WEBVTT 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:04.490 Okay, I guess we're going. Let's do this. 00:00:04.490 --> 00:00:31.090 Transcription by CastingWords 00:00:31.110 --> 00:00:34.230 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, 00:00:35.630 --> 00:00:39.790 November 30th, 2024. I am Sam Minter. 00:00:40.110 --> 00:00:44.910 We, we, we, we, we, we do not have Yvonne Bowe here today. 00:00:45.650 --> 00:00:49.850 Yvonne had a family medical thing happen. 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:55.850 He has posted on Facebook, so I guess I can say at least that his wife burst 00:00:55.850 --> 00:01:00.070 her Achilles' hand. Like, can I even talk? 00:01:02.910 --> 00:01:08.250 It was an, it was an Achilles tendon. No, I can't talk. No, I can't talk at all. 00:01:08.470 --> 00:01:11.670 This is it. I might as well just hang it up. Forget it. 00:01:12.790 --> 00:01:19.590 His wife had an Achilles tendon injury that he has been helping attend to. 00:01:20.630 --> 00:01:25.490 And yeah, so she's, she's out of commission for a little bit and he's helping 00:01:25.490 --> 00:01:27.490 out with everything required for that. 00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:32.510 I did send out one of my little notes asking for co-hosts to, 00:01:32.870 --> 00:01:37.570 as usual, all the people on the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack, people who have co-hosted before. 00:01:40.450 --> 00:01:48.090 This is going to be a tough podcast. All of the people who have co-hosted before 00:01:48.090 --> 00:01:52.730 and people who have said they might be interested, minus the last three guest 00:01:52.730 --> 00:01:54.450 co-hosts, including myself. 00:01:54.450 --> 00:02:00.550 So right now, that meant I excluded Pete and Ed, and I excluded myself, 00:02:00.570 --> 00:02:04.050 but nobody else answered, so here I am. 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:09.580 All by my lonesome, as usual, when I do these completely solo, 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:11.780 I'm going to split this over multiple sessions. 00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:18.780 As I'm recording this, it is, did I say it's, it's just after 2030 UTC on Saturday, November 30th. 00:02:18.940 --> 00:02:22.960 And I'm going to record this first segment and then I'm going to take a break 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:24.760 and I'm going to record more tomorrow. 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:27.060 And then I'll wrap it up eventually. 00:02:27.420 --> 00:02:33.440 I don't know. Oh, you know, when I do it solo, it's, it's just easier that way. 00:02:33.660 --> 00:02:37.520 Like I don't have to, I don't, I don't know. I do a little bit, 00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:41.820 I do a burst and then I'm like, okay, I'm done for now. I'll take a break. 00:02:42.480 --> 00:02:48.520 Anyway, as usual, we'll do a butt first, which is less newsy stuff. 00:02:48.700 --> 00:02:54.180 And then the other segments I'll do in a more newsy way, more newsy topics, 00:02:54.440 --> 00:03:00.720 stuff like that. But my non-newsy thing today is a little bit of a complaint. 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:08.200 And this is a complaint against an e-commerce vendor who shall remain unnamed, 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:10.500 although you can probably guess. 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:17.340 I mentioned on the show last week, I think, I don't know, like I was replacing my microphone. 00:03:17.700 --> 00:03:23.120 And the reason was I've had this Blue Yeti microphone for years and years and years. 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:29.780 And you know at the time i got it it was like hey this is one of your best sort of amateur grade, 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:35.780 usb mic like i i didn't want to deal with like the the connectors and stuff 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:39.980 for the whatever you call them the big connectors with the three things and 00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:46.500 the blah blah blah you know the ones real pros use i'm like usbc yeah usb is 00:03:46.500 --> 00:03:50.200 fine and i just wanted to hook up to my computer easily and blah, blah, blah. 00:03:50.440 --> 00:03:53.220 And, and blue was considered one of the better, the blue Yeti. 00:03:53.340 --> 00:03:58.520 I, before that I had the blue snowball and anyway, but it years had gone by. 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:01.820 And one of the things I like about the blue that. 00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:10.340 Yvonne does not use, he can't stand it, is I use a wired connection to plug 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:16.840 my headphones back in so I can hear myself as I record live. 00:04:17.220 --> 00:04:21.440 So like I can get a sense of, am I too loud? 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:25.520 Am I too soft? Is there a buzzing? Am I at the right distance from the microphone? 00:04:25.880 --> 00:04:28.720 Which by the way, I am borrowing my wife's right now. 00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:32.600 And so I don't have it like where I usually do. So I'm further from the mic 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:37.920 than I usually would be like over here is probably where I really should be 00:04:37.920 --> 00:04:39.900 for the microphone for this microphone. 00:04:40.320 --> 00:04:47.340 And you can hear like, there's a lot less echo around me, or maybe there's more, 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:48.660 I don't know a great way to say it. 00:04:48.760 --> 00:04:54.040 I, my voice is fuller when I'm speaking this closely to the microphone. 00:04:54.060 --> 00:05:00.620 And it sounds a little bit more like you would hear on like an actual radio show. 00:05:00.760 --> 00:05:04.140 I don't know if you can, can you guys tell the difference anyway? 00:05:04.280 --> 00:05:08.480 And this is me just speaking like further away from the mic. 00:05:08.580 --> 00:05:14.260 Cause I I'm using a desk stand cause this is my wife's mic that I'm borrowing and it's easier. 00:05:14.580 --> 00:05:18.040 Like when I have it on my little stand, I can put the microphone close. 00:05:18.440 --> 00:05:20.280 You guys don't care. Anyway, the 00:05:20.280 --> 00:05:24.060 point was the microphone was in general working fine, blah, blah, blah. 00:05:24.200 --> 00:05:29.480 But the little thing where you hook in the headphones, the wired headphones, 00:05:29.740 --> 00:05:33.900 the port had gotten loose to the point where it wasn't working anymore. 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:36.420 Like it had for a long time been, you had to like. 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:40.920 Put it in just right. You had to jiggle it a little bit to get a connection, 00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:43.820 whatever. And I dealt with that for a long time, but it just gave up the ghost 00:05:43.820 --> 00:05:45.000 and stopped working entirely. 00:05:45.340 --> 00:05:49.060 So a few weeks ago, I had a show where somebody, and by somebody, 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:53.020 I generally mean my son, Alex, had messed with the gain on the microphone and turned it up. 00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:57.780 And I didn't notice before recording because I couldn't hear myself because 00:05:57.780 --> 00:06:01.300 this thing was broken. And I'm like, ah, screw it. I'll get a new microphone. 00:06:01.960 --> 00:06:04.480 The point of this talk is not microphones. 00:06:05.360 --> 00:06:09.960 The point of this is I ordered a replacement microphone and it's, 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:11.980 it's like, I went with the same brand. 00:06:12.100 --> 00:06:18.000 I went with blue again, but their newer model, like instead of the blue Yeti, the blue X or whatever. 00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:25.040 Anyway, I ordered it from this large e-commerce site who shall not be named. 00:06:25.900 --> 00:06:28.440 And I didn't really pay much attention. I was just like, okay, 00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:31.000 I'm getting it. I click the button, click the button, click the button, done. 00:06:32.020 --> 00:06:37.600 So yesterday I went ahead to like set up this new microphone. 00:06:38.420 --> 00:06:43.560 First thing I noticed when I take it out of the shipping box was the interior 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:48.560 box, you know, the actual product box was a little beat up. 00:06:49.060 --> 00:06:52.620 I'm like, okay, whatever. That sucks, but it's just a box. 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:57.080 I don't really give a crap about the box. Like somebody obviously didn't treat this well. 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:04.300 But then when I started opening it up, I'm like, wait a second. 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:11.260 I started seeing, first of all, the little flap, you know, they seal these things 00:07:11.260 --> 00:07:15.760 with the little plastic circle things that, you know, seal the box. 00:07:15.980 --> 00:07:22.020 That was a little looser than I would normally expect. And I'm like, okay. 00:07:23.760 --> 00:07:28.120 And I'd also, the same day I'd gotten some, some speakers. 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.200 They also had loose little flaps, 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:34.820 but like I opened that up and everything went fine, blah, blah, blah. 00:07:35.260 --> 00:07:38.720 But I noticed this on the, the microphone. 00:07:39.400 --> 00:07:43.120 Then when I actually started taking the microphone out, I'm. 00:07:43.810 --> 00:07:48.750 I noticed scuffs. I'm like, wait a second. 00:07:48.910 --> 00:07:52.090 This looks like, you know, this is a little thing. 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:55.170 There's one place where it looked like a sticker had been removed and it was 00:07:55.170 --> 00:08:00.650 the little schmutzis from the sticker still there. And another place, 00:08:00.650 --> 00:08:03.870 it looked like it had been nicked or something. 00:08:04.470 --> 00:08:08.050 And then I found like there was a place with a large gouge. 00:08:08.290 --> 00:08:12.130 And I'm like, what the hell? well and then 00:08:12.130 --> 00:08:15.970 there and then i i actually took 00:08:15.970 --> 00:08:18.870 it all out i plugged it in and then there's a place in the new one 00:08:18.870 --> 00:08:22.350 they've got like some some little lights so 00:08:22.350 --> 00:08:25.910 that unlike the old one there's like there's like a volume meter so when you 00:08:25.910 --> 00:08:30.190 talk there's a little visual indicator of how loud you are so you can tell right 00:08:30.190 --> 00:08:34.370 away are you being too loud are you being too soft speaking of which i talk 00:08:34.370 --> 00:08:40.970 up here again really close to the mic do you guys like that do i sound is is it like some ASMR stuff? 00:08:41.170 --> 00:08:47.090 Should I be like, and then I went to the store and the store was very nice. 00:08:47.630 --> 00:08:54.770 And in the store, I went and saw the rabbits and the rabbits were very nice 00:08:54.770 --> 00:08:57.010 too. Okay. I won't do that. 00:08:58.130 --> 00:09:02.730 Anyway. And I just knocked the mic and hit him. Anyway, this, 00:09:02.790 --> 00:09:04.270 this thing was clearly used. 00:09:04.270 --> 00:09:08.450 This thing had clearly been used, 00:09:09.250 --> 00:09:15.810 hit, beat up, stuffed back in the box, and returned and sold again as new Now 00:09:15.810 --> 00:09:19.510 to be clear, at the e-commerce site I got this from, 00:09:19.930 --> 00:09:25.830 you do have opportunity to potentially buy used versions of things at a discount 00:09:25.830 --> 00:09:35.330 I did not do that I absolutely did not do that I ordered a new one This thing was clearly... 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:42.160 Returned and resold. Now, and I understand lots of places do that. 00:09:42.600 --> 00:09:48.780 Like they, they, it's theoretically, they inspect returns, they see if they're fine. 00:09:48.920 --> 00:09:53.340 And if they're fine, they potentially stick them back in the box and sell them 00:09:53.340 --> 00:09:55.840 again when something has been returned. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:02.700 But at least theoretically, they should pass some sort of really good inspection, right? 00:10:03.300 --> 00:10:08.020 And even then, Frankly, I think at that point you should be selling it as a 00:10:08.020 --> 00:10:13.000 discount, as nearly new or something like that. 00:10:13.280 --> 00:10:16.860 But this one had clearly been damaged. 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:24.400 Now, I didn't actually try to record anything with it, but I did get it set up. 00:10:24.520 --> 00:10:28.960 I did plug it in before I decided this is too much. Because I kept debating. 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:31.600 I am not one. I do not. 00:10:32.800 --> 00:10:40.700 My, my just, I'm not built for returning things, you know, it's just so much goddamn hassle. 00:10:41.520 --> 00:10:47.820 I mean, and, and, and like, I, I just hate the process and like, 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:50.100 I physically am bad at the process. 00:10:50.280 --> 00:10:53.300 Like I, cause you, you have to like pack it back up. 00:10:53.420 --> 00:10:59.480 You have to take it somewhere either, either to ship it or to a return center or something. 00:10:59.900 --> 00:11:04.180 And it's just a hassle. And I don't like going through the hassle. 00:11:04.980 --> 00:11:11.520 And to be honest, I also have that autistic tendency of like giving personality 00:11:11.520 --> 00:11:16.420 to inanimate objects and being like, but would it feel neglected? 00:11:16.500 --> 00:11:19.920 Would it feel sad if I sent it back? 00:11:20.800 --> 00:11:24.940 You know, like if I was this microphone, on. 00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:31.840 And here is my opportunity to like be used and loved and blah, 00:11:31.900 --> 00:11:33.980 blah, blah. And yes, I've got a little scuff. 00:11:34.140 --> 00:11:37.700 My previous owner abused me, but please love me. 00:11:38.380 --> 00:11:41.960 Of course, I said something like that out loud. And so Alex, 00:11:42.180 --> 00:11:45.980 my son, starts having some of those thoughts as well. 00:11:46.140 --> 00:11:51.340 But I convinced myself, like after I found, like I was about ready to just say, 00:11:51.460 --> 00:11:53.980 okay, screw it. A couple of cosmetic scuffs. 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:56.660 It doesn't really matter. I'll use the stupid thing. 00:11:56.860 --> 00:12:04.600 But then one of the lights that I mentioned, like that was messed up too. 00:12:04.820 --> 00:12:09.200 So the light looked wrong because like, you know how these things work. 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:12.460 There's the light and then they sort of, some of it is painted over in black. 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:16.760 So the light would be bigger, except they paint it just right. 00:12:16.760 --> 00:12:22.160 So that only the part that's supposed to show shows, but like that paint had been scraped off. 00:12:22.380 --> 00:12:26.700 So instead of the light being, you know, a really careful pattern that shows 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:30.540 you how, how loud you are or whatever, there was just a blob of light. 00:12:31.020 --> 00:12:35.660 And I'm like, no, that would bother me every freaking time I looked at it. 00:12:35.720 --> 00:12:37.900 Cause like one of the other scuffs was like on the back. 00:12:38.060 --> 00:12:41.340 I wouldn't see it all the time. I'm like, eh, whatever I can live with that. 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:46.920 So I actually started the process of doing a return. I went to the webpage. 00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:53.480 I typed in the reasons I filled, you know, picked the right thing. 