Burning Into The New Year

 Snowstorms have a way of putting life on pause, don't they? As I sat watching snowflakes tumble down in southern Illinois, I found myself reflecting on the serenity and small disruptions they bring. From sharing glimpses of my snow-day musings to welcoming both new and returning listeners, our discussion flowed into hopes for safe travels and a cheerful return to routine. Inviting engagement through our website or Speak Pipe, we set the stage for an exciting year filled with news and earthquake reports.

Did you know the bald eagle's status as the national bird was just confirmed by President Biden? This amusing revelation sparked our conversation on how misconceptions can shape our understanding of history. We then turned a somber eye to the devastating fires in California, extending empathy to affected communities and pondering the complex challenges of such disasters. Adding a touch of wonder, we explored the discovery of 27 new species in the Peruvian rain forest—imagine an amphibious mouse and a fish blob among them!

Bamboo toilet paper, AI computers, and power grid vulnerabilities—what do they have in common? They're all part of our exploration of innovation and resilience. We ventured into the possibilities of NVIDIA's AI computer and the future of AI and quantum computing. With a nod to sci-fi narratives, we highlighted the risks and rewards of technological advancements.   We summarized  recent earthquake activity, particularly in Southern Tibet.  As the episode drew to a close, we celebrated community support through platforms like WavLake, sharing "As We Go" by Matt and Joanne Black, and expressing gratitude to our listeners, with a warm farewell until next time. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:17

Well, good morning good afternoon good evening good day wherever you are, there you are. Hello everyone. I hope that wasn't too long of an intro.

Speaker 2 0:32

I say it was a little bit too long. Bruce Gosh, I started dancing before you got on the mic.

Speaker 1 0:41

Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?

Speaker 2 0:43

Well, you ever watch a duck dance.

Speaker 1 0:47

No, I haven't. I guess I did today.

Speaker 2 0:51

Well, there you go. That ought to answer your question.

Speaker 1 0:56

No, it didn't answer anything, but anyway, let's say hi to everybody.

Speaker 2 1:01

Hi everybody.

Speaker 1 1:04

Well, that's not quite how I had it in mind, but okay, welcome to the show everyone. This is the Ugly Quacking Duck podcast, episode number 98, I believe, and we're glad to have everyone aboard.

Speaker 2 1:20

Everyone aboard.

Speaker 1 1:23

There you go, everyone aboard. See, I can do it too.

Speaker 2 1:28

Everyone aboard.

Speaker 1 1:31

All right, we're not having this contest.

Speaker 2 1:34

Why not? You're such a chicken.

Speaker 1 1:38

And you're a duck.

Speaker 2 1:40

Maybe, maybe I'm an alien.

Speaker 1 1:45

All right, well, we won't get into that argument or discussion for now. Maybe, maybe I'm an alien.

Speaker 2 1:51

All right. Well, we won't get into that argument or discussion for now.

Speaker 1 1:53

Again, you're a chicken, All right. Well, I don't want to waste all the valuable airtime that we're recording here on that and then everybody get bored and shut us off.

Speaker 2 2:05

Oh yeah, that's a good point. They may.

Speaker 1 2:10

Yeah, you bet you They'll get bored of us. And then go click and then go to another podcast.

Speaker 2 2:18

Can you do that again?

Speaker 1 2:20

I could, but let's just say I did and don't, all right.

Speaker 2 2:26

Okay, shoot, you're no fun.

Speaker 1 2:30

Anyway, again we want to welcome everybody aboard the show today, episode number 98. And we are enjoying watching the snow come down. We've been watching it all morning and we're in southern illinois and it's just coming down all day and it's still coming down and we thought we would enjoy watching it while we did our work on our podcast. We've had a couple of days off work and it's been kind of nice. I got to go back tomorrow afternoon, but you know that's tomorrow afternoon. We're going to put it off until tomorrow, right?

Speaker 2 3:14

That's the way you are with everything. Let's put it off.

Speaker 1 3:20

Yeah, let's put it off, but anyhow, that's what our plans are. So, as we continue this podcast again, if you're a new listener, you just tuned into us, just found us, I'm glad you did and I hope you stick around and come back. And if you're one of our reliable people that's been here several times, thank you and you keep coming back, you hear okay, you got that down, pat, don't you?

Speaker 1 3:54

well, not quite, but we're trying anyhow. Um, today is January the 10th, 19. Wow, show them my age January 10th 2025. It's snowing. The last time I checked the temperature let me check it again it was like 31 degrees. I'll check it right now as I'm talking to you. As soon as I find the app All right, I'm punching on it. Get ready. The weather thing's'm punching on it. Get ready. The weather thing's coming up 33 degrees with snow, so it's probably melting, if it can melt with all that ice and snow underneath it Been pretty crazy around here in southern Illinois and Missouri and a lot of different places. They've had snow, we've had stores closed and school is still out and that means they'll have the weekend to get recouped and ready to go and hopefully it'll go good and they'll be able to go back right.

Speaker 2 5:04

Now, why are you wishing that on anybody?

Speaker 1 5:09

Well, you know, yeah, well, the teachers need to go back so they can make some money. Right, they get paid.

Speaker 2 5:21

Yeah, well no.

