v3.7_bonus: Ticking all the boxes
It’s a bold title for an episode in which Elaine opted not to tick the Techin’ Eejit and Techin’ Legend boxes, and instead brought some random thoughts and weird robot stories to the mix. It makes for a good chat all the same!
Sticking with the format to begin with, Jenny’s calling out Perplexity as a Techin’ Eejit as it’s in the news for being in trouble with the news, accused of plagiarism and unethical scraping of web content. The coverage has been unforgiving, to say the least.
The journalists are not happy.
And this is from a company expected to hit a valuation of $3 billion soon – which is a massive amount of money but still miles away from the triple-trillions the world’s highest-value companies are currently hitting. Let Elaine explain the gulf of that difference in a little TikTok:
@fortechssakepod In honour of Nvidia joining the ranks of the world's many $3 trillion companies, Elaine just wants to put those numbers in context.
♬ original sound - For Tech's Sake
Speaking of TikTok, Elaine has a theory about a phenomenon she calls “TikTok hands”. No, it’s nothing to do with modelling (with or without your hand twin), nor is it to do with tiny plastic doll hands. But it is perhaps slightly inspired by Alexis Rose.
And our hero of this week is Nolen Royalty, the creator of OneMillionCheckboxes.com, which we love. Think of it as the internet’s version of bubble wrap.
And you may need to do some therapeutic bubble-popping or box-ticking after you see this:
Don’t blame us! Blame the scientists at Tokyo University who thought it would be a good idea to make a Billy Roll a real boy.
(Another robot image we’re gripped by this week is a stock image of them sitting at a boardroom conference table – why though?!)
If ticking checkboxes isn’t enough to soothe you after that horror show, why not do a round of pleasant word puzzles? Jenny and Elaine both have their favourite suggestions, and the one they couldn’t remember on the spot is the great Guess My Word by H Ryan Jones. (This was our pre-Wordle word puzzle obsession.)
That’s it until we’re back in the main feed next week with an all-new episode. In the meantime, here’s a helpful link to Frank Lampard in a sulk after a jibe from Gary Lineker on live television – to spare you the troublesome internet search for it.