Ep.7: Augmented Reality & Hamilton: The Last Airbender

Link to Question Submission Form

Contact us at yondercast@gmail.com

Episode Agenda with Time Stamps:

• 01:00 - Banter: Yondercast lore, Drew & Ian’s band demo, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Legacy video game, chainsaws and onion-safe glasses, Weird Al’s UHF, 
• 16:56 - Hamilton: The Last Airbender (A special musical mash-up of Hamilton and Avatar: The Last Airbender)
• 19:24 - Banter Continued: Lin Manuel Miranda & Moana, starstruck stories - Stanton Moore & Greg Oden 
• 22:58 - Main Discussion: Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality with our special guest Drew

Credits:

• Cover Art Photo: Mosby Lake - follow this dog on instagram at regular_mo.
• Cover Art Font: Paper Cuts 2 by Empire of Dust (Daniel Werneck) is Public Domain.
• Intro Music: Shortened version of “Sweat Time” by Loyalty Freak Music is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.
• Outro Music: Shortened version of “Alethia” by Nihilore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Ep.7: Augmented Reality & Hamilton: The Last Airbender

Ian: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Yondercast. My name is Ian Lake. And this week I am joined by a man who is snazzier than a three piece suit Patrick Leitch.

Patrick: [00:00:13] Wow. Hi. 

Ian: [00:00:14] I'm also joined by the human equivalent of overalls, Josh Baltzell.

Josh: [00:00:20] I have never been described more accurately. Thank you. 

Ian: [00:00:23] And for the first time in Yondercast history, we have a special guest with us today. This guy has been a friend and a supporter of the show from the very beginning and has been a friend and a supporter of me personally for many years before that. He is a bangin' bassist. He is a heck of a cook. He's drop dead handsome.

One might say he's just a real tuxedo of a man. Drew welcome to the show.

Drew: [00:00:49] wow. 

Yeah. Thank you for having me. I was going to say that I'm a longtime listener, but it hasn't really been that long since you started. It's just felt like an eternity this year, but I've been with you since the beginning. So I'm glad to be on the other side.

Patrick: [00:01:03] We love 

Ian: [00:01:03] true you're one of our earliest fans. talked about one of your, listener submitted questions on the show.

Josh: [00:01:11] that was you.

Drew: [00:01:12] Yeah. The three D printing knows me. Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts on three D printing. yeah, I was actually just, brushing up on my yonder cast lore before I jumped in here. So I was listening to previous episodes. So I was caught up with everybody.

Ian: [00:01:25] I w I wonder what, what are, what, okay. What is Yondercast lore. Cause I don't know what that means.

Drew: [00:01:31] Well you're you're mean to Josh I mean, well, he you're just like, just like, just like, like average mean not like to me, but, and then he's also working on a PhD. I know that.  Oh, your kidney stones. That's a main piece 

of the Lore

Patrick: [00:01:48] I think it would feel like that's half of the tomb of lore,

Drew: [00:01:52] that Wiki, the fan Wiki entry on that one is pretty big. 

Ian: [00:01:55] I hope that I hope that they're like the infinity stones, like they provide ultimate power. 

Drew: [00:02:02] And you've spread them around the galaxy because it's just too much power for one person to wield.

Ian: [00:02:09] And when you, uh, when you reunite them,

Drew: [00:02:11] In your kidney, you have to have the key, cause you can't have the stones just by themselves. You have to have the gauntlet. So you have

Ian: [00:02:16] Yeah. My kidney, my kidney has little slots.

Patrick: [00:02:23] Well, I'd hate to hear the sound. It's not a snap. What's the sound

Josh: [00:02:27] just Ian screaming in agony.

Drew: [00:02:30] Aye.

Ian: [00:02:33] Well, we usually start the show by just kind of bantering about things that have been going on in our lives and, you know, things that we've been entertained by or occupied by or bothered by sometimes. Drew what's something that's been going on in your life so that the listeners can get to know you a little bit.

Drew: [00:02:48] So I have been spending every waking moment of my life for the past few weeks, working on putting the finishing touches on Ian and I's band and our album demo. So, my voice is completely shot. I'm very tired, but I'm powering through and I'm very glad to have done. It was out the door yesterday. Ian killed it, Ian was not on it, but Ian killed it. Unfortunately, I had to replace him with some robot drums, because of recording setup reasons, but nonetheless being killed it. Ian's an add on note it, I mean, this is a new piece of Yondercast lore, that. Ian is an incredible, I mean, truly world class, and actually, Ian and I have been playing in bands together since, I mean, for over 10 years now.

And our first band, the name was Pillar of Autumn, which, astute, listeners might know is the name of the main ship from the Halo franchise and our first gig, we opened with the Halo theme song. So,

Yeah, just the, the nerdiness is, is not new. Yeah.

Patrick: [00:03:53] need a

Ian: [00:03:54] that we did that.

Patrick: [00:03:55] Someone gave me a little sample of that right now.

Drew: [00:03:58] I don't, I, I mean, I'm, I'm sure that my parents are going to be listening to this and they'll feel really bad about it, but they used to video record everything, but they didn't, they didn't record that one.

So

Ian: [00:04:09] It's lost to

Drew: [00:04:10] it's lost the time

Ian: [00:04:12] it only belongs in the Yondercast lore. Now that's the only place it exists.

Patrick: [00:04:17] There has to be something online with that. There has to, Google is probably going crazy right now trying to figure it out. 

Drew: [00:04:23] if you want to dig, I think I remember seeing Ian's dad with a video camera at that gig, whether or not he used it is a question, but maybe there. 

Ian: [00:04:34] I'll see if he can dig out his old, uh, mini cassette tapes that that camera used to run on and see if there's some way that we could actually watch them. 

see if I can find that. 

Drew: [00:04:45] So Ian is such an incredible drummer that in order to recreate his sound, I had to play all of our previous recordings that he'd played on at half-speed so they actually could pick up all the details. So he's, he's very good. And it's, it's been a lot of fun to work on,

Ian: [00:05:01] now drew has created this situation where I have to now play better than the drum machine, which is at sometimes be kind of difficult. So

Drew: [00:05:10] Yeah. Yeah. It's like a real Paul Bunyan situation where you're, you're racing against the machine and your heart might give out at the end of it, but we'll, we'll see, that was Paul Bunyan. Right? I'm getting my Americana lore correct here?

Ian: [00:05:24] I think so.

Drew: [00:05:24] Okay. We're going to go with Paul Bunyan. Everyone knows.

Everyone knows the story of him carbon his way through a mountain. So

Ian: [00:05:31] Yeah, it's not Americana anymore. It's the Yondercast lore.

Drew: [00:05:37] you've, co-opted that? It's now yours. 

Ian: [00:05:41] So Patrick and Josh, what's been keeping you busy. It's been a couple of weeks since we've recorded and had a conversation like this.

Patrick: [00:05:47] Well, I'm pretty excited as a coach for basketball and golf. Like this is one of the only times I've ever seen it, where almost every major sport is on TV. Like we watched soccer this morning with my little guy. we watched some NFL, we watched some NBA yesterday. It's  It's pretty crazy that now sports teams are isolating and staying by themselves for the most part. you're able to actually to see like all seasons of sports at the same time, and I know not everyone might be into sports and everything else, but it's kind of cool that usually things that are separated to their own seasons now have this nice little overlap.

