Episode: 4344
Title: HPR4344: 24-25 New Years Eve show episode 4
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4344/hpr4344.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 23:28:52

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4344 for Thursday the 27th of March 2025.
Today's show is entitled 24-25 New Years Eve Show Episode 4.
It is hosted by Honki Magu and is about 106 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is, the HBR community comes together to say Happy New Year and
chat.
Definitely a better New Year's party than last year's already.
Oh yeah.
Hey people we're talking.
Last time I only had one person to talk to most of the time I was on.
Oh yeah?
Yeah and then I wasn't here very much last year I know that much.
Yeah me either.
Yeah come on come on we got so deep into politics last year wasn't it fun?
I said it wasn't.
Positive?
No.
So it was in two toast here.
Happy New Year's everyone.
We could do that again this year but it would be ugly.
But that's not as I posted on some of my social media.
Welcome to the New Dark Ages.
It's almost not even fun.
Almost.
Well of those of us here I think Joe has at the worst because he's not only
living in Trump land he's living in Texas.
I don't know if you lived up in Canada.
I'm a little jealous of Joe right now.
Joe did you see that Governor Abbott sent condolences on the death of
President Carter to Rosalind?
No I didn't.
Rosalind has been dead a little bit longer than Jimmy has.
I've never you know called Abbott a smart person.
Think I might have called my taxes you can't get elected to Governor of Texas as a smart person.
Like how many smart people do you know of run for school board?
At least one.
I think he is talking about run for school board and win.
Well Joe came in fourth there were three open spots.
No no no.
Came in fifth?
No see you run for a specific spot.
But if you did it by like vote percentages considering that I was running up against the person
that had held the position for like 12 years or something I had 38% of the vote.
I think I did good.
No I'm proud of you.
Yeah and all this time you've been fixing all my equipment for me.
What do you want?
A cookie I want a cookie.
You want to have a cookie?
Well open up your browser and something I'll give you one.
I'm sure.
Well done sir.
Oh my oh my oh my I'm a fool for you baby that's an old one.
Don't even remember who did that one.
Don't get me singing I'm so far out of practice I've got a performance to do
in a week and a half.
And I do not even have calluses on my fingers right now so I've been trying to
put in a few minutes a day on my guitar to see if I can build them up without
having bleeding fingers.
So what type of a performance are you doing?
Don't they make like finger condoms specifically for that?
They do and they don't work for beans on my fingers.
They're made for little bitty fingers.
Take your condoms.
Yeah.
So what the performance are you doing?
Well I am a filter.
Yes I remember when you performed on here several years back.
I do filter.
I do the whole filter nothing but the filter that's not true.
Nice I bring a lot of folk music into my performances and people usually don't care.
I do have on my YouTube page of my full performance from this past May over Memorial Day weekend
at Balticon.
It's roughly an hour and one of my better concerts.
It's a good sampler of what kind of music I play.
You're doing a club you're doing is there a convention?
Convention?
It's a almost every year I miss some due to COVID or last year we missed because my wife had
knee surgery and just could not have gotten around the hotel.
I go to Gafilk the Georgia Filk Convention which has oh usually between 80 and 120 people.
Nice quiet thing and you know most of the people and the new people are just as welcome.
Filk is a wonderful genre because we don't care if you can sing or play guitar even if you
are just learning to try. It's good enough.
We figure about eight out of ten people that try to learn to play guitar and write
Filk and sing Filk by the time they've been doing it for a while they actually get pretty good.
There are exceptions and we value those because some of our best writers can't sing a lick
and it's always good to have good material to sing.
All right, Moss I just want you a link and while that's on the link in it though.
What's it for?
Hold on my wife's going to tell us formula.
Oh okay and that just glue just just take a bunch of super glue and rub it all of your hands
for a while and kind of you know squash them to get a little bit so they just take a
thing. Yeah liquid callus formula 24 dollars for two packs.
I'm pretty sure I've done that by accident back when I used to do Warhammer models.
Yeah the trick is you've got to wait for it to dry because if you start playing the guitar
and it's not dry you're in trouble. Oh yeah that's good. You got one called you're really good at
that's all. I think Joe has seen my guitar. It's new to me. It's I've had it a little over a year
now I guess. It's an Anya next G N E X G. The new models have more bells and whistles
but I got it cheaper because it wasn't the new model and it's an all carbon fiber guitar not only
the neck of the body lots of fun stuff. Actually has a narrower neck that I'm used to but I'm getting
used to it. It sounds like an acoustic guitar and it isn't but it also can sound like other things.
What I'm seeing images for is for the next G2 smart audio loop guitar. Right the next G2 has more
bells and whistles and even it has a switch box you can play with to do looping. Okay.
So it's just a regular next G. Yeah but it looks just like that. Turn it down.
See it almost sounds like an acoustic guitar. They're interesting looking.
But you can also make it make other noises that do not sound like an acoustic guitar.
It's electric guitar with like a speaker on the one side of it and then it's got some dials
and stuff that you can adjust it on the other side. The the speaker is under the pick guard.
Okay. The pick guard is fabric and it covers the speaker. There is basically one dial that is
on off in volume and and also selects what sound you want and then you've got the two little
buttons. One is your tuner. I'm not sure what the other one is. I know my guitar the way I know
lyrics. You know what works that's it. It's really cool. Look at that's for sure. It's an
interesting design. Yeah I have the black one. I didn't want the spring for the pink one myself.
No. And the next G the original did not come with the stand. You had to pay a hundred bucks more
for the stand. I managed to get one for 65 bucks. But the stand is a little bit more than just a
stand. It also you can plug that in and when you set the set it in the base it's a charger.
Okay. As I said the next G2 comes with a lot of bells and whistles including a switch box that
you can really have fun with. The neck is narrower than you're used to. Unless you have really
short fingers you'll feel a little bit of place on this neck. I've gotten used to it. It doesn't
feel not quality. It just doesn't feel like a real guitar neck. I measured took a tape measure
around the strings of the seventh fret and my next G is five inches and my Spanish classical
guitar is six inches on the nose. What did you think of the liquid callus? Like the guys were saying
it looks like super glue. Yeah put it on your fingers. And probably the cheaper to buy super glue.
Oh be a lot cheaper to buy super glue. Those like 25 bucks for those two little bottles. Yeah.
Two four point zero dollars or walk out with like eight of them. Yeah. So in what way is that
not super glue? It probably comes off easier than super glue. That would be a good thing.
Consider a similar item. Gel finger cuts, finger protector supporter. Oh those are not only
the fingertip protectors. They actually roll all the way down your finger. Those are 8.54.
And they're for arthritis. But I don't know if they'd work well on a guitar. Considering that
the things that they list are a little like great for trigger finger. And next month.
And next month. A larger surface. So I don't think those would work. I think they'd work. I
think they'd be excessive. But they're also cheaper. A lot cheaper. But there's also the friend
40 pieces guitar fingertip protectors. But you said those are too small. Yeah I got them. I
could get them on. But they tear. And they have a little they have a pattern of hexagonal pattern
of holes in the fingertip. So your fingers can breathe. Yeah. But those tear through easily.
What about just like a glove? Then you can't really feel what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. And you also restrict the motion of the fingers if you're wearing like a full-on
glove. Yeah. I guess it depends on the type of glove. But yeah. I'm just a bad guy because
I was playing on this when I was playing on the street in Denver way back in my youth.
I actually would take a regular garden glove and I'd cut the fingertips off. Okay.
Reverse of this. Keep the hands warm. Right. Yeah. All right. I got to go make dinner.
Oh those those fingers that the gel finger cuts. It says gel is in rich with biamini to
the moisture. I skinned and cracked fingertips. Yeah. Those wouldn't last five minutes on a guitar.
Probably not. Who packed guitar gloves? The actual guitar gloves. Then nylon gloves for like
19 bucks though. Hmm. They look like garden gloves honestly. I'm not sure how much they'd help.
If you just had a thin glove on that wouldn't really protect your fingers. It'd just
well would be like having an extra layer of skin is about all. You need to have the calluses
built up and and tuffened. Okay. Well, so much for that. That will find something. Oh those
finger cuts are actually marked down 47% and there's a 5% coupon on top of that. You can apply
5% off at 854 is not very much though. True. That'll 5%. Oh, you can go with steel finger picks.
