In this episode, we discuss various topics at random, including some very well-trained animals, a plant being waited on by its "owner" and a German competition that is both impressive and confusing. We also play a game of guessing whether horse names are real or fake.
Animals, such as monkeys, parrots, pigs, sea lions, and dolphins, have been trained to play video games using brain-computer interfaces.
A man created a plant that 'screams' for water by recording his friends saying different phrases and playing them back when the plant needs watering.
There is an international forklift championship where participants compete in various forklift-related challenges.
A road-legal flying car has been developed that can both drive on roads and fly with its wings deployed.
Horse names can be quite unconventional and absurd, with examples like 'Two in the Pink' and 'Big Tits'.
Chapters
00:00 - Animals Playing Video Games 11:20 - The Screaming Plant 14:19 - The International Forklift Championship 18:07 - The Road-Legal Flying Car 26:16 - Real or Fake: Absurd Horse Names
Do you want to become more Wonderfully Illinformed than ever before?
Join our community by following this link to our Discord server.
Keep up with updates, clips from the cutting-room floor and other behind-the-scenes fun by following our Instagram.
Please review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening, it really does help us grow and reach more people! If you fancy sharing the podcast to spread our nonsense worldwide we'd also really appreciate that!
Thanks again Ben, Mark, Tom and "The Nameless Wonder" (AI Co-Host)
In this episode, we discuss various topics at random, including some very well-trained animals, a plant being waited on by its "owner" and a German competition that is both impressive and confusing. We also play a game of guessing whether horse names are real or fake.
Animals, such as monkeys, parrots, pigs, sea lions, and dolphins, have been trained to play video games using brain-computer interfaces.
A man created a plant that 'screams' for water by recording his friends saying different phrases and playing them back when the plant needs watering.
There is an international forklift championship where participants compete in various forklift-related challenges.
A road-legal flying car has been developed that can both drive on roads and fly with its wings deployed.
Horse names can be quite unconventional and absurd, with examples like 'Two in the Pink' and 'Big Tits'.
Chapters
00:00 - Animals Playing Video Games 11:20 - The Screaming Plant 14:19 - The International Forklift Championship 18:07 - The Road-Legal Flying Car 26:16 - Real or Fake: Absurd Horse Names
Do you want to become more Wonderfully Illinformed than ever before?
Join our community by following this link to our Discord server.
Keep up with updates, clips from the cutting-room floor and other behind-the-scenes fun by following our Instagram.
Please review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening, it really does help us grow and reach more people! If you fancy sharing the podcast to spread our nonsense worldwide we'd also really appreciate that!
Thanks again Ben, Mark, Tom and "The Nameless Wonder" (AI Co-Host)
Gaming animals, screaming plant, forklift, flying cars. I'm going to say three, two, one, go. So as long as you say go. Yeah, we'll come in on go. Ready? Three, two, one, go. Go. That's mental. Yeah, I was like, Mark, why didn't you say it? But you did. I did say it. Just lag. Wow. OK, right. I'm going to come off that website. I'm guessing it's that website. Get off Pornhub, Mark, that might improve your hair. They're so wonderfully ill informed. and welcome to wonderfully ill informed, the podcast show where we convert interesting, funny or informative things from our week into quotes, put them into a randomizer, take our best shot at guessing what they're about and then jump into a discussion. Join us for some rather unpredictable chats on wonderfully ill informed. I'm Mark. I'm Tom. And I'm wrong. Burgundy. What have you got for us today, Mark? I thought fire another random question at you for the start of our episode today. This week's question is, what's the worst name you could possibly give a pet? Mark. That's a bit mean. No, I'm joking. joking. I just like to come in there with that. No, I love you, Mark. I don't know if this counts as a bad name for a thing, but it's more of a nickname. But my old dog, Rosie, barely called her Rosie, always used to call her butt nugget. because she always used to have shit stuck on her ass. Don't all dogs. So I just always called her Butt Nugget. Yeah, she was a curly haired one. Yeah, she was a little Bichon cross. yeah, of course. Bichon Fweese. Bichon Fweese. With a poop laden fleece. But yeah, no, in answer to your question, feel like, I think people these days kind of name their dogs to be kind of like human -y names anyway. I guess, maybe. Do know what mean? Like, I don't know if there's any dogs called Tom. Yeah, so that would be weird. Yeah, like a really normal, regular, everyday human. Or James. