049 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

Hey Ben, how are you?

Ben: 0:24

Hey Gene, how are you? I'm doing well.

Gene: 0:27

I'm all right.

Ben: 0:29

Yeah, it's been a long week, dude. I am, I'm tired of airplanes.

Gene: 0:35

Yeah, you were out, what, Seattle?

Ben: 0:38

A long flight. Especially when you have a layover. You know, hey.

Gene: 0:43

that's what you get for scheduling a layover in Florida for a flight for Seattle.

Ben: 0:48

It was Los Angeles, thank

Gene: 0:50

Run.

Ben: 0:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you know what? I, I, I accomplished my goal. I can not fly for the rest of the year and I'm good.

Gene: 0:58

Although you probably will still, right?

Ben: 1:00

so there was actually a chance I'd be going to Dallas this next week.

Gene: 1:05

Oh, that's hardly a flight.

Ben: 1:07

yeah, yeah. But you know, it's one of those things that they actually have changed some of our safety paperwork where they want us to if it's over X distance, fill out this pre brief on plans and all. And it's okay, all you've done is make me take flights for shorter distances that I normally would have got it. yEah.

Gene: 1:26

Why is that?

Ben: 1:28

What do you mean?

Gene: 1:30

I mean, maybe you don't want to drive, but you could drive to Dallas in what, less than two hours, right?

Ben: 1:35

No, no, god no. Dallas is without any traffic during the pandemic, two and a half hours,

Gene: 1:42

You're

Ben: 1:43

With traffic, depending on where I'm going in DFW is three plus,

Gene: 1:48

Dallas is three hours from me. How is it only two and a half from you, even though you're two hours away from me?

Ben: 1:56

Because we are on the two vertices of a triangle.

Gene: 2:01

Yeah, but like Dallas to Houston is only three hours.

Ben: 2:05

No, it is not.

Gene: 2:07

I've done that drive multiple times Maybe three and a half. It depends what part I was at in the north part of Houston. But yeah, I mean,

Ben: 2:14

again, it go, it's where you're going in Dallas, like if I was going to, so I, I did this drive a lot, dude. So if I was going to grapevine, um, which is where I lived in, in DFW, so I literally drove from here on Sunday to, uh, grapevine, went to work in Irving, drove back Friday evening, you know, I did that all the time and I'm sorry,

Gene: 2:43

two and a half hours. Yeah

Ben: 2:50

Google and right now would be no traffic. Google is saying it's three hours

Gene: 2:55

Wow, that's nuts

Ben: 2:57

and I can tell you from experience that that number goes up depending on the time of day. Obviously,

Gene: 3:02

you don't really have any direct routes up there.

Ben: 3:04

I mean, you're, you're going up six 35.

Gene: 3:09

Yeah. Yeah. So probably your dog leg to Waco is about the same distance as my drive up to Waco.

Ben: 3:17

Yep, pretty much.

Gene: 3:18

Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. Cause to me it always seems like you're North, but yeah. Yeah. And you're also more central, so you're more directly under Dallas.

Ben: 3:30

Yeah. But you have to remember, A it depends on where you're going and hell, an hour of that drive is in, you know, not an hour, but a good 30, 45 minutes of your drive is in once you get into Berleson, Mansfield area, Waxahachie, you know, once you're starting to get into the Metroplex, you. You know, there's a lot there,

Gene: 3:53

Yeah. You ever been to the Renaissance Festival in Waxahachie?

Ben: 3:58

I have not actually, I was, I, I actually looked that up earlier yesterday because I was thinking of maybe it'd be something fun to do with the kids. You know, it might be something to take them to for a little bit because there's one in Houston, but it's already over with.

Gene: 4:15

yeah, that that's the good thing about Texas is there's three Renaissance Festivals. There's an Austin, Houston, and Dallas. And they're all at different times, which means you can literally go three times a year.

Ben: 4:27

Okay. When's the next

Gene: 4:28

kind of thing. If so, if Houston is over, I think the next one's actually Waxahachie, and then the Austin one is late summer.

Ben: 4:39

Okay, walks a hatch is a bit of a drive, but we'll, we'll, we'll see. But yeah, the, anyway, the whole thing is, you know, distance from home here to DFW. So you're about three hours from DFW. You're an hour to. Two hours, depending on where you want to go in Houston. So if you're in North Houston, it's an hour. If you're South Houston, it's two hours. You're an hour and a half ish from Austin, two and a half hours from San Antonio.

Gene: 5:08

As the crow flies, though, if there was a road directly from you to Dallas, you'd probably only be two hours or so, right?

Ben: 5:16

Oh, it'd be probably less than that because of so much you're jogging over and everything else, but that doesn't exist.

Gene: 5:23

Yeah. That's true. Once they build that train, that train track. Mm

Ben: 5:29

yeah, in a lot of ways that if they ever do build that because it can be a working commute and it, I mean, they're talking from college station to downtown Dallas will be an hour from college station to downtown Houston will be 25 minutes. And it's a working commute property values here are going to go through the roof.

Gene: 5:49

I was telling a friend of mine yesterday he should buy some land where he lived, cause It's, it's not gonna be there for a while, but when it happens, the values are gonna go way up. Cause that's where all the people that, that have to work in the city, but don't want to live in the city are gonna move to.

Ben: 6:07

I mean, it makes College Station the next suburb of the two largest metroplexes in the state.

Gene: 6:13

Exactly. Exactly. So it's not a bad location at all. Cool!

Ben: 6:20

Anyway, what what have you been up to this week?

Gene: 6:23

Nothing too exciting this week. For me, I'm next week, I'm going to be at a conference thing, which should be interesting. I'm looking forward to it. Which is basically a conference covers a lot of the topics in the book we're all reading. EMPs, uh, how to get home if if your car no longer works and your 50 or more miles away from your home.

Ben: 6:50

So don't ball up and cry.

Gene: 6:54

I'm gonna assume they're gonna say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben: 6:57

Most people would.

Gene: 6:59

Ball up and cry?

Ben: 7:00

Yeah, exactly.

Gene: 7:02

Yeah, eventually. I mean, I don't think people do that right off the get go, but. But yeah, it's it should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. mOre infos about it on the next episode, I'm sure.

Ben: 7:16

quick pro gun tip row while we've got people and we're talking about preparedness and stuff, lucky gunner has South Korean issued 33 round clock mags that are grade one, uh, on sale for 10 bucks a piece.

Gene: 7:35

LuckyGunner. com?

Ben: 7:38

And I just got some in and dude, I don't think they've ever been fired.

Gene: 7:43

Wow, nice.

Ben: 7:44

Like they are brand new magazines. Usually they clean them up tremendously. Or whatever, but they're in great shape and that's a 40 something dollar magazine

Gene: 7:54

Yeah. I've, I think I've got two of those. Not the South Korean kind, but I think I paid like

Ben: 8:00

mag though. It doesn't really

Gene: 8:02

for them.

Ben: 8:03

So anyway, just saying surplus cheap, good stuff.

Gene: 8:06

I'll put it on the the Treelink thing.

Ben: 8:09

Yeah, yeah, I will. I won't get paid for that one, but I will. Actually, and I, I, I spent quite a bit of time yesterday futzing with name servers and DNS.

Gene: 8:18

Mm

Ben: 8:18

Because the hosting company I chose doesn't like external name servers, which is a pain in the butt for me because I had to move a whole bunch of records and everything over. But anyway, A new site is coming Linktree sucks and is not scalable. So I'm I'm paying for hosting and putting up a WordPress blog and I'm not creative when it comes to futzing with templates and stuff like that. And that, that's the, like all the technical backend stuff, not a problem. Actually putting up and trying to make something pretty. That's the problem.

Gene: 8:52

Why don't you just download link tree off a github and set up your own and tweak the things you don't like about it?

Ben: 9:01

I, it's a big time. There is not a. There's not enough drive to to, you know, there's not enough effort here. You know, it's more effort than it's worth right now.

Gene: 9:13

Gotcha.

Ben: 9:14

Yeah. But setting up something I'm actually using some domains I already have. Anyway started setting up links and getting things going

Gene: 9:24

hmm.

Ben: 9:26

but yeah,

Gene: 9:28

Yeah, because people do ask questions and This could be a good easy way to provide them point them towards locations for the answers.

Ben: 9:38

yeah. And one of the things that I've been starting to do is collecting some notes every now and then for, Hey, I want to bring this up next time I talk to Jean. And what I'm thinking is I can actually parlay that into kind of a. Just a feed of posts that I can put on like a blog on the same page that will just be kind of, you know, my correlation of stories to sit there and potentially talk about with you. So that's kind of the idea and the direction I'm going with it.

Gene: 10:10

idea.

Ben: 10:11

So with people, when people, if we talk about something and they want to go look, they can go search, find the source material that we're using, or I was using at least. And yeah, go from there.

Gene: 10:21

Cool.

Ben: 10:22

Yep. And we can even do some redirects. And what I was thinking is throwing a page for you, if you want to, anyway, we can talk about it more, but yeah, I'm paying for some infrastructure and throwing something up there. So whatever,

Gene: 10:35

Mm hmm. Cool.

Ben: 10:38

if it gets used, it gets used. If it doesn't, then you know, I've lost a little bit of money and no big deal.

Gene: 10:43

Yeah, yeah. Now I hear ya. And I, I've also got an account on that same hosting company, which I don't use. Which I originally got when I had my Information security podcast back in 2006 and I've been paying for it since then.

Ben: 11:00

Yeah. And by the way what was that one you wanted me to look at as an alternative? We talked about this yesterday and I looked,

Gene: 11:11

and, and you assume I remember what I say?

Ben: 11:14

yes, I would assume you remember

Gene: 11:17

Hell no.

Ben: 11:18

Substack, so sub substack is. Very similar to Linktree instead of links. It's just post. There is no organization. It's just reverse chronological order.

Gene: 11:28

They had a find me here section.

Ben: 11:32

yeah, they do. But again, it's not scalable.

Gene: 11:36

Okay, so you can't just put a whole bunch of links in there.

Ben: 11:39

That's so here's the thing. We we talk about enough stuff and,

Gene: 11:42

There'll be a lot of links.

Ben: 11:44

Right. So right now, if you go to the link tree, I've got the first book of going home, the first book of Charlie's Requiem. None of the downstream books, which would be, you know, 20 plus links right there. But I've got those first books and then I've got my watch, my backpack, and then I've got some stuff from some of the IFACs I've been building and. Putting out there and doing so I've got some of those items and already just with that. It's untenable as far as I'm concerned.

Gene: 12:16

Okay. That

Ben: 12:17

so I just want to turn it into something actually useful. People aren't having to scroll through an infinitely long list to try and find something and hunt and pack, you know.

Gene: 12:27

So you're gonna try and turn it into a hierarchical thing.

Ben: 12:34

books will be its own page. I'll probably break that out into genre and make it a little bit better. It'll be easier for me to edit also already having a search function there. You know, things like that will make it far better than just a blank little link tree option.

Gene: 12:51

Cool. So last week I recorded Sergine speaks with another dude named Ben, on

Ben: 12:58

Cheating on me.

Gene: 13:00

Huh. Yeah, except he's running on Linux.

Ben: 13:03

Oh, really? Cool. What interface is using?

Gene: 13:07

Motu.

Ben: 13:09

Yeah.

Gene: 13:10

I can't remember which one, but it was, I asked him which one it was, because if he would have figured out how to get a Motu going, I would have connected you two.

Ben: 13:17

Yeah. Again I probably could get the MOTU going. Yeah. Here's the thing. Lesson learned. I should have started with a very fresh install and

Gene: 13:28

Huh.

Ben: 13:28

gotten the MOTU. Working and then done whatever I wanted to do, not setting up everything. And then as an afterthought, trying to get the Motu working part of that's kernels and part of which downgrading a kernel is just, I'm not going there. I will blow the installation away and start over. I've had too many issues downgrading kernels. So there's a kernel issue there that, you know, I need to go down to the low

Gene: 14:00

destroy is your preferred one?

Ben: 14:03

My preferred one, I, I, I am missing and lamenting the death of CentOS and you know, Red Hat being purely paid for Oracle is okay right now I'm Playing around with Mint. Mint has been a daily driver right now, just trying to make sure and get drivers that work. I do not like Ubuntu. I don't, I'm more of a yum fan than an apt fan. There's lots of reasons for that. That's neither here nor there. But I'm trying this, trying to get drivers to function correctly. And Ubuntu variants have the best driver support right now. So that's why I'm playing with it. You know, I, I'm a big Soos fan too. Soos was a great version for a long time for me. And if you can't tell,

Gene: 14:51

how you pronounce it? I thought it was Susie.

