and welcome to Connecting Hawai'i Business on Think Tech Hawai'i. My name is Kathleen Lee and I am your host for this program. Today, we will be discussing Kanoa Lani skin therapy, helping people with correct skin care. Thank you for being on the show today. Kanoa Sakai, who is our guest and welcome. Hi, thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Tell people about yourself, can I? Well, my name is Kanoa. I'm from Oahu.  I just recently got married two months ago, but I've been an esthetician for about 20 years now, but didn't start my own business until about a year ago. Okay, awesome. So let's talk about like very basic differences, right? There are dermatologists, which you mentioned, and then there are estheticians. What are the key differences, just so people have an idea or, you know, because I love going back to basics when it comes to the show? Yeah, well, the definite main differences that dermatologists are medical doctors. So it's a very big difference. A lot less school. They, we work well together, though, because estheticians are expertise is more non health related, you know, it's not life or death, skin conditions like skin cancer, we're not diagnosing anything. So it's pretty healthy, like mild to moderate skin conditions that we treat and then we refer out to dermatologists if we need to. Some estheticians do have a medical license. So some are nurses and so they can become medical estheticians through having a medical license and having specific medical skincare training. Or you can be a medical esthetician by having a medical director and working under a doctor. And so that's what I am. I'm a medical esthetician, not with my own medical license, but working with a doctor. And you have been an esthetician for almost two decades today. Yeah, it's weird. So tell us how you got into the business and what keeps you there? Why, like what prompted your interest in that sector? Well, it started with giving really terrible skincare advice in high school. For some people, for some reason people would always ask me for skincare advice and I thought I knew what I was talking about back then, but the interest is already there. I had good intentions. But I just went to school for aesthetics immediately after graduating high school and I just never looked back. What keeps me going is being able to help people with these skin conditions and help them to be more confident and feel better about themselves. I think that's great. So let's delve into your business. Canolani skin therapy. How did it start? It started because I took a long break from work during COVID and after I had my last baby and I just decided do I want to go back and work at a med spa and work for other people or do I want to try starting my own business? And you know for a long time because I've been in the industry for a long time, even when I was working for other people, people would always tell me like, oh, why don't you start your own? And I was like, oh no, the business stuff is not really for me. But I don't know, I just thought I'd want to not try it. And so I did and here I am. Great. So how's it going so far? How is the business going so far? Where are you getting your clientele? What types of inquiries have you been getting? Yeah, so most of it is it's all word of mouth. So referrals from current clients that are spreading the word to their friends and family, Instagram. I'm not a huge social media person but running a business these days, you kind of have to get out of your comfort zone and try it. And so I've been doing it and making some posts and I've been getting a really good response because my focus is a lot about like education. So I'm offering a lot of free information on my Instagram page. Yeah, I went through it and I was like, I did not know that. You had one post where you talked about Sunblock or sunscreen. You mentioned in there as well that you should wear it indoors as well. Can you go over that? Because with me, I feel like sunblock or sunscreen should be used when you're outdoors. And on top of that, I only apply what? Which is probably cringing inside. Very common. Tell us more about why sunblock is so important and why you recommend people to wear it indoors as well. Well, I think that generally people just know that sunscreen is something that we need to be wearing every day. We all know that we have to wear it every day, but it's not uncommon. Like you that a lot of people think that that's for when you go out.  But when you see all this like inside like I have right now or like you have right now, that's ultraviolet. Like coming in, it comes in through the windows. It doesn't, glass doesn't stop the ultraviolet rays. So it's still going through that. Another thing that people do is that they think they don't need to wear sunscreen when it's cloudy and overcast. Similar to the glass, the sun ultraviolet is still penetrating through the clouds. So you still need to wear it on cloudy rainy days. I'm nodding because I'm like, you need to make a note to yourself, Kathleen. So a lot of people do that though. And so that's why it's good to have an ascetician that can remind you. Yeah. What are some other not so well known tips that you want to talk about when it comes to skincare? A lot of it is about sunscreen because we know now that most of our, we say aging, but really it's just an accumulation of the sun exposure, the sun damage over the years. And so we know now that a lot of that is coming from the sun. It's not coming from other things as much as sun damage. So I really emphasize proper sunscreen use. So not just knowing when to put it on, knowing that you still got to wear it indoors. If there's light coming through windows, you still have to wear it on cloudy rainy days, but also how much you apply is really important because that's it. That's the most common mistake I see people making is they just put a little bit on their fingertips and that's not enough. You have to measure it out and you need to know how much sunscreen you need to use for your body and your, especially your face and your neck and decollete. Gotcha. Does, does SPF matter? And if so, how much? SPF does matter. 30 to 50 is enough. Anything more than that? Like people think that the, you know, if you use SPF 50 versus SPF 100, you're going to get double the protection, but that's false. It's really just a couple of percents more. It's not very much. And so as long as it's at least the SPF 30. Okay. Good to know. Because I think that whenever I get something that's SPF 80, that I'm more protected, and I don't even think of the amount of application or the number of numbers. So this is a good tip. So thanks. Yeah. So that's another thing that I think is dangerous about people who use a really high SPF because it gives them like a false sense of security. So they think, oh, well, I applied an SPF 80. So I don't need to reapply it every two hours. Like the bottle says because it'll last longer, but that's not how that works either. Good to know. Great reminder for me. And are you able to share a simple morning or let's do morning routine first. If you're able to share like a simple morning routine and possibly a simple nighttime routine as well. Yeah. So I think that the thing that I see people doing is they really want to focus a lot on these like specialty treatment products, but they're not, they don't have the basics down. Like they still are not cleansing their face properly. They're still skipping moisturizer. They want just like that one product that they use that they think is going to work a miracle, but really just having a good cleansing, moisturizing and sunscreen, just those three things. Having that down and being consistent every morning and every night will do a lot for your skin. Just sunscreen alone is going to do so much for your skin. And so you'd be surprised how many people are not cleansing their skin properly or enough or using makeup wipes and that's their cleanse. That's a big no-no also. That's not really cleansing your face. And so just being consistent with cleansing, moisturizing and using sun protection because most people are not doing that. And so I would recommend start with that first. And everything else I think seek a professional who can help you and guide you for what would be the best things for you. Got it. What about toner? Should toner be applied as much as moisturizer? No. Toner is not that you don't need it. It's that it can have benefits, but it's not that you have to tone. Like the old toners used to be more like full of alcohol and it would just kind of strip your skin. Or then they said that it was for balancing your pH for your skin. There's a lot of things that people said toners were for, but we don't really have those issues anymore because the cosmetic formulations are so much better now. Our cleansers are not as stripping. They're a lot more gentle. Not like the ones that we grew up with. And so we don't really need to use toner anymore. But some toners do have, like if you have acne, you might find a toner that has like salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide or something that can have a skin benefit for you. And so you can use one, but it should be optional. Okay. So it shouldn't be as frequent as moisturizer is what you're saying. It's more of an optional. It's an optional product. You don't need, I don't personally use a toner and I don't tell people they have to have that toner stuff in their regimen, but you always need a moisturizer. Yeah, I can see that. As far as your clients or the clients that you've been getting since you started the business, what have they typically turned to you for when it comes to learning more about proper skincare or correcting certain things that they feel like may not be working for them? A lot of times it's acne. I get a lot of people who see me for acne and also hyperpigmentation. And so just helping them find the right products and treatment plan for them. So with both of those, it really takes, it's a partnership with both of us working together. So I do my part when you come in to see me. And then you got to make sure you do your part because the stuff you do every day is really, really important. But everyday consistency is way more important than the treatment. So usually I don't even have people see me for corrective skincare professional treatments until they have that home care regimen down. I make sure that that's solid first. What is hyperpigmentation anyway? Just dark spots uneven.  