Dave testing out Hangouts
This all hey Todd Can you hear me? yeah I can hear. you can hear me yeah I can how's it going? Oh okay I don't know how to get my camera to work? That's okay I don't know how to get anything to work here. It's hopeless Sor your first temp was a kind of a kind of went up automatically and then fell out right because I for some reason cannot see this on my YouTube channel at all I'm supposed to be live on my YouTube channel but it's uh, doesn't seem to be working I have no idea I'll go over there and see what I see cool. Looks like it's just playing the last hanger you uh, you dumped? Yeah, that's what I'm seeing too.
so um yeah. beats me I did get this working at one stage few months ago but oh yeah no. Joseph Joseph says I'm live he just tweeted me oh right it maybe because the two of us can't see it because we're actually doing it where where we're doing the hangout so everyone else can probably see it right? So yeah yeah. Johan Also just popped up a tweet, he can see me live as well.
So yeah, all right right. So yeah. I need to look. You need to look in a browser that's not signed in under your YouTube account so it looks like it does work.
Wow. All right. actually do I have another browser not on this machine I have Firefox I'll try it. cool but I'm pretty sure it's worked because uh, couple of people have told me it does so that's cool.
says I see live now Oh okay, yeah, you can see it. No there's a little delay. Yeah yeah, there's like a I don't know 30 second delay or something. Yeah, it's uh, it's live in Firefox if I go to Firefox like you say yeah, cool awesome yeah Joseph I should watch what I said I did Did realize it sounded a bit funny when I said it.
This is weird. So I'm talking. We're using Google Plus Hangout to talk to each other while you know anyone can watch it live on YouTube and then they're tweeting me live feedback I mean it's just crazy how many more uh channels and things can we use? I've got a uh got a webcam that moves around the place that's has a little orbit head on it and it can pan around. It isn't as fun to play with as I thought it would be.
yeah I got a I got a USB camera here but I've never used it because I just don't do that. So yeah, no, that's all right. I got another one here. You would think I suppose they got to have drivers and all that stuff installed I suppose Yeah, usually windows can pretty much handle and if you plug it in, it automatically detects like it can give you like a a generic driver or something.
I think um but yeah, you've got to have all drivers and for it to work and probably reboot or something as well. So how's things out in uh, you're out near Las Vegas or something, aren't you I'm Mesa Arizona Oh right. Mesa is that how you pronounce it? I thought it was Mesa yeah I Remember you saying that? Yeah, that's right, that's the way it's spelled I'm kind of get used to all the Spanish words down here. not used to it myself, right? So that's a Spanish word is it? I Guess so. I Think it means like Mak means like Plateau or something, right? Don't quote me on that. but there's a lot of Spanish words down here. I don't pronounce properly because I'm from the north got it North as in Northwest North Dakota oh North Dakota as we call it right on the verge of Canada lot of Canadians reminds me speaking French up there is there much French or is that only in a couple of provinces in Canada isn't it? That would be only yeah a couple ones that were were French provinces. no I guess mostly it's English but they got a weird accent and even though know the cross the border isn't far.
but we had some of the accent too. but I was on. One of my first jobs was a tech support job when I was young and I had to do call phone in support and I had someone from Canada call and I was trying to help him through a scuzzy card set up and I don't know if you remember those Yes I do but you one of the commands to get into the BIOS on them is control A So I'm saying okay when it boots when the computer boots hit control A and he I said it like 10 times and he wouldn't do it I said are you sure you're hitting control and the a key and he goes no I thought you said control A it's like a Canadian thing. Control A They say A for everything You're right.
It took me 20 minutes to get him to actually realize I was saying a and not a ah sounds like a similar thing between Australian and and the New Zealand is as well I uh it's very similar. sort of rivalry and confusion with uh uh, language and stuff like that. So so you voted this morning? Yeah yeah, I voted at about 2 o'clock I went over when the lines would be short right? Why do they have it on a Tuesday We we always vote on a weekend. Whoops! I think I lost.
How did I get back? Lost it? Yeah. I was trying to get to my video settings and whoa, what a ass is that? Did you hear something? Whoa Are you playing a video in the background or something? No, nothing. close down everything else I guess hello no Todd are you there? No we've lost him. Oh yes, yes you are there.
Okay, well there was some weird stuff. weird audio there. Like almost like it was playing like a kids cartoon or something in the background. It sounded really weird.
Not sure what was, uh going on there I assume it was your end. All right. Well I certainly can't hear you Todd your audio is. um.
all I'm getting is like static naughty stuff to midgets Jose man I hate these in your earphones. They're awful. They really annoy me. Yeah I can see your text Todd But I can't hear you? Yeah, you don't appear to be muted.
Maybe. Um, sign out and oh, he's back there we go. That other camera I plugged in had a microphone on it I Guess right? Yeah. Switched over to the microphone on the camera right there.
must feedback between the two of them or something. Oh it was weird. It was like it was. it was like a a bunch of kids. you know, like five year olds. Well it was. it was. it was called a a A A Sony place Station 2 ET Toy Sobe has a file in it.