But that wouldn't help on the fret hand. Would it? Yeah. We're talking about fingering. My right hand
does finance. My last hand in these protection or calluses. Okay. I'll stop dreaming about that
and get back over here. Where are we? I lost my mumble. Their mumble is one of those things that
that goes away when you go to a different window and you have to bring it back. But what I really hate
well, I changed to a different window. I changed back. It's not there. I have to click on the little
head. Yeah. If you if you minimize it to go to a different window, then it goes off it. Well,
it doesn't, you know, stay in your in your bar. Right. Well, I just go to a different window and it
goes away. I have to turn the head back on, but I can turn the head back on in any window when
it comes up in that window. What I really hate is when you're doing upgrades and that window follows
you. You try. You're in the middle of upgrades. You want to go do something because it's going to
take forever to get this upgrade done and that window just follows you. Whatever desktop you're in,
it's there. No, I don't like that. Stay in your lane, buddy. Yeah. Well, it sounds like my wife
got home. I tried to go to canes right now to pick us up some food, but evidently they're
closed for new years. Hmm. Walmart's open to 11 today. Well, we only have two canes in this town.
I think one of them brand new and it's way out on the west side. The other one is right down in
the college district and you have to be crazy to go there because there's no parking. There's no
free parking. That's the right person's for. There isn't a drive-through with that one.
Hi, honey. Yeah. No lights where. I said hi. Joe says hi. She repeated Joe says hi.
I'm going to go check on her, guys. AFK. Yep, that's a prior to my world and I don't even have a lady.
I started talking about food now. I'm hungry. Yeah. I just ate like two, like one
a half hours ago, but I couldn't go for some food at death. Right. I think it's defined. It's part
of the definition of teenager. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That's my excuse then. It's been a long time since
I was a teenager. No. Your wife could cook? She's not cooking. No, no. Sometimes the team, I think the
teenage years can be extended a bit. I don't think they get extended into your forties.
With that wife, I could disagree trying to decide whether or not to do another set of
back. Move on to shoulders. All my pet gear shelf is printing for my 10-inch rack. Do you guys think
back or shoulders? Nothing. Okay, what was that about back and shoulders? I missed that.
So I'm trying to decide if I should do another set of back or move on to shoulders. So I'd start with
bent over rows, barbell bent over rows, and then I would do two sets of that, well, a set and
then a drop set, and then I would do a dumbbell bent over rows, a set and a drop set, and then pull
down, well, 200 pull downs, and then I'd switch to one handed pull downs as a drop set. I'm always
strong on back because the support that comes with that is to me. This is upper back day. Tomorrow
will be lower back day, so that'll be what, RDLs or stiffly get deadlifts and maybe some hypers.
I do shoulders. That's that's why that yeah, shoulders. I think I'm going to do one more set of
back and then do shoulders. Okay, give her. That'll put me up to three rotations on back and then I
can reset up. Oh, I can properly do some shoulders. But should I set up for overhead press? Probably.
Standing or seated though. Oh, man, I'm just working my left hand with this bottle of soju right now,
so I haven't had soju in forever, man. 20% is original. No flavor, not our fruit flavor or whatever.
Really? Oh, perfect. No flavor. No flavor. It's good straight. You can mix it anything. It goes
with an event of beer. It's not bad. I used to really enjoy soju, but that was when I was actually
in Korea and amables were fun. Amables. I don't know what amables is. I know what game Titanic is.
I don't know what the game Titanic is, but an amable is when you get a bunch of friends together and
you get a big bowl of one of the fruity flavored soju's full of ice and soju and everybody sticks
a straw in and just drains it. Nice. That excuse you take like a glass of beer. That's not quite
filled up to the top. You put a little soju in a shot glass and you float it in the glass of beer
and then you keep passing the bottle of soju around. Everyone has to add a little bit of soju
right. Even if it's only a drop, but the last person who puts like a drop or whatever in in the
shot glass drops the bottle. Yeah, then they got to drink it. Yeah, I can see that. So kind of like
an Irish car bomb, but with a little bit of gamification. What's an Irish car bomb?
An Irish car bomb is you get a beer and you take a shot glass of whiskey. You actually light
the whiskey on fire and then you drop it in and shoot the whole beer with the flame coming out
and you shoot. Yeah, after you drop it, you know, it immediately goes out, but yeah. Yeah,
it was not enough alcohol and beer for it to keep burning. I actually came up with my own cocktail
lately. I've been drinking the bird dog flavored whiskeys. The advantage of bird dog is as opposed
to the other flavored whiskeys is that they're full 40 percent. A lot of your other flavored ones
are 30 percent. Some of them are 33. I think fireball is 33, screwball is 32, but you can get
the same flavors in bird dog at 40 percent. In fact, you can get a straight bird dog at 42,
but anyhow, I take the bird dog peanut butter and I put an ounce of that in about 10 ounces of
chocolate milk and you've got a Reese's. No, it is yummy. You guys are making me
who is an enforced tea toddler. I am not a addictive anything. I drink or smoke or whatever
when I feel like it, not when it feels like it. For that matter, I think I've had one cigar
this year and maybe it might pipe twice in this year. What do you put in the pot? Legal stuff.
What I'm putting in my chocolate is less so, but from Canada, it's all legal here.
Yeah. Well, CBD is legal here. Delta 8 is legal here. I actually have a friend that
makes me chocolates that each little piece has got 40 milligrams of the Delta 8 in it.
I buy two pounds at a time and the price is unbelievably low compared to what you can get
somewhere else. I bought a little tube of 12 pieces of Delta 9 infused chocolate from a
quality place in North Carolina and that cost me 45 bucks. I get almost 200 pieces from my friend
for 80 bucks. I never got into the Delta. I don't know much about it, to be honest.
Well, Delta 9 is real THC. Delta 8 is not and Delta 10 is not. They have different effects,
but they will get you high in different ways. Okay. But Delta 8 is legal in almost every state now.
It might not be legal to ship it across state lines.
It's interesting because even here in Canada, it's the same, but it's even that way with alcohol,
but everyone does it anyway and it's never an issue. It's so short.
Well, one of the leading producers in Canada actually bought a chain of liquor stores in Alberta
and Saskatchewan. Actually, I have an idea which one you're talking about.
Well, I don't either. I have stock in five cannabis companies for a Witcher in Canada.
Not very much. I don't have very much money, but I've been putting about 200 a month into the
stock market, which is not anything that will get me anywhere. But the cannabis companies are all
down, down, down until it gets legalized in the US. And if you're buying things at a dollar,
two dollars, two and a half dollars a share, and you're buying 20, 40, 50, a hundred shares of them,
then someday it's going to get legalized and all those things are going to be through the roof.
Offhand, you know how many states like, what's different from legalized? Because legalized is
medical or legalized is legalized. Do you know how many states I could go on.
Well, I know Tennessee, Tennessee does not have legal pot. You cannot smoke the stuff and get
away with it that you can do Delta eight, Delta nine or Delta 10 infuse products legally.
Or or overall CBD, a full spectrum CBD is legal. It's legal to grow it, but it's not legal to
smoke it. Why have this channel has grown last year in high court politics this year,
little politics, but now like drug talk. Hey, pot is politics. Yeah, yeah, I suppose you're right.
I suppose you're right. Well, last year, we had a hope this year, we have Trump.
Oh, yeah. Actually, the day before the election, I noticed Warren Buffett had pulled out almost all
of his money from the stock market and asked my wife if we should do the same. I was ready to pull the
string and we didn't do it. My wife said, let's wait a few days and I waited a few days and
everything plummeted. My stocks, the day before the election were worth about $4,400 total and
right now, even though I've invested another $200 into it, they're worth about $3,300. So don't say
that's not anything to do with politics because boy, did it. Let me see. Actually, right now it's 3,
2, 10, 96. So I've got about, well, one of one of the problems, one of my rockstar stocks is a
company that actually buys pot growing warehouses from the growers and leases it back to them so they
have cash flow because they generally can't use banks if they're growing pot and it was doing great
and then last week, one company, the largest company that was leasing their warehouses, they had
like 11 warehouses leased and they defaulted on six of them and the contracts are such that if
you default on one of them, you've defaulted on all of them. So 17% of their income went away last
month and that stock is plummeting right now but they had a similar problem that the time I started
buying them and they grew out of that one just fine. So I think they'll be able to handle it by
at one point, before the default, that stock alone was holding up my interest. If you want to buy a
stock that is sure to recover and is at a low point right now for what it is, it's a real estate ETF
but they only do real estate of pot growing warehouses. It's I-I-P-R, innovative industrial properties.
I try to be mobilizing them a lot. No, it's interesting for sure. Never thought about that.
Well, ETFs in general, especially real estate ETFs are good investments because real estate goes up.
That's about all it does is go up. In this case, they've had some lease problems but they'll
get through that and the real estate is still going to increase in value whether it's got that
company or another one on it. There are rumors that the company defaulted to get their contract
changed so they could default on one and not on all of them as it was they defaulted on six out
of 11 and the other five defaulted because of the contract. But my problem with real estate ETFs
is that so many of them are people that are companies that are going and buying low income intended
real estate. Affordable housing, they go and buy it and they rent it out at a higher rate than
what is affordable for most people so they can get more money than what what it was going to get.
