Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Greetings, Mr. Bo.
|
Ivan:
[0:03]
| Uh, salutations.
|
Sam:
[0:05]
| Back in your office, I see. Where were you last week anyway? I forgot to even ask.
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Ivan:
[0:09]
| Uh, what the hell was I doing? I just, you had some work going on in the house, so I had to go find a quiet place that wasn't at the house. So, it was very noisy and vibrant and not conducive to stuff. Yeah, so.
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Sam:
[0:26]
| I understand. Okay. Here we go.
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Ivan:
[0:32]
| I don't think that you want a show with loud banging.
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Sam:
[0:36]
| No, probably not.
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Ivan:
[0:38]
| Probably not. So, yeah. So.
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Sam:
[0:41]
| Okay. Shall we jump right in?
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Ivan:
[0:44]
| Mm-hmm.
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Sam:
[0:45]
| Okay. Here comes the thingy. Blah, blah, blah.
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Break:
[0:51]
| We'll be right back.
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Sam:
[1:12]
| Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for saturday may 10th 2025 it's just after two utc i'm sam minter and Yvonne Bo is here with us again. Hello, Yvonne.
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Ivan:
[1:25]
| Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.
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Sam:
[1:28]
| Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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Ivan:
[1:30]
| I'm going to try to do this show, like just saying blah, blah, but not actually, like just saying, you know, instead of like, hi, Sam, how are you doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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Sam:
[1:43]
| Okay, it'll be a very entertaining show.
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Ivan:
[1:46]
| Blah.
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Sam:
[1:47]
| We could both do that. Blah.
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Ivan:
[1:50]
| Blah. Blah.
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Sam:
[1:51]
| Blah, blah, blah, blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
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Ivan:
[2:02]
| Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
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Sam:
[2:04]
| Okay i can't do this anymore this.
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Ivan:
[2:08]
| Sounds like a terrible idea.
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Sam:
[2:09]
| Okay so.
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Ivan:
[2:10]
| Let's go back to the regular format okay all right good.
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Sam:
[2:13]
| Yeah so regular format agenda but first we will do like less newsy stuff up front and then we'll do a couple segments of news related stuff. That's what we always do pretty much.
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Ivan:
[2:25]
| It's a thing.
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Sam:
[2:26]
| I mean every once in a while we switch it up but that's normal.
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Ivan:
[2:31]
| Yeah we do.
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Sam:
[2:33]
| You want to kick this sucker off?
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Ivan:
[2:36]
| How do I kick this sucker off? Okay well yes I do have one item of note.
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Sam:
[2:42]
| Item of note.
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Ivan:
[2:44]
| You know, so I got a notice. Well, I didn't see the notice I got first. I didn't get the notice, but I saw on social media somewhere. Someone posting that Nest was discontinuing support for, well, Google.
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Sam:
[3:03]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[3:04]
| Was discontinuing support for the app for first and second generation thermostats.
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Sam:
[3:12]
| Now, just to.
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Ivan:
[3:13]
| In October of this.
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Sam:
[3:15]
| How old are first and second generation thermostats at this point?
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Ivan:
[3:20]
| I'm going to guess they're at least 10 years old.
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Sam:
[3:22]
| Okay. You know, for electronic device support, that's a long time. For thermostat support, less so. But like, you know, if it was a phone or something, you'd be like, oh, yeah, that's way past.
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Ivan:
[3:35]
| Now, but the thing is, it's, here's, here's what's happening. nest was not a google company right.
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Sam:
[3:45]
| They were acquired.
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Ivan:
[3:46]
| They were acquired as a matter of fact originally their whole goal was more integrating more into the apple mac environment because tony fidel who was the original designer of the ipod if i remember correctly of the wheel is the guy that decide this you know that decided to build a nest because he went one time was building this you know, this place, put in an AC, he looked at the thermostats and he said, this is all crap, which at that time he was absolutely accurate. All the thermostats that existed were awful, were awful. I had what passed as some kind of modern programmable thermostat with a remote sensor that, but, But it still sucked. It was kludgy, sucky, but it did what I wanted it to do. I, for example, was able to remotely control the temperature in my bedroom with this little remote control thingy. Okay. All right. That did that. And I was able to program dates and times, but programming this thing, you know, if you remember like programming an old alarm clock, you know.
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Sam:
[4:54]
| Yeah, you had to like hold the one button and then push the other button.
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Ivan:
[4:57]
| And then, you know, and then you could program day. So you got to go to the day, put the program for that day. It was an exercise in patience.
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Sam:
[5:07]
| And there were some physical buttons and probably a little LCD screen with not a big display. Just maybe a couple numbers.
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Ivan:
[5:14]
| Yes, yes, yes. That's how this thing worked. This is not easy to manage, okay? But that was about the best thing I got. I remember that I had issues with temperature control and I wanted a remote temperature.
|
Sam:
[5:29]
| You wanted a sensor that would be somewhere else other than the unit. So it can wear average out across your house or whatever.
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Ivan:
[5:36]
| Yeah.
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Sam:
[5:36]
| Because like even now, like we have, we have a fancier one, whatever, that we installed a few years ago. I mostly use an iOS app to control it at this point. Not even like the head unit because Alex broke the head unit. but but but but anyway how.
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Ivan:
[5:58]
| The hell do you break a service down on the wall.
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Sam:
[6:01]
| You take it off the wall and you throw it over and over again that's all do it so but anyway but i i almost never used the actual one on the wall anyway i always use the app but the point is that even with that one it's still the one we have right now i think there might be options but we only have the one sensor where it's located whereas upstairs and downstairs still have different differential temperatures because heat rises and my daughter specifically always complains about the temperature in her room because she's always got the door closed and it's all locked in and so like if somebody does something like opens the doors or windows downstairs because it's nice outside, the automatic system will try to adjust to compensate. And her room and her room only will become either super cold or super hot while the rest of the house is comfortable.
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Ivan:
[6:56]
| So, you know, as you bring that up, it reminds me the event that we had. I don't remember if you remember this. We're at Hampshire Hall, which of course you don't remember. Why would you? No, I remember this.
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Sam:
[7:07]
| I remember Amtra Hall existed.
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Ivan:
[7:09]
| Yeah, we lived at this building that was... I mean, a dump is actually, I mean, is a nice term because this place was just, you know, we lived there a year and I had a really good time living at this shithole. I lived there two years.
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Sam:
[7:25]
| Didn't I?
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Ivan:
[7:26]
| No. Oh yeah. You lived two. I lived one. You lived two. That's right. You lived the first two years. Yeah. You lived the first two years at CMU. Yeah.
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Sam:
[7:35]
| Okay. Or maybe, was it three? No.
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Ivan:
[7:38]
| No, no. At the third year we went to Amberson.
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Sam:
[7:40]
| Well, I, I had, and then, and then I'm, and then I moved somewhere else, but yes, yes.
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Ivan:
[7:46]
| But okay, we digress. Okay. So, so some guy went during the middle of winter, maintenance guy doing something, whatever, went downstairs and where the furnace was. And it was, the temperature was well below freezing. Okay. All right. At that time, they left the window open down the furnace room where the thermostat was a temperature, you know, uh, gauge was okay. And so this made the furnace blast so much heat into our rooms, okay, that literally there was paint melting in some places.
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Sam:
[8:24]
| Well, because it was trying to heat the whole outdoors.
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Ivan:
[8:27]
| Right.
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Sam:
[8:27]
| But in the meantime, it was heating the rooms that were already warm, not the place where the window was open.
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Ivan:
[8:34]
| Correct. Yes. This was just ridiculous. I still remember coming. I mean, the temperature in the, I mean, it had to be over 100 degrees. Like what I got to, to like what, like what the fuck is this? Okay. It's just insanity. So, so yeah. So I understand that. So leaving the windows open, like downstairs that leads to that kind of stuff in other places. And so, you know, look, the, the, the, the, you know, we have, I got these nests now. The thing is that, Google had bought Nest, and at first, they had built out stuff in the Nest application program interface because they actually had some integration. Third parties could connect to it and some stuff. So they had this entire, like, you know, setup for their thermostats to connect, for these security cameras, smoke detectors, all these things that they were selling. and for third parties to integrate as well. But the thing is that Google then later rolled out this whole Google Home thing. So Google Home isn't the Nest thing that they had, okay?
|
Sam:
[9:55]
| Okay, right.
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Ivan:
[9:55]
| This is this whole other protocol which allowed other people to build light switches, things, and other things, and whatever. And they still, you know, for a while, it's like, I, I got this, I did put Google Home stuff in my house the last couple of years because I got, I, I did that to connect most of my devices, but, but the thermostats, the Nests were still set up in the Nest app. that Nest app talked to Google Home. Okay? So it was kludgy. And so Google decided that, you know what? We rolled out thermostats later that did not... Actually, they did go through the Nest app. They still do. But the main primary interface was to actually go to Google Home. Okay? And so they just didn't want to maintain that old, you know, infrastructure when they built out this Google Home stuff, so they're basically saying... You know, look, we're shutting that down. If you've got the thermostats that are first-gen, second-gen, which I guess right now, yeah, they are all over 10 years old at this point.
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Sam:
[11:05]
| I understand.
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Ivan:
[11:06]
| You know what? You will be able to use a thermostat as a thermostat at the wall. That won't die. But you remotely controlling the temperature and programming it and any of those things via the app, that will stop, cease functioning.
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Sam:
[11:22]
| Well and you know look look you and i you can understand that at 10 years old i mean and this does bring up the dichotomy between like the expectations of older devices like you know you you've i mean really in the olden days you would expect you set up a thermostat it's a freaking thermostat it's going to be there for 50 years but basically yeah but with like the with all of the tech integrations and smart devices and all that kind of stuff, you're, you're fundamentally like, there's a, there's a tech refresh cycle that is more like five years, 10 on a super outside. And so like, if you get like the smart connected device, I think the thought that it might be fully functional in 15 years is just not realistic.
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Ivan:
[12:21]
| I think, but you know what? Look, I, man, I've already experienced this with like car infotainment systems. Okay.
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Sam:
[12:31]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[12:32]
| You know, I had my Audi, my A6 that came in with built in 3G connectivity. Okay.
|
Sam:
[12:39]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[12:39]
| Well, yeah. Well, 2014, that was like pretty, you know, state of the art to have a car with 3G and a hot spot.
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Sam:
[12:46]
| But eventually, not only was 3G obsolete, they shut the thing off.
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Ivan:
[12:49]
| They shut the whole, exactly. And what happened was that all of a sudden, you know, I had Google Earth Maps in that car, and that all was, you know, destined to stop working.
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Sam:
[13:01]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[13:01]
| Okay? And so, but I really think that in this era right now, we're putting out that many devices that actually have that much of a longevity. Unfortunately, it's really causing more problems. OK, all right. And that the old like, well, five years, well, you're not going to, you know, I'm sorry, but you're not going to dump an entire car because of the, you know, the connectivity.