Ben: 14:54

Yes, I was in the enterprise realm. Soos, Soosie, whatever.

Gene: 14:58

Okay. That's just, I've never heard anyone call it Zeus.

Ben: 15:01

Linux, Linux,

Gene: 15:03

Linux.

Ben: 15:04

I agree.

Gene: 15:06

Nuclear. Nuclear. Yeah. So I get it. So there's a proper way and I proper way to pronounce it. I, I see what

Ben: 15:13

Potato, potato.

Gene: 15:15

yes, exactly. Yeah. So he uses mint as well. I've never used mint.

Ben: 15:20

It's okay. It's, it's. It's just a candy version which I don't particularly like, but the big problem I have with Mint especially coming from where I come from, um, the rolling release is a big security issue for me, and You have to go out of your way to not do a rolling release with that, and then to break out security updates and making sure you're basically anytime you want to run an update, you have to do your research on what you're installing and updating because. Every time you boot the computer, there's an update. It's a, it's meant as a rolling release. And I don't like that personally.

Gene: 16:06

Yeah. Dis discord. Like that. That's annoying.

Ben: 16:09

Yeah. There are some really cool things that are in some of the Ubuntu variants for running basically Microsoft web apps inside a container on the Linux side that makes it pretty useful. So I can have. Teams or outlook or whatever running there I mean, I think I could, I hate to say it, but with Ubuntu and with the way things are working right now, like my work laptop could easily go this way and that'd be fantastic. Now my preference would always be to have something. You know, a little bit more locked out, but again, driver support, man.

Gene: 16:49

That's, that was what he, he said is that Mint has been the best of drivers that, of anything he's run, yeah.

Ben: 16:55

Yeah. And that's the Ubuntu variant. You could have thrown you could have thrown Ubuntu on there and it would have been as good of on drivers, but I just, I can't stand the look and feel of the Ubuntu desktop,

Gene: 17:09

Which, which GUI are they using?

Ben: 17:12

Ubuntu.

Gene: 17:13

No Mint. Mm.

Ben: 17:17

I'm on Cinnamon, I believe. And then there's mate and a couple other options. I, I

Gene: 17:24

half waiting for you to reply with, GUI? Who the fuck uses that in Linux?

Ben: 17:30

Oh I mean, I live in a terminal, but I still use a GUI because I use a web browser and everything else.

Gene: 17:38

Yeah, I, I

Ben: 17:40

like my, my BSD boxes don't have GUIs on them.

Gene: 17:44

I don't mind terminals, but I find it much easier to use systems that have predictive type built in, so I don't have to memorize the exact spelling of archaic things. I could just start typing it and it'll show me a list of things that are similar.

Ben: 18:00

Yeah.

Gene: 18:01

That, if, if a terminal's got that, then I'm good to go. I don't really need a GUI.

Ben: 18:08

Yeah. And some of those menu systems like that are really nice. In fact, when I was working at the startup we were working on our own OS variant, which obviously was just Linux and then packaged and, you know, UI on top but part of the command line UI structure was that kind of, you know, start typing auto complete tree. Underneath menu system that was really nice that we had developed,

Gene: 18:37

Mm hmm. There.

Ben: 18:39

nothing to do with developing, but

Gene: 18:42

Yeah.

Ben: 18:42

the, the programmers who did were fantastic.

Gene: 18:46

Yeah. Yeah. I'm certainly much more of a tinkerer these days than a developer. I haven't done anything other than gaming mods. That's my only piece of development that I still do.

Ben: 18:59

Did you see the big open cloud hack?

Gene: 19:03

No, no, I didn't see that.

Ben: 19:05

Oh yeah. The bad, bad vulnerability. And if anyone's running any open cloud stuff, unplug it until you patch it.

Gene: 19:12

hmm.

Ben: 19:16

you're about to get owned if you haven't already. I mean, quite frankly, if you haven't unplugged it by now and yeah, it's just not gonna be fun, zero days. And you know, this is the problem. And this is why I don't ever use, people come up with these great open source alternatives to certain things and they're fine, the problem is. I am not going to run my own infrastructure and directly expose it to the internet. Call me crazy. So for instance, camera systems at my house or something like that.

Gene: 19:54

there's no reason for that to be exposed.

Ben: 19:56

I'm sorry?

Gene: 19:57

No reason for that to be on the internet.

Ben: 19:59

Exactly. So I have VPN services on my firewall that I run. I can connect in. I can go to the network zone that hosts various things like alarm systems or garage door openers or whatever. And I can connect to it there. It does not need to dial out to the internet. And that that's the way I handle things. You know, file shares with grandma and grandpa are not it. But we have certain ways of handling it. And again, I'm just not going to put any technology just directly on the internet. I don't, I don't think that's a. Right way to do it

Gene: 20:38

I'm right there with you. If, if something is generating data in the house, then it is not accessible outside the house.

Ben: 20:49

someone to get and or encrypt.

Gene: 20:52

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's if I need to be So a lot of things are tied to local IP addressing rules right out the firewall.

Ben: 21:03

Yeah, well I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff just you know defense in depth, right? Yes. Someone could own my firewall Yes, someone could then get in. Yes, someone could get to that. But you know, hopefully I would a Recognize that and then, you know, you know, my firewall logs are sent somewhere for analysis and I look at them fairly regularly. And I have alerts and everything else and. You know, I, I, I run a pretty tight ship. I do inbound outbound filtering. You know, I've got some pretty good wildcard searches that if random domains are ever hit from DNS standpoint, DNS filtering is the thing for me. A, I black hole, a bunch of DNS. I basically whitelist DNS. So it's defiant deny by default much to the chagrin of every teenager who's ever lived with me. But, you know, I, I, I do some pretty good basic hygiene stuff. And as a result, I don't have to worry about, you know, defense in depth. Now, if my firewall has a zero day, yeah, someone could pop my firewall, but that's a hell of a lot less likely than a, a open web that you or web UI that's exposed to the internet or even app APIs that are exposed to the internet directly.

Gene: 22:23

Exactly. Exactamundoly. So for any, any people that are gamers out there if you haven't checked it out, check out the new Steam, Steam Deck OLED. It's a new, new version. It's a, a lot, a lot better screen, high dynamic range, better battery life,

Ben: 22:47

Why go with that? And is this the Steam Deck or Stream Deck?

Gene: 22:51

Steam Deck. Steam, Steam is the gaming platform. And it's the old one's LCD, so the new one's OLED. And better battery time. I mean, that's the biggest thing. It's just longer battery life.

Ben: 23:04

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Gene: 23:05

hours.

Ben: 23:08

I actually saw a guy playing one of these. That may have been the LCD at the airport.

Gene: 23:13

hmm. Yeah, I've seen quite a few of them. I, I'll bet you there's, There's probably at least one person in first class every time I've flown.

Ben: 23:23

Yeah, but why do you care that much about games?

Gene: 23:27

Why do I care that much? I don't know, I play games, so

Ben: 23:30

Yeah, but I mean, do you really need a portable gaming system?

Gene: 23:35

dOes anyone need it? Probably not. But you know, if you want to play somewhere other than in front of your computer

Ben: 23:44

Yeah, I just, I, I don't know.

Gene: 23:47

No interest? No?

Ben: 23:48

I, it's, I, I will probably get back into gaming when my kid gets bigger, but right now the only gaming system I have in my office is a RetroPie that I set up a while back with a bunch of old video games on it and that's about it. Like PS1 and back.

Gene: 24:09

Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, I still have a Xbox 360 and an Xbox One. That is, both of them are gathering dust underneath my desk.

Ben: 24:21

Yeah, I have some in the closet. Packed away somewhere.

Gene: 24:26

Have not turned them on in years.

Ben: 24:28

I've got all the way back to my NES and Sega and all that still.

Gene: 24:32

Mm hmm. tHen, why the hell are you asking, Why would you want a Steam Deck?

Ben: 24:37

I'm asking you personally Why do you want that?

Gene: 24:41

Oh I mean, it's, it's really just You know, again, it's portability. It's, it's the, the ability to be somewhere else and be able to let off some steam, play some video games without necessarily having to be in front of the big screen. The other thing and this is actually another topic is going to bring up as far as techie things is that there's definitely been some advances in, in VR goggles.

Ben: 25:09

Mm hmm.

Gene: 25:10

And it seems like they're splitting into two distinct categories. One is more like Google Glass, which is super slim,

Ben: 25:18

AR. Yep.

Gene: 25:19

light, and not even necessarily AR, just just basically glasses with a screen that you can either watch movies on or compute on. And, and there's probably four different models that I've seen there from four different companies that are all in that segment. And they are all under 600 bucks. So price wise, quite affordable. And they're, they basically provide a 10 AP image for same thing for both eyes where you can essentially, you know, watch a movie sitting on anywhere or even laying in bed without without. necessarily having to be in front of your TV or in front of your projector screen. aNd good for portability like airplanes where you can have a virtual screen. And in fact, you can combine one of those things with a steam deck and then have a virtual screen that you're playing on, um, taking up no space at all. And then using the steam deck just for the controls and the actual CPU GPU for the game, but not really using it for the screen. iN which case, the cheaper LED version would be perfectly fine if you're going to combine it with a, an external glasses like that.

Ben: 26:46

The LCD Version which you said LED, but the LCD version is probably plenty good for most people

Gene: 26:55

iT's way cheaper. It's 350 bucks for the, the low end one.

Ben: 27:00

So why would you want the OLED screen because it's a small screen Do you do really need the color saturation and just everything to be so On everything.

Gene: 27:10

going to use the screen, I would definitely get the OLED screen. Because, first of all, batter, battery life, that, that's, that's more important than the screen itself, is battery life.

Ben: 27:20

Okay.

Gene: 27:21

But the OLEDs just gonna look way nicer than LCD and it's gonna be a lot more playable Outdoors than an LCD

Ben: 27:30

I'm gonna laugh if I ever see someone with this outdoors.

Gene: 27:35

dude. I was playing video games outdoors when sitting in the pool when I was a kid.

Ben: 27:40

Yeah. So there's another big reason to do the OLED here that you're just not even paying attention

Gene: 27:48

What's that?

Ben: 27:49

So first of all, it's got a bigger battery. So it's a 40 versus a 50 watt hour battery. No, no, no. But you, you said that better battery life, meaning consumption from the screen or something was what I took it out.

Gene: 28:02

You took it wrong.

Ben: 28:04

Okay. The refresh rate and whatever, but the big thing is that the storage capacity. So the LCD version is limited to 56. The OLED has either a five 12 or a one terabyte. That's pretty significant difference right

Gene: 28:21

Yeah, but you can also get a 512 LCD for

Ben: 28:25

Nope, not anymore. I'm looking at the website right now. They only have the 2 56 LCD listed.

Gene: 28:31

no, I'm looking at the website right now as well and they do have a buy now button on the 512 LCD. I'm, I don't know which website you're looking at. I'm looking at the one inside the Steam app.

Ben: 28:43

I am looking@steamdeck.com. I'm looking at the website, so I

Gene: 28:49

let me click the buy button and I'll tell you. Yep, it's available.

Ben: 28:53

that is not what they have lit here. I, I will show you my screen

Gene: 28:57

I don't care. I believe you. I'm just saying that it's available. If you're on Steam, you can click a buy button on the LCD version as well.

Ben: 29:03

Maybe that's what they have left in stock and they're just trying to get rid of them.

Gene: 29:06

But they don't have a terabyte LCD. So that's obviously part of the new OLED thing. So I would probably get the terabyte if I was getting one of these. Which I've been thinking about, but I mean, honestly, I'm not away enough from my computer to to justify getting, getting one of these.

Ben: 29:28

Mm

Gene: 29:29

So. Yeah, it's a, it's a thing.

Ben: 29:33

hmm. All right. So you see what I'm showing you, right?

Gene: 29:35

what you, I see it.

Ben: 29:37

All right. There you go.

Gene: 29:38

Yeah. That's good. Do

Ben: 29:43

the ATF has been getting their butt kicked. And it was funny, we had a I do. I do.

Gene: 29:50

All right. Good.

Ben: 29:52

So yeah, that's interesting that they have it in the store on the app, but not online.

