Google Heard “Sexy Butt” And Panicked

We go from petty podcast banner grievances to a surprisingly serious rant about AI tools that “upgrade” themselves into being less useful and more controlling. Then we zoom out to Montreal conference stories about AI in education, privacy, surveillance, and why teachers are being turned into detectives. 
• Alphabetizing names and the eternal “who gets said first” debate 
• Car infotainment systems, Android Auto, and why built-in navigation still fails 
• Google Gemini changes, voice assistant censorship, and broken voice commands 
• Anime pacing, adaptation choices, and the comedy of overdramatic cliffhangers 
• Reaction culture and why anger wins engagement online 
• Academic conferences as structured socializing with panels, Q and A, and hallway debates 
• Classroom transcription tools, accessibility claims, and the risk of data farming and surveillance 
• Practical alternatives like open-source transcription and building tools in-house 
• Random questions that turn into self-care, hydration, and daily-life heuristics 
“I'd recommend checking out their website if you're somehow into academics and our podcast.” 
“Also, don't forget to take the the uh hint from uh the loading screen of our lives here. Uh, you know, hydrate self-care, you know. Medicate. Have you taken a break lately?”

Transcript

Disclaimers And Name Order Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Disclaimer. Nothing we say should be taken seriously. Nothing we say should not be protected under copyright and parity laws. We are quite frankly should be protected by fair dealing because we are not a serious source of information. We do not sue us for libel, we do not sue us for slander. We do not have strong opinions and should not be taken seriously. We are legally basically comedians. I returned.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Well, I mean I I do I do have a strong opinion about uh alphabetizing our our podcast name, but So I told you this day one, and I'm gonna out this, and you're gonna say, Oh, I forgot.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Day one, if you had made the banner, you would have changed where the names went. I said, well, here's our banner. If you don't like it, you can make your own.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Well, I was just uh I was just appreciating uh that this week you decided that we were in fact going to go around go alphabetical.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I wonder how often I say Carl first, because I enjoy the hit. And I do think our dedicated guys are gonna be like, uh, actually Carl, 51% of the time he says your name first.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Check your privilege. I mean I there's absolutely no way for me to possibly go back and check whether or not that's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah, but I guess we would need more data centers to be able to do that level, high-level computations.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, I'm not gonna sit through the first five minutes of a hundred episodes of my own podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

You don't even have to do that. You just have to open the transcripts. We have transcripts. Like you can literally just control, like open the first transcript and look at the first ten lines and see. Or the first line, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Absolutely no way for me to possibly know it's in check.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Listen to the first two seconds of each episode. Although I feel like we have enough content on the internet, not show content, you know, slop, that I feel like we can probably train a surprisingly accurate LMM to be a Carl simulator.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I mean, probably. I have said a lot of things on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

They later learned that Carl was just the voice Richard was doing. That would be pretty funny. Carl's just a puppet I hold, but we didn't have the video recording, and you've just been a puppet the entire time. Would be pretty great. But before I yap your ear off and complain about necromancy, what's new in the Carlverse?

Car Navigation And Android Auto Basics

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Well, so um you know, a lot of vehicles have uh built-in uh navigation in into the system, right? Um and uh you know, like back in the old days, people had to actually get like separate dedicated GPS units like Garmin or whatever. Uh but then they started incorporating into car streams, but but like with my dad's car, he has built-in navigation. But to actually update the maps, he has to uh put the new data onto a DVD and then put the DVD into his infotainment system and update it manually, or spend like fifteen hundred bucks to the dealership.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Um you get the little clicky thing that goes on your dashboard that holds a cell phone.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean sometimes people. Some people actually will buy mounts to use their cell phone as as a separate dedicated device. Not as some people.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I would say who clicks it to the event holds a cell phone thing. I've seen like 90% of vehicles out here.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, well, I mean, some people actually do just use the built-in navigation because sometimes it's actually pretty good. But sometimes uh, you know, have a vehicle like mine. Uh where the doors can be stolen. So uh tragically, I I have sold the Jeep quite a while ago, but I feel like I knew that's because it's less funny. I mean you could steal the doors off my Nissan road. That would be even funnier. Anyways, um my my vehicle, uh they decided that instead of including onboard navigation, I need a pause for disclaimer.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

We are not sponsored by Nissan, but that would be really funny.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

I know, this is this is a complaint.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

I just think it'd be hilarious if we got like five cents each time we said Nissan Rogue in the episode.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Uh but see, they figured they could save some money on their infotainment system if they just didn't include navigation. So my my infotainment system just does not have navigation. Instead, uh it has Android Auto, which is akin to buying a uh mountain for your phone and just mounting your phone, except that your phone actually goes through the your screen. Yeah. Um I don't hate that. The version I have. The the version I have, you actually just plug your phone into a USB port, and then uh that connects to the screen. Uh newer versions can do it wireless or just over Bluetooth, which I prefer, but again, uh my vehicle is older and cheaper, so they they didn't bother with wireless.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Your aesthetics as a person, I feel like you'd be completely fine learning a pedal shifter and having windows you have to hand rank up. That feels like you'd be more confident in that car.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Well, I mean, as you said, I had a Jeep before my my Nissan road, and uh I didn't realize that power windows aren't standard features on on modern vehicles when I bought my my Jeep, but turns out they they uh the Jeep branded awful lot and had crank windows.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

And I don't think that bugged you. I think it was I feel like you got bullied into a sensible vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Uh well I mean Yeah, basically. But that's not really the point. The point of the matter is uh that if I want navigation in my car, the giant front wheel have given the opportunity. If I want navigation in my car, I have to use Android Auto. And so I started uh I started actually using Android Auto, and I realized that although I've never trained my Google assistant on my voice, and I never use it outside of the car, it is in fact far superior to the infotainment system to any infotainment system that I've seen it used in any other car. The Android Auto is just great. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

And so like I said, I I'll use it for voice commands because it can actually like inter my voice and send text messages or or whatever, right? Um but recently they uh they did an update to Google Gemini.

Gemini Update And Weird Censorship

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And uh now Google Gemini doesn't seem to be directly connected to Android Auto. Um whereas before it was like I don't know what sort of processing they're using, but it seemed to be going directly through the app. Um but now uh the the voice changed one day when I was like it's like oh well this is a different voice. I didn't tell it to change, but whatever. Uh and so I go to uh message my fiance. And then my phone. Uh she's in my phone as sexy butt. So I so I stayed in the car. I'm like, okay, Google, text sexy butt. And it says, I do not respond to harmful language.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Oh, you got censored. Take that.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

What what so then I say again, I'm like, hey, Google, like, text sexy butt from my contacts. And then the thing is like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can do that. Okay. Stupid censorship. What a display.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

But so then, um, where you can't use the same language as the president of the United States on your phone.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

But so then, um I uh I say, okay, Google, text Mrs. Butt. And if you wanna say, oh yeah, you want to text sexy butt, I'll send a message. It's like, wait a second. Calling someone Mrs. Butt is not offensive or harmful language. Correct. But sexy butt. The sexy butt is.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah, as Jesus intended in the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And I was like, okay, well, whatever. I mean, maybe I should just change her her contact in my phone.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

I don't think you should. I think you should be allowed this level of whimsy in your personal contacts on your personal phone. I disagree with changing it. That is censorship and that is bad.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Like, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the nickname, it's your right to have a nickname for your fiance. Should not be questioned by the phone telling you you can't call them that in your phone. That is bad.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

No, but me for some reason the the AI thinks I'm referring to the AI as a sexy butt.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I'm sure some people are.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

That's offensive?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

I'm sure a lot of people are hitting on their AIs. I'm certain of it. Because we live in the Blantis timeline.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

In that context, sexy butt probably is actually a horrible language. Anyways. The point of the matter is that uh now the it used to just work perfectly, like I would I would say, okay, Google, you know, play Gangbusters Melody Club. Album by an artist that like uh 11 Acorn Lane. And uh Or Caravan Palace, sorry, once by Caravan Palace. But so I say to the my Android album, I'm like, okay, Google, play uh Gangbusters Melody Club. And then it thinks for a minute. And it's like, oh, I can't play videos, you're driving. And I'm like, I didn't ask you to play a video, I asked you to play a musical album. We how are you getting this? This was an update to make you better. How are you getting this wrong?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

It's not an update to get better, it's an update to justify some cost fallacy into a piece of technology that doesn't actually approve anything. It's a pyramid scheme. And the only real winner here is Nvidia.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

I didn't have to pay for this uh supposed upgrade, so I guess. Oh, you're paying for this underwind.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

It's being paid for by being worse. This mandatory update you got without your consent has made your device worse. You're paying for it.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I guess that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Like if I broke into your house and switched out your pep uh crack fresh uh like your pepper mills with packaged pepper and left, you don't be like, well, this isn't a bad thing. Go into your break into your car, switch out the air freshener, paint the interior orange, leave, and be like, yeah, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Because it was free. Everybody hates on the back, but I hate orange. I don't get it. It's because we can. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

There's sometimes there is no deeper meaning than a bit simply went on for too long and can't end now.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Okay, okay, uh, but uh another thing that's messed