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Sam:
[13:28]
| Well, I mean, the thing is, and, you know, first of all, the manufacturers would love you to.
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Ivan:
[13:35]
| Obviously like but yeah but that's just i know i.
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Sam:
[13:38]
| Know i know but the thing is the the way around that is modularity like.
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Ivan:
[13:44]
| Right you.
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Sam:
[13:44]
| You set it up so that you you can expect from the beginning.
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Ivan:
[13:48]
| Well by the way they are doing that with some newer cars with telecommunication like controllers because right now cars have a network okay they they have a i mean it's it's it's a called a can bus the car whatever network but it's basically a tcp ip network in the freaking car i mean they just go and like decide okay fine you know we'll replace that you know we'll make that module that's replaceable we'll give a good plug in a new one we'll put a new one and that way you'll have connectivity or something yeah i mean well.
|
Sam:
[14:19]
| And the logistics of it are of course going to be complicated but you want like any piece like that that you are going to expect will become obsolete faster than the whole car.
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Ivan:
[14:29]
| You want to be able to be replaceable.
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Sam:
[14:31]
| You want to be able to be.
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Ivan:
[14:32]
| Replaceable you know what when you go back 30 40 years ago you know with some of these things it was kind of like that you know we replaced car stereos okay right there.
|
Sam:
[14:43]
| Was that you know you pull it out and you push.
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Ivan:
[14:45]
| The new one in and put the new one in and voila we did but i'll.
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Sam:
[14:48]
| Say this is not just cars right this is like dishwashers.
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Ivan:
[14:51]
| Yes washer.
|
Sam:
[14:53]
| Dryers like with the whole tendency of all of these things to be connected and electronic.
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Ivan:
[14:58]
| And whatever. I mean, you don't want to have to dump your damn refrigerator, you know, because it stopped connected to the fucking internet.
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Sam:
[15:04]
| Right. Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[15:05]
| I mean, now the thermostat, I'll be, given that the thermostat is a module connected to the AC, you don't really have to dump the AC. Okay?
|
Sam:
[15:13]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[15:14]
| I mean, that's a little bit more pragmatic where it is that you can replace just that component and you're not having to get a completely new air conditioner.
|
Sam:
[15:21]
| Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[15:21]
| So, I mean, I can see that, But I do think that it's a little bit like, It's quite a pain in my ass. Okay. Still anyway. So I went and went now Google, I saw this online.
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Sam:
[15:33]
| Yeah, let's get back to the next nest. We were moving.
|
Ivan:
[15:36]
| You know, I saw this online and I'm like, oh, Google is sending this thing out where they're sending a coupon for you to be able to purchase the new fourth generation thermostats at a significant discount. Okay. Which is over half, if I remember about half.
|
Sam:
[15:52]
| That's pretty generous.
|
Ivan:
[15:53]
| So that was very generous of them. Okay. So I went and I got two of them. So this was like, you know, shit. I mean, it was a big. So I went and I checked on my email and voila, lo and behold, I did have my offer from Google and with my discount certificate for about half off for me to be able to get the new thermostats. And I'm like, OK, well, you know, it's six months from now. It's not that far off. I've got the damn coupon. Let me go and like buy these damn things. OK, so I bought the thermostat. And I did, I replaced one right now, not both of them. The really annoying thing that they did, okay, is that, you know, if you, well, I guess, well, yeah, you know, you probably expected that a lot of people were going to be, if you're doing this thing, you're discontinuing support for that. You probably expect that a lot of people that are going to come in are going to be replacing their first and second generation Nest thermostats, okay? Especially when you're doing such a generous offer. So the annoying, the incredibly annoying thing that they did is that the Nest thermostats has a plate on the wall on which you affix the thermostat to. They did not make the plate the same size. And I'm just like, why the fuck?
|
Ivan:
[17:18]
| Would you change the square plate to an oval plate? Why? Why? What? What? What? What? Why? Why? There's no fucking reason. Why can't you just make the fucking plate the same size? So the really irritating thing to me, which I'm sure that nobody else really gives a shit, but many, well, I'm sure a lot of people will, but a lot of people are like, eh, whatever, is that when I had to take out the old plate, it ripped the paint, the paint, okay? I got an oval new plate versus the other one was square so now the whole paint is all fucked up around the stupid thermostat so now I gotta get fucking paint to go and paint all around this because these idiots just couldn't make the plate the same fucking shape, okay really irritating, I
|
Sam:
[18:12]
| Imagine there probably was some way you could have made like an adapter.
|
Ivan:
[18:16]
| I tried. I tried to see if I could retrofit using the old plate. It wouldn't. You know, even though everything was very similar, it wasn't the same in terms of the wall plate and the little thing where you connect the cables.
|
Sam:
[18:33]
| That's why I was saying some sort of adapter, like you could 3D print an adapter or something.
|
Ivan:
[18:38]
| Maybe I could have gone through all that trouble if I had a 3D printer and I was inclined with the time. But no, I realize that no, they don't have it. I'm like, fuckers. I'm like, just whatever. I just got to go get paint, like right now. But, okay, so I did connect this and I set it up. You know what? Google makes such shitty interfaces for software. okay yeah it's just the interface is just, and it does come it the display on it is nice it does come with an extra so the one thing is that this one comes with which is very cool that this part is cool it's got these little remote temperature sensors. Okay. They look like this. I'm showing to Sam on video. Okay.
|
Sam:
[19:32]
| It's a little circle shaped white thing.
|
Ivan:
[19:35]
| Yeah. And so there are, it has these little remote temperature sensors. And the thing is that if you have a couple of thermostats, you could also tell it to set the temperature in a way like, hey, come average out the temperature between the two.
|
Sam:
[19:50]
| That's nice. Like, yeah, I want that for our house. I want that like and I haven't even looked into whether I can like with the system we have extend it to do that.
|
Ivan:
[20:01]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[20:01]
| But like, I think that would be nice. Like I said, we've got issues with, like, if you optimize for one part of the house, there's another part of the house that's too hot or too cold. And it would be nice to just put, like, five sensors scattered throughout the house and say, do the average.
|
Ivan:
[20:15]
| And so I got two ACs. And so when I set the other one up, I can see that I can have it, like, sense the temperature in the other room, in wherever. I could tell it to mix and match what you're averaging. Or, for example, right now, like right now I'm in the office in the living room AC and I got the sensor over here. I'm like, look, no, optimize for where the fuck I am right now. The hell with the hell with the rest of the living. I'm in the office. OK, right. Fuck that. And I and I noticed already and I knew this from before. There are sometimes significant temperature differentials between like the living room and my office. OK, right.
|
Sam:
[20:54]
| Because of where the sun is coming in, what equipment you have running. hell even the heat from people in.
|
Ivan:
[21:00]
| The room.
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Sam:
[21:01]
| You know all this kind of.
|
Ivan:
[21:02]
| Stuff it's like about four degrees temperature differential okay you know pretty significant place is not that big you know my condo is not that big so yeah so you've got so you you've got that so having that is a is a nice feature the instructions provided by google are shit okay you know i pretty much was able to connected because I remembered how the old one was connected, but not because of the anything of the instructions provided. As a matter of fact, the fucking instructions didn't actually say, you know, here's the idiotic thing. You open the box, there's a little paper sheet in there. It doesn't really say anything other to show you what the contents are. Then, when you, after I connected it, then it says, hey, go to the Google Home app for setup. Then when you launch the Google Home app, then you realize that that's, there are step-by-step instructions to install it on the wall in the fucking app, but you don't see that until after you fucking plug in the stupid thermostat! That prompt is on the display after it's powered up.
|
Sam:
[22:20]
| Right. Which you have to set up to get to that spot. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[22:25]
| Good Lord.
|
Sam:
[22:27]
| That's lovely.
|
Ivan:
[22:28]
| I mean, this is literally, it's like the old story of setting an installation tape to set up your VCR.
|
Sam:
[22:35]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[22:37]
| I mean.
|
Sam:
[22:39]
| So now that it's all set up, do you like it? Is it better than the old one or is it just like, God damn it, they forced me to do this for no benefit?
|
Ivan:
[22:48]
| Is it better? Well, with Nest thermostats, this still has those features. You know, the AI features, whatever. Listen, Nest was a learning thermostat. It learned based on how you set the temperature, days, times. It learned your patterns. It did certain things. It had sensors to detect whether you're home, not home. It used certain other devices to figure out. you know i'll tell you all that sounds.
|
Sam:
[23:15]
| Cool to some degree but like all i want on mine is to set it at a temperature and say this is where i want my house leave me alone.
|
Ivan:
[23:24]
| Okay now you can do that okay i'm sure you know that's sort of basic no well you're not no no no you you say that and that's not exactly listen the old nest thermostat did not have a temperature hold feature. And that was an annoying thing. Okay.
|
Sam:
[23:42]
| Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[23:43]
| You couldn't just say, you know, hold a temperature at this for how many days? And I had other thermostats that did allow that were programmable. And this one didn't.
|
Sam:
[23:55]
| I'll be honest. We got, we got ours and I basically set it at 70. And the only times we ever touched that are like, if something's going on, like my, when, when the person who comes in to help clean our house is in here and working hard, she turns it down to like 60 while she's working. Cause she's gets all hot.
|
Ivan:
[24:18]
| So does our cleaning lady. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[24:20]
| And then, and then it goes back to 70 when she's done. And then otherwise, we leave it.
|
Ivan:
[24:25]
| No, but we're, okay, over here, we're all fighting about the temperature.
|
Sam:
[24:29]
| Well, and, you know, now.
|
Ivan:
[24:31]
| Okay, so as soon as I set it to 70, listen, don't give me that shit. Because my wife, I was sitting today, I was playing some game on the table, and she's, like, freezing, and I'm melting.
|
Sam:
[24:42]
| Well, there are a couple things here. One, I'm doing it less lately, but there was a phase where I was constantly getting hot or cold and I was futzing with it. Okay. And so I was like, you know, I know it's 70 and I'm 70, but I'm hot. I'm turning it to 68.
|
Ivan:
[25:02]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[25:03]
| You know, or sometimes the other way, like, you know, it's 70, I'm cold. I'm turning it to 72. But lately I've been doing much less of that and keeping it 70. But, you know, I mentioned...
|
Ivan:
[25:15]
| Also, you've been going to the office.
|
Sam:
[25:17]
| Well, true. But also, I was going to say, since the head unit has been broken, I don't even know where it is anymore. It's not on the wall. No, it is on the wall. It just doesn't work anymore. But... But since then, where you have to use the app, I don't know that the other people in the family bothered to set up the app.
|
Ivan:
[25:39]
| So that's the thing. You're in control.
|
Sam:
[25:41]
| I'm in control.
|
Ivan:
[25:42]
| Basically, you're in control. Okay.