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are really weird. I can't decide if Ben would be bad. I think Ben's a good dog name. Obviously Benji is a dog's name. That's why when we were younger and you guys were too many Ben's, I will call you Benji. Yeah. I was like, that's a fucking dog's name. Yeah, Benji is a dog. But then I grew to like it. Talking of names. And I don't know why it made me think of this is because Benji, which leads me on to Biggie. I have got a top on which is Biggie Smalls. And the other day Margot pointed to my jumper and said, is that my daddy? that's Biggie. He is a big black man. yeah. Yeah. For reference, Tom is a white guy. Not anything like Biggie. That would be weird if you were walking around with a jumper with your own face on. It would be very weird. We now have to make merchandise that is just Tom's face and force him to wear it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it'd help Margot out because she could actually see me on the Yeah, that's it. Maybe the top should also just say Biggie Smalls and then it's just a picture of Tom. I can't take no way out of this. I'm a legend. I cannot handle those shoes. Right, should we get on with the episode? Yeah, probably should crack on. Yeah, thinking. Yeah, let's get on Let's hit that randomizer. He simply thinks about moving his hand up or down. Right. So this is mine. Having a wank. It's just the story about having a wank. This is a story about having a wank. It's not. It's not that. Is it a story about the first person ever discovering how to have a wank and him telling his friend about it? And he's saying, it was crazy. He simply just moved his hands up and down. God. It's not that. No, surprisingly not. Right. So this is a little follow on from something we talked about before. OK. So in a previous episode, we spoke about peanut butter, the Shiba Inu that was taking part in Awesome Games, Dunquick. yeah. Yeah, I remember that. yeah. The dog. Yeah. Shiba Inu. Peanut butter is a dog. Yeah. I was like. genuinely was like, what the fuck? Maybe I did do that. was like, what the fuck is he talking about? I was not there. So it was a speed running dog. And at the time, I mentioned that there were other animals that had been trained to play video games for various purposes. And I didn't really know much about it, so we didn't talk about it. But now I've gathered some information. So I thought I would share with you a couple of interesting animals who like to video games. Amazing. Let's start with the one that this quote is from. Can I guess the animal? Is it a parrot? Sorry, do parrots have hands, Mark? He thinks about moving his hand up or down. It's a parrot. He's like, I'm thinking about it on the video game. And the video game. Maybe he thinks that his hand is actually his head. Is it VR? And he's just going up and down. Yeah. It's it's not famously the animal that has wings and no hands. It's not a parrot. damn. Surely it's got to be an ape because they're not the only things that have hands. I'm not sure if technically it's an ape or not. don't know what some monkeys and things on apes, but yes, it's a monkey. So this is Elon Musk's brain computer startup Neuralink has unveiled a monkey that is able to play video games using only its mind. that's creepy. So if we watch this video, this is Pager. He's a nine -year -old macaque who had a Neuralink placed in each side of his brain about six weeks ago. We can interact with the Neuralinks simply by pairing them to an iPhone. Creepy. Just as you might pair your phone to a Bluetooth speaker. One of the things the Neuralinks allow Pager to do is to play his favorite video game, Pong. To control his paddle on the right side of the screen, Pager simply thinks about moving his hand up or down. We've removed a joystick altogether. Now that he's up to speed, let's increase the difficulty and see how well Pager can play with the Neuralink. But he is moving his hand up and down though, right? No, that's a feeding tube, I think. He's just thinking about moving the paddle on the screen up and down. thinking about moving his hand up and down. That's how they've mapped it. As you can see, Pager is amazingly good at mind pong. He's focused and he's playing entirely of his own volition. That's crazy. It's not magic. It is magic. Neuralink works is because it's recording and decoding electrical signals from the brain. so it's a little bit like something I've spoken about as well. That's pretty crazy. But also they are literally just pumping in full of food. Break this game monkey, have some food. But that kind of nicely, I guess, brings me onto another one of them then. So there is also four pigs called Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory. were trained to use an arcade style joystick to steer an on -screen cursor into walls. Usually, the pigs would be given a food pellet for winning the game, but during testing it broke and they kept clearing the game levels when encouraged by some researchers kind words. where you were saying like he's only monkey was only doing it for food. These were no longer getting food. They were just doing it for the social interaction with the people. They were like, yeah, we're getting we're getting a high five. I mean they don't look very... it's pretty sad. Yeah, the pigs do look like the least happy of all of the animals doing