Now That's Alarming!

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human The next 30 seconds could save you hundreds on your car insurance. At the Hartford, we're passionate about your protection. If you're 50 or over AARP auto insurance from the Hartford gives you benefits that really matter and you could say $597 when you switch. How's that for a little piece of mind? Visit TrustHeartford.com today. The Hartford, your protection, is our passion. The Hartford Insurance Group Inc. pays royalty fees to AARP for the use of its intellectual property. AARP and its affiliates are not insurers. Savings vary. When your schedule sounds like this. Are you kidding me? An oil change is the last thing you have time for. So drive into take five and let our texts change your oil, check your tires, top off your fluids, and head you back on the road, pit stop fast. All while you stay in your car. No putting your entire schedule on hold, no upsells, no problem. You can get back to your to-do list or not. Find your nearest shop at take5.com.

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2:01One ice coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way. Mmm. What a deal. Your new morning groove. Ice coffee from McDonald's, any size for just 99 cents to 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary, cannot be combined with any other offer. No, that's alarming. It's one more thing. I'm strong and getty. One more thing. You know, I know we're about to talk about alarm clocks, but the old, it's a sign filled joke. The number one mistake you make of the alarm clock is you get the a.m. thing wrong, right? You're sleeping, you realize you said it the other day, yeah. You said it for 6.30 p.m. instead of a.m. Surely AI can get involved in that at some point and say, are you sure you want to get up at 6.30 p.m. tomorrow? You've never gotten up at 6.30 p.m. before. So it seems unlikely. That would be it. You've never slept the entire day. I think you probably mean 6.30 a.m. Surely AI can take care of that in the future. What can it now on my iPhone?

3:01Why doesn't it now on my iPhone say, you're taking a nap for 14 hours? Are you really intending to sleep from 3 p.m. to 4.15 tomorrow morning? Really? Yeah. Yeah, that's an excellent point. Although sometimes you'll set an alarm for I will actually, if I'm playing golf the next morning and I've had a good practice session at all and I want to remember one particular thing or technique or something, I'll sometimes schedule it 10 minutes before I'm going to get to the golf court, golf course, an alarm that says, you know, whatever, you know, good tempo, whatever. So anyway, maybe someday they will have that breakthrough but as I was bitching about during the show they can't even get like periods in commas right or spelling or it's deaf. Siri is deaf. Siri needs a hearing test. Well, and my complaint always is, because I watch it all voice texted, it gets it right the first time,

4:01then changes it in gibberish. That's what confuses me the most. You heard it correctly, then changed it to something else. Why? You know, another gripe, which reminds me of a different thing, and this is, I realize this is like, I'm the only person on earth who is offended by this. But Apple, stop hyphenating so much. It's a thing, you don't want to hyphenate words unless you absolutely have to, especially names. Happened to me today, I was texting something and hyphenated the middle of somebody's name. It's, I mean, and the reason it flabbergasted me is that there's a long tradition of editing. In the English language, publications, books, magazines, whatever, even websites. And the rules are known, they're right there for the AI systems to learn. But for whatever reason, Apple is obsessed with hyphenating so stop. Which also reminds me of this piece I saw,

5:01or was that in the Wall Street Journal, the global elite of giving up on spelling in grammar, the Epstein Frecus, where all those communications were unearthed and released in the rest of it, probably improperly, but that's a story for another day. Nobody bothers to capitalize anymore. It's full, and these are like the elite of Wall Street. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And academia and science. I didn't notice that, that the situation sucks. There's misspellings everywhere. Incredibly, well, they're like the way I do it. Just incredibly relaxed. You just, which I'm fine with, but just get the words out, and yeah, I was super kind of surprised by that. I cannot send a text with a grammatical error. Oh, I'm the same way. Well, what do you call a grammatical error? Oh, and if I do, I feel regret, like I don't know, I accidentally ran over a cat with my car. Do I feel bad? What, what grammar, it depends on the grammatical error. Like I can't send a wrong version of there. Oh, that's funny. That's at the top of my list. I can't either. I regret it.

