Boonta Vista - EPISODE 211: The Theo Philes VI - The Mush Zone / The Dipshit Effect

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

In their special spin-off for learning stuff, Theo and Ben get into the limits of human perception, and the hidden communities of people with bad taste in just about everything. *** Support our show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista *** Email the show at [e-mail]! Call in and leave us a question or a message on 1800-317-515 to be answered on the show! *** Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista Website: boontavista.com Merchandise: shop.boontavista.com/ Twitch: twitch.tv/boontavista

Yeah, sorry, I would love to come over and suck me off, but, uh, Aestasia Palishe would slap the dick out of your mouth. Oh, welcome to Buntavista. This is, uh, episode six of the Theo files, as far as I understand it. I think that's correct. I am Theo. Uh, and I am here, with my good friend Ben, in the great salt plains of the accursed. Uh, uh, uh, that's th. thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th and I am here with my good friend Ben in the great salt plains of the accursed. That's right. We've both been given ironic curses due to our selfish and malevolent actions. I myself, I'm six feet tall and I certainly am now. I advertise myself as six feet tall on the village notice board, and kind of struck up the attention of one of the village elders most sumptuous daughters.

Upon finding out that I am only five foot, what is it, ten? Surely not. I'm 169 centimeters. What's that in... I couldn't tell you. In, okay. Five foot. I think I'm like five foot. No, I'm like bang on six. Yeah, and I am now. Now that I've suffered the ironic curse. Unfortunately, that six foot is made up of, so I've got feet at the bottom. Got shins as normal and knees. And then I've got six repeated, like if you take the leg and ten, and ten, and ten, and ten, and ten, and ten, and ten, in, in, in, and ten, ten, ten, the ten, ten, ten, ten, in, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, ten, ten, ten, te, te, te, tell, tell, tell, tell, tell, tell, I'm tell, I'm tel tel tel tel, I ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, shins as normal and knees, and then I've got six repeated, like if you take the leg and then another knee and then another knee and then another knee and you do that six times all the way up to... So it's sorry, I had to interrupt your flow there. Is that six times including the normal knee thigh normal knee thigh. So we're going knee, yeah, knee, thin, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thine, yeah, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the, thi, the, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, is, uh, uh, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the normal knee thigh normal knee thigh.

I'm sorry, is it knee thigh or knee shin? So we're going knee, yeah, knee shin, let's start from the feet, yeah, so we've got feet shins and calf, sorry. You got your knee. Lower leg. Yep. You've got your knee. Yeah, you've got your calf, thigh, thigh. Yeah, you've got a composite for the middle. thigh etc. Another knee. Wait a minute. I'm already confused. Half thigh?

A thigh? You've got a composite for the middle one. Okay, so let's go. Feet, lower leg, knee, upper leg. Perfect. Knee, upper leg, knee, up leg, knee, up leg, ea, knee, up leg, etc. to you reach a big placed on top of that. The dick and balls hanging out seems optional. Like you could still be wearing.

Well, they wanted to leave me with something. Oh, you see I could be wearing. Well, they don't really make pants in my size. Because your waist is your shoulder width, essentially. Like I think if you put on the like largest or second to largest pair of ruggers you can get and you just pulled that all the way out of the top of your seven segments of legs. It'll be doing something which is more than what I'm doing currently which is sort of right now. It seems like you're not putting any off in. Rolling around in the salt plane sort of with all my, with all my shit hanging out.

Yeah. Like a millipede. It would take... Okay, so do each of these knees articulate in the regular fashion of a knee? Oh yes. Right, so you were sort of having to make a D-shaped legs to accommodate the motion required. That's quite heinous. And speaking of heinous, of course, here with my good friend Ben, who is slithering on his stomach like the serpent of Genesis for lying again to the village elder, saying that he has a lovely wife to marry to his most eligible son. Of course she takes the shape of a donkey now, but...

It was a wife, potential wife when I saw it last. And when married, you know, the curse would be lifted. Of course, when he married the donkey, the curse wasn't lifted. It was you in turn that was cursed, tried to make your quick getaway, but you forgot you sold your donkey. Slight kind of hole in the plan there. Yeah, well, I didn't anticipate a need for escape. Right.

You know, it's easy to cast my actions as if they were born of bad intentions. Oh, you're thinking the... But I truly believed that that was one of those classic donkey will turn into beautiful woman with the holy power of wedlock type situations. So you're the true victim in this. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I am I am I am Ithe true victim in this. I am the true victim in it turns out any time anyone has run afoul of anything in my life I have been the victim when I look back over. When you look back you can't assign any blame whatsoever to yourself only to those

outwards. You know how like uh you're very good at that. In the way that every every photon is moving away from the sun. Yes. You're the the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th the th th th. In th th. In th. In th. In th. In th. In th. th. In th. th. th. tho tho tho thoen thoen type thi type type type type type type type type th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. th. ty ty ty ty type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type ty ty type ty ty ty ty ty ty ty ty ty ty ty the blame is moving away from my body. Yes. You're exo-blamic. Yeah, that's right. That's a nerd bullshit word, which is great because we're here to talk about the Theophiles. We've got one each here. I've got one, so I'm going to kick us off here. And this was one that I, it wasn't like a funny thing thing that happened.. that. that. that. that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened, that that that that that that that that that that that that that's that's, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, that, that, that, that's, that's, th. th. th. th. th. thi, th. th. th. thi, th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th to kick us off here. And this was one that I, it wasn't like a funny thing that happened where thousands of people died like we usually talk

about. It's a classic. Classic. There's no explosions in this one. Nobody dies, nobody ends up getting their honkers like attached to their buttocks with one knee per cheek, etc. This was just a bunch of stuff that I found interesting. If you if that sounds bad to you, then maybe skip to the 35 minute part. You can't, you've got to come into with more confidence this is a real Sunsu. You've got to win the wall before you start at typship. But I did find this stuff really interesting. So here it is, on to you. So I was recently watching a bunch of videos by a guy named Adam Neely. I don't know if you've seen Adam Neely on YouTube.

He is a jazz musician and educator and he kind of goes into some incredibly deep and entertaining videos about music in on YouTube. I would highly recommend all of his stuff is fascinating and it goes way further than you would expect it to. But one of the topics he kind of goes into is the the limits of like our understanding of tempo and so there's two videos on on there that I would urge you to kind of check out yourselves if you want. What is the fastest music humanly possible and what is the slowest music humanly possible, too separate. But very much into linked videos I think you'll find. But what I want to do is kind of like take this and see whether we can expand it a bit and try and like link a bunch of phenomena in as to how we as to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the to to the the to to to to to to to to to to to to to to their to kind to to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to kind to to their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their thi thea. try try try try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and the try and expand it a bit and try and like link a bunch of phenomena in as to how we as humans perceive time.

