Month: January 2023

The boys drink and review Erdinger’s Weissbier Dunkel, then discuss developments in artificial intelligence.

Our first experiences with artificial intelligence were things like “playing the computer” on the Atari, or spellchecker. Checking grammar involved an extra layer of computation that had to take context into account.

Another level of computer-assisted information is what you see on Amazon — “customers who bought this also bought…” — or on Spotify — “people who likes this song also liked ….”

How will AI affect sports? Do we want computers calling balls and strikes? Do we want first downs and fumbles determined by artificial intelligence?

Just recently the tech geniuses have developed AI engines that can write books and provide the illustrations.

How long before AI is writing screenplays and creating computer-generated characters to act out the script? When will we have AI judges in the courts?

The boys drink and review Pigweed’s latest robust porter, then welcome John Wayne Jew to the show to help review “this month in woke.”

The plague of wokeness is out of control.

We’re seeing university struggle sessions where if any of the students disagree with a teacher’s liberal agenda, the student has to issue a written apology and submit himself to lectures from the teacher and other students.

Teachers can be jailed for failing to use a student’s preferred pronouns.

In Virginia, the schools slow-walked informing students they were national merit scholars because it wouldn’t be “equitable” to give the smart kids a leg up.

With control of the government, the schools, scientific establishments, the media, Madison Avenue, and Hollywood, the left is often pushing the boundaries of crazy, and mostly getting away with it — with ridiculous results.

Every day there’s another story about lunacies on the left. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you may be a victim of racism.

The woke Biden administration is going to drop millions of dollars on AI to find “microaggressions,” but they won’t pay any attention to the straightforwardly racist aggression from Joy Behar.

The word “field” has been designated too racist and triggering.

The boys end the show with a simple summary of what “woke” means.

With special guest Longinus (a vegetarian), the boys drink and review a small beer, following a recipe from George Washington, then discuss vegetarianism.

Sometimes vegetarianism is inspired by religious beliefs, and sometimes by secular ethics and questions of health. There are also issues about environmental issues and sustainability.

There are different types or levels of vegetarianism, including veganism, lacto and ovo vegetarianism, pescetarianism, raw vegans, etc.

Some claim that vegetarianism is more healthy and better for the planet.

Pigweed asks how vegetarianism squares with the history of our species. Cooking and eating meat was a huge step in our evolution and facilitated the development of our large brains.

And what about eating bugs? The geniuses at Davos seem to want us to do that.

Crowhill believes the future of meat eating is lab-grown meat, and that once we perfect that, vegetarianism will be irrelevant.

Along with special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review Beam Me up, Stouty (a coconut stout) from Saugatuck Brewing, then discuss “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”

The story is not about an escape, or an unusual day, or how something dramatic happened on this day. It’s just a typical day in a Soviet labor camp.

Solzhenitsyn’s account of this one day so captured the experience of the Soviet prisoner camps that he received letters from former prisoners expressing how perfectly he had captured the experience.

The characters themselves are not particularly wicked. You don’t come away hating the characters in the story, but the system. It’s all about ordinary, decent people caught up in a wicked system.

It’s a cold story. You might want to bundle up as you read it.

The boys drink and review Chimay Grand Reserve, then discuss the big stories of 2022.

Top stories included:

• Republicans take the House
• Musk buys Twitter
• The World Cup
• Pro-democracy protests in Iran
• Hurricanes Sophia and Ian
• Queen Elizabeth passes
• Boris Johnson resigns
• Liz Trust’s short term
• Mar-a-lago
• Jan. 6 hearings
• Roe v. Wade
• The media lies about abortion
• Uvalde Texas shooting
• Monkeypox
• Jonny Depp / Amber Heard
• High Inflation
• Russia invades Ukraine
• 2022 Winter Olympics
• First successful heart transplant from a pig to a human
• James Webb space telescope enters orbit
• Will Smith slap
• Pandemic is over
• Cryptocurrency problems
• Bad stock market
• President Chi increases grip on power
• ESG backlash
• Fusion energy breakthroughs
• Brazil goes left
• China conducted first military exercises around Taiwan
• Protests in Iran against morality police
• World population reaches 8 billion

They also review celebrity deaths, top baby names, the top 10 movies, worst movies of 2022, woke movies that lost money, and the top 10 albums.

The boys drink and review Glacial Drift, a spiced winter ale from Heavy Seas, then discuss housing, and why the prices are so high.

What factors have caused home prices to go so high? And how do regular families afford these McMansions? It seems the ratio of income to house prices has changed radically since the 1970s.

Part of it is the assumption of two incomes in each family.

Also, we have bigger houses with fewer people in them. Houses get bigger while families get smaller.

If you track the change in wages vs. the price of homes, inflation-adjusted wages have stayed about the same since the 1960, but houses are twice as expensive.

Are government regulations causing the increase in home prices? Or is it some other factor?

The boys drink and review a holiday ale from New Belgium, then discuss the erosion of public standards of conduct.

Is society allowed to expect basic standards of behavior?

What about business dress codes? Can McDonald’s insist on a uniform, even though people could flip burgers in sweats and a t-shirt?

Was it right for Zelenski to speak to the Congress of the United States in a sweatshirt?

Aren’t there any standards?

Hardly. And the few that exist all fly out the window if you mention gender identity. If you say your gender identity requires you to wear enormous pretend boobs, nobody is willing to tell you differently.

A recent example of this conflict of standards is the weird example of Sam Brinton. The man is a disgrace and a flaming weirdo, but because he’s “gender fluid” he gets a pass.

On the other hand, elementary school teachers can be fired for doing relatively normal things.

There’s no logic or sense to any of this.

In this end-of-the-year show, the boys review their home-brewed Christmas ales, then discuss New Year’s resolutions.

Lots of people use the new year as an opportunity to re-evaluate their lives and their goals and make adjustments. But some people think it’s a waste of time because nobody ever keeps them.

The boys discuss popular topics for resolutions and ways science has shown that can make it more likely to keep your resolutions.

• Frame the resolution positively.
• Piggyback habits. That is, attach the new habit to an existing one, like “after I shower I will read for ten minutes.”
• Link the new activity with something you want to do. E.g., I can only listen to audiobooks while I’m on the treadmill.
• Pick something small and manageable, esp. for the first week.
• Make it specific rather than vague — e.g., go to the gym three times a week, rather than “exercise more”. Use a number.
• Create a new habit to replace an old habit.
• Be accountable to someone else.
• Make resolutions measurable so you can monitor progress.
• Make them fun.