6:01Because I have people think I'm stupid, but I don't see any reason to capitalize anything ever again in my life. Oh, I capitalize everything. No, everything's capitalized. Everything's capitalized. Get rid of all the capitalized. Oh, well, why don't you just, why don't you, why don't you run around on all fours grunting? Huh? Gonna abandon your humanity? Civilization? I think that's fair criticism. Let's move on. I do no periods in my, my just long-screed. Oh, no. You can figure it out from the context. No punctuation. It's terrible. Yeah, I hate you. We all hate you. Yes. I, I sent the wrong two yesterday. I meant T-O-O, and I sent T-O. Yeah, I don't do that. I don't want to do that. Oh, no. And I, I jumped at the edit button. I was like, oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing like the AI bots who I talk to a lot, they can understand my endless stream of words with no punctuation perfectly fine. They know logically were the word with those things. They hate you too. They say, at least secretly hate me. Mm-hmm. But Apple is actually sad at AI stuff. Mm-hmm.

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9:03Can I be combined with any other offer? This week on point game with me, CJ Tolodon and Isaiah Thomas. We're doing a live Q&A and IT talks about what it was like playing for the Celtics while Emin is dead. Both grew up lifelong Lakers fans. Take a listen. I'm always going to be a Laker fan. That's just what I grew up on. So when I was in Boston, I was like, I don't know if you just can't say nothing Lakers. You can't say nothing L.A. That's the only downside of it. But it was like, at least my Kobe's was green. Like, that wasn't tripping it. You know, my Kobe's wasn't green. But I don't know. It's a weird dynamic. But I got love for the Celtics obviously. But I got real love for the Lakers. And I let that be known while I was there too. So that couldn't be that bad at me. I just was going for the Celtics when I was on the Celtics. The DraftKings sportsbook app now and use code point game. That's code point game to turn five bucks into 200 and bonus bets instantly. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER

10:03or 1-800-MyReset. New York. Call 8-778-HOPEN-Y or TEX-HOPEN-Y. Connecticut. Call 8-888-789-77777 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas, Wade your tax pass through may apply in Illinois. 21 plus in most states void an Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.DraftKings.com slash promos limited time offer. Bop bop bop. Let's just get back to the topic at hand, which is the fascinating history of alarm clocks. And more. We talked about this on the show of the podcast earlier, but we didn't get time to do it right in my opinion. First of all, alternative alarm clocks, including the sonic bomb for the deepest sleepers. It's unbelievably loud. It flashes bright lights, and there's this...

11:03It looks like a hockey puck. It's a bed vibrator. You tuck, I think, under your mattress, and it's so strong, it shakes you awake. So it's flashing lights, screaming sirens in your bed being shaken like it's the blitz in 1941. Well, I'm a light sleeper, so any alarm clock could just say, hey, it's time to get up. Be perfectly fine with me. I'd wake up. Not me. Shut up. And then we talked about this on the show, this alarm clock, the Pavlock Shock Clock, which I believe is a play on Pavlov's dogs. But anyway, this gal gets shocked with about 300 volts to her right wrist to get her up in the morning. That's weird. I would wet myself for one thing. Yes, so she wears like this, well, like a watch band to sleep at night, and she gets electrocuted to wake her up in the morning. She says, yes, like a... It's now, it's a six or seven on the pain scale,

12:03she said. It's somebody pinching you and not softly. Wow. Okay, so like I don't exactly know what 300 volts feels like, but I wouldn't call anything that's a seven on the pain scale minor. This all sounds like a way to just piss me off immediately at the beginning of the day. Start the day angry. Yeah. And wet, because I wet myself. Well, and that's... She sets hers at 75% of the maximum voltage at 300. It sounds terrible. It just sets it to 25, yeah. Oh, let's see. There's this other stuff that we talked about a little bit where you have to, when your alarm goes off, you take your smartphone and you have to scan a barcode like in your bathroom to show you're up and moving. Otherwise, otherwise, it donates your money to charity. I like that one. Yeah, it's kind of funny, man, I want to sleep in, but I don't want to sleep in 25 bucks worth. All right, I'll get up. How about if you set it to... It will booty call the next girlfriend