And in many neighborhoods that I know Nashville in particular has several neighborhoods that
were built as affordable housing but they're all owned by real estate ETFs and the prices are jacked up.
So I don't get involved in that kind of thing and I did try to get involved in a couple of other
cannabis based ETFs that I found out that of the two of them, one of them was 60% based in
healthcare and the other was 45% based in healthcare and I do not make money off of poor people.
Is that simple? I am poor people. It's like you don't cut off your foot to have more money in your
hand. It sure do be like that. What do you want Cecil? Oh you're just going to slink away without
saying anything. My cat checked up on me, one of them. We have three cats, two of them are void
cats which is what some people call black cats and the other ones are tuxedos so I can even say
even my cat wears a tux. Well I've got to tell you one thing. I'm currently playing super
tux card with my main, which is Zenia. Yeah there are so many organizations I wish I was donating
to and I just don't have the money to donate. I've got a few things. I do $10 a month to
boaty. I do five bucks a month to local animal shelter because they don't even have a shelter.
And I do five bucks a month to internet archive and there's a couple of other things
but there are so many more I'd like to be donating to and I just had to cut back.
And in the other 19 months we're going to have to cut everything off because I will be out of
money then. The last my mother died a little over three years ago and without her money we would
not be surviving. She basically left me around 220,000 and put it in a trust where I only get
160th of it per month or 60 months or five years. When that goes away we don't know what we're
doing. We're still trying to find out what we could do. Public housing in this area is
real low level. It's also hard to get a two bedroom for a couple.
As one living in Northern Europe one always forgets how bad it is.
Yeah. Oh I don't know if it was the onion or somebody real that when Trump offered to buy
Greenland again someone reported that Denmark offered to buy the US just not the government.
Yeah I almost believed that. It would have been such a funny fight back.
And I mean he would never have accepted but if he would still have been able on my wife
little and he I need to check on her. What? When will it be ready? Well I will probably want some
soup when it's ready. Yes. Thank you. Okay I got my ears back on. It sure would have been one of
the most funny answers ever if it was real. Well you know Trump wanted to make Canada the
51st state. Well there's way too many people there for one state. Yeah. They could at least let
each province be a state. Yep. I think it would have been a lot better for us if Canada would
invade the US. No. No. Stop that. We have our own problems here too. I honestly the 51st state
I'm not saying I'm down for it but I've seen worse options. Well I think it'd be better options
if we became the the next 50 provinces. Well we have a couple of other places that should be made
states before we start looking at taking over other countries. Well Puerto Rico has more than
that the requirements for like two decades but the problem is the Republicans won't go for it
because that would be a clearly democratic state. Same thing for DC. They don't want to go for
DC because it's be clearly democratic. I don't know what we're going to do with American Samoa and
Guam and all the places. Exactly. Make them states. Give them rights. I don't think they have enough
population even match Wyoming in terms of states or South Dakota. They really need to consolidate
some states. They ought to consolidate the quotas in Montana into one state because having two
senators for each of those states just gives them too much power. Based on population. Yeah.
So now we're talking politics. See what you did? Yeah but we're not on the other side of the
Oh really? Well I guess our next president is going to be Pierre Poliev.
You know who? He's not going to. Yeah, Pierre Poliev. They'll be observed a leader in Canada.
I think he's going to be I think it's a slam dunk to be honest in his case. I don't know if it's
going to be super great but it can't be any worse than now. There are two sides of the same
evil right. What would you say to Chris? Do you feel free in replacing Justin? I think they got
to replace Justin no matter what. I don't think it's a good image anymore for them. Not saying
I'm a fan of the liberals but to be respectful I don't think it's a good image for them and they
should probably change their leadership. I don't think for all of Canada please.
I know a lot about Canada. I have relatives in Canada. I have visited a number of locations in
Canada and I took a test online that it stated most Canadian citizens couldn't do better than 50%
and I did 95% on it. But if I were a Canadian I would probably be NDP.
Fair. Everyone has new choices. I'm Canadian. I just expect that everyone's got the choices.
I just NDP just floats too much of a weird line for me and yes but anyway.
Well that's the fun of it. If you can't do weird you won't get anything right.
The incoming administration would like to take us back to the 1840s.
Yours are mine.
Yours. Good businessman though. I will give Trump one thing. He's a good businessman.
I don't know. Most of the billionaires who back him are good businessman. That Trump was never
a good businessman. He has had more bankruptcies than any man in history.
I mean, I mean, hey, say it's purely. I'm not going to go too deep into what I'm not sure about.
Yeah. Well, he still hasn't paid up on the five million dollars. He owes that lady.
I mean, I really ever. I mean, Justin Trudeau grabbed a lady move at a concert when he was younger
and he said we just had different views about it and it got away with it. So I mean, it's kind of
well, yeah. There was that one thing of Justin doing blackface.
One thing. Justin can't even recall how many times and there's been several pictures released.
Yeah. Well, you know, people voted for Justin because all the old ladies voted for him because
he was cute. Sort of like why all the old ladies voted for Reagan. And Obama. I don't know. I've met
quite a few old ladies that I would rather drown that when Obama got elected, I was hearing. He's
not my president. I'm going, come on. We just put up with eight years of GW Bush and you're going
to complain about Obama. Bush wasn't terrible. Well, except he also wasn't president. That was
Cheney's job. Or less Bush stayed out of the way like a president's supposed to do. Well,
he didn't have enough brain cells to rub together. Blue them out with cocaine and in college years.
Not much different than Clinton really. Well, Bush was another one of those people. He was given
several businesses and he ran them all into the ground. Trump owns all this real estate and he
still can't make profits. He couldn't make a profit gambling and selling booze. Yeah, even with
his dad's money propping him up. Let's not talk about Trump's stakes, shall we?
Oh, it kills me. I listen at night. I sometimes go to sleep to the golden sounds of ESPN radio.
And there are so many commercials for Trump watches, Trump guitars, Trump cologne. All in Trump's
voice. He does, he reads the damn ads himself or they have a damn good AI. Hello, this is your
favorite president, Donald J. Trump. I'm going, who? What? Hand me the poison now, please.
I mean, it's like this Swedish burger company, which always just calls themselves,
Sweden's most delicious burger. And at first, I just thought, no, you're not.
But that, but well, since going, since going vegan and boycotting everything because of
political views and stuff, I've found that, I've found that, oh, wow, they are actually delicious.
Except that there is another chain, which is a bit more, a bit more on the expensive side,
which is even better, but it's much rarer.
Okay. Well, yeah, you eat enough veggie burgers and all of a sudden beef tastes real good.
Oh, I flipped my wife out yesterday and I finished off the bottle of the bird dog Blackberry whiskey.
And I just refilled it with water and put some water play bring in and I'm sitting here
guzzling out of that bottle and he's going, I'm not letting you drive today.
Polarious. It's, it's like that stupid prank of like, you know, where someone
caught on your mayonnaise bottle and drinking it. No, where someone took a glue bottle
and washed it out and put joggers in there and then it's so great to it.
Well, almost is edible. It was when we were kids anyhow. I don't know if it still is.
It should be. It's the best we did back in high school.
The leaf pages paste tasted a lot better than Elmer's clue.
The best we did whenever we were in high school was during between breaks all the doors were locked
to our home rooms. But if our home room, if you need the door in the right way just by the door
handle, it would pop open and we, it was a cheap plastic baseboard, but it was stuck onto the wall
and we shoved bacon on the inside along the walls, stuck it. Man, they closed our home room down
for like three weeks before someone figured out what had happened.
Well, I don't know. I know Jonas is, but I imported my wife from Canada. It cost a bundle too.
Let me tell you, you think I was bringing in some. I found them mostly to be kind of a constant
expense. Well, yeah, but the US charges me to keep her. I mean, just to be able to bring her here,
and yeah, we had six months before her, before her visa expired, you know, and we had to get
married fast and we had to prove that we didn't come here with the intention to bring her here
with the intention of getting married, which was a lie because she came here specifically with that
intention. But anyhow, I guess it cost maybe what was it, $23,000 for immigration that's between
our expenses of going and doing this and going and doing that. And by the time she got her green
card, it was like $23,000 and we had to put that all on credit cards and had to default on the
credit cards and then had to catch up on the defaults. But we're out of debt now, but that's not
going to last too long. I don't think, well, we know when my mom's a state runs out and we know
we are trying to save some against that possibility. So we might last a few months later,
longer than when the estate runs out. But after that, don't know what we're going to do.
