44 thoughts on “Hey, Check This Out! (2021)

  1. Iggy Pop writing a review of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire sounds like a joke, but assuming this excerpt is real, I’m actually kinda interested in reading this review.

    1. There are a few stories like this out there these days. Reply All’s “super tech support” helped a woman find her lost Bitcoin. There are apparently some ways to get ahold of your lost crypto. I’m sure this guy already exhausted those means, though.

  2. This made my Tuesday night.

    Here it is performed live, as a demonstration.

    From the song’s Wikipedia article: “The song and its response have become an iconic part of Australian culture, such that the song may be played by any band anywhere in Australia with the chant sung by whatever crowds are present.”

  3. A guy I follow challenged people not to laugh at this. I lost.

    Two important bit of information here:

    1. I believe Dominion, a company that makes some of the vote counting machines used in some states, has either threatened a huge lawsuit against Newsmax or actually is going ahead with it;

    2. This is revealed in the piece, but someone else mentioned the irony–namely that Newsmax wanted to talk to Liddell about cancel culture. Someone else mentions that one of the anchors leaves because he doesn’t want to be liable. (I don’t know if that’s true, though.)

    1. Dominion and Smartmatic both filed defamation suits for several billion dollars each. Dominion sued the campaign and several news outlets last month; Smartmatic has so far only sued Fox News and some of its broadcasters (including Lou Dobbs whose show was canceled today). The Newsmax anchors ARE avoiding liability here, as the network was forced to retract its statements about fraudulent ballot boxes and voting systems.

      I didn’t laugh, but I chuckled slightly when the guy in the middle got up and left. They both should have, and the director should have cut away when it was clear the interviewee wasn’t going to stop spewing misinformation.

    2. I was watching it again, and I started laughing at the beginning. The first thing the female anchor asks LIndell what happened to his twitter account, and I’m guessing she’s teeing him up to talk about cancel culture. But Lindell starts on his rant about having proof of fraud from the voting machines, and then the male anchor has to cut him (“cancel”) off. To me, that’s super funny. Lindell won’t stop and the “cancelling” continues.

  4. My initial, and honest, reaction to this was positive–it shows or suggests the impact Trump’s speech on the some of the people that stormed the Capitol on January 6.

    But soon after this made me creeped out. This is not a good thing. This also reminds me of reports about the way South Korea used smartphones and apps (and I think they used surveillance cameras) to contact-trace individuals who were around people with the COVID-19. Yes, the goal is commendable and important. But it’s naive to think this technology won’t be misused–by the government, corporations, or other malicious actors.

  5. https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/analysis/

    The link is for Warren Sharp’s website. He’s on the NFL Ringer podcasts, but his podcasts is about betting, so I imagine you guys don’t listen to it. I don’t really get the betting part all that much and pretty much ignore it, but his analysis is great. He uses stats mostly to determine how much a team runs a certain play. So for example he said, “Bowles blitzed Mahomes 9.6% of his dropbacks, which is the lowest blitz rate for a Bowles defense in the last five years.” This is what Reid was saying as well. That being said though, Reid might not like Sharp because he prefers passing on first down.

    1. I’ve seen his comments on twitter, and I might have him in my NFL list.

      That being said though, Reid might not like Sharp because he prefers passing on first down.

      What I’m against is treating passing on first, or second on ten, as dogma–that a team should pass way more on in these situations. I don’t think you can generalize like this. If an offense has a really good running game, running quite a bit these situations is justifiable. Additionally, passing too much in these situations can make the offense become too one-dimensional and predictable.

      To me, the analytics guys under-value the run game, based on a misuse of stats (e.g., passing more efficient than running therefore running not so valuable).

  6. I suspect others won’t be interested in this interview with Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard professor and member of Lawfareblog. Goldsmith talks about a book he wrote about his stepfather, Chuck “Chuckie” O’Brien, who was close associate of Jimmy Hoffa. I heard Goldsmith’s comments about the book, mostly in relation to questioning the book that Scorsese used to make The Irishman. I recently watched that film so I was more interested in hearing this interview. I was also curious to learn more about what we know now about Hoffa’s death. In any event, I was tired when I started this clip, and wanted to stop, but had trouble doing so–just because I wanted to hear more. Goldsmith apparently did a lot of research on the history of the mob, the federal government legal and illegal attempts to stop them, and Jimmy Hoffa himself. I learned quite a bit from this interview.

