tobacco. Yeah, so like, clove. Yeah,
yes, clove was another one that I was like. This is how I explained that wine. I'm like, like grapes. No. I was like, This tastes like if mulch smelt good. Mulch. And so it's earthy tone over three tons which is tobacco we kind of Yeah, I was like, if you smell fresh mulches like, like manure, it's not like the best smelling thing but it's like if it if that smell smells good, I
mean peat moss rotting plant or fecal matter
both you literally is a fecal matter smelled good then it would be good
mulch version of that I think
you mean like peat moss Yeah. Which has a very earthy acidic anti Yeah, that
smell like if you like that smells good. That's what tasted like of that style acidic. See?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, acidity. So today Yeah, right. But
so I brew kombucha. Oh, good. This is not a bottle that I brewed. I bought it completely off topic. That would be that would be incredibly fancy. If you brewed that really well. I almost brought when I brewed and then I found one that I didn't drink to it. So I could use the bottle. I reused the bottles for my own, but I have a five gallon urn that will cool that I
just really called a mother.
Scobey. Well, yeah, mother's mother.
Yeah, I don't. I don't do vinegar. I hope I don't do vinegar. That means I left my kombucha in there too long. But um, so I brewed it in college, and I was not drinking age. So we had the campus police show up and wonder I just said brewing. So they came by to see what it was brewing. They actually ran alcohol. They took some of it with them. I assume they ran alcohol test. They never bugged me again. It was just crazy hippie.
They went out into the popcorn drinking. Probably yeah.
I think this is her urine.
The thing is, so Parker and I both brew. Yeah, and I'm totally fine with dumping all like 10 trillion yeast cells into my beer. Because they don't look like a jelly fish floating in there. Like it just like there's something about kombucha that makes me feel like Oh, that makes so my wife did my wife She's killed. She's killed like three SCOBYs and so
I have a SCOBY thumb. No. Okay, so
here's the thing. I've been brewing long enough that I know the general ideas around what it takes to keep something alive. Yes. And to give it like an environment, your if you read, but Santa you have to be sanitary about what you do, and you have to treat it in a certain way. If you read the instructions on the back of a like your first kombucha kit, it's like that is gonna taste like dogshit like if you just follow it to the tee there's like they don't give you any sanitary
steaks um I am very sanitary and everything I do I'm kind of a germaphobe that way a part of that has to do with you know having gone to school for surgery sure you you know you become obsessed with cleanliness
that's that's another thing that she's done just gone for surgery
I ended up you know just racking up a bunch of debt and then going to do making game engine being maker actually make things that that if they die, you don't you know, you don't feel too bad. Not as bad as if a patient dies.
I don't know why the years that he's gone.
Okay, so an acronym for something bacterial colony something or other, right. So it floats on top. Well, it took me I had too small. I had actually three smaller ones just and I started mine from scratch. I never. I just created
that you didn't buy the hockey puck, but
I bought a bottle of up. I was actually about to say I bought a bottle of kombucha which has the yeas Ah, yeah. And then I poured it in cultured. Yes, the culture and then i i made your tea. Yes, I made the tea with the sugar and then I poured a bottle of this in and I put it in a dry, warm pantry for a couple of weeks. You know, you notice it starts to grow on top. And it's not mold. That's they call it a mushroom but I don't think it's really
we call it krausen okay, it's it's like it's like such it's like it looks like boogers growing on top
of mine does not look like boogers. Mine looks like plastic, like a thin piece of film.
You know, you know, it's really like goopy protein.
The bite so the older it gets, the more goopy. It gets. No, I think that's yeast strains. You know, the brown stuff that floats at the bottom. That's yeast. A lot of people think it's T sediments. They think it's the T. Because it's brown. It's not
yeast. It's the bug. Yeah, as weird as you were going all over the place. So
as you said, You created it. I'm like in my brain. I'm like, and the newest like, yes. You're like, oh, I cultured and I'm like okay, it's a little better.
So I started it. I have never purchased a SCOBY a lot of people will buy a starter who's Kobe. Yeah, I just started mine from scratch like sea monkeys. No sea monkeys are a no that's No, I'm like it's your first Yeah, no. Yeah. See monkeys you don't like like you flipping through like a magazine in the back is like your first. Yeah, along with your X ray. goggles and
what else they saw on those things? Yeah, decoder. Yeah, there it is. Yeah.
So anyway, to get back on the kombucha. I like the idea of brewing. And Kombucha is something that I feel comfortable creating. And I like to drink it. I think it tastes good. I'm like the one weirdo at Whole Foods who actually likes the taste of it. And then I do want to get into brewing beer. So I'll probably hit you guys up.
Awesome. Let's do it.
Do a YouTube video with me in my kitchen. Yo, Bruce and beer. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
So we've we've been talking about having like a big brew day. Yeah. Where we brew double batches each one of us would do like 20 gallons in a day. You know? So
so how long does it take for a batch? Oh, it could you bottle it and then it continues to digest the sugars.
Of course it depends on what you're brewing but in general, from brew day to the first time you drink it, and you're like, Oh, this is actually good now six weeks is like a long
time. It is like seven to 10 days turnaround. Yeah, so
there was an ideal Steven I had to do a there's a online guy brought brew la Sufi I brew la Sufi, and he did a experiment. A Bruce Burke
sounds like a good experiment is what he calls pyramids.
That's precious. Yeah. And
what he sounds like a guy doesn't wear shirt.
His hat backwards? Yeah, I
think I think he's just like I thought he was actually a he's a psychiatrist in Portland or something like that. Of course he's in Portland. Yeah, that's that's his day job. But he drinks an enormous amount of beer and brews a unreal amount of beer.
But his his his what are the
laws just not to cut you off? But you said that you want to have a brew day here. How many gallons Can you brew before you need a license? 200
in a year is what a one individual one individual and that sounds like a lot but if you're doing that but but if you if you have like people over to drink beer on a generally regular basis, like if you had someone over to your house twice a month, you could go through 120 gallons of beer.
Yeah, I think my second year I brewed beer I was brewing every other weekend, and I got 260 gallons somewhere on there I brewed that. I think it was like 2013 I got and then of course you go to old like the brew events and stuff like the local brew shop. Yeah, we'll have like events like once a month. And then people had like, like, badges almost like an outlaw. Yeah, homebrew because I brewed over 200 gallons this year, like doing five gallons. It's kind of hard to get up to that number at a time. But a lot of people brew, you know, 10 gallon batches or 15 gallon batches.
