Hello. I helped to establish the Golden Han Moon.
But stuff still happened. So what's up? Dear
listener, let's chat. I have some things I want
to talk to you about. I want to talk about sort
of what's on my mind with regards to the future
of this show and the future of life here. in
the states? So, look, the big beautiful bill
has been signed into law, and among its near
thousand pages of legislation are massive cuts
to health care coverage for people, increases
to student loan payments, and reductions in investments
in climate change initiatives. It also about
10Xs ICE's budget. ICE is the immigration enforcement
agency in the states that is disappearing people
off the streets, wearing masks, not identifying
themselves. That good stuff. You know, that healthy,
stable Living stuff. What are my thoughts on
this? Where do I stand? I don't intend to relitigate
this whole thing I've talked extensively about
this bill and it's now passed. So what's the
fucking point instead? I want to talk about Where
things are and how I see them and what I'm gonna
do. I'm just gonna be clear Things aren't good.
They haven't been good. They're not going to
become good anytime soon. It's just, it's just
not going to happen. I've been doing this for
years and I've covered multiple administrations
from both Democrat and Republican. I've covered
Biden's complete inability to protect the most
vulnerable people in this country. And I've covered
Trump actively trying to go after the most vulnerable
people in this country. Not to mention the continued
unfettering support for Israel as they slaughter
tens of thousands of people, most of whom are
children. I have come up on some app for years
now talking about the number of child deaths
today. And I'm not about to stop speaking up
about injustice and major issues in the world.
I feel it's important to use my platform to do
that. And I've never shied away from talking
about political and difficult topics like war,
genocide, all that stuff. I feel, though, that
it has become the vast majority of my focus,
and I want to temper that. Is it bad to focus
on? Not really. It's important for people to
know about these issues. And I do wish that more
people were more politically active and more
just understanding of how our country works.
But I can only come up on here and tell you that
everything is terrible so many times before it
really starts to just suck. Here's the plan.
I'm going to rebalance the types of topics that
I'm focusing on and try to focus on fewer overall
stories with more general information. Now, this
episode in particular, After this segment, still
has a lot of my usual stuff, but just understand
that my focus is gonna be on highlighting both
the good and the troublesome. Because things
are really, really bad. They're going to stay
really bad. And I'm not gonna be able to cover
every piece of bad thing with which to inform
you about everything that's going on that you
need to be aware of. I simply cannot do that,
and that's not my goal here. But I can make sure
to lend a voice to situations that I think are
important to be talked about. And otherwise,
use my time and energy here to focus on what
I believe is my purpose on this planet, which
is to increase the number of smiles in the world.
And to that end, I just want to call out there's
a lot more that I'm doing outside of Just Stuff
Keeps Happening. I'm also designing and building
a tabletop role -playing game called Presenium.
I stream multiple times a week. I have a large
online community called the Astral Campgrounds
that just has a lot of cool shit inside of it.
I'm gonna make a whole video on that later, but
I've got a lot on my plate. And I just want to
make sure that I'm doing the best I can with
each of these things. And so we're going to have
some new sections. We're going to have stateside
elsewhere. Science, tech, gaming, the other stuff.
You know, why not? But I'm just going to limit
myself to a few things in the states, a few things
elsewhere. And let's get on to the good stuff.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of not good stuff
still. So let's let's get to that. Here we go.
Moving on. Thanks for being here. State side.
Sudden rapid flooding in Texas has claimed more
than 80 lives, at least 20 of which were young
girls who were at an all -girls summer camp.
Catastrophic rain northwest of San Antonio caused
rivers to flood at unprecedented levels. I'm
talking like nearly 30 feet in less than an hour.
I want to start off by saying that there are
relief efforts going on. FEMA is there and there's
local authorities working on trying to actually
get people safe, but Of course, there's a lot
of rhetoric around what the fuck happened here
and how did it happen. Local officials in Texas
first were blaming each other, then they were
blaming the National Weather Service and NOAA.
It's been a lot of finger -pointing. Whereas
critics of Trump are saying that his cuts to
the National Weather Service and NOAA recently
set us up for this. I want to talk about what
seems to have actually happened here and whether
or not it is Trump's fault, which my answer is
not really, but yeah. But kind of. So look, Trump
definitely did make cuts to the NWS, NOAA, and
that did lead to vacancies, key vacancies, that
may have played a huge part here and I'll get
to that in a second. But at the same time, meteorologists
have come out saying, stop! bashing the ability
of the NWS and NOAA because given what they had
to work with, they did everything right. Warnings
were sent out. There was expected flooding multiple
days prior, there was flood warnings hours prior,
and then multiple loss of life and damage to
property warnings. that went out throughout the
night while officials are complaining about like,
oh, well, I got the alert, but they said it was
only going to flood seven feet, not this much.
