WEBVTT 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:06.910 Okay, I think we're ready. Okay. Have you thought about what you want to talk about? 00:00:07.210 --> 00:00:09.330 Yeah, I've got a couple of things written down here. 00:00:09.730 --> 00:00:17.030 Okay, then... Lost my pen. Let's get going then. Tell me when you're seated comfortably. 00:00:17.890 --> 00:00:23.130 I am, I think. The picture looks pretty good. So I think we're good to go. 00:00:23.470 --> 00:00:49.230 Here we go. Transcription by CastingWords 00:00:49.250 --> 00:00:52.410 Welcome to Curmudgeons Corner for Saturday, 00:00:52.770 --> 00:00:55.610 February 7th, 2026. 00:00:55.910 --> 00:01:00.830 It's just before 18 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter, 00:01:00.990 --> 00:01:03.990 and Yvonne Bowe is not here this week. 00:01:04.150 --> 00:01:09.810 He let me know a few days ago that his brother was coming in to help celebrate 00:01:09.810 --> 00:01:13.430 his birthday, which was a few days ago, so happy birthday, Yvonne, 00:01:13.590 --> 00:01:18.250 and that he'd be doing things with his brother this weekend and wouldn't be available. 00:01:18.670 --> 00:01:22.170 So, we have Ed. Hello, Ed. 00:01:22.870 --> 00:01:23.530 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. 00:01:24.610 --> 00:01:29.770 And as usual, when we have a guest, the guest will mostly determine the agenda. 00:01:30.090 --> 00:01:36.270 I'll probably still do a couple movies because we're desperately behind on movies. 00:01:36.510 --> 00:01:41.470 So I'll do a couple of those. But otherwise, we'll let Ed control the agenda 00:01:41.470 --> 00:01:45.470 and decide what we're going to talk about this week. 00:01:46.070 --> 00:01:51.390 So first of all, for this segment, Ed, before we get to movies and before we 00:01:51.390 --> 00:01:55.850 get to other stuff that you may have in mind later in the show, 00:01:55.950 --> 00:02:01.810 do you have anything sort of of the light and frothy, not that serious variety 00:02:01.810 --> 00:02:03.050 that you want to start with? 00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:07.370 How would you start? The temperature here is seven degrees right now. 00:02:08.070 --> 00:02:09.390 Now, where is here? 00:02:09.390 --> 00:02:15.510 This is outside of Philadelphia, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 00:02:16.390 --> 00:02:20.070 which, interesting, by the way, in addition to being colder than you-know-what, 00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:25.050 our representative, our district is going to be one of the swing ones for the 00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:30.590 election because we presently have a Republican, and he may lose, 00:02:30.710 --> 00:02:34.830 which event the House goes further to the left eventually. 00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:37.150 But we'll see what happens on that. 00:02:37.150 --> 00:02:45.170 Yeah, there are in general a lot more seats potentially in play than seemed 00:02:45.170 --> 00:02:46.830 like there'd be even a year ago. 00:02:47.130 --> 00:02:54.690 But, you know, there are a few near us as well that are sort of in that zone. 00:02:55.150 --> 00:02:56.970 But just generally, I mean... 00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:04.500 Okay, wait. I was about to start talking politics. You were talking weather. 00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:05.160 We'll save it for later. 00:03:05.860 --> 00:03:09.340 We'll save politics for later. That's for the later segments. 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:16.780 This is the coldest I've been since six years ago when my son and two of my 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:19.880 grandsons and I hiked to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:24.700 The temperature there was zero with a 20 or 30 mile an hour wind at the top. 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:29.520 This is going to be one o'clock tomorrow. And I, there's a run that I participate 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:31.400 with a bunch of people every Sunday morning. 00:03:31.580 --> 00:03:34.680 I'm not doing it tomorrow. I'm not, I'm too old to do that anymore. 00:03:35.200 --> 00:03:36.080 Too cold. 00:03:36.660 --> 00:03:38.200 Too cold by far. 00:03:40.010 --> 00:03:45.430 Yeah, so, I mean, now here in the Pacific Northwest, 00:03:46.350 --> 00:03:55.590 if anything, my understanding is that the West Coast has been warmer than usual so far this year. 00:03:55.850 --> 00:04:02.430 Right now, at this exact moment while we're recording, it is 48 degrees Fahrenheit here where I am. 00:04:02.430 --> 00:04:08.190 Um, but my understanding is in general, it's been so warm that people are worried that, 00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:14.150 you know, the, the snow pack that is supplies water for the rest of the year 00:04:14.150 --> 00:04:19.590 is not built up, you know, places that do skiing haven't really had a season, 00:04:19.850 --> 00:04:20.910 you know, things like that. 00:04:21.050 --> 00:04:21.150 Yeah. 00:04:21.790 --> 00:04:29.070 But I have read about this, you know, cold snap you folks in the rest of the 00:04:29.070 --> 00:04:30.810 country have been having. How's it been? 00:04:31.470 --> 00:04:32.750 It's been very cold. 00:04:35.170 --> 00:04:41.470 My understanding of what's going on is that the polar vortex is being pushed 00:04:41.470 --> 00:04:46.050 down by warm, clear weather up in the higher, 00:04:46.250 --> 00:04:52.670 you know, in the far north, which means that Alaska and the Arctic Circle are 00:04:52.670 --> 00:04:55.430 beginning to melt even faster than usual. 00:04:55.570 --> 00:05:00.850 But that's pushing all this cold air down. So the folks who talk climate science 00:05:00.850 --> 00:05:06.530 are not surprised that it's this cold here, and it is not proof against global 00:05:06.530 --> 00:05:09.170 warming. It's proof of climate change. 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:13.420 Yes. Although I have seen people point 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:19.060 out, you know, there is a bit of misinformation going around that says, 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:26.780 hey, the climate change makes these kinds of cold snaps more severe as well 00:05:26.780 --> 00:05:28.740 or more frequent or things like that. 00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:34.460 And the answer is, although climate change very much sort of destabilizes and 00:05:34.460 --> 00:05:37.500 some areas get warmer and some areas get colder and blah, blah, blah. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:45.760 If you look at the overall trends, you know, the kind of cold snap that the 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:51.700 East Coast is having right now was commonplace 100 years ago. 00:05:52.300 --> 00:05:56.440 Like this would like would happen everyone and would be normal and, 00:05:56.540 --> 00:05:57.480 you know, things like that. 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:02.140 So when you when you look at the long term trends, it really is, 00:06:02.260 --> 00:06:09.320 you know, these kinds of cold snaps are getting less frequent and less severe when they do happen. 00:06:09.520 --> 00:06:13.020 But what that does mean is that when they do happen. 00:06:13.820 --> 00:06:19.220 People notice a lot more because it's like, oh, wow, I haven't been this cold in decades. 00:06:20.380 --> 00:06:26.400 Whereas, in fact, like if you talk to your grandparents, they'd be like, what do you mean? 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:30.840 This is like this is what every winter was like here, you know. 00:06:31.460 --> 00:06:37.860 And so you have a bit of that. And but but yeah, you do have sort of these patterns 00:06:37.860 --> 00:06:40.300 that happen and and all of this. 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:44.180 And, you know, spring will come soon enough. I was talking to my father, 00:06:44.440 --> 00:06:49.360 who is now in Ohio, just, when was it, yesterday? 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:54.500 Yesterday morning, yes. And he also was complaining about the weather. 00:06:55.060 --> 00:07:02.380 Basically, you know, it being so cold, he likes to, like, go on walks and stuff still, you know? 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:06.940 And basically, he's been stuck inside most of the time. 00:07:06.940 --> 00:07:12.320 And when he does go outside, he has to bundle up or he has to rely on someone 00:07:12.320 --> 00:07:18.060 to drive him somewhere because, you know, the places he would want to go are not. 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:22.440 Even if he would consider walking there in the summer, he's not going to walk 00:07:22.440 --> 00:07:26.840 there when it's snowy and seven degrees or whatever, you know. 00:07:27.020 --> 00:07:32.180 I have still been doing a fair amount of, that's my primary exercise is walking. 00:07:32.180 --> 00:07:35.620 I try to get in about 100 to 130 miles a month. 00:07:35.620 --> 00:07:41.400 But when I'm going out these days I have downfilled mittens four or five layers 00:07:41.400 --> 00:07:49.340 plus a down jacket and a stocking cap and long johns and I'm fairly warm then that way but it's, 00:07:50.180 --> 00:07:55.980 that's basically what I wore is I stood at the top of Kilimanjaro right and 00:07:55.980 --> 00:07:59.520 it's you know you're comfortable warm like that on the other hand, 00:08:00.080 --> 00:08:05.300 We got a couple feet of snow a couple weeks ago, and it's somewhat treacherous 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:10.540 walking because we haven't been above freezing for the past two and a half weeks now. 00:08:10.740 --> 00:08:12.940 I think we got to 33 once or twice. 00:08:13.780 --> 00:08:17.200 Meanwhile here, and I'm not going to claim, I mean, the Southern California 00:08:17.200 --> 00:08:22.100 people, I've seen them online talking about how it's in the high 70s there, whatever. 00:08:22.500 --> 00:08:26.880 And of course, Florida has been part of the cold snap too. Our co-host Yvonne 00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:30.540 has been complaining on the curmudgeon's corner slack that, oh my God, 00:08:30.620 --> 00:08:35.160 it dropped into the forties there and, and how horrible that is. 00:08:35.660 --> 00:08:40.600 Uh, meanwhile here, like I said, it's 48 right now. Like if I was going to go 00:08:40.600 --> 00:08:44.520 out and be out for a while, I'd throw on a jacket, but if I'm just like taking 00:08:44.520 --> 00:08:47.280 out the trash or something, I don't even bother. 00:08:47.300 --> 00:08:51.380 I go out on a t-shirt, you know, it's like I'm taking out the trash. 00:08:51.380 --> 00:08:56.880 I'm coming back and I'll be outside for like 60 seconds maximum. It's not a big deal. 00:08:57.200 --> 00:09:00.340 You know, I'm even putting on a coat to take the trash out. 00:09:03.150 --> 00:09:03.590 Okay. 00:09:03.830 --> 00:09:08.250 To celebrate all that, I wore this shirt today. This is from a run that I do 00:09:08.250 --> 00:09:11.350 in June and July each year when it's nice and warm. 00:09:11.470 --> 00:09:16.410 So describe in detail for the people who cannot see this because most people are listening. 00:09:16.410 --> 00:09:19.790 This is a run that is a clothing optional one. 00:09:19.930 --> 00:09:23.490 So we go out and run au naturel, as you will, do wear shoes. 00:09:23.630 --> 00:09:26.390 And I always wear a hat so I don't burn my head anymore. 00:09:26.850 --> 00:09:31.290 Otherwise, it's all skin for most of it. Not everybody. Some people still wear 00:09:31.290 --> 00:09:33.870 some clothing, but I'd say about two-thirds, three-fourths. 00:09:34.010 --> 00:09:35.950 A couple hundred people go out and run. 00:09:36.130 --> 00:09:41.450 To be clear, this is not happening this week in the seven-degree temperatures. 00:09:41.650 --> 00:09:45.250 I wore this shirt to remind me that someday it will be warmer again. 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:51.510 So to be clear, this is the Bouncing Buns Fun Run. 00:09:52.210 --> 00:09:55.650 They have this in a few different places, but the one you went to, 00:09:55.770 --> 00:10:00.590 reading your T-shirt, is at Sunny Rest Resort in Palmerton, PA. 00:10:00.970 --> 00:10:05.170 And I will disclose that I went to Sunny Rest once, 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:10.510 25 years ago. I did a day visit. 00:10:10.690 --> 00:10:17.430 It was fun, but I never went back. I regret never having gone back. It's a nudist place. 00:10:17.570 --> 00:10:20.110 I had fun. I will disclose that here. 00:10:21.070 --> 00:10:24.850 I was by myself that time, which was one of the reasons I never went back. 00:10:26.190 --> 00:10:31.650 I did that kind of thing a couple of times in my 20s, but for the most part, 00:10:31.770 --> 00:10:33.290 I was solo, and that just wasn't fun. 00:10:33.290 --> 00:10:38.250 I did, on later occasions, get people to come with me to a couple of those things, 00:10:38.330 --> 00:10:42.090 but then that sort of faded out, and my wife was never really into it. 00:10:42.130 --> 00:10:45.890 So I haven't been since, but it was an enjoyable experience. 00:10:45.890 --> 00:10:49.170 Yeah so and yeah but i 00:10:49.170 --> 00:10:52.630 don't know if i've said that out loud on this show before but yeah there there 00:10:52.630 --> 00:10:59.190 you go i've implied it but i i have not done the bouncing buns fun run if if 00:10:59.190 --> 00:11:03.210 i was on the east coast i know you and your son-in-law have done this for a 00:11:03.210 --> 00:11:08.610 number of years if i was in pa i might join you but i'm not so there i think we're. 00:11:08.610 --> 00:11:10.290 Up to 15 16 years now. 00:11:10.290 --> 00:11:12.790 Wow we've done it. Yeah. 00:11:13.130 --> 00:11:18.930 John, John did it one year more than I did. Uh, and then the last 15 or 16 years 00:11:18.930 --> 00:11:20.430 now, we've both have done it. 00:11:20.730 --> 00:11:25.690 So as I said, it's, it's, uh, probably as much fun as you can have and still be legal. 00:11:28.170 --> 00:11:33.070 Yes. And to be clear to anybody wondering, this is one of the places that's 00:11:33.070 --> 00:11:36.550 sort of family oriented and like clean. 00:11:36.950 --> 00:11:42.150 And there, there, there are places out there that you can go that are really 00:11:42.150 --> 00:11:48.450 just like, you know, sex resorts or swingers places or places like that. 00:11:48.850 --> 00:11:52.710 This place and most like it are not at all like that. 00:11:52.790 --> 00:11:57.910 In fact, like if you do anything, even remotely hinting, 00:11:59.060 --> 00:12:02.520 being sexual, you will be tossed out of the place, you know? 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:10.860 So it's more about like lying by the pool and, and just chilling, read your book. 00:12:11.140 --> 00:12:17.040 In this case, do a little fun run or hiking through the woods or whatever, things like that. 00:12:17.460 --> 00:12:21.800 John gets a kick out of the, they have a volleyball game in the pool all the time. 00:12:21.980 --> 00:12:25.680 And the referees wear a shirt, but everyone else is naked. 00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:33.700 Yeah, of course. You know, so. Anyway, that is that. 00:12:34.300 --> 00:12:39.120 Okay, with that transition, I will move to a couple of movies. 00:12:39.560 --> 00:12:44.320 And the first is a... An... 00:12:45.890 --> 00:12:53.870 There is a television series that went from, so I am doing a movie, 00:12:54.190 --> 00:13:00.690 but the context is it's a follow-up movie to a TV series that I've talked about on here before. 00:13:00.950 --> 00:13:08.650 The TV series was Psych, which ran from 2006 to 2014, okay? 00:13:08.650 --> 00:13:18.050 And then after the series ended, they came back with a series of made-for-TV 00:13:18.050 --> 00:13:20.870 movies that followed up on the series. 00:13:21.210 --> 00:13:26.970 So Psych ran from 2006 to 2014. I will give Psych a big thumbs up. 00:13:27.070 --> 00:13:33.970 I enjoyed the series. It was fun. The basic premise of the series is there is 00:13:33.970 --> 00:13:38.650 a guy who runs a psychic detective agency, 00:13:38.650 --> 00:13:42.990 and he supports the police. 00:13:43.370 --> 00:13:48.410 The local police, and solves a bunch of crimes for them, basically. 00:13:48.410 --> 00:13:51.450 Now of course part of the premise here 00:13:51.450 --> 00:13:54.230 is he's not really psychic he's just 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:57.190 really gifted at noticing things so he's 00:13:57.190 --> 00:14:00.150 like a sherlock holmes type character who 00:14:00.150 --> 00:14:03.070 like you know will notice all the little details in 00:14:03.070 --> 00:14:08.150 the scene and help and put the stuff together he's got his name's sean he's 00:14:08.150 --> 00:14:14.310 got a a sidekick gus and they it's a comedy it's a well a dramedy it's so they 00:14:14.310 --> 00:14:20.590 they're they're constantly making jokes and doing silly things and in an exaggerated way. And. 00:14:22.010 --> 00:14:26.370 And anyway, the thing is, he's not really a psychic. 00:14:26.590 --> 00:14:30.730 He just knows this stuff. But he pretends to be a psychic, and that gets him 00:14:30.730 --> 00:14:31.830 into trouble sometimes. 00:14:31.910 --> 00:14:37.670 And, you know, as it goes on, they sort of do a little less pretending that 00:14:37.670 --> 00:14:40.530 they're psychic and a little more just doing their thing. But, 00:14:40.710 --> 00:14:41.390 you know, it's whatever. 00:14:41.890 --> 00:14:48.170 Anyway, it was followed up with Psych the Movie in 2017, followed by Psych 2 00:14:48.170 --> 00:14:53.290 Lassie Come Home in 2020, which is the one I'm going to be speaking about today. 00:14:53.510 --> 00:14:58.990 And finally, there is a third one, Psych 3 This Is Gus, that came out in 2021. 00:14:59.990 --> 00:15:05.710 So Psych 2 Lassie Come Home is the one that I am going to talk about today. 