[Music]
I had a bunch of notes in
my notebooks and it was like
little things that weren’t
going to make a whole episode.
Often I’ll let them sit
there and then when I get
three or four things that
sort of match together
I will then make an episode
out of them but it just kind
of dried this week. I was
working on a ton of other stuff.
So I was like you know what I’m going
to throw a couple random things together.
I used to call these episodes
randomitis in my old podcast.
And just see maybe it comes
together maybe it doesn’t
but you’ll get some
nice little stories out of it.
First one’s about a company called Temu.
It is a sales portal on
the Internet and I think
they’re thinking it’s
like shop like a billionaire.
I bought a cute little keyboard
from the mechanical keyboard.
I was very happy about
it. I was very excited
because it was 400
yen which is like $4.
And this is like full-on
mechanical keyboard.
This is not like a it’s plastic
but it’s not like garbage plastic.
I don’t know how you’d explain it.
It’s high quality plastic.
It’s actually got solid keys
and it feels really good and
I’m using it instead of my
other keyboard that I had before.
I was like wow this is incredible.
How can they do this?
You need to have at least a
thousand yen to get free shipping.
A thousand yen that’s $10.
I bought a crappy little
light because some of my
podcasting friends are saying
I have to be lit up better.
I actually see there’s a shadow
now I’m actually using it right.
Watching the video.
If you’re on the actual
podcast podcast thank you
because I never wanted to
be on video in the first place.
So I bought this combo.
This is like a improving my setup.
I thought wow you know this
they got to be selling this at a loss.
Like the keyboard is
worth and dollars minimum.
These mechanical keyboards
like $20, $30 for the cheap ones.
They go up to the hundreds of dollars.
How is this possible?
Well the week after a
keyboard and light arrive.
I watched this video on YouTube.
This video on YouTube is explaining
that the developers of Temu.
previously had another app and that other
app was also a sort of sales portal app.
And that sales portal app was also
selling things at incredibly low prices.
And how is that possible?
What they were doing is
in the app was harvesting all
your personal information
and selling it illegally.
So the app that they used
previously that they made
previously was banned from the
Google store or being malware.
And now Temu hasn’t been caught yet.
But it does seem like the same
developers selling things at an
average of $30 loss are probably
doing the exact same thing.
So they’re probably harvested all
my information from my phone illegally.
And they are probably going to sell it.
But we don’t know that yet.
So the question is this is one of the
problems of trying stuff on the Internet.
I bought a fake Rolex on the
Internet knowing it was fake though.
I bought a watch for
Instagram that was free with like,
it was only like 500
yen or something like
incredibly cheap
shipping like $34 shipping.
I bought it just to see what the watch was.
Now the risk is you give
these people your information.
But I’m torn.
How much is my information worth?
So I’m worried that they’ve
got all my passwords and stuff.
Maybe my credit card information.
I use PayPal.
Pay them.
But that felt at least there
was one layer of safety
that they weren’t going to
get my financial information.
But if they’ve installed malware
on my phone, they have access
to credit card details,
logging details and other stuff.
I’m pretty sure I’m
about to do a factory
reset on my phone and
change all my passwords.
It isn’t fun.
I don’t know if the
question is, was the
incredibly high discount
on this very good keyboard
worth a factory reset and
changing all my passwords?
I should be changing all
my passwords regularly
anyways as should you,
but it’s not something I do.
Because I have to remember
my passwords to log into stuff.
That’s problematic.
But I’ve taken the app off my phone.
I’m preparing to do a factory reset.
Problem is it was a really good deal.
So if I see other stuff
on Temu, if I’m willing
to download the app,
buy the thing I want to buy,
do a factory reset and
change all my passwords.
How much work is that?
That’s basically the
experiment I’m about to run.
How much effort is it for me to do?
You change all my
passwords and then factory
reset my phone and
put everything back on it.
Is that worth every product I buy being
3000 yen cheaper or 30, 30 dollars cheaper?
Because how much is my time worth?
Mr. Warm hands are just put in the chat.
How valuable do you think your data is?
That is actually my question.
I don’t know.
Because I am willing to do the change.
I’m willing to put the
effort in to make the change.
If I’m willing to put in the
effort to make the change, is
that worth 30 bucks off every
product I buy from now on.
Because it might be.
