Overview

Even though we don’t cover all our chosen topics, we flow between talking about tech topics quite nicely. Stephen just got a new computer to put together and Alan got a new Apple Watch.

In between we discuss old computer games with new tech and we discuss using car tech in ways that hasn’t been done before.

Oh, and what about companies using tech to control their products to a degree that seems unreasonable.

And what would a discussion be without throwing in all the great new shows coming out or the ones we’ve missed and need to binge.

Recommendations

Micro Center – https://www.microcenter.com/

Apple Watch – https://www.apple.com/watch

BMW Seats –https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/bmw-clarifies-its-rules-around-subscription-based-heated-seats-and-it-s-not-quite-what-you-think/ar-AA10bSAV

HP – https://news.softpedia.com/news/why-hp-can-remotely-disable-printers-if-you-cancel-a-4-99-monthly-subscription-528922.shtml

Civ 3 – https://civilization.com/civilization-3/

GOG – https://www.gog.com/galaxy

Doctor Who – https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-features

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: Ooh, nice tie dye shirt.

[00:00:02] Alan: Exactly. You got the tie eye going. I there’s a lot of tie eye when I wear it it’s not really about concealment it’s not quite camo. Someone just commented online about, Hey girls ladies, when you wear pink camo. Exactly. What are you doing? Hiding among the flamingos or what’s the point of yeah.

[00:00:20] Stephen: Oh, Hey whatever let each their own right. Met our, a word in the universe nowadays. So I really wanna hear about this new apple watch, but I’ve got an exciting, fun update for myself. so I still got my same background. I’m still in the corner in the hallway at the moment. Okay.

You

[00:00:42] Alan: said you were working on the home office and so I was expecting to see new things. I didn’t change my doctor who yet, so I guess we’re still yeah, ,

[00:00:49] Stephen: it’s a busy summer so I do have the office I’ve been working on getting that cleared out. I got nice new air conditioner in there, so I don’t die.

I was gonna put up a scientist Skynet south I was at Microcenter last night, helping my cousin find a laptop for his grandson for biomed. He’s going in the third grade and they give these laptop requirements and I’m. Why did these third graders need a $600 laptop? Whatever, especially when there’s been several efforts to get like a hundred laptop available.

[00:01:21] Alan: know, A long time ago,

Overview

Magazines, remember those? We talk about reading magazines and how that has changed. We talk comics and books – genre’s which are all over the board.

Recommendations

Collectorz – https://www.collectorz.com/

Pulpfest – https://pulpfest.com/

Remo Williams – https://www.communizine.com/remo-williams-the-destroyer-books-worth-reading/#:~:text=Remo%20Williams%20is%20the%20main%20character%20in%20a,recruited%20into%20the%20secret%20USA%20government%20organization%20CURE.

Torchwood – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood

YouTub

Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: Oh, we’re on the tar, huh?

[00:00:03] Alan: Exactly. I think vintage too. You know what I mean? I’ve lost track of which exact doctor end season and so forth. But I discovered I, I keep finding cool backgrounds and I’m, I try to, I don’t know, just each time I try to wear a spice it up for for our podcast.

We’re a different different background. Here’s the rock and roll hall of fame t-shirt for today. Nice

[00:00:24] Stephen: the rock. There we go. I’ve got first of all, there’s a real cool, humble bundle right now that has all the modern doctors comic books series.

[00:00:34] Alan: And you saw that as a matter of fact.

[00:00:36] Stephen: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I was looking at that. I’m like, man that’s a pretty good deal for 25 30 bucks. But I finally have my office. That I can get moved into. It’s an old bedroom. That’s getting converted. It’s separate. And, but, oh my gosh. Not there yet. I got a really good quiet AC, so that’ll be nice.

I got nice background so I can use backgrounds again. It’s just plain paint, but man, I had to crawl through the attic over 50 year old stuff, stored up there, dust and dirt and mouse poop and Cowe and I CA I had, I was like dust covered all over. I’m doing the like walking and puffs of dust are coming off of me.

Wow. So it, I haven’t gotten everything moved. That’s why I still have the same background but you know what I was thinking of doing, I was thinking of taking a picture of this and using that as my digital background.

[00:01:35] Alan: see that be funny to just, this is how it’s always been yeah. So how.

You take a picture of the attic, and have that be this is where my office is. Yes. As I’ve mentioned I’m actually up in the attic, I’m on third floor of our house, up in Skynet. And it, I, the background is me at my desk surrounded by stacks of books.

