Gene 0:24

Howdy Ben, how are you today?

Ben 0:26

Gene, I am better than I deserve.

Gene 0:29

That's, I guess, not a bad thing. So, we got a number of things to chat about. I let's hold off on the debate for a little bit.

Ben 0:41

Okay.

Gene 0:41

Cause I've got an annoying thing that I talked about on my other podcasts a little bit, but I'll mention it here as well, which is fricking Bitcoin node server, whatever you want to call it.

Ben 0:59

Yeah.

Gene 0:59

I've been using a company called lightning or no company voltage company called voltage to have a lightning node for about three years. They're charging 20 bucks a month. And so first of all, I think I've paid in to them more than I've received in donations, which is yay. And then I've got an annoying issue on there, which I've got a partial answer for, but it didn't really fix everything. I reached out to their tech support and my issue is that I opened up a new channel and this will make no sense unless you know what lightning network is. Opened up a new channel about six months ago and it's still stuck in pending, which means I can't get access to the funds to that I put into open that channel, which was, I think, 700, 000 sats or about 500 bucks. And nor can I send anything using that channel, because the reason you opened up a channel is so you can send and receive stuff, but

Ben 2:07

It's part of the liquidity aspect of

Gene 2:10

Yeah It's in limbo

Ben 2:12

for those who don't understand, to open up a channel, why do you have to fund it?

Gene 2:17

So you have to fund it because the idea of lightning is that unlike Bitcoin which can take? Anywhere from minutes to hours to fulfill a transaction because it's all going on to the blockchain lightning uses a little different mechanism where You effectively commit money to future transactions. And as a result, those transactions happen in seconds and

Ben 2:46

you can almost think of that as like a stand alone escrow account for each person you're connecting to. Or each

Gene 2:54

Yeah. So they've got escrows to you. You've got escrows to them. And then you guys can trade money or money can flow between the nodes almost instantly because there's already committed funds there to use. And you, at least in theory, you can have traffic going back and forth. And then at certain points in time, then let's say you've actually sent in the same amount of money as you originally committed as you put in there at that point, then it knows to not send any more through because you're going to need to fund more. And and then it can also settle. On the blockchain and it like, you can force it to do that by closing or opening a new channel. So it is using Bitcoin. It is going to be on the blockchain, but it doesn't have to be on the blockchain until you sort of push it to do that. So there's definitely some pros to the way they do it for small, quick transactions.

Ben 4:02

Huh. Huh.

Gene 4:03

But it's still a beta fricking system. And everybody that develops on it gives you a warning when you start using it. Remember, this is beta software. Don't use real money. Everyone's using real money and everyone's got, I mean, there are millions of dollars on this

Ben 4:15

Yeah, I mean, it's Star Citizen saying they're still an elf. It's kind of a joke.

Gene 4:20

However, it doesn't mean there aren't bugs. And I may have run into one. So I'm trying to figure out what the hell's going on. Now. I also had a separate Bitcoin transaction on the blockchain, which was also sitting as pending. And they did reply to me in support and say, Oh you're using an old version that we no longer support. In your account. So you have to go and switch to the larger, more expensive version of the product and then your blockchain will synchronize says right now is just not synchronizing. I'm like, aha. Okay. That solved the first problem. Cause as soon as I bumped it up to the next higher tier and it's then, yeah, magic, it just worked. It's always fun when a company stops supporting a product you've been paying for years.

Ben 5:13

And doesn't tell you.

Gene 5:14

I mean, I'm sure they told me you know, I get probably an email a week from them trying to pitch me on something. And clearly one of these emails about four months ago. Which is about when they switched us off said, Oh, by the way, your node will no longer be supported. I'm sure they send something out, but nonetheless, it's annoying as fuck when companies do that. This is why I, I still kind of like it when companies and like I use I and I when they will send me like your PHP is no longer supported, but we're not going to upgrade it for you until you do it yourself. Like I prefer that because at least my shit will keep working, even if it's out of service, out of spec, out of warranty, out of everything until I realized, Oh shit, I'm three level three versions behind. I need to upgrade anyway. So long story short, part of the problem solved. So my outgoing transaction. Did kick in and I did receive money on my other Bitcoin node, so that was good, but I still have 500 bucks stuck in limbo that I can't touch that I need to figure out how to fix.

Ben 6:25

Yeah good luck with that.

Gene 6:27

Yeah, exactly. Fun times. Next item. My, I think my iPad broke. It is last, yesterday morning.

Ben 6:36

is just, we're gonna start the show off with just Gene

Gene 6:38

gene text. Yeah, pretty much. This is important shit. More important than the debate. My iPad's

Ben 6:43

more important than, you know, WikiLeaks or

Gene 6:46

Yeah, we'll get to all that. We'll get all that done. This is

Ben 6:50

been a busy week,

Gene 6:51

This is why people tune in, because they want to hear me bitch. That's exactly what it is. Because, you know, it's a little bit of schadenfreude. It's hey, that fucker, he's getting what he deserves.

Ben 7:01

I, the CSV has definitely enjoyed

Gene 7:04

somebody's enjoying it. If you enjoy this by all means, don't forget that we do take donations and that those donations go 100 percent towards paying for this podcast infrastructure, it's not going to help me buy a new iPad. But I may have to buy a new iPad because mine is in a continuous reboot state. Started yesterday morning. It looked like the battery was low. So I plugged it in and it rebooted. I was like, ah, I must've plugged it in right at the point where it started rebooting. And last night I looked at it and it was still rebooting after being plugged in all day long. And then I unplugged it and thought maybe I need to kill the battery off and then plug it in. It's in some weird loop. So now it's been rebooting for about 12 hours non stop. Not being plugged in. I have fairly low confidence that, oh this is a,

Ben 7:58

do a hard reset, and if that doesn't fix it, you know, get a real tablet.

Gene 8:03

yeah, I know. I may need to get one of the new pros with the dual layer screen on it.

Ben 8:08

No, that's not what I was talking about, but, okay.

Gene 8:10

Clearly that's what you implied. So anyway, we'll

Ben 8:13

like my books tablet a

Gene 8:17

your books. Oh yeah. I was asking for my dad for that. Cause I think he uses tablets for reading a lot more than I do. I mostly use them for

Ben 8:24

so what I have is a books color Air three, whatever it is, and it's an Android tablet. But what I like is it has an E Ink screen and what I use it for. I can use it for reading email. I can even browse the web with it, even though it looks weird with the E Ink, But I can read on it. I can take notes on it. It syncs with one drive. It syncs with one note, syncs

Gene 8:49

The biggest pro is the battery life, right?

Ben 8:52

Oh my God, it's, I use it every day and I charge it less than once a week. And, you know, note taking, handwritten notes that convert to text very well, and I have pretty poor handwriting. really is pretty nice. Now, I will say. It's, you know, Chinese Taiwanese company. So keep that in mind and rooting it is possible. And I have done this so, you know, once you root it, you can kind of kick off some of their stuff and you can really block what's going on there. There's plenty of Reddit forums on what to do and how to do it on these notebooks. But I had a, I originally had bought a remarkable, but the remarkable is just too locked down. Like it is the iPhone of this sort of tablet ecosystem where you're going to use their software, you're going to do it their way. And that just doesn't work.

Gene 9:47

Didn't Amazon release a colored Kindle now?

Ben 9:50

Yeah. And they have the Kindle scribe, but it's really for annotating Books. It is not a notebook. And what I wanted is I normally carry like a Moleskine notebook or something like

Gene 10:06

Oh, you're one of those people.

Ben 10:07

I am. And I wanted to replace that because I prefer my notes digitally, but when you're in a meeting, sitting there typing isn't always an option.

Gene 10:16

Meetings, I don't type.

Ben 10:18

I, yes, we're legal. You know, okay. You can choose to do what you want to

Gene 10:25

That's what an iPhone's for.

Ben 10:27

yeah.

Gene 10:27

if you're gonna have a frickin iPhone at a meeting, it's being recorded anyway, you might as well get a transcript.

Ben 10:34

But anyway I still like to have the ability to quickly handwrite notes and then upload that to my one note and type what I want to do or convert that to text and things

Gene 10:46

think I would be a lot more in favor of these things if I had pretty handwriting because on the commercials you watch for all the tablets that you can write on like that, it's always just beautifully handwritten and beautifully, perfectly drawn circles and squares. It's dude, I can't do that. I don't.

Ben 11:06

so as far as the drawing there, the, this has a lot of tools and abilities in it that are really kind of neat. And again, my handwriting is about as poor as they come. I type for a living. I've never had good handwriting. It's just never something I've cared about. And the text, like if I use their text recognition, it is a solid 98 percent there,

Gene 11:33

Okay.

Ben 11:34

is pretty freaking high for

Gene 11:36

I don't know

Ben 11:37

way better than OneNote's built in

Gene 11:40

yeah, then the built in stuff I don't know if this was, when, what year were you born?

Ben 11:46

86.

Gene 11:46

Yeah, that's definitely after you were born. So there used to be a thing, like the first PDA That was out was a, Pilot, I think.

Ben 11:56

Yep, I had the original Palm Pilot.

Gene 11:58

Yeah, Palm Pilot, and I had a couple, I had the original one, and then they got like their small, thin executive version, or whatever

Ben 12:05

fact, my first smartphone was a Palm Phone.

Gene 12:09

Oh, really? Oh, I

Ben 12:10

one of the original Palm Pilot style phones. And then I had a BlackBerry and all that.

Gene 12:15

yeah. Yeah. So, the pilots, I remember when those first came out, and Not actually after the first generation, but like the second generation or out everybody started getting him in a business world. It was just like, Oh, you don't have one of these. Oh yeah. You gotta get one. And it was, you have to learn a certain style of printing.

Ben 12:37

Yeah, it's called graffiti.

Gene 12:38

That's right. It was called Garcia. My, your memory is way better than mine. Yeah, that's called graffiti. And so it was basically writing each individual letter. Without picking up the pen. So, it was a, if you were doing a U, it was the U shape without any bottom right little squiggle on the bottom right that you normally would put in

Ben 12:59

N and A would just be you know, a delta shape and

Gene 13:03

it, yeah yeah, an A would look like a lambda. So, it's a,

Ben 13:09

Not really.

Gene 13:10

not really? Eh, I thought it did.

Ben 13:14

Okay, maybe you should look up what lambda looks like.

Gene 13:18

maybe, yeah. Sorry. It looks like a rationale. So it was interesting, but it forced you to learn a modified version of the alphabet to use it. And I remember I was one of the quote, unquote, cool things about the first generation Apple tablets which was the one of those things called, do you remember? It was the Apple Newton. Yes. Very good. Yes. I'm picturing

Ben 13:46

way, and

Gene 13:46

see it in my,

Ben 13:47

lambda, yes, it kind of looks like that. I always think of lowercase lambda because that's what's used more.

Gene 13:53

Yeah. Okay. So you looked it up. Yep. So Yeah, the Newton which I had and I remember Bringing one on a trip that I did in pre GPS days. So this was a trip I took I think in 1993 or 94 no 94 for sure Shit, maybe it was. Yeah, I think it was 94. I remember bringing a Newton as my Means of looking at maps because I basically saved map pictures of the drive for, and it was like a multi state trip on that Newton and then the battery died while I was driving.

Ben 14:35

Yes. For you

Gene 14:36

yeah, it worked out super good.

Ben 14:39

I remember the first time I saw Newton was in a Jean Claude Van Damme movie and he was using it to, it was on a train or something and he was using it to hack something and stuff. You know, beat the bad guys and it was so stupid because, yeah, with a Newton.

Gene 14:55

Yeah. I had two of those I remember. But a product ahead of its time and a little bit too thick and bulky for and very ambitious. I think he tried to do even more than their original uh, iPhone Sid.

Ben 15:13

Well, the original iPhones, people don't remember, didn't have apps. It wasn't going to be apps. It was all going to be web based.,

Gene 15:20

sort of, they, it had apps, but it had only Apple apps. It didn't have any third

Ben 15:24

There was not going to be an app store.

Gene 15:27

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And the idea was you, everything you need is built in. You don't need to load any other

Ben 15:33

Yeah, and anything else you need? Web page.

Gene 15:36

And then people started figuring out how to do side loading and writing their own. And then, Oh yes, we fully support apps and you just have to submit it to the Apple store. So I honestly, I suspect they always did plan on doing an Apple store, but they wanted to release it way before that was ready. And they didn't want to say, and the apps will be able to get loaded next year, because I think that would have killed some sales off. So they kind of did the old, everything's that you need is built in. You will literally need nothing else. I think it was a little white lie

Ben 16:12

maybe.

