Computers and Timepieces: An Interview with Blake from Petronella Technology Group

Welcome everyone to another Petronella Technology Group podcast. We don't have Craig here today, but it is April fool's day. I'm so happy April stay away from Paulin, And today we're gonna do a little interview with one of our own Blake Rea over here. So Blake, if you want to, tell us a little bit about how you got into technology, cybersecurity, all that stuff. What was your journey?

Yeah, as far as I can remember, my parents always had the latest, greatest technology, so I remember my mom. I got into filmmaking at first. And, I took apart her VHS camera,

wow.

pop a VHS tape in the side and you record it. And I was recording my friends skateboarding, but, I remember something was wrong with it and I took it apart. And then my mom walked upstairs. And she saw her expensive cam quarter, all ripped apart. And I put it back together of course.

Did it work?

Yeah, it did. It did thankfully. Yeah, so I continued to film my skate videos with it for a couple of years. And then I remember my mom was selling stuff on eBay and she ordered one of the first digital cameras. And gosh, it was so bad. I remember I'd have to take the batteries out. I think I dropped it, but had to take the batteries out, put the batteries back. And as soon as the batteries popped in, I had to press the power and record button at the same time to that way to get the color natural looking because I dropped it and broke it. So it would alternate between pink and blue and green. The color, it was super weird, but obviously that kind of led into, me wanting to design my own computer. And I started off designing a gaming PC, a super long time ago. That's what I worked on apple products. And I went back to PC, I designed gaming PC, probably a couple of years ago again. I just grew up in technology, I'm 31 years old, obviously, I think, I got to see all the technology from zero to evolution where we're at now. So I think it's really hard for somebody my age to grow up, with all this technology and to not, be entertained or to be excited by,

I think that's fascinating I don't know, maybe that's a tech minded person. Everybody, I know, that I hear that's super an attack. I remember Craig talks about taking apart computers. I read Edward Snowden's book and he talks about taking apart computers and putting them back together. I think that's so neat. I don't know if you're the same BJ, you're probably like, I am I look at that and I'm just like, huh? What is this magic box?

I have tons of respect for the hands-on technical people like Blake and Craig and Jonathan who likes to get in there and try to build computers and stuff. I'm sure it would be interesting if I learned it, but I am on the other side of things. I like to find out, I like to ask the philosophical questions, like how does this work?

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense completely. And then another thing about Blake. you guys probably don't know, but Blake is our watch a fishy and auto. He is absolutely obsessed with watches. tell us a little bit about that, Blake. How did you become obsessed with watches? What happened.

I don't know obviously it's so important to keep progress throughout your day, so I always had a watch. You have to keep up with eyes before cell phones existed. You had to keep track of your day what you were doing. It started for me as a weird hobby. I was working on a job site. I used to help my mom with construction and laid tile and all that, a really long time ago. But I was taking a little break from work and I look in the windows feel of this vacant apartment that we were working on. And I found a watch. It was a gold stainless steel, two-tone watch it wasn't Invicta so don't get too crazy excited, it was probably worth, around $150. There's a score, so I wore that for a while. And then I just kinda got fascinated with computers and stuff, technology, just the crash and shift, behind it. And then I moved from quartz watches, battery powered watches to mechanical watches.

How do you watch it? Keep the time?

I don't even have an answer to that question. But there's a combination of balancing rotors, hair Springs, mechanism that essentially are fine tuned to produce an accurate watch. So the normal courts, which is a battery powered watch is, usually 0.2 seconds, accurate per day. And then some of the mechanical and automatic variations of watches can be as little as 10 seconds plus, or minus a day through the combination of Harris Springs. But during the eighties, there was this huge crisis once technology started advancing and battery powered watches became a thing. it almost turned the Swiss watch industry, because technological progression of audiology and timepieces but then swatch came back everybody's probably had a swatch but swatch came back and revived it and they bought some of the movement manufacturers swatch bought omega, which is, one of the bigger watchmaking names. And yeah, they bought some of the movement manufacturers because swatch was selling crazy watches, crazy amounts of watches. So they pretty much own everything right now. It's very much a conglomerate industry. There's three players, there's swatch group. Then there's LVMH, which also owns Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy. And then they own tag foyer and they also own yeah, I think they own Zenith not the TV company, but the watch company. And then they also own huge blow. And then there is Reshma, which owns all the big boys, JLC they know an IWC they own Panorama, which I really liked and wri. But yeah, it's just a huge conglomerate industry.

