Reptile Fight Club - RFC debates Tech for Reptiles

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of Tech for Reptiles.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to the episode of Reptile Fight. I'm your host, Justin June. And with me today is Chuck Nology. You're Dr. DDP. Get it right. All right. Dr. DDP and Chuck Nology coming at you live. That's right.

That's our show handles for this episode. Oh, man. Okay. Well, what's new new what's going on man gecko city around here uh just yeah but right before i was checking in on stuff and i i swear like i got home we got out so they're doing the uh top gun premiere on on north island I work on North Island. A lot of the, the movie was filmed on North Island. So they're doing like the grand premiere. So we got out a little bit early cause it's going to be bonkers. Uh, and it's, you know, it's, uh, traffic's kind

of an issue with, with North Island anyway. So we got out a little early anyway, I came home, checked on everything, you know, uh, fed some stuff and i had nothing hatching and and i just went in in the snake room a little bit ago and i have two uh viper geckos that hatched out and then two williams that hatched out so yeah so yep like man they're just they're just uh little machines man little egg laying machines so nice yeah I think I just found another four crested gecko eggs. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all these crested geckos, but they started showing up, don't they? They're coming fast and furiously, but I need to get an incubator. I'm just incubating everything at room temperature in my office and my office isn't the warmest place.

And so they take a lot longer to hatch out, but I'm thinking maybe grabbing one of those cheap ones from Amazon. I was thinking about that, but I'm like, I don't want to buy that. It's probably a piece of crap. But then I saw somebody post on Facebook, like, Oh, I got this thing off Amazon and it works fantastically. It holds the temperature great and it's got a fan and all this stuff. So'm like oh well maybe it would work so i think i need to do that yeah gecko problems gecko problems for sure yeah yeah no it's weird it's like it's it's it's one of those things where like now that i have several different types of geckos like i i'm hatching stuff all the time now you know what i mean it's like it's such a different feel. It's, it's kind of, you know,

it's kind of the drug, uh, all year round a little bit. So, I mean, there's a, there's a little break, but you know, like I feel like, you know, I feel like you're using an incubator to hatch these out or no. Well, so yeah, just room temp i mean the the the room stays pretty much 80 and i'm kind of in the season now where everything's a little bit warmer so i've kicked the room temp up a little bit so my air conditioning doesn't come on until the room gets a little bit warmer so kind of keeping it you know uh 82 ish. And then, you know, it cools off a little bit, but I mean, that's fine for all that stuff really. So yeah, I mean, it does, does great.

Um, yeah, I, I don't know. I gotta, I gotta figure out, I gotta figure out caging. So I need to, so I guess this is a shout to anybody out there. I'm looking for plastic caging manufacturers that don't take 300 years to make cages. So if you know anybody, I probably am going to need some small tweaks, looking for like four-footer plastic cages for Tracy A. Probably some small tweaks, maybe stuff that can be done and then added to the cage. But, um, if, if anybody knows anybody or, or can give me a, an assist, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm on my knees begging, please help me out. Why not make your own? I, you know, yeah i mean i'm just so like i i am busy enough with other stuff that um i would rather pay a professional to uh to to help me out and uh rather than than spend my time

doing it and i'm so you know like i i mean it's fine i could do it and and uh i just but i'm so critical of my own stuff and and you know as you get old you only have so much time left so your time is truly money so yeah i just like having the freedom to kind of design them how i know no definitely definitely i mean i i certainly um you know i certainly want some nesting boxes and some certain things in there so i need you know i need somebody who'll kind of work with me a little bit and um you know there might be might be some advantage to working with me a little bit on it if for them i don't have local local cage manufacturer i i mean i have you know i i i'm a schlub dude i don't know probably there's probably somebody like manufacturing cages like

yeah like i i have no idea what's happening yeah you know i wonder if the guys at like triple l would know if there's somebody in the area that does i mean they have they have like a glass manufacturer who does like custom terrariums for them i did like uh i, I did like a, like a 10, it's like 10 section. It's like 51 inches long and it's like nine inches deep and they're all like front pole. And I'm going to set up all my William's eye babies and all the viper geckos in, in that. And that like, you know, I just did a custom thing with them for that. Um, but, but I want to do plastic cages for the tracy a and i just think that's a good way to go and um you know i i uh you know i i really liked all my uh animal plastics cages it's just such a you know that it's it's like you just hear this thing from them

they're like oh yeah we're tooling up man we're getting we're all this new stuff and it's still like fucking eight months to get a fucking set of cages from them it's like what is happening with your you know i don't know but so i don't know i i just i need to i my i like my um my juveniles are probably at that stage where i want to start thinking about the next caging. Um, they're good for a little bit, but it gives me time to kind of set up and, and, uh, that'll be, you know, that I'll start kind of hitting those, uh, those juveniles off with some more food a little bit and start to really kind of get them, you know, ready, uh, and get the first generation of captive bred tracier ready to breed so yeah yeah so that's what i'm thinking about how about you yeah just uh i'm busy with work i'm trying to get a proposal in and it's it's a you know it's a hassle but know, it's a hassle, but you know, it's necessary. And who are you proposing to the NIH?

Oh man. Some of my research. Well, it was actually, they, they put out a, you know, a request for proposals. And so, um, it's, it's a big one. Like it's pretty, what is it like a three year contract to screen drugs? So, you know, it'd be good, but it's a, they're,

they're asking a lot of stuff and, and it just doesn't fit well with the way we do. So is it, is it hoping? Yeah. Is it tropical disease stuff or is it like in your wheelhouse or is it? Oh yeah. Yeah.