Speaker 1 5:25

All right. Well, we won't go anymore into that. Oh nope, not at all. But good afternoon everybody from the ugly quacking duck podcast studio. Uh, we are looking at the snow and it's a beautiful sight. That's because I don't have to get out in it and I pray, and I hope everybody that has to get out in it or did get out in it and has got to come home safe, travel, safe passage and be careful, be safe.

National Bird Announcement and California Fires

Speaker 1 6:00

Well, we're trying to get our feet wet again. It's been a couple weeks since we've done a podcast. Actually, it's been a little bit longer than that, because the New Year Eve podcast was just a bit of our voice and then we had several segments of the old podcast from 2024. So it's been, you know know, a little bit of a break and we hope everybody's got their feet wet into the new year, year 2025 to be exact. I hope it's going well for everybody. Uh, boy, there's been some bad things happening. We won't get into any of that yet, although we've got quite a bit of news wrapped up and the earthquake reports, and it might take a little bit to get through all that, but anyhow, nobody sent me any texts or messages on my website or on a speak pipe, so I don't know if anything's happening to you guys out there. I know everybody's been busy getting ready, you know, for Christmas and then the New Year celebration, and things are probably starting to slow down, although the weather is not allowing us to be very business-like, is it?

Speaker 2 7:31

I think you're silly. It's beautiful weather. We can go out there and flop around in that snow. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1 7:41

Well, you got that right. It is kind of nice to be flopping around in. I know the cats have been running around out there and bouncing and jumping. They don't stay out very long, it gets cold for them.

Speaker 2 7:53

Well, it gets cold for me too. My feet get cold.

Speaker 1 7:59

I bet it does. Yeah, speaking of bird feet or birds, did you know back on Christmas Eve? I think it was. Let me look. Yes, christmas Eve, guess what Joe Biden signed into legislation.

Speaker 2 8:17

None him, not no telling. Go ahead, let us know, get it to us, buddy.

Speaker 1 8:25

All right, I'm not sure all that's necessary, but he signed into bill that the new, what the new bird for our national bird is now the bald eagle. Now, before you say anything, yes, I was one of those also that thought the bald eagle now, before you say anything. Yes, I was one of those also that thought the bald eagle was already our national bird and if you're one of those, don't feel bad. But according to other people, it had never been into sign and never had been signed into a bill and adopted as a national bird.

Speaker 2 9:09

Well, that sounds kind of weird. You guys thought it was, but it wasn't. Wow.

Speaker 1 9:18

Yeah, really, that's precisely. Yeah, wow, yeah, it's on uh money, it's on very many of the documents, but yet it wasn't nationally known bird, but the bald eagle is now, because it was signed in a bill on christmas eve 2024 by President Joe Biden. I guess I can say that properly. Give him a little bit of respect, even though I'm not sure anybody Never mind.

Speaker 2 9:55

You're just about to get yourself in trouble there, dude.

Speaker 1 10:00

Yes, I am Thank you for catching that, but anyway, yeah, I thought that was pretty weird. I'd believe that it was our national bird for years in fact, I think I learned that in grade school, which was many, many years ago. So a lot the missing history effect. That's happened once again. Anybody have had that happen. If you've had that happen or you know of something that has happened and you agree with that past being there, but it's not anymore, why don't you send me a message? Be something good we can talk about.

Speaker 2 10:51

Oh yeah, you get them fired up and then you'll just talk about it, right?

Speaker 1 10:59

More than likely they're already fired up and that's why you know we're going to talk about it. But anyway, on with the show.

Speaker 2 11:08

All right, I'll go for that. So our president signed into bill that the bird of the nation is the official bird is the bald eagle, Wow.

Speaker 1 11:27

Yep, it was actually featured on the US Great Seal since 1782. It's been used by the State Department and printed on the dollar bill, so it's been active for a long time in our government stuff, but now it's been signed into a bill. So I thought that'd be a great, a great beginning of our um, new stuff and great thing to talk about. What do you think about that now, Sunny? By the way, I'm Bruce and I'm sunny and I'm Sonny Yep, you ready.

Speaker 1 12:10

One, two, three and we're with the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast. How did you know to pause at the same time I did? That was kind of eerie.

Speaker 2 12:25

I watched your head was kind of eerie. I watched your head it kind of tilted sideways. Every time you do that you're getting ready to stop talking and think a second. And that's what you did you tilted a little bit sideways, so I stopped too and waited till your mouth moved. There you go, there's your sign.

Speaker 1 12:46

All right. Well, thank you, Sonny, for my sign. That's a tail sign, I think is what they call them.

Speaker 2 12:55

Well, I don't know about that, but I can sure tell Ha ha ha ha.

Speaker 1 13:01

Okay, boy, thank you for that. I just don't know how to even go on with that. We'll have to figure out something to go past that with and woo. What do you think about all those fires, sonny, in California?

Speaker 2 13:21

Well, I've just seen what you've seen on the reports on news and social media well, yeah, that's probably what everybody else has seen.

Speaker 1 13:32

Um, it's sad, sickening, disgusting. I could go on and on with the names, but there's been a lot of people, not a lot of lives, lost. The last count I heard was five and that seems very low for the damage. But there was two major areas that's just been burned all the way down to the coast and there's been blame thrown on everything you know, from the governor and the mayor, and turned the water water off. Not enough water? Uh, no, I don't know. But I know there's been a griping for quite a while, um, that they'd quit doing um, the fire breaks what they do like every month or so. They're for a while, until like the 80s or 90s, and they quit doing that. And there's been quite a few fires since then.