Like, that's not an excuse. I got the alert,
but it didn't seem like it was going to be a
big deal, despite that it said life threatening.
So there's a lot at play here. There's the reduction
in staff that did have a key position in the
regional office of the National Weather Service
removed. It was the person who was going to be
the one that coordinates with emergency services.
Seems like an important person to have. So while
they had the information and warnings were issued,
even if the information wasn't as catastrophic
as they originally put out, they did put out
those warnings. It just didn't get to officials
who would then take action because the NWS is
not an evacuation agency. There are local officials
whose job it is to know their locality and know
what the protocol is for evacuating people. So
it does seem like a breakdown in process. You
can definitely link the removal of that guy from
NWS to Trump, because that guy specifically took
Trump's buyout offer. So that seat is just empty.
The Trump administration is saying this has nothing
to do with their cuts, because it was a buyout
offer, not a cut. Now there's one other part
of this story that I want to talk about, which
is there's a lot of discussion right now about
whether or not the people in red states quote
-unquote, deserve it when a natural disaster
happened. I feel like we see this most with Florida,
whenever a hurricane hits Florida, and people
are like, well, they get what they voted for,
and it's like, oh boy. States in the US are not
uniformly red and blue. That's not how it works.
Most of them are damn near 50 -50, and the only
reason that they swing so hard one way or the
other is due to gerrymandering and people who
won't vote for the opposition party because they've
given up from all the gerrymandering. and voter
suppression, and all that good stuff. And I know
most people, when they say they get what they
voted for, are not trying to imply that they
want everyone in that state, regardless of who
they voted for, age, voting eligibility, any
of that stuff, to die. I know that people aren't
flatly saying that. But a lot of people don't
think deeper on these kinds of things. The damage
that that line of thinking does is irreparable,
because there are people who are fighting for
the same things that you want in the places that
you're complaining about, and instead of isolating
and uplifting them, you're lumping them in with
everyone else, completely undermining any effort
that they're making to improve things. They need
your help. too. Anyway, we don't need to be red
or blue anymore because we've got the AMERICA
PARTY! Elon Musk, after his big fallout with
Trump, has announced that he's forming a political
party, a thing that people have been speculating
he might do, and a thing that people have been
speculating that if he did do, would undermine
the GOP. So, lol. Let's start off by saying this
is not a real political party. Elon Musk has
gone on Twitter and tweeted multiple times. That
doesn't establish a political party. Could it
be a thing? Maybe. I don't know. But he says
that it wants to be a party for the middle. Which
is concerning because this is a guy that went
on stage and did a Nazi salute twice. Elon Musk
doesn't know shit about fuck. He doesn't know
what he's doing. He's starting this party because
he's claiming that he was betrayed by the Republicans
who said he was gonna go do Doge cuts and then
they passed this bill that did a lot of spending.
Which is wild. Because if he's being honest about
his reasoning, which I'm certain he's not, then
his claim is that he really thought he was doing
something at Doge and never once caught wind
of anything. that implied Republicans would absolutely
do this thing that they were loudly saying that
they were going to do the whole time. Like, you
don't get to be a political insider and then
claim that you are a political outsider. And
if you were blindsided by that, then you are
not fit to run a political party. Anyway, who
gives a shit? People are going to, like, join
this, sort of, but right now there's really nothing.
And I just, I doubt we're going to see an America
Party candidate on a ballot, but you know what?
I'm not going to say don't do it. If they get
there, great, have fun. Um, literally can't imagine
what you would stand for. There's not really
room for another conservative party in the U
.S. I don't know where they're gonna go. But
I know where I'm not gonna go. Akon City. Several
years ago, music icon Akon, that's fun to say,
announced that he was going to build a futuristic
city in Senegal. He also announced that it was
going to be powered by a cryptocurrency of his
own design called Akoin. This is a real thing,
and it's not even the only crypto -powered private
government municipality thing that was proposed
around that era. Anyway, it's not happening.
It's not happening. There's a partial of land
in Senegal that AECON did once turn into a city,
and they built like part of a welcome center.
And that's it. It's been several years. There's
no roads. There's literally nothing. And so the
government of Senegal was like, yeah, no, this
is done. Shit's cooked. They said that they're
going to work with him on a, quote, more realistic
path towards Something being built. So, apologies
to anyone out there who was hoarding a coin.
I know this is probably a very difficult time
for you. You probably have a lot of difficult
times if you were hoarding a coin. A content
warning for this next section, I will be non
-graphically discussing rape, including the rape
of children. The Democratic Republic of Congo
is experiencing an HIV crisis among its decades
-long conflicts in the region. Some background.
