The Bugle - Flippin' Tech

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

**MERCH SALE NOW ON**Andy is with Alice and Ian Smith (debut) for a scary tech special, plus some Italy news, because we always have time for Italy.Why not listen to our new show, celebrating 15 years of Top Stories: https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/topstories.Featuring:Andy ZaltzmanIan SmithAlice FraserProduced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A Audio newspaper for a visual world! Hello, Bughlers, and welcome to issue 4249 of the Bughal Audio newspaper for a visual world with me and his ultraman. Currently, still one of the United Kingdom's leading exponents of meaningless, unnecessary and slightly over long silences. Yeah, still got it. I'm in the shed and the shed is cold today, but joining me today, from hopefully, so it's certainly less chilly than my shed, well we have someone old and

someone new, not old as in tumbling into the Inescapable more of senescence and decreptue, I just mean she's been on the Google for quite a long time now, and not new, as in literally born yesterday, or fresh off the factory production I wear most comedians come from these years. I mean new to the bugle. Firstly, yeah from Australia, once again, luckily not competing in the Australian Open tennis, so she is able to join us from Sydney, it's Alice Fraser. Hello, Alice. Hello Andy, yes, it's 10 days since my last birthday. I am beginning crone life right now. It's pretty exciting. I feel like I could poke people with a stick on public transport, no one can question it. Yeah, that's, you know, that's I guess one of the privileges of

of seniority. Can I just say I would like to make a statement at this point. It's come to my attention that a joke that I did on the gargle also appeared on the bugle and I would like to address this scandal, this joke stealing scandal, me stealing a joke from me. First of all, I don't know which joke it was. My policy on podcast is the same as my policy on Zoom calls. I just put a postit note over my bit so I don't get distracted by my own beauty. Secondly, we will never know which one was recorded first and for which show I originally wrote the joke. So is it Gargle Alice stealing from Bugle Alice or Bugle Alice doing a tribute to Gargle

Alice? I could tell you obviously, but I won't because I refuse to respect linear time or artificial boundaries between work personas and selves. Right. Hello, this is last post-allocin. Can I say that this is true of all post-allocin? Cool. Well, you know, I mean, joke stealing is a curse in comedy.

Allocin, I'm afraid you're just going to have to sort it out between yourselves. Well, it sort of depends on which of me is the most famous. Well, I mean, this is a controversy that could run and run. And into this world of tumult. For the first time in a his life be the history of all humanity and see this podcast 15 and a bit years of existence. I'm delighted to welcome you after several outstanding appearances on the news quiz coming to you in a minimum of five dimensions from South London. It's Ian Smith. Hello, Ian. Welcome to the bugle

Yeah, thanks for having me. I guess this is the point where I need to make a statement and say Last night I did quite a long routine about garlic bread It was very similar to Peter K's. So I guess I'll take that out with him as well. So Ian, you live in Peckham? I'm not too far from me in Glantland, Glantland, Glantland, Glantland, South London area, originally from Gould, one of the greatest named towns in England.

Yeah, I part of the rumor is it comes from a word that means cesspit. I haven't looked like an old sort of word that means cesspit and there's a local historian trying to disprove that at the minute. But they don't have much evidence, they're just desperate to not live in a place that's called cesspit basically. I should clarify for our listeners, Ian, before we get criticized for booking you, that you are not the late former leader of Rhodesia, just to clarify that, nor are you the former New Zealand wiki keeper Ian Smith, nor the Australian actor best known for playing Harold Bishop in the Neo-Sixbearing, Ron Trudge, Combe, Soap, Pop, Brut, Neighbors, nor the film producers, credits include Mad Max Fury, Road, nor the Australian actor best known for playing Harold Bishop in the Neo-Shirt Spirit in Rum Trudge, Com Soap Opera, Neighbors, nor the film producer, who's credits include Mad Max Fury Road, nor the legendary Scottish rugby union player who's got a record 24