Speaker 1 14:35

And this one got started in the city limits, I guess, and the 100 milemile-an-hour wind they was getting really ripped that fire down through there and demolished many, many homes, cars, lots of property, many people lucky to get out of there alive and it's just disgusting, I don't know how else to say it. It's disgusting, I don't know how else to say it. There's a lot of conspiracy talk going on about it and about judgment and many other things going on. All I know is nobody wants to see that happen. I mean, whether they're rich and can afford another one or not does not matter. It's a horrible thing. So my prayers go out to those folks and whatever must come of it. We pray it comes in the right manner and through the right light.

Speaker 2 15:41

Oh boy Down there, buddy, I thought she was supposed to make these podcasts to make everybody happy.

Speaker 1 15:50

Well, you got to have a little bit of bad news, I guess. How am I going to say this? We've got to discuss some of the bad so we can get hope into them lives. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 16:10

No, but I believe you can say it and they'll understand it, even if I don't.

Speaker 1 16:19

Well, thank you for your vote of confidence. And yeah, the fires are horrible. I don't think they've got them under control yet, but I haven't looked today to see if there's anything else going on or if it's still going. But it reminds me a lot of Hawaii and you can take that any way you want, but it's a good way to reset stuff. We've seen it happen over the years. Um, even back in the early 1900s, almost all the property they wanted to get rid of, what they do, they had fires, bricks, concrete kind of weird how that stuff burns. But anyway, I told my wife it's the dragons. Now you can put your own thoughts into what the dragons means. But there you go.

Speaker 2 17:18

Well, I didn't know, we still had dragons.

Speaker 1 17:23

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:26

Okay, so I'm not going there, I'm leaving that alone.

Speaker 1 17:34

Brave duck, I tell you.

Speaker 2 17:37

Um smart.

Speaker 1 17:39

Alright, smart, brave duck, we'll just, we'll leave it at that. We'll go on to the next thing. How's that?

Speaker 2 17:52

what you drinking over there, bruce well, I'm glad you asked.

Speaker 1 17:58

I am got a biscuit tea with pepper and cinnamon what a concoction.

Speaker 2 18:07

Is that what you drink?

Speaker 1 18:08

every time Hibiscus tea with pepper and cinnamon.

Speaker 2 18:09

What a concoction Is that what you drink?

Speaker 1 18:12

every time you get on a podcast. No, but I drink it quite often because it helps my throat.

Speaker 2 18:24

And it keeps me from getting very hoarse, you know, like this oh that wasn't like that.

Speaker 1 18:29

That was like this Okay, if you could have just seen Sonny's face when he did that into his microphone, that was hilarious.

Speaker 2 18:39

Hey, don't be making fun of me now.

Speaker 1 18:43

Um, okay, I will make fun of you.

Speaker 2 18:47

No, I said don't.

Speaker 1 18:50

Oh, okay, I won't.

Speaker 2 18:53

You're so silly.

Speaker 1 18:55

Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, good drink of hibiscus tea. Yeah, I'm watching these cars go by, sonny. I bet you can see them too from your seat. But you'll have three or four go by real slow driving like sensible people, and then you'll have one zip by here that looks like he's going 60 miles an hour.

Speaker 2 19:19

Yeah, there's always one wanting to push it.

Speaker 1 19:23

Well, I hope everybody had a good Christmas I'll drop back into that subject for just a second and I hope you got some kind of present that you all can brag about and enjoy.

Speaker 2 19:35

And I bet you're leading into what you got.

Speaker 1 19:39

Yeah, I am. I got one present that I was shocked to get and it was kind of fun. We've got a TV with a sound system hooked up to it quite old system that I had pieced together from other stereo systems and it had mismatching speakers and sub and it got to where it wasn't working quite right when you would turn it on. A lot of times the sound would not work right and you'd have to tap on the screen on the front and then it would take off. But we did get a new sound bar that actually hooked up a lot different than I was used to. I was shocked how easily it hooked up.

Speaker 2 20:36

Well, tell us what was different.

Speaker 1 20:41

Boy, you led me right into that.

Speaker 1 20:42

I like that, boy, you led me right into that. I like that. Well, most of the old stereos that I've used in the past either hooked up with a stereo wire out of the back of the TV into the stereo or a fiber wire. I forget what they actually called that, but that hookup would go straight from the TV to the stereo unit and I think I had it hooked up from the Sony no, not Sony, the Xbox to the unit, because that's where I got my main power. But anyhow, this unit actually has an hdmi cable that powers the sound. And before you say that's backwards, I really looked at that paperwork when I got it out and I went really.

Speaker 1 21:36

But there's an arc, what they call an arc hdmi hookup on the back of most of the new TVs and it actually goes dual pathway. It'll be an intake. If you hook like a VCR no, a VCR, I'm showing my age Xbox, playstation or a DVD player, something like that, to the TV, you can hook it up through that unit, that port, to the TV. You can hook it up through that unit, that port. Or if you want to hook up your speaker to that port, then it will drive that speaker and all you have to do is go into the settings and turn that arc mode on and then it drives it. And it's pretty cool. It works really well. It's got good bass, good treble. Uh, I really like have the ease of working it now because I can just hit the power button on it, turn the volume up and we're on where the old system. I had to readjust each speaker every time we turned it back on and it was a a pain, that's all I could say. So yay to my family for getting me that christmas present, because I was not expecting it and, uh, I was able to enjoy uh tv viewing.

