TECH005: What Tech Is Doing to Us with Justin Evidon (Tech Podcast)

27:39The interface is actually pretty user-friendly for the most part. I don't think that you need a ton of tech experience to do it. Where I think that it's still a hard sell is when you look at how people are collecting and transmitting information, it's almost always coming from one of these devices, right? I'm holding up a cell phone for people that are just listening. And I think because, and this is just my working theory, I think because people know that they're using one of these devices to create and transmit all this information, either through some type of Apple or Google device or Google operating system, they already know that they're still giving up everything to one of these two companies for the most - You don't have to.

28:25for the most part. But where I'm going with this is, do we really need a hardware device that can compete in an open source kind of way to encourage people to go into the full privacy stack? And is that kind of the limiting factor? Because I'll be honest with you, I want to go in all these directions, but I still feel like I'm just leaking out all of this private information and data. And it's kind of like, yeah, it's just not worth it yet. But if I had an open source phone that I could use that's not an Apple device and go full on into the privacy stack, I think you'd have a lot more people that would commit.

29:06I'm kind of curious if you would agree with that. There is a solution out there. Google Pixel devices, you can sideload a privacy oriented open source software, an operating system onto Google Pixel phones. It's called Graphene. And you can then use your phone in a much more privacy oriented banner. You can still sandbox access to Google Play Store and use applications that need to interface with it or even Google specific applications like Maps or using Gmail. But it comes at a convenience cost. It always remains part of the equation. And I think that there is a need to try and close that gap between the convenience of Apple and Google versus the complexity or the burden of needing to set things up yourself.

29:53One final piece that I wanted to add to the discussion around iCloud Photos and Google Photos. One of the main motivations that I had for setting up this home server, this network attached storage, is I came across an open source project called Image, I-M-M-I-C-H. And it is a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos or to iCloud Photos, where you can run it on your device and it will automatically, as you take photos, back it up to your own server. It uses its own internal AI tooling to be able to do face detection, geotagging. It has an interface that is very convenient and user-friendly and very reminiscent of a Google Photos.

30:39And I've been in the process, I was able to set that up and migrate all of the photos out of iCloud Photos. I was able to turn off iCloud Photos so it's no longer backing up there. I can't do anything about the likelihood that they aren't honoring my request to delete the data that was already there, but that's a different conversation. You can only control the present and the future. You can't control the past. And that tooling is now, anytime I take a photo, it is automatically connecting to my network attached storage and is keeping that data in my environment. and they just got to a point where they have a stable release.

31:16It's only been around for a few years. It's been incredible to see what motivated open source developers can put together. And it's just like a call out that I want to make sure that I was giving so that people were aware of that, because I think that there is finally starting to be more of these tools that are a one click away from allowing you to migrate away from these centralized solutions. In terms of the hardware, I mentioned being able to migrate your Google Pixel phones over to graphene. There's also, I think, other concerns related to technology that I think we start to segue into, which is the concerns regarding light and the impacts on circadian rhythm.

31:58And all of our devices are, whether they are Apple or Google, or they're a laptop or whatever it might be, they are shining in our faces day and night. And a lot of people walk through life unaware of the impact that has on them. Let's go down this rabbit hole. So since we started the show, we've been talking about the software implications, right? And what that means. Now we're going to pivot and we're going to go into the hardware ramifications. And what I think is lost on a lot of people when we start talking about all of this technology, I just had a gentleman on two weeks ago, and we were talking about Tesla and all these robo taxis and the battery technology.

32:38But what is almost never discussed is the electromagnetic frequency on all of this stuff. It's almost like it's the thing to ignore and to never discuss because it's so nice having AirPods or it's so nice having an iPad, you name it. All of this technology, and people might think this is a tinfoil hat kind of topic, But I'll tell you what, I pay a lot of attention to people that I respect immensely for their deep thinking. And every one of these people keep coming back to this idea of electromagnetic frequency, the radiation with some of these devices. And just to name a couple, your AirPods, the electric cars, the frequency of the light coming off of all these LED lights, especially the bulbs, right?