|
Sam:
[25:44]
| If they're hot, they can't go to the wall and change it. That doesn't work anymore.
|
Ivan:
[25:49]
| The thing is that everybody here has the app. I've already had these situations with my wife where I'm like, I'm fucking hot. and then like two minutes later she's like fuck and i'm like why the hell is it and i look at the thing why the fuck i'm like fuck she turned it turn it the fuck back up well.
|
Sam:
[26:07]
| I i will tell you the one person i know does have the app is our cleaning person i set her up with it so she could turn it down when she's working but i i don't know if my wife or daughter ever bothered to set it up.
|
Ivan:
[26:19]
| Like they might.
|
Sam:
[26:20]
| Have i gave them the information but.
|
Ivan:
[26:21]
| So so yeah you know like right now i guess i mean i don't know i mean it's listen there i i guess here's the main thing while this thing like for example right now we're talking about the temperature differential it's saying that in the living room it's 72 okay but it's saying that in my office according to this it's 76 okay even though but i have the temperature set for it to cool okay so it's not But like, yeah, I have it. So there is a significant temperature differential.
|
Sam:
[26:56]
| I hear you. I mean, I'll tell you right now, at 76, I would be melting. And I'd be like, oh my God, this is so hot. And I would.
|
Ivan:
[27:03]
| And, you know, so it's... While the features are nice, okay, you know, this is cool with the extra temperature sensors and the balancing the temperature ship and whatever. But the reality is that I wasn't really looking at getting a new thermostat. And I would not have gotten.
|
Sam:
[27:24]
| You were fine.
|
Ivan:
[27:25]
| I was perfectly happy with the functionality I had before. And I had no real, like, desire to really go and, like, buy new thermostats. And it's only the fact that I was going to lose, I knew that I was going to lose the functionality in, you know, less than six months. That basically just drove me to make the decision. And I did go and like look at other thermostats. But the main problem I've got is, and I knew this from a long time, is that most other thermostats require a power cable for the thermostat to the location, while the Nest ones do not require that. And, and because of that, I have stuck with a nest. Ecobee requires it, which is the one that I mostly considered. It really does require it. And so I would have to get an electrician or somebody to go and like, and spend a ton of money rewiring that shit. And I'm like, nah, I'm not. Aside from the fact that I didn't want to change the fucking thermostat in the first place. Now I'm going to go fucking spend money in a damn electrician. No, fuck that.
|
Sam:
[28:36]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[28:37]
| No, no. I'm like, you know, I didn't want to do it in the first place.
|
Sam:
[28:41]
| Shall we move on? Yes. Okay. So I, I, I have, I have my usual movie and I'm not going to skip my movie because I'm so far behind. If I skip movie and at some point I'm going to have to do multiple movies, but, but I did want to mention one other thing. Cause it's sort of the completion of a saga I've mentioned on the show before. And that is, well, there, there was, there was Something happening. You know, I mentioned all kinds of crap at work, but like I had a significant end point of stuff that was stressing me out at work. And I decided to reward myself with something.
|
Ivan:
[29:19]
| With a movie marathon.
|
Sam:
[29:20]
| With a movie marathon. No, with something I've talked about before that I was like, I wonder, do I want that? I got an iPad.
|
Ivan:
[29:29]
| IPad!
|
Sam:
[29:30]
| And specifically, like I've talked about on the show, I got a mid-range. This is an iPad Air. not an iPad Pro. I didn't go bottom end with the iPad iPad. I didn't go top end with the iPad Pro. I got an iPad Air. And like we talked about on the show before, I didn't like splurge on a whole bunch of memory either. Like I didn't go to, I didn't go to the absolute bottom. I got 256 instead like that. The bottom of the iPad Air is 128.
|
Sam:
[30:00]
| I like my other devices like have, I think my phone has 512 or something, but I looked at what my phone was using and I was using less than half of.
|
Sam:
[30:10]
| Now i usually when i buy a device i like take what i'm using on my current device and double it and say i want at least that much headroom because if i keep this a few years maybe i'll want more but as per like you know what we talked about it's it's like so much is in the cloud these days yeah like and i'm using less than 256 on my phone right now i'm like you know i'll just get to 256 six like and so anyway i've only had this a few days it's it's i i the the judgment has yet to be made of well whether i will consistently use this long term because this is another reason why i didn't get it want to get like an ipad pro or something is like i'm like i don't i i've had this like i want i think i want an ipad again notion in my head for a while because i had an ipad a long long time ago and then it died and i never replaced it because i was like with the max size phones you know i've got a pretty big screen here it's doing everything i wanted to do but i kind of wanted one and but i wasn't sure exactly what i'd end up using it for and so far like i said i've only had a few days so it's sort of like i am using it a lot right now but i don't know how much of that is the novelty of having a new device and being like oh i'll use the ipad oh i'll use the ipad as opposed to habits that i'll build on a long-term basis i gotta.
|
Ivan:
[31:39]
| Tell you that i've had this ipad for six months and i am at the i i am using it so much more than i have been using my old ipad and that has remained the.
|
Sam:
[31:51]
| You have a pro right case.
|
Ivan:
[31:52]
| Yeah i do have a pro but the but but Remember, my other iPad was, Jesus, nine years old.
|
Sam:
[32:02]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[32:03]
| It wasn't exactly, you know, the latest, the greatest one. Okay. So, you know. But that iPad, it was the original, one of the original pro iPads. I must admit that, look, Apple did support the hell out of that iPad. It got software updates up until like last year. Okay? We're talking about supporting old devices. Okay? I mean, that one got software updates up until like last year. I mean, it got eight, nine years of fucking software updates. That's shit. I mean, that's way more than average.
|
Sam:
[32:40]
| Okay, no.
|
Ivan:
[32:41]
| So I was using it, but because it wasn't as fast and, you know, I used to have a keyboard for it and the keyboard was kludgy. And so I didn't have the keyboard. I didn't use it as much. However, now with the iPad Pro and I got the new keyboard that has a little trackpad and everything on it. I, yeah, I'm using that thing, you know, constantly.
|
Sam:
[33:08]
| So I did not get a keyboard. I did not get a pencil. I'm like, I have a laptop. I'm going to use this as a tablet when I use it. I did get a pencil.
|
Ivan:
[33:15]
| And by the way, I don't think, I've used it to play around that I've never actually used it.
|
Sam:
[33:21]
| I actually used it. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[33:23]
| Yeah, like used it for real? No.
|
Sam:
[33:26]
| Yeah, and I'm like, I haven't felt tempted really to like have a keyboard on it and stuff. I don't know. Like I want to use this as a tablet. I figure I've got plenty of keyboard devices. i don't know maybe i'll play with that at some point but for the most part like i found like it's just nice to have the bigger screen for certain browsing and certain social media stuff even and and and like even like tiktok it's nice to have the bigger screen you know i don't know i've usually the.
|
Ivan:
[34:00]
| One thing that i do a lot with it.
|
Sam:
[34:01]
| I've watched a little bit of tv on it a little bit of you go to the.
|
Ivan:
[34:04]
| Office don't you take with you to the office.
|
Sam:
[34:06]
| Well that's one thing i don't take my laptop to meet with me to a laptop listen i don't take my laptop my personal laptop with me to the office but i have been taking the ipad with me yeah there you go and so like when i'm at lunch or whatever and i want to just scroll my media instead of doing my phone i've been doing it on the ipad exactly it was a lot.
|
Ivan:
[34:29]
| Bigger it's like you know you can read a lot.
|
Sam:
[34:31]
| And i've found also like I've been heavily resistant to even looking at my personal email on my phone. Like I've done it a few times, but it's like, it's kind of a pain. I found I'm a little bit more willing to do that on the iPad than I am on the phone. So I've been trying to keep up a little bit more. I mean, we've talked about my email issues before, but like, I don't know. It's good so far. Like I said, we'll see how it plays out over time. But, you know, like several days in, I'm enjoying it. And oh, and I got blue. blue i got the wow blue color you got blue like and honestly this is the first time i've gotten a color separate from i always get like whatever the gray is some sometimes black but like you know i've never gotten the colored apple stuff before so this is my first venture into that and it's fine i do have a blue phone it's very subtly blue but yeah yeah.
|
Ivan:
[35:33]
| It's like i do have a blue phone that i did my last phone i think a lot yeah this phone is blue i don't remember what the hell the last phone before this one i had i used to get a lot of the white i i got the really bright white ones uh but this ipad i got is black but.
|
Sam:
[35:52]
| Yeah you know well the pros come in less colors they save the colors for the lower end models to sort of make up for the fact that you don't get the performance or whatever i guess you get to say like oh it's blue it's blue it's blue you know so anyway anyway enough of that i did want to not skip my movie the movie the movie for this time is from 1984 the karate kid oh.
|
Ivan:
[36:19]
| My god well timely.
|
Sam:
[36:20]
| Oh because there's new karate kid yes yes well there's there's been a bunch of new karate kid stuff there was actually a the the Cobra Kai TV series and some other stuff. You know, and Karate Kid is one of those that I'm pretty sure I hit. I'm pretty sure over the years I had seen pretty much all of it, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen it beginning to end straight through.
|
Ivan:
[36:50]
| Interesting.
|
Sam:
[36:51]
| Like, you know, but it's one of the movies that, you know, came on TV a lot and you'd see bits and pieces of it and you'd stop. And so I, you know, and they're famous scenes like the sweep the leg, sweep the leg. There's the paintbrush thing. And yeah, all the wax on wax off. Yeah. There's all that sort of famous stuff. I, I, You know, to me, this did not, like, stun me. I'm going to give it a thumb sideways.
|
Sam:
[37:24]
| Because I hadn't, like, been a fan of it and watched it a lot when I was younger, I don't have the big nostalgic connection to it, like, that some people might have. Like, oh, The Karate Kid, it's, like, big nostalgia, whatever. I didn't have that because I didn't really watch it at that point. Like I said, I, I feel like I knew all the bits and pieces, but not because I, I, I was a fan or I watched it straight through. It was sort of like by osmosis because it existed in the culture. and you know it was fine but i wasn't like blown away thumb sideways that that's where i am but it is like it is one of those classic gen x cultural films that like i guess was part of the zeitgeist of our generation at least and so i guess it's if you haven't seen it and you're roughly in Thank you.
|
Sam:
[38:27]
| Our generation gen x ish then you probably should or even even if you saw it decades ago maybe it's time to revisit again it had a few sequel movies and like i said there's been more recent sequel tv shows and there's a new sequel movie coming out and there's all there's a whole franchise now let me let me look at the franchise now we had for films we had the karate kid in 1984 karate kid part 2 in 86 karate kid part 3 in 89 then the next karate kid in 1994 then a new the karate kid in 2010 and the one that's coming out this month is karate kid legends legends i was going to say legends and then there were two tv series a karate kid tv series in 1989 and then cobra kai that went from that went from 2018 to 2025 and i don't know if it's over i i am pretty.
