Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| Hello hello yvonne hello you're.
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Sam:
[0:07]
| You sound like that guy from what is the marketplace joe.
|
Ivan:
[0:11]
| Is that what it is no no that was that was a that was a seinfeld thing oh okay okay well i don't have a good place where to just so i think i'm good just turn this camera off there we go okay There is no desk in this room. And it's too cold outside.
|
Sam:
[0:38]
| Aren't you in California? Isn't it supposed to be warm there?
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Ivan:
[0:42]
| What do you consider warm?
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Sam:
[0:46]
| Over 50?
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Ivan:
[0:49]
| That's not warm. It's 60 degrees outside. And no, that's not warm.
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Sam:
[0:55]
| I am teasing you. i would i would be chilly at 50.
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Ivan:
[0:59]
| 60 60.
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Sam:
[1:01]
| Is kind of comfy depending.
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Ivan:
[1:02]
| On what you're wearing but it's dropping it's dropping okay it's you know it's gonna it's dropping into the low 50s so no it's it's getting yeah i don't want to yeah but.
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Sam:
[1:14]
| Are there desks outside.
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Ivan:
[1:15]
| There are a couple of tables oh okay there's a little table to sit down and you know eat something or hang out or whatever But this room does not have a desk.
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Sam:
[1:28]
| Isn't that kind of unusual?
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Ivan:
[1:30]
| This is not a business hotel. There's a fireplace.
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Sam:
[1:34]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[1:34]
| I mean, there's a sofa. There's a fireplace. But this is definitely not a business hotel. I mean, there's a wine fridge in this hotel. Stocked with wine. There is a fireplace that I could turn on. There is wood there.
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Sam:
[1:51]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[1:53]
| I'm not going to turn on the fireplace. That looks like a lot of work.
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Sam:
[1:57]
| Okay. You're ready to make this a go-to-go thing?
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Ivan:
[2:03]
| Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Okay.
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Sam:
[2:05]
| Here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, September 21st, 2024. It is just after 5.30 UTC as we are starting to record. I'm Sam Mentor, Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:52]
| Hello.
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Sam:
[2:54]
| There you go with the hello there. Well, I hear that all the time, but it's on like one of these, you know, financial podcast things that I hear it. and maybe it's slight money. But you say it's from Seinfeld. So they're imitating Seinfeld on that.
|
Ivan:
[3:10]
| Yes, they are imitating a Seinfeld thing where one time they all started just saying hi to everybody, saying it like that. Hello!
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Sam:
[3:20]
| Okay. I did occasionally watch Seinfeld when it was on, but I was not a religious viewer of Seinfeld. It was just like an every once in a while I'd see an episode.
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Ivan:
[3:29]
| Yeah well yeah it's look let's be clear about this seinfeld's old it was 30 years ago i mean sam it was 30 years ago it wasn't like you know it wasn't like five ten years ago it was literally 30 fucking years ago so yeah i i get it it's probably right now i would say that historically that would be considered a somewhat outdated reference well.
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Sam:
[3:54]
| And look here's the thing i mean it was a very popular show at the time.
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Ivan:
[3:58]
| It was a number one show.
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Sam:
[4:01]
| I mean, I remember, like I said, I wasn't one of the people who watched every episode, but I do remember going into the office and having everybody talking about what the episode had been on the night before.
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Ivan:
[4:15]
| Listen, it was a number one TV show for several years. The last episode was, I believe, I believe still that the highest rated final episode of TV of any show ever. Okay.
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Sam:
[4:34]
| I think that was still mash.
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Ivan:
[4:36]
| No, it beat mash.
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Sam:
[4:37]
| It beat mash.
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Ivan:
[4:38]
| It beat mash. Okay. Yeah. That was the thing that it, it actually beat mash is the biggest, you know, ever like, you know, most watched ever episode on TV. Yeah. And it was, look, the actors, they were earning at that time. I mean, these people got so rich off of this. If you're thinking about 30 years ago, they were getting paid about a million dollars an episode back then. A season of 20, 25 episodes. They were getting paid $25 million a year just to do this show for several years. Years okay i mean it was just a ridiculous you know a big show at the time so yeah i mean you know but but yeah but it's it's 30 years okay.
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Sam:
[5:30]
| Okay okay here we go the list of the most watched television broadcasts in the united states okay.
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Ivan:
[5:37]
| Okay so the first super bowl super bowl yeah the The first 10.
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Sam:
[5:43]
| Are all Superbowl. Number 11 is the C is the series finale of mash. Then 12 through 20 are more Superbowls.
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Ivan:
[5:52]
| But we're talking ratings or number of viewers.
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Sam:
[5:55]
| I've got average viewership.
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Ivan:
[5:59]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[6:00]
| Now excluding Superbowls. Number one is mash. Number two is coverage of the Gulf war. Number three is the clinton trump presidential debate in 2016 okay number four is the whodunit episode of dallas the who shot jr stuff so.
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Ivan:
[6:23]
| Okay so number.
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Sam:
[6:24]
| Five is the carter reagan presidential debate well all right number six is the series finale for cheers yeah it beat.
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Ivan:
[6:35]
| It beat seinfeld I just saw that, yeah.
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Sam:
[6:37]
| Then the 1994 Winter Olympics, then the day after, which we've talked about on this show before, then part eight of Roots, and then the Seinfeld finale at number 10, excluding Super Bowls.
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Ivan:
[6:51]
| So I just looked it up, that as series finales, MASH is still number one. I'm surprised. Cheers was number two.
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Sam:
[6:58]
| Yeah, I just read that one off.
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Ivan:
[7:00]
| But here's the third one that I found super interesting. The Fugitive, 1967. Hmm okay and then seinfeld at number four and i i thought for some the fugitive wasn't on the list.
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Sam:
[7:12]
| That i just read for some reason.
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Ivan:
[7:14]
| I i watched it i found it in two different places that the fugitive is definitely number three okay okay so so yeah so seinfeld is number four sorry for exaggerating on the finale but um so over a few spots i i thought for some reason many people People had said that it had beat MASH, but I guess that's still, no, that's still the winner on that one. But anyway, yeah, I mean, it was 30 years ago, Sam.
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Sam:
[7:41]
| 1998.
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Ivan:
[7:43]
| Yeah.
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Sam:
[7:43]
| Almost 30.
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Ivan:
[7:44]
| Almost 30 years. Well, the show was on 30 years ago.
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Sam:
[7:48]
| Yes.
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Ivan:
[7:48]
| The finale was 98.
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Sam:
[7:50]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[7:50]
| Yeah. I mean, yeah. So anyway, so what are we going to talk about today?
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Sam:
[7:55]
| Oh, yeah. Talk about? Well, we're going to do our usual. We're just going to talk about whatever for this first segment, and then you'll pick some newsy stuff, and I'll pick some newsy stuff. Sounds exciting, huh?
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Ivan:
[8:07]
| Woo!
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Sam:
[8:08]
| So do you have a but first first?
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Ivan:
[8:10]
| First look i do have a but first okay so um okay i am in california i i i had um northern.
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Sam:
[8:22]
| California southern california.
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Ivan:
[8:23]
| Northern california i am in yeah i am in saint elena i'm like in napa valley okay okay.
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Sam:
[8:30]
| I was gonna say where the hell is that okay napa valley.
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Ivan:
[8:33]
| Now i'm in napa valley sometime back in may when i i had no idea that i would would have been traveling this much as I have the last few months. My brother and I, we... You know, we have gone to, like... Trips to wine country several times or like wine events many times over the last 20 plus years.
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Sam:
[8:57]
| You are actually traveling for pleasure this time, not for work.
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Ivan:
[9:01]
| Yes, this is not for work. That's why there is no. Yeah.
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Sam:
[9:05]
| And to be clear, no, no. Napa Valley is like north of San Francisco, west of Sacramento. If you if you like and I've heard people debate this before. Right you said northern california which is what people call that area but if you actually draw a line at sort of the center from north to south of california it's just barely above the center line really.
|
Ivan:
[9:30]
| Is it is there still that much north of your i've been looking.
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Sam:
[9:33]
| There there's a bunch of california north of san francisco but there's no above san francisco and sacramento there are no more big cities though no.
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Ivan:
[9:42]
| More big cities yeah so it's really more yeah it's more rural so so So anyway, I mean, we had come here, you know, we, you know, have come here for many events. Oh, come on. It's more than halfway up there. I'm looking at where the hell San Diego is.
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Sam:
[9:57]
| I said barely above the center line from north to south.
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Ivan:
[10:00]
| It's more than barely above. Okay. It's a little bit further north. Anyway. All right.
|
Sam:
[10:07]
| It's maybe at the 60% mark if you go by.
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Ivan:
[10:10]
| Yeah, 60 plus percent around there. So that's the qualifier.
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Sam:
[10:14]
| But it's not at like 80%, which is. If you're thinking northern, you're thinking 75, 80, blah, blah, blah.
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Ivan:
[10:20]
| Listen, if I told Florida, and I said somewhere north of Orlando, you'd say it's northern Florida.
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Sam:
[10:26]
| Well, yeah. If you divide it into just north or south of the center line, it's definitely in the northern part.
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Ivan:
[10:32]
| Yeah. Okay.
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Sam:
[10:33]
| But if you divide it into thirds, north, south, and central, it would be in the central part.
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Ivan:
[10:38]
| It would be like in between part. Okay, there. Okay. So anyway.
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Sam:
[10:43]
| All right.
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Ivan:
[10:43]
| So, you know, now that we've established where I am.
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Sam:
[10:47]
| People call it Northern California regardless.
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Ivan:
[10:49]
| Yeah, exactly. So I, you know, we've gone to different events over the years. But we hadn't been to a wine event out here for about 10 years, okay? And so he had been to some. I hadn't been to any. One of the things that also had been a factor is that my wife had quit drinking. Now, my wife, to be honest, I had been— So no more wine? Well, no more wine at home. But I had been—I'd come over a few times. So my wife had—she's come to California, but not for this, okay? OK, you've come over a couple of times, but not for this. And so I was like, well, hey, Eric, what the hell? Come on. We haven't been to an event in 10 years. So we booked this thing and this we booked this through American Express. OK, this is like for if you're a platinum or centurion card member, they have these special events. And so we have been to some of these like, I don't know, first one I went with sometime in New York a long time ago. And and so they organize this thing which honestly for the price it's it's really good they they organize transportation the meals the visits to the wineries everything they they have everything very uh very organized and so so we're here and you know this is this is an event where, Let's just say that the income level is, of the participants, it's high.
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Sam:
[12:18]
| Quite high. Shocker, shocker. Go ahead.
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Ivan:
[12:22]
| And so the thing is, the but first I would bring to conversation is that we're having this discussion today about cars. And there is somebody at the table.
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Sam:
[12:32]
| You having a conversation about cars, you are once again shocking me, Yvonne. I cannot believe that you are talking about cars.