international prize in the 1920s and 30s, a record which stood for over 50 years, who remains sadly as dead as he has been down for 50 years, nor Ian Smith, the pseudonym used by Colonel Gaddafi, when he entered the World Darts Championship qualifying in 1993. Nought Ian Smith, the original name for the crime bust in Cartoon Dog Scooby-Doo, nor even Ian Duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative Party, and hopefully inadvertent quota of the motto from the Gates of Auschwitz. You are not of those Ian Smiths. Yeah, I mean, I think I'd like a more creative name. It's difficult with Smith as your surname, because you'd have to put so much

creativity into the first name That it would just sound ridiculous Like Rasmus Smith or something Yeah, I've met this I mean that could have given you a very different career I mean it'd been very hard to be called that and not to become a professional jazz saxophonist I think We are recording on the 70th of January jazz saxophonist I think. We are recording on the 70th of January 2023. On this day in 1961, the departing US president Dwight D. Eisenhower, three days before

hanging up his presidential socks and passing the ceremonial sausage of office to Youngster John F. Kennedy, gave a farewell address to the American nation in which he said, Bye, bye everyone! See ya! But he also said some words that even today, clatter us in the face like a frying pan of first grade four-warnery and four-site fullness. The man known by his nickname of icicle, sorry, Ike, voice getting mixed up with Ike's and Bikes,

did you know that the full term for tri-school is actually a trison hour. Anyway, Eisenhower said some extraordinary, prescient things, including, as we peer into society's future, we, you and I, and our government must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. And it's good to know that the human race took those words on board and then threw them overboard into the ocean of practicality. I mean, it was an extraordinary speech in which he talks about, you know, not, he said,

we cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss of also their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. And I don't know if he listens to this show from beyond the grave Eisenhower, I know most former US presidents do they just like to keep up on what's what's going on But he must be fucking pissed off at how thoroughly those words have been ignored As always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin and well today we have an

Antarctica special section in the bin commemorating another anniversary on this day 111 years ago in 1912, British Polar Explorer Robert Falken Scott was approaching the South Pole and we've dug into the archives and we can pick up commentary now with Scott very close to the poll on the call 111 years ago Expert summarizer Fritch Offnanson and with him the BBC's Brian Strapple Green And here comes Scott as he left it too late He's just yards away from the poll now looking tired and it must be said really very cold He's seen off votes outcomes the fin down fin, down goes Evans, it's Scott, Scott's going to lead this team home, here he comes, the 43 year old former

naval officer in his trademark reindeer fur gloves, the crowd are going noisily berserk, it's Scott for Team GB, he's into the red zone, he's out of the bowl, and second, seconds, just five weeks behind the Norwegians, and you can see how the supporter of the yearC is the devonian. But it's called for Ammon sort of Norway silver for Scott and great Britain and well-known are super effort from Scott, but you've got to say, not quite good enough on the day.

Yes, Brian, you'll be freezing his Pollux off out there. I don't know if you get to a poll first. It looks like it's complaints of referee. Maybe suggesting Ammonson got a fault start, I didn't see it myself, but terrific poll are exploring from both teams. Yes, Dads, and well we won't be seeing the Bobby Scott swooping Falcon celebration today, nor the Larry Oates Penguin Waddle, it's second for Team Terran over. More analysis on where it went wrong.

Coming soon on the Pulse Apart podcast with Frick Jeff and Ernie Shackleton but too. So let me do that again. More analysis of where it all went wrong, coming soon on the Pulse Apart podcast with Frick Jeff and Ernie Shackleton too. But thanks for joining us today. There's more live polar exploration right now as we cross over to our colleagues at the ABC for live commentary on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition Dougie Morrison and the Chilleros getting stuck into the coldest continent on earth. Your commentary, for this one, Nimrod Exploration Veterim, Ed's Worth David and Lady the Call, Jim Maxwell.

