Two April Fool’s cranks dive into the internet’s highs and lows. Plus, Ang prepares for a road trip, your calls, and a wild tale from the Pacific Northwest.
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LINKS:
- Nixon For President (April Fool, 1992)
- Flying Penguins - BBC - YouTube
- Introducing our newest feature: Grandma mode - YouTube
- Terry's unveils new Mint Chocolate Toothpaste | Scottish Grocer & Convenience Retailer
- Groupon Rebrands as G-SPOT
- Text to Bark
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This is The Launch, Episode 16, for April 1st, 2025. Well, we are streaming from the beautiful Pacific Northwest and the mighty American West Coast. We greet you all a good morning, a good evening, wherever your timeline may fall. time appropriate greetings indeed to one and all this is the launch my name is chris and i'm angela that's our girl abby over there hi hey abby well we have a few things to get into before the show gets going if you're listening live or after the fact we'd love to hear from you on the phone the phone is cool again screw video meetings how about a call seven seven four four six two five, That is 774-462-5667.
You can tune in live. Generally, we're live at 1130 a.m. Pacific, 2.30 p.m. Eastern. That is 730 p.m. UTC at jblive.tv or in your podcasting to-do-do-do Abbo Choice. Then we come out Wednesday mornings. I invite you to join us. We got that mumble room going. We got that chat room going. All that's linked at weeklylaunch.rocks. And shout out to our mumble room up there. we got a good little crew in the quiet listening thank you everybody for joining us, Well, Andrews, word has it, you're getting ready for another road trip. Yeah. It actually is a road trip.
Last time, a couple weeks ago, I flew to California to visit my boyfriend's parents to see what their health was like. And in a couple weekends, I'm going to actually drive down there and bring them up. Whoa. Yikes. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. A lot of work. I imagine they're not in the best health? No. So, no, no, one is non-ambulatory. That's going to be a long drive. It is. So, yeah, there's a couple of things that are new for me. Like the first road trip that I did on my own, right, was back in 2020 when I came to get the kids from you after 34 days of being stuck in Texas. Right.
And it was so crazy because, yeah, just, oh, it was just so crazy. Um, so I had never, I accidentally went through the Idaho mountain pass on empty. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's no gas stations up there. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't realize I was entering the mountain pass, but anyway. Yeah. So I was hoping for some of your input on what I can do. Like, obviously music is going to be my go-to and I know Abby, Abby is very much into music the way I am. So yes, music is one thing. Um, but so Google says it'll be a 14 hour drive. How long of a drive will that really be?
So the math I usually do is for a car, I divide by like 60 or 65, depending on how ambitious you're being, because once you factor in stops and traffic, you'll never be doing 70, 80 on average. So I take the mileage and I divide it by 60. And then that's where I get the realistic time. And you could, of course, push it a little bit and drive faster. Okay. And you've driven in California before. Is there a way for you to avoid that you have avoided toll roads? Because they seem to be everywhere, at least in the area that I was. Yeah, it does kind of depend where you're going. Sometimes they are the faster way to go. Yeah. There are lots of routes.
Have you I mean, if you look at them highways in California, it's crazy how many California has. Like here in Washington, we've got one I-5 north south corridor. And then we've got, you know, three or four highways that go east to west. It's really simple. It's as simple as it gets. And you get down there and it's really complicated. But I think the main thing I would do, because you're going to have to go past San Francisco. Right, because you're going all the way down to L.A. area? I think it's actually right by San Francisco. Okay, that's better. I mean, that's not too bad. I think really, I wouldn't worry so much about the toll roads. I'd be more worried about traffic.
It's like Oakland area. Do you know where Oakland is? Yeah, I would be more concerned about the road back, to tell you the truth, just because that's going to be such— I don't know if you're going to be able to take breaks, if they can get out of the car. That's where it seems like it's going to be tricky. I mean, we're going to have to, right, due to the medical concerns. But yeah, so on the way down there, it's going to be like pretty low stress. That's what I'm thinking. But on the way back up, we're just going to be like trying to get back as quick and efficiently as possible.
I think it's good to have protein snacks. So I always try to find like a beef jerky I like that I can have a bag of in the door pocket. Quick snack. Abby, you've done quite a few road trips with your dad here. Yes. What's one of your go-to things to either pass time or to enjoy yourself or what do you look forward to? Listening to music. Sometimes we go to really cool rest stops, which I really like because I get to take Levi out and Bella and Dylan and just hang out with them. Yeah, it's a good, easy, quick stop. Get right back on the road. Is there a good app or something for rest stops?
There are. I will pull up on my mind. There's many. There's a couple that will just tell you the next stops on the freeway even, which are really nice. So you can have it up and it just tells you the next stops. Yes. Yeah. The rest stops are a good, a good way to recharge, walk around. The bathrooms are usually in pretty rough shape, especially in California. So there's that. I want to go to California. I just won't go to the bathroom in California. Good luck with that. Probably a fast food place has a better, has a better chance. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Or a nice gas station. We'll have to eat. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, I mean, California is so insanely long for anybody that's never driven top to bottom in california it's just well it's it's such a huge site it's a it's a huge chunk of the united states you're literally driving up and down a huge chunk of the united states um when are you going because that's also going to depend you're going to have huge heat like within weeks it's going to get start getting hot. Oh yeah i mean uh it'll be in my car and it has ac. So i'm not too worried yeah yeah good yeah.
My car is the best option because i have captain seats in the second row so that'll allow. A Lot easier maneuvering. Man that's gonna be a trip, literally i'd say also if somebody has a tablet you know you could always. Sink over. A couple of movies or something like because you're probably gonna end up staying. In a hotel right that's a good point uh yeah just for the friday night because we want to get like really good sleep because we're just gonna drive through like no matter what time it is the next day uh and then of course i got to pick up the kids from you on sunday i think we'll be getting back here like on a sunday around midnight and.
You're leaving when. Well that morning sometime friday uh oh well We're leaving Friday to drive up Friday. Okay. And then sleeping and then Saturday leaving. But Saturday we'll leave a little. We have to coordinate with hospice nurses. I see. Yeah. So we have to leave at a certain time and then come back early Sunday morning probably. California could really be a two-day drive. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's doable. But whoo, that is going to be, what we should do is, okay, audience, this is your opportunity to help Anja. She's got a little bit of time.
So here's what we want to know. How do you prepare for a big road trip? Yeah, what am I not considering? Yeah. I love them, but I have family members and friends who hate them. I love them. I'm just going to say Chris has never taken me on a road trip in the RV. I'm just going to put it out there, right? It is a great way to travel. Too bad the divorce didn't happen, a little offset here, because I missed out. I didn't miss out. I know you didn't. So there's one way to do it. But in the car, you know, that's a whole other kind of road tripping. Excellent hybrid scream. Sorry, scream. I heard that way too fast and from the side. Sarcasm. Hybrid sarcasm.
An emergency road kit. Yeah. As well as medical. Yeah. For sure. All right. So tell us what she should pack, what she should prep, what your tip would be. What's a must have for a road trip? And I'd also like to know, what's the longest road trip you've ever done? I've been on a long one. Yeah, we've done some long ones for sure. How long was the Texas one? Well, we went from Washington to Texas, and we went around in Texas a little bit, and then we came up to Montana. I want to do that again. Where your man met us, and then we, you know, from Montana to Washington. We did a nice loop. It was a nice loop. So, yeah.
You know what? Come on in. Come on in and tell us what you think. Send us a booster. Leave us a voicemail. And speaking of calls, we did get some calls. Eee! All right, so PJ comes in. Producer Jeff comes in with our first call. It's a shorty, but a goody. Jeff here. Chris, listening to Luff right now, and you told me I had to call in and leave a voicemail. So here you go. Good job, PJ. Shorty. Sweet. Good job. Followed instructions well. Put that down on his report card. Very proud. Followed instructions. All right, Sir Lurks-A-Lot has been lurking. He came in with a phone call.
Well, hi, Chris and Andrews. This is Sir Lurks-A-Lot lurking like I do. I was just listening to the pre-show of LUP and you played that little jingle about the telephone number for the call-in show. Yeah. You should listen to that number. Instead of ending in 5667, your little AI voice only says 567. Little. Maybe that's part of the problem why you're not getting calls. Anyway, I really enjoy the new show. Thanks for everything. And I'll be lurking until I get in touch again. Have a great day. Maybe you just passed the test, Lurks. Huh.
Yeah, I scratched that. Does it really? Well, no, it does it right a couple of times and then like one time and there. Oh, my God. That is so AI. I know. It's like the images that they try to make where like the hand is a little off. It's just something. Oh, man, that's so funny. Just the little mistakes. Yeah, so that's why we need human intelligence still and lurks a lot past the human intelligence test. Now we know. Yeah, human brains. Lurks is not an AI. That was a real life captcha. Yep. A guy named Ryan or Brian. No, we also have a guy named Ryan. But a guy named Brian called in, which is great to hear.