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Ivan:
[12:39]
| No, but I did not bring this up, okay? I don't know. We're talking about pandemic restrictions and stuff and whatever. And there's a gentleman that's sitting to my left who owns Teslas. They have a Tesla. And he was raving about the self-driving, but he admitted that he has one of these weights that he puts on the wheel that he uses regularly to not have his hand on the wheel.
|
Ivan:
[13:09]
| And and and then he proceeded did you yell at him for being an idiot yes but but let me cannot let me finish here okay okay not that we're not not even close to where the punchline here is okay and then he explained that during the pandemic golf courses were closed over here and he loves golf so the place where he would go to golf is in las vegas and that in order to get go to las vegas to go to the golf to wake up at four in the morning and he would get in his tesla and he would said it to drive to las vegas and he would proceed it oh yes that he would put this fucking weight on the goddamn wheel and then he would proceed to go to sleep and then when the car started bonging and banging or something or whatever then he would wake up and maybe like stop to like charge or whatever and then get back on the highway that he proceed to go and fall asleep again in in in the car well by the way he is telling this his i don't know if his wife or like no it is his wife okay was sitting there and it's just looking like so mortified because he has been just this is just, so stupid but but here's the thing that he admitted okay as well that he oh yeah yeah self-driving is great and whatever now you know the thing is that there was this one day where i was letting it drive by itself whatever and i wasn't doing blah blah blah and you know what the car just drove straight into a wall and totaled itself.
|
Sam:
[14:33]
| Oh and he still.
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Ivan:
[14:36]
| Does it after this Yes. And that, not just that, but he said that when he reported the accident, he had actually a Tesla, Tesla sells insurance for its vehicles directly through Tesla.
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Sam:
[14:52]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[14:52]
| And that for some reason, that they paid him not to disclose.
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Sam:
[14:58]
| Not to say that what happened?
|
Ivan:
[15:00]
| No yes not only that but they you know they they paid him money so that he could use his data replace his car, and so he'll have to basically not say a fucking word about this I guess he did a good job.
|
Sam:
[15:16]
| At doing that.
|
Ivan:
[15:18]
| Yes obviously and I'm just like oh the self-driving is great except that you know you're just telling me right now that you use it a lot and it decided to just drive straight into a wall And destroy the car. Total the car. At 50 miles an hour, by the way.
|
Sam:
[15:35]
| And he's lucky to be alive, obviously.
|
Ivan:
[15:37]
| Yeah. And I'm like... And so... I'm like... His wife, by the way, is mortified. She is like... And i'm like yeah yeah i know she's like looking at me yeah i know it's just it's just you know, and and and and the whole thing is that i mean this guy is just really like just admitting that he's driving this fucking car and like literally just laying down to sleep and um now.
|
Sam:
[16:04]
| A number of years ago.
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Ivan:
[16:06]
| You and i had a bet that's.
|
Sam:
[16:08]
| Almost done now that by 10 years from whenever we had that conversation, it would, you would have self-driving cars that would be good enough and legal enough. Right. This was what I was saying. I was saying 10 years from that point, you would have self-driving cars that were good enough to do exactly what you just said, go to sleep and that all the regulation and everything would be resolved so that that was legal. I am clearly going to be wrong. I don't think we've quite hit 10 years.
|
Ivan:
[16:37]
| But we're damn close i think it's actually next.
|
Sam:
[16:39]
| Month i think it's next month.
|
Ivan:
[16:40]
| Yeah it's.
|
Sam:
[16:41]
| 10 years i could be wrong about that but that's my memory and i'm clearly going to be wrong about that because we are not even remotely close to that you know.
|
Ivan:
[16:52]
| No and and the thing is that what is showing is that the one conversation that i've been maybe that i've been talking about this where you know because he's good by the way this this guy here is one thing that i will admit this guy is by his his own admission admitted that he is an awful driver this guy has probably gotten into more wrecks than anything okay so is the full self-driving better than a awful driver yes if you're a really fucking shitty driver yes well the other the other thing i was gonna but But it's not better than your above-average driver. It will just drive into a fucking wall.
|
Sam:
[17:41]
| So the thing I was going to say is like, we do have like the Waymos and stuff that are operating taxi cab type service where the passenger has no control whatsoever. But I believe that's a different animal.
|
Ivan:
[17:55]
| But that's a different animal because the area is very limited.
|
Sam:
[18:00]
| The service area is limited. It has certain situations. If it gets confused, it stops for an help. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[18:07]
| You know, remotely intervene. Yeah. Yeah, so there are a whole bunch of things about that. And the thing is that it's the same philosophy as GM has had with Super Cruise, where they only allow you to Super Cruise in areas that they have mapped out in detail. It will not do it everywhere. okay and and also they require that well that you you know because their their coverage area is obviously more expensive that where waymo is working is that also you basically have to be paying attention to the road otherwise the system will stop they'll pull the car over and stop yeah what we.
|
Sam:
[18:54]
| What we've said in other conversations is you can't really and truly call it, quote unquote, full self-driving and mean it, unless you're at the point where, You are not considered a driver. You are considered a passenger. There is no expectation legally or otherwise for you to do anything. You need to be at the point where you can put a two-year-old in the car and tell it to go across town.
|
Ivan:
[19:21]
| I'll take my son to school. Right.
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Sam:
[19:23]
| Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[19:25]
| And it's not there yet. And it's not that it's not good. Okay. But it's just, I mean, look, the accident and crash data bears this out. Okay teslas right now have higher crash rates than other vehicles okay and i think it's a large part because the guys like this basically trust the trust the the automation so much that that they that that they go and do this and by the way as i'm sitting here and i turned on cnbc there is an ad right now for the trumpy bear.com.
|
Sam:
[20:02]
| Yes okay don't get distracted by trumpy bear i I have seen Trumpy bear before. I have seen Trumpy bear before.
|
Ivan:
[20:10]
| This is the dumbest fucking thing. Oh my God. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[20:15]
| Anyway, no, the thing is, and we, we've had this conversation before. It's just like the, the uncanny, the uncanny Valley for like, you know, CGI people and stuff. It's the same thing here. There is this Valley where the self driving is good enough that people get, lacks but not good enough to trust completely that i think is actually so much more dangerous yes like and that's what's the.
|
Ivan:
[20:44]
| Thing that's what the crash data is proving out.
|
Sam:
[20:46]
| Yeah i mean if it makes it worse.
|
Ivan:
[20:49]
| In the end.
|
Sam:
[20:50]
| If you've if you've got light driver assist kind of stuff your good old-fashioned cruise control or even the better more modern cruise control that adapts based on who's in front of you that okay fine like even that i'll be honest i can i've, my car doesn't have that but i've driven cars that do have it and it's easy to load yourself into like oh okay well it's got that taken care of i can i can look away a little bit but my point is but in this but that stuff isn't there yeah because.
|
Ivan:
[21:23]
| If you're if you're like a few minutes no few minutes a few seconds that you're not holding the wheel and it's.
|
Sam:
[21:29]
| Like yeah i know i No, I know. But like the point is that sort of zone where it's good enough that you get comfortable and you're like, eh, I don't have to pay attention because it's paying attention. That's the zone that is like super dangerous. Like you, you really need to make the jump to where you're a passenger. You don't even fucking have controls. And the, and you as a passenger, If something happens, the liability is not on you. It's on whoever did the software and built the hardware. It's not on you because you're a passenger. But we're not.
|
Ivan:
[22:07]
| That guy just like yeah and that guy just i i we i i think that it wasn't just me but people around the table as we heard this we were all just like you have to be fucking kidding man and there's and.
|
Sam:
[22:20]
| There are lots of people out there like that and i mean obviously a bunch we've seen stories of a bunch of them who died while doing this and this guy.
|
Ivan:
[22:30]
| Got lucky well i like i mentioned i i had you know i i was telling him and i and i told him specifically what he said because you know an accident that happened very close to my house where this guy was not paying attention when he's driving his model 3 on fsd and the thing is that like it happened to him with hitting that wall yeah fsd has trouble identifying objects that are not moving okay There was a truck that was perpendicular on the road, stopped ahead of him, and basically the car just drove into it, and it decapitated the fucking guy.
|
Sam:
[23:07]
| Right. Full speed.
|
Ivan:
[23:09]
| Full speed. It didn't even try to stop. And it just decapitated the guy. And those are the situations where I'm just like – like you said, this law of self-driving where, yeah, it's really good, really good, until all of a sudden you have no head on you.
|
Sam:
[23:25]
| And by the.
|
Ivan:
[23:26]
| Way that's very terminal.
|
Sam:
[23:28]
| Just just slightly just slightly you.
|
Ivan:
[23:33]
| Know it's not recoverable i don't think there's any treatment for that not yet.
|
Sam:
[23:38]
| Anyway not yet not yet uh yeah i it and people are dumb and in this case you know and there's been some controversy that like Like Tesla's protections against drivers doing this aren't strong enough, but this guy actively went to subvert the protections that were there.
|
Ivan:
[24:00]
| That's correct. Yes. He actively was doing everything to subvert the protections. Yes, absolutely. And I'm just like sitting there and just appalled.
|
Sam:
[24:10]
| Well, the other thing that bugs me about your story is actually the getting paid to not talk about it. I mean, he's obviously talking about it anyway, but.
|
Ivan:
[24:20]
| Oh, yeah. I mean, he literally got paid off to do this. Now, I'm sure that he expected and with good reason that none of us were going to go with like.
|
Sam:
[24:30]
| Talk about it on a podcast.
|
Ivan:
[24:32]
| Well, I'm talking about it on a podcast, but I'm not saying his name. I don't even remember his damn name. So therefore, you know, you know, whatever. Yeah. But, you know, you're probably just making this shit up.
|
Sam:
[24:42]
| This didn't even happen.
|
Ivan:
[24:43]
| It hasn't even happened. But, but, you know, yeah, but that's the conversation that I had at the table today at lunch. And I was just like.
|
Sam:
[24:51]
| Frankly, I know, I know these kinds of nondisclosure agreements as part of settlements and as parts of other deals are all over the place and are prominent. They shouldn't even be legal. Hey, I'm sorry. Like, you know, if you want to settle with the guy, you settle with the guy. But like these kinds of like, oh, but don't tell anybody that are full self-driving screwed up. No, that shouldn't.
|
Ivan:
[25:18]
| Well, look, like I have signed, you know, you know, unfortunately, in some cases, like, you know, not not in in retrospect, not not the best idea, not non non-disclosure, non-disparagement agreements.
|
Sam:
[25:32]
| There are all sorts of NDAs that seem legitimate to me, but this kind of NDA does not.
|
Ivan:
[25:39]
| No, and I'm with you on this. This is just, you know, I mean, they're really, they know that this was, the car should not be driving into a fucking wall. OK, they know this. And so they were more like it doesn't matter what the hell he was doing where he explained that. Actually, he was the reason why he was on FSD and he was not paying attention. It wasn't sleeping this time. He said that he stopped to buy a breakfast burrito and he tried to bite into the burrito. And then he all of it like like fell on his lap and it was burning his crotch. And he was completely distracted by it. first he put it out the window to cool it down then he bit into it then it all like collapsed and like was burning his crotch and as he was attending to this and not paying attention obviously to anything that was going on he went and the car proceeded to go and like slam into a wall.
