Sam:
[0:25]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, January 20th.
It's just after 3 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Minter.
Yvonne Bo is here. This is Curmudgeon's Corner. Did I say that already?
Curmudgeon's Corner. Curmudgeon. Curmudgeon. Corner. Corner. Corner.
|
Ivan:
[0:44]
| Curmudgeon. Curmudgeon. We are Curmudgeon's. We are Curmudgeon's. We are Curmudgeon's.
|
Sam:
[0:52]
| Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We are. yes that getting more so by the year i must say um oh my.
|
Ivan:
[1:01]
| God we are so fucking curmudgeon-y holy shit.
|
Sam:
[1:08]
| Anyway we're gonna do our normal thing we'll have a little but first exciting session at the beginning where yvonne and i alternate with some lighter stuff and then we'll move Move into news and politics.
|
Ivan:
[1:23]
| It's exciting. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:25]
| And then we'll move into.
|
Ivan:
[1:26]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:28]
| And then news and politics and whatever's going on and blah, blah, blah. We'll alternate picking.
So.
|
Ivan:
[1:37]
| Without excitement.
|
Sam:
[1:39]
| I'm going to do a movie.
|
Ivan:
[1:41]
| You're going to do a movie.
|
Sam:
[1:42]
| Do you want to go first, Yvonne, or shall I start with the movie?
|
Ivan:
[1:44]
| No, no, you already announced a movie. You got to go with a movie.
|
Sam:
[1:49]
| Okay. Okay, this is not the first time I have seen this movie, but it is the first time I've seen this movie in a long time.
It is a movie from 1989.
As I'm slowly is one of the several series that I'm slowly making my ways, ways, slowly making my way through Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
|
Ivan:
[2:11]
| Oh, wow. Okay. You know, I came out when we were in college.
|
Sam:
[2:17]
| It would have let's see may 89 no no no the summer before right before right before yeah yes so here's like i have not yet watched the newest indiana jones the one that came out last i have not seen that yet i.
|
Ivan:
[2:36]
| I have not been like.
|
Sam:
[2:39]
| Wanting to you know i'll eventually get to it i'm not urgent i wasn't like i have to go see this in the theaters or anything um it's available right now on streaming already i know you can get it everywhere now it was you know but i wasn't urgent about it and i'm still not urgent about it i'll you know i like i said i'm sort of working my way through this series a few years between episodes or whatever and i'll eventually get to it.
|
Ivan:
[3:03]
| Yeah it's a few years between yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:06]
| So So, but of the ones I have seen, I've always felt I like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the best.
Like I give it a thumbs up. I give it a thumbs up.
And the reason that I give it like, hey, I like this one the best of all the Indiana Jones. You know the reason, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[3:26]
| No.
|
Sam:
[3:27]
| Sean Connery.
|
Ivan:
[3:29]
| Well, he, yeah, I mean, yeah, he does a great, he's great.
|
Sam:
[3:34]
| He made that movie.
|
Ivan:
[3:37]
| Yeah, he totally did.
|
Sam:
[3:39]
| Like, you know, the other two Indiana Jones movies were, oh, okay, fine, it's Indiana Jones, blah, blah, blah.
But, like, I really liked Connery bouncing off of Harrison Ford and the two of them together, and just the humor that Sean Connery brought to it.
So, yeah, for those of you who don't know, I'm sure all of you know, come on, Sean Connery played Indiana Jones' father in this thing.
|
Ivan:
[4:05]
| And um i will say that i am not one to get really starstruck with meeting people okay but you met i did mention i did meet sean connery at a restaurant in north miami beach uh and i mean before.
|
Sam:
[4:26]
| He was dead.
|
Ivan:
[4:27]
| Yes it that's very helpful it was it was a long time ago it was over 20 years years ago and i remember that this is you know it's a steakhouse uh the palm restaurant which there's some around it's it's it's not you know one location okay and i i was there this is there's one in north miami beach and i remember that i had gone and i i left something in the car i need to go back to get and when i went back to the valley and i'm sitting i'm sitting down waiting for them to bring my car, all of a sudden, there was somebody else there, and we're both just dumbstruck as we see Sean Connery climb out of the car and head into the restaurant.
And honestly, I just froze.
I was just...
God that's sean connery and he walked past i couldn't even say hi i think he rumbled i think he said hi and i was like and then guy went by you know went by it up the other guys over there i go holy fuck was that sean connery and he said yes it was i was like oh okay he's tall, say what you know yeah i mean certain people i mean he's over from watching.
|
Sam:
[5:45]
| The movies i i didn't have an impression of him as particularly tall but.
|
Ivan:
[5:48]
| Man I you know that was the thing and I'm like realize shit this guy's over 60 this guy's tall, I mean I'm you know I'd say like six feet something I mean yeah I mean he used let me see I'm gonna check how tall Sean Connery was but I was like yeah six two yeah I'm not wrong yeah he's two he's pretty tall I was like I realize and that's the thing I didn't get that impression from the movies and all of a sudden I'm like holy shit this guy's tall there is a certain gravitas that that man had as he walked past that you could not he really it wasn't just on the screen in person it was also like it took me a little bit to recognize it there was just I don't know guy had it but yeah I have to agree with you Sean Connery in that movie yeah if I think about the three, the plot itself Sean Connery and their interaction and everything yeah that made it a really great movie I have to say that yeah Yeah.
|
Sam:
[6:44]
| And you know.
|
Ivan:
[6:45]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[6:47]
| And otherwise you had the usual, he's bouncing around the world, he's fighting Nazis, you know, the whole thing, and that was all fine too, but again, it was Connery who made the movie, like, it's just, no ifs, ands, or buts, like, if you took him out of this movie, it would not have the same effect. You know, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[7:07]
| Say I I replaced Todd Connery. I mean, you know, this would have been the biggest box office bomb in history.
|
Sam:
[7:14]
| And I was reading before we started recording, I was reading the Wikipedia page, or skimming it anyway, for this movie.
And what's interesting is the character of Indiana Jones's father wasn't added to like the third draft of the script, right?
And, and it was Spielberg's suggestion to do that.
And Lucas didn't like the idea because it, you know, and they, you know, they eventually did it and, and obviously it worked out.
I mean, the, the descriptions of these first few drafts are like, not even remotely like the movie that came out.
Like it was originally going to be, what was the, the working title was Indiana Jones and the monkey king and in instead of like the regular instead of what they ended up doing in.
|
Ivan:
[8:13]
| The monkey king what the.
|
Sam:
[8:15]
| Hell and they were lord uh let's see lucas initially suggested making the film a haunted mansion movie what the fuck spielberg rejected the idea because of the the similarity to poltergeist yeah lucas first introduced the holy grail and the idea for the film's prologue which was going to be in scotland he intended the grail to have a pagan basis with the rest of the film revolving around a separate christian artifact in africa spielberg did not care for the the grail idea even after lucas suggested giving it healing powers and the the ability to grant immortality.
Lucas completed an eight page treatment titled Indiana Jones and the monkey King, which he soon followed with an 11 page outline in that one.
Indiana was battling a ghost in Scotland before finding the fountain of youth in Africa.
|
Ivan:
[9:15]
| Oh my God. Okay.
|
Sam:
[9:20]
| So yeah, it, it, it apparently changed quite a bit during.
|
Ivan:
[9:23]
| So the ghost in Scotland turned into a Scotch. Scottish actor as his father.
|
Sam:
[9:29]
| I guess so. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[9:32]
| I mean, you kept the Scotland part and like pretty good Sean Connery, you know, anyway, anyway.
|
Sam:
[9:41]
| I liked the movie thumbs up. Like as I've been rewatching these, like, you know, I think I'm trying to remember my ratings.
I think I gave the first movie a thumbs up because it's just a classic and you got to sort of, it's part of the cultural zeitgeist. this Geist.
I gave the second one either thumbs sideways or thumbs down.
I really didn't like it as much. Ah.
|
Ivan:
[10:04]
| The second one! I mean, I found... It's just weird. I found this whole heart...
The thing where they took out the hearts of the people with the pagan ritual, and then they dropped them into lava. I was just...
|
Sam:
[10:20]
| Anyway...
|
Ivan:
[10:20]
| And then...
|
Sam:
[10:23]
| Eventually, I'll get to the fourth one. I watched it once in the theaters when it originally came out, and I was extremely disappointed.
|
Ivan:
[10:33]
| I did watch the fourth one. Yeah, I'm with you. It was like, meh.
|
Sam:
[10:37]
| Indiana Jones and the fucking aliens. I mean, you know, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[10:41]
| Yeah, it was the aliens. Yeah, basically. I don't know who we got there.
|
Sam:
[10:46]
| Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'll talk more about that one whenever I watch it, if I watch it when it comes up.
But, and like, and like we said, I haven't watched the new, new one, the one that just came out that had a lot of really mixed reviews.
Some people thought it, but I think the top end of the scale was people who thought it was okay.
Then there were people who were really.
|
Ivan:
[11:07]
| I mean, I think it got better reviews in the previous one.
|
Sam:
[11:12]
| Yeah. Better than the aliens. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[11:13]
| Better than the alien one. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[11:15]
| I think this is also one that was a sort of a split between regular people watching the movie and critics where the regular people were just sort of, it was.
A fun movie you know and the critics yeah regular people.
|
Ivan:
[11:26]
| For the most part that i saw was like yeah they they like the movie so.
|
Sam:
[11:29]
| Okay anyway that oh wow that's it for me thumbs up for indiana jones and the last crusade if you haven't seen it in a while it's worth seeing again yeah so and and although like i will say the seeing again quotient i'm not i'm not going to say which movie it is as yet because it's a long time until i get to it in order but this week with alex i watched a movie again that i have previously and many times given thumbs up to, but i feel like i just watched it again too soon okay like which is no i'm not going to talk about it yet you'll oh you're not gonna you will have to wait years until i get to it in order but i I will just say it does make a difference.
Like even a movie you like, it might be good for like once every five years.