And then when you see that darker skin tone, it's the hyperpigmentation. And so a lot of people, especially in Hawaii because it's lots of sun and we like to go out and spend a lot of time in the sun. So we see a lot of hyperpigmentation. Got it. Well, that makes sense. As far as making sure people aren't using abrasive products or measures on their face, what do you typically tell them? Usually I tell people not to try to create their own regimen for themselves and stay off of the skincare TikToks and Instagram. I know I'm someone who shares information, but I'm also a professional who, you know, you can come and see me and get specific advice for your skin. Because that's the problem with getting your information online is because it's not for your skin. What works for other people may or may not work for you and you can do a lot of damage. Okay, noted. I'm not going to keep up with my own thing, but I think that's good to know. It's basic, okay, right? If you're just doing cleanser, moisturizer, sunscreen, then it's okay if you look online. But if we're getting into the corrective skincare and the harsh products, like you said, I wouldn't go about that on your own. It's better to do that with some professional guidance. You had one tip on your account that talked about not having too warm of water when you shower on your face. Yeah, so hot water does a lot of damage to the skin because heat is a trigger for hyperpigmentation, but also the heat can damage your skin barrier. And when we have a destroyed skin barrier, we can see things like acne, eczema, more hyperpigmentation. Just everything in our skin doesn't really function properly if our skin barrier isn't healthy. And so hot water is a good way to ruin your skin barrier. Yeah, I didn't know that. I have a tendency to take hot showers. Yeah, and you know, and I tell people that's why I say if you like the hot showers, it's not great for your skin, not just on your face, but on your body too. We have skin there too. Let's not forget. So we don't want to destroy the barrier there either. But if you need it, I tell people don't wash your face in the shower because usually the water, most of the time that water in the shower is way too hot for our face. So I say wash your face at the sink, then you can turn the temperature down. And you do, a lot of people turn to you for like facial care, but your business is skin therapy. So that's the entirety of the body. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, talk to me more about that. Yeah, so I don't just treat the face. I treat the skin anywhere. So if you have hyperpigmentation or like body acne or any kind of skin condition, other areas of your body, I can help you with that too, as well as like stretch marks and scars. I can treat areas of the body with microneedling. And so yeah, I can do lots of things all over. Let's go into that. What are the other services that Canola Skin Therapy offers?  So even though we say facial, my facials includes aeroplaning and like a gentle chemical peel and things like that, that you wouldn't typically see in a facial. Otherwise I have some more advanced chemical peels. I usually don't start people out with that though. I start them with a facial or something a little bit more easy and then we can progress. But so there's a lot of room to progress into things that are a little bit more corrective as we go. Microneedling. So with microneedling, we can just do microneedling or I can infuse different products. Their prescription grade like stem cell, skin brightening, things that can help with hyperpigmentation that we can infuse with the microneedling treatment. I also do stem cell hair regeneration. So if you're losing your hair, microneedling is great for that. And I have like a specific product that I can infuse into the scalp to help with regenerating hair growth. That's great that you brought that up because I didn't even connect that, right? And hair growth. Going back to some of your services, you have like, I saw that you had like the lunchtime peel or what is a chemical peel and what does it do? Yeah. So chemical peels, there's so many, you know, they're not all the same. The only thing they have in common is they all exfoliate. And so the different types of chemical solutions, they have different pH, they have different molecular sizes. And so they penetrate to different layers of the skin. And so the deeper we go, we're affecting different types of tissue. And so we have things we call them superficial peels or even very superficial peels. Those help more with just like a general like very surface exfoliation. So your skin should just feel smoother and clearer, but we're not going to be really, you know, treating hyperpigmentation, like the deeper hyperpigmentation. You can see some brightening because we're removing the surface dead skin cells that have the pigment in it, but we're still not treating the deeper issue. And so we usually start with more superficial peels and then we can advance into more medium depth or deeper peels. Okay. Could you give us an example of one of the success stories that you've encountered since starting your business? Oh, well, I personally have fallen in love with treating acne. So I love to treat everything, but acne has like a very special place in my heart because I know how much it affects people's confidence. Like it really like people think of this industry as being like very like about looks. So very like superficial and just about how you look. But if you have a skin condition like an inflammatory condition like acne, it really affects your confidence and seeing somebody clear their acne, their personality changes. Like they just become more social and more talkative. They don't feel like they need to hide. And it's really nice to see that. So that's, you know, my biggest success is being able to help people in that way and just seeing how they just feel more confident and good in their skin. I love that. And you also offer tips on how to prevent or avoid acne. For sure. Yeah. All of my clients or patients that come and see me, they're, you know, they have my cell phone number in there. They have full access to all the information and I'm very happy to help them. That's cool. It's very cool. So let's go back to you know, how, why you started your business. What were the challenges that you ran into, especially since this is such a specific niche? Challenges. Well, first off is not really knowing anything about running a business and just figuring things out as you go. Also, you know, I'm not really, I mentioned that I wasn't like a huge social media person. And so just, my biggest challenge is just getting out of my comfort zone and putting myself out there and talking to strangers and promoting myself in a way that I never had to before because it's just me. Walk me through how someone would approach you and get your consultation and services. Yeah. So it's, I mean, I guess it depends on how you found me. So if you found me through Instagram, I would usually recommend that you go to my website to schedule an appointment. Before you schedule an appointment, it does say that a virtual consultation is required. And so I do them either on Zoom or FaceTime and we just talk for you know, about 30 minutes and we go over what your goals are, what your concerns are, talk about what you like and don't like about your skin. And then we go over like a good, you know, I try to give you a treatment plan, or at least where we start, I give you a good like, okay, we should start with this and give you your recommendations for home care and whatever your first treatment is. And then as we go, I can kind of give you a better idea of what we will do next. Okay. You also, well not also, you mentioned that starting this business and being successful in it has you, have you pushing yourself out of your comfort zone? If people wanted to follow in your footsteps and wanted to start a business on their own, what would you like to tell them? I would tell them that they, you know, as the first most important thing is this, you have to just be good at your job, you just have to be the best you can be at the skincare, you know, don't focus even though it's important to make good posts on Instagram or all the other stuff. If you're not good at your job, you're not going to be successful. You have to know the skincare, you have to know that first. So really invest as much and especially in the beginning as much time on just getting your hands on as much skin as you can do your whole family, your own friends, do everybody and you know, just practice, practice, practice and hopefully you will work for other people for a while because that is really good experience to get, you know, like different types of clients and work in different ways with different product lines and get more experience that way.  Yeah, but as far as skincare goes, like what, what else would you want to share aside from sunscreen and moisturizer? I really just think that more people should know that they should seek a professional to help them instead of getting their information online because a lot of the things that I am treating is coming from mistakes that people have made from advice that they followed from influencers or whoever online because it wasn't specific to them and not just that. I mean, you end up wasting a lot of time and money.  