Summary:
Hosted by Steve Bakken and Marlo Anderson, this technology podcast episode covers a range of topics related to technology, equipment and the film industry. The hosts discuss the potential of advanced technologies, such as prosthetic limbs that can restore communication between different parts of the body. The conversation also looks at the use of 3D printing to create medical devices, building materials and even houses. In addition, they discuss the potential for a film industry in North Dakota and the need for lawmakers to create tax credits to attract more films to the state.
Transcript:
Hello. You haven’t been here for a while. I know. Tech stuff. Did you miss me? Yes, he did. Yes. I hope so. A lot. Not, not only is Randy, the, the operations manager for this station, but he’s also our engineer. And one of the things that you’re tasked to do is move some of the snow around here because we’ve got a tower out back.
Well, no, no, hold on. Second you transmitter site. But what, but you have to move snow quite often to do your work. To do your job. I, I have in the past moved snow. Yes. Okay. So, so have you ever wondered how they measure snow? I figure just take a yard stick. Go out in the yard and measure the, that’s the unscientific way.
Measure the, the snow, right? Well, it depends if the wind’s warm, I just kind of if’s a drift. I look at how much is built up on my truck hood. Well, yeah, that’s kind of the easy way I do it too, which I, I look at my patio do. Yeah. Yeah. Your, what’s your grill or your table or, yeah, a little of all of it, I guess.
And, and if there’s, if there’s stuff that’s stacking up, I know I got a little bit, the grill’s a good indicator. Yeah. Grill’s a good indicator. Yeah. Unless it’s on, yeah, that’s slightly less accurate at that point. It’s not as accurate. That way the grills on, if you’re cuddle on the ground, then if you were grilling, not accurate at all.
So it’s interesting. I was just digging up this information. So of course there’s a difference between snowfall and snow depth. . So a lot of people don’t realize this, but snow is compressible. So if you have two 10 and a half inch snowfalls, it may only accumulate to 17 inches. Well, and you see that because they run on the weather, right?
They run the snow depths. Right. And, you know, typically, you know, good snow depth and Bismark on, on average, cuz they average it out is eight to 12 inches. Cuz that’s good for the spring. Well we’ve got way more snow than that, but that’s the actual snow cover. Right. So I think this is where it really gets difficult too, because I’m thinking to myself, like right now, what, what have we had this year?
75 inches last I saw, we were on number nine. We were in the number nine position of all time snowfalls over a winter. Okay. Oh, for the entire winter. Yeah. I think we’re gonna get. Cracking the top five. Well, you know, with day, just a day and tomorrow and Thursday every day there’s an two or three or four snow in the forecast.
So, and, and now they’re talking depending on where it tracks the Colorado Lo for Friday into the weekend. I mean this is, this is crazy, but you know what it reminds me of? So I was in Grand Forks in 97. Yes. Except every weekend. We had a blizzard in 97. And actually here it was like every day we were pushing like one or two inches of snow.
That’s why we broke a record here. Cause it wasn’t like it was, we had some big storms, but it was like every day there was, see, I don’t mind every day, I don’t mind big snowfalls because it gives me an excuse to fire up the snowblower. Right. And go out and actually move snow where the one or two inches Yeah.
Is annoying. Do you enjoy it? Do you, yeah, it’s annoying. And then you gotta shovel because Yeah. That’s real annoying. Yeah. Well, and and you know, that’s where the yabo would come in handy. That’s true. That’s true. The yabo soon to be. If we have anything to say about it. Our show sponsor Yes. For the new tech Work Ranch that’s coming out.
Oh, I had a hard time saying that. The New Tech ranch that’s coming out at the end of this one, don’t stumble over that. I’m not going to, it’s gonna get me a yabo, you know, you know why that is? Cause I’m like, we’re on top of the town. We’re moving to the tech ranch, which yeah. Randy, are you excited about this?
I am. I can’t wait. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a brand new, brand New Tech Ranch coming out the end of this month. Fantastic. Actually, it’s the 1st of April first. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s Saturday, three hours show, not in April. Fools not, it’s be a three hour show. But anyway, getting back to the snowfall. Okay, so, so when you have 50 inches on the ground and you get another 10 or 12 or whatever we got over the weekend, I mean, how do you know, because it’s compressing, because there’s more weight of snow coming on this other snow that’s already sitting there.
So how do you know we got 10 or 10, 12 inches of snow? I mean, do they clear off an area? And then they have that clear all the time. So when the next snowfall comes, they can measure that, I would think. But then you have to factor in drifting and cuz the storm drift is much deeper. Right. And if you clear off an area that’s just basically a hole, it’s just gonna drift in and fill it all up anyway.
So because I have to clear off an area in my yard so my dogs have a place to go out and go to the bathroom. So it’ll blow that out. I don’t, they, they still don’t really have a great scientific way to measure snow, you know? I bet there’s a tech gadget that could help. There probably is, and we should probably invent this, but since 1890, put on the list everything else.
Yeah, right. We got a few other things that we need. We need something to reduce the nuisance factor of the snows. He’s on that. No Marlo’s working on that. I’m actually building something legitimately. There’s Are you really? Yes, I am. There’s a mock up in the works. No way. Wow. Unfortunately we could have really used what I’m working on.
Yeah, right. Now you’re a little late here, Marlo. Come on. Well, who, who would’ve thought that this dream that I have of this no removal machine that I’m creating would’ve been so perfect for this year, but, you know, oh, it takes time to build these. We could have Beed Beta tested that thing also. Oh, oh.
When wind, it’s got, it’s got to melt and remove at the same time to get the underlying ice. well, you just, so I wanna give everything away, but you store the water until you can get it to a place that you can dump it out. So it’s the Zamboni is basically what Yeah, basically. Yeah. . Yeah. Basically. Right.
No, I’m serious though. That’s not named your airport. It’s, it’s not always the snow, it’s the underlying ice. That’s correct. Yeah. So you, that’s the real problem. So you, you, you, you tank it and then you drop it into you. A event someplace. So anyway, that’s the way to go. You, you can’t let me give away all my secrets.
I’m sorry, but nobody knows how I’m heating this. We should’ve collaborated on this device. This, this is, well, we still can we still You want to? Yeah, you should talk about this. I’m working on the marketing side of this. It’s like, Snow. I’ve developed a new heating source. Yes. That’s what, that’s what fires this thing.
It’s not nuclear, by the way, , you knew what I was gonna say, didn’t you? . This is a way to get rid of the waste. It’s a, it’s, it’s a tiny reactor. . We’re just, we’re just using the waste plutonium. No big deal. Yeah, you can get that on eBay. Yeah. Eight bucks. Look at the rod. I got melted by Marlo’s. Love la Marlo’s.
Love . Speaking of tanking, this segment’s gone tanking in a . It’s Tuesday Fox. It’s a squirrel day. It is bad enough that we have two people. Adhd. We got Randy. Randy in here. It’s even worse. I am. So, since 1890, the US Weather Service has relied on a network of volunteer observers. So there are 8,700 people across the.
With yard sticks, with yardstick, and they go, what did I say? You were right on. You were right on. That’s right. Well, and and the, the, if you listen to the weather every now and then, they’ll go, oh, national weather service, when we have them on with, when there’s weather, like, hey, send in your reports. Right, right.
That’s, that’s as scientific as the ground hug. That that is true. Yeah, that is true. So they have to do this on a daily basis though, so they have to do it at about the same time every day. And that’s how they’re able to keep track of what the actual snow depth is, and if there’s been any new snow on top of that.
