A show that attempts to answers the real questions of the week, that guarantees to leave you satisfied if not any more informed. This week: Is an AI still an AI if it's just a guy with an email account? Is it still a home assistant if it just laughs at you? Which is easier to bait: an AI home assistant or a Canadian? These questions and more—answered in the manner you least expect.
Discussed: Canadian Baiting, Hometown Baiting,
New Zealand medical supercomputer AI "Zach," bears: just people in bear costumes?, going blockchain crazy,
Long Blockchain Corp,
Alexa randomly laughing at people, surveilling yourself to capture precious memories, telling your first joke, tech billionaires uploading themselves into the cloud,
The Feds Have Martin Shkreli's Wu-Tang Album, file copy vs file move operations,
why can't the Wu-Tang album be released by FOIA, unsolicited factoid about Oreos, digging deeper into the infinitely-improving immortal bottle of wine
Send us your questions at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.
Chris' Endorsement: Party game
One Night Ultimate Werewolf
Jake's Endorsement: Max Krieger's Twitter threads on the Metreon and other interesting urban/commercial design
Nick's Endorsement: Coway AP-1512HH Mighty Air Purifier
Sponsored By: Quip electric toothbrushes (your first brush head refill free),
Planetarium comic miniseries on Kickstarter