065 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

Howdy, Ben. How you doing today?

Ben: 0:24

Gene, I'm doing as good as I deserve.

Gene: 0:28

Oh that could have a lot of different connotations there.

Ben: 0:32

Yeah, no,

Gene: 0:33

I'm a little tired, but not too bad all of a sudden. I just

Ben: 0:36

I know I was packing up and getting ready to go to the range and then you text me like, no, we can do it. Okay. Last night you were saying no. So

Gene: 0:45

I don't know, I just kind of had a hard time falling asleep.

Ben: 0:50

That's all good. Hey I have found a combination of supplements. That has worked really, really effing well for me. It's a magnesium supplement

Gene: 1:02

Mm

Ben: 1:02

and a valerian root supplement right before bed. And that seems to be awesome. So the magnesium kind of relaxes your body, the larynx kind of relaxes your mind, and there you go.

Gene: 1:17

I have Valerian. I take Magnesium every day, but I have Valerian I

Ben: 1:22

What time of day do you take it?

Gene: 1:23

I don't take Valerian unless I need to.

Ben: 1:26

No, no, no, the magnesium.

Gene: 1:27

Oh, in the morning.

Ben: 1:29

Alright, switch that to the evening, right before bed.

Gene: 1:31

I'll forget.

Ben: 1:32

Eh, okay, you know,

Gene: 1:34

I do, I do one, one time a day. I don't care what it's supposed to be, I just do everything in the morning when I wake up.

Ben: 1:40

Yeah, that's the way I have been too, but, you know. But anyway, this has helped me a lot.

Gene: 1:46

Okay. Interesting. But yeah, I forgot about Valerian, actually, because I do have it and I probably should have taken some last night. It is an addictive thing, so you need to be careful of Valerian, but it's, the, the other thing about Valerian is it prevents you from going into REM, so you get the other three types of sleep, but you don't get REM with Valerian.

Ben: 2:10

I'm still getting REM, so,

Gene: 2:12

Mmm. Probably not.

Ben: 2:15

well, according to my watch, I am, so,

Gene: 2:18

Oh, because your watch knows what kind of sleep you're in. Yes, yes. It's got magic abilities that it can sense what your sleep is like.

Ben: 2:25

I don't know. I think I think they've got it down pretty good.

Gene: 2:29

Huh. It's all based on arm movement, so it's interpreting what you're doing with your arm to figure out

Ben: 2:33

Arm, pulse, heart rate, fluctuations, all sorts

Gene: 2:38

Mm hmm,

Ben: 2:39

actually. The respiration, you know.

Gene: 2:42

It does not know your respiration, dude It that is so much conjecture like you can have all kinds of things that are displayed on the watch But you tell me how it's calculating your respiration.

Ben: 2:56

Huh. Mm hmm. Okay.

Gene: 2:58

No seriously tell me

Ben: 3:00

Through pulse ox changes.

Gene: 3:02

through pulse ox? Changes and how far away is your watch from your heart?

Ben: 3:07

Your point.

Gene: 3:09

My point is that by the time the bloods get into your watch There's been a diffusion of oxygen throughout. You're not going to see a distinct little breaths in there.

Ben: 3:22

Okay. I, I mean, literally when they measure pulse ox, it's at the fingertip. So I don't know.

Gene: 3:29

It's not at the finger. You, Oh, you mean the sensors? Yes, yes, they do. But the pulse ox meter isn't telling you your breath rate either.

Ben: 3:38

Yeah. I mean, okay. You know, I don't know. They can measure it through a lot of

Gene: 3:43

Yeah. Yeah. It, there's a lot of, there's a lot of measurement of one thing and then the prediction of another thing. Yeah, you should be exactly. You're one of those. Trust the science. Now. I actually measure my sleep the proper way, which is, it's, my bed is doing it. So it's, it's picking up my breathing by actually listening.

Ben: 4:09

okay.

Gene: 4:09

I'm snoring too.

Ben: 4:12

Did you did you get the cold weather and the Thunderstorms last night.

Gene: 4:17

Yeah, the thunderstorms didn't have a whole lot of lightning, but they did have quite a bit of rain.

Ben: 4:21

We had quite a bit of rain and quite a bit of lightning. We got a little under an inch and you know, quite a bit of lightning just north of us got a lot more. Shit, if that's what she's saying, then that's really sad, dude. That's, that's, that's, that's beyond Asian. That's micro. But yeah, no, it was so it's in the fifties here and we're going to be in the forties tomorrow. So.

Gene: 4:44

I don't know what,

Ben: 4:46

Chili for

Gene: 4:46

outside cause I haven't been out this morning, but I noticed the heat was on in the house. So obviously it's cooled off enough that they decided to flip from air conditioning to heat.

Ben: 4:58

Hm.

Gene: 4:59

Definitely one of those days. So this episode is probably coming not too many days after the last episode because Transcribed Somebody did all the edits to the last episode, and then told you that, hey I'm uploading it right now.

Ben: 5:14

Huh.

Gene: 5:15

I guess I should have been explicit and said, hey, I'm uploading it right now, can you hit the post button?

Ben: 5:21

I didn't know you wanted me to

Gene: 5:22

I know I

Ben: 5:23

you were taking care of it. I'm like, okay, cool.

Gene: 5:26

now I realized, and then you didn't, you didn't say anything for the four days after that when it wasn't up. So anyway, the last episode was ready a lot sooner than it was actually uploaded. So this one should come just a couple of days after the last

Ben: 5:39

and CSB's already been commenting on that one this week in guns,

Gene: 5:43

No, I see. Oh, okay. Yeah. This weekend Jones. Yeah. So,

Ben: 5:49

which he's not wrong. We did talk about guns a lot, but we like guns, so

Gene: 5:54

we do like guns there. There's certainly plenty of gun talk to go around. Okay. Did you see that Dirt Riffic was on the Unsubscribe Podcast, which I really disliked two of the people on that podcast, but it still keeps getting recommended to me for some reason. Probably because Brandon's on there.

Ben: 6:14

No, I did not.

Gene: 6:16

Do you ever watch that podcast?

Ben: 6:18

I have not,

Gene: 6:19

So it's basically Brandon his butt buddy donut operator.

Ben: 6:24

which, you know what? I, I like Donut to an

Gene: 6:27

you're the only one. You are the

Ben: 6:29

hold on, hold on, but he is so back the blue.

Gene: 6:34

Hmm. Hmm. He is, I mean, it's really actually kind of funny. He was a cop for four years. So he is a, a, a has been wannabe cop

Ben: 6:47

Oof.

Gene: 6:49

who, uh, Who for whatever reason is Brandon's best buddy or, but buddy depending on who you listen to. And Donut Operator's girlfriend is also the the chick from Black Rifle Coffee. So there's two reasons to dislike him.

Ben: 7:06

Why is that a reason to dislike him?

Gene: 7:09

Oh, that coffee company is I mean, I don't know if you've seen any of the the controversy about it, but they first got under the microscope when Kyle Rittenhouse was wearing one of those shirts, and they disavowed him. We don't want him wearing our, our branded clothes. He does not represent the values of us. And which kind of got me irked a little bit. And then they there was a lawsuit that happened from a former employee for sexual harassment. And it was gay sexual harassment by the CEO.

Ben: 7:45

Isn't the CEO Matt Best? Isn't the CEO Matt Best?

Gene: 7:51

I don't know, but apparently in that lawsuit, a whole bunch of stuff came out, like walking around the office naked, talking to employees about gay shit at work. I mean, there's just a whole ton of sluff stuff that was happening, and there was even a quote that came out that says that I, I can't, it's I'm not quoting it because I can't remember it, but there was a quote as part of the lawsuit of, Several of the people discussing their idiot right wing customers. I mean, that company hates its customers and there are a lot of other coffee brands out there, including Tim pools

Ben: 8:34

Yeah, but Temple sucks.

Gene: 8:36

yeah, so is Breck rifle. Every, every bag of coffee has a little bit of come in it. Mm hmm. See if you ever buy any now.

Ben: 8:46

I, I haven't. So no, I actually buy the Sam's brand Columbia supremo quite a

Gene: 8:52

Oh yeah.

Ben: 8:53

Yeah. It's actually not bad for a whole bean, you know, cheap ass

Gene: 8:56

like the central market stuff.

Ben: 8:59

Yeah my favorite is really the Starbucks Sumatran, but I hate that company so much. I can't bring myself to purchase it and

Gene: 9:08

rifles, arguably no better. So anyway but on that podcast that there's a third guy who is all tatted up and always laughing and I have no idea what his schtick is. I don't know what else he does, I don't know anything about his background, never seems to talk about anything. And he's just annoying. I wish he wasn't down there. I mean, it's bad enough having done an operator on there, but they usually have some kind of guest and the guests they had, and if, if Brandon ever gets into Congress, this podcast will be what will be used to try and kick him out.

Ben: 9:47

control him. Yeah.

Gene: 9:49

And impeach it. Cause there's, I mean, it's basically a bunch of college boys is what it sounds like

Ben: 9:56

Yeah.

Gene: 9:57

talking about pussy and drugs and everything else.

Ben: 10:00

You heard what Tony Gonzalez said about Brandon this morning on CNN.

Gene: 10:03

No, I totally did not.

Ben: 10:05

He called Brandon Herrera on CNN this morning, and it's all over Twitter, Brandon's posted it, everybody else has posted it, but a neo Nazi KKK that used to wear a white hood at night, but now is wearing it in the daytime. This is a Republican,

Gene: 10:23

Yeah. I mean, we, we should really stop saying rhino because really all but 15 people that are Republicans are actually Democrats. So Republican, Democrat, Republican, you know, whatever you want to call them. They're all the same people with a slight, small exception of folks. There's one in the Senate and 15 in the house. Everybody else is a fucking Republican rat. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, I didn't see that'cause I, you know, just got up right before we did this, but it doesn't surprise me.

Ben: 11:04

Yeah, no, anyway, it was just, it's a, I encourage everybody to go watch it because especially if you're in that area and you're trying to decide who to vote for, because Brandon Herrera is a lot of things. White supremacist is

Gene: 11:20

always funny when you have a black white supremacist or a

Ben: 11:23

brown white supremacist. It just doesn't

Gene: 11:26

yeah. Or, or like a, an Indian with a dot white supremacist. I mean, there's a shit ton of the white supremacist movement is very rainbow. Apparently

Ben: 11:37

ironic. Yeah.

Gene: 11:39

the number, the number of people in the white supremacist movement is predominantly non white. Oh man, that's just nuts.

Ben: 11:52

You know, what can we say? We, we we encourage a lot of diverse people

Gene: 11:58

All about diversity, I guess. I don't know, man. Yeah. Speaking of diversity. So the, the Texas clan that I've been in for the last decade,

Ben: 12:08

while talking about KKK members.

Gene: 12:14

clan than that one.

Ben: 12:16

Sure. Likely story, Jean.

Gene: 12:18

yeah, it's it is instituting rules about free speech and starting to annoy me

Ben: 12:27

yeah, about that.

Gene: 12:31

because,

Ben: 12:32

what, I mean, who does this? Who the fuck says we're going to institute rules about free speech?

Gene: 12:40

you can't talk badly about Jews anymore.

Ben: 12:43

That

Gene: 12:43

And that was literally like one of my main pastimes. And

Ben: 12:47

Please.

Gene: 12:49

is because the, the other guy that's in there, that was a friend of mine who was in town for the the lunar eclipse and I heard only two Jewish members there. And so I love ragging on him and using, you know, Jewish memes and tropes about him being a cheapskate and all the, all this other shit. And I can't do that anymore.

Ben: 13:15

You know, you do that to me, so it's all good.

Gene: 13:18

Yeah that's because you don't realize you actually are one. So, Ahem.

Ben: 13:24

Oh, man, you know what? I, I, I highly, highly doubt that I have much, if any DNA there, but even so, I certainly have no religious or moral affiliation there. So,

Gene: 13:38

Moral, that's for sure.

Ben: 13:41

yeah, yeah,

Gene: 13:42

hmm.

Ben: 13:43

So did you know?

Gene: 13:44

So, so anyway, just to finish that, that, rather, that thought, the Texas Klan now has put together a 14 page membership principles principles. Paper, which kind of codifies all the shit you shouldn't be talking about and can't be doing. To?

Ben: 14:08

okay.

Gene: 14:10

Right? We have a room in Discord that's called the Kraken Bar. Which has historically been a talk about anything, don't get offended about anything because other people are talking about it room. Like literally meant to be the place where it's politically incorrect. And now there's rules about what you can and can't be talking about in there. So I, I created a new room cause I have admin authority called a snowflake corner. Which they didn't like. So I renamed it to safe space, which they didn't like either. But I thought it's appropriate because if we, if we just let those people not be in the room where grown men are talking, maybe we don't have to do, have a whole bunch of rules about what you can and can't say, but apparently it's not

Ben: 15:06

This is like, when I tried to create a when they were doing diversity, equity and inclusion groups at a corporation I was working for. And I tried to make a minority group called the rationalists and they didn't want to let me, you know?

