Sam: Uh, there you go. Okay. We've got that up. Now we got to do this.
Sam: Boom. Okay. I think that should have. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Ivan: Good.
Sam: What you got? Anything?
Ivan: I love that people have gone. Just, just it's hilarious. Making,
Ivan: you know, fun of Mark Zuckerberg.
Sam: Ah, okay.
Ivan: Breaking in a blow to Priscilla chance, divorce case against Mark Zuckerberg. Mr.
Ivan: Zuckerberg's legal team has proven their marriage invalid on the grounds that
Ivan: it was never consummated, citing evidence of Zuckerberg's Ken doll anatomy.
Sam: Nice. Okay.
Ivan: I'm sure he's really enjoying all of these on his uncensored.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It's all of these things.
Sam: If there's no fact checking, then we might as well say whatever we want about Zuck.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Yes. So, okay. You don't want fact checking. Okay. All right.
Ivan: Cool. Let's just, oh my God.
Sam: You're ready to go, Mr. Bo.
Ivan: Yes, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go.
Sam: Here we go.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, January 11th, 2024. 1834.
Sam: It is just about 1830 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Mentor.
Sam: Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hello.
Sam: And we're back from our special predictions and predictions review shows and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so we're going to do a regular show. We'll do a butt first with like,
Sam: you know, the kind of stuff that's involved in that.
Sam: And then we'll do more serious stuff towards the end of the show, I guess.
Ivan: Yes, I guess.
Sam: So, so how's things, Yvonne?
Ivan: You know, I took finally, that's been a while, a very lengthy time off.
Ivan: Okay. So I went and I, I, I didn't work from the gosh, let me see.
Ivan: I got to look it up on the calendar because I, I, I, I, I, I didn't work from
Ivan: the, where's December from the, the 20th of December.
Ivan: And I really didn't get back to work until about 8th. Okay.
Sam: Nice. Nice.
Ivan: And, you know, I will say that on Monday the 6th, just because I needed to check
Ivan: something, I went to try to, I think I had like a question.
Ivan: I had to get something from my work computer and I, I, I didn't even take my work computer off.
Ivan: on my trip to Disney, which I always do everywhere. But I decided for once,
Ivan: screw this. I'm not taking this damn thing. Okay.
Ivan: Which by the way, did, did prove to be a little bit problematic.
Ivan: One thing came up that I, that I, I don't have VPN access enabled any other
Ivan: computer other than my, that laptop.
Ivan: And it, it created a sort of situation that made it far more complicated for
Ivan: me to resolve. I didn't manage to get it resolved, but it made it way more complicated
Ivan: than it normally would be. Okay.
Sam: Yeah. So, yeah, I applaud you for not bringing the laptop, but the whole point
Sam: of not bringing the laptop was that you're not available for work.
Ivan: The problem was that there here's, I forgot that.
Ivan: So there was somebody's contract that expired on December 31st and we haven't signed a new contract.
Ivan: And I needed somebody to approve that their services would continue and wouldn't
Ivan: get shut down on December 31st.
Ivan: And so it, this, this was not something like this was all of a sudden I'm like,
Ivan: shit, wait, they're going to shut them down unless I get the stupid approval.
Ivan: So I couldn't risk getting one of my biggest customers shut down on December 31st.
Sam: I get it.
Ivan: So I, yeah, well, I, I thought I, here's the thing. I thought that had been
Ivan: handled and I realized all of a sudden, shit, I never saw anybody actually approve this stupid thing.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So yeah, it's just, you know, so I, I, I did, but, but thankfully I,
Ivan: I did contact a couple of people and say, Hey, I'm on damn vacation.
Ivan: I just realized this isn't approved.
Ivan: Can you help me like contact the approvers and get it approved?
Ivan: And so they actually managed to do that. So, so, but that was like,
Ivan: uh, well, what do you want me to do? You want me to, yeah, this would have been great.
Ivan: Let me let my most important customer get shut down.
Ivan: So basically when I get back, I'm completely fucked.
Ivan: Other things could have waited, not that one.
Ivan: So anyway, so I didn't take the laptop, but then here's the one thing.
Ivan: When I tried to log in on Monday to get this, I needed something from the HR system payroll.
Ivan: Somebody, I think some medical, somebody was asking me some information. I don't know, whatever.
Ivan: I needed to, I needed to log into the computer. okay i
Ivan: i couldn't remember i struggled to remember the
Ivan: password for the computer number one i was
Ivan: like shit wait i don't remember this damn laptop's password and then and then
Ivan: okay i did remember the laptop password but i will say that the one that i couldn't
Ivan: remember and i had to look i haven't written i i know that i i wrote it down
Ivan: somewhere because that was very difficult i had no idea what the hell the damn vpn password was,
Ivan: I tried, I almost locked myself out and I'm like, I'm like, oh shit,
Ivan: I got to look where I wrote it down.
Ivan: I don't want to get fucking out now. This would be bad. Okay.
Ivan: So, so that's how much time I spent completely disconnected.
Ivan: I will say that it definitely helped me get a little bit more settled in terms
Ivan: of, I felt I was able to figure out, okay,
Ivan: I've been worrying about all these things. I guess these weren't that important.
Ivan: We can just focus on these. Nobody apparently gives a shit about this.
Ivan: So I figured, well, if somebody gives a shit, they'll call me.
Ivan: But look, I'm already Monday afternoon. I'm already getting on a damn plane to go visit customers.
Ivan: One thing that happened is also that I did notice, thankfully, that...
Ivan: So most of my customers right now are located in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And the one advantage towards taking towards time off is that both Puerto Rico,
Ivan: the Dominican Republic celebrate three Kings day, which is 6th of January.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So that is a very big holiday in Spain. Okay. Which is why it's celebrated Puerto Rico.
Ivan: But I did notice that very few countries, I thought Puerto Rico,
Ivan: it's always been celebrated and it's always been a holiday.
Ivan: But I did, you know, I went, I decided, well, I was like asking,
Ivan: hey, where is this a holiday in Latin America?
Ivan: And I realized that it's only a holiday in, it's not a holiday in Mexico.
Ivan: And I thought it would be.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: But it's only a holiday in Columbia, in Puerto Rico, and in the Dominican Republic.
Ivan: Everywhere else, they don't actually even celebrate it.
Ivan: But in Puerto Rico, I don't know if it's still true, but it used to be three
Ivan: Kings Day was bigger than Christmas in terms of you actually, when I was little.
Ivan: you would get gifts on both Christmas and Three Kingsdays.
Sam: Well, this all relates to the song with the 12 days of Christmas.
Sam: Traditionally, it's a 12-day celebration.
Sam: One of these is the beginning of the 12 days. One of them is the end of the 12 days.
Sam: You also, if you get Orthodox traditions, there's a difference between the Julian
Sam: and Gregorian calendars.
Ivan: Which also differ a bit.
Sam: But they still have the 12 days. So like this is how how this has evolved as
Sam: a celebration has differed worldwide, you know,
Sam: a bit sort of the most common at this point worldwide is the December 25th is the main celebration.
Ivan: Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
Sam: But, you know, there are all kinds of variants of, you know,
Sam: I mean, and some some traditions actually like it's like the whole 12 days.
Sam: It's not beginning and it's like the whole 12 days.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Yes. And they're different like religious things that happen on every day of
Sam: the 12 days and stuff like that.
Sam: And, you know, I'm not familiar with those traditions in detail,
Sam: but, you know, there's all kinds of variations.
Ivan: Here was the good news about this or bad news, depending, because my bosses were complaining.
Ivan: Well, why haven't your customers said anything? And I'm like,
Ivan: dude, I emailed them this week.
Ivan: All I got was out of offices from everybody until Monday from all of them.
Ivan: literally, they all just bounced World War out of office until next Monday.
Ivan: I mean, next Monday the 13th.
Ivan: So they, they all took off like on the 22nd and also not coming back on the
Ivan: 13th, which is by the way, well, at least for my vacation was great because
Ivan: they were customers weren't there.
Ivan: So, you know, it's not like I was going to get a call from them anyway.
Ivan: So, but, but, you know, so yeah, but so, but yeah, but you know,
Ivan: yeah, Puerto Rico, we celebrate that. That is a big holiday,
Ivan: but I realized that I was calling people in Mexico and they're telling me now
Ivan: it's, it's a regular work day.
Ivan: I'm like, you know, so. But yeah, but Puerto Rico, yeah, we used to,
Ivan: the one thing that we had to do, so you know how people put milk and cookies for, for Santa, right?
Sam: Yes. Yes.
Ivan: So the big thing for three Kings day when I was growing up is that you have
Ivan: to leave hay for the, for the camels that the three Kings wrote in too.
Ivan: So you had to put these little, like, like little baskets of hay under the Christmas tree.
Ivan: So when, when the three Kings arrived, so they could feed the camels.
Ivan: okay camels or horses i don't even remember camels there
Ivan: were camels yeah there were camels yes you had to they could feed the cows so
Ivan: yeah so yeah we had to we so we all of us the night before would go out and
Ivan: basically rip out okay we ripped out grass right and just put it a little little
Ivan: thing and then put it under the tree.
Sam: Yeah so anyway i i guess to wrap your section knob it was good to take three weeks off.
Ivan: Oh fuck yes i mean
Ivan: i i you know look confers to me again what i
Ivan: what i realized when i got when i got fired a couple of
Ivan: years ago dude i'm so ready to fucking retire it's not even funny i i could
Ivan: i could i i'm like i've got you know all these people i'm like oh you know that
Ivan: wind up like a couple of months after they retired they die because they have
Ivan: no purpose in life blah blah blah that's yeah dude i'm i'm not in that camp.
Sam: I've got so much I would fill my days with.
Ivan: Oh, I'd be full wall to wall.
Sam: I have no issues with. Now, would I spend some time sleeping in and watching some TV?
Ivan: Oh, I did a lot of sleeping. Let me tell you something that I do some sleeping.
Ivan: Look, I was struggling to wake up before.
Ivan: Some days I was like waking up at 12. Listen, I never wake up at 12.
Ivan: I was waking up at 12. Okay.
Sam: Right. i'm.
Ivan: Like you know the hell with this you know so yeah.
Sam: Sleeping is good sleeping is good i just.
Ivan: Want to wake up get my coffee so go go lay back on the bed watch some tv fuck
Ivan: all of you whatever yeah yeah yeah.
Sam: Like i i have lots of things i would want to do but like absolutely like the
Sam: one of the important stuff would be never setting an alarm ever again i wake
Sam: up when i wake up when what I want to do to get ready for my day.
Sam: And then at some point, a few hours later, I'm ready to do something interesting
Sam: and productive. And I do it.
Ivan: You know, every day that damn alarm to me, it's just like this slave device.
Ivan: They just like really just, you know, you know, I am enslaved to this stupid thing.
Ivan: It goes off. I hate it.
Ivan: I don't want to hear it. I know I got to get up.
Ivan: I'm just like, fuck, stupid thing. I got to get up.
Sam: I got to go to the thing. Yeah.
Ivan: So, well, it's just like, you know, say, fuck it. No.
Sam: Uh, yeah, I hear you. So I'll, I'll give you mine.
Sam: So first of all, since I took off a lot of time at the end of October and beginning
Sam: of November for election graphs, I, I did not want to take more time,
Sam: at least no significant time over the break.
Sam: So, so I, I worked, I worked through the entire time, except for actual New
Sam: Year's Day and Christmas, which were given as holidays by my company.
Sam: But let's be honest.
Sam: Those days are super slow.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. You know, I've been some years where I've wound up working some of those days.
Ivan: I usually have always taken them off, but I've worked some of those days or the slowest days ever.
Sam: For the longest time, I actually explicitly like had the philosophy of it's
Sam: a waste of time to use paid time off.
Sam: Because like I know your company has it like unlimited time off. Mine does not.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: But my philosophy was it's a waste to actually use that time,
Sam: your paid time off on those days, because even if you work, there's so little to do.
Sam: And it's so slow, like, you know, you might as well be taking the day off.
Ivan: Right, right, right.
Sam: And so I did work through those days, but they were slow days.
Sam: I did, you know, but here's the other thing. As has been in the news lately,
Sam: my company has gone to full return to office.
Sam: They had been three days a week. As of January 1st, it's full in the office all the time forever.
Ivan: Yes, yes.
Sam: So even those weeks leading up to January 1st, like, oh, by the way,
Sam: it's three days a week in the office, regardless of holidays and vacation.
Sam: So like, it's not you get two days working from home.
Sam: it's three days in the office so like if you if you've got a holiday in that
Sam: week that means you can only work from home one day okay like okay even in the
Sam: old three days so like basically you know i was in the office a lot between
Sam: between christmas and new year's and all that kind of stuff to a a fairly empty
Sam: even more empty than usual office well.
Ivan: Probably one thing i would guess the traffic was lighter because i i've i've
Ivan: had to commute sometimes during those days and the traffic, you know,
Ivan: schools out and other stuff and whatever.
Ivan: And so, you know, some people take off. So traffic would have been lighter.
Ivan: I would have hoped, right?