So it's almost kind of like, Oh, there's kind of something always on. So if you're bored and want to check something out that you don't usually get to see this time of year. That's been kind of fun. Although my little guy is confusing every sport with everything else. 

Drew: [00:06:08] That's what I do now. So.

Patrick: [00:06:11] but that's pretty much been a lot of my time is trying to correct that.

Okay. Yeah. That's, that's a football, not a baseball. That's a soccer ball, not a basketball. So he's getting there. We've got a lot of work to do.

Drew: [00:06:22] Yeah, you should help me next. 

Patrick: [00:06:25] I'll have him help you. It might be better for him.

Ian: [00:06:28] that's the best way to learn, right. Is to teach somebody else. Is that overwhelming at all? Having all of those different sporting events  constantly overlapping with each other and one after another, is it feel like you just have to be watching sports all the time?

Patrick: [00:06:41] Yes. And no, mainly it's more, almost overwhelming because my attention span and his attention span also overlap. So like this morning we were watching some like champions league Euro league soccer, and he's like, I wanna watch Mickey mouse club. And I'm like, Oh my God. So we had to literally every commercial break switch off between Mickey mouse, clubhouse, soccer, the office, a lot of different things all while he's playing with all his toys and everything else.

So he's in control remote. So yes, it is very chaotic when a two and a half year old is in control of the TV, remote

Ian: [00:07:17] that's awesome. Joshua, it's been keeping you busy.

Josh: [00:07:20] God, just tons of video, game news.

Drew: [00:07:23] Bethesda,

Josh: [00:07:24] Yes. Purchased by Microsoft. So now they're going to have to finish games before releasing them.

Drew: [00:07:31] of the biggest acquisitions of all time.

Josh: [00:07:35] there is. There's just a lot going on. Did you guys see the Hogwarts Legacy

Drew: [00:07:41] Yes. Yeah, it

Ian: [00:07:43] looks so good.

Josh: [00:07:44] I've been waiting for that game for 10 years?

Drew: [00:07:47] I'm worried about the developer though.

because it's, so there's avalanche studios and then there's avalanche games. So one of them like made the Just Cause series and everything. And then the other one made like Disney Infinity games and stuff. And which one do you guess is working on Harcourt?

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll

see.

Josh: [00:08:09] bad, I'm going to be miserable because I've seriously been waiting for that game forever. I I've been following it since the leak two years ago.

Drew: [00:08:17] Yeah. All I want out of that game is a decent Quidditch mini game. That's it? That's all I want.

Josh: [00:08:24] I'm just excited that you, it looks like you can kill people.

Why is it that I always bring up killing people every time we talk, but like, it looks like fun. Like, it looks like you can actually use spells to kill people. Like it's got a darker undertone.

Drew: [00:08:40] you can be evil, right? Like you can, you can, yeah, you can go full slitherin.

Josh: [00:08:44] I'm going to, I'm a Hufflepuff, but. 

Ian: [00:08:46] It's kind of the perfect game for them to offer you these different like routes in terms of like good virtuous, evil, you know, because  that's like built into the franchise, from the bottom up there's good and evil. There's the dark arts and the light arts.

They never call it that, but you know, there's like, there's, there's bad magic and there's good

Drew: [00:09:07] The fun, happy time art's

Ian: [00:09:11] And then at this school, there is like slitherin which represents the dark arts at the school and everybody else that doesn't and so, yeah, it seems like an easy thing for them to incorporate. I just liked the look of the castle.

It seemed like they were visually putting a lot of work into making the castle a fun place to walk around.  they showed some clips of, you know, the staircases and the, the grand hall and all of that. And it looked good 

Josh: [00:09:33] At the very least it's going to be really pretty. It might have the worst gameplay ever. But that's okay. Cause it's pretty. And you could just walk around like a tourist simulator.

Drew: [00:09:43] did you play the old Harry Potter games? Cause those, those would be tough to beat in terms of worst game play of all time.

Josh: [00:09:48] Hey, chamber of secrets. That was one of the greatest games ever made. All of the others are absolute crud, but chamber of secrets was high quality.

Drew: [00:09:59] Sorcerer's stone I never finished because the chess match at the end was too hard for me. 

Josh: [00:10:04] Oh, see, I don't remember.

Patrick: [00:10:06] I hope it's something like fable where you the houses are almost dynamic or a decision you make might like lean you towards the different house. Like  Joshua goes nuts and like kills a few people, maybe you start getting darker and darker, and then you make your way into like a slitherin house.

Drew: [00:10:20] okay.

Josh: [00:10:20] Oh, you killed a guy. I got to take five points from Gryffindor dude. Like seriously, come on.

Drew: [00:10:28] So my question is, do you just start the game and you pick your house and then your character traits go from there? Or do you have to play the first few years of your, is it 11 when they started Hogwarts, you had to play the first 11 years of your life in order to just start the game. And then like the game will determine what house you're going 

Josh: [00:10:28] I have watched way too much about this. I've watched at least 30 hours worth of YouTube videos where people are like speculating and talk about leaks and many, many of the YouTube red circle things. apparently you enter in as a fifth year and you just 

choose your house.

Drew: [00:10:28] okay. Well, it's probably more entertaining than, than the first 11 years of your life. Yeah, I think that that's a good choice. You know, what they should do is like in Firewatch, the game starts out with this little narrative beginning and you make some decisions early on, and that changes depending on your answers there, that changes how the rest of the game goes and in not significant ways, but in ways that you can definitely pick up on it.

So they should do something like that. Right.

Josh: [00:10:28] feel like they probably will like some subtle things.

Drew: [00:10:28] I'd rather do that than, and then the game, just let me choose. Whichever has I want to go into it. I want the game to tell me which one I'm going into.

Ian: [00:10:28] or give you the choice in a more nuanced way, rather than just Hey, where do you want to be sorted? Like, let you make some choices that will clearly  influence how you're sorted and you'll know that, but that's more elegant way to do it than just , Hey, you get to choose,

Drew: [00:10:28] I feel like the distinction between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff from my understanding is Ravenclaw is nerdy and cool. And Hufflepuff is kind of nerdy and lame? 

Josh: [00:10:37] I beg your pardon?

Patrick: [00:10:40] I would say that Ravenclaw a little more intense, 

Drew: [00:10:44] Yeah. Nerdy and cool. Like I

Patrick: [00:10:45] Yeah. Just getting after it. Whereas I would say Hufflepuffs a little more go with the flow. Yeah. Whatever sort of type.

Josh: [00:10:51] Hufflepuff is the Jack of all trades.

Drew: [00:10:54] sure. Keep telling yourself that. Yeah. I'm just trying to play it to the Yondercast lore here, I've tried. I've tried to play the game.

Patrick: [00:11:05] Oh, Yondercast the game? 

Ian: [00:11:07] Ooh, 

Patrick: [00:11:08] out

Drew: [00:11:09] Ooh. I'm kind of imagining it like a text adventure.

Ian: [00:11:13] maybe we can get Disney infinity to program that one too.

Patrick: [00:11:18] I'm a little nervous as to see who they'd like cast me as me, or like draw my character as it makes me a little nervous. Like what caricature of myself, they'd come up with 

Josh: [00:11:26] Do you have to set it on the switch controller so that it like 3d animates, you 

Ian: [00:11:31] Oh, they're gonna make amiibos of us. 