Gene: 15:20

Huh.

Ben: 15:20

But why? It implies everyone else isn't a rationalist. Correct.

Gene: 15:26

Mm

Ben: 15:27

You are

Gene: 15:27

Hey. Trust the science, man. Trust the science. Huh. It's horrible. It's horrible. And, and for, if anybody is new and they don't know what the hell I'm talking about, the Texas clan is a gaming group for the world of warships that I'm in. So it's a bunch of Texas members, but it's hilarious because in the world of warships, the groups are called clans. So of course the Texas group is the Texas clan which I think the funniest bit of that naming faux pas convention was. Something I didn't participate in and I just heard about it. All I'm going to try and make the next one. Is there was an in person meeting that happened in Dallas where, when they showed up to the restaurant, one of the guys apparently said yeah, I'm, I'm here for the Texas Klan meeting eh, eh, I mean, you would think somebody would, no, that's gotta be a different Texas Klan, but then again, it is Texas, so, you know.

Ben: 16:25

Oh, please. You know what? I I, I, I have relatives that live in historically fairly racist areas of Texas.

Gene: 16:37

No, I was gonna, I thought you were gonna say Alabama. Okay.

Ben: 16:40

I have some relatives in Alabama and Mississippi too and I'll tell you that the East Texas, deep, deep East Texas, it's no longer what people think of, it is Really, just the local mafia is what it is. It's no different than the local mafia and it's treated accordingly. The average person in Texas, regardless of where you're at in Texas, does not have any sympathies for these people whatsoever

Gene: 17:20

For which people? What do you mean by these people?

Ben: 17:23

members of the KKK.

Gene: 17:25

Oh, I thought you meant Jews. I

Ben: 17:26

Well, I mean, those

Gene: 17:28

you started talking about the Mafia, I'm like, oh, he's talking about Jews.

Ben: 17:32

no, I'd be talking about Sicilians, but, you know,

Gene: 17:35

You'd think that, but if you actually look at the history of the mob in New York, you realize they were 50 percent Jewish.

Ben: 17:41

You know, when you start looking at communist leaders, you know, there's another tie in there. I mean,

Gene: 17:46

Hey, hey, hey! Hey!

Ben: 17:46

to look at.

Gene: 17:47

like 70 percent Jewish.

Ben: 17:50

Yeah, like Karl Marx, you know, and, hmm, geez, Stephen Ingalls. Ha

Gene: 17:54

Well, you know, that's a, because remember communism is the playground of the idle hands of the rich. So there were a lot of successful Jews over many years and their children, who happened to be Jewish as well, were usually the ones that dabble in communism or created it in the first place.

Ben: 18:15

Anyway speaking of Jews doing stupid things Israel apparently tried to do something back to Iran?

Gene: 18:25

So that whole thing is, you remember how we talked about how this is a. A force for demonstrative purposes not really trying to get anything kind of attack because we want to

Ben: 18:37

Israel didn't really demonstrate shit.

Gene: 18:41

Yeah, and I but I think it was again One of these things were part of the government in Israel's like us we got a straight back a bunch of war hawks

Ben: 18:50

Three

Gene: 18:51

in this country and Yeah, but what did what did what did Iran do one kid?

Ben: 18:59

Yeah, but none of the Israeli shit made it through apparently.

Gene: 19:04

Right. Which I think is by design. So my point is what we have is posturing going on. Cause nobody can, can to their own people look like they're backing

Ben: 19:16

have a dick measuring contest in the

Gene: 19:19

exact. That's

Ben: 19:20

very sad.

Gene: 19:21

is, Oh my God, that must be the first time that's ever happened. Jesus. Now

Ben: 19:28

two inches! I have 2. 4!

Gene: 19:30

that's what she said. So one thing that I heard.

Ben: 19:34

what? In today's society, she very well may.

Gene: 19:38

she may. Yes, because she may have that. Exactly.

Ben: 19:42

And you know, micropenis is a whole side effect to going on hormone blockers early, so, you know.

Gene: 19:49

I would imagine, I guess that you would think that there's some hormone related sizeage going on there.

Ben: 19:57

Oh yeah, I mean, that's a whole thing for these quote unquote trans kids that are just, it's child

Gene: 20:03

Dude, the ones that I've seen the photos of where they remove like healthy skin from part of the body to. Fuck around with that's just, that is just gross. How does, how did, I don't care what you got down in your general region. How do you think you're going to get a fucking date with an arm that looks like that, right? I mean, that's some barbaric world war two Nazi doctor shit going on there. I just, I don't understand to me that that is. Honestly, I think that's worse than abortion. You're, you're taking somebody that's a child and you are essentially ruining the next 80 years of their life.

Ben: 20:55

Okay, so here's what I'll say. If it's an adult knowingly doing it to themselves

Gene: 21:02

yeah, then it's just a fetish. I don't care about that. I'm talking about anybody that's not an adult that has this done.

Ben: 21:10

That should not be illegal. I

Gene: 21:12

No, it shouldn't be. And then those doctors should be in prison. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 21:18

parental autonomy to an extreme. That doesn't mean that a doctor should help them do it.

Gene: 21:24

I don't think they ought to be doing it in the kitchen either. There's a, I'm, I'm totally for parental autonomy. Here's what my rule of thumb has always been for any kind of mutilation type activity, right? Is if it leaves a permanent mark, then don't do it. You wanna spank your kids, spank your kids.

Ben: 21:53

Yeah.

Gene: 21:53

want to hit your kids with a wire hanger? Don't do that. That'll leave a permanent mark.

Ben: 22:00

No wire hangers ever!

Gene: 22:02

Huh. Exactly. Yeah.

Ben: 22:08

of things, but I, I believe in spanking. I, I believe you try and talk to a kid. I believe you try and say, hey, don't do that. And if they don't listen, you say, You know, Hey, I just told you not to do that. Right. I mean, there's, and, and my, my kids know it, and, you know, I, I had to spank my daughter last weekend and she was very, very upset by it. you know, it's, she also listens and knows that, okay, I'm not gonna get away with shit with dad because, you know, as soon as I cross that line, I'm gonna get the spanking.

Gene: 22:47

Yep. And that's how it works. It's, it's, I think it's always worked like that. I mean, your kids is a little, are a little smarter than pets, but your your dog isn't going to learn how to behave when they're a puppy. Unless you train them to do that through conditioning. Humans learn exactly the same way. It's just that they learn hopefully quicker, and so you don't require as much repetition. But they're also a lot more willing to test the boundaries, I'll tell you that. So yeah, spanking, in my opinion, as somebody who was spanked as a kid, I will say that that is absolutely the proper way to make sure that a kid knows what's right and wrong.

Ben: 23:38

yeah. You know, it, it's. It's a quick corporal punishment, and here's the thing. You know, you're teaching kids bad behavior. No, you're teaching kids appropriate behavior because ultimately all of human society, and this is what I hate about our society today. You know, I, I, and a lot of my peers feel that, oh, there's no reason for violence ever. Bullshit. Bullshit. All of our society is predicated under the idea of You fuck around enough, you're going to find out, you're going to cross the line, and ultimately, the reaction is, I'm not going to allow you to continue doing what you're doing. So, teaching the kids that, and I think that's what spanking teaches them early on, that hey, there are consequences for your decisions, is an absolute good thing.

Gene: 24:31

And there's, there's a, a huge difference between a parent that spanks their kid and the behavior of the mother in Charlie's Requiem. I think too often people,

Ben: 24:45

Conflate the two.

Gene: 24:46

conflate them, they throw them in the same exact bin and it's you know, how, how can you possibly be in favor of abusing children through physical violence?

Ben: 24:56

First of all, I think more adults need to be abused through physical violence. But that's neither here nor there. And anyway, I don't

Gene: 25:03

What, boy, with an attitude like that, have you considered being a cop?

Ben: 25:09

know. No, I'm, no, no.

Gene: 25:12

Cause, boy, that's sure what they tend to like to enjoy to do. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 25:17

Yeah, there's, there's something there. I tend to not,

Gene: 25:21

you too can become a donut operator.

Ben: 25:25

too can beat your wife. You

Gene: 25:28

About, yeah. Over half,

Ben: 25:29

the old joke, right? You know the old joke.

Gene: 25:32

Which, which, which one?

Ben: 25:34

A cop says, I'm not racist. My wife's eye is black.

Gene: 25:39

Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. Yep. Yep. Yeah, there's so one of the stance I remember seeing maybe 10, 12 years ago about police was that, of people that are married to a policeman, roughly 50 percent of them seek counseling for spousal abuse.

Ben: 26:03

Yeah but you know what? Women, women play

Gene: 26:07

say women. I said people married to cops.

Ben: 26:11

Okay, which is predominantly male and everything else, but anyway.

Gene: 26:17

no, no, no, no, there's plenty of female cops out there, man.

Ben: 26:22

What I would say to that is, I think that there are way too many people who jump on the abuse train that go down the road of I don't know, man, I, when you see that today in today's society what is considered assault and what is considered abuse. It's insane. So, oh, your wife's spending too much. Take her credit card. Oh, that's financial abuse.

Gene: 26:52

Mhm.

Ben: 26:53

I'm, she's bankrupting me. I, you can't do anything about it. That's financial abuse.

Gene: 26:58

Isn't it financial abuse when she's bankrupting you is not the financial abuse?

Ben: 27:02

Oh, don't get me started.

Gene: 27:04

Or is it just financial dominance and,

Ben: 27:07

All I, all I can say, man, is that we, we have allowed ourselves To go way, way, way too far down the road. You know, when you're right, you're

Gene: 27:28

every, I, that's exactly what I was going to say. It's here's the thing. Everybody always makes that sound that you just did. It's ooh, can't believe you just said that. But then everybody's nodding their heads going, Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm. Yep. Now it's, I think It's kind of a a funny meme thing for the, the red pill chicks out there. To say women shouldn't have gotten the vote being women themselves, but I think it's also the rational position because if you understand the difference between men and women and you realize that those differences make them more suitable for different activities and different jobs, you have to think of voting just in the same context as a job. And the, the rational mind that is required when voting in order to make the best long term choice for your society, for your group you, you start to realize that, yeah. It should be men voting, not women.

Ben: 28:41

You know, when you look at the state imposing In the state imposing a lot of emotional trauma based stuff around

Gene: 28:55

that all that come from?

Ben: 28:56

it because it affects women and women vote for it

Gene: 29:00

Yeah. Mm

Ben: 29:01

and statistically men are the primary offenders and it has zero effect on them.

Gene: 29:09

Yeah. It's it's not even just women voting for things they dislike. It's women. Have a nurturing behavior that is genetically programmed or, you know, by God, if you will. And part of that is the same thing that causes women to always want to adopt adopt, adopt a stray dog. Like the number of quote unquote rescued animals in this country is an epidemic. Cause most other countries just kill off strays and they don't reproduce after that. In the U S very few places actually kill strays. Most of them have no kill policies in their shelters with some exceptions, obviously. And as a result, you've got people that the vast majority, in fact, of American people that have pets did not get those pets as babies and then train them. They got them as used animals. And the reason that's happening is because women are driving the United States. There's one thing that you can't say about the Middle East, that most of the Middle East is not driven by women's politics or women's desires or, you know, women's feelings. Same thing in Asia. Definitely not the case. Same thing in Africa. Definitely not the case, but where do women actually lead and men follow? That is the West. That is United States and Western Europe.

Ben: 30:46

You're making me depressed, Gene.

Gene: 30:48

I'm sorry. That's my job. Wait, did I say that out loud? No, but it is just doing something that seems benevolent or even good and not considering the longterm ramifications. Transcribed And had somebody considered long term ramifications, women would have never gotten the right to vote.

Ben: 31:12

acting emotionally, not rationally.

Gene: 31:16

You, you, and you can't expect the average woman. Of course, there's exceptions. Everybody can point to somebody that acts differently. But if you look at the average, you can't expect the average woman to act in a rational manner, in the same way that you would expect a man to do. It's not that women are incapable of it. It's just, they're flooded with hormones. And those hormones are there for a reason. And that is that emotional behavior is more necessary when raising children than logical behavior. Now you need both. That's why you raise children as a couple presumably a married couple. That's where marriage came about because people that stick together tend to have better kids. And those kids tend to do better. And when you do better, you have a high chance, or a high year. Chance of surviving. So over many, many generations of thousands of years, we've gotten into this tradition of coupling up because that has worked for our ancestors. And that, while that's also crumbling in the United States, the idea that men and women do different jobs and they have a different biological advantage to doing each of their jobs has also existed for thousands and thousands of years.

Ben: 32:38

the most sexist thing I've ever heard you say. Men and women are equal in every way.

Gene: 32:44

And that, that is the most irrational thing I've ever heard you say.

Ben: 32:48

That's because I'm joking

Gene: 32:49

I know, I know, I know, but it, but it's, but that is literally what people will say what you just said. It's yeah, you know, you're, the science is in men and the women are identical. There's no difference. We can make a man into a woman and a woman into a man and you can't tell the difference if you're blind, dumb and deaf, maybe

Ben: 33:08

Yeah you know, what are you, what you going to do?