Because if I do a bulk purchase
and get a really good deal on
let’s say in my example mouse
keyboard, light, camera, other stuff,
that would be 30
dollars off each product,
factory reset my phone,
change all my passwords.
Does seem like it’s worth it?
Because if I get really good
at it, that’s not a lot of effort.
Or I could get a second phone.
I just thought of this.
I could buy a phone through Temu.
That could be my burner
phone that only has essentially
information for Temu, which is
not all my personal information.
Like make separate accounts.
Could I scam this camera?
I didn’t know what my
data is worth to anyone.
I’m not easily swayed by advertising and
I’m out of the most desired age bracket.
I’m not thinking my
data is that valuable, but
people taking my passwords
and using my accounts.
Data isn’t what I’m worried about
so much is like my credit card.
Because I had my credit
card stolen ones and I
was able to like, it
fixed that pretty quickly.
But it’s a pain in the app.
So them buying stuff on your
credit card, even if you don’t end up
getting charged for that, you
have to change all your information.
That’s my concern.
Because that’s not going
to be worth 30 bucks to me.
That’s going to be someone
else is trying to steal all
my stuff or use all my stuff
to make their purchases.
Which becomes my new life.
And then the identity theft where
they open credit cards and other stuff.
That’s my concern of
them selling my information.
Because that’s where it’s not worth
anything to the individual, but it’s worth a
lot to the person as they open five credit
cards and ruin my credit score or others.
That would be my actual concern.
I recently tried to make an AI video.
And so I went online, of
course I went online and said,
“AI video creator free, free
being the optimal word there.”
Because this project wasn’t
enough, worth enough to pay for it.
And so you do get a lot
of stuff free on the Internet.
And of course they are also
trying to harvest your information.
This might be the theme, the
ongoing theme throughout this
is harvesting your information
for other people’s profit.
How much do you protect yourself?
How much is it worth it?
I essentially have not
been scammed yet by Temu.
But my expectation is
that I will be scammed by
Temu if I don’t take
steps to protect myself.
But I went into this thing
that claimed it was free.
And it was free to make the video.
Because I put a song
in with lyrics and then
it was going to do
a lyric video for me.
Then you had to pay for a
subscription to download the video.
So this was a technically true
statement that is not true in spirit.
They were saying, if you want to
make a video making the video is free.
You can take all your stuff,
you can log in and you can
make all your information
and then put all the stuff.
We’ll make the video, you can
watch it online in your account.
You won’t be able to
share it with anybody else.
But if you want to download
it and actually let’s say
upload it to your YouTube
or use it wherever else,
that’s going to be part of
the subscription package.
So I just stopped.
I was like, okay, well I don’t care.
I’m going to log out.
I don’t want this video.
I’ll make my own at home.
We’ll take my home.
Then I started getting the emails.
Because I had to use an email to log in.
And the emails were, you wouldn’t
leave your video unfinished, would you?
I was like, are you trying
to guilt me that I put effort
into this project that you
said was going to be free?
And then it wasn’t free.
And then because I haven’t
been suckered by you, you’re
going to try to make me
feel guilty that what is this?
A baby has been left out
in the cold and it’s my fault.
No, it’s your fault for not being
honest from the beginning saying
that this was a paid subscription
that I didn’t want to pay.
And I wouldn’t have put
the time into the video.
There is the sunk cost fallacy
and it’s famous for car dealerships
that the idea is that the longer
you stay at a place or do a thing,
you feel like the time you’ve
put in is part of a value of your life.
So if a dealer a salesperson,
the longer they can keep
you there, the more likely
you are to buy a product.
In this case, even though I
have quite large one like a car.
I now knowing of the
sunk cost fallacy, being
aware of it, it doesn’t
work on me anymore.
So I recently had to buy a new car.
We had a car, it was quite old.
Taxes in Japan, the way they work, the
older your car, the higher the taxes go.
That’s why you don’t see a lot
of old cars on the road in Japan.
We were getting to
that borderline where
our car was old and
the taxes were going up.
Was it worth keeping?
We decided no because the
commute my wife was going to
have to do was going to
get very long stuff like that.
It was worthwhile to get a new car for us.
I immediately said when
we sat down to do the
car dealership to the
guy, I have 30 minutes.
So I’m going to talk to you for 30 minutes.
And you can see he was like, hmm,
I said, I have another appointment.