But credit cards have gotten so high lately. We've got two credit cards that have higher than
30% of the interest rate that used to be considered usually. You know, the bad credit cards used to be
24% now. They're 30 and 32. And then I see the UK commercials for all the payday lenders
that are charging 40 or 50 or 60% and I'm going, how did I do that?
John used to be a crime back in the day. Like, moms used to lend out money for lower percentages
with the crime. And now it's a business and our higher percentage has been with a lot
wouldn't force with the criminals and it's not criminal. Very interesting.
Well, we've got three credit, four credit cards with percentages above 28%. And we have another
one that's only 17.5%. And that's from a credit union that we weren't even members of,
but they solicited us to get their credit card. They don't even have an office in this area. I
have no idea. But we're very thankful for that one. Although we always keep our credit cards
paid off. It's good to know that if we didn't, we'd get something more reasonable. Yeah, Joe,
have you ever gotten solicited by Pentagon Federal Credit Union? I don't answer those phone calls,
so I have no idea. No, it wasn't. It was mail. It was a letter. I don't open that mail,
so I have no idea. Well, if you ever get one from Pentagon Federal, you should open it because
they have a good interest rate and they have been helpful in many ways. They even have high interest
savings. But why me? I wasn't even in the military. I was 4F.
So we'll give you the benefits business for them and it's good for you.
Right. It's a pretty big credit union. They got offices all up and down the east coast,
but nothing in Tennessee. So why me? Why here?
Cross-question. Door. In the States is military conscription still mandatory. And if so,
dude, like, mail still like is usually still like send in their card. It's always something I've
wondered. I do believe that registration is mandatory, but there has not been a draft for a
couple of decades now. Correct. As a mail, you still have to sign up for the draft. Otherwise,
you go to jail. But yeah, there hasn't been a draft since what, you know?
They tried to draft me in 1971. My draft number was one. So fortunately, I had enough doctors,
notes and whatnot that I got off on 4F. 4F means physically in capable of serving.
For those of you who are not in the US, I wanted to be a conscientious objector, but my dad wouldn't
stand for it. Probably a good thing. I found out what they did with conscientious objectors
and Vietnam. Be them until they stopped objecting? No, they give them the shit jobs. Like,
my dad was in the Marine Corps. At first, he was in the band and he found out that what they did
with the band in the field was they were the ones that went in and hauled out the dead bodies.
So he got transferred to Naval and to military intelligence. And he wound up in a number of places
he shouldn't have been. But he knows three dialects of Chinese well enough to speak them in a
restaurant. That was really fun. We went into one restaurant and he tried to order from the
in Mandarin and the guy looked at him funny and he tried Cantonese and he still looked at him
funny. He tried another dialect. He says, well, I'm sorry. What dialect do you speak?
And the guy goes, I'm Vietnamese. It's almost as bad as a thing that happened to my mother wants.
Oh, you're from Germany? Yeah, I've been to Vienna too.
Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. Or like, oh, I'm going to Europe. But what? Okay, which country?
Yeah, I'm going to Europe. Yeah. Or Germany. I love your Vienna sausages.
I have no idea if they have Vienna sausages outside of the US, but if you've ever had them.
No, I haven't had them that they do exist here. It's because I've been a vegetarian for most of my life
on the end. And like, half a year ago, I switched to going full of vegan. Yeah, well, so how
will I ever eat Vienna sausages? I always wonder how vegetarians and vegans get enough protein in their
diet. It's called beams. Well, I happen to be allergic to legumes. Oh, what type of being basically?
Yeah, well, you get enough vegan rice. You can, you can match the protein. But in my case,
I'm allergic to almost every vegetable that has any protein. So I can't be a vegetarian even though
I'd like to. Oh, no. And they keep telling me more fruits and vegetables. I'm going, but I have
stayed for kidney failure. And I can't have the potassium and phosphorus. So I'm looking it up and
only soybeans have all nine essential amino acids. That's why you mix them with rice. These
plus rice is a complete protein. Okay. What's it? I'm not allergic to rice, but I am allergic to
almost every other grain. Deep peanut butter? Yeah. I am allergic to fruit legumes, not fruit legumes.
Same thing with with nightshades. I can eat potatoes to the crowd to the crowd come home,
the cows come home, whatever it is. But I can't eat any tomatoes or stuff like that.
And my dad claims that he's allergic to vegetables. Well, I have a doctor that proved it to me.
I don't know. My dad just doesn't like vegetables. Yeah. Well, you know, they say in Finland,
sausages of vegetable. Okay. Where's the sausage seed?
Well, you can get beyond meat sausages. Actually, not terrible. It is a known saying that
in Finland, sausages of vegetable, they get those the non meat sausages and you pour some maple
syrup on them and fry them up. Delicious. I might have to go now since it's just a few minutes
left over here and I might want to go into the year with my family. Oh, that's a good idea.
So see ya. Hell, look at my year. Well, we'll we'll be up for a long time. So if you want to come
out, I'll probably come back. But family, family stuff is important. Yeah, it totally is.
We support, give your family the best from from HPR. Yeah. From our family to yours.
I supposedly have a folks thing I could do online this time, but I don't know enough about it.
Bye. Bye. Try and look that up here. Oh, one of my friends is getting creative. Here come a laptop.
He come booting up slowly. He got broken touch pad. He need one more update. He got no space on
this PC. One thing I can tell you is got no warranty. I should post that over in a min cast.
Probably copy image. Well, I'm in discord. So I'll post it in the cast public discord.
There we go. Be sitting together right now. My PC. That's how you end that one. Be sitting together
right now. My PC. Yeah. Well, I'm downloading fresh images for my to image a Raspberry Pi 5 and a
one of the many PCs that I've got here. I've got one that just flakes out after one hour. So I'm going to have to replace it with one of my bigger machines.
You know, most people disappear in the cloud of film. Joe appears in the cloud of smoke.
Ah, I can't find anything on that online focusing. Oh, there it is. It's his schedules. Goodness. I'm not even sure how to do that.
Evidently, MIT is offering free programming courses in 2025. Well, guys, I'm going to go off and sing a little bit. So I'll be back.
MIT OpenCourseWare is an open source publicly available in license platform that ranges from nearly all fields of engineering and computer science to business and so on.
For example, learners can download lecture notes assignments and tests in addition to or instead of class lectures. In some cases, they're accompanied by videos.
Oh, they're offering differential equations two by two systems. I should definitely retake that class.
Honestly, I wish they'd start giving like more like exactly that through classes of like, you know, plumbing, uh, mechanic stuff like that.
That's kind of you can find basically all of that on YouTube. You seriously?
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, of course, of course. Like, I'm established for my own career. I'm just saying like, like, and I work in the computer world. So whatever.
I mean, um, but I wish there was because there's two big, two big draws, I think, in the future. And what you're talking about programming stuff like that.
Not AI, but I'm machine learning stuff like that. Yes. And but I think there should be a split push for, like, I know blue collar jobs, but blue, uh, white. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, you know, understand how much money you could actually make being a plumber or an electrician. Like, that's what I was trying to say while I go electrician. Thank you.
Yes. I agree with you 100% straight jobs. And there just isn't a whole lot of interest in it. And that's only going to make it so that the people that do get into it, they call that much more money.
Of course. Or people have to do it. My dad did and hacked the stuff themselves. I already know I got to go in and, um,
to some electrical work on my breaker box. I got a connection that's worn down. I'm going to have to turn off the power to the house and move it to a different slot.
And try not to die. I don't like means, but I can't afford that type of an electrician. I don't know how it is, but here it's interesting. You can do all your own work. Like you can run your own wires.
You only need the electrician to connect it to the box and to certify it.
Well, I would be playing with the breaker box. But, um, here it's somewhat similar. I mean, you can, you, you can set up your own solar and stuff, but you're not allowed to connect it to their grid.
You have to have a certified electrician come and do it. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. To the grid, for sure. I mean, yes, but all I'm talking about is essentially moving two wires.
On the breaker box from the slot that's worn down to a slot that isn't worn down. So as long as the power is turned off at the time, um, I shouldn't get turned into bacon. And it really shouldn't be an issue.
No, I agree. We just, we just called that maintenance and, you know, no one's going to say nothing about it. But I prefer not to be bacon.
Agreed. Me. Interesting. No, whatever. Me, anyways, myself, uh, most things go wiring stuff, most of my knowledge. I mean, I did it throughout the years growing up, whatever with employers and sub, but I never, you know, wasn't a profession or anything. Most of my knowledge from that comes when I, when I took my hand license.
Because it's, uh, my, you can't adhere. It's 100, 100 question exam and a big part of it is electronics. And yeah, that's where I got most of my experience with like, I had a massive doubt.
Cool. Most of my experience comes from being broke and having to, you know, fix my own crap, because I can't afford to pay somebody else to do it.