No, it's, it's stuff we already do. And we actually already have a contract that's similar to that. So it's like, I'm not sure where they're going to come up with a bunch more compounds. Cause we already have a contract that has the same viruses. So I think they're restructuring things at the NIH or something. So are they, are they there? So when they contract you, they give you compounds they want you to test? Yeah.

Okay, I see. Yeah, from different companies. So we do the testing, they supply the compounds. Gotcha. Okay. So the NIH kind of works as an intermediary between the drug manufacturers and the research, you know, or, or, you know, they kind of, it's kind of a cool program because they, they, you know, fund research for stuff that's less, um, monetarily driven,

I guess you could say like neglecting tropical diseases. Nobody's going to develop a drug for yellow fever, chicken, guinea virus, even though it infects, you know, many, many people. And it's, you know, with yellow fever, it's quite lethal. You know, you're just not going to get a drug manufacturer to wait till it's a Western problem. And oh, wait till it like leaks into China or something. Yeah. We have like a global catastrophe. I mean, that's that's what I'm scared. There was a there's an outbreak in Africa and some Chinese workers were there with false papers saying they were vaccinated when they weren't really vaccinated. Then they got infected.

And what did they do? Oh, they went home. And so it was like a very. What was this? Was that chicken gun? Yeah, that was yellow fever. Yellow fever. Oh, yeah.

Where it hadn't really been seen for probably the better part of a century in Angola. And then it emerged. I saw a thing not that long ago about an Ebola outbreak. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm sure it pops up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not like it did, you know, in 20, what was that, 2013, 1414 something like that 2017 not that recent was it

that was a whole bunch of bring out your dead oh yeah it was huge and it was like it was like kind of the imagine the SARS 2 pandemic but with a

virus that has like 50% lethality, you know, 40% lethality, then instead of three or 2% lethality, you know, and they were thinking that the Westerners brought it and they, there was all this misinformation going around. Like, so they weren't talking to Western doctors. They were afraid that they were giving them the ebola or whatever it's like no we're here to help we're trying to help you clean this up and get rid of it and they were like no i don't want to listen to you i don't trust you you know that kind of thing that level i mean it's information it's a fairly you know with some very basic handling protocols you're you're fairly safe i mean it's not yeah yeah don't but yeah you know that's that's part of the culture over there yeah you know you wash and

prepare the body for the for the burial and stuff like that and so that's how a lot of these families just get decimated because they all oh my you know grandmother died or something and i'm gonna help prepare but yeah anyway i guess that's not necessarily reptile related we can get back no i'm just waiting on stuff to hatch like and more eggs to be laid i've got a few gravid females that i see out there waiting to lay hopefully a couple pygmy python clutches uh uh western uh stimps's python another eastern Stimson's python hopefully maybe two more inlands

I know one looks pretty gravid the other one looks it but she might just be faking me out what's the other what's the one you're pretty sure about is that a they're both from the AR line nice so I'm excited to hatch out for them

I know I might have way too many it's like you know you think well last year i paired all three of them but i also moved so and none of them went so now i'm like i pair three and well i was listening to carpets and coffee and it sounds like you have some interest so yeah i mean yeah it sounds like eric wants them and right yeah yeah lucas just wants he's after blackheads but i i want to he looks like he's got a female that's gonna later soon and if he can hatch some out and i can hatch some out which for me is a kind of a big if because i haven't been successful yet but i'm hoping uh these are gonna go the distance they still look okay i mean there's a there's some uh fuzz growing on a couple of them, but they're still kicking.

Okay. Fingers crossed I get some blackheads this time around. But, you know, we'd like to do a bloodline swap. Are you 30 days in yet with those? Not yet. Getting close. I can't remember what. You've got to be like three weeks. It was like the 24th

or 25th when they were laid. Okay. So I'm going on better. Yeah. More than three, 30 days now. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. The Woma eggs are starting to sink in. I've only got two left, but they're starting to sink a little. So hopefully they'll be hatching out soon. Hopefully I get a couple moments out of the two good eggs out of that clutch. Right. I'm not sure what happened there. And then my other female decided she was just tricking me. And so it's like, nah, either that or she'll lay slugs because she looks very thin and not thick enough to have good eggs. You know, I mean, you kind of see see that look but she's acting gravid but then you know

i did have an eastern stimpsons that gave me some slugs or you know just a string of slugs so it's unfortunate but yeah she she went the last two years so i i wasn't even really trying to get anything out of her so i was a little disappointed that she laid slugs but yeah um or anything i was hoping she would just take the year off just just quit yeah yeah got a break children's python that looks promising i used a really young male so who knows how fertile they'll be but um i guess he's not that young he's just a little on the small side but he looks like he got the job done and then yeah some blue tongues maybe uh nice yeah more more geckos more uh wheeler eye so dang look at you and hopefully

getting in on it early here let's um the other the only other thing I got going on reptile as I'm making, uh, new enclosures, uh, for my journey. So I've got, I made some fake rock and stuff like that. It looks, it looks pretty cool. I'm trying to paint it like a photo of, of, from the, uh, Hosmer I habitat. So, uh, out in Queensland, like the rocks are really kind of different looking. So I, I attempted to paint like that, but it just turned into like a bad looking camouflage or something. Like it looks