Speaker 1 23:00

Now, you know, because I've always said you can have a little bitty picture, but if you have good audio coming out you can enjoy the movie. But you can have a great, big, huge picture and if the sound is horrible you still won't enjoy that movie, and I've seen that happen many, many times. People will buy a huge tv, especially these newer ones, and they have horrible speakers in them, very, very small, they're tinny. You can't get very good sound out of them. They do that. So you'll buy, you know, a newer stereo system to go with it, but you can't enjoy that movie if you're trying to watch it on that type of audio. Again, audio is important. That's why you're listening to a podcast. Right, and I know people like to do video podcasts. I don't call that a podcast, but videos. And well, there is a good place for that, but it's still not audio and if it has bad sound, I'm telling you you're not going to watch it very often.

Speaker 1 24:19

Well, has everybody heard of Jeff Bezos? Everybody knows who. That is right, one of the rich guys in the world. Yeah, apparently he got a license to do a test launch of his new Glenn heavy lift launch vehicle and it successfully fired up rockets on a launch pad. They call it Blue Origin. Fired up rockets on a launch pad. They call it blue origin and let's see, it did that on december the 28th. So another uh test fire. I guess that's uh. I'm going to be some competition for that other company and I'm not going to mention no names, but you guys all know who I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 25:10

I think he's the owner of X, yeah, okay, you're not going to mention no names, but you said he's the owner of X. Yeah, that ought to give everybody a good hint.

Speaker 1 25:21

Yeah, that's the obvious point there, Sonny, oh I didn't know you was's the obvious point there, sonny?

Speaker 2 25:27

Oh, I didn't know you was making an obvious point.

Speaker 1 25:30

Well, obviously you didn't know. Yeah, I could have come out and just said what his name was, or that he's Trump's right-hand man, or anything like that.

Speaker 2 25:46

Oh, but we're not gonna mention no names okay, yeah, we're not gonna mention any names.

Speaker 1 25:53

How's that? Oh boy, you are goofy I am, and you know I just seen two trucks go by creeping that. It must be getting slick out there now that the snow's melting as it falls, so I bet it's getting slushy. They're just creeping by and I was wanting to go to town a little bit later and pick up a gallon of milk, but you know what I may not.

Speaker 2 26:20

Oh you poor baby, You'll have to do with that milk.

Speaker 1 26:26

No, that's not true. I've got three quarters of a gallon of 2% in there that I picked up last week, but I don't really want 2%.

Speaker 2 26:39

Oh you poor baby.

Speaker 1 26:41

All right, I've had enough of that.

Speaker 2 26:45

Oh you poor baby.

New Year Resolutions Origins and Traditions

Speaker 1 26:49

Okay. So what do you think all these people are test-firing these big, huge rockets for? Do you think they're going to do something drastic with them, or they're just blowing money?

Speaker 2 27:02

I think they're not going to be blowing money just to be blowing money, or would they?

Speaker 1 27:11

I don't know. There seems to be a lot of that going around. I mean, everybody seems to be doing that right now, even though we don't have any. But you know, if we don't have it, let's just send it to Ukraine. Yeah, there we go. They need billions of more money.

Speaker 2 27:33

Boy, you are getting brave.

Speaker 1 27:36

You don't have everybody mad at you well, maybe, maybe I'll have everybody just happy at me. What do you think?

Speaker 1 27:45

I don't even know what that means I don't either, I just said it well, stop it okay, anyway, yeah, I thought that was funny when I read that article back. It's a couple weeks old. I read it and I saved it so I could read it to my followers and listeners and anybody else that tunes into the podcast. You know what I thought the other day, changing the subject you know what would be neat if we could have a radio, because I'm a radio guy, I love radios, I'm a ham operator, but if we could have a radio that doesn't podcast. So if anybody's listening, this would be a neat trick. If you could just have it. Uh boy, there goes another one zipping along about two miles an hour. It must be really getting slick. But anyway, if you could uh somehow turn it on and zip around the dial and it would pick up different podcasts like it they do right now on stations, and you could zip around and you pick one up and oh I, I like that one and listen to it. That would be kind of cool if we had some kind of system that does that Right now, the way we.

Speaker 1 29:03

You know, if you were listening to me, you know how you got there and it's not really a fun experience trying to find new podcasts. I know I've hunted for hours before um, you can type in words to have it searched for, but then they're usually words that's found in the title and it's hard to, you know, find anything else. So if the title of the podcast or the episode does not include those things, it's hard, you know, to get it to those narrowed down spots. So you have something to listen to. Anyway, I'm going to shut up now. I'm not making sense, right?

Speaker 2 29:53

No, you're making perfect sense. You're kind of dumb, that kind of sense.

Speaker 1 30:00

Well, thank you, sonny, I really appreciate you having my back.

Speaker 2 30:05

Oh, no problem, I enjoy it. Ha, ha, ha ha.

Speaker 1 30:11

Well, anyhow, I think I thought one day that would be so cool if I could just punch a button, zip around the band, but instead of having stations come in, you'd have podcasts come in. That would be so cool. Anyhow, on with the show. Uh, nasa has this solar probe called parker and it's going to survive, being the closest probe to the sun. It's a 1510 pound probe and it's been launched for quite a while, but it's going to go within.