I mean, copy that. Copy that. Well heard. Yeah. Uh, same here. Like working on cars, you know, when I had the money, I, I prefer for someone else to work on my car. But if I don't, I will go out there and turn the wrench.
No, I hear that one of my best memories with my older brother was I wrecked the front end of my 89 Corolla. And we went to a wreck yard and the guy told us he's like, whatever you can, I needed a hood. Obviously, like, whenever you can fit on a hood and pull out of here yourself.
He can have her 50 bucks. And we pulled a lot of crap out on top of the hood. Let me tell you what.
Yeah. Um, my dad was a mechanic after he got out of the military. And, um, he had a deal with local junkyard owner on vehicles that were written off for insurance purposes, where he could pick them up cheap. And then he would turn around and fix them. So I had a lot of cars as a teenager.
I mean, they were all like put back together. And a lot of times it was me keeping them put together. My dad would get them run in the first time.
So and I had some interesting cars to 68 clever for fury three 78 grand torino 78 Chevy Blazer. Um, I had a Corsica at a tempo. I had a lot of cars.
Ice. The only one I really wanted to go back with my brother. He had a Monte Carlo SS 70. I don't know if it was a native or whatever. I was, you know, it was before my time with that car.
Yeah. That Monte Carlo had that like brown or the other Monte Carlos and the cutlaces all had that really sharp looking back to them and just looked awesome. Yeah.
Oh, I'm probably going to have to step away here for a little bit. No worries. Same here. I've got to do a few things. I'll be back a little bit later. I'll be listening.
The kids miss me. I'm going to have to go hang out with them.
Copy that. Change.
Yes. I'm back already. I mean, I am too.
I went to check out that online filkin. There were so many people who would have been two hours before I could, before I could sing anything.
Yeah. I mean, after a few minutes, I just got bored of standing outside and watching fireworks go into the sky.
What country are you in, Fred? Sweden. Ah, I have another friend in Sweden. Actually a pretty good friend in Sweden.
Carl Johan noran. I don't know. I'm sure everyone in Sweden knows everybody else. It's such a tiny country.
What? There are, there are almost 11 million people in here. Yeah, about the size of Los Angeles. Yeah. Come on.
Denmark. Denmark has like, I don't know, six. Well, you know, I grew up in LA and everywhere I go, they say, yeah,
you know, so and so. Well, they're in LA. I mean, come on. We're not Iceland who apparently had to like make a register of like, who's, who's relates to who.
So there isn't too much incest because the population is way too small.
And there are, wait, 300,000 people living in Iceland. I just thought that it'd get you going to say that.
I mean, what was I supposed to say? As I tell people, I have dozens of fans worldwide. You seem to do.
So there's nobody but you and me here now. I'm here. I'm Raymond in Texas. I've had been saying hello. I'm sitting here. Hey, Raymond in Texas. I'm moss in Tennessee.
I usually try to listen and maybe add something to these meetings once a year. Yeah, gotta get your two syllables in, huh?
I have sometimes just seemed like you think I talk about. Yeah, I wonder if Joe's coming back. He, uh, he was in here not too long ago and he's from Allen, Texas.
I think Chicago is closer to where I live in Allen, Texas.
In Texas is freaking enormous. Hey, I've got a Texas joke that it'll trip red as bad as it'll trip, uh, Raymond.
The guy says I was bragging into the suite. Texan bragging to the speed. My range is so big. I could get my car and drive all day and not get to the end of it.
And the suite goes, yeah, I once had a car like that tool.
That's good. I definitely had a car like that once too.
Well, actually, one of the guys that I followed on YouTube is famous for pulling out all kinds of things.
All kinds of old engines and old tractors and stuff. And by old, I'm talking hot bulb ignition stuff for hit or miss engines.
And she does an amazing job of resurrecting these beasts.
I'll change the oil and do a couple little things, but, uh, I don't mess with motors.
I used to take apart a motorcycle engine, but I've never messed with car engine.
Yeah, I never got too deep into cars either. I've done some oil changes, but I gave up doing that a long time ago.
Well, back in, you know, I, I was trying to get an old Jeep going so I could learn to drive and whatnot.
But my dad would work on it just enough to keep me from having anything really fixed.
But of course, sitting in my yard, everything froze up and it was junk before, before we could get it going.
Yeah, he really didn't like the kids having licenses because that took away his power of the keys.
My dad was the same way. He, uh, we had a one, we were one car family and, uh, every now that my mother would say,
he, she want to learn to drive and so he's like, sure, getting the driver's seat, let's go and they'd get
about a block and then she would get out and walk home because he would start yelling, look out,
look out of style. What are you doing? You crazy? Now, I used to do security work and I love,
and our company lost our contract. Well, after I was laid off, my mother started helping me looking
look for work in a similar way. Every time that I would go looking for work, she would try to
wind me up so that I couldn't pass any interviews or even think about it. That's when I found my
disability because my nerves were shot and I went in and got tested by a mass rehab. They found
clinical depression, PTSD and Ashberger syndrome. There are these people all over, we don't want anybody
else to succeed or release people close to them. Well, there, the deal was that I'd been taking care
of my mother most of her life and what she got rid of her husband because he was an alcoholic and
violent drunk or, but if I had gotten to work, there was some microscopic chance that I could have
moved out and she would have lost her, her paying house staff. Even while I was taking care of her,
I was paying rent and stuff. I had described it to somebody later and they said that that's a
role they call the son husband. She keeps the power as if, because she's my mother, but she
gives me all of the chores of a husband. Also, what was amazing is I went to a psychologist,
a specialist in Ashberger syndrome and autism and whatnot and I was with her for over a dozen
years. The funny thing is that she was narcissistic. Whenever I would say anything that didn't match
her profile, it would be a distortion, it would be an exaggeration, it would be anything.
There was no getting input into my treatment, so I was going to a narcissist psychologist
to treat the abuse of my narcissistic mother. It didn't work out very well. After my second collapse,
forcing myself to go to her sessions, I figured that I could do better without it.
By the time I was ready to go back looking for treatment, COVID happened and everything was
screwed up anyway. Ultimately, you have to decide what's best for you. You have to listen to the
doctors or whoever, but ultimately, you have to make your own decisions.
Well, my dinner is ready, so I'm probably going to have to take off.
Well, thank you for dropping by. I will probably be back, but I can't guarantee it.
We don't run on guarantees in this outfit. We barely walk.
Well, it's 6.36 pm here in eastern US. It's going to be a while before it's new years.
I will see you all shortly or along maybe middly.
Hello, I've been here, everyone.
Well, Ken, glad to see the semi-mythical felon return.
Can you say something? Just glad to see one of the centers of HBR come back.
There we go. There we go. Up in your year 2025, it's freaking awesome.
Well, no, here in Texas in a few hours how awesome it is.
Yeah, well, I'm here in the Boston area, so we're going to get the first cut.
I'll bring I'll bring down the team so they can say hello.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Five, fear, believe, say, aid.
Hello, good to see you again.
What's waiting to do a happy new year?
Oh, so the funnier.
Okay, that's a bike.
Tell them they're watching.
Yes, that's a good one.
It says them okay.
I already know you're watching Lord of the Rings.
Oh.
All right, bye.
Next week, we're coming up on New Year's in the United Kingdom, San.
Happy New Year's, the United Kingdom in Ireland.
Not much.
Oh, yeah, wait.
I flipped my screens.
No worries.
I didn't have my ears on.
Okay, now I'm, now I'm truly back.
Believe me, I understand.
On logcast, a lot of time is spent on streaming stuff or movies that I don't watch.
So I occasionally tune out and mute so I can listen to other things without
getting a copyright strike.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, the amount of times I have been sitting in discord servers or just in here,
playing video games watching YouTube videos or something.
And if only to just be here, whenever there is someone actually joins and starts talking.
I'm just working right now on getting stuff ready.
I'm going to be setting up a Raspberry 5 with MX Linux on the pi spin.
And I'm going to be setting up a now an i7 that's going to replace a little box which
is getting cranky.
I think a lot of my machines need their thermal paste replaced because they have heat issues.
And it's only 60 degrees in here or they're about so that's Fahrenheit.
So they shouldn't be having the heat issues if they're actually getting cooled by their
heat sinks.
I just want to say I did announce the coming of the new year for the United Kingdom and
I earlier about five minutes ago to have everyone to sleep.
Yeah, hard to that.
Everyone is asleep, but I wanted to make sure it was on tape.
Well, you know, virtual tape.
I'm not acting.
I mean, I'm in the central European time zone.
So I've literally been in the
Yeah, I got a ways to go here.
It's only seven and my cat is sleep staring at me.
I don't think she'd drink champagne, but I don't know.