really stupid. So I'm like, ah, crap. And then I realized I needed to, um, put more tile grout over the, you know, to put it on the wall of the cage. And I use some like, uh, expandable foam to stick it to the wall and then fill in the gaps. And then I had to go over the edges with the tile grout. So I kind of covered up the paint job anyway. So that's probably a good thing and I'll have another chance, but then I've got a couple extra ones in there that will kind of stack and give them rock cracks and stuff. It should look cool. So yeah, I'm excited. I love, I love doing that kind of stuff, but it's just time consuming. You know, you got to apply the stuff, let it dry, go out the next day, apply more, let it dry, paint it, you know, adhere it to the cage, all that kind of stuff. I know I haven't, haven't run on last, last episode was like,

made me just got my wheels spinning outside and like doing a doing cage outside with a rock wall or just like you know all that like it's just so cool man oh yeah yeah for sure that's i'm thinking the same thing i want to get one put together and in the back of my yard that i can put like australian water dragons or something yeah that'd be cool oh Oh, my gosh. You need to make that happen. You hear this dog over here? She's like, quit jabbering and get on the road. Yeah, dude. It's time to fight. Let's fight.

Let's fight. Let's fight. Let's fight. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, have you heard any? Yeah, there you go. I listened to the Venom Exchange radio podcast.

That was a good one. I really enjoyed that. I'm trying to think of the guest. He's from Virginia. I'm so bad with names. I don't know. But I can look it up real quick so I don't get this wrong. Matt McDowell.

He's like a boiga specialist and does some other cool stuff. He does boygas? Yeah. What kind of boygas? Like cheese boygas or what? Oh, boy. Ba-doom-ching.

So, yeah, check that out. I, you know, listening to Phil and Nipper niche talk is really enjoyable. So Venom exchange radio podcast yeah so yeah and i i they had a couple episodes like i was i guess i hadn't been listening to podcasts recently but yeah so yeah where have you been and then there was a crossover one that was a fun one. I guess we talked about that maybe last week. We did. I tuned in for that one.

Blizzard Brain Radio. My internship. Yeah. I mean, Eric was pretty clear, but Schmitty was knocking you down a peg. All right, he wants to be a funny guy. He's got jokes. That's all right. We all got jokes. We can joke He wants to be a funny guy. He's got jokes. That's all right. We all got jokes.

We can joke. No hurt feelings in Fight Club. I was listening to – I was catching up on the Herpetological Highlights podcast too. That's a great one. I really enjoy those Brits and their thoughts on scientific papers and such. So check that out if you haven't they got the papers get the papers yeah they're uh they do a good job but yeah i was listening that they they did talk about the anturesia and talking about a new new python alert episode 106 i'm like wow wow i don't

know if i agree with that i was i was hoping'd come out. Not your favorite. Yeah. So maybe we bring them on and fight them on it or something. Do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah, that'd be cool. That'd be fun to have those guys on. Good stuff. I'll just push you.

I'll just be behind you pushing you like, get them. Get them, Justin. Get them. Get them. You authored a book? You authored the book. Tell them. Oh, God.

They're real herpetologists, folks. No, I know that. Yeah, they know their stuff. Which is why the idiot co-host is going to stand behind Dr. DDP and let him swing for the fences. Oh, boy. Yeah. All right.

Well, did you hear anything else else good any other podcasts of note lately um no you know i unfortunately my wheelhouse stays pretty small i stay within the network and and you know lizard brain lizard brain and and venom Exchange. I need to listen to the new one, the new NPR. Oh, yeah. Who is it? Why am I so dense sometimes?

He's a buddy of mine, I would consider. Not anymore, I guess. Yeah, I was going to say. He's like, I'm not going to be your friend. Gary Chiavino. Oh, yeah. Mr. I was going to say, he's like, I'm not going to be your friend. Gary. She, you know? Oh yeah. Mr. Shevino.

Yeah. So he's, he's a cool guy. Yeah. I really enjoy his stuff. So he's one of the old school guys, you know, it's been around for a long time.

I was, no, some good stuff. So I'm excited to listen to that one. I haven't listened to that yet, but I have not, I have not either so yeah that's one i need to give a listen to yeah lots of good stuff out there all right well let's fight okay

we're talking about tech tech today tech high tech versus low tech that's why i'm Chucknology. Yep, yep, yep. So let's see what Chucknology has for us today. So we'll do the old coin toss. Toss the old coin around. You ready? You watching? You seeing how high it goes? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me think about it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. Oh, okay. So that's tails. It's heads. Whoa. Is it? I am on a roll. Man, that's two weeks in a row so so that

was that was what did i call that i called that one heads or i called that one tails yeah and that was a heads so i had this idea that maybe you like flip the coin over and i was still dead on with my whole theory about the height of the arc but because you switched it from the jump you have changed the whole you have changed the pattern so i i'm like i have no clue what yeah yeah no so it's right you tell yourself anything you want to tell yourself all right i mean as you can see i live in my own world. I think I'm in your head now, you know. Oh, no. You're just going to be like second-guessing it now.

It's an empty open space. Have fun in there. It's cool if you like to yodel or you hear a lot of, like, reverb. But, yeah. Sorry. All right. Well, I think I'm going to go for low tech. All right. Well, I think I'm going to go for low tech,

low tech, low tech kind of guy. I don't know. Dr. Low tech. Why don't you, why don't you lead us out on the high tech, all the wonders of high tech herb keeping.

Say no more, my friend. All right. Yeah. So, I mean, what, what is the point of technology if not to make our lives better i can think of no less than hundreds of technologies that have improved our lives and made things better and and and and simplified and our lives and enriched them, increased our quality of life, our travel times, our reach into the stars and beyond.