Drew: [00:11:36] And what have you been up to? 

Ian: [00:11:38] Oh, man. well, I've been staying really busy with school, but we don't have to talk about that. I also have been doing some work in my backyard because my backyard has become completely overgrown. So I bought myself a chainsaw and, I've been pretty stoked on that.

It's been very fun, but my favorite part of using the chainsaw is actually the safety glasses that I bought with it 

Patrick: [00:12:02] Tell me, you have them in front of you right now. 

Ian: [00:12:04] no they're downstairs. otherwise I do a little commercial, but I'll do a little commercial for you anyway. They're really great. I think I paid $30, so I paid like a premium for these safety goggles,

but I'm going to use them for everything. I already do.

I'm going to bring them to my classroom and use them for labs and all that. Because unlike the safety  goggles, we've been using for years, they're like really soft around the edge. They don't leave any sort of lines. They're really comfortable. They fit over glasses. They've got like anti-fog technology.

Drew: [00:12:34] Yeah, they have little wiper plates. 

Ian: [00:12:36] No wiper blades, 

Patrick: [00:12:38] Do you, can you cut 

onions with them? 

Ian: [00:12:39] Yes. I wore them. I wear them to cut onions and I don't cry. And that's one of my least favorite things about cooking and I love to cook. So that's my big, other than my, uh, drum recording. I can't decide whether I'm more excited about my recording equipment or my onion goggles.

Patrick: [00:12:56] do you cut the onions with the chainsaw?

Josh: [00:12:58] Oh my

Ian: [00:12:59] tried. I haven't tried. I'm sure that you could, I don't know. 

Patrick: [00:13:03] Do you have like the leather, like leggings that go along with it just in case like the chain pops off?

Josh: [00:13:10] you talking about chaps?

Patrick: [00:13:11] I wouldn't have said that. I was saying more for, to protect if the chain pops off and that sort of stuff. Cause I would love to see your, the chainsaw outfit, like the whole meal deal.

Ian: [00:13:21] the chain has come off a couple of times, but it just kinda like, hangs on the thing.

It doesn't like fly off into your face or anything. So it's really, it's not as big a deal as it sounds. And it usually comes off cause it's stuck in something. So it's not, doesn't have a lot of momentum. 

Patrick: [00:13:35] I wonder if they have the technology and chainsaws that they have in table saws that can detect when it hits flesh. My neighbor actually sells those table saws can detect an electric current in something. So if you have your finger over, it'll detect  the current going through your skin and will actually shatter the blade and drop it. So it actually will save your finger. So like there's like demos of people, they do it with like a hot dog at first with they'll put it out there and it basically detects the electrolytes in the hotdog and shuts it off. And then the saw goes down and protects the hotdog. Theoretically. I've never seen someone try it.

I would never try it myself, but you could literally put your hand into the saw and it lock, shut and drop. So you could save yourself.  I'd be curious to see if that technology could be applied to a chainsaw cause I'm sure 

Drew: [00:14:18] So, this is really cool at all, but I feel like having this technology, what would have kept us from having a classic movie scene from Weird Al's UHF. Where he has a public access show and someone is working on a table saw and they sliced their thumb off and he's, he plays it off real cool. And it's, it's a classic scene.

And if that's technology is widely used, we wouldn't get that. So I don't know. You gotta be thinking about the big picture here.

Josh: [00:14:46] did that actually happen or was it like part of the music video?

Drew: [00:14:50] It was a whole movie, the UHF movie. It's it's 

incredible. 

Ian: [00:14:55] this is a piece of, drew and I's. Past as well, growing up, we used to watch this. We were big, weird Al fans, huge Weird Al fans, 

and we used to watch a weird Al's feature length movie UHF. And that was one of the scenes. It's a great movie.

Drew: [00:15:11] And I'll say it holds up.

Patrick: [00:15:12] He

is a funny dude. 

Drew: [00:15:13] maybe it's propped up by nostalgia, but I think it holds up.

Patrick: [00:15:19] I don't know if I've ever seen it, to be honest.

Drew: [00:15:21] It was on Netflix for a short period of time. It might still be there, but it's, it's been on streaming services as of late. So it's, it's worth a watch. it is, it is a completely weird time capsule. 

Josh: [00:15:34] is that

an acronym UHF? 

Ian: [00:15:36] ultra high frequency. 

Drew: [00:15:39] Yeah.

Ian: [00:15:39] Yeah, he either inherits or buys for a really small amount of money. this TV station that's falling apart and it's a UHF TV station. And then he, he puts together all of these TV programs

Drew: [00:15:51] Like the wheel of fish, 

Ian: [00:15:53] like the wheel of fish and the Badger guy

they're like. I don't need no stinking badgers. I remember that quote from that movie.

Patrick: [00:16:02] I feel like there's probably some quotes that I would hear from it and realize. But like, maybe not know what it's from. 

Drew: [00:16:09] I don't know. I think that it is pretty pretty under the radar. It has been for a long time, so I, it's kinda cool. Cause you can go in fresh and, see all the stuff for the first time.

Patrick: [00:16:17] the first time experiencing like a cult classic film sort of thing.

Drew: [00:16:20] Yes. Yeah. And when you watch it and you see the tablesaw scene, you'll realize, wow, I should not have promoted this new table saw technology. Cause otherwise we wouldn't have this 

Ian: [00:16:30] Also, there is some star power in the movie. If I remember correctly, I can't remember his character's name from Seinfeld, but one of the guys from Seinfeld is 

in the movie. Kramer. Kramer is the janitor, I think, in the movie. 

Drew: [00:16:43] And Fran Drescher, the nanny 

Ian: [00:16:47] Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean there's some, it was like a real movie. Check it out.

Drew: [00:16:51] was a real movie.

Josh: [00:16:54] best description ever. 

Ian: [00:16:56] speaking of, the things we've watched, I recently, I had a big day. I don't know why, how it lined up this way, but, I was rewatching Avatar: the Last Airbender - fantastic series. Absolutely wonderful. I know some of you agree with me. 

Drew: [00:17:10] Yep. 

Ian: [00:17:11] it. On the same day that I also watched Hamilton the musical for the first time, which was just like a really good day because those things are both incredible.

and I actually must've had them both in my brain cause I went to sleep and I woke up the next morning and I had written, the opening number to Lin Manuel Miranda's next hit musical. Do you guys want to hear it?

 I've prepared this for you. 

Patrick: [00:17:35] Is there going to be like there's music with it.

Ian: [00:17:38] Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm going to sing for you guys.

Drew: [00:17:41] Here. Let me grab my bass. We worked on this beforehand.

Ian: [00:17:45] Hold on. I need to bring my lyrics up. I was like, here we go. And then I looked and, Oh, I don't know what I'm about to say.

Okay.  

All right. Are you guys ready?

Drew: [00:17:56] Oh yeah.

Ian: [00:17:57] Um, I am, I am ready. I'm calling this Hamilton: The Last Airbender. 

how does a lonely, orphan, last of his clan air nomad dropped in the middle of a forgotten block of ice for a century in the Southern sea grow up to be the hero that the whole world needs. Tattooed and balled atop a flying bison named Appa this karate chopper came to master in proper earth, air, fire, and water with Sokka, Toph, Katara and Zuko, cause it's his Papa they gotta stoppa'. 