Democratic Republic of Congo, different from
the Republic of Congo. Start there. The DRC has
an unconscionable amount of valuable minerals,
and essentially it is a battle royale from local,
foreign, private, and public groups to try to
get that cash. All at the expense of the Congolese
people who have been displaced around the world
due to this conflict. Some groups are looking
to establish better sovereign security, but it's
just it's been a mess for so fucking long. China,
for example, has a massive industry that depends
on buying cobalt and other minerals from brokers
who are extracting it from the DRC. Now, China
is not the only country doing this. And as I
said, it's not even just the public sector. There
are private contractors who are making bank off
of this folder all. Now, the HIV crisis comes
in because some of the groups in the DRC use
rape as a weapon of war. This is especially prevalent
with one militia called M23, who has caused a
massive spike in reported rapes, and I can't
even imagine what unreported stats are like.
They do this to inflict trauma on populations,
to destabilize populations, and because war.
And because of this, HIV spreads like wildfire.
In some regions, the rate of infection can be
as high as 3 .5%. Now, the US used to help out
a little bit by offering medicine and rape kits
and stuff like that. And then Musk, Trump, Vance,
and Marco Rubio shut down USAID and all of that
help. So while there is a rising spike of HIV
among women who are being left with nothing,
there's also no longer medicine for them. All
because some affluent rich guys in the US decided
that struggling people in the midst of conflict
don't deserve medicine. Because reasons. Gotta
save that money. That's why we passed the big
beautiful bill with all of his tax breaks. and
added a bunch of money to the deficit. But we
saved money by getting rid of the life -saving
HIV stuff, you know? We are... amoral good. Anyway,
viruses don't respect political boundaries. It
is legitimately good for the entire fucking planet
for everyone to work together to improve global
health. I feel like that shouldn't be controversial.
Do you want to be rich? Like, filthy rich? Like,
fuck off rich? Just go work for Metta as, like,
an AI expert. Meta slash Facebook slash Zuckerberg
are trying to hire more AI talent going as far
as to poach people from other AI companies like
OpenAI. And for those people, there's been reports
of signing bonuses up to a value of a hundred
million dollars for a single hire. They have
the money. They have the resources to offer a
hundred million dollar signing bonus to multiple
people on a whim just to poach them. just to
get those people specifically. And of course,
OpenAI is not happy about this. They're like,
ah, people poaching our people. I wanna talk
for a real quick second about money in the tech
industry. For those who aren't aware, I spent
the majority of my life in tech. I worked in
tech in big places, small places, places you've
heard of, places you haven't. There is so much
money floating around these spaces. It is unimaginable.
You cannot comprehend the amount of money that
these venture capital firms or just tech oligarchs
have to throw around at things. Dumping multiple
billions of dollars into a project that most
likely will fail is the norm. Billions. With
a B. So whenever these AI companies bitch and
moan about how they can't pay artists because
then they wouldn't have a business model, or
when you've got a company like Facebook saying
they can't do real content moderation because
it just costs too much money, $100 million for
a single guy. That's all I got to say about that.
Anyway, let's talk about robo taxis in Austin.
So Tesla has recently started a pilot program
of their robo taxis in Austin, Texas and Let
me be clear, this is a thing that Tesla has been
advertising as like a pivot point in their company.
While other EV manufacturers have caught up and
surpassed Tesla in a lot of ways, Tesla still
has just a ton of hype around them, and they
need to stick a landing to not lose all that
hype, so they've been talking about how they're
gonna pivot into being a robotaxi company, and
that'll be their big cash cow in the future.
Except other companies have already started the
robotaxi thing with more success, and this pilot
program is not exactly instilling joy. The pilot
is limited only to a handful of people who mostly
follow Musk on Twitter, and they can buy a ride
for, I shit you not, $4 .20. When they get picked
up by their robotaxi, there is a Tesla employee
in the front passenger seat. They've got a stop
button, like a driving instructor. Anyway, it's
only available in a very, very limited part of
Austin and has been breaking traffic rules left
and right. A couple of the taxis have bumped
into parked cars. One taxi just stopped in the
middle of an intersection and was like, here
you go. You've arrived. It's generally just messy
and silly and obviously not ready for even testing
at this scale. And a lot of people will say like,
oh, well, they need to be able to test it so
they can improve it. Like, do they? Do they need
to test it in a live functioning city or is that
a marketing tactic? They build entire simulated
cities for like training cops and firefighters.
So long story short, don't get in one of those.
Anyway, let's talk about the revenge of the glizzies.
This passed some days ago. It was 4th of July,
which is a day in the United States marked with
celebrations and eating too many hot dogs. And
then we blow shit up the American way. And conveniently
around this time, as everybody was buying and
eating too many hot dogs, some reporting came
out about how hot dogs kill you. They cause cancer.