Gene: 33:10

it's insane, dude. And, and it's behavior and policies like that. That have brought us to where we are in this country, where I think we are going to see an awful lot of emotion happening. I was talking about this to somebody else the other day. That I don't even think it was Darren. I think it might've been just somebody on the phone or something that, oh yeah, it was somebody on the phone for sure. I'm discord. I just remembered who it

Ben: 33:40

Discord is now the phone.

Gene: 33:42

It kind of is right. Discord phone, same, different signal phone. Is that, that now again, there, there's no downside for me because I would love to be wrong in my prediction because it would actually be a good thing if I was wrong, but I don't think I'm going to be wrong. I think that the amount of election, what do they call it? It's yeah, that's something where they use, so it was

Ben: 34:11

in electioneering

Gene: 34:12

a term for it. It's like not embossing the election, but like in, in started with an E. Anyway, doing activities that ensure that Trump loses is going to be double what it was last cycle.

Ben: 34:29

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 34:30

Like they, they did just enough to ensure that Trump lost last time. They are a lot more afraid that Trump's going to win this time. And as a result. They're going to do a lot more Texas is almost guaranteed to become a blue state

Ben: 34:46

So yeah, there's been a lot of the voting registration irregularities and the social security administration has stopped posting data on it, which is. If they're, here's the thing,

Gene: 34:56

They've been

Ben: 34:57

groups are not going through and suing the shit out of people right now, it's over. And all I can say is, you know, in 2016, I kind of joked that, you know, the bad thing about Trump getting elected was that it made the likelihood of Texas secession go down. I think between Biden. And his border policies,

Gene: 35:20

Mm hmm.

Ben: 35:20

and if something like that happens in Texas, where Texas flips blue because of people who should not be voting, voting,

Gene: 35:32

And incidentally, it's not like they're gonna vote. It's that somebody's gonna turn in a ballot.

Ben: 35:36

Yes, whatever. But if that were to happen, I see the Texas secessionist movement growing huge, big league.

Gene: 35:48

Mm hmm.

Ben: 35:50

We'll

Gene: 35:50

That'll be good for the amount of money that's made by the Texas Association Movement, I suppose

Ben: 35:57

That's very very dark of you,

Gene: 36:00

We we've talked about this too. I love the concept. I'm rah, rah. I'm cheerleading all for it in a practical sense. The only way in my mind that Texas can possibly have a standalone government is during and after an absolutely bloody war, it cannot happen any other way. It cannot happen in a friendly, We're just going to go our own way. See y'all later. There's way too much us infrastructure in Texas. There are way too many reliances bidirectionally. There are way too many people working for companies that are not headquartered in Texas. There's way too much here for people to just be able to come up with a clean voluntary way of doing this. If Texas has. And independent government, it will happen when a large percentage of the male population of Texas has died.

Ben: 37:02

I hope you're wrong.

Gene: 37:03

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. So it's you know, our, I guess the, I don't know that the casualties would be any worse. I guess I was going to say the other way of doing it is if an EMP goes off and there just is no government period and which people start from scratch and that could be a way for Texas to become independent as well, but I don't know that that's any less. Casualties than a full on war within the United

Ben: 37:32

Probably more, to be honest with you.

Gene: 37:35

And yeah, but I, I mean, do you think that in a war between different states and, you know, let's not even call them federal, let's say war between Washington, DC and Texas. Do you think Washington DC will not do what it can to use things like shutting off the power in Texas? To it's

Ben: 37:59

No, I, I think it will, but I think the difference is that the, the likelihood of, for instance, you losing access to diabetes medication is much lower during a war than a EMP or other natural disaster.

Gene: 38:17

hmm. Think during a war there would be a blockade.

Ben: 38:22

Hey, okay, but Texas can manufacture its own, theoretically.

Gene: 38:27

The United States doesn't itself. They import

Ben: 38:30

Insulin can be manufactured

Gene: 38:33

Everything used to be, and can be, doesn't mean it has been, or that it's a quick process to start that up. I look at my, my drug vials every time they come in. None of them, zero, are made in the U. S. Buy

Ben: 38:47

you know, maybe you need to buy local drugs.

Gene: 38:50

Everything in Walgreens is not made in the U. S.

Ben: 38:54

we can't even manufacture vitamin C right now. That was one of the findings that came out of the

Gene: 38:57

Oh, really? I didn't hear that, because that seems like a, a Skorbrick acid should be fucking easy to

Ben: 39:02

Yeah, we don't manufacture vitamin C in the U. S.

Gene: 39:05

I don't think we make anything anymore, honestly. I think we make middle management, that's most of what we make.

Ben: 39:10

Which is anyone who's been involved. That's the worst kind of management ever, both for the manager and the employee.

Gene: 39:19

So, I don't know, man, I'm not optimistic on that You know, I, I obviously I support the secessionist movement. I've sent the money, but I supported as an idea that I don't think will come to any kind of fruition in my lifetime unless it happens involuntarily and and it may, it may you know, shit.

Ben: 39:44

I mean, have you gone and watched the new civil war movie yet?

Gene: 39:47

No,

Ben: 39:48

Nor have I, we need to make a plan on doing that before the next podcast.

Gene: 39:52

I not a big fan of going to movie theaters ever since COVID. Actually since before COVID, I think ever since probably about five years ago, I've just not a fan of going to movie theaters. And it's, I'm like, I'm not afraid of, you know, getting sick or anything like that, that's not it, it's just the the number of movie theaters has decreased and the maintenance level of them has also. They're just shittier.

Ben: 40:24

Yeah. I mean, it depends on the area you're living in and

Gene: 40:27

I don't know, that seems to be the case that I recall now, so now, I haven't been to one in about five years, so

Ben: 40:32

I mean, what, what movie theater are you going to in Austin? Let's start there because if you're going anywhere other than the Alamo draft

Gene: 40:40

Yeah, the Alamo Draft House, that's the

Ben: 40:42

Yeah, it's fucking fantastic. What are you talking about?

Gene: 40:44

definitely not. Fantastic. No. Now, and, and, frankly, most of the shit I want to watch has been available on Amazon on my TV at home.

Ben: 40:56

and I'm sure it'll be released for pay pay per view pretty quick. That's, since the pandemic, kind of the way they've been rolling, so.

Gene: 41:04

Yeah, when did it come out? It just came out, right?

Ben: 41:07

Yeah, just this month. So probably by next month, you'll be able to pay 20 bucks and stream it on Amazon.

Gene: 41:12

Maybe even less. I should just talk to Darren. I'm sure he's got a copy.

Ben: 41:18

Yeah, but right now, the, the torrents are gonna be like cams, or screeners,

Gene: 41:24

Yeah, they're screeners usually.

Ben: 41:26

Yeah, and then you got to

Gene: 41:27

Nobody makes Cam Torrance anymore, dude.

Ben: 41:29

Oh, yes, they do.

Gene: 41:31

Nah, nah,

Ben: 41:32

Oh, yes, they do.

Gene: 41:33

old school shit. You can usually get screeners. Hey, what were you saying about screeners? What's wrong with screeners?

Ben: 41:43

You know, they've got this text scrolling on the bottom that this is a screener and da da da da da da, it's

Gene: 41:47

steal this.

Ben: 41:49

Yeah, exactly.

Gene: 41:50

Mm hmm.

Ben: 41:51

You

Gene: 41:51

should have AI remove

Ben: 41:53

seen a screener.

Gene: 41:55

Yeah. Anem's second wife.

Ben: 41:57

the rendering power that would be required for the Just, let's think about this for a second.

Gene: 42:02

AI can do that shit. No

Ben: 42:03

Yeah, yeah. Yes, it can. But the power required for the AI to identify frame by frame everything that it needs to delete and not what it doesn't need to delete, which that's computationally fairly expensive. And then to after it's said, okay, I want to delete this. You're talking about a frame by frame re rendering. the amount of power required to, it's, I'm, I'm, I'm just talking about computationally and electricity wise, the amount of power that's required to do that,

Gene: 42:35

I

Ben: 42:35

like people want to just fluff off. Oh, just let AI do it. No, it's not, you know,

Gene: 42:42

AI can do it. Don't worry about it. AI is like the middle management of computing.

Ben: 42:50

and about as efficient.

Gene: 42:51

And the more we talk about AI, the more CSB is going to be happy and maybe send us some money.

Ben: 42:57

Yeah. Although CSB apparently didn't like fallout because of the technological.

Gene: 43:02

I know I don't get it. That was a great TV show. I think it certainly, it was better than my expectation. I'll tell you that. I kept waiting for more politically correct bullshit to come up. There's a little bit, there's some, a little too much you know, diversity hires in there, but overall a quite a good

Ben: 43:25

Yeah, I haven't watched it yet, but I I also haven't really played Fallout.

Gene: 43:29

You don't need to play Fallout, you can watch it

Ben: 43:31

I know, but it's just not a, in, I'm, I I don't, I, I, I have other

Gene: 43:36

Also, you can get Fallout for free right now. If, if you go

Ben: 43:41

the original.

Gene: 43:42

no, Fallout 4, the newest one. If you go to Twitch and I don't know how long this is going to last, so, check. But, if you go to Twitch, and then you click on the Prime Gaming, Little, you know, what's free for Twitch viewers. One of the things that's on there is get fallout for free right now as a tie into the Amazon TV show. And so you just follow directions, click, click, click, go to Microsoft downloader, and you can get it either for Xbox or for PC.

Ben: 44:15

How much is it on steam? Because Steam is just way

Gene: 44:19

Steam. Let me, let me check. It's, it's literally installed by Windows Installer, which is on every Windows computer. So, it's as easy as Steam.

Ben: 44:27

No, no, no.'cause Steam can go from anyway,

Gene: 44:31

Fallout 4 is 20 bucks right now on Steam.

Ben: 44:34

see, it's cheap enough.

Gene: 44:36

Yeah, or free on Windows Installer.

Ben: 44:39

Okay, free from Twitch.

Gene: 44:42

Yeah.

Ben: 44:43

Now, if I don't have a Twitch account, what does that mean?

Gene: 44:46

You don't need it. Oh, maybe you didn't need a Twitch account. That's a good question. I don't know if you do, but if you go to Twitch, like you could, you could be a viewer on Twitch and you know, you click on a little, yeah. If you're a Twitch on the menu bar of Twitch itself, there's a little thing that looks like a crown. Do you see it?

Ben: 45:11

I see three vertical dots. I see a, a blinky eyed quote button. I see

Gene: 45:17

Okay. Let me, let me go to Twitch and

Ben: 45:19

I see New from prime claim. Now, there we go.

Gene: 45:23

see a thing says prime gaming benefits.

Ben: 45:26

I do. Yes.

Gene: 45:27

Click on that. That's where it lives. That's where all the free shit. And the first one you see is fallout has arrived. You click claim and it'll tell you, go watch the TV show and then use this code. To get the game for free. And it's funny because you would think they're, they're Amazon. So you should just be able to download it from them. But new, you click on get game and it sends you to a copy code, which then you have to plug into your windows or X Box installer. And then you, you get it for free.

Ben: 46:06

Yeah, I think I will, I will purchase it through Steam just so I can play it on Linux and that'd be okay

Gene: 46:14

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point. Cause they don't have anything other than PC and X Box. So, yeah, that is one advantage of actually buying it on Steam, is that you can do the multi computer Mac or Linux thing as well.

Ben: 46:29

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Gene: 46:30

That is a good point. They also have Fallout 76 for free for Xbox. They have, like, all the Fallout

Ben: 46:38

What the fuck? I thought it was like Fallout 4 or 5, and now you're talking about 76. They've had 76 versions of this

Gene: 46:44

yeah! Have you not followed Fallout? No, it's 76 is the year. 2076 is when the nukes strike. So we only have a few days left. A few years left.

Ben: 46:59

Your math's wrong, Gene.

Gene: 47:00

eh, it's close enough. Close enough for mathematicians, anyway.

Ben: 47:05

Close enough for government work.

Gene: 47:06

but I will say, somebody does not need to have ever played Fallout to enjoy The TV show the only thing that you're really gonna get as a bonus if you're a fallout game Aficionado is you're gonna have an awful lot of those. Oh, I recognize that moments because they were Very yeah, exactly memories They were very true to the game in their props

Ben: 47:39

Okay, cool.

Gene: 47:40

all the shit that's in the game I just watched a video earlier yesterday that was done by the guy who's he's one of the two guys that does like the history of firearms stuff. He's the British guy who is I guess in charge of the Royal Armory Museum.

Ben: 47:56

Okay.

Gene: 47:57

you've seen him, I'm sure. He always wears gloves when he touches, which I find hilarious when people wear gloves handling guns. But he does a regular segment on another dude's YouTube channel. Who's a gamer where he reviews the guns of blank video game. And then this one, they did the guns of fallout, the TV show. And the gamer dude who is kind of. Semi interviewing him was actually talking quite a bit and he was bringing the knowledge of the video game and constantly for each weapon they analyze this looks exactly the way it does in the video game. So they, they've actually done a very good job of Being true to the video game when they're props. But as far as the storyline, the acting, everything else, like you can literally come in and watch that show with zero background

Ben: 48:51

My understanding is it's based in the universe, not the not the actual, they're not, they're not trying

Gene: 48:56

They're not reliving the game. Yeah. They're not reliving the

Ben: 48:59

halo that's where they screwed up. Right.

