Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Hello, Mr. Bo.
|
Ivan:
[0:02]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[0:04]
| Are you happily back from all your travels?
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Ivan:
[0:07]
| Happily? I'm back.
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Sam:
[0:11]
| Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I understand.
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Ivan:
[0:17]
| Happily.
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Sam:
[0:19]
| Happily ever backily.
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Ivan:
[0:21]
| Happily ever backily. There you go. There it goes. There is your title.
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Sam:
[0:26]
| Title shall we uh just uh crank her up and go uh-huh here we go wait wait i almost forgot an important button here we go, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, June 15th, 2024. It's just after 2 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Mentor, and for the first time in like years, Yvonne Bo is back. Hello, Yvonne.
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Ivan:
[1:14]
| Years. In a couple of weeks. Hello.
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Sam:
[1:18]
| Yes, yes. We had a good time with Bruce and then Pete while you were gone, but now we got you back.
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Ivan:
[1:24]
| Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i heard you complaining about me being absent but in my defense i.
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Sam:
[1:31]
| Was i was teasing not really complaining.
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Ivan:
[1:34]
| In my in my defense i have looked up stats okay so according to this year yeah i have slept at a hotel let me see how many nights i had it right here here we go Oh, where'd you go? Nights this year. You're already to 41. 43 nights in a hotel.
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Sam:
[1:58]
| Out of how many so far this year? How many days?
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Ivan:
[2:01]
| I mean, well, I mean, there's, it's about a hundred and what? Uh, 50 days. I'm going to guess 60 days, 160 days.
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Sam:
[2:11]
| Day one 67 day one 67.
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Ivan:
[2:14]
| So I've spent about, I've spent about a third 25 to 30. already what did you say 43 days 40 40 hang on 43 nights at a hotel that's that's 25.7.
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Sam:
[2:28]
| Percent of the time since the year began.
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Ivan:
[2:30]
| Yeah slept at a hotel so yeah it's been a job you know oh thank you it's been it's been a lot of nights and i've been out of town, You know, I, I looked up last year total. I think I maybe spent like less than 20. Yeah, that's right. Less than 20 last year. And, and I, we're not even, yeah. And I mean, more than doubled in, in five and a half months.
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Sam:
[3:01]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[3:02]
| I mean, so.
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Sam:
[3:02]
| 20 was all of last year.
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Ivan:
[3:04]
| All of last year.
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Sam:
[3:06]
| Not, not just up to this point of last year.
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Ivan:
[3:08]
| Right. That was all of last year. you know so i i'm oh so any.
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Sam:
[3:17]
| Anyway folks our plan for the day is as usual we're going to do a but first yvonne's going to do something non-newsy i'm going to do something non-newsy and then we'll have a couple news related segments after that that yvonne will pick the first one i will pick the second one there we go.
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Ivan:
[3:31]
| And a couple of occasions that i was traveling you know i think some of you that have listened to the podcast for whatever the hell damn reasons we had a lot of technical issues oh your.
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Sam:
[3:41]
| Your connections sucked whenever you were traveling.
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Ivan:
[3:44]
| Oh my god i mean it was just bad i mean you know on several occasions i mean there was one you know there you know on a couple of them i couldn't even be there for the finish i mean say i'm at the finish by himself because kept disconnecting so many times story.
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Sam:
[3:59]
| Of my life.
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Ivan:
[4:00]
| Yeah well no so um so anyway you know i i so i i i don't know so what what's going on uh what's so what what do.
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Sam:
[4:14]
| You want your but first to be this time yvonne.
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Ivan:
[4:17]
| My butt first you have.
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Sam:
[4:20]
| A interesting thing to talk about that's not particularly newsy i'm just re repeating how this usually works because i'm sure you've forgotten by now.
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Ivan:
[4:29]
| Trying to remember what's happened news where the hell is i was in anything you.
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Sam:
[4:38]
| Did guatemala and then you did disney right.
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Ivan:
[4:39]
| Well i'll talk about something that is just it's not like general news but it is kind of it's it's it's well it's it's personal newsy because no you know okay nobody really cares about puerto rican elections okay all right yeah those puerto Puerto Ricans care about the elections. I mean, it's not like, you know, it doesn't really impact.
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Sam:
[5:01]
| Are you guys a state yet?
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Ivan:
[5:03]
| Nope. So independent. Nope. So anyway, one of the things that so Puerto Rico had primaries recently. Okay. And. You know, the incumbent governor was primary, okay? The incumbent governor came to office in a really circuitous way.
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Sam:
[5:29]
| Circuitous?
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Ivan:
[5:30]
| Yes. Because there was a governor from their party that was governor up until, like, 2019 when he was forced to resign because of a massive scandal involving a Telegram account that had a chat between him and his high school buddies in which he basically disparaged just about everybody.
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Sam:
[5:58]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[5:59]
| In very sophomoric terms. Homophobic terms. Transphobic terms. I mean, misogynist terms. I mean, every, which every, which, you know, is, you know, you know, racist, you know, misogynist, whatever, you know, all the bad ists.
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Sam:
[6:17]
| They, they were misbehaving in the group chat or whatever.
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Ivan:
[6:21]
| Oh my God. And, but he, it's not like he was a passive, you know, it's not like he was on a chat where other people just said stuff or whatever. He was an active participant saying this kind of stuff. So he was forced to resign for according to the law he had appointed this person that's currently governor as his replacement because something in the line of succession where the people that were in line also had previously resigned nice okay so the secretary of state was it was it was a mess and then it went to the supreme court the.
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Sam:
[7:06]
| Puerto rican supreme court.
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Ivan:
[7:07]
| So the puerto rican supreme court and it came about that somebody else should be governor and not this guy so after a very short amount of time he had to step down and this person wound up being governor then he ran for election he did win but the percentage of the vote that he got was like 30 some odd percent and so you You don't need a majority. You didn't need a runoff. It was, you know.
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Sam:
[7:31]
| You just need the plurality and you win. And there were like a whole bunch of candidates.
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Ivan:
[7:35]
| And it was a big split. Okay. Okay. And so he was governor. He has not been very popular. I was trying to understand why that has been. And a lot of the stuff came back that he was just and I can see it now that he was just very not. How do I say empathetic with the plight and the problems that the Puerto Ricans had? OK. OK. Um, and so he lost the primary as the incumbent to some, you know, so, so he got, you know, here's the interesting part. The polls leading up to the primary showed that supposedly he had a, I mean, it wasn't a huge lead, but it should have been above the margin of error. Okay.
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Sam:
[8:35]
| Okay. So it is a big enough lead that you, you're not like it's close.
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Ivan:
[8:39]
| Big enough in the lead that he should have won okay but not only did he lose he lost big okay it was it was over 10 points yet.
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Sam:
[8:50]
| Another big pulling error i.
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Ivan:
[8:52]
| Know and that's yeah and i mean it was like it was a big miss and not just that turnout was terrible okay it's just turnout was awful, And so it was just one of those that just smacked you in the face. I'm like, what the hell, man? I mean, it's just, you know, you get this turnout that is just so bad. I mean, compared to the previous primaries. And hell, I think if I remember, the previous primaries were ran right there during COVID. And this one had worse turnout.
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Sam:
[9:29]
| Okay. Yeah. No.
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Ivan:
[9:31]
| So it was, it was pretty bad. One thing that has weighed on everybody has been the situation with the electric grid. There's a massive power outage again this week. Okay.
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Sam:
[9:46]
| This is still ding ding.
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Ivan:
[9:48]
| This is my phone telling me to go to sleep.
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Sam:
[9:51]
| That this is still stuff that's never been fully fixed after the hurricane a few years back.
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Ivan:
[9:58]
| Yeah. Yeah, but a big reason for that is because even though Congress had authorized a lot of funding for Reconstruction, very little has been spent so far. I mean, this is like seven years later. And a big part of that was because during the Trump administration, he had blocked a lot of it from being spent. Usually by, you know, three or four years, he would have gotten it done. There's been a lot of changes also in the structure of the electric company in Puerto Rico, because there was a discovery of this massive fraud for which. Nobody seemed to have gone to jail about related to the purchase of overpriced oil from Brazil that was above market price, but that also did not meet federal clean air standards and that they were faking the certificates for it.
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Sam:
[11:08]
| Beautiful. Beautiful.
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Ivan:
[11:09]
| And this was in the tune of billions of dollars, which contributed to the bankruptcy of Puerto in Puerto Rico as well. It's because Puerto Rico is going through a bankruptcy process right now, still that supervised by a board of oversight appointed by, by, by, I think it's the president was the main person that disappointed people to the board. I thought that was a law authorized by Congress because Puerto Rico did not fall under like municipalities can file for bankruptcy, but not, but, But a state can't file for bankruptcy or a territory. And so this is what this has become, where it's just been a complete shush show. I did speak to people where finally they are putting these plans together to finally spend a lot of this money on the electrical grid. But look, they have this massive power outage again, like recently and during the primaries. There was a massive power outage the day of the primaries. the counting took several days which shouldn't have taken several days but it did, and people are deeply unhappy there there there is one funny like aside so you know we're talking about ai right and oh.
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Sam:
[12:30]
| Were we yeah oh okay yep.
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Ivan:
[12:32]
| We've you know we've talked about it a few times on the show over the last...
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Sam:
[12:38]
| And we may well do so again. It's one of the potential topics.
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Ivan:
[12:43]
| Right. And so it's been a subject that we've talked about.
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Sam:
[12:47]
| It keeps coming up.
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Ivan:
[12:48]
| It keeps coming up. And so there is this comedian in Puerto Rico that I don't know what tools he... What AI tools he is using, but I've seen him play for a couple of months with every time some event happens, him creating some parody of it using AI tools. Okay.
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Sam:
[13:12]
| All right.
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Ivan:
[13:13]
| And he's created videos. And one of the things I think I mentioned that he made a video where there are a lot of people in it and the videos are very spooky. On our Slack, we had shared a video of like AI making videos, I think it was a beer commercial.
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Sam:
[13:30]
| Oh yeah. That was, that one was like a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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Ivan:
[13:35]
| But it's been like a, but, but, but that it's just when a lot of people were involved, they started doing AI, had to do a lot of really odd stuff. Okay. So he did some videos before where there was like, well, what are the things that happened? There was, there was talking about the power. There was, they had, I've never heard of this before anywhere. Where they were having an influencers awards night okay.
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Sam:
[14:03]
| Yes yes they do have those things.
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Ivan:
[14:04]
| They do okay i i didn't know this and they had it at this theater they were they were scheduling it at this very old theater from was it the streamies no no no this was a local one in puerto rico i don't know what the hell they called it okay okay and so but they were going to do it at this theater that dates back to to spanish colonial times there is this really cool theater in san juan that i've been to for events it's it's it's really nice but it's a it's a small interesting location it was i mean it's the theater is about it was inaugurated in 1832 to give perspective okay so it's you know this was like a couple of hundred year old theater okay and they were going gonna do the this you know influencer night thing whatever well when they got there the event was gonna start there was a power outage so they couldn't have the event now there was a whole bunch of videos posted online and so he made this comedic video that showed like all these people at this theater and uh influencers dressed in like garb from like 200 years ago.
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Ivan:
[15:18]
| And just just making fun of it so this weekend he produced a whole bunch of parody songs, using these tools and one thing the songs were hilarious and i realized that he said look guys you know i don't know what's going to happen with ai but i'll say this i was able to produce, it took me a couple of years one time to produce an album i was able to produce eight songs in a weekend you no no not this guy the the guy that's making the parodies oh.
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Sam:
[15:49]
| Okay i got i got confused at some point thought you were talking about yourself.
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Ivan:
[15:53]
| No don't no not me no so this guy that made the parody video before of the of the yeah yeah yeah yeah was able to make eight videos making fun of the political situation and the song and the music or whatever whatever that were really original okay but he used it using all these ai tools and they were hilarious so maybe this is what you know i know a lot of people are scared of what the eye is but i saw that i mean what he said is his productivity of doing this kind of shit it's like skyrocketed, and and the content was original it wasn't you know it wasn't a recycling of like shit that you You just saw copy-pasted from other places.
|
Sam:
[16:38]
| Although the way those tend to work is like the way it's put together into the new thing isn't recycled, but the style of some of the elements maybe is.