Mm-hmm. . So that’s how it works. Now, how do they factor in the compression and, well, I suppose that every day when they don’t have drifting snow, I, I, they must take an average. That’s the only thing you have to run out before it compresses. Right, right. That’s the thing. E every day that we don’t have snow, and then there’s sun this winter, then there’s sunshine and all the other stuff that make all that happen.
So anyway, I’m just, I thought, I, I thought it was interesting to talk about that. We really don’t have anything more scientific than a yardstick yet. Just saying, Randy. There you go. I’m a big fan of the KISS principle though. Keep it simple. Simple. Keep it simple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yardstick works. I think so too.
I mean, I don’t know how else reinvent the wheel. How else would you do it? I mean, it’s close enough. You don’t need it to the centimeter mill. They, they have these other things that they have, that they work with these, and, and they do have these areas that they actually clear, like we were just talking about for actual snow depth or snowfall recording.
But I, I think the same thing is like we were just talking about is true. I mean, if you dig a hole out of what, how do you find a clear area that’s big enough that’s not gonna drift in right now? Yeah, it would be impossible here. Yeah. I mean, if there’s wind, all bets are off. Really. I mean, I have to snowball, blow whatever.
I have to remove snow . Obviously it’s Tuesday, like every morning right now in front of my garage door because it blows in every day. Yeah, yeah. Every day. There’s another bank right there, you know, there’s some science behind that. And that would be which direction to face your garage doors is when you build a home.
Yes. I never thought about this. Yes. Heard, but I’ve, I’ve been in this home for, you know, 20 years ago. And you want, do you want your windows automatically defrosted when the sun comes up in the morning or, good question. Southern facing. Southern facing. Well, you would want, well, southeast cuz you want the sun coming up in the east too, there.
So you don’t have to go auto start your car and defrost your windows and then you back into the driveway. Look at you. That sounds like a dream. I figured all this out. Do you, do you like the sun beating down on your deck in the evenings? No, for the sunset. O Okay, then you want your deck facing east. And I have to admit that, yeah, that that was one thing I did not think about When, when we have the house that we have now, drives me crazy that it can be 80 degrees outside.
But 125 on my deck. Yep. In the, had a good suntan. Oh my goodness. You, you can fix that. And my dermatologist confirmed that last week too, that I obviously get a lot of good Suntans. Yeah. . Yes.
we, we wanted to get back into ces talk a little bit about ces, cuz you, well, I’ve been dropping all of Yes. Our interviews the last couple weeks now on the tech ranch.com, right? So if people want to go see these interviews, so there’s a couple really interesting ones and, and I really, you know, the thing I love about technology more than anything else is how it assists people.
And like the story with we had About your mother. About my mom. Yeah. Right, right. Great, great story. And I look for those type of things. I mean, it changes humanity as we know it, but. , but it usually starts in a place where, you know, like you have somebody who’s bound to a wheelchair and then you add a motor to it, right?
I mean, that just gives them more mobility. I just saw over the weekend it, it was a mobility. It was a story about mobility with somebody, I forget what she had. she was a high school athlete and then wound up getting some disease and to save her life they had to amputate her arms and legs and mobility device, right?
So the ability to take that vehicle off road into, cuz it’s track wheelchair, to take that, they had to go through some legislation in the state that she was from. But it, it was fascinating story though, just on the equipment that was there to be able to facilitate her to enjoy the outdoors. You know, it’s just, it, it’s.
It levels the playing field is what it says. Yeah. That’s, I mean, everybody can, you know, you can even talk about how people who, I’m thinking how I could take that pheasant hunting, but that was me. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, there’s a, there’s a, a robot. A robot. A robot. A robot. A robot. a robot. By the way, iRobot was on this weekend again.
Really? Yeah. Apparently they’re playing the crap out of it. Interesting. Yeah. I am not familiar with this. Really? The Will Smith movie, iRobot. That’s that’s what I, robot not the vacuum cleaner. That’s what I was thinking. No, I’m not the vacuum cleaner. I’m thinking like iRobots like an old, it’s an old story.
Yeah. It’s like 15, 20 years ago. It’s old science fiction. Well, it, but it’s AI and Well, and that’s what’s interesting about it because they, they, they abide by those three rules. there’s rules. Yeah. There are. Mm-hmm. there on Tuesday. . That’s true. We’re still not done talking about snow icy. So anyway the robot.
Not the eye robot. Not the eye robot. Not the robot. Yeah. But I could see the iRobot comparison. this companion, so it looks like a, it’s like a cart, right? Yeah. I mean, something that you’d see that people would wheel around a little cleaning cart, right? Is what it looks like. Yep. But it’s a robot. It’s called the Labrador.
And this person invented this because you can put like a meal. Does it? Retrieve? It does retrieve. Okay. Hence the name. So, but you can put a meal on here and say, take it to room 4 32 and it would just take it to, in a hospital room or whatever. just take that over to it. So it’s nothing fancy to look at.
So I know it was a golden retriever, but is it like Alex from St. Straus? I don’t the fridge and bring you a beer, but it can. Okay. Yes, yes. They have those things in restaurants. They do. And they’re becoming more and more popular all the time. Yeah. So have you seen one in a restaurant already or I’ve, I’ve seen on YouTube.
Okay. Which is my window on the world. . I’ve seen, I’ve actually seen somebody in a restaurant where the waiter was, A robot. Yeah. It gives an entirely new meaning to a. Yes. . Yes. . I like that. Because your olive cartt is, in fact, everything’s Olive Cartt . That’s funny. That’s great. But this thing is pretty, pretty cool.
You can see that there’s a tablet mounted to it. So, you know, you, you talk about the KISS method. Again, this is a very KISS type of robot right here. Very functional. you could kiss k i s asked that Kissed Yes. Which is next door. Which yes. Did I say kissed? No, it, I’m just saying thank you. Why smelled cow this morning?
Oh, . That’s a good sign of spring, right? Yeah, spring. Yeah. Unfortunately it’s snowing outside. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I think that’s pretty cool. And you can check these out. Labrador, they’re relatively inexpensive for what you get for this. Now, I don’t know what that means. It’s probably five or $10,000.
But for a robot that can do this type of work. But if you’re putting into a restaurant, oh my goodness. And you know, you take a look at someplace that has workforce issues, right? and now the ability to, hey, you know, you’re. Sue waiter or Yeah. You know, go and drink order or, or even mean you touch the tablet for what your food order is.
Yeah. Or, or somebody that needs to clear off a table. Somebody can still clear off the table and put it in the tub, but no, the tub goes back to the kitchen by itself. Right. So that person can go and do something else. Well it’s, it’s, it’s about increasing efficiency. Right. It’s exactly right. And you don’t have to tip those as I Yeah, I was gonna ask.
That’s true as well. Yes. Don’t tip it over. They still expect 18% though. I’m, I’m sure when you go check out that the 25%, you know, I don’t know about you guys. I have to tell you, I, and I tip Well, I do too. I’ve always tipped very, very well. Yeah. I’ve been on that side, so I always tip well. Yeah. Yeah. It got ridiculous with Covid for some reason it hasn’t come back.
I, I’m, I’m really, really tired of like, when you go to like a buffet or whatever and there’s the 25%. Thing on the buffet. Mm-hmm. . What? Why, why do you expect I’ll leave a couple bucks on the table at a buffet? See, that’s the thing. That’s the thing. You, you leave for whoever to bust the table or, or to bring me drinks or whatever, right?
Yeah. But it’s the buffet. You go, it’s almost being like it’s expected now. Yeah. And I don’t, and I don’t know, I might be getting a little political here. I don’t know if it’s because they have these, these businesses have to figure out a way to pay their employees more because of inflation or what’s going on here.