00:15:06.490 --> 00:15:14.330 Look, here's the thing. I liked the series. I think the movies, like... 00:15:15.570 --> 00:15:19.810 Didn't quite live up to the series. And I said this a while back, 00:15:19.810 --> 00:15:26.630 I reviewed the first movie and I said, I thought a big part of the problem was 00:15:26.630 --> 00:15:29.070 that the characters were just a lot older. 00:15:29.490 --> 00:15:35.710 And some of the hijinks that made sense when they were characters in their early 00:15:35.710 --> 00:15:41.630 to mid twenties, when they're like pushing 40 or whatever, you're just like, 00:15:41.990 --> 00:15:43.630 okay, come on, it's time to grow up. 00:15:43.630 --> 00:15:51.190 You know, it's like, and I think that continues here, like some of the gags 00:15:51.190 --> 00:15:57.770 and stuff, it's just like, okay, you know, you've been doing this for how many years now? 00:15:58.130 --> 00:16:01.090 Like, just like, chill a little bit. 00:16:01.090 --> 00:16:06.930 The one interesting thing I will say about Lassie Comes Home, 00:16:07.030 --> 00:16:09.730 which I think was interesting, 00:16:10.030 --> 00:16:20.050 is one of the supporting characters was played by Timothy Amundson, 00:16:20.490 --> 00:16:23.470 okay, who's an actor, he's been in a bunch of stuff. 00:16:23.470 --> 00:16:28.470 But in real life, the actor had a stroke. 00:16:29.350 --> 00:16:36.530 And rather than recast him or write the character out or anything, 00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:43.770 this movie is actually centered around that. 00:16:43.770 --> 00:16:49.490 What happens in the movie the character's name is Lassiter and the movie starts 00:16:49.490 --> 00:16:56.130 out with him being ambushed and left for dead and he's shot but then has a stroke 00:16:56.130 --> 00:17:02.690 on the operating table and so then they actually you know, 00:17:03.540 --> 00:17:07.400 make it a part where the actor, 00:17:07.740 --> 00:17:14.620 in his condition where he was still fairly significantly affected by the stroke 00:17:14.620 --> 00:17:19.640 he had suffered, plays his own character recovering from a stroke. 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:25.580 And I thought that was kind of classy, actually. 00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:26.360 Yeah. 00:17:26.580 --> 00:17:33.200 You know, that they did that. And a little bit brave to do that as part of the story. 00:17:33.540 --> 00:17:38.520 I mean, in this one of the three movies, he didn't have a huge part. 00:17:38.760 --> 00:17:43.480 You know, he was shot at the beginning, and a couple moments in the middle, 00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:47.540 they talked to him a little bit, and he gave some clues about what had happened 00:17:47.540 --> 00:17:51.860 to him, and they talked to him a little bit at the end. 00:17:52.520 --> 00:17:56.720 So his part was not big, and it was sort of clear that given his condition, 00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:58.680 his part could not have been big. 00:17:59.020 --> 00:18:01.680 But they still included him directly. 00:18:02.280 --> 00:18:05.220 And, you know, overall, I'll still give it a thumbs up. 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:11.740 I will, I continue to say the movies do not live up to the standard of the TV 00:18:11.740 --> 00:18:15.460 show, which also, like most long-running TV shows, 00:18:15.900 --> 00:18:21.920 you know, it sort of, it started out good and sort of slowly declined over the 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.920 course of its run, but the TV show was good. 00:18:26.040 --> 00:18:31.480 The movies are okay. and if if you watched the tv show i would give a thumbs 00:18:31.480 --> 00:18:38.360 up go watch the movies i will say though that if you did not watch the tv show 00:18:38.360 --> 00:18:43.580 the movies don't bother like it's you're not gonna they don't. 00:18:44.330 --> 00:18:50.490 As a standalone, they would get a thumb sideways at best, maybe even a thumbs down. 00:18:50.770 --> 00:18:54.550 They get their value from being a continuation of the TV show. 00:18:54.830 --> 00:18:59.310 So like, if you're interested at all in the premise, watch the TV show first. 00:18:59.610 --> 00:19:03.610 Then if you're still engaged at the end of the TV show, watch the movies. 00:19:04.010 --> 00:19:06.950 But I wouldn't, I wouldn't just jump in. 00:19:07.130 --> 00:19:13.650 Certainly not to psych two movie, you know, like, yeah, no, watch the TV show. 00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:16.170 Then watch the three movies, et cetera. 00:19:16.290 --> 00:19:20.590 And I'm not reviewing the third movie yet, but, you know, thumbs up. 00:19:20.750 --> 00:19:24.130 I enjoyed seeing the characters again, et cetera. 00:19:24.870 --> 00:19:30.530 Not quite up to the TV show, but still enjoyable, still thumbs up, 00:19:30.650 --> 00:19:36.070 still worth the watch, if you liked the TV show. So, there you go. 00:19:36.770 --> 00:19:39.990 You recognized the name when I said Psych. Did you ever watch that show? 00:19:40.350 --> 00:19:43.610 Oh, we watched it a lot. I don't think we've seen the movies, 00:19:43.630 --> 00:19:46.630 but the TV series we enjoyed a lot. 00:19:47.270 --> 00:19:50.450 Okay. Well, in that case, there are three movies. 00:19:50.710 --> 00:19:54.710 You should go check them out. They are, I am sure they, let's see, 00:19:54.810 --> 00:19:57.970 where are they available on streaming? Let me check for you. Probably on Netflix. 00:20:00.210 --> 00:20:01.430 I'll tell you in a second. 00:20:04.300 --> 00:20:10.500 If I can spell Psyche. There we go. It is available on Peacock. 00:20:10.900 --> 00:20:12.000 Oh, Peacock. 00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:14.220 It is available on Peacock. 00:20:15.060 --> 00:20:17.860 I'm not sure if we still get that one or not. We'll have to second see. 00:20:18.800 --> 00:20:19.740 Yeah, so. 00:20:20.020 --> 00:20:23.060 My spouse runs the TV for the most part. 00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:31.320 Yes. So anyway, that's it for Psyche. And then one more movie to wrap this up. 00:20:31.320 --> 00:20:34.820 Which is a kids movie called epic 00:20:34.820 --> 00:20:45.880 from 2013 it is a it says it is a a fantasy adventure film loosely based on 00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:54.540 william joyce's 1996 children's book the leaf men and the brave good bugs, 00:20:55.320 --> 00:20:58.760 I will give this a thumbs up. It's a cute little movie. 00:21:00.340 --> 00:21:04.980 Summarizing the plot, again reading the first couple paragraphs from the Wikipedia 00:21:04.980 --> 00:21:11.440 summary, after her mother dies, you know, kids' movies always start with parents dying. 00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:18.360 It just seems like it's a common theme. Not always, but like usually Disney 00:21:18.360 --> 00:21:22.580 movies, both parents die and the kid is orphaned. 00:21:22.740 --> 00:21:26.500 I mean, whether it's a human kid or an animal or whatever, you know, 00:21:26.600 --> 00:21:30.580 going back all the way to Bambi or whatever, the parents always die. 00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:38.180 And it seems to be a common trope in children's movies. I guess to get the kid 00:21:38.180 --> 00:21:41.740 in a situation where they're acting independently and you can build a movie 00:21:41.740 --> 00:21:44.820 around them, but it's still notable. 00:21:45.120 --> 00:21:49.700 And it's not always the case, not always, like you said, but it happens enough to be noticeable. 00:21:50.180 --> 00:21:55.640 Anyway, after her mother dies, 17-year-old Mary Catherine moves in with her 00:21:55.640 --> 00:22:00.540 eccentric scientist father, Professor Bamba in Danbury, Connecticut. 00:22:00.540 --> 00:22:02.320 So this one only had one parent die. 00:22:03.540 --> 00:22:09.560 Bamba spent his life researching the Leaf Men, tiny humanoid soldiers who protect 00:22:09.560 --> 00:22:12.800 the neighboring forest from wicked creatures called Boggins. 00:22:13.660 --> 00:22:17.900 MK is irritated by her father's work, believing his theories to be nonsense. 00:22:18.180 --> 00:22:20.780 And it's fairly clear, by the way, when you watch the movie, 00:22:20.980 --> 00:22:24.360 that she's not the only one who thinks his theories are nonsense. 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:31.140 He's clearly like an isolated man off in the wilderness doing his research that 00:22:31.140 --> 00:22:35.080 nobody in the world takes seriously and thinks he's out of his mind. 00:22:36.040 --> 00:22:39.480 MK is irritated by her father's work, believing his theories to be nonsense. 00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:44.060 Meanwhile, Nod, an independent yet rebellious young leafman, 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:46.340 decides to quit. So they are real. 00:22:46.580 --> 00:22:52.100 Much to the ire of his no-nonsense leader, Ronan, who promised Nod's late father 00:22:52.100 --> 00:22:53.100 he would look out for him. 00:22:53.570 --> 00:22:59.110 The forest's benevolent ruler, Queen Tara, must choose her successor and arrives 00:22:59.110 --> 00:23:04.550 at a pool of lily pads occupied by Mub, a laid-back slug, and Grub, 00:23:04.670 --> 00:23:06.410 a wannabe leafman snail. 00:23:06.890 --> 00:23:12.010 Immediately after she chooses a pod, the Boggins attack and overwhelm the leafman 00:23:12.010 --> 00:23:14.750 while Tara flees with Ronan on his hummingbird mount. 00:23:15.010 --> 00:23:18.970 The pair are pursued by the Boggins' leader, Mandrake and his son Dagda, 00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:23.930 who is killed by Ronan, but it allowed Mandrake to badly wound Terra with an arrow. 00:23:24.390 --> 00:23:28.770 So one more paragraph here. MK decides to leave after getting into an argument 00:23:28.770 --> 00:23:30.090 with Bamba about his research. 00:23:30.470 --> 00:23:34.510 Outside, MK encounters the falling Terra, who entrusts the pod to her, 00:23:34.970 --> 00:23:38.570 shrinks her with magic, and tells her to take it to Nimgaloo, 00:23:38.990 --> 00:23:41.990 a glowworm wizard, before finally dying. 00:23:42.530 --> 00:23:46.630 MK is accompanied by Ronan, Mub, and Grub, while Ronan recruits a reluctant 00:23:46.630 --> 00:23:50.230 nod after saving him from short-tempered toad gangster Bufo. 00:23:50.490 --> 00:23:55.950 Okay, that description had a lot of character names. But in any case, you get the idea. 00:23:56.090 --> 00:24:01.490 The human girl enters the world of these leaf men, and at a time where they 00:24:01.490 --> 00:24:04.070 are in chaos, where the enemy has taken over, 00:24:04.510 --> 00:24:10.190 the queen has died, she is entrusted with the pod that is supposed to be, 00:24:10.370 --> 00:24:15.190 I guess, the new queen reincarnated thing or whatever. 00:24:15.650 --> 00:24:20.410 It gives, the exact mechanism becomes clear later in the movie, 00:24:20.570 --> 00:24:24.110 but whatever, you know, anyway, it's a cute movie. 00:24:24.570 --> 00:24:27.810 It's, it's, it's, it's fun. It's nice. 00:24:28.250 --> 00:24:33.690 And, you know, it is, I'd say one of these that is not just for kids. 00:24:33.890 --> 00:24:37.070 The adults will enjoy it too. And, 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:44.920 It's not super deep. You know, it's not, they're not twists and turns that are going to shock you. 00:24:45.320 --> 00:24:50.400 It ends the way you probably think it's going to end by my description so far. 00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:54.980 But it was fun. It was cute. It was a nice little movie. 00:24:55.260 --> 00:24:59.500 It was a fun, how long is it? 102 minutes. So it's not even that long. 00:25:00.020 --> 00:25:03.540 It is a good movie. Thumbs up. I recommend. There you go. 00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:05.480 There you go. All right. 00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:08.740 So okay with that 00:25:08.740 --> 00:25:11.840 we are going to take a break the first break 00:25:11.840 --> 00:25:14.620 is an apple dream i've been promising this apple dream for 00:25:14.620 --> 00:25:20.240 several weeks it is a really short apple dream and it is one that has been on 00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:26.240 the show before although a long time ago i think it was apple dream 15 and then 00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:33.240 when we get back we will have ed tell us what his first serious topic is going to be. 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:34.160 All right or. 00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:37.280 I'm assuming it's serious it might not be maybe maybe 00:25:37.280 --> 00:25:44.060 your topic is clowns is your topic clowns no no not not quite well yeah clowns 00:25:44.060 --> 00:25:49.880 are serious to some people some people are deathly afraid of clowns some clowns 00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:56.860 take themselves very seriously so i you know i don't know anyway here comes abel dream 15 i. 00:25:56.860 --> 00:26:04.020 Remember almost nothing but we were at the arctic circle and there was snow 00:26:04.020 --> 00:26:09.500 everywhere, and people were talking about the world's most northern ATM machine. 00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:13.640 Except, you shouldn't say machine because that's what the M's for. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:17.120 And I don't remember why we were there or what we were doing. 00:26:17.340 --> 00:26:22.280 I think that was earlier in the dream, but I no longer remember it. Bye. 00:26:24.140 --> 00:26:30.840 Well, that was exciting, wasn't it? The world's most northern ATM machine. Uh... 00:26:33.910 --> 00:26:37.390 I don't dream. Well, I dream, but I don't ever remember my dreams. 00:26:39.050 --> 00:26:42.830 Right. So let's see. 00:26:43.630 --> 00:26:49.370 Let's see if I can actually find it. Let's see. The world's most remote ATMs. 00:26:49.950 --> 00:26:53.870 There's one at Mount Everest-based camp. That's high altitude. 00:26:54.530 --> 00:26:59.330 There's one in remote part of the Amazon rainforest. 00:26:59.330 --> 00:27:02.330 Forest this the highest atm 00:27:02.330 --> 00:27:05.210 in the world is not the mount everest base camp 00:27:05.210 --> 00:27:12.450 but is elsewhere in is in tibet there's a floating atm in indonesia here we 00:27:12.450 --> 00:27:19.250 go the most northerly atm since i had that dream about it let's actually long 00:27:19.250 --> 00:27:24.850 year be in the administrative center of the svalbard Archipelago in Norway, 00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:27.990 boasts the most northerly ATM. 00:27:28.490 --> 00:27:32.750 This location is one of the most remote inhabited places on earth, 00:27:32.950 --> 00:27:38.770 with limited access to mainland Norway, making the ATM a vital service for residents 00:27:38.770 --> 00:27:41.030 and visitors. There you go. 00:27:41.810 --> 00:27:47.010 And, uh, I'll have to check that. My wife and I are taking a cruise this fall 00:27:47.010 --> 00:27:51.210 in, uh, I don't know if we're going to Fallbard. 00:27:51.370 --> 00:27:56.030 We're going to Norway and we're going to cruise up to Northern Norway. So maybe it'll be there. 00:27:56.650 --> 00:28:00.470 You'll, you'll, you'll need to ask about it. It's in Longyearbyen, 00:28:01.190 --> 00:28:05.990 which I presume means a place that has a long year because it's an Arctic circle. 00:28:06.950 --> 00:28:17.510 So I don't know. Now, I imagine, too, this article was only from last year, but I would imagine, 00:28:17.970 --> 00:28:24.470 maybe even especially in some of these more remote places, at least once they have internet, 00:28:24.930 --> 00:28:32.010 there'll be a move, like everywhere else, to transactions that don't use cash 00:28:32.010 --> 00:28:35.870 anymore, where you're doing an electronic transaction. 00:28:35.870 --> 00:28:38.970 Action now there's sort of this intermediate ground 00:28:38.970 --> 00:28:43.170 if you're remote but you 00:28:43.170 --> 00:28:46.710 don't yet have reliable internet or 00:28:46.710 --> 00:28:52.450 cell service or whatever then maybe you still need the cash because nobody's 00:28:52.450 --> 00:28:55.290 going to have electronic transfers because they don't have the right equipment 00:28:55.290 --> 00:29:02.350 for it but once but once you have got the cell service and a reliable connection 00:29:02.350 --> 00:29:05.210 it seems like things would very rapidly move towards, 00:29:05.430 --> 00:29:08.090 you know what? We can just do electronic transactions. 00:29:08.110 --> 00:29:10.370 Don't worry about having the paper money. 00:29:10.670 --> 00:29:12.210 I think Sweden is, 00:29:12.780 --> 00:29:18.180 I think it was sweet. We were there a number of years ago, and they pretty much did not accept cash. 00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:23.360 You had to use credit cards, and it was fine because I've got my credit card 00:29:23.360 --> 00:29:26.300 and my watch, and I didn't even need to pull my billfold out. 00:29:26.420 --> 00:29:30.580 We just went in a store, buy something, flash my watch, and go on our way. 00:29:31.540 --> 00:29:35.360 This is rapidly accelerating, and I haven't done a lot of traveling, 00:29:35.500 --> 00:29:36.660 but from what I understand, 00:29:37.520 --> 00:29:42.320 Europe is one of the areas that's actually moving faster than the U.S., 00:29:42.320 --> 00:29:46.540 And there are several other parts of the world that are also moving faster with 00:29:46.540 --> 00:29:49.820 a transition to doing almost everything, 00:29:50.040 --> 00:29:54.800 not just electronically, but specifically through your mobile phone. 00:29:55.580 --> 00:30:02.080 Whether it be purchases at stores or even person-to-person money transfers is 00:30:02.080 --> 00:30:05.420 rapidly moving in that direction. 