There's so much audio magic happening there and you multiple accents, background noise and eh, eh, don't think I didn't eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, near the recording which is a punitive strawberries. And absolute man decision from me there. Top story this news humanity is being taken over by technology. This is a story in analysis that we've touched on at various points over the bugle history. And do you think we've now on various points over the Bugles history. Do you think we've now reached the point in history where the robot takeover, which is obviously now totally inevitable, increasingly inevitable, if an ever-sability can indeed increase, but it's not something to be feared, but something to be wholeheartedly welcomed

as potentially a vast improvement on the floundering, w litterings and the fuddlements of the human race. I mean, is this now, you know, should we do every time we hear about a story about you know, robots dehumanizing humanity, we think we're good. Well, look at the CES Roundup, right? And the the efforts of tech companies to go viral by creating technology that's either ground,breakingly new and cool or so weird. You're going to tweet about it whether you want to or not.

Like the Withings U-Scan P-Sensor, which is a device that sits at the front of your toilet and when you do a Wii, apparently it's best to sit down when you do it so you can act you at reading. It collects the urine, analyzes it and then sends you the results to your phone via Wi-Fi. Which is great. I think this is all a very positive piece of technology. It'll weed out the toxic masculine people who believe that sitting for Witt to We

is only for girls. It also replaces the old P analysis tool where you just get a medieval doctor to rinse some round his mouth and then prescribe bleachers or bloodletting. Which of course, I never understood by people are like, oh, what terrible doctrine, of course you're going to prescribe awful courses of treatment, you've got a mouthful of piss, you're only human. The only option before this urine analysis, other than the medieval doctor, of course,

was that guy who used to lie at the urinals at gay clubs and he can't be everywhere. I mean it's an extraordinary piece of technology, the Waz scanner. Ian, can you see this becoming a big part of your home technology setup? I think so, yeah, but largely because of the gossip potential, because if it's in your toilet and you have guests around and then they go to the toilet and then you'll get a notification on your phone. So when they come back down you can go, oh, Steve you've got a chlamydia, I hope that doesn't put a dampener on the slur-cut wax cheek that I've done tonight. You've come in with a lot of foody stuffy and a punnett of strawberries and a slur cook box chicken. That's my go to trying to impress people, meal, slur cook talk street and a

climidia diagnosis. Yeah, it does feel like a lot of these sort of, so solving problems that I'm not really concerned about. There's a big thing about a wireless TV and it was saying like gone are the days of like desperately trying to hide your cables, but I don't feel ashamed of them. The cables from a TV, like someone's looking at them going like, you use like trisity for that. Yeah, that's how it's going. I've just put the TV...

My rule is put it as close to a plug as possible. And then you're not creating like a sort of high-tech laser protecting a museum piece style cables going across your living room. It doesn't feel like a big issue for me. Well, I enjoyed the Citizen Smartwatch. It can gauge fatigue. So it's a smartwatch that can tell you when you're tired.

Because that is my favorite kind of tech innovation, which is to say something that we have already got a really good way of doing. But the tech is attempting to render this human function obsolete and it might just succeed. I promise you don't need to look at your watch to realise you're exhausted like. No, you just need to remember whether or not you have children, I think that's the bad place. Oh god.

Oh, we have. It'd be amazing to be so stupid you don't realise you're tired. How productive you'd be if you were too fict a realised. But then you wouldn't be able to do many jobs. I mean, I've got to say you've either got to be thick or a baby, literally a baby, because I have an argument with my daughter, literally every day that goes something like this. You're tired, that's why you're being so awful. Trust me if you sleep, things will feel better. And she goes, not you're trying to trick me.

That's very much the same conversation that Margaret Thatcher's advisors had with her when she was prime minister in legendary four hours sleep a night. So with disastrous consequences, it must be said. Just a couple of other things that struck me from the consumer and electronics are mood fridge. I mean, a couple of other things that struck me from the consumer electronics. A mood fridge, this is a fridge that apparently changes color depending on your mood.

I don't know, actually, I just read the head on mood. I don't know if it's your mood or the mood of the sausages within, you know, sausage fields, impending fate, closing it on it. I'm not sure. Is this like those mood rings from the 90s where they'd just sort of go with your body heat and tell you that you were horny all the time?

Which is obvious, because only teenage is bought them. I feel like a sure bad. You don't have to be psychic to realize that that's what the ring needs to read 90% of the time. That's a lot of color changing tech. A car that can change color, which was one of the big innovations. Everyone was very impressed by the car that can change colour. But it's another one of those things that sounds good in concepts.