But it just seems like it’s expected. Don’t pay outta the tip jar. Well, who’s making the money outta the tips then? Hopefully the server. Okay. That depends or, well, but, so I’ve worked in the bar side of things for a long time too, too. If you and servers will tip out the bartenders. But have you been to convenience the bar and have you seen this at a convenience store?
Tipping at a convenience store? Yes. See it everywhere. Everywhere. For my gas station hotdog? Yes. That’s Hell. No. Or, or, or the Diet Coke you just picked up. And you, and you go to pay and there’ll be a dollar, $2 or $3 suggested tip. Okay. So I was at Wda basketball this past weekend at the event center, $5 for a Coke prodding.
Right. They want a tip for that now too. I’m sure. Anybody a six pack for that . I understand. I’m just saying. Or I’m just, or a non, non, I don’t know, alcoholic beverage for I understand. I mean, I, I would be all for how do you pay your person more? I just don’t understand why it’s, it’s the tipping scenario.
Yeah. That just seems to be going everywhere. Well, for me, it comes back to customer service. I it, if I get, I, it’s like places that’ll put the gratuity in. And I hate that because you can have a good server or you can have a crappy server, right? Somebody is in a bad mood that day. Understandable. Just do your job, whatever.
But I’m not gonna tip you for being in a bad mood. I the person that gets that 25% tip, or sometimes 30 depending on it’s because you get exceptional service and tell you what, and a server is an extension of the ambiance of going out. It’s like my wife goes, well, let’s go out to dinner. And then she’s like, well, why don’t you order a salad?
Because I don’t go out to eat to eat a salad. I can make that at home . Right, exactly right. I’m gonna have food. I’m gonna have a good meal in a good atmosphere. Yeah. At a good restaurant with good service and I’m gonna enjoy that. So do you think. And I know we’re running way over here now, but give you, give everybody something to think about.
Do you think it’s because of technology, the ease of adding that one, two, or $3 thing in a convenience store that, that now technology is allowing this tipping to go on.
I always tip on service if, you know, I’ll give 10% minim which, well, actually it’s more than that now. But I would give 10% minimum. And then what your performance is increases what I tip if, if you’re their service, boom. The one thing that I cannot stand is, and this will, this will kill any tip anybody was ever gonna get.
if I’m ready to go, cuz my time’s valuable. And you sit there and wait for the check. Oh yeah. I hate that too. I hate that. Yeah. That, that is the one thing that, so technology deal breaker. So has helped with that though too. I mean, a lot of these places now have you pay at the table. I was just, I was gonna say that.
Yeah. And I really like that a lot. I do too, actually. Yeah. You know, they’ll bring the check if you want, but they’ll have the little kiosk right there. You can just Yeah. You hit the pr. Yeah. How often The printers not work though. That’s the . Yeah. I haven’t sent to my email. Yeah, that’s even better. And carrying around to printout.
Yeah. So technology is helping in these scenarios, but, but this, you know, I I, I just, you go to the convenience store and I’m picking on Randy now a little bit here. Right. And the thing pops up a dollar, $2, $3, you know, and, and I don’t know if you know the psychology behind this, but because they do that, what do you think most people tap on?
Dollar. Almost 90% will tap on the tip. For a tip? Yes. If you get a dollar, $2 or a $3 choice, what do you, what does everybody tap on? Dollar? No, I tap cancel. Nope. . I don’t tip it. $3, $2, two. Oh really? I was close. I was all the way around it. are they, but are like three options. And that was not You were wrong.
Yeah, I was wrong. Are they shamed into it, do you think? I, I wonder about that and I mm-hmm. , I fall into this too. I mean, and, and sometimes I’ll hit the council button, but if I’m greeted with a smile and they’re very pleasant to talk to, and maybe they’re a little helpful, I’ll, I guess sometimes I push the tip button.
I, I don’t know. I feel like I am getting shame down when I, I’m thinking about it. But there’s that, and you also, do you wanna donate to this? And do you wanna donate to that? You know, seeing that, do you wanna donate? Of course. Yeah. Grocery stores all the time. Yeah. That’s another thing. You know, the, the other one you wanna donate your change to St.
Jude’s or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Or McDonald’s. Ronald McDonald. How that feel bad if I say no? Well, but case those people around you. So that’s going into the other side of this too. So, So where that started, and it didn’t matter what it was, it was here hand an iPad and somebody, you know, you check out or whatever it you could be at a craft show right.
And buy something and there’s a, it it was the iPad. Yes. The iPad had or whatever that pay through the iPad. Right. Like square or whatever. Yeah. Whatever it was. Yep. That had the option in it. Yes. And then you’re, the one thing that always went through my head was like, but if I push no tip, they’re gonna see that and think I’m a jerk.
Yeah. So you’re getting shamed into it. You’re getting shamed into it. You know, if somebody’s really given good service, they’ve worked hard. Yeah. You know, as you said, it’s part of the experience in a restaurant. I mean, the good, good, good or bad service can make or break the whole experience for you. well there’s another side of that in, in the restaurant industry, but if I just bought a Coke at a convenience store and I’m checking out, I’m not gonna tip in that case.
Couple pennies. No, no. You’re already paying an inflated price for the Coke. Right. Most likely. Yeah. See, no, no offense to anybody, but it’s different server in a restaurant. They’re actually, I I always, they’re actually doing a lot more. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But, and, and, and there’s another side of the restaurant thing I’ll bring up in a second, but there’s always, you know, I if, if there’s a couple extra pennies or whatever or nickel, and I’ll leave that in that little jar.
I do that. I’ve done that, but I don’t consider that a tip. Take a penny. Borrow a penny. Right. Yeah. I’ll do that. That’s more like I’m paying forward tip. Right. You know. But the thing with the food industry though, is remember the movie Waiting You and your movie? Yeah. Well, never saw that movie. Never saw that movie.
Really? Really? Nope. Nope. Never Screw with the person who’s handling your food. Oh, well, yes. Well, that, that brings, that brings up a whole other subject. Other thing. Yeah. Make sure you take care of them well, yeah, because next time you go back to that a restaurant. Didn’t tip. Yeah. I’m like, h . Yeah. Yeah.
And they remember you too. They do. Don’t, they don’t, don’t send anything back to the kitchen, is my rule. Yeah. Nope. Pretty much, right? Nope. Oh yeah. It, it’s rare, but it’s okay that I ordered it. Well done. I’ll, I’ll eat this , because you don’t wanna send it back. No, you never send food back. Yeah. That’s bad.
Yeah. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea. Yeah. Get it a go box, take it home, finish cooking if that’s what you wanna do. But I will say that, you know, getting back to the technology side of this, I think, well, that’s where we were. Well this is about technology today, right? And the tipping thing, I, I think, because when these people who are programming these things in, you know, I’ll pick on Square.
So Square will try to get you to do this because Square, it’s now a bigger transaction, right? They make percentage a little bit more. So if they can get 10% of their people to give you a $2 tip, you know, you have 200 customers a day coming through a convenience store. I’m just making up numbers here, but that’s $400 more that they get the charges or 2.75% on.
So they’re making more money. So they’re, they’re making this easy for the stores to include the tipping feature, and it’s not because they, they feel like the customer or that the person’s given better. Yeah. The up upsell is they’re just making more money on it themselves. That’s what it boils down to.
So when you tip, I, I, I have to ask each one of you. So when you tip, because my wife and I have this argument all the time, she’ll put a flat number on it. And so if we’re out to dinner and the bill comes to 36, 27, I’ll round up to the 37 and then what I’m tipping. So I always give the change and that tipping.