Gene 16:13

could be wrong, but I suspect that's in my mind, that's more likely scenario than nobody ever really thinking that, gee, maybe there are things that this thing would want to do that you can't do through the web because I could have made those arguments very easily. It's you need more than the web guys. Anyway. So that's my kvetching for the day. What do you got, Ben, before we jump into politics?

Ben 16:41

Oh, man, I've been working on the yard last, yesterday, and need to some more today, and, Oh, Jesus, this grass grows fast sometimes. And it's not just the grass, man. I've gotta work on my front flower bed bad before the HOA bitches at me, which this is part of the reason why I

Gene 16:59

Oh, you love HOAs, I know. How the hell are you the only guy in Texas who has grass that actually grows fast?

Ben 17:08

Fertilize the hell out of it and use sprinklers.

Gene 17:11

Okay. And whose fault is both of those things?

Ben 17:13

You know, the kids like a nice yard and I like the kids to have a nice yard, so

Gene 17:17

You don't like the brown Texas yards?

Ben 17:19

No, I prefer to try not to.

Gene 17:22

I see. What else going on?

Ben 17:25

We talked about the Galveston trip last week

Gene 17:28

yeah. You're a Mac user now? Are you here?

Ben 17:32

Yeah. My new I have a couple of work laptops and one of them now is a MacBook pro against my will. So, and getting used to that, it's just, there are just some dumb things like some of the keyboard shortcuts, not having a right click button, you know, it's just.

Gene 17:55

You could totally have a right click button, dude.

Ben 17:58

Yes. With an external mouse

Gene 18:00

no, the touchpad has a right click.

Ben 18:03

it doesn't.

Gene 18:04

It does, you just have to turn it on from software.

Ben 18:07

Okay. I've looked through all of the settings. Please tell me

Gene 18:10

Yes, I'll show you.

Ben 18:12

because doing the command or control click depending context and

Gene 18:16

Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. It's the right side of the touch pad. Can work as a a right click. It's

Ben 18:21

Yeah and having the right now, what's interesting is they have the pressure click. So if you lightly click, that's one command. If you click a little harder and it goes a little further, then that's a different command. And that's a stupid

Gene 18:35

You can disable all that crap. They also have multi,

Ben 18:39

trigger. It sounds good on paper, but!

Gene 18:42

yep. It's a lot. It's like one of them binary things. Yes.

Ben 18:48

Well, anyway I will say that Fusion sucks compared to Workstation. So VMware Fusion.

Gene 18:56

you load the, oh, okay. So there's, I think there's two or three different brands

Ben 19:01

Yeah, Fusion or Parallels is

Gene 19:03

Yeah. Parallels was always the one that was ahead of fusion as far as support and feature set. But fusion was usually free, at least from what I recall years ago.

Ben 19:16

Oh, it's not free.

Gene 19:17

Because because when you own VM licenses, they give you fusions licenses.

Ben 19:22

Yeah, but it, you know, and

Gene 19:24

don't own the VM layer.

Ben 19:26

I do I pay, I have paid for VMware Workstation for, I don't know how long. In fact, I run it. On Windows machines, I run it on I've got VMware Workstation installed on Linux. I've got VMware Workstation installed on BSD. And I've used ESXi and, you know, hyper converged environments and all that. But I gotta tell you, man the sentiment in the industry, in my view, since Broadcom bought VMware, I will bitch about this.

Gene 19:53

went down

Ben 19:54

Oh my God. That is the worst thing to fucking happen. Everyone is trying to figure out, okay, so for our main server infrastructure and everything, what can we do to move away from VMware at

Gene 20:05

Ooh, that's horrible. That's too bad. They were kind of the big standard.

Ben 20:10

Oh, they, and that, that's my entire point is okay. Sadly, no one has parody with VMware like E-E-S-X-I and the hyperconverged environments. If you look at like Nutanix hypervisor is okay, but. It lacks a lot of little basic features. If you look at some of the others, then you don't have the backup integrations as well. You don't have lots of little things that if you're actually thinking of infrastructure to run either a company or plant or something like that. Yeah, kind of have to think about pretty deeply.

Gene 20:45

Yeah.

Ben 20:46

it's not for hobbyists. It's easy to move, but for actual infrastructure, thinking through it, the entire life cycle of the system, it's a little more difficult, but I'll tell you a story. So, I lost a key, which I never do, cause I always save stuff to files and back stuff up, but I couldn't find the email, couldn't find the file, I don't know what happened to it, and I was re imaging a laptop and I needed to reinstall VMware Workstation on it, cause I, I run a lot of VMs.

Gene 21:20

Uhhuh.

Ben 21:20

And couldn't find it, and Broadcom, when they bought it, they moved everything over to their support system, and you know, if you haven't set up your account and gotten all your entitlements and everything moved over fuck you. And, I spent hours on the phone with Broadcom support, and getting entitlements, and everything set up, and got everything, the request submitted, finally, yes! And they fucking denied the request.

Gene 21:48

Ooh.

Ben 21:50

Mother. And I had to go back through and all this. And it's the support contract's closed. It's I don't need support. I just need the fucking key.

Gene 21:59

Oh, that sucks.

Ben 22:00

and, anyway, they're like you know, just use the free version we give out now.

Gene 22:05

Uhhuh.

Ben 22:05

And it's okay I can't because your license says that the free version is for personal use and this isn't all for personal use and I paid for this so no. And their support's answer was And just violate our license agreement. Which is just insanity.

Gene 22:46

That sucks. I've had to buy licenses for shit that I've owned in the past. In fact, I just bought one yesterday. For a mouse sharing product,

Ben 22:56

Which one?

Gene 22:57

Share mouse.

Ben 23:00

Have you ever used, um, It's a word like synergy, but it's not something like

Gene 23:08

Yes. I found the mouse share mouse was better.

Ben 23:12

Okay.

Gene 23:13

Um, it's share mouse is very seamless and I would use the free shit that comes with Logitech cause I own a lot of Logitech products. However, Logitech are French. And in their infinite wisdom, they've decided to draw an imaginary line between their gaming products and their business products and exclude the more expensive gaming products like gaming keyboards and shit from the feature in their software that allows you to do keyboard and mouse sharing. So I don't know if you've seen but all the latest Logitech keyboards, all the MX series, the mice and keyboards for the business side. They all have three buttons, so you can basically do three computer sharing as built in part of the mice and keyboards. It's in their software. And they have physical buttons on their keyboards, or they have a button on the mouse which you can assign to switch profiles between three different computers. That would literally do it. Plus give me a hardware switch instead of a software switch, but you can't use any of their gaming products. It's like you motherfuckers, this is so stupid. Just have a unified software that allows all the features across the product lines. So anyway, there's my bitch about them.

Ben 24:40

Okay.

Gene 24:41

What else you got, Ben? Anything else going on?

Ben 24:43

What do you want to start with? Do you want to start with Assange? Or Chevron? Or any of the other rulings? Or

Gene 24:51

let's I was gonna start with the debate, but we can

Ben 24:54

We can start with the debate. We can start with Weekend at Bernie's.

Gene 24:58

okay, yeah that's an appropriately named thing. That was a funny movie when it came out, and you're not wrong. That's what we saw in the debate, was a dead guy with somebody pulling strings and making his mouth move.

Ben 25:11

Dude, all I can say is I have, I like, I didn't have high expectations for Biden. I like everyone thought surely they'll jack him up, he'll do whatever and CNN tried to help him out. There were a couple times when he was rambling that they kind of cut him off or redirected him and. interrupted him more than they did Trump. But just from the very beginning, his voice, which they blamed on a cold, his voice was very raspy, sounded horrible, sounded terrible. He looked terrible, like when he walked out, he was taking short steps, very frail. Trump just strides in, like just the juxtaposition of this from a visual standpoint was

Gene 25:58

strides in relatively to the Other old guy relative to a young guy. Trump did not stride in. He barely walked in. Yeah.

Ben 26:09

I mean, this, from a visual aspect, not from a Content aspect, because I still think Trump won from a content aspect, but this was reminiscent of JFK and Nixon.

Gene 26:21

Yeah. Yeah. I w I would agree with that. It's sad. Uh, in so many different ways, it's sad for America first and foremost, that this is what we've got. Uh, it's You know, a little sad that any old dude has to be wheeled out like this to become embarrassed in a laughingstock. And it's sad that voters are too stupid to vote for younger people.

Ben 26:48

The saddest part to me was when CNN released their poll on who won 33%. Thought that Biden won. How? I mean, there is no way. There's just none.

Gene 27:03

first of all, you didn't hear him poop his pants. So that's a win,

Ben 27:09

Okay.

Gene 27:10

right? I mean, that's what everybody was waiting on their bingo cards Are we going to get to hear Biden actually pooped through the microphone?

Ben 27:17

Huh.

Gene 27:17

So he pooped quietly. So we didn't hear it. There's a lot of this going in a lot of mumbling.

Ben 27:24

One of the, one of Trump's best lines was

Gene 27:27

I knew

Ben 27:27

after Biden goes through and mumbles through an answer and just everyone's what the fuck did he just say? When they ask Trump the next question, he goes, first of all, I don't know what he said, and I don't think he knows what he said, which at that moment, that's exactly what you were thinking, and it was just a slam dunk for Trump

Gene 27:48

yeah, and it didn't, it wasn't even mean it, like he's just saying what we're thinking, he's not trying to be a

Ben 27:54

of factly. Yeah. But the split screen at that moment, Biden's looking at him half mouth agape, just kind of dumbfounded huh? And it was just, it was perfect.

Gene 28:04

whatever he was on was definitely giving him dry mouth, and he wasn't blinking a whole lot,

Ben 28:08

A lot of people have pointed that out, that he wouldn't blink and then blink rapidly, which was weird.

Gene 28:14

Yeah it's like clearly there was drugs in the system. There's no two ways about it. And I think Trump even said after the debate that he wanted the drug test. it was an embarrassment in every way you can slice it. Did you see Gavin Newsom? Interviewed immediately after the

Ben 28:34

he had a shit eatin grin

Gene 28:36

Oh my God. That guy could not hold back a smile to save his life. And it's like our candidate is Biden and we're sticking to it.

Ben 28:47

I, I mean, we, we say that, but I think there's a, sadly, a really good chance that the Democrats actually do stick with it. And I

Gene 28:56

And I don't know. Yeah, I was going to say, how's that? Sadly, that's a guaranteed loss for them.

Ben 29:01

yeah, but I would like to think that our country could do better.

Gene 29:08

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Vivek should be running, then our country would be doing better. Yes.

Ben 29:13

And I will say this the worst part of the debate was that RFK was not on that

Gene 29:19

Oh, and now you're

Ben 29:20

deserved to be on that stage.

Gene 29:23

Of the three of them, the guy with the speech impediment would have been probably speaking the clearest.

Ben 29:30

Trump did okay, man.

Gene 29:31

Got his own issues, though. They're not as age related as just personality. He repeats shit all the time.

Ben 29:36

he does. And you know, Shapiro came out and said there was nothing substantive about that debate. And

Gene 29:42

He's not wrong.

Ben 29:44

He is the opinions haven't really changed since 2020 for Biden or for Trump. But there was plenty of substance, I would argue, on both sides. Like Biden admitting he beat the hell out of Medicare.

Gene 30:01

Okay. All right. That's true. That was a funny moment. It's Whoa, what?

Ben 30:06

It's do you realize the words that are coming out of your mouth? No.

Gene 30:14

Also, there were moments between the mumbling of him, not just having complete sentences, but he really looked like he was reading a teleprompter. I don't buy that he wasn't plugged in at all. He had to have had Yeah, he had to have a little miniature hearing aid thing that was basically broadcasting of what he should be saying the whole time.

Ben 30:38

And it was also interesting because, you know, kind of the way he would speak would be, you know, mumble, and then something coherent. Mumble, something coherent. Which, you know, senility's a bitch. I hope I never have to go through it.

Gene 30:55

Right? You hope you die young. That's what I've always said. You know, young being a relative old

Ben 31:00

I don't really want to die young, but, yes, point

Gene 31:03

young enough.

Ben 31:05

I would rather die young than, you know, my body can fail me. I'll be okay. If my mind goes, or if my mind starts to go,

Gene 31:16

Yeah. That's a sad thing.