Anime Pacing And The Arrow Cliffhanger

SPEAKER_01 12:30

me with me. Uh the you had mentioned a while back that uh the author of Full Metal Alchemist has released another series. Uh Damens of the Shadow Realm, I think. Damons of the Shadow Realm. There's something along those lines.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Bad naming.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Um bad naming, you think?

unknown 12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Like, they didn't nail it with the naming on that one, is all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Mm-mm. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

If I have to struggle to remember it, it's not good naming.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, right. Um the anime is airing on Crunchyroll, so I've I've been watching it here and there. Um and actually, uh I have something of a question for you because I was watching one episode in particular, I don't remember which episode it was. I could look it up, but um We don't get paid.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Remember, we're not paid for this podcast, so we're not gonna look things up without some substantial sponsorships.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Right, right. Uh, but uh the main character, Yoru, uh, gets taken into the Kagamori clan. Um and then pretty much as soon as he arrives there, they get attacked by a bunch of monsters and whatnot. Um and so he uh he takes this bow and arrow that he's given by one of the Kagamori people to help defend himself. Uh and uh for some reason this is the end of the episode, and I swear, maybe maybe it just seemed longer to me, but at the time, but I swear it's like a uh three or four-minute segment where he takes his bow and arrow, he notches his bow, uh, notches his arrow, and then he's like, I guess I'll give this a try. Uh, and then he fires his arrow, and it's just like big, long, epic, like cliffhanger type uh scene, uh, and the arrow's flying all epically, and I was just like, that's that's just a normal arrow. Why is there so much drama around this shot? Uh, and then the episode ends like it like a cliffhanger. And then wouldn't you know it? The next episode opens up, and it's just a normal arrow, and he misses.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

It does less than nothing. So what's funny about that, because I'm thinking of the exact sequence, and what comes to mind is this idea that they mention he has a superpower. One has sealing, one has unsealing, or destroying, or whatever it is. Right. And it's like they fire this arrow and you're expecting it to do something. I kind of low-key love the misdirect where I thought it was like gonna bounce off the armor harmlessly, or hit and then like activate a superpower, but it just doing nothing is actually really funny.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Okay, so I mean it it is really funny. Uh, but my my comment is uh more along the lines of like um the ridiculous over the top dramatic cliffhanger um episode ending. With you know, what's obviously just a normal arrow. Well, I mean what I thought was just gonna be normal arrow. It's like, yeah, maybe he has superpowers and like he'll actually like do something awesome here, but he doesn't. Um I guess I don't really know exactly what people like or dislike about anime, but I feel like the ridiculous over-dramatic scenes like that are one of the things that people are like, oh, anime's not that good because it has this kind of ridiculous silver-but topness. I mean, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

What happened was a productive studio wanted a cool cliffhanger danly episode on, and there wasn't really one, so they just made one up.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Well, so I mean the the question to you is, um often do you feel like source material uh gets like the pacing gets put off or the like maybe voice acting kind of brings the series down. Like, how often do you think that an adaptation actually makes the source material worse through like editorial choices like that?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

So it makes it different. And the thing about this being an editorial choice is neither of us have read the manka. I'd bet money that the chapter ends exactly the same way with the arrow being shot. Because if you're doing a weekly or a monthly serial, you want to leave a hook for them to pick it up next week. Be it graphic novels, comic books, Marvel, Superman, every anime ever. So they probably end it on that exact panel of the firing the arrow and start the next episode on the panel of it missing. It's probably exactly how it was presented. But like, I don't know, they felt like going hard on it, but the thing is, people like to complain. I know it, I do it all the time. I never am not complaining. And like, if you like anime, and you say, Oh, I don't like the overdriven, you're lying. You are simply lying. Don't look me in the bloody eye and be like, oh, him firing a super over-dramatic arrow is what I hate about it. Shut up. What's your favorite joke there, bro? Is it Naruto versus Payne? Because let me tell you right now, oh, you're gonna tell me Dragon Ball Z is the best thing ever written? And that's never hyped up something super dramatically for it to do nothing. Oh wait. That's part of the formula. Literally doing something dramatic that fails is a chunk of Dragon Ball Z rook story structure recursion. Remember Elto Grenade? Remember how nothing Eldo Grenade was? Remember how nothing raccoon and burger were as people like uh remember that time that like the spirit bomb was a thing and did nothing three times in a row? Like, let's not let's not pretend the overdramatic setup for no payoff is like not just part of the genre and the form.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, and I mean just I I do like anime, and I it's not like I dislike to that scene. Uh but I was like, man, like is this I was like to say I haven't read the source material. Um it's this like uh the voice acting, the writing, and it's world choice, like what what even is this, like it was so over the top that even I notice and I don't really like pay attention to that kind of stuff because I just enjoyed anime for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I mean it could come down to something so simple as the chunk of chapter they decide to adapt didn't have a clean ending point. Like it literally could be that simple of a reason.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Now, like, we're gonna end here, because this is a cool image to end on, and we made it slightly longer so it would hit the page count, right? Like. Sometimes it's literally just no real reason why. But also anime fans have gotten pretty spoiled recently for like you look at something like Invincible's animation, you compare it to like a running joke I like to make with my friend is oh, that five minutes we just watched had a larger budget than the entire five seasons of Shira Princesses of Hour. Like that arrow scene had the budget of Inuasha. Yeah. Like, I I don't even feel like that's an over-exaggeration to say that firing that arrow had the budget of the entire show of Inuasha is what it feels like.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Well, yeah, or like uh solo leveling, um, when they the one scene where they do that like weird eyeball scene where he's like he's being attacked and then like um they're about to like stab him in the eye and kind of like just this a really like cool cinematic artistic interpretation. Uh but I know it wasn't in the source materials just added to be more dramatic and and like say it to suspend their budget. Um but then it like it really like stands out as this like hyper over-dramatic embodiment of what I feel like people complain about anime, but I don't really know. Like, what do people complain about anime?

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Anything. They invent things. Like, I do not so I study literature for like a living now, right? Like people in our weird uh the term that's been thrown a lot now is neoliberalism in my classes. But we live in a situation where getting attention and people's brains directly correlates with success. Reactioners who people now don't even watch the anime they self, they watch someone else to get that person's opinion of the show.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

I mean, I also watch Demons of the Shadow Realm for the record. But like, because we live in this like reaction on reaction of reaction, someone I've heard people make the most nonsense fucking claims, because they heard it from some idiot who also made this claim, and it'll be like someone will be like, oh. I'll

Reaction Culture And Hot Take Incentives

SPEAKER_00 21:46

try to think of a good example. Let's go with this arrow scene. Some reactioner will be like, oh, they spent like five minutes on this arrow speed, and then the next person will repair it, then the next. Because reactioners get attention by having Reactions, right? Right. What's the most common entertaining reaction someone can have to something? Uh shock, I guess? No. Anger. No? Because anger is a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

It is definitely the spirit of anger, eh?

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Because shock you can't record. Just being sitting there with your mouth open doesn't really get engagement. Talking about how beautiful the art palette in the background is doesn't really get engagement. So anime fans can fuck right off, because they'll look me in the eye and say Dragon Ball Z has better fight sequences than solo leveling. Or they'll look me in the eye and be like, oh, the art style in Dragon Ball Super is just worse than it was in Dragon Ball Z. I'm like, did you watch Dragon Ball Z? I don't think you did. And they'll be like, oh yeah. And they'll just be like, yeah, Naruto was well paced. I'm like, no, what are you talking about? So if someone were to be like, what if anime fans complain about? I'm like, just don't even listen to them. Just look at their search industry and hours watched. That's the actual analytic. You'll look at someone who's like, has these passionate thoughts on, I don't know, I'm gonna go with Sentence to be a Hero, which had a sick last episode. Oh, I love the last episode of that season. And they'll be like, hmm, this dark fantasy, I didn't really like that Xylo was too optimistic. And then you'll look at their recent history, they've watched Dungeon Messi seven times in a row. Like your algorithm disagrees with you, sir. You completely want cozy comedy comedy, because that's what you watched on LinkedIn. So yeah, people make hot takes because hot takes get more engagement, and more engagement leads to more people clicking on things, which makes me feel better. But I've seen people react to reactors reacting. Try and go stop the reactors, name. There's a non-zero percent chance that someone on the internet out there is gonna have like. I'm gonna go Leonard. Leonard reacts to Richard and Carl Present Deep Space and Dragons, where a guy named Leonard films himself reacting to our comments about things and how wrong or right we are.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Well, I mean, we did have someone create a uh AI analysis over our one episode of the podcast. Yeah. So that's the world we live in right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

But anime fans are just full of shit. Like it's like I've definitely heard people give full speeches about oh, fan service anime is the worst. It makes it unwatchable, it's an insult to feminism. All true statements. And they'll be alright, feminist scholar, what's your favorite anime? And they'll be like, kill and kill. I'm like, wait, wait, wait. So, you believe that characters in their outfits of anime is fundamentally sexist and what's wrong with society, and your favorite show is killing.

unknown 24:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Sure, play that. Yeah. That's pretty ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Uh so I personally I I I am clear though. I did have the same thought you did of their putting so much mustard on this arrow firing scene for it to do less than nothing the next episode. I almost wish it was more of a bit. Like, I I kind of wanted someone to be like, you suck, or something, when the arrow failed.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, because then he just like goes and trains in the Hack Wallet Time Chamber and and comes back and just like is an elite sniper hunter from the top of the roofs.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I mean he was already an elite, to be fair, as far as anime shown in protagonists are, this guy's a certifiable daddy.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

