This Week On Planet Internet is This Week on Planet Internet. This week’s podcast features the latest with the tech behind the pandemic. What’s up with the love-hate relationship that we have with working? What’s the latest in the news? And will Elon Musk’s robots make our beds for us? Listen to The HackerNoon podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Use the weekly Newsquiz to test your knowledge of stories you saw on this week’s show.
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Humanoid Natasha, Amy, and Katarina (from the future) say that the robots are taking over This Week On Planet Internet! These days, if you think about anything too hard, you might just explode. But fret not, one day we will all live in robot bodies and no one will be able to touch us. 
Listen to The HackerNoon Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
THIS WEEK ON PLANET INTERNET:
- What’s the latest with the tech behind the pandemic?
(00:42) - TL;DR: Robots are coming
(07:44) - Will Elon Musk’s robots make our beds for us?
(11:38) - What’s up with the love-hate relationship that we have with working?
(16:16)
SHOW NOTES:
COMPUTER-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Natasha: Welcome to this week on planet incidents. I’m your host Natasha Nell. And I’m joined this week by Amy, Tom. You’re your regular podcast, host and Catarina editor at hacker noon. Welcome to the vodcasts, everybody. Yay. So this week I have just returned from a holiday in Italy, and I have no idea what is going on in the world.
I’m going to rely on the two of you to catch me up. I do have one anecdote to share from traveling around Europe. During these crazy panini times, it has been such a trip. After getting double vaccinated, you get this little QR code, and everywhere you go, you’re asked in Italian, which makes it confusing.
But you’re asked for a green pass and you have to open this little app and show your green POS. And if you don’t have a green pause, if, for example, you’ve decided not to get vaccinated or if you’ve never had coronavirus before. And you don’t have an antibody proof. Within the last 10 months, then you’re not allowed to go into any restaurants.
You can’t sit down inside. You assumed might not be able to use public transport at all. And they’ve actually been a couple of protests around this, which is interesting. Of course, people are not taking kindly to being told that they have to get vaccinated. See some of these public services. So it was a curious thing to debates with our friends over there.
And I wonder what you think about that. What’s your sort of first response to the idea of this enforced vaccination in exchange for public goods and services.
[00:01:43] Amy: Oh, that’s so interesting. That’s also very topical on my mind because Vancouver just announced that they are going to launch that starting September 15th.
So in two weeks from now about, and yeah, honestly, I am. Pro-vaccine all the way. Everybody should get it. Everybody needs to get it. I don’t know what you’re doing. Have you done it? Whatever. We don’t have to get into it, but I also am like uncomfortable with the vaccine password because it’s as much as I don’t agree with the people that are not getting vaccinated, I think that everyone should have.
A choice and theoretically, you still do have a choice, but then you’re like really limiting, like what you can and can’t do. And that kind of governmental crack down or whatever is I’m not super opposed to it, but I’m just like, Ooh, that’s a little uncomfortable. And I think that the people that they’re trying to target for these kinds of things, like the extreme anti-vaxxers like, would they not be also like antigovernment?
So it’d be like even more of a big F you, I don’t know, what’s this. Where are you are a Catarina?
[00:02:54] Katarina: Tears were no, that’s exactly what I know for a healthcare system. So it was already pretty much doing before COVID so now it’s absolutely disastrous. So I’m all for it. If it ever tries to being forced there, I am vaccinated, but it’s very, it’s a big issue, especially among younger people.
And it’s mostly between related to education related to. How epidemics works and how it was dealt in the past and what can be done now. And the concept of vaccination passports is not really that foreign for many areas globally. So for me, it’s not a big deal. I just want to be over finally.
[00:03:35] Amy: Yeah, me too. I’m tired. Yeah, I’m pandemic tired.
[00:03:41] Natasha: Teague is a real thing. I feel that a lot. I think if we have to. Honestly, look at the last year in order, we’ve all injured, psychologically. It just low key it’s reason for a sabbatical. We all need to take a sabbatical lots of weeks, episode of this week on planet, internet, by the way, for those of you who haven’t heard it, it’s such a great episode.
It was hosted by Lange and I think it’s called the future. What is the future of remote work? It’s. Such a great episode. And I think my favorite moment from that episode, by the way, is Amy just flat out saying that if she could stop working tomorrow, she 100% word and does not feel any desire to work ever.