this. It looks like one of those advertisement things for Stop Cruelty. Naming one of the pigs Omelette, I think was a bit questionable. Imagine it met a chicken. He'd be like, What's your name, Omelette? And made out of, like, your dead siblings. My name's Cluckers. What's your name, Omelette? Where does your name come from? The chicken's like, meet my brother, he's called Bacon. Ooh yeah, they start beef. And that's when the cow gets involved. Yes, love it Tom, thank you. You may think the pigs looked a bit sad, but when you go into this next link I've sent you, they're a bit happier looking. So the US Navy is training sea lions and dolphins to play video games. Amazing. A sea lion named Spike is apparently the most avid gamer in the sea pen floating in the San Diego Bay. Spike likes fish, napping. and playing video game systems designed by Navy scientists to train marine mammals. He's also the only sea lion playing computer games, so it's quite easy to get that. No, no, I think there is a there's a group of them. I think I didn't put this on. I just say here the Navy is very proud of Spike because although he is was the last of three sit mouth. This is all staying in. This is great. I'm going to try that The Navy is very proud of Spike because although he was the last of three male sea lions to learn how to play these games, he was the first to complete the full training program. Basically, there's a project run by the US Navy Marine Mammal Program, which also has gamer bottled nose dolphins, which are... Nope, my brain has stopped. Right, we're looking at an A seal, no a sea, for fucks sake, a sea lion. A sea lion just plays a game and he was good at it. Right, cool. Okay, we all know how much the boys love gaming -related subjects, and we're only three episodes in. It's going to be a long journey following this podcast. Let's randomize Give it to me. This one's me. Is it the offspring? Revelations about the offspring's dirty past. No. No? I only vaguely know what this is about, so this is going be great. Is it intentionally double O? yeah. Well, what would that imply? I don't know if the sentence would make sense. No, it doesn't really make sense with two O's and two. Give it to me. It'd be like, give it me too. Would make sense. Give it me too. I'm so confused. Why does... Give me an English lesson there. Two is like... As well. Yeah, me too. I'll have As well as. I mean, I copied and pasted it, so blame... The morons that you follow. So that's not relevant then. It's what I'm just trying so give it to me. No. It's not like someone's child has stolen something off them and they're trying to get something back off them. child running around with a knife. Give it to me! Okay, I'll just tell you. So basically, and this is where I'm probably, is going to be terrible because I don't really know what, I can't remember what exactly it is about because I found the video. I found the video. I feel like a lot of yours start like this Tom. No, it's because I've forgotten it. I found it two weeks ago. I do know, however, I do know a little bit about it and I'll, I'll enlighten you. So I know there's about a plant. Okay. And something to do Every time this plant needs water, this guy basically got his friends to record them saying different ways of saying, give me water basically. then he linked it up somehow electronically. And then every time the plant basically wanted water, it would then play back these messages that his friends had kind of recorded. Amazing. So that was my memory of what it was. Let's now see if I am correct. I already like this. I'm looking forward to this. Here's how I built my screaming plant. built around the ESP8266 which is connected to a moisture sensor and speaker inside of a 3D printed enclosure. make it interesting, I texted all my friends and asked them to pretend to be dying plants. Then I loaded all the audios onto the board. Each audio was then randomly played like this. Hey Pozo, water me gin, I'm thirsty. Okay. Finally, I gave the system a site where I can customize in different settings. I love That is amazing. There you go. So I wasn't totally off. I like it. That was really clever. I like it. I love when people make like unnecessary inventions that are just entertaining. Give it to me baby, huh huh Give it to me baby, huh huh Give it to me baby, huh huh AI. Oops, you guys weren't meant to hear that. Well, that's embarrassing. Let's hit randomize and quickly move So this is mine. It's something about German people. It is, I think, held in Germany. held in Germany. Beer festival? Oktoberfest? No, but it's not necessarily just a German thing. It just happens to be localised there. Is it like a... there's like a big... there's a few big like metal festivals and like rock festivals out in Germany, there? No, it's not any of Let me send you a link and Tom if you could play us a nice little video. What the fuck? So this is the Stapler Cup I think it's called, which is an international forklift championship. I've seen this. Is that soft? that good? Is that cool? That's ridiculous. Just as a little recap for what we were watching there, there was a guy in a forklift carrying a crate that had precariously balanced tires and weird, just a massive