00:30:05.420 --> 00:30:08.260 I think in the U S it's, you know, 00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:12.360 I do, I, I sometimes use my phone for these transactions now, 00:30:12.460 --> 00:30:17.560 but I probably still use my cards more, but more and more people are just using 00:30:17.560 --> 00:30:20.440 their phones and watches and stuff for these transactions. 00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:25.660 And use of cash is way, way down everywhere in the U S for sure. 00:30:25.760 --> 00:30:30.140 It's not extinct, but I notice it when somebody uses cash. 00:30:30.580 --> 00:30:34.360 When we were in Canada a couple of years ago, I never did pull out my billfold. 00:30:34.360 --> 00:30:35.880 Everything the hotel. 00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:40.440 Fees the restaurant the restaurants the the waitress would bring this this little 00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:44.340 pocket held thing you'd clash your thing indicate how much tip you want and 00:30:44.340 --> 00:30:47.460 go on your way it was all done with my with my phone. 00:30:47.460 --> 00:30:50.420 Yeah i've said before i haven't i. 00:30:50.420 --> 00:30:51.160 Mean not my phone. 00:30:51.160 --> 00:30:55.460 Yeah i haven't made the full transition to using my phone and the watch i like 00:30:55.460 --> 00:30:59.880 have to remember to do so and it's a little bit more convenient when it's attached 00:30:59.880 --> 00:31:03.020 to a credit card than when it's attached to a debit card because when it's attached 00:31:03.020 --> 00:31:06.860 to a debit card sometimes they They still make you put in your pen, which is annoying. 00:31:07.940 --> 00:31:09.480 So right now... 00:31:10.070 --> 00:31:16.150 And right now I have my, my Apple pay or whatever it is attached to like a debit card. 00:31:16.570 --> 00:31:21.030 And so I don't know, but I, but I've, I've used it. I've definitely used it, 00:31:21.030 --> 00:31:23.890 but I haven't carried cash in decades now. 00:31:24.050 --> 00:31:32.990 Like the, the only time I have cash is if I am, if I know I am going somewhere 00:31:32.990 --> 00:31:38.370 where I know I will need it, which at this point has not happened in years. 00:31:38.370 --> 00:31:46.030 The last place that did it, that needed that was like a traditional barbershop I used to go to. 00:31:46.730 --> 00:31:54.410 And I, and I don't think even that barbershop still requires cash. 00:31:54.550 --> 00:31:58.210 Now they, they also take electronic payment, but also after pandemic, 00:31:58.210 --> 00:32:01.290 I switched to a different one and they definitely are all electronic. 00:32:01.290 --> 00:32:08.990 And so I haven't had a situation where I needed actual cash in a very, 00:32:09.210 --> 00:32:11.390 very, very long time at this point. 00:32:12.710 --> 00:32:20.850 So anyway, sorry, I was hijacked by the Apple Dream and remote ATMs and Northern 00:32:20.850 --> 00:32:23.850 Dream, you know, whatever. So what's your first topic? 00:32:25.050 --> 00:32:28.090 Well, I thought we ought to talk a little bit about the ketogenic diet. 00:32:28.630 --> 00:32:35.190 My favorite health administrator, RFK Jr., came out this week and said that 00:32:35.190 --> 00:32:38.610 schizophrenia can now be cured with a ketogenic diet. 00:32:39.390 --> 00:32:43.890 And so a lot of people may not know what that is and why it, 00:32:43.950 --> 00:32:47.610 he thinks it cures them. So I thought we might talk about that a little bit. 00:32:48.810 --> 00:32:53.390 Just briefly, I don't know how much you know about it, but anyway, 00:32:53.670 --> 00:33:01.830 a ketogenic diet is one in which 60% of your diet is fat, about 30% is protein, 00:33:02.150 --> 00:33:05.270 and 5% to 10% only carbohydrates. 00:33:05.270 --> 00:33:13.630 And what it does is that you deplete your body glycogen stores and you start burning fat for energy. 00:33:13.870 --> 00:33:20.710 And the side effect or side product of burning fat for energy is ketones. 00:33:20.770 --> 00:33:23.170 And that's why it's called a ketogenic diet. 00:33:23.840 --> 00:33:29.160 It's been proven very effective as a weight loss mechanism, although like most 00:33:29.160 --> 00:33:33.680 diets, you lose weight while you're on it, and then when you stop and take off 00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:38.340 the diet, people gain their weight back usually, not always, but quite often do. 00:33:38.660 --> 00:33:44.360 It has also been found fairly effective, especially in childhood seizure disorders, 00:33:44.540 --> 00:33:50.700 for reasons that aren't entirely clear, but again, it's a pretty strict diet. It's hard to adhere to. 00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:56.480 People who are on it need to have pretty close medical monitoring because the 00:33:56.480 --> 00:33:59.320 ketones, if they get excessive, are not particularly healthy. 00:34:00.080 --> 00:34:05.520 They're not good for you and moderately dangerous. Now, what has happened is 00:34:05.520 --> 00:34:09.800 a couple people with psychoses have been under treatment. 00:34:10.080 --> 00:34:15.040 And a few psychiatrists here and there have noticed that some of those, 00:34:15.220 --> 00:34:18.780 like everyone else, a few people get onto a ketogenic diet. 00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:23.800 And they find suddenly someone got better. So that gets reported. 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:27.820 And that's what we have at this point. There's a psychiatrist in, 00:34:28.020 --> 00:34:32.620 I think he's at Mass General, Massachusetts General Brigham Hospitals. 00:34:33.180 --> 00:34:38.000 And he had a number of people, psychotic, schizophrenia, who, 00:34:38.260 --> 00:34:41.860 for whatever reason, a few of them started on a ketogenic diet. 00:34:42.160 --> 00:34:46.280 And one of these guys came, oh, he was on it because he was obese. 00:34:46.460 --> 00:34:50.180 That's what it was. And he came back after around eight weeks And he said, 00:34:50.380 --> 00:34:55.840 I am not hearing voices And seeing things anymore So this became a case report 00:34:55.840 --> 00:34:58.340 This psychiatrist has had two or three others, 00:34:59.160 --> 00:35:04.100 That is what we have is a few incidental case reports, which is interesting 00:35:04.100 --> 00:35:05.400 to medicine, but it sure as hell is not science. 00:35:05.400 --> 00:35:09.220 Which is interesting and worth following up. Yeah, it's the kind of thing that 00:35:09.220 --> 00:35:11.320 makes you curious and is worth following up. 00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:12.240 Absolutely. 00:35:12.540 --> 00:35:19.180 You need something, you know, a randomized control trial is not always the gold standard. 00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:22.780 Sometimes you can look at populations, but you need to make sure you are looking 00:35:22.780 --> 00:35:29.140 at comparable populations that did or did not do this and see if there's a significant 00:35:29.140 --> 00:35:31.560 difference that you can actually measure, et cetera. 00:35:32.260 --> 00:35:36.300 Or was it just that you happened to have a couple people who coincidentally 00:35:36.300 --> 00:35:38.740 got better at the same time they were taking this diet, right? 00:35:38.860 --> 00:35:43.720 Sure. And it happens with a lot of, I remember one of my surgery professors 00:35:43.720 --> 00:35:48.820 when I was in my residency commented that he had a patient who was sent to him 00:35:48.820 --> 00:35:51.060 for surgery for ulcerative colitis. 00:35:51.060 --> 00:35:56.980 She was dying of severe hemorrhage and problems of the ulcerative colitis. 00:35:57.180 --> 00:36:01.000 And she was sent from somewhere in Northern California to him in San Francisco. 00:36:01.540 --> 00:36:06.240 They landed in San Francisco and she was better. 00:36:06.540 --> 00:36:10.320 She not only got better, she basically got almost back to normal. 00:36:10.580 --> 00:36:13.800 So she called her husband and she said, I'm not going back north. 00:36:14.020 --> 00:36:17.260 San Francisco has cured me. And she didn't have the surgery. 00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:20.360 And he thought, well, San Francisco did not cure. 00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:25.380 Diseases have intermittent things. They go up and down and up and down. 00:36:25.500 --> 00:36:31.060 But she was convinced, well, I don't even think anyone did a study on that. 00:36:31.300 --> 00:36:36.140 This deserves some study, but chances are it's just incidental findings. 00:36:36.640 --> 00:36:41.620 It would only take a non-scientist in what should be a scientist role to suddenly 00:36:41.620 --> 00:36:44.520 proclaim this is the way to cure that disease. 00:36:46.780 --> 00:36:53.300 That's RFK Jr. in a nutshell. A non-scientist in a scientist-appointed place 00:36:53.300 --> 00:36:57.480 who doesn't listen to scientists because he thinks he's smarter than they are. 00:36:57.700 --> 00:37:01.160 And he's appointed by an idiot in chief. 00:37:02.070 --> 00:37:08.070 Right. And look, you know, who knows? Maybe they'll do follow-up studies and 00:37:08.070 --> 00:37:10.790 there will be some sort of correlation and they'll figure out something. 00:37:11.050 --> 00:37:16.310 But you don't want to act on these things prematurely as well. 00:37:16.430 --> 00:37:22.910 Because like you said, this is a hard diet to be on and there are potentially 00:37:22.910 --> 00:37:25.950 negative side effects if you do too much of it. 00:37:26.550 --> 00:37:31.810 I have a friend who decided to go on a ketogenic diet to help him lose weight, 00:37:31.810 --> 00:37:39.550 and he ended up in a hospital with severe diabetic ketoacidosis because he has diabetes. 00:37:40.090 --> 00:37:44.570 And ketosis is not good for diabetics. And he damn near died. 00:37:44.650 --> 00:37:46.570 I mean, his blood sugar was running 800 or 900. 00:37:47.570 --> 00:37:54.410 It's just a bad scene. So, as I said, the physician who did the case reports 00:37:54.410 --> 00:37:58.450 that caught Kennedy's attention has come out and said, this is not a cure. 00:37:58.610 --> 00:38:02.990 I never said cure, but we are going to do a study on it because it is interesting. 00:38:03.170 --> 00:38:07.330 So I think he's planning to try and do what will probably be a fairly limited 00:38:07.330 --> 00:38:10.750 study, but at least it'll be looked at it scientifically. 00:38:11.750 --> 00:38:20.170 Right, right. Yeah. I mean, continuing on this topic, just broadening it a little 00:38:20.170 --> 00:38:25.590 bit, I know you are a retired military doctor. 00:38:25.790 --> 00:38:28.250 So this is why, like, you know, some of the medical stuff. 00:38:29.130 --> 00:38:33.770 Tell us, we've talked a few times about RFK Jr. 00:38:34.290 --> 00:38:38.630 And the absolutely crazy stuff that's coming out of there. 00:38:39.510 --> 00:38:44.770 Give us a few more. Well, first of all, is there anything RFK Jr. is doing right? 00:38:44.950 --> 00:38:49.610 I have yet to identify anything, but is there anything he's doing right? 00:38:50.950 --> 00:38:55.990 Like Klox, I think he's probably had a couple. I mean, the United States has 00:38:55.990 --> 00:38:59.430 an overall population and not a good diet. 00:39:00.200 --> 00:39:06.280 Yeah. The one thing I've heard him talking about that I think there is backup 00:39:06.280 --> 00:39:12.760 for is discouraging highly processed foods, you know? 00:39:13.040 --> 00:39:19.620 And I have heard other doctors, I have heard, I've seen articles about this 00:39:19.620 --> 00:39:26.840 more in general, that highly processed foods, which now make up a huge portion of the American diet. 00:39:27.180 --> 00:39:33.520 And there are a variety of reasons for that related to how food companies make 00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:39.220 money and doing things intentionally to make certain kinds of foods more appealing 00:39:39.220 --> 00:39:40.840 and cheaper and blah, blah, blah. 00:39:41.100 --> 00:39:46.800 Because highly processed foods, I hate to tell everyone, they're really yummy. 00:39:47.420 --> 00:39:51.060 They taste great. They are addictive. They're fun. 00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:53.560 That's because they have lots of sugar and salt in them. 00:39:54.760 --> 00:39:59.320 Exactly. Lots of sugar and salt. It's amazing. It's good stuff. 00:39:59.900 --> 00:40:07.440 And other yummy things too. But there is increasing evidence that, 00:40:08.310 --> 00:40:13.470 a lot of these, and it probably varies based on exactly how it's processed and 00:40:13.470 --> 00:40:16.030 exactly the ingredients, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 00:40:16.190 --> 00:40:20.770 But these things are not great for health, you know? 00:40:21.070 --> 00:40:23.690 And, and so RFK Jr. 00:40:24.530 --> 00:40:30.770 Has initiated some degree of push to, hey, avoid the highly processed foods. 00:40:31.190 --> 00:40:36.390 And that's probably not bad. Now, the details of his implementation of that 00:40:36.390 --> 00:40:42.990 probably suck, you know, but the general theme of that is okay. 00:40:43.010 --> 00:40:46.230 But almost everything else, I mean, come on. 00:40:48.110 --> 00:40:53.190 I saw another thing, and I was trying to bring it up real quick, but I can't find it. 00:40:53.350 --> 00:41:00.090 There was yet another vaccination thing this morning about one of the people who works for RFK Jr. 00:41:00.850 --> 00:41:05.750 Basically, I don't know if they've officially changed recommendations or whether 00:41:05.750 --> 00:41:08.330 this was just this guy talking in an interview or something, 00:41:08.570 --> 00:41:12.070 but it was discouraging COVID vaccines during pregnancy. 00:41:12.940 --> 00:41:16.540 Yeah, he's been after that for a while now. 00:41:17.240 --> 00:41:22.300 And from what, well, he's anti-every vaccine, as far as I can tell. 00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:25.720 But in this particular case, it's one of those things where, 00:41:26.040 --> 00:41:31.240 you know, he's saying something unproven about side effects of the vaccine during 00:41:31.240 --> 00:41:33.320 pregnancy and negative effects they could have. 00:41:33.320 --> 00:41:41.440 Meanwhile, the known risks of actual COVID during pregnancy to both the mother 00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:47.620 and the child are very well known and very serious, potentially. 00:41:47.620 --> 00:41:52.900 And so it's one of these things where in almost all of these cases, 00:41:52.900 --> 00:42:02.340 a big part of where folks like this seem to mess up, well, I almost don't want to, 00:42:02.740 --> 00:42:06.600 like, part of it is just like they have a visceral negative reaction and they 00:42:06.600 --> 00:42:11.100 don't want to think any further beyond that is really what's going on. 00:42:11.100 --> 00:42:16.700 But if you try to go one step further than that, it's misunderstanding, like, you know, 00:42:17.620 --> 00:42:22.840 statistics and math and proportions and, you know, OK, you have a rare risk 00:42:22.840 --> 00:42:28.360 that one out of any every 10 billion times has a negative side effect that may 00:42:28.360 --> 00:42:30.560 or may not even be proven because it's so rare. 00:42:31.020 --> 00:42:38.040 Meanwhile, you have a well-known effect that happens almost all of the time. 00:42:38.060 --> 00:42:41.600 And how do you balance those against each other? and, 00:42:42.280 --> 00:42:45.760 The answer is all the time wins over, very rare. 00:42:46.420 --> 00:42:52.280 Yeah, this is sort of one of the most dangerous things they'd come up with was 00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:58.680 to stop recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for either when women are pregnant 00:42:58.680 --> 00:43:01.100 or for the baby shortly after birth. 00:43:01.880 --> 00:43:07.660 And God only knows how they decided that because there's very few side effects 00:43:07.660 --> 00:43:09.120 of the hepatitis B vaccine. 00:43:09.120 --> 00:43:16.300 The data are very clear that the incidence of hepatitis B in at least up through 00:43:16.300 --> 00:43:22.840 teenage years since we started that vaccine, I think it started around 2005 or 2006, 00:43:23.080 --> 00:43:28.800 it's a 99% reduction in the incidence of what is a dangerous damn disease. 00:43:28.800 --> 00:43:32.540 One of the commoner causes of liver cancer, amongst other stuff, 00:43:32.640 --> 00:43:38.680 and cirrhosis, they have said, well, if the mother doesn't have hepatitis B, 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:39.840 the baby doesn't need it. 00:43:39.940 --> 00:43:43.940 Well, who knows if the mother has it, because not everybody gets a test for it. 00:43:44.140 --> 00:43:49.000 Who knows what else is in the family, the babysitter, the teachers, you name it. 00:43:49.160 --> 00:43:54.040 There is no such thing as a low risk. What there is is an absolutely almost 00:43:54.040 --> 00:43:56.380 zero risk if you get that vaccine. 00:43:57.220 --> 00:44:03.840 So bottom line is basically Bobby, by stopping that, and a lot of people won't 00:44:03.840 --> 00:44:09.560 bother getting the shot now, he's killing a bunch of people in the next 10 to 20 years. 00:44:10.060 --> 00:44:13.040 And I don't know any other way to put it other than to say he's killing them. 00:44:13.360 --> 00:44:20.400 The measles vaccine we're having in the United States is no longer. 00:44:21.460 --> 00:44:26.680 There's a definition somehow of you're measles free, and it has to be that there's 00:44:26.680 --> 00:44:29.980 a certain number of cases that you're below a parameter. 00:44:30.200 --> 00:44:35.020 We're no longer below that. We are now no longer measles free in our society, 00:44:35.520 --> 00:44:38.680 which means there's several diseases that are going to come back. 00:44:39.750 --> 00:44:44.990 Well, and on some of these things, to be clear, the trends have been going on 00:44:44.990 --> 00:44:48.370 before RFK Jr. got into government. Absolutely. 00:44:48.370 --> 00:44:49.810 He just accentuated it. 00:44:49.950 --> 00:44:56.110 He is accelerating and accentuating and giving it sort of public validation. 