You have 30 minutes to talk to us
and then we’re going to get up and leave.
And he got to the 29 minute Mark.
You see he got really nervous.
He was like, okay, well, your
time’s up, we’re going to go.
Then my wife actually got up and left.
And I said, he’s talking to me.
Now I’m pretending I
don’t speak any Japanese.
This puts a lot of
pressure on the salesperson.
I just looked at him and said,
you can keep trying to sell to me.
But I technically your sales
pitch isn’t going to work.
You either just give me all the
information now or I’m going to leave.
And we didn’t end up, he
kept trying to find a way around
it by getting us to come
back and make an appointment.
We said, no, no, thank you.
We didn’t buy from that dealership.
We went to another one.
Did the exact same thing we said, we got
35 minutes an hour or something like that.
We didn’t want to be unfair.
The question is the
conversation about a car.
It’s a big purchase.
It’s going to take some time.
But I also don’t want them wasting my time.
I don’t want them using
the cost, I’m fallacy.
Song cost time.
I should actually look that up.
It’s, it’s sunk.
I’m sunk.
Did this to myself just now?
I’m, oh, it’s just called, sunk
time fallacy comes up pretty quick.
So I’m sure that’s right.
That’s probably right.
Anyways, if you heard the
clicks, that was my second time.
That was my sexy new
keyboard that might be malware.
But by setting that time limit, we set it
the way we could just excuse ourselves
get up and leave and
then he had to get the
deal done where he
wasn’t going to get the deal.
We got a pretty good deal in the car.
My wife went back and then
heightened the screws a little
bit on him, but that’s a talent
she has that I don’t have.
Anyways, why did I start that?
Ah, yes.
That’s what they were trying to pull on me.
Like you put all this
work into this project.
You want to download your video, not
realizing that no, I have no investment.
I just wanted to see
what it would look like.
I’m done.
Then I started getting, it
was about six months ago.
I started getting emails from photo bucket.
Now I don’t remember using photo bucket.
So it must have been
like five, 10, 15 years ago.
I’m thinking there was a
work event and I wanted to
share those pictures with
people from my workplace.
Students who participated
because I was a teacher at that time.
Don’t want to use a personal account.
So I made a photo bucket
account where I could
just share the link
and everyone can look.
Photo bucket has every
two or three weeks been
sending me emails threatening
to delete my pictures.
But they’re trying to use gilts
and they tried to use nostalgia.
Like you wouldn’t want to
lose these precious memories.
I don’t even remember
what the fucking pictures are.
So as far as I’m concerned,
go screw yourself.
Photo bucket, pull the fucking trigger.
Stop being a pussy.
Be the photo bucket you want to be.
Pull the trigger.
Delete those photos. I dare you.
And here’s the thing.
The instant they actually
delete my photos, they no
longer have a link to me
that would matter in any way.
They can’t use nostalgia
because those pictures are gone.
I can’t use gilt because
those pictures are gone.
They could try to make me feel
bad and then recover the images.
But we both know that
the only thing that they
have over me is those
photos and those photos.
I don’t care about photo bucket.
Go fuck yourself.
I got weirdly aggressive at the end.
I think I’m annoyed at how
long it’s taken photo bucket.
They’ve been threatening me for months now.
And I’m just like do it.
Do it. It’s like when the guy in
the movie has the gun to your head.
He’s because I’m going to shoot
you and you just pull the trigger.
Do it. Do it.
Pull the trigger.
I just woke up Dave.
Okay. This is completely unrelated.
I guess it is the
don’t fuck with people
because photo bucket
has been fucking with me.
And him who fucked with me.
Maybe there’s my feet.
Dave had a serious WTF.
He had a serious what the fuck.
I don’t think he’s ever heard
that sound from me before us.
That’s probably a bit disturbing
the first time you hear it.
He might think I’m talking to him.
There’s only he and I
in this room right now.
So when I start saying
like, hold the trigger, do it.
Dave might be like, I don’t
have fingers or a thumb.
Can’t pull the trigger man.
Chill out.
Okay. I got two more stories.
I don’t know if he’s going to link up.
Oh, this isn’t related to fucking with me.
This is me fucking with Steven Seghal.
A name I said I would never say again, but
I’m saying it again in this one instance.
I’m giving myself an
excuse because I need to tell
this story about how I did
not promote Steven’s Seghal.