See the fire nation came and burned it all away. Betrayed the other nations slip, slipping into chaos until this ancient prepubescent monk can save the day. And the world's gonna know his name. What's your name, man? Aang and I'm the avatar. My name is Aang and I'm the avatar.

 Josh: [00:19:02] Disney's going to come and break your kneecaps. 

Ian: [00:19:07] So Lin Manuel Miranda, if you're listening, hit me up, man. Let's, let's get this collaboration going  and give the world the, the mashup that no one is asking for, but that everyone needs,

Drew: [00:19:19] I'm asking for it. Now I put it in the first ask

Patrick: [00:19:24] Speaking of Lin Manuel Miranda. I did not realize he was on Moana I may have said this when we were hanging out the other day. but like, I didn't realize that he had actually sung on some of the songs from Moana

Ian: [00:19:34] I think he was involved in writing too. I think he was involved in writing some of that stuff. It's why it's so good.

Patrick: [00:19:39] Oh dude. It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible.

So I love Lin Manuel Miranda

He is a treasure for sure.

If he actually contacts you, man, let's get him on the show.

Ian: [00:19:51] Let's Hey, let's put an ask out to 

the Yondersquad If 

any of, you know, Lin Manuel Miranda. 

Forward this to him. Let's see. See if he bites  

Patrick: [00:20:03] would it be one of those things you're so star struck that you can't say anything. Like, I feel like I would just would not be able to like, say, I wouldn't know what to ask or say or anything. I just might sit and just be like,

Josh: [00:20:12] Well, thanks to you guys. I'd probably end up saying something stupid. Like he's not in Moana and I'd probably end up saying like, I loved you in Moana and he'd be like, what?

Patrick: [00:20:23] We wouldn't bait you like that? Trust me 

Ian: [00:20:26] I do get starstruck. I haven't met very many  celebrities or people that I,  look up to, but I did meet one of my favorite drummers once and it was embarrassing in retrospect, I met Stanton Moore. He's not  one of the, like, big,  famous drummers, but he's like a jazz funk drummer with a really unique style that I really like a lot.

And I met him once he came to Portland and I walked up to him and like, got something signed by him. And I was just like, I'm a huge fan. You're awesome.

Josh: [00:20:57] I really want to see Ian, like fan boy.

Patrick: [00:21:00] I did that one time with a guy named Dallas Green, who from city and color. And he was a band called Alexis on fire. And I remember I saw him, it was at the warp tour and he was sitting at his merch table and I was just like, Hey, Hey man, I'm a big fan. And he just kind of looked at me like, okay. And I couldn't get anything out.

And he just like, walked away. I'm like, Oh God, that was bad. That was really, really bad. 

Drew: [00:21:00] I actually ended up meeting several, all of my, musician heroes last year, I probably one of the, the, the weirdest ones, was I was hanging out nearby the venue and getting dinner and stuff. And the drummer, I saw him walking around, but he was in a full leopard print trench coat, and he was with his two giant dalmations.

And, what do you even say when you see that like, I was just so blown away by the experience. And so I just said hi, and that was it. And then I walked away. 

Josh: [00:21:34] I actually really embarrassed myself when I was in college because, I was at a club and, Greg Oden walked in and I didn't even know who Greg Oden was cause my basketball experience is like non-existent and everyone was like, yeah, that's, that's a Portland trailblazer. And I was like, Oh cool. And so he had these body guards and he was walking by and I just reached out and poked his arm and he turned and looked at me and I just waved and he was like, hi and kept walking. 

Patrick: [00:22:04] Here's a good Greg Oden story. when I worked at Starbucks in Tualatin, he came in and would order a frappuccino every single time, but he'd order a tall strawberries and cream frappuccino. So in his hand it was literally the smallest drink you could ever imagine. So there's just like, huge NBA player drinking the tiniest pink little frappuccino it literally looked so small. It looked like a kid's toy. It's so funny. Everyone's like, what's that Greg Oden. Yeah. He totally drinks his strawberries and cream frappuccino. It's tasty. 

Ian: [00:22:35] Strawberries and cream that's too good

well, you guys, I could just sit and Talk to you about random stuff all day, but we did bring Drew on the show for a purpose 

Drew: [00:22:45] yeah. Talking about UHF and strawberry frappuccinos. Yeah. 

Ian: [00:22:48] Yep. Yep. You, you put in the plug for UHF. You can leave now drew.

Drew: [00:22:51] Okay. Do I get any check or I guess that movie didn't make any money. So there's. 

Ian: [00:22:57] but drew is an engineer. Who is in the business of augmented reality. And there has been some new information that has come out very recently, from companies that are working on, augmented reality. And so seeing as this is a technology that is already in development and that is going to come to the masses, probably sometime in the next decade, we thought it would be a good opportunity to have Drew on the show to just kind of educate us on what this is and how it works and how it's going to change the world.   drew give us  a quick introduction, if you can. What are you working on?

Drew: [00:23:38] Yeah. So, I'm a mechanical engineer, so that's, that's my, my day to day title. Right. And the kind of top level view of what I'm doing is that in order to make the future of augmented reality and virtual reality happen, there are some significant leaps in technology that have to happen to get us there.

And specifically the one of the biggest ones is an advancement in optics and lens technology. So what I'm doing is I'm helping support the research and development team to develop equipment, to research and test new ways and new methods of manufacturing these lenses, and trying to basically ground the future of, of augmented reality and virtual reality in a way that, that they're able to manufacture and there's a lot of research that's done with these lenses. So they're, you know, it's really far off stuff for the most part. So I would say that a lot of what I'm working on, won't really make it into consumer products for potentially five to 10 years. But it's, it's really cool. And th that's kind of the, broad scope of things is that right?

I'm helping to develop that. So I build, I build machines that help them make those lenses, essentially.

Patrick: [00:24:52] When you say lens, are you meaning like camera lens or like lens to your glasses? Like

Drew: [00:24:57] all the above. It's just an optics piece. So, So, you know, specifically in, in, Oh, let's take, for example, the Oculus quest, which is the vague VR device for right now, they have what's called the front Al lens inside of them. So there's a screen. Then there's the lens and then there's your eye. So that, that's kind of mostly what I'm talking about, but I mean, that is lenses in whatever fashion you want to talk about them.

It'll also be glasses, lenses and stuff.

Ian: [00:25:01] cause that's what we're talking. that's actually a good transition. So what is augmented reality and how does it differ from virtual reality? 

Josh: [00:25:08] I'm so glad you asked that, but sitting here like. This is fascinating. I have no idea what's going on.

Drew: [00:25:14] Yeah. So there's, a third category though. I'll add into that. There's mixed reality too. so we'll, we'll start from the beginning. So So virtual reality is the one that everyone's gonna be familiar with, right? You put on a headset and you're all of a sudden in a different world.

And,

Ian and I have been playing some VR games online together, including one where you've been some elves, trying to defend a poor village from some ogres attacking. And I'm really, I'm really bad at it. Ian, Ian carried us until our demise, but so so VR is when you put on a headset or it could potentially be a really thin pair of glasses or whatever, but the idea is that you're totally blocking out the outside world and you're going into a new one.