I stopped going out for New Year's years ago.
It's pretty, you know, that's a fact that I don't really like to.
I'm not a people person in, you know, doesn't seem that way, but I'm not.
Anybody make anything fancy for a meal tonight?
Anything great?
Anybody's like the only chef type thing tonight?
I'm just trying to strike up conversation.
I'm sitting on my couch on my phone watching
its stories on YouTube using new pipes.
No, I've got, I've got, I've got another
I've got seven of 11, seven of people.
You know, the pizza is from 7-Eleven.
Somebody actually ordered one and had it delivered to my house.
I think it was about two years ago or something.
One of my friends was like, you know, let me feed you tonight.
I'm like, okay, and I think it was like, it goes well, I just sent you a
five-dollar pizza on Grubhub, and I'm just like,
Grubhub make it like way more expensive.
It wasn't a bad pizza though.
I was actually just 7-Eleven pizza was pretty good.
7-Eleven does pizza?
Yeah, they do here and I think
two in Japan, not sure, it's been years since I've been to Germany.
And I've never said, well, I go to the UK and
I've been quite a bit, but I've never seen a 7-Eleven there.
So I couldn't verify.
I don't know if there is any there now about it.
I don't think I've ever seen one.
A lot of gaskins there.
Well, as the MIT people would say, yes, they do a pizza for small values of pizza.
Since the local shops charge like $70 or more for something that's not
necessarily much better, I will do the 7-Eleven thing.
Yeah, it's been some time in the Harvard area.
Actually, but I married a low old girl.
So I know that it's pretty well.
But I'm originally from up to New York, but I spent a lot of time in Boston and
hopefully, beyond two different states and different areas.
But to other cities, I spent times in the Northeast working in the other things.
If you find a 7-Eleven Philly G-Stake pizza,
only buy it if you find somebody who truly hate to give it to.
To give it to.
Well, I definitely wouldn't buy it because I've been a vegetarian since 1999.
But if it was a vegan or a vegetarian,
a variant of a G-Stake, I might do it.
No, the 7-Eleven had one that's experimentally around Thanksgiving,
and it was replaced by Christmas.
That was not too early.
Hey, I was just wondering, how would you go about making a vegan
cheese steak when there's primarily cheese and steak?
Actually, there is a place in Philly that I've been to that does.
They're very famous for a vegan cheese steak.
So I, even though I'm the vegetarian, which means I do consume dairy products,
I do buy a lot of vegan cheese to basically because, you know, it's healthier.
If you get the right kind, it's really good.
A lot of it from almond milk or, you know, another variant of milk.
So you can get a pretty decent vegan pizza.
There's a place near me.
I got to think of the name of it.
But it's 100% vegan pizza plus, but it has ice cream,
it's milk ice cream, and it's inexpensive.
They actually have food trucks that go around here in Jacksonville as well.
But I was called Wild Pie.
Look up Wild Pie in Jacksonville, Florida.
They are one of the few 100% vegan places around here.
And they're right around the corner for me.
So I spend a lot of time in there because, oh, I can eat anything.
Don't have to worry at all.
I used to eat a place that was claimed to be vegetarian.
And then after a while, they started having tuna sandwiches.
And then they added hamburgers.
So many years ago, I used to live out in LA as well.
And when I went back to visit a few times,
and I went with a friend from New Orleans,
and well, for a different than a visiting,
we went for a funeral, but we were out there,
and he knew I was vegetarian.
So we went to this little vegan place,
and on the menu, I had like pulled pork,
all these things, but it's all vegan, right?
So different types of plant.
Based meats and stuff.
And he was like, well, how can you have that?
You know, it's very Southern.
You know, you had that Southern thing going on there
for that area.
And he's he's argued this kid.
And I'm like, so he's one of those guys
that will not like vegan stuff.
He says vegan.
It's got to be bad.
It's like eating chilled monkey brains or something.
So he goes on the menu and he's like, I can't get any of this stuff.
So he grabs a cookie.
You know, while I subscribe to Small Meal or something,
grabs a cookie, sits, and while he's eating it,
I'm like, you know, that's vegan too.
And he was like, damn it, you ruined everything.
So it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's some,
it's some point ice.
I saw a video of someone going on an event.
You know, October fest in like Bavaria, Germany.
Yeah, it's like this drinking thing.
I'm from North or Germany.
So I have, I don't even, I barely consider
it in German, that's amazing.
And anyways, someone went, went around there
and just asked people, huh, what would you say
if you got vegan beer?
Uh, vegan beer.
And well, you might already know that beer is vegan anyways.
I was thinking that too.
It's like, wait a minute.
Like, I'm pretty sure there's no beef or chicken broth based beer.
But if there is, there, you know, put it in Germany.
But, um, yeah, there's people that won't touch anything vegetarian.
Now, vegetarian could be anything.
Normal pizza, pizza place could be vegetarian.
So, but vegan on the other hand, you know, that's, that's a whole different story.
Well, I don't, I think a lot of people don't know the difference between
generic vegetarian and the more stringent or kosher vegan.
Well, a lot of people don't consider fish as meat.
So, but which is pescetarian?
Well, I'm like, yeah, it's got a face.
So it's meat to me.
Well, my narcissistic shrink was, um,
some form of vegetarian, I don't recall the details.
And she was always nibbling something or or had some kind of, uh,
shake or drink because quite frankly, the diet just doesn't have the same balance as a more
carnivorous diet is or omnivorous diet diet.
Yeah, you have to, I'm, I'm very careful.
You have to good supplement.
Um, I've been doing it since 99.
Oh, well, I mean, for, for a good portion of my life.
Um, I did it because I married a vegetarian.
And, and I was, uh, yeah, I was basically, I don't know,
I shouldn't say this because it was being aired.
I was the only person in the marriage that really could cook.
So in essence, um, I'm not going to make two meals.
I'm just going to make one meal.
So I had to make stuff that was acceptable to her.
She's also had allergies too.
So I had to make sure the allergens weren't in her food as well.
Um, but yeah, so I did that, but I mean, now she's gone.
I still, I still do it.
I've been doing it so long I can't turn back anymore.
Well, you know, I will admit that my family has been omnivorous or carnivorous most
for many years and my dad was, uh, wasn't I have had hunter.
So I've had deer bear and whatnot and rabbit harvested in the wild.
Also my, uh, grandfather, after he closed the dairy part of his farm,
he turned it over to a growing Angus beef.
And I was a skinny kid back in the day and those Nick roasts look a lot bigger when they're
leaning up against you and using you leaning you against the fence post.
And they're, they're just chilling as you're looking at a neck bigger than my waist.
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, after people that,
whatever they eat, they eat, doesn't bother me.
I mean, I've even, I've even dated somebody who's, yeah, I'm meat eater and actually, um, I,
I don't care.
It's like, doesn't bother me, but I'm going to eat what I want to eat.
And, you know, I'll be very particular and stuff like that of, yeah, I'll look over you or I,
I look at, it's the old, it's the, it's the old, uh, you fish on your side of the street,
the pond and I'll fish on my side of the pond and everybody it leaves, leaves the mental open,
make your choices and choices.
People do like to make fun of us that I've noticed that.
Like, I'm always the butt of, well, we can't go here because George can't eat.
I'm like, I'm vegetarian, not vegan.
So I'm sure I can find four things on the menu I can eat.
Yeah, well, also, uh, having been to both my grandparents' farms were derries originally.
The one in Maine, uh, was used old school technology, which is to say milk can,
type, milk harvest and the one in West Virginia had a bulk tank, which was pretty modern for
the time these things were set up.
But when I see three and a half percent butter, fat milk being sold as whole milk,
I have to sort of chuckle a little bit since I've seen every morning when I, I go to
Panera on a walk every morning and, um, I've been doing it for years.
Actually, last time I was in here was doing it as well.
Go for a walk and halfway through my 10,000 steps, I stopped by Panera, grabbed myself a coffee
to treat and then do another 5,000 steps.
But, um, they luckily have almond milk.
I mean, not saying luckily because I drink milk.
But for my health, I'd rather drink an alternative as well.
I have a cholesterol.
My whole family's had it.
It's raditary, so I take pills to regulate it, but a little more animal product I consume
the work gets.
I think the reason I'm still alive when anyone else at male and my family died around this age
is because I became a vegetarian in my late teens.
I've cut out a lot of animal bits in my diet, which filled a lot of my cholesterol.
It's high enough where I need to take pills for it, stuff, but it's not like crazy high where
I'm going to go over and eat that instead.
Yeah, I know a buddy of mine, both this guy and his dad died in like their mid-30s from
heart disease or what have you.
This guy was very heavy.