So there’s a young guy.
You need to have the D-shirt on.
Okay.
You’re right.
Harry hard to tell.
Which is the front of the shirt.
So I put it on backwards
every time, but it feels.
This would be great.
If I do the transition right,
he’s smelling the shirt.
It smells weird, right?
My feet.
Come on.
Get your butt in the,
get your butt in the bed.
My, uh, my lap isn’t comfortable
enough for him to sit on.
So I have to put the dog bed on my
lap or he’s not happy and he just stands.
So this is an improvement.
Good.
Good.
All right.
He’s settled.
Okay.
So we’re going to start this story again.
Uh, there’s a, a young guy
started going to judo with me.
He’s in his early 20s.
I think 24 maybe.
I was making fit.
So in the judo club, there’s
this massive matte area.
So there’s maybe 50%
of it is the judo guys.
It’s the biggest club.
You got some MMA guys
who practice in the sides.
Some karate guys practice in one corner.
Sometimes a break dancer
will come in and do a little
break dancing, which I
actually think is really cool.
Our corner lately, there’s
been some my keto people.
I personally have
respect for all the martial
arts as long as you
admit what they really are.
Now judo used to be self
defense, but now is a sport.
It’s an effective sport.
It could still be used in
some elements and self
defense, but I wouldn’t
call it a self defense thing.
Uh, resiliency judiu
have a lot of respect for
what they do, but it is
really poly on the ground.
Uh, that’s not something you would
actually want to do on concrete.
So again, it’s more of a sport.
It’s a great sport.
You should probably try
it karate once you kicky.
Cool stuff.
Uh, I’m not actually flexible
enough to do Taekwondo
and stuff like that, but
a lot of respect for that.
Akido is pretend.
Are you doing wrist locks
and the person jumps over?
It is one step away from make believe.
I don’t want to shit on Akido,
but I do shit on Akido a lot.
So sometimes this young guy
and I will stand and I will look
over at the Akido guys at what
they’re doing and I will make.
I would say fairly
disparaging comments on the
effectiveness of the
techniques they’re doing.
Because I watched some Akido
guys do a full contact competition
and it looked like judo real
quick, which I found quite funny.
But I, he said, why do
you hate Akido so much?
I don’t really hate Akido.
I just like to make fun of it because
of the man himself, Steven Sago.
Just realize this shirt, his
throat goes up into my throat.
If I could get that up a little higher.
I have Steven Tukulch.
My depth of hatred towards Steven
Sago, everything he is and everything
he represents is why I now have
a negative impression of Akido.
I think there probably
was a time in history
when I would have
said, “Aikido is great.”.
Again, I wouldn’t say
it’s the most effective
martial art, but it’s a
good thing to practice.
Everything has all these
things have benefits.
If you’re doing nothing and
you start doing Akido, there
will be a benefit for you
physically, mentally, whatever.
Akido has its place in the world,
but Steven Sagoch does not.
My hate for Steven Sagoch
is so passionate and so thick
and so deep that it has
colored my feelings of Akido.
It’s almost like Akido didn’t
produce Steven Sagoch.
Steven Sagoch produced my hate for Akido.
If I actually met a person who does
Akido, I don’t think I’d make fun of them.
I don’t think I would ask
some questions, stuff like that.
But I would be judging
them and that’s important.
I said, “I hate Akido so much
because of Steven Sagoch.”
Then I stopped for a second and
said, “Do you know who that is?”
He said, “No. My questions
as to someone who
did Akido. What questions
would I ask them?”
My first question would not be
why do you love Steven Sagoch.
It would be, “What do you
think of Steven Sagoch?”
Because that would be the
point I would judge them all.
If they then turn around
and said, “Steven Sagoch is
a great practitioner for
the sport. He’s grown it.”
Whatever, I’d be like,
“You suck. I hate you
so much. I hope you
get hit by a truck.”.
If they said, “Steven Sagoch is
an embarrassment to everything
Akido represents, I think you
and I might be on the same page.”
That is a sincere answer to that question.
I would ask about techniques
and stuff, but I probably
would ask, “What do you
think about Steven Sagoch?”.
My friend who comes with me to judo, I
mentioned the name of Steven Sagoch, and
then I said, “It looked on his face like,
“Oh, I don’t really know who I’m in.”.