33:26Just going into a hardware store and trying to get a luminescent bulb like you used to get from back in the day, it's nearly impossible to find them without it being a decorative type bulb. You look and you look at the frequency of these bulbs and what those ramifications are. Our eyes were not designed to be handling these types of frequencies that are coming out of all of these devices these days. So give us the rundown on your thoughts on all of the hardware emissions and what it means from a health standpoint and just overall ramification long term. What does this mean? Here's a fun exercise that you and anybody else that's listening to this can try out for themselves.

34:09When you're in your home and you've got lights on, if you're out at a bar or a restaurant or anywhere else around town, take out your phone, open up the camera, switch to the slow-mo camera, and just shoot five or six seconds of the space and then play it back. More often than not, what you're going to see is what your eyes cannot perceive, which is the lights just flickering like crazy. When we think about like going to a moody restaurant or a nightclub or anywhere else, we're expecting, you know, dim lighting and it's all nice. And think about the salt lamp that I've got in the background here, right?

34:48Like moody lighting. But when you're using a lot of LED lights, which are more modern solutions to creating lighting, you end up needing to dim it in different ways. In some cases, you are able to dim the light itself and have it remain a solid light. But the cheaper way to do it is to cut the amount of electricity and to just cut it in and out such that it is perceived as lower intensity by your eyes. But to the naked eye, you can't see that flickering occur. Unfortunately, while you can't perceive it, your brain does and your brain is having to work overtime. And this can also, you know, there is some potential concerns that could be a large contributor to some of the behavior that has been attributed to ADHD over the years.

35:41I remember seeing there was a research study where they had a classroom and they had on one day, they had fluorescent bulbs that were flickering. And And another day, they had fluorescent bulbs that didn't flicker. And the behavior and the way that these kids interacted, totally different, right? We're looking at like kids jumping off the chairs versus sitting quietly and being able to take in the information. And it's just another example of where the potential physical impacts of modern technology are hiding in plain sight, and we don't recognize them. EMF is just another example of this. We don't really know the extent to which this can cause problems.

36:25I want to caveat this by saying I am not a scientist. I'm not an expert. I'm an enthusiast. And I don't want to come off as some kooky conspiracy theorist. But I do think that there is a level of scrutiny that needs to be applied to these things that many people aren't doing because doing so would disrupt the convenience factor that we've currently come to enjoy. We've seen the concerns regarding Wi-Fi and some people pushing for still wanting to use Ethernet cables to connect all of your internet connected devices. But outright swearing off Wi-Fi is not a very convenient thing. We've seen people yell about the difference between 4G and 5G.

37:06And I think that some of those arguments have gotten a bit too outlandish, but I do think there is potentially something there. And do I really need to have that extended speed of 5G relative to 4G? Probably not. There's a lot of concerns that I think people just need to be aware of them. And again, not to swear off all conveniences in the technological solutions that are out there, but to find the ones that you prioritize, because those are the ones that really make a big difference. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. Curious about online trading, but haven't taken the first step yet?

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40:34Whether you're a fast-growing startup or a global enterprise, Vanta is here to help you automate your security and compliance and earn, improve trust. Get started today at vanta.com slash tip. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash tip. All right, back to the show. When you talk about the LED lights and the flicker that's associated with it, the on-off that you don't get with a luminescent bulb, I'm reminded of this book. It was, I think it's called Consciousness in the Brain is what I think the name of the book is. And they talk about this experiment that they did with individuals where it was like, I'm going to mess up the name, but it's a toilet paper tube test where they basically put a monocle over each eye simultaneously and they put two different pictures on each eye.

41:25So maybe the left eye had a picture of a cow and then the right eye had a picture of a rooster or whatever. And when you look through these monocles, what they were testing is forcing the brain to see one image. And they were curious, like, how would a person's brain interpret? What are they going to see? Are they going to see the cow? Are they going to see the rooster? Because they're forcing each eye to see something different. And what was interesting in the experiment is that a person, when they look at this still image, is your brain will actually flip-flop. It'll see the cow and that's all it'll see.