00:12:53.480 --> 00:12:57.060 And I was like, you know, whatever, I'm going to do the damn return and I'm 00:12:57.060 --> 00:12:58.420 going to order a new microphone. 00:12:58.660 --> 00:13:04.600 Oh, I will add, by the way, the e-commerce site that I bought this from. 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:10.100 Has all kinds of third-party vendors that sell through them as well. 00:13:11.060 --> 00:13:13.960 And honestly, I had not been paying attention. 00:13:14.180 --> 00:13:19.300 I thought I had bought this directly from the e-commerce vendor, 00:13:19.800 --> 00:13:21.780 not through one of their third parties. 00:13:21.880 --> 00:13:25.820 But then as I'm going through to the return process, I look carefully at the 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:27.260 invoice and no, no, no, no, no. 00:13:27.800 --> 00:13:31.980 This had been through one of their third parties. And it was through some third 00:13:31.980 --> 00:13:34.020 party that was like something, 00:13:34.020 --> 00:13:38.360 something deal something something and i'm like this is 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:41.500 why it was something something deal something honestly i hadn't 00:13:41.500 --> 00:13:46.320 even i mean i'd looked at the price but i hadn't done any price comparison i 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:50.000 was just sort of like okay this is a reasonable price for the product i'm getting 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:56.420 i i didn't like you know compare to the undiscounted retail price i didn't look 00:13:56.420 --> 00:13:58.800 at other places i didn't So like, 00:13:59.340 --> 00:14:03.180 you know, and it's, it's so easy. 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:10.340 Like they, they intentionally make it so that you have to be paying attention 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:16.240 to know if you're buying from a third party or directly. 00:14:17.760 --> 00:14:21.900 And yeah, so it was like some third party. I'm like, okay, this is what happened. 00:14:21.900 --> 00:14:29.760 It was sold through a third party that is specifically, their whole business 00:14:29.760 --> 00:14:32.860 might be reselling return crap. I don't know. 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:36.920 Or maybe they do sell the new stuff, but then they have a very loose policy 00:14:36.920 --> 00:14:39.780 about like, hey, just shove it back in and sell it again. 00:14:39.920 --> 00:14:42.300 No inspections, no nothing, no whatever, blah, blah, blah. 00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:45.780 And then deal with the returns when they happen. 00:14:46.620 --> 00:14:50.800 At this point I was pissed. I was doing the return. I was ready to do the return. 00:14:51.040 --> 00:14:58.180 I was all, all about like, I still, I still didn't want to do a return. 00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:04.160 Like my, again, my natural inclination is that I would be like lesson learned, 00:15:04.160 --> 00:15:08.880 pay more freaking attention next time and make sure, 00:15:09.180 --> 00:15:16.060 you know, you're, you're buying from, you know, what you think you're buying 00:15:16.060 --> 00:15:19.540 from and double check everything. 00:15:20.520 --> 00:15:24.300 Like, and I double checked, like, did I accidentally buy a new, a used one? 00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:28.580 No, I did not accidentally buy a used one. It was, it was supposed to be new. 00:15:29.620 --> 00:15:35.040 Anyway, around this time, my son starts negotiating with me because he has decided 00:15:35.040 --> 00:15:37.940 he does not want me to return this thing. 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:42.800 And I'm like, are you willing to pay for it? 00:15:43.460 --> 00:15:51.720 And we negotiated. He, He ended up paying me 60% of my purchase price in order 00:15:51.720 --> 00:15:54.940 for him to keep the damaged microphone. 00:15:56.020 --> 00:16:02.100 Now, I know him. He is never going to use that damaged microphone. 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:06.760 We packed it all back up in the box because I was ready to return it. 00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:08.720 I packed it all back in the box. 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:13.900 I told him that he either had 00:16:13.900 --> 00:16:16.640 to take it to his room where i wouldn't see 00:16:16.640 --> 00:16:19.440 it or actually hook it up to his computer and 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:23.080 use it that would be acceptable too otherwise i 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.960 would consider that he changed his mind and i would go ahead and return this 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:33.840 thing i think do you take it i'm looking around right now i think he did i think 00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:36.980 he did eventually take take it to his room either that or he hid it somewhere 00:16:36.980 --> 00:16:41.500 in my office where I cannot currently see it. 00:16:46.600 --> 00:16:53.960 Anyway, I immediately ordered a new one. And this time I made very careful sure. 00:16:54.340 --> 00:17:02.960 Like I wanted one directly from the e-commerce retailer that I was intending 00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:06.800 to purchase from, not through one of their third parties. 00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:17.100 And it was like 20 bucks more. But I'm like, you know, my intention here, yes, like, 00:17:17.700 --> 00:17:25.660 you know, all things being equal, I would like to pay less, but all things are clearly not equal. 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:32.700 You know, the shipping, I almost accidentally bought it from the same third 00:17:32.700 --> 00:17:35.260 party vendor that I got the first one from. 00:17:35.580 --> 00:17:38.180 And I thought I was paying attention, but I wasn't. 00:17:38.980 --> 00:17:42.120 I'm like no i 00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:45.600 had to pay careful attention and make sure and 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:50.000 like look i buy all kinds of things and i've gotten all kinds of things from 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.860 third-party vendors before and it's been absolutely fine and especially for 00:17:54.860 --> 00:18:03.920 cheap things who cares who cares like you know if i'm if i am buying. 00:18:05.620 --> 00:18:09.020 Like, I don't know, like I, I, I buy, I buy everything online. 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:13.900 I go to the store for hardly anything, like, unless I am forced. 00:18:14.520 --> 00:18:18.120 So like, I'll buy bottles of shampoo, I'll buy toothbrushes, 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:24.660 I'll buy toothpaste, I'll buy, you know, soap and toilet paper and all of this kinds of stuff. 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:30.000 And frankly, like for a lot of these things, will I care about the brand? 00:18:30.260 --> 00:18:34.320 Usually I'll care about the brand, but will I care about the seller? Usually not. 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:37.600 Cause like, I don't know. 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.640 I suppose if you're worried about like tampering or something, 00:18:40.800 --> 00:18:44.740 you don't want toothpaste that has actually been replaced with like, 00:18:44.860 --> 00:18:46.980 I don't know, hemorrhoids cream or something. 00:18:47.300 --> 00:18:50.520 No, that would be bad, but like, that's not what you expect. 00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:54.920 Maybe I should expect, I'll check everything. Right. 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:01.140 But for those kinds of low dollar things, I really don't care. 00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:07.760 Like if it gets screwed up, I'll be like, man, it was screwed up, whatever next. 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:13.480 And I guess like my threshold, like this, this microphone is. 00:19:14.170 --> 00:19:17.870 Including tax and everything else was like $125 or something. 00:19:18.170 --> 00:19:23.030 I think the first one I said was $20 cheaper. 00:19:23.190 --> 00:19:26.230 Maybe this one was, it was $125. 00:19:26.490 --> 00:19:32.090 And then when I got the, I want to make sure it's coming from the place I think 00:19:32.090 --> 00:19:33.550 it's coming from, it was like $145. 00:19:34.150 --> 00:19:38.830 And I guess that's above my mental threshold because I was like, this was a purchase. 00:19:39.010 --> 00:19:44.530 I was looking forward to setting up this new microphone. and I was pissed off. 00:19:44.750 --> 00:19:52.130 I was annoyed. I was like, I ordered a new microphone and this one is all scuffed 00:19:52.130 --> 00:19:56.010 up and dented and damaged. And what the fucking hell? 00:19:56.170 --> 00:19:59.950 So I was ready to return it. And honestly, I probably should have anyway. 00:20:00.170 --> 00:20:03.930 I probably shouldn't have let my son buy it off me, but you know, 00:20:04.210 --> 00:20:10.650 the way you learn how to be careful with your money is to actually make mistakes 00:20:10.650 --> 00:20:13.210 and spend things on things you shouldn't. 00:20:13.230 --> 00:20:18.010 Now he has no, shown no signs of actually, like this is allowance money, right? 00:20:18.090 --> 00:20:23.290 So he's not like actually, and we give allowance a certain amount, just regular. 00:20:23.510 --> 00:20:27.530 Like he, he theoretically could earn money from doing stuff, 00:20:27.690 --> 00:20:34.170 but he doesn't, but we, we never required like chores for the basic amount. 00:20:34.450 --> 00:20:37.490 Like there's a certain amount we give no matter what. 00:20:38.290 --> 00:20:45.530 And so I don't think he's shown a lot of signs of yet learning exactly how much that stuff's worth. 00:20:45.850 --> 00:20:49.330 The things we kind of charge him for, first of all, he'll buy his own stuff 00:20:49.330 --> 00:20:52.090 online with his allowance money. 00:20:52.330 --> 00:20:55.930 He will, another thing he does often is when we order out food, 00:20:56.170 --> 00:21:00.910 like for delivery, I usually give him a dollar limit that I will pay for. 00:21:01.090 --> 00:21:05.150 And if he wants to go above that, then I'm pulling it out of his allowance and 00:21:05.150 --> 00:21:06.770 we have an allowance card. So that's easy. 00:21:06.890 --> 00:21:09.730 It's all in an app. I pull the money back and forth and blah, blah, blah. 00:21:10.870 --> 00:21:15.430 And yeah, so he'll do that. And there are a few other things he pays for on its own. 00:21:15.530 --> 00:21:20.430 And typically the thing is when he wants something that we're like, 00:21:20.470 --> 00:21:23.010 we don't want to waste our money on that. 00:21:23.510 --> 00:21:27.870 We give him the opportunity to waste his money on that. And then that's all, 00:21:27.930 --> 00:21:32.450 that's all on him, you know, and he can use that money, but he's still. 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:37.520 Spends his money on stupid stuff but you know what he's 15 whatever 00:21:37.520 --> 00:21:40.300 anyway i let him buy the microphone off 00:21:40.300 --> 00:21:43.520 me i i i was one click away from 00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:46.880 doing the return but i was like you 00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:52.960 know and if i had not ever said anything i am not because i did say something 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:58.340 like i wonder if the microphone will be sad if i return so maybe i set off this 00:21:58.340 --> 00:22:04.420 whole thing but honestly i think he might have gone on that direction anyway, 00:22:04.420 --> 00:22:10.020 because this is something where he and I are very alike. 00:22:11.460 --> 00:22:15.200 So anyway, I ordered a replacement mic. It'll be here tomorrow. 00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:21.640 But for the second week in a row, I'm using my wife's microphone on a desk stand 00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:28.200 instead of on my little arm thing that I can put directly in front of my face more easily. 00:22:29.100 --> 00:22:36.200 Again, I can lean into the mic and talk like this and use my, 00:22:36.540 --> 00:22:41.380 is this a radio? No, that's a stupid voice. 00:22:42.840 --> 00:22:51.080 Anyway, I can do the directly into the microphone NPR voice kind of thing, but I, 00:22:51.620 --> 00:22:57.540 Let's not anyway. And, and I mentioned, I also got these speakers cause my, 00:22:57.640 --> 00:23:00.920 my old speaker set that I, that I have on my computer, 00:23:01.100 --> 00:23:05.040 not like speakers for the living room or something, but the speakers I had on 00:23:05.040 --> 00:23:10.460 my computer had almost since I got them for, I mean, like these, 00:23:10.580 --> 00:23:12.880 these were really, really old speakers, 00:23:13.120 --> 00:23:19.740 like speakers I probably had for 15 years or more And the same brand and type, 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:22.720 by the way, that I'd probably had for 15 years before that. 00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:27.480 But they were, you know, completely wired speakers. 00:23:27.620 --> 00:23:37.160 And there was always interference because like, you know, my desk is a complete 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:38.980 tangle of wires of everything. 00:23:38.980 --> 00:23:43.900 And, you know, if Yvonne was here, he like is obsessive about running all the 00:23:43.900 --> 00:23:49.600 wires in really neat places and using like cable management stuff to make them 00:23:49.600 --> 00:23:54.580 all stay completely out of the way in straight lines, not visible, blah, blah, blah. 00:23:54.800 --> 00:23:58.720 My desk is just a tangle of stuff. And I actually like, 00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:04.560 I can't stand when the cables are all like neatly routed and stuff, 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:08.000 because I want to be able to get in there and unplug things, 00:24:08.120 --> 00:24:12.280 plug things back in, change things around at a moment's notice and not have 00:24:12.280 --> 00:24:14.020 to worry about undoing things. 00:24:14.020 --> 00:24:18.380 Like this woman that we have come help clean the house sometimes. 00:24:18.940 --> 00:24:20.620 She's coming later today, actually. 00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:25.920 Sometimes when she finds like, you know, the cables we have, 00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:30.640 the charge cables we have plugged in for phones and stuff, like we'll wrap them up neatly and stuff. 00:24:31.120 --> 00:24:36.160 And every time I find that, I'm like, ah, you've made them unusable. 00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:41.040 I have to undo this before I can even use them again. And, 00:24:41.560 --> 00:24:45.640 Yeah. Anyway, my desk is a complete mess of cables. 00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:51.100 And with this wired analog cable, it meant that my speakers were constantly 00:24:51.100 --> 00:24:52.900 doing crackling noises. 00:24:53.420 --> 00:25:00.360 Now, if I was actually like turned up music or something, I couldn't hear the 00:25:00.360 --> 00:25:03.700 crackling noises anymore unless I really carefully paid attention. 00:25:03.700 --> 00:25:08.820 But whenever it was actually silent, that's when the crackling noises were just 00:25:08.820 --> 00:25:12.780 all over the place. And I was like, I'm going to order new speakers. 00:25:13.020 --> 00:25:14.800 And I finally ordered new speakers. 