Hey, Chris and Angela and the whole JB crew. This is a guy named Brian, a longtime listener, first-time caller. I just figured I'd leave a little bit of feedback. My video game addiction was a game called Escape Velocity, released by Ambrosia Software, written by Matt Birch. It was on the Mac, right? I was 16 years old. It was the late 90s. And the game allowed you to do a whole bunch of mods to it if you use a little program called ResEdit. And it was the first time in my life I discovered that you could actually manipulate code and numbers and make computers do things.
And it was what got me started into a lifetime of programming. And that's what I do to this very day. So thanks to Matt Birch and Ambrosia Software and to you for the great topic. Well, thank you, a guy named Brian. I remember RezEdit very well. It was one of the biggest things I think the nerds lost when Apple rolled out Mac OS X. You could go in and edit. You could just edit stuff like files and applications and tweak them and change them and modify them. It was a geek's paradise. That was a good time. And, you know, the other thing you've got to, I suppose, appreciate too, Brian, is there weren't a lot of games for Mac OS. There were some back in the day, obviously, especially in the classic Mac days.
But towards the end, it was like just the really good games that Mac users got their hands on. It was special when you found something. Thank you for the call. Next one comes from Outdoor Geek. Hi, Angela and Chris. Outdoor Geek here, calling from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm excited to go to two conferences for the first time in April, CypherCon in Milwaukee and LinuxFest Northwest. Thanks to JB, I use NixOS for my servers and laptops, and my gaming PC runs Bazite. Thanks for the show. Well done. Yeah. How about that? Looking forward to seeing you outdoor. Thanks for the heads up, too. Now we know. We'll be prepared.
Glad to hear about Nick's. Tech Geek comes in with us with his voicemail. Hey, Chris and Angela, this is Tech Geek giving you a call from, well, I just arrived here at work, sitting in the parking lot of the launch control center next to the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center. About to start my day. I just wanted to call in on the sleep problem that I've actually had for, geez, since I was a teenager. It seems it's only gotten worse over with age. But these days, yeah, I'm lucky if I get, I'd be happy if I get more than six hours a night. On average, I probably get about five, five, six hours at the most.
I actually don't have a problem getting to sleep. It's just staying asleep is the problem, especially with consistent waking up two or three times, maybe four times a night. And then there's those times where maybe I'll get only four hours of sleep. And sometimes in those scenarios, if it has only been about four hours, I'll get up and just watch a little TV for a little bit. But, I mean, normally, you know, I'll read before bed, and that's probably the reason why. That's probably what helps me get to sleep quicker, so, you know, I actually will read before bed.
But if I find that I wake up in the middle of night and can't get back to sleep, which is pretty frequent, I'll just go in and sit down and watch something light, you know, like maybe an episode of Star Trek Lower Decks or, you know, something like that that can kind of keep my mind at ease. And I'll end up falling asleep in the chair in the living room while watching these shows. But even so, I'll still get a little bit more sleep. But yeah, sleeping has always been a problem for me pretty much since high school. Thank you, Tech Geek. He got the two-minute hammer.
I feel with that call. So first of all, I think we did a conversation, I think it made it on air, a conversation with Tech Geek from Texas Linux Fest, where he talked a little bit about Linux on the International Space Station, which was really cool. But boy, do I feel that when I really have no problem falling asleep. It's staying asleep. I'll wake up an hour or 45 minutes later and I'm done for the night. I've released all the sleep pressure in the system and there's no more to be had. It's so bad. I mean, even last night, I probably got an hour of sleep and that. Was probably after 5 a.m.
Yeah, I was thinking of you when I heard that because you always get horrible sleep. I do. It's been bad. A previous episode was about sleep. You should listen to the back catalog of our shows. Yeah, get into some podcasts. you have listened to podcasts before right weeklylaunch.rocks I haven't really listened I thought you had listened to a podcast I've. Heard Dia listening. I got 8 hours 3 minutes last night I don't even know actually how bad mine was because I put my watch on before I went to bed because I needed a little top off and I forgot to put it on our last voicemail comes from Mr.
Hybrid Sarcasm it's Hybrid Sarcasm again forget that other voicemail Let's go with this one. All right. Wanted to check in on the gaming topic. I'm old enough to remember what it was like to game over IPX instead of PTP IP. Oh, yeah. And what that meant for me and my friends is we were usually engaged in some sort of StarCraft battle. It's still a go-to of mine. The gaming on Linux has made it incredibly easy to download the software and play and get a bit of nostalgia again every now and then. Yeah. can tell you that there was a point in time when we were playing a lot and I realized I was playing too much.
I was in a crowd of people, you know, gathering people out in public somewhere and, this idea and visualization came to my mind that I could take my mouse, I didn't have a mouse, but I was visualizing taking a mouse and left clicking and dragging so that I could select, all of these in-real-life people in creating a StarCraft grouping of them. That's when I realized I probably ought to take a break from all the StarCrafting I was doing at the time. So I don't play that much anymore, but yeah, it was certainly an activity that we indulged in quite a lot and enjoyed quite a lot back in the day.
Thank you, Hybrid. I have to say, we're thinking about doing a gaming episode this Sunday on Linux Unplugged, and you just bumped StarCraft again to the top of the list. It was something we talked about on the live stream, and now I'm just feeling it. It's a good game. Yeah, I don't know this old person stuff. Oh, wow. Oh, it hurts. Hey, a good game is still a good game, right? Mario is still a good game. Mario rocks. It does. There you go. It's undeniable. It's undeniable. All right, thank you, everybody who called in. We appreciate it. They're all kind of last-minute calls. I was worried we weren't going to get in, and then we got a good batch.
Were they all today? Since last week. Yesterday and the day before, mostly. Oh, yeah. Everybody, like, last minute called in. You pimped it on Linux Unplugged on Sunday. Yeah. All right. So don't make me beg. Call in next time. 774-462-5667. One last time. 774-462-5667. Call in. Leave us a voicemail. You know we love it. All right. It's time to move on. It is the topic of the day. Woo! Woo! All right, it's April Fool's, and I was looking at some classics and also some current ones. So I got us a mix of both from this year and years past, and I think you have to start with the one that just distinctly stands out in my memory.
Of course it does. 21 years ago, Google announced Gmail on April 1st, and nobody thought they were serious because they were only known for search back then. And so we were like, Google's doing email? and then they said a gig of storage and now everybody said, I want it, I want it because a gig was so much back then. Yeah, see, back then I was using Yahoo. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people were using Emerson. Yeah, and Hotmail. And Hotmail. Mm-hmm. And AOL, right? AOL. Oh, yeah, sure. I think some people still are. I saw this one. I thought this was pretty good. Subway announced protein shakes.
Yeah. Did you see this? No, but Abby loves Subway. She actually asked for Subway yesterday, but I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes instead. Subway's the best. Here's what they were promoting. Subway announced drinkable versions of their footlong sandwiches. No. No. They did make footlong cookies, though. Yeah, that is ridiculous. And they're good, but drinkable sandwiches, that's disgusting. Okay, here's another good one. A little earlier than I remember. From 1992, NPR pulled one, and it's pretty good. In their show, Talk of the Nation, they reported that former President Richard Nixon had declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
Accompanying the announcement on the NPR program were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech and declaring, quote, I never did anything wrong and I won't do it again. Was that like, did they string that together and deepfake it? Basically, is that an OG deepfake? I don't know how they got the clip. I couldn't actually find the audio. Maybe it's something he actually said. Huh. OK. It does sound kind of Nixie, and I never did anything wrong, and I won't do it again. That's my Nixon. That's funny. I wonder what's going to happen today.
Could you imagine listening to that and buying into that and being like, what? Nixon's back. Okay. How about this one? Pineapple flavored eggs were announced by Dole. No. What were they even thinking? Pineapple flavored. That's not even a marketing ploy. Why is that? That wouldn't even hit the charts today on Twitter. It would not trend. Got us talking about it. Got us talking about it. Okay. All right. I thought this was interesting. And this is one that Rick and Morty fans already know. But the Cartoon Network dropped Rick and Morty without any notice, without any ceremony on April 1st for the third season. Just all of a sudden, Rick and Morty was out.
Hey, that's a good one. That was good. That one's like a good April Fool's. The problem is now, Abby, is that every April Fool's, I hope we get a new season of Rick and Morty. Oh, my God. So everyone's just going to think, maybe they'll do it again. And I know I was just checking to see if we did. And as far as I can tell, there is no new season of Rick and Morty. Wait, it's a one-time thing. Did they actually drop it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, season three. But now they're on season eight. So it's been a while. Oh, they dropped it. I thought you meant they canceled it. Oh, no, no. Yeah, they canceled it. I was using the cool Netflix lingo They dropped it It's.