Gene: 29:56

They're only allowing super buyers to buy it. People that have spent more than a hundred thousand dollars with steam.

Ben: 30:04

You have not.

Gene: 30:06

Maybe.

Ben: 30:08

Dude, th No.

Gene: 30:10

Maybe.

Ben: 30:12

Sheen.

Gene: 30:13

have all the games

Ben: 30:15

But th Oh my god. Anyway,

Gene: 30:18

Keep going. What are you talking about now?

Ben: 30:20

ATF. ThE ATF has been on a hell of a losing streak, and that's a good thing. And we had someone on No Agenda Social last night send us the Brown v. ATF decision. And it was very nice of them to do. But, And I replied with some of my takeaways. Now this is about 18 to 20 year olds not being allowed to purchase a firearm.

Gene: 30:45

Mm hmm

Ben: 30:46

Uh, a, a handgun rather.

Gene: 30:48

Right, they can still buy a shotguns.

Ben: 30:50

it's shotguns, ARs, et cetera. The interesting thing is though, it's not a prohibition against. Possession. So if you're given a handgun, if you're inherited a handgun perfectly legal, perfectly legal for you to own. It's just prohibition on purchasing.

Gene: 31:08

Like Kyle Rittenhouse

Ben: 31:10

Anyway the A. T. F. Did they? They really did not. And I even talked to a lawyer friend of mine about this over the last few days, and their opinion is basically the same as mine that the A. T. F. Thought this was a longstanding thing, not going to really be challenged. And yet it was. And, This actually has a lot of repercussions outside of the to a community because the fundamental premise of this case was age discrimination. And most of our age discrimination laws have been focused on people, you know, over 40, this goes the other direction now. So it's, it's going to open up a lot. It was a stupid law to begin with again, because you could legally possess. It was just a prohibition on purchasing

Gene: 31:56

think we're, we'll have a challenge to alcohol us?

Ben: 32:00

Yeah, I do actually. I think the age of 21 based off of this precedent, like this precedent should totally be used. But yeah, it's,

Gene: 32:12

Either that or they needed to have raised the age of military service to 21.

Ben: 32:17

The age of majority, the voting age,

Gene: 32:20

Yeah. Everything. If they would have done that, then there'd be good. Yeah. It's like this whole partial thing. Right. Yeah, you can be drafted and you can go vote, but you can't drink alcohol. What the fuck? You can't do that.

Ben: 32:33

I, I, I agree.

Gene: 32:35

And I say that as a non drinker.

Ben: 32:38

I, I'm right there with you lately, but you know, the, the

Gene: 32:41

still not drinking?

Ben: 32:43

still not. I'm, I am going

Gene: 32:45

do you, have you noticed any any difference in the way you feel?

Ben: 32:49

No,

Gene: 32:50

Really? Interesting.

Ben: 32:52

I'm, I've made a commitment to go through the end of the year and not a commitment. It's a, it's, it's a self thing. There's no, there's no outside force really pushing me on this.

Gene: 33:05

that's literally called commitment, but yeah, go ahead.

Ben: 33:07

okay. Anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm clarifying for, I agree that that is called a commitment of making a commitment to myself. However, I don't want people to think there's something anyway. yEah.

Gene: 33:19

see, now they're going to start thinking that because you talk too much about it

Ben: 33:23

Nah, anyway I was, oh my god dude, you're, you're screwing me up here. Anyway, I, I, I haven't been drinking for quite a while now, and I have no positive effects from it.

Gene: 33:36

Interesting, because I've noticed that.

Ben: 33:38

I'm not sleeping better, haven't lost any weight, don't feel any better.

Gene: 33:43

That makes no sense, dude, because first of all, calories are calories and by not consuming them, you should be losing weight.

Ben: 33:50

Okay.

Gene: 33:51

the second thing is I never had a sleep related thing, but I definitely noticed that. And maybe you're just not old enough for it to really have effect. Maybe that's the case. But I noticed that for me, um, when I drank, I felt more tired, not sleepy, just tired.

Ben: 34:13

Mm hmm.

Gene: 34:14

And not drinking, of course, and I just never experienced that level of tiredness. But

Ben: 34:19

Mm hmm.

Gene: 34:21

not noticing that at all, huh?

Ben: 34:23

Same shitty sleep behavior as always. And I actually have some data to back that up now.

Gene: 34:30

Oh yeah, because your watch. Nice. Are you enjoying the the data rich environment you're in now?

Ben: 34:38

For my watch, sure. I have to limit a bunch of different things as far as, you know, app permissions and everything else. But, you know, it's good.

Gene: 34:50

I've always loved data stuff about everything. So you know, my, my bed actually measures all that stuff. My breathing, my sleeping, my snoring, my heart speed, all that stuff. So I can actually take the watch off and still get all the measurements, um, when I'm sleeping. I know most people aren't as excited about self measurement stuff as I tend to be. I don't know. I just think it's kind of cool to be able to get. Raw data.

Ben: 35:22

Yeah, I, I, it's raw data backing up what I kind of already knew.

Gene: 35:30

yeah, I agree.

Ben: 35:32

there's not a lot new there for me.

Gene: 35:34

Yeah, but still it's data versus I kind of feel this way.

Ben: 35:39

Yeah. I mean, I think there's more to it than that, but you know, I, I don't think when I sit there and say how I feel this way or whatever, I, I think I know, okay, how, how did I sleep last night? I don't know the exact intervals of how much REM sleep I got or deep sleep, but generally you can pretty well tell, you know.

Gene: 36:01

Yeah, yeah, but it is interesting to see how much REM sleep you get For me. Anyway, I don't know. I like that kind of stuff. Anyway going going

Ben: 36:10

answer for me is basically none.

Gene: 36:13

No REM sleep. That's not good at all, dude

Ben: 36:16

It's a I understand so it depends on stress levels and various things happen and I can watch this track and it makes complete sense to me. But for instance, let me pull up last night. So last night wasn't as bad because I actually, um, slept a decent amount of time. But the night before actually would be a better one. So Saturday. Yeah, I had one period of REM sleep. And only two periods of deep sleep. So yeah, I just don't sleep.

Gene: 36:53

tHat explains a lot. Let me see, now you got me curious. Let me check mine real quick. I slept for I was in bed for nine hours and asleep for six and a half. Yeah. I was watching YouTube the rest of the time. And, out of that, I had 15 percent REM. Yeah, I know, right? 15 percent REM, 57 percent core, 11 percent deep. That's not bad. So I had an hour, 11 minutes of REM sleep.

Ben: 37:29

Okay.

Gene: 37:32

It's a thing. It's interesting. It may not get me to change anything, but

Ben: 37:37

Yeah. So I had 27 minutes of deep sleep, 13 minutes of REM.

Gene: 37:42

13 is not enough, dude.

Ben: 37:45

No kidding. I'm just telling you, I

Gene: 37:46

I'd be worried crazy if I wasn't getting enough REM sleep. I would try to get that REM number up.

Ben: 37:53

Yeah. Exactly. How do you do that? Gene?

Gene: 37:56

Worry less.

Ben: 37:57

Okay.

Gene: 38:00

It's it that that's the catch

Ben: 38:01

I would be worried like crazy worrying about my REM sleep. How do you get it down? Worry less. Jeez.

Gene: 38:08

that's how it works

Ben: 38:09

Yeah we both watched Lady Ballers when it came out Friday night.

Gene: 38:13

sure did

Ben: 38:14

That

Gene: 38:14

best movie of the year man as far as I'm concerned

Ben: 38:17

I don't know about best movie of the year, but it, it was funny.

Gene: 38:20

what it was hilarious It was like an old school Comedy that I yeah, it was a totally 90s company. Yep

Ben: 38:29

Yeah. It was a slapstick 90s comedy with some fantastic one liners in there

Gene: 38:37

guy humor but not not like In fact, I don't think there's anything in it that I wouldn't want kids to watch. It was perfectly

Ben: 38:46

there is, there

Gene: 38:47

what? Really?

Ben: 38:48

Yeah, I mean, there's some sexualized stuff.

Gene: 38:52

Really? I

Ben: 38:53

Yeah, like the guy coming up behind him going how much? Stuff like that. I mean, there's lots

Gene: 38:58

not sexualized. How is that sexualized? It was like a dude just saying how much.

Ben: 39:05

No, it was solicitation of prostitution.

Gene: 39:08

Exactly. That has nothing to do with sexualization. That's prostitution.

Ben: 39:13

anyway, alright, you can show it to your kids. I will choose to

Gene: 39:17

show it

Ben: 39:17

show. Now my teenagers, teenagers or something

Gene: 39:20

that's what I'm talking about, Jesus Christ. Of course. Little kids aren't gonna understand something. Teenagers. I even like 13 is fine, but the only negative thing I would say about the movie is I didn't like the choice of casting of Jeremy's wife, which

Ben: 39:38

yeah, yeah.

Gene: 39:39

is kind of frumpy looking and the girl is blonde. I would have preferred a hot blonde ex wife versus just a not particularly attractive Burnett and they happen to

Ben: 39:51

What would you think of the girlfriend though?

Gene: 39:54

I mean, I've seen her before, I've seen that actress before, she doesn't do a whole lot for me, but the attitude is definitely, unfortunately, the type that I like.

Ben: 40:05

Oh my god, people need to watch this movie just to get the picture of that with Gene. That's hilarious. So many ways.

Gene: 40:14

Yeah, so not physically, but definitely mentally I am attracted to that.

Ben: 40:20

Yeah, by the way, Jeremy does not ever have sex with this woman in the movie

Gene: 40:23

And he talks about it. Not having

Ben: 40:26

it's hilarious.

Gene: 40:28

I was really wondering that, because, you know, conservative channel and everything, and how's he gonna act? Where he's got a

Ben: 40:35

they handled it very well.

Gene: 40:36

they did they, they got it right up to the line, you know, and like she would get almost the point of kissing him and then she would lick his cheek, which is totally not, you know, as bad as a kiss. I guess

Ben: 40:49

No, it was just funny though, the way they did it.

Gene: 40:54

Yeah. And it, and it, uh, he, he, it does play kind of a schmuck character.

Ben: 40:59

Oh, he did a great job on it. And Matt

Gene: 41:02

was really good. Yeah. Matt Walsh is good. Matt Walsh's character, to be fair, was also super easy to play, because he just repeated the same thing over and

Ben: 41:11

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene: 41:12

Matt Walsh plays basically like a hippie.

Ben: 41:17

A crystal hippie.

Gene: 41:19

Mm hmm. And he's taller than I thought he was.

Ben: 41:24

Yeah,

Gene: 41:24

Like, he towered over everybody.

Ben: 41:26

no,

Gene: 41:27

Matt Walsh.

Ben: 41:28

anyway, it was a funny movie

Gene: 41:31

it's worth seeing. It really is. It's

Ben: 41:34

my daily wire subscription just renewed and I was talking about it and figuring out, okay, do I keep this in the budget or not? And cause it's 150 bucks and I, the only reason why I had it was for Peterson. Like when Peterson joined is when I signed up and you know, Oh, is it, am I going to keep it? You know, yeah, I watched what is a woman I've watched a couple of things here and there, but and my kids don't really like any of the bent key stuff yet. But, you know, that's also

Gene: 42:04

I don't know, I kind of like some of the Bensky stuff. There's a hot redhead in there. Ha, Ha, ha.

Ben: 42:09

but anyway, I was debating on whether or not to keep it, but them producing that movie, right there, they've got me. I, I, I will support them for that.

Gene: 42:19

this movie would've done exceptionally well in the theaters.'cause it's the kind of it today because I think a lot of people that remember the nineties would would've heard that this is a nineties movie and they would've gone. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 42:33

I, I know a lot of people who have seen the trailer on YouTube and stuff and who have, who are fairly liberal, who think it looks hilarious and want to watch it. So I, I think they ought to put out a, at the very least, like a pay per view version on the other platforms if they can, if the other platforms will carry it, but I don't think they will.

Gene: 42:56

Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. He was asked like, why isn't this in the theaters? And, he said this is the one topic that they've been told is a no go, which is trans. tHey can make a comedy about blacks, they can make a comedy about other stuff, and then have it sell to movie theaters. buT no, no movie theater chain other than one off single theaters would play this movie.

Ben: 43:24

Which let them,

Gene: 43:25

It's very sad.

Ben: 43:27

but let them let the one off single movie theaters play it

Gene: 43:30

I think, I'll bet you Alamo Playhouse here in Austin would play it.