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Ivan:
[16:49]
| Well, I think the one thing is, you know, it's you pick the thing is, I really see it more a lot like. What he was talking is, look, I'm the guy who picked, you know, I want to create it this way, right? This is what I want it to look like. This is, I maybe I will write the song, but it will help me, you know, make multiple instruments at once and make it, do it faster and a whole bunch of stuff. And yeah, yeah. Click you to videos and give, Hey, I want the graphics to look like from this era and from this. And, And it just made it happen a lot faster.
|
Sam:
[17:34]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[17:34]
| So, yeah. So he was...
|
Sam:
[17:36]
| Well, and just to, like, not to get into the whole AI discussion, maybe we save that for later if we end up talking about Apple. I don't know if we will.
|
Ivan:
[17:43]
| But I just thought... But Puerto Rico, the whole thing... To circle the whole thing. The thing is that Puerto Rico has had a rich history of, like, very funny political satire and parody. And I remember that there were these shows. There was an hour and a half show that I used to watch every week. It was just making fun of politicians from every party of everything and whatnot or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[18:08]
| And this guy is from that vein. vein and he he he really has you know i was just seeing all these videos he's been producing the last couple of weeks just making fun of what happened to the primary and the power outage the thing into whatever and they've been hilarious you know but but i will say that what he's discussing with my wife is that man i mean and and it's just they're just just i find it that the videos that we do in puerto rico for this are a lot i find them so much funnier than almost any content i've seen even in the u has to do this stuff and it's it's the thing is that i think that the parody is done the guys used to have the slogan we try to offend everybody equally so the one thing that they were trying to do is that they weren't doing it so So if you're one from one party, you would be offended when not. It doesn't matter which he was making fun of Party X. But even if part of Party X, you saw it and you were like, oh, my God, this is so hilarious.
|
Ivan:
[19:13]
| You know, I think, and that's the thing that I think is the, the, the theme I like about the political satire that it's not, you know, the stupid, like, let's go Brandon stuff or whatever, not like this. That is really, truly insulting to a guy. It's something that even if you were a Democrat, you saw this, you'd be like, like, oh my God, this is hilarious. So I think that is the, the healthier part of the, of the political thing. So yeah, so AI making satire and I'm seeing these guys just doing this shit so, so, so well, I was like, damn.
|
Sam:
[19:49]
| Well, this, this, this relates to things that we've said before. I think Pete and I even covered this a little bit last week is that the, maybe I, I, all of this runs together in my head now I'm getting old, but like, tell me about it. But the thing is, the place where these things can sort of run wild right now is where truth doesn't matter. It's just being about being creative and putting things together. Because then, you know, no one's going to tell you, hey, in that skit you just did, this part was wrong. Or you got something factually incorrect.
|
Ivan:
[20:24]
| Well, you're making a comedy skit, so the facts don't matter about this. You're just making comedy.
|
Sam:
[20:30]
| Right, exactly. That's what I'm saying.
|
Ivan:
[20:32]
| So that's right.
|
Sam:
[20:33]
| The place where AI still has lots and lots of issues is whether it matters if it's factually correct or not, you know?
|
Ivan:
[20:44]
| Right. If it's creating a cheap comedy video, who cares? But if it's trying to dispense medical advice, then, you know, you want to be a little bit more careful.
|
Sam:
[20:54]
| Maybe don't trust it when it says glue your cheese onto your pizza or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[20:59]
| Gluing the cheese to the pizza just doesn't sound good. How about gluing a cheese to my sandwich?
|
Sam:
[21:06]
| Yes, go for it. And it's still useful. I once again, just yesterday, had ChatGPT help me with some simple scripting stuff I was using to monitor something on my computer. And I took a few iterations, but I got it to do exactly what I wanted a lot faster than if I was doing it by hand. You know and so yeah again it's like if there are certain domains where it's really good there's certain domains where it sucks the problem is when you try to get it to do the things it sucks at and the things that sucks out today it may be great at in a year or two years or three years but if you're figuring out what to do today you want to use it for the things it's actually good at today not things that could be good at in the future right.
|
Ivan:
[21:53]
| Well i think that look the whole thing about this is just a you know to to wrap it up a little bit since you know is that you, using it for anything above like an aid to you doing something right now is not really a good idea i mean because it's just if you're using it to aid what you're doing and it's accelerating your work which is what i saw with this guy i used it a little bit and it helped me accelerate some work and some stuff, that's good. But if you're just taking its output without any vetting, you're setting yourself for problems.
|
Sam:
[22:32]
| Yes, absolutely. And of course, there are all the issues of like, you know, is it using training data without permission? And should they be doing that? And how much energy usage does this stuff take up? How much water does the stuff use? Because there's cooling and, you know, there are all kinds of issues associated with it.
|
Ivan:
[22:50]
| Well, we could just melt the icebergs.
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Sam:
[22:52]
| That's for a different segment. So your segment started somehow in Puerto Rican politics. politics and.
|
Ivan:
[23:00]
| It ended in ai.
|
Sam:
[23:01]
| Ended in ai yes is it my turn yes okay so normally at this point i would do my next media thing and my next media thing is i finished house of cards the american version of house of cards all six seasons but i'm gonna save that for next week.
|
Ivan:
[23:20]
| You know that i.
|
Sam:
[23:23]
| Save it for next week save it for next week i got something else no.
|
Ivan:
[23:26]
| No no no no no i was just going to mention that.
|
Sam:
[23:28]
| Yes i'm.
|
Ivan:
[23:29]
| Not going to talk about it is that i don't think i ever finished it i think i didn't watch like the last season.
|
Sam:
[23:34]
| Yeah you i remember you talking about this years ago you bailed out at a certain point i forget which season you bailed out at but we can talk about that next week yeah because i actually finished all six seasons but i have something else to talk about today.
|
Ivan:
[23:49]
| Yeah which is you're pregnant.
|
Sam:
[23:52]
| Yes i am pregnant how many months, i i three months i'm good you know due due in december good good so it'll it'll be great great great great we're welcoming a new addition to the family and yeah no no i am not pregnant neither is my wife no no as far as i know no one in my immediate family is pregnant okay okay you You know, we'll see.
|
Ivan:
[24:23]
| Yeah, okay.
|
Sam:
[24:24]
| But no, as far as I know, that has not happened. No. What I have to report on this time is... The Mac mini that I've been complaining about for years and years and years, it seems like anyway, I think it's like three years.
|
Ivan:
[24:41]
| It's been years.
|
Sam:
[24:42]
| I think it's three years. I think I got it in 2021, I think. And it was always significantly underpowered for my needs from the day I bought it. I bought it under duress because my iMac that I had before that died. We were in the middle of the pandemic. i did not have a lot of extra cash and everything was out of stock anyway so i got the absolute bottom line mac mini and i've been struggling with it ever since it is now on a shelf somewhere i am talking to you right now from a brand new computer and a brand new setup.
|
Ivan:
[25:19]
| I i i was going to say i am like i i i was pretty sure that was the case because you know unlike you guys i i could see them on video yeah and i could tell that the video quality was substantially improved.
|
Sam:
[25:36]
| It's the same camera that hasn't changed.
|
Ivan:
[25:38]
| Well something is making it look better i mean maybe it's because no no no i'm gonna tell you why i think it's because almost most of the time before right now it is coming across blurry but most of the time with your old computer the resolution Evolution would never get to full HD ever. It always stayed at pixelated levels. And all of a sudden, I've noticed that, wait a minute, he's looking crystal clear. This never happened before. All I ever got to see was a blurry Sam at the other end.
|
Sam:
[26:15]
| I've made a number of changes because I not only upgraded the computer, I upgraded my whole new setup. I have a new desk. It's one of these standing desks that moves up and down. I got extra monitors. So I am back in a three 27 inch monitor situation for the first time in many years since even before the last computer died. All kinds of things. So I am very happy. I'm very thrilled. I did not get a Mac studio. I got a MacBook Pro with a nice little docking setup and everything else. So that like I'm running it in clamshell mode with the three big monitors and a keyboard and a mouse and all that right now. And like 90% of the time I've been doing that, but like now I have the flexibility. On a few occasions, I've picked up the computer, I've gone somewhere else in the house and I can do that, which I could not do with the desktop scenario. It has been.
|
Sam:
[27:16]
| About 20 years since the last time I had a laptop. I think it was actually like 18 and a half or something like that. Since I switched from a laptop to an iMac and I've been on iMacs ever since until I had the Mac mini, but I'm at bat. I've had laptops for work, of course, but for home, my, my theory was always, I've got a laptop for work.
|
Sam:
[27:39]
| So at home, I'll go with the desktop. but this time I decided to go ahead with the the laptop there were two reasons for that one at this exact moment in time the the MacBook Pros have a newer chipset than the studios did and they've been refreshed more recently yes plus the portability like I said I really I really like had been thinking about it a lot and there were a number of scenarios where I wanted to like just I had stuff to do, but I didn't want to like go up to my office and do it. I wanted to sit in the living room or something. And I was like, you know, and I didn't want to use my work computer because like, well, theoretically I can and have sometimes done personal stuff on my work computer. I would rather avoid it, you know? So I got that and I didn't completely max out the MacBook pro because I couldn't, I I couldn't really say I needed the absolute top end options. So for instance, I did get the 16 inch and I did get the, the, the M three max version and with 16 core CPU, 40 core GPU, 16 core neural neural engine, all that. I did the mid range memory. So 64 gigabytes. I, 64 gigabytes i couldn't justify 128 i was like i don't know.
|
Ivan:
[29:03]
| No you don't.
|
Sam:
[29:05]
| You know and i did the big thing i splurged on is i got the four terabyte ssd and those things are fucking expensive on the internal built-in ones oh yeah i i did not go for the eight terabyte ssd i did not determine that was necessary but i really wanted the four because like my my imac from years ago had a three terabyte fusion drive and i was always filling that sucker up and like i've lived since then the built-in drive on the stupid mini was only like 256 like not even terabytes gigabytes and then i moved to a one terabyte external and it always felt cramped And I'm like, I know I can fill two. I want to get enough that I'll have some headroom that I won't have to worry about this for a while. I will probably eventually have to worry. In fact, already, like, frankly, like, my photo library is bigger than four terabytes. So I'm still going to put that on an external drive.
|
Ivan:
[30:20]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[30:20]
| Uh, and, and so I have to like either put only, you know, the, the, the way, the way it works, you can keep most of it on iCloud and only put the local stuff, but I still want a local copy of everything. So I'll make sure I have a local drive with a local copy of everything so I can get it backed up, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I got the four terabyte. I could not just to go from four terabytes to eight terabytes would be, would have been an extra $1,200. I couldn't, I mean, it's just the, the numbers are too big. I'm like, I could not justify doing that.
|
Ivan:
[30:52]
| Yeah, no, no, no, no. It's just, it just starts getting out of control. No, I get it. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[30:57]
| So I got the four terabyte SSD, which already was like a thousand bucks more than the base model, like then, then just having one terabyte. And I got the 64 gig and I've got it. You know, I had, I got. I had previously one 27-inch external monitor. I got two more. You know, I got the little moving up and down desk thing. I got a new desk chair. You know, I am thrilled. This was actually all in place when I talked to Pete last week. But I wanted to save it to talk to you about it, Yvonne. So I didn't mention it last week. Like, ah, but, and, you know, and I thought about trying to keep the Mac mini going in parallel to use as like a file server or something, but it was, it, it, it just has issues. It like, I, I could not trust it for anything.
|
Ivan:
[31:52]
| There is something. Yeah. There, there is something wrong with it. Yes.
|
Sam:
[31:55]
| I could not trust it. It crashes all the time. I haven't, I haven't been able to properly back up the external drives that were attached to it in a long time. And in fact, right now I'm having to deal with that because one of them failed and that stupid Mac mini had not successfully finished a full backup of it.
|
Ivan:
[32:13]
| They'll call it.
|
Sam:
[32:14]
| So I'm having to like figure out like, you know, disc recovery services and all that crap to try to get that stuff back, which is pissing me off by the way. But I'll let you know how that goes when that saga is over. But I am thrilled with this new thing. It feels like for the first time in years, I can freaking breathe. Breathe. Like I, I've got like all the windows up that I want and the thing is not struggling. It is not telling me I'm out of application memory twice a day. I, I do not have to reboot the damn thing. And like, I know, like I use my computer in a way that lots of people don't. I always have a, you know, a whole bunch of applications open. My browser has hundreds of tabs open. I often have multiple browsers. I've got all kinds of stuff going on. I know I, use this in a way that is heavier than lots of people use it, but that Mini just could not handle it. The base model Mini with only eight.