It's it. Must have a file in it. That's that. That makes sense.
Okay right? Yeah, guess this will be a part of a tear down soon. Oh man, yeah it must have I assume it's got a a voice chip in it or something. Yeah, you're supposed to dance in front of it or something and play a game with some PlayStation 2. but it always worked as a reg camera too.
So it's funny that yeah, it has a microphone on it I see it now, right? Well definitely stick with your current mic because it's uh, spot on. Well, this is a rockstar band from another game, right? Oh boy, it's a rock band microphone that I found in the trash one day that someone threw out and I'm like why it's a perfectly good USB mic? Yeah, why not scol? Uh yeah. I'm just using the mic build into my Orbit webcam here so it's it's not too bad. I think it's better than the one in my notebook anyway usually is.
The ones in notebooks are usually pretty crap. So where are we at with the election? Barock was is ahead right now when I last looked depends on who depends on who you look at. If I look at the Huffington Post um is ahead 154 to 124 If I look at Google then uh Romney's ahead 147 109 If I look at the New York Times oh Romney's ahead again 142 to 110 I think it's because Florida's flip flopping right now. a bunch of numbers.
Either way, yeah, Florida is the key apparently. I I tweeted a uh link to a map like if Obama wins Florida then he's got 250 other ways to win and Romney only has one way to win or something. it's it was crazy like one-sided so it's a pretty big it's a hinge State that's for sure. It's been a few times.
I Was talking yesterday to uh Chris um gaml about uh about the election and he was saying that you guys don't have any uh, any prefer preferential voting system like um, like if you vote for a third party candidate who clearly isn't going to win but then your vote then doesn't go to anyone. Is that right? Well it it goes to that person. Well yeah, it goes to that person. but then that person if they like here in Australia If that person doesn't get a certain amount over a certain number of votes, then they will give their Preference.
They will give their votes as a preference to one of the two major parties and you know beforehand who the uh, preferential um party of that third party independent candidate is. So um, so your vote isn't you know wasted? um I guess although that's a that's a terrible term I I Hate using that because I don't think that voting for a third party uh candidate is wasting your vote. Um, because clearly if everyone voted for the Third Party candidate that'd get in, they would win. That's a pretty clever thing to do actually.
I Never thought of that. I I I Kind of think that's pretty clever because really a lot of times you want you might want To vote for that third person and you're like yeah, but then I'm going to pull my vote away from somebody that I would don't want to lose for sure because to someone else. So it gives you a way of voting for that third person and still not pulling it away from your what would be your second choice. So that's pretty clever. You guys do that in Australia huh? Yes, we do. Um, yeah, so it I certainly support that. Yeah, there's lots of ins and you know there's lots and ins of outs of it and you know they have to get over a certain number before the preferences are counted and all you know it's all. It's all quite complex.
but yes, um, they do all independent parties I'm not sure if they if it's comp I'll for them to Mark a preferential uh party or not. So if I so if I ran for office and I was an independent which I would be um then I'm not sure if it would be compulsory for me to um actually declare that you know who I'm going to give my preference votes to I think it might be but that would be okay too as long as you couldn't then choose later. That is like if if you already you wouldn't be able to throw it in there at the last minute, you'd have to declare it up front so people know what they're getting. What's the secret sauce going to be? That's right.
Oh man. so did you use a paper? Vote Or did you use one of the El one of the uh, rigged electronic voting machines? What? It's a combo. I Guess it's paper up front where you uh, draw a line. but and you basically complete an arrow.
there's a start of an arrow and there's an end of an arrow. and if you draw the line it, well, then that's your choice and that Arrow points at the at the option or candidate you're interested in having. and then then you take it over to an electronic reader and it goes. And then you get a little button that says you voted.
Oh, got it right? But at least they still have those paper backups, right? Oh yeah, they keep those right? Yeah, yeah. but but some States they're not right. Is that correct that they use these pure electronic voting machines and that's it. There's no paper record.
Gee that. I wouldn't know I've never been in such a state. okay I'd say your whole country is in a bad state if you. if you're in that position, that's awful lot of paper.
but then again, my day job is data. so I don't think I would trust raw data anyway I wouldn't want the people back up? Yeah, absolutely yeah. ours is all paper so you know. Um, but I think they start counting I'm not sure how quickly they start counting uh, the paper once here, but like you know, it's all over by.
It's like it's all over on the same day. Um, fairly much unless it's like really close. you know, and it takes a week to sort out. which is pretty rare.