So, right. So my final bill is a round number, right? She doesn’t do that. See, she’ll, she’ll just go, if it’s 36, 10 bucks, 27, and then she’ll just add $10 on it or whatever it is, and which is way over 10%. But she’ll just add $10 on it. And then, so it’s the, I’m like, I don’t know, maybe it’s the. a d, d and me, but I got a round, I gotta have an even number.
It’s gotta come to $50 or no, I just add a few bucks on. Okay. That’s all as change. I put a flat number on it. That’s I do too. Yeah. I have because then you have to do the math. If, if you’re gonna round up, then you have to do the math. Yeah. And sometimes they have the number like 22%. Right? There’s $8 and 73 cents.
Yeah. But that’s never the same as me. So I have a full regular number. Right. Because for me, keeping my financials, it, it’s easier for me to, oh, hey, it was $40 or $50, or whatever it was. Yeah. Instead of, and 12 cents. I actually, because I have, you know, because of technology now I the roundup that goes, or I have a system called acorns.
Have you, are you with Acorns? I’ve heard of it, yeah. So Acorns is an app on your phone and where you save and you can save with this and it takes the money that, you know, like, so if the bill was $4 and 32 cents, it’ll take the difference from 4 32 to $5 and put that in your savings account. Right. It, it’s, it’s a digital change jar, basically what it is.
Right. Because my wife and I had a change jar. She’s like, you don’t put anything in it. I don’t, I don’t use cash. You’ll be stunned. I’ll show you at the break here how much money I have saved because of that. Really just rounding up your change. Stunning. See, I used to do that back before the credit card.
Yes. In my, and I used to have just delta sky miles things of change everywhere, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, hey, we’re good on a vacation. Go cash in the change jar. Yep. I had 700 and some odd dollars in me one time. Yeah, yeah. It’s stunning how much then I’d always throw a few bills in too if I, so I was told that if you tip cash.
The server gets it. Yes. If you don’t, everybody gets it. It depends on what the restaurant is. Suppose so I always leave cash. Yeah. Because I want my server Yeah. To get the benefit of this tip. See, and I use cards mostly, so I don’t, but my wife likes paying with cash, so I’ll pay the bill. Yeah. With, with credit card.
Yeah. But I will leave tip cash, I will tip in cash for that reason. Well, and, and you don’t know the restaurant or the bar or the true, and I don’t know if anybody’s really getting, really getting this. You know, I don’t know if, if they’re getting the tip, if I leave it on the card, I don’t know if they’re getting it.
Some places, some places, co-man the tip, if I hand it to the server, , you know, for a fact then different story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, is the bus person getting that cash though? Because I always make sure I hand right that cash to my server Exactly. With my bill if it’s credit card or, or my wife will pick up the, the tip side of it, but I always make sure they get it.
Because you don’t know if the bus person is gonna Right. Put it in. Yeah. That’s what I do too. But a lot of places you walk into you don’t know, is like if they commingle tips or if they don’t. So, so, welcome. Tipping advice from three old guys.
So devices and prosthetics is where we were supposed to be going with this. Yes, yes. Because you had an opportunity to, to see a really cool $6 million man stuff. Yeah. Like feel things and nerves that work. Yeah. And in a prosthetic.
And oh, by the way it slices, dices and, and julianne’s as well. pretty amazing stuff because you were holding a board and they sliced right through the board. Yeah. Just wack. Done. Well, here’s the picture right here. Yeah. So I pulled this from the video and you can just see at that exact moment that he, for those of you at home, if you pull up the tech ranch.
Yeah. If you go to the tech ranch, you can see the video. It’s pretty cool. revolutionizing prosthetics, how scis advanced technologies changing lives. Right. So this arm, so this gentleman, his name is Patrick, lost his arm rectal below his elbow. . And so this prosthetic is attached to his arm. And this is like, like you said, $6 million man type of stuff.
So as a demonstration, I’m on the tech ranch stage at cs and I’m holding this board. And like I was telling Randy in the break here, I was more concerned about were you standing in a puddle? Oh my goodness. , I would be, it’s close, close. You’re brave. And I’m holding this board and all I can think about is if he’s off by like an inch or two, my finger is gonna be part of this thing, you know?
So, but he just kicks aesthetic? No. Whether or not it would be an off an inch or, no, I don’t. I mean, or is that up to him? That’s up to him. Because what’s interesting is that this is attached to his nerves and he’s thinking, so, you know, and, and there’s another, if you watch the video, you know what he was.
that I don’t take Mar’s fingers off . That’s probably what he was thinking, right? . But yeah, it was, it was a very interesting experience. And you know, he talks, you know, it’s very emotional when you, when you visit with this guy because. He’s able to feel his daughter’s hand Yeah. As she’s grabbing this prosthetic.
That seems incredible to me. And, and, the doctor who’s developing this stuff, he’s a very young, dynamic doctor. And by the way, if you wanna invest in this company, get all his fingers. Right. Not like the old shop teacher that Yes. Came up with this. Yes, he does. Yeah. Tips of a couple fingers weren’t missing.
they, they are actually crowdfunding right now. Really? Yeah. So, and I just, I looked yesterday a million dollars and they’re like 70,000 short after just a couple days. You and I were talking about this before and, you know, I referenced the $6 million Man and just to a certain point, and, and technology either A, gets cheaper or b gets more expensive.
Right. as it develops gen generally cheaper or better. More to this. Well, because getting better usually costs more money. Yes. So it it not like a tv. this. , you were telling me the prices on this. It’s, it’s like, wow. Yeah. An affordable option for it is somebody that, because you think of somebody who’s got a prosthetic where it’s either a fake hand or it might be a pincher or you know, where they’re working off the muscles and, and the nerves or a hook or things like that for somebody that loses an arm.
This is a fully functioning is, we’re, we’re talking Luke Skywalker after he lost his hand to the lightsaber kind of stuff. The only, the only thing that’s really missing is having like the skin graph over the top of it. Yeah. And, and quite frankly, that’s not far away. I don’t think that’s how far that is that far away.
And because they’re printing skin with 3D printers right now. Right. Well, and I was just reading an article I told you about earlier this morning about some of the healing properties of building, the protein base so that you can heal things from the inside out. Right. Well, when you start looking at, okay, how do you manufacture and layer on skin.
which is your largest organ, then? We’re close. We’re really close. Yeah. So this is really, really interesting where this is all going, but it’s, it’s exciting. this same gentleman I was talking to, figures that paralysis, especially by injury, will probably not exist in five or 10 years. Spinal cord injuries.
Yes. And that’s what we think about. People get spinal cord injuries, whether it’s an athletics or an accident of some sort or, and what this slip and, and fall on the ice because your thing didn’t suck up the ice for Randy. Right? Yeah. So between, you know, when, when you have a spinal cord injury, generally it’s a communication issue, right.
You know, you broke, you severed the link that communicates rest of the body. Correct. So now what they have done is it’s almost like a Bluetooth device where they put it on both sides of the vertebrae and where the brake is at will we’ll communicate to the other side of the brake. Wow. Wireless. It’s amazing.
It’s amazing. Yeah. Just amazing. And this is being done now. Yeah. So when this, when this becomes widespread, I mean people, and I don’t know what this is gonna cost, but it’s, it’s, it’s again life changing for people, you know, and the families around these people, you know. So, it’s incredible what’s going on right now in the, I mean, I’m just looking at, you know, our good friend Dave Blair had had emergency surgery to get his gallbladder out.