And however, I conduct my business, it’s getting crowded, I’m getting a little cluttered, where I just, I don’t know. I don’t need to keep everything arms length, but if I’m working on multiple projects or if I, it just seems to be that things accumulate around me in every year, half year, quarter,

Overview

We are all over the board today. Even more than usual.

The Webb telescope has allowed us to see back in time.

Target shooting is fun, even if you don’t want to hunt.

Missing the Mensa AG and Colloquium isn’t fun.

String theory is cool and complicated.

George Carlin is still relevant today.

Elton John – ’nuff said.

Recommendations

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] Alan: Really.

[00:00:02] Stephen: Okay. And it’s interesting you put dinosaurs because I was going mention the pictures from the web telescope, which is essentially seen back in time. Yeah. It’s I have just on the surface of what’s available, I browse through the first 10 or something like that, but they keep releasing things that are just magnificent and such clarity and such things we’ve never seen before.

[00:00:26] Alan: And that’s what a wonderful chance for the public to get educated about how big the universe is and how that’s, how space works time works. That seeing things that are like they don’t exist anymore. We’re seeing things from millions billions of years ago, I’ve lost track of what it’s real

[00:00:42] Stephen: range is.

Yeah. It’s well it saw the. Or it saw a star that is now we see the star in the sky with telescopes or whatever the light’s there, but the telescope saw it gone, burnt out done. So to think about that’s time travel. That really is time travel. Yeah.

[00:01:01] Alan: Yeah. I, there, I we’ve talked about little lists before I, is there something very cool about how mankind keeps expanding its senses?

You know what I mean? That at first it was I, some people had better eyesight than others and then there was actually monoculars and binoculars that using lenses will be able to do that and microphones that can capture from far away. Yeah. And just pirates. that’s very cool that we have that desire.

You know what I mean to influence not only listen to and have our senses expand, but then influence the world around us. So how can I throw something far away? Whether it’s the I don’t know a highlight I, what call CSTA? I think the CSTA go anyway. I lose track of my my sports firms, you and I are such sport heads know sports ball, but then just shooting.

I, I think I mentioned know, I’ve only been shooting a couple times in my life, but there really is a cool feeling for being able to be 20, 30, 50 yards away and go blink and touch that thing. Yeah. And with accuracy I’m actually a pretty good shop. A 22 rifle. I couldn’t believe how good I was.

I was getting like 28 outta 30 and stuff like that. So nice. Whatever that the steadiness, the squeeze, the however, my eyes work that really isn’t off or something like that. And as things got heavier, I wasn’t so good about big guns. They got away from me, that they had so much recoil.

Yeah. And But where it felt like I could still be in control and you can do that little out breath and all that stuff. I really was, this is cool blink. you know what I mean? Especially when you’re here and you get that first taste, there’s that little bit of time in between shooting and th...

Overview

Yes, we have topics planned, but we start off talking about drugs, and media control, and not accepting of facts, and how all these things tie in.

Stephen has an announcement of a project he is working on that can benefit authors and bookstores.

Recommendations

Bookstore Project – https://thebook-bookstoreproject.com

Todoist – https://todoist.com/

Trivia

Pro football players Alan Page and Dan Dierdof were born in what Ohio city?

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] Alan: Hello. Good morning library. Let me get rid of this box. Get here we go. Pour myself a drink, add some drink here. So I have my diet pepper recommendation of relentless for, to caffeinated. I recommend diet Dr. Pepper cause the delicious taste of prude juice or whatever the active ingredient is. And actually I read that long ago.

It’s been proven not to be true and yet whatever the 17 herbs and spices recipe that is inic Dr. Pepper. It’s hooked me my favorite thing. So we

[00:00:33] Stephen: need to get sponsored.

[00:00:35] Alan: there, there must be like, I know that people serious coders talk about, they swear by like mountain Dew code red, or whatever the most like jot Cola.

There’s a couple that buy for. What’s the most caffeine that you can put in something, without it being ammunition, without it being some terrible drug. And I’ll tell you soft drinks are still pretty safe. When you look at what’s in those little power shots that they have, near the checkout counters of all the various different bars and places.

Now they really are a drug there’s, it’s like the fact that it’s in a little like party favor type container doesn’t mean that you’re getting an incredible amount of not only caffeine, but all kinds of other things that because they’re not registered as a pharmaceutical they don’t have any regulation going on.