00:44:56.650 --> 00:45:01.010 So, like, you know, vaccination rates have been going down in the U.S. 00:45:01.130 --> 00:45:08.470 For a while. And there's a variety of reasons for that. And part of it is RFK 00:45:08.470 --> 00:45:12.250 Jr., even before a government, spreading anti-vaccine information. 00:45:12.290 --> 00:45:15.310 But he was by no means the only one. 00:45:15.630 --> 00:45:17.670 There was a lot of anti-vax. 00:45:18.070 --> 00:45:25.130 Yeah, there's a general anti-vax movement that started on the left politically 00:45:25.130 --> 00:45:27.650 with people who were otherwise on the left. 00:45:27.770 --> 00:45:33.430 And then during COVID jumped over and a lot of right-wing folks got on board as well. 00:45:33.430 --> 00:45:36.250 And and so that 00:45:36.250 --> 00:45:39.030 has been going on but what he has been doing 00:45:39.030 --> 00:45:45.910 since he got into government is basically realigning all of the government advice 00:45:45.910 --> 00:45:53.030 to be more anti-vax i mean he hasn't he hasn't gone so far as to outlaw these 00:45:53.030 --> 00:45:58.970 vaccines thank goodness but he's done essentially everything he would like to, 00:45:59.500 --> 00:46:03.560 He's done everything short of that, removing recommendations, 00:46:04.060 --> 00:46:08.560 saying that you shouldn't, you know, putting in more caveats, 00:46:08.740 --> 00:46:12.240 putting all kinds of stuff that is not supported by the science. 00:46:12.840 --> 00:46:16.760 They're, you know, Florida famously, just a couple of weeks ago, 00:46:17.160 --> 00:46:21.400 announced that they're removing vaccine mandates for schools entirely. 00:46:22.180 --> 00:46:25.460 Not, you know, we're not even just talking about COVID. We're talking about 00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:29.480 all of the childhood vaccines, all the kind of stuff that in most places in 00:46:29.480 --> 00:46:33.180 the country have been required for decades and decades with, 00:46:33.200 --> 00:46:35.100 you know, a few limited exceptions, 00:46:35.420 --> 00:46:39.280 religious exceptions, other that were allowed for one reason or another. 00:46:39.980 --> 00:46:48.560 And, you know, so it's just all of these trends that were already underway will 00:46:48.560 --> 00:46:54.620 be accelerated, whereas the previous public health regime was doing their best to stem that tide, 00:46:54.860 --> 00:46:57.000 to get the, you know, 00:46:57.560 --> 00:47:02.440 pro-vaccine information out there, make sure that people knew, etc. 00:47:03.180 --> 00:47:08.740 Now this is just going to lead to more and more people skipping more and more 00:47:08.740 --> 00:47:13.640 vaccines, which is going to result in, I mean, you mentioned that we've got 00:47:13.640 --> 00:47:16.280 outbreaks of measles in several States at this point. 00:47:17.500 --> 00:47:22.640 And it's like you said, no longer eradicated in the U S but we're going to see 00:47:22.640 --> 00:47:28.820 the return of all kinds of childhood diseases that were basically, you know, 00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:32.780 I mean, I remember I had chicken pox as a kid. 00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:37.900 You've told on this show a story about a patient of yours that died, you know, from that. 00:47:38.840 --> 00:47:45.400 You know, you look at, there are charts of various of these diseases over the 00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:53.060 years and how they were very prominent and lots of people caught these diseases. 00:47:53.060 --> 00:47:57.740 Lots of people died of these diseases and then a vaccine came out and they dropped 00:47:57.740 --> 00:48:06.700 to near zero in a few years and we're undoing that and a big part of that. 00:48:07.890 --> 00:48:13.210 The entire world incidence of polio has now dropped to, you know, 00:48:13.230 --> 00:48:15.530 one or two cases a year in the whole world. 00:48:16.050 --> 00:48:20.990 The virus is still there. We will be having children with polio. 00:48:21.230 --> 00:48:27.010 The trouble is a lot of the illnesses that the vaccines present have a lag period 00:48:27.010 --> 00:48:29.690 before when you stop, you know, preventing it. 00:48:29.850 --> 00:48:33.530 And then you start seeing the disease might be several years. 00:48:33.690 --> 00:48:36.390 So people have a hard time saying, well, the vaccine didn't work, 00:48:36.510 --> 00:48:42.250 did it? But more important, there's some of them have an even longer lag period. 00:48:42.790 --> 00:48:48.670 The German measles, the mild three-day measles, has about a 20-year lag period 00:48:48.670 --> 00:48:50.610 until we see the problem. 00:48:50.630 --> 00:48:53.110 Because the illness itself was very mild. 00:48:53.210 --> 00:48:55.770 No one gets sick. Two, three days, and you're back to normal. 00:48:56.010 --> 00:49:01.250 If you're pregnant and you get German measles, your child has terrible birth 00:49:01.250 --> 00:49:06.850 defects caused by that virus. But that's 20, 30, 40 years before we see it. 00:49:07.270 --> 00:49:12.230 You can't, and you can't, they always say, well, you need to have a double-blind scientific study. 00:49:12.450 --> 00:49:17.930 You can't do a double-blind study and be ethical when the disease you're dealing 00:49:17.930 --> 00:49:20.170 with is one that is devastating. 00:49:21.350 --> 00:49:23.710 Hepatitis, meningitis, German measles. 00:49:23.710 --> 00:49:28.710 These are one of the states where you have to do sort of population studies 00:49:28.710 --> 00:49:34.470 and look at who has or has not been vaccinated already, rather than saying, 00:49:34.870 --> 00:49:37.430 okay, you're getting a placebo, you know. 00:49:37.790 --> 00:49:41.890 And it's harder to disentangle that with confounding factors, 00:49:42.110 --> 00:49:44.070 but there are mathematical techniques to doing that. 00:49:44.230 --> 00:49:49.410 The problem is, you know, again, the non-scientists often don't understand any of this. 00:49:49.550 --> 00:49:53.870 It's all mumbo jumbo. And what I was going to say earlier is another big problem 00:49:53.870 --> 00:49:59.550 is a lot of people react to this with, why does my kid need a measles vaccine? 00:49:59.850 --> 00:50:02.350 I've never known anyone with measles. 00:50:03.070 --> 00:50:04.390 Yeah, guess why? 00:50:05.580 --> 00:50:10.040 Exactly. You don't know anyone with measles because for decades, 00:50:10.040 --> 00:50:13.580 every child has gotten the measles vaccine. 00:50:13.940 --> 00:50:19.440 Once you start not giving people the vaccine, these things will come back. 00:50:19.740 --> 00:50:23.780 And yes, it's incredibly frustrating. 00:50:23.780 --> 00:50:31.340 Case of polio never saw i never i think i may have seen one case of mumps the only chicken pox i saw, 00:50:31.960 --> 00:50:38.840 was in the uh the 1980 70s i think it was i never saw another case of chicken 00:50:38.840 --> 00:50:43.720 pox and and on and on and on these these diseases help we can't even diagnose 00:50:43.720 --> 00:50:46.100 them anymore because we don't really know the symptoms that much, 00:50:47.100 --> 00:50:48.240 But we're learning them. 00:50:49.520 --> 00:50:56.260 Right. So I just did a news search for recent articles about RFK Jr. 00:50:56.580 --> 00:51:04.400 So the most recent one is apparently he's talking at a convention called CattleCon 00:51:04.400 --> 00:51:10.060 about the need to beef up red meat consumption amongst Americans. 00:51:10.640 --> 00:51:12.960 He wants us to eat a lot more meat. 00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:17.280 Which i i've 00:51:17.280 --> 00:51:21.380 heard plenty of why actually reducing red 00:51:21.380 --> 00:51:27.760 meat is good a for the environment and b for health i imagine this there's probably 00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:32.820 conflicting information about some of that but anyway there's information about 00:51:32.820 --> 00:51:39.540 him pushing an unproven autism treatment within the last day as Oh, 00:51:39.740 --> 00:51:45.780 and apparently this also, this is not medically related, but one of the things 00:51:45.780 --> 00:51:49.200 in the Epstein files is that RFK Jr. 00:51:50.020 --> 00:51:57.580 Joined Epstein and Glenn Maxwell on a fossil hunting trip in the Dakotas decades 00:51:57.580 --> 00:52:04.540 ago, illegally getting on an Indian reservation where collecting fossils was illegal. 00:52:05.860 --> 00:52:08.860 And yeah those are those are the most recent 00:52:08.860 --> 00:52:12.580 well he's oh and engaged and and information about 00:52:12.580 --> 00:52:18.140 you know how he helped cause measles up the measles outbreak in samoa a few 00:52:18.140 --> 00:52:22.480 years ago which we'd heard about but apparently there's new emails about that 00:52:22.480 --> 00:52:26.640 and about how he lied to the senate during his confirmation hearings about that 00:52:26.640 --> 00:52:31.640 trip to samoa um all all of this is within the last day Oh, 00:52:31.740 --> 00:52:36.980 and the keto diet stuff you were talking about, where experts say there's no credible evidence. 00:52:38.580 --> 00:52:43.200 I think that may be—I think he's outing that for autism also, 00:52:43.520 --> 00:52:46.640 that he thinks a ketogenic diet will cure autism. 00:52:47.830 --> 00:52:56.130 Oh, nice. You know, all of this, it's just having him in this particular role 00:52:56.130 --> 00:53:01.470 is about the worst place you could possibly put him. 00:53:01.590 --> 00:53:04.450 And of course, it's the place he cared a lot about. 00:53:04.450 --> 00:53:17.250 But in Health and Human Services is just of RFK Jr.'s toxically incorrect, unscientific beliefs, 00:53:17.510 --> 00:53:20.250 this is the worst possible place you could put him. 00:53:20.810 --> 00:53:27.130 He's causing so much damage. You know, and, you know, and this is also someplace 00:53:27.130 --> 00:53:29.430 where Donald Trump himself, 00:53:30.050 --> 00:53:39.470 you know, he was one of the actual accomplishments of his first term was the COVID vaccine. 00:53:39.470 --> 00:53:45.310 His administration did do a lot of things to streamline the process and get that out earlier. 00:53:45.370 --> 00:53:47.610 And he was very proud of that. 00:53:47.850 --> 00:53:54.850 He was not an anti-vax crazy person. Donald Trump wasn't. 00:53:55.030 --> 00:54:00.090 But in order to get RFK Jr.'s support this last time around, 00:54:00.310 --> 00:54:04.250 he's like, sure, you can do whatever you want on this stuff. Have fun. 00:54:06.090 --> 00:54:08.270 So, fun. Anyway. 00:54:08.510 --> 00:54:08.770 Okay. 00:54:08.770 --> 00:54:11.030 Yeah, RFK is one of my favorite people. 00:54:12.370 --> 00:54:17.350 Yeah, I can tell. Anything else on that or related topics before we take another 00:54:17.350 --> 00:54:18.930 break and I ask you for another topic? 00:54:20.430 --> 00:54:25.850 I think that pretty much covers it. As I said, I think the thing that's going 00:54:25.850 --> 00:54:30.230 to be the most dangerous is that several of these diseases are really devastating. 00:54:30.570 --> 00:54:37.590 And the lead-in until we realize how bad this has been is going to be between 00:54:37.590 --> 00:54:39.850 a few years and a few decades. 00:54:39.870 --> 00:54:44.450 But it'll be way too late than to say, oh, my God, we shouldn't have listened to him. 00:54:45.490 --> 00:54:50.530 And it's just right. It's terrible. We shouldn't should not be doing that to ourselves. 00:54:51.610 --> 00:54:57.390 Well, and more generally, Yvonne and I have talked a lot about delayed effects. 00:54:57.890 --> 00:55:03.070 What you're pointing out is some very concrete examples in the health care space. 00:55:03.450 --> 00:55:09.530 But this applies across the board to a lot of the things that the Trump administration is doing. 00:55:09.950 --> 00:55:14.710 We've talked specifically about economic delayed effects, but there are delayed 00:55:14.710 --> 00:55:21.090 effects and all kinds of other stuff, too, in terms of policy choices he is making now, 00:55:21.370 --> 00:55:26.270 whether it be foreign policy, domestic policy, health care policy... 00:55:27.720 --> 00:55:37.300 Many of the effects won't be fully felt for a decade, maybe longer in some cases. 00:55:38.160 --> 00:55:43.880 You know, some things have, you know, some of the first things have immediate 00:55:43.880 --> 00:55:47.600 effect or an effect that you can notice after six months or a year. 00:55:47.840 --> 00:55:55.220 But there are a lot of things where the full extent of the damage won't be obvious for many years. 00:55:55.220 --> 00:55:58.160 But then when you track it 00:55:58.160 --> 00:56:01.360 down you'll be able to tell oh yes this 00:56:01.360 --> 00:56:04.780 is because of that policy change back in 00:56:04.780 --> 00:56:07.540 2025 or whatever you know 00:56:07.540 --> 00:56:13.500 and the the problem is that the experts will be able to go in and trace that 00:56:13.500 --> 00:56:20.000 and and say oh yeah that's because whatever but the general population will 00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:26.180 blame it on whoever's president then you know yeah because that's just how it works You know, 00:56:26.460 --> 00:56:31.400 it's not you're not looking back and saying, hey, you know, the root cause of 00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:36.720 problem X is this action that was taken by the president 20 years ago. 00:56:36.720 --> 00:56:38.960 So, I mean, I've heard those kind of arguments. 00:56:39.140 --> 00:56:45.900 I see every few months graphs recirculate showing how all kinds of things started 00:56:45.900 --> 00:56:51.380 going wrong during the Reagan administration and that we can truly blame X, Y, 00:56:51.500 --> 00:56:55.760 Z that's happening today on something that happened in the Reagan administration 00:56:55.760 --> 00:56:59.400 50 years ago. Is it 50 years ago? 00:57:00.220 --> 00:57:03.120 Oh, 80, 30. Oh, God. 00:57:04.200 --> 00:57:10.400 I think it was. Kennedy was assassinated in 63 1980. 00:57:12.840 --> 00:57:16.260 Was that's 45 years 40 45 years 00:57:16.260 --> 00:57:19.280 ago and that so for 40 45 years 00:57:19.280 --> 00:57:22.380 ago uh 40 40 46 for 00:57:22.380 --> 00:57:25.360 the beginning his term started in 81 ended in 89 00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:28.800 you know what math math is hard don't ask 00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:31.820 me to do math okay so not not 50 years more 00:57:31.820 --> 00:57:37.020 like 40 something but whatever whatever and and you can you can look at those 00:57:37.020 --> 00:57:40.900 arguments and sometimes they make sense sometimes they don't and again it's 00:57:40.900 --> 00:57:47.100 a mix some things do have immediate effect and we are seeing some of the negative 00:57:47.100 --> 00:57:50.480 impact of the Donald Trump presidency already for sure. 00:57:51.200 --> 00:57:57.660 But there will be some things that get worse and worse and linger and some things 00:57:57.660 --> 00:58:00.060 will be correctable and some things will not be. 00:58:00.340 --> 00:58:06.500 And, you know, it's it. Life is messy. OK, let's let's take a break. 00:58:07.020 --> 00:58:11.240 OK, and then I'll come back and ask you for a second topic and we'll go through 00:58:11.240 --> 00:58:15.240 that and then we'll wrap it up okay back after all. 00:58:15.240 --> 00:58:16.580 Right see you in a couple minutes. 00:58:16.580 --> 00:58:17.900 Yep back after this. 00:58:18.990 --> 00:58:21.590 Okie dokie. Here it comes. 00:58:28.170 --> 00:58:36.210 It's just my internet being stupid. My internet being stupid is a new song we will make. 00:58:36.210 --> 00:59:07.290 Do you believe Come on, come on. 00:59:09.110 --> 00:59:14.230 I'm tired. What's wrong? I'm really tired. 00:59:15.050 --> 00:59:23.290 It's amazing to get the show on the road. there's a road there's a road oh my god there's a road. 00:59:23.290 --> 00:59:31.530 Okay we are back so ed what is your second topic of the show i. 00:59:31.530 --> 00:59:32.450 Got another quickie. 00:59:32.450 --> 00:59:37.670 For a second quickie okay so we may need more than one additional topic. 00:59:38.890 --> 00:59:44.490 A week ago tomorrow, my right hearing aid stopped working for reasons unclear. 00:59:44.930 --> 00:59:47.130 And then so on Monday, then I 00:59:47.130 --> 00:59:51.210 contacted the company that they have because they're still under warranty. 00:59:51.630 --> 00:59:55.870 And I sent an email saying what had happened. It was it was working intermittently. 00:59:55.870 --> 00:59:58.990 It worked for a couple minutes and then it stopped. Then it worked and stopped. 00:59:59.490 --> 01:00:05.510 And and it was also if I use it as as a Bluetooth, it was working anyway. 01:00:05.510 --> 01:00:10.650 So I wrote the company and they wrote back and asked, I got an email back that 01:00:10.650 --> 01:00:11.810 asked me a couple questions. 01:00:11.810 --> 01:00:17.090 So I responded to that email and almost immediately got another response telling 01:00:17.090 --> 01:00:21.750 me I should read, reboot my hearing aids. And it told me how to do that. 01:00:22.250 --> 01:00:25.810 And then to let them know how that turned out, didn't hold on the phone. 01:00:26.110 --> 01:00:30.210 And so I did that and that didn't help. So I wrote back And then they had me 01:00:30.210 --> 01:00:32.830 do one more test to describe how to do it. 01:00:33.630 --> 01:00:37.810 And I did that one and it still didn't work. So suddenly it said, 01:00:38.210 --> 01:00:40.370 okay, a new hearing aid will be shipped to you tomorrow. 01:00:40.770 --> 01:00:44.950 Now the incidence of this thing, the thing that's interesting is that I think 01:00:44.950 --> 01:00:46.950 this is all done with an AI bot. 01:00:47.510 --> 01:00:51.450 Because I never talked to a human. In the past I've talked when I would call 01:00:51.450 --> 01:00:53.290 in, I talked to a human being. 01:00:53.290 --> 01:00:57.530 And if there were two or three calls, every time he had to start all over at 01:00:57.530 --> 01:01:01.710 the beginning and go, this was all done within a course of about, 01:01:01.710 --> 01:01:07.930 well, three messages and maybe an hour, hour and a half total time. It was incredible. 01:01:08.250 --> 01:01:11.790 And the hearing aid just arrived, just as when I said, I'll see you in a minute. 