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The 404: The 404 1,511: Where we choose business ethics

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The 404: The 404 1,511: Where we choose business ethics

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How Twitter killed the movie web site, the best way to request time off work by exploiting your kids, advancing surveillance technology in the workplace (read: spies), and a totally real new startup wants to mail you quarters every month to do laundry.

It's Monday June 23, 2014. I'm Ariel Nunez and from our CBS studios in New York City welcome to the 404. [MUSIC] Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome to a brand new week of 404 shows. My name's Jeff Backala. I'm Justin Yu. I hope you're having a fantastic start to this week. I am a, a new soccer fan. Oh. Yeah. I've bought. You, you haven't been watching the World Cup? No. No? I've been avoiding the World Cup this year. Really. And it's really, really hard to do [INAUDIBLE]. You, oh that's right, cuz I we came across a TV last week that had a soccer game on. And you're like, you're like, look at all these ****. They're. I'm I'm Walking around. Don't put words in my mouth. Like, oh, why are. Please. These little **** crying about every little foul and diving. Didn't. Didn't say that B-word. You use language like that. Justin the inturn, weren't you there? I wasn't there. Was he complaining about? I was complaining about it. But I didn't call them ****. Here's why I don't like watching soccer personally. I'm not a big sports fan in general. You notice how Justin just pleaded the fifth right there? But, soccer specifically is the most boring to me. Like the other day I was walking in front of a television screen and it was playing a soccer game. They were 75 minutes into the game. The score was 0-0 and I turned it off. Yeah, yeah. I was like this is ridiculous. Typical American reaction to European football. Yeah, that's why. Typical. Yeah, if I wanted to watch guys running around for 3 hours, I'll just like watch a marathon or something [LAUGH] or go run myself. Like it just seems so boring. They're all like super wide helicopter shots too. It's just not a fun game to watch. I prefer to watch basketball or baseball. Any of those. I would even watch hockey. Hockey in my opinion is a faster paced sport than, than soccer. Well I mean you just can't they're just untouchable. Hockey's not touchable but. What other sport, where there's sweeping helicopter shots Cycling. and no one scores. Oh right, cycling. That's completely different. Cycling is extremely exciting to watch, because you're basically racing in streets where people normally drive, it's all sectioned off, there's audience. Members right next to the area where they race. Oh, that's thrilling, yeah. I'm serious and then there's the whole technological element to it. There's no tech in soccer. The goal line technology. Oh, the goal line technology. Woah, it only took how many years of soccer being around. 180. Yeah. Anyway, I'm not a, I don't hate soccer fans. I just don't like watching them myself. Right, I get it and I understand where you're coming from. I'm just busting chops here. But the game yesterday, the Portugal U.S.A.an was like. Was good? Out of control. Someone, someone watched it. Justin, the intern watched it. That's right. Ariel probably. Heard about it. On Twitter I heard about it. You heard about it on Twitter? I didn't watch it. The U.S.A. lost. No, they tied in the last minute. What, 0-0. No, 2-2. Portugal scored with like, in the, in the 95th minute. Right. All right the 94th minute. Yeah there was 15 seconds left. Yeah there was 5 minutes of extra time. It's very exciting. It's only exciting because it's delayed gratification because you are waiting the entire game for them to score one goal. Which I respect kind of. [CROSSTALK] But, I mean, that could be any sport you could have a zero zero. A football game. I find football boring. I know that goes against the grain of American sports, but, I mean, soccer is the world's language. It is a universal language, except for like Canada. I mean, every other country is ver, Yeah. I mean, you might've. Yeah, Korea had its own team [CROSSTALK] Korea has a team. China and Japan have teams, and like even countries you'd never think would even have, somehow miraculously they have a football team, which is amazing. Yeah. You know what I would rather watch? Rugby. Rugby's cool. Kind of similar to soccer, but way more violence. I would be into that. Yeah. I would rather watch rugby. There's a lot of things about soccer I don't really get. Like there's a whole lot a, it's a whole lot of walking around where they're not really doing anything. Yeah. And they, and like, whenever, and they do embellish too much, and I know hockey's starting to have a problem with that, but in soccer, it's just so over the top. Every time someone gets tapped on the shin, that has a guard on top of it. I mean, yeah. The guy starts convulsing. Yeah. [CROSSTALK] Well, you'll know, and you'll get a different response to an injury depending on what the score is. Yeah. Like, if you're tied and you need that draw, you're gonna stay down a little longer. Right. And so, I get it. Sometimes, I mean, but people do get kicked in the face. And that's, legit. You