Speaker 1 30:56

Let's see 3.8 million miles of the sun on Christmas Eve and then it's going to shoot back their information so they can verify that it made it and it did that. Let me pull that information up. Let me pull that information up. It was scheduled to make the closest ever flyby of the sun to date and that was, like I said, christmas Eve. But it will reach 3.8 million miles of the solar surface, about 4.5 times the diameter of the sun. Now I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but that's weird why they even said that. But anyway, they got the information back. Supposedly it made it. I'm not sure what they've learned from it. I haven't seen any of that come out yet, but surely they will. Let us know what they've learned about getting that close to the sun 3.8 million miles. I don't know how they come up with that stuff oh, you're still not a believer, are you?

Speaker 1 32:12

no, not, really not when I can see the sun set in between clouds. And I actually witnessed that coming back from uh, effingham, wasn't it? Um, when I went up there for training this last summer, I was coming home and the sun was setting and you could actually see it setting in between the clouds. And I'm thinking there's something wrong with that picture and the information they give us. But anyhow, I'm not going to get into it. But when they start boosting that kind of mileage and telling us how far they're going, how far it's taking them and how long it takes, and blah, blah, blah, blah, it reminds me of when I was in school, man and the kids would start talking bull. They'd start telling you this line of oh, my dad did this and he did this and he was so big, and blah, blah, blah, and before long you knew they was telling a big whopper. And I think these guys are telling big whoppers uh-huh.

Speaker 2 33:22

Can you prove that?

Speaker 1 33:24

well, of course, I can't, nope, can't do it well yeah, I don't know what day is in.

Speaker 2 33:32

I.

Speaker 1 33:32

Did you just cut? Yeah, you cut out, sorry.

Speaker 2 33:37

I didn't cut out. You shut my mic off, you turkey.

Speaker 1 33:42

I did not.

Speaker 2 33:44

You did too, hey guys. Bruce just shut my mic off and pretended like I got cut off. Yeah.

Speaker 1 33:54

Okay, well, I told you I was going to do that one of these days. You just keep it up.

Speaker 2 33:58

That's not fair.

Speaker 1 34:00

Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 34:01

No, it's not, but anyhow, yeah, you're just blowing smoke and you can't prove it.

Speaker 1 34:09

Well, I don't know about all that, but one of these days this stuff's going to come out and we're going to know.

Speaker 2 34:22

They may not want it to come out, but it's going to. The lies never stay dormant.

Speaker 1 34:24

Well, that's true very true, on with the show. Okay, we are on with the show. Well, I run into an interesting article online and it's called you ready for this, folks. How did the tradition of New Year's resolutions start? So did anybody ever wonder that? I think I may have wondered that twice.

Speaker 2 34:51

I didn't.

Speaker 1 34:52

Of course you didn't. You probably don't even make New Year's resolutions, do you? Nope, I didn't. Of course you didn't. You probably don't even make New Year's resolutions, do you?

Speaker 2 34:58

Nope, I don't. I just try to do better next year and better the next year, and if I don't, well, I guess I'm doing what I need to be doing.

Speaker 1 35:09

Well, that's a good thing. I wish we could all do that. But we have to have a starting point and an ending point in our lives where we think, okay, that was behind us, now let's go forward and that's what. That's what we use on New Year's. And anyway, I ran across this article and it was found on the Almanac. Believe it or not, just go to almanaccom and you can look it up. But how did we, how did we get that information?

Speaker 1 35:40

Well, apparently, back in 2000 bc, the babylonians celebrate the new year new year during a 12-day festival called akatu, and it's starting with a vernal equinox, and this was during farm season to plant the crops, to crown their king and make promises to pay their debts. Now, I like that. Make promises to pay their debt? Huh, that's an interesting concept. And so they made uh resolutions, and one common resolution was the return of borrowed farm equipment. Uh, yeah, anyhow. Uh, that was adopted by the ancient romans, as was the tradition of resolutions. The timing, however, eventually shifted with the Julian calendar in 46 BC, which declared January 1st as the start of the new year. Okay, I don't know if you guys caught that, but before this time, the new year actually happened in the spring, during growing season or right before growing season.

Speaker 1 36:59

And then the romans decided to screw everybody up and started smack dab in the middle of the winter, at january, the first uh, you think about that. No wonder everybody's depressed on the new year. You're going through this ugly time of the year where it's cloudy all the time, especially in southern Illinois, bad weather, cold, gloomy, dead, because you have hardly any green, anything, and you start a new year in the middle of that. No, that don't even seem right. But they do, because we got that new calendar that the Romans gave us back in 46 BC. Yeah, anyhow, that's where that all comes from. Now, if we started the new year, like it should be started, in the spring, then we would have a good reason to celebrate because we'd be starting into the growing season and the new is coming up out of the ground, the grass is getting green, the plants are growing, the birds are singing. I mean it would all go together. You wonder why your body is off, your mind is off. There you go. We're not following nature or anything anymore, we're just doing some weird calendar.

Speaker 2 38:29

Oh boy, you are on the road today to prosperity, not you're on the road to make everybody mad.