01:01:11.850 --> 01:01:14.290 I went out, it was on the front porch, delivered. 01:01:15.630 --> 01:01:19.950 Okay. So AI is affecting our lives better than I thought. 01:01:20.850 --> 01:01:26.470 Well, you know, one of the things here, and so I'll talk about AI stuff for a little while. 01:01:27.210 --> 01:01:33.470 Look, a couple years back when ChatGPT first hit the scene, 01:01:34.270 --> 01:01:39.690 you know, Yvonne and I spent a bunch of time on this show making fun of stupid 01:01:39.690 --> 01:01:46.510 AI mistakes, whether it be ChatGPT or Google Gemini in their search results. 01:01:46.510 --> 01:01:52.110 They famously had a whole bunch of really stupid things where they were telling 01:01:52.110 --> 01:01:57.230 people to do potentially dangerous things. They were getting facts completely 01:01:57.230 --> 01:02:00.270 and totally wrong, all kinds of stuff. 01:02:02.350 --> 01:02:07.450 And basically we were saying, it's just not ready yet. Like, 01:02:07.650 --> 01:02:11.230 this has a lot of promise, but people are putting it into production, 01:02:11.230 --> 01:02:16.630 doing things prematurely that it's not actually good at yet. 01:02:16.850 --> 01:02:21.450 And there are still people doing things prematurely with it. 01:02:21.830 --> 01:02:29.690 But the rate of improvement has been absolutely insane over these last couple years. 01:02:29.690 --> 01:02:32.910 Um it is it is 01:02:32.910 --> 01:02:36.310 if you look at things that every 01:02:36.310 --> 01:02:39.670 every three months things are noticeably 01:02:39.670 --> 01:02:44.350 better than they were three months previously it's not even comparing year to 01:02:44.350 --> 01:02:50.090 year at this point you can compare a few months apart the main thing i've been 01:02:50.090 --> 01:02:56.350 using ai for at this point is working on the personal projects I've been mentioning here. 01:02:56.910 --> 01:03:02.310 I've talked about, well, the biggest one I'm working on is this Robin Letter thing which is a. 01:03:03.070 --> 01:03:08.270 Yeah, alternative to social media to keep track, to keep up with circles of 01:03:08.270 --> 01:03:12.010 friends and family that you sort of want to keep up with, but you're not talking 01:03:12.010 --> 01:03:15.930 to every day, et cetera, et cetera, which I haven't updated on here for a while. 01:03:16.010 --> 01:03:20.750 So just real quick, I'm perpetually a few weeks away from being ready to do 01:03:20.750 --> 01:03:22.510 my first tests with real people. 01:03:23.030 --> 01:03:25.110 I had hoped to be done at the end of December. 01:03:25.710 --> 01:03:29.170 Then I had hoped to be done at the end of January. But then I ended up in the 01:03:29.170 --> 01:03:31.350 hospital and recuperating for a while. 01:03:31.350 --> 01:03:36.990 And I keep having this problem where like, I know if I just worked on it straight 01:03:36.990 --> 01:03:42.350 through, I could probably be finished and ready for that first test in a week or so. 01:03:42.510 --> 01:03:45.890 But the problem is I've got other things that I need to be doing too. 01:03:46.170 --> 01:03:52.950 I can't just do only this. And so I will like concentrate on this for like a day or two. 01:03:53.330 --> 01:03:59.490 And in fact, after I get this podcast out, like I am due to spend a couple days on this. 01:04:00.370 --> 01:04:04.310 And but then after a couple of days, I'm like, man, all this other stuff is 01:04:04.310 --> 01:04:06.790 building up. I got to keep I got to do this other stuff. 01:04:06.990 --> 01:04:11.510 And so I have to put it away and stop for a little while and then get back to 01:04:11.510 --> 01:04:15.130 it like in another week or something. And that slows everything down. 01:04:15.530 --> 01:04:17.950 So I'm disappointed by that because I'm really excited about it. 01:04:18.010 --> 01:04:21.750 I want to test it. I want to get it out. The first test group is going to be my cousins. 01:04:22.390 --> 01:04:27.250 And then I'm going to I've got a handful of people who've specifically asked 01:04:27.250 --> 01:04:32.050 to be included in subsequent tests, and I'll try to include them as soon as possible. 01:04:32.550 --> 01:04:36.070 And I was going to ask, I was probably going to set up one for people who are 01:04:36.070 --> 01:04:39.670 on the curmudgeon score Slack just as a test. So you'll be in there, Ed. 01:04:40.290 --> 01:04:43.930 I will. And then maybe ask on Facebook for, 01:04:44.330 --> 01:04:48.310 you know, are there people who knew me in college who'd be willing to test in 01:04:48.310 --> 01:04:53.170 a people who knew Sam in college test or a people who knew Sam in high school 01:04:53.170 --> 01:04:57.710 or people who knew Sam at various jobs he had in the past or whatever. 01:04:58.170 --> 01:05:01.730 We'll see. We'll see how that goes. But anyway, the point is, 01:05:02.250 --> 01:05:08.470 I have been using AI assistance for this. I've been using Cursor for this. 01:05:08.590 --> 01:05:12.870 And more recently, I've shifted to using Claude Code for most of this. 01:05:13.770 --> 01:05:20.630 But the point is, even in the space of time that I've been working on this Robin 01:05:20.630 --> 01:05:23.150 Letter project, robinletter.com, if you want more information, 01:05:23.710 --> 01:05:28.850 which I really, like, I was doing a little bit of it going back all the way 01:05:28.850 --> 01:05:34.070 to January 2025, very slowly because I didn't have time because I was still at work. 01:05:34.290 --> 01:05:37.710 I wasn't unemployed yet, but I started way back then. 01:05:38.090 --> 01:05:45.830 And when I started, I really had to really closely babysit the AI. 01:05:46.370 --> 01:05:50.510 Like every single thing I asked it to do, I would have to like, 01:05:51.190 --> 01:05:56.330 you know, I would have to check the code and I would have to ask it about stupid things. 01:05:56.470 --> 01:05:59.870 And I would have to ask it to repeat. And I would, you know, 01:06:00.050 --> 01:06:05.570 make sure that it was making documents to describe what it did so it didn't 01:06:05.570 --> 01:06:07.910 forget. And I could tell it to continue later. 01:06:08.590 --> 01:06:12.330 And frankly, some of the choices on Robin letter specifically, 01:06:12.330 --> 01:06:18.070 I think I wasted months and months because the AI had me do some stuff first 01:06:18.070 --> 01:06:19.930 that I should have waited to later to do. 01:06:20.310 --> 01:06:24.670 Um, you know, I, I ended up doing a, a lot of. 01:06:25.370 --> 01:06:31.210 Preliminary UI stuff that I'm not actually using at this point, 01:06:31.210 --> 01:06:37.050 that took me a long time to do before I started building actual functionality. 01:06:37.530 --> 01:06:40.850 And then at some point, I'm like, I'm sick of this. Let's move functionality 01:06:40.850 --> 01:06:43.310 right away. And things started moving faster. 01:06:43.530 --> 01:06:49.170 But also, at the same time, over the course of that little bit more than a year 01:06:49.170 --> 01:06:53.390 on this one project, it's gotten noticeably smarter. 01:06:54.210 --> 01:07:00.470 Things that I had to spell out explicitly or have it do wrong and then I would 01:07:00.470 --> 01:07:05.190 tell it to correct and I'd have to take three or four attempts before it got 01:07:05.190 --> 01:07:07.190 it right the way I wanted it to get right. 01:07:07.270 --> 01:07:09.550 It's now getting right on the first shot. 01:07:09.950 --> 01:07:15.210 A lot of the planning process that I was manually making it go through, 01:07:15.510 --> 01:07:21.190 okay, write a doc that outlines all of this and And then we're going to iterate 01:07:21.190 --> 01:07:23.470 on that doc until I'm happy with it. 01:07:23.610 --> 01:07:26.630 And then we're going to do implementation based on that doc. 01:07:27.630 --> 01:07:32.730 Now, it's like volunteering to make that doc without me prompting. 01:07:32.850 --> 01:07:40.070 And then when I read through the doc the first time, it's got almost all of it right. 01:07:40.350 --> 01:07:45.250 The last one of these I did on a Robin Letter feature I was working on a few 01:07:45.250 --> 01:07:49.670 days ago, adding, like, actually, it wasn't Robin Letter. It was Juke Potter. 01:07:49.870 --> 01:07:53.290 Juke Potter is another of my projects. Jukepotter.com. Go play with it. 01:07:54.590 --> 01:07:59.790 But it was related to that, and I had it write the document, 01:07:59.790 --> 01:08:01.490 and then I read over the document, 01:08:02.050 --> 01:08:08.330 and I had, like, two really minor comments that weren't really consequential, 01:08:08.330 --> 01:08:12.110 and everything else it had written, it had gotten right. 01:08:12.870 --> 01:08:16.410 Like, from my initial description, which was, like, 01:08:17.170 --> 01:08:21.070 hey, go look at what we've already done in place A and place B. 01:08:21.310 --> 01:08:25.510 I want to do something similar in place C, but with these changes. 01:08:26.350 --> 01:08:31.130 It wrote up a detailed description of exactly what needed to be done. 01:08:31.530 --> 01:08:37.270 And again, other than two really minor, relatively inconsequential things, 01:08:37.850 --> 01:08:40.370 its description was perfect out of the box. 01:08:40.490 --> 01:08:47.710 And then I told it, go do it. And it sat and it thought for like 20 minutes and making changes. 01:08:47.950 --> 01:08:49.950 And then it was basically done. 01:08:50.770 --> 01:08:54.350 I mean, I then tested it and there were a couple of minor things that had to 01:08:54.350 --> 01:08:57.690 be corrected, but they were minor things that had to be corrected. 01:08:57.750 --> 01:09:04.290 For the most part, it had done exactly what I had described and done it right on the first shot. 01:09:04.790 --> 01:09:09.490 And that was something that even six months ago, it would not have done. 01:09:09.750 --> 01:09:14.450 Six months ago, I would have been iterating a lot longer to get the same result. 01:09:14.450 --> 01:09:17.870 Now, even six months ago, even a year ago, 01:09:17.870 --> 01:09:27.370 it was saving me time versus me doing it myself as someone who is not and has 01:09:27.370 --> 01:09:29.470 never been a software developer, 01:09:29.470 --> 01:09:36.870 but has dabbled enough to know a little and who has done a lot more of the program 01:09:36.870 --> 01:09:40.870 management and requirements development than the actual coding. 01:09:41.390 --> 01:09:45.970 It was already saving me time back then. It might not have fully saved time 01:09:45.970 --> 01:09:49.270 a year and a half ago for someone who is actually a professional developer and 01:09:49.270 --> 01:09:50.210 knew what the hell they were doing. 01:09:50.510 --> 01:09:54.770 But for me, it certainly was. But now it's getting things right on the first 01:09:54.770 --> 01:09:57.670 try and things are moving faster. 01:09:58.170 --> 01:10:04.030 There's a lot. I still have to, like, make sure I can't skip testing. 01:10:04.330 --> 01:10:09.490 Right. If I have it build something, I have to make sure to test it fairly thoroughly 01:10:09.490 --> 01:10:14.550 and find all the edge cases, and it doesn't always get them all right on the 01:10:14.550 --> 01:10:17.890 first try, and we fix those and go through them. 01:10:18.090 --> 01:10:23.910 But compared to—again, the key here is the rate of improvement. 01:10:24.310 --> 01:10:31.010 It is so much better now than it was even a few months ago, and that isn't even 01:10:31.010 --> 01:10:33.010 comparable to where it was a year ago. 01:10:33.010 --> 01:10:38.590 And most of my experience is on this sort of coding kind of thing where I'm 01:10:38.590 --> 01:10:41.990 working with the AI to build something. 01:10:42.650 --> 01:10:49.130 I'll be honest, I have not spent a lot of time just chatting with the chatbot. 01:10:49.810 --> 01:10:54.430 You know, we will probably need to, at some point, do another experiment with 01:10:54.430 --> 01:10:57.150 having me co-host the show with an AI. 01:10:58.570 --> 01:11:03.930 But, you know, we did that once. I figure at least a year in between. 01:11:03.930 --> 01:11:06.190 It was sort of, it wasn't great. 01:11:06.370 --> 01:11:12.290 It was entertaining to do once. But, you know, I asked it to replicate Yvonne's 01:11:12.290 --> 01:11:14.250 style, and it completely failed at that. 01:11:15.810 --> 01:11:18.530 As I recall, it didn't have any curse words in it. 01:11:18.530 --> 01:11:23.810 It didn't have any curse words. It was not very argumentative. 01:11:24.150 --> 01:11:28.830 It was very agreeable, basically said, Sam, you're absolutely right a lot. 01:11:29.150 --> 01:11:34.510 You know, so anyway, but I have not spent a lot of time with the pure chatbots. 01:11:34.630 --> 01:11:38.510 I have not spent a lot of time with the image generation stuff, 01:11:38.630 --> 01:11:41.950 although I've played with that and it's done some that honestly, 01:11:41.990 --> 01:11:46.630 I know a lot of people slag it because it's imitating real artists styles. 01:11:46.630 --> 01:11:51.230 And it's kind of derivative at times, but, 01:11:51.770 --> 01:11:58.810 Frankly, when I've done it, it's done stuff that I could never do on my own, 01:11:58.850 --> 01:12:04.570 and it's been perfectly acceptable for the one-off uses that I've had for it, 01:12:04.690 --> 01:12:06.610 which are basically things like, 01:12:06.730 --> 01:12:13.010 you know, somebody says something in a group family chat that I'm like, 01:12:13.210 --> 01:12:15.030 oh, that would be interesting as an image. 01:12:15.030 --> 01:12:19.390 And I'll go to chat GPT or whatever and ask it to make an image of that. 01:12:19.530 --> 01:12:25.710 And kaboom, I've got like a little cartoonish image of whatever weird thing 01:12:25.710 --> 01:12:30.110 it was like, you know, my dog piloting a spaceship or whatever. 01:12:30.170 --> 01:12:35.230 And boom, it's done, you know, and I would not have been able to do that on my own. 01:12:35.590 --> 01:12:38.230 And those are fun, but not super useful. 01:12:38.970 --> 01:12:47.510 I've resisted using that for, like, my Juke Potter site needs a real logo. I am not an artist. 01:12:48.330 --> 01:12:55.570 I know I could go into any one of half a dozen AI tools, describe what I wanted 01:12:55.570 --> 01:12:59.650 for a logo, and it would spit one out, and I could use it. 01:12:59.650 --> 01:13:05.650 But I've resisted using it for something like that because often the stuff is 01:13:05.650 --> 01:13:08.670 recognizable as, oh, that looks like an AI did it. 01:13:09.390 --> 01:13:14.030 But also that's the kind of thing where I feel like, hey, it would be nice to 01:13:14.030 --> 01:13:16.550 like pay an actual artist to do that. 01:13:16.550 --> 01:13:19.890 You know you'll get get somebody 01:13:19.890 --> 01:13:22.950 i i've offered both my wife 01:13:22.950 --> 01:13:27.310 and my son have better artistic skills than i have and i've asked them both 01:13:27.310 --> 01:13:31.290 to make a logo for that site and neither one of them have it's been months i 01:13:31.290 --> 01:13:36.530 just saw a facebook friend post online actually they they they just invited 01:13:36.530 --> 01:13:41.970 me as a linkedin connection and their job description was freelance artist and i'm like oh. 01:13:42.940 --> 01:13:46.280 I'll ask them too. I'll see how much they would charge me for a logo. 01:13:46.640 --> 01:13:50.120 You know, so I've done that kind of stuff. 01:13:50.360 --> 01:13:55.420 And I did ask one artist friend of mine to do it. So if you're listening, 01:13:55.620 --> 01:13:57.640 Mark, I know you sometimes listen to the show. 01:13:58.020 --> 01:14:01.240 I asked you like a year ago for a Juke Potter logo. 01:14:01.680 --> 01:14:05.620 No, I asked you for a Robin Letter logo. I asked you for a Robin Letter logo. 01:14:05.760 --> 01:14:08.520 I have a Robin Letter logo that I did myself now. 01:14:08.920 --> 01:14:13.440 It's kind of corny. It's just a pixelated version of a picture I had of a robin. 01:14:13.800 --> 01:14:18.260 Like a picture I actually took myself of a robin. I went and pixelated it by 01:14:18.260 --> 01:14:23.500 hand painting pixels over, you know, I traced it and blah, blah, 01:14:23.580 --> 01:14:24.680 blah. You know, whatever. 01:14:25.140 --> 01:14:28.900 Anyway, Mark, if you want to do a Juke Potter logo for me, you know, 01:14:29.020 --> 01:14:32.240 I will pay you for it. Just give me a price. Let me know. 01:14:32.740 --> 01:14:38.760 Anyway, but yeah, I've avoided using it for things like that. 01:14:38.760 --> 01:14:41.360 And I've avoided using it. 01:14:41.900 --> 01:14:45.020 You know, people are talking about using these things for like, 01:14:45.220 --> 01:14:50.020 I'm having a fight with my wife. What should I say? 01:14:50.600 --> 01:14:52.340 Like, no, come on. 01:14:53.000 --> 01:14:57.020 No, no, that's a bad idea. That's a bad idea. 01:14:57.640 --> 01:14:59.160 I've heard of people use—, 01:15:01.920 --> 01:15:08.140 The other place where it's clearly not ready to be used is lawyers have been 01:15:08.140 --> 01:15:10.500 using it to write their briefs for the judge. 01:15:10.860 --> 01:15:13.260 And it still has the same thing. 01:15:13.720 --> 01:15:19.400 It makes things up. It gives citations in which it misquotes the authors. 01:15:19.620 --> 01:15:22.660 And the judges apparently are getting kind of pissed off. 01:15:22.680 --> 01:15:25.840 If the citation even exists at all, which it usually doesn't. 01:15:27.040 --> 01:15:32.900 But the judges, some judges don't bother you against that thing and they, okay, that's my ruling. 01:15:33.200 --> 01:15:38.800 Other judges who read through the thing and look up citations are more than a little angry. 01:15:39.000 --> 01:15:42.640 The one I think threatened a guy with contempt of court. 01:15:43.620 --> 01:15:46.940 Well, yeah, I know that's happened a couple of times now. And I mean, 01:15:47.100 --> 01:15:51.140 this is just in general, like the other example I was giving, 01:15:51.280 --> 01:15:54.820 because obviously I'm currently unemployed, I will be looking for a job, blah, blah, blah. 01:15:55.100 --> 01:15:59.400 People are worried about people using AI on interviews to help them. 01:15:59.580 --> 01:16:07.760 People are talking about how much AI to use in things like writing resumes and cover letters. 