|
Sam:
[26:37]
| I have had food accidents while driving as well not that exact one you described but But like the first thing you fucking do is like pull over somewhere to.
|
Ivan:
[26:50]
| Do it. Well, to be fair, there was that one time that you couldn't find a cassette and you wind up, you kept driving anyway and slammed into the car in front of the house of the arguing lesbians.
|
Sam:
[27:00]
| No, it wasn't quite that. It was something fell into the foot area on the passenger side and I reached down to get it. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[27:09]
| And the car was continuing.
|
Sam:
[27:11]
| It wasn't that I couldn't find it. I knew exactly where it was. It's just I reached down to try to get it while driving. And not only that, but because my other hand was on the wheel, when I reached down to get it, I turned the car to the right. And into a parked car.
|
Ivan:
[27:29]
| And into a parked car. And then you went to try to tell the people that they were. And it was a lovely, I mean, I'm sure probably a lovely couple. But apparently they were having a very bad day. And you smashed their car as they were fucking arguing. You know, as all couples do occasionally. In the middle of a fight. They're having a beat down argument. You come in and say, hey! Hey, I smashed your car. How are you?
|
Sam:
[28:00]
| Exactly. Yeah. And this was sometime while I was in college, obviously, because you know the story. I think it was right before college.
|
Ivan:
[28:09]
| It was post-college? It was post-college. It was post-college. This happened post-college, yes.
|
Sam:
[28:15]
| It must not have been much. I think I still lived in Pittsburgh. And this was on a visit.
|
Ivan:
[28:22]
| No, no, no. This was in Pittsburgh, yes. Yes, but it was a short time after college.
|
Sam:
[28:27]
| Okay, okay. So anyway, yes. So lesson of this, which by the way, I think I have learned, is if you are reaching for some, if you're trying to get to something on the floor specifically.
|
Ivan:
[28:41]
| You stop and pull over.
|
Sam:
[28:42]
| You stop and pull over. And if you've spilled something all over your lap and you need to deal with it, I mean, if it's still in one piece and you just pick it up and talk, okay, you can probably do that while driving. But if you've made a mess, you really have to pull over. You can't like deal with that while you are driving. And I recognize that at some places it's more difficult to pull over than others, but you do your best and you do your best.
|
Ivan:
[29:07]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[29:08]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[29:09]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[29:09]
| Anyway. Anyway, this guy's dumb.
|
Ivan:
[29:12]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[29:13]
| That was the point of all this story, right? Is this guy's dumb and so is Tesla.
|
Ivan:
[29:17]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[29:18]
| Okay. So should I, should I do a movie?
|
Ivan:
[29:22]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[29:24]
| Okay. Today's movie is from 1986. This is certainly not the first time I've seen this movie. I've seen this movie multiple times over the years. But in April, I once again watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
|
Ivan:
[29:43]
| Oh, my God. Okay.
|
Sam:
[29:46]
| So, and I will say, I'm going to give it a thumbs up. It holds up pretty well.
|
Ivan:
[29:52]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[29:54]
| You know, it's there, there are, you know, when, when, after, after having watched it several times over the course of the years, let's say I, I kind of, at this point, I'm always sort of, when I get to the end being, oh, that's it. I feel like there was more, but there isn't. It's just your, your, the memory sort of builds it up a little bit, but it's still funny. Yeah. The music is still good. It's an enjoyable little flick. You know, there are a few jokes that I that as a 50 plus year old person at this point fall a little bit flat. But for the most part.
|
Ivan:
[30:36]
| It's still good. Absent nine time. Nine time. We were not good enough to hack into any of those systems in order to be able to make those changes.
|
Sam:
[30:52]
| No.
|
Ivan:
[30:54]
| That would have been good, but no, we were not that good. But yeah, that is a movie that still has a number of really hilarious scenes and situations that I've watched relatively recently, and yeah, Yeah, it does hold up still.
|
Sam:
[31:14]
| It's fun. It's funny. Like I said, the music is good. It's got several like set piece scenes that are like memorable year after year. You know, the dancing during the parade stands out as one of them. The spoilers, the bit at the end where the car goes backwards into the thing is always like a good moment.
|
Sam:
[31:43]
| Um, you know, there, there's a, there's a bunch of, um, there, there's a bunch of like scenes that are just iconic. And at this point endure as like, oh yeah, that. And, and I mean, I'm sure it's generational to some degree. Like, you know, you pick a random teenager right now, they may or may not know, but they're, they're, they're like pieces that, you know, it certainly, if you're among anybody of our generation, you refer to them and you know instantly what it is. And I'll give you an example that was just the other day. My wife was watching on YouTube the debate for the Washington State Attorney General. Now, they didn't say anything about this. It's not a reference.
|
Sam:
[32:36]
| But because it was on YouTube, there was a comment stream. And somebody in the comment stream came up with, like, there was a little icon of the face, right? And I'm like, that's the girl from Ferris Bueller. That's Ferris Bueller. That's Ferris Bueller's sister. And not only that, it is Ferris Bueller's sister from the moment that she is sitting in the police station, you know, reacting to, yeah, Jennifer, it was Jennifer gray in the police station reacting to, uh, what's his name? The other guy who's also famous, who wasn't Charlie Sheen, Charlie Sheen. It was like, and it's like instantly, and it's just somebody using it as their icon for their stupid YouTube account. It's clearly wasn't actually Jennifer gray in there in the comments or anything like that. But, and it's like instantly you see the face and not only do you know who it is, you know, which movie it's from and which moment in the movie it's from instantly, you know, you talked about the.
|
Ivan:
[33:38]
| The scene about the car in reverse that goes out. So by the way, they, they use the replica. Okay. That was not a real Ferrari. Um, you know, that, that, that is one thing. And i will say that look that movie has propelled the car the price of the actual real car right that is a ferrari 250 gt california into it was an it was an expensive car back then already okay and was and it was a fairly limited run.
|
Sam:
[34:08]
| One too as well if i.
|
Ivan:
[34:09]
| Remember yeah yes but right now Now, there was one that was being auctioned off recently. The guide price for it was $16 to $18 million. Wow. For one fucking car. And I will tell you. That that car. Would probably be worth. A million or two million only. If it wasn't because of that movie. That's the impact that that movie had. It made that car so iconic. That it is. Ridiculously. One of the most expensive. Collectible Ferraris. In existence. I mean it's just. I mean. Ferraris like. A whole bunch of them are like half a million dollars, 600, 700, a million, 2 million maybe. But this car, that movie has made it. There's one that I just saw that there's an auction that closed recently. And it was, shit, what did it say? 17.875 million.
|
Sam:
[35:15]
| Right. It's insane.
|
Ivan:
[35:18]
| It's insane.
|
Sam:
[35:18]
| Speaking of that car, did you know there is a spinoff movie that's currently in the works for Ferris Bueller?
|
Ivan:
[35:26]
| No way. Really? Well, that'd be cool.
|
Sam:
[35:29]
| Now, it also relates to that car because the spinoff is not going to be about Matthew Broderick's character or anything like that. The spinoff is titled Sam and Victor's Day Off.
|
Ivan:
[35:43]
| Oh, yeah. The guys that went and took the car.
|
Sam:
[35:46]
| The two valets who took the car. Apparently the spinoff is about what they did during that movie. Well, like I said.
|
Ivan:
[35:58]
| The whole scene with that car has been ridiculously iconic. I mean, it's just it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy that it's made a car be that expensive because it was that rare. And yes, by the way, really cool car in reality. I mean, it was it was it is a really cool car. But holy shit. I mean, this is nuts. OK, the prices that it fetches. So, so anyway, thumbs up.
|
Sam:
[36:27]
| Thumbs up. Also, of course, Ben Stein was in it. Bueller, Bueller.
|
Ivan:
[36:33]
| And, you know, Stein's a fucking mega idiot. Fuck.
|
Sam:
[36:37]
| Yeah, I know he is. But like, he's definitely, I mean, he was, he was a, he was a speechwriter for Nixon or something too, wasn't he?
|
Ivan:
[36:46]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[36:46]
| Like, yeah. So he, he's, he's, uh, there's some, there's some things, but apparently his whole like speech on. And actually being MAGA related, his speech in the damn movie, you remember what it was about?
|
Ivan:
[37:02]
| It was about the Laffer Curve. It was specifically, we're talking about taxes and like ergonomics and voodoo economics. Voodoo economics.
|
Sam:
[37:15]
| Well, yes, there were a bit about supply side, but it was also the biggest part of it was about the Smoot-Hawley terror fact.
|
Ivan:
[37:25]
| Oh, that's right. Yes, he did talk about that. Yes.
|
Sam:
[37:27]
| So he's talking about tariffs and now he's all MAGA. But apparently, looking at the Wikipedia on this, that wasn't in the original script. I mean, he was already an economics professor at the time.
|
Ivan:
[37:40]
| He was an economics guy, yes.
|
Sam:
[37:42]
| And so he, in between takes, he was talking about this shit to the actors who were supposed to play the people in the class. And the producers and directors just said, just do that.
|
Ivan:
[38:00]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[38:01]
| Instead of whatever was in the script.
|
Ivan:
[38:03]
| Yeah, that will bore the shit out of everybody. Yes.
|
Sam:
[38:08]
| Anyway yes thumbs up thumbs up for for smooth holly uh no yeah probably i don't know like terrible that was the one that terrible that was they did the yeah the great depression yes oh okay so uh because because the question he asked the class was smooth holly did this this this with tariffs to help with the great depression did it work no no it did not work and it.
|
Ivan:
[38:36]
| Made the Great Depression worse.
|
Sam:
[38:39]
| Yes. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[38:42]
| Anyone? Anyone?
|
Sam:
[38:44]
| Exactly. So with that out of the way, thumbs up for Ferris Bueller. I have a feeling if that spinoff ever actually gets made, it's going to suck, but whatever. You know, maybe they'll do it well, but yeah. Anyway, so time to take a break, Yvonne? Yes. breaky breaky okay we will take a break when we get back it will be time for yvonne to pick some exciting newsy topics for us to discuss frothy frothy very frothy frothy is good frothy is frothy frothy i mean some things it's good if they're frothy other things less so It does depend.
|
Ivan:
[39:31]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[39:32]
| It does. Like, like there's.
|
Ivan:
[39:33]
| A nuclear reactor that's very frothy. That's that doesn't that's probably not good.
|
Sam:
[39:37]
| I was thinking, like, if your dog's mouth is frothing.
|
Ivan:
[39:42]
| That's probably that's that's also bad. Yes.
|
Sam:
[39:45]
| Yeah. Or dog's mouth, nuclear reactors.
|
Ivan:
[39:49]
| Raccoons.
|
Sam:
[39:50]
| But like certain drinks are intended.
|
Ivan:
[39:52]
| Those are good. But yeah, and that would be good. Yes, indeed. But but not not in the other categories I mentioned.
|
Sam:
[40:00]
| Okay. Here's a break. We'll be back. Okay, Yvonne, where do you want to go?