  7. I’ve been watching It’s a Hawai’i Thing, a youtube show with Lanai and Brooke Lee. I watched most of the interview with Tamlyn Tomita below, but I stopped watching some of the others. The main reason is that I got annoyed by how often they interrupted or cut off the guest. Ugh.

    Anyway, it was cool to hear them talk with Tomita about Karate Kid, her Hawai’i connections, different Asian-American actors they know, and some reminiscences about the 80s. (She has good taste in music.)

    Also, I had no idea she is part Filipino.

    1. Interviewers interrupting interviewees is terrible. I can’t watch or listen to interviews like this.

    2. I think this one was actually a bit better than one of the others I saw.

      By the way, when there are two co-hosts, I feel like these annoying interruptions are the norm. Some teams are less annoying than others.

  8. Do you guys remember the plate lunch(?) place called Jumbos? Brooke Lee mentioned there was one in Pearl City, at or near, Holiday Mart (Don Quixote now). I know the name of the place, but I don’t recall the Pearl City location; I can’t even picture what any of those places look like.

    Brook and Lanai talk about that in the clip below. The conversation was interesting until they started talking about massaging Lanai’s eyes.

    1. I don’t remember one in Pearl City. She might be mistaking it for the one in Waipahu, which was across the street from that strip mall where Far East Chop Suey is. In the spot where HC Drive-Inn is. There are people who remember it fondly but I thought it was pretty bad.

      Before it was Jumbo, it was something else whose name I can’t remember, and my friends and I liked it kind of a lot. My mom would bring my sister and me here once in a while.

      The other Jumbo location I remember was in Mapunapuna. I think it was where there’s now a parking lot near the Kaiser Clinic, close to Bob’s Big Boy. My online friends and I would sometimes go there after ice skating, my first couple of years of college.

      1. I do remember the Jumbo’s in Mapunapuna. The first time I went there, I was going to the place that it used to be, though I don’t remember what it was.

        Jumbo’s seemed more of a diner than a plate lunch place. I did like the name for some reason. Was there an elephant. A place named Jumbo’s should have an elephant.

    2. OK, the one in Waipahu seems vaguely familiar. I’m trying to picture the graphic design/logo. Did it have orange in it?

      Also, I had a negative impression of the food as well. I think it was like Diner’s, but maybe worse.

      Oh, the Jumbo’s in Mapunapuna–was it a free standing building? I think I remember that one now.

      1. Yeah all their cups and takeout boxes had orange print. And it was a standalone building in Mapunapuna. Similar to Diners, and Zippys takeout: you ordered at a takeout window and ate in covered space at tables.

    1. Interesting story. None of the theories are entirely convincing for me.

      But I believe, on balance, that people probably did forget. Or, to put it another way, that they may have never been fully aware of what they did in the first place.

      Initially, I found this hard to believe. Once the seeds came in, I would think this would have triggered or at least raised the possibility of ordering seeds in the past, especially if one ordered seeds semi-regularly. But upon reflection, particularly on myself now, I recall completely forgetting doing certain things. If one is ordering a lot of items online, I guess I could see this. Then again, if you were one to read or see stories about the seeds, presented as a mystery or conspiracy theory, would this not trigger memories of ordering seeds or at least consider the possibility?

      And yet, some of the people actually did order the seeds apparently.

      On another note, learning about brushing was an interesting aspect of the story. With a lot of money at stake, companies trying to game the system is believable. Having said that the author’s theory does seem a little more persuasive, although it’s not mutually exclusive from the brushing theory.

      I wouldn’t rule out the more nefarious theory, but I would need way more evidence to take that one seriously.

      1. Reid said,

        None of the theories are entirely convincing for me.

        The conclusion is definitely a surprise, which is sort of the point of my sharing it, but I don’t think the writer presents a theory: he seems to be drawing a conclusion based on his exhaustive reporting.

        It’s difficult to argue with his method. The handful of people he selected, based on their unlikehood of having forgotten their orders, pretty much lead to his conclusion. You certainly don’t have to agree with it or believe it, but the evidence is pretty dang convincing, as unbelieveable as it is.