I said, “Do you know who that is?” He said,
“No, I don’t. What was the name again?”
I refused to tell him.
Just like when I ended
Velocipod cast, I said,
“I would never mention
Steven Sagoch again.”
This is context of the story, and
he doesn’t listen to this podcast.
I refused to say the name twice.
In a way, this guy can’t even go learn
about Steven Sagoch to hate watch him.
I hate watch Steven Sagoch. I
get every movie that ever has
come out, and I watch it,
and I hate every second of it.
I can just marinate in the juices of my
anger of how much I hate Steven Sagoch.
I did do an episode, and the question was, “Should
I expose young people to Steven Sagoch so they can
hate him as much as I do, or should I try to improve
the world by removing Steven Sagoch from them?”
I’ve taken that second step. I have
said, “No, I will not teach you his
name. I will not share him with you.
You will never see one of his films.”
He is now dead to the world.
He is now less famous than he
could have been, because I
could have introduced you to him.
You could have pirated
his movies, no one’s
ever going to pay for
a Steven Sagoch movie.
But, end of the day, now Steven Sagoch
is less famous than he could have been.
Yes, only I shall hate him, my hate
is unique, my hate is not a burden.
It’s a fire that burns within me
that drives me to be better than
Steven Sagoch, which is about
as hard as standing up in your film.
He’s made films, and in those
films he no longer stands up.
That’s actually a noticeable fact that he
doesn’t stand up any more in his movies.
He’ll do action scenes, and he’ll stand
up for the action scene, and then you
can see another much thinner actor
takes over for the actual action scene.
I assume it’s like a stuntman.
I had one more story
to round out my stories.
I guess this is just people f*cking
with people in different ways.
Temu fcking with me, me fcking
with photo b*ck it, a young guy, me
fcking with Ikea-DO, and not letting him fck with Steven Sagoch.
Last one is just don’t f*ck with people.
In general, because they
might f*ck with you back.
So, a long time ago
before switchboards, there
were ladies, operators
who would connect the call.
So you’d say you’d pick up
your phone, and you’d call,
and you’d say I want to
speak to this office downtown.
I want to speak to this store.
I want to talk to the grocery store
and have some groceries delivered.
These kind of things.
You would say to the person
who you want to speak to, they
would pull out, you’ve
probably seen it in old movies.
You’d pull out this big
wire and connect you to
another place, and then
you could speak directly.
That was a job that houses in
thousands of women across the world.
But there was a small town,
and there was an undertaker.
There were actually two
undertakers in the town.
Thing is, the woman who was
working the switchboard for
that small town was married
to one of the undertaker.
Let’s call him undertaker b.
So I have a relative who is just dying.
Very sad.
And I call up the operator and say, I
would like to speak to undertaker a.
And then the woman married to
undertaker b, she would connect
me to undertaker b, not the
person I asked to speak to.
But again, I’m in my moment of grief.
I’m not really going to
argue there’s a service I want.
I want to get that service.
So this switchboard
operator was abusing her
power to push customers
to her husband’s business.
The undertaker a, kind of figured
out what was going on, probably
had someone call and then
actually asked specifically for him.
And then had the call rerouted
to someone who wasn’t him.
And then they’d like talk to him
later and be like, I tried to call you.
But when I called you, the operator
routed me to a different phone number.
That’s kind of bullshit.
But he knows that the woman is rerouting
the calls for him to another business.
So what does he do?
He invents the automatic
switchboard and puts millions of
women out of business
because this lady fucked with him.
And that’s don’t fuck
with smart people, I guess.
There’s no way you would
have known that this guy has
the ability to figure out
how to automatically switch.
And put thousands and
thousands of people out of work
by automating a process
that was done by a hand before.
And I don’t know why,
but I love that story.
And I love that level of revenge
because he didn’t just burn her.
He burned an entire industry because
this lady fucked with his business.
And I don’t have a conclusion.
I’m just that level.
As a level, maybe I
aspire towards in the hopes
that I can burn down
what’s left to Stephen
Sago and he is so fat
he would burn so well.
I can’t end with that statement.
That’s so horrible.
But I think I might.
Don’t be petty.
Is it petty to hate Stephen Sago?
Yeah, don’t be petty B next level.
There you go.
Mr. Warm Hands hits the final phrase.
Don’t be pity.
Be the next level.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(upbeat music).