0093 Sir Gene Speaks with Dude Named Bem

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gene (00:00):
Hey, this is Gene, and today I've got a dude who's not
named Ben, but who is a Ben,

Ryan (00:05):
am the official Noah Jetta dude named Bem

Gene (00:08):
bem.
B e m.
And what does that stand for?

Ryan (00:12):
Bemrose

Gene (00:14):
Abbreviation of your name.
I got it.
Okay.
Dude, name.
So you're a dude named.

Ryan (00:18):
you are literally the only person who's ever not got that
immediately

Gene (00:21):
did not get that cuz I don't think of you as Bes.
I I guess that's why.

Ryan (00:26):
that Yeah.
Most people don't, most peopleare like, Hey, that asshole

Gene (00:31):
No, I, I just think of you as Darren Z Ex who got back
together with them.
That's all.
I mean, I've got other friendsthat have done that, but well,
you do a show other than lastweek.

Ryan (00:41):
and the week before

Gene (00:43):
Oh, really?
I didn't, didn't notice you

Ryan (00:45):
Yeah.
We missed, we missed two weeksin a row.

Gene (00:47):
Oh, I guess you're not doing a show now.
You're on my show.
Hey, how's that

Ryan (00:50):
Yeah.
Well, clearly I'm branching out.

Gene (00:53):
Yes.
Well, we pay better,

Ryan (00:55):
Yes.
It, I don't know.

Gene (00:58):
We'll see how good it goes in terms of ratings here.
We'll see how the Nielsen stackup.

Ryan (01:02):
show, 200 for grumpy old Bens.
Darren really brought out thesad puppy and it it worked.
We got, we got some big donorscoming in and suddenly
remembering that we are poorpodcasters.
But everything since has beennothing.

Gene (01:14):
But that is, I think as it should be.
I, I think that podcasting,first of all, podcasting is not
novelty anymore, so everyone intheir grandmother's got a
podcast these days.
So the idea of like, oh, wewanna support those podcasts,
but they've always sucked.
Let's be honest,

Ryan (01:30):
not mine.

Gene (01:31):
there's a handful of podcasts out there

Ryan (01:33):
Every show that I've

Gene (01:34):
that are done by professionals.
All right.
Well, I know it's gonna hurtyour feelings and all, but
you're, you're much better whenyou're improving than when
you're reading something.

Ryan (01:45):
Okay.
Is, is this in, in reference tothe question I asked on the
latest Angry Tech news?

Gene (01:51):
What was the question?
Remind me.

Ryan (01:53):
Oh, I, so I do, I do two shows.
I do grumpy bends and I do AngryTech News and Grumpy Bends.
I generally just bring notes onimprov and Angry Tech news.
I script the whole thing and

Gene (02:07):
yeah, yeah.
So I think, here's my complexanswer.
I like the content of rang technews better, but I like the
presentation of grumpy old binsbetter.

Ryan (02:18):
Okay.
Usually I'm just sniping itDarren and he's sniping

Gene (02:21):
So if there's a way for you to snipe while providing
tech info, that would be thegreat combo.

Ryan (02:26):
Well, that, that's why I write it out.
I mean, there, there's some realzingers in there.
I mean, come on,

Gene (02:31):
I, I know, but maybe, maybe get

Ryan (02:35):
sarcasm into those scripts.

Gene (02:36):
okay.
Okay.
So maybe, maybe the issue is youjust need somebody who's better
at reading those than you andmaybe get that British guy who
reads

Ryan (02:44):
Do you think Griff is available?

Gene (02:46):
Yeah, I know he's available because his agent
reached out to me.
He's got an agent.
He doesn't actually,

Ryan (02:51):
I did not

Gene (02:52):
were talking about him being on, and he's like, yeah,
why don't you talk to my people?
They'll get a something set upand take care of everything.

Ryan (02:58):
Okay.

Gene (02:58):
I'll, I'll send you I'll send you notes for how I need to
be presented on a show.
I'm like, Jesus, who's this guy?

Ryan (03:04):
I too, have somebody responsible for running every
aspect of my life, but shedoesn't actually schedule my
podcast for me.

Gene (03:10):
Ah, well, for gif, that person definitely did it.
It wasn't his wife.

Ryan (03:14):
Huh.

Gene (03:15):
No, he's got, he's got a whole thing going on.
He's like, he's gonna be on bbc,it sounded like when I
interviewed him.

Ryan (03:21):
Okay.
Well,

Gene (03:22):
So that's a big deal.

Ryan (03:23):
he came into podcasting from professional broadcasting.
He's kind of a big.

Gene (03:27):
Well, I mean, I guess you could say that the bbc, I mean,
he, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's, sure, sure.
I mean, it's not reallyprofessional.
It's, it's sort of like theminor leagues, I would say.

Ryan (03:40):
my, my first introduction to the, the phrase BBC was not
British television, but I

Gene (03:46):
mine definitely was, I, I don't know where you grew up,
but for me, the BBC wasdefinitely Dr.
Who not porno.

Ryan (03:53):
I, I, I play the fifth.

Gene (03:56):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm pretty sure that thatwasn't in Playboys either.
So you must have been stretchingto other mediums.

Ryan (04:05):
it was, it was BBSs,

Gene (04:07):
Yeah.
BBS has definitely had BBCs.
That's true.

Ryan (04:10):
some of them.
What, what they had, what theyhad was back then when, when
everything was dial up and aand, and a 25 kilobyte
photograph was going to take 40minutes to download or whatever
the data rate was, you basicallyhad to grab your porn site
unseen, commit the time taken todownload it, and then like, oh

(04:34):
crap.
I just wasted my time.
There's, this is only,

Gene (04:36):
how many corrupt files did you end up getting when you were
sitting there getting ready tolook at something

Ryan (04:41):
define corrupt.
Do you mean corrupt in, in

Gene (04:44):
the second half of the gift file isn't coming through,
it's just garbage.

Ryan (04:48):
well, I was gonna say cuz there's two ways that the files
can be corrupt.
One is the computer can't readit, and one is, my mom doesn't
think I should read it.

Gene (04:55):
well then that's, I was definitely not thinking of your
mom when I was talking about youjacking off.
No.

Ryan (05:00):
Usually don't either.

Gene (05:02):
no.
Well, thank God

Ryan (05:03):
She'll be happy to hear that.

Gene (05:06):
Oh, does she listen?
Well, she doesn't listen to thispodcast.
I'm sure

Ryan (05:08):
she, she did do the laundry for me back then and I
thought I was being so sneaky,but no.

Gene (05:14):
huh.
Yeah, it's those times when yourkid does the laundry for you and
has got a big smile on his face.
He didn't do it because he'strying to be

Ryan (05:23):
Yeah.

Gene (05:23):
Yeah, I know.
I definitely remember thosedays.
I remember getting caught injunior high school with a
printout of a black and whitebit mapped nuity

Ryan (05:36):
Oh,

Gene (05:37):
on an done on a dot matrix printer.

Ryan (05:40):
what do you mean caught?

Gene (05:41):
Teacher saw me and walked over and took the, took the
paper away from me and said,you're staying after class.

Ryan (05:48):
You don't happen to remember the, the make of the
printer.
Do you, some of those dotmatrixes could do some amazing
bit mapped work.
Like the one that I had was itwas in the space of a character.
It could have 24 bit mappedlines.
It was like each character was a24 by 12 bitmap.
It was, I mean, you could getsome real, I mean, images out of

(06:12):
that

Gene (06:13):
Yeah.
No, that sounds about right.
I think it was around the

Ryan (06:16):
the sound made by a dot maker printer.
Yeah.
And bonus points, if it'stractor feed

Gene (06:23):
Oh yeah, of course.
Yeah.
No, it's

Ryan (06:26):
have to pull the

Gene (06:26):
there are YouTube videos.
You've probably seen these ofpeople that take old shit like
printers.
I know.
It's, it's new thing.
Printers, old floppy disc driveshard disk drives and then
control them to make noise andthen actually make music using
these as an instrument.

Ryan (06:44):
I, I have seen such videos and in fact, I have seen for
sale a box that would convertmidi scuzzy

Gene (06:55):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (06:55):
of doing.

Gene (06:56):
there you go.
Very cool.
Yeah, it's, I mean, I guessdifferent people have different
interests.
I tend to play more video gamesthan I should.
Probably, some people I guess,make musical instruments out of
old computer shit.
But it, it's interesting to seecuz a lot of that old gear just
was noisy.

(07:17):
We just don't have much noisenoises, letting fans these days.
That's

Ryan (07:19):
yeah.
Right

Gene (07:20):
I have is the fans.

Ryan (07:21):
right now I'm sitting next to a, my, my graphics card
which, which I don't havecurrently the money to replace
because did I mention on poorpodcaster?
Is I, it's probably not comingthrough the noise gate, cuz I
think my noise gate's ratchetedup.
But it's rattling right next tomy left ear, which is why I have

Gene (07:39):
Well, luckily, the, I can't hear it, so your noise
gate's doing a good job.

Ryan (07:43):
Yes, I, one thing I will definitely hand to Darren is the
guy understands his audio gearand so taking his advice,
basically being, okay, give melinks to Amazon for all the
things I need to purchase for.
This did not steer me wrong.

Gene (07:58):
Yeah.
No, I, I totally agree withthat.
He, he knows his shit, even ifhe did rip off my formula, but
That's fine.
It's all good.
It's all good.

Ryan (08:05):
What, what our formula is.
What?

Gene (08:08):
Well, it's the

Ryan (08:09):
out and hit people in the mouth.

Gene (08:10):
No, no, no, no, no.
The formula for the audio gear.
No, it's, it, because whathappened was and Adam doesn't
use a MOTU anymore, but he didfor a long time is back before
Adam used a motu, I had a MOTUand I was telling Adam about how
awesome these things are.
And I was showing him how hecould be set up the way that he
likes his audio set up.
But it was, it wasn't quitethere.

(08:32):
Eventually they came out with aproduct for about 700 bucks that
actually did do everything thathe needed to have done.
I got one of those, showed it tohim.
He thought, this is great.
He ended up getting the one aswell.
A few months later.
He borrowed one of my mics andthen he said, this thing's
great.
I'm keeping it.
I'll just send you money for it.
So for a while there basicallyno agenda was running on my gear

Ryan (08:55):
So you're,

Gene (08:57):
Darren asked Adam for a list of all his stuff before he
started recording anything.

Ryan (09:01):
Well, Adam created that site a while back.
Pod father gear.com.

Gene (09:05):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's changed like before themotu he was definitely using
stuff that I wasn't a part of atall.
But kind of with that, thatpoint in time where he ended up
getting the motu, I, I ended upbeing very uh, connected to what
Adams rig was like

Ryan (09:21):
so what I'm hearing is that you are personally taking
responsible responsibility

Gene (09:27):
good audio,

Ryan (09:27):
for, for Motus business success.

Gene (09:30):
Well, their podcasting success.
See, MOTU was never in thepodcast business.
They were only in the pro audiobusiness.
In fact, they didn't really likemaking consumer quality devices.
If you look at their lineup, 95%of their products are over a
thousand dollars.
So they were really a musician'scompany, but I've been a user of

(09:51):
motu No kidding, since 1988.
And so I've always been a fan.
I always liked their productsand I obviously, once I got into
podcasting, I wanted to use theproducts I like.
And thankfully that generationfrom about seven years ago, I
think was when I first came out.
It was flexible enough to do allthe podcasting stuff including,

(10:13):
you know what Darren and I haverunning, which is literally, we
can have a 24 person conferencecall through the MOTU where
everybody's recorded on aseparate track.

Ryan (10:22):
so I was being sarcastic there, but you're, you

Gene (10:26):
Oh, I'm totally taking Oh, absolutely.

Ryan (10:28):
Okay.
Well in

Gene (10:28):
They're sold out for the next year.

Ryan (10:30):
can you get them to sell the one that has the, the
channel routing

Gene (10:37):
Yes.
It's, it's coming.
It's coming.
They're, they have said that

Ryan (10:41):
because when I picked up all this gear, what I've got is
they're

Gene (10:45):
Yeah.
You got the cheaper one.

Ryan (10:46):
Well, it's okay in terms of audio quality, it's still
good, but in terms of featuresupport, it has the, I've lost
all audio routing and now I haveloop back mix

Gene (10:58):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (10:59):
and that it, it really limits what I can do while
podcasting, unless I wanna runlike voice meter or so.

Gene (11:07):
Yeah.
No, that's true.
But they, they have said thatthere was an issue with the
factory that was manufacturing'em shut down in China, and it
took'em a while to get a newfactory lined up and for the
parts to be sourced.
The next batch will not beshipping until March of the
coming year.

Ryan (11:23):
I see.
So what you're

Gene (11:24):
they will be available

Ryan (11:26):
I am going to be a stunted podcaster until then.

Gene (11:29):
Well until then, probably even a while after then, because
that's wholesale shipping.
So it'll take a while for him toget

Ryan (11:35):
Well, and then a while after that until people donate
to my shows.
Enough for

Gene (11:38):
Well, okay.
Well, sure.
You know what, what my otherco-host Ben ended up doing is
scouring eBay with some,probably had some automated
alerts going until he foundsomebody that was willing to
sell like a two or three yearold unit for a basically retail
price.
And he was super happy to getthat because a lot of people are

(11:59):
selling these things for like500 bucks over list.

Ryan (12:02):
Yeah.
I'm not surprised.

Gene (12:04):
Cuz they're, they're somewhat unique

Ryan (12:06):
The,

Gene (12:06):
now.
You can get plenty of'em.

Ryan (12:09):
is,

Gene (12:10):
get, yeah.
So, sorry to interrupt there,but you, you can certainly get a
box that does everything thatDarren in my box does for two
grand or more.
It's just, there's nothing undera thousand bucks that does.

Ryan (12:22):
Yeah.
Well, the, the one that I have,which was under a thousand bucks
it doesn't, it's audio routingis insufficient for doing what
I'm doing right now.
Well, I mean, okay.
What we're doing right now,we're just talking and that's
fine.
And, and I could even berecording this, but honestly I
don't want evidence of mypodcasting to be out.

(12:44):
But

Gene (12:45):
Sure.

Ryan (12:46):
the, the simple scenario is you want to have.
Channel four voice, a channelfor jingles.
You want to send voice andjingles to the other end.
You want to have an incomingchannel from another podcaster
somewhere.
You want to send that andjingles to your monitors, and

(13:06):
you want to have all three go tothe recording.
And that is a very commonscenario and seems really
straightforward.
And this device that they'vemade, I can't do that.
I don't have enough endpoints.
If, like, if I try to take loopback mix and send it to the
other end so the other personcan get both my voice and my

(13:29):
jingles, now they're alsogetting their voice echoed to
them and that,

Gene (13:32):
And I, I gotta tell you why is because generally for
musicians, they want to heartheir own instrument as part of
the mix, to know whether they're

Ryan (13:42):
echoing somebody's audio right back at them

Gene (13:44):
Well, it's not really, usually the musicians aren't
playing across the internet, sothey're hearing it in real time
within

Ryan (13:52):
there's your

Gene (13:53):
than one millisecond.

Ryan (13:54):
I, I don't care who's doing, I don't need 24 channels.
What I need is that scenarioright there.
I need the scenario, which, bythe way, I'm not alone.
There are hundreds of thousandsof two person podcasts who want
to play jingles and need supercomplicated audio routing
setups.
I can record a podcast, but if,if I don't have any jingles, if

(14:15):
I'm not injecting any systemsounds into it, then I can get,
I, I, I send microphone to theother end.
I bring loop back mixed to therecording and everything's good.
But I can't inject jinglesbecause I don't have that
scenario on this equipment,which was low cost, which
apparently either, either youdid a piss poor job with your
pitch to the company or theyjust didn't listen to you.

(14:37):
Cuz if this is marketed topodcasters, it's no good,

Gene (14:40):
Oh, it's not marketed podcasters.
That's what I'm saying.
It's, it's adapted frommusicians to podcasters,

Ryan (14:45):
are you even running this company?

Gene (14:47):
I wish I was running that company, man.
No, I believe me.
Mal is a much bigger companythan, than anything that I've
run.
But they're in fact, Adam and Itried to knock off a product
somewhat off of Maloo.
It was after we had the Motusthat we decided to start our own
company to create an audiodevice.

(15:07):
I don't know if you were part ofthat Kickstarter or not.
But we did the small batch audiowas a company and we had

Ryan (15:12):
I don't know.
The guy's running theKickstarter sounded kind of
scammy to me.

Gene (15:16):
Well, most Kickstarters are kind of scamming.
You gotta be careful with thosethings.
Speaking of Star Citizen theyhad their record year.
You know what Star Citizen is?
You're a little bit of a gamer.

Ryan (15:25):
I try not to admit it.

Gene (15:26):
Okay.
Do you know what Star Citizen

Ryan (15:28):
I'm, I'm vaguely aware that it's a game, but I have not
played

Gene (15:31):
Okay.
So it's a game that was createdby a guy named Chris Roberts.
Who was the

Ryan (15:36):
Would not have known that.

Gene (15:38):
Okay, well, Chris Roberts was a game designer of like
three or four different gamesstarting from the eighties and
onwards, including freelancerand what was the other one?
Something else.
I can't remember.
Anyway, he did a bunch of spacegames, basically from the
eighties onwards.
And then each time he ended upleaving the studio quitting
because he was pissed offbecause they were trying to rush

(15:59):
things and put a send theproduct to market before it was
time.

Ryan (16:03):
So, so this guy did not develop on Xbox?

Gene (16:06):
no, no, not Xbox pc.
And he,

Ryan (16:09):
I,

Gene (16:10):
he decided

Ryan (16:10):
who does he work for now?
Does he even have a job?
Because rushing products to themarket before it's time is ex,
is literally the

Gene (16:18):
what studios do,

Ryan (16:19):
it's all

Gene (16:20):
So, so he decided,

Ryan (16:23):
day one updates, I'm just saying, have

Gene (16:25):
yeah, you gotta

Ryan (16:26):
ruined the game industry.

Gene (16:28):
So, so he decided to the best way to do this is to not
have a game studio, but just topitch his idea to people on
Kickstarter and then have themgive him money and then he could
make this game.
And so he pitched his ideas andhe was very successful.
The Kickstarter raised$3million.
And so, you know what, what heessentially sold during the

(16:51):
Kickstarter as rewards were,once I make the game, once
there's ship spaceships in thisgame, depending on the level,
level of pledge on theKickstarter, you're going to
receive this ship or that shipor the other ship.
And so people basically were,giving him money to get his
company going

Ryan (17:10):
Hey, to win.
Yeah, I get it.

Gene (17:12):
Yeah.
So, that was 10 years ago.
Games in Alpha, so it, 10 yearsto Alpha.
Yep, yep.
They just closed their latestfundraising week which netted$7
million for the week.
Game Company is now raised overhalf a billion dollars.

Ryan (17:29):
How the fuck can you still be an alpha?

Gene (17:31):
And the game is not released.

Ryan (17:33):
Okay, well then, then somebody's getting taken

Gene (17:36):
So, well, I'm definitely one of the sums.
But the the, the formula thatthey ran across, which is super
successful,

Ryan (17:44):
apparently.

Gene (17:44):
Is to not call yourselves a game studio, but to talk about
how you're working outside thestudio system and solicit people
for direct donations rather thanselling them a game.

Ryan (17:59):
well this sounds suspiciously like value for
value.

Gene (18:02):
Ken does scam alert.
So, so that's what they've beendoing for 10 years, is they've
now created 142 different spaceships.
About a hundred of thoseactually exist in the game, and
about 42 are still in conceptstage and haven't been
programmed yet.

Ryan (18:18):
how many of them are, are going to Elon Musk's launchpad
in Arizona?

Gene (18:23):
Well, it's zero cuz it's a game.
So, that's, it's purely fiction.

Ryan (18:26):
when you talk about creating a bunch of space ships,
I

Gene (18:28):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, I, I said for the game.
For the game.
So there, the game looksabsolutely beautiful.
I know I've talked about itbefore.
If somebody hasn't seen justtype star citizen into YouTube,
pick any random video about it.
Chances are, it'll be somebodybitching about how the game is a
scam.
But while they're talking abouthow the game is a scam, they're
gonna be showing footage fromthe game and you're gonna be

(18:50):
looking at this and going, holyshit, this is photo realistic.
It is an extremely beautifulproof of concept.
Or it's a great game dependingon who you ask and how much
Kool-aid they've drunk.
But I think it's a great casestudy and what happens when your
idea is so awesome that.
A lot of people, millions ofpeople believe in your dream

(19:14):
along with you and in whatyou're doing.
But there is zero businessconstraint from, the business
side of the business, whichexists in every other company to
actually get things done on

Ryan (19:27):
that says we have to shut down if we run out of

Gene (19:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The part, no, not even like,they have that taken care of cuz
they just sell more virtualspaceships, so that generates
more income like 7 million aweek.
But what they, what they haven'tdone is created a game.
What they've done is create abunch of space ships and then
given those space ships, a fewplaces that people can fly
around and take videos that lookreally cool.

Ryan (19:51):
Okay,

Gene (19:52):
So it's just missing the gameplay portions

Ryan (19:54):
it's second life in.

Gene (19:56):
Yes.
Minus the casinos and h hoses.

Ryan (20:00):
Get on that.
It sounds like a

Gene (20:02):
I, I, I ran a casino in second Life many, many, many
years

Ryan (20:06):
like a business opportunity in

Gene (20:08):
15 years ago.

Ryan (20:09):
Okay.
Here's, here's a question.
How many, how many statisticsand attributes are there to each
ship?

Gene (20:16):
So you get the base ship and you can swap out about all
the weapons, a bunch of thedifferent systems.
So I'd say probably eight ornine different things that you
can swap out.
And there's a range of optionsfor each one.
Probably the biggest one is thetypes of guns you put on your
ship.

Ryan (20:34):
Okay.
Well, I'm just, I'm justwondering if, if it's the kind
of game that I would like toplay.
I, there are, there are gamesand there are simulations and I,
I,

Gene (20:46):
This is, this is definitely as pretty as a
simulation but more closer to agame.
Like

Ryan (20:53):
When,

Gene (20:54):
it, it's one of the reasons I bitch about it is cuz
I don't think it's simulation.

Ryan (20:58):
oh, so you and I are different there because when I,
the distinction I make betweengame and simulation is, game is
something that a new can dropinto and in, in, in the time
that it takes to learn thecontrols and interface, they can
hold their own and do all right.
A simulation is the kind thatyou have to put in 50 or 60

(21:20):
hours just to understand whatall of the, the stats on the
item card mean.