He was an incredibly nice guy, but nice guy, but I'd, well, I don't know whether
how well he took care of himself.
He may have just kind of felt that he was going to die young, and he just did his thing until he died.
Yeah, I just, I mean, for my health, but also even before that, before my doctor said,
you know, you need to cut more dairy out and stuff, but I was still consuming a lot of vegan stuff,
but now it's like such a disease as I buy and put a picture.
And they're not that much more expensive, but I buy the vegan alternative.
I buy this really good almond based cheese.
Is that a problem? I can't think of the name.
The top of my head, but it's really, it tastes to me like normal cheese.
It's maybe like $1.50 more than the dairy alternative right next to it.
So I mean, if it melts the saying, why not buy it, you know, you seem to have some
great vegan cheeses because some of them are garbage.
There are some garbage cheeses that are soy based and not garbage.
They're okay. They melt okay.
If you're just going to use like on a sandwich or something, it's not so great.
There's something called follow your heart.
It's here. It's a, it's a brand here.
And those aren't too bad. I buy their goota and stuff and their goota kind of taste like goota,
but a lot of them just taste kind of off or funny.
And they are because they're soy based.
But the ones that are based off say like almond milk or what's there's another one too.
But there's there's two or three different ones that are really, really good.
And then there's probably a sea of garbage.
So I much pick the ones I know are good.
So the ones I look for, the rest I'll just shout off or try if it's new.
Some of them are pretty good.
I'm really into morning star products.
So a lot of, here it's a vegetarian slash vegan brand.
So I'm really into their bokeh burgers.
Not their bokeh burgers and their burgers.
Morning star as it sound, bokeh is another brand.
I've been eating bokeh burgers since, I want to say maybe since the 1990s
or early 2000s and you put them on a, you put them on a grid.
Oh, I fooled people with those.
They actually taste like real burgers.
From what I remember, but even at the time,
just put them side by side with another one.
And it's just, if you put it on a, on you throw it on a bun,
like that's a really good lean burger.
I'm like, it is.
Just keep eating it.
Don't ask what's in it.
Well, I mean, considering what people are being trained to eat
from McDonald's Wednesdays or Burger King,
a burger that's actually designed to be edible by humans
with whatever the substrate is becoming a little harder to find.
I mean, there's some, just one little thing,
one little thing while you're saying that there's a,
there's a thing where they analyze the McDonald's burger not too long ago.
The United States version, I don't know about European or something
because they, they would have different standards.
But I think they said it was about 40% soy anyways.
So if you're eating 40%, oh, you might as well keep going.
I'm just saying.
Oh, oh, but by the way, in a lot of your loose cheese,
parmesan or what have you, you know,
like pizza cheese or spaghetti cheese,
they use cellulose to keep it from sticking together.
So you're not only getting your organic,
your animal organics, but you're also getting flat fiber.
Yeah, when you said that, I was just thinking of a TV show,
Nick Tupp, when Nick, oh, is it, Nick Tupp,
when they're, when they're like taking cellulose out of people's thighs or
because the vegan cheeses we have here,
and either my, either my little brother describes them
as smelling like popcorn or my mother complains
because there's like no, because there's,
because there apparently isn't good enough nutritional values in there or something.
Just because it's made out of, I think it was coconut oil or some stupid stuff.
But I mean, hey, it's vegan.
I mean, that's what it's there for, just to be a vegan alternative.
And usually most of you're melting on something.
So vegan cheese, even the ones I don't like as much,
if you melt them, they're not bad.
You can't tell.
The trouble is if you're just eating it like if you pull this light out
and started eating it, and I'm like, is this plastic?
Yeah, I'm not, you know what I'm saying.
It's just like this.
What is this?
What am I doing?
But when you melt it and, you know,
like in a burger, it tastes melted cheese.
Yeah, well, that's all come American cheese food.
They don't even call it cheese cheese.
They call it cheese food because it has whatever,
whatever oils or whatever they figure they can get away with.
And I mean, we're melting the cheese.
Well, good luck getting that to work properly.
On Boxing Day, I was at a friend's party.
And we had to, and well, there was a buffet,
and you were supposed to bring something.
And well, my family, we brought small little cup pies,
or like doughnut, not doughnut.
And muffin sized pies,
one which was vegan, which I made with spinach and a vegetarian one
with kale, I think it was.
And you barely even had to read the sign.
If you knew that one was vegan and one was vegetarian,
you could just look at it.
The one where the cheese, where the great cheese was still
more or less intact than the vegan one.
Yeah, I can see that.
A lot of the cheese I have,
I've used in the past as an elf correctly.
There are certain things, but I mean,
here in the States, the one I found is follow your heart.
And I'm actually out of the other one.
It's like in my fridge.
Follow your heart stuff.
I mean, I just throw that on a burger or something,
they're good or American slices.
It tastes like cheese once it's melted, so.
Fools, my palate.
It's like I stopped drinking soda a couple years ago,
because they're not good for you.
So started drinking cell tours.
And as long as the cell tours bubbly and flavorful,
I'll, that if said, like I fool you frame at a point
where like, just drink this instead.
It's like, you know, you're trying
to detox yourself or something.
E-T-O-V-I-S-E.
I'm getting hungry.
So I'm like, oh, like keeping up my stove
and I'm gonna make a burger.
Well, put your mouth where your money is, I guess.
Something like that.
But I had an interesting event happen
earlier this fall.
I went into the doctor for a flu shot.
I got my flu shot.
On the trip on public transportation, I also got COVID.
So I got my COVID inoculation the old fashioned way.
Yeah, I got COVID shot before I traveled to the UK in October
because I refer Aug-Camp.
I've gone over for a couple of years.
Of course, there's been a five-year lapse in Aug-Camps.
But I went over in a flu shot about a month before my COVID shot.
It's before that I had COVID.
But I still got a COVID shot anyway.
It's because you never know.
Something's gonna be coughing on me next to the plane or something.
So COVID-like flu is a moving target.
So, you know, although I've heard that some of the more recent shots are more problematic,
including the fact that the follow-on shots have tended to reduce the immunity
that the prior shot gives you or something.
I've heard different things.
I almost feel like I should go to get see and just, like, I don't know,
prop up my phone and you can watch me cook.
But I'm not gonna do that.
Not, I've been here on Jitsy like the whole time I've been on the mumbles of today.
With the wait, just our day two, I forgot that I had gone past midnight.
Yeah, they were bringing up, they were cooking earlier.
Like, oh, we should just do it on Jitsy.
And I'm like, um, mumble.
We should use mumble.
We've always used mumble.
Use mumble.
Don't take away my mumble.
Yeah, let's keep mumble it.
I love mumble.
I even run my own mumble server for when I used to podcast friend quite a bit.
So it's easy, it's quick, and it's secure, and it's mine.
Yeah, well, I'm making the big move early this year.
Well, 2025 anyway.
I will be getting my first Android phone, my first cell phone,
and I'm going to be enabling Wi-Fi in my house in a very limited way.
Google will be listening to everything you do.
Well, yeah, well, yeah, well, the deal that I'm also going to be doing is
trying to make everything go through a VPN,
regardless of the Wi-Fi provider.
I'm going to be sort of going through a VPN right now.
I also do that for everything, although I've no idea whether it makes any different.
I may not also, what I'm planning on doing is opening up a separate Nick.
I have some spare Nick on my PF Synth router.
And I'm talking about looking one of those up in such a way that it is strictly Wi-Fi
to the internet. It is invisible to my local network,
and it is invisible to, and my local network is invisible to it.
It is strictly straight to the internet.
Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
That worked, of course, but we use
routing tables to keep that straight. It's a pain in the butt.
Well, I'll be using PF Synths rules.
You've got to remember, PF Synths, I will be just making a rule from my
from my wide-area network port to this port and back and forth and not have anything
and have it not talk to any other local addresses.
Well, PF Synths will do pretty much anything you wanted to do.
That's a high-end star one here several years ago, and I was using a really old piece of hardware
that it really didn't like the hardware too much.
I had so much trouble getting it working, and eventually just my, I can barely do Linux,
and there'd be just enough difference as I had to look everything up. It seemed like.
Well, I'm going to do that. I mean, I don't know. I'm planning on having the Wi-Fi itself be
outboard of my router, which was some kind of device, whether it's another, whether it's another
router or some kind of hotspot, but the whole idea is to keep all of my stuff, all of my Wi-Fi stuff
off of my network and off of the cellular system. What are you going to use Wi-Fi for,
just your phone? At the moment, the phone is the primary use. I also have a Chromebook that I
need to bring out and see if I can update. Yeah, I listen to these others, these shows, and I know
that I can do better than I'm doing, and I plan to, or I want to do something about my router.