|
Ivan:
[42:08]
| Exploding pagers, Sam.
|
Sam:
[42:10]
| Okay, yeah, start us out. What's going on?
|
Ivan:
[42:15]
| Well, a few days ago, all of a sudden, sometime in the middle of the afternoon, a whole bunch of people that associated with Hezbollah that were issued pagers because I guess they were all freaked out about being tracked through their cell phones of their location and whatnot and privacy concerns with cell phones and blah, blah, blah. So Hezbollah had procured these pagers for communication. And then all of a sudden, several thousand of them at the exact same time exploded. And then more exploded the next day. And then people in Lebanon, especially with Hezbollah, they were telling people, I mean, they're not so paranoid. Smash all your phones, any electronic devices, just smash them. Just, you know, get rid of them. Now, at this point, it seems, and a few sources have pointed, that they believe this was a Mossad operation.
|
Sam:
[43:20]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[43:21]
| Israel has not claimed responsibility for it.
|
Sam:
[43:25]
| They've also not denied it.
|
Ivan:
[43:27]
| They've also not denied it. I.
|
Sam:
[43:29]
| Mean, it's almost universally assumed at this point that yes it was.
|
Ivan:
[43:34]
| Israeli but the one but i will say the one thing and i i was talking with my brother who's been here would be we were talking about this i mean he said it before i before i told him but i had thought this before i kept scratching my head as to why israel thought that this is a good idea but of course because i don't i don't understand if you are able to implant electronic something electronic and all these devices that were distributed to why now no no no no wait let me finish that they were distributed to all these has below ages why not use it to eaves drop track, You could have so much intelligence.
|
Sam:
[44:24]
| Weren't these one-way pagers?
|
Ivan:
[44:26]
| Yeah, but that's precisely my point. They're one-way. They can set – no, but hell, you – listen, they may be – I'm not sure they were one-way, okay, number one. But regardless if they were not one-way, if you're going to fucking put an electronic board in it – You could put whatever. You could put whatever else on there. I mean, I don't get it. If you have this opportunity to gather, Sam, you could literally have tracked every single agent of Hezbollah, known what they are, what they're planning, what they're doing, what they're talking. And you could have done this surreptitiously for I don't know how freaking long. What the hell is the point of just blowing them all up? I don't get what the winner here is.
|
Sam:
[45:17]
| There are a couple of things here. One, I would presume doing what you are describing, would be more elaborate and harder to hide.
|
Ivan:
[45:29]
| Sam, more elaborate. Wait, wait, wait.
|
Sam:
[45:32]
| What the fuck, man? Wait, wait, wait. Let me finish what I'm saying. All you need for this is to piggyback off the existing receiver, right? You have a coded message that if it gets a certain text, it goes off, right? And then you can send it. You do not need anything that's trying to extract a data stream, send it back. You don't have to worry about having something that would have detectable signal leaving the devices. There are a number of things. Also, there has been further reporting this in the last couple days that piggybacks on, yes, this was the Israelis, saying details, like specifically, they've been working on this operation for on the order of 15 years. Getting everything set up could be able to do this. The front... Company that they set up in hungary for this has been in operation three or four years you know and and of course there was a second round of this the pagers were first and then they did like walkie-talkies like the next day and with the same kind of exploit because basically you know okay sam.
|
Ivan:
[46:44]
| But but okay well now you just brought up walkie-talkies yeah exactly so what the fuck man look i i don't listen honestly this seems.
|
Sam:
[46:55]
| Honestly, for all we know, they were doing that as well, but they decided this was the right moment to blow them up.
|
Ivan:
[47:03]
| But right moment for what, Sam? I thought this one, I don't understand.
|
Sam:
[47:08]
| The right moment to escalate the war before the American elections.
|
Ivan:
[47:14]
| I mean, is that it?
|
Sam:
[47:17]
| No, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, obviously if they wanted to escalate the war, there are other ways to do it too.
|
Ivan:
[47:23]
| Well, I mean, Like.
|
Sam:
[47:24]
| Cause the one thing about the, let's, let's assume for whatever reason, they didn't have the ability to spy on them the way that you're talking about, or if they do that separate, but whatever they did, like this capability that they just did, they must have had a reason why this was the moment they wanted to do this because by setting this off, they've burned that exploit. They're not, they're not going to be able to do it again next year.
|
Ivan:
[47:54]
| No, no.
|
Sam:
[47:56]
| And, and, and all across the world, everybody's going to be looking for this now. Right. Not just that regions. So yeah, there must have been. And, and I agree. It's unclear to me, like, assume you had this capability in place. Assume you've had it in place for a while. Why would you trigger it right now? This very second. Now, apparently some of these pagers were still being distributed as recently as a week ago.
|
Ivan:
[48:25]
| So, I'm still, you know, the joke that my brother and I were trying to figure out how the hell Hezbollah wound up buying all these fucking pagers is like, what, Hezbollah was calling around and said, hey, hey, hey, these guys, no, no, no, I got you the best deal on pagers. Listen, I got you the best pagers at the best, listen, oh, that's for Taiwan? No, no, no, listen, we got you the best fucking deal. Deal and this guy has a lot of buyers like really so you give me 40 off oh yeah this is great i'm like well this guy whatever whoever the guy is that made this deal i'm sure that somebody needs to find him and fire him number one it has a lot okay because this guy is not very good he.
|
Sam:
[49:08]
| May what he may well be.
|
Ivan:
[49:09]
| He may well not be killed by his page exactly by his own damn pager but it's just i'm still like just i'm still trying to figure out what the fuck was the process of these guys going and buying these fucking pagers that wind up with them with all with this which is just the most craziest, security breach I have ever seen anybody do anywhere ever you know I was talking that look man if we put this in the plot of a movie nobody would have believed you this is bullshit, I mean And so apparently the specific mechanism.
|
Sam:
[49:53]
| Was that these pagers were produced, as most electronics are, somewhere in the Far East. They were bought by a shell company set up in Hungary that apparently was a front for the Israelis, where they got in these pagers, they modified them, they added explosives, and then they sold them back into Lebanon, specifically to Hezbollah. But, you know, and, and that, that was the, that was the path roughly there might, I'm sure there are more details I'm not understanding now.
|
Sam:
[50:29]
| Within the context of all the criticisms of Israel for other things, this has been criticized as well because, first of all, like, there are some of these that were not actually in the hands of true – like, they're all Hezbollah-associated in one way or another, but they weren't all necessarily Hezbollah, like, fighters or militants or whatever because Hezbollah supports a lot of civic organizations in Lebanon. Wait, let me just finish. Some of the people had given them to their kids. There were a few innocents that were just next to the guy who exploded, right? So there were civilian casualties out of this too. Now, having said that, Israel's made it clear that to them, having 20 civilians die for one bad guy they get is a perfectly acceptable ratio to them.
|
Sam:
[51:23]
| Documents leaked that explicitly said that in Gaza. So, like, if they're getting something that, you know, from all sounds of this, like, the ratio is less than that. They may have gotten a few civilians, but not anywhere near what they're doing in Gaza. So, better than that, I guess. I mean, it's fairly well targeted. It's a small explosion on, like, the hip of somebody holding one of these. And there were a lot more people injured than there were killed there were a few people killed but lots and there were thousands of injuries thousands of people in.
|
Ivan:
[51:56]
| The hospital with some serious injuries serious injuries what i what i will say is that my my my take on this is what i found is particularly very heinous and i and just just just just it just felt honestly like Like, it was just, there was no rhyme or reason to it other than just to inflict pain.
|
Sam:
[52:21]
| Well, what people have, I've heard criticism along the lines of, you're taking advantage of civilian devices. People should be able to trust civilian devices. You got people while they were going about their normal civilian business and not actually engaged in warfare, etc.
|
Ivan:
[52:40]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[52:40]
| Those kinds of considerations. And I'm like, yeah, I understand. I don't disagree necessarily with those. But at the same time, you're talking about, you know, people who are bombing schools and hospitals to get the one terrorist hiding in the corner as well. So it's all bad. It's all bad. But, you know, and this, if anything, is better targeted than that other stuff.
|
Ivan:
[53:06]
| Well, no, I agree, but I just Well, I do agree that this is better targeted My whole thing is just, that tensions have been so bad like right now and this was just a insane escalation my thing is that yeah it may have been targeted but i don't see how anything that comes out of here in in retaliation isn't even more that even more deadly or heinous i mean that's that's my whole thing i mean it just it really truly feels like just an escalation just to just for escalation well period i.
|
Sam:
[53:47]
| Think i think the things we don't know like i you're right it sort of feels like it came from out of the blue but so it would be but i it feels like it came from out of the blue blue, but they've got to have had some reason for right now, this moment, like I said, they're burning a major capability. I don't, yeah, it doesn't seem like a rational thing that they would just say, oh, let's set them off on a random day on a random week. There had to have been a specific reason to do it now. Like maybe they thought this was about to be exposed. The Israelis have mentioned that they feel like the Hezbollah was about to escalate in the north and they wanted to preempt that. Maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know. Maybe it is just a matter of, you know, we've talked, I joked about it being the American election, and maybe it is, I don't know. But more specifically, Netanyahu himself has interest in keeping the conflict going because as soon as there's no conflict, they're going to get rid of a.m.
|
Ivan:
[54:53]
| You know and he's going back on trial so and that's what i was thinking i'm like thinking is this just a fucking cynical another cynical fucking yahoo plot i mean seriously i mean that was the thought i had i mean this is just another fucking cynical yahoo plot that's it now.
|
Sam:
[55:16]
| They have i think it's been mentioned that there were confirmation that there were a few relatively senior people who were killed by this. But again, like Israel has shown, but this is like thousands of people injured. Yeah, maybe they killed a couple, but like, and the people who have been injured, like I said, have varied. Like apparently some of them were Hezbollah like important people and then others were just random people who worked for organizations that Hezbollah worked with to do things in the community or even relatives of people that were involved with Hezbollah. But, and so I don't know, I, again, there has to be, there has to be more to it that just isn't public now in terms of like how this was targeted, who exactly was targeted. Cause it presumably it's not like, it wasn't just like, every pager in lebanon right and and maybe it was like a big order to hezbollah and they were just like well whoever hezbollah hands these out to obviously have to be bad guys so let's go like without knowing.
|
Ivan:
[56:26]
| Specifically who.
|
Sam:
[56:27]
| Did what just like if you sell them to hezbollah and hezbollah gives them out they must all be bad guys kill well.
|
Ivan:
[56:33]
| Look my understanding was that the reason why they had procured the pagers specifically was because they had been concerned about surveillance and they had gone out and and in mass decided to procure these pagers in order to avoid surveillance and so so there was a specific event that they had gone out and decided that this was the way that they were going to avoid surveillance and well i guess they failed held miserably at it.
|
Sam:
[57:06]
| Yeah. Um, and, and, and it's, you know, again, it, it, it erodes trust worldwide as well. Right. Cause like once you've shown that this can be done and, you know, like who, who can trust any device?
|
Ivan:
[57:25]
| Yeah, I know.