Can I just, you know, like I don't want to disparage Lucy or Andrew or the two cars if this is maybe your first episode. You know, I respect them. I think the world of them, I would say I've come to love them in time. But I just, I don't want to sound elitist, but you would never link phenomena with those guys. No, they're happy with phenomena completely unlinked. Yeah, they'd be like, oh, some disparate phenomena? Okay. It means nothing to me. I won't even attempt to link it. Hey, I've seen some dots. I'm going to go throw a perfect spiral instead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I the the to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their the the latest the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the theatest.leteeatest. Letletest. Let's theat. Let's theat. Let's. Let's. Let's. Let's. Let's. Let's. Let's. I don't theat. Let's theatheatto me. I won't even attempt to link it. Hey, I've seen some dots. I'm gonna go throw a perfect spiral instead. Not gonna draw a line between those bad boys. Yeah, who has the time? I'm too busy having pre-marital sex

and going to house parties? And being happy and stuff and sort of like, enjoy it. Probably the four of the four of us. We wea wea wea wea, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that, I, that, that, th, th, th, th, th, I, I, I, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that, that, that, thr, thr, thr, thr, thr, thrown, thrown, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw know, we're going to draw a line. Sort of in the Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance style, if we were to take a razor to divide the podcast into sections, you could have the depression section and the fart section. But we may, we may yet link those two sessions in my topic as we, if we just give us enough time to breathe. You've popped the cork off this topic and now you've just got to leave it a little while to waft. Letting the topic breathe. So it's so important. So I kind of like, so initially I wanted to do like a whole continuum. And like start with the macro and talk about how we perceive times time over the years because

I'll be reading a book that my dad bought me called The Light Ages which is about the science in the early Middle Ages. Oh, a steam punk novel by Ian McLeod. No, this is about science in the early Middle Ages. Oh, that's interesting because I've read a book called The Light Ages that is a Steve book novel by Ian McCart. And we can just continue talking as if we've both read the same book and see how far it gets us. I feel very foolish now I've got it for five dollars from a dimmix and I was like, wow no one else has ever

read that book. So it's sort of like, so it goes into you know how we kind of like document time and like the passage of years and that sort th of th th th th th th th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi thi. thi's thi's to to to thi. thi. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thin, thin, thin, th. And to to thin, to toe. And toe. And toe. And, to to thi. And thi. And thi. And th like document time and like the passage of years and that sort of stuff. And I've come to the conclusion that I just don't give a shit about astrology. So it's like impressive, but like it's effectively just very like careful and exhausting bookkeeping of where like constellations rise and set and stuff like that. And occasionally you can like freak out the local warlord by predicting a solar eclipse. And you look like a god like in those episodes of Stargate where the team goes to a primitive planet. The indigenous peoples have like rocks tied to sticks, etc. And then they're like, holy shit, is that a Fabric National P90?

Yes. But you must help us repair our portal. Is that a bullpup profile light submachine? This is like scratching in the dirt magazine goes behind the handle. It's a very distinctive looking weapon though, I remember watching Stargut and it's like, oh, it's a cool gun. It is a cool gun. Very simple apparently and it's just like, it's got this like mystique because the molding is like cool. It's like the molding is like cool. It's like the.. It's like, a this the molding is like, a the molding is like, a th. It's like, a the molding is like, a th. It's like, a th. It's like, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A th. A, a th-a, a th-a, a th-a, a th-pup, a thu-pup, a thu-pup, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a th. A, a gun. It is a cool gun. Very simple apparently and it's just like, it's got this like, mystique because the molding is like cool. It's just like a cool like molded gun. And of course, the magazines at the back was kind of like all the way along the top and they got to like rotate a buplop down and stuff. Which unlike the Australian standard issue firearm, which is the...

Staya UG. That is also a bullpup. But it looks like shit. It looks like absolute shit. It looks like they forgot to attach a bunch of stuff to it with their assembling it. It looks like they forgot to attach a bunch of stuff to it with their assembling it. This is the prototype. We made it out of plastic. We'll add the gun bits later.

We'll make it look like a gun. Let's sell a million of them to Australia. So yeah, so I don't know. I don't find that stuff particularly. Like it's early science, but it's sort of, it's sort of, I don't know. We kind of, I feel like we're at a point now where we don't really need to look at constellations coming up and down. And they, it is a good book though.

It's a super interesting book. They kind of go into how, I mean, like, our sense of time is like a construct, right? As far as the how is gone, that sort of thing. And previous to mechanical clocks, so if you look back to like the, the first the first the first the first the first the first the first the first the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the first, the, the, the, the, the, the, tho, the constellations, the, tho, thiolations, thiolations, thiolations, thiolations, thiolations, thi constellations, thi constellations, thi constellations, thi, thi, thi constells, thi, thio, th you look back to like the first millennia AD and up to like 1,000 and 1,200 sort of thing, they had this thing called uneven hours. So your, the sun would rise at 6 a.m. and it's set at 6 p.m. and you'd have midday in between at 12 regardless of the seasons so the hours would just get longer and shorter because that's the thing that you have to keep time is the sun coming up and down right? Which I thought was interesting but then as soon as they like come to mechanical clocks and and the Chinese are doing a lot of stuff with like water clocks at that time then then th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thrie thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrius thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thrives thi. I's thi. I's thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thrives at thrives at thrives at thrives at thrie at thrie at at at at at at at at at at at at at at to to to to to to to to to to to to to thrie at thrie at thrie at thrie at the Chinese were doing a lot of stuff with like water clocks at that time, then even hours become easier to do and sort of we've kind of gone to that obviously.

But I was actually, I was listening to a fascinating episode of, I think maybe 99% invisible, that was talking about how the idea of standardized time between towns didn't become a thing in the UK until the advent of the railroad. And beforehand you'd have towns that were like a whole hour of neighboring towns and it didn't really matter because... What are you going to do? You're late to your fucking frog peeling appointment? Yeah, exactly.

You can peel those frogs anytime. That frog will keep it wet, it's good for a few hours. You actually only need to try a little bit off the bottom of the frog. Keep that suspended in a glass of water. Don't store it in the fridge because you will dry it out. All right, but, um, so I want to zoom in further and kind of like concentrate more on, um, the sort of moment to moment thing, right..... So, right. So, right. So, that. So, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, th, to, to, the the, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, the frog, the frog, thi, the frog, the thi, the thi, the thi. If, throoooomorrow, the the the throooooomorrow, the the frog, the the the the the frog, the frog, thi. If concentrate more on on the sort of moment to moment thing, right? So as we're going a bit further we get from our ability to discern the passage of time

into the zone of what we might call the present, right? And so in absolute terms, there might not be anything that we can assign to literal meaning of the present because we can't freeze a single moment in our senses and perceive it, right? So we've got all kinds of delays built in from our ability to like receive information from our eyes and ears and nerves like all the way along our body. And then so they all have delays to, you know, inputs and that sort of thing. And then we can either experience a reflex or process them and get a reaction.