Some shit like that. Basically, there was a research
paper that aggregated a bunch of data from other
research that found that processed meat has contributing
factors to, like, cancer. Things that we basically
already knew. There was a lot of reporting, a
lot of headlines, a lot of freaking out about,
like, if you eat hot dogs, they cause cancer
now. A few things. One, duh, that was always
true. Two, there's a huge difference between
eating some hot dogs and eating hot dogs constantly
every single day. The research basically showed
that the equivalent of, like, a hot dog a day,
every single day, can have a modest impact on
the likelihood that you'll develop several different
diseases. But even the own research paper was
like, we gotta look into this more. This could
be a lot, could be nothing. We kind of knew this
already, but it's worth looking into. Fucking
everything causes cancer. I'm not saying go get
cancer. Cancer sucks. It's real bad. But you're
far more likely to get hit by a car like directly
after watching this video than you are to get
cancer from the hot dogs that you just ate 4th
of July. Game it. Hades 2 is getting closer to
being released. The developers behind Hades 2,
a game that I have not yet played because I'm
waiting for the full release because I'm hopelessly
addicted to Hades 1. How do I start this sentence?
Anyway, the developers of the game released an
update and along with the patch notes, they said
that this is likely the last update before the
full 1 .0 release, which is scheduled for...
2025, which is this year. But while we wait on
that, let's talk about that thug life. Tony Hawk
Pro Skater 3 and 4 remake is coming out in less
than a week. And with that, there is an interview
that Polygon did with Tony Hawk, where they're
like, hey, you want to remake the Tony Hawk Underground
games? Now, real talk, your boy is a thug. I
played so much Tony Hawk's Underground 1 and
2. I also played an assload of American Wasteland,
which was good in its own way. I would love to
see a remake of the Tony Hawk Underground games.
If you're not familiar, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
is more like an arcade -y type game, whereas
Tony Hawk Underground is more of an RPG, like
telling your own story, rise to fame kind of
thing. Mr. Anthony Hawk said himself that he
would love to see that happen, but also noted
that one, he doesn't really have the ability
to snap his fingers and make that happen, and
two, he would be also interested in maybe a reimagining
of Tony Hawk's Underground. You know, like they
remade one and two, they're doing the remake
for three and four, they're very faithful remakes.
What if we kind of made a new Tony Hawk game
with that engine? Or like a, you know, remix
of the original, something like that. Just make
it slightly more modern. If you've gone back
and played the original Tony Hawk Underground
games, they're still very fun. Boy howdy, they
are a time capsule. Last thing for gaming, several
high ranking executives from Ubisoft slash Ubisoft,
depending on... Who's yelling at me today? They've
been found guilty of harassing women. Yeah, that
sentence took a tonal shift. Long story short,
several high -ranking executives were found guilty
of sexually and psychologically harassing women
in their Paris office. Throwing things, getting
all angry, soliciting kisses, general creepy
executive shit. When the company was first alerted
to this, like five years ago, they were like,
oh! Dang that seems bad. We'll look into it and
then nothing happened Then eventually the French
authorities stepped in and made something happen
and now we're here So hey, I have a few suggestions
for just like general game publishers in the
industry I know I'm an outsider, but I have a
passion for game development game design and
gaming Don't harass women like at all like it's
really just not hard. I'm gonna not harass women
right now Lightning round. Archaeologists found
a stash of 32 ancient Roman shoes, eight of which
were very, very large, like inexplicably large,
like very unnaturally large. That ancient big
boy. FaceTime on iOS is gonna now pause your
active video chat if it sees that you're undressing.
It'll be like, whoa, cool, whoa, nice. That was
me being FaceTime. There was a guy who went on
a show by Guy Fieri. where if you won the show
by Guy Fieri, you got a franchise of a Guy Fieri
restaurant with Guy Fieri branding. And the guy
who won the Guy Fieri thing is not happy because
he was also supposed to get more further compensation
from Guy Fieri. And so now he's suing Guy Fieri
about the lack of follow through with the prize
from Guy Fieri from the Guy Fieri show. Fieri.
Tumblr was going to migrate to use WordPress
in the background and integrate with the social
open web, like Macedon and stuff. Pause that.
By the way, I'm on Tumblr. And finally for today,
scientists have discovered a new life form in
some goo that was found underneath a ship in
Dry Dock. This is real. It is temporarily named
Ship Goo 001, my favorite species, and my new
screen name. Thank you so much for listening
to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to skh .news for sources, bonus content,
and Ship Goo 002. My name is Endeavorance. Thank
you so much for being here. Take care and be
well.