That is true.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

I don't even remember, but his last fight in the parking garage, while things were doing the superpowered Pokemon battling, he was kneecapping people with his hunting coke. So I'm not gonna be like, oh, he just is a no no, I think he's earned this. Like, this is the least merry supertagonist. Why is he a good shot? Oh, he spent his nights shooting things. That'd do it. That seems fair and reasonable.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

And he's like, I missed my first shot because I'm not used to modern bows. I'm like, that is such a reasonable skin, like, that's such a valid concern.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

It's like this has a bully on it. What's a bully?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Hmm. Pretty funny.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I like the idea that the new bow sucked for him because he's not used to bow shooting straight.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

The the I have been enjoying the show. I just the that one scene in particular, I was like, wow. They really weren't like all in on this arrow.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Well, the show's been great for me because I don't know where it's going, and it's doing a good job of circumventing troops. But I have just been calling it like edgy Pokemon, because I kinda love the idea. It's like, yeah, we all get our two Pokemons. This is my tortoise and my hair, and like, Torres and Hair Guy has the best one. No notes. They come in pairs because I said so, because that's the gimmick of the show, and I'm like, I'm weirdly completely on board. Yeah? With this weird duo Pokemon mechanic. I also enjoyed that the guy vomited after Pathcrappling for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

A very enjoyable show for sure, is that was was kind of like wondering. In instances like that, how often the people you see stuff like that where it's like I think that one, I think it's how can I put this?

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Because the show is good, it stood out more. But like, a lifetime of anime watching, I'm like, oh man, have I said seen some pointless ass scenes that go on for like three minutes.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Right, right.

Montreal Conference And AI Classroom Surveillance

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Oh man. Anyways, the the the the point of this uh episode is is more so uh what's new with you, Richard, because you uh recently went to Montreal. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

So I'm gonna start with something out of sequence, and note, I am talking from my perspective of academic conferences, therefore no one watching this should be paraphrasing this or using this as an academic sport source, and there's a hundred percent chance I misrepres represent people's research and points while monologuing about it. So, one of the panels we went to and it was I think the last panel of the four day. For those who've never been to a conference. So, first, Carl, picture your dream vacation. Wouldn't it be so much better if you had 12 hours of school each day on your vacation? Okay. So the conference basically, to make a very lengthy explanation short, is if you're a complete and utter uncool loser, it is your dream vacation. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Cause like each day, and I'm just kinda like pulling up the outline to like not misspeak too much, which isn't a PDF file, which already shows they're completely on top of shit. I hate PDFs. It's like so every day there was effectively three to four panels and other things to do. And it was basically you would pick these panels that were about each there'd be about three peop person per panel, each one would talk for 15 minutes, and there'd be an open QA about the things they were working on and what they were doing. Like to give a more specific example is so you're talking about how your phone is surprisingly good at policing you despite being shady. This last panel, so apparently in the States, and the names and locations will be changed for the variation of the story because of publishing it. There is an AI company that makes accessibility tools for things like okay, this piece of software will record the lecture notes for you because you have some sort of disability attach associated with it, right? Right. Reasonable. Nothing shady here. This uses AI technology as an AI transcription tool. Still not that shady. Says on the tin, good for education, because we don't steal your data. Okay. You look in the fine print, the processes involved in this tool steal your data. Right. So what this tool was doing is it's so good at doing biometric prints. It was basically doing like, so our podcast, when we transcribe it, it tries to figure out who's Carl and who's Richard automatically, and assigns names to it. Right. Right. This tool in this classroom was recording what every student and the professor were saying, putting namestamps to what they were saying in this classroom, and then shipping it off to an AI company as data farming. So imagine you're living in the States, and you say something about their commander-in-chief. And then Elon Musk, close personal friend of the commander-in-chief, now knows who said what and when in this classroom. That seems kind of bad, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:19

That does seem kind of sketchy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Like if you're in a class and you're a professor and you're teaching, I don't know, communism, and then any comments you make about con the pros of communism, which is your literal classes being recorded, matched to your name, and shipped off to a company to study.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

A company that might have a job board that is then fed data from this software and then Shadow Blacklists you for being like it's sketchy surveillance state stuff. Right. So, Professor points this out to their board, being like, um, I don't I'm not comfortable with these tools in my classroom because they just spy on you. Right. And then the company behind these tools sues the school f on account of basically saying we're filing a lawsuit saying you have to let our tools be used in the classroom because you're discriminating against disability if you don't let them use our tools. So this company is saying, hey, because you have disabled people, they need to be allowed to use our tool, and if you ban our tool, we're gonna sue you for discrimination. I'm like, oh cool, the tech company cares about disabled people when using them to smuggle spyware into the classrooms.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

That is a bizarre situation for sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

But that was one of the speakers at that panel was talking about this really specific situation. And how their proposal was instead of giving these money to these companies, that schools are really just don't understand these tools, that the Whisper API that powers these tools is open source. Any fourth-year coding student can probably just make a transcription tool for dis uh differently abled students to use. And if the school takes the money they were gonna spend the evil company and develops it in-house, then nothing sketchy's happening. Why aren't they listening to me? So that's like an example of like one of the panels. How do you feel about suing somebody for not letting you spy on them?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Uh yeah, I mean that's definitely because that seems like comically evil.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Like, that's Lex Lutheran.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Yeah, like the point of suing someone is to generally get financial reparations. Um and so like they're gonna make money off of forcing people to use their product? Like it's that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

But that happens more often than you think. So the full panel was called Teachers as Investigators in the Age of AI. And the overarching theme was this idea that teachers, without getting a raise or a promotion or support or funding, now not only have to teach, but also have to be detectives.

Teachers As AI Detectives

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Because it's a never-ending witch hunt of cheating now.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

So now teachers have to like Well, the first panel was called You Can Build Culture Out of Trash, but only trash culture.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

And it was on this idea that the AI tools themselves aren't actually better writing devices, but we're not reading them. So the person holding the panel, allegedly, made a quip along the lines of how do you handle students work being worse than AI work? And I responded because I'm a classy gentleman who would never say something mean and controversial, like, that is an extremely leading question. They're not better than AI written assignments. They're only better if you mark them based on the shape they're in, not the ideas in them. I have never in my life seen an AI assignment that if you grade it for the ideas, is better than a handwritten one. They only grade better if you're taking off like 20% for formatting, 30% for structure, and not actually reading the paper. Right. And he was basically talking about how with AI token prices going up, AI throttling, and it cannibalizing its own datasets, it won't get that much better, because it'll hit hard caps in the datasets. And school's basically just got scammed into thinking it was the future, when really it's not. And what it's really doing is exposing flaws in our system, where, quote, ChatGPT is the kick in the ass we needed to realize we weren't actually grading their ideas. Because all it did was make contract cheating affordable for everybody. Because anyone with money could have just paid someone to write an essay. Any assignment ChatGPT can do means you're not really assessing their growth. Because you're not looking at a before and after. That makes sense. And one of the professors, like, I'm taking this as an excuse to up my standards and be like, yeah, you can use as much AI as you want, because a chat GP I'm gonna put in like ten prompts to generate from ChatGPT, and that's what a 50 looks like now. So they're like, I'm gonna do some I'm gonna AI cheat for example essays, and that is the minimum that if you do worse than the example when you instantly fail. Which I think's funny, being like, oh, I'm not gonna ban you from using it. I'm just gonna use it myself to see how what these look like. And if you are worse than one of these, you're screwed. And if you're good as one of these, that makes the most generic thing imaginable, you will get the most generic grade imaginable and learn nothing. Thanks for funding our students who try harder. And then the next professor went on, it was called Metaphors We Teach By, and they basically just came up with better ways to talk about AI, and we're basically doing like an anti-AI marketing campaign, but they basically just dunk on AI for 15 minutes straight. One of my favorite lines was, What AI does is it generates content attention vampires that exist solely to drain your attention span away. And I just really enjoyed the idea. It's like it's a vampire printing machine that makes little attention vampires. And it's like the more the internet gets flooded with this bullshit, the less people will read.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Maybe that's where the vampires that cursed my spleen came from. They're actually AIs.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

No, these AI vampires are terrible. And it's like, yeah, these aren't machines to make words, they're magazines to make word placeholders. Right. So that panel was really fun. I really liked they're like proposing alternate assignments, different strategies, but it was basically along the lines that trying to investigate people if they cheated for AI is a waste of everyone's time, but that seems to be the strategy that campuses are using. When really it's about redesigning things and reading things better and adjusting the model to be less cheatable. But the reason I kind of deep dived into this one specific panel is so this acute conference, which is an acronym for something. I'm Googling the acronym.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Ah, okay. I thought you were waiting for me to Google the acronym. I am sitting at a computer, so I could I could do that.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