Like a wholesome April. Fool's We need an AI song with dropped it I. Wonder what. Minecraft's going to do Because they do something every year They do something really weird. That's always fun I like it when the video games. Do that Dylan's definitely going to check. Yeah he is. Okay this is a good one It's a little visual But I think it still works pretty well in audio You both are familiar with Waymo They're like the self-driving Uber So you get in and there's no driver at all And they're available in certain areas right now Wow And last year, on April 1st, I believe it was last year, they introduced a feature to kind of expand the reach of the Waymo customer base, and they called it Granma Mode.
Waymo 1. The whole car is crocheted, decked out. Crocheted? Yeah, and then it's grandma given. Get that lovely garden. Those hydrangeas are fabulous. Would you like some chocolate milk? Don't you worry a bit, sweetie. You just rest those peepers. While I've been behind the wheel since you were just a little tyke. Millions of miles, I tell you. Darling, double check you have everything. and have a wonderful day. Wow. Sounds a little scary. Okay, so I thought it was grandma mode for the passenger. Me too, but no, it's grandma's driver. Which, I don't know about you guys, but I never think of my grandma as a great driver. I don't know any grandma.
I'm not trying to be ages, but I don't know any grandmas that are great drivers. They can be comforting. Not even moms. They can crochet good. Yep, they can. They sure can. They sure can. All right, so this year we got Terry's toothpaste, unveiled mint chocolate toothpaste. I'd buy it. I actually think this should... That sounds kind of good. I actually think this would sell. Yeah. I do think consumers would be able to indulge at the sink every morning and night with this latest innovation from the chocolate brand as it aims to cater to the rising demand of Terry's chocolate mint products.
So here's the thing. Abby would eat it. Yeah. I would eat it. Abby would not spit it out. Don't eat it, Abby. Don't eat it. No, she would too. You'd come in there, you'd see her like sneaking a little bit of chocolate toothpaste. I used to eat my little pony toothpaste. Yeah. Groupon is rebranding to G-Spot because great experiences shouldn't be hard to find. And Yvonne Labs has introduced one of my favorite AI features. Oh, no. You like that? Yeah, I like how you just moved on so that we wouldn't have to explain that to our 14-year-old daughter.
And Yvonne Labs has introduced, I think, a true AI innovation. You can text your dog with their new AI system. I love this. Text your dog. Yeah, okay, Abby, we have three dog voices to choose from. Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, or a Deutschhound. The third one, whatever that is. Deutschhound? Yeah. Yeah, sure, I'm probably saying that. Okay, now. So we just said, who's the best puppy in the world? Oh, we did. Do you want to say anything else? Yeah. Okay, what do you want to say to a dog? If any dogs are listening, they're going to understand this.
We'll say, good boy. All right, we'll just say, good boy. How about, good boy, thank you for listening. to the launch. Oh my gosh. Tell your pet to call the show. How about that? Oh my gosh. I know. Sorry to anybody that doesn't prefer to listen to dog barking and good sound quality. There you go. What? Wait. That's it? Okay, that was just the same clip. Just type good and see if it's the same link. Okay, alright. You ready? You ready? Yeah. Root, root. Root, root. It's the, Okay, now I'm gonna do a really long one. It's literally just . I told you, I told you.
Okay, that one is longer. Okay, that's different. It's just looping it. Yeah, it's just looping it. How can you tell? How can you even tell? How can you even tell? All right, well, I guess if you're listening and your dog reacted to that, it seems like he's wagging his tail because we just told him he's a real good boy, boost it and let us know, I guess. Yep. It's the only way to know. So obviously not a comprehensive list of April Fool's pranks because it's the morning of April Fool's, but, you know, those are the ones I liked. those are the ones I actually got got once it was a Knicks it was a Knicks prank, Wes sent me a link to a YouTube video and the YouTuber's like this feature in Knicks that has been controversial and delayed for years has finally made it and it's stable and it changes everything and I'm like what how did I miss this news and then about two seconds later Wes reminded me that it's April Fool's, and I also saw a tweet that Satoshi moved some of their original coins from 2009 I was like what Oh.
April Fool's One time, Dylan was standing next to my desk Anticipating me using the mouse Because he had put a little piece of paper over the sensor Oh my god, he got that from YouTube. Videos We would watch them. He's just waiting We'd try to come up with ideas He was just waiting Aren't you going to use your mouse, Mom? Oh my god I was the person that would put ketchup on them I wanted to put ketchup And make people think I was bleeding or something Yeah. That's always Fake blood's always good Alright, I think it's time for a music break And then we'll come back with some boosts Some housekeeping keeping some really odd news from the Pacific Northwest and more.
So let's set it up. This is a great song. I've played it once before on one of my other podcasts. Oh, by the way, I think our song from last week made it number one or number two. Heck yeah. Awesome to see. Yeah. And let's see if we can put this one on the charts. It is Keeping On by Through the Day, Through the Night. And we got some great boosts to get into. I got a sticky mute button. And our first boost comes from one of our callers. It is Outdoor Geek with 5,000 sats. And I think this is his tips on sleep. Change the lights to red, the phone to black and white, Duolingo with the sound off, Steam Deck in night mode.
Those are great. These are good tips. Yeah, excellent. I definitely do the phone thing. And then on iOS, I'll show this to you, Andrew, since you're in studio. So you've probably seen in iOS they have focus modes. Yeah. And I have a bedtime. I was just showing you this, wasn't I, Abby? Yeah, you have ones for different things. Yeah, so I have a sleep one, which automatically triggers at like 10 p.m. And one of the things it does is it darkens the phone and puts everything in kind of like this red mode. Ooh. Yeah.
Neat. Yeah, and it just happens based on time automatically. Did you choose red or did it? Yeah, I went through and themed it. Very cool. So those are the nice things you can do, just time-based stuff. For sure. Thank you, Outdoor Geek. Look forward to seeing you at LinuxFest. WotC is here with 3,333 sats. No message, though, just the value. Producer Jeff is here with 10,000 sats. I love the sound effects so much. I've never slept well. I should probably get it checked out. Melatonin does nothing for me, but some teas help calm me down at night and maybe help me get at least a fall asleep a little bit faster.
Even when I don't wake up in a pool of sweat and need to dry off with a towel, I wake up about every two hours with an average of seven hours in bed each night. I'm lucky to sleep about four or five hours of it. Maybe I've got ADHD too. Well, you probably do if you're not sleeping well. He says, IDK, when I'm totally and physically mentally wiped out, I still struggle. I do think mood affects my sleep, too. If it's a good productive draining day, I do tend to sleep better. If it's a stressful one, no matter how tired I am, I sleep like crap. He says, thanks for everyone for sharing. It's given me a lot to think about.
Yeah, you know, sleep comes up a lot in just every day. I've spoken to at least three people about the tryptophan since we did that episode. I bought a bottle. You know there's a there's a brand that makes supplements that i like and i bought a bottle my wife and idea have been have been trying it from time to time it's working great for her oh fantastic yeah i haven't i don't think i found the right amount yet i've just been taking it slow, yeah i feel that one you know uh yeah i wonder jeff's waking up in a pool of sweat too makes me yeah that is a.
Problem that is definitely concerning. Yeah yeah but uh you know he's still a go-getter let me tell you yeah it doesn't slow him down that guy i tell you It's pretty impressive. Thank you, everybody who did boost. We also had five of you that streamed sats as you listened, so you sat streamers. You stacked 7,735 sats. Now, when you combine that with our boosters, it wasn't a big showing. It was a light week for our baby show. We stacked 26,068 sats. Woo! Woo! You know, there's weeks. We'll bounce back, right? We'll bounce back. We're not down. We're just on the ropes for a little bit. But we'll be back, right?
We'll bounce. We'll bounce back. Thank you, everybody, who did Boost. You can do it with Fountain or many of the apps at newpodcastapps.com. now you know what's on my mind LinuxFest Northwest is getting really close like 20-ish days away yep. It is I'm excited. So we don't have a booth this year right I don't think so that's. A good question. I don't know I don't think so unless they just by default gave us one I'm not asking for a one. I'll tell you, because I was actually thinking. Oh, okay. I was brainstorming this year about maybe live streaming Saturday. I don't know if people are interested in a LinuxFest live stream, but if they are.
No, you should do it. From the RV, we do the live stream, and then we send like two or three of us into LinuxFest with gear, and we do kind of like walk around, talk to people, stream it back to the RV. Might solve a couple of problems we've had when doing, you know, live streams at a booth. For sure. For sure. Yeah, we definitely have the internet issues. Still yeah well we have we'd have starlink at the uh rv right so interesting could work it could work i'm really looking forward to it wes is a talk schedule there's going to be linux unplugged episode recorded live at linux fest so if you're going to be there you can come to our room we're on the schedule for sunday and uh it's going to be a mad dash to get set up and tear down but that's always part of the fun.