00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:19.840 And these, in addition to the analog connection, they can connect via USB. 00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:26.140 And they, so far, no crackle. I'm very happy about that. They're actually not 00:25:26.140 --> 00:25:30.380 quite as powerful as the old speakers I had. They can't get quite as loud. 00:25:30.580 --> 00:25:33.360 And it's absolutely fine when the air conditioner is not on, 00:25:33.420 --> 00:25:35.100 but when the air conditioner comes on, because I have the. 00:25:35.580 --> 00:25:41.800 My house has central air, but when my office, which is full of computers and 00:25:41.800 --> 00:25:47.540 electronics and has windows that sometimes get sun, my office can heat up anyway, 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:48.880 despite the central air. 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:53.740 So I have a supplemental window air conditioner in here. And when that thing 00:25:53.740 --> 00:25:57.860 turns on, then it's actually, I wish it was slightly louder, 00:25:58.020 --> 00:25:59.720 these new speakers, but they're doing fine. 00:25:59.820 --> 00:26:06.880 But the point is, the new speakers had even more evidence on the actual box, 00:26:07.020 --> 00:26:13.480 like their little circle sticker things had clearly been taken on and off several times before. 00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:18.760 And I'm like but that one like I opened it up and once I got it open and once 00:26:18.760 --> 00:26:23.780 I got the stuff out and I couldn't see any problem with them and maybe there 00:26:23.780 --> 00:26:29.100 was something invisible I don't know maybe there's a there's a dent or a scuff 00:26:29.100 --> 00:26:31.900 or something I didn't see or didn't notice, 00:26:32.520 --> 00:26:38.180 but for the most part they were exactly what I expected the microphone on the other hand. 00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:43.900 Visibly damaged in multiple places. I'm like, I was so upset. 00:26:44.180 --> 00:26:52.440 Anyway, the moral of all this is when ordering from prominent e-commerce vendors 00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:56.760 that also sell products that are sold by third parties, 00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:05.280 even if those third-party products are shipped from the e-commerce vendor themselves, pay attention. 00:27:06.840 --> 00:27:10.620 Like sometimes they make it hard to pay attention, but pay attention. 00:27:10.940 --> 00:27:16.300 And if you are intentionally choosing that, absolutely fine. 00:27:17.080 --> 00:27:21.400 Absolutely fine. Like, like I said, in this case, 00:27:21.580 --> 00:27:27.920 it was like $20 cheaper to like buy from the third party seller, 00:27:28.100 --> 00:27:29.380 which is undoubtedly why they 00:27:29.380 --> 00:27:32.640 were the one that was highlighted and the default and blah, blah, blah. 00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:40.580 That's how that you know but and and and most of like i have not had this particular 00:27:40.580 --> 00:27:47.440 problem before or maybe i just haven't noticed usually when i order new stuff i get new stuff but, 00:27:48.220 --> 00:27:52.580 and should i i don't know should i report the seller or something i feel like 00:27:52.580 --> 00:27:57.460 if i did the return that would kind of happen automatically but like i haven't done the return. 00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:04.680 Anyway too too much work too much responsibility i ordered the new one it'll 00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:09.180 be here tomorrow but yeah just pay attention know what you're doing especially 00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:12.600 i guess we're we're getting into that holiday season. 00:28:13.810 --> 00:28:21.210 As I record this, yesterday was Black Friday. And I saw some reports on, 00:28:21.290 --> 00:28:23.990 I guess I'm saying the news, 00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:32.170 but I saw it on social media, of course, that the physical brick and mortar 00:28:32.170 --> 00:28:36.130 Black Friday ain't what it used to be. 00:28:36.130 --> 00:28:40.970 Like I remember years ago, people going absolutely nuts. 00:28:41.970 --> 00:28:45.810 Showing up at midnight, showing up at dawn crowds, 00:28:46.390 --> 00:28:51.270 like people getting trampled, trying to get into the freaking store, 00:28:51.270 --> 00:28:57.650 people running to the back of the store to try to get the deepest discounted, 00:28:57.690 --> 00:29:03.230 like big screen TVs and crap and like violence ensuing. 00:29:03.230 --> 00:29:06.170 I think that's dying down. 00:29:06.550 --> 00:29:12.450 I saw a number of reports of people at like their local local big box mega stores 00:29:12.450 --> 00:29:16.430 being like, it's quiet. It's not even crowded. 00:29:16.930 --> 00:29:21.110 And that's probably not everywhere. But I don't know. I think that's a good thing. 00:29:21.310 --> 00:29:27.030 I don't know. I'm I feel like for the last few years and I've bought everything 00:29:27.030 --> 00:29:33.650 online for the Christmas holidays, like our family is not religious. us, but we do Christmas. 00:29:34.450 --> 00:29:40.730 We have the upside down Christmas tree that's been hanging in our house for 00:29:40.730 --> 00:29:44.630 several years. We do not take it down in between Christmases because it's too much of a pain. 00:29:45.970 --> 00:29:50.190 At least that's my attitude. I think my wife would actually prefer that it come 00:29:50.190 --> 00:29:53.510 down, but nobody has the willpower. 00:29:54.150 --> 00:29:57.170 I mean, if she took it down, I guess I wouldn't object, 00:29:57.790 --> 00:30:03.110 but i don't want to go through the effort and just leave it up like the way i look at it, 00:30:03.670 --> 00:30:06.390 is why the hell would you take it down if you're just going 00:30:06.390 --> 00:30:09.210 to put it back up 10 or 11 months later just leave 00:30:09.210 --> 00:30:15.230 the damn thing up whatever anyway so it's just it we just keep it up we don't 00:30:15.230 --> 00:30:18.610 usually turn the lights on when it's not actually christmas and we've talked 00:30:18.610 --> 00:30:24.030 a number of times about like changing the decorations to match the season and 00:30:24.030 --> 00:30:26.590 the holiday so we have an upside down tree all year long. 00:30:26.790 --> 00:30:31.710 But like in the springtime, it would be like pink flowers and crap, 00:30:32.050 --> 00:30:34.790 probably fake ones. Cause I'm allergic, but yeah, whatever. 00:30:35.110 --> 00:30:39.890 And at Halloween it would be pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns. I guess jack-o'-lanterns 00:30:39.890 --> 00:30:43.250 are skeletons, pumpkins and skeletons and things. 00:30:43.410 --> 00:30:51.930 And I don't know, like we could decorate it with effigies of me for father's day. I don't know. 00:30:53.550 --> 00:30:56.710 Anyway, my point was, 00:30:56.990 --> 00:31:05.850 my usual shopping habit has been to buy one item a day from December 1st through 00:31:05.850 --> 00:31:10.270 until it's too late to actually buy anything more for Christmas Day. 00:31:10.430 --> 00:31:19.850 And then split those 24-ish purchases amongst the family members I'm going to give gifts for. 00:31:19.850 --> 00:31:23.430 But honestly at this point we have 00:31:23.430 --> 00:31:26.390 we have too much crap in the house anyway 00:31:26.390 --> 00:31:33.730 like i don't want more stuff for me honestly i've said for years like a few 00:31:33.730 --> 00:31:40.790 years back alex got me this you know stand-up console video game thing that 00:31:40.790 --> 00:31:45.210 plays tempest and centipede and a whole bunch of old like arcade games. 00:31:45.630 --> 00:31:50.490 It's still sitting in the box. Cause I opened it once and looked at it and the 00:31:50.490 --> 00:31:53.690 instructions like gave me anxiety cause they were so complicated. 00:31:53.790 --> 00:31:59.410 So I put it back in the box and for every year since then, I've told my family, 00:31:59.410 --> 00:32:06.010 the only thing I want for Christmas is for somebody else to assemble this damn thing for me. 00:32:06.330 --> 00:32:09.570 And nobody's ever assembled it. So it's still sitting there in the box in the 00:32:09.570 --> 00:32:14.730 hallway, but cause I don't need, like when I need stuff, like I needed this 00:32:14.730 --> 00:32:16.290 microphone. I ordered the microphone. 00:32:16.950 --> 00:32:20.690 I needed these speakers. I ordered the speakers. Now, to be honest, 00:32:20.830 --> 00:32:23.790 it was getting close enough to Christmas, not for the microphone. 00:32:23.890 --> 00:32:26.550 Cause I felt like I needed that right away. Cause I use it every week, 00:32:26.550 --> 00:32:30.810 but for the speakers, I was like, you know, this is on my wishlist. 00:32:31.790 --> 00:32:33.990 Maybe I should, it's after Thanksgiving. 00:32:35.110 --> 00:32:36.610 Maybe I should just wait. 00:32:37.620 --> 00:32:43.640 A month, see if anything, anybody buys this for me. And if they do, 00:32:43.780 --> 00:32:45.240 then I won't buy it myself. 00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:51.360 And then I was like, you know, usually people don't buy the things on my wishlist anyway. 00:32:51.900 --> 00:32:55.580 Screw that. I'm just going to buy it. And that's the thing. Like if there's 00:32:55.580 --> 00:32:59.800 something I need directly, I just buy it. 00:33:00.320 --> 00:33:04.320 I mean, like my wife and I have a rule. We have a dollar limit above which we 00:33:04.320 --> 00:33:13.200 will consult with each other before making purchases like, but small things do not even meet that. 00:33:13.320 --> 00:33:15.700 I'm like, I need a thing. I buy the thing. 00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:20.340 Like, you know, we're not talking to major purchase. That's going to bust a 00:33:20.340 --> 00:33:23.380 budget or cause any heartache. 00:33:23.840 --> 00:33:27.360 It just like, if I, if I need something, I buy something, you know, 00:33:27.520 --> 00:33:33.680 like in the, and so gifts really at this point, like let's go, 00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:35.900 often do something together, 00:33:36.620 --> 00:33:40.320 you know, let's, you know, we, I don't know, 00:33:40.460 --> 00:33:48.240 we can go visit somewhere, take a weekend and like do something we wouldn't 00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:55.260 usually do even just like go to a restaurant that we wouldn't go to otherwise, 00:33:55.260 --> 00:33:59.560 or I don't know, but things that aren't stuff. 00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:03.280 Because at this point like and we're hoarders too 00:34:03.280 --> 00:34:06.240 like let's just be honest my i am a 00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:09.680 hoarder my son is a hoarder my wife 00:34:09.680 --> 00:34:15.420 and daughter have adhd and decision paralysis on like stuff so like even when 00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:19.980 they're ready to get rid of stuff they don't and there's constant stuff accumulating 00:34:19.980 --> 00:34:24.040 of projects that are started but never finished but then you're like if you 00:34:24.040 --> 00:34:27.100 pick it up you're like yeah but maybe I'll want to finish this project. 00:34:27.240 --> 00:34:29.520 And no, you're never going to finish the damn project. 00:34:30.560 --> 00:34:36.260 So we just accumulate. If anything, we need desperately to get rid of stuff. 00:34:36.460 --> 00:34:39.140 We need to get rid of lots and lots of stuff. 00:34:39.420 --> 00:34:45.700 There's lots of stuff that, and look, there is stuff that's sentimental value 00:34:45.700 --> 00:34:52.820 that I would not want to throw out, but there's lots of stuff that just needs to be thrown out. 00:34:54.780 --> 00:34:59.780 But the last thing we need is more stuff, more and more and more stuff. 00:34:59.780 --> 00:35:06.640 So like I've been thinking, do I really want to do this by 24, 00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:12.220 20, you know, 24 ish new things to come into this house to split between the 00:35:12.220 --> 00:35:13.840 people here in one way or another? 00:35:14.700 --> 00:35:18.740 I'm not sure I do. And by the way, I say 24 things. 00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:24.680 It's not like 24 expensive things. There's usually like one thing per person 00:35:24.680 --> 00:35:30.040 that's like the headline gift that has a decent price tag to it. 00:35:30.660 --> 00:35:35.980 And the rest of the things are small and just are sort of an indication of, 00:35:36.040 --> 00:35:37.840 hey, I was thinking of you. 00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:41.760 Here's the small thing that I thought it was cute, whatever. 00:35:42.140 --> 00:35:46.200 But it's not like it doesn't have like a big dollar signs attached to it. 00:35:47.100 --> 00:35:50.860 But even those small things, well, maybe even especially those small things, 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:54.200 if they're small things that like the person will be like, oh, that's cute. 00:35:54.660 --> 00:35:56.440 And then put it aside and never use. 00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:00.260 We don't need that in the house. You know? 00:36:01.970 --> 00:36:06.750 Yeah. So I don't know. I, I, for the last couple of years, I've thought maybe 00:36:06.750 --> 00:36:09.650 I don't do the one thing per day thing. 00:36:09.790 --> 00:36:14.990 Like the last person who really, you know, my son as the youngest, 00:36:15.550 --> 00:36:21.570 you know, there was still sort of the, Hey, the kid needs lots of presents. 00:36:21.570 --> 00:36:26.890 They expect the sort of big Christmas festivity thing and lots of things to 00:36:26.890 --> 00:36:30.890 unwrap and it's exciting and blah, blah, blah, but he's 15. 00:36:31.310 --> 00:36:34.590 He doesn't, doesn't play with toys the same way. 00:36:34.690 --> 00:36:39.790 You can't like, it's not the same as a seven year old or an eight year old where 00:36:39.790 --> 00:36:41.950 you get them a bunch of toys and they play with the toys. 00:36:43.210 --> 00:36:48.390 15 year olds aren't the same. And I have no idea what to get him. 00:36:49.290 --> 00:36:53.710 Like, you know, I used to have an idea of what toys he would like and what toys 00:36:53.710 --> 00:36:55.170 he wouldn't. Now, I don't know. 00:36:55.910 --> 00:36:58.510 I've asked him a couple of times, do you just want extra cash? 00:36:59.130 --> 00:37:01.490 He says, no, he wants the damn presents. 00:37:02.130 --> 00:37:06.870 But I don't know what, what again, and like he is definitely one where there 00:37:06.870 --> 00:37:11.190 are piles of things from previous Christmases that he's never opened. 00:37:11.670 --> 00:37:17.110 I mean, he opened the wrapping paper, but he never actually unboxed the thing 00:37:17.110 --> 00:37:19.390 that was in the wrapping paper and used it. 00:37:19.770 --> 00:37:23.450 Some of the things he has, some of the things he hasn't. And to be fair, 00:37:23.690 --> 00:37:27.810 there are times that he has gone into his room, 00:37:28.290 --> 00:37:32.310 found an unopened box of something that we bought him for Christmas five or 00:37:32.310 --> 00:37:38.130 six years ago and brought it out and opened it and started using it. 00:37:38.850 --> 00:37:40.990 So, but I don't know. 00:37:42.110 --> 00:37:46.390 I kind of want to be done with the whole thing. Maybe say, okay, 00:37:46.510 --> 00:37:48.750 everybody gets one thing. I don't know. 00:37:50.830 --> 00:37:54.110 I don't want any more stuff. If any of my family is listening, 00:37:54.210 --> 00:37:57.770 no more stuff. I have enough stuff. If I need stuff, I'll buy stuff. 00:37:59.250 --> 00:38:04.330 Something that's not stuff, maybe. I don't know. How do you guys feel about 00:38:04.330 --> 00:38:06.530 that kind of thing? I don't know. 00:38:07.450 --> 00:38:10.550 Meanwhile, I think that's enough for a first segment. 00:38:11.910 --> 00:38:16.250 Depending on what time of day that stupid microphone arrives, 00:38:17.310 --> 00:38:23.890 maybe next time I talk to you, I'll be on the new microphone. Or not. 00:38:24.310 --> 00:38:26.890 You know, because usually these things arrive later in the day. 00:38:27.470 --> 00:38:32.750 You know and i thought about switching brands too but i didn't because it seems 00:38:32.750 --> 00:38:41.790 cute i don't know like i like it and i don't know it's fine anyway yeah arriving by 10 p.m tomorrow, 00:38:42.910 --> 00:38:49.290 who knows sometimes when they say arriving by 10 p.m it's like 9 59 p.m and 00:38:49.290 --> 00:38:52.770 i hope to have finished recording by then if but you know sometimes they show 00:38:52.770 --> 00:38:55.590 up in the morning yeah I, you just, you never know. 00:38:56.830 --> 00:39:06.510 Am I done? Am I done? I am done for this segment and I guess come back after 00:39:06.510 --> 00:39:12.490 some unknown number of hours has gone by and I will record another segment and 00:39:12.490 --> 00:39:14.410 I guess I'll talk about news year stuff. 