But whatever ACUTIS stands for is oh, Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English. Is the biggest humanities conference in Canada. And ignoring the acronym game, a lot of these is basically in each of these time slots over the four days, you could pick panels you think you would enjoy. Right presented in one. Between them there was free coffee and breakfast, and then it just kind of rolled up into random lunches. Okay. And then several of the nights, much like you'd expect from an English conference convention, most people ended up at pubs where there was free food at pubs. Nice. So my structure of my vacation was go see a 15-minute talk, have a coffee break. And so I hate small talk. Maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, maybe because I'm yappy. I don't know. I hate small talk. This is the most small talk-free socialization excuse on the planet, and I deeply love it. So you know what makes life real easy? So, say for example, the first one, one of the first panels we went to on the Thursday. And there's like seven or eight for each one, was imagining futures otherwise. And the concept was coming up with science fiction stories that are not dystopian, and like the tagline was basically it's easier to remind the end of the world than the end of capitalism. That makes sense. And what's cool about going for these things is like, oh, for it when they start dropping, like, oh, in this novel, oh, in

What Academic Conferences Are Really Like

SPEAKER_00 40:21

this, that, then you encounter the person in the hallway, and you already know enough about their interest to have a worthwhile conversation with them. Hmm. Because then you could just go up to somebody and be like, so you were talking about Casser and Sins, what are your thoughts on this, this, this, and then like actually have a good conversation? Right. While drinking liters of free coffee. Free coffee. So, like, it became a game of exploring Montreal when we weren't at this thing. But the structure made it really good, because it was like almost entirely professors and grad students and things. Who definitely can hold their liquor, but also the person in me who's bad at vacations is like, oh, you're giving me an itinerary and a structure. This is great. Like, one of the panels was literally called Marxism versus Poetry.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Marxism versus poetry?

SPEAKER_00 41:23

What is that even did you I assume you attended that panel? Yeah, and I'm gonna tell you nothing about it. I'll have you guess.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Marxism versus poetry. Uh is it about the quality of communist posts?

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Poets? It was about the commercialization of Marxism, and how people have co-opted Marxism as like a brand for their like companies and organizations, ironically, and how there's like paid protesters being the communist party. And like they're talking about how poetry about people undercuts them trying to get like a corporate branding out and message for Marxism. So it was like about the like socialization of Marxism. Right? And then like I did a lot of AI panels, like one like I did one that was pedagogy in the world of AI. One where they just complained about having to integrate AI into club practices. I did some panels on like preparing academic papers. My panel was called What Do We Need to Learn About Elves, where I got called the DD guy a couple times, which made me feel really good. Right. And then on the last day we decided to like actually see Montreal. So near the venue, because we're like taking at a hotel between like two different college campuses, there's just a hill that they call the mountain.

unknown 42:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

And it's like a 20-minute walk up this like hike trail, basically, or 20 to 40 minute. At the top, it's just like a landing platform and a church and a map a clean view across the entire city. Mm-hmm. And it was gorgeous. And then ten out-of-shape grad students tried to walk their way down this mountain at night. Yeah. So, like, I don't know. It's like for me, the idea that you would go to to a place that's full of nothing but nerds to have a nerd convention was amazing. Like there was lawyer vampire fighter guy who had like silver bracelets that was talking about like the parallels between vampirism and AI, and was using like fictional examples. Huh. And like, there's just all sorts of interesting thing. There was a panel in the history of the magic circle, because as I mentioned, someone has researched this.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Okay, okay. Did you I assume you attended that one to see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 43:57

I wasn't able to, it was at the same time as mine.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

That's a bummer.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Yeah, but it was super cool, probably. It probably was. I asked them to send me a copy of their paper, and they like, when it's finished, I will. And I've been in chat back and forth with them because it's amusing. Because we we like just did an episode on magic circles. Right? And that's why the icebreakers are so good, where it's like, I'm sending magic circles. Like, like, I did an episode of my awful podcast on it. On my awful podcast. It's objectively bad. We don't edit her to nothing. I mean, that's true. That is me describing my podcast to a stranger at a pub two drinks in after eating an entire free pizza. We took entire pizzas back to our hotel room. Like, I think my favorite moment was there's several lunches set up each day. And my friend I was traveling was like, are we invited to this? I'm like, only one way to find out. I just walked in the room and just put a sandwich on a plate, and the person looks at me and is like, Oh, are you one of the university student representatives? I'm like, I can be. Do I get the sandwich? And this ends with me being my university's representative for this organization and me having so many sandwiches.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Well, I mean, that's like the time that I bought a lab coat at the university stores for the chemistry stores, and uh they asked me, I was like, oh, you must be in so-and-so's chemistry class. I was like, I'm not just buying a lab coat for a Halloween costume.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

But like, I don't know. The life of a scholar is for me because it's amusing. Because it's definitely for the love of the game more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Uh, but so like a were there a lot of panels on AI, or is that just the topic that interests you the most?

SPEAKER_00 45:55

There was a let's put it this way. So I have this big calendar of random topics open. You're gonna say to me a topic, no matter like how arbitrary it is, and I will tell you roughly how many panels are on similar or on the topics.

Wild Panel Topics And Pub Networking

SPEAKER_00 46:12

So for AI, there was about five panels on it that I and we went to a few of them because uh it's ties in more of my research. But it wasn't like AI was an overarching theme here.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Okay. Um, okay, so you want me to just name a random topic? Yeah, just throw something in the universe. How about the use of traditional weapons in fictional media?

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Okay, so we have World Building 101. Okay. We have Victorian Symbolism. Which probably doesn't fit at all, but I arbitrarily picked one. And let's see. Oh, what I intended was called digital. What was it called? It was digital medieval literature. Where they were like taking not actually on your topic, but like were taking old English and doing podcast recordings of it because it was too hard to read. And how like a specialist was going and trying to read it as close to the original language, but with it being intelligible as possible. Makes sense. Makes sense. So it's like there was one panel that was pretty on point, but then a couple more that were like in the general area. Right. And you can see how this would just be a fun environment, because it's like all three people in each panel weren't always on the same topic at all. It was more like you got grouped into a panel, and then it was open QA to see what all th you'd ask questions to like all three people to see their different thoughts on it. So, like sometimes you'd be like, Here's an AI specialist, and here's a dude that does Beowulf specifically. What are your thoughts on AI, Beowulf guy?

unknown 48:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Like one of my favorite panels was why I should be allowed to teach creative writing erotica classes. And their opening statement was, Why should we teach erotica? And then the line right below it, why not? And then start talking about how much of Canada's GDBT is erotica, and how much money that Heated Rivals made, and how people love capitalizing on that we have this creative output, but when I ask for funding, suddenly it's unreasonable, even though it's made more than the rest of the literature combined. Hmm. And like talking about the logistics and efforts of how you run a teaching erotica class with students in a classroom that's safe and protected and harassment-free. Hmm. And it was a fascinating panel. Because they're like literally talking about how, like, the use of trigger warnings, the optionalness of workshop, posting samples anonymously. And quite frankly, because this was a professor from the University of Calgary, I would absolutely take that class if I had the surplus budget, because I'm like, this is fascinating. Because a lot of times people don't really go into the craft of how to write specific genres. That makes sense. And I like I can safely say I've never sat down and some someone teach me how one writes erotica. But their main argument is this is the thing people want to do. We need to come up with a sensible, respectful way to do it, because we like money as a school, but also we like the arts. So if people are like, hey, if I put out a poster in the hallway that says sign up for my erotica writing class with just a cover of heated rivals on it, I feel like we'll probably get full enrollment. Okay. And then like the AI wasn't necessarily the focus, it was just like. Your focus was whatever you felt like doing that day. Like just a list off my options for the first panel I could have went to. Salvage inventory and or inventory salvage, new writing in a time of disorientation, speculative renaissance, literature and geolinguistic linguistics of conquest, fractured selves in Canadian literature, adaptation across media, imagining future otherwise, pedagogies of repair, social media communication in the community. So this is like a uh a literary conference? Is that Yeah, so it was all the people who it was a conference for people in the fields of humanities that either taught or were basically it was like a teacher and future teacher of the humanities conference. Okay. But most of it was whatever these professors and PhD students and master students submitted to this conference that they wanted to present on. So, like, for example, let's say you wrote a paper titled Anime Slow Motion Cuts, Fans Feeling uh fans' feelings on over-dramatization of scenes and their negative and positive reception on Damons of the Shadow Realm. Yeah, okay. Say you wrote this paper, which in my program you could have. There's nothing stopping you from doing that. You would then look at the list of like general topics and be like, Hey, this panel called What Do We Need to Know About Elves? Can I talk about Damons in the Shadow Realm? Here's my paper, and they'd be like, sick, sounds good. And then someone would sit there and listen to me talk about choose your own adventure novels and then listen to you talk about Demons in the Shadow Realm.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Wait, your your panel was part of the What Can We Learn About Elves? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

I was doing Choose Your Own Adventure novels in the pedagogy of nonlinear storytelling.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

So then uh what sorts of questions did you have to field when uh it came to QA time? I mean, the first was trying to find reputable sources about D.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