Gene (21:25):
Okay.
So from that range that you justdescribed?

Ryan (21:28):
don't, I, I definitely prefer the game side for the
simple reason that even though Ihave multiple monitors in front
of me, I don't want one of themto be taken up by Microsoft
Excel trying to figure out howto work the game.

Gene (21:40):
So you don't like Eve then?
Okay.

Ryan (21:42):
No, not a, not a neat fan.

Gene (21:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I played Eve for a few years,but it, after a while, I was
literally a job.
I was in the 40 hours a week andon top of working a normal job.
And then I got divorced, and soI stopped playing Eve.
But yeah, this is not anywherenear that much of a game of
spreadsheets.
There are still some out of gametools that let you, like, figure

(22:04):
out what's the optimalconfiguration of your spaceship
in a web browser so you don'thave to actually spend in game

Ryan (22:10):
that right there is, is an indication that you've got a,
okay.
Yeah.
I I You don't need my rant.
You, we

Gene (22:17):
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you can, you can configurestuff a lot of different ways

Ryan (22:22):
I, I'm just saying that it, if in in gears of War or
Halo,

Gene (22:26):
mm-hmm.

Ryan (22:27):
Xbox games, there, there is no online tool to help you
figure out the optimumconfiguration.
The optimum configuration is geta gun and shoot the other
enemies.

Gene (22:39):
But even in games, I remember like in Battlefield, or
even call Duty way back when,there was still online tools
that I used that showed you theoptimal config.
I'm a min-Max guy.
I really.
That has nothing to do with it.
It, it's a just cuz I likespreadsheets and numbers doesn't
mean that that that somehow is anegative thing for games.
No, I think in most games youcan figure out what is the

(23:03):
optimal configuration for themost bang for the buck.
And that part of it is somethingI do enjoy doing.
Sounds like you don't, so that'sfine.
But you would probably then,really enjoy the visuals in this
game and the fact that it, itcompletely is an open world.
You can go literally anywhereand it is

Ryan (23:19):
What is there to do when you get there?

Gene (23:21):
well.
What would you like to do, Imean I guess that's the question
cuz it's an open the world, soyou could do whatever you want.

Ryan (23:27):
I don't open a whore house.

Gene (23:29):
I mean, you probably theoretically could there are
male and female characters inthe game,

Ryan (23:35):
Or at least in a gambling casino.

Gene (23:37):
Yeah.
And I, although that may be,that may be banned by terms of
service, but yeah, I meanthere's no reason you couldn't,
like for example, one of thespace ships that I bought is a
ship created specifically forbuilding buildings.
It's a construction ship and itcomes with a 10,000 acre plot of
land.

Ryan (23:57):
Okay.

Gene (23:58):
So I'm, I'm, I guess I'm technically a pilgrim.

Ryan (24:00):
it's a ship.
Where does the land come from?
Is it inside the ship or do it,does

Gene (24:05):
they grant you the land?
Well, no, no, no.
There's planets out there.
It's just that, it's kinda likethe old West where if you go
west young man will give you 10acres in a mule.

Ryan (24:15):
Okay.

Gene (24:16):
It's that same idea

Ryan (24:17):
And do you have to, to set up fortifications to defend your
land from Raiders and

Gene (24:21):
I would imagine.
So like, I haven't done any ofthis stuff cuz it doesn't exist
yet.
Cuz it's where alpha

Ryan (24:26):
so No.

Gene (24:27):
Well it's, I mean, it, it may, it just doesn't today.

Ryan (24:30):
be in the game in another 15 to 20 years.

Gene (24:33):
Correct.
That's exactly right.
I mean, there are people thathave died in the last decade
that purchased a game that nevergot to play it.

Ryan (24:39):
yeah,

Gene (24:40):
that is a risk for sure for, for anyone that's not in

Ryan (24:44):
this game sounds like reading a Robert Jordan novel.

Gene (24:46):
Well, you're not, I mean, people do like to correct you
when you get in that if, if youencounter any issues with the
game, just remember you're notactually playing the game.
Your alpha testing,

Ryan (24:56):
That that is such a platitude,

Gene (25:00):
isn't it?
I, and, and it comes up everytime somebody like me bitches
about a bug.
It's like, Hey, dude, rememberyour alpha testing?

Ryan (25:08):
that's on the level of, it's a private company.
They can censor if they.

Gene (25:12):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And for a fact, these sameassholes that are saying this
are going to flip 180 degrees assoon as it happens to them.

Ryan (25:21):
Oh, absolutely.
They already did

Gene (25:22):
Yeah.

Ryan (25:23):
Have you been watching Twitter?

Gene (25:25):
No, no, no.
I mean, I know they did onTwitter, but they, they will in

Ryan (25:27):
suddenly the government needs to step in and restrict
them.

Gene (25:31):
Yeah.
Because Elon Musk is a danger.
He's, he's a an African, wecan't allow African people to be
running companies and corruptingour freedom,

Ryan (25:39):
he's a white neo-Nazi racist, obviously,

Gene (25:42):
obviously.
Yes.
From Africa.

Ryan (25:44):
that.

Gene (25:45):
And did you see his picture of the gun on his
nightstand?
Oh my God.
He's boning violence.
I think he's encouraging peopleto go and take their guns and go
and raid the capital.
That's what it seems like.

Ryan (25:56):
Well, I don't know if he's encouraging that, but that seems
like, you

Gene (25:59):
Well, by posting an image of a gun on his nightstand, he
certainly must be.

Ryan (26:04):
I

Gene (26:04):
What else could it possibly be?

Ryan (26:06):
I'm, I'm all for this.
The Tree of Liberty is verythirsty.

Gene (26:10):
Well, that's true.
But of course it just so happensthat the gun that's on Musk's
nightstand is actually a videogame prop, but Okay.

Ryan (26:19):
Yeah.
I haven't seen this photo, but,

Gene (26:21):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a, it's a literally a videogame revolver.
Um

Ryan (26:27):
when, when I was in elementary school or grade
school, or which, whatever itwas called I did in fact bring a
gun to school once, and I didnot get suspended or thrown in
jail because it was, it was theeighties and it was the Zap gun
that comes with Duck hunt on thenes.
And I had it in my backpackbecause it was just so cool.

(26:48):
I was showing it off andeverybody looked at it, like put
the toy away.
And I don't know, just 20 yearslater, I, I, I would be facing
criminal charges.

Gene (26:57):
Dude, I don't think a day of high school went by when I
didn't have a pen knife on me.
Like, how do you, how do you bea teenage male without having a
knife on you at all times?

Ryan (27:09):
Well, you live in a society where everything has
rounded edges.

Gene (27:14):
And, and women rule

Ryan (27:15):
Well, that might be too, but then do the women carry
knives?

Gene (27:19):
Well, no.
That's why they, they used toneed men, because men always had
a knife around,

Ryan (27:23):
Okay.
Well, you can be as sexist asyou want, but I I I know

Gene (27:28):
I know you're married.
I'm not.
So therefore

Ryan (27:30):
I I know, I know which side of the bed the pussy sleeps
on.

Gene (27:33):
uhhuh, uhhuh.
It's whichever side I paid for

Ryan (27:37):
It's wherever she wants to be.
Also, my wife is in the bed too.

Gene (27:42):
Right, right.
Well, that's fair enough.
I mean, I guess if the cats makeit room for her, then she'd be
allowed in there.

Ryan (27:48):
Yeah, well, the

Gene (27:49):
How many do you have?
Two.

Ryan (27:51):
just two right now

Gene (27:52):
Hmm.

Ryan (27:53):
with the electric blankets, the cats have been
getting a whole lot moreinterested in the bed these
days.

Gene (27:58):
They probably think of the, the blanket more highly
than they do of you at this

Ryan (28:03):
Oh yeah.
They're like, you're, you'rejust lumps underneath my heat
blanket.
Get outta here.

Gene (28:08):
Yeah.
Exactly right.
Well, I, I don't know what it iscuz I, I had cats never had a
dog.
Don't have anything againstdogs.
I, I've met some interestingcool dogs, but they seem like
they're pretty high energy.
I

Ryan (28:23):
absolutely depends on the breed.

Gene (28:25):
I guess, but I don't know.
Cats tend to sleep for a good18, 20

Ryan (28:28):
Dogs are, some breeds of dogs are, are low maintenance,
some are high maintenance.
They

Gene (28:34):
Hmm.

Ryan (28:35):
universally are higher

Gene (28:36):
to have high maintenance.

Ryan (28:38):
Dogs are higher maintenance than cats, in my
opinion, because cats, you justlike a cat, you can leave the
house for a week, and as long asthere's an extra litter box and
a steady supply of food andwater, they just won't care.
And then they'll, you'll comeback and they'll, you'll open
the door and they raise aneyebrow like, oh, it's you.

Gene (28:56):
Yeah.

Ryan (28:56):
on the other hand is gonna lose their mind.

Gene (28:58):
Oh, they're gonna go nuts.
Yeah.
They're gonna go literallyinsane

Ryan (29:01):
but there

Gene (29:01):
they've been abandoned.

Ryan (29:02):
there's certainly dog breeds that are really high
energy and dog breeds that arereally low energy.
I grew up with dogs and that,okay, I grew up with real dogs
and by real dog, I mean, if it'sunder 40 pounds, it's ero.

Gene (29:16):
Yeah, that's true.

Ryan (29:17):
So, the, the dogs we usually had were Labrador
Retrievers.
We had one Clie who was close to

Gene (29:23):
pretty high energy.

Ryan (29:24):
labs are absolutely bug fuck fucking insane for the
first three years of their life,and they will chew everything.

Gene (29:35):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (29:35):
The one of, we had to replace a family room table when
I was growing up because the dogchewed the leg off so much that
the table fell on her

Gene (29:44):
Oh my god.

Ryan (29:45):
But after that, though, Labrador Retrievers are the
greatest dog in the worldbecause they're just so laid
back.
It's if, if you have small kidsand you and your small kids are
hyper because you're a terribleparent, and think that the only
way to handle the normalactivity level of a child is to
drug them, then labs areabsolutely great because it,

Gene (30:06):
Wear out your kids.

Ryan (30:07):
well, if you get a six, seven year old la of course
they're, they'll play with'em.
They'll wrestle, they'll jumparound, and then when the lab
says it's done, the kid can comeup and grab the tail or yank on
the ear and the lab is like, ohyeah, I guess I shouldn't be
here.
Get up and walk away.
Which is a lot better than somebreeds, which will turn around
and bite the kid, which isgenerally not considered.

Gene (30:29):
Yeah.
I mean, is that worse though?

Ryan (30:31):
I, I feel like a lot of kids out there need to be bitten
a few times

Gene (30:35):
I kinda do too.

Ryan (30:36):
I kind of feel like, if you, if you have a, if you have
something like a, a poodle or a,a dog that actually, defends
themselves and a kid comes upand yanks on the ear, well, the
kid's gonna get bit and thenthey'll know not to do that
again.
I feel like that's, that's howit should be.
But,

Gene (30:52):
Now I've only been bitten by one, one dog in my entire
life, and that was only likefive years ago.
And you wanna guess the type ofdog it was?

Ryan (31:00):
Chihuahua

Gene (31:01):
Correct.
That is accident 100% correct.
The fucking ankle byer bit me

Ryan (31:07):
See that, that again was sarcasm because I don't think
any chihuahuas get to be over 40pounds,

Gene (31:13):
I think it was probably 20, but nonetheless, it, it got
in underneath the sofa that Iwas sitting on, crawled its way
forward until it could see myfeet and decided to bite my
ankle.
I mean, that, I always, I alwaysthought it was like a joke name
that they're ankle biters, butthey're literal ankle biters.

Ryan (31:34):
chihuahua tos are a high energy, poorly behaved dog.
They are, they're like littlepsychos who think that they're
80 pound dogs and always want toprove it to people that it's one
of the worst dogs.
People are like, oh, it's cute.
No, it's not cute.
It looks like

Gene (31:52):
It's not cute at all.

Ryan (31:53):
it looks like a fucking skeleton with leather, tan, tan
leather,

Gene (31:56):
it is absolutely errant.
And if, if my buddy's wifewasn't there, I don't think I
would've really prevented myselffrom stepping in the stupid
thing as soon as it bit me,because that was my natural
impulse reaction

Ryan (32:13):
I like how you phrased that.
Not not stepping on it, steppingin it.

Gene (32:17):
because there would be a puddle once I stepped in it.
I mean, it, this is a dog thatis almost too small for my snake
to eat.

Ryan (32:27):
Yeah,

Gene (32:28):
I mean, it is ridiculously

Ryan (32:30):
get more than one.

Gene (32:31):
Well, yeah, that's, that's what you end up doing.
Now I don't feed my snake dogs.
I

Ryan (32:36):
yeah.
The problem, the problem withpuppies is that there are a lot
of work to raise for the stringymeat you get.

Gene (32:42):
Yeah, I could see that.
I could definitely see that.
Whereas the cat meat, that's ahigher quality meat product cuz
they don't use their muscles awhole lot.
They mostly sleep

Ryan (32:49):
That depends whether it's an indoor or an outdoor cat.

Gene (32:52):
well.
That's true.
That's, but even outdoor catslike to sleep all day

Ryan (32:55):
let your cat get to be an outdoor cat, and what you're
gonna get is, is a whole lot ofmeat from basically everything
in the neighborhood that theymurder.

Gene (33:04):
Oh yeah, they did.
They do share.
That is true.
I remember I had a big orangemain coon which by the way,
that, that damn cartoon rippedoff my superhero character, the
coon.
But that was, that was what Iwas playing as a kid.
But that was an outdoor cat.
So he'd be indoors all dayduring the day, sleeping most of

(33:24):
the time.
And then when it got dark, he'dgo out hunting

Ryan (33:28):
Yeah.

Gene (33:29):
and he didn't hunt for, Mice or stuff.
He wanted rabbits.
He would bring rabbits homeevery night.

Ryan (33:35):
Yeah.

Gene (33:36):
He'd always eat the ears because I, it's, I think that
was his favorite part.
And so he didn't wanna sharethat.
So he'd eat it before he broughtit home.
And so you'd have this

Ryan (33:46):
Easter bunnies.

Gene (33:47):
airless rack.
Yeah, exactly.
You have this airless rabbitthat, that is right outside the
the screen door to the porch andthe cat's looking like, Hey,
look at me.
I'm providing for the

Ryan (34:00):
Yeah, I left the rest for you and, and you know what, way
back in the day before the daysof supermarkets, that actually,
I mean, you'd grab that off theporch and be like,

Gene (34:09):
Oh hell yeah.
A fresh rabbit.
Fuck.
Yeah.

Ryan (34:13):
People don't do that these days.

Gene (34:15):
No, I know, I know.
It's like, it, it, I've taken,I've posted a photo once of my,
my fridge and it's it looks,unless you have pets that eat
stuff like this, I'm sure itlooks completely crazy because
the fridge is just chalk full ofwhole bunny rabbits in plastic
bags in like one gallon bags andstuff.

(34:36):
And then rats for the othersnake.

Ryan (34:39):
Oh, oh,

Gene (34:39):
so it, well, no, I don't, don't eat either kind.
But, those rabbits are over 20bucks a pop.
That is not cheap food.

Ryan (34:47):
Well, I believe that.
How much do you think went intoraising it?
I mean, come on.

Gene (34:51):
Yeah.
Well, I buy heirloom rabbits.
So these are actually rabbitsraised for four H and boy Scouts
and stuff to be in rabbit shows.

Ryan (35:01):
Yes.

Gene (35:02):
not, not pets.
They're competitive rabbits.

Ryan (35:03):
the,

Gene (35:04):
meant

Ryan (35:04):
of creatures that that small children would fall in
love with.
That's

Gene (35:07):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
This, well, nothing's too goodfor the snake.

Ryan (35:11):
Well, the, the small children who would fall in love
with them, that might be

Gene (35:15):
Well, I mean, I think they're probably Muslim would be
safe.
The, the I can't afford to feedthe snake what it would be
eating in the wild,unfortunately.
So I have to settle for rabbitsmonkeys, they, they mostly eat
monkeys.
They have a taste for the thelarger brain cavity size
mammals.

Ryan (35:34):
Okay.
So, do you ever worry.

Gene (35:37):
No, I, I make sure that there's no chance in hell the
snake would ever consider mefood by just being a fat dude.

Ryan (35:43):
Okay, Like

Gene (35:44):
snake is smart enough to look at me and go, that's just
not gonna fit.
There's no point in

Ryan (35:50):
but if you had a younger brother who was in shape,

Gene (35:52):
How do you know I didn't

Ryan (35:54):
I don't, I,

Gene (35:55):
Yeah, no, he's a sweetheart.
He's he is

Ryan (35:58):
now.
I kind of wish I'd Okay.
I should have talked to you, youa long time ago.
My brother was really annoyingme for a while.
Anyway,

Gene (36:05):
Oh, well there, there's some pets you can get.

Ryan (36:08):
the, the only problem of course with that is that

Gene (36:10):
Actually, pigs are usually the best pets for that purpose.

Ryan (36:12):
problem I have is he's my younger brother, but he's my big
brother.

Gene (36:16):
Hmm.
Oh, you know what they say?

Ryan (36:18):
I

Gene (36:19):
The younger they are, the harder they fall.

Ryan (36:20):
I don't, I don't listen to what they say.
They're usually wrong,

Gene (36:24):
Well they do say that too, almost verbatim.
So what else going on?
So you're not playing high endvideo games in Alpha.
What?
Oh, I played cyberpunk recently.
Have you played that

Ryan (36:35):
I, I, I have actually, I let my Xbox subscription Wayne,
I got, there's, there's a coupleproblems with the Xbox.
The, the first one, which I knowI've ranted about on grumpy old
bends before, but I may as wellbecause it pisses me off so
much, is

Gene (36:51):
Sure.

Ryan (36:51):
for the last couple years I haven't put a lot of time into
playing on the Xbox.
So it'll be every week or twothat I'll just make, I'll be
like, okay, I've got an hour toplay right now.
Let's go up and, just launch agame.
Cause, and also I haven't boughta new game since 2014.
I, I get,

Gene (37:11):
that, that might be why,

Ryan (37:12):
well, no, I get games for download cuz the Xbox live if
you maintain

Gene (37:16):
you not buy those?
Well, I guess you just get, youlease'em now,

Ryan (37:19):
Yeah, You lease'em.

Gene (37:20):
buy games.
Yeah.

Ryan (37:21):
Xbox Live has a, a system, they have a, a game pass thing,
which just gives you the gamelibrary.
And then they have another thingthat says, as long as you keep
your subscription, here's a freegame that's attached to your
account and I play those.
But as soon as you let yoursubscription last, all of that
gets taken away.

Gene (37:37):
Right, right, right.
But I think you get'em back whenyou

Ryan (37:39):
Yeah, if you, if you subscribe again, yes,

Gene (37:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I used to have one of those whenI moved to to Austin, I decided
that I was not going to get backinto building a expensive PC
just to play video games.
I was like, fuck it, I'm gonnastick to the Xbox.
And I, I did that with the 360.
I did that with the Xbox One,and then I started watching

(38:02):
videos of games that aren'tavailable on, on the platform,
and I was like,

Ryan (38:05):
Yeah, I don't, I don't think I could take that for, for
a couple reasons that I will tryto get into if we don't go too
far off track, which we will.
So only playing every 10 days orso, and I'm like, okay, I'm
allocating an hour for this.
I don't, don't even play thatmuch on the pc, but I have
people that I talk to in the pc.
I don't have a lot of people inthe Xbox anymore.

(38:26):
Most of them wanted to rape mygrandmother too many times.
But

Gene (38:30):
That sounds like Call of Duty.

Ryan (38:32):
it's, it's yeah, it's years of war.
It's, it's all of them.
But the problem is, if you onlylog in every 10 days, well, Xbox
One releases an update every twoweeks.

Gene (38:43):
Oh,

Ryan (38:44):
Now they've got a lot of systems in place, which is that
if you le, if you play your Xboxevery day and you leave it in
what they call standby off mode,where it's still using a trickle
of power, but the network is onand the hard drive is on, and
the CPU is paying attention andchecking for updates all the
time, then it'll update in thebackground, which is exactly
what they want, which is why,they Okay.

(39:05):
They love.
But if you only play every 10days, it'll only stay in standby
for like, for a couple days.
So you, if you don't play everyday, it'll go off of standby and
then you boot it up and I sit,I'll go into the room and go,
okay, I've got an hour, I'd liketo play a game.
Oh, it's time

Gene (39:22):
half an hour downloading shit.

Ryan (39:23):
half hour to download shit over the crappy wifi and then
another 10 minutes to installit.
And by the end you're, you'relike, okay, now I have 20
minutes to try to boot the game.
And of course, the, it's, it'san original 2013 launch day Xbox
One.
It's not one of the, the fancynew ones.
So all of the new games willtake five minutes to freaking
load.

Gene (39:44):
big is your drive?
That thing?
Cause I think I only had like atwo 50 on mine.

Ryan (39:48):
five,

Gene (39:48):
Oh, that's tiny.

Ryan (39:49):
It's tiny.

Gene (39:50):
That's like one

Ryan (39:50):
tiny.
It holds, no, it, it holds atthe moment.
I think I have eight gamesinstalled

Gene (39:56):
Oh my God.
Yeah.
That is

Ryan (39:57):
and it, the, because every month they're like, oh, you have
access to a new game because ofyour Xbox Live account.
And I'm like, well, I might haveaccess, but I have

Gene (40:06):
What's the latest one called?
What's the newest Xbox?

Ryan (40:10):
Well, I'm sorry.

Gene (40:12):
What's the newest one called?

Ryan (40:13):
I don't know.
The, is, is there anothergeneration after the Xbox One?
I

Gene (40:17):
Oh yeah, there's at least one, maybe two.

Ryan (40:19):
Well, I know, I know the Xbox One, they came out halfway,
like a couple years ago withthe, the one s or the one X or
whatever, which are alltechnically still in the Xbox
One category because they're allbackward compatible.
They just have higher resolutionand, and more memory and more
hard drive space and, all thethings that these greedy, multi
gigabyte games need in order tofunction.

(40:41):
And so my old 2013 launch dayXbox is capable

Gene (40:47):
There's a series S, I

Ryan (40:49):
Is there a series I, I dunno.

Gene (40:52):
as in Sam.