Instead, you should just see somebody who knows the ingredients and understands what your skin needs. So I think the Instagram and TikTok skincare advice should just, you know, be for fun and take it with a great assault. Now I'm curious, can you give like a short example of like someone that came up to you because they learned something online that made you go, that should not have been tried? I mean, it's just the wrong products. It's not usually anything. It's not anything crazy. It's just using the wrong products. It was a lot worse in the beginning. I think there are a lot of really smart, savvy people who are giving necessarily bad advice. It's just the wrong advice for that specific person who's trying it, right? It's not customized to their skin. So it's not crazy advice, but I mean, some old crazy advice would be like, you can use lemon juice or on your skin or baking soda as a scrub or you know, things like that. That was a lot crazier, older advice, but we're not seeing a lot of that anymore. That's great. Right now it's more just the advice is not appropriate for everyone, but they're presenting it like it is, like this is the best product or this is the best way to do it, but it's not always the best for everyone. So it's not a one-size-fits-all, like you mentioned because everyone has different types of skin. Yes. So yeah, if you could share one thing that you've learned from this adventure, this business that you are very versed in, what was it that you learned? Something I've learned about like the business side, running your business. It's a lot harder than I thought. I mean, I knew it was hard, but it's just, it's a lot of work to see that. It's a lot of work. You're just always, always working, but it's a good thing because it does force you to keep wanting to improve yourself and it forced you to grow as a person and as you grow as a business. So it's good and bad, but just be prepared to work hard if you want to start a business. Good tip. And if people want to get a hold of you or they want to reach you, where do they go? Instagram is great because you can always message me there and you can look at the content I have there. It's at Kanoi Lani Skin Therapy or you can go to my website. I have descriptions of the treatments that I offer and also you're able to schedule a consultation with me. It's that's what you want to do. And the website is www.ksthi.com. Thank you, Kanoi Sakai, for joining us today on Thanks at Hawaii's Connecting Hawaii Business. We appreciate you being here. So thank you for all the great tips that you share. I have more. So if you can visit your website, I think your number's on there as well. Yes. Thank you again. And thanks to Jay Fidel and the staff at Think Tech Hawaii for making programs like this possible. Today we had Haley and Mike helping us up until next time. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.


This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Rodrigo Smith Zapata, John and Becky Johnston, and Chris Benito. Coming up on DTNS, the AVXL folks are here to go over what we actually learned about TVs at CES, plus what you need to know about the story of an AI lawyer and the digital license plate hacks. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, January 10th, 2023 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. I'm Patrick Norton from the edge of the 314. I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. And Patrick's co-host of AVXL. Robert Herron is with us as well. Hey, Robert. Hello, hello. So, fine to see all of you right now. It is a lovely way to begin this new year. Let us start with the quick hits. Lots of Microsoft news today led by Microsoft's new text-to-speech generator called Vali. It's like saying Wali with an accent, v-a-l-l-dash-e. It can simulate a person's voice when that person records themselves saying a three-second text prompt. So you talk for three seconds, do the thing it tells you to do, and then it can simulate your voice. With varying results, but they're pretty good. Vali uses Meta's end codec to break down audio samples into tokens that it can use to match against training data that tell it how to make other sounds from that same kind of speaker. Microsoft has a website demonstrating how it does all this. It did not release the code, though. Also, SEMA4 reports that Microsoft is in talks to increase its investment in open AI by $10 billion. That would bring it to a 49% stake in the company. Microsoft announced it is acquiring a data processing unit fabricator called Fungible. In fact, it did acquire it in December. That'll probably be rolled into Azure infrastructure. And finally, Windows Central's Zach Bodin says Microsoft's next Surface phone won't have two screens separated by a hinge. They ditched that, and they're going to use a foldable screen. Buy with Prime is an Amazon service that lets non-Amazon websites and apps offer Amazon Prime benefits like free shipping and next-day deliveries. So if a shopper has an Amazon Prime subscription, they can get those benefits even when shopping outside of the Amazon. That's exciting, right? Amazon's already launched the service on an invite-only basis, but plans to expand Buy with Prime to all eligible US-based merchants by January 31. Merchants must have an Amazon Seller Central and Amazon Pay account to become eligible, and the goods must be stored with Amazon for fulfillment, which, by the way, is not free. Oh yeah, none of that's free. There's lots of things you pay Amazon for all of these privileges. The US Federal Aviation Administration has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will give US Airlines until February 1, 2024. So more than a year from now, February 1, 2024, to replace the equipment. We've talked about radals, but altimeters that don't properly filter out 5G signals. There's about 180 planes that need a full-on replacement in the US. Another 820 need filters installed. The rulemaking notice will take public comment for 30 days before it can be finalized. The FAA expects it to be finalized and go into effect, though. The older equipment is what has caused cellular carriers to have to modify their 5G service near some airports in the US. We've talked about that before. Microsoft ended support of Windows 7 three years ago but allowed some companies to pay for extended security support. That support ended today, January 10th. Stick a fork through the heart of Windows 7. Windows 7 will still work. Okay, maybe not stick a fork through the heart of it, but it will no longer receive security patches, so someone else can do that for you. Windows 8.1 also raises the end of support date today. Microsoft will not offer extended support for Windows 8.1, and I don't blame them one bit. I like how Microsoft, Windows 7, yeah, we'll let you pay for a couple of years extra support on that. Oh, Windows 8.1, you're the person still using it. Yeah, we're not going to do that. A study led by the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics published in the journal Nature Communications found that Russian disinformation campaigns on Twitter in 2016, so they just looked at Twitter. They didn't look at Facebook, but they looked at Russian disinformation campaigns on Twitter in 2016, and they found they reached few users and they did not find any evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to those campaigns and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior. The study found 70% of the exposures to the disinformation reached 1% of the users. All right, let's talk about AI lawyers. I'm just a simple AI lawyer, your honor, is what you will not hear them say, because they don't want the judge to really know they're using it. Here's what's going on. Back in February, Joshua Browder's Do Not Pay. This is the thing started in 2015 to just get you out of parking tickets by filling out forms for you. This is testing out an algorithmic system that can advise a defendant in real time in a courtroom. The defendant they are going to try this with is accused of speeding. So it's a pretty simple case. A smartphone app will feed audio from the court to the algorithm. So the smartphone mic will listen in, the algorithm will then do speech recognition, tell what's being said, and the defendant will wear earphones and has agreed to say only what the algorithm advises them to say. So the algorithm hears what's going on in court, processes it, says, say this, the human says it. Browder's company says they will pay any fines if the defendant loses. So if this fails to convince the judge, they won't be on the hook. Do Not Pay trained its algorithms on case law in a wide variety of areas. It has already intervened in approximately three million cases in the UK and the US, but never in real time. Now you will not see this become commonplace because most courtrooms don't allow you to do anything like this. They don't allow you to wear earphones, have recording equipment. But Do Not Pay says it found a court where their system technically qualifies as a hearing aid device. Do Not Pay says we know this isn't the spirit of the law, but we think we're, you know, by the words of the rule that we'll be able to do this. They have not revealed which court this is going to happen in. And even in the court where they will try it, it's not impossible that the State Bar Association could sue them claiming it's an unauthorized practice of law. I don't expect them to do that in this case, but that's a threat hanging over anybody who would want to try to make this widespread. So Patrick, this is a stunt. It's a PR stunt, but it is going to happen in a real court with a real algorithm. And Do Not Pay, for all its stuntiness, actually works, you know, on the form-filling side of things. Stuntiness is a very dangerous word to say in a live recording. I am very curious about this because when you start digging into a lot of what goes on in courtrooms is fairly mundane. Most of us don't understand the way it works. Something like this, I think, could make things vastly better. If you read especially places like here in St. Louis, public defenders and not the traffic tickets require public defenders, but I am fascinated. I've also been deeply fascinated by chat GPT over the last few weeks and eventually everything being replaced by a very small shell script or a very large distributed AI. But I'm curious to see how this does. I'm curious to see if the judge can figure out who's wearing the earbuds and throws them out. I certainly would expect every state bar association to try to block something like this because they