Ben: 43:35

Alamo Drafthouse? I don't think so because of their politics.

Gene: 43:39

I don't know, man. They play a lot of one off weird stuff.

Ben: 43:43

Hmm, maybe, but I'm betting their politics would prevent them. But I would love to see them say, hey, we couldn't get it in all the theaters, but this is a list of the theaters that are willing to make it an issue where. It's very clear what theaters are on board and what aren't, and put that out to your audience, put that out to everyone, say, these are the theaters you should support.

Gene: 44:09

Mm hmm. I agree with that.

Ben: 44:11

Stop going to the big Cinemark down the street that won't air this kind of movie, go to the little mom and pop one that's, you know, maybe not as nice or whatever, but they have your values.

Gene: 44:23

Yeah, and you know, Cinemark definitely wouldn't play it because Mark Cuban,

Ben: 44:27

That don't, does Mark Cuban own a chunk of Cinemark?

Gene: 44:31

no, he owns all of Cinemark.

Ben: 44:32

I didn't know that.

Gene: 44:33

Yep. That's his chain.

Ben: 44:36

Okay.

Gene: 44:38

I thought Jeremy Boring did an amazingly good job acting.

Ben: 44:42

I thought so too, he did pretty well.

Gene: 44:44

Yeah, because it's like He's not really an actor, but he was the, well, no, I looked at his IMDb. He's not really an actor.

Ben: 44:54

No. Or is he?

Gene: 44:56

I Mean,

Ben: 44:57

As in, you know, controlled opposition sort of

Gene: 45:00

Oh, for fuck's sake. Yeah. Okay, but All, the only stuff he's really done is been like in Babylon B Skits,

Ben: 45:07

Mm hmm.

Gene: 45:08

anD then all of their own programming app and mostly just not playing anybody, just being himself.

Ben: 45:14

Native ads.

Gene: 45:16

for,

Ben: 45:17

They did their own product placement. There was stuff for Jeremy's shampoo, Jeremy's razors, and everything else.

Gene: 45:23

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Good, good for them on that. They also had Jeremy's logger. I don't know if you noticed that. No. It was just, it was a really good movie. There's very little negative I can say about it, and

Ben: 45:38

It could have been better, but for a first run there are plenty of 90s comedies or early 2000s comedies that were not as good as this. That I think of fondly, right? I mean, is it the funniest movie I've ever seen? No, but it's it's pretty good. It's pretty damn good.

Gene: 45:58

I think, yeah. I think it's really good for what it is. The only, and that's the other thing

Ben: 46:04

Not even for what it is for a movie,

Gene: 46:07

Yeah, which is what it is. It's, if you see the out, or not the outtakes, what are they called? The the cut scenes. Yeah, deleted scenes.

Ben: 46:16

I did watch those by the

Gene: 46:17

I don't understand why the hell they deleted them, because they were all good. I would have

Ben: 46:21

overall length of the movie. I can understand because they weren't really necessary, but they were pretty funny.

Gene: 46:28

Yeah, they were still funny. I would have kept them in there. And then of course Ted apparently is a good friend of theirs because he made it into the movie.

Ben: 46:38

Ted.

Gene: 46:40

Ted, our, our Senator Ted Cruz.

Ben: 46:42

Oh, yes.

Gene: 46:44

So he was in the movie as a cameo, which is pretty funny, but yeah, I've been telling a lot of

Ben: 46:51

And there were a lot of cameos. Riley Gaines was doing a cameo in, in there, which was awesome.

Gene: 46:59

for where was he in

Ben: 47:00

Riley Gaines is the female swimmer who spoke out about

Gene: 47:03

or where was she in, oh, she was in there. I didn't see

Ben: 47:06

Yeah, she was in the swimming scene

Gene: 47:08

Oh, that makes sense. Okay. I just, I guess she's just wearing swimming clothes. So I didn't really notice her. Yeah, yeah, it's it was good. It was a, a well, well done, if they come out with future movies at this level, they're seriously going to make an impact against Hollywood

Ben: 47:29

Oh, yeah. I guarantee you this will get shared and played a lot.

Gene: 47:35

yeah, I, I think a lot of the the actors in Hollywood are going to watch this and, you know, without saying they watched it. And when the next major movie comes up, I think you're going to start seeing more and more quote unquote closet conservatives. Coming out of the acting pool and making appearances in their movies because there's plenty of actors that I think are, you know, they're pretending to be a lot more liberal than they actually are.

Ben: 48:05

Especially if daily wire can show that they can make money at this, which is quite frankly, yet to be seen because this probably was a fairly, I mean, it, it had to have had a decent budget. You know, this is not a movie where there's a bunch of special effects or anything.

Gene: 48:22

it wasn't too expensive. I believe it was 11 million.

Ben: 48:26

I mean, that's a pretty decent budget size for anyway, I mean, if, if you're a 100 million dollar a year company, 11 million is a huge investment.

Gene: 48:36

Yeah,

Ben: 48:37

Anyway, the point is we'll see if they actually get a return on that money. You know, it being behind their paywall and everything else, how many people are actually going to, is this going to drive enough new subscriptions to justify it? It kept me around, so there's that. How many other people? We'll see.

Gene: 48:55

and there's one more thing, which is at the beginning of that movie, there's an ad for a new adult cartoon they're making.

Ben: 49:02

Which looks hilarious.

Gene: 49:03

Beecham looks hilarious in the style of South Park

Ben: 49:08

Yes.

Gene: 49:09

Where they've got some I mean, they're they're B level celebs, but they're still celebs doing voices. You got Roseanne Barr

Ben: 49:18

Yeah. I don't know that I would call all those celebrities B level, but go on.

Gene: 49:22

Well Danny Trevajo, I would call B level Megan Kelly B level What's the guy's name? Adam Carolla? Kind of a B level slob. Ehhh,

Ben: 49:38

he was the biggest podcaster for a long time till Rogan. And, you know, he, he did have the man show.

Gene: 49:45

Yeah that's what I mean. That's kind

Ben: 49:47

And you know, that, that show would get canceled so fast today. It's not

Gene: 49:50

Oh, dude. And his co host from that show is an ultra lib. So yeah. They've got They've got some decent new, you know, people coming in. I've never heard of Danny Trejo being particularly conservative. If that's how you pronounce his name.

Ben: 50:08

Some of the actors from. Lady ballers were saying in interviews that, you know, I'm not really that conservative, but it was funny to me and I liked the idea. So I did it. But apparently they had to do this film very much in secret. Which none of us had a hint that this was coming, which is crazy. And apparently when they were shooting some of the basketball scenes in the arenas and everything, they filled it with extras, you know, and some of the extras figured out what was going on and they started having protests. In amongst the extras during some filming and they had to kick him out and then they had protests outside.

Gene: 50:52

That's insane.

Ben: 50:54

I know it's hilarious in the state of our world.

Gene: 50:57

The hatred of women that exists in that whole group is, is it just, it's, it's insane. Like how did this get allowed to happen? How, how is it that men can be better women than

Ben: 51:12

trans women are real women. Thank you. I

Gene: 51:15

Yeah, in their

Ben: 51:16

the, that's the entire, that's the entire denying, you know, denying your own

Gene: 51:25

denying somebody's fantasy is a bad thing, somehow.

Ben: 51:28

Yeah, anyway, go on.

Gene: 51:30

No, it's, it's a, it is, it is crazy. I'm glad to see the pendulum starting to swing back. That's a positive aspect for sure. Because for the rest of my life, anyway, I'm going to every year see improvements and you know, this, this, we're at the very extreme end of the extreme. In this category

Ben: 51:52

I think so, I think the pendulum is swinging, but I've got a great 1984 quote in reference to some of this trans stuff. The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and your ears. It was their final and most essential command.

Gene: 52:11

yeah, yeah. Trans women are women just because they're just, cause they're telling you that's what it is. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Ben: 52:18

Ignore what you see, ignore what you know to be true. It's what we say.

Gene: 52:24

but it's not even ignoring visually. It's, it's

Ben: 52:29

like we, we use the example all too often, but Blair White and Buck Angel, right? They, they visually do not represent anything other than

Gene: 52:38

exactly. And, but it's beyond just the fact that they have physical appearances correspond. It's also Blair, her whole life has been trying to act like a woman and not in the phony pretend way that the the, yeah, Dylan Mulvaney is that's a parody of women. Oh, I cry all day long. I'm a girl now. You know what? No, but Blair is very much been acting and not just, and doing everything she can to look like a woman. Same thing with Buck in the opposite direction. You know, the dude was buff and working out, and had bigger muscles than most guys for a long time. Now, Buck's getting up there in years. But, um, that's the thing. It's it's, it's beyond just appearance. But when you have somebody that completely does not give a shit about their appearance, And like the characters in this movie has a literal beard and then calls himself a woman

Ben: 53:42

a female athlete.

Gene: 53:43

and then does not, not only does that look like a woman, but does not act like a woman, then you've got to be fucked in the head if you believe that that's a woman.

Ben: 53:57

I Mean, but to quote the little girl from the movie, daddy Ladies can have beards.

Gene: 54:03

Yeah

Ben: 54:03

which that I thought the, the, the teacher scene was hilarious too. And the, the whole movie, it, it's, it's. It's such a good, it, if it wasn't such an accurate parody of life,

Gene: 54:17

it's still be a good movie, but it's still be a good movie though. I mean, it's, it's just a cute nineties movie.

Ben: 54:22

Right, but, you know, the reason why it's funny is because we see this happening in our real world and they're heightening and pointing out the absurdity of what is going on.

Gene: 54:33

If this was made in the 90s, Steve Martin would have played Jeremy's character.

Ben: 54:38

Yes, absolutely. Or what's the other guy? Plays in a lot of roles with Steve Martin. Shorter guy.

Gene: 54:49

Martin Short?

Ben: 54:51

Yes, there we go.

Gene: 54:52

Yeah. Short haircut. Martin Short, one of the most under, um, what's the word? Like he's not given enough credit.

Ben: 55:05

Yeah, underrated.

Gene: 55:06

Underrated guys.

Ben: 55:07

Yeah Steve Martin is one of the underrated banjo players of the world

Gene: 55:11

He is an excellent bench player, but I don't know if he's underrated. He's in the Hall of Fame. Mm

Ben: 55:17

Yeah he's got some great music. Daddy Played the Banjo is a fantastic song.

Gene: 55:24

Yeah, how hard do you think it is to play a banjo? I've been thinking of maybe getting the banjo. Mm

Ben: 55:28

Uh, it's about a guitar in a lot of ways but you've got quicker movements a few more strings. I mean, it's just different. I

Gene: 55:37

Wait, more strings? How many strings does a banjo have?

Ben: 55:40

think it depends on the type of banjo, and it also depends on the type of guitar you're

Gene: 55:43

I thought they had four strings or something.

Ben: 55:46

No,

Gene: 55:47

have more than that? I don't even

Ben: 55:48

Five string,

Gene: 55:49

Five string? Yeah, so it's less than a guitar. Yeah.

Ben: 55:52

depending. There are four, five, and more. There's also four string guitars.

Gene: 55:59

Okay, Mr. Edge Exception Case. Okay. Just saying, I'm not totally wrong because one exists. I've seen one in a museum. Alright, any more about this movie?

Ben: 56:12

My, I, I, I am gonna spoil my favorite line from the movie that has nothing to do with the plot and therefore, fuck off. But my favorite line in the movie was when the two brothers were fighting and one picks up the other and is about to body slam him and says, you're on Epstein's Island and you know too much.

Gene: 56:31

Mm hmm,

Ben: 56:32

That was a great little throwaway reference that, if you got it. It's hilarious, right?

Gene: 56:39

Yeah, and the brothers are total typical 90s

Ben: 56:42

Oh yeah.

Gene: 56:43

characters where they're constantly bickering with each other non stop. Yeah,

Ben: 56:48

And their conception story is hilarious. And the fact that it repeats, its, I mean, it's, it's a nineties comedy. It's, it's so formulaically a nineties comedy. Yeah.

Gene: 56:58

yep. But that's what makes there's built in nostalgia even though it's a brand new movie.

Ben: 57:05

Yeah. We got the member berries going on

Gene: 57:08

Oh total memories.

Ben: 57:10

Miba fucking

Gene: 57:12

I am looking forward to this cartoon. I'm also looking forward to their fantasy Series that they get happening

Ben: 57:20

Yeah. And apparently they're doing a snow white where what's her name's gonna play Snow White.