|
Sam:
[33:11]
| Gigabytes of ram and you know a single terabyte once i had moved to an external drive and and a slow comparatively slow chip and blah blah blah i mean it was an m1 but still it was i it was car it was a constant struggle almost since the day i bought the damn thing and in recent months it it was just getting super super annoying and i was holding my breath till the day that my company provided the next set of stock options which happened at the end of may and like essentially as soon as that happened i was like okay ordering i'm i'm ordering and so i'm thrilled i like i i loaded up the latest version of the x-plane 12 flight simulator and it like it's smooth as butter like on on any old computers that i'd tried previous versions of the flight simulator on to get it to run in a decent way at all. I'd had to turn down all the graphic options and all this kind of stuff. This was like default options.
|
Sam:
[34:18]
| Everything go nice. It's smooth. It's pretty. I'm driving three monitors off this thing. If I feel like it, I can open the lid of the MacBook and be operating on four monitors. Although I've found like I did that for a little while and I was like, you know, almost all the time three is good. but that fourth one ends up being extra every once in a while. If I have something that I'm really want it for, I can open it up and have the fourth one and it's fine. The one annoying thing I found is that this is a, a Thunderbolt limitation. I understand from the ports, like each Thunderbolt, each Thunderbolt cable can only drive two of these monitors.
|
Ivan:
[35:00]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[35:00]
| So like I have to plug in with two monitors to get all three. I plug in with two cables to get all three monitors or a fourth or a fifth. I think it can drive up to six. External monitors. I don't need six external monitors. I'm not doing that. But the three is awesome. I got several years back, I had a three monitor setup and I was really happy and really thrilled with it. And then for various reasons, I ended up going back down to two and the mini could only do two. And it was this again, it feels like I can freaking breathe again, like I can use my computer and do all the things I want to without it complaining, without it crashing, without it like slowing to a crawl. all. I mean, with the, with the old system, sometimes like, you know, I I'd flip windows and I'd have to wait five seconds for it to catch up with me and I'd type. And sometimes I'd have to wait for it to catch up with me. And I know like if I'd, if I'd closed everything and done one thing at a time, maybe it would have been okay, but it wasn't. So anyway, I am.
|
Ivan:
[36:05]
| I mean, you know, you, I mean, you were making do for a while because, you know, there were circumstances stances that that forced that you know it happens i mean you know having to drag it out for a bit until you know things you know it changed i i look but even like that mac mini i still can't remember which you know one of the computers you had in past years where if you went to boot up an application that.
|
Sam:
[36:33]
| Was that that was the imac before the mac mini when it was dying like in In the last few months, I had it.
|
Ivan:
[36:40]
| Right. It would take like 30 minutes or something like that in order for a fucking application to open or something like that.
|
Sam:
[36:50]
| I had to know before we started the podcast. I had to plan like a couple hours in advance to reboot, reboot the computer and bring up like the three applications that I needed to have open while recording the show.
|
Ivan:
[37:03]
| And the Mac mini, you know, to be fair, you know, was cheap. Okay.
|
Sam:
[37:08]
| And it was, it was cheap and it got the job done. It was a little painful, but it got the job.
|
Ivan:
[37:13]
| It got the job done. Definitely, you know, a lot better than that dying computer. So, you know, I mean, I, I, I look at the last two computers I bought. I, I didn't even, I wound up buying them because the previous computer just both of them died suddenly on me.
|
Sam:
[37:32]
| Yeah. I mean, the Mac Mini that I immediately replaced with this was working immediately before I bought this. But about a month earlier, it had a near-death experience. Like, it crashed and would not come up. And I had to, I spent like something like 72 hours repeatedly trying to reinstall the operating system, trying to move to a new external drive, trying to like do all kinds of different things. And eventually, I don't know what combinations of things I did, but eventually I got it to come back, but it was really touch and go for a while there. So I'm glad it made it the extra like month and a half. But you know and like I said I was thinking about like trying to keep that around and do something else with it like mount all my external drives on that and never attach them to this thing and when push came to shove I was like.
|
Sam:
[38:32]
| Fuck that i can't trust the old computer i can't like if i was going to do anything with it i'd have to like wipe it to factory state start over and then maybe use it for something really simple but i'm like you know i've got this nice docking setup i'll have the external drives i want hooked up to the dock when i plug in the computer i'll have access to all of them and i've actually haven't finished setting up everything on this like i'm i'm i've decided i'm going to systematically add these drives back one at a time, give them time to back up to the network, make sure everything's good, make sure everything's working properly. I'm going to take the ones that are nothing but archival stuff for my son and attach those, those drives to his computer instead of mine.
|
Ivan:
[39:15]
| Now that's a good idea.
|
Sam:
[39:16]
| Now that means he'll have like a crap load, extra drives. He'll have like 15, 20 drives attached to his computer, but let that hit be his problem.
|
Ivan:
[39:25]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[39:25]
| Uh, and in the And I will only attach the ones that I'm actually using for this computer onto this one. And like I said, I'm going to do it slowly. Like right now, Backblaze hasn't finished backing up my main system yet. So I'm not attaching the first external drive until that's all done. And it's actually having an issue where there are certain files that's having issues backing up and I'm sort of figuring those out one by one. I think it's like things that are in iCloud, but not locally downloaded to my computer. And it's getting confused by that because the state on my old, because it inherited the state from my old computer, but my old computer was confused. So I'm dealing with those issues one by one. And then once I have that all settled, then I'll attach the first one of these external drives and then I'll do that. And then I'll slowly work my way through them. And in the meantime, I have them all unplugged since there's no, no reliable new backup of a whole bunch of these. I'm just like, I'm unplugging them. I'm not doing anything with them until I'm ready. And then I will plug them in. And the first thing that's happening is they're getting a cloud backup, you know? So anyway, yeah, well.
|
Ivan:
[40:38]
| Well, congratulations, Sam, you finally were able to get that new computer. I know it'd been, uh, it'd been a while.
|
Sam:
[40:46]
| Yeah, no, I am. I can breathe. I'm happy. The next project that I've also talked about here on the show is couches.
|
Ivan:
[40:56]
| Oh, couches. Well, but that's a every two year thing that you mentioned.
|
Sam:
[41:00]
| Yes. Yes. I, what I, after I talked to you and listed all the criteria of the new couches, I realized one of the other ones that had to be added to that list. I I've added a few since I talked about it on show, show, but one of the criteria I added was cheap enough that I won't blink or care if I have to replace it in only two years.
|
Ivan:
[41:23]
| Well, I can see how that would be important. And I see Sam again in like crystal clear, like HD.
|
Sam:
[41:30]
| Well, you're blurry though. Like you're blurry to me.
|
Ivan:
[41:33]
| I don't know why the hell I'm blurry. Am I blurry most of the time to you? Or am I, I mean, like right now you.
|
Sam:
[41:39]
| You, you, you have been, you have been today.
|
Ivan:
[41:41]
| I have been today.
|
Sam:
[41:43]
| Every once in a while you come in clear, but, but not, not always. But today you're like, you're, you're blurry and you're freeze. And now of course i we're talking and like people listening to the show can't tell yeah i mean i guess your voice is blurry all the time well.
|
Ivan:
[41:59]
| My i mean.
|
Sam:
[42:00]
| I'm sure.
|
Ivan:
[42:00]
| My voice is blurry all the time.
|
Sam:
[42:02]
| I mean i don't i mean it sounds like.
|
Ivan:
[42:05]
| I mean i should have a blurry voice.
|
Sam:
[42:06]
| Yeah anyway and i did think a little bit about like what if they come out with new ones like right away oh fuck wwdc was coming up and like oh you can't it wasn't due for it wasn't due for macbook pro updates anyway they were you know they come in a little cadence and it it would it would have been surprising unfortunately but but wait wait here's the thing here's the thing at a certain point i was like i don't fucking care i need it i need it now if they come out next week i still need it fucking now i.
|
Ivan:
[42:37]
| Mean that's been my issue the last couple of times i think you know when i got like my imac like the one computer previous to this that I got it in 2018. Right. Right. So I think it was 2017. Yeah. 2017 or 28 i think it was 2018.
|
Sam:
[42:54]
| Yeah and.
|
Ivan:
[42:55]
| It was like look i mean i can't i can't wait the other one's dead.
|
Sam:
[43:00]
| Right i.
|
Ivan:
[43:01]
| I i don't you know it's it's dead dead i mean it's you know i got home and it was completely dead i mean there's just nothing that i could do about it you know so.
|
Sam:
[43:11]
| Exactly right right now i'm looking at the the mac rumors buyers guide which i always go by for these things it's been 228 days since the last macbook pros were released which they put as neutral mid-product cycle because the average time between updates is 390 days so a little bit more than a year where's.
|
Ivan:
[43:34]
| The mac studio on that uh.
|
Sam:
[43:36]
| Wait wait hold on i'll tell you i'll tell you in a second the looking back at the last six well the last six releases of the macbook pro the longest time between releases was 705 days. The shortest time was only 176 days between updates. Like I would have been kind of pissed if like there was one that short year, like it's been 228 days and one comes out at 230. I mean, even so I needed the damn thing, but so I wouldn't have been that pissed. Okay. Mac studio, you asked, it has been 375 days since the last Mac studio release. least yeah.
|
Ivan:
[44:17]
| So it would have been and so it would have been a bad moment to really pick up a mac studio.
|
Sam:
[44:21]
| Yeah they recommend that as caution approaching end of cycle there's only been one update for the mac studio so far and that was after 454 days so it's getting close now the root the rumors for the macbook pro are now that they put out the m4 chips for the ipad that there got to be M4 MacBooks coming soon. But soon probably means end of this year, maybe beginning of next year. And I wasn't going to wait six months. Yeah, no, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[44:54]
| No.
|
Sam:
[44:55]
| You know, if there were really, really active rumors saying, hey, they're going to be new MacBook Pros in July, maybe I would avoid it.
|
Ivan:
[45:05]
| Maybe, but, but yeah, no, you, you, you really.
|
Sam:
[45:08]
| I, I needed it. And like, you know, and there were no such rumors. The rumors were, eh, maybe the, maybe at the end of the year at the earliest, probably early next year, those, that's what the rumors were saying right now. So I was like, no, no. not waiting. Anyway, nobody probably cares about the new computer, but I am thrilled by the new computer. I'm also thrilled by the new desk. I'm thrilled by the new chair. I, on both of those, like I spent more on the computer. And so I got a little bit less. I spent a little bit less on the desk and a little bit less on the chair that I would have done otherwise. But I also realized this chair and this desk do absolutely everything I fucking need. Did I really need to buy one that It costs twice as much. No, I probably didn't, you know? And in fact, this one, the desk I got is it's a, it's, it's, it's probably about half the price, maybe even less than half of the price of the one that I'd been eyeing for a while, but it's got a bigger surface area and I'm using every inch of that bigger surface area and it's fine.
|
Ivan:
[46:14]
| The big, well, that's a good thing.
|
Sam:
[46:15]
| Ben, the big difference like is I am sure like this one, if you like lean into it, like I, I, if I push it, I can jiggle it, you know, like, Oh.
|
Ivan:
[46:28]
| I see a jiggling.
|
Sam:
[46:29]
| Yvonne can see my picture jiggling. Cause I'm like just putting my hand on the desk and like shoving it a little bit. I'm sure the more expensive one is a little bit more sturdy. But it's not like it's shaking so much I'm worried it's going to fall down. It's not like it's like bothering me on a regular basis. It's like, okay, if I shake it, it shakes, you know? And so I'm like, this, this is fine. It's great. Same, same thing with the chair. I was looking at like the wire cutter recommended chair and it was like, you know, for $450 was their budget chair. And I'm like, I guess I'll wait. I'll keep the old chair for a while. And then I was just browsing and I'm like, there are perfectly decent chairs for under a hundred bucks. I'm just going to pick one of those and it's fine.
|
Ivan:
[47:16]
| You know, you know, and I spent a lot of money on furniture. The one thing I did not really spend a lot of money on is a chair. I will say, and I still have this chair. I bought this chair at Costco and I tried the chairs and I found it very comfortable and it was, you know, a hundred and some odd bucks. I will say that the glass that the chair is on, so it won't scratch the floor, is more expensive than the chair.
|
Sam:
[47:42]
| Yeah, and that's another thing I got. I have never used one before, but I got one of those mats for under the chair. But I got one of the plastic ones. And, like, it was supposedly a pretty thick one, whatever. And then, like, after I had it, like, 48 hours, I'm like... Dense under the chair i can't glide smoothly on this thing it also moves a little bit like it shoves to the side like all the time apparently when i sit down i push it to the left and so it's always sort of scooting to the left i'm like i'm gonna have to like buy one of the slightly more expensive but that's still not super expensive ones that's really solid and not like this rubber mat. Like, like the rubber mat, maybe it protects the carpet, but this carpet is completely destroyed anyway. I don't need to protect this fucking carpet. I just want something where I can like roll smoothly and I can't roll smoothly on this.