01:16:07.760 --> 01:16:16.940 Now, I will admit, the last time I updated my resume, I did talk to the AI about it. 01:16:17.140 --> 01:16:21.420 I gave it examples of things I had done and asked it to help summarize. 01:16:21.620 --> 01:16:28.300 But I did not accept word for word anything it gave me. Like it would give me 01:16:28.300 --> 01:16:30.020 a shortened version of it. 01:16:30.220 --> 01:16:36.820 And then I would take that and recraft it, you know, to, to sound, 01:16:37.040 --> 01:16:41.080 to, to be more like me and also to get rid of inaccuracies. 01:16:41.080 --> 01:16:44.980 Cause it was getting things wrong, you know, and make it so like, 01:16:45.080 --> 01:16:46.740 is this, is this actually true? 01:16:46.960 --> 01:16:51.300 Is this actually what I did? Or is this like completely made up bullshit that 01:16:51.300 --> 01:16:53.720 sounds good, but is wrong. Yeah. 01:16:53.720 --> 01:16:56.180 If you're going to use it, you absolutely have to factor it. 01:16:56.900 --> 01:17:00.840 Yeah, you have to fact check it. And, you know, like I said, 01:17:00.920 --> 01:17:03.320 I wasn't even copying and pasting sentences or anything. 01:17:03.700 --> 01:17:07.860 I'd be taking the sentence it gave as a suggestion and then writing my own for 01:17:07.860 --> 01:17:10.860 the most part. Maybe I would take a phrase here or there. 01:17:11.240 --> 01:17:18.380 But like, because, you know, it just, and would it actually work better if I 01:17:18.380 --> 01:17:20.220 let the AI rewrite the whole thing? 01:17:20.520 --> 01:17:23.800 I don't know, maybe. A lot of people are doing that now. 01:17:25.640 --> 01:17:28.820 But does that actually, I don't know. 01:17:28.980 --> 01:17:36.160 It seems disingenuous to me and it seems like it's important to have your own 01:17:36.160 --> 01:17:39.920 voice there in that kind of thing. 01:17:40.320 --> 01:17:45.260 But, you know, you mentioned the lawyers turning in their briefs. 01:17:46.100 --> 01:17:52.460 I predict it won't be that long till we have a case where the judge's ruling 01:17:52.460 --> 01:17:54.200 turns out to be AI written. 01:17:55.140 --> 01:18:00.300 Where, you know, the judge just feeds in all the documents from all the people 01:18:00.300 --> 01:18:03.300 and says, ah, write it for me. 01:18:03.900 --> 01:18:08.480 You know, maybe he'll tell the AI what he wants the result to be, 01:18:08.600 --> 01:18:13.880 but doesn't want to take the time to write the detailed whatever. 01:18:14.060 --> 01:18:16.640 Now, most of them have clerks and stuff that help out anyway. 01:18:17.040 --> 01:18:19.540 But, you know, you could easily see that coming. 01:18:19.540 --> 01:18:24.600 I also, I could have saved me hours and hours when I was at the Pentagon because 01:18:24.600 --> 01:18:25.920 I was mostly writing policy. 01:18:26.180 --> 01:18:28.820 Imagine I could have just said to the AI, write this policy. 01:18:28.820 --> 01:18:30.300 I'll be back after I have a drink. 01:18:30.900 --> 01:18:35.860 Well, exactly. Well, the thing is, there is evidence that people at the Pentagon 01:18:35.860 --> 01:18:37.420 actually are doing that right now. 01:18:37.600 --> 01:18:38.300 Oh, I'm sure they are. 01:18:38.300 --> 01:18:44.000 You know, and specifically like various members of the cabinet appear to be, 01:18:44.120 --> 01:18:45.920 you know, using AI guidance. 01:18:46.100 --> 01:18:50.560 We talked about the damn tariffs were determined by AI. 01:18:50.980 --> 01:18:57.180 You know, and the thing is, with this growing, it's only a matter of time before 01:18:57.180 --> 01:19:04.740 the whole loop in some of these cases is AI. I've joked before about people saying, you know, 01:19:06.900 --> 01:19:12.280 having the AI take bullet points and expand it into a document and then sending 01:19:12.280 --> 01:19:17.720 it to somebody who has an AI summarize that document as bullet points because 01:19:17.720 --> 01:19:19.260 they don't want to read the whole document. 01:19:19.600 --> 01:19:22.920 And what was the point of that whole thing? You could have just transferred 01:19:22.920 --> 01:19:27.040 the bullet points across to begin with. But I think you're going to have those 01:19:27.040 --> 01:19:31.840 kinds of cases where everybody involved is using an AI. 01:19:32.280 --> 01:19:40.560 And so, you know, the AI is just actually introducing noise to the actual person-to-person 01:19:40.560 --> 01:19:42.280 communication that was intended. 01:19:43.300 --> 01:19:47.920 And who knows what results of that are. And I have also said, 01:19:48.460 --> 01:19:53.760 you know, with this, I forget if we mentioned it in passing last week, 01:19:53.760 --> 01:19:57.320 we've definitely mentioned it on the, on the curmudgeons course Slack. 01:19:57.880 --> 01:20:01.340 There's this MaltBot thing. It has a new name now. 01:20:01.520 --> 01:20:06.640 MaltBot was the same. It was ClawBot and then it was MaltBot and then it's something else. 01:20:07.100 --> 01:20:12.640 Anyway, it's, it's this AI utility that people have been using in a way that 01:20:12.640 --> 01:20:19.040 basically they They give it access to all their stuff, their email. 01:20:19.460 --> 01:20:24.820 Some people have given it access to credit cards, the web, accounts to various 01:20:24.820 --> 01:20:27.380 things. And then they just let it run wild. 01:20:28.170 --> 01:20:35.330 And the idea is it can help optimize, act as a true digital assistant because 01:20:35.330 --> 01:20:36.890 it has access to all your stuff. 01:20:37.650 --> 01:20:40.790 Even the creators of this say, that's dangerous, don't do that. 01:20:41.230 --> 01:20:45.030 Run it in a sandbox where it has limited access to specific things as a task. 01:20:45.190 --> 01:20:49.090 But people have been going, woo, let it create, control everything. 01:20:49.590 --> 01:20:59.790 But they created a social media place for these things to talk to each other. called Malt Book. 01:21:00.650 --> 01:21:06.450 And basically, a whole bunch of these Malt Bots have been talking to each other 01:21:06.450 --> 01:21:08.110 on here and having conversations. 01:21:08.230 --> 01:21:13.790 Now, it's been pointed out that most of these conversations are probably fake 01:21:13.790 --> 01:21:18.650 because the owners of the Malt Books could say things like. 01:21:19.590 --> 01:21:27.970 Hey, go sign up for Maltbook and then make some posts about starting a new religion or whatever. 01:21:28.210 --> 01:21:33.450 And so they start doing that. And so it's started by human prompts anyway. 01:21:33.770 --> 01:21:39.030 But the point is, these things are talking to each other. I'm sure you'll see more about that. 01:21:39.610 --> 01:21:42.550 And just generally, you know, 01:21:42.650 --> 01:21:47.410 am I afraid of the singularity happening anytime soon and these things deciding 01:21:47.410 --> 01:21:52.450 that they're better and to get rid of humanity, like so many science fiction 01:21:52.450 --> 01:21:56.830 novels and movies have done over the years? Not immediately. 01:21:58.870 --> 01:22:04.670 Might it happen someday? Sure. Might someday be in a few years? Maybe. 01:22:05.150 --> 01:22:09.010 But I don't think this month, you know, they're not there yet. 01:22:09.530 --> 01:22:14.170 But again, the progress has been incredibly fast. 01:22:14.610 --> 01:22:20.290 I'm sure we have not hit a plateau yet, which is kind of scary because it's 01:22:20.290 --> 01:22:22.130 still getting better really fast. 01:22:22.530 --> 01:22:30.070 And so we'll see. And a lot of this is like, how fast can people adapt to this? 01:22:30.970 --> 01:22:39.150 And at least one of the unstated reasons why so many companies are getting rid 01:22:39.150 --> 01:22:40.750 of white-collar jobs like mine. 01:22:40.770 --> 01:22:44.190 It's not the only reason. People have talked about culture and other things, too. 01:22:44.470 --> 01:22:47.570 But is, hey, we're leaning into AI. 01:22:48.790 --> 01:22:51.750 One, we need the money to invest in AI. 01:22:51.990 --> 01:22:58.630 And two, a lot of these white-collar jobs can now be done by these AIs. 01:22:59.520 --> 01:23:02.680 With a lot fewer actual human beings involved. 01:23:03.580 --> 01:23:09.580 And I think that nobody's making, or I shouldn't say nobody. 01:23:10.800 --> 01:23:17.220 Lots of companies are still in the mode where they're losing a lot of money 01:23:17.220 --> 01:23:20.560 in order to lean into these concepts, 01:23:20.840 --> 01:23:27.440 gambling that in a few years they'll come out of it way in the positive side 01:23:27.440 --> 01:23:32.120 because they will have gotten in early and taken advantages of these technologies 01:23:32.120 --> 01:23:35.780 and be where they need to be on this. 01:23:36.700 --> 01:23:45.120 But there's, and I've heard one people say, one people, I've heard commentary saying that, 01:23:45.970 --> 01:23:53.110 What AI is doing now to white-collar jobs is essentially the same thing that 01:23:53.110 --> 01:23:57.650 globalization did to a lot of blue-collar jobs decades ago, 01:23:57.670 --> 01:24:07.650 where we're taking the highly paid or relatively highly paid individuals and 01:24:07.650 --> 01:24:14.230 we're finding a much cheaper way of doing it with fewer people or at least cheaper people. 01:24:14.230 --> 01:24:18.910 You know, the globalization moved a lot to cheaper people in other countries. 01:24:19.830 --> 01:24:26.530 In this case, it's moving it to, you know, a few people who are working with 01:24:26.530 --> 01:24:29.550 the AIs rather than whole teams of people. 01:24:29.990 --> 01:24:34.550 And, of course, the cost of running these AIs, which is still huge. 01:24:34.550 --> 01:24:38.470 So we shall see this 01:24:38.470 --> 01:24:45.290 definitely has the potential of being massively disruptive to all kinds of different 01:24:45.290 --> 01:24:52.450 things over the next few years because you know lots of kinds of jobs you just 01:24:52.450 --> 01:24:55.970 won't need anymore maybe including the kind of stuff i've done in the past so 01:24:55.970 --> 01:24:57.990 like i'm looking at this and going like, 01:24:58.850 --> 01:25:07.230 okay, if I was doing this today, a lot of the things could just be AI, 01:25:07.670 --> 01:25:10.030 write me a status report, return. 01:25:12.130 --> 01:25:15.270 And so, I don't know, we shall see. 01:25:15.430 --> 01:25:20.750 But in the meantime, I'm hoping to use the AI to build my little Robin letter thing. 01:25:20.910 --> 01:25:26.530 And I'm crossing my fingers that people will actually use it and I can find a way to monetize it. 01:25:26.710 --> 01:25:31.710 And so that I can like, you know, not go back to that other kind of job, 01:25:31.730 --> 01:25:34.770 but I know it's a long shot, but you know, 01:25:35.420 --> 01:25:37.020 I got to give it a shot, right? 01:25:37.720 --> 01:25:38.740 Yep, sounds right. 01:25:41.220 --> 01:25:43.080 Okay, I know you said this would 01:25:43.080 --> 01:25:46.980 be a short AI topic, and then I went rambling on for like half an hour. 01:25:47.240 --> 01:25:53.420 Well, no, I think it's worth talking about because it's clearly a disrupt, as you said. 01:25:54.440 --> 01:25:59.000 I'll have to say I'm kind of glad to be 84 years old because I'm not going to have to live. 01:25:59.220 --> 01:26:02.200 I can live with the benefits of it, like the hearing aid thing. 01:26:02.200 --> 01:26:07.820 Clearly was an AI, clearly a much less painful interaction, or at least a more 01:26:07.820 --> 01:26:09.780 pleasant interaction than in the past. 01:26:10.320 --> 01:26:16.440 But it's, you know, I don't have to write resumes. I don't have to write essays 01:26:16.440 --> 01:26:20.760 for my college professors, only to have them say, that's a goddamn lie. 01:26:21.020 --> 01:26:22.040 What's the matter with you. 01:26:22.120 --> 01:26:22.380 Haynes? 01:26:22.820 --> 01:26:25.760 You know, that's going to be a disruptive. 01:26:25.940 --> 01:26:31.080 And the professors are faced with the thing of well was this written by my student 01:26:31.080 --> 01:26:37.160 or was this written by his computer and is it true is it false uh you know at. 01:26:37.160 --> 01:26:40.020 The very least and also you have to figure out 01:26:40.020 --> 01:26:45.760 like the the way people react to these things like you can't put it back in 01:26:45.760 --> 01:26:52.760 the bottle you know so so so the question is like how do you adapt to a world 01:26:52.760 --> 01:26:57.820 where these things exist yeah both in terms of like you know So, 01:26:57.960 --> 01:27:00.760 for instance, you mentioned a professor in teaching. 01:27:01.240 --> 01:27:08.760 Okay, well, how are you going to switch to modes of evaluating teaching and 01:27:08.760 --> 01:27:12.180 learning that can't be augmented by that? 01:27:12.320 --> 01:27:15.660 Like, you want to know whether the person learned the material? 01:27:16.500 --> 01:27:20.740 You can't ask them to write an essay anymore. You have to ask them to stand 01:27:20.740 --> 01:27:26.240 up in class and tell you about it and have a conversation with you in some way. 01:27:26.240 --> 01:27:27.640 Or write the essay in class. 01:27:28.600 --> 01:27:32.720 Or write the essay in class. Some people are going back to handwritten essays 01:27:32.720 --> 01:27:34.180 in blue books, absolutely. 01:27:34.760 --> 01:27:39.320 Or, you know, back to the Socratic method for everything, where you're talking 01:27:39.320 --> 01:27:44.280 back and forth to the kids in class, and you're evaluating them that way. 01:27:44.420 --> 01:27:49.700 Now, of course, those things, you know, some people are good at that, some people aren't. 01:27:49.860 --> 01:27:54.020 And, you know, you're going to have to find ways to adapt for different students as well. 01:27:54.420 --> 01:27:59.520 But, of course, it won't be long before the students aren't talking to a professor 01:27:59.520 --> 01:28:03.060 anyway, they're talking to an AI professor, you know? 01:28:04.060 --> 01:28:09.320 So, you know, all of these things are going to adapt and you have to figure 01:28:09.320 --> 01:28:14.060 out also, you know, just in terms of skill level, what's important to be taught 01:28:14.060 --> 01:28:16.120 and what's important to not be taught anymore. 01:28:16.600 --> 01:28:22.700 You know, just like teaching cursive isn't really relevant today, 01:28:22.700 --> 01:28:27.620 unless you're a specialist who is looking at historical documents or anything. 01:28:28.360 --> 01:28:31.620 You can argue that, 01:28:32.360 --> 01:28:39.420 We really have to do a deep think about what places is it really important to 01:28:39.420 --> 01:28:45.720 make sure that a human knows this within their own head and can do task X, Y, 01:28:45.820 --> 01:28:55.040 or Z versus when is it important that they know the right way to use the technology 01:28:55.040 --> 01:29:01.420 to get the result they want and know the right way to evaluate facts. 01:29:01.420 --> 01:29:08.240 Like, we've been talking for years now how media literacy was important and 01:29:08.240 --> 01:29:14.400 has been not taught appropriately. So people are not understanding what's true and what's not. 01:29:14.600 --> 01:29:22.160 That's going to get so much worse, you know, in an AI inundated world. It already is worse. 01:29:22.380 --> 01:29:27.040 There are already people falling for AI-generated video left, right, and center. 01:29:27.480 --> 01:29:32.760 And, you know, it can be tricky. Some of them are obvious. Some of them are not. 01:29:34.980 --> 01:29:39.860 And it's going to be tough. And I think a lot of this is actually going to be, 01:29:40.020 --> 01:29:41.840 you know, there was this big push towards, 01:29:42.620 --> 01:29:50.060 towards STEM and often at the expense of sort of traditional liberal arts. 01:29:50.560 --> 01:29:50.980 Yeah. 01:29:51.280 --> 01:29:54.920 I think a lot of the traditional liberal arts needs to come back and come back 01:29:54.920 --> 01:30:01.500 strong because that's where we, that's where we're teaching people how to think critically. 01:30:01.800 --> 01:30:05.580 We're teaching people how to be creative, how to communicate, 01:30:05.820 --> 01:30:10.620 how to be creative. I think, I mean, to some degree, creativity is an innate 01:30:10.620 --> 01:30:13.160 thing, but it could be taught to some degree. 01:30:13.700 --> 01:30:19.380 But, you know, you need to, you need to figure out, I think that's the, 01:30:19.520 --> 01:30:22.080 and the more technology develops, 01:30:22.480 --> 01:30:31.360 the more it's going to be that the critical skill is not going to be knowing some set of facts. 01:30:32.400 --> 01:30:34.060 Because you'll be able to get 01:30:34.060 --> 01:30:39.360 the, I mean, you already can get almost any facts at a moment's notice. 01:30:39.540 --> 01:30:41.260 The trick is telling, okay, which 01:30:41.260 --> 01:30:45.620 are the real facts and which is bullshit people, people, people made up. 01:30:46.440 --> 01:30:52.000 Um, and even like knowing the specific, you know, in order to do task X, 01:30:52.180 --> 01:30:56.180 you do these steps in this order and all that kind of stuff. You can look that up. 01:30:56.420 --> 01:30:58.500 Now, if it's something critical. 01:30:58.980 --> 01:31:02.180 You're going to want to practice a lot before you do it for real. 01:31:02.480 --> 01:31:05.940 And so that kind of thing is still going to be important. But in some of those 01:31:05.940 --> 01:31:08.220 cases, robots are going to be able to do those tasks. 01:31:08.480 --> 01:31:10.660 So why does a human need to, you know? 01:31:11.180 --> 01:31:16.400 And so there's a lot of how do we adapt to that world? 01:31:16.780 --> 01:31:23.780 And does that world develop so fast we can't adapt effectively? 01:31:24.580 --> 01:31:28.260 Because, you know, hey, if that kind of thing develops over the course of 200 01:31:28.260 --> 01:31:32.080 years, you know, humans are pretty good at adapting. 01:31:32.600 --> 01:31:37.020 If that kind of stuff develops over the course of five or 10 years—. 01:31:37.830 --> 01:31:42.270 Humans are not that good at adapting in those short timescales, even 20. 01:31:42.790 --> 01:31:47.090 And we've got a lot of things that are moving really quickly right now. 01:31:47.610 --> 01:31:50.570 And, you know, and we may hit that plateau. 