But it's our body, or our brain, sorry, fabricating an idea of experiencing a present which is not really. That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. We're never experiencing all our senses simultaneously. There's always a little bit of that's right. But it is useful for our body and ourselves to kind of consider a period that

we might like, that we might describe as the present, right? And so there is, there is such a period from a sensory perspective and appears to be more than a few seconds but less than about 10 seconds, right? So in the, so I saw one paper that Adam nearly brings up between like three and eight seconds. And so, and during this period, this period, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, that, that, that, that, that that, that that that that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we might that we might that we might that we might that we might that we might that we might that we might that we might that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that I saw one paper that Adam nearly brings up between like three and eight seconds. And so, and during this period, this is when we feel like we're directly perceiving things, right? So if we consider something that happened longer than this amount of time, then we need to spin up the brains of parts of the brain responsible for like estimation and reconstruction, and we get into concepts like working memory instead of direct perception, right? But, but within th the the the the the th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, and so, and so, and so, and thi, and so, and so, and thi, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, thi, thi, thi, thi. And, thi, thi, thi, and thi. And, and thi. And, and thi. And, and thi, and thi. And, and thi. And, and thi. And, and so, and so, and so, and so working memory instead of direct perception, right? But within that

time it's like this is the now, right? This is a thing that's happening sort of thing. And it's within this period that seems to be like the longest period of time that we can accurately subdivide time as well. So what do we mean by that? So if I was to make like a beat, right, so like a bass drum beat or something like that, and then another in about 10 seconds and then another in 10 seconds and so on, it's very unlikely that your mind would be able to link them as a as a beat or a groove, in effect, you know, you would process these as separate events because it occurs outside of the present and not like some stream of music that's occurring right? So you've never listened to Dope Smoker that's

interesting. And there is in fact like a bunch of these like examples like you said of sort of drone metal and then taking it to the you know the the extreme and the extreme and the extreme and the e e e the the the present present the the the the the the present present present the the the the present present the the the present present the the present the present the the present. the present. the the present. the the present. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the present present. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the present. the the the the present of the present of the the present of the the the present of the the the present of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of the present. present. the present. the present. the present. the present. the present. the the the present. the the the the the the the the the the the the the present. the the the the the the the the present. the the the the the the present. the the the the thethen taking it to the, you know, the extreme. And the extreme of this seems to be about 33 beats per minute. So it's about like every, a note, every two seconds or so. At that point, you can still establish a beat and a groove in your mind, you can still kind of count in between the beats quite accurately. But past that, you really like start to lose the ability to as it kind of escapes the present and into something, a note that you remember happening previously.

So it's not something you're experiencing, it's a historical event that's repeating itself, but after it's passed. After you have, after it's passed. Exactly. So to quote Adam Neely from his video, this is where you go from feeling the groove to remembering the groove, right? That's beautiful. And so this time within the periods of a lot of like the last few seconds that occurs is what we kind of term as the perceptual present. So I kind of got some stuff written down here that I want to editorialize a bit about that I reckon that time period that lives just beyond that is like also responsible for the doorway effect. So... Is that that one you cross, you cross through a doorway and you

completely lose all of your, yeah. Which I am doing, my life kind of exists from one doorway effect to the next. And occasionally I managed to get some work done by not crossing it, like the threshold or whatever. There was an episode of, oh yeah, dude, where they read out a paper about the doorway effect, but the paper, the language they used was that crossing the threshold of the door, they referred to as the event horizon.

I really enjoy it. I love that. I'm a bad ass. So like at that point beyond that, that's when we stop relying on working memory. So like our ability to kind of keep a few things like tasks in the head and that sort of stuff. And there's, there has to be an information transfer in between these two periods to occur from it to kind of exit your senses and become a thing that you're thinking about and doing. And for me, that's completely fucked. The pipe is way too small. I've got one of those thininininininininininininininininininininininininininininin, thi thi thi thi thi th is too small. The pipe is way too small. I've got one of those tiny little pipes that's just for farts. No good for thoughts. So if we kind of zoom in further,

around the like 200 millisecond mark or so is our response time or reaction time and that that seems to be pretty consistent for most for most people. So like pro-athletes might be down to like 180 milliseconds if you measure, you know, sprinters on the block. And this seems again to be consistent across sexes. It's pretty, it's pretty like relatively similar for most, for most people, as far as like the distribution goes. And so like a common refrain is that as we get older, our reaction times get worse, and

it does seem that the reaction time seems to slow by a few milliseconds per year, but this is apparently not due to our ability to process information, but actually to move afterwards. So we still retain the ability to turn around a thwart in like 200 milliseconds, right? And also I saw that the decision time is about 500 milliseconds, right? So if you've got like two buttons and you've got to hit the right one, That's about 500 milliseconds to turn that around in your head. But whereas like if you've got to just launch off the sprinting block or whatever, it's about 200 milliseconds. And it gets worse because just because our bodies slow down,

not because our brains slow down. So I'm actually like not terrible at dark souls because I'm old and my brain is decaying. I'm actually still a genius. . . I'm old and my brain is decaying. I'm actually still a genius and it's just that like my body is betraying me. I've got the soul and the heart of a gamer, but... If your thumbs were quicker off the block, yeah, it might... You'd be rolling with the best. It's exactly right. And I wouldn't be

fucking stuck in since Fortress for the last six hours of my life. God, I'm so bad at this. You do this on this for this for this for this for this for this for this for th. I th. I th. th. th. th. th. th. th th. th. th th. I th. I the the the the the the the the th. the the thi. the the their the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their thi. I. I'm thi. I'm thoooooooooooooooomoooomoom. I game. I'm. I'm thoooooooooooomoom. I'm thoooooom. I'm'm so bad at this. You do this on purpose. You're doing this for fun. Yeah. And I do enjoy the, I enjoy it, I think. When I'm in the present. And when I think back on it, maybe. I don't know. I try to think back on things too much. It leads to trouble. No, that's what mindfulness is all about. But anyway, like this, this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't this doesn't thi. Thea. Thea. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. to to thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. the. the. the. to. to. to. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. the. toe. the. thi. the. the. the. the. Now that's what mindfulness is all about. But anyway like this this doesn't really like the actual processing doesn't slow down because as we'll kind of see shortly there's lots of things relying on this this like turnaround time here. And so they reckon like the lower limits on if you were just superhumanly good at reacting to things, would be about 100 milliseconds or so. And there's a very good reason for that, because beyond 100 milliseconds,

or shorter than 100 milliseconds is where things start to get weird. So on one end of things, the 100 milliseconds seems to be this speed at which our sensory memory operates at, so as in we can hold a single sensory response for about 100 milliseconds. You know, I've touched something, I've tasted something without it, you know, and then the stimulus is removed. That kind of memory of your sense seems to be about 100 milliseconds or so. So longer than that it moves to your perception of it. Mm-hmm. Responding to it and so forth.

But then from 100 milliseconds to about 10 milliseconds or so is what I would refer to as the mush zone. Everything here is just completely fucked up, and your brain is just laying tracks down in front of itself, like Wallace and Gromit, pretending everything is fine. And I don't believe it's coincidence that this time period is sort of overlapping with our sensory memory.

