060 Just Two Good Old Boys

0:22

Hey,

Gene: 0:28

Ben, how are you today? I am recovering. Hmm. Well, you know, it's good to take that step and quit drinking once and forever. No, I got sick. Yeah. What'd you do that for? Man, um, I was just you know, in the room with a bunch of people and around a bunch of people from all over the world and I ended up sick. Hmm. Yeah. It's probably Trump's fault. I mean, if you watch the state of the union, yeah. Yeah. I will I'll say I, I took the advice of my favorite Congresswoman. And yeah, representative Luna said she is not going to support the the perversion of the American, uh, political system and therefore did not go to the event. How is it a perversion of the American because we have a non presidency now, old man there. Hey, we definitely had somebody who was senile and who was on drugs. Oh, definitely drugged up. Mm-Hmm. definitely 100% drugged up. Yeah. So you should probably watch YouTube videos like I did. Well, I, I watched the State of the Union. Mm-Hmm. So the rest of us didn't have two kids. Well, everybody should, but it, it was, it was really disappointing and disparaging to, first of all, he was slurring like crazy, um, he, he didn't go five minutes without slurring something, which he, he was on uppers or he was hopped up. He was, you know, something, whatever. The point is though, even with all that, every five minutes, if even that long, he was slurring his words. I don't know. Which, you know, I, I do enough public speaking that I, I, I, I get making mistakes and stuff like that in a speech, but this total number, like, if I gave that speech, people would be like, are you drunk? You know, if she's gay, I don't know. Well, and it'd be bad enough if he was making that speech in his last year of office. But doing it while running for four more years is insane. Well, and the fucking, oh my God, the Democrats cheering for more years, multiple times throughout the speech is just insanity. That's because they want to have Obama do 16 years total. Yeah, well, yeah, it's It's interesting. I would love to find out once some time passes and more information leaks, how much Joe got paid to be a surrogate president. Hey Gene, my audio just cut out for a second for some reason. Oh really? Oh, I didn't hear anything. Yeah, I just, I, I didn't hear you either. It just totally dropped out for a second, so sorry. Yeah, I said, I wonder how much, Biden got paid to be the surrogate president. Hey Joe, do you not want to go to jail? Do you not want Hunter to go to jail? Here, do this. You think? I think there was too many involved. I think Joe was old enough that threats wouldn't work. I don't know. And he has no great love for any of his kids. I don't know. The good son died, remember? The good son did die, but, you know, who knows. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I think there were some transactions involved there, um, but um, given his state of being, the, what normally would be considered, um, pure fantasy conspiracy That would normally be considered what? Pure fantasy conspiracy theories. I think you have to take with a little more seriousness about what, what kind of a disruptive event is going to happen between now and the election. Oh, there has to be something pretty major. Mm hmm. He, there is no way Joe Biden, if that's as hyped up as they can get him, which trust me, if, if they're going to hype him up at all, it's going to be during the state of the union in an election year. So that's as hyped up as they can get him. And you know, again, he was slurring his words every five minutes if he made it that long. So it was pretty damning. Yeah. And I just, I, I, I gotta believe that they've got some kind of a plan that ensures that they get their candidate of choice in which is not likely to be the vp, the current vp. Oh no. Probably somebody else. Yeah. There's no way Kamala is stepping in as the preferred candidates. Yeah, I think. Nobody wants from Tim has offered, you know, the Gavin Newsom, saving Joe Biden's life. Yeah. That sort of thing, but, Mm-Hmm. and I, you know, you were sending me an article about Michelle saying, Nope, not doing it. Mm-Hmm. Um, well, you know, me thinks she does protest too much. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. It's well, I mean, from a practical matter, I don't think it would be. Oh, are you logging in with another computer? I'm logging in with something to play around with in a second. Okay. I see you're in here in a second, Bucks. Um, so, yeah, it seems like, like there's shit that's being worked on in the background that clearly we're not gonna find out about until it happens. Yeah, yeah, it's yep. All right, Ben, what you doing? I'm not doing anything. My audio just dropped out again. I'm going to reboot. You want to reboot? Oh, wow. Yeah, so I'm going on here. Okay, let me pause everything and then you reboot and come back. Yep. Okay, Ben's back. Woohoo. Yes. So that was about an hour we had to wait, but that's all right. In the magic of time compression, you don't hear anything like five minutes and you kicked me off the zoom before I have no idea what you're talking about there, sir. All right. So you, you got your little new device connected. Yeah, I was going to play around with this on here because this is one of the use cases that I wanted this for, and it's a Books, by the way, is the way that's done. Books. Yeah, it's a Books Air 3C. B O O X. Yeah, and, um, it's a E Ink Android tablet that's Oh, it runs Android? It's not a custom system? Correct, actually. So the first one that I got, this is, I'm on my second one of, um, this type of device here in the last couple of weeks. The first one that I got was a Remarkable 2, which is fantastic hardware. The hardware for the Remarkable is fantastic. Top notch. It's great. The software is a little too dumb, um, and if all you want is if, if you, if you're an iPad user, if you're an Apple user, iPhone person, it's probably perfect for you. If you want to do, because it's very simple, if you want to do more advanced use cases like I was about to do before you kicked me out and limited the zoom session so that you know, only people in the same organization can do whiteboarding. But be able to whiteboard from this tablet, for example, on meetings, stuff like that the, having the full power of Android is pretty nice. Okay. All right. I turned down white morning, but I've got to tell you, it's going to be hard to explain to listeners if you're drawing shit on my screen, I mean, I know you want it to do a dick pic. I get it. No, my, my so zoom keeps dropping the moto. Yeah. Windows does not zoom it. So something's going on with zoom. So, and you got original sound turned on and everything. Oh yeah, but it keeps dropping out for no reason. I don't know if my motu is dying or we've got a different problem. Yeah. I mean, it could be, I guess, but that would. It's probably not very likely. So anyway, um, the books device is just interesting. The one thing I do worry about is it is a, well, it's a Hong Kong company that makes it um, with some ownership in mainland China. Oh, so China gets a copy of everything you do. Well, they've got pretty decent privacy policies and you do get to select the geographic location of your servers and so far it seems to be pretty good. Abiding by that and you have all the Android OS isolation stuff, but ultimately, yes, you're trusting China. So there are a couple of things that don't use it for work and you're good to go. Well, I am using it for work, but my work also issues Lenovo computers. So I don't think that's a problem. Um, because same thing, if you ask me anyway You, you are ultimately trusting it, but the good thing is XDA and so on that there's alternate firmwares for this, so after I decide whether or not I'm actually keeping it or not, I, I'm likely to go ahead and load a different ROM and then how's the color on it because you got the color version, right? I did get the color version. Um, I mean, it's e ink. It looks like a, the, the, if you think of how a laser or inkjet page looks printed with color, it's about like that. It's a, it's not like a display. It's a little muted. Yep. Yep. Yep. And you've got different refresh rates. You can change it. But again, it's, this is not meant to be just a tablet. This is meant to a, have really good battery life, be, be a note taking and distraction free device and combination e reader and tablet. For travel. How big is it? What's the physical size? It's like seven, eight inches by, I don't know, 10. So it's not, all it is. So it's like a full sheet of

12:35

paper.

Gene: 12:35

Okay. Bye. Yeah, it's a little shorter than a full sheet of paper. Yeah. Okay, so it's like in what an A4 or whatever. Yeah It's something like that. Yeah. Mm hmm interesting, but it's a good form factor and it's it's pretty neat That's that's the only thing is I I wish that my Kindle was bigger physically. Well, and see, one of the great things about this is you can run the Kindle app on it. Right, right. And, um, it's a e reader as well. I mean, they've got their own book reader and all that, but you can use the Kindle app if you want. They've got their own notes, but you can use OneNote or whatever you'd like. Mm hmm. Um, so that's, that's really kind of nice. And you can actually send from their notes app, which is kind of nice because it has a, some more pen features and things that you want to use, but you can actually send and sync those notes to your OneNote, um, which makes it fantastic. So using their note taking app on here to send to OneNote that then you can edit on your computer and kind of have a combination. Now what makes the expensive pen expensive for it? It has an eraser. That's the only difference? It comes with, so if you order the expensive pen, I got the pen bundle because it was on sale. Yeah. And it comes with both. So you get to see both. It has an eraser, it's a little bit thicker, and it has a little bit more sensitivity on pressure. Hmm. Okay. And it's magnetic? Yeah, it's They're both magnetic, I would think. Yeah, whatever. It's the way the way it works. But it's, it's neat. Um, in the note taking, there's you know, they've got their, what they call their AI stuff or handwriting recognition and all that, which is just Scribd, I believe, or some It's a, it's, it's an open source software. thing that they've modified. I have terrible handwriting and the handwriting recognition largely works for me, which is a first. Um, yeah, it's, it's good. I don't know if this would be great for drawing, but for my use case, it's fine. That's what I was telling you yesterday, is that I, I think in the last 15 years of using iPads, I've pretty much forgotten how to write. I just only, only either do voice recognition or miniature keyboard. I don't really write. I haven't written anything in ages other than signing my name. Mm hmm. And that just becomes one more long scribble sort of thing. It's always been one long scribble. So, it's Um, it, it would not be a productivity tool. It would just be a reading device. If I've got one. Um, well, I don't know. For me, it's a productivity tool and that's one of the, another reason why I went with this over. And I, again, I physically had both. In fact, I still need to send back the remarkable remarkable's got some great hardware. Um, I liked that the company's from an allied country instead of a foreign hostile one, Norway. Okay. I believe. Oh really? Yeah. Interesting. But it's gotta still be made in China. And that's the other thing is all of this is made in China, but, um, you know, there's just a, having the full power of Android is nice. And then B, um, this is just so much more customizable that it's, it's, it's very nice. And then the, the last thing I would say is having color, um, especially when you're diagramming and stuff on it, which is one of my use cases, um, that's really nice. Thanks. Having a backlight. Um, the remarkable is, has no backlight, so you're totally dependent upon ambient light. And this can work very well with ambient light. And it's not actually a backlight, it's a front light, but whatever.