41:56And then call it five seconds or 10 seconds later, it flips to the rooster and then all you can see is the rooster. And then five seconds later, it flips back. At this frequency, it flips back and forth between the two images. But what they did next, which was really fascinating, is they put it onto a video. They turned the picture into a video. So it was a video of a cow that looks like it's just a still image. And then the video of a rooster that was, again, just a still image. And what they did is they took one frame, and I think it was cycling at like 30 frames per second or 60 frames per second.

42:31I can't remember which one it was. I kind of think it was 30. And they swapped out one image on just say it was the cow video. They took one of the 30 frames and instead of it being a cow, they made it call it a bullseye or some random picture, right? But it was just one frame out of 30. Okay. So the person who's looking at these two different images, they think that they're just seeing a steel picture. They don't even realize that it's a video. Okay. But what did the brain do? The brain stopped flipping from the one image to the other, and it just stayed fixated on the one that had the one frame every 30 seconds.

43:08And the viewer, the person who was looking at this said that all they saw was the, and I forget what I said in the example, but let's just say it was the cow that had the one frame that was swapped into the bullseye. When they looked at this, even though they're seeing both things, they're looking at both things, the only thing that their brain was interpreting was the video that had the one frame that was swapping out. And so the reason I tell this long story is you might not think that you're seeing or that your brain is comprehending something that's happening in a very short amount of time.

43:41In this case, one frame per 30 seconds, the person didn't see a bullseye at all. They just saw the picture of the cow permanently. They didn't even know why their brain wasn't flipping over to the other image like it was before when it was a still image. But the processing that's happening in your subconscious is so profound that it's something that I read this years ago. I think that was the right book, but I bring all this up because of this idea of these LED lights that are flickering on and off. And I don't know what the frequency is for a lot of them. People would just say, all I see is a permanent light, just like a luminescent bulb.

44:16And clearly there's nothing wrong there. And I would argue, I think there's proof out there that what's happening in our subconscious is way more profound than what any of us can possibly imagine. Yeah. At 30 frames per second, an average video camera is also not going to perceive this, but something that you'll notice, depending on the intensity of the flickering, you'll sometimes notice the light. There's a horizontal band that will move slowly through. And if you do the slow-mo, suddenly that horizontal band moving slowly becomes this very noticeable flickering. And I think that the brain stops being able to perceive flickering at a thousand Hertz or something.

44:55And so there's a long way for us to go. So ideally you want to use light that is going to be consistent, but once you have consistent light, you also need to think about the spectrum that's involved. One of the things that we've seen in the last, let's call it 20, 30 years, the emergence of these led bulbs and oftentimes being sold as energy saving. and you're doing your part for the environment because they last longer and they are cheaper and they're more environmentally friendly. What they failed to tell you is that large amount of the energy savings came from getting rid of a lot of the light spectrum that you would otherwise include with a fluorescent or a halogen or an incandescent bulb.

45:42And in doing so, it was concentrating a lot of the light output in the blue area that I should say in and of itself isn't necessarily the worst thing possible. If you go outside midday sun, there's a ton of blue light. The difference, however, is that you're experiencing that blue light in conjunction with a broader spectrum, including ultraviolet and infrared. And that is what our bodies were evolved to be able to process and perceive. And throughout the course of the day, we see the spectrum shift very early on. It's very orange. It's very infrared geared. And then throughout the day, it becomes more full spectrum, moving into the UV direction and then tapering off towards the end of the day.

46:34Not only has that been an important part of our ability to perceive light and to go through life in a healthier manner, it also shapes our circadian rhythm. And it does so in a way that we don't really perceive as an average person. In a major way too. I don't think people, I know when I travel international and into all these different time zones, what I've learned through AI, because I've asked it, I was like, how can I get to the new time zone faster or more quickly without having all the... You know what the number one thing it said was, get out first thing in the morning when the light comes up and make sure that you get a lot of that into your eyes.