Sam: Well, yeah. I mean, during that week, I mean, traffic was light just because
Sam: of everything related to the holiday RTO or not. That's what I'm saying.
Ivan: You know, between the holiday people out, schools out. Yeah.
Ivan: Traffic usually gets pretty thin those days.
Sam: Which brings up after the RTO five mandate on January 1st.
Sam: Like, and let me just say like there, the quick summary, the quick summary of
Sam: life after RTO five, it sucks.
Sam: It's horrible.
Sam: It's useless. It's okay. Anyway, so, um, I.
Ivan: I, look, I, I lived through this once. Okay. Yes.
Ivan: You know, I had been at HP for many years and the last three years at HP between 2007 and 2010,
Ivan: I was basically fully remote and I switched jobs to a job that I had to be at
Ivan: the office five days a week.
Ivan: And I remember the first couple of months was an adjustment,
Ivan: but I, I, I will say that eventually I, I, I got used to it back, back.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, look.
Ivan: It sucked.
Sam: I did it prior to the last few years.
Sam: I did it my entire freaking career, right? So obviously you can get used to it.
Ivan: It's just it's a rough transition.
Sam: Including at the exact same building I'm in now, you know, so it's not it's
Sam: not even new in that sense.
Sam: I've worked at this building back when I worked five days a week.
Sam: And now and my my company has always been relatively flexible.
Sam: Like if I had to do something like, you know, if I had something going on,
Sam: I could work from home occasionally, just not on a regular, you know, I'm working from home.
Ivan: Right. It's not your primary workplace. Yeah.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Hey, you got, you know, I don't know. You they cut your spleen out today.
Ivan: You know, I got a, you know, I don't know something.
Ivan: Oh, that's that's pretty. OK, that's that's I might take some time off for that.
Ivan: Yeah, that's a good point.
Sam: Just say that.
Ivan: Yeah, that's not a work from home day. I'm like, I don't I don't know.
Ivan: they have to put your finger in a split. There you go. Okay.
Ivan: All right. Okay. So that one. Okay.
Ivan: Yeah. So yeah, you know, I need, I need to work from home, but yeah. Yeah.
Sam: No, but here, here's the thing here, here, here is the first few days.
Sam: Like they made a January 1st instead of a Monday, which was,
Sam: whatever like but it meant the first couple days was still most people were
Sam: off a lot of people took that whole week off right right right the first was
Sam: on a wednesday that thursday and friday were still pretty slow lots of people
Sam: scheduled it to come back that monday but so but.
Ivan: Okay monday how was monday though.
Sam: So monday was the first day where first of all okay a couple things Monday that
Sam: Monday I still I also had huge trouble like adjust you you mentioned sleep,
Sam: adjusting my sleep properly to the idea
Sam: of getting into work at a reasonable time right yeah because
Sam: I mean and I was to wake up earlier yeah I
Sam: was doing it three days a week anyway but like depending on
Sam: when meetings were I would adjust that and traffic wasn't as bad blah
Sam: blah blah but like so yeah like monday and
Sam: tuesday i massively struggled
Sam: to even get up at like a reasonable i ended
Sam: up actually getting to the building like at 11 both days okay now i i didn't
Sam: miss anything i had no meetings those mornings whatever but like it was a struggle
Sam: because like you know and and the work from home pattern i've mentioned this
Sam: before like if i had a 9 a.m meeting I'd roll out up at 8.
Ivan: 8 59.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. I'd wake up at 8 59, roll into the other room,
Sam: open the laptop and be on the meeting.
Sam: You know, I can't do that if you have to like do a commute.
Ivan: Um, you have to get ready, you have to get dressed, you know,
Ivan: that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Ivan: So a lot of extra things on the Thursday.
Sam: I, I, I'm, I'm think I had the, have the timelines right. Or no,
Sam: it was Wednesday or Thursday of that first week.
Sam: The first full week I had, I had an 8am meeting.
Sam: No, I think it was Thursday. I had an 8 a.m.
Sam: meeting followed by an all-day, quote-unquote, off-site. Okay?
Sam: Now, the off-site, just to be clear, was in California in a conference room
Sam: at the regular building. The part of the team that's in California is out.
Sam: So, like, they say off-site. They just mean everybody goes to a conference room all day.
Sam: They don't actually do off-site off-sites anymore. Really?
Sam: Once upon a time, when you said offsite, like.
Ivan: It was offsite.
Sam: It was offsite. You went to a hotel. You went to a conference center.
Sam: Sometimes you went to a resort. I remember going to resorts for offsites.
Sam: And there being like fun activities as well. No, I hate the mandatory fun activities, actually.
Sam: But like, there was stuff, right? There was nice food.
Ivan: You know what? Let me tell you something. For all the bitching I did about sometimes
Ivan: at Rico, and there was a specific VP.
Ivan: You know, we did a whole bunch of these. And I have to say that I had a whole
Ivan: bunch of fun at a couple of them.
Ivan: Look, one of them was this one. There was a challenge about building stuff with Legos.
Ivan: And we actually, I'll tell you that I thought this is stupid. Why the hell?
Ivan: It actually turned out to be a lot of fun to do the Lego building challenge.
Ivan: Okay. All right. There was also one, another activity that we did that was.
Sam: How about the zip lines, Yvonne? The zip lines.
Ivan: Okay. Not the zip lines.
Sam: Did you love the zip lines?
Ivan: Fuck the stupid zip lines which by the way,
Ivan: Let me be clear about this. I was the VP in charge.
Ivan: I did not want the fucking zip lines, but all the employees wanted the zip lines.
Ivan: And I decided not to deny the employees the zip lines. Okay. That was their choice.
Ivan: And I decided to also, as their leader, I should just sit down at the base of
Ivan: the fucking camp drinking beers while they're doing the zip lines. I'm like, fuck.
Ivan: I, you know, this is, this is the kind of shit that does not help workplace
Ivan: cohesion. I'm like, fuck it. They want zip lines.
Ivan: I'm going to, okay, I'm going to let them do the zip lines.
Ivan: And oh, by the way, because I'm going to participate in the zip lines.
Ivan: By the way, I just found out recently, speaking of this, that that team the
Ivan: other day was talking to somebody else.
Ivan: They said, Ivan, you know what? They're working now with this other company, Swiss, so whatever.
Ivan: They referred to the time that you were their boss as the golden era of their career.
Ivan: Literally, because they said, you know what? Because I care about people.
Ivan: So I treated them super well.
Ivan: And they were like, you know, and actually we did some really great results.
Ivan: I mean, shit, this company wouldn't have bought the business if we didn't.
Ivan: And so they're still reminiscing that.
Ivan: This is the thing about why those acts are important as a leader.
Ivan: That act that I went and I basically accepted an activity that I knew wasn't my favorite.
Ivan: And I went and I, and despite that, I went and I partook it,
Ivan: even though I feared for my life.
Ivan: right right had a really positive impact on them okay okay.
Sam: Okay i'll like look lots of people love them i i i hate them.
Ivan: But i'll tell you the one at rico the the lego
Ivan: there was no no no no there was a better one there was there was some kind of
Ivan: like it was kind of like um jeopardy style questions okay all right and we were
Ivan: a team of people and there would be all these questions and we were stacked
Ivan: into different teams, okay?
Ivan: And questions ranged from like, hey, what's the city with the largest population in the world, okay?
Ivan: Tokyo, okay? But here's the thing, right? So it wound up that there were like
Ivan: about 12 teams, okay? Okay.
Ivan: okay there were literally in the end it
Ivan: was lit really me against another
Ivan: guy in another team who were the who were the guys that had
Ivan: answers to all the fucking questions but it
Ivan: was so much fun because everybody was like jesus christ
Ivan: these guys you know but me it was it wasn't like my team it was like they were
Ivan: all looking at me oh you know the fucking ass yes here so we were like it was
Ivan: It's just this motto-in-motto showdown between this guy and me on these fucking
Ivan: answers on a whole damn team.
Ivan: And I believe I wound up winning. Right, because I got a camera out of it. I got a Rico camera.
Sam: This is why you like this. This is why you like this activity.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Because you won.
Ivan: Oh, no, it was a showdown. It was motto-in-motto.
Ivan: Basically, it's one of those things where everybody's like, ah,
Ivan: you know, we're all the smartest guys in the room, like whatever,
Ivan: bah, bah, bah. There's 50 fucking people.
Ivan: You know what? the only two people have got the essence of me and this other guy
Ivan: everybody else said no shit they all just got a wrong wrong
Ivan: wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong but we're like we're like barreling through these
Ivan: we're just like annihilating them and like finally but i i managed to win and
Ivan: i got some actually it was a decent camera it was out but it was uh they add
Ivan: a rico waterproof like digital camera that i still probably got somewhere around so okay.
Sam: So let me finish my story.
Ivan: Yes so.
Sam: So the first day that I was really going to try it, and getting in at 11,
Sam: by the way, it still wasn't that bad traffic-wise.
Sam: It was worse than normal, even at 11.
Sam: But it was still not horrible. But trying to get in at 8 a.m.
Sam: Here's the thing. I said to myself, I need to allocate two hours to this.
Sam: I need to leave at 6 to be sure to get there.
Ivan: Sure.
Sam: And because like just to set the
Sam: stage the no traffic time from
Sam: my home to my office is 35 minutes like if you do it at two in the morning with
Sam: no traffic whatsoever 35 minutes yvonne being a speedster could probably make
Sam: it in 25 okay probably i'm sure but you know how many miles there would be laws broken wait how.
Ivan: Many miles is the distance.
Sam: Hold on let me yeah because i could give you i'm gonna get it precise i'm gonna
Sam: do like ways right now to work if i left right now,
Sam: it is 23.2 miles and ways says if i did it right now at this very second on
Sam: a saturday morning it would take 34 minutes so.
Ivan: 34 minutes so 23.2 miles to take 34 minutes i will do the at 2 a.m the 50 miles
Ivan: from Miami to my house in 41 minutes.
Ivan: So I'm guessing that I could do that in about a little over 20.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Yeah, that's about right. That sounds, yeah. I'd do it in about 20 minutes. Yeah.
Sam: Now there's parts at the beginning and the end that aren't highway,
Sam: but you know, Yvonne could treat them all as highway anyway,
Sam: you know, just that I don't.
Ivan: That really doesn't faze red lights.
Sam: Who cares? You know, whatever.
Ivan: I'll stop for those. That's what got me into trouble with the cops once because
Ivan: I do respect the red light.
Ivan: So all of a sudden I realized it like turn red that I would like slam the brakes
Ivan: and all four tires would be smoking and they realized Jesus,
Ivan: this guy must have been coming really fast as a stoplight if yeah that's how
Ivan: it stopped as all four tires are going yeah well.
Sam: Anyway then stop the no traffic time
Sam: is about 35 minutes and the normal i'd say like regular traffic i'd been having
Sam: is about an hour okay plus or minus depending on what was going on but i'm like
Sam: you know i have to allocate two hours because you never know with rush hour
Sam: traffic and blah blah, blah, blah.
Sam: So of course, so I'm like, okay, I have to leave at 6am to get to the 8am meeting
Sam: to be, to be sure to be on time for the 8am meeting.
Sam: And in order to leave at six, I have to be getting up at like five or some ridiculous time like that.
Ivan: Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way it works. Yeah.
Sam: And, and by the way, this was for an 8am meeting that nobody was going to be
Sam: in the same building for anyway it was going to be a conference call whatever but.
Ivan: That's because okay nobody was working remotely it's because the participants
Ivan: were all in different locations.
Sam: Yes okay yes and then
Sam: are well i don't know if they were working remotely or not but
Sam: the but they were all in different locations and the
Sam: only and i was trying to get there in person anyway
Sam: because at nine o'clock i had the beginning of this all day thing right and
Sam: i didn't want to be traveling in the middle of the all day otherwise i would
Sam: have taken the 8 a.m by home from home and then gone in right anyway needless
Sam: to say i failed to get up at 5 a.m i i i repeatedly,
Sam: was like snooze effect effectively anyway instead of instead of snooze i was
Sam: telling alexa to like set a 30 minute timer and stuff like that but yes well
Sam: yeah it's the same thing it's the same thing It's the same idea.
Sam: I was effectively snoozing.
Sam: I ended up actually leaving the house closer to seven than to six,
Sam: which meant I had one hour to get there.
Sam: Now, when at the moment I got into the car, it said I was still going to make it just barely.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Okay. By the time I'd made it from my house to the highway. Okay.
Sam: It had decided that that was not the case anymore. It had already slipped to,
Sam: I'm going to be like five minutes late or something. And I'm like,
Sam: ah, five minutes, whatever.
Sam: But I got to the highway, to the exit to get onto the highway nearest my house.
Sam: It was a dead stop. It was like red lights as far as you could see.
Sam: Nobody moving. the little the little
Sam: thing that the lights that come on and let one car yeah yeah yeah highway were
Sam: were active and it was all backed up you know and obviously that there'd been
Sam: an accident somewhere blah blah blah and the time kept slipping the you know
Sam: i'm gonna be 10 minutes late i'm gonna be 20 minutes late well could you.