know? That guy on the U.S. got a broken nose. He got kicked in the face. Yeah right in the face Oh it was like last week, he got kicked in the face, right? You saw that, Justin the intern. See finally the room is even when it comes to sports Right right Cuz the whole time I'm dealing with these two Neanderthals and their lack of sports We're the Neanderthals? Yeah Wait, wait, wait. That doesn't make sense. You like playing hockey where they have mandated fighting. It's not mandated. It's not mandated. It's allowed. Allowed. And we're the Neanderthal's? That doesn't make sense. Well, no, boxing is more barbaric. You know what would be really cool, is if they, if you go to see soccer players actually do the fancy footwork that they show off- They do- In YouTube videos. No, they do. That Renaldo Cat is ridiculous. Renaldo, I've seen Renaldo on the field. He is, oh my God. Even though he's such a pretty boy. But, anyway- Like I've seen all these crazy tricks that they do on YouTube videos and stuff and those last two minutes long, they're more exciting than an entire soccer game. But for some reason, they never pull any of those fancy footwork tricks on the field. Right. What's up with that? I don't get it. They're not using their skills. The same reason the Harlem Globetrotters could never beat the pace, you know, like The Heat. Right cause they would travel and do terrible things the whole time. I just wanna, I dunno, I wanna see them do break dancing with the ball. I was with the Pacers I don't know why I said that. You wanna know why I like soccer? Because it really is a lot like hockey, in a way, where like goals are super important, and scarce. Yeah. And you know, it's. It's, I don't know. There's something amazing about the skill there and what they're doing. It really is a skilled game. [LAUGH] Yeah. No, I, I respect that you like it. Yeah. It's just every time they get really close to the field and then the other player from an opposing team just kicks it 10 miles back to the opposite goal. [LAUGH] That's so frustrating. And they all walk [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGH] Yeah. Just like oh! Yeah. I get this. I just put sixty minutes of my life into this game. Yeah. Right. And now they're not even close to getting back to to the goal. I know. But that's what it is. And there's, you know, I, I don't know. The frustration and patience, it's all so, it's the humanity of it all. You're just so impatient, you're just so, you're just, you're too American, man. I mean, look at basketball Americans don't get it. You know, like a player will score 40, 50 points sometimes in a game by himself. Right, but they're meaningless. That's just, eh. Stupid. [LAUGH] You know, using the argument he's too American, that doesn't count right now cuz a bunch of Americans are super into soccey, soccer right now. Definitely. [INAUDIBLE] But it's one, it's once every four years. Yeah. Yeah, that's. You know, I'm with you though. But historically Americans just are bewildered by soccer. I think it's- It's cuz they're not usually good at it, man. Right but this year we're ok. You know, and the fact that they're doing okay, people are all into it. There is a professional soccer league in the United States called MLS. mm-hm. New York has a team. How close are we getting to the end of the World Cup? Well, not the end. Like the winner of the World Cup? Like, you have to make, like, 16. You know they make like the final like brackets even the championship takes if we tie Germany on Thursday huh or beat them then we're in. Well there's 15 more games until we're double round robin like that basketball move best of 10 after. Right, it's easy not complicated. So how like how like duration wise we talking like a week. No Thursday we'll know oh. That's it, that's it. So USA is in the running? They are, if they beat or tie Germany were good. But same thing happens with Germany. So like, what I don't understand is you have two teams that if they tie each other they both advance. So why wouldn't you just like consciously kick the ball out of bounds. Keep playing. Right? Right? Justin, what do you, can you, do you have any insight on that? I mean honestly it's just, pretty much, it's pretty much what you already just said. Yeah like they have to tie. It's just really just have to take the ball out of bounds the entire game.and Isn't that weird? As long as we both go and Portugal and whoever else and Ghana don't go. Hm, right, so the Germans and Americans have to like agree for the first time in 70 years. Yeah. You know. They both advance. I guess. I don't know. It's a strange little situation. Over the weekend, I watched this series of YouTube videos that was showing how each country celebrates a goal and then a win for their respective games. Sure. And it showed this shot at night of Brazil. Yeah. And it is like, you know, this middle part of the city, where it's normally really busy. There's a freeway on-ramp in the shot off-ramp, I'm sorry. And normally it's packed with cars and pedestrians and stuff, right? but, for some reason during the game, it's super popular there, so everybody was inside watching this game and it was maybe like a 15 minute video and in the course of that time I think they scored maybe two goals. And you, it was completely dead silent, and every once in a