Do you draw any parallels between computers and watches.

Yeah. So obviously as battery powered watches are prevalent. If you think about apple and smartwatches. You essentially have computers on your wrist. And I think that's a great opening door. People will buy an apple watch to track their health or to track their activity or whatever. And then they'll put grass into mechanical or automatic watches, which, are digital at all. There was no digital aspects to them at all. And then it goes back down to more artistry. I think people who own watches are going to be similar to people that actually hang paintings or commissioned paintings in their house, because it's all about artistry and, some watches now they have what they call exhibition case bags. So you can see through the watch and you can see the mechanism, the movement working.

That sounds like my kind of entertainment.

Oh, yeah. I could see and that'd be day.

Yeah. I like to see how things work.

Did you guys, either one of you listened to the podcast S town? If you like podcasts at all? Which obviously do cause you're on one. But this one's called S town it's by the same people that did cereal. And the main guy that's in the story, he's this eccentric guy named John from Alabama, the small Alabama town, but he has this brilliant, absolutely brilliant mind. And he was One of the great. All of the watch makers or the maybe more like clocks, I think, than watches. But anyway, they would come to him for help on fixing, watches or timepieces in general. Cause he just had this brilliant mind for it. You should check it out. It's really a good one.

That sounds amazing. I think there's a lot of similarities between a computer and a watch, obviously there's a lot of digital components and a computer, and there's a lot of mechanical components on a watch, but the kind of on polar opposite to the spectrum. Some watches will have as much as 200 or 300 different components and side of it to make it function. And then in computers, it's just much larger scale, you think about a computer, it's a desktop or a laptop. You don't really need a microscope to work on a computer. It's nice to have it. If you're working online, Mike, transistors or something like that. But it's the total opposite for watches. You need a loop to work on a watch because everything is so tiny and you have to work with tweezers, to assemble a watch of the kind of polar opposites of the spectrum. But obviously one's mechanical and one's totally digital.

Okay. So what is the difference between just a standard watch that you can get for 50 bucks, at CVS versus a Rolex or whatever, your favorite kind of watches obviously there's a big difference, but what is it? I know it's mastery, I'm guessing it's some sort of almost artistic, I would imagine

yeah, as you start spending money more money and watches, then you start to get higher quality components, right? So if you look at Casio, for example, there's something that everybody knows, everybody knows tasks or G shock or something, but, If you buy a Casio or G shock, usually you're getting some type of silicone and some type of plastic. The thing that covers the actual minute and second hands is usually acrylic. And of course you get a battery powered watch. Which is usually cheaper. But as you start spending more money, and I guess Rolex is probably the most known. But you start to get watches that are made from stainless steel, Rolex, for example, has their own proprietary blend of stainless steel. And then, you get, instead of an acrylic Window to look through the watch. I guess that's the best way a crystal is what they call them and the acrylic crystal you start to get a Sapphire crystal. So it's scratch resistant when I was in Turkey, and I was going through the watch shops and they would demo a watch, maybe oh, look, it's Sapphire, crystal. And they would take a little sharp screwdriver and just poke the heck out of it and try and scratch it. So yeah, you get, a Sapphire crystal, which is resistant to scratches, and then of course, you start getting the movement. So not only can you get application, but you can get finishing. So for example, a chronograph watch most people would probably seen them, but they have little three sub dials is what they're called. And then they have the main time function. So you can measure units of time and multiple different units of time. So if you're going on a lunch break or whatever, you can turn your central current graph and then track, that 15 minute time, meanwhile, you're tracking the hours and minutes of the day. But as you start going into a Rolex and these higher 10, 20, $30,000 watches usually it comes back down to finishing. So they have different ways that they can finish a movement. Whether it's a pearlized or I think they call it Cotes de Geneve, which is a striping pattern. And all of that finishing is all done by hand. So some watch manufacturers will buy a movement off the shelf and then they'll take it apart and then they'll refinish it and then they'll reassemble it and put it in a watch. But those are the things that, as you start spending more money you just get more quality, more attention to detail. One of my friends Derek, he's even more nerdier about watches than I am. But he has a website where he takes microscopes. I dunno, what magnification now, 20 times or 30 times or 50 times. And he'll take pictures of the printing on the dial or the components or the patterns and the finishing. And when you put a watch under a magnification system, you can really start to see the attention to detail that's what you're paying for. You're paying for attention to detail craftsmanship in artistry.