The benefits of technology are endless. And I certainly think that the benefits of, of technology in your reptile room, uh, hold kind of the same, um, you know, the same benefits. I think they, they, they make the animal's lives better. They make your life more convenient. Um, and, and, you know, I mean, like we talked with Ron, oh, please, Ruby, calm down. I am on a roll. So we just got done talking with Ron about keeping outside. And, you know, what we were talking about is how hard sometimes it is to control

the outside environment. And that's what the benefit of coming coming indoors is is is you you know you're able to have control of that environment and through technology you know that that that that leap in technology has only allowed for more control uh and better control uh and and so you're able to really pinpoint monitor do all kinds of stuff that that we weren't able to really pinpoint, monitor, do all kinds of stuff that we weren't able to do maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago when we were all using rotary phones and Justin probably had a BlackBerry or maybe he still was in the pager stage.

I skipped the BlackBerry, yeah. Did you? Okay, I don't know. I don't know what the good doctor – I never had a pager either. I't know did you okay i don't know i don't know what what the good doctor i never had a pager either i was kind of yeah like back then too yeah i was all the only people i knew had pagers were drug dealers just yelled really loud yeah yeah what's that yeah i would just yell really loud yeah let's see so so you know that's probably where i would start. That's kind of my, um, that's kind of my abstract for this argument. Okay. Okay. Well, I mean, I guess low tech to me means, you know, you've got

more simple things. Maybe, I guess I just see there's, there's a, a lot of opportunities if you're relying on technology for technology to fail you. And sometimes it's hard to know if technology is failing you. So you have to get more technology to monitor the technology. For example, Alan Stevens, he just had a really close call with a fire. So that's kind of scary. But what was the technology he was using using though? You know what I mean? Like, was it, that's true. I don't know for sure, you know,

but it was something that was causing smoke. And technology is all about application, right? Yeah. Yeah. So regardless of how that happened, I mean, technology did alert him to the fact that there was smoke pouring out of a cage, you know. So obviously there's some benefits to that. But, you know, it's like you have to buy this to monitor that and then you have to buy a subscription so you can record it or, you know, see movement or something. You know, so like there's just it just kind of never ends. And sometimes it's like – I did kind of go down a little more technical route and got some – what are they called? The thermostats that are the – I think I got some from YouTube.

The Herpastats? The Herpastats, yeah. Herpastats. And all of a sudden they started flashing weird numbers and they kind of glitched out and went south on me. These are new herpistats? And, like, if I'm not monitoring them or paying attention to them, yeah, they were fairly new. Like, I can't remember. Maybe they were older ones, but, like—

I've always had really good luck with spider robotics stuff. Yeah, and so I've had two crap out on me over the last 10 years or whatever. And I guess when you kind of set it and forget it, you just kind of rely on it. And maybe you check it a couple times a year to change your night drop or increase or decrease the temperature depending on the time of year. So by the time I'm looking at it again, like I'm like, what is going on? And who knows how long it's been malfunctioning and not working properly. And so then it's like, well, you know, that's, that's kind of, you've got to monitor the technology to make sure everything's working right. So that can be a little bit of a hassle. Whereas I, you know, I've switched a lot of cages just

back to kind of the old school way of putting a light bulb in it, you know, to heat them. And if the light bulb's on, it's working. If it's not, then you replace it. You know, it's pretty straightforward. You don't have to worry about a light bulb starting a fire for the most part. And you know at a glance if it's working or not. So, you know, I think there's, there's definitely some, um, some benefits to that. You can switch the wattages if you want to lower or higher temperature,

but you know, again, that might be a little, little bit of a hassle, but at least it's, you know, you know, it's working and you know, how, how well it's working and you don't have to monitor it quite so closely, I guess. So that's kind of how I started. Well, but I mean, I think, okay, so a couple of things, you know, technology's an evolution, right? So, so, you know, as technology gets better, and you see this with cars, I think, you know, when, when you start to look at the features that come in cars, I mean, look at what comes in cars now versus what came in cars 10 years ago. Right into my spider web.

And so, you know, the... Ruby knows what's up. Are you done? Are you done? Are you done? Stop. Stop. Ridiculous.

Hey, come here. Lay down. That's enough enough no one wants to hear your mouth so so you know as technology gets better and you know i mean obviously man i might have to just pause here if she doesn't stop but uh it come here come here leave it i don't know what's going on but you just need to calm down i had a point to make and you're messing me all up so cars see yeah cars thank you i'm i'm like not i'm i'm all messed up now um you know that so the technology just gets you know better and better and and rolled in more and more and and, you know, with anything, I mean, you want to say that simpler is better, but analog lacks precision. So those analog timers versus a digital timer, you know, you have to always go back and reset it because it doesn't

keep a perfect minute, like a digital timer keeps a perfect minute, you know, and, and so you, you are trading accuracy for potentially for, for reliability sometimes, but, but again, you know, all of this is engineering. So there's, there's, there's just levels of engineering that go into things. And, you know, maybe the cars that we get sold, you know, the level of engineering is only so good. So it's only so reliable. And you can kind of look at technology based on the warranty that they give. And that warranty is a calculation from engineers about how long 100% of the time that product is going to last before it fails. And nobody's ever going to warranty, no company's ever going to warranty anything longer than they can reliably, you know, calculate what that time is, right? And so,

you know, this is kind of a tirade, but it all goes to, you know, very commercial things. They have longer warranties. Why? Because the engineering and the cost that has gone into building those is much better. So if you buy cheap, cheap new technology, you get cheap new technology, right? And it comes with those pitfalls. If you buy expensive technology, there's been more engineering, more reliabilities. You know, I work in the aerospace field.