Gene: 49:02

I heard. Yeah. I, and remember, we've talked about this. I've never played Halo or maybe once or twice

Ben: 49:08

you, you,

Gene: 49:08

Not a regular gamer.

Ben: 49:10

You should go play Halo.

Gene: 49:12

Yes, I'll add that to my list. Yes, very

Ben: 49:14

I mean, they've got the updated graphics package. It looks better than it did when it was originally released. And

Gene: 49:20

are the odds there'll just be a new Halo game that comes out, now that there's been a TV show?

Ben: 49:25

Pretty fucking high.

Gene: 49:27

I think that's the one I'll play.

Ben: 49:28

yeah. But Half Life, Half Life re being redone too,

Gene: 49:32

Is it really?

Ben: 49:33

Life being re engineered there, you know, and It's actually a lot of fans doing it. Like Black Mesa was a pretty good re redo and re rendering.

Gene: 49:42

Mm

Ben: 49:42

now with some of the new NVIDIA technologies that come out there, they're marching down that road of doing some other things here.

Gene: 49:51

There, there's a, it's amazing how well some, or how big and as well these fan projects get. Mm hmm. Very impressive.

Ben: 50:00

Ooh, one of my disks in my NAS is showing as not installed.

Gene: 50:04

Ooh, that's not good.

Ben: 50:06

No, that's, that means it's degraded and that's seven terabytes of data that I don't want to lose.

Gene: 50:12

Hopefully you can just swap drives and get it all back.

Ben: 50:16

Yeah, I'm just glad I noticed the I, I,

Gene: 50:18

Yeah, because remember, that's how I lost my NAS, because I didn't notice the first drive, and then when the second drive died, that's when I noticed.

Ben: 50:26

yeah, yeah. Huh, this is not working, yeah.

Gene: 50:29

yeah, that's that's why I went to two drive

Ben: 50:33

Grade six, yeah.

Gene: 50:34

yeah, rate six, or it's their own version of it, but yeah.

Ben: 50:39

Yeah, I need a new NAS. This is a very old NAS. It's, it's time to upgrade.

Gene: 50:43

Mine's a decade old. I, I

Ben: 50:45

Oh, mine's easily mine's older than that. My mine is older than that. And it's, but you know, I mean,

Gene: 50:51

next one's obviously going to be SSD.

Ben: 50:54

I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I need that speed on an ass and

Gene: 50:58

I don't need it for speed. I want it for the power reduction. I want the NAS that is physically much smaller and uses way less power because right now I'm basically running a vacuum cleaner every I've got. How many have we got?

Ben: 51:17

I mean, this

Gene: 51:17

12 drives.

Ben: 51:19

It's just not ever, like I said, I just, it's a lot of storage that I just don't need very fast.

Gene: 51:26

I think that's cute, 14 terabytes, haha. But yeah, mine's 12 drives and about 35 terabytes.

Ben: 51:33

Okay. Mine is six. So there you go. We've had probably about equivalent disk volume, but again, I, how much of that are you using?

Gene: 51:44

Now, maybe 20 percent. When it was full, before it crashed, about 60 percent.

Ben: 51:51

Okay.

Gene: 51:52

a whole bunch of movies. That was the biggest single thing that took space in there was I basically lost and it's not a big deal, honestly, and in retrospect, I don't really care, but I basically lost about. Five years of ripped Netflix movies.

Ben: 52:10

Mm hmm.

Gene: 52:11

And I'll, you know, back when I was getting discs in the mail, like everybody else, every time I'd watch a movie on disc, I'd rip a backup of it just in case I ever want to watch it again.

Ben: 52:23

Mm hmm.

Gene: 52:24

Here's what I found. I never watched a single movie from that NAS. It was an archive of movies I had previously seen, which I'd never rewatched. So if I ever rewatched a movie that I'd seen in the past, it would be because it was on a streaming service and I happened to be in the mood that very second and I would hit, okay, let's watch it. I never went specifically looking for one of these older movies to rewatch on NAS. So, I, I don't

Ben: 52:54

See, I go back and re watch stuff. Right now, I I'm going back through I'm I'm going back through all

Gene: 53:02

Star

Ben: 53:02

Trek, and I I'm on season three of Enterprise, which, you know, a lot of people give Enterprise a lot of crap.

Gene: 53:10

That's why I'm, it's absolutely my, probably second favorite series of

Ben: 53:14

It, you know, on this is probably my 3rd or 4th rewatch of this since it aired and it holds up. It's actually bad. They, they tried to be, I think they probably could have done without the Zindi arc and they could have done some things differently, but as a show, if you don't criticize,

Gene: 53:35

of the best acting in Star Trek. Star Trek is not known for good acting. T'Pol is fucking awesome. Yeah, she's, she was, she looks like a grandma right now. I saw a picture of her

Ben: 53:45

Ooh, that's sad.

Gene: 53:46

Totally white hair and everything.

Ben: 53:48

Aw.

Gene: 53:49

Yeah.

Ben: 53:50

And there's the, there was this one episode where there's this one of the makos,'cause I'm in that arc that Tucker's giving Vulcan neuro pressure to and causing

Gene: 53:59

yeah.

Ben: 54:00

And I'm like, oh, she's very attractive. Israeli. Huh. Okay. Interesting. And then you look at current pictures of her and it's oh man, you're, you're killing my childhood. It's like Jerry, Jerry Ryan has actually aged fairly

Gene: 54:13

She's not horrible. But, the thing that I didn't realize was she was in her early 20s when she was on Star Trek. The makeup made her look older. I thought she was like 30, but she was in her early 20s back then. Boy, and she's gone, she's, she's gone through some shit, man. Her husband of that time period, when she was doing Star Trek, they were swingers. Doing all kinds of kinky shit. And you know, he was loving the fact that he was bringing his Hot babe from Star Trek to all these BDSM clubs and stuff. It's interesting when you start finding out their past history. Now she's all like Christian and shit.

Ben: 54:53

I don't see what's wrong with that, but okay.

Gene: 54:56

I don't either. I'm just saying. It's she's kind of gone from one side to the other. Not to say that there aren't, there aren't Christians that are into that kind of stuff. But, you know.

Ben: 55:08

Yeah,

Gene: 55:08

You know what I mean. She's more conservative now. Yeah, she hasn't aged too badly. I will agree with that. There are a few women that have aged well, most women don't.

Ben: 55:24

Yeah. But you know, they all age. And that's the problem if you want a long-term relationship and you age too, so, you know, get over it

Gene: 55:32

no, I was born 50, I don't know what you're talking about. I look at photos of myself in high school with my long beard and think, yep, that's me. I looked like Samity Sam when I was in high school.

Ben: 55:47

you had a red beard

Gene: 55:48

I had a red beard. Yeah, people find this hard to believe, but You know, hair color changes on beers?

Ben: 55:57

That explains it

Gene: 55:58

Oh, that I don't have a soul?

Ben: 56:00

Yes.

Gene: 56:00

I'm not a fucking ginger. I knew, I knew where you were going with that. I may not have a soul, but I'm not a ginger either. But Yeah, it's like when you're, when your beard is two and a half feet long, you can actually see the hair color gradually changing in a single strand of hair. It is the weirdest thing because normally you just kind of think that, you know, hair is fairly static.

Ben: 56:29

and hair's not alive, right? So

Gene: 56:32

It's hair is just Basically the, the, you know, the protein that's getting pooped out by your

Ben: 56:39

Ear follicle.

Gene: 56:40

actual live follicle. Yeah. So yeah it's a good thing it's not alive. It wouldn't be fun getting the haircut if it was.

Ben: 56:48

Yeah. So, what's your take on this guy who decided to self emulate in in front of the Trump trial?

Gene: 56:58

I mean,

Ben: 56:59

And perhaps we should define self emulation for people as well.

Gene: 57:03

Harakiri.

Ben: 57:05

Yeah, via fire. Pouring, sitting down, pouring gasoline on yourself a la monks during Vietnam.

Gene: 57:12

right. First of all, as I've publicly said this plenty of times in the past, I think it is the right of any free man to commit suicide. So, I, I do think that committing suicide for whatever reason, That as long as you're not being forced to do it as long as you're not like, you know, pressured into it. I think that's part of free expression and it may be your last act, but it's an act of a free person. Now, beyond that, is it in good tone? Is it appropriate? Is it smart? Those are all separate questions, but certainly right wise, I think that I have no problem with people deciding to commit suicide whether by fire or a a sword to the stomach or any other means that they choose preferably without involving other people like don't commit suicide by driving a car into a You know, other cars, shit like that. That's not suicide. That's homicide. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. So if you're asking, what do I think of his rationale for doing it? I haven't read his manifesto, so I have no idea what, what his rationale was.

Ben: 58:31

it's interesting because this is a fairly liberal person, apparently, and you know, not a lot of people thought, oh, it's a Trump supporter right away. And so lots of things that ended up not being true. Shocker.

Gene: 58:45

Shocker.

Ben: 58:46

Yeah. So, I don't know. It's, it's interesting that this is the second one in the last few months that we've seen from the left.

Gene: 58:54

The left always assumed that anybody doing bad shit is from the right. But as we've seen over and over with the shooters, They tend to be lefties.

Ben: 59:06

mean, you know, I don't know that I'll state that emphatically, but okay.

Gene: 59:11

The take over the last five years, the preponderance of mass shootings have been perpetrated by people that self identify as leftist.

Ben: 59:21

Okay.

Gene: 59:22

It's just a fact. I mean, there's no belief involved. It's statistics and you can't argue with somebody self identifying.

Ben: 59:31

Okay.

Gene: 59:32

Hey man, if they said, if they say that they're a lefty, that's just as valid as them saying they're a woman. huh. Remember, it's not on what's on the outside that counts, it's what's on the, what's on the inside.

Ben: 59:45

Yes. Agreed. Genetics.

Gene: 59:48

Yeah, exactly. It, it's, so, are you gonna tell me about this guy or are we gonna just move on?

Ben: 59:53

I mean, I just wanted to hear your opinion,

Gene: 59:56

I don't have one because I haven't read anything.

Ben: 59:58

But there's very little to go on right now, and I haven't seen I know post millennial had something come out on some of his writings, but I didn't see anything directly related to this. So, you

Gene: 1:00:09

What, what are the odds the police are going to hold all kinds of data back to

Ben: 1:00:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing is there. So we have enough to know his political leadings his actual motivate, at least at the time of this recording, there hasn't been a manifesto for this act. So it's interesting to me that this is one might say, you know, a growing trend among the left.

Gene: 1:00:33

Hmm. Yeah. And I, I think we're going to see a lot more of that as time goes on. You know, as, as my predictions about a an actual Civil War in the United States grow, and not in the same kind of generic context as Tim Poole. I, I think that the Civil War is almost inevitable as the breakdown of American society is happening right now.

Ben: 1:00:58

I mean, here yesterday, Congress went in on a weekend, decided to pass a bunch of funding for Ukraine and Israel. And Mike Johnson is an absolute traitor to what he said he was going to do and what he stands for. And I don't know, man, it's.

Gene: 1:01:14

I never expected him to do anything other than what he's doing.

Ben: 1:01:17

Okay you know, a

Gene: 1:01:18

He was not part of the gang of 15.

Ben: 1:01:22

Okay. A lot of people did, and you know, there, there was an op ed posted recently that no, Texas can't succeed legally. And, you know, basically taking your Position of it'd be a violent thing and to which a lot of the Texas movement has, especially on Twitter has responded. Basically your terms are acceptable. Yeah. Okay.

Gene: 1:01:48

Yeah. And I, again, I, I think that It can't happen because too many people aren't, would have to agree. And we know people tend to not really agree in the current climate. So, a lot of you know, is Tesla going to become a Texas company instead of an American company and lose all their contracts with the U. S. government?

Ben: 1:02:11

I mean,

Gene: 1:02:12

And not Tesla SpaceX, I meant. So, SpaceX makes most of its money from the U. S. government currently. It's based in Texas.

Ben: 1:02:23

but I don't see that as a problem. I mean, astronauts were flying for years on, on Soviet

Gene: 1:02:31

The U. S. government has explicit requirements for flying a military ship on U. S. owned company rockets only. So Tesla stops, I keep saying Tesla, SpaceX stops being a U. S. company, or does SpaceX just say, Alright, Texas, adios, and move to Florida. Which is still a part of the U S and then,

Ben: 1:02:56

leaves.

Gene: 1:02:57

yeah. And then you know, Texas loses all that. This was done civilly, there's a very high probability that any company that has dealings with the U S government would have to leave Texas. I don't think Texas is prepared for that because damn near every large company has large dealings with the U S government. Amazon would leave Texas. Amazon makes a shit ton of money from the U. S. government, which they're not going to give up.