It's funny when you said that it actually reminded me a little bit. I remember a few years ago. More than a few years ago now, probably more like 10 or 12, but I went to a optometrist just to get my eyes checked. I have brownish greenish eyes and he said it was striped, almost like a tiger. And he was kinda telling me just about how different irises look when you were telling me that it just reminded me of that. So I just thought it was funny because sometimes art does imitate life, even if it's not necessarily on purpose. But it also sounds like you and Putin might have something in common, Blake. sounds like Putin really likes his expensive watches too. What was that article you showed us today?

Yeah, no. So Putin is a huge collector of watches. And I was joking when I mentioned this, but somehow we're talking about it now, but Switzerland has been pretty neutral and that's what's the biggest watchmaking region in the world. Of course, right there with Japan and Germany is now becoming a part of the map, the triangle China, of course, but anyways, Switzerland has always been a pretty neutral state, And so when Switzerland I think they banned the export of luxury products, which of course includes leather goods and watches. There's the holy Trinity of watchmaking is what they call it. The biggest three watchmakers in the world is JLC AutoMark reggae and Rajaraman. Watchmakers respect those brands and an automobile pay gap. There was a boutique. I don't know how much inventory they had, but the FSB rated the boutique and took millions and millions of dollars of, time pieces. And I was joking cause I was like, oh, Putin's collection grew, even larger, cause he's got some of the most rarest watches in the world. Hootin does. he's got watches that have been made for him, special issues, one of Y

What you're saying is that the reason the restaurant army is doing so pitifully is because Putin has an addiction to watches.

I don't know.

No. I know I'm just kidding, but it does sound like he took some money from the military and gave it to himself,

I don't know about the military, but I wouldn't be surprised if those time pieces somehow ended up in his hands. I wouldn't be surprised, but Hey, I don't know, but I think it's funny that all of this is happening. There's a lot of wealth and Moscow, I wouldn't be surprised if those millions of dollars of tied pieces somehow ended up with him. I don't know. Maybe not, who knows.

guess we'll find out or we won't and that's okay.

Probably not. It's interesting to see what is happening on the global stage and then, how it relates to what's happening internally, in Russia, so it's hard for them, in my opinion, to keep up with what's happening in terms of the sanctions how can they bite back? You know what I mean? And this seems one of another way that they can, I don't think it's going to hurt, AutoMark a gay I don't think it's going to destroy the Swiss watch industry. But, the average watchmaker has anywhere from 40 to 60% margins on their products. So if they see let's just say, for example, it seats $5 million worth of products. It could have costed AP 2 million, it could have been a $2 million hit to them, but it might happen to other brands, so Reshma, which owns, a ton of brands they might start getting big, I don't know if they've closed all their stores, but they own companies like Montblanc, which makes pans, luxury pans. If you ever want to spend $600 on a pan, just go to Mount Blanca or, things like that. They own JLC, like I said, they own Panorai, which I have two Panorai watches. I would be interested to see how this pans out in the future for watchmakers and for the sanctions, cause there's only so much that they can do, by back at least from my perspective. another thing I heard too is they're prohibiting companies from exiting the market. I don't know if this is actually factual, but let's just say for an example, shell or BP owns a certain percentage of a Russian oil company or this or that. I do know that the Russian stock exchange closed for a period of time. I don't know if they're still open or if they're still operating. But they were prohibiting these Western companies from exiting those trades, so if they had 10% in stock of said company, they weren't allowing. These Western companies to sell their shares of that company. You know what I mean? So essentially they were saying, Hey, look, if we're going to take a loss, you're going to ride with us,

Basically what happened there then is that because Switzerland was like, no, you can't do this. And they put sanctions on Russia. Russia is then we'll take your watches.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's how it happened. It's definitely interesting to me to see, what's going to happen in the future, especially for the other luxury brands. And I know technology is as forefront now and it's going to be interesting to see what happens with these other tech companies. But yeah, it was just a snap back. What else can they do?

that sounds very Putin.

Yeah. And I think it's ironic, he's probably got one of the craziest, watch collections, from what I've heard, in the world.

I bet.

And of course, it's all speculative because, he doesn't show his wealth, he doesn't want his wealth to be shown. In the official documents, of the government they're like, oh, he lives a modest life and this and that. because on paper, I think they only show him owning a hundred thousand dollar. They say a salary is a hundred K or something. And then he owns a relatively small apartment in St. Petersburg.

then a 1750, 50,000 square foot home. It says it's 17,691 square meters.