|
Ivan:
[39:31]
| Sure i did not see anything beyond karate kid part three.
|
Sam:
[39:35]
| Okay and i i.
|
Ivan:
[39:37]
| Do remember for.
|
Sam:
[39:39]
| Some reason multiple video games too.
|
Ivan:
[39:41]
| Oh well i did not play any of those but i i do remember that i took as one of my first dates with this.
|
Sam:
[39:48]
| Girlfriend that.
|
Ivan:
[39:49]
| I had that you met in Pittsburgh that I met in Puerto Rico. I took her to that movie. She actually came to visit me while I was in Hampshire. So I remember that movie.
|
Sam:
[40:02]
| I remember the girl. Vaguely.
|
Ivan:
[40:06]
| At least you remember Sabina. So I went and that was like one of the, I think the first movie as a date that, I took her to was karate kid part three for some reason i remember that okay i remember a whole bunch of other things why the fuck i don't know.
|
Sam:
[40:24]
| So, you remember the date, but do you remember, did you like the movie?
|
Ivan:
[40:29]
| I remember that I thought the movie was kind of like...
|
Sam:
[40:31]
| Well, you're talking about part three, but...
|
Ivan:
[40:33]
| Yeah, well, I do remember that the movie was kind of like...
|
Sam:
[40:36]
| What did you think of the first one?
|
Ivan:
[40:38]
| I remember that I liked the first one when I saw it back then. I don't know if I, re-watching it now, would like it as much as back then. But I do remember that when I watched it back then, I did watch the first one. Enough that I did go and watch Karate Kid Part 2 and Part 3, for God's sakes. Now, look, I, now, now, wait, no, let's be clear about this. Back then, it's not like you had that many choices in terms of, like, entertainment. So that was, like, the big summer release. And so if we're going to go on a date and it's, like, the biggest movie opening, it's not like you're going to go and, like, watch. there's not that many other choices to go watch so well honestly i am sure that i went to watch it not because i was like oh my god you know i'm so into karate kid part part three it's like well this is the only movie uh well honestly.
|
Sam:
[41:38]
| Even now if you're actually going to go to the theater as opposed to everything you can get online you know the you know most multiplexes Maybe if you're lucky, you got 10 or 12 movies playing at any given time, and most of them are probably less.
|
Ivan:
[41:55]
| Well, but here's the thing. This was in Puerto Rico. So, okay, we didn't really have really big multiplexes yet in Puerto Rico versus over here. So when you went to the theater, at that theater in San Juan, there were basically two big theaters. but the one thing that was really strange about these is these were very massive theaters right so you had this movie house that probably could fit, a couple of thousand people inside. Okay. The screen was massive. Okay. But it was not like the smaller multiplex one. So, and then there was like, there was another place where they had like four, it was four theaters. So you didn't have like the 20 theater, like, like, like complexes. You really had this place where this was the biggest theater there. And they had these two, now these two big houses. Now, by the way, this was actually very cool because the screens i remember coming to pittsburgh afterwards and i'd been up to the u.s a few times before i've been to a multiplex where the screens are very small yeah it was like realizing holy shit the.
|
Sam:
[43:07]
| Screen yeah there was a period of time where they were packing more and more theaters in and getting smaller and smaller screens i think that trend is reversed now and we're back to bigger screens and bigger but you know there was a time period where you'd get the theater with 12 screens, but every screen, like practically the screens were the size that you have at home these days.
|
Ivan:
[43:30]
| Not quite, but not that much different, to be honest with you. Not like back then where this thing was, I mean, it's just the side of a fucking building where you were looking at this movie. Okay, literally. Okay. So, yeah. So, anyway. Karate Kid, original.
|
Sam:
[43:51]
| Thumb sideways. Thumb sideways for me.
|
Ivan:
[43:53]
| Okay. Yeah. All right. So.
|
Sam:
[43:55]
| And that's it. Shall we take a break and then start hitting our more serious thingy bops thingy?
|
Ivan:
[44:03]
| Slapping it.
|
Sam:
[44:05]
| Slapping what, Yvonne? What are you doing? You know.
|
Ivan:
[44:08]
| The subjects.
|
Sam:
[44:09]
| Oh, slapping it. Okay. I was going to say you really should do that in private. But okay.
|
Ivan:
[44:14]
| We should try to slap it.
|
Sam:
[44:17]
| Okay, we will be back right after this.
|
Break:
[44:22]
| Do, do, do! This podcast is sponsored by AlexEmzilla.com. Alex Emzilla is great. It's on YouTube. And it has lots of fun videos. Alex Emzilla is awesome and great. I love his videos, and they are obviously better than Curmudgeon's Corner. While they're funnier, they're more interesting. And frankly, he seems at least a little smarter than either of the hosts of Curmudgeon's Corner. Honestly, it's ridiculous how endlessly talented and phenomenal Alex Emsola is. That's how great his YouTube channel is. a l e x m x e l a dot com yes do do do okay.
|
Ivan:
[45:27]
| Um yeah okay um i know we didn't put this on the subject line but i'm okay well it's your it's.
|
Sam:
[45:34]
| Your turn to pick go for it.
|
Ivan:
[45:36]
| Well all right it's breaking news at the moment you know and i know you you had talked about this earlier in the week that you saw that nobody else was covering this except the BBC.
|
Sam:
[45:49]
| Oh, India, Pakistan?
|
Ivan:
[45:50]
| Yeah, Pakistan accuses India of firing missiles at three of its air bases. Pakistan military says some Indian missiles got through defense systems. Pakistan is launching a retaliatory action against India. This is the last couple of hours.
|
Sam:
[46:06]
| So just to be clear.
|
Ivan:
[46:07]
| It's not that it's yet identified Shake Hotel.
|
Sam:
[46:10]
| All okay airspace.
|
Ivan:
[46:12]
| In pakistan closest temporarily is india shuts airports india shut all there's a airport shutdown in india right now because of the.
|
Sam:
[46:21]
| So let me let me clarify what you said it's not that no place else was covering it at all it's just that when this started bbc was the only place that was doing sort of wall-to-wall coverage of it like everybody else would like sort of mention it in passing and then move on and start talking about Donald Trump or the Pope or something. But when this, when the, when, like, let's hit, first of all, there was a terrorist attack on some tourists a few weeks ago in Kashmir, in the disputed territory of Kashmir, in the Indian controlled part of it. And that got almost no attention. Like I saw a couple news alerts on it, but like it, it didn't hit any of the normal sort of, American news programs that I consume on a regular basis, not even a mention.
|
Sam:
[47:21]
| You know, of course, there was an article in the New York Times. There were a few other places that had something, but it wasn't at the top of the news. Then a couple of weeks later, the Indian retaliation happened. And that's when I was sort of noting, I often watch the four-up display on my, you know, YouTube TV lets you watch a four-up display of news channels. So it's got Fox in the upper left, CNN in the upper right, MSNBC in the bottom left, and BBC World News in the bottom right. And that's where I was noticing all the others were talking about whatever. CNN briefly mentioned India, but then moved on to something else. BBC was treating it like, oh, end of the world breaking news, we're doing nonstop coverage of this. even they eventually switched over to pope stuff but i guess today there's been more back and forth and there was also a comment was it jd vance today who said uh when asked about america's opinion on on this conflict basically said it's none of our business they can do whatever they want whereas like some people were hoping that the u.s would actually try to intervene and not militarily or anything, but try to help with the, like, hey, let's calm this down. Can we come to some sort of arrangement, blah, blah, blah.
|
Sam:
[48:40]
| There was a various international organizations have said things like that. Let's try to calm it down and see what we can do. But I guess it's been escalating anyway. What are, you know, I've been busy the last few hours. I mean, you just rattled off a whole bunch of new developments.
|
Ivan:
[48:55]
| Well, I, listen, I, what I, I went and I was looking at my social media and somebody was saying that they were scared about this, but it seems that, okay, so these are the breaking news from last, A couple of hours. It started with Pakistan accuses India of firing missiles at three of its Arab bases. A spokesman for Pakistan's military says India has fired missiles at three Pakistani military bases. India has not commented on the claims. And a live TV broadcast aired by state television Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhary warned India that it should wait for a response. Okay. Then the Pakistani said that some missiles got through defense systems. And then Pakistan said it's launching a retaliatory action against India.
|
Ivan:
[49:38]
| Then this is from reporting from Sringar, Indian Administrator Kashmir. This is an Indian territory in Kashmir blast as yet unidentified Sheikh Hotel. There's a reporter there. I was woken up by two massive explosions in Sringar at 545 a.m. local time. About 20 minutes later, three more blasts occurred. The first two blasts shook our hotel. there's a complete blackout in the city and there's no clarity yet on what what the what are these sounds this was half an hour ago airspace in pakistan no an hour and a half ago airspace in pakistan closes temporarily as india shuts airport shortly after reported strikes which pakistan glades were indian and hit three of its air bases pakistan air force authority closed the country's airspace to all traffic until midday local time in the last few moments airports authority in india has announced it's closing 32 airports across the north and west of the country until the morning of the 15th of May, basically for six days. This is, you know, Jesus, okay? That's a long time. Eyewitnesses report hearing explosions near Srinagar Airport. So, so yeah, it seems like India launched missiles at its air bases, and Pakistan is doing a retaliatory strike on them right now as we speak.
|
Sam:
[50:55]
| Well, and look, here, here's the there's a couple different thoughts on this. One, of course, is that it's not like India and Pakistan have been at peace for decades. There have been periodic conflicts between these two countries going back since these two countries existed. So on the one hand, you can be like, oh, okay, here they go again. They'll have a little mini war, they'll exchange some missiles, and then it'll calm down and cross your fingers. Hope that's what happens. But on the other hand, both these countries have nukes. And if it is escalating rather than calming down, it is a matter of concern. Now, they've gone to war before since they both were nuclear powers and it has not escalated to the use of nuclear weapons. So you've got to hope that leadership in both countries knows not to go there, knows that it's in either one of their benefits to move to an all-out war, they instead, you know, do some tit-for-tat over the border and then call it done for a while. And, you know...
|
Ivan:
[52:14]
| But we hope.
|
Sam:
[52:15]
| So we hope. Yes. But... And look, I'm not even going to pretend that I know a lot about what the hell is going on there and the details of the conflict between them.
|
Ivan:
[52:30]
| Well, look, here's... I think, you know, it's a territorial dispute. It's been ongoing for decades.
|
Sam:
[52:38]
| Yeah, exactly. I mean, but I don't know all the details of that.
|
Ivan:
[52:42]
| But the one thing is, has everything happened with any of these? Well, I mean, this is, well, I mean, the details. Look, this goes back to how the partition. It goes back to the partition.