Ryan (40:54):
Well, for, for the reasons I'm giving I'm, I'm moving away
from console gaming entirely.
And in fact, in a couple weeksmy live subscription will expire
for the first time.
15 years, and I don't think I'mgonna be renewing because first
of all, if you don't play allthe time, then the one time, the

(41:14):
one time when the system can beabsolutely certain that you want
to use your system, that's whenit says, fuck you.
You don't get to do anything.
We're updating.
And that's right.
When you launch it, it it, if,if it had a, a function that
said, go ahead log off andinstall updates, play, play
without updates right nowbecause it's a single player

(41:35):
game and who gives a shit if youhave the latest UI widget?

Gene (41:40):
yeah, they got, everything's live now,

Ryan (41:43):
but no, no, the way Microsoft does it is you don't
have the latest update.
You don't get to connect.
And if you don't connect, thenit can't authenticate and you
can't even launch your singleplayer games in your library
because it has to authenticateyour account before it can run
anyway.
So that's infuriating.

Gene (42:02):
so there, there's a series S, which is 300 bucks.
there's the Series X, which is500 bucks.

Ryan (42:10):
Okay.

Gene (42:11):
The X sounds like the one to get them the,

Ryan (42:13):
My understanding is that those are supposed to be back
compatible.
I mean, in

Gene (42:18):
probably are, but I know like the, when I got the one.
I kept hearing Oh, 4k.
4k and it never did 4k

Ryan (42:27):
I, I think, I think that the graphics card and the
connector support 4k, but a lotof other things in the pipeline,
like possibly a TV don't, andtoo few

Gene (42:37):
I had a 4K

Ryan (42:38):
has not picked up.
It is not caught on the way.
So these companies are like, eh,we're not gonna put that much
effort into it.

Gene (42:46):
huh, well, we're going way past 4k on, on the PC side now
we're all talking about eight K.

Ryan (42:51):
you, are you kidding me?
I have, I don't know how many kit is.
I'm, I'm currently looking atthree monitors, all of which are
running at 19, 20 by 10.

Gene (42:58):
So you're not even at 4K then

Ryan (43:00):
No, why

Gene (43:01):
You're at a three quarters.
K

Ryan (43:03):
I'm, I'm at, yeah.
Okay.

Gene (43:06):
Well, 4K is double the width, double the height.
So it's four times what yoursingle monitor is.

Ryan (43:12):
because, do you get 4K videos from YouTube?
Do you get 4K videos fromPornHub?

Gene (43:17):
Yeah.

Ryan (43:18):
I don't.

Gene (43:19):
Well probably Cuz you don't have a TV that can play

Ryan (43:21):
and, and also because I don't know that not a lot of
people don't have the bandwidthto do that.

Gene (43:28):
Yeah, no, it's, I get plenty bad with,

Ryan (43:31):
I'm sure you do.
You're, you're

Gene (43:32):
it's Austin.
Well you're in fricking Seattle.
You ought have plenty ofbandwidth up there

Ryan (43:36):
in theory, I actually have two ISPs here.
One of them is cable, where theykeep mysteriously bumping my
download bandwidth up.
And that would probably workjust fine.
My, my cable company currentlysays that I should get like 1.2
gigabytes down or something likethat,

Gene (43:55):
you go.
That's plenty for watching.
High, high def.

Ryan (43:57):
and 15 mega 15 megabytes up.

Gene (44:01):
That's horrible.

Ryan (44:02):
That's horrible.
It's awful.
You can't, you can't podcast onthat for sure.
You

Gene (44:06):
God

Ryan (44:07):
I, I can't run my, talk about gaming.
I can't run my Minecraft surferon that for sure.

Gene (44:12):
Right,

Ryan (44:13):
so, so I don't use that because, well, two things.
One, the upload bandwidth isabsolutely pathetic.
I think they might have bumpedit up to 25 or something.
But the other is that yourbandwidth is, they only
advertise burst or peakbandwidth.
And if you download it 1.2 gigfor an hour, you're more like

(44:36):
getting five meg because theywill throttle you.
Of course, they.

Gene (44:40):
Oh, that sucks.

Ryan (44:41):
It's, this is what all cable companies do.
So I don't use that isp.
The ISP that I use has fiber tothe house.
It's one of those where thecompany that originally put it
in had some kind of a governmentdeal that said if you want to
roll out this service that youwant, then you have to supply

(45:01):
premium broadband to such andsuch number of people.
And I got on in on that deal andthen they got their rollout done
and they stopped accepting newcustomers.
And for contractual regulatoryreasons, they have to keep you
on if you continue paying.
But if I ever cancel theservice, I will never be able to
get it back.
And that is fiber optic to thehouse, 35 megabits symmetric,

(45:27):
and it's fucking solid.
I cannot,

Gene (45:30):
Hmm.

Ryan (45:30):
it will never go over 35 megabit, but it will never go
under that either.

Gene (45:35):
Interesting.
Okay.
That sounds like Fios.

Ryan (45:38):
It is actually, it was originally at and t Bio and then
it became Verizon fis and thenit got sold to a company called
Frontier.
And then Frontier sold off theirbroadband division.
And then it became a company.
And I think now it's a companycalled Simply and the division
is, it's, it's a wart hanging onthe side of the accounting of

(46:01):
all of these companies wherethey're like, for regulatory
purposes, we have to continuesupplying this.
We just keep hoping that thecustomers will move away or die
or cancel so that we don't haveto, cuz they never have to sign
any new up.

Gene (46:15):
Yeah.
The so one of the benefits ofbeing in Austin proper is the
city has a tendency to be like atest bed for a lot of companies.
So we have like four or fivedifferent fiber providers here.
And so I've got one gigguaranteed bidirectional, and
I'm paying 60 bucks a month.

Ryan (46:36):
See, I would, I would be on that.
Yeah.

Gene (46:38):
Yeah.

Ryan (46:39):
Seattle would be like that, except that the regulatory
environment in Seattle is soawful that even the big tech
companies around here are like,yeah, we're gonna go and look in
another state to see if we canset stuff up.

Gene (46:51):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
No, it's true.
But it's so the, I was talkingabout the X Xbox.
So this X Box series X, whichseems redundant get, lets you do
120 frame per second 4K

Ryan (47:03):
when have you ever known Microsoft to be good at naming
things ever?

Gene (47:07):
that, Hey, what was that staple thing's

Ryan (47:09):
Microsoft Windows 3.11 for work groups.

Gene (47:13):
That's a great name.
What was that little stapledude's name?

Ryan (47:16):
Clipy

Gene (47:17):
Yep.

Ryan (47:17):
Staple Dude Works

Gene (47:19):
Well, I, that was the description.

Ryan (47:22):
also.
He is a paper clip, but I likeLittle Staple dude.

Gene (47:24):
Oh, you're right, you're right.
He's not a staple.
He's a paper clip.
That's why his name's Clippy.
That makes more sense.
Actually now I think about it.
So yeah, I haven't really lookedat Xbox cuz just PC gaming, like
a lot of stuff I play.
But, but I will say that becauseI do like simulations more than
games.
My favorite space game isdefinitely curveball.

(47:46):
And curveball.
I don't know.
I don't know if they've got itfor other platforms.
I know they've got it for Mac,but it is a it's, it's one of
the few games about space thathas real orbital dynamics and
real physics, and which makesit, the learning curve goes
straight up.

(48:06):
It's hyperbolic because youstart with, oh, cool, I can
build a rocket to, how do Ishave off an extra 20 kilograms
because my thrust just can't gothere.

Ryan (48:19):
It's it, and it's also a lot of fun.
I used to,

Gene (48:22):
I love it.

Ryan (48:23):
way back in the day, I used to play and, and it was a
stupid little game that'sprobably been clone 12 times,
but I played one called BridgeSimulator, which was just you,
you start with these materialsand you have to build the right
trust and girder system in orderto support a train going across
it.
And the absolute best part ofthat was not building a, a

(48:45):
perfect triangular trus goingacross.
I mean, you, you do that andthen you're bored.
No, it's coming up withspectacular ways for it to fail.
Some of my favorite ones werethe ones where, it said you have
to have a train and then a cargo across, and I'd set it up
with a big fulcrum in the middleso that when the train, the
train would gain a littlealtitude to the other side.

(49:06):
When it finally got to the otherside, a couple things would snap
on the bridge.
The train would fall into theexit area, and the opposite end
of the bridge, which just candlelevered over across the fulcrum,
would fling the car all the wayacross the canyon and landed in
the area.

Gene (49:22):
Nice.
Yeah.
I've, I've played those I thinkon a lot of platforms starting
with the we or certainly PC aswell.
They can be really fun.
I've watched the video maybe ayear ago.
Of a, an actual bridge architectplaying that game.
And and it was really funbecause he was, he wasn't just
playing it, I mean, building thebridges for him is kinda a

(49:44):
no-brainer, but he was that the,the version of the game that he
was playing, which I've got aswell on Steam lets you upload
your bridge designs and the, he,he was looking at what were the
top rated bridge designs andthey were all non-traditional,
non-standard stuff.
Some of'em doing what youdescribed, which is kind of

(50:07):
gamifying the whole challenge sothat

Ryan (50:10):
I mean, the

Gene (50:11):
goal is to get

Ryan (50:12):
the challenge was the car has to be on the other side.

Gene (50:14):
right and so it doesn't matter how you get it

Ryan (50:16):
The game was not deep enough to simulate whether or
not the people inside the carsurvived

Gene (50:21):
exactly, exactly.
So things like that.
So it was fun watching this guylike, just his head, steam
coming out of his ears as hewatching these designs and
going, no, that's not how you dothat.

Ryan (50:33):
Yeah.

Gene (50:33):
no, it was pretty,

Ryan (50:35):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna get to the, the one point I've been
dancing around and the mainreason why I'm abandoning
console gaming, and it is

Gene (50:42):
Yeah.

Ryan (50:43):
a characteristic that anymore at this point is
absolutely necessary for me to,for a game, to hold my interest
for more than the time that ittakes to get through a play,
through once, if that, and thatis being able to introduce my,
know, once, once I've gonethrough all of the rules and,

(51:05):
and physics and the, theparameters that the developers
carefully balance.
I want to unbalance them.
I want to be able to make mods.
I want be able to install mods.
Kebo does have this property.
The game that I keep going backto.

Gene (51:19):
huge, huge modern

Ryan (51:21):
Oh yeah.
The game.
I keep going back to Minecraft,which I think is probably one of
the most audible games in theworld,

Gene (51:27):
Yep.

Ryan (51:27):
I, I play a lot of Bethesda games because e every
single play through I'll goahead and load up a different
set of mods and suddenly I'mplaying a different game.

Gene (51:36):
MA mods really make a game go from good to great.
For sure.
And I'm a little biased becauseI've done

Ryan (51:45):
and more importantly, if I can't write my own and install
my own mods, then, then I've gotone play through in me, and then
I'm uninstalling and I'm

Gene (51:52):
And you're done.
Yeah.

Ryan (51:54):
and any more, I, I have, especially with console, I have
so little time to play thateven, dedicating my time to
learning enough about the gameand understanding that and, get
good.
This is why I'll never playcompetitive online again when,
you have to put in a thousandhours just to be able to hold
your own against the people whoare gonna snipe you with a

(52:15):
pistol from 12 miles away.
Is, is, I don't have, I don'tput in the time for gaming
anymore that would be necessaryto get good.
And so I want, my time is goingto be spent doing things that I
know are going to be constantlynovel experiences.
You never get that withcompetitive online, and you
hardly get it with a game that'slike, yeah, you just start here

(52:38):
in one place and you playthrough the campaign and then
you're

Gene (52:41):
Yeah.
I've always liked the open worldgames a lot more, and certainly
open the world with modding.
It just makes it tremendously

Ryan (52:49):
I recently

Gene (52:50):
I, and I,

Ryan (52:51):
oh,

Gene (52:52):
yeah, can say I agree about the wanting yourself.
So I've done that for threedifferent games.
I've written mods for, includingCurb.
And being able to solve aproblem that you are noticing in
game yourself without waitingfor somebody else to do it is
just a tremendous freedom andflexibility.

Ryan (53:13):
I, I, I, I like a game cannot hold my attention if I
can't download the game.
And then the next directory overdownload the modding tools for
that game.
And, and, and part of it is I'ma programmer, which, you know,
Minecraft for example, Minecrafthas come a long, long way with
regards to their in-gamescripting system and being able

(53:34):
to, they now have a, a full onsystem with command blocks where
you put a block in and you entercommand and the command executes
and it can do a lot of things,but there's nothing that even
compares to being able to crackopen the Java archive and start
injecting your own class files,which is still how I'm mod.
I have to have a Java compilerand you have to basically be a
job a programmer, which is notsomething that I'll readily

(53:57):
admit, but I do know how towrite a code.

Gene (53:59):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (54:00):
Yeah.
So I, I recently went, I starteda new game in Fallout three, I
think that was 2006 game of theyear.
So we're talking what,

Gene (54:12):
a pretty old game.
Yeah.

Ryan (54:13):
Because I found a new mod to attach to it.
This mod it gives you, it likehas some backstory attached to
it that says, through radiationexposure, cuz that's what
fallout's about.
You have a mutation that turnsyou into a giant green hulk and
it's pretty simple.
What it does is if your healthdrops below a certain level,

(54:35):
then it increases the scale ofyour character.
It turns your skin green.
It four equips on you, a loincloth and some brass knuckles,
and it increases your defense tobe almost invulnerable and your
dam your hand to hand damage tobe immense.

(54:58):
And then, so the whole way thegame plays is if your health
drops below a certain level, youhook out and then your guns are
taken away from you and you haveto punch things until you, your
health comes back and you calmdown and then you change back.
And it completely changed thegame so much that I'm fi, I'm,
I'm enjoying playing Falloutthree at the 16 year old game

(55:18):
again, because I'm like, I'venever played like this.
Like it's kind of a meta game.
Like I need to, I really need tosnipe this guy.
So I need to not get hit so muchthat I lose access to my sniper.
I, oh, oh, he got me.
Okay.
It's time to run up and justpunch him in the face.

Gene (55:34):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's interesting.
That's it's fun when you canreplay a game in a totally
different, see, this is one ofthe things I really like about
Cyber Funk 77, is that they'veincorporated even without mods,
but they do have tons of modsfor the game.
But even without mods, they'veincorporated enough variability
for play throughs to whereyou're not feeling like, okay,

(55:56):
I've done it once, now I'm done.
Because not only can yourcharacter be male or female, but
there are really about fourdifferent styles of play.
And it makes sense cuz this,originally was a Dungeons and
Dragons knockoff into acyberpunk future.
That's how that genre started.

Ryan (56:16):
Interesting that you bring up male or female because in my
experience, lots of games letyou choose that, but it offers
almost no replayability becauseit's not politically correct to
make the gameplay differentdepending on the player's.

Gene (56:31):
Well, cyberpunk definitely makes a difference because there
are different characters thatyou can of romance, if you know
what I mean.

Ryan (56:38):
Is that central to the gameplay or, or is that

Gene (56:41):
Yeah, yeah.
It actually is, it, it affectson what happens towards end
game.

Ryan (56:47):
Okay.

Gene (56:47):
It's an extension of your sort of friendship standing.

Ryan (56:50):
Okay.

Gene (56:52):
So if, if, if you're a boyfriend or girlfriend of one
of the characters, they canassist you in the final boss
battles,

Ryan (57:00):
I remember a long time ago

Gene (57:02):
kind of thing.

Ryan (57:03):
I was playing some game and one of my roommates at the
time looks and says I noticedthat all these games, I think I
was playing like mass effect orsomething.
My roommate says, in, in allthese games, I notice you always
choose a female character.
Are you

Gene (57:16):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (57:18):
I said, no, there's absolutely no gameplay
difference between the male andfemale character in most of
these games.
And if, especially in a thirdperson game, I, if I'm going to
have to stare at my character'sass for an 80 hour play through,
I want it to be something worthlooking at.

Gene (57:34):
Well, and that, that's a funny point you bring up cuz I,
I generally do the opposite.
I've always tried to model acharacter as close to what I
actually look like as

Ryan (57:42):
Yeah.
Most of the game options don'thave, create a, a fat pudgy,
bearded guy.

Gene (57:47):
well, they don't, but, but you know, I do have photographs
back from when I was in mytwenties to remind me of what I
used to look like.
But the, in fact, if you lookat, if you're one of my friends
in Steam, my steam avatar imageis an actual photo of me when I
was much, much younger.
But anyway, the, the I've alwaysjust played as a male character.

(58:10):
And then in some games I've seenpeople playing as females.
I'm like, dude, what the fuck?
And there's generally been tworeplies as to why.
Now you just provided one of'em,which is in third person.
If I'm staring at the back ofsomething, I'd not, I'd rather
stare at a, a nice chick buttthan some dude's ass.
The other reason is that in somegames, the female characters

(58:33):
have smaller hit boxes.

Ryan (58:35):
Yes.

Gene (58:36):
do the same damage shooting, but it's harder for
them to shoot you cuz you'resmall and, and so that, that
makes a

Ryan (58:44):
there, there is in fact a tactical advantage in some
games.
I think,

Gene (58:47):
Right, right.
So there is definitely adifference there.
But I will say that thiscyberpunk is probably one of the
first games, maybe, maybesecond, but not many.
Where I've in my initial playthrough was with a female
character for the exact reasonyou mentioned, which is when

(59:07):
she's riding a motorcycle andshe's wearing those pink hot
daisy dukes, it like, why wouldyou play a male character ever
for any reason, even if it's abigger hit box.
It's like this is, this is amuch better view of riding
around the city on a motorcycle.

Ryan (59:25):
and, and you probably spend a non-trivial amount of
time riding around the city on amotorcycle, because in an open
world game, you find yourselfwanting to go places that are
not right near where you areover and over again.
Travel,

Gene (59:38):
Well, and that, and that's where the missions, the good
missions are.
Like, they're not next to thefast travels.
They're next to like nothing

Ryan (59:45):
It, it fast Travel is okay.
Total side rant.
Fast travel is such a ban onopen World games.
It destroys immersion so much.
It's only necessary if you havedesigned your world such that
the places you need to go arereally far away and it's boring
to get there.

Gene (01:00:03):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:00:04):
And, and that is a game design issue that a lot of
people are like, well, wenotice, we notice in, in fallout
this person has to go the entirelength of the map and at normal
walking speeds, it takes nineminutes to get there.
And we haven't populated enoughinteresting things along the
way.
So you're just walking acrossthis blasted terrain for nine
minutes and people are gonna getbored.

(01:00:24):
So let's just put an option inthe menu that lets you click on
it.
Well, okay,

Gene (01:00:28):
Yeah.

Ryan (01:00:29):
you've destroyed immersion twice then.
Congratulations.

Gene (01:00:32):
Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with that.
The, the way, this is one of thethings the way that suburb punk
presents fast travel is theyhave a, like a subway system
that goes through a city.

Ryan (01:00:44):
Okay, well

Gene (01:00:45):
you're

Ryan (01:00:45):
at least more immersive than, than click on this and
teleport

Gene (01:00:48):
but it is nonetheless teleporting.
So you're, you go up to thesideways, you click on the
subway, and then you're teleportto the new area, which is, it's
cheaty, but at least they'retrying to make an attempt at it.
And there's way too many stopsif you ask me.
There's too many ways to fasttravel in star citizen.
There is no fast travel.
Well, you, you wake

Ryan (01:01:08):
there at least ftl?
I mean,

Gene (01:01:10):
There

Ryan (01:01:10):
to, you don't have to build a generational ship to get
from one planet to the other.
Do

Gene (01:01:14):
no, there is a quantum drive, which is essentially ftl
but it uses fuel and it stilltakes a long time.
So I, I'll give you just a shortscenario around that.
You wake up in a whenever youlog into the game in like a
hotel you have to go downstairs,leave the building, and you go
downstairs by taking an elevatorwhile you are waiting for an

(01:01:37):
elevator.
Cuz you have to wait for it.
You can look around and look atadvertising or the scenery.
And then you get in theelevator.
Elevator takes probably about 45seconds to get you down to the

Ryan (01:01:49):
the game actually have advertising?

Gene (01:01:51):
It's in game ads.
It's not,

Ryan (01:01:52):
Oh, so is, is it ads for

Gene (01:01:53):
all fake product ads.
No, no, no.
It's all fake product.
Well, it's, it's ads for thingslike spaceship

Ryan (01:01:59):
okay.
Oh, oh, no, that's fine.
That, that improves immersionwithout

Gene (01:02:02):
yeah.
It's immersive

Ryan (01:02:04):
I've just,

Gene (01:02:04):
and then you walk outside the building and you

Ryan (01:02:06):
by the way, the, the trend very recently

Gene (01:02:09):
for real

Ryan (01:02:10):
real ads being injected into games?

Gene (01:02:13):
Now there is one game where I actually have a mod that
injects real ads because I thinkit adds to the reality, which is
American truck simulator.
So if I'm driving around thecountry in a truck, in a video
game, it's much better to see anad for an actual McDonald's than
for a fake in-game brand

Ryan (01:02:31):
as long as the developer is getting paid by McDonald's to
put that in.

Gene (01:02:36):
Well, no, because this is why it has to be a a mod is
because clearly the developer atMcDonald's don't have a deal,

Ryan (01:02:43):
See, I would, I would,

Gene (01:02:44):
with a mod

Ryan (01:02:45):
like that to inject, porn images or something.

Gene (01:02:49):
Oh, well, I don't know.
Maybe there is one like that,but I, I kinda like the, the
more realistic look.
But anyway, so you get out ofthe building, you

Ryan (01:02:56):
see a big billboard with nothing but boobs on it.
I mean, come on,

Gene (01:02:59):
if you live

Ryan (01:03:00):
I would

Gene (01:03:01):
in LA maybe,

Ryan (01:03:02):
be much more interested in driving truck if that, if we
could see that on the

Gene (01:03:05):
if you could see that.
No, there's, yeah, there's a,you could definitely see that at
a truck stop, let's put it thatway.
They have those.
So you get out of the building,then you have to walk, find your
way to the the trolley that goesto the airport, wait for the
trolley to show up or thewhatever method of transport.
Get in there and you're in it inreal time as it's driving to the

(01:03:29):
airport.
Gets to the airport.
So then you can go and requestyour spaceship, be brought out
to hangar, wait a little bit oftime, then go to the elevator,
which takes you to your hangerto get to your actual spaceship.
So basically

Ryan (01:03:43):
You're, you're kind of

Gene (01:03:44):
it's 15 minutes.

Ryan (01:03:46):
you're kind of describing fast travel that, that has,
multiple modes and point topoint networks and, and

Gene (01:03:51):
Well, but it's not really fast travel cuz it takes you 15
anytime you die.

Ryan (01:03:55):
slow travel.