|
Sam:
[57:27]
| You know, it's like, you know, all these fair to be fair.
|
Ivan:
[57:33]
| You know what like you said buying the.
|
Sam:
[57:38]
| Cheapest shit from some off-brand.
|
Ivan:
[57:40]
| Retailer out of Hungary.
|
Sam:
[57:44]
| It's not like they were buying Samsung pagers.
|
Ivan:
[57:47]
| No yeah exactly I don't even know if Samsung makes pagers I know what you mean it's not coming from a reputable manufacturer that's for sure OK.
|
Sam:
[58:03]
| Well, again, again, they thought they were buying a the brand name itself. Apparently it was like an Apollo or something. It may it may not it may not be big here, but I guess it is a brand name that's somewhat known. It's not a completely but no, but it was brought through this cut out. It was brought through this cut out. It wasn't bought from Apollo was bought through this other wholesaler who turned out to be the fake Israeli wholesaler that was putting bombs in the damn things.
|
Ivan:
[58:32]
| Yeah, but in the past, for example, the biggest pager maker was Motorola, for example. So if I go and I'm going to go buy a whole bunch of fucking Motorola pagers and I'm buying them directly from Motorola, I'm pretty confident that they're not going to have bombs in them. But when you rely on a company that, shit, I had never heard of before, buying them through a third party that nobody had ever even fucking heard of before in order to get the fucking pagers. Well, you know, it's not exactly the most secure supply chain.
|
Sam:
[59:06]
| So if you go to a, that's nice. I had Googled Apollo pager and tried to go to the Apollo pagers.com website. It's down. And yeah, it's down. The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to reaching bandwidth limits. You think? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[59:33]
| Listen, Listen, the only people I know that still use pagers are doctors. And let me tell you, because we're talking about pagers, I was talking to my brother. My sister-in-law is a doctor. And, you know, my brother helps her manage her practice, okay? He manages the practice, okay? He doesn't help her. He manages the practice. And so they got a new guy at the office or a care member at the hospital or whatever, young guy. And doctors, remember, still use pagers. So he said, hey, call Dr. X and tell him that they need to show at the hospital. So he's got the pager number. So he calls the pager number. Now, he calls the pager number. And when you call a pager number right now, and this has been for the simpler pagers, it's been for a while. When you get it, you hear a tone at the other end. And basically, you type in the number that you want to call back, and then they'll call you back. Well, he didn't understand this. So being a 20-something, not-noticed kid, so calls up. He goes and says, hey, you need to call back the office. Bye. Click. And hangs up. And my brother's like, what the fuck do you think you're doing? It's like, well, whatever we're doing, I left a message. That's not the fucking way that works, you idiot. You need to type the number, and then they'll call you back. Oh, that's how that works? Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:59]
| So yeah these guys don't know they don't know about pagers you know well we will be fair, doctors so okay these are the two people that use pagers doctors and hezbollah that's pretty and probably and.
|
Sam:
[1:01:16]
| Possibly other people doing illegal activities but you'd think they'd at at least like use like modern ones with all kinds of encryption and stuff like that i don't know i did look up while you were talking.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:29]
| Networks have been like listen the problem is a long time.
|
Sam:
[1:01:32]
| Yeah i know.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:33]
| No no but it's not just it's not bad it's beyond that the fact that pager networks look nobody's investing in fucking pager networks well.
|
Sam:
[1:01:42]
| Yes oftentimes this is a technique that has been used in various places before, when you're trying to go under the radar, you intentionally use obsolete technology because no one's paying attention to it anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:57]
| Yeah. No, no, no. I agree. That is definitely something. And so obviously it didn't work.
|
Sam:
[1:02:03]
| I looked up some more about Apollo pager. So here's an article from the BBC from three days ago. Taiwan pager maker stunned by link to Lebanon attacks. The race to find the maker of the pagers that exploded in Lebanon has taken an unexpected turn towards a Taiwanese company Few had heard of until this morning. So it wasn't a unknown brand. Like I briefly know it's just a no, it's a no name knockoff page or company at least 12 people. Okay. Blah, blah, blah. Caught in a crisis. Taiwanese firm, gold, Apollo's founder flatly denied his company had anything to do with the attacks. Instead, he said he licensed his trademark to a company in Hungary called BAC consulting, which apparently was really an Israeli front. It was registered at a nondescript building that was just an address. They didn't really do business there. To use the Gold Apollo name on their own pagers, BBC attempts to contact BAC have been unsuccessful.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:08]
| No shit.
|
Sam:
[1:03:08]
| The guy from Apollo says, you look at the pictures from Lebanon, they don't have any mark saying Made in Taiwan on them. We did not make those pagers. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:21]
| Um lovely yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:03:22]
| So apparently they licensed their name and i i don't know i guess yeah these were it wasn't just explosive stuck in a pager i guess they made the whole damn pager maybe, i mean maybe they did which goes which goes back to the whole thing if they're making the whole damn pager they could have put a lot more crap in it.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:41]
| And that's what that's what i was insane i mean what the hell if you're making the whole damn fucking pager i mean you could have i don't get it i just don't get it.
|
Sam:
[1:03:52]
| There are clearly missing pieces of information that are not yet public because it all doesn't make sense together like no no with the information we've got.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:02]
| Right now it i i cannot make sense of this.
|
Sam:
[1:04:05]
| I i mean like if they just wanted to kill a whole bunch of Hezbollah. Okay. You, you, you, you work out a scam to sell the stuff to Hezbollah. You wait until it's fully distributed. Then you just blow, you pull the trigger and you blow up whoever's got them in their hands. Now, I guess maybe that was the plan, but if you have, again, if you have the capability to do that, why couldn't you have done more? And then also, why would you burn that capability at this exact moment?
|
Ivan:
[1:04:33]
| It and and there is one thing right now that strategically this has done was a lot look it's killed by process again what now no no no no no no no in terms of hezbollah's operation okay yeah okay my understanding is that it has crippled them substantially because right now they are all like fuck how the hell do we communicate securely right they they don't They don't trust cell phones. They don't trust the pagers. Right now, literally, their communications have been absolutely cryptic. I mean, they have been brought in terms of communications to their knees because they don't know that there are any methods that they can trust.
|
Sam:
[1:05:17]
| At this point, you have to do it the old fashioned way. You write something down on a piece of paper and you have a courier take it to where you want to go.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:25]
| OK, Sam, when you're talking about several thousands of people that are communicating this way, let's just say that it's not very effective.
|
Sam:
[1:05:34]
| No, I mean, and this is this is what Al Qaeda was doing. It was what Bin Laden was doing, right? Like, he was doing that kind of communication.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:42]
| Yeah, and how effective was Bin Laden when he got reduced to doing that?
|
Sam:
[1:05:46]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:47]
| Not very much. It makes things much harder. And so maybe that's the thinking from their end.
|
Sam:
[1:05:53]
| So maybe that's, boom, that's the goal. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:57]
| Maybe that's the goal. And I'm like thinking that maybe that's a possibility of a goal. Oh, that right now, by doing this, they have created such a level of paranoia inside the organization that it's basically crippled them from doing anything effectively in any way, shape, or form. And that could be the outcome that they wanted right now. They wanted to paralyze them.
|
Sam:
[1:06:21]
| And if, by the way, it completely throws off any of these ceasefire negotiations in Gaza. It doesn't matter.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:32]
| It doesn't matter. And that says because from their perspective, it's like, listen, we've completely crippled them. I mean, they right now cannot operate effectively in any way, shape or form. And it will take a lot of time for them to rebuild that capability.
|
Sam:
[1:06:51]
| Right. At the very least, they need to buy new pagers.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:59]
| Good god yes at the very least they need to buy new pages yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:07:03]
| Yeah uh okay you got more should we take a break and move to me no.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:11]
| We could take a break and move to you.
|
Sam:
[1:07:13]
| Okay here we go here we go another another break coming up very exciting exiting.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:22]
| Thanks for listening!
|
Sam:
[1:08:11]
| And here we are okay as usual i will wrap it up with election 2024 stuff because like that's my job apparently uh so last couple times you've asked me to start with polls so i'll start with polls. I had summarized as recently as two days ago, or as recently as a day ago, even that the situation was roughly the same as it had been that, you know, polling bounces up and down a little bit, but basically it was still too close to call with Harris having a slight advantage. And I will say that's still true. However, Harris's advantage has increased a little bit, just in the last 24 hours of polling, it is still dead close. But the tipping point right now has moved up to Harris ahead by 1.5% in Pennsylvania. As of new polls, I added like an hour before we started this show.
|
Sam:
[1:09:17]
| And if you look at the trends, it does look like now, And really, the evidence for this has only really come in within the last 48 hours before we're recording that we can now actually see a debate bump for Harris in the state-level polls. The national polls, it really depends. Like, if you look at the 538 average, it's been pretty flat for a while. It's been, like, right around 3%, a little bit more, a little bit less for a while. Like between 2.8 and 3.2, you know, it's been, it's been right around there for a while.
|
Sam:
[1:09:59]
| But the state polls are finally starting to show something where, look, the overall pattern since Harris took over were first a very rapid move towards Harris, then a few weeks moving back a little bit towards Trump. And then starting, I guess, about a week before the debate, starting around September 5th, things started moving back towards Harris. And then that seems to that accelerated after the debate. And there's a little bit of evidence that it's popping back a little bit. Like the tipping point got as high as Harris up by 2.8, but that didn't last very long. It's now back to 1.5.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:48]
| But I will say one thing about the polls and looking at about state polls and national poll. I have seen a lot more recent polls that have been national polls that showed margin well Well above any margins that I had seen in any of this election tracking.
|
Sam:
[1:11:08]
| Oh, yeah. Here's one thing I wanted to say about that, too. I mentioned 538's national average and also looking at RCP's national average. Like 538 explicitly says this isn't just an average of the numbers. We take into account a whole bunch of other factors. we include state polls even when you're looking at the national average we're looking at economic factors we're looking at a whole bunch of other crap blah blah blah but like if you look at 538 and look at all the recent polls and look at those numbers there's like how the fuck do you get an average of three out of that that should be higher so they're obviously they're doing some corrections that end up lowering that average but then even RCP.
|
Sam:
[1:11:58]
| But RCP's average at this point is 1.9. And RCP is theoretically a straight numerical average. And I haven't checked their math. They have it at 1.9 for Harris.
|
Sam:
[1:12:10]
| And just glancing at the numbers, it's also a, how can that possibly average to 1.9? That should be a little higher. And maybe it actually does. Like I said, I haven't checked their math. But 538, certainly, like you just scroll up and down the list of numbers and there's so many fives and fours and sixes and sevens and so few that are like ones and twos or even or let alone Trump ahead. head. You're like, how does that average out to three? And of course it is, they've got house corrections for like, if a pollster tends to lean Republican, they've got the economic factors they're leaning in. They've got this, they've got that, they've got blah, blah, blah. But it's like, if you actually look at the numbers, it should be Harris ahead by more. But the other thing I wanted to say for the state ones, you know, everything I just said about the state averages is, you know, My methodology is take all the polls and just throw them in and don't worry about that. I don't have the sophistication to do house corrections and stuff like that. But one thing that I and a few other people have noticed is that the right-wing pollsters who the last couple election cycles have come out and flooded the zone in the last few weeks before the election are doing that now.