|
Ivan:
[48:39]
| Well, for, for that one, it's not, well, that's exactly right. I mean, the one thing in your case is not, you know, I, I did it more, but you know, it's not because of the smooth rolling on your case, you need the smooth rolling and the plastic is not going to do it.
|
Sam:
[48:53]
| Yeah. Like I have a carpet, like if this was hardwood floor i wouldn't even bother with it at all like yeah but.
|
Ivan:
[48:59]
| Well i wound up doing it i didn't do it before with a hardwood floor the problem is that that because.
|
Sam:
[49:04]
| You want it but now you want to protect the floor because you damage floor over the course of the years.
|
Ivan:
[49:08]
| Yeah because we yeah i damaged a floor over the course of the years and i realized i'm like damn it you know but i got listen i got the one that they advertise which is this vitrasa one okay but And it's advertised on a word of place. It's pricey, but look, it's, it's solid. Okay. Number one, it's, and it's clear.
|
Sam:
[49:28]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[49:28]
| Okay. So you don't, you barely notice that it's there.
|
Sam:
[49:32]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[49:33]
| Okay. But it's totally solid and it's like perfect for whatever, but it's really, you know, their mat is definitely worth the money compared to the other ones that I've had.
|
Sam:
[49:43]
| Yeah. I, I, I haven't ordered a new one of these mats yet, but it's like, it is frustrating me more by the day. So I, I imagine before too long, I will. Cause like, you know, I have a chair with wheels so I can roll around, but then yeah, I start, I want to roll and.
|
Ivan:
[50:02]
| You can't roll.
|
Sam:
[50:03]
| And I realize I'm, I'm sunken in dents and like, yes. And I have to like, before I can roll, I have to put a whole bunch of extra effort to get myself out of the dent and look, okay.
|
Ivan:
[50:16]
| A little bit of exercise.
|
Sam:
[50:17]
| It is a little bit of exercise. I mean, it's not like a huge amount of effort, right?
|
Ivan:
[50:20]
| Leg strengthening exercise. I saw the other day, listen, you need to get, I saw there was an infomercial on TV on one of these things that you put on the floor. And it's apparently, so you're pedaling, like exercising as you're...
|
Sam:
[50:36]
| I've got one.
|
Ivan:
[50:37]
| You do?
|
Sam:
[50:38]
| Yeah. Or I forget if I got it for me or if I got it for my wife or something. It's like, it's in the garage. It's not like right here or anything. Cause no one ever used the damn thing, but it's like, you know.
|
Ivan:
[50:52]
| Nobody uses anything that they sell from one of those TV infomercials. Well, it basically, that's what happens.
|
Sam:
[50:59]
| Like, I don't know if I saw it on an infomercial. I saw it somewhere like, cause I was like, you know, need to exercise more. Maybe I can use one of those little thingies that I can like pedal while I'm on the thing. And so I looked one up and I bought it and it was cheap. It wasn't like an expensive thing. It was, and I got it.
|
Ivan:
[51:16]
| They're not expensive, but that you're like, you're like, this is bullshit.
|
Sam:
[51:21]
| No, no. And you know what I do have though? I do have, cause this is, I am sitting right now at the standing desk because I didn't want to prematurely give away my thing but i do have one of these balance board things to stand on when i've got it in standing mode that like oh that you have to like you know it because it's it's it's it's only got it's like got a rocker on the bottom so you stand on it and it wobbles and so you have to use your sort of whole body has to balance to keep yourself vertical while you're on this thing instead of falling over. And it's just like a constant sort of micro dose of exercise while you're standing on the thing.
|
Sam:
[52:04]
| So there you go. And, and, and, you know, I am sitting right now, but I have, you know, I found like, it's interesting. I, the other thing, by the way, about my, my setup with the monitors and everything is because I've got it set up this way. If I'm working for work, I just unplug my home laptop and plug in my work laptop and I'm all set to go with the whole setup for work too. So, so I've been doing that and I found myself more likely to stand at the standing desk desk when I'm working for my job than when I'm doing my home projects on my computer. I don't know why, but so far that's been the case, you know, and it also depends like, you know, if it's early in the day and I've still got a bunch of energy, I'm more likely to stand by the time we're, we're recording this in the evening. And by now I'm like, I want to sit down.
|
Ivan:
[52:56]
| I know one thing that I, this week after I've been like doing all this traveling, like i i i uh you know i have been struggling to stay focused on on work oh my god i i've just been like i mean i it's just i i did get a lot done but it it seemed to take a lot more effort right than the usual to just stay focused on the task at hand and.
|
Sam:
[53:26]
| We will finish but first any minute it now but like.
|
Ivan:
[53:28]
| Well I'm sure by now everybody's already like turned off the podcast yeah.
|
Sam:
[53:32]
| Everybody's gone everybody's gone but like the the the on Tuesday this week I noticed early in the morning I was like oh crap I've got this one morning meeting and, And then I've got almost nothing the rest of the day. I'm going to be able to get a lot of stuff done.
|
Sam:
[53:51]
| But several things then happened. I was working from home that day. So first thing was I was like, hey, I'm working from home. My wife is here. I finished my first meeting. Let's go get some breakfast.
|
Sam:
[54:06]
| Like, let's go to a diner and get some breakfast. Yeah, that was fine. But then we went to a diner that was a little bit further away and then they were slow. And then by the time we got back from the diner, it was like, oh, two hours just went by. How'd that happen? And then like, actually right before we left to go to the diner, like I got a, an impromptu call that somebody scheduled with like no notice. It's like, Hey, can we talk real quick? So I ended up spending half an hour on the phone for that. And then after I got back, there was another meeting that I was like, I was planning on skipping, but I was like, I should tune in at least a little bit. And then I ended up on that meeting for an hour. And then by the time all of these things were done, my like, oh, my God, I've got six free hours that I can just like sit down and work. I ended up with like one, you know, and I was like, well, there goes that fucking day. I was really excited that I was going to be able to get a whole crap load of stuff done. And I didn't. And then, you know, I and I got a little bit of that work done in the next couple of days. But I never got like the really solid. solid because here's the thing when you got the big solid open chunk of time it's not just you've got six hours of time it's you've got six hours where you can build up a head of steam and you can like really get into something and get some solid stuff done because i don't know about you.
|
Sam:
[55:26]
| But when i've got little like 15 20 half hour slots of time like yeah there's certain things i can do i can check my email i can check my messaging things like that but like for a lot of stuff like it takes me a half hour just to get myself into the groove of working on the thing and so like if all i've got is half hour slots i i don't get it i never get the flow and get into that pattern listen.
|
Ivan:
[55:52]
| My my thing is that i spent that whole week traveling and then a whole week on vacation and i got back and i had so many things that were open items that i am like struggling as to wait, which one the fuck do I do first? And then new things kept coming in at the same time. And so I did get through a whole bunch of it, but part of it is that I also need to do my, I have a fricking, note over there on the wall that i need to do some account planning because they changed all my almost all the accounts that i'm that i'm dealing with and so i i am one that that sees a value well me i in order to get on track to what the hell we're going to do for this year right which for us just started i need to fucking write down what the fuck we're doing otherwise it's just you know, attending fires. Right. Instead of doing, you know, a focused work. And, and so I, I, I, I started some of it, but I'm not through it. So I don't know. So anyway, now that we've like bored every listener to death at this point.
|
Sam:
[57:03]
| I, what one, one more computer thing, one more thing is I just got more. I just got a text from my wife saying this happens daily and it's her computer saying your computer was restarted because of a problem and this is her old iMac which is many years old how old is it i don't it's really old like it's five or six years old if not older at this point because she already replaced it remember remember she.
|
Ivan:
[57:32]
| Got that lap computer stolen.
|
Sam:
[57:34]
| Yes because she got a new MacBook Pro like a year and a half ago or two years ago whenever it was and then it got stolen and right and because she needed something she did something very similar to what i did she got like a bottom of the line macbook air and she can that thing barely does the thing she needs it to even though her needs are much less than i my needs she's still like that thing it's its screen is too small it's got this it's got that she has all kinds of issues with it it doesn't do what she needs it to do so she often tries to use her much much older iMac and it's starting to have issues now too. So I can easily see, Like the next stock grant, guess who's getting a computer then. So, you know, we may, this may be a two computer year for this family. So we usually try to space them out. Like, cause everybody in the family needs something, but like we try to space them out, but this may be a year we can't. So we'll see.
|
Ivan:
[58:34]
| You know, I will say that as a, okay, if I, one more thing on the computer is that, so I got, I got my wife, a Mac book air, right at the start of the pandemic. So that was like about four years ago. And she had a MacBook. And we gave that MacBook to Manu to use. And he's using it for school and stuff or whatever. I will say that, surprisingly, those two have held up pretty well. I mean, that MacBook, I got... Shit, it's older than my iMac, so it's 2017. And it's still... You know, I've checked it out.
|
Sam:
[59:12]
| It's still chugging along.
|
Ivan:
[59:14]
| Still chugging along perfectly fine.
|
Sam:
[59:16]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[59:16]
| You know, both of those.
|
Sam:
[59:17]
| Alex will probably need a new computer at some point too. Like it's one of the, he, he, he hasn't complained yet, so I'm not bringing it up until he starts to complain.
|
Ivan:
[59:26]
| Don't bring it up.
|
Sam:
[59:27]
| But, but it's older and it's, it will undoubtedly need it at some point. And he's pushing it kind of hard. He's doing like programming and games and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, Oh.
|
Ivan:
[59:41]
| Manu's not pushing it very hard, so therefore it's probably helping.
|
Sam:
[59:44]
| Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right.
|
Ivan:
[59:46]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[59:47]
| We need to move on.
|
Ivan:
[59:48]
| Yes, we need to.
|
Sam:
[59:49]
| We move on, and then maybe since we've talked about computers now, we don't do WWDC as one of our topics. Probably a good idea. Anyway, first break coming up, and then Ivan will pick a topic, and depending how long he goes and what the topic is, maybe that'll be it. Maybe I don't get one. I mean, I sort of had a topic. Back after this.
|
Break:
[1:00:09]
| Do do do. Hello, this is Ivy Standard. I'm here to let you know about Sam the Curmudgeon'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 popular Wiki of the Day, you would have heard this summary for UEFA Euro 2024.
|
Break:
[1:00:36]
| The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2024, stylized as UEFA Euro 2024, or simply Euro 2024.
|
Break:
[1:00:48]
| Is an ongoing 17th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organized by UEFA for the European men's national teams of its member associations.
|
Break:
[1:01:00]
| Germany hosts the tournament, which is taking place from June 14, 2024 to July 14, 2024, and the winner will later compete in the 2025 Kona Boli UEFA Cup of Champions against the 2024 Copa America winner. The tournament comprises 24 teams, with Georgia the only team making their European Championship Finals debut. It is the third time that European Championship matches are played on German territory and the the second time in reunified Germany, as West Germany hosted the tournament's 1988 edition, and four matches of the multinational Euro 2020 were played in Munich. It is the first time the competition is held in what was formerly East Germany with Leipzig as a host city, as well as the first major tournament since the 2006 FIFA World Cup that a reunified Germany serves as a solo host nation. The tournament will return to its usual four-year cycle, after the 2020 edition was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Italy are the defending champions, having won the 2020 tournament against England on penalties in the final. That's all there is to it. See? Fun, entertaining, educational. And short. 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.
|
Sam:
[1:02:28]
| Okay, Yvonne, what's our topic?
|
Ivan:
[1:02:32]
| Well, I was going to bunch it up as politics.
|
Sam:
[1:02:36]
| Okay. Politics.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:38]
| All right. So politics.
|
Sam:
[1:02:41]
| I think with that broad a topic, let's just say this is the rest of the damn show. Politics.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:46]
| Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So Hunter Biden is not fit to be president.
|
Sam:
[1:02:53]
| He is not. Not. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:56]
| Right. That's the conclusion I've got.
|
Sam:
[1:02:59]
| That's the conclusion. hunter biden is guilty of sin like yeah you know like yeah one of the things like that we see here is i have yet to hear and maybe i've just missed it but i have yet to hear any democrats really grousing about this outcome nobody is now and saying you know So, witch hunt, they're going after him, they're blah, blah, blah, he should have been innocent, blah, blah, blah. You know, I have heard people say he probably would not have been charged if he wasn't the president's son. And that's probably true. But at the same time, he's fucking guilty. He did it.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:47]
| Here's the thing. I don't know about not being charged. I mean, but I think that the, listen, most of the people, like with the situation that Hunter had, same as the situation that Hunter, idiot donald j trump had in these situations 90 plus percent of people will plead out right yeah the evidence in both of their cases is pretty clear cut well.