Gene (01:03:57):
It's slow travel.
Anytime you die, and this is oneof the gripes that people have,
you can't get right back in theaction because when you die, you
spawn back at your hotel and ittakes you 15 minutes just to get
to the damn spaceship leavingthe

Ryan (01:04:09):
tell the wines that if they want a realistic game, then
every time you die, you getbanned from the game
permanently, because that's howreal life

Gene (01:04:17):
Well, they're adding Perma deathto the game as well.

Ryan (01:04:21):
Of

Gene (01:04:21):
It's not fully in yet, but they're talking about doing that
in the next few patches.

Ryan (01:04:25):
I don't, I don't appreciate that in a game.
Minecraft has something calledhardcore mode where if you, if
you die

Gene (01:04:31):
the way I play most games.
Yep,

Ryan (01:04:34):
and, and yeah.
Congratulations.
You have succeeded.
This is extremely immersive andnot a game I wanna play.

Gene (01:04:41):
Yeah.
Well, and that's where thatcontinuum from simulation to a
game goes into force, the, thestar citizen guy's motto is they
have what they kind of call therule of Cool, which is that
we're gonna try and make thingsfairly realistic, but if, if
realism gets in the way of itbeing cool, then we're gonna go

(01:05:01):
with Cool

Ryan (01:05:02):
So, who did fast travel really well, in my opinion, and
this, this is going back almost20 years, there was a game elder
Scrolls game called Morrow Wind.

Gene (01:05:09):
Hmm.

Ryan (01:05:09):
Have you played that

Gene (01:05:10):
I'd never played that.

Ryan (01:05:12):
So the way every Elder Scrolls game since has been the
pull up your menu, clicksomewhere on the map, and you
just teleport there and itsimulates time passing in the
game.
That's, that's how fast travelworks, which basically is
simulates you walk there.
Well, first of all, if the gamewas sufficiently immersive,
you'd never want to do that.
And secondly,

Gene (01:05:32):
You should

Ryan (01:05:32):
it's totally unrealistic on account of if you did take
the time to walk there, youwould get in encounters, you
would fight things, you'd pickup items, you'd do things.
This just simulates, oh, we justgot from here to there, time
passed and you didn't encounteranything at all.
Which I, so

Gene (01:05:48):
Nothing tried to kill you.

Ryan (01:05:49):
I hate fast travel because I don't

Gene (01:05:51):
See?
Okay.
Let me ask you this.
What if you have fast travelthat has, let's say, a lot of 10
chance of killing you,

Ryan (01:05:57):
I don't know that I'd use it.

Gene (01:05:59):
Well, that might be a good thing,

Ryan (01:06:01):
I, I mean, I would use the slow travel that has a chance of
killing me because at least thenI would get to see the, the
giant grizzly bear that put myface off and be like, oh, maybe
I should have avoided it.
But,

Gene (01:06:14):
Oh, you rolled a three.
Sorry about that.
Your character died in the woods

Ryan (01:06:18):
That you're, you're getting into another, another
peeve of, of gaming that bothersme is, is when you have major
life decisions being handed overto the r g.
No, thank you, but.

Gene (01:06:32):
dude, that's like every

Ryan (01:06:33):
the, the way that fast travel works in Mara Wind is
there's like six different flatfast travel networks.
First of all there's boats.
So the first place that youstart is on the coast and you
can in fact go in the startingtown to a boat and talk to the
vendor there.

(01:06:54):
And he will take you to eitherof the next towns, like one of
the next towns or the next bigtown along the coast

Gene (01:07:02):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:07:03):
okay, that's kind of immersive cuz even though it, it
still teleports you there andthen simulates time passing,
you're at least, okay, I, mycharacter spent time on a boat
ride we're good.
And then if you get fartherinland, they have these giant
hollowed out bug things.
It's in lo but who, which arebasically horses that are the

(01:07:25):
size of a tank that walk acrossthe landscape on these super
long legs.
And you can get in one of thoseand go to the inland cities.
So that's a completely differentnetwork.
So you can go to the, the boatperson or you can go to the silt
Strider vendor to be on acompletely different network,

(01:07:45):
goes to different places.
And then there's also what else?
There's, there's magical fasttravel.
There's two spells that you canlearn if you join certain
factions.
One of them merely teleports youwhen you activate the spell to
the nearest temple and oneteleports you to the nearest
military.
And so when you wanna get frompoint A to point B on the map,

(01:08:08):
you don't open up the map andclick Okay, I wanna be here.
You open up the map and go.
Okay.
So if I activate this spell, ittakes me to the fort where I
know there's a silt rider vendorthat can take me to this city
where I then can activate theother spell because that'll take
me to the temple, north of thecity.
And then I can walk from thetemple down the path to the

(01:08:28):
boat, which will take me to mydestination.
And now you are gamifying fasttravel.

Gene (01:08:33):
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good way of doing itbecause it breaks it up.
So it's not just point to pointfrom wherever you are to where
you want to be, but you stillhave to plot a course.
But I'm sure it's still whatmuch faster than just

Ryan (01:08:46):
Oh, it's much faster than walking.
It's it's another scrolls game,so trying to walk across the map
is, is, I hope you've got a halfhour of real time.

Gene (01:08:53):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, and there are certainlygames that just like, I don't
know if you've ever playedsatisfactory, but they don't
have fast travel.
So the closest thing to fasttravel is if you want to get
from one side of the map to theother quickly, well, guess what
you need to do?
You need to build a railroadpiece by piece, the entire
thing.
And once you build it, then youneed to, build a train, put it

(01:09:16):
on there, and then set it up togo back and forth.
And then once the train'srunning, now you can jump on
your own train and then catch itto go across the map

Ryan (01:09:24):
And, and it's reasonable and immersive to say Yes, I'm
riding my own train car on therails that I built, and I'm
probably not gonna haveencounters along the way.

Gene (01:09:34):
Oh, you still have encounters.
I mean, it's, it's not at allfast travel.
It's literally just instead ofwalking speed, you now have a
hundred kilometer an hour trainspeed

Ryan (01:09:42):
Okay.

Gene (01:09:43):
or 200 kilometer, whatever it is.
It's, but you're literallyhaving to just advance
technologically now that, thatspeed of advancement isn't
realistic at all.
Of course, but

Ryan (01:09:53):
do they actually simulate train crashes?

Gene (01:09:57):
And it, but, and it's not, Imean, it's not fast travel.
That's why I'm using as in likealternative to fast travel or
the only way to accelerate yourtravel.
But you're still notteleporting.
You're literally just creating avehicle that goes faster before
you get to the trains.
You unlock cars.
So cars are a little faster thanthe walking trains are a lot

(01:10:19):
faster than the walking.

Ryan (01:10:21):
And then there's always the games that just put in an
airship,

Gene (01:10:24):
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan (01:10:25):
right?

Gene (01:10:26):
And that's always a little cheaty for most games because I
remember

Ryan (01:10:30):
I

Gene (01:10:31):
I played a lot of arc, I don't know if you ever got into
arc.
I did like 3000 hours in Arc andI wrote some moss for it.
It was, it was it started off asa early release unfinished game
on steam where you wake up on anisland and nothing but a loing
cloth and you know nothing aboutit.
And so it's complete open world.
You have to build survival shit,but it, but all of a sudden you

(01:10:55):
notice it.
They're dinosaur running around.

Ryan (01:10:57):
Oh

Gene (01:10:58):
And so that's where the danger as well as the supply of
meat and leather comes from, isthe dinosaurs there.
And then he took that and, andkinda over the years of making
the game added a lot moremagical elements, which I'm not
a fan of.
I prefer the dinosaurs just asthey were originally,

Ryan (01:11:14):
Because dinosaurs are much closer to the reality.
We live in

Gene (01:11:17):
Well, they're not mythical, at least,

Ryan (01:11:19):
That's what

Gene (01:11:20):
I I do think

Ryan (01:11:21):
Don't go ask the book of Genesis.

Gene (01:11:23):
There are dinosaurs in.
They just stayed in the Gardenof Eden cuz they're perfect.
They weren't kicked out, unlikeman.

Ryan (01:11:31):
Man was perfect.
It was woman

Gene (01:11:32):
the, the, the snakes were definitely kicked out.
Well, clearly man was notperfect if he let woman fuck it
up, a perfect man would've said,I'm gonna watch you eat that
Apple first.

Ryan (01:11:42):
Be like, kick that bitch to the curb.
There's gonna be another one.
Come

Gene (01:11:45):
It's like, Hey, God, there's a version too coming.

Ryan (01:11:47):
Yeah.
This, this one has a bug

Gene (01:11:51):
Yeah.
No, she's, she's like 20 when Imarried her.
And at this point, clearly wesee there are

Ryan (01:11:56):
and she's not putting out the way I

Gene (01:11:58):
apple eating, I mean, what's up with that?
Yeah.
So there's so in arc everythingis really hard because you
realize these dinosaurs are waybigger and more powerful than
you.
And, and they see you as food,frankly.
And there are things you can doand build up, build a little,
little mud hut or a wooden houseor brick house or whatever.

(01:12:18):
But, but when you get that firstpact, that first flying dinosaur
and then there are

Ryan (01:12:24):
changes the

Gene (01:12:25):
flying ones, it changes the game because all of a sudden
you can just fly over the dangerinstead of having to deal with
the danger or avoid the dangerby going around it.
And that just, I mean, it's coolto fly, but it also kind of
makes the game less challengingin any

Ryan (01:12:41):
I mean, what you described, I, my experience with
that is way, way back in theday, I used to play a lot of J
RPGs back when I didn't respectmy time.

Gene (01:12:50):
game.
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:12:50):
When, when we did that, there was actually a measure
that, that, that I would use ametric applied to the game
overall.
And it was time to airship.
And what it was, was the, thegame is always built.
In, not always, but a lot, a lotof'em follow this formula where

(01:13:11):
the game is built such thatthere's a, a usually linear or
barely branching path from thestarting city to the next one
you're supposed to go to, to thenext one because you're
following the story.
And the narrative requires thatyou do events in a certain
order.
And so in order to enforce thatorder, you, you're on foot and
then maybe you carry, catch arailroad, which is just a point

(01:13:33):
to point.
And then, there might be somechabos that let you cross this
desert, but then it forces youoff the chabos when you get to
the other side.
And it's very linear up to acertain point where you've
reached a point in the narrativewhere it decides to branch out.
And at that point they alwaysgive you an air ship.
And now you can get in the airship and fly off and go to any

(01:13:54):
place that you've been in theprevious part.
And there's gonna be places thatyou couldn't get in any of the
linear paths.
You have to go to the air ship,and that's how you advance the
plot from there.
And it's usually near the end ofthe game.
But it was a measure of the gameto always say, well, how long to
the airship, like, final Fantasyseven one that I played way too
much had a time of time toairship of about 30 hours.

Gene (01:14:18):
Okay,

Ryan (01:14:19):
the tutorial in that one was about 10 hours.
That's before how long it tookto get outta the starting city.
But

Gene (01:14:24):
sure.

Ryan (01:14:26):
you're, you're, it's two completely different games when
you are on the golden path thatyou can't deviate from, you have
to visit this city.
You have to encounter thesenarrative events.
You have to vi this, you have tofight these people.
You have to beat this boss, youhave to do this, now you have
the airship, and it suddenlytransforms from a linear
adventure into an open world.

(01:14:47):
Completely different game

Gene (01:14:49):
Yep.
No, I, I totally agree and Irelish those limiting times, and
don't get me wrong, I loveflying in every game that has
flying, but.
Before you get to flying iswhere you have to actually solve
problems.
And it's not just always a Godbutton.
Oh, well I just fly over that.

(01:15:10):
There, there's sure.
That could be dangers thanflying too.
Somebody could be shooting atyou, whatever.
But the dangers are greatlydiminished when when you're
three dimensional instead of two

Ryan (01:15:22):
See again, I feel like that can be solved with game
design.
It feels like what, what theyhaven't done is put any
encounters in the air.

Gene (01:15:30):
Well, and they, they even, in our, they eventually did,
they, they put in dragons,

Ryan (01:15:36):
Okay.

Gene (01:15:36):
which are faster and bigger than you, and they fly.

Ryan (01:15:40):
I mean, I,

Gene (01:15:40):
And so if you're a tdac or whatever, or any of the, the
animals that fly in that gamethe dragon creates a very real
threat to you.
And it's not just dragons ofother critters as well.
But and certainly all of thatgot added later because be the,
the initially when you wereflying, there's just not much
that could harm you.

Ryan (01:16:00):
sure.
I recently,

Gene (01:16:02):
go ahead.
Go ahead

Ryan (01:16:03):
I, I, I recently played a, a game called divinity, I think
it was called.
Where, or Divinity two or what?
It, it, it, anyway the plot ofthis game is that you are cursed
by a dragon to ultimately becomea, a Dragon knight.
And the first half of the game,the game is basically broken up

(01:16:26):
into two main over worlds.
The first half of the game istrying to awaken your dragon
powers.
And one thing I don't like aboutit is that once you do, you
can't go back to the first halfof the game cuz it just locks it
off.
But it that notwithstanding thesecond half of the game is you
have your dragon powers and whenyou are in dragon form you, you

(01:16:47):
don't have to worry aboutinfantry on the, on the
battlements cuz you can justroll up and breathe fire on
them.
That feels incredibly awesome.
But now you have to worry aboutthe ballistas on the battlements
that are firing at you.
And you never had to worry aboutthe Ballistas cuz ballistas do
not fire at a a, a personwalking around.

Gene (01:17:06):
Sure.

Ryan (01:17:07):
so it it, it is a completely different game where
you've got different things youhave to think about, but you
still have the freedom of flyingwithin the constraints.
Like it, it has a, there's aninvisible ceiling you can't go
above and there's a lot ofplaces where the cliff walls go
above the ceiling in order tobox you in.
But the, the whole game in, inthe dragon section is built

(01:17:30):
around you can, it, it's almosta two world game where you can
switch and you're looking at thesame place.
And now all those, all thosepeople with the, the bows and
arrows and really big swordsthat were completely working you
over when you were in humanform.
You go to Dragon form and youcould just cook them and then
they're done.
But now you gotta watch outbecause they're gonna send
airships after you.

(01:17:50):
Something like that.
And it, you just reminded me ofthat.
I don't really have a pointthere other than there's, it's
easy enough to build a gamebalance such that you're like,
oh, you get this new power.
Well now you have a wholedifferent set of things to worry
about.
And I feel like the, the, likethe Final Fantasy games back

(01:18:11):
then, or the J RPGs I used toplay were great examples of, of
they didn't do that because assoon as you got the airship,
you're like, yeah, you've justgot freedom to move wherever
just now play it as open world

Gene (01:18:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and there's, see, this iswhere I think the simulations
simulation games have an edgebecause there are inherent risks
with any upgraded te.
So you, you're buildingairplanes.
You finally conquered the flightthrough an atmosphere.
But traveling outside theatmosphere and building a rocket

(01:18:45):
presents a whole other slew ofpotential problems for you.
You've learned how to how toactually achieve orbit around
the planet.
But now flying to a moon of is awhole slew of other things you
never needed to worry about thatyou now have to worry about that
all have a chance of screwingyou up.

Ryan (01:19:06):
if you achieve orbit around a planet, then your first
concern should not be flying toa moon.
It should be how do I reenterwithout burning up?

Gene (01:19:13):
Yeah.
Well, the, the first orbit youachieve as a non return flight,
it's like, it's Sputnik, right?
It's just can I get to the pointwhere I can actually put

Ryan (01:19:22):
can you go all Kim Jong un and start randomly firing
missiles into oceans and stuff?

Gene (01:19:27):
Yeah.
Yeah, you could totally do thatin ki I mean, it's, it doesn't
really achieve much to do that.
But if you find

Ryan (01:19:33):
a lot of

Gene (01:19:33):
you can certainly

Ryan (01:19:34):
Jong un isn't achieving much by firing missiles into the
ocean either.
I personally think that he isthe only thing standing us
standing between us and a kaijuapocalypse.
But I may be wrong,

Gene (01:19:46):
Okay.
You never know.
You never know.
I think that he is too easy tomake fun of and that makes me
suspicious

Ryan (01:19:54):
I think Joe Biden is easy to make fun of too.

Gene (01:19:57):
and that also makes me suspicious cuz who's pulling the
strings?

Ryan (01:20:00):
Obama?

Gene (01:20:00):
That sure seems like it doesn't.

Ryan (01:20:02):
Well, I, it's either Obama

Gene (01:20:05):
did want a third

Ryan (01:20:06):
whoever was driving Obama, because it's exactly the same

Gene (01:20:09):
wife, Right, exactly.
So I, I don't know, man.
There's one other game sincewe've been on this game, ran for

Ryan (01:20:15):
This seems to like be like a a gaming podcast at this.

Gene (01:20:18):
There, there's not enough of those on the no agenda
stream.
I just don't see gaming talkedabout

Ryan (01:20:24):
Gaming is not a big subject on the No agenda stream.
It is.
There are a lot of gamingpodcasts out there.

Gene (01:20:30):
Yeah.
Yeah, there are, there arespecialty ones, but not on this
little corner of the

Ryan (01:20:35):
kinda all you get.

Gene (01:20:36):
Yeah.
And, and a lot of basicallyadvertising for only fans

Ryan (01:20:40):
yes.

Gene (01:20:41):
and there's plenty of that happening.

Ryan (01:20:42):
Well, it's

Gene (01:20:42):
Anyway, this game is

Ryan (01:20:43):
but I might be biased.

Gene (01:20:45):
this game's called Green Hell, I'm sure you've never
heard of

Ryan (01:20:48):
I, I've heard the

Gene (01:20:49):
although they do, I think they, they do have a version on
Xbox.
Actually.
I, I know that for a fact asthey talked about it.
Green Hill is a game slashsimulation

Ryan (01:20:58):
This game is called Angela Stripper Titties.
Oh, wait,

Gene (01:21:02):
that, that, that's a different game.
Yes.
And incidentally, steam doeshave an X-rated game section.
You just have to check box thebox that lets you view them.

Ryan (01:21:10):
I'm not surprised at all.

Gene (01:21:12):
yeah.
I literally didn't know that hehad that until this year and I
was like, really?
Holy shit.
There's a lot of games in there.
Anyway, so this,

Ryan (01:21:19):
you played them all

Gene (01:21:20):
haven't, I have not paid a dime for any of that shit.
No, I haven't.
I've seen some videos like youcan find videos from those
games, but I haven't, I haven'tpaid free any of that shit.
I mean, it's kinda like, eh, Imean,

Ryan (01:21:34):
Well,

Gene (01:21:34):
you're old enough, have you done all this shit in real
life?
It's kinda like, how much fun isit doing in the video

Ryan (01:21:38):
of all, if you, anybody from the nineties knows that if
you pay for porn in any form,you're a sucker.

Gene (01:21:46):
Pretty much.
But, and the, these games I'msure are much better than
leadership, Larry.
Anyway, so the Green Hill is agame where you are a biologist
that goes to the Amazonian forcewith his girlfriend, and then
the girlfriend disappears.
You don't know what's going on,but she is talking to you on the

(01:22:07):
radio

Ryan (01:22:08):
contracts a, a strange infection and dies.
Oh, wait, it's not that.
How, how, how immersive is

Gene (01:22:13):
pretty close to that.
It's very close to that.
So, but it, it is one of themost realistic games, I would
say, in terms of survival incertainly a jungle like the
Amazon and the, the things thatyou need to do to survive very
simplified from reality, but allsimilar and based on reality as

(01:22:35):
well.
And so you have to obviouslyfind food, make shelter there's
animals as well as indigenoustribesmen that could potentially
kill you if you if you don'tmake allowances for making sure
that you stay away from them orthat you are protected well.

(01:22:56):
But the traps that you make totrap and kill animals, the, the
way you make medicines, it's allvery much simplified, but based
around very much realisticvideos, even to the point of how
do you make clay like to youhave to make clay and then you
have to shape it, and then youput it into your kiln to

(01:23:18):
actually fire it and make ithard.
And then eventually you're evengetting to the point where
you're making primitive, bronzemetal tools very, very
realistic, super easy to die.
Like, it, it, that game willkill you multiple times a day.
Without even trying,

Ryan (01:23:37):
Is that like a bad end game or no?

Gene (01:23:40):
a bad end

Ryan (01:23:41):
Oh, I'm sorry.
It's a, it's a term from c y a.
Nevermind.
I'm, I'm not gonna open upanother topic on, on narrative
style, but gone.

Gene (01:23:53):
Well, okay.
Well, either way there's a storymode loosely that you can
follow, but a lot of it is justbasically survival, but done in
a non, like fictional fantasyway.
The way that arc is, forexample, with dinosaurs running
around, this is very much allactual existing critters or

(01:24:14):
plants or what, like in thatgame you drink ayahuasca, for
example, and you have visionsand you know what ayahuasca is,
right?

Ryan (01:24:23):
I'm not familiar with the term.

Gene (01:24:24):
Oh, well you, you don't watch enough Joe Rogan then.

Ryan (01:24:27):
No.
No.

Gene (01:24:28):
it is it is, is there enough?
I dunno.
It is a ritualistic psychoactivedrug that shamans will guide you
through, and I believe in thatwhole Amazonian area.

Ryan (01:24:43):
instead of water in the Amazon, is that

Gene (01:24:46):
You don't drink.
No, no, no.
You definitely don't drink it.
It's, it is essentially acombination of a psychoactive
drug and poison,

Ryan (01:24:57):
okay?
So, no, I, I don't drink that.
I drink alcohol.

Gene (01:25:00):
this is better or worse depending on how you look at it.
But a lot of people that havedone that, that have gone down
south and done iosco it has DMTin it.
They, they have visions thatmake them think that they can
now understand their life a lotbetter that they.
Some people see aliens, somepeople see God.
It all depends on what you know,who you are and what you see.

(01:25:24):
But anyway, that's in this gameas well.
So I thought it was just a verywell done game from a prepper
standpoint.
Essentially.
You're not gonna learn recipes,but you will learn that you need
to know how to do these exactsame things that are in the
game.
You just have to learn to do'emin real life.

Ryan (01:25:42):
Okay,

Gene (01:25:43):
list is the same.
Like the list of things you needto survive is the same in the
game as real

Ryan (01:25:48):
if you play this game and then mysteriously get fast,
traveled to the middle of theAmazon u it, it will have
prepared you.

Gene (01:25:56):
Yeah.
You're gonna die within probably48 hours, but you will know what
you're missing.

Ryan (01:26:02):
you have died of trench foot.