So there's a whole bunch of engineering that goes into all of that stuff. And those parts are very, very safe, very, very safe. And they're redundant. So, you know, when you're building a room and you want to use technology, it brings you great convenience, but you also have to, you know, you have to be able to, you know, know what, um, you know, what Ohm's law is and know how to derivate Ohm's law when you're putting together electronics and you, you're plugging it into a single outlet, because at some level, technology is not going to tell you when you're overloading a circuit.

You just have to calculate how much resistance or how much wattage you're putting in there. So there's never a trade for being smart on your own. Technology is not there to save you from all of your dumbest mistakes, but it certainly is there for convenience. Right. And, and we certainly can have the convenience and, and, you know, you can put cameras in your room and you can, you know, put sensors and temp sensors and all of that to your phone. And, you know, I've had kind of horrible luck a little bit with, um, some of the apps that some of these companies put out where the product may be great, but the app sucks and you can't get access to the app and it just doesn't

work very well. So, you know, all of technology is in development and implementation. And so, you know, I think done well, it provides a real convenience done not so well you know it there's definitely can be potential pitfalls there i i yield i yield to you good doctor all right well um i yeah i i do uh appreciate the the car analogy and i i think maybe that kind of fits with the way I feel about some of the technology in reptile keeping as well, because you used to be able to get into a car, there was space, you could take out one part, put in its replacement fairly easily. You didn't need, you know, some computer or whatever, you know, it wasn't all sort of, it was pretty, pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Anybody could do it, you know, now everything's getting

so far, uh, technology wise that you can't do a lot of that stuff yourself. You have to rely on somebody else to do it for you. And I guess, you know, you kind of hit on one of my main things about, uh, technology is that if, if you don't understand why you're doing something, you probably shouldn't be doing it. You know, if you don't understand why you're using the technology app and it's probably not going to work that well for you, or you're not going to understand it and you're not going to know when it's good, beneficial or damaging to your reptile either. And so I think potentially, potentially, I mean, maybe I'd use a, uh, UV light, you know, um, maybe when they first start manufacturing them, they're using the latest,

greatest technology. And then over time to kind of cut corners and they have a good reputation or they sold the company and somebody else took over they start down grading things and you may not realize until you know there's damage to your animal or you think oh maybe i'll check the check the uv reading or something but at the same time like your your option is put them out in the sun which you could damage them out in the sun if you don't keep them outside, right? So even the low-tech of UV potentially can have some pitfalls, right? Well, I guess I look at people like Michael, Mike's Monitors. Mike – what's his last name? Gosh, Stefani.

Yeah. Thank you because I was like da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da. I know. My brain doesn't work well with names for somebody but mike uh you know he he doesn't use any uv or anything like that he keeps them you know with heat and and bulbs and you know and and that works great i mean he's having fantastic success but he's kind of that same way where he's like monitors sure sure but i mean if if there's any kind of if if there's any solar loving lizards it's monitors you know what i mean they're they're out full

force during the day so um and and i think several people have kind of shown that you know they can do great without it and and may and we may not understand all there is to understand. You know, we see, I think sometimes a lot of times we have an over-reliance maybe on technology. Or we say, okay, well, I gave them UV lights, so now they should be good. You know, I don't have to worry about that or something. And maybe they're leaving it on too long or they're leaving it on too short or they don't have the right wavelength or the bulb that they have isn't sufficient strength. And so they're basically just wasting their money, even though they think, oh, I've got the latest technology. I've got the latest UV light. So I'm good. I'm doing it right.

You know, and so I think you need to call it that, where you kind of understand what you're providing your animal and how you're doing it, what they need and what is important to their, you know, and then maybe build from there. Maybe use technology to enhance that. But I don't think we should rely on it. And that should be the end all be all of keeping. I don't, I really don't think there's like a plug and play box for most reptiles, you know, where you can say, just get this, put this here, plug this in here. And you're good to go because there's so many nuances about where you live or how hot your room is that you're setting them up in and all these things that that stuff just varies. And so if you're relying on somebody to tell you, this is the, this is the recipe, yeah, that's great.

Yeah, but don't you think that if me and you, you live in Utah, I live in Southern California, we can agree that X species should be kept this way. That it's hard for you and me to keep it exactly that way because we live in different climates, right? So it experiences different things. But is it easier for us to use a technology which has a level of control that a basic way, a know, a more simpler, basic technology can achieve. And so the point is, I mean, you need to understand what you're controlling. That's, that's the point. Well, sure. I mean, you can't anything you want, but you can use high tech, low tech, but so, so, and I don't remember where I heard where, where this came from or whatever, but there's this idea of technology and a technology trap, right? And so the idea of technology being something that was invented by humans, which made an actual great stride um and helped humanity but the technology trap would be something that

actually leads humanity into a false sense of security and actually is more dangerous and i'm trying to think of a the example of a good a good example of a technology trap um versus technology um and maybe i'll come back but i think i think maybe that that uv light thing fits where if you don't get the right uv light if you buy the cheap one off amazon you might be damaging your reptiles eyes more than you're helping it by providing you know uva or uvb wavelengths or whatever so you know if you're helping it by providing UVA or UVB wavelengths or whatever. Sure. So if you're just saying, oh, UV light, or this guy has a guarantee, or this guy has the best light.