while, like five minutes in to it, all of a sudden the entire city would erupt and you'd see lights. Flashing on and off inside the buildings and you'd hear horn honking from out of no where, but still not movement in the city right I like seeing stuff like that an entire country rallying around it. Sure It's cool Like I said it's the world's language its the world sport. all right well that does it for sports for me this year. That's it for sports back to you. I think I've said more about sports in the last five minutes than I have for the past 30 years. And you're better for it. Yeah. I think. All right, so we gotta, we gotta an interesting story, about movies over the weekend. Sure. From a listener, right? Yeah, we want to thank, David for sending this in. He writes in to tell us, an interesting article, sent us an interesting article from the Guardian about how Twitter essentially. Has killed off the official movie website. So, remember you would like. The most famous one. Whatisthematrix.com Right. Right. So, in this day and age there wouldn't be that because you don't as a studio really need to. Invest much in a landing page for a movie, because now movies are all about this ongoing interactivity whether it be. Well, mostly though social. And Twitter is the best sort of means of communication for a studio, the director, the actors interact with people, get the word out about a movie. Why send someone to a static, you know, movie website when I can have, when I can hire someone to have this engaging interactive experience Mm-hm. With you know, with the potential audience. I remember when they used to go really deep into the movie websites. I would say probably in the 90s, around the time Matrix came out. But, I remember Clover Field was also another crazy one. Where JJ Abrams kind of sent everybody on this crazy goose hunt. Right. For what the movie was about. Yeah. Before it came out no one know if it was a Godzilla movie Sure. Or some people thought it was a Voltron adaptation or something, but, it was cool. You know, like, they would have puzzles for you to solve and stuff. This was like the analog internet days. Right, I mean, and there's still some of that like those ARG's those games that some of those Right. Like, for certain movies I think it applies and this, this story goes on to say, like, you know. It's funny, like, nows there's hashtags on a movie poster. Mm. There's a QR code. QR codes. Every now and then you'll get an interesting URL for, like, they'll come up with a funny URL that bakes into the plot, or, like, a theme of the movie. Yeah. But then that URL will just. Forward to the Facebook page of the movie. Right. Something like that. So, it's just a different strategy. And it's funny, like the movie website, when you really go back and look at it, the movie website was only like a 15 year thing. Right. And it's completely gone. Mm-hm. You know, like. Even, you know, most websites, most movies do have a website. But that website is like a link to the Tumblr, a link to the Facebook, a link to the Twitter, and you're done. Right. And that's it. And maybe like, you know, some trivia, or downloadable wallpapers. Yeah. [LAUGH] Remember that? It's funny cuz The Guardian talks about how the audience really does most of the heavy lifting now in terms of marketing and promotion and that's completely true. All I have to do is come up with. Some like cheesy a literative hash tag, right. And then anybody will use that to come up with their own stuff. Yeah, the problem I have with all that though, is that a lot that seems to be a little on autopilot. Like the social networks are now, I think a lot of it happens without you necessary, you know, clicking or locating something. So if you like something, well then yeah, Facebook is gonna tell all your friends that you like something and you are. You know, essentially doing the advertising and marketing for the film. Mm-hm. But there's a lot of other things now that I feel that people don't necessarily realize they're contributing to that marketing machine. Whether it be, like, a cookie in their web browser that activates a trigger some where. I just think now, Yeah. It's like this really, you know, faceless, sort of evil machine. Yes. It's definitely less transparent now. I remember just last year, we talked about a story ourselves, where we sort of unwilling marketers of, James Franco's new movie. Yeah. It was, a story that came out early in the morning one day about James Franco hitting on an Instagram girl from Australia. She was like 17 years old. So that's confirmed, completely. And yeah, later on that day. Not coincidentally a trailer came out for James Franco's latest movie called Palo Alto, in which he, as a teacher, falls in love with a young student, 17 year sold. So, after that came out everyone's like, including ourselves, like damn, you know, we accidentally promoted this freaking movie. It's a lot more suspicious. Or, did he make the movie cover his ****? That would be a very expensive hook up. Right. Both in time and money. [LAUGH] You made a $30 million movie. Incredible. Right? It's amazing. Good for him. But, but stuff like that, I feel like you have to get. So creative that you're literally putting your own reputation and brand on the line if you want to market it creatively. Yeah. But I guess