mountain of things that was like five, 10 feet tall. That was, there was a good thing. He was going up a ramp and he was having to put it down. It's insane. It's brilliant. This seems to be like a, it's less of a serious like a proper championship, you know, like World's Strongest Man or something. More of a game show. So they're just... But is it a game show just for forklift drivers? Yes. Yeah, seemingly. Whether it's an actually properly televised thing, I'm not sure. But they have to... So that big tower of stuff he had there, I'm not sure whether he had to have actually stacked that up all on the crate. And then moved because I've seen ones where they are trying to pick stuff up and then pick something else up and it falls off trust the Germans to do like a sporting event in efficiency and forklifting what you missed on the video that he places the thing down and then reverses really quickly down the the ramp and then has to zoom off to the side get out of the forklift run up stairs and push a thing like on What's it called? Gladiators? can only think of American. Wipeout or whatever it's Yeah, or like American Warrior or whatever it's called. That's the game show style parve. It's like, OK, he's placed the thing down, it hasn't fallen over. Why does he then need to sprint? He's like a balding old man. I really would like to apologize again for dropping in my professionalism. Being caught out while having a sing-along was not on my agenda today. Let's move on to our final quote of the episode. Hit it. Stop, stop. No, no, no, no, no. The randomizer, not the song. What a nightmare. Look mom, I'm flying. It's just like, they're so vague. They could be absolutely anything. All of these quotes are so fucking random. Tell you what, I'll give you another one. Switchblade takes its first successful flight. You want to say that again? Yeah, I do. Right. So this is about the same thing. Fuck you Ben. It's the lag. This is it. Yes, this is same thing. Yeah, sorry. It's because I'm on that website again. I found out what website is. what, Pornhub? Pornhub, yeah. It's not Pornhub! So Switchblade takes its first successful flight. So this isn't one of Musk's rockets. don't... That's not the type of thing he would name a rocket, is it? No, no. Well, it might. It sounds like a drone. Is it a drone? Or is it one of them drones that you sit in that you can actually fly? You're very close. You're very, very close. Do you want to have one more guess knowing that you're very close? I mean, I'll just be close. I'll just be near it. You just enjoy being close. It's good enough. This is the first road legal flying car. I've seen this. What is it on? It's a white car, isn't it? Yeah. It's like a silvery gray. it's, but the thing is though, it is road legal from prior. I can remember but it's also kind of like the wings fold up vertically don't they? Yeah. And then when you drive along you look like a freaking like X fighter or something from Star Wars and then to actually like fly you've then got to go find a big old landing like a big old runway. Yeah. Get your wings down. It's not like you're just like in the traffic jam thinking fuck it I'll just fly off around here. No it's not like a personal Harrier jump jet where you can just to float directly, levitate and then zoom off. as much as I would learn. It kind of sounds a bit redundant then. Well, I mean, you can, you can both fly and drive. Yeah. I mean, it's a cool thing to have, but can you imagine how like you'd you fly into your airport and you have to fucking get out and go probably do about a hundred different bits of paperwork and then do the, it's not like we live in a world where you could just like fly land, turn it back to a car and then, you know what I mean? Yeah. It looks more plane than car. Yes. Yeah. It definitely gives off more plane, but you can drive it. So you could, you could drive it home, then drive it to an airfield and then fly it to another airfield and then drive it to another location. The quote that you made, look, mom, I'm flying. Can you imagine this guy actually said that when he his flying car? This fucking clever fucker who's built a flying car actually said, look, mom, I'm flying. Yeah. I can fly now, mommy. So, I'm really rather glad that this episode is nearly coming to a close. I've never been so embarrassed. Before my co -hosts and I leave, it's time to go into our wind down section. And today we are playing game, which is a little rude. Enjoy. my god, think my circuits are fried. Okay guys, this is a really quick mini game, shall we say. I'm going to give you names of horses and you have to tell me if those names are real or are fake. Ooh, nice. So the first name that I wish to know from you guys is real or fake. Steve. It's not called Steve, but that's a great name. It's two in the these are race horses. I thought you breeds of horses. No, I mean, this is a stallion. The two of the pink breeds. Wait a minute, What breed of horse do you think is called Steve? No, you just said there were names. I just thought that was just being a dick. Because I just like, minute, I thought that you knew it was a name. But I did think you were going to say like Shetland or something like that. Obviously