But I also feel like even if you went with the low-tech approach, you could potentially mess that up too. Okay, I'm not offering a UV light. I'm offering a bulb that I bought off. It's a metal halide. I don't know what metal halide is. It's just, it's a cheap bulb. It works.

And if you don't understand, even the low, you know, metal halides have been around for a long time. They're, you know, back from the, from, from the plant, you know, from the horticulture days of stuff and they, and they have some application and, you know, a lot of people will, will hum and haw about how dangerous they are with reptiles and things like that. And, and I don't know, I use them for my monitors and, and, uh, I, you know, whatever. Yeah. Okay. Sure. They're dangerous. Yeah. Mine love them. But, you know, but they're also not always out under embasking and I don't leave them on all the time. So it's like, I think you have to understand at some level, the technology and you and and i'll give you that uh when you get into a very high

degree of technology it is hard for the average person most most people are not electrical engineers they're not able to take this stuff apart and be like ah it's clearly this diode that is burnt out and i will take it out and solder a new one in. You know, that's not – but that's also not how technology is made. And some of that goes to how we've built our consumerist society, right, where this stuff is meant to be thrown away and it only lasts so long because, for God's s sakes we need you to buy a new one because how's the company gonna last if if we make stuff that that lasts a lifetime right like we got we got to get our return customers this is like drug sales we get you on the repeat the first one is free

kind of thing you know so i i you know i i think it's technology is muddled in with, you know, kind of different different, you know, facets of of of how business works and how. But but but and again, like it goes to this idea of is technology not a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Is it a good thing? Like, yeah, I mean, I do enjoy the the rides in the vehicles of today versus. Yeah vehicles of today versus the vehicles of the 80s or whatever. Yeah, there's definitely some benefits to it. You look at the advantages of ABS braking or brakes before ABS, just power brakes. Clearly, that was a leap in technology which provided safety that was unachievable prior to that and performance that was unachievable prior to that. And I think we've seen some of those things technology wise. And I think proportional thermostats are a huge leap in technology for reptile keepers.

Now, are they perfect? No, no technology is perfect. And you have to kind of interface with what technology you're buying. And it's one of those things where if you talk to the pro products guy, he'll tell you why his panels are better than other people's panels. He does a great job of sales around, hey, I have done this and I procured these heating elements vices, these heating elements, because these are much more reliable. And I have pro products panels that I bought. I don't even know before two thousands and they're still going strong in my room. So, you know, it's, it's, you know, but that's not to say that, you know, one day they're going to crap out and, and there'll be, you know, um, and so, you know, uh, I don't,

you know, I don't think technology is a perfect thing, but I do think it provides a level of improvement and, and application is everything, right? Application. Well, I think that's something, an idea that I had heard people talk about. And I think some people made them. But there's some room for, you know, improved technologies that would really prevent catastrophic things like a kill switch. You know, if you have something in there that's that's monitoring temperature or smoke or something and as soon as it detects it it cuts off you know power to everything yeah yeah that would be a nice thing it would prevent maybe a catastrophic fire or but you know if that went off in the middle of winter you'd have to have something let you know that it that it tripped so

you know that all your heating elements are turned off and that there's a problem. And then identifying where the problem is, you know, that could be tricky too. So, well, and you know, there's lots of cool things that can be done with technology. It is really interesting. So I, you know, Ed Bradley, the longtime condor breeder, I would have been to his place a couple times and saw how he does stuff. His professional trade was he was a commercial electrician. So he's very, very adept at electricity and things like that. And it's really – his room is really interesting because he uses helix you know helix

proportional thermostats but his backup is a very analog type uh on off where you know when this this system goes above a certain temperature all the power cuts off and And so, you know, if his, if his proportional thermostats fail and the room starts to heat up, then, and then the, you know, those, those more analog, more basic type of, of heaters of, of thermostats kick on and it just disconnects the power. And, and, you know, I, you know, Ed's, Ed's real deal. So it's, you know, here's an example of a guy using a much more progressive form of technology with a much more basic form of technology. And I think, you know, there's something to be said for and man, understanding the technology that governs you, I think that's a big issue. I think that's a big issue with us as a society is technology is getting to the point where we don know, I think the average person can almost be molested by technology and be blissfully unaware of the downsides of things that they're doing with technology. So, you know, that's there's certainly certainly our technology is not that good yet that we can be molested by it. But so, yeah, I went we have a farm, you know, research farm associated with the university.

And we went out and did a tour of that a while back. And it's like this is like agricultural research yeah cows cattle farm so a milking barn right so the the cows go in the barn and they and they're enticed into the milking shoot with like a treat and then the computer scans their ear tag number and then decide you know they it can calculate when was the last time it was milked it can weigh it and it can know how much milk it should milk from it you know and then decide, you know, they, it can calculate when was the last time it was milked. It can weigh it and it can know how much milk it should milk from it, you know, and then all of a sudden this little robotic arm, you know, the, the, the walls come in and gate the cow in. And then the robotic

arm comes with the, the milkers and attaches and milks the cow. And then it rewards it with a treat or whatever. And then it, you you know kicks it out so if if the cow just wants to go in and get a treat the the computer recognizes the ear tag number and says no you've already been through here and it doesn't give it another one yeah so they learn not to come back or whatever and then there's like these automated uh back scratchers for the cows so it's like a nice little thing so they go under them and it just starts rolling and scratches their back whatever there's a robot that moves the hay in because they used to have to pay somebody to walk you know and just push the hay back because there's the cows eat they push it out further away from them so

you know just cool technological improvements to make life on a farm you know and we're definitely nowhere nowhere near that you know yeah yeah for sure yeah so that's that's and and and and it has to do with the amount of of money that's at stake you know what i mean when or or or the scale of the business you're talking about i remember uh ben was talking about how uh like raising chickens or something like that how they literally have the growth curves and they can scan the chicken and they weigh it and they know how old each one is. And that has to do with how much they feed it to keep it on its perfect trajectory. I mean, they absolutely have the science down to the teeth. We were talking about that when we were thinking about, you know, starting a rodent business and having like that kind of technology in feeder rodents and, you know, rodents that need less food to build more mass and things like that.