The second one was about how to go about integrating nonlinear assignments, like how would you make a choose your own adventure novel style assignment for somebody? Ah. And one was about like how much background knowledge you need to know about like fantasy and science fiction to be able to teach it? Because basically there was the idea that if you have someone come in and they're writing a story that's really relying on genre tropes, how do you, like, without having familiarity in the specifics of self, educate somebody who wants to work on that? Like, say you're doing a creative writing workshop and someone writes an anime and you know nothing about anime. What are methods you can use to help workshop them so they feel included? And another one was just straight up, oh, can I see some of your sources? Because I'm working on something similar. I want to know some of your research sites, and I'm like, that's awesome. As like these actually like highly educated people are like, hey, you'd have things to say. And I value those and like that seems impossible. You are aware I've just been doing random bullshit this whole time, right? Like, I got one that was like a professor quoted that AI is bad one of my monologues I gave that AI is bad at understanding an important choice in a game versus a non-important one. Because I did a lot of work for my current paper that I was trying to have AI generate text-based adventure novels to prove that it can't. Okay. And AI can't tell what would be a decision point that'd have narrative weight. So if you tell a person, hey, I want you to turn the first episode of Naruto into a choose your own adventure novel. And you tell a machine to do it, a lot of the part you can grade on is their development document of them deciding where to branch the story and why. Because the AI can't imagine scenarios. It would always pick the most logical one. So if you say, tell me to import branch the story, they're like, I don't know how it would do that. So when I had it try and make a I tried to have it make a Inform 7 game that was based on Mega Man, and Inform 7 is the one where you like type go north, jump, etc. Right. When AI tried to develop it, it had you type the word shoot 30 times to kill a boss. Because in its brain, that's how Mega Man works. You have to type jump and you have to type shoot a bunch. That would be the worst game you've ever played in your life. Yeah, probably. Because it doesn't it's not able to abstract what makes the story engaging. It all it can do is like attempt to replicate in code what it thinks the thing is about.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

And Mega Man is definitely about shooting.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Yeah. Where like, I do think if I were doing it, for example, it would be more like,

Presenting Research And Nonlinear Storytelling

SPEAKER_00 55:10

do you shoot, do you wait, do you roll, do you dodge, do you talk to them? I would absolutely make it that you could talk your way out of a fight in a Mega Man and choose your own adventure novel. But like, the idea is like what commands you prepare for are about creating this ludic space, and I've gone off on a tangent. But that was the kind of questions I'd get, but then I'd have people come up in the hallway and talk to me more about it. And then I'd talk to them about this.

unknown 55:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Or I'm talking to someone with a British accent about how they're doing a deep dive into how inaccurate movies make Victorian women's clothing, because there were in fact pants that women could wear in Victorian era, those existed. And their whole paper was on Victorian pants. Women did in fact have pants. Most of our Victorian outfits we have were the ones they didn't wear. They're the ones that were in the closet for like so like a lot of our Victorian dresses were wedding dresses because the clothes they wore daily got worn and tear and damaged and discarded because they wore them.

SPEAKER_03 56:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

So it's like everyone wore corsets. It's like, no, no, just corsets survived because they weren't being worn.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Yeah, it's that uh survivorship bias. So there's all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Right? But like going to these conferences was just good times were had. But open QA for you for the episode. Do you have questions about my very boring vacation where I did four out days straight of extra voluntary classes and gossiped to drank with people? For me, it's a perfect vacation, but I do agree that for many people, I'm describing hell. Like, there's people who would be like, hey, do you want to go grab a cooler with your professor after talking about medieval magic would be like, I'd rather die.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

I mean, I I suppose that's fair. Uh, but at the same time, like, to me, that actually does sound like quite like because there's such an incredible variety of topics that you could potentially have presented on. I mean I don't know that I would have had the guests just wander into a a random luncheon. Or, like, I don't know, I probably would have been lame and just went back to my hotel room or explored the city at night.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

You still wouldn't have though, because so there's a fact that you're missing about this. So every one of these panels has to have three presenters, right? And a person holding the panel. Typically the person holding the panel was the one with the PhD. But like, there's about like a hundred plus grad students there and about a hundred plus professors there. It was nearly impossible to not find a person or two to grab lunch with or hang out with, even if you didn't wander into the rooms. Like, there was one point where I was just hanging out with this random beekeeper who was talking about nature poetry because we started chatting and they followed me. Like, I had an hour-long conversation with somebody whose focus to study is breast cancer survivor memoirs.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

Oddly specific. Because I'm in a Tim Hortons.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Literally in a Tim Hortons, and they say, Oh, I'm studying this, and I say, Oh, I ghostwrote one of these over the summer. Would you like to hear about it? And they're like, This is the exact thing I'm doing, is creating a collection of survivor stories. Please tell me every detail of this thing you wrote over the summer. No one cares about my cancer memoir I ghostwrote. I have never been asked to say in detail the story. So two hours passed in this Tim Hortons. No one wants to know about the research I did on face masks that staple you to tables, or the research I did on the burden of responsibility you put on people when you ask them how you can help. Normally, that's not someone's literal special interest where they've been working on it for three months and are deeply invested. Right. There's some beauty to people being deeply invested in the random crap you're working on.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Right, right. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Like my friend that I brought along on the adventure is currently writing about how disability is presented in Cyberpunk 2027.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

So he went to a fair number of panels on disability. So when a person who's like, I have autism and I'm an autism specialist who wrote a piece of software that helps map facial structures to see the expressions, micro-expressions autistic people make that has a high percentage of diagnosing correctly, my person's like, I need to know about this because this is the most dystopian sentence I've ever heard. Please tell me more about face autistic matching, and they're like, well, I have my book on it, but I don't think you'd be interested. And my friend's like, take, shut up and take my money. Which is not my random question of the week, but kind of a random question. If you bought a book off somebody and were sitting reading that book, would you be embarrassed if they saw you reading their book?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

And conversely, because they were nervous that like they didn't want someone to see them reading the book off the person they bought. I think it'd be the highest price I've ever got. I've never just walked in and saw someone reading my novel.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

But they were like, oh no, I don't want them to think I bought the book and I read halfway through. I'm like, that feels like the best compliment you can give a human being, but whatever. I think you're on my side on this one.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yeah, well, you mean you're actually supporting the the author, and like presumably you're reading content that you enjoy and getting information that you that you were craving. Like it's it's a win-win for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Although I will say, going to some of these one of the panels was like on accessibility and disability in the classroom, and I've never been more called out in my life. So I guess this never happened to you and explains my entire junior high experience word for word and why it was fucked up. And like, thanks, I'm gonna go cry now. Thanks for explaining in extreme detail how and why I'm traumatized and the ramifications it's had. That's great. I I this is I want to be sassy and glib about it, but I just got called out too hard, so I'm just gonna go wander the streets of Montreal at night. Although a funny bit that came up was like the main difference between Montreal and Toronto is the air just smells less immuring.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

In Montreal?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

Oh yeah. And there's cafes every two feet, but that just makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:54

Okay, okay. So are you talking Toronto proper, or is it like a Toronto area, like Brampton? Yeah, okay, okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

I live in Toronto proper now for those stalkers on the internet. But like uh, although one of the lines one of my friends said on this trip that was really funny was, you know what's great about being in Montreal? When crazy people are screaming you in the street, it's in French, and you can imagine they're saying anything you want. They're like, have a nice day, sir, they're saying, foaming at the mouth.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

Yeah, that's fair. I've definitely had to deal with some unsavory people, and it would be uh much more amusing if they weren't speaking English.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Although I was trying to see if there was a conference when I was coming out to Saskatchewan to visit you, because that'd give me something to do between fighting stuff. And the university is the nicest part of Saskatoon by a pretty wide margin.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

The University of Saskatchewan is a very nice university.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

As you're aware, uh longtime listeners know I dunk on Saskatchewan every episode. So I'm saying what I am saying, the university's actually gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

I mean, I I haven't looked at rankings in a long time, but it it does uh like it's been in the top ten of uh most beautiful universities for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Uh one of the writers from Saskatchewan, one of their panels was Freeway, Superb in all their trash and glam, non-place poetry, a study.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Right. But I'm just like amused at like just the sheer variety of things people were interested in. It's just fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

That does definitely seem like something I would really enjoy. Uh as I've said before, I I like to try and know just enough about everything so I can start a conversation with someone who's smarter than me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Yeah, it doesn't matter. And that sounds like exactly what that would be about. Never the smartest person in the room, and it was very refreshing. It's nice to be told I'm wrong and here's why once in a while. Because it means people are listening. Uh what was this one? It was Does that make sense? Yeah, one of them was a paper on cats in Victorian literature. Like the animal cats. It's not that Victorian literature was overrepresented. I just enjoy saying that sentence for no particular reason. Like, I find it the word Victorian aesthetically pleasing. It's not my field of study in any way. I know nothing about it, but I'm like, ah yes, this seems like a thing people would be able to picture easily. One of the panels was just on Mary Shelley. From romanticism to post-humanism, Shelley's early experiment into centering the human. The problem of Mary Shelley's the last man. Yeah. It was literally just four people giving presentations on Mary Shelley specifically. I think one of the more common subjects of panels that I didn't quite get around to, but would have, is several ones on why on banned books. Unbanned books? Yeah, like why books are being banned. What is the content that is being banned in these books? Because Alberta's being real bad for book banning right now. Really? Oh, they're being the worst. They're like, oh no, what do they read about gay people and it makes me gay?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

Oh. And here I was worried about me being a redneck conservative Saskatchewan.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Saskatchewan's more woke than Alberta right now. Ugh. That wasn't fun to say. And Nova Scotia's going through it right now, like they defunded their arts association completely.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:11