Ivan: Well here's a question this is just like a virtual beat could you you know connect.
Sam: Well this is what i did right i okay so
Sam: so i i ended up i i was
Sam: watching the time and the estimates and it
Sam: actually after i i got on the highway eventually i got past where the accident
Sam: was and it started freeing up and for a little bit it started saying i was going
Sam: to make it again i'm like oh maybe i'll make it or be like one or two minutes
Sam: late no big deal i'll do that but then it started slipping backwards again so i i was like Like, okay,
Sam: at 7.45, I will assess the situation.
Sam: And if it says I'm going to be more than five minutes late, I will pull off
Sam: the highway and like, you know, pull into the parking lot by a Starbucks or
Sam: something and get online to this stupid meeting.
Sam: So at 7.45, it was saying I wouldn't get there till like 8.20 or something.
Sam: And so, yeah, I pull off the highway.
Sam: I find a parking lot. I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, I'll dial in from my laptop.
Sam: I'll use, I'll tether to my phone and I'll, I'll dial in from my laptop. Laptop battery is dead.
Ivan: You know you can plug it into the usbc charger right.
Sam: Yes but my usbc charger in my in my not a lot of.
Ivan: Not a lot of output.
Sam: The the juice is enough that it would
Sam: probably take 12 hours to like get the laptop charged
Sam: up right yeah maybe not it would
Sam: probably boot sooner than that but the point was i had
Sam: oh god so it was
Sam: so so i did plug in the laptop but it did not
Sam: revive within the time i was sitting there so what
Sam: i did was i i i i
Sam: i slacked the person who was running the meeting from my phone
Sam: asked him to send me the link because like i i don't have my like work email
Sam: and stuff on my phone my work email and calendar intentionally i don't have
Sam: i don't have anything on my personal
Sam: phone that would require me to give administrative access to my well.
Ivan: Your company doesn't pay for your phone right.
Sam: My company does not pay for my okay so no i could i could conceivably like i
Sam: could get them to subsidize it a little bit if but i i just no no no it's not.
Ivan: Like in my case in my case my company pays for my service and stuff or.
Sam: Whatever because you know i'm.
Ivan: On i'm on the road so you know.
Sam: Like they yeah yeah yeah they they would i believe pay some amount but i like
Sam: it's not worth it it's not worth it and and so yeah.
Ivan: Some amount to me is not worth it i'm like either you know you're paying for
Ivan: it or what's the deal i'm like no they're paying for mine so i i'm like of course
Ivan: i have all of that there but i get it you know i mean if they're not i mean
Ivan: i'm getting it yeah it doesn't.
Sam: Yeah so i don't have those.
Ivan: You're not you're not insanely i mean like i said you know.
Sam: I do i do i do have the company slack on my phone because i just have to log
Sam: into it i don't have to like give them control of anything right like,
Sam: and once upon a time i did have all that company stuff on my phone but i just
Sam: was not comfortable with it and it got rid of it at some, cause,
Sam: cause they add restrictions of like, there's things you're not supposed to do
Sam: with your phone that are like,
Sam: frankly, normal usage of your phone. Now they don't know.
Sam: They only enforce some of it, but like, it was annoying.
Sam: I didn't like it. So anyway, so I got the dial in information and dialed in
Sam: from the car and then drove and then drove the rest of the way with them on the, on the line.
Sam: But the point was, the point of this was traffic was horrific. Okay.
Sam: yeah it and like normally i don't have 8 a.m meetings on a regular basis usually
Sam: the earliest people are doing stuff is 9 or 10 but like even 9 o'clock you know it's like you have to,
Sam: to be reliably there you have to leave at 7 and by the way most of the time
Sam: that will get you there by like 8 15 or 8 30 so you're there earlier than you
Sam: need to be at that point i guess i could get like coffee and I don't drink coffee, but I could get a snack.
Ivan: Yeah. So yeah. Something.
Sam: But, but the point, the point is yes, the, the, the trip there was horrific.
Sam: And then that, that, that day I ended up doing this also offsite onsite thing.
Sam: I said, like I said, almost everybody was in California. There were two of us
Sam: that were in a conference room in Seattle and it was good to see that person
Sam: in person and talk to him.
Sam: No, no question. I had a good conversation with him offline from the meeting,
Sam: but like the rest of the days I've been in are still the case where most of
Sam: the people I work with are not in Seattle.
Sam: So it's still like I'm going and sitting there.
Sam: It's not like I'm actually interacting in person with like my team all the time, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: I mean, maybe even then I don't like the trade-off, but I understand the thought of the trade-off.
Sam: But the reality for a lot of people is still that most of the people they work
Sam: with are scattered throughout the world. And so, I don't know.
Ivan: It's just a reality for some of us. I mean, I think this is one of these things
Ivan: that really varies a lot. You know, I.
Sam: There are certainly there are certainly teams. And we've talked about like specifically,
Sam: like, you know, new in their career, people who are learning the ropes.
Sam: And like, if you've got a dev team, that's all sitting together and they can
Sam: like, you know, talk to each other and bounce problems off each other.
Sam: That's a different scenario.
Ivan: But I mean, I, I, the one thing I will say that, but then we need to move on
Ivan: because otherwise we'll, the show will be five hours.
Ivan: i'm i'm perfectly fine with working remotely with people you know when they're,
Ivan: easily accessible during regular business hours
Ivan: i get really irritated and this started happening especially when at hb we started
Ivan: moving remotely some people got the idea oh i'm remotely i'm like i'm never
Ivan: answering anybody i mean seriously and i had certain people that it was just
Ivan: like dude yeah you're supposedly working remotely i try to reach you,
Ivan: You don't answer email. You don't answer email.
Ivan: you know i don't know i think we used the microsoft whatever
Ivan: the hell chat thing we used right right you know you don't answer anything okay
Ivan: you know i'm like what the fuck well now that guy when he was in the office
Ivan: you know he was kind of like difficult to get but i knew where the fuck he was
Ivan: in the office and i could go like get him hey dude i need your shit like today well.
Sam: That's the whole thing like the the remote thing is a different way of doing
Sam: things and you have to handle it differently but you have to have that accountability
Sam: too like if people can't get a hold of you then you're not doing your job.
Ivan: That's right you.
Sam: Know it's like you can't evaluate people anymore by are they sitting in their seat.
Ivan: Now x number of hours.
Sam: But you still can evaluate them on you know.
Ivan: Are they responsive do they think i've seen that i sometimes i i see the frustration
Ivan: as to why some management default to like sending a whole bunch of people like
Ivan: everybody back to work and certain things like in that when I have recently
Ivan: experienced with a number of people, especially that are younger,
Ivan: that don't fucking answer anything.
Ivan: Email, they definitely will not pick up the phone. Okay.
Ivan: That's for sure. And I'm trying, I'm like, dude, I need you.
Ivan: And you're supposed, it's business hours. You're not answering.
Ivan: And that really fucking pisses me off.
Sam: I understand yeah anyway look
Sam: and i and again and this is something we've debated for years now i don't deny
Sam: some advantages of being in person it's just there's trade-offs there too there's
Sam: a lot of loss there so okay.
Ivan: So all right.
Sam: So anyway that's it like i you know i you know uh it sucks Okay. It sucks. It sucks.
Sam: And I'm sure I will adapt accordingly, but it still sucks. And I think it's stupid.
Sam: And I think the companies that successfully lean into remote and figure out
Sam: how to make it work well will actually end up having a competitive advantage over the years.
Sam: Like it may take a while for that to like fully evolve, but I think that's going
Sam: to be an advantage over the years. And the companies who are instead trying
Sam: to bring things back to the 1990s are going to end up harmed by it in the end.
Sam: Right now, the labor market is such that they can get away with it.
Sam: I don't think it'll stay that way forever.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Okay. So with all that, let us take a break and then we will come back and Yvonne
Sam: will start us off with some actual newsy topics.
Sam: And then we will go from there.
Sam: So first break is a random wiki of the day. Here we go.
Sam: Okay. Before I ask you for your main topic, Yvonne, one additional thing to
Sam: say real quick, and this is just a note, no discussion needed.
Sam: Almost a year ago, I think it was last March or April, actually,
Sam: but almost a year ago, I replaced my whole computer setup. I got a new desk.
Sam: I got new monitors. I got a new laptop.
Sam: I have been thrilled and happy with almost everything in that whole setup.
Sam: But I will say the one thing and we talked about it on the show at the time
Sam: that I cheaped out on and I was like, I don't have to spend a lot of money on
Sam: this piece was my desk chair.
Sam: And I will say I do regret it.
Sam: This thing is already falling the fuck apart.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Like I just during the break, I sat back and like the like one of the bars in
Sam: it like was I felt it on me instead of the cushion.
Sam: And I'm like, you got to be like, and it's loose. I could probably tighten up
Sam: some of the screws and it'd be a little bit better again.
Ivan: I don't have right now the most expensive.
Sam: You talked about this.
Ivan: I bought a Costco one.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: And it's good.
Sam: This was like some random online share that costs like 60 or 70 bucks. Like it was cheap.
Ivan: This didn't cost that much more. It was like about a hundred bucks at Costco.
Sam: And I am feeling right now that maybe I don't, you know, look,
Sam: I'm not going to do like the $2,000 expensive chair.
Ivan: Look, I have been, listen, now that you mentioned this, I have been looking at one of those.
Ivan: I got, I will say that there is one that, listen, but there is,
Ivan: listen, you brought the chair.
Ivan: There's been specifically this last week, I saw this ad for this chair called the chill chair.
Ivan: Now, the one thing that was very attractive about this share,
Ivan: more than any of the other ones I see, is that it has the ability that at some
Ivan: point, say you're on a conference call.
Ivan: And I like, I wind up like lifting my feet like on the desk.
Ivan: Well, no, this has like this thing.
Sam: I'm looking at it.
Ivan: Yes. So you could like, well, just like, oh, I want to be comfortable.
Ivan: I want to raise. Exactly. And you're like, ah.
Sam: I'll tell you right now. Like I, I, I always like when I'm at my most productive, I have my feet up.
Sam: And like right now, people on video can see I'm sort of in a feed up position
Sam: right now. I have my feet on a trash can.
Sam: Like I have a full size large kitchen.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not the best thing.
Sam: I know.
Ivan: But, you know, I mean, it's workable. It's like me putting up my feet on the
Ivan: desk. Well, that's not the best thing.
Ivan: This thing has this little extension thing. So you could just raise your feet. Yes.
Sam: I see that.
Ivan: It's got massage.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It's got massage. It's gut raising the feet. It's got heat.
Ivan: It's got, and I'm like looking at this thing and I'm looking at the price thing
Ivan: and I'm like, fuck, I can't keep spending.
Ivan: I went, you know, I went through how I spent money the last two years and I'm
Ivan: like looking at all this shit I spent money on and I'm like, no, no, no, no.
Ivan: I'm not fucking spending another two grand.
Ivan: No, no, no. I've just been like burning money. Like it's, it's,
Ivan: you know, it's like, I mean.
Sam: No, no, as I said, I am not going to get like a multi-thousand dollar chair
Sam: that is just not happening, but, but look, I might, I might say,
Sam: yeah, look at that chair. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. But I might say like, okay, yes, yes.
Sam: But I might say this, this like $60, $70 chair was okay for like.
Sam: eight months. Maybe I'll go for a couple hundred.
Sam: Maybe I'll go for a couple hundred and hope it lasts a little longer.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this Costco chair has been quite a few years and it's
Ivan: lasted pretty well to be honest.
Ivan: So the one good thing, listen, Costco, usually whatever they sell,
Ivan: good price and they've tested it.
Ivan: So usually good quality. So you're not going to get one that's only going to last you six months.
Sam: Yeah yeah so i mean so i'm thinking like almost every time i sit on this thing
Sam: now i'm like it's uncomfortable you know and it wasn't when i first bought it
Sam: but like it's already deteriorating it was.
Ivan: It was it was not not not high quality.
Sam: Yeah so i mean i don't know i there's like i said i could probably tighten up
Sam: the screws i could probably add some like some cushioning i don't know after.
Ivan: Six months it shouldn't be needing all of that stuff.
Sam: Yeah so i'm thinking maybe the chair gets replaced and i increase the budget
Sam: a little bit yeah but not a lot i would say i'm not i'm not getting your chill
Sam: chair thin here i'm not doing that desk.
Ivan: Chairs here we go i see at costco here we go i gotta see if i find one.
Sam: Yeah yeah okay at you know it's 160.
Ivan: 169 dollars there you go costco there you go.
Sam: Yeah i could that that that's about the budget range i'm thinking yeah yeah yeah you know.
Ivan: They've got you know they've got 160 bucks 120 bucks they got something to go
Ivan: over that but they've got plenty of very nice looking chairs for less than 200
Ivan: i must admit this is this did they have a they have a pretty decent selection.
Sam: Yeah i'm i'm i'm looking at their website yeah anyway i'm not going to shop
Sam: online while talking to you, Yvonne.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Anyway, okay, Yvonne, real topics. Real topics. Where do you want to start us off?