13:03if you don't get out of that money. Oh, God. That's the next one. I'm sure. That is a really good idea. You can set it for whatever amount of money you want, but there was one user who must have been crazy rich. Set it for $999, and it went off three times. Wow. They have the weird self-punishment thing like I have, not around our alarm clocks, but other things where I'm like, I feel like if I punish myself enough, I won't get it wrong. Which doesn't always work. Well, everybody's done the, like put the alarm clock across the room, right? Or something so you just have to get out of bed. And once you're out of bed, it's less likely you're just going to fall back asleep. Gosh, I miss the days of being able to sleep like that. Being like a heavy sleeper, I am not anymore. Being pregnant? I guess. I don't know. I wake up at everything. I used to be able to sleep through a concert,

14:03and now there's not a chance. Wow. Yeah. Sleep does change through life. It absolutely does. Yeah. Another wake-up app is Alarmy, which has roughly 900,000 daily users in the US. It gives you missions, such as doing squats, shaking the phone, or typing out motivational quotes before it stops sounding, to make sure you're awake. Wow. You have to do a math problem or something. So I can't just flip it off and go back to sleep. I have to do 10 deep knee bends, and that's definitely going to wake me up and off. How did I stay awake? How would it know you did 10 squats? That's a good question. Maybe it has the sensor, but yeah, I would just check it up and down. Yeah. Would you? Would you check it up and down? Yeah. First thing in the morning, every morning, it's like, you saw it. And this gal who says, she's motivated because her husband hates it. And so she's motivated to do it really quick and get up.

15:03Oh, let's see. All right, here we go. Yeah, but when the first alarm clock was like, how far back do alarm clocks go? Like mechanical ones, where you're winding up. It's funny, you should say that. I was just about to get into it. And I know how excited Michael is for this. I really am. It's reminded me of the alarm clock. Fascinating. Did I say fascinated? I'm an idiot. It reminds me when we were on vacation, we were driving through Idaho and we kept seeing billboards for the potato hall of fame. And I kept telling my kids, oh, only 300 more miles. This ranks right up there. The history of alarm clocks on the potato hall of fame. The potato hall of fame. Did you stop? No, I kept telling them we were going to and they would groan. Oh, no, you got your, you got like your hundred greatest potatoes of all time there, kids. Like that's a rocket. Oh, boy. Long before apps like a larmy, makers of alarm clocks recognize that some of their products needed a tinge of menace. Demand for alarm clocks took off in the late 19th century. Late 1800s. I was going to guess earlier than that, actually. Yeah, I think probably industrial revolution.

16:05Because before people would go to bed at dark and wake up at light, more or less, and do their stuff in the daylight. Let's see. Early models were named the Radler, the slumber stopper, and the tornado. The West clocks, Ciesto was advertised in the 1930s as having a second, more insistent alarm that went off 10 minutes after the first one. Good one. That's more or less the invention of the snooze alarm. Yeah. Yeah. Other long ago alarms lit a flame or made a pot of coffee. Oh, see, now we're talking. Oh, yeah. I tell you what, if you could fry up some bacon and make me a pot of coffee, that's the smell of that alone. I would, you know, float out of bed like a cartoon character or be on my way. That'll science on whether or not the snooze is a good idea. It's sleeping to the maximum time you can get up the best way, or is cutting 10 to 15 minutes out of your sleep with the snooze alarm the best way.