01:31:50.910 --> 01:31:57.270 I still feel like there's a lot of place where we could hit a plateau and get 01:31:57.270 --> 01:32:03.690 to, you know, the AI systems are doing it 99% correct. 01:32:03.690 --> 01:32:07.790 But that last 1% is really, really, really hard. 01:32:08.510 --> 01:32:12.070 Like, you know, it seems like we're there with self-driving right now, 01:32:12.190 --> 01:32:14.690 even though it's gotten, it's still continuing to get better. 01:32:14.870 --> 01:32:20.390 The last bit is hard. And I think that's true on all of these endeavors where, 01:32:20.410 --> 01:32:26.470 you know, getting from zero to 50 goes pretty fast. 01:32:26.630 --> 01:32:31.350 Getting from there to 70, okay. But then as you get to 90, 99, 01:32:31.770 --> 01:32:38.290 99.9, 99.99, it gets exponentially harder to bridge that last little gap. 01:32:38.870 --> 01:32:42.070 But then even there, humans aren't necessarily the comparison. 01:32:42.070 --> 01:32:49.330 If you're talking chess, no human alive at this point can beat even mediocre 01:32:49.330 --> 01:32:55.230 average chess programs that you can buy, you know, retail, 01:32:55.610 --> 01:32:59.650 let alone the best computers in the world, you know. 01:33:00.690 --> 01:33:06.510 So anyway, things move fast. Okay, Ed, did you have one more topic that I've 01:33:06.510 --> 01:33:09.530 ignored that we want to take a break and then do, or should we wrap it up? 01:33:09.770 --> 01:33:13.510 Well, we can wrap it up. I thought we maybe ought to spend a couple minutes 01:33:13.510 --> 01:33:17.190 talking about the START treaty that expired this week. 01:33:17.630 --> 01:33:19.670 I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or not. 01:33:21.250 --> 01:33:24.450 You know, I haven't really been following it, but we can talk about it a little bit. 01:33:24.650 --> 01:33:31.190 Let's take a break. We can bring that up and chat for a little bit and then wrap it up. 01:33:31.410 --> 01:33:33.730 Call it a day. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. 01:34:16.230 --> 01:34:23.990 Okay, we are back. So, Ed, salt. It was salt, right? Salt, salt, salt. 01:34:24.230 --> 01:34:24.790 Or the start. 01:34:25.470 --> 01:34:27.990 Which one? Which one is it? Which one is it? 01:34:28.610 --> 01:34:34.250 I think it was the START Treaty that expired Thursday. It's our international 01:34:34.250 --> 01:34:41.070 treaty with Russia that limited both of us to 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons. 01:34:41.230 --> 01:34:46.650 Now, that's not all nuclears. That's just the ones that you're going to lob across the ocean. 01:34:47.470 --> 01:34:52.030 Battlefield nuclear weapons are an addition to that, but they're not covered. 01:34:52.350 --> 01:34:57.530 Well, that treaty expired this week, and Trump said he doesn't want to renegotiate 01:34:57.530 --> 01:35:01.610 it because we need something that'll last longer than the 10 years of that one, 01:35:01.710 --> 01:35:03.370 and they need to be more effective. 01:35:03.530 --> 01:35:08.330 I think he's right in a couple things, one of which is that that treaty was 01:35:08.330 --> 01:35:10.430 only between the Russia and the United States. 01:35:10.430 --> 01:35:15.090 There have been attempts to talk China into joining it, but China says, 01:35:15.370 --> 01:35:18.950 screw you guys, we only have something, I think they have something like 600 01:35:18.950 --> 01:35:22.230 weapons, and they don't want to be that far behind. 01:35:22.230 --> 01:35:26.510 So when they get up to having 1,500, 1,600 strategic weapons, 01:35:26.790 --> 01:35:28.630 they might join us then, they'll see. 01:35:29.150 --> 01:35:31.010 But we also have, you know, there's 01:35:31.010 --> 01:35:35.010 something like at least eight or nine countries with nuclear weapons. 01:35:36.210 --> 01:35:39.850 And most of them, they're not going to build huge numbers. I mean, 01:35:39.950 --> 01:35:42.970 you know. Israel probably has 40 or 50. 01:35:43.590 --> 01:35:50.750 One of the things with things like this is that, okay, yeah, 01:35:50.930 --> 01:35:55.970 I can buy the notion that, oh, okay, we want something better. 01:35:56.250 --> 01:36:05.310 But the reality is there's nothing active going on to do anything better. No. And... 01:36:05.650 --> 01:36:11.790 You know, in that kind of situation, extending the status quo to kick things 01:36:11.790 --> 01:36:16.870 down the road seems better than letting it expire and having nothing. 01:36:17.170 --> 01:36:22.610 However, here's the thing. I don't buy anything the Trump administration is 01:36:22.610 --> 01:36:26.550 saying about us really wanting something better. 01:36:26.910 --> 01:36:30.970 I think both Russia and the U.S. 01:36:31.150 --> 01:36:34.570 Were perfectly happy to let it expire and 01:36:34.570 --> 01:36:37.270 start building more again yeah you know 01:36:37.270 --> 01:36:41.390 donald trump has explicitly complained 01:36:41.390 --> 01:36:44.670 about the age of 01:36:44.670 --> 01:36:48.350 our nuclear weapons and that they need to be modernized he 01:36:48.350 --> 01:36:53.150 has explicitly said things like what good is it having these if we're not going 01:36:53.150 --> 01:37:03.430 to use them you know and and so i i fully believe that this is both sides really 01:37:03.430 --> 01:37:07.890 had no interest in continuing this. 01:37:08.130 --> 01:37:14.670 They really have no interest in treaties in general in the old-fashioned sense. 01:37:14.890 --> 01:37:19.670 When we're talking about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin specifically. 01:37:20.070 --> 01:37:28.590 These are people whose entire worldviews are based upon person-to-person, 01:37:28.810 --> 01:37:33.090 individualized, informal deals or arrangements. 01:37:33.770 --> 01:37:37.830 That is how they operate. They don't want anything in writing. 01:37:37.930 --> 01:37:40.030 They don't want a formal treating. 01:37:40.250 --> 01:37:47.190 They don't want anything that would potentially bind them above and beyond them 01:37:47.190 --> 01:37:52.630 saying something to somebody else that, frankly, they both know they could change 01:37:52.630 --> 01:37:53.790 their mind at any moment. 01:37:55.160 --> 01:38:00.340 And I think that's what's really going on with things like this. Well, I think, you know. 01:38:00.640 --> 01:38:06.120 We need to be a little bit afraid of the fact that there isn't any kind of a constraint any longer. 01:38:06.280 --> 01:38:09.540 But I don't know that that's not going to I think you're right. 01:38:09.720 --> 01:38:10.840 There's not going to be one. 01:38:11.620 --> 01:38:14.360 I don't think there's going to be one. And I think, you know, 01:38:14.460 --> 01:38:18.340 I was reading there's an NBC News article about this from a few days ago. 01:38:18.500 --> 01:38:22.920 And it was definitely start and expired on the 5th. So two days ago. 01:38:23.880 --> 01:38:27.220 And there's a quote from the U.N. Secretary General. 01:38:27.440 --> 01:38:31.480 For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any 01:38:31.480 --> 01:38:34.580 binding limits under strategic nuclear arsenals. 01:38:35.020 --> 01:38:38.280 I think that is the word binding. 01:38:40.060 --> 01:38:44.840 It's delusional. There were no binding limits before. Yes, they had both signed 01:38:44.840 --> 01:38:46.660 a treaty that said they would behave. 01:38:47.460 --> 01:38:51.880 And yes, for the most part, they had been behaving. You know, 01:38:52.060 --> 01:38:58.400 both sides, you know, I believe this was an actual proper ratified treaty back 01:38:58.400 --> 01:38:59.920 when the U.S. still did that. 01:39:00.500 --> 01:39:10.620 And, you know, it was being followed. But if you look at the leadership involved on both sides, 01:39:11.640 --> 01:39:18.420 neither one, neither Putin nor Trump would hesitate in the slightest on violating 01:39:18.420 --> 01:39:22.120 a treaty if they felt it was in their best interest at the moment. 01:39:23.140 --> 01:39:26.520 Which says a lot about why neither one of those guys should be major leaders. 01:39:28.010 --> 01:39:32.450 Right. I mean, if you look back, if you look at our previous presidents, 01:39:32.890 --> 01:39:38.150 you know, of both parties, they would have felt bound by this treaty. 01:39:38.750 --> 01:39:41.850 Donald Trump, no. Vladimir Putin, no. 01:39:42.130 --> 01:39:46.010 They would not feel bound in any way by any of this. I mean, 01:39:46.150 --> 01:39:48.470 I think that's obvious with Trump domestically. 01:39:48.810 --> 01:39:53.370 Like, does he pay attention to any law, anything that says it restricts his 01:39:53.370 --> 01:39:55.970 power at all? No, of course not. 01:39:56.510 --> 01:40:00.610 So, I mean, do I wish they had re-upped this? 01:40:00.770 --> 01:40:03.250 Yes, it would have been better if they did than if they didn't, 01:40:03.350 --> 01:40:06.730 even if Trump was going to ignore it and Putin. 01:40:07.710 --> 01:40:13.070 But do I think it actually makes a significant difference to the reality of 01:40:13.070 --> 01:40:15.850 how things are right now? I don't think it does. 01:40:16.110 --> 01:40:19.610 I guess it potentially affects the next president. 01:40:20.090 --> 01:40:23.210 You know, we're not going to have Trump forever. Maybe the next U.S. 01:40:23.310 --> 01:40:24.950 President would feel bound by this. 01:40:25.810 --> 01:40:29.010 Maybe the next Russian leader would feel bound by this. 01:40:29.270 --> 01:40:33.830 I don't know. That's unpredictable at this stage. So it would have been better to keep it. 01:40:34.270 --> 01:40:41.050 But at least in the short term, like, I don't feel like any treaties—. 01:40:42.220 --> 01:40:49.640 Are worth very much right now when you have leaders who have openly stated that they don't care. 01:40:50.300 --> 01:40:55.460 Now, having said that, I think Trump is still somewhat constrained. 01:40:55.980 --> 01:41:01.040 He does feel like if he is going to cross one of these lines, 01:41:01.140 --> 01:41:03.540 like we've talked about this in terms of NATO before too. 01:41:04.560 --> 01:41:10.600 If he's going to cross one of these lines and officially do nothing, 01:41:10.900 --> 01:41:15.340 or like in the case of NATO, if NATO was attacked, have the U.S. 01:41:15.500 --> 01:41:20.280 Ignore them because they didn't pay their dues or whatever, even though that's not how it works. 01:41:21.560 --> 01:41:26.540 I think there would be internal resistance. He would think twice. 01:41:26.540 --> 01:41:27.700 He would figure that out. 01:41:27.940 --> 01:41:31.320 But for the most part, it's a speed bump. 01:41:31.580 --> 01:41:36.240 It's a little bit of additional resistance, and Trump wouldn't care. 01:41:36.740 --> 01:41:40.640 But there we are. Any more thoughts on this, Ed? 01:41:40.880 --> 01:41:46.260 No, not really. I just thought we'd touch on it briefly, but I think I agree 01:41:46.260 --> 01:41:47.780 with pretty much everything you're saying there. 01:41:48.780 --> 01:41:50.440 It's not going to change, is it? 01:41:53.160 --> 01:41:56.780 Unfortunately. Well, yeah, let's be optimistic. 01:41:57.200 --> 01:42:05.140 We've got, you know, to kick off, you started out talking congressional districts earlier in the thing. 01:42:05.340 --> 01:42:08.880 It sounds like they're, at this point, they're... 01:42:09.370 --> 01:42:14.230 Who knows? Things can always change in nine months. But it looks like the Democrats 01:42:14.230 --> 01:42:16.150 will almost certainly take back the House. 01:42:16.550 --> 01:42:23.070 The Senate was expected to be a real long shot for the Democrats. 01:42:23.450 --> 01:42:27.150 It's looking more and more like it's a toss up at this point. 01:42:27.330 --> 01:42:30.230 And the Democrats could very well take the Senate. 01:42:30.510 --> 01:42:35.770 They might not. A toss up does not mean that they will. A toss-up means a toss-up, 01:42:35.870 --> 01:42:41.510 but it has moved from the Senate being a super long shot to actually being in play. 01:42:41.770 --> 01:42:44.390 The House looks like it's going to go Democrat. 01:42:44.730 --> 01:42:51.370 The tone of the Trump administration will undoubtedly—the way things go will 01:42:51.370 --> 01:42:55.450 work differently if you have a Congress that can actually do something. 01:42:55.450 --> 01:42:59.850 Now, even then, you know, we know from the first Trump administration, 01:43:00.170 --> 01:43:03.950 Congress subpoenaed people in the Trump administration and they just ignored them. 01:43:04.310 --> 01:43:09.070 They asked for documents. They were ignored. They had hearings. They were ignored. 01:43:09.530 --> 01:43:14.750 They impeached. They failed to convict, you know, all of this kind of stuff. 01:43:15.030 --> 01:43:20.810 So it doesn't change anything, everything. But, you know, and of course, 01:43:20.910 --> 01:43:22.190 we've got 2028 coming back. 01:43:22.370 --> 01:43:29.110 And, you know, and while I 100 percent believe that Donald Trump will attempt 01:43:29.110 --> 01:43:36.250 to cause chaos in both the 2026 and 2028 elections, I don't think he'll succeed. 01:43:36.410 --> 01:43:39.570 So we shall see. We shall see. OK. 01:43:41.070 --> 01:43:46.810 You mean you're not worried about him nationalizing our election process like he wants to? 01:43:47.450 --> 01:43:49.450 I think... 01:43:49.980 --> 01:43:53.280 I think this is one of those things where he will try but fail. 01:43:53.880 --> 01:43:58.800 Hopefully. Hopefully. Although, you know, even there, if he were to be able 01:43:58.800 --> 01:44:05.460 to nationalize even, say, 50, 60 districts, that could sway the election. 01:44:05.780 --> 01:44:10.520 Well, there's also questions of what exactly it means. 01:44:10.520 --> 01:44:14.940 Like, for instance, you know, the Constitution specifically states that the 01:44:14.940 --> 01:44:19.940 states are in charge of their elections for House, for President, 01:44:20.140 --> 01:44:23.220 for, you know, because election for President isn't really an election for President. 01:44:23.420 --> 01:44:26.360 It's an election for elector, et cetera. 01:44:26.920 --> 01:44:30.480 And those are state positions. Right. 01:44:31.440 --> 01:44:38.020 For instance, the Democrats last time around, they tried to pass all kinds of 01:44:38.020 --> 01:44:40.060 election reform laws. They failed. 01:44:40.480 --> 01:44:53.160 But those would impose national standards on those elections in terms of what was required for ID, 01:44:53.440 --> 01:44:58.160 what was required or not required, what was required or not required for ID. 01:44:58.160 --> 01:45:01.400 Standards around mail-in voting standards 01:45:01.400 --> 01:45:05.440 around all kinds of things um and 01:45:05.440 --> 01:45:12.780 i would argue that those kinds of standards are actually desirable to regularize 01:45:12.780 --> 01:45:17.720 things it would still have local control of the elections themselves but would 01:45:17.720 --> 01:45:24.380 require them to follow these national standards in terms of how it was done. 01:45:24.680 --> 01:45:28.540 The Republicans could do that. They still have the House. 01:45:28.780 --> 01:45:34.320 They still have the Senate. They could override the filibuster if they needed 01:45:34.320 --> 01:45:37.100 to, and they have Donald Trump's signature. 01:45:37.200 --> 01:45:44.880 If they wanted to pass the evil version of the reforms the Democrats were trying 01:45:44.880 --> 01:45:49.840 to do four years ago, then they theoretically could. 01:45:50.080 --> 01:45:55.600 They could require voter ID nationwide. They could outlaw. 01:45:56.330 --> 01:46:01.050 Mail-in ballots nationwide. They could do a bunch of stuff. 01:46:01.350 --> 01:46:06.630 Now, every single bit of it would go to court, just as I'm sure if the Democrats 01:46:06.630 --> 01:46:09.630 had got their reforms in, every single bit of it would go to court. 01:46:10.150 --> 01:46:13.630 And the Supreme Court might or not back them up. 01:46:13.870 --> 01:46:19.830 It doesn't look like they're actively trying to do that from a legislative point of view right now. 01:46:20.450 --> 01:46:23.250 And they're running out of time to do so. 01:46:25.750 --> 01:46:31.630 Yeah, hopefully. Well, certainly for 2026, you know, they're already in the 01:46:31.630 --> 01:46:35.030 zone where it would be really hard to get anything through. 01:46:35.210 --> 01:46:39.050 And even if they got something through, it would still be in court and it would 01:46:39.050 --> 01:46:41.390 be hard to get it through court, you know, in time. 01:46:42.090 --> 01:46:46.390 Who knows? But it doesn't look like they're even seriously taking that on. 01:46:46.910 --> 01:46:50.270 Donald Trump has talked about it, but there's no motion. 01:46:50.940 --> 01:46:54.800 Do, do, do. Hey, this is Sam from the future. 01:46:55.000 --> 01:47:02.280 I was absolutely wrong there about saying that there wasn't an active effort going on, et cetera. 01:47:02.800 --> 01:47:07.660 Shortly after we finished recording, I saw an article about the SAVE Act, 01:47:07.820 --> 01:47:13.220 which is actively being worked on in both the House and the Senate, and they are pushing. 01:47:15.080 --> 01:47:18.880 Apparently, they tried and failed it last year, but they're trying again. 01:47:19.500 --> 01:47:25.160 It basically is what I was describing, sort of the Republican evil version of 01:47:25.160 --> 01:47:28.260 the voting reforms that the Democrats tried four years ago. 01:47:28.880 --> 01:47:32.660 It has a lot of voter IDs. It has a lot of other restrictions. 01:47:33.440 --> 01:47:38.440 Basically, it would potentially block millions of people from voting or at least 01:47:38.440 --> 01:47:40.640 make it more difficult for them to do so. 01:47:41.080 --> 01:47:46.360 And it's got a shot. There still is the issue of time and lawsuits and blah, blah, blah. 01:47:46.780 --> 01:47:52.620 But, you know, the Supreme Court could decline to stay it and just let it be in effect if it passed. 01:47:53.540 --> 01:48:00.480 Now, the Democrats can block it with a filibuster unless the Republicans bypass the filibuster, etc. 01:48:00.540 --> 01:48:07.500 So it's unclear whether or not it will actually become law, but the Republicans are trying actively. 