|
Sam:
[1:04:18]
| Before that like like it i think it is important to say that the gun charges he had in particular are ones that are very very rarely brought alone as.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:29]
| Opposed to as part of a larger criminal like they've done a bunch.
|
Sam:
[1:04:33]
| Of other stuff and you put the gun charge on top.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:35]
| Well what happened is that hunter was being investigated for a number of things and and has happened sometimes with these investigations is that look they decided to bring the one that they they had the the the strongest case for but but they.
|
Sam:
[1:04:51]
| They were doing guns and taxes.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:53]
| Guns and taxes. But again, he was offered a plea deal.
|
Sam:
[1:04:58]
| Yeah, he was.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:58]
| He rejected the plea deal. And the reason why he rejected the plea deal.
|
Sam:
[1:05:03]
| Remember, first, the judge rejected the plea deal. Here's the important part. Both parties had presented a plea deal where they asked the judge to be the determiner of whether Hunter was being good afterwards. And it started falling apart when the judge was like, no, that's not my job. I'm not going to do that. And then she asked him, do you understand what you're pleading to? And then there was an issue where there was a misunderstanding where Hunter's team thought that if he pled, he'd be off the hook for everything. And the prosecution was like, no, you don't want to be off the hook for this. We're still going to be investigating other stuff. And that's where it all fell apart.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:51]
| Right. And that was the thing. He had specifically asked, hey, if I plead to this, I am basically immune from any other prosecution. And it was very extensive. And I was like, fuck, I've never heard a prosecutor ever agreeing to such a plea deal. I mean, it was just the ask was absurd. I mean, I think that they could probably, you know, do away with a couple of things, but you couldn't ask for that kind of blanket immunity. And so there was just no way away about it.
|
Sam:
[1:06:27]
| Basically, they were still digging into the finances.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:30]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:06:31]
| And weren't and weren't willing to say we're not going to find anything else. Like they were willing to plead him on the guns and the finances they already had. but they weren't willing to clear him for more financial stuff that they were still digging into.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:46]
| And that, right. Right. Well, I mean, it's, it's very difficult for somebody to get cleared on, you know, basically on things you don't know. Right. You know, and so, and that was the problem. It's just, you know, I, I'm going to pardon you for any crimes you may, you may have committed.
|
Sam:
[1:07:07]
| Right. I mean, basically, but on the facts here, I mean, it was like, yeah, you were clearly a drug addict at the time that you signed a document saying that you weren't in order to try to get the gun.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:23]
| And look, he may get, listen, the reality is that because of what the charge is, you may get probation for all we know.
|
Sam:
[1:07:32]
| If you add up all the maximum charges, it's a lot of years, but he won't get the maximum. It'll be, like you said, his first time offender, blah, blah, blah. Just like Trump won't get the maximum.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:43]
| Well, it's not just a first-time offender. It was a single charge.
|
Sam:
[1:07:49]
| Well, three, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:51]
| Well, three, but it was like for the purchase of one weapon, there wasn't a crime associated with it that was committed. There's a whole bunch of circumstances that usually, like you mentioned, most people that get this charge are charged with other crimes, usually. They committed a murder or robbery or something like that. That's not the case in this situation. So you will probably get off with a light sentence. He might get some jail time. And the reason he might get the jail time is because one of the things that prosecutors and probation officers are looking for in the report is some kind of, except as a guilt and contrition. Okay. It's what they're looking for. But if you basically are just still at that moment, just acting like, well, I'm not a criminal. I didn't do anything wrong. Well, if you don't think you did anything wrong, then you are going to do it again.
|
Sam:
[1:08:54]
| Right. I mean, here, here are the couple of things with this. One is his sentence is probably going going to be on the lighter side but he's still got the tax stuff coming up in september and because at that point it won't be his first offense anymore it ups the risk of the sentence for the tax issues later which he's probably guilty of too by the way.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:19]
| Right well there's a whole bunch of financial things where apparently he wasn't paying you know he had refused to pay Some, some child supports alimony or so a whole bunch of tax stuff, or he hadn't properly filed a report on a whole bunch of money. There's a whole bunch of shit.
|
Sam:
[1:09:37]
| Yeah. Only some of them he's been charged with, but, but in general, I mean, I don't know how many times on this show I've uttered the words, Hunter Biden is a piece of work. Like he, this man has lots of issues and it, from all reports, he may have cleaned himself a little bit, cleaned himself up a little bit in the last few years, but he has had lots and lots of problems. Yeah. You know, finance, financial stuff, sex stuff, the way he's treated the people he's been in relationships with the gun thing, the drug things that look, this guy has had a lot of issues and nobody denies that, including himself. He wrote a whole book about it. Like, you know, So he's admitted all this stuff. And so we'll see. Like, I mean, he probably, I would not be surprised if he does some time before we're done with this thing. Now, another part of this, And the contrast and what brings it into politics is his father's reaction to this. You know, first, first of all.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:43]
| What chant?
|
Sam:
[1:10:45]
| Yeah, no, that, that's not what Joe did. No, Joe, Joe's like.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:50]
| No, it wasn't like an all caps on, on, on, on social media. no joe.
|
Sam:
[1:10:56]
| Joe is like you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:57]
| You didn't get you get a net get like a run-on endless sentence of like capitalized letters saying you know the the nancy pelosi uh fbi doj witch hunt that has has pursued my son, something like that. No, no, no. George Soros.
|
Sam:
[1:11:24]
| No, no, no. Of course, what Joe, what Joe Biden did, what, what Joe, who.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:30]
| Am I missing? I need, I need, I need more conspiracies. I'm not very good with this conspiracy stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:11:36]
| Yes, yes, yes. What Joe Biden did was first of all.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:41]
| I need my conspiracy AI. Can I find some conspiracy AI?
|
Sam:
[1:11:44]
| Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. OK, OK, enough, enough. What Joe Biden actually did was, of course, express support for his son, say, you know, I love my son. We support him. You know, as he goes through his appeal. But oh, by the way, we respect the legal process. We respect the verdict. As my son decides what to do about appeals, we will support him in that. Oh, but by the way, I'm not pardoning him. And then when people asked, well, will you commute his sentence? He's like, I won't commute his sentence either. And because he's basically saying, look, look, I am not going to use my presidential powers for the direct benefit of my family. Now, I have one thing to say on that. I understand him saying that right now, but I have said before and I will predict again. Again, if Joe Biden is about to leave the presidency, whether it be in 2025 or 2020, what would it be? Nine, 2029. And on the day he is about to leave the presidency, Hunter Biden is actually in jail. I think he'll commute a sentence on that last day of his office, despite what he's saying today.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:04]
| But I look, I don't I don't know. No. Now, you mean if he's in jail that but but OK, here's one thing here.
|
Sam:
[1:13:12]
| If Hunter is actually in jail on Joe Biden's last day in office, he's going to spring his son. I'm sorry. He will. He will say, look, the circumstance.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:23]
| Look, I don't know. I'm going to listen. I love it. Let me just say this, because I've had to deal with the situation where I had my father convicted of a of a federal offense. look i i i gotta be honest unless i thought that i mean you.
|
Sam:
[1:13:37]
| You wouldn't have sprung your dad because you felt like he needed to learn his lesson.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:41]
| Oh fuck yeah you know oh fuck yeah well.
|
Sam:
[1:13:45]
| Because there is there is that certain thing that says that says hey son hey son you have to suffer the consequences for your action you you have to learn yeah yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:56]
| You know if you're telling me that it look if maybe when I was leaving office and my father had been in jail maybe two years and maybe there were five more years left in the sentence but then maybe I'm like oh god you know but I don't think that any of these offenses like get that kind of jail time so my father got six months look if I'm getting if I'm leaving office and there is like about a month left I'm not fucking commuting a sentence you're staying there for a month Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:28]
| You're right. I will agree to that caveat. If he's only serving a few months and there's only a little bit of it left, then yeah, let him serve out his term. I mean, hell, what's her name? Martha Stewart served her term. He can serve for his term too. right exactly exactly if on the other hand for whatever reason he ends up with like decades in jail, I think changes the picture, but that's unlikely.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:03]
| I think, I think that changes the picture, but it's unlikely.
|
Sam:
[1:15:06]
| So, yeah. So me, meanwhile, and the contrast is amazing. And what is shifting a little bit to the Republicans. One of the things has been lots of reporting on is how the Republicans are so disappointed because they were hoping he would get off and not be convicted, that either be a hung jury or an actual acquittal, and then they could go on about how the system was rigged. And it was clearly the weaponized DOJ who was going after Trump, but it was all set up and Hunter was let go. But instead, he's convicted.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:51]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:15:52]
| And now they've still come on and tried to say, well, yeah, they convicted him of this thing, But it's all just a smokescreen to distract from the real bad things. The Hunter Biden, the Biden crime family, Biden crime family is is responsible for. And this is the tip of the iceberg. And they're using it as a distraction for all the really bad stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:16]
| I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, I know that the Biden crime family has done so many things. I think I heard that there is presidential M&Ms. I think they're involved in the trafficking of the presidential M&Ms. I heard they taste good, too.
|
Sam:
[1:16:34]
| You know, I've heard Godfather 4 is going to be about the Biden crime family.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:38]
| Oh, that's what it is. Oh, wow. Well, that's Joe. Well, maybe that's the next career Joe Biden will have. He'll have an onscreen career. Going to go make some movies.
|
Sam:
[1:16:49]
| Yeah, I don't know. So and this is this is the thing. Like, I can't like if they were going after Don Jr. junior or Eric. I, I don't feel like the Republicans would be reacting in the same way the Democrats are.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:09]
| Oh, are you kidding? Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[1:17:13]
| The Democrats almost universally. They're like, yeah, Hunter did some bad shit. He deserves what he gets. The Republicans would be like, wait, Sean, they're after him for no reason. He's a per being persecuted, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:27]
| What, which was the Clinton who Clinton had, Who did he have? A brother? Which one was the one that was...
|
Sam:
[1:17:35]
| Clinton had a brother.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:38]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did Clinton have... Yeah, I can't remember. I thought Clinton had a problem with one of his siblings or something.
|
Sam:
[1:17:48]
| I keep thinking Billy Carter, but that's a different presidential brother.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:53]
| No, that's a... Yeah, that's a... Yeah, right.
|
Sam:
[1:17:56]
| As we all look up, Bill Clinton's brother. brother, Roger Clinton.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:01]
| Roger gets two days in jail, three years of probation. There you go. So, yeah. So Roger went to jail when President Clinton was in office. So there you go. Look at that. I don't remember anybody going and saying it was a witch either back then.
|
Sam:
[1:18:20]
| It was reckless driving, DUI.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:23]
| Well, was it a witch hunt? Did anybody call? I don't remember anybody did. No, whereas, you know, Madison, this guy, Cawthorn, the guy that the Republicans like expelled or he lost the primary Madison Cawthorn. Yeah, because he was like saying that they all had cocaine, like prostitute parties in Washington. Okay. So the other day he got, he got into a drunken driving car accident and crashed into a police car. And somehow a couple of months later some police department like i don't know one of these like two-bit police departments was giving him some award you know like a couple of months after he had crashed into while driving drunk in a car that was not fitted with the devices that usually are required for somebody with his you know because he doesn't have legs if i remember he He can't hit the pedals. He need the hand assist. It didn't have that shit. He was driving a fucking Mercedes without that shit and crashed into a fucking cop car drunk. And he gets some kind of fucking award from some two bit bullies department.
|
Sam:
[1:19:37]
| So going back to Roger Clinton for a second, because I had not remembered all of these details and talking crime families. One of the things that Roger Clinton did was accept a $50,000 Rolex from the Gambino crime family.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:55]
| Holy shit. Really?
|
Sam:
[1:19:58]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:00]
| Fuck.
|
Sam:
[1:20:01]
| Yeah. And Bill Clinton did end up pardoning Roger Clinton for a cocaine possession.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:13]
| Session on his last day at office on.
|
Sam:
[1:20:15]
| His last day of office. I think it was his last day of office. I don't actually see that it's his last day of office, but it was probably right before he left. For like, yeah, for a cocaine charge. Yeah. And actually, I guess the time in jail was probably the cocaine charge, not the DUI. I don't know for sure. But yeah, it would make sense if it was. It says he spent time in federal prison after being convicted of a sting operation for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Cane so like presidents have had lots of family who aren't exactly sinners you know and going back a long long time probably to the beginning of the republic but having a messed up family is not the same as you being messed up yourself i'm sorry correct yeah yeah it's like Like, and yeah. So meanwhile, Donald Trump is going to Capitol Hill asking what's his name? Johnson to figure out how to undo his conviction. It's like, dude, I don't think the house of representatives has that power.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:28]
| You know, apparently like.