Ben: 1:03:29

I think they would have their headquarters based other places. That doesn't mean they wouldn't still have

Gene: 1:03:34

They may open in Texas when the relations are normalized, but I don't think the U. S. government is going to Change their policies to allow companies to remain in Texas. They're, they're going to treat Texas that, Hey, you want to be a foreign country, go right ahead, you're going to be a foreign country and their policies. There's an awful lot of requirements that when you have the U S government, USG is a client that you have to follow or you risk losing them as a client. And I think most companies will not risk that. If you're a company that deals solely within the confines of Texas, you don't do anything in the U S it's not a big deal to whether you're in Texas, whether Texas is a country or a state that makes no difference. If you're a company

Ben: 1:04:26

willing to risk it.

Gene: 1:04:28

I know you are, Ben, you keep repeating that. I have no question that you are. My question is about the average person out there losing their job. And are they okay with it?

Ben: 1:04:40

I think the average person right now is already losing their job.

Gene: 1:04:43

That's. Not

Ben: 1:04:44

have you not paid attention to the layoffs? Oh yes, they do. Other than the government hiring spree that's been going on.

Gene: 1:04:51

They're Large companies are certainly cleaning house. I'm not seeing a massive closure of doors of small businesses. Are you?

Ben: 1:04:59

Yeah. I I'm seeing lots and lots of people losing their job, both in small businesses and, and it's a lot of skilled workers, the it and cybersecurity. Ranks the amount of people I know and just contractors. And here's something that's not picked up in the labor statistics. The number of contractors that contracts are not being renewed. That's gone through the roof from what I've seen.

Gene: 1:05:23

Yeah, I'm not seeing it with small businesses. I'm definitely seeing it with large companies. I've got one buddy that just got laid off from Amazon. You know, it's that they make fairly substantial cuts. I know Facebook made some cuts, Google's made some cuts, but these are all bloated companies and

Ben: 1:05:43

Yeah.

Gene: 1:05:44

I don't know how much, you know, they would have made cuts earlier if there wasn't government programs in place for COVID that. Basically paid them not to lay people off.

Ben: 1:05:55

I think a lot of the tech companies actually hired a lot during COVID because of some of the policies, and that's also problematic.

Gene: 1:06:04

Yeah, and do you really need as much IT when everybody goes back to the office? Probably not.

Ben: 1:06:10

Yeah, but people aren't going back to the office. That's another thing that's been a

Gene: 1:06:13

Oh, they are in large companies.

Ben: 1:06:15

No, they are not. It's been a huge fight, and

Gene: 1:06:18

no, they are because the companies are mandating it. And, and that's a reason to get rid of somebody

Ben: 1:06:23

saying no.

Gene: 1:06:24

And that's why they're getting fired. So it's all solved. We just solved the, the, the whole problem.

Ben: 1:06:29

Okay, we'll see. We'll see who wins that one.

Gene: 1:06:32

There's no winning. People don't have a salary. They can't live if they don't work. Most people cannot survive for more than a month. So people are willing to do all kinds of things in order to not lose their jobs, or at least to have a job

Ben: 1:06:51

Yeah, I don't understand the I don't do the best financial planning ever. I don't have,

Gene: 1:06:57

says the guy that took two days to get a job. Okay.

Ben: 1:07:03

anyway. I don't I don't it was less than that actually.

Gene: 1:07:07

Okay. There you go.

Ben: 1:07:09

yeah. Actually, actually, no, that's not even a thing. But anyway the, i, but you know, I don't have 10 months of emergency funds without dipping into everything, you know, I I've got here and there, I've got what I want, but it's not, I could do better, I guess, is what

Gene: 1:07:30

everybody could do better. My point is that most people literally just don't have more than a month. And it's not like you're saying without dipping into the most people that's includes the dipping into I think the average

Ben: 1:07:42

than a month in my checking account,

Gene: 1:07:44

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think for, for the average American family they have 5, 000 in savings total,

Ben: 1:07:53

I just don't understand how you can, you know, do that. I, I have money market accounts, I have 401ks, I've got IRAs, I've got things. But, you know, I've also been lucky.

Gene: 1:08:04

those all will disappear when the economy tanks

Ben: 1:08:07

Yeah, and that's another thing I'm really, I, so I'm considering making a, what every financial advisor would tell me is a dumb financial decision, which is.

Gene: 1:08:19

go liquid

Ben: 1:08:20

I'm considering at least one of my IRAs. I'm considering liquidating and putting into property,

Gene: 1:08:27

property lasts, man. I don't,

Ben: 1:08:29

but yeah, but penalties and you know,

Gene: 1:08:34

Now, in your current IRAs, do you have any of them just in gold?

Ben: 1:08:39

no, because at my age and what what I'm quote unquote allowed to do, I, I can't have physical gold in repository or controlled by someone else. So what the fuck difference is that it's paper

Gene: 1:08:53

That's true. Yeah. That is a good point. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's a, it's a tough one. I know that I stalked somebody recently. I'm not gonna name the guy, but you know, he was kinda complaining to me about the fact that he doesn't there's no good solution for money. He's got about 400, 000 sitting in his checking account. And he doesn't know what to do with it. Not in the sense of Oh, he's full of money. I think he only makes 120 K a year. But when his last company got acquired, everybody got to pay out.

Ben: 1:09:27

Yeah. Stock or something. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

Gene: 1:09:29

so now. Like he doesn't want to trust the the markets because he, he is one of us and he does think that the economy is going to tank before too long. But he also like, he's, he's look, I got a hundred grand in gold sitting at my house. Hence I'm not going to tell you who it is. And but beyond that, he's got like 400 K sitting in the bank account that he's trying to figure out what to do with, and it's you know, I, I've got some Bitcoin, but yeah. And that's, that's the bottom line is, and I think what he's decided to do is to improve land that he already owns.

Ben: 1:10:08

whatever.

Gene: 1:10:09

Yeah. But I think that's a perfectly reasonable choice to do. Yeah, because. If you in other times in the past, I would have said that's crazy. Cause land appreciates much slower than what you can generate by using money

Ben: 1:10:25

volatile right now.

Gene: 1:10:27

Yeah. And you neither have time yourself nor trust in other people to be able to pull the money out before anything goes south. So either you keep that much money at risk or you put it into something that maybe grows slower. But. Ain't, ain't going to go anywhere.

Ben: 1:10:46

Yeah. Well that, that's definitely, you know, one of my thoughts and strategies and

Gene: 1:10:51

Hey, speaking of land, I read somewhere recently that there's some lawsuit about the constitutionality of having property taxes. So somebody's really trying to go after elimination of property taxes as a form of taxation.

Ben: 1:11:08

Oh, that would be great. Texas.

Gene: 1:11:11

you, have you heard anything about that topic at

Ben: 1:11:13

I have not, but Texas is looking at removing property taxes that's going down the road pretty, pretty well

Gene: 1:11:20

just hire sales tax.

Ben: 1:11:22

No, they, they, they, the committee came out with a report saying that the current expenditures and budget of the state of Texas could be handled on sales tax currently collected alone.

Gene: 1:11:34

Yeah, cuz Texas does have a

Ben: 1:11:37

And also property taxes for individuals only not corporations and so on. So that's a huge difference there. So, if you own an apartment complex, you have that in a corporation, or if you have your land in an LLC or something like that, you're still paying a property tax, but the average individual

Gene: 1:11:54

cuz that has certainly cleared out all the older like fixed income people from Austin there's nobody in Austin over 65 because you know if you if you have a fixed income you can't afford the increase in Property taxes that are happening every year. And I think property taxes here in Austin have doubled in six years now. So is the housing market. So it's, it's fair, not saying it's not fair, but it's just, if you bought your house for 180, 000, 20 years ago, 30 years ago,

Ben: 1:12:30

And it's

Gene: 1:12:31

Now it's worth a million and your property taxes used to be like 2, 000 a year. Now they're 25, 000 a year. I mean, where's that 25 grand coming from?

Ben: 1:12:43

Yeah,

Gene: 1:12:45

Like you have to either sell or maybe rent out your place as an Airbnb. And then you make twenty five grand in one month.

Ben: 1:12:53

and then you get sued when a little kid crawls on the floor and gets fentanyl poisoning from a previous tenant.

Gene: 1:12:59

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Shit like that could happen. So, I don't know.

Ben: 1:13:05

Gene, you need to get out of Austin.

Gene: 1:13:07

I do, I, I keep threatening to do that. I, I'd like to just buy some land in the middle of nowhere and, you know, build something out of there.

Ben: 1:13:17

Yeah,

Gene: 1:13:17

Or even stick a, stick a frickin double wide on there, initially, just to do it quickly.

Ben: 1:13:24

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm looking at similar options.

Gene: 1:13:29

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:13:30

That's the thing.

Gene: 1:13:31

Yeah, if only there was some land available in East Texas that I could look at.

Ben: 1:13:36

Yeah I'm aware of some, I just gotta pull the trigger on if I'm gonna do it, so.

Gene: 1:13:41

That is interesting. And I, I, all kidding aside, I still have to make a trip out to East Texas just because I've literally never been and don't know what it looks like. I've heard it's beautiful.

Ben: 1:13:50

It's green.

Gene: 1:13:51

I've, I've seen West Texas, I've seen North Texas, I've seen the coast, I've been all the way down to

Ben: 1:13:58

about East Texas is it's rolling hills, lots of trees, and green.

Gene: 1:14:03

That sounds Europe.

Ben: 1:14:06

Eh, more pine trees,

Gene: 1:14:07

Is it any cooler there? Or not really?

Ben: 1:14:11

No.

Gene: 1:14:12

Okay. Alright, we're not talking magic here,

Ben: 1:14:15

Yeah, yeah. Wrong direction, actually. It's more humid. More, more

Gene: 1:14:18

more humid. Okay.

Ben: 1:14:20

Yeah, yeah, so it's warmer in general. So, for instance so kind of where my parents are, which is kind of central east Texas just north of Beaumont. They get more rain than us here in college station more rain than you would in Austin. And you know, it's, they're generally, they don't. Have the, they get cold, they get below freezing and stuff, but they don't get the, I am generally colder than they are, but they also don't get the days over 100 that I get in the same way. So,

Gene: 1:14:54

but down there 80 feels like a hundred if it's humid.

Ben: 1:14:59

I mean, it's all relative you know, I, I, I think the, the, the difference in the humidity here versus the difference in the average humidity there isn't as big of a deal as, you know, when, when you're when they're in the high 90s and I'm 108,

Gene: 1:15:16

Yeah Yeah,

Ben: 1:15:19

you know, that's a pretty big difference to overcome. So,

Gene: 1:15:22

the the high humidity heat I think really is annoying at night Austin is definitely cooler than Dallas, even though it's further south I don't know why but it when I lived in Dallas You just have that stale air that doesn't move. It's not that Dallas is humid like Houston, it's not. But it, it you open up a door to go outside at 10pm in Dallas, and it feels like you're walking into midday sun. Like it's still a hundred degrees outside with no sun shining.

Ben: 1:16:00

Yeah, and that's 1 things I liked about living on the coast here in Texas.

Gene: 1:16:05

Yeah, cools off at night.

Ben: 1:16:07

And you don't get over 100, right? So you're, you're, you're all when I was living in Crystal Beach, it, you know, I hadn't seen it before we moved to Idaho. I hadn't seen a freeze in 3 years. And, you know, over 100, you get 1 or 2 days a year and that's

Gene: 1:16:24

hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Ben: 1:16:25

you've always got a breeze coming off the gulf and everything else. It's just, it's a, it's a different thing. Now you can, the, as far as humidity, you can, you've got 2 choices when it comes to the air down there. You can breathe it or you can drink it. You know, it's always very high humidity. And then you've got a lot of mosquitoes to contend with, but. Yeah, that's just part of it.

Gene: 1:16:46

It's, I've spent time on the coast, but I've obviously never lived on the coast. I looked at the Corpus area, and there's on the other side, I think it's Portland. And there's some, there was some nice houses. I got, I wouldn't say I got super close to buying a place down there, but I got close enough to go look at a few places down there that was back like. Eight years ago.

Ben: 1:17:17

it's expensive.

Gene: 1:17:18

It's gotten way more expensive in the last eight years. Way more expensive. It used to I remember looking at properties that were like three 50 and I think now they're same ones are like seven 50.

Ben: 1:17:33

And you know that that's just part of it that you know, you're going to have that cost. And the other issue you have is the insurance. So not just do you have the cost of the place, but ensuring that place for windstorm and everything else that you have to do is. Very a difficult to get insurance and be very expensive when you do.

Gene: 1:18:02

Yeah, I don't know. It's a tough one. Like I said, I still need to look at East Texas, but I don't like West Texas. There's the, I don't like the terrain at all. I'm not a big desert guy. I

Ben: 1:18:15

Yeah, I'm not either. And, and, you know, that, that's part of the, the debate I have right now. So, you know, I have this opportunity to buy some land in East Texas. That would be great. You know, and I've been asked do you really want to live there? It's you know what where I can afford land and the type of land that I want, my options are East Texas or West Texas. And I will take East Texas over West Texas

Gene: 1:18:39

Mm hmm. ever been to Amarillo?