Yep and as a reminder i am on the board of directors for linux fest now and I will be doing Introduction to the Fest, before the fest starts each day, Saturday and Sunday. So they come see you and they get kind of like an idea of what's going on each day? Yeah, just like an overview and just like here's where you can find things. How to fest. How to fest. And then also, I need to double check the schedule, but I am doing a session at the lunchtime for people that come just for the afternoon so they don't miss out. They don't have to be there. That's the thing, huh? People show up more in the afternoon.
Yeah. They're not early birds. Mm-hmm. Which is funny because LinuxFest... Well, you know travel. Yeah, that's true. It is a bit to get there, too. I had so many cookies last year. Like 15. You really liked it. It's at a college campus. I bet. I bet being at a college campus is kind of a neat treat for you. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, she saw cadavers. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, that was interesting. I still have stickers in my room. I still have like 30 because I took so many from each little booth and some from that place where the cadavers or whatever they're called.
Yeah. Swag is great for kids. Kids love swag. Yeah. The campus is also like a nursing practice place or, you know, like they have nursing certifications or something. That's why there's cadavers. But yeah, it's a technical college and that, I guess. I guess. I want the big building, though. Like, yeah, that one was still under construction. And they had elevators. We're hoping next year. Wow. So this is two years that thing's been under construction? Yes. That's dumb. It just doesn't quite feel the same. It worked. It worked. It was kind of a throwback. We went back to the OG location from like 20 years ago for the vendors and whatnot. But I do miss the big building.
Well, yeah. And I miss eating lunch there in the cafeteria, which is now the exhibition hall. Yeah. Because that's the option that we have. Yeah. It was nice to have a spot to do that. We did get more rooms this year. So there's more talks, more availability. And yeah, it's going to be nice. All right. So there you go. LinuxFest Northwest. If you want more deets, you just go to LinuxFest. I should have told you the date. LFMW.org. Oh, it is? Just LFNW, not LinuxFest Northwest? Mm-mm. Yeah, or it's LFNW.org. And April 25th through the 27th. Hey, look, there's Brent on the featured speakers right there.
Yep, in Bellingham. Hey, and there's that Wes. And some guy with BSD horns and sunglasses. Yep, that's you. Oh. He looks a little drunk. A little sus. All right. Hopefully we will see you there. Come say hi. Or I don't know. Send us your hopes and thoughts and dreams. for your LinuxFest. I don't know. Figure it out. Okay, so the Pacific Northwest sometimes has our own version of Florida Man. And all of us try to be conscientious consumers. And, you know, you got your tersh bin, you got your recycle bin, and you got your yard bin. But sometimes you get pushed a little too far when other people start using your bins.
You know, like, have you ever had this problem where, like, a neighbor starts using your trash bin? And you're like, bro, Oh, I've only got so much room here, right? Yeah, before I had cats and there was cat litter. Weird, right? That's so weird. Yeah, well, you know what's worse than cat litter? Something else. Yeah, this is the bin. This is a story that begins with a blue recycling bin. But trust me, it doesn't end there. It is tragically gross. And that may be putting it lightly. So you're kind of like, okay, this is disgusting. Alex Van Dyne spent years working in television news throughout the country.
But he never imagined standing in front of the camera talking about... You kind of know what the urine smells like. Yes, urine. That's what this story is about. But before you turn away, understand that this could be you, living in a northeast Portland neighborhood, minding your own business when he shows up. in the middle of the night. This all started in September when Van Dyne and his wife noticed their garbage bins had not been collected. So I went to open the blue bin and lo and behold there was a nice deposit of gallon-sized bottles of urine to put it plainly and there were six of them.
Six bottles of urine in his recycling bin. The garbage hauler wouldn't take it. It's biohazard. What does your wife think about all this? Yeah, she's befuddled as well. Eventually, Van Dyne pulled his garbage bins, hoping that the urine dropper would go away. And he did. Straight to the neighbor's bin. And then another neighbor. It sort of started to unravel. And I don't know why he's hitting the same location so many times. That doesn't make any sense to me. And or why he is doing it. So who is this man driving a late model vehicle depositing bottles of urine? This grainy video shows him pulling up, getting out and leaving the jugs behind.
Van Dyne has shared his ordeal on the social app called Nextdoor. He's been flooded with theories as to the reason behind it all. Somebody was like maybe it's a ring that they've kidnapped some people and they're trying to get rid of their fecal matter in the most bizarre way possible. He has filed the police report. He says he was told that if the urine had gone in the regular garbage bin, it wouldn't be a crime. But because it's in the blue bin, it is. So now Van Dyne is on a mission to find out who this is. Getting his license plate will be crucial. And I've actually started putting my bins back out again the night before and putting them in a different position just to see if I could get a better video of him.
He doesn't plan to move, nothing like that. He loves the neighborhood, has lived here since 2006. But he does have a message. Maybe he's watching. I don't know. Please stop. Please. Just don't do it anymore. And through it all, Van Dyne has managed to find some levity in the situation. It's a lot of pee. And you just had the feeling he couldn't wait to say this. I mean, this guy's really pissing me off. Oh, my gosh. Of course, right? Pay two nudes. I know. At least he's making a joke out of it. But I feel like it should be a crime either way. Like, any. Could you imagine opening up that bin and seeing that?
So, okay. You know, like, I don't know, five or six years ago, somebody found body parts in their. Bins so i would take pee over body parts but. Uh must be. Sticky like all your stuff sticking to the. It's not that hard to dump out your urine like i don't understand. Go to a public bathroom and dump it out it's gotta be like this urge to save it which makes me think urine's not the only thing they're saving you know it's like capture it all uh but then you got to dispose of it and this person i saw the video they're not drinking a lot of water I'll just put it that way. Yeah. Oh.
It's like radioactive yellow. It's gross. Yeah. Radioactive yellow. But imagine taking the time. First of all, every time you got the urge, you got to go get a bottle. Right. And that bottle, as you start to fill it, gets heavier. Yeah, it's a jug. It's like a water jug. And they start getting heavier and sloshier. And you got to like manage that. You don't want to overfill. And so like every time you're using the bathroom, you're grabbing one of these things. Then you're collecting them. You're loading them up in your car. Ew.
You're driving somewhere and then you're unloading them in people's recycle bin, not their trash. So I've collected a gallon of my pee before. What? What? Why did you do that? It's so funny. Okay. Do you remember I was being tested for preeclampsia when I was nine months pregnant with Dylan? Okay. So this is a medical reason. It was a medical reason. I was about to be a little scared because you never told me that. I know. It was really difficult. I'm your daughter. Of course, I finished it, finished collecting it, and that night my water broke, and then they didn't even.
Oh, my gosh. Well, at least you knew how to do it, you know, so you're prepared for the road trip now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. There's always that. I mean, that's one of the things I think these do come from is, you know, I've seen, I've seen on the road, I've seen truckers throwing bottles of, you know. Yeah. Why? No, but there's definitely some intentions because you're doing all that work. Yeah. To do such a specific, useless thing. Right. So there's definitely like a reason there has to be, unless you're like crazy in the head. I wonder. I just.
Just seriously, just empty them and the jugs are recyclable. Oh, also, like, do these, I don't see these garbage and recycle people. They don't get out of their truck and check the contents. Not too often. Every now and then there's, like, a guy right on the back that jumps out. But, yeah, you're right. Around here they just pick them up and dump them. Yeah. Yeah. Just also imagine being that person who this is happening to. Every time you take the garbage out, the next morning you go out there to bring it back in and like you go to move the recycle and it's heavy and you're like, oh no.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there is a, there's a really cool service around here in the Pacific Northwest, like in our area where they, they come and clean out your bins. They do? Yeah. Wait, do we have that? They have, yeah. They have a machine. Yeah. They have a machine. That's really nice. And they just like, it completely cleans it on the inside. It's not a clean, it's not a, yeah. I know. I want to do it because I have been, you know, people with, uh, walking their dogs, They throw poop bags in whatever garbage can is at the sidewalk. So I've been wanting to do that. Is that illegal?
I don't think so. I don't think so. It seems a little rude. It's rude for sure. And they definitely know that. Is it better than dog poop on the ground though? Probably. Right. Yeah. But a washing service. Yeah. Come have somebody else do the dirty work. Yeah. That's a great thing. I hate cleaning garbage cans. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of the deal when you become an adult. They don't tell you those are the dirty jobs you have to do. Somebody's got to do that work. It doesn't do itself. I don't want to be an adult. Dirty jobs. Just skip it.
Right? Go right to retirement. All right. That is everything, I think, for this week's episode, yeah? Are we all done here? I think so. Is our work done? How about that? Well, then, the only work left is for the audience. Go to weeklylaunch.rocks to get the links for episode 16. Of course, we'd love it if you boosted and supported the show. And we'd really love to hear from you. Give us a ring. That is 774-462-5667 774-462-5667 Leave us a voicemail We'll play it in next week's episode, From the beautiful Pacific Northwest And the mighty American West Coast Thank you for listening We'll see you next week.