I think my router's probably junk, but I'm trying to get a better router, but I don't think I'm going
to go with a PF sense or anything like that again, because it was just too much trouble.
You can get routers that are running open WRT, which is a more friendly and still pretty open
source routing platform for commercial routers. Yeah, my plan was to get something. It's on
their compatibility list, so that when the manufacturer stops supporting it in three years,
I could open what, I forgot. Open WRT, yes, that's the one. Open WRT, and on it to get extended
life, but I probably wouldn't, if I'm satisfied with the interface and that it's doing a pretty good
job, I probably wouldn't do that while it's new, but my current one is an AC, and we don't have
any devices that are newer than AC, so it probably wouldn't make any difference.
Yeah, I'm not planning on using my, I don't know what my phone will be capable of, but I'm not
planning on using anything to modern. I might even, I probably want to go to five gigahertz, but
just because 2.4 is so cluttered. Yeah, anything you buy today will have five gigahertz on it. I don't
know. My phone is probably close to about three years old, and it's, it has five gigahertz,
and my wife's phone's older than that, and it has five gigahertz, and they're both AC. You
probably get AX these days on most things, so I think you'll get it whether you've wanted to
be just by default. Well, the, the question is not on the phone. It is the question of what
device I use for transition between Wi-Fi and ethernet, and, and my ethernet connection.
Well, since you don't have that yet, you might as well at least go fairly modern.
Yeah, well, I'm just seeing that, but again, I'm going to have to see about what kind of login
things and what not I have, and how P.O.Sense deals with that, or if I want to have the hot, have the,
yeah, have the hotspot handle that, and P.O.Sense just handle the packets after I've logged into the
hot, to the, the Wi-Fi extension or whatever it is. Yeah, before I set up something like that,
I spend about a month drawing different possible ways of doing it, figuring out most of them are
just wrong, or, or don't have any advantage over straightforward. Well, I don't know about five
gigahertz, but I know that virtually every computer I have here has Wi-Fi built in. So,
if I just want to practice or play around, I can think about building a connection that I
bridge to my network, but that does violate my security standards. Yeah, you have to decide what you
want, or what you want it to do, and you can, you can separate them, but you can, now I have a
guest network. My router, and so does yours, allows you to have a guest network that separately allows
separate network for access just to the internet, and that's what I have my TV set connected to.
And so, you know, you could do something like that for your phones, and that wouldn't ever connect
back to your main network, unless you need to connect to your network to a copy files or something,
which you can always do with a USB wire. Yeah, I'm aware of the USB that Linux sees
Android devices as a storage device, if plugged in properly, without tellering or any fancy things
like that. I'm going to have to see, again, I'm on DSL, so I'm not really concerned that much with
with gross throughput, but having having an org I can connect to easily and securely would be nice.
Yeah, if you buy like used equipment, older stuff, it'll probably fast enough for your internet,
but copy between devices would be slow. Also, I don't know about security on
if you get older equipment that's at like out of date. Well, again, I don't really know right now
what I have, or what what PSN's talks to as far as a gateway to.
And then I have those Wi-Fi cards you can plug into a PC, you know, a desktop PC with
the little antennas on them. I suspect those could be made into a bridge or an access point
to the same way that most are, or rather, at least a lot of routers can be done.
Well, again, I, yeah, I just have to figure out. And I have to see the, see what's,
what's available for that. And again, what is something that I can sustain over time?
So I might, might look for a WRT router, just those that I know that eventually I can,
I can upgrade, create it personally instead of relying on the manufacturer who say this.
All right, it's, you know, 2028 time to buy a new router.
What kind of hardware is your PSN's running on?
It's running on a no name micro PC from, from Amazon for gigabyte nix,
which leaves me with, I mean, for gigabyte nix. So I have one, one downstream, one upstream,
and I have a couple of ports open.
So that's a, a desktop has got like, open PCIe slot.
No, this is a, this is a mini PC, just a, no, no open slots at all. It's just a, a block with,
I think it even has Wi-Fi, but I haven't explored that, but, but it's just, uh, basically,
I have a small SSD inside, and I have four, uh, some, you know, some, uh, system on a chip.
I mean, it runs X80, 64 bit X86, but it doesn't have the, uh, secure instructions that are what
have you, um, which almost forced me to go to open sense, but PF sense decided to stick with,
with, uh, didn't stop. They were at one time thinking of requiring the secure,
the crypto instructions, but, uh, their market, uh, rebelled, so they, so now the community versions,
still supports non-security, uh, instructed chip. So it's like a knuck, uh, those little,
little boxes that, uh, that they think those might have Wi-Fi. Yeah, well, that's something in there,
but the idea that I'm, I'm trying to do is make it so that I could, uh,
uh, remote the, uh, the Wi-Fi, uh, enter, uh, have the Wi-Fi, uh, just feed, just feeds something down,
down through an ethernet cable. Yeah, I get the idea where you're going with that, uh, and that,
that box doesn't leave a whole lot of expansion, uh, is, is adequate for what you're doing with it,
but it doesn't give you a whole lot of slots. No slot expansion, just, just plug into the next,
and configure P.O. Sense, um, to use the other, the other channel, the other next.
Well, good luck with that. That'll be fun trying to figure it out, I guess. I'm in the middle of
trying to, uh, move entirely to Linux after 20 odd years as a, uh, Windows administrator and
about 10 years, um, playing with Linux and trying to just go totally Linux, and I got bought a new
box this year and I'm having health figuring everything out. Hey man, I did it years ago. I'll be,
I'll be glad to help anyone. I used to do it all the time. I was a Linux evangelist at work.
IBM, I'd be passing out a loopy disk, right? Well, I was, uh, I was running Windows until Windows
seven and then when Microsoft started playing, uh, update to Windows 10 or games, I, I jumped ship.
Well, I made my living as a systems administrator. So I did Vax's and, uh, Novel and, um, uh,
the old deck PDP stuff and, uh, IBM mainframe and, but then the last 20 odd years was, uh, was Windows.
So I know a lot about Windows, but I know a whole lot less about exactly how to make the Linux do
the things. I've, I've had heck trying to figure out these permissions. I did, um, Windows support
working for, um, developers and both my odds that works with IBM, working for developers.
I did Windows, Lotus node, C name it, but I started with, um, I don't know, I mean, mainframe,
other things like that. But in my, in my, in my life outside of work, because to me, Windows was
garbage, but it kept, kept me employed. Um, I started using Red Hat back in the 90s and I was like,
okay, this is difficult, but it seems better. And then eventually I migrated to a Debian-based
type situation using Ubuntu or, um, now Mint, but, um, I, you know what, if you do it every day,
you know, like when you're working and you do that every day and you're fixing the Windows things,
well, if you, if you force yourself to work in Linux at home, you have no choice but to learn it.
That's what I encompassed my entire life from about 96, 7, maybe 97, up, um, just doing
Linux at home. And that's, that's all I did. I had a, back in dial updates, I had to create my own
done. I had to figure out how to create a dial of networks so I can connect to AT&D because they
didn't have software for me to connect. I had to create my own dial of network in Linux to connect
to my internet, um, you know, things like that. And so when you're just encompass yourself in it,
and there is a community out there, I mean, seriously, when I was doing Open Zoo say, there is a
community out there, and they will reach out and they will give you a lot of answers. Some of
them are correct. Most of them are correct, but you know, there might be different ways of doing
it and stuff, but, um, just the way you've learned Windows and compasses and compass yourself
and learn Linux the same way. And that's pretty, I, and it's good to be ambidextrous too. You know,
Windows and you've got Linux and I even know Mag. If you know them all, I mean, you know, I mean,
it's good. I mean, I still probably have always two knowledge because of IBM so I'm wearing my
heads. But no as many operating systems as you can, but I would say use Linux because it's safer,
it's better, it's cleaner, it's more hackable, it's more capable, you can do whatever you want with it.
I'm sorry, um, we're coming up about three minutes on another one. So I, I, I meant to say that
I won't mute myself for a bit because I, I tend, I'm being originally from the New York,
I tend to talk a lot. Well, I understand all the things you're talking about there. I am immersed
in Linux right now. I don't use my Linux box. It's turned off. I haven't been on it in several
weeks. Um, I turned it on last week for my wife to get to it so she can, because we've got some
things stored on it, but I didn't even put a monitor on it. I didn't remote to it to shut it back
down. Um, so I have a brand new box that's about six weeks old and it's had only Linux on it.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio does work.
Today's show was contributed by a HBR listener like yourself. If you ever thought of recording
broadcast, you click on our contribute link to find out how easy it really is. Hosting
for HBR has been kindly provided by an honesthost.com, the internet archive and our sings.net.
On the Sadois status, today's show is released under Creative Commons,
Attribution 4.0 International License.