Gene: 57:26

Yeah, what's her name? She's pretty good at that.

Ben: 57:28

Brett Cooper. Yeah.

Gene: 57:29

Yeah, she's she actually knows how to sing. She's got a decent voice. I've actually heard recordings of her singing, and

Ben: 57:38

When she gets made up, she's, she's attractive. Mm hmm.

Gene: 57:42

She's got, I think she's good at being an actress because she can go in either direction with her look. Like, when she was playing the hot model chick for Jeremy's Chocolate, Almost unrecognizable that it's her, because she looks like a fucking, you know, tall model esque looking chick. And then in this movie, she looked absolutely ridiculous with that huge wig, um, playing a newscaster. Doesn't look anything like her, looks totally ridiculous. And then in Snow White, with her black hair pulled back, uh, and I guess they colored her hair, they dyed her hair black for that. Because it's normally kind of dark brown, but they went like pure black, just like the cartoon. Just like Disney intended, man. And

Ben: 58:29

by the way.

Gene: 58:30

who's 5'5

Ben: 58:31

Brett Cooper.

Gene: 58:32

No, no, she's taller than that.

Ben: 58:35

According to Google.

Gene: 58:36

Yeah, that's not correct. No, she's taller than that. But, she loo dude, she's like a head taller than Jeremy and Jeremy is 5'6

Ben: 58:46

He's a short guy,

Gene: 58:47

He's 5'6 He's

Ben: 58:48

Yeah, short.

Gene: 58:49

He's average male.

Ben: 58:51

No, average male in the U. S. is like 5'8

Gene: 58:54

You know, he's average male of the world. Anyway,

Ben: 58:59

Oh. Mm

Gene: 59:00

is like easily a head taller than him if you watch him next to each other. Hey, yeah, she's almost the same height as Ben and Ben is 6'1

Ben: 59:10

So she was in parental guidance. As a uncredited part,

Gene: 59:15

Okay.

Ben: 59:16

I'm just saying she a movie from early, mid 2000s

Gene: 59:20

Hmm. Yeah. She's done a bunch of movies. They've all been bit parts though.

Ben: 59:24

Yeah,

Gene: 59:26

Yeah. It's anyway I, I, unfortunately, as you said, they don't have this on pay per view. So the only way to watch the movie right now is to fork over, you could do a one month, you could fork over one monthly fee, which I think is 15 bucks or something

Ben: 59:43

It depends on the level and they've got different skews, but yeah,

Gene: 59:47

I think that's the cheapest way to see the movie, is just a one month of DailyWare

Ben: 59:51

yeah, but, you know, I think it's worth it.

Gene: 59:55

I think it was worth signing up for a year, which is what I did, but,

Ben: 59:59

Yeah there's other things I want to watch on there, so it works out for me,

Gene: 1:00:03

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:00:03

but, you know, I, I've got a lot of these little one off there's a little something I want there, a little something I want there or.

Gene: 1:00:10

Cycle, that's what it is. So that's their other show that's coming, that they've been filming, out in Croatia, which is like a TV series around the Arthurian days, and Brett Cooper's, yeah, and Brett Cooper's in that one as well. She plays a chick, apparently.

Ben: 1:00:30

Shocker.

Gene: 1:00:32

Yeah,

Ben: 1:00:33

Alright, so you had asked me a question that you wanted to talk about on the show via text

Gene: 1:00:39

What was that?

Ben: 1:00:40

about Taiwan.

Gene: 1:00:42

Oh, Taiwan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Question. And this is like a hypothetical theoretical exercise. Because we've heard a lot that US has to protect Taiwan because they manufacture 90 percent of all of the high end CPU, GPU, CPU chips, blah, blah, blah. Is Taiwan Worth American Lives, American Dead Lives if it doesn't have any manufacturing capability for these chips.

Ben: 1:01:10

Um, so first, first of all, I don't think we should be involved in foreign wars at all.

Gene: 1:01:17

Totally agreed. Okay. With that, set that

Ben: 1:01:20

also don't think we should make ourselves dependent upon foreign trading partners.

Gene: 1:01:24

Okay. Set that as well aside,

Ben: 1:01:26

Alright, but we have. So if you want. The US economy and our way of life to continue trade with Taiwan cannot cease if it does, then all manufacturing downstream ceases because it's not necessarily the computer chips that you're thinking about in your laptop or whatever else. Most of those are actually US manufacturers.

Gene: 1:01:54

Mm. Not really.

Ben: 1:01:56

What do you mean?

Gene: 1:01:57

Not for GPUs.

Ben: 1:01:59

I said CPUs, but okay, go on. Anyway and some of that is changing and, you know, largely the military industrial complex has Maxima integrated and some other chip manufacturers here in the U. S. that they can and do use. You know, from those standpoints, we're okay, but it's the chip in your car that when you roll your window up, you double tap it and it rolls all the way up versus having to hold it right, that those are actually chips these days and not like relays. We've lost a lot of the electromechanical engineering capacity in the U. S. Part of that's actually due to CAFE standards set by the EPA. so A large portion of your car has gone computer controlled, not really out of necessity, but for weight. Anyway the whole point is if Taiwan were to be attacked by China or that trade interrupted, it would have Devastating effects on the US economy and manufacturing downstream. And we cannot allow that you take that away. Like suddenly the U S has its own chip production and so on. And yeah, Taiwan is no longer something we're fighting over.

Gene: 1:03:17

So that's my. Assessment as well is that if Taiwan does not have the factories for the chips, then it's going to be a hard sell to convince American voters that 20 year old Americans dying overseas to save Taiwan is a good thing.

Ben: 1:03:42

Agreed.

Gene: 1:03:43

So given that, I don't think this is a hard conclusion to come to. Were I China, the first action of an invasion. Is to destroy the factories.

Ben: 1:03:56

You're wrong.

Gene: 1:03:58

What am I wrong about?

Ben: 1:03:59

Because as soon as you destroy those factories, you have. Declared war on the U. S. and impacted the U. S. way of life. Dramatic. Yes, it does. Because now it's an entirely different argument. It's because China destroyed our way of life and now we're going to go fuck up China.

Gene: 1:04:15

No, no, no. It's, it's not about fucking up China. It's about dead Americans because this is people are worried about being misgendered today. They're going to be a lot more worried about losing their lives. Do you think any of these 20 something year olds are going to volunteer to go? There'll be zero volunteers. That's my point. I think there'll be zero volunteers. We're going to reinstate the draft. We're going to have to use people who don't want to be there, have been brought up, incapable of being in a high stress environment, and we're going to spend nine months to change their behavior. And again, I don't, I don't think, I don't think America's prepared to do

Ben: 1:05:02

I don't know, man. I think if China were to invade Taiwan and destroy its capacity for semiconductors, A, I think China is not going to do that because shooting themselves economically in the foot. And I

Gene: 1:05:13

Nope. That's not why China wants Taiwan.

Ben: 1:05:16

I understand why China wants Taiwan.

Gene: 1:05:18

for literally. Almost a century getting there.

Ben: 1:05:22

Yes, I know. And that's why it's Taipei, Taiwan. Got it. Anyway, the whole point here, though, is I think if the U. S., if China did that, And he took that off the board as a, first of all, I don't think they are going to, but let's,

Gene: 1:05:38

Yeah, no, it's like I said, brain. Yeah,

Ben: 1:05:41

Yeah I, the, the U. S. is going to immediately retaliate because we are in a position of economic dependence on that and that would be an act of war.

Gene: 1:05:50

We can retaliate, but there's a difference between retaliating and going to war and retaliation can happen by

Ben: 1:05:56

at that point. I mean, at that point, it is, we are taking out the majority of your surface fleet, China.

Gene: 1:06:07

Yeah. We don't have that capability, so that ain't going to

Ben: 1:06:09

We do.

Gene: 1:06:10

We really don't. But,

Ben: 1:06:12

Okay.

Gene: 1:06:14

But again, it's easy to launch missiles. It's a lot

Ben: 1:06:19

gone down the rabbit hole of the SR 72?

Gene: 1:06:23

Not as deep as you. I mean, I, I think that that is a, it's a PR piece for Lockheed.

Ben: 1:06:29

I don't think so.

Gene: 1:06:32

Yeah.

Ben: 1:06:33

I'm, I'm, I, I think you were overestimating the capacity of China and underestimating the capacity of the U S

Gene: 1:06:41

It's SR 72 is not a U S project. It's a Lockheed project.

Ben: 1:06:45

No, it was a private project for many years and then got picked up.

Gene: 1:06:50

Really? Where'd you read that?

Ben: 1:06:51

Oh, a couple of places.

Gene: 1:06:53

I've never seen that anywhere.

Ben: 1:06:55

Yep. SR 72 apparently has been picked up since about 2014.

Gene: 1:07:00

Where does it say that?

Ben: 1:07:01

I Don't know. There's a couple of

Gene: 1:07:03

Then it doesn't exist

Ben: 1:07:04

I'll send you some links.

Gene: 1:07:06

mean, if it's not in the in the yearly annual report for the stockholders from my key, that doesn't happen

Ben: 1:07:12

sure. Black budget stuff never happens.

Gene: 1:07:15

Black budget on the receiving end shows up in stock reports. You may not have details, but you should see a bump in their revenues. Did you see a bump in the revenues in 2014?

Ben: 1:07:27

I'll send you some links.

Gene: 1:07:30

Yeah. Crackpot links don't count, dude.

Ben: 1:07:32

It's not Crackpot

Gene: 1:07:33

Okay. All right. We'll

Ben: 1:07:35

It's

Gene: 1:07:35

I mean,

Ben: 1:07:36

Wayback Machine and Lockheed Martin's website.

Gene: 1:07:40

I've seen their website.

Ben: 1:07:41

You have not gone down the rabbit hole I have, my

Gene: 1:07:44

No, I definitely have that. It'd be a cool plane. I look again, technologically, I think it's super cool. I, I want this thing to exist and be real, but I think that the opportunity for selling this thing and promoting it more is something that mostly benefits like and I think this is why when the the budgets started drying up. fOr military development, they just stopped working at it and mothballed it.

Ben: 1:08:20

Okay, I don't think that's the case.

Gene: 1:08:22

Yeah. We'll see. We'll

Ben: 1:08:24

All I can say is that the information we've gotten very much follows SR 71 esque amounts of information,

Gene: 1:08:34

The other reason that,

Ben: 1:08:36

existed for a long time.

Gene: 1:08:38

We didn't, but that had a practical purpose. I don't think there's a practical purpose for a hypersonic human airplane. You're much better off

Ben: 1:08:46

okay, and why do you think it's human?

Gene: 1:08:50

nO, if it's a drone, that makes a lot more sense. If it's, if there's a human. Here's why I think why it's

Ben: 1:08:55

the drone, they have to do the demonstrate, the test pilot. Here's why they're doing a human. Testing phase, um, because an autonomous drone requires a much more stable flight parameters.

Gene: 1:09:11

it doesn't need to be autonomous. It could be fly by wire

Ben: 1:09:14

okay, yeah, yeah, okay, anyway, test pilots in the seat have a different feel and the human element is is, is real, right? Humans can compute more. You can't take everything into account. Having a human body and human sensors there is better than fly by wire. Sorry.

Gene: 1:09:35

I would say the opposite but go ahead

Ben: 1:09:37

Okay. Every. Every test pilot program, every test program for any new device uses humans as the

Gene: 1:09:46

put they did not put humans into predators to figure out how to build a predator

Ben: 1:09:50

But the Predator wasn't anything new.

Gene: 1:09:54

There was no humans flying on the predator That's all I'm saying because you're making the argument

Ben: 1:09:58

Predator was a derivative technology. This is new technology.

Gene: 1:10:02

I thought this is derivative from sr71.

Ben: 1:10:05

No, this is new. The engines are new.

Gene: 1:10:09

Yeah

Ben: 1:10:10

The engines are drastically new. In fact, what I've gone down the rabbit hole and what they're saying they're doing and what it looks like they're doing is astonishingly new and different. But, anyway, regardless, whether it's a manned aircraft or not, whether it ends up being one

Gene: 1:10:26

manned aircraft. I if they if they have a cyber sonic drone That's totally within the realm of possibility for me But a man hypersonic plane makes no fucking sense at all.

Ben: 1:10:37

doesn't it make sense to you?

Gene: 1:10:39

because you already, before you get to hypersonic are pushing the bounds of human tolerance, which means the plane has, yes, you are the plane because a human can't be alive at the G's that the plane can perfectly find withstand,

Ben: 1:10:58

Okay.