But um, so I guess they must. starting start counting the votes fairly quickly and uh, well. I think the machines. In our case, the machines are counting them because they're scanning them right? Um, and then if if there's any like discrepancy or closeness, then they can go back and recount the paper. But if there's no closeness or statistical reason to care, then leave it. You know alone that that makes sense. Yeah, I'm I'm not entirely sure how they count the votes here, whether or not there is a scanning machine that scans them in. As far as I'm aware, there's not I think they.
they actually have a whole bunch of people sitting in a room and they sort them all out and they bundle them and they put them in bundles of, you know, a 100 or or whatever for each candidate. and then they can vote count the bundles up and you know all that sort of stuff. So I think it's all oldfashioned manual counting. as far as I'm aware.
Hopefully, um, someone in Australia will correct me if I'm wrong I've never I'm GNA look into that now pretty fast. I mean I can't imagine why you couldn't throw it through a scanner. If it's if you know, it'd be pretty simple technology. Yeah, but then human voting is pretty easy too.
I Mean you know, if you've got a hand, put it into a counting machine, it's just as quick to visually look and go boom boom boom boom boom because you've only got a couple of piles, you know? Um, so I Can Imag? We have more than that We had. we vote for our judges and there's 15 of those and we have County County people. And there's things more than just the national election on that ballot. There's local stuff too, so there's there'd be a lot of work to count.
It's a two. It's a two-sided 14 inch by by 8 inch sheet. so there's a lot of There's a lot to check and that would take too long. and when you put it in the scanner, it's just zip.
It's done and then the next person is zip. it's done. and no, that would down to count all. I mean just for the national, it would be quick, but not for all that local stuff.
Got it? Yeah, where ours is similar actually it depends on what what election it is. but um, one of them. I Think it's the federal one like it's a meter long. It the paper is a meter long by like a foot high.
So it's like one foot by three foot or 4 foot It is like you can't fit it in the booth. When you. when you're in that, like the cardboard, you know you're standing in that cardboard booth and you've got this huge roll of paper. like going up the side and you've got to.
You got to roll it up and it's that's how long it is. That's how many candidates are on there. and um, there's there. There is two ways to vote.
You can just put a one actually like there's a line on it which separates the parties at the top with all the individual candidates on the bottom. So you can choose to either put a single one above the line and vote for just the party. So one done, that's it. or you have to vote every number under the line. So if there's 150 candidates, you've got to number them one through 150. Well see. Now that's another clever thing. I Like that too.
that one that makes hand counting and hand verifying easier and uh, and then uh. It really simplifies. If you're going to be, you know a Partyline person. That really does simplify it.
Yeah, yeah it does. We don't do that either. H Interesting. So yeah, it's like so.
so if you really hate an individual person you know in a in in the senate or whatever and you see their name on the ballot, you can mark them as number 150. But then you've got to go through and number all the so so you can't just do it halfway. You've got to actually number everyone otherwise your vote doesn't count. Um, that's if you really want to, you know, knock out that individual person um from the senate or whatever it is.
So yeah, I guess that just helps for verifying because then that the it throws it out and says hey, that doesn't verify you're going against the rules, but at the same time the rules could be you you vote party line and as long as what you check manually is not Party Line Well then that should still be counted. Yeah, logically wise that is I would think because then it knows that you want everything except for what you checked. Yeah, Oh, I I Remember there was a bit of a scandal at one of the previous elections where um, it was. It was fairly close.
like we we had to wait like a week or something to actually get the results to. It was really like they'll counting like every last vote in some you know, made in some seat in some key seat. and um, there were um, complaints I think there were even legal proceedings over where some people had actually put an X in T of a one like you're supposed to actually write a one there and um, some people put an X for the candidate and it was clear who they were voting for, but they didn't follow the instructions and they put an X instead. So I'm not sure what came over what uh, you know came from that whether or not that was they were declared legal votes or not.
but that's that's pretty stupid. I Think you could you? you could color in the Box solid or you could write anything you like there as long as it was clear that you voted for that you know person or that party. Yeah, that kind of comes down to who wants to win and who's doing the counting. Yeah, so I know, but uh, it doesn't matter who you vote for, you end up with a politician.
but H My wife's gonna be happy now. She can watch TV and answer the phone again for the first time in three months. I've I've heard it's really bad. Yeah it's horrible.
I must have gotten five Robo calls a day. We just turn the phone off and just let it go to just let it go to the answering machine because you just no way. Yes it is. Oh, we don't have anything like that here. We nothing like. you know. there's a few ads on Prime Time television. You know you might get one or two ads a night.
you know, the week before the election, but that's probably it. You you never get cold, cold, or anything like that. it's you know. um, because they don't have the same amount of money to spend.
you. know, they um, it's not big. It's not big business here. How much did they spend on Advertising this election? Like a billion dollars or something? Oh I'm sure that's a law number.
Individual candidates can spend seven to 10 million dollars. Oh, that's just Ah that's just you. can. you can buy a lot of happiness with $7 million I can't imagine running for office you can.
wasn't Obama giving away phones or something. What was that thing about the the Obama phone? No. didn't hear that either. Oh okay, yeah.