Are you talking about the palace, the sochi palace? Oh, gosh. It's all speculation, right? One of his biggest critic Alexey Navalny made a documentary on, the palace and they talked about that, they talked about all the evidence that shows the, he owns this house through a chain of holdings. And I think a lot of his wealth is held by his closest confidant, but who knows, this is all speculation. But they did a pretty good job at it. What seems like it linking it all together

Yeah. There's no way this guy lives a modest lifestyle. Come on. Let's be real here, but he's a strong man. That's what strong men do. Quote unquote man.

and some of the documentary I watched it pretty recently They got diagrams of the palace and they showed the layer of the palace, the skews and this and that. And they showed some of the product catalogs, the vendors that supply furniture to the estate and stuff like that. And yeah, they started looking up some of the products and stuff, because they were so expensive. They didn't even publish the prices, of course, I'm talking about 30 and $60,000, couches.

Yeah. this says the estimated cost is 956 million, $832,500. A billion dollar palace

That sounds like about the same price as the house that no gates got in some ocean front thing, that it was a beautiful home and he tore it down. And I guess he's completely remodeling it right now, but I think it was around that price tag somewhere around there.

at least he's open about it.

So he says he doesn't own it. Actually. He denies owning it.

he's not a government official, I guess is my point.

No, they all fit the same kind of bill.

Honestly though I think it's more insidious when he's clearly siphoning money, public funds. And then that's what I was saying about the military. Yeah. This was the same in the military though. Russia is supposed to have this big, amazing military and, everybody thought that they would have Ukraine by that weekend, two, three days and it's still going on, and that's because they weren't doing what they're supposed to be doing, but he likes to build this facade. I hear what you're saying.

Aren't some of the leaders of NATO. In the billionaire yacht club? I think it's a communal disease. It seems like they run in the same circles. I recently found out there's something called billionaire bay and it's been there since a while back, years and years and years, an actual place that is called billionaire bay that I guess a lot of them frequent.

I've never been there myself.

I never heard of it until recently, but

I only have $999 million.

yeah. It just all seems ludicrous. When you think about the fact that there's children at borders and refugee camps and, homeless veterans and things like that. Whenever I don't think any of our politicians live modestly, but so when you think of it, homeless veterans is a real problem. So then it just all seems a bit insidious.

I think Bernie was pretty modestly. Other than that, I think you're probably right. He's got the three homes, but they inherited them. I'm just joking, but yeah, it's definitely a problem.

there's this application that I've been getting into pretty recently actually has a lot to do with insider trading. I don't want to say the name on the podcast, but I'm sure you guys can literally just Google, insider trading and figure out which application I'm talking about. But it shows you the large movement of. And how for example, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, or how some of these people are buying and trading their stock it shows you how their money is moving, in the stock market. So you can see, for example, Nancy Pelosi, when she makes a large order or a large cell or a call option, a put option or whatever on a huge trade, so yeah. I really does expose some of these insider trades, and these people obviously, going to make them money. They are good. Politicians are good and making money good at investing.

When you're writing laws, what's going to benefit in the future and what's not going to your right when you actually writing things into law, I guess you would have a unique viewpoint as far as what to invest in.

Yeah, I agree. it should not be allowed. The fact that there's so. much money in politics. It's ridiculous.

They're all pretty wealthy. It seems so they're doing something, right? Huh? I guess how you define it, wouldn't it be nice if there was an algorithm that sorted it all out. Truth algorithm.

Sorted it out by how?

Just exposed everything, and categorize it using, how AI is so good at pattern recognition. Wouldn't it be great if there was a truth algorithm that sorted through all activities and all data and just categorize it all and looked for patterns and then put out an analysis. And here's the objective patterns that have been found? It would just probably be jaw-dropping.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

It would rock us to the core as far as the collective reality belief system and everything. You would probably force us to just reevaluate everything. We considered to be truth and society would have to rock bottom, and then rise up.

I wouldn't be surprised. I'd be surprised at the people that didn't do it.

So much worse than we realize though,

Yeah, I try to put myself in a situation sometimes because I can be a little bit critical of that, but it must be really difficult to know this information and not do not act on it. You know what I mean? That's gotta be a really hard thing to resist. And I think that it should be illegal

Because power corrupts, it's a natural phenomenon that power corrupts. So just by a law of following a scientific process of deduction process, if power corrupts, then the only people that can successfully hold power are people that are incorruptible. that's just a black and white, if power corrupts, then you would have to be incorruptible.