Ben 31:17

You know, I'm the kind of guy that if, you know, if I think I'm not going to be able to have cognition, let's say I find out I have a brain tumor or I'll probably give you a hug, Say goodbye, and then I'm walking off into the woods,

Gene 31:32

Yeah. You'll do a self tumor amputation. Yeah, I'm pretty much right along there with you. I totally agree. I've said this for many years and you know told my siblings and stuff too is that or my parents and something I have no desire and will enforce my lack of desire for living in any kind of state with a mental impairment. That's not. That's not a possibility as far as I'm

Ben 32:03

Yeah. My, my body can fail me some, but you know, my mind is not an option. It's too

Gene 32:08

Yeah. And you know, seeing my mom in their last six months after she had a stroke now, and certainly there's a difference in the stroke and slow onset mental problems there from old age. But. I just, you know, seeing somebody after a stroke, like a serious stroke, I have zero desire to go through that. If there's a stroke, I don't want resuscitation. I don't want to be rescued, quote unquote. I want that stroke to finish what it started.

Ben 32:43

What about an aneurysm where they had to take off the top of your head? Sorry.

Gene 32:48

removed. How about multiple times?

Ben 32:51

For those of you who don't know, that literally happened to Biden twice

Gene 32:55

Twice? Yeah.

Ben 32:57

Like the man and did you see him walking off the stage afterwards? Yeah. And Jill having to help him and Trump walks off under his own there is such a distinct difference between these two men.

Gene 33:09

Jill, you did so good. Who's my winner? Uhhuh

Ben 33:14

Oh yeah. She was the babysitter

Gene 33:16

God, now she's his babysitter. Yeah.

Ben 33:19

She's back to wiping asses.

Gene 33:20

That's, it's ho, I mean. Marrying your kid's babysitter is, I don't consider that a bad thing, but it's just embarrassing. I mean, this kind of shit happens, obviously, with a large chunk of the population, but it's done behind closed doors. It's not smack right there in the middle of everybody's viewing and it's, it shows America as being a stupid country.

Ben 33:42

A week or so ago that you know, we were being told, oh, it's just a cheap fake, you know, it's not real, it's not real. And here you have him at his probably best that they can muster performance possible.

Gene 33:56

this is

Ben 33:57

And that's what it was. And people were like maybe they didn't drug him. Maybe they maybe they were sabotaging him or maybe they'd been drugging him for too long and this is the result

Gene 34:06

This is as good as it gets. Yeah,

Ben 34:08

he is in a precipitous decline.

Gene 34:11

Yeah. The best thing that can happen, I think, if you look at I think a majority of Democrats, or at least close to a majority of Democrats at this point, is if he either bows out or dies. An illness that kills him. Clearly makes it impossible for him to run. I think most Democrats or at least half the Democrats would much prefer Gavin Newsom run.

Ben 34:35

Newsome, Hillary you know.

Gene 34:38

I said, prefer

Ben 34:39

You know the ticket that I think would sadly win?

Gene 34:42

what? Hillary Newsom.

Ben 34:45

Newsome AOC.

Gene 34:48

Oh yeah. Shit. I'd vote for that. Yeah. That's

Ben 34:51

Oh, you and Alec Stein, man.

Gene 34:53

That would be a fucking

Ben 34:55

big titty Latina girl. Huh.

Gene 34:57

Yeah, big booty Latina girl. Yeah, she's got both. No, but I like the other Latina girl, you know that. I like Congresswoman Luna. She's my Latina girl. She always wears those androgynous outfits so well. So hot. There's something about a properly proportioned female body, you know, with hips and tits wearing a a suit and tie just, you know, cross gendering it, that just, there's something very sexy about it.

Ben 35:31

Yes, this is the man who found Buck Angel in previous form attractive though.

Gene 35:38

Buck Angel as a model when Buck Angel was 18, it was pretty hot

Ben 35:44

Ah, too flat.

Gene 35:46

too. I said model. And yeah, I just, I had never been a big tits guy. I'm like, I think B cups are perfectly fine.

Ben 35:57

Okay.

Gene 35:58

So anyway but yeah, there's been, you know, that's been in a bunch of movies over the years where the woman puts on the guy's shirt with a tie and no pants. And then it does a little sexy dance. I mean, there's, anyway, let's get back on track before I stop recording this podcast and go off on a whole separate tangent. Assange.

Ben 36:20

old men.

Gene 36:20

That's exactly it.

Ben 36:22

Speaking of. Yeah.

Gene 36:24

Yeah. He's looking better than I remember him looking a year ago.

Ben 36:28

Yeah, so did you notice that Wikileaks took down the DNC stuff?

Gene 36:32

No,

Ben 36:33

Yeah, so the Wikileaks DNC stuff is no longer up. Uh, that had to have been part of the plea bargain.

Gene 36:41

sure it was. I honestly. Don't know what good WikiLeaks has been for the last five, six years anyway.

Ben 36:48

which is fine. But, you know, at the same time I think about Assange and what he's gone through and everything, and it's been torturous, and I get that. But, I hope, That I would just say, fuck you, take me to trial, and get to say what I wanted to say in the trial, and whatever they do to me, let

Gene 37:09

think you would do that?

Ben 37:12

I don't know that I would, but I hope that I would.

Gene 37:15

Yeah, I think most people that this is what good prosecutors know is that time is their friend.

Ben 37:25

Oh,

Gene 37:25

The longer they can keep somebody before the start of a trial, the more likely the person will want to. Actually settle beforehand and do a plea bargain and honestly do a plea bargain for something that they don't think they actually committed. They just don't want to be in that limbo state.

Ben 37:46

Yeah, and which, by the way, when you accept a plea bargain, you cannot ever appeal it, Of what comes out afterwards. So, all the Jan Sixers? That took a plea bargain or screwed.

Gene 38:01

And He

Ben 38:04

I think he was wrongfully persecuted.

Gene 38:07

was,

Ben 38:08

And you've gone that many years, you've done that much, why give up now?

Gene 38:14

Because what they offered to him in exchange for total freedom of travel, which is what the main thing they were forbidding him not to mention UK prison

Ben 38:25

Which, by the way, we gotta talk about UK prisons as soon as we're done with

Gene 38:28

Yeah, but at some point it's been like, what, 15 years since this whole thing started, since he fled. It's their offer is look, time served, you're done. All you got to do is sign this piece of paper and you'll walk out of here and you can go anywhere in the world and be a free man and see your family. That's a big thing to hold off over. Somebody said it as an offer after what he's been through for the last 15 years. You know, it's all you got to do is just admit that two plus two equals five to sign this piece of paper. That's it.

Ben 39:06

Yeah, there are four lights.

Gene 39:11

I think there might be five. So I don't fault the man. I doubt I would have held out as long as he has. I would like to think that I would hold out forever, but I'm also realistic. And I think 15 years is a very long time. It's also ridiculous that he got charged for a crime in the country of which he's not a citizen and the country in which he did not live.

Ben 39:43

Yeah, the US involvement in this is nothing but despicable.

Gene 39:47

It's world police bullshit. It's like we're charging people internationally for nonviolent crimes. Which they committed outside of the United States. Meanwhile, we're not charging people for crimes in this country like letting illegals through. What the fuck?

Ben 40:13

So, did you see the prison guard video out of the UK?

Gene 40:18

I saw photos, I didn't watch the video.

Ben 40:20

I sent you the video. Now, one of the things I'll say is if The prisons in the UK are that private, they have their own computer, and you can literally get away with screwing your prison guard. Which I thought this was fake until I looked up the article which I sent you on it, which apparently it happened. I don't know man, maybe I'd stay in prison in in the UK, you know.

Gene 40:43

I've watched a UK TV series about a women's prison once. It does seem like their prisons are less prison y than ours are.

Ben 40:51

Oh yeah, I mean, they had a door, they had privacy, they literally had a computer in there, they were smoking in their jail

Gene 40:58

keep in mind there, there was a much smaller population percentage in prison in the UK than the U S

Ben 41:04

That's because we imprisoned more people than any other country on the face of

Gene 41:08

literally more people than China, more people than India.

Ben 41:11

Yeah, and, you know, we, why do we think we're the good guys? Why? When you look at history, when you look at what we've done, when you look at what we do to our own population,

Gene 41:23

Yeah.

Ben 41:24

there are many times the U. S. is not in the right and we are not the good guys.

Gene 41:29

How many countries have we invaded? And yet we look at all,

Ben 41:34

World War II.

Gene 41:35

post world war two. Exactly. It's insane. It. And yet we're pretending like we're not a global empire. We're pretending like we don't want to control other countries. Like dude, Europe has permanent stationed us troops in it. What the fuck is that?

Ben 42:00

A waste of money.

Gene 42:02

That as well. Yes. And I love Trump's well, then they should be paying for them. Yes, that Europe would love to pay for troops that are stationed on their sovereign territory that are not under their control. Yes.

Ben 42:14

They want to because they don't want to have to pay for their own military.

Gene 42:18

Yeah.

Ben 42:18

That's the dirty little secret of NATO and our troop deployments around the world is the U. S. taxpayer is paying for the security of Germany, is paying for the security of France, the U. K., almost all of the E. U. I mean. Fuck, Saudi Arabia. We run wars for Saudi Arabia. We are America, world police, fuck it. You know, unfortunately, the South Park creators got a lot of shit right in that

Gene 42:48

Oh, yeah. What they usually do. Yeah. Much like they did with their their whole Ozempic episode, because that shit's unavailable, dude. I'm trying to get it. It is literally unavailable in Austin. It's crazy. It is nuts.

Ben 43:07

did you ever watch Farscape?

Gene 43:09

Yeah. Yeah. Love that show.

Ben 43:11

great show. You know the Peacekeepers, right? The U. S. is the peacekeepers.

Gene 43:17

yeah, totally. Although the Peacekeepers had better uniforms than we do. Had more Germany uniforms.

Ben 43:23

Claudia Black.

Gene 43:24

Fucking A. In her prime, Claudia Black in her prime, man. And the way that character was written, both in that show and when she moved to Stargate. It's that is my type of chick, man. I

Ben 43:38

The, alright we have some crossover

Gene 43:41

Oh, God. Yeah, that was, I mean, that was literally my ex wife. It's, the thing that I fell in love with was that kind of smart ass attitude combined with a, that she's definitely not a gentle flower. She just will go and kick ass and take names. So, yeah. The problem then lies is, you know, does she really need you? But, uh, and clearly in my case I got divorced, so the answer is no. But I definitely liked Claudia Black both in that show and Stargate. And if people haven't seen her, she's an Australian actress that's done a little bit of American stuff. But she tended to play these very

Ben 44:23

Even in movies and everything

Gene 44:25

Yeah. But she definitely was typecast. There's no two ways about that. But the attitude that we're talking about is very much a Kind of a pirate y, you know, if you gotta lie a little bit, you lie a little bit. And if you want to, if you need to kick some ass, you kick some ass. And it was a it was a very fun character to watch. And in, I think, The way they did the romance in Farscape between her and

Ben 44:52

Crichton.

Gene 44:53

Cra no, the main guy. What's his name?

Ben 44:54

John Crichton.

Gene 44:56

Oh yeah. That's his last name, yeah. John.

Ben 44:58

Trust me, I have seen the show. I am a sci fi nerd, dude.

Gene 45:02

Which yeah, which You know, this is on the fringe of nerd shows, because it wasn't a mainstream US show. So you had to actually watch the sci fi channel in the US if you wanted to watch it, otherwise you'd have to watch it somewhere else outside of the US.

Ben 45:18

Yeah, I would say that, you know, Star Trek, Star Wars is kind of

Gene 45:23

That's mainstream. Yeah.

Ben 45:25

But when you get into the, you know, Farscapes, the Fireflies, stuff like that, it's

Gene 45:30

Did you ever watch Lex?

Ben 45:33

Yeah, I didn't ever really Lex. So, at my age it I, so, here's the problem with Lex. I went to

Gene 45:42

e x x.

Ben 45:43

Yeah, I went to watch a couple episodes as a you know, basically as a adolescent

Gene 45:48

Yeah.