|
Sam:
[1:21:30]
| Uh, apparently Johnson, apparently Johnson's answer, by the way, was he'd work on it.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:35]
| But well that's that's a good answer i think it's a good answer i mean if you're in that that spot yeah it's a good answer i i i did see you know who the heck was it my my mind's like going, what was i talking no you're talking about johnson you're talking about congress you know trump yeah you know so trump went to to to oh yeah he went to he also had a meeting with his CEO Business Roundtable also when he was in Washington.
|
Sam:
[1:22:07]
| Ah, right, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:07]
| Okay. Basically, anybody who actually spoke about what happened at the Business Roundtable basically said that he was an incoherent mess, that he didn't know anything about what, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:22:20]
| Yes. And by the way, that was also the reports from the people who gave off-the-record comments about his meeting on Capitol Hill with congressional leaders as well yeah uh when he met the republican caucus now the on the record folks were all like it was a great speech it was uplifting we're all unified but the people who spoke off the record were making comments like it was listening to it was like listening to your drunk uncle yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:51]
| Oh yeah that was the one that was listening to the drunk uncle that's right yes, Yeah. And he doesn't even drink. Well, thank God Donald Trump doesn't drink. Okay. Real for God's sake. All right. Yes. Can you imagine this guy drunk? Okay. What the hell he would do? Oh my God. You know, thank God he doesn't drink. Good Lord.
|
Sam:
[1:23:14]
| I mean, but yeah, the, both the CEOs and the congressional people, the reports are he's He's having a hard time keeping a train of thought, being coherent. And look, we've said Donald Trump has had these kinds of issues a long time, but from all reports, it's getting worse.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:34]
| He's got a lot worse.
|
Sam:
[1:23:36]
| And some of it is out in public, too. I mean, we had this whole thing with his sort of sharks versus batteries versus electric boats rambling statement this time around.
|
Donald:
[1:23:50]
| Well, I went to a boat company in South Carolina. The boat, I said, how is it? He said, it's a problem, sir. They want us to make all electric boats. So I said, let me ask you a question. And he said, nobody ever asked this question. And it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart. He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there? By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark. I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was. These people are great. He said, there's no problem with sharks. They just didn't really understand a young woman swimming now. It really got decimated. And other people, too. A lot of shark addicts. So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here. Do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery. The boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat? and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you, he didn't know the answer. He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question. I said, I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I'd do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I'll take electrocution every single time.
|
Donald:
[1:25:20]
| I'm not getting near the shark. So we're going to end that. We're.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:25]
| So somebody made this great AI clip of the scene in Jaws where the captain is talking to Roy Scheider on one side and Richard Dreyfuss on the other side talking about, you know, what they do to catch a shark or whatever. And there's this ominous music in the background and you hear the ship rolling and creaking and whatnot. And what they did is that they got the voice of the captain, okay, to basically say the speech that Trump, well, the speech, the incoherent mess that Trump said about boats, batteries, sharks. And it's great.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:06]
| I mean, it works in that environment. But I'm like, holy shit. I mean, what the fuck? It coherent, complete bluster mess that was. I mean, I don't understand who the hell. Listen, I not even for a candidate I really like. Do I go to a rally? And this is even for candidates that say inspiring shit, you know, smart shit, shit that you want to cheer for when they're saying it. I mean, I, you know, I mean, I don't go to those. I mean, who the hell stands out there in the heat to hear this mess of words that come out that just are completely incoherent and go, yay, yay, he's my guy, yay. I'm like, yeah, what sharks batteries and boats sinking MIT.
|
Sam:
[1:27:05]
| I, I have not actually listened to a whole Trump speech and to end in a long, long time. And apparently it's getting hard to find them. If you don't show up in person, nobody's covering them live. Not even Fox is covering them at live. Right. And people are speculating. Part of that is because it's not, yeah, you hear these little segments about like the shark and the boat and stuff that's like a couple minutes long. But apparently he will ramble on for two hours and it's all like this or almost all like this. It's just a rambling stream of conscious, a lot of repeated themes about how he's persecuted and how the 2020 election was stolen from him and Hillary Clinton and Russia, Russia, Russia, and just a scrambled mess of all kinds of things. that's hard to follow. And, you know, even the people who show up to these, like they're, they're often leaving before the end and all kinds of stuff. And, and, And so there's been a start of a debate of like with news folks, you know, should, should we actually start showing more of this again? Cause people need to see how incoherent he is.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:29]
| I mean, there are certain people that are sharing clips, you know, out there from every, from every event. Okay. I mean, that, that is happening, but.
|
Sam:
[1:28:41]
| Well, and the thing is, the thing is you wonder you, the thing, the thing is though, if you wonder. If you only show the little clips here and there, you wonder, is this selective editing? Is it actually fine? Because there have been some.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:55]
| Instances- But is it like OAN or Newsmax or any of those carrying these things?
|
Sam:
[1:29:00]
| No, not even them.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:02]
| Wow.
|
Sam:
[1:29:03]
| But here's the thing. There were examples even today of this coming the other way, where one of those that you You just mentioned, I don't know which one had some clips of Biden at an event that showed him sort of at the end of event, sort of wandering off aimlessly in some direction. And they're like, where's he going? What's he doing?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:26]
| Oh, he was, that was the New York post. He wasn't, he went to say hi to some paratroopers.
|
Sam:
[1:29:32]
| Exactly. Yeah, exactly. He was, they cropped it in such a way that you couldn't tell where he was going, but But he was actually going somewhere with a purpose to talk to a person who was over there. There was another example where they edited something in such a way that made it look like he was trying to sit down somewhere where there wasn't a chair. That also was deceptively edited. That wasn't what happened. Blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:57]
| Well, there was another one that they were like complaining that apparently, I can't remember one event, Biden was like standing there, whatever. And I guess like a whole bunch of us, he can't dance worth a damn. And so everybody else was dancing and you know he was there smiling or whatever he was dancing and people are like look at this guy look at this whatever and i'm like what he's just okay he's can't dance okay next week.
|
Sam:
[1:30:22]
| They're gonna put out like him doing a tiktok dance or something but.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:25]
| You know but.
|
Sam:
[1:30:28]
| Here here's the thing the the point is that everybody at this point has to be wary of of deceptive editing right like okay Trump looked really stupid in that 30 minute 30 second clip.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:41]
| Well and then you know add by I've got I've got now I'm gonna make this curmudgeons a curmudgeon corner AI and think about all the fucking you know because I've already seen from other places all this deceptive shit that is using AI generated content to just spew horse shit all over the place I'm not talking about just here in this election just everywhere.
|
Sam:
[1:31:06]
| Oh, yeah, this is going to be a huge problem because it's now really, really easy to do the deep fakes of someone talking that is pretty convincing. We're like, if you're paying close attention, you can tell still. But if you're just casually looking, it looks like the real thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:24]
| You mean to tell me Donald Trump wasn't sitting on a 50-year-old boat talking to Roy Scheider? Oh, man.
|
Sam:
[1:31:33]
| Yeah. Well, the thing is, even without that, like some of the examples I just gave weren't even fancy AI stuff. They were just like crop the video. So you can't see what's over to the side. Like this is simple shit that could have been done for years. But the point is that everybody needs to be on their guard. So if you hear like the 32nd soundbite of Trump sounding stupid, stupid okay maybe it was out of context now from the reports i'm hearing it's not out of context he very much is rambling and incoherent but you shouldn't trust that because you don't know like maybe they're really yeah yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:15]
| Right no i agree.
|
Sam:
[1:32:16]
| You know you know so you gotta you you gotta you know what what is it domiata proviate or whatever trust but verify i just mangled the russian version, but you know, it's yeah. Like, And look, we're having this battle where the Republicans are all trying to make out like Biden is the old senile guy, but it's Donnie. Come on. He's not looking great.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:44]
| So let's be clear. Biden is old.
|
Sam:
[1:32:47]
| Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:49]
| Biden's old.
|
Sam:
[1:32:51]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:51]
| But, you know, I saw him the other day also doing a press conference with Zelensky, asking certain questions, going through stuff or whatever. Ever i've seen him do a number of interviews you know this year you know he's he's done several interviews with certain people you know he has a you know somebody was complaining you know they did this wall street shooter article that he apparently got some facts confused in certain times and whatnot and i'm just like fuck i get i mean jesus christ over here we're fucking like fishing through fucking google to get our facts right i mean what the hell man so yeah Yeah, maybe he got a fax wrong here and there, but you know, he's not, he's not, you know, he's not.
|
Sam:
[1:33:31]
| I bet Joe Biden would have known off the top of his head, Bill Clinton's brother's name.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:37]
| Probably. Yes. I bet you he would have. And I, and I, and I'm going to bet that fucking Joe Biden also wouldn't have told me to stick a UV light up my ass and check myself with bleach.
|
Sam:
[1:33:50]
| Well, see, this is the thing. And we've talked about it, about Donald Trump before. I mean, it's not like he was this brilliant mind in 2016.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:59]
| No! Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:34:01]
| You know, I think he is getting worse, but it's not. He was incoherent, you know, eight years ago. You know, he had his issues. And he's all the psychological issues as well, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:16]
| You know, I was seeing also, like, you know, talk about his psychological issues that, you know, Apparently, Dr. Fauci is having a book published right now, in part talking about him being... The advisor to presidents in the past and you know he dedicated a significant section to you know to mr you know i don't even mr trump yes where basically in the chapter entitled he loves me he loves me not okay dr fauci described how mr trump repeatedly told him he loved them while at the same time excoriating him with tirades flecked with four-letter words okay OK, the president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him. You know, what the fuck was he doing? He said he loved me. The country was in trouble and I was making it worse. He added the stock market went up only 600 points in response to the positive phase one vaccine news. And it should have gone up 1000 points. And so I cost the country one trillion dollars. The president added an expletive. I'm like, what the fuck? Fuck. I mean, this is, you know. Yeah. So, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:35:30]
| Well, we're less than a week and a half, believe it or not, from the presidential debate, the first presidential debate. So we're going to get to see Trump and Biden head to head and see what it's like. It'll be interesting.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:44]
| Okay. I got it. Okay. 50 bucks says that Trump backs out.
|
Sam:
[1:35:53]
| I don't know. i i think his ego once will make him do it i.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:00]
| Mean he yeah listen he might say he's gonna do it but look what about look like did he testify right look at his yeah but look at his testimony in his trial right he said he was gonna yo yeah yeah i'm gonna go defend myself and then what do you say well they didn't let me and.
|
Sam:
[1:36:18]
| And look you know that debate could go either way They could both come out looking bad. You know, who knows? You know, if I had to bet, I think Joe Biden will come out ahead just in terms of being. Well, it depends on what you're looking for. Right. And this is the fundamental problem with our politics. If you're looking for someone who seems like they know what they're doing and they're competent, Joe Biden will come out way ahead. If you're looking for somebody who's going to come out sort of angry and passionate and And like they're sticking it to the other guy. Trump's going to win that one.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:53]
| I don't know about that either. Look, Trump's come out looking, just sounding like an incoherent mess every time we've seen him lately talking in public. And so, I mean, and so I don't know, you know. And actually, Biden did a pretty good job in the state of the union of coming out and pounding the table forcefully.
|
Sam:
[1:37:18]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:18]
| So I don't know. I mean, it could be, you know, I mean, my odds are is that, you know, listen, every other debate that he participated has participated has been a disaster. Okay. For Trump, it's been bad or, you know, none of them have been good. I mean, Hillary completely destroyed him, okay, in the debates, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:37:40]
| Well, and that's a good example, right? She completely destroyed him in the debates, but did it end up affecting anything in the course of that election? No.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:51]
| Well, no, because we had Comey.
|
Sam:
[1:37:54]
| Right. But, yeah, I mean, the usual thing with debates, and we're going to have one more show before the debate, so we should maybe save this for next week. But like the usual thing with debates is that like there's no lasting effect like even if it has an immediate pop like one way or the other in the days immediately after there's no lasting effect with the with the exception of every once in a while somebody has a complete meltdown or a bad thing like the you know you're no jack kennedy moment kind of thing you know okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:34]
| Let me let me Well, unless what the dream I had two days ago happens.
