The strangest tech to come out of Utah in April: On AlphaCon, biking the ski slopes, and golden ideas (literally).

• Author: Stone, Zara

SOMETIMES THE BEEHIVE STATE makes you proud--and sometimes you just want to lock yourself inside Post Malone's rumored McMansion-esque doomsday bunker and hunker down until the embarrassment of your zip code fades.

First up: Can people please stop Snapchatting while driving? Apparently not, according to Utah's 15 percent spike in car-related fatalities in 2021. Enter bill S.B. 102--which, if passed, makes taking selfies while driving a Class C misdemeanor.

Up next: The smug white male sh**show of AlphaCon 2022. The two-day MLM-in-disguise event promised wannabe entrepreneurs vague information on how to level up their businesses under the slogan, "Be great or be nothing." In other words, no beta soy boys allowed. The dude in charge of this testosterone fest is Jeremiah Evans, whose Google search results include paid-for puff pieces, 348K Instagram followers (likely courtesy of Spambots 'R' Us), Trump-fanboyism, references to himself as "The Bull," and unsupported claims that he's a multimillionaire. Fair enough. From now on, please refer to me as Zara "The Rainbow" Stone, OK?

Anywho, the reason for including AlphaCon in this huckster column is not to sell you Evans' snake oil--it's because he's such a good example of the issues inherent in today's hustle culture. He epitomizes the brash, take-no-prisoners mentality whereby the combination of vomiting up buzzwords, buying fake followers, and posting flashy videos will convince some people to pony up the cash to be just like him. Obviously, Evans' "mentorship" and "success courses" are for sale. His main lessons were distilled into this ABC4 segment with a bemused Doug Jessop: buy property and sell life insurance. Le sigh.

Keeping with the "I can't believe this is real" theme, up next is your favorite game: Two Truths And a Lie, The Utah Tech Edition. Out of the following three Utah food startups, can you guess which is the fake one?

* A startup that sells gourmet matcha and dark chocolate cricket-flour energy bars

* A startup that sells frozen, chocolate-covered fruit to help chocolate addicts get their five servings of fruits and veggies per day

* A startup that sells luxury zebra milk to enhance breastfeeding supply

BRINGING GOLDBACK

In January 2022, with much fanfare, Canadian company Osisko Development acquired Utah's Tintic Mining District for some $177 million in cash and shares. The resurgence of the state's gold mining market was not a surprise to the people behind Alpine-based...