But you will realise very quickly if you've ever lost your car in a car park. A terrible idea. It's a terrible idea. Or it's going to be like, oh, it was definitely on level two and it's a red car. Or possibly a blue sedan. I think if it's Tuesday, I made up a rhyme to remember what colour my car is today. If it's parked on F2, the possibly a blue, sedan. I think if it's Tuesday, I may have arrived to remember what color my car is today. If it's parked on F2, the color is blue. Oh no, wait, was it? If it's on F2, it's parked, the color is red. I don't... Sorry, sorry, wait. If on F2, it's parked, the color is red. It feels like it was designed for like getaway drivers only.

Like the end sequence of the Italian job would be so much less impressive if they were just changed the car to green. And then the police were like, well they've gone. I'd be slightly more useful if they were just changing colour. It changed vehicle. So you know, we'd go from a car to a motorbike to a donkey to a... You could just go gradually back in time. I mean, it's not a self-driving pram though, is it?

I mean, that's the real... That was just, that meant that this was the absolute killer product to emerge from this year's CS. That the, I mean, have you, Alice, your daughter is 15, 16 months old? Yep. Have you ever thought a wish this pram could drive herself? Well, I mean, first of all, it isn't a self-driving pram. Speaking of it, not being a self-driving pram, it isn't. It's an electrically assisted pram, which is great for people with mobility issues,

or lots of hills near where they live, or remarkably fat babies. But it's not more self-driving than like an e-bike. It won't drive unless it senses that your hands are on the handles. And sure, I guarantee tired parents everywhere have already thought of six ways to bypass that rule from feeling washing up gloves with meat scrap and strapping them to the bar to becoming the vizier just so that you can take the hand of a thief in punishment in order to send baby for a solo role. But I think what you want is a remote control plan.

Actually. Right. You don't want one that's got a mind of its own, is one thing. Yeah, I mean, this does feel like scene one in some extremely low budget dystopian horror film, in which prams take over the world. I don't trust my baby with autonomous technology. She's really smart.

If I send her off in a solo pram, she'll come back on top of it controlling the thing somehow. That's step one in Mad Max Future. Mad Max Jr. I mean, this is a movie franchise waiting to... Could be strapping safety scissors to the wheels like Booty-Cutler. Well, that would be quite good to make these self-driving prams into a sort of robot-wise style TV show and get the babies battle and against each other.

I believe we've lost as a civilization in, is the simple joy of watching infants fight to the death. It's PC, God mad, for what I'm concerned. Today I was trying to put her down for a nap, and she evaded my nap, got up and did a little victory dance to him on the my head, and then lent over and gave me a benevolent kiss on the forehead, which I felt was the most contemptuous touch.

I know I'm not going to name their name, but I know someone who told their daughter to go on the naughty step, and then their daughter wet themselves and basically said this is what's gonna happen if you put me on the naughty step. Evil genius! So she's never been on the naughty step since. I say fantastic way to avoid punishment. I think we'll probably still work as an adult for certain situations. That's what I'm going to try. You're going to be careful where you're wet yourself now.

You might get a diagnosis. Yeah. I will expect exactly. I believe it does sound like this small child has a lucrative career in corporate finance. Well, just back to the WAZ scanner, which is you said you just put it on the front of your Crapstone International, you expalt your Pidladio, and the device scans your expeditions and tells you pretty much everything you could possibly need or want to know, but not just about your health, apparently in the high tech edition, tells you about your priorities

and life, your deep-seated fears, your musical tastes, your views on personal A-sons, art, and the historical figure you'd most like to play snooker against. I've got a beat a version to test out and it turns out that my answers to those in order are the pursuit of the groove, the death of test cricket, blues, magical, unnecessary and Charlemagne the Great. So, there's a laser scanner that reads the lumps on the head of your penis and diagnoses your personality. It's a fenulomology. Family show, Alice. The first phrenology joke that's been made on the bureau?

It's definitely not the first phrenulom joke. Almost certainly not. I mean, we are what, 550 plus episodes in, or not coming up to 550 episodes. Next week is the 250th episode since relaunch. There must have been a chronology talking that, but just by the law of probability, even an inadvertent one. If you play it backwards to all 550 odd episodes, there will be a phenology reference somewhere.