|
Sam:
[1:38:39]
| Okay. What was your dream, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:38:41]
| Which is, holy shit, I forgot that. I haven't mentioned this. I had a fucking dream and it was so vivid. I have to check my phone, make sure that this wasn't real. That fucking Trump had a heart attack while at the podium on stage. Okay. And they were trying to resuscitate him on the fucking, on the fucking stage. Okay. And, you know, and then they took, and then they took him away and I didn't see what happened during the dream. And then I woke up and I'm like, wait, what the fuck? Wait.
|
Sam:
[1:39:15]
| Wait, was Joe Biden giving Donald Trump mouth-to-mouth?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:20]
| No, no. Some random people were going and doing chest compressions on him, whatever is what I'm looking at. And I was like, I have to admit, I can't believe because I'm not one that really is taking pleasure from anybody dying. But I have to say, I was kind of excited if that was true.
|
Sam:
[1:39:44]
| And i've.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:45]
| Never felt like that about anybody in my life.
|
Sam:
[1:39:48]
| Well i will say if that ends up happening yvonne the secret service will be coming to ask you whether you poisoned him so it.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:59]
| Was just a dream it.
|
Sam:
[1:40:01]
| Was just a dream just a dream no i mean so yeah debate's coming up in a couple weeks week and a half something like that what what other politics i think we got a few other things. We've got Supreme Courts going on. We've got Garland being held in contempt. We've got UK, EU, and France election stuff. We've got all kinds of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:29]
| I don't know. SCOTUS said one thing one way, and then, they did the, abortion medication stuff they basically unanimously batted away the challenge.
|
Sam:
[1:40:46]
| Well in it's very important how they did it they said that the particular people who brought the case which were doctors did not have standing in this case uh it's usually what they do.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:58]
| With these they they don't.
|
Sam:
[1:40:59]
| Right but they they they there are two things about that are that are important One, the way they did it also potentially makes it harder for other doctors to get standing in cases on all kinds of other issues or even on the abortion issue in the opposite direction, which may have negative consequences. is. Also, the way they did it very specifically leaves it open that the same issue can be brought back up with a different set of people almost right away because they didn't get to the main issue. They only stopped at standing. And in fact, in the other one, the bump stock decision, they did something similar. The problem was with the way it was done administratively, not with the general concept. So if they didn't touch the second amendment implications, for instance, it was just the ATF can't do this, it would have to be a law. And of course, that ends up kicking it because there's no way that would get passed as a law anyway. Sorry for jumping from the one to the other, but back to you, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:13]
| No, but I guess, listen, but here's the one thing that's happened with most of these cases when when they've been you know when they get to the when they get to scotus and they get dismissed with you know in that way man i don't see them coming back again very very quickly well very quickly is.
|
Sam:
[1:42:35]
| Important the cycle is usually two to three years so like they'll be back but it'll be a few years it's not going to be like next No.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:42]
| It's not. No, it usually it gets they kick the can down the road several years. Okay. All right. So and that's if it comes back. In some cases, I've seen that they just don't come back. I mean, like, I don't expect, for example, that that bump stock ruling that somebody is going to come back and try to, you know, argue something about that again.
|
Sam:
[1:43:03]
| Well, the thing is, since they tossed out that rule for it to come back, either the, administration would have to try to do it again administratively without a law, in which case it would probably come back relatively soon, or Congress would actually have to pass a law about it, which, come on, with our existing Congress, just isn't going to happen.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:26]
| Right. Right. So I just, you know, so basically, whatever, this has been basically kicked down the road a few years, like right now, at best case. So worst case, everybody's going to say, forget it. We're not going to even try again. But but, you know, like right now with all of these, they keep like I mean, there's so many of these files. But you know that there is one thing that happened recently, that there was a significant change related to filings of these cases, okay?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:58]
| Where in the last, you know, several months, a change was made in federal court where there had been a number of people seeking to challenge, you know, all sorts of things, okay? OK, especially conservatives that had been shopping to go to this court specifically in Texas that was seen as very favorable to to getting all these challenges, you know, up. They were there every time that they brought something up to that court, that case start, you know, got traction and and and and and started going up the chain. OK, as some sort of challenge. But but the federal courts made a change that you can't do this kind of shopping anymore. OK, in order to limit this shit. OK, and I saw that that quietly happened recently, but nobody paid a lot of attention to it for whatever reason.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:02]
| And I read it. Let me see. When the hell did it come out? It happened over the last few weeks and I didn't share it. Let me see. Let me try to find it. Okay, here we go. Okay, here it is. This was in March, okay? The Judicial Conference of the United States published a new policy last Tuesday, March 12th, to curb judge shopping in federal courts. In essence, it directed district courts to randomly assign cases on a district-level basis when the plaintiffs seek an actual injunction. Today, a few districts adopt internal divisions that have the result of allowing plaintiffs to choose the judge who will hear their cases. For example, the Northern District of Texas, which is the one I was talking about, assigns all cases filed Amarillo division to Judge Matthew Cash or whatever his name is. Some have received cash or whatever benches more friendly to their goals and have thus chose to file cases only in Amarillo. In 2023, Judge whatever issued a national injunction that reversed the decades long approval of Mipfer Stone, the most used abortion medication in the country. Country, thus nearly prohibiting abortion access nationwide. Even those cases were illegal. So it goes back to this case. So the problem is that right now they changed the rule.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:17]
| So this, this is, they, they have been funneling everything through this fucking judge. Okay. That, right. It's just doing this sort of bullshit and starting the, you know, steering up this shit in these cases. And basically, you know what they said? No. No. No more of this. And that had been the source of most of these cases. And I do think that going forward, thank God, and I don't know why more people didn't pay attention because this is a massive change. This cuts down on a lot of this shit that's been going on from the right. Right so and you know because commentators were quick were quick to tie this new policy to the flood of national chasm mayor or whatever like.
|
Sam:
[1:47:06]
| Injunctions okay as.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:09]
| It turns out so.
|
Sam:
[1:47:10]
| We are so good at pronouncing names and even remembering names like one of the things i noticed when i listened to old episodes is how often we're like actively avoiding saying the name we'll be like Like the prime minister of country X, you know, without ever mentioning the name.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:30]
| Oh, well, the prize bidder of, you know, well, whatever the fuck, you know, just like, you know, or, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:47:37]
| Oh, that guy, you know, that guy. Yeah. That one, that one. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:41]
| The guy, the guy. Yeah. Yeah. That guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. You know? Yeah. I don't know. Speaking of political wipeouts. Okay. All right. Since we didn't even touch this and it's not on the list.
|
Sam:
[1:47:54]
| Wait, wait. before before you do that like just to finish off scotus just to mention.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:59]
| Oh yeah yeah the other coast both.
|
Sam:
[1:48:01]
| No not not the other case like both alito and thomas have been in the news again.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:06]
| Oh god fuck.
|
Sam:
[1:48:08]
| You know thomas for more like more bribes basically.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:14]
| Money that more bribes i mean basically because he takes them you know there was a graph that showed how much money thomas you know takes and everybody the fuck else and basically it's just I mean I, You know, Clarence Thomas just has a fucking deposit box in front of his house.
|
Sam:
[1:48:36]
| Alito was number two, by the way.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:38]
| Alito was number two. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:48:39]
| Far below Thomas, but he was number two.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:42]
| Oh, but, but, but far below Thomas, but he was number two.
|
Sam:
[1:48:46]
| Yeah. And, but yeah, that, so Thomas was revealed to have even more of these gifts from generous, wealthy friends. Like I shouldn't say bribes. Come on. you know who amongst us doesn't regularly get you know private jet trips from your favorite billionaire friends you know i i do that every weekend every weekend yeah so, and they pay for my kids private school yes you know it it happens all this kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:17]
| Country club country club memberships i know you have several country club memberships.
|
Sam:
[1:49:22]
| Yeah because you know i'm all about the golf yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:25]
| You know i i know you love that golf.
|
Sam:
[1:49:27]
| I mean.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:28]
| Oof, let me tell you. You and that golf. My God.
|
Sam:
[1:49:32]
| Anyway, and then Alito and his wife were both caught on on secret recordings where there's some progressive activist who infiltrates. This is apparently her thing. She infiltrates conservative events, pretending to be a religious conservative and trying to get people to say things that would be embarrassing if made public. And she succeeded in this on both Alito and Alito's wife. With Alito saying things about how it was important that, first of all, the divisions in this country would not be solved by compromise. Somebody's going to win. And by the way, which I agree with.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:15]
| Alito's comments were not that bad. Okay. All right. I mean, he.
|
Sam:
[1:50:20]
| Also said something about returning the country to godliness, et cetera. There were comments that were sort of like.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:27]
| But his comments were not, they were like a little bit, you know, I wasn't comfortable with, but they weren't that bad.
|
Sam:
[1:50:34]
| They were like the things you wouldn't expect. You would expect even if a judge believed these things, they wouldn't say them publicly.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:41]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:50:42]
| But also you'd want a judge to be more cognizant of their role, that even if they, for instance, have deeply held religious beliefs, that they wouldn't be implying that the country should- But we.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:00]
| Knew this about this guy. Okay. All right. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:51:02]
| So we know this about this guy. But also it was in contrast. She got Roberts on tape with the same question. And Roberts responded exactly the way you would want somebody in his position.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:13]
| Yes. Yes. That that. Exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:51:16]
| He basically said, well, you know, I shouldn't be the arbiter of morals. I'm the arbiter of the laws. That's up for Congress and the president and the political elected people.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:26]
| Roberts, I mean, you know what? I heard Roberts and Roberts made me feel, I mean, I felt better after hearing Roberts. Can I be honest?
|
Sam:
[1:51:34]
| Yeah. I mean, Robert said, no, I don't think it is a Christian country. My Muslim and Jewish friends would not think so. And, you know, so Roberts seemed very reasonable. Alito less so. And Alito's wife just seems like a nut job.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:48]
| Oh, my God. Alito's wife is a psychopath. Now, I will say that after seeing that, I do totally believe what Alito said about it was his wife that did the whole flag thing. And not just that. She actually flat out said, hey, you can't control me. I do whatever the hell I want. I'm like, I'm like, OK, so Alito. OK. She did say.
|
Sam:
[1:52:13]
| That right now she is refraining from additional flag things.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:18]
| Because he asked her respect for him because he asked her. He asked her not to. So, yeah. So, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:26]
| Now, and to be clear, the asking her not to was after all this blew up. She was specifically saying she wanted to put up a flag to counter the pride flags that she could see, like to to basically say shame on you for the pride flag. But she is refraining from doing that at his request.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:45]
| Yeah so yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:52:48]
| Okay you you were going to talk about election wipeouts.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:51]
| Speaking about political wipeouts i don't know if you've seen well i i'm pretty sure you know even if these polls are off by some it seems like the tories are going to get completely destroyed at this election that's soon not called, I mean, they're like.
|
Sam:
[1:53:08]
| Even if they have a surprise on an upside, they're still going to lose it.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:12]
| But, but it's not just, it's not just a loss. I mean, they're, they're, they're getting annihilated.
|
Sam:
[1:53:19]
| Oh, I know that it looks like they're, they're going to have like, they're going to have like almost nothing left.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:26]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:53:26]
| You know, at least that's what it looks like. We will wait and see what the actual results are.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:31]
| But I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, I, I, I, I am jealous. Okay. to a certain degree because it's what i wish would happen to the republicans over here.
|
Sam:
[1:53:43]
| Yeah like i like i i i keep thinking i i've said for years now i look forward to the day when the republican party dies out and american politics becomes essentially a battle between the obama and hillary wings of the democratic party yeah no or the hillary and and bernie wings the hillary and bernie wings is better right you know i i that yes that's where i hope things will go but no we we are clearly nowhere near that yeah no we we we we are we there's a significant chance that donald trump will be president again so but.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:26]
| But it's like i mean man But the Tories are going to get absolutely destroyed, you know, and it's their own doing. I mean, they basically got Brexit done. Yeah, they basically got Brexit done. They did it. And now basically their party is going to get almost wiped off the map because the reality has finally, finally settled in with everybody. Holy shit. What a bad, bad, bad, bad thing we got. We bought. It's so bad. So, so yeah, I mean.
|
Sam:
[1:55:10]
| You know, it's talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:14]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:55:14]
| No, it's like, yeah. And, and like anybody who knew anybody who knew anything predicted it too. Like, yes, yes. And just like, well, and meanwhile, we've got what, what, what was Donald Trump's latest, like get rid of the income tax and replace it all with 85% tariffs on everything imported.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:35]
| He basically took the Herbert Hoover economic plan. I mean, ask her, check out how that worked out and.
|
Sam:
[1:55:42]
| How well did that work out?