16:38

Yeah.

Gene: 16:39

Side light, I think in those, yeah. But regardless, the. The ambient light looks great on here. The screen looks great. The, the screen whiteness on the Remarkable is better, but that's because of this one being color and there being a difference, but yeah. So have you tried it in sunlight outside? I have. Yeah. And it looks good? Yeah, it looks great. Looks like paper. Um. You know, this has a full web browser on it, which is nice. So you can read whatever you want. It's got like I said replacing the Kindle and everything else. So, and they can do text to speech. Yes. And speech to text. Cool. Yeah. I know my dad was thinking about getting one of these things to have more use for it than I would, but yeah, it's good. Good to hear somebody that's got practical experience. Well, and you know, the, the remarkable software on the computer is junk. Um, you can do some screen sharing with it, but it's, it works really janky. So the way the screen share software works for remarkable is it literally creates a little file server on your computer and the tablet is uploading a new version of the file ever so many seconds. Oh wow. So it's, It's atrocious. Um, versus this, I can actually connect like I was going to do with you connect to the meeting and actually draw on it, which is, you know, when you're, when you're trying to talk to a client about, okay, this is where we need to put something in your network and you're on zoom. It's a nice feature. Makes sense. Cool. So there's tech talk product review. Yeah. Yeah. So I've played around some more with the the infrared. Thermal thing, yeah, doodad, and still haven't gotten a helmet, so it's still not mounted to something. I'm still holding it. Um, I really like it. It's got a shit ton of settings. It's got, I think, six different things that you can control from zero to 24 or 32. Like contrast and gamma and, you know, all the variety of tweaks that you can do to like a monitor, you can do this thing. And by doing that. Optimize it for the, the type of environment that you're in. Um, it also has, I think four or five prebuilt defaults. Yeah. Like for indoor, there's a default for full moon. There's a default in a variety of other things. And, um, what I found is it has a mode that I haven't seen in any other night visions which is sepia. So like old photographs. Well, so what happens is sepia makes indoor stuff look a lot more differentiated. Like it, it seems to have a, it's easier to pick out different things. Let's put it that way. When you're in the house in total darkness with that thing, okay, is normally, you know They're since you're not just amplifying light the way you do with night vision You're actually looking at temperature differences a lot of things just kind of flattened out like you just see different you know shades of things in sepia tone you've got a A bigger differentiator for some reason between those. I'm not sure exactly why, but I will definitely say going into that mode. I like, I understand why they added it in there because it does make a difference when you're walking around indoors. Yeah. It sounds to me like a total gimmick, you know? Well, it's not a gimmick if it works, man. Okay. So, I've been pretty happy with it, um, and yeah, I I think I'm probably gonna just stick to this brand moving forward. For PBS 14 as well? They do make them. I don't know if I'll do that, but for any thermals for rifles and stuff, I'll get theirs because I do love, well, I like two things. I like Made in the USA and I like the customization features. And what brand is this? Oh, I forget. Um, Oh, arms site. Okay. Arms site. Interesting. Yep. So they've got and they've got more new products coming out. So the, that are on the website, but they haven't started shipping it. So there definitely seem to be doing a, a, an. And you push post shot show. Well, I think a lot of, um, I think a lot of companies are trying to make thermal a more realistic and push thing right now. I don't think thermal is the be all end all the way kind of you do. I think that Having an overlay and having both thermal and, um, how do I put this? Thermal and, you know, light amplification a la PVS 14 is a better way to go. Um, but I speak from extraordinarily limited experience. A lot like, yeah, well, they, they actually sell a. A kit that has, you know, one eye thermal, one eye night vision, that kit is, that seems like a headache to me. I mean, that's like literally what I'm going to cause a headache. No, I don't think so. Um, but it's 9, 499 to get the full kit. So it's significantly cheaper than other products that have that in one unit. Yeah. Yeah. The, I think some of the overlay, like, I really like some of the stuff that Jerry 14 and others, you and your Chinese love. No, and I'm not saying that the PBS you know, 14 clone that they have, which is really gen two plus ask which the generations the more you read about it, the way that's actually measured the less. Relevance it really makes. Um, and I'm not saying that they're tubes or the tube I would get, but what is interesting is their clip on can clip on to the PBS 14 style thermal, which gives you a neat device. And. I have nothing against it, but, um, The problem is you're getting basically a, an outline through your night vision. And I just, I want color. But why? I don't know, why'd you get a colored books? Because I can see color? Because my vision isn't black and white. So right as you went to her. Oh, I lost you there. What'd you say? Oh, I think we lost Ben again. I don't know what's going on. I'm sitting here doing nothing. Yeah. It's just fading in and out. Yeah. Are you sure it's not just cause you're speaking quietly and your no, my head's dead. Oh and they're plugged into the well, that's not a good sign because the headset goes dead. It might be a hardware thing. Hmm. Anyway, what did you just say? I just didn't hear your explanation of why you want color. Oh, cause I can see in color. And, and I like using color to differentiate things that are hot from things that are not right. But having an outline in, you know, well, anyway, yeah, it's another way of doing it. I just don't think it's as good. Yeah. Dumb. You, you, um, you any closer to picking up a PBS 14? Sure. After I get a little further down the road with With the current, couple of current things, so. Okay, got it. Um, Yeah, I, I've got once selected out, I know what I want to do. I know the enclosure I want. So I know the type of tube I'm going to go with, got everything picked out except just pulling the trigger. So, but some other work stuff has gotten in the way between now and then. So once once that's settled and I have time to actually dedicate and do, then I'll do it. Yeah. Got it. And then, um, you're just going to do the, the shooting with a laser. Yeah. And that thing. The laser aiming module is the only way to shoot with head mounted night vision as far as I'm concerned. Um, I have optics that are night vision capable, but just playing around a little bit I have, getting, trying to get a cheek well, trying to do all that is, it's just not a thing. And there's a reason why the U S military went to laser aiming modules instead of night vision capable sites. Yeah. Cause they're cheap ass. No, it's because if you're going to be trying to look through a helmet mounted PBS 14 and a site and creating a site picture and doing all that, it's, it's not realistic. No, no, you shouldn't be looking through it that way. You should have a site on the gun. Right, but if you're using your dominant eye for the PBS 14 the way you kind of really should be if you're doing monocular No, you shouldn't. You should use your non dominant eye for that. Are you kidding? No one uses their non dominant eye. Oh, that's such bullshit. Why would you use your non dominant eye? Because your dominant eye is going to be used for aiming. Correct. And if you're having to, you know, if it's dark and you need to look through either an optic with night vision settings to be able to identify a target and shoot or a laser aiming module, you'd want your dominant eye. If you're using a laser module, yeah. But I don't, I don't like the night vision scope on your gun. That's my point. That's what you ought to be running. It's either night vision or thermals on your scope. Okay. I mean, like having night vision to walk around that makes sense or drive or do stuff like that. When it comes to shooting. You have to have thermal or night vision on there, and I would prefer thermal. Well, I mean, I wouldn't say no to a thermal optic, but, um, you know, when I'm comparing the utility of it. I don't know. And that's the other thing is by the time you buy a laser aiming module and everything else, you're looking another several grand. Yeah, exactly. So you might as well get a knockoff. You're looking at a thousand dollars for a decent knockoff. Yeah. A thousand dollar knockoff just, it sounds crazy to me. It's crazy to everybody. But this is what military contractors get to charge for their crap. Except that they're not using knockoffs. So they're They're paying more than a thousand bucks. Yeah, there's not really a discount. Um, so Yeah. But we knew this, like When we first started dipping our toes into this whole getting outfitted, you know, with Owning the night bullshit, we knew the price points were not going to be things that most people considered normal. This is, in the end, if, if you keep walking down this road, it's true for anybody, your minimum cost is going to be about 10 grand. It's going to be what a car used to cost, and some people spend more like 30. I, and I, this is why I am going slow down this road, right? Right. And the benefit of going slow is that there, there should be newer stuff coming out from China. Usually that's cheaper that they can reduce that price point. Um, but it's still, it's expensive for several reasons. One is it's a very small market. It's still. Like mass production in this stuff is not really mass production. And two is they're still using some exotic materials. And exotic manufacturing techniques. Um, like if you look at actual, not, not thermal, but. UVS 14 and stuff like that. The actual manufacturing process for an unfilmed white phosphorus tube is. You know, a very closely guarded secret and kind of its own black magic. Yeah, and I will say as far as the night vision stuff goes though, the more comparisons I've watched, the more I'm pretty sure that I don't want to use anything but an L3 tube. L3, Harris. Now, why is that? Because once you start watching these comparison videos, you just see how much more detail you get. Like, the resolution chart for the video that I watched was very, very telling. I think it depends on the tube because I think you can get a, you can get a crap tube in any brand. That's the other thing. Yeah, absolutely. No, I'm talking about a lot of people don't realize is each tube because of the manufacturing process has blemishes, imperfections and issues. And that's kind of what you're paying for as a self sort. And you know that there's a large portion of the manufacturing run that doesn't make it through QA. Yeah, so I would go with a L3 errors, 2376. Yeah, you know, I, the white, well, I, I think the more I've looked at it, the white phosphorous is nice, but it's less of a deal breaker for me than some of the other things, except that all the high resolution tubes these days, the highest of the high is all white phosphorous. So therefore that's what I'm going to get. Like if I could get a green phosphorous tube with the same resolution without. You know, the same thing, um, I might do it for cheaper, um, because I'm not planning on wearing this for hours and hours and hours and ice train being an issue like that, but Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it's it's the planning for the things you don't plan for that that makes us preppers Planning for the things you don't plan for right like like we're not planning on there being a crazy ass You know Anarchy in the United States But just in case. Eh, speak for yourself. Okay. Fair enough. I mean, I'm quite frankly, at this point, I'm kind of wishing for it. Careful what you wish for, man. Like as, as shit just keeps getting, going downhill and downhill and downhill. Well, yeah, and I desire to see the system burn and start over is getting stronger I'll just put it that way last night As going through and I probably tweeted like 30 or 40 tweets last night And one of them was I ran across the story that the Canadian farmers are joining the European farmers in their protest. And I was like, you know what, I think all farmers should just take a year off. I think that would teach the world a great lesson. I mean, yes. And probably billions would die. Yeah. And that's the lesson. That needs to be taught right now, because people take farmers for granted. It's a voluntary job, dude. No one owes you their crops. Oh, Hey, I'm, I am full on ready to go. Galt's Gulch. So let's do it. So as far as I'm concerned, you know, the, this, this whole driving around in tractors and pouring cow shit on everybody, it's just the beginning. There's no reason these people have to provide you food. Agreed. And I think a lot of people don't understand that concept. They think food comes from a grocery store. It doesn't. Well, and that, that's the thing. It's shocking to me, you know, when people sit there and say, well, where does, where does milk come from? What do you mean? It comes from the store, but where, where does it come from? And the fact that that disconnect exists is just, I mean, how dumb do you have to be or how ill educated, how big of a problem do we have with our system that that person can exist in society? Yeah. There's a lot of idiots out there in every country, not just the U S although we certainly compete well on that front. Um, I just I don't know. I, I think something, something is likely to snap at some point that there's so much pressure. Um, the current system right now that something's bound to happen. Well, um, I think that if Trump is elected, which there's a pretty good chance of, oh, cities are going to burn men. It, well, that's what I was about to say is that I think the Democrats are going to, I think it'll be the Democrat states and counties wanting to secede instead of the