Moving on to, well, the world of robot ethics and films, E and U are our robot ethicists, ethics correspondent. Oh, good. Congratulations on the good promotion. Highly prestigious posting. You've been keeping on the films that will be, well, are basically telling us what our future relationship with robots is, so it brings up today.

Yeah, well, there's a film out called, well, I guess it's called Megan, but they've replaced the EU with a freeze. I don't know how he pronounced that now. M-Mafregan, I guess. Yes. I mean, generally in this country, I mean, depending on what newspaper you read, you pronounce Megan as, which who is destroying the country and everything we hold dear. So I don't know if that's... Yeah, that's...

So I've got to stop reading the Daily Mail, but... But anyway, let's go with Mafreegan or Megan. Yeah. Well, I guess it's a similar sort of vibe, really, because the plot of this this film is there's a girl, she doesn't have many friends. Luckily her mum is developing an AI little girl. It's just one of those lucky situations. Hold up, her mum dies. Oh yes, yeah okay well phone off, she hasn't had a lucky coincidence here actually. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gwer ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei'r ei Yeah, and it all just goes wrong. And the Gagin didn't article debating how close we are to this sort of thing happening. And the answer is not very,

but they've spun an article out of it, which is quite fun. But it's, I mean, surely, they might say it's not very far away, but surely that's what the robots want us to think in. And really, it is just probably weeks away from becoming cold cold hard reality. I mean, you know, is this the future? And if it isn't the future, I want to know why not. But also, I mean, the whole area of these sort of programmable robots, I mean, I guess the question

old-ass is does Gary Kasperov's sleepless haunted defeat stricken face mean nothing to these s**tkey people? We can't risk it. They're all going to talk about that. But then logically, I guess if we're going to leave robots and computers in charge of our economy as we essentially do, is it not logical also to leave them in charge of our children who are units of productivity in the future economy? Alas, I know that's how you look at your own child as a potential future functioning economic unit. Oh yeah, absolutely. People can talk about how unrealistic this is.

The AI robot goes mad and starts murdering people and they talk about how far away we are from that. But of course, of course, the AI childcare robot goes crazy. Children are terrified. If you've never had a child stand at the foot of your bed and say, I can't sleep, there's a man behind you. Like, you haven't lived. I mean, I've got two human children, decent quality ones, but we've not yet left them in charge of robots, but I don't really have a leg to stand on saying people shouldn't do this because we have left them in charge of an education system run by successive conservative

governments for a well-a-decade each now, so I'm not really in the position to judge or lecture anyone. An interesting thing with this article in Katie Darling, who is a tech ethicist, I think is the term, tech ethicist, assistant at MIT, which is the Massachusetts Institute for the Take or Evolving Manatee by the uncontrollable robot advancement. She said, people have completely skewed expectations of what robotics can do at this point, thanks

to movies like this. But is that not the whole point of movies like about anything to give us skewed expectations about life, about skewed expectations, for example, about the power of love conquering all, about aliens being covered in green slime, about the ease of robbing banks, and about the likelihood of an Italy-based political leader being slain by a vengeful, mortally wounded gladiator. That's what films are for to raise unrealistic expectations. My favourite sort of expert opinion in the article was, there's a guy called Ronnie Bugani who is an artificial intelligence ethicist and attorney for children's rights, which is

a mad pair of professions. And he said, I don't know why we need a robot to have a head. Look at humans, wear a piss poor design of a product, why are we copying it with robots? And I don't think that's right. It doesn't feel very arrogant of us when we design robots to think, to look at ourselves in the mirror and think, yeah, that's got to be the best. That's got to be the best we can do. Yeah, it's just like when economists talk about developing countries, like,

oh no, they have to go through child labor and be paying people below minimum wage and unsafe conditions, because that's what we did. It's like the economics version of my parents hit me and I turned out fine. Like it's just perpetuating horrible mistakes. I think what all robots great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice.