17:05You can make an argument for both. I've always used the snooze, but it does cheat you out of, you know, if you're deep asleep, 8, 10, 12, whatever you said it for minutes of deep sleep. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard scientists say, in fact, it's a practically universal that, no, you're better off not using the snooze alarm. It makes sense to sleep and then wake up. I just can't get up on that first one. No, I can't. The first noise, now I gotta jump up out of bed, I can't do it. It's not a question of sleep. It's a question of like emotionally. To me, I've got to ease into the idea of getting out of my nice warm bed and taking on the day. I gotta get psyched up for nine minutes or so. I can't face another day. Today, there are alarms that, wow, cry for help, cry for help. Today, there are alarms that turn off when the would-be snoozeers shoot a fake gun at a target or curl a small dumbbell. Oh, boy. Clocky, a wheel device that made its debut about 20 years ago, hops off a bedside table and beeps as it zooms around the room.

18:08I have to catch it. You had a clock in my pocket. I did. What did it work? Yes, and it was awful. Well, dude, you'd go try to pick it up and then because it's a box and it's got two big wheels so it can just change directions. Did you catch it? No. Like, groggy, it goes in between your legs. Oh, the amount of times I only chucked that thing. That is hilarious. Once I got it. What a great idea. Yeah, so I open talking about the, what was it called the alarm bomb or whatever that was a crazy loud one? Oh, the sonic bomb. 113 decibels. Yeah, to supplement the noise that has flashing red lights bedshaking puck for under the mattress or pillow. Even though it was originally made for the deaf and hard of hearing, it's really, it has a huge following among college kids said the marketing director. One user of few reads, I have a heart attack every morning, but it really wakes me up. Sleep doctors say that some amount of what they call sleep inertia is normal.

19:09Uh, blah, blah, blah. Uh, duh, duh, duh. So, yeah, it's sleep inertia. It speaks for itself. Let's see. It ends with Kinsey Small, a 31-year-old software engineer in Boston has been using a larmy for years. First thing she does in the morning is give her phone 30 vigorous shakes. Yeah, me too. Smacking it with one hand into the palm of the other. The shaking somehow gets me to that point where I'm awake. I know that I'm up and I have to go to work. I really do think this is the reason I still have a job. Yeah, some sort of physical activity like that. Would do it. There was a sleep hygiene article in the New York Times a couple weeks ago, like this is everything we now know about sleep. And, uh, one of the number one things they said for good sleep is to go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Yeah. And I've never done that. I don't do it on a Monday through Friday basis, let alone on the weekends. Um, but they said that is the best thing you can do for your sleep is to train your body.

20:09Same time every day. My dad's always done that. He's the opposite of me. He's always gone to bed like 930. He's asleep and he gets up at 430 or whatever. Yeah, I'm practically religious about it. But through the years, I've noticed that if you're like crazy, short out in sleep, it doesn't affect you much. Me, I'm psychotic. So I don't like the feeling of being sleep deprived. It's so miserable. That's part of the reason. I just, I get to 1015. I'm like, no, I'm going to bed. I don't know if I've ever not been sleep deprived. So I don't know what that would feel like. No, it's a blast. I push myself really hard on that, which will kill me early. No doubt about it. Probably the most unhealthy thing I do. Jack, there's no alarm clock in the grave. He says trying to somehow tie that dark thing together with the theme. How'd I do? Mailed it. How's this for an idea for an alarm clock? You hire somebody with an ice bucket and at 3 a.m., they just dump that water on you. Oh, crap. I probably would have a heart attack on that one.

21:10I would haul off and punch that person. Oh, yeah. If I don't die, we're fighting. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I would beat them hard. Yeah. It's both me and Buzz. I catch them in the salt charge. No holds barred. Yes. But you'd be awake. Yes. Do you know what? You're right, Michael. Well, I guess that's it. I'm losing an eye, but I'm awake. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. When your schedule sounds like this. Are you kidding me? An oil change is the last thing you have time for. So drive into take five and let our texts change your oil. Check your tires. Top off your fluids and have you back on the road. Pit stop fast. All while you stay in your car. No putting your entire schedule on hold. No upsells. No problem. So you can get back to your to-do list. Or not. Find your nearest shop at take5.com. Take five. The stay in your car. 10-minute oil change.