Sam: There has been news, there have been things going on, and obviously we're only
Sam: days away from the second Trump administration.
Ivan: Okay, I'm going to start with the one that actually got, well,
Ivan: I know I gave the second thumbs up, but two thumbs up on the list.
Ivan: Which is... Meta moderation changes. Okay.
Sam: Yes.
Sam: And meta in general, like, well, there is not just meta,
Sam: but like there seems to be a, a theme of companies making changes to be more
Sam: friendly to Trump world as Trump world approaches.
Ivan: What I said, this is, you know, I've said this, I think I've said it on our
Ivan: Slack and I said it in other places when this subject has come up.
Ivan: I basically said, look, Suck is a grifter.
Ivan: And if Harris had won in a landslide, there would be gay pride flags all over HQ this week.
Ivan: And he would be on, I don't know, what's that, on The View interviewing.
Ivan: So Trump won. So he's on Joe Rogan, and he is talking about his masculinity and, you know,
Ivan: I don't know, making all these changes for so-called free speech.
Ivan: I mean, he's just a grifter. That's all there is to it.
Ivan: There's no conviction in there about anything. He's just a grifter.
Ivan: And he will suck up to whomever just for for dollars.
Ivan: I think we also spoke spoke a couple of weeks about certain,
Ivan: you know, a lot of companies that were donating to the inaugural to the inaugural.
Ivan: And how I was like, look, you got to at least I said you have to at least in
Ivan: some way ingratiate yourself with this administration because they're going
Ivan: to be regulating your ass.
Ivan: OK, and I get that. But but wait, Yvonne.
Sam: Bribery is illegal.
Ivan: Oh, oh, it is. I mean, I think that it's pretty clear that, you know,
Ivan: like right now, the SCOTUS has taken a view that this is just,
Ivan: you know, this is all fine. Yeah.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Especially for the president, you know, that he and themselves and themselves.
Ivan: And themselves that they can take all the money that they, you know, that they can get.
Ivan: But, you know, so, yeah, you know, so they're out there.
Ivan: But but Zuck is taking it to the level of, I mean, just just just being such a sucker.
Ivan: And by the way, I think here's a problem that I've always seen with with with behaving like this.
Ivan: The people that are the biggest suck ups like this usually are the ones that get screwed the worst.
Ivan: Because all you're showing is that you have no conviction and that you're weak.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And to me, it's, I mean, the fact that it all came out just in such a massive
Ivan: way, like all at once, like that.
Sam: Well, let's enumerate the things real quick for background.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: One, Zuck has said, they've had for years, well, since 2016 was the trigger for it.
Sam: They had a partnership with various
Sam: fact-checking orgs, like Snopes and PolitiFact and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: There's like eight of these organizations that they had partnerships with where
Sam: they would do fact checking on things that were going viral and basically add
Sam: labels to them based on the fact checker stuff.
Sam: Zuck said, hey, we're going to do something more like what X is doing now with
Sam: community notes, which basically is like we're not going to partner with any
Sam: orgs that have like known reputations or anything.
Sam: It's just going to be basically the community can add context to things.
Sam: And to be fair, this has sometimes worked even on X, like where the community,
Sam: you know, Elon himself has had posts that he's made that get community notes
Sam: added saying exactly why he's full of shit.
Sam: You know, so this does sometimes work.
Sam: And in fact, I've seen some arguments that it might even work better because it can scale better.
Sam: But the one trick to it is, well, how do you in the end determine who to trust?
Sam: Because you can also get situations where the community notes is correcting
Sam: something that's right with something that's wrong.
Sam: you know so you have to be careful with
Sam: that and you're sort of relying on wisdom of the crowds to
Sam: always get the right thing which it may or may not do but in any
Sam: case he's basically saying we're not going to partner with these these organizations
Sam: who are known for this and he his statement about it went ahead and like said
Sam: that they were biased and stuff like that now we'll talk about each i'm tempted
Sam: to dive right into talking about this one but let's hit the other changes too.
Sam: They also changed their guidelines on the hate speech guidelines on what's acceptable and what's not.
Sam: Basically allowing a lot more things that were prohibited.
Sam: Basically slurs against various groups, anti-trans statements, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Basically opening this up in the name of free speech saying that,
Sam: hey, a lot more is allowed than was before.
Sam: I am sure there's still a line somewhere, but it's been adjusted and it's, you know,
Sam: basically allows for a lot more negative speech to a lot more groups and,
Sam: and not coincidentally, these are all groups that Trump and the MAGA folks have been going out.
Sam: And one last thing, and then we can talk about all three of them.
Sam: They, along with a bunch of other companies, have also announced basically retreats
Sam: or shutdowns in a lot of DEI initiatives, in diversity initiatives within the companies for hiring,
Sam: for education, for making people respect various differences in culture, et cetera.
Sam: They've pulled back on those things too. Those are the three main things I know
Sam: about. Did I miss any, Yvonne?
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: Okay. So let's talk about them individually.
Ivan: Well, one thing about you're talking about the allowing certain things to be
Ivan: discussed and how they're dialing back some of their moderation.
Ivan: Yes. I will say that.
Ivan: their moderation had also gotten like somewhat off the rails crazy okay.
Sam: Oh yeah like like cracking down on too much stuff i mean cracking.
Ivan: Down on like innocuous comments randomly for.
Sam: No reason if you if you remember for for specifically both you know all of the
Sam: meta owned stuff facebook instagram threads had basically been very actively
Sam: deprioritizing anything political at all,
Sam: You could still post it, but they would not boost it.
Sam: It would get very little algorithmic visibility, et cetera, because they were
Sam: like, we don't want to be in that business.
Sam: They're now removing some of those restrictions again, too.
Ivan: But that's the thing. But my problem is that that's a choice.
Sam: They can make. They could say this is not the problem. That's a choice they can make.
Sam: But that's not the way they framed it. Right.
Ivan: That's the thing. That's not the way they framed it. you know you could say
Ivan: hey you know look we have been in a business where one of the things is that
Ivan: we have been trying to prioritize other other speech not political speech okay
Ivan: as our choice of what we want in the environment we want.
Sam: Your cute cat videos.
Ivan: We don't want this shit we really don't want we really don't want the place
Ivan: to be uh cesspools arguing about dei or whatever the fuck Okay. Right. All right.
Ivan: And so, but now we're, we're going to change that. But the problem is I, I.
Sam: And I, and they're backing off
Sam: from that. Now they're, they're opening the spigots again for politics.
Sam: They, they, part of what Zuck said was like, we've heard your feedback that
Sam: people do want to talk about this stuff. So now we're going to let you.
Ivan: Yeah. But, but the problem is that there's a lot of people that don't want it
Ivan: anyway. And I'm like, and the only people that are bitching about it are right-wing psychopaths.
Ivan: Okay. For the most part, as far as I can tell.
Ivan: And I'm like, look, unless you go and like you make me, and actually I did see
Ivan: this. there was in threads recently and it added a button that said hey do you
Ivan: want to see political content.
Sam: Yes and i basically said no and i said no oh.
Ivan: You did i.
Sam: Said but but also to be but that's fine but i'm like but wait i'm.
Ivan: Like gives you the i'm like okay.
Sam: And also by the way threads does allow you to go to the followed tab which isn't
Sam: influenced by that at all like i i clicked that button but i never look at the
Sam: threads algorithmic tab at all i flip straight to the other one but.
Ivan: My whole thing is, and this has been the issue with ever since many of these
Ivan: started applying like really like intense algorithms to all of this versus originally
Ivan: how it was like really when Facebook started.
Ivan: Yeah, it was basically that for the most part. And the question was.
Sam: I mean, there was a day.
Ivan: Chronological. Right.
Sam: But there was a day where Facebook was actually about seeing what your friends
Sam: and family were up to these days.
Ivan: That's it. And that was basically it.
Sam: And that's not what.
Ivan: Whether you wanted to see it. You have to dig to find that stuff now. Yeah.
Ivan: Do you want to put the priority on like chronological or what's trending amongst
Ivan: them? And that was basically it.
Ivan: And now it's like, I don't know. You log in.
Ivan: And God knows what the hell you're going to be presented first. Okay.
Ivan: Yeah. You have no, no, no, no, no clue. And I think that that's one of the bigger,
Ivan: bigger problems in which a lot of these platforms basically,
Ivan: because they want to drive whatever content gives engagement,
Ivan: you know, creates engagement, which the engagement is what creates clicks,
Ivan: which creates money where they completely, you know,
Ivan: don't care what the, they don't, Zuck doesn't want to care about what the fuck the content is.
Sam: Well and he has said this before.
Ivan: He has said this.
Sam: Before they had to back off this week from like
Sam: flooding it with ai stuff too like facebook
Sam: it had been saying we're we're going to create a whole bunch
Sam: of like ai content creators who are going to be in your feed and and they they'd
Sam: already prototyped like 30 of them or whatever and and people got wind that
Sam: they were actively planning on saying, yeah,
Sam: we want to get to the point where most of what you see is just AI generated.
Sam: And people are like, we don't want that.
Ivan: I don't get it.
Sam: Because if you're optimizing, it's cheaper, but if you're optimizing for engagement,
Sam: get the humans out of the loop.
Sam: You don't have to pick which things you instead have ai constantly optimizing
Sam: like what gets you to click let's make more of that.
Ivan: And that's the whole problem with these damn platforms today okay and it's the
Ivan: reason why many years ago you very wisely said and i you know i i wish that
Ivan: it is something that would have happened is that twitter should be run like wikipedia,
Ivan: You know, and not by, you know, not the way it's wound up being run.
Ivan: Okay. That that's the way it should be.
Sam: Wikipedia is being attacked by all these folks right now too, by the way.
Ivan: Because of the way it's run. Right. Because they hate it. Because they hate
Ivan: it because it's not run, you know, it's not run just for their wimp.
Ivan: And, you know, and that's, that's today's, that's today's everything, isn't it? Right.
Ivan: I mean, I mean, that is every, I mean, that, that seems to be like everything everywhere. You know?
Ivan: You're not doing it for me. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making money out of it.
Ivan: You're, you're saying negative things about me, which may be true,
Ivan: but I hate them anyway. Fuck you. I hate you.
Sam: Well, basically to talk about.
Ivan: So let's go, you know, you were going back and like, so let's go through each
Ivan: of the moderation changes. We'll go back to the fact checking. The fact checking.
Ivan: I'm like, look, this is another one of those that is a decision as content provider.
Ivan: That is their call.
Sam: Absolutely.
Ivan: Whether you want to try to provide people, you know, facts based on what you
Ivan: believe are, you know, uh,
Ivan: you know you know i say you.
Sam: Believe but you know do you want to.
Ivan: Do you want to provide people stuff that has been evaluated by several groups to be factual.
Sam: Okay let me or you just.
Ivan: Want like the loudest you.
Sam: Know and most.
Ivan: Popular voices to just get heard facts be damned.
Sam: But let me let me just say one of the things that zuck said was one of the problems
Sam: with the fact checkers where they were biased as far as i can tell the reason they're.
Ivan: Biased towards facts.
Sam: They're biased towards facts i mean people have looked yes the.
Ivan: Fact checkers are gonna go and
Ivan: like get a post from the flat earthers and they're gonna be like fuck you.
Sam: Well no it's not flat no no more specifically the accusation comes from the
Sam: fact that they find conservative sources to be lying more often than liberal
Sam: sources no shit sherlock and and so therefore they're biased and it's like no.
Ivan: This is just stupid this is just stupid conclusion.
Sam: The the that is not bias the
Sam: reality the reality right now is that
Sam: look there's no shortage of
Sam: exaggeration and occasional fibbing on
Sam: the left as well however however however
Sam: the pattern specifically in
Sam: the donald trump era more so than ever before is that the entire freaking model
Sam: is based on facts don't matter if facts don't matter making shit up alternative
Sam: facts as alternative facts kellyanne conway once said Yes. You know,
Sam: where they are basically.
Ivan: Where we laughed and realized that it wasn't just a line. It was an M.O.
Sam: It was an M.O. The entire philosophy is if you don't like reality,
Sam: you just say the opposite long enough and people believe it anyway.
Sam: And there's so many domains this is in from, from climate change to,
Sam: you know, to the, the situation with immigrants to the situation with trans people like this, this,
Sam: you know, stuff that is nothing is blown up into something based on this kind of stuff.
Sam: And, or things that are minor are blown up into major, you know,
Sam: and, and it's, it's the whole MO.
Sam: And so the fact that fact-checking organizations find problems with conservative
Sam: sources more often than liberal sources is not evidence of bias.
Ivan: No. It's evidence that those organizations just lie nonstop on a regular basis about everything.
Sam: Right. And so, like, look, again, there are arguments on is relying on a small
Sam: number of organizations like this the right way to make to clean your information environment?
Sam: It might not be. But that's not what's happening here.
Sam: What's not? It's not that Zuck is actually saying, you know,
Sam: community notes do a better job at ascertaining accuracy.