I'm sure my phone I'm mostly in the techy kind of circles. I don't step out the politics too often. Yeah. I I step into Pol politics just out of sheer morbid curiosity.
You know? Yeah, you try that on the ampire once in a while and Chris gets a little yeah. he gets all right I know and and the more he hates it, the more I do it. you know you can just hear him crawling around I know it's hilarious Chris it's not that bad, poor bastard If he if he sets you off, then that's the real problem, right? Yeah I Know exactly. Man there a lot of people wondering why Australians and other countries care about the US election and uh, I was talking to R on here before on the hangout here.
I'm not sure if it was recorded or not, but uh, you know, um he was uh saying that. Yeah, it's um, the there's more people care more about the US election outside of the US than they do inside the US apparently because I'm sure there's a whole bunch of you like like here, they just a election. Who cares? You know? Couldn't be bother voting, couldn't be bother watching it. You know, yeah know.
But do they pay attention for the full six months that we get bombarded with it? I Don't know. they might not like it so much. Then right? True. Okay, yeah.
Fair cool. But no, we do it because you know us. policy unfortunately affects a lot of the world, including us. so you know we have a vested interest in it.
Um, just as much. Maybe not as much as you guys do. You know, because there's lots of internal stuff wrong with the US You know all your debt and all your medical thing and you know all that sort of stuff. jobs and what's your unemployment rate? like 12% or something? Unofficially, unofficially it could be a lot higher I think it was like 18 or 19 unofficially.
but officially it's like eight or yeah. Officially yeah. I think it's eight. officially.
I Heard that the other day. they were bragging. Oh, they were saying it was high at 8% you know? and that's not the real number? Of course, no a similar thing happens here. You know they fudge the unemployment numbers every every government department does that, but You know ours is. Ours is not nearly as bad as that. You know it might be like 5% 5% official and 8% real or something like that. There's not a huge discrepancy, but you guys seem to be in seem I I think Yeah, you guys have more people unemployed than we have in this entire country. People who live in this? Well, that's why you can count your votes by hand.
Yeah, exactly because we've only got 20 million people whereas you've got 300 million and you know, and that's not even an official number because we got about another 20 million that don't even knows they're here. Got 20 million Mexicans huh? Well, whatever country they're from I don't know come from all over the place, right? But they have to. I Mean the only way they'd get into the US right is through the Mexican or the Canadian border right? Soe they' what fly into Mexico or and then try and cross the border? Is that how illegal people from other countries get into the US Well, that's the main corridors I think. But then I mean we even had people come from Cuba for a long time.
But that was you know back in the 70s and 80s they would just come on boats, right? Yeah, you know, once you get here and your Footprints are washed away by the sand or the desert storms, there's pretty much you're here because if they say how long you've been here, you just say my whole life. Yeah, exactly how are they going to what are they going to do? They're going to say no, you're from someplace else and you just say no. That's right. There's no other real proof or care.
So if you're here, you can pretty much say you're here, right? But but then you have a hard time getting like government benefits and stuff right, wouldn't you? Oh, they're making it. It's gotten a lot harder for them in our state because we've passed a lot of laws recently to stop it. Okay, but uh, before they pass those laws, you really just needed to prove that you were paying, paying a water bill and and uh, had a residence. And then that was enough because a lot of people don't have much more proof than that.
I I would be hard pressed to show my birth certificate because the hospital I was born in was closed down and all their paperwork was sent someplace else and no I I know how I would get a if I had to get a physical copy of it I'd have to call the state of North Dakota and say okay, can you help me here my Hospital's closed up until then I could always get it at my hospital right? So I know I'm not even that old compared to people that are in their 60s and 70s. How would they find a birth certificate? So that's the conundrum. You know, Got it? We've We've famously got a well, famously in this company country and several others. We've got a huge um, boat people problem. Like we have people like almost daily now. Um, you know a boatload of 50 100 people turn up trying to get to Australia Um and our last election? Um actually, um, was you know one of the big topics and one of the big current topics in in all of the Party politics is how to handle the boat. PE You know we've got so so many of them coming in. Um, and yeah, it's a it's a problem, but in the ter in schemes of in actual numbers, it's not really.
It's pretty insignificant because we've got a huge migrant like like we allow like 1502 200 ,000 people per year legally into the country. Um, so the number of vat people is pretty insignificant compared to that. But in terms of uh, you know, politics, it's a big deal. So you know we've got one.
One party says, oh, we'll turn the boats around and we'll just send them back or we'll sink them or we'll do whatever you know and the other one says no, we'll process them on. So we've got this kind of I don't want to say a guant guant guantan Bay because that's a bad analogy I think but we have Islands up north where we take the boat people to so um, it's it. but it is an official part of Australia It's not like it's not like the Guantanamo Bay thing where there's no International laws and stuff like that. um but but we have have these um islands where we take the boat people to and we lock them up for a couple of years before they can prove that they're you know, legally there for Asylum purposes and stuff.