|
Sam:
[52:51]
| Yes, it goes. And where the line was drawn. And this particular province has a greater Muslim population than the rest of India. And so Pakistan thinks they should have it. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[53:08]
| I mean, that's basically it's the same dispute. Now, the one thing that, of course, is a flare up, but it's a flare up. You know, why is this like now something? It's because of something that history has shown is the kind of shit that starts wars. You know, there's a terror attack. It was an attack, unidentified, it's not Indian territory.
|
Sam:
[53:30]
| Well, here's the thing. This is another one where there is an organization that claimed responsibility for it, but the Indian government says, no, no, the Pakistani government was behind it.
|
Ivan:
[53:41]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[53:41]
| The Pakistani government says, no, we weren't, we had nothing to do with it. The Indians made an attack that they said went after the training bases of the organization that carried out the attacks, But the Pakistanis are like, no, you hit a bunch of civilians, including children, blah, blah, blah. And so it continues, you know?
|
Ivan:
[54:02]
| Yeah. But what I was saying is that, you know, my thing is if you look in history and like, you know, how... many conflicts have started. I mean, look at the Spanish-American War, World War I, you know, shit. I mean, the Gulf of Tonkin, something. This is the kind of like an event that— But.
|
Sam:
[54:23]
| Let me look. I looked up the Wikipedia page on Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts. So there was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 to 48, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Cargill War of 1999, and then we had smaller conflicts, the Kutch Conflict in 1965, the Saichen Conflict from 1984 to 2003, and then they have a list of skirmishes, which are smaller. They've got one from 1986 to 87, one in 1999, one from 2001 to 2002, one in 2008, one in 2011, 2013, 2014 through 2015, 2016 through 2018, 2019, 2020 through 2021, and now what they're calling the 2025 India-Pakistan standoff that began on April 23rd, 2025. My point in that list is just that it's a long list.
|
Ivan:
[55:28]
| It's a long list. It's a long list. Yeah. I mean, no doubt about it. It's a long list. But, you know, so I do think, you know, always, you know, these guys escalating always gives you a little bit of hard work.
|
Sam:
[55:43]
| Well, yes. I mean, and this is the same thing where we were talking about, you know. Could the situation in Israel-Gaza escalate to something that encompasses the entire Middle East? Could the situation in Ukraine escalate to something that ends up being a superpower battle between the U.S. and Russia with direct conflict? And here we have— Superpower battle?
|
Ivan:
[56:05]
| Who's the other superpower?
|
Sam:
[56:06]
| Yeah, I hear you. Well, China.
|
Ivan:
[56:09]
| Oh, okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[56:11]
| No, and then here we have, like, you know, could this blow up into, you know, a full— Do they start using nukes on each other, you know, and all of these things have the potential of escalation. And that's what, look, we should be concerned anyway, even if they don't escalate. Wars are wars. Wars are bad. Like there are people dying that don't need to be dying. But the, the worry of escalation is always the big worry. Like what if this turns into not just some skirmishes, but something huge?
|
Ivan:
[56:44]
| Look, I will say that I always, I had a lot of, I'm sure it included nightmares as well, but a lot of like residual angst from watching this damn movie many years ago, time of, of, of what's the name of, of, of, of, it was Karate in the wrong time. No, the, the dead zone.
|
Sam:
[57:05]
| Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[57:06]
| The dead zone was this movie where what's his name martin sheen plays a guy that became is a, political guy and christopher walken was a guy that could see the future and one of the scenes that he sees the future is that martin machine becomes president and, And there is some incident that happens internationally that's unclear in the movie and that there's a negotiation and that the president decides to launch a nuclear attack. And that he basically the I think the secretary of defense or whoever was the second in command is trying to talk him out of it. And he he's talking like unfortunately, like some of the leaders we have like now, like a complete lunatic. and he's like and he threatens him that either you put your hand there to do the authorization i'll cut off your hand and he goes and he authorizes the nuclear nuclear attack and then he lets reporters and others come up and they say hey we we we and and some people that are on his staff hey we we think we have a way of resolving the situation and he goes and he says the missiles are flying. Hallelujah. I always fear a psychopath like that. Okay. I think that is more my, the thing that scares me is some crazy bastard that is in charge of a country with nuclear weapons decides to do that. I guess that is like my worst fear.
|
Sam:
[58:36]
| This was the Dead Zone from 1983?
|
Ivan:
[58:38]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[58:40]
| With, let's see.
|
Ivan:
[58:41]
| Christopher Walken.
|
Sam:
[58:42]
| Christopher Walken. Martin Sheen. martin sheen anthony michael hall yeah and it was based on a novel from stephen king stephen king yes and a few other folks yeah okay yeah.
|
Ivan:
[58:55]
| So i don't know that always gave me the creeps just that thought of a president just going nuts and launching a nuclear attack.
|
Sam:
[59:04]
| Well it's not you know but we have a history of, electing exceptionally stable, smart, rational presidents who are calm and collected and know what to do in a crisis. I don't know what could possibly worry you, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[59:24]
| What could possibly go wrong?
|
Sam:
[59:27]
| Yes. Well, you know, under the circumstances, I'm not sure J.D. Vance's it's none of our business we're keeping out of it is the worst possible answer here.
|
Ivan:
[59:38]
| It's not. It's just, The thing is that, you know, these guys are so glib. Everything is just, everything is for fucking like, you know, being on Twitter and, you know, getting clicks. No thought put into anything.
|
Sam:
[59:55]
| I mean, to be serious for a minute, like, especially with the current administration, but even otherwise, the U.S. does not have a really stellar record of coming into conflicts elsewhere in the world and helping them resolve peacefully. I mean, we have succeeded a couple points. There's, like, Ireland, you know, Bill Clinton did a good job there.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:18]
| Hey, wait a second. World War II?
|
Sam:
[1:00:22]
| Well, I'm talking resolving peacefully. I'm saying where there's a dispute between two other people and we come in as the mediator and generate peace, not we come in as a combatant and win the war. That's different.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:38]
| I mean, well, I mean, look, for what it's worth.
|
Sam:
[1:00:44]
| Yugoslavia and Ireland are the two I can pick off the top of my head.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:51]
| Yeah, I mean, Yugoslavia and Ireland are two pretty big ones.
|
Sam:
[1:00:54]
| They're pretty good examples.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:56]
| And you know what? But we got fucking close. Clinton got fucking close.
|
Sam:
[1:01:01]
| On Israel-Palestine?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:03]
| Yes! But I was about so fucking close.
|
Sam:
[1:01:07]
| I was about to bring that up as an example where we've been trying for decades and decades and decades without success. But you're right. We did get close.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:14]
| Fucking close.
|
Sam:
[1:01:17]
| Yes. The whole world would be so much different if.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:21]
| Can you imagine?
|
Sam:
[1:01:22]
| If Arafat had said yes and they didn't assassinate what's his name in Israel?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:27]
| Rabin.
|
Sam:
[1:01:28]
| Rabin.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:28]
| Rabin.
|
Sam:
[1:01:28]
| Yeah. So.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:32]
| Yeah. That fucking close.
|
Sam:
[1:01:35]
| Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, I mean, the, the U S has a tendency to not, I mean, American media in general, like international stuff doesn't tend to get a lot of our attention in less we are directly involved. I'd say this is one of the ones where it deserves a little attention.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:57]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:01:58]
| It deserves a little attention and you may have to like go a little out of your way to, to like keep up to date on it.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:09]
| Like, you know, BBC news is basically their wall to wall on it right now again. So they're, they're, they're on it.
|
Sam:
[1:02:16]
| Like, right. Yeah. Let me, uh, let me do at this very second, let me bring up my four up and yeah. So what we got is let's see, Fox is talking about the Newark mayor. We, and so is CNN. MSNBC is talking about tariffs and BBC News is talking about India-Pakistan. so that's where we are and and i brought that up on my ipad you see very very excited i know admittedly at this very moment alex took my phone and who knows where it is but well.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:54]
| But you see.
|
Sam:
[1:02:55]
| This is one of the reasons by the way this is i have a backup device right takes one of them i can do something on the other one right so there you go now he has his own phone but he's constantly stealing mine or my wife like matters.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:10]
| My my son also i'll find him he'll have my phone my wife's phone his phone his ipad the other i i mean he's got he'll sit there with five devices.
|
Sam:
[1:03:23]
| Yes yeah anyway shall we take another uh breaky break thing thing so i will say where where did i put that where'd my window go hold on there we go i so the next thing is a wiki of the day and i will mention it is about let me make sure i'm i'm correct here it is a different border conflict so first of all the current popular wiki of the day is still a day old because and it was the 2025 India-Pakistan strikes.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:06]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:04:06]
| But there should be a new one on the new Pope by now. But in addition to my rule of Wiki of the Day can't repeat more than once every 100 days, which of course is, you know, this is new Pope. They weren't in the last 100 days. I have another rule to avoid the situation where, there's, you know, defacement or graffiti on a Wikipedia page. I won't, if, if the Wikipedia page has been edited in less than the last half hour, then I wait until there's a half hour gap between edits. And since Pope Leo, the 14th was picked as what would be the popular wiki of the day for Friday.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:59]
| It was that it was, edited very, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:05:02]
| Within the time. There has not yet been a moment where there has been a full half hour go by without edits to this page. Like at this very second, it has been two minutes since the last edit to that page.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:19]
| Ah.
|
Sam:
[1:05:20]
| So that's not there. But no, this is a featured wiki of the day instead. And it is not India-Pakistan, but it is on the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:34]
| That's one that I'm sure J.D. Vance is really more worried about.
|
Sam:
[1:05:37]
| Sorry, no, it's not featured wiki of the day. It's from random wiki of the day. Anyway, here you go. Enjoy and learn.
|
Break:
[1:05:44]
| Do, do, do. Hello, this is Long Form Danielle. I'm here to let you know about Sam the Curmudgeon's other podcasts, the Wiki of the Day podcasts. Wiki of the Day comes in three varieties, popular, random, and featured. Each highlights a new Wikipedia article each day, they just pick the articles differently. This week on Random Wiki of the Day, you would have heard this summary for Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict. The Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict was a violent standoff and a proxy conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia lasting from 1998 to 2018. It consisted of a series of incidents along the then-disputed border, including the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 1998-2000 and the subsequent second Afar insurgency. It included multiple clashes with numerous casualties, including the Battle of Girona in 2016. Ethiopia stated in 2018 that it would cede Baden to Eritrea. This led to the Eritrea-Ethiopia Summit on July 9, 2018, where an agreement was signed which demarcated the border and agreed a resumption of diplomatic relations.
|
Break:
[1:07:01]
| That's it. See? Fun, entertaining, and educational, right? Okay, now look for and subscribe to the Wiki of the Day family of podcasts on your podcast playing software of choice, or just go to wikioftheday.com to check out our archives. Now back to Curmudgeon's Corner.
|
Sam:
[1:07:20]
| Okay.