Gene: 1:10:59

do it. And with hypersonic, you're looking at 30, 40, 50 G's.

Ben: 1:11:04

No, no, it

Gene: 1:11:05

And a

Ben: 1:11:05

on your acceleration curves, and it,

Gene: 1:11:08

no, it doesn't depend on your acceleration curves. It depends on your ability.

Ben: 1:11:12

times acceleration.

Gene: 1:11:13

my God, dude. When you fucking listen, before you open your mouth and talk,

Ben: 1:11:18

You

Gene: 1:11:18

G's are generated by turning, not by accelerating.

Ben: 1:11:23

That is an acceleration, that's a change in acceleration. Acceleration is a vector.

Gene: 1:11:28

Yeah. In vector acceleration. The plane is capable of doing that. And the faster you go, the less energy it takes to have a high G vector change.

Ben: 1:11:38

Correct, because you're overcoming a moment of

Gene: 1:11:41

Yeah, exactly, and so with the human body, not being able to withstand anywhere near those, I mean, for a split second, maybe you can push 25 G's, but it's not for very long, man, and you're not going to want to have somebody who has to actually compute things while they're anywhere near those G's. So it's one thing landing.

Ben: 1:12:06

gonna do any G's.

Gene: 1:12:08

Yeah, exactly. And that plane is never going to fly in a straight line, given what you would use a hypersonic plane for. Okay, that's not true. Maybe to get from point A to point B, you'd be flying pretty straight. But that's not a good reason to build a hypersonic plane. A good reason for that is to be faster than your enemy's defenses. And that requires turning. You can still get shot down if you're going in a straight line, even at high speed.

Ben: 1:12:33

71 didn't. SR

Gene: 1:12:35

SNR 71 did, it was shut

Ben: 1:12:39

was never shot down.

Gene: 1:12:40

There was one

Ben: 1:12:41

of the U 2.

Gene: 1:12:42

Okay. You know, you're right. Yeah, you're right. So SNR 71 didn't, you two did. But again the advantage they had there was that the technology really wasn't existent from missiles being able to hit the thing at the altitude that it was flying. They didn't have the propellant to do that.

Ben: 1:12:59

No, no, no. U 2 was the high flyer that you know, was trying to fly out high enough to avoid missiles. SR 71 was literally outrunning them. But, regardless, what it comes down to is, I don't think that the eventual combat variant Is going, if you want my conspiracy theory mind gene, um, based off the research I've done, I think the SR 72, a manned variant Israel I think right now it's probably about the size of a F 22. I think they're getting that down on the engine size. That's another reason is engine, you know, getting the engine design and efficiency down, but I think this is not going to be a drone that is normally flown at all, right? This is not a drone that you fly to go do reconnaissance or shit like that. Because of the wear on the engines, these engines, the way they're designing them is they are expendable parts. Essentially, they, they can work a few times and then it's a

Gene: 1:13:58

are these ramp jets or what are they using?

Ben: 1:14:01

It's, it's a hybrid between a normal, you know, a turbo fan jet engine. And then transition at around mock three to a ramjet scramjet style engine. And the reason why I'm saying ramjet and scramjet, because those are two different technologies is because it's kind of an intermediate stage where there's a blocker creating subsonic air going in to, you know, transition all the way over to ramjet because ramjet requires faster than mark four really to be functional and so on. So there's this transition that has to occur. Regardless, what I think they're going to do with this, what I think the technology is going to be is Russia and China are developing these hypersonic missiles, um, that are fairly expensive for missiles that you know, how do I put this? You're putting a hell of a lot of engine on something that's going to blow up versus being able to load up a drone with fairly standard ordinance. Fly it into space

Gene: 1:15:06

hmm

Ben: 1:15:06

with stealth, very close to the enemy, very fast, even if they can detect you and fire off normal ordinance at very close range where your missile defense isn't going to have any sort of shot. You know, and worst case scenario, you make it a kamikaze and it's. It's an explosive itself, but yeah, I think that's the direction the U. S. military is

Gene: 1:15:28

There's not a whole lot to shoot down it and incidentally this our 71 fluid 80, 000 feet So I don't know what you're talking about how it's not up high.

Ben: 1:15:37

Oh, it went high, but it wasn't, that wasn't its defense.

Gene: 1:15:41

well as

Ben: 1:15:42

U 2, the U 2's only defense was its height of

Gene: 1:15:45

the US twos only defense was that this or someone had both speed and altitude and it needs the altitude to get to the speed because it can't do anywhere. He can't even do a mock anywhere near sea level. Like you have to be in thin air to get to mark two,

Ben: 1:16:02

and the reason why is because of the pressure wave that builds up on the hull.

Gene: 1:16:06

Yeah. It's the air is too thick. You're going to, you're going to melt.

Ben: 1:16:10

There's additional friction, but it's also pressure because of that density of the air.

Gene: 1:16:16

so I mean, again, I think that this is one of the things that is kind of neat about the hypersonic missiles. I don't know much about the Chinese ones. I've looked at the Russian ones a lot more than the Chinese. I know China's got them, but I really haven't looked at the specs on them, but this is one of the cool things about the Russian ones is the low altitude at which they're able to do over Mach five. And it's, it's exotic materials and you're absolutely right. They're very expensive.

Ben: 1:16:44

And again, this is why I think having the hypersonic portion of the platform being reusable, more reusable, at least is a big deal and a very big difference maker in from a strategic standpoint. So I, I think the U S absolutely has a hypersonic program. Trump under the Trump administration,

Gene: 1:17:06

we absolutely do. We know we do, but we have a missile program. I don't know that we have an

Ben: 1:17:10

we have a, I think we have a platform program and I think it's pretty damn obvious. I think a lot of the rest of it is FUD.

Gene: 1:17:19

There's definitely a lot of FUD in in that whole industry.

Ben: 1:17:23

Absolutely.

Gene: 1:17:25

But yeah, I mean, it's then, then I'm kind of rooting for a war then, cause that's when they would roll out the new plane and I want to check it out. That's that's how we got to see the F 117s. That's why, how we got to see the, the stealth bomber. It's, you know, they all show up when there's a war.

Ben: 1:17:45

our right before one.

Gene: 1:17:47

Which is a, ultimately, that's the point of American Wars is it's a marketing opportunity to sell more industrial military complex shit to the rest of the world.

Ben: 1:17:56

Yeah. It's interesting that the, the, you know, the stealth fighter which wasn't really a fighter, but anyway,

Gene: 1:18:02

Yeah, it was really a mini bomber.

Ben: 1:18:03

yeah, but it's very interesting that it has seen as much and as long of a service as it has.

Gene: 1:18:10

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:18:11

Given the crap technology that it had,

Gene: 1:18:15

Yeah.

Ben: 1:18:16

I'm surprised

Gene: 1:18:17

have anything

Ben: 1:18:17

other countries haven't bought it as a cheap alternative.

Gene: 1:18:22

Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

Ben: 1:18:24

I mean, because it is capable of air to air, like the F4, right? Missiles only, but it could do air to air, air to ground. And, you know, Why is Saudi Arabia buying F 22, F 35s versus something cheaper like that, you know?

Gene: 1:18:43

It does look cooler than both of those other two.

Ben: 1:18:46

I disagree. The F 22 is an awesome plane. The F

Gene: 1:18:49

I would, I think the F 117 is a beautiful plane. I love shit that looks like it shouldn't be able to fly.

Ben: 1:18:56

yes, you, you, you are a man of the 80s.

Gene: 1:18:59

That thing looks like a, a fuck you. I know I got that now. But it, it, it really reminds me of the Tesla truck.

Ben: 1:19:08

Exactly. It's fucking ugly.

Gene: 1:19:12

Hey man. Although

Ben: 1:19:14

Gene likes vehicles that look, that look like the video games he played as a kid.

Gene: 1:19:20

yeah, what's wrong with that?

Ben: 1:19:22

Just saying.

Gene: 1:19:24

Yes, I do like those vehicles. So the SR 71 though is an absolutely beautiful plane

Ben: 1:19:31

Oh, absolutely.

Gene: 1:19:32

I've seen a few of those in person and it's just fucking amazing that it's, it got to be built and got to be actually used because it, it literally, it could have been just an art piece and it still would have been awesome. It's just such a, a cool thing. Um, yeah, we'll see, I guess, you know, time will tell, but I just have a hard time seeing, using Occam's Razor, that the U. S. would spend the money and have any real benefit from a manned hypersonic vehicle.

Ben: 1:20:13

I think the, the reason why you have a manned vehicle upfront is again, testing, being able to go through and manually control and manually observe the transition, especially going from, you know, basically fan jet engine to a ramjet. And the transition thereof, and I think pretty much any new aerospace technology has always had man test flights

Gene: 1:20:43

That's completely not the case, dude. Most rocketry has been unmanned, and they only put man on there once the thing is fully validated. You know, it's, it's there's very little chance of explosion,

Ben: 1:20:57

Yes, when they're doing derivative technology, not initial development.

Gene: 1:21:02

Starship. Hello.

Ben: 1:21:04

Starship is derivative technology.

Gene: 1:21:07

Okay. What, what do you mean by derivative? Then you have to define your terms

Ben: 1:21:12

What, what, what are they doing new other than scale and size that hasn't been done before?

Gene: 1:21:17

for Starship while they're using brand new engines across the board for everything

Ben: 1:21:23

Okay. But there's, but rocket engines are not a new there's again, the, there has never been a Ramjet or scramjet aircraft flown other than some test demonstrators that were literally taken up and dropped and fired off just to test the engine, right? That, so there have

Gene: 1:21:46

Oh, Oh, Oh, hold on. Were those man that you're describing that you're describing?

Ben: 1:21:50

no, but that wasn't an aircraft. That was just an engine test. But anyway, I. I, I'm just telling you, I, I know how the government works, and I just think that's the direction

Gene: 1:22:00

You should know how the government works being part of it. So that makes total sense to me. Okay. And of course that plane made an appearance in Top Gun, which is why everybody thinks it actually exists now.

Ben: 1:22:11

No, I, I don't think that, that, I, anyway.

Gene: 1:22:15

not saying you think that I'm saying everybody that makes the websites that you're looking at thinks that's the case. But as far as us unmanned hypersonic, that's absolutely happening. I have no doubts about that. Us would be stupid not to pursue that given that literally every country that has a military budget is pursuing that right now.

Ben: 1:22:35

Huh.

Gene: 1:22:37

Fuckin Iran is pursuing that right now. So absolutely USS.

Ben: 1:22:42

Huh.

Gene: 1:22:44

All right. What else we get?

Ben: 1:22:46

I don't know man, what you got to talk

Gene: 1:22:48

We kind of jumped Before I finish talking about the goggles. We just talked about the the cheap version So that on the flip side the opposite edge of the extreme

Ben: 1:22:58

Huh.

Gene: 1:22:58

You're now getting to the point where you have high resolution goggles coming in at about six thousand dollars And these are greater than 4k per eyeball, um, VR goggles and, uh, quite a bit thicker than the first type that I decided that I described, which just, you know, basically are, uh, more evolutions of Google

Ben: 1:23:25

like the Apple version and everything

Gene: 1:23:27

the apple 1 is over 4k per eye and there's a couple more at least 1 other brand with 2 models that have resolutions over 4k per eye. And at that point, you are really hard pressed to be able to tell what you're looking at is is an image versus reality, um, when they capture, uh, your, your entire. Space in front of your eyes and there's no light bleed anywhere. You know, the fidelity is there.

Ben: 1:24:04

Yeah, I mean, depending on rendering and motion and everything else, I mean, you got to keep that image up at. Speed, which is the difficult part,

Gene: 1:24:14

Yeah. And anything over 60 frames feels pretty close. Now in the tests that I've seen done some of the top gamers out there, the competitive video gamers, they can still tell a difference between 144 Hertz and 200 Hertz refresh. But anything over 200. No human can tell the difference. So if right now I think they're running at 144 on those displays, but if you can get it up above that, uh, and incidentally on OLEDs, it's not really, it's not really refreshing the traditional sense that you think of because they're not, they're

Ben: 1:24:54

right? It's, it's more like a plasma refresh,

Gene: 1:24:57

Yeah.