Long story how he ends up in Fargo with this thing. But he was showing me yesterday, you know, what used to be a slice across the stomach is now like five little, he’s got five little Yeah. Robotic surgery. Yeah. He’s gonna say that he got five little spots, five little band-aids on his stomach. That’s it.
It’s so arthroscopic now. Yeah. And they, it’s unbelievable what’s going in a few years they’ll just put in this protein that’s gonna fix his gallbladder. Right, exactly. Yeah. . It’s crazy. Wow. Crazy. What’s going on? Unbelievable stuff out there.
Randy? Randy, are you staying with us or no? I’m gonna move on You. Okay. Nice talking about this guy too. He, he’s had enough with tips for the day.
. Oh my goodness. Whi Whi. Which brings us up to an interesting conversation . Yeah. Because we were gonna talk about 3D printing.
Yes. And, and the robotics evolved with 3D printing and It’s pretty fascinating avenues you can go down because there’s really no limitations. I’m printing birdhouses right now. Are you? Yeah, I am. Are they rent houses or are they full Sparrow robin. So I have Martin Martins, so there’s, I’ve only done how big’s the hole?
Marlow Barn Swallow one. One. All right. And Chicky on the other. But, but there are, in, in the designs that I have, they’re up to six. Really? I always considered you a Nutha guy. I seen a robin the other day. Did you? I fell over when I seen this, Robin. I’m like, I think your GPS is wrong. Just saying, or at least the internal clock.
The, the calendar’s a little messed up. Well, they’re probably, I was really surprised to see it. I don’t know why a robin was little, early bouncing around, but yeah. All right. You know it’s funny though, when, when they do come up, And you got all the snow on the ground. It is kind of funny because their biggest food source is berries from last year.
Yes. Which tend to be a little fermented. Yes. Which tend to have a little bit of an alcohol content in it. I’ve seen drunk Robbins Park trying to fly around. It’s hilarious. . And they usually get more than one after one or two of ’em. They, they like communicate, Hey, it’s good over here. He’s over here . And you see all these robins start congregating in that yard.
You know that yard? Yes. That yard. Yeah. That’s so 3D printing. It’s
this visual Now in my head, I’m not gonna get rid of am I? Nope. so 3D printing and, and you were, I were talking about the different uses for 3D printing and, and there’s some pretty fascinating improvements that are moving forward on workable 3D printers. Right. Besides, besides making your birdhouse birdhouses.
Yeah. But I think that even, even the birdhouse thing, I mean, people think that you just make these cute little widgets and tchotchkes out of ’em. Right. Oh, that’s, That’s such a cute little Yoda or, or whatever. I mean this what, this is what you usually see. You don’t see the practical side of 3D printing a lot of times.
And, and now I think we’re really starting to see more and more and more, well they use uses, well they use 3D printing, robotics for some construction material stuff. So they’ll make bricks and they’ll make different concrete blocks. Yeah. And different things like that. And that you had, I was talking to a friend of mine about the opportunity.
It’s like, oh we got a lot of snow this year and there could be some flooding opportunities. How long would it take to set it up on a levy and build a a dyke? You know, it it, or you mentioned sandbagging. Yeah, too. You could do 3D robots, printing robot, sandbaggers, and
Teo. We, we sandbagger record your breaks too. We should, people should just listen. They should just come in here. If you’re thinking about a, if you’re an entrepreneur looking for a new idea, you should just sit in here sometime, because we bounce about a hundred ideas every Tuesday here. I’m just telling you.
It’s crazy, crazy stuff, folks. It is. so anyway, going back to the, the, the 3D printing stuff, they’ve made some pretty fascinating improvements. But, you know, the practical side of things that people don’t think about too is they’re 3D printing, medical devices, 3D printing heart valves there. There’s a whole bunch of different things that they’re experimenting with printing that work well.
And, and what’s interesting about that when you get in the medical space is that. , like if you have a, a hip replacement, right? There’s like, I don’t know how many sizes they make, but let’s just say there’s three, right? Okay. Maybe there’s five or six or 10. I don’t know the answer to that, but there’s a, a finite number, right?
Mm-hmm. that they make, right? And they take the one that’s just closest to you and they make it fit. Right? Right. Now, imagine chiseling here, little Deming there. That’s exactly what goes on. It really is true. That’s exactly what goes on. Imagine if you could just be scanned one day and then the next day your hip is ready to go to the exact ME measurements of what you are.
Yeah. Minus the bone spurs and the arthritis. Right? And the other stuff that, but this is what we’re talking about here, is that ability. with 3D printers to create these things, you know, medically well, and, and for a lot of people with hip issues, you know, there might be a, a problem with the alignment of the socket or something like that, that caused that.
They can correct that too. So they can take that identical hip and then recreate it and then fix that alignment issue in the process too. So, and like you said, get rid of the arthritis or whatever else is going well. So then you start talking about, okay, like for a hip, for example, you, you only have a, a certain lifespan with that, not at least with hips, they can realign them, so it’s not like they have to replace the whole thing.
they just put a new liner in and, and works again. Great. Not like shoulders or shoulders don’t work like that. Right. Trust me. I know. Yes. but if you have the ability to 3D print something like that, so it is an identical match. It’s gonna wear better, it’s gonna last longer, I think. I think the advances in this space is, is amazing.
and the other thing is housing. , this is where I think it really gets interesting is, is not, not that medical isn’t interesting enough because that 3D print houses. Yeah. Well, and that was some of the construction stuff that I was talking about too. Yeah. I mean, but, but there, there’s actual 3D printers with a cement mixture that are actually printing full houses.
And this has been going on for a couple years already, and now it’s gonna starting to get approved in certain states. like Florida for example, has just approved the, not just tiny houses. Not just tiny houses anymore. And, and you’re gonna start seeing h significant proof. Well, they are hurricane proof, they’re cement.
So the big bad wolf. Beautiful and puff. And it’s not going anywhere. No. And and what’s amazing about these things too is that they actually print your plumbing. They print your electrical, all this stuff happens at the same time. See, that’s the crazy stuff for me. It’s like, because you go in, you get the plumbing, the electrical, everything that goes into the different aspects of building a home.
And it goes in phases. Yep. And. To do it all at once. Yeah. I mean, logistically trying to figure out how to get crews in to do that without people stepping over each other. Nope. Just have that machine do it. So basically what happens at the end of this is you just have people who will come in and finish your house, you know, any, any cabinets and all that other stuff that have to be done.
But generally speaking, houses are printed in a week. Whoa. So that’s not terrible. I mean, you, you can show up one day and start and a week later you’re working on the finishing of your house. You know, I, I don’t know how long it takes to cure. I mean, I suppose different cements take different types of, right.
It depends. Cure or whatever product is and they’re beautiful. And the thing is, is now you’re not just, if you can design it on a computer, you know, if you have an idea, if you want, if you want a, a, a house that’s shaped like half a moon because you, or, or a full moon or, or a star, Or you’re the logo of your business.
I mean, you could do these things. You could live in that you, and you could live in that, right? I don’t know. I don’t know who would, would want the logo of my business that the problem is the resale valuator on. Well, yeah, you might have run into an issue there, but if it didn’t cost you is because that’s the other part.
It comes into cost’s. That’s the other thing is that they’re half the price materials and labor. Okay. You just got rid of the, part of the labor part of that. A 3D printed house right now is running about 50% of a stick-built house. Really? So, so this is, and this is the thing, concrete house. Yes. This is a concrete house.
This is the thing that I think people like of yours and my age right now, are gonna be faced with in probably five or 10 years is, are the values of our homes gonna depreciate a little bit because. The interest in just building new homes because, you know, a home that costs $400,000 can now be built for $200,000, right?