Augmented reality is when you are seeing the normal world. But you're getting information from like about virtual side of things. So, let's say, the best example of that I could potentially say is Pokemon go is, an example of augmented reality and slightly mixed reality reality. We can, we could talk about the distinction, but it's the idea that you are mixing the real world with a virtual world.

So in the case of Pokemon go. You're experience going out and experiencing in the real world, but obviously you're not actually touching some physical pokey stop or whatever, you're, you're doing it on your phone. And so it's just this blend of the two. So the distinction between augmented and mixed reality is a little bit arbitrary.

And so I, I will just refer to everything on that front, as augmented reality for the rest of the conversation. But the distinction is that mixed reality is when there's something that you are physically manipulating that's in the virtual space, but you're seeing in the real world too. So I guess in the, the Pokemon go example, it would be is, you know, when you see a pokemon you can turn on your camera and you can see the Pokemon in the real world and throw the ball at it something like that.

So you're kind of manipulating there's things in the real real space, or if people have been on Amazon recently, one of the things that you can do is if you're buying a chair or something like that, You can take,

a short little video of your room that it calibrates and then, yeah. Well, on your phone show you a live video of your room with that model of the chair in the space, just to give you an idea of how it looks to how it fits and all that kind of stuff.

So that's, that's kind of the, the three main categories and hopefully I covered those all 

Patrick: [00:27:24] Yeah, that totally makes sense. I remember a while ago  must have been two or three years ago. I was looking into something that was like AR for a classroom. And there's a couple of apps on the iPhone that I was looking at, like for chemistry or for biology, you could like put something on the desk that it recognizes and then it'll change whatever that object is to like a cell, or it could be like an Atom and then you can rotate your phone and like look around it in three dimensions.

See deep inside things we can't already see. And I was like, this is so awesome. But at the same time, you need that technology for every single person to fully engage with it and . But I just remember like, man, how cool it would it be for us to like study the atom, see the atom, like literally be able to manipulate it in three dimensional space as if it's sitting in front of me when it's not sitting in front of me.

And I think that's just so cool.

Drew: [00:28:10] So for people that are familiar with the Marvel franchise, I've mentioned reality is basically just iron man's capabilities and like his glasses and stuff. So when he has like all the holograms sitting in front of him and the, like the glasses that's that Spiderman gets,  that's all examples of augmented reality.

So you are putting on like some glasses. That are then blending your world with a virtual world. And, and maybe, probably the easiest example would be, let's say that I'm going, I'm going to go visit Ian. We're going to go, downtown Portland and I'm wearing my glasses and we can't decide on which restaurant we're going to go to.

I have my augmented reality glasses on. And I say, help me. Yeah. Search for a restaurant. And I'll be able to look over it at the different buildings. And it'll tell me the restaurant name. It'll tell me what they serve there. It'll give me the review. It could show me the menu. It could make me, let me do reservations.

Or if I, I say I want to go to this restaurant, take me there. It'll give me directions in real time. It will show like arrows on the street. It'll try it, you know, and plug in with like crosswalk data and stuff like that, to make sure that I'm not wandering out into the streets. and it will say, okay, turn right here, you got X amount of feet to go or whatever.

So it's just a true blend in between,

I mean, you can think of it like a smartphone without a phone that's in your glasses.

Josh: [00:29:35] Okay. Teaching is going to be horrible in the 

Drew: [00:29:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of ramifications though. I'm sure we'll get to at some point, but, that's, that's definitely one of them.

Josh: [00:29:46] I think it's worth the trade though. That sounds awesome.

Ian: [00:29:48] That's what I think of when I think of augmented reality is basically just this  information layer 

on top of the real world, you know, like. 

like you're wearing glasses or something and they are providing you information about what you're looking at in the real world.  like you said, you look at a restaurant and in the corner of you view, it tells you how many stars that restaurant has on Yelp, or you, you know, look at a monument and it  gives you a little history.

Like it tells you what the name of that monument is and you know, 

  Drew: [00:30:17] All right. A lot of the concepts that we're going to talk about could make for great black mirror episodes.

Ian: [00:30:24] so I want to know whether what you're talking about already exists or whether that is the direction it's going. So like you already mentioned that there's a little bit of augmented reality built into things that we can access right now,  through our phones, like Amazon's product visualization thing and Pokemon go.

where is augmented reality? Where does it stand right now? And like, where's it available to people at the moment?

Drew: [00:30:47] So I think that the best comparison to that could you use is let's, let's talk about the development of the cellphone, right? Where. When cell phones first came out, they were hugely inconvenient there at bulky. You had to have them tethered to your car so they could be hooked up to the battery. 

they were cool, but they weren't particularly useful.

And then several years down the line, we got the, the, the Palm pilot in the Blackberry, which was kind of like the stop gap between that and where we're at now, where it's like, okay, I see where this technology is headed. And there's a path forward to that place, but this isn't it yet, you know, the Blackberry was, was a huge thing and not the Blackberry and the Motorola razor, both were, were huge first for 

cell phones.

That, that was, I mean, it was very sleek. I love to edit it, made it really satisfactory, clicking sound when you closed it. Oh, I loved it. But then, you know, we had the iPhone, which we have. Integrated and the smartphone, which has been completely integrated in our day to day life in a way that, you know, we don't go more than an hour without interacting with our phone.

So if we're looking at the general store, augmented reality, we're at the Blackberry phase where there is some technology, you could get it today, if you want to, but we are not at the iPhone stage. We know how to get there. We know where it is or on our way. But we need some more time and particularly the things that are kind of standing in the way, our lens technology, battery technology, I mean, you think about, 

the idea.

So there was the Google glass, right? And that was a huge dud because of the form factor. And so people want thin and light glasses. And that unfortunately means that you have to have been light batteries or a thin light processor. And the lens technology is difficult because you need to build it in a way that.

Will transmit the information in the light, into your eye, without someone on the other side of the glasses, being able to see what you're saying.

Patrick: [00:32:54] this is probably way too far in the future to think about, but so you're talking about, you need a battery, you need the power, you need the stuff, mine, aren't our bodies, just that thing. So what stopping those glasses from being a part of you, supplying that energy, supplying all of that stuff, to be able to see it when it's already there.

And I'm not trying to get to the network type thing, but I mean, it kind of feels like that could be a next logical step, 

Drew: [00:33:17] Well, the, the, so there are those, those contact lenses that people have talked about forever. And that's the true nightmare of teaching is what happens with when kids have contact lenses. That, that they can surf the web on. And if I remember correctly, those are running off of either your body heat or your, your just general body electricity.

So there is no battery.

So 

I do want to say that, we're talking about augmented reality here, and I feel like it's really worth mentioning where virtual reality is at we're here. And I don't think that people recognize that that virtual reality is here. I have a $300 headset that I've attended work meeting.

Yeah, I've done. Like I've got a yoga sessions. I've done like boxing exercise that I've played games with Ian it's here. And it's to me, it's crazy that people aren't talking about it, and I, I'm really excited about with teaching.

I think that the virtual reality is a little bit easier to implement that augmented reality, if only because of the reasons that you guys are talking about where. It's tougher to, control that in your atmosphere and to keep kids from cheating on tests or whatever. Whereas with VR, it's like, okay, you got this big bulky headset on your face.