This is The Launch, Episode 16, for April 1st, 2025. Well, we are streaming from the beautiful Pacific Northwest and the mighty American West Coast. We greet you all a good morning, a good evening, wherever your timeline may fall. time appropriate greetings indeed to one and all this is the launch my name is chris and i'm angela that's our girl abby over there hi hey abby well we have a few things to get into before the show gets going if you're listening live or after the fact we'd love to hear from you on the phone the phone is cool again screw video meetings how about a call seven seven four four six two five, That is 774-462-5667.
You can tune in live. Generally, we're live at 1130 a.m. Pacific, 2.30 p.m. Eastern. That is 730 p.m. UTC at jblive.tv or in your podcasting to-do-do-do Abbo Choice. Then we come out Wednesday mornings. I invite you to join us. We got that mumble room going. We got that chat room going. All that's linked at weeklylaunch.rocks. And shout out to our mumble room up there. we got a good little crew in the quiet listening thank you everybody for joining us, Well, Andrews, word has it, you're getting ready for another road trip. Yeah. It actually is a road trip.
Last time, a couple weeks ago, I flew to California to visit my boyfriend's parents to see what their health was like. And in a couple weekends, I'm going to actually drive down there and bring them up. Whoa. Yikes. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. A lot of work. I imagine they're not in the best health? No. So, no, no, one is non-ambulatory. That's going to be a long drive. It is. So, yeah, there's a couple of things that are new for me. Like the first road trip that I did on my own, right, was back in 2020 when I came to get the kids from you after 34 days of being stuck in Texas. Right.
And it was so crazy because, yeah, just, oh, it was just so crazy. Um, so I had never, I accidentally went through the Idaho mountain pass on empty. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's no gas stations up there. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't realize I was entering the mountain pass, but anyway. Yeah. So I was hoping for some of your input on what I can do. Like, obviously music is going to be my go-to and I know Abby, Abby is very much into music the way I am. So yes, music is one thing. Um, but so Google says it'll be a 14 hour drive. How long of a drive will that really be?
So the math I usually do is for a car, I divide by like 60 or 65, depending on how ambitious you're being, because once you factor in stops and traffic, you'll never be doing 70, 80 on average. So I take the mileage and I divide it by 60. And then that's where I get the realistic time. And you could, of course, push it a little bit and drive faster. Okay. And you've driven in California before. Is there a way for you to avoid that you have avoided toll roads? Because they seem to be everywhere, at least in the area that I was. Yeah, it does kind of depend where you're going. Sometimes they are the faster way to go. Yeah. There are lots of routes.
Have you I mean, if you look at them highways in California, it's crazy how many California has. Like here in Washington, we've got one I-5 north south corridor. And then we've got, you know, three or four highways that go east to west. It's really simple. It's as simple as it gets. And you get down there and it's really complicated. But I think the main thing I would do, because you're going to have to go past San Francisco. Right, because you're going all the way down to L.A. area? I think it's actually right by San Francisco. Okay, that's better. I mean, that's not too bad. I think really, I wouldn't worry so much about the toll roads. I'd be more worried about traffic.
It's like Oakland area. Do you know where Oakland is? Yeah, I would be more concerned about the road back, to tell you the truth, just because that's going to be such— I don't know if you're going to be able to take breaks, if they can get out of the car. That's where it seems like it's going to be tricky. I mean, we're going to have to, right, due to the medical concerns. But yeah, so on the way down there, it's going to be like pretty low stress. That's what I'm thinking. But on the way back up, we're just going to be like trying to get back as quick and efficiently as possible.
I think it's good to have protein snacks. So I always try to find like a beef jerky I like that I can have a bag of in the door pocket. Quick snack. Abby, you've done quite a few road trips with your dad here. Yes. What's one of your go-to things to either pass time or to enjoy yourself or what do you look forward to? Listening to music. Sometimes we go to really cool rest stops, which I really like because I get to take Levi out and Bella and Dylan and just hang out with them. Yeah, it's a good, easy, quick stop. Get right back on the road. Is there a good app or something for rest stops?
There are. I will pull up on my mind. There's many. There's a couple that will just tell you the next stops on the freeway even, which are really nice. So you can have it up and it just tells you the next stops. Yes. Yeah. The rest stops are a good, a good way to recharge, walk around. The bathrooms are usually in pretty rough shape, especially in California. So there's that. I want to go to California. I just won't go to the bathroom in California. Good luck with that. Probably a fast food place has a better, has a better chance. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Or a nice gas station. We'll have to eat. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, I mean, California is so insanely long for anybody that's never driven top to bottom in california it's just well it's it's such a huge site it's a it's a huge chunk of the united states you're literally driving up and down a huge chunk of the united states um when are you going because that's also going to depend you're going to have huge heat like within weeks it's going to get start getting hot. Oh yeah i mean uh it'll be in my car and it has ac. So i'm not too worried yeah yeah good yeah.
My car is the best option because i have captain seats in the second row so that'll allow. A Lot easier maneuvering. Man that's gonna be a trip, literally i'd say also if somebody has a tablet you know you could always. Sink over. A couple of movies or something like because you're probably gonna end up staying. In a hotel right that's a good point uh yeah just for the friday night because we want to get like really good sleep because we're just gonna drive through like no matter what time it is the next day uh and then of course i got to pick up the kids from you on sunday i think we'll be getting back here like on a sunday around midnight and.
You're leaving when. Well that morning sometime friday uh oh well We're leaving Friday to drive up Friday. Okay. And then sleeping and then Saturday leaving. But Saturday we'll leave a little. We have to coordinate with hospice nurses. I see. Yeah. So we have to leave at a certain time and then come back early Sunday morning probably. California could really be a two-day drive. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's doable. But whoo, that is going to be, what we should do is, okay, audience, this is your opportunity to help Anja. She's got a little bit of time.
So here's what we want to know. How do you prepare for a big road trip? Yeah, what am I not considering? Yeah. I love them, but I have family members and friends who hate them. I love them. I'm just going to say Chris has never taken me on a road trip in the RV. I'm just going to put it out there, right? It is a great way to travel. Too bad the divorce didn't happen, a little offset here, because I missed out. I didn't miss out. I know you didn't. So there's one way to do it. But in the car, you know, that's a whole other kind of road tripping. Excellent hybrid scream. Sorry, scream. I heard that way too fast and from the side. Sarcasm. Hybrid sarcasm.
An emergency road kit. Yeah. As well as medical. Yeah. For sure. All right. So tell us what she should pack, what she should prep, what your tip would be. What's a must have for a road trip? And I'd also like to know, what's the longest road trip you've ever done? I've been on a long one. Yeah, we've done some long ones for sure. How long was the Texas one? Well, we went from Washington to Texas, and we went around in Texas a little bit, and then we came up to Montana. I want to do that again. Where your man met us, and then we, you know, from Montana to Washington. We did a nice loop. It was a nice loop. So, yeah.
You know what? Come on in. Come on in and tell us what you think. Send us a booster. Leave us a voicemail. And speaking of calls, we did get some calls. Eee! All right, so PJ comes in. Producer Jeff comes in with our first call. It's a shorty, but a goody. Jeff here. Chris, listening to Luff right now, and you told me I had to call in and leave a voicemail. So here you go. Good job, PJ. Shorty. Sweet. Good job. Followed instructions well. Put that down on his report card. Very proud. Followed instructions. All right, Sir Lurks-A-Lot has been lurking. He came in with a phone call.
Well, hi, Chris and Andrews. This is Sir Lurks-A-Lot lurking like I do. I was just listening to the pre-show of LUP and you played that little jingle about the telephone number for the call-in show. Yeah. You should listen to that number. Instead of ending in 5667, your little AI voice only says 567. Little. Maybe that's part of the problem why you're not getting calls. Anyway, I really enjoy the new show. Thanks for everything. And I'll be lurking until I get in touch again. Have a great day. Maybe you just passed the test, Lurks. Huh.
Yeah, I scratched that. Does it really? Well, no, it does it right a couple of times and then like one time and there. Oh, my God. That is so AI. I know. It's like the images that they try to make where like the hand is a little off. It's just something. Oh, man, that's so funny. Just the little mistakes. Yeah, so that's why we need human intelligence still and lurks a lot past the human intelligence test. Now we know. Yeah, human brains. Lurks is not an AI. That was a real life captcha. Yep. A guy named Ryan or Brian. No, we also have a guy named Ryan. But a guy named Brian called in, which is great to hear.