Ben 45:49

and my parents saw it and were like, yeah, no,

Gene 45:53

No. Yeah. Yeah, exactly

Ben 45:55

then by the time I was an adult and went back to try and watch it, it was just like, yeah, too hokey, too

Gene 46:01

It is it's definitely hokey If you got some time, there's not many episodes. So if you have some time, I definitely recommend that I think The third season was probably the best, which is usually not the case. Usually they, most shows start off really good and then go down the hill afterwards. But they, my favorite episode in Lex was a planet that, that was a binary. It was a binary planet. So basically you have two planets that spin around the sun, but also each other. And so, they shared an atmosphere. So it was a atmosphere that went between the planets due to the gravity of them, and they were very. Allegorical for heaven and hell. And it was like a lot of the episodes in that season are, they're just sort of philosophical. They're just fun little philosophy plays done by community theater. That's the way I would describe it. It, the show had a budget of a community theater. It's a sci fi show with the least amount of special effects possible. Um, and it was a joint production between Germany and Canada, and that should tell you a lot, but I still liked it and it is definitely one of those esoteric sci fi shows that you can, you know, you can see how well somebody's a nerd knowledge is on whether or not they've watched that show as well.

Ben 47:34

Anyway,

Gene 47:37

So you, we talked about the British prisons. We talked about a son. What do you want to jump to?

Ben 47:43

The Supreme Court has a few rulings and I kind of wish we were doing this podcast tomorrow because the immunity ruling is supposed to come out tomorrow, according to Roberts, but Chevron is dead.

Gene 47:57

Yeah. That's awesome. Chevron deference should have never existed.

Ben 48:01

the problem is in their ruling, they said, but this doesn't affect any rulings that were previously done under the Chevron. So, as a result, there is no case for appeal there and their argument for doing that is we don't want to overwhelm the system, but, you know, it's just sanity.

Gene 48:21

It is which means new cases will need to be brought in all these things instead of rehashing the old Chevron settled cases.

Ben 48:29

Correct?

Gene 48:30

You want to explain what Chevron deference is if somebody doesn't know?

Ben 48:33

Chevron deference and a lot of people in the media falsely claim. Oh, it was a conservative court that put it in. No. It was a judicial activist Republican court that put it in. Don't confuse the two.

Gene 48:47

Also, only six judges were on the court at the time.

Ben 48:51

Correct. And Chevron was not founded in any constitutionality or any actual, you know,

Gene 49:00

Legal principles.

Ben 49:02

Or precedent beforehand. There was nothing to to get this to where

Gene 49:08

Yeah. It was obvious that this was a mistake by the courts, much like Roe v. Wade,

Ben 49:15

Yes. But regardless, Chevron basically stated that if there's ambiguity in a law passed by Congress, that the agency in charge with enforcing that law has the right to interpret it, which is just insanity. It's the fox guarding

Gene 49:34

Not even just the right, the responsibility.

Ben 49:36

Correct. And that court should defer to the quote unquote opinions of the expert.

Gene 49:42

Exactly. So they're taking, which if you separate those two, that would be at least an argument, maybe not a great one, but they're combining the idea that the agencies that are responsible for enforcement are also the agencies that have the experts, which you should rely on. For interpretation. That's completely asinine. If you have a separate set of experts that are not whatsoever tied to the agencies, I could see some argument for that. It's not a overwhelming argument, but some, but you can't combine those. You can't say the people that are in charge of enforcing laws. The police are the ones responsible for determining the rights of the accused. I mean, no one would ever get out of jail and no one would ever be charged. They would just all permanently be sitting in limbo in prison. If it was up to the cops it's insane. And the fact that the Supreme court thought this was a good idea at some point in time demonstrates that plenty of people, not just Trump nominate people for the Supreme court that are morons.

Ben 50:54

Oh, yeah. This was during the

Gene 50:56

Amy, call me Barrett reference there

Ben 50:58

and why do you say that specifically?

Gene 51:01

she's a moron

Ben 51:03

Elaborate as to why.

Gene 51:05

because she is exactly what a lot of us were saying before she got. Through the nomination process, she is essentially a feminist who happens to be religious. And somehow, all the Republicans are like yeah, she's real she's real conservative. She believes in Jesus Christ. No dumbass. She's a feminist. You don't want a feminist on the Supreme Court. And that's exactly what we've been seeing in her rulings.

Ben 51:33

Yeah I got asked the other day I sent you that video of the guy that was sitting on the bus, and for those who haven't seen it, there's a guy sitting on this bus, and this lady's standing there, and she's complaining on the video, chivalry is dead, You know, and no one's giving up their seat, and so on, she

Gene 51:52

By no one, you mean no men.

Ben 51:54

correct, and she goes up to this guy and says, are you going to give up your seat, and he says, are you pregnant, and she says no, and then he says, do you believe in equality, And she says, yes, he says, then fuck off.

Gene 52:05

Yeah, exactly.

Ben 52:06

Which is brilliant. It's perfect response to this because, okay, you, but women don't want equality. They do not. Feminism isn't about equality.

Gene 52:18

it's really not, I would have had a slightly different answer on that bus. I wouldn't have said, do you believe in equality? I would have said I'll give up my seat if you give up your vote.

Ben 52:25

But, you know, and I was talking to a friend and I got asked, you know, do you believe in equality? And no, I don't. You know, and it depends on what we mean by equality versus equity versus everything else. But no, I don't believe in equality. I don't believe in equality of outcomes. I don't believe in equality even under the law in so much as I don't believe that women should be drafted. I think there are sex differences between men and women. I think there are role differences between men and women. And I think we have to take those roles very seriously. And when we cross into each other's territory, we do so at the detriment of the rest of society.

Gene 53:06

Now, I will disagree with you on one thing. I do think women being drafted is a very good opportunity for those calendars of the IDF that I subscribe to. Because there's nothing hotter than a 19 year old girl dressed in a military uniform holding a gun.

Ben 53:23

You're missing the point.

Gene 53:25

I, I'm trying to make light of the point. Yes. But I get it. It's a difference in men and women, and it's obviously there, and it's retarded to ignore it. And whether you believe in God or you just see it as evolutionary differences that came about between the purpose of the two sexes the point is it's ridiculous to deny that there are differences. And thankfully it does seem like the whole men and women's bathroom issue is starting to get overwhelming support pushing back against that. Um, so we may be beyond the point of inflection here. We may be going back to a more rational perspective where men will no longer be admitted to women's bathrooms.

Ben 54:17

well, and yeah, I, yes I hope that is correct. And Chevron goes a long way actually towards that end because it stops the agencies, for instance, on the bump stock, for example. Ruling that they also went through earlier this week and overturned the bump stock,

Gene 54:35

Yeah. The bum suck, that's already overturned. The one I'm more concerned with is the pistol brace.

Ben 54:40

Right. But basically this, unless Congress with the removal of Chevron, unless Congress explicitly state something, the ATF cannot come in and make a, make something up, this also goes

Gene 54:53

they're still

Ben 54:53

title nine implications and everything well, but now we have a precedent to sue them over

Gene 54:59

we do.

Ben 54:59

instead of them having a precedent to defend.

Gene 55:03

faster through the court system that way. Yeah. And with Title IX too, did you see that there's 23 states now that are suing the federal government for the inclu or the non congressional change of verbiage to now include transgender?

Ben 55:23

In this Chevron case, helps that out because the agency no longer has the right to do that. Which they never really did. It's, and this is where judges and judicial activism become so fucking problematic, and why our system is so screwed. You sent me a video that I ended up finding the full length version of it, but you sent me a speech that Jack McLam

Gene 55:47

Yep. Yep.

Ben 55:48

And it was kind of funny because Jack McClam was my first employer. Like I know Jack very

Gene 55:54

Ding ding.

Ben 55:54

Do you mean? Ding,

Gene 55:55

Nothing. Oh, I'm not saying anything.

Ben 55:57

Anyway Jack, you know, I know a lot of people who were in the Patriot community in the nineties and everything else, and Jack McClam is one of those guys that I just, I can't think of anything bad to say about the man. He was just an awesome individual, and I'm sorry he's gone.

Gene 56:14

How interesting is it that video popped up in my recommended?

Ben 56:18

It is,

Gene 56:20

That's an old ass video.

Ben 56:21

is, it's from the early nineties. Every cop in America needs to watch that video, like the full length version and to understand what happened to him. And you need to watch the full length

Gene 56:32

Yeah. I do. I just wish there was a better quality.

Ben 56:35

Anyway, I'm going to be doing a blog post on it and I'll embed that video in it. But you know, growing up around that and knowing Jack as well as I did that really took me down memory lane, man.

Gene 56:48

Mm hmm. Yeah. That, that, that's that's pretty wild. But A good video and he was a former police officer in what, Arizona?

Ben 56:59

In Phoenix, yeah,

Gene 57:00

Yeah.

Ben 57:01

and he was fired multiple times. He was run out because he was officer friendly. He did community placing before community placing was a thing. And, you know, he of the reason why

Gene 57:15

on, you say that, but, you know, we grew up watching Andy Griffith.

Ben 57:19

Right, but he was an Andy Griffith type in a lot of ways. Right. And he wouldn't fabricate evidence or try and, you know, Buffalo anything for a lawsuit or anything like that. He is what a cop should have been in, in my mind, everything I know about Jack and having known him as well as I do. And for those who know me, you know, I do not have a lot of respect for police officers. So for me to sit here and say, this is fairly significant.

Gene 57:46

Right.

Ben 57:47

But yeah was a good guy. He was one, him and Bogreitz were the two people who talked Randy Weaver off the off of Ruby Ridge. So,

Gene 57:57

Yeah.

Ben 57:58

I actually you got me going down a rabbit hole and I bought something off of eBay because of you.

Gene 58:04

Oh, what'd you get?

Ben 58:05

My parents, I'm sure, have a copy of Vampire Killer 2000,

Gene 58:09

Ah.

Ben 58:10

but I do not, personally, and I found one on eBay.

Gene 58:14

Nice.

Ben 58:14

So, there you go.

Gene 58:16

Yeah, we gotta meet up soon, dude, because I still need to give you that, that book I told you I was giving you as a gift. Which is a a book, I think it was around 300 pages oversized of reprints from the newspaper article or that whole newspapers, or at least the front pages of newspapers during the civil war. And It was it, I've got the original first edition, publication of it. So, I think you'll enjoy that.

Ben 58:47

I will. I appreciate that. We we ought to do a meetup slash range day.

Gene 58:52

Yeah. I agree.

Ben 58:54

Yeah. So, let's let's figure out when we want to do that. It's starting to get a little hot, so we're going to need to figure that out sooner rather than

Gene 59:01

Yeah. If it's a range day, it'll have to be an indoor range day, not a fricking outdoor range day. Cause it's too damn hot in Texas right now.

Ben 59:09

Let's go in the morning. Okay.

Gene 59:11

It's too damn hot in Texas right now. It's 80 degrees in the morning.

Ben 59:15

Yeah, it's fantastic. I sit outside every morning, have my coffee. Oh no, I love it. I sit outside all the time. By the way, I started a new supplement that you ought to try.

Gene 59:26

Which one?

Ben 59:27

I'm adding a little scoop of lion's mane to my coffee every morning.

Gene 59:33

In powdered form? Okay.

Ben 59:35

And

Gene 59:36

So that's a mushroom and it's good for

Ben 59:38

lot of cognitive stuff,

Gene 59:40

Yeah.

Ben 59:40

It's fantastic. A, I'm drinking less coffee. And B, it's just a, one little scoop, you don't really taste it, and doesn't taste bad, it's just got an earthy taste.

Gene 59:53

It's a little bitter if you just put it in your mouth.

Ben 59:55

Right, right, but in the coffee it's fantastic.

Gene 59:58

Yeah. Yeah. It should be good in coffee. Yeah. You can actually do it with use it with steak as well. It'll be a good addition flavor wise to that. I don't think it would taste all that good with milk.

Ben 1:00:14

Know,

Gene 1:00:15

yeah, no that's a, not a bad suggestion. Nootropics in general are a fast growing industry that is Got a lot of good science behind it, that it's not just complete woo bullshit, and Fungus in, in general are Something that we've neglected to really study But they have a ton of great properties when you consume fungus.

Ben 1:00:38

if it were legal, and I didn't have to worry about drug testing and everything the way I do, I would totally microdose on lots of different things to do the nootropic side of it.

Gene 1:00:50

Yeah. Yeah They're and the legality is It's not even legality. I think for a lot of the nootropics out there, it's really a question of Do the drug tests gonna pick something up?

Ben 1:01:03

For employment, especially with like my employment

Gene 1:01:07

absolutely. I didn't do anything, any drugs at all for Shit, how long? Probably at least 15, maybe close to 20 years. The only thing I did was drink alcohol because I was in the information security field working for a lot of different companies That were subcontracting to the U. S. government and I'd basically been drug tested for almost 20 years straight on a regular basis and I'm not bitching about it. I was never, you know, a marijuana smoker. I've never done anything. Like I, I didn't have a burning desire to do something, even if it was legal, I don't even care if it was legal or illegal, but anything that had to do with putting weird substances into my body. So I didn't mind it. But I know a lot of people are like, Oh my God, how could you go that long and be a drug test? I was like it's the career path I chose. And You know, I would want to drug test people that were working for me in that field, so I was perfectly fine being drug tested.