Republican ones. Yeah. It might be them wanting to secede, but I think we're going to see a lot of cities like New York and Chicago just have, you know, uncontrolled fires for weeks on end. Yeah. Well, um, I mean, governor Hockel and, uh, what's the New York mayor's at Adler, um, are getting ready for that. Yeah, and yeah, that's the other thing is like New York Excuse me, New York. I'm not even gonna take that out. I'm gonna leave that in Um, bringing in National Guard and doing random bag searches on the subway. Why don't people give up their rights? Well, I mean, we do it for airplanes all the time. What do you mean? Yeah. Airplanes are a private business subway. That's government run. Okay. And security at the airport is, has been government run since 9 11. Yeah, yeah. And I don't agree with that either, obviously, but it's, it's a, I mean, did Obama not tell us that trains are great because you don't have to take your shoes off? Well, no one's asking you to take your shoes off. They just want to look through your bag. Oh, they will be, they'll be having you take your shoes off to be in the subway, have your feet stick to the floor and gum and everything. No. I mean. The fact that they're They are doing this and people are allowed to, so if you don't want to be searched, if you're selected, you just say you're an illegal and then they don't search you, no, you just turn around and walk out and walk back in until you get through it without being searched. So it's security theater and it's, but more than anything, it's, it's slave training, it's a shut up slave. And. Hey, little Timmy. See, we're here to protect you. We're, we're doing this and having soldiers in the subway is a, is a normal and good thing. Yep. Well, you know, the slippery slope that this is likely to engender is not a good thing. Well, and especially when the soldiers are actually made up of people that entered the country illegally, which is what they're doing now. Yeah. Cause it's the, this. This idea that, well, there's two things. Number one is city of Chicago is actually just announced that they're, they're hiring police made up of of this new program that brings people that have entered the country legal work. So it's a jobs program basically gives badges to people that just broke the law coming into the country. And then the, um, the Pentagon announced that they've got a resurrection of their program that. Allows people to fast track their citizenship by serving for two years in the military. So, our military is gonna be outsourced, and our police force is gonna be outsourced. That's happened before in history. You remember where? Where? Yeah. Rome. Not very long before the fall. Well, and there was also a major amnesty right before the fall, where millions of people were granted Roman citizenship and that caused a big problem. It's, I mean, if we tried to specifically ensure that the United States. It's completely false. We couldn't have come up with a better script. Well, and there's a lot of people who feel that that's exactly what Biden's doing is setting us up for Trump to take the take the fall. Right. Right. And that's a good point is this, that you could be so far down the path that no matter who's president, the country's fucked and then, you know, I think there's a some, some truth to that. Right. Or, you know, things that, like, Biden could commit us to a full scale war days before Trump takes over. Even if he's lost, yes. Yeah. Now, the odds of that He could shoot a missile at Moscow a week before the inauguration. Okay. I think it's pretty unlikely though. Yeah. I don't know, man. But you know, who knows? Maybe all our societal norms will break down and we can watch it burn and reboot. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's, um, it is definitely feeling like it's a more likely scenario than it ever has. Oh boy. And quite frankly, I've never been an anarchist until the last couple of years. I've never been someone who said, fuck it, just do it. In fact, I've often bought, you know, even a bad government is better than no government and so on. But boy, am I rethinking that? No, no government would definitely be better. Yeah. And if the Supreme court, did you, did you listen to the Supreme court's arguments on the bump stock ruling? Dude, they were talking about rate of fire and whether or not that mattered. Yeah. That doesn't matter. No, it doesn't what definition of semi automatic. This is what the law says. This is what was passed So they're they're getting into well They intended to limit the rate of fire and that was the intent and this that and the other and okay Well, that's not the law says yeah If this Supreme Court finds that a bump stock Equals a machine gun or semi automatic equals a machine gun and lets the ATF go hog wild on that You Oh, yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, yeah, have you seen the increase in the number of videos with the super safety? Yes. There's a lot of them out there, everyone seems to be using those things. And the ATF just raided a store and confiscated them all because they are considering that part now to be a machine gun. Which is So as the videos ramp up, now a piece of plastic that is literally a modified safety is now a machine gun. Well, the fact is they don't want anyone to have Any effective weaponry. So I semi automatic is the target right now that they would love to get rid of all semi autos fully semi automatic police. How, how are people allowed to own these fully semi automatic guns? I think the, the Babylon B makes the absolutely funniest. Um, anti-gun videos. Mm-Hmm. you know, where they're, they're using phrases like fully semi-automatic or know, super high capacity clip shit like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, nobody needs to have a Rifle that is black colored just to go deer hunting. Yeah. Yeah, the color black is bad So, yeah, it's a it crazy You see the protesters outside of Ted's house Ted, Ted what's the name? Our representative or Senator, I should say. No, I didn't. Yeah. So apparently they're permanently camped outside his house. Now there's like 25 people there. And they're allowed to be out there. Why? Well, cause who's going to stop them? I don't know, but you're doing something with your mic. Yeah, I was, I was moving things around a little bit. Yeah. Who's going to stop them? You know, I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure he has a homeowner's association or somebody that can stop him. Or it looks like he's actually in a neighborhood that doesn't have it. Interesting. Yeah. So they're like yelling every day in front of his house. Well we'll see if he survives the election as well. I mean, he's kind of been in the hot seat for the last several years going up against Beto and now, you know, the, the Democrats are, they have for the last several cycles have put quite a bit of money into trying to get rid of Ted Cruz. Oh, absolutely. And just to flip Texas in general. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, go ahead. There's definitely been a both the spend financially and the focus on taking all the Californians that have moved to Texas and making sure they say Californians. Yes. And you know, the large portion of that is Austin and San Antonio, but it is very encouraged. Dallas is just as Democrat. Dude. Don't, don't mistake it with Dallas. Politics is. Sure, Dallas, but DFW is not. Yeah, Fort Worth sort of makes up for it, but not just that, the mid cities are really where the conservatives are in DFW. So, having lived there for a few years, I can tell you that. Yeah, I don't know dude, I think, um, I still met a lot more liberals there than conservatives when I lived there. Okay. Well, I'm just telling you Dallas, like downtown. Oh yeah. There, I mean, all the suburbs included like the Dallas side versus the Fort Worth side. Okay. Sure. I mean, sure. If you're in Tarrant County, you're far more likely to be conservative. I'll agree with that. Yep. Um, but Dallas proper, I mean, that's where the limousine liberals are. Oh, Dallas proper is first of all, most of it's the gayborhood and It's just a lost cause. Yeah. Like South Dallas is just not a place you want to be walking around. And then anything north of downtown. Is is, well, it's limousine liberal clubs, you know, it's funny because I, I wouldn't want to live anywhere south of the airport in DFW on either side, either Fort Worth or Arlington. Yeah. None of that. Nope. Unless you go way for south and then it's, and you're outside the limits. If you go to Waxahachie, you can live there. Yeah, and I, and there's some people who live in Waxahachie, actually, um, you know, Waxahachie. It's just a fun city name to say. Yeah. Waxahachie. Well, I lived in Frisco, which is Okay, yeah. two burbs north. I I lived in Grapevine. Huh. Yeah, so we were almost neighbors. Um. Yeah. And I, I, I had friends that lived in grapevine but then they ended up moving to Frisco, but you know, when I was there, I'd say Frisco was barely slightly conservative there. I moved here 13 years ago. So I was there. For about three years before that I was there when we still had cow pastures in Frisco. Yeah. So it's, it's changed substantially. Oh yeah. I've driven through there, but it's, um, like back then I would say it was just slightly. Right leaning very slightly and now I'm sure it's left leaning and you could just look at the election maps to see the Who votes which way and that the you know, Texas, I think last election was Roughly 47 percent Democrat voting and 53 percent conservative Republican voting And the entirety of the Democrat population lives in Austin and Houston and Dallas and San Antonio and a little bit of El Paso, El Paso pops up in there, but everything else physical territory wise, the other 93 percent of the state were all red. Yeah, Beaumont, I mean, any of the city areas are pretty liberal. Yeah, it's just high density population centers tend to be liberal, low density tends to be conservative. Well, but that's the truth across the entire country, not just Texas. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is. It's just that Texas has a bit of a reputation for being a conservative state, which I'm just saying it's barely a conservative state. Yeah. I will say it's very encouraging that AK Daddy Brandon Herrera is going to a runoff though. Yeah. I'm damn tempted just to move there just to vote for him. Well, I don't think you could get there in time for the runoff. I mean, you could go down there and claim that you did and vote illegally. No, I was thinking of just going down there and then renting, like, an apartment for one month. I think you have to have residency for a period of time before the election to be able to leave. Really? So what, so what happens if you move prior to the election? You, you have to go back and vote in your old neighborhood? Yes. Oh, really? That seems kind of silly. Why does that seem silly to you? Shouldn't you just vote wherever your driver's license says you live? Yes, but I doubt your driver's license is going to get updated. Like, there's a minimum residency time. I think it's I think it may even be a month or something like that. You have to have a Established that you were there for a period of time. Oh, well then maybe I don't have time to do it. Yeah. I was thinking it wouldn't be that hard to do, but maybe it is. Yeah. Well, regardless he's doing a good job. I think he has a, in a, in a, I really hope he gets in there. Well, since it's going to a runoff, I think he has. Theoretically, he should be able to mobilize more people to go vote in the runoff than Tony Gonzalez. So we'll see. Yeah. Cause if he can't, then that's, that's interesting. Um, given Brandon hers, YouTube following and everything else in the platform he has, I would think that being able to say, Hey, we're going to a runoff special election. You got to go vote again. Yeah. Um, because the, the thing is the amount of people who show up for runoff elections is Less than a tenth of what shows up for even primaries. So yeah, I really, I really hope he manages to pull it off because Gonzalez is, he's a piece of shit. He's not a conservative. He just ran as a conservative and then votes Democrat on every goddamn thing. He's an anti gunner pro big government pro open borders. I mean, he's literally just voting for anything that Biden tells him to vote for total piece of shit. Yeah. You're talking about telling us all this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gonzalez. So I just noticed something when this dropped out this time. Yep. What's that? The, where it says 40 4K on the display uhhuh on the MO two was blinking. Ooh. Like it was out of sync. Shit, that's a hard hardware issue. Yes. But what's causing that? I don't know. Um, you haven't done anything to the computer, I assume. No, but it's apparently having a sync issue and that's what the deal is. Yeah, so it's losing its sync clock. Yeah, with the computer, so. Yeah. That could be USB cable, I guess I could try. Could be, you could swap out a USB cable. Um, and it could also be the fact that I need to reboot this Windows machine. That's generally a good thing to do, because Windows will update itself whenever it wants. So I'll have to. So you still haven't moved to Linux yet. Oh, I'm, what do you mean? My daily. For the multi. Multi. Multi. My daily driver is linux. Yeah, I know. I'm talking about multi. You said you were going to have some time to recompile your yes, and I do have all the channels showing up and I've, I've just got to get the routing in linux done. Actually, the new kernel that came out, Um, fairly recently fixed some of the support issues I was having, which is good. I haven't been able to test the latency and stuff like that, but the, the general support is there. So good. That's awesome thing. So, um, did you hear about the new find of helium? I can't remember what country it was in, but yes. The country of Minnesota, a. k. a. Somalia. No, there was another one that was Well, apparently they found the largest untapped supply of helium in the United States under Minnesota. Which is, um, interesting. Yes, because helium tends to disperse. Yeah, I didn't realize that You could get the helium without getting natural gas. I thought all of that was a package deal. You, you