Yeah. I don't know and then it seems like they set everything up and then, politicians seem to be really good at gaslighting and twisting the narrative.

Yeah. I won't name any names, but I don't know how I got on some political mailing list. Then I get the most absurd emails that are just fundraising and blatant lies. And I'm like, wow, I don't understand this. Cause these are like real big world figures. And it's blatant lies. Using automated email software because we're familiar with automated marketing software and pretending, like it's a direct message to me only, and actually saying that, and it's a bold face lie. We know you're using automated software and you have no idea who I am and telling me I'm one of the favorite contributors and that's not true. I've never contributed to your campaign. You know what I mean? So it's just lies.

There's a lot of dirtiness that goes on and, as you like to say BJ it's not sustainable. When is it going to change? We don't know, obviously. But

Whatever that algorithm does. It's report, hey, but fun facts. So Blake you'll find this interesting Mr. Watson guy. I was asking Google assistant. When you were explaining about watches, how does a watch keep time? So here's an example about the court's clock. It says inside a court's clock or watch the battery sends electricity to the court's crystal through an electronic circuit. And then the courts, crystal oscillates, vibrating, back and forth at a precise frequency, exactly 32,768 times each second.

I do know some quartz watches, for example I think it's below blah, blah, blah, something like that. I'm not huge. I don't have any other time pieces or anything, but they have what they call a Metro courts or it's a higher vibrations per hour. And they use a larger battery. So the most suitable way is if you see a moving second and it's thick, you used to watch at school, the seconds hand, just take. And there's a constant pause in between it. That's usually an indication that it's a battery powered watch versus an automatic or mechanical watch usually has a constant motion of sweeping hand a constant sweeping hand But I've looked at the back of some of mine and I've noticed there seems to be a little wheel that has a little hammer that stops, it moves every second. It's a regulator. I think it's a minute regulator or something. I'm not too familiar with all the parts, but if you look at a mechanical watch, this insane.

I can't imagine the skill level. I've always known that watchmakers and especially watch repair people. It must be highly skilled, but when you start looking into the details, it's wow. And then to talk on your point, Blake, about smartwatch technology, building on top of something that's already so amazing. So it seems impossible to have that amount of action, happening in one little watch, right? 32,000 oscillations per second. That already seems impossible, but then added on top of that. You have these smartwatches now, that can not only tell time, but then also perform functions, and be aware and stuff. And it's wow. In one tiny little thing on your hand,

Then, if you look at apple, with their EKG. With the newer apple watches, you can put your finger on the crown of the watch, which is a pulse point for your heart. And it'll actually read the rhythm of your heart and tell you if your heart is beating normally,

Yeah, really neat. I have a Google smartwatch of gen six watch that has the Snapdragon 4,100 processor. And it's the newest processor. And I can program it to monitor my heart rate constantly 24, 7 it's monitoring my heart rate. And then this has one of those blood oxygen readers. So it does it by sending small beans over. To analyze the color and movement of your blood sales.

I've noticed when I take off my smartwatch, there's a little green light on the back and I figured it did something crazy like that.

It sends beams of light into your body basically to get a reflection back of color and movement of your blood cells. So it's basically using its laser light to create some type of a mirror effect so that it can then read, what it's looking. That's so phenomenal to have that on top of watch technology. Wow. If you were to show someone this watch from, 2000 years ago, they would probably fall on their faces and think it was Dawn or something, cause if you think about it from a different perspective, not from what we know today, this seems some type of a miracle that this is possible.

And you know what the, biggest miracle of all is the fact of times not even real..

It's really just tracking the movement of the sun, right? Because the way watches work is just oscillations and it's a ring, a 24 hour ring moving, they used to use the megalithic structures and the sun dials and sun disks to tell time. It's really just tracking the procession of, the sun different celestial bodies.

Yeah.

What do you mean when you say time isn't real?

Time's out real. It's a construct. It's not real. I just read a whole book about it.

Wow.

wasn't Einstein that discovered that?

Time is a sequential order and then it's passing. And so that's real. Cause you can track that, but I guess what's not real about time is your consciousness and how you experience it because that's relative.

Yeah. time is relative and it's a construct.

it's definitely trackable.

Yeah, obviously. I don't know. Like I said, I read about it and I understand what they were saying, but I don't quite understand enough where I can explain it fully.

We experienced time, fundamentally it may not be real.