that's the whole viral thing, that's not just movies either. But movie trailers, I think, have definitely evolved over time, too. Have you watched like a 90s movie trailer? There's barely any excitement now. Yeah, a lot of those were all about building on suspense I feel like. Yeah. But now, there, there's a lot of like, music, music, music, silence, and deliver a line of dialogue. You know, it's just, I think that's just like an evolution of like, what's popular with, you know, editing, aesthetics and stuff like that. I noticed they're starting to promote movies, I saw over the weekend they were doing a Sin City promotion? Yeah. For the next version of it. But using gifts where instead of putting on an official trailer they'll just release, you know, seven or eight gifts. Mm-hm. Little clips, like, five second clips. Sure. From the movie without sound that kinda give you, a quick little preview. Yeah. But I feel like that's kinda sad. [LAUGH] Because you're really showing how short of an attention span we have now. Right? Like, I mean, there's so much on the internet that you have to really make sure that people watch your stuff. Maybe a two minute trailer is way too long to capture people's attention. Yeah, I mean. I don't know I'm, I'm with you. I understand what you're saying. Like, the attention spans have just been diminishing forever. Yeah. But Like, I don't want to watch. A gif. [CROSSTALK] git movie. For for, to get excited about a trailer. Yeah. I wanna, you know, I wanna, I wanna watch the whole thing. Cuz I like them, the quality's really good, there's sound. Yeah. Which is like, the lost art. It's funny, talking about gifs on twitter. Do you, do you know what Twitter's been doing to gifs? Oh, they put it in a movie file. Isn't that crazy? It's basically a revolving movie file. Right. Yeah. So any time you upload, we talked about this last week, anytime you upload a gif to twitter you're not, the end result, the thing that actually publishes on your timeline isn't an actual gif file. Yeah. It's an mp4 file. It's just a straight up video. And it's a looping video. Yeah. And that's kind of a mind debt you know? Yeah, that's pretty cool. but it makes sense. Gifs are, are, have this terrible history and reputation. They're just so bulky. Mm-hm. They're, they're too big and mp4 is way smaller. Yeah, so if they're, if it's just a plain movie file, mp4s have been around for a while. Yeah. Why can't they put sound in there? That's a great, great question. I wonder what that video format is for Vine, That's a great question as well. It's probably similar. I'm going to look it up. What file format? Yeah. Think the people upstairs are trying to tell us. What file format is a Vine? [LAUGH] Nothing is more exciting than someone Googling something. Out loud. people, just a quick thing, it looks like they might be mp4s. Really? Yeah. Huh, yeah, that'd be cool. That's definitely something that gifts are missing, sound, one of the five senses. Sort of [CROSSTALK]. [INAUDIBLE] like the first thing you see Vine, it's always muted. Yeah. So that's how they should do it with GIF's. With GIF's, turn it off. Keep them muted to start and bam, there you go. Yeah. Oh, really quick before we move on to the next story, speaking of movies. What's up? In that Guardian article they talk about one of the most popular movie websites that's still around and you can view it in its original form, I think it was 1994. Six. That the movie. 1996 and the movie Space Jam came out with Michael Jordan and a bunch of the WB team. Yeah, here it is. And you can go to, whats the URL Oh, the easy to remember URL is www2.warnerbrothers.com/spacejam/movies/jam. That's a long time. That HTM yea, what's crazy that, that's what it was. That's so cool My favorite thing is, if you go to that Space Jam movie site, you can download coloring pages to print out for your kids, and you can read about the soundtrack. Set, available in 96 on cassette. God, this. But, you can't listen to it, obviously because even WAV's weren't available for streaming in 96. No. They were. Probably, but not enough for people's broadband or, Non-broadband Internet access. Yeah. Not for the designer of this little interactive. So, here there was actually an order form that you can mail in to get your copy of the Space Jam soundtrack on cassette. The best thing about this is it looks. Looks like it was designed by like a four year old. Number two, like, the background is repeating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's repeating, yeah. It's a repeating background, like you get in GeoCities. It's just a desktop wallpaper. [LAUGH] It's like one tile, that's it. Yeah. [LAUGH] No good. Click through some of those. All right. It's all accessible. Here's the line up. Oh, look at these sick-ass frames. Yeah. Wow, this, wow, this is, oh my goodness, look at that rotating little gift right there. Yeah, [LAUGH] that cost $300 a program. Morning, man. [LAUGH] Back in 92. Yeah. It's just crazy that this is this was it. Yeah. And this is not that long ago, man. This is not that long ago. What is, What is the Matrix? I, I never went on that site. Was it sorta like a game that you could play to find out? No. What the movie was all about? I think it was just. Sort of like interactive thing. It was coded, it was a little, I bet it still