But if you watch it again, like after only a year or after two years, you're like, eh, whatever. I just saw this.
|
Ivan:
[12:26]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[12:27]
| Yeah. And it depends on the movie. There are probably some movies that I could enjoy watching like multiple times in a year or, and just get used to watching it. And there are other movies.
|
Ivan:
[12:36]
| I will say that there is, for example, i have one movie that for whatever the hell reason whatever comes on my linear streaming you'll stop for service i'll keep watching the damn thing i will say it's fucking true lies i don't know why the hell but that schwarzenegger movie i always i i enjoy watching that stupid movie i'm.
|
Sam:
[13:03]
| Not sure i've seen that is that the one with the seashells no that's something.
|
Ivan:
[13:07]
| Else No, it's one where you've got terrorists that that that get some nuclear weapons and they set one off and spoiler.
They set one off in the Florida Keys.
|
Sam:
[13:18]
| OK, I haven't seen that one. I'll add it to my list.
|
Ivan:
[13:23]
| The one thing I always like about that movie, another spoiler alert, is that they work for some super, super duper extra secret government agency in charge of preventing us from catastrophe.
Kind of like the IMF in Mission Impossible, but it's called the Omega Sector.
|
Sam:
[13:43]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[13:44]
| The last line of defense. fence and it's got when you go you know i will say that it's probably something that if i were to design some super secret agency of some kind okay i would want my rotunda with that low it's like in a marble floor with this big old mega logo with that name on it like that in like gold and stuff if i have a super secret agency i want a secret entrance with that logo on the floor okay.
|
Sam:
[14:18]
| I will keep that in mind when we are designing your secret lair.
|
Ivan:
[14:24]
| Yes my secret lair will have that okay there you'll come in and you get that on the floor.
|
Sam:
[14:31]
| Okay anyway that's enough for movies let's move on what's your but first yvonne or you know.
|
Ivan:
[14:38]
| Well i you know i had put this down a few weeks ago on the topics and i had that time to talk about it i i had the solar i spent yes the solar power and i i'll say that i spent you know i was out of i was i was good oh my god i did not i almost used that a phrase i hate that phrase out of pocket out of pocket out of pocket oh fuck i i I hate that phrase.
There was some guy at the office that used to say that all the time.
And every time he said that he said he's going to be out of pocket, I just really wanted to punch him in the face.
|
Sam:
[15:16]
| This is another thing that I forget the details, but within the last month or so, I think I read an article or just a conversation online or something where this is another one of those phrases that also means something different to different generations.
|
Ivan:
[15:34]
| Generations oh fuck what does it mean to different okay all right i.
|
Sam:
[15:37]
| Don't know i don't remember but i remember somebody talking about the confusion just like like apparently like the younger generations below us think dot dot dot is like passive aggressive and all that it's the same kind of thing like out of pocket meant something right now.
|
Ivan:
[15:51]
| You know what the fact that i know that it is passive aggressive now makes me use it more.
|
Sam:
[15:56]
| I gotta be honest with you.
|
Ivan:
[15:57]
| To them okay all right Because I'm just like, fuck all of you.
Okay? All right? Really. Right.
|
Sam:
[16:02]
| Okay?
|
Ivan:
[16:03]
| You don't get it.
So, yes, I did put down this thing about solar, okay? And I'm like, okay. So I said, did I go solar?
|
Sam:
[16:13]
| Did you?
|
Ivan:
[16:14]
| I have researched this, and the answer is yes.
|
Sam:
[16:17]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:18]
| Okay, so now the way I did it, it's not the traditional route, okay?
I did not go and install solar panels on top of this house for my parents.
But what I did do is that I am now acquiring all my energy from a community solar project, which is generating the KW hours that we use and putting them into the grid.
And so that's how we're getting the energy now.
And you're saying, well, what the fuck does that mean? And I realize now I have started working more in the energy industry. Okay.
All right. I am attending customers in the energy industry.
And I have been reading up. I have been reading up even before this about electricity deregulation in different states.
My brother had got me a little bit Pete disinterest because Texas is a state that did a lot of electricity deregulation.
And I know that a lot of people have talked about the negative aspects of that, you know, because of what happened with their grid and like the freezes and other stuff that happened, which was definitely bad. But there is one thing that happened with this, okay, which is hilarious.
It's that, look, renewable energies are super cheap.
They're cheaper than all the fossil fuels in the long term.
And so what happened with electricity deregulation in Texas, it's that it's made a gold rush of people producing clean energy and displacing fossil fuel because it's just cheaper to make it.
And so, and the way that you, if you're an electricity consumer in Texas, okay.
|
Sam:
[17:57]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[17:57]
| The way it works is.
There is the, you have the grid, and one company has that grid, and they manage the grid.
But you purchase your electricity by contract from the electricity producer, okay?
So, you know, you can pick whichever producer you want, the clean energy one, the well, whatever, and they all have different kilowatt hour rates, and they sell contracts.
You know you buy your electricity for 24 months 36 months 48 months whatever the heck the time period is okay and so you know what happens it's like all the energy you know everybody buys their energy and it's like hey you know if more people buy from the clean energy guy and they have the contracts well they have the commitment to provide x number of kilowatt hours into the grid okay so.
They so that that is their energy contribution to the grid that then translates into what energy you get so they and and that's the way it works in a lot of places i'm i'm working right now where i'm in puerto rico specifically where they are going to a process not not the entire way of deregulation in that way but where they are disaggregating the distribution from the production okay so you've got energy producers on one side okay which are a number of companies like right right now that will provide electricity into the grid and then you've got the the electric distribution which actually provides the last mile of electricity connects you from there from from point a to point b but they're basically just the network you think about it if you think about it in terms of it it's like okay you've got your you know your google data centers your amazon data centers or whatever they're at the end and then you've got the pipe in the middle okay all right then then you're at home and but but you know whatever you're you're consuming where you're computing power whatever it is i mean it's not it's not the pipe okay itself okay you've got your pipe you got your production you got whatever and so their fpl is selling that saying hey if you want to purchase your electricity from the solar farm that we've got set for your community and they are in different communities here sign this contract and you will get all your kilowatt hours I got paid a slight upcharge right now for it, but it's fine.
I was perfectly happy to do that.
It didn't seem like it was much of a difference.
The one thing is, I was comparing the price of the panels versus purchasing it from the farm.
And a lot of the sellers of panels, what they're saying is, well, nobody said it's a scam.
|
Sam:
[20:47]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[20:48]
| Everybody actually agrees it's real. Okay, so that was the first thing.
Okay, let's see. Is this some kind of scam?
|
Sam:
[20:53]
| Which both of them, the panels and the farm. but neither one are scams.
|
Ivan:
[21:00]
| Right, right, right. Is any of it a scam? Neither one is a scam.
The difference between one or the other is that on one you own the panels and on the other one you're purchasing generation from solar.
The panel people argue against the FBL program not because it's a scam or whatever.
They say, well, you're never owning your panels and so therefore it's costlier over time.
That's an argument. I had quoted solar for my parents' house and this place. And the reality is...
|
Sam:
[21:32]
| There's also the argument about, like, do you actually want to move closer to being off-grid, too?
So you're, like, sort of independent and self-sustaining.
|
Ivan:
[21:42]
| Well, there's that. But I'm in the city. I mean, I'm like, I can't be completely, you know, really... The one thing about being completely off-grid is that there are barriers. In Florida, there is no incentive for you to be off-grid here because there's net metering.
|
Sam:
[21:57]
| A number of states have actually put up active barriers to keep you from doing that.
|
Ivan:
[22:02]
| And there are barriers, but there's also, look, there's net metering, okay?
So that means that if you produce more, the power company has to buy it from you. Then you get paid.
So there's no good incentive to be off the grid. Plus, if you are running low in production, your batteries run out, I mean, you need power.
I mean, it's better to be connected so you have an alternate power source.
Otherwise, you're just dependent on what you have.
|
Sam:
[22:30]
| The flip side is being connected to the grid but having your stuff locally means if the grid goes down in like a storm or something, you still have local capacity.
|
Ivan:
[22:42]
| Well, that's correct. I mean, and that's the one thing. But actually, I'm looking at some workarounds on that. There are battery backups, generators and stuff, but I'm not even getting to that one.
The main thing that I did on the financial equation between – if I just go about on the argument, forget about that one about the emergency situation.
|
Sam:
[23:02]
| Right, right. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[23:03]
| Just on the cost of the panels versus the other one. Look, the reality is that I –, I wound up paying monthly for financing these panels over 20 years.
Basically what my utility bill was, which was the incentive that I had.
I'm going, I'm like, well, look, I'm going to wind up out of pocket every month about the same as the electric bill.
But I've gone with zero emissions. OK.
And supposedly I own the panels at the end. But here's here's the thing. Look, 20 year old.
|
Sam:
[23:35]
| By the time you get to the end, you'll be ready to replace them anyway.
|
Ivan:
[23:38]
| Exactly. So that was the one thing where the electricity guys that are selling me the panels are trying to tell me how I'm going to benefit from that, you know, benefit from my own.
But in the end, man, those panels are 20 years old.
That's the stuff I'm going to have to replace it anyway. So you're always paying out of pop.
Okay. Okay, so right now, I went with that.
Okay, that was the quickest, cheapest way for me to reduce my carbon footprint significantly and quickly and relatively cheaply and with very little effort, to be honest.
I've just been researching ways of how to go about that. I don't know.
Reviewed the options and especially living in a condo it's for me at my parents house it was easier to put the pants and on there i had a quote i was more ready to move on that one based on that but in a condo because of the shared roof and whatever whatnot that's more complicated that's for for people like me that is a better route to go and you know reduce the carbon carbon footprint, go solar than the other ops.
And so I did that. And once I realized that, you know, the other thing that I have been actively doing for probably at least on and off for, well, pretty consistently for over a decade is that I have participated in something called TerraPass.
And I don't know if you've heard of TerraPass, but TerraPass is a company that was started by some university students a long time ago that basically sells you carbon offsets.
Okay they are they have their reputation for being now.
|
Sam:
[25:16]
| Now let me ask this because carbon offsets are something that people have said that's a freaking scam they're not really.
|
Ivan:
[25:23]
| Correct now and and and this is one of the few companies that is not considered a scam okay that their offsets are actually real there there's a lot of people online that will swear by the fact No, no, no, no.
TerraPass carbon credits are real carbon credits. It's not bullshit.