You know, healthier rodents or rodents that survive better with low water or something, you know, that kind of thing where they consume less, but they produce as much. And, you know, we've been doing that for millions of years domesticating animals and and you know using them for food and we're good at that i mean if we compare the the corn that we had you know so yeah i think there's definitely room to grow and there's room for people to improve our technologies but i i agree i i agree with your point that you kind of made for you know on my side of the argument is that we don't want to get over reliant on technology. Did you say you agree with my point about your point? No, your point on my side.

I got you. No, I know. Yeah, I got what you said. Yeah. So, uh, but the, the, we don't get over reliant on technology that we understand what we're doing and why we're doing it and, you know, how to, how to, how it best serves the animal. And, you know, I think the, I don't know, I've been, I've been watching these discussions on Facebook with, you know, the desert lizard group and they're talking about different, uh, aspects of, of lizards, you know, use of heat or UV or whatever. And there's disagreements on what they need and what's required and that kind of thing. This is a Frank the Tank discussion? Yeah, yeah. Frank is talking about, you know, his observations with wild lizards.

And he'll post videos. He'll post lots of information. It's really interesting. You know, if you, if you're not a member of that group, it's, it's fun just to watch the discussions back and forth. And, and, uh, you know, I, I think people are kind of firmly in their camp. I don't know that they're changing each other's minds or anything, but there's some interesting observations. You can make your own decisions. It's Facebook. Come on yeah exactly is anybody really there to change their mind yeah as far as as far as facebook goes this is pretty you know yeah it's pretty good yeah intellectual stuff so it's pretty interesting and thought provoking at least yeah so it's yeah it's hard to find good stuff you know that scientific

scientifically you don't go to facebook for robust conversation and heady intellectual discussion? Sometimes I do, but yeah, not often. Mostly I just go to look at pretty pictures have its challenges, but I think in the long run, you know, you're going to have a better feel for what your animals are actually getting rather than letting the machine do the work kind of thing. You know, you're understanding, OK, I just bumped up the temperature. They're basking more. You know, they're basking more, you know, they're, they're cycling and that corresponded with this movement. Instead of just letting your technology do it all for you. I think you have the chance to learn in a low tech environment where you might not have

that as, as good in a high tech environment. I mean, I think I disagree with you a little bit. I understand what you're saying. Yes, that's's this is disagreement oh i never but you know i mean i i think you know your point is is made but i mean whether you're using a a very techie thing or a very untechie thing you just cannot set it and forget it um you know i can there's there we were we were touring the san diego zoo and we went into the tuatara enclosure and they have this uh program that opens the windows like on sunny days and so they get natural sunshine

it monitors the temperature in their natural environment and replicates this you know provide the same temperature humidity all these things everything's done like automatically so it's like they're in the wild for the most part so it's kind of it's kind of cool like that but when the thing fucks up yeah and the windows don't open or the temperature doesn't send there has to be a human being there to be like oh well that's yeah fucking not doing what it's supposed to do when it's supposed to do it right so so like i said whether you're using a very basic technology or whether you're using a much more advanced technology it's not a set it and forget it it's not you have to go in there and you know make sure hey uh so the probe says

you know that i you know i've got got my thermostat set up for a ramp up and then a peak heat and a ramp down. I mean, if you want to make sure that's working, you have to have a secondary control to go in there and temp gun that. Like, okay, it's supposed to be here. Okay, it's still there. Okay, so it is working the way it's supposed to. But with a lower technology, you may not be able to get that thermal curve that a ramp up and a ramp down can give you.

But that doesn't mean that that's always going to work, right? Light on, light off. Ramp up, ramp down. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. So, you know, if you're just, you know, Mongo plug-in, you know, socket, socket heat up, you know, you still got to – Don't be over-reliant. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, like I said, I think technology is there to enrich the things we do.

But when you stop engaging with technology, when you stop engaging with your animals and you just say, technology, take the wheel. Gosh, that's never ended badly, has it? Right. wheel gosh that's never ended badly has it right so you know you you can't you can't you you know you can't just uh take your hands off the wheel uh no matter how good your technology is um it you know at the end of the day there's there's a reason why uh cars are not driving themselves solely because technology is not perfect because it takes a human behind the wheel and um you know at least technology is not there yet right um nobody will ever no technology will match the the the critical thinking skills of a fighter pilot uh for now

at least you know maybe ai will get so good'll – but that's when we all die. That's when it kills us and we're like, whoops, technology was a mistake. And then I lose the argument. But until that day, we're not there yet. Gotcha. Until robots kill us all. Yeah. There's still a debate on whether or not technology is good or not.

Yeah, I saw The Matrix, man. I know what's going on. Bro, I have a theory about – You can stay plugged into your false AI world. I have a theory about it that I won't bore the listeners. So, um, yeah, I mean, obviously like I, I enjoy watching my, you know, animals on a remote camera and I think you can sit and watch them without disturbing them. They, you know, especially like my Gurney skinks, the spiny tail skinks, they, they don't like to come out if I'm in the room. And so once I leave, they're free to come out.