Hey, Chris and Angela and the whole JB crew. This is a guy named Brian, a longtime listener, first-time caller. I just figured I'd leave a little bit of feedback. My video game addiction was a game called Escape Velocity, released by Ambrosia Software, written by Matt Birch. It was on the Mac, right? I was 16 years old. It was the late 90s. And the game allowed you to do a whole bunch of mods to it if you use a little program called ResEdit. And it was the first time in my life I discovered that you could actually manipulate code and numbers and make computers do things.
And it was what got me started into a lifetime of programming. And that's what I do to this very day. So thanks to Matt Birch and Ambrosia Software and to you for the great topic. Well, thank you, a guy named Brian. I remember RezEdit very well. It was one of the biggest things I think the nerds lost when Apple rolled out Mac OS X. You could go in and edit. You could just edit stuff like files and applications and tweak them and change them and modify them. It was a geek's paradise. That was a good time. And, you know, the other thing you've got to, I suppose, appreciate too, Brian, is there weren't a lot of games for Mac OS. There were some back in the day, obviously, especially in the classic Mac days.
But towards the end, it was like just the really good games that Mac users got their hands on. It was special when you found something. Thank you for the call. Next one comes from Outdoor Geek. Hi, Angela and Chris. Outdoor Geek here, calling from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm excited to go to two conferences for the first time in April, CypherCon in Milwaukee and LinuxFest Northwest. Thanks to JB, I use NixOS for my servers and laptops, and my gaming PC runs Bazite. Thanks for the show. Well done. Yeah. How about that? Looking forward to seeing you outdoor. Thanks for the heads up, too. Now we know. We'll be prepared.
Glad to hear about Nick's. Tech Geek comes in with us with his voicemail. Hey, Chris and Angela, this is Tech Geek giving you a call from, well, I just arrived here at work, sitting in the parking lot of the launch control center next to the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center. About to start my day. I just wanted to call in on the sleep problem that I've actually had for, geez, since I was a teenager. It seems it's only gotten worse over with age. But these days, yeah, I'm lucky if I get, I'd be happy if I get more than six hours a night. On average, I probably get about five, five, six hours at the most.
I actually don't have a problem getting to sleep. It's just staying asleep is the problem, especially with consistent waking up two or three times, maybe four times a night. And then there's those times where maybe I'll get only four hours of sleep. And sometimes in those scenarios, if it has only been about four hours, I'll get up and just watch a little TV for a little bit. But, I mean, normally, you know, I'll read before bed, and that's probably the reason why. That's probably what helps me get to sleep quicker, so, you know, I actually will read before bed.
But if I find that I wake up in the middle of night and can't get back to sleep, which is pretty frequent, I'll just go in and sit down and watch something light, you know, like maybe an episode of Star Trek Lower Decks or, you know, something like that that can kind of keep my mind at ease. And I'll end up falling asleep in the chair in the living room while watching these shows. But even so, I'll still get a little bit more sleep. But yeah, sleeping has always been a problem for me pretty much since high school. Thank you, Tech Geek. He got the two-minute hammer.
I feel with that call. So first of all, I think we did a conversation, I think it made it on air, a conversation with Tech Geek from Texas Linux Fest, where he talked a little bit about Linux on the International Space Station, which was really cool. But boy, do I feel that when I really have no problem falling asleep. It's staying asleep. I'll wake up an hour or 45 minutes later and I'm done for the night. I've released all the sleep pressure in the system and there's no more to be had. It's so bad. I mean, even last night, I probably got an hour of sleep and that. Was probably after 5 a.m.
Yeah, I was thinking of you when I heard that because you always get horrible sleep. I do. It's been bad. A previous episode was about sleep. You should listen to the back catalog of our shows. Yeah, get into some podcasts. you have listened to podcasts before right weeklylaunch.rocks I haven't really listened I thought you had listened to a podcast I've. Heard Dia listening. I got 8 hours 3 minutes last night I don't even know actually how bad mine was because I put my watch on before I went to bed because I needed a little top off and I forgot to put it on our last voicemail comes from Mr.
Hybrid Sarcasm it's Hybrid Sarcasm again forget that other voicemail Let's go with this one. All right. Wanted to check in on the gaming topic. I'm old enough to remember what it was like to game over IPX instead of PTP IP. Oh, yeah. And what that meant for me and my friends is we were usually engaged in some sort of StarCraft battle. It's still a go-to of mine. The gaming on Linux has made it incredibly easy to download the software and play and get a bit of nostalgia again every now and then. Yeah. can tell you that there was a point in time when we were playing a lot and I realized I was playing too much.
I was in a crowd of people, you know, gathering people out in public somewhere and, this idea and visualization came to my mind that I could take my mouse, I didn't have a mouse, but I was visualizing taking a mouse and left clicking and dragging so that I could select, all of these in-real-life people in creating a StarCraft grouping of them. That's when I realized I probably ought to take a break from all the StarCrafting I was doing at the time. So I don't play that much anymore, but yeah, it was certainly an activity that we indulged in quite a lot and enjoyed quite a lot back in the day.
Thank you, Hybrid. I have to say, we're thinking about doing a gaming episode this Sunday on Linux Unplugged, and you just bumped StarCraft again to the top of the list. It was something we talked about on the live stream, and now I'm just feeling it. It's a good game. Yeah, I don't know this old person stuff. Oh, wow. Oh, it hurts. Hey, a good game is still a good game, right? Mario is still a good game. Mario rocks. It does. There you go. It's undeniable. It's undeniable. All right, thank you, everybody who called in. We appreciate it. They're all kind of last-minute calls. I was worried we weren't going to get in, and then we got a good batch.
Were they all today? Since last week. Yesterday and the day before, mostly. Oh, yeah. Everybody, like, last minute called in. You pimped it on Linux Unplugged on Sunday. Yeah. All right. So don't make me beg. Call in next time. 774-462-5667. One last time. 774-462-5667. Call in. Leave us a voicemail. You know we love it. All right. It's time to move on. It is the topic of the day. Woo! Woo! All right, it's April Fool's, and I was looking at some classics and also some current ones. So I got us a mix of both from this year and years past, and I think you have to start with the one that just distinctly stands out in my memory.
Of course it does. 21 years ago, Google announced Gmail on April 1st, and nobody thought they were serious because they were only known for search back then. And so we were like, Google's doing email? and then they said a gig of storage and now everybody said, I want it, I want it because a gig was so much back then. Yeah, see, back then I was using Yahoo. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people were using Emerson. Yeah, and Hotmail. And Hotmail. Mm-hmm. And AOL, right? AOL. Oh, yeah, sure. I think some people still are. I saw this one. I thought this was pretty good. Subway announced protein shakes.
Yeah. Did you see this? No, but Abby loves Subway. She actually asked for Subway yesterday, but I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes instead. Subway's the best. Here's what they were promoting. Subway announced drinkable versions of their footlong sandwiches. No. No. They did make footlong cookies, though. Yeah, that is ridiculous. And they're good, but drinkable sandwiches, that's disgusting. Okay, here's another good one. A little earlier than I remember. From 1992, NPR pulled one, and it's pretty good. In their show, Talk of the Nation, they reported that former President Richard Nixon had declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
Accompanying the announcement on the NPR program were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech and declaring, quote, I never did anything wrong and I won't do it again. Was that like, did they string that together and deepfake it? Basically, is that an OG deepfake? I don't know how they got the clip. I couldn't actually find the audio. Maybe it's something he actually said. Huh. OK. It does sound kind of Nixie, and I never did anything wrong, and I won't do it again. That's my Nixon. That's funny. I wonder what's going to happen today.
Could you imagine listening to that and buying into that and being like, what? Nixon's back. Okay. How about this one? Pineapple flavored eggs were announced by Dole. No. What were they even thinking? Pineapple flavored. That's not even a marketing ploy. Why is that? That wouldn't even hit the charts today on Twitter. It would not trend. Got us talking about it. Got us talking about it. Okay. All right. I thought this was interesting. And this is one that Rick and Morty fans already know. But the Cartoon Network dropped Rick and Morty without any notice, without any ceremony on April 1st for the third season. Just all of a sudden, Rick and Morty was out.
Hey, that's a good one. That was good. That one's like a good April Fool's. The problem is now, Abby, is that every April Fool's, I hope we get a new season of Rick and Morty. Oh, my God. So everyone's just going to think, maybe they'll do it again. And I know I was just checking to see if we did. And as far as I can tell, there is no new season of Rick and Morty. Wait, it's a one-time thing. Did they actually drop it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, season three. But now they're on season eight. So it's been a while. Oh, they dropped it. I thought you meant they canceled it. Oh, no, no. Yeah, they canceled it. I was using the cool Netflix lingo They dropped it It's.