Ben: 1:18:42

Huh?

Gene: 1:18:43

You ever been to Amarillo?

Ben: 1:18:44

Oh, yeah, I've spent time in Amarillo.

Gene: 1:18:46

Is it Oklahoma? Or is it a

Ben: 1:18:48

Yeah, it's, it's it's a high plane. It gets cold. It snows. It does

Gene: 1:18:54

It does! Okay, that's what I thought it

Ben: 1:18:55

Oh yeah, and it, it smells like cattle a lot. You know, you've got a lot of feed yards and everything up there and it's just, I, I don't like Amarillo

Gene: 1:19:08

driven through it. I've never stopped in it.

Ben: 1:19:10

I have spent some time in Amarillo. Yeah. You do have the 2nd deepest Canyon in the U. S. right there and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Texas has the 2nd largest Canyon in the United States. The reason why no 1 cares or knows about is because it's on private land, not public. So

Gene: 1:19:28

yeah. That's the way it ought to be.

Ben: 1:19:29

Exactly.

Gene: 1:19:30

Everything ought to be fenced in. Mm hmm. And then I guess I haven't really even spent any time, I had friends that used to go to Big Bend all the time, and I always thought it'd be fun to go there with them, but we never actually pulled the trigger because When he used to go out there, he was single and I was married. And then when I

Ben: 1:19:49

then it switched.

Gene: 1:19:50

yep, pretty much he got married and stopped going there and I, I became single and then he didn't go, but it's a, that's an area that I've heard good things about as well, but I've never been,

Ben: 1:20:03

Yeah, I've never spent any amount of time in that part of Texas, but I wouldn't be opposed to it. So if you ever want to do a camping trip or something, we can certainly do something.

Gene: 1:20:13

I definitely, I need, I want to start a little closer home and I did find a park that I want to go do a little camping in here in Austin to kind of start getting my gear and Used shape because everything is fucking new right now in bags

Ben: 1:20:28

and that's the other thing is anyone who has a go bag that hasn't Grabbed it and gone camping. First of all, you're carrying a lot of weight that you probably don't need to because you think, oh, this will be great. And then you get out there and you're like this doesn't work the way I thought it would and it sucks. So I'm not carrying this heavy fucking thing.

Gene: 1:20:47

Yeah, and my go bag right now is like four backpacks

Ben: 1:20:51

Yeah, you can't do that. So, you know, like one of the things that a lot of people would criticize me on is one of the things that's in my go bag is I have a bio light stove and it's heavy. But that bio light stove a can charge shit and be you know, a few sticks or whatever. And I can boil it. You know, it's like a rocket stove to a little heavier because it's got a battery and it's got this. It's got that. But.

Gene: 1:21:17

that heavy. I've got one of

Ben: 1:21:18

not that heavy and, you know, if I compare a normal camp stove and carrying any amount of fuel, yeah, that may be lighter. But once that feels gone, it's gone versus I can always collect sticks and use this. And it's, you know, it's, it's useful.

Gene: 1:21:35

That and then I've also I also have a pot like that That generates electricity and has a USB plug in it so from boiling. So you could put it on that stove, you could put it on the campfire, you could put it on anything, and then it'll, while you're heating the water or soup or whatever you're making it will be generating electricity at the same time.

Ben: 1:21:58

coefficients.

Gene: 1:21:59

Mm hmm. So that, and then I have way too many solar panels. I would love to actually do a test and probably throw away or get rid of half of them to pawn shops. Because I only need one, but I seem to buy a new one every couple of years.

Ben: 1:22:18

Yeah, I've got a couple. I have tested them. They, they work. They're slow, but they work. And, you know, that's the other thing you have to realize is any, you're not going to have your rapid charger. You're not going to have, you have to plan ahead and think through. So, one of the one of the solar panels I have is Set up where I can drape it over my backpack, for instance, while I'm walking and things like that. Now is it getting ideal sun? Am I getting everything out of it that I can? No, but it's doing stuff while I would otherwise not be doing

Gene: 1:22:52

Exactly. It's better than zero, man. Better than zero.

Ben: 1:22:55

that's another thing that I carry that a lot of people would think, oh, why would you take that weight? Why, why would you have that weight? But I carry a big fucking battery. And the reason why I carry that big fucking battery is because of exactly that. I can be charging that battery while I'm moving or anytime I can get a little power, whether something needs it or not, it goes into that battery.

Gene: 1:23:18

I picked up one of these Blue Eddy things. Which they're referred to as generators, obviously. It's not a generator, it's a fucking battery. But it's the biggest one that I've, that I own at this point. I'm trying to remember what the stats on it were, but it, it's about it's probably about 20 pounds and about probably 18 inches by 12 by 12 ish, right around there. So it's, it's a hefty thing. It's not quite as big as a, like a cooler for food or whatever, but it's probably about half a cooler size. And I've had a bunch of smaller batteries in the past. This is the biggest single battery that I got. And it has. The, the AC plug is on it, as well as USB, and as well as a car charger plug. But, I kind of got it because I figured, you know, if I'm gonna have a base camp with, with solar panels, I, I should probably have something for the solar panels to charge.

Ben: 1:24:23

Yeah, mine is not that big and I don't have anything with inverters, inverters are too lossy for the use cases I have. So yeah, I don't go that way, but sure, whatever.

Gene: 1:24:34

But this thing

Ben: 1:24:35

You're about, man.

Gene: 1:24:36

They, they I think Blue Eddy looks is probably one of the best bang for the buck ones out there.

Ben: 1:24:42

Are you saying Yeti or Eddie?

Gene: 1:24:44

It's B L U E T T Y, Blue Eddy. Blue Eddy.

Ben: 1:24:49

Okay.

Gene: 1:24:50

Yeah, I'm not saying Yeti, it's Eddie, Blue Eddie B B Blue Eddie. Hehehe. But they're they're, they're a regular brand on Amazon and even Ebay, there's a bunch, bunch of them being sold. They have their own Ebay store, so even the ones you get on Ebay coming directly from them, as long as you don't buy it from somewhere else. But they're I just looked at a whole bunch of different ones, and there's some no name Chinese brands you can get. But if you want a U. S. brand with a U. S. warranty, this is way cheaper than some of the other brands that you know, you could buy at Costco or whatever. Those tend to be higher priced. And it's all the same shit, right? Ultimately, it's just, they're all using lithium batteries.

Ben: 1:25:40

Yeah. I, and that's the thing is even if you're getting a US brand and everything else, you the, you gotta look at where the batteries are sourced from,

Gene: 1:25:49

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:25:50

most of the time they're gonna be coming from China. China.

Gene: 1:25:53

China. Yeah. And that's true of almost everything. There are very few things that don't come from China.

Ben: 1:26:02

Yeah. I mean, I, I gotta tell you, I've been looking at Ally Express for a lot of stuff just because,

Gene: 1:26:09

from China.

Ben: 1:26:10

yeah. I mean, fuck

Gene: 1:26:11

still have to order my

Ben: 1:26:13

some bucks.

Gene: 1:26:14

Yeah, I still gotta order that helmet thing.

Ben: 1:26:17

Pro tip, if you are interested in anything from Aliexpress and you don't want to pay that price right away, just add it to your cart and walk away for a while and magically, Oh, on sale, on sale, buy today. Best price. Okay. Okay. I gotcha.

Gene: 1:26:37

Yeah. Best price. Best price. Exactly.

Ben: 1:26:43

Anyway,

Gene: 1:26:44

yeah, I probably should do that. I mean, I haven't even gotten to the trouble of adding it to my cart. I I seriously need to, I don't know. I just haven't I, I've kind of decided

Ben: 1:26:55

I just bought a 10 terabyte hard drive to try and back up my NAS.

Gene: 1:26:59

Oh, okay. There you go. I can do it. I think the biggest one I've seen now is 18. Let me know if you see anything bigger than 18.

Ben: 1:27:07

I have not, but you know, I don't really I, again, I wouldn't even be getting this except real quick to I'll do some troubleshooting after we're done here

Gene: 1:27:17

And it's probably cheap.

Ben: 1:27:18

Yeah, because I did have to take all the hard drives out and it's 200 bucks, but I did have to take all the hard drives out and replace the power supply in the NAS. Not that long ago. So it's one of those thing.

Gene: 1:27:31

Mm.

Ben: 1:27:32

What?

Gene: 1:27:33

I'm just thinking back. You know what my first hard drive ever was?

Ben: 1:27:37

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

Gene: 1:27:40

Do you want to take a guess?

Ben: 1:27:44

guessing it was 1000 and a few megabytes.

Gene: 1:27:48

Yeah, it was 40 megabytes, which was HUGE at the time.

Ben: 1:27:53

Huge.

Gene: 1:27:54

Huge. And I want to say it was 6. 99.

Ben: 1:27:59

Yeah. I remember the first hard drive I purchased. Which was a Quantum Fireball, which was the big, wide, fat format, 5400 RPM, screaming fast hard drive for a gaming PC I built in the late 90s. And that was, you know, probably 500 bucks or something like that. And it was like a gig. The

Gene: 1:28:25

was, that was big. Quantum had a series of drives that were called Bigfoot. Which,

Ben: 1:28:31

quantum fireball was in the Bigfoot

Gene: 1:28:33

was in the Bigfoot family, yeah,

Ben: 1:28:34

Yeah.

Gene: 1:28:35

Cause everybody was doing 3 12 inch and they're like, we're still gonna make 5 14 inch.

Ben: 1:28:40

Yes. And I mean, everybody's got these bays that are being unused anyway. And that they had because the physical, so their seat time, their seat time was slower because it had to move physically longer, but because of the way they did their caching, they had more room for shit. They had just lots of. physical advantages there that they could do things that smaller drives

Gene: 1:29:07

And one of the biggest ones is just ran cooler. Cause there's more physical surface area to cool it off. That, that is true. Yeah, it's, it's come a long way. Yeah, both my parents were in the hard drive industry. And like starting from the 1970s. Back when individuals didn't have hard

Ben: 1:29:30

to make a joke about your mother, but I won't.

Gene: 1:29:34

dead, you know.

Ben: 1:29:35

Yes, this is why I'm

Gene: 1:29:36

okay, don't be making fun of the dead. And, and I've seen some of the jokes you make in front of your mother, so, you know.

Ben: 1:29:43

You're like, oh, Jesus Christ,

Gene: 1:29:45

I am, I'm literally saying, oh Jesus Christ, a lot these days. Because of what, what Ben posts in front of his parents. I'm like, fucking

Ben: 1:29:55

I have a very good relationship with my

Gene: 1:29:57

I, you might it it, but the rest of us are embarrassed for you.

Ben: 1:30:02

This is that meme of the naked guy from the Seinfeld episode.

Gene: 1:30:06

what's the meme? I mean, I remember the

Ben: 1:30:08

You haven't seen it. So he's sitting on the car, you know, in the, in the subway car naked because I'm not ashamed of whatever. And you fill in the blank of my attack on whatever, whatever. I'm not ashamed of this. You should be. That's right.

Gene: 1:30:24

Yeah. And it's, it's just, I don't know. I mean, look, I'm sure that my dad can make these jokes with his buddies and I can make'em with my buddies. Does doesn't mean I'm gonna make that same joke with my dad. You know, it's, it's it's just, I was brought up with yes, sir. No, sir.

Ben: 1:30:42

Oh, me too.

Gene: 1:30:43

that's

Ben: 1:30:44

I

Gene: 1:30:44

I, I never got off. I guess I never got out of that mode.

Ben: 1:30:48

yeah you know, what really did it for me as a kid was I got a story time, I guess. So I got caught,

Gene: 1:30:56

Mm.

Ben: 1:30:57

Lying to my parents because the principal at my high school ratted me out. So the girl I was dating in high school, the little bit I went to public school we went and parked at a rock quarry and we were supposed to be at a football game. And by the time we got done and drove back by the football game was over and Miss Nygaard, I still remember her name, was walking through the parking lot and I was like, Oh, who won? What was the score? She, she let my parents know that I asked her what the score was. And so they started asking questions and you can always be upfront and honest with us. Okay. You want that? Here you go. And it's been that way ever since. So, yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:31:41

Yeah it I guess it, it's probably more normal anyway, but it still is a little weird for me because most of my friends have more of what my attitude is with their parents. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's not generational, I don't know, but I tend to be more formal with their parents as well, and, and they are, and then, you know, when there's no parents around, there's, we swear like sailors and make lewd jokes. But just not in front of

Ben: 1:32:16

dad swearing like a sailor cause he was one. And I, I just, I grew up

Gene: 1:32:21

Yeah, what do you mean like a sailor? He was a sailor.

Ben: 1:32:24

Exactly. But my point is you know, I just, I, I grew up with my parents not being super prim and proper around me. So why would I be around them?

Gene: 1:32:37

yeah, yeah, and and my parents were always very prim and proper around me So never heard my dad say a swear word for 20 years

Ben: 1:32:46

Hmm. Okay.