want to charge their hourly fees by the second or minute or 10 second bracket, whatever they're charging hours for by now. My guess is that this court in particular will tighten up its rules so this won't be allowed in the future once it happens and that the bar associations won't need to do this because the rules will already prevent it. But the demonstration would show what's possible and potentially cause a push for allowing these sorts of things in cases where somebody is like, yeah, I don't want to have to pay a lawyer. Should I have to? Can I get some rules changed? And there might be some public pressure for that. Robert, what do you make of this? I think as long as it doesn't disrupt the flow of the courtroom itself, it shouldn't be a problem trying to introduce this at least for more basic cases where it is kind of formulaic in terms of what you're going to be presenting or how you would go through it to either challenge or have something dismissed by a judge. My recent experience with jury duty, I was surprised at how mobile devices were allowed in essence at least through the jury selection process. There was in fact encouraged, not encouraged, but whenever they put up information on the screen, the judge was quick to point out, one, this was all a digital courtroom anyway with a judge in a remote room and with TV screens on the walls. We were supposed to take pictures of the information on the screens in order with our cameras on our phones in order to capture it quickly and efficiently that way. So I think it's already like one step there. You combine that with the hearing augmentation systems that are already in courtrooms for people with hearing disabilities and maybe it's just another way of bringing the AI to do another task that in some cases can be kind of mundane. I think it's kind of cool. Yeah, I know there's a challenge for Browder to say if any Supreme Court lawyer will let me do this with a Supreme Court argument, I'll give you a million dollars. I think that million dollars is very safe.  Then it all kind of goes out the window. And again, do not pay has been very good with things like traffic court because they are very on rails. There's only a few possibilities of what can happen. It's very clear that if you do this, this happens. If you do that, that happens. So this is just more approving of how good speech recognition has gotten than the algorithms itself. I think if it can understand what's being said that the form-filling aspect of this has shown, yeah, you can kind of navigate this with algorithms now. And I do expect this maybe not immediately after this demonstration, but I do expect this to become something that people start to see the advantage of once it's proven and say, like, yeah, no, I would like to have that. Let me get my congressperson to pass a rule that says I'm allowed to do it. It feels like the thin edge of the wedge and that, you know, I also, it's funny you mentioned congressperson is like thinking about the number of members of congress who are lawyers. I don't know how much traction it's going to get, but that might be the snarky cynical part of me rearing its ugly head. Oh, yeah, no, the bar association is definitely going to dig it. This could also be a good scenario for maybe somebody with a court appointed attorney and just as a backup so you can hear maybe what the AI is saying and compare that to what they're saying and making sure you're getting decent representation. You may, you will probably be surprised how many lawyers do support it because they see it as a way to gain an advantage on a bigger company. Oh, wow. Yeah. All right, let's let's talk about this in October, California joined Arizona and Michigan in offering digital license plates. Texas also offers digital plates, but only for commercial vehicles there. Digital plates are they have a few advantages. They're easier to update. You know, you just you just push a new new piece of information not to put a sticker on them. They can show emergency messages like Amber alerts. They can push a message that the vehicle has been stolen. In fact, Reviver, which is the company that makes and manages the plates for the state of California, can use tracking abilities to help find those stolen cars. Obviously, when this was first announced, everybody in the DTS audience started wondering how and if and when it would be an act. Web application security researcher Sam Curry and friends had similar thoughts about many automotive companies. Last week, Curry posted about a multiple automotive. Excuse me. Last week, Curry posted about multiple automotive vulnerabilities they found, including one related to Reviver. Yeah. So they found a JavaScript on Reviver's website that they were able to poke around with this was not an obvious thing. They had to do some some testing and there's a good description in Curry's post, but they were able to use it to tease out super admin access that would have let them track location of all cars with digital plates, change the slogan at the bottom of the plate, which is something that the owner of the car can also do and change vehicle status to stolen. So they could they could flip that flag and say, you know, like let's let's make this car look like it's stolen. It also would have let them do things you usually can do when accessing any admin system, see address, phone number, email, some industry specific things like vehicle type, some fleet management functions as well. So they got super admin access is a long way of saying they got super admin access. It was not easy. They weren't able to get into the super admin tool, but they were able to fool the API into letting them do some of these things. Curry's group, of course, responsibly reported the vulnerability to Reviver, which patched it within 24 hours. Patrick, I tend to look at these as good news stories because the white hacker found it told the company and the company responded and fixed it fast that which is good. That's that's the way it works in the ideal world, I think, and props to them for pointing that out and getting it patched. You know, I'm still kind of back at the, you know, 175 250 or I guess it's what $275 a year for four years for this and I'm California. Yeah. I think so. I'm still trying to figure out how I would use this. Although it would be highly amusing to see someone, you know, stealing one of my vintage vehicles with its fancy digital license plate screaming cops, cops.  Why would I want that toward stuff? But I also look at this and I'm like, I don't have a problem with it. I'm sure it's great for certain things. I'm not sure I need it. How do you feel? I would, I encourage this, actually. One, it would be cool to have perhaps the automotive manufacturer actually integrate this directly into the into the styling of the vehicle so that a digital license plate could be present. And then you wouldn't have to deal with adding a plate or adding a plate in a spot. You wouldn't want one. The other thing is I really would appreciate something like a stolen sign just automatically appearing on a vehicle that's stolen and to give you a heads up. Or if it's your own vehicle, it just makes it a little more obvious to the people around that that would be the case. I am a fan of the good old fashioned license plate as well, especially here in California. We have some pretty unique designs and new colors and retro new colors that have been brought back, so to speak. And I appreciate those as well. But if this could be something that they could literally integrate into a bumper, especially on the front bumpers of vehicles, that would be more appealing to me. And I know a lot of sports car people who prefer a lot of people prefer not to mount anything on the front of their cars that can break up perhaps the arrow or the look. But in that case, I could really see something like a standardized digitalized digital license plate actually be a very cool thing to have. I just wonder if this is, you know, is the equivalent of a mechanical buggy whip. You know, like, are we going to identify cars even with license plates at some point? Or is it just going to be transponders? Right. I mean, in a world where we can pay by tapping an NFC chip, we don't have to show a credit card, you know, you don't have to hold a picture of the credit card up from your phone. Maybe this is just a stopgap measure and eventually cars just tell whatever needs to know what to know about them. As a pedestrian in a place where people have a curious relationship to stop signs, I think we need a great big human readable number letter combination on the back of vehicles. I'll go back on you a little bit there. What would be better?  