Yeah. I never
[00:04:26] Amy: want to work.
[00:04:27] Natasha: That was brilliant. I would actually, I would be curious to hear more about that from you a little later on in this episode, actually, I have some follow up questions about that. All right. Great. If you, yeah, anyway, back to vaccine passport, let’s wrap that up because I think that’s a really important really important topic in terms of Your initial response and then questioning your initial response, which Catarina.
That was such a good example of, because my initial response was exactly the same. I thought, how far does it then go? What are they going to tell me to do with my body? And we weren’t talking about what’s happening in Texas right now. That’s a whole different podcast, but I think that if. You think about things just one step further in order to go to Brazil from South Africa, you have to have a yellow fever vaccination.
It’s been that way for 20 years. It just is what it is. It’s wise to take malaria tablets. If you visit Mozambique, if you think about it, I
[00:05:24] Amy: feel like that makes sense. Cause you’re traveling borders though, but like what do you think about what happens when you’re within your own border?
[00:05:32] Natasha: That’s true. That is difference. It absolutely is a. The nature of this pandemic and it’s contagious across borders and not just endemic to certain areas is maybe what makes it different. What do you think Katrina?
[00:05:46] Katarina: I think now more than ever the fact that we’re traveling so much, it’s so crucial to the fact that it’s spreading so quickly.
It’s never been in history this way before. So in terms of that, I don’t know. We, as I mentioned here, we the healthcare system really did suffer and many non COVID patients suffered because there’s just not enough space in hospitals to be admitted for any other reasons. So it’s no longer a COVID issue.
It’s a general population issue. So if vaccinations are the only way to stop it. My aunt is a nurse, so yeah. I was very frustrated.
[00:06:22] Natasha: Yeah. That’s common. I, we have friends who also work in the healthcare industry who are not so much in agreement with anybody being able to travel if they’re unvaccinated or so feel very strongly about just getting it done.
So yeah, it’s interesting to hear from people on the front lines the strength of their response is passionate. For sure. Onto slightly lighter topics, amy says that the robots are taking over. I haven’t yet caught up on this news or there has been coming for awhile. Amy, do you want to give us the T TLDR on the robots coming for all of us?
[00:07:04] Amy: Yeah. Is it a good thing? I don’t know, maybe
[00:07:07] Natasha: you’ll never have to work again. Isn’t that your job?
[00:07:10] Amy: And I maybe I won’t have to worry about COVID anymore. Cause I’ll just live in a robot body or something. Won’t be great. I’m immune to everything. So I read this article yesterday on hacker noon called tiny, fast, and strong and insect size robot that mimics cheetahs.
And I was like why that’s a wild wait side note before I even started, did you see that black mirror episode with the bugs that like, that’s what this reminds me of. Very exciting, scary, perhaps, but these people are from the university of California in Berkeley and they are creating these micro robots and they are like insect size, so super tiny, but they have the endurance and strength of a cheetah.
So they’ve tested the movements of the robot in and slowed it down. One six level speed so that you can see like how the bot moves in relation to also how the cheetah moves. And they have like similar movements and speeds and things. So they made the robot to mimic the movements of the cheetah, but be so small that it’s the size of an insect and it just.
Yeah, it seems very black mirror. I don’t know how I feel about this. Have you ever encountered such a tiny robot, Natasha?
[00:08:37] Natasha: So I’ve been following the, what is it? The Boston dogs. And those, I think actually inspired that black mirror episode. What a great episode. If I remember correctly, it was all in like gray scale, black and whites.
Super-intense not much dialogue. It was so great. And kept me on the edge of my chair and the movement of those. Dogs. And the realization as I was watching the episode was that all of this robotic technology, what is going to be the first application, of course, war. That’s what it’s going to be used for.
I don’t need a tiny robot dog. I can get a real dog. But however, these robot dogs could be very useful to some governments in certain locations. Yeah. For me, this is a really freaky, totally black mirror development. And then the fact that things in this episode, for those of you who haven’t seen it, they gain their own intelligence.