Gene (01:26:04):
E Exactly.
Exactly.
Cuz you're like, oh, I forgot topack the mulkin.
Godammit.
That's the problem.
Fun game.
Anyway.
We don't have to talk about anygames anymore.
It's easily an hour on

Ryan (01:26:15):
I, we, we've definitely

Gene (01:26:17):
plenty for most

Ryan (01:26:18):
The, you know what, back in the day, the only, I played
the original survival game,Oregon Trail

Gene (01:26:24):
Oh, I remember that.
Yep.

Ryan (01:26:26):
and nowadays,

Gene (01:26:27):
a lot.

Ryan (01:26:27):
huh?

Gene (01:26:28):
I died

Ryan (01:26:29):
Yes.
You died of dysentery.

Gene (01:26:31):
Yeah, A lot.

Ryan (01:26:33):
No, I, I usually died because I didn't pack enough
nails or something stupid likethat.

Gene (01:26:39):
Uhhuh

Ryan (01:26:40):
I don't really play a lot of survival games these days.
I play Minecraft, but I, it wasyears ago that I stopped being
interested in the survival partsof Minecraft.
Now it's just a, a, a platformfor installing whatever really
awesome mods that I have

Gene (01:26:54):
a building thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well I think you would likesatisfactory.
And I think they do have acouncil version as well, because
satisfactory.
Has just a little tiny bit ofsurvival, but mostly it is a
building.
Cool.
Interesting.
I don't even know what to call'em, I guess factories.

(01:27:15):
I, the idea being is you need tomake a widget to make this
widget, you're gonna need fourdifferent subparts.
And each of those subparts ismade of a number of different
ingredients.
And then,

Ryan (01:27:27):
is the word cuz that's in the name

Gene (01:27:28):
yeah, factory is definitely the word, but it's,
it's satisfying us also.
That's where that other part ofit comes from.
And so you have to source theraw materials, get them
converted to, more advancedmaterials, get those converted
to the little sub widgets, andthen all of those together build
a widget.
And you do that by buildingdifferent machines and you have

(01:27:49):
a lot of what do you call thosethings?
The the little belt things thatmove materials along.
When I, conveyor belts, thereyou go.
That's the

Ryan (01:27:56):
I'm,

Gene (01:27:57):
So you, you end up building a lot of different
conveyor belts.
So if you wanna see what itlooks like, again, if you're not

Ryan (01:28:02):
looking at their website right now and there's the, the
one thing that's bothering me isthere is a giant red flag in two
words that are listedprominently on their website

Gene (01:28:13):
what's that?

Ryan (01:28:13):
early access.

Gene (01:28:14):
It's

Ryan (01:28:15):
I've been burned by early access

Gene (01:28:17):
yeah, it's, it is like a 98% early access.
I've had this game for aboutthree years and they've almost
finished it.

Ryan (01:28:25):
Almost.
Yeah.
Kinda like

Gene (01:28:26):
It's, it's missing.
It's, it's, believe me, youwould think it's a complete game
there all the areas that used tobe.

Ryan (01:28:34):
I'm sorry.

Gene (01:28:35):
All the areas in the game that used to be just sort of
very basic and ugly.
Now I'll have trees and crittersand things.
It's all, I think it'llprobably, well, in fact, I don't
know why it says early accesscuz they're past 1.0.
They're actually in release asof, I think about nine months

Ryan (01:28:53):
Huh?
Okay.

Gene (01:28:55):
So I'm not sure why it's early access.
It should have flipped to normalaccess by now, but it wasn't
early access for several yearsfor sure.

Ryan (01:29:03):
Sure.

Gene (01:29:04):
But it's just, it is kind of fun building the machinery
and trying to optimize to see,where you can make things a
little smoother, faster, better.
And I also love the little bitof dystopia.
This is kind of a happy dystopiain this game because the, the
corporation that sent you ownseverything by contract.
So anytime like you fall andyou, you lose a little bit of

(01:29:27):
health, it gives you a warningthat you're damaging company
property, which I I love that.
That's this very cute littlething.
And the goal is to ultimatelygather as many resources in term
as much of the planet into afactory as, as is possible.
But it's a, it's a completelyopen world

Ryan (01:29:47):
end game is a Borg planet.
Is that what's going on?

Gene (01:29:50):
much.
Yeah.
But it's a very large area.
I don't know how many miles, butmaybe like 10 by 10 miles or
something.
So it, it would take a damn longtime to completely bulldoze over
everything and

Ryan (01:30:05):
This sounds like the kind of task that, that there are
people out there currently

Gene (01:30:10):
that have done it.
Yes.
Yep.
And there are videos if yousearch, there's a couple of guys
that specialize in this game,that do exactly that where
they're, it's like, oh, you, youcan build like five factories,
so let's build 500 factories.
You can build a train set to gobetween different, let's cover
the entire map with nothing butrailroads, that kind of thing.

Ryan (01:30:31):
I mean, you only do that just to say that you've been
able to do it.
I,

Gene (01:30:35):
That's not, I mean, when I've played that game, and I
probably play it about onceevery six months or so, I do a
play through.
And I usually end the playthrough at about a 90% complete
mark, because then I kind offeel like I, I know what I need
to do to get to that a hundredpercent.
So I don't really need to do it,

Ryan (01:30:51):
That's where you, you're like, I've, I've, I've figured
out, I've solved, I've figuredout what, you know

Gene (01:30:58):
exactly.

Ryan (01:30:59):
I, I, I think about this and, and you talk about turning
an entire 10 by 10 square milearea into all factories.
And, and I realize one of thereasons why I wouldn't do
something like that is becausethe first place my brain went
was going, yeah.
But, okay.
The much more interesting partof this would be, now take me to

(01:31:20):
the city that needs that muchmanufactured goods.

Gene (01:31:23):
Sure.

Ryan (01:31:24):
me, take me to the place where this is, this is an
important part of a supplychain.
That much factory is producinggoods for somewhere else much
larger.

Gene (01:31:34):
yeah.
Well, if it's a planetary scale,then you gotta imagine that that
exists.
There's plenty of those

Ryan (01:31:41):
I, I, yeah, but I don't wanna imagine, I wanna be like,
okay, now you've shown me thecool factory part of the world.
Now show me the, the resortsthat, that use all the stuff I'm
making.

Gene (01:31:52):
Yeah.
Unfortunately your social scorelevel does not allow you to be a
partaking of those.
So you, you just stay right herein this

Ryan (01:31:59):
I understood.

Gene (01:32:01):
Yeah.
And I, I, I can't, talking ofdystopian games, I can't not
mention the other insanelydystopian game that is similar
which is hard space.
Colon ship breaker.

Ryan (01:32:14):
okay.

Gene (01:32:15):
This, this is a game.
I think they're

Ryan (01:32:17):
the game is so good.
It needs two title.

Gene (01:32:19):
so they're done.
Yeah, exactly.
And in this game, your job is,you are hired to be a guy
working at a spaceship,junkyard, tearing apart space
ships, cutting them up withlasers in order to recycle their
parts.
And you want to maximize theefficiency of those recycled

(01:32:43):
parts.
So you don't want to throwanything away that could be
reused.
But you also don't want to putinto the reuse pile something
that clearly could be melteddown into raw metal like
aluminum.
And then that's a better use forit than trying to recycle it as
an existing part.
Super easy premise.
You've got a kinda, kinda, yeah.

(01:33:05):
But the dystopian feel of thegame is so awesome because when
you first start the game, thegame adds up all the money that
the corporation has spent onoutfitting you to be able to do
your job.
And the total comes out to likethree and a half billion.
And so your first task is towork off your, your loan to the
company.

Ryan (01:33:27):
Okay, well if it's truly distort B, and that task can
never be completed.

Gene (01:33:31):
Well, it can't be completed if you follow all the
rules.
So that's, that's all I'm gonnasay.
But it is, it, it's very Brazillike, which is one of my
favorite all time movies.
It's that idea that you're kindastuck into the hamster wheel and
the expectation is you're gonnado what you're told, but there
are elements around you thatseem to be rebelling, and you

(01:33:53):
always have to be trying to makea choice between sticking.
Something that won't get you introuble or doing something that
may get you in trouble, but maychange the situation for the
better.
But in general, you're probablygonna fail, but yet you still
have to keep working.

Ryan (01:34:09):
kind of reminds me of a, a short game that I played called
Papers, please.

Gene (01:34:15):
Mm.

Ryan (01:34:16):
Which is you play

Gene (01:34:17):
That sounds like a fun

Ryan (01:34:18):
If you play as a border guard in they, they don't
specifically name where, butit's effectively, the Soviet
border or, or Nazi Germany orsomething.
A, a border guard in anauthoritarian regime and

Gene (01:34:32):
Ukraine.

Ryan (01:34:33):
your Yeah, Sure.
Your job is to examine thepapers of everybody who comes
through, decide whether or notthis is, is legitimate traffic
or is, somebody trying to sneakthrough.
If you get it wrong, then youget punished.
If you get punished too manytimes, then you get taken off to
a firing squad.

(01:34:54):
If you just follow the rules,you're probably going to be
okay.
But then there's also the, theother thing that is you have to
make money and you get kickbacksfor doing certain things a
certain way, and you pretty muchhave to have the kickbacks
because if you don't, then yourfamily runs out of heating oil.

Gene (01:35:14):
See, I thought you said you didn't like simulations.

Ryan (01:35:17):
I didn't treat it like a simulation,

Gene (01:35:19):
Oh, well that's a problem right

Ryan (01:35:21):
The other thing is I got about 15 minutes in and went,
this is triggering me.
I need a mod.

Gene (01:35:26):
Oh, too funny.
No, that's, that sounds like aneat idea.
Yeah.
Very much in that sort ofdystopian future or past or
whatever, but very much in.
Dystopian type world.
I, I like games like that.
I like movies like that.
It used to be a lot further awayfrom reality and it was very
much a escapism trial kind ofthing from reality.

(01:35:47):
I'm kind of feeling like thelines are becoming extremely
blurred to where watching Brazilright now feels a lot like
watching the news right now.

Ryan (01:35:56):
Yeah.
You didn't know that 1984 was adocumentary when you watched it
the first time.
Did you?

Gene (01:36:01):
Well, it was an instruction manual apparently.
I mean, it's not what I wastaught.
I was taught that this is thevision of the future to avoid
and, and why it's important toleave the Soviet Union and move
to a free country like theUnited States.

Ryan (01:36:14):
Yes.
My favorite political sloganfrom a couple years ago was make
Orwell Fiction again.

Gene (01:36:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, Luke the guy that's on theTim Cast, he's got a t-shirt
company that has that on hist-shirts

Ryan (01:36:28):
Yeah.
So

Gene (01:36:30):
make 1984 fiction

Ryan (01:36:32):
you've been listening to Game Talk with Gene and Ryan.

Gene (01:36:36):
Yeah.
Apparently the two most angryand disliked people on the
internet.
If you believe some of thecomments

Ryan (01:36:43):
I,

Gene (01:36:44):
couldn't tell listening to this,

Ryan (01:36:46):
I think that, well, that's because we were not doing a show
that anybody's gonna listen to.
They're like, ah, video games.
Those nerds, I think, I think,honestly, if, if people hate
your show and people hate myshow, then there is one thing in
common with those shows thatreally people should be turning
all their eye toward.

Gene (01:37:05):
Mm-hmm.
which is Oh, well that's true.
I mean, he is kind of like theglue that binds all the bad
shows together.

Ryan (01:37:14):
He even appeared on rare Encounter once

Gene (01:37:17):
I heard about that.
I did not listen to thatepisode.
But he does tend to have hishaters.
But nobody seems to hate himamazingly because every donation
that comes in makes a point ofsaying that they like Darren

Ryan (01:37:29):
I hate him.
I'll, I'll, I'll rag on him overand over again.

Gene (01:37:32):
Yes.
If, if you hate Darren, pleasedonate to this episode just to
let us know that you hate Darrenbecause otherwise, he's under
this delusion that everybodyloves him and just hates his
co-hosts.

Ryan (01:37:44):
Nobody hates Larry.

Gene (01:37:45):
Well, I, I don't know man.
I I think Larry's got hisdistractors

Ryan (01:37:48):
think so?

Gene (01:37:50):
Yeah.

Ryan (01:37:51):
Well, you'll, the list will be in the show notes.

Gene (01:37:54):
Of the detractors.
Yeah.
There you go.
Yes.
We'll send you a list.
If you donate, we'll just replyback for your donation with the
list.
How's that?
No, and I'm kind of making funof the whole donating thing, cuz
you were, you mentioned at thebeginning of the show that the
donations have been pretty highand dry lately.
Which I agree with.
I, but I also kinda

Ryan (01:38:12):
charity is always the first thing to

Gene (01:38:14):
Yeah, it, it, exactly, exactly.
Of course, didn't stop a hundreddollars from showing up for my
show with the, the lovely Darrenwho seems to be who everybody
loves but also with commentstalking about him, not me.
But I don't know.
I mean, I, I do my, all my showsbecause I enjoy the people that

(01:38:36):
I'm talking to, whether it's aone off interview or whether

Ryan (01:38:39):
you don't have to worry about whether or not you can
afford heating fuel, remember

Gene (01:38:44):
Well, fair enough.
Yeah.
I mean, I, if I had to rely onpodcast income for heating fuel,
I would probably not be focusingenergy on doing a podcast.
I'd be focusing energy onstaying warm.

Ryan (01:38:55):
That's what I've got the cat on my lap for.

Gene (01:38:58):
Well that's the, and the cat's got its electric blanket
for that reason as well.
That's how the cat is reallylike a capacitor

Ryan (01:39:05):
cat is actually using me for energy.

Gene (01:39:07):
Exactly.
Yes.
Cats.
Although they do run warmer thanpeople, so I'm not sure how that
works.

Ryan (01:39:14):
I, I, I, they're also covered with fur most of the
time.

Gene (01:39:18):
Mm-hmm.
unless you have one of thoseweird variety of

Ryan (01:39:21):
I don't think those are cats.
I think those fall into thechihuahua category.

Gene (01:39:25):
I tend to agree.
My ex-wife was really into thatstyle, but to me it's kinda
like, God didn't intend us tosee what's underneath cat fur.
It's just not Right.
I mean, a naked cat is likewatching a naked old man.
It's just not something you everwant to look

Ryan (01:39:42):
Yes.
And yet, every time I go intothe bathroom before my shower

Gene (01:39:46):
Well, that's, that's a choice you're making on your
own.

Ryan (01:39:49):
are you suggesting that I could have the

Gene (01:39:51):
Remove the mirror.
Remove the mirror.

Ryan (01:39:54):
I'll just suggest to my wife that I'm never gonna shower
again.
We'll see how that Well,

Gene (01:39:58):
I'm, well, I'm sure should love that.
But I'm pretty sure you canshower with your eyes closed if
you really tried

Ryan (01:40:04):
You might be onto

Gene (01:40:05):
that.
You can go by feel like, you getthat soap in one hand and
whatever you're using.
In the other hand, the Lofa and,

Ryan (01:40:14):
that's what you call yours.

Gene (01:40:15):
could go by feel Well, I mean, sure.
It's a, it's a European name,but why not?
Right.
Johnson Lofa, whatever,

Ryan (01:40:24):
Right.
Okay.

Gene (01:40:26):
but it, it,

Ryan (01:40:27):
Enough sex

Gene (01:40:27):
it's a yeah, well, it's, we are getting into leisure seat
Larry Territory here.
So as far as tech shit, which isthe main reason I actually
wanted to have you on, cuz I,people told me I didn't have
enough

Ryan (01:40:36):
yes, we are.
So we

Gene (01:40:37):
in, in what I

Ryan (01:40:37):
the lead.
Here's the interesting part.
Anybody who's got this far in,now that you need to fast
forward to an hour 45.

Gene (01:40:45):
That's exactly right.
Because the, it was a longintroduction, but now the
introduction's over, so let'sget to the meat and the
potatoes.
So Microsoft is fucked.
Looks like Elon Musk wants tocreate a new phone and fuck
Apple over.
What what do you think's gonnabe happening in the next two,
three years?
As far as

Ryan (01:41:01):
of all, I'm pleased that, that all the news is good.

Gene (01:41:04):
i I am as well.
I am as well.
I, I wanna make sure we take itin the right light, just because
a large mega corpus fuck doesn'tmean things are bad.
I suppose it does for the peoplethat work there, but otherwise,
not necessarily a

Ryan (01:41:17):
So what, how, how, what, what exactly just for the people
who haven't followed do, how doyou consider Microsoft to be
fucked?

Gene (01:41:25):
Well, windows 11 was a dismal failure.

Ryan (01:41:27):
That

Gene (01:41:28):
their, yeah, yeah.
But they've got their marketshare has stopped growing.
And I know that's, you'd think,well, so what?
They got huge.
Yes, they did.
But generally what happens whenthe market share stops slowing,
just look at Facebook is thedemise both of stock price and
of the future activities.

(01:41:49):
That company is in sight.
Now, Microsoft has been throughthis a couple times, and they've
managed to squeeze out of it bycreating something new and
different and

Ryan (01:41:58):
of all the really huge companies, Microsoft, I think is
the only one.
Maybe Apple.
Who have been around long enoughto have experienced full cycles
of market saturation and thenneed to come up with new product
lines.

Gene (01:42:13):
Yeah.
And they've made large mistakesthat they've seemingly recovered
from, but each of those hascost.

Ryan (01:42:18):
Windows is oh, the, the share of windows is not getting
larger.
Well, that happens when youcontrol almost the whole market.
There's, there's nowhere to growwhen, when you run almost all
the computing, all the desktopcomputing devices in the world.
I mean, if you look at allcomputing devices Android is by

(01:42:39):
far the biggest, but

Gene (01:42:42):
Yeah.
Yep.
Well, with the rise of Android,the shift both to iOS and
Android and Apple now makingtheir own processors that are
running their own os I thinkthat the I mean, Intel's another
company to start watching to seewhat they do as, as there's some
bad writing on the wall forthem.
But but Microsoft, if they can'tsell you a new version of

(01:43:04):
Windows, at least every threeyears, they're taking a major
financial hit.

Ryan (01:43:10):
well, the Windows 10 came out what 2015.

Gene (01:43:15):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:43:16):
they, they hadn't sold anything since then.

Gene (01:43:19):
Yeah.
And I think that's one of thethings kinda leading to the the
stagnation that could veryeasily start the company
tumbling,

Ryan (01:43:27):
I mean, there's a lot of people out there who are like
Windows 11.
Okay, but what does it offer me?
I'll just stick with this,especially when you want money.

Gene (01:43:34):
yeah.
Well, even they're, they're eventrying to give it away and
people aren't taking it.
I just saw a message the otherday pop up when I rebooted.
It says, you're all set andready to upgrade to Windows 11
for free.
You meet all the criteria.
We'd love to get this started.
Just click yes.

Ryan (01:43:49):
you poor

Gene (01:43:49):
And then

Ryan (01:43:50):
you've got one

Gene (01:43:50):
in a little corner, in a little corner, there's a little
button that says, no, keep me onWindows.

Ryan (01:43:56):
My, my,

Gene (01:43:57):
for gaming purposes, I absolutely cannot go to Windows
11, even if I wanted to, and Idon't.
But a lot of games are notcompatible with

Ryan (01:44:05):
well you, you're speaking with somebody who's never seen
one of those popups on mymachine for the simple fact that

Gene (01:44:11):
Well, I pay for my windows, so,

Ryan (01:44:12):
paid for my windows too.

Gene (01:44:14):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:44:15):
I I'm

Gene (01:44:16):
Windows and team, maybe

Ryan (01:44:18):
not running Windows 10.
I'm still running Windows 8.1.

Gene (01:44:22):
they're, yeah.
8.1.
You gotta kidding me.

Ryan (01:44:25):
it was the, that was the last version before Windows 10.

Gene (01:44:28):
Wow.
Yeah, I didn't run Windows eightat

Ryan (01:44:30):
Yeah.
Lots of people did.
It's like I said, the rule

Gene (01:44:33):
ran Windows seven and then I moved to 10.

Ryan (01:44:36):
It's the, the rule of evens.
People, people loved xp.
Although when XP first came out,people absolutely despised it,
but XP was on the market for solong.
People came to like

Gene (01:44:46):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:44:46):
and then everybody's like, oh, Vista sucks.
And then Windows seven came up,which is, is Windows Vista with
a few UI changes, and peopleloved Windows seven, and then
eight came out.
They're like, oh, I don't wannago to that.
And then 10 comes out and peoplethink, oh, well, windows seven's
kind of old and Windows 10 andlooks shiny again.
It's every other operatingsystem for whatever reason.

Gene (01:45:07):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It could be.
So what, what do you thinkWindows 12 will be?
The one people adopt

Ryan (01:45:14):
don't know.
Well, first of all, I have noidea what Microsoft's gonna call
it.
For all I know it's gonna beWindows 11.3 for work groups or
something.
But

Gene (01:45:22):
I think they've given up on work groups, but what, so
what else, what else is kindahitting your bandwidth here as
far as techy shit?
Because most of my

Ryan (01:45:30):
most of the

Gene (01:45:31):
is around video

Ryan (01:45:33):
most of the things that, that really get me ranty, I
either, I bring up on one of mytwo shows, the, angry Tech News
is the one for very, verytechnological stuff that, that
has problem, like, like slippinginto this

Gene (01:45:46):
so pretend there's somebody listening to this.
That's never heard of that show.
Give us

Ryan (01:45:52):
Vulnerabilities personal security.
I harp on that a lot.
I always try to, almost everyepisode I try to bring a story
about some kind of data breach.
The reason that I do that is notbecause I think that any
particular data breach is

Gene (01:46:06):
so everybody ought to be running Nord VPN is what you're
telling people.

Ryan (01:46:10):
That would be one way to help protect you, but at a very
minimum,

Gene (01:46:15):
know, they're one of the biggest honey pots out there.

Ryan (01:46:17):
Okay.
This sounds like a discussion to

Gene (01:46:20):
run out of Estonia.
Well, I'm just saying they'rerun out of Estonia.
I wouldn't trust

Ryan (01:46:23):
I genuinely don't know I, Darren is definitely the VPN
person, but there are somereally simple things that you
can do.
For example the number ofpeople, I think that the last
analysis I saw was somethinglike 65% of people still use the
same password on multiple sites.

Gene (01:46:41):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:46:43):
Use, use a different password, use strong passwords.
Use a, the human brain is, hasdifficulty comprehending what a
lot of people consider a strongpassword.
Now that can be combatedsignificantly by using past
phrases instead of randomcharacters.
Random characters are easy forcomputers to learn and know and
guess, but hard for humans tocomprehend.