I am torn between acknowledging whether or not my adrenaline will allow me to recognize the vehicle that just ran my ass over and the fact that, you know, I often have difficulties dealing with Bluetooth devices at a close range in a non panicked environment. So it's an interesting question. I think we should have both. Why not track everyone chip? Let's just chip everybody. Satellite chips. Satellite chips for all. Well, folks, if you like these stories, thanks some of the folks that are subreddit. There's a lot of great folks in there submitting these kinds of stories and voting on them so that we make sure we see them. If you want to be part of that, it's real easy. Just head on over to dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. All right, there were a huge number of announcements at CES last week. We did our best to sort through the most important ones, help you understand what was going on there. But it's always good to step back a week later and get some perspective, which is why Robert and Patrick are here to talk about the latest TV developments from the show now that we've had a chance to understand them. Robert, what do you think was the biggest trend you noticed? Rider OLED TVs, they are approaching upwards of 2,000 nits and beyond and that is a significant improvement compared to last year. The major manufacturers are now going head to toe or toe to toe, so to speak. That and we have more competition. LG has been the acknowledged champion, I guess, of OLED TVs in the home and they're celebrating their 10th year in this marketplace this year. And now we have another company, Samsung Display, with their QD OLED tech. That is also back and creating what I think is just excellent competition in terms of creating better displays at better prices and just pushing this technology forward where it needs to go in terms of brightness, resolution and robustness of the products. In particular, a couple of things that jumped out at me on the show floor was with LG and for 2023 will be their G3 series gallery edition of their LCD panel. That right there is the Panasonic and this also features the same technology I'm about to talk about and that is the micro lens array technology. One way of making these TVs brighter and more efficient, more critically speaking is through the use of a layer of micro lenses that redirect light that would otherwise be scattered within the material of the panel itself, sideways or trapped within and direct it right forward into a person's eyes. We're talking effectively a 30% brightness improvement. But they claim at least we'll get these in for testing of course in the months in the coming months, but companies who use LG's OLED panels like Panasonic we just showed, in addition to other companies like Sony will be introducing these TVs with specific screen sizes in particular the 55, the 77 and the 65 inch screen sizes will feature this MLA technology for increased brightness. On the other hand, we had Samsung and Samsung display showing off their second generation quantum dot OLED technology. And for me, this was one of my favorite things I saw at the show. It was literally a new blue emitter. There is a for Samsung's technology they use a blue backlight material, the OLED material itself is blue and then it goes through a quantum dot color converter to create the red and green pixels in addition to blue 30% improvement from year to year compared to the 2022 models Samsung display was being a little more reasonable and saying it's at least 20% ideally it may actually hit about 30% and you're just simply getting more light from the screen, brighter highlights without any increase in power consumption and that'll be important for other displays. The other being of course there you go a 77 inch version of that QD OLED technology. The only question really that Samsung was unable to answer at this point was they're having two versions of that TV you just saw the S 95 C and the S 90 C. The question was will they both use this new blue emitter in the upcoming models that will be released the premium S 95 C will of course but the S 90 C is still an unknown at this point. If they're going to use perhaps last year's technology and make it more value oriented or just apply the new OLED material across the board and get it out to customers. I cannot wait for that. It was a lovely TV with incredible color punch and it's also being featured in a new monitor from Samsung, a 49 inch Odyssey OLED G9 monitor which is just fantastic. It was really one of the I'm not a huge fan of ultra wide screen monitors per se, especially with a in this case a 32 by nine aspect ratio. That's a little a little not tall enough in essence for what I would like, but the image quality of this was so eye catching and just amazing to look at. I would really love to see something like a 16 by nine or a 16 by 10 version of that display technology. It just has color that surpasses anything I've seen in any other display tech for a flat panel to date and I'm looking forward to just to seeing that in store shelves so I can actually get hands on with that. No 90% of the folks out there are listening not watching so when you hear Robert say look at this or see this. You can go to our show notes daily tech news show dot com and we have links to all the stuff he's talking about there and you can you can see it there real quick before we move on. Why for people who don't know. Is it important for OLEDs to be brighter why is that such a big deal. Why not a couple reasons I wanted just to simply compete with the LCDs of the world out there and for room like conditions that may not be theater ready in terms of pitch black, where you have some extra ambient light in the room to deal with and having a brighter display will make that less of an issue. Also when you talk about just having color brightness. It's one thing to have a bright display. It's another thing to be able to produce pure colors extremely bright and for reproducing HDR content or Dolby vision content. Brighter the display the better especially for Pete bright detail. The standard for HD video or HDR video or Dolby vision video goes up to 10,000 nits. And we're talking about displays that you know can hit about 2000 nits and on a good day and because of that limitation or forced to do video trickery like tone mapping in order to map. Perhaps content that was authored at one of these very bright standards into something that isn't so bright and make it look good. And I think between those two things it's just. Yeah, so if you have a really bright room you aren't thinking well I guess I'm stuck with LCD because these are getting bright enough that you can use them in there. Totally. And also for the European Union they have coming up in a month or two new standards for screen size versus power consumption, and it becomes even more important to increase the efficiency of any of these displays. So this is another deal for them as well. I see no turning back from just making brighter and brighter displays. And it's not so much of, you know, you're not staring at a full screen of white. I'm talking about especially highlighted detail like glinting chrome on a sunlit day or the stars in a in a Starfield background or something like that in a space scene where you can do pinpoints of extremely bright detail that better mimic what you see when you look out the window or just in real life in general. And that applies to color as well. So Rich Truffilino who was covering CES in Las Vegas for us was talking yesterday about how impressed he was by the projectors and we promised we'd hear from you about the projectors. What did you see there? Good stuff all around. One interesting development that happened in the last few months was the launch of a new chip set from Texas Instrument in their DLP lineup, a 0.94 inch 8K DLP chip that will be used in a variety of projectors coming up. Two of them that caught my eye were one from Hisense and one from Samsung. These both feature RGB laser projectors. So they're using our red, blue, green lasers as the light source, creating effectively color that goes beyond the current standard for HDR video, which no other display type can currently say that. Everything else is doing a reduced color palette due to various technical limitations. Certain projectors that use RGB lasers as their main light source, not only are they going to be available with 8K resolution, but they also currently exceed the color palette used in these wonderful formats like Dolby Vision and HDR10 that while they may not have the brightness capabilities or the absolute contrast of something like an OLED panel. Still additional light output and additional color purity that you can get from some of these displays in a light controlled environment is just fantastic. And we talk about 8K, is it really necessary? The bigger the display becomes, I think it creates even a more seamless picture. And for certain things, at least for high-end PC gaming on say like a 4090 running on a computer. The difference between 4K and 8K is noticeable, even on a 70, you know, 80 inch screen. It is perceivable and usable and fantastic to actually have that performance, or at least the resolution bump if you can maintain adequate frame rates for the content you're looking at. And of the demos I saw at CES, I think gaming was really the one kind of, I think best case scenario for pushing toward 8K or even beyond in terms of what do you really need it for in addition to just simply having it for the largest size displays in terms of creating a very seamless looking picture. Yeah, those are answers to the common questions, right? It's like, OK, 8K, but what do I get? There's no 8K content. I can't really see the difference. So those are interesting that there's like, yeah, but there's some secondary benefits there. Maybe it's not worth the cost yet, but at least it's something to think about, right? It's kind of like the retina display equivalent. You remember when you first looked at a retina display in an iPhone, you were like, I can't see the pixels. It's kind of what's happening with 8K over time. All right, we got an email. Let's check out the mailbag here. Simon is in the process of looking for a new TV because his two year old 65 inch Samsung has purple spots, three noticeable purple spots.  