I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I think it's a great way to make a great choice. I would agree, humans are a terrible design, albeit I have lived in my own body for 48 years now,

which is maybe not the best possible example of the human form. But, you gotta say, I mean look at human biology, it is a, as anyone who's ever owned testicles or a womb, or has had to fight man-o-man-o with a crocodile and a pond, or run away from a cheetah, or take on a condor and a who can stay af float longest after jumping off this high rocky outcrop contest We are shittly designed by comparison with a lot of other creatures on this earth. Yes, being compensation God gave us smugness That's it that smugness and opposable thumbs are really worth sitting at the evolutionary race the evolutionary race. Of course technology wasn't just invented yesterday, not all of it anyway, although an increasing amount of technology on a daily basis was invented yesterday. But it goes back to many yesterdays ago. And scientists have discovered that apparently It was not humans that made the first tools, but monkeys are AB cousins.

Alice, you are a prehistoric technology advancement correspondent. Tell us what the, what were the monkeys doing? And why have they been sitting on their laurels ever since and not really inventing anything like a chatbot or a robot child. And if this news makes me think monkeys are even smarter than I did before, faced with the option of choosing to develop their tool use and becomes sophisticated, they threw that away. I've seen TikTok, I know where tool use leads,

take me back to that monkey magic moment where we decided to copy that monkey and develop tools and make the other call You want me to choose tool use the same thing that killed Julius Caesar? No, thank you I'll take the other fork and put the fork down and go back to hand life simpler times if I can't cut it with my teeth I'm not interested actually as a woman I am very pro tool use but I can understand why your sort of Andrew Tate types would be against anything that would remove the natural advantage men have of everyone else, and having testosterone and aggression, so

that they can die trying to bore an antelope to death. I'm not joking there, that's actually, did you know that's the evolutionary genesis of podcasts? Because when you're chasing down prey, humans' advantage in hunting is persistence. So basically, you just pick a deer and Joe rogan it until it falls down dead. LAUGHTER Well, I think that's a nice again, that's

along with opposable thumbs. And, almost the other one. The huge, or revolutionary or evolutionary advantages. Smugness. Smugness, that's it. Smugness, T-Dume. LAUGHTER In other technology news, a big breakthrough for Europe.

They're renowned continent. And with the discovery of rare metals, with a crucial in the manufacture of things like smartphones and all the other shit that's taken over the world. And a huge stash of it apparently has been found in the Arctic region of Sweden, which could potentially reduce the dependence on Chinese and Russian products. I mean, this is something we don't often think about, I think, when it comes to technology is where all this stuff comes from, because it sort of arrives magically in a very neat

box, and there's no sense that anything happens to create it other than the wonders of technology itself. But I mean, I guess, you know, in terms of the kind of human history, you know, it does, is a thing really important unless we've fought a massive war for it. And if we have this stuff in Europe, does that not reduce the potential for global conflict and is that a good thing or a bad thing? Bad. Bad, right. I've just gone with it, it was a 50-50 question. Correct answer.

I've hedged my bets there. I do think, yeah, it's weird that something that, like, we've fun, something that would become so reliant on is made out of something so rare. It's like, sort of, making life's part machines out of dodo and meat or something. But also, I think, so, they found one million tons of rare resources, which feels sort of, like, I don't think you can call them rare now. One million tons feels like, like they say, I don't know, like pandas are rare, but if there's one million tons of work of panda, you'd probably be thinking about

calling some of them. Well not if it was just one giant panda that weighed a million tons. Yeah. I'd love to see it. The zoo that gets that one would be over the moon. I'm probably visible from the moon. Yep. I mean, it's so exciting and you rare earth minerals in Europe at last. I cannot wait for the Tories to start pitching, sending refugees to the salt mines to earn their Union Jack brand.

I just feel like Alice, you should remember now not to say things like that out loud. You just can't be too, you never know, to quote the World War II poster, you never know who's listening. And it was probably some 23 year old PPE graduate working at high level in the government minds. Italy news now, I know while a couple of huge stories coming out of Italy this week, the arrest of one of the leading Italian mafia bosses and some frankly harrowing alleged pigeon death news.