It's really quite nasty. Don't really like it? Well, we don't really do much. if they long they don't break the laws. That's pretty much how it goes.
If if they come here and they work and okay, they don't break laws then you you really can't You can't send 20 million back people back some place, especially when a majority of them aren't even or not a majority but a lot of them have children then they are American you know and got it. If they work and don't break the laws in any way then they really don't have much of a problem. Okay, but but wasn't Didn't Obama say well I think it was Obama who wanted to put up the fence along Mexico or something because it was a huge problem or like that that wasn't Obama that our our governor was doing that in Arizona they were trying to do that and you know that's just silliness. you know I mean I don't want people breaking the breaking the law and coming across the border.
But but building a fence? really? you don't think people can get around a fence? Yeah, I know yeah I know it's pretty stupid Is it? it cost a fortune? A huge Fortune The maintenance exactly. Then you gotta Patrol right? they I don't think they want a sensible solution anyway because really, they do. The people that come here illegally do take the jobs that lots of Americans don't don't really do, don't want to do right right And so it's it's those people aren't unemployed, they're they're working. Um, but you know you take someone else who's got you know. got a choice between flipping burgers and and getting unemployment. Well they pick unemployment. but people that come here illegally they're like they don't get unemployment so they take the flipping Burger job. So got it.
But that's really hard in Arizona now because we've passed e verify laws now that basically say you have to be electronically verified in a datab that you are here legally and and actually it had to come to that because it got to a point in my state where I was having a hard time ordering meals at restaurants because I had to wait to I'd have to wait for a manager like if I went to a McDonald's and I try to order something that wasn't like a number one or number two I'd have to wait in align other people that speak English for a manager English because the people that actually worked at the Tals couldn't understand what I was saying when I would order something that wasn't just a number one or a number two. Wow. I Can say uno Oros and it was pretty bad there about four years ago and then when they did the eifi and McDonald's and all these other places had to go with it. It actually changed.
It literally changed in like less than six months. it got to where everyone was speaking English in those places because they were hiring people that still wanted the jobs but actually were legal and here long enough are actually were speaking English and were not. You know, they certainly weren't They certainly were still Spanish A lot of them were still Mexican But they they were true. Uh, Americans So they'd had the education and the English background and everything right? But yeah, and then that's what spurted it is.
they it got to the point where so many of these necessary jobs were filled by people that just didn't care to speak English That really caused problems with with our society. Geez, all of our illegal, well probably the majority of our illegal immigrants who come on these boats. they pay a fortune to get here on these boats. They you know the there's these people smugglers in Indonesia and other countries who will you know take you 10 $15,000 or whatever for for a place on one of these old rickety boats to send you here.
It's just you know, um, it's it's crazy and uh, so you've got to ask. You know some of them aren't genuine Asylum Seekers You know some of them are just looking to move to a new country because you know they think it'll be better here rather than actually they're being persecuted in their own country and stuff like that. So um, yeah, I don't know. It's hard.
it's hard to verify people like that, but um, the the basic thing is if you try and come here in a boat which of course is the only way to get here apart from flying, um, then uh, you, you know they will almost certainly catch you and um, then you get um, and but and then if you don't have a genuine Asylum claim, they'll immediately put you on a plane and send you back. They you know if they get even an inkling that you're not a genuine Asylum seeker and you're fleeing your country through you know, because of persecution and all that sort of jazz, then they will, um, they will ship you back. So I don't know. It just seems crazy like if you've got 10 15 grand to pay to a people Smuggler to get on a boat to get here, why wouldn't you just buy a ticket to come here and and try. You know and live and work here and you know, actually buy a V actually try and apply for a Visa Come here and then try and get permanent citizenship I Don't you know I Don't understand. It's crazy. No. I don't understand that we have them.
We call them coyotes here because they take them across the desert for pay, right? But it's pretty. It's A. It's a pretty dangerous thing to do because usually the coyotes when they get them here, they pay to get here. And then the coyotes lock them up when they get here because they're supposedly going to get delivered to other family members or relatives in the states.
Then the coyotes lock them up in little prisons like abandoned area, abandoned homes and stuff. They'll actually lock them in and put them under guard. No lights, barely food and water for months at a time. Until the relatives Andor People that care for them here give them another.
You know? Oh, you've got to pay to get them out of that release fee, right? Yeah, so it's a racket. Yeah, it's a racket, right? And they pretty. They'll We'll We'll We'll have drop houses is what they call them here, right? And they'll They'll raid them sometimes because they'll be just a hint that there're something going on. I Mean it's just a hint Neighbors will say.
Well, the house was abandoned, but every now and again the truck would pull up at like two in the morning. You know they're just dropping off water for a week, you know? And so that triggers you Know someone to call in someone to look. and then sure enough, there's 50, 60, 100 people in that one little house. You know.