Since I already have if it's six to eight weeks, that might be too long. I was gonna say I could remove my SCOBY from my current tank. And then yeah, what do you what do you bring it over here? Just getting another beer for yourself. He didn't offer any to the ladies. There's
there's one right here. I was grabbing the seeker on in the back of the room a shiner. Yeah.
So the tobacco that thing is this guy experimented with fermentation temperature,
okay. Which makes that's like the biggest thing is the temperature and
temperature of the beer when you ferment it, like pitch temp and all that stuff. And the, the big thing he found out was when you brew, it's the initial pitch temp and first three days, the temperature. Okay, and then when you the reason why I
made that with an Arduino you absolutely. So the third craft beer pie, you could 3d print something. Yes.
And it's the the first three days matter. And then if you keep the temperature up, you can finish the beer faster without the flavors performing. So the something about what what state the Eastern
Yeah, it's the ratio of how much sugar to how much yeast is leftover. If they start off at the right temperature, then they don't produce the bad flavors. But then if you ramped them into the danger zone later on, they there's so much yeast that they won't produce the bad flavors, and you can accelerate the fermentation safely without
so like, why I want to do is do a 14 day retreat Pale Ale, including dry hopping.
I'm not a fan of halal, you know, that was like poor people beer right? And I don't like lobster. Lobster shrimp or shellfish. And then I learned that at one point they used to feed lobster to like the slaves.
Oh, yeah, they were the cockroaches see? Yes. Yes. I've always wanted to make a beer that is done in seven days. And you can do a beer and I wanted to name it one week beer. It because you have to make use of it. So that's
that's shirtless, though cuz that's such a pun. Yeah. So
111 day, I will make that but
Oh, I like that. That's no, that's actually a really awesome. No. Or you could do so what are the types of beer that you prefer? I myself like Belgian style wheat beers, because I'm a girl when it comes to drinking alcohol.
There's a misconception that those are you know, I'm I'm doing air quotes here girlie. There's a
don't contort your face when you drink.
That crow's feet from Okay,
well, let's get burned out on IP in 2005. I think the frankly the
first beer that Parker and I ever brewed, which was like a week after I started at macro fab. We brewed a beer that was 15.2% Alcohol. And it was like drinking motor oil. And it was amazing. It was it was really good. We call it death because we were trying to brew one beer for each horse of the apocalypse. So it started with death. That's pressure and then we tried to do pestilence. And that
is a really, really neat ideas for drawing. So my next project actually, give me a panel scratch off all this humanitarian stuff we're gonna make
my broken pin a beer is incredibly humanitarian, and it brings people together.
What was it the the fact this society could exist is because alcohol was they figured out how to ferment things. Yeah. A long, long time.
What's healthy for your gut flora? Well, beer, maybe not so much. But like sauerkraut, you know, that's all of that. That's actually what started my my liking of kombucha was that I was a teenager and I was having some I don't need to go into details, but I was having some issues. And somebody suggested that I introduce new gut flora. And they were they have their PhD in it. So I was like, okay, so I tried it and it fixed the problem and I've haven't had the problem sense. But it I like the taste. And the other thing that I like about it is that when I have a Diet Coke addiction, I like caffeine, but I don't like coffee. So it turns into me either drinking a ton of iced tea or soda, which is what most people have around. So and drinking kombucha and it takes away the desire even though it doesn't have a lot of caffeine in it. It has just enough so that I get I'll feel the carbonation. I love The carbonation. That's that's why I'm addicted to soda. And so I've been trying to get healthier, you know. So I've been running at Memorial Park and drinking kombucha like a good person from California.
As long as you don't start eating kale. Oh wait.
dried salted kale.
It's actually really good seaweed that's that way, which is very
similar. Kale Chips are really good. I mean, I know that sounds cliche to say, but my
favorite statistic about kale is before it was a big food fan of food. fad. Maybe it's a thing now. Yeah. It was like the number one use of Kale was a purchaser of it was like, CC's pizza that garnish the like food bar.
Oh, like the thing that they put underneath? Yeah. Oh, see, I
think I've seen the commercial Caesars Pizza
is a buffet that has been in
case they're in Dallas as well. Okay,
she sees pizza all you can eat for only 299. Is it CCS? Yeah, yeah. See, I see. I
wonder why we have an obesity epidemic. Yeah. You know, Houston was the fattest city in North America, like five or six years ago was surpassed so proud of man. I don't know. But the funny thing is it lost it that crown. Right when my friend Matt moved away from Houston, so I would joke
No longer did he move to the city that is now
moved to San Francisco. Oh, by the way, that's not the fattest. Yeah, it's not the bad is they walk everywhere and they're poor because a quarter million dollars a year doesn't get you shit. Staff poop stuff things. So anyways, so CC's pizza garnish. Yes, what kale is used for Yeah, I do not like a lot of fresh kale. I do like it. It fits in kale salad with Okay, here's another one quinoa. I'm sure you guys if you make like okay, so yeah, it's like a little kind of yeah, yes. Similar to how tapioca is but as a tiny little. Okay. It looks like Wanda queen. Yeah, you can buy it at all the Trader Joe's.
You know I've actually never walked into a traders Joe Jackson, Mississippi.
Okay, is the fetish. What are we talking about now? Oh, okay. Sorry. I've got so many tangents.
So of their pizza comes on kale kombucha.
Kale was used as a platter like a doily. Right? Kale was used as a doily at CCS, pizza and quinoa. But I've had kale and quinoa salad with like other things in it. And it was really good. So if you don't know what you're eating is health food. Sometimes you'll accept it better. And you'll be like, Oh, this is pretty. Like actually, that's fair trade or good. Whole Foods. No. I should get a job there.
I worked in working for horses actually has a really good kale salad.
That's probably where the one it was.
Really hipster thing ever heard Stevens.
Some items. I know that everybody assumes that, you know, if you shop at Whole Foods, that means you're rich, and some of their items are actually worth the extra. Like, kombucha. I can't find like no matter where you go, there's certain things that are going to be the same price. I'm hoping that Amazon buying them out is going to make their stuff.