|
Break:
[1:07:21]
| Do-do-do.
|
Sam:
[1:07:22]
| Oh, oh.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:23]
| Do-do-do.
|
Sam:
[1:07:24]
| I didn't wait for the do-do-do. My bad. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:27]
| You should know that!
|
Sam:
[1:07:29]
| I should know that.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:30]
| I know about the do-do-do. The do-do-do. The da-da-da. It's a song, and I can't remember the rest of the lyrics, but it's good. That's okay.
|
Sam:
[1:07:40]
| That's nice. So anyway, what shall I talk about? Look, we have immigration stuff going on with the arrest of the mayor in Newark. We've got the release of one of the grad students who are actually a couple of them have been released, of the grad students who were locked up by ICE. We've got more legal stuff on that. And we've got Steve Miller. Is it Steve Miller?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:10]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:08:12]
| Anyway, he's talking about how the administration is discussing suspending habeas corpus because courts keep telling them that they have to give people habeas corpus rights, and they're like, screw that, we don't want to. They apparently haven't made that decision yet, but they're talking about it. All this stuff But I think what I'll go with Oh and we got the new Pope We got a new Pope American Pope The one thing I'll say about the American Pope Is the interviews with his brother are really fun, Like his brother's talking about him and like, he's like, you know, when's the last time you talked to him? Oh, I talked to him right before all this happened. And we, we played Wordle and words with friends. And, oh, by the way, he's a white socks fan, not a Cubs fan and blah, blah, blah. His, his brother's a character at one point, like some TV network was interviewing his brother and he got a phone call from the new Pope while he was talking. And it was like, oh, hey, good to talk to you. By the way, you're being recorded right now.
|
Sam:
[1:09:18]
| So I guess they didn't have a full conversation. Anyway, it's kind of amusing. But no, I think I'll go with what I said last week I didn't want to talk about, which is an update on the whole trade and tariffs and all this kind of situation. And specifically what people have been talking a lot more about in the last week is the The reduction in the volume of shipping coming into American ports, that is, you know, the appropriate amount of delay after the tariffs were initially announced and how, like, this a few weeks from now is likely to lead to supply issues.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:59]
| Well, we had a surge. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:10:02]
| We had a surge of people trying to get ahead of it.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:05]
| In March, we had a record-breaking trade deficit. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:10:10]
| We had a record low trade deficit, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:15]
| No. No.
|
Sam:
[1:10:18]
| In terms of like, oh, no, no, you're right. You're right. Sorry. I'm confused. We imported way, way more than usual.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:25]
| Way, way, way, way, way more than usual.
|
Sam:
[1:10:27]
| Because everybody was trying to get ahead of the tariffs.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:30]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:10:31]
| And now.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:31]
| And look, I'll tell you some stories about crazy shit that I've seen with this kind of stuff. Okay. I remember 30 years ago, I had a friend of mine that had a factory that made certain latex products. And there was a certain category of latex products that was going to be all of a sudden banned from import. No, it wasn't. It was gloves. It was gloves.
|
Sam:
[1:11:00]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:01]
| If I remember correctly, it was gloves. And so the thing is that in order to get ahead of that ban, The factories in Asia that made them, like, imported enough supply to last, like, two to three years.
|
Sam:
[1:11:16]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:16]
| And what that meant was that anybody before that manufactured locally in the U.S. got crushed by this massive inventory of low-cost ones that were imported to beat the damn headlight. It was going to take years to work off that inventory. And so, therefore, if you were trying to make gloves in the U.S. and sell them, you basically were completely shit out of luck because there was such a massive supply of cheap ones that came in and gutted that. Now, they had a lot of advance warning that that was happening. So, therefore, they had enough time to build enough inventory for that. But it's one of the crazy supply disruptions that happens. Now, they didn't have that much time to go and, like, ship, like, years of maybe certain products, okay? But what many manufacturers did, including Apple, for example, and other large ones, is that they said, look, we're going to right now try to get as much product as we can for the short term in order to do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:27]
| To try to beat these tariffs. And so there was a surge in that. And so now comes the lull. And, you know, people are saying, ah, it's this bullshit or whatever. Well, the guy who heads the port of Los Angeles was on an interview on Bloomberg. He's been on TV a lot. I'm telling you, listen, there is a massive drop of ships coming in. Don't, listen, I'm telling you, I've been charging this fucking port and we don't have fucking ships coming. We don't have a lot of ships scheduled to come in right now. Okay? So.
|
Sam:
[1:12:59]
| And I've heard this guy talking, too. Like, they have his dashboards and stuff include, like, who's leaving Asia.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:08]
| Asia.
|
Sam:
[1:13:09]
| And so they have, basically, they know several weeks in advance based on the.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:14]
| 30, 60 days. Depends on the.
|
Sam:
[1:13:16]
| Yeah. Like, a month to two months. I think he actually said 45 days. They have a 45-day view that they usually look at.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:22]
| Well, that's actually, if I would have said 45 days ordered right. I said 60 days, exactly fucking 45 days. Okay, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:13:29]
| Yeah, so he has a 45-day view that he's always looking at, and he's like, look, I knew right after the tariffs were announced that there was a drop because we started to see that drop right away. And, of course, it takes those 45 days for that to start showing on this side of the ocean.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:48]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:13:48]
| And that's where we are now. And oh, by the way, even if everything was reversed tomorrow, that means you've got at least that long a delay, probably more before things start reversing.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:02]
| Look, this is the same shit as the supply shock, you know, the supply shocks and demand shocks that we had with a pandemic. It's the same fucking dynamic. Okay. It's exactly the same. And, you know, like I saw from certain, the ones specifically auto parts manufacturers, okay? I was seeing some, this is one guy that was talking about how the last shipment that he cleared customs, he had to pay such a huge amount of tariffs in order to clear it. And that basically he didn't have another order in place. and that at some point he was going to start running out of of these parts because we just can't afford to buy them right right now and so yeah, This is the supply shock that he's put in place. Fucking president moron. No, just, just say the other day, did you hear what he said? Well, I hear what he said, what the, well, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:15:01]
| Well, what I, what I.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:03]
| Sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:15:03]
| Oh, this, this, this is exactly what I was going to say. Donald Trump was asked about like the fact that the ports are empty and all this kind of stuff. And is, is he worried about this? And he's like, look, no, because before we were losing trillions of dollars. Now we're not doing business. So we're not losing trillions of dollars anymore. This is good because, and here's the fundamental thing you have to remember with this is twofold. One, Donald Trump believes that paying for something is always a loss. Always.
|
Sam:
[1:15:44]
| He doesn't pay his contractors. He doesn't pay his staff. None of this. He believes that if you pay somebody something, it's out and out a loss. You are losing money in that transaction, and that's all that matters. He doesn't recognize that, oh, and you're getting value in exchange that you think is worth more than the money, which is why it's a good trade. He doesn't get that part. All he gets is you're losing money because you bought something. And in this case, he believes the country is losing money because we're buying Chinese stuff and we're buying things from other countries. And the whole strategy he has around tariffs starts to make more sense if you realize that fundamentally, he thinks buying things from other countries is out and out bad. And a fundamental goal of his policy is that we should not be buying stuff from foreigners. Period. End of story. And anything that can make us buy less stuff is good.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:48]
| Look, the harsh reality of this stupidity is going to be presented itself to the American public in a not-too-distant future, okay, where we are going to be experiencing, once again, shortages, delays, things.
|
Sam:
[1:17:09]
| Higher prices.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:10]
| Much higher prices. It is just utterly fucking moronic. And by the way, they had, they said that they finally got one trade deal.
|
Sam:
[1:17:21]
| Not really.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:23]
| But not really.
|
Sam:
[1:17:24]
| But I heard both Trump and the UK Prime Minister, Starmer, Starmer, Starmer, Starmer. Both of them said this is wonderful and amazing and a great deal. So what are you talking about, Yvonne? Are you disparaging this amazing deal?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:39]
| Well, I'm disparaging the amazing deal, first of all, from the fact that this isn't even a deal.
|
Sam:
[1:17:45]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:46]
| This is an agreement to negotiate a deal, not even a real deal. Okay. Start off with that fact.
|
Sam:
[1:17:54]
| And then even the things they agreed to negotiate aren't- Are terrible. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:00]
| They're terrible.
|
Sam:
[1:18:01]
| And one thing, by the way, that Donald Trump seems to have made clear over the last few days is the 10% global tariff on everybody is not negotiable. Like even if some of these reciprocal tariffs get reduced, probably not eliminated, but reduced, that 10% on everybody global worldwide, he's not budging on that.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:28]
| I mean, I, I, but.
|
Sam:
[1:18:30]
| And for China, by the way, for China, by the way.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:34]
| China. Oh, oh, he's got us. Oh, he, he, he, he, he had a revelation, I guess.
|
Sam:
[1:18:40]
| Well, no, the latest was that he, he's like, we may be able to, we feel like negotiating down from 140% or whatever the hell it is right now, down to 80 would be reasonable. 80 would be.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:51]
| That was a short relation. He said something along the lines of like, you know, I'm starting to like 80.
|
Sam:
[1:18:57]
| Right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:58]
| Yeah, like 80%. What the fuck? Listen, this lunacy will not end until Congress goes and pulls the fucking authority from it. That is the only way this is ending. But Congress will not act until this is a complete shit show. That's the reality that you've got. They will not have sufficient pressure on top of them from people being pissed off until this shit show hits the American people.
|
Sam:
[1:19:38]
| Well, and even then, I wonder. But there is a level of pain that will do that. There is a level.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:45]
| The American public has shown almost zero level of tolerance for economic pain.
|
Sam:
[1:19:54]
| Well, yeah. Well, the thing, and we've talked about this before, is that I still feel that before Congress would get to the point where they would actually do something like that, Donald Trump himself will declare victory and back off on his own. Like, he would not want the embarrassment of having Congress actually slap him down. Republicans.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:17]
| Well, he'll have, yeah, but it'll have to get to the step of, like, them having to go and, like, go do the motions. in order of doing that. So, so, so he will somehow declare one of these fucking victories that he loves declaring, you know?
|
Sam:
[1:20:32]
| But it might be that, that, that he does that at a point where that pressure is still private, but, but it has to be at the point where like, if he sees no way out, if he sees like they, you know, my own party is going to slap me down if I don't do something that's, he will back off before they actually have to do it. But he will back off in a face-saving way. He will not say he's backing off. He will declare victory.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:00]
| No, no, he'll declare victory.
|
Sam:
[1:21:01]
| Well, just like this UK thing, and I'm sorry, I sort of tangent, I took you on a tangent, but you were talking about how the UK thing was really nothing, and maybe you can talk more about why it's nothing. But nevertheless, this is a case where Donald Trump is declaring it the greatest thing ever, and they've reduced tariffs a certain amount, and blah, blah, blah. ah, this is his M.O. Like, create the crisis, then have nominal concessions that don't really matter that much and declare it as the hugest victory in the world and then back off from the crisis you created.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:38]
| The reason I said it's just not a victory, I mean, they're still applying tariffs on vehicles, they're still applying tariffs on products, they really, you know, the U.K., which had almost the lowest level of tariffs on our fucking products, they're still getting hammered with the U.S.