Ben: 55:26

know how helium was discovered, right?

Gene: 55:30

I vaguely recall it.

Ben: 55:33

So helium comes from the word helios or sun in Latin. And it was originally discovered through spectrography in, in our sun. Helium being, you know, one of the lightest elements and, you know, um, very very rare on earth to an extent, um, it was actually first discovered through observation on the side. Hence the name helium. Yeah.

Gene: 56:06

Oh, I thought you were going somewhere with that. Okay.

Ben: 56:08

Well, I'm just saying it's, it's finding deposits of helium is pretty rare here

Gene: 56:13

on the earth. Yeah. Helium comes from, is from natural gas siphoning off of drilling

Ben: 56:25

sites. Yeah, it's bound up and then it has to be going through a cracking process. A catalyst. Mm-Hmm. Well, a cracking process. So you have a hydrocarbon that has lots of different items on it, so, Mm-Hmm. You know, carbon being the great bonding agent. Carbon fucking bonds with everything. Um, Mm-Hmm. But hi. You know, hydrogen binds up hydrogen helium bind up with carbon in these hydrocarbons, and they have to be. What's called cracking, which is breaking those molecular bonds down into the individual elements and requires a lot of heat pressure and everything else.

Gene: 57:07

Yeah. So the reason I'm surprised in Minnesota is because Minnesota is not exactly known for its huge deposits of natural gas in the ground. You know what I mean? It's not where you tend to drill. Well,

Ben: 57:23

all the great lakes area actually should have you know, maybe not the deep shale style natural gas, but should be great. Coal production should be great. You know, natural gas production, at least at the surface level because of the, you know, decaying plant matter. Yeah.

Gene: 57:45

Yeah, that's true. But Minnesota has some of the oldest ground in North America. Or at least certainly in America, I think Canada actually has even older ground, ground that's been, um, on molested by volcanoes or other activities for literally millions of years or even that hasn't

Ben: 58:06

been

Gene: 58:06

covered up. Yeah. So I don't know. I always assumed that there was not any activity or gas underground. And so obviously that's not correct because they found helium now. Um, the only thing Minnesota, I remember from when I was a kid living there is that they were known for their big iron mines. But, you know, iron's not, it's not really something I would imagine has anything to do with helium. No,

Ben: 58:45

it doesn't. Unless there's some bonding

Gene: 58:50

or something. But that's a good thing because for a while there, it looked like helium, we may never see helium balloons at kids parties anymore because it's too damn expensive now. And that's just sad. Did we lose you again, Ben? I guess

Ben: 59:12

we did. I said that them

Gene: 59:17

go ahead. Nope. We lost you again. Yeah. Ben's having some issues.

Ben: 59:23

Yeah. That's weird. Like I've been using this all week and haven't had this issue, but do you want

Gene: 59:32

me to pause it again? And then you reboot your computer?

Ben: 59:35

No, it, well, I mean, we can if you want, but I don't know that that'll help. Um, I mean, we could always go to hydrogen or any, any other, um, element that's lighter than air. So,

Gene: 59:50

well, yeah, hydrogen balloons would be more fun because then you can blow them up. I mean, I just don't think parents would like that.

Ben: 59:58

You can oxidize helium too, but let's say, um, but the fun thing is when you burn hydrogen, you just create water. Yeah.

Gene: 1:00:13

It's a, it's a, a magical gas. Yeah. What else going on?

Ben: 1:00:27

Well, did you vote?

Gene: 1:00:30

I did not know.

Ben: 1:00:33

Gene, why didn't

Gene: 1:00:34

you vote? Because I looked at the candidates and all the guys that I want to vote for one anyway, and I knew they would. Cause remember, this isn't the general election. This is the who's running election.

Ben: 1:00:50

Hey, what should my sample rate be set to? Um, 48. Okay. It was set to 41 for some reason.

Gene: 1:00:59

44. 1 should be 48. I'm not sure you that, well, maybe I was going to say, I think the software actually has to get restarted. Like you may need to quit out of an restart zoom, but if you quit out of zoom, you might as well reboot your whole computer. Do you want to do that or not?

Ben: 1:01:21

I, I don't think I need to kill it. I think the problem is between Mo to and the computer. So, okay. Focus internal. I let's see if that fixes it. Um, yeah, you know, I, I don't know, man, I, I vote, I vote in every election. Um, there's some propositions that I definitely wanted to vote for which are non binding in the primary stage, but we'll roll up largely. Um, I, I think that there were quite a few politicians throughout the state that were you know, running on the Texas first Texan pledge that I wanted to make sure and support in my local area. And yeah, so. Yeah. So

Gene: 1:02:07

for me, voting is a lot less exciting here because the, all the local offices. Are going to be won by Democrats here. There's no real competition there. And a lot of them go uncontested. Well, maybe you should get

Ben: 1:02:25

out of, you know, Austin. Yeah, I know.