It's supposed to drop the cost on the
lungs. We're getting an Aldi here. Are you familiar with them? Yeah, I really, yeah, they so history of all the, if anybody cares, all these grocery store chain, they came out of Germany. And they came out of Germany and the after World War Two, I guess they were like a small chain or their small store and turn into a chain. And the they are now trying to lower their prices by limiting their choice. And they find I mean, you know, every 10 years, we learned something new about psychology. One is the more choices people have. At one time, we thought that was good. Like with dating, dating apps for technology, the more options you have as far as cell phones, but they're actually finding and maybe this will be refuted in another 10 years is that the less the fewer choices you have. Sometimes the happier you are,
like if you it's huge. Yeah, it's easy to make a decision. Well,
as long as they're good choices, obviously under communism, where you only have one choice or death. That's not That's not good. But um, but if I have well think about it, how many times have you gone in to buy something and you're like, oh, man, and so you go researching on your phone. I buy a lot of things on Amazon. So I usually just go by what's cheapest and has the most stars. But for a lot of people, whether it be in dating or whether it be with food selection of us This is another tangent. Have you used any services like Instacart? Or any of the food where they deliver food to you from the grocery store? Yeah, a lot of times what they do is they have you pick like down to the brand down to the ounces down to all that that you want. So it's exactly what you want. But then they'll say, Okay, if that's not there, do you want us to get you something else? Or like, Are you dead set on that particular brand? Or do you care? But the when you're going through those types of choices, you realize you're like, I really don't give a shit right at first I wanted organic basmati this particular blah, blah, blah, and I wanted you know, I clipped a coupon and then you get to where you I don't care just Give me rice. And then it cuts out that extra few minutes of of having to like think about it and pass anyway. He took a bathroom break, or somebody ticketless right. Okay,
well now Yeah, yeah,
I'm talking about like, what I was talking about was that like choices and I mentioned all the grocery stores and one way that they're going to bring down prices, local to Houston, but you know, in others as well, is by limiting choice. So they only have so they sell only a couple of brands of one item, but they they're probably going to, you know, vet the companies, they're not just gonna spin a wheel.
Well, have you heard of brandless.com?
No, I haven't.
Okay. So what it is, what it is they've tried to take that exact concept and further with it. And so like peanut butter, there's no brand of peanut butter. You just say peanut butter and everything's three bucks. Because you don't have to pay any brand price on things. Kleenex isn't Kleenex, it's just a facial tissue. It's like like generic, it's so it's everything on this website is DICOM brandless.com. So go there you want whatever chips are just Oh shit.
What's interesting about this, this is actually a thing in the 60s I recall of generics and it would actually look just like those labels where it's a black label with a white like the famous one is the beer. Oh, yeah, just beer. You look up generic beer. It's a can of beer that just says beer and black.
Did these have nutrition labels and all that? Really?
Yeah, they go generic beer it's a go to white kid that has beer written on the front with how much
fluid ounces in it. I quiet my
minimalism. Oh, no more than
you I think that was so that was a big thing back then. And then
I guess Wait, they have a different one. They have light beer also.
So I guess it's certain that phases starting to come back. It's a it's like old fads comes comes in cycles. But they are so play with that right? With fire
that's a completely different kind of toy than just a regular hitting or fire ploy. I was never I was the what was the one you wore around your ankle? And you Oh. Is that a bit and it had like a counter? Yeah,
well, Saturn ball with the ring that you put Pogo ball. See as an
early 90s. I'm actually just because I actually didn't have any of these toys. So I just remember the commercials.
I was born in the 80s You can tell because on my chin.
Everyone a skateboard, a busted your chin open at one
point in time. And now I have a scar on my eyebrow that I just got a week ago. Because Jacob was dislodging the plate from the top of a tripod. And as he's just lodging it it appeared that he was pushing upward. So I get down and off to the side and I'm watching trying to figure out why the heck the lever isn't white. The plate won't come off with a tripod. And he managed to shoot it straight and hit me in the eyebrow. I had a big black eye. And I was bleeding. It's really bad. And so he's never gonna let that one down. Jacob being my podcasting partner. So he's, yeah, so he busted me in the eye really bad. And what's funny is we were getting ready to film. I was like, Well, I guess we're not filming today. We were gonna film our post Harvey like, video like we were talking about that. So
speaking the podcast so what is the podcast
about? Um, okay, so
this is this is now the maquette variety hour okay? Oh, yeah. Yeah, which is completely fine. I love it your podcast belt and
will it was supposed to be about kind of technology robotics, kind of the humanity like everything that I do, mixed in with his kind of journalism stuff. And it's kind of turned into random. However, every show has an actual topic we don't tangent like we did this time. Yeah. Yeah, we do have standards. Oh, I'm just kidding. And we don't
yeah, you're right. We Okay, so
So the make robots not war, which is a phrase that came up when I was young. And it was just a funny thing that
he said on the t shirt somewhere. I will make T shirts. If you want
to be on your screen, there was a TX RX. There was
a company a long time ago, when back when you couldn't really like a layman couldn't go to like mouser.com and buy LEDs. It was called LS diodes. And they had a bumper sticker that I had on my jeep forever until I painted it. That was called robots. No, no, no. Well, similar. No, no, no, it was similar vein knowers robots will kill you. Not speaking? No, no, it's the exact opposite.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. And yeah. And at the time that I came up with it, it we were not using robots in war to murder people. We weren't drone striking. So it was really funny. And ever since. So it was a domain I owned. I thought it was funny. And it was like, we're mostly going to talk about we also ended up touching on the topic of progressivism, because both Jacob and I are liberals. He is a former communist, which it's an interesting conversation to have. He's a former communist. And we're both kind of, you know, through more recent political things that have taken place in America. I don't know if you followed, but we have a new president. And a lot of things have taken place. And what's
the phrase from yesterday raka man's on a suicide mission. A, the the UN, Trump address the UN and said raw commands on a suicide mission? Go watch.