It was something that was started by some university professors and a student.
Like, man, it was back in 2004.
And they have projects, and I have paid money monthly for carbon offsets for that for a long time.
I don't think it got me to a point where I was like zero.
On a carbon footprint but it sure as hell reduced it substantially where like my carbon footprint was like 80 90 percent less than the average american household at that point but however now that i combine that with the community solar basically right now i'm carbon negative at this point because i did not cancel the terra pass i'm sticking with it okay to also cover any air air travel and whatever.
So right now, Sam, I'm carbon negative.
I'm net carbon negative.
|
Sam:
[26:41]
| Congratulations, Mr. Bo.
|
Ivan:
[26:42]
| And it didn't take that much. And it did not take that much.
The reason I'm bringing it up, it did not take that much effort.
Once I sat down, I analyzed it. I'm like, oh, so here, go solar.
It actually, with our power provider, I swear to God, it took less than five minutes to sign up to switch my energy source to solar.
And the TerraPass is relatively easy. So, hey, all of you that listen, look, you guys want to, you know, reduce your carbon footprint.
I'm talking to you, Sam, as well. You guys go on there, make your carbon calculator and go on the TerraPass and buy your credits.
I try to use those more for air travel and other things.
|
Sam:
[27:25]
| I was going to get one of those attachments for my car so I could roll coal.
|
Ivan:
[27:30]
| Hole you know.
|
Sam:
[27:33]
| I i want for anybody who doesn't know that's a thing that basically you push a button and huge clouds of black soot crap come out of the back of your car.
|
Ivan:
[27:43]
| Well normally it's with diesel you know what a diesel cars were you know to be fair when i when i was back in the 80s when none of this really i think we gave we either understood or gave a shit okay well some people people understood it, but most of us didn't.
We had a diesel car that all you had to do was pop it into neutral and you would accelerate it, and the person behind you exactly, your old holder, they would be like in a cloud of black soot.
|
Sam:
[28:11]
| Maybe I can convert my car to wood burning.
|
Ivan:
[28:15]
| There you go. Well, that's very eco-friendly. I mean, wood is a renewable resource.
|
Sam:
[28:21]
| Oh, true.
I'll have to think of something better then.
|
Ivan:
[28:28]
| And so, yes, I encourage, you know, so I basically just want to point out that, you know, after, you know, some effort, I, you know, what I'm saying is, look, if I got more people here in Florida to just go and sign for fucking the solar projects, I mean, basically, you know, FPL plants have a certain amount of life.
Eventually, you know, they'll have to decommission those on the solar.
I mean, it was just, it is I found it that if you try, you could do a hell of a lot better than whatever we're doing right now.
|
Sam:
[29:02]
| Yeah. No.
|
Ivan:
[29:02]
| There you go. So that was my report.
|
Sam:
[29:05]
| Okay. Well, let's take a break and then we will come back and start talking more newsy stuff. Very exciting.
|
Ivan:
[29:13]
| Newsy.
|
Sam:
[29:13]
| Newsy. Newsy.
Here we go.
|
Ivan:
[29:19]
| Newsie.
|
Break:
[29:23]
| You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No! Do you want to support the show? No!
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|
Sam:
[31:03]
| We're back. And I guess that it gets because of the way we did it. It's actually my turn.
|
Ivan:
[31:09]
| It is.
|
Sam:
[31:10]
| It is. So it's me.
So I'm going to have to just start it off with Iowa, New Hampshire.
Like we had Iowa last week.
|
Ivan:
[31:20]
| What happened? What happened? What happened?
|
Sam:
[31:23]
| I won. I won.
|
Ivan:
[31:25]
| You won.
|
Sam:
[31:26]
| I won. You won. I know. No, it's very exciting.
|
Ivan:
[31:29]
| Oh, great! So, what's my cabinet position again?
|
Sam:
[31:33]
| Oh, yeah, you're going to be Secretary of Toast.
|
Ivan:
[31:37]
| Oh, okay, well, there you go.
|
Sam:
[31:40]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:42]
| Honestly, good toast is important.
|
Sam:
[31:45]
| It is. It is critical to the functioning of society.
|
Ivan:
[31:49]
| Look, I cannot operate any day without toast.
My toast well.
|
Sam:
[31:55]
| There there you go okay no obviously donald trump won as expected, you know and in fact like i was just looking you know because one of the things i'd mentioned last week on the show when you weren't here yvonne because you were off frolicking at disney you know i.
|
Ivan:
[32:12]
| Spent i was saying out of pocket i spent six fucking i i gotta admit that i'm not used to being out wait.
|
Sam:
[32:20]
| What you were you you were out of pocket yvonne you were saying you're out of pocket again.
|
Ivan:
[32:25]
| Out of fucking pocket out of bullshit it's like i i went on a business trip and then i immediately right afterwards i went and like hopped on a car and drove to orlando i spent six out of seven days in a hotel i i was like really not i i realized i i was like man i'm not I'm not used to doing this shit anymore.
|
Sam:
[32:47]
| Anyway, one of the things I mentioned last week was, you know, it's not a general election thing, but this will be like our first opportunity to see if polls are over or underestimating Donald Trump this time around.
And the polling average in Iowa, according to FiveThirtyEight, was Trump 52.7%. His actual result was 51.0.
So that's pretty close, actually. You know, he got a little bit less than the polling, but tiny, right?
It was a little bit further off with DeSantis and Haley. Like the polling underestimated both of them.
We had Haley at 18% and she actually got 19. we had DeSantis at 16 and he actually got 21.
Even Ramaswamy, the polls had him at six and he got seven or actually almost eight. Um, But the Iowa averages were actually pretty close to right in terms of what would happen here.
They had the order of DeSantis and Haley wrong.
They thought Haley had gotten some steam up and would beat DeSantis and no, but they were very close to each other.
It was essentially, you know, so I don't know, but Trump was almost spot on.
So like, I'll see what happens. We'll see what happens in New Hampshire.
But so far, you know, you're not and look, the dynamics of a polling the Republicans is different than the dynamics of polling Trump versus Biden.
|
Ivan:
[34:34]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[34:34]
| You know, but, you know, there's a hypothesis out there that instead of having shy Trump voters, you add shy anti Trump voters who did not want to admit that they were going against Trump.
And that that's not showing up so far so we'll see well.
|
Ivan:
[34:52]
| Okay well actually wait but no i think if what you're saying is that the polling underestimated the the the others it's basically saying that even though they intended to vote for for haley and the santas they didn't actually say it in the polls.
|
Sam:
[35:10]
| You're right you're right if you if you add that up it's a it's a it's not that big big but the the percentage of anti-trump collectively okay now you got me adding it up but you know i forget adding it up you are right there is a little bit of an underestimation of the anti-trumps that's a little bit higher yeah than the polls would indicate and that would come from if you go with that hypothesis hypothesis and the fact that the trump polls were very close then it's just showing you that a lot of the undecideds are breaking against Trump.
But it doesn't seem to be that big.
These percentages are close enough. I'm not going to claim that's a big effect.
But you're right. There does seem to be a little bit of an effect.
|
Ivan:
[36:01]
| Well, the thing is, I don't know about, you know, the polling for the primary itself.
I mean, here's the crazy thing about this, the caucus, right?
Let's start with one thing. Okay, you've got the percentages there.
But yeah yeah the biggest thing that i took as a takeaway from iowa was was the massive drop in participation in the republican caucus i mean this is not the weather but but well.
|
Sam:
[36:37]
| I was gonna say but the weather is important it was like the it was the worst weather in an iowa caucus.
|
Ivan:
[36:42]
| Yeah yeah but if listen i'm sorry if they're so fucking die hard for this fucking thing it was the coldest they would fucking show up I'm sorry but really really die hard motivated you don't get a 40% drop in fucking you know you know what am I attendance, it was the worst it's been since what did they say 1980 it was crazy it was a long time it was nuts nuts so i and.
|
Sam:
[37:19]
| Keep in mind they often don't have caucuses when there's incumbents but so.
|
Ivan:
[37:23]
| Right so we're talking right i gotta be like but but but still i mean it's you know we keep talking about enthusiasm gap okay and that that's the main thing okay and you know well you're talking about that enthusiasm gap and when what you see is such a drop off, in them showing up like that.
And they want to explain a way of the weather.
Look, man, there was a fucking football game in Kansas City, okay? It was the coldest game fucking ever.
And they had 95% of the fucking people for the game show up.
Only 5% of people were no-shows, okay?
|
Sam:
[38:05]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[38:05]
| And you've got this thing where it's, oh my God, our savior's coming.
He's our savior because that's what they say. He's the God. I'm not, these are not my words.
|
Sam:
[38:16]
| I know, I know.
|
Ivan:
[38:17]
| They're their fucking words. He is their God sent savior.
And you won't fucking show up for the guy that told you to show up even if you're going to die.
Which he demanded. I don't care if you die, show up and vote.
|
Sam:
[38:34]
| He did.
|
Ivan:
[38:36]
| And they were like, no thanks.
|
Sam:
[38:38]
| He's so caring.
|
Ivan:
[38:39]
| Yes, he's so caring. And they were like, no, thank you.
|
Sam:
[38:41]
| So to round out iowa before we start talking about new hampshire in terms of delegates, there were 40 delegates in iowa and you know i mentioned this last week it's always worth repeating this was the first stage of a multi-stage process the numbers will change before like iowa's delegates won't actually be final until like june okay but you know for the moment it looks like out of iowa's 40 delegates trump got 20 so exactly half desantis nine hailey eight ramaswami three ramaswami and asa hutchinson dropped out now both dropped out after this immediately you know hutchinson obviously got nothing ram ramaswami came in a pitiful fourth, Ramaswamy immediately endorsed Trump. The week before we had Christie drop out.
He hasn't endorsed anyone yet.
And specifically, I didn't mention this on the show last week.
Christie, while not endorsing anybody at this time, said anybody who can't come and flat out say that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president is themselves not qualified to be president, which would rule out.
|
Ivan:
[40:04]
| Hey, everybody.
|
Sam:
[40:06]
| Everybody. Neither DeSantis or Haley can bring themselves to say that.