That’s the thing is that the dogs then just start to take over and earth is no longer inhabitable because these dogs are just lurking around every corner and trying to attack anything that moves. So it turns into this like zombie apocalypse scenario, which is just. Probably what’s going to happen in the end anyway.
[00:09:49] Amy: Deadly about the reason for developing the robots conveniently. Who knows what they’re about. I also was like, I don’t know what this is for
[00:09:59] Natasha: you. Call who funded this startup always follow the money. Who’s funding.
[00:10:04] Amy: It always follow the money. Yes. And in other big robot news, you have missed like the biggest stuff in your Italian vacation.
But Elon Musk has announced the Tesla bot, which is going to be like a humanoid robot of sorts that will autopilot. The mundane tasks of your life or something. He’s trying to get away with tasks that are quote unquote unsafe, repetitive, or boring, which like, I don’t know, what’s a boring task. I making your bed, the robot’s going to make my bed me scared black mirror, real life.
Yeah, it’s very interesting. Catarina, have you heard about this?
[00:10:51] Katarina: Yeah. And that was, of course the Twitter went rampant on the memes related to it, but I think it’s just an ans related response to Boston dynamics tool. She just. Hasn’t dipped his fingers so far in it. And then you wanted to something to do.
It will be interesting to see if he follows up on it even,
[00:11:11] Amy: but yeah. Yes, it does say the releases quote unquote sometime next year. So I don’t know.
[00:11:18] Natasha: Not, yeah. Sorry. Katrina.
[00:11:22] Katarina: I think was just something he was wanting to try out. And that’s something that he,
[00:11:28] Amy: you mean he’s just bored and he has a lot of money, so he’s I’m just gonna make a robot.
[00:11:32] Katarina: The other people are doing it and they didn’t do it. So let’s see if we can pull it
[00:11:37] Amy: off. He is doing it, then I’m doing it too.
[00:11:40] Katarina: It sounded like we’ll have to walk the Boston dynamics dogs, and it will be Elon Musks
[00:11:45] Amy: and it will be then humanoid robots. Oh my God. Amazing.
[00:11:48] Natasha: What’s pretty meta about this whole conversation. Is that on the Hakkinen story, Amy? I don’t know if you want to share your screen for our YouTube feelers, but on the tiny, fast and strong insects that MIG mimics mimic cheetahs. There is a new feature on hacker noon. Very exciting. A little TL Dr.
Button at the top of the story. That you can click on and receive a summary of the article that was made by an AI which you know, is a job that used to belong to editors summarizing articles and catchy little. Paragraphs. So that’s a new feature bought by our mastermind developer. I believe it was Jefferson who just quietly installed this the other day.
I spotted it. After Lee mark told me about it and. Can I just say what a great addition really cool. If you have time to read stories, go to hacker noon, just kick TLD, all buttons everywhere. Get the summaries. It’s pretty rad also for tweeting. Yeah, it just helps with so many things. I think it’s. Can I just say
[00:12:56] Amy: that, like my new favorite thing is when a developer just like randomly drops a feature and doesn’t tell anyone.
And I was like, oh my God, Jefferson, what is that? Woke up on a Tuesday morning and was like, here we go, TLDR. I love it.
[00:13:11] Natasha: I really think that’s a common traits of developers is not spouting about their work. And David said something really cool to our blocking fellows in the presentation the kickoff presentation. So how can you in blogging fellowship? Just the thing we’re doing on the side. It’s a really cool thing.
But David gave some great advice in there about why people. Documents their, where their work or the kinds of people that document their work and saying that care writing requires and proves kids thinking and it validates your expertise and those who document. Yeah. Their work have done work that is worth documenting, right?
So it’s all in all, just a really good practice to document your work. And it’s called me out actually as a when’s the last time that I wrote about work, that I’ve done for hacker noon and actually shouted about it and says, this is what I’ve learned or put out documentation that might help somebody else do it.
So yeah, that’s something we’re thinking about. Which is a very smooth segue to the topic of work. And we go back to what you said on last week’s podcast about not wanting to work. I thought that was awesome because it was so real and so true. If we’re all honest with ourselves, we don’t want to work necessarily even when your job is super cool.
Maybe it’s unconventional. Maybe you actually get glimmers of joy in the day, even though it’s still work. My mom, for example, could hurt day job to become a caterer because she loves food and like it’s, she loves it. Sure. But now she’s turned her passion into her work and it’s still work.