So at about 100 milliseconds or 10 frames per seconds, the lower limit on the speed of movies or animation, for us to discern that it's moving and not just a sequence of images. So animation on the twos or every second frame is 12 frames per second. And then otherwise your movies are 24 frames per second or 48 if you're a complete freak. You saw The Hobbit at the cinema, right? No. No?

I did not because I already found the movie upsetting enough that the frame-right thing. Did you see that? Um, was it Ang Lee? Did that movie that was 120 Fps? That someone's half time walk? No, I haven't. There's too many frames, bro. That is way too many frames. You're wasting frames on me. I'm just going to toss half of them out. I'm going to take the other half and then toss half of them out again. I can take a quarter of those and I would not notice that the other three quarters are misconduct.

Except for the vomiting I've been doing in the cinema. Yeah. It would be weird if you went into a cinema not expecting it. Yeah. Like something is wrong. Is it wrong with me? Tearing your face off hell-raise style. And they're just like, oh no it's meant to be like this. It's art. Oh. Just put my face back on. So like, okay. So at 24 frames per second, that's about 42 milliseconds of frame, their frame, right? So at that speed you can jam two frames into the in the time span of sensory memory and your brain's just like, oh okay, that's a train coming for me. It's coming right out of me. Ah! No time to grab the children. Get out of here! But weirdly, this is also where the limits of how fast music can be played comes in as well. So like putting aside the limits of physically playing it, right? So we're talking about cranking up the BPM in Ableton doing that sort of thing or,

you know, some ungodly jazz band or what have you, right? So something again, weird begins to happen to our sense of sound at this 100 milliseconds. So it's this real cutoff between individual events, like I said with the individual frames of animation or individual sounds and something else. So I've got a few examples here which we will edit in in post. Do you want to maybe just tell the listener how you're generating these sounds just out of interest? As in physically? As in what you're playing them from. Okay, all right, so we here at Buntavista lack the technology except for Andrew who has, I believe, a patent on it perhaps, or at least... Oh no, don't tell them about the

embarrassing headphones on the microphone thing. I meant the Python script that you've written. So in again in in Adam's video he uses Ableton with a particular note and or a drumbeat to kind of show what I'm about to show. And there's actually a separate Q&A that he does where where somebody asks to, um, to, to, to, to kind of show, to, to, to, kind of, to, to, to, the to to their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their, their their their their their, their their their their their their, their, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, to, um, to, to, um, um, um, to, um, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to kind of show what I'm about to show. And there's actually a separate Q&A that he does, where somebody asks whether you can take one note and speed it up enough to get a different note. And I want to kind of reproduce this in line with the thesis here, or the, like the common theme here of of this this mush zone. So I have written some Python code. It's okay I was going to be writing Python code anyway whether it was for the podcast or not. Just to go through this, right? So the first sound is just a pure tone. It's a sign wave,

which is, so if you've got a sign wave that goes up and down 440 times a second that is a pure a note So when we hear this we that this is going up and down 440 times a second and we Register that as the note a in our brain right so if we play that So if we play that So there is just a middle middle a second ti tho tha, th th tho tho tho tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. And tho. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. tho. tho. tho. th. th. tho-4, thi. tho. tho. th tho. th tho- tho-4, th th tho-4, tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi, thi, 4, 4, thi. thi. thi. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. thoe. the. thoe tho tho the tho the the that as the note A in our brain, right? So if we play that, so there is just a middle A. I'd know that note anywhere. So we, we, but we recognize that as one sound.

We don't hear the wiggles up and down. But it doesn't have to be a sign wave, right? We hear or process stuff as it begins to happen more quickly than this 100 millisecond point. We begin to stop hearing individual sounds and it gets mushed up again into a new sound or note, right? So I'll kind of demonstrate there. So if we play this a note at five times a second, right? We can hear this playing five times within a single second. If we do it 10 times, we can hear it 10 times playing

within a single second, right? But it's still individual notes, but then this weird thing starts to happen beyond that 10 times a second or 100 millisecond point, right? Where if we do this at 20 milliseconds, yeah, 20 times a second, so 20, so 20, you start to hear this other tone occurring, right? So this was 10. This is 20. And you can kind of start to hear this other note starting to get introduced. If we do it at 50, you can't even really hear thi, – –, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, yeah, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, th, thi, thi, th, th, th hear this other note starting to get introduced. If we do it at 50, you can't even really hear the A anymore. If you take this all the way up to 200 or 600. Right, so the individual note has completely gone and it's replaced with a new note that is just how many

times we're playing that original note per second and kind of going back to how we got here again like the the contention is that you can't really play music faster than a particular rate because at one point individual notes start to blend in and create a new note. So I said you can't play music past a particular like speed, right? There is actually a genre of music that kind of takes this effect and exploits it to make its own sort of music from it from the new the new notes called it can I guess what it's called nerd music extra tonal music you're you're right I think

from the Greek yeah but there's I mean it does crop up from time to time in in mainstream music right so if you listen to the track Georgia by Marauder by Duff Punk, towards the end, they do exactly this with a, with a single note that you kind of hear speeding up and slowing down, and then they start to repeat it so quickly that becomes a new note. Well, it's much like towards the end of, is it the Rockefeller Scank? By, I checked, because that was my first example and that's not actually it. That's different thing.

It's the other one? No, no, it is that song. It's not the same thing. Oh, God damn, I thought it was fucking. It's similar. Because that was the first one everyone thinks of, fucking, fucking, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I was, I was, I was, thi, I was, thi, thi, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, th. It's th. It's tho, I's tho, I's tho, I's tho, I's tho, I's that, I's th. It's that, I's th. I's th. I, I, I, I's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's th. It's thi, I's that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, thi. that, thi. thi. that, that's that, I's thto as well, but it didn't turn out the beat. I see it's kind of pedestrian. It's the first one everyone thinks of. But you don't have to do it with like a single note, right? So you can do it with a with a bass drum. I think I can try and put this in terms that our listeners might might understand. So Allow me to play now a sound. This is just a the the the th. A th. A the th. A th. A th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the th. th. the, the, the, the. thi thi the, the, the, thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. thee. theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. theeeee. the. the. the. the. the. a single sound. And then that sound again at 5 hertz. Sorry I might have missed that just so people catch that again.

But if we were to play this this at 440 hertz, which again is an A note, you can generate a note from a fart. It's the classic middle fart A. Right, and so this change over where it goes from being its own thing to, own individual things to a new like note, again, happens around like the 50 to 100 millisecond mark, right? Which I think is completely uncoincidentally the limits of our hearing. So as humans we can hear from 20 hertz to 20 kilhertz or so until we kind of gradually damage our hearing.

And so yeah, this overlap between sensory-wise where we stop, you know, perceiving things as individual events and start to start to mash them all together, also like completely, maybe uncoincidentally, overlaps with where we start hearing things both as, you know, a new note, but also just in general, like 20 Hertz is the lowest that we can hear and it's when this effect kicks in, which I think is kind of cool, right?