00:39:15.560 --> 00:39:21.400 Newsier stuff. Newsier stuff. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. 00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:26.980 Okay. Oh, and I realized the live stream, I'll fix this as soon as I had stopped. 00:39:27.120 --> 00:39:31.820 Nobody's watched the live stream today anyway, but I noticed I forgot to change 00:39:31.820 --> 00:39:34.220 the date on it. So it still says November 23rd. 00:39:34.300 --> 00:39:38.220 I'll change it to November 30th, part one, once I'm done recording. 00:39:38.500 --> 00:39:40.440 Anyway, you guys don't care. 00:39:40.860 --> 00:39:43.660 What do you guys think about gifts and the holiday season and blah, 00:39:43.720 --> 00:39:47.180 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I say this, 00:39:47.380 --> 00:39:49.120 again, in a completely secular way. 00:39:49.940 --> 00:39:58.020 My family does not deal with any religious connotations of the December Christmas 00:39:58.020 --> 00:40:03.460 holiday, despite the name and the obvious religious origins of that. 00:40:05.240 --> 00:40:10.900 It's just the annual upside-down tree and lights and gift-giving. 00:40:11.160 --> 00:40:14.500 And obviously, I'm getting a little soured on the gift-giving part. 00:40:16.460 --> 00:40:19.420 I mean, I like giving, I like giving gifts. 00:40:19.640 --> 00:40:24.760 I like the ceremony of people opening it. We, we just have, we have all the 00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:26.740 shit we need. We really do. 00:40:27.040 --> 00:40:33.500 We, we, we don't need more and, and you know, or, or we just need the very strict 00:40:33.500 --> 00:40:37.280 rule of like anything new that comes into this house, twice as much stuff has 00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:39.620 to go into the trash or be donated. 00:40:39.820 --> 00:40:44.640 I guess there's, there's a bunch of stuff we have that isn't actually trash. 00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:47.580 Which is another thing that stops us from getting rid of it, 00:40:47.700 --> 00:40:50.220 because donation takes work too. 00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:55.700 And sometimes it's stuff that maybe people could actually use, 00:40:55.780 --> 00:41:00.020 and sometimes I guess it is trash. Because even though it's still usable in 00:41:00.020 --> 00:41:01.520 theory, no one's actually going to. 00:41:03.060 --> 00:41:09.680 I was trying to start this break, but I failed because I got distracted by more talking. 00:41:10.680 --> 00:41:14.160 Anyway, here's a break. backs yeah 00:41:14.160 --> 00:41:17.000 for you it'll be like a minute or two for me 00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:19.860 it'll be hours but i'll talk about serious 00:41:19.860 --> 00:41:23.560 stuff i don't know like trump shit tariffs and 00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:29.360 harris's you know paris's team doing an interview i don't know i don't know 00:41:29.360 --> 00:41:34.100 blue sky maybe i'll talk about blue sky because i don't know the trump stuff 00:41:34.100 --> 00:41:41.600 is just like yeah it's out there and the harris stuff is like do we really need any more, 00:41:42.280 --> 00:41:46.380 retrospective, whatever, you know, there's some interesting things to talk about there. 00:41:46.520 --> 00:41:50.940 But on the other hand, what's done is done talking about again, ain't going to help. 00:41:52.360 --> 00:41:56.760 I guess maybe there's some lessons for the future in there, but maybe Blue Sky. 00:41:57.340 --> 00:42:00.800 I don't know. I'll decide later. Here's the break. 00:42:01.620 --> 00:42:04.300 Okie dokie. Here it comes. 00:42:11.120 --> 00:42:18.980 It's just my internet being stupid. My internet being stupid is a new song we will make. 00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:26.340 The more the only balloon the problem, 00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:37.360 the problem the problem the problem, 00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:50.280 What? What? What? What? 00:42:52.140 --> 00:42:59.240 I'm tired what's wrong i'm i'm i'm i'm really tired you you you it's it's amazing 00:42:59.240 --> 00:43:07.700 to get the show on the road there's a road there's a road oh my god there's a road Hey. 00:43:08.520 --> 00:43:13.240 Here I am. I'm back. Are you excited that I'm back? It's like, 00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:15.940 as I said, it's the next day. 00:43:16.700 --> 00:43:21.060 It is now Sunday, December 1st, just after 19 UTC. 00:43:21.060 --> 00:43:30.860 As I continue this, and I've decided that I'm only going to do one more segment 00:43:30.860 --> 00:43:33.640 because I'm doing some stuff with the family this afternoon. 00:43:34.680 --> 00:43:37.980 And after I'm done with that, I want to actually just get this thing out. 00:43:37.980 --> 00:43:41.100 So rather than do two more segments, I'm doing one more segment, 00:43:41.100 --> 00:43:48.880 and I am just going to do a hodgepodge going down the list of things that we 00:43:48.880 --> 00:43:52.240 had listed as potential topics and talking about whichever ones I feel like. 00:43:53.040 --> 00:43:56.400 Whichever ones I feel like. I said feel like it. That's wrong. 00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:01.560 Anyway, the first thing, and this is actually from a couple weeks ago, 00:44:01.660 --> 00:44:06.860 and I think it's died down a little bit since, which is good. 00:44:06.860 --> 00:44:14.700 But I, after Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost, 00:44:14.720 --> 00:44:25.240 I was extremely disappointed to see a contingent of people on the left that 00:44:25.240 --> 00:44:29.980 were going in for election denial conspiracy theories. 00:44:29.980 --> 00:44:42.980 Like the same bullshit that we'd been criticizing the Trump side for, for years now. 00:44:43.180 --> 00:44:46.760 Now, to be fair, huge difference. 00:44:47.260 --> 00:44:54.920 Kamala Harris and her team and everybody related to them was having absolutely nothing to do with it. 00:44:55.300 --> 00:45:01.480 None whatsoever. However, these people were like trying to send her team memos 00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:04.400 and letters saying, you have to look at this. You have to look at that. 00:45:05.100 --> 00:45:11.020 And they just, yeah, the Harris people ignored them, which was the right thing to do. 00:45:11.600 --> 00:45:14.800 And, but I was seeing a lot of it on social media, specifically, 00:45:15.100 --> 00:45:17.820 mostly I've seen a lot of it on TikTok. 00:45:18.780 --> 00:45:24.640 But it was people being everything from people taking statements from the Harris 00:45:24.640 --> 00:45:30.220 team and trying to do like read things into it. 00:45:30.380 --> 00:45:36.460 Like Harris was giving out coded messages of hope and that, you know, 00:45:36.660 --> 00:45:39.500 oh, she said this and that really means this. 00:45:39.500 --> 00:45:44.580 And if you, if you carefully parse what she said, or if you, 00:45:44.740 --> 00:45:49.800 some of them were practically like counting the number of letters and the words and crap like that. 00:45:50.500 --> 00:45:57.100 Then there were other people talking about, you know, Starlink somehow being 00:45:57.100 --> 00:46:02.720 involved. And there was a thing about like, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, Elon Musk said that 00:46:02.720 --> 00:46:04.860 he knew the results before everybody else. 00:46:04.980 --> 00:46:11.100 This must be nefarious in some way. And look, it's almost certainly it's the 00:46:11.100 --> 00:46:12.280 same thing as everything else. 00:46:12.580 --> 00:46:19.560 Like he had folks with models, you know, exactly like the people who call things 00:46:19.560 --> 00:46:21.200 at the major news organizations. 00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:26.800 They have models that have like, that can take the results that have come in 00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:31.420 so far and compare them to what the expectations were and make a prediction. 00:46:31.680 --> 00:46:36.440 You know, it wasn't like, oh my God, he magically knows the answer before it happened. 00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:41.180 You know, and basically there were, there were a variety of these of a variety 00:46:41.180 --> 00:46:46.580 of different types, but the, the, the one thing they had in common was. 00:46:47.410 --> 00:46:58.090 Is absolutely zero in terms of actual information or proof of anything, of anything at all. 00:46:58.330 --> 00:47:07.790 And you can be damn well sure if there had actually been information about shenanigans 00:47:07.790 --> 00:47:12.330 of some sort that would possibly have made a difference, 00:47:12.690 --> 00:47:16.870 that Harris's election lawyers would have been all over it. 00:47:17.410 --> 00:47:23.010 Mark Elias, who's like one of the preeminent election lawyers in the country, lawyers? 00:47:23.390 --> 00:47:27.530 I once again can't talk. One of the preeminent election lawyers in the country 00:47:27.530 --> 00:47:32.670 had been talking before the election about how they were all geared up. 00:47:32.790 --> 00:47:35.170 They were ready. They had teams all over the country. 00:47:35.390 --> 00:47:42.590 They were ready to contest anything that needed contesting, both election night things. 00:47:42.930 --> 00:47:46.330 Look, there were a couple of polling places that got bomb threats. 00:47:47.410 --> 00:47:51.510 And they had to close for a little while, and that could have disrupted things. But guess what? 00:47:51.730 --> 00:47:56.070 They made sure that the polling places that were affected got to stay open late 00:47:56.070 --> 00:47:57.870 so that everybody could vote. 00:47:58.450 --> 00:48:04.570 It was all taken care of. There were other random election day things that happen 00:48:04.570 --> 00:48:09.410 every single election of every single year. 00:48:09.690 --> 00:48:11.770 Like, this is normal. 00:48:12.610 --> 00:48:15.850 There was nothing that mattered. Trump won fair and square. 00:48:16.750 --> 00:48:20.210 Straight up, you know, and, and, but there are all these people. 00:48:20.330 --> 00:48:24.610 And I recognize like the, this is sort of desire to like not believe it. 00:48:24.730 --> 00:48:27.630 And something had to have been, but no, no, no, no, no. 00:48:28.390 --> 00:48:35.110 But yet you had this group of people who were fanning the flames of, 00:48:35.250 --> 00:48:39.650 you know, something's going to happen on such and such date. 00:48:39.910 --> 00:48:44.090 And, you know, Kamala has a secret plan. Again, Kamala. 00:48:44.230 --> 00:48:48.310 Kamala has a secret plan. And come on, people. 00:48:48.970 --> 00:48:54.290 Like I said, it has died down. And the big difference between this and 2020 00:48:54.290 --> 00:48:58.570 is the people at the top fanning the flames. 00:48:58.930 --> 00:49:01.830 I mean, hell, maybe even the people at the top believing it. 00:49:03.030 --> 00:49:08.230 I mean, at this point, like, it seems clear that Donald Trump knew he lost and 00:49:08.230 --> 00:49:09.890 was just fanning all this anyway. 00:49:10.690 --> 00:49:14.430 But every once in a while, it seems like maybe he believes his own shit. 00:49:14.650 --> 00:49:17.750 But, like, I think there's plenty of evidence that he knew he lost. 00:49:18.830 --> 00:49:25.950 But that's the thing here. Like, there was no oxygen given to this from the Harris people at all. 00:49:26.090 --> 00:49:29.230 Not from Harris, not from Walls, not from any of the campaign people, 00:49:29.450 --> 00:49:36.990 nobody. Nobody else in the Democratic establishment was having one single word of this shit. 00:49:37.290 --> 00:49:42.310 They either ignored people who said this kind of stuff or shut them down immediately, 00:49:42.310 --> 00:49:47.730 which was the right thing to do. You know, just, oh. 00:49:49.710 --> 00:49:56.410 Moving on, blue sky. I mentioned this in the last segment and people have been 00:49:56.410 --> 00:49:58.330 talking about it, so I figure I might as well. 00:49:59.530 --> 00:50:06.170 Blue sky had a big like for some reason like look people have been leaving twitter 00:50:06.170 --> 00:50:15.470 slash x for a long time i mean the the the exodus began when elon musk took 00:50:15.470 --> 00:50:18.270 over it has been slow but steady, 00:50:19.330 --> 00:50:22.690 apparently the election results 00:50:22.690 --> 00:50:28.690 were a big, I don't know, wake up call to some people. I don't know. 00:50:28.750 --> 00:50:36.010 But all of a sudden, all of a sudden the exodus increased after the election. 00:50:36.990 --> 00:50:42.690 And I've seen it specifically like in terms of more prominent people. 00:50:42.870 --> 00:50:46.950 I mean, it's happened with other people too, but like you've seen it with the. 00:50:49.770 --> 00:50:54.490 Celebrities and journalists and those kinds of folks who'd been hanging on to 00:50:54.490 --> 00:50:59.490 Twitter, what used to be Twitter, finally deciding to get up and leave. 00:50:59.790 --> 00:51:02.590 And they've decided that the place they're going is Blue Sky. 00:51:03.330 --> 00:51:08.150 Now, as anyone listening here knows, I moved to Mastodon a long, long time ago. 00:51:09.070 --> 00:51:13.350 I stayed on a little while after Elon took over, but my big, 00:51:14.550 --> 00:51:21.070 moment was when they shut down to third-party clients because I used TweetBot as my client. 00:51:21.310 --> 00:51:23.990 I never used the official Twitter stuff. 00:51:24.910 --> 00:51:29.410 And so effectively at that moment, they broke Twitter for me. 00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:35.890 It became impossible for me to use it the way I wanted to use it because yes, 00:51:36.230 --> 00:51:40.450 could I have used the official clients at this point? Yeah, I could have, but I hated them. 00:51:40.930 --> 00:51:46.150 And primarily because of what to a lot of people made Twitter, Twitter, 00:51:46.550 --> 00:51:57.130 like, like my usage of Twitter through tweet bot was always the reverse chronological only, 00:51:57.370 --> 00:52:02.810 only see posts from people that you follow and replies. 00:52:03.190 --> 00:52:09.810 If both, if you follow both people, the, the, the person replying and the person being replied to. 00:52:11.470 --> 00:52:14.710 And so like, and no ads. 00:52:16.090 --> 00:52:21.290 The actual Twitter experience, the algorithmic feed was always like, 00:52:21.390 --> 00:52:25.110 I could not look at it for more than a couple seconds without getting mad. 00:52:25.310 --> 00:52:29.490 There were ways to get to the non-algorithmic feed, but they made it. 00:52:29.690 --> 00:52:34.030 You had to do a couple extra clicks. You had to do this. You had to always do it and blah, blah, blah. 00:52:34.770 --> 00:52:40.690 And it just, and And you still got the ads, I think. I don't remember. It's been a long time. 00:52:41.350 --> 00:52:47.430 Anyway, that's the moment I left. And then over the course of the last couple of years, 00:52:47.430 --> 00:52:54.050 people have been slowly but steadily leaving as the Twitter experience has become 00:52:54.050 --> 00:53:00.350 degraded for the things that lots of people used it for. 00:53:00.730 --> 00:53:05.830 You know, participating in various communities, real-time news, blah, blah, blah. uh. 00:53:07.660 --> 00:53:11.240 Things I kept hearing, and I haven't been there, I haven't been there in a long time. 00:53:11.420 --> 00:53:19.140 Things I kept hearing were the algorithm continuously shoving things in your face from Elon, 00:53:19.660 --> 00:53:25.140 the ads being extremely badly targeted and all over the place, 00:53:25.140 --> 00:53:32.540 the large number of sort of conservative right-wing folks that would get shoved into your feed, 00:53:32.680 --> 00:53:34.920 even if that wasn't your orientation, 00:53:35.640 --> 00:53:37.360 all kinds of things. 