It's funny. You can send me a link later. You know, don't sound interesting. That was like two weeks ago in internet time, I might have forgotten. Oh, just kidding. Um, so anyway, my point is, so we decided to start a podcast because he had a background in some radio stuff. He decided he loves broadcast journalism. So he was doing that, excuse me. And I wanted to do a podcast for fun on the side of because I don't have enough things on my plate. And that's a joke for those who haven't been paying attention. And so I just threw out that name. He's like, Oh, yeah, let's go with that. That's cool. So I already had a YouTube channel, because I used to do YouTube videos a long time ago, but I did mostly tech, like, adult stuff, robot stuff, and electronics. So I used my old YouTube channel, and we've been discussing KPFT, which is local radio station, we've been interviewing people that are involved in, they're having some issues right now. They might be going bankrupt. And then we've been discussing like Hurricane Harvey, and like a lot of things that have gone on with that. And a lot of the topics we've touched on more recently have been kind of progressivism. I say recently, we just started like, in the last few months, but kind of, you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of political views that I hold. But I'm, but I'm still kind of finding my way in the world. And I feel like a lot of people that I used to think were in my voting bloc, like now those people are very, they're a lot more myopic, and what they accept, like, being a liberal to me is very much like you do you I do mean, you know, we're all, you know, just don't hurt other people. But I'm finding that a lot of people that I used to think that I shared common ground with, yeah, that those people are very much like, my way or the highway or my way or the gulag, maybe more. Yeah, kind of a rough. No, but I mean, but very, and going through Harvey, you know, we discussed this earlier, before the mics were like, We're hot that there are certain views that people hold that you kind of wonder like how they got to that point? Yeah. Like, what, what made and I try not to use that phrase, like, I can't believe it's 2017. I can't believe you believe that. But I'm trying to understand that there are people that I don't agree with at all, and they hold views that I might find abhorrent. But I still want them to have freedom of speech. And I still, because the only way you can change someone's mind, you know, even if someone holds some really disgusting views that you just then make your shutter, giving them the ability to voice those views and have a conversation discussion, you can change them because most people in their 30s Don't believe everything. They believed when they were in their teen years, you grow and you change, sometimes you harden. But I think that it's important that people, especially people that hold dangerous views, what we consider dangerous, like people that would lead to a dangerous outcome with their views. I think that it's very important that they at least feel that they can speak maybe they can't act on their views. You know, I don't want there's a lot of views that I've had. There's a lot of views that I don't agree with, but I want people to be able to voice them so that we can debate them. And because you can change someone's heart and you can change their mind when you give them the ability to speak the proper venue. Yeah, the proper venue. That doesn't mean that their words that doesn't mean that they're even entitled to getting a microphone. But they if someone If you start to shut down speech, those people don't go away. They go underground. And as we've seen with the internet, you know, people will still continue to, to form groups. But now they're dangerous. Now they're under pressure. And now they have to be secretive. Now they have to form societies that, you know, they they can't voice their concerns, and then they become an echo chamber. So they're brewing underground to use your your analogy of beer, they're brewing at a very warm temperature. So they're fermenting very quickly,
much a nasty flavors.
Yeah, they can have a lot of nasty flavors in there. And because they don't see the light of day, you, we don't see what's going on down there. But like I said, it's an echo chamber that they they're only speaking with one another. And so they're, you know, they're having their own views validated by other people that share the same viewpoint that share the same viewpoint. And it kind of it can, it can cause a lot of harm to our society in the long run. So I think at least, I don't think everybody should have access, or I don't think it's anyone's right to have access to a microphone. Like I said, like we shouldn't taxpayers shouldn't pay for this person to the platform. However, I don't think that we should squash words, when it comes to words, that's way different than actions. You know, I don't believe that words are they can be harmful. But I don't believe that words are violence. Does that make sense? And so part of our part of our podcast was more about like trying to speak with individuals that some of them I might not even agree with. There's, I don't know if you're familiar with the term MIG tau men going their own way. It's kind of a, it's men who have decided that women aren't worth their time. And I have gotten in arguments with men from this movement. And so I, we brought one on, I haven't posted the interview, we brought one on, I got to talk to the guy for a couple hours in it. And I got to understand him. Whereas before I wrote these guys off, it's just being idiots, and they just hate women. And you know, they're just stupid, whatever. But I actually sat down with one face to face. And we discussed his views, why he came to his views. And I got to explain to him why I don't agree with his views. And then I get a text a couple of weeks ago, he he made a profile on a dating site. And he's thinking about dating again, I'm like, Oh, I thought girls were the devil. But, but it's one of those things where I at least even if I don't agree with them, this particular individual, we can at least communicate, like, you know, I brought him into my home to interview him after it for a second interview once I got to know him a little bit. And I don't hold the same biases against that group. And I try to treat people as individuals. So this is rambling onto another tangent, but the so the Podcast, the podcast, we are discussing, you know, humanitarianism, and robotics and such. But for me, a lot of it is like exposing ourselves to ideas that we don't, we didn't think that we would be open to. And most of those ideas are probably going, kind of the idea is going to be on like technology, like universal basic income. Because I have certain views on universal basic income. And I have certain views on capitalism and things like that, that are political, but there's also technological solutions. Does that make sense? Yeah, like,
impacts? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
But the, I mean, the problems that we currently have technology could have a huge impact. It could be very good. And so we kind of formed the podcast so that we could discuss things like that and have it be an out.
It's awesome. Yeah. How many episodes have because
Oh, less than 10? I mean, a lot of it. We were held back by hurricane Harvey. Sure. So
it Are you up on iTunes? Yes, we are. Okay. So if you just search make robots
robots network, or if you search for my name on there, I will come up as one of the authors. So it's, it's interesting, because it's forcing me to think outside of like, I don't normally touch on political topics like that.
I think this might be the first time that we have.
But all these things hold hands, of course. I mean, like humanitarian ism. Like I said earlier, it you can't really speak about humanitarianism without bringing up politics. And so I think it's interesting, and my views are always changed. And sometimes I walk away from the table, but at least I understand somebody else's where they came from. Yeah. Because it's very easy to just throw labels at people and say that they do or assign motive to say that somebody is evil. When in reality, they're, you know, everybody feels misunderstood. Mm hmm. So everybody's a victim of someone else. So to be able to kind of have people get together and have a conversation. I don't know is that kind of a deep deeper discussion than you guys wanted to get into? No, no, I
think it's great. Oh, yeah, I think it's fantastic. Yeah.
So the the one, the guy that I spoke with the MiG tau, is I'll send you a link. It's, I don't want to mock the movement. But there are some weird characters within that kind of group. Like, if you've looked them up on YouTube, you'll there's a lot of sad cases out there. A lot of it is men who were maybe in a, in a family, and they got divorced, and they lost their children. And I've been fighting family law, they feel that they've had a lot taken from them. And they didn't have much choice, and now they can't see their own children. So you know, there's, but they come across as very angry people, or bitter, right? Very, very, like I to the point where I can't even have a conversation with most guys who identify as MIG tau. Because they just immediately make assumptions about you because of your gender, whatever. You know,
it seems like the the whole opposite of like, feminazi kind of ideal that
it is. Well, it's a response. Yeah. To the extremism in the feminism movement that has gotten into the the demand of intersectionality. Yeah, the it's definitely a response to that. And, yeah, so. But of course, they they view women a certain way versus like, you mentioned the word feminazi. Right. Here's your term. They view men a certain way. Yep. And, you know, it's just two sides to the exact same coin. And I actually mentioned that to him in the interview. I told him, you know, in my introduction to him, I said that I, that I, what my viewpoints are of his movement, then I give him the opportunity to respond. Yeah, I understood him a lot. It was, you know, it was very eye opening for me. So anyway.
I have, like, I don't, I never said that. No, never heard that. I've heard a feminist but like, I don't pay attention.