And yet I’m trying to think what I’ve seen in them, like yo Himba and kombucha, and you know what I mean, things that are known to be natural stimulants, like these are the things they give people to lose weight because it jacks your metabolism up so much that you’re just kinda like vibrating in place while you sit.

I don’t think I’m pretty sure . That there must be studies that say your health is not helped by having your whole body be like ready to fight, or flight adrenaline response. Whatever’s going on there. You’re just vibrating with an up metabolism. We talk a lot about health in that and from what I’ve read, learn, think whatever the caffeine yes.

[00:02:10] Stephen: Gives you that jolt, but it’s a minor temporary thing. And it’s because it’s combating other things that if we would be watch our weight, watch what we eat more of the right good stuff. Exercise we’d have that same amount of energy without having to get the caffeine, but right,

[00:02:30] Alan: with the spikes in the valleys exactly to

[00:02:32] Stephen: America, that’s way too much work to actually be healthy.

So we’ll just drink caffeine. And

Overview

Alan should be going to the Mensa AG and giving his talk. Instead, he needs to fly to California about family business. We discuss what an AG is like and what we enjoy the most.

Then the discussion turns to some of the issues facing our country and how they have magnified over the last several years.

Recommendations

https://ag.us.mensa.org/

http://chicago.us.mensa.org/weem/

https://amzn.to/3ACqKzB

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: There we go. How is Alan today besides wet

[00:00:05] Alan: and actually it’s so first of all the big sad news is why should tomorrow and actually already today, BSC men annual gathering. Yeah. Anticipating being, being at that for a year, it was shaping up wonderfully. We had a really great committee this year and people were just, they gathered tons of programs from members and non-member.

So we had all that’s. My favorite part of the thing is just all these one hour immersions into something that person, someone is an expert in that they’re passionate about. You just get so much. A cornucopia of wow I didn’t know that I wanted to know more about Hercule, the other city, besides Pompe, they got buried or whatever else it might be. Great special events this year we had our gala dinner speaker was Shely, who’s the woman that wrote the book, hidden figures. I think we talked about this before. Yeah. Yep. As well as a talent show, a comedy show, a drag brunch, the cryptic crawl, just so much cool stuff going on.

And today the annual gathering actually runs Wednesday to Sunday. Today would’ve been the colloquium. And I don’t know if we talked about this that much before the colloquium is a really cool event that me men up puts on where it’s deep immersion into a single topic. And it’s it’s the stereotype of what people think we do at MEA conferences.

Who was giftedness through the, through the life, through the lifeline. And like talking about many people have questions about gifted children. How do I know, how do I, the care and feeding of them if I have them and stuff like that. But also mentions are very aware. We are our own support group.

That doesn’t turn off when you get to be a teen or a 20 something in the workforce or a a mature haha adult with kids and stuff like that. There’s still things that are different about Smarties that you have to be aware of. What kind of smarts do you have? Are you the curious type?

Are you the deep silo knowledge type? Are you, do you have, as we’ve laughed about some traces of Asperger’s or things where you’re the stereotype of the geek, the nerd is that we’re poorly socialized and that’s of course only a stereotype, but for some people they fill the stereotype quite well.

I, and it’s not only you have great speakers from outside, like the professors, the authors, the people that really know about that topic. And then you have good Q and A’s after each of their presentations. And then often there’s a big panel discussion at the end where, and anybody who was at the colloquium, like really wanna be there.

They’re interested in the topic and the you and I have laughed about this.

Overview

Alan is once again flying, so we discuss how flying has changed over the last several decades. Using websites and apps and the ability to get up to the minute updates and seat changes.

We discuss pandemic games that we’ve played.

Recommendations

Plague Inc – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/plague-inc/id525818839?itsct=apps_box_link&itscg=30200

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: you’re sitting sideways on the airplane. it’s

[00:00:04] Alan: I got, I bought three seats so I can stretch out a little bit. Exactly. Yeah. Should put the arm rests up. So

[00:00:12] Stephen: it looks so realistic.

[00:00:16] Alan: I’m quite proportionate. You know what I mean? I’m in a little kid seat or something, but right. . And so obviously prompting us to talk about this.