Gene: 1:02:28

I know. And, um, you know, so the only, the only things that my vote actually matters for our state and federal. So that, that, that's the only stuff I actually vote for. Um, You know, obviously, if there's somebody running, I don't even care who it is, but if anyone's running against. A local incumbent, I just vote for the, the person challenging them.

Ben: 1:02:59

And this is how Austin ends up with 20 percent of the vote going to a homeless transvestite.

Gene: 1:03:04

Exactly. That's

Ben: 1:03:05

exactly right. Which, no joke, literally Mayor Adler before he was elected, the previous mayor was running and there was a homeless transvestite that got 20 percent of the vote. To quote Joe Biden, not a joke, which he said during the state of the union. Oh my God.

Gene: 1:03:25

Yeah. Yeah. It's,

Ben: 1:03:27

The, the bookies were paying out left and right on that speech, man.

Gene: 1:03:34

Yeah. That's a good point. That is a good point. So we, we talked a little bit about the the super safeties. Did you watch that video of the ultimate civilian firepower that I sent you?

Ben: 1:03:49

No, I haven't gotten to watch it yet. I started it, but it, yeah, give me the, give me the synopsis. It's

Gene: 1:03:55

basically a, here, this is coming from a guy that was a saw operator in the military, but so he's saying, yeah, so here is the civilian version, the best civilian and he talks about it from the standpoint of, of, um, basically. How do we describe this style? Guerrilla warfare. That's the best way to describe it, right? About hit and run tactics. He's like, you know, even if, if you could have, even if you could own a SAW. Um, he says it's really not the best gun in case shit hits the fan and civilians need to take up arms. What you actually want is something that's a lot more lighter. And because again, the problem with the saw is it's, it's, it's chain fed. And so, you Belt when you've got Yeah, yeah. Belt fed. So when you got a an infrastructure, the

Ben: 1:05:02

in mother Russia chain.

Gene: 1:05:05

Yeah. It's, yeah. It, it, it's, for some reason I was thinking of, um. Motorcycles and then, you know, most motorcycles use a chain, but the Harley uses belts. Yes. Yep. Anyway, so, so he comes up with the gun. It's made by RECCE. I don't even know how to pronounce that company name. R E C C E. And he, he's recommending it as the, the best Equivalent of roll gun for that sort of guerrilla warfare tactics because it's lighter You don't have to worry about being belt fed It's five five six or two three and you just use a drum instead and with the super safety The rate of fire. I mean goddamn dude if they want to ban the completely absurd Stocks that let you shoot a little bit faster. There's no way in hell that Anyone's going to consider the super safety, anything but a machine gun.

Ben: 1:06:11

Well, that's where they're going. That is 100 percent where the Supreme court is looking to take this, which and or at least that, that seems to be reading the tea leaves on.

Gene: 1:06:23

Yeah. Which is again, Trump's fault because he's responsible for two out of the three of the judges that are voting incorrectly. And, and he was warned and there were a lot of people telling him you're recommending the wrong people. And yet that's who he pushed through the, the number of mistakes that he made, that that bit him in the ass later is large. And unfortunately, I agree. When they bite him in the ass, they bite the rest of us in the ass too. I don't disagree. So while I consider Trump to be the, the, the best of the available options, he is very far from the best in terms of. Overall candidates, Rama Swami was way better.

Ben: 1:07:15

Yeah, well, but they didn't get the vote, so.

Gene: 1:07:19

Yeah. And that's the, the part that's so demoralizing to me is that. The majority of Americans that even at least see right from wrong They think with their heart not their brain because if you think with your brain, you'd realize that Ramaswami is much better.

Ben: 1:07:41

I still think he is and I think Trump can close that gap a lot if he does end up choosing Vivek as the

Gene: 1:07:47

VP. He's not going to it's gonna be a female. You know this We don't. Okay, you don't. I do.

Ben: 1:07:57

I, I, I tend to agree with you that it's very likely to be like Tulsi Gabbard. Um, I, I think that would appeal to Trump quite a bit. Yep. Um.

Gene: 1:08:07

Which incidentally, then you'd have two people that were registered Democrats running in the Republican ticket. To an extent, yes. For the vast majority of his life, Trump was a Democrat.

Ben: 1:08:19

Yeah. Um, you know, anyway, I, I, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Um, I will just say that I, I would rather see the vague and I think the vague is going to end up in the cabinet and in a good position somewhere, but we'll see. Yeah.

Gene: 1:08:38

Yeah. I, I think he would be good in an awful lot of places and he's intelligent enough and has the right. Um, convictions to come up with strategic ways of defanging a lot of these departments without Congress. So I think he would be very good to have in there and it would set him up for running on the next term, which he's going to do. I'm pretty sure he is. Yeah. I think he's, he's got the bug

Ben: 1:09:14

now. Well, and I think he, now that he has the name recognition and everything else, I think that he. Especially if he were VP or in some prominent role would have a good shot. The problem is if Trump puts in someone else as VP, they're going to kind of have a leg up over him. So we'll see.

Gene: 1:09:37

Only with stupid people. I'm sorry? Only with stupid people.

Ben: 1:09:43

Have you, didn't, weren't we just talking about the grocery stores and where food comes from? Huh. Hello. Yeah, I know. Welcome to our society.

Gene: 1:09:51

I know, I know. Sad, it's sad. Did you happen to watch the video by the, um, the ex CIA agent I sent you?

Ben: 1:10:02

I've, I've seen some of his stuff in the past. Yeah, yeah. I watched part of it, but it's I, I can't say that he's watched

Gene: 1:10:08

the whole thing and why it's, it's really good. This one is not just like, you get me crap

Ben: 1:10:15

about Zaha, but then you send me that crap.

Gene: 1:10:18

So this is much better than Zaha. This guy is very smart. He, um, he is very forthcoming.

Ben: 1:10:27

So what you're saying, you agree with this guy versus

Gene: 1:10:29

Han. Correct. He's very smart, unlike Zaha And he says that he. He is leaving the U. S. before 2030 because he does want to be here during the full collapse. Okay. And I think he's on to something. Where would you rather be? Well, that's the question, right? Of the countries right now that are more conservative, that have more conservative, um, leaders, which of those is going to make the biggest strides between now and 2030?

Ben: 1:11:03

Well, I mean, conservative leadership doesn't really matter. It's about freedom and there is no place on earth that has equivalent prop. Here's the problem with a lot of like the freedom indexes and stupid shit like that is they're, they're measuring the wrong things in my mind. Um, freedom of speech should be weighted a hell of a lot more than economic freedom. For example right to keep in their arms should be Weighted way more than yeah. Does it take a business license to start? And how much bureaucracy do you have to

Gene: 1:11:36

go through that and the thing, freedom of, of, or the firearms thing right? Is there's a, the unique thing that the United has, the United States has is and ability for anybody to be able to acquire firearms legally. Yeah. And what a lot of countries have. Is a financial component to your ability to acquire farms. Um, is it's prohibitively expensive to people that are just grunts. And it's fully available. And you can have, in fact, you can have more guns. You can have fully automatic weapons. If you're willing to spend the right amount of money to some degree, it's even true here, because if you want to play with full on machine guns legally, um, you need to buy. A gun store and get the licensing to operate a Class three dealer.

Ben: 1:12:37

Well, you can do that. Be able to have, I've met people that have done that to post band stuff. Yeah.

Gene: 1:12:44

As long as, so some people are willing to do that. Here you're, you're cutting in and

Ben: 1:12:53

out, dude. Yeah, I cut in and out and it was clock status. It dropped the clock. Yeah.

Gene: 1:13:00

So, you know you can do that here if you wanna play with machine guns. And spend the money, I'm just saying that in other countries, it's a, it's a higher bar overall, so that you have to do more of that type of thing if you want to play with guns, but it's not to say that, oh, guns are completely banned because they're not,

Ben: 1:13:23

well, it depends on

Gene: 1:13:24

the country, but yeah, it depends on the country, but I'm just saying there's this, I think general, group. Misconception that America is the only country that people have guns. No, America is the only country where literally any person can have guns. Because the bar is set extremely low, but it's not to say that you couldn't have a gun in another country if you're willing to spend the kind of money that we're talking about spending for night vision and thermals. Yeah,

Ben: 1:13:53

I, I, I think there's a massive difference between the U. S. and the rest of the world and you can see that.

Gene: 1:13:59

Um, there is absolutely. Would you rather be going through? A a full on collapse of the United States or watching it? Um,

Ben: 1:14:14

I, I'd be good to go through it. Um, I think I would I think I could handle that. You could handle seeing

Gene: 1:14:22

your family get killed. Um, a lot of people can't, a lot of people want to leave and avoid their families getting

Ben: 1:14:29

killed. I don't know that my family would get killed. Um,

Gene: 1:14:32

so you're an optimist.

Ben: 1:14:33

No, I, I, I know I could survive the initial die off unless I just got very unlucky, and then it just comes down to a few other things, but, you know, hey. Um, yeah,

Gene: 1:14:47

I mean, it's a, it's all unknown territory. We've not been where we're going.