No running water, no electricity, nothing, just dark windows and locked up. And sometimes they get so abusive that they'll break out. so you have 40 of them running across the neighborhood. and here they were all locked up in a house for you know, a month? Yeah, but yeah, yeah, that's that's terrible.
Yeah, the truck will tip over and they'll come piling out of a truck on the freeway, right? Have have you got any idea how many people you let into the country legally each year? Like is you know, millions? and no, I don't think it's a H number to become like to get that green card? Is it? I think it's the green card to become a permanent US Citizen? No. I don't know. But I do know that if they really are pretty keen on it, if it's if it's educated, you know people coming in, right? You get one of H1B H1B Visa or something, right? right? Because they want for some reason They? well, I mean for some reason for other reason they want as many people that are going to get a strong education to be here. and I've actually heard heard some universities have over 50% of their graduates are um, foreigners on that Visa because getting Americans to do it isn't happening. We have a similar thing. Um, we have, uh, full fee paying overseas students and um, yeah, as long as you're you know, as long as you pay for the full educational cost, you know, so it's fairly expensive to go to UNI here. Well, not as expensive as this Us, but still expensive so. but if you're willing to pay the whole lot um, and KN get any government, uh, you know, subsidy or anything then they will allow you into the union and our unies are filled with all these full fee paying overseas students.
Um, and it's a fairly big deal. You know, half them. You know, there's a lot of them who can't speak English and you know. and somehow they get their degree and there's a lot of you know.
Uh, there's a lot of talk about oh, the unies let them pass because they because they're full fee paying. You know. So it's it's all about the money. So even though they can barely speak English they still somehow magically pass the course.
You know? And yeah, I don't know. Was that the wife in the background? Yeah, she just walked in. She was going to rant about something with the election. You want to hear it? Yeah, why not? She said no.
Yeah, so we've We've got a similar thing here with full fee paying students. so if you will pay the money, you can come here and study at one of our prestigious universities, no problems whatsoever. That is one of the main problems with universities. and when I took my I got an undergraduate and uh, we had some.
we had a couple of really good teachers and right at the end when I was graduating they were losing their positions because they didn't manage to get enough grant money to come in. they didn't spend enough time right writing up those um proposals for Grants and and stuff. They were super good teachers and you know they that University would not want, didn't want to keep them because they wouldn't bring in the big bucks and there's no big bucks in teaching the kids. It's big bucks in all the money that they get all the grants right and so not sucking that money and you just don't get to stay.
Yeah, and so the kids get pushed aside, you know, in favor of the money and that just doesn't make a lot of sense because you wouldn't think you would have a university if the education didn't come first. That's it. But it doesn't money first? No, no, that that is sad really. I'm having to look at this electoral map now and all of the northeast states in the US.
So New York, Pennsylvania is it Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont all those go to Obama All of them Yeah, east and west coast is usually always Democrat in our elections are pop ations vote Democrat and the sparer country sides, the central usually vote Republican And of course there's a lot. Well I don't know, just different values I Guess people that live in small little tight towns in those big cities, they all kind of have the same idea about politics. I guess and when you live on a farm you have a different idea of politics. Most the fly of country is Farm country. Yep, Yep, so looks like Texas is gone to Rney. Oklahoma Kansas all that swath right in the middle. So South Dakota Nebraska North Dakota it looks like that's all going to Robney. so like the whole center of the US That's why it always comes down to you know some one or two states has enough people in it to flop it one way or the other.
Yeah, someone sometimes in the middle though. but who knows. Yeah, Florida's how's Florida doing well Florida according to Huffing Post is just Obama just like by like a thousand votes or something but they've only counted like 8% You know it's like it's a very small percentage. so I don't know my statistical Theory enough to know what the what? the threshold of the you know the significant numbers are.
You know if it gets to like 5% or is it 10% or you know, can you actually make a call when it's only 2% counted? um they they make a call when there's zero CNN will make one call and fox will make the other. That's it. Oh man. Unbelievable.
Is there any. Is there any media Outlet left in the US that's not government. You know that's not politically run in some way. It doesn't sigh with one side or the other.
Is there any left? Um I wouldn't I wouldn't think so because those they're going to have a bias one way or another and they'd have a hard time keeping that bias out of whoever's making the call. Even a small group, even someone small would have somebody who would be making the call on something, an editor or something and that comes down to their mind too, you know. Okay, true, if you can take that stuff like that, yeah it's hard I know and it looks like Ohio Chris's state is going Obama but apparently according to like Florida is the hinge. so if Obama wins Florida then it's all over Red Rover Apparently yeah we're gonna do like we did some.
What was that? That was years was 2004. Was it no 2004 election where Florida Bush Bush's personal friends were on the Uh were on the Um, the Supreme Court and brother his brother was the governor, his brother was the governor and his his friends were on the Supreme Court Yeah and they just discounted all the black Vote or something. It was really it's really nasty there a lot I think there's a lot of black people in Florida Oh okay. okay there's a lot of think of another state.
there's a lot of uh U Cubans okay Florida of course. yeah it would be. but yeah, that's just man. I Can't believe you go. you guys. let them get away with it. It's just it's incredible what your politicians get away with. Well, you know, whoever wins writes the history books.