Yeah, that's, I honestly never really thought of, in terms of, like I know, hurts as a measurement of, repeating cycles, whatever you want to call. But like, I never really connected when you talk about frequency bands in literally, it is that wave form. Yeah, happening at however many times per second. So you can, and that's all, like, all it is that we hear. So when we, so like, computers, for example, when they output sound,

they actually use, they do it much the same way. They've got us, like a ones and zeros that go up and down very, very quickly at a rate we can't hear, but then they turn that on and off at a rate, the squiggly up ones and zeros on and off at 440 times a second to produce the sound that we hear. So even like, that's called PCM or pulse code modulation, I think. So even like computers will use this effect of tricking you from being unable to tell the difference to produce sound and we just don't know the difference because we're, you know, stupid. Which is that's how wave files are encoded right, the PC.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then, but, like the shape of what it is, what you use, so whether it's a sign wave or a fartowar wave or a or. wave, or a wave, or a the triangle wave, or a th wave, or a th wave, or a triangle wave, or a th wave, or a th, or a t, or a t, or a t, or a t, or a t, or a t, or a t, or a t, or a t, t, thi.a, t, thi. the, the, thiae, thia, thia, thia, thia, thia, thia, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thua, thua, thua, thua, th., th., th., th., th.a, th.a, th.a, tha, tha, tha, tube, tube, tube, tube, tube, tube, tube, tube, tube, tube, together, together, together, together, together, together, together, sou. together, together, threat. wave or a fart or a square wave or a triangle wave will give it the individual like tomber or the quality of what you hear, right? So like back in like the NES days you'd use a square wave and then you would repeat that however many times and it'd make you know very kind of the eight-bit noises that we're used to. Whereas triangle waves sound like really cool,

the synthesizers and the sign wave, the rounded wave is a very pure kind of time. So anyway, that's really not, this part's not really related to the perception of time. I just like it. I just like waves. Mr. Asyloscope himself. Yeah, look it Look, it's...

I'm glad for cheap, right? But there's one more thing, there's one more weird thing the brain does associating sounds to events, right? It's called the huss effect or the precedence effect. So say we hear a sound in the left ear, and then we hear it in the right ear about 40 milliseconds later. Our brain will basically ignore the fact that we heard it in our right ear and say, nope,

I pretend I did not hear it, right? Because 40 milliseconds around the time that that might take for the sound to echo off things in the environment. Oh, sure. So there are all these echo effects, but your brain's like, no, don't, don't even worry about that. That'd be too confusing. Don't even think about it. Like, it definitely came from your left.

But if you crank the delay down to about 5 milliseconds, this will make your brain think the sound is absolutely 100% coming from the left, right? Which enhances your stereo localization effect. Because in stereo, our brain relies on a number of phenomena, including primarily intra-oral delay, which is the time difference it takes from sound, basically, crossing the structure of your head. So if you hear something completely to your left, you'll hear it in your left ear, and then it will take, you know, five milliseconds or so, for it to of your head, right? So if you hear something completely to your left, you hear it in your left ear, and then it will take,

you know, five milliseconds or so for it to cross your head and you to hear it in the right ear. And that tells your brain that it came from that direction, right? So it's a big, big part of how we can accurately pinpoint the source of sound. So if we don't have this, we're really bad at finding where sounds actually came from. So in video games you might see the term head-related transfer function, all this stuff is basically modeling the skull to improve the impression of a 3D soundscape by like faking the amount of time it takes for sound to cross our skull. So when I see people and like Twitter talking about how they've started HIT, this is what

they're talking about? That's exactly right. They're going to get really good echo location. I can understand why they're excited. Absolutely. But again, like, at this point, we can't do anything useful else with the with this information right so like the when you get down to changing the times that events occur at this at this point our brain basically just says these are the same thing to me like the office meme or whatever I think it's yeah I think it's that guy from no it's the woman

it's the woman the woman Pam Pam yeah says these are the same because our brain doesn't really know whether it's like a new thing it's the the the the the the the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi thi things like a things like things like things things like things things things things things things things things things things things things thi. things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi that's thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi. thi. thi. thi. things these are the same because our brain doesn't really know whether it's like a new thing or an old thing or echoes. So we can't really like perceive things down past or like different events under a certain interval. So within like 40 milliseconds or so it just becomes this big mush of input and we're just doing our best with what it is. And beyond that, we literally can't do anything else at all, right? So our neurons can only turn off and on about 1 millisecond each time or like a constant rate of about 100 times a second. So there's also like limits to how quickly sensation could be transported from one end of your body to the other so your toes, so your toes to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to's to's to's toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, their their the the the thoes, their their their the the the the the the the best the the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the best the the best the th th th th the the to to to to to to toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. their their their their toe 100 times a second. So there's also like limits to how quickly sensation could be transported from one end of your body to the other, so your toes to your brain.

There's a measurable delay time, right, for it to go all the way through the nerves, all through your junctions, and I sort of think to reach your brain. But our brain has to kind of a kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind consistent kind of sensory present of that. So it's going to delay responding to that or saying that I'm aware of that until it can link all of the events together. So it might have information from top of your body or from different senses, but it has

to wait for the last stuff to really happen. So let's say you've got someone and they've sort of, they've pinched your nipple and they're sucking one of your toes at the same time. Yeah, and it's really important for the brain that you feel these at the same time. And it's important for me as well. So I'm imagining that a man, the little man in my body, who delivers the messages, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, is, is, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the the the the, is the the the the the the, is the the, and is the the the thi, and is the the the the the the their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and is their, and is their, is their, is the the the the their, is their, is the their their their the, is their theateateateate, their their their their their their their their theateateate, their their their their my nerves to my brain. He's run from my right nipple up to my brain and he's hammering on the door. And he's saying, I've got some sensory input for you. Yeah, you're not going to believe this.

And my brain is going, hold up one hot second. And then you can hear, running up the staircase that runs all the way up my body. Is from the toe that's being sucked on, tha, thu, thu, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thrown, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that, that, that, thr, thr, thr. thrown, thrown, thrown, thrown, thrown, the, toe, thrown, the, theee. theee. the. the, the, the, that runs all the way up my body is from the toe that's being sucked on there's a little guy there who's going I also have some sensory input and in the moment he gets the door the brain is like all right let's party tell me what's going on it's exactly it been I couldn't have couldn't have stated it better you could have used any other example the one the one I did might have been better but yeah no I think thi that that's that's that's that's that's th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I th I thi thin the the the the th. that's the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thi thi thi thi thi thi the the the theeeee theeee. thee. thee. theee. thee. the the it, really. I think that's the entire, that's all the stuff that I know about how we perceive time. Are you tired of paying nothing for the same old superior quality-free episodes of the Buntavista podcast? Do you want less politics and more content about diarrhea, our animals gone wild?