works. Yeah. Oh, no. This site not currently available. What is the Matrix? The Matrix is a 404. [LAUGH] That's what it is. [LAUGH] There's proof right here. Full circle. Yep. There it is. Oh, man. All right. What do we have next Sir. All right. Let's talk about this laundry service, cuz this is something that, the story popped up last week on Thursday but I wanted to wait for the weekend for it to get confirmed that it's something real and not completely a joke. Okay. And it is a real thing so keep that in mind as we're talking about it. This is real. This is real. Last Thursday, a new start-up launched called Washboard, right? Okay. And it's sort of, offers a new take on the monthly subscription service that's gotten really popular, like Birchbox for example. Instead of sending you say, snacks or beauty products. Washboard is basically letting customers sign up to pay ten or twe, I'm sorry. They want customers to sign up to receive ten or twenty dollars worth of quarters. To be delivered to them on a monthly basis, for them to do laundry with. Yeah. Let me repeat that. [LAUGH] Sign up to receive 10 or 20 dollars worth, two tiers. The service costs 15 dollars, 14.99, for a ten dollar roll of quarters per month. Or, if you do a ton of laundry, like if you live in a co-op or have a big family, you can pay 26.99 for 20 dollars worth of quarters sent to you monthly. Automatically. I'm not, I'm not sure who I'm more upset with. [LAUGH] Yeah. Am I more upset with the people behind this crazy service? Mm-hm. Yeah. Or, or are we more upset with the people who inevitably sign up for this. I'm just upset with reality right now. I think the reality of it is this. I think there's a whole group of people that aren't aware that quarters are money. I think they just think it's like little coins for the laundry machine. And they're like "I can only buy them through this website." Right. These like stone tablets. They're like "What are these things?" They have like some guy's head on them. There's a huge mark-up. It's a 50% premium on the 10 dollar roll of quarters. Cuz it's 15 bucks. This is not a sustainable business model. Ridiculous. Well, hold on. They have 7 customers already. 7? It launched on Thursday. Oh, well they're swimming in it. Super taking off. Probably gonna get bought out soon, but. Can we interview the CEO of Washboard? We should. We want to get him or her on the line. Before we put the pillowcase over his head. Right. And beat him with a roll of quarters. Right. Exactly. Give him some cement boots. Yeah. Throw 'em in the Hudson. Luckily, in verifying the and, fact-checking the story to make sure it's really, other outlets have already interviewed the founder and. What does this person have to say for him or herself? [LAUGH] He says that. He's banking on the fact that young people will stand a few bucks in order to get the shortcut and basically skip the trip to the bank. How is that a shortcut? He's saying that since banks, these are his words, don't punch me in the face. [LAUGH] Since banks close at 5:00 during the weekdays, and they close, sometimes at noon on Saturdays and they're closed all day on Sunday, well there's, this horrible, you know, 30 hour part of your weekend. And some parts during the weekdays at night where you won't be able to access and get change. Who is this guy? Who is this person? His name is in there somewhere. Good. I didn't even bother writing it down. This is the only time we'll hear about him. I'll also need his social security matter. Here is why is also crazy. Dude, I'm looking, I have my own laundry machine in my apartment. Yeah, is a luxury But, it's a luxury for sure, but when I wasn't doing that, all the washing and drying machine I was using, worked on like a cards system. Yeah. So where's that? Like, that is definitely the most popular means of payment. Yeah. With laundry machine. Because of all the reasons Mr. Washboard just listed. Yeah. Like nobody. You're right. No one can get to the bank, which is why we've invented card systems. Right. Or the next thing that he would invent would be this huge box. A vending machine type thing. But instead of sodas or snacks, you put one dollar or five dollars in, I don't know. Yeah. And then a bunch of coins would come out of it. This guy. It basically turned paper into metal. He [LAUGH]. It's a paper to metal machine. Yeah He invented a change machine. Yeah, it's genius. He But the funny part is that, in some of the interviews with him, he talks about how, since he now has seven customers, he has to go to the bank himself. You know it's not like he has access to, you know, some treasury somewhere. And doing the same thing. You're going to the bank and getting $100 worth of quarters to then send out to people. It's just crazy. I used to believe it, man. I used to believe that, in fact, there was no such thing as bad publicity. This is a bad thing. Yeah. For bad publicity. I don't think anyone thinks this is a good idea. There's just not even the dumbest of the dummies will be on board. This isn't even a high idea because high ideas are good ideas. High ideas I have, I feel like have a 66% success rate. Right, there's no way this thing. Right, am I. Am I just hating on this guy? I'm trying to lower my hate. I feel like a place like New York would be good for a service like this if laundromats didn't