I’ve been doing tons of travel because of coming out to see my parents in California, at least my mom, because my father passed away. And boy, there was a golden period about 10, 15 years ago where websites really had every airline and they really accounted for every feature and every price you might pay and you could go on and find the best deal.

And if you’ve done any of that kind of travel search lately, It’s next to impossible. The number of airlines don’t cooperate with the big aggregators, they do their own thing or whatever, the information they supply to the aggregators is the basic will get you a seat on the airplane. And then it’s oh, you wanted oxygen.

You wanted like food and drink is a thing in the past. Everybody charges for those kinds of things, but you can choose to pay for a different seat. They now have a little thing, where depending on what your preference is and it’s amazing you get a the price differential between just getting on the plane and then how they try to upsell you.

I’ve been because I’ve been doing it so often. I’ve been trying to use spirit frontier not so much jet blue, because I don’t seem to fly where I want to, but they’re the more budget airlines Southwest compared to the big Delta and American, whoever else. But having said that, it’s just amazing how once you have a seat, every time you go to the website, like if you wanna put in your TSA pre number, it walks you through a whole bunch of screens that say, Hey, did you want to add a bag?

You’re sure that you don’t have any bag. You know what I mean? And if you have a bag, you’re sure you don’t want another bag and here’s the seat on each of your legs. And it’s just amazing how I find it next to impossible. And so it’s kinda who have I learned to what’s the combination of trust and least hassle, and I know I’m gonna get screwed, but who screws me the least.

You know what I mean? It’s just. I want it to be that the some website would say,

Overview

Alan had to deal with a situation where app automation would have been helpful. This includes apps to help with travel plans.

And with traveling and trying to automate, various cloud services are available, but man, the problems Stephen has had using Google and their lack of support.

Recommendations

https://www.angi.com/

https://www.biltmore.com/

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:05] Alan: There we go. Yeah. How my so shadowed here. This is wild. Let’s see. At least we got the head in the middle. Yeah. Of course I’m out in California instead of at home in uh, Lakewood and I’m right next to a big patio door. And I thought I’d be able to have another light source that would even that out.

No it doesn’t. No,

I guess I’ll just be the shadow man today. I get over here. That’s better. Okay. Don’t move. Not really. Just the old days of okay. Billy, go adjust the antenna now, hold that for the length of the show. Everybody

[00:00:36] Stephen: hold. Yeah. The revenue. Exactly. For the, for any kids listening, they won’t get that so how are you a

[00:00:41] Alan: I’m doing fine, actually.

It in fact here, this is a good launching point. So I’m out in California I’m taking care of the house, visiting mom usually one week outta the month that. Without people living in the house the constant fear is that what’s gonna happen to it. We actually had something recently where they have a sprinkler system, an irrigation system, cuz they have a beautiful, beautifully landscape and it’s California.

So they have an orange tree and birds of paradise and all that kind of stuff. So you really don’t want it to go south part of the beauty of the house and the resale value of the house is the beautiful landscaping. We have a neighbor Corey who noticed that one of the, it was spritzing either the she thought it was at first a sprinkler had, but then it turned out to be upon investigation.

A break in the actual line that goes from the main line of the house, into the irrigation system that leaves everything else. And you don’t find that out until you. The city of Oceanside send a person out because they’re concerned about water waste. You know what I mean? It’s drought conditions out here.

They have restrictions on how often you’re allowed to water anything. Pretty soon. They might even have Hey, you guys shower on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday that kind of thing. people we had people investigate that they had to dig to find it. The people, the plumbers that we had first come out said, we really aren’t experts at sprinkling and irrigation.

So we’ll do the work, but we won’t warranty it. And it’s that’s an ideal situation. You’ll do some work. You’ll bury it. And then if something, once again, screws up, you’re not responsible. So we using the wonderful of Angie at formerly Angie’s list. Now, Angie, we found people that really specialized in conclusion irrigation and we We found someone to take care of it.

It’s really working perfectly. I saw it sprinkled this morning and stuff like that. The reason for saying all this,

Overview

The Mensa AG is coming quickly. If you’ve never attended, there are so many great programs and we talk a bit about them here.

There is also a problem with the Apple M1 chip. We discuss what the problem is and what it could mean for users.

Recommendations

Mensa AG – https://ag.us.mensa.org/

M1 Problem – https://knowtechie.com/mit-researchers-say-security-flaw-in-apples-m1-chip-cant-be-fixed

K-Pop – https://www.90daykorean.com/what-is-kpop/

Trivia

What Marvel character has been a member of the X-Men, but wasn’t a mutant?