|
Sam:
[1:21:51]
| By the way, I believe the UK was one of the countries that we actually had a surplus with.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:56]
| Yes, probably. I'm sure it was. And so they were getting completely fucked. Okay. And the reality is that they went and it isn't really a deal anyway. All they did was agree. They laid out. It's, you know, I call this. We do these memorandums of understanding, you know, which is just. Oh, OK, so we agree to do these things and we agree to negotiate and arrive at a contract at a later time. But as I've been told many times in my in sales, if I arrive with a fucking listen, I don't even try to write an MOU anymore because I cannot book a sale with a fucking memo memorandum of understanding. That's just, you know, that's just a fucking sales boilerplate bullshit. And that's what we got today. It's not a deal. It's just a document that says, okay, we kind of agree that we're going to negotiate on these things under these parameters.
|
Sam:
[1:23:03]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:04]
| And then we're going to negotiate a deal. But it's a shitty deal. I mean, listen, Keir Starmer has been under pressure because his administration has not been very effective at doing anything. Just like every recent... british administration regardless of party at this point i guess and so he was under pressure to like try to provide some kind of victory and i think he wanted to declare a victory even though honestly they got fucked well.
|
Sam:
[1:23:33]
| The other the other thing that people.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:34]
| Well or let me extract any but let me let me change that they didn't extract anything from this well.
|
Sam:
[1:23:41]
| Let me let me say this because this this is another part of the how you look at it and starmer actually said something along these lines because at his press conference, the British press was pushing him on this because, you know, yes, potentially the terms are better than they were a couple days ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:02]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:24:03]
| But they weren't good. They're still much worse than they were pre-Trump, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:24:08]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:24:08]
| So it's like, you know, on a scale of zero to a hundred of how bad it was, let's say we start at zero. Trump took you to a hundred. You managed to negotiate back down to 80 or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:24:21]
| You know, so yes, it's better than it was a few seconds ago, but it's still horrible and it's still worse than it was a few months ago. And I'm not sure you can get to better than you started as long as Trump is around. And as long as his ultimate objective is we don't want to import stuff. I mean, fundamentally, that's his ultimate objective. We don't want to import stuff. Although apparently he was like, Rolls Royces are okay. We can import.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:49]
| Oh yeah. The rollers are good. Yes. That that's, you know, Hey, we need, yeah, we, we want those. I'm like, Oh, the fuck. You know, my bank seems to think, speaking of British cars that I'm, I, I, I definitely, I, I am like a lot, you know, well, Quite a lot wealthier than I see myself as because it gave me this thing where I'm in my my Chase Bank account. It says, hey, you know, are you interested in a McLaren? You know, a McLaren is, you know, ridiculously expensive. Like, you know, we've got these programs to help you buy. Oh, my God. I'm like, what the fuck? What are you studying? You fucking, you know, McLaren? Really? The hell? You know, I'm like. So, yeah, but I guess now with Trump's tariff deal, I can get a better deal now, Sam, than I could a week ago, but not better than the one that I could get while I was under bite. Right?
|
Sam:
[1:25:49]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:50]
| Okay, that sounds awful.
|
Sam:
[1:25:52]
| Yeah, so I keep hearing different things about how far away before we really feel the pain of all this stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:03]
| Here, hold on.
|
Sam:
[1:26:06]
| I was just going to say, it seems like for over a month now, people have been saying a couple more weeks, and then you'll really feel it. Where are we really on this at this point before there are obvious effects that average person shopping would notice? I mean, I know some prices have already gone up.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:25]
| I mean, it's going to be about 90 days really before this is. It's going to be like summer. Listen, we're going to get hammered.
|
Sam:
[1:26:31]
| Another 90 days, yeah. Because I literally keep hearing people say like with before the end of May, we'll start seeing empty shelves and higher prices.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:44]
| I think you'll start seeing some. But what I'm going to say is that the brunt of the effect is going to be really hit in late June, July. Like, right for the summer. Which is going to be great. Everybody's going to have a fantastic summer. Like, Ford already announced that car prices are good. They're going to have to, you know... They at first said, hey, we're cutting prices, blah, blah, blah. And I think they were trying to do that to agree with Trump. They realized it didn't work. And so now they already quietly announced, we have to raise prices on July 1st. already so it's that kind of stuff that's going on like right now and so more of that will be percolating like right now as it goes on i think we'll have the full because of you know you talked about the transit time for ships and how long and how long does inventory stay you know that you can sell and most people will sell the inventory that they got based on the previous cost not on a new price. For the most part, not necessarily that, because some people will raise prices based on what the last inventory they got, even if they haven't sold out the last stock. Okay? But because of how they front-loaded some of the stuff, they're working off of that inventory and how ships have stopped coming, and the lead time that you've got, the 45 days, it really should be summer. It's really like, you know, when summer starts, you know, June, July around there is when you're really going to start seeing the full really shitstorm starting to.
|
Sam:
[1:28:11]
| What area, like for the average consumer, what area will they notice it in first?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:19]
| It's going to be, man, the cars are going to be the most visible one.
|
Sam:
[1:28:23]
| Okay. How about for things that people buy like every month? Like a car is a rare purchase, right? Like, but there's certain staples that people buy all the time. what's going to hit there?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:36]
| Auto repair, car services, anything that has to do with like fixing your car, for example, any of those. Look, you go to any, listen, how about clothes?
|
Sam:
[1:28:49]
| That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Clothes or electronics or those kinds of things.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:54]
| Electronics. Small appliances.
|
Sam:
[1:28:57]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:58]
| You know, all of this shit, okay, is getting, is getting hit, you know, you're going to go shopping for just about anything. You're going to start seeing the impacts of this.
|
Sam:
[1:29:10]
| So, I mean, because the bottom line is, I mean, the whole thing that Trump says he's trying to address is that manufacturing largely moved out of the U.S. for lots of these things. And so basically, yeah, like, I mean, people have said like, like Walmart's whole business model was about getting cheap, cheap shit from China. Right. So are you going to.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:34]
| Cheap shit, period. and from wherever, but it wound up being a lot, mostly from China.
|
Sam:
[1:29:38]
| So are you going to walk into a Walmart and the whole damn place is going to be empty and or prices double what they used to be?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:46]
| I mean, yeah. In many cases. Yeah. You're looking at toys. Think about all the categories that the Chinese dominate.
|
Sam:
[1:29:54]
| Oh, Yvonne, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:56]
| Toys.
|
Sam:
[1:29:57]
| Toys. You know, Trump has explained to us that we only need two dolls, not 30.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:03]
| Ah, well, let's. any electronic any electric or electronic products okay I mean think about it I mean the vast majority of them are all made in China and the electric component even if they're not, final assembled in China their components are so many of them from China anyway it's just and.
|
Sam:
[1:30:25]
| Even the ones that are from other countries it's not like these other countries are getting off scot-free it's just the.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:30]
| Increase of less yeah where.
|
Sam:
[1:30:32]
| Do they make Lego? Is it actually made in Denmark? Probably somewhere in Asia, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:37]
| Oh, God. Beats me. I don't know, but I'm going to guess it probably is made somewhere that they're getting nailed with a big-ass tariff.
|
Sam:
[1:30:45]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:46]
| Okay, I'm checking. Where are they made? Where are Lego bricks made? Molding is done in Denmark, Hungary, Monterey, Mexico, and China.
|
Sam:
[1:31:01]
| Okay, there you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:04]
| Buy.
|
Sam:
[1:31:04]
| Your buy your Legos now.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:06]
| Yeah but I just you know it's, I'm going to give the sarcasm that the economists wrote about wrote about the tariff negotiations after they finished with you know with the message next up America's great rival negotiators travel to Switzerland this weekend for talks with their Chinese counterparts, You know, so I'm just, you know, if, let me put it in, if Britain's vaunted special relationship managed to secure only the slimmest of concessions, Communist Party Congress should not get their hopes up. I mean, they basically got, you know, like right now they've got, they got nothing. So lovely.
|
Sam:
[1:31:57]
| So, yeah. So if you're planning on that, so is it good advice that if you're planning on thinking about buying something significant over the summer that you might want to consider doing it early?
|
Ivan:
[1:32:10]
| Well, that's why I bought those tires.
|
Sam:
[1:32:12]
| Yeah, I know.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:13]
| Told you. I went, I'm like, I didn't want to wait, you know, on the, because of that, I was, I mean, those for sure were going to get hit with, with, with that. I do think that definitely, if you've got something significant that you really need that is due to be purchased, you need it like now, don't wait. Just don't wait.
|
Sam:
[1:32:39]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:40]
| You need to pull the trigger as soon as you can.
|
Sam:
[1:32:43]
| But Yvonne, buying anything, spending money is bad. It's just a loss. You shouldn't do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:50]
| So you just don't buy stuff, right?
|
Sam:
[1:32:52]
| Just don't buy stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:53]
| You just steal it.
|
Sam:
[1:32:56]
| Well, that's what Donald does.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:57]
| Well, that's what Donald does, I know.
|
Sam:
[1:32:59]
| He gets people to give it to him and then sometimes by promising to pay them. But, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:05]
| He does promise to pay and just doesn't actually pay. I'm actually checking to see if the price on my tires already went up by any chance. Let's see. Let's see, because I know that... Let me see. let's see if this is the case alright filter filter filter alright let's see, uh shit yes a little bit but I don't think it's got the full weight of it but yes it's already up okay, There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:33:44]
| There you go. Okay. With that, shall we wrap things up?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:50]
| I guess. Let's, uh, we don't got anything else we didn't mention.
|
Sam:
[1:33:55]
| We're a little shorter than we usually are, so if there's something else that's really hot on your mind, let's do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:01]
| Well, no. We'll wrap it up.
|
Sam:
[1:34:04]
| We got Newark Mayor. We got Habeas Corpus. We got Stagflation.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:08]
| We got— Well, they did release the Newark Major, you know, finally. I saw that after like five hours.
|
Sam:
[1:34:14]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:14]
| I don't know, man. I still said the one thing that I said about the New York mayor thing, they arrested him and then they released these assholes just for intimidation purposes. I said that if I were, listen, if I'm New York mayor and the sheriff reports to me, I'm showing up at that fucking place with an entire battalion of sheriffs and I'm fucking arrest, starting to arrest the fuck out. I would, I'd show up with the entire battalion. I'm like, oh, we're all arresting all of it. Listen, every employee I see, you, you're under arrest. Oh, why? False imprisonment. Charge all these people. Charge them all. Fuck it. Drag everyone, drag every single one to fucking court. Drag them, you know, shackle them, drag them all. Okay? They want to fuck like this. If it were me, that's what I would start doing. Because that's the only way to get these people to, oh, you think this is a joke? We'll start dragging your asses to jail. Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:35:10]
| Yeah i don't know that need.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:11]
| To start with that attitude you know.