do wash and fold. Because I would rather put my money that I would use for this premium service just towards the same day service and then I wouldn't even have to do the laundry. The problem with wash board is that you still have to, one, remember to bring those quarters to the laundromat and then two, you've still got to do the laundry. Oh, I feel bad for not even. It sucks. Having realized how stupid. Yeah. How monumentally stupid. Just pay somebody else to do it. It'd probably be cheaper cuz I think my place charges 85 cents a pound. Amazing. Even if you're paying a buck a pound. For. And then they buy the unused laundry detergent and fabric softener for you so you're saving money off that too. And not only that, you can go to like organic cleaners where, like, you get the, the wash and fold service, when I used to use it, that was the highlight of my month. I love wash. I only did wash once a month. Me too. And you bring 20 pounds worth of laundry. 20? Maybe with your size smalls and thirty inch waist. I was rocking 45 pounds at a time. Really? I had no idea wash and fold services exist. Did you start doing that when you moved here Aria? no. I'm still washing my own laundry. Still doing your own. Yeah, but I, I wanna do it. It just, it saves more, I hate spending a whole afternoon washing the laundry. Right? The worst. And it's like why do three or four hours, depending on how much you do, and I think guys do tend to let the laundry pile up. Mm-hm. Yeah, then you gotta spend four hours there. Yeah. Your times worth it man. Yeah. I gotta look into it. Definitely. I mean, that's why I did, that's why I did Fresh Direct. Time is money. Oh the best is they fold it for you perfectly too. Mm-hm. How do they do that? Completely. You, you literally like, you tear open the bag, and then put a shelf of t-shirts back onto your dresser. Easy. It's amazing. Everything is perfect. You could use a fork lift to put it on there. Do you know how to do you know how they do that? Like I've always wanted a reiii, and I watch YouTube videos, and they don't even fold shirts the way you think you're supposed to Oh they just do this They just like do a pretzel situation, and bam! You got like a perfectly folded t-shirt. Yeah. Shout out to So Good on night street. S E W. Nice! Good alterations too. Shout out to quadruple A. Organic cream. [LAUGH] Remember they always have like seven days before their thing. That's awesome. Yeah. You know what, washboard man? You want to invent a service, why don't you become like the Uber of delivery laundry service, you ****. That'd be cool, they'd pick up and drop off so you don't have to go to the laundromat. You suck, hate this guy So lazy. Oh I hate him All right, which one do you want to talk about? Want to talk about how to call in sick properly? Or do you want to talk about how your workplace is probably spying on you without you knowing it. Let's do that. Because I feel like, you know, I know how to call in sick pretty well. I just text you, so, let's. True. You did that this morning. Right? So let's, let's do the surveillance. Yeah, okay. So, you want to get the **** scared out of you. Yeah, that's right. . And this will do it. It's time for that. We've reached that point. Kind of scary. So, the New York Times, this week, they posted this article about the progress that's being made in the area of workplace surveillance. Oh, God. Business ethics. [LAUGH]. Just think, you know, like all of our parents, all they had to worry about was maybe a security camera in the corner or something or maybe their boss looking over their shoulder. But now, cuz we have computers in front of us and eh, the industry of wearable technologies is going off like crazy, there's a lot more to worry about. And the New York Times sort of talks about the advance technology that's making it really easy to observe. But also measure the performance of employees. And before, I tell you what that is. This is mostly about retail professionals, and retail associates. You know this is really, I guess it could be apply to people that work at office jobs. But we are talking about either vocational work or retail job. Okay. Brittle small. Little until they pour it over at the office. There's this company that they profile in the article and it's call, Societe Metric Solutions. It's a start up and they're gaining traction right now, because they have this product that offers employers the ability to use an ID badge. So once somebody signs up for it, the, each person in the in the job gets an ID badge. Sure, like we do, we have that. Yeah, yeah. But those badges are way techier. They have two microphones built in. Microphones? So they can hear front and back. That's not cool at all. They have the location sensor built into it, a GPS sensor. And an accelerometer as well. To see how fast you're moving. Yeah, exactly. And so you can imagine how something like this if you put it on, say, a waiter, That you can measure the man or woman's tone of voice. You can measure things like posture, for example. That's how you you use the accelorometer that's built in, body language and maybe even trends that, that people notice over time, like oh, this person is walking too slow. Yeah. Or they're engaging in too much conversation or not enough conversation. And then even the tone, like I said. If, if