I know what you're up to. Right. But that is going to be, so it's an incredible teaching tool. So my, one of my favorite examples is let's, let's say that you're, you're at a school that has a hard time funding dissections, or you have a kid that doesn't want to do a dissection on an animal. You can put them in the headset and then they could run through a dissection program and just like do it there.

And sure. I guess you have to front the cost of, of a headset, but you're not having to buy your specimens all the time and you would, you would buy a headset and you buy the program and then you'd have the whatever variety of specimens that they have that they have that you could be doing that with. So I think that.

That virtual reality and augmented reality are really going to lower the barrier for entry for kids to learn things, because it will give kids access to things that were otherwise cost prohibitive.

Patrick: [00:35:11] I love that. I mean, thinking just chemistry, even in distance learning right now, like how can we get students to do labs when they can't do labs? Imagine if they had like a VR headset, we set it up where they could physically do the labs themselves. In the virtual reality setting where they can actually look and make the measurements and walk around any table they have and do the labs themselves, rather than me sitting in my classroom  videoing it with my phone, making it look like they're in virtual reality when they're really not like just that barrier piece of giving kids an experience that they wouldn't have normally been able to have kind of levels that playing field and what kids can and cannot do,

Drew: [00:35:47] it's totally. And speaking of Ian and I's music, upbringing, I mean, one of the things that, that was a product of us living in a rural area was. Not having a lot of access to live music. And one of the things that you can do in VR right now, you can do this today. You can go on there and attend a live concert. You can pick where you're at in the crowd, you know, Tenacious D you had a concert in VR? Reggie Watts does a bunch. You can pick where you're out of the crowd. You can be there. And obviously it's not like being there, but it is. A step up from like watching a YouTube video after the fact. And then on top of that, when you're in that lobby, you can see the other people that are in VR.

Also there, they rented their avatar. So it looks like you've got some people around you that are all experiencing the same thing. And so for, for us as musicians, how cool of an experience would that have been to be able to attend these concerts, that people that are not going to come anywhere near that when we're going or where we live.

So. There's just all sorts of examples like that, where VR and AR are going to lower the barrier for entry, for people to just genuinely experience things. I mean, one of the things that I can do in my headset right now is I can go and I can tour the Anne Frank House, or I can go and be on Machu Picchu and, and look at some llamas. 

Patrick: [00:37:07] I mean, I've thought about so many times teaching balancing equations using, using half-life Alexa and VR, since you can like write on the windows and stuff, like I thought about that nonstop, but then

Drew: [00:37:17] Well, I think that the internet has made it really difficult to teach because you're now faced with the fact that you, the students can say. Anything that I'm learning here, I can learn from the internet. So it's, it's kind of an interesting challenge to try and provide an experience that they can not get on the internet and VR and AR and like a guided experience like that, would be really cool.

So I think that one of my favorite examples is like, you can basically run magic school bus in your classroom. Like, let's say that you have, let's say that you wanted to explore deep sea life with your students. Y'all put on the headsets, you're all in there together. And then you're doing like a guided tour in some truly magic school bus.

And, you know, everyone's looking at the same thing and being in the same place. and I think that that could be really powerful and a really cool teaching aid.

Patrick: [00:38:09] some ready player, one vibes on that.

Drew: [00:38:12] Yes. 

Ian: [00:38:12] sure.   think. Drew said it correctly when he said that it has arrived. I mean, I've got an Oculus quest as well, and that device is incredible. It is an untethered device. It's entirely self encompassed, so you don't need to connect it to a computer. You don't need cameras in your room, you can take it anywhere and run it anywhere just with the headset.

and they are coming out with a new version that is lighter and cheaper and better. And I expect that that pattern is gonna, continue, but also the interaction within it, is improving because that's basically like a software thing. So like now you, hold controllers and you interact with things by pushing buttons on the controllers and it feels incredibly immersive.

Cause you can see your hands holding these controllers in the virtual environment but, the next step, which is already kind of out there is hand tracking you can put the controllers down and it will track your hands. the way that the. Device is detecting the motion of your hands with cameras is the control. And so at some point we'll have these devices that are really light and completely self sufficient  they don't require any external devices and they don't require any controllers other than what you already have 

Drew: [00:39:24] and this is $300 this fall it's here. that's the crazy part to me, you know, we're at that phase. It's very cool.

Ian: [00:39:30] so that kind of feels like the present in this technology. Right? So AR is the future because I actually want to clarify something when you guys were talking about those contact lenses, is that something that someone just thinks could work or are there actually people working on like, Self-powered contact lenses that provide augmented 

Drew: [00:39:50] it. Yeah. It's happening. Getting ready to get your classroom ready?

That one is that one is way in the future. 

Josh: [00:39:59] I can't believe that we finally reached that age where I can't fathom the technology that's going into new devices. Cause I remember growing up and being like the future is now old man to my dad. Cause he'd be like, I can't believe that a game boy exists. It's a computer in like this brick.

That's this big, I can't believe how small it is. And now we're at the point where it's like, Oh yeah, no, it's going to be a contact lens that you put in and see these things. And I'm like, okay, How can that have a computer in it? It's a, it's a contact.

Patrick: [00:40:30] The thing that blows my mind the most is like the phone we have in our hands is more powerful than the best camera you could have had when we were in high school and the best computer you would have had in high school and the best internet you would have had in high school at the same time. So those three major branches of like technology and multimedia are now formed into something that would have cost me thousands of dollars.

And. I mean almost a room full of space.  I kind of tell this to my students all the time, what's in your phone,  my high end gaming PC in high school that had top specs of everything thing. And now you have it in your hand and can just play games on it and chat with friends and everything else.

And that's really cool. And I can't even imagine.  in 10 years from now, what's going to be the next small thing. 

Drew: [00:41:16] So are you guys familiar with the concept of, quantum computing?

Okay. So, so John Carmack, the, actually the founder of Oculus, 

he was out recently talking about this and we are getting to a point that the computer processors that we are making are so small that we're pushing the boundaries of what is physically possible.

And they're getting so small that they're getting into the quantum level where an electron could just potentially quantum leap from one thing to another messing up how the computer processor works. So that's why we're having to move into quantum computing is because we are at the edge of what we can physically achieve.

Patrick: [00:41:53] And the fact that the information can be stored and processed so incredibly quickly at that level, like once you like make that jump, that next tech technological leap is almost our brain can't even comprehend what that's going to like unlock.

Drew: [00:42:07] No, and that's what, it's interesting that you say that because. Imagine being at the time where the Blackberry had just come out and saying, try to explain to someone, what the iPhone would do. That's what we're about with augmented reality. Right now, it's like trying to explain what augmented reality glasses are going to do for our future is almost impossible because we don't even know.

But that is, that is where we're looking at that that's, it's going to be like a similar leap. 

Ian: [00:42:33] that's something that I want to see if you have anything else to say on Drew, because our conversation about this before the show, you mentioned  this idea that augmented reality represents the next wave of innovation and technology, and like we've had many waves of, technology throughout history.

Computers being the most recent massive one and the internet, you know  that is a wave of technology that has completely changed everything about our society worldwide. and pretty much worked its way into every aspect of human life. and there are people out there who think that augmented reality represents  the next wave, the next thing that is going to completely change everything about human life.