Ivan: No, that's not exactly what. No, that's not what's happening.
Ivan: What he's saying is that, hey, these conservatives that I want to,
Ivan: you know, basically cozy up to right now don't like the fact that,
Ivan: you know, when we're checking through their facts, they keep coming up as liars.
Ivan: And so, therefore, that's what I consider bias.
Ivan: Right. Jesus Christ. Yeah.
Ivan: Stupid, stupid shit.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Just just he could have just come out. But, you know, the thing is,
Ivan: Zuck is such a fucking just just weasel because he could just could have come
Ivan: up and just said, you know what?
Ivan: I'm not in the business of checking facts anymore. I just don't want to be right.
Ivan: You know, I and and, you know, let the discourse happen out there and,
Ivan: you know, let the people decide for themselves.
Ivan: I just don't want to be in that business.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I mean, but saying that it's bias, it's just like, you know,
Ivan: kiss my ass. you know i i mean.
Sam: His statement like if you i did not watch the thing but i list i saw a bunch of clips i saw.
Ivan: Quotes i did i i mean it wasn't that long i watched i think i watched i it was a couple of sucking.
Sam: Up it was full of sucking up.
Ivan: Yes a hundred percent it was full of statements dude
Ivan: he fucking named what's his name the ufc guy to the fucking board the same day
Ivan: yes I mean are you fucking kidding me I mean I had never seen such a corporate
Ivan: zuck up pun intended ever in my life.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, it's like almost every sentence was like, what do they want to
Sam: hear from us? Let me give it to us.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: You know, this did not reek of this is now. I don't know.
Sam: I don't know what his actual personal opinions are on any of this stuff,
Sam: but this certainly like read as let's just make nice, give them everything they want. listen.
Ivan: What i what i said i don't think that he has any convictions i think he's just
Ivan: a fucking grifter and i'm like and look if you look at back i remember watching
Ivan: the well they had that movie about when when facebook was created with the.
Sam: Wrinkle body i have not seen it it's on my list okay.
Ivan: Look as far as i can tell he was like that all the way back to the creation of facebook.
Sam: This is you.
Ivan: Know if you you know if you watch that movie you see the depiction of him it
Ivan: seems just it it tracks this tracks perfectly.
Sam: Right what.
Ivan: He just did it's all about the money.
Sam: So i think the next thing on the list of things the the loosening up of moderation
Sam: policies just fits in the same boat like you know yeah you can you can you can claim that you know,
Sam: trans people don't exist or that they're not
Sam: real women or whatever and that's fine now it
Sam: didn't used to be you can i there
Sam: are places that have lists of somebody leaked like
Sam: a manual or something that showed like some things that are now allowed that
Sam: weren't before and they're all like really obnoxious horrific comments about
Sam: like look let's put it this way the the point of all of this moderation is not,
Sam: Look, people could have sort of the unpopular opinion on any of these issues,
Sam: and you could potentially have an actual debate in a rational way and talk about it.
Sam: But that's not what happens online.
Ivan: What happens online is harassment.
Sam: What happens online is harassment.
Ivan: It's serious harassment. That's the fucking problem. it's
Ivan: not like we're we're debating about hey what's the best way of of giving health
Ivan: care to americans okay well we could do a market-based method we could do single-payer
Ivan: or whatever versus the illegal immigrants are taking all the free health care
Ivan: and they are eating cats well.
Sam: And some of these some of the examples were specifically about uh gay and trans
Sam: people and things like saying that, you know, those aren't real,
Sam: you know, those are mental illnesses.
Ivan: Those are right. They're mental illnesses. Yes.
Sam: You know, or they're pedophiles.
Ivan: They're all pedophiles. They're mentally ill pedophiles.
Ivan: You know, and please don't take us out of context. This is we're quoting other people.
Sam: Yes, please. But, you know, and look, this is one of those things where,
Sam: again, could you theoretically have a high-minded debate about the nature of.
Sam: Trans people and what what what's going
Sam: on physically mentally blah blah
Sam: blah how what the right way to deal with it in society is
Sam: could you have a high-minded debate about that yes you could
Sam: but the act with very few people with very few
Sam: people could actually do that and you'd need like people who actually knew
Sam: what the fuck they were talking about who were experts and knew the
Sam: stuff and blah blah blah and you'd still have to be
Sam: careful to do it in a way that was responsible but that
Sam: is not what's happening at all no what's happening
Sam: it's just harassment of that community it is is harassment
Sam: of that community is intentionally belittling them it
Sam: is denying their experiences it is it is trying
Sam: to make them uh uncomfortable enough that
Sam: they go back in the closet and stop being visible
Sam: you know that is the intention of all that kind
Sam: of conversation yep and and and
Sam: so yeah these the the various as
Sam: far as i can tell the sum total
Sam: of this loosening up on moderation is just let's make it easier to harass people
Sam: let's make it easier to make or even aside from harassing let's make it easier
Sam: to make this a hostile environment where those people won't want to be here
Sam: and won't want to participate I mean.
Ivan: And it's like, well, it's a double, well, it's a double combination.
Ivan: It's, I think the, the, the main thrust is to let's make the harassers comfortable.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And allow them to be able to express their hate freely.
Sam: Yes. That's, that's a good way of putting it. And, and, and, and look again.
Ivan: Is that, is that really like, you know, let me ask you a question,
Ivan: you know, seriously, let's say we were in a. Thank you.
Ivan: in a bar, if somebody came up to another person of a different,
Ivan: say, transgender and started,
Ivan: saying slurs and insulting that person, you know what, in a,
Ivan: in a place of business and they started a fight like that, they started harassing
Ivan: that person verbally to the, you're shot at everybody that would be thrown out.
Sam: Wow.
Ivan: That's a reality.
Sam: In lots of places, I would say there's some bars where that would be encouraged
Sam: where somebody came in that was the wrong group they would be thrown out.
Ivan: In a in most places of business
Ivan: okay not ones that you know i don't know if
Ivan: you go to a i don't know some kind of redneck biker bar yes exactly yeah yeah
Ivan: if you go to like that you go to downtown fort lauderdale miami or whatever
Ivan: and you started harassing a customer a person that you saw that was of a different
Ivan: you know tissue, whatever,
Ivan: and started harassing them in public, you would get thrown out of that place of business.
Sam: And the reality is mainstream businesses. Yes.
Ivan: From from yeah, from mainstream businesses. Yes. And the reality is that Facebook
Ivan: and these companies are mainstream businesses.
Ivan: And what they're doing is allowing their platform to be open to this kind of harassment.
Ivan: It seems preposterous.
Sam: Well, and this is the thing I was about to say, too. Like, once again,
Sam: these are private companies. I actually like think that for the most part,
Sam: they should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do.
Sam: Yeah. But they are setting the tone.
Ivan: They're creating an environment uncomfortable for everybody else.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, and look, in the U.S., we actually like companies aren't free
Sam: to do whatever the hell they want.
Sam: Like you can't say no blacks allowed.
Sam: You know, there is the notion of protected classes that, you know,
Sam: have to. you can't act against like that.
Sam: But even if you said, okay, okay,
Sam: Laissez-faire, do whatever the hell you want. They are choosing what kind of
Sam: community that they are going to create.
Sam: And they are choosing who to include and who not to include and who should be
Sam: comfortable there and who should not.
Sam: And I'm not going to pretend that we're going to see major numbers drop offs
Sam: for meta in the next few days.
Sam: But I have seen like multiple people in my family,
Sam: in my high school friends list and just and other people random online as well
Sam: talking about closing up their their Facebook accounts at this point because
Sam: they they're like, this is not a place I want to be.
Sam: Just like people a year or two ago started to do with X. Now,
Sam: again, X is still out there. X is still relevant.
Ivan: Here's the one thing. X is still out there. But X right now is diminished,
Ivan: is severely diminished. And as a business, it is, I mean, it's not a business anymore.
Ivan: X is not a business anymore. X is Elon's toy.
Ivan: X paid, you know, he paid $45 billion to have a massively, you know,
Ivan: a massive megaphone of a toy.
Ivan: That's it. It's not a business anymore.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And the question is, is that what, I mean, you know, my question to the other
Ivan: companies, is that what you want?
Ivan: Because I don't think that stockholders at Meta, if this starts impacting business this way.
Sam: And look, I'll be honest. Yes, people are saying they're leaving,
Sam: but people always say they're leaving. I feel like it's going to be a small.
Ivan: Tiny number. But in X, that has been real.
Ivan: I mean, the abandoning of business at X has been real. I mean,
Ivan: the documented revenue drop is 90%, Sam.
Sam: All I'm saying is I don't expect that same level of drop from now.
Ivan: I don't expect it. And I will tell you this also.
Sam: I'd be surprised if I saw 10%.
Ivan: But I will tell you this also. because he is such a grifter and a suck-up.
Ivan: Okay, all right. There's also another thing about what he's saying publicly
Ivan: and what the fuck he will do that he sees impacts business.
Ivan: Okay, so let's see what the hell actually just translates into actual like,
Ivan: changes because i i guarantee you one thing as happened a couple of years ago
Ivan: when profits and revenue at meta tanked when he was all in on the.
Sam: Met vr yeah metaverse it.
Ivan: Didn't take that long for him to oh shit this isn't making money let me back
Ivan: off this stupid thing and let me do let me let me go back to doing what makes
Ivan: money okay and so i think that will be more of something that dictates what
Ivan: he does than anything else.
Sam: Well and i think the the question on that i mean they're like i said i feel
Sam: like the number of people who will leave based on principle right now is tiny
Sam: i mean i'm probably not gonna leave at least not right now in the same way that
Sam: i left at twitter uh well i mean but but.
Ivan: I didn't leave right away either from twitter it took.
Sam: Me a little bit but and that's what i was going to say like it's more
Sam: it's it's not the people leaving on principle it's
Sam: do you actually poison the environment so people in general find it unpleasant
Sam: yeah and and you already i think you know facebook isn't cool you know like
Sam: it it went from you know Facebook started as a college-only thing, if you remember,
Sam: way back in the day before it expanded to everybody.
Sam: It has long ago stopped being the place where the cool kids go.
Sam: And instead, it's the place where— Old fogies, like us.
Sam: Old fogies are treating stuff and where people make fun of their grandmothers
Sam: for falling for AI hoaxes and stuff like that.
Sam: And so it's already the old people place, really.
Sam: instagram less so than facebook but you
Sam: know and but if you make it
Sam: if it starts getting to be more
Sam: more negative more unpleasant than it is now then people will start coming less
Sam: on their own not necessarily shut down their accounts and leave but come listen
Sam: and facebook and all facing an issue with lagging engagement and lagging like
Sam: you because again like and this is the fundamental disconnect too.
Sam: I mean, what Facebook was for originally was connecting with family and friends.
Sam: Then they tried to pivot to groups, they tried to pivot to video at various places, all this stuff.
Sam: But people aren't getting out of it the kinds of things that they really wanted.
Sam: And they de-emphasize news, so it's not good for that stuff either.
Sam: it's like what is it good for exactly it's
Sam: it's unclear there there are a few places where
Sam: like their their groups or pages that
Sam: have interesting like community discussions like i i'm in i i i've subscribed
Sam: or like to a few like local groups where people from the towns near me are talking
Sam: about stuff and i find out about some local stuff there like there I'm on a
Sam: few groups that I find useful.
Sam: There was a discussion recently, a store nearby me did a remodeling lately.
Sam: And so there are lots of people talking about like, was it a good remodel?
Sam: Is it better now? Is it worse? Should I check it out?
Sam: And that's interesting because it's like a store, like half a mile for me.
Sam: I might want to check it out. I might not want to check it out.
Sam: And so, okay, that was cool. but like it it becomes increasingly unclear like
Sam: if it's not the place to go talk to keep up with what your friends and family
Sam: are doing then what is it really for and why do i go yeah so now.
Ivan: I get that.
Sam: Okay all right anything is it time to move on time.
Ivan: To move on.
Sam: Time to move on okay here we go we'll do a break and then I'll think about what
Sam: I want to say. Back after this.
Ivan: What do you want?
Sam: Okay we are back so first of all this is not my topic but i figured we should
Sam: just not your topic well i mean.
Ivan: You're gonna pick the topic.
Sam: I'm right no i mean i'm gonna pick the topic but i'm gonna say something first
Sam: that is not my real topic is oh i see i just wanted to acknowledge i don't think
Sam: we have a lot we can really say but i wanted to acknowledge the fires in la just why i.
Ivan: I i i had put it okay so that's not your topic.
Sam: That is not what i'm gonna pick i i just wanted to say oh it's going on it's
Sam: big it's horrific thousands and thousands of people affected blah blah blah i.
Ivan: Had put it down on the subject not specifically the fires themselves but it
Ivan: talks a little bit about the.
Sam: Insurance yes yeah.
Ivan: Because the the the whole thing there is this entire issue right now where the
Ivan: united states hasn't for whatever reason taking a lot of these climate-like
Ivan: hazards, like hurricanes, fires,
Ivan: earthquakes, that kind of stuff, and done the same thing as we did with flood insurance.