00:53:38.220 --> 00:53:42.840 But apparently the election itself was a snapping point for a lot of people. 00:53:42.980 --> 00:53:46.040 And a lot of people started moving elsewhere in the past. 00:53:46.380 --> 00:53:51.200 Like, you know, there was a, there was a surge of people into Mastodon at the 00:53:51.200 --> 00:53:56.220 very beginning of this process, but then threads came online and that's where 00:53:56.220 --> 00:53:59.360 all the people were going for all, for many months. 00:53:59.740 --> 00:54:04.960 And then, and, but then people started getting unhappy with threads too. 00:54:05.380 --> 00:54:09.560 I mean, and by people, I put that in quotes. Obviously, lots of people are happy 00:54:09.560 --> 00:54:15.700 with threads because threads set up a policy very specifically. 00:54:16.280 --> 00:54:23.480 They don't want to promote news. So their algorithms are promoting sort of other stuff. 00:54:24.100 --> 00:54:32.000 So the people who were at Twitter for news specifically weren't that happy with 00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:37.340 threads for that. Now, threads also has a non-algorithmic following tab. 00:54:38.220 --> 00:54:42.940 And there's news within the last couple of weeks that they're going to, 00:54:43.080 --> 00:54:48.180 they're at least going to be testing, but they may be adding a mechanism to 00:54:48.180 --> 00:54:50.620 let you be able to set that as your default. 00:54:51.370 --> 00:54:54.250 Which would be nice right now. It always, when you open it up, 00:54:54.330 --> 00:54:58.230 it comes in on the, I guess, unless you just left and are coming back. 00:54:58.390 --> 00:55:02.010 And so it remembers your previous state, but like it comes in on the algorithm 00:55:02.010 --> 00:55:04.030 tab and you have to like click over. 00:55:04.170 --> 00:55:08.410 So like, I, I, I check threads probably a couple of times a day. 00:55:08.530 --> 00:55:13.410 I like, I'm on Mastodon constant, like literally it's always on in the background. 00:55:13.790 --> 00:55:20.810 Like I do not like when I'm on my, on my home desktop where I have a three monitor setup. 00:55:21.310 --> 00:55:29.250 One of the monitors is always ivory, which is the people who made TweetBot made a client from Asinon. 00:55:29.390 --> 00:55:34.170 It's the one I use. I always have it up on one of the monitors in a six column 00:55:34.170 --> 00:55:39.030 view with several different columns with different slices of the kind of stuff 00:55:39.030 --> 00:55:43.570 I want to see that's updated in real time so that I can just glance over there 00:55:43.570 --> 00:55:45.150 and see what's going on at any moment. 00:55:45.950 --> 00:55:51.630 And on my phone, I haven't looked at my stats yet, but it's got a, 00:55:51.790 --> 00:55:57.470 if it's not my number one app in terms of screen time, it's, it's number two. 00:55:58.010 --> 00:56:03.310 It's probably vying for TikTok at this point because it's a different kind of 00:56:03.310 --> 00:56:05.910 usage. TikTok makes you watch videos and blah, blah, blah. 00:56:06.070 --> 00:56:09.990 So anyway, the, but a bunch of people started moving and, and, 00:56:10.110 --> 00:56:14.270 you know, Blue Sky was like, oh, look at how many new users we have. 00:56:14.270 --> 00:56:18.270 We got this huge, massive influence, influx of new users. 00:56:18.530 --> 00:56:22.910 And they were talking about how they had to do like, they had to jump through 00:56:22.910 --> 00:56:27.590 hoops to make sure that her servers didn't fall over under the new load and all this kind of stuff. 00:56:28.750 --> 00:56:35.230 Threads like raised their hand at one point and said, you added a whole bunch of new users, 00:56:35.450 --> 00:56:41.790 but your total number of users total is still smaller than the number of new 00:56:41.790 --> 00:56:43.970 users we added just last month. 00:56:44.270 --> 00:56:49.170 You know, but the influx into Blue Sky has increased. 00:56:49.530 --> 00:56:52.890 And the thing I've noticed specifically is... 00:56:53.460 --> 00:57:00.040 All kinds of your, again, your journalists, your celebrities, 00:57:00.400 --> 00:57:04.840 whatever, starting to say, come see me on Blue Sky. 00:57:05.040 --> 00:57:07.240 That's my preferred place now. 00:57:07.600 --> 00:57:11.660 And so I'd had a Blue Sky account for a long time. 00:57:12.760 --> 00:57:16.720 Back when they were invite only, an old friend of mine, Rebecca, 00:57:17.320 --> 00:57:19.480 sent me an invite to Blue Sky and I joined. 00:57:19.540 --> 00:57:22.340 I think you can get in without invites now. It's wide open. 00:57:23.500 --> 00:57:26.420 But i set it up and i followed a couple people 00:57:26.420 --> 00:57:29.220 i made like i said my profile hey 00:57:29.220 --> 00:57:35.780 my main location is on mastodon go see me there if you want to see me but which 00:57:35.780 --> 00:57:39.640 is the same as what i have on threads i so far i've treated both threads and 00:57:39.640 --> 00:57:47.360 blue sky as read only experiences like i i retweet things, 00:57:48.140 --> 00:57:49.840 on Mastodon all the time. 00:57:49.960 --> 00:57:57.320 I've got the election graphs and wiki of the day and curmudgeon's corner. 00:57:58.140 --> 00:58:02.380 Mastodon accounts were automatically post things. 00:58:02.540 --> 00:58:07.180 Like when I started recording this live stream, there was an automatic post 00:58:07.180 --> 00:58:11.660 on the curmudgeon's corner Mastodon saying, hey, there's a live stream. Here's the link. 00:58:11.840 --> 00:58:17.320 Click through it. And I went through the process of setting all that up. 00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:21.240 For a curmudgeons corner for election graphs, which election graphs is now silent 00:58:21.240 --> 00:58:22.840 for at least the next couple of years. 00:58:23.020 --> 00:58:27.800 But, you know, and Wiki of the Day, they all have these automated stuff and 00:58:27.800 --> 00:58:29.240 I'm personally on there all the time. 00:58:29.580 --> 00:58:35.140 I kind of suck that I relatively rarely do original posts, 00:58:35.930 --> 00:58:39.610 I sometimes do, but I'm bad at that. 00:58:39.690 --> 00:58:44.370 My main usage is really just I see something interesting and I hit the Retoot 00:58:44.370 --> 00:58:48.910 button or whatever they officially call it. I call it Retoot. 00:58:49.790 --> 00:58:59.210 But anyway, so I actively spit things into the Mastodon world and I'm on there all the time. 00:58:59.410 --> 00:59:06.010 For threads, I was checking in once or twice a day and I immediately ignore 00:59:06.010 --> 00:59:13.090 the algorithmic feed, click over to the following feed and then scroll to see what's new. 00:59:13.310 --> 00:59:18.770 For the most part, I'm not even, like when Threads first came out, 00:59:18.870 --> 00:59:19.830 I followed a bunch of people. 00:59:20.890 --> 00:59:26.990 Threads enabled partial opt-in federation with Mastodon. 00:59:27.190 --> 00:59:34.250 So like some of the accounts I care about you can now follow them from Mastodon 00:59:34.250 --> 00:59:35.870 even though they're Threads accounts. 00:59:36.810 --> 00:59:44.670 And so I've done that with a few. And so for the most part, I'm not doing a lot with Threads. 00:59:44.730 --> 00:59:49.850 I'm just checking in occasionally to see if there's anything that I missed that 00:59:49.850 --> 00:59:54.650 somebody hasn't shared into Mastodon. 00:59:55.150 --> 00:59:58.750 And sometimes there is. but 00:59:58.750 --> 01:00:01.590 like you know most of the 01:00:01.590 --> 01:00:04.490 accounts that would give me that 01:00:04.490 --> 01:00:07.670 kind of i don't know i shouldn't say most of it i've got 01:00:07.670 --> 01:00:10.450 a variety of accounts that have turned on their federation and 01:00:10.450 --> 01:00:16.290 i follow them from mastodon instead threads very annoyingly just recently added 01:00:16.290 --> 01:00:22.510 a 15 minute delay for that their stated reason is they've increased the amount 01:00:22.510 --> 01:00:29.050 of time that threads users can edit their posts and they don't share it to Mastodon until the. 01:00:30.470 --> 01:00:34.430 They can no longer be edited. Of course, Mastodon supports editing posts, 01:00:34.710 --> 01:00:36.990 so that's not really an excuse, but for now. 01:00:37.490 --> 01:00:41.190 And also, Threads, they've only partially done the integration. 01:00:41.530 --> 01:00:49.010 Like, you can follow Threads accounts that have opted in from Mastodon, 01:00:49.050 --> 01:00:56.290 but Threads people can't follow Mastodon folks or other Fediverse things. It's not just Mastodon. 01:00:58.150 --> 01:01:04.170 Anyway and i had not been checking blue sky at all i had when i first got that blue sky account i, 01:01:04.830 --> 01:01:13.010 i clicked in i set up my profile i followed one or two people and i basically 01:01:13.010 --> 01:01:18.430 maybe checked in once every few weeks i've been trying to also check blue sky 01:01:18.430 --> 01:01:24.410 at least daily now that there's this influx into Blue Sky. 01:01:24.910 --> 01:01:31.170 And I've also been making a point when I see somebody promoting their Blue Sky account, 01:01:31.330 --> 01:01:38.230 like either on TV or on a podcast I listen to, or a post on Mastodon that says, 01:01:38.350 --> 01:01:42.250 go follow me on Blue Sky, or a post on Threads that says, go follow me on Blue Sky. 01:01:42.250 --> 01:01:54.710 I've been trying to do that so that my followed feed in BlueSky can have more in it. 01:01:55.710 --> 01:01:59.750 Because the thing is, if you're not doing the algorithmic thing, 01:01:59.830 --> 01:02:06.390 and BlueSky, by the way, also has its sort of default is the following as well. 01:02:06.670 --> 01:02:10.030 But one of the things that BlueSky is doing some interesting things. 01:02:10.030 --> 01:02:14.930 First of all, they're theoretically federated, but not really like they've got 01:02:14.930 --> 01:02:23.670 some centralized single points of data that are still like, yes, 01:02:23.890 --> 01:02:28.050 they've, you can, you can set up your own blue sky server, but it's still dependent 01:02:28.050 --> 01:02:30.230 on the centralized instance. Um. 01:02:31.140 --> 01:02:35.560 They've done that, but they've also got – what their approach on algorithms 01:02:35.560 --> 01:02:38.440 is one I think is actually very interesting, 01:02:38.780 --> 01:02:47.180 which is, sure, algorithms can be useful, but we'll put it under your control. 01:02:47.180 --> 01:02:54.360 So they've actually got like a marketplace of algorithms where you can like 01:02:54.360 --> 01:03:03.600 any developer with the appropriate skills can code up an algorithm for use with blue sky. 01:03:04.100 --> 01:03:09.840 And they essentially have sort of a marketplace of what they call feeds, 01:03:09.840 --> 01:03:16.960 which are algorithms you can choose from. and you can add them. 01:03:17.140 --> 01:03:20.760 You can have multiple feeds. So like at the moment I have my, 01:03:20.760 --> 01:03:23.840 I have my following feed in blue sky. 01:03:24.040 --> 01:03:27.920 I have a discover feed. Like these first few are all defaults discover feed 01:03:27.920 --> 01:03:30.640 a popular with friends feed. 01:03:30.840 --> 01:03:36.460 And I added a mutuals one, which is just an algorithm that shows posts only 01:03:36.460 --> 01:03:43.180 people who you follow and who follow you back, but they've got others. 01:03:44.040 --> 01:03:50.580 People have set up science feeds and arts feeds and news feeds and super clusters 01:03:50.580 --> 01:03:51.900 for various communities. 01:03:52.060 --> 01:03:57.760 Now, some of these are essentially what I use lists for in Mastodon and what 01:03:57.760 --> 01:04:06.500 I used to use lists for in Twitter, which is a curated set of accounts that are related to a topic. 01:04:07.460 --> 01:04:11.340 Mastodon also allows you to follow hashtags, which serves the same sort of purpose. 01:04:12.300 --> 01:04:18.720 Some of these are just that, are just, hey, here are a bunch of accounts that 01:04:18.720 --> 01:04:22.580 somebody is curating that are good for some specific topic. 01:04:23.360 --> 01:04:30.840 But others are, you know, algorithmic in one way or another to try to decide 01:04:30.840 --> 01:04:34.360 what to show when, have various conditions on it. 01:04:34.600 --> 01:04:38.720 And the whole point here is, though you have control over that. 01:04:39.280 --> 01:04:42.740 You decide which algorithmic feeds you want. 01:04:42.980 --> 01:04:47.840 You add them. They have a special place in the UI so that when you are going 01:04:47.840 --> 01:04:50.280 to that feed you know that you're going to it. 01:04:52.560 --> 01:05:00.420 I prefer the reverse chronological, but I don't have a fundamental problem with 01:05:00.420 --> 01:05:02.520 algorithmic feeds in general. 01:05:02.840 --> 01:05:09.300 Even on my Mastodon usage, I go to sort of the popular and trending. 01:05:10.470 --> 01:05:13.490 Thing tab feed whatever which is 01:05:13.490 --> 01:05:19.250 essentially an algorithmic feed i go there a few times a day in my desktop version 01:05:19.250 --> 01:05:26.090 it's one of the six columns i have up and and no no problem but i know that 01:05:26.090 --> 01:05:32.470 i'm going there i know why i'm going there i it is a conscious choice on my part to look at that. 01:05:32.470 --> 01:05:41.470 It is not sort of a feed that is manipulated by the social media company designed 01:05:41.470 --> 01:05:47.810 to optimize specifically for engagement and to all of this kind of stuff. 01:05:48.890 --> 01:05:54.690 Anyway, the point is of all of this, a bunch of people are going to blue sky. 01:05:54.990 --> 01:06:01.170 Like right now, like my biggest problem with Mastodon is my main daily driver or social media. 01:06:01.450 --> 01:06:04.210 I check all the others maybe once or twice a day. 01:06:04.470 --> 01:06:11.890 But it still has what to me is a fundamental problem that a lot of the people 01:06:11.890 --> 01:06:15.630 that I wish were posting there are not. 01:06:16.090 --> 01:06:19.110 There are some holdovers who are still on Twitter. 01:06:19.650 --> 01:06:24.470 There are a bunch that are on threads. Now there are a bunch that are on Blue Sky. 01:06:25.070 --> 01:06:30.430 Some of them have indeed enabled sort of federated. There's a bridge for blue sky as well. 01:06:30.610 --> 01:06:34.950 So for certain blue sky accounts, you can follow them via Mastodon, 01:06:35.010 --> 01:06:38.450 but it's not universal, just like it's not universal for threads. 01:06:39.930 --> 01:06:46.890 And so a lot of the people that I want to be following are not here, are not on Mastodon. 01:06:47.210 --> 01:06:55.650 And so I have to, so I am going to these other places, but I haven't decided to like really jump in. 01:06:55.890 --> 01:07:01.010 I saw one person make a post the other day that was basically, 01:07:01.290 --> 01:07:06.610 I'll be on whatever social media that Tapbots makes a client for. 01:07:06.710 --> 01:07:11.810 They're the ones who made Tweetbot and now make Ivory for Mastodon. And I'm kind of there. 01:07:13.790 --> 01:07:19.370 I like the interface. I like the program that I use. 01:07:19.510 --> 01:07:22.210 I like the way that it does things, I'm used to it. 01:07:22.430 --> 01:07:26.830 If they made a Blue Sky client, maybe I'd be on Blue Sky more often. 01:07:26.830 --> 01:07:31.010 If they made a Threads client, maybe I'd be on Threads more often. I don't know. 01:07:31.270 --> 01:07:38.330 I also like the automated things I do for Curmudgeon's Corner or Wiki of the Day, Election Graphs. 01:07:39.130 --> 01:07:42.470 Wherever I am most of the time, I'd want to set that stuff up. 01:07:42.570 --> 01:07:47.330 And both Blue Sky and Threads have slowly been setting up. 01:07:48.070 --> 01:07:53.070 They've got programmatic access too at this point so theoretically I know I 01:07:53.070 --> 01:07:54.670 could do those things but I don't 01:07:54.670 --> 01:07:58.050 relish the idea of going in and actually spending the time to do it again, 01:07:59.190 --> 01:08:05.110 maybe I will at some point set up a blue sky for those various things set up 01:08:05.110 --> 01:08:07.490 threads for those various things I don't know. 01:08:09.090 --> 01:08:18.570 But anyway, Blue Sky right now seems to be the place where the growth and the 01:08:18.570 --> 01:08:21.110 excitement is for the moment. 