You're tired of skipping through those hours upon hours of paid product placement for Mark. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th.. That's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's thats all all all all all all all all all all all all all all of thatseol' that's thatheaugh's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. That's th. That's th. That's th. their thioleoleoleoleoleole's all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all their stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff that's all all all all all all all all all all all all all thatea' that's all all all all all all all all all that wild. You're tired of skipping through those hours upon hours of paid product placement for Mark Wahlberg's shooter. Well, boy, do I have the offer of a lifetime for you. That's right, for just five US dollars a month. You too can be a premium VIP member of the Buntavista Patreon. That's right, just five US dollars for all of our bonus episodes. That's over 300 hours of content from the hosts you know and definitely tolerate. I'll even throw in access to our glamorous and exclusive Discord server, where bizarre arguments only happen once or twice a week at most. Head to Patreon.

to the next five minutes and I won't know because that's not my job, but you'll be enjoying the sweet satisfaction of supporting us, and we will love you romantically for it. That's my promise to you.. you. that you.. that. That's that. That's that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that tho thi that tho tho th. I I I'll th. I'll th. I'll tho tho. I'll tho. I'll tho. I'll th. I I I I I I'll th. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I th. I I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I'll th. I'll th. I'll th. I'll thi thi tho. I'll tho. I'll thooooooo. I'll th. I'll thoooooo. I'll th. I'll thooo. I'll thi. I'll thi. I'll enjoying the sweet satisfaction of supporting us, and we will love you romantically for it. That's my promise to you. That was absolutely fascinating. I think this might be one of the few episodes where you come out just smarter and not horrified so far. So I am very sorry about that. But I think you've got something that will kind of improve the situation. It's not, you know what, this is also not, there's nothing horrendous about this one. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to. to to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. the. the. th. th. th. th, this is also not, there's nothing horrendous about this one, I think it's just quite fascinating. Let me, thank you so much first, before I get into this, always love, learning about what fascinates you and then being fascinated by it myself. So it's a great joy.

To prime you for this one, to get you good and ready. Now my pump is out. And I have got one hand on the pump thapiafam tham tham tham tham tham tham tham tham tham tham tham tham th. th. thiia th. th. thia th. th. th. thi. th. th. thi. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. It's just th. th. It's just th. It's just just thi. thi. It's just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just, to th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. It, th. It, th. It's, th. It's, th. It's, thi. It's, thi. It's, thi. I's, thi. I's just, thi. I's just, thatea. thia. thiaugh. thi. I's just, thi. I's just, thi. thi. I's just, thi. and ready. Now my pump is out. Yeah, and I have got one hand on the pump. And we're ready to prime that bad boy. Yep, one hand is steadying you because I'm about to prime it very hard. Prying it right off my body. The dream. I'm going to give you a timeline and some events. Here we go.

1 1982. Kitchen entrees, a new line of frozen meals from a massive household name brand, spectacularly fails in North America, because it turns out people are confused and alienated when their food has a giant Colgate logo on it. Oh, I thought we were going to be talking about confused confusing alienated when they find out it's a full meal and not an actual entree. No but you can see how that might happen. You're dumb bitch but from Colgate. So Colgate decided to crack into the frozen foods market which in the 80s was massive and everyone was just like oh so it's like oh so to the it's like oh so to choose a different name. You just that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a to choose to choose to choose to choose to choose to choose to choose. Just the to choose to choose to choose to choose to just a to just a to just a to just a to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they. they. their. their. their. th. th. th. th. Just. Just. Just. Just. Just. Just. Just. t. t. t. t. t. today. today. ttry. ttttttttry. ttttttttttttry. ttry. ttoday. t else. Anything else? Just the photos of it is so good, because the moment you see that Colgate logo, you're

just like, no, that's not for dinner. It's not for dinner at all. It's not what's for dinner. Colgate, not for dinner. Uh, 1988. The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launches the premier smokeless cigarette. It's packaged much like a regular cigarette, but it is a hard tube containing a small amount of tobacco, some flavor beads, all of which is heated by a carbon tip at the end of the pseudo cigarette.

They launched it. Market research found that less than 5% of respondents the US enjoyed the taste of the product. And a reaction caused between sulfur matches and the carbon tip created an odor that described by the then CEO of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco company F. Ross Johnson smelled like a fart. After spending somewhere between $300 and $325 million to get the product to market, it was removed after a few months from Shell. Uh, 1990, the Pepsi culler company gives up entirely on Pepsi a. the morning Pepsi beverage with 25% more cafe did it that they intended to use to lure people away from coffee.

Oh man. You know how... It's not a terrible idea though. What? A Pepsi but it's slightly stronger and that's the first drink you have of the day? Yeah, why not? All right. This is interesting. I want you to keep that in mind that you said that to me. 1998, Frito-Lay introduces the Wow line of chips using Alestra, a substance described

or Wikipedia as a quote, fat substitute that adds no calories to products. Wow chips were marketed as a healthy alternative to regular chips. I can see that. The product is a massive success in its first year, making the most sales of any new product in North America in 1998. Oh, it sounds good. Sadly, those numbers are not sustained because as the chips were marketed as a healthier product,

consumers tended to eat way more of them than they would of regular chips. Unfortunately, a side effect of eating too much elestra, which is the same side effect as eating too much of any fat, is severe abdominal cramping and loose stools. This prompted the FDA to put a warning on the chips saying that consuming too much elestra will do this to you, although they eventually removed that from packaging and light Smith chips, had a Leicester in it up until 2006. 2002, Nokia releases the Nokia N-Gauge.

Oh, buddy, now we're taco talking. Now we're taco talking. It did look like a taco, didn't it? The Engage sells 400,000 units in North America in just the first two weeks. According to Nokia, independent research reveals that 400,000 is actually the number of units that were sent to retailers. Sure. The actual number of Nokia Engages sold in the first two weeks is 5,000. Oh my God. They could have put the microphone anywhere, I feel like... Very silly device, but they kept doing re-releases of for a number of years afterwards.

Well, they fixed the taco-talking problems, and they thought that was it. A very silly product. And finally from this list, 2006, HD DVD is launched. I've got that on my calendar, actually, I know that by heart. You remember that date. Now these are some examples of great historical product launch flops and you know this is a massive embarrassment for some companies they will hard for them to live them down. In the like the follow-on from the Zoom Microsoft saw something like a 40% reduction in game sales which is completely unrelated to the zoom, but the name was the follow-on from the Zoom, Microsoft saw something like a 40% reduction in game sales, which is completely unrelated to the Zoom,

but the name was tarnished so badly by the Zoom that it harmed them overall. So what, what would be invaluable to you as a business would be, if there was some way to know in advance if your product was going to be unpopular with people. I mean, that would be, you'd crack the code. That'd be the dream, right? Theo, allow me to read to you an excerpt from the paper, Harbinges of Failure, published in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Decades of research have emphasized that customer feedback is a critical input throughout the new product development process. The central premise of this customer-focused process is that positive feedback is good news. The more excited that customers are about a prototype, the more likely it is that a firm will continue to invest in it. When firms move to the final stages of testing and launching a new product, metrics of success shift from likes and dislikes to actual product sales. Again, conventional wisdom is that more product sales indicate a greater likelihood of long-term success. Sure. This assumption is fundamental to nearly every new product forecasting model.