[00:14:50] Amy: Yes, exactly.
Even if you love what you do, you’re still working. And then Marcos comes in and he’s I just love to learn. And I’m like, okay, Marcos, that’s
[00:15:01] Natasha: fine. He’s near. Yeah. He knows this.
[00:15:04] Amy: We all have different interests.
[00:15:06] Natasha: How do we know how you feel about work? Of course, your general relationship with work
[00:15:11] Katarina: depends on the type of work. My focus is very on again, the whole thing. But if the task I’m working on is like something that I’m interested in or that I really want to see a single life. Then I have no time.
Pushing through whatever that line is. And if it’s something repetitive or too boring or something that I see no point in, I’d rather just do whatever else.
[00:15:37] Amy: Okay. Maybe I should clarify. I can work. I am capable of working. I do work. I like it.
If you ask me what I want to do. It’s not working
[00:15:48] Katarina: interesting for a while. I took a, like, when I left the previous startup, I worked in, I took like a self-proclaimed sabbatical that turned into something much longer because Corona started and then the like first six weeks, maybe two months, it’s very refreshing and it’s very, it’s nice. So you need to put the collapse, your brain to, to recharge it’s necessary, but in the long run, it’s not fun, especially when you top it with the stress of generating income.
Okay. So here’s the thing.
[00:16:24] Amy: Imagine you have unlimited money. Okay. You don’t need to work because you have unlimited money. You do whatever you want and that’s fun. Even you don’t get bored because you do whatever you want to. Oh, I’ll be like, oh my God, I’m going to start a podcast today on this. Just because I feel like it, or, today, I think I’m going to.
Paint a picture. I don’t know whatever you want to do. Actually on a side note, my dream job, if money was not an object and I had to work, I would be a barber or a barista because you get to talk to people all day and either make beautiful latte art or touch people’s hair, which like is really weird. But I’m really into that.
Nightmare. So that’s what I talk to people all day long.
[00:17:16] Natasha: And this is the thing, right? It’s all about your personal style and what you like and trying to find work that aligns with that. It has to be otherwise you really can’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to work at all. If I hadn’t found a job that aligned.
What I like to do all day, which is just like mess around on the internet. Know what’s going on in the world, have unsolicited opinions about things and also writes copy, because I find that severe really fun. And I find a lot of people to do that really badly. So it’s nice to be like, I can do that better.
I think I’m driven a lot by. The desire to do things better and perfectionist, great way to call me out. Yes.
[00:18:04] Amy: Yes. And that’s also why I feel like this is the perfect job for me, because I just want to talk all day. Just set me up with a little black box and we’re good to go the other day, Natasha, you, maybe you miss this in the mail.
That’s all. It was like Amy, I really have to get used to your energy in the meetings. I’m like a top. You think this ends after the call ends, this is my life. This doesn’t finish like it’s 24 7.
[00:18:32] Natasha: That is too funny. That’s a cute, I didn’t know that about him. That’s adorable. What a sweetie. All right. I’m glad to catch up. I think that’s is is what we’ve got in us today for this week on planet internet. That’s about as much as I know our what’s going on, we have some very exciting projects on the go obligatory shout out to startups.
How is that going? Go and check in on your favorite startups by location. And vote for your favorite startups by location. Do all of those good things. We’ve got a, another campaign that our regular audience might be familiar with it rhymes with Moonies. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
That’s upcoming very exciting. Other than that, not much to report from my side, any closing words of wisdom from the two.
[00:19:25] Amy: Yes, it is the last week for startup nomination. So if you have a startup to nominate, you can go do that at startups dot hacker, noon.com. I also made a beautiful little startup tutorial video. That’s on our YouTube channel on how to do that. So you can check that. And by, okay, hold on. And by me made it, I’ve voiced it over and he had made it.
I’m not taking credit for this. Hold on. Let me backtrack.
[00:19:47] Natasha: It was a team efforts. Ken’s videos are fires, so do check that out. That’s great advice. All right. Thanks everybody for joining us this week on planet, internet and see you. Same time, same place next week.
[00:20:02] Amy: That’s right. Goodbye.
[00:20:04] Natasha: Bye.
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