Oh. Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

I think it was Nova Scotia. It was either Nova Scotia or somewhere. Somewhere on that side of Canada, I haven't really dabbled in much.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

And then also there's like a little book fair going on where like university and college publishers are just kind of selling books in the hallways. If I really wanted to, I could have went to a book lodge thing, but they're mostly academics books being launched. I'd be like, I'm good. I don't think this is about me trying to sell my book the entire point of this podcast today. I mean, lately I've been selling my tried to push our dagger heart content more than anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

That's true. It's.io.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Nice. Smooth integration. Sponsored by no one. No one is sponsoring us, dude. It'd be really funny if we get like a retroactive sponsor and we have to put like a closing and endings sticker where we're straight up sponsored, and then in the middle I'm like, no one sponsors us.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:13

That would be pretty funny. But I don't think anybody wants to sponsor our absolutely wonderfully amazing podcast. I also enjoy sponsored by Carl.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Carl, he sponsors it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Ooh, I mean, I don't know how many other people actually pay on Patreon, but I I do I do send um.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

Our Patreon is so bad and far behind that I have to like. At some point I need to refine and clean that up and do something with it. Like, we've been stockpiling little sound test clips that I love the idea of like assembling those into sound test episodes at some point. But that point is not today. I am busy. I have a cyber noir novel to get to working on now that I've finished the rough draft of my 40-page paper. A 40-page paper? My paper is literally why you should let me teach a class on Inform 7. That's like the current title.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:11

And I'm not gonna pitch my academic paper to our listeners. Although, if I get emailed saying we'd like to see your academic papers, by all means email me and ask for them. I don't know why you would do that to yourself, but you can.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:24

The the ebook version of your paper?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

I mean, my Kids Your Adventure novel paper I presented on is literally on my website and has an interactive version of it. It's not hard to find. Do some research, people, I believe in you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

What do you believe in you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

The opposite of a plug. Hey, get to work researching for me. But here comes I think we're gonna go into our random questions and kind of have a relatively short episode this week. Alright, alright. Unless you have more questions about my conference. Because my logic for this episode is a lot of people don't even know what these conferences entail, and I'm like, oh yeah, they're a little 15-minute lectures followed by socializing following my free sandwiches.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

Yeah, I mean that and like you say, it's a huge variety of topics, and you'll find people who've been very specifically researching all sorts of things there.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

Okay, I'm gonna make the funniest disclaimer, and I'm saying this mostly as a bit for those listening

Accidental Promotion And Conference Plug

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

at home. So I'm technically, my college is acute representative, right? So I'm gonna say, quote, the following podcast episode was not sponsored by a cute, but they did give me a sandwich to say nice things for it, and I need to disclose this information that my positive review of this conference may be influenced by free sandwiches. I'm not sure if I'm legally obligated to say it, but they didn't sponsor me, but they did feed me specifically to promote them in my school, which is technically what I'm accidentally doing this episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:56

ACUT conference.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

It was delightful. I'd recommend checking out their website if you're somehow into academics and our podcast. That's it. Their next conference is in Toronto. You don't actually have to be in academics to go to these conferences. You can just be an independent scholar and put the word independent scholar on your name tag and send in papers. You have that ability. There's no reason you couldn't come to an English conference with me. I don't know why you would, but you could. I mean, it would be amusing. Uh I do kind of appreciate you having a little name tag that just says Carl, independent scholar.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:39

Going around taking notes.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

That would be pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:48

They put out like a journal of studies and things too. Like, I like I said, I personally found this to be a delightful use of was my favorite vacation I've ever taken. But I just might be boring. I'm like, ooh, literature in the digital age? Sign me up. I want to listen to someone talk about book talk for 15 minutes. This is amazing. Oh, we're gonna talk about right after book talk, we're talking about art in the age of digital reproduction, what we learned from medieval manuscripts. Sign me up. Unironic. Like I sound sarcastic, this is great.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

There are definitely a ton of uh niche topics that it's like if I saw a panel, I'd be like, oh, what even is this? I kind of want to go and see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:39

But with that, so moving final, if you have any file questions before we go into QA, now that I literally plugged a thing that wasn't a sponsor because I walked into a room and they gave me a free sandwich.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:53

No, no, I I think I'm ready for the for the random question.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

Random

Random Questions Lightning Round

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

question of the day comes from one of my good friends. When someone says, You look like Santa Claus, what is the first physical feature that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:08

Uh well, the beer. The white, the big white beer is the first feature that comes to mind for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

So this question's gone around a few times, and for me, it's the body shape, as toxic as that sounds. I think of a large jolly person first. That makes sense. The original So the consensus is either the beard or kind eyes comes up a lot. And I just like at the risk of sounding toxic, I'm like, do people honestly picture beard before they picture like bowlful of jelly and like lar? Like, am I a bad person? Am I fat shaming Santa? Because I've seen many scope uh I've seen skinny mole Santas, and there's something deeply upsetting about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

I would definitely say that the first thing that I've like uh if you're looking for features of of the actual person as opposed to their clothing, is I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is is the red clothing. Uh but then to me, like say the the second thing that comes to mind is is spatial structure. I just find that's interesting picture stuff. I might just have face blindness. Primarily it's the it's the beard for me. Um, like you said, some people say it's the eyes. Another thing that came to mind for me was like the red nose, which is probably actually just because he's cold, but and my brain immediately now goes to Rise of the Guardian, sick tatted out Santa Claus. Uh but the the body shape is less important, like um Violet Knight. A great, great Christmas movie, uh, where Santa has to fight terrorists. Nice. Uh it doesn't really the description doesn't really do it justice. The movie is fantastic, and I recommend anybody watching it if they want a Christmas movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:01

But uh a sponsor, just a fan.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:04

Just a fan. Um He's not necessarily like bowl full of jelly overweight. Uh I mean he's not exactly skinny, but like the characteristics that actually make him look like Santa Claus are, like I said, the the outfit, the beard, just the general base structure. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:24

So to end it, the question ends up with someone declaring that I kind of look like Santa Claus's head on Well Faro from Elf's Body. And I thought you'd really appreciate that burn. They're like, I mean this in the nicest way. Santa has such kind eyes. I'm like, did you just say I look like I was epic Santa? But like I then I became a genuinely curious of like just asking people what is the Santa features. Like the round glasses I get a lot too. Even though I don't know if they're a consistent feature, they're like a common one.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

Yeah, I mean I wouldn't say glasses are a consistent feature, but beard coming up the most makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

I really thought red outfit would have came up more though.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:09

Hmm. Well just with the way the question was phrased, I I assumed it was like Santa could be wearing any outfit, like Santa in a business suit, if he has the beard, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

Somehow that's even more upsetting than the underweight Santa. Is Santa just in like an Armani suit? It's just not okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:31

You might still think he looks like Santa.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

Alright, so this next question's pretty good. If every time you went to bed or took a nap, the person playing your Life Truman style had a loading screen. What would the loading screen tip be for playing the Carl of Adventure?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:48

For playing the Carl Adventure.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:50

And I'm thinking like loading screens like Breath of the Wild's, like, there are shrines nearby, or you can pick up hearts, like those kind of like little tip screens that came up when games used to load. Oh wait, they start what is the point of all this technology if games are still loading? I don't know. So what's your what's your personality's loading screen tip? What would it say?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:11

My personality's loading screen tip. Um, I mean it'd probably be something like philosophical. Uh like one one of my favorite personal phrases is um there's nothing wrong with making a mistake. What's wrong is if you don't learn from them. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

Your loading screen tip is kinder than mine.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:41

Well, what's yours?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:42

So a thing I like to text my friends at magic uh at random in life is have you hydrated, medicated, and ate something? Would definitely be my loading screen tip. Just have you, as a player, hydrated, medicated, and ate something. Another one is coffee has water in it. Uh Coffee has water in it's a pretty good one. Or another one is why spend 20 minutes to wait for a bus for a 40-minute trip when you can just walk for an hour and a half? Mm-hmm. And another one's like, pro tip, don't push slow-walking people on to into oncoming traffic. Yeah? I have to suggest people playing as me to not do that. Because that's the instinct to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

I really enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:36

Have you eaten hydrated and medicated today? It was pretty great. Dig at the player playing the game. Ooh, this one's another good one. We got some good questions in. Partly because I asked people for random podcast questions at the convention. Ah, yeah, okay. What conspiracy theory about yourself would be the funniest if people believed it?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:01

Like a conspiracy theory about the money.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:04

If they made a conspiracy theory about you they believe, what would you want it to be for maximum entertainment value? Like if people were just like, what they whispered about you at work was a conspiracy theory about you. You know, kind of like our one boss that was a fa that was a highly trained combat Buddhist monk.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:21

Right, right, right. Um, that would be very using.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:27

Uh but I would be thrilled if people believe actually believed I went by Vlad because I used to be a vampire and legitimately believed that I was a vampire would make me so happy. And they're just like, but you said so much time in the sun. I'm like, yeah, sunscreen. Idiots.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:50

So uh when when I had my spleen splenectomy.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:54

Uh that we weren't about to give away as a prize.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:58