(01:47:06):
If you use a phrase like,quantum ducks, boobys drug, then
humans can understand, can, cancomprehend phrases.
So that is a great way to do it,that that really increases the
password length, the full words,whatever it, but probably the
best thing you can do as apassword manager because,

Gene (01:47:27):
I, I have a slightly different take on this.
I don't think there's anythingwrong with using the same
password on every website.
The issue is don't use the sameemail address on every website.
If every website that you logon, that you have a log into has
the same password, but adifferent email address, there
is no way to build

Ryan (01:47:47):
how are you varying the email addresses?

Gene (01:47:50):
I generally will incorporate the name of the
website into the email address

Ryan (01:47:53):
Do you run your own server?

Gene (01:47:55):
for email.
No, I use Proton.

Ryan (01:47:57):
okay.
And you, you create a newaccount for each one.
Is that

Gene (01:48:03):
It's just an alias.
I mean, they all come to thesame box.

Ryan (01:48:06):
Well, the reason I ask is that there's the, the stock
gmail trick that like if yourname is, is gene gmail.com, and
then you could say Gene plusamazon gmail.com, gene plus
PornHub email.com or Gmail,whatever.
And you can do that and it getsyou a lot.
But there are certainly peopleanalyzing that.

(01:48:27):
So here's the vulnerability.
I've never, I've never reallyencountered changing up emails
as, as a means of changing yourcredentials.
They do.
It does help and, and usingdifferent credentials per site
is good.
I would still recommenddifferent passwords as well,
because the email is in plaintext and is not a particularly
powerful security measure.

(01:48:49):
It's just a security throughobscurity, which those are
really great until it catches.
Once people realize, hey, thisperson is using, gene, PornHub
gene, no agenda, whatever, thenthey start to, I mean, it's easy
enough for somebody to throw an

Gene (01:49:06):
you don't want to use Gene PornHub.
You just wanna use PornHub.

Ryan (01:49:10):
Maybe, I, I actually use my own domain for a lot of
things,

Gene (01:49:14):
If you Yeah, exactly.
Well, you should be using yourown domain.

Ryan (01:49:18):
well, yes.
But that makes it really easy toanalyze and, and compare
somebody's like,

Gene (01:49:22):
Well, but, but what you're getting at is somebody would
have to look at a list of thepasswords and then order the
breakdown in their list of buythe same password, and then come
up with a, an algorithm thatsays, well, all of these same
passwords seem to be coming fromthe same domain.

Ryan (01:49:46):
so

Gene (01:49:47):
And then that probably means something subversive it,
the way these algorithms simplywork, and I mean, I'm sure
you've been on there if you geton the dark that you can

Ryan (01:49:55):
I've written these

Gene (01:49:56):
of passwords.
Yeah.
And so what you're looking foris you're looking for a bunch of
emails that match, and then thepasswords.
And if those passwords are thesame, then bingo.
Now you can use that as a veryeasy to query way to get into
people's

Ryan (01:50:15):
the, the vulnerability, the vulnerability we are
concerned about here is databreaches.
If a company loses theirpassword database, now

Gene (01:50:25):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:50:26):
if the company has an IT person that is worth their job
at all, then the passwords arehashed.
And even better if they'resalted.
But that's not nearly commonenough.
know, The, the people who runthe fuck away from, by the way,
this is just a, a real quick.
Is any site that, well, okay,any site that has, for example,

(01:50:52):
a maximum password length, ifthey have a maximum password
length, then the most commonreason for that is because
they're not storing yourpassword hashed, they're storing
the password and that's themaximum length of the sequel

Gene (01:51:06):
Well, and I'll, I'll give you another reason, is because
some security professional toldthem that if you don't put a
maximum length in, you'reprobably more likely to have a
SQL injection attack happening.

Ryan (01:51:17):
Well, obviously you sanitize your shit or just feed
it into your hash algorithm cuzyou,

Gene (01:51:22):
Things that you say

Ryan (01:51:23):
hash algorithm isn't implemented in sql The only
thing, the only thing thatsomebody should be doing with a
password is hashing it period.

Gene (01:51:31):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (01:51:32):
that.
You, you get a password field,the only thing you should do is
hash it.
So if I want to put in a 40character password and somebody
says, oh sorry, your password'stoo long, then you're right.
There are other possibleexplanations, but the most
common explanation for that isthat you are trying to store
that password somewhere.

(01:51:53):
And so the vulnerability isthat, the question is never, if
somebody gets their databaseexfiltrated, it's when and when
they store the full credentials,name and password, then those
credentials are now out on thedark web.
But even if they store just ahash, then what you have is

(01:52:14):
usually your, your id, which isgenerally an email address and
either a password or a hashpassword.
And somebody will go out on thedark web and buy up a database
of a hundred thousand of these,which is usually, somebody's,

Gene (01:52:26):
pretty

Ryan (01:52:27):
somebody's password database comes out, they're
like, I'll take a hundredthousand for 20 bucks on the
dark web, whatever.
No, it's more like, more like,5,000 satoshis, whatever.
It's.
Once they have that, they willgo ahead and feed it to their
bot, which will go to the loginpage for every site, usually
whatever site they really wantto get into.
And they will replay the nameand password from that entire

(01:52:49):
breach.
Why?
Because if you use the samepassword somewhere, it'll let
you in and

Gene (01:52:56):
Yep.

Ryan (01:52:57):
changing up either the name or the password defeats
that attack, but it's easyenough to change the algorithm a
little bit to do some analysis,throw some AI at it, the insert
ad for, for CSBs account or AIshow here to it's

Gene (01:53:14):
oh, hell no, no.
Advertising and ad free networkhere.

Ryan (01:53:18):
Mine too, which is why CSB doesn't talk to me anymore.
But you, you, it's easy enoughto switch up the algorithm to
analyze email addresses and lookfor common domains, common
names, whatever.
Now, you, you might be able todefeat this by having completely
random email addresses and thesame password everywhere, but
how is that easier to use thanhaving different password?

Gene (01:53:42):
Well, I, I think it is better because the most common
and the most simple, which iswhy it's the most common way, is
to sort by email address.
So what's, what you're gonna buyor sell on the dark web is a, an
already been presorted by toolsand it's presorted by like,

(01:54:04):
here's a list of 24 logins forthis person.
They don't care if it's the samepassword or different passwords.
Here's what we have availablethrough all the different
breaches that have happened.
With the, the email address, csbcsb.com, like here's the, the 15
different breach related recordsthat have come through.

(01:54:25):
So for each of these sites, oddsare that he simply changed his
password to one of that he usedon one of the other sites.
So try logging into each onewith all the variants of
passwords that we know he usedon other

Ryan (01:54:39):
And that works if the,

Gene (01:54:40):
odds are pretty damn good.
You're gonna get

Ryan (01:54:42):
works.
If the passwords are in plaintext or, and there's a pattern
to them, the easiest pattern isthe same password everywhere.
The second easiest password is aknown prefix followed by the
name of the site, which by theway, increases your security
about a hundred fold, just doingthat.
But if the passwords are inplain text, that's easy enough
to defeat.

(01:55:03):
If the passwords are hashed, itdoesn't matter.
Changing one character, you'vegot a completely different hash.

Gene (01:55:09):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But also if you're usingdifferent emails for these
websites, then there is no listto build unless somebody decides
to specifically look forsomebody doing what I'm
describing.
And there's just way too fewpeople doing it this way for any

(01:55:29):
automated tools to bother,because what do you, do you
really wanna have just everybodyat aol?
Oh, I'll bet you it's the sameperson.
No, it, there's a whole bunch of

Ryan (01:55:40):
I, I guess when I say, when I say it's security through
obscurity, what I mean is, couldthis be, if, if somebody
specifically wants to hack youor me, could they tweak their
algorithm such that yoursecurity could be defeated
simply by listening to thispodcast?
We're recording right now.
Okay.

(01:56:00):
Then that, okay, I will giveyou, using a different email on
every site has a lot ofbenefits.
You, among other things, if youget spam email, then you know
exactly who sold

Gene (01:56:14):
You, you, what you just described is, the original
reason I started doing thisbefore I realized it's actually
better for security as well, isto identify

Ryan (01:56:24):
you're only going to change one, I will still
recommend you change thepassword.
However, if you really want thebest, then change.
Have a different, differentemail and different password for
each one.
And again, it's, one I, I

Gene (01:56:38):
So here, here's the problem with different passwords
in my opinion is you run into anissue of people's memory
capacity.
And so the solution that mostpeople end up using is to trust
the third party software tomanage their passwords.
And I trust that a lot less thanI do my brain

Ryan (01:56:55):
I, you're the only one who trusts your brain.

Gene (01:56:59):
Well, I totally trust

Ryan (01:57:00):
Now the

Gene (01:57:00):
My brain is set up in a way that if my brain stops
working, then there are certaintriggers that go into effect
that have indicated that my lifehas ended.

Ryan (01:57:09):
There are ano a lot of different password managers out
there right now.
The, the bulk of them areimplemented aiming for
convenience, which is, I mean,honestly, if you install a
password manager, it's becauseyou want the convenience of not
having to memorize all of them.
But a lot of them will aim forand, and build their system

(01:57:30):
around the idea that you wantaccess to it from multiple
devices.
And so when you want access frommultiple devices, multiple
places, what does every SiliconValley company do?
Oh, we'll store this in thecloud.
That is a big, that is a redflag to me.
I am not, I, I, Amazon, I did astory on the latest Angry Tech

(01:57:51):
news about the number of appswhich are putting their Amazon
AWS credentials hardcoded intothe app.

Gene (01:57:59):
Yep.

Ryan (01:57:59):
But I am highly skeptical of anybody who decides to store
your password database in thecloud.
Now, the responsible ones willencrypt that database locally
where the only decryption key isyour master password and then
store the encrypted database.
And now without your masterpassword, they can't do anything

(01:58:22):
with that.
That's not bad.
That, I mean, it's a, your levelof security is always about
where is your trade off between

Gene (01:58:30):
So what you're saying is when Google's web browser, when
whatcha you gonna call it?
Chrome?
Asks you, would you like me tosave this password?
You should say No,

Ryan (01:58:39):
no, no.
The,

Gene (01:58:40):
because it, it's gonna, for your convenience, it's gonna
save it with Google so that anyother device that you're running
on, that you log in through thataccount, it'll say, oh, well, I
already know what your passwordis.
Would you like to use yourpre-recorded

Ryan (01:58:52):
If you use Firefox to a lesser extent, but if you use
the password management featurein your browser, you're
basically asking your passwordsto be taken away.
Now, the password manager that Iuse is one called KeyPass.
And it the, the reason for usingthat one is extremely simple.
It's the best one that I foundwherein the password database is

(01:59:15):
kept in storage that I own.
I, I use I use the sync programto sync my password database
between this computer my cloudserver that I control, it's
co-located and my laptop andwherever else I wanna be.
And, and it's in Crypteddatabase.
I think that that is, there are,there are ways that you could

(01:59:36):
attack that, but I think that's

Gene (01:59:38):
how many people go to that effort to, realistically,

Ryan (01:59:41):
many.
Not many, well, not many peoplehave

Gene (01:59:44):
Most people are buying some off the shelf product and
just going, okay, so it costs me

Ryan (01:59:49):
Okay.
How many people though, honestlyhave more than one device on
which they intend to use allthese systems?
It

Gene (01:59:59):
But most people have at least two.
You got your phone and you gotyour laptop

Ryan (02:00:03):
into your bank from both?

Gene (02:00:04):
something.
Yes, yes.
I'm not a good example cuz Ihave 20 devices that I might log

Ryan (02:00:08):
I, I, the vast majority of places that I have passwords in
my database for I log in fromonly one place.
And that's right here.

Gene (02:00:17):
Yeah.
Well we, we discovered that yourphone is actually turned off
today much like John

Ryan (02:00:21):
Yeah.
Yes.
It,

Gene (02:00:22):
clearly you're not using your

Ryan (02:00:24):
phone has about five times more usability in its current
state shut off in the drawerthan when it's annoying the piss
out of me because podcasterscan't remember what time they
wanted to record a podcast.

Gene (02:00:36):
I don't know any podcasters that don't remember
things at all.
But but I, I think, and I, ifyou don't wanna use your phone,
that's fine, but, but I alsodon't think that that's typical.
I think most people do use, Imean, honestly, they probably
use their, their phone, theirpersonal

Ryan (02:00:52):
most people also log into a site

Gene (02:00:54):
a work

Ryan (02:00:55):
and say, set a forever cookie that keeps me logged in.
And then, and then a, forget thepassword.

Gene (02:01:02):
Well, that happens to, I mean, it's, it's, I guess what's
one strategy that I've, I don'tlike this strategy.
It's not like I'm recommendingit, but I've seen it used, which
is to put in a completely randomgal password that you have no
intention of remembering andsimply rely on the password
reset mechanism as your entrypoint into

Ryan (02:01:22):
now your security is your log into your email and you're
back to using one password foreverything

Gene (02:01:29):
Correct.
Yes.

Ryan (02:01:30):
which admittedly,

Gene (02:01:31):
should be different for every

Ryan (02:01:33):
that every service

Gene (02:01:34):
you listen to

Ryan (02:01:34):
given that every service has the password recovery,
you're kind of relying on thatanyway.
That is the weak point.
If you lose your email, thenyou've lost most of the services
anyway.

Gene (02:01:44):
yeah.
Except for Bitcoin wallets,which tend to not want to give
you your

Ryan (02:01:48):
Bitcoin wallets are, are kind of unique in that if, they,
they would rather, they wouldrather have all of your funds be
permanently locked away and lostforever

Gene (02:01:58):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (02:01:59):
than give it to somebody else.

Gene (02:02:01):
Right.

Ryan (02:02:02):
So,

Gene (02:02:03):
That because there's a fixed number, limited

Ryan (02:02:06):
what other tech topics?
I could go on and on and

Gene (02:02:09):
Well, I mean, that was a good example.
I just wanna make sure thatpeople have a, if they're not
listening to your show, thatthey have a good idea

Ryan (02:02:15):
Okay.
what else do I go on about?
I, I have a, a particular carabout a Dr.
A self-driving and electriccars.

Gene (02:02:23):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (02:02:23):
I,

Gene (02:02:24):
your for or against

Ryan (02:02:25):
I drive a Buick from 2000.
That came with a system calledOnStar that I disconnected
within the first two weeks.
And otherwise it is a, a carthat is made of metal.
It uses an internal combustionengine.
The only computers in it controlthe timing of the, the pistons

(02:02:46):
or piston.
No fuel injected.
Yes.
No, its pistons.
I not a car person.
I don't, I have a lot of issueswith modern cars and, and let's,
let's put aside the, the two bigones, which is self-driving and,
and electric.
And start with the idea thatcars are going onto these
smartphone model or the Xboxmodel and getting automatic

(02:03:07):
updates.

Gene (02:03:09):
Oh, it's beyond that.
They're not only gettingautomatic updates.
If you look at the newMercedes-Benz their features are
activated at any time.
As soon as you start paying amonthly subscription fee,

Ryan (02:03:21):
yeah.
See

Gene (02:03:22):
this is really pissed off a lot of car heads where you can
get a car from Mercedes where itwill be limited in its
horsepower unless you wannaunlock the high performance
mode, which is 50 bucks a monthforever.
In which case they send a littlemessage to your car that says,
go ahead and unlock that.
And your car, which is alreadythere physically now, is allowed

(02:03:44):
to utilize its high performancemode.

Ryan (02:03:47):
And if that is an argument to not get a Mercedes for me, I,

Gene (02:03:53):
If they're doing it, everybody else is gonna start
doing it.

Ryan (02:03:56):
when I finally get a car that has that capability, it
will be because I've figured outhow to hack it.
And this, this goes back tosomething that I decided a
really long time ago with mostof my software and, and it's.
This has been a, a trope andopen source for a very long
time.
And that is if I do not have theability to modify the software

(02:04:20):
in something, then it's not mydevice.
And I, I hate that cars aregoing that way, but I'm not
going to own a car that doesn'thave software.
I can modify.
And, and if that means, that I,I can never take a car that has
auto updates.
I, at some point when the last1972 gas guzzler has finally
given up the ghost, I'm gonnahave to come up with a new way

(02:04:42):
to get around.
But I don't trust Silicon Valleywith my software.
There, there are just too manyexamples of where, and I I use
Silicon Valley.
It doesn't have to be thatregion,

Gene (02:04:57):
right?
I

Ryan (02:04:58):
it's a catch all term for big technology companies who
behave in such a way that theuser is a surf who will just
take what you ha have andanyway, so

Gene (02:05:12):
Yeah.
Well, it's the, it's thePhotoshop model where they went
from selling an expensiveproduct that you own to leasing
you a less expensive product,which over the course of three
years ends up being moreexpensive when than what you

Ryan (02:05:25):
yeah, un unless you find a way to hack it.
So I am against cars that havesoftware that you don't get to
control.
And I know, all of theseopinions are, are against the,
the mainstream, against thewidespread opinion against what
Silicon Valley wants.
And also, they've got a lot oflawyers making sure that patent
law holds up behind them, orcopyright law, the John Deere

(02:05:48):
tractors, where farmers are notcapable of fixing their own
things because it's protected bycopyright.
That is fucked up.
I definitely approve of Right torepair.
And, and I feel that Right ToRepair is a, an extension of the
first sale doctrine, which is,you sold the fucking thing to

(02:06:08):
me.
Now it's mine.
I get to do what I want with it.

Gene (02:06:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and I think thateventually what that'll do is
either the farmers will votewith their pocket books and say,
we've always bled green, but nowwe're gonna glean red, or it's
going to result in John Deerejust saying, we're no longer
selling any tractors.
We're only leasing tractors,

Ryan (02:06:32):
And there are gonna be a lot of people that go both ways.
This is why competition isfantastic, which is why we
always need competition.
Every time that you have one ofthese technologies taking off,
like John Deere, like Apple,it's always in a place where
people can't just leave theplatform because they're locked

(02:06:53):
in one way or another.
And that lock in is theantithesis of capitalism.

Gene (02:06:57):
Yeah.
And you're quite right incalling it a surf mentality
because that is literally whathappened in Sedo in, in prior
times, is that the landlordsheld the land.
That's what they were, the lordsof the land.
And then the surfs would leasethe land from the landlord and

(02:07:18):
as part of that lease agreement,provide the landlord with their
first crops, their first wives,their first whatever.
So effectively they got what wasleft over.

Ryan (02:07:28):
Yula

Gene (02:07:29):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
End user license agreement,correct.
Yeah.
That, that was definitelycreated by the the Lords for the
surfs.
And We're getting, well, we're,I think we're getting back to
that because a lot of companiesare finding that as similar, and
I've half jokingly, but half notjokingly have made this argument
over the last five years that weare really getting back into a

(02:07:52):
sort of a tech surf them.

Ryan (02:07:53):
It's the industrial Revolution all over again.
It's company towns.
It's, it's, if you wanna work inthis town, you've gotta work for
the mine, and then you'll be indebt for every day of your life
to the company store.
I mean, we've got that, but nowthey're all, now it's a virtual
mine and a virtual companystore, and we're all tethered to
the little device in ourpockets.

Gene (02:08:13):
Well, and then when I, when I went to visit friends at
Facebook here in Austin andother companies are very
similar.
It is absolutely the companystore and the company dining
room and the company sleeping.
Pods and the company, like younever have to leave.
Not that they expect a whole lotof work out of you, but what
they do expect is a completegiving over of your free will to

(02:08:37):
the

Ryan (02:08:37):
because there are plenty of statistics that say if you
don't have to leave, if, if youdon't have to commute, if you
don't, especially when youprefer hire people with no
family, no ties, no, no outside.
It, again, one of those manyhiring practices that can never

(02:08:58):
be proven but is widely aware,kind of right next to age
discrimination is in thetechnological sphere.
The preferential hiring ofpeople who are single.
The preferential hiring whereyou, you discriminate against
anybody who has a family.
You discriminate against anyonewho has kids.
For a while, early on until, atleast until my state had banned

(02:09:20):
the, the asking the question, alot of people would ask women do
you intend to ever have kids?
Which is a big flag that says,oh, there's gonna be something
more important than thisperson's life, than the fa, than
the company.

Gene (02:09:35):
Yeah.
But you can't blame the businessfor doing that because obviously
the whole point is to be morecompetitive than the people
you're competing against.
And why would you hire somebodythat's gonna disappear for nine
months out of the year?

Ryan (02:09:47):
I can blame the business for it.
I can blame anybody for anythingI want.

Gene (02:09:52):
Well,

Ryan (02:09:52):
think It's a scummy

Gene (02:09:53):
just an irrational argument.

Ryan (02:09:55):
I, I, I think it's a really crappy scummy practice.
I, I am not gonna back down fromthat.
Now, do I think that thereshould be that, that the
government should step in withfines and ultimately, backed up
by people with guns to force thecompany to change what they do?
That is another discussionentirely.
But is, are the people whodecide that they want to favor

(02:10:21):
only?

Gene (02:10:21):
I don't think it's a people deciding, I think it's a
consumer deciding.
You have two ID identicalcompanies that are making
competitive products.
One of them has leave for theiremployees.
And during the times that theiremployees are gone to rear kids
or whatever they're going to be,that company's gonna have less
productivity because they'rehave to either work with fewer

(02:10:43):
employees or they have temporaryemployees that don't know the
business as well.
Whereas the other company thatisn't doing that is able to run
more efficiently.
And generally that translatesinto them being able to undercut
the price of the other business.
And the consumers are ultimatelythe ones that will pick, and
they always pick the companythat is able to provide an

(02:11:05):
identical product for a cheaperprice.
Just look at.