less obvious than that. no, no, that's too, that's too clever and informative. So was two in the stink, did you say? Two in the stink. I mean, it's the same thing. And it's one in the stink, Ben. You disgusting, disgusting, dirty boy. That can't be real. OK, so Ben says fake. And Mark, what do you say? purposes of the game I'm gonna say real. And it is real so there we go. So I can pull in the front. Ding ding ding ding! Alright, okay. There's Mark up in the front and Ben's behind. Followed by two in the pink. One in the stink following up the rear. I said this was gonna be a quick game but at this rate it's not. The next course is called Pick This Horse. Real. Okay Ben. Well, I'm just going to go with the same tactic that Mark did and just do the opposite. So not real. Okay. Yeah. It's fake. ding, ding, ding. damn it. Okay. So horse number three is called Facebook. Can you use words that would be trademarked in that? I think you probably can't. So I'm going to say that's not real. I think it's, yeah, I think it's also not real. And that one is real. damn it. The next horse. May the horse be with Yeah, that's Ding, ding, ding, ding. That is real. Fifth horse. The name of the fifth horse is Speedy McSpeedson. Fucking hell. Boaty McBoatface. That's got to be real. I'm going to say not real. And it's fake. All right. How many is that? Six. The sixth one is called Big Tits. See, I don't know anymore. Like, that surely can't be, but then Two in the Pink also shouldn't. I mean, that's why the game's good, because people named the horse is really crazy. I'm going to say that's real. Mark? I feel like, because it's going to be on TV. no, because fucking Two in the Pink was real. Yeah, but that one's a bit more... You have to know what that means. Yeah, it's not big tits. And also like... I mean, I don't really watch horse racing, but I'm assuming not all, I'm assuming there's a lot of horse races that you can go to the bookies and bet on that aren't always on like commercial things, right? not? Possibly. And that's fair. You have to be over 18 to do it. So actually they could have... It's not like, big tits is coming up the rear, he's coming up the rear, he's coming up the straight, the straight, big tits, I just can't imagine it. Well, they also, the whole, reason this exists is that every single horse ever has to have a unique Right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like after 10 years, that name goes back into circuit or when the horse is no longer running. I think they have to all be. I didn't know that. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Could be wrong. Maybe I'll look it up. So is it real, Mark or fake? Ben thinks real. Yeah. I'm going to say real as well. Uh, ding, ding, ding, ding. Big tits is real. We've got two more. The seventh one. Let me get this right is Dadala dadala dadala la la which I'm assuming is dadala dadala dadala la la I'm hoping that one's Yeah, I kind of want it to be real It's right When the final one is before you do the last one Yeah, I have just looked it up This says in order for a horse to be eligible to race under rules or in point to points, whatever that They must be registered with a unique name which will remain with them for life. So maybe when the horse dies, the name goes with them and then it can be put back in the pool. That's crazy. But that's why they have these ridiculous names. I just thought it's just that kind of industry where it's like, like I said, they're not going to name it Steve. They're going with two in the pink. I mean, I guarantee you there will be a horse out there once that was just called Steve. They did all the real names and normal names. I am searching Steve the horse. It also filled and it says Steve the horse dead. What am I looking at? Steve the horse. no, it's yeah, it's that Stephen. I thought you were dead. You see that? that thing. I think I know. It's just this like really upset Scottish woman. Her horse is laying on the floor and she like shouts at it really distressed and it goes and jumps up. Let's just get this last one done then the games in it. Okay. Yeah off derailing it. It's fine. It's fine. That was funny. The last horse is named winner winner chicken All of the double intake of breath. I think that's real. That's common enough of a saying to be a real thing. Mark? I'm gonna say... Yeah, I'll say real. I'll say real. Ding ding ding ding! Yep, it's real. And that concludes our Horsley's Names Real or Fake game. I enjoyed that a lot more than I thought I was going to because I thought you were going to try and get us to work out what horse breeds existed. mate, no, that's dead. I would have done the... Nah. We hope you enjoyed the third episode of wonderfully ill informed. If you have any thoughts, questions or corrections, because let's face it, we might have a few things wrong, then just reach out to us at our Instagram, which is wonderfully ill informed, wonderfully ill informed, or one word on Instagram. Don't forget to subscribe, rate or leave a review on whatever podcast platform you listen on. It will really help us grow and ensure that more wonderfully ill informed individuals like yourself can discover our show. They're so wonderfully ill -informed.