Ben: 1:14:56

That I can agree with. And it's going to be it's not going to be a fun time regardless, but I don't think there's a good place to watch it from because I think if the U S collapses, the rest of the world, isn't going to get out unscathed.

Gene: 1:15:15

Yeah, I, I, maybe. I don't know. It's hard to say. I think we, Would you have said the same thing before World War II?

Ben: 1:15:27

No. Um, before World War II and before Bretton Woods, the U. S. was not in the same position. Yeah.

Gene: 1:15:34

So, I think we're getting closer to the U. S. not being in the same position as the U. S. was last century. Yeah,

Ben: 1:15:41

but, As the U. S. falls out of that hegemony, A, there's going to be a power struggle to see who takes over, because there is no heir apparent, and not only that, but the U. S. is not going to go quietly into that good night.

Gene: 1:15:57

But I think it's going to be internal. It's not like, I don't think the worry, at least my worry, isn't being invaded by somebody. I think my worry is that the civil war this time around is going to be a lot more brutal than the last civil war which killed more Americans than any other

Ben: 1:16:16

event in history. Yeah, it's going to be an actual civil war instead of a war for independence. Yeah,

Gene: 1:16:23

I mean, it's going to be, I think we're going to have a lot of people get exterminated. I think both sides are going to be extremely brutal and as long as they're capable of managing full on armies, the other side is going to utilize every means in their disposal.

Ben: 1:16:48

Yeah. And that would be a very bad thing for, A

Gene: 1:16:52

lot of people. Yeah, exactly. So this is why I think he's absolutely right when he says that by 2030, he wants to have his family outside of the U S

Ben: 1:17:04

okay. But again, where do you go?

Gene: 1:17:07

Well, I think where you go is going to depend on what's the most important to you. I think South America is, you know, it's a lot more unpredictable than the U S is. Presently, but compared to being in full on civil war, there's quite a few countries there that you could go to. And especially if you leave early enough to move your money you could have a very nice lifestyle.

Ben: 1:17:36

Yeah. You, you better have enough money to do it though. That's the problem.

Gene: 1:17:42

I'm pretty sure he's got enough money.

Ben: 1:17:44

Oh, maybe he does. I don't, I don't, I don't think you do.

Gene: 1:17:49

Nah, I'm very cheap, dude. I don't take much. Um, no, realistically, if I had to pick up and leave, I could do it. I just, you know, I would feel sad about my pets, but that's about it. Okay. I don't know, man. It's, um, the. The idea of surviving by utilizing all the stuff that you've prepped sounds cool, but the reality of the aftermath does not sound cool. Like, I, I mentioned that you know. I think the farmers should just take a year off and remind everybody what's important. Um, there's not going to be any farming going on in the middle of the civil war in the

Ben: 1:18:51

U S. I mean, there's farming still going on in Ukraine right now during the Slavic civil war. So not really, really,

Gene: 1:19:01

not really. Okay. No, there's no farming going on there.

Ben: 1:19:09

I don't know, man. Sure seems to be some, it's not getting out, not a lot of exports and stuff but there's, there's some. Okay.

Gene: 1:19:19

No, Ukraine's buying products from Poland left and right right now. I mean, if they're, if they, if they were cut off from Poland, Other European countries right now, they would be starving to death. That's just local.

Ben: 1:19:34

Not even talking about what are still starving to death to a large extent. And I think they

Gene: 1:19:39

I don't think they're quite starving to death. I think they're definitely getting killed to death. But I don't think they're starving to death. Um, they're still importing enough food in the cities. But anyway, my point is simply that there are a small percentage of people that have means to physically relocate and avoid living through a catastrophe. And this guy is doing it and he's basically making the case for doing that. And, um, and your question is like, well, yes, but where would you go? Well, Yeah, I get it. There's no exact duplicate that you could move to and say, well, this place is just like the U. S. used to be. So my move is good.

Ben: 1:20:29

Well, and I wouldn't even care if it was The way the U S used to be from an economic standpoint, but more of a freedom and geopolitical stamp. Yeah.

Gene: 1:20:41

Let me, let me give you an example. So, um, Costa Rica has gun laws. When I was down there and the people I was hanging out with were all armed 24 seven with fully automatic weapons,

Ben: 1:20:58

Costa Rican gun laws. You were saying something about Costa Rican

Gene: 1:21:03

gun laws. Oh, you lost me again. Yes. Goddamn, we gotta get you a device that works, man. I said, Costa Rica has gun laws. And when I was there, the people I was hanging out with all had guns on them 24 7. And in fact, they had fully automatic weapons. They had machine guns. They had MP5s. They had AK 47s that were full auto. Um, the general populace didn't. And for the most part, couldn't. Yeah. There's your problem. People with money could and always can.

Ben: 1:21:46

Yes. If you want to live in a corrupt society. Oh

Gene: 1:21:50

my God. You think you don't?

Ben: 1:21:52

Um, not Allah's South and Central American style. No, not the same. All right. Yeah. These two things are not the same because we,

Gene: 1:22:03

because we have a, an elected president. I'm like the South American countries that That have unliked presence. Okay

Ben: 1:22:11

Well, i'm i'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about just general corruption in in society.

Gene: 1:22:17

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think I think it's certainly preferable to not but it's not a deal breaker to live in a country that that's corrupt as long as you understand how to How to live within a system that has that level of corruption. And as long as you're capable of a grift. Yeah, exactly.

Ben: 1:22:47

Um, yeah, sure. If you have the money, but what happens when, so Costa Rica, perfect example uses the U S dollar, correct. Okay, what happens when the U. S. hegemony falls and well, we didn't even use

Gene: 1:23:01

their their currencies tied to the US dollar, but They don't use the US dollar. They have their own currency

Ben: 1:23:10

What do you mean nope? No, Costa Rica uses the U. S. dollar.

Gene: 1:23:13

No, well they didn't when I was there. Let me look it up. Costa Rica. Currency. Ah, it's a Costa Rican, yeah, it's the same thing it was when I was there, dude. Their currency is tied to the U. S. dollar, but it's their own currency, it's the colones.

Ben: 1:23:34

What South American country is using the U. S. dollar directly? I don't know. Anyway, okay, so it's tied to the dollar, whatever. Yep, it's been

Gene: 1:23:43

tied to the dollar for years.

Ben: 1:23:45

Maybe it's that the U. S. dollar is also accepted or something. There's, there's something where you can just take dollars and use them in Costa Rica. Well,

Gene: 1:23:52

most Americans tend to assume that's true of everywhere in the entire world.

Ben: 1:23:57

Because it is pretty much everywhere in the world. Yeah. It's become less, you know, um, when I was in Spain, I ran into some issues with not having euros on me. Yeah,

Gene: 1:24:11

I mean, like in Mexico, you can use US dollars, but you're always going to overpay way more than the official exchange rate. And

Ben: 1:24:22

there's some truth to that. Yeah.

Gene: 1:24:24

And I think, um, I'm trying to think, I think I've used US dollars, like, cause I was, you know, Didn't have the right money with me in a lot of different countries in, in Southeast Asia, in Europe, but you know, you never get, you never get the best exchange rate. And I think there's probably fewer countries today that would even take the US dollar, but neither here nor there. Point about Costa Rica. So where are we going with this whole tied to the US dollar thing?

Ben: 1:24:58

Well, so Costa Rica and another South American country are tied to the U. S. economy pretty tight. And for some reason I was thinking it was Costa Rica that it was very tied to the U. S. dollar. Mm hmm. And, um, so if your currency is very tied to the U. S. dollar or pegged to the dollar, you know. Costa Rica speaks English as a primary language. No, they

Gene: 1:25:22

don't. They speak Spanish. What the hell, dude? You talk about shit you don't know.

Ben: 1:25:27

Costa Rica has English as a one of the official languages. No, they don't. Oh my god. This was a whole thing on expats.

Gene: 1:25:36

Yeah, it's a whole thing. They don't. I don't know, dude, what you're thinking, but neither do they use the US dollar, nor do they speak English. They speak Spanish. Okay,

Ben: 1:25:49

then I will shut up, but I do not, no, they're

Gene: 1:25:54

You're thinking of Belize, dude. That's

Ben: 1:25:56

exactly what I'm thinking, Jesus Christ. Oh my god. That happened one of those days. Yeah. Thank you. I was thinking of Belize. Mm hmm. Yeah, and Belize has the property protection law. You're exactly right. Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:26:17

Whoops. I mean, same general vicinity. Belize is just an offshoot of Mexico, but yeah.

Ben: 1:26:27

Anyway, I, yes, general vicinity, but you know, I, I just, I screwed up. What can I say?

Gene: 1:26:35

But either way, um, my point about Costa Rica was that, um, If you have money, you can get all the permits that you want for whatever you want. And not worry about it. Now, I will say Costa Rica has gotten a lot more expensive than it was when I was there. Um, and it's got, like, I actually just recently looked up where I used to stay in Costa Rica, which was the old Nicaraguan embassy and, um, or the ambassador's house. And, which is right next to the Russian ambassador's house. And, like, that whole area has totally changed. I remember the bridge I used to go on. Crossing the highway number two, like that bridge is gone. They've expanded the highway. A lot of shit has changed the cost of houses. I looked up some real estate sites down there. Um, yeah, not that I would. Say that I was moving to Costa Rica before 2030 or anything, but I did check prices and Houses there are going for between about 350 and 500, 000 when I was there they were going for between 60, 000 and 120, 000 so about a 5x increase. Yeah, mostly thanks to all the asshole Americans They're moving there and the Brits and everybody else

Ben: 1:28:04

I can't believe I made that mistake, but you're right. I was thinking of beliefs. That's right.