So obviously there’ll be land costs and everything else. So maybe it equalizes out. I don’t know. But what’ll happen, in my opinion, well, depends on what type of home you want as well. Do you want a 3D printed home or do you want a, a regular? Because what, what I’m thinking of
if you have, and I’m just, I’m picking on me personally. I’m gonna guess that my house is probably worth $400,000. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never had it. I’ve lived in it for 20 years. It’s gone up some value and that some of the houses around me have sold for that. Right. So if, if I was coming into the market and I liked like the size of our house and that type of thing and I could get it printed for $200,000, would I do that?
Well, think about it this way too. So say you have to move and you have to move to a different city, but you really, really liked your house. Replicate it. That’s true. You could do that. Right? I love that. Or, or how many people get into a house or, or build a house and you don’t know what you don’t know until after you’re living in the house and goes, oh, I love this house.
Just I wish we had an extra bathroom. Or, yeah. There was one other thing. A little different Yep. That, that you would do different if you were to build again. and y you have that opportunity. You do have that opportunity. I, I love that house except for Yes. And then fix that. Yes. but what I think it really gets interesting for like you and I moving forward, cuz this is gonna become reality.
It already is reality in some parts of the country, it’s gonna become reality here as well. so you have to be thinking about, you know, like you’re, like your retirement, I mean, is, is part of your retirement built into your house? A lot of people is right. We talk about that every Thursday with Joe Sheehan Benchmark Mortgage.
So if that’s the case and all of a sudden, you know, if you can build a 3D printed house for half the price of what your house is valued at right now, does that mean that the value of your house is gonna start to depreciate because the people who are coming into the housing market are now able to buy houses for less money than they can buy your house for.
So if this is going to happen in five or 10 years, and do, do you think about starting to sell your house now and doing something different? This is, and I don’t mean to get into the financial side of things. , but I think it’s something to think about. But the point is, this is where technology changes the landscape.
It changes the landscape else. So, you know, but it, it, it could go the other way too, because you might have people who couldn’t normally afford to get into houses that now cuz they’re renting or whatever, but because they’re half the price of what they used to be or so that explodes that market. Right.
Or like in the Bismarck, Mandan area, there’s just, we can’t build houses fast enough. Right. There’s not enough inventory. Right. So you take a look at a, a growing population like a in Texas or a Florida or some of these states where there’s a lot of migration into that state and they have serious housing issues.
We have housing issues here. We can’t build enough houses for the population, which means there’s no inventory which inflates the price. Well if you have the ability. Increase that inventory with different options for different people, then you’ve just changed that landscape as well. So when you’re in an area where housing is at a premium because of shortages and you can make up that shortage, so now you can go mass produce neighborhoods or, so that change there is a huge paradigm shift coming.
Coming. And so, so I’m so fascinated with this that I’ve actually looked into what it would take to bring these to North Dakota to start printing houses up here. And what would you think it would cost? So the, the company I was looking at that I really like has three different 3d, Printed models.
Three, three different sizes of, and each one of ’em will print up to a certain size of a house. So a six, you’re kind of a tiny house guy to me, I’m thinking. Yeah. Yeah. You can just see that by looking at me. That’s the side, change your mind, right? Yeah. . So the machine that, that will build a 6,000 square foot house, what do you think that would cost for the machine?
Square foot house is a huge house, so it’ll do smaller of course. But you, but, but the reason I looked at that is because small offices or offices, or even a small restaurant or something, this would, I guess 6,000 feet is a small, small restaurant. You know, think about the other way too is, is you know, from a business perspective for offices Yes.
Or restaurants, because one of the things, like a lot of the big chains, they. precast and then manufacturer. That’s correct. They’ll just, it’s an erector set. Yes. So you take a look at a Costco that came in, or a Sam’s Club or, yes. if there was a new McDonald’s, they’re already built somewhere else.
Imagine they didn’t have to, if they didn’t have to build and ship them, if they could just send the plans. Now you’re taking the shipping out of it. Now you take the shipping out of it. All you’re doing is shipping raw product. Yeah. Send machine, raw product and Yeah. That can be sourced locally and the way you go.
Yeah. But, but a lot of that stuff’s pre-manufactured, you know? Yeah. so 6,000 square foot house, I a million dollars. So you’re right on the money, believe it or not. So the machine to build a 6 million or 6,000 square foot house cost a million dollars. And I can do that every week. And I’m thinking the overhead, because okay, the machine costs a million dollars and how many houses can I crank out in one a week?
So in a building, in a building season here, which is 30 or 35 weeks, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you can, you can crank out 30, 35 houses with a million dollars and run that with two or three people. And if you were gonna put the pieces together so you could 3D print walls, basements, things like that. Yes. And then, okay.
So that’s what you can do during the rest of the season. You can’t work outside. So you have the ability to continue to manufacture during the winter months? Yes. Wow. So for a million dollars, cause of 6,000 square foot houses pushing a million dollars new construction. Oh, I would have to. Yeah. So, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, the numbers really work out. Why you not have that here already? I don’t know, because I’m busy, you know, doing tv, trying to make shows and radio, snow go away and stuff. Yeah. Yabo, man, I tell you Yabo. I agree. We’ll take care of it. All ya, come on, come on Yabo. Yeah. Future show sponsor. I just wanna demo and, and then, you know, even, even Bridges, have you seen, that’d be like the cat video on YouTube.
Have you seen these robots making bridges? Yeah, actually I have, this is incredible. I mean, there’s one on, one on each side, right? And they construct the bridge as it moves along. Mm-hmm. until they meet in the middle. Well, now think of this from a practical standpoint. Unbelievable. You know, there’s, look at the trillions of dollars that are being spent going into infrastructure in this country and we know most of that’s going to get fart in the wind and not come to fruition.
But if you can, cuz bridges are horrible in this country. Yep. From all reports. So if you’ve got a couple robots at a much lower cost building bridges than that are quality and Yep. Yeah. That’s. and, and get, and they get done. They, they don’t stop working. Yeah. At two in the morning. They just keep going.
They get done . So , I mean, you lower the cost. I mean, there’s just all kinds, there’s, you know, the cost of building bridges is just extravagant. Right, right. I mean, you know, I’m, there’s been talking many different times about putting additional bridges across the Missouri River here, for example. Right. if that could be, if that cost could be lowered, you know, if it’s low enough to, well, we had that opportunity of walking up Bridge Norths, but that kinda got screwed up so prior to, but there’s all kinds of places that would love to have a bridge, but because of cost, it doesn’t happen.
So you remember the movie, the Bridge on the River Quai? Right. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. Okay. So this last week I went, so military, world War ii, Japanese building this bridge. Yeah. Using slave labor from prisoners of war. And I was watching a documentary last week on. that railroad, and they found the actual bridge on the river quoi, which there’s nothing really left of it anymore.
The the one from the movie that they were kind of basing the movie around, but the engineering that went into building that railroad and spanning this ravine and that ravine, and then the rivers. And because you’re in Burma and it’s tropical and a building for the monsoon seasons. It, it was fascinating.
Absolutely fascinating. But you got a couple robots that can do that in a week. Yep. Now you, you brought up movies. I have to talk about this. A movie. Your movie references are driving me crazy. But it it, it’s true. If it’s in a sci-fi movie from 30 years ago, guess what? We’ve got it today. Yeah. It, it’s for the most part. For the most part. Yeah. you saw a movie recently? I did. And I’m a big fan of Daniel Balinsky and what he’s doing here in the, and I’m a big history guy, so I, this is fascinating to me.