|
Sam:
[1:35:13]
| I mean i said this some very people need to.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:17]
| Start with that attitude to fuck this shit okay.
|
Sam:
[1:35:20]
| Well some very like if we actually had like i mean this is sort of first shots fired like a the feds arresting a local official and they harass some congress people too if you start getting local people arresting feds you're going to have like some crazy stuff working out in the courts as that works through. But yeah, but yeah, I mean, like, like you said, it's sort of like the, That's the kind of thing people want to see. Like, we want to see you fighting. And yes, that means doing unorthodox stuff that's going to cause conflict, that's going to cause issues in the courts. You may win, you may lose, who knows. But they want to see you pushing to the limits, not just politely saying, oh, this is unacceptable.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:11]
| Exactly. Right. By the way, the mayor of Newark was actually pushing that to a certain extent. He was saying that they didn't have a certificate of occupancy. He was trying to, were there to tell them that they need to shut down the place. So that was part of the whole reason why he was there. And what I'm saying is, hey, if that's the whole reason, escalate.
|
Sam:
[1:36:28]
| Then shut them down.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:29]
| Then shut them down. Drag them, arrest them, shut them down, shut the place down. Fucking like, you know, it said this place is unlawful. It cannot be occupied. Throw them all the fuck out. And by the way, the people that are that did the false imprisonment arrest them all.
|
Sam:
[1:36:45]
| Well, and here's the key, like, though, like, I'm all for the exact aggressive tactics. Like, go up to the limit of everything you can possibly legally justify. But don't do what they're doing in terms of do things that are blatantly illegal and wait to be stopped.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:03]
| Exactly. No, you go like you find what you know, you look at how you know, how much can I push the law on this right now? let's push it all the way.
|
Sam:
[1:37:11]
| Right so and then let the court stop you but like exactly go up to that line don't go up don't go blatantly over exactly you know right yeah like like i wouldn't suggest that the newark police just come in guns a-blazing and shoot all the ice agents.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:28]
| That would be, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not advocating for that, but.
|
Sam:
[1:37:33]
| Well, I said, I would not recommend that.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:35]
| But, but arresting them for false imprisonment, I would go over there right now, fucking, you know, because they have no legal right whatsoever to have arrested the mayor. Okay. As far as I can tell, none. I would go over there right now. I'm charged, hey, charge them all with false imprisonment, arrest them the fuck all. Drag them out to jail.
|
Sam:
[1:37:54]
| Well, honestly, I thought you were going further with that and say the false imprisonment was the immigrants they were rounding up.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:59]
| Well, I'll take that too. Yes. Add that too. Absolutely.
|
Sam:
[1:38:04]
| You know, now in some cases they may have legal authority to do so, but it seems clear. But it seems clear that lots of the cases they don't.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:13]
| Right. So.
|
Sam:
[1:38:15]
| Sorry, at least a few.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:16]
| That's the kind of shit. That's the kind of shit that they need to start doing. Fuck this. You know, you can't be timid with these people. You got to start punching them in the mouth. You know, it's just, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:38:27]
| There we go.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:27]
| All right so.
|
Sam:
[1:38:29]
| Okay let's wrap it up curmudgeons-corner.com because nobody bought us the three thousand dollar curmudgeonscorner.com without life i know anyway curmudgeons-corner.com you can find our archives you can find transcripts you can find all the ways to contact us you can find links to our youtube i still haven't added one to tiktok i'm still behind on posting tiktok whatever whatever they're not getting a lot of views lately so i'm not super motivated so i'm you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:56]
| Behind, you know, doesn't like us.
|
Sam:
[1:38:59]
| Yeah. I mean, looking real quick, like of the three videos that I posted from last week's, the one with the most views got 14 views. You know, whereas like a couple months ago, they were getting hundreds. And so I don't know if TikTok changed their algorithm or their algorithm just decided that we suck. Either way, the question is, you know, how are we?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:24]
| We've been shadow banned, Sam.
|
Sam:
[1:39:25]
| We've been shadow banned. Oh, my God.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:28]
| We've been shadow banned.
|
Sam:
[1:39:29]
| You're right. It is because we're anti-Trump. They're going after us. They are censoring us.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:35]
| They're censoring us.
|
Sam:
[1:39:37]
| They're censoring us. That's it.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:39]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:39:40]
| Yeah. Anyway, you can find all that stuff. And of course you can find a link to our Patreon where you can give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug, et cetera. I sent Ed his mug, but I still have not sent the cards to Yvonne to then send to Pete and Greg maybe this weekend. I have filled out the cards though.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:04]
| Maybe next time you adjust the air conditioner, you're on my part.
|
Sam:
[1:40:07]
| Exactly yeah exactly next time i do stuff i don't know anyway in addition at two dollars a month or more or if you just ask us we'll invite you to the curmudgeon's corner slack where yvonne and i and a bunch of listeners are chatting and sharing links and all that kind of stuff what do you got for us this week yvonne from the slack oh.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:27]
| This is a great story i i got boy accidentally ordered 70,000 lollipops on Amazon. Okay, panic ensues. Oliva Favre said he was eventually refunded to $4,200 for her eight-year-old son's order of Dum Dum's candy. And the picture of the merchandise being delivered is just absolutely hilarious. This is on the New York Times. Just all these boxes at the entrance of their house, box after box of fucking lollipops just stacked outside their house in Kentucky. It's fantastic. I was like, this is great.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:02]
| Mom, my suckers are here. Said our son Liam would go outside to ride his scooter. I panicked. And then she was hysterical. She was like, what the hell? You know, you ordered a few. I was mentioning that my wife the other day, I will admit that. She went and she saw, I asked her to order me some shaving cream and there was some offer on the brand that I use Barbasol that was like quite cheap. Okay. It's like $6. It said like, I don't know how many can't, you know, some number or whatever. And I'm like, okay, $6. It seems good. Listen, I think my son right now, I don't know what the deal was, why those were so cheap, but it's very likely that in my will, I will have to leave myself. son, Barbasol, okay, given the amount that we received. I think I have to give away some of this or something because it's just crazy. So that was the one. The other one that I had that I love sharing was, so I was sharing this back in, I guess this was the bin, this was in the 90s. Yeah, Windows Me, right, was in the 90s. Okay. There was a picture of a case of an eMachines computer that had to stick that I always loved that I thought was so stupid. This computer is never obsolete, Sam. Sam, never.
|
Sam:
[1:42:27]
| Never.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:28]
| The eMachine's computer will never be obsolete.
|
Sam:
[1:42:31]
| Now, I will note, if you look carefully on the sticker on that, the piece that makes it that is that they were having an offer that you could upgrade the machine annually for like $99 a year. And that's probably what they meant for that. But I am fairly sure that at some point that offer expired and you would not have successfully upgraded all the way from then to now at $99 a year and actually have a modern computer today.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:04]
| Sam, it's never obsolete. What are you talking about? Is a computer, is that company, I mean, they're out of business, right? I was acquired by Gateway in 2004.
|
Sam:
[1:43:14]
| Well, and Gateway is going strong right now to this day, as we know, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:19]
| I mean, they're, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're really good. They weren't really killing it.
|
Sam:
[1:43:25]
| Okay, what happened to Gateway next?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:28]
| I think it got bought by Acer. I think I'm looking at it here. Purchased by Acer. Yeah, Acer in 2007, yes. For basically less money than Apple sells in one day. $700 million.
|
Sam:
[1:43:40]
| But they still maintain the brand? I'm going to gatewayusa.com and you can still buy.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:47]
| Yeah, Acer was still making some stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:43:50]
| A couple laptops, an Android tablet.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:53]
| It never obsolete sam never i mean you know it's like fast reliable internet access powered by mci uu net of course the world's richest internet content provided by netscape surf email invest shop chat travel and more this thing had an intel celeron processor with 32 megabytes of, ram and a 10 gigabyte hard drive and a 40 times speed cd-rom because that was you know that you don't remember how that multiplier on the speed of the cd-rom was always like so oh it's 40 times 80 times 80 times what yeah i know it's standard speed of the original cd whatever yes yes okay i know i get that but you know it's like 3d graph agp graphics sam we tell you i mean listen this thing. State of the art. Let me tell you.
|
Sam:
[1:44:53]
| Never obsolete.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:54]
| Never obsolete.
|
Sam:
[1:44:55]
| Are we done?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:57]
| We're done.
|
Sam:
[1:44:58]
| You should get one of those machines.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:02]
| Try to find like a fully working one to see, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:45:06]
| Next week's podcast will record. You will use that machine.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:10]
| On Netscape, you know, what the hell, version 3.0 or something, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:45:15]
| Something.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:17]
| Windows Me. As far as I remember, that was not remembered as a great operating system.
|
Sam:
[1:45:24]
| I believe your memory is correct.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:27]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:45:28]
| It was one of the ones that was regarded as a mistake, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:45:32]
| Basically, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:45:33]
| Like where people were warning, don't upgrade to this. No. Stick with what's older or wait for the next one. This sucks.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:42]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:45:44]
| Wasn't Windows 98 or something? Didn't that one have like Bob.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:46]
| Which was the one that had like Bob or the assistant?
|
Sam:
[1:45:50]
| I thought Bob was its own thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:52]
| Bob was its own thing? We've got the assistant. We've got Clippy. We've got Bob. I actually like Clippy.
|
Sam:
[1:45:59]
| Well, now everything's Clippy, right? Basically. They're sticking Clippy in everything. Yeah. Basically, that's what chat GPT is, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:46:07]
| Basically, yeah, I know.
|
Sam:
[1:46:08]
| It's basically Clippy. So, anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:12]
| Anyway. All right, we're done.
|
Sam:
[1:46:13]
| We're done. Thank you, everybody. Have a great week. Stay safe. Have fun. Blah, blah, blah. All of the things I say. thanks to the one person who's watching us live right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:24]
| It's not me.
|
Sam:
[1:46:25]
| It's not you. They just started like 15 minutes ago, 13 minutes ago. We appreciate you. The actual podcast will be out later this weekend. Goodbye. Here's the music.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:39]
| Music.
|
Sam:
[1:47:08]
| The one person who was watching us live stopped watching right after I mentioned it. And I started that.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:14]
| You, you, you, you, I mean, you intimidate.
|
Sam:
[1:47:16]
| I chased them away. Yeah. is like I see you I see you're watching and they're like ah I.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:23]
| See well what do you mean you're like oh shit.
|
Sam:
[1:47:26]
| Okay hitting stop bye Yvonne bye.
| |
|