Ivan: And the reason why there's a national flood insurance program is because this
Ivan: was the big catastrophe in the past that used to decimate people like this on a regular basis, okay?
Ivan: And why so many water control things have been done by the Arden Corps of Engineers
Ivan: around the United States in order to prevent those from happening,
Ivan: okay? But also they instituted a national flood insurance program.
Ivan: And the problem is that I just don't understand is like, you know,
Ivan: I'm sorry, but for most of these climate risks right now, you know,
Ivan: you know, private insurance should be for the other types of hazards like slip
Ivan: and falls, whatever, you know,
Ivan: a fire at your house, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Ivan: When we're talking about climate risks, either we go and like take that same
Ivan: model extended to all these other climate risks, or I don't understand how the
Ivan: fuck people are going to get reasonable insurance.
Sam: Well, and also I'd say like we have to figure out at some point people have
Sam: to start getting the hint essentially of saying,
Sam: hey, maybe there are certain places where we just shouldn't have residential stuff anymore.
Sam: And I'm not talking about moving people out who are there right now,
Sam: but maybe if something burns down like this, you say you cannot rebuild,
Sam: or at least you cannot rebuild unless it is rebuilt in such a way that it will
Sam: not be subject to the same hazard again.
Ivan: Well, I think part of the problem is also, but in certain cases,
Ivan: there are certain things that you could have done to mitigate this.
Ivan: but the problem is that they're expensive with well
Ivan: no it's not that it's that it went back towards okay you
Ivan: built the houses it's like the same thing in issue in
Ivan: florida with like houses that were built between the 1970s and 90s okay they
Ivan: were built in a certain way that there is no mitigation of that you basically
Ivan: have to read you have to build a new thing you have to build a new structure
Ivan: but you could build a new structure in the place where it is and it doesn't
Ivan: it doesn't have the same risks.
Ivan: The problem that you've got is, you know, now there are certain places where
Ivan: you just look, it's just unreasonable to build. Okay.
Ivan: But, but in a lot of these places, it's not that you couldn't build.
Ivan: It's just that there have been a lot of things and technology that have come
Ivan: along to mitigate these risks.
Ivan: And for some reason they aren't mandated or, or, or you, I saw.
Sam: This is exactly what I'm saying though. Like if, if you are in a zone,
Sam: For instance, let's say these fires in LA, if your house burned down in one
Sam: of these, like there shouldn't just be a default.
Sam: Let's build it right back exactly how it was before. It should be like.
Ivan: If you're going to insurance, they don't allow you to do that here in the state of Florida.
Ivan: Because, by the way, in California, you can't either. The newer structures that
Ivan: are built, actually, you have to build them to the current code.
Ivan: You can't build it back to where it was.
Sam: Well, right, right, right, right. But I mean, you have to, in those kind of
Sam: situations, you should probably take a look at elevating the code too.
Sam: I know they're much stricter on earthquakes than they used to be.
Sam: But I'm not sure what codes are in terms of like fire resistance.
Ivan: I heard that they have made significant changes in terms of fire resistance
Ivan: for new construction in California precisely because of this.
Ivan: But I will say that there are some other systems that I know that I noticed.
Ivan: I started looking up this and I saw that they have like, I'm like,
Ivan: come on, there's somebody must have built some system to prevent your house from burning down.
Ivan: Right. Okay. Which involves like, you know, covering it in water.
Sam: Doing something. Outdoor automatic sprinkler system or whatever.
Ivan: Correct. And I saw that it is, it does exist. And as a matter of fact,
Ivan: they showed a couple of houses that were in areas that were recently impacted
Ivan: by massive fires where those houses survived no problem and every single one
Ivan: around them was destroyed. Okay?
Ivan: So there are things to do.
Sam: I had suggested a couple of years ago, and the technology is evolving.
Sam: It might not have been there a few years back, but you could potentially have
Sam: live real-time satellite surveillance, find the Protos fires as soon as they
Sam: start, have a drone go out there and squash it while it's still tiny.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, just automatic full, like within a protected zone.
Ivan: I mean, basically, somebody just goes out there and just just basically like
Ivan: swarms it. And you're like, OK, there you go.
Sam: You could have it set up there. Somebody likes a fucking match and there's a
Sam: drone on them in 10 seconds, you know?
Ivan: Oh, yeah, exactly. You know, but but part of it also and I know I went to California
Ivan: when I went to California, like a couple of months ago, where Napa Valley had
Ivan: been struck by a series of fires, just like what's happening in Los Angeles about three years ago.
Ivan: the one of the things that that that was the
Ivan: main issue was they had so many years of actually wet weather to created all
Ivan: this vegetation that in the past usually would burn would burn off itself but
Ivan: there weren't houses and things built around now there are yes and now there
Ivan: are and so all of a sudden you know you've got you've got climate that's made
Ivan: it somewhat drier and then you have all this vegetation yvonne.
Sam: Trump hold us the solution.
Ivan: Other rakes the.
Sam: Governor newsom should have been out raking the forests.
Ivan: Is the rakes i forgot about raking yeah i forgot about
Ivan: the raking but i'll tell you listen the solution sam
Ivan: you would love this fucking solution okay yes it
Ivan: it it it it's like you know it
Ivan: has this algorithm with software detects the
Ivan: distance of the fire active if
Ivan: you you get a warning on your phone if you
Ivan: don't activate it if you don't respond with a
Ivan: certain number of minutes it automatically self-act you
Ivan: know it self-activates it it
Ivan: starts like just irrigating the entire area dowsing
Ivan: it in a way that doesn't matter because most of these fires
Ivan: get started by by embers that are flying off and they hit as they start it completely
Ivan: just makes any of those embers not be able to light up this this thing this
Ivan: system was a shit man i'll tell you what i saw this and i'm like thinking i
Ivan: see these people 15 20 million dollar houses they You don't have to sound like, listen,
Ivan: if I lived and I had a $15 million mansion in Malibu,
Ivan: fuck i'd be all over this why the hell you know are all these people buying this shit.
Sam: Man well it's like most things and we've talked about this problem in all kinds of contexts before,
Sam: preventative stuff costs money and people are always like oh i can't you know
Sam: i don't why did i spend that money i haven't had a problem so far it seems fine it is.
Ivan: That man that is always the default the behavior man it's just amazing it's
Ivan: just the human default behavior i don't need that i've always been fine i never
Ivan: had the disaster and all of a sudden you see them sitting there in the middle
Ivan: of the rubble of the bullshit that they said was never gonna happen.
Sam: Yep well because it's because on average like it most preventative stuff never
Sam: like in an ideal world the preventative stuff never gets used.
Ivan: Well i i'm gonna cancel the insurance i never had to use and.
Sam: I'm like.
Ivan: Fuck you should be happy you asshole you.
Sam: Never had.
Ivan: To use the fucking insurance you dumbass.
Sam: No i i did want to say before i move
Sam: on to my real topic i did want to say like it along the lines
Sam: of the drones coming out and like catching fires early i saw
Sam: one video this week where it was
Sam: sparked by all the fire of sparked by
Sam: all the fire somebody was showing off like it was some like hotel atrium or
Sam: something there was like a giant hotel atrium you know the kind that has like
Sam: the big open space that you can look up like hundreds of stories or not hundreds
Sam: but you know what i mean you can look up it's a wide area blah blah blah and they're like stories.
Ivan: Hundreds of stories was the biggest fucking building in.
Sam: The world hundreds it could be it is hundreds of stories. It was the Burj Khalifa.
Sam: No, anyway, no, but it was some, you know, big wide hotel atrium, big space in the middle.
Sam: And they were like, look, it's an indoor space. No sprinklers.
Sam: Where do you see any sprinklers?
Sam: Where would you put them? What are they? And they're like, here's,
Sam: here's what they have. Look at, look at that thing over there.
Sam: And then, and there's this little device and they did a demo of it.
Sam: And it was exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. with drones it
Sam: was they had whole like live heat
Sam: sensing system in that whole area and if
Sam: it sensed like a fire kind of
Sam: thing this thing would pivot aim
Sam: at the thing and then squirt it with high
Sam: pressure water nice like fire hose level high pressure water and put the thing
Sam: out so they they actually intentionally set a small little fire and this thing
Sam: went vroom and that thing was out out like in two seconds like with this massive
Sam: deluge of water i would love to see.
Ivan: Like somebody all of a sudden trying to light a cigarette and all of a sudden
Ivan: just like trying to light a cigarette.
Sam: We said no smoking asshole exactly.
Ivan: That would be the best. I love this.
Ivan: You think that side wasn't serious?
Sam: That's right. No, it was cool. I will say like they set the fire and this thing
Sam: like pivoted and turned and aimed and then like kaboom, like massive like thing.
Ivan: Well, one thing I was at this winery that I know that they had,
Ivan: I didn't discuss with them.
Ivan: I think they probably had the system that I was discussing because the one of
Ivan: the winery for name, if you want to look it up online and you can see on probably
Ivan: on the satellite pictures, Pulido, Pulido Walker.
Ivan: OK, and you could see from the satellite pictures from the last couple of years,
Ivan: you can see how they had the vegetation up until a couple of years ago and how
Ivan: there's none like really up to them.
Ivan: But they but they basically said that the fires had come up to their steps.
Ivan: They were like right there. And somehow with the,
Ivan: whatever they have set up, they were able to prevent the fire from consuming
Ivan: the, the winery, but that the fire basically made it all the way up to the structure,
Ivan: but they were able to prevent the fire from engulfing the structures.
Ivan: So, uh, but they, they, they told me the guy told me, yeah, we had a first class
Ivan: view of hell and that was like, not cool.
Sam: Well, even, even some of the stuff they've identified in the California fires,
Sam: like the, the system they have for getting the water to the hydrants is really
Sam: designed for dealing with one house at a time.
Sam: It's it's just doesn't have the.
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, it was, it was impact.
Sam: It was impacted by power outages as well. And they shut the power off because
Sam: the power down power lines were causing more fire.
Sam: So they shut the power off. But that impacted the ability of the water distribution
Sam: system to work properly.
Sam: And so there are all kinds of things here that there are technological solutions
Sam: to, but they're expensive.
Ivan: But there was also, also, I understood that there was a massive like retaining
Ivan: tank in the Palisades that had been out for service.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: That uh and it just happened to this happened to hit at the wrong moment it's
Ivan: kind of like what happened in new orleans where you know oh they were oh they
Ivan: knew the bollards to stop the,
Ivan: terrorists didn't work and they were in the process of replacing the bollards
Ivan: with ones that worked and this guy came right as they were in the middle of that process so.
Sam: Right okay okay i.
Ivan: All right enough so half not your real topic.
Sam: Half my segment was fires because i made the mistake of mentioning that i wasn't going to mention it.
Ivan: Right but this works but.
Sam: I think we can boom through the other stuff too because it's almost perfunctory
Sam: at this point but i felt like we had to deal with like the wrapping up trump
Sam: pre-presidency stuff so.
Ivan: We've got pre-presidency stuff. Can I say one thing about the pre-presidency stuff?
Ivan: The other day I was trying to, I see, you know, and I know that this is dialed
Ivan: down some, but you were sending some articles this week and I was thinking about, uh,
Ivan: I'm thinking about everybody just trying to analyze the
Ivan: any of Trump's pronouncements, statements, things, or whatever.
Sam: We're invading Greenland, Canada, and Panama next month, Yvonne.
Sam: All three of them. We're invading. We're done.
Ivan: This is the... I mean, if you had a drunken uncle at a house spewing nonstop idiocies,
Ivan: would you stop to parse and analyze every single one of them as to what the implications were of.
Ivan: You know, I don't know, your uncle deciding that he was going to build the tallest
Ivan: building in the world and that he was going to jump off of it and rappel off
Ivan: of it and that he was going to, like, take over every neighbor's house at gunpoint.
Ivan: I don't know. Just saying all sorts of shit like this.
Ivan: And you're sitting over there parsing, hmm, what if he did get $100 billion
Ivan: and was able to invade, you know, all his neighbors.
Ivan: I'm like, what are you doing? What the fuck are we doing?
Ivan: This is analyzing any of all of this shit is analyzing the ramblings of a drunken lunatic.
Ivan: And the crazy thing is, he doesn't even drink.
Ivan: I can't imagine what this son of, I mean, if this guy was truly drunk,
Ivan: Look, what in God's name would he actually say?
Ivan: Oh, it's unreal. I mean, I'm just like, and I'm just like, at this point, I'm just like, eh, okay.
Ivan: Oh, so Greenland, uh, war with these guys, war with the other guys. I don't know.
Ivan: Watch it, whatever. You know, I, you know, I, what, what's the point of all
Ivan: of this at this point? i i i'm just look.
Sam: There there are a couple things one he he has used this exact same strategy
Sam: since he since he came on on the national scene for.
Ivan: Well to get attention yeah because he wants the attention he.
Sam: Wants the attention he wants the.
Ivan: Distraction it's about controlling what.