47:17And it's going to help you adjust to the new time zone faster than pretty much anything else you can do. And it goes to this idea that you're talking about, which is how heavily tied your circadian rhythms and the timing of your entire body and your entire system is to that light source and that frequency that you're getting at that certain time of the day. Your eyes and your skin are absorbing all of this light information and your body uses that to decide what hormones it should be releasing. It signals to the body, it's morning time, it's active time, it's sedentary time, it's time to go to sleep and to heal and to process the day.

47:58And a lot of people are hijacking that circadian rhythm without even realizing it. The tech is so addictive that they'll stay watching their TV until 11 o 'clock at night. And it then takes hours for their body to wind down and to then be able to start to get into those deep and REM sleep cycles. And I think that people are missing that aspect because it is to a degree, ironically, invisible to them, right? You'd think that light is going to be the most visible thing. And yet the way in which it interacts with your body is entirely invisible. So I think that there are ways in which you can mitigate that.

48:39One is spend as much time as you can outside. And to your point, first light is probably the most important because it sets you up for the day. And it really punches your system to find that marker of where you should move forward. The other is to be aware of how you should support your circadian rhythm throughout the day. And you're not going to be averse to blue light altogether. I take, for example, as a product manager, I'm having to work with designers and image files, or when I'm a photographer and I'm looking at photos, I need to be able to see exactly the definition of that color spectrum as it's intended.

49:18And that's going to involve some blue light. But if I'm working on some tech stuff and it's getting into the afternoon, I have a program on my computer that is called Iris. There's other tools called Flux. I've seen a bunch of different ones around. And you can adjust the color temperature of your screens. It's not perfect, but it gets a long ways there. You can also use color filters on your iPhone. You can set like almost getting to a red light if you want to be able to use it in the evening time still to send some last minute messages. But again, there are plenty of people who aren't able to just conform their technology use to the ideal circadian rhythms of night and day.

50:02As an example, I've got two kids and there are times when I need to hang out with them for the afternoon and make dinner and spend time with them and get them to bed and read a story. And once I've done that, I might still have some things that I need to do. I might still need to get some work done, or I have some personal projects that I want to be working on. And that is one of the rare moments throughout my day where I have time to myself, but I'm also planning on getting to sleep relatively shortly thereafter. And so you can mitigate that with some of these tools, but there's still going to be some impacts with blue light.

50:37This is actually one of the reasons why a year and a half ago, I got really excited about this new product that came out called the daylight tablet. It is an Android tablet. These guys, just the foot stomp. These guys are crazy brilliant. I've met these guys and what they're building is like mind blowing. Well, here's the thing that I find so fascinating about it is that it's effectively an Android tablet, right? At the end of the day, you're getting a device that functions like an Android tablet. The difference is they've stripped out color as a function of the screen, and they're trying to use this technology.

51:15I believe it's transflective LCD, basically where light can not only pass through from underneath the screen array, but it can also deal with light that's coming from outside and reflect back to you. Think of it similar to what you see with a Kindle and e-ink tablet, where there's like, when you go and you sit outside with a device like that, you can see it even better than you could inside. But the reason for using this transflective version is that then they're able to have a light source that they've built in that is intentionally designed to avoid the use of blue light and to reduce the opportunity for flickering.

51:59And a lot of people... My understanding is that they're working on trying to make it a color display, despite no light being emitted from the device. Yeah. I've seen and held the device and it's pretty phenomenal how it just makes you feel as far as like in the evening, when you look at this thing, it's just a completely different experience, but the refresh rate, how can I display it? So for a person who has seen a Kindle and done the Kindle reader, it's almost like an Etch-a-Sketch, but the difference is the refresh rate of like what it's doing. It can play videos, it can do all of these things, but yet it still looks like this Etch-a-Sketch type picture.