And he said I went from one barely noticeable to three in just weeks from everything I've read. This seems to refer back to the LED coating wearing off due to heat and time. So he asked, what is the minimum level slash quality of an LED or above TV to buy to get away from this issue? Is there any way to reduce the potential of your LED coating wearing off so you don't get those spots? That's crazy. Especially for something that's only two years old, that should not be happening, period. And I would immediately contact Samsung about that and because that could easily turn into something like a class action against them for this. Other manufacturers that I have visited personally, they do extreme testing in terms of putting these TVs in very high humidity, high temperature, stressing them to the point of failure to ensure that things like this do not happen. As far as LED backlighting goes, that is not going away anytime soon. The show, every LCD television out there, anything in the mid to premium range was using the mini LED technology where they're putting more and more of these behind the screens to create better light control in terms of creating more contrasted imagery with fewer artifacts like blooming or halos. And that is not changing anytime soon. So what I would hope is that they are continued to be focused on this as a just a quality assurance issue. I want to research this a little bit more. I'm actually kind of surprised that a two year old TV is exhibiting any kind of issues like this, particularly from a number one LCD manufacturer or at least a television sales point from Samsung. I don't believe Samsung actually makes LCD panels anymore. But that's just, that's not a good thing to see. And I would take advantage of whatever remedies you can come across. And number one, contact the company and tell them and get this, get at least this logged and go from there. And if you've purchased it from say a retailer like a Costco or a membership club like that, you probably have an extended warranty. If you purchased it with a credit card, you have an extended warranty beyond just what is available. That's, it just strikes me as ridiculous that something two years old is already showing signs of degradation of any kind. Patrick, did you find any extra? I saw you poking around to see if you could, you could find any more about it while we were talking there. I was looking for the warranty length on the basic Samsung entry level sense on QLED TVs. And it's, you know, parts and labor is one year. But just, you know, I want to amplify what Rob said is there's this Samsung, their quality control is good. This should not be happening. And I would, I would definitely, that's the first thing like we always say on AB Excel is like talk to your manufacturer. Because a lot of them in many cases want to do the right thing, or at least they can tell you maybe what happened so you can prevent it from happening with your next television. But that's, that should not be happening is the takeaway here. So yeah, you should, you should be able to get some satisfaction for that. If Simon's looking to replace that, I would say, and you want excellent uniformity for picture quality. Look at one of the old ads we talked about earlier in this episode. Gotcha. All right, Robert, before we go, where can find folks find more about what you do and then the great information that you give us? Hey, please visit me over at heronfidelity.com or you can always hit me up on Twitter. As long as that beast is still running at Robert Heron or at Heron Fidelity. I'm always, I'm pretty easy to get ahold of. Drop me an email, reach out, I'll answer questions to help you guide your way through the world of home theater. And display technologies in particular. And of course, you'll find Robert alongside Patrick Norton on AVXL. Where can folks find that Patrick? Just search for AVXL, A-V-E-X-C-E-L on your favorite pod catcher or go to AVXL.com or go to patreon.com slash AVXL. We love to answer your questions. Well, folks, if you're a patron, that's the reason we're here. We are not sitting here doing this show trying to help each other understand without you. Special thanks to Lloyd Wayne Tyson Rivers, one of our top lifetime supporters. Thank you, Lloyd, for being with us all these years. Patrons, stick around for the extended show, Good Day Internet. We're going to be talking more TVs and more. You can also catch the show live Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. Eastern, 2100 UTC. Find out more about that at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Back tomorrow with Scott Johnson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com.


Item No. SCP-2085 Object Class Multical Anomalous Organization Anomalous Human Modified Uncategorized Anomaly Containment Class Active Hazard Rady Yellow Standard Containment Policies 6-1 Person Residential Modules Wireless Signal Jambers Installed Amenity Restriction, Electronics Dietary Restriction, Liquid Diet, SCP-2085-B, C Document 2085-B, MED Dietary Restriction, Vegetarian, SCP-2085-A1, and SCP-2085-A3 Biowekly Psychological Review, Dr. Singh, Dr. Summers Once Monthly Group Bone Call, Supervised Special Containment Procedures No attempts to isolate or remove SCP-2085-1 are authorized until SCP-2085-B's containment implants can be effectively replicated. In the case of SCP-2085-1 overcoming SCP-2085-B's containment implants, SCP-2085-B and SCP-2085-B are to be terminated immediately. SCP-2085-A specimens are to be sedated and restrained before removal from containment chambers or in any situation requiring entry to the containment chamber. In the event of successful removal and containment of SCP-2085-1 Description SCP-2085 is a militant anarchist organization consisting of six cybernetically-enhanced individuals, A-1 through A-5 and B, operating under the name Kuroi Usagi Shidan, Black Rabbit Company. SCP-2085 has been linked through what member testimony can be verified to numerous criminal and terrorist incidents occurring between 2000 and 2000 throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania, and Western North America. SCP-2085's base of operations, if extant, is unknown, as are its connections to any other groups. The recovered assets of the group consist solely of equipment held upon recovery. The existence of other assets is presumed, but such caches have not been found. Verified operations include smuggling, theft, assault, vandalism, kidnapping, extortion, property damage, possession of fissile materials, corporate sabotage, embezzlement, identity theft, fraud, copyright infringement, piracy, possession of narcotics with intent to sell, possession transport and sale of anomalous items, and tax evasion. The targets of these operations are primarily organized crime, hate groups, or groups otherwise classified as of interest, strikes against governmental, military, or police targets, while enthusiastically supported by the members of SCP-2085 appear to be much less opportunistic than their standard activities. SCP-2085's operations are typically organized to minimize the chance of civilian casualties and to maximize material and morale damage to their target. All offers made by the Foundation regarding cooperative agreements have been unilaterally rejected by all members of SCP-2085. Three of six explicitly stated death were preferable to working alongside the Foundation. SCP-2085-A SCP-2085-A subjects are five adult female augmented humans, designated SCP-2085-A1 through SCP-2085-A5. Subjects are genetic chimeras, each with an estimated six to ten different gene donors. Subjects are fluent in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, and English, with additional languages varying by individual. All subjects display behaviors typical of high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Subjects display an array of genetic and cybernetic enhancements, including cosmetic genetic splices of felus catasphysiology, including ears, tails, and hair coloration. Subjects are prehensile and capable of holding small objects, grip pads on hands and feet, retractable fingertip blades, ocular implants with thermal vision, heads-up display, and recording functionality. Carbon nanowheave muscle fiber augmentation and reinforced endoskeleton. Brain computer interface with internal hard drive, wireless communication suite with local tactical network. Drug glands providing pain dampening, heightened sensory awareness, and altered pheromones. These implants are uniform in design and show minimal signs of modification after installation. Some cosmetic alterations have been made more recently. See Document SCP-2085-A EXP for further information. SCP-2085-B SCP-2085-B is an adult male human bearing the following cybernetic and genetic enhancements. Adaptation of the gastrointestinal tract for a liquid diet, esophageal input port and waist output port are integrated into the suit. Modifications to regulate sweat, reduce abrasion damage from extended suit usage, N8 and skin regeneration. Removal of genitalia. Replacement of 11 missing digits on hands and feet. Internal drug pump, typically used for painkillers. Containment implants for SCP-2085-1. See Document 2085-B EXP for extended information on all known enhancements. These modifications were accrued over a period of several years. The oldest stated to be installed in 2000, and the most recent, dating to three weeks before containment, from multiple sources, none of which have yet been disclosed, and are of significantly lower quality than those used by SCP-2085-A. Many parts of the SCP-2085-1 containment implants have been replaced or modified. SCP-2085-B is a generally poor health, suffering from vitamin D deficiency, now less than due to changes in diet. Acute radiation syndrome, symptoms indicated at least three doses of two gray, and heavy scarring from severe and repeated skin ulceration. SCP-2085-B is fluent in English and limited Japanese, and is generally cooperative with staff. SCP-2085-B was an S-1035-ACES at all times, generally accompanied by a bathrobe and red belt with your tapp. Advanced Crew Escape Suit SCP-2085-B has been permitted to retain possession of these items to encourage further cooperation. SCP-2085-1 SCP-2085-1 is a fibrous mass of self-replicating carbon nanomaterials within SCP-2085-B's chest cavity, with growth protruding into the liver, pancreas, gallbladder, spinal cord, and left lung. The growth of the SCP-2085-1 and its consumption of SCP-2085-B's body tissues has been impeded through the addition of various containment implants, used as separate communication between growth sections and control nodes, and countered the replication process. SCP-2085-1's rate of replication without the influence of these containment implants is unknown. SCP-2085-1's periods of activity occur, on average, once every three months. The process lasts up to 15 minutes, and causes SCP-2085-B intense pain. SCP-2085-B is claimed to communicate with SCP-2085-1 during these activity periods, though this claim has not been verified. Recovery Report The Foundation initially became aware of SCP-2085 on August 13, 2000 after the execution killings of four members of ██████ and ██████, Texas. All four individuals were shot in the head before being hung from the sign of an abandoned gas station along route ████, a sign with a fix to each around the neck proclaiming Fascist Slaver Rapist. Among those killed with Agent ██████, who