Yeah, unfortunately boy and has has everyone finished, uh, voting yet? I Guess on the west coast they haven't right? Um no. I I think there's going to be Hawaii and stuff. they're also. they're way out there.
Oh of course. yeah, yeah. but uh. I don't see any votes counted for the West Coast yet.
Yeah, it's going to take a while just for them to do all their little clean up and and calling it in and all that that'll take through usually somewhere around at our time from now I'd say if it's 8 and a about two and a half more hours they'll be. If it's not close, they'll be calling it. you know, everywhere. Oh okay, right in about two and a half.
Usually before you go to bed on Election night they're unless it's closed, they're They're basically saying it's all over but to crying, Got it? But so that's that. Could take another two or three hours actually. Wouldn't it be funny? If like somebody conceded right? You know somebody won and they concede and they give their concession speech and all of a sudden some statistical anomaly happens and you know the votes come through and they, oh no, he's won. Well, then they'd be a jackass to undo it so they'd have to stay.
Con: they'd have to stay. They could. They couldn't flop. Could they no.
Well, no. because you you voted in, you would have to. Even if you concede, you would still legally win. Boy W you look like a fool.
Well, you you would. But then you'd say oh well based on the stats. Yeah, I conceded. but there was some statistical, you know, fluke which meant that I won.
So that's that's like saying that's almost like man, that's almost going against your word. That's like saying I give you my word and then all by the way, my word doesn't matter probably, but not not quite. I think hell I'd take it. You know if I conceded based on the statistics and then you know, oh look, yeah.
okay I concede It looks like you're going to win. You know? and uh, all of a sudden, no I won I'm I'm I certainly wouldn't go. oh well, sorry I gave my word. that was be hell no the people voted for me.
I'm in. You know that came. We had a lottery ticket one time where it was $20 million or something like that and yeah, the person didn't read it right and they threw it in the garbage. Oh and then the storekeeper of this gas station uh would always take them back out again and check them again because they didn't know if people were checking him properly and so they check them well then they checked it and it was.
It was a winner So when they try and cash it they're like well wait a minute you why do you have it You know a ticket the questioned it right and then it got down to you know that it actually belonged to somebody else and it was bought on a day that they couldn't buy it and it was somebody else's and then it got to the fact that it was thrown the trash and then it was like then the owner of the of the station said said well it's our trash not the clerk's trash So they get the 20 thou 20 million and and then the person found out that it was their ticket somehow from footage of the camera footage that they had and they said that's my ticket and then it had to go to court because uh even like the city was saying well it was in the trash so it's ours. it was crazy that's great and so in the end there was no money left because the lawyers took it all right? Well the lawyers must have got a chunk but the lady got her. the lady who thre it away got got theis she finally got the money. Yeah, it was decided that putting something you own the in the trash that turned out to you didn't realize you had done it isn't the same as throwing it away or something like that. It's like if if she thrown away something that she knew like it was more like like accidentally dropping something in the trash or some Dum decision like that. Wow, like if you dropped your wallet in the trash by accident because you were trying to throw out your receipts, well the wallet is still yours. You know you mean to do that. So this was under that kind of a ruling.
Wow. We just, uh. speaking of that, we just had our biggest um, uh, Lotto which we call it here. um draw last night and it was for $100 million or $10 million and uh, that's the biggest one we've ever had.
I know that's chicken feed compared with some of your ones, but four people won it apparently and uh, wasn't me. But did you play? Yes, I did yes I always play and I got Sean to choose some numbers as well I got him to pick some numbers out and no, still didn't win. Bummer. so had SE throwing dartts for you Yeah! I had him picking things out of a bucket with the numbers on them.
So I've now got a whole bunch of numbers which I'll put as my favorites and I'll take those every week because Sean picked them. Yeah, But you see now if you win like that and then Sean gets to be an adult, he goes, my dad, take my money and he sees me and I have proof it's on YouTube damn it. But I physically paid the money so therefore it's M Yeah, that's true. Yeah I think I can win that think you got that one.
Yeah yeah. and I think one of the four was a Syndicate So it had like 30 people or 50 people in it and they each only got like 300,000 So it's like I've won the100 Million Lotto and you get a check for 300,000 bu give half of it to the government. we uh, don't here. you do not pay tax don't Yeah, I'm like an Australia can I move to Australia Yeah, you don't pay tax on uh, winnings.
you don't pay tax on Lotto you don't pay tax on you know horse R I Don't know if you pay tax on horse racing there, but um, we certainly don't hear gambling at the casino. There's no tax on any of that. So what do they do? Tax you to your to to your bleue in the face everywhere else. Yeah, pretty much because they're gonna get their money. They're gonna. We're not gonna walk away from money. They're never walk away from money. No no no they don't But you've got to invest it somewhere.