Speaker 1 38:42

Well, I don't think anybody's going to be mad. If they're listening to me and they're mad, they won't listen no more. That'll be it. It'll be over. If they are listening to me and they're understanding what I'm saying, then maybe they'll come back, right, Okay?

Speaker 2 38:56

well, if you say so, I'll go for it.

Speaker 1 39:01

Well, thank you for your vote of confidence. Well, it's slowly getting dark outside. I started the podcast a little bit late. Still snowing outside. Temperature's still warm enough, it's trying to melt, but it's still snowing in southern Illinois. What do you think about that, sonny?

Speaker 2 39:23

I think it's great. We're having a good day, we're enjoying it and I'm liking being on this podcast. We need to podcast forever. Yay, go podcast, go podcast.

Speaker 1 39:40

All right, you're not too excited, are you?

Speaker 2 39:43

Nope, not at all.

New Discoveries

Speaker 1 39:46

All right. Well, in that case, have you talking about being excited? Have you heard that they found 27 new and exciting and blobby species in Peruvia rainforest? I think I said that, right, the Peruvian rainforest. I found this article on popularsciencecom popular science dot com, and it is describing the the cool species that they have found, and they're nothing really different. I mean, they found a fish they call a fish blob and, uh it, they got a picture of it. In fact, I think I'll put the picture of it up on my website if you're interested. So I'm not going to go over, uh, all 27 these new species.

Speaker 1 40:48

This article come out on december, the 20th, 2024. See, I'm just trying to catch up from not being on the air for a few days or recording my podcast, if you want me to say it correctly. We don't want any people sad because I didn't say it right. Anyway, I'm not going. I'm not going to go over all the different species. I would, if you're an animal lover or you like stuff like that, go look at Popular Science, their article. It's just go to Popular Science and look up the 27 new, exciting and blobby species discovered in the Peruvian rainforest and you'll get pictures of all the new, different species and they have many different ones. But they have a spiny mouse, a bat squirrel or is that a bat and a squirrel? There you go, and an amphibious mouse. Did I say that right? Amphibious mouse? It actually has webbed feet.

Speaker 1 42:11

I'll go ahead and put that picture on the web page too. They got a frog, a fish butterfly. I mean, they've got a lot of neat stuff on here. See, this is the kind of news I like to bring out. It's exciting and pretty neat. It's pretty neat. They said they found 218 butterfly species and 71 scarab beetles wow, that's kind of neat. And 536 different bird species were spotted. 26 of these birds are threatened with extinction and they got a beautiful picture of one. I may put that one on there too. I'll do that. I'll put the bird, the fish blob and the amphibian rat. That ought to be pretty cool. Alright, that sounds like a winner.

Speaker 2 43:20

What do you think about that, Sonny? I think that sounds kind of weird. They don't have an ugly quacking duck on there, do they?

Speaker 1 43:29

No, they would have to have both of us on there to have the full package.

Speaker 2 43:36

Well, that's the first time you've ever said I was part of the package.

Speaker 1 43:42

Well, don't get your head in an uproar and I need to buy you a new pillow or anything like that. You know, swollen heads are not comfortable.

Speaker 2 43:53

Oh, be quiet.

Bamboo Toilet Paper and AI Computers

Speaker 1 43:55

Oh, you know, it's true. All right for a segment. We're going to call this new stuff. Yeah, we just talked about new species and I've got a couple clips real quick. They're actually storylines about new stuff. You've heard of the new species and this one's about new toilet paper, believe it or not. It's called Honeycomb and it was created in order to save the trees. Order to save the trees, there was apparently 27,000 trees per day were being destroyed to make toilet paper. So these guys, this company, put together an eco-friendly product. It is made out of guess what? It's made out of Everybody ready. Come on, my guess. It's made out of Everybody ready. Come on, my guess. I'm not hearing anybody.

Speaker 2 45:00

I don't think anybody's going to answer you.

Speaker 1 45:03

Well, probably not, but I like to keep up the facade. But anyway, everybody, it's bamboo toilet paper that got tongue-tied there. Yeah, and Honeycomb is not the only company that's doing it. There is a couple others if you look it up, but there is Grove, I think, is the other company that I'm thinking of. But it's great that they are making it out of Honeycomb and why you may ask or not, honeycomb? Excuse me, I misspoke it out of honeycomb and why you may ask or not, honeycomb? Excuse me, I misspoke out of bamboo and why you may ask go ahead, go ahead and ask it, but sunny all right, I'll fall for it.

Speaker 2 45:48

Why bamboo?

Speaker 1 45:51

there you go. Well, I'll tell you why. Because it grows I think they said, 100 times faster. So you know, if they do 27,000 trees a day to make toilet paper, that would set. You know if everybody would buy plant-based. There you go, you're killing plants, but some of these plants will grow faster than a tree does, so you're actually saving in the long run. Now I haven't studied all the pluses and minuses. So if that is true, you're going to save trees quite a bit. But that would be important because trees are what cleans our air not just trees but grass and other plants. But trees are the majority of our air cleaners in this world and we're cutting them down faster than we can get them grow back up. That is what they say, that these companies are making bamboo toilet paper. Now I'm not sure how soft that's going to be. I've thought about ordering some of it and give you guys a report. If my hiney likes it, we'll see.

Speaker 2 47:09

I bet you was waiting for me to do a smart aleck remark on that.

Speaker 1 47:15

Yes, I was, and you didn't do it. You disappointed me.