01:08:21.110 --> 01:08:25.150 I've heard other people, of course, complaining that with the growth and excitement 01:08:25.150 --> 01:08:29.070 comes people being abusive and various problems. 01:08:29.450 --> 01:08:34.730 The other thing Blue Sky, by the way, does is their approach to moderation is 01:08:34.730 --> 01:08:35.930 basically do it yourself. 01:08:36.990 --> 01:08:40.930 They're basically like hey we will provide a 01:08:40.930 --> 01:08:45.770 robust set of filtering functionality that 01:08:45.770 --> 01:08:49.010 you can use including picking these algorithmic 01:08:49.010 --> 01:08:53.210 feeds that i was talking about but other stuff as well and that 01:08:53.210 --> 01:08:56.350 you know basically putting the burden 01:08:56.350 --> 01:09:00.310 of moderation on the 01:09:00.310 --> 01:09:03.070 customer filtering things so they see what they want 01:09:03.070 --> 01:09:05.950 to see at least that was the original vision they have had 01:09:05.950 --> 01:09:10.730 to do some moderation which i guess is one of the reasons jack dorsey left like 01:09:10.730 --> 01:09:14.830 he was originally one of the people pushing blue sky but got frustrated and 01:09:14.830 --> 01:09:21.070 i think part of it was because they realized that yeah you do have to do some 01:09:21.070 --> 01:09:23.730 moderation you do have to kick some people off. 01:09:25.770 --> 01:09:32.210 I'm watching i like as i'm talking here i've got my blue sky up i've been following more people. 01:09:32.630 --> 01:09:39.250 I still don't like, if you rely on the algorithmic feeds, then I mean, 01:09:39.330 --> 01:09:43.110 the whole point of algorithmic feeds is they make it really super easy. 01:09:43.690 --> 01:09:49.690 Like you can jump in and immediately be seeing things you like and the algorithm 01:09:49.690 --> 01:09:52.450 learns what you like and start showing you more of that. 01:09:52.890 --> 01:09:56.050 I mean, that's the entirety of TikTok's magic. 01:09:56.430 --> 01:10:04.250 Like people very rarely, like even, I mean, even I I very rarely go to my followed 01:10:04.250 --> 01:10:08.610 feed, and I'm just on the For You page all the time on TikTok. 01:10:10.930 --> 01:10:15.130 They make it very easy. But if you're not using algorithmic feeds, 01:10:15.230 --> 01:10:21.190 if you're trying to curate a list of people to follow, then it takes some work. 01:10:21.690 --> 01:10:26.070 You have to find the people you want to follow. You have to go through the process 01:10:26.070 --> 01:10:31.330 of following it. And to have a robust feed that always has new stuff, 01:10:31.430 --> 01:10:34.410 whenever you open the app, you have to be following hundreds of people. 01:10:36.120 --> 01:10:40.460 Okay, hundreds may not even be enough, depending on your appetite for it. 01:10:40.720 --> 01:10:46.680 I expect feeds that if I have left the app for a minute, I come back and I have new stuff. 01:10:47.280 --> 01:10:51.140 There's no thought of keeping up with my feed and watching everything. 01:10:51.580 --> 01:10:55.800 If you want a feed where you sort of keep up and see everything, 01:10:56.380 --> 01:11:00.180 then, okay, you want to follow a couple dozen people maybe. 01:11:01.200 --> 01:11:05.520 But if you want a feed that's always got new stuff, no matter what. 01:11:05.780 --> 01:11:10.640 You want to be following hundreds, quite possibly thousands. 01:11:12.880 --> 01:11:19.580 On Mastodon right now, I'm following 1,679. On Twitter, 01:11:19.860 --> 01:11:25.140 I was following 5,000, exactly 5,000, because I kept hitting the cap and having 01:11:25.140 --> 01:11:27.960 to remove people in order to follow new people, because I didn't have enough 01:11:27.960 --> 01:11:30.640 people following me to follow over 5,000. 01:11:30.780 --> 01:11:35.580 So I was capped, which was frustrating me before I left that place. 01:11:36.800 --> 01:11:40.380 And, you know, so, and every one of those, 01:11:41.860 --> 01:11:45.940 1,679 accounts are accounts that at one point or another, 01:11:46.280 --> 01:11:53.240 I made a conscious choice to follow, either because somebody retweeted that 01:11:53.240 --> 01:11:56.620 into me, retweeted, reposted that in, in a way that I saw it. 01:11:56.680 --> 01:11:57.720 And I was like, oh, that's interesting. 01:11:57.880 --> 01:12:01.840 I'll follow them. Or in some cases they followed me. and then I looked at their 01:12:01.840 --> 01:12:03.660 profile and then I followed them. 01:12:04.180 --> 01:12:08.860 In some cases, you know, I heard about them from a list of people that were 01:12:08.860 --> 01:12:11.560 like, hey, you should follow these folks. They're cool. 01:12:12.320 --> 01:12:18.920 I seeded it by following people that I followed on Twitter that I could find on Mastodon, et cetera. 01:12:19.360 --> 01:12:26.380 And so my Blue Sky and Threads feeds, if I were to use them as my main place 01:12:26.380 --> 01:12:28.120 right now, are still very sparse. 01:12:28.830 --> 01:12:32.370 And so I would have to spend time on them. And I don't want to spend time. 01:12:32.510 --> 01:12:37.010 I don't want to spend time doing that on another place. I don't know. 01:12:37.390 --> 01:12:41.810 And maybe I could solve that by, well, Sam, just look at the algorithmic feed. 01:12:42.710 --> 01:12:48.730 But algorithmic feeds piss me off. And at least the manipulative sort of algorithmic 01:12:48.730 --> 01:12:52.930 feeds that are non-transparent that I mentioned, the ones that are optimized 01:12:52.930 --> 01:12:54.570 for engagement and everything else. 01:12:54.570 --> 01:12:57.750 And you know people have repeatedly said 01:12:57.750 --> 01:13:00.470 you know hey people say they want the 01:13:00.470 --> 01:13:05.390 non-algorithmic feed but whenever we've tested it people spend more time on 01:13:05.390 --> 01:13:09.310 the algorithmic feed they engage more on the algorithmic feed well yeah duh 01:13:09.310 --> 01:13:13.310 that's what you're optimizing for that doesn't mean it's best for the person 01:13:13.310 --> 01:13:20.210 watching it it means you're sucking in their time more and you know it's it's best for the company, 01:13:20.770 --> 01:13:23.150 especially if you're selling ads on that feed. 01:13:23.690 --> 01:13:27.410 But anyway, I guess everybody check out Blue Sky. 01:13:27.650 --> 01:13:32.490 I'm Ablesmay on Blue Sky, just like I am practically everywhere else, A-B-U-L-S-M-E. 01:13:32.850 --> 01:13:34.750 I'm Ablesmay on threads as well. 01:13:35.130 --> 01:13:40.210 There's not much point in following me on those platforms because I don't post 01:13:40.210 --> 01:13:41.590 anything on those platforms. 01:13:42.150 --> 01:13:45.830 But if you are on those platforms and you are posting things. 01:13:45.990 --> 01:13:50.130 If you follow me, there's a good chance I'll follow you back and I'll see your 01:13:50.130 --> 01:13:54.310 stuff when I check in on those platforms. So yeah. 01:13:55.190 --> 01:13:59.190 Okay. What else here? I, you know, I hadn't, you know, 01:13:59.550 --> 01:14:05.490 I, I spent way too long on that, but you know, for some reason at this point, 01:14:05.610 --> 01:14:12.530 I'm like more excited about talking about like blue sky and stuff than the other stuff. 01:14:12.670 --> 01:14:16.330 Like, you know, I could, the next thing I could, I mentioned last week, 01:14:16.490 --> 01:14:18.190 should I upgrade my phone? 01:14:18.850 --> 01:14:26.250 I'm debating this right now. Like, you know, I've got an iPhone 12, 12 Pro Max. 01:14:26.490 --> 01:14:31.450 The currents are the 16s. And I would, if I was going to get one, 01:14:31.570 --> 01:14:34.150 I'd get the 16 Pro Max. They came out in September. 01:14:35.250 --> 01:14:39.450 I, the 12 is what, four years old. I'm very much eligible. 01:14:40.430 --> 01:14:46.290 But my phone still works. It still works fine there, you know, 01:14:46.470 --> 01:14:49.890 I, and I'm eligible for the latest upgrade. 01:14:51.180 --> 01:14:55.880 Or the latest version. I actually haven't updated to the latest version of the software yet. 01:14:56.000 --> 01:15:02.320 Cause like I insist on keeping my phone on a universal time and they still, 01:15:02.540 --> 01:15:06.640 even though they have stuff that keeps track of when your phone is active, 01:15:06.820 --> 01:15:13.640 when when is not, instead of just doing the updates at a low usage time for 01:15:13.640 --> 01:15:18.600 you, they do it at a, I think it's like two to four in the morning or something like that. 01:15:18.600 --> 01:15:23.800 But two to four in the morning to me is two to four utc which is still a time 01:15:23.800 --> 01:15:27.820 i'm active so it never succeeds in doing an update because i'm always active 01:15:27.820 --> 01:15:32.220 at that time so i have to do it manually and i just haven't manually triggered 01:15:32.220 --> 01:15:34.800 it yet i will at some point now i won't do, 01:15:35.760 --> 01:15:40.840 i won't do it won't do the new apple intelligence stuff but it's unclear to 01:15:40.840 --> 01:15:44.400 me how much i should care at this point. And it still works. 01:15:44.780 --> 01:15:49.600 It's still fine. There's one app I use that in the last couple months has been 01:15:49.600 --> 01:15:54.900 crashing a lot, but I think it's the app's fault, not the phone's fault. 01:15:55.240 --> 01:15:59.560 Although I'm tempted to be like, hey, if I got a new phone, maybe that would get better. 01:16:00.260 --> 01:16:03.540 Maybe it's like, get more memory and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. 01:16:04.660 --> 01:16:09.120 At the same time, I look at some of the leaks of the iPhone 17, 01:16:09.860 --> 01:16:13.440 which is still, what, nine months out, nine, ten months out, 01:16:13.460 --> 01:16:15.840 and the leaks may not even be right. 01:16:16.520 --> 01:16:18.140 But I'm like, that looks cool. 01:16:19.500 --> 01:16:23.020 You know, can I wait another nine months? 01:16:23.860 --> 01:16:30.000 Probably. Like, the last few times, at this point, like, I used to be on a religion. 01:16:30.120 --> 01:16:34.840 I was updating every other year. I was updating every two years. I was updating my phone. 01:16:35.280 --> 01:16:37.240 Then at some point, that slipped to three years. 01:16:37.860 --> 01:16:42.420 Now I've gone four. And I think really at this point I'm at, 01:16:43.160 --> 01:16:50.240 I replace when it doesn't work or it has to either break or there has to be 01:16:50.240 --> 01:16:54.660 some new thing that I'm really jealous about the new ones on that I'm like, 01:16:54.820 --> 01:16:56.980 Hey, they have this new feature. 01:16:57.320 --> 01:17:01.120 I can't live without this new feature. I have to upgrade now. 01:17:01.740 --> 01:17:05.300 On the other hand, the new ones have better cameras than the one I have. 01:17:05.300 --> 01:17:08.240 The new ones will get the Apple intelligence. 01:17:08.460 --> 01:17:11.900 And by new, I'm talking about 16 right now, not the theoretical 17. 01:17:12.940 --> 01:17:19.020 But the one thing about the 17, the rumor is they are going to move from having 01:17:19.020 --> 01:17:25.480 the cameras in a little square bump in one corner to a strip across the entire back. 01:17:25.580 --> 01:17:32.580 And I can't tell you for years now how much the camera bump has bothered me 01:17:32.580 --> 01:17:34.220 for being asymmetrical. 01:17:34.220 --> 01:17:45.180 That you couldn't put your phone flat on a table and not have it wobble when you use the screen. 01:17:45.720 --> 01:17:50.840 That has pissed me off so much. And one of the things I looked for in cases 01:17:50.840 --> 01:17:55.980 is cases that would minimize that wobble as much as possible because they would 01:17:55.980 --> 01:17:57.860 sort of cover up the bump. 01:17:58.080 --> 01:18:01.900 But even anyway, the rumor is the new one's going to have a strip instead. 01:18:03.000 --> 01:18:08.320 Anyway, I wasn't actually going to talk about like, I think I'm hanging on and not upgrading yet. 01:18:09.180 --> 01:18:13.060 And the longer I wait, the more it makes sense to just wait till next September. 01:18:13.360 --> 01:18:17.480 You know, I mean, I wasn't even going to talk about that. 01:18:17.600 --> 01:18:19.760 It was just an example of as I go through the list, I'm like, 01:18:19.840 --> 01:18:22.980 I'm, I'm more excited about the non-political stuff. 01:18:23.140 --> 01:18:26.540 The political stuff is just sort of depressing still. 01:18:27.140 --> 01:18:29.740 I mean, it is what it is. We'll deal with it. I mean, I have the, 01:18:29.880 --> 01:18:35.300 the, all the January Trump's cases, the January 6th and the document cases, 01:18:35.460 --> 01:18:38.080 the federal cases are officially dead now. 01:18:38.520 --> 01:18:42.820 Officially, official, official, official, which is not a surprise in any way. 01:18:42.980 --> 01:18:48.540 We expected that to happen once Trump won, but it's still depressing. 01:18:48.540 --> 01:18:55.280 Like the guy is getting away with all kinds of stuff. And the New York case 01:18:55.280 --> 01:19:00.480 where he's already been convicted and we were just waiting on sentencing. 01:19:01.400 --> 01:19:06.400 I don't know that it's official official yet, but most likely sentencing will 01:19:06.400 --> 01:19:09.120 just be delayed until he's no longer president. 01:19:09.760 --> 01:19:15.320 I mean, best case scenario, best case, like theoretically, I guess they could 01:19:15.320 --> 01:19:17.200 sentence him and then defer the sentence. 01:19:17.560 --> 01:19:20.660 There's nothing happening with the sentence while he's president for sure. 01:19:20.660 --> 01:19:28.500 But most likely they're not even going to do the sentencing until, what would it be? 2029. 01:19:30.010 --> 01:19:35.630 Did I have that right? No, wait. Yeah, no, that's right. 01:19:36.190 --> 01:19:40.010 2029, January 21st, 2029. 01:19:40.530 --> 01:19:46.970 The first that they might actually do this. Unless something really surprising happens. 01:19:47.410 --> 01:19:52.890 The Georgia case is still on ice because of the Fannie Willis crap. 01:19:53.270 --> 01:19:59.770 But most likely, even if that stuff gets resolved, they're not going to do anything with Donald Trump. 01:19:59.770 --> 01:20:05.050 There might be a possibility that they separate out Donald Trump and go proceed 01:20:05.050 --> 01:20:08.710 with the rest of the people in that RICO conspiracy? Maybe. 01:20:09.610 --> 01:20:14.250 And for that matter, we've got cases in Arizona and Michigan that never included 01:20:14.250 --> 01:20:17.570 Donald Trump related to all those shenanigans. 01:20:17.790 --> 01:20:21.990 And I guess those are going to proceed. So those might be sort of the sleeper 01:20:21.990 --> 01:20:28.870 hits of 2025 and 2026 is the progress of those cases against all of Donald Trump's 01:20:28.870 --> 01:20:33.810 co-conspirators that are at a state level, so Donald Trump can't pardon them, 01:20:33.990 --> 01:20:39.550 and that don't involve Trump himself, so he can't claim immunity either for 01:20:39.550 --> 01:20:43.010 being president during the crimes or... 01:20:44.310 --> 01:20:49.930 In the present, but it's still like this man's whole life. 01:20:50.810 --> 01:20:54.630 I mean, we've talked about crimes he committed back in the seventies and eighties 01:20:54.630 --> 01:20:57.550 and nineties as well. Nothing, nothing. 01:20:57.990 --> 01:21:02.930 He's gotten away with fucking everything and it's going to continue. 01:21:03.510 --> 01:21:06.710 I mean, I'd predicted for years that he was never going to see a day in jail. 01:21:07.410 --> 01:21:11.770 I guess some of the financial stuff might continue 01:21:11.770 --> 01:21:14.750 like he he may 01:21:14.750 --> 01:21:17.910 end up actually forced to pay some money during his presidency 01:21:17.910 --> 01:21:20.770 for something for you know 01:21:20.770 --> 01:21:26.390 either the the civil case or the criminal case against his company one of those 01:21:26.390 --> 01:21:34.190 things eugene carroll you know but he may he may be able to weasel out of like 01:21:34.190 --> 01:21:38.070 getting those proceedings paused during the presidency too. I don't know. 01:21:38.950 --> 01:21:43.570 And undoubtedly he's going to do more bad things, break more laws, 01:21:43.630 --> 01:21:44.990 because he just doesn't care. 01:21:45.550 --> 01:21:50.610 And at this point he's been proven that not caring is a decent strategy here. 01:21:51.010 --> 01:21:54.650 But as president, you know, the Supreme Court gave him broad immunity. 