Gene: 1:32:48

You know, not that he didn't swear obviously he had but not in front of me. So And then and I enjoyed when I had dinner with your parents your dad Talking about when, when he was fishing in Florida.

Ben: 1:33:04

Huh. Oh,

Gene: 1:33:07

going to say anything on the podcast, but let's just say you, you had a, a somewhat unique childhood, maybe not unique, but not certainly not what most kids have.

Ben: 1:33:16

No, and I, you know, I got to grow up going around doing things that you know, when I was a kid, I, I grew up going from Key West to Brownsville and stopping at every museum along the way. You know, that, that, that was my childhood as a kid. And That's a hell of a way to

Gene: 1:33:33

me, man. Sounds pretty damn good to me.

Ben: 1:33:37

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I, I would love to do that for my kids. Maybe not in the same geographical area, but, you know, as I travel for work and do things, I, I really would like

Gene: 1:33:47

You know, what's funny is

Ben: 1:33:48

with me.

Gene: 1:33:49

I did that drive as a kid. How old was I? Let me think. I would have been I think I was 14, maybe? So as a teenager, maybe 13. 13 or 14. We did a trip, a family car trip, from New Orleans to Key West. So literally,

Ben: 1:34:15

shorter trip than what I just described, but yes,

Gene: 1:34:18

what, Brownsville to Key West?

Ben: 1:34:20

yes,

Gene: 1:34:22

I mean,

Ben: 1:34:22

doubling the distance

Gene: 1:34:24

it's not doubling the distance, come on.

Ben: 1:34:26

You want to bet.

Gene: 1:34:28

I don't think it's doubling the distance. It's certainly longer, but is it, is it really doubling? No. The entirety of the Texas coast is not as long as Louisiana to Key West. But anyway, regardless, Mr. I have to win every competition that I hear yes, fine, you had a longer trip, I'll, I'll give you that.

Ben: 1:34:51

right, so New

Gene: 1:34:52

my point is that I thought, I thought it was a very, a very fun trip. I liked seeing the antebellum homes on that drive. I liked the obviously Key West was awesome, all of Florida was awesome, I, I, I liked that whole thing.

Ben: 1:35:11

Okay, so, it's 14 hours from New Orleans to Key West and it is 25 hours from Brownsville to, to Key West with the shortest and the longest is actually 29 hours. So it is right at

Gene: 1:35:29

That's crazy. Hmm. All right. Whatever point is fine. I did. I did a half your goddamn drive. Whatever. My, all I was trying to say is I got a little, little bit of that in my childhood and I liked it. It was fun. So I, I think if you were doing that multiple years, that would have been a blast.

Ben: 1:35:49

Yeah. I mean, you know, getting to grow up just following that. That's part of the reason why I was homeschooled as a kid was just, you know, I grew up following the shrimp boat. And it was it was a hell of a thing, man. You know, and I got to tell you any people who haven't been there, don't understand Louisiana south of I 10 is not part of the United States. You, you have to understand that that it is just, it is a different thing and it is not part of the United States.

Gene: 1:36:19

They certainly don't speak English.

Ben: 1:36:22

No, and they don't speak French either. It's goon ass.

Gene: 1:36:26

no. It's a, it's a particular Creole.

Ben: 1:36:29

There, there's a huge difference between Cajun and Creole, so get that right.

Gene: 1:36:33

What they they, I, okay, what's the difference? Fine. Go ahead. Explain.

Ben: 1:36:39

So, a lot of people, so. It's going to depend on the status of, so the difference between Cajun food and Creole is really the difference between

Gene: 1:36:50

just talking about

Ben: 1:36:51

and slave versus white and house slave versus white and field slave is really what it kind of comes down to and it comes down to dialect. It comes down to food. It comes down to everything as far as the origin of it.

Gene: 1:37:04

well, the origin of Creole is the, the islands like Haiti.

Ben: 1:37:10

Okay.

Gene: 1:37:11

So it, it, it is the the island French influenced. Language customs, food, everything. So Cajun and again, you tell me you, you live there. You've been around there, but Cajun I always thought it was just Southern Louisiana,

Ben: 1:37:31

Now, Cajun really comes from when, you know, some of the French left Canada and went to Louisiana. That's where some of that comes from. So, yeah. Yeah, the Cajun influence is actually a Canadian influence of all things.

Gene: 1:37:48

It makes sense. I mean, it was the Louisiana purchase, right?

Ben: 1:37:52

Anyway, before we debate more Cajun stuff, uh, which by the way, I've got to get my parents to make some shrimp and grits. I'm, I'm on them about that. Cause I,

Gene: 1:38:02

Oh, that might just get me to come out there.

Ben: 1:38:05

Especially some shrimp my dad caught then it's fresh and good and delicious.

Gene: 1:38:10

A lot of people just think shrimp are basically water cockroaches.

Ben: 1:38:17

okay. If that's what a cockroach tastes like, then sign me up.

Gene: 1:38:20

Have you never had a cockroach?

Ben: 1:38:22

God, no,

Gene: 1:38:23

Really? Huh. Interesting.

Ben: 1:38:26

Why would I do that?

Gene: 1:38:28

I mean, jackal covered cockroaches at state fairs?

Ben: 1:38:33

No. I mean, what state are you in?

Gene: 1:38:36

You know, here.

Ben: 1:38:38

Not the U S.

Gene: 1:38:40

No, absolutely. They're, they're not American cockroaches, obviously, because our cockroaches are kinda small. Plus, they're not diseased. That's a misnomer. Plus, Texas has flying cockroaches, which which, the first time I saw those fuckers fly, I was like, what the hell is that? And then, then I had to look it up. And it was a cockroach, because in other places cockroaches don't fly

Ben: 1:39:03

What do I do here?

Gene: 1:39:04

and I, I, I used to buy cockroaches all the time to feed my pet lizards.

Ben: 1:39:12

Ugh. Ugh. I

Gene: 1:39:14

But, but I got, I, I used to buy the the giant South American cockroaches that are about an inch and a half long.

Ben: 1:39:21

Hey, we have tree cockroaches here, too.

Gene: 1:39:23

Yeah. And they're actually kind of cool. I mean, the, I bought them for food, but they're kind of neat to watch because they have their own little lifestyle there.

Ben: 1:39:32

They hiss, and they stink, and they're just nasty.

Gene: 1:39:37

only some species stink. Not all species of cockroach, but cockroaches, you, you will see cockroaches in fallout.

Ben: 1:39:48

Ugh.

Gene: 1:39:49

now we're talking real cockroaches. They're about a foot and a half long. And they're, they're much more intelligent, let's say.

Ben: 1:40:00

Okay.

Gene: 1:40:01

You should watch that series.

Ben: 1:40:02

Alright.

Gene: 1:40:03

Yeah. For sure.

Ben: 1:40:07

Let's see. Monthly billing. Should I upgrade my storage? 50 a month to 10 terabytes. Now I can

Gene: 1:40:18

On what?

Ben: 1:40:19

I'm pricing out between OneDrive, Google, and some other places, just see about should I just

Gene: 1:40:25

I'll tell you what you ought to upgrade. It's fricking Dropbox. So you don't tell me to remove files.

Ben: 1:40:30

Yeah, but Dropbox is just fucking expensive for what it is, and it's, I, I use other things, yeah, compared to OneDrive and Google and everything

Gene: 1:40:42

I guess I just

Ben: 1:40:43

And that's the other thing, is I've got too many accounts spread out across too many things.

Gene: 1:40:47

exactly. I shut down most of my Microsoft ones. Cause that was the most expensive for all storage was Microsoft. Ironically

Ben: 1:40:54

if you're paying for

Gene: 1:40:55

or no, sorry, sorry, sorry. Not Microsoft Amazon. I shut down my Amazon cause

Ben: 1:40:59

Oh, yeah. Unless you go Glacier. Glacier's really cheap.

Gene: 1:41:03

yes, there's some other issues with Glacier. I do still have

Ben: 1:41:06

may never get your data back.

Gene: 1:41:08

exactly. I still have my Microsoft. I still use Dropbox predominantly because of habit. And I do have a Google Drive, but I never put anything on there other than just Google documents I created in the docs or spreadsheet.

Ben: 1:41:24

Yeah, so since I'm on Android

Gene: 1:41:27

Yeah, all that shit probably gets backed up to your Google Drive then.

Ben: 1:41:31

It's not really mine. It's other people that I'm still paying for on stuff. But yeah, there, there's, there's a lot of

Gene: 1:41:39

Cause I know Apple's bitching at me lately to upgrade my storage with them for all my iOS devices.

Ben: 1:41:47

Yeah, I would, I would never trust Apple's cloud storage. It's been, I mean, it, to me, someone who's still using Apple's cloud storage is like someone who's still using a Yahoo email account. You have not

Gene: 1:41:59

with Apple cloud storage?

Ben: 1:42:01

It's been owned way too many times.

Gene: 1:42:05

No, it's never actually been hacked. It is the safest

Ben: 1:42:09

is like saying Amazon has never, AWS has never been hacked. It's just been misconfigured by people.

Gene: 1:42:16

is absolutely correct.

Ben: 1:42:17

Okay if that's the case and every breach is due to this, then maybe you've got something

Gene: 1:42:23

there. But no one has ever stolen the the second key pairs from Apple.

Ben: 1:42:29

that we know of

Gene: 1:42:30

there's a lot of people that use Apple products that like the password 123, that's all. And they've made it more difficult to get in there now. You, if you want to get into your Apple storage or your backup, you need to use your phone. Which,

Ben: 1:42:48

a I had a family friend that called me for advice because of what I do for a living and

Gene: 1:42:56

sorry.

Ben: 1:42:57

the it was

Gene: 1:42:58

Actually, I'm sorry for the both of you guys at this point.

Ben: 1:43:01

Ha ha ha ha. Anyway, the interesting thing was that someone had gotten a hold of their web, so we, we, we had to spend some time and it started with them getting a notice from LinkedIn about posting a job that violated rules or whatever. And they're like, I don't have a job posted. What the

Gene: 1:43:21

Mm hmm. Mm

Ben: 1:43:22

And they weren't getting emails from LinkedIn and things like that. Anyway, it came down to the web designer. The DNS records had been compromised. Their MX record had been compromised. And the first thing I saw was an MX record with a time with a priority of zero, which is the highest, which

Gene: 1:43:39

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:43:40

You don't ever do that

Gene: 1:43:41

No. No.

Ben: 1:43:42

And anyway, someone was intercepting their email and then forwarding their email to them

Gene: 1:43:46

Damn.

Ben: 1:43:48

so they were the man in the middle and got in, did a password reset. So they never saw the reset for the LinkedIn account. They got into the LinkedIn account, posted job stuff, did all of this to collect resumes, informational, personal information about people, and yeah.

Gene: 1:44:05

that's brilliant.

Ben: 1:44:08

I mean, in this, this is someone who is in their 60s and running kind of a information nonprofit, not even thinking about all this. And they're like, I didn't do this. I didn't do this. And I'm like, first of all, let's eliminate your computer as the problem here. Make sure you don't have something on there. And then let's go from there. And We started talking about their email and how they didn't get this. And I'm like, that's really weird. So I just start looking at MX records. I'm like, you need to verify with your web developer because they could put it at zero, but that's kind of shooting yourself in the foot long term. So it's probably not in this, this MX record looks weird. And there you go. It was you know, just started doing some basic stuff and that's what we found. So. Ended up being able to turn on two factor, change the MX records, get everything back to where it needed to be. But, you know, it's, it's it's all it took was their web designer using a, I'll just say cheap domain provider for DNS and not having multifactor authentication

Gene: 1:45:16

don't use GoDaddy, people.

Ben: 1:45:19

Yeah, you said it. I didn't.

Gene: 1:45:22

I knew which one you were referring to.

Ben: 1:45:24

Yeah.

Gene: 1:45:25

Huh. That's true. Yeah. That's wild. I mean, that's for non techie people, like that whole aspect of domain ownership can definitely be problematic. Plus your private info, unless you know not to put it in there is publicly available and scrapable off of domain hosts.

Ben: 1:45:47

well, and what ends up happening is and this is 1 of the things I was counseling them on is, you know, people password reset questions. What's your mother's maiden name? That's pretty publicly available.

Gene: 1:46:00

Totally.

Ben: 1:46:01

And, you know, like what I said is lie, you know, just remember what you put and just say, okay, mother's main name. That's really where was my motherboard and put that, you know, whatever it's come up with something in your head, you know, fucking lie. Don't put right information in there. Use a password manager, whether you like it or not. Have unique passwords, use multi factor, and you know, I, I use the Google Authenticator and whatever QR based crap that is out there these days, but I also have physical tokens for the accounts that matter the most. And I have multiple of those

Gene: 1:46:42

When you say physical token, you mean RSA keys or what?

Ben: 1:46:45

I use a YubiKey.

Gene: 1:46:46

Same difference. Yeah.

Ben: 1:46:47

Yeah, I, I think Steena got the form factor right because I can use with the current YubiKeys a, I can use them with my phones and everything else too. So I can require multi factor on my phone and it just, it works well.