I think what they're saying is that it's basically as opposed to actually time being real or a uniform, it's more that we are moving towards what we perceive to be entropy. And it's experienced differently. There's nothing uniform about it, if you go into a black hole or other planets that are far away, time will slow down or speed up. So you could age 20 years on earth but it's only three seconds on a different planet because that time is experienced.

So if you think about it, for every 24 hours, the earth rotates the sign one time, therefore time does physically exist, but it's just a measurement.

But it's different though. Cause not really because for example, on earth or on any planet, right? A meter when you're measuring something, right? A meter is the meter, but a second, not a second, you experienced it differently depending on the gravitational field and all of this other stuff. so it's a little bit different than other forms of measurement because it is relative.

What about speed then?

can actually change. We can change time. Yeah. Again, I don't understand it enough to explain it here, but let me see what that book was. Not that you guys don't necessarily have to read it, but it was written by, I think a physicist. that's fun. It's just fun to think about that kind of stuff. the order of time by Carlo Ravelli. What was really neat? I wish I could explain it, but I wasn't planning on talking about it, so I apologize.

it makes sense, but yeah, I guess this is hard to argue. Especially me loving watches so much, I looked down at my wrist and it's the one measurement that I live by.

Because of how relative it is though, because we all experienced it differently. You could take your watch to another planet and you could see it's only taking by, but nothing really happens.

If it's an oscillation then yeah. It is relative in that way, because it's only needed as long as oscillation is needed, right? Entropy has, or I don't think we're approaching entropy. Entropy has been around since the Dawn of creation. I think what we're approaching is a maximum sustainability of entropy actually has to die down because it's unsustainable, there's only so much entropy that can fill space and time before you have a reverse big bang. But if the oscillation itself was to stop because entropy would be reduced to where things are sustainable and don't entropy is like a driving force, but it's like a dog biting at your heels type driving forces, not necessarily pleasant. So if that can be stopped and we can reach a point of silence, or non-movement being stilled where we don't need the oscillation anymore, moving us forward because we've reached a climax of some sort. Then I guess the relativity of time could then make time as non-existent at that point.

Yeah. Even if you're looking at somebody you're not looking at what's happening, instantaneously. Because even though it's a small amount, when you're next to somebody, a small amount of space, you can never see what's happening to another person or another thing

Oh, yeah, that's a key concept when it comes to quantum mechanics. You're not seeing what you're seeing. When you look at someone is the output of all the processes that are taking place behind the scenes. And it's not an accurate portrayal of what's really going on behind the scenes. Only from a quantum perspective where you get to the subatomic level, could you actually see accurately what's happening there? And the processes themselves are at that level. We're seeing the output and yeah, it's definitely not a correct representation.

As I was listening to the book and finishing it up, I was like, I need to relisten to this because it's so dense. And I listen to audio books. So I'm like, I need to listen to it again. But one thing that he says, I want to take note of it the next time I read it. But in the very first, the opening of the book, he talks about this one. I don't think it's an amoeba, but it's something similar to an amoeba and it's in the ocean and it doesn't see anything. It can't see anything trying to pray on it. it doesn't even really sense. It just happens to since entropy and where. It's safe. So it's almost like it just senses things. And then the way that he explained it, he brought it back around to us because we can't explain time, but obviously time goes on when somebody passes away, they're gone. When a moment has happened, it's over. So it's not necessarily move will not point, but what it made clear is that we are missing something as human beings, right? There's some big piece of this puzzle that is time and that is quantum physics. And that is life and reality that we just aren't seeing.

Yeah, we've been operating from a complete 3d perspective and we've completely been operating without awareness of the quantum mechanics that are the underlying foundation to everything that's in reality.

And he talks about that too, about the 2d versus 3d, 40 and all that stuff. It's fascinating.

Ancient philosophers that said, if you can find the point, you can understand all of creation because one day 2d, 3d 45 BM, and it all starts with one point. And then it elevates from there, a pattern like quantum extremes, you can picture a dance and it starts at a point.

Okay.

And at one point is the missing link.

Oh, that's really neat to think about it. You always give me stuff to think about. BJ. I love talking to you because it just makes me think, but that's a really good point. No pun intended.

Yeah. No pun intended.

maybe a little bit.

do you have an apple watch?

Yeah, I do.