Speaker 2 47:20

Well, so sorry, I'll let you know if you have your hiney on here. Oh man, I'll let you know then.

Speaker 1 47:31

All right, that sounds fair to me. I think everybody's familiar with AI, right? Well, NVIDIA, which has been a company that's produced lots of chips mainly video boards and chips but they've went to other places video boards and chips, but they went to other places. They have come out with a $3,000 desktop. It's an AI computer for the home. Now that thing is called a. It's made for the Project Digits D-I-G-I-T-S and I'm sure that's some kind of synonym or word for another group of words, but it's called Project Digits and this machine's been built so you can run a local chatbot or other AI on this thing and it will run on there.

Speaker 1 48:37

Now, before, anybody that had wanted to use a chatbot or an ai had to get on one of the networks that was running it because it took so much computing power. But supposedly this three thousand dollar desktop will run this thing, um, and they're not going to have any problems with it. So we'll see. But this $3,000 desktop will run this thing and they're not going to have any problems with it, so we'll see. But I don't know if that scares anybody out there, but they're going to have an AI running on a home desktop. Now, think about that, folks, yeah.

Speaker 2 49:12

Does that make anybody smarter? Yeah, Does that make anybody smarter, or does? It just make you for a more expensive fool, buying this $3,000 computer.

Speaker 1 49:25

That is a good question. Well, I don't know, but I'm waiting for them to put together this type of computer for your home Now. Right now they're aiming this thing at researchers, data scientists and students. I guess our regular old home people like a podcaster like me or maybe a video creator, doesn't have no need for a nice, beautiful $3,000 computer or the resources. So there you go, but I'm waiting for them to bring together a computer like this that gives you an ai in your house and a quantum computer. Put those two together. You know, quantum computers supposedly is getting part of their computations from another universe or an alternate universe. That supposedly this is what they say. That's what makes them so quick at getting the answers. So If they combine that kind of computing With these AI computers, then what are we going to have? I'm sure they're thinking about it already. Good grief, we'll have a.

Speaker 1 50:50

What was that? A T? Oh, what was that in the movie? A T1? Is that what they called that computer? That was a living computer that come back from the future to destroy mankind's dream. I don't remember T1, I think is what it's called, but if anybody out there knows, you can email me or send me a message. That would be cool to find out, and I don't know if anybody heard this or not, but apparently Puerto Rico suffered an island-wide power outage early morning on New Year's Day or Eve. New Year's Eve. It was so big, it plunged millions of people into darkness and it was something to do with their faulty power grid over there, and I think it took them a few days to get it back to going. I'm not even sure if they got it all back yet, but how'd you like to have that happen to you? We're not on an island, but it wouldn't take much to wipe out our power grid and make all of us go dark. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Speaker 1 52:19

Okay, well, we're running this show a little bit close on time. I wanted to get done with less than an hour and boy, we're running close. So let's do a quick count on the earthquakes. And then I got a song to end with from Wave Lake. So give me just a minute to get the numbers. All right, this is the numbers I got. It wrote down For December, the 22nd. 2036 was the total amount of earthquakes and we show it went down. So there's your hint, so go for it, sonny.

Speaker 2 53:02

All right if it went down, I'm going to guess 1835. I'm going to guess 1835. We'll see what that does.

Speaker 1 53:16

Well, it gets you close. You're still a little bit over, but that's all right, we'll give you applause here. Hang on, how's that, sonny?

Speaker 2 53:31

Oh, that's great. I'm going to take my bow. Here we go.

Speaker 1 53:36

Alright, everybody couldn't see that, but Sonny took his bow, so you guessed 1835, the actual count for the last seven days is 1753. 1,753 total earthquakes. The 2.5 earthquakes went down, which kind of blows my theory. They went down. They were 305 on the 22nd of last month and now they're 295, and the 4.5 was 121 and they are 117 now, which shows all of them went down. Now there's a whole bunch of 4.5s and 5.9s in in that number range. Uh, actually there's only two 6.0 above, so that leaves us with 293 of those things. So I don't know how that's working out. I may need to reevaluate the evaluate the numbers, but anyway, we had a 6.2 in el salvador and a 7.1 in tibet, southern tibet, and it actually hit the news. Um, I picked it up on my news stuff so I'm going to read it to you.

Speaker 1 55:04

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the Shigetse region of Tibet yesterday at 9.05 am local time that would have been Monday Causing a widespread damage and claiming at least 126 lives. Damage and claiming at least 126 lives. The epicenter was located in the high-altitude Chinese county of Dengzhi and I'm probably butchering all these names and I apologize for that. It's about 47 miles northeast of Mount Everest at a depth of 6.2 miles. The tremors were felt across Nepal, india and Bhutan. So there you go, folks.

Speaker 1 55:55

That earthquake actually hit and made news, which is not a good thing at all, because that means it's probably a lot of damage and a lot of suffering and a lot of lives lost. So let's stay in prayer for those people. Let's remember. If you don't pray, send positive thoughts. That's just as important. So either get down and pray or stand up and hold your hands up and pray. I don't care how you pray, just pray or send positive thoughts. Remember the fire victims and the hurricane victims. There's been a lot of suffering the last few months, the last year, this year has already started. So let's remember those people and those things, and I hope you've enjoyed the show. So we are going to end this show, this season, this episode I don't know why I said season.