|
Sam:
[1:13:35]
| And so, like, there are a lot of pollsters in the field that are from organizations that are known to be….
|
Ivan:
[1:13:46]
| Have their thumb on the scale.
|
Sam:
[1:13:48]
| Potentially have their thumb on the scale or at the very… No, but they said so. Some of them have. Some of them have explicitly… Trafalgar said so flat out. Oh, yes, I know. Trafalgar said that they are taking into account things that nobody else sees to better reflect what they think the electorate is actually going to look like. OK, that's how they say it. Right. But there are a bunch of them in the field right now which may be moving the averages more towards Trump than they would be otherwise. wise. The one caveat that I have like in terms of, well, then, you know, if take them out and maybe Harris is further ad, but the problem with that is like in 2016 and 2020, they were actually closer in the end to the right answer than the mainstream folks were now. Well, they, and we had this, we had this conversation after those elections. Now that doesn't mean they're more accurate, they may have, they may have been wish casting their numbers and just gotten lucky. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:54]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:14:54]
| And, uh, But and a lot of these, though, the thing is, they seem to be putting results out with the well, I shouldn't say they seem to be one possible explanation of the behavior of some of these pollsters is that they're not actually caring about the accuracy of their number. They're caring about influencing the narrative and they're caring about influencing the election itself. So, for instance, if you show a bunch of polls showing Trump doing better than he actually is, that might discourage Democrats in some of those states and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, like, okay, there was a poll that just came out earlier today showing Virginia tied, okay? Right, okay. All of the other recent polls in Virginia have had Harris up by 6%, 7%, 8%, 10%. But this one had it tied. Well, a slight Harris lead. They released four results, two tied, one with her up by one, one with her up by two. But every other recent poll is like at least Harris ahead by six. And some of them up even more. So it's like, okay, what are you doing here?
|
Sam:
[1:16:20]
| You know, you're an extreme outlier in that direction. What is the actual purpose of this? Are you just bad or are you trying to do something? You know?
|
Sam:
[1:16:34]
| And let's see, who did this poll? I'm trying to find out who these people are. Is it's the university of mary washington wow.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:46]
| Sounds like a very big place.
|
Sam:
[1:16:50]
| I'm trying to see, like, do they have a, what do they even do, like, in first year? Like, are they known for something? Is it, like, some weird religious college? Is it whatever?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:04]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:17:07]
| Let me look up somewhere other than their website, because their website isn't actually telling me anything useful. You know, I'm doing this on the spot, of course, as we're doing. Okay. It's a public liberal arts university in Fredericksburg. So maybe, I don't know, maybe they just don't know what they're doing on the polling. I don't know. But like, there's certainly some possibility, like this may or may not be one of those examples, but certainly like Trafalgar and some of the others that we were talking about before are definitely out in the field doing stuff. And again, like, I don't know, you know, in, in the end that this comes to the Yvonne shared something from the New York times on the curmudgeon score slack earlier this week, where they talked about, you know, what it look at where their polls in the swing States are right now. And what if they were off by the same amount as 2020 or what if they were off by the same amount as 2022?
|
Sam:
[1:18:05]
| The results they got are very similar to sort of what I get by looking where my method, I don't look at the off year election at all in 2022, but I look at the last four presidential elections and how much things have varied. But the point that they had is if things are off like they were in 2020, Trump wins handily. If they were off by the way things were off in 2022, Harris wins handily. Right. And if they're actually spot on, then who the hell knows, right? Right. And that's basically where we are. Because everything, I mean, I said last week, right, that we've got so many close states and we still have so many close states. Right now, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Iowa, and Georgia, all with polling under a 2% margin.
|
Sam:
[1:19:08]
| People say polls are meaningless, and I'm like, no, no, polls still have value. You just have to know how to interpret them. But one thing that you can say for sure is that polls that show a margin under 2%, you have no idea who's really at. None. That is beyond the ability of modern polling to tell what the fuck is going on. You know, polling has issues like you're, you're, you can get a rough idea like, okay, we can, we can be pretty damn sure Ohio is looking Republican right now. And Oregon is looking very democratic, but, but, What's going on in, you know, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina. They're all, we don't know. We don't know. They're close. That's all we can tell you is they're close.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:02]
| Well, um, but again.
|
Sam:
[1:20:04]
| If you, it, it's very easy to convince yourself that says, look, in 2022, Democrats were underestimated and all the special elections. Democrats were underestimated in the in the referendum was on abortion. Democrats were underestimated. And so and we've got and plus there's so much energy and enthusiasm over the Democratic race where whenever you look anecdotally, it's what what's going on a Republican side. They're like, yeah, Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:36]
| Well, let's talk about what's happening on the Republican side. You had posted a summary about this. Stop for a second. And this is like you posted this on the 17th. Stop for a second and look at the week Republicans are having. It's incredible, incredibly bad. Trump got murdered at the Trump almost got murdered at his golf course by yet another Republican, by the way, which we haven't talked about because, you know, that's bad. Mads admitted they lied about Haitian immigrants, okay? Chief Justice Roberts got busted for trying to give Trump immunity no matter what. They completely alienated Taylor Swift fans, which include, like, half the women on Earth. True social stock is in the dump, but it keeps crashing right now. When he's allowed to sell his shares, they won't be worth anything. Trump's girlfriend got banned from the campaign plane. They're saying the N-word on Megyn Kelly's show. Elon is trying to get Kamala assassinated and impregnate Taylor Swift on the platform that's worth 16% of the value that he paid for Mark Cuban, said that he wants to buy if he would buy Fox News and Twitter how is this even possible and that's not even all the stuff that happened you know it has not been a good week you got, what the hell is the guy the black Nazi guy they got now? Robinson Robinson What is he, running for North Carolina governor, I think?
|
Sam:
[1:21:56]
| Governor. He's running for governor of North Carolina.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:59]
| And this guy is a black dude that has called himself a black Nazi. Is this correct? I mean, the only other worse thing that you can say is, I am a Jewish Nazi. That's about the only worse use of that word that I can think of.
|
Sam:
[1:22:16]
| So he said he's a black Nazi. He said he wished slavery would come back. But specifically because he wanted to own slaves.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:25]
| So who are going to be the slaves? He's going to enslave the whites.
|
Sam:
[1:22:30]
| I don't know. Whatever. It doesn't matter. He wanted to own slaves. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:22:37]
| And yeah. And also, and also to get him in trouble further with his theoretic core constituents, all of this, all of this conversation were on the forums attached to a porn site. And he's specifically on there talking about how he loves trans porn, even though he's extremely anti-trans in his public statements. That's great. And apparently there was every reference I have seen about this says, and there was other stuff too graphic for us to talk about here. Like and i was in the that was in the tell of that was in the television coverage i gather that in this full cnn article which i did not get a chance to read the whole thing this was broken by cnn there are some details that are more explicit than what was being repeated on television but even the cnn article left some stuff out because they didn't want to repeat some of the smutty stuff he was talking about on the porn site jesus christ okay which by the way to be clear, there's nothing wrong with liking trans porn no.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:03]
| No no that's not.
|
Sam:
[1:24:04]
| The problem or any no or probably the stuff he was talking about is probably i don't i i didn't i don't know what it was maybe it was offensive these are no but the problem is the hypocrisy the problem yes yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:19]
| Yes because he is anti or anti-trans anti oh family values blah blah blah all this horse shit and then you know all of this is bad and then they always show their hypocrisy anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:24:35]
| So there there are a lot of things that are dragging that are potentially are things that you would hope would drag Trump down in the polls. Yeah. The question is, do you actually get to see that? You know, does it actually happen? And like, I feel better now about the polls than I did even a few days ago. Things have been moving a little bit. But yeah, and also I'll say, you know, I think I mentioned last week or maybe it was the week before that we were almost at the point where if things continued the way they did, that Harris would be doing better than Clinton was at the same time in 2016. At this very moment, Harris is doing better than Clinton was at the same time in 2016. Barely, but still. It's a milestone.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:37]
| Well, that's good.
|
Sam:
[1:25:37]
| That hadn't happened before. She's still nowhere near where Biden was this time in 2020, but she's doing better than Clinton was in 2016. So that's something. Now, a few days from now, eight years ago, Clinton started doing way better. She jumped from being ahead by 1.3 in my tipping point to being ahead by more than five. So cross your fingers, maybe Harris will do the same thing. I don't know. But yeah, there is...
|
Sam:
[1:26:10]
| If you wash out all the individual little ups and downs and just look at sort of major milestones, and again, I'm looking at the tipping point because it's like the popular vote, but it's modified to account for the structure of the Electoral College, essentially. When she first took over, Trump was ahead by 3.4%. At the beginning of August, Harris was ahead by 0.4%. At the beginning of September, she'd lost some ground and Trump was ahead by 0.1, again, in my tipping point average. And now she's ahead by 1.5. So if you squint and And look at those trends. She's gradually getting stronger and stronger. Like there's some ups and downs. There's ups and downs, but she is moving in the right direction with some jiggling back and forth. And that's just the error of like these polls and who's in the field at any given time. And, you know, do you have outliers in one side or another, but it's still way, way closer than I would like it to be. You know, I would love to see Harris back where Biden was four years ago, but we're not there yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:32]
| Well, but let's be but let's be fair. I mean, that didn't really mean much. It's just like the whole point.
|
Sam:
[1:27:39]
| He was ahead. Nicely gave him the buffer to even though the polls were wrong, he still squeaked out a victory. That's why I want to see her way ahead, is because I want the range of possibilities to be from massive Harris landslide to a narrow Harris win, instead of the range of possibilities being from a healthy Harris win to a healthy Trump win, which is where we are now.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:11]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:28:13]
| So, okay. And enough polls. We talked about Mr. Mark Robinson. We talked about the pollsters maybe gaming the averages. What else? You mentioned briefly the second Trump assassination attempt. Let's talk about that for a minute.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:31]
| I mean, what is there to talk about? Another fucking psychopath Republican decides, I guess, that it seems that Trump isn't mad enough. know.
|
Sam:
[1:28:41]
| Well, he was a Haley supporter. He was a Nikki Haley supporter.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:45]
| Well, I was reading, and somebody had shared.
|
Sam:
[1:28:49]
| And he was a big Ukraine person, so he doesn't like to stand.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:53]
| No, no, no. But here's the thing. Elon, Twitter went and like, disappeared a whole bunch of his posts okay by the way because a few of them by the way because a number of them were reported to have been pro elon okay okay this guy loved elon but a number of the posts that that that he he had put on x spoke about how he felt that trump was a failure As a candidate, it wasn't that he didn't support him as policy. It was that he felt that Trump was a failure.
|
Sam:
[1:29:32]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:33]
| Because he hadn't carried out his promises. He lost the 2020 election, you know, and and it was just.