01:21:55.010 --> 01:21:58.790 You can be damn sure everything is going to be an official act at this point. 01:22:00.750 --> 01:22:07.170 And, you know, we've determined that, you know, even if the Democrats took back 01:22:07.170 --> 01:22:09.930 the House, even if they took back the House and the Senate, for that matter, 01:22:10.430 --> 01:22:12.370 impeachment won't get you anywhere. 01:22:13.870 --> 01:22:19.050 And if you wait till after he's out of office, chances are whoever's president 01:22:19.050 --> 01:22:25.950 after him isn't going to have the willpower to go after him again. I don't know. 01:22:27.030 --> 01:22:32.770 Tariffs? Yeah, tariffs. Trump's been going on about tariffs again. 01:22:33.310 --> 01:22:37.550 We all know the direct effect of tariffs is increasing prices. 01:22:37.870 --> 01:22:43.110 I've been hearing a bunch of his defenders talking about how... 01:22:44.840 --> 01:22:49.200 Look, this is just a negotiation ploy. It's not about what would happen if the 01:22:49.200 --> 01:22:52.520 tariffs actually came into place. It's a negotiation ploy. It's leverage. 01:22:53.020 --> 01:22:56.320 And then he's going to get other 01:22:56.320 --> 01:23:00.680 countries to do things, and then he won't actually need to do the tariffs. 01:23:01.280 --> 01:23:09.620 And it's just a method of strong-arming people into doing what he wants them to. 01:23:10.120 --> 01:23:13.080 And so don't worry about the actual effects of the tariffs, because that'll 01:23:13.080 --> 01:23:17.100 never actually happen. And I've heard other people that go on about, 01:23:17.360 --> 01:23:21.760 ha ha, yes, the price of imported goods will go up. We all know that. 01:23:21.860 --> 01:23:26.140 But the whole point of this is that, hey, guess what? Now you can buy American. 01:23:28.600 --> 01:23:32.100 And yes, that is the theoretical point of tariffs. 01:23:32.760 --> 01:23:38.280 The reason they have always been tried is this whole, this protectionist notion 01:23:38.280 --> 01:23:42.760 that you make the foreign stuff more expensive than the domestic, 01:23:43.140 --> 01:23:46.180 then there's more incentive to produce domestically. 01:23:46.700 --> 01:23:52.320 And, you know, domestic players will be able to come in and at a lower price 01:23:52.320 --> 01:23:58.460 than the foreign competition, or if there are no domestic manufacturers at all, 01:23:58.600 --> 01:24:01.880 they can ramp up and they can start to do it where they weren't doing it before. 01:24:03.010 --> 01:24:11.130 Problem is, let's assume there's an industry that's already here in the U.S. 01:24:11.270 --> 01:24:13.370 Typically, they're more expensive anyway. 01:24:13.550 --> 01:24:19.550 Labor costs are higher here. So the reason that the foreign goods were selling 01:24:19.550 --> 01:24:20.770 more was they were cheaper. 01:24:20.770 --> 01:24:27.710 And so your price will still go up, even assuming the American thing is still 01:24:27.710 --> 01:24:34.490 cheaper than the foreign-born, foreign-born, foreign-manufactured alternative. 01:24:36.030 --> 01:24:39.650 But it doesn't always work out that way. I've been hearing in the last week, 01:24:39.690 --> 01:24:43.210 a lot of examples of even during the last Trump administration, 01:24:43.210 --> 01:24:53.290 when he put tariffs on certain appliances that we did still have domestic production 01:24:53.290 --> 01:24:55.850 of appliances from Whirlpool, I believe. 01:24:56.410 --> 01:25:00.910 And they raised their prices to match the new price of the foreign stuff because 01:25:00.910 --> 01:25:05.450 they could, because, you know, that was the new price of a washer dryer or whatever. 01:25:05.450 --> 01:25:08.990 And apparently there were tariffs on washers but not dryers, 01:25:09.130 --> 01:25:14.910 but they raised the price on the dryers as well because typically washers and 01:25:14.910 --> 01:25:18.470 dryers are sold at prices comparable to each other. 01:25:18.590 --> 01:25:21.930 So you raise the price of the washers and, hey, look, you can get away with 01:25:21.930 --> 01:25:23.650 raising the prices of the dryers too. 01:25:23.650 --> 01:25:30.130 And so the result of the tariffs on appliances was not, oh my God, 01:25:30.270 --> 01:25:35.230 now Whirlpool is selling so much more than they used to because they come in 01:25:35.230 --> 01:25:36.610 cheaper than the foreign competition. 01:25:36.830 --> 01:25:38.710 It was, hey, Whirlpool can raise their prices too. 01:25:40.110 --> 01:25:46.490 So it's exactly what happens depends on the exact nature of the tariffs, 01:25:46.670 --> 01:25:50.570 the exact industries, what the competitive landscape looks like. 01:25:50.570 --> 01:25:54.250 But that's even when there's already domestic manufacturing in place. 01:25:54.390 --> 01:25:58.590 If there isn't, then that has to ramp up and that takes years to, 01:25:59.230 --> 01:26:02.390 You have to build factories. You have to get new supply chains. 01:26:02.530 --> 01:26:06.110 The supplies probably come from overseas too and might be subject to tariffs as well. 01:26:06.550 --> 01:26:14.410 Or do you build up, you know, new, do you build up domestic sources of the raw materials as well? 01:26:14.770 --> 01:26:18.750 Maybe they're available. Maybe they're not. Like some materials we just don't 01:26:18.750 --> 01:26:21.890 physically have in the ground in the right quantities here in the U.S. 01:26:22.050 --> 01:26:24.050 To mine them ourselves or whatever. 01:26:24.490 --> 01:26:29.450 But maybe you do that. But even then, the prices go up. And that's before you 01:26:29.450 --> 01:26:30.990 even take into account retaliation. 01:26:31.730 --> 01:26:36.650 So the main argument here, the one that's actually a good argument, 01:26:37.130 --> 01:26:41.590 is the, okay, it's just a threat. 01:26:41.930 --> 01:26:49.330 There won't actually be any substantial tariff increases because Donald Trump is going to threaten it. 01:26:49.330 --> 01:26:53.910 Your various foreign countries, China, Mexico, and Canada have been talked about 01:26:53.910 --> 01:26:57.750 most recently since Donald Trump specifically has been mentioning them. 01:26:58.730 --> 01:27:01.990 They will capitulate on whatever Donald Trump wants them to, 01:27:02.170 --> 01:27:07.110 or by the way, or they won't do a damn thing, but Donald Trump will declare 01:27:07.110 --> 01:27:08.930 victory and say they capitulated anyway. 01:27:09.910 --> 01:27:13.770 For instance, there was this back and forth with the new president of Mexico 01:27:13.770 --> 01:27:18.930 where she said, hey, we're already doing a bunch of stuff. 01:27:19.690 --> 01:27:24.550 And Donald Trump reacted with, look, they've agreed to do a bunch of stuff already 01:27:24.550 --> 01:27:26.750 because of my tariff threat. 01:27:27.530 --> 01:27:30.370 She was just mentioning the stuff they're already doing. Sorry. 01:27:30.930 --> 01:27:33.050 Which is a lot, by the way. 01:27:34.000 --> 01:27:41.820 Anyway, tariffs. That relates to, though, there's a phrase that I guess Rachel 01:27:41.820 --> 01:27:48.700 Maddow popularized a few years ago, which is watch what they do, not what they say. 01:27:49.620 --> 01:27:53.260 Yvonne on our Commudgence Corner Slack has also mentioned a variant of this 01:27:53.260 --> 01:27:57.660 a few times recently that, like, basically, I'm not going to get all worked 01:27:57.660 --> 01:28:02.800 up over the craziness that's being talked about right now. 01:28:02.800 --> 01:28:09.160 About the tariff threats, even the cabinet nominations, right? 01:28:09.280 --> 01:28:12.000 It's like, he's not president yet. 01:28:12.700 --> 01:28:18.400 Let's wait till he actually starts doing stuff. And then let's see what he actually does. 01:28:20.340 --> 01:28:24.560 Because I think we talked last week, he's super transactional, right? 01:28:26.900 --> 01:28:32.440 And this is the whole basis of this tariff threat thing. He's not talking about 01:28:32.440 --> 01:28:38.160 tariffs necessarily because he really intends to do the tariffs. 01:28:38.340 --> 01:28:42.820 He is using it as a manipulative tool to try to get other outcomes. 01:28:43.220 --> 01:28:48.160 And we also mentioned last week, by the way, exemptions from the tariffs are 01:28:48.160 --> 01:28:52.900 important. And maybe he can get some stuff in return either for the country 01:28:52.900 --> 01:28:57.160 or for himself in exchange for those exemptions. 01:28:58.380 --> 01:29:01.500 But the point is, when you're dealing with someone transactional like that, 01:29:01.560 --> 01:29:07.020 where there's no actual sort of ideological underpinning, really. 01:29:09.160 --> 01:29:15.100 Things can change on a dime. He can literally be saying he's going to be doing one thing next week. 01:29:15.260 --> 01:29:17.420 And the next week he's doing the exact opposite. 01:29:19.080 --> 01:29:22.600 And he will, and to him, I don't know. 01:29:22.700 --> 01:29:26.800 I'm not going to say what's in his head, but it's not going to be portrayed 01:29:26.800 --> 01:29:33.560 necessarily as he's not going to portray it anyway, as an issue that was then 01:29:33.560 --> 01:29:36.420 this is now this whole flip flop thing. 01:29:36.420 --> 01:29:42.580 Never an issue with Donald Trump, because what he's doing is not about this 01:29:42.580 --> 01:29:49.460 is the right thing to do because it is in some way the morally correct thing to do. 01:29:50.180 --> 01:29:56.240 It is more about this is the right thing to do right now under these circumstances, 01:29:56.240 --> 01:29:58.420 because if I do this, I'll get that. 01:29:58.800 --> 01:30:02.760 And if those circumstances change in any way, shape or form, 01:30:02.980 --> 01:30:06.000 then what the right thing to do is changes as well. 01:30:06.300 --> 01:30:10.560 And look, there's plenty where I think that's actually the right way to approach 01:30:10.560 --> 01:30:17.880 things, where things are situational and there isn't an overriding moral principle at play. 01:30:18.300 --> 01:30:24.580 It's just how can you move things from where they are to something more like 01:30:24.580 --> 01:30:29.200 what you want and you figure out, given the current circumstances, how do you get there? 01:30:29.520 --> 01:30:40.340 But to me at least, there's a huge zone where there are moral principles at play and those matter. 01:30:42.300 --> 01:30:50.060 And they affect what you consider to be possible and whatnot and what you like 01:30:50.060 --> 01:30:54.920 yes you could get the result you want but the way to get there would be immoral 01:30:54.920 --> 01:30:57.800 so you don't do it you know. 01:31:02.340 --> 01:31:06.980 I'm gonna wrap up very quickly i gotta move on to other things but what else we got, 01:31:08.620 --> 01:31:11.440 There was a peace deal with Hezbollah, Israel and Hezbollah, 01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:15.880 brokered by the U.S. and a few others, seems to be holding so far. 01:31:16.740 --> 01:31:21.500 Good, I guess. I mean, yes, good. I shouldn't say I guess there. 01:31:22.040 --> 01:31:28.140 The I guess is more that the, I don't know, this part of the conflict didn't 01:31:28.140 --> 01:31:30.820 even, I don't know, it feels like it didn't even have to happen. 01:31:30.820 --> 01:31:35.800 Like it was, it was an extension added on to what was going on with Gaza that 01:31:35.800 --> 01:31:44.260 seemed like it could have been avoided entirely, but good ceasefire, blah, blah, blah. 01:31:45.620 --> 01:31:49.900 Still got to do the same with Gaza. Not there yet. The Biden administration 01:31:49.900 --> 01:31:53.560 is continuing to try to make that happen. 01:31:53.760 --> 01:31:56.860 I don't know if they'll get anywhere before the inauguration. 01:31:56.860 --> 01:31:59.020 And after the inauguration, 01:31:59.780 --> 01:32:05.880 you know, honestly, it is very possible that Trump will be able to get something 01:32:05.880 --> 01:32:11.980 done here that Biden was not because Biden and despite all of the people who 01:32:11.980 --> 01:32:13.460 wanted him to be even more so, 01:32:13.600 --> 01:32:17.000 but Biden and Netanyahu were adversarial. They were not buddies. 01:32:18.580 --> 01:32:23.440 Biden was trying to tell Netanyahu to stop. 01:32:24.460 --> 01:32:28.840 Trump will not be telling Netanyahu to stop in the same way, 01:32:29.100 --> 01:32:36.660 but there may be ways to end things like maybe it's full steam ahead. 01:32:36.920 --> 01:32:44.680 Maybe it's let Netanyahu bulldoze all of Gaza and then start building the condos. 01:32:44.920 --> 01:32:48.820 I don't know. Or also just naturally over the course of time, 01:32:49.660 --> 01:32:52.380 Netanyahu succeeded in what he wanted. 01:32:53.000 --> 01:32:59.380 And I mean, one of the reasons stated for the Hezbollah ceasefire was basically 01:32:59.380 --> 01:33:01.240 that Israel had gotten what they wanted. 01:33:01.640 --> 01:33:09.100 They killed huge numbers of the Hezbollah leadership and huge numbers of the 01:33:09.100 --> 01:33:10.860 rank and file fighters as well. 01:33:11.020 --> 01:33:14.300 And there was what was left was basically non-functional. 01:33:15.360 --> 01:33:20.420 Maybe Netanyahu declares he got to that point sometime in late January, 01:33:20.640 --> 01:33:22.580 February, and then, okay, we'll stop for now. 01:33:23.700 --> 01:33:30.400 I mean, the Israeli position has always essentially been, we'll stop when we win. 01:33:31.340 --> 01:33:35.040 And they're a lot closer to winning now than they were a few months ago or a 01:33:35.040 --> 01:33:37.040 year ago. So there you go. 01:33:38.420 --> 01:33:41.880 The Trump cabinet, awful as expected. 01:33:42.700 --> 01:33:45.780 Yeah, Gates had to drop out, but everybody else is awful. 01:33:46.340 --> 01:33:52.880 It's all people heading agencies that don't believe in that agency's existence 01:33:52.880 --> 01:33:57.200 and are in it to cripple it. 01:33:57.200 --> 01:34:04.280 For the most part, it is not, we want this agency to do this other thing. 01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:11.900 It's not we have a policy difference with the previous administration on what this agency does. 01:34:12.120 --> 01:34:14.740 It's we don't want this agency to do anything. 01:34:15.240 --> 01:34:22.000 The exceptions to that rule are the Department of Defense, the Department of 01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:24.120 Defense, and the Department of Justice. 01:34:24.680 --> 01:34:31.200 The Department of Defense, you know, is all going to be about macho blustering 01:34:31.200 --> 01:34:32.980 and all this kind of stuff. 01:34:33.980 --> 01:34:39.560 You know, we've got the, I can never say his name, Hogarth, Haygarth, whatever. 01:34:39.780 --> 01:34:43.120 The guy from Fox News who's been tapped for defense. 01:34:43.640 --> 01:34:46.920 He's all about like, let's get rid of all the woke stuff. Let's get, 01:34:47.080 --> 01:34:50.540 you know, let's, let's kick out all the trans people on day one. 01:34:50.540 --> 01:34:55.640 You know, all of this kind of stuff that he says will make the military stronger, 01:34:55.640 --> 01:34:59.880 that the people actually there right now disagree. But, oh, well, 01:35:00.120 --> 01:35:03.460 there might be some cuts there, too. 01:35:03.640 --> 01:35:07.100 But, you know, you got Trump talking about, hey, wanting to use the military 01:35:07.100 --> 01:35:09.000 domestically. Ah, that'll be fun. 01:35:10.800 --> 01:35:17.480 Trump's whole thing is to be so belligerently aggressive that... 01:35:18.490 --> 01:35:24.630 Rivals internationally will just capitulate. And so you don't need to actually do violence. 01:35:24.650 --> 01:35:30.670 It's basically, you know, the old, the old fashioned cold war mutually assured 01:35:30.670 --> 01:35:32.070 destruction kind of thing. 01:35:32.450 --> 01:35:37.770 But in, in non-nuclear terms, it's like we want to have such overwhelming force 01:35:37.770 --> 01:35:39.870 that nobody will even think of messing with us. 01:35:39.970 --> 01:35:46.570 And we won't have to actually use that force, which look, it's a strategy that 01:35:46.570 --> 01:35:47.770 sometimes worked in the past. 01:35:48.530 --> 01:35:54.490 But at some point, if you don't actually utilize that in some places, 01:35:54.830 --> 01:35:59.370 then people realize you don't mean it and then it stops working. 