Gene: 1:28:12

Embarrassing. It's not the only mistake you made. So anyway,

Ben: 1:28:17

Oh,

Gene: 1:28:18

you know, I got your back,

Ben: 1:28:21

man. It's not my enemies that keep me up at night. I can handle my enemies. It's my friends, my goddamn friends that keep me up at night. RNG Harding. Yeah, total,

Gene: 1:28:34

total truth right there. So I just, I think that it is very self limiting to assume that you can never leave somewhere. And granted living in what has been the best country to live in, in the world for a long time, I think makes people assume that this is the only country, but guess what? All of our ancestors moved here from somewhere else. And so this idea of migration is very it's not a, it's not a new idea. It's an old idea and moving someplace either to avoid problems back home or to find a better life. Now, sometimes you have to move to avoid the problems back home, even if the life you're moving to is not as good as what you used to have. You know, pre Russian revolution, my family was doing quite well. We had servants, we had a large apartment buildings post Russian revolution, not so much. So it, it's a,

Ben: 1:29:47

you know, you're a part

Gene: 1:29:48

of the bourgeois also part of the communists. My my grandparents were very enthusiastic communists, um, you know, because they were rebelling against their parents. They were in their early twenties. And they they did grow up with money. And so of course, what do kids that grow up with money do? They rebel against their parents and join Antifa and Communist Party and shit like that. So that's exactly what my grandparents said.

Ben: 1:30:19

So your grandparents were useful idiots then?

Gene: 1:30:24

Yeah, I mean in a sense you could say that. But I, like, it's fact. You can't dispute it. You can't dispute both things. That both, we had a much better lifestyle and money, you know, because my relatives were doctors and lawyers and accountants and stuff. Then pre Russian revolution, then post Russian revolution, but also that they were partly responsible for the Russian revolution. Some of them were, obviously not all of them, but certainly my direct ancestors were. So anyway, long, long segment on this, but I think that I've sufficiently made the point that even if you ultimately choose to not go anywhere, I think it's silly not to at least consider the. Option of what would it take? What do I need to do today to be able to carry as much. Money and my family over to some place where we can avoid being in the middle of a civil war. I think that's a legitimate thing to do. You're cutting out again. Let's see when Ben's back. There you go, you're back. You're cut out. Oh my God. This is going to be one of those episodes that everybody complains about. Why didn't you fix the audio? Why didn't you guys straighten out what you're doing with audio before you record it? We're going to get

Ben: 1:32:03

those complaints. Because it randomly is dropping out for some

Gene: 1:32:06

reason. Yeah, and it wasn't doing this for

Ben: 1:32:08

you yesterday. No, and here's the other thing is it's dropping out. The time sync is breaking. It's coming back. And then it's dropping out again, and then it's coming back, and it's doing it at a fairly regular interval. Now,

Gene: 1:32:24

remember, I had an issue with my time sync when I moved my Motu to the Mac. Huh. That was where the issue was, and then I, I did what Bandrew said to do. Which was? I can't remember. I wish I did. I don't remember what it was. Um. Thanks Gene. Um, you know, but I do remember I had to connect it back to the PC because that check box didn't come up on the Mac. And then I moved it back to the Mac and it's

Ben: 1:32:55

been working ever since. Was it an Able Jam sync? Nope,

Gene: 1:33:00

nope, wasn't that. But it was, it was something that there was a checkbox for. Maybe I could do this after the recording. I don't want to waste time and during the episode that people are going to be bored to death

Ben: 1:33:10

listening to anyway. Oh, everybody wants to know what we're doing internally.

Gene: 1:33:14

Yeah, they, they really don't.

Ben: 1:33:18

Well, whatever, it's going to be a screwed up episode regardless, because yeah, it is, it is what it is in Costa Rica and Belize. So

Gene: 1:33:25

yeah, my, my only point is just, it's an option that everybody should consider and you may decide that after consideration that no matter what happens in the U. S., you're going to stay here. That's fine. I just want to make sure that, that that's not for lack of consideration and you don't want to be the guy at the last minute going, Oh shit, you mean I could have left and I could have avoided all this shit? Oh, why didn't anybody tell me?

Ben: 1:33:49

Yeah, and I'd rather push for Texit, but If I was going to leave, I would I would choose, um, a country that didn't extradite to the U S

Gene: 1:33:59

and, but what do you care? Extra us is not going to exist. And like all the treaties with the U S will be irrelevant after the revolution. Yeah. Theoretically likely not guaranteed, obviously, but likely. Yeah. Okay. The population will be at best cut in half and likely a 10th of what it was previously. Yeah,

Ben: 1:34:23

let's see

Gene: 1:34:25

nine out of ten people that you see in the street are gonna be dead

Ben: 1:34:30

by the way books Did you read what are you reading?

Gene: 1:34:35

So I am I started listening

Ben: 1:34:38

to did you do the American Apocalypse one?

Gene: 1:34:42

No, I still haven't finished the fifth book of the, um, Charlie's Charlie's thing, but I started reading a new book by an author that I really like about, um, a XCA dude. I think his, his last name is Letell. I can't remember his first name. James, maybe James Letell. He's the guy that wrote the company, which is one of my all time favorite books. The company is sort of a historical fiction. About the cold war and the CIA interplay with the

Ben: 1:35:18

KGB. So, um, why are you so obsessed with the CIA? I'm not obsessed

Gene: 1:35:25

with the CIA. I don't know. Why do you, why do you think I'm obsessed with the CIA?

Ben: 1:35:31

I don't know. You, you Talk about this guy talking about leaving before 2030 and now you're reading this book and you know, the next thing I know. Not really

Gene: 1:35:41

an obsession. I'm a, I'm a fan of the CIA. I think the CIA is a good organization. I think it's had, um.

Ben: 1:35:49

Now I know you're lying.

Gene: 1:35:52

No, I'm all for the CIA. I have been a fan of the CIA for a long time. Huh. I think it's one of the few parts of the U. S. government that actually carries out their mission. Oof. Evil, but maybe. Can't say that about most other parts of the U. S. government. Um, and you can have, you know, opinions and disagreements about, Whether the mission is good or bad or otherwise, but, um, the mission as defined, I think the CIA is generally been very good at carrying out. And if you watch that video of that guy, he talks about types of people, the CIA recruits, what do they look for?

Ben: 1:36:38

And what was his take on that? Because it very much depends on the role the CIA is recruiting for

Gene: 1:36:44

this, the CIA. Looks for damaged people.

Ben: 1:36:51

Oh, they look for people that I can agree with that

Gene: 1:36:53

one. Yeah. They look for people that have flexible morals. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm telling you, this dude is just saying all the shit right, right there,

Ben: 1:37:07

right into the microphone. You know there's no such thing as ex CIA though, right? Well, naturally.

Gene: 1:37:14

Um, no, he, you know, once, well, it, it's better than that. So, both he and his wife were in the CIA. Oh God. Um, yeah, yeah. And then they both left at the same time. Sure. They did. Yeah. And you see the air quotes I just made, right? Yeah.

Ben: 1:37:33

I can see those from here.

Gene: 1:37:36

So, No, I think he's been a very good, um, very good guest on that show. It's worth listening to. It's about two and a half hours. And God, I'm trying to remember his name. He's got an unusual name. He's a long haired dude. He's got, yeah, he's basically got an Afro. I mean, that's essentially what it looks like. He did not have an Afro when he was in the CIA. But he's definitely grown on that for us. Well, I've seen photos of him,

Ben: 1:38:06

But it was the KGB keeping track.

Gene: 1:38:09

No such thing as a KGB. Why does everyone keep saying KGB kid? There's no such thing as

Ben: 1:38:13

FSB, whatever it is now. So he

Gene: 1:38:16

is I think this new role that he's in, well, here, if anybody's curious, you can go find it, his website is the everyday spy. I think it's just, it's either the everyday spy or just everydayspy. com. I'm just going to go there to verify as I'm telling you. Yeah, it's, it's an everyday spy. And then you could see pictures of him and his wife and kids. And stuff. And I'm sure he's got a link to his interviews. Um, and he sells a program on how to take the stuff that he learned in the CIA and apply it to business and be successful. So Andrew, Andrew Basmati, I think is his name or something like that. So

Ben: 1:39:01

he's. He's a type of rice.

Gene: 1:39:05

Well, I'm, I'm, it's obviously not Basmati. It's, but it sounds like Basmati. I, I, I know. It's like Bustamante or something. Uh huh, huh. Yeah, it is. It's, it's Bustamante. That's literally his name. But it sounds like Basmati. I always just think of Basmati rice when I think of him. But, no, he's I think. He's a nice risotto. Exactly. I think he'd do a good job with that. Um, but I think it's silly not to listen to people that have had access to things you haven't had access to for decades. And it's, it's good to get as much information as possible. And you're certainly not going to get all the information that people like that have had access to. I guarantee you're going to get. You're going to hear some things you'd never heard before or thought of before. So it's always good to watch these interviews.

Ben: 1:39:59

Yeah, we'll see. I will watch it.