YouTube

Transcript

Good morning, Alan. Good morning. Oh, green. Are you wearing? Is that green? We

[00:00:16] Alan: exactly. I’m we color coordinated. I have many of these they’re like from JC penny or something like that. I’m trying brand name is, but they fit me perfectly. And so it’s like, how about one in every color?

And then I have 12 of them now.

[00:00:27] Stephen: That’s good. Cuz Green’s like the opposite of orange. So it’s the antithesis of your favorite color, exactly.

[00:00:33] Alan: That, you know it’s and what’s funny is. I don’t wear as much orange as I once did have I talked about this? I wore so much that I became known as the guy in the orange.

And then I found out that there was a guy that they called the orange man on the east coast. That was actually an oddball, maybe even a Lety oddball. And it was like now that I’m going to more now that I’m more towards the east coast in Cleveland instead of Chicago. And when you go to the [00:01:00] ag, I’d wanna be, oh, there’s that jerk there’s right.

Yeah. Talk to him. So luckily I think I’m different enough that I get to wear orange without being labeled the orange

[00:01:09] Stephen: man. That’s worth, if you go to conventions and stuff like that, or one of the things a lot of places nowadays are having codes of conduct and ways to make it so that everybody there has a good experience, that it shuts down the worst of the trolls, the worst of the bullies in the jerks and stuff like that.

[00:01:26] Alan: But way before you formalize that there was always that underground network. People knew who the jerks were, the people who were bad drunks, the people who were pickup artists, the PE the people that would corner you and have a two hour long conversation on their favorite topic. You know what I mean?

Already back then you had that the, especially, I dunno, the ladies seemed to have the network of warning people away from the people that would take advantage of the fact that you’ve never met them before, and they can be all smooth and charming and slick and get you drunk and take advantage of it.

Like it’s always been [00:02:00] that’s getting together for festivals. Part of it is losing your inhibitions and In a human way saying let’s make sure that we don’t have inbreeding in our community. Let’s go with other communities.

Overview

Stephen attended the Supernatural con in Chicago and tells all about it, including the awesome concert with Louden Swain.

Alan has been virtually attending the Apple WorldWide Develop Conference and has updates on the coolest new stuff.

Recommendations

https://www.creationent.com/cal/supernatural_denver.htm

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-in-its-all-online-format

http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/Kings_of_Con

https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-m2/

https://usa.kaspersky.com/

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:31] Alan: Good morning,

Alan. How are you,

[00:00:41] Stephen: sir? Good

[00:00:42] Alan: morning, Steven. Doing fine. Thank you. Let’s see. Big news is you went to a very cool convention in Chicago. I believe

[00:00:50] Stephen: absolutely the supernatural conference. And for me it was a little weird. Because I’m used to the crypto zoology and, you know, [00:01:00] cryptic conferences that I’ve always gone to with call it.

This was similar to that, but also different, honestly, I’m not sure if a whole weekend is needed, unless you’re definitely getting autographs and pictures because those lines are long and take a while

[00:01:17] Alan: it’s. So it was more about the people than the, were there, was there programming, were there things about, Hey, here’s the themes of the shows and that kind

[00:01:24] Stephen: of stuff.

Okay. Yeah. Very little. Programming, mostly consisted a couple actors or one of the actors on stage answering Q and a. That was really the biggest programming and the vendors. There was only like a dozen vendors. They were all vetted. So it wasn’t a lot of junk and garbage. It was all approved, licensed supernatural vendors with some good quality stuff, which you gotta fandom with.

Good quality stuff. Take your credit cards. you know how that goes, right?

[00:01:53] Alan: Yeah. See, but I, I don’t mind there being, not a dozen, but a hundred supernatural by itself is not as [00:02:00] big as any ComicCon any science fiction convention. World co is amazing with how much stuff is available anyway.

[00:02:06] Stephen: It’s okay. Yeah, it was a, a good time.

We did not want to pay for the autographs and signature. It was like $300 just to get an autograph with Jensen or Jared, a single

[00:02:20] Alan: that bothers me. You know what I mean? I know that this is a big thing now that there’s a lot of celebrity love and there’s a lot of actor, people can make a whole career out of attending these conventions.

Yes. Long the show is gone yet 300. You know what I mean? You’re like a teenager.