And so I can sit and watch them on a camera a wise camera but i just tried to log in i was thinking oh maybe i'll check on them while we're recording and and it's like uh it's not connecting properly and you're you know you've got to enter your password i get the password you know just different annoying things like oh it's not connected to the i got to go out there and reset the modem or something or whatever. So technology can be a headache sometimes too. I think it's the infrastructure that needs to be – it's like there's – and I know like PC computer games are this way. There's such an onus to get the computer game out there that sometimes

they rush it and there's kind of issues with compatibility and things like that because it's so rushed and I think when you create a technology a wireless thermostat that you can check from your phone

and they do a great job with a thermostat but the app and the and the server that they pick just fucking sucks that and you can't use it it's it's a pointless it's stupid yeah you know what i mean so it's like you you kind of have to it it has to it has the technology has to make sense and and has to be done right um and certainly you know you can half-ass anything and it's it all it is is just half-assed right it's not it doesn't make anything better when it's half-assed for sure yep well i don't know hopefully this is giving everybody food for

thigh you got any parting words or we cover cover what we came to cover we're we're at about an hour so yeah i like my power windows i like my heated seats i like my cruise control until they stop working then they're just then you're like dang it doesn't work and then you gotta pay and then i take it to the dealer i take it to the dealer i let the technical professionals work on my car. They fix the fucking car. I pay the fucking money, and I move on with my convenience. That's the other side. Yeah, convenience usually costs money. Sure, absolutely.

To get the latest and greatest. Absolutely, convenience costs money. And sometimes reptile people like to spend all their money on the animal and then they forget, oh, I need a cage too. What am I – Well, and those people – I can just put it in a Rubbermaid tub for now. And those people are siding with you in this argument. Yeah, that's true.

Okay. You just scored on me there. Ouch. Yeah, you just – boom. All right. Well, I, you know, I, I think the, the, my, my main message is know what the animals need, you know, regardless of how you provide it, understand your animals, understand their needs, understand the natural history,

all that kind of stuff. And, and, you know, you can meet those needs in many ways, including very low tech. But the main thing is that we, if we're using technology, it's used because we understand what it's doing and how it's benefiting the animals. So, yep. Oh, back to that. I just want to hit on that. Uh, so the, the Tuatar enclosure, right? They, they have all those settings. So they they mimic the the temperatures and everything in New Zealand. And before they did that, they thought, oh, they come from New Zealand. It's cold there. And so they were keeping them cold. They weren't giving them any basking opportunities and stuff like that.

So then they then they came up. They got this new technology. This is actually kind of to your point, I guess, is they they started mimicking's going on in new zealand and they realized it did get really hot some days and the sun was pretty bright and it was out you know and shining and so they were shining light and the two atars were like finally you know basking and they came out and basked and they were loving it up you know just soaking up the sun and loving it and they're like oh maybe they do like to bask you know so that that was an instance where technology actually helped the animals kind of get get back to their what they what they required and so sometimes we have maybe false perceptions of what an animal needs and and we think that we're giving them all they need but you know you can still do your research and

looking at things so yeah hasn't helped san diego zoo breed bolins pythons that's for sure yeah sorry it hasn't helped too many people breed them no that's fair that's fair that's fair and and i've heard a lot of like low- tech guys actually succeed in breeding those hard to breed species sometimes. Like they just I was hearing about one. It was like ring pythons or something like that. Ring pythons or white lips or something. And the guy was just putting more substrate on top of the old substrate. So like pretty soon there's just this fat layer of, you know, just old nasty substrate with new substrate on top of it.

And they were burrowing on and making tunnels and that kind of thing. And he would breed his stuff every year just in a box with a light and piles of substrate. I mean, you know, sometimes it works out. Didn't the first Bowling's clutch come from in a garbage can or something? He didn't have anywhere a garbage can or something? He didn't have anywhere to put it or something? And that's what I'm saying is like, I mean, like Tracy, when I'm breeding them, I ignore them. Like I don't, I leave them alone.

I don't change their bedding substrate. I'll change out their water every once in a while, you know, like I leave them alone. And so it's very low maintenance, very like hands off, very like, and, and I feel like, you know, um, there's, there's, there's something, well, I mean, I, I don't know if I, you know, I think, I think, I think the tech, so I think you could go low tech to breed them, but maybe go high tech to get data, you know, use data loggers, use technology in order to gather that data to say, hey, this, this, this, maybe the method I use was low tech or use high tech stuff. And in a basic way, you know what I mean, like, I don't know that there's a right or wrong here, but certainly technical application in its correct form can help you succeed.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that's fair enough to say. All right. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Well, let's wrap this fucker up. All right. Thanks to Morelia Pythons Radio on that note for hosting our podcast and allowing us to rant and rave and yell at each other for an hour and then throw it up online for you guys, for one listener out there. Yep. Yep. We've gotten some good ideas.

Keep them coming. We'll hopefully get some ideas on the show, get some new, new folks on here. We've had some positive comments. Those are, those are also very, very welcome.

And thank you so much. We're glad that to hear that there's some people out there who like the show. It's a, it's nice. We, we do try. I know I'm a pitiful co-host, but you know, I, I wouldn't be the same without you, man. Well, you know, internship has its privileges. Schmitt internship. Yes. That's what I meant to say. That's what i meant to say that's what i meant to say yeah all righty well thanks for listening we'll catch you again next week for another episode of reptile fight club dr ddp and chugnology are out so Thank you. Bye.