Drew: [00:43:17] So, I could be getting my computing history wrong here, but from my understanding, think of, the mouse. and then think about what computing was like before that, how do you interact with the computer and can a normal person do it?

So the mouse is seen as being the point at which there was an exponential growth of computing because all of a sudden it was accessible. It was easier. I was not around at the time, so I don't know this for sure. But from my understanding, the way they used to interact with computers is like a loading tapes onto it and stuff. and so there didn't need to be any advancements in  and computing power. It was just a change in input method. That was the result of quite literally an exponential well growth of  all facets of technology. So augmented reality glasses are  seen as potentially being a similar thing where th y're a new input device that changes the way that we interact with technology and computers and could potentially lead in another exponential growth of technology.

Patrick: [00:44:14] Which is crazy. That seems like an exponential growth on an already exponential growth.

Drew: [00:44:18] Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, with the case of the mouse, think about trying to explain to someone video games before the mouse was, invented. You know, we wouldn't have video games other than potentially text adventures, without like the mouse and analog stick and everything. So, yeah.

And there's, there's, there's similar things with like this reality that, I mean, we can, we can't even comprehend what that's gonna look like because. It's going to change in ways that we didn't expect or intend.

Patrick: [00:44:47] This is where my brain melted.

Josh: [00:44:49] I was going to say, congratulations, you blew all of our minds. We're all leaning back just

staring off. 

Ian: [00:44:55] mind blown. now we're just in the realm of

Patrick: [00:45:00] Or how we can  almost like where it could go and the cool things we could do that. I mean, obviously video games in that level, like I  gave that Ready Player One reference, like someone who plays a lot of MMOs.  if that doesn't scream augmented reality and virtual reality, to be able to do those things.

And I don't want to get into like the second life, second, second life sort of thing, like from the office that Dwight does, but  you would  fully immerse yourself in a brand new environment where it's  completely new and completely different. And so instead of  going to see Machu Picchu or going to see all of these things, you can actually interact with it and do something and  interact with other people.

And so then it becomes like a whole new. Different experience rather than just being there. And then all of a sudden you get into that weird perspective of, well, what's going to separate from that reality and the  reality we're in. Like we already have a trouble, I have trouble separating what's happens in my dreams with what happens in real life.

Like when you're physically awake and doing something else at the same time. And so my mind I think I just like malfunctioned a little bit there,

 Drew: [00:45:59] So I think that there's a misconception that, that VR and AR are primarily for entertainment, you know? Cause you think of VR as being like this video gaming thing. And I don't think that people are really quite grasping what it's gonna mean for everything. Like your entire day to day life is going to change.

And maybe one of my favorite examples of that is have you guys ever read  your car's manual or like a service manual for your car?

Patrick: [00:46:23] I fell asleep halfway through, but yeah.

Drew: [00:46:25] Yeah. Okay. So, so let's, let's imagine that you're a mechanic, right? And you get a car that comes in and you don't want to read the service manual. So you have your AR glasses and the customer says, I need blank change. So you load up blank program for that car. That's like a digitized version of that service manual.

And you say, okay, I need to change the alternator or whatever. And your glasses will guide you to that spot. It'll show you where the bolts are. It'll show you what to replace it with. And you know, that, that seems like an extreme example, but that is potentially what we're headed towards. I mean, Boeing right now already uses VR and AR to train people, to assemble and, and work on their plate.

Because it's cheaper for them to let someone just play around with the headset in the program than it is for them to potentially risk a plane or like an engine or something like that by someone working on it and doing something wrong.

Patrick: [00:47:20] So do you think then this is kind of going into like a matrix sort of idea. Doesn't that mean? That at some point we can just boot up all of our knowledge. So there'd be no need to go to like a trade program or need to anything else. Cause I mean,  when we kind of say we're already there. Like, I mean, I can DIY YouTube a ton of stuff around the house.

Right. I can just YouTube it already, but if I could just put on glasses and skip those whole watching a 16 different YouTube videos on the same thing and actually get the proper information I need instantaneously and fix it perfectly every single time. Do we think that would take away from maybe some of those trade schools or do we think it would take away from like the ability of needing to specialize  I'm not going to go say that I'm gonna put on some, AR glasses and perform like surgery or anything like an open heart surgery. We're still gonna need to have those specialized people. But at the same time, if we're already training people to do that, can't, doesn't that also kind of level the playing field, but at the same time, take away from maybe jobs or other things that I guess this is maybe a form of automation would 

Drew: [00:48:18] Yeah, totally. Absolutely.

Patrick: [00:48:19] Yeah.

Drew: [00:48:20] Yeah.

 Ian: [00:48:24] As you were talking a second ago, Patrick, about some video game stuff. I had this idea. I want to run it by you guys. I hope I'm not giving away like a billion dollar idea. Cause I think it's a good idea, but I think

Patrick: [00:48:34] it trademark right now.

Ian: [00:48:36] thinking that we're going to see a rise in LARPing with augmented reality because we're seeing a rise in like, Dungeons and dragons and other role playing games, they're more popular than they've ever been but LARPing live action role playing where you're kind of doing the same thing, but you're like out in a field, dressed up with other people, swinging and foam swords at each other and, you know, interacting with actual physical objects and stuff like that.

That is still very much a tiny fraction the role-playing sector, but can you imagine if someone built an augmented reality program it would track things like your hit points, your stats, your interactions with other people, when you interact with someone else, you know, there'd be some sort of like a, a digitized, automated thing that would tell you the result or, 

Josh: [00:49:27] I am drooling at the sound of this.

Drew: [00:49:29] you're thinking too small here because you could, I mean, If you're all linked up together, you can all be seeing the same thing. So what if all of a sudden you can introduce AIS and your whole party has to fight like a dragon that shows up on

soccer field that you're on. Yeah.

Ian: [00:49:44] It seems like that might even replace tabletop role playing because you could basically now actually integrate all of the, like things from video game. RPGs and tabletop RPGs like the interaction there, but it would be like a physical RPG with everything tied together.

Josh: [00:50:03] So can we expect this spring of 2021?

Drew: [00:50:09] I'll get to, I'll get to work on it. 

Patrick: [00:50:11] this came full circle. We talked about doing a Yondercast game earlier today and you just pitched it

Ian: [00:50:18] Yeah, I think at the very least, I think I'm going to say right now that I am, I'm placing my, my flag in the digital augmented earth and saying that the yonder squad is going to be the first augmented reality roleplaying game clan. 

Drew: [00:50:37] Wow. Ian I expect your character to be wielding, a chainsaw, wearing some fancy goggles.

Ian: [00:50:45] Oh, yeah. Oh man. Augmented reality in the safety goggles that I have would be incredible because nothing could actually touch your eyes in real life 

Patrick: [00:50:54] This is kind of a, another question  I know a lot of people experienced like nausea when looking at virtual reality and augmented reality.  

kind of like car sickness where you think that your, your mind's telling you that you're not moving, but your body knows that you are moving.

So there's this like weird disconnect between what your eyes think and what your brain thinks and probably what your heart thinks. So I didn't know if there was like any new technology or. I just didn't know if there's anything that can help with that. 

Drew: [00:51:18] In shape. Yeah. I'm not sure what there is on the neuro neurological side.  what I will say is that a lot of where that comes from is the computing power of the headset. Like the refresh rate, the resolution and that kinda stuff. I think some of it is the optic side of things too. So I remember playing a couple of years ago, I went to PAX and I played like on an old VR headset and I played this game and I wanted to puke.