Ben 1:02:18

and it, it happens. But anyway yeah, man the lion's mane, I'm enjoying it. It's a good addition.

Gene 1:02:26

No, that's cool. I'll I'll check it out. I've got a few different mushrooms in powdered form, but I don't have lion's mane. I'll have to get some on Amazon.

Ben 1:02:37

Yeah. And Amazon's not a bad place to get it. You know, Amazon actually has a pretty respectable. Array of supplements that you can get.

Gene 1:02:46

Oh, tons.

Ben 1:02:47

health food stores are making it anymore

Gene 1:02:49

I don't think they can.

Ben 1:02:51

with what the prices Amazon can bring, and you're still getting the same brands and everything else you would want. Uh,

Gene 1:02:58

they are the biggest drug dealer right now, for sure.

Ben 1:03:01

Oh my God. They, the Amazon's been pushing me on the pharmacy stuff they've been doing. And then now the health

Gene 1:03:08

Dude, their pharmacy is awesome. I had an order. I've been using them for about a year. I had an order of continuous blood glucose monitors, you know, the little thing that you plug into your arm. That got delivered, but not to me because the photo for delivery confirmation shows somebody else's doormat. I call them up. They're like, yep, no problem. We'll get it reshipped to you. Next day. And so I got reshipped, got them three days later. My neighbor comes over. He's Hey, I think this is for you. I'm like, yep, you bet. So yeah, Amazon it's it's convenient. I'm still waiting for my laptop refunds to get processed.

Ben 1:03:55

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Gene 1:03:57

I called them and they said, yep, we've received them. I said how come your website says they haven't been received yet? Cause we're coming up to my 30 days since I bought them period. And they're like no, we got them. We got them. We just must be a thing on the website, but you should get your money back within the week or so.

Ben 1:04:16

And that's the problem with Amazon is there is no arbitrage though. Like with eBay and stuff, you at least have PayPal as an

Gene 1:04:25

right. I mean, technically your credit card company, but are you going to risk losing your access to Amazon? Probably not.

Ben 1:04:31

Exactly.

Gene 1:04:33

Yeah, it's but I will say that if you get through to the actual support person, they're all in India, but if you get through to one that, that is a, not an entry level support person, a level or two up they really are trained to just make it right. Like they're, they don't think about what it's going to cost them. They're just there to keep you a happy customer. And you know, that's a big thing. Oh, by the way, I think I mentioned before that I decided not to renew my Amazon prime because the costs keep going up every year.

Ben 1:05:08

Yeah. You mentioned that.

Gene 1:05:09

so by, by disabling the auto renew, they eventually sent me an offer to renew for last year's price.

Ben 1:05:17

Really?

Gene 1:05:18

And I'm like, fuck yeah, that's I'll do that. I'll happily renew for the last year's price. Yep.

Ben 1:05:25

I should do that,

Gene 1:05:26

You should, It's a little more work than just leaving it alone, but you

Ben 1:05:30

yeah we use Amazon Prime for a lot of kids stuff like buying videos on there and being able to download them for the tablet for long car rides or whatever. You know, and just.

Gene 1:05:43

Kindle thing now too, cause they, they touted that in their email.

Ben 1:05:47

Oh yeah. Yeah. And that I use that all the time because you've got so many access, so much access to free books.

Gene 1:05:52

Yeah. So I'm still trying to catch up on books I've already bought. So that's not really a thing that concerns me, but it's there. It is a built in and they started showing me the other funny thing is as I got closer to my renewal, they started showing me how much money I've saved based on the number of packages shipped to my house. And it's okay fair enough. I've gotten like 80 packages done last year. Which is less than I would, then I thought, honestly, I thought I had more than that, but still 80, even at four bucks a package, which, you know, some are bigger than that it's a lot more than the cost of Amazon prime.

Ben 1:06:31

You know, Amazon prime is an interesting business model because in a lot of ways it's a loss leader and in a lot of ways they're banking on that,

Gene 1:06:42

Yeah. It's a consistency.

Ben 1:06:44

The annual reoccurring revenue.

Gene 1:06:46

exactly. And it, so it does two things. It's guaranteed future income with very little deviation. There's very few people that actually cancel. So it's predictable. And it gets you to spend money more frequently because you at least I don't pay for shipping. That's your thought pattern.

Ben 1:07:04

and not only that, but it it's, will buy stuff off of Amazon versus going somewhere else because of it.

Gene 1:07:13

Although technically when I've haven't found something on Amazon, I've had to go to like warm walmart. com, which incidentally walmart. com is as big as Amazon. And it's not just cheap crap. That's at Walmart. You could buy higher quality products on walmart. com. But that also just gives you free shipping period. Like you don't need to join a club to get free shipping on there. So,

Ben 1:07:37

you're a Sam's club member, you can get different pricing and lots of other stuff. And in pro tip on the Sam's club stuff, Sam's club essentially has a lifetime warranty Because if you buy something from Sam's online or in person, You have unlimited returns.

Gene 1:07:56

Yeah, same thing with Costco. Yeah, which I've got Costco right now. I used to have Costco back when I was married. Then a few years after getting divorced, I just got rid of Costco because I just got fed up with throwing away food. Because every time I'd go there, I would buy food, you know. Yeah, exactly. Amongst other things. And then I would eat half of it and it would sit in my fridge. And then I'd look at it and go it's probably spoiled now, or at least I don't want to

Ben 1:08:26

A, this is why you have a freezer, and B you know, you gotta pick what you buy at Sam's, right? You don't buy,

Gene 1:08:34

was a, my point is there are no single person portions. Everything's family size.

Ben 1:08:39

no, but what you do is you buy your paper towels and toilet paper at Sam's. You buy your detergent at Sam's. You buy your canned goods at Sam's. You buy frozen goods

Gene 1:08:48

But you're all describing things that I have auto shipped from Amazon to my house.

Ben 1:08:53

Yes, but it's way cheaper from Sam's.

Gene 1:08:56

Is it though? You think? Okay.

Ben 1:08:59

Paper towels is a great example and local delivery, even if I pay the six bucks for Sam's order delivery or whatever, or I go get it. I mean, there's advantages. And then you combine that with if that's where you get your gas and everything else over the cost of a year.

Gene 1:09:16

Uber food delivery now will deliver Sam's club or sorry. Costco products. So, and you punch in your Costco number into Uber and then you get member pricing. So they'll go and shop and the delivery is basically like four bucks. So it's actually quite a good deal, but the other problem with Costco and Sam's, and it's always something I've made fun of but it's because it's true is there is no such thing as an under a hundred dollar shopping trip because everything is family size. So everything is over 20 that you get there. You're almost never going to drive there to pick up less than six items.

Ben 1:10:05

Oh yeah,

Gene 1:10:06

And so every

Ben 1:10:07

200 bucks plus every time you go.

Gene 1:10:09

it is I say a minimum of a hundred, but realistically it's usually between two and three hundred

Ben 1:10:14

Yeah, inflation, dude.

Gene 1:10:16

every trip.

Ben 1:10:17

Which, by the way, did you see the guy's Walmart video?

Gene 1:10:21

Which video?

Ben 1:10:22

This guy who's obviously not very political, obviously not very intelligent

Gene 1:10:28

did not know.

Ben 1:10:29

if you're looking at his Walmart receipt from a year ago, it's got EBT on there, so he's clearly low income. And he was talking about this was a TikTok video and it's him going, I was looking at my orders from a year ago and I noticed this whole month of groceries was a hundred and something bucks. And I saw the reorder button, I hit it and it went from a hundred and something bucks what he paid a year ago to four hundred and something dollars.

Gene 1:10:57

That's believable.

Ben 1:10:58

yeah, no, and it's, people need to understand compound and interest in inflation, which most people don't. The impact on the economy, you know, you and I are blessed to be high enough income that we're insulated from this a

Gene 1:11:17

Yeah, speak for yourselves. I'm looking for clients right now.

Ben 1:11:20

but you know, I was, I did a Sam's order yesterday for, you know, just a handful of things. And it was 200 bucks,

Gene 1:11:29

Yep.

Ben 1:11:29

You know, an HEB order for a handful of groceries.

Gene 1:11:33

Mm hmm.

Ben 1:11:34

It's the impact of the last four years of really high inflation. We're really starting to feel it. And it's really hitting the gas prices have the gas prices are likely to skyrocket this summer because the strategic oil reserve is depleted. You can't sell more to depress the value there. We're looking at escalating tensions in the Middle East, more shit going on. If Israel really goes into Lebanon like it's looking like they're going to do, oil prices are going to go through the roof. And I don't know, man, it's like they're wanting to ensure a Trump victory right before the collapse.

Gene 1:12:19

And then this whole four years will be spent. In horrible conditions trying to fix things. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there is an intelligent argument for them keeping Biden is we have to make it's inevitable the country's gonna go in the shitter. They don't want to be in charge when that happens. So they have to guarantee a loss, but they also have to make it look like it was a loss, not just them giving up and walking away. And keeping Biden in seems to solve that.

Ben 1:12:53

Yeah.

Gene 1:12:54

Although I still think Newsom's going to be running.

Ben 1:12:57

I think there has to be that, or, you know, who knows? Maybe RFK will actually get a pretty substantial portion of the vote.

Gene 1:13:05

Yeah. If Newsom's running, then I think I'm going to vote for RFK

Ben 1:13:09

Why?

Gene 1:13:11

because the splitting the Democrat ticket is more important than having the Republican ticket.

Ben 1:13:18

That makes no sense.

Gene 1:13:20

No, it doesn't make sense because there, there's already plenty of people who vote for for Trump.

Ben 1:13:26

Yeah. And that's how you lose. No, every vote counts. Everybody needs to vote and everybody needs to vote, you know, their conscience, but anyway I don't

Gene 1:13:35

for Ross Perot is how we ended up with Bill Clinton. That's all I got to say

Ben 1:13:38

Exactly. So voting for JFK or RFK rather is how we end up with Newsome,

Gene 1:13:45

it's no, that's how we ended up with Trump because

Ben 1:13:49

than Newsome.

Gene 1:13:50

Perot took more votes away from Bush and I certainly don't want Bush and I didn't want Bush cause he lied about taxes amongst other things. But

Ben 1:13:59

wizard, when the wizard died, I celebrated.

Gene 1:14:04

Huh,

Ben 1:14:05

And for those who don't know the reference that I'm about, you know, the wizard statement there, all you got to do is look at the secret societies, Bush family of secrets. Thanks. And you will get it.

Gene 1:14:19

yeah, I think it's called Family of Secrets, right?

Ben 1:14:22

It's yeah, Family of Secrets. It's about the bushes.

Gene 1:14:25

yep. Yeah, I thought that was just a Pride Month reference to Wizard of Oz. Heh. You're all about Pride Month.

Ben 1:14:34

Dude, the Haktuti girl helped us out so much.

Gene 1:14:38

the month for

Ben 1:14:39

oh my God, so good.

Gene 1:14:42

Oh, it was too funny. Drunk girls are good for some things.

Ben 1:14:47

Yeah, she lost her job.

Gene 1:14:48

Did she really? Aww, no way. Oh, that sucks. That's that's too bad. I'm sure she'll get another job.

Ben 1:14:57

Oh she's won the lottery, essentially. I mean,

Gene 1:15:01

If she does something with it. Yeah. Yeah, all the songs, all the different you know, AI generated music that's come out now using her lyrics. Yeah.

Ben 1:15:11

well, and you know, everybody the female reaction to that video is so telling in so many ways.

Gene 1:15:19

Yeah,

Ben 1:15:20

You know, cause you have one of two cabs. You have oh my god, that's disgusting. Who would do that? Or you have, nope, that's about right. That's what you should do. So, you know.

Gene 1:15:29

Talk to me. Yeah. Yeah,

Ben 1:15:32

on that thing!