they're not as, as you know, welcome as maybe they should be. So if you have. [CROSSTALK] Hone in one that. So if you're a waitress or a waiter and you have this card on you, it can hear how you approach your guests. Mm-hm. Yes. That's not, that's not, I mean. Yeah. That's not cool. Yeah, say you work at Chili's or something. But guests. Yeah, that's, see that's where it's gonna happen. Yeah. It's not gonna happen in like mom and pop restaurant. No. It's gonna happen at, you know, TGI Fridays. Right, yeah. It will be like you didn't offer the customer the shrimp shack shooters. Right. Or whatever the special is. And you know what happens, when the seafood is about to turn. Right. You're supposed to offer everybody this deal. Which I can imagine being even more annoying for, the probably already irritated retail staff. Oh man. But, it's kinda scary. And, this company also offers office solutions. So this is where it applies to us. They do studies on different companies. And most recently they did a study on a tech company. They found that, if they just changed the orientation and style of tables in the cafeteria. They'd be able to increase productivity during the work day. So they encourage, instead of having side load tables that only fit maybe three or four people. Those tend to encourage cliques which creates more drama in the workplace according to them. Gotcha. And so they use those studies to instead replace those tables with kitchen, I'm sorry, picnic style tables. Yeah. Long picnic tables. Not unlike that we're going to get. No, they're unlike the ones we're gonna get. And, and those, encourage more conversation, collaboration and they lead to more ideas that happen when it's time to go back to work. My first, my first sort of impression of this was like rage and fear. Mm-hm. But there are a few applications where I think I'm okay with them using this. Like what? Like a bank. Oh, accountability for people that. A bank. Are usually rude, is that what you said? No, not rude. But look, a bank's one of those places where you can't **** up. Mm-hm. Like maybe you give someone the wrong change back at, at you know, 7-11. All right. Right. Not the end of the world. Right. But at a bank that's a problem. Mm-hm. Right. So, bank, and banks are also like, target areas, right? People, they're, they're high security area, areas. Okay, so bank, I'm okay with it there. I'm also okay with it at the DMV. Mm-hm. Oh, that's right, yeah. They need too. I actually encourage it. I mean as long as we're putting tech in the workplace, we might as well just replace all those people with robots. I mean, we're all halfway there already, right. At the DMV, yeah. Basically making them Androids by strapping this thing on to them. Might as well just put a kiosk there. The DMV, I mean, the bank I get. Like, the bank, there's services there. There's products, there's mortgages and loans and other crap. Fine. The DMV, there's very, little, subjectivity at the DMV. Yeah. Where there's like, this, this little process needs a human touch to it. Yeah. No, they're glorified automatons. I waited seven hours there earlier this year to get my New York driver's license. Seven hours? Yeah. And the, the, messed up part is that they tell you. I feel like they should keep it a mystery. [UNKNOWN] So that you have a, you feel like in the third hour maybe you'll gonna get called in the next 15 minutes. You sat in the DMV for 7 hours? You have to sit there because they call your name, and there's no order to the numbers you get, so you can't see, oh I'm number 700 and they're only on 50. Maybe I have a little bit of time. You have no idea. How, if there was a hell, how could it be any worse? Yeah, it's bad. I assume that places outside from New York city don't have the seven hour waiting the DNV though. Definitely not. Yeah. That's madness. That's my choice to live here. Wow, and you live to tell the tale. Now, I have a New York's driver license. They're pretty cool actually. Yeah, they are pretty cool, they look like they've being made in the 1920s. Yeah, they're like mug shots. And you can see through them, they have a little window. Well that's why states don't have one. The force goes to the finest security measures. Yeah. All right. I like it, sort of. DMV. Put it there. Where else would you want to put it? Restaurants, I guess. I mean. I don't know. [CROSSTALK] really need to wait. I think any place you're working for a tip. Yeah. Leave, like, it's in the, you're incentivizing the employees to do well, and to perform well. Right. So, if they're not going to perform well and they're going to get **** tips. Well, then that's on them. Right? I'm trying to think where else we can use these things. Restaurant industry maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah. You know, I don't know. We'll see. All right, we do have time for this last story. Let's do it, it's cute. Okay, all right. Yeah, let's leave on a positive note here. So, it's not a really huge story won't take too long to explain but it's a very cute way to start the week. But do you believe it though? Yeah, I believe it. Okay. Yeah, Google verified it. This is a true story What do you mean Google verified it? Yeah, doesn't mean ****, does it? [LAUGH]. Seeing that happens to be very easy going about PTO, right, which explains why Jeff is going