Should we start with the pigeon death? This is a truly extraordinary story in which Michael Bay, the film director, has denied allegations that a pigeon was fatally injured on a film set in Italy whilst he was making the movie Six Underground, which is also words that I say when listing my top eight favourite ways of getting around London. It comes just a head of an overground train, obviously ahead of bus, but behind jetpack, horse drag and motorisedized, Unicycle and Submarine, which is a bit restricted, but is a fun way of going east to west to east. It's an extraordinary story this. I don't know what it tells us about the state of our species, that this story, a film director

denying that a pigeon may have been killed five years ago on a film set. That's made, made their news. I guess five years on the relatives of that pigeon won't forget. You know, they won't let this starry die and they're going to keep bringing it up. But yeah, it just felt mad that Michael Bay, who is renowned for making films with so much destruction, is having to defend himself for killing a single pigeon. It feels like the least Michael Bay thing that could happen to Michael Bay. His lawyer as well said that this story had tarnished Bay's reputation as someone who fiercely supports animals financially and otherwise.

What is it otherwise? You're like what? Emotionally. I would love to see him doing whatever otherwise is to a pigeon. Yeah, I do know. You know, a little song. The writer of poem. Yeah. Yeah, I do know. You know, a little song. Go write it a poem. Yeah. Yeah. Great job. That statue will never be the same.

I can barely tell that you've only got one photo on that foot. Well, again, I mean, this story essentially is film director denies belated allegation that one brackets one of the world's estimated 400 million pigeons may, and I emphasize, may have been accidentally clunked to death or at least clunked into a bit of a disease spell, honest films that almost five years ago, although no evidence of pigeon death has yet been presented.

And this happened in 2018, a year in which humans ate over 70 billion of the allegedly dead pigeons bird community colleagues. It's, what are we trying to distract ourselves from But this story is one of those distractions. It's got to be big I think it's I think it's a sign that we've all become much more sensitive to animal rights I don't know if you know the famous children's movie Milo and Otis, but they just shot like a hundred dogs off all waterfall I don't know that film. It sounds like a interesting family watch. A lot of kids, it's a heartwarming story about a kitten and a puppy that got on an adventure

together but let me just say they're a kitten and puppy that start the adventure in real life and not the kitten and puppy that are there at the end of the film. The, the, um, Matthew, I know you and you before you went into comedy, you did, you, you, you had, you worked for several years in the Sicilian, uh, Matthew. Hmm. Tell us what that was like. You know, someone from, uh, from Humbersell. You put the Sicilian, the Sicilian, Matthew. Well, the worst part of being in the Matthew, I, I, just the most self-conscious part is when you're

giving your Mafia nickname because it's really quite a sort of reveal, it's usually a physical thing. So this guy who they've captured was called the Skinny One. So you just feel horrible because they get you in a room and there's maybe like 10, 20 of the other Mafia gang there. And they basically brainstorm your nickname in front of you. So I had like a lot of people like as you can see, we call it eyebrows. I've got eyebrows straight away. Sorry, you and I brows Smith. Someone shout out Lurse Alpha Steam. I didn't really appreciate that. So, yeah, that's the tough part.

The sort of killing in the murders is okay really. Once you've had yourself a steam battered like that, nothing really affects you anymore. What was that interesting insight into Matthew? A lot of thank you. Yeah. I mean, this chap, his nickname was the diabolical or the skinny one. And he's a nepot baby.

His father was a powerful mafia boss. And he just stepped into his father's shoes presumably after killing his father. I don't know the details. But yeah, how can he be proud of all of the murders that he achieved, knowing that it was just through family influence? Or wait, isn't that the whole mafia deal?

He once claimed, he apparently said, I fill the cemetery all by myself, which is only terrifying if he means bodies and not flowers. It was a very generous man. Well, strawberries, maybe. Yeah. My favourite bit about this story is that they've tracked him down, but there are so few pictures of him, like from the past, that they basically had to guess what he would look like. So they've basically been looking for like a 70-year-old man with like an evil look, some sort of a...