In this article, we challenge this commonly held assumption. We show that not all positive feedback should be viewed as a signal of future success. In particular, using detailed transaction data from a chain of convenience stores, we demonstrate that increased sales of a new product by some customers can actually be a strong signal of future failure. Now, I know what you're thinking. This potentially could get quite dark from here. That we've managed to kind of create a forecasting model around the dipshit effect, the shithead signal.

I was going to say that this could be about singling out specific demographics of people, you know, maybe by race or creed or something, but you're absolutely right. This is about finding the dipshed effect. Oh my goodness, yes. The paper continues. We label them harbingers of failure. Harbingers are more likely to purchase products that other customers do not buy, and so a purchase by these customers may indicate that the product appeals to a narrow slice of the marketplace. This yields a signal that the product is more likely to fail. We identify these customers in two ways. Our primary focus is on customers who have previously purchased new products that have failed. We show that the tendency to buy hits or flops is systematic. Have they been talking to my dad. F. F. F. F. F. F. F. F. F, I I I I?? I I, I, I, I, I, I to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the their thi their thi their thethat the tendency to buy hits or flops is systematic.

Have they been talking to my dad? Fuck, I wrote, I bought an I-River MP3 player back in the day because I was so, like, I was so convinced that I didn't want to be part of the mainstream, buying like a, like a, uh, iPod with its big storage space and, you know, well supported. So, yeah, so far what we've got for you is you like the I-River iPod, sorry, MP3 player, yes. And Pepsi I am. It's interesting.

Oh, no! Oh, no! If customers tend to buy failures, the next new product that they purchase is more likely to be a failure. For example, customers who purchase Diet Crystal Pepsi are more likely to have purchased Frido Lay Lemonade, both of which failed. In contrast, customers who tend to purchase a successful product, such as a Swiffer Mop, are more likely to buy other ultimately successful products

such as Arizona Ice Tea. How can this be true? So what's worse about the dipshed effect is it's not just that they choose DUD products, it's that they like DUD products. Continuing for the paper here, it is not only that the initial purchase of new products by Harbingers that is informative, but also the decision to purchase again. A one-time purchase of Diet Crystal Pepsi is partially informative about a customer's preferences. However, a consumer who repeatedly

purchases Diet Crystal Pepsi is even more likely to have unusual preferences and is more likely than other customers to choose other new products that will fail in the future. Now, they got this data from monitoring just a whole shitload of purchases from an unnamed but very large national retail chain. And sort of looking at it. Yeah, individual purchases that people made and sort of tracking those. From the data set that they have, which is huge. Harbingers were more or less like other people. They had a few qualities that made them distinct from everyone else. On average, they tended to try new products a week or so earlier than other consumers. But this is like, generally it takes people 29. to try new products. Harbingers would try like 28. So not a massive difference.

Yep, yep. They tend to purchase more items, but visit stores more infrequently. So I don't really know what that means. They're more likely to choose cheaper items from the options available, and they are more likely to buy things on sale. Thrifty consumers.

Yes. I can see where this starts to kick in, yeah. And interestingly, they purchase a higher proportion of beauty items, but a lower proportion of health care items. Uh-huh. Yeah, so I don't, hmm. They are also much more likely to purchase niche items, i.e. items that regular consumers just don't tend to buy. They are just straight up weirdos. Or, as the paper puts it, this result is consistent with an explanation that Harbingers have preferences that are systematically different from other consumers. If Harbingers adopt a new product, it may signal that other customers will not be attracted to the product. Imagine being that guy, right?

And they find you. Hey, yeah, look, that, that, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thu, th, th, thu, thu, th, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, thui And they're like, hey, yeah, look, buddy, we really want to, we really just want to know what you think of our new product. And they're just like following you around the store, seeing... Take a note. He looks very interested in this. He picked up for a long time. You like kind of reaches towards your product. Oh, God damn it! It reaches down slightly for the tin of crab juice. I just got to have my crab juice.

Now, you know what, I'm going to tell you right now, it's not actually hard to find these people because it turns out they all tend to live together. Now this is from another paper, building on the research the previous one, and I quote, purchase of new products by households in these zip codes is a signal that the new product will fail. That's right, there are specific zip codes in which these people live. Most precisely, holding the number of purchases by non-harbinger zip codes is higher on products that fail than on products that succeed. So they can identify, like, entire swathathes of cities swathes, swathes. Hmm. Swathes. Swathes. Where in a distinct fashion from the other zip codes around them, these

people buy wrong. Yeah, they make terrible choices. So basically you have like normal suburb, normal suburb, normal suburb and then you drive, you take like a wrong turn and everyone's drinking crystal Pepsi. Yeah. What the fuck is going on in here? So much like in the previous study, their primary data set when they began was from like bulk purchases made in a large retail store. But it turns out that is not the only manner in which people in Harbinger post codes pick duds. Continuing from the paper here, the same pattern extends to purchasing decisions at another retailer selling private label apparel. Zip codes identified as Harbingers at the mass merchandise store are also Harbinger zip codes at the apparel retailer. So they're not just buying foods that no one else likes.

They're also buying clothes that no one likes. So they're drinking horrible novelty beverages and they're dressing like shit. And you know what? Oh no. It goes even further. Hang on, I'm just... This is really just starting to catch up with me. I used to like, when I was in, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. It, the the, th. It's, th. It's, th. It's, th. It's, th. It's, th. It, th. It, th. It, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, th. I. I. I, th. I's th. I's th. I's th. I's th. I's th. I's th. I's th. I's th. It's th. I's, the just... This is really just starting to catch up with me. I used to like, when I was in... Oh no!

When I was in uni, I would drink, um... What's that cola that sucked? RC cola cola? Yeah. But I really like... The worst of the coals, isn't it? I would buy. Vanilla Essets, an RC cola. Which is like 30 cents a can.

You know what, this is, we'll discuss this at the end, but um... But my dress sense is fine. Yeah, you dress very well. You dress very sharply. Thank you. Beautiful dress man. Whenever we'd have drinks after you'd just finished work, I'd be like, God damn, I dress like shit. Look at Theo. My wife dresses me, so... They won't. That might be why that's an outline then.

So other than picking ugly clothes, what do they do? This is more from the paper. We then ask whether our results extend beyond the retail domain, starting with a comparison of contributions to congressional election campaigns. We identify the top two candidates and compare donations in each five-digit zip code with donations in neighboring zip codes. Zip codes identified as harbingers at the mass merchandise store are systematically less likely to donate to the most popular candidates. They are also more likely to donate to candidates who lose their elections.