My boss told everyone that I was going for brain surgery. Um hilariously, uh some people actually were like, oh, you're going for brain surgery? What's going on, man? I was like, no, I'm not going for brain surgery. It's like my spleen's being taken out.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:19

Okay, I might have to change my answer though. I think the funniest one would be if people believed I gave away your spleen as a contest prize on her podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:29

Well, I mean, I I just kind of think that it would be hilarious if people believed that I had like a brain transplant. Like just a full-on, like, I'm not even the same person anymore. Someone else's brain is in my body, that would be that would be a pretty good conspiracy theory.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

Okay, and here's another one that's pretty good. What's something you've changed your mind about that surprised you?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:58

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:59

I've been drinking light beer recently when I've been at pubs between seminars. And I was very anti-beer because beer is just bread water. But I've been sipping a beer. Surprise. That's kind of a plot twist. Although my argument is I don't think beer's good, but because I don't like it as much, I drink it slower, so that way I buy one drink and it lasts the entire duration of the hangout.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:28

Right, right, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:30

But I have somewhat softened my stance on it. Which I guess just means I've had more taste buds die.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:42

Uh I mean I might I was also gonna try and be food related, but I haven't really I can't think of any foods that I've really changed my stance on.

unknown 1:20:55

Tragic.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:57

I know. I mean, like I guess uh have you just not had any character growth over the last seven years? Um, uh yeah, no, I haven't had any character growth over the last seven years. No doubt. It just hasn't happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:19

I haven't changed your mind on a single thing. I find that seems like it's impossible. You must have changed your opinion on something.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

Yeah, but I mean the things I changed my opinion on that they don't generally like it's not surprising. Mostly it's like um I try I try very hard uh to to evaluate every side of the of arguments. Like it um and so it's like you know, I have an opinion, someone brings up a valid point, I consider it, and like, oh yeah, okay, that makes sense. Well, I should probably adjust my my perspective. Um so it's like when I change my mind, I don't find it that surprising because I carefully considered, I try to carefully consider things. Um fair.

unknown 1:22:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:14

So no specific examples come to mind though. Yeah, yeah. You're like, I can't. You're like, I haven't changed my mind or anything because I've never committed to a stance. I'm like, well, fair enough, you airbender piece of shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:30

Everybody knows that would be my element if you were.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:33

100%. Although my element's always a 50-50 toss-up. I know it's not one of a random question, but what element would you give me?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

What element would I give you? Hmm. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

I always get one or two. No one will ever give me earth, and no one will ever give me air. Because I'm not chill and I'm not consistently grounded.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:59

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:02

Yeah, but I mean, I guess you do sometimes have blazing passion. That's true. Yeah, that's I do I do think like firebinding would probably be you you probably would be a firebender.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:15

I either get fire or water from people, depending how angsty I've been that week. I mean, the swimming pool in my apartment has opened up and I've started going swimming daily. But I do think that's still a firebender thing, not a waterbender thing. Because I'm like, I throw off too much heat. Alright, we got a fine list of questions today. This one's gonna do some damage. This one's gonna hurt you more than me. What is the strangest thing you've done because you're too polite to say no?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

The strangest thing I've done because I'm too polite to say no.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:52

And try not to actively incriminate yourself. So I wouldn't recommend license plates or McDonald's tables.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:01

Oh, those weren't things I well actually the you're right, the picnic table was was something I was too polite to say no.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:08

What's it actually? I was just like shooting random shots. Like, this was my arrow actually hit after the 2B continued.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:16

Well, see uh there was uh you know a plan to to acquire a picnic table. Um and then the body showed up drunk and said, let's go acquire this picnic table right now. And uh then uh I was just like I I guess you're already here. I mean, I would have preferred better planning, but sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:45

Uh I told that story literally last night at a nice dinner with one of my friends and their dad.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:52

Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

It's an example you what was what life's like in Saskatchewan where your picnic tables just go missing.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:05

Uh, and then when you need to get rid of it, you just dump upon someone else's property.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

No. But to be fair, I don't want to answer your question for you, so the the prompt is still in the air.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:22

My my girlfriend at the time uh wanted to get back one at one of her exes, so when we needed to get rid of the picnic table, we just dumped it on their property.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:31

Classy folks. Sometimes I can say that's just a trailer park, like the entire province. I lived in a trailer park, so I'm not being judgmental, I'm just being factual.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:47

The strangest thing I've done because I was too polite to say no. Well I mean maybe too polite isn't exactly the right description, but I I worked at KFC. And uh the uh the grease trap overflowed at the end of a shift one night. And uh my boss said, Okay, well, you need to like scoop it out. Uh and they like gave me gloves, some gloves in a bucket, but to like literally just scoop out this grease trap by hand. Um that was uh that was pretty gross. I mean, I you know I guess this is my boss telling me to say to do something, but also it's like I don't really think that was in the purview of my duties as a cook.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:40

Reasonable. Like if we're doing work things, then there's a time I climbed up on the roof at Redacted and pulled leaves out of the gutter system so the roof wouldn't get so much water and caved in. Because that's absolutely not a thing I I was definitely should not have been doing. But also I might have done that anyway because like I enjoy being helpful.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:02

Well, uh I mean uh similar similarly, actually, um uh we we own the the my workplace owns the building that we're in. Um which means that we have to do some minor maintenance type stuff. Um there's like filters on the roof you have to like take down every now and then and rinse off. Uh and that's kind of freaky, like you climb up the ladder and then you're trying to like climb back down with this bag full of big, like like they're like two by two foot filters.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:32

I've also switched the butt at a place I've worked. I fully relate to this.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:38

Then you're trying to like climb down with this bag full of filters and you can rinse them out. It's like climbing up's not the hard part, but climbing down that's the freaky part. Because it's like a literally a ladder on the side of the building, and you have to have like a lock on so people can't just climb through the building.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:54

So are you going to say the strangest thing other than possibly license plate gate for picnic table games? Is swapping vents on the ceiling? Or cleaning the fryer.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:05

No, no, not the fryer, the grease trap. Oh, right. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:08

I forgot how awful those were for a second. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:11

It's like an in-floor thing, and then it's like the Yeah, I'm aware.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:15

I hate those. I hate those so much. I didn't quite realize it was that. Oh no. Say no.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:24

Yeah, clicking on the fryers. Click on the fryers was definitely in my converbio. I did that. I had to do that all the time. And the friars of KFC were like self-filtering, so it wasn't even that difficult. But the the grease trap in the floor underneath the dish sink.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:41

See, for this question for me, it's like I enjoy doing odd things sometimes, so it's doing an odd thing I'm unlikely to say no because of being polite. But a thing I'm very likely to do, because I was too polite to say no, but is strange is the content of some of the stuff I've edited for people. Oh because I've definitely been like, hey, will you read this and edit it? I'm like, sure, and I'm like, I should have said no. I am so deeply uninvested in this story. And I've tried to not be bitter about it, but now I have to go through how much of this? Oh, what have I done? Because there's definitely things where I'm like, yeah, I know some really amazing talented writers, and I'm happy to take a swing and look over their work and give them some edits. But unfortunately, I'm usually in large cohorts, and there's people who I don't know what their stuff is. And I'm like, yeah, I'll check out yours. And they're like, oh, what about mine? I'm like, yeah, I'll check out yours too. And the first one I'll be like, oh, this is some awesome Eldritch horror about pirates. And the second one I'll be like, oh, how many page?

unknown 1:29:48

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:51

You should have seen it.

unknown 1:29:54

Boo.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:58

Misogynistic.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:00

Yeah, okay. Uh it was like a bad Honkai Star Rail fanfic I ended up trying to give feedback on, and I tried, but I'm just like, fundamentally, did you think I didn't know the specific names and locations you were referencing? I obviously do. I played this game, and that's what you wrote, and that's disappointing.

unknown 1:30:24

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:26

But like, that was a too polite to say no, because like I enjoy reading people's work 90% of the time. And it's like, it's not the task that's strange, it's the content within the task that is strange. I have read some strange things.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:47

Although I think the strange thing I've done, it's like, yeah, most of them it's not because I'm too polite to say no. I'm rude and abrasive. I usually just say no. Like, it's more like, yeah, like I've done things that are odd that I would do conceptually, like, oh, I went to a paint night, and they're like, but don't you not have hands? I'm like, it was a choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:09

Well, and they make you do that like affirmation that you're not gonna dunk on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:15

And then immediately do because it's not good work. But it's not because of politeness, it's because I enjoy putting myself in uncomfortable situations to learn and try new things.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:26

Hmm. I wonder if there's any paint nights in Saskatoon.

unknown 1:31:32

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:33

I I I know that there were lots of paint nights in Saskatoon before COVID.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:37

Oh, here's a too polite to say no. Remember that time with my friend Cassie, I went into a Ferris wheel because I was too polite to say I was afraid of Ferris wheels and had a panic attack on top of the Ferris wheel.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:49

That's about right.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:50

The strange part is not going on a Ferris wheel, it was having a panic attack on top of a Ferris wheel.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:56

On a related note, I ended up enjoying the ride. Uh but um we You and I went to a uh fair uh with a small with a young child, and the young child wants to ride some rides that is like, hmm. He needs a partner. Uh I wish it wasn't me. But I had to.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:18