It'd be like if you got a wears wally book and the only description you were given was you're looking for a man in his furties. No, they did these generation, like AI-generated pictures of him aged up, which is all data that you provided by putting playing that stuff on social media. So everyone who did one of those silly aged up photos of himself would feel proud rather than ashamed. I like the little fact in this article that he was known for wearing expensive suits,

a Rolex and Ray Ben sunglasses, unlike every other mafia guy. That's not a quirky trait, you know. They were apparently like arrested quite a few people in the past thinking it was him because of the kind of like having so little to go on. But the best one, they said that a Liverpoolian man was arrested in Amsterdam at one point. It just seems a Liverpoolian, the idea that as well as getting corrective plastic surgery you'd be like, right, I'm going to learn a Scouse accent. There's no way I'm going to have a Liverpool third kid on and a Scouse accent. To be fair, it is a very unconvincing accent.

It's like, what are he trying to do? What's the skydiving? That brings us to the end of this week's Bugal. Thank you very much for listening. A quick plug is we have a sail on. Bugal merch, I've been reliably informed, is reduced by 40%. If you go to theBregalPockast.com and click the merch button, also if you want to join our voluntary subscription scheme, and give a one-off or a current contribution to help keep this show free, flourishing,

and independent. That's also on the website, click the donate button for that. Ian has been lovely, having you on the show. Do you have any live or other works you'd like to listen to? I guess my career is in the sort of situation where when I do a podcast I'm all I can really say at the end I guess I'm just wishing everyone all the best. No I guess I'll be doing the Edinburgh Friends this year so maybe I don't know, keep an eye out on my socials and stuff out and be doing work and progress and that sort of thing. But yeah I'd love to be able to announce a sort of bigger event. Well, after that, for your first appearance on the bugle, that was that has

fitted right into a proud long tradition of totally failing to market ourselves. So you've slotted right in. Ian was on the news quiz last week which you can find on BBC Sounds and did one of the finest funnest jokes that I've had the pleasure of hearing in my time as host of the news quiz. I do find that and it'll be on again this week as well Alice anything to plug Aside from the bugles sister podcast the gargle the bugles sister the gargle the sonic glossy magazine to the bugles audio newspaper for a visual world is Able weekly with me on it doing talking also. I've just Launched season two of tea with Alice

Season one was 298 episodes long and then I took a year off and now it's back. So that's exciting. Patreon.com slash Alice Fraser is the place to go for all of my stuff. Also, if you want to come, I have weekly cellons where we have a chat and weekly writers meetings. So that's a thing that you can sign up for. We'll be back next week and we will now play you out with some more people on the bugle Voluntary subscribers' wall of fame and their great contributions to human advancement. Nile Jackson plotted out the course of eight of the ten largest tributaries of the Amazon River when it was designed, without which it would have run out of water by now. Kirk Roberts designed the first ever space hopper at 20 meters in height, it would have enabled a family

of four to bounce down a motorway at up to 65 miles an hour if they got into a rhythm. Sadly, it was never produced. Christian Kaiser suggested that Morse code use a combination of dots and dashes rather than a combination of the word Morse and the word Lewis, as originally planned by its inventors, who absolutely loved the British TV show Morse. Ken Samuels was the person who revolutionized basketball, by suggesting the real basket on a high shelf be replaced with the bottomless pseudo-basket, with which we are so familiar today.

Debra Swayne discovered what the function is of the famous shell part of the tortoise. People always assumed it was defensive, explains Debra, but in fact it was acoustic, so the tortoise could sound better when it sank to itself, a bit like Jimmy Hendrix playing his guitar in the toilet. Just in Livinoise was the person who suggested using solid bats in baseball, rather than frozen or fossilised snakes, a move which really paved the way for today's generation of power hitters. Kieran Johnston discovered that the plots of most of Shakespeare's plays were essentially copied from a mid to late 16th century celebrity gossip magazine Scuttlebutt today, and finally

Elisa Pavlik. Disproved the widely believed historical theory that the 7th century didn't happen, a theory that gained traction because no one in a survey of a hundred random members of the public for a TV game show could think of hand of anything particularly noteworthy that happened during it. To join the Bugle Wall of Fame, go to the BuglePockers.com and click the donate button.