served as a federal liaison with the Special Personnel Procurement Program, state and federal law enforcement were deployed, making initial contact with SCP-2085 at 1647 the following day. Recovery agents were deployed after confirmation of the anomaly. Containment confirmed at 03-44 on August 17, 2000 and ██████, Wyoming, and transported to site ██████ for processing. At the time of the capture, total casualties caused by SCP-2085 numbered ██████, timeline of motions filed regarding SCP-2085. August 18, 2000 ██████, internal security department files a motion with the Board of Project Review, requesting immediate termination of the subjects on the grounds of enemy combatant status and that they do not qualify for the protections of a contained anomaly, citing precedent and similar combat interactions with members of GOI ██████, GOI ██████, and GOI ██████, August 25, 2000 ██████, motion struck down, incomplete threat assessment of anomaly. August 25, 2000 ██████, internal security department files a motion with Director's Committee, requesting transfer of subjects to ISD custody from Residential Research Department, citing SCP-2085 as active security threat and anti-foundation ideological hazard. September 4, 2000 ██████, Director's Committee fails to reach two-third majority, case dismissed. September 4, 2000 ██████, internal security department appeals Committee ruling. September 12, 2000 ██████, Dr. ██████ and research team present preliminary observations to Director's Committee. September 15, 2000 ██████, Director's Committee fails to reach two-third majority, case transferred to Overseer Council. September 22, 2000 ██████, Overseer Council votes 7-6 in favor of Dr. ██████, Authority over SCP-2085 to remain with Residential Research Department. September 23, 2000 ██████, internal security department appeals Overseer Council ruling, pending. Interview Logs, SCP-2085-A1, date of birth unknown, place of birth unknown. Documented, August 17, 2000 ████, height 200 cm, weight 83 kg, hair calico, eyes green, other notes, sleeve tattoo and right arm, prominent facial scar, early interview. Good morning, my name is ██████. I'll be running your interview today. Please state your name for the record. Subjects hips down to interview table. I speak English. Ah, of course. Please state your name. Major Motoko Kusanagi, representing the Black Rabbit Company. All names provided by SCP-2085-A subjects have been aliases drawn from fiction. Each member has a consistent pull of approximately 15 names. And you are the commander of this organization, correct? Until someone else is elected to the position, yes. Noted. Now, if you would give me an overview of your organization, please. Goals, history of activity, and so on. SCP-2085-A1 pauses. Subject looks confused for a moment before laughing. What's funny?  You're not the US government. Wait, hold on. Did you receive an orientation packet? It would have been a dark gray folder with a logo and new resident orientation printed on the front. I have not. You've given me three sets of clothing and a toiletry kit. I'm terribly sorry. That should have been included with your things. No members of SCP-2085 were presented with orientation packets and intake due to clerical error. This was rectified prior to the subsequent entry interviews. I represent a non-governmental research organization that deals with unusual circumstances such as yourself. I'll make sure you get a packet as soon as we're done here.  In the loving bosom of the men in black. It's not as bad as you'd think, I promise. A prison is no less a prison for the softness of its bedsheets. Hmm, we're getting off topic, I think. You were about to tell me about the aim of your organization. Escape, until then. Direct action towards the destruction of fascism and the dismantling of the capitalist and colonial structures that support it. Everything else is commentary. You could let us go, you know. I'm afraid that's not an option right now. There's a door right there. All you need to do is unlock it. We'll see ourselves out. I'm sorry, but… but they'll shoot you for it, won't they? I thought so. Is there anything else you'd like to say? This isn't our home. We were just born here. The open road still softly calls second star to the right, straight on till morning. End log. SCP-2085-A2 Data Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown Documented August 17, 2000 Height 209 cm Weight 124 kg Hair Black White Bicolor Eyes Green Other Notes Generally positive interactions with Foundation personnel and willing to answer questions. Accuracy of statements is questionable. It is unknown that this is deliberate misinformation. Haz removed sleeves from all provided uniforms. Good morning. My name is… I'll be running your entry interview. Let's start with your name. Millie Thompson. Wait. Shit. Used that one last time. Noi. Call me Noi. Ah. Well, thank you, Miss… uh… Noi. Now, before we get started with the official questions, my associates wanted me to ask you why you call yourselves the Black Rabbit Company. They were expecting Black Cat. Well, they're the rabbit on a moon, not a cat. Association of the Dark Patches on the Moon with the shape of a rabbit as a common motive in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folklore. And there was already a Black Cat Company out there when we were coming up with the name. Some French art burglars or something. I see. They're not the first person to ask, don't worry. I wanted to call the Cheesecake Gun Show Brigade, and that got shot down. Shame. I like that one. Onto the real questions. What's your position within the Black Rabbit Company? SCP-2085-A2 flexes arms, smiles.  Thoroughly effective, no doubt. Can you tell me anything about the Black Rabbit Company's activities prior to your stay here? Well, you already know about the car chase. Have you talked to the major yet? We have. She didn't give us much of the way in specifics. Okay, so we do a little bit of everything, I guess. Assassinations, heists, security, deliveries, birthday parties. Birthday parties. It was great. Many may went as the magician, and she somehow managed to get a Suka and Rei in the clown suit to her assistance. I have no idea how she pulled that off. Later interviews confirmed these nicknames referred to A-3, A-4, and A-5. Anyway, they had just cut the cake when the skinheads showed up and the gun bite started. This was a child's birthday party, correct? Am I understanding this correctly?  I don't know how to respond to that. You'll get used to it. I can keep going if you like. Got nothing but time to kill. Sure. Okay, so there was the time we were up in Kamchatka, and breaking into this old Soviet bunker, right? Place had them open up in over 30 years, and was overrun by psychics, and just sitting on some A-grade enriched plutonium. Wizard managed to talk them into a deal and get us on the inside. The black lotus dust we were selling them was all fake, of course, but they figured it out before we could get out, and so everyone starts blasting. SCP-2085-A-2 continues in this manner for 3 hours and 53 minutes. Events described were, in order, raid on a sealed Soviet-era bunker with presumed GRU-P connections, breakup of a sex trafficking ring in Shanghai, a spate of anti-police harassment incidents under the guise of a San Francisco pizza delivery service, a raid on a white supremacist militia in Oregon, the bombing of multiple cryptocurrency farms, ransomware attacks against Silicon Valley tech startups, and the declaration of SCP-2085-A-4 as Queen of Thailand, N-LOG, SCP-2085-A-3, date of birth unknown, place of birth unknown, documented, August 17, 2000, height, 185 cm, weight, 79 kg, hair, brown-macro-tabby, eyes, yellow, other notes, currently show signs of depression due to extended isolation, potentially willing to divulge sensitive information out of concern for petal group members. Good afternoon, my name is ██████, I'll be doing your entry interview. Please state your name for the record. Asia Clan Clan. And your position within the company? Field Medic. Translator. Support Crew. What can you tell me about your friend Wizard's condition? Oh, that? Wizard always says he doesn't want to make us worry about him, but we know what to do in case he has an episode. And what do you do when that happens? We get him his toolkit, and if we need to do anything else, he tells us then. Most of the time he could do it himself, but sometimes he needs more help than we can do in the field. When that happens, we have to contact some extra help. Can you tell me anything about these people? Uh, no, not really, they keep to themselves. Alright, if you could tell me anything else about his condition, please. Wizard says Red talks to him, whispers all this horrible stuff to him when it's growing. That it's just going to eat away with him until there's nothing left. And that's what's going to happen to everyone eventually. It makes sense for a cancer, I haven't heard it. Can you tell me anything about Wizard's history? What he did before joining the company? Not really, he mentioned a while ago that he had a family, but he never brought it up again.  He doesn't really have anything left from back then, so we're his family now. A man doesn't toss his old life away if there was something worth keeping hold of. N-log. Written statement by SCP-2085-A3. 2000 ████ Kill us already. If you want our eyes and bones and the computers in our brains, take it all. I don't care. It doesn't matter. But get it over with already. Kill us or let us go. And I don't care if we're thrown out blind and crippled because at least then we're free of you.  You learn how to be polite, how to dress up in lab coats and say please and thank you, and pretend like you have souls. Who do you think you're fooling?   You just like hurting people. You'll build an empire on corpses and call it a garden. After all we've done, all we've been able to survive, we're right back in the place we escaped. Just pretty women in boxes. We were going to get to space. We were going to build a ship, and we'd go all the way up past the sky and look down at the world, and we would have won.  