So I was involved need get damn back on. I had him on a long time. Yeah. I need, and then we, you should get him back on on now that the movie’s out. Right? Well, it’s about ready to be released March 24th. End of the rope. I was able to see this movie. They had a special screening of the movie about a month ago.
Cuz there’s, there’s been a little bit of a move on to try to get legislature here in North Dakota to. some, the film industry a little bit somehow, or not with tourism, you know? Cause a lot of states, a lot of states will have a, it’s called the tax credit. Yeah. It’s, but it’s part of their tourism department.
Yes. And it’s for movie making so that you can have more movies made here. And I didn’t realize how big of an issue this was until now that I’m in this industry a little bit. And I would love nothing more than to film the, the upcoming TV show that I have. And then, and then there’s a movie that we are working on as well.
Well, Fargo, when, when the movie Fargo, which a lot of that was filmed up by Grafton. Yeah. Well, and, and, and north west of Grand Forks. Right in, in that area there. Ironic. Well, so in the movie, every time you see a long, straight road Yes. That with no trees and it’s wind blown. Guess what not. Brainard, Minnesota that was filmed in North Dakota, the elevator.
Film the North, North Dakota. Yeah. Ironically though, that year we didn’t have any snow. Yes. They had that they had to truck snow down from Canada, the movie, and they, and they were chasing it north Yes. When they were trying, because every day it was warming up and Yeah. I remember the stories of them chasing north all the time.
Yeah. Yeah. I had a few friends that were extras in the movie and Yeah. Yeah. I was . But anyway, I think, I think we could have a great movie industry or a film industry here if, if we could figure out a way to get legislature to, to figure out a tax credit scenario. Well, they’re looking to spend a bunch of money on commerce or through commerce for tourism.
Yeah. Because they really want to help promote tourism. And I’ve always looked at tourism as, you know, that’s our other leg of the stool here in North Dakota. it’s, it’s agriculture, it’s energy. We don’t have a whole lot of manufacturing, but now they get the infrastructure for that. And then it’s tourism.
Right. Tourism’s the other piece Right. That we have to have in North Dakota to be viable financially. So I think that the movie industry could really make a big impact on that. But we have a long ways to go to make that happen. Daniel Belinsky for whatever reason. Yeah. Why should Montana have a train station?
And we don’t, you know? That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. And you look what’s happened with Yellowstone and, and, and the amount of times that they even talk about, well, you can go back to dances of the Wolves. Yes. And in fact, that hat on South Dakota, I forget the Kevin Costner movie that came out a few years ago and it was dark, dark, dark, dark.
and it was about a granddaughter who wound up getting kidnapped back to this weird fa there was a North Dakota pretty solid North Dakota reference in that. Okay. And why couldn’t you have just filmed that here instead of somewhere else? Right. But the, the challenge is, is that, you know, like Georgia.
Vancouver they have these amazing tax credits. So these companies go there, New Mexico, and they film because of those tax credits. Yeah. And I, I, I’m not one who, who should say that that government should get involved in industry at any point, but we’re at a point now where government is involved in business and industry too much too.
And they, and they’re, and, and companies are actually choosing to go places because of bids that they get back from cities and states on the, you know, the grant that they can get third or whatever, whatever. I, a lot of filming that goes on in Portland, Oregon. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway I think that would be great, but for whatever reason, Daniel Balinski believes in this state and, and continues to make his movies here with no help at all.
You know, Josh Doel could do another Transformers from North Dakota. Yes, he could. Yeah. And I shouldn’t say that He doesn’t get any help. I think he got a little help with this movie End of the Rope with some grant from tourism, by the way. Right. Yeah. There, there was, there was some help there. Yeah. But. Is it enough now?
We’re looking at a different situation too, where we’re not talking about a big movie office that we’re talking about. A smaller private producer. Yes. Making a movie too there. Yeah. There’s a difference there as well. There is, these are, these are not, you know, big money type of productions and, and the cool thing about shooting in North Dakota is that it’s easy to get volunteers to do things for you and, and can it be an extreme, my movie?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Why not? It’d be just cool. Right? Let me see. Yeah, I’m free that weekend, , but that’s kinda what happens, right? Yeah. So anyway, but this movie I think is fantastic. End of the rope. You can go to their website right now. I think it’s March 24th is the premier up in Watford City, because that’s kind of the general area takes place.
Schaffer, North Dakota. Yeah, north Dakota’s the last lynching. Yes. That’s what this story is about. And, and I I was watching the audience dynamic probably more than the movie. Well, you’re like me though. You’re a, you’re a people watcher. Yeah. And I, you like seeing what people and crowds do well in, in, in this in instance, I just wanted to see, you know, our people cuz it’s a longer movie too.
I mean it’s, is it two hours and 40 minutes? I think it’s a longer movie. And there was an audible moan from the crowd when he announced that it was like two hours and 40 minutes. Cuz these, these are legislators that are watching this and I’m sure they were like, I don’t have time for this. But as I was watching people and it’s a slow burn type of movie and you start to figure things out, think why me?
and, and, you know, and, and these crazy things that are going on. see, I like movies like that I do too. Make me use my brain Yes. That are methodical. Yes. Now, and I could tell about halfway through, most of the audience was sitting on the edge of their seat. They weren’t, they weren’t leaning back in those nice chairs at the Grand Theater.
They were on the edge of their seats. And I’m like, oh, he’s got something. It’s really, really fun to watch this movie and the historical aspect of it too, I think is, is amazing. So, yeah. So go check this out. End of the rope. I think it’s just end of the rope.com and you can buy your tickets in advance for the premiere up in Watford City.
And then I think in April’s here, did he do the, the Sundance or Con or any of the, or some of the other smaller film festivals around? So this one is going to the Minneapolis Film Festival. Okay. I don’t know if that’s gone on already, but it, it’s either now or has just just recently gone on. and I know it was being sent over there and he’s, you know, he’s the person behind Sanctified as well.
Right. which I thought was, you haven’t seen Sanctified. It’s a great movie too. Phenomenal movie. Yeah. Yeah. All done here in North Dakota. Yeah. So great storytelling. You know, the other side of that too is, you know, when you start looking at some of the notoriety, cuz everybody knows Khan or, or Sundance, and I’m going there by the way.
To Khan or Sundance? Khan Festival over in France. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Not to the film festival. They have a A tv. Are you bringing the movie then you could premiere? Yeah, I could do that. Good. I’ll just talk to see how you’re going over there. Talk to Daniel like, Hey, I’ll bring it over there for you.
Yeah, no problem. Well, because that’s where a lot of films that don’t get recognition, and I think we’re in a window right now because of. , you know, COVID and how the movie industry’s changed. And you take a look at the streaming services and, and where things are discovered in some of these big studios.
They’re looking at smaller budget, smaller productions just to fill up their roster because they’re not able to put these big budget projects together, which is what’s gone on with Sanctified, by the way. Right. Sanctified is gonna be on a streaming service here pretty shortly. Yeah. So I’m, maybe I shouldn’t have let that out of the way.
Well, but in, and we won’t say which one. Yeah. there you go. But from a content perspec, they’re looking at different content or any content. You take a look at some of the bigger actors that are, have signed on with these streaming services for, um a run of a series, or they’re, it’s almost like a vignette.
Yep. the way they’re building some of the movies now. Um what’s his name? McClain. Bruce Willis? Yes. before, so he knew something was going on with his mental status before you, you, I was wondering about that because you cranked out like seven movies to his boat. It was crazy. Yeah. With his, like, with the streaming service.