Ryan (02:11:08):
You're making a, a competition argument, and I
respect that, but you're onlymaking the argument from one
side because there's anothermarket that is really important
here.
To consider, which is the, themarket of employment of jobs.
Ultimately, you're, you'relooking at this from the buyer's
side, the company who ispurchasing the services of an

(02:11:29):
employee and on the, if, ifwhat, what you're arguing is
that the company that abusestheir employees and ruins their
work life balance is going tosucceed.
And to an extent, there isdefinitely pressure in that
direction.
But also if, if

Gene (02:11:47):
I mean, Amazon is the case study

Ryan (02:11:49):
the, you, you also start,

Gene (02:11:50):
his company

Ryan (02:11:51):
you also started that with an assumption, I'm not sure I
always agree on which is thatyou, you said that in, in two
identical companies who arecompeting against each other,
and that is, that is one thingthat Silicon Valley will not
abide.
So I, I, I

Gene (02:12:07):
doesn't have to be.
It's, it's two identicalcompanies to make the argument

Ryan (02:12:11):
yeah, I understand it was, it.
was a hypothetical situation.
I'm just saying that competitionis

Gene (02:12:15):
Amazon is the real world case study for this because, and
I think they are not doing thisas much today.
I have friends at Amazon.
And certainly it sounds like thecurrent environment is a lot
closer to other big companieslike Google.
But the way that Amazon builtitself in the first decade of
its life was absolutely byhiring people that would work

(02:12:39):
harder.
What Ian Musk just did atTwitter and what he has done at
his previous companies, it says,for us to be able to survive and
flourish, everybody's gonna needto stay at work for 60 hours a
week moving forward.
If you can't do that,

Ryan (02:12:55):
And, and

Gene (02:12:56):
that's okay.
I'm not gonna hold it againstyou.
You just need to leave thiscompany and find work

Ryan (02:13:00):
my, my argument is that, that that position on the part
of a company.
Beneficial in competition toother companies for the
products, but is only feasibleso long as there are people
willing to accept those terms.
And if you have your, yourcompetitor, not your competitor

(02:13:21):
in, in the goods market, butyour competitor in the job
market across town who says,we're going to give you higher
benefits and we're not going to,we're only going to demand 45
hours a week.
And we also are, closer to whereyou live and have free daycare.
There are going to be placeswhere people are like, fuck this

(02:13:44):
job that requires me to do 60hours.
And if enough people are like,if, if enough people say, yeah,
I totally want that job, then,then the company that demands it
is going to be doing very well

Gene (02:13:58):
Yeah.
And, and what Amazon did in thatscenario is something very,

Ryan (02:14:03):
a monopoly and put all of their competition out of
business.

Gene (02:14:06):
Well, that's, that's the other smart thing they did.
And I, by the way, I don't likeAmazon, but I can recognize the
successful steps they've takento become what they are right
now.
As much as we can dislike whatthey are.
They were successful as gettingthere.
What they've done is veryinteresting, which is they first
capped all salaries at, I thinkit, initially it was 125,000 a

(02:14:27):
year and then it was 150,000 ayear.
But essentially everybody,regardless of your level, made
less than that.
Nobody in the company made anymore than that.
So how do you get people to workharder, especially people that
are at higher levels withintheir careers that have more
experienced and would commend ahigher salary elsewhere, is you
make up the difference withstock and by granting them stock

(02:14:52):
instead of simply a higher wage.
You're more closely tying themto the company's welfare, the
ability of the company toflourish is so directly related
to these people doing a betterjob than their

Ryan (02:15:07):
just another form of lock in, but this one is, is

Gene (02:15:10):
Of course, of course.
I'm not arguing that it's not

Ryan (02:15:14):
you know, whether you get a high salary or, or more stock
options or better benefitspackage or, or free food in the
cafeteria is all just the valueproposition.
And somebody who is analyzingrationally will weigh them all

Gene (02:15:29):
absolutely.
And,

Ryan (02:15:29):
that, that the

Gene (02:15:30):
you're kind of making my point for me, which is what I
was saying initially, is thatthe reason that these companies
are acting like the companystore, that they're, they want
people to stick around and,sleep at work, and eat at work,
and do everything else at work,is because they, they know the
outcome of having peopleavailable 24 7 on their job,
even if it's not actuallyutilized 24 7.

(02:15:52):
But just that availability givesthem a competitive advantage
that competitors who don't dothis just don't have, dystopian
future is built because ultimateefficiency in business results
in dystopia.
You can't have one without theother.
If you take the best casescenario for every decision in

(02:16:14):
business, you end up with

Ryan (02:16:16):
well under, under the monopolistic model.
I agree with that.
In, in theory the, theassumption, and I'm not certain
this is true, but the assumptionunderlying capitalism being
functional is that there isalways somebody else willing to
enter the market and, and comeup with their idea.
And in just about every casethat there is a legitimate

(02:16:40):
failure of capitalism and not,not like the, know, what the,
the Reddit anti capitalistpeople will shout about, which
is generally an intentionalresult of crony capitalism.
But every legitimate failure ofcapitalism comes from a lack of
competition.
Whether that lack of competitionwas caused by some kind of
natural market forces, which isuncommon, but does happen.

(02:17:04):
Or more often it's caused by oneof the larger companies.
One of the larger existing firmsis locking out all new
competition.
The most common method that theyuse to lock it out is government
regulation

Gene (02:17:18):
Yep.
Yeah, I don't, I don't disagreewith any of that.
I think that it's unfortunatethat governments are so easily
manipulated by companies, butagain, it is completely
understandable why a companywould commit money into getting
government to help them.
Like, that's obvious.

(02:17:40):
Of course you would do that.
If, if it's legal, why wouldn'tyou do it?

Ryan (02:17:43):
the argument you've just made is not that, and I'm, I'm,
I'm attacking a strawman herebecause you have not made the
argument I'm about to approach,but a lot of people will say,
well, we need to restrict thecompanies even further because
they're using government to doawful things.
That's not the solution.
For one thing, you're, you'retrying to fight too much
government with more government,but also because you cannot

(02:18:07):
temper human greed.
And if you could, you wouldultimately destroy humanity,
which is what you see in saysocialist societies.
The solution though,

Gene (02:18:19):
Well, I, I, I would say you're shifting greed, not
tempering in a social society.
There's always somebody greedagainst, usually people in

Ryan (02:18:25):
well, you, because, because your, your socialist
utopia cannot come withoutcorruption because you've added
humans and humans fuck up everyutopia.
But the solution to, oh, look,people are using government to
hurt other people is not addmore government to make them
stop the solution is how aboutwe reduce the amount of

(02:18:46):
government that people have towield?
And nobody gets

Gene (02:18:50):
yep.
Yeah, very few people.
I, I totally agree with you onthat.
And it's, it is, the, thelogical course of action in that

Ryan (02:18:58):
which is, why nobody gets it.

Gene (02:18:59):
absolutely right, because it's logical.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it unfortunately, this isa topic that I think starts to r
a lot of people up becauseeverybody thinks they're
logical.
Everybody thinks that all thedecisions they're making.
Well, if somebody doesn't thinkthey probably are more logical
than most people,

Ryan (02:19:19):
most people lead with the

Gene (02:19:21):
people who are not logical absolutely think that everything
they're doing is rational and,and based in

Ryan (02:19:27):
people lead with their amygdala and follow it up with
the hypothalamus, and then thehippocampus never really gets
involved.

Gene (02:19:33):
Well, by that point, what's the, what's the point?

Ryan (02:19:36):
So, yeah.

Gene (02:19:37):
Decisions been made emotionally

Ryan (02:19:38):
I do a tech show.
There's lots of themes that I, Iharp on let's see

Gene (02:19:42):
and where can people catch

Ryan (02:19:43):
tech

Gene (02:19:44):
your show?

Ryan (02:19:44):
and that

Gene (02:19:45):
And then there's links to the

Ryan (02:19:47):
there is it, if you, the, I have, I have both the real
equal alternate, which is notgonna make sense to people who
aren't technical, but it meansthat your device can find an RSS
feed automatically.
And if you can't, there's abutton that says Subscribe to
rss.
And if you wanna play it off thewebsite, no worries there.
My

Gene (02:20:05):
and if they nice.
And if they want to just usetheir phone like most people and
add it to their podcast orthingy.

Ryan (02:20:12):
you have a podcast app that knows how to speak rss, it
works.
If you have a new

Gene (02:20:17):
I mean, you're listed in,

Ryan (02:20:18):
that knows how to send money Satoshis to rss, that
works too.

Gene (02:20:23):
That's even better.
But you're, you're listed in allthe directories

Ryan (02:20:25):
I am listed in, I am listed in Podcast Index.
I have never taken out time tosubmit myself to any other
directories.
Now which means I'm not gonna bein Spotify, and I don't think
I'm in Apple.
I believe Google

Gene (02:20:38):
Yeah.
Fuck Spotify.

Ryan (02:20:40):
Well, fuck Apple too.
I do believe Google Podcasts hasbeen incorporating RSS feeds
from Podcast Index.
So they, I think I'm in that

Gene (02:20:48):
Yeah.
I think they're stealing feedsleft right.

Ryan (02:20:49):
But I have never personally submitted my feed to
Apple because I refuse to evencreate an account with Apple.
I refuse to

Gene (02:20:59):
Oh

Ryan (02:20:59):
with Apple in any, any personal way.
So,

Gene (02:21:03):
You and Aon Musk.
I swear to

Ryan (02:21:05):
Apple and fuck their antiquated directory that needs
to go away.
The podcast Index is superior inpretty much every way and also

Gene (02:21:14):
It would be nice if they just adopted it, but obviously
they're not going to.

Ryan (02:21:18):
if your app is worth having on your phone then it
speaks rss.
And if you go to angry technews.com with your phone and
click on the RSS feed, yourphone will know what to do with
it.
And if your app doesn't knowwhat to do with that or insists
on going to some otherdirectory, then uninstall that
bitch and go to nude podcastapps.com to install something

(02:21:38):
real.

Gene (02:21:39):
Yeah.
And since you're listed onthere, any of the dozen plus
podcasting apps that talk toPodcasting 2.0 and Podcast Index
will, you'll

Ryan (02:21:49):
Oh.

Gene (02:21:50):
to find the podcast

Ryan (02:21:51):
If you look up my name, if you look up my name, Ryan
Bemrose, or you look up AngryTech News, you will find it.
I had, I had one other topicthat I wanted to rant about,

Gene (02:22:00):
sure.
Go for it.

Ryan (02:22:00):
it has to do with the donations to podcasts.
And actually, I have no need totalk about it, so maybe I
shouldn't.
But what is your position onadvertising in podcasts?

Gene (02:22:12):
Okay.
So, I don't know that I have atypical position on this.
I think that from a listenerperspective, I enjoy consuming
content with no advertising,

Ryan (02:22:24):
so you're, you're just

Gene (02:22:25):
will do what I, well, I will do what I can to get around
it.
Like, I pay you, I pay YouTube13 bucks a month to never see an
ad.
Most people

Ryan (02:22:34):
an ad blocker to

Gene (02:22:35):
They'll take the ads, which doesn't always work, and I
don't want to have that one in ahundred chance that it's

Ryan (02:22:40):
I also don't visit YouTube so that I don't see an ad.

Gene (02:22:44):
there you go.
There you go.
So I ensure that doesn't happen.
I typical will fast forwardthrough sections of advertising
on podcasts or other things thatI didn't like.
I can't get rid of ads any otherway, so I will skip them.
The, the one oh yeah.
Including host reads.
With the one exception probablybeing no agenda is simply
because.
The bickering and conversationthat goes on during the donation

(02:23:07):
segments quite often ishilarious.

Ryan (02:23:09):
no.
Agenda is unique on.

Gene (02:23:11):
they're rare.
I don't think they're unique,but I think they're pretty damn
rare.
There are a few people that doin video ads, like, I don't know
if you've seen this, but onesmart thing that nor VPN's
current ad agency did is theychallenged the people that are
signed up to be Nord vpn Shils.

(02:23:33):
They, they said, don't just readour copy.
We're gonna have a contest withsubstantial dollars behind it
for the most creative Nord VPNad that you make yourself.
And so what you've seen almostovernight over the last month is
everybody doing really moreinteresting, more creative ads

(02:23:55):
for the same company thatthey've always had ads for, but
instead of reading identicaltext, they're doing it the old
school 1930s radio style, whichis where the host actually has
to come up with something wittyand interesting to incorporate
the product

Ryan (02:24:12):
But most podcast

Gene (02:24:13):
which is

Ryan (02:24:14):
hosts aren't witty

Gene (02:24:16):
Well true story.
But nonetheless, I think stufflike that I'm okay with.
But in general, I mean, if wecould have a system where, and
by the way, I think Elon Muskmay end up creating this and
like in a way that it getsadopted fast.
Adam's creation of podcasting2.0 I think is great.
I think that he's ahead of thecurve as he's been for most of

(02:24:37):
his life and a lot of things.
And I, I love the adoption thathas happened with a lot of these
podcast apps that allows the useof sending of Bitcoin via
Satoshi.
Directly and in real time.
That is awesome.
It'd be great if the big playersadopted that as well.
They're not gonna do that unlessthey can stick their fingers in

(02:24:58):
the middle of it and get atleast 30% share.
That's what Apple charges formost things is 30%, which is by
the way, better than what likeAmazon charges for Twitch, which
is they get 40% of anything thatyou delete.

Ryan (02:25:13):
thing is, is one of the first reasons why I will not
touch anything Apple.

Gene (02:25:17):
Yeah.
So Apple gets their chunk.
Elon Musk is on a kind of a, abit of a rant lately saying,
this is ridiculous.
10% might be fair, but there'sno way 30% is fair.
We need to make sure the peoplecreating the content are the
ones getting the money, notthese networks.

Ryan (02:25:33):
And and how

Gene (02:25:34):
he's sort of hinted at

Ryan (02:25:36):
creating the content and the people consuming it, being
the ones to decide what's fair?

Gene (02:25:40):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you wanna adjust theslider as to where that split
is, but I, I've made thatargument for Podcasting 2.0
right on.
In the early days, like in, oncethat thing was created within a
few months by Dave Jones, Isaid, I don't like this idea of
like the breakdown ofpercentages being set by the

(02:26:00):
either podcaster or the app.

Ryan (02:26:02):
I, I

Gene (02:26:03):
Because the way it was set up originally is, it's like,
well the podcaster sets it for10, I dunno, 10 to Toshi per
minute or whatever, and theywant half to go to the podcast
or 10% to go to the guy doingsomething, the artwork, and then
10% to this person.
And then that a hundred percentblock goes to the app and then

(02:26:26):
the app says, and we want a 10%or 15 or 20% override.

Ryan (02:26:30):
Yeah,

Gene (02:26:30):
So they'll take the first 10 or 15 or 20% as the app
creator, then the, they'll sendthe rest, and then the rest is
divided up according to thepodcaster.
I think the whole thing ought tobe decided by

Ryan (02:26:42):
well, I, I do too.
But how will the listenerdecide?
I, the, the app is, Mechanism bywhich the listener interacts
with that.
I'm not too worried about appsripping listeners off for the
simple fact that there iscompetition in the app space,
and this is good.
I will also tell you that when,when I eventually pie in the sky

(02:27:03):
write my own podcast app thelistener will be in charge
entirely.
What it, what I'll probably endup doing because, and, and I
know this is going to annoy Adamand Dave because they've very
much discussed that appsshouldn't do this, but the app
that I want, and therefore theone that I would write if I
wrote one, is

Gene (02:27:24):
If you got you

Ryan (02:27:25):
if I ever, stopped playing so many video games, is it loads
up the value block with thesplits that the podcaster
recommended and those becomedefaults and then they're
modifiable by the user.
Because,

Gene (02:27:38):
you're gonna write my app then, cuz that's

Ryan (02:27:40):
because the user is, is absolutely the one who needs to
decide where their money isgoing.
That's, that, that's the valuefor value model.
I don't, if I, if I take mypodcast and say, okay, actually
90% of it is going to Gene,actually I wouldn't do that, but
if you hacked my podcast andmade it so 90% goes to Gene, all
of the apps would be e even forthe people who hate Gene, they

(02:28:02):
would have no choice but to sendyou all the money.

Gene (02:28:05):
Yep.
Yep.
No, and I, I, I agree.
And this way you could havesomebody like a CSB donating to
a show with somebody he hates onit, and then designating all the
money to be funneled to the

Ryan (02:28:18):
is something more structural that bothers me about
the split.
And, and I know that you, youknow about this because you were
one of the first people whoreally called out the problem,
and that is it's an integer fromone to a hundred

Gene (02:28:33):
Yeah.
The rounding.
Yeah.

Ryan (02:28:35):
it, it needs at the very least to be a floating point.
Because if I want to say thisper, if I have, say a very, very
successful podcast that bringsin one Bitcoin per episode,
maybe, I don't think, maybe Iwanna toss something to the, the
guy who wrote the, the chaptersapp for my app, but maybe they

(02:28:59):
don't need 0.01 Bitcoin forevery episode

Gene (02:29:02):
Yeah.

Ryan (02:29:04):
and

Gene (02:29:05):
Well, and it's not just that, it's when you're breaking
down into small time allotments,and this is where I noticed it
is when you were doing literally10 sets per minute and, and the
donations started rounding you,you went from somebody getting
15% to then them getting 20%because it rounded up to the 2

(02:29:28):
cents from one and a half

Ryan (02:29:29):
that sounds like a problem that can be solved in an app.
If the app start, because theapp will, somebody will look at
this and go, this isn't right,and the app might start batching
so that it can reduce roundingerrors.
It's,

Gene (02:29:41):
Well, that was my proposed solution is if you start
batching, then

Ryan (02:29:44):
the, the problem that I have, that I called out is
actually a fundamental problemwith the value spec itself,
which is that field is aninteger.

Gene (02:29:52):
Right?

Ryan (02:29:53):
And, and you can't fix that if, if, again, I'm thinking
like a developer and, and I maynever write such an app, but if
I would, I always think abouthow would I design it and I can,

Gene (02:30:03):
Well, and it, it, it can still be an integer.
It just has to be an integer,not from one to a hundred in 1%
increments.
It needs to be an integer in100th of a percent.
So you've got six digits thatmake up a 100% mark.

Ryan (02:30:19):
I think it needs to be a floating point.
Because it can be, I can givesomebody, a 0.000.
I can give somebody a one100000000th share for every full
Bitcoin that is donated to mypodcast.
I will send us Satoshi to thisperson.
But they are in the split.
And that does a couple things.
One, one of the things that itdoes is it says, I, I appreciate
you, but okay, that, thatparticular number means

Gene (02:30:42):
For a millionth of my money.
I appreciate you.
Yeah.

Ryan (02:30:45):
I appreciate you, but this is such a small, it's like
giving a penny at, at yourwaitress's table or something.
But but the other thing that itopens up is the ability to have
things like Boost Spot withoutgiving them a full 1% of your
revenue.
You, you may not be familiarwith Boost Bot.
It's a thing in the troll room,which you, you claim to have
been banned from.
And I don't have any reason to

Gene (02:31:06):
I was banned in real time.
I've never been allowed back on,I know this for a fact.

Ryan (02:31:11):
But Boost Bot is an IRC bot, which is, it's very cool.
It, every time somebody boostsyour channel, it announces in
irc.
Now, if you think that'svaluable, then you put Boost Bot
in your splits.
And now the way that it knowsthis is it gets a 1% split and
it gets a, a transaction enlightning every time.
That's great.

(02:31:31):
But what if I don't want it tohave a full 1%?
What if I just want Boost Bot tobe notified and don't need to
give money?
Then I can give you, what if Isay you're in my split, I'll
give you a a1 or something.
I don't know, anyway, that

Gene (02:31:47):
Yeah, no, I, I get it.
And you want that super finelevel,

Ryan (02:31:50):
want the granularity and I don't see why it should be
restricted to an arbitraryprecision when it doesn't have
to be

Gene (02:31:57):
Yeah, fair enough.
But I, I think ultimately it'sstill gonna end up being
restricted to an arbitraryprecision.
It's just I propose that that

Ryan (02:32:04):
in the implementation.
It will always be restricted tosome precision because the
precision can't be.
But I don't see why in the specthat it

Gene (02:32:13):
Well, and, and honestly, I think part of it was when the
original conversations beforeany software was written were
happening about how this works.
Like, I don't, like, I wasn'tthere when Adam and Dave were
sitting down, but I was therehaving lunch with Adam right
after that.
And him talking about Exactly.
And I, I remember talking to himliterally after that first

(02:32:34):
meeting.
I'm like, dude, what's the deal?
I thought you were gonna inviteme to the, the planning meeting.
And he is like, we wanna justkind of hash out the, the
technical side of this, and Idon't wanna put business level
restrictions on that.
I know you're really good atGene, so you'd bring to the
table right away.
And he was probably right aboutthat.
In, in that I would've pointedout all the problems that I saw

(02:32:55):
from business standpoint and themodel, which might have
discouraged them enough to justsay, fuck it, we're not gonna do
it.
I've done that with a number ofcompanies, so I know I'm capable
of doing that.
I'm, I'm a realist, so I tend tobring up real problems to
people, and when they realizethose actually exist, they
sometimes have a change of

Ryan (02:33:12):
I'm, I'm a professional

Gene (02:33:13):
so I, I totally,

Ryan (02:33:15):
so I, I can relate.

Gene (02:33:16):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's, I think thatthere's a certain benefit and
I'm always very careful toexplain to people that, I'm, I'm
not I'm not a pessimist or acynic, I just have a capacity to
envision more possibilities thanwhat most people are capable of.
And when you see more, a lotmore of that also is negative.

(02:33:37):
I, I'm not just going to see theglass is full.
I'm gonna see the entirety ofthe

Ryan (02:33:41):
Yeah.
That, that's kind of how Ioperate too.
I, yeah, I, I spent many, manyyears as a professional software
tester.
It was literally my job to take

Gene (02:33:51):
You get that.
You gotta have

Ryan (02:33:52):
take somebody's product.

Gene (02:33:54):
and

Ryan (02:33:54):
and break it And, and what, what that really means is,
is look at the system andimagine all of the ways it can
work and which ways it can fail.
And then demon, most of my jobwas actually demonstrating to
people once I, you show me yourdesign, and I'll be like, okay,
well this is a very cool design.
And, and I, I'm, I'm not good atcommunicating.

(02:34:15):
It's actually one of my weakerpoints.
But

Gene (02:34:19):
Well, it makes sense

Ryan (02:34:20):
always thought, yeah, exactly.
People always thought, oh, he'sso negative.
Because I would look at thisdesign and I would look and I'd,
in, in a span of 60 seconds oflooking at the design or 60
minutes or whatever, I look at10,000 possibilities of how this
thing could run.
And I find 9,372 where it'sgoing to go great, and another

(02:34:42):
600 where it may or may not, butyou know, it's acceptable.
And then I find seven differentways that you can make it blow
up catastrophically.
And so I'll sit there and stareat the design, and then I'll
come back and say, okay, here'sthe seven ways that your thing
can explode horribly, and youneed to fix them.
And somebody comes back and say,oh, he hates it.

(02:35:05):
No, I don't hate it.
And in fact, the first thing Isaw was all the ways that it can
succeed, but those are boring.
And I'm pointing out ways youcan make your shit better.

Gene (02:35:14):
Yep.