We would be alive, and we could show everyone that it's okay, that they can be free too, that they can be alive. We'd help them, and now nothing. You've won, okay?  I just want to see my sisters again. 1. Incident 2085-A3-2 2000 SCP-2085-A3 reports self-harm and suicidal ideation of Dr. Singh during psychological review. Crisis plan implemented. SCP-2085-A3 enrolled an art therapy course at recommendation of Dr. Singh. Incident 2085-A3-3 2000 SCP-2085-A3 makes emergency phone call to SCP-2085-A2, as per crisis plan, lasting 1 hour and 9 minutes. Follow-up phone calls have continued according to crisis plan schedule. SCP-2085-A4 Data birth unknown Place of birth unknown Documented August 17, 2000 Height 203 cm Weight 76 kg Hair Red long hair Eyes orange Other notes Extremely hostile, has refused to cooperate in any way, confirmed by other members of cyber warfare specialist. Entry Interview Please state your name for the record. SCP-2085-A4 raises middle finger right hand.  I understand your frustration, but cooperation will benefit you in the long run. Please state your name. SCP-2085-A4 raises middle finger of other hand.  If you require some extra time to calm yourself then, let me use smaller words.  Stands up, turns, points to rear. I will give you one more chance. Your cooperation will determine the privileges you'll receive in the future. State your name. Short pause. SCP-2085-A4 seems to contemplate the offer. Dio Brando I suppose that will do. Now, Miss Dio. SCP-2085-A4 punches observation divider, creating a large crack in the pain. Subject smiles. SCP-2085-A4 draws back fist, flexes fingers, punches divider again, causing more cracks. Subject laughs. Researcher ████ activates lockdown procedures. Protective shutter is lowered. Aerosol sedatives are pumped into containment unit. SCP-2085-A4 continues punching barrier, as researcher ████ exits interview room. SCP-2085-A4 is muffled screaming. CUNT! Incident 2085-A4-11 ████ SCP-2085-A4 claimed willingness to provide video logs of the group's former operations in exchange for the lifting of sanctions placed upon a subject. The offer was accepted, however, due to SCP-2085-A4's behavioral history, the provided file was accessed in an isolated network by D-class personnel in the case of viral, memetic, or cognitohatterdous agents. The provided video file, titled backup.abi, consisted of a two-hour-long video of a BC-spilled toilet presumably recorded from SCP-2085-A4's point of view, accompanied by an audio loop of the folk song Choro Beniki, as performed by the Red Army Choir. The contained audio-visual cognitohatterd induced anaphylaxis, an exudative diarrhea in the observing D-class subject. D-class subject died or minted under initial access of the file from blood loss and oxygen deprivation. File was disposed of without incident. Sanctions placed upon SCP-2085-A4 have remained in place. SCP-2085-A5 Data Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown Documented August 17, 2000 Height 194 cm Weight 80 kg Hair Silver Blue Eyes Blue Other Notes While not hostile, subject had refused to cooperate or provide information. Nose is deformed from numerous breaks. Entry Interview Please state your name for the record. Molly Millions All right. What's your role within the company? I put holes in heads using very fast bits of lead from a great distance. Can you tell me about the company's prior activities? No. Can you tell me about Wizard? No. Can you tell me about Red? No. Are you willing to answer any questions at all? No. Dare I ask why you agreed to an interview? I'm bored. Wasting your time is fun. Researcher Ends interview without further comment Incident 2085-A5-1 2000 The following note was given to staff at SCP-2085-A5. It is the first communication between SCP-2085-A5 and staff since the entry interview. The note was as follows. I take a hammer and I break my legs. I break them for the better. Incident 2085-A5-2 2000 Upon receiving breakfast, SCP-2085-A5 sat down and proceeded to sing Happy Birthday before eating. I've note is the use of us for the recipient. Incident 2085-A5-3 2000 At 04.33, SCP-2085-A5 stared directly in the camera 4 without blinking, for 3 minutes 10 seconds before saying, I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deputies, or should I? Incident 2085-A5-4 2000 At 2030, SCP-2085-A5 began playing music through implanted speakers, loud enough to be heard outside the containment chamber. This continued for the next 18 hours. SCP-2085-A5 slept through the entire incident. SCP-2085-B Data birth unknown Place of birth unknown Documented August 17, 2000 Height 169 cm Weight 68 kg Hair None Eyes brown Other notes Co-operative with staff Nationality cannot be confirmed Age cannot be confirmed Log begins Excuse me, my name is Researcher. Could I ask you a few questions? Oh yeah, sure, hold on a tick. SCP-2085-B puts on bathrobe and wizard hat, moves chair to interview window, and sits down. There we go. Ask away. All right. First, we were wondering if you'd be able to tell us about your history, your name, where you're from, basic information like that. Uh, I'm a space wizard. I come from space. That's not particularly helpful, sir. SCP- SCP-2085-B shrugs. Call me Major Tom if you like. It really isn't important. I'm just a guy with a hat. If Joe Everyman and John Doe were a gay couple, I would be the nameless neighbor. I see. Without the way, we were wondering if you could tell us about your associates, how you met, how the company formed, and so on. Interesting story there. I was running around trying to fix this shit, tap's chest, scraping by with implants for some pretty shady characters.  I was at the clinic to get some new parts, and when I'm going through the installation process, boom! Big explosion, and those five came barging out guns blazing.  And then there's a lot of scrambling around trying not to get shot by the guy's business partners, and I sort of just end up trailing along as they flee the scene. Then we steal a boat and I tell it out of Japan. And then everything falls together, the company, me. We're out there on the ocean, stargazing and stuffing ourselves with instant ramen and cheap beer, and for the first time in ages, any of us are somewhere we want to be. You better be treated unwell. We're doing everything we can. Good. Could you explain to us the entity currently living inside you? Ah, Red. There's a lot to unpack. We have time. Red is, I don't know, a Bon Newman probe? Some kind of God thing cast down out of the heavens? I don't know. It was inside a meteor, and I was the first person on the scene. It was, or will be, immensely powerful. Kardashev's scale powerful. I'm afraid this is mostly speculation. I'm working off what I get when it's dreams drift into mind, or when it gets active enough to try and talk directly. You can communicate with it? No. It's one way, or now at least. I don't think it can hear me. It just rants, mashes everything together. And what does it say to you? Not so much words, as just the feeling of it all. A lot of it I can't understand, but… all right. It's a cancer. It grows and grows. It eats and grows. It gets more complex until whatever it's living in starts breaking down. But it will outlive its host. It'll keep growing. More food. More complex food. It dreams of a universe that's been forced into a final orderly shape, where it can devour all it is possible to consume, and so glutted on the universe floats down a perfect river of entropy, until there is nothing left, forever. It can do nothing but leech and wait for the end. But it's locked in a race against that same river, for who gets to eat more of the pie, and it's being stonewalled. It hates us. Humanity. We're uneaten food going to waste, and we are so close and it can't get to us. Our existence is in the front, a mar on its perfect universe. It hates me most of all, I think. I keep on going, and every second I stay alive, and red stays suppressed. That's energy down the drain that it can't ever get back. I think it might be afraid that I might lose. I don't think it's ever met resistance before. It tries to bargain with me, I think. It's not good at it. It just alternates between threatening more pain, or offering some sort of perpetuation of consciousness. I don't think it cares which I choose, just that I break. I read a story once, where there was a little red egg that can give you exactly what you want the most, and the cost is what you love best. That's red, weighty, right in here, taps chest, for me to take that deal. It's called by bluff, and I intend to prove it wrong. Hmm, one last question. Why the costume? This, just a symbol, a superhero thing. Easier to believe in than a person most of the time. Symbols are simple, people are messy. People can let you down, the world makes it difficult for people to believe in people, so we make do with symbols. And what do you want people to believe in? What people could be, what they can do. That it doesn't have to end like this.  That's easy to say. You take a look outside and we're all insane.  Doom to a brief hiccup of existence, before we extinguish ourselves. And in our brief glimmer of awareness, with all the beauty of the cosmos arrayed before us, we chose to build a meek grinder out of our broken dreams, and locked ourselves inside.  That's what we're fighting against. I've had six months to live for over five years now, and I don't want to meet curtain call with nothing to show for it. Every day I'll wake up is borrowed time that I can't pay back, and eventually is going to just cut to black, and if it's not today, then it might as well be tomorrow.  I can't save the world of my own, but I have to do something.  I want to watch the sun rise from orbit, me and the girls watching the sun come up, then I can die. I can die a free man, and maybe folks will say I was a good man, and the girls will launch my body into the sun, send me back to stardust. Yeah, that'll be a good way to go. In that moment, I will be lifted away from this wretched place and be free at last, and my soul will rejoice with all the brightness of the heavens. Second star to the right, straight on till morning, you know how it goes. End log.