You've got to put it somewhere. so they'll you know, Um, you know, then it becomes income for you. You know, because it's generating Revenue So they'll eventually tax you on your income. But no, you don't get.
um that. I Like the sound of that. Yeah, but it makes more sense because because otherwise you didn't. Really, you win something, you're going to spend it.
You're going to pay the taxes then. But no, they see it as a as an income and you have to pay income tax here and you're going to get it taken away on both ends. W Oh, that's that's yeah, that's nasty. No, doesn't Yeah, fortunately, it doesn't work like that here.
which is great. I Think Although, um, you have to be careful because apparently like if you go on these game shows, you know these reality TV shows and game shows and things right. And um, and if you win something on there, you may it. Sometimes it's not classified as winning the lotto or winning at the horse races because you're then deemed to be a professional Entertainer Who has earned that money even though you want it as part of a reality? You know the you know some Show contest and you won a million bucks or something.
Um, so it can get. It can get a bit tricky there if if you win it that way. Um, well, that that makes sense because you're technically working when you're a part of the game, you're exactly you're on. TV Yeah, although you can argue that you're not getting paid for it though because all these show contestants don't get paid to be on there.
but yeah, well, yeah. I don't know. I Think that the winning thing here is that we pay federal income tax. but we don't But then that's just on your income only.
when you spend money. you're taxed from the state and the and the city and stuff, right? I I I Think you're really? in the end, you're only getting taxed from one entity at a time. It's not like it's not like it's not I Think there just that the federal taxes on the income side mostly except for things like gas and stuff. I guess I think there's a federal tax on gas, but all the spending is just to just to give money to your state and city and county.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a polit. I'm not into politics enough to I sound like I sound like the ire. Now let's talk about this and I don't know what I'm talking about.
We make a whole show out of that that's been going two years or something. Yeah, I think that's what. over two years this seems like yesterday. it's good stuff. You go sponsor now though. that's pretty cool. Yeah, we're sponsored for a few weeks as a trial. Um I don't know if I'll con continue with it, but yeah, this is the first time we've ever actually made money out of the thing.
It isn't much, but you know, uh, certainly isn't bad. So I'm GNA uh tweet that I'm on this hangout again. everybody's glued their TV right now. Yeah, actually I should do that I should actually go watch the uh coverage.
So maybe I shouldn't tweet and and then leave or something because I I should at least have a radio on or something and listen to it rather than just watch numbers here on the screen just flipflop flip flop which is pretty boring, you know I do like having that uh, personal comment kind of thing as long as it's not biased. so I wouldn't wouldn't dare watch like fox or something. Yeah, well, they're both I think they're both biased I What I do is I watch a little of both. then I get an idea what both sides are doing, then make my mind in the middle my mind.
yep. or you can do what everyone else does and just watch the uh UK PBC Channel You know that's the sort of the independent um thing as far as us people go. Oh, it was on. it was on the BBC It must be true.
You know, because they're independent. Well, I don't know now that their funding is going to get cut if Romney gets elected. Maybe they're not so independent anymore. They lose their jobs.
but this is a UK uh company though. Oh well. I guess us? I'm thinking of that pushes. we get a lot of that on our public television.
oh our public television. oh they pick that up or something. that's we see a lot of British stuff comes through on there for some reason I don't know why. Interesting yeah your metor is so so biased.
it's not funny and our ours is a little bit that way too but not as not nearly as extreme though. Yeah I don't know Obama still see no it depends on who you look at. Some people say Romney's winning. some people say Obama's winning I don't know I think I have to go listen to the broadcast so I might uh I might call it quits.
yeah what time is it there? it is 2 pm 2 pm. oh yeah, it's 8 800 pm here. 8 P.M there a day behind and a day behind behind. it's see uh it's Wednesday here.
Sure enough, yeah yeah. I don't understand why you have an election on a Tuesday People work like you know have it on a weekend. Well I guess they don't want people to vote right because then that' exercise their right to no there's a story behind it. if you Google it you find it I know there's a reason that they say I know that there's a reason for it to being the first Tuesday in November has to do with the weather I Remember that any longer people can't get in.
if you do it any earlier it's too far out or something like that, right? and all elections are on Tuesdays Geez, I'm sure if you Google it you'd find out. but oh right, I'll definitely have to do that. Yeah, that's just weird I Don't get it. Yeah, are always on a weekend here when most people don't work. You know, some people who work of course, but the majority don't so everyone's free to go down to the local school and vote. Well, the polls are open till 7 at night and that gives you some time to get there. So got it all right? Well I might uh call it quits. Thanks for uh, thanks for hanging out.
Sure I'll have to get a webcam if it ever happens again. I Don't have one. No worries. Okay, thanks Dave All right mate.
Catch you later Bye see you.
Hi Dave, EEVblog or Snooze fest?