When Haley gave her little speech after Iowa, she did start hitting on Trump a little bit more than she had before. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[40:23]
| Yeah, yeah, but still. Just a little bit.
|
Sam:
[40:25]
| Just a little bit.
|
Ivan:
[40:27]
| You know, he's not good. Oh.
|
Sam:
[40:31]
| By the way, speaking of Chris Christie, he had technically already dropped out, but I just want to say he got a grand total in Iowa of 35 votes.
|
Ivan:
[40:42]
| Wow. 35?
|
Sam:
[40:44]
| 35. 0.03% of the vote.
|
Ivan:
[40:48]
| Well, he had dropped out, so, I mean.
|
Sam:
[40:51]
| I know, but you know, still. I mean. Anyway, so what does this mean for going forward? Blah, blah, blah.
We got Iowa coming up. DeSantis isn't even playing in Iowa.
He is pulling so badly in Iowa. He's just skipping it entirely. He's... I.
|
Ivan:
[41:10]
| Mean, New Hampshire.
|
Sam:
[41:11]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[41:13]
| Your cognitive decline is showing.
|
Sam:
[41:15]
| Exactly. Like right before we started recording, people were passing around a clip of Donald Trump confusing Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi.
And, you know, I, I, yes, but at the same time, look, I can't keep Iowa and New Hampshire straight, you know? So I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[41:36]
| You're not running for president, but I feel more comfortable.
|
Sam:
[41:38]
| That's true. True. You know, I might accidentally bomb the right state, wrong state.
|
Ivan:
[41:45]
| The right state.
|
Sam:
[41:46]
| The right state, wrong state. See, see what I mean? There you go.
You know, when I am choosing as president, which states I don't like, I could mix them up.
|
Ivan:
[41:57]
| Yes, I could see.
|
Sam:
[41:58]
| That's part of the president's job, right? They pick half the states and violate them.
|
Ivan:
[42:01]
| Yeah, yes. Yes, part of the president's job, yes. Absolutely.
|
Sam:
[42:06]
| You know, with Donald, and I know I'm getting distracted here, with Donald Trump arguing that the president is completely immune from anything criminal, you know, we can make sure Joe Biden wins.
He just has to nuke all the red states.
|
Ivan:
[42:24]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[42:25]
| And then he's all set.
|
Ivan:
[42:26]
| Look, make it simple. I was just nuke Joe Biden.
Yes. Yes, Joe Biden could go and fucking bomb Mar-a-Lago while he's there.
And that's it. We're done.
|
Sam:
[42:39]
| And perfectly legal because he's got immunity.
|
Ivan:
[42:42]
| And perfectly legal, according. I mean, you know, I'm actually rooting for him in a certain way.
I'm like, damn it. If I knew that Biden was going to go and say, oh, the Supreme Court said this is legal.
And I'm like, OK, great, Joe. Just do it.
Just do it for the country. Do it.
|
Sam:
[43:01]
| Joe would not.
|
Ivan:
[43:02]
| Don't what not.
|
Sam:
[43:05]
| And and by the way i'm i'm joking but like you joe biden shouldn't actually do that any of the things i just mentioned he should nuke he should he should not nuke all the red states he should not assassinate donald trump no of course not come on well i live in.
|
Ivan:
[43:22]
| One of the red states okay so yeah let's not you know right now but please let's not let's not nuke florida.
|
Sam:
[43:28]
| You would have have so much fun oh.
|
Ivan:
[43:31]
| Yeah it sounds like a ball.
|
Sam:
[43:32]
| Yeah you could live out your favorite movies from the 80s yes.
|
Ivan:
[43:37]
| I know that i've been you know looking forward to nuclear annihilation my entire life as you mentioned yeah.
|
Sam:
[43:42]
| Exactly so anyway desantis is skipping new hampshire there we go back on track, Nikki Haley is polling better in New Hampshire.
And this is again something that I talked about last week, but put it out there again because there have been new polls since Iowa.
|
Ivan:
[44:06]
| New polls!
|
Sam:
[44:07]
| Haley had been gaining on Trump in Iowa. Now, to be clear, she was not that close, but she'd been gaining on him.
And so there was this narrative building about like, because people have been desperately trying to concoct scenarios.
And I did it a little bit last week, although I said that's what I was doing, to try to get something that's not Biden versus Trump. And so like what kind of magical scenario gets Haley the win, right?
And it's basically she wins or comes super close in New Hampshire.
And then all kinds of people all across the country who are currently Trump supporters are like, oh, let's take a second look at Haley.
It's, I don't know. I have, I can't look at that and take it seriously.
And what's happened in the polls since last week with Haley, like I said, before Iowa, she'd been gaining in New Hampshire on Trump.
But since Iowa, DeSantis has been dropping through the floor.
Ramaswamy is out. So Haley has gained a little bit more, but Trump has gained even more than that. So he's pulling ahead of her now because he's picking up the support from DeSantis and Ramaswamy. I mean.
|
Ivan:
[45:32]
| Let's be clear about this. Has it been a doubt between you and me that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee at this point, barring some kind of legal or health issue?
|
Sam:
[45:47]
| Or health issue. issue and and look you know yeah i saw somebody on i don't know what news show i was watching it but they said look trump is going to be the nominee unless he's dead and given how the republicans are right now they might nominate him anyway even if he was dead you know i.
|
Ivan:
[46:08]
| Would love it that if they dominate him and he's dead.
|
Sam:
[46:10]
| That would be great but it'd be kind of difficult.
|
Ivan:
[46:15]
| To to swear him in if he won.
|
Sam:
[46:17]
| And look, yes, you can work out those scenarios where something absolutely nuts happens and Trump collapses, but I think it has to be a, it could be a health issue.
Like I said, they were just people making fun of him right before we started recording about like his mental facilities getting worse.
And I don't know how much to attribute that or not. Cause he's been a flake for decades.
But also, from the legal side, the only thing is that poll after poll after poll after poll has had Republicans saying that if he's actually convicted, that would make a difference to them, that somehow the indictments don't.
They asked that in the entrance polls to Iowa, and about one-third of the caucus goers said that if he was actually convicted, they would consider that a disqualification.
And, you know, on the one hand, it's like, that means two thirds don't, but a third is a pretty big chunk of people.
And it's out of the, like the motivated partisans too.
Now, do I believe it? Not entirely. Like every other time, like he's had bad legal news, it's just boosted his numbers.
But at some point, maybe that changes, but, but that's more about like, I don't see that happening early enough to deny him the nomination like maybe that affects general election yeah but you know yeah but he's got this stupid nomination wrapped up and you know the, republican senators and other folks who'd been sort of a little reluctant are now jumping on the endorsement train because they don't want to be late because they all see the writing on the wall of course he's winning of course he's winning like the.
|
Ivan:
[48:13]
| One thing is that This is all about, they all are doing this from a political re-election point of view.
|
Sam:
[48:25]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[48:26]
| As far as I can tell. None of these people are doing any of this on principle.
They are like, all their calculation is, well, whatever crimes, whatever he may have done, I don't give a shit.
I need my re-election and I need, you know, to get my, win my primary, I need to fall in line.
I can't say anything against this guy, even if I think he's the scum of the earth.
So I'm just falling in line and that's it.
Period. They have principles in this.
The only people that probably have principles with their decision in order to carry out their principles was to resign.
|
Sam:
[49:07]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[49:09]
| That's it not run for reelection resign whatever and all those people yeah exactly yeah.
|
Sam:
[49:14]
| Now i think it's not only that he's gonna win like the the competition's gonna fall away here like we trump is gonna win again in new hampshire this week like maybe hayley makes it kind of close i mean if she comes out with an upset we will reevaluate next week but i think trump is still gonna win hayley's gonna be a little bit closer than before and and then we run to like, Next up on the Republican side is Nevada.
And apparently that's a weird one too.
There were some reports about how like Trump hadn't filled out the right paperwork to be on the ballot in Nevada. And that's like half true.
He did not fill out the paperwork to be on the ballot for the primary in Nevada.
Nevada, but that's because the primary doesn't matter in Nevada.
The delegates are allocated by a caucus.
And so DeSantis didn't sign up for the primary either. Most of them didn't.
So I think Haley did.
So you might get some news about Haley winning the Nevada primary, but the Nevada primary doesn't matter. Only the Nevada caucuses matter.
But of course, Trump's going to run away with it there too.
And then South Carolina, like I would be at this point, I would be surprised if DeSantis and Haley make it to super Tuesday.
Like I know just a few weeks ago on the prediction show, I said DeSantis would drop out after super Tuesday at this point, like people are talking about like how he pro he might not even make it to South Carolina, but it seems like South Carolina is his last stand.
You know, if he doesn't do something by then, of course, the difference between South Carolina and Super Tuesday is like one week.
So maybe hang out one more week, but, you know, do.
|
FutureSam:
[51:08]
| Do, do Sam from the future here. And indeed DeSantis did not make it to Super Tuesday.
He did not make it to South Carolina.
In fact, he didn't even make it to me releasing this show.
On Sunday, January 21st, after we recorded and before I'm releasing, as I'm editing, DeSantis dropped out.
So he's leaving it as basically Trump versus Haley for the rest, and we'll see how long Haley lasts.
Maybe she'll make it to South Carolina on Super Tuesday. We'll see. Maybe not.
Back to the show. Do, do, do.
|
Sam:
[51:47]
| Yeah, I don't know. Like, DeSantis doesn't have, like, any place he can point to in the entire rest of the country where he's got a good case for why he would win.
|
Ivan:
[52:03]
| Not even Florida.
|
Sam:
[52:04]
| Not even Florida. He had put everything on Iowa, and, you know, he came in a distant second in Iowa. So he would have had to make it close to make that case.
And Nikki Haley is putting all of her rocks, putting all of her whatevers, I don't know, what's she putting in?
|
Ivan:
[52:27]
| No, we put all their eggs in a basket.
|
Sam:
[52:30]
| Eggs. Eggs, okay. Putting all of her efforts into New Hampshire.
|
Ivan:
[52:35]
| You put the rocks in a basket? What the hell are we doing?
|
Sam:
[52:39]
| Doing well i was gonna put the rocks in new hampshire i was gonna put rocks in new hampshire.
|
Ivan:
[52:45]
| Wasn't it the granite state is that what it.
|
Sam:
[52:47]
| Is yes it's great yeah so then you get.
|
Ivan:
[52:50]
| The rocks granite it's nice.
|
Sam:
[52:52]
| Yeah so but she she's putting everything in new hampshire and the reason she's doing so well new hampshire is it's an open primary and independence can vote so she's got nothing after new hampshire either possibly not even south carolina you know where she's from So I just, other than Donald Trump falls over and has a heart attack tomorrow, I have a really hard time coming up with any sort of path for anybody.