Gene 1:15:33

just

Ben 1:15:34

the accent, the way she said it, everything was

Gene 1:15:37

it was pretty funny. It would have been she I don't think she would have said this if she wasn't drunk But it was pretty funny. But also I think it's bad advice because you're probably gonna miss when you're spitting. You should really get in there nice and close and use your tongue a lot more. But I'm just, you know, trying to be a perfectionist, I guess. Also the way she pronounced Hawk, H A That's Dude but people are desperate for something to, with a little levity. Yeah. Because you know, sitting in the Titanic as it's plowing headfirst into an iceberg is not conducive to good mental health. So how much destruction do you think we're going to have if Trump actually pulls it off

Ben 1:16:30

In the country?

Gene 1:16:31

like in big cities? Yeah

Ben 1:16:34

I, Summer of Love will be nothing.

Gene 1:16:36

Yeah. I think there'll be a, not just a lot of broken windows. I think there'll be a lot of buildings burning up on fire. I, if I was a corporation with a lease in the building right now, I would be looking at trying to wrap my lease up before November. Because you're probably going to be working from home after that, no matter what.

Ben 1:16:58

You know, after the debate, I posted on, I posted something on Twitter basically just saying, text it. Now.

Gene 1:17:08

Oh,

Ben 1:17:08

If this is what we've got, let's just, let's call it and get out of here.

Gene 1:17:14

Yeah. It's definitely a sad day. I keep thinking there's another topic that you mentioned that we wanted to make sure we talk about today. When we first started, before rants.

Ben 1:17:26

Yeah, there are a couple, for sure.

Gene 1:17:30

We talked about Assange, we talked about the debate we talked about the Supreme Court. What the hell else was there? Oh, you sent me a pretty good video today about the guys talking about different kits for civilians. Those, I've seen their videos before. I'm pretty sure I've

Ben 1:17:49

This is Dirty Civilian. Yeah

Gene 1:17:51

yeah. I mean, it's done very well. Good sense of humor. And it's, what I like is they're literally pointing the finger at themselves, but also guys like Garantham, is gone from a talking about guns and doing some gun reviews to full on LARPing videos with a little bit of gun review thrown in.

Ben 1:18:16

You know, LARPing, training, preparedness, you know,

Gene 1:18:20

Oh yeah, it's

Ben 1:18:20

what's the difference?

Gene 1:18:22

Yeah these guys know what the difference is and they talk about it in their videos. Is that, getting shit that you saw in TV shows, the military using, is probably not optimal. Because A, you're not in a TV show and B, you're not in the military either. And so, mostly what you're going to be doing is either guarding your home or scrounging for shit. And you're, you have zero support network. You don't have planes, helicopters, intelligence you know, you name it. All the resources that the U S military or any military for that matter has. If shit hits the fan, you don't have any of those. And now you send me a video of. Elks fucking.

Ben 1:19:14

It's not a video, it's a picture,

Gene 1:19:16

Oh, it's a picture I thought was clickable. Okay, oh, okay. And it wasn't you that sent, no it was you that sent, of course it is. Who else would send me something like that?

Ben 1:19:24

It's a view through a scope, and it, the caption reads, it's a bull elk mounting a cow, and it says, at first I couldn't shoot, but then I thought, hell, that's how I'd want to go.

Gene 1:19:37

Yep

Ben 1:19:37

y you know, when I send you some of these things, Gene, it's not to be talked on the show. It's

Gene 1:19:42

Oh, really? Okay.

Ben 1:19:43

Yeah.

Gene 1:19:44

That's human. I'm glad you're multitasking and you got plenty of, Capacity there to be able to record the show while sending little means.

Ben 1:19:53

It's just something that popped up, and I found humorous. It didn't take any effort to send for

Gene 1:19:58

I agree. It is funny. So what about New Jersey and their hard stance on criminality?

Ben 1:20:04

I sent you that last night. New Jersey is looking to remove the Bedminster Golf Club's liquor license because of Trump's felony, even though Trump is not the license holder. It's Trump Jr. So Don Jr. holds the liquor license and they're saying they're not going to allow Trump to hide behind his son, which is absolute bullshit.

Gene 1:20:28

Yes. Yes. Biden would never do such a thing. Absolutely. And New Jersey being the second most corrupt state in the union Who, you know, it's so pristine apparently that having somebody who's on the board of directors who's a felon is enough for them to do this. How many actual felons who have violent crime histories hold liquor licenses in that state? I guarantee you it's plenty. In frickin New Jersey, it's probably a third. That's it's nuts. I mean, they're not trying to hide it. What else

Ben 1:21:10

No, this is 100 percent politically motivated. They would never be going after this if it wasn't The last name Trump right now.

Gene 1:21:18

Even Cuomo said that after the debate. If his name wasn't Trump, they wouldn't have been going after him.

Ben 1:21:27

and you know, again, like I said, I really want to hear what the immunity ruling is and where they're going to go with it. First of all, if they find for Trump, you know, a lot of this is going to go away. And even if they don't find for Trump if they rule against presidential immunity and a prosecutor does not immediately take up charges of murder against Barack Obama, at the very least. We're done. Part of me hopes they rule against presidential immunity and I get to live to see every living ex president placed in jail.

Gene 1:22:04

That would be pretty good. Yep.

Ben 1:22:06

Every single one of them. Carter, Clinton, Baby Bush, Obama, all of them.

Gene 1:22:13

Hey, man, Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman,

Ben 1:22:17

I don't care if he had sexual relations with that woman, that's not the point. The other things that Clinton did are more than worthy of jail.

Gene 1:22:26

but he played saxophone.

Ben 1:22:29

Okay.

Gene 1:22:29

that, that's got to mean something. Yeah I've always said that clearly Clinton was extremely corrupt. Their families killed a bunch of people but yeah, Arkansas. But of all the non Republican. Presidents we've ever had. I would like to have dinner with Clinton. The most drinks. I don't really do alcohol anymore. Normally I would say have drinks with Clinton. So I'm just going to say have dinner with him. I think he'd be a very fun, charismatic and fascinating guy to tell a bunch of cool stories of his youth.

Ben 1:23:07

Yeah anyway.

Gene 1:23:10

What did we talk about recently? That was charismatic.

Ben 1:23:12

Literally on the

Gene 1:23:13

Oh, we did. We talked about Clinton. That's right. Mr. Kerr. Mr. Charisma there. Somebody tells me I need to get more of your vitamin B12.

Ben 1:23:21

Yeah,

Gene 1:23:22

I probably should. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's I think he'll be dead soon anyway.

Ben 1:23:30

Oh, yeah.

Gene 1:23:31

Mm

Ben 1:23:31

especially if Hillary ends up running, you know, he's got to go before she gets in the White House. And maybe then she can come out as the first lesbian president. Maybe her and Huma can finally drop the act.

Gene 1:23:43

right, just stop pretending and I heard they're still together,

Ben 1:23:49

Wouldn't surprise me. Although lesbian bed death is a real thing.

Gene 1:23:54

Yeah. But they're still lesbians, even if they're not having sex, right? That's how that works.

Ben 1:24:00

I guess, I don't know. So there was another topic I wanted to cover and now I'm effing blanking on

Gene 1:24:06

it technology related? Was it what was it related to?

Ben 1:24:11

politics.

Gene 1:24:12

Politics, video games.

Ben 1:24:15

Not video games, I

Gene 1:24:16

Not video games. Oh, I got my new laptop working good. Everything's installed. Everything's running.

Ben 1:24:21

Yep, you did not get back your broken laptop.

Gene 1:24:25

I did not know. That's what, yeah good reminder. No, I was fully expecting to get my broken laptop because the dates, the timing was so perfectly fitting. Like even the fact that I delayed shipping mine back and they delayed shipping me out the refurb one. I was like, Oh, come on guys. This is too obvious. So no, I actually got one with a fully functional keyboard and I don't think they had enough time to swap the keyboards. I should have recorded the serial number. As you mentioned, I didn't do that. That would have been extra fun, but I really don't think this was mine.

Ben 1:25:04

Yeah, I would be surprised if it was.

Gene 1:25:06

it's too fast to turn around. It's, it would have been a one day turnaround. So. Yeah, the fact that I got one with a working keyboard is a good indicator that it's actually somebody else's return, not mine. Yeah, all good. I took the cover off, put in more RAM, put another SSD in there,

Ben 1:25:27

Yeah I heard you lost your memory.

Gene 1:25:30

I keep losing my memory, I know. I know, that's a big problem I have is I lose my memory. No, it's it is a joke, but I did have memory shipped. For this laptop when I bought the original one a month ago. And when I returned it, I thought I'm going to keep the memory for the replacement I'm getting. And I didn't think twice about it. And you know, it was almost a month, close to a month went by since that original one arrived and I, for the life of me could not find the memory. The laptop, maybe it was in the box that I shipped back to Amazon. Um, that would be sad, but I mean, you know, who knows? But I eventually just said fuck, okay. I mean, I still want the memory. So I just sorted memory and it came overnight and I was able to schlep it in there and I'd forgotten that you can have different size dims in these things, which is great. So, I just got a single stick.

Ben 1:26:39

You don't want to have different size though. You want to have matching sets,

Gene 1:26:44

Why?

Ben 1:26:45

optimum performance.

Gene 1:26:48

Eh, I don't know, man. I mean, I don't know that it matters anymore. I think it used to, but now each DIMM is dual channel, so each one works like one used to, or two used to in the past. So I don't know that actually makes a difference as long as they're the same speed I don't think the size is gonna make an impact but either way so it means I got 40 instead of 32 in there and eventually I'll get another 32 and bump it up to 64

Ben 1:27:18

and I will say the Mac battery life and a lot of the hardware I do far, and for a work machine, I think it'll be okay. But just the operating system and of the interface stuff is just such cotton candy bullshit. You know, it's not a real OS

Gene 1:27:40

You can root it man you can root it's

Ben 1:27:42

do what with it? You know, it's, no. Give me a real operating system. And I can, I would say the same thing about Windows 11. Windows 11 is not a real operating system.

Gene 1:27:52

lot closer to BSD than Windows is

Ben 1:27:56

Yeah, I'll take actual BSD or you know, stuff like that.

Gene 1:28:00

Their hardware design is very good You the battery

Ben 1:28:03

has always had good hardware.

Gene 1:28:05

Not always. Okay. Maybe in your lifetime, but I remember all through the late eighties, early nineties, their hardware sucked

Ben 1:28:12

Yeah, I mean

Gene 1:28:13

when jobs came back.

Ben 1:28:15

Even the early 2000s when the MacBook, you know, they had the candy colored MacBooks and all that was just

Gene 1:28:22

The, I think starting with the first black colored Mac laptop post jobs. So it would have been probably 2004. Right around there, those, the quality started going up and but even as recent as the last generation of the i7, i9 laptops, the the quality was good, but the battery life was very mediocre. It was not any better

Ben 1:28:48

Yeah. There's some overheating issues and all sorts of stuff.

Gene 1:28:51

but with the current generation, it's 20 hours, dude. It's amazing. Battery life.

Ben 1:28:56

Yeah. There's some performance issues though, depending on what you're doing. And that this thing is because they've gone to an ARM architecture, you know, there are some issues there depending on what you're doing.

Gene 1:29:10

What are you doing that has issues? It's

Ben 1:29:13

so for instance, An application I need that running on ARM and having to run basically a VM and then Windows 11 emulate and allow me to run the x86 architecture for Visio, for example, is just.

Gene 1:29:34

Oh, they don't have a native Mac Vizio.

Ben 1:29:36

They do not on ARM,

Gene 1:29:39

Oh But they have it for the old Intel

Ben 1:29:44

no, but it, it still requires an x86, 64 bit, you know, architecture, an Intel architecture, and,

Gene 1:29:53

so it's noticeably slower or what's the problem? Really? Wow, that sucks That's

Ben 1:30:02

So the other alternative is I can always open up the Citrix environment or something like that and do it there, but, you know, it's just

Gene 1:30:09

you know, I wonder if that would be

Ben 1:30:11

percent of my use cases, it's fine, because Word, PowerPoint, things like that, basically work the same, it's fine, although the interface is dog shit, it's fine,

Gene 1:30:23

Making the face is almost exactly the same It's almost the same

Ben 1:30:29

No, it's not. Uh, anyway, it's fine, it works.

Gene 1:30:36

Yeah, I mean, any kind of emulation you're gonna have some hiccups with, but I'm surprised that they've never made Visio for the Mac natively because you, there's, Mac is a much higher percentage of business laptops these days than it used to be. Yeah,

Ben 1:30:55

no, it's not. I mean, then it used to be, sure, but as an appreciable percentage yeah. Okay. Yes, you could say that because it went from one to two, it doubled.