Gene: 1:40:03

What better things have you got to do? You've been recovering from having a cold anyway. Or flu

Ben: 1:40:08

or whatever you had. Dude, I don't know what. I had, but it

Gene: 1:40:11

was in the lungs or the

Ben: 1:40:13

throat or everybody, um, body aches, man, fever, chills, body aches didn't really have a cough until after I was getting over it. And then now I've got a little bit of a cough, but it hasn't been a very productive one. Um, it was probably a flu. It was something You know, basically, the week before, I was around a bunch of people from all over the world. I mean, you had people from Europe, APAC, you know, all over. And, um, I was around people for a week, and as a result, everybody got sick. Everyone who was at this little conference that I was at. Everybody got sick and people were taking COVID tests and getting it negative. And I'm like, Oh, I don't even have any, so not doing that anyway. So whatever, don't care.

Gene: 1:41:05

And well, it sounds like it was a flu

Ben: 1:41:06

anyway. Yeah. Regardless, it was, it was whatever it was, was bad, which I've only ever had the flu one other time in my life. So if this was, if this was a flu, this would have been I'm number two I've ever had the flu.

Gene: 1:41:24

Hmm. Well, I mean, what you're describing symptom wise sounds like a flu. I think I've Yeah, that or RSV. I rarely get this shit. I maybe get a flu once a decade. Yeah, that

Ben: 1:41:34

or RSV. And regardless, it was, It was not fun. Yeah. But, But you're

Gene: 1:41:40

mostly past it.

Ben: 1:41:42

Yeah. And I'm hopping on a plane here next week. So, yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Gene: 1:41:48

Yeah. Good luck to you and all that. And I hope you're not flying United, because they're fucking falling out of the sky left and right.

Ben: 1:41:56

Yeah, I was gonna bring that up. I am flying United. Oh, fuck, dude. And they ran off the runway at IAH, and then a tire fell off of one out of California.

Gene: 1:42:07

Huh. Yeah. And, and Yeah, I mean, they've had like three or four incidents in the last week and they're all United Flights.

Ben: 1:42:17

Yeah, all 787s though too.

Gene: 1:42:20

Yeah, so, and now I just yesterday retweeted a photo of the CEO of United in drag.

Ben: 1:42:28

Oh yeah, yeah, that's been going around for a while. Well, if I'm flying out of Houston, that's pretty much my only option. You may want to fly out

Gene: 1:42:38

of Dallas.

Ben: 1:42:40

Yeah, but then I gotta fly American. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's not any better.

Gene: 1:42:45

Ooh, you hate America, don't ya?

Ben: 1:42:48

I do. I do hate American Airlines. I'm not a fan.

Gene: 1:42:53

Well, I don't know. I've been flying American for years, and I, I prefer that over United.

Ben: 1:42:58

Well, I miss Continental, but

Gene: 1:43:00

That's good. I agree. I, I flew Continental, um, back in the nineties for quite a while and it was good. Yeah. Well,

Ben: 1:43:10

it's dead and gone now. So we'll see. Yeah.

Gene: 1:43:13

Continental used to have one of the best, um, first classes.

Ben: 1:43:18

Well, and loyalty programs. That was

Gene: 1:43:20

the big thing. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty good loyalty program. Didn't require as many points or miles. Um, yeah, no, I, I always enjoyed kind of, cause they, you know, they kind of flip flop different alliances for a while. They were part of the, um, Delta Alliance. Then they went to the United Alliance

Ben: 1:43:39

and they merged with United

Gene: 1:43:41

and all ended with United. Yep. And then they kill them,

Ben: 1:43:45

kill them off. And I think we're going to see some pretty major shifts in the U S assuming civil war doesn't break out. I think the U S civilian air market's going to change dramatically. It will

Gene: 1:43:57

be like Europe going down to like two airlines.

Ben: 1:44:00

Go down to like, yeah, I, I, I don't see how United American and Delta stay separate. Mm hmm. I think there will be a merger there. I think you'll have secondary tier. Like, you know, um, some country or Southwest. Yeah. You know, and then you've who did Alaska and just merge with shit. Um,

Gene: 1:44:27

yeah, they did, didn't they? Virgin? Yeah. Was it virgin?

Ben: 1:44:30

No. Anyway I I think you're saying a consolidation is the point.

Gene: 1:44:35

Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Well, it's been going downhill ever since 2001. Yeah. That was my favorite Hawaiian and I, I was still traveling in Hawaiian is who

Ben: 1:44:47

they merged with, by the way. Hawaiian.

Gene: 1:44:49

Oh, Hawaiian. That makes sense. Yeah. Um. Yeah, the, the flights never really recovered from 9 11

Ben: 1:45:01

from a services or airport or anything status. I agree.

Gene: 1:45:05

It's, it's been what, 23 years since then, but. I still remember how prior to 9 11, the, the flights, like a flight that was basically considered full was what would be considered two thirds full today. Very rarely did you have all three seats in coach filled and The first class was not business back then. It was a genuine first class, like you had multi course meals on domestic flights with real silverware and real, real wine glasses. I mean, it was a very different experience and this, and I'm talking about even the nineties, like if you go back to the late seventies. Where the, the upper floor of the 747 was a bar you know, where people could smoke. That was even way more, but even in the 90s, like right before. 9 11, it was a much more luxurious air travel experience, incidentally for less

Ben: 1:46:11

money. After adjusted for inflation, sure.

Gene: 1:46:17

Even adjusted for inflation, I think for less

Ben: 1:46:20

money. I'm just saying that. If you're comparing first class, sure. I think the cheaper tickets have gotten cheaper

Gene: 1:46:31

though. Yeah. Because of inflation. Cause I think she will, I'll tell you cheap tickets, meaning like coach tickets routinely were 200 bucks, 200, 210 bucks, which I think is still more than the 450 bucks they are today in 24 years of inflation. But rarely would you need to pay over 300 for a ticket in coach in the, in the nineties. Um, but first class has always been between 800 and a thousand dollars. That price really hasn't changed, which means it's gotten way cheaper to fly.

Ben: 1:47:11

You don't want to know what I just paid for tickets to Charlotte for coach

Gene: 1:47:15

tickets. Yeah. A thousand bucks.

Ben: 1:47:20

Probably at least that. Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:47:24

What, when did you get 700 and something, but yeah. I mean, at that point you might as well get first. You're close enough.

Ben: 1:47:32

Not going to happen. So not on that short of a domestic flight, man. Oh yeah. Anything that's under like six, seven hours is just not worth it.

Gene: 1:47:43

Um, completely disagree with that. I think anything that's over one hour is worth it. Okay. Honestly, over 30 minutes. I don't want to fly. I don't want to fly coach Dallas either. Dude. I, if I'm flying to Dallas, it's going to be the first. Yeah, well,

Ben: 1:48:02

Now that you don't have status and you're having to pay for all that. Yeah.

Gene: 1:48:06

No, I've been paying for 15 years, dude. I, I just, I got sick of trying to hope that I would get an upgrade and I'm like, no, it's not worth it. So part of my contract with all my clients is that they pay for first class travel.

Ben: 1:48:26

Well, and on that note, um, I apologize for the audio issues. Hopefully we can get this fixed and Yeah.

Gene: 1:48:34

And I, I hope it's not, you can tell me

Ben: 1:48:35

hardware, man. I don't think so. I think the way it's dropping out Yeah. And coming back is, is mm-Hmm, yeah. I mean, it may be hardware in that it's like a cable or something like that. Yeah. But I don't think it's actually the moto. And

Gene: 1:48:50

you haven't had any like lightning strikes there or anything. You got the motor plugged into a UPS. They hope

Ben: 1:48:57

I do. Well, yeah, under my desk. Um, I will say this. I did lose the power supply on my NAS recently. No, really? Yeah. I had to order one off of I, NAS and it's like, huh, it's not on the network. Let me go look, huh? It won't power on. Oh, I had to replace the power supply.

Gene: 1:49:23

Yeah, oof. Okay. Well, yeah, so we'll wrap it up. But, um, definitely. Yeah, you can tell

Ben: 1:49:31

me what Andrew said and I can try that setting. It

Gene: 1:49:35

was, ah, God, it was something.

Ben: 1:49:40

Something, something,

Gene: 1:49:41

something. If I looked at the screen, I could tell you what it is. I think it's in the main screen of the Motude, like, the first screen. And it was a checkbox of some type. But I'll, I'll see if I can track it down. Or you could just ask, oh, wait. Are you even on the new agenda, whatever they're called, the new Mastodons?

Ben: 1:50:01

Yeah, I'm on a

Gene: 1:50:04

screen. There you go. So sample rate 48 o'clock internal. Oh, samples. That's what it is. Click on samples. How high does that go? Post or yeah, yeah, yeah. Put it on five 12 for both. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was what it was. All right. I guess two 56. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, that's all it is because for what we're doing, we're not doing music. So if we're off by half a second, it doesn't matter.

Ben: 1:50:27

So you see where it says clock status here. Yeah. It's whenever I drop out this icon unlocks. Yeah. It was red.

Gene: 1:50:34

Correct. Yes. Yes. That's what it would do. But it was the whole sample thing that fixed it for me. So try

Ben: 1:50:42

that. So if we can try it and hopefully next show, we don't have the

Gene: 1:50:46

audio. Also try rebooting your computer just in

Ben: 1:50:48

case. Yeah, I will. And one of the things I'll say is if we're having the audio issues again, next week, I will switch to the backup mic and we'll go from there.

Gene: 1:50:58

All right, go beans. I will catch you next week. We'll see

Ben: 1:51:04

you.