And I think it's all just sort of- well okay there have been more of these lately like you know we've had we've had conversations about trump's mental state over and over again for the last what eight plus years 12 years whatever since he came on the scene and generally generally when we've talked about it our conclusion has been is he as sharp as he was in the 80s no no no but is he but does he have like a problem that is is any different than it has been for a long time in that he's just, you know, Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[54:16]
| He's sounding worse. He's sounding worse.
|
Sam:
[54:19]
| Yeah. And I think.
|
Ivan:
[54:20]
| And I think it's a combination of factors.
|
Sam:
[54:22]
| When we've talked about it during his presidency, we've sort of said, yeah, okay, he's got some issues, but it's not that bad. And it's not much worse than it has been.
I think now it is worse. I think you're right. I mean.
|
Ivan:
[54:35]
| It is worse. And look, it's...
Man he is a guy trying to run for president while at the same time his business empire is under threat of dissolution okay he is under criminal threat to go to jail and and you know i i think there's another thing about how he deals with stressful situations like death where, I don't think that it's like it doesn't bother him that his mother-in-law died.
Forget about the being thoughtful, empathetic, whatever.
|
Sam:
[55:22]
| Well, it doesn't seem like he's given a shit about anybody in his life who's died ever.
|
Ivan:
[55:26]
| But the thing is, look, there is a thing of like, you got to separate two things.
There is a difference between him not having any emotional depth to be able to provide those in pain comfort versus that event to him is so stressful and he is in such denial that he cannot confront it.
And so therefore he does what he did, which is completely avoided because he doesn't even want to see it. Okay.
It's like, how do I make death go away? I won't even be in the presence of it.
|
Sam:
[56:14]
| I will ignore it. Pretend it doesn't happen. Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:17]
| Exactly. And so I think that for, you know, yeah, I mean, he doesn't have any emotional...
Death to provide people and to provide them comfort he's never shown it i mean we've seen him you know with people in natural disasters or or what happened with all the covet deaths or or you know his family and mary trump's book he pretty much says that his family was dying he never visited him at the hospital not his sister not not his brother not his parents no well and this is what i was saying about him being.
|
Sam:
[57:02]
| Like this his entire life like this is not new.
|
Ivan:
[57:04]
| Yeah but but i but i yeah but i but i that that part is not new but i i think that the reason he does it is because it scares the fucking living shit out of him, that's why more than anything well.
|
Sam:
[57:22]
| And then and then obviously if he himself is showing signs of aging that's going to scare the fuck out of him too.
|
Ivan:
[57:27]
| Exactly yeah so yeah this is a combination of a lot of stressors all at the same time and oh by the way listen i gotta tell you that if given how frosty his relationship has been with his wife i mean he's got to be thinking Then when the fuck is she divorcing my ex?
|
Sam:
[57:50]
| Hmm.
|
Ivan:
[57:51]
| Okay. Because man, if that relationship hasn't turned into a complete iceberg.
|
Sam:
[57:58]
| Yeah. Well, and this is also not that new. I mean, there were signs of that while, while during the presidency too.
|
Ivan:
[58:06]
| But now it's just, you know.
|
Sam:
[58:09]
| Well, after he was no longer president, there was no reason to pretend anymore.
|
Ivan:
[58:13]
| Right, correct. Yeah, but he's trying to run for president again, and she's not even, like, remotely trying to pretend that I'm the wife.
Or, by the way, the other ones that aren't any interest in this fucking thing for the most part seem to be Ivanka and Jared.
Yeah, oh, my God. She's like, Jesus, get me the fuck away from this fucking thing.
|
Sam:
[58:32]
| Yeah. So, anyway. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[58:34]
| I think that's the whole point.
My whole point about that was, you know, that this is a man under, man, I mean, how many people are under this level of stress?
|
Sam:
[58:50]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[58:51]
| So.
|
Sam:
[58:52]
| Well, to summarize what I was starting to do before we got onto yet another tangent, because we do that.
|
Ivan:
[58:59]
| Well, that's our show. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[59:01]
| Yeah. Not only are Biden and Trump heading to the nomination, but I think the opposition to them is such token opposition that they will wrap this up mathematically almost as soon as it's possible.
You know, I'd said this last week, but you weren't here.
The first date mathematically that Trump could wrap this up is March 12th.
I would be absolutely shocked if maybe it doesn't actually get wrapped up on the 12th, but I think there's a decent chance it will.
If it's not the 12th, it's going to be right after the 12th.
Like, it's going to be the next week. Right.
And same thing with Biden. Like this Phillips guy, like whatever, you know, maybe if Kennedy was still a Democrat, that'd be something we would see here.
But like whatever you know you know the date the date when the democrats can mathematically lock it up is march 19th and yes that's the day that biden will cinch it i don't see any scenario where biden does not cinch the nomination and that's.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:15]
| What i think look when i think it becomes clear that it it's you know the the trump biden fucking show again i think that's when polling becomes more.
|
Sam:
[1:00:27]
| That's when the polls start changing yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:29]
| Because you shared an article.
|
Sam:
[1:00:33]
| There have been a couple articles lately there have been a couple articles lately and a few polls lately that basically point to a huge proportion of the american public, does not believe that it will actually be Biden versus Trump.
Like you and me and anybody listening to this podcast have been paying attention and know what's going on.
But for the general person who's only like occasionally tuning into what's going on, they're actually going to be surprised and it's going to be what it's Biden versus Trump again. What the fuck?
Right. You know, and, And even if they've been asked, would you pick Biden versus Trump, they're thinking of it in a highly theoretical, well, yeah, I'll give an opinion on this, but that's obviously not going to happen.
And so maybe the reality of that will shift things around some.
We'll see. But I think it won't be long till that reality.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:31]
| Listen, you've got this shit. In that article that you shared, you've got guys like Roger Stone, our favorite person. or something.
|
Sam:
[1:01:41]
| Okay?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:41]
| It says, I continue to predict, as I have for well over two years, that Michelle Obama will be the Democratic Party nominee for president in 2024.
I mean, look, I was about to say what kind of a drugged up idiot would say that, and I realize it's Roger fucking Stone, who basically is like, I mean, mainlining every fucking drug possible, you know, in existence on a regular basis.
So yeah so megan kelly floated a theory about miss obama as well that fucking psycho bitch too christ then there there is just it's it was this thing where there is just in the article the main thing is there is just this last there's this vast number of people that just have this complete just, you know, incredulity to what's going on. It said President Biden is cruising, not the line here, but the line here, President Biden is cruising Democratic nomination.
Former President Donald Trump could begin to wrap up his party's now within days.
America's response, this can't be real.
|
Sam:
[1:02:56]
| Right. And you mentioned a couple examples of Republicans thinking that scenarios where Biden doesn't make it.
And we were just talking about all the like, trying to think of scenarios that Trump isn't. You know, like.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:09]
| Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:03:10]
| He will, he will get convicted and all of a sudden they'll dump him as the nominee.
Oh, he's going to like do a miraculous comeback and Haley's going to be there.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:19]
| Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:03:20]
| He's going to have a heart attack, you know, or, oh, his mental problems are going to like become obvious to everybody and they'll dump him and blah, blah, blah.
All of these are, are stretching to try to find something, something that keeps us from this.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:36]
| It's possible he could have a heart. attack. And Scott possibly could drop that tonight.
|
Sam:
[1:03:41]
| All of these things are possible. It's just, it's, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:44]
| Possible, you know, it's just that the likelihood is that the rate that we are going is just.
|
Sam:
[1:03:50]
| To be clear, those kinds of issues, potential for Biden too.
Yes. He is also old. He, you know, he is also slowing down mentally.
Now I don't think there's a huge problem there yet, but he's also clearly not what he was 20 years ago, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:04:06]
| And so that's not what i was 20 fucking years ago for god's sakes you know jesus christ give me a fucking break look well you and i you and i you.
|
Sam:
[1:04:17]
| And i were embryos 20 years ago so that's fine you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:20]
| Oh okay you know so this is our clones okay um all right um well look i'm gonna say this Yes. Biden is 82.
Fuck, I cannot imagine how the hell I would be handling that job.
|
Sam:
[1:04:38]
| Yeah, you were talking about the stresses of all the stresses on Donald Trump.
The stresses on Biden have got to be huge, too. You know, the.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:48]
| Stresses on Biden are huge, but it's different. I do think that.
|
Sam:
[1:04:53]
| He's not worried about going to jail. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:55]
| And it's not, you know, I really believe that, and there is, I mean, I've seen this happen in general, that the people that are the ultimate fake crooks have to spend so much energy projecting that facade, That it manifests itself physically a lot quicker than to somebody who has not been a fucking, you know, lying crook their entire life.
|
Sam:
[1:05:32]
| Okay. Well, I think we've done enough on the primaries and caucuses.
We will have New Hampshire. Oh, one other note on New Hampshire. Yeah?
Because Biden is not officially running in New Hampshire.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:47]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:05:48]
| So he will get some write-in votes, and he may even win based on write-in votes.
But the chances of, you know, I mentioned Dean Phillips isn't going anywhere, and there are a bunch of other characters that are running only on the New Hampshire ballot or whatnot.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:04]
| Michelle!
|
Sam:
[1:06:05]
| But there is a chance that we will have some of these other people have delegates.
There's even a chance that one of these other people will technically win New Hampshire.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:16]
| Michelle!
|
Sam:
[1:06:16]
| Because Biden isn't technically running. No, not Michelle.
Like she's not even. Yeah. Anyway. So you may have a weird situation after New Hampshire for the Democrats that somebody other than Biden is actually possibly a head even, or at least looks temporarily competitive, but it's all bullshit.