Gene 1:31:06

So typically Microsoft apps, I'm surprised Vizio isn't on this list. All run really good on the max, even in emulation because Microsoft has their own arm. Hardware, which is the Microsoft, what do they

Ben 1:31:22

Yeah, but the Microsoft ARM hardware has never really taken off. Windows 11 has an ARM version, ARM native And there's stuff like that is making progress. the ARM architectures are coming a long way, but for raw computing power, man, Like an Intel i9 cannot really be beat. Now, when you get into some of the server architectures and stuff like that, AMD still has some life left in it. You know, on a desktop platform,

Gene 1:31:53

Now have you tried running it in parallels or only in VM?

Ben 1:31:57

Only in Fusion. I need to try Parallels,

Gene 1:31:59

parallels because parallels was always a lot more Mac native. And they were the first ones to recompile before VM for the M chip architecture. I mean, right now they're all native for M chips, but I would try both of them and see if it's not an issue of VM rather than just an issue of all virtualization sucks.

Ben 1:32:24

all virtualization sucks and the Windows VM and other applications are fine. It's just trying to run something that basically has to emulate X86 on an ARM architecture doesn't really work.

Gene 1:32:39

now.

Ben 1:32:39

Oh, yeah, Visio's ridiculous.

Gene 1:32:43

I used to use that shit back when I was doing this job. That's crazy. That's come out.

Ben 1:32:48

by the way no. In fact Draw. io and some of those others that people recommend it's not a replacement

Gene 1:32:55

always the libraries with Visio. You could get libraries with all the

Ben 1:32:59

you could standardize stuff up. I mean, you could do so, so much. Yes.

Gene 1:33:03

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's also Visio online.

Ben 1:33:08

that's not.

Gene 1:33:09

Have you tried that? The Microsoft offers cloud based Visio for the web, also known as Visio online, which it claims allows Mac users to have a better experience with Visio.

Ben 1:33:20

Yeah. Have you tried using the online apps? Yes. For

Gene 1:33:25

Yeah. Word works actually really well. I've used a word quite a bit online. I have no issues with it whatsoever. I've not tried Excel cause I use Google. Spreadsheets.

Ben 1:33:37

you don't actually use Excel, like Google Sheets is a crap experience

Gene 1:33:43

it does everything I need.

Ben 1:33:45

then you are not a, then you're not a power user for Excel.

Gene 1:33:49

I'm not, and I don't claim to be, nor need to be. If I do a spreadsheet, it's, I'm gonna have basic addition, multiplication and percentages. That's about it. I'm not doing pivot tables or shit like that.

Ben 1:34:02

Oh

Gene 1:34:03

I

Ben 1:34:03

so I have a recommendation for all the fellow LARPers out there. So the Holosun 117 IR laser. If you're, if you are going with two separate things for an IR system. So like I have a flashlight that's both visible and are and or IR illuminator, and then I have this and it's a good, it's a good option, but you are running two separate things versus a pack or something like that. But the reality is even if you get some of the Chinese knockoffs and things like that, you're spending a lot more money. For something that technically isn't recoil rated and a lot of people have had good luck with them, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that.

Gene 1:34:51

And the reason it's not recall rate is because it's meant for

Ben 1:34:54

airsoft, but you know, the argument is the Chinese can't make stuff for firearms. So they're saying this and you go back and forth and I'm sure there are people making it work and I'm sure there's a lot of positives towards that. And you can get a high powered laser versus a civilian laser, but the hollow sun civilian laser is. Very sufficient for my needs and it's a good working setup. I recommend.

Gene 1:35:27

Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's I think something is better than nothing.

Ben 1:35:34

Yes. And if you're shooting at night under any sort of night vision, passive aiming and

Gene 1:35:42

night vision, Analog night vision, doesn't matter.

Ben 1:35:46

There is a reason why the U. S. military went away from like aim points with night vision settings and stuff like that to lasers. Shooting night vision is awkward enough to try and shoulder the weapon, line it up, and get the field of views right to be able to see.

Gene 1:36:00

Yeah it's a pain in the ass, is what it comes down to. That's why if you just put thermal scopes on all your weapons, you don't have to think about it. Pump, pump. And I haven't bought anything new with guns for a few months, so nothing on my end.

Ben 1:36:20

Oh I didn't I, I, I didn't buy anything for my birthday, which was, you know, last week,

Gene 1:36:28

Yeah. Happy birthday.

Ben 1:36:30

I'm, I've got

Gene 1:36:31

Where's all those birthday donations, people?

Ben 1:36:34

Yeah, right.

Gene 1:36:37

Yeah. We don't even ask for donations hardly. So

Ben 1:36:41

You're starting to, you're starting to

Gene 1:36:43

I know I am starting to, and that I think I think it, it has it I'm more sensitive to it from losing access to my donation money to that lightning account. Because it was basically three years worth of donations to Sir Gene Speaks that were in there, I never took anything out, and now it's like half of it's stuck in limbo.

Ben 1:37:03

If it makes you feel any better, I have never gotten a direct donation for any of the stuff we do to to get LB or any of that.

Gene 1:37:12

Yeah, you don't even have Gil Albi, so that makes no oh you do? I didn't know you had it. I didn't even think you had it.

Ben 1:37:19

Yeah. It's literally on the website. Donate. And there's, you know, there's a Buzzsprout link, there's mine, and then there's yours even. I've linked yours on there too.

Gene 1:37:29

So yeah, I've got a Gil Albi, but for Sir Gene Speaks, I always use this account for those donations. And I mean, I think in three years and I don't really do that show, I think the last time I recorded it was about two and a half months ago. But back when I used to do it more regularly I think the three years worth of donations were about a little over a thousand bucks.

Ben 1:37:53

That's, you know, that

Gene 1:37:55

Yeah. Which again I paid that much for three years. Or even less than three years worth of the stupid server. So it all came out to be, they made money. I didn't, but yeah, it's you know, I wasn't doing it to make money. I was doing it for fun and the money just made it more fun.

Ben 1:38:16

Yeah we are not popular enough to try and worry about anything other than this is a hobbity. Hobbity. Hobby.

Gene 1:38:24

it is a hobbity and something that I learned and that I've repeated plenty of times back when I did a different podcast where I was interviewing people that were much more successful at content creation than I was, and that is a good number of them said, If I had to redo the way that I grew my channel to over a million people, one of the first things I would do is not worry or ask for any donations until I get over the million subscriber mark, because anything below that, It's a little nice to have. It's not life changing. It's not a replacement for a paycheck. And frankly, too many people spend too much time, effort, and energy on asking for for donations on YouTube channels or Twitch channels or anything else. When they have five people watching it's dude, what you're going to best case scenario. Isn't going to impact you financially whatsoever. So don't spend any effort on it. Just focus on making better quality content, having more people actually enjoy and the donations will start by themselves. And by the time you actually have to ask people for them, if you have a million people in your viewership. When you do ask, you're gonna notice it, because it'll be a a big chunk all at once. So, I think that's a good way to go.

Ben 1:39:59

and that's I mean, it's like the only fans girl who doesn't get anything. You know, I don't want to be that.

Gene 1:40:07

No and that's the thing, it's if you're doing OnlyFans and you're not making it big just realize you're mostly doing it for fun not money making.

Ben 1:40:16

Anyway I think I'm gonna get going back to the guns what I think I'm gonna get is,

Gene 1:40:21

Gift certificate for OnlyFans? That's a good, that's a good birthday gift.

Ben 1:40:25

No I'm looking at between the Beretta 92 and the Taurus version of it just

Gene 1:40:31

Oh, okay, so you're gonna get another gun I like. Okay.

Ben 1:40:34

Yeah I like the Beretta but the Taurus actually has some improvements and it's, there's pros and cons on both, so,

Gene 1:40:41

And the Taurus was much more widely available in stainless than the Beretta.

Ben 1:40:46

correct. My dad has one of the Taurus in a 40 Cal and it's one of my favorite of his guns. I'll probably get nine millimeter just

Gene 1:40:58

Yeah. Tradition.

Ben 1:40:59

yeah. You know, I've got 1911s. I've got the M17 you know, I need I need the other pistol too.

Gene 1:41:07

Yeah, I guess. I guess. Um, think I would probably, if I picked up the the Beretta I think the 92, I would probably never shoot it or shoot it when I first get it and not much after that because it's not a gun that I would want to have for its advanced features. It's purely a gun from my childhood, or at least my childhood. Early days when I looked at it and couldn't afford it. And I was like, Oh man, someday I'm going to get rich enough to buy this gun.

Ben 1:41:44

Yeah. I disagree with you because I think the Both the Beretta and the Taurus version have extremely good reliability, extremely good features. It's not something you're going to throw an optic on. It's not any of that. It's an enjoyable gun to shoot, just like a 1911 is an enjoyable gun to shoot.

Gene 1:42:04

definitely wrong on that. 1911 is not an enjoyable gun to shoot. It not in the least it's a gun and I just got my dad's 1911. As you know, recently purely for sentimental reasons. It's not a gun I'm looking forward to shooting whatsoever. 1911 is not comfortable to hold, first of all, it only holds 6 rounds or 8 rounds with an extended mag. It's a, it's not a good gun, it's an old design,

Ben 1:42:33

45 ACP.

Gene 1:42:35

that's the only good thing about it is the caliber, but I would much rather shoot

Ben 1:42:39

here's what I would say. You probably think a Glock is comfortable to hold.

Gene 1:42:43

Oh, Glock is pretty good. I think the Springfield XD is the most comfortable gun.

Ben 1:42:48

Okay. So I like the Springfield. I, the XDS is my carry gun. You know, cause it's a single stack. It's easy to carry. It's fine. A 1911 is not my go to war gun by any stretch, but I love the ergonomics of a 1911. It fits me, fits my shooting very well.

Gene 1:43:06

Really?

Ben 1:43:07

A Glock.

Gene 1:43:08

Yeah.

Ben 1:43:09

I have to think about and compensate for. I will shoot low with a Glock every frickin time.

Gene 1:43:17

That's interesting because it, it probably has more to do with muscle memory than because, you know, I really shot the most on the Glock. I've got my only Glock left that I have is one of my original Gen 2 Glock 21s. And it's had over 50, 000 rounds through it and several barrels and multiple parts replaced. But that gun, I can, after not shooting it for five years, I can pick it up in, in total darkness and my fingers would know what to do. It's I don't think it's as comfortable as the XDM because XDs have replaceable, uh, yeah, back straps and one of those just fits me absolutely perfectly, but the Glock is still a pretty comfortable gun. The 1911 I've probably, and I've had, I used to have one back in the early nineties. It was one of my early handgun purchases was a 1911 and like from Colt. And I don't consider that to be a comfortable gun whatsoever. The Glock was a huge improvement on that when I got my Glock.

Ben 1:44:27

I like a 1911, man. I just do. And when you run out of ammo, you've got something to bludgeon them with, you know?

Gene 1:44:33

Yes, that, that part is very true. It is a heavy weapon.

Ben 1:44:38

Alright, Gene. We've talked it up. What else we got, or is it time to call it?

Gene 1:44:43

I think it's pretty much time to call it. I can't think of anything else. It's

Ben 1:44:48

I'm forgetting a topic, but we'll cover that next week.

Gene 1:44:51

Your your gal Lauren Boebert won in her primary.

Ben 1:44:55

Yes, she did.

Gene 1:44:56

So hopefully she'll win the actual elections and still remain in Congress. Yeah,

Ben 1:45:05

the plane girl that was saying that that guy was not real, and Haktoui, I think I think the Avengers need to come together.

Gene 1:45:15

well there's a, Oh, and that black dude lost his primary. In New York.

Ben 1:45:22

Oh, yeah the

Gene 1:45:24

even, I don't even know his name.

Ben 1:45:25

alarm.

Gene 1:45:28

So, that, apparently he was so bad that even Democrat voters didn't want him.

Ben 1:45:33

Shocker.

Gene 1:45:35

and we already talked about your your changes and tweaks to Tavor last time, right? Are you done with that? Is it now a fully complete,

Ben 1:45:47

It is done. I, it's got it where I want it.

Gene 1:45:50

A weapon system when you got two flashlights on there, you

Ben 1:45:53

No, I've got the laser I just talked about, and then I've got the The Enforce light that is both IR and vis spectrum light on there. And that's about it. I put a the Black Label aluminum hand guard on it without a bipod. Just a angle 4 grip from

Gene 1:46:11

And that looks like a nice foregrip. I like that.