Sam: People are talking about and whatever so like it who knows what his real intentions
Sam: towards greenland are but the point is like he spins everybody up and and it's like.
Ivan: But that's the dumb thing then that's what he wants the problem is that that's
Ivan: exactly what he wants if you and the thing is that he will say you know one
Ivan: thing is that elon had stolen some of the spotlight from him in previous weeks
Ivan: so whoa how do you fix that problem.
Sam: You you talk about taking over greenland panama and canada.
Ivan: Yep exactly that that's basically how you fix that problem it's just it's just
Ivan: their reaction, like, you know, just like a, you know, a child who starts just
Ivan: screaming louder because nobody's paying attention to them.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden it just starts like screaming louder and louder.
Ivan: You know, my whole point is that you could talk about, I think,
Ivan: talking about the fact that he's been amping up his crazy talk is a subject of discussion.
Ivan: Talking about the specifics of what he has said and all of that crazy talk is
Ivan: really not very productive.
Sam: I have seen articles talking about what the logistics would be if the United
Sam: States did try to take over Greenland, for instance.
Ivan: We didn't want to talk about it. Exactly. It's like, hey, so one of my uncle
Ivan: got $200 billion and he was able to buy his entire neighborhood out and burn it.
Ivan: You're writing an article about the logistics about taking over Greenland?
Ivan: What the fuck is the matter with you?
Sam: So I think, you know, for the most part,
Sam: I like what you said in terms of you can talk about the fact that he's amping
Sam: up the crazy talk, but talking about the crazy things is probably a waste of time.
Sam: the except and more generally i
Sam: like the and i i think it i
Sam: think it was rachel maddow who's who was popularized this
Sam: as well the pay attention to what they do not what they say because oftentimes
Sam: as well while there's something it's a diversionary tactic there's something
Sam: else going on that's happening quietly that's actually more impactful and so
Sam: it's often like when When something's like this going on,
Sam: look for the other thing. Look, what's the other thing going on?
Ivan: But you put down this thing about the big, beautiful bill. Okay. Yeah. Right.
Ivan: And so, you know, these guys now, while I saw that Elon and his Doge thing have
Ivan: already actually, I guess they finally actually looked at some of the numbers and now have said,
Ivan: Oh yeah, cutting that number.
Ivan: Yeah. You know. Oh,
Ivan: that's there's no way to make that number
Ivan: you know we gotta cut down like maybe less than
Ivan: half so this is the shit we when you
Ivan: get shit talkers talking about budgets and
Ivan: things or whatever which i just experienced here that these people never looked
Ivan: at the fucking numbers and then they actually sit down and looking at the numbers
Ivan: oh yeah well yeah all that shit we said yeah that's just i guess that's not
Ivan: gonna work but i heard them talking a whole bunch about you know again Again,
Ivan: trying to cut the Affordable Care Act. Again, trying to cut Medicaid.
Ivan: Again, trying to do those things, which are things that they have tried to do
Ivan: in the past. Okay. All right.
Ivan: So I wouldn't, those I wouldn't put past, you know, them trying to revive and
Ivan: try to do again, you know.
Sam: They may not succeed, but certainly trying. The other thing,
Sam: though, I was going to say is the whole thing about pay attention to what they do, not what they say.
Sam: I think that's generally good advice, but sometimes you have to pay attention
Sam: to what they say, at least in terms of understanding.
Ivan: The problem is, it's too many things.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: You can't.
Sam: No, I know.
Ivan: If you go to a press conference and the guy spews out 100, and I'm not exaggerating
Ivan: the number, 100 different unhinged things. how much time do you got to really pay attention.
Sam: To 100.
Ivan: Unhinged things that he says at one press conference.
Sam: And i i no and look look i think you're right and i think your approach of,
Sam: talk about the fact that he's talking unhinged more than the specifics is a
Sam: good way of navigating that but on the other hand like if you're denmark do
Sam: you just ignore him completely no.
Ivan: I don't think that Denmark as a government can do that, obviously,
Ivan: or Canada for that matter. Okay.
Ivan: Obviously, that's a different... Or Panama.
Ivan: As a recipient of those things, you have to at least look at them because one
Ivan: thing that obviously that he will be trying to do is to try to extract something
Ivan: from you to make it seem like he won anyway.
Ivan: So you have to find out what the fuck that is. Yes. Okay.
Ivan: So from their perspective, I get that.
Sam: Or let's get another example for Europe in general. Trump has been vocally anti-NATO
Sam: since before his first presidency and seems to have in between presidencies
Sam: doubled down on NATO is useless, they need to pay more money, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: If you are a non-US NATO member, are you making contingency plans for if Donald
Sam: Trump tanks the whole fucking thing.
Ivan: I would be.
Sam: Yeah. Like you have.
Ivan: I mean, you know, no, no, no. But but there is a thing.
Ivan: Look, there is a difference between us as a pundit trying to analyze 100 different
Ivan: unhinged things that he said.
Ivan: Right. There is a difference if, say, I am the I am the leader of NATO right now.
Ivan: I can't remember the oh, my God. What's the name? The chairman that stuff.
Sam: I don't know.
Ivan: Director General. I think it is the rule. Fuck. Now I'm going to have to look it up.
Sam: Of course.
Ivan: You know, I'm the leader of NATO. OK, I'm I'm obviously I was just mentioned and I'm targeted.
Ivan: I'm evaluating how does this impact
Ivan: what what what we need to make sure to mitigate any action, obviously.
Sam: But but you have to sort of to some degree say, OK, he's probably bluffing secretary general.
Sam: Yeah, he's probably bluffing. This is probably bullshit.
Sam: He's just trying to use it to get some other concession out of this.
Sam: but what if he is serious what would we have to do.
Ivan: Right so but but that but that's what i'm doing as
Ivan: a organization what i'm right saying is that and i
Ivan: would be doing that i'm not exactly like but but at the same time i'm not ripping
Ivan: everybody off their desk and tell them to stop working on everything else right
Ivan: now because all we are focused right now is on trump said we're fucked fucking
Ivan: nato i'm not doing that i okay but you're the leader you're not you're not.
Sam: Mobilizing the entire danish army to go defend greenland right now.
Ivan: Exactly no no and
Ivan: that that's what i'm saying okay but obviously you have to
Ivan: you know prepare and have your contingencies and
Ivan: have your plan on how you you're going to deal with him if it comes to that
Ivan: i mean i i believe in being prepared but but it's it's one of those things where
Ivan: but again it's not like i'm calling up you know probably a bad timing to use
Ivan: as a four alarm fire right now and bringing everybody off the off the street and saying, you know,
Ivan: we're on war right now with Trump. What are we doing?
Sam: Okay, okay, okay. That was a great discussion. The things I wanted to actually
Sam: make sure we just tick off are,
Sam: Trump was actually sentenced to nothing, but it actually happened.
Ivan: So basically to being a felon, but to being a felon.
Sam: That's it with no, no, no jail, no fine, no probation, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Sam: I guess there are some consequences like he can't have a firearm in the state
Sam: of New York anymore. Things like that.
Ivan: He can't have a liquor license.
Sam: There you go. Yeah. So there are a few minor things like that.
Sam: Some of them are like, get a roundable.
Sam: Like people have mentioned, for instance, that there are a whole bunch of countries
Sam: that you can't get a visa to go into if you're a felon, including Canada,
Sam: for instance. However, there are exception processes.
Ivan: It's diplomatic. Yeah.
Sam: Like he's, it's not like he's not going to do a state visit to Canada at some
Sam: point. He probably will.
Sam: You know, it's not like they're going to say, oh, sorry, you're a felon.
Ivan: Did he ever visit Canada in his first term?
Sam: Oh, I don't know. He might not have.
Ivan: He might not.
Sam: So maybe he won't visit Canada, except as a conquering hero when he takes over Canada.
Ivan: When he takes over, right, as the 51st state.
Sam: 51st state. Which would, by the way, be a democratic state.
Ivan: Which is one of the things that I'm like, okay, so basically we're- And of course, like-
Sam: Okay, I was about to say if this was really going to happen,
Sam: XYZ, but to what you were saying before, Yvonne.
Ivan: It's another one of these, like, the fuck are we talking about?
Sam: What are we doing?
Ivan: We're analyzing the impacts now of Canada becoming, you know,
Ivan: part of the United States.
Sam: Yeah, it wouldn't be one state. It would be multiple states for each province. But no, no, no. Anyway.
Ivan: Oh, so we would get, like, 10 Democratic senators.
Sam: There you go. Well, there are a couple of Canadian provinces that would probably
Sam: not be Democratic. but we would get more.
Ivan: We would get like six.
Sam: Yeah, something like that.
Ivan: Well, no, wait, wait, take note. That's not accurate. I'm going to tell you
Ivan: something because we keep thinking about foreign governments.
Ivan: Listen, foreign conservatives are.
Sam: For the most part- Yvonne, Yvonne, Yvonne, anyway. Let's not go into exactly
Sam: how would a merger of U.S.
Ivan: And Canada work. How much of a waste of time of discussion is this?
Sam: Yes, exactly.
Ivan: Anyway, all right, let's move on.
Sam: Okay, so the sentencing did happen. The couple notes,
Sam: like I think they're the prosecution here, I think, made a big mistake pre-election
Sam: when they basically agreed with the notion of delaying sentencing till after the election.
Ivan: I don't understand what I don't get it.
Ivan: I mean, I don't get it. But I also I'm pulling I'm I'm trying to understand
Ivan: why the judge gave the sentence he gave.
Sam: Well, basically, because there are a couple of things. by the way that.
Ivan: Is the most lenient sentence.
Sam: That is possible that.
Ivan: That is that no that anybody has gotten for that crime nobody.
Sam: That has been prosecuted.
Ivan: For that in new york has ever gotten such a lenient sentence.
Sam: So here's here's one thing right off the bat i think it was strategic the supreme
Sam: court ruled five to four to let the sentencing go forward and part of the statement
Sam: they put out was that it was specifically because the judge had said this would be the sentence.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Like if this was anything else, if the judge,
Sam: if it looked like there was still a possibility that the judge might impose
Sam: a real sentence, like several months in jail,
Sam: even if it was like automatically stayed till after the Trump presidency,
Sam: I can almost guarantee you that 5-4 vote would have gone the other way.
Sam: Like you would have at least lost one of the two conservatives that went along with the sentencing.
Sam: You know, we had Roberts and Barrett agreed to let this go forward.
Sam: One of them would have flipped if there'd been a real chance of at least one,
Sam: maybe both of them would have flipped if there'd been a real chance of a real sentence here.
Sam: And that's a big part of it. I also heard that even if that hadn't happened,
Sam: even if the Supreme Court had let
Sam: this go forward and he decided to do something else and done jail time.
Sam: The appeals process almost certainly would have undone that anyway.
Sam: I mean, honestly, even now, there is a very good chance, like Trump is still going to appeal this.
Sam: There's a very good chance in the end that he wins. Like this is going to end up at SCOTUS.
Sam: It may take two years to get there, but this is going to end up at SCOTUS again.
Sam: And the issues of the fact that there was evidence that was potentially influenced
Sam: by the supreme court immunity decision blah blah blah will come in and this
Sam: could still be vacated this could still he could still end up getting this felony
Sam: conviction expunged from his record you know uh listen.
Ivan: You can get a felony conviction expunged without having to appeal.
Sam: Okay no no i know but but no no but my my whole thing this may be overturned anyway like no.
Ivan: But but but well.
Sam: But But if there had been a more significant sentence, I've heard multiple people
Sam: say that the appeals process would be accelerated, even with Trump as president,
Sam: to get it out of the way, and it would increase the chance of Trump winning that process.
Sam: I think he may win eventually anyway. But basically, this sentence was the only
Sam: sentence that would have gotten the Supreme Court to let the sentence even happen
Sam: before Donald Trump took office.
Sam: and and it has the best chance of holding up on
Sam: appeal as well that's why yeah but but i feel like the the again the the prosecution's
Sam: decision like when it when it was time this sentencing was originally supposed
Sam: to be in what june or something and the trump then we had.
Ivan: The immunity uh uh you know uh,
Ivan: whatchamacallit, the immunity decision from SCOTUS.
Sam: But even after that, it was scheduled for like September or October.
Ivan: Yeah, but it was appealed on the basis of that. And then it got delayed and delayed.
Sam: Right, right. But after that, the sentencing was rescheduled for like September
Sam: or October after all the SCOTUS stuff about immunity.
Sam: And then Trump petitioned again to have it delayed.
Sam: And the prosecutors, they didn't actually say we agree with that,
Sam: but they said, we leave it up to the judge. Do whatever you want.
Sam: And the judge basically, his response to them was actually kind of annoyed.
Sam: He's like, look, because you didn't even present an argument for why not to
Sam: delay it, I'm going to have to agree with the delaying.
Sam: Whereas he seemed to, what I read between the lines is that if the prosecutors
Sam: had made a vigorous argument for why not to delay, it might not have been delayed.
Ivan: Well, I never understood why the hell they didn't. That's the one that baffled me completely.