It's because, you know, So New Hampshire has been docked for not changing their schedule.
The Democrats desperately did not want New Hampshire to be first.
New Hampshire law requires them to be first.
So Biden pulled out. Their delegates got cut dramatically.
So those 10 delegates coming out of New Hampshire, all kinds of weird stuff could happen.
Or lots of people write in Biden and he just wins normally. But it's such a small number of delegates, it really doesn't matter.
The first thing that matters on the Democratic side is South Carolina on February 3rd.
Okay, with that, I would suggest that since we went this long on my topic, that we just take a break and the entire next segment is whatever you want to talk about, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:30]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:07:31]
| So with that, let's take a break and Yvonne's going to get some water.
We'll be back right after this.
|
Break:
[1:07:41]
| Do, do, do. Hello, this is Arthur Neural. all.
I'm here to let you know about Sam the Comudgeon's other podcasts, the Wiki of the Day podcasts.
Wiki of the Day comes in three varieties, popular, random, and featured.
Each highlights a new Wikipedia article each day, they just pick the articles differently.
This week on Random Wiki of the Day, you would have heard this summary for Danthala Venkata Mayababa.
Danthala Venkata Mayababa is a former Indian cricketer.
He represented Andhra Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy from 1971 to 1989, he also represented the Hyderabad Ranji Trophy team in 1978.
He was a left-hand batsman and left-arm spinner with 16-year first-class career spanning from 1970 to 1987.
He made 2,649 runs, with a highest of 134 not out against Goa.
He also scored 20 half-centuries and took 173 wickets with his slow left-arm orthodox bowling with 5 for 32 being the best bowling figures, he had a total of 5-5 wicket holes.
That's it. See? Fun, entertaining, and educational.
Okay, now look for and subscribe to the Wiki of the Day family of podcasts on your podcast playing software of choice, or just go to wikioftheday.com to check out our archives.
Now back to Commodion's Corner. Do-do-do.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:59]
| Do-do-do.
|
Sam:
[1:09:01]
| Arthur's a new voice. I hadn't heard Arthur before.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:04]
| I like the voice. I love that voice. It's great. Great.
|
Sam:
[1:09:08]
| Like Wiki of the day automatically randomly chooses every time from all of the available voices on AWS is poly service.
And every once in a while they add new voices. And so I'll hear a voice for the first time. Cause they've added something.
Cause I don't have to explicitly do anything. They add a voice.
It becomes part of like Mac and talk in there.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:30]
| Like those old voices from like way back when.
|
Sam:
[1:09:32]
| None of them are ones that actively sound very computerish.
Although you can tell the difference between their earlier voices and their newer voices.
Their newer voices are higher quality than the older voices.
If you pay attention carefully, there are some that sound more mechanical than others, but you know, whatever.
I liked Arthur.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:58]
| Yeah, I like Arthur.
|
Sam:
[1:09:59]
| Not the movie. I haven't seen the movie.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:01]
| The movie's okay. I don't know how it'll play. I thought it was funny when I was young, but I don't know if it'll play now. I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:10:10]
| If it's not on my list, it is now.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:13]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:10:13]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:14]
| Add it to the list.
|
Sam:
[1:10:16]
| Okay. Your turn, Yvonne. The rest of the show is yours.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:20]
| The rest of the show is mine. Let's talk about the door plug. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:10:27]
| Ah, the planes. Can we also talk about the flaming plane over Miami?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:33]
| Well, yes. Yes, I can talk a little bit about that.
|
Sam:
[1:10:37]
| Let's start with the door plug. Let's start with the door plug.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:40]
| All right. So, okay. So we had that 737 MAX 9.
It took off. And during the ascent, for those of you who haven't been following this, all of a sudden, people in the cabin. It was out of Portland.
|
Sam:
[1:10:54]
| Right?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:55]
| Yeah. And all of a sudden, people look out and say, oh, my God, a piece of the plane fell off.
And they were like at first when you looked at it it looked like and we've had incidents of metal fatigue many many decades ago where we've had like we've had sides of, 747s completely peel off we had 737s that the entire like roof section like from first class like behind the cockpit like probably about 10-15 rows back has peeled off due to metal fatigue.
And at first, looking at it on the video, I looked at it, and I'm like, that looks like an emergency door.
That don't look like, you know, like just a piece of the plane, the brand-new plane that didn't come off.
And so on the 737 MAX 9, which is a stretched version of the 737 MAX, which is there, the 8 is a shorter one, and that's the one that's most in use, okay, is the 8.
The 9, there's only about 150 of those in service.
I think like right now, like 737 MAXs, there's got to be like at least a thousand out there in service or close to that in service.
I'm double checking, but yeah, I mean, there's quite a lot more 737 MAX 8s than 9s.
So that aircraft is designed for a maximum capacity of somewhere over 200 passengers.
But to do that, you've got to really pack them in like sardines.
That is really, really tight in there. Okay.
But if you get that many passengers, then you need an extra exit door to comply with regulations.
Okay. For having that many people being able to evacuate from a plane in 90 seconds, you need that extra door. Okay.
And but if you're not going to do that, that that, by the way, 1400 737 maxes have been delivered.
Okay, so it's a there's a lot that's out there. So only 160 are not. Okay.
And so.
You know, you're like, okay, if you don't, if you don't plan on doing that, it makes a lot of sense from a maintenance perspective to plug the door. Okay.
Because they have emergency slides that you need to service then regularly.
You know, it's just another added maintenance item.
Them you know when you you know when you prepare a cabin for takeoff if there's an exit door and because that's a full door not one of these like slide outs that you need to activate the doors so the emergency slide can pop out because you're not overwing the smaller ones that.
Don't require arming because this door can be used regularly to come in and out and so yeah so there is a cost there is definitely a savings to having this plugged, in place and the way the plug is supposed to go in it's supposed to go in set it it it it it goes in and then it slides down like about an inch and a half or so and then that that the pressure will push it out into the these plugs that are there and then it's supposed to get screwed in and locked into play okay and if properly done there is no everybody you know look at a lot of people talking about the design there's nothing wrong with this design okay there is no reason why this properly you know with the bolts with the you know each bolt has a lock that goes through it i mean this thing should not come off okay in any situation it.
|
Sam:
[1:14:57]
| Should be extremely solid.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:59]
| Exactly Now, what happened is.
|
Sam:
[1:15:02]
| They just didn't attach it.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:06]
| Well, somebody didn't put the look. The bolts are missing.
Okay. Nobody inspected the fucking door.
They've never found the fucking bolts. But it gets worse because the thing is that Alaska on two previous flights had gotten pressurization warning on that fucking plane.
|
Sam:
[1:15:28]
| Yep. and.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:29]
| Fuck i mean they.
|
Sam:
[1:15:32]
| And they if i remember correctly tell me if i'm wrong they they they said that that plane couldn't go over water because of this correct but they left it flying and they were like we'll get we'll check it out eventually right.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:47]
| That's basically what they did they reset the warning and said okay you know we'll make it that right now we can't go over over water because of it. And that's it. Okay.
And that's it. They did not took no further action.
And then the, the warp came off flying off.
You know, the FAA, all of them have been grounded. They're being inspected.
I suspect that they're going to find that there, you know, there's been, there's no evidence on the door that screws ripped and this thing came out. The door is intact.
|
Sam:
[1:16:25]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:26]
| The door is.
|
Sam:
[1:16:27]
| So it, it, it looks like it wasn't a case of these mechanisms failing.
It was they never attached it in the first fucking.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:36]
| Perfect now they never attached it now also it's.
|
Sam:
[1:16:41]
| Where it's it's worth noting the the plane was only had only been in service like what four weeks or something it was.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:47]
| Three months yeah three months it had been delivered in october okay so i'm sure it probably entered service in november you know right yeah i.
|
Sam:
[1:16:57]
| Was gonna say not all of that was like paid flights they were.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:00]
| Like we're testing it and yeah yeah all that.
|
Sam:
[1:17:02]
| Kind of of stuff but it was a new plane it.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:04]
| Was a new plane when one of the thing that happened and this was a question about the process to put together this fuselage because boeing had in a few years ago created as many companies they had wanted to outsource some of their manufacturing okay and so the fuselage manufacturing for 737s boeing spun out the subsidiary called a subsidiary called Spirit Aerosystems that builds these fuselages and puts those doors in place, by the way, when they are built.
If it needs that door, they put it in.
It gets put on a rail car. It gets sent to Boeing.
And then at Boeing, they finish assembly where they attach the wings, put the interior, do everything else, and finish the plane, test it, and go.
Go one of the things that we're saying well at boeing when they get the plane they remove the door in order to do the interior work found out that no that door is not removed at the boeing factory now but but there is another thing in the chain of where this plane was because after After it went to Boeing, it went to a company to install Wi-Fi, okay?
And there are pictures showing that it seems that that company, in order to access the plane, did go through that plug door.
So now the question is whether the people that installed the Wi-Fi took out the fucking door and didn't bolt it in.
Now, but the problem is that it still doesn't let Alaska off the hook because if they took the delivery of the damn plane, now it could take Boeing off the hook.
Because if they assembled the plane, everything was good, it got delivered or whatever, and it's just these guys are putting in the Wi-Fi fucked up, then it's got nothing to do with Boeing.
This was you know this was the this is the company the alaska airlines chose to put to put the in wifi but who who is on the hook is both the wifi the wifi people and alaska because, shit somebody from alaska after the people did the wifi needed to have gone and inspection double check that everything was the way it was especially if they pulled apart that door are right.
|
Sam:
[1:19:30]
| That's assuming they confirm the thing at the wi-fi like if that gets if if that turns out not to be the case then.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:38]
| Boeing.
|
Sam:
[1:19:39]
| Still could be.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:40]
| Still going still could be on the hook now but then it goes back to it's it's either at this point it's either you know because you know boeing could say say whatever well we spun it off whatever listen if fucking spirit did it listen Listen, Spirit basically works for Boeing.
I mean, it's like, you know, it's like when GM owned Delco Parts, okay, to make the fucking parts.
They put out Delco Parts. It's fucking GM, for God's sakes, okay?
Look, Spirit may be doing it, but Spirit basically works for Boeing.