Okay. I'm not a watch person and I'm not a jewelry person, but I love working with AI. And so I was thinking about trying to get an apple watch because I have the Google smart and I'm like, oh my God. And I had an Alexa halo view band, but I really want to get an apple watch just to have that one as well, just from the AI perspective,

Yeah. It's literally apples or oranges,

Another pun not intended.

yeah. It's just a different operating system. I've seen Johnathan's I think he's got a Samsung watch, a gear Samsung or something. Actually, when I was in his sample waiting I was in the assemble last week. I was waiting in line next to this guy. He had it LG smartwatch and it was actually a hybrid. And so there was a mechanical aspect of it and there was a digital aspect of it as well. So now you can see hybrid basile group owns a watch company called Scoggin, which is a Danish design, minimalist company. And so it functions on your wrist, like a court's power watch, but then there's also be there was talking about light emitting technology so it can measure and other different types. I think there's a gyroscope in there or something where it can measure your steps or there's companies that are better making those now. And even luxury companies are making visual, smart watches for example, Hugh blow made a watch for FIFA so they could measure time. And I think they could record different game functions, if I'm not mistaken.

Wow. This one that I have, it's actually made by fossil and I got the rose gold band and I'm not into fancy stuff, I don't have any luxurious things at all, but I got this one simply from a scientific perspective, because I feel like the materials of this are very conductive, for what my purposes are, but it's really neat. It has sensors for gestures. it takes a little bit of learning because I guess each watch each device has the software loaded into it. But for that software, in that one device to become good at performing functions, it needs practice. But this watch has the ability turn my arm into a computer basically. So I can use it as a mouse. I can scroll by flicking my wrist one way, scroll the other way by flicking my wrist, shaking my wrist to exit. And then I can actually select things by pushing down on my wrist, as if it was a mouse.

You can actually write, it turns to text on an apple watch. So if you're texting somebody, there's a bottom portion of it where you can just drag your finger across and the words, so if you're typing app or circle or zero oh, you can just run your finger in a circle and it'll type it out for you. Or you could do a, for a sports text But, as a watch guy, there's a lot of people that saying these types of instruments are destroying the watch community somehow. And I don't really think about it like that. Obviously it's going to be an entry door for a lot of people, into the hobby. I guess this is unrelated, but related, but if you look at everything everything that is not digital, digital technology moves is this value so quickly. computers technology, if you want to see some dated things, just look at technology, look at cameras from five years ago, 10 years ago that were barely shooting HD. And now they're shooting 4k 6k, 8K yada, yada.

TVs, 4k TVs and now there's eight K.

So if you look at technology has progressed so quickly in such a small period of time. But if you look back now, if the mechanical things that are retaining their value. If you look back Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona, which was designed and it was probably designed, I don't know, maybe in a sixties or something. Was auctioned off for I can't remember it was millions of dollars that it recently was auction for. That's the reason why I think about watches a lot. Most people don't understand, my obsession with watches, but, we get such accustomed to buying technology, whether it's headphones, computers, TV, telephones, and those things immediately lose their value. When you go to trading your phone for your next phone, you paid a thousand plus dollars for this phone and now you'll get a hundred dollars for it. But, when I buy a watch holds this value really well.

It's a keepsake too. It was some things built that masterfully, it's built to last. it is going to outlast us all

they're designed to be passed down, I think it was the Rolex marketing kind of put a spin on where it's this, isn't a watch that you're designed to keep this, that this is something that you're designed to take care of until the next generation, that's the marketing ploy on it. But it's true. It is. And not only that too, I get in trouble every time I buy a watch. I probably have maybe 60 or 70 watches right now and maybe 70 plus, I've got a case of 30 watches. That is full. And then I have it saved where, all my other luxury pieces, which there's probably another 35 or 40 watches in there. But I think about it as a way of parking money not spending money because of that. Because of that mechanical aspect of it. With the right amount of research, and you can find the right time, he's at the right price and automatically gain value immediately. And another example is the watch that I picked up last week I paid around $260 for it, and these things are trading now upwards of three to $4,000

Wow. That's a really good return on invest in it.

good return on investment. Let's talk about smart devices in the home because as you guys know, I have the smart home and my smart home. For some reason you would think my electricity bill would have went up, because of adding these extra devices as well. My electricity usage has reduced by 30% month over month. Yeah. Interesting. I don't know how that's possible

if you have so nest, for example, I believe in a smart home to a degree, but not entirely.

Are you talking about the thermostat?

Yeah.

The one that I don't have cause I rent this house. And so I don't want to mess with their thermostat, so that's the thing that would make sense if my electricity went down. So the nest thermostat, but I don't have that. I have all just, devices.