Oh my God. Eat shit food, wear shit clothes, always back the wrong horse in political races. I'm a big Bernie fan. I mean, yeah, when was last time a local candidate you liked one? Yeah, that's a fun thought, isn't it? Hmm. All right, so we've got all those, but surely there can't be more. That can be, that must be it.

There, there, 59 minutes now on the recording. Yep, so we should probably stop before I get to this last fact. Just kidding. We also compare changes in house prices between 2, thousand and 201. 2002 and 2015. Zip codes identified as harbingers that the mass merchandise store had systematically smaller increases in their house prices during periods that prices were increasing or for neighboring zip codes. How can this be? So, they eat what no one wants to eat. They dress it away no one wants to dress. They back the politicians no one wants to be governed by, and they live in places no one wants to live.

But like weirdly like this is not necessarily like a class thing or something. This is something that sits outside of this. 100% where they just literally have bad taste across the board? Yep. Now yeah, there's some to... Neither of these papers attempt to draws conclusions as to what the underlying factor is, but yeah largely class is not a factor Neither of these papers attempt to draw conclusions as to what the underlying factor is, but largely class is not a factor in these things. No, you can be like middle class and have terrible taste and be like an awful spendthrift. Yeah. Dick doesn't work so good. It could happen to anyone.

But they do offer a variety of explanations on things like, sort of you were alluding to this earlier, but the idea that you just like, you don't want to be a part of the pack. Yeah, absolutely. You want to be a little bit different, so you go, oh, no, I'm going for this one. So, I mean, with a sort of oppositional bent would make you be like, I want to live somewhere that sucks is quite funny. So, you know, obviously you could maybe attribute this to these suburbs sort of forming micro trends, right? That there's already a bunch of people there that already reject. And you know, you'd be like, you move there and you go, oh, everyone here owns the Pontiac

Aztec. Everyone here is wearing flares, so I guess. Flares are in. It's time for me to wear flares. Turns out that's not the case. Data from the Appower Retailer also allow us to observe households moving between zip codes. We use these events to ask whether the harbinger zip code effect results from households with harbinger tendencies

clustering together or whether households learn these tend to observe their neighbors. We first ask whether households that move from harbinger zip codes tend to move to other harbinger zip codes. The evidence strongly supports this pattern. Households that leave the Harbinger zip codes tend to go to other Harbinger zip codes. The reverse is true for households that start in non-Harbinger zip codes. They tend to move to other non-Harbinger zip codes. We ask whether households' tendencies change when they move, which might suggest that households' tendencies become more like their neighbors after they move. We conclude that harbinger tendencies are a sticky trait and the clustering of harbingers within harbinger zip codes

appears to be caused more by the tendencies households bring than the tendencies that they learn. Straight on got that a bad taste gene. Yeah. Yeah. That's harbinger zip codes. Uh, oh, uh. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, that, that's. that's. that's, that's, that's. that's. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, that's that's that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thea. the the the that there's like a shadow realm out there of people. It's just like the whack suburbs. And it's not that they're like, you know, sort of poor or neglected suburbs. They're parallel suburbs, but everyone there has whack tasks. But everything there sucks, like that episode of The Simpsons, where at the end they all see their, um, they're like double-ganger from the... Oh, fuck.

Mmm. All right, it's the itchy and scratchy one, and they quit a thi itching and scratchy thing that they were part of and then they present a thing to Bizarro Bart and Lisa. Yeah. And then there's an extremely ugly baby there as well. Yeah, with the baby with the monobrow? Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly like that.

Yeah. I do like, okay. So let's think about, I mean we could probably, I wonder where we'd get a map of where house prices are increasing in Brisbane and where they're not. And then work backwards from there. And find where these whack suburbs are. Yeah. And just find people wearing like the shirts that JJs has to discontinue because no one wants to buy suburbs are. Yeah. And just find people wearing like the shirts that J.Js has to discontinue because no one wants to buy them.

And they're getting like the novelty chips that are a flavor no one wants. They're the ones that are buying the like the Lamington flavored Smiths crinkle cut chips. So if we find someone buying one of those and we follow them home, driving their Nissan Cube. You know to live nowhere near them. Yeah, don't live there because for one, that house that you definitely own, because so many of the people listen to this podcast are homeowners, it will not increase in price, so don't do that. Fucking wild. I just want to go to one of these parallel dimensions so bad. Because to me, I would say that all of the Sunshine Coast is that.

Yeah, it's the, it's the, um, it's the socks and sandals of the Brisbane Greater Metropolitan. I think socks and sandals are actually cool now. Lots of young people wearing those. I don't know. It's hard to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to make to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to say to say to say to say to say to say to say to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to make to make the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the als are actually cool now. Lots of young people wearing those. I don't know. It's hard to make sense of these things. I'm not the one to make a call on what fashion is whack or not. I went around to your house the other day you're wearing socks and sandals. Look, we don't have to.

I mean, you were in gold berth and stocks. Okay, those are Caitlin's. I put them on because you came around. Otherwise I would just wear socks in the yard. Yeah, that would have been fucking disgusting. And I would just stand out there like a freak. Yeah, the middle of my yard, some very clear sight lines from other places. I mean, you've got a very nice lawn so I guess you can maybe get away with it, but that idea is a lie-lose it to me's better than what I had, but it was largely a dog had turned it into the surface of the moon. Into Shitzville. Yeah, more dirt and shit than grass.

Yeah, landlord didn't like that for some reason. Onwards and upwards. Yeah, this has been the theophiles. Oh, what a joyem. I was completely, I felt like the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, the well, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that, th. that, that, that, that, th. It was, th. It was, th. It was, th. It was, th. It was, th. It was, th. It was, th. It was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was th. It was th. It was th. It was th. It was th. It was th. It was a th. It was a th. th. th. th. th. the the the. the the the the the the the the the the the the the toge. the. toge. toge. thoge. theophiles. Oh, what a dream. I was completely, I felt like the well was a bit dry there for a bit and then I was putting together this one and I realized I completely forgotten about another topic that I'd wanted to do with theophiles on, so. Oh, and to spend it with you Ben, what could be better? That's an absolute dream. threat, I mean I am. What could be better? That's an absolute dream. And hey, we're technically getting paid for this as well. Could you believe it?

I mean, I am. How do you end these again? This is what happens to us every time. And then that's the... God, Andrew's so good at this. For as much shit that we give him, it's just like... So many other things. Do they th. Do they they they they they they they they they they th. Do they th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do th. Do thi. thi. tho. tho. tho. that. that. tho. tho. tho. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. tho. tho. the. tho. thoooooooo. the. thoooooooooooo. the. the. that. that. that. that. that. the. they know about the booking issues? Where Andrew will just like book someone and completely the wrong time zone. He'll like think it's like 10 hours ahead and then, but it's actually 10 hours behind and

he's so many times. And he's got like a spreadsheet for it and everything. I can do an Andrew ending if you like. Sure. Okay. Okay. Huh. Huh. Well, that's it.

Thanks for this thing. And we'll see you next one. Hello. the the