01:36:00.190 --> 01:36:06.970 So who knows? Trump did, you know, people's worst fears of Trump being involved 01:36:06.970 --> 01:36:09.710 in places all over the world did not happen last time. 01:36:10.110 --> 01:36:13.610 He did get involved in a couple new places. He did some stuff in Syria that 01:36:13.610 --> 01:36:17.490 we weren't doing. He escalated the drone warfare all over the world. 01:36:18.570 --> 01:36:23.390 He, he did some targeted assassinations. So it's not like he was, 01:36:24.090 --> 01:36:29.010 you know, a pacifist or anything, but we'll see. We'll see what happens this time. 01:36:29.270 --> 01:36:34.270 He certainly is all about, you know, we want to get along with Putin and, 01:36:34.390 --> 01:36:40.330 and, you know, he wants to make friends with North Korea and all of these kinds of things. 01:36:40.530 --> 01:36:46.230 So one, one, one way to get along and avoid conflict is certainly appeasement. 01:36:46.230 --> 01:36:50.450 It sometimes works for a while and usually doesn't work forever. 01:36:51.910 --> 01:36:55.590 And that's the potential solution to Ukraine as well, of course, 01:36:55.670 --> 01:36:57.590 is just like, okay, fine. 01:36:57.990 --> 01:37:01.470 I mean, when the invasion first happened in the first couple of shows, 01:37:01.570 --> 01:37:08.850 Yvonne and I were talking about how eventually this will probably end in a peace 01:37:08.850 --> 01:37:13.070 deal where Ukraine gives up some territory and promises not to join NATO. 01:37:13.610 --> 01:37:17.630 It was the most likely alternative at the beginning. I guess it's now the most 01:37:17.630 --> 01:37:18.790 likely alternative again. 01:37:20.250 --> 01:37:25.770 There was a brief period in the middle where it looked like maybe Ukraine would 01:37:25.770 --> 01:37:28.070 actually be able to push back more than they have. 01:37:28.950 --> 01:37:33.070 But no, I think that's out the window now. 01:37:33.310 --> 01:37:37.670 I think it's the most likely thing. I mean, Trump is of course exaggerating 01:37:37.670 --> 01:37:40.250 by I'll be able to solve it on in one day. 01:37:40.690 --> 01:37:47.450 But the most likely outcome as a relatively quick outcome is you freeze the 01:37:47.450 --> 01:37:48.730 front lines where they are. 01:37:48.890 --> 01:37:52.330 They make that the effective line of control. 01:37:53.050 --> 01:37:59.610 And you tell Ukraine, sorry, you're never joining NATO, at least not in the 01:37:59.610 --> 01:38:01.310 foreseeable future. And done. 01:38:01.990 --> 01:38:07.410 Which, by the way, even before the invasion, Ukraine was being told no. 01:38:08.510 --> 01:38:12.530 They were being told you could ask, but we're not doing that right now because 01:38:12.530 --> 01:38:15.350 we don't want to aggravate the Russians. But whatever. 01:38:18.050 --> 01:38:22.930 Okay. Oh, and Kash Patel for FBI. I think technically speaking, 01:38:23.190 --> 01:38:30.770 the FBI director has a term that isn't over yet, but by appointing a new FBI director, 01:38:31.350 --> 01:38:36.270 Trump is making clear that he is intending to fire the current FBI director 01:38:36.270 --> 01:38:44.650 and put on a new one that is an absolutely insane election-denying thing. 01:38:46.050 --> 01:38:51.290 Anti-FBI, anti-law enforcement person. So we'll see how that goes. 01:38:51.430 --> 01:38:57.430 It probably matches up with, you know, because Trump got, ended up with Pat 01:38:57.430 --> 01:38:59.930 Bondi for justice instead of Gates. 01:39:00.250 --> 01:39:06.610 He's doubling down on FBI because his, his whole intention is to make this agency 01:39:06.610 --> 01:39:10.750 into the tool of his retribution. 01:39:11.210 --> 01:39:18.710 Like he feels like from 2016 onward, the department of justice was after him. 01:39:19.250 --> 01:39:22.250 And so now he's going to go after all the people who were after him. 01:39:23.070 --> 01:39:26.750 I mean, that's, that's his own words. That's what he says. Again, 01:39:26.750 --> 01:39:30.150 we'll see what he actually follows through with and what he doesn't. 01:39:31.030 --> 01:39:35.290 I mean, he never did lock Hillary Clinton up. Maybe he'll get to it this time. 01:39:36.390 --> 01:39:39.290 Because because last time he kept asking people when 01:39:39.290 --> 01:39:42.510 are we when are we locking up hillary clinton and they 01:39:42.510 --> 01:39:45.670 kept putting him off because there was no actual legitimate 01:39:45.670 --> 01:39:49.750 reason to lock up hillary clinton but as 01:39:49.750 --> 01:39:55.670 we keep saying all of those quote-unquote adults in the room gone we don't have 01:39:55.670 --> 01:40:01.950 any of those you know what i think i'll wrap it up there there was an interview 01:40:01.950 --> 01:40:05.870 with harris Harris's campaign team on Pod Save America. 01:40:06.650 --> 01:40:10.170 I did not watch the whole thing. I saw clips. It was pretty interesting. 01:40:10.610 --> 01:40:15.330 Basically, her team knowing they were behind almost the whole time. 01:40:15.490 --> 01:40:17.110 I mean, they kept saying they were underdogs. 01:40:17.710 --> 01:40:20.230 Election graphs said they were behind the whole time. 01:40:21.470 --> 01:40:25.010 Well, except a very tiny moment in September. 01:40:27.790 --> 01:40:32.330 But not that tiny, a couple weeks. I should look it up. You don't care. 01:40:32.430 --> 01:40:35.470 They were ahead for a little while in September, according to election drafts. 01:40:36.190 --> 01:40:39.610 But they knew they were behind the whole time. 01:40:40.150 --> 01:40:44.330 They knew there were certain strategies of throwing Joe Biden under the bus 01:40:44.330 --> 01:40:49.110 that might have gained them a few points that Kamala Harris did not want to do. 01:40:50.110 --> 01:40:56.810 There were a variety of other choices they made that they've been criticized for. 01:40:57.050 --> 01:41:02.930 But, you know, like I said early in the show, I don't know that those conversations 01:41:02.930 --> 01:41:04.410 directly help right now. 01:41:05.070 --> 01:41:11.130 There are a number of things that any one of us could come up with that we would 01:41:11.130 --> 01:41:13.370 say they should have, could have done differently. 01:41:13.950 --> 01:41:15.830 We are operating from hindsight. 01:41:16.450 --> 01:41:17.870 These folks were not. 01:41:19.610 --> 01:41:26.490 And the worldwide trends were such that even if they had, they came close to 01:41:26.490 --> 01:41:27.630 doing everything perfect. 01:41:28.030 --> 01:41:33.550 They ran an excellent campaign. Could they have done a few things different? Maybe. 01:41:34.310 --> 01:41:39.890 Is there some chance that some of these things could have eked out a win? Maybe. 01:41:40.130 --> 01:41:44.670 But worldwide, the incumbent parties lost ground and. 01:41:45.890 --> 01:41:52.370 And Harris did better than any of those other incumbents worldwide in 2024. So, okay. 01:41:53.410 --> 01:41:59.690 Curmudgeons-corner.com. Go there. You can find all the ways to contact us. 01:41:59.790 --> 01:42:04.070 You can find our transcripts, transcripts, old episodes and transcripts from 01:42:04.070 --> 01:42:04.890 the last couple of years. 01:42:05.630 --> 01:42:09.630 I have not linked our TikTok there yet. We now have a Curmudgeons Corner TikTok. 01:42:09.910 --> 01:42:11.730 We do not have a Curmudgeons Corner Blue Sky. 01:42:12.170 --> 01:42:15.630 I have not set that up or a Curmudgeons Corner thread. 01:42:16.670 --> 01:42:22.110 Maybe some i don't want to have i don't want to have multiples one's enough right i don't know but. 01:42:23.190 --> 01:42:25.870 Anyway you can get to our youtube you can get to our tiktok you can 01:42:25.870 --> 01:42:30.410 get to all the ways to facebook email mastodon 01:42:30.410 --> 01:42:33.170 all that stuff is there also a link to 01:42:33.170 --> 01:42:35.990 our patreon where you can give us money we like 01:42:35.990 --> 01:42:38.750 money right now we get 15 a month or 01:42:38.750 --> 01:42:41.870 so from those of you out there who support us and we appreciate that 01:42:41.870 --> 01:42:44.690 very much helps us every once in 01:42:44.690 --> 01:42:47.330 a while buy new microphones and stuff when the old 01:42:47.330 --> 01:42:50.090 ones die like i said you know things like 01:42:50.090 --> 01:42:53.450 that but maybe someday 01:42:53.450 --> 01:42:57.350 we'll have a meetup again we did that once a few years ago it was fun maybe 01:42:57.350 --> 01:43:03.930 someday i don't know and yeah at various levels on the patreon we'll send you 01:43:03.930 --> 01:43:07.110 a postcard we'll send you a mug we'll mention you on the show at two dollars 01:43:07.110 --> 01:43:10.610 a month or more or if you just ask we'll invite you to the curmudgeons Corner Slack, 01:43:10.890 --> 01:43:16.490 where Yvonne and I and a variety of our listeners are hanging out all week long, 01:43:17.270 --> 01:43:26.970 and chatting about life and politics and news and non-politics and fun stories we see, 01:43:27.510 --> 01:43:31.010 all that kind of stuff. It'd be great to have more of you. 01:43:31.730 --> 01:43:36.130 So if you're not on there and want to be, go to curmudgeons-corner.com, 01:43:36.270 --> 01:43:39.390 pick one of the ways of contacting us and let me know. 01:43:39.530 --> 01:43:42.230 We'll get you invited. It's a lot of fun. 01:43:43.310 --> 01:43:47.970 Yvonne would usually at this point give a highlight of something on the Slack 01:43:47.970 --> 01:43:53.710 that we have not talked about on the show. I did not prepare one. I am bad. 01:43:53.890 --> 01:43:56.870 Let me look real quick. Let me look real quick. 01:43:57.370 --> 01:43:59.990 Go from the random category. 01:44:01.270 --> 01:44:08.670 Oh, here we go. This is a new thing that Bob posted last night. 01:44:08.850 --> 01:44:11.970 I have not read the article yet, but I will read you the headlines. 01:44:13.000 --> 01:44:21.400 94% of AI-generated college writing is undetected by teachers. Dun-dun-dun! 01:44:21.980 --> 01:44:26.500 Which, you know, is not entirely unsurprising. 01:44:26.820 --> 01:44:30.460 Like, I've read a number of things where they have these theoretic, 01:44:30.460 --> 01:44:37.000 like, AI detectors, but the problem is the false positive rate is huge and false negative. 01:44:37.120 --> 01:44:44.160 They're just not accurate at all. Like they will both detect lots of human writing 01:44:44.160 --> 01:44:46.560 and say it was AI when it wasn't at all. 01:44:47.060 --> 01:44:54.180 And they will miss a lot of actual AI writing. So they're basically useless. 01:44:54.460 --> 01:44:57.520 And they can get people in trouble for not doing anything wrong, 01:44:57.680 --> 01:44:59.640 which seems like a big problem. 01:45:00.140 --> 01:45:05.480 But, you know, 94% of AI generated college writing is undetected by teachers. 01:45:06.240 --> 01:45:10.220 And the subhead here, I'm not going to open up the actual article live, 01:45:10.420 --> 01:45:15.620 but it says, but by and large, stopping AI academic fraud has not been a priority for most schools. 01:45:15.880 --> 01:45:20.580 Look, the answer to this is like most things. 01:45:20.940 --> 01:45:25.920 It's not that you have to detect and stop the AI writing. It's that, 01:45:26.000 --> 01:45:31.640 hey, your method of evaluating whether students have learned the material by 01:45:31.640 --> 01:45:35.140 things through like essays has just become obsolete. 01:45:35.640 --> 01:45:38.880 You have to now do something else. Sorry. 01:45:40.020 --> 01:45:45.340 And in many ways, the methods of teaching are sometimes obsolete as well. 01:45:45.900 --> 01:45:51.960 Like, you know, I've mentioned before my son, Alex, who's just woken up and 01:45:51.960 --> 01:45:55.880 showed up as I'm recording here is doing, is teaching himself, 01:45:55.880 --> 01:45:57.220 you know, game development. 01:45:58.200 --> 01:46:05.120 This is AI assisted. You know, he's using AIs to like, okay, how do I do blah? 01:46:05.320 --> 01:46:09.140 And they will give him code and they will tell him and they will do things. 01:46:09.400 --> 01:46:11.700 But he's still learning how to do it. 01:46:12.060 --> 01:46:15.240 But it's AI assisted because it's a tool that's out there now. 01:46:15.880 --> 01:46:21.860 And it would be stupid and counterproductive to pretend it's not. 01:46:21.860 --> 01:46:26.000 But instead, you have to learn what it's good for, what it's not, 01:46:26.220 --> 01:46:32.180 how to know when it's taking you in the wrong direction, how to double check 01:46:32.180 --> 01:46:33.920 it, how to do this, how to do that. 01:46:34.480 --> 01:46:40.420 And like if you were testing somebody on their game development skills, guess what? 01:46:40.880 --> 01:46:45.800 You know, please generate this standard piece of code that an AI could spit 01:46:45.800 --> 01:46:49.020 out perfectly in five seconds is not a good test. 01:46:49.020 --> 01:46:52.080 You know and and there's 01:46:52.080 --> 01:46:57.180 going to be a lot more in-person stuff obviously like where you want to know 01:46:57.180 --> 01:47:03.840 somebody knows something you're going to have to not do it asynchronously you're 01:47:03.840 --> 01:47:10.020 going to have to do it in in person or in a way that like lets you in real time 01:47:10.020 --> 01:47:11.440 go back and forth with them Now, 01:47:11.960 --> 01:47:13.960 AI is going to be able to do that soon, too. 01:47:14.240 --> 01:47:23.200 Like, I can develop, I can do my AI clone that will answer for me and look like me and whatever. 01:47:23.400 --> 01:47:31.600 Anyway, the point is, it is never a solution to sort of stick your head in the 01:47:31.600 --> 01:47:37.860 sand, try to prohibit the technology, try to avoid the technology. 01:47:37.860 --> 01:47:42.560 Oh, gee, no, you have to embrace it and figure out what the world's going to 01:47:42.560 --> 01:47:43.700 look like with that there. 01:47:44.640 --> 01:47:49.100 Which, by the way, another story I haven't followed, but Australia apparently 01:47:49.100 --> 01:47:55.120 just passed a law saying you have to be 16 for social media. 01:47:56.020 --> 01:48:02.440 That's not, it's not going to work. It's, I, I, I recognize the things they 01:48:02.440 --> 01:48:03.700 may be trying to achieve with that. 01:48:03.800 --> 01:48:06.340 It's not going to work. It's not going to work. 01:48:06.700 --> 01:48:11.300 Sorry. It's going to have, it's going to have unintended consequences that they did not want. 01:48:11.420 --> 01:48:15.600 And at the same time, it's not going to work to solve the problems that they hoped it would solve. 01:48:16.540 --> 01:48:20.860 And hopefully Australia will be a nice experimental bed for that, 01:48:21.100 --> 01:48:25.760 that will stop other countries from trying similar stupid things before it's too late. 01:48:26.020 --> 01:48:28.960 So sorry. Anyway, I'm done now. 01:48:29.580 --> 01:48:32.960 Thanks everybody. Like I said, I've got family stuff in the afternoon. 01:48:33.220 --> 01:48:35.100 I'll get this podcast out sometime. 01:48:36.700 --> 01:48:43.900 Hopefully Yvonne will be back next week. Hopefully his wife's injury will heal. 01:48:44.280 --> 01:48:48.480 I mean, it's going to require some, some treatment apparently. 01:48:49.080 --> 01:48:53.800 Maybe Yvonne will tell us more next week. But anyway, get well soon, Juana. 01:48:54.460 --> 01:48:59.380 And we'll see Yvonne back next time. Thanks, everybody. Have a great week. 01:48:59.560 --> 01:49:01.160 We'll talk to you next time. 01:49:01.560 --> 01:49:04.600 And oh, it's December now. 01:49:04.760 --> 01:49:08.220 So starting next week, I'm going to start bugging people about our year-end 01:49:08.220 --> 01:49:10.820 shows that are coming up, predictions and stuff. 01:49:11.040 --> 01:49:17.980 And I'll set up a Google Doc for people to give things they want us to do predictions 01:49:17.980 --> 01:49:21.780 on. I guess I just started it now, but I'll start it for real next time. 01:49:22.780 --> 01:49:28.060 Okay. Bye, folks. Oh, I was about to just hit the stop button. I need to hit the outro. 01:49:28.260 --> 01:49:31.060 We need the song. Have a good week. Goodbye. 01:49:32.020 --> 01:49:33.100 Thank you. 01:50:01.060 --> 01:50:06.760 Thank you. Okay, now I'm hitting spot. Spot? I'm hitting spot? 01:50:07.240 --> 01:50:10.160 No, don't hit spot. Spot's a good dog. 01:50:11.060 --> 01:50:13.180 Here, I'm hitting stop. 01:50:14.240 --> 01:50:17.000 And Alex is hitting me. I'm hitting stop.