Ben 1:46:14

Yeah, it's the M LOK Magpul Angle 4 grip, just to give me a little bit of purchase I don't like a vertical grip, personally and I've got the laser and everything the pressure switch routed well, and M LOK pieces to do cable management, and then I've got a LPVO on there

Gene 1:46:34

you haven't done is replace the, uh, the hand grip without the saber mount on there.

Ben 1:46:41

So I looked at doing that and then I, when I took the gun to the range and started playing around with it before I did a whole bunch of other stuff, one of the things I noticed is anytime I was trying to shoot from a barrier or even bench or anything else, that hand grip protecting my hand, given how little purchase there is on the front of the gun. Was a smart thing.

Gene 1:47:12

Exactly.

Ben 1:47:13

So yeah I figured out pretty early on now that needs to stay.

Gene 1:47:18

Yeah. Yeah, and that was the comment, I can't remember which guy did it. It wasn't Grand Thumb, it was one of the other oh, it was probably James I forget his last name, the guy that I like to The reviews from from TBTV. Think he mentioned that that

Ben 1:47:32

like they thought it through or something,

Gene 1:47:34

exactly. That the original design didn't have that. And it was quickly added. Especially considering that they ran these things with 14 inch barrels by default. So you

Ben 1:47:44

even shorter. Like the 16 inch barrel is plenty short for me. Like I, in fact, I'm very tempted to get a 20 inch barrel and throw it in there, given what I've got right now, but

Gene 1:47:56

but imagine cutting a couple more inches off that barrel and there's nothing in the front on the guard. So anytime you're bracing against any kind of barrier, the last thing you need is to have that barrier bump the

Ben 1:48:09

smashing your well or smashing your hand, even if you have a trigger guard and you're, you know, your lower three fingers getting smashed.

Gene 1:48:19

So I, I do think that it also makes it for a more distinctive. You know, version of that gun that it's like with the saber guard on there, it just looks like it's for,

Ben 1:48:33

yep. I like it. It's kind of, had to go do some serious usage of a firearm, it would either be that or my my M1A that I would probably take.

Gene 1:48:43

and I got to shoot that at some point cause

Ben 1:48:45

You really do. I love my M1A, man. It really is just a People, but M1A, the M1 Garand, M1A you know, that mini 14 sort of action, that entire action, you either love or you hate.

Gene 1:49:05

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I've I'm trying to think if I've ever shot, I think I have shot it like on range day or something where I've just maybe put a couple of mags through it. Nobody that I knew from my hunting buddies had one. So probably if I've shot it, it was just once or twice.

Ben 1:49:25

Yeah all I can tell you is the old school snipers that worked with accurized M1As, or M14s loved it.

Gene 1:49:35

Yeah.

Ben 1:49:37

It's one of those platforms but you know, Hey.

Gene 1:49:41

Yeah.

Ben 1:49:42

complain about weight and everything else, but, and

Gene 1:49:46

Yeah. And that

Ben 1:49:46

harmonics and yadda, but, man, it's just, ugh

Gene 1:49:50

The weight was definitely one of the things that I noticed that it was, like, way too heavy. But then the same thing I would say about the G3. It's a cool gun, but when you're actually holding it, it's man, this thing's heavy.

Ben 1:50:02

Tavor is heavy, but that's okay.

Gene 1:50:05

See, but I don't think the Tavor's heavy. I think that bullpups, they, with their spread of their

Ben 1:50:10

than my M1A.

Gene 1:50:11

Yes, but you're not holding it the same way. Like a lot of weight is in the back. It's right next to your shoulder. So it's balanced

Ben 1:50:19

Agreed. Agreed. But, you know, recoil impulse there's just lots of different things to be said. It all kind of comes down to it and I don't mind a heavy gun. That's me. I'm also not looking to do, you know, short barrel rifles or urban combat site stuff. Cause that's just not a realistic thing for me.

Gene 1:50:40

I always used to like heavier guns until I started going hunting. And then I realized heavyweight sucks, man. I want something nice and light made of titanium on my back.

Ben 1:50:53

Yeah, see I call bullshit because I guarantee you I've been hunting as much if not more than you have and I don't mind a heavy gun.

Gene 1:51:01

No. You have absolutely been hunting more than I have, but that's probably why is I'm not used to running around with a heavy gun. And so when I had to run around and by run around, walk a mile to the tree stand.

Ben 1:51:14

Ooh.

Gene 1:51:15

I'm like, no, I want fucking titanium. I want something very light. I don't want to be hauling a heavy gun with

Ben 1:51:23

maybe instead of worrying about Ozempic, you should just start walking around your neighborhood.

Gene 1:51:28

Yeah, that's probably not a bad idea. And on that

Ben 1:51:31

in the Texas heat, and you can just

Gene 1:51:34

that's dangerous, dude. I mean, yes, it seems yeah, you'll melt all the fat off, but it's some truth to that. You're combining sauna and walking, right?

Ben 1:51:43

You know, you know how much weight I've lost since December? I was going back and looking at

Gene 1:51:48

you haven't shared.

Ben 1:51:49

and everything. You I am down 23 pounds since

Gene 1:51:53

Holy shit, but you're doing like what over 10, 000 you said like 15, 000 steps

Ben 1:51:58

Eh, it depends. Yesterday I think I was at like 6 or 7

Gene 1:52:01

I don't know. How the hell you get that much walking in working a nerd tech job

Ben 1:52:06

A, I'll go walk around the block. And B, I,

Gene 1:52:10

you're on the phone.

Ben 1:52:11

If I have a phone call or something sometimes, depending on the call, not a customer facing call, obviously, but, you know, yeah, I try and walk.

Gene 1:52:19

I don't know man my impression of how much you work just feels like four hours a day because I remember when I was working in that industry

Ben 1:52:28

Jesus Christ, I wish I worked four hours a day.

Gene 1:52:31

I would be on the phone from 8. 30 in the morning until 5. 30 at night, take a break for food and then get back on the phone at 9pm to talk to Asia. Like every fucking day.

Ben 1:52:43

So yes, yesterday, I ended up having to help out some teammates that are on site at a You know, facility, They needed some things, so I had to help them yesterday some, and then which is Saturday, by the way. Don't work eight hours straight, but I work

Gene 1:53:01

time I call you, you're sitting there smoking a hookah pipe in a restaurant.

Ben 1:53:06

No, bullshit.

Gene 1:53:07

Kind of feels that way,

Ben 1:53:08

I haven't been to Babylon in a long time. And, not only that, what do you think I'm doing while I'm there?

Gene 1:53:15

uh, working,

Ben 1:53:16

Exactly.

Gene 1:53:17

but that's what I mean. Like that work versus sitting on the phone with clients is just

Ben 1:53:21

yeah I don't have to be on the phone with clients as much as you'd think. I try to avoid that.

Gene 1:53:26

how about looking at a computer screen?

Ben 1:53:29

Oh 14 hours a day.

Gene 1:53:30

Okay. That's good. I mean, it's not good, but at least that's more than more, what I would expect.

Ben 1:53:37

14 hours a day easily unfortunately.

Gene 1:53:40

Yeah. It's a true story. Um, but that's where I think having a computer with a Battery life that's longer than 14 hours is also very good.

Ben 1:53:51

Yeah, I am liking the battery life of the Mac. It is definitely useful.

Gene 1:53:58

Yep.

Ben 1:53:59

I hate the charger. The charger is stupid.

Gene 1:54:01

If only their watch lasted that long.

Ben 1:54:05

Right?

Gene 1:54:06

Ironically, a company that knows how to make batteries for a laptop doesn't know how to make watch batteries. Yeah.

Ben 1:54:14

still like my watch, man. A lot.

Gene 1:54:16

Do you? Yeah. I'm going to be pretty tempted I think when the next model of the Apple Watch comes out to switch back because

Ben 1:54:24

When you do, let me know. I'll buy yours off you.

Gene 1:54:26

really? I thought you didn't want color.

Ben 1:54:28

I like the longevity of the battery life on this

Gene 1:54:32

It is really good.

Ben 1:54:33

And that would be sacrifice, but at the same time, if I can get it at a decent price from you, maybe.

Gene 1:54:41

Yeah. Either way, the next model is supposed to be both bigger and thinner. And

Ben 1:54:49

Isn't that Contradiction in terms.

Gene 1:54:53

so I think the last one that I bought was a 44 or 45 millimeter. The current, what is, what do they even call it? Apple watch plus or whatever. Apple watch pro, whatever the expensive version is, I think is 40. Six or 47, I think it's 46 millimeter. And then the new one they're predicting in the rumor mill is going to be a 48 millimeter, which is about, I think the size of our watches or at least my watch. I think it's either 48 or 50. And so if Apple has a watch like that, hopefully there's more room for a fucking battery in a bigger case like that.

Ben 1:55:34

I don't know. I don't know. They're gonna put a AI chip in there.

Gene 1:55:37

probably. Yeah. It'll it's so smart. It'll do AI on the watch. Exactly. I'll tell you what else would be totally useless, but cool. If it did is if it could talk directly to a, um, satellite, because you know, the iPhones can do that.

Ben 1:55:55

Yeah.

Gene 1:55:56

all the current generation all have satellite backup for emergency calls.

Ben 1:56:01

Okay.

Gene 1:56:02

So, if you could do that in the watch without a phone, that would be pretty wild too.

Ben 1:56:06

Yeah, I'm just not worried about that.

Gene 1:56:08

Yeah, I know. So, I don't know. I mean, I love my Garmin. I've been using it now for a year and a half, but I, I've still I'm not married to it. If something better comes along, I'll switch to whatever I think is better.

Ben 1:56:24

Yeah I've been using my Garmin for a little over six months, almost eight months,

Gene 1:56:30

How many times do we have to charge it in eight months? You've had it.

Ben 1:56:34

Ish,

Gene 1:56:34

Yeah. See that's the best part of that thing.

Ben 1:56:37

but you know, I just run and that's running GPS. That's running sensors. That's running just about everything. And that's part of the reason why I got the one that I got it with the less lesser interface than yours. but it, I, I don't have to charge it. Like this morning, just to give you an idea in the last six hours, how many Lux hours do you think I got this morning already? I

Gene 1:56:58

I don't know. No clue.

Ben 1:57:02

33, 000.

Gene 1:57:04

Okay. 2000 is what I meant. Like 33, 000. Holy shit. So you were outside quite a bit.

Ben 1:57:09

Yeah, I tell you, I sit, I'm outside a lot.

Gene 1:57:12

you know? A nerd question here, do you know how much vitamin D your skin generates in one hour of sunbathing? Granted, you're wearing clothes, but if you were actually on the beach just wearing shorts, do you know how much vitamin D3

Ben 1:57:29

That's going to vary based off of your actual skin pigment, but.

Gene 1:57:33

Yeah, but let's say average, right? Not just for you, but average human body.

Ben 1:57:37

Like 20, 20 K I U plus,

Gene 1:57:40

Motherfucker. Yeah, 22, 000. I didn't think you'd get, I, most people would say, I don't know, a thousand. I

Ben 1:57:49

No.

Gene 1:57:50

It is way more than what most people think.

Ben 1:57:53

And you have to realize also that vitamin D isn't a vitamin. It's a hormone.

Gene 1:57:59

Yeah, that's true. It's a precursor to a lot of things and it is one of the things most commonly under not enough of it is in your body for people living in the South because everybody is so used to putting on sunscreen to not get burned in the South that. You're constantly generating way less vitamin D than you should be, which is why Everybody that's in the Sunbelt should be supplementing by taking vitamin D.

Ben 1:58:29

Yeah. Which I supplement and I'm outside a lot.

Gene 1:58:33

Yeah, and you're doing

Ben 1:58:34

I have a tan. It's a farmer's tan, but I have a tan.

Gene 1:58:37

Oh, do you have a wife beater that you put on when you get on these phone calls for your meetings and you're outside?

Ben 1:58:42

No I typically do not. Go on camera when I am outside. Otherwise I'll walk in and go to my office, you know, stuff like that, which I find annoying because I'd

Gene 1:58:52

Now I thought a farmer's tan was basically a baseball cap and a wife beater tan.

Ben 1:58:57

No, a farmer's tan is anytime you just have a tan line on your t shirt line or anything like

Gene 1:59:01

Arms and

Ben 1:59:03

Your arms and neck and all that. And then you're white underneath.

Gene 1:59:06

So it doesn't have to be a wife beater imprint of white skin and everything else is red. Okay. There you go. You learned something new. All right, Ben, let's wrap this up.

Ben 1:59:16

All right, Jean, we'll talk to you next week, man.

Gene 1:59:20

All right. Sounds good.