Ben: 1:24:58

like a plasma screen and an OLED screen are actually similar technologies in their way. The display functions in a lot of ways, a plasma literally had three lights per pixel. So there was a, you know, red, green, blue light per pixel, and then actually more, more than that. But anyway because the, some of the later plasmas had multiple. RGB combinations per pixel and everything else. And plasma technology was so good in so many ways. I don't know why we abandoned it, but OLED functions very similarly in that you can control each individual pixel

Gene: 1:25:35

Yeah, and they can stay on indefinitely. And then, you know, the refresh is really only how often it checks whether or not to turn on or off. It's not, it's not the sort of, yeah. Per pixel. Exactly. Yeah,

Ben: 1:25:52

traditional CRT or anything you have a scan, right? That it's going through and rendering on each one. And you essentially have something similar that happens on OLEDs and everything else is just. It's different the way it works. Mm hmm. Mm

Gene: 1:26:08

it's it's a difference between updating versus re relighting essentially. So anyway, bottom line with these is they, they. Should look almost as though you're just looking through glass, like out the window. So it's something may not look quite as sharp as it does if you look at it right in front of your face. But it should, it should all look no worse than you looking through a window glass. And I've not used one of those, but I definitely would love to try it. I mean, that's,

Ben: 1:26:44

just not gonna spend the money on that.

Gene: 1:26:45

Oh, yeah. I'm not either. I mean, that's when you're talking about five grand for an accessory to a computer Yeah, that's a whole different kind of money.

Ben: 1:26:55

Yeah. So speaking of money, we had a new subscription.

Gene: 1:27:01

Oh Cool.

Ben: 1:27:03

I wanna say thank you to Will for coming in. 3 a month. Appreciate that. We have to decide and talk about at some point if people give a crap about anonymity. I didn't use his last name even though I have it because of that. So if y'all care about that, please let us know otherwise, you know, we'll appreciate it, man. I'm not using your last name because I don't want to out you in case you don't want to be. So

Gene: 1:27:30

and and I I think I mentioned this a couple of shows ago and then I just mentioned it on my other show unrelenting and it I really Want to re mention it on this show is that I've still got a whole bunch of the, the ponchos I'm selling on Amazon and I'd be happy to send

Ben: 1:27:52

selling on Amazon.

Gene: 1:27:53

that I'm trying not to sell because I lose money in every sale. I'm happy to send a poncho to any donation of 50 or greater. And so just make sure that if, if you donate, uh, 50 bucks, that you don't just. Provide your name, but you also provide a shipping address for where you'd like your poncho ship. I'm probably just going to use like a flat rate priority mail envelope because they're soft. I think that'll be the cheapest way for me to do it, but maybe it'll be cheaper UPS or something. But either way if you do the nation of 50 bucks or more, you will get a poncho, which normally I think on Amazon, we have them listed for 15 bucks.

Ben: 1:28:35

tHere you go.

Gene: 1:28:37

There you go. There's a A free gift for people that would like to donate. So I guess I should probably stop saying don't donate because do donate and donate 50 or more. Cause then you'll get something for it.

Ben: 1:28:51

Yeah you know, but the sustaining donations, like we've got a couple of subscriptions that have come in through Buzzsprout and, you know, what's nice about that. And I appreciate it is, you know, it, it takes out the hosting fees and everything else for us. So makes it at least not a drain to do the podcast.

Gene: 1:29:11

exactly. And that's the way that those particular types of donations that are right. Coming through bus route is they credit the the expense of hosting first and foremost, before they give you anything. So it kind of just becomes cheaper for us to host a podcast and then if there's enough people doing there, then they will actually cut the check. But at the very least they're reducing the hosting fees.

Ben: 1:29:35

Which is, again, nice.

Gene: 1:29:37

Yeah, I think that's a, it's certainly nice to to think that people enjoy the conversation enough to make a donation. And I think they like the they like it when we get into adversarial positions on topics

Ben: 1:29:55

You mean like you being wrong about Taiwan?

Gene: 1:29:58

But how am I wrong in Taiwan? I said, if this and this happens, which it probably won't.

Ben: 1:30:04

I, I do have a, I do have a topic that we need to come, we need to go back to before we wrap up.

Gene: 1:30:10

Okay.

Ben: 1:30:11

Henry Kissinger finally fuckin died.

Gene: 1:30:13

that's right. Yeah. I mean,

Ben: 1:30:16

I haven't been this excited since George Bush died.

Gene: 1:30:20

mean, I'm not really, I'm certainly no fan of Kissinger, but I think he was a an asshole in a lot of different ways. And he contributed to where we are with China today. For sure. But I also kind of forgot that he was alive. So hearing that he died is kind of like reminding me that he was alive, which I would have rather just not been reminded that he was still alive.

Ben: 1:30:45

No, see, I, I, I view him and George H. W. Bush very much the same. Evil wizards that did a lot to fuck up the world. And I am not sad to see them go.

Gene: 1:30:59

Oh, I'm not sad either. I just, like I said, I don't know that I needed to be reminded about him. That's all. And he, to me, he was kind of in the same category, although not, not really from the money standpoint, obviously as George Soros, he was another self hating Jew who who basically. Was, saw himself as an elitist, first and foremost, as a, an American, you know, somewhere down the list, and and, and frankly, has been quoted as saying that if I wouldn't have been born to my parents, I probably would have been an anti Semite. I'm like, Jesus Christ, you're the fucking asshole. It's, I, I don't care what background you're from, whether you're Italian or anything else. And you say, God, if I wasn't born to my parents, you know, I'd be a total racist to Italians. What, what is wrong with you? buT I think that's a typical attitude of a lot of the elitists is they, they see themselves as not being part of humanity and certainly not being part of any ethnic group that they happen to have been born into or religious group. Their parents are in they'd see themselves as better than all of that and really of the ones that are Deserving to make all the decisions about humanity. It's the prototypical James Bond villain stereotype

Ben: 1:32:26

You know, it's the Spooky Dude. And Spooky Dude 2. 0.

Gene: 1:32:31

Yeah,

Ben: 1:32:31

that was my introduction to George Soros, was Glenn Beck back in the day. Spooky dude.

Gene: 1:32:36

is that what he called him I didn't know

Ben: 1:32:37

Yeah, that was Glenn Beck, back when he was on Fox and doing the

Gene: 1:32:41

drawing the whiteboards,

Ben: 1:32:42

all that. Yeah, whiteboards, whatever. Back when Glenn Beck was based and you had Napolitano doing freedom stuff on there and shit, he actually had something. Occasionally. Occasionally he'll pop up and do

Gene: 1:32:57

do you subscribe to him? Okay,

Ben: 1:33:00

I have never paid for the Blaze.

Gene: 1:33:03

so you're, you're not like Darren with his whole subscription to O'Han, O'Reilly. Yeah.

Ben: 1:33:08

Not at all.

Gene: 1:33:09

Which I just, I think it's, I think it's mostly cause his name starts with the letter O,

Ben: 1:33:15

Oh, oh, O'Reilly auto

Gene: 1:33:18

auto parts. Exactly.

Ben: 1:33:20

I think.

Gene: 1:33:21

That's totally what I think of as well.

Ben: 1:33:23

No, I, I, I, I will listen to some of his expert excerpts here or there. And sometimes he has some really good guests on his podcast.

Gene: 1:33:32

I think he does a good job on his podcast from what I've seen people on there.

Ben: 1:33:35

yeah. And I, I will say this. Some of Glenn Beck's books are actually pretty good.

Gene: 1:33:43

neVer running him.

Ben: 1:33:44

I, I've recommended a few, but you know, there's some good things out there and he's done some good things here or there, but again, I, I'm more worried about people like Glenn Beck and daily wire being controlled opposition than anything else. Because they're milk toast enough and they don't, they put up out enough to get people's attention and you

Gene: 1:34:03

So this is an interesting question that I've run into and it's annoying as fuck to me is every time I, I think we're making some forward momentum and by we, I mean, the libertarians that I've been a part of for most of my life. There's some push forward in libertarianism, like what's happened with the the recent elections in Argentina, it doesn't take more than 2 seconds for some schmo no agenda social. Say, ah, that's just controlled opposition. That's what they want you to think. It's all being run by the elites. I'm like, you have literally zero evidence of that, but it's the first go to for a lot of these yahoos that immediately, and it's same thing for for rum Swami, ah, control oppositions. Can't trust them. He's clearly run by the elites just to steal your vote.

Ben: 1:34:58

yeah. Again, I said, I worry that.

Gene: 1:35:03

I'm not saying you're one of those. I'm saying like, there's a shit ton of them. Those are the social.

Ben: 1:35:08

Yeah,

Gene: 1:35:09

it is annoying to me that every time somebody actually does what we want them to do, and the we being libertarians, that immediately that person is being crucified for being controlled opposition. Immediately. And who's the real controlled opposition? The people that try to always push somebody that's doing the right thing to be labeled controlled opposition? Or is it that person themselves? Because I think that's the real control deposition. It's all the yahoos out there that will instantly try and tarnish somebody who's trying to do the right thing with a government brush.

Ben: 1:35:46

Mm hmm.

Gene: 1:35:46

So as a government agent, tell me what you think.

Ben: 1:35:50

No, I'm not a government agent.

Gene: 1:35:53

Go ahead.

Ben: 1:35:55

dude, the government wouldn't have me if, anyway. I don't know.

Gene: 1:35:58

Just what? I never nevermind. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 1:36:01

the way I take it is, even if they are a controlled opposition Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater when there's good messaging, hold up good messaging, here's the thing about controlled opposition. They can lead people astray, but they can also lead people in the right direction. And if you think someone is controlled opposition, what you need to be doing is standing by paying attention. And when someone goes, oh, man, Glenn Beck's right about this, and I'm just using him as an example, but you know, Agent Smith over there is right about this. Okay, yes, but let me show you the rest of the story and then take them down deeper down the rabbit hole and away from that in the direction that you want them to go, not just go. Oh, that's so much. He's controlled opposition. He doesn't do anything good. Okay. He's bringing some people in. So there are people still waking up. It's astonishing to me how much yeah. What a lot of us have to remember, and Gene, I don't know about you, but I run into this all the time, where there's so much background information that a lot of people don't understand and know. Like what is the council on foreign relations? What is the trilateral commission? What is the creature from Jekyll Island? You know, go back to the fed being a private institution. A lot of people don't know that a lot of people who are waking up are just waking up and they don't have any of the background and there's a big difference between the understanding you and I have versus what they have and there's a, you got to get them started somewhere and you got to bring them along slowly. It's, it's astonishing to me, the difference.

Gene: 1:37:37

I agree with all that, but how does that, I just think that people that are so fucking paranoid And that's the only two options in my mind. Either they're insanely paranoid that everybody they see that's actually agreeing with them Has to be controlled opposition, man. thAt's paranoia. That's like pot smoking paranoia, or They really are themselves controlled opposition whose whole purpose Is to be in minority conspiracy groups or podcasts, and then just put doubt into everything that actually would align with what the hosts are talking about.

Ben: 1:38:17

Yeah, I don't think that's the way a lot of agencies work, the way I've seen

Gene: 1:38:23

I wouldn't know. I'm not a government fed, so go ahead.

Ben: 1:38:26

hAving been involved in the Patriot community for a very long time, and having seeing agent provocateurs come in, um, usually the agent provocateurs are the most extreme and are the extremists and trying to get the group to go down a road that they

Gene: 1:38:47

Hey man, we should all make short barreled shotguns and stuff, right? That kind of stuff.

Ben: 1:38:55

Yeah

Gene: 1:38:55

heard of somebody who's not. Working for the government suggests that somebody else should make a short barrel shotgun.

Ben: 1:39:03

No comments. I wouldn't go down that road either way. Yeah,

Gene: 1:39:08

I just, it just seems nuts to me. Go ahead.

Ben: 1:39:11

yeah, the, the, the whole point is that's generally the way at least the FBI has gone in the past.

Gene: 1:39:19

Yeah. It's I don't know. I don't know that it matters at all, but it is one of those sort of annoyances, things that I've noticed over the last probably decade is that they, as soon as you think you're in a group of like minded people, And this includes incident, incidentally, like going to meetups with no agenda folks or, or other libertarian type groups, it is inevitable that you will start running across some people there that think anybody who gets any kind of notoriety at all, that's on your side of their argument has to be controlled opposition.

Ben: 1:40:03

okay.