Not like they're out there, like, you know, have all these other fucking customers that they're working for. They basically work for Boeing.
So so it's either on that side of the chain or when they got it they put in that fucking wi-fi they fucked up and the door became a part like now right now obviously bowling is undergoing a lot of scrutiny over this uh as as they should because they have had so many recent fuck-ups.
|
Sam:
[1:20:42]
| You know.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:43]
| It's just been a ridiculous cascade of them.
But it may well be that this wasn't their doing as well.
Now, you were mentioning this thing about the 747-8 that actually was taken off from Miami, specifically, that the left, the port left inboard engine started spewing flames.
Planes it seems to be that look it's it's a look these are ge engines at a date it seems to be that some fan blades failed and and the engine you know just failed there was just this that aircraft in question is a 7478 which is the most recent model but i believe it's it's been it's been in service for a while i think it's been in service for about 10 years uh well and important.
|
Sam:
[1:21:34]
| Importantly Certainly on that one, the built-in redundancies and systems there worked.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:40]
| Oh, yeah. Everything worked perfectly. Look, yeah. They, you know, they took off from Miami.
It happened immediately right at takeoff.
|
Sam:
[1:21:52]
| It was just spectacular. A few people on the ground took pictures and, you know, there's video.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:58]
| You know, 747 has four damn engines, for God's sakes. It just, nothing happened. and they made the turn and.
|
Sam:
[1:22:06]
| There were only five people on board anyway was it cargo it was a cargo plane.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:10]
| Yeah they they it was it was an atlas air 747 it was heading for san juan it's running puerto rico so so yeah it just made a loop-de-doop i mean it went literally took up went around the airport came back lined up and landed again that's it right you know so.
|
Sam:
[1:22:28]
| Since we're talking and air disasters, which I know is one of your favorite topics.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:33]
| Which I was watching like nonstop before this, by the way.
I got like this, now I've got like 20 seasons of it, like on my thing.
I was just like basically watching them on like, after the other wonderful.
|
Sam:
[1:22:48]
| So so how about the one from a couple weeks ago in japan.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:50]
| Which where.
|
Sam:
[1:22:52]
| They the two planes.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:53]
| Oh fuck well look listen that one, uh look at an airbus a350 got clipped to land on a on a runway there was an active aircraft and but here here is the here's the kicker about this everything indicates that this was japanese Japanese Coast Guard or Civil Defense, whatever they're called, aircraft that was about to go and take off to take relief to earthquake stricken areas of western Japan.
OK, because they had an earthquake relatively recently.
|
Sam:
[1:23:25]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:26]
| And they had not been cleared to be on the runway.
OK. But the thing is that unlike most other U.S.
Military aircraft, the other places that are operating in civilians, this one did not use ADS-B and all the other equipment in order to let you track aircraft and where they are.
So this aircraft didn't have that kind of tracking, so it moved onto the runway.
The A350 was cleared to land. And they didn't see the, they couldn't see it, okay?
It was, you can see on video, it's very difficult to see that aircraft.
Especially, look, when you're coming in for a landing on that big an airplane, your nose is angled up.
You're looking at the instruments. You're really, you know, you're clear to land. You do look, but man, it was dark.
There were no alerts. lurks and uh a350 just landed on top of that on that civil defense aircraft and just crushed it you know the the a350 thankfully when it came to rest everybody was able to evacuate, nobody was significantly hurt or injured on the on the a350 but everybody on the civil defense aircraft got killed unfortunately by a50 i mean you know yeah but it just seems to be that the The pilot on the Japanese, on the civil defense plane just lined up on a runway that an aircraft had been cleared to land.
They didn't look at the traffic. I mean, I heard the radio conversations, the ATC and the land frequencies, and it's pretty clear that he was told to line up and wait.
Not to line up and wait on the runway, but to hold short. He just fucked up.
|
Sam:
[1:25:18]
| Okay. Any other aviation disasters that you would like to spend time on right now?
|
Ivan:
[1:25:24]
| Any other aviation disasters I would like to spend time on? Well, here was an interesting one that I just saw stuff on.
Oh, back about 15 years ago, Airbus had a lot of incidents where they're A330s, okay? Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:25:45]
| I thought you were going to talk about the Captain Sully, because that was also just hit its 15th year anniversary.
But go ahead. What else from 15 years ago?
|
Ivan:
[1:25:55]
| No, no, no, no. The reason I'm going to bring these up is because, you know, we were talking about the MAX.
So the MAX, the reason why, the biggest issues that it had was because Boeing had started to incorporate a lot of fly-by-wire, a lot more automation into the cockpit.
And on the 737 MAX specifically, they had put this system that basically, it was called MCAS, that would automatically trigger certain automatic motions to counteract, say, stall or situations.
Yeah okay and boeing aircraft had always not had a lot of that and the the main reason why people were pissed what happened with the max is that they put it in but they didn't really tell anybody that they put yeah and so people didn't understand when this shit it started happening what the hell was going on and then it just it was set up in a way that false alarms of one sensor or could cause an issue, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:26:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:55]
| So I was just watching this episode about A330 from Qantas, okay? All right?
That had the same shit happen that happened to the MAX in mid-flight.
All of a sudden, the pilots are, planes flying, no problem.
All of a sudden, autopilot disconnects. A bazillion warnings come off of 10 different systems failing at the same time.
And the pilot's like, what the fuck is going on? We can't have 10 different systems fail at the same time. This is crazy.
And then all of a sudden, uncommanded, the nose of the plane dove.
Everybody that was not strapped inside the plane was stuck to the roof.
The pilot tried to pull the fucking nose of the plane it would not accept the command the fucking plane was diving towards the indian ocean at at full speed and would not would not fucking turn up until all of a sudden after diving for a while it decided to fucking stop okay the dive and he's like what the fuck is going on with this with it with this you know with this plane okay there was a lot of people seriously hurt inside the cabin okay because this thing the dive was insane i mean one of the flight attendants was describing as during the entire dive he was pinned to the roof of the plane he could not get down okay until the pilot was able able to stabilize it.
And then all of a sudden, it happened again.
|
Sam:
[1:28:31]
| The.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:31]
| Fucking plane dove again. Okay? It dove again.
Everybody that hadn't been able to get to be secured, you know, wound up, pinned again, and all of a sudden, it stopped again.
And they had so many warnings, and warnings and warnings and warnings, and they couldn't understand what the fuck is going on with this goddamn thing.
And he was like, well, he declared a mayday.
They went... They landed at the nearest airport. This is somewhere in, this happened in 2008, okay?
And they landed at the closest airfield that they could.
The surprising thing is that a lot of tests, a lot of tests, a lot of tests, and nobody could figure out what the fuck happened, why it happened.
They did test after test after test. The only thing that they could figure out was that there's these inertial reference units on the plane that are supposed to report on pitch, altitude, all this other stuff to the systems, okay?
When they pulled the data from it, it showed a whole bunch of extraneous data indicating that the plane was stolen.
And what was triggered was stall protection from the plane.
|
Sam:
[1:29:45]
| But.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:45]
| This is bullshit. The plane was a level flight.
They tried to replicate the error. They could never replicate the error.
It happened three times with Qantas aircraft.
Thankfully, nobody got killed. killed people got severely injured nobody died okay eventually they didn't figure out why this is a crazy thing about this and how sometimes you pay attention to some accidents that we don't because thankfully and these nobody nobody died listen it air airbus rewrote the software so it couldn't do that anymore and that was the solution because they could never figure out what triggered it right no matter how much analysis they did and and you know the thing is that you know i i think that this kind of stuff happens like with certain aircraft manufacturers and like waves okay because airbus had a spate of these after that happened in 2008 also had the one in the middle of the Atlantic from Brazil to France.
But that one did crash in the middle of the Atlantic.
And it was basically because of a whole bunch of false stall warnings that happened.
Because of frozen pitot tubes.
So the pitot tubes are these little tubes on the side of the airplane that help detect, you know, read the airspeed and other things.
And so they were used. They had to replace them later with some other probes because the ones they were using Losing cost problems. And so, but that plane crashed.
So Airbus had a spate of these. I also saw that they had one, another crash in Japan with an A300 where basically the plane, the co-pilot had pressed the turn, take off and go around button.
And in most aircraft, okay, so they press that button, and on the A300, the original one, a computer would actually do the go around, okay?
But they had changed the version at some point where, well, if you push the nose forward, it will turn that off, okay?
The problem is that they didn't tell people there were two versions of this fucking plane flying around.
Round and so these guys were trained in a simulator where if you accidentally triggered that all you have to do is push the nose forward and it would stop well they this plane didn't do that and so all of a sudden they triggered that the plane went and like just went pitch nose up they could not override the computer no matter what the fuck they tried they stalled and they crashed on the runway okay okay now what am i saying what what the reason i'm bringing all these up is like because Because, yeah, we remember all of a sudden these recent max accidents, and I'm like, guys, man, shit, man.
Aviation is still the safest way of travel, but you have these – when the airframe manufacturers of these companies start with some of these new things and stuff and whatever, and they make changes.
Unfortunately, the way we discover that something got fucked up is with this kind of shit happening, unfortunately.
Unfortunately and i think that sometimes they get on like streaks of this shit where oh we made a decision and made into a certain design decision that had a certain number of cascading effects make a manufacturing decision and so forth and then all of those trigger a certain number of things inside that have its consequential effects and so i think boeing is in the middle of that where they made a whole bunch of changes in their philosophy where they outsource manufacturing manufacturing added a whole bunch of automation shit that they didn't count on and then all of a sudden they've created a shit show for themselves as a airplane manufacturer so that was that was my, take from watching hours of air disaster beautiful.
|
Sam:
[1:33:39]
| Okay and anything else you want to make sure we hit real quick today yvonne since you're in charge of the rest of the show or should we already be wrapping it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:48]
| I'm in charge of the rest of the show you.
|
Sam:
[1:33:51]
| Are in charge of the rest of the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:54]
| Okay, I am going to ask you about, you put on the subject list.
|
Sam:
[1:33:59]
| Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:00]
| More time on threads, but for you, sucks.
|
Sam:
[1:34:04]
| Yes. So I was just...
|
Ivan:
[1:34:06]
| And.
|
Sam:
[1:34:07]
| You know, look, last month, I guess, we talked a little bit about threads and how all the people that, like, you and I want to follow are flocking to threads, you know?