That's good thing you've heard of?
I don't know, I just don't pay
the attorney Gala. terian. No, I don't call myself a feminist. I'm in a gala. terian meaning I believe the feminist movement, originally in its inception, was rooted in some kind of racist like, it was more about middle to upper class white women getting the vote like suffragettes versus equality for all. And so even though they're skating on this, oh, feminism is about equality. It's like, that's not what it was based on. I mean, I understand times were different. So it probably means the second wave feminism
is where the sexual revolution not right, but first first wave was just like, Let us vote. Yeah. Right. And let us own land.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that is that is it was on paper, right to a degree. And then second wave. And then in 1963, with the human, the, oh, my goodness, the Civil Rights Act, that that was supposed to be like equal pay. And then the Lilly led better, which was under Obama administration in 2009, the Lilly led better was actually more about equal pay, by law, meaning if you pay a woman less because of her gender, not because of you know, fewer years education, are you no less experienced, but if you simply use gender, that's very illegal. And if that does happen, women need to report it, because not only will they become millionaires, because they want a settlement, because we don't, like tolerate that anymore in the US. But in addition to that, they need to nip it in the bud. I'm tired of hearing these women say Oh, well, I worked for this company, and they took advantage of me. When you do anything you live in you live in the West, you should say something like, you know, unless your life is in jeopardy, and then you should really say something, because because we do still have sexism. I don't believe it's systemic in the sense that you know, it's our country doesn't allow it legally in our Constitution. But we're probably always going to struggle and I think we should because we're humans and humans have to struggle, right? Okay, don't we? Yeah. Do you think that's why we all got along during Harvey because we were all trying to struggling everybody was struggling to survive. So we liked each other
in our living rooms, the moment the water like receded like people were
cutting you off. Yeah. A road rage
incidents is I was I was taking a back road home a couple days ago. And so everyone, it was two lanes that went down to one lane to take a right turn on a main feeder road. And for those that don't live in Houston feeder roads are what we call access for this. Yeah. Business roads in the side. Yeah. Anyways, and so everyone's getting into the right lane early so we can get in line to take the right lane. And this one guy starts driving down the street and left lane the cut in front of people I roll my window down and we're just like, like, you can't see if I was like middle finger. And like just pan And then I looked at my rearview mirror and like everyone's just laughing behind me, like laughing at me for getting so angry at that guy, because I couldn't do anything. I guess.
Robots will kill you bumper sticker,
I wish. And actually really thought I'm like, This is why I really wanted to do was take like, get some water balloons filled with water. And that being that same situation just chunk water balloons out them. I knew a guy that would park get me shot college
that would flick pennies at people on in traffic. That's a little dangerous. Yeah. Because I mean, I think the point like if someone behind him or wherever. I think the point was, if you hit the window, they hear it and they they jumped Yeah,
well, I do honk my horn, I catch people on their phones, and they'll be looking down I go. And then they won't
mess with me. So in the new operating system, to bring it back to Apple and the new operating system, they have a way I think Android has had this for quite a while that you can ask your phone that while you're driving. It can either be manual you turn it on, or it could it could sense that you're connected to Bluetooth or it could sense that you're in motion, like driving, and it can send all of your notifications elsewhere. Like they sit in the cloud until you arrive. Oh wait, but they can also respond. So if it's a text that can let the person know that you're driving and
yeah, because it's now illegal in Texas do it should take a while driving. It
should be. Are you familiar with Warner's Herzog? Werner Vernors Herzog. He's a German. Yeah, he does like documentaries. He did a small documentary very short. About people that had died due to like, it was something about how like it would just be two words like be there in a sec. And then that was the last thing someone texted, and then they died. And it it just took that one. One guy was saying he was on a country road. Yeah, beater road, if you will. And he said he just he like texted the word. Yeah. And then he he veered over and hit someone head on and the other person died. And yeah, lose a life over something. I just wait till I get there. Yeah.
Yeah, I have my phone set to automatically just go to vibrate. Okay, on the road. Yeah.
When I just don't mess with my phone when I'm driving.
I'll be entirely honest. This was incredibly stupid, but I did it because I, I could and I was young. Yeah, I texted once on a motorcycle going 70 miles an hour. No hands on the on the bars. I was sitting eggs. Oh, no. And like, that was just like, I look back at that. And I was I was a lot younger. You didn't wear gloves? Or they know I didn't have gloves on at the time. Yes. i It was one of those things I have. So I challenged myself one time I was on a super long motorcycle ride. And I actually rode 900 miles in a single day. And I challenged myself. Wait
a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait there. 14 drivable hours rideable with P brake? Yep. That would make 13 drivable hours at how many miles per hour
8585
How did you do? 900?
Yeah, I did. 900 I left my okay. This was the day after I graduated college. The morning after I graduated college. I got on my motorcycle at 530 in the morning. And I don't remember what time I got off the bike. I do. Remember when I got off the bike. I was at a hotel room. I put the bike down and I almost dropped it because I was so tired and you're vibrating. But here's the thing. I filled my motorcycle eight times that day, and I challenged myself once I filled the motorcycle up with gas I got on the freeway and I was like I'm not going to put my hands on the bars until I need gas again. So I rode I rode my hands on a bike was it? In fact, we were working on it last weekend. Racer No, no, no, it's a big cruiser. Big, big heavy. It's
up. It's a Honda hardly be okay.
If you lean right, janitor. Yeah,
I had a ninja that if you got it up to speed, you could kind of Yeah, lean a little bit.
Yeah, I did. 100 110 miles with my hands off the I'm not proud of that. But it
was it sounds like you're proud of it. It was fun. Don't try this at home. This is a weird podcast. That's gonna be I think that might be the title. Don't try this at home. try this at home. Actually. I
like that. So
what's actually on the list? Actually?
My favorite tool is my Puck five. It's a little TIG welding.
Oh, yeah. So yeah, on this list was favorite tools. Question mark.
Yeah, it's a little. It's a welding. So landmine tracking robots. It talks about that. Yeah, sort of. I don't know if anybody understood what I said. favorite tools is my Puck five and then I have a hydraulic press. suzani Dan,
how many tons 20. Nice.
I think it might be more 20 It's at least 2020 is
great. 20 is enough to know Do you really make a break sheet but it but if you have a die you can you can make that.