Like a wholesome April. Fool's We need an AI song with dropped it I. Wonder what. Minecraft's going to do Because they do something every year They do something really weird. That's always fun I like it when the video games. Do that Dylan's definitely going to check. Yeah he is. Okay this is a good one It's a little visual But I think it still works pretty well in audio You both are familiar with Waymo They're like the self-driving Uber So you get in and there's no driver at all And they're available in certain areas right now Wow And last year, on April 1st, I believe it was last year, they introduced a feature to kind of expand the reach of the Waymo customer base, and they called it Granma Mode.
Waymo 1. The whole car is crocheted, decked out. Crocheted? Yeah, and then it's grandma given. Get that lovely garden. Those hydrangeas are fabulous. Would you like some chocolate milk? Don't you worry a bit, sweetie. You just rest those peepers. While I've been behind the wheel since you were just a little tyke. Millions of miles, I tell you. Darling, double check you have everything. and have a wonderful day. Wow. Sounds a little scary. Okay, so I thought it was grandma mode for the passenger. Me too, but no, it's grandma's driver. Which, I don't know about you guys, but I never think of my grandma as a great driver. I don't know any grandma.
I'm not trying to be ages, but I don't know any grandmas that are great drivers. They can be comforting. Not even moms. They can crochet good. Yep, they can. They sure can. They sure can. All right, so this year we got Terry's toothpaste, unveiled mint chocolate toothpaste. I'd buy it. I actually think this should... That sounds kind of good. I actually think this would sell. Yeah. I do think consumers would be able to indulge at the sink every morning and night with this latest innovation from the chocolate brand as it aims to cater to the rising demand of Terry's chocolate mint products.
So here's the thing. Abby would eat it. Yeah. I would eat it. Abby would not spit it out. Don't eat it, Abby. Don't eat it. No, she would too. You'd come in there, you'd see her like sneaking a little bit of chocolate toothpaste. I used to eat my little pony toothpaste. Yeah. Groupon is rebranding to G-Spot because great experiences shouldn't be hard to find. And Yvonne Labs has introduced one of my favorite AI features. Oh, no. You like that? Yeah, I like how you just moved on so that we wouldn't have to explain that to our 14-year-old daughter.
And Yvonne Labs has introduced, I think, a true AI innovation. You can text your dog with their new AI system. I love this. Text your dog. Yeah, okay, Abby, we have three dog voices to choose from. Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, or a Deutschhound. The third one, whatever that is. Deutschhound? Yeah. Yeah, sure, I'm probably saying that. Okay, now. So we just said, who's the best puppy in the world? Oh, we did. Do you want to say anything else? Yeah. Okay, what do you want to say to a dog? If any dogs are listening, they're going to understand this.
We'll say, good boy. All right, we'll just say, good boy. How about, good boy, thank you for listening. to the launch. Oh my gosh. Tell your pet to call the show. How about that? Oh my gosh. I know. Sorry to anybody that doesn't prefer to listen to dog barking and good sound quality. There you go. What? Wait. That's it? Okay, that was just the same clip. Just type good and see if it's the same link. Okay, alright. You ready? You ready? Yeah. Root, root. Root, root. It's the, Okay, now I'm gonna do a really long one. It's literally just . I told you, I told you.
Okay, that one is longer. Okay, that's different. It's just looping it. Yeah, it's just looping it. How can you tell? How can you even tell? How can you even tell? All right, well, I guess if you're listening and your dog reacted to that, it seems like he's wagging his tail because we just told him he's a real good boy, boost it and let us know, I guess. Yep. It's the only way to know. So obviously not a comprehensive list of April Fool's pranks because it's the morning of April Fool's, but, you know, those are the ones I liked. those are the ones I actually got got once it was a Knicks it was a Knicks prank, Wes sent me a link to a YouTube video and the YouTuber's like this feature in Knicks that has been controversial and delayed for years has finally made it and it's stable and it changes everything and I'm like what how did I miss this news and then about two seconds later Wes reminded me that it's April Fool's, and I also saw a tweet that Satoshi moved some of their original coins from 2009 I was like what Oh.
April Fool's One time, Dylan was standing next to my desk Anticipating me using the mouse Because he had put a little piece of paper over the sensor Oh my god, he got that from YouTube. Videos We would watch them. He's just waiting We'd try to come up with ideas He was just waiting Aren't you going to use your mouse, Mom? Oh my god I was the person that would put ketchup on them I wanted to put ketchup And make people think I was bleeding or something Yeah. That's always Fake blood's always good Alright, I think it's time for a music break And then we'll come back with some boosts Some housekeeping keeping some really odd news from the Pacific Northwest and more.
So let's set it up. This is a great song. I've played it once before on one of my other podcasts. Oh, by the way, I think our song from last week made it number one or number two. Heck yeah. Awesome to see. Yeah. And let's see if we can put this one on the charts. It is Keeping On by Through the Day, Through the Night. And we got some great boosts to get into. I got a sticky mute button. And our first boost comes from one of our callers. It is Outdoor Geek with 5,000 sats. And I think this is his tips on sleep. Change the lights to red, the phone to black and white, Duolingo with the sound off, Steam Deck in night mode.
Those are great. These are good tips. Yeah, excellent. I definitely do the phone thing. And then on iOS, I'll show this to you, Andrew, since you're in studio. So you've probably seen in iOS they have focus modes. Yeah. And I have a bedtime. I was just showing you this, wasn't I, Abby? Yeah, you have ones for different things. Yeah, so I have a sleep one, which automatically triggers at like 10 p.m. And one of the things it does is it darkens the phone and puts everything in kind of like this red mode. Ooh. Yeah.
Neat. Yeah, and it just happens based on time automatically. Did you choose red or did it? Yeah, I went through and themed it. Very cool. So those are the nice things you can do, just time-based stuff. For sure. Thank you, Outdoor Geek. Look forward to seeing you at LinuxFest. WotC is here with 3,333 sats. No message, though, just the value. Producer Jeff is here with 10,000 sats. I love the sound effects so much. I've never slept well. I should probably get it checked out. Melatonin does nothing for me, but some teas help calm me down at night and maybe help me get at least a fall asleep a little bit faster.
Even when I don't wake up in a pool of sweat and need to dry off with a towel, I wake up about every two hours with an average of seven hours in bed each night. I'm lucky to sleep about four or five hours of it. Maybe I've got ADHD too. Well, you probably do if you're not sleeping well. He says, IDK, when I'm totally and physically mentally wiped out, I still struggle. I do think mood affects my sleep, too. If it's a good productive draining day, I do tend to sleep better. If it's a stressful one, no matter how tired I am, I sleep like crap. He says, thanks for everyone for sharing. It's given me a lot to think about.
Yeah, you know, sleep comes up a lot in just every day. I've spoken to at least three people about the tryptophan since we did that episode. I bought a bottle. You know there's a there's a brand that makes supplements that i like and i bought a bottle my wife and idea have been have been trying it from time to time it's working great for her oh fantastic yeah i haven't i don't think i found the right amount yet i've just been taking it slow, yeah i feel that one you know uh yeah i wonder jeff's waking up in a pool of sweat too makes me yeah that is a.
Problem that is definitely concerning. Yeah yeah but uh you know he's still a go-getter let me tell you yeah it doesn't slow him down that guy i tell you It's pretty impressive. Thank you, everybody who did boost. We also had five of you that streamed sats as you listened, so you sat streamers. You stacked 7,735 sats. Now, when you combine that with our boosters, it wasn't a big showing. It was a light week for our baby show. We stacked 26,068 sats. Woo! Woo! You know, there's weeks. We'll bounce back, right? We'll bounce back. We're not down. We're just on the ropes for a little bit. But we'll be back, right?
We'll bounce. We'll bounce back. Thank you, everybody, who did Boost. You can do it with Fountain or many of the apps at newpodcastapps.com. now you know what's on my mind LinuxFest Northwest is getting really close like 20-ish days away yep. It is I'm excited. So we don't have a booth this year right I don't think so that's. A good question. I don't know I don't think so unless they just by default gave us one I'm not asking for a one. I'll tell you, because I was actually thinking. Oh, okay. I was brainstorming this year about maybe live streaming Saturday. I don't know if people are interested in a LinuxFest live stream, but if they are.
No, you should do it. From the RV, we do the live stream, and then we send like two or three of us into LinuxFest with gear, and we do kind of like walk around, talk to people, stream it back to the RV. Might solve a couple of problems we've had when doing, you know, live streams at a booth. For sure. For sure. Yeah, we definitely have the internet issues. Still yeah well we have we'd have starlink at the uh rv right so interesting could work it could work i'm really looking forward to it wes is a talk schedule there's going to be linux unplugged episode recorded live at linux fest so if you're going to be there you can come to our room we're on the schedule for sunday and uh it's going to be a mad dash to get set up and tear down but that's always part of the fun.