        The brushing scam is well-known. In some cases it’s done pretty legitimately. Some Amazon retailers have sent actual products to people who never ordered them, hoping for good reviews to boost their ratings. I have a friend who received an Instant Pot she never ordered. It’s still gaming the system, but it’s pretty legit.

        In other cases, actual real products are sent to people who didn’t order them for the purpose of writing the fake reviews on their behalfs, as described in the article. Slightly less legit, but not as egregious as sending some cheap garbage and writing reviews on recipients’ behalfs about something else.

        And yet, some of the people actually did order the seeds apparently.

        It sounds like the “some people” make up a pretty good percentage of the recipients. Amazing! And listen, it would seem strange if you’re not a high-frequency online shopper. I’ve gone through periods on Wish and AliExpress where I received stuff in the mail from China nearly every day for weeks, since on those sites you’re ordering pretty much each item from a different seller. And since the shipping is the cheapest rate from China (you don’t want to spend money on anything faster if you’re just getting a $2 phone case), it takes up to two months for your items to come.

        Although I’ve never forgotten ordering anything, it would be easy to do. If you’re getting four items a week for three weeks, two months after you placed the orders, it’s easy to lose track. I’ll bet when you get something in the mail you know exactly what it is because it’s the only thing you ordered. When you have a bunch of stuff enroute, you open your mailbox, see the package, and it could be one of twenty things. 🙂

        What I love about this story is the simplest explanation, the brushing scam, at first makes the most sense, as simple explanations usually do. Then there’s an even simpler explanation that seems so simple it’s preposterous and nobody guessed it. Yet there it is: the simplest explanation, as unbelievable as it seems, appears to be right.

    2. Here’s what would make the explanation more compelling to me: A vast majority of the people who received the seeds, after reading the article, are now convinced they (as individuals and a collective) ordered the seeds and forgot about it.

      I can believe they forgot they ordered the seeds initially, especially if they order a lot of items online. It’s harder to believe that they continue to not remember or not believe there’s a good chance they ordered it but forgot, after reading the story.

      Then again, I guess if they’re prone to conspiracy thinking and/or or harbor strong xenophobic or anti-Asian sentiments, I guess it wouldn’t be so strange.

  9. What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind is an Atlantic piece by Jen Senior. I’m unfamiliar with Senior, but I mention her because this is the type of writing that could win an award.

    The description of the piece mentions a family dealing with grief of a losing a loved one from 9-11. If you’re like me, that description has almost no appeal to me, and I wouldn’t have read it, if someone I respect hadn’t written, “Stop what you’re doing and read this now.” I don’t know if the article warranted that comment, but the person’s credibility has not taken a hit. This is a good article. The writing is very strong, both in terms of the prose and storytelling…Well, I’m not sure storytelling is the right word. The portraits of the characters stand out more perhaps, but “storytelling” is apt because the article works like good fiction. There are definitely some poignant, touching moments that are interesting and sappy. One other thing: To me, it’s not really about 9-11; or if you’re not really interested in 9-11 as a subject, I wouldn’t let that stop you from reading this.

    Anyway, if my description appeals to you, I’d recommend reading this.

    1. I am interested in the topic, so thanks for the link. Reducing, if not eliminating, gerrymandering is important to me. I hope Michigan’s approach can help achieve that.

  10. The most complex pop tune of all time.

    I like this guy’s reactions to the complexity in the tune. And I enjoyed the anecdote he shared as well. Before listening to this, any guesses? (With a 100 guesses, I would not have come up with this song.)

    1. Some of the things I thought of after very little thought:

      Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel
      Lateralus by Tool (I guess it depends on what you mean by pop)
      Hooked on Classics by Louis Clark and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
      Money by Pink Floyd
      Reach for the Sun by the Polyphonic Spree
      Protect Ya Neck by Wu-Tang Clan
      Emotions by Mariah Carey
      Close (to the Edit) or Paranoimia by the Art of Noise

      I think I’m overthinking this. With such a click-baity title I imagine the actual song is sneaky complex, while most of what I thought of doesn’t really sneak up on you.

      1. I paused my podcast to watch the video but it’s 20 minutes long, so it’ll have to wait until sometime tomorrow, probably.

  11. Eddie Van Halen talks about his life, the story of how he built his guitar, and demonstrates some of his techniques. The story about the origins of his guitar was great–I never heard it before.

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