Speaker 2 56:58

I don't know why you said it either, but duh all right.

Speaker 1 57:03

So I hope you enjoyed and it was worth staying with us. We will try to be back in two weeks. Um, if you have anything you want to say about the show or the audio, I think it's improved over the last few months. We've got it where I think it sounds pretty good and everybody's got new mics, including uh, well, he's kind of got a new one, sunny, but we got a new one for lily, if she ever gets back on. I've got two new ones I use off and on and I I've got them tuned just so I think I like the way it sounds.

Speaker 1 57:45

Uh, it would be nice if somebody would comment Again. Email me theuglyquackingduck at gmailcom. If you've got an app that's got the new 2.0 on it, well, I don't even have to have that on a lot of them. But if you've got an app you're using to listen, it's got a place where you can click on my details and it will tell you to go here and text me and we'll read your email or your text off the next show, unless you specifically tell me not to.

Speaker 2 58:23

Oh yeah, you better tell him not to, because he's chomping at the bit man.

Wave Lake Song Promotion

Speaker 1 58:29

he's wanting to read one yeah, it's been a while since I've got to do that and we also got a speak pipe. I think it's what it's called on the website. If you go to the comment page and there's a little button there you can click on and you can if you're on phone especially, you can record it right there. It will send it to me and I'll be able to play it on the next podcast Not just read one, but play one. How cool is that. I still haven't got to use that. I'm going to have to record one of my own, I guess, to make it happen.

Speaker 2 59:06

Oh, don't do that to us, please, please, please, please, please.

Speaker 1 59:11

Okay, I might not. Maybe you know I'm really wanting to.

Speaker 2 59:17

I know, but don't.

Speaker 1 59:20

All right, I may. I'm not going to promise.

Speaker 2 59:23

Oh fine, let's say bye.

Speaker 1 59:27

All right, well, we're not going to say bye, we're just pumping up to that last spot, but we're going to play a song from wave lake again. These guys go on there, these creators go on wave lake. Put their creations, their product, their songs or podcasts, whatever it is and for people like us to come on there and we pay them, uh, some kind of value for that. I use the bitcoin and put on there. So, hint, hint, if you want to show your value that I have gave you for this podcast or anything else, be part of our podcast. You can just tell people about us, you can help us produce it. We need artwork, we need all kinds of help, or you can financially help us. Anything of that would be nice. Just being part of it would be great.

Speaker 2 1:00:30

Yeah, if you just send him something, he'll be so excited I won't be able to hold him down.

Speaker 1 1:00:38

You wouldn't be able to hold me down anyway.

Speaker 2 1:00:40

Whatever?

Speaker 1 1:00:43

Whatever. All right, let's go on with the song. What do you think?

Speaker 2 1:00:50

Yeah, let's have the song. What's go on with the song?

Speaker 1 1:00:51

what do you think? Yeah, let's have the song. What's the name of the song? All right, folks, the name of the song is as we go, and it's brought to you by matt and joanne black. I hope you enjoy it and we'll close out the the show right after the song. So sit back, get you something to drink and some chips or something, and listen to the song and enjoy it.

Speaker 3 1:01:27

It's His love that has called and compelled us, and His grace that our wandering hearts have known, calling us to go To the lonely, the lost and broken. We will hold out the life he gave to us. He's calling us to go as we go. We will carry the light as we go, let it shine through the night till the whole world knows we will share the hope of the glory christ has shown as we go, as we go, the spirit of the lord is upon us. So go and speak good news to a world in need. He's calling us to go, bind the hearts of the brokenhearted, tell the prisoners that he has set them free.

Speaker 3 1:02:46

Yeah, he's calling us to go as we go. We will carry the light as we go, let it shine through the night till the whole world knows we will share the hope of the glory Christ has shown as we go, as we go. Here we go, go, go, go, go, go, go as we go. We will carry the light as we go, let it shine through the night till the whole world knows we will share the hope of the glory Christ has shown as we go, shown as we go. Oh, as we go, as we go, we will carry the light as we go, let it shine through the night Till the whole world knows we will share the hope of the glory Christ has shown. As we go, as we go, oh, as we go, as we go, as we go.

Speaker 1 1:05:01

Woo-wee, that beat as we go, fan-based thing, whatever you want to call yourselves enjoyed it and if you did look them guys up on Wavelake and get signed up so you can give them some kind of payment for that song, we hope that you did enjoy it. And again they're on Wavelake. That's wave W-A-V-v-l-a-k-ecom and they are called matt and joanna black and the song was as we go. So again, go and look them up and as we go. Today we want to say goodbye to everybody. We hope you have a good couple more weeks. We're just starting the end of this year.

Speaker 1 1:05:58

The inauguration is going to be in just what? Another week, maybe two weeks, I can't remember exactly when it's going to happen, but we're getting close. So everybody, tighten up, bundle up, watch out for the cold. It's been kind of cold around here in Southern Illinois. We want to say hi to the Midwest, hi to the Southern Illinois group, hi to Mount Vernon, illinois people, anybody else out there that knows us, hi, and I hope you have a good time and we will see you back here on the radio, so to speak. But we'll be back here on the uh podcast, probably in another two weeks. So have a good time everybody. Are you ready, sonny? We're gonna say it one, two, three. Bye everybody. 73.