Yep and as a reminder i am on the board of directors for linux fest now and I will be doing Introduction to the Fest, before the fest starts each day, Saturday and Sunday. So they come see you and they get kind of like an idea of what's going on each day? Yeah, just like an overview and just like here's where you can find things. How to fest. How to fest. And then also, I need to double check the schedule, but I am doing a session at the lunchtime for people that come just for the afternoon so they don't miss out. They don't have to be there. That's the thing, huh? People show up more in the afternoon.
Yeah. They're not early birds. Mm-hmm. Which is funny because LinuxFest... Well, you know travel. Yeah, that's true. It is a bit to get there, too. I had so many cookies last year. Like 15. You really liked it. It's at a college campus. I bet. I bet being at a college campus is kind of a neat treat for you. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, she saw cadavers. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, that was interesting. I still have stickers in my room. I still have like 30 because I took so many from each little booth and some from that place where the cadavers or whatever they're called.
Yeah. Swag is great for kids. Kids love swag. Yeah. The campus is also like a nursing practice place or, you know, like they have nursing certifications or something. That's why there's cadavers. But yeah, it's a technical college and that, I guess. I guess. I want the big building, though. Like, yeah, that one was still under construction. And they had elevators. We're hoping next year. Wow. So this is two years that thing's been under construction? Yes. That's dumb. It just doesn't quite feel the same. It worked. It worked. It was kind of a throwback. We went back to the OG location from like 20 years ago for the vendors and whatnot. But I do miss the big building.
Well, yeah. And I miss eating lunch there in the cafeteria, which is now the exhibition hall. Yeah. Because that's the option that we have. Yeah. It was nice to have a spot to do that. We did get more rooms this year. So there's more talks, more availability. And yeah, it's going to be nice. All right. So there you go. LinuxFest Northwest. If you want more deets, you just go to LinuxFest. I should have told you the date. LFMW.org. Oh, it is? Just LFNW, not LinuxFest Northwest? Mm-mm. Yeah, or it's LFNW.org. And April 25th through the 27th. Hey, look, there's Brent on the featured speakers right there.
Yep, in Bellingham. Hey, and there's that Wes. And some guy with BSD horns and sunglasses. Yep, that's you. Oh. He looks a little drunk. A little sus. All right. Hopefully we will see you there. Come say hi. Or I don't know. Send us your hopes and thoughts and dreams. for your LinuxFest. I don't know. Figure it out. Okay, so the Pacific Northwest sometimes has our own version of Florida Man. And all of us try to be conscientious consumers. And, you know, you got your tersh bin, you got your recycle bin, and you got your yard bin. But sometimes you get pushed a little too far when other people start using your bins.
You know, like, have you ever had this problem where, like, a neighbor starts using your trash bin? And you're like, bro, Oh, I've only got so much room here, right? Yeah, before I had cats and there was cat litter. Weird, right? That's so weird. Yeah, well, you know what's worse than cat litter? Something else. Yeah, this is the bin. This is a story that begins with a blue recycling bin. But trust me, it doesn't end there. It is tragically gross. And that may be putting it lightly. So you're kind of like, okay, this is disgusting. Alex Van Dyne spent years working in television news throughout the country.
But he never imagined standing in front of the camera talking about... You kind of know what the urine smells like. Yes, urine. That's what this story is about. But before you turn away, understand that this could be you, living in a northeast Portland neighborhood, minding your own business when he shows up. in the middle of the night. This all started in September when Van Dyne and his wife noticed their garbage bins had not been collected. So I went to open the blue bin and lo and behold there was a nice deposit of gallon-sized bottles of urine to put it plainly and there were six of them.
Six bottles of urine in his recycling bin. The garbage hauler wouldn't take it. It's biohazard. What does your wife think about all this? Yeah, she's befuddled as well. Eventually, Van Dyne pulled his garbage bins, hoping that the urine dropper would go away. And he did. Straight to the neighbor's bin. And then another neighbor. It sort of started to unravel. And I don't know why he's hitting the same location so many times. That doesn't make any sense to me. And or why he is doing it. So who is this man driving a late model vehicle depositing bottles of urine? This grainy video shows him pulling up, getting out and leaving the jugs behind.
Van Dyne has shared his ordeal on the social app called Nextdoor. He's been flooded with theories as to the reason behind it all. Somebody was like maybe it's a ring that they've kidnapped some people and they're trying to get rid of their fecal matter in the most bizarre way possible. He has filed the police report. He says he was told that if the urine had gone in the regular garbage bin, it wouldn't be a crime. But because it's in the blue bin, it is. So now Van Dyne is on a mission to find out who this is. Getting his license plate will be crucial. And I've actually started putting my bins back out again the night before and putting them in a different position just to see if I could get a better video of him.
He doesn't plan to move, nothing like that. He loves the neighborhood, has lived here since 2006. But he does have a message. Maybe he's watching. I don't know. Please stop. Please. Just don't do it anymore. And through it all, Van Dyne has managed to find some levity in the situation. It's a lot of pee. And you just had the feeling he couldn't wait to say this. I mean, this guy's really pissing me off. Oh, my gosh. Of course, right? Pay two nudes. I know. At least he's making a joke out of it. But I feel like it should be a crime either way. Like, any. Could you imagine opening up that bin and seeing that?
So, okay. You know, like, I don't know, five or six years ago, somebody found body parts in their. Bins so i would take pee over body parts but. Uh must be. Sticky like all your stuff sticking to the. It's not that hard to dump out your urine like i don't understand. Go to a public bathroom and dump it out it's gotta be like this urge to save it which makes me think urine's not the only thing they're saving you know it's like capture it all uh but then you got to dispose of it and this person i saw the video they're not drinking a lot of water I'll just put it that way. Yeah. Oh.
It's like radioactive yellow. It's gross. Yeah. Radioactive yellow. But imagine taking the time. First of all, every time you got the urge, you got to go get a bottle. Right. And that bottle, as you start to fill it, gets heavier. Yeah, it's a jug. It's like a water jug. And they start getting heavier and sloshier. And you got to like manage that. You don't want to overfill. And so like every time you're using the bathroom, you're grabbing one of these things. Then you're collecting them. You're loading them up in your car. Ew.
You're driving somewhere and then you're unloading them in people's recycle bin, not their trash. So I've collected a gallon of my pee before. What? What? Why did you do that? It's so funny. Okay. Do you remember I was being tested for preeclampsia when I was nine months pregnant with Dylan? Okay. So this is a medical reason. It was a medical reason. I was about to be a little scared because you never told me that. I know. It was really difficult. I'm your daughter. Of course, I finished it, finished collecting it, and that night my water broke, and then they didn't even.
Oh, my gosh. Well, at least you knew how to do it, you know, so you're prepared for the road trip now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. There's always that. I mean, that's one of the things I think these do come from is, you know, I've seen, I've seen on the road, I've seen truckers throwing bottles of, you know. Yeah. Why? No, but there's definitely some intentions because you're doing all that work. Yeah. To do such a specific, useless thing. Right. So there's definitely like a reason there has to be, unless you're like crazy in the head. I wonder. I just.
Just seriously, just empty them and the jugs are recyclable. Oh, also, like, do these, I don't see these garbage and recycle people. They don't get out of their truck and check the contents. Not too often. Every now and then there's, like, a guy right on the back that jumps out. But, yeah, you're right. Around here they just pick them up and dump them. Yeah. Yeah. Just also imagine being that person who this is happening to. Every time you take the garbage out, the next morning you go out there to bring it back in and like you go to move the recycle and it's heavy and you're like, oh no.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there is a, there's a really cool service around here in the Pacific Northwest, like in our area where they, they come and clean out your bins. They do? Yeah. Wait, do we have that? They have, yeah. They have a machine. Yeah. They have a machine. That's really nice. And they just like, it completely cleans it on the inside. It's not a clean, it's not a, yeah. I know. I want to do it because I have been, you know, people with, uh, walking their dogs, They throw poop bags in whatever garbage can is at the sidewalk. So I've been wanting to do that. Is that illegal?
I don't think so. I don't think so. It seems a little rude. It's rude for sure. And they definitely know that. Is it better than dog poop on the ground though? Probably. Right. Yeah. But a washing service. Yeah. Come have somebody else do the dirty work. Yeah. That's a great thing. I hate cleaning garbage cans. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of the deal when you become an adult. They don't tell you those are the dirty jobs you have to do. Somebody's got to do that work. It doesn't do itself. I don't want to be an adult. Dirty jobs. Just skip it.
Right? Go right to retirement. All right. That is everything, I think, for this week's episode, yeah? Are we all done here? I think so. Is our work done? How about that? Well, then, the only work left is for the audience. Go to weeklylaunch.rocks to get the links for episode 16. Of course, we'd love it if you boosted and supported the show. And we'd really love to hear from you. Give us a ring. That is 774-462-5667 774-462-5667 Leave us a voicemail We'll play it in next week's episode, From the beautiful Pacific Northwest And the mighty American West Coast Thank you for listening We'll see you next week.