Do you have it where it turns off the lights automatically and things like that.

No. Cause I'm trying to teach it to get real sharp with voice commands. So I do it all by voice. So I'm thinking that maybe we don't understand exactly how solar flares work and that there's a possibility that my power is being consumed less because maybe there's power from outside source. I don't know. 30% is a really big reduction and it's definitely not because of not running AC or heat because the weather has been consistent here. It's been heater weather every day, yeah, something's changed my consumption of electricity by 30%. So that's pretty big.

Maybe you've been working less.

Yeah. Stay on all the time. So no, that's definitely not. It. My devices are always on,

If you think about it, most people don't really put this into perspective, but laptops and computers consume a lot of power, just like televisions or washers and dryers. Gosh, you have no idea how much power dryer consumes. If you're drying your clothes and here and Tbilisi, nobody uses dryers.

I don't use dryers. either. I literally hang dry everything. I do. I. hang dry, everything. I'm obsessive about this. I hang dry everything. And then when it's almost dry, then I throw them in the dryer for a couple of seconds or maybe a minute or two to fluff it up. And my clothes stay so fresh doing that. It consumes less energy and it also makes your clothes last longer.

I had no idea. Obviously, I spent a good portion of my life abroad and overseas and in different countries, I had a dryer, it was a washer dryer hybrid unit. So it would wash the clothes and then it would also drive app, kind of weird, but.

What the washer turned into a dryer.

yeah.

We want to get one for our boat. We want to get one, something like that. I don't want It to automatically dry my clothes, but I do want to have a washer dryer combo. it

wasn't the typical ones that you would think about where they're stacked on top of each other, where you take your clothes out of the washer. this is one appliance and yeah, you just literally pay your Washington and then you flip it to the other side and then it starts drying them. And and yeah, I had no idea, here in Tbilisi, there's a lot of problems with smog, apparently they have a clean air problem. My clothes smell like the smog from a transit bus, a city transit. I think so. but you never think about that. I find it so hard to survive without a dryer.

Yeah, I could see that. That's hard and impossible. Look, I do like to have my dryer, cause I don't like it when your clothes get all crunchy when you hang dry them. Or you could even steam on Blake if you hang dry him and you don't like it. You could grab a steamer.

it made sense for you because your clothes will smell like ocean breeds,

no. my clothes smell like diesel because we have an old boat. Were in the marina. I do laundry literally every day And I hang dry. Every day and it's just small batches. So it's not all over the place, but yeah, once we're done, they do smell better, but they still smell like diesel.

I had a friend that I stayed with an Amsterdam for a while. and he would literally wash his clothes and buckets. He had a washer, had a dryer living in the center of Amsterdam.

Was it a bucket? I bought this washer right. For the boat and I stopped using it because my boyfriend's a surveyors though. It's just not quite enough for that, but it's a bucket. And it's got this little thing inside of it. The water goes through and you go oh yeah, you push it like up now. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. I know what you're talking about cause I got a little plunger and it spins it.

yeah, something like that.

He was just using straight up buckets I'm sure you've seen the big plastic buckets that kids would have for sand or sandboxes or whatever. And they were maybe five gallon book, plastic buckets. He would have them scattered across his kitchen and he would have his wife's in one color, he would have them all his colors separated. And then what he would do is he would take them out and he would bring them out by hand and then he regrets I'd hang up. I never thought about that. I can never understand why he did that.

I don't either.

there was annoying because time I'd have to go make breakfast or something, I stay with them for maybe a month or so.

You'd have to walk around the buckets?

Yeah. I'd have to jump around the bucket into the kitchen, and I just remember it so vividly, but. The things that you take for granted,

Yeah. I guess we should go ahead and wrap it up here Blake, thank you for letting us interview you. That was awesome. To get to know you a little bit better and understand why you love watches so much. And I don't think you're quite as bad as Putin, it is funny. You guys have that in common.

I would be happy to have a collection.

I would be too. And I don't even like, watch it. Like you do sell a lot, sell them all to you for a good price, Blake.

And I'd probably help you sell that take a nice commission.

All right, Let's do it. We just don't tell anybody, except for people listen to podcasts. How has it. All right. Thanks everybody for joining. Have a wonderful weekend. And don't get tricked today on April fool's day. Have a great weekend and oh, Monday I can't wait. We have a great guest on Monday, Noel from prevail. She's going to be awesome. So hopefully we get some people do any in for that, but yeah, you guys have a good one and we'll talk later. Bye.