Ryan (02:35:14):
think I'm negative,

Gene (02:35:15):
Yeah.
No people, people do, becausemost people just aren't capable.
Like, you don't, can't hold itagainst them.
They're not capable of seeingall the possibilities, And so
when, when you're trying tointeract with somebody who can't
see what you see,

Ryan (02:35:31):
And I understand that.
I, I absolutely, and, and by theway, the reason why I was a very
good software tester is notbecause software testing trained
me to do that kind of analysis,it's because that was how I am.
And it took really well atsoftware testing, but.

Gene (02:35:49):
Yeah.
It was a natural, natural job.
Makes

Ryan (02:35:51):
okay, if, if I am in a, a position, and, and this is, this
has been very difficult for mewhen I, I find myself nowadays,
for example, in a position oftelling people why I'm not gonna
put their podcast on the noagenda stream.
And I, I have to really forcemyself sometimes to say, to, to
remember to point out.
Cause I certainly think aboutthem, but remember to point out,

(02:36:14):
okay, this was good.
This was good.
You do this well and you dothis.
And I have to force myself tobring those out first because I
know people will not respond ifyou don't blow sunshine up their
ass in the opening statement andthen say what the reason you're
not making it is this

Gene (02:36:32):
One of my buddies described it as a shit sandwich
is you, you have to give'em likethe, the cheese and the lettuce
and the ketchup and everythingelse on top, meaning a nice warm
opening.
Then you give'em the shit in themiddle, and then you close it up
by saying, but I know this issomething you can fix, and as
soon as you do, and then we'llhave a

Ryan (02:36:52):
Which is a communication technique for fragile people who
need their, who lead with theiremotions, which I, I know I just
sounded really derisive when Isaid that because I kind of am,
but that is most people.
And so it's on me to basically,I suck at communicating like
that.
But here's the thing.

Gene (02:37:10):
Right.

Ryan (02:37:11):
I get that I have to be overly flowery in my speech and
couch things a certain waybecause if I just lead with,
here's why your product sucks, alot of people will tune out.
I know that's how it works inthe real world.
But when I am at a professionalsoftware factory and devs are
coming to me because they needme to verify whether their code

(02:37:34):
is shippable or.
I don't want to spend time onall of the, oh yeah, you did
this really well.
You wrote a great if statementhere.
This loop is very tight.
No, I wanna say, of course.
It's good.
You wanna ship it and it betterbe good.
Here's the ways that it's notgood.
Fix those and it'll be shippableand great.
And it, I, I, I really hate, Ireally, really dislike that I

(02:37:59):
had to do that at thecorporation.
I get having to do that in reallife, because a lot of people
Oh, Ryan's all negative.
Oh no.
Ryan is just saying it like itis and, and ignoring the

Gene (02:38:12):
Well, being, being in jobs like that always is it's
difficult because you're tryingto convey the truth to people.
My, I I spend a lot of time ininformation security and I was
an auditor for a lot ofdifferent companies, and when a
company's trying to getsomething closed or pushed out
the door or launched, and myaudit's coming back as a, oh

(02:38:36):
yeah, you guys failed this.
You need to fix this.
You can well, imagine whatthey're thinking about

Ryan (02:38:40):
next thing they think is, dammit Gene is Gene is
personally responsible for

Gene (02:38:45):
I'm the one who's responsible.

Ryan (02:38:47):
blocking the product.

Gene (02:38:49):
We missed our software launch because that asshole over

Ryan (02:38:52):
Gene's fault that we didn't get our product out.
As if, if you weren't there thenthey would have been happier
shipping a flawed product.

Gene (02:39:02):
Yeah, exactly.
And, and that's the thing.
It's like when you have thecapability to see more things
than other people and youleverage that capability and to
work that actually needs thattype of ability quite often you
are seen as the bad guy bypeople who can't do that job
because they don't have the

Ryan (02:39:21):
And by the way, one of the reasons why I got out of the
corporate software world is thatit was pretty obvious that
corporate software was movinginto a model where yes, they
would in fact rather ship a badproduct and then fix it in an
automatic update later.
And in fact,

Gene (02:39:40):
Yeah.
The, the online connectivity forall software, I think was just
a, a life jacket to a lot ofcrap written software because
they all of a sudden couldlegitimately say, we'll, we'll
fix it in the

Ryan (02:39:56):
And, and nowadays it is.
In fact the, the, the corporateline is yes, we will absolutely
ship it.
Bugs in all, and in fact, a lotof companies, Microsoft included
after, right, right about thetime I was leaving, they decided
to fire all their testers or letgo of their testers in Windows
and say, Hey, everybody, go findnew other jobs in the company.

(02:40:17):
And

Gene (02:40:18):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (02:40:19):
happens?
Well, congratulations.
You installed Windows 10.
You're the frontline tester now.
And, and that's what people do.
That's what they want.
There's not space in that modelfor somebody who is, well, I'll,
I'll, I'll just call itperfectionist, somebody who
wants the product to be good andcan be in a position very early

(02:40:40):
to call out all the ways it canget better.
I am now in, in that model.
I am literally the personholding up the launch.
They want to launch the product.
They don't even care.
Hey, will it boot?
Okay, great.
Will, will it operate just wellenough that more than 50% of the
users won't experience crashes?

(02:41:01):
Okay, then ship it.
We'll fix it.

Gene (02:41:04):
Yep,

Ryan (02:41:05):
If they ever do.
And,

Gene (02:41:07):
that's exactly right.
And a lot of times they don't.

Ryan (02:41:09):
despise that attitude, but it is the prevailing attitude
now that we're in a connectedworld where everybody can just
push out an update whenever theywant and then we get the result
like, I wanna play Xbox and Oh,I'm sorry for the next half
hour, you're taking an update.
Cuz they didn't test.

Gene (02:41:27):
I, I remembered my worst version of that story actually.
Now of the, you waiting for theupdate is, I, I bought Microsoft
Flight about two years ago, andI kind of made a little mental
agreement with myself and abuddy of mine that I wouldn't
start playing this game untilcertain triggers financially

(02:41:49):
hit.
It was kinda like a motivationalthing, right?
So it's like, Hey, when Ifinally check off this box, then
I'm gonna actually play thegame.
Because buying the game is not abig deal.
Spending the time to play it isthe big time

Ryan (02:42:00):
Well, the, the, because your time should

Gene (02:42:02):
I ran

Ryan (02:42:03):
your money.
Yes.

Gene (02:42:04):
E e, exactly, exactly.
So I, I finally ran the gamelike a month or two ago,
whatever it was, and I run thegame and it's like, loading
screen and it says loadingupdates.
Would you like to take a guessat how many gigabytes of updates
it had to load from having neverbeen played to two years after

(02:42:24):
release?

Ryan (02:42:25):
the question, the only question I have is, is it more
or less than what was on the,the CD or whatever install media
you had

Gene (02:42:33):
Well, it was downloaded media.
I think the game when it wasinstalled was 13 gigabytes.

Ryan (02:42:39):
and were there more or less than 13 gigabytes worth of
updates to download?

Gene (02:42:44):
There was 132 gigabytes to download.
So basically everything they'veever released had to get
downloaded and the game couldn'tbe played until it

Ryan (02:42:55):
awful update

Gene (02:42:56):
even, even with my gig up and down connectivity, I tried
it a couple of times where I waslike, oh, I'll just leave it in
the background for a littlewhile while I'm surfing the web.
And I look at it and it's like,5%,

Ryan (02:43:08):
Well at, at,

Gene (02:43:09):
8%.
And I'm like, oh my God.
I finally just left it overnightjust to fricking finish on its
own over eight hours time

Ryan (02:43:16):
at at one gigabyte bit.
If, if you manage to saturateyour theoretical maximum, it's
still gonna take an hour and ahalf to download a hundred
megabit.

Gene (02:43:26):
There you go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it, and it had to decompresseach of these updates.
Once it.

Ryan (02:43:31):
nothing ever reaches a theoretical maximum.

Gene (02:43:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And each update, probablyoverwrites some portion of the
previous update

Ryan (02:43:38):
unless the final product on how much, how much is on the
disc after the updates.
Because if, if you don't tell me113 gigabytes, then there was
some shit they didn't have todownload.

Gene (02:43:49):
Uhhuh.
Yeah.
Let me, let me look.
That's a good question.
I didn't check.
So if I go in here, it's on thisdrive.
Drive drive's almost full.
It is where did you put it?
This is great Dead air, by theway.
At least say something.

Ryan (02:44:03):
I'll go ahead and ask another question then, which is
if you're okay with thestreaming Satoshi's model that
came up from podcasting 2.0,then why do you hate CSB so
much?

Gene (02:44:13):
Well, first of all, I don't hate csb.
I, I have a policy againstpeople that start using name
calling in conversations and

Ryan (02:44:22):
if I call you Jean, it makes you dislike me.

Gene (02:44:26):
I I might have to ban you.
I mean, I'm sorry, but No, thereare people I look, I've, I've,
I've been a, a debater my entirelife.

Ryan (02:44:35):
You're A master at

Gene (02:44:35):
debater, in fact.
Exactly.
And so, I don't mind thathappening one bit.
And I try to not get toopersonal with people, but I
certainly never personallyattack people.
I might make some smirkycomments on'em, but when people
start saying that you're a moronfor thinking this and not give
logical reasons, I, at thatpoint, there is no more

(02:44:57):
conversation to be had.
Because if your argument is,well, you're

Ryan (02:45:02):
That's not an argument.

Gene (02:45:03):
okay, that's not an argument, and you've just lost,
bye bye.
I don't need to ever waste anyenergy or time on talking to you
again.
And I guess the one differencenot just for CSB but in general
that I have is I don't like mutepeople.
I actually ban people because mycontent that I put out there,
and some would say, well, thatthere's zero value to it.

(02:45:25):
But I know that's not truebecause I'm one of the highest
followed people on NoJa on thesocial in terms of raw numbers,
numbers.
So clearly enough people want tobe seeing the stuff that I put
out there that there is value toit.
And I don't want to provide anyvalue to somebody that is on
that band list that has insultedme rather than having a rational

(02:45:45):
conversation with me.
Like they don't, they don't needto get that.
Now.
I know there's ways around

Ryan (02:45:50):
the mute versus block discussion before, I think the
last time we spoke on a podcast,and I, I, I still maintain that
that block is just mute.
Plus you're being petty.

Gene (02:46:00):
and I'm okay with that.
I mean, it.
Like Penny is not enough of aname calling word for me to
block somebody.

Ryan (02:46:07):
That wasn't name calling, that was descriptive of a
behavior.

Gene (02:46:11):
but I don't think it is.
I think that you're missing theabsolutely rational portion of
that, which is things that I dohave a value.
And that value sometimes isreturned in direct dollars.
If I'm doing something for aclient.
Sometimes it's returned in, amessage online saying, Hey, I
really appreciated watchingthis.
Or I, I like your opinion, I'mglad somebody said this.

(02:46:33):
There is a value to consumingthe product that I create and
and it's open and free to beconsumed, but I reserve all
rights to my end product.
Like, I, I don't release thosecopyrights into public domain,
and so I am perfectly willing tolimit the distribution of things

(02:46:58):
to people that I don't like.
It's, it's probably the same.
Irrational, well, that may be,but I, I, I'm pretty sure I can
find a few things for your pastemployers that you do that are
petty as well.

Ryan (02:47:11):
I didn't, I don't claim that everything I do is rational

Gene (02:47:14):
Right.
And that's, so I think being, ifyou wanna call it petty, that's
fine, but I think it, it, it hasa rational basis.

Ryan (02:47:21):
Okay.
Just keep telling yourself that,

Gene (02:47:24):
It's the same Look, I'll tell you what, it's the same
reason that I don't have

Ryan (02:47:27):
I, I feel like,

Gene (02:47:28):
I think Netflix went and crossed the line with releasing
borderline pedophilic content.
I just don't need to give any

Ryan (02:47:36):
like I have a much more rational reason for not wanting
Netflix, which is that they werenot giving me enough value in
the, in the form of usefulcontent to justify how much they
kept wanting to charge.

Gene (02:47:50):
Well, and that's, that's fair enough.
I mean, if you didn't care aboutwhat they're making and you just
purely are looking at whatthey're not

Ryan (02:47:56):
Well, I.

Gene (02:47:56):
fine.
I mean, I'm not saying everybody

Ryan (02:47:58):
mean, I understand that.
Netflix is producing child porn,but I also didn't have to watch
that, so I didn't,

Gene (02:48:05):
Right.
Right.
And I, I guess I'm going thenext step further in saying that
I, I choose to not spend anymoney with

Ryan (02:48:14):
I mean, I understand where you're coming from.
This is the same rationale for aboycotting company that is a bad
corporate citizen.

Gene (02:48:24):
You don't like Apple.
What's, you don't have to spendmoney with

Ryan (02:48:27):
and I I, I will argue up and down that I have a very
rational reason for notbelieving that Apple is
delivering enough value BA or tojustify the amount of money they
charge.
And that's an easy argument tomake because of the incredible
amount of money that theycharge.
However, I'm a little bit withyou on the Apple thing.
I don't like the corporatecitizen that the company is

(02:48:49):
being, so I get that.

Gene (02:48:50):
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (02:48:51):
I still think blocking is petty

Gene (02:48:53):
Well, I, I, I think it's exact same territory as, as
you're disdain for Apple.

Ryan (02:48:58):
Well, I,

Gene (02:48:59):
I, I'm

Ryan (02:48:59):
I don't need to have this conversation.
We can, we're, we're now closeto over three hours.

Gene (02:49:04):
Well, we've already had the conversa,

Ryan (02:49:05):
well also, I feel like, the, this is a better
conversation to have when youinvite CSB onto your show

Gene (02:49:11):
maybe, I mean, I don't know.
Well, it, it's not impossiblethat that would happen at some
point, but I don't think thatthat will happen as long as he's
so.
On the Ukraine bandwagon.

Ryan (02:49:25):
Oh, yes, there is that.
I have received a lot of flack.

Gene (02:49:31):
And incidentally, it's not just csb.
There, there definitely is achip on Poland's shoulder.
A lot of people that are Polishseem to be a lot more gung-ho
for the US to fight Russia thanactual Ukrainians that I know.
Like the Ukrainians are like,this sucks, it sucks that shit's
happening.
And like they see themselves asa lot closer to Russians.

(02:49:52):
Right.
So any, any family squabbles arebad.
The people from Poland, theytend to like, see Ukraine as a
great, let's move this pawn and

Ryan (02:50:01):
would the word you'd use be blood thirsty?
I don't

Gene (02:50:03):
Ah, maybe, I mean, but they're certainly very

Ryan (02:50:06):
I, I have personally taken a lot more flack than I expected
for my position on the Russia,Ukraine War or whatever it's
called.
And my position is, I don'tknow, I'm not there.
I don't want it to in interactwith my life.
From the perspective of theaverage American, it is a
political stunt that is beingused to distract people from

(02:50:28):
what is going on in America bythe mainstream media who will
not shut the hell up about it.
Because there's so many thingshere that a responsible
journalist would be talkingabout instead of Russia and
Ukraine.
And I get a lot of

Gene (02:50:42):
And I, I think it's now

Ryan (02:50:43):
taking a position.

Gene (02:50:44):
I think it's now crossed over the cost of being the most
expensive US military

Ryan (02:50:50):
oh, I'm, I'm, yes.
I'm very much angry

Gene (02:50:54):
in Afghanistan, we spent less on Iraq, we spent less on,

Ryan (02:50:57):
I'm, I'm very much angry about how my money is being
stolen from me and wasted by thefederal government.
But at this point, if I continueto crank up the anger about that
particular thing, I am in dangerof an integer overflow.
So there's only so much moreanger I can

Gene (02:51:17):
You just need to be running floating

Ryan (02:51:18):
Yeah.
Maybe there's only so much moreanger I can generate over the
fact that the federal governmentsteals my money.
And then sends it overseas to belaundered into a political
party.
That's not great.
But the specifics of who fired amissile where, and whether or
not tanks are moving onto whatit, it from the perspective of

(02:51:41):
somebody who is not located inEurope.
It feels like a distraction, andI don't want to be distracted by
that.
There are so many places in theUS that tanks need to be running
over that I, I don't feel likeUkraine needs to be the top of
everyone's list, but man,

Gene (02:51:57):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

Ryan (02:51:58):
so much

Gene (02:51:59):
and I'm,

Ryan (02:51:59):
for not having a position on that

Gene (02:52:01):
well, and I'm, I'm pretty much with you on all of that for
the exact same reasons.
However, because I was born inRussia, even though I grew up in
the us nobody can separate thosetwo things.
It's like, oh, well you wereborn clearly.
You, you just holding water forPutin.
It's like, well, no.
If you look at my politicalpositions across the last 40

(02:52:24):
fucking years, you can see aconsistency across the board.
I was against the first GulfWar.
I was protesting the first Gulf

Ryan (02:52:32):
golf

Gene (02:52:33):
I've been against all wars.
The US has again, engaged

Ryan (02:52:36):
get it.
I could get involved in a golfwar.

Gene (02:52:39):
Yeah, well, it, it's, it's been a consistent position and
right now, when the US wasstaging revolutions left and
right and everybody with anybrain cells knew about it doing
the color revolutions andHillary talking about her techno
experts that were able toachieve these revolutions that
the CIA wasn't able to dothemselves in the past, she was

(02:53:01):
bragging about her StateDepartment people by introducing
technology, were able tooverthrow and topple
governments.
That's a problem.
Yeah.
And, and when this originallyhappened, I made a prediction.
I said, this is gonna bite theUS in the end because
eventually, and I thought itwould only take about five

(02:53:22):
years.
I did not think it would last

Ryan (02:53:24):
you did.
Did you predict Trump that?
Because that pretty much screwedup the timetable for the
globalist takeover in every way.

Gene (02:53:33):
Yeah, maybe, maybe.
But I thought within five yearsthat there would be some
incident where Ukraine wouldhave a revert revolution,
whatever you want to call it,where they would eventually see
that, being a lap dog of the USis not really the position we
wanna be in.
And that it wasn't nearly as badas we thought it was being in

(02:53:56):
the family of Russia and all thethe former republics because
there was a cooperative, there,there's benefit from a
cooperative standpoint tocountries that you're physically
located next to all doingcommerce and business with each
other, unfriendly terms.
And what happened here wasUkraine essentially was able to

(02:54:18):
get a government in place thatwould cancel those agreements
and relationships.
And in fact physically attackedpeople that disagreed with their
newfound position, which washappening in the eastern regions
of Ukraine, literally from 2013until now, resulting in
thousands of civilian deaths anddoing it.

(02:54:39):
Why?
Because they saw a potentialbenefits financially from the
west, from the United States,and they, they're absolutely
realized that benefitfinancially in the form of money
laundering.

Ryan (02:54:53):
So

Gene (02:54:54):
And so

Ryan (02:54:55):
just made the argument that it's just capitalism, which
is an argument you made

Gene (02:54:59):
well, it is capitalism.
People that made a lot of moneygot what they wanted.
The, the average person inUkraine got fucked, and now
they're getting fucked even morebecause they're having to fight
for these rich people that aremaking money from the us.
The average person in Ukrainedidn't benefit from this at all.

(02:55:21):
It's not like they got freedom,whatever that

Ryan (02:55:23):
in the US isn't benefiting either, and I would venture to
say that

Gene (02:55:27):
Oh, absolutely

Ryan (02:55:27):
person in Russia

Gene (02:55:29):
Russian isn't benefiting either.
Yeah.
Nobody's benefiting

Ryan (02:55:32):
person in Russia has just been sent back 20 years in the
information age because they'vebeen cut off from all the
Western services.
They're not benefiting.

Gene (02:55:42):
Yeah, exactly.
No, there, there's a lot of

Ryan (02:55:45):
It's almost

Gene (02:55:46):
of downsides across

Ryan (02:55:47):
almost like the globalists are just playing games that end
up hurting all of the people nomatter where it is, just so that
they can have their pettyspitting matches and scams that
make money by stealing from thepublic.
like that

Gene (02:56:03):
Well, the globalists were very happy during Covid,
wherever, regardless of whereyou think it comes from and what
the, the source of code was,

Ryan (02:56:12):
I, the,

Gene (02:56:13):
we can agree that the, the,

Ryan (02:56:15):
the respiratory disease, formally known as the flu

Gene (02:56:18):
Right.
That it, it benefited theglobal, they were able to fully
take advantage of it to installdraconian policies.
And it has not since nine 11 hasthere been quite as much of a of
a bending of the will of thepeople to allow the, the ruling

Ryan (02:56:40):
suppression of human rights for the benefit of the
elites.

Gene (02:56:42):
Yeah.
Like for Yeah, like with notangible benefits other than
allowing the elites to doliterally anything they want in
the name

Ryan (02:56:53):
the lockdowns and, and manufactured panic from that all
falls under the Covid umbrellais another one of those things
that makes me unreasonably angryto the point where I need to
allocate more bits to store theinteger.

Gene (02:57:07):
Yeah.
And, and it's I think in a lotof ways they are getting, maybe
they didn't think this wouldhappen in Russia.
Maybe they thought this wouldhappen in China, but I, I think
they're getting the pushbackthat was coming.
And they're, they're not at apoint of saying, okay, well we
need to relent and, and regroupand figure out some new

(02:57:29):
strategies here.
They're just all sticking totheir original game plan, which
is, Hey man, we have taken overthe us, which means that we rule
the world and everybody else hasto do what we say, and there's
no question about it.
That's the attitude right now ofthe globalists and through them,
the us and it's a very dangerousattitude.

(02:57:50):
And I know that I, I've, I'veprobably been putting more the
nuclear war memes out there thanother people, but I think that
even if it's a remotepossibility, it's a hell of a
lot more possible.
That we're gonna end up innuclear war today than was the
case a year ago or 10 years ago.
Certainly.
Or, or even in the eighties whenwe thought we were closer.

(02:58:13):
I think today we're

Ryan (02:58:15):
Well, on the plus side, even if they don't get their
nuclear war, at least we are onboard for probably close to a
billion of us dying suddenly ofmis unknown causes within the
next five years.
So that'll help.

Gene (02:58:28):
Oh yeah.
No, I mean, they've always gotbackup plans, So let's, let's
not forget about that.
There, there are plenty ofstrategies to minimize
population and I think the wholequestion is like, well, who
would wanna control thepopulation?
Why would they wanna have asmaller, it's very simple, dude.
If your herd of cattle gets toobig, they're liable to knock

(02:58:49):
defense over.
You gotta have manageable sizeherds.
It's that simple.

Ryan (02:58:55):
Okay.

Gene (02:58:56):
So are we done on that note, we can wrap up.
I just say, and on that note,we're gonna wrap up

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