So I'm going so because I again, I don't have enough on my plate, I'm actually getting into some small wearable electronic stuff like devices. And one of the things I want to do is more jewelry grade so I'm working with fine silver and gold. That's what what that was for them. Yeah, the welders for that. And then the like I said I have some projects. I've been working mostly with like different types of texturing and such doing metal
smithing just pushing texture into it, right? Well,
yeah, doing that. But then also like hand using fret frets or frets, tools, hammers, and such texturing tools. Also, because I like physical things, I was a software developer for so long that once in a while, like if I had been doing things on my computer, I want to touch I like tactile and I want to actually build something that moves around and interacts with me as opposed to just being a piece of software I can delete. So that's what are you? Are you software?
No, no, just the you can't just delete it.
Yeah. So favorite tools would be my Puck five right now. I mean, this changes. Yeah. And then my probably My Bonnie Doom press. And then I like hand tools like I'm getting into you know, I don't like I don't know if you can tell I get me a manicure because I'm going to be going to a wedding. But my, my fingernails have never looked like girl hands. I have very large hands and I pretty masculine hands. And so for years doing welding and all of that I put a lot of years on my hands. And so now I'm going to a few weddings in the next few months. And so I went and got a manicure. So now I'm sticking with the MIG welding and anything that's not too like not a lot of chemicals, things
like that. So pink nails and in MIG welding
Yeah, I actually let Twitter vote on my fingernail color. I was gonna do black red or like a pink color. And everyone voted for pink so
what why don't why don't we do pink fingernails as the the secret code word for the podcast this week. So if
you if my server password, I'm just kidding.
If you email in pink fingernails to podcast at Mac fab.com along with your address, we will send some sweet swag your way if you are in the United States. Games. We kind
of Yeah.
Pink fingernail
it's big chicken. Yeah. Stephens
game. Steve Steve's getting this is a long bug. Oh,
it's already long. So we're just keep going. Right?
Yeah, we'll keep we keep going. So Steve's game. When we have a guest we play a quick game, I asked you a question he answered.
So the sound just like a like Game Show tacos. That's what I'm trying to do like you in around 1am in the morning.
So in in the vein of of robotics and education. What I was thinking is we would play a quick game where we do the thing that everyone did back in like physics in high school, and you have to throw an egg off the top of a building and you have to not crack the egg. What would you do? Oh, me? Yeah.
Oh, I already know what to do. I would have those. The egg. Well, they call them egg cartons. Oh, wait, you weren't allowed to use an egg carton or you know, do you do whatever you want. I would use the soundproofing foam that has acoustic tiles. Yeah, acoustic tiles. And I would have to and then I would have boxes on both sides, but with a little bit of air so that it you know would land so it would cushion a little. And then I do rubber bands. But I do so many rubber bands that he even if some of them snapped, they would, it would still survive. And the reason I do that is because I was fortunately teamed up with a smart guy. When we did that project and RS was one of the only ones to survive. Nice through all what they do is they keep you keep dropping them. Yep. And they drop them a different way higher and higher until there's only one survivor and I had nothing to do with the success of that project.
It's like, it's like Battle Royale or Hunger Games. Yeah, eggs.
Yeah. I think I was also the student that I surprisingly enough, I was quiet. I was kind of introverted back then. So people thought I was smart. So I skated on people thinking I was smart, long enough for them to treat me like I was smart. And then it became smart because I was filtered up with the smart kids. So I got to hang out with the smart kids only because the teachers thought I was smart. So I'm not really smart. I just hang out with smart people osmosis. Yes. And so to bring that back. That's how I won the EggDrop. And that's how we did it was we had like hundreds of rubber bands wrapped around. Cool. Okay, so how would you do
so? I've been playing last I've been playing this game called Kerbal Space Program nerd. Yeah. So I was actually playing it last night a little bit after Steve and I finished playing pub G G. And I would take the AIG and launch it fast enough to reach orbits. So we never hit the ground.
Oh, it's such a you're a dorky you're such a dork.
That's no,
it but it's but it works. It's an answer. Yeah. No.
And only you have to be careful about is is the acceleration
was I used to hate when people would figure out the the
loophole. The thing about Steve's game is there's just like, so there's no rules. You know, I think myself knowing the way I handle these kinds of things, I would probably just go to like Home Depot and get like a three inch PVC tube and just fill it with foam and
just, you're not allowed to, are you allowed to like enclose it in foam
in Steve's game, you're allowed to do whatever they
put it in foam. Like,
you just can't crack the shell. That's the rule. Right?
That's right. You have to open it up and pull the egg out of or you have to handle the oil that right? Yeah. Yeah, you can't you can't cook the
I will put it on a quadcopter down the tank.
The guys that scrambled eggs inside the shell and then cook it.
Oh, using friction. I saw a guy do it
once where he spun it fast enough that it just such.
Oh, are you familiar with Orbital tube welding? Or friction welding? You know how they can take two pipes? Yeah, right. Spin them fast enough and they will melt base. Yeah, like butter or something? Yeah. But yeah, orbital tube welding, I believe don't quote me on this. A friend of mine was an orbital tube welder at SpaceX and was trying to explain to me and it was a similar kind of process
what he can you can egg that way though. Just by spinning speed is so fast. You spin it faster?
Because I No, no, no, no, somebody didn't scramble an egg as in they didn't cook it by spinning it. What they did was they broke the yolk and mixed it all up inside the show. Then you hard boil it and when you peel it all open, it's yellow. The whole thing is yellow. homogenous.
No, no. Cooking it took it because I know
if you because serotine Yeah, it's to the Yeah, it's an egg.
Do I need to go to youtube here and now
xenobiology
I wonder how fast you'd have to spin and
you have to spend a very Have you ever tried to make pancakes and mixing an egg white with an egg yellow is not
easy. You have to like whip it. Yeah, yeah. Whip whip it good. Yeah.
So my husband noticed the other day. That ready whip because it was his birthday. So we had ready whip for the cake party. Whatever. That another tangent. Ready whip the lid looks like DeVos hat so I hope he doesn't listen this podcast because I lied and said I knew it. But he he was trying to be funny when we grow Did you notice that? This totally looks like a TiVo hat and they sing the song Whippet I go Yeah, I know they did that on purpose. It was like I never lied to him ever is first off, I can't pull it off. But I just I I be like, Oh, you're really smart. But it was kind of like shut up stupid at your birthday. Like Shut up. So, so that he noticed that it's I don't know why I brought this up. You mentioned egg
whites when whipping it and what? Yeah, there we go.
Yeah. Okay, so yes, ready whip. Caps look like DeBose hats. And I don't know if that's intentional or not, you could Google it. You have a little assistant over there.
Which came first Devo hats a weapon or egg whites?
I know already what came out first? Yeah, so the egg white thing. Can you explain to me how they whip the how they sorry, how they mix? The white and the yellow? Do they puncture the shell? I know I like them. Membrane is that the roll?