Yeah, that's a great example. Where I'm a worse person than you, so I'm like, nah, I'm good. I'll be, oh no, my stomach. Like, I'll pull a king from One Punch Man and be like, oh, my well-documented stomach issues mean I can't do this. Oh no. It helps that I have well-documented stomach issues, or like, oh, weirdest thing, my disability means I can't help you move this piano, oh no. You know what might have actually been the strangest thing I've done because I was too polite to say no? Attempt to get my driver's license.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:51

Do you get that because you're too polite to say no?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:53

I didn't want it. Not really. But every person in my life's like, you need a driver's license. And I'm like, okay, I guess I'm doing this. And then it's like, did you practice enough? I'm like, no, because I don't want to do this. I've never wanted to do this. But like, oh man, in Saskatchewan, if you're like, I don't want to drive, they're like, well, you'll die. And like, I could just not be in Saskatchewan. For the record, they're not wrong, by the way. Saskatchewan transit is not useful.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:23

If you're in Saskatchewan, you don't have any license, you probably will die.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:26

Yeah, the entire province is not accessibility friendly. I think that's the funniest part where it's like, you don't want to drive while you do. Why can't you ride a bike? And I'm just like. I am, in fact, actually disabled though, guys. Does that okay. Sucks to suck, I guess. Uh sucks to suck. And I have two more questions because I came with a pretty big list.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:51

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:52

Alright, this one's a pretty good one. Do do do do do. What smell deserves more respect? One of my classmates did an expedit basically they are researching scent expeditions in children's museums. So, like the idea of having like scratch and sniff exhibits or like scent boxes for exhibits. So, like, for example, there's a three little pigs exhibit where each pig had a different scent, like the sm like the smarter pig had like a mint scent kind of thing. It was like pairing scents to try and like give like a fourth-dimension experience. Okay. So, like, we did this workshop about like making these little seasonal boxes and trying to figure out which scents match each season. Like, for example, in our scent box it was summer, so I tried to make something that smelled like hay, which ended up being like tea tree oil and oregano.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:43

But the more compressed version of the question is just simply what smell do you think deserves more respect? Whether good or bad respect doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:54

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:56

I see, I see. What smell do I think deserves more respect? Hmm. Oh well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with with some like a public safety thing. I think the smell of natural gas uh deserves more respect. The artificial one they add in so you can tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean, like, uh sometimes when I work, I mean the one oven turns on and it smells kinda gassy, and then it's like, hmm, am I gonna explode and die? I should probably I mean I'm not, but like makes me wonder if there's something wrong with the oven. But then then my boss is like, oh yeah, whatever. I was like, okay, well I guess if we all die, it's not on me.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:46

So I have two answers. The first is petricor. That smell after a fresh raid is great.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:54

It is a great smell. I just felt like it was already highly respected, so that's why I didn't say that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:59

Oh, be that way. Okay, I see how it is. I'm too much of a basic bitch, huh? But I was working on making a borscht soup the other day.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:09

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:10

Simmering beets. Beets have a smell when they're simmered that is like almost not like sweet potato, like it's a unique scent. And I'm like, it was like a red wine vinegar beef combination smell that was just delicious. So I'm gonna say the smell of borscht. Because it's not like the flavors you normally think of. Yeah, okay, okay. Like, I'm literally Googling what does Porsche smell like just to see what it says.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:39

What does borsh smell like? Petrichor.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:42

What? Earthy and savory with the slightly sweet aroma of cooked beef, garlic, and fresh snow. I'm like, that is not what I asked you. AI overview. Give a feeling to the smell. A moat, damn you. Uh, one of those panels on AI was like, we need to stop humanizing and personifying AI. Stop saying they or he or she. Do not give it the respect of being a fake person. It's just using Markov chains to lie to you. Call it an it. Degrade it. Don't give it that authority. Don't say chat GPT. The main thing with stop saying verbs like ChatGPT writes. It doesn't write. It outputs. Be accurate. Be like, this machine output a paper. Because when you phrase it like that, it just sounds worse. They've been so much marketing to make it like AI agent. I'm like, no, it's robot autodialer. Get it right. Right. Eh, mini tangent, but would you like to do one more question before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:44

Sure, we got time for one more.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:46

What is the weirdest thing you become emotionally attached to?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:52

The weirdest thing to become emotionally attached to.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:56

It's a good one, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:01

Um I actually I have quite a quite a few things that it's like I've I've lugged them around far longer than they should have between moves and stuff. One of my favorite projects that I've that I've done uh is my uh computer desk stand. Well well more so a monitor stand. Um I put a lot of effort into this shoddy looking piece of furniture. Um but you know it's it's my furniture. I made it. And it does exactly what I want it to do and what I designed it to do. And uh, you know, there probably is a superior option, but no, I this is this is mine. I'm attached to it. My grey forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:53

Fair. My I have so much emotional investment in my gray sweater I've had since I was twelve, mostly because of like the sheer novelty that I still have it. Like it's had a couple very mild mendings along the way, but I'm like, surely now, as a rotund, fully grown, 36-year-old man, the sweater I wore when I was 16 shouldn't still f- Ooh, it still fits, it's still comfy. This is amazing. So like this just might be sunk cost fallacy, the sweater. And something else that's a new recent acquisition that I should not be this investment already, but my friend 3D printed me a functional millennial puzzle.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:32

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:33

Yes, I have a functional millennium puzzle I have to assemble. So it's like the Millennium Puzzle box with like a little magnet snaplet and all the pieces of it. I'm like, this is just the coolest thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:45

That is pretty pretty sick.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:47

Like, this is gonna be with this is gonna get like grandchildren inheritance, is this 3D printed millennium puzzle. It's like so I get typically like angsty around my birthday, and most gifts I receive are like an e-transfer of cash because I specifically asked for that. So it is weird for someone to catch me off guard with like a that is a really specific thing I've always wanted that I didn't tell you I wanted. Like, I got so many kinds of caught off guard by that. I'm like, huh. That is I don't know how thoughtful you were being, but that is insanely thoughtful. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:23

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:26

Like, I always make the quip that the default gift people buy me is a notebook and pen. Right. I receive so many notebooks and so many pens that when I run DD games I can just give people free nice notebooks. And I'm like, yeah, cool. It's gonna it would be the equivalency of being blind to someone and having a fine collection of books. It's like a yes. Yeah, it's like, well, they like to read, so I got them a book. It's like, but they read audiobooks. Oh. Cause eyes. Oh. But

Self Care Reminder And Closing Bits

SPEAKER_00 1:41:06

with that, yeah, thank you for indulging me as I yapped about my Montreal trip. Beautiful city, delicious gelato. We went inside a couple cathedrals, which was nice. We climbed a mountain, and I mostly sat in classrooms in the university. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:25

I guess that was one I guess that was one question I forgot to ask. What was the venue for the Concordia University? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:35

It blends into the city so nicely. It'll be like cafe, coffee shop, shop, shop, university building, shop, shop, next building. So kind of like the university I'm going to right now at Redacted, it's very smoothly blent into the scenario, surrounding area. Ah. Very nice canvas from the few rooms I went in. Most things took place in the same general area, and my sense of navigation is terrible. That I literally asked the like guides running the event to be like, can you walk me to this location? Because I will never find it.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:10

Which they had volunteers that walked me to things, and it was lovely. Because my sense of navigation, as you're very well aware, isn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:18

There just is not one.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:21

Nope. Uh but with that. Uh thank you everyone for tuning in to our podcast. Don't take anything I say seriously. I might have just lied about every piece of this. Take uh operate under the assumption that all of this was lies will make my life easier.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:41

Also, don't forget to take the the uh hint from uh the loading screen of our lives here. Uh, you know, hydrate self-care, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:50

Medicate.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:51

Have you taken a break lately?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:53

Have you stopped staring at your screen and looked outside for 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:57

Have you felt grass under your toes?

unknown 1:43:00

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:00

I don't know if Toronto's the place to do that. I don't know if I trust that. I mean, go outside, sure, but like I don't know about taking off your shoes and your feet and having them contact soil is the best move here. Uh also not a sponsor, but just a band. Everyone listening should just go to the Manitou Hot Springs for a weekend. That was like my second best vacation.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:32

Hot springs are delightful.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:34

Right? Like the hot spring package? I got like for like 200 bucks, or like here have like a nice dinner in a nice place that's only surrounded by old people and no one. It was delightful.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:46

But yes. Thank you all for tuning in, etc. etc. Carl's alive, that's a fun plot twist. We did not give out his spleen.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:54

Nope. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:56

And he is deeply envious that I'm going to conventions, and he is not.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:01

I am I am a little bit envious, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:03

Yeah, the only difference though is you also have something called spending money, and I do not. You're not collecting invoices after your vacations and sending them to people hoping to be reimbursed.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:16

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:21

I didn't even talk about the business class train and how excellent that was. Ah, it's great. Like, we got a lasagna and three drink refills, and it was only like twenty dollars more than the regular seat. And it's like, wait, so if I have two drinks, I make profit. Their wine was just wine flavored, had no other specifications on it. Just wine. Surely there's a kind, like, is this like a Chardonnay, a dry wine? My like associate was asking, and like, just as wine. Red. I assume it's grape flavored. It tastes like red. Sure did taste like alpha country alcohol.