Record Runner (Patreon)

Here's a quick video about the Record Runner, that little VW van that drives around a record, both playing and destroying it at the same time.  However I know some people will be more interested to see that video features an increasingly rare appearance from the comedy outro puppets. If you just want to see the outro on it's own - here's a link to the video https://youtu.be/NvNPMlATA9g

 I also updated the merchandise with a new design of mug. https://teespring.com/stores/techmoan-merch 

I'd recommend watching it before going on to read the rest of this post that explains where the idea for it came from.

------Outro Spoilers Below-------

First I should mention that all the interactions you see with the smart speaker were real - this is how it actually responded at the time, it wasn't dubbed in later. 

The idea for this video came as I was watching Episode 1 of Series 2 'Hap and Leonard' on Amazon Prime. I asked my phone to Shazam a song being played near the beginning that I couldn't remember the name of. It was 'Let the Bass Go' by The D.O.C. I then tried to get my HomePod to play this because I thought it would be a good way to test the bass reproduction. 

However despite repeated requests I couldn't get it to play the track I wanted. It kept wanting to play AC/DC. I tried spelling it, shouting it, talking slower, quicker, sarcastically and in various accents, however the only way I could get it to play was when as a last resort I just asked for the track name without the artist. However when I tried this again later, it had never heard of the track again. 

This experience demonstrating the worst of the modern age, felt exactly like the kind of thing that the puppets should demonstrate. 

After this video - they will be back whenever another suitable situation arises.