52:42It's wild. Yeah. So that is the tool that I use when I put the kids to bed and I still want to do some writing or some research. That is my tool. I use it every single day and I pay a lot of attention to my sleep cycles and trying to maintain sleep consistency. And a big part of longevity is having a very consistent dead time and wake time. And there are days when I'm just able to wind down and I want to read a book. There are other days where I still want to be productive and do some writing, and I can do all of it with this single device. And to me, that's just a really huge unlock, being able to still use technology and not be stuck trying to write stuff down on paper.

53:29As we were talking about earlier with that second brain concept, the more that you can capture that information in a digital form, the easier it's going to then be to work with that within an AI tool and to be able to do recall and distillation and synthesis of that information. Amazing. For people listening to this, a lot of the conversations that we're going to have that are tech related are going to be talking about the benefits and somewhat ignoring the side effects or the consequences, which I tell people this all the time. As an aerospace engineering example is you can't have lift without corresponding drag.

54:09Drag is always part of it. It's just a matter of like how much drag is associated with the lift that you're producing off the wing. And when we're talking about tech and we're talking about the benefits, often we're just talking about that lift vector and completely ignoring any type of drag that's associated with it. And this is why I was really excited to have this conversation, Jevy, for people, because so much of the stuff that we're going to continue to cover on the show, we're there talking about why it's so beneficial, why it's so exciting. Because I mean, come on, the stuff that's happening right now is beyond exciting.

54:42It's the stuff you imagined as a kid being driven around by a car without no driver and stuff like that. It's just like miraculous what's coming at us. But this is the stuff we have to go into this with eyes wide open. and to really have an appreciation for some of the consequences, some of the drag that's coming off of all of this stuff. And if we don't approach it early, it's going to be 10, 15 years later, and it's going to be in all intents and purposes, a little too late to kind of like backtrack some of the things that you've given up, whether you realize it or not. And so you've done such an amazing job just kind of like throwing out some really core things that people need to think about and to like really make a conscious decision.

55:29Am I okay with this? Is this something that I'm willing to just ignore? And unfortunately, I think a lot of people are going to say, yeah, I am okay to ignore you. But hey, we're covering it. We're trying to make sure that you're aware. And I'm sure that the feedback from the show is going to be very positive. And we probably need to keep doing conversations like this moving forward because you do such a great job just laying it out for people so that they understand it in a fair and balanced kind of way. Yeah, I think I certainly came into this conversation being a little nervous that it was going to come off as being all over the place and not being too focused.

56:08I think there's a lot of information to digest from this. If anything, my hope is the one thing that people take away is to be just that little bit more aware of the potential concerns. This isn't a call to arms to swear off technology. I'm very much still, I use technology in my life every single day. It's about finding the ways to be able to keep it in your life and to get the best out of it without just going and being a mountain man in the forest. And I think that some of these tools that we've discussed today are more accessible than others, but I'm happy to come back at any point in time and keep jamming on this stuff.

56:51There's probably 14 different topics we didn't even cover. Yeah. And we didn't even get to the hardcore stuff like CRISPR or whatever, right? There's so many other things that are, but yeah. Hey, if you're listening to this, you enjoy the chat. We're going to have a link to Jevy's X account, also his Noster account. So if you do have other things that you would love for us to kind of cover or address, throw it out there, send it over to us so that we're aware of what that is. And Jevy, thank you so much for making time and coming on the show. This is long overdue. This is conversations that we have from time to time, regardless of whether we're recording or not.

57:28So I was thrilled to be able to do this with you. Absolutely, Preston. It's my pleasure. Anything else you want to throw out there that people can check out? I, a couple of years ago, started a sub stack called Primal Cut Sheet. I haven't been writing as much in there anymore. Kind of got to the saturation point that I was for, but it's tips and insights on how to buy beef in bulk and why you should be doing it. And the motto being the correct number of chest freezers to own is one more than you currently have. We didn't even go down that rabbit hole, which is another, you know, we've had long conversations on that one too.

58:04Maybe for next time. All right, folks, that's all we have for you this week. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Infinite Tech on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on our episodes. To access our show notes and courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.