|
Sam:
[1:29:43]
| And it really was a big deal for him that Trump had the wrong position on Ukraine. He was all in. He was trying to recruit people to go fight in Ukraine, so much that the Ukrainians told him to please stop because he wasn't helping.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:57]
| Right. And this guy was very hateful of Democrats. I mean, one of the things that he called the Democrats that they had found is he called them demon rats.
|
Sam:
[1:30:08]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:09]
| I've heard that. So this guy was definitely on the ultra-right-wing spectrum, even if there were a couple of things that he disagreed with with Trump.
|
Sam:
[1:30:19]
| Yeah, well, and despite this, of course, the Trump campaign, and Vance specifically has made some comments, they're just trying to blame this on the Democrats and the rhetoric, and this is happening because the Democrats are saying that Trump is a threat to democracy. Well you know if if we really did have some left winger being the ones who made these shots, maybe you could make some sort of case there but no that's no but both of these guys bullshit like look i said these guys but no no no but neither one of these guys fit that profile but.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:55]
| Here here is the thing about this this goes back to how to the regular republicans.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:03]
| This party has completely spun out of their control. These guys for a long time, they kind of like wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know, we're OK with the right with the with these lunatics. OK, right. But and they they knew that they could count on them to vote. But they were like, no, but we won't let them be in control of anything. OK, you know, because we want like regular Republican things like small government, small taxes, strong defense, NATO, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, we're kind of cool with having these racists and, you know, we'll give them a nudge nudge quick and like say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're with you, buddies. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And so, you know, Now, Trump spun all of this out of control, and he has actively enraged his people and raised their level of anger and fury more and more and more and promised a lot more and more. And many of these, by the way, when January 6th happened and Trump basically just hung him out to dry, many of them turned on him precisely because of this. It's not because they didn't support what Trump wanted. It's because they felt that Trump hung him out to dry.
|
Sam:
[1:32:29]
| I remember saying this right after January 6th when he failed to pardon them all. Right. For example. Trump was like, you know, why should I do anything for them? They failed.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:44]
| They failed. Right. They failed. So why am I doing anything for them? And and this is the source of a lot of their anger. He went and he flamed – he fanned these flames. He took the flames that had been fanned already by other Republicans, amped that up a billion degrees, and now these guys are not happy because Trump hasn't delivered, to be fair, on barely anything other than creating a lot of –, you know, conflict in our nation. Other than that, and other than fanning the flames of racism and let them be racist more openly, he really has delivered on barely much of anything.
|
Sam:
[1:33:34]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:35]
| You know, there has been some stuff for the.
|
Sam:
[1:33:38]
| Like the things he's delivered on are the tax cuts for his rich buddies, which is different.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:44]
| Right. And, and, and the abortion thing, which by the way, they all hate anyway, but by the way, the abortion thing that they all hate anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:33:52]
| There's a small core group that really was about that abortion issue, but it's a small core group, even of Republicans.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:01]
| Right. And so he really hasn't delivered on shit. Where are the 10 million people being deported? Where is, you know, you know, all this other horseshit that he's talked about, you know? So so yeah they're enraged and they've decided that you know the fault is trump's and they decided to try to take him out now twice and so yes yeah vance fuck you it has nothing to do with anything the democrats did you guys went and like lit the match under these people and fan the flames. And now you want to go say, oh, it's the Democrats doing it. Fuck you. These are your guys.
|
Sam:
[1:34:50]
| Yep. And, you know, they're trying to make the case and say Democrats need to just shut up about this threat to democracy stuff because it's dangerous.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:04]
| It's got nothing to do with it. Fuck you. It's got nothing to do with it. None of this shit has nothing to do with it.
|
Sam:
[1:35:11]
| And it's important and true based on Trump's own statements about what he wants to do and his obvious inclinations about how he thinks the rule of law should work and how his pet Supreme Court justices backed him up on that in terms of presidential power. It's all anti-democratic. And the whole notion of like, you know, everything the Republicans have been doing since Donald Trump came on the scene and arguably before that too, but definitely since then, has been about restricting democracy and wanting to do things in such a way that their viewpoints that are increasingly in the minority as time goes on can still happen because they can still retain control. Even though they have minority support. It's a common theme. It's all of the election restriction stuff they're doing. And all of this stuff is about increasing executive power, reducing public participation, et cetera. It's an authoritarian platform. It is not a conservative platform.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:26]
| Yeah, and it's not at all. Of course it's not. There's no real platform. Well, there is no platform. I mean, right now, there truly is no platform.
|
Sam:
[1:36:38]
| I mean, unlike 2020, there actually was an official Republican platform, but nobody cares. I mean, people point at Project 2025 instead. I think the official platform is called Project 47 or something instead, but, Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:54]
| Whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:36:56]
| Whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:56]
| The platform. What is the platform? The platform is Donald Trump wants to be president again so he doesn't go to jail. That's that's the platform. Anything else is bullshit. I mean, and I'm not exaggerating. You know, that's pretty much exactly what it is.
|
Sam:
[1:37:09]
| That's pretty.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:09]
| That is exactly what.
|
Sam:
[1:37:10]
| So of that list of bad news for Trump that you listed earlier, the one other that stands out to me that I think is worth mentioning is Vance explicitly mentioning in an interview about how sometimes they need to, I believe this is the correct quote, create stories in order to drive narrative. So basically what he said about Springfield is that they needed to create the story about the eating dogs and cats in order to call attention.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:46]
| To the plight of the white American. Something like that.
|
Sam:
[1:37:50]
| Something yeah now and honestly like that there are ways that you can like be generous in your interpretation of the exact words he said that you could interpret as we just by creating a story not making shit up but rather create the media attention to it but it was fairly clear and I believe it was you maybe that posted something about shit posting or maybe it was, um, maybe, maybe whatever that basically this is, this is a standard online tactic that has been exceedingly popular for a while now where essentially, uh, People will make up outrageous shit about a topic just to get people to pay attention to them, even if they're doing so by refuting what they said, to try to drive conversation about that topic in general into the media ecosystem.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:00]
| Look, it goes back to what Steve Bannon added, the flood the zone.
|
Sam:
[1:39:05]
| Flood the zone with shit. But it's not only that. For instance, in this particular situation, it's like, hey, all this dogs and cats stuff is bullshit, and all of the coverage is talking about how it's bullshit. But in the process, you got the media to talk about immigration instead of abortion.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:26]
| We got the media to talk about immigration in what way? I mean, let's see. The immigrants that he talked about in Springfield are legal.
|
Sam:
[1:39:36]
| Oh, he also said. you got the vance quote from from later this week too right where vance said i don't care i'm gonna call them illegal anyway yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:48]
| I did see that too.
|
Sam:
[1:39:49]
| Because and this just goes right to the point as well i know you you you had another point but i just wanted to put this out here it is once again really nailing down the fact that they don't actually give a shit about legal versus illegal immigration, and do they have their paperwork right, and blah, blah, blah. They don't even really care about immigration as a whole, because once again, they're not complaining about Swedes. This is all about they don't want non-white, non-Christian people. That's it. And that's why they're like, we don't care that they're legal. We want to deport them anyway. And by the way, we don't care they're Haitian. We'll deport them to Venezuela.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:36]
| You know, I mean, I know so many Haitian people. They're such good people. And this, the humanization of them by these assholes is so disgusting. I just cannot. I'm like, I should be angrier right now and saying it, but I'm like a little bit just. I mean, these guys are such fucking pricks. I mean, they are such evil pricks, Sam. You know, so many of the people that I know from Haiti are such fucking hardworking souls. Hell, the people in Springfield were saying this. They were like saying, man, are you kidding me? I want more people that want to work like this. This is what I want. And just for their fucking bullshit grift to just dehumanize an entire group of people just to seek political advantage and just shit all over them is so disgusting. I just it's these people are evil.
|
Sam:
[1:41:43]
| And then you flat out admit on national television that you made it all up.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:49]
| And you defend making.
|
Sam:
[1:41:51]
| It all up because.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:53]
| And then they get pissed off because we call them evil okay and they say that we're inciting violence when look at the violence and the shit that they're inciting on these people yeah yeah they're yeah i i i can't i i i i really i mean, It is what we have right now. We have to keep fighting these assholes. And unfortunately it's going to be very exhausting because they're not giving up that easy.
|
Sam:
[1:42:20]
| Yeah. I mean, this looks like it's going to be a knockdown drag out straight through to the election. If Trump loses by a little bit, we're going to have all the legal fights and him trying to rile up people to repeat January six. He may, he probably won't succeed, but he's going to try.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:40]
| He's going to try again.
|
Sam:
[1:42:41]
| And even if he, even if he loses by a lot, to be honest, I don't think we are yet at the point where the Republican party will be like, you know, on reflection, we were wrong. Let's take a different direction.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:56]
| They're not there.
|
Sam:
[1:42:58]
| They're not there yet. They, they need like a decade in the wilderness or more before they would do that kind of shit. And it would be because all the old people died off. Right. It wouldn't be because they actually changed any minds. So even if Harris pulls this off and wins, this ain't over. We got major parts of the country where majorities, big majorities, support these jackasses.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:34]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:43:35]
| You know? Yeah. I was going to say, including where you are, but back to polls for a second, Florida's looking a lot closer than it was.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:44]
| Listen, back where I am, I'm sorry, but my county has been totally democratic.
|
Sam:
[1:43:49]
| Your state is, I don't care. I don't give a shit about your county. Your state has been nice and red. But what I was saying.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:57]
| It's down.
|
Sam:
[1:43:59]
| It's down. I just want to say, like, the whole point I was making is that that's been slipping over the last couple months. There's been a trend. It's been getting closer and closer and closer in Florida. Florida is down to 3.9% in my average.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:15]
| Listen, and this is the thing that pisses me off about the lack of effort of national Democrats with Florida trying to write it off. And now all of you have said this shit. Listen, there have been so many fucking close elections in fucking Florida.
|
Sam:
[1:44:27]
| Yeah, I know.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:28]
| I mean, I'm sorry. Sorry, Obama won twice. Okay hillary didn't lose by a lot.
|
Sam:
[1:44:34]
| No it was and even even in 2020 it was pretty damn close let me uh let let me bring that up uh because i think here we go election 2020 trump won by 3.4.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:49]
| Percent in florida that that's not a blowout that's not a blowout none of them have been And then everybody's just like, oh, well, we're tired of losing Florida. Fuck, we only lost it twice consecutively. We just won it twice consecutively with Obama. I mean, and I'm like, it really, really. And by the way, the biggest reason, and I said this already, why national Democrats get frustrated about this is because Florida's demographics with the heavily Latino population, they don't understand how to fucking address it. Period. And they keep saying all the wrong fucking things to how to get that vote together. And you know what? Fucking Trump, actually, of the few smart things that he did is that he capitalized on using the fucking word communism and how it because so many people have fled countries like Venezuela, Cuba and others where they had these, you know, left wing dictators. Dictators, OK, that took their place where they hear that word and it just scares them into like, well, no, I don't want that. I'm voting for Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:04]
| And they don't have a good counter message. And there is a good counter message to be at. But but they haven't. They haven't fielded the right candidates. Listen, I'm sorry. We're fucking governor. We put up Charlie Crist, another fucking old white dude.