Gene: 1:40:04

Yeah, I just, I think it's, it's self defeating. It's like you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot. You're literally. Winning the other side's point for them before you even have a conversation you're because you're never going to support somebody that you, that is actually making headway advancing your arguments by doing that. And,

Ben: 1:40:27

this is why I think it's less important whether or not, don't, don't worry about again, don't worry about determining whether or not someone is really. Controlled opposition or not, let's have the conversation and let's whoever they're bringing in, let's bring them the rest of the way.

Gene: 1:40:44

and I think there's a big difference between somebody again, to use the same example saying, Hey, we should all make short barrel shotguns and you start no.

Ben: 1:40:53

All right, here's mine.

Gene: 1:40:56

Yeah, or Oh, I, my saw broke, so I can't really cut mine, finish cutting my barrel, but

Ben: 1:41:01

Can I borrow yours?

Gene: 1:41:03

Yeah, or can you help me do it? And I'll just drop mine off. It's no, uh, these guys are definitely working for somebody, but, or they're just so stupid that you shouldn't be helping him anyway.

Ben: 1:41:16

yeah. By the way, one more comment on the ATF Brown v. ATF that I forgot to mention. Every lawyer, um, that I've either listened to and or talked to thinks that case is going to the Supreme Court.

Gene: 1:41:31

iT should. I mean, it's certainly, if it's going to affect cases having to do with alcohol, there should be a Supreme Court ruling on it first.

Ben: 1:41:38

I'M just telling you that every lawyer that I'm either listening to and or have talked to personally on this case. Very much thinks that that is going to the Supreme Court.

Gene: 1:41:53

Yeah they've got pretty full docket.

Ben: 1:41:56

we'll see.

Gene: 1:41:57

I mean, I'll tell you the case I want to go to the Supreme Court is the the Texas manufactured

Ben: 1:42:03

suppressor. Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready to

Gene: 1:42:07

because if I can get one without filling that form out legally, then obviously not only is it faster, but it's cheaper

Ben: 1:42:17

Mm hmm.

Gene: 1:42:18

because right now, okay. 200 bucks, not a huge amount of money on top of the cost of the suppressor. But it's still some amount of money,

Ben: 1:42:26

Mm

Gene: 1:42:26

but you also, you have to wait a minimum of six months for those things to clear.

Ben: 1:42:31

Yep. I'm just hoping that the NFA goes away. And we're seeing chips in the armor, and it sure seems like that's happening.

Gene: 1:42:42

I would love for the NFA to go away. That would be an incredible thing. I'm not counting on that happening in my lifetime because I think there, there are way too many people whose salaries depend on the NFA being in place.

Ben: 1:42:59

Okay.

Gene: 1:43:00

And I think that they're going to exert pressure to make sure it doesn't go away.

Ben: 1:43:05

We'll see. By the way, YouTuber that you turned me on to,

Gene: 1:43:10

Yeah.

Ben: 1:43:11

Risky, whatever his name is,

Gene: 1:43:14

Uh, which guy is that? I

Ben: 1:43:16

The Minute Man guy, what's his name? You're the one who sent me a link to one of his videos,

Gene: 1:43:22

Okay. I don't recall who you're talking about, but okay. What about him?

Ben: 1:43:27

I was just going to make a comment about controlled opposition.

Gene: 1:43:30

No.

Ben: 1:43:31

Risky Chris Chris, Christy. Yeah,

Gene: 1:43:34

Risky

Ben: 1:43:35

you, the getting home after ditching your vehicle is what you

Gene: 1:43:39

yeah. Okay.

Ben: 1:43:40

And anyway, he's got a whole, whole bunch of stuff on there which I'm surprised he's still allowed on YouTube. So

Gene: 1:43:50

You never know. You never know about these guys. aNd YouTube is so weird and selective when it comes to what they allow and what they ban. There are people literally doing videos on the exact same topic. And then half of them have to completely redo their videos 5 times to remove. Things that YouTube doesn't like. And then the other one's got all the shit that these guys just removed and it's perfectly fine on YouTube. Like it's clearly not a case of algorithm. It's it's humans making human decisions.

Ben: 1:44:33

yes, or influencing said algorithm and everything else. Yeah.

Gene: 1:44:37

Yeah. So I don't know, man, I

Ben: 1:44:40

By the way apparently a couple of our episodes got really popular. Have you noticed that

Gene: 1:44:45

No.

Ben: 1:44:45

we've, we've got a couple of them out there that have gotten way more downloads than any of the rest.

Gene: 1:44:50

okay. We should probably figure out what the topics were and

Ben: 1:44:53

four 43 and 44 have the most downloads of any other episodes

Gene: 1:44:59

Okay, cool.

Ben: 1:45:01

by

Gene: 1:45:02

What do you, what do you

Ben: 1:45:03

almost double on one of them.

Gene: 1:45:05

really? Wow. What do you think of my using some A. I. art on their last two episodes?

Ben: 1:45:13

You know, I it hasn't updated in my podcast player,

Gene: 1:45:16

really? You'd like when you go to the player you don't see the last two episodes having different cover art?

Ben: 1:45:21

I don't think they look like me.

Gene: 1:45:24

tHat's a different issue. Yeah, they don't look like me

Ben: 1:45:27

The 47, I think, had a, you know, more accurate one. But yeah whatever.

Gene: 1:45:34

know I just I just wanted to throw something a little a little different in there I I can go back to using the standard art

Ben: 1:45:41

Oh no, it's fine. I don't mind at all. I'm just kind of making fun more than anything else.

Gene: 1:45:47

Mm hmm. They're cartoons They're not supposed to look like you you know, they're supposed to just give a general reference to, uh, a couple of podcaster dudes to, and if you look at the guns, the guns aren't even accurate anyway,

Ben: 1:46:00

Yeah, or the, the mic sitting on the back of the laptop.

Gene: 1:46:05

or the mic sitting, that's sticking out of the back of the laptop.

Ben: 1:46:08

exactly.

Gene: 1:46:09

but again, it's, I'm not trying to make them look like realistic. Oh, you can't tell this is AI generally. I'm, I'm just literally, I want them to look like AI art. But roughly on topic. I Don't know, maybe I'll get bored and not bother doing it again, but it just seemed like it's kind of a fun little thing.

Ben: 1:46:29

No, I, I, I, Hey art changing is not a bad thing. You know, if someone wants to help Jean by generating some art and sending it our way, that's

Gene: 1:46:37

if you want to generate better quality art than I've got. I also, one of these days I'm supposed to get access to Grok, because I paid for it.

Ben: 1:46:46

Okay.

Gene: 1:46:46

Which is Elon Musk's AI. So we'll see, we'll see how that goes. I don't know if it's going to be purely text or Or if it's going to have drawing capabilities as well.

Ben: 1:47:03

Okay.

Gene: 1:47:04

What else? That's probably about

Ben: 1:47:07

but I'm gonna, yeah, I think that's, I think we've done close to two hours,

Gene: 1:47:11

Oh, I, the one thing I I, I sent you a picture of a buddy of mine that apparently met up with

Ben: 1:47:17

RFK

Gene: 1:47:18

and then I talked to another buddy of mine who's actually shooting a documentary about RFK right now.

Ben: 1:47:26

interesting choices. Wanted to get in the meeting before, you know,

Gene: 1:47:31

I Don't think RFK is going to, he's got any chance of,

Ben: 1:47:35

oh no, I meant before they killed him off.

Gene: 1:47:37

Oh, before they kill him off. Yeah, maybe, maybe.

Ben: 1:47:40

if you look at his uncle and dad and everything, the odds are pretty high. So just saying.

Gene: 1:47:47

I think that when he got the, the new CIA handler, or I mean, campaign manager, um, I think that pretty much put a coffin, put a nail in the coffin for his campaign, uh, because he seemed to have stopped popping up anywhere after that change, like he's not

Ben: 1:48:09

I don't agree. I think he's popping up all over the place for

Gene: 1:48:12

I, I've not gotten them recommended any videos at all lately.

Ben: 1:48:16

That's odd because I, I definitely have

Gene: 1:48:19

Really? So she's doing a good job. new handler. I mean, manager.

Ben: 1:48:26

might just be the milieu.

Gene: 1:48:27

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe, maybe, but either way, uh, if, if he wins, which I don't think he's going to win the nomination, but if he, if he does, that'd be interesting. But if he's going to run no matter what, as I think he said, right. If he's going to run as

Ben: 1:48:48

he's running no matter what, as a third party, he's already announced.

Gene: 1:48:52

Okay so he's not even bothering to try and seek the nomination at this point then.

Ben: 1:48:56

No, he, he recognized that the democratic party, we're not going to allow him the nomination. So he he is out.

Gene: 1:49:02

he is so he's

Ben: 1:49:03

He is third

Gene: 1:49:03

In that case there might be a chance that we can snag him to interview for the podcast.

Ben: 1:49:09

Okay. I

Gene: 1:49:10

I'll work on it. I'll work on it.

Ben: 1:49:12

go for

Gene: 1:49:13

you never know, dude.

Ben: 1:49:14

I would love to do that, but I just don't see that happening.

Gene: 1:49:17

yeah. You never know. I mean, it's Having two people that I know that now have his phone number makes it a lot easier.

Ben: 1:49:27

Although I will say our last 30 days, our last 30 day download numbers, that those would be the numbers I would give.

Gene: 1:49:35

I, no, I don't even, I mean, there's huge, I don't even know what those numbers are is what I would say.

Ben: 1:49:41

Yeah. Yeah. I I'm,

Gene: 1:49:42

but it's not, it's not about the numbers, it's about the quality of the audience. Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:49:49

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Gene: 1:49:51

At least again, that's what I would say. But yeah, you could probably come up with some questions for me, right? Mm

Ben: 1:49:57

Oh, easily.

Gene: 1:49:58

hmm.

Ben: 1:49:59

Yeah.

Gene: 1:50:01

And

Ben: 1:50:01

Yeah. I think that would be one where you and I would definitely meet and come up with a game plan beforehand and not just wing it, to be honest with you.

Gene: 1:50:10

okay. My game plan would be to wing it, but I'm happy to meet you to discuss that.

Ben: 1:50:16

Okay you can wing it. I'll actually

Gene: 1:50:18

Yeah, you, you have some

Ben: 1:50:19

questions.

Gene: 1:50:21

I mean, I like, I, I have questions like I, you know, I want to know about the the color of that little, little truck that he had in that photo. You know, important questions. Mm

Ben: 1:50:32

okay. Yeah, I, I would be all over the real Anthony Fauci book. I'd be talking to him about vaccine safety, you know, my thoughts where I've gone with my kids things like that. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm not an anti vaxxer, but I, I don't agree with the polio vaccine. I didn't give my kids the polio vaccine. There hasn't been a case of polio transmitted in the U. S. since the 1970s. Yeah. Now, if we go to go overseas, maybe. But, risk based approach, dude. Risk

Gene: 1:51:04

countries? Is there still countries that have polio?

Ben: 1:51:06

India.

Gene: 1:51:07

Oh, India still does, yeah.

Ben: 1:51:09

There's quite a few countries that still have polio. But the, the point is, I didn't, and we spaced them out, so we gave multiple weeks between shots, we tried to do no combination shots, we really looked at the adjuvants and everything else. And it was funny because when we started down that road, finding a pediatrician was pretty difficult. But we found one. And the pediatrician was like, you know what? I don't necessarily agree, but you're I, that's fine. It doesn't bug me. And then covid happened and everything. And anyway, she ended up going down the rabbit hole and now she has published her own alternate vaccine schedule and really gone down the road.

Gene: 1:51:51

Hmm.

Ben: 1:51:52

I am a little proud of helping to influence that one a little bit. So

Gene: 1:51:57

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I don't, I don't really know much about polio, other than the fact that we kind of wiped it out.

Ben: 1:52:06

I mean, not really. The drop in polio is more to do with sanitation and living more you know, standard of living than vaccination

Gene: 1:52:14

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:52:16

in my mind, but same thing with a lot of other diseases.

Gene: 1:52:20

Yeah.

Ben: 1:52:21

Anyway. Yeah. If you could, if you could pull that off, I would

Gene: 1:52:24

yeah I'm not promising anything, but I thought I'd tease at least that I'm gonna attempt to.

Ben: 1:52:27

yeah. I mean, the tempt away, man, I did, you know, you got my attention.

Gene: 1:52:34

Mm hmm. Cool. Alright, dude. It sounds good. I'll, I'll have more deets on my conference for surviving an EMP attack next week. So we'll fill you in on that and we'll talk to y'all in about a week.

Ben: 1:52:51

Yeah.