I just, I was, I was so sick, but I don't get that feeling in the Quest headset at all. I, I that's, that's true. I was on the international space station and the weightlessness of that is a bit tough to deal with. But from my understanding, a lot of, of where that comes from is the refresh rate of the screen.

And as that gets better and gets closer to where, what your eyes actually see, it'll be a much smoother experience. but yeah, I'm wondering what the neurological side of things are in terms of, of your, your body and your mind decoupling. To a certain extent. And I will say that. It's amazing how much you lose track of your physical space when you're in VR and I've worn, I've worn my headset on a plane before, and it's like an instant switch.

This flipped when you put it on, because all of a sudden I'll be all cramped up. You know, someone will be putting their elbows out, up against me or whatever, and I'll feel super cramped. But I put on the headset and I see these wide open spaces and all of a sudden it feels like my body is relaxed to a certain point.

It feels like I'm in that space. So I wonder, yeah, I don't, I don't know what the, the, like the nausea aspect of that looks like and whether or not, when it becomes more real, your body actually does accept that you're doing those things.

Patrick: [00:52:56] I feel bad for the person sitting in front of you as you're playing the boxing game

on the plane rocking the back of their seat. 

Ian: [00:53:04] bag feels so real. 

Patrick: [00:53:11] Oh, I've definitely had a few close encounters of falling over, with my VR set , like the dog, the dog running in front of me or a cat or something like that. Like, you know, it's around it almost as an extra element of a monster or something. But 

yeah, that always makes me a little nervous if you don't have the right spacing. 

Ian: [00:53:11] well, before we lose track of our own reality,  I think we should bring the conversation to a close. Does anybody have any final parting thoughts or, 

Patrick: [00:53:20] What's our class is going to be for Yondersquad. Like I'm already planning. We need a good group comp and everything else. And I know that's probably going to take longer than we need to do for this, but I'm, I'm pumped about that. 

Drew: [00:53:30] Bard. 

Josh: [00:53:31] Bard. That's

the only class. 

Ian: [00:53:36] I want to wield the bow and arrow because I'm imagining holding an actual physical wooden bow. And drawing the string back physically, but without an arrow, the arrow is augmented reality. And then firing that thing and seeing it go and hit another person and have it  take hit points away from them or something like that.

But it's all augmented reality. Right? I want to be an Archer,  maybe a 

Patrick: [00:54:01] Yeah, I'd go along that with like a healer. I don't want to throw like a healing spell at someone literally throw a potion at them here 

Drew: [00:54:11] So, before we wrap up, Ian had, talk to me socibefore the episode about what he felt like the ramifications are of AR in the future, in terms of the concerns. And I want it to touch on that briefly because I think it's something really worth thinking about because it. You know, it is one of those situations where things could really quickly turn into a Black Mirror episode.

So, you know, by far and away, the biggest concern right now is privacy and security. And I think that the companies working on this are doing a really good job of thinking about this kind of stuff, but let's just imagine a worst case scenario where someone has a headset or a, a pair of glasses and they're on a bus and their glasses are able to recognize people running search algorithms against their face.

Pair it with their social media accounts. So you could just see people on the bus and look at their Facebook, or look at their Twitter or their Instagram or whatever. And, you know, potentially if, if you have a lot of bad actors in the field, what if someone hacks it? And then all of a sudden they're pairing that with your, you know, demographics, how you voted your criminal history or whatever.

There's a lot of information to be, given to people . I think that it's worth saying that, this is like the internet in a way where clearly a lot of things going on. Yeah. And our, our everyday society right now are the results of maybe being a little bit too hasty about implementing the internet and social media.

I mean, clearly they've resulted in some big societal problems, but they weren't really things that you could plan for it because you don't know until it's already happened. And AR and VR kind of similar where I think that there's a lot of things that when we look back on it, we might think like, why did we even sign up for this?

Like, why did, why didn't anyone think about this? But they're just so far out of our, our present day reality that we don't even know what those, those questions are.

Patrick: [00:55:55] Yeah, I could definitely see the same thing.  especially with video games and things like that, like an addictive personality, I guess something like that came out. You might  lose yourself, lose sight of what's real world, like family or friends or anything else, like job.

in it all the time and it's kind of giving you that body feedback, goodness of those, like all the chemicals in your brain telling you that this is awesome, this is awesome. Don't want to stop it.

Drew: [00:56:19] Yeah, 

Patrick: [00:56:21] the new drug where people just can't get it, give it up all the time.

And all of a sudden it starts interfering with everyday life. And

Drew: [00:56:27] totally.

Patrick: [00:56:28] see that being so another huge issue for a lot of people is being like, okay, where do I separate real life from this. Augmented reality when it's just so much better. Like I have no consequences in this virtual space, therefore I want to be in it versus this other one.

And so that could help or hurt. I don't know if that helps or hurts mental health. I don't know if that helps or hurts social dynamics but could see that being an issue 

Drew: [00:56:53] Yeah. I mean, you think about the smartphone and how much it's caused a lot of attention, span issues and people and interaction problems. And at least with smartphones, like you have a physical signifier to look at when someone's not paying attention to you or whatever. If they're looking at their phone, you can kind of guess that they're not paying attention to you or whatever, but if you're both talking to each other and you both have your AR glasses on.

What does that do? Like you now have two screens between you and another person that that is dividing your attention and, and, you know, it's a lot of sensory overload, too

more screens. I have about five screens around me right now, and I could use a couple more,

Ian: [00:57:34] right on your eyes. 

literally touching your eyes

 Awesome. I'm glad you brought that up. cause that is something that, I think is really important to talk about when we consider these future technologies is what challenges and what potential drawbacks are they going to bring with them?

Cause they sound great. 

 Drew: [00:57:54] Yeah. Yeah. It's important to think about what it means and have people thinking about, the ramifications of inputting this stuff. I think that that's really important.

Ian: [00:58:03] Truly  excellent.

Drew: [00:58:07] what are your goggles called? What are the brand?

Ian: [00:58:07] Oh, the safety goggles. Um, they are soft works. If 

I remember correctly,

I think you can find them on Amazon. If you search soft works safety goggles, you'll probably see them.

Drew: [00:58:07] Yeah, we got, we got a Goggle plug. We got a UHF plug. We got, the Yondercast game plug. We've got a lot going on in this episode.

Ian: [00:58:14] Yeah, considering that we make no money and have no sponsors, 

we sure do a lot of commercial spots. Awesome. Well, drew, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been absolutely wonderful.

Drew: [00:58:28] Yeah, thank you for having me. I, you know, the reason that I'm in my position where I'm at right now and, and doing something I really care about is because I had some incredible science teachers on that path. And, you know, you guys do a really important thing and, and exposing the youth of America to, science and, what the future is,

  Ian: [00:58:50] And thank you to everybody out there listening for tuning back in to Yondercast. If you have a minute and you want to support the show rate and subscribe us on Apple podcasts. And if you want to submit a question for us to answer on the show, you'll find a link to the question survey in our show notes.

And if you ever want to contact us about anything, just send us an email to yondercast@gmail.com. 

  Drew: [00:59:16] Goodbye