The guy he wrapped it up in like a towel and then spins the towel up like basically spins up and then pulls either spins at a really high
it's like that toy where where you spread your hand and spins up and yeah.
And you get you get the thing like repin and then you stop it immediately such that all the juice inside the egg kind of just experiences a lot of rotational G's and mixes itself and then he hard boiled it and you get said scrambled hard boiled egg. Yeah.
I will have your to send me the link, I'll have to see that tip believe it because I think that it doesn't make sense to me like the physics because there's not air inside of a, like you'd need air for it to mix right?
I think just the you can still I think just the density mix difference and have to be really fast.
So I will send you another one. There's a guy who makes a contraption for what's called a long egg. Where it is a continual tube. Think of think of a tube where that where it's I've seen that it's
on the Japanese foods use a slice
Yeah. And and a an English meat pie called a Gomer pie. Okay has what's called a long egg in the middle of it such that if you cut any slice, you get the same little like bullseye of egg. And I believe
that because that doesn't defy the laws of physics. And I've seen something kind of similar. So this
guy uses a Suvi maker and a bunch of like weird PVC stuff and he makes an egg that's like 12 inches long, and it's white on the outside and it's got a yoga and he looks like Colonel Sanders. So the guy does. Yeah, the guide looks exactly it looks like Colonel Sanders telling you how to make it
look into Steve's YouTube history. It's just like all the weird
eggs Okay, yeah. And then electronic project.
We can keep going with this. Oh, yeah. So
this this could go. This could go for a very long time. Yeah. So okay, let's let's kind of reel it back here. Okay. Annika. Where can people find more about what you do? Oh, she's on topic. See what I did there.
An article Brian calm. That's an Ni k A OB r i e n.com. And I think excuse me, I think I have links. If you go youtube.com forward slash Annika O'Brien. And then on Twitter among Annika Skywalker is that name wasn't taken. It's like Luke Skywalker. You're like, yeah, Ian and I are Anniken Skywalker before he was
in a kin with to it. Yeah.
ENN aka Skywalker. Yeah. So I yeah, I mostly right now I'm sticking with the humanitarian stuff. Houston Robotics Club is my main focus. I have a couple of other projects that could pop up. If so you will see me on television, you'll at least see some of my robots on television. Actually, we never touched on. Oh, my God. Told me so what is Annika do for money? How does she afford this luxurious lifestyle, I make robots. And one of them a lot of what I'm doing, where the real money is, is, is in consulting. It's not even in the making the making, like you go on set, you can build quite a bit per day. But you put a lot of hours in before that day happens. So film day, you can build like $5,000 for a day, which sounds like a lot of money. But it's like weeks of prep, and it's building, you know, it's building this thing before you actually make it to the set. However, consulting is what I enjoy. Because you can talk to somebody who you know, usually, usually it's like a director. It's one of their underlings. And you get a lot of it is verifying that the physics and the electronics that they have in their mind are real. Yeah, I mean, I think the show or Yeah, the television show, er, they had a lot of consultants that would just say, Yes, that's a real word or things like that. It's a real process. Yeah, like if someone opened for this, oh, this is how you would say it or house,
you know, everything is lupus, or all of these other things that they can cause Yeah,
I don't make lupus robots. But um, so a lot of the projects that I've done that are higher paying in the last, you know, few years have been consulting gigs. Um, usually it's a third party. So you're not, it's not like I get film credit. But there's a couple of projects that I'm working on where I would probably get IMDb credit, because I would be like right there next to the robot, and which is a lot of fun. And then, you know, sci fi NatGeo Game Show Network is one that I've worked with quite closely. And then on the side, I'm doing the Houston Robotics Club, which I really enjoy. And I think what I like about it more than anything, is that I don't have to be the driving force. I have so many other people that are involved in the club, that I can almost just I would say that if I end up not being the president, I wouldn't be surprised because there's so many people that are so incredibly devoted that all they want to see is for Houston to have this club. And they're willing to put if they don't have the funding to do it themselves. They're willing to put up all the time to make sure that it works and they're willing to pull their resources. And so I've been deemed the benevolent benefactor, which
isn't gonna be like a painting on the wall of any
amount of more like a big flag or standard.
We can have a flag. We can have a flag we can You know, start our own nation
but also you'd be like like you was in North Korea like everyone at the dinner table has the the great leader on Omar our dear leader or dearly that's what it's called.
Yes. That's
that's not that's scary
yeah
no it's so another XR x where we meet at for the longest time our meeting area in the background had the the painting from Ghostbusters
The the evil guy like the legit well
it no no no no somebody had painted had made it is really well
that was that was Ghostbusters two six.
Yeah right sorry Ghostbusters two it's like six to eight feet tall, I think was enormous. Yeah. And somebody had made it there. And the the frame was very well done. They
had because reasons. Yeah.
Yeah, we get nerdy a tree. Yeah. So they anyway, so somebody had made that it was really cool. So maybe we'll have that. And I don't want my painting because it's weird. I just kind of started it. I was like the one who kind of threw out the seeds and watered it. And then other people have come in with their What was your fecal matter? You were talking about how well you
Oh, yeah, mulch in 108? Yes, yeah.
They came in mulch it and wind it and germinated, we're known for that I started. And it was, I've had so much support in Houston from just kind of grassroots II kind of stuff. And we have so many big ideas with the club, like things that we want to accomplish in Houston, that I'm like, I'm excited. And with La Robotics Club. I think it was that timing. I think at the time. There were a lot of people that wanted to be involved, but they just didn't have the resources or by resources, I mean time. And they just it was very difficult for me to get people to be actually involved. And now here, it's I'm kind of the Slowpoke. I'm the one that is the bottleneck. You know, everyone we have? Sorry. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of other weird things. So some of our members do not like using social media. They do not like using like Google products. They prefer to use DuckDuckGo. Like, like various national leaves we as Yeah, well. They use they use? Yeah, they use weird methods of communication, and they won't use Google. So we had this as another tangent we had, we have our meetings. And in our meetings, it's always like, mostly us trying to figure out like, Okay, will you please use the Google document? Can you they always have like these different random, like software projects that they're working on that they want me to use, and then they never work. You know, we do use GitHub, obviously, because that's the gold standard repository for where we keep all of our all of our code. But I'm like, speaking in circles, here. We have, we have a lot of projects that we're going to be doing, we will be discussing them at Maker Faire. And then mostly community community interaction, like we want to offer free classes, we have classes already, but we want to have projects that help like hurricane victims, like what Station Houston has some apps that they're developing, and we want to kind of be involved in not just cool, fun, entertaining robots, but we would like to go to the, like the Children's Hospital and interact with kids that haven't been able to leave their beds. And take projects that we're proud of, but the do something good, that make people smile or save lives, things like that. So it sounds kinda like its big picture, but but it's the direction that not just I'm driving the club, the other people that are kind of higher up by higher up, I mean, the people that show up every single week, and that are involved in the bylaws of the group. We're kind of all it's like one giant bust that's kind of moving in the same direction. And we all get along really well. And we all have completely different backgrounds. And so it's a lot of fun, just because I can see that we're going to get we're going to get everything done. Yeah. Versus in LA. It was like, I was always kind of hopeful that something would happen, but we never really got traction. So does that make sense? That was a really long way to say that. I'm grateful for Houston and the robot nerds here that are helping my club, sir. Thumbs up. Yeah. Thumbs up, two thumbs up. All right. Any more questions? And I'll ask you a question.