on a vacation all the time. What, you, I'm not But not all companies allow you to go on vacation so easily. In fact, if you work at a place like Google, then you may not even be allowed to leave the building. Right. Very often. I mean you only. Which is why they employ hair stylists and things inside. But yeah. For sure. You only get deshackled once a year. Right, right. So for places like that, there's a story about one Google employee that found a way to beat the system in sort of a clever and adorable way. Little Katie, this guy's daughter. I don't know how old that she is but she's a little girl. She wanted to spend the day with her dad for his birthday. Oh. And that happened to fall in the middle of the week on a Wednesday. So, behind his back she secretly sent his boss at Google a letter. How did she? A hand written letter How did she send it? I don't know, how do letters get to Santa Claus? Don't ask questions like that That's a great question So she sent his boss this letter, and it's written in crayon, which first, is genius. But, also, it's about requesting a little bit of extra time off for her dad. So do you want to put on your best 5 year old girl impression and read this letter. I'm not going to do, I can't do a 5 year old girl impression. But I'll read it in perhaps a more simpler tone. Okay. Dear Google Worker, can you please make sure when daddy goes to work he gets one day off? Like he can get, get a day off of Wednesday. I mean all you have to do, if you're a righty, you just write lefty and then you hit yourself on the head with a hammer. You're right. And you write this, right? Sure, yeah. That's how I would do it. Continue reading. Because daddy only gets a day off on Saturday. [LAUGH] From Katie. PS, it is daddy's birthday. PPS it is summer, you know. That was. Deeply disturbing. I don't know why. I didn't think about how that would sound, from like a 30 year old man saying daddy so much. Why is that, that's not weird. You don't call your dad daddy? Neither do I. I call him Lou. Yeah. [LAUGH] You know if Katie were really smart she would have reversed all the R's. Right. So it's the left side. [INAUDIBLE] And where's like the balloons and the hearts? Yeah, and on the eyes right? You're an amateur Katie, get your crap together. Either way, the PPS worked. [LAUGH] The PPS worked. The PBS worked because [UNKNOWN] sorry. Katie's dad's boss, who works in design at Google, ended up sending a letter back, in reply. On a google sheet, an official sheet. Here it is it says, Dear Katie, thank you for your thoughtful note and request. Your father has been at work very, wait, your father has been very hard at work designing many beautiful and delightful things for Google and millions of people across the globe. On the occasion of his birthday, and recognizing the importance of taking some Wednesdays off during the summer. We're giving him the whole first week of July as vacation time. Yeah and then when he comes back I don't wanna be him. Yeah. He is like the Dave Daniels is gonna be like, "You let your daughter write me another letter.". Right. "And I swear you're gonna be designing those Google doodles for the rest of your life," because clearly that's what he does. It's like, what other designs does Google do besides those. Google [INAUDIBLE]. Google doodles. Yeah, there's no holiday's during July that you. That's it. Oh, man. Yeah, it would've been funny if he was like look, we're giving you the rest of your life off for trying to pull a stunt like that. Yeah, and here's the pink slip to prove it. Yeah, here's a new box of crayons. It's crazy. I mean think about it. It took Caroline McCarthy a lot to leave Google. Sure. It basically had to fight a minotaur. [LAUGH] Yeah [LAUGH] I don't even know how she got out of there in one piece. Yeah it's hard, it's tough. What's up with that I thought Google was all about, like doing things on your own time. Yeah, no vacations at Google apparently. Poor Katie. I hope they enjoy their first week of July. Yes. Because it's the last. That's all you gotta do. Yeah. But for those of us who don't have children get back to work. Yeah, right. It's a good reason to have a child. Mimi sent that out, and all hands to Google? Right. like if you don't have kids. Sorry, we're tightening the noose. Yeah. To make up for Daniel over here. Yeah, everyone's gotta go overtime. That's pretty good. That's a cute story, I thank you for that. I appreciate that. Yeah. All right, that's it for us today, guys. Shoot us an email, the 404@cnet.com. We're back here tomorrow with a brand new program. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and Reddit and, and what else? The YouTube. All of our videos are on YouTube, too. Yeah. So, I don't know if you know that, but they're there. And also, Justin the intern's doing a great job at clipping out little videos from every episode. So, find them on you, YouTube. Share them with all your friends on Facebook and, you know, Twitter and all that. And be part of the, the solution here. Yeah. All right, we appreciate all that hard work you're doing, sir. That's it for us. We're back here tomorrow. I'm Jeff Bakalar. I'm Justin Yu. I'm Ariel Nunez. This has been the 404 Show, high tech lowbrow. Have an awesome Monday. See you tomorrow. [MUSIC]

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