Why, why is he in these movies? Even they fast tracked. Oh yeah. All of that. He’s got seven movies in a year. Done. It was crazy. Yeah. Yeah. But, but he knew that he was not gonna be able to make movies in the future. So did the, you know, agents and everything up. So they cranked out all these movies. They have that ability to do that now.
Yeah. Which didn’t exist. I mean, you take a look at an an actor or an actress that would do. One project every couple years, or you know, the ones that were young and hungry, not getting the big paychecks right. Might make two a year in some smaller roles just to, for that paycheck. Well then you, it’s all changed.
It’s all changed. Then you get an attack with the likeness of things and I think that’s a great place to stop. We were going someplace with all of this.
I used to go to every single movie. And if it was good, I’d see it two or three times. My Saturday mornings was, I’d walk down the street to the local theater that was, well, I remember when it was a quarter, but then it was a dollar and it had second run movies and watch the movie and boom.
Done. Yeah. And, and going to when the, when the Cine Plexus started to open with three and then five and then seven. I mean, I’m like, oh, I could go to a movie every night of the week now. Which a lot of times I did. You know, I got a friend of mine that well, we used to go to movies with him and his significant other, and and he would movie Geek, I mean, absolute movie geek to the point where he wouldn’t go to a movie at the grand, depending on which theater it was in because Oh yes.
That doesn’t have the big screen. Yes. That doesn’t have the comfortable suits that way. That doesn’t this, it’s like, who knows this stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I was that way one time too, but, but to technology with this now. Right. Are there movies. That would not be the same without a particular character.
Absolutely. Yeah. We were just talking during the break. What would that be for you? So Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lot Stark. Okay. Or, you know, die Hard with Bruce Willis. Right. Or, well, okay. So I still have this in my crop about Major League, which I liked Major League, but Major League two was horrible because they tried to replace Wesley Snipes with Yes.
It’s baseball. Yeah. So we got traded. Big deal. Bring in a different character. Oh no, they tried to have, you can’t do that without, right. Willie Mae Hayes. Right, right. Slapshot, yes. It’s handsome. Others. Yeah. There, there’s movies though. Darth Vader. It’s the franchise. Yeah. You know, you’re not, you’re gonna have to have a hamel to do Skywalker.
Right. So these characters, like in Star Wars is a great example of this. So James Earl Jones, who’s still alive by the way, actually penned a deal with Disney. so that he will always be the voice of. . Darth Vader. Darth Vader. Because with AI you can That’s correct. So create that voice. So, so he now will always be the voice of Darth Vader.
And there’s royalties paid to that, of course. Just like if of course you’re acting or, yes, yes. But that’s the, that’s the deal. And Harrison Ford could probably do the same thing with Lou Raiders of the last arc. Now, you know, and I think about between AI and stock footage, it’s easy now. Well, AI especially, I mean, you know, and, and the ability to make these characters.
In fact princess Leia and the, and the last Star Wars, that was a major thing. She had, you know, Carrie Fisher passed, passed away, passed away. They just, they just her film with her. Yeah. It’s just amazing. What’s, what’s going on in that, what? But what was really interesting is like with the James Earl Jones scenario is that James is still alive and Penn this deal, usually you have to pass away and then the estate makes some type of deal, whatever.
Now these people, now these people are, are actually penning these deals while they’re still around. and I think that’s very, very interesting. What’s the likeness of you gonna be like, Ugh, , just, just think of your ability to have talk of the town on the air in 2084. But my question is, it goes back to that old commercial.
Is it live or is it Memorex? Yeah. So as a fan of a franchise, a movie franchise, is there something, and I think this is where they have to be careful on the marketing side of this, is, okay, I enjoy a franchise and am I okay with it being digitally created? And not having that actor that I like in there.
Is that okay? Am I okay with that? Because it, there’s a little line that Well, but that’s not real right? Because it’s not that actor. Right. You know it. So I, I was at the there’s a, there, there’s a touchpoint there. Well, so the Whitney Houston, 3D experience. 3D experience, right. Or, holographic experience, I should say.
Right. So I went to, I think I talked to you about this a few months ago. if they hadn’t, I thought it was really good. I mean, it, it’s her as a holograph or hologram, or whatever you want to call it, I guess. Holograph. Hologram. Yeah, hologram. Okay. and you know, they got, they have live singers with her.
They have a live band with her. I mean, everything else is live except for her. If they would’ve just left her on the stage in between songs. to me have been realistic, but at the end of like a song she’d, she’d disappear in a sparkle, for example, and then she’d reappear for the next song in a different outfit or whatever, which is cool.
Well, we all know that diva artists, it’s all about the set change. Yes. But to me, having her stay on stage in between the songs to maybe share a little bit about her life or whatever, and then going to the different thing or different song would’ve been much more realistic to me. You know, all of a sudden she’s just off in this wisp of sparkles and it, it took me out of the moment because now I do realize that she’s not there.
So it was just this abrupt thing, like you’re getting into the song, it’s about the immersion for you for the experience. It is the immersion for the experience. So, so you’re talking about the same thing with with movies and things. To me it’s the same scenario. So is that a que my wife, we fight on movies and shows and things like this all the time.
Fight. Yeah. I, I’m like, if I’m gonna start watching something, I want to finish it. And she’s like, oh, pause it there, because I’m tired. I’m about getting into the experiences. Sure. The immersion and no distractions. Yeah. I wanna watch and focus. I just forgot my life now. Yeah. Keep me here. My phone’s nowhere to be seen.
And it’s like waking up in the middle of a great dream, right? Yeah. Yes. And I’m like, okay, I can’t start and stop and start and stop and start and stop like that because you’re missing something and she can, and that’s where we get into little yeah. Yeah, we don’t agree. We agree to disagree on that.
You were going somewhere before I really interrupted you there and now you forgot. So the immersion Yes. Is it about, so the two questions I’ve got is, okay, we established that it’s about the immersion to the experience and, and that’s where I’m at. And is it a question of the technology is just newer and they haven’t figured out how to fully utilize it or, so there might be, is it a question that they just haven’t figured out?
The nuances of the experience for the audience with it? What, where, where’s the lag? So I would say that you have these people who are. audio and video engineers that have created Whitney. Right. But they’re not people. People, they’re geeks. They’re not people. They’re geeks. Yeah. They’re geeks. They’re geeks.
They don’t understand the experience. They look at this and they go, oh my goodness. You know what you need is somebody who understands. So there’s somebody playing with the technology. Because the technology for them is the experience. Yeah. And it’s cool that she disappears in this wisp of sparkles.
Right. This is, this is is They’re looking at this. This is created not by somebody who would actually go to a Whitney Houston concert. They’re creating it because they think it’s cool. It’s cool. And it is cool, right? But they’re not understanding that there is an audience that that longs to have to disappear within her.
I wanna get lost in the moment. Exactly. For me going to a movie and going to the theater, or even watching something at home, it’s about just checking out. Yep. And being completely immersed and getting lost in the experience. It’s not starting and stopping on. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. It’s, sorry, I’m getting a little, wow.
Sorry I drives me nuts. All right, well tell you what, I’m proud of you Marla . You got my movie Talk for you got two segments here. Yes. Two seconds. You got in the but end of the rope. yeah. If you haven’t seen, check it out yet. Paul, you haven’t seen it yet. Seen some. Nobody’s seen that pieces. Well, yes.
Yeah. Go go watch the trailer. Yeah, get your tickets. They’re on sale now. Yeah. So you get to the premieres in these different towns. Minot. Bismarck, I think in April. Watford City at Premiers. March 24th I think it is. Yeah. End of the rope. The the last Lynch. I think you and I are gonna be taking a road trip to Watford in, if you’re okay with that.
A man. I think we should go to that. All right.