Gene: 1:47:01

Mm hmm. It makes sense. Yeah, I, I started just recently playing around with the new what do they call it? The The proton authenticator thing, proton password manager,

Ben: 1:47:17

Yeah, it's okay. It's all right.

Gene: 1:47:20

Yeah, it, it just came out because

Ben: 1:47:22

still beta.

Gene: 1:47:23

I'm always, I didn't even realize it was still in beta.

Ben: 1:47:26

Proton Drive has really come a long way too, by the

Gene: 1:47:29

I, and that's another one that I have and don't use. I need to start looking at that. Cause I, I mean, proton is not cheap. I think I pay two 50 a year or something for it.

Ben: 1:47:38

Yep, that's about what I do. And, and, you know, yeah, so my thing with Proton, the reason why I went there is not because I think they have the best privacy or anything else, because, you know, everybody's got issues. But they, they're at least trying to do the right thing in a lot of ways. And I had to pay someone and I, I got tired of running my own email server at home. And when I stopped running my own email server, that's when I went to Proton and I'm being grandfathered in on their visionary package or whatever. And they just keep giving me more and more. It's my VPN. It's my email. It's Becoming my calendar the proton drive is actually becoming very useful. Not because I think it's all that great, but I've got three terabytes of storage there with them, so.

Gene: 1:48:27

Do they have an app for Windows then?

Ben: 1:48:29

Yeah, they have an app for Windows Mac they don't have one for Linux yet, but you can, but you, you can go through cron. You can go through and set up different sync packages in Linux. So you can make it work. And I've done that. You just got to be careful because you can end up replicating stuff really easily. I

Gene: 1:48:48

I need to install a Proton Drive, because

Ben: 1:48:50

Yeah. And they have a iOS and Android app too.

Gene: 1:48:53

Nice. Yeah, I have it. I should, I really should start using it more. I just

Ben: 1:48:58

Yeah, when I

Gene: 1:48:58

been on Dropbox

Ben: 1:49:00

when I shared when I shared a certain collection with you and you did it on Dropbox, I did it over Proton for you.

Gene: 1:49:08

yeah, I just see something you sent me on Proton Drive. It's literally like the only thing I have in there is one file from you. That's funny. Okay. Where's the download link though? I don't see the Proton dudes. Where is your drug? How do I install it? So you got how much on there?

Ben: 1:49:29

I've got 3. 1 terabytes. If you've got the visionary package and depending on how you have your account set, you may have your account limited artificially.

Gene: 1:49:40

Interesting.

Ben: 1:49:42

Anyway, we can do tech support off,

Gene: 1:49:44

I know, people love listening to it

Ben: 1:49:47

No, they don't. Yeah.

Gene: 1:49:50

I've got a business plan for Proton. I used to have Visionary, but then there was something that they that they did that They gave me a choice to move it to a business plan and I would get something else free and I ended up doing that. Yeah, it renews automatically 266.

Ben: 1:50:13

Okay. I think you're, I don't, I don't know what plan you went with, but

Gene: 1:50:18

I started off on the 48 plan way back with them and then I think I went to the 140 visionary plan and then off that onto the business plan. Oh, I know what it was. It was, it allowed me to use multiple domains.

Ben: 1:50:34

a visionary allows you to do

Gene: 1:50:35

It didn't used to.

Ben: 1:50:37

Okay.

Gene: 1:50:38

Yeah, that's what it was. Cause it would let me set up different domains in there.

Ben: 1:50:43

Yeah.

Gene: 1:50:44

But I like pro I haven't had any

Ben: 1:50:45

my total. My total storage is actually six terabytes, but my account, I have limited to three. So, you know, and I've got three of 10 domains and use and yeah.

Gene: 1:51:00

yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's

Ben: 1:51:04

Yeah. And it's 287 a year

Gene: 1:51:07

Yeah, so it's I don't know why those prices are slightly different, but I guess there's a difference there

Ben: 1:51:14

anyway. But the point is, is it's the drive is usable and it's cheap and included. So there you go.

Gene: 1:51:21

exactly like they added the VPN which I never had when I bought it They added the drive which I never had when I bought it. So it is actually getting to be a better value

Ben: 1:51:32

And they've got that note taking app that we talked about last week that they just purchased

Gene: 1:51:37

which I don't understand the concept of but okay

Ben: 1:51:40

What do you mean?

Gene: 1:51:42

don't understand people using noting apps

Ben: 1:51:46

Okay.

Gene: 1:51:46

I, I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying I don't understand it.

Ben: 1:51:50

You should look at my 20 plus gigabyte one notes, like I have multiple of them from, for instance, when I was at the utility, I, my one note when I was at the utility had everything that I could ever want. It was a great database and repository of information for me.

Gene: 1:52:10

Why would you use a database?

Ben: 1:52:12

I'm sorry,

Gene: 1:52:14

Why wouldn't you use a database then?

Ben: 1:52:16

that's essentially what OneNote is, is it's just really a database app. And if you think of it that way, and you structure your data that way, and you search and you use tags and everything else the way you should, all you're doing is putting note files into a database. If you're using OneNote correctly, it should basically be structured like a database for you, in my opinion.

Gene: 1:52:42

Yeah, I don't know. I just never, I never got into that.

Ben: 1:52:47

Gene, I want to go to the range.

Gene: 1:52:49

Okay, you enjoy yourself, my friends. And we will I'll put out this episode sooner. And if you don't see it by Tuesday, let me know. But I'm, I'm gonna, my goal is to get it done today or tomorrow. Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:53:01

All right.

Gene: 1:53:02

Because the problem is this me bitching mode is Because we do this via zoom zoom takes about half an hour to it depends Could be as short as five minutes could be as long as an hour But it takes a little bit of time before the recordings are downloadable, which means I can't do what Darren does which is Immediately at the end of the podcast, while still wearing headphones, go in, do your edits, hit the upload. I this forces me to do something else for a while. And usually the thing I start doing is the thing I keep doing for a while. Whether that means, oh, I have to go run there and in the car and I take off by the time I come back. I forget about the whole, oh yeah, I gotta upload this thing or edit it. Or I start playing video games and then I totally forget about it or whatever. So I usually remember about it a day later and then do the

Ben: 1:53:58

Maybe we should use a different software.

Gene: 1:54:02

I mean, it's so convenient. I mean, we could, we certainly could. And in fact, we pay for a different software because a buzzsprout. Oh, no, no, we don't. I pay for a different software. It's not through Buzzsprout. It's through Descript. They have their cloud recording software which essentially does the same thing as Zoom, except it's not meant for meetings. It's actually meant for recording either audio or video podcasts. And that would be available immediately, at least theoretically. But I don't know. I mean, I'm, I think the sound quality in Zoom is fine. If you turn on the musician setting. And certainly the, just the fact that it's already installed on both of our machines just kind of makes it easy.

Ben: 1:54:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if I can ever get stuff to work on Linux, it works in Linux. So, which the microphone I'm using right now, I can use in Linux. So there you go. And if I can't get the motor repaired, then that's what's going to happen. So.

Gene: 1:55:06

Oh yeah, so you still haven't gotten that fixed.

Ben: 1:55:09

So I, they, they had me change a whole bunch of USB settings, they had me do a bunch of stuff, they're just going through a bunch of different things, and it,

Gene: 1:55:21

Firmware update didn't fix it, huh?

Ben: 1:55:22

No, I think it's a hardware issue. I, they haven't admitted that yet, but I think that's where it's going, so.

Gene: 1:55:28

Oh, that sucks, because that means you probably can't really You know, the thing is, didn't you buy a different module once?

Ben: 1:55:35

Yeah, yeah, I did.

Gene: 1:55:36

Still have it?

Ben: 1:55:38

I gave it away.

Gene: 1:55:39

Okay.

Ben: 1:55:40

Yeah, but I can go get a little Motu with no noise gate or anything else really easily. I mean, that's, that's nothing.

Gene: 1:55:48

A noise gate would be nice, but I don't think you need anything other than the noise gates. Or you could take this as an opportunity to get one of those podcaster boxes from

Ben: 1:55:56

Yeah.

Gene: 1:55:56

or whether it's not a podcast. Roadcaster boxes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guys that copied our product.

Ben: 1:56:04

yeah, I just you know, the thing there is, I just, I have to decide what I want to do, and what I want to spend money on, and everything else. So, there you go. Yeah,

Gene: 1:56:16

going to spend money on. Yeah.

Ben: 1:56:19

I'm about to go drop a couple hundred bucks of ammo.

Gene: 1:56:23

A couple hundred bucks. So 500 runs.

Ben: 1:56:26

You know, you, you're, you're not right. So first of all 308's right around a dollar a

Gene: 1:56:33

Oh 308s,

Ben: 1:56:34

I've got a bunch of 308's to shoot. And then I've got, you know, whatever pistol and other rifle

Gene: 1:56:41

saw the the link you sent me the other day 9mm ammo, which was, I think, 200 bucks for 500 rounds. Yeah.

Ben: 1:56:50

you know, so speaking of MAMO I gotta say, Palmetto State I, I award, I sent you a link. They had their saber line of ammo, 3 0 8 ammo, which is their, it's not match, but it's their high accuracy 3 0 8 ammo for 85 cents a round. That's the price that you can get M 80 ball for. So I, I, I bought some of that and, you know. If, if that doesn't, as long as it doesn't shoot like just shit the, the, what I would compare that to is literally M80 Ball, because of the price comparison. Here's what I, hold on, here's what I was telling people M80 Ball is Berdan primed, so you can't reload it. This is Boxer

Gene: 1:57:36

it doesn't have to be.

Ben: 1:57:38

But it is, almost all of it. So. My point is, if Palmetto State keeps these prices anywhere near where they're at, I'll be buying, and it performs as good or better, I will be buying that versus anything else.

Gene: 1:57:53

What, whatever happened to that purchase you were buying 308 ammo that took two months to ship

Ben: 1:57:58

Yeah, yeah, I got it. And it's decent ammo. It's decent ammo. I will let you, that's part of what I'm going to do

Gene: 1:58:06

kind of groups are you getting with it? You

Ben: 1:58:08

on, that's part,

Gene: 1:58:10

You should go to a range and test this, Ben, instead of yapping with me.

Ben: 1:58:13

Christ. Yes, Gene. Anyway, I'll let everybody know how it shoots. The problem I have there is I think they're just too small of a fish, getting too many orders, and

Gene: 1:58:29

that's a good problem to have, usually.

Ben: 1:58:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, you know, but, you know, Palmetto State with AAC is gonna, I mean, it's already shipping, so.

Gene: 1:58:38

I don't know about those Pomona State guys. They're kind of a fly by night operation. Can't really trust their things.

Ben: 1:58:45

Okay.

Gene: 1:58:46

where they're getting their ammo.

Ben: 1:58:48

They're manufacturing it.

Gene: 1:58:50

Or their barrels, or anything else. You never know about them.

Ben: 1:58:55

Yeah, yeah. Pulled by the state barrel's a junk. Dude, it's literally the FN barrel. What the fuck are you talking about?

Gene: 1:59:03

Yeah. FN literally stopped making my favorite gun at the time, the FN C 1000. So they can make more shit for these guys.

Ben: 1:59:12

Yeah. Anyway, on that note, Gene I am gonna go shoot, and I'll let you know what kind of groups I'm getting out of it. And I'll put it through a bolt gun as well. Semi autos, and let

Gene: 1:59:22

Mm hmm. Cool. Yep. Definitely do do both tests. Let me know. And this is the first time you're shooting the Tavor.

Ben: 1:59:29

Yeah, yeah, that's the, that's the why I'm, like, ready to get out the door since eight this morning

Gene: 1:59:35

let me know if you agree, if, if you agree with me on the recoil for it as well

Ben: 1:59:41

what would agreeing with you

Gene: 1:59:42

I think it's got one of the softest, smoothest recoils of any 308 gun I've ever shot.

Ben: 1:59:50

What are you comparing it to from a semi auto standpoint?

Gene: 1:59:52

From let's see, I would have shot an AR 10

Ben: 1:59:56

Mm hmm. AR Gonna depend on tuning a lot. An AR 10 can thump the shit out of you if you've got it over gassed.

Gene: 2:00:04

yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly a lot softer than any of my bolt guns. I'm trying to think what, what other 308, Oh the the scar. I've shot a scar. I've shot a

Ben: 2:00:15

I will be comparing it to an AR 10 that's properly gassed, a M1A that is properly gassed, and, yeah. We'll go from there.

Gene: 2:00:24

Yeah. See, see what you think. I was very, very happy with the recall on it. It's as a kind of gun where after shooting about 100 rounds of 308 and mostly stopping because of financial reasons I, I commented to Tucker max, who was, I was shooting with for that that, you know, this is. This feels so smooth, I could literally shoot all day and I wouldn't get tired.

Ben: 2:00:52

Your shoulder will feel it the next day, though. That's the thing.

Gene: 2:00:54

Maybe. See what you think.

Ben: 2:00:57

Alright. I will. We'll see you, Gene.

Gene: 2:00:59

Alright, have a good one. Bye.