And, like, and how, you know, I still prefer the Mastodon interface.
Face. I still spend more time on Mastodon.
I'm looking at that, but I find myself more and more as the days progress, opening up through like a while.
I was checking out threads maybe once a week.
Now I'm opening it multiple times a day.
And look, it really comes to like, what are you looking for in this kind of experience?
And for me, look, bottom line, I want to follow journalists and politicians you know that's most of what i want you know and threads is where they are going yeah and so and i have noticed that threads has now at first this wasn't the case but now they've fixed it so like if i'm on the following tab and i leave threads and i come back i come back to the following tab well.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:11]
| That's good okay well that's good well i've noticed also that they figured out some way that the algorithm kept suggesting me a lot of only fans stars.
|
Sam:
[1:35:21]
| Well that that that's what i was gonna say about for you sucks like it was.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:27]
| Like what the fuck what well.
|
Sam:
[1:35:29]
| I'm gonna do the experiment right now i'm gonna do the experiment right now like first of all like my preferred mode is looking at people i've explicitly followed so i'm looking at the following tab at like right now, like.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:46]
| By the way, a lot of people are complaining about, about that.
They're all like, why the hell am I all seeing porn? Right.
|
Sam:
[1:35:52]
| Right. So like on my following, it's exactly people I've followed.
I still hate the way they do replies, but it's exactly who I'm following.
And it's like, I control that experience by my choices of who to follow.
But let me flip to for you right now.
Okay. The first couple are newsy things that I like. The third thing is something in Chinese that I can't read because I don't speak Chinese.
So I can't tell you anything about this.
Then we've got English for everyone. Basic versus advanced English words. Okay.
Another couple of newsy things. That's fine. Then.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:35]
| I'm seeing for the postpart newsy things on my for you thing like right now.
|
Sam:
[1:36:39]
| Try these cool video tricks which is your favorite got Colbert that's fine we got something about Melania okay fine you know, The last time I did this, I had all those porn bots by the time I got this far.
So maybe they've cleaned that up too. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:00]
| No, they've cleaned that up. They have done something. They've cleaned that up because all of a sudden I've stopped getting...
I mean, it was like literally like the 4U was literally littered with...
|
Sam:
[1:37:12]
| This was like last week. A few days ago, I was seeing that crap.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:18]
| I've noticed this week. I will say that I've noticed this week that I guess they must have done something.
I kept like, you know, I'm like, what the hell?
And a lot of people are complaining and it seems like, okay, we'll clean up the box.
|
Sam:
[1:37:33]
| Yeah. So anyway, like, so it is better. Like I am looking at this right now on the for you and I prefer the following experience, but the for you is not horrible right now.
It's got a, it's got a few like wacky misses like that are just like, I don't know what you're talking about or why.
But the percentage that is interesting for you is above 50%.
It's not like 80% or 90%, but it's above 50%.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:06]
| What I will say is that, man, I like my Mastodon too.
I mean, I really like my Mastodon. I will say that I find it that I go to threads to see these big people that aren't on, that platform but the way that i had curated what i get on my feed in mastodon is really tailored to a lot of my likes and it's it's just so much for attuned to my specifics i feel like i go to threads and i get something that's more broader yeah okay so i i i i know that but but i go to of my threads and it's more targeted to me because i picked it you.
|
Sam:
[1:38:50]
| Mean your mastodon.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:51]
| My mastodon yeah because i picked you know well.
|
Sam:
[1:38:55]
| And and the way i'm looking at threads it's also like because i'm going to the following tab first and that's almost always what i'm looking at i very rarely hit the for you and when i do it's by mistake you know but the the following tab is also like it's all people i've picked i mean and you know it's most it's mostly reporters and news and politicians and those kinds of stuff but it's all people i've picked.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:20]
| But i don't think that i can fuck yet like hashtags or interests and threads and so that's one of the things that i do not that i do on mastodon that i like where i'm like okay look i want to see posts on these subjects and some people i'm following i'm also getting those posts and so i like seeing those in that way because i picked up those topics and i'm getting that whereas in in threats i can't go in and say hey i'm interested in this this this this right show me this they're doing it based on what they see in my algorithm that i pick and i would like to be able to have more more control more of that.
And so that's the one knock that I have on.
|
Sam:
[1:40:03]
| On, on Mastodon. Initially I sort of poo pooed the following hashtags, but I've ended up following a bunch of them and it's, it's good.
Like it's the way to find people out that you don't already know that are boasting on certain topics.
And also just within itself, like, You don't have to follow them. You don't have to follow whatever else they're talking about.
Like you're interested in topic X, you follow that hashtag and see who's there.
Like, and some hashtags are good to follow and some aren't, but you know, whatever.
Yeah. You know, and in, you know, like, like I talked about last month, I really am like crossing my fingers for the full integration of threads with Mastodon.
So I can just use my client and follow the threads people too.
It's, I'm, I'm a little sad that their test hasn't been more expansive than it is so far.
I think there's only like a dozen or so accounts on threads you can actually follow.
And I followed all of them, you know, but you know, I, and I don't know, they've said they've got a one year timeline for doing everything they're going to do.
So we'll see. But you know, I, I want to get to the point where I can, I can look at like my major, like, you know, I'm looking at their, their accounts from the Washington Post and the New York Times and MSNBC and, you know, all of these things that as I'm scrolling down, like I've got senators, I've got, you know.
And miscellaneous reporters and all of these people are posting on threads and nowhere else right now.
And I just want to be able to follow them in my mastodon client.
Now, of course, like threat threads is doing this for a variety of reasons of their own.
But of course, they would prefer for me to follow these people and watch them directly in their interface.
But, you know, we'll see how it plays out. but like, you know, I find myself spending more time.
I have not yet started engaging on threads.
Like when I first set up the account, I think I did one like post or something saying, Hey, you know, I'm poking around at this, but I'm mostly over on Mastodon go find me there. But so I haven't started engaging.
I haven't started reposting stuff or replying to things or even liking them.
I haven't done any of that stuff on threads.
I've it's been a read only experience for me so far.
At some point that may change. Cause like, it's just, it's just fundamentally like, yeah, these are the people that I want to follow and that's where they are.
And so I'm just naturally spending more time than I was before.
And it's, it's been increasing as the traffic there has filled out.
And you really do get a lot of these major media media organizations and politicians and famous people of other sorts are coalescing around threads in a way they're not on Mastodon.
Blue Sky is its own little crazy thing I check out every once in a while, but I'm not seeing anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:06]
| I mean, you know who the fuck is there? I mean, you know who the fuck is there? I mean, really.
|
Sam:
[1:43:10]
| And look, a lot of these people are still on Twitter too, but I'm not going there. You know? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:17]
| Fuck. I mean, the other day, I mean, I was seeing how, you know, it's just, I keep seeing people that go in and then they post somewhere else and they come back and say, whoa, that was just, you know, so fucking, how do I say?
It was like being in a wasteland of lunatics.
|
Sam:
[1:43:43]
| I mean.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:44]
| You know, it's like.
|
Sam:
[1:43:47]
| Yeah, I haven't properly checked out Twitter in a long, long time.
Like the most i've seen is when i've clicked on a link to a tweet or i shouldn't even say tweet a sheet or whatever a post on x whatever everybody.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:05]
| Still calls it a tweet fucking whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:44:07]
| Yeah so anyway i.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:10]
| Mean i i i i i mean i i i just don't look yesterday i was listening to one of on a podcast I like.
We were talking about how some famous fighter in the UFC, which I think is a barbaric sport. I don't.
I do not follow that shit.
We were talking about that and how he went on and made this incredibly.
Homophobic just a crazy number of homophobic fliers.
I mean, he called out a reporter order could ask them a question and you'd ask them questions about that and he said what kind of a you know he insulted him because he said well what happens if your son is gay i'm like i love you my son's gay then he started insulting him saying what kind of a you're you're not a man you're a loser how how could you be okay with your son being gay blah blah blah started doing this and this is this is a guy that apparently has tomorrow has some event on big tv platform, and and it's the thing is that these guys that are out there to feel empowered to talk like this in so many different platforms the whole the whole thing and this includes trump and all of these and elon musk and all these guys you know what they want you to replay their clips right it's It's the whole point.
They were shocked, and now they want to be more shocked.
Because you get bored of, oh, well, that guy is just a queer.
So now they escalate it to saying this guy is, you know, whatever.
I mean, they just escalate the end to it. Oh, that doesn't shock you anymore?
Let me make it more shocking so they don't talk about it.
|
Sam:
[1:46:05]
| Right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:06]
| And then, of course, you get like, as Hillary Clinton said last month, you know, why, you know, why people don't find Biden exciting?
Well, because he's not waking up every morning seeing how the hell he can shock you on social media in some way or form by saying something outrageous again.
Goes and works and that's boring.
|
Sam:
[1:46:30]
| Yes shall we wrap it up on that.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:33]
| Yep okay.
|
Sam:
[1:46:35]
| Well you you are in charge of the rest of the show so do you want to do all the closing stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:40]
| Okay so well we are saying goodbye to another another beautiful beautiful long and fine episode of curmudgeon's corner thank you all for is listening.
You can find our podcast on different platforms.
Apple Podcasts. We're on Overcast.
Where the hell else are we? Some other places.
|
Sam:
[1:47:06]
| Everywhere.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:07]
| You can find it everywhere. You can go to our website, curmudgeon-corner.com You can email us at, what the fuck's our email address again?
|
Sam:
[1:47:20]
| Just go to the website and click the link.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:22]
| Go to the website website and you can email us there you know you know we'll we'll answer you know give us your reviews tell us your comments tell us you hate us tell us we suck we'll look we'll look i mean i'll i like reading you know that kind of shit at least so we can we can laugh at how bad we are or at least how bad you guys think we are so anyway thank you have a good night and, we'll see you here next week again i should be here again should be excellent Excellent.
|
Sam:
[1:47:53]
| Then I guess I'll start the outro. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:58]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:48:27]
| Okay all right okay have a good weekend mr bow we will talk to you next time next week bye bye yeah.
|