Yeah. I suppose question go for it.
Which favorite kind of beer?
I'm cold. More specific. That's always like the that's like a cheeky answer, I guess. Yeah. Um, my favorite beer is a local beer brewed by buffalo by you. It's called the it's more cowbell. It's an IPA. But it's very delicious. And it comes in 16 ounce cans.
And are they going to sponsor your next podcast?
They actually do sponsor our, our meetup, but they don't bring that beer. Okay. Okay, we can see
if the our listeners will help me out with this. I don't want to be a douche or anything like that. But I'm looking for a recipe for a particular beer that was brewed in like 2010. By St. Arnold's center owner. And the brewery here in town, does a beer called a divine reserve, which they brew one time they sell it. And then once it's out, its out. And divine reserve number 12 Was it called an old ale. And it's the best beer I've ever had. And it was one of those ones where I got it. I got like, two six packs. And that was it. And the thing is, my buddy, who works at Hewlett Packard, actually works with the guy who brewed the beer originally, because St. Albans, a lot of times, what they do is they brew off of someone who wins a contest, okay, and this guy won that contest. So I've tried back channels to try to reach this guy and be like, Dude, I don't want to steal your beer. I'm not going to try to make money. I just want to make a lot of it for me, you know, and I have not been able to get the recipe. So old ale is is potentially one of my favorite styles of beer, and that one in particular is the best.
So Oh, so it's one of those. So it's one of those things that do you think the rarity has anything to do with why you liked it?
Absolutely.
Yeah. It was really brutal. Like,
let's I mean, this is my arable, I'm afraid so my favorite beer that I liked. Not to bring it back to me but was one that I asked the waiter what it was called, and I wrote it down, but I didn't know how it spelled I thought it was Japanese was snowplow. And the way he said it, I thought he was saying, so I wrote it down. Like I would write in Japanese. And I'm like, no idea what he just said. But I didn't want to sound like an idiot. So I wrote it down. And over a couple of years, I finally asked someone I was like, you'd kind of what you just did I call to arms. Like, has anybody heard of snow plow? They're like, Oh, snow plow. Like. It's a winner brothers beer, which don't. Yeah, I know Widmer brothers. It's like they are sellouts. Right. Isn't Widmer brothers supposed to be one of the ones that were not supposed to have? Pride.
That's the big brewery here in Houston. Karbach. got bought.
Yeah, and I know, but you know what? Okay, so so that's another thing we could touch on. When we talked about all the these breweries. And that got bought out. Now more people can drink their beer. And they because it's economy of scale, right.
All the all the local starts drying up. Yeah. And
a lot of people in the community wasn't too thrilled. Yeah,
I'll put this way is is Karbach beer. I won't buy it, but I'll definitely drink it. Okay. That's my view on it. snob.
snowplow was my favorite, and I'm terrified that if I were to drink it today, I think it's disgusting. And it's kind of a chocolatey finish. Oh, was it dark,
then keep it as like, the last time I had a divine divine reserve. 12 was Christmas a few years ago. And I remember it was cold. And I just sat out on my porch drinking it and it was like, That was a fantastic memory. So I really don't want to have another one because it was just like it would it would ruin it. It's kind of like Firefly the television show where it's like it was good. It was you don't want
more episodes because,
ya know if there was
bad, but I'm glad I'm glad Breaking Bad ended on a high note. Yeah. And Firefly.
I didn't like Firefly.
I mean, that's okay. You don't judge. Like I said, I'm all about I'm open to I'm open to sitting in a room with someone that I hate. So, so, yeah, it's funny. You mentioned that about the memories associated with that beer snowplow. I was at Moon shadows in Malibu, which sounds very fancy, that sounds really very, it's very expensive. But I was I was not. I was not paying. And it was. It was like a work related thing. And so somebody else picked up the tab. And so of course I was you know, I didn't drink alcohol at the time. So it was like one of the first beers I had ever had. So it was I think it was more the memory association that I was watching seagulls over the ocean, and it was just beautiful thing. And I knew this was a memory I could never have afforded at that age. It was in my early 20s. And yeah, I'm like, oh my god, I'm drinking beer like a rich fancy person in Malibu
as well. So I never have that big fancy. Yeah, and
now it's got this memory of but it actually tasted good. In addition to Yeah, yeah. And it was seeing
all Moon shiny. Moon shadowy whatever it
was exactly. Shiny. Yeah.
Well, I think I think we've set three records so far with this podcast. Well, length for sure. Topics randomness for sure. And the most amount of beer drinking. Yeah,
I only had like two
Yeah. Stephen actually, I think set the record I only had two as well
and that's in kombucha that I brought from that means
fermented and it does have alcohol so we're gonna we're gonna
have enough to Uber home. That'd be five bucks, like right up the street.
Well, cool with that. You want to sign us out?
Um, yes. That was the macro fad engineering podcast and I was your guest, Annika Oprah.
And we're your hosts of the maktab variety our Parker
and Steven Craig later everyone take it easy
bye thank you yes, you our listener for downloading our show. Have you ever a cool idea or project or topic that you want Steven tonight to discuss Tweet us at macro fab? Or email us at podcast at macro calm? And isn't it weird? If you said Tweet us at at macro fab calm because it's the Twitter stuff is at? Maybe I think that's weird. Anyways, um, if you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, click that subscribe button. It's somewhere in the app you use or It's on iTunes or somewhere there. That way you can get the latest map episode right when it releases. So please review us on iTunes or the app you use like was it? Podcast burner? Podcast, podcaster. Podcast, whatever. That way the show stays visible and helps us find new listeners. Thank you
Matthew Prater joins Parker and Stephen to discuss his student's innovation projects and antimatter positrons.