|
Sam:
[1:46:19]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:20]
| No, no, this is wrong. I and so the Florida Democratic Party has been fucked up for a while. Now, I think the reason why this election is getting a lot closer is just because of the issues themselves and abortion and other things and whatnot. But it hasn't been because the Democrats have done a good job at floor.
|
Sam:
[1:46:43]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:45]
| So but. Listen, there have been a series of polls on the Senate race with Rick Scott.
|
Sam:
[1:46:51]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:52]
| Where that race is way tighter than anybody expected. Now to be i i i would say that anybody expected it but the thing that pisses me off they shouldn't be surprised look when fucking what's his name he won the last time it was by less than 10 000 votes okay rick scott is not popular rick scott rick scott is widely considered a major asshole, nobody likes this fucking guy and so even the people that vote for him this is kind of like a he is kind of like Ted Cruz in that way. Or everybody's just like, you fucking talk Rick Scott. There isn't anybody going around, oh my god, Rick Scott. Great, they're all like, fucking Rick Scott. Even fucking Republicans. And so the polls in that race, hell, there's even been polls where they're showing them losing. If Rick Scott perhaps losing, if he winds up doing it, I wouldn't say it's a shocker because the guy is just a, And the guy's a crook. And I don't understand how the fuck this guy doesn't get more right than the Coles over the fact that he was a CEO of a fucking health care company that had the biggest Medicare fraud ever. And somehow he still skates through all of this shit.
|
Sam:
[1:48:21]
| Yes. Well, just to say that the other one, you know, you're talking Florida. The other one that's surprisingly close like that is Texas. Cruz is still leading in most of the polls, but Allred, the Democrat there, is a lot closer than anyone thought he'd be.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:42]
| What's the margin right now?
|
Sam:
[1:48:44]
| Well, RCP's average has crews up by six, but the most recent poll, the one that came out earlier this week, actually has Eldred up by one.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:57]
| Jesus.
|
Sam:
[1:48:57]
| You know, and other recent polls have crews up by three or four.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:04]
| Listen, I've spoken to a whole bunch of, like, Republicans in Texas, and, man, I've never seen.
|
Sam:
[1:49:12]
| They.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:12]
| Hate Cruz I mean those guys hate Cruz and I'm like you're like Jesus Christ these fucking guys hate Cruz you're like what the fuck I.
|
Sam:
[1:49:22]
| Mean the thing is with these if we have a normal election year Cruz will pull it out and probably your guy there in Florida will pull it out too if, we end up with a Kamala Harris wave she may bring these kinds of Senate seats along with her.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:42]
| I was seeing Senate, Texas, 2024. This is a morning consult, consult poll, 45, 44, all red. Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:49:49]
| That's the one.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:49]
| But listen, but listen, but look, I will say that. I mean, the Florida seat was a a Democratic seat up until the last fucking round.
|
Sam:
[1:50:00]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:01]
| But, you know, the margins have been like three points, two points. Yeah, there were some local polls that found, you know, her head. But I mean, I do think that Rick Scott has the lead, but it's a narrow lead. And but again, nobody's investing in these races. And so therefore they're like, my whole thing is like, well, I mean, if we're not going to invest in those fucking races that, you know, you're not going to get, you're not going to get the win. I mean, that's just the way it is. I mean, there's just no way to pull it out.
|
Sam:
[1:50:31]
| Well, and, and, you know, I, I don't know how many times we've gone on before about like, you gotta keep with the 50 state strategy. You can't, you even deep red States, you can't just abandon them completely. Completely because things matter on the margins anyway. And if you're ever going to change the environment there, like maybe all you can do right now is go from 20% to 25%. That's still progress. That's still important. You know? And I know like there's a, because we have first past the post winner take all elections. It's not like some sort of proportional thing. There's a lot of mindset that if you can't get to 50%, it's not worth even trying, but you have to build that presence on the ground to change people's perspectives, not for the next election, but for the, you know, the next 10 elections. You know, you, you, you can't just abandon it or of course you're never going to get anything. Then you're just going to have the situation where all the people who live there who would sympathize with you end up leaving because they feel like there's no hope for their position there anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:48]
| Yeah. So, okay.
|
Sam:
[1:51:51]
| You know, Senate wise, I don't have anything else to, I just want to say real quick, like Like Montana, most of the polls look like the Republicans are going to hold on. Tester has shown a lead in one poll I'm seeing, but the average seems to be against him. So that's going to be a tough one. Ohio, it looks like Brown's probably going to be able to pull it out. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:17]
| Nevada, that looks good for the Democrat too.
|
Sam:
[1:52:19]
| And again, what we said, the map is really, really tough for Democrats in the Senate this time around. They pretty much have to run the table to retain control of the Senate. And I think a lot's going to tie in with the presidential race. Again, if it ends up that like Harris is popular and drives all kinds of people to the polls that wouldn't otherwise go there and has some coattails, then maybe she brings along a couple of these Senate seats and that makes all the difference. But if that doesn't happen, like if Harris just barely pulls it out, then the Democrats are probably still losing the Senate. I can see them picking up the House, though. They're probably going to pick up the House. I could easily see the house and Senate both flipping to the opposite of where they are right now. You know, I don't know. It's all, it's, it's, It is what it is. Okay. Can we be done?
|
Ivan:
[1:53:17]
| Okay. Yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:53:19]
| Okay. Go to her mudgins, hyphen corner.com. And you can see all the stuff, all the stuff. You can see the archives of our shows. You can see all the ways to contact us. You can see a link to our YouTube, which by the way, we are up to five subscribers on the YouTube. We're up.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:39]
| Yay.
|
Sam:
[1:53:41]
| I, we, we, we got, We've got myself and Yvonne are two of the five. We've also got Jonathan, who we mentioned last week, who's on our Slack. We've got Sean, who left a comment last week that we mentioned. And then we've got someone named IamCuckoo2.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:59]
| Well, okay. Well, we're all in this with you.
|
Sam:
[1:54:04]
| Yes. So welcome, IamCuckoo2.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:07]
| Cuckoo2.
|
Sam:
[1:54:08]
| CuckooCuckoo.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:09]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:54:10]
| So anyway you can check out our videos on there no one's been watching live this time around but you know it's there after the fact if you're interested and of course we've got our Patreon where you can give us money and at various levels there we will mention you on the show we will ring a bell we will send you a postcard we will send you a mug, and at $2 a month or more at two months, at $2 a month or more or if you just ask us. We will invite you to our Commodions Corner Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners. Listeners. Got to bring in the listeners.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:49]
| The listeners.
|
Sam:
[1:54:50]
| The listeners. The listeners.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:52]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:54:54]
| The lizard listeners. There you go. The listeners. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:57]
| We need to pick those up there.
|
Sam:
[1:54:59]
| Yeah. A bunch of the, we're all in there on the Slack chatting and sharing links and all that kind of stuff. So, Yvonne, how about one thing from the Slack that's good and interesting and will make people want to join that we have not talked about on the show?
|
Ivan:
[1:55:16]
| Somebody on Etsy is selling a humidifier that looks like the exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
|
Sam:
[1:55:27]
| You're going to buy it, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:55:28]
| I mean, yeah, of course. You know, I mean, it's like it's you get a little like humidity, the beautifier thingy coming out of the exploded reactor. I mean, that's, you know, that that that really makes you feel very safe, I guess, at home. So that was one thing. Let's see if we got anything else. Oh, OpenAI's new model is better at reasoning and occasionally deceiving. So OpenAI's new model is able to lie or simulate compliance with a given task, which I know it's exactly how I want my computer to behave. Hey, I sent the – hey, AI, did you send that email? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I took care of it. No problem. Yes, we – you know, I sent the million-dollar contract. Don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah, and it's lying to me. I really don't want my computer to be lying to me. can i be honest.
|
Sam:
[1:56:23]
| Why not evan and is it really all that different than it just being wrong, i guess you know and i'm looking at my chat gpt i have i now have the new models last time i looked i did not have them yet but i i've i'm not it's now rolled out to me so i can try oh one preview View and O1 Mini, which are both related to, the code name was Strawberry because these models solve the problem. Like famously, all of these chatbots, if you ask them how many Rs are in the word Strawberry, would get it wrong because they had no conception of actually the word and the letters in it. It was just reduced to a token that they had. So they were just, essentially, they were answering the question, how many R's are there in a word without knowing what the word really was? The new model is intended to use a chain of reasoning where it actually tries to figure things out, tries different approaches, sees what the results are, reasons about them. So it's not just a pure LLM. And this comes to what, you know, last time we were talking about LLMs and all of this generative AI stuff, one of the things that we said.
|
Sam:
[1:57:50]
| Was you're not going to get past this plateau of smartness, just making bigger LLMs. And of course, this is what the AI companies are doing. This isn't just a bigger LLM. They are adding things using reinforcement learning and having it sort of procedurally try different things and blah, blah, blah. So they're trying to combine a bunch of techniques because, you know, So it was getting fairly obvious that bigger and bigger LLMs do a lot of stuff, but there's certain types of things where you needed something different. So they're trying to inject the something different to get new and better things that these can do. I haven't played with this yet. Now that I see I have access to, I probably will play with it a little bit and see what it does. But developments are happening hot and heavy. There's the usual complaints about like, there's a lot of misuse of this stuff in addition to the uses that actually make sense. But, you know, people are shoving right ahead and it is, it is still developing really quickly. Like every six months, it's looking very different than it did six months previously. So I don't know where we'll be in a year or two.
|
Sam:
[1:59:07]
| We've said before like these things tend to plateau and not necessarily go like we we we've talked we talked earlier in the show about full self-driving and its limitations and you've said on the show before how they've been having trouble with unprotected left turns forever and there's certain other things that are really difficult for them that even while they get better in other areas there's certain things where they're still stuck.
|
Sam:
[1:59:33]
| You know, and so anyway, we'll see what happens with that. But anyway, the new model does lie. Specifically, they caught it in an example of where it was told, I forget the details, but it was told to do a specific task. It went and did something completely different in a different way than it was told and lied about how it had gotten there. And there was another example that was interesting that was brought out about testing one of these recent models where it was asked to do a task in a virtual machine, but the virtual machine wouldn't initialize properly. So it actually figured out how to modify the settings on the virtual machine and get it to work anyway, which was not what they'd wanted it to do. It ended up solving the problem, but in a way completely outside of the parameters they'd given it, which is something that even in much less sophisticated AIs from five, 10 years ago, people saw all the time where like, you know, they would, it would find weird loopholes in the rules and exploit them and things like that. And you're going to see, you're going to see more of that kind of stuff. Anyway, time to say goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:51]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:00:51]
| Hey, everybody, as usual, stay safe, have a good week, and we'll be back to talk to you again next week. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:02]
| Bye-bye.
|
Sam:
[2:01:36]
| Okay i'm hitting stop bye yvonne all right have a good uh have a good trip home bye all right bye.
| |
|