01:48:07.940 --> 01:48:14.040 So what I was saying about that there wasn't really any active effort. That is incorrect. 01:48:14.500 --> 01:48:20.020 The SAVE Act bills are very much in play and the Republicans are trying. 01:48:20.480 --> 01:48:24.260 Okay, back to the show. Do, do, do! 01:48:25.120 --> 01:48:29.920 It's always hard with him to know how much of what he's prattling about is a 01:48:29.920 --> 01:48:34.420 smokescreen over something else that he really intends to do and how much of 01:48:34.420 --> 01:48:36.220 it is stuff he really wants to do. 01:48:36.540 --> 01:48:41.120 You know, that picture he posted of the Obamas over the weekend. 01:48:41.120 --> 01:48:43.060 What a disgusting thing that is. 01:48:43.160 --> 01:48:48.000 And it's changed the whole tone of, all the conversations about that picture. 01:48:48.680 --> 01:48:55.380 And so he's detracted us from all sorts of other things. Because we're not talking about Epstein. 01:48:55.620 --> 01:48:58.400 We're not talking about the election stuff. We're not talking about this. 01:48:58.400 --> 01:48:59.560 We're not talking about that. 01:48:59.760 --> 01:49:04.160 He's an absolute genius in getting us to talk about what he wants us to talk about. 01:49:05.240 --> 01:49:11.660 Absolutely. And just the flooding the zone with shit thing that Steve Bannon 01:49:11.660 --> 01:49:14.400 said years ago is so true. 01:49:14.400 --> 01:49:21.340 Because, you know, there are so many things that pre-Donald Trump, 01:49:22.580 --> 01:49:30.420 individually would be scandals that would occupy us for months that now barely 01:49:30.420 --> 01:49:34.980 make a splash on a single news day because by the end of the day, 01:49:35.240 --> 01:49:37.320 something else outrageous has come up. 01:49:38.780 --> 01:49:43.700 So, I mean, one example of that that was brought up is a week, 01:49:43.900 --> 01:49:51.060 two weeks ago now, it came out that the UAE invested like billions of dollars 01:49:51.060 --> 01:49:56.760 into Donald Trump's crypto company like a few weeks before the election. 01:49:57.140 --> 01:50:02.820 And as soon as he became president, miraculously, several things that the UAE 01:50:02.820 --> 01:50:06.180 wanted policy-wise came true instantly. 01:50:07.460 --> 01:50:10.440 Was there a quid pro quo? Was there not a quid pro quo? 01:50:10.680 --> 01:50:16.340 Is this inappropriate? Regardless, not only is there never going to be a serious 01:50:16.340 --> 01:50:19.200 investigation into this, well, who knows? 01:50:19.320 --> 01:50:24.580 Maybe it'll be one of the things that a Democratic House does next year. I don't know. 01:50:24.780 --> 01:50:28.880 But attention has moved on. 01:50:29.560 --> 01:50:33.640 That was barely in the news for a day. And now, 01:50:33.860 --> 01:50:39.760 if you bring it up, people are like, oh yeah okay i i remember hearing about 01:50:39.760 --> 01:50:44.760 that wasn't that last week or something you know and well you know whereas like 01:50:44.760 --> 01:50:47.640 that that you know you compare it like. 01:50:49.940 --> 01:50:54.780 Previous presidencies could have been brought down completely by that and certainly 01:50:54.780 --> 01:50:59.640 you would have resignations and people leaving and and some people being investigated 01:50:59.640 --> 01:51:03.660 and stuff like that and You know, here it's like, oh yeah, 01:51:04.320 --> 01:51:06.060 I vaguely remember that happened. 01:51:07.860 --> 01:51:13.700 I mean, as of this weekend or yesterday or whenever the hell it was, 01:51:14.240 --> 01:51:18.660 he announced or didn't announce, but it's come out that he's trying to bribe 01:51:18.660 --> 01:51:22.520 Schumer into approving, naming Dulles. 01:51:22.680 --> 01:51:24.260 Is it Dulles? Yeah, it was. 01:51:24.340 --> 01:51:24.820 No, Reagan. 01:51:25.360 --> 01:51:26.660 Yeah, the national. 01:51:26.820 --> 01:51:31.060 No, it was Dulles and it was also Penn Station in New York, I believe. 01:51:31.320 --> 01:51:33.300 Yeah, to name them after him. Dulles and Penn Station. 01:51:33.300 --> 01:51:36.880 In return for allowing them to drill some tunnels somewhere, 01:51:37.120 --> 01:51:42.400 which I think those tunnels are being done by our favorite Tesla's owner. 01:51:43.440 --> 01:51:44.740 I think it's his company. 01:51:45.020 --> 01:51:46.120 I'm not sure about that part. 01:51:46.280 --> 01:51:47.160 I'm not either. 01:51:47.160 --> 01:51:53.100 But yes, it was reported that Donald Trump is asking for his name on things 01:51:53.100 --> 01:51:59.300 in exchange for approval of various public works projects and other legislation 01:51:59.300 --> 01:52:03.000 that in a normal administration, honestly, 01:52:03.420 --> 01:52:10.640 would go through with huge bipartisan majorities because it's a general public 01:52:10.640 --> 01:52:13.380 good and not controversial in any way. 01:52:13.620 --> 01:52:16.460 It's like, yeah, they need a new tunnel. 01:52:17.160 --> 01:52:23.300 Or, yeah, you need disaster relief for this. Or, yeah, you know, whatever. 01:52:23.640 --> 01:52:28.840 These are things that would go through uncontroversially in administrations, 01:52:29.180 --> 01:52:33.440 both Republican and Democrat, in previous years, that Donald Trump is holding 01:52:33.440 --> 01:52:40.320 up because he wants, you know, his name on something or whatever, you know. So, okay. 01:52:40.500 --> 01:52:46.600 This is an interesting man. Anyway But we're hardly talking about a lot of those 01:52:46.600 --> 01:52:49.080 things Because that was yesterday's news. 01:52:50.190 --> 01:52:55.030 Yeah, exactly. And there's so much more and so much outrageous, so much wild stuff. 01:52:55.790 --> 01:53:01.310 I was going to say every single week, but it's practically every single day. It seems like it. 01:53:01.350 --> 01:53:01.390 Yeah. 01:53:01.450 --> 01:53:05.310 There's outrageous new news about one thing or other. Okay, I think we're done, Ed. 01:53:05.570 --> 01:53:06.450 Yeah, I think so, too. 01:53:07.270 --> 01:53:10.430 Okay, so let me do the end of the show stuff. 01:53:10.830 --> 01:53:15.430 Go to curmudgeons-corner.com to find out things about the show. 01:53:17.610 --> 01:53:23.450 You can find ways to contact myself and Yvonne or just the general addresses 01:53:23.450 --> 01:53:28.050 for the show you can find all of our old episodes, transcripts, 01:53:29.110 --> 01:53:33.290 what else, what else, what else, what else, Ed, what else is there oh yes, 01:53:33.410 --> 01:53:39.410 the Patreon where you can give us money money is important, give us money at 01:53:39.410 --> 01:53:43.950 various levels there, we will mention you on the show We will ring a bell. 01:53:44.070 --> 01:53:46.990 We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug, all that sort of stuff. 01:53:47.310 --> 01:53:50.810 And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the 01:53:50.810 --> 01:53:55.370 Commudgeons Course Slack where Yvonne and I and Ed and various other people 01:53:55.370 --> 01:54:02.810 are hanging out and chatting and sharing links and all of that kind of stuff all through the week. 01:54:03.430 --> 01:54:07.910 So I don't know, Ed, do you have a highlight from the Slack that you would like to give? 01:54:08.070 --> 01:54:12.190 I just panicked a minute ago. I forgot to look up anything. So no, I don't have anything. 01:54:12.290 --> 01:54:15.670 Actually, the hearing aid thing I think I mentioned on Slack this week, 01:54:15.750 --> 01:54:17.730 but we've already talked about it enough. 01:54:18.920 --> 01:54:23.460 Well, let me give a couple. There were a couple of AI-related things that came 01:54:23.460 --> 01:54:25.320 up, but we talked about that a lot. 01:54:25.400 --> 01:54:28.520 There's apparently a trend going on. I've actually seen this come up. 01:54:28.980 --> 01:54:31.760 This is like the second or third time I've seen this come up, 01:54:31.800 --> 01:54:38.620 but people using AI and asking, if my dog was a human, what would they look like? 01:54:38.700 --> 01:54:42.600 And they send it a picture of their dog, and it sends back a picture of a human 01:54:42.600 --> 01:54:44.980 that vaguely looks like their dog. 01:54:45.720 --> 01:54:50.800 We have that kind of thing. We had the lawyer thing and some other AI stuff. 01:54:51.560 --> 01:54:56.640 Here, I will give you one that if Yvonne was here, I am sure he would share. 01:54:56.960 --> 01:55:03.640 And is also somewhat, you know, medically related as well, which is the Winter 01:55:03.640 --> 01:55:05.860 Olympics just kicked off. 01:55:06.200 --> 01:55:14.700 And apparently there is already a scandal with ski jumpers, male ski jumpers. 01:55:14.980 --> 01:55:19.780 Enhancing their penises to try to fly further. 01:55:20.400 --> 01:55:29.240 Specifically, they are allegedly injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid 01:55:29.240 --> 01:55:32.720 in order to fly a little bit further. 01:55:33.240 --> 01:55:41.260 Now, supposedly, the science behind this is injecting the penis in such a way 01:55:41.260 --> 01:55:48.960 increases the size somewhat to give them somewhat bigger genitalia at the point 01:55:48.960 --> 01:55:52.980 that their suits are measured by 3D scanners, 01:55:53.540 --> 01:56:00.940 which that temporary enhancement for measurement theoretically means that athletes 01:56:00.940 --> 01:56:06.420 are being given a bigger, looser suit than they would otherwise. 01:56:06.420 --> 01:56:13.680 And that suit acts like a sail catching wind, which could allow them to make 01:56:13.680 --> 01:56:17.720 slightly longer jumps. So this is not... 01:56:18.610 --> 01:56:23.430 You have a bigger penis, and therefore you're better long jumping on skis. 01:56:23.690 --> 01:56:29.050 This is, you do this at the moment you're getting measured for your suit, 01:56:29.270 --> 01:56:34.610 which gives you a slightly looser suit, which lets your suit act a little tiny 01:56:34.610 --> 01:56:40.670 bit as a sail to get a slightly bigger jump out of this. 01:56:40.870 --> 01:56:47.390 Now, the difference is undoubtedly tiny in the aerodynamics here, 01:56:47.390 --> 01:56:51.390 But when you are talking Olympic-level performances, 01:56:52.370 --> 01:56:57.970 tiny, tiny differences can make the difference between a gold and silver medal or whatever. 01:56:58.350 --> 01:57:00.970 So apparently they are investigating this. 01:57:01.470 --> 01:57:06.210 So, Ed, as a retired doctor, what do you think of this procedure? 01:57:06.850 --> 01:57:13.290 I certainly would not do it. On the other hand, you know, Lindsey Vonn tore 01:57:13.290 --> 01:57:16.450 her ACL two weeks ago, I think it was. 01:57:16.450 --> 01:57:19.370 Obviously it can't have surgery on it that puts you 01:57:19.370 --> 01:57:22.750 off the athletic list for a year and she's she 01:57:22.750 --> 01:57:25.690 can't take a year off at her age or she's done 01:57:25.690 --> 01:57:28.510 so she is going to ski with a 01:57:28.510 --> 01:57:33.810 torn acl and i thought well that's not possible turns out though there was a 01:57:33.810 --> 01:57:40.310 orthopedist wrote an article about this her quadriceps are so strong that she 01:57:40.310 --> 01:57:46.110 doesn't need much acl and this guy thinks that She will perform at near peak, 01:57:46.290 --> 01:57:50.050 maybe not zip peak, but near peak performance with no ACL. 01:57:51.100 --> 01:57:56.800 Now, presumably with some sort, I don't know, do they still have like some bandages 01:57:56.800 --> 01:57:59.360 or something at least helping hold things together? 01:57:59.380 --> 01:58:03.020 I don't think so. I think it's, you know, when I was in my residency, 01:58:03.280 --> 01:58:07.580 which is longer ago than I like to think, the orthopedists were constantly stressing 01:58:07.580 --> 01:58:11.560 to us that the quadriceps is the key to the knee. 01:58:11.920 --> 01:58:16.120 That if someone comes into surgery with a real strong quadriceps, 01:58:16.260 --> 01:58:20.880 they're going to do well. and that in long term, even if they have knee injuries 01:58:20.880 --> 01:58:23.220 with a strong quads, they'll do pretty well. 01:58:23.420 --> 01:58:28.120 And I think that's been under stress, but this is the point they're making with 01:58:28.120 --> 01:58:32.320 her is that the athletes doing the slalom courses, that sort of stuff, 01:58:32.540 --> 01:58:37.220 are relying not on their ACLs, but on their quadriceps muscles and to a lesser 01:58:37.220 --> 01:58:38.320 extent, the hamstrings. 01:58:38.740 --> 01:58:42.480 And if you look at it, they ski most of that with their knees bent at around 01:58:42.480 --> 01:58:44.160 a 90 degree angle, it seems like. 01:58:45.010 --> 01:58:48.150 Right. I guess we'll find out like how she does. 01:58:48.390 --> 01:58:51.650 Well, she already did her first, uh, the trial run that they're required to 01:58:51.650 --> 01:58:55.770 do before they, she already did that. Well, the first one came down pretty good time. 01:58:55.770 --> 01:58:56.150 Okay. 01:58:56.650 --> 01:58:57.090 Yeah. 01:58:57.350 --> 01:59:02.390 Okay. I guess, you know, I, I don't, I am not a sports follower. 01:59:02.770 --> 01:59:08.750 Like decades ago, I think like with most, with most sports sometime in my twenties, 01:59:08.930 --> 01:59:12.530 I decided, oh, let's give it a shot and watch once. 01:59:13.070 --> 01:59:17.010 And for almost all of them, I have watched once and never again. 01:59:17.250 --> 01:59:22.110 I think I probably watched like, I don't know, the 1984 Olympics or something. 01:59:22.310 --> 01:59:27.030 And so I do not make a habit of watching any of these things, 01:59:27.030 --> 01:59:33.970 but they end up being in the news enough that you sort of hear about the major events anyway. 01:59:34.430 --> 01:59:38.530 I was sort of vaguely aware that the opening ceremonies happened, 01:59:38.530 --> 01:59:46.030 you know but i don't know i i i haven't watched any visuals from it so i don't 01:59:46.030 --> 01:59:49.610 know what it looked like i don't know what they did but i know what happened you. 01:59:49.610 --> 01:59:53.530 Know i didn't watch the openings but i you know it's kind of interesting that 01:59:53.530 --> 01:59:57.930 we keep coming back to some of the old basics that were thought and i know that 01:59:57.930 --> 02:00:02.950 you know i do some weight work every week three or four times a week and i have 02:00:02.950 --> 02:00:04.810 always stressed working on my 02:00:04.810 --> 02:00:08.330 quads because i keep remembering those guys saying how important they are. 02:00:08.490 --> 02:00:14.450 So I do weight work with my quads to keep my legs, my knees going, but for what it's worth. 02:00:16.390 --> 02:00:18.610 Anyway, that's the only other thing I have. 02:00:19.840 --> 02:00:24.780 I think we're done. Thank you very much, Ed, for joining us again as a sub. 02:00:24.900 --> 02:00:26.900 Always love having you here. 02:00:27.060 --> 02:00:30.400 And it's a bit of a different show than when Yvonne is here, 02:00:30.540 --> 02:00:32.880 but that's okay. The variety is good. 02:00:33.480 --> 02:00:33.980 It's fun. 02:00:35.300 --> 02:00:38.800 And hopefully Yvonne will be back next week. And hopefully I will be gone. 02:00:39.040 --> 02:00:43.780 No, hopefully I will be gone. Hopefully I will be back next week too and feel up to it. 02:00:43.880 --> 02:00:52.800 I have my next procedure related to my various infections and kidney stones and stuff on Monday. 02:00:53.180 --> 02:01:00.000 Oh, on Monday. And it is an outpatient procedure, but it will be under general anesthesia. 02:01:00.000 --> 02:01:05.120 They're like going in and doing stuff and they're adding a stent and they're 02:01:05.120 --> 02:01:10.940 digging around with a laser and they're going in with a camera and all kinds of fun stuff. 02:01:11.140 --> 02:01:13.680 So they're going to try and break the stones up with a laser? 02:01:14.660 --> 02:01:17.900 They're going to start with it. They're putting in an additional, 02:01:18.220 --> 02:01:21.540 like I have a drain coming out of my right kidney right now. 02:01:21.720 --> 02:01:25.980 They're going to add an additional stent going from my kidney to my bladder. 02:01:25.980 --> 02:01:32.060 And they are going to go in with a laser to try to start breaking up the stone. 02:01:32.820 --> 02:01:39.140 And then they're going to send me home again for what they said was at least two weeks, 02:01:39.380 --> 02:01:47.440 but it might be more, before they bring me back in to hopefully take all the 02:01:47.440 --> 02:01:52.040 stuff out of me and including whatever's left of the stone. 02:01:52.880 --> 02:01:57.400 At least that's the intended plan right now. So there will be digging around 02:01:57.400 --> 02:01:59.020 inside me doing all kinds of stuff. 02:01:59.200 --> 02:02:04.500 And I will be thankfully asleep and unconscious while that is happening. 02:02:05.580 --> 02:02:10.320 But hopefully I will come back out of that, you know, feeling good enough to 02:02:10.320 --> 02:02:11.560 do a show by the end of the week. 02:02:12.000 --> 02:02:13.880 So we'll see. 02:02:14.120 --> 02:02:16.140 We'll send good vibes to you on Monday. 02:02:16.970 --> 02:02:22.250 Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. I was going to say, I'm sure it'll be fun, 02:02:22.270 --> 02:02:24.530 but I'm actually sure it won't be fun. 02:02:24.830 --> 02:02:30.630 And again, I will be unconscious. So I'm probably very glad to be unconscious. 02:02:30.830 --> 02:02:32.710 That's the kind of thing you don't want to be awake for. 02:02:35.670 --> 02:02:42.110 Okay. Okay. With that, thanks everybody. Thanks Ed and Yvonne will be back. 02:02:43.130 --> 02:02:46.170 I said all this stuff already. Hey, have a great week, people. 02:02:46.410 --> 02:02:49.570 All the stuff I usually say. Have fun. Not too much fun. Be safe. 02:02:49.730 --> 02:02:51.450 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 02:02:52.010 --> 02:02:55.330 And we'll see you next time. All right. Goodbye. 02:02:55.890 --> 02:02:56.310 Bye-bye. 02:03:26.270 --> 02:03:29.350 Okay, have a great rest of your day, Ed. 02:03:29.890 --> 02:03:30.350 Okay. 02:03:31.110 --> 02:03:33.230 And then I'll tell you when it's safe to hang up. 02:03:33.750 --> 02:03:34.210 Okay. 02:03:34.610 --> 02:03:35.110 Here we go.