Sam: And here's the thing. If there had actually been a sentence in this in September or October,
Sam: the arguments for why this had to be the nothing sentence would not have applied
Sam: at that point because Trump wouldn't have been the president-elect.
Sam: So he might have been sentenced to jail.
Sam: There still would not have been any actual time in jail because of appeals and
Sam: blah, blah, blah that would have lasted forever.
Sam: But now, would that have made any difference in the election?
Sam: I don't fucking know. It might have even helped Donald Trump, you know, to be honest.
Ivan: P.S.
Sam: But-
Sam: But I feel like the the the delay, delay, delay that Donald Trump successfully
Sam: deployed in all four of his his criminal cases was massively successful.
Sam: In the end, it got Donald everything he wanted.
Sam: And I don't know.
Ivan: But look, let's be clear that one of the biggest issues regarding all of these
Ivan: cases was the timidity by the by the U.S.
Ivan: Attorney General going after him right after, you know, a lot of this should
Ivan: have been attacked way earlier than it was.
Sam: Maybe. I think there's still a lot, you know, SCOTUS, I think,
Sam: would have put their thumb on the scale anyway.
Sam: They would have imposed additional delay.
Ivan: But they started these cases like almost two years later than they should have.
Sam: Well, there's been reporting that they were looking at other things during that
Sam: time period. There was stuff they were doing. It just wasn't very public.
Ivan: They moved way too slow. They moved way too slow.
Sam: I have seen reasonable arguments on both sides of this. I tend to agree with
Sam: you that they should have at least done some things earlier.
Sam: But at the same time, like people have pointed
Sam: out what if you if you had done like the South koreans have
Sam: been trying to do and like yeah i tried to arrest donald trump like on january
Sam: 21st yeah um of of that year yeah um yeah you might not have developed all the
Sam: evidence that you ended up with otherwise because i think that's bullshit yeah
Sam: and of course you could maybe not.
Ivan: Arrest them on january 21st but certainly look as the house committee showed
Ivan: they could have found that evidence a lot sooner.
Sam: There were certainly questions of approach. Apparently, one of the things that's
Sam: been reported is the DOJ actually spent a lot of time trying to find a connection
Sam: between Donald Trump and the mob over financial stuff.
Sam: and weren't able to prove anything. And they spent like a year and a half on that.
Sam: And I certainly think what the committee showed was starting at the top down
Sam: rather than the bottom up was the right approach here. And that's not what they were doing.
Sam: So anyway, there are a bunch of stuff there. Mistakes made, water under the bridge.
Sam: The other thing related is the special counsel report.
Sam: It looks like at least the- That's getting released. Well, the,
Sam: the January 6th part of it looks like it will be.
Ivan: I understand the other one is supposed to be released also tomorrow.
Sam: Well, Sunday, the last Sunday is the delay date for the January 6th stuff.
Sam: My understanding was the, the classified document stuff is still being held
Sam: because DOJ is indicated that there's a cut because they still have the case
Sam: open against the two co-conspirators.
Sam: And so DOJ is not releasing that right now.
Sam: That part of things is still being looked at. Honestly, I feel like DOJ should
Sam: go ahead and drop those charges. I mean, what's the fucking point?
Sam: I mean, the point against the charges on his valet or whatever,
Sam: we're to try to pressure them on this case anyway.
Sam: I mean, really. Like if it, if that's the, if the fact that there's an open
Sam: case is stopping them from drop, from dropping the report, they should drop
Sam: the case, like drop the rest of the case, drop the report.
Sam: I mean, we've, we've also heard that, look, there are thousands of pages in
Sam: these reports, but also nothing new.
Sam: I mean, it's more detail on all kinds of stuff, but we know both these stories.
Sam: We know the January 6th story. We know the classified document story.
Sam: There's more detail, perhaps more evidence, perhaps more rationale on why DOJ
Sam: thought this was important enough to bring charges, all that kind of stuff.
Sam: But it's not like they're going to drop these documents and we're going to go,
Sam: wow, that changes everything.
Sam: You know, it's, you know, it's too late.
Sam: Anybody whose opinion was going to change on anything has already changed and
Sam: everybody voted already. Donald Trump is still becoming president on the 20th.
Sam: Nothing's changing that and you know
Sam: but it's good it's good to have it
Sam: on the historical record and and even the classified documents one like people
Sam: have mentioned like if they don't release it before january 20th you know donald
Sam: trump can order the doj at that point to just destroy it like without it being
Sam: released anywhere that's.
Ivan: Why it needs to be fucking.
Sam: Released yeah so they need to do whatever they need to do to get that out you
Sam: know so like i said if nothing else for a historical somebody will.
Ivan: Leak it anyway.
Sam: You'd think but hell we've.
Ivan: Had other even i mean shit we had that scotus decision leaked and they never figured out who did.
Sam: It was jenny thomas.
Ivan: Maybe. Who knows? But we just don't, you know, I'm not going to.
Sam: No, I don't know, obviously, but we don't know.
Ivan: But what I'm saying is that, you know, we've had, I mean, I'm sure somebody
Ivan: at some point they think is going to be, you know, it's going to be, you know, destroyed.
Ivan: They'll be like, oh, fuck it. We're leaking this. The hell with this.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I mean, that's what I did.
Sam: You're past the statute of limitations, right?
Ivan: Wait, wait, wait. I mean, shit, you know, I'm sure Carly's still looking for me.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Maybe one of these days I got to bump into Carly. Hey, you were looking for me? Fuck you, bitch.
Sam: We should invite her on the podcast.
Ivan: That'd be great.
Sam: That'd be a fun show.
Ivan: If I could tell her, that would be great. That'd be a great show.
Ivan: Actually, that would be a great show. Holy shit.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Hey, Carly, how could you believe so much of the bullshit you say? What? Yeah.
Sam: Okay. The only other things to mention Trump-wise to wrap things up,
Sam: are, are forward looking things that we will see in just a couple of weeks.
Sam: They're saying that there will be up to a hundred executive orders on the first
Sam: day related to a whole bunch of stuff.
Sam: First day probably means the 21st. Maybe he'll sign some things the afternoon of the 20th, but.
Ivan: Well, it's like he did that last time, that entire whole thing where he's just
Ivan: signing order after order.
Sam: Right. So we're going to see a bunch of those. And then the.
Sam: Congress is basically trying to figure, that's where the one beautiful bill thing comes in.
Sam: They're apparently arguing over whether it's one bill or two bills,
Sam: but they're trying to shove things through reconciliation to do all kinds of stuff.
Sam: They're calling this, you know, people remembering Iraq War I and calling this
Sam: the shock and awe strategy and trying to basically, in the first few weeks of the administration,
Sam: ram through all kinds of things that will probably, on balance,
Sam: be fairly unpopular, actually, but be things that they had promised during the campaign.
Sam: And we'll see what happens with that.
Sam: Yeah. And yeah, that's it. Shall we wrap up, Yvonne?
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: Okay. Thanks, everybody. Oh, oh, oh, Patreon.
Sam: By the way, I'm going to give the thing, but I wanted to mention,
Sam: I mentioned something about the Patreon because Yvonne incurred an additional
Sam: expense to up us from Slack to Slack Pro or something so that we could keep
Sam: our archives and things wouldn't be deleted. Thank you, Yvonne.
Sam: But I mentioned something about this on our Slack, about how people needed to
Sam: up their game on the Patreon because we weren't even coming close to breaking even.
Sam: And three different people upped what they were doing. Two people upped and
Sam: one people added. One people added.
Sam: Ed became a patron for the first time. Thank you, Ed. And I have to look up
Sam: what rewards each of you are supposed to officially get.
Sam: But also, Greg increased his contribution on our Patreon.
Sam: And who's the other? Bob. And Bob also increased his contribution.
Sam: So thank you, Ed, Bob, and Greg for your Patreon contributions. We appreciate them.
Sam: We will look up what you're officially supposed to get and do that next week, maybe.
Sam: I forget like this clapping, this bells, this postcards, things, things.
Sam: Anyway, so thank you all. And for anybody else, uh, patreon.com slash curmudgeons hyphen corner.
Sam: Is it? No, it's patreon.com slash curmudgeons corner, right? No hyphen on that one.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, go to curmudgeons hyphen corner.com and follow the link to our Patreon.
Sam: There you go. Then you don't have to worry about the Patreon URL.
Sam: Curmudgeons hyphen corner.com has all of the ways that you can get in touch
Sam: with us, has our archives, has transcripts, all that fun stuff.
Sam: It includes the link to our YouTube where we live stream, or you can look at
Sam: the actual videos of these podcasts after the fact.
Sam: And it includes a link to our Patreon, as I said.
Sam: Our Patreon, you can give us money. And even with the new contributions,
Sam: it still costs us more money to host and deal with the logistics of the show
Sam: than we get from the Patreon, but that's okay. We do it for love.
Sam: However, more money is good anyway. So, you know, toss us some money if you enjoy the show.
Sam: Also, I haven't said for a long time, tell your friends.
Sam: Like, if you like this show, tell your friends who you think might like it as
Sam: well. That would be great.
Sam: I don't have a link to our TikTok on there. I've been posting clips,
Sam: but like, it looks like TikTok only has like a couple, a week to live.
Sam: Like they had their SCOTUS argument and it apparently by all reports did not go well for them.
Sam: So we'll see, they may go dark on the 19th because TikTok is also said,
Sam: by the way, like people are like, well, you can just use it.
Sam: You can, you'll still be able to use it. It just won't get updates.
Sam: It won't be on the app store, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: TikTok has said that they will
Sam: officially shutter their business if they don't win this case in the US.
Sam: So, and who knows if VPNing to other countries would be useful or viable,
Sam: but it looks like TikTok will be gone.
Sam: So good thing I didn't add the link to TikTok because I just have to undo it.
Sam: Anyway, give us money at Patreon. At $2 a month or more, we will invite you
Sam: to that curmudgeon's corner Slack, which is now pro, which means you can search
Sam: our archives from way back when, I guess.
Sam: But we would love to have more people on there. On our Slack,
Sam: Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners are chatting throughout the week and sharing
Sam: interesting links and stuff like that.
Sam: Yvonne, do you have an interesting link to highlight for this week.
Ivan: Oh god do i have
Ivan: an interesting link for this week do i
Ivan: have one uh well apparently
Ivan: they have these like they're trying to sell these like uh robots at ces the
Ivan: human uh chatting with real bonics lifelike companion robot and i'm like i don't
Ivan: know those are not lifelike,
Ivan: Can I just say, is that, I mean, I, I, it's very, it's, they're very weird.
Sam: It's LLM powered so it can talk to you and stuff and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: It talks to you. It tries. It's very human ish. It is very, very uncanny and uncanny Valley.
Sam: It is very, very, very uncanny Valley.
Sam: Did I even say that right? Uncanny keeps coming out of my mouth wrong.
Ivan: Yeah. It's just you.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And by the way, I don't know if you noticed that they made the robots with very large breasts.
Ivan: I'm thinking that they're targeting a certain audience.
Sam: And oddly shaped, too.
Ivan: And oddly shaped. Yeah.
Sam: I'm just like. Because look, they make sex dolls, too.
Sam: I know that. This looked more like a sex doll.
Ivan: That's right. That's more than actual.
Sam: Just to be clear, not that I have a lot of experience with those.
Ivan: I'm just saying.
Sam: But it looked more like a sex doll than it did.
Sam: Like they're pitching this as like, you can have it at your booth at conventions
Sam: for your like tech product or whatever.
Sam: I'm like, no, this is going to scare people away. This is not for now.
Sam: Technology is progressing maybe in a few years. I don't know.
Sam: But like this, this is like the thing I mentioned earlier about Zuck saying
Sam: they wanted AI bots all in your feed generating content. Like, People don't want this.
Sam: Like they're going to keep trying to shove it down our throats,
Sam: but people don't want this.
Ivan: People don't want this. No.
Sam: You know, and even when they do have like real companion bots and stuff,
Sam: like I also saw like somebody made like a little a little robotic dog thing
Sam: and they've had robotic dogs for years. Remember the Ibo?
Sam: Yes, of course. You know, they've had robotic dogs for a long time,
Sam: but like somebody made a companion robotic dog that's meant for people with
Sam: dementia and stuff like that.
Sam: And it looked a little uncanny valley too, but at least it was like.
Ivan: Well, it wasn't trying to act like it.
Sam: No, it was modeled after a stuffed animal. It looked like a stuffed animal.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: I mean, the animatronics still made it look a little off.
Ivan: Yeah, but this thing is just creepy. Yes, more than anything else. They were just creepy.
Sam: We are in for an interesting next few years as these technologies develop.
Sam: And because they are definitely very uncanny valley right now.
Sam: But do they get to the other side in a few more years? I don't know. They might.
Sam: And that would change lots of stuff. but yeah okay we are done thanks everybody
Sam: for listening for for thanks everybody for,
Sam: okay goodbye have a great have a great week blah blah blah blah blah blah we'll
Sam: see you next time goodbye bye,
Sam: Okay, that's it. I'm heading stop. Bye.
Ivan: All right. Bye.