|
Ivan:
[1:55:43]
| Yeah, exactly. I'm like, it's this guy. I mean, fuck. I mean, this guy, you know, his economists are just dumb. What the fuck is wrong with all of them? Well, of course he didn't use economists. What am I, what am I thinking? He came up with this, but did you see the European parliament elections that did get a, a rightward shift in, in the European parliament.
|
Sam:
[1:56:05]
| But, but the centrist party still still retained control but the right wing grew a lot the right wing and it was it was it did very significantly country to country overall europe-wide the right wing grew a lot and specifically in germany and france uh the right wing did really well and so that also resulted in france calling a special election for their parliament in like in like two weeks i.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:31]
| Don't know why he called it because he's going to get crushed.
|
Sam:
[1:56:35]
| Well, I think part of it, like I was seeing somebody say, there was a previous iteration somewhere, where basically this kind of thing happened and they let it linger and sort of it was held over the government for a year, year and a half, something like that. And the whole time it was just sort of shenanigans that didn't go well. So it's sort of pulling the Band-Aid off. And I guess his hope is like he's saying like, look, this is your chance right now. Repudiate this stuff, nip it in the bud so that like if Macron actually wins.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:17]
| It did work one time before. So, OK, so.
|
Sam:
[1:57:21]
| Yeah, like if Macron actually wins at this point, then he's sort of neutered the right wing attack for several years. Now, of course, if he loses, whole other story. But, you know, that's the gamble, I guess. And the thing is, this is also like, you know, the whole European thing of like, I mean, what, in the UK, the election was called, what, a month and a half in advance? I mean, in France, they didn't even bother with that. It was like three weeks, two and a half. Like, I guess the election is actually in two rounds. But the first one's on June 30th. Which is like, we're talking two and a half weeks. Like, our freaking election cycles are more than four years. People start running for the next one before the next one even happens.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:11]
| I kind of wish for this election cycle. Can I be honest? I mean, I really, you know, I mean, this would not be so bad. I do like the idea of like, you know, well, Mexico has six-year election terms for president. President and so and but it's only a one term okay for for the presidency i actually kind of like that one to be honest because they can't run again oh.
|
Sam:
[1:58:35]
| And mexico had a recent election as well new new female president etc.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:39]
| Yeah there's a new female president that won there's a lot of we'll get she's not.
|
Sam:
[1:58:44]
| Sworn in yet but she won the election.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:46]
| Yeah it's it's yeah it's like six months you know the the they have a super long like uh you know from election to inauguration it's like fricking six months takes forever. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:58:57]
| And you think ours is long at three months, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:59:00]
| Yeah, I know. Yeah, no, no, there there's, yeah, it's like, yeah, she's not getting into office until end or.
|
Sam:
[1:59:05]
| Two and a half, whatever it is.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:07]
| So, but, but it's like with their case, I've heard her speak many times. She's very bright and very articulate. What a lot of her detractors are, are saying is that she's a puppet to the current president who is.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:21]
| Basically sounds a lot like Trump. I mean, in terms of his coherence. AMLO. Yeah, who just says a lot of incoherent shit and does a whole bunch of dumb shit. His economy has improved. And I will say that the one thing that he has done versus other Latin American presidents, it's give a lot more money to the poor. And, you know, they have a lot of income inequality. And Mexico has been doing well, so he's giving a lot more money to the poor. I don't begrudge him for that. I think that's great. But he also did stuff like he killed a project that was halfway done to build a new airport for Mexico City after several billion dollars had been spent. And to basically build another airport that he decided in a location that he chose of his own. The other airport had a long-term plan designed by all this shit that you do in order to really build something that was well thought out.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:24]
| The new airport that he built, basically nobody's flying to it. And so the overcapacity problem at the existing airport in Mexico City is basically the same. And so basically he squandered like $7 billion and did nothing. And oh, by the way, the other airport, some people are thinking, oh, well, maybe, you know, when he gets out of office, we'll continue to construction. No, he went and he flooded the construction site because it was on a dry lake bed. He decided to flood it. And so therefore you can't even salvage the several billion dollars spent.
|
Sam:
[2:01:02]
| Nice. So do you think she's actually a puppet of his? Or is she going to be actually her own independent person? Because she seems like she's well-educated. She was a scientist, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:13]
| Man, I got to tell you something. I, yeah, I, you know what? I'm, you know, my Mexican friends say, no, no, no. She's just a puppet. And I know that they're very, you know, close and passionate about this, closer than I am. But I'm looking at this more from the objective political-like situation. And one of the things that I've seen when this shit happens, especially when that guy can't come back to office, right? Right. And I'm just like, you know what? But listen, this guy may, I've seen this before with candidates of other parties and other places, okay? Man, when that person goes in, it's like, listen, you're not the fucking president. Fuck you. I'm doing what the hell I want. So I really, you know, I'm waiting and seeing because from what I hear her and what she says she wants to do and what she wants to do, tell you what, I, you know, it doesn't to sound bad but i understand the fear that people have so because of the current president but we'll know pretty soon enough how that's going to turn out okay.
|
Sam:
[2:02:20]
| So anyway all of these election cycles are nice and short so like you announce an election and a few weeks later you're done as opposed to like us talking about the election for four fucking years.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:31]
| We've been fucking i mean for fucking christ sakes i mean donald trump has been running for re-election for what for For three years, basically?
|
Sam:
[2:02:43]
| Officially, right. But he never really stopped, right? Well, as far as he's concerned, he's been president the whole time.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:49]
| Well, yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:02:49]
| He was always the rightful president, you know? Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:53]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:02:54]
| At least we did not get the spectacle of him trying to pretend he was president from Mar-a-Lago. Like, you know, I.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:02]
| Don't know what that would have been funny though.
|
Sam:
[2:03:04]
| He could have tried that. Like, you know, but yeah. Anyway, I think we're done here, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:11]
| All right. Done.
|
Sam:
[2:03:14]
| We'll have to talk about Apple intelligence some other time. Next time we want to talk about AI.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:20]
| Steve Wozniak referred to, well, I have AI actual intelligence.
|
Sam:
[2:03:25]
| Ah, nice.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:27]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:03:27]
| There you go. I like that. Yeah. Okay. Okay, we are done here. The stuff at the end, go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You will find all the ways to contact us, Mastodon, email, Facebook, et cetera. I don't know why I said et cetera. Those are the three ways that are on there. There's no others.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:46]
| There's no others? Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:03:48]
| There's no others. Those are the three that are on there.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:51]
| Telepathy.
|
Sam:
[2:03:52]
| Ooh, that's good. I guess you could also contact us through Patreon by just giving us cash. That is a good way to contact us.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:00]
| Yes. Just send. That's correct. Yes. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:04:03]
| We, we don't need any words. We don't need like long statements of love. Just send cash. That, that works.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:11]
| Yes, that works good.
|
Sam:
[2:04:12]
| So, so on our Patreon at various levels, you can, you can get us mentioning on you on the show. You can get us ringing a bell. Where's the bell? Where's the bell?
|
Break:
[2:04:26]
| Bell.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:27]
| Where'd my bell go? Oh, it's hard.
|
Sam:
[2:04:29]
| I'm yeah. You lost the stupid bell. You lost the microphone. I gave you, you know, all you're just losing things left and right.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:37]
| I know. I know. I know.
|
Sam:
[2:04:40]
| Anyway, we will mention you on the show. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug. And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the Curmudgeon's Chorus Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of other folks, including Bruce and Pete, who co-hosted the last couple of weeks, are hanging out and sharing links and talking and all of that kind of stuff. You know, Bruce gave some additional follow up on Ocean Gate after talking about it on the show two weeks ago. Pete has shared some information about what you might want to do if you want to get up and running with the 3-in-3 game we talked about last week. So there's all kinds of fun stuff on there and all the sharing of the news and everything. I should mention before I get Yvonne's example from the Patreon, not from the Patreon, from the Slack.
|
Sam:
[2:05:29]
| Did I even say, like, yeah, we would invite you to Slack, blah, blah, blah. I'm confusing myself. But yeah, our archives are also on the website. You can look at all our old shows, listen to all our old shows. I should say, and look at transcripts recently. I had to mess around with the code that does the transcript again two weeks ago because once again, they changed the format of the HTML that I get from Alphonic, which tells, me I should stop grabbing the HTML and actually grab the VTT transcript file that they have there, which I can also use for the podcast 2.0 stuff to let you see the transcript embedded in your podcast player. So maybe I'll do that one of these weeks. I'm yeah. One of these weeks, I just need a little extra time and yeah, that's it. So Yvonne, what is an example of something from the curmudgeons corner Slack this week that is interesting and exciting and will make people want to join us on the Slack?
|
Ivan:
[2:06:27]
| Well, since I mentioned already the other, other link, well, there is this one that was posted recently. Elon Musk demands money back from employees he laid off. Clawback after firing a number of Twitter staff in Australia, the platform's new owner, Elon Musk, is threatening to take him to court, demanding to claw back payments after claiming the company had overpaid them. About two years later, after he fired them, this son of a bitch wants to go and fucking get money back to these supposedly overpaid people.
|
Sam:
[2:06:58]
| That's nice of him. And our listener, Bob, shared that story. So thank you, Bob.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:05]
| I will say that I had a company. The company did a payment to me. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:12]
| It wasn't an overpayment, to be clear. But what happened was that I got paid during one role and I switched roles. And they thought that I should give the money back. That was their opinion about it. And they sent me a thing asking for the money to be, for me to, they didn't even ask me to, like, it's not a notification they were taking the money back. Because I've had this happen at some other jobs with sales where a sale got reversed and, well, no, no, no, no, you owe us this money back. I actually had that happen recently. That's normal. But these guys, they knew they were on thin ice. So they sent me a note that basically for me to sign an authorization to take the money out of my paycheck. I said, listen. I'm not voluntarily turning over this money, okay? You guys want to send me a notice that you want me to acknowledge, basically, to acknowledge and to tell me that you're taking the money? You go and fucking take the money. But I'm not fucking, I'm not basically signing a fucking electronic funds authorization for you to take the money out. Screw yourselves. You know what? They said they didn't try again, which is what I would do if I was a Twitter fucking employee, is to say fuck you sue me okay you know it's like i thought he got 50 billion dollars more now you know and he's still bitching although.
|
Sam:
[2:08:38]
| That's still in court right the the board it got approved by the shareholder vote or whatever but it's still going to go through court and blah blah blah.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:45]
| Yeah yeah we we all.
|
Sam:
[2:08:47]
| Know elon's just a dick i mean that's the bottom line right.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:51]
| I mean on average you know yeah and the one thing the one thing about this is that you know people are saying well, how come he won the vote? Well, think about this. The stock is down 70%, like in the order of 60-70% since its peak. That means that all these people that thought he's a lunatic already sold their shares. So the only people left over are these people that I guess they're fine with turning over 25% right now of their stake to him. I'm like, yeah, he's crazy. Yeah it just makes no sense so anyway.
|
Sam:
[2:09:29]
| Yeah okay are we done yep okay well you know only two segments this time but two long segments so sorry guys anyway that is yet another curmudgeons corner in the can as they say the.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:46]
| Can can the can.
|
Sam:
[2:09:47]
| In the can it refers to the old like cans that you You put film in?
|
Ivan:
[2:09:53]
| Oh, yeah, that's right. I worked at a company that made those.
|
Sam:
[2:09:58]
| Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we are done. Everybody, as usual, stay safe, have fun, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if all goes as expected, we'll be back again next week. So we'll talk to you later. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:13]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[2:10:43]
| Okay, watch this, Yvonne. This is exciting.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:47]
| Yeah. Oh, you're rising. You are rising.
|
Sam:
[2:10:55]
| I am rising.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:58]
| He has risen.
|
Sam:
[2:11:00]
| I have risen. Just like what? The Poppin' Fresh Doughboy.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:04]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:11:06]
| And now I'm blurry.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:08]
| Now you're blurry again.
|
Sam:
[2:11:09]
| Anyway, yeah, I'm now standing Standing at my standing desk, it is so exciting. Is this, this is the highest it goes, right? Yeah. I went to the high mark. Anyway, this is actually a little higher than I would normally stand at it. Unless I was on that little balance thing. If I'm on the little balance thing.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:26]
| Oh, the balance thing.
|
Sam:
[2:11:28]
| That gives me a few more inches. And so then, then this height is just about right when I'm on the little balance thing.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:34]
| There you go. There you go. Now you're probably, you're back, not blurry.
|
Sam:
[2:11:37]
| But then I'm all wobbly and. okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:42]
| Well, it's good for your core strength.
|
Sam:
[2:11:44]
| Exactly. Okay. Bye Yvonne. I'm hitting stop.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:47]
| All right.
| |
|
